The Gossip

by Nancy Bush

  As he sat there, hands on the wheel, Brenda herself suddenly appeared, tip-tapping in heels to her Jetta. Thad’s heart beat hard and fast at the thought that she might see him. But she was oblivious. She backed out of her parking spot with a chirp of tires and headed up the street.

  He was beside himself. She was here. Right in front of him as he edged onto the street behind her. Man, that black skirt was short. He caught a glimpse of a shiny, hot-pink blouse beneath her black jacket. Her brown hair was down to her shoulders, thick and bouncing. He wanted to bury himself in its tresses.

  But then his mind imagined her on vacation at some resort, on a lounge chair, dripping in coconut-scented oil, basking in the sun, some guy beside her reaching over to rub his hand along her thigh, suddenly slipping his fingers between her legs, digging inside her bikini bottoms, sliding into her wetness. She would be begging for him. Squirming for him to take her. Her fingers raking his back as her body convulsively arched upward.

  “Cheating bitch,” he whispered.

  He shadowed her to a swank club, not too far from her apartment. He parked and then debated on the cowboy hat, but it didn’t look like that kind of place, so he left the hat in his truck. Climbing out, he tugged on the lines that held the tarp in place over his equipment and followed Brenda into the club.

  The music was loud, but slow and sexy. His first impression was bodies everywhere, gyrating to the music or pressed up against one another. It felt like a disco right out of the seventies with a mirror ball cascading little squares of refracted light over the scene. Brenda had just landed at a small bar table at the far side of the room, which was being saved by a couple of girlfriends. The three of them were laughing and talking, and to place her order Brenda had to grab, literally grab, one of the young male waiters and wink at him and whisper in his ear.

  Thad worked his way closer to their table, but not too close. He wanted to observe for a while. He’d never gone hunting quite this way and it was pumping adrenaline through his system. He kept his eyes on Brenda’s table, watching as the waiter came back with a clear martini sporting a lemon twist, straight alcohol, he thought with an inner smile. Wouldn’t take too many of those before she was loose and ready.

  There was a table near them of a bunch of guys who seemed out of place. They were looking around in a dorky way, taking it all in with a kind of awe. Had to be newbies. Thad uncomfortably remembered that he’d looked much the same way when he first started hitting bars.

  One of them, who looked like he was barely old enough to drink, or maybe he wasn’t and just had good ID, made the mistake of walking up to Brenda’s table. She and her friends regarded him with smirking smiles and kept looking at each other as if to say, “Can you believe this guy? This nerd. This ass!” Thad recognized the look and in his head he heard young girls squealing, “Mr. Toad! Mr. Toad!” It was all he could do to keep from staggering from the dizziness. He sat down hard on a barstool just vacated by a woman who’d been asked to the dance floor.

  Brenda was the worst of the bunch at her table. She clearly had spent money on some breast enhancement, but apparently hadn’t bothered to improve the oversized nose he remembered from grade school. It was still too big for her face, even though he could admit she was the best-looking of all her friends.

  He debated if he should approach her. Maybe he should wait for her to leave. He could grab her, tie her up, drag her to his lair . . . except he was parked in a public spot. There was no way he could quietly kidnap her without the whole world seeing.

  About twenty minutes in, Thad was feeling better. He didn’t have to kidnap her. He just needed her to invite “Chas” home. How hard would that be? He’d ordered himself a Coke and asked the bartender to send her over another of what she’d been drinking. It turned out to be a Grey Goose vodka martini. Thad watched the waiter take it to her and when she shook her head and said she hadn’t ordered it, he pointed to Thad.

  Brenda smiled in delight and raised the glass to her lips, meeting his gaze. He lifted his chin at her in recognition. When she didn’t immediately invite him over, he took it upon himself to step over to her table.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking him over. A puzzled frown wrinkled her brow. “I know you.”

  “I don’t think so,” he answered in a deeper voice than normal, but his pulse blasted into hyperdrive. “It’s Chas.”

