Practicing Murder

by Unger, Erin;

  Maddie wiped her face on her sleeve in one quick motion. “Mom.”

  Stay? Go? The awkwardness would fly through the roof if Mrs. Clare detected the tears on her daughter’s face. And he was at the root of them. He flew to the window and took another hasty look. All clear. Better leave. He could set up a stakeout later. Wait a minute. Why do that? Maddie made it clear she could handle herself. Yet why couldn’t he make himself walk out the door?

  Maddie headed back to the living room.

  He moved back to her side when he saw the lost little girl in her eyes. It tore at him to see her like that. A few droplets of tears rested on Maddie’s shoulder. He smoothed them away before her mom could notice them. The rigidness of her body melted with the look. His hand lingered there a moment, the old attraction playing havoc on him.

  Maddie’s face contorted into a mask of blankness. She turned away.

  Mrs. Clare dropped her briefcase at the doorway to the living room. “I don’t have time for this right now. With the death of my sister, all the details left to take care of, I can’t handle one more problem.”

  Maddie tensed. “I could leave. That’d be one less problem for you.”

  Her mother came over to her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Tell me again what happened. I’m just so exhausted.”

  They both sat, and Maddie began to recount the events.

  Joze thrust his hand in his pockets and crossed the room. An alcohol wipe packet once forgotten lay at the bottom of one pocket. He rubbed it between his fingers. So this was what being a third wheel was like.

  Maddie looked over at him. Hostility? Uncertainty? It hovered around her eyes.

  He shuffled to the hall. If he didn’t get some sleep, tomorrow would be a nightmare. Not that he’d be able to, with all the acid in his stomach. Better call Jim to drop him back at his car.

  He studied the floor for a minute. Whether he believed her or not, she needed him right now. What if the attacker came back to do her more harm? “I’m going to head out. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you, Maddie.”

  She sat back. “I didn’t get your number.”

  “Right.” He ticked it off.

  Mrs. Clare crossed her arms. “I’m sure we won’t need it.”

  Didn’t Maddie say even her mother didn’t believe her about Todd’s attack? Mrs. Clare sure acted like she believed it.

  Maddie got up. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

  Joze looked from Maddie to her mother and back to Maddie again. “Okay, bye.”

  Mrs. Clare returned his wave with a sour look.

  Once outside the door, Joze stood toe to toe with Maddie. “I want to finish that conversation. Call me. And call me if you need anything else. I don’t actually live that far away. Can I come by tomorrow?”

  Her arms and legs were crossed tight, her lips pinched together. “I don’t know.” She looked around. “How are you getting home?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call Jim to pick me up.” He suddenly remembered her aunt. “And we need to figure out how your aunt might play into this mess.”

  “No. I do.” But her words weren’t steely hard like before.

  Their closeness was like the scene from a first date good-bye. Minus the love and euphoria…and mutual attraction. He grimaced. Okay, it wasn’t anything like a first date. Except he was close enough to kiss her. And he couldn’t deny the attraction on his end no matter how hard he wanted to make it go away.

  And who in the world was thinking of kissing? He placed his hand on the back of his neck as he took a backward step.

  Liar.

  10

  The singed ground left its black scent in the air and its black marks in the treads of Joze’s work boots. Why wouldn’t the morning sky light up with colors to make his job a little easier?

  O’ six forty five. He worked in the glow of halogen spotlights on the recovery grid of a downed small, passenger plane. Shouldn’t the sun have already started working its way up in the sky? Maybe rain was on the way.

  He pushed away a snarl. Too little sleep. Worry chewed on his insides all night long, even in his dreams, and kept his mind on Maddie. Before he’d gone to bed, he’d hooked up his police scanner and turned the volume on high to listen for any problem at Maddie’s place. Then he’d forgotten to turn on his alarm, so he had to do seventy-five miles an hour down the highway, God forgive him, to get to the site in time.

