He followed her into the kitchen. She took a cup out of the cabinet and poured him a cup of coffee without asking. He was as addicted to caffeine as Sheryl was, another reason those two would make a great couple. “You came close,” she said, handing him the cup. “My ex-husband issued orders. I took it from him because I was young and stupid,” she said, looking at him. “I’m not young or stupid anymore.”
Joe looked pained. “There aren’t many of us our age without that kind of baggage.”
“What’s yours?”
At first, she thought her bluntness offended him, but he shrugged. “My folks, I guess.” He watched her face. “They’re sick. Mom had a stroke a while back. She’s in a wheelchair. Dad’s pretty sick too. Cancer. He tried chemo, but nothing helped. Not much the doctors can do for him. They depend on me for a lot. I pretty much live at their place.” He took a sip of coffee. “It makes it a little hard to have a social life.”
Allie ignored that. “Aunt Lou told me in one of her letters that they’d moved. Are they still in Cape Canaveral?” Joe’s face went blank, and Allie decided to help him out. “Aunt Lou said that your mom lost her job and your dad got laid off not long after that.”
“Laid off,” Joe spit out. “Fired was more like it. Mom’s employer started the rumor she stole something, like she would touch anything that wasn’t hers.”
Allie drew in a sharp breath. Mrs. Odum steal? Impossible.
Joe went on without prompting this time. “Dad’s security company heard the rumor. They couldn’t have a security guard whose wife stole from her employer, could they? They told him they were downsizing, but he knew. So did everyone else. Dad searched for another job, but security was all he knew, and suddenly, no one was hiring.”
“How in the world did they live?”
“Not on welfare. That would have killed my dad. Mom too. They moved to a cheaper place. A trailer in Cocoa where Pop could get odd jobs until he got sick.”
“And now?” she asked gently.
Joe’s face closed over. “They manage. They have their Social Security, and I help out a little.”
Allie felt sick for all of them. Joe and his parents were three of the nicest people she’d ever known. “I’m so sorry, Joe. Is there anything I can do?”
A corner of his mouth tweaked up. “Cut me a little slack?”
She punched him in the shoulder. “Not a chance.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. “So, why did you come by, other than for absolution?”
He finished his coffee and put his cup in the sink. “That’s all.” He started for the front door. “You doing anything later?”
Allie hid her surprise. “I’m going shopping with Sheryl. Want to tag along?”
Joe made a face. “And watch the two of you ooh and ah over a bunch of overpriced clothes?” He winked at her. “Sounds like fun, but I’ve gotta work tonight. You two have fun, though.”
*
Sheryl picked Allie up wearing shorts and a T-shirt with sneakers. Allie felt overdressed in her slacks and blouse. The mall was weekday, middle-of-the-afternoon deserted—a few young moms pushing strollers, a few seniors getting in their afternoon walk. Being both air-conditioned and paved, the mall made the perfect track. Allie had forgotten what a diehard shopper Sheryl could be. After an hour, she felt ready to drop, and Sheryl was merely warming up. Eventually, they ended up in Macy’s.
Everything looked good on Sheryl, and she pushed Allie to try on clothes she would never have picked for herself. All too often, they were perfect. Allie ended up buying much more than she should have, but as Sheryl reminded her, she could afford it. Sheryl suggested that they go on over to Cocoa for dinner. Allie almost laughed when she picked the same restaurant Marc chose for their lunch. While she ate, she relived the day with Marc, how he tapped his foot in time to the music playing over the outdoor speakers, the way he held her hand on the drive home.
“What’s with the goofy look?”
Allie glanced up and caught Sheryl watching her. She pulled herself back to the present. “Just thinking.”
“About your stalker?”
Allie grimaced. “Sheryl—”
Sheryl held up a hand. “All right, don’t get your Jockies™ in a wad.” She sat back and blotted her mouth on her napkin with exaggerated delicacy. “Excuse me, Miss Grainger, but were you thinking about Marcus Frederick, the gentleman we think might be a stone killer?”
