Deadly Obsession (A Brown and de Luca Novel Book 4) (5 page)

“What did you want to do that for?” Mason asked.

Rouse lifted his head slowly, met Mason’s eyes. I closed mine and tried to open my brain. To
feel
him. He said, “To thank you. You saved my kids’ lives. Damn near got yourself killed doing it, the way they’re telling it.” His gaze drifted to Mason’s arm as he said it. Some of the bandages showed from under his shirt sleeve.

Mason turned away. He wasn’t good at accepting praise. “I just wish I could’ve gotten your wife out, too.”

“So do I.” Rouse’s voice thickened on those words, and I shivered a little. I picked up heartbreak. Grief. Anger. Regret. Huge regret. Waves of it that made it hard for him to breathe. “I didn’t set that fire, Detective.”

Mason shot me a look. I felt it, but I couldn’t let myself be distracted just then. I sipped my coffee. Let them think what they would about my closed eyes. Did I fucking care what an asshole who’d probably killed his wife and tried to kill his own kids thought about me? What do you think?

“I read your statement.” Mason was scary when he was in cop mode. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he knew everything and could prove it already.

“I didn’t tell them everything in that statement,” Rouse said. “I didn’t want to make myself look more guilty. But then they found that hacksaw in my truck and arrested me. My lawyer’s telling me to keep quiet, but I can’t. I just can’t anymore. She’ll kill me, too, before she’s done. And the kids. God, the kids...”

“Who are you talking about?” My eyes popped open as I asked the question. His tone, his fear, completely pulled me out of my focus. But not before I got that his fear was genuine. That didn’t mean it was based on anything real. But it did mean that
he
believed what he was saying.

“I had an affair. That’s why Becky took the kids and moved into that freaking dump.”

I shot Mason a wide-eyed look. This was the first I was hearing about an affair, and from the look on his face, it was news to him, too.

Mason nodded, taking a notepad from a pocket. “So you had an affair. What does that have to do with the fire?”

“It was her—don’t you get it? I told her it was over, that I wanted my family back. The fire was her revenge.”

I felt my spinal fluid turning to ice.

“This woman have a name?” Mason asked.

“The one she gave me was Noelle Baker.”

“What do you mean, the one she gave you?”

“I don’t think it was real.”

“Why not, Peter?” Mason was so good at this, I thought. Using his first name. Being his pal.

“I’ve been trying to contact her ever since that night.” He shook his head. “Everything she told me was a lie. She said she had an apartment in Johnson City, on Bleeker. But I’ve been to every building on the street, and no one’s ever heard of her. She said she worked at Zales, you know the jewelry store at the mall?”

“Oakdale Mall?” Mason asked.

“Yeah. I called them, too. But no one there ever heard the name, either. And her cell’s no longer in service.”

My head was spinning as I tried to sort out what he was saying from the emotions he was emitting. It wasn’t easy. It was better when I could keep quiet, close my eyes and just feel, but I’d let myself get sucked into his story.

“Okay, so you had an affair with this woman. Noelle Baker. Your wife found out and—”

“She didn’t just find out, Noelle fucking told her. Called her at home and ruined my life with a single sentence.” He shook his head, his mouth pulling into a tight grimace, tears welling up and spilling over. “I’d tried to end it with her. I knew it was a mistake. I loved my wife. Noelle was furious. She said she’d make me pay. And that night she called Becky and told her about us.”

I wanted to say it wasn’t the other woman who’d destroyed his marriage but his own idiotic inability to keep his junk in his pants. But I didn’t because I could feel his suffering, and it was already plenty. I couldn’t make the guy feel worse than he already did, and I found I didn’t particularly want to.

Maybe I was going soft.

“She thought I’d come back to her once Becky left me,” he went on. “She came over here, pawing all over me. I told her there was no way in hell.” He closed his eyes. The lashes were wet. “She was like a crazy person. Screaming at me, tearing up the house.”

“So you think she started the fire out of vengeance?” I asked before Mason could get a word in.

“I don’t
think
it. I
know
it. No one else had any reason.” He looked from me to Mason and back again. “And then she put that hacksaw into my truck. It’s not mine. I never saw it before.”

“Do you
have
a hacksaw?” Mason asked.

“Yeah. It’s out in the garage. You want to see it?”

