It was her fault. D.C. was so very different from Nashville. Though she’d loved her time here, she’d been desperate to get back home. Especially once she and Donovan were over. Nashville fit her like a glove. Where life was slower, and less complicated. Where, waiting patiently, there was a man who loved her, and would never leave.
At least that’s what she’d always believed about him. She’d been wrong.
Simon.
She allowed her mind to say the name. Just once. A breeze through her cerebral cortex. Those two simple syllables were like the first rush after the needle prick—all-consuming, warm, happy. His face floated before her eyes: the untamable cowlick, the glasses, the crooked front tooth that gave his smile such boyish charm.
“Hi,” she whispered.
Even a whisper is enough to scare away a spirit. His face started to fade, and Sam bit her lip to keep from crying out after him. The rush was gone as quickly as it came, and pain was all that followed. The vision was gone. The massive, gaping hole in her heart began to ache.
For with Simon, and thoughts of home, came the sweetly cherubic voices of the twins.
She couldn’t believe they were all gone. If only she hadn’t—
“That’ll be $6.70, ma’am.”
Sam started. The cabbie was looking at her strangely.
“You okay? This the right place?”
She glanced out the window, surprised to see a familiar red house and black shutters. Eleanor’s. Where she was meant to be. At least temporarily.
“Oh. Yes. Yes, of course it is. Thank you.”
She fished a ten out of her wallet and passed it through the plastic window. The door handle stuck, she had to give it a shove.
She couldn’t get enough air.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.
She fumbled with the keys, the cheerful vermilion door mocking her.
Three Mississippi. Four Mississippi.
“God damn it,” she yelled, giving it another try. The door swung open freely, and she rushed straight to the kitchen and turned the water on full.
Her breath came in little panicked grunts. She scrubbed her hands together so violently that her nails scratched the beat-up skin and blood dripped into the sink.
Simon. Matthew. Madeline.
Simon. Matthew. Madeline.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three.
If she could just allow herself the pent-up tears that stayed stubbornly stuck in her eyes. She understood the psychology of letting go. She just wasn’t ready to let them out of her heart. Something told her that if she cried, her loves would escape down her cheeks, drip into a tissue, and the memories of them would vanish forever.
Reality slowly seeped back in. The water was burning hot, her skin fire red. Shaking, she reached for the tap and turned it off with a twist. She’d wrecked her hands. Wrecked them completely. They were cracked and torn, bright as a well-boiled lobster, blood oozing from barely healed fissures. She wouldn’t be able to hold a scalpel properly for days.
Is that what this was all about? Punishment? That she’d been doing an autopsy while they died?
Sam sighed and carefully dried her hands. Eleanor had some grapefruit lotion from Williams-Sonoma on the countertop next to the sink. Sam carefully got some in her palms and spread a thin layer over the torn skin. It stung sharply for a moment, then calmed.
She turned away from the sink and jumped.
Susan Donovan was sitting at the kitchen table.
“Better?” Susan asked.
Sam fought back a tart reply. This woman had lost her heart the same way as Sam had, unwillingly, by force. She should have compassion for her, empathy. Instead, Susan grated against her psyche.
“Not really,” Sam finally answered.
“Want a drink?”
An olive branch? Not exactly what she expected. But she was willing to play along.
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
Susan got to her feet unsteadily, and Sam saw that she’d gotten a head start. She retrieved a crystal-cut lowball from the glass-fronted cabinet next to the stove, then wove back to the table and poured Sam three fingers of scotch. She dumped another splash into her own empty glass, set the bottle down carefully, then raised the drink.
“Sláinte.”
“Cheers,” Sam replied. The Laphroaig was all peat and iodine, curling around Sam’s mouth like smoke from a campfire. She let it dribble down the back of her throat.
“Mmm. That’s so good.”
“So much better, you mean.” Susan set the glass down on the table with care.
“How many of those have you had?”
“Enough.”
“Did something happen? Are your girls with Eleanor?”
“Did something happen?” Susan began to laugh, a harsh, discordant sneer. “Did something happen, she asks. I don’t know, Dr. Owens. What do you think? My husband’s dead. Gone. Forever. Someone decided to end his life, and no one seems to have a clue why.”
“I’m working on that.”
“You’re a doctor, for God’s sake. Not a cop. Not a private investigator. Just a flunky who cuts up bodies for a living. And a wreck of one, too, it appears. How are you going to figure it out?”
Sam set her glass back on the table with exaggerated care. She watched Susan, knowing she had an opportunity here.
“Susan, you’re drunk.”
“So the fuck what? Like you didn’t get drunk after your husband died? And your kids?”
Sam felt the anger boiling inside of her, and took a breath. She still hated the venom in her voice.
“You don’t know the first thing about my life, so don’t you dare to presume anything about me.”
Susan focused on her. “Oh, of course not. Perfect Samantha. Dr. Samantha. He never stopped loving you, you know. He kept all your letters. All the pictures of the two of you. He hid them from me. But I knew. I found them.”
