Love You to Death (18 page)
“W
hy don’t I come in for a while?” Ben said as he pulled up to my apartment building. “To make sure no tall guys in ski caps are peering up at your window. I’d also like to check your locks and the entry points.”
Well, I never said he didn’t care.
“I’d appreciate that,” I said. I also appreciated the fact that he’d solved the problem I’d been having for the past five minutes: how to get him inside my apartment.
I’d been working on my line for inviting him in. I’d thought about using the
I’m scared that Roger’s lurking
approach, but I didn’t want to lie to Ben; I wasn’t scared of Roger. A little nervous about him, but not scared. I’d decided to go the coffee-and-dessert route, the so-do-you-think-Oliver-or-Veronica-could-be-guilty-even-though-that-makes-no-sense route. I did have an entire unopened box of Godiva chocolates, compliments of Gray Finch for “all your hard work on the Moose City piece.” When I was cleared, I had no doubt that Finch’s “kindnesses” would be deducted from my paycheck.
A little coffee, a little chocolate, a little conversation. And then maybe I’d just
do it,
just jump his bones once and for all.
As he walked me to the door, glancing all around at the bare trees for lurkers, checking the locks and the vestibule door, I couldn’t stop staring at his profile. At his perfect nose. His perfect chin. His perfect everything.
I love you, I love you, I love you,
I said silently. Just like high school, except then I loved you with all my teenage heart for your face and your body and the way you walked down the halls. And now I love you because of you, because of who you are, and who I am when I’m with you.
I am going to make my move, I thought as I unlocked the door. But what if he
could
resist me? He hadn’t even been aware I existed in high school, and we’d had two classes together. What if I made my play for him and he gave me the
Abby, I’m sorry, but I can’t. I find you repulsive.
He wouldn’t say that. Even if he thought so. He’d give me the
It’s just not good police slash suspect interaction.
Maybe once he was seated on the sofa, I would surprise him by sitting next to him. I’d let my red wrap dress do some of my work. And then I’d just lean over and kiss him. Slowly. Just press my lips to his and see what happened. The worst? He’d say he couldn’t and pry me off him. The best? He’d rip off my dress and make love to me for hours, fulfilling every fantasy I’d ever had since age sixteen.
“You need a dead bolt,” he said. “I’ll arrange for a locksmith to install one in the morning. If it’s all right with you, I’ll stay here tonight. Your lock can be picked with a credit card, Abby. I’d feel better knowing you were safe.”
I almost grinned. “I’d appreciate that, Detective.”
He pointed at the floor. “There’s something under your door.”
I glanced down. A piece of paper was slipped underneath. I picked it up, expecting it to be yet another notice from the management company about recycling.
Typed on plain white paper was “Why are you such an idiot? The cop is just going to break your heart and dump you. And then I’ll have to kill him, too.”
I gasped and dropped the paper; it fluttered to the floor, and Ben picked it up and read it.
My legs started to tremble, and I rushed over to my couch and sat down. “What the hell?” Who was doing this?
He scanned the paper again and turned it over.
“Ben, I can’t take this anymore,” I said. “You have to find him. Her. Whoever.”
“Wait right here,” he said, heading outside. He returned a moment later with a plastic bag. For evidence. He dropped the note into it and sealed it. Then he closed the door and stared at me. “I have to ask, Abby. Did you write this yourself?”
I gasped. “What?”
“Did you write this?”
“This is ridiculous,” I snapped. “Was it there when you picked me up tonight? Was I sitting by your side all night long? When would I have had time to slip out, drive home, slip this note under my door, drive back and act totally natural?”
“You could have slipped it under when we first approached the door,” he said. “You could have done it when we left. I just need to ask you, Abby, that’s all.”
“You have to be kidding me,” I said. “This is all on some list of questions you must ask when you find a note like that, right? Standard police procedure?”
“I’m waiting for an answer.”
I stared at him, the pressure in my chest making me unable to speak. “After everything we’ve been through together, do you
really
think I’m a murderer? That I killed Ted? That I tried to kill Riley and Tom? That I’m going after Henry the second he gets engaged?”
“You
could
be, Abby. We’ve been through this time and again.”
“I
could
be? What the hell does that mean, anyway? You’ve been saying that since the first time you questioned me. Anyone
could
be the murderer. Roger could be. You yourself said that someone I know could be. I mean, come on, Ben. Haven’t you gotten to know me well enough by now to know I’m not the one?”
Wait a minute! I didn’t say that last part right! I am the one—for you. Can’t you see that? Our chemistry? How we connect? What we’ve shared? But can’t you see I’m not your “perp”?
“Abby, you’re our prime suspect,” he said. “That hasn’t changed just because I’ve gotten to know you.”
“But how could it not?” I asked. “How could you think me capable of killing someone?”
“As I’ve said, you
could
be capable, and that’s all I need to know. Motive. Opportunity. Evidence.”
“What’s your evidence? That two of my other exes were on the killer’s hit list? That’s your evidence? That makes me guilty?”
