He shook his head, “Nope, I know what I’m doing.”
And did he ever, she thought, as she stared at him standing at the stove with his back to her. Watching him cook caused her juices to flow—again.
She’d just had the best sex ever. And now understood for the first time what Baylee and Quinn had tried to explain to her all those years before. Great sex made a difference. And then it hit her—was it just about the sex for him? The thought caused a sick feeling in her gut. Well, she’d wanted him to treat her just like he’d treated every other woman, hadn’t she?
She suddenly took a long look at him at the stove. He was fixing her breakfast in the middle of the afternoon when he should be at work tending to his own problems, but here he was unselfishly—and then it dawned on her. The thought speared straight to her heart. She almost fell out of the chair as the idea sank in. Good God, I’m in love with him—and it’s a hundred times worse than what I felt at fifteen. The shock of it inexplicably had her blurting out, “Shit. Shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
She hid her thoughts with aplomb, took a sip of strong coffee hoping it might ward off insanity. God, he’d run like a deer if he knew how she felt. So she lied. “Uh, I was just wondering…how…why do you suppose my phone went dead?”
“Because someone cut the line outside. Did you turn your cell phone back on?”
“Cut the line?” The warm, fuzzy feeling of love shifted into cold, hard fear. “Collin,” she said with dread.
“That’d be my guess. I’d even venture to say he had something to do with that boat exploding. What exactly happened here last night, Kit?”
Should she mention the nightmare about the elderly couple? She decided to keep that to herself. She closed her eyes, let the caffeine kick in, and went into a detailed account of what happened.
When she finished, the look on Jake’s face told her he was having trouble with the logic of it. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both the electricity went off and the phone went dead at the same time. That only happens during a bad storm. And those breakers didn’t flip by themselves.”
The idea of that gave her chills.
Jake slid a perfect omelet onto a plate and set it down on the table. “From what I saw of Collin, you have reason to fear him. He’s obsessed with you.”
Famished from not having eaten since yesterday, Kit attacked the eggs. Without answering Jake, she focused on the tasty omelet.
But when she didn’t answer, Jake persisted, “How long have you had this problem with Collin?”
In between mouthfuls of egg, she said, “I told you we grew up together.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. You were kids then. The man that showed up on your doorstep is dangerous. You can see it in his eyes.”
“I see it. Why do you think I didn’t want to be alone with him? I’ve seen that look in his eyes for years and tried to avoid him. Fortunately, I stopped spending summers at The Enclave when I was twelve. My situation changed somewhat at the time and I gained a little leverage over Alana. So the summer visits stopped. But I was still near Collin in school and then around him whenever we ended up at the same kid parties, that type of thing. But every time he’d ask me out, I always said no. Much to Alana’s regret. You can bet, I did my best to avoid being alone with him over the years. I knew how he felt. I knew he wanted something more. I’ve known it for a long time.” She thought about all the times he’d bullied her, how many times he’d hit her. She remembered the time he’d cornered her in the cabana.
“You’ve had other encounters with him where you’ve had to call the police.”
She took a long time before she said anything. “Yeah. Once when I was in college. But I wasn’t alone then. Quinn and Baylee were there. Then there was the one I mentioned two years ago. He showed up here, unannounced, and drunk. He got physical, started pushing me around, but I slugged him and got away; ran next door to my neighbor’s and called the cops. This isn’t Beverly Hills. This time when they got here, they arrested him, made the man cool his jets overnight in a county holding cell until he made bail. That pissed off Sumner and Jessica. Their anger wasn’t directed at their son, of course, but rather at me for getting him in trouble. Somehow, the whole thing ended up being my fault. Couple of days later, Alana called and tried to persuade me to drop the charges.”
Jake fumed. “Have there been any other strange events like the dead telephone and the electricity since Alana’s murder?”
“What about almost getting blown up yesterday? Don’t forget that.”
“I haven’t forgotten. Anything else?”
