Senseless

by Mary Burton

  A side door off the lobby opened and Garrison appeared. He wore dark slacks, a white shirt and a sports jacket that accentuated his broad shoulders. A clean-shaven jaw sharpened the angles on his lean face, which now seemed more raw-boned, as if stress kept him awake. At least she wasn’t the only one not sleeping.

  Garrison crossed the lobby and reached her in a few long strides. “Eva.”

  She adjusted her backpack on her shoulder, more out of nerves than necessity. “I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Sure.” No hesitation, yet no pressure, much like a fisherman reeling in the big fish.

  “Okay.”

  “Follow me to my office.”

  “Right.”

  The last time she’d been in a police station it had been the morning after the rape and the fire. She’d been numb and scared and alone. The cops had stuck her in a plain room—one desk, two chairs—and they’d left her to stew and worry for hours. By the time the sheriff had come in to question her, her nerves had been jumping with fear.

  Garrison led her through the door he’d just emerged from and up a single flight of stairs. “I usually don’t take the elevator. It’s quicker this way.”

  “That’s fine. I’m used to stairs.”

  He opened the second-floor door and waited for her to enter. A collection of cubicles, the hum of voices and the sound of random phones ringing greeted her. No one seemed to look up or take notice. Just another woman. Just another day. Not the prime murder suspect the entire station had been discussing.

  “This way,” Garrison said.

  She followed his outstretched hand down a hallway to a corner office. She stepped inside and glanced around the room. Shelves along one wall were packed with books and files. A desk in the center had more books and papers. Two chairs were nested in front of the desk and diplomas on the wall: Air Force Academy. A double frame on a window shelf featured two young girls—one appeared to have been taken recently, but the other years ago. The place looked a breath away from chaos.

  “Have a seat.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Can I get you a coffee or water?”

  “No. No. I’m good.”

  Instead of taking the seat behind the desk, he chose the one opposite. This close she could feel the energy radiating off of him and half wished he’d sit behind the desk. She could have used a barrier between them.

  “What can I do for you, Eva?”

  The gentleness in his voice almost, almost made her forget why she’d come. “You told my sister about me.”

  Garrison nodded, no hint of apology in his eyes. “I did.”

  “Why? Why did you go to her and not come to me?”

  “I’m trying to solve a couple of murders, Eva. Like it or not, you are linked to the victims. And since you’ve not been the most forthcoming, I decided on a different tack. I’d hoped Angie could tell me something about Josiah Cross.”

  “She doesn’t know anything about him. She never met him. She never had a chance to visit Price.”

  “I know.”

  “I really wished you’d not gone to see her. You stirred up things I just wasn’t ready to deal with.”

  Garrison sat back in his chair. “If you didn’t want to see her, why’d you come back to Alexandria, Eva?”

  “You had no right to meddle with my family.”

  “Murder changes all the rules, Eva.”

  “So what were you after when you went to see her?”

  “Like I said, I wanted her perspective on you and Cross’s death.”

  Frustration chewed at her insides. “She came to see me today at King’s. I wasn’t ready.”

  “When do you think you would have been ready?”

  “I don’t know. But that was for me to decide.” She patted her flat hand against her chest. “Her visit churned up a lot of memories.”

  “Maybe that’s good. There are moments in the night Josiah died that you’ve been unable to remember.”

  His tone rang so genuine, and for a moment the walls around her crumbled. “She had nothing to do with those missing moments.”

  “You never know what will jog loose.”

  “Two of the three women who could have helped me are dead and the third won’t give me the time of day.”

  “Do you think the three girls lied about seeing you hit Josiah?”

  She stared into his dark eyes that focused on her as if she were the only person in the world. “You almost sound like you give a crap.”

  “I do care what happens to you. I believe you got a bad deal ten years ago. But like it or not, that night connects with today’s murders. And you remembering those missing minutes is just as important to my case as it is to your peace of mind.”

  “How could it? Josiah is dead. His father is dead. And Micah was never the kind of guy who would risk his security for murder.”

  “What do you know about Micah?”

  “He didn’t go to Price. His father wanted the boys to have separate lives. But I saw him at the school from time to time. He came by the house with his brother. He and Josiah might have been twins, but Micah was as docile as Josiah was violent.”

  “What aren’t you telling about that night?”

  Eva’s stomach churned and her muscles twitched with the desire to flee. For an instant, she even pictured the door behind her and tried to calculate the steps to the elevator.

  She tugged at a loose thread where the fabric of her jeans had worn just above her knee. “Kristen confessed that she was pregnant with Josiah’s baby.”

  “Pregnant. You sure about that?”

  “Very. I’d not had much to drink. The wine made me sick to my stomach so I’d been nursing it most of the evening. I kept pouring it down the sink when no one was looking. Kristen kept pushing the wine on me, but I was sober and I know what I heard.”

  “Okay.”

