The Perfect Man

by Kristine Dexter

  “You ever think that the flower delivery was staged?” Tasha asked.

  “To get me arrested?” There was no way the Creep could have known that would happen. That had to be serendipity.

  “No,” Tasha said. “To get him inside. He would have to have known that you would have had some sort of reaction. You might have left the door open for a brief moment and stepped away from it, giving him a chance to sneak in—”

  “You think he was in the yard then?” Rick asked.

  “It’s possible,” she said.

  “Besides, your neighbor says you have a habit of slamming things into your garbage can,” Rassouli said. “Maybe he thought you’d get the flowers, wait till the delivery guy left, and slam the flowers into the garbage can like you always do, leaving the door unlocked then.”

  “What good would it have done him to get in while I was home?” Rick asked, and then felt a shiver run through him. He already knew the answer to that question.

  There was compassion in Tasha’s green eyes. “The key is that he didn’t get in.”

  “You think he would have tried to get me to open my office door.”

  Rassouli nodded. “If this nutball is what you say he is, this is how it would have played out. He would have got in, tried to free his lady love, failed, then come to find you. He’d’ve made you open the door. Now, if you’d refused, he’d’ve lost it and attacked you—probably killing you—”

  “Lou!” Tasha said.

  “—and if you had opened it, he would have made you take him to wherever the object of his dreams was hiding. And since she doesn’t exist, that would’ve been bad for you. Either way, it’s good that things turned out the way that they did. Now do you see why we want you out of the house?”

  “Yeah, I do.” Rick hated logic. Logic had made him move from Chicago in the first place. Logic was going to get him out of Portland yet. “If I leave, though, he’ll just break in tonight.”

  “You batten down the hatches, as you say, turn on your alarms and if he breaks in, we have him.” Tasha sounded enthusiastic. “Once inside, he’s not going to go anywhere. He’s going to try to open that door.”

  “My office.” His haven. The most private place in his whole world. He had to risk that to catch this idiot. “You can’t just station someone outside the house?”

  “You do got a hell of an imagination, don’t you?” Rassouli asked.

  Tasha elbowed her partner. She had obviously tried to do it surreptitiously, but Rick saw it anyway. “We don’t have the budget or manpower for that, Rick. Even if we did, all that would do is delay the inevitable. Your guy isn’t going to show up if the police are here—and if he is crazy enough to show up, once it’s dark our guys could miss him until it’s too late. It would give you false security, and it wouldn’t help us at all.”

  “So,” Rassouli said. “You got some place to go?”

  “I think there are enough hotels in Portland that I can manage,” Rick said.

  Tasha gave him a strange look. What had she expected him to do, go to his family? She should have understood after the weekend they’d just spent together.

  “When you do leave, make a show of it,” Rassouli said. “We want this guy to think you’re gone, leaving your lady friend unprotected.”

  Rick nodded. He was actually queasy. If the Creep had tried to break down the door, it would only be a matter of time. And then he would destroy all that was precious to Rick.

  He would have to take his computer files and the MacBook with him. Everything else he would have to trust to the cops.

  To Tasha.

  “Rick,” she was saying, “do you have anything from this guy—notes, cards, anything?”

  “Some early stuff in a file, I think,” he said. “The Chicago police have more of it.”

  “Well, I can’t call Chicago today, but I can see what you have.” She put her hand on Rassouli’s arm. Rick envied the casual ease between the two of them. “Lou, why don’t you call for the forensic team? I’ll stay with Rick until they show.”

  He knew it wasn’t just kindness. She wanted to make sure he didn’t damage any of the evidence they did have—destroy fingerprints, dislodge fibers—but he felt grateful just the same. He had never felt more alone in his entire life.

  “We still got Pfeiffer,” Rassouli said to her, his voice tight.

  “And we’ll be on it in a couple of hours.”

  Rassouli grunted and headed toward the car. Rick turned to Tasha to thank her, but she was already letting herself into his house.

