Unseen

by Nancy Bush

  “Voodoo shit,” Lucky repeated.

  “Kev.” The other man stepped from behind the bar and wifey charged after him, grabbing his arm as they came to where Lucky stood.

  “Fuck you, Rome,” Kev said without heat. “This is between me and the LaPortes.” He pointed a finger at Lucky’s nose. “They’re all thieves. Stole our land. Got it by lying on their backs. Those county records are a fucking lie! I know about your mom and Judge Lafferty, don’t think I don’t!”

  “Well, then, you’re the only one,” Lucky said. She was getting pretty fed up with this yahoo.

  “Oh, that’s right, you can’t remember. Ha, ha, ha.” He clapped his hands and moved one step back to encompass the few other people in the bar. “Here’s Gemma LaPorte, our resident psychotic, but she never remembers nothin’ important. Convenient.”

  Rome put a hand on Kev’s arm, but Kev shook him off and shot him a deadly look.

  Lucky suddenly felt a wave of something from Rome. Appreciation? Apology? Maybe a grain or two of lust? The wife clearly wanted Lucky to go back out the door and evaporate. She was having trouble hanging on to her husband.

  “He’s not cheating on you,” Lucky said to her. “Yet.”

  She reared back and turned big eyes on Rome. The look of horror that crossed his face as he gazed at Lucky was almost comical.

  “See!” Kev crowed. “What do you want to say about me, bitch? What about me?” He slapped his chest with his palms.

  “I see you in a straight jacket in a rubber room,” Lucky improvised. “Drooling. Playing with yourself, which is the only sex you’ve had since your daddy showed you how. And you thought the LaPortes were crazy…”

  Kev’s slitty eyes grew huge. Lucky took a step back, waiting for the explosion. She was pretty sure the top of his head was going to blast off. “Jean screwed all the people who count,” he said in a harsh whisper. “People in power. And she got the records changed, but that’s gonna change back. The Dunleavys are getting their land back. And the LaPortes can just go fuck themselves!”

  “You would know,” Lucky said blandly.

  “Gemma, don’t,” Rome moaned.

  “You should leave,” his wife said shakily.

  Kev reached out as if to grab her arm. “Touch me and you die,” she hissed. He blinked, stopped himself, taken aback.

  Lucky chose that moment for her retreat. She hadn’t meant to create a scene, but then she hadn’t known about this Gemma person and her “crazy family.”

  She had a memory of another man, an older man, her father maybe? A doctor. Shivering, she clutched at her hip and the injury there. The door she kept shut on her past blasted open and with sudden clarity she remembered the nights he bullied her, the nights he snuck into her bedroom and forced himself on her. She was young. Too young. He never had the courage to approach her unless he’d been drinking, and then he was too big and determined for her to push him away. She remembered the sour smell of alcohol on his breath.

  Renewed rage filled her. He was the first man she’d murdered. When she was older. When she could take care of things the way they should be. She’d lured him onto the jetty one storm-filled afternoon and sent him spinning over the edge of the cliff into the sea. An accident, most said. Suicide, some whispered.

  Not near enough payback, Lucky thought, but it was all she could get.

  “You took her with you?” Barb practically screeched into the phone. “You couldn’t just get the address and have the car impounded? You had to take her there with you?”

  Will was almost back to the department when Barb reached him. She’d called to find out how his trip to Clatsop County was going and Will had filled her in on the turn of events.

  Now he wished he hadn’t.

  “Evidence is evidence,” he stated flatly.

  “You think she’s a damsel in distress,” Barb accused. “You’re trying to save her.”

  “Hear anything back on a possible first victim?” Will tried to divert her. “From any other county?”

  “Nothing that’s even close. So, where is she now? Did you take her home? Maybe I should ask where you are?”

  “I’m in the damn parking lot outside. I’ll be in in a minute. Anything else going on?”

