by Maureen Tan
My body was not in charge.
I brought my thoughts back to reality by envisioning the mess beneath the bandages. The iodine-stained skin. The caterpillar line of black stitches over an angry red scar. The ragged tears where my activity during the fire had pulled the stitching apart.
“It’s healing. Itchy rather than painful. Mostly, it’s inconvenient.”
Alex’s attention was on my lips, but he wasn’t listening.
And I wanted nothing more than to be held.
I lifted my right arm carefully, skimmed my fingers down his rough cheek.
“I think it’s time I went to bed. Do you want me across the hall or in one of the guest rooms upstairs? And would you mind helping me carry my suitcases in from the verandah?”
I expected irritation, regret, even an argument.
I didn’t expect the reaction I got.
“Oh, shit! I wasn’t thinking.”
Which seemed an overreaction.
Overreaction was followed by haste, which I didn’t understand either.
“You stay here. I’ll take care of the suitcases.”
He walked casually from the room, but his footsteps quickened as he crossed the foyer.
I followed him, watching from the living room door as he deactivated the alarm and switched on the porch light. I crossed the foyer as he peered out through the window adjoining the front door. He paused with his hand on the knob, half-turned, and spoke over his shoulder.
“Damn it, Jane. Listen to me for once. Stay inside.”
I didn’t understand the situation, but there was no misunderstanding his apprehension. I obeyed promptly, shielding most of my body behind the heavy front door and watching him closely, ready to back him up.
He stepped onto the porch.
The suitcases were there, at the top of the steps, in about the same place as I remembered leaving them. They stood not quite side by side, near ends touching, far ends spread apart, forming a wedge that angled toward the doorway.
Alex approached the suitcases warily, stepped around them slowly, viewing them from all sides.
I’d seen that behavior before, in the members of a bomb squad as they approached a suspicious package left in the Fountain area of Londonderry. I’d watched from a distance, terribly aware of the risk they took. Assembling a bomb was easy. That, I could do. Disarming someone else’s work was another thing altogether. Without specialized training, only a fool would attempt it.
Alex was one of the least foolish people I knew. So unless he had skills I was unaware of . . .
He derailed that train of thought.
“Yep, we’ve definitely got a problem.”
Despite his words, the tension was gone from his voice. He turned his back on the suitcases, stepped back into the foyer.
“Hang in there, Jane. I’ll be right back.”
He went straight through the entry hall, stopped in front of the linen closet that was built into the space beneath the staircase. He opened one of its tall wood doors and took out a pillowcase. As he recrossed the entry hall, he lifted the walking stick from the umbrella stand.
“Do you want to help or just watch?” he said when he rejoined me.
Ego inspires all sorts of stupidity.
I said, “I’ll help.”
He handed me the pillowcase—cream-colored flannel with burgundy pinstripes—then went back outside.
I followed him, moved beside him when he stopped near the suitcases. In a heap between them was something that might once have been a man’s white cotton T-shirt. A rag, I thought. One that was much too large to have been deposited there by the wind.
I took a closer look.
“Fucking hell.”
Alex smiled grimly.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Not quite hidden beneath the fabric was a curve of sinuous body.
Using the handle of the walking stick like a hook, Alex cautiously lifted the rag away, exposing the snake. Its arrow-shaped head was a rusty orange, its unblinking eyes flat yellow with dark, vertical slits. From the base of its skull to the tip of its tail, the rusty orange color was broken with darker, hourglass-shaped crossbands.
All of my knowledge of snakes came from a single encounter with a rattlesnake in Alex’s backyard and one chapter of a colorfully illustrated paperback he’d lent me.
This snake was shaking its tail, but it didn’t have a rattle.
I hazarded a guess, based on color.
“Copperhead?”
“Copperhead.”
“Poisonous?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Shooting it is out of the question, I suppose.”
He laughed.
“The Savannah police are sworn to serve and protect—”
“Snakes?”
“Well, okay, the law’s a little vague on that point. But this little guy’s hell on rats, which makes him kind of useful.”
As he spoke, Alex took the rag from the end of the walking stick and brought it near his face. He took a quick sniff, wrinkled his nose.
“I thought I recognized the shirt. I cleaned the furniture with it last week. Lemon-scented polish. Then I used it to touch up some scratches with wood stain.”
He held up the rag for my inspection.
I could see a variety of oily brown blots.
“Dark walnut for the wardrobe in the guest suite and the phone stand in the upstairs hallway. Golden oak for the furniture in our bedroom. The last time I saw this rag, it was in the trash.”
He tossed aside the grubby shirt, then moved the walking stick toward the snake again, approaching it slowly from behind.
“As cold as it is tonight, he should be pretty lethargic.”
Alex thrust the handle of the walking stick forward, pressed it across the snake where its body joined its head, and pinned the snake against the floor. It writhed violently, its mouth opened wide.
Definitely not my idea of lethargic.
“Okay, Jane. Open the pillowcase.”
I held it with both hands fairly close together, leaving most of the fabric hanging free.
Alex spared a glance in my direction.
“Good girl.”
