Wicked Game (23 page)

“Well, yeah. In content. They used to be just about people I knew. Like what they were thinking. Sort of a scenario would play out in my head about my parents, maybe. When they were fighting about something—usually me. They were always arguing about what was best for me, and sometimes I would see their fights in my mind and I think my visions were fairly close to the truth. Then when I got to high school the episodes got more intense and were mostly about boys I liked…or maybe girls who were mean to me…” She drew a breath. “They’ve never really made sense. More like dreams that hit me hard. One second I’d be normal, the next I’d wake up on the floor of the gym or hall or playground or science lab. It was more than a little embarrassing. You didn’t know?”

“I remember rumors about them,” Hudson admitted. “I think Evangeline helped spread them.”

“Did she?” Becca’s mouth turned down.

“She’s never been the nicest person around,” Hudson observed.

“She doesn’t want Jessie to reappear.”

“Maybe she thinks she’ll steal Zeke from her.”

Becca smiled faintly at his insight. “She was always thinking that. Anyway, fast-forward to today. I can’t explain what they’re about, but I had my first one recently
before
I’d heard about the body being found at the maze.”

“And that was of Jessie.”

“Yes.”

“And you haven’t had any other visions between high school and now.”

“None. Not one the whole time I was married.” Becca sounded sort of surprised. “I’ve always associated the visions with stress, but I had some really stressful times when I was married and I never had one.”

“So maybe they’re not stress induced.”

“Maybe. Although tonight and the fire…” Her hands were trembling slightly and she flexed her fingers.

“Let’s go into the living room.”

He stayed close behind her but she was stronger than she appeared, he decided, as she made it to the couch with no problem, her dog jumping up beside her and curling into a tight ball, his eyes intense as they glued on Hudson, who took a chair opposite them.

“These visions,” she said softly. “They’re kind of a curse.”

“Maybe it’s your subconscious trying to warn you of something. The way you work out problems.” Hudson shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal,” Becca repeated through a hot throat. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’ve spent so much time making myself crazy over them. So afraid to make a fool of myself. Be the object of ridicule.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said quietly.

“Easier said than done.”

“What about the vision at the fire? It was about Jessie, too?”

“Not exactly.”

Becca wondered how much to tell him. Sure, Hudson was being nothing but supportive, but she couldn’t trust that he would remain that way if she revealed the extent of her idiosyncracy.

But still, her vision was strange.

“I saw the nursery rhyme,” she admitted slowly. “In a note. Jessie’s nursery rhyme. The one she used to taunt the boys with? I think…I think she may have sent it to Glenn. His name was on it.”

Hudson went completely still. She watched his expression turn inward and felt her heart stop. Maybe he was reviewing his own feelings, deciding whether to keep championing her or dismiss her as a total nutcase. For a moment she’d felt un-burdened, but now she braced herself, certain that was what was coming. Despite what he’d said, she knew his support might be weaker than he believed.

“What nursery rhyme?” he asked.

She rubbed her arms briskly. “Jessie’s taunt. You remember it:
‘What are little boys made of? Frogs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails. That’s what little boys are made of.’”

Hudson closed his eyes a moment, touched his hand to his forehead as if making a monumental decision.

Becca’s heart jolted. “Hudson?” She wanted to take back the words. She’d gone too far. She wanted him to think she was normal, but if he got up and walked out she wouldn’t blame him.

“I’m the one who got the note,” he said slowly, his gaze holding hers.

“No…it said Glenn. I’m…I’m sure…”

For a response he reached into an inner pocket of his coat and pulled out a white card identical to the one in her vision.

He turned it over so she could read the front.

HUDSON
was scrawled across the paper in an uneven hand.

Mac stood by his car, doused by dull, sprinkling rain, and stared at the rubble that had so recently been a restaurant and bar. Puddles had formed from the water from fire hoses and the ever-falling precipitation. The drama was all but over; the fire no more than foul-smelling steam. Standing water gleaming beneath the parking lot sodium vapor lights as drifting smoke hovered thick in the air.

The place had an almost vacant feel to it, even though the firefighters were still wrapping up their hoses and the trucks stood by, engines thrumming. Any looky-loos had left and Gia Stafford had been driven home by someone, thank God. The only person Mac still recognized was Scott Pascal, who sat on a wet curb and stared through red-rimmed eyes to the black, sodden hulk of Blue Note. Mac, who was rarely known for flights of fancy, had a sudden, sharp vision of a trumpet player squealing out some impossibly high note that ended in an echo of sadness. Blue note, indeed.

Pascal half turned. “Did you talk to Gia?”

He gazed at Pascal’s profile, noting the deep weariness etched in his face. One thing Mac had discovered from his years of interviewing people was that you never knew what they might say in times of deep stress. He’d found it beneficial to keep his mouth shut. Ask a few tight questions, but just wait for it, something Gretchen had yet to learn, if she ever would.

“Accident or arson?” Mac posed.

Pascal went quite still. “Who’s saying arson?”

“Maybe no one. It’s always a question, though, in a case like this.”