  ***

  Beebe sat in his car, the binoculars pressed so hard against his eyes that he was giving himself a headache. Damn, damn, damn them all. He’d almost freed her. Then Chance had come home. The police hadn’t held him after all.

  Couldn’t they see how dangerous he was? He nearly killed that guy in his front lawn. God only knew what he was doing to Jessamyn, beautiful, fragile Jessamyn, locked in that hideous room with no way out.

  Beebe had had a few moments of hope when the cops had shown up again. He’d thought they were coming to rectify their error, to arrest Chance once and for all. But they let him wait outside and they went in—and he’d suddenly understood.

  Somehow Chance knew he had gotten inside. Had he seen the marks on the door? He wouldn’t have told the cops about that, and they wouldn’t have found that door. It had taken him nearly an hour to do so himself. Chance had planned Jessamyn’s imprisonment for a long time—having that wall built in the center of that basement.

  The man was evil. The police had to know that.

  They should have kept Chance at the station, put him in jail, locked him away. Then Beebe would have been able to get to Jessamyn.

  He fingered the axe on the bucket seat beside him. So close, and yet so far. Imagine if he had gotten in. He would have been chopping that door down when Chance got home. And then it really would have gotten ugly.

  What if Chance had attacked him the way he attacked that poor deliveryman? Would Beebe have been able to defend himself?

  His fingers tightened on the axe. For his Jessamyn, he could have. He would have had to.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  WHEN RICK ENTERED the house, he found Tasha standing in his living room, her back to him. She looked like she belonged there. Her blond hair was coming out of its neat bun, tendrils falling on the back of her neck. Her willowy frame was outlined in sunlight coming through the picture window.

  Each time he saw her, she looked more beautiful than the last.

  She was holding a book in her gloved hands, and as he turned, he saw that it was one of the research books for his current novel, Roger Angell’s Boys of Summer.

  “I didn’t know you were a baseball fan,” she said.

  “About as stone as they come,” he said. “I was living in paradise before I moved here—a city with two teams, both of which had a long, although not necessarily glorious, history. I had hoped to spend my summer in Wrigley and Comiskey when I proposed this book. Now, as it turns out, I’ll be lucky if I manage to see a single game.”

  Her green eyes held compassion. She set the book down. “You want to show me what he’s done?”

  “He did what you just did,” Rick said.

  She frowned, glancing at the table.

  “That’s one of the ways I’d known he was here. He’d taken the book I was reading, closed it, and put it on the table. He must have been looking at it.”

  “It wasn’t the one I just held was it?”

  Rick shook his head. “It was the one next to it.”

  She glanced at it. “Demolition Angel, by Robert Crais. A thriller. How come you don’t write thrillers?”

  “I do,” Rick said. “It’s just that I make the love story more important than the suspense.”

  “Is it all technique then?” She sounded disappointed.

  “No.” It was surreal, standing in his violated house, talking writing to a police officer he was so attracted to he could hardl
y keep his distance. “It’s personal inclination, I think.”

  She nodded, as if that made sense to her. Then she squared her shoulders. He could almost see the mantle of duty fall on them. “Well, I suppose we should get to it.”

  “We’re in luck,” he said, not feeling particularly lucky. “The files are in my office—the only room we can be sure he didn’t get into.”

  “As long as we don’t touch the door going in, we’ll be all right.” She waited for him to lead the way.

  The basement door was propped open with the doorjamb that the old owners used to use. He had only seen the door in the position once—the day he and the realtor had looked at the house. It seemed strange, another violation, or a reminder of the one that had happened.

  This house wasn’t his any more. Not in the way it had been. The Creep had part of it now, a part Rick wasn’t sure how to get back.

  He led the way down the stairs, wondering how Tasha had felt when she had come down here, looking for the Creep. Had she been nervous, frightened? Had she worried about protecting herself? Or was she one of those supremely confident police officers who never worried about anything?