Susan got to her feet, and Sam instinctively took a step back.
Susan saw it, saw that she’d scared her perceived rival, and laughed.
“As if I’d bother.” Susan turned to the stairs and shouted, “Come on, girls. We’re going home.”
“Susan, you can’t drive.”
“Get out of my way, Doctor.”
“No. Sit down. You are a hot mess. Let me make you some tea.”
Susan spoke through gritted teeth. “I said, get out of my way.”
Sam was two inches taller than Susan, but no heavier. She squared her body, tightened up, prepared for the blow and stepped closer, trying to use her body as intimidation.
“Sit. Down.”
Susan got wild-eyed and coiled for a second, like she was going to punch Sam and make a run for it, then shook her head and reached for a chair. She collapsed in it heavily, sank her forehead to the table. Her voice was wavering with tears.
“Why do you even care how I feel?”
That took Sam aback. My God, did she come across as a callous, unfeeling bitch? Who wouldn’t be moved by this situation? And Sam especially, having gone through this kind of heartbreak, the rending apart of the soul. Maybe it was Susan Donovan that was the bitch.
“Why wouldn’t I? You’ve just been through a terrible loss. Grief plays tricks on the mind. I know that. I know what you’re going through. I also know getting drunk isn’t going to fix anything.”
Susan’s voice was still sharp. “You don’t know me. You don’t know the first thing about me.”
“I know enough about you to know that you’re wishing none of this had happened. That all you want is for him to come back.”
“I didn’t get drunk to bring him back.”
“Then why did you
?”
“Because I’m scared.”
Sam sat at the table. She was tempted to take Susan’s hands, to lend physical comfort, but Susan was still weaving like a drunken cobra. She settled for soothing words.
“I know. I know exactly how you feel. Like part of you has died, too. That you’re missing something vital, your arm, your leg, and if you stand up too quickly, you’re going to topple over on the floor, and never want to get up. That it would be so much easier to just take a bottle of pills and lie down in your bed, and not have to feel this pain. That you don’t know why you haven’t done that already.”
Her voice softened. “I understand, Susan. I truly do. What you’ve got is much worse than a broken heart. It’s something utterly irreparable. I won’t lie to you. You will never be the same. Your life will never be the same. And after the funeral, especially then, you will be completely lost. But you have two gorgeous daughters who need you. They can’t lose everything. That wouldn’t be fair.”
Susan was looking at the table. Her hand flexed in and out of fists. She took another sip of her drink and met Sam’s eyes for the first time.
“Is that how you felt? Like you wanted to die, too?”
“Yes.” Dear God, she had. She’d felt that so many times she’d gone to stay with her friend Taylor to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid. At least if she was in someone else’s house, she’d worry about them having to clean up the mess.
“It took me months, Susan. I’m still not where I want to be. Look at me. I’ve developed…problems. The job I used to love seems more like a prison sentence. I can’t sleep, I barely eat. I drink too much. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there. But you have to. You have the girls. They will be your salvation in all of this.”
“Don’t you throw my girls at me.”
Sam sighed. “God, would you stop? I’m trying to help you.”
“They’re in danger.”
“No, they’re not. You are a wonderful mother—”
Susan brought her head up. “No, seriously. They’re in danger. Someone broke into our house today.”
Sam felt the muscles tense in her neck. It was one thing to threaten the adults, but if this freak started messing with Donovan’s kids…
“Tell me,” Sam commanded, and Susan gave her the story. About the stranger at the school, and the open door at the house. About the baseball cap she’d thrown away being dug out of the trash and left on her bed.
“Did they take anything?”
“No. From what I can tell, nothing else was disturbed, either. But I got out of there pretty damn quick.”
“We need to call Detective Fletcher and inform him.”
“I already did. He and his partner went out to fingerprint the house. That’s why we’re all here.”
Susan’s eyes were rimmed in red, and Sam could see she was faltering. The alcohol had caught up.
“Can I have that tea you offered earlier? Or better yet, a cup of coffee? Eleanor doesn’t have any decent black tea around. I looked earlier, before I found the scotch. Eleanor doesn’t usually drink this brand.” There was a note of accusation in her tone. Sam ignored it. Susan was just going to have to put aside this petty-jealousy nonsense. They had to work together.
“She bought it for me. It’s my favorite,” Sam said, rising automatically and going to the sink to get the water for the coffee. Her mind was spinning. The break-in was unexpected. What were they looking for? What was Fletcher thinking? She hated being on the outside of the investigation like this. At home, she was always welcome to offer her opinions and insights. Here, she just felt like she was getting in the way.
Perhaps Susan was the target, after all, and not Donovan?
No, that wasn’t right. What could a stay-at-home soccer mom do to draw down the ire of a murderer? It was much more likely that Donovan had come across something he wasn’t supposed to see, mentioned it to the wrong person and had been killed for his trouble.
