Hold Back the Dark (21 page)

Elise considered for a moment and then snorted. “She does look a little like a Siamese. Kind of whines like one, too, doesn’t she?”

“Tell her I’m gay,” he said. “Please.”

“Should I tell Aimee Gannon that you’re gay, too? Or does she already have proof that you’re not?” Elise teased.

Josh scowled at her.

“Come on,” she wheedled. “How’d she go from Dr. Gannon to Aimee in one night?”

“We talked. She’s not so bad.” Josh felt the corners of his mouth quirking up, and fought it. Aimee was way better than “not so bad.” She was smart, compassionate, and her legs practically went all the way to her neck.

“Not so bad? Is that some kind of guy euphemism?” Elise pressed.

Josh opted not to answer.

Elise settled back in her seat. “Fine. Be that way, but that’s the last time I spill my guts to you about my love life.”

“Thank God for that,” Josh muttered under his breath.

Forty-five minutes later, he held a set of photos out for the rent-a-cop at the parking garage attached to Aimee’s office. Security at her office was nonexistent. That had become clear pretty quickly. Both Josh and Elise had shaken their heads at each other over the lack of a doorman or anything else. At least the garage had someone walking patrol. “You seen any of these guys around?”

The kid couldn’t be more than twenty years old. He still had acne, for Christ’s sake, and he gulped nervously as he talked to Josh. He wouldn’t make eye contact with Elise at all, and she wasn’t even wearing her Angry Black Woman face this morning.

Chris McBride hitched up his uniform pants and squinted down at the photos. He hesitated only for a moment and then pointed to the photo of Kyle. “I seen him around here a couple times in the past month or so. I kicked him out of one of the stairwells. I didn’t think he was a stalker, though. Maybe a homeless kid or something. He was just sitting there and smoking. You want me to find him on the security tapes? I could probably find him if you give me an hour.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Josh turned to Elise. “You think that will be enough for a warrant for Leal?” Getting a search warrant from that judge was like getting a bone from a dog. It took a hell of a lot of pulling, and you were likely to get bitten a couple of times in the process.

“I sure hope so,” Elise said. “I’m never sure what he wants. A signed confession, maybe?”

“He just likes to watch us squirm, to make us jump through hoops,” Josh groused.

“And what’s with the way he walks?” Elise asked, adjusting her shoulder holster. “It’s like he’s trying to carry quarters between his butt cheeks.”

Josh snorted. “Great. Now I’m going to have that image every time I talk to him. I’ll never be able to keep a straight face.”

Elise smiled. “Then my work here is done.”

So was Chris McBride’s. He came jogging over to where Elise and Josh waited with a VHS tape in his hand. “I got it. I remembered that the day I booted him for smoking in the stairwell was the day I had my tooth pulled. That was why I noticed him. I was kind of sick to my stomach, and the cigarette smell almost made me puke. Anyway, he’s on here.”

“Thanks, man.” Josh clapped the boy on the back and the kid’s chest puffed out like he’d received the Congressional Medal of Honor. “Excellent work.”

“You’re welcome. Anything I can do to help.” Chris paused. “Can I ask what he did?”

“He left a dead dog on a woman’s doorstep,” Elise said.

Josh shot her a look and turned back to Chris. “The guy’s a stalker. This is just what we need to pick him up.”

“I’m glad I could help,” the boy said.

“You thinking about a career in law enforcement?” Josh asked.

The boy flushed. “Yeah. I’m thinking about it.”

Josh pulled a card from his jacket. “Give me a call. I’ll give you some pointers.”

They walked away. When they were out of earshot, Elise finally said, “So you clearly got laid last night.”

Josh shot her a look.

She whistled. “She must be damn good if she can put you in this sweet a mood.”

“Shut up,” he said, unlocking the car and tossing her the keys. “It’s your turn to drive.”

She snatched the keys out of the air without even looking. “Did you just tell me to shut up?”

“I did.”

She shook her head. “Then it
is
serious. You haven’t told me to shut up since Holly.”

Josh got in the car and waited until Elise slid into the driver seat. “Aimee is not Holly.”

