Paranoid

by Lisa Jackson

  “I didn’t do anyone else.” Dylan finally met his father’s gaze.

  “He’s not lying,” Harper said.

  Rachel wasn’t convinced and drilled her son. “Then what is it you’re into?”

  “Geez, Mom,” Dylan said. “What I told you before. Computers. Gaming systems.”

  “Why am I having trouble believing that now?” Rachel glared at her kids. “Do you know what happens when you pull stunts like this, both of you? You lose our trust.”

  “And it’s going to take a while to gain it back,” Cade said.

  “So do we have to start all over with our security system?” Rachel asked, ready to tear her hair out in frustration. “Or is it secure again?”

  Dylan nodded. “It’s all working. I hooked it up again when Harper texted me that you were bringing her home. It’s just a simple switch.”

  “That you’ll remove,” Cade said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Yes!” Dylan’s temper flashed.

  Cade repeated, “And tonight, now, everything’s secure?”

  “God, Dad, yeah. Go check for yourself!”

  “I will. But you show me.”

  Dylan rolled his eyes but led them all into the kitchen, then the pantry, where the system control box was located. He walked them through the system, explaining that it was now “live,” that all the doors and windows were engaged.

  “Okay, disconnect it for now, and I’ll turn it on after Dad leaves,” Rachel said.

  “See how hard it is?” Dylan said sarcastically, tapping in the code.

  Cade pointed to one of the tabs that was marked FDC. “What’s this?”

  “The camera for the front yard. It means front door camera,” Dylan said.

  “Was it working the night the door was vandalized?” Cade asked. Dylan shook his head. “Nothing on this system was.”

  Cade’s face fell. “Too bad. We might have been able to ID the guy that sprayed the door if he’d been caught on camera.”

  “Yeah, but the image might have been all grainy. This system’s a dinosaur,” Dylan said. “You might not even be able to get parts for it.”

  “Time to upgrade,” Cade observed. “You can get digital systems that are easy to install and record and connect to your phone.”

  “We will. But not tonight,” Rachel said, suddenly bone weary. “You two”—she waved a finger between her children—“go to bed. School tomorrow.”

  “You’re making us go?” Harper let out a disbelieving huff.

  “Yep.” That might not be true. Though her daughter deserved a tough punishment for sneaking out, she had been through a horrid trauma, one to which Rachel could all too easily relate. Was it punishment enough? Probably. Still, Rachel needed to make a stand.

  Tomorrow.

  Dylan shot down the hall like a bullet, Harper following more slowly. Rachel waited until she heard both their bedroom doors close before saying to her ex, “Welcome to my nightmare.”

  “Mine, too. And I’m serious about that security system upgrade.”

  “Got it. I am, too.”

  “Good.” He was walking toward the front of the house again.

  “I just can’t believe that Annessa’s gone,” Rachel said as she kept step with him. “That someone would do that. Leave her for dead suspended in the bell tower. Why?”

  “Don’t know. Yet. But we’ll find out.”

  “I hope so. Does her husband know?” Rachel asked.

  “Uh-huh”

  “You think it’s connected to what happened to Violet?”

  “Yeah.” He thought for a moment. “You know what struck me? Not just that they graduated together, or that they may or may not have been friends. The thing is that both women were at the cannery that night and both testified on your behalf.”

  “That’s pretty random,” she said, but felt a little drip of fear slide through her. “I mean, it all happened twenty years ago.”

  “And now it’s being dragged up in the newspaper, right? And you’re having your high school reunion, bringing all the players together?”

  “I don’t think either Annessa or Violet planned to come.”

  “Even though they still live in the area?”

  “Maybe that’s why,” she said sarcastically. “Anyway, it really pissed Lila off. She wants to make the reunion one of the best ever or something along those lines. You know Stepmommy-Dearest. Always wants the biggest and best; to make a splash.”

  “Watch out, your claws are showing.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Just sayin’.”

