Twenty
As most of the crew had known Marla, Naomi came home to a relatively quiet house. The noise centered, for now, in what would be her studio, and came in the form of country music and a nail gun.
Still, when she tried to work, she couldn’t settle. Whatever images she brought onto her screen, she ended up seeing shattered eyes.
Instead, she took the dog and her camera out front. She’d get those before pictures for Lelo, as simple and routine a task as she could devise. She’d make copies for herself, she thought, maybe put together a book on the evolution of the house.
She could keep it in the library, revisit the process when it would have the charm of distance.
When the dog dropped one of his balls at her feet, she decided to embrace another distraction. She tossed it, watched him joyfully chase after it.
The third time he returned, he spat it out, his ears pricked up, and his gaze shifted with a low, warning growl seconds before she heard the sound of a car.
“Must be the crew coming. Talk about distractions.”
But she saw the chief of police’s cruiser come up the rise.
Everything in her tensed, balled up in tight, cold fists. She’d seen him at the funeral. If there’d been any progress on the investigation, the odds were high she’d have heard something there. In any case, her finding the body didn’t mean he’d feel obliged to tell her anything directly.
There was only one reason he’d come to see her.
To help calm herself, Naomi laid a hand on Tag’s head. “It’s okay. I’ve been expecting him.”
They started across the bumpy, patchy grass as Sam got out of the cruiser.
“The Kobie brothers,” he said, nodded toward the truck.
“Yes. Wade and Bob are upstairs working. The rest of the crew went to the funeral.”
“I just left the cemetery myself. I wanted to have a private word with you before the rest of Kevin’s crew got back.”
“All right.” Her stomach in knots, she turned toward the house. “I don’t have a lot of seating yet, but it’s nice on the deck off the kitchen.”
“I heard you hired the Lelos to do some landscaping.”
“They plan to start on Tuesday.”
“You’re making real progress,” he commented as they stepped inside.
She only nodded, continued back. Progress, she thought, but for what? She should never have let herself fall in love with the house, with the area. She should never have allowed herself to become so involved with the man.
“This is a hell of a nice kitchen.” Hat tipped back, Sam stood, at ease, looking around. “And a view that doesn’t quit.”
When she opened the accordion doors, he shook his head. “Doesn’t that beat all? Did you come up with this, or did Kevin?”
“Kevin.”
“They fold right back out of the way, just open it all up. You couldn’t have a prettier situation here.”
She took one of the spring chairs while Tag poked his nose to Sam’s knee.
“I saw you at the service,” Sam began. “It was good of you to go. I know you didn’t know her, and what you did know wasn’t especially friendly.”
“I’m sorry for what happened to her.”
“We all are.” He shifted, turning from the view so his gaze met hers. “I wouldn’t be doing my job, Naomi, if I hadn’t gotten some background on the person who found her body.”
“No. I should have told you myself. I didn’t. I wanted to believe you wouldn’t look, and no one would know.”
“Is that why you changed your name?”
“It’s my mother’s maiden name, my uncle’s name. He raised us after . . . They took us in, my mother, my brother, and me, after my father was arrested.”
“You were instrumental in that arrest.”
“Yes.”
“That’s about as hard on a young girl as anything could be. I’m not going to ask you about that, Naomi. I know the case, and if I want to know more, it’s easy enough. I’m going to ask you if you’re in contact with your father.”
“No. I haven’t spoken or communicated with him since that night.”
“You never went to see him?”
“No. My mother did, and ended up swallowing a bottle of pills. She loved him, or he had a hold over her. Maybe it’s the same thing.”
“Has he tried to contact you?”
“No.”
For a moment, Sam said nothing. “I’m sorry to add to things, but it must have struck you. The similarities. The binding, the wounds, what was done to her, the way she was killed.”
“Yes. But he’s in prison, on the other side of the country. And the terrible reality is, others rape and kill and torture. Others do what he did.”
“That’s true.”
“But I’m here, and I found her. Like I found Ashley. Only I found Ashley in time. I’m here, and Marla was raped and killed and tortured the way my father liked to rape and kill and torture. So you have to look at me.”
