Alex Kava Bundle

by Alex Kava

  He took the seat next to her, fumbling with his seat belt and watching the other passengers file onto the plane. It looked like it wouldn’t be a full flight. With no one to occupy the aisle seat there would be more opportunity for them to talk. Oh, wonderful!

  Tully mentioned that he hadn’t gotten back to the hotel until almost sunrise. Maybe he would want to sleep. She wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened between them last night.

  She knew it wasn’t unusual for two people who had just gone through a crisis to be drawn together in a way they ordinarily would never consider. And yesterday’s attempt on her life could certainly be considered a crisis. Of course that was exactly what had happened.

  The flight attendants began the preflight procedure, and Tully watched as though he was captivated and had never flown before, an obvious giveaway that he, too, was uncomfortable. Now Gwen wished she had bought a paperback at the airport bookstore. At this rate, the sixty-minute flight would be excruciatingly long.

  Once they were in the air, Tully brought his briefcase out from under the seat. With it in his lap, he suddenly seemed more comfortable, a sort of this-is-strictly-business security blanket.

  “I talked to O’Dell,” he said while he flipped through a mess of papers, shoving pens, a day-planner and a clump of paper clips out of the way.

  Gwen immediately wondered if he actually used the day-planner. Then she caught herself wondering what Maggie would think when she found out about last night, and about Gwen breaking her own golden rule of not getting involved with a man she worked with. But nothing had happened. They hadn’t had time to get…involved.

  Tully brought out some copies of crime scene photos and was pointing out similarities. “O’Dell said that photographer, the one who sold the crime scene photos to the Enquirer, has photos of Reverend Everett’s boys mauling women in Boston Common yesterday.”

  “You’re kidding. Yesterday?” Now he had her attention. “How did he just happen to be in Boston?”

  “Supposedly, he overheard something about an initiation rite when he was shooting photos at the District’s prayer rally. O’Dell said last night’s victim is one of the women, and that it should be easy to identify the young men, too. Several of the boys show up in photos with Everett at the prayer rally, so there’s our connection.”

  “This is starting to sound too easy. If Everett’s boys are involved in the murders, why would Everett allow them to be photographed?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know they were.”

  “How did Maggie manage to get these photos from Garrison?”

  Tully shook his head, and Gwen could see a slight smile. “Not sure, and I don’t even want to know.”

  Gwen laughed. “So I gather you already know my good friend quite well.”

  “Let me just say that sometimes she’s a little more willing than I am to skip over procedure.”

  “You’re a by-the-book kind of guy?”

  “Yeah, I try to be. Something wrong with that?”

  “I didn’t say there was.”

  He looked over at her as if he expected more of an explanation, then he said, “It sounded like you wanted to attach a but to that.”

  “No, not at all. I was just wondering how last night played into your rules-and-procedure book.”

  He actually turned a slight shade of red and quickly looked away. Gwen followed his lead and looked in the other direction, out the window. Oh, smooth move, Patterson, she scolded herself. Who would ever guess she had a doctorate in psychology.

  “I suppose we should talk about last night,” he finally said.

  “We don’t need to talk about it,” she found herself saying, all the while thinking that yes, they did. What was wrong with her? “I just don’t want it to get in the way of us working together.”

  God, how pathetic. Where did she come up with this stuff? She should stop and yet she found herself continuing. “It was simply the crisis.”

  He was looking at her, waiting. She didn’t think she had to explain it to him, but obviously she would. “A crisis can often make people act in a way they might not normally act.”

  “We weren’t in the middle of a crisis then.”

  “No, of course not. It doesn’t have to be during the crisis. It’s the effect of the crisis.”

  He went back to his computer and punched at a couple of keys to close a file he had just opened. Without looking up at her, he said, “Sounds like you’d rather we pretend it didn’t happen.”

  She glanced at him, looking for some sign of what he wanted. But with the computer screen to distract him, he kept his eyes ahead, now watching the flight attendant’s serving cart coming down the aisle as if he couldn’t wait for his beverage and package of pretzels.

  “Look, Tully, I have to admit—” She stopped herself, something only now occurring to her. “Should I be calling you R.J.? And what does R.J. stand for?”

  He grimaced. Another wrong thing to say. Oh, she was definitely good at this.

  “All my friends call me Tully.”

  She waited, then realized that was all she was getting. So much for intimacy. Last night had been about sex and nothing more. Why did that suddenly surprise her? Wasn’t that all it had been to her? Thank God for Morrelli’s interruption.

  “What were you going to admit?” he asked, looking over at her. “You started to say that you had to admit something?”

  “Just that I had to admit I wasn’t quite sure what to call you. That’s all,” she said, while some inner voice told her what a good liar she was.

  But how could she admit that last night had been surprising and incredible and then say, So let’s forget it, okay? She had managed to keep her life uncomplicated for years now. Seemed a shame to throw all that away for one surprisingly pleasant encounter.

  “So we chalk it up to the crisis of the moment,” Tully said with a casual shrug, not able to hide just a hint of…a hint of what? Disappointment? Sarcasm?

