by Karen Rose
“He might not have known what?” Mrs. Fischer asked, her voice strained.
“He might not have known what the others had planned,” Olivia said.
Mr. Fischer paled. “Joel would never kill. Not on purpose. I know my son.”
“But you don’t know what he actually did. It’ll be worse, not knowing,” Olivia said. “Please. We need to see his room.”
Mr. Fischer looked at his rabbi. Rabbi Hirschfield shrugged. “It’s your choice.”
“And if it were your son?” Mrs. Fischer asked him, crying again.
Hirschfield’s shoulders sagged. “Then, God help me, I would hope I’d say yes.”
Mr. Fischer let out a long breath. “All right. You can look.”
Olivia met his eyes. “Thank you. We’ll try to be quick.”
Chapter Seventeen
Tuesday, September 21, 7:30 p.m.
Hi, Tom.” It was squealed by two pretty college girls outside the university gym, where David and Glenn had found David’s nephew Tom finishing basketball practice. Glenn’s head turned as he watched the girls’ heart-arresting, hip-swinging departure.
“Put your eyes back in your head, old man,” David said, amused. “I don’t carry a defib around on my back, you know.”
“Youth is wasted on the young,” Glenn grumbled and Tom chuckled.
“Sorry about that,” Tom said. “Let’s get away from the gym. Draws the groupies.”
David knew Tom was aware of his star-athlete status, but he was relieved that his nephew tried to stay humble.
“I don’t know,” Glenn said. “I kind of like drawing the groupies.”
Tom’s grin flashed as he led them down a sidewalk toward his dorm. “Me too.”
“As long as you only look,” David advised, as he always did. “Don’t touch.”
“I know, I know,” Tom said. “I’m not stupid, David.”
“Never thought you were.” He’d met Tom when the boy was fourteen and terrified. His mother, Caroline, had gone missing and Evie had just been rushed to a Chicago hospital, fighting for her life. Tom’s biological father, a true monster, had found them after Tom and Caroline had successfully remained hidden for years. David’s older brother, Max, in love with Caroline, had saved the day and later adopted Tom, loving him as if he’d always been a Hunter. They all did.
What David always remembered most about those horrible hours when they feared Caroline dead was the almost unnatural maturity Tom maintained. When the adults around him were losing it, Tom stayed calm, focused. Since then, David had watched him grow into a young man who made the family proud.
They stopped at a picnic table and Tom perched on it, propping one of his huge feet on his basketball. “So, beyond ogling girls, what brings you two here?”
David sat on the table, Glenn on the bench. “We need a hacker,” David said baldly.
Tom laughed, then sobered. “You’re serious.”
“Oh yeah.” David told him what happened and Tom paled.
“I had lunch with Grandma at the Deli and she never mentioned any of this.”
“It hadn’t happened yet,” David said. “It was at about two.”
“When she was back at your place.” Tom shook his head. “My God, if she’d been in your place and if that crazy guy had gone there.”
“Exactly,” Glenn said, all of his prior levity gone. “That’s why we’re here.”
“We want information on the Moss Web site,” David said. “Who designed, owns, maintains it. Who’s visited it. Do you have any geek friends who can help us?”
Tom nodded grimly. “Hell, yeah. You’re looking at him.”
David’s eyes widened. “You? No way.”
“Me.” He aimed a sidelong glance at David. “I told you I was bagging groceries last summer when I went home for summer break. And I did, part-time. The rest of the time I worked for Ethan. I actually worked for him the past few summers. He pays really well. I made double working for him compared to bagging groceries, in half the time. Sorry.”
David sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Didn’t see much need to. Salt in the wound and all that.”
His shoulders sagged. “You knew?” Who hadn’t known he was in love with Dana?
“Sorry. It was kind of obvious. Only if you were looking, of course.”
David’s face heated. “Well, hell.”
Glenn cleared his throat. “I take it Ethan is the husband of the unrequited thing?”
David rolled his eyes, thoroughly embarrassed now. “Yes. God. Back to our point. You can find out all we want to know about the Moss Web site?”