“We can thank the good lord for that.” She started the car. “Now let’s go pay a happy Sunday morning visit to Judge Leal.”

W
hen Aimee had gotten home from her run with Simone, there’d been a message from Dr. Brenner. He was ready to allow her access to Taylor again. He was not, however, ready to have Aimee give Taylor the CD that Sean had brought for her. He’d asked if Aimee would bring it to him to listen to first.

“Dr. Gannon to see Dr. Brenner,” she told the woman behind the glassed-in desk.

“Just a moment, please.” The woman buzzed her through after a quick check of the approved visitor list.

“I know my way,” Aimee said, and walked through the atrium to the stairs that led to Brenner’s office.

“Dr. Gannon.” He stood and extended his hand.

She shook it and sat down. “Tell me what’s going on with Taylor.”

He shrugged. “She still hasn’t spoken, but she seems somewhat more responsive. She’s not rocking herself as much and she’s looking at people more. I think she’s making some real progress. I’m going to restrict her visitor’s list to you and the aunt for now. At least until she can tell us a little more about what upset her so much.”

That sounded reasonable. A parade of visitors was too intense for a girl fighting her way out of her emotional pit. She pulled the CD Sean had given her out of her purse. “This is the CD I was telling you about. The young man whose father was Taylor’s father’s business partner wanted me to give it to her.” She handed it over to Brenner.

He flipped it over in his hands. “Aerosmith. That takes you back, doesn’t it?”

Aimee smiled and nodded. She doubted that Brenner had been out of grade school when
Pump
was released; she’d been in high school. “I haven’t listened to it for years. Let me know if you think it’s all right for Taylor to have it.”

“I’ll listen to it in my car on the way home—if I ever get out of here tonight.” He gestured at the piles of papers.

She said good-bye and walked through the corridors to Taylor’s ward. Once again, she was buzzed through and directed to the common room. Taylor was sitting with her aunt.

“Hi, Marian,” Aimee said.

Since it was the weekend, the place was more crowded than usual with family members visiting. These weren’t joyous get-togethers, however. Silent people sat with drawn faces, clumped around tables, their unresponsive or too-animated loved ones chattering at them or ignoring them entirely. Aimee couldn’t see one “normal” family interaction taking place. Of course, if any of these people were capable of “normal,” they probably wouldn’t be here.

Marian Phillips sat with Taylor at the end of one of the long tables. The other end of the table was occupied by an older man in a gray sweat suit. A pale, tense young woman in faded jeans sat next to him. When he reached out to take her hand, she pulled it away and then began to quietly weep.

Aimee wished she could help all of them. She wished she could help them break through the traumas from their pasts that held them apart or made them dependent on alcohol or drugs as a way to cope. But she couldn’t. There was simply too much pain here for one woman to handle.

Aimee focused on Taylor and sat down next to her and Marian.

“Hello, Taylor,” she said.

Taylor said nothing, but did give Aimee a sidelong glance. Marian smiled and gave a little shrug. Aimee set her hand next to Taylor’s on the table, hoping Taylor would take her hand again, as she had when Sean Walter was visiting. She didn’t, but she didn’t move it away, either.

“How are you today?” she asked, but got no answer. Aimee looked over at Marian.

“I think we’re making progress,” Marian answered for Taylor.

“That’s great,” Aimee said. She hoped that some of the things she was going to ask today wouldn’t set Taylor back further, but her instincts said it was time to forge ahead. Taylor had been trying to communicate. Those efforts had frightened her. She needed to be encouraged to move forward.

“Taylor,” Aimee said, placing her hand on Taylor’s back. “I’d like to talk to you about your drawings.”

Josh pounded on Kyle Porter’s apartment door and roared, “Police! Open up!”

The building was an old faded Victorian that had been divided into six tiny apartments. Kyle’s was on the second floor.

Josh’s voice was so loud Elise could see people two doors down the street opening their doors. Her partner’s jaw was clenched and his patience was gone, thanks to Judge Leal.

Leal was a small man, and Josh was nearly six foot three. Call it a Napoleon complex. Call it Short Man Syndrome. Hell, call it George and take it home to meet your mother. She’d seen it too many times. It took a big man on the inside not to be bothered by small stature on the outside. Give a little guy power to wield over a big one, and things could get ugly—which they almost had.

