Arousing Suspicions

by Marianne Stillings

  “She could be the killer, or an accessory.”

  “I know.”

  “But you don’t think she is.”

  “No.”

  “You said her name’s Tabitha March?” Ethan asked. “I’ll run a background. See what pops.”

  “Oh, right,” Nate drawled. “Paladin Private Investigations has all the best toys.”

  “Damned straight, little brother,” Ethan said. “I can have more information on the lady in five minutes than you can get in a week.”

  True enough. Ethan’s PI firm had state-of-the-art everything, and the manpower to back it up. Paladin was a roaring success, pushing Nate’s brother into millionaire territory. The SFPD could never keep up. Nate had some information on Tabitha, but using his brother’s connections would garner him a whole lot more in a fraction of the time.

  “Thanks,” Nate said. “You have my number.”

  As he was about to disconnect, Ethan spoke again. “Hang on, Nate. My turn. I have a question. Consider it a trade. A thorough background check on the March woman for one straight answer from you. Deal?”

  Nate’s spine straightened and his instincts went on alert. What in the hell was this about? “Depends on the question.”

  His gaze settled on the round clock above the counter across the room. Twelve minutes after ten. With military precision, the thin black blade of the second hand twitched across the numeral four. As it slid over the five and dropped toward six, Ethan finally spoke.

  “Fair enough.”

  The second hand ticked on by seven, starting its upward climb. As it passed over eight, Nate said, “So? Ask.”

  “Why did you really want to know about the house in San Rafael?”

  Did the game go on, or did it end here? Nate wondered. The truth, for once, or more charades?

  Averting his eyes from the clock, he grabbed his coffee and took a gulp. They were adults now. Men. The time for mind games with his brother was over.

  “Remember when we lived in that house, you know, with Mom and Dad and you and me, and then Andie was born? I know it was a long time ago, still…”

  He tapped his spoon against the side of his cup. “We, uh, we had a clubhouse made out of cardboard, next to the garage where we played poker for Good & Plentys. But not the pink ones because they were for girls. We fed the pink ones to Pounce and then she threw up licorice all over Mom’s favorite bathroom rug. Remember?”

  “Yeah,” Ethan said quietly. “What about it?”

  Nate rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I, uh, I was happy in that house. Life was uncomplicated. You and me, we were good back then. We were content or something in a way I haven’t been since. You know what I mean?”

  When his brother said nothing, Nate growled, “Ethan? Goddammit, Ethan. Did that answer your question?”

  “Yeah,” Ethan said. “It answers my question. And you’re right, Nate. It was a long time ago.”

  No sooner had Tabitha hung up the phone than the front doorbell chimed.

  Grabbing for her purse on the table in the foyer, she dug around until she found Inspector Darling’s badly crumpled card, then raced back to the kitchen.

  At the sink, Victoria was busy filling a teakettle with cold water, oblivious to her daughter’s distress.

  “Mom,” Tabitha whispered. When her mother glanced over her shoulder, Tabitha said, “Take this card. Call this number. Tell him to come. Now.”

  With her free hand, Victoria reached for the card. Squinting at it, she said, “Now, honey, you know it’s just one big blur without my glasses.” She laughed. “Why, I can barely see your hand, let alone such tiny print. Getting old is such a pain in the—”

  “I know, I know,” Tabitha hurried. “Get your glasses and call this number. It’s very important.”

  The doorbell chimed again.

  Victoria turned off the tap and set the kettle on the stove. “Tabby? Is something the matter?”

  Tabitha backed out of the kitchen. “No. I mean, I’m not sure. I’ll explain later, Mom. Call the number. Tell him Mr. Griffin is here. Tell him to come now.”

  Practically running to the front of the house, she curled her fingers around the doorknob, dread clenching her stomach into a tight knot.

  “Mr. Griffin,” she said through a strained smile as the door creaked on its hinges.

  He stood on the covered porch, facing her, his body tense, fists balled at his sides. Through blue eyes rimmed with red, he watched her. His mouth, a straight line across his face, was nearly lost under the growth of beard stubble.