“Even if I did, I know you didn’t take her, or hold her for two days, and do what was done to her. Even if I did, you were with Xander at times you’d have needed to be with her. I’ve known Xander all his life and sure as hell don’t believe he’d be party to something like this. I don’t believe you would either.”
She should be grateful for that; she should be relieved. Yet she couldn’t find the energy for either.
“But you wondered. When you found out who I was, you had to wonder. Others will, too. And some of them will think, well, Blood tells. It’s blood that ties us together, makes us who we are. Her father’s a psychopath. What does that make her?”
“I won’t tell you I didn’t wonder. That’s part of my job. I wondered for about ten seconds because I’m small town, that’s a fact, but I’m good at my job. I came here to ask you if you’re in contact with your father, or if he’s in contact with you, on the slim possibility what happened here is connected.”
“He didn’t even look at me. That morning, in the police station back in West Virginia, when they brought him in.”
She could still see it, in minute and perfect detail, down to the sun hitting the water in the water fountain, the dust motes in the air.
“I came out of the room where they had me waiting. I just came out for a minute, and they were bringing him in, in handcuffs. And he looked right through me, like I wasn’t there. I think I was never there for him, not really.”
“You’ve moved around a lot in the last few years.”
“I made it part of my job. Our uncles shielded us as much as they could from the press, the talk, the stares, the anger. They uprooted their lives for us. But the shield didn’t always hold. Every few years, he bargains something, some privilege, something, for the location of another body. It brings it all back—the stories on TV, online, the talk. My brother says it’s what he wants more than whatever privilege he’s thought up, and I believe that, too. Moving around means you’re not in one place long enough for anyone to notice you, or not very much.”
“You bought this house.”
“I thought I could get away with it. I just fell for it, and convinced myself that I could have this—a real home, a quiet place—and no one would ever know. If I’d walked another way that day, if someone else had found Marla, maybe, but I didn’t walk another way. I’ve got no reason to tell anyone about this.”
When she turned her head to meet his eyes again, Sam gave her hand a pat. “It’s yours to tell or not.”
She wanted relief but couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t feel. “Thank you.”
“It’s not a favor. I got background, that was an official act. I don’t go around gossiping on people’s private business. I needed to ask you the questions I did. Now we can put it away.”
“I . . . I just want to find out if I can live here. I want time to try.”
“It seems to me you’re already living here, and doing it well. I’m going to say something personal now, and then I’m going to go, get back to town. It’s clear to me now you haven’t told Xander any of this.” Sam pushed to his feet. “I’m going to say to you, on a personal level, you’re doing him, and yourself, a disservice. But it’s your story to tell, or not. Take care of yourself, Naomi.”
He walked down the deck steps, left her sitting there staring out at the water, at the white sails of clouds above it, wondering if she’d ever feel again.
—
Like twin storms, grief and gossip rumbled through the cemetery and left Xander with a low-grade headache. He slipped away as soon as possible, switched the radio off for the drive back to town. He could do with some quiet.
He had enough work, including what he’d postponed that morning, to keep him fully occupied. He stopped into parts and sales, got a ginger ale from the machine, picked up some parts, then headed over to the garage.
After a check of his worksheet, he opted to take the easy first, ease his way into the delayed workday. Before he walked out to drive the Mini Cooper into the bay for its diagnostic, he swung by to see the progress in the body shop.
He considered himself better than good at bodywork, but Pete was a freaking artist. The wrecked Escort would look showroom fine when Pete finished the job.
“Back from the funeral?”
“Yeah.”
Frowning, Pete adjusted his safety goggles. “Can’t stand funerals.”
“I don’t think anybody likes them.”
“Some do.” Pete nodded wisely. “Some people are fucked-up and get off on them. They hunt them up and go even when they don’t know who’s dead.”
“It takes all kinds,” Xander said, and left Pete to his work.
Once he’d finished with the Mini, keyed in the worksheet on the shop computer, and sent it to sales, he broke long enough to go up to his apartment, make a sandwich with the slim pickings he had available. With the Mini in the pickup area, he moved on to the next on his sheet.
He put in a solid four hours more—ditched the headache, picked up a stiff neck.
Since he’d told Naomi he’d bring dinner, he called in an order for baked spaghetti before going about the business of closing up.