Her own presence hadn’t helped. Elise didn’t know if it was the color of her skin or the fact that she was a woman that made Leal act like she was an idiot, but it wasn’t pretty either way. Elise was used to it. You didn’t go into law enforcement as a woman and not expect some roadblocks. Leal wasn’t the first and he wouldn’t be the last. Sure, it was irritating, but she and Josh had always taken boneheaded tight-assed women-haters in stride.

But not this time. Not Josh.

He pounded on the door again. “You’ve got one minute to open this goddamn door, Porter. Then I’m coming in.”

He glanced at her and nodded. She checked her watch. She’d give him the nod at fifty-five seconds. Josh had at least sixty pounds on her, so he’d kick the door in. Then she’d go in low, he’d go in high, and they’d probably find Kyle Porter in the corner of his closet shitting himself. It had worked that way a hundred times. This case wouldn’t be any different.

Even if everything on her partner’s face said that this time, it was different. It had become personal.

Elise hoped the idiot would open the door. The dude was in there; they’d heard noises inside that stopped after Josh’s first hard knock. Did he honestly think that if he hid, the police would go away?

There were the occasional smart-asses who tried to make a break for it down a fire escape or out a back door. It almost never worked. At this very moment, two uniforms were at the bottom of Kyle’s fire escape and there was no back door. The average police officer might not have a Ph.D., but he wasn’t stupid.

Ten more seconds. Josh glanced at her. He hardly needed a watch; his brain was like a stopwatch. She shrugged. What was five seconds, give or take? She nodded. His foot came up and the door never stood a chance.

It took approximately ten seconds to find Kyle behind a mound of dirty clothes in the closet. And if Elise’s nose wasn’t fooling her, he had shit himself.

She looked down at the sniveling man and said, “You are
so
not riding in my car.”

Taylor had started to rock herself again. Marian Phillips licked her lips nervously. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this, Aimee. Maybe it’s too soon.”

Aimee shook her head, still keeping her hand on Taylor’s back. “I don’t think so. I know this is going to be difficult for Taylor, but I think if we can get through this together, Taylor can really start to heal.”

Marian shifted in her chair uncomfortably. “If you really think so.”

“I do, Marian. I think her drawings convey something she wants to tell us about it, but saying it out loud is too hard. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to figure out what it is. She’s going to have help us a little bit more.”

Aimee could feel Taylor begin to tremble. She gave Taylor’s back a reassuring pat, then pulled out the drawings from her briefcase and spread them out on the table.

Taylor began to rock faster.

“All of these are drawings that you’ve made since you came to Whispering Pines,” Aimee said, keeping her voice calm. “Can you tell me what they mean, Taylor?”

Taylor continued to rock.

“What about the drawing you did back in my office, Taylor? The one I brought the other day?”

Taylor began to whimper. The man at the other end of their table and his daughter looked up at them.

“It’s okay, Taylor. You’re safe here. You can tell me what the drawings mean to you. You can tell me if what happened to your parents is connected to what happened to you.”

Taylor covered her face with her hands and began to cry. Marian Phillips got up from her chair and wrapped her arms around the girl.

Aimee kept her gaze firmly on Taylor as conversations around them came to a halt. “I know they mean something important, Taylor. You wouldn’t keep drawing them otherwise. You certainly wouldn’t have drawn them on the wall if they didn’t mean something to you. Or if you didn’t want us to notice them. I think you
want
us to know what they mean. I’ve tried to figure it out, but I can’t. I need you to help me, Taylor. Please. I need you to help me help
you.”

A horrible noise came out of Taylor’s throat, between a wail and a howl. Everyone else in the common room was looking at Taylor and Aimee and Marian as they huddled around Taylor’s drawings. Over in the corner, a hollow-eyed woman began to bang her head against the wall.

“Taylor, were you trying to use these drawings to tell me about something or someone that hurt you?” A nurse came into the room and started toward Taylor and Aimee; Aimee held her hand up like a traffic cop to hold her at bay. “Did someone do something to you, Taylor? A long time ago? Back when you first moved to California? Did that same person hurt your parents, Taylor?”

