Nowhere Safe (18 page)

Verna stepped out, her hand to her mouth, staring at what was presumably Stefan behind the curtain.

“Verna,” September said, and the older woman whipped around at the sound of her name.

“Nine,” she gulped. Her face was ravaged and her jacket and pants looked hastily donned. She threw herself into September’s arms and started bawling, acting as if they were old friends when in reality they’d barely tolerated each other. It was the first time in September’s memory that she’d called her by her nickname. “He’s not doing well. There’s internal damage in . . . in his chest. . . .”

“Is he awake?” September asked.

She nodded and then pulled back, clasping September’s hand and dragging her closer. Stefan was on his back staring at the ceiling and the doctor was talking to him, telling him they were about to operate.

“Stefan,” Verna said, a catch in her voice. “September’s here.”

Stefan’s gaze moved to her.

“I’m going to find who did this,” she told him.

“She took my van,” he said, forming each word with an effort.

“She?” September questioned.

“. . . at the mall and . . . she came over . . . got in the van.”

“At the mall?” she repeated as he exhaled heavily. Mind racing, she asked, “This person—
woman—
got into your van at the mall, and then . . . you drove to Twin Oaks?” September didn’t bother hiding her surprise.

“. . . have to get her . . .” Stefan’s tongue rimmed his lips.

“Excuse me,” the doctor said firmly. “We need to get him to surgery.”

“This woman who kidnapped you . . . she’s the one who shot you tonight?” September pressed as they started to wheel Stefan away.

“Lucky,” he said, his voice drifting back to her.

“What?” She wanted to follow them in but the doctor gave her a forbidding look and Stefan was pushed through doors that swung back against the wall and led to the operating rooms.

 

 

It was two hours almost exactly from Laurelton to Deception Bay, the little town on the Oregon coast where Lucky had spent her formative years, if you could call them that. She drove down Highway 101, which bisected the town and was its main street. She didn’t recognize many of the businesses; it had been years since she’d been here. She’d mostly lived along the coast north of here, the Seaside area mainly, though one of her foster families had been even further north, Astoria and across the bridge to Long Beach, Washington. Mostly, however, she’d been on her own. Running away had been her go-to move for self-preservation, and by the time she was thirteen she had learned to stay under the radar with ease. Of course, she’d made the mistake of relying on a series of men who’d turned out to be users and abusers as well, but she’d learned from them. More than one had tried to rape her, even the seemingly friendly car thief and mechanic who’d shown her how to hot-wire cars. She’d thought they were friends and had stopped by his place after their last lesson, and he’d thrown her onto the bed and ripped off her clothes and was pushing her thighs apart while she screamed for him to stop. Clearly, he did not believe that no meant no. His determination fueled her own rage. With a strength built from boiling fury, she yanked out the table lamp and wrapped the cord around his neck. Ezekiel hardly even noticed, as he was busily pulling out his dick and, she suspected later, he was roiding out. She pulled and pulled and
pulled
on the cord until his face was dark red, his eyes were bugging out and he was burbling and spitting saliva, wrenching at the cord to no avail.

It took twenty minutes for her to believe he was really dead and release her grip. She rolled out from underneath him, wiped the place down for fingerprints, grabbed up the lamp and cord, hoped there wasn’t any DNA evidence she’d missed, and walked out.

She’d pitched that lamp into the ocean, and that’s what she planned to do with Mr. Blue’s gun.

It was dark and the wind was slapping rain at the car in hard smacks as Lucky drove onto the jetty and bumped toward the low gate that kept cars from driving the entire length. The jetty was constructed of boulders with crushed rock on its top surface and it was wide enough for a car to drive all the way to the ocean, hence the gate.

Before she got out of the Sentra, Lucky turned off the interior light, then she stepped onto the heavy gravel, shut the door behind her and remote locked it. The gun was heavy in her pocket, and she held her elbow tight to her body to keep its appearance secret in case there was anyone about.

