Jake’s intercom buzzed again. “Jake? Cadet Kurtz is—”
“Send her in, please,” Jake said. “So how do we know it’s her? Kylie How—?”
“Howarth. We don’t,” DeLuca said. “Description matches, though. Everything matches. Description, timing, ‘flying’—you know, off a bridge. The parents are getting a plane A-sap, bringing the letter. Could be here today, they’ll let us know. Then they’ll have to see Dr. A in the ME’s office. ID the body.”
“Bad news for them,” Jake said. “Hate that. But guess it’s good for us.”
“Yup.” DeLuca nodded, swiveling the chair slightly back and forth. “Thing is.”
“Thing is what?” Jake said.
“Detectives?” Cadet Kurtz, also carrying a Dunkin’s cup, peered around Jake’s door. She held out a sheaf of papers, but looked at DeLuca. “So you told him? I was going to call you, sir, but Paul—uh, Detective DeLuca—said that—”
“All set,” Jake said. He motioned her to hand over the documents. “Good work.”
DeLuca raised his cup at her. “Kurtz, I was about to tell Detective Brogan what you said the Howarths told you about their daughter’s employment history. Where she’d applied for a job.”
Jake began to read. He held the pages, midair.
“No way,” he said. He looked at DeLuca, then at Kurtz, then back again, trying to read their faces. “You two are frickin’ kidding me.”
41
Two missed calls, a text, and an e-mail. Jane clicked her car door open, alone in the Register’s parking lot, turned on the key to get the heat started. I have to sleep. She would see who’d called, drive to her apartment, then answer, if she absolutely had to, when she got home. Then, sleep.
She clicked in her access code. If she didn’t got some rest, she’d never make it through the Gable interview. Lucky she had already done her research. Lucky she didn’t have to look good on camera for it.
Voice mail. “You have two new calls. To listen, press one.”
“Jane Elizabeth?”
Her father’s voice. Was something wrong?
There was a pause. Her dad hated leaving messages. Something must be wrong. Lissa? Her wedding? His health? “Your sister showed me the article in the Boston Register this morning. Online.”
Another pause.
“Nice job, honey,” her father said. He coughed, cleared his throat. “I wish your mother could have seen it.”
There was a beat of silence, then a click. Her father never said good-bye on the phone. Why did she always feel tears, hearing his voice? She was tired. Just tired. She pushed 1 for the other message.
This caller’s voice was so shrill, so tense, she almost didn’t recognize it.
“We have to talk, Jane,” Moira’s recorded voice said. “Owen just got home. Now he says—well, first he told me he was in Springfield, but now he’s saying he spent the night in Worcester. Worcester! That’s more than forty-five minutes from here. Why not simply come home? Why not? I’ll tell you why. He actually had that girl in the car. In his car. I saw her, she got out, preened herself in front of me, all that hair and … ah. That incredible b—”
Jane could hear Moira stop for breath, imagined her trying to calm herself. Did she hear the clink of ice?
“We need to talk, Jane. Did you see this person in Springfield? Why did Owen go to Worcester? It’s terrible, Jane, it’s terrible. You’re an outsider, reliable, the only one I can trust. You know someone is going to notice. And when they do, it’ll be too late. Call me, please.”
Jane stared at the phone. Hit the Save button. And stared again. So much for Jane’s feigned ignorance. Sounded like Moira, too, had seen the other woman.
She turned off the ignition. She had to go back upstairs and tell Alex.
She turned on the ignition. She had to get home. She could call Alex later and they could figure out what to do. If Moira was drunk, or delusional, or scheming, or sincere, or whatever all the other possibilities were. Nothing more was going to happen today. Nothing she could do anything about, anyway.
Who’d texted? She clicked a few buttons. Amy. “Another Sat nite by URself? How ’bout Hot Alex? CL me.” If Amy only knew. And she hadn’t even told her about Alex’s on-again, off-again wedding ring. If she did, Amy’d be on the hunt for bridesmaids’ dresses.
Jane yawned, her whole face stretched with the desire for sleep, her eyes closing. She covered her face with her palms, then batted her cheeks to wake herself up.