Allie laughed a little feebly and shrugged.
“Be careful, Allie.”
Allie glanced up and saw real fear in Sheryl’s face before she could hide it. Her words were an echo of Marc’s earlier warning, except that he’d been talking about Sheryl and Joe. Allie wanted to tell Sheryl everything she knew about Marc, but she didn’t think that would put Sheryl’s mind at ease. She changed the subject. “Joe told me about his parents, how hard their lives have been.”
“He did? When?”
“He dropped by this afternoon. He only stayed for a few minutes,” she added.
Sheryl picked up a breadstick and snapped it in half. “You must rate, then. I got everything I know from gossip.”
Allie could see the hurt in her face. “I primed the pump. I let him know what Aunt Lou told me.”
Sheryl dipped the breadstick in her sour cream and licked it off. How could this woman not weigh three hundred pounds? “So, what did he say?”
Allie regretted bringing it up. Could she tell Sheryl? Joe hadn’t told her in confidence, and if anyone deserved to know why Joe had no social life, it was Sheryl. “You know his mother was fired from her job,” she began.
“Yeah. By that bitch Eve Cornelius.”
Allie looked at her blankly. “What?”
“Oops. He didn’t mention that?”
Allie shook her head. “No, I knew someone accused her of stealing, but Joe didn’t say who it was.”
“It was Rupert’s stepmother. Another bad one.”
Allie filed that information away. “You know his dad got laid off right after that and couldn’t get another job.”
Sheryl nodded.
“I asked him how they were making it. I mean, with their health problems and all. That’s got to be expensive. Joe said he helped a little, I mean other than spending all his time over there. He said they get Social Security, but that can’t amount to much. I got the feeling he was probably supporting them almost completely.”
No reaction.
“That’s got to cost him everything he makes. I wouldn’t guess that sheriff’s deputies are the best paid public servants around.”
Sheryl made a rude sound.
Allie shot her a sidelong glance. “That would explain why he never asks anyone out.”
Sheryl sat back in her chair, dropping the half-eaten breadstick on her plate. “And that would interest me why?”
Allie couldn’t suppress a grin. “I didn’t say it would interest you. I mentioned it in passing.”
“In passing.”
“Uh, huh.”
After a minute, Sheryl picked up the breadstick and started drawing diagrams on her plate. “You think that’s why?”
“Probably,” Allie said. Then, she remembered her aunt’s prediction that Joe would break Sheryl’s heart. “But be careful,” she added.
Sheryl’s eyebrows shot up. “Because?”
What could she say? A voice from beyond the grave warned me? “Because of Ernie,” she said after a minute. “You don’t want to get hurt again.”
“I could say the same thing about you and your stalker,” Sheryl shot back.
“You have. About twenty times,” Allie said, but Sheryl ignored her.
“And you have a lot more to lose than me. Like your life.”
Allie’s eyes narrowed. “Are you still following me?”
Sheryl averted her eyes. “You’re a big girl,” she said shortly. “You can take care of yourself.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Not as much,” she said finally, her f
ace coloring under her tan.
Allie grinned at her, shaking her head. “I love you.”
Sheryl shifted in her chair. “Jeez,” she said, looking at the neighboring tables, “keep your voice down. People are gonna think we’re—you know.”
Allie reached over and grabbed her hand. “I love you, my homophobic friend,” she said, louder this time for the people around them.
Sheryl snatched her hand back. “Ick!” she said, wiping it on her napkin.
They laughed all the way to the car.
Allie didn’t see Marc following them as they crossed the causeway toward home, but she figured he was there. She had a suspicion forming in her mind, but it was still too murky to pin down. She wished Marc had told her whom he suspected—other than Joe and Sheryl—but then she hadn’t shared her suspicions with him, either. At least Marc was out there trying to find out who’d killed the women. As far as she knew, the Sheriff’s Office suspected Marc and quit looking anywhere else.
