by Bush, Nancy
“She swallowed a whole bottle of pills,” came Marilyn Cheever’s choked voice. “A whole bottle. They’ve pumped her stomach, but it’s . . . she’s not awake . . . we don’t know . . . Jake, can you come? Please? If you were there when she came to . . . ?”
“Which hospital?” he asked, aware how coldly serious he sounded, unable to prevent his tone. It wasn’t the first time. It wasn’t the second . . . it wasn’t the third.
And he didn’t want to go.
“Providence,” Marilyn said on a hiccup. “Hurry . . .”
Wanting to say no, unable to be so cold to someone he’d cared about for so long, he said, “I’ll be right there,” then clicked off and headed for the elevators.
September ate her sandwich and drank her Diet Coke in the break room. She’d planned to sit at her desk, but she saw the federal agents look up when she entered and she decided she wanted some privacy. Sandler and Thompkins hadn’t returned and D’Annibal’s office was dark. She needed a little alone time with her thoughts to think things through.
Hague had mentioned Wart. She’d heard that loud and clear, and yet no one, with the exception of Sheila’s school friends, could recall the name. So, what did that mean? Was it a nickname that he’d used once with his peers, but had lost over the intervening years?
Ben Schmidt had said he’d thought Wart might be dead, and Andrew Welke had suggested he was in-car-cer-ated. Were those just guesses? And were they even talking about the same loner kid? Was any of it true, or was she just chasing shadows?
She finished her half-sandwich, wadded the plastic wrapping into a ball, tossed it toward a trashcan. The plastic opened up and lost momentum and dropped to the ground a foot short of the receptacle. Sorta felt like where she was in her investigation, just short of an answer.
What about Lulu Luxe? Why her? It was probably because she was available, but could there be a more specific reason? Was the reason he’d killed her in the field, rather than somewhere else first, because he was escalating, as Bethwick had suggested? Probably. The shortened times between his killings suggested the same. He was losing whatever control he’d had and his killings had become less well planned as the need increased. He’d also shifted focus, she believed, from women he actually knew to convenient victims.
Except for herself.
She shook her head. She needed to stick with her own avenue of investigation and not get sidetracked until she either found some corroboration to her theory that this Wart was the killer, or reached a dead end.
As she was getting up from her chair, her cell phone rang. She glanced at it and realized it was D’Annibal. “Lieutenant?” she answered.
“Detective, where are you?”
“I’m just down the hall in the break room.”
“Could you come into my office?”
“Sure.” So he’d returned.
She retraced her steps to the squad room, meeting Candy from administration coming from the opposite direction. Candy darted September a look, then glanced away, which did not bode well. September’s heartbeat thudded once again. Last time Candy had made a delivery to the squad room it had been her bloodied second grade artwork.
Glancing back at Candy’s disappearing form, September almost called her back. But then she decided not to borrow trouble. She entered the room and saw that neither agent was anywhere to be seen and Sandler and Thompkins were still absent as well. She shot a look toward D’Annibal’s office, which was now brightly lit, though the curtains were pulled partway across, as if he’d decided he needed some privacy but then thought better of it.
“Lieutenant?” she greeted him as she entered.
His gray hair shined silver beneath the overhead lights, which also made his tanned face seem surprisingly colorless. He gestured her to come in and said, “Please close the door.”
“Is there something wrong?” she asked as she complied.
For an answer he opened a drawer and pulled out a manila envelope, the same shape and size of the last one she’d received. Her ears buzzing, she took it from D’Annibal’s hand. It was still sealed.
“Candy said it’s like the other one. As soon as she saw it, she brought it to you, and since you weren’t at your desk, to me.”
“It could be . . .” September trailed off, not sure what she thought it could be besides what she guessed it was.
“Do you want me to open it?”
She flushed, feeling foolish in front of her superior. “No.” Wordlessly, he handed her a letter opener and a pair of latex gloves. She slipped on the gloves, slid the letter opener beneath the flap, sliced open the end of the envelope and, using her thumb and forefinger, slid the several stapled papers out.
She stared at the front page, recognizing another project from her grade school years. There was a colorful picture of ocean life glued onto the front page and she knew there would be more on each additional page. Immature handwritten text accompanied the pictures.
“It’s my sea anemone report,” she said woodenly. “This wasn’t from second grade. It was third or fourth.”
“It’s definitely yours?”
“Yes . . .” She’d written her name at the top in cursive. Carefully turning the face of the report around so that he could see it, she stared at the back of it.
A big red IX stared back at her.
“Nine?” Lieutenant D’Annibal asked, and for a moment she thought he’d seen it, too. But no, he was just gazing at her with concern. Probably because she could feel the blood draining from her face.
“He knows my nickname’s Nine,” she said in a calm voice that belied her churning guts. “He knows me. Not just from the newspaper article or my interview with Channel Seven. He knows me well enough to know what my close friends call me.”
D’Annibal gazed at her levelly. “And maybe your classmates?”
“But this is . . . it’s just not from one class. This is something else. He has to have access to my grade school . . . stuff. He has to be close to me, close to my family. Unless . . .” She pressed her lips together, sensing if she didn’t that they might tremble.