He’d just started to his bike when Maxie from Rinaldo’s pulled in with her flat rear tire bumping.
“Oh, Xander! Please.” She actually gripped her hands together as if in prayer as she jumped out of the car. “I know you’re closed, but please. Something’s wrong with my car, it just started making this noise, and I could hardly steer it.”
“You’ve got a flat, Maxie.”
“I do?” She turned, looked where he pointed. “How did that happen? It didn’t like blow or anything. It just started thumping. I thought it was the engine or something.”
After raking her hand through her purple-streaked blonde hair, she sent him a sheepish smile. “Can you change it?”
He squatted down. “Maxie, this tire’s bald as your grandfather, plus you trashed it by driving on it.”
“I have to get a new one? Can you change it for now, put the spare on?”
“You don’t have a spare, you’ve got a donut—emergency tire—and you can’t drive around on that.” He circled the compact, shook his head.
“Your tires lost any excuse for tread about ten thousand miles ago.”
Her mouth dropped open; her eyes went to shocked moons. “I need four new tires?”
“That’s a fact.”
“Crap. Crap. Crap. There goes the money I’ve been saving for a shopping weekend in Seattle with Lisa. And now I’m going to be late for work.”
She tried a quick flirt. “Couldn’t you just, you know, patch the flat one, just for now, and . . . One more crap,” she muttered as he just stared her down. “You’ve got my father’s look on your face.”
That stung a little, as he only had about a dozen years on her. But he didn’t relent.
“You could have a blowout, end up wrecked. I’ll make you the best deal I can, but you’ve got to replace these. I can have them on for you tomorrow, before noon, and I can run you over to work. I’ve got a couple of takeouts waiting anyway. Can you get a ride home?”
Resigned, Maxie blew out a breath. “I can just walk over to Lisa’s, stay there tonight.”
Risking being compared to her father again, Xander shook his head. “No walking alone after closing. Not right now.”
“Everybody thinks whoever killed Marla is long gone. Just some horrible pervert passing through.”
“I’ll make you a deal. You get the tires at my cost, and you make this deal with me. No walking alone after closing.”
“All right, all right. I’ll get my dad to pick me up.” When Xander narrowed his eyes on her face, she rolled hers. “I promise.” She swiped a finger over her heart.
“Okay.” He got the spare helmet, handed it to her. “You break the deal, I charge you double for the tires.”
“Oh, Xander.” But she laughed and got on the bike behind him. “A deal’s a deal, and at least I get a cool ride to work out of it.”
By the time he got to the big house, all he wanted was to sit out on the deck with Naomi, maybe have a beer. And let the entire day shed like dead skin.
By the time he’d unstrapped the takeout, Tag had raced around from the back of the house to greet him as though he’d been off to war.
Appreciating the welcome, he held the food up out of reach with one hand, gave the dog a rub with the other. And when the tennis ball landed at his feet, he gave it a good boot to send Tag joyfully after it.
He noted that Naomi’s car sat alone, and wondered why Kevin hadn’t waited. Even with the delay, he’d expected Kevin to hang tight until he got there.
He walked around the back, stopping long enough to give the ball another kick.
She sat on the deck alone, working on her tablet, with a glass of wine on the little table beside the glider.
“Got hung up,” he said.
She only nodded, kept doing whatever she was doing.
“I’m going to grab a beer, put this in the oven on low.”
“That’s fine.”
He didn’t consider himself particularly sensitive to moods—at least, he’d been told by annoyed women he lacked that insight—but he knew when something was off.
In his experience, the best way to handle things when something was off, and you didn’t know what, was to just keep going until whatever was off popped out.
Sometimes, if luck held, it just went away.
He came back with his beer, sat beside her, shot out his legs. And Jesus, didn’t that feel good?
“Where’s Kev?”
“At home with his wife and kids, I imagine.”
“I figured he’d hang out until I got here.”
“I insisted he go home. I don’t need a bodyguard.”
It didn’t take Mr. Sensitivity to recognize a bitchy mood when it snapped its teeth at him. He took a pull on his beer, let it ride.
The silence lasted maybe twenty seconds.
“I don’t like the two of you arranging shifts. I’m not an idiot, and I’m not incapable.”
“I never thought of you as either one.”
