Serena Mckee's Back In Town

by Marie Ferrarella

  When she entered the living room, Serena saw that someone was sitting in a worn Herculean recliner, facing the television set. Their back was to her. The volume was up loud.

  Maybe the woman was partially deaf, Serena mused, although she’d sounded as if she heard well enough on the telephone earlier. Shrugging, Serena called out to Edda again as she walked toward the recliner. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was frighten the old woman.

  “Mrs. Merryweather, if this isn’t a good time, I can come back la—”

  Serena stopped just as she stood between the television set and the recliner. At first glance, the gray-haired woman in the chair appeared to be dozing, lulled to sleep by a tedious program. But her head was resting against her shoulder at such an unusual angle. Like a parakeet cocking its head all the way to one side as it examined its reflection in a mirror.

  “Mrs. Merryweather?” Serena lightly placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder, hoping to rouse her.

  She heard someone scream when Edda pitched forward and then slipped to the floor. It took Serena a full minute to realize that the scream belonged to her. With hands that visibly shook, she felt for the woman’s pulse. Unable to locate it at either wrist, Serena placed two fingers to Edda’s throat.

  And felt nothing but the sickening taste of bile and fear as it filled her mouth.

  Though she wasn’t sure later just how it had occurred to her at the time, Serena had the presence of mind to use her handkerchief as she picked up the telephone receiver. Fear and an icy numbness alternated through her, and she misdialed the first time. She punched the numbers in a second time.

  “Bedford police station.”

  She wanted to cry, to run, just as she had the night she found her parents dead. And just as she had that night, she forced herself to do what had to be done. “Detective Reed, please.”

  “I’m sorry, he’s not in,” the woman on the other end informed her. “Would you like to speak to—”

  No, she didn’t want to speak to anyone else. It had to be Cameron. She needed Cameron. “Can you patch me through to him?” she pleaded.

  There was just a trace of sympathy in the otherwise detached voice. “I’m afraid I can’t—”

  “Please, it’s an emergency. I’ve got to reach him. This is Serena McKee.”

  The name brought an instant response. “Why didn’t you say so? He told me to put you through right away. Hold on, don’t hang up, there’s going to be some dead air for a minute.”

  Jerking up the phone when it rang, Cameron snapped out his name. “Reed.”

  “Get a civil tone in your head, Detective, I’m about to do you a favor,” Tina admonished him. “The McKee woman’s calling for you—”

  A morning’s worth of frustrating witness interrogations faded into the background as panic jabbed a pointed finger at his insides. Serena wouldn’t be calling him unless it was important. “Is she on the line?”

  “Unless she hung up.”

  “Put her through,” he ordered. He heard the crackle of callers being exchanged. The next moment, he thought he heard a woman sobbing. He could feel his chest constricting. “Serena?”

  Serena sucked in air, trying to calm down. But the sound of Cameron’s voice almost broke her resolve. “She’s dead, Cameron. I walked in and heard talking, but it was just the TV and she’s dead.”

  She? Who was Serena talking about? Kirk was supposed to come by to stay with her. Had Rachel come in his place?

  Cameron forced himself to think rationally. “Slow down, Serena. Who’s dead?” He heard the sound of air being dragged into lungs.

  “Edda. Merryweather, Edda Merryweather. I came in and touched her and she fell. She’s lying here, dead, Cameron. I think her neck’s broken.”

  He had to keep her talking, occupied. He couldn’t let Serena break down, not until he got there and could hold her. “What are you doing at her house?”

  “She called me this morning. She said she had something to tell me.” Standing in the kitchen, Serena turned around and looked into the living room. The small bundle of loosely held-together skin and bones was lying in a formless heap on the faded lime green rug. Serena’s heart twisted at the pathetic sight. “Cameron, she’s dead.”

  She sounded as if she were about to crack. “Hang on, Serena,” he ordered. “I’ll be right there. Don’t touch anything, don’t go anywhere, understand?”