She hesitated. “Just the weird dream I had last night. This omelet’s good, very good, best omelet I’ve ever tasted. How’d you get to be such a good cook?”
“You’re ravenous; you’d have eaten anything I put in front of you and said the same thing. I cook one thing well, omelets. You’ve just eaten the specialty of the house.” He watched her enjoy the food. “What kind of a dream?”
The man was persistent. “It was kinda weird.”
“Kinky weird?”
She laughed and took another bite. “I like a man who can cook. It’s an extremely sexy thing for a man to cook for a woman.”
“How sexy?”
“Very.”
“Are you going to tell me about the dream?”
“You’ll just think I’m crazy.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t let go of an issue, do you?” Giving in to his determined look, she told him, “I dreamed about this couple, two older people, asleep in their bed—or rather, they’re murdered in their bed at three minutes past three in the morning. I know because in the dream there was this old fashioned alarm clock by the bed. The time read a few minutes past three. And that’s what time I woke up.”
“You see the exact time on the clock? That’s a pretty detailed dream, Kit.”
“It is.”
“And how exactly are these two people murdered?” He sat down at the table, indicated with his hand that he wanted more details. “Let’s hear it all.”
“Well, the couple looks like they’re maybe in their late sixties. They live out in the country, like on a ranch or something, very isolated. They’re asleep, sleeping in a back bedroom. These two people show up and go into their house...it’s dark...one goes into the bedroom down this long hallway carrying a knife, but when she gets to the bed, for some reason she can’t kill them, like she’s having second thoughts or something. But then, her partner has a gun, and when she comes into the bedroom she gets angry that the one with the knife hasn’t killed them yet. They have a heated argument. The noise wakes up the woman, and when she sits up, bam, the one with the gun shoots the woman, then the man. I think the dream is about a murder that’s already happened because the house looks old, like maybe it’s from another decade. The car, however, looks like a new model, but it’s dusty from the country road. And the furnishings inside the house look old.” When she noticed his stare, as if he were having a hard time grasping the concept, she stopped.
“Your dream is so detailed you see all that right down to what the house looked like and the furniture? And the car has dust on it from the road?”
“Oh yeah, the dream is very vivid, in color. I see what kind of car the killers drive: a Mercedes, a white one with tan interior. And when the car turns off the road, as they drive down the long gravel driveway, they drive past an old wooden sign painted white with orange lettering that says...hmmm, that’s weird, I can’t recall what the sign says, but it’s the name of the ranch. The name of the ranch is on the sign in orange letters.
“And the blood...I see all the blood after the couple dies, the blood’s everywhere, on the walls, the headboard, the floor, the bedding.” She paused long enough to rub her arms as if she’d just gotten a chill. “But that isn’t the worst part. One of the killers dips the knife into the victim’s blood and uses it to write graffiti on the walls with the knife. Ewww, that
part’s just gross.”
“What?” The hair stood up on the back of his neck.
“Yeah, I know, it’s disgusting. But one of them writes the words, PIG, DEATH, and DIE on the bedroom walls in blood. I see the murder scene, the bedroom; I see all the blood and the graffiti written on the walls in detail; it’s horrible, Jake. It’s the worst nightmare I’ve ever had, and believe me, I’ve had some doozies. And after they kill this old couple, one of them goes into the kitchen, opens a bottle of Dom Pérignon, starts chugging it down before the other one comes back into the kitchen. I see them celebrate with a whole bottle of champagne, toasting, laughing, and singing, We’re in the Money.”
Jake had a stunned look on his face. “Kit, do you realize you’ve just described a crime scene that’s eerily similar to the murders the Manson family committed back in 1969?”
“Wow. It is, isn’t it? Wow. That might explain why the dream looks like it takes place in another era, why the furnishings look so old, like they belong in the ’60s. It explains why the Mercedes looks brand new but is a dated model now.”
“The killers drive a Mercedes. I think that rules out Manson.”