But there wasn’t a soul. Not on a night like this. Bending her head to the wind, shrieking at her as if she were committing a heinous act, which in a way, she was, she moved to the end of the jetty and the dark waters below. She inched as close to the edge as she dared, pulled the gun from her pocket, wiped its surfaces with the hem of her jacket for good measure, then stretched her arm back and hurled it out as far as she could with as much strength as she could muster. It might come right back to shore. It might get sucked out never to be found again. Salt water would erase her identity from it, though she supposed the police could get a bullet match to it if it were recovered.

With that last thought, she huddled into her coat and hurried to her car, backed onto the highway and turned around in the direction she’d come. She didn’t want anyone finding her here, seeing her make and model. Nope. It was time to return home to Mr. Blue’s and the relative safety of her room, and hope to hell that the bullet that had entered Stefan Harmak’s chest had killed him.

Then she could think about the man from Twin Oaks. The one she’d followed. The sexual abuser. He hadn’t seemed like a parent. She just hadn’t gotten that vibe. So, maybe he was a teacher, or a teacher’s aide like Stefan.

Either way, she was going to take him out, though she would have to come up with a new plan. No more leaving them zip-tied to poles nearly naked, hoping to humiliate them as well as hasten their demise. No sweet dreams. No more fooling around. She didn’t have that much time, so as soon as she lured him into a trap, she was going to have to kill him.

September rolled out of bed, bleary eyed. It was early Saturday morning, and she was scheduled to have the day off, but after last night’s shooting, she knew she was going to have to go in. And she wanted to. She wanted to know who this woman was who had kidnapped Stefan and stolen his van.

Jake flopped an arm her way. “Where ya goin’?” he mumbled.

“To the station. Lots to be done.”

“Come back . . .” He rolled onto his side, then squinted his eyes open to slits.

“Later.” She smiled and ducked into the bathroom and the shower. When she stepped back into the bedroom fifteen minutes later in her bathrobe, combing her wet hair, she saw the bed was empty.

“Hey,” he said from the hallway, and September jumped as if goosed.

“You scared me!”

“Sorry.” He looked anything but repentant. “You want me to come with you?”

“To the station? No, of course not. Besides, I need you to move my bed here.”

“I don’t want you to be alone.”

“I won’t be alone. D’Annibal will be there and Wes and George. We’re all going in today. Doesn’t matter that it’s Saturday with all this going on.” She paused. “You’re gonna drive me crazy, Jake. You know that, right?”

“I just keep seeing him attacking you with the knife.”

For a moment she, too, was taken back to that moment when she was on the ground, fighting for her life. “We’re both going to have to get over it,” she told him soberly. “And I am really, really okay.”

“I liked being with you at the hospital last night,” he admitted.

“I liked having you there, too. Did I tell you how much I appreciated you keeping your mouth shut?”

“Hardest thing I ever had to do.”

She leaned up and kissed him lightly. “Go back to bed. Maybe I can make it a half day. I just gave D’Annibal the basics last night, and I’ve got to fill Wes in further, too. This is really his case and I just ran with it.”

“Your stepmother called you,” he reminded her. “Not the other way around. Ex-stepmother,” he corrected himself before she could.

“That’s what I told the lieutenant, but he still wants me off the case. Either way, I need to write up a report. I also want to see if Wes found out anything on the boyfriend and his ketamine ‘procurer.’”

“You don’t have enough people working at that place,” he complained.

“I know. But at least I’m clocking overtime.”

“Tell your lieutenant to hire somebody and give you all a break.”

“You sound like Gretchen. She told me to tell D’Annibal to get his head out of his ass and leave me on Stefan’s case. Needless to say, I didn’t follow her advice.”

“Not sure how I feel about being compared to Gretchen.”

September smiled. Jake and her previous partner circled each other like feral dogs, neither trusting the other. “And then, I also want to check with some people along Christopher Ballonni’s mail route.”

“Thought you said you didn’t believe helicopter mom’s complaints about Ballonni and her daughter.”

“Ahh, yes . . . I told you about Mrs. Bernstein,” she said, more to herself than him.

“Who am I going to tell?”

”I don’t know. Loni?”

Jake pulled back and skewered her with a
look
. “Not likely.”

