She’d gotten the message. She just hadn’t been successful at reestablishing her former pace after the nights she spent staring down her stairwell.
She wouldn’t let herself spend any more nights craving sleep and cowering in her house.
Before inserting her keys into the locks, Molly tried the kitchen door. Of course it was locked. That was how she’d left it. She’d left the ceiling paddle fans running to circulate the air when she left, and their low-pitched drone comforted her as she reentered her home.
Her relief at seeing the kitchen exactly as she’d left it was excessive.
Running up the stairs, she kept the gun beside her, laying it on her dresser while she changed into jeans and a ragged green-and-orange University of Miami T-shirt that Reid had left behind. Head poking through the neck, she paused. She would call Reid in Costa Rica tomorrow, too. She would tell him everything that had happened.
Living in the country as they had, she and Reid, fraternal twins, had been each other’s only playmates until kindergarten. She’d always secretly thought that they were linked intuitively, psychically, but he’d scoffed, punched her on the arm and blown a big, rude raspberry at her when she’d suggested it. She’d never mentioned it to him again. She’d kept the feeling that they shared a special bond to herself.
Paul had tried to reassure her today, but he’d had to work at it. She didn’t have to be a mind reader to hear his discomfort loud and clear. Irritably, Molly snapped the shutters of the bedroom together. Paul had dismissed too easily her lie that she wasn’t a suspect, that she didn’t need any alibi. She’d heard the reservations underlying his playfulness.
But Reid knew her better than anyone.
He was her twin, all she had left of family, and she found that she wanted him with her now, a barrier against the dark intimidation of John Harlan and his suspicions.
Her threadbare jeans were soft, the waistband loose enough after the weight she’d lost over the last months for her to slip the gun into the small of her back. It scratched her skin, but she liked knowing it was within reach. Leaving the lights on, she went downstairs, found the scrub bucket in the pantry and filled it with hot water and disinfectant.
She wanted nothing left in her house of the detectives and their greasy, black fingerprint powder. She wanted nothing left to remind her of those moments on the floor when she’d thought she’d gone to some endless hole of despair and desperation, where the sound of her own screaming would never leave her ears.
Putting pot holders over her knees, Molly started with the floor, suds sloshing over as she plunked the bucket down by the door and began. The water was hot even through her plastic surgical gloves, but the heat felt good.
The grass slapped his chest as he prowled closer to her. He wanted to be with her. He stopped, shook his big head. For a moment, confusion stirred in him, slowed his steady padding toward her. He lowered himself until he was flat out on the ground. Far off he heard the rumble of an engine. Not from the water. It came from the road. The rumble vibrated the ground as the car approached, passed and stopped some distance up from the driveway entrance.
He waited until the engine died.
Silence for a while—he couldn’t tell how long—but he waited, and finally something moved, approached the house quietly, secretly.
The rain had stopped and other creatures were on the move.
Gathering himself, he flexed his powerful leg muscles and jumped, landing soundlessly on her porch and vanishing into dark spaces.
It wasn’t time.
Eyes wide, unblinking, he folded himself together and settled, head cocked to the sound of footsteps coming from the driveway, growing louder. The shells popped and crackled underneath shoe soles.
He lowered his head and waited.
He would recognize this intruder the next time.
There would be a next time.
He was certain of it.
Molly straightened, her thigh muscles shaking. She’d crawled around the perimeter of the kitchen for the last hour, scrubbing the baseboards. She glanced over at the microwave clock. Eleven o’clock. Her shoulders ached, and her back might not ever work right again. Each vertebra felt permanently fused to the one above it as she stood up and looked with enormous satisfaction around her clean kitchen.
Earlier she’d thought she’d seen the cat meandering around and she peeked through the shutters, but she’d been wrong. After two dates, the creature was apparently playing his feline version of “I’ll call you.” She picked up the bucket of dirty water and unlocked the door.
Pitching the water over the edge of the veranda railing, she stopped and looked around her. It had been a long time since she’d willingly stepped out of her house after the sun set.
The night stirred with life, creatures on the wing and afoot after two days of rain. With the gun riding her spine, Molly breathed in the night air. Scented with orange blossoms and the sweet fragrance of the oleanders that lined the road, the damp air filled her lungs, making her part of the night and its creatures.
In the clear sky, the moon shone down, silvery and huge, turning the white flowers of the night-blooming cereus otherworldly. Hundreds of blossoms climbed up the trellis at the end of the gallery in an explosion of magic after the dreary, rain-swept days.
When the cat didn’t stalk haughtily onto the veranda, she shut and locked the door again, but not in fear. Maybe Detective Harlan would arrest her come morning, but in the meantime she felt freer than she’d felt for a long time.
And hungry.
Pulling a box of cereal out of the pantry, she shoved the door shut behind her with her fanny. It swung half-open again as she grabbed a bowl out of the cupboard and up-ended the box of cereal into it. Sniffing the milk first, she poured it over the crackling, snapping stuff, crossed her legs yoga-style in the chair and dived in.
