by Jenna Rae
Did Beckett give it to you? If it has sentimental value, then you loved him, once. Dammit. I’m focused on all the wrong things. She watched Lola watch her.
“Can I see it?” Del’s voice was even.
Lola crossed over to her purse and fished out a little wooden box. She handed it to Del.
“Where did you get this?”
“Dr. Beckett gave it to me.”
“When?” Dr. Beckett? Not Orrin?
“Um, when I was sixteen. At the time, I—” She shook her head. “Anyway, like I said, it isn’t worth any money.”
Del held the small box in her open palm and looked at it. It was maybe three inches square, two inches tall. Pressed wood, the varnished surface rubbed almost bare. Cheap, the kind of thing an indifferent relative gives a little girl for Christmas.
“Can I open it? Is that okay?”
At Lola’s nod, she lifted the lid. “Daddy’s Little Girl” tinkled out until she held down the trigger. Gross. She suppressed a grimace.
“At the time, you what?”
“Huh?” Lola’s eyebrows rose, “Nothing.” She flushed. Her arms were wrapped around her middle again.
Del waited her out. Come on, sweetheart, just tell me. I already know the story, anyway. You were a kid, all alone. And he was nice to you, and you thought he cared about you. You trusted him, and then he turned out to be a monster. How else could it have gone?
“It’s embarrassing. Stupid. I guess I thought Dr. Beckett wanted to be, like, my dad, sort of. He was very kind, then. He was my friend back then. I thought so anyway. It was my birthday and he bought a cake, and he gave me this beautiful music box, and I was thrilled. There was a key inside for a car—you know, my car, the brown one? He was never creepy or mean, not then. And I thought, you know, it’s like I have a dad now.” She laughed. “Stupid. It was my own fault. I should have known better.”
Del shook her head. Filed that story away for later along with all the rest of it. Pretty much what she’d figured, but still—the pain and shame in Lola’s voice, in her eyes. It was worse, somehow, hearing the way Lola blamed herself. Even though the victims always did. She flicked her finger around the bits and pieces that filled the tiny space—there wasn’t much. A button, a necklace, a ring, and a picture of Lola as a little girl—big eyes and a hesitant smile. She closed the lid before she could get caught staring at those big, sad eyes, that tiny child’s fragility.
“Well,” she said, “I don’t see anything worth killing for.”
Lola reached for the box. “Sorry,” she said, “it would have been nice to find something in there that explained all this.”
Del pulled it away and put it on the table. “I wanna have this checked over. Maybe there are fingerprints or something. Um, can I have your purse, too?”
Lola nodded.
“Del,” she began, “you don’t think that this is what The Creep’s after, do you? Something in my purse? My music box?”
“‘The Creep?’” Del sounded amused.
“That’s what I call him. Remember? I told you, after I remembered him from the ambulance.”
“Oh, right.”
“You still don’t believe me.”
Del searched her face again. “I think you believe it. And I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but it was the middle of the night. You’ve been wound up, losing sleep, scared. You’ve been through a lot, and you dreamed it. I know it felt really real to you, but I think it was a dream.”
It was a dismissal. Lola chewed her lip.
Del was distracted. She got a towel and wrapped the box in it. “I gotta go, okay? I’ll call you later.” She held Lola’s purse aloft, grimacing at the unfamiliar weight.
“I can tell you what he looks like,” Lola said, her voice too loud. “I can talk to the sketch artist again, and this time I can do a better job. I promise!”
Del looked at her with shielded eyes. “Lola.”
“Del, do you trust me or not?”
“It’s not about trust. It’s about being realistic.”
“But I can tell you now. I couldn’t before, because he had on a wig, I think, and glasses. But now I can tell you what he looks like.”
“Lola.” Del’s jaw twitched. “You want to help, right?”
Lola nodded.
“So, isn’t it possible that your mind tried to put this all together, tried to fill in the blanks?”
