Don't Be Afraid (27 page)

She turned on as many lights in the house as she could. Her electric bill would skyrocket, but she needed the comfort and security. That done, she poured a glass of wine—not from the bottle that had been sent—and took it with her into the living room.

She curled up in an armchair and called Perry back, relieved when she answered with her usual, strident “Greetings!” Someone like Perry would understand how Amy was feeling. She had the imagination necessary to feel real empathy.

“You should pack your things and come stay with me,” she said when Amy had finished detailing the last few days. “Do it now. Right this minute.”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can. Your job’s flexible enough—”

“Emma’s in the hospital.”

“When she’s recovered then. You said she’d be out in a few days. That gives you time to pack.”

“It’s not just that. This is our home. Emma’s in school.”

“For heaven’s sake, Amy, she’s in kindergarten, not Harvard.”

“I know, but it’s the continuity. She doesn’t need any more disruption. We don’t need that.”

What she didn’t say was that it was also about fulfilling a promise, albeit unspoken, that she’d made to Sheila. She owed it to Sheila to stay, to fight this through and not give in because of fear.

Like Sheila before her, Amy had worked damn hard to get her real estate license, to build the life she’d managed to make for her and Emma in Steerforth. To establish the community they’d managed to establish. If she left now, it would be an insult to Sheila’s memory and what would she have to show for all her hard work? Nothing.

“It’s a very generous offer,” she said to Perry, “but I just can’t accept it.”

“Don’t give a definite no,” Perry said. “The offer’s always good. We can all squeeze into the studio. I’d welcome the company. Anything to take my mind off this dreadful painting.”

“I’m sure it’s not dreadful.”

“The honorable judge looks like a cross between Herman Munster and Bozo the Clown. I have no idea why they gave me this commission, I have no talent whatsoever.”

Amy smiled, taking a sip of wine. This was familiar territory and comforting in its sameness.

“I’m sure it’s lovely.”

“Just wait till you see it.”

Amy hung up the phone feeling better and more relaxed than she had in a while, and resolute enough to attack her dilemma with new vigor.

She’d left a message for Detective Juarez. She wondered if he’d call back at night. Probably not. She could always take the wine and the roses down to the station, but what if that awful Detective Black was there? He’d find some way of turning it around and making it look as if Amy had sent them to herself.

Leaving the comfort of her chair, she fetched a notepad and pen from her office, stepping over piles of photos disrupted by the police to get to them. She settled back in the living room, feet curled under her, and set to work making a list.

The gifts were recorded first and a list of possible givers. Ryan? Paul? She knew that both of them liked her. Perhaps one of the other men from the single parents’ group. Richard? He didn’t seem like the type to send presents, though she could easily picture him trying to mess with her mind by using a creepy pseudonym.

Only how would any of these men know that she liked these things? She couldn’t recall ever talking about her preferences at the single parents’ group and she hadn’t entertained anyone in Steerforth beyond Sheila.

Her brain was fuzzy from the combined effects of stress, fatigue and alcohol, but as she stared idly at the wall, wondering how someone might have found out about her favorites, it suddenly became clear. The truth had been staring her in the face.

She got up from the chair and approached the arrangement of photos hanging on the wall. She’d hung them with Chris some years ago and they’d been gathering dust ever since. Only they weren’t dusty anymore. The glass looked suspiciously bright and when she ran her finger slowly along the top of one of the black frames it came away clean.

There in the center of the arrangement was a photo taken the night she’d graduated from art school. A younger version of herself sitting at a table with Chris, both of them clinking glasses of deep red wine, the bottle clearly visible on the table in the foreground. The same bottle of wine that she’d received as a gift.

Feeling light-headed, she moved slowly toward her bedroom, knowing what she’d find before she got there, but needing to see it, needing to see clearly what she’d missed.

They were where they’d always been on her dresser. A series of her own photos mounted in silver frames of varying shapes and sizes. Different angles, different lighting, but the subject was the same in each. White roses.

The locksmith arrived at Amy Moran’s house just as the fingerprint guys were finishing. The house was coated in fine black powder and the locksmith, an older man with
Herb
embroidered over his work shirt pocket, complained about it as he unloaded his tools.

“This stuff wash out?” he asked Detective Juarez as he knelt beside the back door. “The wife’s not going to be happy if it doesn’t.”

Mark ignored him, having greater concerns than laundry. He’d arrived at the station early, not hungover for the first time in a long while, shirt neatly pressed, tie picked with care, and determined to present a clean and sober image to Lieutenant Farley along with the evidence.

His boss had been quiet for a long time after hearing him out before suddenly demanding, “You got the number for this Detective Shuster?”

From there things had moved so quickly that Mark hadn’t had time to enjoy being vindicated. The lieutenant was talking about forming a serial killer task force when Amy Moran arrived at the station, asking for help because someone had broken into her house.

Only there was no break-in. No visible way that a perp could have gotten access. Juarez and Black had been through every inch of the house and the windows and doors were locked. So how had the perp managed to leave the flowers?

