by Nancy Bush
“Your Detective Rafferty appears to be here. He wants you to give me the keys to his vehicle. He says his identification is strapped to the underside of the driver’s seat.”
Liv lay back down on the bed and drew her arm over her eyes.
I hate you, Auggie, she thought, as tears leaked out and dampened the skin of her inner elbow.
He waited impatiently in the reception area, pacing and growling beneath his breath like a caged beast. He didn’t know where Liv was but his own Jeep was parked outside, so she was here somewhere. He’d told the suspicious-eyed receptionist to tell whoever was with Olivia Dugan to get the Jeep’s keys from her, so he could retrieve his identification and maybe, finally, induce SOMEONE to talk about Navarone. September had been right about one thing: he was through pussyfooting around. It was time for answers.
And to set things right with Liv.
It took another twenty minutes before an attractive, dark-haired woman appeared from a south-running corridor beyond the reception area and headed his way, her hands thrust deep inside the pockets of her white lab coat. He read her nametag: DR. NORRIS.
“Detective Rafferty?” she questioned.
“Yes. But I don’t have the ID to prove it.”
She pulled his keys from her pocket and held them out to him. “I believe these are yours.”
“Where’s Liv . . . Olivia Dugan?” he demanded, taking the keys.
“Resting.”
“Resting?” he repeated slowly, wondering what the hell that meant. “She gave you the keys, though. She’s all right . . . right?”
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t want to see me.” He got it, but it pissed him off anyway. “Well, I want to see her.”
The doctor clasped her hands together and said, “Bring back your identification and let’s see where we stand.”
Auggie stalked to the front doors, throwing a look to the receptionist who buzzed him out. He race-walked to the Jeep, opened the driver’s-side back door, reached under the seat and ripped off the tape that held his identification. His Glock was also there, and he stuck it in the back of his jeans’ waistband, then thought better of it and put it back for the moment. He needed to let the hospital personnel know who he was, but intimidating them with a firearm might backfire, so to speak.
Not that Liv didn’t have a gun on her, he reminded himself darkly.
When he was buzzed back inside Dr. Norris was waiting for him. He handed her his identification, which she examined carefully, then handed back to him.
“Well?” he demanded impatiently.
“Ms. Dugan doesn’t really want to see you,” she said slowly, as if she were turning the idea over, checking it for flaws.
“She’s a—person of interest—in a murder investigation,” he clipped out. He was going to say suspect, but for him, at least, that was so untrue that he couldn’t force himself to speak the word. “You can call my superior, Lieutenant Aubrey D’Annibal of the Laurelton PD, and he’ll say the same.”
“No, I believe you, Detective.”
“So?”
She seemed to be having a conversation with herself inside her head. Clearly there was something going on. Some kind of war. After a few moments, she nodded firmly. “All right. But you need to pull yourself back a little,” she said.
“What do you mean?” he asked, swinging his head to look at her hard as they started toward the corridor from where she’d appeared.
“You’re emotionally charged. It’s coming off you like heat. So is Ms. Dugan. I don’t want to see you two explode when you get together. Bear in mind, this is a hospital. . . .”
Liv had pulled herself together enough to give Dr. Norris the keys and now she was sitting up, turned away from Nurse Champion, whose take-charge personality seemed to be filling up the room and then some. She wanted to leave. Had actually glanced at the door a time or two, thinking of jumping up and taking off, but there was something about Nurse Champion that suggested that might not work too well. The woman felt like a jailor, more than a nurse.
As she was weighing her options, the door opened and Dr. Norris walked through . . . followed by Auggie.
She stared at him, her heartbeat increasing so rapidly it felt as if she were free-falling. She pressed her fingers to her temples to stop the sensation.
Don’t cry . . . don’t cry . . . don’t cry . . .
“Liv,” he said, and just the sound of his voice broke something inside her.
She had to struggle to even speak. “Am I under arrest?” she managed to ask in a voice much stronger than she felt.