“It makes you
look
guilty. That’s why you’re not under arrest. Because you only look guilty, Abby. Someone you know might have done it. A stranger with a fixation on you might have done it. A total stranger with no connection to you might have done it. The boyfriend connection could be completely coincidental. I don’t think so, but it could be. Or
you
could have done it. All of it. You’re lovely and funny and charming and sweet, but so are many psychopaths.”
The world
psychopath
canceled out all the compliments. I couldn’t even remember the adjectives. Psychopath. Psychopath. Psychopath.
“I know my rights, Detective Orr,” I said. “I have the right to ask you to leave. So please do so. I’ll hire my own locksmith.”
He stood there staring at me, those dark, dark eyes working, trying to figure something out, but
what
I couldn’t tell. How to get me to trust him again? How to get me back on his side so that I’d eventually confess to my “best friend”? Had he been trying all along to make me fall for him? Was that why his partner was so scarce? No “bad” cop to scare me silent. Just Hot Ben whom sucker Abby used to love as a teenager.
Why are you such an idiot? The cop is just going to break your heart….
Well, whoever did write the note—and newsflash, Ben, it wasn’t me—had gotten that part right. So maybe it
was
someone who knew me. I was an idiot when it came to love. Had been since kindergarten.
I actually did feel dumped by him. How ridiculous was that? Our relationship that never even existed (hey, just like high school!) was over.
And then I’ll have to kill him, too.
I shivered. I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on. I’d have to keep my mouth shut—about the note, about my heart being smashed to smithereens. At least that would keep Ben alive.
“Abby—”
“I asked you to leave,” I said, my heart hammering in my chest. I opened the door.
“I’m not comfortable with you staying here alone,” he said.
“Well, I’m not going to off myself,” I said. “I’m the killer, remember?”
“Abby—”
“Forget it,” I said. “Of course the killer knows who I am, where I live. He or she is in my midst, right? And I’m not a target.” Although I do keep breaking my own heart.
“Promise me something,” he said, stepping over to me. “Promise me you won’t put yourself in a dangerous situation. If you want to run something by me, just call me.”
“I’m not promising you anything,” I said. “I’m not a liar, Ben. I’m not going to tell you that I’m going to sit around and do zippo while everyone I know thinks I’m a murderer.”
“Care to fill me in on what you will be doing?” he asked. “Nope.” “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said.
Too late.
It rained during the night, and a branch kept knocking on my window, scaring me to death. Around three in the morning, I’d gone to the door and peered out the peephole, expecting to find the bogeyman, aka The Killer.
And there was Ben, sitting against the wall across from my apartment door, his notebook balanced on one knee. He was awake and reading and tapping his pen.
I want to invite you in so badly. I want to invite you into my bed.
I slid down against the door and sat there for a while, and the next thing I knew the daylight was streaming in through the living-room window and I was stiff all over.
I got up and peered through the peephole. Ben was gone.
H
ow I wanted to call Jolie and Rebecca and Shelley and talk endlessly about Ben and how hurt I was. It was so hard not to pick up the phone. To keep it all in. I needed a pet. Maybe I’d go the animal shelter today and adopt a cute pug of my own.
A week had passed since the night the note had been slipped under my door. An entire week and no new developments. Except for Veronica calling to apologize for “things getting out of hand” at the party.
I worked on a new Best Of column and watched Roger very closely. He was all I had. I trailed him a few times, but it was the same story. A coffee-shop run. The grocery store. A bookstore. A glance up at my apartment. I’d been so freaked out by it the first time that I’d forgotten how many times I’d done just that over the years. When I was a teenager, I’d walked past Ben’s house countless times. Walked by his classrooms, just to get a glimpse, making myself late for math. I’d pretended to be waiting for a friend in front of the club Slade used to frequent. And once or twice in the past week I’d walked past the Portland Police Department, hoping to see Ben, even from afar.
I missed him so much. I stared at the phone on my desk, willing it to ring. Willing it to be Ben just so I could hear his voice.
“Abby, you must be upset about something” came Roger’s voice instead. “Your reader letters were riddled with typos. You always misspell when you’re upset.”
I froze. “I’m not upset. Really. Happy as can be.” Could I be a worse actress? Natural, Abby. Natural.
Ben had already questioned Roger twice and had said he had no reason to think he was guilty of anything but a big crush on me. He’d been asked where he was the night of the murder and had said he was home alone, which wasn’t an alibi. He’d been on vacation to the Grand Canyon when Riley had been attacked. But you never knew. To use Ben’s logic, he
could
be the killer. Which meant a little detective work of my own.
My big plan was to drop a little false clue about my love life. I’d tell him I’d started dating someone new—no names, of course—who’d dumped me in a really mean way over the weekend. If Roger were The One, he’d very likely hound me for the name. So he could go and pummel the guy into the ground.
