by Kate Aeon
Brig would be fine without any action on her part. He’d made Alan believe Phoebe was a fraud, and had gotten him away from her. Which gave Michael a clear shot at both of them. Brig had done exactly what Michael had wanted him to do.
Chapter Twenty-One
The locks were in, including new ones on the windows. New bars on the sliding glass doors. They couldn’t be lifted out of their tracks, they couldn’t be opened from the outside. The front door required two keys — the locksmith had convinced her that having three would be a danger to her if she were caught outside with someone pursuing her, and he wasn’t happy that she would need two keys to open the doors. She was determined on that score, though. And she still had three locks.
She’d marked her keys, put caps on them so she could tell them apart even in the dark, and stood on her front stoop in the worsening wind and practiced grabbing the keys out of her backpack, opening the door without looking at keys or locks — simulating night conditions, because she could never know what might happen and she had to prepare for the worst — and she could get in her door in six seconds.
Three locks, six seconds. Good as it was going to get, she thought.
She stripped and cleaned the Browning again, put the loaded magazine in, checked the safety. Put two more loaded magazines in the elastic pockets on either side of the holster.
She went through the whole townhouse from top to bottom one more time, to make sure she was alone. She did her walk-through with the Browning in her hands. She checked closets, she checked under her bed, she checked behind the shower curtain, she checked in cabinets. And in the end, she was convinced that she was alone in the house.
From this point on, if she was ever not alone in the house, the intruder would have to have left clear signs of entry. A broken window. A broken door.
Inside the house she was safe.
And the phone rang.
All right, you bastard, she thought. You may know it, or maybe you don’t, but the games you were playing with me are over.
Except the caller wasn’t Michael. The caller was Ben.
And she shivered a little.
“Phoebe, you sounded so funny on the phone the last time I talked to you, I’ve been worried about you ever since. And I got the feeling that you didn’t want me to call you, but I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m better,” she said, and she meant it. She figured she sounded like she meant it, too, because she heard a relieved sigh on the other end. She was suspicious of Ben, though. He might have sold her information to Michael, he might have given it to him accidentally.
A thought occurred to her. He might have actually seen Michael.
She told Ben, “I have to run some errands today — groceries, a few things like that. Why don’t I come by and say hello?”
Ben sounded elated when he hung up.
Phoebe needed to decide where Ben actually stood in this mess of hers. She had to know whether he was involved, or entangled in it innocently. Or if he was truly clear of and apart from the whole thing. That last she wouldn’t really ever know, she supposed; it was damned near impossible to prove a negative. But she did have a picture of Michael still, tucked away against future need. Paranoia on her part, perhaps, but she’d hung on to it even after the shooting, because she’d been so afraid he was going to come out of the coma and hunt her down again. And she wanted to be able to give the picture to the police so that they could put it on wanted posters or something. She hadn’t thought through her rationale for keeping the picture — but she’d always been dead certain she needed to have it. And then, when Michael didn’t come out of the coma, she’d sort of forgotten that she had it.
It was in a blue shoe box on the left shelf of her bedroom closet, toward the middle.
She went to get it. But the shoe box wasn’t in the middle anymore. It was all the way to the back.
Had she moved it?
The techs, she thought.
She looked in her closet, frowning. A number of things in there were not where they were supposed to be, now that she was actually looking. She’d kept a few boxes of work that students had done for her, and she had some old clothes that were too big now but that were nice, which she had intended to cut down so she could wear them. Not a lot of stuff — not clutter by any means. She knew where everything was. Or where it was supposed to be.
But the techs had moved things, or maybe when he was in the house, Michael had gotten into her closet and had gone through her things. And had put them back neatly, but not where she’d had them.
Which meant she wasn’t going to find the photo of him in the shoe box.
She checked anyway.
It was right there. Right on top. And she didn’t know what to make of that.
She took the photo, puzzled. Had Michael gone through her boxes? Had he not considered a clear photograph of himself important? Had he missed it? She couldn’t believe that.
Perhaps he just figured no one would believe her. Or maybe the photo wasn’t important anymore. Maybe he’d had plastic surgery and no one would recognize him.
She decided she would show it to Ben anyway to see his reaction.
Phoebe watched the clouds. They were unnerving. Long, narrow bands that fled overhead so quickly their shadows made the ground seem like it was flowing. The wind had stopped gusting and gotten down to serious blowing. She could feel it against the car as she drove.
The humidity made the air nearly unbreathable, but humidity defined South Florida in the summer. This was worse, but even average days were awful. And the sun overhead was still painfully bright. The fleeing clouds offered almost no shade.