Dr. Norris and Nurse Champion stood by like sentinels. If she had to pick sides, she’d choose the doctor. There was compassion there. The jury was still out on Champion.
“No,” he answered.
“But you’re ‘bringing me in,’ aren’t you?” She didn’t bother driving the sarcasm from her words.
His blue eyes held hers for long seconds. She thought she saw a flash of pain, or guilt, or remorse, but it could have been her imagination. He glanced away, to the doctor, and asked, “Can you tell me anything about Dr. Navarone? We’re looking for him.”
Dr. Norris flicked a glance at Liv, then at Auggie. “Nurse Champion told me about your earlier visit. Lori, our receptionist, said you gave your name as August Rafferty and were asking about Dr. Frank Navarone. I looked up everything we had on Dr. Navarone. I don’t have any information about where he went after he left Halo Valley.”
“After he was asked to leave,” Auggie corrected her.
“Dr. Navarone’s employment contract was terminated,” she admitted. “That’s all I’m going to say about that. What I can give you is the name of the person listed as an emergency contact: his sister, Angela Navarone. The address is Seattle.” She reached in her pockets again, withdrew a piece of paper and handed it to him. “It’s over five years old.”
“We’ll find her. Thank you,” Auggie said. He turned back to Liv. “You ready?”
She almost laughed. For what? Instead, she slid off the table on legs that were still a bit wobbly, but now that she’d faced Auggie and hadn’t completely collapsed she felt stronger for it. She picked up her backpack once more, gazed at him coolly and said, “Sure.”
They were buzzed out of the hospital together and walked into vivid sunlight and late afternoon heat. When Liv realized Auggie wasn’t heading to the driver’s side of the Jeep her steps slowed. “How did you get here?” she asked.
He pointed to the silver Honda Pilot parked next to his dark gray Jeep. “My sister’s,” he said.
“The one you didn’t want to talk about?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“You really must have had a long laugh when I jumped in your car. Talk about the bird flying into the cage. So glad to be a source of amusement for you, in every way.” Liv exhaled slowly, hanging on to her composure as best she could. “This part of your m.o., Detective? Follow ’em, get ’em to trust you, have sex with ’em.”
He was leaning tensely against the Pilot. “You can blame me for the deception, but you were a willing participant in the lovemaking.”
“Lovemaking. That’s what you’re calling it?”
His lips tightened. “Would you rather I use some crude term? Would that make it more my fault than yours?”
She flinched and turned away.
He came toward her suddenly and she backed away. But he went around her to the driver’s side of the Jeep. “I’ve got to get my gun.”
Liv walked around the back of the car and watched him dig around under the seat. “So, your ID and gun were in the car all the time?”
“I was just off a case where I was hiding my identity,” he said. “I hadn’t had time to leave the ‘safe house’ and go home when the incident occurred with Navarone or whoever shot up Zuma. My boss asked me to check your apartment and . . . there you were.”
“Where do you live?”
“In one half of a duplex I own in Laurelton.” He
shut the back door of the driver’s side and looked at her. He held a gun loosely in his left hand. “It’s a Glock,” he said, seeing her gaze light on it. “Like the shooter at Zuma used. Ballistics came back: the Zuma shootings were by the same gun that killed your neighbor.” He hesitated, then added in a softer tone, “Jessica Maltona died this morning.”
Chapter 20
Died? Jessica was dead?
“Oh, my God . . . oh, my God . . .” Once again Liv felt her knees struggle to hold her and she placed a palm against the Jeep’s hot back fender for support, feeling her skin burn. Auggie automatically moved toward her but she jerked away.
He stopped short. “I believe someone’s after you,” he said in a low, urgent tone. “I’m sorry I lied. I wasn’t sure how to get you to accept the police. But now . . . now that everything’s out in the open, I can ask the department to run down Navarone. We need to find him. He could very well be the Zuma Software killer and even if he isn’t, he’s somehow involved with you and your past, and that past intersects with the serial strangler around Rock Springs.”