“Then stop hovering, and stop asking Kevin to hover. It’s not only insulting, it’s annoying.”
“Looks like you’ll have to be insulted and annoyed.”
“You can’t decide for me.”
“Marla’s body, about thirty-five feet straight down from where you’re sitting, says I can.”
“No one dictates to me, and if you think sleeping with me gives you that right, you’re very wrong.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the dog slink down the steps—looking, Xander imagined, for a safe spot out of the line of fire.
“That’s bullshit. It’s even weak bullshit. You can either tell me what crawled up your ass since this morning or not, but I know when somebody’s looking to pick a fight. I’m not in the mood for one, but that can change.”
“You’re crowding me, it’s as simple as that.” She pushed off the glider, picked up her wine, set down the tablet. “I bought this place because I like being alone, and now I never am.” She took a long drink from the glass, which he’d bet a week’s profits wasn’t her first of the evening.
“Yeah, that could change. If you’re trying to give me the boot, then be straight about it.”
“I need some space.”
“And clichés like that are more weak bullshit. You can do better.”
“I shouldn’t have started this . . . thing with you, and it’s moved too fast, gotten too complicated.”
Anger, and something he couldn’t quite pin down, spiked into her voice.
“I’m tired of feeling surrounded and boxed in. And it just needs to stop. Just stop. You, the house, the yard. God, the dog. It’s all too much. It’s all a mistake, and it needs to stop.”
He wanted to push back, and hard, because, Jesus, she’d hurt him. He hadn’t expected the punch or just how completely it flattened him.
Complicated? She had that right. Complications twisted up inside him he hadn’t known existed.
But she was shaking, and her breath came just a little too fast. She was working herself up to another panic attack, and he’d damn well know why.
“You want me gone, I’ll go. I’ll take the damn dog if that’s how you want it. I don’t force myself on anyone. But give me the truth.”
“I just did! This is a mistake. All of this, and I need to correct it.”
“By dumping me, the dog, this house, what you’ve started making here? That’s not what you want.”
“You don’t know what I want.” She hurled the words at him, along with a fear-tinted rage. “You don’t know me.”
“I damn well do.”
“You don’t! That’s the bullshit. You don’t know me, who I am, or what I am. You know weeks, the weeks I’ve been here. You don’t know anything from before. You don’t know me.”
It struck him then, clear as glass. That unidentified something under it all, the base of the anger and fear. It was grief.
“Yes, I do.” He set the beer aside, rose. “I know who you are, where you came from, what you went through, and what you’re trying to make now, away from it.”
She shook her head, took a step in retreat. “You can’t.” He saw her lips tremble before she pressed them together, saw tears glitter before she forced them back.
“Chief Winston told you.”
Now he had the match on the fuse. “No, I haven’t talked to him, haven’t seen him since the cemetery. But you have. He didn’t tell me anything. You did.”
She crossed her arm over her body, gripped her own shoulder with her hand as if shielding herself.
Not from him, he thought. Goddamn it, not from him.
“I never told you anything about this.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He pushed down his own anger. He’d let it fly later, but for now, for right now, he spoke matter-of-factly.
“The day up in my place, that first time. You saw the book on my shelf. The Simon Vance book. You looked like someone kicked you in the gut. It didn’t take much to figure it out from there. There are photos in the book. You were about eleven or twelve, I guess. Just a kid. You’ve changed your hair, grown up. But you have the same eyes, the same look about you. And Naomi, it’s not an everyday name.”
“You knew.” The knuckles of her hand went white as bone.
“I can wish the book hadn’t been there to put that look on your face. But it was.”
“You . . . you’ve told Kevin.”
“No.” The doubt in her eyes came so clear he waited a beat, kept his gaze level on hers. “No,” he said again. “Womb to tomb doesn’t mean I tell him what you don’t want told.”
“You haven’t told him,” she repeated, and her fingers loosened on her shoulder, her hand slid down. “You’ve known all this time, known since before we . . . Why haven’t you said anything to me, asked me?”
“I didn’t know, so the book was there. But once I knew? I wasn’t going to put that look on your face again. And okay, I hoped you’d tell me before I had to shove it in your face like this, but you pushed the buttons.”