Mason nodded, and we headed out together.

4

“D
id you notice what I noticed out in the garage?” Mason asked an hour later.

We were sitting at our favorite spot in the park, eating takeout we’d grabbed from the Spiedie and Rib Pit on Front Street and watching the Susquehanna River roll by. It was hot already, pushing up toward ninety, and I was glad I’d dressed in layers earlier because that meant I could remove them as needed. I was down to my tank top and sitting on the shady side of the picnic table because I hadn’t brought any sunblock.

Mason sat in the shade, too, but he kept his sunglasses on. He looked hot in those solid black shades.

“What did you notice?” I asked, once I reminded myself of the question.

“His tools. All the same brand. Snap-on. Expensive.”

I didn’t know Snap-on tools from strap-on tools, which is why I was just a classic-car buff and not a true motorhead. “So?”

“So guys are the same way with tools that they are with cars. They have their brands. That’s what they buy. You’ll never catch a Chevy guy driving a Ford.”

“You’re a Chevy guy. But you’ve driven my Ford.”

“Owning. I should’ve said owning, not driving.”

“So your point is?”

“The hacksaw we found in the back of Rouse’s truck was made by Craftsman.”

I blinked at him. “Do you know that you’re a fucking genius?”

He smiled. “Yes, I was aware of it, but thanks for recognizing it, too.”

I rolled my eyes at him and handed another bite of my lunch down to Myrtle, who was lying on the cool grass, in full shade, and panting anyway.

“What did you sense from Peter Rouse?” Mason asked.

I nodded slowly as I chewed, took a swig of Diet Coke to wash it down. “He’s a bundle of emotions, all of them intense, but I didn’t get the liar alarm going off, other than when he kept insisting the kids were there so you’d be less inclined to kick his ass.”

He nodded. “So you think he was telling the truth? About this...Noelle Baker?”

I reviewed my mental data. Inconclusive. “Maybe. But there was so much guilt coming out of him I can’t be sure. Seems like a stretch that his mistress would kill his wife just to have him all to herself, doesn’t it? I mean, he’s not the kind of guy who seems likely to inspire that kind of devotion.”

“Obsession. Not devotion. Very different things.”

“If you say so.”

“So we’re looking for a Caucasian female of about five foot two with curly brown hair and blue eyes.”

“Or a bottle of hair dye and a pair of tinted contacts,” I said. “We women...we’re like chameleons.” I sucked on my Diet Coke, even though it was all gone and I was just draining the ice cubes of their life’s blood.

“Is that so? Then how is it you never change?”

My brows arched up like hissing cats. I leaned back and set my empty cup down, eyeing him. “Is that a
complaint
?”

“No,” he denied too emphatically.

My jaw dropped. “It
was.
It was a complaint. You’re getting bored with me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Rachel. I am
not
getting bored with you.”

“I’ve only had my eyesight back for less than a year, you know. Jesus, I’ve only recently mastered the art of hair and makeup at all. If I go switching it up, I’m gonna have to start all over again.”

“Rachel, I’m
not
complaining.”

“Fuck you, Mason. Why don’t you go do something wildly different with your appearance, huh? You don’t hear me bitching that you never change it up.”

“Rache...”

“Don’t give me that warning tone you use on the boys, either.” I got up. “Come on, Myrtle. We’re going home.”

I was overreacting. I knew that while I was doing it, and I knew why, too. He’d told me about the new nurse who’d shown up at his door that morning, and that he’d gone ahead and hired her already without even asking what I thought. He’d called her on the way here, he said. Liked her initiative, he said. She was cheerful and sunny, and the boys thought she was great, too, he said.

It was my goddamn place to take care of him while he healed, and I was still stinging from him not wanting to move into my place to let me do that. I was starting to feel like this thing between us was getting a little shaky, and I knew it might be my own fault for not saying the L word back to him when he’d said it to me. And
that
pissed me off even more.

Of course, I wasn’t going to admit any of that to him. I tossed my soda cup into a nearby trash can, took my dog by her ludicrous leash (she didn’t need it, but it was the law) and stomped down the sidewalk toward my car.

Worst of all...he didn’t even try to stop me.

Well, shit.

He wanted a change, then I’d give him a change. I took Myrtle with me and headed out of town, going south, not north toward home, to the high-end salon where my sister liked to take me for mani-pedis.