  “Traffic fatality on twenty-six last night. Guy’s van was over a ridge and nobody found it till today. Motorist called 911 last night and said they thought they’d witnessed an accident. She got routed to Clatsop County. Took awhile to find the vehicle as it was just over the Winslow County line and went way down over the hill. They’re getting the driver out now.”

  “No one else in the car?”

  “Just the driver, as far as I know.”

  Will made a sound of agreement. He didn’t really give a damn, but it was a relief to have Barb off his neck.

  “The witness thought there was some kind of game going on between the van and a truck with one headlight. The truck sped off after the van went over the edge. The witness got a partial license plate number.”

  “What kind of game?”

  “Moving in and out at each other. Sounds like stupid kids, if you ask me. Driver of the truck got scared and headed west.”

  “What kind of truck?”

  “Tan or dirty white.”

  “Make?”

  “Sorry. Our witness says it happened fast and it was dark.”

  Traffic fatalities didn’t make Will’s desk, generally, unless they had an intentional cause. This one straddled the line between accident and vehicular homicide.

  “Is there enough of the partial plate, coupled with the truck, to narrow it to a particular vehicle?”

  “Ralph’s working on it.”

  Smithson. Will grunted. Good luck getting him to offer up any real information to Will. “You’re going to have to handle this one,” he told Barb.

  “Smithson thinks he’s the detective instead of the traffic cop,” Barb said with a snort. “I’ll have to sit on him hard.”

  Will had walked to the door and hurried inside, shaking rain from his hair. Dot smiled and mimed, “Tsk-tsk,” behind the glass and buzzed him through. He headed toward the staff room lockers and hung his coat up.

  Barb appeared in the doorway. “So, what did she say about the car?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She called you up and told you where it was. She’s not worried we’ll find incriminating evidence?”

  “She didn’t know where the car was. When she learned, she called.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You believe she’s innocent?” she asked, arching a skeptical brow.

  “That car was damn near crushed. The fact that she’s walking around is a miracle.”

  “She could have run down Letton, then put the car in the ditch on purpose, to wipe off any evidence.”

  “Pretty drastic, when bleach and a scrub brush would do a better job.”

  “She panicked,” Barb proposed. “Did the deed and then just panicked.”

  Will met her snapping dark eyes. “Let’s go on the assumption that she had a simple accident.”

  “Simple accident,” she repeated.

  Ignoring her, Will said, “That she didn’t run Letton down. If she didn’t, then who did?”

  “Nobody, Will. That’s the problem. Gemma LaPorte’s the killer. And everyone’s faced that fact but you.”

  Gemma awoke slowly, aware that a phone was ringing in some distant place. She also realized she was in the bathtub and the water had grown cold.

  She climbed from the tub and started shivering. Outside the wind had escalated to an out-and-out howl and the rain was a rushing roar against her roof. Wild weather.

  Her robe was hanging on a hook on the back of the bathroom door. She grabbed it, wrapped it around herself, and did a fast race walk to the nearest telephone, but it stopped ringing just as she snatched up the receiver. Her pulse beat hard as she considered it might be Will. She wanted it to be him. She willed it to b
e him.

  The phone beeped once at her, declaring she had an unheard voice-mail message. Quickly she dialed in her code and a few moments later the electronic voice said, “You have three new messages.”

  Three?

  “Gemma. It’s Charlotte,” came the somewhat tremulous voice on the first message. Didn’t sound like Charlotte at all.

  Gemma flicked a glance at the time. Six o’clock p.m. A lot of hours since she’d left Will.

  “I’m at home. Please call me. Please!”

  She listened to the next message. “Gemma, when you get home, call me immediately. It’s Charlotte. I’m at home.”

  And the third message: “Gemma, it’s Charlotte. I have something to tell you but I don’t want Mom to overhear. She’s still at the diner. Call me back. Please. I’m at home.” She rattled off the number.

  Gemma punched in the numbers and the phone barely rang before it was snatched up. “Hello?” Charlotte’s voice said nervously.

  “Charlotte, it’s Gemma.”