“And nobody will even know I’ve been there.”
“What is this Ethan?” Glenn asked. “Some CIA spy guy?”
“Kind of,” David said uncomfortably. “Does network, shadowy, PI kind of stuff.”
“Ooh.” Glenn winced. “Tough competition.”
David scowled down at him. “Thank you.”
“Just getting back for the defib comment,” Glenn replied cheerfully. “So, young man, you won’t get caught?”
“Nope. I’ve got a study date at eight, but I’ll do it when I’m done and call you.”
“Thanks, kid.” David stood up and met his nephew’s solemn blue eyes. “You’re sure? I don’t want to drag you into anything dangerous. Your mother would kill me.”
“Everybody says that, but Mom wouldn’t. She was doing the dangerous work all those years, picking up families in bus stops in the middle of the night. Hiding them from abusive dads.” He shrugged. “This is nothing compared to that.”
Glenn’s eyes had gone wide. “You have to tell me about this.”
“Unrequited Thing ran a secret shelter for battered women leaving their spouses,” David explained. “Caroline, Tom’s mother, was her right hand and Evie worked for her, too. Olivia’s sister, Mia, was also in on it, but more discreetly, being a cop. They gave lots of women new starts—new IDs, job skills. Even money.”
“And what did you do?” Glenn asked.
David smiled, but sadly. “I fixed the roof, her car, and anything else that broke.”
“I see,” Glenn said, quietly now, and David thought he probably did.
“Who’s watching Grandma?” Tom asked.
“Noah and Evie.” David’s brows lifted. “And I’ve got news.”
Tom’s face broke into the high-wattage grin that made college girls swoon. “Noah finally popped the question, huh?”
“Yeah. And Evie’s smiling.”
Tom’s grin dimmed and he swallowed hard. “Good. That’s good.” Abruptly he hopped off the table and took off, waving good-bye over his shoulder. “I’ll call you.”
David watched him go, once again feeling his own eyes sting.
“And?” Glenn asked. “That was?”
“Family,” David said thickly. “Evie is Tom’s oldest friend. They grew up together, in Unrequited Thing’s shelter. Her happiness has been on his wish list for a long time.”
“Does Unrequited Thing have a name, son?” Glenn asked gently.
“Dana,” David said, then smiled. “I used to dread hearing her name after she married Ethan, dreaded saying it even more.”
“And now?”
“Now… it’s okay.”
“Sounds like this Dana was dedicated to serving others.”
“She was, to the exclusion of everything else. Used to make me nuts, her going after those families in the middle of the night at the bus station in downtown Chicago. Sometimes the husbands would come after her, threaten her, but she didn’t seem to care if she lived or died. But that was then.”
“What changed?”
“She met Ethan. Figured out that there was more to life than…” He stopped, then sighed. “Than helping other people.”
“At the exclusion of everything else,” Glenn murmured.
“I bet you think you’re pretty clever, old man.”
“Yep.” Glenn stood, stretched his back. “I
do.”
• • •
Tuesday, September 21, 7:40 p.m.
It didn’t take long to find Joel’s shoes. They were in his closet, under a pile of dirty laundry. “Kane,” Olivia said. She held up one of the shoes, sniffed it, then turned it over. “Smells like smoke and looks like glue.”
“Then he was there,” Mr. Fischer said faintly. He stood in the doorway. Mrs. Fischer had stayed in the living room with the rabbi. Olivia couldn’t say she blamed her.
“It looks like it, sir.”
“I don’t see any pill bottles,” Kane said, looking through Joel’s drawers and under his mattress. “CSU can search for residue, but…” He let the thought trail. Usually a kid who did drugs left some evidence behind in his room and Kane was good at finding it.
“Did he ever stay anywhere else?” Olivia asked Mr. Fischer.
“No. He wanted to live at the dorm and we said he could in his third year.”
Kane held up a thick textbook. “Environmental Ethics. What was his major?”
“Philosophy,” Mr. Fischer murmured.
Kane leafed through the book and his brows rose. “Did Joel have a girlfriend?”
