by Edward Kay
“He never talks about it, but yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“How about you and your sister?”
“We’re close. Though she does the ‘big sister’ routine with me a bit, you know? But she means well, and she’s smart as hell. Got her own place. Plays wheelchair basketball. Won a regional archery championship last year.”
“She sounds interesting. I’d like to meet her some time.”
“You’d like her. You have any siblings?”
“No,” replied Maclean. “Maybe that’s why my mom and I are so close.”
“She must be a strong person to have held it all together like that after your father died,” said Verraday.
“Yeah, she is. My mom is amazing. There’s nothing I can’t talk about with her.”
“You’re lucky.”
Maclean took a sip of her drink then looked up at him thoughtfully. “Thank god we still have who we have,” she said.
“Yeah,” agreed Verraday quietly.
Maclean raised her glass. “Here’s to the ones taken from us too soon.”
Verraday raised his glass and thought about what Maclean had said. “And here’s to the ones who carried the extra burden and kept the lights on,” he added.
Verraday and Maclean clinked glasses and took a sip of their drinks. Verraday resolved to call his father the next day and find an excuse to get together.
Maclean was gazing into the fireplace. He watched her silently, not wanting to disturb the moment. He enjoyed seeing the firelight playing across her cheeks and the tiny constellations of light reflecting in her eyes, eyes that somehow seemed to be both faraway yet fully present.
At last, Maclean looked away from the fire and turned to Verraday. “In all the excitement, I forgot to ask. Did you tell your dad about Robson?”
“Not yet. Kind of trying to figure out how. Penny and I are still strategizing.”
“How did she handle it when you told her?”
“It was . . . interesting.”
“Is that all you’re going to tell me?”
“We visited Robson’s gravesite up in Everett.”
“Holy shit, that’s not something you hear of victims doing very often. Let me guess. Penny’s idea?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to at first, but she talked me into it.”
“What was it like?”
“Actually, it was kind of cathartic. We both pissed on his grave.”
Maclean burst out laughing, covered her mouth with her hand, not quite quickly enough to stop a line of vodka and soda from dribbling out.
“Hey, not fair to tell me something that funny just when I’m taking a sip!” she said, wiping away the rivulet. “Don’t you know that’s illegal?”
“What, making a cop laugh when they’re drinking?”
“You know what I mean,” said Maclean.
“Well, I didn’t want to lie to you about it,” Verraday replied. Then he leaned forward. “Hold still. You missed a spot on your chin.”
Maclean held her face motionless while Verraday reached over with his index finger and gently wiped away the droplet.
“There you go.”
“Thank you. Lucky for you, Everett is outside my jurisdiction. Making me laugh while I’m sipping a drink, however, is not.”
Maclean signaled for the check.
“Well, it’s late,” she said. “I should go. The press conference is at ten in the morning, and I don’t want to be too foggy for it.”
The waiter brought the check and began to hand it to Maclean.
Verraday signaled for it and took out his wallet.
“My turn, Detective. But only because they’re not paying you overtime.”
CHAPTER 33
Maclean pulled up at the curb in front of Verraday’s house.
“Well, Professor, it’s been interesting working with you.”
“Same here, Detective. You’ve had an intriguing life. And dare I say it, you’ve even changed my opinion about cops. At least about some of them.”
“And you’ve changed my opinion about psychologists, Doctor.”
Verraday smiled, suddenly feeling bashful.
“They’re even crazier than I thought,” she said, laughing.
“Thank you,” said Verraday. “I’m glad to have been so edifying.”
“Well, I guess this is it,” she said.
Transitions had always been difficult for Verraday. Maclean was right. This was it. They had done what they set out to do. Jason Griffin was behind bars, would stay there for the rest of his life, and would never have the opportunity to hurt anyone ever again. But Verraday would miss the time he had spent with Maclean.
“Yes, I guess it is,” he replied, trying to conceal his awkwardness.
“I’ll keep you posted and make sure you get proper acknowledgement for helping solve the cases too,” said Maclean. “Once I’ve smoothed the path with the chief.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Maybe we could even work on something again some time.”
“I’d like that,” said Maclean.
“Well, until then,” said Verraday.
Maclean held out her hand, something she hadn’t done since that first morning when he had agreed to meet her and work with her. She shifted sideways in her seat so that she was facing him. That was something she’d never done before when she’d dropped him off either, thought Verraday. She’d always faced forward. He thought her pupils were dilated. Was it just the way her eyes looked naturally, adapting to the shadowy interior of the vehicle after she’d turned the headlights off? Or was it something more? He couldn’t be certain.
He took the hand that she offered. It was that same grip he remembered from the day she’d met with him. Strong and confident but gentle. It felt good. So good that he held her hand just a moment longer than was customary. When she didn’t withdraw it, his heart began to race. She didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just gazed into his eyes. Was he imagining it? He leaned toward her very slightly. She shifted, moved almost imperceptibly forward. When she still didn’t withdraw her hand, or speak or pull away, he slid his free hand around her. He felt her relax into his touch. He leaned forward and gently pulled her toward him. An instant later, his lips were on hers. She released her grip from his hand, and a moment later, he felt her reaching around him, drawing him closer in return. Her other hand caressed his cheek. He felt her tongue responding to his gentle probing. Her hair smelled good and felt wonderfully silky to the touch. He stroked it as he kissed her and breathed in her intoxicating scent. He felt himself getting hard and pulled her even more tightly against him. When she responded in kind, he felt like he was having an out-of-body experience. Yet at the same time, he had never been happier to be in his flesh.
