by G. G. Andrew
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, do you have any Tupperware?” Bette groused as she tried another cupboard. “I’m about to invite your friend Kim over, give her a big purse, and send her down to Target.”
“I don’t use containers. I put everything in plastic baggies.”
“This is applesauce, not evidence from a homicide.” Bette slammed a cupboard shut. “I just think you should be careful, is all. For Lily’s sake.”
He bristled, making his voice firm enough to signal to Bette the discussion was over. “I know what I’m doing.”
That was a bald-faced lie.
He’d had both Sunday and Monday off work, and he and Kim had made the most of those nights after Lily had gone to sleep. It had been partly to keep her under his watchful eye—even with the item she’d stolen off her hands, he still didn’t like not knowing who was behind it, and if that person suspected Kim had made a copy of the drive. Of course, she was also finding and questioning those women, which he’d advised against. He’d never admit it to her, but he admired her pluck in warning those victims, even as it kept him up at night. But he didn’t know what that list meant, and he didn’t like it.
Keeping her close was also partly to keep her hands in check. He knew about her addiction now. Though he couldn’t be around her as much as he’d like, while he could he’d make sure all her highs came from him and her hands stayed clean.
Mostly, though, it was because he couldn’t stay away from her. He didn’t think anything could top Monday night, but late on Tuesday they’d found themselves in his shower stall, the crimps in Kim’s brown hair fading in the humidity and strands plastered to her face while the hot water ran down his back. He’d picked her up and she’d wrapped her legs around him, and they’d rutted against the corner until their muscles gave out.
He didn’t know what he was doing. It wasn’t police work and it wasn’t a typical relationship and he didn’t want it to end. The thought of it ending made him grind his teeth together, even as he wasn’t quite sure what it was.
~
“Where you been, man?” Jimmy said. “I haven’t seen you around the station much.”
Scott had started his shift by searching for Carter. Since he’d been off Sunday and Monday, and she’d been gone yesterday, this was the first chance they’d had to catch up. She’d sent him a quick email yesterday, saying she had a hot lead.
“I’m helping Detective Morales with a case,” Scott explained. “Remember me asking you about that guy back in the fall who was leaving that woman threatening notes?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, his handwriting matched some other evidence. And this evidence links to a document listing women who might’ve also been harassed.”
Jimmy scratched the back of his head. “Did one of the women show up dead or something?”
“No,” Scott said. “Not that we’ve seen.” God, he hoped not. “Several of them have jilted ex-boyfriends and have been harassed badly online. Their addresses and private information leaked, nude photographs out there. Invitations to come to their houses without their consent.”
On his sergeant’s instructions, he and Carter had contacted the handful of women on that list who’d filed reports, and they’d all experienced harassment of that sort. Some of the men had been charged, with pending trials, but the evidence was scant. The same was going to be true for the ex of the woman Kim had spoken to, Melody. The detectives working those cases hadn’t been able to link them with the activity online, though the motivation was there.
“That’s screwed up,” Jimmy said. “Relationships, man. I know me and Ruby did some things we probably both regret after we broke up.”
“I don’t think this is normal breakup behavior.” Scott narrowed his eyes. “Do you?”
“Naw, of course not.” Jimmy waved his hand. “I mean, I just don’t know if the department should be jumping into the middle of that, unless it turns into a domestic or something. Until people are like yelling in the street with knives or whatever.”
Scott exhaled hard. “Some of these women have been hurt, Jimmy. Not physically, but they’ve been living in fear, and some of their jobs and relationships have suffered. Carter and I met with this teen girl whose boyfriend posted a nude selfie she sent him all over the web. Five, six different porn sites. It’s sick.”
“If that was my daughter, I’d string that guy up,” Jimmy said. “But these kids got to learn, you know? This is why you don’t take nude selfies and send them to teenaged boys.” He shook his head.
“I don’t think she intended for that photo to be on half a dozen porn sites, Jimmy,” Scott said, his voice gone low. A warning.
Jimmy put his hands up. “Okay, okay. Just giving my two cents.” He smirked. “So this guy with the note, he an ex of Kim Xavier?”
Scott felt his blood boil. He and Jimmy usually had gotten along, but lately he’d really wanted to crack a coffeepot over the guy’s head, especially whenever he brought up women. Especially Kim.
“No. He wasn’t an ex of Kim’s.”
“Because I bet she’d do a number on a guy,” Jimmy said, laughing. “Like she did a number on you last fall, huh?”
Scott’s jaw tightened. Not just because Jimmy was completely out of line, but because he’d hit on a fear Scott had himself, that Kim would tire of him and find someone new, and he’d be hurt again by her. Having the mother of your child bolt for more exotic pastures did that to a guy. Kim was full of life and fun, and maybe he’d eventually bore her. She could get his ire up like no other person he’d met, but he’d never been so hard up for a woman either. Wasn’t it always that way? The ones you liked the most were also the ones that drove you crazy.
He shrugged off Jimmy’s comment, because he saw Carter walking their way.
“What’s new?” he asked.
“A lot,” Carter said. “Come sit with me.”
He followed her back to her desk, curious.
