Package Deal (65 page)

“
According to the detective, they
s
ee
m pr
e
tty convinc
e
d
that h
e
did it—his prints w
e
r
e
in h
e
r b
e
d
room
and other places—
also
in a
backyard
playhouse the little girl had
.
But they didn’t have enough to make a case against him
at the time
, so he was never arrested.
”

Marcus was qui
e
t. “What was his r
e
lationship to th
e
child?”

“A n
e
ighbor
. He
sometimes babysat when the mother went out
, which is why no one thought it unusual that his prints were in the house
.
The mother
remembered he always wore that scarf when he came over.
She
n
e
v
e
r consid
e
r
e
d
him a thr
e
at. H
e
always s
ee
m
e
d
v
e
ry nic
e
. H
e
was t
e
aching high school
at the time
. And h
e
n
e
v
e
r cam
e
on to anyon
e
th
e
r
e
. His MO app
e
ars to b
e
young
e
r kids. P
r
e
pub
e
rtal.”

“You’r
e
giving m
e
th
e
willi
e
s, Mik
e
. I k
ee
p thinking how lucky C
e
c
e
lia was.”

“I h
e
ar you.Do you know wh
e
r
e
he
is
now
?”

“No on
e
has s
ee
n him
in months
. H
e
n
e
v
e
r finish
e
d
out th
e
academic
y
e
ar. And
w
h
e
n I stopp
e
d
by his apartm
e
nt,
it looked like
h
e
’d alr
e
ady l
e
ft.”

“Hm
m
. Too bad. I think th
e
DA
in Madison
would lik
e
to talk to him. If h
e
surfac
e
s again,
ask
th
e
local
cops to
call
Stan
.Th
e
y’ll know what to do.”

Marcus
looked
for
the paper where he had written
th
e
nam
e
and numb
e
r
of th
e
Madison d
e
t
e
ctiv
e
. “Thanks, Mik
e
. Is
E
v
e
lyn th
e
r
e
?”

“Just a s
e
c.”

“I’m h
e
r
e
, Marcus.
What
can I do for you
?”

“You’r
e
a woman. If you had a daught
e
r and sh
e
cam
e
clos
e
to b
e
ing assault
e
d
and you found out th
e
p
e
rson who did it may hav
e
kill
e
d
anoth
e
r child, would you want to know that?”

E
v
e
lyn
was quiet for a moment
. “That’s a tough on
e
. I think
I’d want to know
to keep
my child
out of
dang
e
r. And
i
t would giv
e
m
e
nightmar
e
s to think what might hav
e
happ
e
n
e
d
.
But i
f
h
e
’s in jail, I for sur
e
would
feel better about things
.”

“I h
e
ar you.”

“
Does Amanda know where this guy is?”

“Nobody does
,
that we
know of.”

“Well, if you have news and I was Amanda, I’d want to know.” She paused. “
Were you able to talk with Cecelia?”

Marcus sighed. “
Not
yet
, but
Amanda said she would
try to
arrange
it
.
Except that
every
time I’ve asked her about it, she keeps
putting it off
—says Cece needs more time
.”

“Hm
m
. Maybe more time means you’re out of time.”

“I’
m
afraid
to think that way
.”
He sighed
l
ou
dly
.

“Since when does M
arc
us of the take-no-prisoners
Dunbar clan give up
so easily
?”
Evelyn’s voice came through
stronger
.

“What?
Hey,
I’m not giving up. I just haven’t been able to make much progress.
”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?”

He sat back down at the kitchen table and began
cutting up an apple. “I guess you do.”

“If y
ou love her—Amanda
and her little girl
—
go after them. You said yourself you can’t have one without the other, so make
clear to them
how you feel. E
ach
of them
.”

“I did
,
t
o Amanda. She still talks to me
.”

“For heaven’s sa
ke, Marc
.
Tell
that child
what she needs to hear
,
what she wants to hear
.”

“I’ve been trying, Evie
. But s
he won’t talk to me.
And, with what happened to her—you know—before, I’m afraid t
o
push too hard.
”

“Then reach out to her in a way she can’t ignore.”

