She'll Never Know

by Hunter Morgan

  Everyone had to eat. Of course! That was the connection.

  She turned on the wrought-iron chandelier over the dining room table and began to sort through the legal pads. She had one just for April, and that was where she had to start. April had only been in town four days when she was abducted.

  It didn't matter how long a person had been in Albany Beach. It didn't matter if she was here for a week of a lifetime. She had to eat.

  "Where did you go, April?" Claire whispered. She knelt on a dining room chair and shoved her reading glasses on. "Where did you eat?"

  She flipped through her pages of notes on April. "Arrived Saturday," she read. She reached for a brand new pad of paper, fresh out of the six-pack she had bought. "Went grocery shopping."

  Where? Claire scrawled across the page with a big question mark. She would have to call April's husband yet again. But she would wait until a decent time of day. She checked her watch. 12:45 a.m. It was going to be a long night. This was going to take a while, maybe days, but Claire knew she was on to something. She could feel it in her bones.

  Chapter 8

  Jillian sat on the boardwalk bench, too tired to eat her lunch, and sipped her sweet tea. She stared out at the crashing waves as if the Atlantic would somehow offer a solution to her predicament that seemed without a solution. Angel had told her that often amnesia victims had to be treated for depression. The two had laughed at the time, Jillian remarking who wouldn't be depressed with this diagnosis.

  She wasn't laughing now. She had discovered that knowing something of her past could be worse than knowing nothing. Her returning memory was tearing her apart. She had to determine how to get this craziness out of her head. She couldn't live this way the rest of her life.

  Jillian felt like a condemned prisoner, night after night. She went to bed afraid she would have the dream. Knowing it was coming. No matter how late she stayed up or what kind of nighttime cold medicine she took, the dream always came back.

  "Dead man walking" was what she thought they called it. She remembered seeing a documentary or a movie on it once. She had given up trying to figure out the particulars of such memories. The piece she had seen had been about the journey a condemned man or woman made to the execution chamber. They called out "Dead man walking" as the prisoner passed through the corridors.

  Each night Jillian felt as if she were walking the same corridor.

  She would enter the bedroom. She would hear her own laughter. See the naked man beside her in bed. Smell his sweat on her skin. She would know she didn't belong there. Know that the man was not her husband, but someone else's. She would know in her heart of hearts that she was betraying someone very close to her and she would wake up each morning hating herself for it.

  The latest development in the ever-expanding dream sequence was the addition of a third person in the room.

  The person would turn, just about to reveal himself—or herself. Then, at the last minute, just when she thought she was on the verge of making sense of all the nonsense—the turning ceiling fan, the water running in the shower, the other person in the room—she would suddenly be jerked back. She would be torn from the dream to wake in a cold sweat, only to walk the journey again the next night.

  "Use a little company?"

  Jillian looked up to see Jenkins. He was so big that when he came around the boardwalk bench, he blocked part of the summer afternoon glare of the sun.

  "Sure." She scooted over.

  He lowered his age-ravaged body beside her, and she poured him a cup of icy tea and handed it to him. They were like an old married couple these days. Often they sat together and didn't talk at all, both lost in their own worlds of regret and longing.

  "Millie says you ain't sleeping," Jenkins grunted after taking a long drink of tea.

  She glanced at him. Apparently today was a talking day, whether she wanted it to be or not. She continued to look out over the beach. A toddler playing with a beach ball caught her eye, and she watched her tumble laughing into the sand with the ball. She wondered if she would have a child. For the first time she realized she wanted one, had wanted one for a long time.

  "Bad dreams," Jillian said, not sure she wanted to talk about it. She'd been pretty close-lipped with Ty about her nightmares, and he seemed to be okay with that. He said she would tell him when she was ready... or not. Either way, it was cool with him.

  A part of Jillian wished it wasn't cool with him. She wanted him to want to know, to be more demanding. Make her tell him. But it wasn't in Ty's nature, and she wasn't going to change that.