  “Brandy,” she said. “This was very nice of you.” She lifted the drink in a salute to him before taking another sip.

  Brandy, huh? If she thought that made her more attractive, she could think again. She was still a bitch and a whore with a big schnozz no matter what she called herself. She’d taken the drink from him, hadn’t she? Those things cost an arm and a leg in this place and he was going to get his money’s worth.

  “Well, Chas, I would invite you to our table, but it’s just girls tonight.” Her friends both looked at her and then at each other, stifling giggles. She was lying. One of them said, “That’s right. It’s BFF night!” and the three of them joined in laughter together.

  “But I appreciate it,” Brenda said again with a smile she probably thought was just the cutest. Thad nodded to her and returned to his barstool only to find that someone else had snatched it.

  A few minutes later he left the bar, infuriated. He checked the ties on his truck bed, still untouched, and climbed inside. It was a shock that she had blown him off. He knew he looked good. His body was in great shape and he’d purposely walked in without a jacket so everyone could see how he looked in a tight shirt.

  But Brenda hadn’t cared.

  Her little smirking smile was etched on his brain.

  He waited in the truck. It took two more hours before she stumbled out. She never went for her car. Just waited outside yakking away with her friends and then the other two got in a Lyft car together while Brenda waved at them. She then waited for her own Lyft and as the driver turned back out of the lot, Thad followed.

  He parked on the street this time as there was a spot available. Good. On his many trips past her place he’d determined there were no outside cameras; the building was too old or the management didn’t care. Of course, some of the apartment dwellers could have those Ring cameras outside their doors, but he knew there was nothing on the stairway and Brenda’s place was the first door along the third-floor hallway. With the cowboy hat pulled down across his face he felt fairly safe he wouldn’t be recognized.

  He watched the Lyft driver pull back onto the road and he lithely ran to the back stairs and up to the third floor. The paint was peeling and he thought the place smelled ever so slightly. If he weren’t so enraged he’d almost feel sorry for her. He could make her life better with his ill-gotten gains. He could marry her. Take her away from all this. Maybe if he dangled a nose job in front of her?

  What was he thinking? He hated her. She could wallow in her low-class life.

  The door was cracked open. The stupid cow hadn’t even shut it all the way. She deserved whatever she got.

  He pushed the door open with his elbow. He could see a light and hear her in what he assumed was her bedroom. He quickly stepped in and closed the door behind him. It made a small clicking sound and he froze, but he realized she was kind of singing as she apparently got ready for bed. His eye caught sight of the chain lock. With a smile he slid the lock in place, his pulse running light and fast, then turned back around. There were small potted plants on every available surface, like a fucking greenhouse. Maybe that’s all she had for companionship.

  I’m good at this, he thought. He caught sight of himself in the mirror on the wall by the kitchen and smiled at his reflection.

  “What the fuck, man?”

  Thad’s head whipped around. Brenda stood at the end of the hall, glaring at him. He’d expected her to be sloshed but she seemed surprisingly sober.

  “Your door was open,” he said.

  “You’re the guy from the bar! Who are you? I know you. I know I do!”

  “I’
m Chas.” He swept the cowboy hat from his head. He’d almost said “Thad.”

  “Get the fuck out!” She came toward him hard, actually charged him.

  “Whoa, whoa!” He held up his hands.

  “GET OUT!”

  Her hands were out, fingernails heading his way. She was bold, he’d give her that. As she neared he simply hauled off and slammed his right fist in her face and that oversized nose burst out with a spurt of sudden blood.

  She opened her mouth to scream and he jumped forward, held his hand roughly over her mouth. They tumbled to the floor together. She was spitting and tried to bite him and he hit her again and she went out cold, turning into a limp rag.

  Bitch!

  His fist hurt. Really hurt. Same damn hand he’d injured over Bibi. These women . . . these terrible whores.

  Breathing hard, he got to his feet. Had anyone heard?

  He listened hard, but there was no sound anywhere. Good.

