Wicked Game

by Lisa Jackson

  “You liked someone else,” Mac said, his eyes following the path Becca had taken.

  “It was over. That’s all.”

  “You didn’t follow her into that maze and stab her to death?” Gretchen asked conversationally.

  “She was stabbed?” Hudson asked. He turned to Mac for corroboration.

  Mac nodded curtly. “That’s the ME’s opinion.”

  Walker seemed to think that over while Mac, with a warning look at Gretchen to keep her big trap shut, asked more questions about the timeline of the last night Hudson saw Jessie. It was more of the same from his notes from twenty years ago, less really, as Hudson’s memory wasn’t as clear as it had been then.

  “She said she was in trouble,” Hudson said. “Something was out there.”

  “In trouble? What do you mean? Trouble with her parents? At school? Maybe pregnant?” Gretchen leaned a little forward in her seat.

  Mac wanted to smash his foot down on hers. She seemed determined to blab all aspects of the case before he was ready. Some of the information had to be held back from the press, the populace in general, so that only the police and Jezebel Brentwood’s killer knew the truth.

  Walker lifted a hand and dropped it again in weary exasperation. “It wasn’t as defined as that. More a case of something unclear—like trouble was going to find her. I think she said something like that. ‘Trouble’s coming’ or something. I don’t remember her exact words, but she was on edge. She couldn’t sit still.”

  His story was the same as it had been for twenty years.

  “Did you suspect she wanted to run away?” Gretchen asked.

  “I just thought we were having a fight. We’d had a bunch of ’em. The only time she said she wanted to get away was when she asked me to take off for a weekend with her.” He snorted and picked up his cup. “Like either of our parents were going to go for that.”

  Something niggled at Mac’s brain, something he couldn’t quite catch. So Jessie had wanted to run off for a weekend, so what? And yet…He reminded himself to look at his notes.

  Walker glanced in the direction Rebecca had gone again, and Mac could tell he was starting to get antsy over her prolonged absence. But then the door to the restroom opened and Rebecca came back to their table. Her skin was no longer pale, it was flushed, and Mac deduced that she’d been damn near scrubbing her cheeks raw.

  “You okay?” Walker asked, obviously concerned. Yep, they were involved.

  “Yeah. I’ve been fighting a bug. Guess it’s trying to get the upper hand.” She smiled wanly. Mac didn’t buy it.

  “Can you handle some questions?” Mac asked her. “Or we can check in later.”

  “No, go ahead.” She clearly wanted to get the interview over with. “I heard you wanted to talk to all of us, and since Hudson was coming anyway…”

  “So you two are a couple now?” He wagged his finger between them.

  “We’ve known each other since high school,” Becca said. Her gaze was steady now. “We hang out sometimes.”

  He let it go. For the moment. Then he asked her about her own timeline of what had happened in the days before Jessie Brentwood disappeared.

  Rebecca was even fuzzier than Hudson; she wasn’t a close friend of Jessie’s and only kind of remembered what they’d said to each other in their last meeting. Mac ran through the events of those last few days—what had been happening at their school—but Rebecca could add nothing noteworthy.

  Luckily Gretchen kept her tongue in her head.

  In the end, Mac knew about as much as he had to start with, and that the sexual tension between Hudson Walker and Rebecca Sutcliff was almost palpable.

  Did it have anything to do with Jessie? Was it something entirely new?

  “If those two haven’t hit the sheets already, it’s only a matter of time,” Gretchen observed as they left the diner. Becca and Hudson were climbing into their respective cars as Mac and Gretchen got into the cruiser. “They act like they’re just friends, but something’s going on.”

  “Maybe.”

  Mac pulled out of the lot and, in his rearview mirror, noted that Becca and Hudson’s vehicles drove off in different directions.

  “And what did you say that sent Rebecca to the bathroom for a dash of cold water to the face?”

  Mac looked at Gretchen, then gunned the cruiser into traffic heading toward the station. “Who, me? I didn’t have a chance to say anything.”

  “What then?”