He had no idea how long they were there. It could have been five minutes, or it could have been twenty. This was one situation where his expertise in the field of memory was of no use to him. But gradually, following some subtle series of signals, they slowly disengaged—not fully, but just enough to gaze into each other’s eyes and speak.
He thought about inviting her in. But he didn’t want to seem too aggressive. She’d already mentioned the morning press conference. He didn’t want her to be tired the next day for her big public appearance. Nor did he want to jump the gun. Underthinking relationships had been his downfall in romance. Then he had the maddening realization that overthinking had been a problem for him too. He saw her looking at him, just expectantly enough to signal that she wanted him to provide the lead.
“Well,” said Verraday. “I should let you go. You’ve got that press conference in the morning. And I’ve got a lecture too.”
“Right,” said Maclean.
She straightened up. Verraday thought he saw something, a microexpression, some flicker of disappointment cross her face. He suddenly felt afraid of losing her.
“But if you’re free on the weekend, there’s a new Thai restaurant on East Madison that’s supposed to be great. I want to hear about the r
est of your week. Unless you’ll be too big of a celebrity by then to be hanging out with lowly academics.”
“Sure,” said Maclean, laughing slightly. “It’s a date.”
He leaned across, held her, and pressed his lips against hers one last time, lingering for a long moment before he withdrew. He hoped it was enough to signal genuine interest and not leave her wondering if he was just beating a polite retreat.
Then he opened the door slowly and stepped out. Verraday stood on the sidewalk, still watching her. He couldn’t read her expression. He felt wistful and was momentarily frozen, unsure how to extract himself. She was returning his gaze.
She lowered the passenger’s side window, smiled, then said, “You know how this works, right? I hope it hasn’t been that long. One of us has to look away.”
“Okay. You first,” said Verraday.
“No. You’re forgetting that I have those protective instincts I mentioned. I need to see you enter your domicile and lock the door safely behind you, sir. And really, you should get a security alarm. I wasn’t kidding about that.”
He laughed. “All right, Officer. I’ll go straight home and I won’t talk to any strangers. I’ll call you later in the week to sort out a time for dinner.”
Verraday grinned like a teenager, knew he was doing it, and for once didn’t care. He reached for the gate handle and noted that it was closed and latched, which pleased him. For all Bosko’s bluster and protests of innocence, Verraday had called it right. Confronting the meat-headed patrolman had worked. He’d put Bosko in his place and sent him packing. Maybe this would be the end of it all now.
When he arrived at the front steps, he reached into his jacket for his keys. He fumbled for just a moment then mercifully, felt them in the bottom of his pocket. He knew Maclean was still watching him and was relieved that for once he had remembered where he’d left his keys, enabling him to make something resembling a smooth and suave exit.
He put the key in the lock, opened it, then turned and stood in the doorway. He could see Maclean now only in shadows, silhouetted by the streetlights. He waved to her, and she returned the gesture. Only when he backed into the house and slowly began to close the door did he see her put the vehicle in gear and pull away from the curb.
He locked the door then kicked off his boots and hung his jacket up on the hall tree. He turned on the gas fireplace and poured a brandy for himself, plunking down happily on the sofa. He took a sip of the amber liquor and savored the warmth of it spreading through his body as he felt the welcome glow of the gas fireplace on his skin.
He was filled with a sense of well-being he hadn’t experienced since . . . well, he couldn’t think of when. He smiled inwardly, thinking of how good Maclean’s body had felt against his when they kissed. Her breath was gentle and warm, her skin pleasingly soft, though he could feel that her arms were lithe and athletic beneath the sleeves of her Burberry trench coat. As he raised his brandy to his lips, he caught the scent of her perfume on his sleeve, something exotically floral with an almost imperceptible musky note.
He debated calling her, finally gave in, and picked up his cell phone. He was about to speed dial her, but suddenly felt awkward at the prospect of exactly what he’d say. If he invited her to come back, it would force a response, and if that response was “no,” it would introduce an awkward note into what had been a heady, if brief, start to their romance. He decided to text her instead. A text would give them both a bit more leeway. There would be no awkward pauses while she was forced to say yes or no. If she didn’t want to come back, she could even pretend she’d had her phone turned off, and they’d both save face.
He flip-flopped a few times and finally settled on writing, “I should’ve invited you in. If you’re awake and not up to anything, come on over.” Simple yet functional.
He hit send before he could change his mind. An instant later, he castigated himself for sending such an inarticulate note. But the matter was now out of his hands. He began reading again, but had only gotten through three more pages before a wave of fatigue hit him. The adrenaline and exhaustion of the last week, he suspected, had finally caught up with him.