“It’s possible, I guess, but that’s not what happened.” Lola started to cry. She hated that. Whenever she tried to explain something, or tried to fight for something, or got too upset about something, she would start to cry. And she saw that Del lost what little respect she had for her when the tears started. Still, she had to try. “That’s not what happened,” she repeated. “It wasn’t a dream. It happened, I swear! Can’t you just give me a chance?”
“Okay.” Del shrugged. “I’ll set up an appointment for you to meet with the sketch artist.” But it was clear that Del was just placating her.
She was angry and frustrated and wanted to push the point, but suddenly the feeling of dread that had overtaken Lola after her bad dream resurfaced. She was embarrassed and unable to explain her fear, but she drew nearer to Del.
“Please,” she whispered, “don’t go. Just stay with me, please?” She knew she must sound crazy, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that if she let Del walk out that door, she’d never see her again.
Del just looked at her, frowning. “I can’t do that, Lola.”
“I just have a really bad feeling. I know it’s stupid. I know you have things to do. But I need you to stay. Del, please, Tom can come here and get the box. We should go to a new hotel, anyway. We’ve been here too long. Please, Del?” She gripped Del’s arm with rigid fingers.
But Del disengaged herself. “Don’t be scared. I made sure no one followed me here, I always make sure.”
Lola shook her head. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Lola, don’t worry about me. I know how to take care of myself, remember? And we’ll change hotels soon. It’ll be fine. You’re just getting a little cabin fever.” She paused. “Beckett—he sorta kept you locked up, right?”
Lola looked at her with wary eyes.
“I know it feels like that again. I hate—but it’s almost over. I can feel it.” She leaned over suddenly and kissed Lola hard.
Lola’s lips yielded under hers, and she felt a charge run between them.
Del hesitated. This is wrong. Don’t do this. She’s scared and confused. Stop this. Leave now.
But her body had taken over. All it wanted was more Lola. Don’t do this. Don’t be an asshole, Mason. Pulling away, she held Lola away from her and saw the disappointment in her eyes. She should say something. She should reassure her and explain herself and establish an appropriate boundary. She opened her mouth and closed it again. Lola stared at her.
She shook her head and slid out the door as quickly as she could, gripping Lola’s purse and music box in her hands and trying not to look like she was running away.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lola was still catching her breath when Del swept out the door.
“Wait,” she called, but it was too late.
She couldn’t think clearly. She forced herself to eat, brush her teeth, shower and comb her hair. She straightened the room, packed their bags, and put them by the door. She looked around the room. Opened the curtains. Closed them again. Turned the television on and tried to stare at the nonsense on the screen. Turned it off. Checked all of the drawers and under the beds and in the bathroom. All the time, her anxiety kept building.
“Okay,” she told herself, lying on her back on the neatly made bed, “just breathe. Empty your mind. Stop letting your emotions rule your thoughts. Let your mind speak.” She leveled her breathing, relaxed her shoulders and unclenched her jaw. “Be an open jar. Just let the truth fill you.”
The main character in her book did this, and it worked for her. Lola felt stupid and self-co
nscious and childish. She waited. For a long time, she couldn’t do it. She scratched her arm and looked around the room.
She remembered the first time she looked at Orrin and realized he was an old man. His hands had become arthritic, and his hearing was getting a little weaker, but those things hadn’t seemed to bother him. One morning, she saw him rubbing his knees and frowning. She pretended not to see, but he flew into a rage. He shot up from the bed where he’d been putting on his socks and shoes. When had he started sitting down to do that? She didn’t remember. He growled and shoved her into the dresser. She hit her elbow and side and fell, and he screamed at her and hit her with his shoe while she cowered at his feet. Then he got tired. She felt it. The shoe hit her, but not as hard. He was out of breath.
It was afterward, waiting for him to leave for work, that she noticed his slight limp. Getting up so quickly had hurt. Now, lying on the hotel bed, months after Orrin’s death, Lola felt as though she were back there on the floor in Orrin’s bedroom, blood running down the side of her face, realizing that Orrin was almost seventy and an old man.
