by Kaylea Cross
Kyle was totally focused on his son, making faces and imitating his baby talk, like they were two old men engaged in a meaningful conversation. It touched Coop how this man, so devoted to his wife and young son, was the same guy who could shoot enemy combatants while running in between women and children in the killing streets over in that hellhole. Kyle never made a mistake, and had covered Coop many times while he tried to give first aid to one of their own fallen, or to an innocent who had gotten caught in the crossfire. His LPO had so much to live for, yet the nature of their job was such that he could very well lose his life trying to help someone who wanted to kill him.
Not everyone you see is your enemy. Not every friend can be trusted.
But he could trust Kyle. Coop said a little private prayer that Kyle would always be rewarded with a long and fruitful life, to be able to watch little Brandon grow up.
Team jobs are for single guys. He couldn’t see how a married man could do it. The baby reached for him and gave Coop a gummy smile. Coop let the youngster grab his little finger and squeeze.
That’s right, little man, I’m gonna protect your daddy, just like he’s protected me.
Christy was opening the front door, talking to Armando in her cute, saleswoman banter, tapping across the floor in her high heels. Cooper saw that Kyle, gingerly holding the baby, was following behind her, watching every movement. He looked like it turned him on for some strange reason.
“You like going to open houses, LT?” Coop asked.
“Yeah,” Kyle said and Coop knew, no matter what, no matter how many times he asked, that was the only answer he was going to get.
Armando was interested in the recently remodeled kitchen, whistling as he ran his fingers down the new granite countertops. Gunny had checked out the master bedroom and bath down the hall. “Shit, guys, look at this love tub,” he shouted out. “Armani, you sure you want to buy this for Mia? With her taste in—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Fredo pounced on Gunny. “Don’t disrespect his sister, you asshole.”
Armando rolled his eyes and let the two of them work it out, obviously annoyed. Kyle was sharing a private look with his wife and was completely oblivious to anything else, even the baby, who had spit up and sent a buttermilk-like substance down the back of his shirt.
Coop paced back and forth. The house didn’t do anything for him, just like Libby’s huge house. He liked the size of his mobile home. He knew where everything was, and it was within arm’s length almost any time. This forced him not to collect too much stuff. His mom was the keeper of the mementos, which were all gone now. Buried in the rich, dark earth he’d loved. He wished that perhaps he had more than a couple pictures of his family. But it never occurred to him before.
Gone forever.
Chapter Nineteen
Libby’s dad closed the front door behind their insurance adjuster. That left them alone with Detective Riverton. All the other police and fire crews were gone. A pungent burnt smell permeated the house. Even with the opened windows and fans, provided by the adjuster’s emergency crew, the house smelled unbearably toxic.
The family waited while Austin Brownlee slowly walked across the living room to sit beside his wife on the couch. Riverton sat on a cranberry overstuffed chair, identical to the one Libby sat on, with a coffee table between them. She was holding her breath, until she realized it. No matter how much she scolded herself, she couldn’t escape the fact that she was afraid, and she was very much alone.
It was a scene right out of a horror movie, Libby thought. Black streaks of smoke covering one wall in the foyer giving off a thick acrid smell. Water and large quilted moving blankets to sop it up were strewn all over the entryway. And her parents sat on the couch, hand in hand, behind a fresh bouquet of ridiculously bright and cheery flowers from her mother’s garden. Nothing was as it had been just a week ago. Libby’s life had literally gone to hell.
She remembered the words Coop had given her, to trust the police. So, with great effort, she tried to follow those instructions and forced out of her head and heart everything else.
“Okay, folks. This is what we got,” Riverton began.
“Whatever is going on, it has escalated to the point that I think we need to have a serious discussion about moving all of you out of this house.” He scanned the faces of his audience, and continued. “I’d be lying if I told you I could protect you here. This creep isn’t going to go away, and, although I’d love to tell you we have good leads, I’m just going to give it to you straight. We don’t.”
“But you haven’t finished your investigation, right?” her mother asked.
“Carla, we haven’t even started. Things are moving so damned fast. Tomorrow the fire investigator will be back over. His job is to make a determination as to the cause, after all the dust has settled. Your insurance is going to need that, too.”
“Of course,” Dr. Brownlee said. His face was pale, even with the suntan. His lips were dark pink, meeting in a flat line without a hint of a smile or frown. Libby thought he looked like he was in shock.
“Hopefully, he’ll be finding some clues, but right now, there just isn’t anything that points anywhere. We know the fire was started with some liquid, probably gasoline, and we think it was poured in the room from the window. We’ve taken the gas can down to the lab, but there are so many prints on it, I doubt anything unusual will come up.”
Carla looked at her husband, and then back at Riverton. “Who is under suspicion at this point?”
“Well, we’ve got the gardener, of course.”
“Oh, he’s not a threat to anyone,” Dr. Brownlee said. “He’s a grateful relative of a patient of mine. I’ve profiled him, and he’s clean. References checked out. He needs the money, and I don’t think he’d mess up his situation here.”
“Still, Austin, we have to treat everyone as a suspect. You understand,” Riverton replied.
“Indeed I do.”