He felt a craving for sleep so powerful that he went upstairs without even turning off the gas fireplace. He’d nap for a few minutes, he told himself, and then if Maclean did come back, he wouldn’t be a narcoleptic dud.
* * *
Verraday awakened in the dark. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep. He thought he’d heard a thump. Or had he? He couldn’t tell if it was a real sound, or just a muscle spasm from him relaxing, something from the subbasement of his unconscious mind. The thud, if it was real at all, was over by the time he’d awakened, and for a moment, with the house so quiet, he wondered if it had just been something he’d dreamed. He lay there on the bed for a moment. It could have been raccoons knocking over the garbage can outside. Or a gate, his or someone else’s, banging in the wind. But he saw that the shadows of the tree branches on his bedroom wall were motionless. The air outside was still. And the sound, it seemed to him, had been closer. He had an urge to fall back asleep, but then realized how bad it would look if Maclean had returned and knocked on his door, and he hadn’t answered.
He wondered if she had responded to his text message. Then he recalled that in his haste to lie down, he had left his cell phone in the living room. Still fighting to shake off the fatigue, he made his way across his bedroom, surprised to find himself unsteady on his feet. As he crossed the threshold of the bedroom doorway into the hall, he saw a faint flickering of orange light from downstairs and realized he’d forgotten to turn the gas fireplace off.
In the next moment, a searing sensation shot down his neck and arm. He felt like his breath was being squeezed out of him, like hot, stinging tendrils had plummeted through his shoulder blade toward his chest. He stumbled forward and hit a bookcase, then collapsed backward onto the carpet.
It took a moment for Verraday to grasp what had happened. Someone was moving in the hallway behind him. He was unnaturally groggy and in excruciating pain. He looked at his shoulder and saw the blood now seeping out onto the floor.
But even through the waves of pain, he was stunned to the marrow when his tormentor stepped out of the shadows, identity now revealed: it was Jensen, the mousy-looking student, the one with the unfashionable glasses who seemed to live in a bulky sweater and baggy jeans. Only she no longer looked anything like the girl who sat quietly in his classes four times a week. She wasn’t wearing glasses. Her black hair wasn’t pulled back in the usual way that made it look short and severe. It hung loose, and Verraday could see that it was much longer than he’d realized. Neither was she wearing the bulky sweater and baggy jeans. She was dressed in black leggings and a clingy sweater under a motorcycle jacket. If she hadn’t been standing there right in front of him, he would never have believed the transition. She had transformed into a lithe vixen who wouldn’t have gone unnoticed for more than a second in any crowd.
“Jensen, what are you doing?” he croaked.
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m killing you.”
“Killing me?”
“Well, I didn’t start out the evening with that idea. I originally came by to seduce you.”
“What would possess you to do something like that?”
“Because I know how much you like me and how much you’re attracted to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on. All those times you looked at that Bettie Page site?”
Verraday felt hopelessly confused by this new information. His brain was foggy, and the pain from the knife wound was so overwhelming that Jensen’s statement sounded like a puzzle wrapped inside a non sequitur.
“That site you kept going to. I made it up. There’s no fucking Bettie Page exhibit at the MoMA. Those thumbnails you kept looking at were of me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know about any Bettie Page exhibit.”
“Don’t
lie to me!” shouted Jensen. “I have your IP address from our e-mails. And it turned up on that fake web page I made. A whole bunch of times. Each one of those photos had a code encrypted in it. And I know from it that you even looked at the pictures of me more than you looked at Bettie Page.”
“Pictures of you?”
“Yes, the thumbnails? Where you couldn’t see her face. All of those were me. And you loved it. I know you did because you clicked on all of them. Over and over. You were hot for me. So don’t deny it.”
Through the dim light of his memory, Verraday now realized that Jensen had concocted an elaborate test for him.
“You went to my site seven times this week. Seven fucking times. Do you know how good that made me feel, when I saw that you clicked on those thumbnails and knew that you were fantasizing about me? That you kept coming back to see me? Not even Bettie Page, but me.”
“I didn’t know it was you,” said Verraday.
“But you wanted me. Whether you knew it was me or not. You were obsessed with me, Professor. And you could have had me too. But you screwed everything up.”
Even through his stupor, he could see that Jensen was becoming agitated. She was pacing, making jabbing motions at him with the hunting knife. He tried to placate her. “It’s not surprising that I was attracted to you,” he said. “You’re an extremely beautiful . . .”
“Girl? Is that what you meant to say? Girl? Fuck you. Don’t try to talk your way out of this. You had your chance and you chose someone else.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Jensen’s voice rose with anger. “Like hell you don’t. And not just anyone, but a cop. A fucking cop. So much for all your anti-authority bullshit. And to think I even killed for you.”
“What do you mean, killed for me?” asked Verraday, alarmed. He had a sudden horrifying fear that she might have done something to Maclean.
“Robson. Do you really think he died in a gun-cleaning accident? Do you have any idea how much work went into that? I drugged his whiskey, just like I drugged your brandy. And when he saw me coming for him, he looked at me helplessly, with this stupid expression on his face. Like he was so fucking surprised. He couldn’t believe that he was a big bad cop and he was about to be killed by a girl.”