Twin Offerings

by Ruth Parker

  Seventeen

  When Meredith Turner slammed a door, no one paid much attention. She was always slamming doors and throwing staplers and calling people idiots. She ran the Tribune with a true romantic’s view of the press. If you weren’t up to your eyeballs in paperwork, blue pencils, and cease and desist orders, you weren’t trying hard enough.

  She had just gotten off the phone with that sanctimonious prick Sheriff Richard Stella. He had the balls to serve the Tribune with a gag order if she printed one syllable about how those dead twins were posed out in the woods. Meredith herself had been to the scene. She’d been a newspaper hack for thirty-six years and Lord willing, she’d be throwing staplers at idiots until she stroked out behind her desk. Meredith was a tough old bird and had been at her fair share of industrial accidents, car crashes, bar fights, and more than a few murders.

  The sight of those two girls slumped over in front of the tea set had made Meredith run into the pine trees and puke up her sour coffee, clots of coagulated cream sticking in her throat.

  Stella had given a press conference, cautioning parents of twin girls to be especially cautious, in exchange for the media’s collective agreed silence on the issue of the posed tea party. The TV people had readily agreed because they didn’t have any footage anyway. Meredith was a tougher sell. She didn’t need grainy dot-matrix photos in the paper to bring the image to life for her readers. That was the beauty of the Tribune. She agreed anyway, because she had no choice—vowing silence for forty-eight hours.

  Those two days had passed and two more girls were gone. She couldn’t sit on this any longer and had given Stella a courtesy call to let him know. Truth was, she was hoping he’d give her some inside information in exchange for being able to control some of the aspects of the story (or at least for thinking he was controlling some aspects of the story—Meredith was God the Father and Christ the Redeemer as far as the Tribune was concerned). And the prick had the nerve to threaten a gag order. She was well versed in media law, having been on the ass-end of more than a few lawsuits, and knew that he had no ground to stand on. In fact, she could counter-sue him in federal court for acting under the color of law to violate her civil rights.

  She had explained all this to him in no uncertain terms.

  He had explained where she could insert her terms and suggested that she refrain from using lubricant while doing so.

  What an idiot. Meredith opened a new document on her computer and began to write tomorrow’s front page story. “Tea Party Killer Still at Large” was a pretty lame headline, but it got the point across. She’d run it by her staff, challenging anyone to come up with something better; one of the idiots could probably think of something.

  The words came easy, her fingers teasing the keyboard like an expert pianist in the throes of a concerto. This was juicy. This was going to move some units. Her office phone rang and she looked at it with real scorn.

  “Yeah?” she said, annoyed.

  “Walk outside,” the voice said. It was a man. He was keyed up, his voice jerky, like he was pausing to look over his shoulder.

  “It’s cold outside,” she said. “So why don’t you just tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “There’s something for you. If you don’t want it, I can take it to the Herald.” He hung up the phone.

  As long as it’s not anthrax, I should be okay, she thought. She hoisted herself out of her chair, her back stiff from sitting for so long. The Tribune office was small, but it was part of a large suite and she had to hobble through two hallways and down a flight of stairs before she came outside. There was nothing but a parking lot in front of the building, so she easily saw the grocery bag sitting in the middle of the asphalt. She scooped up the bag and set it on the trunk of the nearest car while she pawed inside, eager to reveal the contents.

  She pulled out the thick sheaf of paper and held it out so her eyes could focus on the print. “Oh fuck me,” she said with a wild cackle that echoed in the cold gray parking lot. “This is too good to be true.”

  It had been a long day and they were back at square one. Fletcher was still at the Sheriff’s Department, even though most everyone else had gone home for the night. He didn’t mind staying. It wasn’t like he had a family to get home to. It was late, almost midnight, and the clock seemed to be ticking away in some new unit of time that was faster and more slippery, the way time was said to pass more rapidly on planets closer to the sun.

  Greg Pratt had been cleared. While Pratt was at the station, there had been a minor fiasco at Delila’s clothing store. The unsub had indeed returned to get two more dresses. They’d posted the young, unfortunately-balding detective across the street from the store and given the employees strict orders about how to contact the officer if anyone came inside to buy the dress. It seemed easy enough, but the unsub had managed to create a diversion in the back alleyway, luring the cop away from his post. He got his two dresses, right underneath their damned noses.

  In the late night quiet, an angry yell rippled through the air. Fletcher didn’t jump. He’d grown up hearing that angry voice. It was his father.

  “Where’s Stella?” the old sheriff yelled out, asking no one in particular, asking everyone.

  “Dad,” Fletcher called, raising his hand above the sea of cubicles and work tables.

  “Where is everyone?” his dad said. While not technically still yelling, the older man’s voice boomed in the quiet building.

  “At home,” Fletcher did not add where you should be because it would only infuriate his father. The old man was already pissed off. “Come back to my desk—”

  “You know who just called me?” his dad interrupted.

  “Who?” Fletcher asked, knowing that this wasn’t going to be good.

  “That old bitch from the Tribune.”

  “Shit,” Fletcher said. The last thing they needed was the media getting involved. “How much do they know?” Fletcher asked, dreading the answer.