“No. He was busy with his studies. He said he was waiting for a Jewish girl.”
“Who were his friends?” Olivia asked.
Fischer closed his eyes. “The Feinsteins’ and Kaufmans’ sons, from Hebrew school. And Eric. Eric Marsh. They’ve been friends since kindergarten, first grade.”
Kane wrote down the names. “Would these boys know about Joel’s interests?”
“I don’t know. Kaufman’s son is going to school out West somewhere. Feinstein’s son is still in town. I don’t know if Joel saw them often. Eric is an engineering student at the university. I think they had lunch sometimes. Eric was always the one to keep Joel steady. Showed him the problems in all the wacky plans he came up with over the years.” His face fell. “I don’t even know if anyone’s told Eric about the accident.”
“Okay,” Kane said. “Here we go.” He’d been going through Joel’s stack of school papers and held up a bound folder. “‘Preston Moss—hero or monster?’ On the last page Joel concludes he was a hero.”
A strangled breath came from Fischer. “Son, what have you done?” he whispered.
Olivia looked around Joel’s room. One wall was covered in plaques, honoring community service, which made her think of David’s bedroom in Chicago. He hadn’t had any plaques or mementos. David didn’t do his service to be noticed. Teshuvah. David was making amends, but for what sin? What about Lincoln had he understood?
She turned to Joel’s father. “I’m betting more than he originally bargained for.”
Fischer’s eyes were anguished. “Oh, God. He did this thing. This terrible thing.”
“I am so sorry, sir,” she said. “We’re going to need to bring in our crime scene unit.”
He nodded unsteadily. “I understand.”
His color worried her. He’d turned gray. “Can I get you anything?”
“No. Nothing.” He turned away then, his back hunched and Olivia heard the familiar muted howl of agony. It was raw grief and always tore at her gut.
“Dammit,” she muttered.
“You did all you could, Liv,” Kane said quietly. “More than most would. How did you know all that about the… What did you call it? Teshu…?”
“Doing Teshuva,” she said with a sigh.
“You didn’t pick that up from dropping by your neighbors for the occasional wake.”
“No. When I was in college, I had a few years of soul searching,” she admitted. “You know, why are we here? I looked into a lot of religions. I really liked my neighbors. They were a happy family. I thought maybe it was their faith. So I went to Temple near campus for a long time. I was curious. Kind of like Joel.”
Kane held up the textbook. “He did have a girlfriend. I found a note, with hearts, x’s and o’s. ‘Meet me by the library.’ Signed, M.”
She picked up one of the pillows on Joel’s bed. “Pink smudge. Lipstick.” She sniffed it and her mind flashed back to David’s words. I thought I’d dreamed you, then I smelled you. On my pillow. Her heart fluttered. “Perfume. Faint, but there.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time boys and girls sneaked behind their parents’ backs.”
“I’ll give Micki a call, get a crew out here.”
“It’s late,” Kane said, “and I’m beat. It’s been a long day. Once CSU gets here, let’s go home, recharge, and come back at this in the morning.”
She thought of David, waiting for her at the cabin. Wondered again at what he might have done, then thought about all he’d done since and wondered what the past mattered. He’d proven the kind of man he was, time and again. He was waiting for her and he’d promised answers. She’d been waiting for two and a half years. “All right.”
Tuesday, September 21, 8:55 p.m.
“It’s about closing time, sir,” he said to Dorian Blunt, who sat alone at a table, his eyes on the door. The wayward accountant had been there for almost an hour, jumping every time the bell on the door jingled.
Poor Dorian was waiting for the man who’d contacted him via e-mail about an accounting position in a new company. There was just enough verifiable detail to make Dorian believe in the job and just enough promised to make him desperate for the position.
Because Dorian needed a new job very badly. Especially now. The job he’d taken after leaving his old firm after embezzling all that money had not been successful, and the Blunt household’s finances were suffering. So much that Dorian might start dipping into his ill-gotten gains any day now.
Which wouldn’t do at all. Because I took every cent.