  Buy time, she told herself. Do everything slowly. Buy time.

  Behind her, Winkin clattered and skidded to a halt on the hardwood floor, barking up a storm.

  “Shush, Winks,” she scolded, then licked her dry lips. After the dog had satisfied himself it was somebody he recognized, he sneezed and clicked back down the hall to the kitchen.

  Jack Griffin appeared anxious and disheveled. Instead of the neat clothing he usually wore, he was in torn jeans and a gray sweatshirt, looking like he’d spent the night curled up inside the corner of the drunk tank. Lowering his gaze, he neither smiled nor acknowledged her existence as he brushed past her to head straight for her office.

  Tabitha peered outside, searching the sidewalks, hoping against hope Darling had hung around the neighborhood—but the street was empty and silent.

  Her heart thudded heavily as she walked toward her office. Slipping inside, she began to close the door, but left it slightly ajar…just in case. Griffin sat at the table, his hand outstretched, his foot tapping in nervous jerks.

  “Would you like something to drink?” she offered. He looked up at her, shook his head.

  Taking the seat across the table from him, she said, “Are you all right? I couldn’t help but notice you seem very anxious.”

  His back hunched over, his shoulders drooping, he nodded, then wiped his jaw with his hand. His fingers trembled.

  “Mr. Griffin, please tell me what’s wrong.” Her voice was a whisper, and she hoped he hadn’t heard the fear in it.

  “Dream,” he said at last. “Bad. Uh, I, uh—” He swallowed, bit his lower lip. “Can we start, please?”

  Tabitha reached for his hand, but her attention was on the street outside. No sirens, no shouts, nothing. Had her mother found her glasses and called Inspector Darling, or was she on her own with this possibly homicidal killer?

  She laid her hand palm up on the table, and Griffin set his into hers. His skin was damp and she wanted to yank her hand away and run.

  “Close your eyes,” she instructed, doing the same, “and tell me your—”

  “I killed someone,” he rushed. “Again. I…it happened, I mean, the dream happened four nights ago.”

  Behind her closed lids, Tabitha began to see shapes, vague outlines, pastel silhouettes, but no solid forms.

  “Go on.” Her voice sounded amazingly calm, considering what was going on inside her stomach at the moment.

  “I wrote it down, in the dream log, like you said. The dream had faded a lot by the time I was awake enough to make notes, but the more I wrote, the more I remembered.”

  He sucked in a raspy breath. “In the dream, I was walking up a steep city street. I don’t know which one.”

  “Okay, I see it,” Tabitha whispered. Buildings formed in her head, bay windows protruding. Cars parked bumper-to-bumper, half on the sidewalks on the narrow San Francisco street.

  She felt Griffin’s hand clench into a ball and she curled her fingers around it to try and ease his trembling.

  “An old man appeared from around a corner,” he rasped, “and I realized he’d come out of an alley. I was afraid of him for some reason. He asked me for money, but I didn’t have any. He…he went back into the alley and I followed him. It was dark and I couldn’t see anything. Then I heard him make a screaming sound and I looked down and I had this bottle in my hand. I don’t know how it got there.”

  “Mr. Griffin,” Tabitha soothed.
“Maybe you’d rather not—”

  “I hit him!” he cried. “I hit him, and he went down without a sound. He lay there, staring up at me, knowing as he was dying what I’d done, that I’d taken his life. I—I stood there and realized he knew me, knew who I was. He called my name…and it was a sad sound.” A sob escaped his throat and he choked. “A real sad sound.”

  The alley assembled itself in Tabitha’s head. Dark shapes, two men, one standing, one lying on his back, arms outstretched as though he were floating on a sea of crumpled newspapers. Garbage bags, like glossy black boulders, stood in misshapen heaps along the corridor.

  A moan, then a bottle smashed to the pavement, shattering into a thousand pieces.

  “What happened after that?” Her own voice trembled as she asked the question.

