Girl Watching You

by J. A. Schneider

  “Jealousy,” Peter says simply, glaring at bruises on my wrist. They’ve turned a darker jewel-blue, a brutal bracelet.

  Rain pounds the window.

  Kemp switches his questioning gaze to me. So far he only knows what I told the other two detectives. My cheek is back on my hand.

  “Vengeance and irrational hatred,” I say, with as much vehemence as I can. I blow out a heavy breath; force myself on. “He blames Peter for his finance troubles, his difficulties controlling his sister who controls their family money.”

  Kemp starts to pace a little; looks back to me. “Wait – so how does money connect to the two murdered girls and attacking you?”

  We trade looks: more detail, take turns.

  Peter describes the possibility – “a theory,” he says - that stalking the women he dated and making him look like their killer may have been Nick’s revenge. “On the night Chloe Weld died, he was furious at my presence back in the apartment. My being there may have triggered him.”

  Kemp’s eyebrows raise as he ponders that.

  I lean forward painfully. “There’s more I just found out,” I say. “Three hours ago, Chrissy Greer herself said Nick spent that whole awful night in the kitchen breakfast nook, drinking and furious at Peter. The housekeeper discovered him in the morning, still drunk, admitting he’d been there all night. He could easily have gone down their apartment’s back stairway…and come back without being seen.” I hesitate. “He must have been deteriorating badly; lost it completely when he heard I was meeting with Chrissy, having any influence on her…”

  Peter is looking at me, surprised and solemn. After Rosie’s, I’d never had the chance to tell him about Nick and the back stairway. He heard it first when I called him frantically in crisis. Now, he’s absorbing it.

  Kemp scowls out at the rain for a moment, then looks back to Peter. “Why didn’t your wife volunteer this to the police?”

  Denial? Not putting two and two together? Never dreaming in a million years…?

  “She’s also heavily medicated.” With that Peter gets up and reaches for my slicker. “Ava’s been through trauma,” he says. “We should go.”

  Kemp thanks us and follows us to the front room, muttering into his phone. They’re still at it, fingerprinting and evidence collecting. We walk around the crime periphery, and Peter picks up my duffle. Kemp glares at the wrecked door, twisted shards of hinge still barely holding it, and shakes his head.

  “Sorry you had to go through this,” he tells me, his eyes tired and genuinely sorry. I thank him, wondering if he regrets his vehemence against my stubborn compulsion. They have this big breakthrough – but another woman was almost killed….

  I breathe in and turn, taking a last look at my treasured memories under dust. Well…they’re just things after all, aren’t they? They aren’t life itself. If my father were watching tonight, he wouldn’t have worried about the furniture.

  Kemp is still watching me…with admiration, I realize.

  “I survived,” I tell him, trying to smile.

  He nods, his lips pressed flat. Then he peers a bit harder at the two of us: Peter troubled-looking but still elegant, me a dark-smeared, woeful ragamuffin. For seconds his gaze sharpens on Peter, almost warily, and then he asks me, “You going to a hotel?”

  “No, to my house,” Peter says.

  Kemp nods stiffly.

  “You have a gun,” he says to Peter; not a question, the police know.

  “Yes.”

  Kemp nods again, cautions about staying in with the alarm on, then steps out onto the landing.

  We follow. Irrationally, I feel afraid again. I don’t like moving out to the night, away from the police.

  “Nick Jakes is at large,” Kemp says, glancing down the stairwell. “It looks like he’s after both of you, so let them follow.” He leans over the rail to call, “All set?”

  Weber looks up, gloved, from the foyer door open to the blowing night, and Hall looks up gloved from a crime tech examining the stairs. They’re still in their jackets.

  “All set,” they call up.

  We descend, me painfully, with Peter helping. “Easy,” he says, gripping my arm. “Take it slow.”

  Hall and Weber remove their gloves as we all clear the foyer, and go out.

  Wet wind blasts us. Peter tucks me against him, and we walk to his car. It’s a black Mercedes with a giant teddy bear peering out the rear window. He thanks the detectives as they move past us to their car. They give little waves.

