Homecoming Homicides

by Marilyn Baron

  “We’re going to find him,” Flippy corrected.

  Chapter Eight

  It had started raining again, and Flippy was transfixed by the rhythm of the windshield blades and the eerie glow of the street lights as she and Luke rode down Main Street, heading away from campus.

  Her cell phone buzzed in the darkness, and when she finally found it, in the maze of her overstuffed bag, and flipped it open, Jack’s number was flashing. Again. Flippy frowned and didn’t answer it.

  “Who’s calling?” Luke asked, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “No one,” she said.

  “No one you want me to know about?”

  “No one you need to be concerned about. It has nothing to do with the case.”

  “How do I know that if you don’t tell me? If I’m going to protect you, you have to tell me everything.”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything. And for the umpteenth time, I don’t need your protection.”

  “How could you look at what was done to Traci Farris’ body and believe that? That could have been you on that table in the morgue, Flippy. That’s all I can think about. It could have been you. And Kate confirmed it again. She took one look at Traci’s body and then she looked over at you and said, ‘You’re in his sights.’ ”

  “I heard her,” Flippy acknowledged.

  “Did you, Flip? Then why aren’t you listening?”

  “I’ve agreed to go home with you, haven’t I?”

  “Reluctantly,” Luke said.

  Flippy was silent as the car rounded the curve into the Prairie Condominiums. The possibility that she was in danger hadn’t escaped her. Luke entered a code at the gate. “I’ll give you the code when we get inside.”

  “You live here?” Anyone who could afford to live in the Prairie Condos had to have big bucks. It was the nicest place in the city. “Are you a drug dealer or something?”

  “You don’t know everything about me.”

  “Apparently not. I thought you were a city beat cop and a starving law student.”

  “What gave you that idea?”

  “The way you downed that burger at The Zone like you hadn’t eaten in days.”

  “That’s the way I always eat. I like to eat. You ought to try it sometime.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Since I was a freshman. My parents bought it as an investment. Next year, my younger brother plans to move in after he graduates high school. Didn’t you mention you had a brother?”

  “But mine is much older and more successful, according to my parents. At least until the bottom fell out of the market. But the patina remains. He’s an investment banker in New York, and he has a perfect wife who works at a boutique hedge fund. They’re the perfect couple with the perfect 2.5 children.”

  “2.5?”

  “One on the way. He was planned.” Flippy hadn’t expected to tell Luke that. But she was in a strange mood. Seeing Traci on the ground at the stadium and again in the morgue had opened the floodgates of her emotions. She needed another drink, although she knew that wasn’t the wisest idea, since she had been drinking the night she’d propositioned Luke, too. Had to have some fortification to screw over a friend.

  “Meaning that you were, what?”

  “An accident. You know. My dad is a serial cheater, and my mother finally caught him in the act. My parents were in the middle of a messy divorce, but then they decided to patch things up and, one make-up sex session later, lo and behold, I arrived on the scene.”

  “That’s rough. How do you even know that’s true, if you were in the womb at the time?”

  “My mother tends to be brutally honest when it suits her, and, as it turns out, history repeated itself. Which is how my sister Natalie came to be.”

  “Bummer.”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s me in a nutshell. Second child, always came in second, an unwanted by-product.”

  “I had you pegged differently. Daddy’s little girl, leading a charmed life, can get any guy and anything she wants, trades on her looks.”

  “You’re not wrong about some of it,” I admitted. “Only Daddy had a lot of little girls. Maybe one day when I know you better, I’ll tell you the whole story.” Luke looked uncomfortable, like he didn’t want to know the rest of that story. Smart man.

  “Well, we’re here,” Luke said, pulling into a parking space and helping her out of the passenger side. “Home sweet home.” He started to pick up Flippy’s laptop, but she put her hand on his arm.

  “You don’t have to carry my books, Luke.”

  “It’s all part of the service,” he said, popping his trunk and lifting out her suitcase.

  They walked up the steps to Apartment 5, and Luke disarmed the alarm.

