Her father was leaving the property in his tracksuit when she drove up.
"Oh Kylie," he said seriously, "I wanted to have a serious talk with you from last week, but that educational summit in the Bahamas kept me so busy, it slipped my mind."
"A serious talk?" Kylie's ears heated up. Did he know about last night when she practically begged Gareth to have sex with her: did her father have her apartment bugged?
"Yes, about Dr Beecher." Her father walked closer to her in the driveway. "Your mother said I should leave this alone but I am afraid. I am who I am. I will not wake up one day to hear that you are missing when I could have done something about it."
Kylie slammed the car door and pushed the keys into her pocket. "What are you talking about?"
"Your Dr. Beecher was the last one to see Lauren James before she went missing. The police have still not been able to locate her," her father said sternly. "Apparently, Lauren and Dr. Beecher were having a relationship and then she disappeared."
"They were not having a relationship," Kylie said with certainty. "We all worked together over the past year and there was no indication of that."
"Are you sure about that?" her father asked her, contemplatively, "because it seemed Lauren wrote several diary entries about their little trysts. Do you know that he has an apple shaped birthmark in his back?
"Yes," Kylie said swiftly, then regretted that she said anything because her father had a smirk on his face.
"How do you know about this?"
"Er..." she had only seen it last night when he had taken off his shirt. It was in his mid-back. She couldn't tell her father that.
"Never mind that," Bancroft said glancing at his watch and deciding to let her off the hook. "This girl, Lauren James, wrote a very revealing piece about the two of them in a love-making session."
Kylie didn't even realize it but she was shaking her head.
"Yes," her father countered her head shaking by shaking his in the affirmative. "I think you should be careful of Dr. Beecher."
He spit out the Beecher like it would contaminate his mouth if he had said it slower. "And if for one minute that young man thinks that he can get away with doing anything to you he has another thing coming. It's a good thing Assistant Supe' Coley informed me of this little development."
"So you really think that Gareth has something to do with Lauren's disappearance?
Her father quirked his brow. "I do. My main responsibility now is to find out what he did. Because if he had hurt that girl I have some serious damage control to do so that this latest drama does not sully the school's reputation."
Kylie found her heart beating in little staccato beats. Surely, Gareth would not have had a relationship with Lauren? But then Kylie remembered how he had responded to Lauren when he had just met them as a group.
Lauren had worn a low cut red blouse. Gareth had found it distracting because Lauren had generous breasts that she had enhanced with push up bras. When he spoke to Lauren, he usually looked on her bust. She knew this because she used to watch his eyes and she had envied those large tits that Lauren had.
She felt her heart breaking in two. Almost like a paper tearing. She struggled not to wheeze. Her father would take that as a sign to usher her back home and she would be back at square one: no boyfriend, living at home with her parents, and depressed.
"Is, is Deidra here?" She asked breathlessly.
"No," her father said looking at her shrewdly. "She left for Miami, but you know that."
Kylie turned toward her car. "I have to go."
Her father raised his eyebrows. "You will come to us if you have any issues won't you."
"Sure, Dad," she said, scrambling into the car and shutting the door firmly.
She watched as her father started walking down the drive and then she grabbed her pump from her sweatshirt pocket, inhaling several times before she could breathe again properly.
*****
Gareth usually woke up at dawn and would try to get in some exercise and maybe jog down Mount faith Drive, but this morning he was thinking about Kylie and Jackie and that missing girl, Lauren. Her disappearance and those stories were coincidences that made him uncomfortable. He thought back to the morning that she came to see him. She alighted her car and with her chest pushing out in her indecent low cut t-shirt. She had handed him the jump drive and licked her lips.
Luckily he had been coming out of the house at the moment. He had no desire for Lauren, but he was a man who had an inbuilt fascination with breasts, and Lauren's breasts did tend to yoyo in an alarming manner. Some days he didn't know whether they would be huge or just normal. He had, what he humorously dubbed, an academic interest in them.
On the other hand, what he felt for Kylie wasn't academic in the least; it wasn't only sexual either. He needed her on another level. He could see himself getting older with her. He could envision the two of them working on cell phone apps and other computer programs—and having children together. He wanted that more than anything. He wanted children and he wanted her to be their mother.
That cemented her in his head as the ideal woman, not Jackie. He assessed his feelings for Jackie and realized that they were not so clear cut as they should be. As a matter of fact, he refused to acknowledge it. It made him angry; it made him bitter. He wondered if he had a split personality where Jackie was concerned.
The air-splitting scream that he heard sent him shooting up from his bed like a piston. He hopped to his window and looked down in his yard and saw Jossette Carrington in her bathrobe gazing at her little poodle, which had what looked like a hand in its mouth.
A hand!
Gareth hurriedly pulled on his jogging pants and ran downstairs, bare-chested.
"What's that doing here?" It was really a human hand.
Jossette was pointing at it, and shouting at the dog with a look of fright in her eyes. "Put it down, Popsy!"
She looked over at Gareth in his shirtless state and stopped shouting at the dog long enough to run her eyes appreciatively over his lean chest.