Roger insisted on taking me out to lunch once he learned that a guy had something to do with my inability to concentrate on my spelling. This was perfect. Shelley was out sick today, so it seemed completely natural that I’d go out to lunch with Roger alone. Especially because I was “so down in the dumps.”
“I didn’t even know you were dating,” Roger said when our waitress arrived with our burritos. We were at Mamba Margarita’s, my favorite Mexican restaurant. Roger bit into his beef burrito. Beans oozed out the other end.
“Well, I just needed a distraction from everything that’s going on,” I said, popping a tortilla chip into my mouth. “I’m about to crack from all the pressure.”
He nodded. “I can imagine. I’m really sorry you’re going through all this. It’s so ridiculous that the police think you could have had anything to do with any of it.”
“Well, a lot of people think I could have,” I said. “Including our coworkers.”
“Shelley doesn’t,” he said. “And I’m sure some others, too.”
I was about to tell him that my family thought I was guilty, but then realized that if he was the killer, I didn’t want to send him to their homes with a machete to make them pay for thinking less than pure thoughts about me.
“I guess I just keep picking the wrong guy,” I said, shaking my head. “I thought I was being careful, that he was a great guy, but he turned out to be a super jerk, just like the rest of them.”
“Is it that detective?” he asked.
“The detective! Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“Well, it’s just that you’re together a lot,” he said. “I saw you going into your apartment building together last week.”
Because you’re standing around outside, watching.
“He wanted to check the locks on my door,” I said. “He couldn’t believe I didn’t have a dead bolt. I do now.”
So don’t even try breaking in, buster.
“So who’s the guy you were seeing?” he asked.
“You don’t know him,” I said, shrugging.
“Maybe I do,” he said. “From around.”
To distract him, I asked the waitress for more salsa, then said quickly, “Do you have any good dating advice for me? I keep picking the wrong guy.”
He took another bite of his burrito. A shred of lettuce stuck to his chin. “Well, I couldn’t really give you any advice from
experience.
”
“You don’t date much?”
He blushed. “I would, but the woman I like isn’t interested.”
“Who’s that?” I asked, knowing full well it was me.
“You know,” he said, deeper pink creeping into his cheeks.
“So what kind of boyfriend are you?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t veering into unfair territory. Roger had only ever been very kind to me, and he was innocent until proven guilty (I, of all people, understood that), so I needed to be very careful with how I proceeded. Careful of his feelings.
“Do you want to know a secret?” he asked.
I nodded.
He glanced around, then leaned forward. “I’ve never had a real girlfriend.”
“A
real
girlfriend?” I asked. As opposed to blow-up dolls? Or…corpses?
“I’ve gone on a few dates,” he said. “But I don’t seem to be anyone’s type. Like yours.”
“It’s not that you’re not my type,” I said. “You’re a fine type. It’s just that dating a coworker is really dangerous. Don’t you think?”
“So if I quit
Maine Life,
you’d date me?” he asked.
Whoa, there. “Well, then there’d be the friendship thing,” I said. “We’re good friends. And I don’t have a good track record, Roger. Given my past history, we’d be broken up within a month, and there would go our friendship.”
“We might not break up,” he said, his mud-brown eyes so hopeful. “I could be the guy you’ve been looking for all along.”
“That’s possible, Roger.” I highly, highly doubted it, but it was possible. “I guess with this latest heartbreak, I just can’t even think about dating for the foreseeable future.”
Ah. Anger. There it was. He stabbed the remaining half of his burrito with his fork.
“That jerk!” he said. “He just ruined my chance!”
I sat back in my chair. “I need all the friends I can get, Roger,” I said. “Friends?”
His face softened. “Friends.” He sipped his Coke. “So what’s this guy’s name again?”
“I’m trying to forget it, okay?” I said with a smile. “Anyway, it was just a couple-of-weeks kinda thing. Nothing serious. It’s more my ego than my heart.”
“Good,” he said. “The ego heals a lot faster.”
That was probably true. Also true was that Roger had gone from suspect to prime suspect. At least in my notebook.
I needed to hear his voice. And I needed to let him know that Roger did need a more in-depth look. So I called Ben. Voice mail. Good. That meant he was out looking for Ted’s killer.
My cell phone rang two minutes later. “Abby, I’m one hundred percent sure that I told you not to bait anyone.”
“Those weren’t your exact words. And I’m one hundred percent sure you said exact words were very important in your line of work.”
“I don’t think he’s our guy, Abby,” Ben said. “We’ve got Henry Fiddler under twenty-four-hour surveillance. He’s the logical target now that he’s seeing someone new. We can only wait.”
“I can’t wait, Ben. My entire life is falling apart.”
“I wouldn’t say that at all,” he said. “You got promoted. You’ve got a lot of good friends. And you’re invited to Opal’s bridal shower this weekend.”
“I guess that means you are, too.”
Who needed a day planner when I had Ben to keep such good track of my social calendar?
“Should I get a gift from the two of us?” I asked.
“Is that a joke, or are you serious?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can sign the card from Abby and Detective Orr,” he said.