  “I…I let the bottle fall from my hand. It broke, and I stared down at the pieces like they were a beautiful green mosaic, all glittering-like, and fitted together in some crazy design.”

  He jerked his hand free of hers, holding it cradled against his chest.

  “Mr. Griffin,” she said quietly. “Perhaps you need to seek the help of a therapist. I can see how your dreams have increasingly distressed you, and while I can help you interpret them, I can’t go beyond—”

  “But it wasn’t a dream!” he shouted, jumping up from his chair. “I mean, it was, but then there was the blood! All the blood!”

  Tabitha stood and stepped back from the table, back from Jack Griffin and his wild eyes and shaking hands.

  “I didn’t see any bl—”

  “When I woke up,” he choked, his voice thick with panic. “My hands were covered with blood. How did it get there? Am I crazy? I am. I’m crazy, aren’t I?”

  “Mr. Griffin…”

  Where in the hell are you, Darling?

  “Why don’t you sit down,” she suggested. Her heart was running a mile a minute, pounding in her ears. She kept the table between them while she thought of ways to calm him. “I can make you some tea and we can talk about—”

  “You know about me, don’t you?” he accused. His eyes burned like blue flames in their sockets as he glared at her. “You know what I did.”

  “I know what you dreamed,” she reasoned calmly. “That’s…What are you doing? No. Stay there. No! Mr. Griffin!”

  He lunged across the table at her, and she reached behind her for anything she could grab. Her fingers wrapped around a book, but before she could slam it into his face, his fingers were at her throat.

  “Listen to me,” he begged through clenched teeth. “Please, just listen…”

  She tried to scream, but he’d effectively stifled her lung power. With the table between them, she couldn’t knee him in the groin, so she let her body go slack, dropping to the floor, shifting her weight, and throwing him off balance enough to break his hold.

  As she went down, her head slammed into the wall, sending a burst of starlight behind her closed lids. Amid the sparkling display, an image formed of the detective who hadn’t arrived in time to save her life.

  Chapter 6

  Before you go to sleep, place a horseshoe, a leaf, or a key under your pillow, and you will dream of a future lover.

  FOLKLORE

  “I’m ‘kay…yeah, okay…‘s all right…I’ll be okay…”

  Someone was speaking, but Tabitha couldn’t make out who it was. With her eyes half closed, she tried to concentrate on the voice. Then she felt her lips move.

  “I’m all right,” she whispered slowly, knowing now it was she who spoke. How long had she been muttering away like an overmedicated parrot?

  She opened her eyes to stare at a woman standing directly in front of her. The woman appeared vaguely familiar, but her skin was pale and she seemed a little fuzzy around the edges. Tabitha blinked again, and so did the woman.

  Like a zombie waking from cryogenic storage, she gradually became aware of her fingers, and that they were curled over something smooth and cool. She looked down. White porcelain. A sink? Her head lifted and she gazed into her own reflection in the oval mirror.

  Two people floated behind her in the reverse bathroom. To her right, a short woman with worried blue eyes held a cloth to the back of Tabitha’s head.

  “Oh. Hi, Mom,” she murmured. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

  Her mother nodded, but said nothing.

  To her left stood a tall, hot-looking man in a suit. The man had his arm around her waist and seemed to be holding her up. He’d tucked her into his side, and for a moment she gazed at him dreamily and hoped they were together. His eyes were an incredibly soft, sensitive brown, and she wondered if he loved her.

  “Hi.” She smiled sleepily.

  His eyes showed surprise for a moment, then he gently said, “Hi, yourself.” He had a great voice. Deep and sexy.

  She vaguely remembered being married. Was this her husband? He’d make a great father to her babies…they’d be so beautiful…

  “I’m okay,” she said to him, and he grinned down at her as though she’d said something adorable.

  Mmm. His mouth. Curves and edges. Kiss-ability quotient high. She smiled at him again and was about to ask him his name, when a dark image pushed its way into her brain. Memories began snapping into place. In her heart, that little flame of hope she’d had about him—and them, and their babies—weakened and died.

  She remembered now. It was him.

