“I need to know.”
“Her throat was slit.”
I turned away and bent over, anticipating dry heaves. The ground spun below me. I dropped to my knees and put my hands out in front of me so I was on all fours. Pain shot through my knee cap. I curled into a ball and wrapped my arms around my head, trying to erase what was happening.
Officer Iverson stooped down and put a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “No, I’m not okay. This can’t have happened. It can’t.” I slowly righted myself. Iverson stood and held out a hand. I took it and he pulled me up until I was standing.
“When is this going to end?” I said.
“When justice is served,” he said.
I looked at the empty space where my car had been parked. “Where’s my car?”
“The Alfa Romeo?” asked the man who’d been tending bar earlier. “That guy you were with earlier called. Said to have it towed.”
Great. Now I was minus one police lieutenant and minus one car. On my worse day in the softball league in high school my batting average was better than this. If it hadn’t hinted at the proximity both Tex and I had had to the person who dumped the body, it would have been laughable.
Another man in a dark suit approached me. I recognized him as being in Tex’s precinct, but I didn’t know his name. “Madison Night?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Sgt. Osmond,” he said, holding out his hand. “We spoke on the phone about Cleo Tyler.”
“How is she? Do you know anything?”
“She’s going to be fine. The hospital is sending her home tomorrow.”
She was going to be fine. Except for the nightmares.
“Ms. Night, Officer Iverson says you were here earlier tonight. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
I darted my eyes behind him to Officer Iverson. He stared at me but didn’t make a move.
“Sergeant, Officer Iverson said her throat was slit. Remember when we talked about the contractors? Have you tracked down Lyndy? He carries a sharp carpet knife with him, the same kind that was used to threaten a woman on Wednesday night.”
He took more notes. “What were you doing here tonight?”
“I was here earlier with Lt. Allen.”
“Arrived together?”
“No, but we left together.” It took every ounce of emotional strength to let my words hang out there without any additional explanation. We were in the parking lot of a topless joint frequented by police officers. Tex had a reputation as a ladies’ man among them. Now was not the time to defend my honor.
“Lt. Allen and I left in the camper,” I said, pointing to the big white vehicle. Behind Sgt. Osmond, the two guys who had mistaken me for Sandra Dee snickered between puffs on their cigarettes.
The sergeant looked at them and then back at me. “You don’t look like the type to go off in a camper with Lt. Allen,” he said.
“I don’t know what type you take me for, Sergeant, but I can assure you that I’m able to take care of myself when it comes to Lt. Allen.”
“You said you and the lieutenant arrived separately. Where’s your car?”
I wasn’t the best liar under regular circumstances, and while my number one priority was helping Tex, I didn’t think inventing false leads was going to do a whole heck of a lot to help his case. “I thought the lieutenant took my keys by mistake. I went in to get them but he claimed he didn’t have them. We found them wedged in the back of the camper, and neither of us was equipped to get them out. I offered to drive him home and then take the camper to my house.”
Sgt. Osmond made notes on an iPad.
“Sergeant, Lt. Allen told me there was another abduction, Barbie Ferrer. She’s a friend of a friend. Are you any closer to figuring out where these women are being held?”
“We heard about Ms. Ferrer yesterday afternoon. The press was all over the Cleo Tyler disappearance, which we knew nothing about. Made us look like fools,” he said. “When your call came in about Mrs. Tyler, I was with the Ferrer family, getting details about her last twenty-four hours.”
“She was out with friends on Wednesday night,” I said. “She left the Landing and went to her boyfriend’s house.”
“He’s the one who called us. She left his place in the morning but never made it home. Her sister thought she was with him. We don’t know when or where she was taken.”
I looked away again, but there was no place to look that didn’t remind me of what had happened.
“Ms. Night, has your contact information changed?”
I could give him the address of the apartment building, but I knew I wouldn’t be there. I could give him Thelma Johnson’s address, but there was a decent chance Tex would be there, and I didn’t want him to walk into a trap. And then there was Hudson’s address, where I’d spent last night. I didn’t want to draw Hudson into this mess. And after how I’d left, I didn’t even know if I was still welcome there.
“You can reach me at Mad for Mod.” I gave him the address to the studio. Sgt. Osmond made a note and clicked a button on the side of his iPad. The screen went dark and he tucked the tablet under his arm.
“Thank you, Ms. Night. You’ve been very helpful.”
Having been given permission to leave the scene, I climbed back into the camper and left the parking lot. I was at a loss as to where to go. If ever there was a night that I wanted companionship, it was tonight, but showing up at Hudson’s felt too much like I was using him.
Ultimately, I drove to Thelma Johnson’s house. It didn’t hurt that Tex had hooked my spare key onto the ring of keys for the camper. I parked by the front curb and moved quickly from the vehicle to the house. The lack of lights told me I was alone.
There was something strange about being inside the house—my house—where Tex had been staying for the past few days. I checked the fridge and found a half-empty case of beer, a carton of eggs, and a block of butter sitting next to my assortment of yogurts and bag of spinach. Saltines, Campbell’s soup, and a stack of tuna cans had been added to the existing contents of my pantry.