Next, the e-mail. From Jake.
Shoot. She clicked it open. Stared at it. Two words: Kenna Wilkes.
* * *
It was cold, and beautiful, and it felt like she was flying. Holly stretched to her longest stride, the music filling her head, a blast of salt air filling her lungs and making her so powerful. She was running and running, not away from anything, not anymore, but toward her perfect future. The post office had been open on Sunday, perfect, package number two now on the way.
Odd that Jane hadn’t mentioned the first package. Maybe the mail had messed up. Maybe it hadn’t arrived? She knew the address was correct, she’d chosen Jane carefully and copied her address at Channel 11 from the Web before she’d moved to Boston. She’d even written the mailing labels in advance.
Holly took a deep breath, trying not to fret. She’d only mailed it—when? Like, the other day. Maybe Jane hadn’t seen it yet. Maybe Jane was ignoring it? Testing her? Or maybe she didn’t recognize her from the photos. At the rally, Holly’d been so excited to see Jane! And thought she’d come on purpose, hoping Holly would be there. Funny, she didn’t have a cameraman with her. TV reporters usually did.
Holly let it go, the wind whistling past her woolen cap, and she made the turn back to the post office. The muscles in her legs and her lungs had that nice burning sensation, so she knew she’d pushed to the limit. And a little beyond.
Her car was there, right where she’d left it. The lot had been pretty empty when she parked, only a couple of cars. There were more now, now that it was—she looked at her black digital watch—a little after noon. A guy stood by the railing, a folded newspaper sticking out of his back pocket. She watched him toss bread crumbs or whatever into the water, swooping seagulls snapping them up.
Holly kept running, slowing down, following along her iPod selections in cool-down mode. She’d programmed them specially for her run, starting off slowly, then getting faster and faster, then perfect running music, the Cars, Gaga, Katy Perry, Flo Rida; then the cool down. She was almost through her favorite Sting, so one song still to go before her timed run-list finished. And she had to be back at the car, perfectly, when the downloads ended.
She’d make it. She always did, even if she had to hurry up or slow down a little to make it precisely right.
She leaned both palms against the hood of her car, her hands feeling the chill of the metal through her knitted gloves, and let out a long cleansing breath exactly as the cool-down music ended. The stretching music started. Alanis. She carefully lifted one leg behind her, then the other. She looked up. The guy was watching her.
She squinted in the October sunshine. Ignored the music’s orders to continue stretching. Was the glare on the water playing tricks with her vision? Did she want it so much that it seemed to appear? She stopped, midstretch, staring. Blinked, twice, but the same man was still there. And she knew who it was. She knew.
No. Not possible.
The man was walking toward her. Could it be?
She pinched her own arm, hard. “Ow!” she cried. Like one of the seagulls skirling across the sky. But she felt it. She didn’t wake up. It wasn’t a dream. It was real.
The man came closer. Closer. Closer.
She heard him say, “Hollister?”
42
“Wake up, Hollister.” Matt draped Holly onto the passenger seat of his car. She hadn’t exactly fainted, but he’d arrived right in time to catch her as her knees gave way. He pulled off her stretchy cap and tossed it into th
e backseat. She still looked terrific, that was for sure. Though he figured seeing him would be a shocker, he never expected she’d totally lose it like this. Well, it could work for him. “Holly? You with me here?”
“Is it really you? Matt?” She turned to him as he got behind the wheel, one palm under her cheek like a groggy little girl. “How did you know—?”
“Let’s not talk about that now,” Matt said. “You look kinda woozy. Do you need some water?”
Holly shook her head slowly, staring at him. She reached out with one hand, didn’t quite touch him. “No, no, don’t leave. No water. I’m fine. It’s only—Matt?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“You called me Hollister. I knew you would, I knew it. Knew if I…” Her voice trailed off. She closed her eyes.
Geez. A complete wack. Matt felt her car keys in her pocket and clicked her car locked through his open window. Meters not in effect Sundays, that was a big plus. Even if she didn’t move her car tonight, she wouldn’t get a ticket until the next day. Holly’s earbuds had fallen out, and he’d looped them around her neck. He could hear the buzz of some music coming from them.