Liv couldn’t take it in. She was emotionally overwrought and this was . . . a case to him. She felt betrayed and angry and foolish.
You fell for him, her cold-eyed inner self reminded her. You let him in.
“Liv . . .”
“I threatened Dr. Knudson,” she stated flatly, feeling as if it were a long, long time ago, not just hours earlier.
Auggie froze. “Did you hold him at gunpoint?”
“No. I told him I had a gun, just to let him know I meant business.” She swallowed. “I was, out of control . . .”
“Liv, listen.” He stepped forward and it took all her willpower not to shrink away. “You have a right to be mad at me, but . . . us . . . this . . .” He motioned between them. “It’s real to me.” She made a strangled sound, but he barreled on, “I wanted to earn your trust and protect you. I didn’t want you to jump into this headlong without me.”
She held up a hand when he would have moved within touching range.
“Now, I want to see this to the end,” he said. “I don’t want you to get hurt, so let’s go to Laurelton PD together. Yes, they’re expecting me to turn you in. My sister’s a detective there, too, and she’s the one who texted me. She brought me her car.”
“Your sister’s a detective, too?” She stared at him in anguish. It was too much!
“Liv, please. I’ll be with you. Come back with me.”
“To the police . . . sure. Why not?” She was fatalistic. “They’re going to arrest me sometime anyway. Might as well be now.”
“They’re not going to arrest you.”
“Don’t lie to me anymore,” she spat fiercely. “Not anymore.”
“I’m not lying.” His gaze was fixed on her, willing her to believe.
Did she? No. Not really. But she was so tired of fighting. She shook her head and counted to ten, then said in a hard voice, “Fine. I’ll go. I suppose you want me to follow you.”
Auggie looked at the silver Pilot, then back to his Jeep. Clearly, he didn’t think that was a good idea, but it was the best answer. “We could go together and come back later.”
“I’ll follow you,” she said.
“Okay,” he said reluctantly. “This isn’t just about the case, y’know,” he added, as if he were reading her mind. “I’m—involved.”
“Yeah.”
“It isn’t,” he stressed, stirred by her flat disbelief.
“I’ll follow you to the police, Detective Rafferty,” she said. “That’s all you get.” Then she moved around him and slid into the driver’s seat.
September sat in stony silence at her desk, fully aware that things could be worse and Gretchen could be amused at her expense over Auggie’s handling of her case. Instead, she seemed more concerned about what the hell Auggie was doing.
“He gonna call in?” Gretchen asked now. She’d come to September’s rescue at the safe house and had brought her back to work.
Earlier, they’d both gone looking for Jason Jaffe to give him the news of his girlfriend’s death, but he hadn’t been at the house he shared with Jessica, and his cell-phone number had gone straight to voice mail every time they called. Since they’d returned to the station Gretchen had called him twice more, and some of her frustration with being unable to connect was mixing in with her feelings about Auggie and his relationship—whatever the hell that was—with Olivia Dugan.
Wes shot Gretchen a half-amused look, then smiled faintly at September. Gretchen wasn’t even trying to hide her interest in Auggie. Maybe she just didn’t care. “He said he’d bring her in today,” Wes reminded her. “I suspect that’s what he’s doin’.”
“Goddamn that Jaffe,” Gretchen muttered, shooting back her chair and stomping into the hall.
When she was out of earshot, he asked September, “How you doin’?”
George had been focused on his computer screen, but now he glanced at Wes. “Who’re you asking?”
“Nine.”
George looked at September. “Still steaming over having your car highjacked?” He chuckled and shot a glance to Wes for encouragement but Pelligree just shook his head.
September tried hard to make it appear as if she wasn’t bothered, though having her car commandeered by her brother and needing someone to pick her up was embarrassing in the extreme. Momentarily she’d considered asking one of her other siblings to do the honors, but that would have been even more galling. Neither March nor July had supported her when she’d followed Auggie’s footsteps into law enforcement. Her father had been apoplectic that August had joined; September following in her twin’s career choice had been too much for Braden Rafferty, who, unable to hold his head up in the rarified society of acquaintances he called “friends,” promptly disowned his youngest two children, telling them not to darken his door until they’d come to their senses.
