She pressed the metal knob at the end of the chain into the slide and slipped the chain across before unbolting the door. She peered through the narrow opening. There was nothing.
“Dr. Schwartzman?”
“One more second, Martin.” She closed the door again and pressed her forehead to the wood. She would have to open it. She would have to unlatch the chain. “Martin,” she said out loud.
“I’m here, Doctor.”
“I’m opening the door. If I don’t come back on the line—”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
Martin said something indiscernible.
Schwartzman was already going. She unlatched the door, pulled it open, and stuck her head out into the hallway. The left was clear, but against the wall to the right of her door—just out of view from the peephole—was a huge bouquet of flowers.
They ranged from the palest to the most brilliant shades of yellow.
Yellow.
Spencer.
Schwartzman ducked back into her apartment and slammed the door. She spun the bolt and latched the chain. Shaking uncontrollably, she slid her back down the door until she was seated in a ball on the floor.
“Dr. Schwartzman? Are you all right?”
She was crying. “Send someone up immediately. Caleb. Send Caleb and tell him to remove the bouquet in the hallway but not to dispose of it. Martin, remove it from the hall but do not discard it, do you understand?”
“Yes. Of course, Doctor. A bouquet—of flowers?”
“Yes. Flowers,” she confirmed. “And have Caleb wear gloves.”
“Gloves?” he repeated.
“Or use a towel to carry it. Tell him not to touch it with his hands. I’m calling the police. Martin, do you understand?”
“Yes. Remove it, don’t touch it, don’t throw it away.”
Schwartzman got unsteadily to her feet. She didn’t have Jamie Vail’s number in her new phone. She hurried back across the apartment and lifted her old phone to check her contacts.
On the front screen was an iMessage from an unknown number. So nice to hear your voice yesterday, Bella.
Chapter 30
City Academy beat Marin Prep in an extra inning. It was a good game. Each team spent part of the game in the lead and the two were tied at three separate points. By the time it ended, it was after eight. Jamie was exhausted. Something about watching Z play baseball wound her nerves into a mess of frazzled yarn. Every time the ball came near him at second base or—later, after Paul was off the bench—at center field, she held her breath, tensing all the muscles in her body as though she might send him the right energy to make the catch or the play. It was worse when he was up to bat.
And she was calm compared to a lot of the parents.
Now, the exhaustion of all her worries pressed into her shoulders like lead hands, holding her down. She stood from the bench and arched her lower back, which was tight and sore. A talk with Z was her primary goal. The mitt was Paul’s. That was the biggest piece.
There were questions Z had to answer. She needed to know what he knew. He was evading answers. They’d missed the window for a family dinner, which was a relief. Traffic would have died down leaving the city, so she could be home by 9:00. That would give them an hour to talk before bed. She had to be up by 6:45 so that would give her nine hours. Nine hours of sleep…
She blinked, and Z bounded up the stadium seats. “The team’s going out. Can I go?” he asked, breathless. “I’ll get a ride home, I promise. Be in before midnight. Please.” He clasped his hands together for emphasis.
Travis Steckler chuckled.
“I don’t think—” Jamie started.
“Absolutely,” Tony said, giving Z a high-five and a man hug with lots of back patting. “You should celebrate with your friends.”
Neither Tony nor Z looked at her for input. Tony pulled forty dollars out of his wallet and handed it over. “Before midnight,” Tony said.
“Absolutely. I’ll be home before midnight.”
“You don’t have a phone,” she called to him as he was jogging back down the bleachers.
Z raised a hand at her. It was one part wave and one part something she couldn’t read. Was he agreeing that he would answer his phone? That he’d found it? Was he telling her to stop bothering him? Or was he reminding her that he couldn’t answer it because it was lost?
“We got his phone back today,” Tony said over one shoulder.
“You did? How?”
“It was at a friend’s house.”
“What friend?” she asked.
“Jacob, I think was his name. I didn’t meet him. Z ran into the Westfield Mall to get it.”
“The mall?” Jamie asked.
“Yeah. Guess he works there.”
Brenda touched Tony’s arm and he turned to talk to her.
Z had never mentioned a Jacob. She found her son back in the crowd of boys. She recognized Paul and Sam because they lived in the north bay. She knew them because they often drove Z home. But she didn’t know the others. Sure, they were familiar, but she didn’t know their names. Was Jacob on the baseball team?
Jamie recalled watching Z with Amanda Steckler and the other girls yesterday. Z had never mentioned Amanda Steckler. Or Charlotte. Or any girl. But he had talked to Amanda on the phone, talked to others Jamie didn’t know. Maybe he had talked to Charlotte.
The request for names on the unlisted phone numbers Z had called wasn’t back yet. Some embezzlement case was in front of her request and it was two thousand phone numbers or something. Jamie might have called in and gotten her small request bumped up, but not without calling attention to it. She wasn’t prepared to do that.
That was just Z’s phone calls. Who knew how many people he texted. Jamie was waiting for the phone company to get back to her on that. And she had no good way of seeing where else he was communicating. Not without getting his password to Instagram and Snapchat and whatever else he was doing. She saw all his public posts, but those apps all had private message boards.
