Hush

by Nancy Bush

  Juliet held up her hands, unable to talk for a moment. “Do you mind coming behind the counter?”

  “What if somebody wants to check in or out? I don’t know the first thing.”

  “Just give me a minute. I’ll find William.” With that she went back through the door and Coby stepped behind the counter and hoped to hell nothing would happen.

  All day Kirk had thought about what he was going to do to Juliet when he got a hold of her. She was just like the little bitch in that Carrie Underwood song, “Before He Cheats,” who trashed her ex-boyfriend’s car. Kirk supposed he was lucky Juliet hadn’t done all the things to his car that the cute little bitch Carrie sang about had done to that car in the song—with a Louisville Slugger, among other things. Juliet had only keyed the side of the 4x4, but that sure as hell was enough.

  Now it was night and he’d decided on a course of action. Earlier he’d gone into a hardware store and purchased one of those bug bombs that killed everything from bees to spiders to probably Komodo dragons. All he had to do was get into her Mercedes, which was no problem because the relic had a loose window on one side that could be pulled down by simple pressure—damn thing was gonna fall into the door one of these days and shatter into a billion pieces—so all he had to do was slide it over, reach in, pop the lock. Then he could snap open the top on the spray can and get the damn poison started. The damn Mercedes would be, like, radioactive for hours, days, weeks!

  Fuck her.

  Juliet always parked in that lot across from Lovejoy’s; everybody did. Yeah, there was an attendant there, Steve something-or-other, but he was a total tool who spent most of his time texting friends and looking for a drug score. A major pill popper was our man, Steve. It amazed Kirk he’d lasted this long at the job. Kirk had befriended the guy out of necessity; he really needed a place to park anytime Juliet wheedled him to come to Lovejoy’s, which wasn’t that often ’cause Kirk just wasn’t interested, but on the rare occasion he said he would go there, there was never one goddamned parking spot for miles and miles around fucking Nob Hill Portland. As ever, Kirk had found his own means to have things work for him. For a couple of comped tickets to a Split Decision show, and the knowledge that lots of druggies loved to hang out at rock and roll concerts, Steve would let Kirk roll his 4x4 inside and pretend he just didn’t see.

  So it was a simple matter to access Juliet’s car with no suspicions. Steve knew Kirk and Juliet were friends, anyway. The only problem would be if Steve wasn’t on duty, and well, then Kirk would have to be all stealth and sneaky. An added hurdle, but not insurmountable.

  Now there was a smile on Kirk’s face as he looked at himself in the mirror. His bald head shone under the lights and he took a moment to play air guitar, watching how he looked. He was moving on from Split Decision. It felt right. Karma, man.

  Five minutes later he was driving toward Nob Hill, lost in thought to his planning, when his cell rang. Kirk looked down at the screen. It was Jarrod. He almost answered, then thought, fuck it. What had Jarrod ever done for him really? They were supposed to be best friends and all, but that was all bullshit. Somehow Jarrod was the front man in this relationship as well as the band, and Kirk was, well, the horse’s ass.

  Jarrod called a second time as Kirk was turning into the lot, but Kirk ignored it again, relieved to see that Steve was indeed working tonight. “Hey, dude,” Kirk greeted Steve as he pulled up.

  “Hey, dude.” Steve sounded worried. “We’re really full, man. I don’t think I got a place for you tonight. There’s some big wine-tasting deal over on Twenty-third.”

  “I won’t be long,” Kirk said. “Just gotta check on Juliet’s car for her. She pay this month’s rent?”

  “Her old man’s hotel picks it up,” Steve said, which Kirk well knew.

  “Maybe you can put mine on the Lovejoy’s tab, too.”

  “Ahh, man . . .”

  “Forget it.” Kirk laughed. “Just give me a few minutes. I gotta go see Juliet at work, but I’ll be right back.”

  Kirk drove on before Steve could offer up any more whining. It wouldn’t take him even that long, once he found a place to stow his own car. He’d already seen Juliet’s silver Mercedes, parked nose-in, along the wall.