“You know I could do some research online, find out more details about the Manson murders.”
Just then the doorbell rang, causing Pepper to let out a low guttural growl. Kit frowned at her usually docile dog, looking at Jake and then back at the dog before Pepper trotted off to the front door, alternating between barking and growling. The last time Pepper acted like that...
“He’s been doing that a lot lately.”
“What? Growling?”
“Yeah.”
Jake trailed after the dog, was the first one to reach the front door and look through the peephole. He groaned.
Curious, Kit stood behind him, and when he moved she took her turn looking—and stared at Dan Holloway and Max St. John. At the sight of both of them standing on her porch looking perturbed, Kit went white. “Is it significant they’re here at the house?”
Even though Jake thought differently, he tried his best to sound convincing when he said, “Don’t read anything into it. Just remember, if at any time you don’t want to answer a question, just tell them you want a lawyer. Be insistent. That will end the interview and they’ll have to leave or...”
Kit knew what that meant and told him emphatically, “If they arrest me, call your friend Reese. I’m not relying on a Boyd or a Geller or a Gatz for my freedom.” Noticing Jake had a strange look on his face; Kit suddenly understood his anxiety and her heart went out to him. “Oh, Jake, you can’t be happy to see St. John here. This is too much, I’m sorry Gloria dragged you into this mess.”
“It isn’t that. But I don’t think my being here will help you any. It didn’t the other day at the bookstore. It just made St. John more determined.” He rubbed the back of his neck and reached to open the door. “Let’s just get this over with.”
CHAPTER 15
Boston and Griffin. Together. The idea rankled St. John as he followed Holloway into the living room and settled next to his partner on the sofa. When St. John looked up, he met the cold hard glare of the angry man sitting across from him on the opposite couch.
The two men had stared each other down at Alana’s funeral, and now, Jake sat with his jaw clenched, looking like he might explode from the tension. St John did his best to ignore him, concentrated instead on the woman in question; who stood with her arms wrapped around herself in a protective lock, and noted how nervous she was.
Holloway, the good cop, started the interview with a gentle voice, wanting to know, “Ms. Griffin, we need you to tell us more about the relationship with your mother. Tell us about the abuse. When did it start? When did it stop? The neighbors tell us you rarely saw your mother these days, that they rarely saw you at the house after you moved out as a teen.”
What was he saying? She’d never once gone back to that house after she’d moved out. Thinking back to her past, a cool, detached mask slid over her face. She started to feel pressure build up in her chest just as it had so many other times when she’d talked about her childhood with Dr. Strasburg. She tried to make herself relax. “That’s true,” she said barely above a whisper.
She looked into Dan Holloway’s dove gray eyes for any friendly sign. Despite the soft voice, those eyes didn’t relay an ounce of sympathy but rather cold hard steel rods searching for the truth.
She reminded herself that he was simply doing his job. This time she needed to do better, answer his questions. She wouldn’t freeze up. She’d focus. If she didn’t answer correctly—there was so much on the line now. Jake was in her life. She had so much to look forward to. She noticed Holloway’s mouth moving.
“You want to elaborate?”
“There were the usual bruises and broken bones.” Now she was wringing her hands.
She heard Holloway suck in a breath, heard an impatient voice coming from St. John, the bad cop. “You inherit your mother’s sizeable fortune, an estate that amounts to millions, and you act as if you don’t really care that she’s dead. You didn’t cry at the funeral. You didn’t seem all that upset when we told you she’d been murdered, brutally.” He let the words stick, before adding, “When was the last time you saw her?”
Kit drew in a deep breath, let it out. Her eyes glazed over. “The first of January, her birthday. I dressed up, wore a dress. I always wore a dress, had to; she wouldn’t allow me to wear jeans. She didn’t like it when I wore pants of any kind. Let’s see, where did we eat? Oh. We had lunch at Luigi’s; she had the shrimp scampi. I had the broiled chicken. The meal lasted an hour and a half.” Ninety long minutes, she remembered now. “I gave her a five-hundred-dollar Cartier’s gift certificate. Anything less would have been unacceptable. Cartier’s was one of her favorite places to shop.”