  “Kristen had broken up with Josiah. We were glad because we knew he wasn’t good to her. We’d all seen bruises. I’d spotted him standing outside her window at night. The guy was dangerous.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anyway, we all swore we wouldn’t tell. And then the wine was gone and Kristen decided it was time to get more booze. The other girls said they’d make a run to the store and I was told to stay behind. I was still the junior member of the sorority so I had to do what I was told.” She shook her head. “Rules of a sorority house seem so pointless now.”

  “You were trying to fit in and play by the rules. Don’t apologize for that.”

  “I just tried so hard with those three but I was always the odd man out. They always had secrets. I’d come into the room and they’d stop talking. That happened a lot that last week. Once, Lisa appeared so upset after one of their meetings. I asked her what was wrong but she’d never say. But that last night they included me and I felt like an insider for once.”

  Garrison nodded. “Are you sure Kristen was pregnant?”

  “Yes.” She tapped her fingers on her thigh. “And I think Josiah knew about the baby. When he showed up at the front door, he was all smiles and had a bouquet of flowers in his hands. I told him Kristen had gone and he asked if he could come in and wait.” God, why hadn’t she just done what instinct had demanded and slammed the door in his face? “I let him in.”

  “What happened?”

  “He kept asking me about Kristen. I kept avoiding his questions and he got mad very quickly. He told me Kristen was a fool if she thought she could keep secrets.”

  “But you never told him about the baby?”

  “No. The crueler he was, the more determined I became to keep the secret. He was a monster. And I never told during the trial.”

  “Why didn’t you? It could have helped your case.”

  “I saw firsthand how evil Josiah could really be. And his father wasn’t much better. I kept thinking about that baby and how they’d ruin its life. A life sentence even before it was born.”

  “After the attack, what’s the next thing you r
emember?”

  “Being dragged out by the fireman.”

  She closed her eyes and squeezed the bridge of her nose. Even to this day, she could still smell the smoke and feel the heat of the flames. “When he burned me, the pain flipped a switch in me. Everything just went blank and I blacked out. I don’t know how much time passed or how the fire got started. But I never, ever remember hitting him. I’ve tried to remember that but I can’t.”

  He rose and moved to his desk where he dug out a file. He opened it, carefully searching for the right image. He came around the side of the desk and sat again. “These are photos of the victim’s stomachs.”

  Her gaze held his for a moment. She didn’t want to look but found her gaze dropping. The image was of a red, raw scar with a backdrop of the dead woman’s pale white skin. For a moment she couldn’t breathe and then she pushed aside her fears and studied the image.

  She shrugged off her jacket and exposed her shoulder and her scar.

  His gaze darkened as he stared at it. “Think hard, Eva,” Garrison said softly. “Who would want to do this to them?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  “What about Micah Cross?”

  “This just doesn’t seem like Micah. It just doesn’t.”

  “Do you think Kristen is doing this? You, Lisa and Sara all knew about the baby. Maybe that’s too much of a secret for her to have now that she’s got this big fancy wedding planned.”

  “Kind of medieval, don’t you think? Birth mothers go on to have normal lives all the time.”

  “I did some checking on Kristen. Her family is in tough financial straits. They lost a lot last year. This marriage will fix a lot of problems. A baby might tarnish her image.”

  “Kristen always got what she wanted.” Her gaze dropped to the date marked digitally on the bottom of victim one’s photo. “She didn’t care who she hurt in the process.”

  “It’s time I had another talk with Kristen.”

  “You believe me?” Surprise coated the words.

  “Yes.” He wasn’t her friend or enemy. He was an impartial cop looking for a killer. But she sensed she could trust him.

  Eva trusting a cop. The thought almost made her laugh. “Fair enough.” She rose.

  He straightened. “Eva, we found a journal in Lisa’s condo. It was written in code.”

  And it seemed he trusted her a bit as well. That felt really good. “Lisa loved the idea of codes and keeping her thoughts very private. I taught her the ROT13 code at school.” She explained the system.

  “Thanks.” He studied her. “Have you been back to Price?”

  “No.”

  “Have you considered it?”

  “I’ve thought about it, but I just haven’t found the time.” She shook her head. “Who am I kidding? I’ve avoided it like the plague.”

  He leaned toward her. “Would you be willing to go back now?”

  “You think it’ll jog my memory?”

  “It could.”

  The thought of walking the grounds that had been the source of so much pain robbed her of breath. Yet the running in fear from Josiah bothered her more. “Sure, I’ll go.”

  “How about right now? How about I drive you now?”

  The challenge in his voice goaded even more than the fear. “Yeah, sure why not?”

  He grinned. “I’ll get my keys.”

  The drive to Price University took Garrison less than forty minutes. She sat in the front seat, her hands folded in her lap as she watched the city pass by and then slowly thin until only countryside passed by her window.

  “You doing okay?” he said.

  She shrugged, determined to keep her nerves in check. “Last time I was in a police car I was being carted off to jail.” She tossed one of his grins back at him but sensed hers looked a little strained. “Not one of my brighter moments.”

  His fingers tightened on the wheel. “You got a raw deal.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.” She flexed her fingers, not willing to dig into bitterness now. “So you really think a trip down memory lane is going to help?”