  Another car was pulling into the lot and Steve got distracted. Good. Kirk couldn’t find a free spot, so he simply parked sideways behind Juliet’s car for the moment. There was just enough room for that other car to pass by him. Sodium vapor lights illuminated the lot, but he thought he could slide the right back window down without being seen if he was quick.

  Switching off his engine, he grabbed the can of bug killer from the passenger seat, then slid out of his car. He was to Juliet’s back window in a couple of strides and he pressed his hands to the glass and pushed. Not too hard. Just enough to get it out of the track. Just enough to slide it around a little.

  He felt the window give and smiled. He didn’t even think Juliet knew about her vehicle’s unusual flaw. He’d come across it by accident one day, leaning against the Mercedes.

  A moment later he had the lock popped, and then he carefully slid the window back up into place. It was probably precariously hanging there, but if it only held for tonight he’d be okay.

  He put the bug spray in the backseat foot well, was about to pop it open, then thought about it. Better hidden under the seat. It would still spray its noxious killer gas everywhere but wouldn’t be so easy to see.

  He bent over and reached under the passenger seat to make sure the space was empty. His hand encountered a piece of paper, some kind of tag hanging from under the seat. Grabbing it, he gave it a yank, and it fell into his hands with a release of strapping tape.

  He gazed at it. A plain white envelope.

  Reaching inside, he pulled out a swatch of blond-brown hair.

  “Fuck me,” Kirk whispered.

  “What are you doing?” a voice behind him demanded. A male voice. Kirk jumped about a foot and turned around to see Danner Lockwood standing there, his expression cold, hard, and accusing.

  For an answer Kirk simply handed over the envelope.

  Danner stared down at the swatch of hair and felt the muscles of his stomach contract. “You had Lucas’s hair?” he asked Kirk.

  “Hell, no. This is Juliet’s car.”

  Danner swung around to his Wrangler, which he’d simply thrown into park and left running when he’d seen someone breaking into a car. He switched off the ignition and left the keys where they were.

  Kirk said, “Hey, man,” when he headed across the street, horns blasting as he dodged traffic. “Hey, man! Where ya goin’?”

  But Danner didn’t answer. On his way to Coby’s he’d gotten a call from Ed Gerald that had left him filled with dread. The gym rat had said, “You called me?” and Danner had explained who he was and that he wanted to revisit anything Ed could tell him about his girlfriend’s death. Gerald had been reluctant to talk and Danner had missed three calls from Coby while he’d tried to conduct the interview, which had made him impatient. He was already distracted with driving; traffic was slow and sticky. He was fairly sure Ed Gerald was just a dead end anyway, but then Gerald said something that made the hairs on Danner’s arms lift.

  “She was hanging out with that friend of her old boyfriend’s. That’s who I thought she was gonna be with that day, but she went to the gym by herself and, well, the whole thing totally sucks. It shouldn’t have happened that way. She was a great girl.”

  “Who was the friend?” Danner asked.

  “I never met her.”

  “Do you mean she was a friend of Theo Rivers?”

  “Yeah. That was his name. She dated him before me.”

  “And you don’t remember anything about the girlfriend?”

  “Nah . . . except that Heather said she called herself an Ent, like in the Lord of the Rings? I figured she was really tall, or something. I don’t know. I didn’t pay attention.”

  “Could she have said ‘Ette’?”

>   “Well, yeah, but that doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  Danner had immediately hung up, his mind spinning. Heather McCrae was friends with one of the Ettes? He’d listened to his messages and learned Coby was at Lovejoy’s, so he’d changed his destination, wondering just which Ette had struck up a friendship with Theo Rivers’ ex-girlfriend.

  And then he’d run across Kirk . . . and then the envelope in Juliet’s car . . .

  Kirk sucked in a breath watching Danner dodge traffic. Steve appeared, in a huff. “Whose goddamn Wrangler is this?” he demanded, looking inside the vehicle. “He left the keys.”

  “It’s the police, man,” Kirk said, tearing after Danner. “Just park the fucker, okay?”

  What the fuck was up with Juliet?

  At first when Juliet returned with a handgun, Coby hadn’t taken in the significance; she thought Juliet had armed herself as a safety precaution since Yvette’s death. But the pistol was aimed at Coby’s heart, and it didn’t move.