  They’d walked to the living room again and he stopped near the door. “Is there anything else that links Violet and Annessa?”

  “Oh, geez, I don’t know. I haven’t kept up with either of them.” She thought for a second. “All I know is that they both moved away for a time, got married. Neither had kids and they ended up back here. Violet came back because of her husband’s business—Leonard Sperry and the furniture store—and Annessa’s husband, whatever his name, Cooper—”

  “Clinton.”

  “Clint. Yeah, that’s right, he’s some big developer who bought some property around here. Annessa moved back here pretty recently, in the last couple of years, to help out with her parents. They were in their seventies and . . . I don’t remember but I think they’re both gone now, but don’t quote me on that. I could be wrong.

  “Anyway, Annessa and Violet didn’t run in the same circles in high school, and I don’t think they became friends recently. At least I hadn’t heard that they connected.”

  “But they were both at the cannery that night?”

  It wasn’t a question and they both knew what night he was referring to.

  “Yeah.” She eyed her ex. “But a lot of people were.”

  “I know.”

  “So what? Are you trying to freak me out? Because if you are, it’s working.”

  “No.” He took a step toward her, and for a second she thought he might cross the room and wrap his arms around her. Instead, he stayed near the door. “I just want you and the kids to be careful.” He reached for the knob, then pointed at Reno, who had curled into his bed near the bookcase. “I’ll be back. Keep the dog on alert, reset the alarm, and lock up the house.”

  “I will.”

  “Good.”

  And then he was gone.

  No kiss.

  No arms wrapped around her.

  No hint of the intimacy they’d once shared.

  Which was a good thing; what she’d insisted upon.

  Right?

  Why then the tinge of disappointment when she threw the dead bolt on the front door?

  “Because you’re an idiot,” she whispered before engaging the alarm system near the back of the house, then starting her nightly routine of double-checking all the locks on the doors and latches on the windows.

  CHAPTER 24

  Kayleigh was waiting for him.

  Cade recognized her slim form in the strobing lights of the cruisers barricading each end of the block in front of St. Augustine’s.

  He parked and ducked under the crime scene tape, thus avoiding a TV crew that stood by a white news van, the logo of a Portland station emblazoned across the side panels. The reporter exchanged a disappointed look with the cameraman, who juggled a shoulder cam complete with microphone and lights at the ready.

  Kayleigh stood, her hair pulled back, a baseball cap low over her eyes as she talked with Nowak and Voss near the open gate. She wore tight jeans and a coat that hit her midthigh. Deep in discussion, Kayleigh looked up as he approached. “Hey,” she said. “Got your message.”

  He nodded. “I see. They bring you up to speed?”

  “Yep.”

  “You all think this murder might be linked to the Sperry homicide?” Voss asked.

  “Yep.” Cade was certain of it.

  Voss snorted. “Makes you wonder what the hell’s going on in this small town. No homicides i
n twenty damned years and now two within a week.”

  “Two victims who witnessed the shooting twenty years ago,” Cade said.

  “Oh, good Lord,” Voss said, “you’re not trying to link what happened tonight to the Luke Hollander homicide twenty years ago?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I saw you pulled the case file.”

  “Just brushing up on what happened.”

  “My ass. I know you, Ryder. You think you’re on to something.”

  “Maybe nothing.”

  Voss caught his gaze. “All good on the home front?”

  “As good as can be expected.”

  Voss snorted. “What a mess.”

  Kayleigh didn’t remark, but one eyebrow arched beneath the bill of her cap.

  “The ME?” Cade asked, turning the conversation from his personal life.

  “Been here and gone. Body, too. On its way to the morgue.” Voss shook her head. “I’m heading that way. Meeting the husband. He’ll ID her, but it’s just a formality. She matches the photo on her license, which still lists her residence as Seattle. The husband explained that she hadn’t gotten around to getting a new one in Oregon. They weren’t sure they were moving here permanently.”

