by V. K. Sykes
Empty.
The dark silence suddenly sent the deaths those two women rocketing into his brain. He’d never met them, but he knew their husbands, and the shocking pair of murders had hit both him and Megan hard.
He raced upstairs. “Megan!”
A groan from the master bedroom. Heath rushed up the remaining steps and frantically flicked on the light switch beside the door. “Megan!”
“Heath?”
When he heard her groggy voice he realized he hadn’t taken a breath for what seemed like minutes. His legs threatened to buckle under him, and he had to inhale deeply to try to settle his racing heart.
Megan covered her eyes with her forearm. “Jesus, I was asleep. Turn off that fucking light.”
Disappointment tugged at him. He did as she asked and sat down on the end of the bed. “I didn’t think you’d go to bed this early. Didn’t you listen to the game?”
She sighed and sat up. “I started to, but I had a beer—okay, two beers. And then I got really sleepy.”
He couldn’t help a grimace. She hardly ever went to his games, and now she couldn’t manage to stay awake at home, either. Not even when he was pitching. “You missed a great one. A four-hit shutout. I went eight innings before they brought in the closer.”
She gave him a tired smile. “Great.”
“But that’s not the best part,” he said. “Come downstairs. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
She frowned but let him help her up. Heath gazed at her full, round breasts pushing against the thin fabric of her sleeveless top and then drew her to him, smoothing a hand down over her curvy ass. She was so small—his chin rested on the top of her head. His cock stiffened as he inhaled the scent of her hair.
God, he wanted her tonight. The win and the promotion had totally jacked him up. He just had to fuck her tonight or the top of his head would blow off.
“Take it easy, Romeo,” she said, pushing him away. She shuffled out the door.
Disappointed, he followed her. Halfway down the flight of stairs, he could tell by her little stutter-step that she’d spotted the Veuve on the foyer floor.
She turned to him as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “What’s this all about? Champagne for a four-hitter?”
“Not exactly.” He drew her to him again, and this time she didn’t push him away. “As soon as the game ended, the general manager came down to the clubhouse and told me to pack up my gear. I’m catching the first flight to Springfield in the morning.”
“Oh, my God! Double A! They promoted you!” Megan squealed, standing on her tip-toes to kiss him on the lips. Then she drew back and held him at arms’ length. “But you’ve been having such a rough season, at least until the past couple of starts. Why would they promote you so soon?”
Heath gritted his teeth. Trust Megan to question good fortune. “Because they know I’m better than my record shows. Those guys know their business, and they know I’m the right guy to bump up to the next level.”
Her brief elation seemed to have vanished. “I guess I’m going to be stuck here alone for a while, then. Until they’re sure you’re going to make it up there.”
He shook his head. “No way. I want you with me, babe. Call the rental agent tomorrow. We’ll sub-let this place and look for a new one in Springfield. The team will be on the road after tomorrow, but you can fly up on the weekend.”
She smiled as she picked up the champagne and handed it to him. “Already chilled. Sweet.” She stroked her fingers over his cheek, then gave him a lingering kiss. “Maybe we’re finally going somewhere.”
Heath held her close. “This is only the beginning, babe. It’s all going to be good from now on.”
42
* * *
Tuesday, August 3
11:30 a.m.
The coffee at Kenton Memorial Hospital sucked, but Amy forced the bitter brew down, anyway. The caffeine kept her going after another miserable, sleepless night.
Her first interview had provided nothing of value. The pharmacy technician barely knew Kozak because they usually worked different shifts. As she waited for the second tech to arrive, her mind drifted back to Beckett.
For most of the night, she’d chased her mental tail around in a circle, repeating a steady mantra—what she did with Beckett was wrong. It was fucking unbelievably wrong. But she couldn’t make that conclusion stick, no matter what. Because the truth was that sex with him had felt totally right. Not just in the middle of it, or during the volcanic conclusion that had left her searching for the pieces of her misplaced sanity. No, it had felt right even as she lied to him by saying it was just an itch they both needed to scratch. A momentary physical diversion. A mistake.
