Nowhere Safe

by Bush, Nancy

  Maybe that’s why she had started calling him again.

  “It’s for you,” she said, a little testily. “And it’s full of sorrow.”

  He gazed down on the note again.

  Jake, I’m sorry for everything. I shouldn’t rely on you like I do, and I’m going to try not to in the future.

  I love you. You know that. If you want to find me, you know where I am.

  It was full of Loni’s special brand of manipulation, guilt, and sadness, meant to pull at his emotions, but he wasn’t about to tell Marilyn that. Surreptitiously, he checked the time on the microwave clock, but she caught him at it.

  “You just can’t wait to get back to your life, can you?” she said bitterly.

  “Loni does this when she’s feeling low. You know that. It’s when she reaches out to me.”

  “She’s bipolar. She can’t help herself.”

  Jake almost said, “Bipolar and maybe something more,” but again, he kept that to himself. Loni’s problems, which had seemed manageable once upon a time, felt as if they were gathering speed like a boulder down a hill. He was certainly no doctor, but he knew her very well. Marilyn knew her, too. Though she said all the correct, clinical terms and espoused belief in medical treatment, Loni’s mother had made herself believe that her mentally ill daughter would be all right if Jake would just play his part.

  He’d done that for far too long.

  “What place is she talking about?” Marilyn asked. “I’ll go get her.” Since you won’t, her tone added.

  “I’m not sure,” Jake said.

  “Well, where does she mean?”

  “Marilyn, I don’t know.”

  “Is it some place you used to meet?” she pressed.

  He spread his hands. “There was an Italian restaurant in downtown Portland that we used to go to, but it closed.”

  “Come on, Jake.”

  His frustration mounted. “If I knew, I would tell you. Believe me.”

  She gazed at him, determination in her set jaw, but as he met her stare that determination fell by degrees until her chin was quivering and her eyes were welling with tears.

  “Won’t you help find her?” she asked.

  He wanted to say no. He really did. He wanted to tell her he couldn’t keep spinning on this merry-go-round with Loni. He did have a life he wanted to get back to. Very much. A life with September.

  Instead he said, “All right,” and headed for the door. Later, he knew, he would mentally flagellate himself for giving in, again, but he couldn’t callously walk out on Marilyn Cheever when she was so brokenhearted and sick with worry.

  He checked the time on his cell phone. God knew what Loni was up to. He sure as hell hoped he would find her quickly.

  The pain in September’s shoulder, mostly a jolt whenever she moved too suddenly, started in as a dull ache about the time Auggie and Verna appeared at the hospital, walking in from the parking lot together. Verna had gone home to take a shower as she’d spent the night in the hospital despite everyone’s attempts to shoo her out, and now she hurried inside and found September waiting for Auggie. By coincidence, the elevator door softly dinged as September was greeting both Verna and Auggie, and Dr. Rajput stepped out. He came over to them, sober and quiet, and Verna, who initially turned expectantly toward him, took one look at his face and went white.

  “Oh, no,” she said, staggering backward.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Harmak,” the doctor began regretfully, but Verna waved him off, warding off the words she sensed he was about to say.

  “Oh, God.” Verna’s knees wobbled. Auggie swiftly moved to catch her the split second before she collapsed.

  He carried her to a nearby chair where she began to wail and shake. Dr. Rajput sat next to her and asked her to come with him to a private room. If she heard him, September couldn’t tell, but Auggie and the doctor managed to get her to the elevator, and on the third floor several nurses helped usher the group of them into a small, unmarked waiting room apparently designed for this purpose.

  Verna was inconsolable, shaking and crying.

  “The bullet did too much damage to his lungs and heart,” the doctor told her.

  While Verna cried, September felt a headache build inside her skull. Verna was given a sedative and Auggie offered to drive her home.

  “I can’t go back there,” she cried. “I can’t ever go back there.”

