Near You

by Mary Burton

  “Good school district. House promises to be a good flip when it’s renovated. Is there anything else, Sergeant?” Elijah asked.

  “Not for now.”

  “Don’t forget my fingerprints and DNA are on file. My attorney couldn’t get those expunged, so unless you have hard forensic data connecting me to any crime, we don’t have much to say to each other.”

  “I’m sure we’ll be in touch soon.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  Bryce quelled the desire to grab Elijah by the collar and demand to know what the hell he was planning. Because as sure as he was living and breathing, he knew Elijah Weston had a bigger plan.

  Instead, he turned and strode back to his vehicle, knowing in his bones there was another shoe to drop with this son of a bitch.

  Bryce arrived at the medical examiner’s office, slipped off his jacket, and shrugged on a surgical gown. Tugging on gloves, he moved through the double doors into the autopsy suite, where Gideon Bailey stood across the table from Dr. Christopher. Lying between them was the sheet-clad body of Edith Scott.

  “Apologies for the delay,” Bryce said. “Interviewing an associate of the last victim.”

  “How is the case going?” Gideon asked.

  “All three victims have been identified,” he said. “They were all one of Elijah’s Fireflies. And the last victim was seen talking to Paul Thompson last week. Not hard to assume they were talking about Elijah Weston, who is the subject of Thompson’s story.”

  Gideon’s frown deepened, as it did whenever Elijah’s name was mentioned. “Where’s Thompson now?”

  “I tried his cell. He didn’t pick up. But it’s time to figure out where he’s staying in town.”

  “When you talk to him, I want to be present.”

  “I did stop by Elijah Weston’s house,” Bryce said. “You know he’s living around the corner from Ann?”

  “I knew it was close but not that close.” Gideon cursed.

  “How do you think Elijah would take to a reporter talking to the Fireflies?” Bryce asked.

  “The media was all over him last year, but he didn’t seem to care. Now he’s emerging from his isolation and reinventing himself, so he might not be as patient about rehashing his past.”

  “There was a murder in town last year. The victim allegedly beat up Elijah shortly after his release.”

  “Yes. We never pulled any DNA or fingerprints from the scene. We never could officially close the case.”

  “And now Edith Scott is dead,” Bryce said. “She served on the jury that convicted Elijah?”

  “She was the foreman of the jury,” Gideon said. “And when he came up for parole five years ago, she was part of the citizens committee who filed their objections to the parole board.”

  Bryce worked his fingers deeper into the gloves as he moved up to the table. Dr. Christopher pulled back the sheet to reveal the pale, drawn features of Edith Scott. The doctor adjusted the overhead microphone closer to his mouth.

  “Today, we have the body of a forty-eight-year-old woman, Edith Scott, who suffered multiple knife wounds to the chest.”

  Bryce counted six knife wounds, each tightly grouped around her heart. There was nothing haphazard about the patterning, which was very similar to the other three victims. As tempted as he was to comment, he let the procedure play out.

  Dr. Christopher began with an external examination that detailed basic characteristics of the woman’s body, including an appendectomy scar, several old burns, and a heart-shaped tattoo on her right hip. She was underweight by about fifteen pounds, and her skin looked sallow.

  The doctor lifted the eyelids and noted that the right pupil had been blown and the left eye was significantly bloodshot. “Interesting.”

  “How so?” Bryce asked.

  “These are signs of suffocation.” The doctor took swabs of the nasal passages. “I’ll check to make sure there are no fabric fibers.”

  “Is there a way of telling if the other victims were suffocated?” Bryce asked.

  “Not given the damage to the remains,” Dr. Christopher said.

  The doors to the room opened, and Joan Mason appeared, gowned up. She stood beside Gideon, but other than a slight softening of her features, most would never have guessed they were dating.

  “You’ve been through the victim’s house?” Dr. Christopher asked.

