Level Five (28 page)

             
“And Edie isn’t worth believing in miracles?” Frank features twisted with his own anger. 

             
Jake stared at the man who had suffered for three long years, a man who had stayed steady and faithful throughout Colette’s absence.  “You never gave up hope?”

             
Some of the anger left Frank’s features.  “I told you, I’ve been where you are.  I spent three days in bed, wishing everyone away, swallowed whole by the emptiness and darkness.  When I finally pulled myself out of bed and time continued to pass, I realized there were other cases for the police to investigate, more crime calling them away from the cooling case of Colette. By the time a couple of months had passed I realized I was all she had left, the only one who still believed in miracles.  Can’t you be that man for Edie?”

             
He didn’t wait for Jake’s reply. He disappeared into Edie’s master bathroom and returned a moment later.  He threw a large towel at Jake.  “Take a shower and when you’re finished I’m taking you out to breakfast.”

             
He stalked out of the room and Jake had a feeling if he didn’t do what Frank had asked the big man would return and bodily throw him into the shower.

             
He pulled himself out of bed and stumbled into the shower.  Tilting his head up, he allowed hot needles of water to sting his face, to beat on his shoulders.  He welcomed the pain that cut through the anguish that had immobilized him, but wasn’t at all sure he was ready to rejoin the land of the living, a land without Edie.

             
An hour later he sat across from Frank in a booth at Rosemary’s Café, a little place known for big, inexpensive breakfasts. Jake ordered a cup of coffee and Frank took the liberty of ordering two of the Lumberjack specials.

             
The men didn’t speak until the food was delivered.  “Thanks,” Jake said as he picked up his fork.  Suddenly he realized he was starving.

             
“No problem. My brother was the one who pulled me out of bed and threw me into a shower,” Frank said as cut into a stack of pancakes. “It was on the twelfth day of Colette’s disappearance.  Nobody had any answers. There didn’t appear to be any leads.  I sat down on the sofa and didn’t get up for three days except to go to the bathroom.  I just shut down, turned off and wanted to be left alone.”

             
“I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

             
Frank offered him a sympathetic smile.  “You keep putting one foot in front of the other.”  His smile fell.  “I heard about your meeting with Edie’s father.”

             
Jake frowned and grabbed a piece of toast.  “She told me on our first or second date that her father was dead.”

             
“You must have been angry to find out that she’d lied to you.”

             
Jake chewed a bite of toast thoughtfully.  “She didn’t really lie to me.  For all intent and purposes James Carpenter
is
dead. What bothers me is that he obviously blames Edie for her sister’s death. I can’t imagine Edie putting up with him for so long and not having anyone else to take his blame out of her head.”

             
“Shame is a huge motivation to keep a secret.  She obviously loves her father in some way.  She provided for him, but she had to be ashamed of what he’s become. Maybe in some irrational part of her,
she
believes she’s responsible for her sister’s death.”

             
The two men fell silent as they focused on their meals. Jake was ravenous despite the turmoil that whirled inside his head.  It was a testimony to the fact that the body continued to function even when the heart was dead.

             
After his plate was clean he leaned back against the booth and wrapped his hands around a fresh cup of coffee.  “Okay, you’ve pulled me from my stupor.  You’ve got me showered and fed, but I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

             
Frank smiled sympathetically.  “You keep looking for her.  You keep thinking about what might have happened to her.  You get back to work or start a new job.  You do whatever necessary to keep on living a productive life despite the hole that’s been carved out of your heart.”

             
“I’m not ready to get back to work.  I’ve still got some vacation time I intend to take.  Emotionally I can’t be effective as a detective right now.  All I can think about is Edie.”

             
“Then you need to keep pounding the pavement, searching out leads. Someplace, somewhere maybe there’s a clue that hasn’t been found, a lead that hasn’t been followed.”

             
“Teddy told me the task force is trying to find a connection between the three victims, but I’m certain there isn’t one except for the fact that they all looked similar.”  Jake took a sip of his coffee, hoping the warm brew would chase away some of the chill that had gripped his guts since the moment he’d seen Rufus in the yard and realized Edie was gone.

             
“If they were all taken by the same person, then that person had to have seen them someplace.”

             
“In Maggie Black’s case, since she was taken from the McDonalds parking lot where she works, we went over hours of surveillance video, but in the week before her disappearance she waited on hundreds of people. It was impossible for us to chase them down unless they used a credit card to pay for their order.”

             
“What about the other woman, Kelly Paulson.  I understand she was taken in the parking lot of the dental office where she worked.  Is that anywhere near the McDonald’s?  Could he have maybe seen them on his way home from work or live near either of them?”

             
Jake shook his head.  “They were taken from opposite ends of town.” 

             
“So, where did Edie go that this perp might have seen her?” Frank asked.

             
Jake frowned thoughtfully.  “She didn’t go many places, at least that’s what I thought.  We know now she occasionally went to the Skylark Motel.  She hated to grocery shop and went only when absolutely necessary. She didn’t get her fingernails or hair done.  In the last couple of weeks before her disappearance the only place she went regularly was your house to talk to Colette.  As far as I know, Edie is a pretty private person.”  He hated the fact that he now felt as if he had to qualify what he knew about the woman he loved.

