No One Needs to Know (12 page)

He hung up.

An hour later, Laurie heard someone at the front door. She ran from the kitchen to the living room in time to see Brian step inside with a bag from Lowe’s. She figured he must have driven to the nearest Lowe’s—in Yakima. His head down, he brushed past her into the kitchen. He wouldn’t look at her.

Her arms folded, Laurie stood behind him and watched as he set an old newspaper on the floor beneath the fissure on the wall that he’d created with his fist. From the Lowe’s bag, he pulled out a five-pint container of Patch ’n’ Paint, and a spackling knife. He started to work, repairing the crack in the kitchen wall.

Laurie was afraid if she said one word he’d erupt again.

“So, what do I have to do to prove I’m Joey’s dad, take a blood test or something?” he asked, finally breaking the silence. His back was to her.

“The doctor said they just have to take a swab from the inside of your cheek,” she replied, her voice quivering. “They do the same thing with Joey. It doesn’t hurt at all.”

“Believe me, it’s going to hurt,” he muttered, focused on his work.

She’d remained in the kitchen the whole time, saying nothing and staying out of Brian’s way.

He was cleaning up the area when there was a sudden pounding on the front door. It woke up Joey, and he started crying.

“Oh, no,” Laurie gasped. “That’s Tad. He called earlier, threatening to come over. I didn’t believe him. I . . .”

Brain dropped the crunched-up newspaper and stomped past her.

“Honey, don’t, please—”

He flung open the door. From the kitchen entry, Laurie couldn’t see Tad. Brian stood between them, his hands at his side, clenched into fists.

“I want to see Laurie,” she heard Tad say—past the baby’s cries. “I have a right to—”

“You don’t have any rights here,” Brian cut him off. “If you bother my wife or my child again, I’ll kill you. Did you hear me? And yeah, I said
my
child. He looks just like me.” He paused. “And I know what you’re thinking, bub. You’ll just wait until I ship out again, right? Well, I have friends in this town. If they see you hanging around here or the diner, you’ll wish to God you were never born. Now, get the hell off my front stoop before I tear you limb from limb.” He paused again. “GET OUT OF HERE!” he bellowed.

Laurie could hear Tad’s retreating footsteps on the front walk. Then there was a faint, cowardly call: “Fucker!”

Brian closed the door. He shook his head. “Jesus, what were you thinking?” he muttered, on his way back into the kitchen. “I thought the guy would look like Brad Pitt or something. I mean, if you’re going to cheat on me, at least pick somebody who’s good-looking. Trade up. You could have done a hell of a lot better than that weasel.” He started cleaning up the mess again.

Joey began to quiet down on his own.

Laurie nervously rubbed her arms as she watched him. “Brian, what if—” she hesitated, “what if the tests show Joey isn’t yours?”

“We’ll drive off that bridge when we come to it,” he grumbled, his head down. “Now, could you do me a big favor and stop talking to me? You really need to leave me alone, because right now, I can’t even look at you . . .”

That night, Brian slept on the living room sofa. There wasn’t another peep from Joey. Laurie didn’t hear any crying from the nursery.

But she heard the muffled sobs in the living room.

The paternity test showed that Brian was Joey’s father. Laurie mailed a copy of the results to Tad. She didn’t attach a note to it. She didn’t want to encourage any kind of further communication.

“I guess Brian must have put the fear of God in him,” she told Detective Eberhard. Laurie hadn’t realized that she’d had one foot so tightly wrapped around the chair leg that it now started to hurt. She rubbed her ankle, and straightened up in the chair. “Or maybe it was me sending him the test results. Either way, I didn’t see or hear from Tad for a long while after that.”

Slouched behind his desk, Eberhard nibbled on one end of his cinnamon stick. “So, when did he start up again?”

“A few days after Brian’s funeral, he came by the diner around closing time. Tad made it pretty clear he wanted to pick up where we’d left off now that I was single. I told him it wasn’t ever going to happen, and he needed to leave me and my baby alone. He didn’t like that answer, so I reminded him of what Brian had said. I told him Brian still had several loyal friends in town who would be looking out for me and the baby.”

“Did that nip things in the bud?”