Like that ever worked with Auggie.
She almost smiled. Almost. Had to bury that wayward thought and concentrate on how pissed she was at him.
D’Annibal came in, looking again wilted compared to his usually put-together self. His suit coat had creases at the elbows and his tie had been jerked loose. It was sweltering outside, so maybe that accounted for it, but then the lieutenant barked out, “Rafferty and Ms. Dugan are on their way here now. Rafferty’s working a lead to the Zuma killings. Dr. Frank Navarone. A psychiatrist who was last booted out of Halo Valley Security Hospital. We need a warrant for his records. A Dr. Norris at Halo Valley coughed up the name of his sister: Angela Navarone. Seattle area. Weasel . . .” He looked to Wes who, after a pause, turned to his computer to do a search.
September blinked. “Lieutenant, umm . . . I’m on Zuma with Sandler.”
“Not anymore. I want you exclusively on the Decatur case, Nine. For God knows what reason—better ratings, probably—the press has been all over us about this one. I want you to be the face for this investigation. Be ready to make a statement.”
“But—” She cut herself off. Had she really been going to say, “That’s not fair!”? Like, oh, sure, D’Annibal would really respond to that. Instead, she said, “I thought Wes wanted the Decatur case?”
“He does. But right now, you’re on it.” D’Annibal’s usually easy manner was completely missing.
“This is because of Auggie,” September said, flushing. She knew she should just shut up, but she couldn’t seem to make herself. “My brother got you to remove me from Zuma. He thinks I’m incompetent.”
“Don’t make this personal. Auggie’s on the Zuma case now with Sandler,” D’Annibal stated firmly. “You’re with the Decatur and Dempsey victims. This is a big case and Pauline Kirby from Channel Seven is already all over it. I need you to be the department’s voice. Can you do that for me?”
September said, “Yes,” and fought back the rest of her objections.
“Good. Your brother got on the inside with Olivia Dugan,” he added as an explanation.
“I’m sure he did,” she said coolly.
The lieutenant shot her a look, but let it go. “The press doesn’t know about the message carved into Decatur’s skin. We’re trying to keep that under wraps.”
Gretchen, returning with a glass of water, caught the end of his words. “It’ll get out,” she warned. “The hikers know and they’ll tell someone.”
“Well, for the moment, it’s not for public knowledge.” D’Annibal’s exasperation escaped his control. “When Rafferty gets here with Dugan, I want all of you here.”
“When will that be?” George asked.
“Within the hour.”
“I’m going over to Jaffe’s,” Gretchen said. “Stake out the bastard, so I can deliver the bad news about his girlfriend.”
“I’ll go with you,” September said, daring anyone to object. No one did, and she followed her partner back outside to the Escape. Zuma might not be her case anymore but she’d been with Gretchen when they’d first interviewed Jaffe, and she didn’t feel like waiting around for Auggie anyway.
Liv drove back up the freeway toward Portland again, keeping the silver Pilot directly in front of her. If Auggie pulled into another lane, she slipped in behind him. If he slowed his speed, she did the same. She didn’t want to give him any reason to think she wasn’t doing exactly what he wanted. She did, after all, intend to follow through.
Sighing, she glanced across the wide strip of grassy median that divided the north- and southbound lanes at this part of the freeway. Rush hour was upon them and each mile that drew them closer to the city meant heavier and heavier traffic. Not so much her direction, as she was in the northbound lanes and more commuters would be leaving the city, not heading to it.
She barely noticed the landscape again. Her thoughts were too chaotic. She was truly living in the moment because every time her mind opened up and questioned her about her own future, panic set in. She had no job, no friends, no place she could go back to. If and when the authorities caught up to Dr. Navarone the threat against her might end, but where would she go from there?