"Popsy found a hand in your garden, right there." She pointed to a freshly dug place under one of his rose bushes.
Gareth groaned and went closer to the little black and white dog whose muzzle looked like it had on some type of liquid. It wasn't blood though, from what he could see; it looked gray.
The little poodle started to growl determinedly when he approached it. When he saw that Gareth was not impressed with his growling, he dropped the hand and ran off near Jossette who grabbed him up and began soothing him like a child.
Gareth looked over at the hand. It looked like a female's hand; it still had the nails attached. It looked dainty and slim, and the skin was a gray color. His heart jerked. He must have transmitted some of that fear to Jossette because she backed away from him slowly, her bathrobe billowing around her. He registered details, like the fact that her light brown skin was suffused with red color, that her eyes were wide with terror, and that her hair was in curlers. She must have taken the dog out for the morning and the pooch went straight to a freshly severed hand in his garden.
While he was there standing over the hand, Kylie drove up.
She had the look of thunder on her face. She got out of her car like a mini hurricane and almost screamed at him.
"Were you having an affair with Lauren James? What do you know about her being missing? Did she run away from you or something?"
Gareth knew the exact moment when she registered that he was standing over a hand because her face drained of color and she screamed.
*****
The university security personnel were the first ones on the scene. Somebody in the neighborhood had called them after hearing Jossette's screams. The police came a few moments later. There was a small crowd outside Gareth's gate. Jossette and Kylie were giving their statements to the police, and Gareth found himself at one end of the fence talking once more with Detective Tony Beaker.
"How did this hand get there, D
octor Beecher?"
Gareth shrugged. "I have no idea. I was upstairs when I heard a scream from below my room window, and when I looked, there was a hand in the dog's mouth."
Tony Beaker was scribbling. Another officer had taken the hand and bagged it. They had dug deeper in the hole where the dog had found the hand, but they found nothing else.
Tony Beaker closed his notepad and shook his head. "This looks really suspicious, sir."
Gareth nodded. "I would say so. A severed hand found in one’s garden is really serious business."
Tony looked at him speculatively. "We will get this to the lab and have them expedite the results to find out whose hand it is. We are going to cross check whether it belongs to Lauren James. If you have the rest of her body buried around the neighborhood, now would be a good time to say so."
Gareth struggled hard not to inhale sharply. If Lauren was murdered that would be a tragedy, not only because he knew Lauren, but because he feared that he would be the prime suspect.
"I am sorry about the outburst earlier," Kylie said when everybody had left and his garden was once more empty. He was standing beside the big conspicuous hole under his rose bush, looking puzzled.
"It's just that I had no idea that you and Lauren were together earlier this year."
"I wasn't with Lauren," Gareth said, sounding tired. He had eventually run inside for one of his ratty old MIT shirts. He looked at Kylie wearily. "Want to come inside?"
"Sure." Kylie followed him inside and watched as he sprawled out on the settee.
"I just don't understand it; what would a hand be doing in my garden? Whose hand is it anyway? Curiously, it didn't even have any blood; it had a grayish liquid. The whole thing looked gray."
Kylie sat across from him and shook her head. "I am no scientist, but grayish liquid sounds like something was being preserved or embalmed."
Gareth nodded. "That's right; that's one of the first things I thought of, and it had that smell too."
Kylie frowned. "Smell?"
"Yes. The hand had a distinct smell, the kind of scent I associate with funeral homes. Whoever put it there is out to get me! They wanted that hand to be found and they want me to take the blame for whoever’s hand it is. I don't know why."
"This is crazy." Kylie sighed. "Gareth, I must apologize for my outburst earlier. You see, my father told me about these diary entries about you and Lauren and I saw red."
"You were jealous." Gareth grinned. "Come here."
She got up and went to sit in his lap.
"In all of this craziness, I am so glad you are around." Gareth kissed her on the forehead, "and I'm happy that you believe me about Lauren." He sighed. "Gosh, I wish she would just show up with that cheeky grin of hers and put this whole thing to rest."
"But there is also the hand," Kylie said, burrowing her face in his neck. "And those letters she wrote. What was she doing writing those kind of things."
Gareth chuckled, "she said I had sultry gray eyes and a hot muscular body, and I ravished her or something like that—real old fashioned language. All I can say is that girl has an active fantasy life."
Kylie looked at Gareth sheepishly. "Unfortunately, so do I. The things I dreamt up last night are for mature audiences only."
Gareth wriggled his brow. "Now your fantasies I would be interested in."
Kylie moved closer to him, "I am feeling bold right now."
Gareth whispered, "Show me."
The doorbell rang as Kylie moved closer to him, and Gareth groaned. "I hope it's not the police again."
He got up reluctantly. "Hold that move Kylie. Don't forget what you were about to do."
Kylie flushed. Her boldness did not last for long periods of time. She straightened up on the settee and rearranged her hair.
When Gareth entered the living room with Jackie in tow, her confidence took a nosedive.
"Oh, hi Kylie." Jackie didn't seem surprised to see her. She was all business like and flippant. She barely paused to hear Kylie's faint greeting. Her attitude matched her dress. She was in one of her power suits with her long hair in a bouncy wavy coif, parted to the side.
