When she’d been washed clean, he turned off the water and wrapped her in a towel, then sat her on the toilet seat and dried her hair as best he could. There was a white terry-cloth robe on the back of the bathroom door, and he wrapped her in it and tied it at the waist, then led her down the hall to her bedroom. He pulled back the light blue coverlet and helped her to lie down.
“I’m going to make you some…I don’t know, tea or something.” He debated. Did she drink hot tea? He tried to recall if he’d seen her drink hot anything. He had heard a kettle whistling in the background last night on the phone. “So, tea, yeah. We’ll go with tea. You stay right here, Mal. I’ll be right back.”
He was back in five minutes, steaming-hot tea in a white mug. Placing it atop a magazine on the bedside table, he sat down on the bed next to her still body and took her hands.
“Mallory.” He waited, hoping her eyes would follow the sound of his voice. He’d been just about ready to give up, just about to decide that both he and the chief had been wrong, that she should have gone to the ER, just about to call 911 for an ambulance, when she turned her head.
“I did this to her,” she whispered, her eyes brimming.
“No, Mallory. Regina Girard did this to Sally. Not you.”
“Somehow she knew. That Sally talked to me. Told me where she was. Or else she was following me.” She covered her face with her hands. “She was afraid that Regina would find out she talked to me, and I promised her she’d never know. I promised her I’d never put her in danger, and she believed me. She trusted me and now she’s dead.”
“It isn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it is. I should have…” She started to sit upright.
“Listen to me.” Charlie placed his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back down. “Regina Girard is a psychopath. Sally didn’t give you any information about Regina that we wouldn’t have gotten sooner or later anyway.”
“Then why did she kill her?”
“Because she wanted to. Because she felt like it. Because she could.”
Her hands still covering her face, Mallory began to weep, long racking sobs that seemed to come from someplace deep within her. Charlie rested her against his chest and let her ride out the storm. When it finally subsided, she said, “I never really knew her. I don’t know where she came from or how she came to do what she did. I used her to get information when I needed it, and every once in a while I’d toss her a few bucks for her time. But I never bothered to get to know her. All I knew about her could fit on one side of an index card.”
“Could be she wanted it that way,” he told her. “Some people are like that, you know? They don’t want anyone getting too close.”
Take you, for instance, he could have said, but didn’t. It wasn’t the time. They would have a conversation about her, one of these days, but it wasn’t going to be today.
“Did you get her?” she asked.
“No,” he told her. “Whoever was driving for her moved too damned fast for me to get a good shot. Which is probably why she missed hitting you. The car took off while she was still shooting.”
“So how do we get her?” She was resting against him, her breath warm on his bare chest.
“I don’t know.” His hand moved the length of her back from her neck to her waist and back again, hoping to soothe. “We will get her, I promise you.”
“I want to be there,” she told him. “I want to be the one to pull the trigger.”
“No, you don’t. You’re a civilian. You’ll be charged with murder.”
“I don’t care.”
He understood her frustration and her anger, her need to retaliate, to seek revenge. He’d felt it a hundred times, when he’d brought in someone who’d left a sad trail of victims behind, someone he knew could get around the system and be back on the streets in too short a time.
“You worry about finding Ryan and Courtney, okay? Let me take care of Regina Girard.”
“How did she know?”
He hesitated, then told her, “She and some street punk were the ones who broke into your house the other night. She grabbed a handful of your notes. I’m guessing you’d jotted down something after you spoke with Sally last Saturday night, and she found it.”
“Sally didn’t really tell me anything except where Regina was staying sometimes, you know that.”
“Yes, but Regina didn’t.”
“Why would she have broken into my house? How would she have even known that Sally and I spoke the other night?”
“Someone obviously saw you with Sally, maybe someone who might have known you’ve been asking questions about the playground shooting.”
“There has to be a connection I’m not seeing.”
Mallory sat quietly for a while, then pushed against him.
“Misty Bauer,” she said. “When I spoke with her the first time, she kept watching the street—remember I told you how nervous she seemed? She even ripped up the card I’d given her and made a thing about dropping the pieces in the street.”
“Ah,” Charlie replied. “Yes, if Regina was convinced that Courtney had contacted her sister—or that she would contact her—she would have kept an eye on her. Watched where she went, who she spoke with.”
“And if she knew I’d spoken with Misty, she might have thought I’d be worth watching, too…” Mallory frowned. “Maybe word was out that I was looking for Courtney.”
“She’d have known who you were, all those years she was on the street, while you were on the force. No big secret there,” he pointed out. “Conroy isn’t that big, and there aren’t that many women detectives.”
“We need to talk to Linda Bauer,” Mallory said. “She needs to keep a real close eye on Misty until this thing is over.”
She started to get up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
“To get my phone.”
“Use mine. And stay put for a minute, will you? Shit, Mal, you were so white there for a while…” He stopped and shook his head. It didn’t matter now. She was okay, seemed like herself again. The anger and frustration had brought her back. He knew what that was like, too.