“Unless,” the lieutenant probed.
“Unless he was taking things of mine all through my school years.”
Light glinted off the steely gray of his hair. There was a lengthy pause and then D’Annibal nodded once, as if he’d just agreed to a question that had yet to be answered. “Detective, I think you know what I’m going to say next.”
Lost in her own whirling thoughts, she blinked at him. “Sir?”
“I’m taking you off this investigation, Rafferty. It’s too personal and too dangerous.”
September inhaled sharply. “No. Please, sir. No. I need to keep moving on this.”
“It’s time we turned the whole thing over to the feds,” he disagreed, sounding tired. “If they want you to continue on, I won’t stop you.”
“They won’t want me to. You know they won’t want me to. You’re as good as saying there’s no chance!”
“You can keep informed through your partner. If Sandler learns anything, she can let you know, but I don’t want you actively working on the case any longer.”
“Please reconsider.”
“Take it up with Bethwick and Donley. I’m sorry, Nine. You’re in this guy’s crosshairs. This last piece”—he gestured to the report that was still held by September’s thumb and forefinger—“just proves it.”
“But—”
“You can trade with Sandler and work on the murder/suicide with Thompkins. That’s all,” he stated firmly, when she would have protested again.
September walked stiffly back to her desk. She couldn’t be off the case. She couldn’t. This was personal, and that’s why she needed to stick with it, but there was no convincing D’Annibal.
Sitting down, she stared into space. Then she snatched up her cell from where she’d left it on her desk and put a call into Jake, her eyes watching D’Annibal through the glass just in case he suddenly came out of hi
s office and overheard her.
It was hot and sweat dripped down his face and swept beneath his chin. He hadn’t gone to work today. He’d been on the way and decided to swing by Nine’s apartment. It was risky, but he got a hard-on being close to her and once or twice he’d caught her driving out of her apartment complex while he was parked at the curb. Had seen her face as she’d driven by on her way to work.
This morning he’d pulled into her lot. It was early and he parked in one of the farthest visitors’ spots, against the far wall, training his rearview mirror on her parking space beneath the portico of her building. Her car was there, so he knew he hadn’t missed her. He kept his hands on the steering wheel while excitement thrummed through him. He vibrated like a plucked guitar string.
And then the black SUV pulled into the lot and parked behind Nine’s car, and Nine got out of the passenger side, signaling to the man who climbed from behind the steering wheel that he was parked illegally. And what did he do? He pulled her to him and kissed her and she laughed, pushed away, but looked at him in that way. Like she wanted him to fuck her. Probably already had. That’s where she’d been all night! Screwing and moaning and rutting like Boonster’s sheep.
Who was he? Who was he?
And then the bastard turned and it was Jake Westerly.
His chest hurt. Jake Westerly. He’d been there, too. On the playground. In the hallways. One of the laughers. Laughing, laughing, laughing.
His erection collapsed. She was screwing Jake Westerly. He watched her open her door on the second floor and try to say good-bye to him, but he pushed his way inside and there was more laughing. Laughing, laughing, laughing!
The laughter rang inside his brain. He had to stop it.
Had to stop it.
Sinking back down on his couch he couldn’t look at the sea anemone picture right now. He kept his eyes closed and pulled himself into a ball. Had to keep the beast contained.
He sat, unmoving, for a long, long time.
Chapter 17
“If you could just . . . if you could . . .” Marilyn Cheevers took a shuddering breath. “If you could stay here with her, just for a while.”
Loni’s mother was shaking all over. This had been a close one. He put his arm around her shoulders and she turned into him and started bawling, clinging to him.
“This isn’t something I can fix,” he told her. Words he’d told her many times.
They were on a slow moving seesaw together, down when Loni was down and wouldn’t come out of her room except to shuffle across the floor and maybe take too many pills, up when she was effervescent to the extreme, her brain popping with ideas and plans, her body wired and in constant motion.
One or the other. A condition that had begun toward the end of high school, or maybe had just been too much for her to hide any longer, and then had progressively grown worse despite Loni’s constant claims to the contrary. “I’m better,” she’d told him. So many times he couldn’t count them. “If we got married, I know this won’t happen anymore.”
He knew it for the lie it was.
Marilyn knew it, too.
“I know it’s a lot to ask,” she said now, “but I need someone to stay with her. I’ve got some things to do that I can’t put off. I’ll only be gone an hour.”
Jake heard the emotional blackmail for what it was. And despite her words, Marilyn didn’t think it was a lot to ask. At some level Loni’s mother thought he owed it to her daughter. She hadn’t forgiven him for walking away even though his relationship with her daughter had turned him into a caretaker and Loni into a patient. It was never going to work, and Jake had finally just recognized that fact.
Did he feel guilty about it? Sure. And it was that guilt that contributed to his dissatisfaction with his own life. Oh, he got it, all right. He just hadn’t been able to act for a long time.
“I don’t think I can stay, Marilyn,” he said now, knowing he needed to, feeling like a heel anyway. “I’ve got a job.”
“With flexible hours,” she flashed at him in anger.