He’s a teenager. A teenager who has settled into his new school. The first semester of his freshman year, he’d come home after school or practice every night. Now, he occasionally had sleepovers and went to the movies with other kids. Tony usually picked him up because his schedule was so much more predictable. And normal. Tony probably knew more about what Z was doing than she did. She was his mother, but Z needed a father, too. What on earth would she do without Tony?
She touched Tony’s back. The smile on his face stiffened slightly. “The parents are going to a local place for a burger or whatever…”
Tony was making plans to go to a bar.
“Do you want to come?” he asked, and she saw in his expression how badly he wanted to go.
“No,” she told him. “I’ve got some things to follow up on, but you should go. Have fun. Maybe you can coordinate with Z and make sure he has a ride home.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “Yes. I absolutely will.” He started to leave but turned back. “You’re okay with taking me to the airport in the morning?”
“Of course. I’ll be up and ready at 7:00.”
“Great. Thanks, Jamie.” Tony returned to Brenda and the two started down the bleachers. Soon, Travis Steckler, who had wandered away to greet some other parents, headed back her direction. “You joining the celebration?” he asked.
“Not me,” she said.
“You’ve had a long week.”
She thought again about that mitt. Down on the field, Z was in a huddle of boys, swatting each other in the way that boys did with their friends. Paul Shay was there, the whole mitt thing forgotten. She had so many questions about that damn mitt. She would submit it as evidence. For all the lab knew, she had only just discovered it. She’d have to create a story. She could say it had ended up with Z’s things. That Z and Paul often carpooled together, and it had probably been left behind. That was reasonable. It made sense. But she wanted to talk to Z.
T
here he was. Down on the field, laughing and smiling. His father hadn’t been a significant part of his life. Hadn’t been any part of his life in the past five years. But Michael Delman was his father and he had been killed yesterday. Right now, Z was distracted. He wasn’t thinking about his dead father or where he came from, what he’d been through. He wasn’t thinking about how his life would change if Tony left—when Tony left. He wasn’t thinking about any of the things that might have driven his surge of violence the other night.
They’d let it go.
Everyone except Jamie seemed to be enjoying a break from reality.
Jamie glanced around the stands. How many of them were thinking about the bomb that had gone off yesterday? Maybe a few, but even the police officers with their German Shepherds looked relaxed.
A hand pressed on her shoulder.
“You okay?” Steckler asked.
She nodded.
“Not very convincing.”
“Like you said, it’s been a long week,” she admitted. “I’m heading home.”
“Me, too.” He started down the bleachers. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your car.”
“I—”
“Not that you need a chaperone,” he added quickly.
She gave him a smile.
“I’m heading that way, too,” he said. “In fact, I’m the one getting a chaperone, after all. A decorated police inspector, you’ve already saved me once.”
“Stop,” she said.
He raised one hand. “Done.”
They walked quietly through the parents, many of whom greeted Steckler. A few told them they’d see him at Presidio’s, the pizza place where they were all headed. None said more than hello to Jamie. And why should they? She’d never made an effort to speak to any of them. This part of Z’s life had felt foreign. It also felt temporary. Of course, she had hoped that he would have four years at City Academy, but they always reminded her that there was no guarantee. That they might not be able to continue his scholarship. That it depended on grades. On behavior. On school politics and the board and… on and on. But she might have looked at it differently.
Steckler made no commitment either way. He, too, seemed tired. “Why aren’t you going tonight?”
“I’m not much for crowds,” he answered. She was taken aback by his honesty. They walked a few more steps, and he added, “And it has been a long week.”
They matched their stride, and the tension in her back and neck unwound a bit.
“How is Z doing?” Before Jamie could answer, he added, “About his father, I mean. His biological father.”
Normally, all her hackles would have stood on end. Instead, she considered how to respond. How was Z doing? How could she answer that when the truth was that she had no idea?
“When Mary died, Amanda was only seven. We’d been separated for a short time before that. Amanda lived with me. She had little interaction with her mother that last year.”
“I’m sorry,” Jamie said softly. She’d expected cancer or some awful car accident. In her mind, they’d been this perfect family until something tragic pulled them apart.
“She was an addict, Mary was.”
“That’s very difficult,” Jamie said.
“Amanda rebounded from it fairly well,” he said. “I mean, of course, she was upset. How could she not be? But she always seemed more distraught about the idea of losing a mother than about losing her mother specifically.”
“I can’t tell what Z feels about it,” Jamie offered, surprising herself. She didn’t think she’d ever spoken about Z to anyone other than Tony and the required conversations with his social worker and therapist after the adoption. “He was so upset when he saw his—father. But he hasn’t talked about it. Not that we’ve been together much since yesterday afternoon.”
“It’s hard to have a parent who fails on the basics of parenting,” Steckler said softly. “And it’s not entirely easy to be the parent who has to pick up after that. Mary left a bit of a mess after her death…”
Jamie waited for him to continue and when he didn’t, she said, “It’s got to be tough to do it alone, too.”