She didn’t even jump when three firm raps at the kitchen door rattled the chain. But unscrambling herself from the table, she sent milk onto her already wet shirt and down her leg. Pebbles of cereal clung to her thigh.
“Hello, Detective Harlan,” she muttered through the crack of the door, her right hand firmly at her back.
“You shouldn’t open your door this late at night.” Propped against the side of her doorjamb, he looked big and dangerous, his lazy pose merely concealing his speed and power.
“I wouldn’t have, but I knew it was you.”
“Ah.”
“I peeked through the kitchen window.”
“Ah.” He eyed her speculatively. “So you knew I was your late-night visitor? And that it was safe to open your door?” One hand rested negligently in his slacks pocket, the other at the edge of her door where the chain held it fast. His fingernails were blunt cut and clean. “Such courage all of a sudden, Ms. Harris.” He smiled. His smile hinted he knew the source of her courage. “I’m very impressed.”
“I’m sure you are, Detective.” Molly kept her hand on the butt of the Luger. “What do you want?”
“Why don’t you ask me in, and I’ll tell you?” He tapped the chain and it swung gently for a moment.
Molly edged the door shut. “I don’t think so. Not tonight. You’ve finished your searches in here for the day, Detective Harlan.”
“I didn’t come to toss your house again, Ms. Harris.” He touched the bottom of the door with the toe of his loafer. Its highly polished black surface gleamed. “I want to ask you a question.”
“I don’t feel like answering any tonight.”
His toe blocked the door so that it wouldn’t shut. “Do you know how to shoot that gun you’re clutching in your ladylike grip?” His expression was, as usual, slightly curious and reserved. Countering his civilized demeanor, the ever-present mockery in his eyes made him seem elegantly barbaric.
“Of course.”
“Why did your ex give you the gun, Ms. Harris?”
“What?” His switches of subject left her bewildered.
“It puzzles me that h
e would let you have a gun, knowing that you were a possible homicide suspect, that’s all. Seems a little careless of him, don’t you think?”
“Paul told you he gave me my father’s gun?” She hadn’t thought Paul would betray her in this way, especially after their talk.
“No. I haven’t talked with him today.” Harlan again swung the chain. “Tell me why he gave you that gun, Ms. Harris?”
“Because I asked him to! I told him I was afraid out here by myself and he agreed to help me.”
“Are you sure that was the reason?” Insinuations slipped through his courteous voice. “Don’t you think it’s a bit—” he smiled as he tapped the chain “—naive to hand over a gun to a suspect? Why would an upright, upstanding citizen behave like that, Ms. Harris?”
“Because we’re friends.”
“Everybody should be so lucky. To have friends like Dr. Bouler.”
Molly leaned her head against the door. “You’re implying Paul had some other reason for helping me? What? Spit it out, Detective.”
“Ms. Harris, you alarm me sometimes. Three murders have been committed on your property. You’ve been either on the scene or have come upon it shortly afterward. You insist that you’re not guilty, and, in fact, have an alibi for the first murders, an alibi provided by your ex-husband. Did you know that the shattered window glass at the front of your house didn’t prove anything about what actually happened that night?”
“Someone broke in. It was a burglary,” Molly murmured, tears thickening her voice. “Random. Stupid.”
“That lovely etched glass with its patterns of birds and trees could have been smashed after the murders to give the appearance of a burglary. Those murders, like Camina’s, Ms. Harris, weren’t necessarily random.”
Molly rubbed her forehead on the door. “Of course they were. Nothing else makes sense.”
“Really?” He moved so quickly she didn’t even react. The chain dangled uselessly between them.
He’d managed to slide it off its slot before she could slam the door. She hadn’t even seen the quick flick of his finger along the chain until he’d finished. The gun at her back seemed ineffective in light of his speed.
“Ms. Harris,” he continued, waiting calmly on the veranda, the partially shut door merely a pretense between them, a pretense he allowed. “The glass showed a concentric fracture—that’s where the point of impact is surrounded by concentric, circular tracks—and the side of the glass that formed a right angle with the conchoidal fracture indicated only that the force had been applied from outside.”
“That’s all technical talk. It doesn’t mean anything to me,” she said, refusing to open the door even though she knew he only needed to push it and it would swing wide.
“The report didn’t help the cops on the case, either, Ms. Harris. I read the report. The guys gathered their evidence real carefully. Your folks being such prominent citizens, I reckon no one wanted to screw up.”
“Why are you telling me all this? I don’t want to hear the details again! I read the report once. That was enough.”
As if he hadn’t heard her, Harlan went on, his even voice reciting words that became a grocery list of horror, bringing the smell of blood, the dark splotches into the present. “The evidence gathering was very carefully done, Ms. Harris. The pieces of glass were collected and fitted back together like a jigsaw puzzle. The techs worked hard to keep the surfaces of the broken window separate. They checked to see if dirt layers matched up to indicate the outside of the window, but it had been cleaned too recently for that to yield anything significant.”
Lifting her head, Molly swallowed. “I cleaned them that morning.” She had polished the delicate tracery of mockingbirds in the windows beside the front door as a favor to her mother, who’d teased her about cheap labor. Oh, God. Molly laid her cheek against the door.