  "You remembering things?" Jenkins asked. He stared straight ahead at the beach she knew he could not see dotted with colorful beach umbrellas and sunburned sunbathers. Where he couldn't see the immense ocean.

  Jillian studied the sandals on her feet. "I think so."

  "I'm guessin' from the way you're dog-hangin' your head, they ain't good memories."

  His apropos phrase made her smile. "It never occurred to me ," she said thoughtfully, "that I might not like what I found. I mean, I know I was shot; I know I was somehow involved in something that couldn't have been good, but..." She exhaled and started again. It was difficult to express what she was thinking aloud. She felt the threat of tears sting the backs of her eyelids. "But it never occurred to me that it might have somehow been at fault. I never thought I might have hurt someone or done something wrong."

  "You think you were in a shooting match with someone?"

  She dropped her head to her hands. "No. But I have a feeling I might have been cheating on someone. The more time that passes, the surer I am that I wasn't married, and yet..." She paused, waiting to gain control of her emotion again. "I feel like I was cheating on my husband. Betraying him. Betraying someone close to me."

  "Maybe this man you remember was cheating on his wife, and you just got dragged down with him. Men can be sly as foxes. They can be such liars when it comes to wanting to get a pretty woman into their bed." He chuckled, but it was a dry, humorless laugh, filled with regret. "I ought to know, I was good at it once."

  She studied Jenkins's ebony, liver-spotted face and tried to imagine him young, handsome, picking up women in bars. Pursuing women he had no right to be pursuing. "Maybe."

  "The real question is, what you going to do about it?"

  "Do about it?" She looked at him. "How can I do anything about it if I don't know what it is? I can't remember anything that makes any sense!" Her words came out harsher than she had intended. She didn't mean to take her frustration out on Jenkins. He had been a good friend these last two weeks.

  He drained his plastic cup, unaffected by her outburst. "You really want to know what you did? Who you were?"

  "Of course."

  "Because some people, they don't want to fess up to what they done. I know I didn't. I went years blaming this one and that one." He pointed a finger one direction and then another.

  "Jenkins." She dropped her head to her hands again. "You don't understand."

  "I do," he said firmly. "I messed up so many different ways in my life that I ain't got enough days in this world left to tell you 'bout 'em. The one thing I finally learned is that you got to look yourself in the mirror and make the best of what you got left."

  "Make the best of what I've got left," she whispered. "I don't have anything."

  "Sure you do. You got brains. You got your youth."

  She laughed bitterly.

  "Don't be laughin' at me, girlie." He rose slowly from the bench. "When you're ninety-one, somebody in their thirties, that's a babe."

  "You're ninety-one?"Jillian asked in amazement. She leaned over the back of the bench to watch him walk slowly back across the boardwalk.

  "You tell anyone and I'll call you a liar," he threatened.

  She laughed at him. At herself. It felt good.

  * * *

  "Why did you drag me here?" Ashley moaned. She didn't touch the menu in front of her.

  Claire had carefully chosen a
booth in the back of the diner where she could watch everyone who came in or out. She'd been here a thousand times in her life. She knew the menus by heart and the trick to getting the ladies' room door unlocked when it trapped you inside. She knew every employee, local customer, and most of the delivery men who came to the back door. Now suddenly she was forced to look at what seemed like the heart of the town in a different light.

  It had taken her a day and half to gather the information, but Claire thought she knew where the killer was finding his victims. Right here. The diner. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of it sooner. Patti had been a waitress here. The twin sisters had eaten here regularly. Anne, like the other locals, had frequented the diner often when she was home from college. Most importantly, April Provost, the woman who had only been in town four days when she was kidnapped, had eaten here the first night she and her husband were in town. And they had eaten breakfast with her in-laws in the diner the morning of her disappearance.

  Claire was so excited that she might be on to something that she felt as is she were going to jump out of her skin. So maybe it was the nine cups of coffee she had today.

