Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 05 - Till Death Do Us Part (22 page)

“He’s going to cook for me?” I asked.

“You and the guys, yes. He likes to cook, so we let him cook.”

“Everyone needs a hobby.” I took another bite of my pizza, then thought about the strange stuff that Maury might like to cook.

Art must have seen the concern on my face because he said, “I told him you are a carnivore and prefer red meat to anything else.”

“Thanks, Art.”

Art smiled and said, “I can’t believe I’m saying this but I miss Kenny.”

“Me, too. It sucks that he went back to work.”

“We all have to work,” Art said, then added, “It’s nice that you get the summer off,” but before I could tell him why I needed the summer off, he added, “Of course you have to deal with a room full of five year olds all day. I wouldn’t do that job if they gave me summer and winter off.”

“I love those little kids and teaching,” I told him.

“And that’s why
you
should be the one doing it. You want some more pizza?”

“No, three slices is enough for the moment. If I get hungry later, I know where the leftover pizza is.”

“Unless Kenny comes over and eats it all.”

“That’s always a possibility,” I chuckled. “What time is it?”

“It is almost seven. I let you sleep until the pizza started getting cold.”

“Thanks, Art.”

Art nodded and went back into the house. I finished my pizza, fed the dogs and went back to the office.

I spent the next couple of hours searching for jewelry for my wedding dress and for Jordan. I couldn’t find either; let alone a gift for Kenny.

Tom called at nine. He didn’t have much time to talk. Someone drew swastikas all over the back of the high school gym and he rounded up his usual suspects and was letting them stew.

“I’m letting them sit and worry for a while and then I’m going to go in and talk to them,” he told me.

“Drawing swastikas isn’t your normal graffiti. Are you having a problem with a white supremacist group in your area?”

“We’ve always got some of those idiots, but I don’t think that’s my problem. A couple of these boys have the IQ of an ant. I think they might have just copied it out of a book and don’t have a clue what exactly it means. It has everyone in town upset, so I’ll get to the bottom of it and make sure they understand what it means and why it isn’t appropriate.”

“Then you’ll make them paint over the marks,” I asked.

“And probably half the town will get a new paint job, too,” Tom added.

“Is that a logical consequence?” I asked him. The teacher in me always wants consequences to be solution-focused rather than punitive. Of course they should be held responsible to make restitution and amends for their actions, too.

“No, but it will make everyone in the town feel better. A real consequence would be taking them to the Holocaust museum and letting them see the brutality the Nazi’s inflicted on the Jews but I don’t have the funding or the time to do that, so they’ll paint the town, work at the afterschool program for a month, and pick up all the litter at the school for a month after school starts.”

“That would stop me from writing on any wall,” I told him.

“From your lips to their little tiny brains, Liza. I’ve got to go.”

“Have fun, Tom.”

“Oh, I plan to.”

I hung up and went back to the internet. Three antique jewelry sites later, I found what I was looking for. It was a vintage Victorian bridal necklace with a double chain that came together at a gorgeous vintage garnet red crystal rhinestone surrounded by silver-plated filigree. There was also a Swarovski diamond-shaped pendent that hung lower. It would go well with the diamond shaped designs on my dress. I bought Jordan and Julie the same pendent but without the hanging diamond-shaped crystal.

That just left Kenny. Maybe I’d just ask him what he wanted. It might be easier than spending hours on the internet and finding nothing. Of course, God only knows what he would want!

Chapter 24

In the morning, I awoke to a wonderful smell. Maury was here! I threw on my bathrobe and rushed out to the kitchen.

Maury was even shorter than Art. At barely five-feet tall, he was even shorter than me, but he was all muscle. He looked like he could bench press a Hummer.

“Maury?” I said.

He turned around and smiled. “Good morning, Liza. Would you like a ham and cheese frittata for breakfast?”

“Yes, please,” I told him.

“I also have fresh squeezed orange juice, and country potatoes.”

“I’d love all of the above, please,” I told him, then settled into a chair at the table, then as an afterthought, I asked, “Where are the guys?”

“Bill and Brandon already ate and George is home for the day.”

“Great.”

Maury dished out a nice slice of frittata and potatoes. It smelled wonderful.

There was a knock at the door and Maury opened up the cupboard over the refrigerator. Kenny stood at the door.

“That’s . . ,” I began.

Maury finished, “I met Kenny last night. I came in around eleven and Art told me about him. Which was smart since Kenny came in around midnight to raid your refrigerator. He ate the rest of the pizza. I told him what I was cooking for breakfast and he said he’d be here.”

I laughed, opened the door, and said, “I thought I wasn’t going to see you until Thursday because you were going to work early to beat the traffic.”

“I’ll sit in traffic for hours if I get to eat Maury’s food. I could smell this cooking all the way in my backyard when I let Zoie out this morning.”

As if on cue, Zoie and Shelby came running in through the dog door. Shelby was barking and Zoie was barking at her.

“Quiet,” Kenny said and Zoie immediately stopped. Shelby has no such command.

Kenny kissed me gently on the cheek and sat down at the table with me. Maury dished him up some breakfast.

I gave Shelby a potato and she finally stopped barking.

“You’re reinforcing her bad behavior,” Kenny told me.

“I do that with you all the time, so if you want me to stop, I’ll have to stop with you, too,” I told him.

Kenny threw a potato to Shelby, smiled, and went back to his breakfast.

“I have to buy you a gift for standing up with me at the wedding. I’ve searched the internet and I can’t find anything. What do you want?”

“World peace,” he said, and waved a Miss America wave.

