She waited, hoping, like with Tiana, something would come to her. It was a total bust. Nothing hit her beyond the feel of the cool spray of the water against her face. Not a single damn thing. She wanted to scream, maybe stomp her feet like a little kid.
Except she was pretty sure neither one would help her. And even worse, it would draw attention of the unwanted kind from those passing by. This bridge was infamous for being a favorite spot for jumpers. Throwing a tantrum would most certainly draw the attention of the Spokane Police Department, if not mental-health officials.
Opting not to draw unwanted notice, she instead settled for swearing under her breath. This thing the universe had cursed her with possessed its own mind about how it worked. Would be nice if she was privy to the how and why, but apparently the universe deigned to keep that little secret close to the vest.
Before someone decided she was considering jumping, she opened her eyes and walked south to the lights at Main and Monroe. Another block down and she was on Riverside Avenue. The main drag of the city, it was lined by many historic old buildings, the most beautiful of which was the Review Building with its corner tower. The building was home to the local newspaper and had been standing guard over the corner of Riverside and Monroe for over a hundred years. She meandered down Riverside until she hit the Spokane Transit bus station. It made her smile.
Like the Review Building, its permanence spoke to her. Some things never change, and she found a certain amount of comfort in that fact. The transit station covered an entire block, and the busses pulled into marked stops on the north and south sides. Groups of people clustered around the signs designating the different routes and waited for the bus doors to open. The people were interesting and ranged from students with backpacks to young mothers with strollers to businessmen carrying messenger bags. She could easily lean against the building and watch the dynamics of the various groups for hours. Instead, she walked through the automatic glass doors that opened as she stepped close. Inside, she rode the escalator to the second floor. The ride up the moving steps was her favorite because of the bronze cougar sculptures that stood in the beautiful waterfall feature separating the up and down escalators.
The majority of the folks milling around both the ground floor and the second story were curious: a mixture of young and old, clean-shaven and bearded, tattooed and pierced. It was the melting pot of the city. It had always fascinated her, and today it brought a bit of longing into her heart. But then a familiar voice caught her attention.
“Lorna!”
No, no, no. The fates wouldn’t be that cruel. As the sensation of being watched grew, her back stiffened and if she could, she would have walked the other direction, pretending she didn’t hear. It wouldn’t work. She was cornered. Slowly she turned and smiled while pretending her teeth weren’t grinding so hard her jaw hurt. Addy Courtland wasn’t exactly her favorite person. Worse than the simple misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Addy and Anna were pals. Good pals.
What she was doing here? It didn’t make sense for a number of reasons, not the least of which was Addy drove a Mercedes and would never, in this lifetime, consider riding public transportation. In fact, Addy would consider taking public transportation far beneath her.
With her smile pasted on as convincingly as she could make it, Lorna said, “Hey, Addy.” The woman enveloped her in a giant hug that almost pushed the breath out of her. She smelled of expensive perfume. “What on earth are you doing at the STA Plaza?”
“I just got out of a meeting with the director about a project we’re partnering with them on.” She pushed Lorna away but held onto her as she swept her gaze up and down. It was a bit like being checked out by a horny guy. Not comfortable and not welcome. “God, you look fantastic. It’s so wonderful to see you.”
“Nice to see you too.” The words were nothing more than lip service. It wasn’t nice to see her. It was frankly a pain in the ass. Truth be told, she could go the rest of her life without running into Addy, and it would be just fine and dandy.
Addy batted her expensive false eyelashes as she fixed her gaze on Lorna. As always her skin was flawless and her makeup perfect. Money could buy the best of everything. “Why are you here? Have you seen Anna? What do you think of her new place? It’s gorgeous, don’t you think?”
It was coming back to her in an uncomfortable rush of memory, the rapid-fire way Addy liked to talk. She always wondered how she managed to breathe amidst the nonstop barrage of words. The woman could talk this way for hours, and the best way to handle Addy was to simply wait her out. So that’s what she did, and when Addy finally trailed off, Lorna unclenched her jaw.