  “You have an alarm system?”

  “You should get one for that dive where you live.”

  “Well, we can’t all count on Mommy and Daddy.”

  “Mommy and Daddy don’t pay for my alarm system, and for your information I’m paying them rent.”

  “They make their own son pay rent?”

  “They don’t make me pay rent. I believe in paying my own way.” They had that in common.

  Luke opened the front door into what Flippy could only describe as a showplace.

  “Luke, this place is like Buckingham Palace!”

  Luke smiled and looked pleased with himself.

  Flippy ran from room to room, giddy from lack of sleep and the strain of the day, gawking like a star-struck kid. Which made no sense, since she had grown up with the finer things in life. But in the past four years she hadn’t been around anything as nice as this. She didn’t want to take money from her father. She didn’t want anything from him. Unlike her mother, who had never worked a day in her life and was dependent on her husband for every dime. She was never going to be beholden to a man for money or support. Especially not a man who cheated on his wife.

  Flippy could appreciate the gourmet kitchen with its stainless steel appliances, the hardwood floors throughout the apartment, except in the bedrooms and bathrooms, the gorgeous window treatments, the very serene decor. And, no clutter!

  “Don’t tell me you decorated this place.”

  “My mom did. Decorating is her hobby.”

  “Isn’t she afraid you’ll have some wild party and trash the place?”

  “My mother knows me.”

  “You really are a Boy Scout.”

  “There are worse things to be.”

  Flippy wound her way into the living room and tested the couch and the matching loveseat for comfort. The room was like something out of a magazine, a masterpiece, adorned with Persian rugs, Oriental lamps and Venetian mirrors, not quite the Vintage College style to be found in most apartments in Graysville.

  “I could get used to this.”

  “Do you want to see your room?”

  “As long as I’m here, why not?”

  Luke laughed and preceded her into a room off a long hallway.

  “If I had known you could be impressed so easily, I would have brought you home a long time ago.”

  Flippy slapped his arm, but she couldn’t stop gawking.

  “Wow!” was all she could manage.

  The cherrywood sleigh bed with a Delft-blue goose-down comforter looked inviting. She couldn’t wait to dive into it. Floor-to-ceiling mauve Doupiani silk curtains shimmered on the windows. The plush wall-to-wall carpet was a cushiony cool gray-green in some kind of leafy pattern. And there was a bathroom en suite.

  “Luke, are you sure this isn’t the master suite?”

  “You want to see my room?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “Only because I’m curious. I don’t plan on spending any time there.”

  “Be my guest. He grabbed her by the hand and led her back out into the hall and then into a spacious master suite.

  “What did I say about the hands?” Flippy stared at their joined hands.

  Luke colored and
dropped her hand.

  “You’re the touchy feely type,” Flippy guessed.

  “I get that from my mom’s side of the family. If you ever met my mom, you’d find out in a hurry. She’s a big hugger.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “Definitely not. My dad is a clinical pathologist. He mostly hides away in his laboratory and does research. He deals with platelets, not people. In fact, he doesn’t like patients. I don’t think he’s even seen a patient since his residency. And that’s the way he likes it. He’s not exactly cold, but he’s pretty hands-off.”

  “I guess opposites attract, then.”

  “What about your parents?”

  Flippy frowned. “My mother is in everybody’s business and my father is more into monkey business.”

  Luke arched his eyebrows like he wanted to know more, but she wasn’t about to spill her guts about her dysfunctional family.

  Luke’s room was decorated in muted blacks and silvers. It was tasteful and manly at the same time. His great big king bed loomed, and they both eyed it awkwardly. The sooner they got away from it the better. It was giving her ideas.

  “Did your mom decorate this room too?” Flippy asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Your place is beautiful, Luke.”

  “Thanks. I really love living here. I hope you will too.”

  “You know this isn’t a permanent arrangement,” she cautioned. “Just until we catch the killer.”

  “That could take months.”