  “Several times,” Joan said. “I found no traces of illegal drugs, firearms, or anything to suggest that Ms. Scott might have had another life her coworkers weren’t aware of. She was on heavy-duty pain medications and two drugs associated with nausea. Her refrigerator was stocked with soda, bread, and cheese. Not the best diet, but I’m guessing it was comfort food given the nausea.”

  “Alcohol?” Dr. Christopher asked.

  “An unopened bottle of white in the pantry. I went through her mail and saw nothing that appeared troubling. No overdue bills, no threatening letters, no alarming correspondence from doctors. She had five books from the library that are due in two days. Also, no pictures of family or friends on the refrigerator. No pets. She had a quiet life.”

  Bryce had seen seemingly average people killed, but more often than not, they had engaged in some kind of risky behavior that no one had been aware of. That did not appear to be the case for Edith Scott. “Not the kind of behavior that makes an attack more likely,” he said.

  “No.” Joan studied the body with a detached distance learned when she worked homicide back in Philadelphia. “I spoke to her neighbor as I was leaving.” She checked her notepad. “A neighbor told me Ms. Scott was worried about Weston. She had been on the jury that convicted Weston of arson. Ms. Scott was mulling her legal options with her neighbor while they were at the mailboxes the other day.”

  “Unless he made a direct threat,” Bryce said, “she had none.”

  “That was their conclusion,” Joan said. She slid her notebook in her pocket and worked on a pair of clean gloves over the ones in place as she shifted closer to the instrument table.

  Dr. Christopher focused on the body as Joan handed him the scalpel from the instrument table. He carefully pressed it against the skin and sliced a neat Y incision. Soon he had peeled the skin open, and Joan handed him bolt cutters. He snapped the rib cage and, after careful inspection, set it on a tray Joan held out for him.

  Congealed blood pooled in the interior cavity, which had to be suctioned out. Next Dr. Christopher inspected the heart. “Two direct cuts to the heart. This wound, here,” he said, pointing, “severed the aorta. She would have bled out in a matter of minutes. The knife also cut into her lungs. Whoever did this was efficient and knew what they were doing.” He searched the interior cavity.

  “How do you compare the stab wounds to the other two victims?” Bryce said.

  “Wound patterns almost identical,” Dr. Christopher said.

  “But Scott’s murder deviates from the pattern,” Gideon said.

  “She also doesn’t fit the profile of the victims we have identified,” Bryce said. “We know three were Fireflies, and she certainly was not. Did you pull any hair or fiber samples from the body?”

  “I didn’t find skin scrapings under her nails at the scene,” Joan said. “But I bagged her hands just in case.”

  “If she scratched her killer, then that could be a tremendous break,” Bryce said.

  “It’ll take weeks on the DNA,” Gideon said. “I’ve spoken to the lab, and they’re backed up.”

  Dr. Christopher continued to examine each organ, and by the time he was finished, he confirmed the initial on-site conclusions were correct: Edith Scott had been stabbed to death in her own bed.

  He also discovered several significant tumors in her liver. “Those pain and nausea meds Joan found line up with stage four liver cancer.”

  As Bryce and Gideon left the autopsy suite, Gideon’s phone rang. “Detective Bailey.” He listened, nodding, and his expression appeared to soften a fraction. “We’ll be right there.” He looked at Bryce
. “My uniformed officer found several personal surveillance cameras. He’s going through footage now.”

  “If he finds anything, alert me,” Bryce said.

  “Will do.”

  Ann picked the boys up from soccer and arrived at her house. They tumbled out of the car and hurried up the walk until they saw Maura sitting on her front porch. She was scrolling through her phone, smiling as she seemed to note a post or message, before she rose. Beside her were several box deliveries for Ann.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Ann said. “Crazy day.”

  “No worries,” Maura said.

  “Maura, you’ve met Nate, and this is my nephew, Kyle.”

  The boys greeted her, and when she offered her hand, they each shook it. Ann moved past them, unlocked the door, and allowed the boys to scramble inside. Shoes off, backpacks stowed, they ran toward the kitchen for snacks Ann had stocked.

