Kiss Me Awake (3 page)

Their case against William Gale was shriveling up at the edges. She needed Ray to be who he said he was. Without him, everything she had on Gale was worthless.

She’d put in nearly two years of her life on this, and the proof of her labors were stacked and separated in piles on her desk. The photos, the tape, and the documents she had accrued
were enough to put an ordinary man away for a long time. But this was no ordinary man.

All she needed was one warrant, and she would have access to everything, including Gale’s private records. She was looking for something specific, but would it even be there? Her heart skipped a beat at the thought, the possibility thrilling and frightening her at the same time.

Theoretically, a mere two hours ago she’d been one step closer to having it in her hands, but in the midst of her pending victory fear still taunted. What if she was disappointed? Or worse, what if
she
was the disappointment?

Jaida took another sip of tea. Stiff and cold, her fingers tightened on the glass. With no new leads, it looked like she would never know the answer to those questions.

She traced her finger in a circle over the moisture on the windowpane.
Zero.
That’s how many options she had left, and if she didn’t come up with a new strategy to keep herself in the game, everything would be lost.  

She set her glass on the end table, whisked the blue jacquard drapes across the rod then sank into the softness of the leather couch. The cushions yielded under her weight, cradling her like a baby. Her whole body sighed. It had been one long twelve-hour day, and the only thing she had to show for it was her throbbing feet…and Mac’s telephone number. The corner of her mouth lifted on that last thought and her eyes slid closed.

What if they were wrong? What if Ray’s call wasn’t a hoax? She was grasping at the wind, but what if, in her persistence, she managed to catch it? There had to be some legitimacy because everything he’d told her was spot on.

Was he a psychic? She half laughed at the notion. Now that
would
be a hoax because she didn’t buy into the paranormal.

Ray had Gale’s private number, and he quoted it as if he dialed it often. In their brief telephone conversation, he’d casually made light of Gale’s fondness for unusually young women, and
Cognac-infused cigars. But it was his subtle remarks on the Dennison murder that sold her. No one could guess at those details and be accurate. No one was that good.

His standing her up just didn’t make any sense. She tugged her boots off, each one hitting the floor with a dull t
hud. She leaned back and tucked a throw pillow behind her. If Ray was the real deal he would be calling back.

As if on cue t
he phone rang, but it was the landline. She closed her eyes and ignored it. The machine could get it. Her number was unlisted, and Ray only had access to her through Baseel. Anyone else could wait until tomorrow.

The answering machine came on after the third ring. “Hey Jaida, it’s me.” Auggie cleared his throat. “As of tonight, we’re calling it quits on Gale.”

No!
She jumped up. He was going to ruin everything.

“We have what we have,” he continued. “Let’s just turn it over and be done with it.”

Jaida yanked the receiver from the base, an electronic screech piercing the air. “You can’t do this to me, Auggie.”

He sighed that same heavy sigh when he was annoyed with her. “Jaida, we’re already breaking under a heavy caseload. We’re just spinning our tires on this one.”

“Just, don’t be so quick on this.”

“Quick? Do you know how much time and money we’ve already put into this investigation?”

“Can’t we just take the weekend to get some perspective?” she asked. “Besides, what if Ray calls back?”

When he didn’t respond, she said, “We’re getting close, I know it.” It was a lie, but what else could she say?

“What difference is two days going to make?” he asked.

“Like I said, maybe Ray will call back. He may still intend to work with us. Maybe he was sick, or delayed.” Maybe she left the
bar too soon. There were a number of circumstances that could have detained him. Including Gale.

“That’s an awful lot of maybes, Jaida. How about offering me something concrete?”

She pressed a hand to her forehead, defeat sinking her. “What do you want me to say?” If she had anything concrete she wouldn’t be wasting the last hour of her day begging for more time. 

“Do you know what I honestly think? There
is
no Ray. This is just another wild goose chase that Gale concocted to throw us off.”

The last of her hope withered. That would explain his intimate knowledge of the murder. She ran the concept over in her head before shaking it. “It’s not true.” It couldn’t be true. “This is too important to me,” she said, the pitch of her voice rising.

“Why? Why is this case any different than the others?”

She pressed a hand to her mouth, wishing she could take it all back. If she told him why, he would pull her from the case.

“Jaida?”

“It’s…it’s…he’s not any different.”

“I know what he did to you, but you can’t risk the credibility of the agency for revenge. Besides, you came out clean in the investigation.”

“This isn’t about revenge.” Is that what he thought?

“Then what is
it about?”

Nothing the agency would be interested in. Not when she was on this side of it. “What about public safety? We have an obligation to put him away. You know how dangerous he is.”

This would have been easier if she’d hired the Baseel Agency to find her mother instead of going to work for them, but they would have kept her planted on the sidelines, and she couldn’t abide that.

Auggie went quiet. Was he caving? A soft sigh rattled through the phone. “I’ll take the weekend and think about it,” he said. Relief flooded her. She’d bought herself two more days. 

“Thanks, Auggie.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, then hung up.

She set the receiver back on the base and pressed her palms to her head. Like steady drumbeats, the stress pulsed at her temples. She had forty-eight hours to come up with something that would change his mind.

The couch beckoned. Jaida turned toward it when something caught her eye.
Where had that come from?
There was an envelope dangling from the mail slot in the front door. She snatched it from the grip of the brass flap and turned it over. There was no stamp, no return address. Someone dropped it off.