She felt a niggling sense of unease. Could the police in all those cities be so blind? If someone else killed the women, wouldn’t they have picked up one clue? As the thought formed in her mind, so did an image of Marc’s face. No. She didn’t believe Marc killed anyone, and he or she was still out there.
She wanted to see him. Even though she knew it would be better for everyone if they kept their distance right then, she wanted to talk to him. She had no idea when she would see him again. They hadn’t even said, “I’ll call you.”
All this swam through her mind, as Sheryl barreled across the causeway. She was wide-awake—probably from fear—when they got to her house. True to her nature, Sheryl came in and searched all the closets and under the beds before she declared the house safe. Allie humored her. When Sheryl volunteered to walk Spook, Allie knew she wanted to check around the house. Allie wasn’t dumb; she told Sheryl to go ahead.
She stood at the back door and stared out across the dunes. The night was black and chilly but beautiful all the same. She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the cold and stared out to sea. Why would anyone want to live anywhere else? Then, she remembered that soon the houses around her would be torn down and replaced with high rises. Developers might argue that it would allow more people to live near the water, but the ill effects would far outweigh that dubious good. She’d spent enough time in Cocoa Beach, a mecca of beachside condos and apartments, to know that the beaches would soon be overcrowded and abused. The dunes would be littered with beer cans and fast food wrappers and other things that wouldn’t bear closer inspection. The serenity she’d always found in Cape Canaveral would be irretrievably destroyed. She started, as Sheryl rounded the house.
“Daydreaming?”
Allie’s smile was strained. “More like a nightmare. Thanks for walking Spook.”
“Lock your doors,” Sheryl said, handing Allie the leash. “I’m heading down to Fort Pierce tomorrow to spend a few days with my folks. You going to be OK?”
Allie felt a twinge of exasperation, but it was tinged with affection. “I’ll be fine, but don’t call every five minutes to see if I’m OK, or I’ll break up with you for real.”
“Ha, ha.”
After Sheryl left, Allie took a writing pad out of the briefcase she hadn’t touched since her arrival. Slipping into a nightshirt, she crawled into bed with the legal pad on her knees. Spook curled up against her, as she began listing all the murders, or as complete a list as she could conjure from memory.
It seemed that the first victim was Marc’s butterfly. Karen, late twenties with blonde hair. She jotted down Miami and strangled. Second, she listed Melanie—Melanie something. Did she die in Fort Lauderdale? Possibly strangled. Older than Karen. Was age relevant? Then, the woman in Vero Beach. She’d definitely been strangled. Blonde hair and divorced. Allie sat back. Was their marital status significant? She flipped back in her notes. Where was Marc when she needed him? She wasn’t sure, but if so, Allie had one more thing in common with the dead women, not something she wanted to think too hard about. It hit Allie that she was doing it again—trying to turn tragedy into an intellectual exercise. As a defense mechanism, it worked pretty well.
She heard a sound outside the bedroom window and froze, her pen poised above the paper. She heard another sound, this one nearer the back door. Spook leapt down and ran under the bed. Allie cursed. She’d left her cell phone in her purse in the kitchen. It could be Sheryl or Joe checking out the house again, but she wasn’t convinced. If she tried to make it through the living room to the kitchen, she would be in full view of the back door and kitchen window, neither of which had the damn curtains she meant to buy when she went shopping with Sheryl. God, she would have to do better than this.
She slipped out of bed and tiptoed down the hallway, peeking around the doorway into the living room. Her lights were off, but some light shone from the house next door. She half expected to see Feelie’s drunken face looking in the door. She wanted to see drunken Feelie’s face peering in, but saw nothing. Black space.
She heard a sound like a shoe on concrete and swallowed hard. She needed to make it into the kitchen to call the police, even if it made her a target. Then, she remembered her aunt’s gun.
Allie ran back to the bedroom and grabbed the purse out of the top of the closet, pulling out the gun. She clutched the unfamiliar shape in her hand, as she ran back to the end of the hallway. This pistol felt lighter than Marc’s gun, smaller. It still felt alien. Clutching the gun in two hands as if she knew what she was doing, she set off at a run for the kitchen. She stopped and raised the gun, as a shape formed in the doorway window. Marc.