“The world works in mysterious ways.” From somewhere he pulled out a line Holly used to throw at him. He rolled his eyes, knowing she’d never notice. “I guess I was meant to find you.”
“Mmmmm,” she said. Keeping her eyes closed. “Tell me the story, though. The whole thing.”
“Tell you the…?”
Holly sat up, tucked one ankle under her, wide-eyed as a kid asking for another fairy tale. “The whole story. How you found me.”
Nip this puppy in the bud, Matt thought. Hell, he needed to stall for time, but he’d tell her the truth, kind of, then move on. “Well, I saw your picture in the paper. The Boston paper. I read it for the Red Sox, you know?”
He tapped the newspaper on the console next to him. “I don’t get the print version back home, so I check out the Register online. And there you were, in a story about—”
“My picture’s in today’s paper?” Holly’s eyes sparkled. She sat up straighter, grabbing for the Sunday Register he’d purchased outside the post office. “Let’s see!”
Matt had to laugh, watching her scan the front page. “Not today’s paper,” Matt said. “It was … a couple days ago. So I flew in to see if I could find you.”
He expected—he didn’t know what he expected. But not this. Holly had the newspaper in front of her face. Like she’d completely forgotten about him.
“Holly? Hollister?” What the hell?
“Jane Ryland works for the Register?” Holly’s voice was hollow, and her finger pointed at something on the front page. “She’s a reporter for the Register? I thought she was television. A television reporter. Doesn’t she work at Channel Eleven?”
She turned to him, her face crumbling. Was she about to cry? The woman was certifiable. Holly looked back at the paper, running her finger down a column.
“Jane what?” Matt said. “Who’s she?”
Holly folded his newspaper so the article she was reading was the only thing showing.
“I have to go,” she said.
Are you friggin’ kidding me? “Ah, Holly, Hollister, no, not now, not now that we finally found each other again.” Matt scrambled to get back the advantage. Whatever just happened, he had no idea. “Whatever it is about this Jane, whoever that is, I know I can help you. I’m here to help you. But, Holly, it’s a beautiful Sunday, and we’re together, and there’s nothing you can do right now about whatever is…”
Matt put himself in full-speed-ahead sales mode, trying to gauge Holly’s reaction.
“Let’s go for a walk, the way we used to. Or sit in a café, and you can tell me everything.” He was not going to let her escape, not until he found out what she was up to. Maybe this Jane thing was something he should know about.
Reality hit. Shit. Jane. Reporter.
“Hollister,” he said. Was she planning to tell what she knew? Was she stalking some newspaper or television person? That could be a disaster. He put his hand on her shoulder. Last ditch. “Come to my hotel room. Be with me.”
He watched as she lowered the paper. She turned to him, smiling.
And we have a sale, ladies and gentlemen. Time to close the deal. “I’ll bring you back to your car later,” Matt said. “Unless you have other plans?”
“My Matt,” she said.
* * *
Jake’s car? In front of her house? As soon as she turned onto Corey Road, Jane recognized that undercover Jeep he sometimes used, dark blue, tinted windows. The bright morning had softened into gray afternoon. Sparse trees and empty sidewalks, fading piles of fallen leaves, even the rows of brownstones made her street a rainbow of neutral. End-of-October neutral. She caught a glimpse of Jake in the front seat. Why was he here?
Jake was out and beside her before she turned off the ignition.
“I need to talk to you, not on the phone,” he said as she got out. He moved close to her, his hand grasping her arm. Pushed her car door closed with his hip. “How are you?”
She could smell peppermint on his breath, and coffee. “Hey, Jakey,” she said. She left his hand there, didn’t move away from him. No one was watching them. And if they were—well. They weren’t. “I’m good. Except for being exhausted. Drove back from Springfield after all that, then had to go to the paper. And I need to take a nap before I die of sleep deprivation.”
She stopped. Tried to read his face. “Jake? What happened? Is this about Kenna Wilkes?”
Jake gave her a funny look. Frowning. “Kenna Wilkes? Why would—?” He cocked his head toward her building. “Can we go in?”