  “How did he sound?”

  “Okay. Considering. But who can really tell on a phone? The wireless connection wasn’t all that great. He was already driving south. Has a friend or business partner with him.” She checked her watch. “Not much traffic, clear night. He should be arriving soon.”

  “Have the crime scene guys come up with anything?”

  “Not that we didn’t already know. Maybe we’ll find some clues in the victim’s car. It’s already been towed to the garage. We’re pulling phone records,” Nowak said.

  “And I’ll check the victim’s home once we’re through at the hospital.” Voss was patting the pockets of her jacket, then came up with her keys. “I’d better get moving if I want to beat Clint Cooper to the morgue. God, I hate this part of the job.”

  “Don’t we all,” Nowak agreed as she headed toward her vehicle. He slipped his phone from his pocket to check a text. “Aw shit, Elvin Atkins is at it again. Visibly drunk and banging on his wife’s door, despite the restraining order.” Sighing, he said, “I guess we’re done here anyway. Time to wrap it up.”

  “I want another look,” Cade said.

  Nowak nodded. “Go for it. Right now, it’s the crime team in control, and once they leave, O’Neal will lock things up.”

  As Nowak departed, Cade and Kayleigh walked through the gate to the yard, where lights cast an eerie pall over the landscape. Two technicians combed the area, searching for trace evidence.

  “Your kid discovered the body?” she said as they signed into the scene and put on protective shoe covers before picking a path to the chapel.

  “She and a friend, Xander Vale, but the victim was still alive. They called nine-one-one. Couldn’t save her.” He glanced her way as they slipped inside the church, now illuminated by harsh temporary lights as another investigator went over the pews.

  “Is Harper okay?”

  “Hope so,” he said, not sounding nearly as confident as he had when he’d been trying to bolster his daughter. They made their way to the bell tower, where a technician was finishing, just leaving the area where the victim had been discovered.

  “Looks like the victim was attacked by the school,” Kayleigh said. “Then once the killer had subdued her, she was brought here to the bell tower and hung upside down.” She kneeled down to eye the dusty floorboards of the bell tower, then looked up to the ceiling of the steeple, now dark, where once bells had been suspended. Cade remembered hearing those chapel bells peal as he grew up, the sound carrying through the town just before mass. He also remembered hearing the shouts and laughter of the kids who attended the private school. He’d been in this chapel only a couple of times when he was a kid. His mother had been a nonpracticing Catholic, his father an atheist, so visits to the chapel had been rare.

  Cade studied the scene and wondered about the killer. How had he met his victim? Did he know her? Had he lured her here? Why was she at St. Augustine’s—an abandoned property—so late at night? And why would the killer take the time to drag her into the chapel? As if to stage her death. Why take the risk?

  Somehow, he thought, the little church was significant.

  “Are you really trying to connect this to the Hollander murder?” Kayleigh asked, dusting her hands as she straightened.

  He shook his head. “Not really.”

  “The case was closed. They had a confession.”

  “It was an accident,” he said sharply, feeling a need to defend Rachel. Which was ridiculous.

  “Then what’s the connection?”

  “Too many coincidences.”

  They walked out of the church and back along the fence to the gate, where they discarded their shoe coverings and signed out. A thin fog was rolling in from the west, oozing through the parking lot, blurring the sharp lines of the buildings.

  Cade checked his watch. It had been a long night already and dawn was still an hour off, not a hint of gray light to the east. “Let’s talk this out,” he said. “I’ll buy you coffee at Abe’s. Breakfast if you want.”

  “Coffee’ll do,” she said and climbed into the passenger side of his truck.

  For a second he remembered another time, when they were still partners and the night had closed in on them. There had been one kiss, then another and . . . they’d stopped, both breathing hard, rain drizzling down a windshield that had started to fog. “I can’t do this,” he’d said, and she’d stared hard into his eyes. “Neither can I.” That had been the end of something that had never truly begun. They’d never stepped across that frail boundary of his disintegrating marriage, not before he’d signed the divorce papers and not after. Almost as if they’d known then it was a bridge too far.