  Mac shook his head, but admitted, “She did look like she was about to pass out.”

  “Something scared her.”

  Mac reviewed what had been said and remarked slowly, “She was already scared when she got here. Why did she come?”

  “’Cause she knew you were going to be calling her and she wanted it over with the support of Loverboy. Who, by the way, is just a friend.”

  “They say that attraction in high school is the easiest to rekindle. What attracted once can really heat up in the now.”

  “Look at you—Mr. Love Life.”

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “But you might have something there. I went to my last class reunion about three years ago and I witnessed a couple of hook-ups. A few of ’em divorced their spouses and ended up together. I couldn’t believe it. My high school boyfriend was a jerk then and a major loser now. It wouldn’t have happened. No way.”

  He eased down the road, barely noticing the other vehicles.

  “I bet she’s the reason Brentwood and Walker had their little spat. You know, the whole ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ theory?”

  He mentally chewed on that. Maybe there was something to it. “Rebecca Ryan wasn’t a big part of the investigation twenty years ago, so I didn’t expect her to be now.” Mac cut the cruiser through a back alley, avoiding a Dumpster and a double-parked delivery truck.

  “I think we’d better add her to the suspect list.”

  “Or elevate Walker a bit.”

  “He’s close to numero uno anyway, isn’t he? Being the boyfriend and all? With her pregnant?”

  “He’s up there.”

  “Maybe Rebecca Ryan should be, too,” Gretchen said.

  Mac didn’t respond. The more he learned about the Jessie Brentwood case, the stronger he felt he was growing closer to some dark and unexpected truth.

  Becca watched her fingers shake as she threaded her key into the lock of her front door and let herself inside. Ringo jumped off the couch and trotted over to her happily and she bent at the knees and scratched his ears and held him close for long minutes. Then she checked that she’d locked the door behind her and walked into the kitchen, grabbed a glass, filled it with water, and drank it down completely, her eyes closed, her heart still racing.

  She’d seen Jessie at the diner.

  Outside the window. Clear as day. Her hair blowing in the sharp wind. She’d pressed a finger to her lips, asking for Becca’s silence. Another vision. Similar to the one at the mall. She’d glanced ahead into the eyes of Detective McNally, who’d been watching her so intently it made her short of breath.

  I can’t faint, she’d told herself sternly, feeling that familiar headache take over. Then she’d made an excuse and quickly headed to the bathroom, filling the basin with cold water and pressing her face into it, counting slowly to ten. She did it twice more, turning her skin red but bringing her ringing ears into line and her woozy head back to sharpness without actually passing out.

  Jessie had dematerialized in those few moments. When Becca had returned to her seat in the diner and risked a glance at the window, all that was outside had been their respective vehicles and a stretch of parking lot gravel.

  What did it mean? What did Jessie not want her to tell?

  “Am I crazy?” she asked, bending down to the dog, who licked her chin line and woofed softly.

  Becca headed for the living room couch and sat down heavily. Ringo jumped up beside her and curled in a ball, watching her with dark, sharp ey
es.

  What’s going to happen next? she thought worriedly.

  Renee felt they were in danger. Believed Jessie had said they were in danger. Twenty-year-old danger…

  Becca ran her hands through her hair. She hoped she didn’t have to see McNally again. She hoped that this interview was it. She hoped he wouldn’t want to talk to her “alone” without Hudson. “Get real,” she muttered to herself. If the police thought that either she or Hudson were involved in Jessie’s disappearance, her murder, McNally would be back and it wouldn’t matter what she wanted.

  She hoped this feeling of impending doom that seemed to be weighing on her was just an aftereffect of her vision.

  But she knew better. Deep in her heart, she knew better.