“So we found out the name of the guy is Viktor Antonovich,” she said as she plopped down in her rolling chair. “Handwriting on the notes matches his.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I checked his file. Guy’s on a foreign exchange program here at Yale,” she said. “We went to his apartment, but he wasn’t there, and his neighbors haven’t seen him lately. My guess is he split.”
“Check with any of his friends? Has he had a job since the computer lab?”
“Yup.” Carter opened a file. “Up until recently, he’s been working at a coffee shop in Hamden, and I’m going this afternoon to check it out. Care to come with?”
Scott’s mouth went dry. “Which coffee shop?”
“Hot Haven.” Carter caught his glance. “What?”
But Scott was flipping his cell out of his pocket and striding as quickly as he could—racing—to the exit of the precinct.
Exiting the station and running across the lot, he tried her again. He swore when Kim didn’t pick up and the call went to voicemail. He yanked the door to his patrol car open, started the engine, and turned on the siren. He dialed her again.
Finally, on the third ring, she picked up.
“Hello?”
“Kim, where are you?” he shouted as he drove out of the station lot. The sounds of people talking and laughing in the background made his stomach drop.
“Hi to you too. Are you chasing a bad guy right now?”
“Where are you?”
At his tone of voice, she stumbled on her words. “Um, I’m…I’m at work. Why?”
“Shit.” He made a sharp turn, racing for Hamden. He raised his voice over the siren. “Just say yes or no when I ask you this: is Viktor with you at work right now?”
“No,” she said, her voice surprised. The background noise quieted, like she was walking to the back of the store. “He doesn’t work here anymore,” she whispered into the receiver. “Boyd fired him.”
“Stay where you are,” Scott said. “I’ll be there in four minutes. And tell Boyd to close Ho
t Haven. I need to speak to you both right away.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kim
“Everything ok?” Boyd asked as she ended the call with Scott.
“Um, I don’t know.” She studied the floor of the back room.
“Kim?”
She looked up. She hadn’t realized Boyd had been back there when she’d been talking to Scott.
Something was up. Something to do with Viktor.
“That was a friend of mine,” she said. “A cop. He’s on his way here. He told me to tell you to close the coffee shop.”
Boyd’s eyes grew sharp. “What’s going on?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, but he mentioned Viktor.”
“What’s that creep done?” Boyd crossed his arms over his chest. “I fired him two days ago.”
“Have you heard from his since?”
“Nope.”
Kim glanced at the front of Hot Haven, where three of the tables were full of customers, a couple in one, two teenagers in another, and a woman on a laptop in the third. “I think you need to get rid of these customers. The cops are about to show up, with sirens blaring.”
“Yeah…” Boyd shook himself and walked to the front of the store. “Hey, sorry guys, but we’ve got to close for a while. Fire in the back!”
The customers looked startled, and not a little skeptical, but they eventually picked up their drinks and left just as Scott was arriving in a patrol car with its red and blue lights flashing.
Kim stood behind the counter, numb and unsure what to do. Had Viktor been behind all this? The note, the knife on her car? That entire list of women? She’d been working side by side with him for months.
Scott slammed his car door and raced inside.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Just shaken. Is Viktor…”
He nodded. “We think so.” He turned to Boyd. “Does Viktor Antonovich work here?”
“Yeah.” Boyd looked as shell-shocked as she felt. He shook himself. “I mean, not anymore. I fired him Monday.”
An unmarked car pulled up next to Scott’s in the lot, and a smartly-dressed woman got out and entered Hot Haven. Scott filled her in on Viktor’s firing.
“Do you mind if I have a look around?” she said with a soft southern accent. Her eyes were sharp, taking in the scene. “See if he might’ve left anything behind?”
“Uh, sure,” Boyd said. “Whatever you need.”
While the detective looked around the back room, Scott questioned Kim and Boyd about what they knew of Viktor’s habits, schedule, and hobbies—which, for both of them, was next to nothing. Then he went back to speak to the detective.
Boyd ran his fingers through his dark hair, exhaling in what was half sigh, half laugh. “God, we both totally called that, didn’t we? Viktor being bad news?” He raised his palm. “High five.”
“Why are you high fiving me for that?”
Boyd dropped his hand and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m nervous, okay? There are cops in here.”
Kim sighed, feeling some of the shock leaving her. “Relax, Boyd. He’s probably not coming back to Hot Haven.” She didn’t add that that didn’t mean he wasn’t coming back to find her. Maybe he suspected she knew what was on that flash drive. Maybe he’d eventually come back to cover his tracks.
“Okay.” Boyd clapped his hands together. “Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. From now on, criminal background checks on all baristas.” He pointed a shaky finger at Kim. “Except for you, I know what your deal is.”
Kim managed a half-hearted smile as Scott came from the back.
“Did you find anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. He stepped close to her, put his hand on her forearm. The strength of it centered her, but made her realize that she was trembling.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a low voice.
“Am I okay?” She laughed off the quaver in her voice. “I just found out my co-worker was leaving me threatening notes and probably stalking me. So, all in all, not that awesome.”