They knew me there, though I didn’t frequent the place very often. I mean, you know, my hair is long and, aside from the odd trim, it doesn’t need much fussing. Still, they knew me, and I’d brought Myrtle along before. Never a problem.

So we sailed in through the front door, and everyone stopped what they were doing and looked our way. I swept the room, but wasn’t really looking at anyone. Instead I was using my inner radar to give each individual a brief read before I settled on the cute male stylist with the gel-stiff Mohawk and the to-die-for eyelashes, and said, “I need a change.”

“Oh, baby, you’ve come to the right place,” he said, and he patted his chair.

* * *

Mason didn’t know what to make of Rachel stomping off, so he let her go. Then he put in a call to Rosie, left a message on his voice mail and headed back to the house, along with a big container of spiedie chicken (aka chicken breast in bite-size pieces, marinated in Binghamton’s famous spiedie sauce) for the boys for lunch. He was a little bit pissed at Rachel. He’d wanted to talk to her about the boys and Josh missing Myrtle so much, and the puppy idea, and Jeremy’s impending graduation and...well, he’d just wanted to talk to her.

But she was in a snit, and he figured he’d done something, though he wasn’t sure what. He hoped to hell this wasn’t the beginning of the end. Hell, he’d better fix this. He didn’t want to lose her. But he was damned if he knew what to do because he wasn’t sure where he’d gone wrong.

Rosie called him back before he made it home. “Hey, partner. How’s the rest and relaxation goin’?”

Mason said, “Right. Listen, I talked to Peter Rouse this morning, and—”

“You did
what
?”

“You heard me, Rosie. Now listen, he says he was sleeping with a woman who went all
Fatal Attraction
on him when he tried to dump her. He says he thinks she’s the one who set the fire, then planted the hacksaw in his truck to frame him.”

“Mason, you’re supposed to be staying
away
from this case.”

“Will you quit changing the subject? The forensics report on the hacksaw said ‘incomplete’ when I read it before. Have they found anything else since?”

Rosie sighed. “I’m gonna call Rachel on your white ass.”

“Rachel’s pissed at my white ass right now, so it wouldn’t help. Now, will you tell me what Forensics says about the hacksaw?”

“Cantone will have my ass if—”

“Rosie, how long have we been partners?”

Silence stretched out, and then Rosie finally sighed into the phone. “A few metal fibers not inconsistent with the pipe that was cut at the crime scene, but you already knew that. There was also a human hair on the handle. No DNA. It broke off too far from the root, but it was long, curly and brunette. Rebecca Rouse was a redhead.”

“That fits. Rouse said the other woman was a brunette,” Mason said.

“That story sounds like something a guy caught red-handed would make up to cover his ass, Mace.”

“I know. I know it does. But listen, all the guy’s other tools are Snap-on, Rosie. The hacksaw was a Craftsman.”

“That’s not exactly proof of innocence, but...you’re sayin’ you believe him?”

Mason sighed. Rosie didn’t even change his own oil. He wouldn’t get it any more than Rachel had at first. But he had something his partner
would
understand. “Rachel thinks he was telling the truth.”

“She was with you, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“But she’s not there now?”

“Nope.”

“So what did you do to piss her off?”

“Damned if I know, bro.”

“You thank her?”

“For...?”

“Shit, Mason, you really have to ask? She came to that hospital every day. Brought her work with her. Took in your boys. You telling me you haven’t thanked her?”

“Well, of course I
thanked
her.”

“You buy her a present? Flowers? Anything?”

“Jeez, Rosie, I’ve only been home a day.”

“Gwen says you oughtta pin a medal on her. But flowers would be just as good. Or somethin’ sweet. Maybe take her out. She’s been workin’ hard for you and those boys, partner.”

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll try that.”

“Not today, though. Your first day home, you better damn well be getting some rest so you can get back to work. Just let her know it’s coming. You read me?”

“Loud and clear, partner. Loud and clear.”

* * *

I stared in the mirror at my brand-new bangs for a solid half hour. Myrtle kept bumping me in the calves with her head. She wanted her dinner. She wanted a walk. She wanted my attention. But instead of attending to her needs as I normally would, many and endless though they were, I was standing still, and she probably couldn’t fathom why.

She bumped me again, harder.