“I’m not dating your daughter. It’s over.”
“You could just stay for an hour. That’s all I’m asking!”
“No. It’s not.”
“What?” Her gaze flicked from him to her unconscious daughter and her lips trembled.
“It’s not all you’re asking.”
Immediately, her hot eyes turned back to him. “Did you ever care?” she asked, tearing up.
Before he could respond, his cell phone started ringing. When he pulled it from his pocket Marilyn Cheevers made a harrumphing noise, letting him know what she thought of that. He saw that the call was from September and he said, “Excuse me,” and moved past her into the hallway.
“Hey, there,” he said into the phone as he moved away from Loni’s room.
“Hi, I’m . . . having . ..”
“Having what?” he asked when her voice disappeared. “Don’t say second thoughts about last night.” When she still didn’t respond, he asked, “You still there?”
“Yeah, yeah . . . I’m sorry. I’m—D’Annibal took me off the case. Lieutenant D’Annibal. My superior.”
“Why?” he asked, glancing back at the door. He wouldn’t put it past Marilyn to follow him into the hallway, and almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind she was standing in the doorway. Catching him staring at her, her expression darkened and she ducked back inside.
“Jake, another piece of my schoolwork was sent to the station.”
“What?” He forgot about Marilyn and Loni and everything, his attention zeroing in on Nine.
“It was my sea anemone report. I don’t know exactly what grade it was. We were studying the ocean.”
“Fourth grade. I did one on blue whale migration.”
“My God . . . Jake . . .”
It was so unlike her to be undone that he wanted to hang up and run to her. He debated on just leaving, but decided he could at least tell Marilyn he was going. He started back to Loni’s room, saying, “I’ll be at the station in half an hour.”
“No. Don’t. I’m . . . let me meet you.”
“Nine.” He felt frustrated all to hell.
“Jake, he wrote ‘nine’ in a Roman numeral on the back of my report. I used to do that sometimes. I wrote my name like that. Everyone called me Nine, and I thought it was cool. But I didn’t put a nine on that report. He did it. He knows me.”
He stopped short, anxiety crawling all over him. “Then I’m glad you’re off the case,” he stated flatly.
“I have to figure this out. I can’t just stand by and let it happen.”
“It’s for your safety, Nine. Don’t you get it?”
“Of course I get it,” she said in a low, angry voice. “And I just got out of an interrogation with the feds about my family! They think it’s from them, and I don’t know, but I’m not giving up. I know I’m onto something.” She inhaled and exhaled. “Are you at your office? I can meet you there.”
“No, I’m . . . not . . . let’s meet in Laurelton?”
“How about Bean There, Done That? Do you know where it is?”
“Close to your apartment. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Where are you?” she asked, hearing something in his voice.
“On the eastside. See you in thirty.”
He clicked off and walked with long strides back to Loni’s room. When he entered, he saw her eyes were open and they lit up with relief upon seeing him, “Jake, you came.”
“I have to leave,” he told her, feeling Marilyn’s laser-like gaze boring into him though he wouldn’t look at her. “I’m glad to see you’re awake. I’ve got an appointment, but . . . I’ll be back,” he said.
“You can’t stay?” she asked in a small voice.
“No, Loni. I can’t.”
They stared at each other a few moments, then her eyes filled with tears and she plucked at the covers. “I’m sorry . . . I know you don’t want to be a part of my lif
e anymore . . . but I’m really, really better.”
Marilyn said, “If you could just stay for the next hour. Really, Jake.”
He turned from Loni and gazed at her mother. “I can’t,” he said. “I really can’t.”
And then he walked out, feeling surprisingly okay. He’d finally set the boundaries on his relationship with Loni. Something long overdue.
September’s cell rang as she walked through the coffee shop door. She recognized the ringtone as her sister, July. “Hey, July,” she said, looking around for a table. She would have preferred something tucked away so that she and Jake could talk in private but the booths were taken and so she settled on a table in the rear, though it was near the short hallway to the restrooms.
“I need a favor, Nine. A big favor.”
“Go ahead and ask. Don’t think it’ll happen, given my busy schedule, but go ahead. Ask.”
“Okay . . .” July said, responding to September’s sarcasm. “I need you to come to the house tonight. I want to talk to Dad about some stuff and I’d really like you to be there.”
“No.”
“I know about your fight with Dad. I was there.”
“Then, you know about the note Verna wrote,” September said. “Enough said.”
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re right. Verna was having an affair with our father and Mom found out.”
September was surprised by July’s cold tone. Her older sister had always seemed “on the other side” with March and their father. “I blame him,” September said simply.
“So do I. Come to the house tonight. We’ll have dinner. March is coming and Rosamund will undoubtedly be hanging around, and I’ve asked Dash, too.”
“Have you and Dash gotten closer?”
A pause. “Yes, actually. We have.”
“Is he baby-daddy material?”
“That isn’t in the cards. So, can I count on you?”
“You make it sound a little like a command performance,” September said.
“I want Auggie here, too.”
September actually laughed. “Yeah, well, I’d like a villa in France, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen anytime soon.”