  “Yes. I think it’s best that we do that,” she told him.

  She imagined Freud would have a perfect word for what she was doing, for what she was telling herself, for how she was handling this situation. Although she couldn’t quite imagine Freud actually saying the word “bullshit” out loud.

  CHAPTER 61

  This time Maggie remembered to exit I-95 before she reached the turnpike. She ended up on Jefferson Davis Highway, and as she crossed the James River she realized she would probably need to do some backtracking to get to her mother’s. Two trips in two days—she should be able to do this without a hitch. After all, she had spent her adolescent years here until she left for good to go to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Yet this city had never felt like home. At that point in her life, no place on earth would have felt like home. No place, that is, without her father.

  After his death, Maggie had never understood why her mother insisted they move from Green Bay to Richmond. Why wouldn’t they want to stay in their home surrounded by people who knew and loved them, comforted by the memories? Unless, of course, there had been an affair and gossip, rumors…No, it had to be a lie. She wouldn’t allow the thought, wouldn’t dignify it with…Except why had they moved? Had her mother ever given her a reason?

  Kathleen O’Dell had plopped them down in the middle of a strange and unfamiliar place, a place she had never visited nor even heard of before. And her mother’s only explanation…What? What had it been? Something about a fresh start, a new beginning. Right. A fresh start after every failed suicide attempt. So many of them Maggie had stopped counting.

  But here she was again, trying to rescue her mother once more.

  She pulled up in front of her mother’s apartment building, driving around the huge white paneled truck that took up five prime parking spaces. Several men were loading the truck with furniture while a small gray-haired man propped open the apartment building’s security door. So much for security.

  It wasn’t until Maggie walked up the front sidewalk
and past the truck that she recognized the flowered love seat the men were shoving into the back. Immediately, she glanced up at her mother’s second-floor apartment and noticed all the curtains gone from the windows. The stab of panic caught her off guard.

  “Excuse me.” She stopped the small gray-haired man who seemed to be supervising the move. “I recognize some of these items. What’s going on?”

  “Mrs. O’Dell is selling out.”

  “You mean moving out?”

  “Well, I’m sure she’s moving someplace else, but no, I meant selling out.”

  The confusion must have shown on her face, because he went on to explain, “I’m Frank Bartle.” He dug into his jacket pocket and handed her a business card. “Al and Frank’s Antiques and Secondhand Treasures. We’re down on Kirby. If you see something here you like, we’ll have it ready to sell next week.”

  “But I don’t understand why she would sell everything. I guess I should go up and ask her myself, rather than bother you.”

  “’Fraid you won’t be able to do that.”

  “I promise I won’t get in your men’s way.” She smiled and started for the door.

  “No, I just meant that she’s not there.”

  Now Maggie felt a clammy chill. “Where is she?”

  “Don’t know. I was gonna buy a few of her antiques. You know some trinkets, a few figurines and things like that. She gave me a call early this morning and asked if I wanted the whole lot.”

  Maggie leaned against the doorjamb. “Where did she go?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “But she must have left you a forwarding address.”

  “Nope.”

  “What about payment?”

  “I came over this morning. Gave her an estimate and then a check. She gave me a key. Said to hand it in to the landlady when we’re through.”

  How could all this happen in less than twenty-four hours? And what had happened to make her mother do this? Or had she planned it and just didn’t tell Maggie? Yesterday there had been quite a few boxes packed and stacked. But why make a production of Thanksgiving dinner if she hadn’t planned on being here? What the hell was going on?

  “I have a receipt, if you don’t believe me.” Frank Bartle was digging in his jacket pocket again.

  “No, that’s fine.” She stopped him with a wave of her hand. “I believe you. It’s just very strange. I saw her yesterday.”

  “Sorry, but that’s all I know,” he said, but his attention wandered to one of the moving men who was coming out of the apartment building. “Be careful with that one, Emile. Put it someplace safe, okay?”

  On the side of the carton the man carried Maggie could see scrawled in black marker the single word, Figurines. Her grandmother’s figurines, the one prize possession her mother owned. Suddenly, Maggie felt sick to her stomach. Wherever her mother had gone, she didn’t intend on coming back.

  CHAPTER 62

  Ben Garrison kicked the unlocked door open. He wanted to strangle Mrs. Fowler. How dare she come into his apartment without letting him know. In the past, the old lady had usually been good about locking up after herself and her string of handymen, almost compulsive about it, in fact. Maybe she had developed a few loose screws in her old age.

  He set down his duffel bag on the kitchen counter and out of the corner of his eye he could see them. Quietly, slowly, he picked up the closest thing he could find, pulled back his arm and flung the old tennis shoe at the moving row of black skittering up his living room wall.

  Shit! He was sick of these things. Would he ever be rid of them? Is that why Mrs. Fowler let herself in? Maybe the simple solution would be to move to a new apartment. He could certainly afford it now that his lucky streak had returned. He’d need to wait and decide. Right now he barely had enough time to take a quick shower, repack his bags, load up on more film and head to the airport.