Jane’s eyebrows went up. “Sure, I guess. Is everything okay?” He was scaring her a little. But it had to be about his e-mail. After her initial bafflement, she’d figured he must have gotten the name Kenna Wilkes from Tuck. But why would he e-mail Jane about that? Unless Kenna—somehow—was connected with the bridge killings. Or maybe with Arthur Vick? She tucked her arm through Jake’s, clicking her car locked.
She couldn’t decide if she felt safer with him here, or more afraid. Maybe she was simply exhausted.
“Come in for five minutes. You can tell me what’s going on. Then I have to sleep. I’ve got an interview at five with—well, a work thing. But is everything okay? Are you okay?”
“Sure,” Jake said. “Everything’s fine.”
They climbed the series of narrowing concrete steps to her brownstone in silence, neither of them letting go of the other. Jane turned the lock in the outer door, punched in an alarm code, scooped up the newspaper from the black and white tiled entryway. They climbed two flights of wood-paneled stairway, arm in arm, silent.
“Nice place,” Jake said when she opened the door.
Jane gave her apartment a quick once-over look, relieved she’d put most of her stuff away before she’d headed out to Sellica’s funeral. Gosh, only yesterday. Not too many magazines and newspapers piled on the glass coffee table, only one coffee mug on the end table, only one blazer hanging over the back of a dining room chair. Presentable. She glanced at the cocoa-brown leather couch in her living room, still half-expecting Murrow to leap from her spot and greet her at the door. Poor kitty. She’d had a long and good life.
“Thanks,” Jane said. Weird he’d never been here before. She’d gone to his apartment. That once. That night. She plopped the newspaper on the dining room table and shrugged off her coat. Remembered she was still wearing the same black skirt and turtleneck as yesterday, and hardly had on makeup. Jake was already sitting in the taupe-striped wing chair by the fireplace, fussing with the zipper on his jacket.
What is this all about?
“Listen, Jane,” Jake began. “I’d get nailed for talking to you about this. I just yelled at Tuck for ditching protocol.”
“What did she—?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “But we got some info about one of the victims. A Bridge Killer victim.
I mean, not the Bridge Killer. Look. Off the record?”
Jane plonked her head against the back of the couch, hugging a paisley throw pillow. “Jake Brogan. You show up at my apartment. E-mail me a name with no explanation. Tell me about some Amaryllis person without saying why. I think we’re way past off the record, dude.”
“Yeah, gotcha. But, Jane, this is for you, not for the paper. I want you to be careful of Arthur Vick. Seems like all the victims are connected to him. Seems like he’s not a good guy to have as an enemy. And if he’s coming after—”
The doorbell rang, an insistent buzz that cut through Jake’s words. Jane stood, knocking her pillow over the coffee table and onto the tight design of the rug. Her eyes widened, and she shook her head: No idea …
Jake was already at the door. He cocked his head. Made his hand into a puppet. Ask who it is, he mouthed.
43
“Yes?” Jane leaned closer to the door, peering through the peephole. Nothing. Was someone hiding? Flattened against the wall? Crouching? Did they know Jake was there?
“It’s me,” a little voice piped through the door. “Eli.”
Jane collapsed against the doorjamb, holding her head in her hands, trying not to laugh, waving Jake off.
“Hey, kiddo,” she said, swinging open the door. Eli was much too short to show in the peephole. She burst out laughing as he came into the foyer. “What on earth?”
“I’m a zombie anchorman, for trick or treat tomorrow!” he said. “Listen.”
He furrowed his forehead, narrowed his black-rimmed blue eyes, and spoke into what looked like a paper towel roll with a tennis ball on top. “And now, the news of the dead,” he intoned.
“Very cool. Especially the bloody microphone,” Jane said. Halloween. She’d have to ask Mrs. Washburn to do Twizzler duty again. “This is my friend Jake. Jake, this is Eli. Eli’s a pal. Jake’s a police officer.”
“Hey, Eli,” Jake said.
“A real police officer? Do you have a gun?” Eli had apparently forgotten about the news of the dead. “Did you ever shoot anyone?”
The Other Woman Page 19