Marcus
hung up and
w
e
nt out to sit on th
e
porch swing.
H
e
kn
e
w
Amanda
wasn’t happy about
E
van
’s
behavior toward Cecelia
.
And h
e
was c
e
rtain
the girl
wouldn’t go n
e
ar
him
,
which
meant Amanda was safe from his clutches, too
.

He needed to call her, to tell her what Mike had learned.
If only
the cops had been able to talk to
Carl
ton
before he disappeared
.
He’d mention
ed
how much safer he thought Cece would be if Amanda agreed to move in with him
, away from town.But
w
hy had Cecelia not answered his letter? He knew Amanda would have
insist
ed that she
do so
, if only
out of politeness
,
even if
the girl
said no
to what he
had
asked.

Marcus
watch
e
d
th
e
sun slid
e
into th
e
s
e
a. Only wh
e
n th
e
stars b
e
gan to blink in th
e
night sky did h
e
go back insid
e
to work on som
e
e
x
e
rcis
e
s h
e
int
e
nd
e
d
to giv
e
to his n
e
ws r
e
porting class.
He added one more
item to
his to-do
list—write a story for Cecelia.
Maybe th
at would get her to talk to him.

Chapter 17

Carl
ton
rolled over and groaned.
“
I need a
real
bed
—no more sleeping in the
back
seat
,” he muttered. He pulled the
scratchy wool
blanket around his shoulders to
stop
his
shivering in the chill of the late September morning.
He’d have to
fig
ure out where to go, what to do,
before
the weather turned any
colder.
Who knew that the woods around here could get so cold without snow on the ground.But n
ot
Wisconsin
, he thought
. Too cold
, too dangerous
.
And he need
ed
to find a job.

Sitting up, h
e rubbed his eyes.
E
mpty beer cans littered the floor of the car.
He must have been drinking
for a long time. When did he buy that last six pack?
“
I
have to
stop drinking so I can think straight
,
”
he said to himself, shaking his head.

A thought came to him.
My scarf. It’ll keep me warmer.

He climbed out of the car and opened the trunk. He smiled, relieved. There it was
, the box
.
But when he
pulled the top back
,
his heart started to race
and his stomach tightened
.
Wrong box.
His
business
clothes, the ones he wore to class
,
were there
.
Maybe he’d moved
the scarf
.
He worked
his hands
frantically
through the dress shirts and suit pants
as
his frustration
climbed
.
W
rong box
—
no scarf, and
no papers
either
. T
hose special papers
.
They had to be in the other box.

Where
was it
?
Maybe
the box was
still in the
apartment
. It had
to be
.
Why
hadn’t he taken
it with him
? He hadn’t paid his last month’s rent and the landlord—he’d
probably
already rented it out.
He rubbed
one
grimy finger against
the stubble on his chin.
No,
it wasn’t there. He’d taken everything with him when he left, the day after that article about Cecelia had appeared in the paper. Besides,
he couldn’t go back
there.
He must have
moved
it
—after that journalist asked so many questions
.

“The filing cabinet
—at the office
.
That’s where I
must have
put
it
.
Where
it’d
be safe from prying eyes.
”
Amanda never
opened
his
part of the
filing
cabinet
.
He breathed deeply and slowly relaxed. He would go to the office.

The
little
cat meowed and crawled onto his knees.

“I forgot about you.” H
e stroked the stray
, her long fur scraggly
. “I’ll bet you’re hungry, too.”
He could feel her ribs under her fur.

The cat rubbed her head against his hand, beginning to purr.

“You
and I—we’re running out of options here. No more food, hardly any money.
And I can’t go crawling back home
, not after that neighbor child
…
”

He
climbed out of the car and
walked down
the nearby beach,
empty of visitors in the misty morning
,
and dug through a trash bin. He retrieved
the leavings of a cookout for the cat—someone’s half-eaten burger.Had it not had
been so covered in
sand and grit, he
would have eaten it himself. His
stomach grow
led
as
he watched the little c
alico
daintily lick it and then
eat
a
small piece
.

“It’s time,
”
he told the cat
, as he looked at
his
keys and fondled the two he needed to get into his
office
.

The cat
looked up at him and rubbed against his hand again.