  Stepping completely out of his own comfort zone, Auggie called their father and said he was bringing Verna to Castle Rafferty, and Braden, apparently so bowled over at having his younger son call him, agreed.

  “What are you going to do?” Auggie asked September as they both walked across the parking lot to their respective vehicles with Auggie helping Verna to his car.

  “My car . . .” Verna said weakly.

  “I’ll drive her car to Dad’s,” September said, “but I’m not staying.”

  “Me neither.” Auggie was clear on that. “I’ll bring you back to your Pilot.”

  September nodded. She wanted to ask Verna some more questions about Stefan, but she didn’t have the heart or the energy right now.

  They caravanned to the house, then September climbed into Auggie’s Jeep and they returned to the hospital and collected her SUV. “You going home?” he asked her as he dropped her off.

  Her headache hadn’t dissipated. “We’re so short staffed I should check in at the station, but I really don’t give a shit.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” he decided.

  By the time she wheeled into the department lot, this time choosing the front of the building and damn the visitors who might use the spots, the rest of her energy had leaked away and even the thought of a few extra steps felt like too much.

  She passed Guy Urlacher with her ID raised and her eyes focused on the door, willing him to buzz her in without speaking, which, for once, he did.

  Auggie came into the squad room a few minutes later and said, “He’s a putz.”

  “I thought Guy never asked for your ID.”

  “He did this time.”

  “Serves you right for abandoning us.”

  Her brother gazed at her through knowing, Rafferty blue eyes. “You okay?”

  “Hell, no. I’m overworked and tired and probably getting sick.”

  “What do you need?” he asked.

  September hardly knew where to begin. It wasn’t often these days that she had her twin’s undivided attention, and in the future, at least work-wise, it didn’t look like she was going to have it at all.

  “Start with Stefan,” he suggested, as she sank into her desk chair.

  “Stefan . . . You know, he lied about what happened to him from the beginning,” she said, then told him how he’d initially said he’d been attacked at the school, but just before going into surgery he’d said he’d been accosted at a mall by a woman who’d hit him with a stun gun, driven his van to the school, forced him to write the words on the placard they’d found around his neck and to drink down a concoction of drugs, then left him tied to the basketball pole. “. . . the van’s still missing. Verna called me with that information last night, and the next thing you know, he was shot.”

  “A woman.”

  September nodded. “So, maybe it was a woman who killed Christopher Ballonni, too.” Quickly, she reminded him of the similarities to the Ballonni case. How Christopher Ballonni had also been tied to a pole outside his place of work. How he’d also been wearing a placard around his neck written in his own hand. How he’d been stripped down to his boxers and left to the elements.

  “Ballonni died, and maybe Stefan was meant to, but when that didn’t happen she attacked him at his house,” September added, then she went on to tell him about Rhoda Bernstein’s complaint, her conversations with Janet Ballonni and Chris Jr., what Chris Jr. had said about Shannon Kraxberger, and how she planned to interview Gloria del Courte, Ballonni’s coworker, as soon as she had some time. She finished with, “The two cases are tied toget
her and even though Stefan was Wes’s, the Ballonni case is mine. Now that Stefan’s dead I think I can be on both. Wes plans to continue investigating the apparent suicide of Carrie Lynne Carter. He wants to backtrack and find who supplied Carrie Lynne’s boyfriend with ketamine. And we had another homicide today—a wife shooting her husband, maybe in self-defense. I put Maharis on it because there’s nobody here, including D’Annibal. They’re all sick.”

  “Wow,” Auggie said.

  “That’s why I wanted you here,” she added with more energy. “I could use some damn help.”

  He lifted his hands. “D’Annibal has my resignation already, but I’ve got about an hour before I have to be in Portland.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “I told you I took the other job,” he reminded her.

  She clamped her lips together again. She’d just expected he would help her. “Maybe I should have taken up Jake’s offer,” she said, fighting anger. “He wanted to come with me to the station.”