Taylor shoved Marian away from her, knocking her onto the floor. She grabbed the drawings from the table and tore at them. Her eyes were wide and wild, spittle flung from her mouth, and she continued to emit a terrible anguished cry like a wounded animal.

Aimee’s restraining hand was no longer enough to keep the nurse at bay. She grabbed Taylor. Two orderlies were right behind her. They hustled Taylor out of the room, leaving Marian and Aimee facing each other over the torn bits of paper.

“How could you?” Marian whispered, her face a mask of horror. “How could you have done that to her? She was getting better.”

Aimee reached her hand out to Marian. “It needed to come out, Marian. It’s like a splinter that’s festering. It hurts, but it has to come out before Taylor can start to heal.”

“She wasn’t ready.” Marian shook her head. “She needed more time.”

“There
isn’t
a lot more time. This is all connected, Marian. Someone out there has hurt your family. Someone out there did something terrible to Taylor, and I think that same person might have murdered your sister and your brother-in-law. Taylor knows who did this, Marian. She
knows
. Don’t you want to find who did this and punish them?”

“Do you think that will bring my sister back to me?” Marian’s voice began to grow loud now. “Do you think pushing Taylor until she ends up nothing but a drooling vegetable will make me feel better?”

Aimee briefly shut her eyes. “No. I know that it won’t. I also know that this has to be done—and the sooner the better.”

“Why? Hasn’t that poor child suffered enough?” Marian’s hands balled into fists. “Get out of here, Dr. Gannon. And don’t come back.”

“I’m not the sicko.” Kyle looked down at his hands, cuffed in front of him on the table of the interrogation room. “I’m not the one with the problem.”

Josh worked to keep his own hands by his side and off of Kyle Porter’s throat.

“Really,” Elise said. “You leave a dead dog on a nice lady’s doorstep and you don’t think you have a problem?”

“I didn’t
want
to do that, but I needed to warn Aimee. I needed to send her a message.” Kyle smiled at Elise.

“Well, you sent it all right. Now we’re going to send you away again.” Elise smiled back.

Kyle paled. “No. That’s not fair. I’m trying to protect Aimee. I’m telling you, I’m not the sicko. I didn’t kill that puppy. I didn’t bury it. I
un
buried it. I brought it into the open so she could see it. She needed to
know.”

“So who is the sicko, Kyle?” Josh sat down next to Elise, across the table from Kyle. “Who were you trying to warn Aimee about? Who killed the puppy and buried it?”

Kyle glared at Josh. “I’m not telling you anything.”

Elise said, “Tell me. Who were you trying to warn Aimee about? If you give us a name, we’ll give her your message.”

Kyle’s mouth twisted down. “This doesn’t involve you. This is between Aimee and me.”

“Dr. Gannon is not your girlfriend,” Josh said. “She was your doctor, and she’s not even that anymore. You’re too screwed up for even your psychologist, Kyle.”

Kyle’s jaw clenched. “That’s not true.”

“I’m pretty sure it is, Kyle.” Josh cocked his head to one side and smiled. “I’m pretty sure she made that clear to the whole world when she testified against you at your trial.”

“They made her do that,” Kyle screamed, up out of his chair, leaning across the table.

Josh leaned forward slowly. “Sit down, Kyle. You’re not going anywhere. Nobody made her testify against you. She wanted to. She couldn’t wait to tell them what a sicko you were. I bet she even laughed about it later.”

Kyle sat down, his whole body trembling now. “She didn’t laugh.”

Josh shrugged. “Maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t. Personally, I think it’s kind of funny.”

Kyle’s chin quivered. “What’s so funny about it?”

Josh leaned back. “That a twisted little psycho like you could think that someone like Dr. Gannon would think of you as anything but a boring case to be tolerated. That’s funny.”

“I was more than that. I
am
more than that! She loves me—I know she does. We were meant to be together. She just hasn’t seen it yet. I can show her, though. I can!” Spittle flew from his lips as he shrieked at Josh.

“By leaving her dead dogs?” Josh laughed. “It wasn’t even your dog, was it?”