He took his phone from his pocket and handed it to her.
“I don’t know the number. It’s in my phone.”
“In the bag you had this morning?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll get it. Just sit here and wait a minute.” He ran downstairs and found the bag on the floor where he’d dropped it. He opened it up and shifted things around, searching for the phone, wondering why women felt it necessary to carry around so much stuff: a brush, several tubes of lip balm, a small notebook, a couple of pens, a tiny tin of mints.
He found the phone in a side compartment, went back upstairs, and handed it to her.
“Call Linda Bauer, check up on Misty, then drink your tea.”
“What tea?” She began to look up the number.
“The tea I made you.” He pointed to the bedside table.
“You made me tea?” Her smile started slowly. She looked up. “What else did you do for me?”
“Cleaned you up.” He shifted on the edge of the bed at the reminder.
“I guess I was a mess, wasn’t I?”
“I’ve seen worse.” Actually, he hadn’t, but he didn’t think that would be the best thing to say, under the circumstances.
“Where are my clothes?” she asked. “The ones I was wearing when—”
“In the bathroom,” he cut in. “I can put them in the washer for you, if you tell me where it is.”
“No,” she told him. “I want to do that. I need to see it.”
Her jaw set firmly, and she began to dial.
“Crap,” she said and made a face. “Voice mail. I guess Linda’s not home from work yet….”
She waited a second, then said, “Linda, hello, it’s Mallory Russo. If you could give me a call when you get in…or Misty, if you hear this message before your mom gets home, please give m
e a call. It’s very important. Here’s my number again….”
She repeated the number, then ended the call.
“I wonder if I should have been more explicit.” She frowned.
“What could you have said on a message that wouldn’t have sent that woman into a panic?”
“Good point.” She nodded. “Then again, a little panic might be a good thing.”
She lay back against the pillows and seemed to be studying his face. When she reached for him and pulled him to her, he offered no resistance.
“Where’s your shirt, Detective Wanamaker?” she asked.
“With yours, on the bathroom floor.”
“Did you get into the shower with me?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“No.”
“Then if I said yes, we showered together, would you think we’d already passed that hurdle?”
“Which hurdle is that?”
“Seeing each other naked.”
“Ha. Nice try.” She tried unsuccessfully to smile. “I think I’d remember that.”
“I’m crushed that you don’t remember.” He tucked the quilt up around her. Despite the warmth of the late-afternoon sun coming in through the window, her skin was still cool to the touch.
“You want a window open?” he asked.
“Just the back one, maybe.” Her eyes were at half-mast, but they followed him across the room.
He pulled up the shade and opened the window. A refreshing breeze blew in.
“You’ve had a really bad couple of days here.” He returned to her bedside, leaned over her, and kissed the side of her mouth. “Try to get a little sleep, and…”
“We need to look at the film that Ryan made,” she protested and started to sit up.
“Uh-uh. I can look at them while you rest.”
“I feel fine, honest.” She pushed his arms away. “We need to go out and look…”
“It’s too late in the day, it’ll be dark soon. I’ll watch Ryan’s films and later we’ll compare notes, okay? And first thing in the morning, we’ll see if we can locate any of the places that look promising.”
“Don’t you need to get home with your mom?”
He glanced at the clock on her bedside table. “She won’t be home for a while yet.”
“Is she…out?” Mallory hesitated to say it.
“She’s at AA.” He nodded when he saw Mallory’s eyes widen slightly. “Yeah. She figured she needed to go a few times before she leaves for rehab this weekend.”
“At least she’s trying.”
“I think that her knowing that Jilly is being taken care of has removed a huge weight from her shoulders. I think she was really overwhelmed. Maybe now she feels more free to take care of her own issues.”
“Good for her,” she said, her voice starting to drop, her eyelids fluttering.
“I’ll be downstairs,” he told her.
“Charlie?”
“Yeah?”
“How long are you going to stay?”
“As long as you want,” he told her. “As long as you need me…”
It was just after six the next morning when Mallory’s phone began to ring. She struggled to sit up, then fumbled with first her quilt, then her bag, as she searched in the semi-darkness for her phone. By the time she found it, the ringing had stopped. She stretched and yawned, then sat back down on the side of the bed, engulfed by a great sadness as she recalled the events of the previous afternoon.
In her mind’s eye she saw Sally standing in her doorway, saw the look of curiosity in her eyes when she first spied the car that had pulled up. Then there’d been that loud and unexpected blast that had stunned her and had blown Sally away, leaving her to slump onto Mallory. She could remember feeling for her gun, but her hands had been too slippery to hold on to it. Then that sense of helplessness had swept over her as she’d tried to keep Sally on her feet, even while she’d known the woman was dead. Remembering was worse than the worst dream she’d ever had.
Mallory shuddered, sick inside.
“I would never put you in danger, Sally. I never have,” she’d said.