  "Hi, Chief. What can I get you?" Kristen, the new waitress Loretta had hired the previous month to replace Patti, smiled. She was Ty Addison's cousin from somewhere north, New Jersey or Pennsylvania. Like many college kids, she had come to the beach for a job; she was staying with the Addison family for the summer.

  "I'll have the fried shrimp, coleslaw, no fries, and a glass of water with lemon."

  The blonde scribbled on her notepad. "And what can I get for you?" She glanced down at Ashley, who had laid her head on the table between her hands.

  When Ashley didn't respond, Claire looked up and smiled apologetically. "She'll have the chicken fried steak with sawmill gravy—"

  "Gross," Ashley moaned.

  "Mashed potatoes and fried okra."

  "I'm not eating that," Ashley snapped, lifting her head from the table. She looked to Kristen. "A Coke, no ice, fries, no gravy." She gave her mother the evil eye. "And a crab cake. No roll."

  "You got it." Kristen hit her order pad with the point of her pencil in emphasis. "Be right back with your drinks."

  Ashley lowered her head again, but this time just to her hand, elbow propped on the table. "Why are we here? We never eat dinner here in the summer. You said—"

  "Shhh," Claire murmured. She was trying to take notes on her legal pad beside her on the fake leather bench. She was writing down the name of every male she could identify who came through the diner door.

  Ashley studied her mother across the table. "Does this have anything to do with the sicko murderer?"

  "Keep your voice down."

  Ashley glanced in the direction of the door. It was six o'clock, and the place was busy. There was already a line beginning to form at the door and into the parking lot. Loretta didn't take reservations or names at the door. It was first come, first serve, and you waited in line until a table opened up.

  "Isn't it like illegal to take a minor with you on a police stakeout?"

  "Not if you're the police chief, and you've got a mouthy teenage daughter," Claire muttered.

  She was jotting down men's names as fast as she could. Dr. Gordon from the hospital was having the chicken basket with Dr. Larson. Billy, Patti's old ex who worked at a bar in town, sat alone at the counter eating the fried clam basket. Three of her father's old cronies, all widowers, waited for their meals and argued over the best antacid tablets. Claire was tempted to scratch them off the list. They could barely walk through the door under their own power. They weren't kidnapping young women late at night, or any other time of day. But she was trying to keep an open mind. She added to her list Ralph, the dishwasher, and Pedro, the eighteen-year-old kid Loretta had hired to clean the place.

  "Mom," Ashley said, leaning over the table. "What's going on?"

  Claire glanced at her across the table, added another name. The mayor was at the cash register picking up take-out. His wife had been out of town for weeks, visiting an ailing sister in Florida, apparently. Claire had never taken into consideration the take-out business Loretta did. "You can't say a word."

  "I won't."

  "I'm not kidding," Claire threatened. "We're talking about a multiple homicide case here."

  "Mom, I'm better at keeping secrets than you are."

  Claire met her daughter's blue-eyed gaze. "What about Chain? You two don't talk?"

  Ashley lifted the eyebrow Claire knew she was dying to have pierced. "You think Chain wants to talk about my mom the cop?"

  She had a good point.

  "I think the killer is finding the women here."

  Ashley looked around. "Here?" she breathed.

  "It's the way these guys do this kind of thing," Claire explained.

  "You mean how serial killers choose their victims?"

  Claire nodded, thinking how worldly her daughter was at this age, compared to what she had been. She jotted down two more names. She also kept a tally of how many unidentified males she saw. Tourists. She doubted that would play into her investigation, but she was trying to think outside the box. It was the only way she was going to catch him.

  "You think he's from Albany Beach?"

  Again, Claire nodded.

  "And he's picking out his women while he's here?"

  "All four dead women were here at least twice in the weeks prior to their kidnapping and murder."

  "Coke, no ice, and water with lemon." Kristen appeared at the end of the table and slid their glasses to them. She reached into her apron for straws. "Sorry it took so long. We're really jammed up."