“A case like what? They’re not telling me anything.” He shot a vituperative glare at the departing firemen. Belligerence uglied his face.

“Come on, Pascal. You were bleeding money.”

“You went through my financials?” He half rose from the curb.

“More like a guess. Your employees weren’t exactly shy about saying how long they felt the restaurant would hang on.”

He thought about that and sat back down. “Nice,” he said sourly, then lifted an eyebrow. “How much time did they give us?” he asked with a touch of irony.

“A week or two. Maybe a month.”

“You know Blue Ocean is taking off. Everyone said we’d never make it at the beach, but you’d be surprised.”

“At the coast?” Mac reiterated, thinking of the oyster shell, the fact that Jessie Brentwood had been hitchhiking along the road leading from the coast soon before she disappeared.

“Yeah, Lincoln City.”

Quite a bit south from where the Brentwoods had once owned a cabin.

Pascal said, “It’s been a problem getting it going, sure, but it’s a great location, and we lucked out with this chef who doesn’t know how damn good he is, which is absolutely unheard of. Glenn, damn him…” He swallowed hard. “He never really knew what we had. He just used it as a place to escape from his wife.” He barked out a bitter laugh. “Guess he finally achieved his goal.”

“Their marriage in trouble?”

“Everything was trouble for Glenn.”

“Yeah.”

Pascal ran his hands through what was left of his hair and sighed. “Man, he was a pain in the ass.”

Mac smiled faintly. This was as honest as Scott Pascal had ever been with him. All the barriers were down. He almost hated to send them flying upward again, but that was his job.

But Pascal beat him to the punch. Throwing a look at Mac, he said, “You probably think this has something to do with Jessie. That’s kind of your M.O. Everything that involves my friends has to do with Jessie.”

Mac lifted his palms.

“Go ahead. Ask me all kinds of questions about Jessie. Here I am…I’ve damn near lost everything…maybe the insurance company’ll pull me through, but Glenn’s gone and God knows what’s next…but you…You want to know about Jessie. So ask, Detective McNally. Ask away.”

“I don’t really see how this fire, and Stafford’s apparent death, have anything to do with Jessie,” Mac admitted.

“Well, he got a note from her.”

“Glenn got a note from Jessie?” Mac’s pulse leapt but he frowned at Pascal, not wanting to give too much away. “When?”

“Don’t know, a couple of days ago, I guess. It was that nursery rhyme Jessie used to say.” Scott singsonged the message to Mac in a high, girlish voice that sent icy fingers sliding down his spine. That was the second imaginative thought he’d had this evening and he wondered if he was losing it, just a little.

“Where is this note?”

“Maybe his office. Maybe it’s burned up with him.”

“Don’t suppose it had a return address on it? Postmark?”

“Portland. I caught a glimpse of it. The zip code was somewhere near Sellwood—yeah, I checked.”

This was making no sense whatsoever and Sellwood was across the Willamette River, in southeast Portland.

“Why did Glenn get it?”

“You tell me. He always kind of lusted after Jessie, but he was kinda like that anyway. His tongue hanging out over every pretty girl. It never changed over the years. Jessie had nothing to do with him, though. She wanted Hudson. She’d use a guy to get to Hudson, but that was all it was.”

“You’re talking from experience?”

Scott sighed and looked toward the sky. The rain had ceased completely but the wind was picking up, shaking water from the soot-laden leaves of a nearby tree. “She liked the dark, mysterious ones.”

“Like Jarrett Erikson or maybe Zeke St. John?”

“Zeke was Hudson’s best friend,” he said, as if the thought had just come to him again. “That might have appealed to her. Jessie was”—he looked away, as if searching for the right word—“a little twisted, I guess.”

“Why Glenn, then?” Mac repeated.
And how would a dead girl send a note?
He was damned near certain Jessie had been dead for twenty years, and no way could she have sent anyone a note.

“She was a tease. It’s what she did.”

“Who else did she sing the rhyme to?”

“Every one of us.” He got to his feet and dusted off the seat of his pants, which were wet and looked cold. As if reading his mind, Pascal shuddered and turned away, toward his vehicle.

“You know, the body we found. We’re pretty sure it’s Jessie Brentwood, so unless she’s a ghost with her own stationery, I don’t think she’s sending anyone any mail, not from Sellwood or anywhere else.”

“I’m just saying Glenn got a note, anonymously, okay? And inside were Jessie’s words.” His gaze was steady. “Maybe someone played a sick prank on him.”

“Someone who knew about the nursery rhyme.”

“We all knew.”

“You think anyone else got notes?” Mac asked, wondering if the jerk was bullshitting him. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Ask ’em,” Scott said, then jogged away through the trees to a parking lot in a strip mall. Once there, he climbed into a dark gray truck and drove off.

“I will,” he said to himself. “I’ll ask every damned one of you.”

“Let’s start over,” Hudson said to Becca. “You saw an image of this note burning and you think it was sent to Glenn.” He was still holding the damning piece of paper in his fist and he was confused as all get-out. So far, it had been one helluva night. First the fire, then Glenn’s death, and now Becca’s visions or whatever you want to call them about a note he’d received just today.