“Forget it.” September was embarrassed at showing her insecurities. She’d made it a rule to keep her feelings about his ex to herself, a rule she seemed destined to break over and over again.

“You just want to get out of moving today,” he accused her lightly, letting her off the hook.

“My master plan.” She smiled again. “I put a BOLO out on Stefan’s van. Maybe it’s turned up.”

“BOLO . . . is for?”

“Be on the lookout.”

Jake pulled her into his arms for a deeper kiss, which went on for a while and damn near turned into something else. She was teetering on the fence between desire and duty when he finally broke the kiss and pushed her gently away. “Fine, go,” he said. “The earlier you get there, the sooner you’ll be back.”

“I’ll call you,” she said, fighting down the stirring in her own blood. He could get to her so fast.

Quickly, before she changed her mind, she stripped off her robe and threw on her work clothes—a dark shirt and slacks—as fast as she could, grabbed her messenger bag and a piece of toast and headed out.

There were very few cars around as September pulled into the department forty minutes later. She parked in the rear lot, but the back door, which was used to bring in all manner of people under arrest, was generally locked, so she didn’t bother even trying it. She circled the building instead and entered through the front. Guy Urlacher was back at his post, eyeing September as if he’d never seen her before, so with an inward sigh she pulled out her ID.

“You’re working weekends now,” she observed.

“The temp’s sick, so I said I’d come in.”

“Overtime?”

Though she’d meant it more like a commiserating party because yes, she was working on her day off, too, he glared at her like she’d insulted him. “I was out with that virus the first part of the week.”

Guy was a difficult conversationalist at the best of times, and September sometimes wanted to bang her head against the wall just for trying to deal with him.

Luckily, he let her in without another word and she entered the squad room to find she was the only one around. She sent a look toward D’Annibal’s office, but the curtains were open and the room was dark and empty. She’d expected to see either Wes or George already here, but their desks looked as if they hadn’t been touched since the day before.

Huh.

After dropping off her messenger bag in her locker, she poured out the cold coffee from the night before and set up the coffee machine to brew a new pot. Then she checked the break room vending machine for anything edible and seized on a packet of peanut M&M’s, which she munched on the way back to her desk. She could have gone further down the hall to see who else was around, but instead she picked up her desk phone, throwing a glance at the clock to check the time. Nine o’clock.

She called Wes’s cell first. When he didn’t answer, she grabbed up her own cell phone, which she’d laid on her desktop, and quickly texted him. Where are you?

She waited a couple of minutes, but when he didn’t immediately get back to her she made a call to the hospital about Stefan and was put through to the nurses’ station. After explaining who she was, she was told that the doctor would be in later and could give her more information but that the patient was in CCU, the critical care unit. She asked if he’d been put there because there were complications, or whether this was standard procedure after surgery, but the nurse maddeningly just told her the doctor would call her when he was in.

Fine.

She thought about phoning Verna, but scratched that idea in favor of calling Janet Ballonni again. She wanted to ask her once more about Mrs. Bernstein. Clearly there was no love lost between the two women. Rhoda Bernstein thought Christopher Ballonni Sr. had crossed the line with her daughter and it kind of sounded like she was right. But Janet Ballonni didn’t feel that way. She was defensive about her husband, but September hoped to get her to open up a little more. Be a little more friendly.

And then, maybe she would gain permission to speak to Chris Jr. It was a long shot, but she wasn’t going to get anywhere unless she massaged the woman’s feelings.

Checking the clock again—nine-thirty—she wondered if it were too early on a Saturday morning to call her. If she wanted to become the woman’s “friend” maybe she should wait till after ten.

“Hello?” a drowsy, young male voice answered, blowing her thoughts to smithereens.

“Hello,” September said, thinking fast. “This is Detective Rafferty with the Laurelton Police Department. I’m sorry to call so early. Is this Chris Jr.?”

“Umm . . . yeah . . .”

“I was actually hoping I could talk to you,” she admitted.

“Yeah? I saw you were the police department on caller ID.”

“Oh.”

“My mom isn’t here. She’s got Pilates, or something.”

“I see.” She pretended to consider. The tricky issue of parental consent wasn’t something to be ignored. Still, she didn’t want to lose this tenuous connection.