Laurie nodded. “For about four months,” she said. “Then last week, he and his brother came by the diner to harass me when I was ready to close the place. I’m guessing some time during the last few weeks he got chummy with Ryder again. Tad was always kind of a lost soul, and his brother—well, I think Ryder enjoys manipulating people. I think he encouraged Tad to go after me again. If Tad still had some issues about me, I’m sure his brother fanned the flames. God knows why, maybe for his own amusement. But this last week has been pretty scary.”

Eberhard put down his cinnamon stick and leaned forward. “So, last week, when you reported to the police that someone in a silver minivan was stalking you, we weren’t getting the whole story. You knew the perpetrators were Ryder and Tad McBride.”

“Yes, I knew,” she murmured, looking down at the floor. “I’m sorry. When you’re the widow of the town hero, you have reputations to protect. I didn’t want them going public with my stupid, little mistake. I didn’t want it for Joey—or Brian. I didn’t want it for myself. I figured if there was a police presence on my block and outside the diner, it might be enough to discourage Tad and his brother.” Laurie sighed, “And maybe then I could keep the whole sad, sordid business with Tad from leaking out.”

She looked across the desk at Eberhard and saw the pity in his eyes. “I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore at this point,” she said. “Everyone will know now, won’t they?”

He nodded glumly, then reached over and shut off the recorder. “We’ll try to keep it on the down low,” he said. “But I’m afraid they set up that home invasion so that people would jump to all sorts of conclusions. And I doubt we’ll be able to prevent Tad’s brother from sounding off about it.” He sighed. “While you were handing off Joey to your friend earlier, I got a call from one of our guys down in the morgue at Kittitas Valley. They brought Ryder in to ID Tad, and apparently he went pretty crazy. He started tearing the place apart. They had to restrain him . . .”

Wide-eyed, Laurie stared at the detective. “Aren’t they going to charge him with anything? I mean, he must have had a hand in this.”

Eberhard frowned. “From two-thirty until five this morning, he was at an all-night truck stop in Yakima with one of his cronies. They have plenty of witnesses. Pretty convenient, huh? Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the girls at his farm doesn’t have the same shoe size as the second intruder. We’ll look into it, Laurie. It may take a while, but we’ll keep at it. That slippery bastard hasn’t wriggled out of this one yet.”

“ ‘It may take a while?’” she repeated, crestfallen. “I was really hoping to leave Ellensburg—as soon as next week, in fact.”

“Where are you headed to?” the detective asked.

“Seattle. I was going to move there.”

“Do you have a job waiting?”

Laurie sighed. “I had something in mind, but I don’t think it’s going to pan out now. Still, job or no job, I want to make this move.”

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” Eberhard said, chewing on his cinnamon stick. “As long as you don’t leave the state, and I know how to reach you, I see no reason why you can’t relocate.”

“It sounds like you’re encouraging me to go.”

The detective nodded soberly. “I am. I think it’s only fair to tell you that while he was going a little crazy down in the morgue, Ryder McBride said some things about finishing up what his brother had started with you.” Frowning, Eberhard tossed the cinnamon stick in the trash. “We can do only so much to protect you. As I said, he’s pretty damn slippery. Of the two McBride boys, Tad was nothing compared to his depraved brother. So, you take your little boy and make that move to Seattle, Mrs. Trotter, as quickly and quietly as you can.”

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

Saturday, June 7, 12:11 A.M.

Seattle

“S
ounds like a colossal snooze,” Kent MacArthur said. “Why the hell would I want to look inside some dead lady’s apartment?”

“Because she’s the one who got blown up in that food truck, remember?” replied his friend, Derek. “Her apartment’s like—four blocks from here. Danny Flick and John Reich went by there last week, and said there was even a police sign and yellow tape on the door. Don’t you want to check it out, see if we can peek inside the windows?”

“You guys can go if you want,” Kent said. “I’d rather head home and see what’s on Skinamax.”

“I think it sounds kind of cool,” Gwen Carney piped up. “I’ll go with you, Derek.” She turned to Kent. “Are you sure you don’t want to go?”

She was going to ask Kent only once—for fear he might change his mind if she asked a second time. She’d been itching to get rid of him all night. Gwen had a crush on Derek, despite noticing last week during a casual, shirts-versus-skins basketball game that he had a bad case of bacne. Ordinarily that would have been a deal breaker for Gwen, but Derek had soulful blue eyes and tousled brown hair. Plus he was one of the few sophomores at Garfield High School who noticed she was alive.