She collapsed in on herself like a pricked hot air balloon. The trembling she should have been doing all along seized her, and she dropped the gun to the floor. She had heard about adrenalin rush—how when it’s over, there’s no energy left to lift a finger. That’s how she felt now, but she somehow made it to the door and unlocked it.
When Marc stepped in, she all but collapsed against him. He wore unrelieved black, right down to the black baseball cap that covered his platinum hair. He looked like a cat burglar—a damn scary-looking cat burglar—and she was outrageously glad to see him.
He wrapped his arms around her. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“You happened. I thought you were—I don’t know. A killer or a prowler or—”
“I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing his chin against her hair. “I tried to call you on your cell phone. I called three times, but I kept getting voice mail.
Allie moved toward the kitchen and reached into her purse for the phone. Three missed calls. She didn’t have to check to know from whom. She’d set the damn thing on silent at dinner and forgot to take it off. “Don’t you ever do that again!”
He gave a short laugh. “I could say the same thing about your pointing guns at me. This is the second time you’ve almost shot me.”
She looked down at the gun on the floor. “I don’t even think it’s loaded.”
He picked it up and pulled the handle apart. “It’s loaded. I’m lucky you didn’t blow my head off. Or your foot when you dropped it. How could you not know if your own gun is loaded?” Allie took the gun from him, placing it on the bookcase. She glanced at the back door. “Come on,” she said, taking his arm and pulling him toward the bedroom. When his eyebrows rose, she said, “Fishbowl,” gesturing at the back windows. “Joe and Sheryl check on me occasionally.”
She led him into the bedroom. “Tomorrow, I swear I’ll get curtains for that back door. And a deadbolt. And curtains for the kitchen window.”
“Sounds like you have a busy day planned.”
Allie looked at him in exasperation. “How can you be so nonchalant about it?”
“Remember, I’ve had a lot of practice over the last few years.”
She decided to leave that one alone. “And I’ll get a phone jack installed in this bedroom.”
He looked around the bedroom. “Why don’t you get a cor
dless phone with two handsets?”
She ignored his question and sighed, dropping on the bed. “The gun isn’t mine. I hate guns. I don’t even know how to shoot one.”
“You could have fooled me.”
Allie almost smiled. “I was trying to.” She shook her head. “It’s my aunt’s gun. She hated guns as much as I do. More. I don’t have a clue why she had it. I keep forgetting to ask her.”
Marc gave her a strange look. “Didn’t you tell me your aunt passed away?”
Allie realized she must sound like a lunatic. “She did, but I keep having these conversations with her. You know, in my head.”
He nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.
“Never mind that. Tell me why you were skulking outside my bedroom window at,” she glanced at the clock radio on the nightstand, “one o’clock in the morning.”
“I got worried when I saw your light still on. I wanted to check to see if you were OK.”
Allie reached up and touched his face. The man couldn’t stop taking care of people. “When do you sleep?”
“Well—” He shifted uncomfortably. “I’d sleep a hell of a lot better here with you.”
Allie sat back, suddenly aware that she was sitting on her bed with a man she’d been terrified of twenty-four hours ago, wearing nothing but a thin nightshirt. She crossed her arms.
He must have read her mind. “On the couch or the living room floor,” he said with a grin. “Somewhere I’d be close if anything happens.”
She felt her face grow warm. “Would you rather I left?” Marc asked.
“No. No, that isn’t it.” It made sense. She would feel safer with him close by. “What if someone spots your car?”
“It’s parked at a high rise a few blocks away. Unless they drive through the parking lot and check every license plate, they won’t find it. Besides, I could be visiting someone there, for all they know. There are over a hundred units. It would take them hours to check them all.” She didn’t have to ask who “them” was.
“Marc, I don’t think Joe and Sheryl are involved. I’ve known them almost all my life.” She shrugged helplessly. “They’re good people.”
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