  As he worked in the constricting square on the hillside, Joze couldn’t come up with a decent way to keep an eye on Maddie. Thank the Lord she hadn’t needed to call the police during the night. Hopefully, that meant she was safe—and sleeping—at the moment. And he circled back to why he should care either way.

  Something deflected light from his flashlight. Joze bent down and brushed at it with nimble strokes. A chunk of metal began to show as the dirt cleared away. He stuck a red flag next to it, marked it on the paper grid he carried on a clipboard, and swung his light around to see if anything else lay in the same general vicinity.

  Once again, a glimmer of light caught on a small object. He brushed the dirt away. A locket, half-burned, came into view. Another red flag. Another bit of sorrow for the family members pressed back into place.

  He finished the grid and called the head officer to send the crime scene photographer over to document the items.

  It’d been days since he’d turned up body parts. And he couldn’t be thankful enough for the reprieve. At last count, six of the seven passengers and crew were accounted for. Over a week of work from a crew of fifty volunteers they were getting close to releasing to family members what was left of the passengers and their belongings. That meant Maddie and her family would be on the receiving end this week. He shook his head and glanced up at the tiny ray of morning sunlight that seemed to land on him alone.

  This was sacred work.

  One of the commanding officers called him away from the second grid he’d stepped into. He moved at a fast clip to cover the distance to the nearby warehouse that had been commissioned as a temporary morgue and debris storage area. At the entrance, he stopped at a table where his commanding officer sat typing on a laptop. “Sir?”

  “I heard your request for a Lonna Selby to be put in your care. Is this a family member?” The commander frowned.

  “No sir. A friend’s family member.” Joze took a wide stance, hands and clipboard behind his back. That wasn’t exactly the truth. But how could he explain his relationship to the deceased otherwise?

  “I’ve contacted her closest family member and made arrangements for the body.” He said it like she was a piece of meat. A hazard of dealing with death too often. “But we also found some belongings in a fire-resistant case.” He stepped back to a table and eyed a pile of paperwork. “Would you like to deliver her personal belongings today?”

  Would he? This would give him an excuse to check on Maddie. Not that he wanted to diminish the importance of his true mission to give her Lonna Selby’s things.

  He signed the documents the officer handed him and waited as the officer gave the location listing to another recovery worker. Minutes ticked by. Workers came and went. Deposited plane pieces and other items here and there. All so scientific.

  At last, a woman carried out a cardboard box the size of a medium bin. “Here.” She checked the number on the box to the paper in her hand. “Thank you for your service.”

  “And you yours.” He gave her the same sad smile she shared with him and then turned and left.

  In the time he’d been in the warehouse, the sun rose in brilliant purples and pinks as if it waited just long enough for him to step back outside. Then the colors began to fade and full sun took their place. He hesitated in the doorway to take it in. Today should be his day off, but the possibilities were already filling it up.

  It hadn’t occurred to him in the beginning of the plane recovery that Maddie would be a factor in the return of her aunt’s belongings. His only thought was to giv
e Mrs. Lonna her due respect since she’d welcomed him and treated him like one of her own kids when he’d come to visit for Thanksgiving one year when he and Maddie were dating. Now there was a whole other dimension to the situation.

  Was it too early to arrive at Maddie’s doorstep? He calculated the drive time. He’d be there by 8:00 AM. if he didn’t hit too much traffic. Leaving the Hartford area wasn’t as bad as the west-bound side of the highway would be.

  He set the box down in his truck with careful reverence.

  Please let Maddie answer the door…and not Mrs. Clare.

  11

  Ominous gray clouds threatened to overwhelm the sun. Maddie sat in her old bedroom staring out the window. Rain. What’d they say about April showers? But please not today, even if the flowers needed it. And her aunt’s beloved garden certainly could use the water. The daffodils and pansies had sprung up in colorful clumps. Who’d tend them now? Mom was too busy with her real estate business. Maybe she’d hire a gardener.