  “You look like hell, Nine,” he said softly. “You’re not a one-woman show. Let Maharis and some of the other uniforms fill in for you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Being stubborn isn’t going to help.”

  “There’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

  “And Stefan’s death is a shock, whether you want to admit it or not.”

  A long silence passed between them as September assessed his words. She did feel like shit, and learning of Stefan’s death only added to it. “I didn’t like him,” she admitted.

  “None of us did. Don’t feel guilty about it. He was weird. It’s a fact.”

  “Do you think he was a pedophile? That’s the direction we’re headed.”

  “The investigation will go where it goes.”

  “Don’t get all wise on me,” she said on a sigh, but she knew what he meant. “Whoever this woman is who tied Stefan and Ballonni up, she must have a damn strong reason. From what she had them write on the placards, it sounds like Ballonni acted on his perversion, but she stopped Stefan before he could.”

  Auggie nodded and September realized that none of the phones were ringing. “Calls aren’t being sent to the detectives?” she said, straightening at the realization.

  “That’s because you’re all sick.”

  The Laurelton Police Department was small to medium sized and the uniforms were always eager to fill a vacationing, or “on administrative leave” detective’s job. That was exactly how September had felt and she’d worked hard to move up.

  “What’s the connection between this woman and her victims?” Auggie posed, bringing her back to the case. “How did she meet them? How did she get close enough to them to figure out their deviancy?”

  “Suspected deviancy. I don’t know. Maybe she worked with one of them . . . ?”

  “But not both of them,” Auggie pointed out.

  “Did she date them?” September made a face. If this woman had dated Ballonni, it was a secret affair outside his marriage, and if she’d dated Stefan . . . wouldn’t Verna have some idea? “I’ll make that talk with Gloria del Courte a priority. And I’ll check in at Twin Oaks Elementary. I already know the principal, Amy Lazenby.”

  “When will Wes be back?” Auggie asked.

  “God knows,” she muttered. “That’s the problem.”

  Maharis came into the room at that moment, frowning down at a piece of paper he was carrying. He looked up, saw Auggie and grinned. “Hey, Rafferty. Where ya been?”

  “Moving on,” he said. “Nine could use some help with the workload since everyone’s down with the plague.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” he said. “Mrs. Calgary’s waiting for arraignment, and then I’m ready.”

  “The wife who shot her husband,” September said for Auggie’s benefit.

  “I got this missing girl, too.” Maharis glanced down at the paper again. “Gillian Palmiter. Twenty-one. Her roommate said she went out to a bar called Gulliver’s last Thursday and never came home.”

  “I know Gulliver’s,” September said. “Gretchen and I were there on the Do Unto Others case.”

  “Did she go by herself?” Auggie asked Maharis.

  “The roommate wasn’t feeling all that great. She drove Gillian—Jilly—to the bar and then went home. Said Jilly was supposed to call her but never did. At first the roommate was glad she didn’t have to go pick her up because she was praying to the porcelain god. Thought Jilly went home with one of the guys she dates. Then she got worried when she hadn’t heard from her by this morning. Jilly’s not answering her cell.”

  “The roommate have the norovirus?” September put a hand to her stomach. Was it just the pain in her shoulder and all of the talk of the virus making her feel a bit queasy, or was she really coming down with it?

  “Huh?” Maharis asked.

  “The plague around here,” Auggie said.

  “Ahh . . .” Maharis nodded. “I didn’t ask, but that’s all you see on the news. Everybody sick. They said to wash your hands a lot. It lasts like—hours—on surfaces or something.”

  “Great,” September muttered. “How many guys does Jilly date?”

  “I got a few names.” Maharis handed the page to September to look at. “I was going to make a few phone calls.” He glanced around the room and picked Gretchen’s desk to settle into. “I’ve got a picture from the roommate to broadcast.”

  September nodded. “Good.”

  “Go home,” Auggie said to September again. He inclined his head in Maharis’s direction. “You got a replacement.”

