BITCH (A Romantic Suspense Novel) (16 page)

Thirty-Two

Erin's phone rang, waking her from the catnap she hadn't quite stopped taking for the past several hours. What was the point of not resting? She had nowhere to be. Still suspended. She'd probably remain on paid suspension until Internal Affairs finished looking into the shooting.

It was Roy.

"Russo."

"Erin, I'm so sorry."

She didn't like that. She'd been the one being a bitch, not him. He hadn't done anything wrong. Which meant that as much as she didn't want to think it, he wasn't that kind of sorry. Not the kind of 'please forgive me' sorry, anyways. He was the kind of sorry that people are when you find out you've got cancer, or when you find out someone's house burned down.

"What happened?"

"I've got a guy coming over with plane tickets right now, on the Bureau."

"Tell me what happened, Schafer, or I'm not going anywhere."

"It's about your father."

"Dad? What about him?"

"I think it would be more appropriate to do this in person."

"No, you'll tell me now."

"It's our guy. He got your father."

"What?"

"Your father's dead."

She didn't expect the news to hurt the way it did. She'd spent the last ten years hating him, and that was after a slow buildup of bitterness that had begun almost as soon as they reached the west coast. It was inevitable that he was going to leave them as soon as he set foot on California soil and crinkled up his face at the smell. Everything after that had been… denouement.

But it still hit her. She was thankful for having answered the phone in bed. Her body slumped down further into the corner where the mattress met the headboard.

"You're sure it's him?"

"It fits, as much as it can. Seven wounds. But, uh… it's ugly."

"What is that supposed to mean? They're all ugly, Roy."

"Look, the details aren't important. Just take the plane tickets from Agent Creed, and I'll see you in a little while. And Erin?"

"What?"

"Pack for cold."

She said goodbye and hung up the phone, then rubbed her face to get the last bits of sleepiness out. She grabbed her suitcase and dumped it out on the hotel room floor. She'd need to get back to the apartment before she could leave, but she had to wait for this F.B.I. guy to get here with the tickets.

A knock came at the door, and she opened it automatically, not bothering to look at the guy. She had unpacked just enough that it was going to be a hassle. She heard him step inside behind her as she grabbed her shampoo off the rack.

"Hey, babe."

She froze. There was no way for him to know where she was staying. She'd even parked the Jeep on the far end of the parking lot. How had he gotten her room number? How had he gotten any of it?

"Craig. I thought you were going to be out of town a few days?"

"I took care of it faster than expected," he murmured. "This is a nice place."

"Yeah, sure, I guess."

"What are you paying to stay here? You like it?"

"I dunno, insurance is paying the whole thing. It's fine, I guess."

"Insurance? No shit."

She came back out with a baggie full of bathroom sundries. "I'm sorry, Craig, but this isn't a good time."

"Is everything okay?" He looked concerned, or as concerned as he could look. Something about him painted every expression with a tinge of dark sarcasm.

"Family stuff."

"Yeah? What happened?"

"My father's sick."

"Oh yeah? Is it serious?"

"He might not wake up again."

"That's a damn shame," he said softly. She grabbed her empty suitcase and shoved her toiletries bag into it, zipped it up and started moving. It would hurt to have to pay for the plane tickets, but it would hurt that much more to have Craig see her meeting with F.B.I.

"Not really, but I figure with Becca being—" she stopped herself. "Nobody's seen her, you know? So someone needs to go check on the old man."

"Oh, for sure. I get you."

He followed her close behind as she left the room locked behind her. With luck they wouldn't decide to throw her out before she could get back and grab her stuff, but if that was what happened—she hadn't brought anything too important, she hoped.

He stuck close behind her on her way down the hall, into the elevator. The elevators were glass, and let her see as they descended that a man in a charcoal suit was ascending, passing them. Erin let out a breath of relief. That was another bullet dodged, as long as she could get away from Hutchinson at some point, she was free and clear.