  Coby simply did not know what to say, and so they stared at each other in silence for a moment.

  “Aren’t you going to ask any questions?” Juliet finally demanded, motioning Coby toward the door to the inner sanctum. “All you’ve done is talk, talk, talk. Now you have nothing to say?”

  “Why?” Coby asked.

  “Move,” Juliet ordered tersely when Coby just stood there. Though the gun was below the counter level, it wouldn’t pay to have a guest suddenly come into the hotel.

  “Where’s William?”

  “Sent him on an errand. If I’m not here when he gets back, he’ll just think I took off irresponsibly. That’s me. The irresponsible one.” She took a step forward and Coby finally got her feet moving, into the back room, which was really a hallway with three offices jutting off it and, at the far end of the hall, the small kitchen that serviced the tearoom/wine bar.

  “You killed Yvette?” Coby asked.

  “I was there, at the campout, listening to all of you,” Juliet revealed with a thin smile. “Genevieve was so popular, and she got you all to tell your secrets. And the guys were playing guitar. It was so perfect, you know. I wanted all of it.”

  Coby stared at her. Her memories of that night were vastly different.

  “You kissed Lucas, and Genevieve had sex with him. I watched. And then he walked off and I saw him start to head up to Bancroft Bluff. I almost followed him, but I just stayed on the beach for a while and watched the waves come in.

  “And then they were yelling—Yvette and Hank, though I didn’t know it at the time—and then Lucas came tumbling over the cliff and just bounced on the rocks of the tide pools. He was staring at the sky when I came up to him. He couldn’t talk. He was broken. So I turned him over and helped him die in dignity. I had a penknife and I saved some of his hair.

  “But none of you stayed with the guys in your group. Even Genevieve didn’t get with Jarrod till college. So I left you the notes. But you didn’t belong. I didn’t know that then.”

  Coby stayed perfectly still. Juliet sounded so rational, laying down the events as she viewed them, the reasons for her behavior, in a voice that was cool and collected. She believed what she was saying had meaning when it was all some world she’d made up in her head.

  “Then Yvette was pregnant and I thought it was Lucas’s baby. That made a kind of sense, you know?”

  Coby carefully said, “Then you learned Benedict was Hank Sainer’s,” when Juliet paused.

  “Annette learned. She started blabbing away and I wanted to kill her for destroying everything. Then she found Lucas’s hair. Yvette was fighting with her and I just had my moment. So I drowned her and took her necklace. Yvette suspected it was me, I guess, because she grabbed my purse one day and dumped it on one of the tables at the wine bar. She snatched up the necklace before anyone saw. I hadn’t wanted to put it away yet. Then she held it over my head, and after she ran Hank off the road, she planned to use it to keep me from saying anything, I know she did. I went over there to talk to her and she attacked me! I didn’t really intend to kill her, but she threatened me. She said if I told about Hank, she would tell about Annette. I didn’t have a choice after that.”

  “What about Rhiannon?” Coby asked, her eyes on the gun, her thoughts on the necklace in her pocket. Could she use it as a distraction of some kind?

  “I didn’t kill Rhiannon, but I know who did.”

  “Who?”

  Juliet shook her head. “Oh, come on, Coby. You’re so smart. You can figure that one out.”

  “Is the reason you’ve been with all the guys in the group because they’re special?” Coby asked, trying to keep the conversation going, seeking to stay with Juliet’s logic.

  “I wanted them to love me, too. Like they loved all of you.” Her face darkened. “Vic’s an ass. Paul’s not much better, as it turns out. And if I’d known Theo was such a man-slut I wouldn’t have bothered to take out his big-lipped whore.”

  Coby carefully asked, “Heather?”

  “She thought she was such a physical specimen. It was easy to rip the bar from her hands and drop it on her throat.”

  “But you were never with Theo.”

  She tilted her head and smiled. “Not yet.”

  “What about Kirk?”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Juliet’s carefully constructed script couldn’t stand rewrites. “That fucker! I hope he burns in hell!”

  The hallway door suddenly burst open. Danner stood there, gun aimed. Juliet spun around wildly and fired a shot. It whizzed past Danner and slammed into the door. Bits of wood flew out.