  “Yeah, one person.”

  The truth was, though, that September was leaning toward Auggie’s suggestion. “Can you follow up on the dealer for Wes?” she asked him.

  “Sure you don’t want me on the Ballonni case?”

  “I’ve got it,” she assured him.

  After getting all the information he needed to move on the Carter case, he gave September a guy hug, side by side with an arm around her shoulder, then he was gone. September felt slightly bereft afterward. She was close to her brother in that indefinable way twins were, but he had a different life now, one of his own choosing, and she was moving in another direction as well.

  She pulled out the list to the Ballonni case and put a call in to the post office where Ballonni had worked, asked for Gloria del Courte and was told she no longer was employed by them. She searched out Gloria’s home number and left a message on her voice mail.

  After that, she drove back to the house, expecting to find Jake, but he wasn’t around. Her sheets were in a pile on the table, so she peeked her head into the second bedroom where her bed was set up but unmade. Wondering where he was, she pulled out her cell and realized she’d missed a call from him while she was at the hospital with Verna and Auggie and Dr. Rajput. She clicked the VOICE MAIL button and listened, her smile growing as he finished with, “. . . the debt is still outstanding. I’m sure some other arrangement can be made to . . . fill the bill, and I hope you can offer recompense later this evening. I’ve put the invoice in the Johnson file. Please open it as soon as you return.”

  “I wish,” she said, attempting to call him while she poured herself a glass of water. It also went to voice mail, and she just hung up, knowing he would see the missed call. She headed for the bedroom she shared with him, stripped off her clothes and pulled on some sweats and a T-shirt. She was shivering and thought, Peachy, just before she bolted for the bathroom and her own ignominious vomiting into the toilet.

  It was dark by the time Jake, frustrated and ready to chuck in the whole damn thing, finally had an inkling of where Loni might have meant she would be. He’d already been to the real estate office where she worked and talked to several women there, one of whom recognized him. She’d printed a page off her printer with all of Loni’s listings and he’d driven by each one on the off chance she would be there. He’d also driven by all the restaurants that he could remember where they’d eaten, places
they’d once deemed special, and he’d continually checked her cell phone, which went straight to voice mail over and over again.

  He’d damn near called Nine’s cell a dozen times, but he kind of wanted her to pick up his message and phone him first. She would call him when she could. She’d told him that enough times for him to believe it. And she’d made it pretty clear this morning that she had a job that he wasn’t invited to help her with. He was lucky she’d allowed him to go with her to the hospital last night.

  But he was losing steam and interest and he was about to break that rule and call September anyway. How long was she going to stay at work anyway? The sun, such as it was behind all those gray clouds, had set.

  And then he knew where Loni would be. She’d told him when she’d mentioned the newlywed couple whom she’d sold a house to.

  He drove to Sunset Valley High and immediately saw the vintage Chevy Malibu parked at the back of the senior parking lot behind the sprawling brick building. It was the car she’d had in high school, and it hadn’t been new then, either. Seeing it bothered Jake, because, though she hadn’t sold it, Loni hadn’t driven it in years. She was taking some dark trip down memory lane that didn’t speak well to her state of mind.

  He pulled his Explorer up beside her, then went around to her driver’s door and tapped on the window.

  She was slumped in the seat, staring straight ahead, and wouldn’t look at him.

  “Loni,” he said loudly. For a moment he was scared, she was so still. But then he saw the rise and fall of her chest.

  “Loni,” he called again.

  She swiveled her head and looked at him, then leaned over and popped the lock on the passenger side door.

  Jake hesitated. This didn’t bode well at all. He thought he heard his cell ringing inside the Explorer and he almost grabbed it out and answered it. It sounded like September’s ring-tone. But then he looked at Loni again, at the defeated way she sank into the seat, and instead he did as she apparently wanted, walking around the back of her car, opening the passenger side door, and ducking his head inside.