  “Wouldn’t we all like to know!” His father had refused to sit down. He was pacing the area around Fletcher’s desk, gesticulating wildly with his hands as he spoke. “Bitch was trying to interview me. She said that she’d gotten a new lead and was investigating the connection between the old Leigh Gates abduction, Clark twins’ murder and the Webb girls’ disappearance.” The old man’s face was so red with anger, his cheeks and nose had turned almost purple. “If the news assholes get out there and start saying that the three cases are connected…”

  “They are connected,” Fletcher said.

  “Christ, I know that,” his father said. “But we don’t need everyone else knowing it until after we catch the guy.”

  There were only two ways that the newspaper could have figured out the connection. Either the reporter had been in the newspaper archives, reading microfiche until her eyeballs bled—or she’d gotten a tip.

  “They know about the posing of the bodies and the tea set,” his father continued. “They know it’s the same guy that abducted Leigh Gates. They’re calling him the Tea Party Killer. How’s that for a stupid name?”

  “We have asked them to refrain from releasing that information.”

  “Hell,” his father said. “Stella’s threatened half the papers with legal action. He’ll probably get someone at the DA’s office to serve them with papers this morning. But none of that really matters. It was too much for those vultures to sit on.”

  “Someone leaked,” Fletcher said.

  “Indeed,” his father said with a smile. “I think that the God-damned killer called the Tribune.”

  “That’s a little far-fetched,” Fletcher said. Now the old man was getting paranoid.

  “Killers do that all the time,” his father shouted. “They get upset when their handiwork goes unrecognized. Besides, she asked me if it was the tea set that made us connect the Clark twins’ murder with Leigh Gates’s abduction.”

  “Shit,” Fletcher said. No one knew that Leigh had been photographed with that te
a set until Laurel showed them the grainy Polaroid photograph.

  “Shit is right,” his father said. “So I got the phone company to run the records at the Tribune and they faxed this over to me.” He took a folded paper out of his pocket and thrust it at Fletcher’s chest. Fletcher opened up the page and saw his father had highlighted one of the incoming phone numbers. What the old man had done was possibly illegal, but Fletcher didn’t bother lecturing him about it. He would have done the same thing.

  “That number is one of those prepaid cell phones,” his father said, jamming a finger at the paper. “And the call was made just twenty-three minutes before the bitch called me.” Fletcher scanned the phone log. Fletcher understood now why his father was so pissed off. The call had been earlier, at three in the afternoon, and his father had spent the last eight hours tracking phone records and verifying telephone numbers.

  “You’re probably right,” Fletcher said. He felt a prickle of fear touch his chest. The unsub was planning, making moves.

  “I know that,” his father snapped. “I wouldn’t have driven down here if I wasn’t.”

  “I gotta go,” Fletcher said. He got his keys out of his pocket and pushed past his father.

  “Hold on,” his father said, grabbing his son’s arm. “We need to figure out what to do.”

  “I already know what I need to do,” Fletcher said. “I just hope that I get there before it’s too late.”

  Last time Fletcher had come to this place, he’d left with a cracked rib and a bruise that was as dark and fathomless as a supernova—and that had been in the early evening, with a smear of sunlight still washing across the sky. Fletcher pulled into Laurel’s driveway and turned his car off. The clock said it was twelve forty-five, but he saw the living room was illuminated by a soft yellow glow that emanated from behind the curtains. Knowing Laurel, it was probably a lamp she kept on a timer to deter burglars. He pulled out his phone and was going to call her when he saw a shadow move across the curtains.

  He knocked on the door, half-expecting that a little hatch was going to swing open and a double-barreled shotgun would point at his face. He waited a minute while she came to the door. He heard the creaking of her hardwood floor as she walked around the living room. There was a soft electronic whine coming from above. He looked up and saw the small eye of a camera, moving and focusing on him. Smart.

  “What do you want?” she yelled out from the other side of the closed door. He turned and faced the camera eye and waved.

  “It’s me,” he said, not exactly answering her question.

  “I can see that,” she said.

  “Please just let me in so I don’t shout and wake up the whole damned street.”

  She was silent on the other side of the door for what felt like a long time in the cold night air. Finally he heard the rattle of a chain, the snick of a deadbolt, and the twist of the doorknob.

  “I was already awake,” she said. “If I’d been asleep and I heard a car pull into my driveway, I might have shot you on general principle.” She was wearing regular old sweatpants, but they cupped her rounded hips, making her look more soft and womanly than normal. Her face was scrubbed clean and her hair was still damp from a recent shower, the dark brown curls already starting to go wild. Fletcher had been with women who underwent a complete transformation from the time they stepped out of the shower to the time when they were ‘ready’ with their hair and make-up and other feminine accessories that he could only guess at. Not Laurel. Straight out of the shower, in her pajamas, she looked just as beautiful as when she was dressed up for work. Her sort of beauty was always there, not in need of coaxing with pencils or powders. The only thing she seemed to take meticulous time with was her hair. He had only ever seen it straightened and pulled back. He liked the look of it now, big and crazy, like he could lose a fist if he ran his fingers through it.