  “They’re a hurricane,” Ann said.

  Maura grinned as her bag slid from her shoulder to the floor. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “It would be nice to get the shelves up and these boxes of books unpacked. I’ve assembled a shelf, but the others are stacked in the corner.”

  “Assembly is also one of my talents. Get the boys situated, you get changed, and I’ll start in.”

  “I’m not going to let you do this for free.” She was relieved to think that this chaos might actually get fixed.

  “You won’t.”

  “Mom, can we order pizza?” Nate shouted.

  “Again?” Ann asked.

  “Yes!” Nate said.

  “If it’s the same pizza as last night’s, I’ll claim two slices as my fee,” Maura said.

  Ann would do better than that, but for the sake of no argument, she said, “Deal.”

  The next half hour—or was it an hour?—she changed, placed her order, got the boys set up in the kitchen to do homework, fed them, and cleaned up. It was the usual evening school-night chaos, and she was glad to have it back.

  When she made her way to the living room, she dreaded the ongoing mess waiting for her. But when she entered, the four bookshelves had been assembled and lined the wall on either side of the small fireplace.

  “Is that where you want the shelves?” Maura asked as she opened the first box of books.

  “Yes, that’s perfect. I can see the floor,” Ann said. “It doesn’t feel like an obstacle course anymore.”

  “Like I said, this is my thing.” Maura held up a book on forensic psychology and behavior. “Thick reading.”

  “Hazard of the work.”

  Maura carefully placed it on the shelf. “Do you enjoy your work?”

  “I do like teaching,” Ann said.

  “Have you ever worked with the cops? Seems they’d want your insight into cases.”

  “Not really.” Ann carried a collection of books and handed them to Maura. “These go with that one.”

  “I read about that body they found near town last week,” Maura said.

  “Yes, it sounds horrible.”

  “That seems to me to be the kind of case a doctor like you would consult on,” she said.

  “Maybe.”

  “What would make someone do that to another person?” Maura asked.

  “The human mind goes to some very strange places. It would be difficult to drill down on the motives.”

  “Sick, if you ask me.” Maura aligned several more books, then rearranged a couple so that they lined up in descending order.

  Putting names to the faces of the charred remains had been a stark reminder that what she had examined in the autopsy suite was not just evidence but the last vestiges of women. They had had hopes and dreams, made mistakes, enjoyed triumphs, made love, laughed, and cried. They had not deserved their grisly fates.

  “Where’d you go?” Maura asked.

  “Sorry. I do that from time to time. Absentminded professor.”

  “Are you worried about him?” Maura asked.

  “About who?”

  “A killer like that on the streets. Jesus, you never know when he’ll strike.”

  “I doubt we’re in danger.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “I just don’t see why we’d be a target.” She recalled the nights she had heard noises outside her house and found the small paper airplane left outside Nate’s window. She could not say for certain that she was not a target.

  Bryce arrived back at his ranch and was greeted by the new female dog, Venus. She met him on the front porch, daring him to pass.

  “I pay the light bill here, kid,” he said, meeting her gaze.

  His tone was stern but intentionally nonthreatening. That would come next. As a gesture of goodwill, he extended his hand and waited patiently for her to sniff. She took her time, smelling his palm, his coat sleeve, and then his shoes.

  “Dylan,” he said. “Call your dog.”

  “Venus,” his brother shouted as he opened the front door. “Come inside, girl.”

  The dog’s ears perked, but she kept a close eye on Bryce.

  “It’s okay, girl.” Dylan walked up to the dog, scratched her between the ears, and then fed her a small kibble treat.

  “You’ve just rewarded her for keeping me out of my house,” Bryce said.

  Dylan handed him a kibble treat. “Make friends with her.”

  Bryce held out the treat for the dog. After a brief hesitation, she took it. “She’s picky.”

  “Nothing wrong with a woman with discerning tastes.”