In the living room, I found a windbreaker draped over the back of a chair and a pair of sneakers pushed underneath it. I turned on the TV; the last channel watched had been CNN. The yellow blanket from my bedroom had been moved to the sofa, along with a pillow in a pink, yellow, and white floral case. Tex might have tried to shake off the Doris Day quality of my residence, but it was hard to escape the daisies.
I climbed the stairs, showered and changed into a clean pair of pajamas, and slipped between the sheets on the bed. The loneliness was stifling. Ten minutes later, I moved downstairs to the sofa and rested my head against the pillowcase that now smelled vaguely of Tex.
After a fitful night of sleep, I dozed off around five. Too bad the sun comes up around five thirty. There was no ignoring the bright rays that flooded the living room. I stretched, stood, did a few toe touches to limber up my joints, and looked out the window. The camper sat by the curb where I’d parked it. A black Jeep was parked behind it. Tex was sitting on the concrete steps out front.
I combed my fingers through my hair, matted and knotted since I’d slept on it wet. I double-checked that the buttons on my PJs were all buttoned and opened the front door. Tex stood up and climbed the stairs. I stepped backward and let him in. He pulled a chair away from the dining room table and dropped into it. I dropped into the one catty-corner his.
“When I realized you weren’t in the camper, I went back to Jumbo’s,” I said.
“If this is about your car, I’ll square that when the impound lot opens.”
“This isn’t about my car, Lieutenant. Another woman is dead—Linda Gull. Her body was dumped in the parking lot outside of Jumbo’s after we left.”
“Shit
.”
Tex leaned back, one arm on the table, flipping a pack of matches from Jumbo’s between his fingers. The other arm angled down by his side. His knee jiggled, his wrist shook, his fingers twitched. He was wired for sound.
“Do whatever it is you came here to do and then you’re coming with me. We’re going to the pool,” I said.
“I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t have time for water aerobics.”
I stood up and slammed my palms down onto the table. “You are twitching like a bomb with a lit fuse. You’re going to explode if you don’t do something soon. I don’t care where you spend your nights, and I don’t care where you drown your sorrows, but I’m not going to let you destroy yourself because you can’t control what’s happening to the women who’ve been abducted. If somebody sees you like you are right now, you’re going to go off and that’s not going to do you—or anybody—any favors.”
He stood up and stormed outside, slamming the doors behind him. I watched out the window as he walked down the sidewalk toward the garage. He stopped halfway and turned toward a gnarled oak tree that sat by the property line. He pulled a gun out of his waistband and shot the tree three times. A branch fell onto the ground. Next door, a window opened and my neighbor pushed her head out.
“Thomas Rexford Allen, are you shooting that poor old oak tree again?”
“Sorry, Mrs. Yoder,” he called.
“You better be. You scared the dickens out of my cat Sadie.”
“Sorry, Sadie.” He sheathed his gun and walked to her property line. I lost sight of him as he rounded the freestanding garage.
Only in Texas. Anyplace else, half the neighborhood would have called 911 at the sound of the shots.
For the first time since I’d met the lieutenant, I was scared of what he was capable of. He was turning his back on the world he knew—the world where he went after the bad guys—because it was protocol, but it was killing him.
I felt for him; I recognized the cage he’d put himself into. For the first time, I saw a glimpse of the darkness that had driven Nasty out of his life. I understood why he wouldn’t tell me where he lived, why whenever we got close to talking about something real he defaulted to wisecracks and flirtation. He was separating from the world. But I knew better than most that isolation is never the answer. I also knew I couldn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want to do.
I went upstairs and rooted around in the closet for a bathing suit. Swimming laps required something more practical than the vintage suits that matched my every day style. Last year one company had a closeout sale on poor selling patterns and I’d cleaned house on what they called their retro floral print, buying the same style in four colors. Today I pulled out the purple and blue one and added a white swim cap and clear goggles. I followed with two faded orange towels.
From a bin that I kept on the lower shelf, I pulled out a pair of mustard yellow men’s swim trunks trimmed in light blue that I’d acquired during one of my many estate buy-outs. The tags were still on them. Trafficking in vintage as I did, I found it hard to give up dead stock, even if it was intended for the opposite sex. I changed into a powder blue A-line dress that zipped up the back. An oversized Peter Pan collar and large covered buttons decorated the front. I pulled down a navy blue straw hat that was shaped like a wedding cake and trimmed with tiny wicker bows and set it on my head. When I went downstairs, Tex was waiting for me in the kitchen. He glanced up at my hat, and then shook his head at the style.
“You got a bathing suit around here for me?”
I pulled the yellow trunks out of my bag and held them out. He grabbed them.
“I’ll change when we get there. Let’s go.”
TWENTY-TWO
We walked out together. I was getting tired of driving the camper, but if it was between that and his Jeep, I had a feeling I knew which would win. He surprised me.
“If you can drive the camper, then you can drive the Jeep.” He tossed me a set of keys. “That work for you?”
