"Dumped, then."
"No blood at the scene. Had to be."
"Any obvious evidence?"
She took another bite of muffin. "Like the killer's name printed in blood across the barrel? No."
"So... you need a hand?" Kurt's tone had changed slightly. He was edging toward personal.
She sat up in her chair, annoyed. "Did Mayor Rug Man call you?"
"I'm just offering my assistance." He ignored her question. "You know we're available to aid local municipal forces."
"You're at headquarters now. A big-shot captain, headed higher up the ladder soon, I hear. You don't work murder cases."
"Claire—"
"No, I don't need your help—not yet, at least. I don't even have the autopsy report back."
"Well, you know I'm here."
Didn't she. "Thanks, Kurt. I appreciate that."
There was a tap at her door, and McCormick stuck his head in. She held up her finger.
"You just want to bounce some ideas off someone," Kurt continued, "call me."
"Will do. Listen, Kurt, I have to run. We've got a remote control thief on the loose."
"I'm not even going to ask." His tone was husky now, teasing.
She groaned silently. No matter how she tried to deny it, she still had feelings for him after all this time. "Bye." She hung up the phone before he had time to answer, waving Ryan in.
"I checked out Billy's place like you asked," Ryan reported. "Nothing unusual. Dog's still tied to that old car in the back yard. His pickup is in its usual parking place out by the mailbox, but so's his grandmother's Honda. No sign of life yet, but it's early for Billy."
He stood in front of her desk almost at attention, his chin squared, his uniform, as always, immaculate. He would have made an excellent officer in the military. Claire always felt as if he were wasting his life here in Albany Beach being a town cop. Not that she didn't appreciate him, she just thought that his aspirations could have been higher. Of course, Kurt had said the same thing about her.
Claire nodded, thinking about Billy. The dead girl. Something chilling, deep inside, told her that her life in Albany Beach was never going to be the same. Maybe it had something to do with lost innocence. She didn't know. Maybe something more sinister.
"You want me to go pick him up?" McCormick asked.
"No. Not until the autopsy report comes in."
* * *
It was after five when Claire eased her cruiser into a parking spot along the dock. Glancing at the manila envelope on the seat beside her that contained Patti's autopsy report, she climbed out of the car. There were only a few cars in Calloway's parking lot; it was early in the day for the barflies and too early in the season for the restaurant crowd.
She nodded to several familiar faces inside, finding her way to the bar. She slipped onto a stool, dropping the envelope on the mahogany bar that had recently been wiped down and smelled of glass cleaner. Billy was stacking glasses under a mirror that ran the length of the bar, his back to her. Someone had written the beer specials for the night in lipstick on the mirror. Rolling Rocks were "buy one, get one free" from seven to nine tonight. Claire hated Rolling Rock. She hated beer.
Billy turned around, empty glass tray in one arm. He caught a glimpse of her reflection before he actually saw her. "Wondered how long it would take you to show up," he mumbled, letting the dishwasher tray ease to the floor. He was about six feet tall, willowy with brown shoulder-length hair pulled back in a ponytail, a tuft of brown whiskers jutting from his chin. He was wearing baggy khaki shorts, and an orange Calloway's T-shirt sporting a flying marlin.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
He shrugged a thin shoulder, pulled a white towel out of his back pocket, and gave the bar top in front of her a swipe. "I was done with her."
"How far done?"
He glanced up. "Look, Pats pissed me off, but I wouldn't want to see her dead or anything."
She watched him carefully. His eyes were red, a little bloodshot. Probably came into work high. If she searched him or his pickup, she might come up with an eighth, but she didn't want to be a hard ass. Not yet, at least. "You want to tell me what she pissed you off about?"
To Claire's surprise, Billy walked away, disappearing into the back. She was just lifting her weight from the stool to see what he thought he was doing walking out on a police interview when he appeared again. He tossed a yellow card onto the bar.
She reached for it. A time card. The evening of Patti's murder, he worked from four-thirty to twelve-fifty in the morning. Patti disappeared between eleven and midnight.