“You didn’t.” Rubbing the heel of her hand between her brows, she turned away. “You didn’t shove it in my face. Others have, so I know exactly what it feels like. I don’t know what this feels like.”
She set the wine on the rail, pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I need a minute.”
“If you need to yell, I can handle it. If you need to cry, I can handle it. Yelling’s preferred.”
“I’m not going to yell, or cry.”
“I think most people would do some of both. You’re not most people.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Shut up.”
The ripe temper shocked her enough to make her turn back.
“Just shut the hell up.” Now he let some of that anger fly. “Are you fucking stupid? Maybe I don’t know you, because I pegged you as smart. Really smart. But maybe you’re stupid enough to believe because you share DNA with a psychotic bastard, you’re made wrong.”
“He’s a monster. He’s my father.”
“My father doesn’t know a carburetor from a brake pad, owns two sets of golf clubs, and likes easy listening.”
“That’s not the same, at all.”
“Why not? Why the hell not? We have blood ties, he raised me—mostly—and we’re as different as they come. He reads like one book a year, as long as it’s a bestseller. We baffle each other every time we spend more than an hour together.”
“It’s not—”
“What about your brother?”
He threw her off stride, just as he’d intended.
“I . . . What about Mason?”
“What kind of man is he?”
“He’s . . . great. He’s smart. Actually, he’s brilliant, and dedicated, kind.”
“So he can be what he is, with the same gene pool, but you’re what? Tainted?”
“No. No, I know better. Intellectually I know better, but yes, sometimes it feels that way.”
“Get over it.”
She stared at him. “Get . . . over it?”
“Yeah. Get over it, move on. Your father’s as fucked-up as it gets. That doesn’t mean you have to be.”
“My father is the most notorious serial killer of the century.”
“It’s a young century yet,” he said with a shrug, and had her staring again.
“God. I don’t understand you.”
“Understand this, then. It’s insulting and annoying—remember that—for you to think I’d feel differently about you because your father’s Thomas David Bowes. That I’d act differently because seventeen years ago you saved a life—no doubt saved a lot of lives. And if this whole fucked-up bullshit is the reason you’re trying to kick me to the curb, you’re out of luck. I don’t kick that easy.”
“I don’t know what to say to you now.”
“If you want me gone, don’t use Bowes as the lever to pry me loose.”
“I need to sit down.”
She sat on the glider. Obviously deciding she needed it, the dog picked his way back, laid his head on her knee.
“I didn’t mean it,” she murmured, and stroked the dog. “I didn’t mean it about the dog, or the house. I didn’t mean it about you. I told myself I should mean it; it would be better all around if I could mean it. It’s easier to keep moving than to root, Xander, for someone like me.”
“I don’t think so. I think that’s something else you’ve told yourself until you mostly believe it. If you believed it all the way through, you wouldn’t have bought this place. You wouldn’t bring it back to life. You sure as hell wouldn’t have taken on that dog, no matter how I worked you on it.”
He crossed over, sat beside her again. “You’d have slept with me. I saw that the first time you came into the bar.”
“Oh, really?”
Not yet settled, but getting there, he picked up his beer again. “I’ve got a sense about when a woman’s going to be willing. But if you believed all that crap all the way through, this wouldn’t have turned into a thing.”
“It wasn’t supposed to.”
“A lot of good things happen by accident. If Charles Goodyear hadn’t been clumsy, we wouldn’t have vulcanized rubber.”
“What?”
“Weatherproof rubber—tires, for instance, as in Goodyear. He was trying to figure out how to make rubber weatherproof, dropped this experiment on a stove by accident, and there you go, he made weatherproof rubber.”
Baffled, she rubbed her aching temple. “I’ve completely lost the point.”
“Not everything has to be planned to work out. Maybe we both figured we’d bang it out a few times and move on, but we didn’t. And it’s working out all right.”
The sound of her own laughter surprised her. “Wow, Xander, my heart’s fluttering from that romantic description. It’s like a sonnet.”
Yeah, he realized, he was settling again. “You want romance? I could bring you flowers.”