  He drove to the all-night diner situated on the highway at the western edge of town, a spot long-haul truckers used to spend the night in the oversized parking lot, beyond which fields stretched out to the old cannery site. The restaurant itself was a 1950s cinder block building with a high peaked ceiling and globe lights suspended over a counter that ringed a central kitchen. From behind a half wall, bacon sizzled, coffee perked, and dishes rattled.

  They settled into one of the booths near the back of the building, though it still seemed like they were in a fishbowl, with the floor-to-ceiling windows that rimmed the restaurant. At this time of day, the place was nearly empty.

  A skinny blond waitress who was far too perky for five in the morning appeared with a pitcher of steaming coffee in one hand. “Hey there. I’m Livvie. I take it you two need some good hot coffee right off the bat. And how about some breakfast?”

  “Coffee for both of us for now,” Cade said.

  “Chef’s got an awesome farmer’s breakfast this morning,” she said, showing a dimple. “Sausage and bacon.”

  “Just coffee,” he said.

  Kayleigh nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

  “You sure? It’s the special and really, really yummers.”

  Kayleigh said, “No thanks.”

  “Okay.” Her smile had never faltered as she poured them each a steaming cup. “But you let me know if you change your mind.” Still smiling, she flitted away as an elderly couple entered.

  “Effer-frickin’-vescent,” Kayleigh muttered, watching the gray-haired couple take a table near the counter where a slowly turning pie display was front and center and the waitress was ready with two plastic menus.

  “Yeah, well, Livvie hasn’t just come from a grisly homicide scene.”

  “Lucky for her.” Kayleigh tossed her baseball cap onto the seat beside her, her ponytail now messy, hairs springing around her face. “So tell me,” she said, pouring cream from a small pitcher into her coffee, “since you’re the lifer in town, how does the Cooper murder link to the Sperry? I know the basics: they went to school together, were more acqua
intances than friends, didn’t seem to hang out, and that’s about it.”

  “You’re right. They were both married, no kids and no other connection that I know about.”

  “But killed within a week of each other, blindfolded with the same blue tape.”

  “We think it’s the same tape.”

  She shot him a look. “Oh, come on. What’re the chances that it’s different? Two murders in twenty years, both victims not gagged, but blindfolded with blue tape. Some psychologist would have a heyday with that one.” She slid the salt and pepper shakers together and stared at him with hard, green eyes. “Come on, Ryder, it’s the same guy, the same tape, and we both know it. We just have to prove it.”

  He paused, caught on what she’d said. “A psychologist?”

  “Let’s just hope the techs can find a latent print on the tape.”

  “And then you’ve got to hope our killer has prints already in the system.”

  “If not, needle in a haystack.”

  He knew it was a long shot and watched as she stirred the coffee, then took an experimental sip. “Yeah, but maybe we’ll get lucky with the tape or something else. We’ll start with phone records.”

  Frustrated, she leaned back in the booth. “So tell me why you think these murders have anything to do with what happened to Luke Hollander?”

  “I’m not sure they do; it’s probably nothing. I just thought I’d review the case. A couple of things have happened that seem to indicate someone hasn’t gotten over it.”

  “Maybe they’re just stirred up because of the article in that rag, the Edgewater Edition.”

  “Could be,” he said, but sensed it was deeper than some nutcase getting riled from reading a piece in the newspaper. He told her about Frank Quinn, the message on Rachel’s door, and the text.

  “‘I forgive you’?” she said and sat back against the red cushion. “Someone’s gaslighting her, y’know. Messing with her mind.”

  He couldn’t argue the point; didn’t like it. “Why?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Don’t know, but I’ll work on it.” He took a sip from his cup as a couple of truckers walked in and bellied up to the counter. “Anything new with the Sperry homicide?”