  “It might jog something loose.”

  “I hope it does. For a long time I didn’t want to remember any more than I had. Now I want to know what happened every second of that day.”

  Eva wasn’t sure if she’d have made this trip alone. But having Garrison so close eased her fears. She’d like to have filled the silence with conversation, but she didn’t know how to make small talk with him. With the bar patrons all she needed was a bit of sports information or a tidbit from the entertainment section of the paper, but with him, all that just felt flat and foolish.

  “So what makes a guy chase murderers?”

  “Someone has to.”

  “But why you?”

  He shrugged. “After I got out of the air force, it made sense. My dad had been a cop for thirty years.”

  She’d noted before that the academy class ring was the only jewelry he wore. “How’d your wife die?”

  “That’s an odd question.”

  “Sorry. Curious, I suppose.”

  For a moment he kept his eyes forward on the road. A muscle in the side of his cheek pulsed as if he’d not answer. “Suicide.”

  The word sounded wrenched from his chest, as if he’d confessed a terrible secret. “Why?”

  Again another pause, as she sensed she’d just shined a light into the darkest of corners. “She’d been ill for some time.”

  “My mother killed herself. She didn’t like living without my dad. And then she got sick. I guess living was just too much work.”

  “She had you.”

  “And your wife had you. Sometimes we just aren’t good enough to save them.”

  He shot her a glance. And in that moment she saw a lifetime of pain and anger. “Sounds like you’ve thought about that a lot.”

  “That’s one advantage to going to prison. You’ve got time to think.”

  This big strong man who looked nearly bulletproof carried a wound that, judging by the added tension in his shoulders, hadn’t really healed. And for the oddest reason she didn’t feel so alone knowing she wasn’t the only damaged person in this car.

  Garrison slowed as they neared the white columns that marked the university’s entrance and wound down the main entrance road toward the first parking lot. It had been paved since she was last here and more bike racks and even security panic buttons had been added.

  Price was nestled in the rolling hillside; its old brick buildings with white columns dated back to the early 1900s. Lush green lawns, thick and well manicured, covered the ground around meandering paths.

  Clean, neat students walked toward the main quadrangle where the school’s oldest four buildings bracketed the main common area. They smiled and one laughed, tossing back her hair.

  For a moment she sat and wondered what good could possibly come of this visit.

  Her backpack slung on her shoulder, she stepped from the car and moved with her back ramrod straight and her eyes focused ahead. On the path to the main buildings, gravel crunched under her feet. “There’d been a time when I was that girl.”

  “You carefree?” The teasing tone made her smile.

  “Well, not exactly like them.” And before she thought to censor herself, she said, “For the one brief year I was here, I believed in possibilities and building a new shining life.”

  He stood nearly a foot taller than her and his frame blocked the sun and covered her with his shadow. “You can still have that.”

  “I know. I will.”

  The scent of boxwoods greeted them as she passed an old building they’d called East Wing and moved across the green quad toward the road that led to sorority row. As they moved along, she gave him a brief history of the school, surprised she remembered so much. Her house had been the third on the right, but she wasn’t sure what she’d find now, knowing the house that had been hers had been ravaged by fire.

  When they topped the
little hill, she was surprised to see that the building had been replaced with a new house. A bright shining white house, with a wide front porch complete with rockers and lush planters filled with winter pansies. By the main entrance a brass plaque read CROSS HOUSE.

  “Cross House.” Bitterness twisted inside her. This was no doubt Darius’s handiwork.

  “His father rebuilt the house in his son’s honor.”

  “How nice.”

  They climbed the front steps, listening as music drifted out of the wide-open front door. The singer crooned on and on about second chances. Fitting, she thought as she pushed through the open front door.

  She paused by the threshold.

  “You okay? ”

  His quiet and unyielding presence shored up shaky nerves. “Great.”

  They moved inside the house. The foyer was carpeted and the walls a soft beige. A creak from a top center staircase had her looking up. A slim girl wearing sweats and a Price T-shirt and her dark hair up in a ponytail came down the stairs. The girl glanced from Eva to Garrison and back, trying to figure out their relationship. “You planning on going here?”

  Before Garrison could pull out his badge, Eva grabbed on to the opening and took advantage of her youthful appearance. “I am. The college keeps sending me a bunch of brochures and so my brother and I thought we’d have a look around.”

  The girl’s attention flickered back up to Garrison whose amused expression nearly made Eva laugh.

  The slight tension in the girl’s shoulders eased. “So you a transfer student?”

  “What makes you say that? ”

  “You don’t have the wide-eyed look of the high school girls.”

  “Thanks for noticing. Most people think I’m just a kid.”

  Garrison cleared his throat. “That’s not entirely true.”

  Eva glanced up at him, and for the briefest moment she saw raw desire flash in his eyes. Instead of scaring her, it sent a thrill of desire shooting through her limbs.

  “Would you like a tour of the first floor of the house? Upstairs is limited to sisters only.”

  “That would be great,” Eva said. “The house looks so new.”