  Maddie wiped her face. Poor Aunt Lonna. She’d been her real mother figure. All the years of hanging out on her bed and reading together with her cousins or dancing to old records were gone. And right when Aunt Lonna was about to have a new chance at life.

  Maddie dropped the curtain and slumped onto the low vanity seat given to her by her grandmother. She should be doing homework or finishing the ten-page research paper due for her Psych class in two weeks. Graduation was only a month away. Then real life could begin. She wouldn’t be the “forever” student anymore. Even the new job at the environmental and health safety office started in July.

  Maddie stared into the four-foot mirror of the 1940’s vanity with its faux mahogany finish. Whew, she needed some makeup to hide the exhaustion on her face. Eyes puffy and hair limp. But little sleep, which was interrupted by bad dreams, would do that to anyone. At least she’d had a productive morning. Mom had already taken her to the DMV to replace her license. Check. Two things done to get back to normal. Last night she’d called her bank to have her debit card locked and a theft alert added to the account. Now, she and her mother needed to finish the discussion about a new security system.

  She rushed through applying some concealer and then headed downstairs. “Mom, please tell me you’re still here.”

  Mom answered from down the hall in the master suite. “I’m in my room. I only have a few minutes, so hurry.”

  Maddie sprinted down the hall into her mother’s powdery perfume-filled room. “Hey. We need to finish that conversation.” She twisted her hair up into a bun and tied it with a hair band. “I can give you a list of all the reasons we should have a security system, or I could e-mail the one I compiled last night.”

  Mom waved the comment away. “I get it. Potential intruder returns. Yada, yada. Send me the security companies’ numbers in the area when you get a chance.”

  All business, as usual. How did Mom hold it all in? Didn’t she need at least one day to grieve over her sister and to face this new threat? “Fine. Look,” Maddie played with a loose strand of her own hair, “the cousins are going to start arriving tomorrow. I don’t want them to know about this whole mess.”

  “I get it.” She picked up her curling iron and twisted a lock of hair around it. “If the system can be installed before they get here, nothing needs to be said.” She pulled the rod away and let the curl bounce. “I could ask Rod to stick around.”

  Not the old ex-boyfriend that still showed up from time to time. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  Her mother curled another fake blond strand. Maddie watched her through the mirror. Why couldn’t she be the mother she should’ve been?

  Mom dropped the curling iron, turned it off, and sprayed a liberal amount of hairspray around her head. “Gotta go. I might be late.” Nothing unusual about that. “Think you’ll be OK here alone? What do you think of this new eye shadow? Too brown?”

  Maddie missed Aunt Lonna even more. “It’s fine.” But she couldn’t take another hour of waiting at the window to see if the perp showed. Mom didn’t really care. “I’ll be fine.”

  Mom dropped a peck on her cheek at the door. “Like I said, send me the list. I’ll get right on it.”

  Maddie pushed past her and took a hard look around the street and yard. “OK. It’s safe. Go.”

  Her mother sighed and shook her head. “Bye.”

  As she rested against the back of the door, Maddie touched the wood where Joze had been only hours before. Was he on the brink of believing her?

  When they’d been on the porch as he was leaving, she was sure he’d considered kissing her…at exactly the wrong time. But then he pulled back fast. She touched her lips. That wouldn’t have been OK. She didn’t even know where she stood with him. And she didn’t need him again.

  Last night, Maddie couldn’t start searching through Aunt Lonna’s room with Mom around. She couldn’t even tell her mom that she suspected the attack was related to her aunt and not anything she’d done. Her mother wouldn’t get it or believe her. But Maddie’d picked up on the fear and trepidation she’d heard in her aunt’s voice when she’d called to check on her only hours before the plane crash. Aunt Lonna wouldn’t tell Maddie what was wrong, though.

  Why hadn’t she insisted on knowing what it was? Yet another failure on her part. But she wouldn’t fail her aunt now.

  Triple-checking the front and back door, Maddie hustled to Aunt Lonna’s bedroom, cell phone in hand. She’d call the police if the slightest thing seemed off.