“I’m here helping a friend.” Keep it short. Keep it sweet, and do not let her know how unhappy she was about seeing her.
“Helping a friend?” Addy’s brow wrinkled, and Lorna could imagine the wheels turning in her head. Most of the friends from before were their friends. Hers and Anna’s. Addy would be thinking that as well, while wondering how Lorna could possibly be here helping one of them without Addy knowing about it. Funny how she conveniently forgot Lorna was born and raised here, which meant she had a great many friends long before she ever laid eyes on Anna. In Addy’s world, that simply didn’t make for a good story. Way too boring. It was much more interesting to throw in drama that would connect her back to Anna.
“Yes,” she said, working to keep her voice calm and trying not to roll her eyes. “An old friend of mine.”
“Oh, I see.” But Lorna was pretty sure she didn’t. Not interesting enough if the friend was only Lorna’s, and she wasn’t going to leave it be. Addy opened her mouth to say more and undoubtedly push for more details about whether Lorna was planning to see Anna, but she cut her off. She was not going there. She wouldn’t do it for people she liked, and she sure as hell didn’t intend to do it for someone she barely tolerated. Addy needed to butt out.
“I’d love to catch up, Addy.” The lies just kept coming. “Unfortunately, I simply can’t today. Thea is waiting for me and…” She made a point of looking at her watch. “I’m already late.” Without giving Addy even a second to respond she turned and fled down the curving stairs that took her to the ground floor.
Not to be thwarted by Lorna’s hasty escape, Addy made sure to have the last word. Some people never change. “I’ll be sure to tell Anna I bumped into you.”
Great. Just. Fucking. Great.
*
Once more Katie stood on the last known place Alida had been before she disappeared. Why this one bothered her so much was a bit of a mystery. She totally got that at least part of it had something to do with the twin sister. No matter how professional she tried to keep it, her thoughts turned to Thea. She was beautiful, interesting, and talented. Any woman in her right mind would be attracted to someone like her. If it was all about Thea, it would at least make sense, but it felt like there was so more to it than that.
Or maybe she was totally off base and it really was all about Thea. Something about her tugged at Katie’s heart. When she closed her eyes, she saw her face. When she sat in silence, she heard her voice. She swore she could smell the light sweet scent of perfume even when she was on the other side of the city. It was like she was in love, only she was the complete opposite of a love-at-first-sight kind of woman. In fact she had no problem admitting she felt that kind of thing was a crock of shit.
Worse than that, it was dangerous. Who knew what kind of pervert or criminal lurked inside the disguise of a beauty who made the heart flutter? More than once she’d witnessed the tragic result of a relationship based on pure lightning-fast emotion. She was so not going to be one of those women who took an emotional leap only to discover the reality was miles away from the pretty picture. No, she believed in the old-fashioned get-to-know-someone philosophy before she even came close to opening up her heart.
Then again, her style wasn’t working out so well. She was chronically single. Almost, some might say, obsessively single. She
preferred the term cautious. Or maybe it was scared. Yeah, definitely scared.
Her brother was oh so subtle in hinting she should perhaps seek some assistance in dealing with her commitment issues. She always told him he was way too much a shrink and that he couldn’t turn it off even when he was with family. Deflection was one of the sharper tools in her bag of skills. Despite what she might say to her brother, in her heart, she got what made her tick and wasn’t oblivious when it came to her own over-abundance of caution. But life moved so quickly, and she never got around to taking the time to learn to let go. Her job, her friends, her family—that was enough.
Or was it?
For the first time, the flutter that hit her heart felt totally different. Thea made her want to believe in more, and that was something no one else had brought out in her. But was Thea even interested in her? Or for that matter was Thea even interested in women? The short answer? She didn’t know, and therein resided the major source of her issues. It was hard for her to step outside her comfort zone when her mind was flooded with unanswerable questions. Not a place she liked to be. To trust and to put herself out there was an important step her brother would wholeheartedly approve of. In short, take a risk, and that’s where she always found herself pulling back. Just like now.