  With the ever-present notes of jazz surrounding him, Glenn looked down at the invoices on his desk, invoices that carpeted the entire cherry expanse, and wondered what the hell was going on. Blue Note shouldn’t be in the red, at least not this far in the red. They had customers. Not as many as before, but according to the receipts, Blue Note wasn’t doing that badly, and actually, they’d been doing great for a while. It was just that ever since that incident with the college kid who’d died after being served at Blue Note, things had gone bad. It wasn’t their fault that the kid had tried some kind of recreational drug and had a bad reaction to it before he’d come to their restaurant, but Blue Note kept getting lumped in with the event, so…

  But that still didn’t explain the flood of red ink in which he was drowning, both here and at home, where the spending just kept happening.

  His mind jumped to thoughts of Gia. Damn the woman. She’d tried to haul him into bed just before he’d bolted for the restaurant. He’d thought about telling her about the nursery rhyme, but all she wanted to do was get laid and conceive. He needed a baby like he needed a hole in his head.

  “Glenn,” she’d called from the stairway. “Bring your big, luscious self over here!”

  He’d been in the kitchen and he’d walked toward the front of the house. The blob had been bare-ass naked and hanging onto a newel post, jiggling her goods in a way that had made him feel slightly nauseous.

  He’d run for his life. But now he was here, the clock on his desk reminding him it was after seven, the minutes of his miserable life ticking by, the dinner hour, what there was of it tonight, in full swing. Make that half swing. Or maybe no swing at all, he thought sourly as he sat in the midst of all this financial misery and wondered if it might not be a good idea to take a long walk off a short pier. Who would miss him? Gia? She’d find someone else. Scott? Like he cared about him beyond what he could get in sweat equity. His good friends from high school…?

  If they’d been so good, where had they been in the last twenty years?

  After the cop had come to the restaurant, he and Scott had told everyone about how Detective McNally had paid a visit. But Glenn had kept the nursery rhyme note to himself. Scott hadn’t mentioned it, either. Most of the guys had spoken with the detective and it had put everyone on edge. The Third had warned them to keep their cool. None of them had wanted to speculate about Jessie, at least not too much. They all wanted the investigation—and maybe Jessie herself—to just go away forever.

  Glenn rubbed his temples.

  Jessie…

  He felt almost physically ill, thinking about her. Yanking open one of his desk drawers, he pulled out his bottle of Bushmills and poured himself a half glassful. Drinking sounded like a good idea. A damn good idea.

  He was deep into his second glass when there was a knock on his office door. “Come in,” he called garrulously. He didn’t want to be disturbed by anyone.

  “Glenn?” a female voice asked.

  A shiver ran through him. Premonition. His lips parted and he half expected Jessie to enter the room, but it was Renee whose cap of dark hair and brown eyes peeked into the room. His heart rate had skyrocketed and now, with the rush of adrenaline dissipating, he felt goddamn good and mad. Hudson Walker’s sister—excuse me, twin sister—had always bugged him. Even in high school she’d been nosy and high-handed, as if she were better than everyone else.

  “What the hell?” he muttered.

  “Sorry. I know you’re busy. I tried to call, but my cell phone’s dead—forgot to recharge, so.” She shrugged, clutching her purse in a death grip as she walked into the office. Despite her apologies, she seemed tense, even worried. “Look, I heard from Hudson that you talked to McNally, and I’m sure my name’s coming up on his list. I just wanted some feedback. What did you tell him?”

  So that’s what the visit is all about. Weird. He wondered if Renee was working on her “story” about Jessie, or was this something else? Glenn selfishly didn’t offer her a drink. He hoped she wasn’t going to sit down, but she did just that, perching on the edge of one of the club chairs, her elbows now on her purse in her lap, her fingers pushing through her hair.

  “I haven’t said anything,” Glenn told her. “There’s nothing to say. You sure look like hell.”

  “Thanks.” Her voice was dry but oddly unsure.

  He squinted at her, wondering if he was just feeling the effects of the Bushmills or if Renee was hiding something, holding something in. “Talk to Scott. He was here when McNally showed up.”

  “Is he around?”

  “Yeah. He’s going back to the beach tomorrow.”

  Was it his imagination or did she stiffen slightly? “Where’s your restaurant again? What part of the coast?”

  “Lincoln City.”

  “Oh. South.”

  “South of what?”