  “You’re not the father of my children,” she accused.

  His brows arched. “Depends. Where were you the night of—”

  “You’re that detective person.” She waited for him to deny it.

  “That’s quite a bump you’ve got back there,” he said, his unsympathetic brown eyes hard and callous—now that she knew who he was.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Tabby?” Victoria said, her voice shaky. “Are you really all right? How many fingers am I holding up? What’s your favorite color? Who won the 1962 World Series?”

  “Geez, Mom, I’m not a Nazi spy,” she said, even though her head throbbed where she’d slammed into the wall. “I’m really all right. You’re holding up two fingers, and my favorite color is garnet.” Aware of Darling’s hand against her ribs, just below her breast, she wiggled a little and said, “You can let go of me now, Inspector.”

  “Sure. When you tell me who won the 1962 World Series.”

  In the mirror, their eyes met for a moment, then Tabitha glanced away. Inspector Darling was too good-looking and she had learned a long time ago to avoid a man who would never love a woman more than he loved himself—even if he would have given her beautiful babies.

  “Did you catch him?” she said to the antique porcelain hot-water knob.

  “Griffin? No.”

  “It’s my fault,” Victoria rushed, tossing the damp cloth into the sink. “By the time I found my glasses and called the detective—”

  “It’s okay, Mom.” She patted her mother’s hand. “Not to worry. Why am I in the bathroom?”

  Inspector Darling spoke up. “When I arrived, you were halfway down the hall, muttering over and over that you were okay. Maybe you thought you were going to be sick. Are you?”

  “I told you, I’m fine. You can let me go now.”

  He dipped his head to try to catch her gaze in the mirror. “You probably don’t even know who played in the 1962 World Series, let alone who won, do you?”

  This time, she did look at him, and scowled. “San Francisco Giants versus the New York Yankees, Candlestick Park. Final score, one–zip…Yankees. Damn their hides.”

  For a moment his eyes went all dreamy, like he’d just heard a band of angels sing the national anthem or something. “You really know your baseball.” His eyes hardened again when he continued, “Did Griffin assault you?”

  She shook her head. “He grabbed for my throat, but I was on the other side of the table and he couldn’t get a good grip. I jerked backward to try and get away, and banged my head against the wall. I don’t remember
anything after that.”

  “I heard the commotion,” Victoria offered. “But by the time I got there, he was running out the door.”

  Darling raised his hand to gently move Tabitha’s hair out of the way while he examined her throat. Frowning, he touched her skin. His fingers were rough and warm, and she took special care to guard herself against any images.

  “Okay, Ms. March,” he said. “How about we go sit down. I want to get a complete statement—”

  The sound of a siren blasting up the street cut him off.

  “Paramedics,” he said when she looked up at him. His fingers were still pressed into her ribs.

  “I don’t need—”

  “Is she always this bullheaded and argumentative?” he interrupted, shooting a quick look at Victoria.

  Her mom cocked her head as she seemed to consider the question. She slid her gaze to Tabitha, then to the detective, then slowly back to Tabitha. A gleam sparked from her eyes, as though she’d just gotten the punch line of some subtle joke.

  “Mm-hmm,” she purred. “But something tells me she may have met her match.”

  Peter O’Hara closed the bedroom door behind him, and with the palm of his hand flipped the brass deadbolt, letting the staccato snap reverberate in his head. His shoulders relaxed.

  There. Safe now. Safe at last.

  He’d managed to make it to his room without encountering his sister, the housekeeper, his private secretary, or any of the maids. Jesus, what would they think if they saw him? What did he think of himself, for that matter?

  The drive across the Golden Gate Bridge to his estate in Marin had been a nightmare, but he’d stayed focused, obeyed all the traffic laws, done nothing to attract attention. Turning onto the long drive leading to the house, the four gardeners, busy trimming and mowing the grounds, had recognized his car, and all smiled and waved. He’d tooted the horn in acknowledgment, glad he’d opted for the tinted windows in the Jag, glad, too, his employees couldn’t get a load of his ravaged appearance.