“All right, all right. Let me just—” I tweaked the bangs with my fingers, trying to decide if I loved them or hated them, and still couldn’t make up my mind. They changed my entire face, that was for sure.

Bump!

“Okay, Myrt.” I turned away from my apparently hypnotic reflection, bent low and rubbed her face with both hands. “I’m sorry I was ignoring you. You only just lost your best friend, and I should be showering you with affection, not primping in the mirror. If I were you, I’d bite me.”

But she was too busy closing her eyes tight and letting me rub her wrinkly face.

“Come on, dinnertime.”

She raced down the stairs at the word
dinner
, stopping at the bottom to turn and bark up at me in a high-pitched yip that was more suited to a toy poodle than an overweight bulldog.

I hurried to catch up and get her meal in front of her. Then I stood staring into the fridge the same way I’d been staring into the mirror. Myrt was wolfing her meal. But nothing looked good to me.

The phone rang. Sighing, I closed the fridge and picked up the call. “Yeah?”

“Well, that sounds morose,” Mason said. “Somebody kick your dog?”

“Had a fight with my guy,” I said. “It was mostly my fault.”

“Mostly?”

“Watch yourself, Detective.”

I felt his smile right through the phone lines. “Come over tonight. I have a surprise for the boys, and I want you and Myrt to be here when I spring it.”

I looked down at Myrt. She’d inhaled her food in about 2.3 seconds and was looking up at me as if asking “where’s the rest?”

“Okay,” I said. “Myrt’s missing the hell outta Josh.”

“He’s missing her right back. But I have a solution. See you in a little while, okay?”

He sounded excited. “Okay,” I said, and he hung up before I could ask any questions.

So what was I supposed to think? What solution
had he come up with for the problem of Joshua and Myrtle missing each other? Had he decided to stay at my place after all? I decided it was fine with me either way. I was done being hurt by his saying no. And I was done being mad at him, too. He hadn’t meant to hurt me. When had the guy ever deliberately done something like that? Never. It wasn’t in him, and I knew it.

He was just male and, therefore, needed extra patience and understanding. Along with very clear instructions.

Shrugging, I said, “Myrt, you want to go see Josh?”

She spun around in a circle, then jumped at me, her front feet landing about knee high on my legs, claws digging right in.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” I grabbed my bag, my keys and Myrt’s goggles on the way to the door, while she danced, barking, beside me. I put her in her seat and buckled her harness, then got into my own, glanced up at the mirror and startled myself.

Oh, shit. I had bangs now. What was Mason going to make of that?

Wow, Rache. You’ve fallen a long way, girl. A long way.

I know, Inner Bitch. But it’s been a helluva ride.

* * *

“You’re here!”

I wasn’t ready for Mason to fling the door open and greet me as if he hadn’t seen me in a month. I was distracted by my dog, who was acting oddly. Sniffing the air and then growling a little.

He hugged me hard, and I hugged him back, and then he let me go and I said, “Something’s wrong with Myrt.”

And he said, “Wow!”

I realized he was staring at my new bangs. I automatically ruffled them with my fingers. “I decided I needed a change. I’m still not sure if I like it.”

“I like it,” he said. “I like it
a lot.
”

I punched him in the shoulder. “Kiss up, much?”

“I was not kissing up.” He stepped aside, and I walked in, Myrt beside me, sniffing all the way. The hair along her backbone was all bristly.

“Has someone new been here?” I asked. “She’s really tensing up.”

“She’ll be okay as soon as she sees Josh,” Mason said.

“Well, where the hell is the little runt? She’s been waiting for like
ever.
”

“I sent him out with Jere to pick up our pizza.”

I wondered if we ate way too much pizza, then decided that was ridiculous, because there was no such thing as too much pizza.

“They’ll be back any minute. Come on, I’ve got to show you first.” He headed into the living room, and I was on his heels. Myrt followed along, but slowly, cautiously, like she was expecting something to jump out of the shadows and attack her at any second. I couldn’t make heads or tails of her tonight.

Mason walked around behind the sofa, crouched down out of sight and then bounced upright again with the culprit in his hands. It was a tiny, wrinkly faced, pink-snouted, fat little puppy. A brown-and-white bulldog puppy, to be specific, and probably the cutest living creature I had ever set eyes on in my entire life.