“I’m a PI, remember?”
My hands were suddenly sweaty and I wiped my palms on my skirt. “So,” I said, needing to redirect, “why’s Dobbs hooking up with Amelia?”
“Ahh,” he said. “There it is, hooking up. Maybe she’s got something he wants.”
His answer made the back of my neck tingle. Dobbs approached Amelia on purpose and she’d fallen into his lap, literally.
“Amelia did nothing but sit in the railcar that day. What could she have that he wants?”
“He might be looking for Hilary and figures Amelia can lead him to her.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know yet, but you better tell her to be careful.”
If I told her Nick’s suspicions then I’d have to come clean about hiring him, and the more people that knew about Nick would increase the chances for a slip in front of Ben. The result would be a monster of an argument.
“What about his father?” I asked.
“Not in the picture,” he said. “Never was.”
“So mom’s dead and there’s no father. Why’s their name still on the mailbox? Anyone living there?’
“You told me no knocking on doors, remember?”
“It might be time to start.” I heard the shower turn off. “I gotta go. Keep in touch, Nick.”
“My pleasure.”
I hung up the phone feeling the same way I had the day he’d picked me up in the rain with my bicycle. He knew my secrets and still made me feel like I was worth his time.
While Ben dressed in the bedroom, I forced my thoughts back to the issue at hand. Dobbs wasn’t bad looking. Twenty years ago girls probably found him pretty cute. He didn’t strike me as a guy who’d ever had much of a dry spell. So why would he molest a nine-year-old? And why was he here now? What could Amelia possibly have that was important enough to make him come back? And if it was Hilary he wanted then why hadn’t he gone straight to her? And then I answered my own question. He couldn’t find her.
At two-thirty I stood at the window watching the street for Amelia’s Jetta. There was no sign of her.
“Where the hell is she?”
“Relax, she’ll be here,” Ben said, opening a bottle of Merlot.
“A little early, isn’t it?”
“I think you could use it,” he said and handed me a glass after taking a gulp of his own.
“Looks like I’m not the only one.”
He shrugged and stood beside me, his gaze on the street.
At three o’clock I was on my second glass and pacing the room.
“Calm down,” he said, putting his arms around me. “She’s a big girl and she’s very good at taking care of herself, especially around the opposite sex.”
I couldn’t argue that. I leaned against him. It felt good to be in his arms again after the rocky moments we’d had since this whole thing had started. “I’m sorry,” I said.
He held me out at arm’s length. “For what?”
“All of this, what’s happening. I don’t know what else to do but go after him. I mean, I should have gone after him that day in the railcar and I sat there and did nothing. I feel like this is a second chance.”
“I get it, but the police should be handling it. Not you. I don’t want you to get hurt and this could very quickly get out of hand.”
“You’re in it too,” I reminded him.
“Only to keep an eye on you.” He kissed the top of my head.
“Sorry,” Amelia said, coming through the door.
“Jesus, it’s about time.”
“I went to visit Hilary.”
“You didn’t tell her, did you?”
“Of course not, but I feel like I’m betraying her just by talking to this guy, let alone—” she stopped.
“You’re not. This is all for her...for us,” I added.
“She asked for you,” Amelia said.
The thing with Hilary and I was that it never mattered how long it had been since we’d seen each other or whether or not we’d had a fight. We were tight enough to flare up, calm down and rekindle without ever having to say a word. Conflict is part of any relationship worth its salt.
“What happened at lunch?” Ben interrupted.
“Not a lot. He grew up in Millers Falls, went to high school in Edgewater.”
“We know that,” I said irritated.
“We do?” Ben raised his eyebrows.
“I just assumed,” I said, covering my mistake and realizing that I had to be more careful to keep what I learned from Nick to myself.
“He said he came back to visit his family. His mother’s sick, she has cancer.”
“Lie,” I said.
They both looked at me, eyebrows raised.
“A guess,” I said. “Did you ask why he moved away?”
“Said he got tired of small town life and wanted to see what else was out there.”
“I’ll put money on it that he left July of ’87, same as the rape. It was probably the same day. Small town, my ass.”
“You don’t want to believe him,” Amelia said.
“And you do?”
She shrugged. “It sounded like the truth, and he wasn’t the monster I thought he’d be.” She went to the sink and poured a glass of water.
Her nonchalant attitude threw up a red flag. Was she trying to drown her fear or had he grown on her a little? I walked up beside her, turned her toward me and looked her in the eye. “He raped Hilary when she was nine years old. I don’t give a flying fuck how nice he’s acting, this guy’s a monster and don’t forget it.”
“Are you seeing him again?” Ben asked.
“Tuesday, dinner.”
“Dinner?” I was surprised and more than a little worried that she was letting her guard down. Dinner meant an evening together and since they’d already rung the bell once he’d assume it was time for round two. “Dobbs is a rapist, Amelia,” I said again. “Just because you say no doesn’t mean he’ll back off. He’s gonna take what he wants.”