Libby couldn’t hold back her curiosity, and her fear. “And Cooper? He a suspect too?”
Riverton turned towards her and his mouth fell into a scowl. He squinted at Libby as if sunlight were hurting his eyes. “Yes, I’m sorry to say. We have a photograph that matches the tats on his arm.”
“They all have them. I saw it myself,” Carla blurted out.
“I’m fully aware of that, and it complicates things a bit, but it doesn’t get him off the hook. Everything that’s happened has occurred since Coop first showed up at your door.” Riverton looked back over at Libby, eyes rheumy and tired. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you not to associate with him any longer. Until he’s ruled out.”
Libby’s stomach knotted up and overflowed with bile. She stood before she realized what she’d done. “That’s not a problem. We’ve already come to that conclusion. I doubt he’ll be back,” she said. Her hands were flailing wildly at her sides. She wanted to run. Run away from all this.
“What could this boy have against Austin?” Carla asked. “And why would he and his friends come over today? Wouldn’t he stay away? He seemed like he genuinely wanted to help.”
Some people who look like the enemy are not. Not everyone who helps is a friend.
Is that how it was done? Was Coop trying to get to her dad by using her? As much as she might find that the solution to her confusion, it didn’t ring true. She just couldn’t think Cooper would have anything to do with this.
“Who knows? I’m going to talk to his Chief and see if there is anything in his past, anything at all, that may have some bearing on all of this.”
“Well, he did just lose his entire family in a tornado last month,” Carla said.
“That’s convenient. But it’s also easy to check out.” Riverton stood up and walked to the window, watching the gardener drive off. “I’m going to want to see what you have on that man, Austin. One of our investigators didn’t like him.”
“My office is a mess, Clark. It will take me awhile to find his application and the profi
le I gave him.”
“You gave him a personality profile?” It was Carla’s turn to stand. “I can’t believe you gave him a test to be our gardener.” She crossed the room and then turned and came back. “Did you get a profile on the pool man too? The housecleaners?”
The pause was pregnant and said it all. Libby knew the answer was yes.
Riverton chuckled and shook his head. His hands were in his pockets, his notebook tucked back into the vest pocket of his coffee-stained shirt. “Your insurance will probably pay for your relocation, although you will have to check your policy. But I’d get working on that right away. Don’t spend tonight here. We’ll send a patrol around several times during the evening, for an extra set of eyes. You can lock up everything but the library. Put some plywood over the broken window, and I think that should secure it. But you have to leave, and I think you should do it right away, before anyone gets any other strange ideas.”
“What do we tell everyone?” Carla asked.
“Just say it was an accident. And look for people who are too interested. Like that team that just ‘stopped by’ today,” he said using his fingers as quote marks. “You call me if anything is out of the ordinary. Austin, you keep your normal schedule tomorrow, today, if you can.”
Riverton handed each of them a couple of business cards, noting his cell number on the front.
“So what happens next?” her dad asked.
Riverton smiled. “We catch the guy.”
The three family members stared back at Riverton in shock. Carla was the one who asked how he was so sure.
“Well, these types never give up until they are caught. You see, they really want to be caught. You know this, Austin.”
“Hmmm.” Her dad said, nodding.
“My job is to catch him before he does something really bad. To kill a cat or set fire to a house is one thing. Means he’s seriously disturbed. Means he won’t give up until he hurts that someone he’s after. At this point, Austin, I think it’s you, but it could be Libby—even you, Carla. I want you all to look over all your communications with people over the past few weeks, see if anything sticks out. Anyone made any enemies lately?”
All three of them shook their heads.
And then Libby thought about Dr. Gerhardt.
Chapter Twenty
Libby combed her memory, looking for anything that pointed to her former advisor. Although she didn’t trust the man, she also couldn’t see him as being responsible for the attack on her cat and, even worse, the fire in her father’s office. As far as she knew, he had never met her father.
She thought about the late night suppers she and her mentor had together at Santa Clara. They’d shared a bottle of wine frequently at Vesuvio’s, his favorite Italian restaurant. One or two glasses was more than enough to get her feeling tipsy, but she never went beyond that limit. In hindsight, he’d started behaving beyond her comfort zone.
She’d always said no. No to the more wine, that is. She found it hard to say no to his company, especially if it was going to help her with a good recommendation when she got out of graduate school. He never asked for sexual favors, although there were rumors of him with other students. Was he involved with someone else at the time and didn’t want to double-cheat on his wife?
Every villain is the hero of his own journey.
He’d had lots of opportunity to slip a little something in her water or wine glass during those dinners. He could have tried to take advantage of her on those nights when she was feeling a little vulnerable. But, she had trusted him. No, he wasn’t high on her radar for being the guy who was stalking her family. Maybe a lousy husband, but not a killer.