Claire gave the time card a push and it glided across the glassy bar top. "That doesn't mean anything, Billy, and you know it." She lowered her voice. "I've seen you driving around town at night making your drops when I know you're clocked in here."
It was a bluff. She'd never seen him driving around when he was supposed to be at work. If Billy did deal in marijuana, it was small time. Most likely he was just supplying a few friends. From the look of the trailer he lived in, the truck he drove, he obviously wasn't making much money at it. Maybe smoking his profit margin?
"I didn't kill Pats. I would never kill anyone." He lifted his peace hand, making a peace sign. "Make love, man, not war."
Billy met her gaze directly when he spoke and didn't look away when she narrowed her eyes in challenge. People with something to hide didn't do that, not unless they were sociopaths. Claire's gut feeling, from the beginning, when she had stood there at the Dumpster studying Patti's body, had been that it wasn't Billy who killed her. Even now, with the time card on the bar top, it wasn't his alibi so much as her gut feeling that told her Patti's killer wasn't here.
Claire slid off the bar stool, reaching for her envelope of photos. She didn't want to share them with anyone she didn't have to. "I have any questions for you, you'll be around, right? No plans for a vacation?"
Billy lifted his hands. "That's it? You don't want to know when the last time I saw her? You don't want to know where I went after work that night?"
"I'll let you know if I have any more questions."
He reached under the bar and pulled a bottle of beer from a sink full of ice. "On the house." He pulled his church key from his pocket and popped off the top.
She glanced at the green beer bottle. "Still on duty."
He shrugged and lifted the bottle to his lips, his gaze still locked with hers.
Claire walked out of Calloway's knowing she'd hit a dead end with Billy. The question now was, which way did she go from here?
* * *
"It was nice of your sister to keep an eye on the kids tonight," Jake said stiffly, downing the last of his beer. He sat across from Marcy at the small table on the restaurant's deck, dressed in khakis and a plum polo shirt. He looked nice. He'd even put on cologne for their date. Still hoping to get lucky, probably, which would be hard to do considering the fact that he'd been sleeping on the couch since she came home from the hospital a week ago.
Marcy reached for her iced tea. She had considered ordering a glass of wine, but she wasn't sure she was comfortable enough with herself in this body, with this face, yet, to lower any inhibitions. She didn't answer Jake, just sipped her drink. They'd already had their meal, and she wished the waiter would come back with the check. Sitting here with Jake like this was making her very uncomfortable. She didn't feel like she knew him anymore. She certainly didn't know herself.
Over dinner, they had talked mostly about the kids—how well Ben had done in math with the help of his tutor and whether they were going to let Katie baby-sit this summer for a neighbor. They had both purposely avoided the subject of Phoebe.
"Marcy, you look beautiful tonight," Jake said, leaning forward on the white linen-covered table for two. He slid his hand over hers. "Sexy in that dress."
She gazed down over the red, low-cut halter dress she'd borrowed from her sister. In her Miracle Bra, her newly acquired normal-sized breasts did look pretty goo
d. Aside from being a little loose at the waist, the dress fit perfectly. She'd even found an old pair of very high heels in the back of her closet to go with it.
She lifted her gaze to meet Jake's, not sure why his compliment struck her the wrong way. Maybe because everything he said struck her the wrong way—or at least it had last fall before she'd hurled herself over the bridge. "It's not my dress."
"I know. It's Phoebe's." He gave her a half grin. "She looked damn fine in it too, but I have to say, you—"
Marcy snatched her hand from his. "My sister looked good in this dress, did she? You get a lot of chances to see her in this dress while I was in that coma, Jake?" She didn't know what made her say that. It hadn't even occurred to her until this moment that this was why she had been upset all week. She didn't like Phoebe in her house because she knew how men felt about Phoebe. They didn't just like the way she looked; they liked the way she talked, the way she flirted, playing innocent and coquettish one minute, then slutty the next. Phoebe had been at the house six months. What if in that time—
Marcy stood up abruptly, tossing her white linen napkin on the table. "I'll wait for you outside." She didn't give Jake the time to answer, hurrying across the deck and down the steps into the darkness.