The door opened and she stepped out. No time to waste, not any more. She was walking past the reception desk when a man turned. Navy. God dammit. He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Erin Russo?"

She looked at him, looked at Hutchinson, and looked back at him. Trying to burn the message in with just her eyes that now was absolutely not the time for too much information.

"Yes, what's wrong?"

"Uh…" He'd gotten the message, thank God. "I've got the plane ticket you called down for, your boarding pass is right here."

The man handed over a yellow kraft-paper envelope that Erin slipped into her pocket.

"Thank you very much."

"Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine," she said, feigning a smile. Everything was completely fine. Nothing to worry about. At least, she had to let Hutchinson think so, and she had to get him to stop following her as soon as possible.

"Have a nice day, ma'am."

She kept going out the door. Craig followed her, only splitting off a few feet before she got to her Jeep. He'd parked in the striped No-Parking zone beside her, slung one leg over the bike and kicked it to life as she slid into the Jeep.

"Maybe later?" She called to him over the sound of his too-loud engine.

He nodded, and took off. She took off a little way behind.

She took the drive to her apartment faster than she'd have liked. Someone was following her. No, that wasn't totally accurate. At least two someones were following her. The government car was harder to place than Roy's.

Then again, they seemed to be trying to stop her from noticing. They were taking it smart, switching cars. But she knew in her gut, and when she saw the same two cars again, she knew outside her gut, too.

The other was less subtle, but further back. Maybe if Craig hadn't put her on edge, she wouldn't have noticed it, but without a doubt, there was someone else following her, as well. If she had noticed the government cars, then she had to assume they had as well. Which meant that things were about to get very messy indeed.

She got into the apartment, pulled aside the police tape, and stepped through the door. She packed light and packed for cold and was back out the door in thirty minutes. And just like clockwork, within two turns of leaving the apartment, two cars were following her.

She lost them in the chaos of L.A.X.

She wasn't stupid enough to assume that meant they had lost her, though. That would have been a big mistake, and as much as she made big mistakes, she wasn't going to make that one. Not when things were as ugly as they seemed to be now.

She wasn't going to calm down until they touched down in Minneapolis, and then she was going to have something else to worry about.

Thirty-Three

The touchdown was more exciting than the plane ride, and it went completely as-expected. It was almost strange to feel so panicked for nearly two hours, knowing for sure that someone was following you, and then to be free and clear. It felt no different than her ears popping as the cabin started to lose pressure on the plane's ascent. As if she were reacclimating to a whole different environment.

In some ways, she thought, she was. This wasn't her world. This wasn't L.A. any more. For the second time, she was in deeper than she had any desire to ever be. Now she was out of her jurisdiction—not that it mattered, with her badge confiscated—and more than that, she was in Dad's territory. This was his place, and it was the number one reason that she had promised herself she would never come back here.

But here she was, now that the old man was dead. Here to investigate another murder that broke the pattern. They'd gotten nine women. Nine younger women, aged between sixteen and twenty-six. Why on earth would the person responsible for those murders commit a tenth on an old man? It broke the pattern so wildly that it made no sense.

More than that, their work up to this point had been in L.A. this year. The others hadn't moved around, not this fast. Why now? Why her father, who never hurt anyone but his daughters and the wife who was beyond getting hurt again?

A man in a suit had a paper with her name on it. She introduced herself to him, and he flashed her an F.B.I. badge before motioning for her to follow.

Erin felt strange walking behind him. The cold wind blew hard, but she barely felt it through the heavy down coat. Her body wouldn't move right, though, with all the fabric in the way. Who chose to live like this? Who wanted to live in a place where this kind of weather existed?

Dad had, evidently. He'd hated everything about California from the first minute. How had Becca liked it? Had she preferred the cold to the L.A. heat? There was no way to know. Not any more, anyway, not now that Becca had been taken from her.

They still hadn't released the body, and it was getting to be past the point where she should have been sent back to Minnesota for her funeral. The damned investigation was keeping them from giving the body back to her friends and her family. Then again, Becca didn't have much family left. Just Erin, and after so many years without a word, without a call or a text or an e-mail, how could they really be called family?