             
“What about the book signing?” Frank asked.

             
Jake stared at him wordlessly.  Why hadn’t anyone thought about the signing, a perfect place for any average Joe to walk off the street and see her…meet her and develop some kind of sick obsession about her.

             
“We need to get out of here,” Jake said with an urgency he hadn’t felt since the first couple of days Edie had been gone.  “I’ve got to talk to Teddy.  We need to see if the bookstore has any video from the day of the signing.”

             
For the first time in two days Jake felt alive again, filled with the hope that had been absent for the past couple of days, the hope that somehow a miracle could still occur.

                      Chapter 27

              It was growing more and more difficult for Edie to hang onto any hope.  She’d lost track of the days, but knew it was well over a week that she’d been missing. 

             
She and Anthony had been working on his book for four nights and last night had been the first time since they’d started on the project that he’d once again lost control.

             
He’d been telling her that when he was twelve their bathroom stool had stopped working.  Because of the conditions in the house, calling a repairman was out of the question.

             
“We lived next door to a gas station, so my mother didn’t see this as a big problem.  She was friendly with the manager there and knew he’d let us use the restroom whenever we needed,” Anthony had said. “But the gas station closed at ten each night and sometimes I had to pee after that.”

             
He’d broken eye contact with Edie and instead had stared at some point over her head.  Edie knew he was lost in memories.  Those memories had the capacity to hurt her.

             
“Pickle jars,” he said suddenly, his gaze shooting back to focus on her.  “You made me piss in empty pickle jars.”

             
Edie didn’t remember anything after that, except a vague surprise when she’d finally regained consciousness.  She’d rolled over on her side and fought the need to vomit from the pain that racked her body.

             
Dried blood crusted her lips and under her nose. She suspected she had a concussion.  It was at that moment she realized the odds were that she’d never finish Anthony’s story. She’d be dead long before the book was finished.

             
Even if she finished his story, she knew her ultimate fate was death. But she’d hoped to buy herself time so that somebody could find her, so that Jake might rescue her.

             
Would he even want to rescue her?  Oh God, she’d been such a fool where he was concerned. Now she’d never have the opportunity to tell him that he’d owned her body and soul.  She’d never have a chance to tell him that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

             
Deep in her heart she knew that was never meant to happen.  Fate had placed her in Anthony’s hands. She knew she would die in this room filled with paper and bugs.

             
It was nothing less than she deserved. Over and over again she’d played and replayed in her mind that day so long ago when she’d walked home alone, when she’d left Francine vulnerable to a killer.

             
That’s why her mother had left, because she couldn’t stand to look at Edie.  And that’s why her father was a broken-down drunk.  They both had known that Edie was as responsible for Francine’s death as Greg Bernard had been.

             
It had been a strict rule that the two sisters always walk home from school together. Edie had broken that rule and caused her sister’s death.  Now karma had arrived in the form of Anthony.

             
As she lay on the floor with her eyes closed to halt some of the dizziness, she wondered if it was possible to beat karma.

A wing of anger took flight in her heart.  Was she really supposed to be punished for a mistake she’d made when she was ten-years-old? 

Dammit, hadn’t she been punished enough?

             
Her mother had abandoned her and her father had manipulated her with crushing guilt.  She’d denied herself the happiness of reaching out for all that Jake had offered because deep down inside she hadn’t thought she deserved it.

             
She roused herself to a sitting position and eyed the computer nearby. Didn’t she deserve to be happy?  Francine’s death wasn’t her fault.  Greg Bernard had killed Francine. If he hadn’t done it that day he would have figured out a way to get Francine another time.  He’d had pictures of Francine everywhere in his house when the police had arrested him, indicating that she was his obsession.

             
It hadn’t been Edie’s fault. She refused to die in this place at the hands of a man who might have been a victim as a child. He wasn’t a child anymore and had made the choice to be a predator.

             
And Edie had made the choice to be a victim as well.  She’d taken on the guilt and used it as a barrier to keep people at bay.  Colette had been wrong.  Edie had never been a true survivor, she’d always allowed herself to be a victim. Worst of all, she’d made Jake a victim as well. 

             
She jumped as she heard the faint ding of the microwave.  So soon?  She must have been unconscious for much of the day.        Once again she looked at the computer.  “My name is Edie Carpenter and I love autumn.”  As always, the affirmation gave her a bit of strength. 

Anthony might beat her to death, but he’d be beating Edie Carpenter, not his mother, Lila.  And no matter how hard he tried to make her the mother who had ignored him, the woman who hadn’t loved him as he’d needed, Edie wasn’t that woman, would never be that woman.

              That’s why he’d beaten her so badly the night before. As he’d hit her, she’d kept screaming that she wasn’t his mother.  She’d done nothing to him and she refused to be his stand-in monster.

             
Like Colette, this was how she held onto her dignity, the one thing he couldn’t make her do or say even if he beat her to death. She would not pretend to be his mother.  She curled back up on the floor and was still in that position when he walked in.