Home Deadly Home

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Get inside,” he ordered gruffly, not moving until she closed the door and he heard the deadbolt strike home. Then he jogged to his truck.

  While he gave the engine a chance to warm up, Grant acknowledged uneasiness as he studied the exposed porch. The porchlight might as well be a stage spotlight. No reason to think even an obsessed, preternaturally patient former military sniper turned serial killer would be willing to hang around out here with the night so cold, but he gave himself a metaphorical kick in the butt anyway. He should keep his hands off Cassie anywhere they could be seen. This killer wanted her to be the voice of his truth, and was already mad because she’d withheld details. He’d be even unhappier if he thought she was letting the sheriff play her.

  And if Grant himself was now a target…he didn’t like knowing Cassie had been at risk, too. A single bullet from a high-powered rifle could have taken them both out.

  Heat finally pouring out of the vents, Grant put the truck in gear and started down the long driveway. The one Cassie had walked every day, to and from her wait for the bus at the road. After her mother’s suicide, had her father driven her to school, at least for a while? Or walked his small daughter out to meet the bus? Somehow, Grant doubted it.

  During the drive home, he brooded about the saddest collection of family photographs he’d ever seen, and about what Cassie had told him. Like most active-duty soldiers who’d served in a combat zone, he knew more or less what she’d seen that horrifying morning. God knew, gruesome images populated his nightmares. But for a kid that age to see her mommy blow her head off boggled Grant’s mind. However acute her depression, why couldn’t the woman have held off? Hadn’t she loved her daughter at all?

  He couldn’t forget Cassie’s intonation when she repeated what her mother said. What are you doing back here? That hadn’t sounded like panicked regret. More scathing, even an accusation, as if Christine Ward harbored anger at her own child. Did she blame Cassie for trapping her in an unhappy marriage? Could Cassie be the product of marital rape? Henry was an unpleasant enough man, Grant could almost see it. Most probable, though, was that Christine had seen too much of herself in this daughter.

  How much of a lie was it when Cassie claimed she hardly ever thought about her mother anymore? he asked himself. How could she help seeing her every time she looked in the mirror?

  He was disturbed to know how deeply she’d been wounded. As hot as he was to get her into bed, he now found he had qualms. The very fact she’d trusted him tonight meant he could hurt her. He didn’t want to do that. If he backed off too quickly, that would hurt her, too. He needed to be careful, either way.

  At home, he used the remote to open the garage and drove in, out of habit watching in his rearview mirror until the door shuddered back down to be sure no one had slipped in. Which still left him with a short walk across the yard to the house. Grant wrenched himself from thinking about Cassie long enough to maintain awareness of his surroundings as he moved fast on the concrete walkway and let himself in the kitchen door. He suddenly felt more sympathy for Mathison and the others. Grant never had liked the skin-crawling awareness that a sharpshooter might be zeroing in on him at that very moment. His two tours had been enough.

  Home, sweet home didn’t feel so sweet right now. Clearly, a lot of the camaraderie, the friendship he remembered from his teenage years, had never been more than an illusion. If half his teammates had resented him without him even noticing, how was he supposed to figure out now who had actively hated him and the other swaggering starters?

  Oh, yeah, before someone else he’d grown up with was murdered?

  By doing his job, he told himself, moving through the silent house without turning on lights. Quit thinking about motive; that understanding most often came after an arrest, not before. Having a reason to kill didn’t mean a man would ever do it. No, he needed to investigate, as he would any other crime. Methodically gather details, conduct interviews, until something jumped out at him. It was sometimes frustratingly slow, but that’s the way it worked in his experience.

  Right now – he needed some sleep.

  *****

  Cassie stayed home the next day to polish several articles, two about murders, Chad Norman’s and Paul Lawseth’s. The balloons, she’d continue keeping to herself. But she described the note and the bullet, making plain that Paul’s death had happened because he opened the back door at the precise wrong time. This killer was quick and ruthless. She had to swipe away a few tears while writing about the good man who’d reported on hundreds of community events, who so many readers knew. A husband and a father, a man who’d never knowingly hurt anyone.