Jake noticed Kit had that distant, faraway look in her eyes. They’d asked her about the last time she’d seen her mother, and she was talking about lunch. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, get her away from these two cops. Couldn’t they see how much it hurt her to talk about the past? Short of butting in like he’d done at the bookstore, mentioning an attorney, he wasn’t sure what else he could do. And damn, if she wasn’t doing it again, speaking in that detached, unemotional tone, as if she were bored with the subject at hand when the subject at hand was the death of her mother.
Jake watched both detectives. The good cop looked as if he wanted to shake some feeling into her, and Max St. John was simply so red in the face that when he spoke Kit jumped at the sound of his voice. “Look, Ms. Griffin, your mother was a wealthy woman, and yet robbery wasn’t a motive; nothing was taken from the house. Not a piece of artwork, not a book, no loose change. Maybe you woke up on Mother’s Day—of all days—and decided if she intended to cut you out of her will it was time you did something. So you decided to put twenty-one stab wounds in her as your way of saying, hey mom, Happy Mother’s Day.”
Kit visibly paled, wincing at his callous phrasing. She grabbed at that veil of cool indifference and, in a calm tone, defended herself. “I didn’t kill her. I don’t want her money. I never...expected it.”
Jake wasn’t buying that coolness she was trying so hard to exhibit. When he saw that her hands were shaking, he dragged her down to sit next to him on the sofa. The minute she made eye contact with him he noticed she acted as if she’d just realized he was in the room. Her knees were shaking so much he put his hand on her thigh to calm her down.
Holloway picked up the pace. “Okay, so there were hard feelings between the two of you about the abuse. Understandable. If you could talk to us, give us your side of the story, help us better understand how you felt.”
Stony silence.
Holloway tried again. “Did the two of you ever get along?”
She shook her head.
Holloway and St. John exchanged furtive glances, but it was Holloway who continued, “Maybe there’s someone we could talk to, someone who knows your side of the story.”<
br />
“My side of the story?” Kit looked genuinely confused.
Jake had to hand it to Kit; no matter how the detectives pushed, she managed to stay on the offense. The only question was how long she could keep it up. If she could just show a tad more emotion…
But just then St. John erupted, losing all patience. He snapped out, “The coroner determined this morning Jessica Boyd’s death was the result of homicide. You should know we consider you the link to both murders. Where were you Monday night, the night Jessica Boyd died, say between ten o’clock and two in the morning?”
Kit’s answer was quick, and Jake had no time to answer for her. “Probably sleeping.”
But St. John wasn’t the only one who’d lost patience. Jake spoke up, stating flatly, “The night Jessica Boyd died, Kit was with me.”
“Ms. Griffin says she was sleeping. Now she was with you? Which is it?”
Jake stared at St. John in disbelief. “If you think about it long enough, you’ll figure it out. We were together the entire night Jessica Boyd ended up dead. As you recall, we were together at the bookstore and from that time on into the next morning. Kit couldn’t have killed Jessica Boyd. I have a receipt from the restaurant here in San Madrid where we had dinner. You can talk to the waiters to verify how long we were there. The rest of the evening, you’ll just have to take my word for it, we were together all night.”
But St. John wasn’t giving up. “It doesn’t take her off the hook for her mother’s murder, now does it? Unless, of course, you’re willing to provide her with a much-needed alibi for Saturday night or early Sunday morning, let’s say between the hours of seven o’clock Saturday night and noon Sunday.”
But Jake was just as stubborn. “You just said you considered the two murders connected and that Kit was the link to both. Kit has an alibi for one. As I see it, you’ve just lost your link.”
Just Evil (The Evil Secrets Trilogy) Page 20