He bent down, gripped the snake just behind its head, laid down the walking stick, and picked up the snake. Its belly scales were dark pink and glossy, and I noticed a large bulge about a quarter of the way down its body.
Alex noticed, too.
“Snakes like to stay put after they’ve eaten. Doubtful he found that meal here on the verandah.”
“Someone seems to be sending you a message.”
“You might say that.”
I thought about Joey’s urgent phone call and the conversation I’d overheard in the kitchen.
“This is definitely not your imagination.”
He looked at me blankly, lifted his chin in the direction of the pillowcase.
“Get ready.”
He guided the snake’s body into the bag with his free hand, then took hold of the edge of the pillowcase.
“You can let go now.”
I did as he said, leaving him literally holding the bag. And the snake.
He lowered the copperhead into the pillowcase, angling its snout downward. When it was completely inside, Alex dropped the snake, snatched his hand away, and gave the opening a quick twist shut. The snake seemed content to remain in a motionless lump at the bottom of the pillowcase.
“I’ll take our visitor way back into the woods and get your suitcases on my way back in. Take the room across the hall from mine.”
Then he offered me the pillowcase.
“Unless you’d prefer to take a late-night stroll?”
Without hesitating, I shook my head.
Alex grinned.
“I didn’t think so.”
17
Flames shot through the passenger compartment, scorching what was inside. Thick, black smoke boiled up into the sky. The car exploded. Pieces of metal rained around me.
Something heavy hit the ground beside me.
I refused to look at it.
Smoke and flames.
Hot. Choking.
Run away. Now! Run away from the thing on the ground. Away from what was left inside the white car. Away from the smoke and flames.
* * *
Awake.
I was awake. In Alex’s house. Across the hall from the room where he slept. I was safe.
My heart was still pounding with fear reaction as I slipped from the bed. I concentrated on the mundane— and, lately, quite challenging—task of dressing. By the time I pulled on a dark blue sweatshirt, matching sweatpants, and a pair of loafers, my heart rate was back to normal.
Ignoring Alex’s open door, I walked down the hall and down the back stairs. I crossed the dark kitchen, slid the switch on the coffeemaker to brew. Alex’s system—a cop’s response to an unpredictable world.
“I never know when I’ll be called away,” he’d once told me. “So I always try to have the next pot ready to go. If you’re up first, just turn it on.”
As I always did when I made the pot, I filled my mug under the running stream before putting the carafe in place. I went out onto the back porch, sat on the top step, and watched the sun rise. I listened to the birds singing, slowly sipped my coffee, and waited for the caffeine to take effect.
I was nearly to the bottom of the mug when I heard the noise of an engine from the other side of the house and recognized it as belonging to Tommy’s pickup truck.
Tommy parked and walked around to the back porch. He was in uniform and carrying a white cardboard box labeled Krispy Kreme Donuts. When he saw me, he smiled. Apparently, he had decided how he felt about me.
“G’morning. I’m offering an even exchange. Donuts for coffee. Any takers?”
He tipped the box he held. Through the clear cellophane panel in its lid, I saw at least a dozen donuts.
I returned his smile, then began to rise.
“Alex is still sleeping, but I’m sure he wouldn’t want to miss—”
Tommy’s casual wave returned me to the step.
“Just sit. I know where the coffeepot is. And if you don’t mind, let’s let Alex be. It’d be real nice if you and I could sit here and talk awhile.”
He tipped his head at the end of the sentence, lifted an eyebrow, made it a question.
I nodded.
Tommy put the box of donuts down on the step, then glanced at my cup and took it from me.
“Black, right?”
“Please.”
He opened the screen door and went into the house, leaving the kitchen door standing open. I watched him move around the kitchen with familiar ease, taking a clean mug from the hooks above the counter, pouring the coffee, getting a spoon from the dish drainer, pulling a few feet of paper toweling from the roll beneath the cabinet.
Back on the porch, Tommy sat beside me on the step so that the box of donuts was between us. After handing me my mug and a section of paper towel, he tucked the rest of the toweling beneath a corner of the box. Then he took three hot pink packets of artificial sweetener out of his jacket pocket, tore them open, and stirred the contents into his coffee.
I lifted the lid of the box.
“I couldn’t remember what kind you liked,” Tommy said, “so I picked up an assortment. After getting a look at you yesterday, I figured you might do well to eat ’em all. It’ll take a lot of calories just to get you back up to skinny.”
“Where I come from, this is the height of high fashion.”
“Starvation being the ‘in’ look this year?”
“Unfortunately, no one brings me donuts in London.”
I selected a chocolate iced donut and briefly held it up for his inspection.
“Does this one look fattening enough?”
“Sure does.”
Tommy lifted an iced jelly donut from the box, put the lid back down. He took a large bite and then a quick smaller bite to keep the raspberry jelly from oozing onto his hand, chewed happily for a moment, then washed the mouthful down with a gulp of diet coffee.
I laughed, which didn’t seem to bother Tommy at all.
We sat looking out at the trees, and I waited patiently to find out what was on his mind.