Jake found her in the parking lot leaning against the SUV he'd bought to replace the minivan she'd totaled. It was the SUV she had wanted in the first place; now she was too scared to drive it.
He walked up to her slowly, his hands in his pockets. Under the circle of lamplight, he looked sad, but he didn't look like a man who had been cheating on his wife and gotten caught. She felt bad that she had been mean to him in the restaurant. He was trying so hard.
"You want to go home?" he asked, then went on tentatively, "or would you maybe like to take a walk?"
She pressed her lips together, tasting her new lipstick. She'd chosen à coral shade she'd never been bold enough to wear before. "A walk might be nice." She ran her hand over her flat stomach that still didn't seem like her own. "I ate too much. I feel stuffed."
"Me, too." He took her hand in his and she let him. "There's a blanket in the back. I can grab it and we can sit in the sand. We could watch the waves wash up the way we used to."
She nodded.
At the edge of the dunes, they took off their shoes and walked down the path that led through the grass that had been carefully planted to preserve the coastline. When he reached for her hand, she let him take it. At the water's edge, they walked north, passing an older gentleman sitting in a lawn chair surf fishing, and a young couple walking hand in hand in the opposite direction. The woman was laughing as they strolled past, that sexual laugh that couldn't be mistaken. Probably more June newlyweds, Marcy thought.
"Want to sit down?" Jake asked when they'd walked a while. The beach was empty here, lights from a couple of cottages and condos twinkling in the distance beyond the dunes.
"How about up there?" She pointed, and they walked up toward the summer houses, the ocean at their backs.
Jake shook out the blanket they used to sit on at the kids' soccer games, and Marcy watched it float and settle on the smooth beach. The sand-cleaning machines had already come by, picking up lost shovels and pieces of trash, leaving perfect squiggles as tracks in their wake. She sat on the edge of the blanket dotted with soccer balls, digging her bare feet into the sand that was still warm, though the sun had long set.
Jake sat beside her, his hip pressing against hers, his arms wrapped around his knees. She glanced behind them, forward again, getting the strange feeling that someone was watching her. There was no one there, of course. She felt like everyone was watching her because they were. Ever since she'd left the hospital, people had been staring, and it made her uncomfortable.
Jake slid his arm around her waist and for once, his touch felt comforting. "You get those blood tests today?"
She stared at the white rush of water churning onto the shore. "Yup. Results will be back next week, but I'm sure they're fine. I'm fine. I feel great."
"Do you?"
His soft, husky voice made her warm inside, a feeling she could barely recollect from their dating days. "Well, I'm still a little tired, but Dr. Larson said that's to be expected."
He lifted his hand from her waist to her shoulder and brushed his lips against her bare arm.
"I was considering trying jogging," she told him, thinking the sensation wasn't all bad. "I walked around the neighborhood twice yesterday and again today, but that's a little boring." She glanced at him. "You think I could do it?" she asked hesitantly.
"Sure. Just take it easy. Quit when you get tired."
A smile touched her lips. She liked the idea that Jake thought she could run for exercise. She liked it so much that when he brushed his fingertips across her cheek, guiding her mouth to his, she let him.
Jake tasted familiar... and yet not. She tasted the beer he'd had at the restaurant. The years they had shared, good and bad.
She parted her lips, feeling the heat of arousal warm in the pit of her stomach. Her heart rate kicked up a beat. When she pulled away, breathless, she was panting. She'd never been a frigid woman; she'd enjoyed the occasional orgasm the way any overweight married woman with kids and a mortgage did, but usually it took more to heat her up than this.
Jake eased her back on the blanket, and she moaned as he brought up his hand to cup one breast. Her nerve endings seemed more alive than they had been in a very long time. When he rubbed his thumb against her hard nipple, the sensation seemed to lead a path directly between her thighs. They kissed again, her tongue touching his, and she pressed her hips against his, feeling his arousal for her.