  Very deliberately, he stripped off her clothes. He listened to her chest. She was alive but her breathing was uneven. Thad ripped down his own pants to his ankles and settled himself on her.

  Bzzzz . . .

  He froze before he could enter her.

  Her limp, outstretched arm slowly twisted a bit and her cell phone fell from her hand, sliding onto the thin carpet and waiting there like a grenade, screen glowing.

  He saw the text: Bringing friends. Hope you wanna party!!! A line of emoji party hats followed.

  The roommate.

  He quickly pulled up his pants, panicked. How much time did he have?

  Brenda stirred and said something.

  She could identify him. And she might finally remember who he was.

  He’d dropped his hat on the kitchen table and now he swept it up, thinking. There were no fingerprints.

  He’d touched the chain on the door.

  He ran into the kitchen, his gaze frantically searching the counters. Paper towels. He grabbed up the roll from amidst a half dozen pots of African violets. He hurried around the wall to the living room.

  She was gone.

  What?

  Slam!

  He jumped at the sound. The door to one of the bedrooms.

  He hurried down the hallway. “Brenda?”

  “I know who you are,” she said, crying from behind the panels. “You’re . . . Thaddeus Jenkins!”

  Shit!

  He slammed his shoulder against the door. His hat flew off. There was no lock and the jamb splinted and broke under his weight.

  Smash!

  Pain exploded in his head. He staggered. Saw stars. Vaguely he realized she’d smacked him with one of her vile plants from her windowsill and was reaching for another. Blood ran down his face.

  He swung into her, throwing all his weight on her. She dropped the plant and fell to the bed, Thad on top of her. He wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. Her hands came up, struggling to release his fingers, the pressure. She scrabbled madly, her eyes bulging, gasping and cursing.

  He slipped into unconsciousness for a minute, an hour, an eternity. One second he was teetering on the precipice of the canyon, the next he was back. He let go of her and stumbled to his feet. She was dead. Her eyes locked open. There was blood everywhere. Hers and his.

  The bleach . . . in the truck . . . but the roommate . . .

  He staggered back toward the living room and saw the roll of paper towels unspooled on the floor. Snatching up several sheets he used them to open up cupboards and was rewarded with a nearly full bottle of bleach beneath the bathroom sink. He poured the bleach over Brenda and her bed. He saved a few inches of it sloshing in the bottom and lurched back with the bottle toward the living room. Drips and swatches of blood on the carpet. He drenched them with the remaining bleach. Then he swiped at the chain lock as he released it.

  His hat.

  He hurried back to the bedroom, found it sitting in the hallway. He grabbed it and jammed it on his head, moaning at the pain, then he headed down the stairs to his truck.

  He moaned all the way home, a high keening he couldn’t seem to stop. He hadn’t put on the latex gloves. He’d intended to romance her. He’d intended to romance her and she’d attacked him!

  There was no sound in the house as he hurried toward his lair. He cleaned himself up at his washbasin, shocked that he was really no worse for wear in appearance. His head throbbed like a son of a bitch, but she hadn’t got her claws into him. His eyes were dilated. Concussion, maybe.

  Nothing had gone as he’d planned. Nothing! And yet . . . as he thought about it, as he remembered the way her bloodied face had turned blue and she’d gasped for air and begged him for mercy as he squeezed . . .

  He shuddered from head to foot. He would take a shower in the dead of night, when he was sure Lorena wouldn’t get up and check on him. For now, he was going to pleasure himself with the memory of the kill.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It was still dark as Mackenzie drove through a sheeting rain in Stephanie’s car to Seth and Patti’s town house. She was a little afraid Taft would get up before she did and be parked somewhere nearby. She saw Keppler’s Ford truck sitting in the driveway and thought about the tracker Taft’s confidential informant had placed there, and wondered if Seth knew it was there.