Moonstruck was swamped. Apparently Ben had found himself someone who would read tarot in the store and teach classes in the back room, too, and Phoebe got there just as a class let out. She found herself surrounded by a wild assortment of people — mostly women, of all ages and dressed in everything from faux gypsy garb to business suits to tees and jeans. She saw only a handful of men, and while some had short hair and some had long, they all wore jeans or shorts — no visible business types in that lot. One girl with hair dyed black at the roots and purple at the ends was dressed entirely in black leather; she wore black lipstick, black eyeliner, and white face powder, and enough silver jewelry that she jangled as she walked. Her “Look at me — I’m baaaaad” attitude was so overwhelming that Phoebe had a hard time not laughing. And an equally hard time seeing anyone else until Bad Girl left. A lot of the other students hung around and studied the merchandise and debated which decks they liked best and discussed books and candles and incenses. The place sounded to Phoebe like a cage full of parakeets.
Ben came over to her, smiling. “You made it.”
“I did.”
“I have some great new decks,” he told her. “And this spectacular new Thai restaurant I found that I’d love to take you to.”
He looked like such a nice guy. He really did. Phoebe couldn’t imagine him wanting to hurt her. But she could imagine him wanting to help her and giving her info to Michael because Michael managed to convince Ben that he was someone who was trying to help her.
She pulled the picture out of her backpack and showed it to Ben. “Have you ever seen this man? In here, maybe, or near your home?”
He studied the picture. “This guy the source of all that worry you’ve been vibrating with?”
“I think so.”
Ben looked closer, frowned, covered half the face with his thumb, then the other half. “I’m sorry, honey. I’d love to tell you that I’d seen him, that I know where he is, and that you could send the cops after him right now, but he looks like someone you’d remember, and I’ve never seen that face.”
She sighed.
“He a little guy? A big guy?”
“Big,” she said. “Last time I saw him, he was six four, and around two hundred thirty pounds.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you what. If I see him, I’ll find out whatever I can about hi
m and then call you.”
“Don’t mess with him, don’t talk to him. He’s dangerous,” she said. “He’s my ex-husband.”
“The one in the coma?”
“The one who killed two of my students while he was coming after me. I think maybe be isn’t in a coma anymore. Be careful, okay?“
Ben nodded. “So. About dinner?”
Phoebe sighed. Ben seemed nice. She didn’t get any feeling from him that he was hiding some murderous psychosis beneath his friendliness. And maybe she wasn’t the best judge of men, but it would at least be reassuring to know that there was a man out there who would know where she was and be concerned if she didn’t show up from time to time. That had to matter, didn’t it?
“I have things going on right now that you really don’t want to get caught up in,” she told him. “But once I get through this, maybe we can go to that Thai place you found. Just as friends.”
He grinned a little. “Hey, that’s better than ‘No, not no way, not nohow.’ If you go out with me, maybe you’ll see what a sterling guy I am. So I have your word on this?”
She thought of Alan. Of Alan, whom she loved. Alan, who hated her.
“Yeah,” she said. “Sure. You have my word.”
Ben gave her a quick squeeze and a kiss on the forehead that was a little friendlier than what she’d had in mind. “Fantastic!” he said.
He heard someone calling his name and turned. Phoebe realized that he had people waiting to buy things.
“I’ll go,” she said. “You’re busy.”
“Come back again soon,” he said. “Let me know how things are going. Let me know if I can do anything to help you. Anything.”
She smiled at him. “Thanks. I really appreciate that.”
Ben watched her leave, smiling at the tight, delectable curve of her ass. And his customer, a slouching seventies reject with a beard and ponytail, watched him watching her and raised an eyebrow.
Ben said, “Cute, huh?”
“Attractive,” the guy said, passing Ben a book on ghosts and one on black magic.
“You buy two, you get any third book that sells for same price or less for half price,” Ben said, but the guy wasn’t interested. He was interested in Phoebe.
“She your girlfriend?”
Ben shrugged. “I’m not really a girlfriend kind of guy. I like women, you know? You start calling one your girlfriend, it limits your action.”
The guy looked interested. “You get a lot of action?”
Ben dropped his voice. There were, after all, still a couple of hot girls from the tarot class hanging around. “If you don’t mind flaky chicks, these New Age places are Babe Central. I owned a gift shop before this, but you don’t get many opportunities to meet the customers. Here, I’m Mr. Sensitive because if I own the place, I must believe all the crap, right? I give classes, I offer some of the real lookers jobs. It’s sweet. I talk the talk, they all come flocking.”
“I would never have guessed.”
“Take Phoebe—”
“Phoebe?”
“The one who just left.”
“Of course.”
“I’ve been working on her for ages. She comes in here because I got her a job — she’s the classic hard-luck chick. Absolute shitty life, and I come along, give her work, stay in touch, give her a price break on the supplies she buys. All along I’ve been nice, I’ve been patient. And now she’s ready.” He closed his eyes, smiling, and sighed, then glanced at his listener. “Friends. Riiiiight. A day or two, my hands are all over that sweet little ass.”
The guy paid cash with exact change, took the bag with the books in it, and said, “A little warning. You’d be wise to watch where you put your hands where she’s concerned. Some women are strictly” — he grinned — “strictly hands off.”
He left, and Ben watched him walk across the parking lot and get into a boring little beige Ford and drive away. And he thought, What the hell was the matter with that guy?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Alan felt like his world had ended all over again. He didn’t have a single patient in the ER, but he wished every bed would fill so that he would have something to keep him from thinking about himself. Or Phoebe.