  “Oh, my God. Thank God! I’ve been calling and calling. Mom’s on her way home so I can’t talk long. But I saw the guy!” Before Gemma could ask, “What guy?” Charlotte declared, “It’s Robbie Bereth’s dad! He came by the diner to tell me off about stealing the bike. But he’s the guy, Gemma. The one you chased out of the diner that day!” Her voice dropped. “Oh, crap. Mom’s here. He’s the guy, Gemma. He’s the guy!”

  “When…when did he come by the diner?”

  “Yesterday. I wanted to call you but I couldn’t. He’s creepy. Just all cold and starey. Screamed at me, but then made me feel like…yech…”

  “He’s the guy I was chasing that day? You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “But Charlotte, I want to get this right. Remember you thought you saw me a couple of days ago and I didn’t stop to pick you up?”

  “I’ve gotta go. I don’t want Mom to know. Not yet!”

  “What was I driving?”

  “You still can’t remember?” Charlotte sounded really upset. “Really?”

  Gemma didn’t know how to say it wasn’t her. “Was I in a—car?”

  “You were in your truck! Your dirty white truck!”

  She slammed the phone down and the connection was lost.

  Gemma replaced the receiver and stared into space.

  A prickly sensation ran up her arms. She could almost remember.

  Almost.

  But almost is only good in horse shoes and hand grenades.

  Why couldn’t she remember seeing Charlotte?

  Chapter Seventeen

  By the time Will left the department the wind and rain had turned into a full-fledged storm, the kind normally reserved for late November. Fir trees bent and swayed overhead like they were nodding to their partners in some scripted dance. Will’s wipers were snapping back and forth and still the water was thick as honey.

  He swore beneath his breath. If he had any sense he’d just go home, slosh some scotch into a glass and sip it slowly in front of the television. If the power went out, he’d sip it in the dark.

  Normally this scenario would have been pleasing, but his brain just wouldn’t stop. It kept traveling a well-used track, and it came back time and again to Gemma LaPorte.

  He couldn’t get a bead on her. Couldn’t decide whether she was being straight with him or involved in some elaborate fantasy, maybe one she didn’t even know she’d created.

  He didn’t believe she’d run down Edward Letton, but he didn’t believe she was completely innocent, either. If forensics came up with some kind of evidence that her car had hit Letton he would still have trouble believing it. Maybe she wasn’t completely in her right mind. Maybe she was sleepwalking, or in a walking coma. Maybe she was lying, making up fantastic stories to obfuscate the truth.

  Maybe she couldn’t remember because she didn’t do it.

  Gemma LaPorte’s the killer. And everyone’s faced that fact but you.

  He yanked the wheel and turned in the direction of Gemma’s farmhouse. The decision was made without conscious thought.

  He wanted to be with her.

  Gemma put the teakettle on the stove with unsteady hands. After adding a tea bag to her mug, she watched the electric burner coil heat up to a glowing orange and cinched her robe tighter around her waist.

  The man she’d been chasing was Robbie Bereth’s father?

  Could Charlotte be right on that? Normally Gemma would have said so, absolutely. But the fact that Charlotte insisted she’d seen her driving her truck—that she’d actually waved at Charlotte!—gave her pause. Why would Charlotte say that? She clearly believed it, but it just wasn’t true.

  Unless…

  Unless it was possible that she’d been driving and simply couldn’t remember?

  “Driving,” she said aloud.

  She shivered. She’d heard of people driving in an alcoholic blackout and ending up somewhere with no memory of how they got there. Was that it? Some kind of chemical imbalance that had her leading a life she couldn’t recall?

  “It’s not DID,” she said.

  The teakettle shrieked and she jumped, though she was staring right at it. Her nerves were clearly shot. Grabbing her mug, she filled it halfway, then added sugar and milk. She took a swallow and felt the heat of it run down her esophagus. Good. She was cold from the inside out and that gleefully howling wind and slashing rain weren’t helping matters.

  Faintly, as if from far away, she heard her doorbell ring. In this storm? Feeling overly paranoid and melodramatic, she grabbed the poker from the fireplace before answering the door. Snapping on the light, she threw the door open, the weapon tight in her right hand.