“I don’t have anything to put them in.” She sighed. “I don’t need romance, and I don’t know what I’d do with it. I like knowing my feet are solid on the ground. And they haven’t been, not consistently, since I saw this house. Today . . . the funeral. It hit so hard because it reminded me, again, of all the people my father hurt. Not just the women he killed, but the people who loved them.”
“I’d have been sorry you found her no matter what, but I was a hell of a lot sorrier knowing what it would bring back. Have you talked to your brother, your uncles about it?”
“No. No, why bring it back for them? I wasn’t going to talk to anyone about it. Not about what it brought back.”
“It’s yours to tell, or not. You’d find good friends in Kevin and Jenny. Not trusting that? It’s a disservice to them, and to you.”
“That’s what Chief Winston said to me, about telling you. That same word. Disservice.”
“Do you want to tell me what else he said?”
“I knew as soon as he drove up.”
She closed her eyes, let herself feel the dog at her feet, the man beside her.
“The world just fell out from under me. Just dropped away. I’d expected it—he’d do a background run on me because I found the body. But the world dropped away. He was straightforward, and he was kind. He said he wouldn’t tell anyone else, that he hadn’t and wouldn’t. I’ve never been around anyone but family who knew. Or if it came out, I left before things changed.”
“Left before you knew if they’d change or not?”
“Maybe that’s true, but I’ve been through those changes, and they’re awful. They steal everything,” she said quietly, “and crush you.”
“I’m sitting here having a beer like I’d hoped to do since I closed the garage. There’s a hot meal keeping warm in the oven, a nice sunset right out there. Nothing changed or needs to. You’ll get used to it.”
Nothing needed to change. Could that be true? Was it really possible?
“Maybe we can just sit here for a while longer, until I get used to it.”
“That works for me.”
—
Hours later, when all but the bars shut down for the night, and the streets in town went quiet, with pools of light from streetlamps shimmering against the dark, he watched and waited.
He’d taken the time to study the routine along the main street with its shops and restaurants. To study the women who closed up those shops, or walked home from their job as line cook or waitress.
He had his mind on the pretty young blonde, but he wouldn’t be picky. At least three young ones worked the late shift at the pizzeria.
He’d take his pick—but the pretty young blonde? She was top choice.
He’d left the camper at the campground a good twelve miles away, all legally set up.
And if they only knew what he’d done inside that home away from home. Just the idea made him want to chuckle.
But the excitement grew, a hot ball in the belly, when the rear door of the restaurant opened.
The hot little blonde, just as he’d hoped.
And all alone.
He slipped out of the car, on the dark edge of the lot, with the rag he’d soaked with chloroform held down at his side.
He liked using chloroform, going old-school. It put them out—no muss, no fuss—even if it tended to make them a little sick. It just added to the process.
She walked along, firm, young tits bouncing some, tight young ass swaying. He glanced back toward the restaurant, making sure no one else came out, started to make his move.
And headlights sliced over the lot, had him jumping back into the shadows. The little blonde waited for the car to turn toward her, then opened the passenger door.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“No problem, honey.”
He wanted to kick something, beat something, when his desire drove off, left him yearning and hot.
Tears actually gathered in the corners of his eyes. Then the door opened again.
Two more came out. He saw them in the light above the door, heard their voices, their laughter as they talked.
Then one of the boys came out. He and the younger of the women linked hands, strolled off together.
The young girl turned around, walked backward. “Have fun tomorrow! Drive safe.”
The lone woman started across the lot. Not young like the others, not so pretty—not blonde like his desire—but she’d do. She’d do well enough.
She hummed to herself as she opened her purse to dig out her key.
All he had to do, really all he had to do was step up behind her. He deliberately gave her that instant to feel fear, to have her heart jump as she turned her head.
Then he covered her face with the cloth, gripped her around the waist while she struggled, while her muffled screams pushed hot against his hand. As she went so quickly, almost too quickly, limp.
He had her in the back of the car, wrists and ankles wrapped in duct tape, more tape over her mouth, a blanket over her, within twenty seconds.
He drove out of the lot, through town, careful to keep to the posted speed, to use his turn signals. He didn’t even turn on the radio until he passed the town limits. He opened the windows to cool his hot cheeks, flicked a glance in the rearview at the shape under the blanket.
“We’re going to have some fun now. We’re going to have one hell of a good time.”