  She stepped into the lavender-scented room. One of her aunt’s homemade soaps created the aroma. She breathed it in and moved to the highboy dresser. A few pieces of jewelry and an antique silver brush, mirror, and comb set sat on a doily where they always rested.

  Maddie looked under the bed, in the closet, and the nightstand. Nothing stood out. The desk was littered with papers and photo copies and an old year book. That’s right, she’d been in the middle of helping to organize her thirty-year class reunion. Maddie flipped through the year book. Big hair and high-waisted jeans. Style that screamed the eighties. She set it back down.

  In the top desk drawer, she pulled out a file and flipped it open. Papers regarding Aunt Lonna’s newly acquired natural soap business were smattered with figures. She’d have to go out to the office in the backyard to find more info on exactly what her aunt’s trip involved. The trip that ended in her death in a plane crash.

  Maddie crumpled to the floor and hugged her waist tight as grief took over. So senseless. A dumb plane crash from a malfunctioning flap on the wing.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d delved into the agony of loss. There was another time she’d had to live with it. And that pain still showed its ugly head at the worst possible moments. Still deep and penetrating like a knife to the heart—the death of her father.

  Today was not the day to bury her head under her pillow over something she couldn’t change. She put back the folder.

  Get up. Take some meds for the growing headache. Get out of the house. A nice public restaurant was the safest place to be. Maddie rummaged in the utility closet for a box of tissues. No way could she get through the day without it by her side. Where was the best place she could boohoo without being noticed?

  She reached for the kitchen door handle. It turned in her palm.

  Falling backward, she lost her balance and fell. The tissue box shot across the floor. Who was trying to open the door? Mom never made a return trip, even for important items. Not this quick anyway.

  “I told you not to talk. I won’t warn you again.” A deep tenor voice echoed. The dark form on the other side of the door moved away.

  She scurried on hands and knees to the other side of the kitchen island. The tile floor tore at her knees.

  Get a knife. She shot up and winced at the pain in her knees. She rummaged through each of the drawers in a frenzy. Why’d Mom have to reorganize these too? Was it part of her coping mechanism?

  The corner drawer f
lew open and threatened to spill all over the floor. Maddie stopped it in time.

  The handle to the front door shook.

  Finally, she gripped the biggest knife she could find.

  She pressed her back to the wall of the hall. Good thing the glass panes in the door sidelights were frosted. No one could see in. That also meant she couldn’t see out unless she got on her tiptoes to look through the peephole.

  Maddie eased forward. Where was a gun when she needed one? That would do the trick.

  Somewhere to the left side of the house, a glass pane of a window rattled as if it might shatter. Boy, he moved fast.

  Would she have a better chance if she made a run for the front door and raced to the neighbor’s house? She figured the distance from the window to the front door. It might work, but it would be a huge risk.

  Better not try.

  She fumbled in her pocket for her cell phone, speed-dialed 9-1-1, and waited.

  When the dispatcher answered, Maddie explained her situation and then kept the phone to her ear as she followed instructions to get to a safe hiding place. What about the basement? The door meant she could escape if need be. But the intruder could come in that way, too.

  Maddie was torn. The knife handle in her hand began to chafe from her white-knuckled grip. Her legs threatened to give out under her. She slid down onto her haunches, braced against the wall.

  To the basement. Hide in the small closet under the stairs. No, that would be too obvious if he managed to get in the house. The hope chest down there had been empty for years. Please let it still be empty.

  Maddie stuffed the still-active phone into her pocket and dashed to the basement door, fairly slipped down all the steps, and ran to the chest. She threw the lid up with one hand. Blankets. Great. Feeling as though her heart were exploding, she yanked most of them out and tossed them on the old easy chair nearby. Then she climbed in.

  The lid clunked down. She winced and waited. Scrunching under the remaining blankets, Maddie tried to slow her ragged breathing. She pulled the phone back out. “OK, I’m hiding.”