  She responded to the stern voice, pulling her shoulders back, fighting for control. “I understand,” she whispered, staring at the broken figure on the floor.

  Tears slid down Serena’s face.

  As soon as he hung up, Cameron called the homicide in to the precinct. It had to be a homicide. If Edda had broken her neck by accident, Serena would have been able to tell the difference. She wasn’t a hysterical person by nature.

  The woman he’d talked to just now had been on the verge.

  Cameron vaguely remembered doing seventy as his siren blared and the lights danced macabrely on his roof. All he could think of was Serena and how this had to affect her. Hell, he hadn’t discovered that many dead bodies himself, and it made him sick. What must it be doing to her, with the memory of her parents imprinted indelibly on her mind?

  He didn’t want to think about it.

  Leaving his car parked beside Serena’s, Cameron rushed up the walk to Edda’s house. The door was still standing open.

  “Serena?”

  “In here.”

  He followed the sound and found her kneeling beside the body. Serena looked up at him, tears dried on her cheeks. “I thought someone should stay with her until... You know.”

  “Yes, I know.” Taking her hand, Cameron drew her up to her feet and then just cradled her against him. He stroked her hair and murmured words he wouldn’t recall later.

  A few minutes later, amid a sea of sirens, Chief Olson arrived on the scene. On his heels were several uniformed officers. Serena stepped away from Cameron, pulling herself together.

  Visibly shaken, Olson’s face was drawn as he crouched down beside the dead woman.

  “Poor Edda. She didn’t want to retire, you know,” he told Cameron. “Said we were pushing her out. Maybe we should have let her stay.” With a heavy sigh, he rose again, and then looked at Serena, suddenly aware that she was standing there. “My God, Serena, you shouldn’t be here like this.”

  What she felt didn’t matter, Serena thought. She was still alive. It was Edda who deserved everyone’s attention. “She asked me to come. Said she had something to tell me.”

  Olson wearily rubbed his hand over his chin. “Nothing beyond that?”

  Serena shook her head. “I never got a chance to talk to her. She was dead when I got here.”

  Nodding, Olson slipped his arm gently around Serena’s shoulders, leading her away to the next room.

  Something flashed and then disappeared in her mind. A memory, a thought, a glimmer she couldn’t catch. Being led away. Olson leading her away just like this, telling her how horrible it was.

  There was nothing else, even though she tried to pull it back.

  She was probably reliving the night she’d found her parents, Serena thought numbly. Olson had been there, too. The first on the scene, so kind, so solicitous of her feelings.

  Just as he was being now. “This is a hell of a shock for you, Serena. We don’t need to talk right now.” He beckoned for Cameron to join them. “Reed, take her home. Anything we need to know, I can ask later.” Olson placed a hand on top of hers, holding it. “One of the policemen will drive your car over to the house for you in a little while. Just try to put this out of your mind for now.”

  He’d said that to her that night, too, she remembered suddenly. As if the sight of death could be erased like chalk marks on a board.

  She merely nodded in response.

  Cameron waited until they were in the car and he was on his way to her house. He didn’t want to lecture, to scold, but, damn it, she should have known better than to go
off on her own. What if whoever had killed Edda had still been in the house?

  Biting back his frustration and his anger, he asked as calmly as he could, “Why didn’t you call me?”

  Serena knotted her hands in her lap, staring at them without realizing it. “I did.”

  Cameron blew out a breath, struggling to remain patient. “I mean when Edda called you. I would have gone with you to see her.”

  She knew that, but that wasn’t what she wanted. “I didn’t know what she wanted to tell me.” And the most frustrating part was that she still didn’t know. “It might have been nothing. I can’t come running to you with everything.”

  “But it wasn’t nothing, was it? And if the killer had still been there, you could have been—” He bit off the rest of the sentence, not wanting to hear it himself. Sighing, he tried again. “Serena, don’t you know yet that you can ‘come running’ to me with anything? That I’ll always be here for you?”