  A few blocks away she passed a Best Homes cube truck parked on the side of the road and thought, Oho. Taft had theorized that Seth was picking up a Best Homes truck and she would bet this was the one he’d taken. Taft’s CI undoubtedly had let Taft know the same, so she drove a few more blocks and worked her way into a parking spot that gave her a somewhat limited view of the truck, but might make her invisible. The rain was a hindrance and a help. Visibility was crap, which made it hard to see the Best Homes truck, but it also made it difficult to see inside the vehicles on the street through the fogged windows, so she had some camouflage.

  She slunk down in her seat and just let her eyes look over the steering wheel. She hadn’t seen Taft’s Rubicon, but maybe he, too, would be driving something else.

  She was pissed off at him. He was trying to protect her because he thought things had grown too dangerous. So who made him the one to choose for her?

  Time crawled by. She thought about that female astronaut who’d decided to kill the woman who was the rival for her lover’s affections. She’d driven across about five states and had worn Depends so she wouldn’t have to stop at the bathroom. Homicidally crazy she might have been, but if too many hours elapsed Mackenzie would have to figure that out. She’d forgone breakfast just so she could last for hours.

  She peered through the darkness. Was that a man walking through the rain? She shrank down farther and watched as her quarry turned the corner where the Best Homes cube truck was parked. A few minutes later, headlights cut through the faint gray morning light and the Best Homes truck rumbled into view and down the road. Mackenzie hesitated before turning on her engine. Where was Taft? She didn’t believe he wasn’t around.

  She waited an excruciating five minutes. The Best Homes truck was out of view. If she waited much longer she would lose it entirely.

  She forced herself to hold tight. Her brain screaming at her to get rolling!

  But then a vehicle turned out from the same block where the Best Homes truck had gone. It was a light brown sedan with no lights.

  Mackenzie let it also get nearly out of sight before she pulled onto the street behind it. She didn’t recognize the car but she just knew it was Taft. The morning was growing faintly lighter, which was a relief because she left her lights off, too.

  * * *

  Cooper slipped out of the bed he shared with Jamie into the dull morning light, stopping a moment to look down at the sweep of her lashes against her cheek as she slept on. He pulled his pants over his boxers and grabbed the sweatshirt he’d tossed across a chair. He’d worked late the night before and Jamie had asked him a lot of questions about the Nye investigation when he’d returned. Co
oper hadn’t been able to tell her much. Even if he could confide work-related issues with her, he just didn’t have a lot of information yet.

  Sweeping up his phone, he headed downstairs barefoot, listening to the rain being thrown against the windowpanes. He set the cell on the counter and quickly started a pot of coffee, searching through the cupboards for a mug. He’d stayed at Jamie’s house a lot, most nights, in fact, but still hadn’t completely familiarized himself with her kitchen. It was Saturday morning and Jamie wasn’t working, though she’d been substituting pretty steadily throughout March and now into April. He was glad she could sleep in.

  His mind was on Andrew Best. The man had reluctantly, very reluctantly, agreed to meet with him yesterday at the scene of Granger Nye’s fall. He was still being cagey about where he’d been at the time of the man’s death. Clearly he hadn’t been with his family on vacation as he’d first intimated, and Cooper thought maybe he’d been somewhere close by.

  Had he been involved with that accident? In person, or as a director of some sort?

  His cell, on silent, lit up. He glanced over. Verbena. Picking up the phone, he headed into the living room to answer, the farthest corner of the house from the master bedroom. “Early,” Cooper answered.

  “You didn’t call last night after your meeting,” she said.

  “Best didn’t give me anything.”

  “So, your feeling is?”

  Cooper thought a moment and said, “He’s hiding something. I don’t know what. Could be just that he was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. Could be something to do with Nye. Tox screen?”

  “Not yet. But we finally got that Ring camera footage from the house at the end of the Engstroms’ road.”

  The owner of the home at the end of the cul-de-sac had been gone and when he’d returned he’d been reluctant to help them. He was one of those guys suspicious of government as a whole and the police in particular, so it had taken them a while to convince him they really needed to see what had happened at the Engstrom home.

  Verbena went on, “The Engstrom house is outside of its range.”