She had enjoyed seeing his face light up when she would tell him about her conversations with some of the undergrad students, and their shared projects. He seemed to really care about their discoveries. She performed some independent research for him in the dream lab and helped get willing subjects for him. Libby remembered that very first day, when he opened up his Psych 101 class with the following statement:
“This class comes with a three-hour lab requirement, where you will do all manner of fun things, like clean out rat cages and learn how to shave the hair off small furry animals without killing them or hurting yourselves. You will be asked to volunteer for experiments, and your answer will be ‘yes’ or you will fail my classes. Understood? If you stay with a major in psychology, as an upper classman, you will graduate to higher forms of animals: Freshman Psych majors. Hopefully, no shaving will be required by the time you get to that point.”
She remembered how the class had cracked up, and she knew immediately she wanted him for her advisor. How could someone with such a healthy sense of humor have such a dark side? But Coop had said to be careful. She hadn’t expected the dramatic change in Dr. Gerhardt’s behavior, either. Was he a much better liar than she previously thought? Could something have happened to him during the semester, something she hadn’t noticed? Some major, life-changing event?
Though disgusted and disillusioned with Dr. Gerhardt and his morals, there just wasn’t anything about him that seemed any darker. And she was really looking. Hard.
I am so naïve. Who can I trust?
Libby decided she would have to talk to Detective Riverton about her advisor. If they were thinking Coop could be a suspect, certainly the doctor should be looked at as well.
Libby was writing in her journal when she heard a soft knock on her door.
“Come in, Mom.” She said.
“Hi, sweetie. I was just wondering how soon before you’d be ready to go. We’re going to spend the night at the Hotel Del Coronado. Your dad has booked a suite there.”
Libby had always wanted to stay at the Hotel Del, but under much better circumstances. Spending the next few days in a suite with her parents wasn’t anywhere close to that fantasy.
Her mother must have noticed her scrunched-up nose. “Libby, your dad’s trying very hard. I know it’s not what you want. Just for a few days. He wants you close. He wants to make sure you are safe.”
“He can’t watch me 24/7.” Libby noticed how a sharp pain in her chest erupted at the reminder of what Coop had told her just yesterday. She was using that same argument on her mother.
“I know. But Libby, darling…” Carla came over and sat down on the edge of Libby’s flowered bedspread. “Let him try. You know how he likes to be protective. It’s his job.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I don’t need protection?” Libby sat up and took in her mother’s handsome face. “I’ve got to find my own way. Am I supposed to stay with you two until this guy is caught? What happens if it takes years? Then what do we all do? Do we just put our lives on hold?”
“Well, we’ll figure something out.” Carla looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. “I was hoping your SEAL friend would help you out a little.”
Libby stood up with hands on her hips. “Mother, for Chrissakes, that’s over with. It was foolish of me.”
Carla went back to examining her hands, looking down, and flipping her wedding ring around her finger. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“No, mother. It’s none of your business.”
“But you don’t think he could possibly be the, the, the—”
“Cat killer? No. Absolutely not. Not a chance in hell of that.”
“Well, I don’t want to pry—”
“Then don’t. Just let me have my privacy. I have other friends I can stay with.”
“Well there’s Neil and Marsha’s.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Libby was barely able to stand her sister-in-law.
“Well, humor me, then. Just for tonight. You’ll come with us to the Coronado. We’ll make a plan—your plan. But tonight, let’s be together as a family, okay?”
Libby didn’t answer.
“So come on, get yourself packed up and let’s get out of this house. My headache gets worse every minute I stay here.”
Libby knew her mother was way
more stressed than she let on. Poor woman was walking that difficult divide between two people she cared the most about in her life: her husband, and her daughter. And Libby wasn’t making it very easy on her.
Carla Brownlee left the room after Libby promised to be ready in five minutes.
She began throwing clothes into a suitcase she’d just unpacked a few days ago. Yes. She’d go to the Hotel Del with her parents and try not to think about being a blushing bride of some strong hunky guy who would make love to her all night long just like—
Stop this! You’ve got to wake up. Get real.
She hoped, when it all was over, she could find herself ready for a happily ever after. She wasn’t there yet, though. She knew the right, the smart thing was to focus on her future—getting her degree and finding a good job to support herself. Focus on her studies and leave all this blackness and pain behind her, even if she had to use duct tape on her resolve to hold all the pieces together today. And for the first time in a long time, though there was little hope, she didn’t feel like running away. It was time to stand and face the fact that she didn’t need anybody, and she could take care of herself.
* * *
Cooper played with pencils on a vacant sales associate’s desk at the Patterson Realty office while Christy Lansdowne worked with Armando and Kyle in the conference room, leaving him alone with Fredo. Gunny had taken off to oversee the close-up of his gym. The Mexican SEAL was swinging his short torso around on a wheeled office chair, testing and adjusting the height and angle of the back until the thing flipped over on top of him when he landed on the floor.
Coop gave a hand to his best friend, who was sputtering a string of curses in Spanish. The back of the chair had become dislodged from the frame and parts had scattered all over the floor. As if on cue, both Team guys kneeled and began collecting items scattered around before them. Without saying a word, they located the screws, levers and other parts and began to put the chair back together again. They guessed at the height and back tilt and set about adjusting the finished project accordingly. Once it was completed and judged to be sturdy, Fredo rolled the chair gently into the desk cubby, and let out a satisfied sigh when the armrests made it safely under the wooden surface without scraping.