At some point he would be really elderly, and she would have to take care of him. She imagined her future self, saw a future Lola with thick streaks of gray in her hair, a nest of wrinkles around her eyes. Orrin would have to retire at some point. He wouldn’t be able to drive anymore. Whether that was five years away or twenty, it would happen. He would depend on her for meals, for medicine, for washing up. She would have to turn him to prevent bedsores. She would have to put his pills in little boxes, one for each mealtime, one at bedtime. She would have to drive him to the doctor and ask questions and fill prescriptions and get him to take the pills. She would have to take care of the money and the bills and the insurance and the house, and he would question how she did everything, and she would always have done it wrong.
There would be temptations, moments when just a bit of extra morphine, a hapless foot on an IV line, some small bit of what could be error or neglect or carelessness would free her of him forever. Would she be strong enough not to give in to these temptations? She agonized over the possibility that she might kill him if she could get away with it. And maybe even if she couldn’t. She could see herself planning it, figuring out how to make sure he was dead before calling for help. Could see herself accepting condolences and walking away from his cooling body without a backward glance. A shudder of horror ripped through her, and she recoiled from the images in her mind.
She was back in the present again, her back settled against the lumpy bedspread in a hotel just outside of San Francisco. Orrin was dead and had been for months, and she was no longer that woman who was contemplating whether or not she would murder her husband as soon as he had grown old and weak enough. She was not a murderer. She had not done the terrible things she had thought about. Orrin had died, but she hadn’t killed him.
“Thank God,” she whispered.
Why in the world was she thinking about Orrin? He had nothing to do with her life now. What she needed to do was focus and figure out if Del really needed help or not. And for some reason she was sure that if she just listened carefully enough, the answer to that question would come to her. She waited until silence filled her. She stopped fidgeting and worrying and remembering. She stopped fighting. Her body seemed far away, but she didn’t let that scare her. Her breathing was slow and easy and regular. She waited. She waited. Suddenly, she knew. Del was in danger. Lola had to save her.
Bolting up, she used the bedside phone to call Del. And got no answer. She left messages everywhere she could think of. She started to call a taxi and then remembered that Del had taken her purse. What was she going to do, with no money, no credit cards?
***
Unaware of Lola’s panic, Del met with Phan at the station. To her relief, he didn’t make a big deal out of her failure to get Lola to talk about Beckett’s routine. Like Del, he seemed to think it was probably a dead end. The hate mail seemed like a much more viable lead, and they thumbed through the most likely nutjobs.
“Nothing,” Del muttered. “All smoke, no fire.”
“I sent her purse and music box to the lab.” Phan shrugged. “But you know how slow that is.”
“The clock is winding down on this thing.”
“You think?”
It was Del’s turn to shrug. “Don’t know why.”
Phan eyed her. “You can hardly claim to be objective.”
“I can’t argue with that.” She rubbed her forehead. “But I’m right.”
They met with Dominguez to prepare for their meeting with the Fed. Dominguez had developed detailed profiles on everyone connected with Orrin Beckett. It was impressively comprehensive and completely useless.
“The problem,” Dominguez complained, “is with Lola Beckett.”
“Bannon.”
“No family,” he fumed, “no friends. No job. No trips. No bank account or debit card or checkbook. No credit cards. Nothing. Nobody. Listen, I can tell you the name of the doc’s favorite boat wax, what brand of shoes he liked best, where he bought his scotch, and who he stiffed for a grand after last year’s Super Bowl. But I can’t find shit on her until a year ago. Either she’s hiding a whole secret life, or she lived in a cave for twenty years.”
“Cave,” grunted Del, and the two men exchanged a look.
“Mason,” started Phan, “I don’t want to step on anything here, okay?”
Del eyed him, her face a mask of rigid control.