  She described the tension all members of that long-ago football team now felt. Were they all potential victims? Or only a few – and what distinguished those men from the rest of the team? Cassie also introduced the possibility that the boyhood connection was only a way to terrorize people. He might kill because he liked it, because it was a game to him, not because he’d hugged burning hate to him for so long.

  She mentioned the FBI involvement. Cassie didn’t try to hide her anger, or the horror and disgust she felt for a killer who ate up as much attention as he could garner.

  He would be angry once he read this issue of the newspaper, but she didn’t care.

  By evening, she felt drained, but also satisfied by her day’s work. After Susan left, Cassie and her father ate in almost complete silence. Nothing new about that. Except tonight, he kept watching her. And once he cleared his plate, he glared fiercely at her over the dinner table.

  “See what you wrote,” he demanded, spittle dribbling down his chin.

  Cassie hadn’t intended to let him see it, but the newspaper was his. That reality had been shoved in her face every day she lived in this house. She’d come home to be a fill-in, no more, and been okay with it. But something had changed. Meeting his hostile gaze, she decided that she wouldn’t change a word. Let him hate what she’d written. He could fire her. If she had to run his damn paper, she’d do it her way from now on.

  Mouth clamped shut, she rose and went to get her laptop. She cleared the dishes at his place and replaced them with the computer, opening it to the series of articles. Then she set to cleaning the kitchen while he read in surprising silence. Cassie sneaked a few peeks to be sure he hadn’t had an apoplexy.

  She added detergent and started the dishwasher, turning to see her father staring at her. She leaned back against the counter edge, crossed her arms, and said, “So?”

  “Good.” He nodded once, off-center, pushed back from the table and got to his feet.

  Stunned, she watched him shuffle toward the living room without so much as a glance at his walker.

  Good? Had he really said that? Staring after him, she wondered if his left eye was rheumy…or whether that had been a tear trickling down. Of course, he’d worked for years with Paul. The two men might even have been friends, of a sort.

  I’m not alone, she realized. Dad is angry, too.

  They might just possibly have more in common than she’d wanted to believe.

  *****

  Half the businesses in town were adding surveillance cameras to their parking lots. Looking ahead, Grant appreciated it. Right now, all he could think was the old saying about shutting the barn door after the horse was gone. The existing cameras all seemed to be pointing the wrong direction.

  Turned out the feed store, for example, had one in their loading bay, but it had been installed to discourage employees from stealing. It did take in a few feet outside the doors. Grant had seen the rear of Alex’s truck bed once the doors were rolled open, when the damage was spotted. Bad guy – long gone.

  The auto body shop had one out back, where customers’ cars were parked until their turn to be worked on came, and were parked again until the owners picked them up. No camera showed who came in the front door. The list of names Rooney had produced of customers who’d come in after Alex made the appointment to have work done on his truck was so
skimpy, Rooney apologized.

  Detective Oakes claimed there was nothing useful on the footage from the one and only surveillance camera pointing at the alley that ran behind the newspaper offices. Grant hadn’t disbelieved him, not having high expectations himself, since the camera was well down the block, installed behind a tavern on the corner. Inside, right beside the back door, hung a sign saying, IN THE ALLEY, YOU WILL BE ON CAMERA. The way Grant heard it, the tavern owner had gotten fed up with everything that went on back there, from drug deals to drunken sex and an occasional mugging.

  Still, not having seen the footage himself had niggled at him even though his focus had of necessity been on Chad Norman’s murder, not the reporter’s. Given a few minutes to spare, Grant finally went down to the tavern on Tuesday and asked to watch the feed. He was thorough, and this was something he’d left undone. Plus, he had no faith whatsoever in Oakes.

  The time stamp meant he didn’t have to stare for hours. Better cameras only filmed when motion activated them, but no such luck here.