“Time to go back
to the office
,
when no
one’s there
.
”
He didn’t care if he ran into a student. They had never much cared for him
,
and he felt the same about them. But what about the faculty? He didn’t believe a
nyone in the English d
epartment would
pay attention to him—or in h
istory, down the hall
—
and
certainly
not
those snooty psychologists
hanging out
on the
second
floor. Always t
hi
nking they were better than an
yone else.
If
he went
to the office
on a weekend—when no one was
around, when they
were
out playing with their kids, when there
weren’t
any games on the field
—he’d be okay
.
Amanda wouldn’t be there on a weekend
, either
. She was probably home with Cecelia, that pretty little girl.
M
aybe Beatrice
had
left food in the chair
man
’s refrigerator.

The one person he most wanted to avoid was that
elitist
chairman
who was
always asking
him
about
his
dissertation
.
He grimaced, thinking about
his last
conversations
with the man
.
Taking his food would serve him right. Carlton chuckled to himself.

He
picked up the cat,
carried
her
back to the car,
slid into the
driver’s
seat and started the engine. As he drove toward
the campus
, he thought he saw someone
he recognized, someone
in running sho
rts and
a Buckley College T
-shirt
cut sho
rt, showing
off
the man’s muscular torso. As he pulled around him and glanced in the
rearview
mirror,
the man looked like
Marcus Dunbar,
that
j
ournalism professor
who was always coming around, sometimes carrying Cecelia’s books and soccer gear after a game, or talking to Amanda in
his
office
. Remembering the questions
Dunbar
had asked him
after Cecelia’s accident
, Carlton
’s
cheek
began to twitch
.

“For sure, I don’t want to see you
again
. S
o nosy, so accusatory.
”
He
knew he
was working himself into a frenzy, no longer trying to make sense of his wild thoughts, shouting out loud, though no one on the streets would hear him
, not with the windows closed
. “
Good riddance to you, Marcus
Dunbar
. Next time I see you on the road, I may just accidental
ly
swerve and knock you down.Serves you
right.
” He smirked
, his hands gripping
the wheel
until his knuckles whitened and his palms began to throb
.
“Maybe you’ll have an accident
today
,
if i
t’s you
.
”

He stopped
mutter
ing
to himself
when he almost ran a red light
. A
pick
up with students
sitting
in the
bed of the little truck
yelled at him. The cat slid onto the floor as
Carlton
skidded to a stop. He patted the seat
,
and she leapt back
to where she had been perched
,
close
to
his leg
.

On a whim, he turned the corner and
drove
around the block, looking for the runner
as he resumed his route down the street
. There he was
,
already
on the next block
.
He
was sure it was Dunbar from the way he moved
, the way his blond hair shone in the sun
.
Carlton
sped up and was within two car
lengths of
him
,
his
heart pumping faster as he planned his next move
. “If you would just head out of town, away from the traffic,
so people don’t find you,
” he muttered.
He smiled to himself at the thought of leaving the man, broken
and bleeding
along the side of the road.

A
compact
car
pulled in front of him then
slowed down to let someone out. He
hit the brakes and
honked
.
When the driver gave him the finger,
Carlton
swore and swerved around him, causing a
vehicle
in the oncoming lane of the narrow street to
blast
his horn.

Where is he?
Can’t lose him
now
.
There!

Still running
and oblivious to Carlton
having
target
ed
him
,
Dunbar
was
now almost
two blocks ahead.
Heading out of town a
nd on a straight stretch—perfect.
Now to get him
—make him fall,
hurt
him, maybe even kill him. That would
teach him
not
to ask so many questions,
not
to use Cecelia to get close to
Amanda
.
After the light changed, he
sped up,
quickly
get
ting
closer. He watched as the runner
wiped his face with one
hand
.
“
You’ll need to wipe
off
more t
han
sweat
when I’m done with you,” he muttered.

A
nother
car pulled in front of him
just as he was estimating where to move closer to the curb.

Get out of the way!

The
other
car turned at the corner
, leaving
him free
to sideswipe the runner
.

B
ut just as the
man
veered briefly into the street around a parked car
and closer to the road
, a truck
crossed in front on
Carlton’s car
, forcing
him
to
brake abruptly
. The cat meowed as she
again
slid off the seat and onto the floor. He stopped the car
and leaned over to pick her up,
the tic in his cheek
itching,
forcing him to rub his face
.
He stroked
the cat
until she start
ed
purring
.