“I—umm—kinda want to talk to you, too. That’s why I picked up the phone,” he said.

“You mean you want to talk about your dad?”

“Mom told me that you came by. It was you, right?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t wanna screw things up, y’know. But my dad, he wasn’t—umm—he kinda lied about stuff, I think.”

“What kind of lies?”

He didn’t answer for a few moments and September waited, holding her breath. “There was this girl at school,” he carefully launched in again. “A couple years ago. We weren’t really friends but we knew each other.”

“You were in the same class?”

“Uh-huh. But . . . her family moved away. But I kinda knew her. She knew my dad because they used to live on his mail route.”

When it didn’t appear he was going to continue, September prompted, “Did this girl say something about your dad?”

“No . . . no . . . not really.”

“What do you mean, ‘not really’?”

“It’s just that she wanted to talk to me but I didn’t want to talk to her.”

“About your dad,” September tried.

“My girlfriend, Jamie? She doesn’t like my mom and Mom doesn’t like her, either, but she thinks my dad lied about a bunch of stuff, too. She kinda thinks my dad did something. I don’t think so. I mean, no. He wouldn’t.”

There were questions in the words, as if he hoped September would rush in and agree with him. “What did Jamie say about your dad?”

“That he was a perv. But she says mean things all the time.”

September’s pulse was running light and fast, like it did when she was closing in on a breakthrough. In this case, she sensed it was more a confirmation of her own amorphous thoughts and feelings. “Do you know why she said that about your dad?”

“It’s all kind of screwed up, y’know? Jamie didn’t like my dad, either, but she was nice after he was dead when everybody else was looking at me weird.” A tremor had entered his voice.

“Why did Jamie think your dad lied?” September asked.

“He got killed, didn’t he? She said somebody probably knew what happened with Shannon and they tied him up and left him there.”

“Is Shannon the girl on the mail route who moved away?”

“I—I gotta go.”

The hunter had scared the deer. “Wait, Chris. Just tell me—is Shannon the girl?”

A pause. “Yeah.”

“That’s her first name?”

“Yeah . . . I really gotta go.”

“Last name. Chris. Just give me that, and I’ll talk to her.”

“She’s the liar!” he burst out. “Jamie just wanted to believe her ’cause she doesn’t like my parents.”

“Last name,” she pressed.

“Kraxberger. But . . . don’t . . . If my mom asks, I just didn’t talk to you.”

“What’s Jamie’s last name?” she tried, but he was already gone.

September stalked toward the filing cabinets and grabbed up the Ballonni folder from where she’d refiled it. There was a list of all the people on Ballonni’s route that September had scanned enough times to almost know by heart. She didn’t think the name Kraxberger was among them, and as her eye moved down the list she realized she was right. There wasn’t a name that looked even close to it, but then Chris had said Shannon’s family had moved away. She would need to look up the property records and find out which houses on the route had sold over the last few years and which ones were rentals.

She gazed a long time at the list of names, thinking hard. Had Ballonni been inappropriate with Shannon Kraxberger? Chris Jr. was implying something of the sort, and his girlfriend, Jamie, seemed to think so, too. Rhoda Bernstein certainly believed he’d been too familiar with her daughter, Missy. There was definitely a thread of sexual impropriety running through the fabric of this story.

Was that why the vigilante—possibly a woman, per Stefan’s comments the night before—had targeted both Ballonni and Stefan? The placards strung around their necks suggested it. Ballonni’s read:
I MUST PAY FOR WHAT I’VE DONE
. And in Stefan’s scrawl:
I WANT WHAT I CAN’T HAVE
.

As she thoughtfully closed the Ballonni file, September considered her ex-stepbrother. She’d never seen him with a woman, or a man, for that matter, in any romantic sense in all the time she’d known him, and he was now in his late twenties. But was Stefan truly a pedophile? Her gut reaction said no, but she knew it was because she just didn’t want it to be so. Didn’t want to think about all the hours he’d lived at her father’s house, all the times he’d been around Evie, her brother March’s now ten-year-old daughter. Or, maybe he was interested in boys....