Taking Liberty (6 page)

___________________________

Sadly, once they return to their old lives, many inmates return to their old ways. Even sadder, I was one of them.

My arrest in August, and my subsequent transportation straight to jail without passing
Go
, had effectively put my obsessions on hold. Living on the inside had meant I was dead to the outside. Jail time had come with basic Internet time – restricted to certain sites and under strict scrutiny. No email access whatsoever, and certainly no means to pursue my obsessions through cyberspace.

Snakeskin
and
The Undertaker
.

Two murderers.

Both roaming free while I’d been locked in one place.

One chasing the other.

Not sure if the one being chased even knew the other was doing the chasing.

Four months was a long time to be held back, knowing that those I hunted were getting farther and farther away. Warm trails cooling. Of being wound up like a spring, waiting to be released. All that time, going over fine details in my mind, again and again, keeping me company in the solitude of my cell. Four months of planning  what I was going to do once I got out of Springfield. Of how I was going to track them down, catch them, or kill them.

I hadn’t bargained on Alaska.

Truth was, I had no idea where they were, or even if they had killed again. For all I knew, they might have killed one another and put an end to my obsessions.

But where would that leave me?

I told Rae to go up ahead of me and then snuck into the hotel’s deserted business center. Charged an hour’s Internet time against the room and started running Google searches. I began with the keywords
The Undertaker
and
Gary Cornsilk
, then widened the criteria to include the combinations
murder, homicide by lethal injection, ash cross, rose petals,
and separately
death, homicide by fire, incendiary bomb, burned alive
. The hits were off the scale.

I spent some time sorting through the clutter. Ignored the press references relating to the original Undertaker Case. Nothing dated beyond February. Nor was there anything in the news or any of the media feeds to show
The Undertaker
had killed again using the same MO. As for Cornsilk – aka
Snakeskin
– there was even less on public record. No mention that he liked playing with fire. No mention of his love for constructing booby-trap bombs. No linking him to the dead woman found in a Fort Myers hotel back in the summer. Definitely nothing connecting him to the incinerated corpse of Derrick Hives, found in a warehouse in Virginia a week later.

It was as if the two of them had both vanished into thin air.

And left me behind.

I was deflated.

What had I expected – a bread crumb trail leading all the way to their cottage in the woods?

I told myself to get a grip, and then checked my emails.

Aside from thousands of spam messages there were several from Tim Roxbury, all marked
Urgent
and none older than by a week. I went to open the first, then had a change of heart and left them for another time. Continued scanning through the mass of unwanted junk instead, searching for anything sent from Eleanor Zimmerman.

Nothing.

I was disappointed.

What was I expecting?

I hadn’t exactly been the best friend in the world of late. Okay, so I’d saved her life. Big deal. It was my fault it had been in jeopardy to begin with. Because of me, Eleanor Zimmerman had been targeted by a kill team. Because of me, she’d been kidnapped and manacled with cruel piano wire to the master bed in my home on Valencia Street. Because of me, she’d been starved for a full week and left to bleed out. Because of me, she’d been a heartbeat away from death at the hands of
The Maestro
.

I couldn’t expect her to forgive. But I had expected her to let me know that she didn’t.

I decided to call it a night. Retreated upstairs to the honeymoon suite and used the keycard to slip quietly inside. The lights were off. I fumbled into the bathroom, bumped an elbow on the door jamb and cursed under my breath. I closed the door and activated the low-wattage shaving light.

A ghostly apparition shifted in the bathroom mirror. In the weak orange glow, it looked like something that had just crept from a crypt. A sickly pallor. Dark rings under sunken eyes. No hint of a former Floridian suntan. Not getting any younger. I ran the faucet, splashed tepid water over my phantom face and then used the toothbrush Rae had left out to scrub Springfield from my teeth.

Rae Burnett.

A lifetime ago, she’d gotten to know me about as good as anyone had ever gotten to know me. Certainly, as close as any woman had ever come, aside from Hope. Working long shifts together did that. Partners quickly learn their shadow’s idiosyncrasies, their traits, their thought processes, what makes them tick and what doesn’t. Weaknesses are exposed before strengths are identified. We anticipate and we depend. Sometimes, partners get to know each other better than they know their lovers. Sometimes the two mix.

In the bedroom, I could sense Rae’s huddled form in the darkness, snuggled up under the sheets. A crack in the drapes revealing a big recliner over in the corner, with a blanket draped over one arm. The bright red numerals on the bedside clock read 12:57 a.m. – almost four, Central Time. Christmas Day. I tiptoed to the La-Z-Boy and wrestled feet out of boots.

“Don’t mind me,” Rae murmured from out of the dark, “I’m still waiting for the sandman to show his miserable face.”

I moved the boots out the way. “Trouble sleeping?”