  Flippy shuddered. “Let’s hope not. I’m not planning to stay that long.”

  “Who said I wanted you to?” The cool and sullen Luke was back. After a minute, he relented. “It’s good to see you relax again. What you just went through was brutal, at the stadium, the morgue, with Traci’s parents. I just want you to know I understand that.”

  “Thank you.”

  Luke went back out into the hall and grabbed some thick seafoam-green towels from a walk-in linen closet and pointed out that her bathroom was already stocked with soaps, a loofah, shampoo, and other “girly” bath products.

  “It’s like living in a hotel,” she marveled.

  “Mom wanted it to be comfortable. I guess she hoped that one day I’d bring a girl here and—”

  “Give her some grandchildren? I guess all mothers are the same.”

  A scurrying sound emanated from Luke’s bathroom, reminiscent of a large rat doing cartwheels. Suddenly, the whole house seemed to be shaking.

  “What’s that noise?”

  “Oh, that’s just Cruz.”

  “I didn’t know you had a roommate. You locked him in the bathroom?”

  “No. Cruz is my dog. Cruz Bustamante.”

  “Cruz, as in the former lieutenant governor of California?”

  “Yes, but she answers to almost any name.”

  “He sounds like a Great Dane.”

  “Actually she thinks she’s a German Shepherd, but in fact she is a very tiny but feisty Bichon Frise.”

  “What’s she barking at?”

  “The vacuum cleaner.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s afraid of the vacuum cleaner.”

  “Sounds like we have a lot in common. What is your vacuum cleaner doing in the bathroom?”

  “I knew you were coming and I wanted the place to look decent. I didn’t have time to put it away.”

  “It looks a lot more than decent,” Flippy said, following Luke back into his bedroom. As he opened his bathroom door, a fluffy white ball tumbled out, yipping loudly in a demand to be lifted. Luke scooped her up into his arms and raised her over his head.

  “Oh, you’re precious,” Flippy said, reaching for the dog as Luke transferred the warm, wiggly bundle into her arms. Flippy cozied up to Cruz and was rewarded by a series of face licks. Cruz was exactly what she needed now. The dog seemed to sense her distress. Flippy squeezed Cruz and drank in her smell.

  “Don’t let her hear you say that. She thinks she’s an attack dog.”

  “Cruzy, woozy, you’re awful cute. But she’s such a girly dog. I didn’t picture you with such a frou-frou pet.”

  “I love my dog,” Luke said simply.

  “Where does she sleep?”

  “With me,” Luke said, staring at the bed and daring her to reply. In that big cozy-looking king-sized bed.

  Flippy laughed nervously and backed away from the elephant in the room.

  “You should see my dining room table,” Luke drawled.

  Flippy’s face flushed when she remembered what they’d done on her kitchen table a week earlier.

  “Okay, enough talk about sex. I’m going into the living room to study,” Luke announced. “I suggest you get some sleep while you can. You’re obviously wiped out.”

  “I want to do some research on serial killers. See if I can get a fix on the guy.”

  “You don’t have to stay up just because I’m up, but you can set up your computer on the kitchen table, if you’d like.”

  “Thanks. I think I will.”

  “Our man doesn’t quite fit the pattern. He’s a creative bastard,” Luke said. “Let me know if you find anything interesting.”

  The last thing Flippy felt like doing was bathing in the stinking morass of serial-killer-dom. She’d rather be bathing in Luke’s luxurious Jacuzzi tub, with Luke. But he was right. She was wrung out from the day. She ached for Traci’s parents. She missed her best friend. She wanted to wash off the grit and memory of the crime scene, the agony of watching Traci’s parents grieve, of seeing Traci laid out on the table before she was cut open, but she was too tired to shower and at the same time too wound up to sleep. She had a lot of ground to cover, so she kicked off her heels, stretched her toes, and eased into a pair of well-worn slippers retrieved from her overnight bag. She set her laptop on the kitchen table and turned it on.