  He could feel her behind him, her breath in his hair, her warmth near his back. It reminded him of how it had felt to hold her while they were dancing, the way her head fit against his shoulder as if their bodies had been designed to be together. Women usually weren’t tall enough just to rest their heads against his shoulder. Usually they leaned against his chest, or held themselves back so that there was just a bit of distance.

  Tasha hadn’t maintained any distance at all. Then, anyway.

  When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he turned and felt a pang when he saw that his office door was open. He never left that open either. It was symbolic more than anything: his office—his writing—had become his secret. With the door open, he felt more revealed than he ever had in his life.

  Tasha had already been in there, with that partner of hers, looking at Rick’s stuff, seeing—maybe for the first time—that he hadn’t lied to her. Seeing a room that no one else in the world had seen.

  And now he was going to lead her in there again.

  He walked his normal path to the office, still feeling strange. Normally, as he crossed this concrete floor, he was already thinking about what he would work on next—the way his characters would act in the upcoming scene or how they would get themselves out of the current jam.

  He never used his office for anything other than writing. He did the rest of his computer work upstairs. His Chicago friends had always thought Rick made his money on the Internet—doing stock trades and buying and selling on eBay. He hadn’t dissuaded them. He had increased his portfolio that way, and he did make his living on the computer, just not in the way that they had imagined.

  Not even Rita, the girlfriend the Creep had confused with Jessamyn, had known how he’d made his living. During the tense three months she’d lived with him, he hadn’t done any writing at all. Ostensibly, he’d been researching the next novel, but he’d been so upset over the Creep’s constant attentions, he could barely think about anything else.

  Rick went through his office door. The lights were still on. The upper drawer on the file cabinet was open an inch, and he wondered if Tasha or her partner had dug in there. Probably Rassouli. He seemed to have a lot of trouble believing that a man would write under a woman’s name.

  Tasha hovered in the doorway, apparently waiting for him to invite her. While it was polite, it ignored the fact that she’d already been here, pawing through his stuff.

  “Come on,” he said more gruffly than he’d intended.

  She stepped across the threshold. It almost felt as if she were stepping inside his mind.

  “It is a cozy room,” she said again.

  “It’s too big to be cozy.” He turned to the file cabinet, pushed the top drawer closed with his shoulder, and crouched, pulling open the bottom drawer.

  There, in the back, was the Nutball file. Every major author had one, probably every public personality did. Rick got all his own fan mail, then forwarded it in a lump to a part time secretary he’d hired years ago in Chicago. She used a personalized form letter to answer most of it. Occasionally, he hand-scrawled a note and then sent it to her, with the original letter clipped to the back, so that she could type an envelope and mail everything out.

  She was his biggest writing expense. Otherwise, he would spend most of his time answering mail, not writing novels. She even handled Jessamyn Chance’s website and answered the e-mail that Rick forwarded to her from his second Jessamyn Chance account.

  Not even his secretary knew who he was.

  Now Tasha and Rassouli—and maybe the entire Portland police department—did.

  “I’ve never been in a writer’s office before,” Tasha said. “Don’t you get claustrophobic here?”

  He thumbed through the files until he found the other one he was looking for. As he pulled out both the Nutball file and the file he’d originally kept on the Creep, he said, “When I’m in here, I’m not really here, if you know what I mean.”

  He stood. She was frowning at him. Apparently, she didn’t know what he meant.

  “I spend most of my time in my head, Tash. In an imaginary world. That one usually has windows. Or great outdoor views. And lots of adventure. Until the Creep showed up, the greatest adventure in my life was going to a Cubs game.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. The greatest adventure in his life had been leaving home after the Teri debacle. But he wasn’t going to tell Tasha that.

  He handed her the files. “I never really checked to see if some of the early stuff in the crazy file was from him. I noticed him only gradually. Usually these guys send a one-shot letter, and then nothing else. But the repeaters come to your attention after a while.”