“That’s God’s truth…”
Shaken by the memory, she stood and walked to the bathroom. She paused in the doorway, expecting to see her bloody clothes, but they were gone. She looked in the hamper, but they weren’t in there, either. When she was finished in the bathroom, she stood at the top of the steps. The house was very quiet, and she assumed Charlie had left.
He’d been wonderful to her yesterday, she remembered that. Kind and sweet and thoughtful and strong. The knowledge that he’d stripped her of her clothes and showered her should have caused her to blush, but didn’t. That he’d cared enough to do that for her so that she wouldn’t have to do it herself—now, that made her heart beat a little faster.
She was almost to the stairwell when she heard sounds from the first floor.
Please God, not again. She froze, one hand on the railing.
“Mal?” Charlie’s voice called up to her.
“Yes.” She cleared her throat and tried to ignore the fact that, for a moment, her knees had gone weak.
“Was that Linda Bauer on the phone?” He’d come to the bottom of the steps and was looking up at her.
“I missed the call,” she told him, and turned back to the bedroom for her bag and phone.
She looked up the last incoming call. It was a local number, and it took a minute for her to recognize it.
“Oh,” she called down to him. “It’s the Bauers’ number. I guess Linda finally got my message.”
She hit the button to return the last call and waited for someone to pick up. When she heard Linda’s voice, she said, “Linda, hi. It’s Mallory Russo. I just missed a call from this number a minute ago.”
“That was me,” Linda told her. “I meant to call you last night, but I had to work late. By the time I got your message, it was too late to call. You said it was important, but I’m guessing you haven’t found Courtney or you’d be much more excited than you are.”
“No, we haven’t found them yet, but I do have a lead that might work out. I’ll definitely let you know about that. In the meantime, we need to talk about Misty.”
“What about her?”
“I’m almost positive that she knows where Courtney and Ryan are.”
“Impossible.” Linda brushed off the possibility. “If she knew, she’d have told me, and we’d have gone there and brought her home.”
“That’s exactly why she didn’t tell you, Linda. Courtney doesn’t want to be found. She’s afraid you’ll come after her. I think Courtney made her sister promise not to let anyone know where they are.”
“That’s crazy. Why would she do that? Of course I’d come for her. She’s my daughter.” Linda’s voice rose in anger. “Why would she put me through this, put Mary Corcoran and everyone else through this?”
“Because Courtney knows that the police weren’t the only ones looking for them.” She explained her theory to Linda.
“Oh, dear God,” Linda gasped. “You think this woman…this killer…is looking for Courtney?”
“I do. And I think she suspects that Courtney’s been in touch with Misty, and I think she’s been keeping an eye on her.”
“Misty? She’s been watching Misty?” The panic in Linda’s voice was unmistakable.
“I think so. I suspect she’s been in contact with Misty, but I have no proof of that. I asked Misty but she denied it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“Because all I had were suspicions, Linda. I don’t know that it would have helped your situation to know what I suspected since I had no proof.”
“And now you do?”
Mallory debated on whether or not to tell Linda about Sally.
“Let’s just say that now my suspicions are stronger.”
“Dear God.” Linda began to cry. “I couldn’t take it if something were to happen to Misty.”
“We’re going to do our best to make sure that nothing does, Linda.” Even as she spoke the words, Mallory knew there was little she could do to protect the younger Bauer daughter short of asking Joe to put a guard on her. Which might not be a bad idea, she reasoned. “Linda, has Misty left for school yet?”
“About fifteen minutes ago. She had to be in early for some project she’s working on.”
“What time does school let out?”
“Two forty-five.”
“With your permission, I’d like to ask Father Burch to keep Misty there when school is over until we can have someone pick her up and bring her home,” Mallory offered.
“Could you do that?”
“Sure. If I have to, I’ll drive over and pick her up myself.”
“Maybe I should bring her home. Maybe I should take the day off and—”
Mallory interrupted. “I think the best thing everyone can do right now is to maintain their normal routine. She might be better off in school, where there are a lot of people around her.”
“You’re probably right.” Linda sighed deeply. “And you don’t even know for sure that your theory is the right one, do you?”
“No. It’s the only one we have right now, but no. We aren’t certain of anything. Which is why we haven’t had this discussion sooner. I didn’t want to upset you unnecessarily. You already have enough to worry about.”
“I appreciate that, please don’t think I don’t.” Linda paused, then said, “I got a call from my ex yesterday. He’s agreed to work on bringing us up-to-date with child support.” She paused again.
“That’s terrific, Linda. I’m glad to hear it.”
“Yes, well, all that back support isn’t going to be of any use if something horrible happens to both my kids.”
“We’re doing our best to prevent that, Linda,” Mallory told her. She ended the call praying that their best was going to be good enough.
TWENTY-FOUR
Mallory handed Charlie a cup of coffee.
“I can’t believe you slept on my sofa all night. You were so sweet to do that.” She took a sip from her mug. “But what about your mother? Was she all right by herself?”
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