“Not that it would have mattered if the windows had been dirty,” he said, watching her face and nudging the door with his foot.
Loose in her grasp, the door moved. The chain pressed into her cheek.
“You and I both know any fool who watches TV knows enough to break a window from the outside if you want it to look like a breakin. Unless the mope’s caught with glass splinters in his clothing or shoes, or unless he’s caught in the act, we cops are working against the odds and against time. Most crooks are caught within a matter of hours, or they’re not caught at all. Most people are killed by people they have some connection with, someone they know. Ms. Harris, anyone could have killed your parents. Anyone could have killed Camina. Someone familiar to them, someone you know. Like your ex-husband, for instance.”
Molly jerked her head up. “Why are you trying to make me suspicious of people I care about?”
His voice was as soft as the gulf water sliding against the sand. “Ms. Harris, why aren’t you suspicious of the motives of everyone around you? That’s what alarms me. If you’re not a murderer, you’re way too trusting for your own good. And that’s why I want to talk with you. I saw you leave Dr. Bouler’s office with the gun. Open the door, please.”
Letting her hand drop to her side, Molly opened the door. “You followed me?”
“Yes, I was right behind you. I watched you go into Dr. Bouler’s office—a very nice setup, by the way, very classy and expensive, I’m sure. I waited until you left. Your purse was heavier, you know, with the gun in it. It was the way it swung against your side when it bumped you that clued me in.”
There was no point in denying the obvious. If he’d seen her slipping, running back to Paul’s office, Detective Harlan had known how frightened she’d been. “You scared me.”
“No. I didn’t.” Stepping in front of her, he grabbed a paper towel and wiped a milk mustache from her mouth carefully, then threw the towel into the wastebasket. It might have been her imagination that he lingered at the corners of her lips. “You never saw me.”
“Maybe not,” she conceded, stepping back, annoyed with him, annoyed with herself. She must have looked like an idiot, slapping at her face where the Ficus branch had blown across her face and tangled in her hair. “But I heard you. Same difference.”
“Not quite. You heard something ahead of both of us. Not me.” He reached behind her, his arms grazing the sides of her ribs as he plucked the Luger from her limp grasp.
Where he’d brushed against her, her skin ached, as if, somewhere inside of her, the cells of her body were rearranging themselves, turning like a compass needle toward him. She didn’t understand her reaction, and she didn’t like it. The awareness came from someplace other than her conscious mind, which told her clearly and insistently that she didn’t like Detective John Harlan. “You made that noise. It had to have been you. I know it was,” she persisted.
“Definitely not me, Ms. Harris.” He placed the gun on the counter.
“I—I…” Comprehending at last, Molly sank into the chair he pulled out. His forearm bumped her cheek and her skin burned. “You heard something, too?”
“Yes.” Slouching against the sink, he stretched out his legs into her space, his shoes inches away from her bare toes.
“I didn’t imagine it?”
“No.”
Sick with relief, Molly bowed her head. “I was frightened, so frightened,” she whispered.
“You should have been.” He was kneeling before her. “Ms. Harris—”
“You’re sure you heard that scraping sound, as if someone were waiting for me? And accidentally moved?” She touched his face. His cheekbones were hard and his skin warm. She’d never dreamed there could be such comfort in touching another human being. She longed to let her hands linger against the angled planes of his face, trace the cords of his strong neck and the muscles of his wide shoulders. He had been there. “You’re positive there was someone else in the corridor?”
“There was something there,” he said, placing her hands back in her lap.
“You mean an animal?” Molly couldn’t figure out what he was trying t
o tell her.
“No.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. Not yet. But I will.” He touched her knee fleetingly, and her skin buzzed under the frayed denim. “Do you believe in evil, Ms. Harris?”
“I don’t know. Bad people do bad things. I don’t get your point.”
“My point is—” and his voice lowered, became sibilant, a hiss that coiled around her and slid down the channels of her hearing to her innermost being “—that evil exists, Ms. Harris. I told you I’ve seen it, up close and personal. I believe evil takes shape and wanders through the universe.”
Her spine prickled with each word and Molly looked uneasily at him. “I believe people are basically good. I don’t believe in the bad-seed idea.”
Harlan’s voice, low and dreamy, whispered, evoking monstrous images. “Sometimes wickedness brushes past us, leaving us untouched. Sometimes, for no reason, it lashes out, annihilating whatever it seizes upon. It’s real. It destroys, senselessly, mindlessly. And then it wanders on, finding another victim and striking again. No rhyme, no reason.”
“That’s the most frightening idea I’ve ever heard.”
“Remember an old Ray Bradbury story called ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her mouth dry. “But people aren’t bad without a reason. Wickedness isn’t random.”
“Well, believe in it, Ms. Harris, because it’s strolling around. And we know when it passes by us because our most primitive self recoils in its presence. If we’re lucky.”
He lifted the hair at the back of her neck and lightly touched the top of her spine.
All down her back, fine hairs rose. Along her arms, everywhere, her skin tightened, her stomach, her nipples.
Lover in the Shadows Page 13