Jake slid his hand over her bare thigh and the next thing she knew, he was tugging on her panties with his finger.
Marcy couldn't believe she was doing this. On a public beach?
But she realized she needed Jake; she needed him in this elemental, non-thought-provoking way. She didn't want to talk. She didn't want to explore her feelings about her new body or face or about how she felt about her husband. She just wanted to have hot, feral sex in the sand on the beach.
Jake pushed up her dress, pulled down her panties. She kicked them free as she slid her hand over the front of his khakis and grabbed his belt. "Come here," she whispered.
The sex was better than she remembered it ever being; both of them found satisfaction. And afterward, he kissed her cheek. Held her hand.
Somehow it didn't seem right, though, having sex with Jake when things were so rocky between them. And once she caught her breath, scrambled to get up. "I think we better go home."
"You don't want to stay for another go-round?" Jake teased.
Marcy pushed down the skirt of the red dress, debating whether or not to try and stand on one foot and pull on the panties that were now sandy. With her luck, she'd get sand in the crotch and wouldn't that be a comfy ride home?
Jake pulled the blanket up and folded it in his arms as they walked south, angling toward the water where it was easier to walk. The moon was beginning to rise now, making it easier to see than it had been earlier. As they passed a large garbage can, Marcy tossed the panties into it.
Jake laughed. "I always knew you were my kind of woman, Marcy."
This time, when he reached for her hand, she darted away and they walked in silence back to the car.
* * *
The Bloodsucker held his breath as they passed. They were arguing now. He could tell by the way she wouldn't let him take her hand. She had certainly been eager for him to touch her earlier, though, hadn't she, his lovely swan?
The Bloodsucker walked farther up the beach, unnoticed by the swan and her husband. Past the old man sitting in the lawn chair, drinking coffee laced with brandy, holding a surf rod. It was like he was invisible. They saw him, yet they didn't. And even if they did make eye contact, he would just smile. Wave. No one knew who he was because everyone knew who he was. That was the best part about it all. The swan knew him, just a
s Patti had.
The Bloodsucker stopped at the trash can. Scuffed his pale white bare feet in the sand that was beginning to feel cool now. He looked up the beach. Down. No one was paying any attention to him. Marcy and Jake had crossed the dune and disappeared into the parking lot.
He reached into the trash can and was rewarded with the smoothness of a piece of silky fabric. He smiled in delight and lifted it carefully, looking again to be sure no one was watching. They were red panties; he could see that now in the white light of the rising moon. He drew the red fabric across his shaven cheek and let his eyes drift shut for just a moment.
The Bloodsucker wanted to keep the panties, but he knew he couldn't. He couldn't because he wasn't a stupid idiot. He knew that if he took the panties, it would be considered a trophy by law enforcement. Trophies were a no-no. If he allowed himself this one, the next thing he knew, he'd be taking them from the women who came to the barn with him. Some people wanted to get caught. Wanted to be seen. He wasn't one of them.
He drew the silky panties against his cheek one more time and then let them fall into the darkness of the trash can. He walked back to the parking lot along the dune, and as he crossed the path, back toward his car, his shoes in his hand, he watched Marcy and Jake pull away.
Who would have thought she would ever be so beautiful?
The Bloodsucker wanted her now. He was sure of it. He would just have to be patient.
Chapter 4
"Apathy, for fourteen, on a double-word score for twenty-eight points," Marcy announced, setting her letter tiles on the Scrabble board.
"Aw, Mom." Katie noted her mother's score on the pad of paper.
"That's not fair, I don't even know what apathy means," Ben griped, resting his chin on his hand.
Marcy sat on the screened-in back porch of the house, playing the game at the table with her kids. She'd been trying to do things like this, play games, straighten out their closets with them, give them a chance to reconnect. So far, so good. Ben was clingy and a little whiney, and Katie was sometimes aloof, but she knew that was to be expected. After all, she'd been gone for six months and come back looking like a different person. She wasn't the only one who needed time to adjust.
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