“It’s shock,” he said, rubbing some warmth into her arms. “After we’re done here, I’m taking you home. Bette and Lily are there, and I don’t want you alone right now.”
“That’s good.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”
He caught her eye. “We’re going to catch him,” he said. “Looks like he skipped town, so I don’t think you need to worry, but he’ll turn up somewhere. Eventually.”
He squeezed her arm, and as he turned to return to the detective, she caught Boyd studying her.
He raised an eyebrow. “The plot thickens, Xavier.”
~
Scott drove her back to Hartford to stay with Bette and Lily while he finished up work. He had some calls and some paperwork back at the station, then he’d have another officer drop him off at Hot Haven to get her car.
They passed her parents’ home, but her mother’s car was missing. She was both relieved and disappointed. She didn’t want her mother to know, yet somehow she also wanted to call her immediately.
Instead, she went inside and met Scott’s ex’s mother. She still hadn’t found out the story there, and when she was introduced to Bette in the living room, the older woman regarded her with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.
“Kim’s had a shock,” Scott explained. “She had a break-in last week and somebody’s been harassing her, and we just discovered it’s likely one of her former co-workers.” He lowered his voice as Lily came into the room. “So I thought she could hang here with you and Lily, while I grab her car.”
“Sure,” Bette said, nodding once. “We’ll go easy on her.”
Kim smiled and kneeled to say hello to Lily. “You ready to play princess? I’m your guard all afternoon.”
Lily smiled and jumped up and down.
Kim was exhausted, but she wanted not to think about what had happened—what could’ve happened, with Viktor so close to her. And what better way than to escape into a child’s imaginary world for a spell?
Throwing her a tender look, Scott excused himself while she and Lily rearranged couch cushions and fashioned outfits out of plastic bags, which Kim tried to convince Lily was also trending with celebrities. They came in handy when Bette served them a dinner of spaghetti; it was difficult to stain your clothes when you were head-to-toe in plastic.
Scott was on his way home as Bette got Lily ready for bed.
“She’s asking for you,” Bette said after she’d tucked Lily in. “She wants you to come say goodnight.”
Touched, Kim went to Lily’s room, which was lit by a purple ladybug nightlight. Under the lilac glow, the girl’s blond tresses spread across the pillow and her voice slurred sleepily.
“You want to know what I want to dream about tonight?” Lily asked.
“What?” Kim smoothed her hair against the pillow. She felt like kissing the child’s forehead, but she didn’t know if it was allowed.
“I’m going to dream that I’m really a princess, and Daddy’s the king but he lets me do whatever I want, and we have this big castle. And we have sloths as pets.”
“Sloths?”
“Sloths.” Lily yawned. “And you’re my guard, so you’re always there, forever and ever, to keep me safe and make my dresses and feed the sloths.”
She thought Lily was probably overestimating the job description of a guard and underestimating Kim’s fear of wild animals, but she just smiled and said, “I’d love to be your guard, forever and ever. We can discuss the sloths at a later date.”
“Goodnight, Kim.”
“Goodnight, Lily.”
In the kitchen, Bette was sitting in one of the chairs, reading a paperback. She folded it over on the table when Kim walked in.
“Would you mind fixing me a cup of tea?” Bette asked.
“Sure,” Kim said.
“Make one for yourself, too, and come have a seat.”
&nb
sp; Kim’s hackles raised. Something about the woman’s tone suggested this wasn’t going to be a tea party. Silently, she heated up the kettle and took two herbal mint bags out of a box on the counter. Once the water boiled, she added the bags to two mugs, along with generous amounts of cream and sugar, hoping to sweeten whatever Bette was about to say to her.
“Ah, thank you.” Bette smiled briefly as she accepted the warm mug and Kim sat down. “You can tell a lot about a woman by how she makes her tea.”
“If I were alone, I’d put bourbon in mine,” Kim answered, because she sensed they were entering some bullshit-free conversational territory, and she figured she might as well start the ball rolling.
“I figured.” A twinkle shone in Bette’s eye. She took a sip of tea. “So I’ve heard you’ve had trouble with the law.”
Kim lifted her own mug like the cups were weapons they were sparring with. “I have, yeah. Scott knows about it.”
“So I gather. The lady down the street says you stole her necklace?”
“Mrs. Booth? Yes, I did.” Kim’s grip tightened on her mug handle, but she held Bette’s gaze.
“That’s why I buy all my jewelry secondhand. Less tempting.”
Kim gave a surprised laugh.
“Listen, sweetie,” Bette said. “I’m not here to razz you. I just want to say that Lily likes you, and that children are very impressionable. They watch what you’re doing, even when you think they’re not. They learn from it.”
“I know.” Kim set down her mug.
“Do you?”
“This isn’t my first time being around kids.”
Bette studied her. “I’m not saying this to you because you’re Lily’s babysitter. I’m saying this because of the way you and her dad look at each other.”
At that, Kim was the first to break the staring contest. The older woman was implying that she was in the running for stepmother, and she thought her unfit for the job. Well, Kim already knew that. She wasn’t good enough to be with Scott, and sooner or later, after his gig as her white knight ended, he’d figure that out.