“I wanted to apologize for running out like that last night. Poor thing to do.”
“I was so tired, I didn’t even notice.”
He nodded, sandwiched the word “good” between the final two bites of the jelly donut, and washed everything down with coffee. Then he went back to contemplating the tree line.
“Alex tell you about the weirdness that’s been going on?” he said finally.
“No. But I think I experienced it firsthand.”
I described the encounter with the copperhead.
“This happened last night?”
I nodded.
“How’d he explain it to you?”
“He didn’t.”
“I don’t suppose he told you about the diamondback he found upstairs in the bathtub, a few days after Christmas? Damned thing was almost six feet long. Or the box of coral snakes left at the front door the next day? Or the cottonmouth that he found on the seat of his squad car day before yesterday?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. ’Course, Lord only knows what he hasn’t told me. That boy always could keep a secret, and lately . . . I tell you, Jane, I’m real worried. So’s Joey. Not that she had any details. But she always did know when Alex was in trouble. She asked me for your phone number. Said there was more to you than either Alex or I realized. Smart girl.”
He reopened the bakery box with a flip of his finger.
“I think we’re dealing with a dangerous stalker,” he continued. “I’ve studied the profiles, seen the stats. People like that only get worse with time. Four incidents— no, damn it, four attacks—in less than two weeks. And those are just the ones I know about for sure. There’s one sick puppy after Alex. And I’m afraid that stupid white boy’s gonna get himself killed. He won’t let me assign people to protect him. Won’t even file a fucking report.”
He lifted a white-iced donut, bit into it with enough force to rattle any loose fillings, and glowered down at his coffee as he chewed and swallowed. He was undoubtedly frustrated.
Alex often had that effect on Tommy.
On me, too.
“Alex Callaghan is a stubborn ass,” I said.
Tommy turned his head, half-surprised by my declaration.
“But I doubt he’ll change,” I added.
Tommy leaned over, picked up a piece of donut that had fallen onto the step, pitched it in the general direction of the birdbath in the center of the kitchen garden.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Perhaps I should file a complaint. That last attack was against me, too.”
“Yeah! Okay. Good idea.”
But apparently it wasn’t.
Tommy looked enthusiastic for only a moment, then frowned. He spent another minute attacking the rest of his donut, speaking only after he’d followed up the last crumb with a gulp of coffee.
“Maybe it’s best to wait.”
“Why?”
“Alex isn’t stupid. Or suicidal. There must be something on his mind. Maybe we’ve got to trust him to call for help when he needs it. That doesn’t keep us from watching out for him, though.”
Hearing my advice to Joey echoed by Tommy was odd. But the advice was valid, no matter whose mouth it came from. I didn’t approve the situation any more than Tommy did, but if Alex was determined to play it solo . . .
“Maybe, just for now, the two of us can watch out for him,” I said. “If I were the stalker, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to take you on. And we both know that I’m the meanest frigging Brit he’s ever likely to encounter.”
“Funny. I’ve been thinking just that. Only in much politer terms, of course.”
My laughter was checked by the lack of humor in Tommy’s expression.
/> He put down his donut and coffee, pushed aside the donut box until it was no longer between us, and turned completely in my direction. His dark brown eyes examined my face.
“Look here, Jane. Whatever you do away from Savannah is strictly your business. But I’ve got a good idea what you’re capable of. Have had for months now.”
He paused, kept his eyes on mine.
I didn’t waste time denying that he knew who I worked for and what I was. Before the Feds had moved in to protect me from an SPD murder investigation, Tommy and Alex had made some informal inquiries and gotten more information than they should have. I doubted the two men would ever realize how thoroughly they had been investigated as a result of knowing what they did about me. For Alex and Tommy, privacy was now nothing more than a comforting illusion.
I nodded, acknowledging the worth of Tommy’s information.
I didn’t change my expression or look away.
He appeared satisfied by my response.
“It seems to me you’re one of those people who finds leaving a lot easier than staying,” he said. “That thought struck me on Thanksgiving Day. I knew then that it was only a matter of time . . .
“You remember that night. We’d just finished dessert, and I was clearing dishes. Ginnie was changing Zach’s diaper, and Tad was in his crib, fussing. Alex went in and got him, brought him back to the living room, and held him like he always does. That’s when I spotted you. Watching. Looking kind of, well . . . soft. Then, all of a sudden, something scared you. I could tell. I went to help, but before I could take half a step in your direction, your face went blank. Like a mask dropping into place. Suddenly, I didn’t see any expression on your face at all, except maybe a stranger’s cool, polite interest.
“I hadn’t thought of my daddy for a while, but seeing you . . . He’d look at me just that way before he’d take off again. Like he didn’t know me. Like he didn’t want to know me. For a long time, I thought there was something about me he didn’t like. But it was something in him kept him from accepting other people’s caring. Kept him from caring back. I don’t know what happened to make him the way he was, but I think something got broken early on.”
He paused for a moment, giving me an opportunity to—what? Contradict him? Tell him I wasn’t like his daddy? Explain why I was? Let him know that some people didn’t break all at once, that sometimes it took years?