Of course there was no job. There is just me, playing with Dorian a little. Not wanting to harm Mrs. Blunt or their child, he’d needed a way to lure Dorian out of his house, and promising a job interview was better than most. Having him wait for an hour, watching the door?
Now, that was a strategy he’d learned from a real master. Honed right here in his shop. The serial killer unceremoniously dubbed “The Red Dress Killer” by the press had lured his female victims from their homes with the promise of a hot date in a public place. He’d made them wait, demoralizing them, then when they’d given up on Mr. Right, the killer had followed them home and performed his dastardly deeds.
He’d lured his third victim here. Right under my nose and even I didn’t suspect a thing. Not until the police flashed the victim’s picture all over the media. He’d recognized her immediately then. He’d even chatted with her the night she’d disappeared. The police had tracked her here, asking for video of the dining area, but he’d lied, telling them he only had video of the cash register.
For a very brief moment, he’d considered blackmailing Pit-Guy but quickly decided against it. The man had been a serial killer, for God’s sake. There was no way he was getting involved with that. And as for helping the police? He let them figure it out on their own. That’s what they were paid for.
Eventually they had figured it out and Pit-Guy’s full story had been revealed. He’d had more than three dozen bodies stashed in the pit in his basement. So my instincts were right. Don’t mess with a man with three dozen bodies in his basement. The video of Pit-Guy watching his victim, following her out that night, was one of his treasures.
And whenever he needed a lesson in discretion, he watched it. Pit-Guy got cocky, then careless, then caught. Now he was dead. I don’t intend to get careless.
I intend to hang everything on Mary and Albert. Especially Mary. He had a score to settle with her. But for now, he had a score to settle with Mr. Dorian Blunt. Pay me a fraction of what you owe. Foolish. Between Tomlinson and Blunt, he’d have enough visual aids to convince his other clients to pay on time. And if not, he’d kill them, too.
He looked up at the clock. He needed to finish with Dorian so that he could deal with that kid Kenny at the deaf school and find out what he knew that he wasn’t te
lling the cops. He’d snip those loose ends and then he could get back to business.
“Sir,” he called out. “We’re closed now. You have to leave.”
Dorian stood, his briefcase clutched in his sweaty hand. “Just a few more minutes? This meeting is very important.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m ready to lock up. You may want to wait outside for a few minutes. Just in case.”
Dorian did just that, which he’d known he would. He locked up and went to get his van. Soon, Dorian Blunt would wish he’d just paid his bills on time.
Tuesday, September 21, 9:05 p.m.
David stood on the edge of Glenn’s dock, his face lifted into the cool wind coming off the water. It was after nine and Olivia hadn’t called.
He’d almost given in and called her, but stopped himself. The ball was truly in her court now, he thought. No pun intended. She could be busy. She could be tied up with a suspect and unable to call. Or, she might have simply changed her mind.
He looked down at his fishing rod and tackle box that lay on the dock, unused. He’d brought them out here, intending to try for another walleye, but had ended up standing here, contemplating. Everything.
He thought about what Evie had said about missed opportunities, about Glenn’s paralleling his life to Dana’s. Service, at the exclusion of everything else. Dana’s had been penance for the guilt she felt over her mother’s murder at her stepfather’s hand.
Mine… Megan’s death and the deaths of her entire family. Also at the hand of a stepfather. Funny how he’d never stopped to consider the parallels before. But they’d always been there, plain for anyone to see. If anyone knew the truth.
Which brought him back to Olivia’s big question—who are you? He still wasn’t sure what he’d answer, if she ever got here.
He turned his mind to Lincoln and his phantom helper, who might not even exist.
He hoped Tom was making more progress with the Web site than he had with the phone numbers he’d found on Lincoln’s call log. The only calls that showed up in any of the reverse lookups he’d done were cell phones for Lincoln’s mother and his brother, Truman. The other number Lincoln had called matched nothing. It might be a disposable cell. He’d gone as far as picking up a disposable cell phone of his own on his way up to the cabin, but he’d stopped short of calling the numbers.