She hadn’t planned on having Kent along this evening. She’d had to babysit for one of her regulars, the Gottliebs, who lived practically next door to Derek. Mrs. Gottlieb had said they’d be back by eleven, so Gwen had asked Derek ahead of time if he wanted to get together after. He’d said his parents were gone and maybe his older brother could score them some booze, which sounded awesome to her.

But surprise, surprise, he’d decided to invite Kent over. And their booze-fest consisted of one six-pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, which they split among the three of them. And Kent, the pig, downed three bottles. Gwen had barely gotten a buzz off the one bottle she’d drunk. Afterward, they’d headed to the Olympia Pizza and Spaghetti House and split a large pizza. Kent guzzled down half her Diet Pepsi, and then the jerk had the nerve to complain about how he really didn’t like Diet. Thank God they had free refills.

Now they stood in front of the restaurant on Fifteenth Avenue. Though midnight, the evening was still relatively young—and looking more promising with Kent finally going home. The notion of sneaking around some apartment building looking into a dead woman’s windows didn’t exactly thrill her. But if it meant being alone with Derek, then Gwen was all for it.

“Why don’t you want to check out this place with us?” Derek pressed his friend. “Are you too chicken?”

“No, it just sounds boring,” Kent replied, starting to back away from them. “But you guys knock yourselves out. Call you tomorrow, doofus.”

Gwen watched Kent turn around and head toward his house near Volunteer Park. She got ready to take hold of Derek’s hand. “So which way is it?” she asked.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “This way,” he said, moving in the opposite direction of his friend. “It’s on Howell, about three blocks from John Reich’s house.”

Gwen hurried to catch up with him. “Hey, slow down . . .”

“We better get off the main drag here, before a cop stops us for being out so late,” he explained. They turned down at the next cross street, leaving behind the lights of passing cars and the twenty-four-hour Quality Food Center. It was suddenly quiet and dark in the residential area off Fifteenth. Clouds covered the moon, and a soft, chilly breeze stirred the leaves on the trees.

“I should have brought along a sweater,” Gwen said. “It’s getting cold.”

Derek didn’t seem to get the hint that she wanted him to put his arm around her. She’d worn her favorite, sexy yellow top and washed her long blond hair tonight. But her efforts seemed wasted on him. As they strolled down the sidewalk, there was room for practically another person between the two of them. Gwen narrowed the gap. She thought about slipping her arm around his, but she was afraid he’d pull away. “So, do you know this place we’re going to?” she asked.

“Like I said, it’s on Howell. It’s called La Hacienda. John and Danny said it’s like a Spanish-style place with a courtyard. The lady who got blown up was named Foster or Forester or something like that.” He stopped abruptly. “Shit, it just occurred to me. If the lights aren’t on inside the apartment, we won’t be able to see anything from outside.”

“Well, I’ve got a flashlight mode on my phone,” Gwen said. “Don’t you?”

He grinned at her, and then slapped her on the back. “You’re a genius!”

They started walking again, and he put his hands in his pockets once more. Gwen figured she’d have to act pretty scared at this La Hacienda place if she wanted Derek to put his arm around her. Until they got there, a stupid, chummy-chummy slap on the back seemed about as far as he’d go with her.

It was almost too dark to read the street signs. While they’d been walking along the side street, not a single car had passed them. Most of the houses they passed had all the lights off. By the time they reached Howell Street, Gwen realized they were at least a mile from her house. That wasn’t too far a hike, but at this hour she didn’t want to walk it alone. Certainly, Derek would walk her home after this, wouldn’t he?

“I think that’s it over there,” he said, touching her arm.

On the next street corner, Gwen saw a two-story structure with a Spanish tile roof. But it looked like the back of a house.

He grabbed her hand, and they hurried down the block. Gwen was ecstatic. He pulled her along the sidewalk and then across the street. She saw the place with the Spanish tile roof was actually an apartment complex. They stopped in front of a tall wrought iron gate, and a post with a carriage house lamp on top of it. On the front of the post were multicolored tiles that said LA HACIENDA, and the street number. Around the corner on the same post was a call box. Counting from the bottom up, Gwen noticed there were eight apartments. Someone named C. Wheeler was in number 8.