  “Gemma!” Little Tim protested, his eyes turning to the poker in consternation. Rain dripped from his soaked head as he stood under the porch light.

  In his hand was a white envelope, almost translucent from the rain.

  “Oh, Tim,” Gemma said above the wind’s roar, her right arm relaxing. Dropping the poker, she clutched the robe tightly to her throat. It felt like she’d run a marathon.

  He was slightly embarrassed as he handed her the envelope. “I have another one,” he said.

  Gemma accepted it and realized one mystery was solved. “You left the note that said, ‘I see into your soul.’”

  He said shyly, “From a book. They’re romance.”

  The paper nearly disintegrated in her hand as she pulled out the note: We are one heart.

  “Tim, I told you I have a boyfriend.”

  “No, no. I’m your boyfriend.”

  “No, Tim.”

  “Yes! Yes, Gemma! We need to go to the quarry. Lover’s Lane. I’ve got to show you something!”

  He grabbed her arm as if to drag her after him and Gemma resisted. “No, Tim,” she said sternly.

  “We need to kiss!”

  “No, Tim!”

  He moved in to kiss her, smacking his mouth hard to hers. Gemma’s robe loosened and she felt herself instinctively tense, ready to shove her knee hard into his groin. She just managed to stop herself. This was Little Tim. He was a problem, not a threat.

  Twin yellow beams from an approaching vehicle bumped toward them, cutting through the sheeting rain. Gemma jerked back sharply from Tim’s embrace. He gazed at her in hurt and she yanked her robe to her neck even tighter.

  “You must come!”

  Gemma looked past him and, as it came close to the house, she recognized Will’s patrol car. Relief flooded her. “That’s my boyfriend,” she said.

  “Noooooo!” Tim threw back his head and wailed. “I love you! I love you!”

  Will’s tires sloshed through deep, rain-filled ruts. He stopped the car and cut the lights, opening the door. Tim got a clear view of him. With a loud wail into the wind, Tim took off on a lurching run, past Will’s vehicle in the direction of the main road, his cries deep and heart-wrenching.

  Will seemed about to go after him, but Gemma ran into the rain to meet him. She
sloshed barefoot through mud puddles, squinting against the driving rain. “Will…Will…”

  “What’s wrong? Who’s that?” He craned his neck to where Tim had disappeared.

  It seemed the most natural thing to throw herself into his arms. If he was surprised he hid it well, holding her close. “That’s Little Tim. We need to take him home. I know where he lives. Let me get some clothes…”

  She hurried back inside, leaving muddy footprints across the wood floor and up the stairs. Quickly she threw on her jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. She grabbed her boots and socks, where she’d thrown them before her bath, and raced back downstairs. At the bottom step she yanked the socks and boots on, then met Will, who was standing just inside the front door.

  “What about a jacket?” he asked.

  “I’m okay. C’mon. We’ve got to find him!”

  She locked the door and they raced to Will’s car, climbing inside together. Will turned around and they headed down the driveway to the main road but Tim was nowhere to be found.

  “He’s cutting across the fields,” Gemma said.

  “In this weather?”

  “It’s what he does,” she said helplessly. “He knows the area.”

  “You want me to go after him?”

  He meant on foot but Gemma shook her head. “No. You won’t find him.” She thought a moment. “He might go to the ridge above the quarry. He wanted me to go with him.”

  “Tonight?” Will looked through the windshield at the sheer force of the weather.

  “Until I told him you were my boyfriend,” Gemma admitted. She was shivering. Quickly she brought Will up to speed on her relationship with Tim Weatherford and explained about the two notes he’d brought to her door. “Let’s go to his house,” Gemma finished. “He lives with his mother.”

  On the way to the Weatherfords’ home, Will said, “Why didn’t you tell me you got a note? It could have been sent by a stalker, someone who meant you real harm.”

  “But it wasn’t.”

  “But you didn’t know that till tonight.”