  “Maybe.”

  Dylan turned back toward the house, and the dog trotted after him. “Just made a big pot of chili.”

  “Terrific. I’m starving.”

  “Change and then you can give me a rundown on your case.”

  “Will do.” It was nice to have company when he came through the front door.

  As he grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, he wondered what it would be like to have Ann here. He had heard enough from Gideon to know they had grown up on a ranch, though he would wager the Bailey outfit was a hell of a lot more sophisticated than this ramshackle house and patch of dirt.

  Ann reminded him of a purebred. Long and lean, beautiful. Each time he saw her, he searched for flaws but had yet to find one. Smart, a great mother, she was also recovering from the husband who had lied his way into their marriage.

  Dylan came in the back door. “You’re making the face again.”

  “Face?”

  “The worried face.”

  “That’s what I do.”

  Dylan dunked a wooden spoon in the big pot of chili, stirred, and then pulled a pan of corn bread from the oven.

  “Damn, boy, you’re going to make some lady a nice husband one day,” Bryce teased.

  He laughed. “Do you ever see either of us settling down?”

  Bryce hesitated. Last year he would have laughed, said something along the lines of, “No way in hell.” Now he wondered.

  “That silence is very telling.” Dylan dished out two bowls of chili and set them on the table.

  “Not really. I shoot for the fences, and I miss more than I hit.”

  Dylan set the corn bread on a hot pad beside the chili. “You’ll miss every time if you don’t shoot.”

  Chairs dragged across the wooden floor, both sat, and neither spoke for several minutes as they ate. Bryce was surprised the chili and bread tasted so damned good.

  Dylan sat back. “You’re going for the woman with the complicated life?”

  He thought about the quiet, studious Nate, who was on his way to becoming a carbon copy of Elijah Weston. “Yeah.”

  Dylan regarded him. “Complicated can be interesting.”

  Whoever was with Ann would one day have to contend with Elijah Weston, in one fashion or another. Still, Bryce had dealt with worse men, and the idea of waking up to Ann outweighed the challenges.

  “Ask her and the boy out here. Kids love dogs,” Dylan said.

  “Maybe.”

/>   “When?”

  “I don’t know. But I might be spending more nights in Missoula.”

  “With her?”

  “In a motel. I’m worried about her.” He explained the particulars about the Firefly case and watched his brother’s expression grow more serious. “If something goes down, I want to be close.”

  When Maura arrived at Elijah’s house, she was filled with a girlish excitement she had not felt in years. He answered the door, stared at her with those sexy eyes that radiated a kind of deep-thinking vibe. Wordlessly he nodded for her to come inside.

  She held up a bottle of wine. “Interested?”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Not at all?”

  “Never have touched the stuff.” He took the bottle from her, set it on a small table by the door, and then reached for the top button of her blouse.

  She watched as his nimble fingers unfastened one, two, and then all the buttons to her waist. He slid his hand into her open blouse and cupped her breast. Sensations rolled through her, and whatever ideas she had of teasing him about his teetotaling ways vanished in a rush of desire. What was it about this guy that set her on fire?

  When he kissed the tops of her breasts, she hissed in a breath. “Bedroom.”

  He took her by the hand, and in his room they both quietly stripped off their clothes, and he tossed back the covers of the neatly made bed. She scrambled to the center, and he was on top of her and inside her in a blink.

  Their lovemaking was fast, hot, and rougher than it had been before. He seemed possessed and driven, and she was glad she had finally been able to experience the intensity inside him.

  Later, as they lay naked, he stared up at the ceiling, hand tucked under his head. “Were you able to do the errand I requested?”

  She circled her fingers around his navel. “Yes.”

  He took her hand and guided it under the sheet. “Good girl.”

  She smiled, pushing back the sheet, took him in her hands, and paused with her lips only an inch from the tip of his penis. “No, bad girl. Very bad girl.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Missoula, Montana

  Wednesday, August 25