“Sure.”
It was going on six a.m., an hour that only morning people cherished. Sunlight filtered through the trees, casting a glow on streets that too soon would be filled with cars and angry drivers. The sound of birds chirping were audible, as they’d remain until horns and radios drowned them out.
We made quick time to Crestwood. Like most of the regulars, I scheduled my workouts between Monday and Friday. The good thing about showing up early on a Saturday was the people who did show up slept in, so at this hour the pool was mostly empty.
Tex went into the men’s locker room while I set my bag down on the bleachers. I waved to Bobby the lifeguard.
“Hey, Madison. Brought a friend today?”
“Yep. I guess he got tired of hearing how great the pool was and wanted to find out for himself.”
“Where’s Rock?”
“He’s with a friend. A different friend,” I finished.
“I guess I figured you wrong. All these years I thought you were a loner.”
I pulled my blond hair back and twirled it around my finger, and then shoved the ponytail up into the rubber cap. The muscles in my body were either sore or tired. I stretched out my arms, shoulders, and neck while I waited for Tex to join me. It was taking him longer than I had expected to change. Was he having second thoughts? I started to suspect he’d left out the locker room window when he appeared.
The extra time he’d used in the locker room had been spent shaving. Gone were the whiskers that had grown in over the past week, and in their place was smooth tanned skin. I’d never seen Tex without a shirt on, let alone in swim trunks. He had a series of scars on his left pec. His fit torso showed off toned abs, a washboard stomach, and a faint trace of blond hairs that traveled south from his navel. When I’d met him, I remember noting a layer of softness that often comes with age. Any sign of softness was gone. I tore my eyes away and focused on the deck of the pool.
He grinned. “Thanks for that, Night. Feels good to be noticed.”
I turned around and jumped into the water.
We worked out the logistics of circle swimming and I pushed off the wall and swam through the lane, propelled more by a desire to loosen my stiff muscles than to burn calories. Tex waited until I flipped at the far end before pushing off. We swam in tandem, passing mid-way each lap, for two hundred yards. I stopped at the end of the lane and caught my breath. Tex flip turned next to me and kept going.
“There’s enough lanes that nobody has to share today,” the guy in the lane next to me said. I pushed my goggles up and looked at him. I hadn’t recognized him without his purple cap.
“Jake,” I said. “Seems like you’re finding your own schedule at the pool.”
“Got a lot of free time on my hands these days. I finished working on the basement a couple of days ago. Hard to sit around waiting for the phone to ring. You’ll keep me in mind if you have any work, right?” he asked. There was a trace of desperation in his voice.
“I’m between jobs at the moment,” I said, “but I still have your card.”
Tex glided to the end of the lane. He shook his head so his hair was out of his eyes, and looked first at me, and then at Jake, and then back to me. “You want a kickboard?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He hoisted himself out of the pool as if he’d been doing it for years. Jake watched him cross the deck. “Have I seen that guy here before?”
“I don’t think so. He’s not a regular like me.”
Tex came back and jumped into the lane. He pushed a kickboard in front of me. He was trying to be nonchalant, but I saw him take in Jake in a split second, memorizing his face, his physique, his presence. If we hadn’t all been coated in chlorine, he probably would have memorized his scent.
Jake picked up his own kickboard from the deck. I didn’t want
to get caught up in any more conversation than what had already transpired. There was something about him I didn’t like, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The desperation of being new in town and trying to drum up business through me? Or was there something else about him and his at first angry, but now overly friendly manner? Was he the man who had shot at Tex all those years ago?
I set the kickboard on the deck, pulled my goggles down, and pushed off. Several laps in, Tex stopped at the end of the lane and positioned himself in the corner by the red and white plastic lane dividers. I’d found my rhythm, though, and didn’t stop again until I’d finished a mile. I glided into the wall and joined him.
“Done already?”
“Thought it was more fun to watch you than to keep going. How long have you been coming here?” he asked.
“Three years? Somewhere around there. It’s good for my knee. I started when I moved to Dallas.”
“You make it look easy.”
“So do you.” When I’d first suggested that Tex work out his frustrations by hopping into the pool, I hadn’t known what to expect in terms of skill level. Crestwood catered to anybody with an interest in doing something good for their bodies. Since the median age was somewhere around seventy, it wouldn’t take much for him to be among the younger swimmers like me. He’d surprised me with his ability.
“I used to compete in triathlons in my early days. Hated the swimming part at first, until I found out most other triathaletes hate the swimming part, too. That meant if I could learn to love it, I’d have an edge. I’m out of shape, but the muscle memory is still there.”
“You faked yourself into liking what you didn’t like. There’s a strategy you don’t hear every day,” I said.
“It worked. I was unbeatable for a while.”
“Why’d you stop?”
He bent his knees and bounced low in the water. “Joined the force. Put my energy into the job.”
“But you still needed an outlet.”
“Different stress called for different outlets. Going to the gun range blows off a lot of steam.”
With Vics You Get Eggroll (A Mad for Mod Mystery Book 3) Page 16