  Not much happened in an alley on days when the garbage trucks weren’t emptying Dumpsters. But finally, approximately two minutes before the murder, someone came into view. Grant straightened. It was a teenage boy in jeans, cowboy boots and a flannel shirt topped by a quilted vest. What was he doing back there? A moment later, a second boy followed him into sight. The first one lifted the heavy lid of the big green Dumpster enough to shove a wadded white bag inside. He yanked his hands back fast as the lid dropped. The second boy seemed to be laughing at him. The first one balled his hand into a fist while the other boy dodged playfully.

  Then both heads turned.

  Electrified, Grant watched as they looked west down the alley – directly toward the back of the newspaper office. At the exact right time.

  The glance was brief. Losing interest in whatever had momentarily caught their attention, they sauntered back the way they’d come and disappeared from view.

  Nothing else moved until an ambulance turned down the alley.

  Simmering, Grant thought about what a pain in the ass jurisdictional issues could be. In this case, Oakes was the most useless excuse for an investigator Grant had ever encountered. Muttering a few obscene things beneath his breath, he backed up to the moment when both boys had seen something – and their faces had been most visible.

  Now he just had to find someone who could identify one or both. And, damn, he was glad the killer hadn’t recognized either, or there’d have been another murder or two this week.

  *****

  When Cassie arrived that evening, Grant had left the garage door open for her to drive right into, as he’d promised. His big pickup was parked to the side of the driveway. He wanted her car out of sight, which Cassie was fine with. She never drove anywhere these days that she wasn’t watching her rearview mirrors as much as the road in front of her car. The killer had followed her at least once; the gift he’d left on the seat of her locked car was evidence. She consoled herself that he could only be stalking her occasionally, since learning the habits of his projected victims must be sucking up some of his time. And didn’t he have a job?

  Tonight’s nerves had quite a bit to do with Grant. When he’d offered to cook dinner tonight, she hadn’t hesitated to line up a caregiver to stay overnight. Not that she’d necessarily tell Grant she could stay until morning. She’d wait and see how it went.

  The nerves didn’t make sense, she tried to convince herself. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had sex. She’d be a virgin if she’d insisted on waiting until she was in a serious relationship. Cassie didn’t really do serious. Or relationships beyond a few months of fun and companionship.

  She jumped when the garage door began rolling down. Grant must have been watching for her. Dear God, was she actually going to do this?

  Stupid question. Of course she was. She wouldn’t have accepted his invitation if she hadn’t made up her mind. Which didn’t mean going to bed with Grant Holcomb was a smart thing for her to do. Her early reservations had been right on target.

  Cassie had a sinking feeling she should have said, Thanks but no thanks, however much she enjoyed his kisses. That scene the other night shouldn’t have happened. She might as well have slit her wrist and let him watch her bleed.

  Panic fluttering, she turned her head and realized she was trapped. Too late to back out and drive straight home. To Dad’s house, she corrected herself. Not hers.

  Annoyed afresh with herself, she got out. She didn’t run away. They’d have dinner, and then if she didn’t like the vibes, she’d leave. She’d made no promises.

  He was waiting in the open back door of the house, letting light spill out to guide her the short distance. As she hustled toward him, Grant didn’t so much as smile and greet her, however. Instead, he scanned the darkness to each side, his expression so cold she couldn’t help being unnerved. It definitely sped her steps.

  Inside, the fabulous smell of cooking meat released some of her tension. It was bright in here, homey.

  “A roast?” she guessed.

  Following her through a utility room into the kitchen, he smiled, his heavy eyelids as sexy as ever. “Pot roast. I planned ahead. I put one in the slow cooker this morning.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Figured it was worth a try.”

  “You’ve never used one before?”

  “Nope.” He grinned at her. “But the thing was sitting there on the counter, and Mom seems to collect recipes for it.”

  “Huh.”

  “Have you ever used one?”

  “I have one on my counter, too, back in Portland. It was a Christmas present a couple years ago.”

  He raised the one brow.

  “No. It just sits there and reproaches me.”

  Grant’s laugh was a deep, reassuring rumble. “Then this is a test case for both of us.” He turned off the oven, grabbed a padded mitt and took out a sheet of golden-brown biscuits. “Sit,” he added.