  But Juliet didn’t wait. She tore down the hallway in the opposite direction, toward the kitchen.

  And Kirk stepped into her path.

  She lifted the gun and fired but he came at her in a flying tackle. She was spitting and screaming and fighting like a wild woman, scrabbling for the gun that had bounced from her hand.

  Kirk hauled his fist back and punched her in the face. Hard.

  She gave up instantly, crying and mewling and swearing she would see him in hell.

  “You first,” he told her.

  Danner grabbed Coby and hauled her close. She could feel how much he was trembling. Or maybe that was her. A moment later he released her and pulled out a pair of cuffs, then headed down the hall to where Kirk was sitting on Juliet, keeping her pinned down.

  Ten days later they were seated around the small table at Coby’s town house, sharing dinner with Jarrod, Genevieve, and Kirk, who’d had a change of plans and was now thinking he was meant for the police academy. Coby had her doubts on that one, as did Danner, but Jarrod had been encouraging. Maybe because he still wanted Kirk around for the band, even if Ryan and Spence were working their way through the legal problems resulting from their thievery.

  Jarrod had left Genevieve, but she’d beseeched him to return. She needed him. She loved him. And she assured him she was over all that history with Lucas Moore. He’d been like an idol to her. Had he lived, she probably would have gotten over him sooner, but he died right at the height of her obsession and it took her till now to put it behind her.

  Was it over, really? Coby wasn’t completely certain, and neither was Jarrod. But he was coping, so Coby decided to hope for the best.

  They’d had their own little Thanksgiving dinner, and as Coby carried plates to the kitchen, she felt Danner come up behind her and put his arms around her. “If you’re not going to help, you have to let me go. There’s work to be done.”

  “Sure thing,” he said lazily, kissing her temple before reluctantly releasing her. “They caught Sheila just outside Seattle.”

  “I heard you on the phone with your partner,” Coby said, rinsing the plates before putting them in the dishwasher.

  “She was trying to ditch the gun, but they got it. Pretty sure it’s the same one that she used to kill Beth and Angie Lloyd.”

  “You know Juliet told my father to send me to help out at Lovejoy’s that night,�
� Coby said conversationally. “When my dad realized it, he just about had a heart attack, thinking he unwittingly set me up.”

  “Juliet’s a certified fruitcake.”

  “She had her own construct. It just wasn’t reality.”

  “Don’t even think about excusing her.”

  “I’m not,” Coby said. “But she’s unwell. Jean-Claude did say his daughters were all a little tweaked.”

  “Two out of five are bona fide killers. That’s more than a little.”

  “Okay.” She laughed.

  Jarrod brought in some of the flatware and the basket used for bread. “Dana still around?” he asked.

  “She flew home, but she’s coming back soon,” Coby said.

  Dana, after learning the whole truth about Yvette, Hank, and Benedict, had shown surprising maturity, or maybe it was her natural maternal instinct, by asking to be a part of her half brother’s life. Jean-Claude had agreed, and they were working out plans for Benedict to visit Dana and her family soon.

  Danner opened a second bottle of red wine and refilled his glass, Coby’s, Jarrod’s, and Kirk’s. Genevieve demurred, though Coby wondered if it was just that she preferred white. She came into the kitchen and stood beside Coby while Danner took the glasses to the other two men.

  “I was kinda nuts when I called you that night. I really thought I was going to get blamed for Yvette’s death,” Genevieve said.

  Coby filled one of the pots in the sink with water and added some dish soap. “You were pretty adamant,” she admitted.

  “That’s ’cause I’d just been there. I told you that.” Genevieve gave her a studied look.

  “Juliet said something to me that night in the hallway. She said she hadn’t killed Rhiannon, but she knew who did.”

  “Oh?”

  “She said I was smart enough to figure it out.”

  “And have you? Figured it out?” Genevieve brushed imaginary crumbs from the counter into the sink.

  “Not completely. But your mom said you took up hiking for a while after high school. She was trying to remember when but wasn’t really sure. She thought maybe you’d gone hiking a time or two with Rhiannon, Lucas Moore’s real girlfriend.”