  He opens the passenger door, helps me in; then in the downpour bulls around to the driver’s side and slides in. He pivots to put my duffle onto the rear seat…on top of a giraffe, a large bunny, and small trucks. He turns back to me, his hair wet and flopping, his hand brushing my thighs as he helps with my seat belt.

  Then, in the semidarkness, his eyes meet mine. They’re sad.

  A little shakily, I touch the side of his cheek. “I’m happy you came for me.”

  His hand grasps mine, and he kisses me, long, emotionally. “I’m happy you came for me.”

  Then his features tighten and he says, quietly, “I am going to kill him.”

  He starts the engine and pulls out.

  The rain’s like a fusillade on the windshield. The wipers fight it as we swish through blurred streets, traffic lights shimmering. The detectives’ headlights follow us. It’s just minutes to cover the route to Charles Street. Peter slows, signals, and the detectives slow.

  Then Peter turns right, into the service alley where first we met under circumstances now not believable.

  Ahead, a tall, square door whirs open in the darkness. He pulls into the garage, which lights up. The detectives pull up behind us. They get out, dash through ten feet of rain, and come in.

  “Want us to check the house?” Hall asks, looking around the small cavern, four Sheetrocked walls.

  Peter demurs with thanks…and pulls out his gun.

  “Whoa, nice.” Weber jerks back. “Beretta.”

  “Forget 911,” Peter says. “Call 357.”

  Both cops smirk a little. “Well, do both,” Hall says. “Start with us, anyway.”

  We thank them and they leave, their headlights backing up, then sweeping through the downpour.

  Peter presses a remote in his hand, and the door whirs its soft way down, hits the cement floor with a thump. The garage seems suddenly smaller, claustrophobic.

  He slings my duffle over his shoulder, puts his free arm around me. We cross to a door in the wall, where he turns a key in the lock, and flings the door open.

  48

  Ping, ping, ping, ping…

  3-9-6-4-1, he punches in the dark into the glowing alarm, not minding that I see. There’s a heaviness to him, an air of not thinking right: he’s feeling the same shock that I am. He turns off the alarm, closes the door and turns the alarm back on, punching a single key. The little green beam reverts to red.

  Then he flicks on a light.

  We’re in a warm hall, bare-walled, that seems to run parallel to the garage. A closed door leads off to the right – storage, he explains – and a stairway rises to the left. Through the heavy walls I still hear the rain, like distant thunder.

  “You have three entrances,” I say, looking around nervously.

  “Yep,” Peter says, exhaling. His jaw is smeared with dark fingerprint dust. “Down here, the front, and the terrace.” Gently, he helps me off with my slicker, tosses it over his arm carrying my duffle, and tucks me to him with his free arm. “You’re safe,” he whispers, his lips brushing my cheek. “You’re safe.”

  Adrenalin throbs worse. When he pulls back, he sees my expression. “What?”

  My eyes dart back to the door. “This will sound neurotic…but would you put the chain across too?

  “Sure.” He reaches up; with a clinking sound slides across the heavy chain that had just been dangling. “Haven’t used that since the alarm went in,” he says, and turns back to me. “It’s okay,” he reassure
s. “You’re okay.”

  My voice catches. “I’m remembering what Kemp said: ‘It looks like he’s after both of you - Nick will try to come here.” A frantic feeling builds; can’t fight it. “Is there any chance he knows your alarm code?”

  “No. Just Mary and Chrissy.”

  “He goes through Chrissy’s phone! She’s not sure if she ever told it to him. She’s so out of it…”

  Peter frowns uneasily, looks back at the chain.

  I scan his open parka with its deep pockets. “Where’d you put your gun? I didn’t see, it was a blur.”

  He reaches under his parka to pat his lower blazer pocket. “I’ll keep it very close,” he says…but that sad, tight look he wore in the car is back in his eyes. “Try to calm,” he says, and takes my arm.

  We start to ascend, and oh, what a mess I am because, after the fretting over the chain and the alarm, three steps have me cringing in pain. “My knee, my hip.”

  Peter groans, puts his arm around me, and helps me climb.