  He dumped his duffel bag onto the counter, sifting through the contents, tossing empty film canisters and doing a quick inventory. It still pissed him off that he had left all the Boston negatives with Racine. But he couldn’t afford to have her trip him up. Not now. Not when he was on a roll.

  As he sorted through everything he realized he must have left his collapsible tripod at the police station. Damn it! How could he have been so careless? It happened every time he got a little too cocky. Now he wondered what else he may have left behind. The T-shirts and sweatpants he could do without, but the tripod he couldn’t. He’d need to stop and pick up another. No way would he go back to the police station.

  He checked his phone messages, jotting down the names of editors and phone numbers he had never heard of or from before. Suddenly everyone wanted a Garrison exclusive. In no time, he’d be back to shooting whatever he wanted, although it would be difficult to beat the rush of adrenaline this little project was producing. Maybe he could find a gallery that would display his outtakes. Those, after all, were the true rush, his true genuine works of art.

  There were five hangups on his answering machine, definite hangups with a pause and then a click. Probably Everett’s little warriors checking up on him. But why the hangups and no more clever messages? Were they running out of intimidation ammunition?

  Poor Everett. He’d finally get what he deserved, what he had coming to him. Perhaps Racine and that FBI chick would be smart enough to put the puzzle pieces together. Hopefully, that wouldn’t happen before Cleveland. Ben needed this one last trip, one last rally.

  He headed for the bathroom, peeling off his clothes and leaving a trail, not caring whether the cockroaches took up residence in his old worn jeans. Maybe he’d burn them when he got back. Yeah, he’d wrap them all up in a plastic bag, so he could watch the fucking roaches squirm while he set the jeans on fire. He wondered if cockroaches made any kind of noise. Did they scream?

  When he stepped into the bathroom, he immediately noticed that the smudged glass door to his shower was closed. He never left it closed. The trapped fog and steam ended up producing a crop of mildew, so he always left it open. He couldn’t see through the milky glass, but surely there would be a shadow or silhouette if someone was hiding inside. Maybe Mrs. Fowler’s handyman had been screwing around with the plumbing. That had to be it.

  He pulled a towel from the rack and shook it out, making sure it was cockroach-free. He opened the shower door and reached in to turn on the water. One glance inside the tub made him jerk backward hard and fast, tangling his feet and sending him crashing to the bathroom floor. He scrambled to his feet, grabbed the shower door and slammed it shut, but not before he took one last look to make sure he wasn’t imagining things.

  They had gone too fucking far this time.

  Coiled inside his bathtub was a snake that looked big enough to swallow him whole.

  CHAPTER 63

  The Compound

  Kathleen O’Dell sat on the floor next to Reverend Everett in his high-backed chair as they waited for the meeting hall to fill. Stephen sat on his other side with Emily. Stephen nor Emily had said much to her since they picked her up. Not a word of explanation the entire trip to the compound, just short, almost curt nonanswers to her questions. Kathleen wasn’t sure if it was anger or urgency. She hadn’t been able to read either one of them. Now as they sat, she stole a glance at Reverend Everett. He didn’t seem angry, either, but earlier there had been something in his voice and in his mannerisms. Kathleen wondered if it was panic.

  No, of course not. She was being paranoid. There was no reason to panic. And yet, his morning phone call sounded just frantic enough to set her on edge. All morning, as she waited for Frank from Al and Frank’s and then for Stephen and Emily, she kept wishing she hadn’t finished that entire bottle from the back of her cupboard.

  Reverend Everett hadn’t given much of an explanation as to why they had to leave so soon. When they arrived at the compound, they found the others scurrying around, preparing for another stretch of prayer rallies, the first being in Cleveland, the following night. That wa
s all it was—preparation. But then, why did Reverend Everett call this emergency meeting? Why did Emily’s face look pinched with panic?

  Kathleen wasn’t even supposed to be here. She wasn’t supposed to be going to the Cleveland rally. It had been Reverend Everett’s recommendation that she spend the holiday with Maggie. Except that she hadn’t had the chance to tell him about Maggie. Now it was best she didn’t mention it at all. Because now, it seemed as if everything had changed. Something terrible had happened. Something terrible enough to make Emily speechless. Something terrible enough that prevented Stephen from meeting Kathleen’s eyes.

  Kathleen felt like she was in a fog, where nothing seemed to be quite clear. She still couldn’t believe all her things were gone, her apartment, her cheerful yellow curtains and her grandmother’s figurines. Perhaps that’s why her head had been throbbing all day. It was just too much to expect a person to handle in one day. Surely Reverend Everett understood that. Perhaps by the time they reached Cleveland, he would change his mind. Yes, she was certain he would be able to calm down and realize that everything would be just fine.

  As he stood, the room grew silent, despite the nervous tension that spread through the crowd as they sat crossed-legged on the floor and waited.

  “My children,” he began, “before those of us who are going on our mission to Ohio leave, I’m afraid we have some disturbing news. I’ve warned many times that we have traitors who wish to hurt us. Those who hate us because we choose to live free. Now I must tell you that one of those among us has betrayed us, has become a traitor. Has exposed us to those mongrel media hounds. And you know how the media can lie.”