  Carrying the slow cooker’s ceramic bowl to the farmhouse style table, he asked if she’d found someone to stay with her dad.

  “I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t,” Cassie said simply.

  His understanding nod had to do with how close he was to his own parents, she realized. She liked that he’d asked, and that he didn’t have the kind of all-too-common male ego that demanded she put him first.

  Once they were dishing up, Cassie saw what his smiles had disguised. Perturbation, frustration and more, aging him.

  “Has something happened?” she asked, splitting open a biscuit.

  Grant’s smile was more of a grimace. “I had an interesting afternoon. Before I tell you about it, let me say that your instincts about Detective Oakes were right on. He’s a fool.”

  He took a few bites, but so mechanically, she wondered if he tasted what was in his mouth. Focusing on her again, he said, “Sorry. I didn’t get lunch.” After guzzling half a glass of milk, he told her what he’d seen on the footage from the surveillance camera in the alley. “I probably stepped on some toes even looking at it, but I don’t give a damn.”

  “Could you identify those boys?”

  “Took a screen shot of the footage and drove straight to the high school. The secretary at the counter knew one of them. Principal called him out of class, he gave the other boy’s name.”

  The reporter in her said, “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me—”

  “Not a chance.”

  She couldn’t argue, especially with them being minors. “So what did they see?”

  His eyes met hers. “I can’t tell you. You know that.”

  Crud. Sometimes she deluded herself that they were in this together, and then he’d remind her that she was wrong. The one good thing she could say was that he didn’t treat her like the enemy, as most cops did.

  After a minute, he set down his fork in favor of squeezing the back of his neck. “My worry is that he saw them looking at him.”

  She felt her eyes widen. �
��Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes. If he really is a local, he might conceivably have recognized the boys.”

  “But…if he knew them, wouldn’t they know him?”

  “You’d think, but teenagers can be oblivious to adults. Word will get out, though. People will want to know why I was at the high school. Other kids will know they were pulled out of class. Despite the urgency, now I’m wishing I’d waited to talk to them at home.”

  “I don’t suppose you can give them protection?” She didn’t even know why she said that. Of course he couldn’t. His budget and manpower were disgracefully limited, in her opinion. And oh, yes, he was short a deputy, too.

  “I talked to their parents. Scared the shit out of them,” Grant admitted. “One set of parents has money, fortunately. Dad’s a businessman. He and his wife are taking both boys to Hawaii. They’d been wanting to escape the cold anyway. They’re planning on a two week stay, but will stay in touch with me.”

  “You got lucky.”

  “Having them so willing to jump was a relief. They threw stuff in suitcases and have already left town, driving to Portland.”

  “Good.”

  He looked down at his plate as if he couldn’t remember what he’d been eating. “What did you do today?”

  “Oh, mostly layout. I’ve had to reassign stuff Paul was working on, of course, and took some of it on myself. Like I told you, yesterday I stayed home and finished up several articles. This week’s issue of the paper is going to be all about murder. I’ll squeeze in the usual community stuff where I can. Actually, that gives us an extra week to wrap up some of Paul’s pieces.” That was a task no one was looking forward to. It would be impossible to avoid thinking about him as they finished work that should still have been his.

  “Do you let your father see what you’ve written?” Grant asked.

  “I’ve dodged him with a few articles. I think I told you he doesn’t like ‘soft’ stories.” She looked away, needing to be sure he didn’t see her confusion. “Last night, after dinner, I let him read what I’d written for this week’s paper. He…surprised me.” She still hadn’t worked out why she’d been so unsettled by his reaction. “He seemed positive. In his own way,” she added, as Grant visibly grappled with the idea of her father being positive. Cassie sighed. “Being sidelined right now has to be really hard for him. We have big news, and I’m reporting on it while he sits at home watching daytime television. He always had mixed feelings about me having anything to do with the paper, you know. I mean, I’d go straight there after school every day and trail him. Dad taught me the newspaper business, but the words ‘this will all be yours someday’ never crossed his lips. He snapped at me if I made the most minor suggestion. I don’t think he was happy that I majored in journalism or followed in his footsteps.”