by Pamela Cowan
She hadn’t realized how far from the parking lot the third table was. She also hadn’t expected the park to be so empty of people or so dark. The trail took her into the deep shadows of the ash and fir trees along a creek the mottled color of burnt steel. The sky was low, clouds seeming to touch the horizon in every direction.
She hadn’t wanted to go, but he had insisted, and she definitely didn’t want him to go to the office. There was no reason for him to make such frequent appointments. Someone might have noticed. How would she have explained?
No, the wetland was a good idea, private enough to talk, yet public enough to make her feel safe. Or so she thought.
“What do I want?” Howard said, repeating her question. “That’s not a very friendly hello.”
“Sorry. Hello. What do you want?”
Howard’s smile melted. “You know what I want,” he said. He stepped around her and climbed onto the table, sitting with his feet on the bench, hunched forward, his forearms resting on his legs.
“A new target?” Storm asked
“A new target,” he agreed.
“You know how the last one went. How close we got to real trouble. They may not still be actively pursuing Helena Smith’s disappearance, but they’re suspicious. We shouldn’t do anything for a while. Maybe a long while,” she said, broaching the topic she’d been avoiding and nervously waiting for his reaction.
He didn’t seem to react at all, just chewed on one of his ragged fingernails, tore a bit away, and spit on the ground. Finally, he sat up.
“One more,” he said. “One more and then we take a break. Maybe three, four months.”
“Why one more? Why not no more and we take the break now?”
“A couple reasons,” he said, holding up two fingers. “No, I take it back, three reasons. One, you broke in on me with the woman I picked up in Portland and you blew my fun with her.”
“But you—”
“Hush, it’s my turn.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone silenced Storm, nonetheless. “Two, you broke the rules, way more rules, with that last one. I helped you. Saved your ass, in fact, and had zero fun there. Three, you’ve been thinking you’re the queen around here for long enough. When we’re in your office, I may have to eat shit and do what you say, but out here, out here we’re partners. Partners help each other out. Partners have each other’s backs. I had yours. Now it’s time for you to step up.”
“One more, then we stop.”
Howard looked up; his eyes met Storm’s. “One more and we take a break.”
“A long break.”
“A break. Jesus, woman, what do you need to hear?”
“Four months, at least.”
“Fine. Four months.”
“Okay. I have someone picked out.”
A smile broke across Howard’s face. A twinkle lit up his eyes. “Now you’re talking.”
“Her name is Angela Ruiz,” Storm explained and told Howard all she knew. She took the address she’d tucked into her purse and handed it to him. “You can follow her, figure out the best way to get to her.”
“So we’re going after this one because she’s what . . . a serial dater?” Howard scoffed.
“She’s a mom who keeps dating gang bangers and putting her kids in danger. We know of at least one incident where one of those boyfriends beat up her oldest daughter. Why did he hit her? Maybe she was fighting him off? Who knows what Mom’s letting those boyfriends get away with.”
“You got a sick fucking mind, lady.”
“Yeah, well try working in P and P awhile.”
“No thanks,” Howard joked. “I’d never want to deal with a bunch of freaking criminals.”
“Funny, Howard. Real funny.” Storm reached into her purse and pulled out a phone. “This is what the cop shows call a burner,” she explained. “It’s a phone that comes preloaded with minutes. No contract. You want to call me, use it. My number’s programmed.
“Classy.” He took the phone and slid it into the back pocket of his jeans.
“Okay, so we’re agreed. After this one we take a break.”
Howard didn’t answer right away, and when he did, it was not to say what Storm expected.
“Who is it that you hate so much you gotta keep killing them?” he asked.
“What?”
“You know what I mean. You say you want a break and I know you believe that, but I also know you won’t be able to wait too long. Who is it you see hanging from the ceiling? Who am I whipping? Who do we incinerate?”
Storm took an unconscious step back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do,” he argued. “I saw it in your eyes just now. You were seeing someone, a face. You know exactly who it is. You just won’t share it with me.”
“I have to go.” Storm, rubbed her hands together, as if to warm them. Glancing at the sky, she said, “It looks like it’s going to start raining any minute.”
Howard stood up on the bench and then leapt to the ground. “Want me to walk you to your car?” he asked, dropping the subject. “It’s getting pretty dark. I don’t want you to be afraid.”
“No thanks. I’ll be fine.” Storm didn’t dare say out loud that the only thing in the park she was afraid of was him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
AS SOON AS SHE shut the door to her car, the sky opened up, and rain fell in torrents. Storm hit the auto lock on her doors, started the car, and sped away.
Howard was . . . perceptive. Yes, that’s what he was. She figured, as a sociopath, it had probably been smart for him to study people. Under the mask of an average, not-too-smart guy just trying to get along was a different Howard, a Howard who was keenly intelligent, perceptive, and extremely dangerous.
His disguise was so clever and perfect, she was sure he’d get away—had gotten away—with many horrible things in his life. She thought there was probably only one thing that could reveal what he was—his addiction. He had a real need to hurt the people they took. True, they were abusers and deserved to be punished. They needed to learn empathy through the same suffering their victims had endured. To Storm, this was a balancing of accounts.