“Strange beds,” she sighed. “Don’t you remember?”

I felt my cheeks heat-up. “From what I recall, there wasn’t a whole lot of sleeping going on. We were both young and energetic. Libidos like rabbits. ”

“Crazy times.”

Even though Rae couldn’t see it, I nodded. Knew that she sensed it. For an explosive moment in time, Rae and I had burned brightly. Fiercely. Some folks call it chemistry. Others call it carnal. Me, I call it cowardly. For two months straight, we’d worked the streets by day and each other by night. Wrong but right. Even now, I was unsure if our union had filled a need or if there had been something deeper between us, something that couldn’t be labeled as lust and seizing the moment.

“It’s undeniable,” Rae said, “we were darn good together, you and me. Had things been different, we could have gone the full distance. We had everything. Sometimes I look back and wonder what might have happened if Hope had never taken you back.”

The mention of my wife’s name burned a hole in my chest, as it always did. Guilt does that kind of thing.

We’d been going through a rough patch, Hope and me. It happens. All kinds of excuses why. No clear recollection of the ignition source. Kids with kids ourselves, maybe. Work pressures leading to relationship stresses, definitely. One blazing row after another. Mostly trivial stuff blown out of proportion. You know where I’m coming from. No one accepting the blame and nothing resolved. Everything broken and nothing we could scream loud enough to fix it. Eventually, Hope had had all she could stomach. She’d left in a whirlwind. Packed up and gone home to her parents’ place in the country, out near Jackson. Took Grace and George with her, the whole of one summer. Told me it was over and she wanted a divorce. I’d flipped. Raged at the world and at my own pigheaded stupidity for pushing her away. For days, useless and foaming at the mouth. Found myself pouring out my heart to my partner in a bar one night. Found her attentive and understanding. Found myself slipping into darkness, lost in a moment that took away the heartache and went on for seamless weeks.

But then George had broken his leg falling from a tree and the needs of my family had outweighed the needs of the two.

“Rae,” I breathed. “Rae, I never meant to –”

“Love me?” she asked from out of the darkness.

And there it was: the knockout blow.

I hadn’t seen it coming – not then, not now. Like the killer twist at the end of a thriller, it had sneaked up and kicked me in the gut. Is that what Rae and I had had all those years ago? Love not lust? Is that why I’d run back to Hope the minute an opportunity had arisen, because I was scared of staying with Rae and what it would lead to? Scared that I might actually choose her over Hope?

I swallowed, dryly. Glad that Rae couldn’t see the perplexity squirming over my face.

No arguing the fact that Hope and I had warred for months. Long enough for it to become a way of existence. Shamefully, it had impacted on our home life and had affected our children – especially my sensitive son, who loved his momma more than life itself. Instead of fighting for us, I’d withdrawn. Frustration, inexperience and the stubborn Quinn gene getting in the way. I’d never questioned my love for Hope. Not once. But I’d never asked myself about my real feelings for Rae either. Didn’t realize I’d had any – not until long after the event, when the dust had settled, when it was easier to do nothing about it.

Was it possible to be in love with two people, both at the same time?

Although Rae and I had shared many four-letter words between us,
love
had never passed either of our lips. Maybe it should have. Maybe if I’d stopped for a second to think with my heart instead of my head, I might have made different choices. As it was, the course of events had made the decision for me. On hearing about George’s accident, I’d brought forward my vacation days and rushed to Jackson. Stayed there a whole month. Freed from the burdens of our jobs, Hope and I had found common ground, weeding out our issues on neutral turf. We’d patched things up. Sown the seeds of our future. A good future. Vowed to try harder. To listen. To carve out a better life for us and our children – maybe with a fresh start in another State.

I’d let Hope die thinking it was her idea to move our family out to the West Coast, when in fact all I’d been doing was running away from Rae.

I drew a deep and uneven breath. “I was going to say
hurt
you, Rae. But you’re right. God forgive me, you’re right. You always were.”

There was a long, protracted silence in which I could hear Rae’s breathing, regular and steady. Hear my heart thudding away in the chasm between fear and familiarity. I sat there, unmoving in the dark, wondering what she was thinking, wondering what I was thinking.

Twenty years had passed between us. Two decades of hurt and hope. A lifetime of work, of children maturing into adults, of deliberately not looking back and wondering
what if?

“I need to know,” she said quietly, “do you still have feelings for me?”

I got up and padded over to the bed. I don’t know why I did. It just happened. Automatic pilot. My legs and feet with plans of their own. I sat down on the edge of the mattress. Looked down at Libby Rae Burnett, unable to make out much more than the outline of her face in all the darkness.

I sensed her push herself up on one elbow, shimmy closer under the sheets. Sensed the sudden proximity of her warmth, her breath, her fragrance. God help me.