"Gareth can you believe it; we are almost neighbors now? I live on Mount Faith Drive with this gorgeous psychiatrist named Taj Jackson. Know him?"
Gareth nodded. "Yes, I do. He runs the Psych Center."
"He has four bedrooms—such a waste to give a single man so much space, even though he is a gorgeous single man."
Gareth shrugged.
Not getting the rise out of Gareth that she had anticipated, Jackie looked over at Kylie. "You are over here early. I thought your family was super religious, and sex outside of marriage was a no-no."
Kylie smirked, not answering Jackie either way, and hoping that she would stew in her own conclusions.
A reluctant admiration entered Jackie's eyes when she saw that Kylie was not biting. "So the mouse is roaring; how cute."
"What are you doing here, Jackie?" Gareth asked running his fingers through his hair. Little strands were left standing up, and Jackie smiled. It was a gesture she knew well.
"I heard that the police were here and that the neighbor's dog found a hand in your garden."
Gareth sat down. "Have a seat. Bad news travels fast."
"Yes, it does, but as your lawyer, I really wish you'd alert me when these things are going on, Gareth."
"I thought you were the school's lawyer," Kylie retorted on Gareth's behalf, "Why should Gareth call you?"
"Basically, I am both the school’s lawyer and Gareth's at this time, since the disappearance of this girl, Lauren Beecher, involves the school and this particular professor." Jackie corrected Kylie primly.
Kylie shrugged. "Does anyone want tea? I could do with some."
Gareth nodded, "I would love some."
"You?" Kylie asked Jackie.
"No thanks," Jackie said, feeling a rush of jealousy. Kylie knew her way around Gareth's house. She had to rectify this. "I had a splendid breakfast, made by Taj. He is quite the gentleman."
Kylie laughed. "I know. He is my brother."
Jackie looked astonished. "He is? How come?"
"Ask him," Kylie said flippantly. "And while you are at it, don't think you can use my brother like you used Gareth. He is off limits; my whole family is off limits to you, got that?"
"Well, well," Jackie said, astonished at the show of aggression from Kylie. "Whatever have you been giving this girl, Gareth?
"Love." Gareth chuckled as a look of distaste crossed Jackie's face.
Chapter Fourteen
It took Jackie two weeks but she had planned an offensive against Kylie. She wanted her jealous and thrown off kilter. The thought was filling her with glee. That was the only bright spark in her days, because it seemed as if everywhere she went, she saw Gareth and Kylie.
She saw them in the computer lab sitting close with both their heads hanging over a computer, touching. She saw Gareth waiting for Kylie outside of her classroom, a look of anticipation on his face. She saw them holding hands in the parking lot. She saw them at the schools open-air theatre. She saw them walking hand in hand down Mount Faith Drive like two love sick puppies. She was sick of seeing them together.
She sarcastically referred to them as ‘Ebony and Ivory’ at home with her new housemate, Taj, who she discovered was probably the most patient man on earth. His girlfriend only called him briefly from some undisclosed location because she was undercover. He had said that her newest assignment was supposed to be her last and that it was a favor for a friend. She thought his girlfriend was an idiot. If she had him, she would not let work come in the way, and she was quite qualified to call any woman like that an idiot.
Her hands tightened over the phone she was holding. She came to Jamaica to win back Gareth, and to let him see what he was missing. Kylie needed to take a step back and let her get on with winning back her husband.
She loved Gareth, or she had loved him deeply enough in the past to realize that she
wanted him back now. If she was to be honest though, this was far more about winning than love. She had always been competitive and she could never allow a shy innocent girl to take what she thought was hers. She thought she could browbeat Kylie into backing off, but she had proven to be a tougher than she looked. She needed a new strategy and she needed one now.
She took a deep breath. What she needed was a foolproof plan to break up this little duo. She twisted her neck, hoping to get the kinks out of it.
She had just heard from Detective Tony Beaker, who she had taken pains to be nice to over the past week. They had gotten back the results from the lab and the results were inconclusive. The hand did not belong to Lauren James. He had promised to send over the report.
She would go over to Gareth's house to personally tell him the news. He and Kylie were in the habit of walking in the mornings. She could easily reach the house before Kylie. She tiptoed to the living room to see if Taj was nearby, but apparently, he had gone to his regular squash game.
She pulled on a summer dress with little much else and walked toward Mount Faith Close. The day smelled fresh and had a light breeze. She was becoming accustomed to the bite in the air from the chill in the mornings and walked faster to heat up her chilled body.
When she reached Gareth's house, his porch light was on. She knocked on the door and was greeted by a smiling man fully anticipating to see his girlfriend.
"Oh, it's you," Gareth said sourly. He glanced from her head to her feet quickly. "You are not dressed for work so I am assuming this is a social call."
"Well, yes and no," Jackie said swiftly.
"Can I come inside? It is chilly out here"
Gareth sighed and opened his door wider. He was in a black tracksuit bottom and a black sweatshirt with MIT emblazoned on the back.
Goodbye Lonely (The Bancrofts: Book 4) Page 10