“Right,” he agreed. “I’m sure it’s been good that you two have each other.”
“I didn’t mean that,” she said.
“Oh, no. It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
“He’s moving,” she said. “He got a teaching job in Ohio.”
Steckler stopped. “Really? He’s leaving?”
“He hoped we’d come with him.”
He stared at her. “But you’re not, are you?”
“This is home for us,” Jamie said. “I couldn’t leave.”
“But he thinks that getting away would be good for Z,” Steckler said, as though he could read it on her face.
“Especially now.”
“Right.”
The case details had been kept under wraps, but Delman’s death meant all bets were off. Tomorrow’s paper would certainly include Delman’s involvement with Charlotte Borden’s assault. That he had delivered her to the hospital would make him look guilty. Even if he wasn’t. She had a hard time imagining he wasn’t. The press would have full access to create a giant exposé of his life. If they didn’t already…
She was guilty of exactly what she expected from the other parents. She was already judging Delman the way others would judge him. Worse, she had transferred that blame onto Z. She blamed the son for the sins of his father. Otherwise, why wouldn’t she have confronted him? She was no better than the others.
“Having a criminal for a parent doesn’t make you a criminal,” Steckler said.
She felt stunned and ashamed that he might have read her mind. “You think everyone agrees with you?”
“I know they don’t,” he said. “But they’re not raising Zephenaya. Or Amanda.”
They arrived at Jamie’s car. She glanced around the parking lot. He couldn’t be driving the blue Lexus. “Which one is yours?”
“I bought that one, there.” He pointed to a black sedan. It was a BMW or a Lexus. She couldn’t tell the difference. Expensive. Nice. “Kind of boring,” he added.
“I really liked the color of the Lexus,” she said.
“The blue. Me, too.”
She unlocked her car and he pulled the driver’s side open for her. “Good night, Jamie.”
She slid into the seat. “Good night, Travis.” The word filled her mouth.
He shut her door and walked away. As she started her engine and pulled her seatbelt across her chest, she watched him in the rearview mirror. He was surprising. She was grateful.
Chapter 31
Jamie’s iPhone screen announced that the call was coming from the new contact number Schwartzman had sent, but she was startled to hear the medical examiner’s voice. Jamie’s thoughts circled like a lasso around her head. Schwartzman would call if they’d found another body, but Jamie should have heard about another attack directly. Something about Delman that related to Z? But Z was innocent. He had to be.
But what about that damn mitt?
“What’s going on?” Jamie asked into the phone as she swung her feet onto the floor to ground herself for the news.
“I’m sorry to call so late. On the weekend.” Schwartzman’s voice was slow, but there was a breathless quality that Jamie hadn’t heard before.
“It’s fine,” Jamie assured her, glancing at the clock. It was 12:33 a.m. She must have been asleep, and yet it didn’t seem like the phone had awakened her. “I didn’t get a text,” Jamie said. “Is there another victim?”
“No.” Schwartzman exhaled. “Yes. You could call it that. It’s me.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m home. I’m safe.”
Jamie eased back down onto the bed. “What happened?”
“It might have waited until morning, but…”
“It’s okay. Tell me what happened,” Jamie said.
Schwartzman exhaled. “I received a gift.”
“Of?
”
“Yellow flowers.”
Schwartzman was from the south. Early to mid-thirties meant she was old enough to have been married. And from the phone call, Jamie guessed she’d married badly. “An ex?”
“Yes.”
“Is he in town?”
“I don’t think so, but he’s found my address, which isn’t good.”
“How long since you’ve seen him?”
“Seven years four months.” She stopped, but Jamie suspected Schwartzman could have told her how many days had passed if she’d asked.
“Any idea how he found your address?” Jamie asked.
“Some idea.”
When she didn’t expand on the comment, Jamie said, “How can I help?”
Schwartzman took a breath. Jamie could tell it wasn’t easy for her to ask. “I have requested the security footage from my building, but it’s not as easy as getting them to send me the file in an e-mail. I was hoping maybe the crime lab would look at it.”
“Of course. We’ll have Roger do it.”
“Thank you.”
“What else?”
“I want the lab to run prints on the flowers—the vase and packaging. If that’s possible,” Schwartzman added.
“I imagine you’re hoping to keep your name off the case file?”
Her exhale was audible. “Yes.”
“We can do that. I’m not in the city now, so I’d like to call Vich to come over.” Jamie sensed Schwartzman’s hesitation. “He’s good, Schwartzman. And trustworthy. I wouldn’t put him anywhere near my victims if he wasn’t.”
“Okay,” Schwartzman said. “That’s fine.”
“In the meantime, do you have somewhere else to stay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You have an alarm?” Jamie asked.
“I have several precautions, and the building is secure. I’ve let the management company know about the break-in.”
“Someone broke in to deliver the flowers?” Jamie asked.
“Yes. Well, I assume,” she said. “There is no record of a flower delivery person being let into the building.”
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