“She must have given someone the key,” Black said in a low voice as he came into the kitchen. He’d sulked when he first learned of the official switch in theories, but after about an hour he’d managed to convince himself that he’d always known it was a serial killer, but just needed hard evidence to prove it and thank God Juarez had finally buckled down and found it.

“I’ve checked every possible way in,” he said, wiping a hand across his forehead and smearing charcoal dust across him in the process. “There’s not so much as a tear in a screen. The perp—if it’s the perp—has got a key.”

“Maybe,” Mark said. He was both nervous and agitated, feeling like a racehorse held at the starting gate and waiting for the bell. He had proof that it wasn’t Amy Moran. He had proof that the same killer had struck before. He only had instinct that the gifts left in Amy’s home and delivered to her office were the work of the killer. He needed something more.

“Feeney’s back to the neighbor’s getting a better description of the man she saw up here,” Black said. For some reason he seemed embarrassed by this, the tips of his ears coloring.

Mark turned his attention to the door where Herb was wrestling to dismantle the existing lock. Beyond the door was the backyard. He stepped out onto the porch, shivering. They were predicting the first frost for the end of the week. It was supposed to be a long winter. He stepped down onto the dry grass and walked toward the swing set. Amy said she’d found something out here—a doll of Emma’s that wasn’t for outside play. She’d blamed Emma for it, but given everything else that she’d discovered, now she wasn’t sure.

It was easy to see how someone could have lurked back here, Mark thought, looking at the relative isolation of the house. It was the smallest house on the block, and while it wasn’t separated by much acreage from its neighbors, the high box hedges and old trees provided a degree of privacy that made it possible to get in and out with little risk of being seen. Unless you had nosy or lonely neighbors. Thank God for the Mrs. Deerborns of the world. They made police work a lot easier.

He walked around the house, trying to put himself in the mind of the killer, imagining what he would do if he wanted to get into the house. There was, as Black had observed, no conceivable way.

 

 

Amy glanced out her office window and saw Detective Juarez standing in her backyard with his arms crossed, staring into space. She’d had enough of police. Less than a week ago they’d trashed her house in search of evidence to arrest her and now they were back trashing her house again in search of evidence to arrest someone else.

Not that she wasn’t glad they’d finally decided she wasn’t the killer, but her nerves were shot. After last night’s scary discovery, she couldn’t sleep in the house. She’d left immediately, driving back to the hospital and sleeping fitfully in a chair next to Emma’s bed.

Before moving to Steerforth her dealings with police were limited to the occasional reprimand from a traffic cop and lifting Emma up to pet the noses of the horses ridden by mounted police in Central Park.
So move back to New York.
She could hear her mother’s voice in her head. With a sigh of frustration, she bent back over the list she was making.

The police wanted a list of every single person that she and Emma knew in Steerforth. Some of those people were on the list she’d given them of Sheila’s friends and acquaintances. This was a list about her. For it was clear that someone was interested in her and that someone was very likely the person who had killed Sheila and Meredith.

She’d been told that the murders in Steerforth were similar to another series of killings in New Jersey, but she didn’t know how. She didn’t want to know, to tell the truth. She was scared and tired and beginning to wonder if sticking this out was really the best course of action.

Just thinking about leaving made her feel defeated, though, and she tried to concentrate on the list. Every single person was quite some list. Emma’s teacher, the school nurse, Father Michael, Ryan, Audrey, Penelope, Paul, Richard, Douglas—it just went on and on. She couldn’t forget Dr. Reddy or the pediatrician. How about the name of the mechanic who’d done the oil change for the Toyota?

In the end, she covered four sheets of lined paper and presented it to Detective Juarez with a wry smile. “I don’t know how useful it will be, but I’ve done my best.”

“Thank you.” He looked it over quickly before folding it and sticking it in his pocket. “It’s more about making connections between both places,” he said. “I’ll try and find out if any of the people you know were in anyway connected to New Jersey at the time of the murders there.”

He said it matter-of-factly, but it made her shiver.

“What else can I do?” she said. “You saw the locksmith, but I can’t get a security system estimate until the middle of next week. And I’m not even sure I’ll be able to afford it.”

“I’d suggest you get a dog, but I guess you can’t because of Emma’s asthma?”

She nodded. “That’s definitely out. Too bad, because she’d love one and I’d definitely feel safer with a dog.”

“The security system’s really your next best option.”

She hesitated. “I’ve considered getting a gun permit.”

“Do you know how to shoot?”

She was gratified he hadn’t laughed. “No, not really. I’ve done it once. But they have classes. I could learn.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it even if you knew how,” he said. “It’s an illusion of safety, but it could easily be used against you.”

“So what else can I do?”

Now it was his turn to hesitate. “Look, Ms. Moran, I don’t want to scare you, but I think there’s only one real option.”

Of course the minute someone said not to feel scared, she felt exactly that. “What is it?”

“You should leave. Go stay with family or friends.”

“I can’t do that,” she said. “Emma’s in the hospital and besides, this is our home, I’ve got to work. I can’t just leave.”

He nodded. “I understand, but you should seriously think about it. We can’t guarantee your safety here.”