Inside was a full-sized sheet of copy paper with a single typed line through the center.

The past is called the past for a reason. Leave it there.

No heading, no signature, nothing to identify the sender. But a name wasn’t necessary. She already knew. She crumpled up the veiled warning and threw it in the kitchen trash. Did he really think she would be scared off so easily? 

The upstairs lights switched off and she spun around, her breath catching in her throat. With knees like jelly, she stood unmoving, her gaze riveted on the two doors at the top of the stairs. It was only the timer, she knew, but a tremor still traveled the length of her spine reminding her who she was dealing with.

Jaida set the alarm and switched on the floor lamp next to the armchair then checked the locks on all the doors and windows, turning on one light after another as she went.

She stood in the middle of the living room and looked over the downstairs. Everything had been secured, and the alarm was
set. If he dared venture further than the other side of the front door, she would know it.

Jaida snatched up the empty glass she’d left on the table then wiped up the wet ring it left behind with the heel of her hand. Why had she ever initiated contact with him? She must have been out of her mind. And why didn’t he want her probing into her own past?

The worst of it was, she’d let her heart get involved. She tucked the glass in the dishwasher and picked up the mailer from the kitchen counter. His name was printed across the top in bold, bright, red letters outlined in black, and underneath in royal blue were his political credentials:
Former councilman, two-term mayor, district court judge.
And presently he was a gubernatorial candidate for the state of California.

Gale’s plastic smile took up half his face on the oversized postcard. His new wife, Patrice, was nestled protectively under his arm, her red hair tumbling over her shoulders in a cloud of curls. Seeing the two of them together brought an unexpected twinge of jealousy, and she hated herself for it.

Councilman, mayor, judge, murderer, it was quite a resume Gale had established…If she could just prove the latter. But his money insulated him, his power protected him, and the high-level connections he kept in his back pocket were his guarantee that he would come out of this squeaky clean.

Jaida tore the card in two, wondering why she’d saved it in the first place. Exhausted, she collapsed on the couch for the second time. She drew her legs up and leaned back. Did Auggie really think she was going after Gale for revenge? Maybe to some degree she was, but not for the reason he thought.

She yawned and tugged the afghan from the back of the couch, gathering the softness and warmth around her like a hug. She worked the edges of the blanket between her fingers, soaking up its comfort.

Years ago
she watched her mother work the variegated yarn, shaping the soft cashmere strands of purples, oranges, and reds into chains and butterfly stitches, and bullion stitches, and… Her eyelids slid closed on another yawn, too groggy to remember what else.

“Love,” she mumbled to herself. That was it. Her mouth quirked into a faint smile then slipped into a frown. What did she know about love? And why did people always leave? Whether death ripped them from your life or they walked out willingly, no one ever stayed. Not even the woman she called ‘mother’.

She scrunched the scalloped edges of the blanket in her fists. The only thing she had left of Eva was this afghan and her Bible. They were her parting gifts, an unsatisfactory consolation prize for when she breathed her last and surrendered the ghost.

She recalled the coolness of Eva’s hand gripped in her own, her pulse weak but steady. At the time, it brought a semblance of comfort, but her final words did not: “This Bible holds the truth. Hold onto it, Jaida. I want you to read it.”

But Eva was wrong. The Bible didn’t hold the truth, William Gale did. And she would do whatever she had to, to pry it out of him.

She rolled to her side and curled into a snug ball. She’d been reared by the finest. Eva Payne
was
her mother. So, why the need to find the name of the woman who gave her life and then left her for dead?

Jaida reached for the remote and turned on the television. Jimmy Stewart’s desperation carried through the airwaves as he begged to return to his former life. She could relate to his
character, George Bailey, and empathize with his despair, but whatever was missing in her own life hadn’t been discovered and wasn’t going to be happily concluded like a two-hour drama.

Striking out tonight was evidence of that.

T
he rubber soles of her shoes buffeted the boardwalk. Jaida found her rhythm, her pace in the noiseless cadence. She didn’t like to run, but the physical exertion released the pent up stress and helped to ease the nightmares.

The past few months the dreams had worsened
, so she doubled up, running after rising and shortly before retiring. She skipped last night but made it through the six hours without an episode of terror and sweat-drenched sheets.

She
clamped a hand over the stitch in her side and blew out a sharp breath. Like clockwork, the paperboy was about 100 yards ahead of her. He pedaled his beach cruiser past her house and with a curl of his wrist he propelled the Saturday edition of
The
Register
over her wrought-iron fence, swerving just before he rode away.

She lengthened her flagging stride, and pressed into the last stretch of the run, her quads quivering like stretched-out rubber bands. Her thirsty lungs drank in the air as her foot landed over the imag
inary line that marked her fourth mile. Done. She was finally done.

Hands pressed to her hips, she expelled a breath and walked off the exertion until her heart rate normalized. Someone called her name and she turned, looking over the row of houses that lined the boardwalk. Who was it? She turned again, this time scanning the beach for a face.

“Up here!” She spun around and shaded her eyes, squinting past the screen in her neighbor’s upstairs window. Marilyn Carter’s hunched form was little more than a vague shadowy outline behind the nylon mesh.

“Newspaper’s on your porch.” She lisped the latest neighborhood intelligence report past her dentures. “Thought you might want to know.”