  She hesitated. “Deception Bay. I go there sometimes.”

  “Really? Why? It’s like…nowhere. We checked out all the towns before we opened Blue Ocean, well, Scott, he did the searching, and Deception Bay didn’t make the top ten, or even the top fifty.”

  “It’s…a good place to get away. Writers, we need peace and quiet. But anyway, back to the cops.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If you thought you knew something. Nothing concrete, but…something that might actually have bearing on the investigation…would you tell the detective?”

  “I wouldn’t tell him anything. Nada.” He thought about the nursery rhyme and wondered if he should mention it to Renee, but saw no reason. “You’ve been working this story. What do you think? Did you learn something?”

  “No,” she said quickly.

  “That sounds like a lie.”

  “It wasn’t,” she assured him and seemed about to unload. God, he hoped it wasn’t about her divorce. Women loved to talk about relationships, good or bad, but he just wasn’t interested. He had his own domestic problems.

  “What then?”

  “I was at the coast a couple of days ago. I ran into some people…that I think knew Jessie.” Renee looked away from him, to the pictures on the wall, snapshots of Scott and Glenn when they opened the restaurant.

  “At Deception Bay, right?” Glenn was having trouble following and sitting up straight. The booze was hitting hard.

  “Jessie’s family used to have a house there and there was talk of a cult nearby and—”

  “Does this have a point?” Glenn asked just as the door opened and Scott stepped into the room.

  “Renee,” he said in surprise.

  Doesn’t anybody goddamned knock anymore?

  Renee got to her feet. “I’m glad you’re here. I came by because I heard that you two met with McNally.”

  “More like he met with us.” Frowning slightly, Scott threw a look Glenn’s way. “Are you drunk?”

  “Workin’ on it,” Glenn said, wishing they’d both just go away so he could continue his drinking in peace.

  It wasn’t about to be.

  Renee and Scott discussed McNally for what felt like eons before they headed out together.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Glenn drew out the bottle and sloshed his glass a hefty refill.

  He just wanted to stop thinking.
/>   Chapter Fourteen

  Mac rubbed his face as he sat at his desk, poring over all the details from twenty years ago, trying to mesh the past with what the Preppy Pricks recalled now. He’d been at it all day and should hang it up. But the station was quiet now and he had time to himself, time to concentrate. Not that being alone was helping. There was nothing new. Nothing he could grasp on to. It was all just as it had been. Maybes. Possibles. Tiny mysteries. Nothing concrete and credible.

  He’d listened to the cassette tapes he’d taken of their interviews twenty years ago and thought how young their voices sounded, how young his own voice sounded. He wasn’t taking audio notes now, though he supposed he should. Instead, he wrote copious notes on the interviews from today, comparing them to the tapes and chicken scratchings he’d jotted down at the time of Jessie’s disappearance.

  Now he glanced at the more detailed report from the lab that had been tossed on his desk earlier that day. No DNA results. Just more about the bits of detritus found at the scene. The little bit of white plastic turned out to be a teensy bit of oyster shell—no prints on it.

  Mac thought about that hard. Oyster shell…from the beach? Was it significant? Was it even related to the victim in the shallow grave?

  And then the thought he’d tried to come up with when he’d been interviewing Hudson surfaced. It had been prompted by Hudson’s mentioning a weekend getaway. Mac’s mind had touched on a trip to the beach. And that reminded him of something about a guy—a caller who, twenty years earlier, after seeing mention of Jezebel Brentwood’s disappearance on the news, claimed to have picked her up hitchhiking several weeks before. It had seemed superfluous to the girl’s disappearance and Mac had pushed the incident aside, deeming it not that important. Her parents had a cabin in some little burg on the coast, and he’d assumed she’d been coming back from there.

  Now Mac meticulously combed through his notes till he found the small information he’d written on the stranger. He remembered how impatient he’d been. How little he’d cared for any information that took him away from the Preppy Pricks. He’d been so hotheaded, with his head stuck up his ass in those days. A young buck determined to nail one of those kids.