  “Mind if I sit down?” she asked.

  He didn’t want her—he didn’t want anyone—in his chair. That was just too personal, in a way he couldn’t explain at all.

  “Take the couch,” he said. Then he leaned over and grabbed the MacBook off of it. He’d left that on too. Which suddenly made him realize he hadn’t shut anything off upstairs when he’d confronted the delivery guy.

  It could wait. He didn’t want to leave Tasha down here alone.

  She took the files around his desk to the couch and sat there, looking like she belonged. A tendril of hair brushed her cheek, and he longed to tuck it behind her ear, then trace the firm line of her chin as he tilted her head toward his...

  Oh, God. He wasn’t used to curbing his imagination in this room. Usually, he allowed himself free rein to imagine anything. He didn’t dare do that, not at the moment.

  He made himself sit in his chair, and then he tapped the space bar. The sleep function went off the computer, revealing the letter he’d started writing his agent before the rehearsal dinner. He’d forgotten he’d even been writing it—that was how distracted he’d been lately.

  He hit save and closed the file. Then he started backing up all his current work. He would transfer all of it to the MacBook so that he could work in the hotel.

  “My god,” Tasha said. “I didn’t realize you got letters like this.”

  “It’s not so bad,” he said. “My stuff doesn’t seem to bring out the kooks the way some of the horror writers stuff does. Usually I get very nice letters from people all over the country, telling them that my books have given them a few hours of pleasure.”

  He cherished those letters, too. They showed that what he did touched lives. It meant more to him than he could say.

  The shrill ring of the phone made him jump. Even Tasha looked startled.

  “You got a second line?” she asked.

  “Upstairs,” he said. “You think it’s the Creep?”

  “He calls, doesn’t he?”

  “Sometimes.” The phone rang again. “If it’s him, I’ll put it on speaker. You can listen that way.”

  “All right,” Tasha said,
although she didn’t sound happy about it.

  He reached across his desk and picked up the phone. “Yeah?”

  “Such a polite greeting,” said the voice on the other end. “I seem to recall Mother teaching us to say, ‘Hello, Chance residence’ in that chirpy tone of voice. She’d chastise you for that abruptness, Rick, saying it wasn’t very Northwest.”

  Jane. He’d forgotten all about calling his sister. “I haven’t been chirpy for years.”

  Tasha tilted her head slightly as if she couldn’t believe what he had just said.

  “Maybe it’s time to rethink that. Chirpy might make you seem a little less macho, a little more vulnerable. Women like vulnerable.”

  Then they’d really like him right now. “Chirpy would probably make me look ridiculous.”

  Tasha was frowning at him. He shook his head at her. She shrugged and then went back to the files.

  “So,” Jane said, “am I bringing food or are you cooking?”

  He paused. He had no idea what to say to her. He had forgotten all about the meal, and he didn’t know how to explain the predicament he was in.

  “Look, Jane, something’s come up...”

  Tasha looked up at the mention of Jane’s name. Did she know Jane was his sister’s name? Or was she feeling just a little jealous?

  “So Friday’s not good,” Jane said. “I’ve got Saturday free. Hell, I’ve got Thursday and Sunday free too. The life of a single woman whose only son has just gotten married. I really don’t want to think about the fact that my baby is on his honeymoon right now.”

  “So spending time with your other baby is better?”

  Jane laughed. The sound was normal and reassuring. He hadn’t realized how much he needed that. “It’s a regular tonic, Li’l Ricky.”

  His childhood nickname, from the I Love Lucy Show. He’d hated the name then. It warmed him now.

  “How about we go out to dinner?” he asked.

  “Out? But the point was for me to see your place.”

  “I know, but it’s just not good for that right now—”

  “What, are you burying bodies in the basement? I’ve seen remodel messes and if it’s the everyday sort, I can handle that. I have a son, remember?”