This train of thought was getting her nowhere. Instead of focusing on her attraction to Thea, she turned instead to the work of finding Alida. The whole case so far frustrated the hell out of her and, in an odd way, motivated her as well. Dad had taught her well, and she went into every case intending to do the best job possible and help people who really needed her assistance. In that respect, this case was no different from the hundred others she’d handled to date. Despite her dedication to every case, this one was different. She was determined to solve it no matter what. No way did she plan to let Thea down.
Why? Pretty simple really. She wanted to impress Thea. No way could she get around the truth of that one, even if she tried lying to herself. Certainly she wanted to bring Alida home. That went without saying. It was always about the victim, regardless of what might be going on in the periphery. Like with all the families she worked with, she wanted to give Thea closure and, if at all possible, peace.
But what would they ultimately find? Her years in law enforcement gave her a leg up on how things like this worked. Unfortunately for Alida, the odds weren’t in her favor. Katie wasn’t telling her yet the chance of Alida coming home alive grew fainter with each passing hour. Statistically speaking, this would more likely be a case of recovery, not a reunion.
She was heartsick for Thea and her friend Lorna, who was trying in her own strange way to help. Though Katie didn’t put much store in psychics, she couldn’t deny what she’d seen with her own two eyes. Lorna possessed something otherworldly, and with her back up against the wall, what could they lose by giving her a shot? If Lorna could help in any way, she’d take it and, at this point, even hoped Lorna did come up with a lead.
The sound of an approaching vehicle made her turn. Surprise, surprise, it was another unmarked. Undoubtedly it was Vince…again. He seemed to have some weird territorial connection to this place. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d already walked around and peed on everything to mark his territory. Why did he have to know every time someone came here? She narrowed her eyes as the car stopped. Maybe it was time for a little point-blank questioning. He might be the undersheriff, but that didn’t excuse or explain odd behavior. She didn’t like to consider the possibility that one of her brothers in blue might be involved. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time a cop went bad. Her daddy didn’t raise a dummy…it didn’t pay to be naive.
When Chad stepped out, she was shocked. She sure didn’t expect to see him out here. He typically kept a pretty low profile and quietly went about working his own cases. Unlike Vince, Chad was calm and personable. His easy way with both victims and suspects made him a valuable resource to the department. Granted, she didn’t know him well and didn’t think anyone at the department did either. He was the kind of guy who did his work well and then went home. It wasn’t a big deal. Some were just more reserved and private than others, which was an accurate characterization of Chad. She couldn’t fault him for keeping to himself because she practiced the same philosophy.
All that said, it still surprised her to see him here. This was her case, and while Vince apparently took it upon himself to be her partner of sorts, no one else appeared to be overly interested in the case, or her, if she was being honest. Despite her family connections, she was still a woman, and many of her colleagues viewed that as a handicap and not the first choice for a partner. Every time she turned around lately, there Vince was, as though he’d appointed himself her unofficial partner. He was like a bad ache that wouldn’t go away. But Chad was the complete opposite, making today’s appearance all the more puzzling.
“Hey, Chad. What’s up?”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets as he walked her way. “Curious,” he said as he stopped next to her and studied the gravel parking area. “What do you and your partner find so interesting about this patch of land? You think if you stand here long enough, new evidence will magically appear?”
She barely heard the second question. “Vince isn’t my partner.”
He gave a wry chuckle. “Yeah, try telling him that. He’s on your six whether you want him there or not.”
She shook her head and tried not to sound like a bitch. “Trust me, I’ve tried to be very clear that I don’t need his help. From what I can tell, he’s deaf.”
“So seriously, what’s up out here? What have you found?”
“Nothing, Chad. God damn nothing. It’s the definition of stupid.”