Amy nodded, her hands clammy. She couldn’t leave. She’d worked so hard to make this a home. There had to be another way.

“What if we lured the bastard here by using me as the bait?”

“No way,” he said, shaking his head to emphasize it. “It’s too risky. I wouldn’t even consider that at this point.”

“But you would consider it?”

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Look, Ms. Moran, I’ve given you my professional opinion. I think you should leave. We’ll do everything we can to keep you safe here, but I don’t want to see you or your daughter hurt.”

They both knew that in this case
hurt
was a euphemism for
killed
. Amy felt nauseous.

“It’s great to change the locks,” Detective Juarez said, “and it might slow down this bastard. But whoever is doing this killing has fixated on you and that isn’t going to stop.”

 

 

The police were gone by mid-afternoon. The locksmith paid and gone by four. Gray dust and metal shavings covered the rooms and she spent the next hour absorbed in cleaning. She couldn’t bring Emma back to a house this dusty.
You shouldn’t bring Emma back here at all.
The voice in her head sounded a warning, but she pushed against it. Fear could not get the upper hand here. She couldn’t let it.

She’d spend the night at the hospital, that was safer, and then tomorrow she’d think about leaving. With any luck Emma would be discharged and she’d do that one open house and then they’d go. Where? She couldn’t go back to Chris. She couldn’t possibly move in to Perry’s, no matter what she said. The studio wasn’t big enough. Maybe her mother’s. There was definitely room at her childhood home. But just for a short time. Just until they caught the bastard.

That was how she’d come to think of him—a cold, ruthless bastard. The police had taken the roses as evidence, but if they hadn’t she would have shredded them. She felt sick at the thought of how happy she’d been to receive them.

When she’d finished vacuuming it was dusk. The dark came early these days and she shivered at the shadows outside. She hadn’t wanted to be here at night. She hurried to the bedroom and put together a small overnight bag.

She hummed under her breath as she packed, a nervous little tune to fill the silence. She was just about finished when the doorbell rang.

She flinched at the noise.
Bing, bong
. Two tones, high then low, that echoed through the house. Stock-still and terrified, it wasn’t until the noise repeated that she had the courage to move. She ran for the kitchen on shaking legs and jerked open the utensils drawer, pulling out the biggest knife she owned.

She crept to the front door, knife clutched and faintly trembling in her right hand. The outside light was off. She switched it on and pressed her eye to the peephole.

It was Ryan. He was wearing his uniform and carrying a large brown bag. Relief made her feel weak. She swung open the door, hanging onto the frame, and smiled weakly at him.

“Hi.”

“Sorry to drop by unannounced,” he said with a wide smile of his own. “But I thought we could do dinner if you haven’t eaten. Do you like Chinese food?” He held up the bag.

“I was just about to go to the hospital, but dinner first sounds great,” she said, smiling back, so glad to have his company—any company—that she forgot all about holding the knife until she ushered him in with it and he blanched.

“I thought maybe you were—someone else,” she said sheepishly.

“Like who? Norman Bates?” His laugh was nervous.

She explained what had happened while leading the way to the kitchen, where he unpacked the cartons of food and listened to her, really listened, interrupting only to ask relevant questions.

“What are you going to do?” he said when she’d finished and they were sitting across from each other at her kitchen table.

“I going to leave, just for a while, but it’s hard.”

“This is your life—you’ve built it here.”

“Exactly.” She picked at the sesame chicken. “I need stability for Emma and neither choice offers that, but it’s safer to go.”

He nodded. “I think Emma can handle it. She’s tough.”

“I hope so. I don’t know how the school will handle her absence.”

“Kindergarten dropout.” Ryan grinned.

“Do you think it will go on her permanent record?”

They laughed. It felt good to laugh. Amy felt the knot in her stomach ease and then, all at once, she was crying.

“Oh, hey, it’s okay.” Ryan was out of his chair at once. He put his arm around her, while she sniffled and swiped at the tears.

“Sorry, it’s just been a long day.”

“Don’t apologize. You’re under a lot of stress.”

His hand was warm against her shoulders, his voice comfortingly matter-of-fact, and she smiled at him through her tears. He leaned closer and thumbed a tear off her nose and they laughed and then he kissed her.

It was a slight brush against her lips, but it still made her gasp. He pulled back and they looked at each other soberly and then she leaned forward and returned the kiss.

As if by unspoken agreement they moved frantically and without words, kissing harder and harder, pressing their mouths into each other, pressing their bodies together, and then reaching to undress each other with frantic, fumbling hands.

Afterwards, she had no sense of how they got from the kitchen to the bedroom, just that they made it there half-dressed, stripping each other the rest of the way, his hands struggling with her bra, hers fumbling with his belt. He was whispering things to her that she couldn’t comprehend, though she caught snatches of words about her flesh, her smell, her being and knew that he was pleased with her.

They learned each other’s bodies quickly, a frenetic coupling, the pleasant shock of flesh against flesh. It was fast and hard, but then he waited, holding out for her to come before he finished, and when he did, his body falling into hers, his sigh of contentment soothed a place in her that had been scarred.