Maury laughed.

“Seriously.”

“You don’t have to give me a gift, Stretch. Finding you again was the best gift I ever got.”

“It’s a tradition,” I told him. “I got jewelry for Jordan and Julie.”

“How about you talk Tom into moving to San Ramon?” he suggested.

“That’s not happening,” I told Kenny.

“I’ll give it some thought, Stretch.”

“Thank you,” I told him.

After breakfast, Kenny went to work, Maury set up his laptop on my kitchen table and searched the internet for a good recipe to cook for dinner. I took a shower and then watched a couple of DVDs, again. I was even getting tired of watching movies – a first for me!

For lunch, Maury made grilled portobello mushroom sandwiches and sweet potato fries, from scratch. Afterwards, I sat down and began a new book. It was a fantasy novel about a woman who is a Hunter. She hunts demons that seem more like angry, hungry dinosaurs to me. She was matched with a cop from San Francisco. I love books with cops in them. Go figure?

Bill brought in the mail around one and there were a stack of response cards for the wedding, so I created a document to keep track of who was coming to the wedding. So far I didn’t have a single no – everyone would be there. One of Tom’s relatives, his Aunt Charlotte, the one who trains monkeys, wrote that five people would be attending. She was only on my list for two. I wondered if she was planning on bringing a couple of monkeys.

By two o’clock I would have killed for a bomb threat or attempted kidnapping. What were the chances that I could escape this house? Then I remembered Tom’s earlier suggestion.

“I need to go over to my school and start packing it up. Can I?” I felt like I was asking permission from my dad to go visit a friend.

“Of course,” Maury said. “I’ll give the guys a call and we’ll all go together. That way we can all help.”

“Thanks,” I said, jumping up before Maury remembered he was an FBI agent and I was under protective custody.

Since the janitors work early during the summer, we were only there a couple of hours that day, but we went back the next. With three men doing everything I told them to do, my classroom was packed up by the next afternoon. Maury called for an FBI van to come and they loaded it up, twice, and took the boxes and file cabinet to my house. They put it all into the garage. By five o’clock I was saying goodbye to the janitor and I was totally out of my classroom.

“Wow, thanks for your help, Maury,” I said when we got home.

“No problem. You shouldn’t be stuck in this house all day so if you want to go someplace tomorrow, just let me know. I can arrange for extra agents if I think we’ll need them.”

“Thanks.”

“Is Kenny coming for dinner?” Maury asked.

“Originally, he said he’d see me later tonight, so I’m not sure,” I told him.

“I’ll make enough for him too. He can always eat it leftover, even though it won’t be as good.”

“What are we having?”

“I thought I’d grill a tri-tip and some asparagus, make some Greek rice, and then strawberry shortcake for dessert.”

“Yum,” I said, already beginning to drool. “What time will it be ready?”

“Give me an hour.”

I nodded and went into the office, grabbing the mail as I went by. I needed to log more wedding response cards. Afterwards, I turned around the board and stared at the victims. What could they all have in common? I wondered. Did they have a secret? Had that secret got them killed? How did the suicides fit into the serial killer angle? Could a serial killer make people kill themselves? I was generating a lot of questions and no answers. I rearranged the pictures by age looking for a pattern but found nothing. Then I redid them by income, years of schooling, and type of object left at the scene. I spent some time attaching the information Justin found to the back of each picture, that way we would have easy access to each victim’s information when we wanted to look at it.

An hour later I still didn’t have any answers.

Maury knocked on the office door, “Dinner’s ready, Liza.”

It was a great meal.

“Tom loves to cook, but I think he’s got some competition in you,” I told him.

“He does? That’s great, maybe we can swap recipes,” Maury said as he spooned more grilled asparagus onto my plate.

After dinner I went back to the office. My phone rang while I was musing over the board.

“Hi, Jordan.”

“Sis, we’ve got a problem.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I can’t find Dad!”

“What do you mean you can’t find Dad?”

“I tried calling to find out if they would move up his court date like we talked about and I was told that he has been moved to a secure location and they won’t give out his location. I’m a damn assistant DA in New York. I am not a security risk.”

“Does that mean he won’t be coming to my wedding?” I could hear the panic in my voice, but couldn’t calm down.

“I don’t know, Liza. I’ve made a dozen more phone calls and the best I can piece together is that there have been several attempts on Dad’s life.”

My stomach started to congeal into a hard lump. I figured they were after me because they couldn’t find Dad.

Jordan continued, “One of his bodyguards was shot and they moved him to another location. And then they found a bomb at the new location. They think they’ve got a leak somewhere and since they don’t know where, they’re shutting all communication down.”

“I have a dad. I am not walking down the aisle of my wedding without him.”

“I agree, Liza, but I don’t know what I can do. I’m being blocked every time I try to get to him. Rumor has it that there was another bombing attempt, but nobody will give me any details.

I could feel my pulse racing and my breath becoming shallow. A panic attack was coming and neither Tom nor Kenny were anywhere in sight.

“I’m going to burn up the phone lines and every favor everyone in the country owes me, Liza, but I will get Dad to your wedding!”

“Thanks,” I squeaked out between breaths.

She hung up and I turned the board back around. I didn’t want Maury to see it. I knew what was coming. I sat on the floor of the office, put my head in my hands, and rode the upward wave of the panic attack. In my mind I saw my wedding without my dad, then his funeral because they got to him, his being shot or being blown up. I would be an orphan again. All the images swirled together and drove the panic attack higher, until the images faded out and all that was left was darkness.