“No, Hudson,” she said, her voice taking on an edge. “I don’t think it. I
know
it.”

“Fine. Then there were two of them.”

“At least.”

“Yeah, at least.” He wanted to know what this meant. Needed to know.

She’d examined the message and then placed it on her coffee table, shrinking away from it as if it were poisonous. He felt a little repelled himself. Who had sent the note? Jessie? He couldn’t believe that. Wouldn’t.

“Why?” he asked.

She shook her head and walked into the kitchen.

He followed her as she heated some water for decaf herbal tea or something equally innocuous in her microwave. Her dog had decided Hudson wasn’t worth the fuss and had settled into a round little bed in the living room. Ringo was now snoring softly.

“There has to be a reason I got one and…Glenn got one.”

“Maybe Jessie wants some of us to know she’s alive,” Becca said.

“You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

“I know, but—” The microwave dinged and she retrieved her cup, then dunked the bag of aromatic non-tea into it. “There has to be a reason. This isn’t just happening all of a sudden, after twenty years. Everything has to hinge on Jessie and those bones at St. Elizabeth’s.”

“So, why me? Why Glenn?”

“Maybe there are more,” she said and stared at him.

He felt it, too. That they were being manipulated. “Someone’s got a sick sense of humor.”

She tossed her tea bag into the trash. “Who?”

He thought of everyone connected even vaguely to Jessie and couldn’t think of a soul. “And why? I’m just not buying that someone’s getting his rocks off by trying to freak us out.”

“Maybe we should go to the police,” she said, testing the hot brew in her cup.

“And tell them what? I got a note and you ‘saw’ one that was meant for Glenn? If the police get involved, they’re not going to accept that you just ‘saw it.’”

“They’ll think I wrote the note,” Becca concluded. She walked back to the couch and sank into the cushions.

Hudson shook his head. “I don’t know what they’ll conclude, but calling McNally now might create more problems than it’s worth. Becca…” He trailed off, sounding uncomfortable.

She glanced up at him.

“Could you have seen that note to Glenn? Somehow. And then just recalled it?”

There it was. His disbelief. She felt a flicker of anger and frustration even though she knew he would feel this way. What did he know of her really? How could he just go on trust? “No.”

“Then you need to make up a story before we go to the police, if we decide to go to the police. Say you saw it on his desk or something.”

“Great. Lie to the police. Like I’ve got something to hide.” Becca clasped her hands together so hard her knuckles hurt. Why had she said anything to Hudson? Trusted him? “Maybe Scott knows about it.”

“You think Glenn showed it to him? Wait. Maybe Scott got one, too. Why should Glenn and I be the only ones?” Hudson was instantly in motion, yanking his cell phone from his pocket and scrolling through numbers. “What about The Third, or Zeke?”

“It’s three in the morning, Hudson.”

He snapped his cell shut, almost in anticipation of her words. “You’re right. I’ll check with them tomorrow.” He gave her a studied look. “Maybe we should go to bed.”

She nodded her head and couldn’t help but grin. “That’s the first good idea you’ve had all night.”

“All morning,” he corrected. “Come on.”

The first thing Becca noticed when she awoke was the smell of smoke. She sat bolt upright but it was only the lingering aroma from the night before. Though she’d changed out of her hastily donned clothes and made love to Hudson until nearly four in the morning, the scent was in her hair and clung to her skin. Ringo had given up his vigil enough to lay his head on his paws, but as soon as Becca stirred he was on his feet. Hudson snorted and rolled over, never even opening his eyes.

She glanced at him, his face unlined and relaxed in sleep, dark lashes lying on his cheeks. God, she loved him. She wondered if she’d ever stopped.

“Quit staring at me.”

“What?” she said, startled. “You’re awake?”

A smile stretched across his stubbled jaw. “I am now.” He reached for her and before she could protest, he’d drawn her close again and began kissing her as if they hadn’t made love all night already.

But she didn’t protest.

Couldn’t.

She was too caught up in the thrill of it all.

Later, once she’d caught her breath again, Becca rolled off the bed, hurried through her shower, and blew her hair dry in record time. She touched on makeup and yanked on her jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt and, in less than twenty minutes, was hurrying down the stairs, trying not to trip over the dog in his haste to be first. “It’s not a race, you know,” she scolded gently, but Ringo was already at the door, waiting to be walked.

“Okay, okay, a short one.” She snapped on his leash, slipped into mules, and tossed on a jacket, taking him for his morning constitutional as the gray light of dawn cut through the streets and alleys and cars whipped by, tossing up water from standing puddles. High clouds blocked the sun, and it was cold enough that Becca’s breath fogged, but at least, thank the weather gods, it wasn’t raining.

They returned, opened the door to the warm scent of coffee and Hudson walking out of the downstairs bath. His hair was wet from the shower, his jaw still dark with beard shadow, jeans from the night before hanging low on his hips. He was tossing on his shirt as Becca closed the door and hung up Ringo’s leash. “Mornin’, sunshine,” he drawled as she slid out of her jacket.

“Good morning…I guess.” She shuddered. “I’m still sick about Glenn.”