The extremes to which Howard took things, however—there was no balance there. Yes, he was addicted to torture and pain as surely as so many of her clients were addicted to drugs. It was just another way to chase a high.
Howard pretended that what he’d been denied was sex with his last two killings. Storm was pretty sure it was his need to hurt that was actually driving him. Or maybe some sick twist of his mind had braided the two into one. He probably couldn’t have enjoyed sex without inflicting pain and not the kind of pain a normal sexual masochist would have been willing to endure.
Normal masochist—had that thought just gone through her mind unquestioned? She was absolutely losing it.
Thank heavens for Tom’s gift. The day after Thanksgiving, he had presented her with a Christmas card showing a snow-covered tree in the woods. In it were reservations and lift tickets. His parents had decided to take a Christmas cruise, so they weren’t going to Idaho, after all. Tom had made reservations for the family at Timberline Lodge at Government Camp near Mount Hood.
“How in the world did you get reservations on such short notice?” Storm had asked.
“Your husband is a very important man,” he’d replied. Breaking under her doubtful stare, he admitted, “The folks told me months ago, around the time they booked their cruise. I swore them to secrecy and booked the trip on the off chance we might be able to afford it by then.”
“And we can?” she asked.
“We can.”
Storm was tired. Tired to the bone and she hadn’t realized it until just that moment. The idea of escaping from her everyday life exhilarated her. Though she didn’t ski (it was Tom’s thing), she would be happy to take the kids sledding, or snow tubing, or maybe they’d just hang around the pool.
There were plenty of things to do, and she imagined at that time of ye
ar, the lodge would be beautiful.
In fact, the lodge met all her expectations. Arriving after a short but exhausting drive over snow-packed roads, the family was relieved to park the car and drag their luggage to the check-in counter.
The lodge was decorated for the holidays. A giant Christmas tree stood in the lobby, dressed in shining ornaments and strands of twinkling white lights. Red velvet bows were tied along the timbered bannisters and railings that circled the huge room and to the handles of baskets of freshly cut pine boughs and giant pinecones. A fire of leaping orange and red flames crackled in the huge fireplace. The air was filled with the slightly smoky scent of burning logs and cinnamon.
The children were asleep in the queen-sized bed they were sharing. They were exhausted from their first day in a strange place and didn’t put up much of an argument, especially after their warm baths. Storm tucked the blanket around them, making sure their hands were underneath. Joel always had such icy hands.
She closed the door to the bedroom and moved into the adjoining suite. Tom sat at the desk, a newspaper spread across it, but he wasn’t reading. It was too dark. She stood behind him, her hands resting on his shoulders as she looked out the window.
In the cone of light from a street lamp, she could see fat flakes of snow slowly drifting to the ground. In the distance, Mount Hood was a dim blue shadow against a darker-blue background. Tom reached up and took her wrists, pulling her gently forward until her cheek was against his. She tilted her head and kissed his neck.
“Nice out there,” she murmured. “Going night skiing?”
“Too late,” he said. “Ends at nine and it’s what, eleven or so?”
“Pretty late,” she agreed. “Kids are out.”
“Long day for them.”
She nodded, raised her eyes to look out at the fresh snow, so unsoiled, and so perfect.
“Yeah. This was a good idea, bringing us he . . . he . . .” Her last word broke into a sob and tears slipped unexpectedly from her eyes.
Tom, reacting to her weeping, let her go and turned in his chair. “Babe, what is it?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he stood up and put his arms around her. “Stormy, tell me what’s wrong?”
“Oh, God,” she moaned. “What isn’t?”
Concern growing, Tom led Storm to the far end of the room, where a selection of overstuffed furniture was oriented to face a carved oak mantle that held a gas fire. He led her to the couch and helped her sit down. The flames in the fireplace burned low, a blue flicker that made their faces seem pale and convoluted.
“You look cold,” he said as he covered her legs with a blanket he took from one of the two armchairs. Storm knuckled away her tears, staring down at the black bears woven into the blanket. Tom picked up a remote from the coffee table, and suddenly, the dim fire grew up, casting a welcome golden glow.
He sat beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. “Now tell me,” he said, “tell me why you’re crying.”
“I . . . I don’t . . .” Suddenly the lie she’d been about to tell felt like acid on her tongue. She couldn’t do it any more, couldn’t keep the truth hidden from Tom. He didn’t deserve lies.
Fresh tears cascaded down her face. This time, she didn’t try to hide them.
“Stormy. Honey, what is it?”
“Not St . . . Stormy. Not m . . . my name,” she sobbed. She pulled away, just a little bit, just enough so she could breathe. She couldn’t look at him. She looked into the flame as she told him the truth for the first time.
“My name isn’t Storm. Or at least it wasn’t always. I was born Willow, Willow Tina Dean. Tina for my dad’s mom, Willow because my mom just liked that name.
“When I was little and I’d had a bad day, my mom would tell me everything would be fine. She said willows were tough, that they would always bend in a storm. Only, see . . .” she said, turning to look at Tom to make sure he understood, “I didn’t want to bend. I didn’t want to be the stupid bendy willow. I wanted to be the storm.”