  The pitter-patter of Cruz’s dainty footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor as she went to lap up water and then munch on the food in her stainless steel bowls. Once her tummy was happy, she nestled her doggy chin against Flippy’s fuzzy slippers.

  Flippy peeked into the living room, where Luke was stretched out on the couch reading a Godzilla-sized legal book and outlining notes on index cards. He looked tempting, sitting there. He really was a decent guy. Definitely not her usual type. Apparently she had always favored the big, brawny jock type for whom cheating came as easily as breathing. Almost married a guy just like dear old dad.

  She gave herself a mental slap and dragged her eyes away from Luke and back to her computer. Any thoughts of Jack brought back thoughts of Traci, and she didn’t want to go there right now.

  After an hour at the computer, Flippy’s neck bobbed and her eyelids drooped. She was falling asleep with her head in the baked beans, as her sister Natalie used to say. Cruz had fallen asleep on her instep and Flippy was afraid to move for fear of waking her, but her foot was growing numb.

  Flippy couldn’t concentrate, so she closed her computer and gently nudged Cruz off her foot. The dog rolled onto her back with her feet straight up in the air, and Flippy smiled.

  Luke was still hard at work, so she tiptoed into the guest room. Too tired to even wash her face, she changed into Jack’s old football jersey, her uniform as much as it had been his, and snuggled under the comforter. The pillow was soft and comfy and the satin sheets were cool against her skin. She didn’t miss her rattrap of a room one bit. And, for the first time in a week, she was ready to slip out of consciousness with her last thoughts not of Jack and how much she missed him.

  Flippy felt something pounce on her bed and a warm tongue lick her face. Her nose twitched. Jack? Luke?

  “Cruz,” she whispered. “Come here, girl. You can bunk with me tonight. I need you more than Luke does.” Flippy grabbed the adorable fuzzball and snuck her under the covers where Luke couldn’t find her. She was taking possession of the family pet.

  “Who do you like best?”

  Cruz answered with more fac
e licking. She had always wanted a dog, but dear old mom didn’t want dog hairs or worse on her valuable Aubussons. Now she had one, sort of, at least temporarily, for as long as she wanted to stay at Luke’s condo.

  She and Cruz settled in for the night and prepared to dream. What do dogs dream about? Flippy wondered.

  A sliver of light shone in from the hall. Luke was checking up on her. Flippy pretended to be asleep. She pressed her face against the pillow.

  “Cruz, are you in there? Cruz?” Luke stepped to the bed and pulled back the comforter.

  “Cruz, you traitor. You just met her and you’re already sleeping with her? What a horn dog!”

  Flippy struggled not to smile and tried to mash her face further into the pillow.

  “Number 10, Big Jack Armstrong.” Luke was obviously looking at her jersey, her threadbare jersey. He’d better not be looking at anything else, bare as she was under that jersey. She knew the jersey was riding up her butt. Damn. Luke had a perfect view.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Luke pet Cruz under the covers. He dominated the room. His hand hovered over Flippy’s head for what seemed like the longest minute of her life. Then he tucked back a lock of her hair behind her ears, and his fingers lingered there and traced a path lightly down her neck, causing her to shiver.

  “You awake?” he whispered.

  Flippy lay as still as a statue.

  The back of his fingers skimmed her neck and traveled down the well-worn fabric, lifting it until his hand made a soft imprint on her back, pausing before he administered a gentle massage that slowly inched toward her side, at which point her body betrayed her and her nipples hardened.

  “What did I tell you about those wandering hands?” Flippy whispered, in a voice raspy with sleep, trying not to jostle Cruz.

  “Couldn’t resist. You said you had a headache. I’m just giving you a massage.”

  Flippy shifted up in the bed and smoothed down her jersey. His hand fell away as she turned to face him.

  “I said a headache, not a backache.”

  “I can’t help it. I can’t help remembering.”

  “That was a one-time thing,” Flippy said, glad Luke couldn’t see her blush in the darkness.

  “Not technically,” Luke answered, his voice rising.