Bullshit .
Except for the mistake part.
Running away from Beckett had reminded her of those accounts of out-of-body experiences. She felt like she was floating up in the air, watching a grim-faced Amy Robitaille charge out to her car and peel down his driveway. Like she was a spectator at a performance where she knew every line in the script. None of it seemed real.
She knew when sex was just sex, because that was all it had ever been for her. Absolutely no emotional attachment, except maybe for Gabe Labrash. But that hardly counted, given her youth and screwed-up state of mind.
With Beckett it had been different. Scary different. For once, she’d lost control of herself and her emotions. He’d made her lose control, and he hadn’t even had to work at it. Luke Beckett was hands down the most dangerous man she’d ever met.
Sighing, she tried to refocus on her notes. She and Poushinsky had met at Kenton Memorial early and split up the interviews with the small pharmacy staff. They’d asked the hospital to set up the meetings to start at eleven. The hospital had provided rooms, one on the main floor, and one on the third.
Amy’s second interview knocked tentatively on the open door. She smiled and stood up, extending her hand. “Detective Amy Robitaille.” She handed the young man her card.
“Ethan Meyer.” The technician’s file indicated his age to be twenty-eight, but he looked about five years younger. A curly mop of black hair and thick, black-framed glasses made her think of a comic actor, but she couldn’t bring the name to mind.
Meyer took the chair opposite her. “What’s this about? Nobody’s told me anything other than the police wanted to question me. Do I need a lawyer?” He crossed his arms over his chest, almost hugging himself.
She smiled, hoping to ease his obvious discomfort. “Relax, Mr. Meyer. I just want to ask you a few questions about Brett Kozak.”
His eyes shifted away from her. “Brett? You don’t think I was involved in any of that stuff, do you?”
“We’re not investigating Kozak’s drug thefts, per se. That matter remains in the hands of the Stuart city police. What we’re interested in is your relationship with him. We’re hoping you and your colleagues here will be able to help us locate him.” She gave him another reassuring smile. “Were the two of you friends?”
He made a little grimace. “Not really. We hung out sometimes. But I never knew he was ripping off the pharmacy, I swear.”
“What did you do when you hung out?”
“Usually we’d go for a couple of beers, then maybe get a pizza or some wings.”
“Always at the same place?”
He shook his head. “No. We’d mix it up.”
“What else? Maybe go to a movie, or take in a ball game or something?”
“No movies. But yeah, we did see a few ball games.”
A zing of energy jolted her tired brain. “Tell me about that, Ethan.”
Meyer’s nerves seemed to be settling. His posture relaxed, and he dropped his hands onto the table. “Uh, we saw some games in April and May. Three, if you want the exact number. Before Brett got fired.”
“At which stadium?”
“St. Lucie. St. Lucie’s the home team around here.”
“Do you remember which teams were playing, by any chance?”
“Sure. Jupiter, Palm Beach, and Tampa were the visiting teams.”
Jupiter and Palm Beach . She maintained a relaxed posture. “It sounds like you were both baseball fans.”
Meyer nodded. “We talked about driving down to Miami some weekend to catch a couple of Marlins’ games. But that was before...”
“Did Kozak ever talk to any of the players before or after the games?”
His thick curls jiggled as he shook his head. “Like getting autographs? Nah. Who gives a shit about minor leaguers?”
“I’m told that players’ wives often sit together at games. Did Kozak ever try to talk to any of them?”
He looked puzzled. “Hell, no. That would be too weird.”
Amy believed him. Meyer was antsy, but showed no sign of evasiveness. “Did you know any of his other friends? Did he have a girlfriend?”
“Not really. Brett didn’t have many friends. He had...”
“What?” Amy prompted.
“Trust issues, I guess. Some bad stuff happened to him while he was in jail.”