  “And not a jury in the world would convict you,” he said. He stepped inside, warming instantly. He’d been inside plenty of houses while on the job and had seen clean houses, dirty houses, hoarder houses, nice houses, poor houses, and everything in-between.

  Laurel’s house was the saddest of any he’d ever seen.

  Everything about the house was sad. The windows were made with cheap aluminum frames that were bent and pitted with oxidation. The wooden floors had lost all luster and there were large patches where the boards had been shoddily replaced with unfinished, rough-cut plywood. The ceiling had an acoustic popcorn texture and it was alternately dingy with hardened ancient dust and sparkly with whatever minerals had been in the texture spray. That wasn’t what made the house sad. He’d been in plenty of houses that were run down, in need of repairs.

  Her house seemed to ache.

  “Why are you here?” she asked. She stood with her arms folded over her chest. He saw that it was because she was trying to hide the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. One of her nipples poked through her thin cotton shirt and he felt himself start to stiffen, forgetting about the case, forgetting about the Tribune—forgetting his own middle name. He tried to clear his head and focus on the case. He did not need this sort of distraction. There was an insane man on the loose and it was Fletcher’s job to put him behind bars.

  “One of the newspapers figured out that there’s a connection between the recent abductions and your sister’s abduction,” he finally said.

  “Okay,” she said impatiently. “Is that it?”

  “Well,” he said. “My dad seems to think that the killer called a reporter at the Tribune. I agree.”

  “He called the newspaper?” Laurel asked. Her irritation and impatience had melted into fear. Pure and honest fear.

  “I think so, yes.” Fletcher explained how the reporter had called his dad and had known about the tea set connection with Leigh’s kidnapping.

  “No one knew about the tea set,” Laurel said weakly. Fletcher wanted to give her comfort, but he wasn’t sure how. “No one ever saw that Polaroid. Just you and Underwood.”

  “Underwood’s a lot of things, but he’s definitely not a guy who would leak information to the press,” Fletcher said.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I think that the killer is thinking about you. That he still remembers how you got away,” Fletcher said. He took a breath. This was the last thing he wanted. His worst fear made real. “I think he wants you back.”

  Fletcher watched as she hardened herself, swallowing her fear, hiding her vulnerability. Gone was the scared woman in her pajamas. Here was the bad-ass bitch who was ready to shoot people on general principle. She laughed at him.

  “And that’s why you’re here? To offer your services as a bodyguard? Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t know if I have more cameras or more locks or more guns, but I got a lot of all three.” She started towards the door, ushering him out.

  “He’s going to make a move for you,” Fletcher said. “It fits his profile. You’re a big part of his twisted fantasy.”

  “I’ve been ready for him to make a move for fifteen fucking years,” she yelled. Her calm composure broke. She was angry. At him. “I can handle it.” She put her hands on his arm and started to push him towards the front door. He wanted to scream at her. She was being so stupid. Didn’t she care about her own safety?

  “No you can’t,” he yelled. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her arm off. Maybe he was squeezing a little too hard, but he couldn’t help it. She was being so stubborn. He grabbed her other arm and pinned her against the front door. “Listen to me,” he said. He took a step closer and could feel the heat radiating off her body, smell the shampoo she’d used in her hair. He had to stop himself from leaning all the way in and kissing her. She was ripe, ready to be plucked. But there were more important things, weren’t there? “This guy will come for you. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Laurel tried to wrench her arms from his strong grip, but he was ready and squeezed even harder. He felt her arm bones between his fingers. “Why are you doing
this?” she asked. “I can take care of myself. I’ve been taking care of myself my entire life.” He stepped closer to her, putting one of his feet between hers and pushing her flat against the door. His hips pressed against hers. He felt her breasts against his chest, rising and falling as she started to breathe faster.

  Good, he thought, she felt it too.

  “I want to help you,” he said, speaking softly into her ear. Her wild hair tickled his face and sent shivers down his spine. “Ever since you pulled your gun on me, I knew that you were a one-of-a-kind sort of girl. Please.” He let go of one of her arms and brushed her hair away from her neck and kissed it gently. A soft gasp escaped her mouth; the sound her pleasure encouraged him, turned him rock hard and ready to burst out of his pants. He let go of her other arm and trailed it up her side, finding her breast, then threaded his hand through her hair and tilted her head back. He looked at her a long moment, relishing the way her eyes half-closed as he thumbed her nipple through the soft fabric of her shirt. He kissed her, impatiently, without hesitation. Her lips were eager and she kissed him back as if she thought this was her last night on earth.

  Christ, maybe it was.

  Eighteen

  Laurel knew what Fletcher had in mind the second he grabbed her arms and pinned her against the door. But that was okay—it was what she’d had in mind too. She’d seen him looking at her breasts when she first opened the door and it excited her. Knowing that he was looking caused a pulsing heat between her legs.

  He pressed his body against hers, his strength and force deepening her own desire. With his hips pressed against hers, she felt him hard and ready underneath his pants. She’d arched into him, wanting to feel his length, grinding against him just slightly. He kissed her and she parted her lips. It had been so long since she’d been kissed, she didn’t remember how. She felt awkward as she swept her tongue through his mouth.