He signaled to Dominguez, who left. “I don’t care if she’s your friend, or your girlfriend, or whatever. Not my business, okay? But you know her. You’re the only one who does. She trusts you, at least a little. If you tell me something, I swear I’ll help you protect her. But don’t shut me out. Don’t make me find something on my own, or I’ll have to make it all official and public. See what I’m saying? I don’t have any interest in fucking over a nice lady who already got fucked over enough, you know? Just tell me—is she hiding anything?”
Del spread her arms, palms up, fingers spread. “Seriously, I’m not holding out on you. She’s an innocent. From what I can tell, Beckett owned her from the time she was sixteen.”
There was a short pause.
Phan made a face. “Kaylee’s not much younger than that. She still plays with Barbies.”
“Listen, Phan.” Del tried not to sound defensive. “She’s not hiding anything criminal. She doesn’t know anything. I poked all around and didn’t find anything but a nasty old man and a scared girl.”
“Abuse?”
Del shrugged.
“He was a doctor,” Phan commented.
“Probably patched her up himself.” Del examined the laminate that peeled off the edge of the chair. She didn’t want to talk about that. Think about that. It clouded her thinking too much.
“Hmmm.” Phan grunted. He leveled his gaze at her, his expression remote. “One thing is off.”
She looked at him with narrowed eyes.
“Okay.” He ticked off on this fingers, “One, dirty old man finds a pretty little orphan. He grooms her, wins her trust, isolates her. Two, locks her up with a wedding ring. Says he’s her lord and master, whatever. Three, uses threats and maybe violence to keep her under his thumb. Four, he owns her—no friends, no family, no job, no money, no way out. He’ll kill her if she leaves, all that shit. Well, what’s number five?”
“He kills her.” The answer was automatic, and Del heard her voice saying the words before she knew she’d thought them.
“Right. But does he kick her out and hop in a car with his girlfriend? He’s been embezzling for five, six years. He and his partner have been defrauding Medicare for twice that long. They have all this money stashed. Together? Or do they each take a cut and keep their shares separate? Where’s the money? Play it out. Which is more important to Beckett, the money or the wife? He could have just buried her in the backyard, and no one would have missed her. So why let her go, all of a sudden?”
“
Lola says Beckett didn’t take the money. What if she’s right? What if the partner is the thief, and he just sucked Beckett into it? Maybe he blackmailed the partner or something. Maybe—”
“Hold on,” Phan interrupted. “Can you trust her assessment of him? She probably has Stockholm Syndrome. All those years under his thumb, you know how this shit works.”
Del shrugged. “Maybe. She was freaked when he died. She might not want to think of him as a thief.”
Dominguez strutted over, a huge bagel forgotten in his hand. “Davis, the guy’s supposed to be on some kinda RV trip? Only he hasn’t used his cell phone, his credit card, anything for over two months.”
Phan turned and frowned. “We knew that.”
“Yeah,” Dominguez retorted, “but did you know he took ten grand outta his credit union this morning?”
“Where?” Phan and Del demanded, together.
“Oakland.” Dominguez grinned. “I’ll have him by dinnertime. Assholes always get stupid, sooner or later. Especially rich guys. Can’t go ten minutes without a manicure or a hooker or some nice designer blow.”
Phan looked at Del and smiled. “We’d love to join in the fun, but we have to meet with the Fed.”
Del rolled her eyes but rose and tipped a wave at Dominguez as she and Phan stalked out to the car.
“My turn,” she muttered, and Phan took the passenger seat. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Try not to lose your shit, Mason.”
She made a face. “Me? I’m cool as ice.”
“Not where Lola is concerned.”
She grimaced. “I’ll try.”
His reply was a quiet grunt, and they joined the crawling line of cars headed toward Market Street. Del tapped her fingers against the steering wheel in impatience. Traffic was exactly why she loved her bike so much.
“Relax, we’ll be there in two minutes.”
***