“I’ll do what I have to,” she said. “I owe it to Hilary.”
Ben stepped forward from where he’d been leaning against the counter top. “Not if it puts you in jeopardy. We’ll find another way to get him.”
“I said I’ll do whatever it takes.” She stared him down.
Guilt, I thought, the greatest of motivators.
Chapter Fourteen
The following Wednesday morning Amelia and I had breakfast at The Mug and Muffin, an old-fashioned, family-owned coffee shop whose bakery case put Starbucks to shame. She’d been unnaturally quiet last night after her dinner with Dobbs, and when I’d asked if she was okay, she’d snapped at me that she was tired and closed the bedroom door.
Now, I was on my second cup of coffee and she was on her third. It was obvious that neither of us had slept. I’d spent the night fighting a pounding headache wrapped around the nightmare vision of Dobbs and Amelia. By morning I was covered in sweat and popping Motrin like candy.
“Hey,” I said and reached across the table for her hand. “Can we talk?”
When she looked up, the fear and humiliation in her eyes fed my suspicion of her intimacy with Dobbs. “You okay?”
She nodded and pushed her cup to the edge of the table under the stream of brown liquid flowing from the waitress’s pot.
“I think I’m going to move back to my apartment,” she said. “It’s too weird staying with you and Ben. I need my privacy, and Dobbs wants to know where I live. If I give him your address, I’ll lead him
to you.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want you to be alone with him and he’ll show up on your doorstep. Anyway, you might not have to keep seeing him. I’m working on a different approach,” I said, thinking of Marquette.
Amelia laughed. I was glad to see there was still a sense of humor beneath her fragility. She dumped a couple of sugars into her coffee, which was odd for Ms. O’Natural, but I let it slide. We all had our vices, and for what she was doing, she could start mainlining it if she wanted to.
“Dare I ask about your new approach?”
“Not yet.”
“Then you do need me. How else will you find out anything?”
“What happened last night?” I asked, shifting the conversation.
“He wasn’t real pleased when I said I had to go home after dinner. He wanted to spend more time together.”
“AKA, get laid.”
“Said he’d come over, but I told him I had an early morning and promised a rain check.”
“You’re in the midst of a drought, keep him there.”
She frowned and turned her head away.
Suddenly my blueberry muffin wasn’t sitting well. “You are keeping him there right?”
She shrugged. “More or less.”
“Amelia,” I said, struggling to keep the anger out of my voice, “are you screwing around with this guy?”
“I’m doing what I have to.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“I’ve got to keep him interested. No guy wastes his time on a woman who doesn’t hold promise.”
“Well you better not make any,” I said. “Did something happen last night? Is that why you wouldn’t talk to me when you got home?”
She opened her mouth like she was going to speak then closed it and shook her head. There were tears in her eyes. “Stop worrying. I can handle Dobbs.” She took the napkin from her lap and blew her nose. “He told me that he spends his days at the hospital with his mother.”
“His mother’s dead.”
“And you know that for sure?” She leaned forward too fast and sent a waterfall of coffee over the edge of the cup and onto the thick white saucer beneath.
I nodded, but couldn’t tell her how. I was afraid she’d let it slip to Ben. “I did an internet search. His mother died four years ago.”
She looked hurt, confirming my concern that Dobbs was getting under her skin, all the more reason to keep her staying with Ben and me.
“Why would he lie about his mother?” she asked.
“He needs a cover for why he’s here.”
“You know why he’s here?”
I shook my head. “Just developing a theory.”
“And?”
“Nothing concrete yet, but if I come up with something you’ll be the first to know.”
I wasn’t ready to tell her that Dobbs’s approach that night at Gritty’s might not have been a coincidence. And I felt like I was crossing a huge line by not giving her fair warning, but I didn’t want to compromise Marquette. I needed to keep him a secret just a little longer. I had one last question for her and I hated to ask it. “Are you seeing him again?”
“Friday night.”
“Why do you keep setting up nights? Days are safer.”
“I can do this for a couple of hours at a time, but not a full day. I told him I had to work Saturday.”
I could see her eyes welling up and reached across the table for her hand. I couldn’t imagine having to play this guy while the image of that day in the railcar sat front and center inside her head. I hadn’t loosened my grip on the legal system, but I knew if Dobbs started to slip through the cracks, Amelia was my only lure. Whatever she was doing to hold his interest had to continue a little longer.
Chapter Fifteen
“Okay, so what have we got?”
It was Friday night. Amelia was out with Dobbs, and Ben and I were sitting at our kitchen counter, a bottle of Chardonnay between us.
“Nothing,” Ben said. “We’ll never pin an age-old rape on him and we’ve got nothing else that throws up a flag except that he lied about his mother being sick, but lying isn’t a punishable offense.”