Something that made him want to kill? “What kind of bad stuff?”
“He didn’t want to get into it. But a couple of times he said that hell couldn’t be as bad as prison.”
The FBI agents were getting Kozak’s prison file. Amy couldn’t wait to see it. “Ethan, in the weeks before Kozak was fired, some people have said he seemed upset. Agitated. Is that how you saw it, too?”
Ethan nodded. “I figured something was wrong, but Brett wouldn’t talk about it. After I heard about the drugs, I figured it was because he was scared of being caught.”
* * *
Amy and Poushinsky compared notes over sandwiches and coffee at a Dunkin’ Donuts not far from Kenton Memorial. Poushinsky had interviewed the tech who had blown the whistle on Kozak, and the man had told him he’d become suspicious when he thought he saw Kozak stash something in the pocket of his lab coat. When the guy confronted him, Kozak had denied it and threatened to beat the crap out of him. Undeterred, the technician reported it to his supervisor, which led to a review of the inventory and ultimately to bringing in the IT consultant.
When Amy related her conversation with Ethan Meyer, and the baseball connection with Kozak, Poushinsky came to full alert. “FSL games don’t draw all that many fans,” he said. “Is it just a coincidence that Kozak goes to three games in a few weeks, with two of the three involving the Hammerheads? Not damn likely.”
“Yeah, he could have been scouting the team, or those particular players. But their wives wouldn’t have been with them in St. Lucie.”
“Maybe it’s about the husbands, not the wives.”
She frowned. “I’m not sure any of this helps us. We’ve got to hope the BOLO turns up something.” She remained optimistic, but knew Kozak could have fled the country or altered his appearance, or both. He was a con, after all.
Poushinsky played with his empty coffee cup. “I hate to even say it, but the way this guy is going, he might strike—”
Amy cut him off. “No goddamn way we’re going to let that happen, Poushinsky. Not in my county.”
Her words were nothing more than bravado, but she had to say them, more for herself than for her partner. The thought of another young woman tortured to death made her sick with anxiety. She thought about the woman’s husband, and her mother and father.
And maybe her sister.
Poushinsky could mentally picture the horror of it—the nightmare it would be for all those people. But Amy knew he couldn’t possibly feel it. Not in his bones and blood, not in every cell of his body. But she could. The pain and the terror, and the endless grief that time should heal, but never does.
* * *
Luke whipped his driver in a vicious arc, lashing the golf ball without the usual worry about where it went—whether straight down the fairway, into the trees, or toward one of the massive bunkers that lined the left side of the sixth hole. Maybe because he didn’t worry about it, he got lucky and his tee shot rose high and straight. He picked up the tee and set off down the fairway before the ball even landed on the perfectly-manicured turf.
He’d decided that he either had to take his frustration out on some Titleists or on his own body at the gym, and the weather was just too good to spend the afternoon inside working out. And golf usually took his mind off whatever was bothering him.
Usually, but not today.
Amélie Robitaille. Alicia Trent. His mind bounced back and forth between images of the two females who had so quickly changed his life. One image was Robitaille’s huffy departure last night, so obviously an escape from her emotional panic. The other was Alicia crying this morning, afraid but trying to be brave after Doctor Halperin told her she’d scheduled her surgery for next week. The little girl’s situation was more pressing, naturally, given the potentially tragic outcome.
Halperin had decided that Alicia was nearly ready to undergo the operation that might prolong her life. After the little girl had absorbed the news, she’d told Luke she was happy. But her lips had trembled even as the words tumbled out, sending a dagger right through his heart. The doctor, to her credit, had been pretty straight about the risks of the surgery. After Halperin left, Luke had held Alicia tight, brushing away her tears.
At that moment, the doubts that had been nagging him faded away. He knew exactly what he had to do. What he wanted and needed to do.
He’d marched down to Karen Golden’s office and told her he wanted to adopt Alicia Trent. He wanted to be her father for as long as she had left, whether that was for the seven days until the surgery or—if there was a merciful God—for the rest of his life.