He’d been such a fool. He’d let himself believe again. He’d gone out on a limb with a woman that any sane person could have told him was trouble, and he’d let himself care for her, and he had been well and truly hooked. Sucked all the way in.
He’d fallen because Phoebe had been a great lay, he told himself. That was all. She’d been willing to really put some effort into her scheme, whatever her scheme might have been. To get his money? To get him to marry her? Whatever — it didn’t matter anymore, did it? Brig had saved him from himself, saved him from being taken by yet another woman who wanted to use him.
And he had never been less happy to know the truth in his life.
He kept seeing Phoebe smiling at him. Kept hearing that brief, startled laugh of hers when he said something she thought was funny, like she had forgotten that anything in the world could still be funny and was delighted to rediscover this whole misplaced part of her universe. He could still feel her pressed against his chest, asleep, warm and solid and sweetly and delicately curved. Nothing flashy about her, no supermodel features and no oh-my-God curves — but she had radiated. She had shone. She had been like a ray of sunlight sparkling through clouds for just an instant before disappearing again, and he’d found himself holding his breath and hoping that he would catch another glimpse of her light.
And all the while, he’d been courting Janet the Second.
Sucker. Sucker. He was such a sucker. He should just stay the hell away from women. Maybe find some amenable lab tech who’d give him quickies in a closet or something, just to keep himself from getting so sex-starved that he got stupid. That he lost his vision and started fumbling blindly after anyone who touched him and made him feel good and who had been born with a face that could pretend innocence while plotting betrayal.
From now on, he decided, he would avoid relationships that had any potential strings. He would avoid illusions. He would embrace Brig’s philosophy, that women were fun for the first five days and hell in descending layers thereafter.
He came out of his funk with the feeling that something was wrong and turned toward the ambulance doors to find Brig charging through them, looking like a shot of Death with a Hell chaser.
Alan started toward him. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I called the FBI,” Brig said, “to see if they’d done any background checks on Phoebe Rain either recently or before, when they were investigating her husband and the shooting. And I got Toeller, the agent she called the other day. And this FBI agent was about to jump out of his skin because he’s been trying to call Phoebe for the last couple of hours and he can’t reach her. Any chance she’s here?”
“After what I said to her?” Alan shook his head. “What do you think?”
Brig said, “The DNA samples didn’t match.”
“What?”
“The DNA samples didn’t match on the guy who died. They weren’t Michael Schaeffer’s DNA. The guy who is dead isn’t her husband.”
Everything that had happened since Alan had talked on the phone to Brig rewound in an instant. Phoebe the scheming bitch dissolved like the Wicked Witch of the West hit by water, and Phoebe with the angel’s smile stepped out of the smoke. “How the hell — what — they had fingerprints.”
“The Schaeffer family has been covering up a big lie. Somehow, someone used the same laser skin resurfacing technique that plastic surgeons use to remove wrinkles and... some sort of lesions from faces...”
“Precancerous lesions.”
“That sounds right. Toeller — the FBI agent — managed to get a forensics guy to the funeral home to stop the family from cremating the body, though it was a close fucking call. The forensics guy took a look and was able to piece together what had happened. Best guess is that Michael Schaeff
er started coming out of his coma early on, and one member of the family or someone close to the family didn’t want to see him charged with the murders he’d committed. So the accomplice found some indigent in a coma and offered to cover his hospitalization. The FBI hasn’t managed to identify the body yet or figure out who Michael’s accomplice was. However, the person on the inside hired someone talented to remove the impostor’s original fingerprints and then, with templates from Michael’s fingers, to burn on new ones. The results aren’t perfect; the forensics guy could tell what had been done by looking at the fingers with a magnifying glass. But those prints were good enough to fool the FBI’s computer.”
Alan was staring at Brig, but seeing Phoebe abandoned by everyone she should have been able to count on, alone in her house, with her murderous ex-husband given a clear shot to walk right in and kill her.
“The FBI thinks the family may have been considering this possibility early on — that they probably made preparations almost immediately. When they started seeing Michael coming out of his coma, they complained of incompetence at the hospital where he was receiving care and arranged for a private ambulance to take him to a private institution. Somewhere. At that one point, there was a complete break in continuity — all new doctors, new nurses, new techs. There was literally no outsider left who could point out that the man who left in the ambulance was not the one who arrived at the new facility. And apparently those records that went with Michael suffered some tampering en route. New sets of X-rays, new sets of lab work. Everything that arrived with the John Doe fit what the new doctors were supposed to be seeing.”
Alan transferred patients all the time. “It would be difficult to do,” he said. “But only from a logistics standpoint. Not in fooling anyone. If the chart is there and all the signatures are on it, we treat the damned thing as gospel. The patient is almost secondary.”
Brig growled, “The whole thing had to cost the family a fortune. The FBI is hoping to track down the forgers, the attendants and ambulance drivers, the money. But the bastard had connections.”