  The upstairs landing has a wooden bench, big and little fishing poles in a corner, little boot pairs of red and yellow, and little coats hanging from wooden pegs. Peter opens the door and we’re in, to the kitchen with its beams and dark wood cabinets I saw before, mostly in darkness.

  A small lamp has been left on over the island. He hangs my slicker to dry over one of the chairs, and flips a switch; long, dim lights come on under the cabinets.

  The room looks hastily vacated. There are toys here, there, milk left out, a paper bowl of what looks like a mush of Cocoa Puffs, and a toppled box of Cheerios spewing its contents.

  My eyes dart to the French doors leading to the terrace. Same as downstairs: the alarm winks its tiny red light, but the heavy brass chain just hangs like a relic.

  “Put that across too?” I point. “And the one in front?”

  “Right, might as well do them all.” Peter goes toward the doors, slides the chain into place, tugs and checks it, looks out to the rain on the terrace. “Stuff got blown,” he murmurs, crossing the room again, heading to chain the front door. He’s still wearing his parka.

  I lean on a tall cardboard box labelled Plates/Bowls as he comes back, puts the milk in the fridge, apologizes for the mess, and shoves away a cardboard box next to mine labeled Glasses.

  I give a little smirk, and start to relax. “Boy, you really aren’t moved in. Last time I was fainting from shock and too much-”

  He’s kissing me. He’s cupped my face in his hands and he’s kissing my lips, my cheek, my lips again. I melt, forget chains and alarms and dark-swooping yellow tapes. I’ve so wanted this again and my arms go around him, kissing him back. His embrace becomes more urgent, moves down to my hips, pulls me tighter. “Thank you,” he’s whispering. “For coming into my life. I never imagined a woman like you.”

  “Crazy,” I whisper, half smiling. Then I cry out.

  “Oh, sorry!” He loosens his grip.

  “Don’t stop.”

  “I lost my head, you’re injured. You should lie down.”

  “I can stand, and you’re a mess.” Now I’m really smiling, touching smudges on the rounded ridge of his cheekbone, more on the side of his mouth. “Look at your hands. I’ve rubbed off on you.”

  “I’ll say,” he finally smiles. He’s feeling better. He’s out of his shock and steps to the sink; adjusts the stopper, blasts on the water, grabs soap.

  “First you.” He dips a paper towel in suds and faces me; dabs and wipes my cheeks, my jaw, groans and grimaces about the bandage on my brow. The water splashes.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “I feel like a little kid.”

  “I’m good at that.”

  He takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger, leans back a little, and studies my face. The water splashes.

  “Improvement,” he says…and then looks sorrowful again, as if remembering the scene he just brought me from. “A shower would be better. No, a bath because of the bandage.”

  He turns off the water, the kitchen falls silent, and I hear a thud. “What’s that?”

  “What?”

  “I heard something.” I point toward his parlor. “From there…or upstairs?”

  He frowns out to the hall, then up to the ceiling. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  We both stand, taut and listening. The house is silent, except for the sound of rain battering the windows.

  “Nerves,” I finally exhale, shivering a little, looking back to the French doors.

  Peter shakes his head uneasily, then turns to wash up. Drying his hands, he opens a cabinet, starts pulling down mugs and a round cannister. “Let me make you tea.”

  My body suddenly sags, and I grab the island. “Whoa…adrenalin’s finally deserted me. I think I’d rather lie down now.”

  He pushes the mugs aside. “Right, gotta get you to bed,” he says, putting his arm around me.

  49

  A Persian runner lines the foyer, which I remember, as well as the corniced door to the right leading into the darkened parlor. I glance in, feel a deep ache in my belly remembering our time on the sofa.

  Then I stop, stare at the silhouetted palms across the room. Tall plants before tall windows.

  “My memory just came back,” I say, inhaling.

  Peter looks at me.

  I point. “Those plants were delivered by two people from Cooper’s. Mary was having trouble with the alarm. Joe Cooper helped her with it.”

  Peter frowns across the room. “Mid-August?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s when it was put in. She was helping me unpack upstairs.”