Her voice grew stronger though not louder as Storm found the courage to continue.
“So you changed your name?”
“Yes, when I was eighteen, but there’s more.”
Tom nodded. He waited quietly.
“When I was thirteen, my dad . . . my dad set me on fire.”
“What? What do you mean, set you on fire? Your scars?”
“Yes, of course my scars,” she said bitterly. He was drunk and I made him mad. But of course he was always mad when he drank,” she said, half to herself.
“But you told me there was a car accident.”
“I lied. There was no car accident. No perfect parents who died trying to save me.”
“So, your parents . . .?”
Storm wiped her palms across her damp face. “My father has been in prison for the last twenty years. After the accident, once I was released from the hospital, I was taken to my Great-aunt June, my mom’s aunt, and my only living relative. Child welfare was investigating what happened, you see.”
“So they put your father in prison for hurting you.”
“No. Of course not,” Storm exclaimed. “That’s not how it works. In our family you didn’t share family business with anyone—ever. No, I told everyone it was an accident. I was fooling around with Dad’s liquor supply, somehow splashed it around, and set fire to my shirt. Dumb kid stuff. You know?”
Tom shook his head. She knew he was having a hard time processing all the information she was giving him. He was such a good father. The very idea of a father doing that to his child must have been almost impossible for him to imagine.
“I was still at Aunt June's when my mom disappeared. My guess is they had a fight about what he’d done. She’d come home from shopping right after it happened, so she knew the truth. I think he killed her.”
“That’s horrible.”
Storm nodded. “It was awful, but they couldn’t prove anything, and eventually the child welfare people came and took me home.” She didn’t share that for that short period of time she didn’t mind the scars. They made her ugly, untouchable. She didn’t think her father would try to touch her again.
Storm looked away from Tom, back into the flames. She closed her eyes, watched the after-image sizzle and fade behind her eyelids. “He's out,” she said. “They just let him out.”
“He killed your mother and they let him out?” Tom asked, eyes wide with shock, firelight sparkling in them.
“He was never convicted for killing my mother,” she explained. “Accused yes, but they couldn't hold him. They let him out of jail and he kept on drinking. He was—he is—what they call a binge drinker, and until he was good and ready to stop, he’d keep drinking. So, even though he’d set his kid on fire and put her in the hospital, even though he'd killed his wife and somehow disposed of her body, well, that was not enough reason to stop.
“He stayed drunk until he fell asleep at the wheel. His car jumped a curb, and he hit a woman out walking her dog. She didn’t die, but she was hurt really bad. I imagine that didn’t stop him either. I know you can get booze in prison. I wonder if he was always first in line?”
Tom took Storm’s hand. She curled her fingers tightly around his.
“They charged him with aggravated vehicular assault, and he was supposed to do ten to twenty. He was not a model prisoner. He kept getting in fights, hurting people. He did the full twenty. I have a friend who works in the prison system. We went to college together. I asked her to flag his record, so if he ever got released I’d be notified. I just found out.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s all been a lie, Tom. Everything I told you about my family, my childhood. I’m a liar. I come from a white-trash, dysfunctional family, and I won’t blame you if you want to leave me.”
“Oh Stormy, why in the hell would I ever want to leave you?”
Storm turned away from the fire once more, her eyes locked on his, trying to find the truth within t
hem. “Do you mean it?”
“Am I thrilled you kept this from me? Of course not. Do I understand why you did? I think so, sort of. You’ve always tried so hard to make the best possible home for me and the kids. You’ve always tried harder than anyone I know. I thought that came from losing your parents so young. Maybe you didn’t have time to hear them say how much they loved you, how proud they were. I was so wrong. You weren’t trying to make them proud, you were trying to be nothing like them.”
“Oh yes, you do understand,” Storm said. Excitement brought a sparkle to her eyes, a wash of pink to her pale-as-snow cheeks. “I never wanted you to know how terrible my parents were. How awful my dad could be or how much my mother lived in denial, pretending it would all get better. I never wanted our kids to know a moment of a life like that.”
“My poor baby,” said Tom as he pulled her gently against him.
“What will we do?” Storm whispered, exposing her greatest fear. “What will we do if he comes to the house?”
“Why would he do that?”
“To see me. To see his grandchildren.”
“I will make him go away. And if I can't, one of your cop friends will. Remember, Storm, the work you do, the people you know. Hell, half your friends are police officers, judges, lawyers. All you need to do is make a call, let some of them know what’s going on.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Hell yes, I'm right. Damn, Stormy, no wonder you’ve been acting so weird lately.”
“Have I?”
“It’s like you weren’t even there half the time. I was starting to think that . . . well, that you’d found someone else.”
“Someone else?”
Tom smiled. “Don’t look at me as if I’ve grown another head. You’re a very beautiful woman, and I’ve always been worried that eventually you’d figure that out. You are way out of my league. Plus, you do go out late at night a lot and without any good reason. I mean, who has a Tupperware party until midnight?”
“Tupperware usually morphs into drinks with that crowd. You know that. But you’re right. I do sometimes have to go out to walk or run. It helps me think. Lets me work things out.”