The scent of roasted coffee filled the kitchen. From the corner of her eye Sam watched Susan try to regroup. She was brushing away tears, straightening her hair, pulling her shirt down in the back so it covered the top of her pants. Her movements were clumsy, and Sam turned without thinking and finished the job for her. As if Susan were a child who needed neatening.
But the attention didn’t rile her, as Sam thought it might. Instead, she leaned into Sam’s hand, and whispered, “Thank you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
McLean, Virginia
Detective Darren Fletcher
Fletcher and Hart watched the crime scene techs print the doorknobs of the Donovan home.
“You think she’s just losing it?” Hart asked. “It’s not that hard to misplace a hat.”
“It’s possible,” Fletcher replied. “Then again, anything’s possible. She seemed pretty adamant that she threw the hat out. Trash comes on Tuesday in this neighborhood. According to her statement, she put the trash out Monday night, with the hat in it, so that leaves a good ten hours for someone to go sneaking around.”
Hart hid a yawn behind his palm. Fletcher pretended not to notice, but had to admit he shared the sentiment.
“Eh, there’s nothing we can do here. Let’s go talk to the neighbors, see if any of them saw something.”
Hart’s face lit up. The man was a ball of energy. Sitting and thinking wasn’t his style.
They split the street, Fletcher taking the north side, Hart taking the south. The Donovans’ house was the end house of a cul-de-sac, with eight houses on either side leading up to it. It was a pretty neighborhood. Safe. Sturdy. The houses were two-story, brick on four sides, fenced yards, with gaily-painted shutters and matching front doors.
Suburbia. The perfect place to raise a family, and feel safe doing so.
No wonder Donovan lived here. From what everyone talked about, the man was overly concerned with safety, and this was as safe as he could get without putting bars on the windows or digging a bunker.
Even though Fletcher recognized that Susan Donovan’s intruder story could easily be that of a grieving widow hoping for attention, something felt off about this whole case. He had put a uniform on the Croswell house, just in case, and was waiting for the Army to give him the list of everyone who’d served in Donovan and Croswell’s unit. The wives could only give them so much information—the Ranger battalion had nearly six hundred soldiers in it. It was probably a long shot at best, but Fletcher wasn’t about to take any chances. Two good men were dead already. He didn’t want to have a third killed on his watch.
He had a short list of men who were in the immediate group that Donovan and Croswell hung out with. There were two names both Betty Croswell and Susan Donovan had mentioned—Billy Shakes and Xander Whitfield. But he hadn’t been able to find addresses on either man yet.
Betty Croswell had given him the names of the men her husband was supposed to meet in Denver. Fletcher had talked to them all—and hit another dead end. Croswell had stood them up, and while they were his friends, they’d been furious about it. Fletcher got the sense that most everyone was exasperated with Hal Croswell. Of course, once they found out why he hadn’t shown, they’d grown quiet, teary and apologetic. Death was a pretty good excuse for missing a job interview.
Fletcher felt like he was overlooking something. As he made his way down the tree-lined street, knocking on doors and striking out, that lack of knowledge nagged at him.
It took an hour for him to meet back up with Hart, who’d managed to get a rock in his shoe, and was looking rather pained over it. He leaned against the car and started to unlace.
“Did you have any luck?” Fletcher asked.
“I don’t know if you want to call it luck. Chick in the gray brick house remembers seeing a truck she didn’t recognize over
the weekend. But all she could say was that the truck was blue. There’re teenagers on this street, it could be a friend of any of them. A bunch of people aren’t home from work yet. We’ll have to come back and recanvass later tonight.”
“Did you ask if the truck had four wheels?”
“And a bed in the back, too, dickwad.”
Fletcher grinned. “Fuck you. A blue truck. That’s all we got. Let’s go see what the print guys found.”
The crime scene techs were also miffed—they’d finished half an hour before and were champing at the bit to get to their next case. The lead tech—Fletcher couldn’t remember his name—shook his head.
“We scanned what we could, but don’t be expecting much, if anything. The maid came Monday. Wiped everything down. She’s thorough, I’ll give her that. All we got was a couple of partials upstairs in the bathrooms.”
“Great. Anything else?”
“You said the maid told you she didn’t see anything, or anyone, unusual, and that jibes with what we’re seeing here. No alarm bells from us.”
Great. A clean house and a mysterious blue truck. Exactly squat.
“Thanks, guys.”
The team trudged down the driveway and loaded themselves in their van, then drove off.
The neighborhood’s natural noises surrounded Fletcher. Crickets, a child shouting in the distance, birds twittering. He gave the place a last glance, then shrugged.
“Might as well go on back to the Croswell site, recanvass there, see if anyone remembers a blue truck. Maybe stop by and talk to Mrs. Lyons again.”
Hart groaned.
“If you have a better suggestion?”
“No. Who knows, we might actually catch some of the folks who’d gone off to work right about now. Let’s stop at the 7-Eleven. I need a Slurpee.”
A Deeper Darkness Page 11