  No, she didn’t know that, didn’t know anything of the kind, Serena thought. “You said that to me once before.”

  He wondered at the deadness in her voice. “And I meant it.”

  Until it was something serious, she thought, something that stained whoever came into contact with it. Turning her face forward, she lapsed into silence.

  Frustrated, Cameron decided that for the time being, it might be better all around if he just let her. He didn’t want to say anything he might regret later.

  Chapter 10

  There was something lying on Serena’s front doorstep when they returned. A small, colorful heap.

  Cameron saw it first. Grabbing Serena’s arm, he pulled her back as he looked around. But there didn’t appear to be anyone else on the grounds besides them.

  “What?”

  The startled cry was the first word Serena had uttered since she had fallen silent in the car.

  And then she saw it, too.

  Another doll, a twin of the first, but this time, instead of hanging from a rope, the doll was on the ground, its head twisted to one side as if broken off at the neck.

  Just like Edda.

  Serena covered her mouth to smother the cry of horror welling up in her throat. The note pinned to the doll’s dress was exactly the same: Leave.

  “That does it—you’re staying with Rachel and Kirk,” Cameron snapped.

  He shoved the offending toy into his jacket pocket. It probably wouldn’t yield any more information than the first one had, which was nothing, but there was always the outside chance that whoever it was had slipped up.

  As he went to take her arm, Serena shrugged Cameron away, just as she had the first time. “No.” She saw anger rise in his eyes.

  Cameron felt as if he’d just about had it. He had no intentions of debating this with her. She was going, and that was that. Her life could be at stake. “Serena—”

  She heard the warning note in his voice and forced herself to ignore it. If she was pushing him to the brink, too bad. This was her life, and she intended to helm it on her own.

  “I said no,” she repeated firmly. “God knows I never loved this place, Cameron, but I’m not leaving. I won’t be chased out with voodoo dolls. I won’t run anymore.”

  He had no idea how to begin to make her see sense. If worse came to worst, he’d drag her to Rachel’s house, just as he had for dinner, but first he tried persuasion again.

  “Serena. Be reasonable.”

  She backed away from him. “You be reasonable.” Eyes hard, chin set, determined, she gave him a look that rang with defiance.

  “If it were you, if this was happening to you, would you run?” she demanded.

  He opened his mouth to argue, then relented. She had him.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” he admitted, though he hated doing it. And then he shook his head. Who would have thought? “If I weren’t so angry right now that you won’t listen to reason, I’d say I was proud of you.”

  And he was, for so many reasons. For standing up for herself, For not being afraid. For having the courage to face this. She’d come a long way, he thought, from the girl he’d made love with.

  Taking the key from her, he surrendered and opened the front door. “All right, you can stay, but we’re going to do it my way.”

  Serena walked in cautiously, looking around. The same caution remained in her eyes as she turned to Cameron. She wasn’t about to relinquish an inch of the ground she’d struggled to win for herself, by herself.

  “Which is?”

  “I’m having a uniformed officer drive around the area, patrolling it around the clock. And you’re going to have a security system put in.” He was firm on that, not about to brook any objections from her. “Olson’s got a nephew in the business.”

  She didn’t like being told what to do. It reminded her too much of how she had once been, a spineless shadow. But Cameron meant well, and she wasn’t so bullheaded about independence that she didn’t see the wisdom of what he was saying.

  Serena gave in. “All right.”

  Half the battle won, he thought. “And I’m staying here tonight.”

  That surprised her. “Even with the patrolman and the security system?”

  “Even with the patrolman and the security system.” He was leaving nothing to chance. Concerned about her, he wouldn’t be able to sleep at home anyway, so he might as well be here in body, as well as in mind. “Besides,” he pointed out needlessly, “this is a big place—they might not be able to install the system in one afternoon. I want to be around in case I’m needed.”

  Without waiting for her to protest, Cameron went to the telephone to request a patrol.

  Serena looked after him, wishing he had felt that way eleven years ago.