  "No hurry," Claire called after the waitress as she hurried down the aisle to refill the doctors' iced-tea glasses.

  "Wow," Ashley breathed, ripping the paper off her straw and dunking it into her glass. "That means everyone in town is a suspect. All the men, at least."

  Claire lifted her pencil from the paper, her daughter's words sinking in. "Shit," she whispered, then glanced up apologetically.

  "Shit is right," Ashley agreed. "Think about it. Everyone coming in here. Every man we see in a day is a suspect. The mailman, Pastor Jack, Grandpop—"

  "Chief."

  Claire looked up to see Officer Savage approaching the table. He had just come on at three and was probably picking up dinner for himself. "Hey, Jeff. How are you tonight?"

  "I'm good. You, Chief?"

  "About the same as I was when we had our briefing a couple of hours ago." She smirked.

  He smiled back, looked away. Claire had feeling he had a thing for her. She wasn't interested. He was too young. Besides, she'd already gone down that path with Kurt, dating a fellow police officer, and it had been a disaster.

  "Well, I better pick up the sandwiches. See you tomorrow, Chief."

  She nodded. "Patrolman."

  "He's got the hots for you," Ashley said, barely giving him time to walk away from the table.

  "He does not." Claire dropped the pencil and reached for her water.

  "He does too, and he's also a suspect." Ashley stirred her coke with her straw. "Put him on your list."

  "He's a police officer, Ash. One of my officers."

  "So?" She pressed her gray lips together. The black lipstick was fading as she drank her soda. "You said all males are suspects. Just because you're a cop doesn't mean you can't be a sicko creep. Personally, I think it ups the ante."

  Claire frowned, but she knew the teen was right. She had been so buoyed by the idea that she had this clue. This possible link to the killer. Now, as she looked out at the sea of familiar faces, she realized he could be any one of them. Now the task of finding him seemed even more daunting.

  * * *

  "Jilly. Jilly, wake up."

  Jillian became aware of Ty leaning over her in her bed, shaking her. Her heart was pounding, and she had that dry taste of fear in her mouth. She blinked her eyes open. "What? What's wrong?" She was sweaty and trembling all over.
r />   "You were having a nightmare." He sat down on the edge of the bed, and she realized he was dressed to go home.

  She grabbed his arm. "I... I heard someone scream."

  He brushed her damp hair, plastered to her head, from her face. "I think it was you."

  She sat up. She was naked. They had had dinner together, played Frisbee on the beach. They'd made love, and then she must have fallen asleep. She had told him he didn't need to stay the night. "I was screaming?" she whispered, her pulse beginning to slow to a normal rate.

  "Not really screaming. Just one scream."

  "Oh, Ty." She fell back on her pillow, covering her face with her hands.

  He was quiet for a minute before he spoke. "Listen, I told you I didn't need to know anything you didn't want to tell me, but... maybe you need to talk about it? I know you're having these dreams, memories. Something. Maybe if you tell me about it, it might make things better. You know, kind of like facing your greatest fears."

  She gave a laugh that came out something close to a sob. It was the dream, but it was getting worse. But this time, first she heard a crunching sound, like rocks in a driveway beneath car tires. Then the same scenario. The bed, the ceiling fan, the shower. But this time there had been a gunshot. She had smelled the gunpowder.

  That was when she screamed.

  Ty continued to stroke her hair. "You want to tell me?"

  Miserably, she shook her head no, then nodded yes. She couldn't look him in the eye. She didn't want him to know what a terrible person she must have been. She didn't want to lose him. Of course, she knew she would lose him, eventually. In a few short weeks he would be returning to Penn State. Her lease on the cottage would be up. They would go their separate ways, as they had known from the beginning they would. But that wasn't for two or three weeks. She needed him now.

  A shudder went through her as she fought tears.

  "Jilly, what is it, huh?" He lowered himself to his knees on the floor and leaned over her, continuing to stroke her hair. "Whatever it is, you can tell me."