Erin blew into her gloved hands, as if she could warm them up even more. She didn't even feel the breath through them, but she slipped into the passenger seat of the government car.

"What's the situation?"

"I'm not supposed to say. I think that Agent Schafer will bring you up to speed when we get there."

Erin hadn't been in Minneapolis for near twenty years, and she'd never seen the old man's house, but it wasn't hard to follow the route to his place anyways. The place reminded her of when she was just a little girl, and though many things had changed, the feel of the place was how she remembered it. Cold, mostly. Friendly, but not too friendly. Strange memories for a girl to have, but she couldn't get rid of them.

They pulled up in front of a one-story house that was smaller than a bread-box and Erin got out. There was one large-ish window in the front. Enough to seem luxurious compared to the rest of the house, but the window over her bed was larger.

There were three government cars outside, none of them cars she recognized, but then again she knew they didn't bring their own cars with them. They'd be returned whenever the agents inside returned to L.A.

She followed the suit inside and walked into a world she didn't want to be in. Roy met them at the door and put one un-gloved hand on her shoulder, looked her deep in the eyes.

"Erin, are you going to be alright?"

She furrowed her brow at the question. Alright? Why wouldn't she be alright? She nodded just in time to take a look around, a look at the pictures on the wall. There were photos on near every wall, and they were of her face, staring back at her. It took her a minute to register that they might have been Becca's, some of them.

Others, she remembered taking. There was her senior high school photo, right beside Becca's. She remembered that time. Mom had been sliding already. Dad had just moved. Broke them up between junior and senior years. Becca's clothes looked like they barely fit her. She looked tired, ragged, worn out, even though it had only been a few months since they'd seen each other. They barely looked anything alike, when normally you couldn't tell them apart.

The divide only grew wider as the photos got older. Nothing more recent than five years or so. It gave Erin some hope that things had gotten turned around, but what she was seeing hit her hard in the gut. This was what life was for them, huh? What a fuck up.

She took a breath. She couldn't let it upset her, as much as it was going to upset her in either case. She needed to keep her head level.

"I'm fine," she said in response to Roy's concerned look.

He handed her a pair of rubber gloves and fitted a pair onto his own hands as they walked back.

"We found him in the back."

She followed Roy past the bathroom. There couldn't have been more than four rooms in the whole place, no basement in evidence. The place was about as tiny as anyone could find, anywhere. Erin took a breath as he stepped through the door and braced for impact.

The floor seemed to fall out from under her feet when she stepped through and the room held no evidence of her father's body except for a wicker rocking chair, stained red. There was violence in the room, though. 'Signs of a struggle,' she thought to herself. Trying to maintain her distance as best she could.

A record player on the floor. A speaker system with the front panel kicked in. A second chair, overturned. The blood was all over the room, but in the end the darkest spot was the chair.

"We found him there. In the chair."

"He would have fought back."

"And the room suggests he did," Roy agreed. "But local P.D. found him sitting up in that chair."

"Do we have a time of death?"

"They caught it pretty soon after the guy left. One of the neighbors called, said he heard some loud noises like a fight, saw someone run off, and went over to check on your father."

"Why am I here?"

"I'm getting to that," he said. "She didn't get an answer, called the cops—witness says that the murder took place at around 2:53 in the afternoon, yesterday. Medical examiner's estimate essentially matches that timeline."

"Okay."

"I want to understand why he did this, just as much as you do, Erin. Which means we have to ask the important questions, don't you agree?" She agreed, though she didn't like the discussion one bit. "Which means we need to understand why they would kill a fifty-six year old man who, by all accounts, rarely left the house. Every other murder was in public, young, women. Now we've got a man who looked to rarely go further than the front couch, and he's dead in his house."

"I don't know what to say."

"I know you don't. But we need someone who knows more than we do, or we lose the biggest opportunity we're going to have to catch this guy."