“Let’s see what his Social turns up.”
“You got it?”
I stopped and took a sip of wine, buying time to consider my slip. I could tell him about hiring Marquette or I could make up something about finagling his Social Security number out of city hall records, but that would be lying, something I never, well almost never, did to Ben.
“Nick Marquette did,” I said.
“Who?”
“I hired Nick Marquette, an ex-cop now a PI, to do a little snooping.” I held up my hand as Ben opened his mouth to object. “Look, I’m hoping that he can get us what we need to go back to DeLonge and we can take the pressure off Amelia. I haven’t told her, but it looks like she was no random pick that night at Gritty’s.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think Dobbs knows who we are.” I told Ben about Marquette seeing Dobbs with the cashier at 7-Eleven. “Why would he still pursue Amelia if he’s getting plenty somewhere else?”
“There’s a big difference between a teenage cashier and Amelia,” Ben said. “One’s a quickie, the other’s a relationship.”
“Except that Dobbs isn’t the relationship type and he’s not looking for a girl he can bring home to Mom and Dad, ’cause Mom’s dead and Dad’s not in the picture.”
“I don’t know.” Ben shook his head. “What could he want with her?”
“Maybe he doesn’t want her at all. Maybe he wants Hilary and figures Amelia can lead him to her.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would he risk coming back for her after all this time and for what?” Ben folded his arms across his chest.
“Look,” I said, slipping my arms through his. “You said yourself that this is out of my realm, so I’m having Marquette do the snooping while I stay safely away from Dobbs.”
“What do you even know about this guy? How do you know he’s any good?”
“He worked on the original rape investigation.”
“That doesn’t say much, since they never caught the guy.”
“He was a good cop. It’s not his fault the case went cold. There were plenty of others working on it too,” I added, prickling at Ben’s insinuation. I wasn’t going to explain my history with Nick Marquette, not now, not ever. I cared about Ben a lot. Sometimes I even loved him. If I explained the connection I felt to Marquette, I might as well pack his bags and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.
“Michael Steele recommended him. And he’s how I found out Dobbs’s mother died four years ago, which means he’s not spending his days at her bedside like he told Amelia.”
Ben nodded. “So why didn’t you tell me?”
“’Cause I knew you’d react just like you did.” I got up and opened a can of Chicken Medley for Stitch.
Ben took a second bottle of wine from the rack and refilled our glasses, then set a block of cheese and a box of crackers in front of us. “Bon appétit,” he said.
We glanced at the wall clock like a couple of anxious parents. It was eight-fifteen. Amelia had moved back to her own apartment, but had orders to check in with us immediately after dinner with Dobbs.
By ten-thirty we’d switched from wine to coffee and were pacing the apartment, snippy with each other. At eleven our buzzer rang from the vestibule.
“Hello?” Ben called into the intercom.
“Let me in,” Amelia whispered.
My first thought when I saw her was that someone had died. Her face was pasty white. She walked into the apartment using the walls and furniture to keep herself steady.
“Did he hurt you?” I asked.
> She shook her head and sank onto the couch.
I sat beside her and reached for her hand. There were bruises on her wrist. “What’s this?” Without thinking I grabbed her arm.
She winced.
“Did he do this?”
She nodded.
“What the hell? You said he didn’t hurt you.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Christ,” Ben said. “Why do women do that? A bruise is a bruise.”
“Not now, Ben.” I appreciated what he was saying and he was right, but now wasn’t the time for a lecture on victim self-deprecation.
“What happened?” I asked her.
“He doesn’t like the word no.”
“He’s going down,” Ben said and began pacing the floor in front of the couch.
Amelia shook her head slowly like it hurt. “He said not to even consider pressing assault charges. He said I was a two-bit tease and got what I deserved.”
“Where were you when he did this?”
“A motel room.”
“Motel room? What were you thinking going there?” I asked her, trying to keep the anger out of my voice.
“I didn’t know how to get out of it. I’d let things get too far. I, we...” She looked at me then turned her face away.
“Amelia.” I shoved my fists into the pockets of my jeans, not sure who I wanted to use them on. “Have you forgotten that this guy raped Hilary?”
She started to cry. “I had to keep reminding myself who he was. He didn’t seem like... It was so long ago. And I’d lured him in. It was my own fault. He’d been nice up until...”
“Nice? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Hey.” Ben stepped in. “Cecily, go get her some aspirin.”
It was all I could do to make myself walk away, but I did. I followed Ben’s finger directing me down the hallway and went to the bathroom for Tylenol and a cold glass of water, forcing myself to gain control. I had no right to be angry with her. I’d asked for too much. I’d sent her into the dragon’s lair and she’d gone without hesitation, but the taming had come at a price. It was my own naïveté that pissed me off, not Amelia’s. She’d done exactly what I’d asked her to do.
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