“What?”
“You know, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I keep coming back here hoping something will lead me to Alida. Nothing changes, and I’m no closer than on the first day.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “I think we’ve all been there a time or two. You’ll figure it out, Katie. You always do.”
She let out a long breath as she swept her gaze over the place where Alida’s empty truck was discovered. “Yeah, I will this time too, but I have a sick feeling I’ll be bringing home a body.”
*
“Tell me that one more time,” Thea said to Grant as she sat at the table in her kitchen, an untouched mug of coffee growing cold in front of her.
Tears were running down Grant’s pale cheeks, and his head was in his hands. “I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t sit around doing nothing, so I started tearing the house apart. It was crazy to act that way but I couldn’t seem to stop.”
“You found the cell phone?”
“Yes, under the mattress.” His words were barely audible.
“Jesus, Grant.”
“She was cheating on me, and I guess she was still trying to keep it secret even though I was cheating on her too. It was so stupid. I knew what she was doing and she knew about me too. We were seriously messed up.”
She rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. How did she not see what was happening to her sister’s marriage? She knew things were far from perfect, just not quite how far. Again the knifing pain sliced through her heart at the realization Alida hadn’t come to her. All along she thought they were as close as ever, but Grant was being straight with her. There was no point in lies.
Grant was running his hands through his hair, and his red-rimmed eyes were still filled with tears. How she wanted to hate him and blame him for what happened. It wasn’t in her, and her anger would be misplaced. The marriage was obviously in big trouble, and the story most decidedly had two sides. He owned up to his, and the pain he was experiencing now was as real as it got. He, like Thea, was hurting to his soul. The betrayal and lies, those were things to deal with later. Right now, they had bigger issues to concentrate on.
“Okay, Grant, this might at least give us something to go on. Have you called the she
riff’s department yet?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I couldn’t.”
The small phone lay in the center of the table between them, and she resisted the urge to pick it up and dig into the call history. She stared at it for a moment, then looked over at him. “What do you mean, you couldn’t? For God’s sake, Grant, this is huge.”
His words were heavy with weariness. “Yes, it is huge, but I don’t know if I can handle what’s inside it, and they’ll probably start looking at me as a suspect again.”
She let out a big breath and counted to ten. Calmly she said, “It doesn’t matter how you feel, and that’s the sorry truth of it. Think about it, Grant. This might lead them straight to a person of interest. You? Well, you have to realize they’re going to be interested in you with or without a little girlfriend on the side. They always look at those closest—” the word victim flashed in her mind but no way in hell was that word passing her lips “—first.”
He didn’t seem to notice the hitch, or if he did, he wasn’t going there either. Instead, he seemed tuned into the ramifications of his own actions. “True enough, but this makes it worse. It’s so fucking real, and they’ll think I hid the phone from them.”
“Grant,” she snapped. God, this whole conversation made her sick to her stomach, all of it, said and unsaid. What they’d done, what they’d done to each other. How they took what she always believed was a fantastic, loving partnership and turned it into something ugly and, worse, dirty. “Pull your head out. You have to call the deputy. If you don’t, I will, and that’ll make it look even more like you’ve done something to Alida.”
His head snapped up and he blinked. “Jesus, Thea, I would never, ever hurt her. You might not believe this, but I loved her more than anything.”
Thea just stared at him. Keep telling yourself that.
He closed his eyes and slowly opened them again. “Okay.” He held up his hand as if to ward off any words of reproach that might come his way. “I mean I wouldn’t hurt her physically. Ever. I know I’ve hurt her heart, and damn it, she hurt mine too. We should have been there for each other when it got bad. Instead we turned to others to fill whatever it was we couldn’t fill ourselves. We were wrong and we both knew it. We can find a way to fix it, we can. You and I just need to bring her home safe.” He tilted his head as he stared at the phone. “What about your friend?”
Twisted Whispers Page 13