  But they could install a system in one afternoon, and they did, as a favor to the boss’s uncle. Seven men worked overtime, coordinating with one another like finely integrated software. By the time Cameron returned that night at seven-thirty, bearing two boxes of pizza and a bottle of wine in a bag, the crew was just finishing up.

  Cameron was both impressed and grateful. Nothing was foolproof, but the more obstacles they put up around her, the safer Serena would be.

  “Nice to know some people still take pride in their work,” he said to Serena as she met him at the door. He wove his way in between the gray-clad workers. They were just packing up, getting ready to leave. “Got the codes?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “Art explained everything to me in detail.”

  Serena indicated the man checking the keypad beside the door. The chiefs nephew, who looked like a younger version of the man, glanced up and nodded a greeting at Cameron in acknowledgment.

  Cameron wouldn’t feel better until whoever had killed Edda and was leaving the dolls was caught, but at least this was something. “Good.”

  “What’s all that?” Serena gestured at the boxes and bag he was carrying. Behind them, she heard the last of the men leaving.

  “We’ll see you, Ms. McKee. Give us a call if you have any problems,” Art told her as he began to close the door.

  “Wait, what about paying you?” They’d descended on her and begun their various activities like worker ants. No one had mentioned anything about costs or payment arrangements.

  “Already taken care of,” Art informed her.

  “By whom?” she wanted to know. She expected him to say his uncle, but he pointed to Cameron before closing the door.

  Serena whirled around to look at Cameron, who had an annoyed look on his face. He wasn’t about to listen to an argument over this. He was paying, in effect, for his own peace of mind.

  “I never know what to spend my money on, anyway.” He shrugged, ending the conversation. “As for this.” Cameron got back to her original question, hoping to distract her from another display of stubbornness. “I picked up some pizza on the way over. I thought I might as well make this ordeal as pleasant as possible for you.”

  She wasn’t sure exactly what he was referring to. “Ordeal?” />
  “Yeah, my staying here.” Setting the boxes down on top of one another on the coffee table, he pulled the bottle out of the paper bag. “The guy behind the counter said it’s supposed to go with everything. Even old times.” His mouth curved for a moment, and then he shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe he was just trying to sell the bottle.”

  Serena just shook her head as she retreated to the kitchen. Returning, she brought plates, glasses and paper towels. Her mother, she mused, had presided over far more elegant tables, but none that was happier.

  “It was never an ordeal.”

  Busy taking out a slice of pepperoni pizza for Serena and one with extra cheese for himself, Cameron looked at her, confused. “What?”

  She tucked her legs beneath her and made herself comfortable beside the darkened fireplace. “You referred to your being around as an ordeal. Being with you was never an ordeal.”

  Cameron debated just letting the comment go at face value, or maybe even comforting himself a little with the sentiment she’d expressed. But he couldn’t. Not with the question haunting him every time he saw her. He couldn’t help himself. He had to ask. It was now or never.

  Because he needed to do something with his hands, he poured the wine into their glasses and avoided looking at her. “If that’s true, then why didn’t you answer my letters?”

  The slice she had raised to her lips went untasted. Very quietly, she set it back down on her dish. “What letters?”

  He’d never believed in finding courage in a bottle, but right now, he needed something to help him over this hump. He drained half the amount he’d poured before continuing.

  “The ones I wrote to you.”

  Turning, she almost knocked over her glass. Cameron grabbed it in time to save the rug.

  “You wrote me letters?” Was he just trying to blanket the past with a lie, or was he telling her the truth?

  Cameron nodded. “Every day.” He could even see himself, sitting in his room, at his crowded desk, hunched over a plain white piece of loose-leaf paper. Pouring out his heart. Missing her so much he couldn’t breathe. “Your lawyer, Fitzhugh, wouldn’t give me your address, but he said he’d mail them for me. He looked relieved when I finally stopped writing. I guess he was getting pretty tired of seeing me all the time.”