Golden had put him through the wringer, firing questions about everything in his life. She finished by delivering him a stern warning about what he would be letting himself in for. But somehow he must have passed muster. Maybe Golden had done some checking up on him since their last conversation. In any case, she’d agreed to get in touch with Alicia’s case worker at the Department of Families and Children. He’d come away believing his application might have at least a decent chance of being approved by the state.
When Luke left the hospital, he felt nervous about the upcoming operation, but psyched that he might be able to adopt Alicia. Still, as he sized up his approach shot to the green, his doubts had resurfaced. He’d never been responsible for anybody in his life, and he’d never given much thought to that changing. But in a heartbeat—Alicia’s heartbeat—the ground had shifted under his feet.
He chunked his shot into the deep bunker directly in front of the green, but didn’t even bother to let fly one of his usual curses. His round was already stinking like a landfill in a heat wave, but he was determined to finish the whole eighteen despite the heat and his rotten play. Anything to keep him away from the Sheriff’s Office and his other problem, Detective Amélie Robitaille.
Just for one day. One day to sort out how he felt about last night. How he felt about the complicated and driven cop who, despite herself, had apparently been sucked into the same vortex of wild passion that was claiming him.
After all, now he had a kid to worry about.
43
* * *
Tuesday, August 3
9:45 p.m.
Megan O’Neill leaned toward the spyhole in her front door, wondering why somebody would be standing there this late at night. She’d already showered and put on light flannel pants and a cotton tank top, and was about to watch one of her favorite movies, The Dark Knight Rises, on Blu-Ray. She’d already seen it at the theater twice. Christian Bale—what a hunk.
Unless this visitor was a cop, she had no intention of opening the door. Not after what happened to Carrie Noble and Ashley Rist. No damn way.
Not a cop. A delivery guy. The first thing Megan noticed was the flowers. The guy held a large bouquet in a vase. Under the glow of the outside lights, she could see that the man wore a Palm Beach Cardinals’ tee shirt and cap. He had a big smile on his face as he w
aited patiently. She liked that that he wasn’t leaning on the bell, like most people did these days.
Megan thought of Heath in Springfield and smiled. He must be trying to continue the celebration of his promotion. The flowers were a sweet gesture, like the champagne had been last night. That Veuve Cliquot had led to the best sex they’d enjoyed in a very long time.
But she wondered why she didn’t see a florist’s truck—or any other vehicle—parked in the street.
“Yes?” she said through the locked door, staring at the guy.
The young man looked straight at the spyhole and grinned. “Ms. O’Neill? I have flowers for you from your husband.”
She didn’t answer right away. He looked legit, but...
“My name’s Albert Poole,” he said quickly. “I’m with the Cardinals.” He had a lazy southern drawl that made her want to believe him. “Heath asked me to pick up these flowers and deliver them to you tonight. There’s a message from him, too. He emailed it to me.”
She knew that would be just like Heath, asking some poor, underpaid gofer to do grunt work for him. “That’s great. Thank you. You can leave them at the door, okay?”
She really should give the guy a tip, but she hesitated.
He nodded vigorously. “Sure, I can do that, ma’am. But I really could use your help. See, I cut myself pretty bad when I reached into my pickup for the flowers. A darn little flange came loose and got me. Stupid, huh?”
Megan cringed as he held up a bloody thumb. He quickly covered it back up with some kind of rag. It seemed to be a pretty deep cut, and she immediately felt bad for him.
“Would it be all right if I came in and washed it off? Maybe get a couple of Band-Aids and some disinfectant if you have any? Gosh, I’m sure sorry to trouble you like this.” He shook his head. “Maybe I should just go.”
Megan’s resolve started to weaken. How unkind would it be to refuse to help the guy? Still, she hesitated. She thought she’d met most if not all the Cardinals’ staff, but didn’t recognize this guy.