  “She wasn’t careful with strangers.” I hesitate. “So…Joe Cooper might know your alarm code.” I feel a chill. “Unless you’ve changed it since?”

  Peter shakes his head no, and his face sags. “Mary was here for other deliveries too. Appliance people, the designer…”

  “Joe Cooper doesn’t like you.”

  “What? He doesn’t know me.”

  “I think he just resents you.” I lean, aching, against Peter’s shoulder. “Oh…don’t listen to me. I’m just jumping at shadows.”

  “All windows are wired,” he says, patting my cheek, “and we’ve got the good old-fashioned chains across the doors. Heavy ones in solid wood.”

  “Reassuring,” I say uneasily. “I’ll try not to feel nervous.”

  “Plus I’m armed.”

  “But you have to sleep.”

  He sighs, looks gloomily back into the parlor. There’s a scraping sound as the wind drives branches against one of the windows. We both give a start.

  “Try to calm,” he says a little raggedly, tugging me away. “Let’s both try, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Two dim wall sconces are on, throwing our shadows onto the base of the spiral stairway. Mel was right: heavy carving, a lion’s head in the newel post.

  I look up, and try not to groan. More stairs.

  It’s slow going. My left hand grips the railing, my right arm is around Peter’s waist. He coaxes and comforts, and I do start to calm. For seconds I look over the rail to the foyer below, and feel a bit dizzy again. Peter kicks himself for not taking me to the hospital for further checkup.

  “They did it back there,” I say. “The EMTs.”

  “Maybe a second opinion?”

  “I’ve been worse than this. Fell off a chair lift once.”

  Our brows are close and we murmur, in the quiet way of two people whose lives have fused and know that they’re going to sleep together. Peter leaves his gloom and smiles over the chair lift story, details of the ski patrol pleading with me to let them toboggan me down.

  “Did you?”

  “No. It was just fifteen feet I fell. The lift was nearing the top, the line jerked, and I’d already unhooked the bar. Tim-ber! I skied down practically on my butt, ached like blazes later.”

  “Just a little crazy.”

  “Maybe more.”

  “Also colorful.
I love that.”

  He points when we reach the landing. On the right, the door to the master bedroom. On the left, flanking a small bathroom, the two children’s bedrooms. The stairway, he says, continues to two more bedrooms upstairs.

  “Want to see the kids’ rooms?” Peter says.

  I smile and nod and he flicks on lights. I lean on the jamb of the first child’s bedroom.

  It’s small. Twin beds crammed with toys stretch parallel to each other. Their bedding is different: pink and frilly for one, Spiderman-themed for the other. There’s a Spiderman poster on the wall. Toy trucks, dolls, books and plush toys crowd the carpeted floor.

  The second bedroom looks uninhabited. Too-neat twin beds with nothing but matching spreads on them, nothing on the floor.

  I’m surprised. “They share the same room?”

  A new shadow crosses Peter’s face.

  “Yes, same on Fifth. Six bedrooms up there and they won’t be apart. Their child shrink says it’s okay so far; I’m working on trying to separate them.” He leans his hand over my shoulder to the jamb, and drops his head. I feel his warm breath on my cheek.

  “It’s hard,” he sighs. “My damn work hours…I’m not with them enough, plus the miserable marriage ending. They cry a lot. Abby reads to Teddy; if she finishes and walks away, he runs after her in a panic.”

  Peter’s voice tightens, turns almost harsh. “I don’t want them turning out like…”

  “Nick and Chrissy?”

  He nods.

  “Nick must have scared them.”

  Another nod, solemn. “Chrissy does too.”

  I look at him, and he shrugs.

  “Her shrink thinks it’s because she wants to be the child. Her depression or whatever…they won’t go near her. I’m working on that too. It’s not right for kids that young to feel estranged from their mother.”

  Off go both small-room lights and Peter turns, blowing out a long, pent-up breath.

  “I just want to be happy,” he broods, looking into the master bedroom. “Is it too late for someone who’s done every damned thing wrong?”

  “They say it’s never too late.”

  “What do you say?”

  I totter a little, but my arm goes around him. “I say I’d like to see your bedroom.”