Too Close

by Hilary Norman

  And found out more – much more – than he wanted to know about what had become of Teresa Vasquez.

  He allowed himself about five seconds to think about blacking out or puking or just plain old-fashioned losing it, and another three seconds to think about hightailing it straight back next door and leaving it to Naguchi and friends.

  But then he took a few deep, shuddering breaths, clenched his shaking hands more tightly around the baseball bat, and got himself back under something approaching control, turning his head away from the awful pink frosted thing that had been the face of his daughter’s nanny, and pushing himself out of Holly Bourne’s utility room and on into her kitchen.

  Again, there was no one around, the only signs of life two mugs of tea, looking untouched, on the round white table, and a pair of soaked tea bags in the sink. Nick checked around the room, opening cupboards with a new kind of dread.

  Nothing. Thank Christ, nothing.

  He opened the door to the hallway even more cautiously. It creaked a little, but Old Blue Eyes was covering it, sliding his long warm notes over every tiny sound Nick made as he crept around the cold, stark first floor of Holly’s house, seeing nothing of note except a brown paper package addressed to Barbara Rowe in the entrance hall.

  Still no sign of life.

  He started up the staircase, the baseball bat clenched in his right fist.

  Nothing on the second floor either.

  But on the blue carpet in the hallway on the top floor, he saw a trail.

  Of blood.

  The music grew louder.

  The trail led to a door.

  His heart was right up in his throat, choking him.

  He gripped the bat harder and opened the door.

  The trail of blood led to Nina. She was lying hunched on the bare hardwood floor of a cold, empty, unfurnished room. Her eyes were open, staring at him.

  Nick thought, for one endless, dying moment, that she was gone.

  Her lips moved.

  ‘Nina—’ Nick fell on his knees beside her. ‘Oh, God, Nina, sweetheart – what did she do to you?’

  She gave a moan.

  ‘It’s okay – I’m here.’

  He tried to take hold of her hands, but she resisted, and then he saw that they were bunched up in fists against her body because she was trying to plug the wound in her abdomen; and there was blood seeping through her knuckles, and he realized that if he took her hands away, the flow might increase.

  ‘Okay, baby, don’t move.’ He felt like screaming, but his voice sounded almost calm. ‘I’m going to get help.’

  Sinatra stopped singing, then began again.

  ‘Hold on, baby,’ he said, starting to get up.

  ‘No,’ she said, very faintly, staring at him fixedly.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he told her, fighting to keep hold, trying not to think about Zoë, knowing he had to focus on Nina first, on saving her life. ‘Everything’s going to be all right. I’m going to get you some help.’

  ‘No. Wait.’ It was hard for her to speak – hard to hear what she was saying.

  Nick got closer, put his right ear up against her mouth, and stroked her hair. His hands were shaking violently again.

  ‘What is it, sweetheart? Is it Zoë? Has she hurt Zoë too?’ He could smell his wife’s blood. He felt murder rising in him.

  ‘Holly has her,’ Nina whispered into his ear, weak but frantic.

  ‘Where?’ He could feel the veins in his neck standing out, hard as iron. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘I don’t know. There’s a nursery – a bear on the door . . .’

  ‘Okay.’ He kissed her hair. ‘That’s okay. I’ll find her.’

  ‘Be careful.’ Nina’s eyes were filled with pain and terror. ‘She has a knife. She killed Teresa.’ She swallowed hard. ‘She thinks Zoë’s her baby. Yours and hers.’

  Nick bent his head to kiss her mouth. It was very cold.

  ‘It’s all right, Nina,’ he whispered. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

  ‘She’s completely mad,’ Nina said against his lips.

  ‘I know,’ Nick said.

  And stood up.

  He went into the room with the bear on the door swinging his bat.

  The crib was empty.

  He went next door.

  The room was full of him.

  Like a fucking shrine.

  Holly was lying on a bed. With Zoë on her stomach.

  Holly wore a white bloodstained dress. Zoë was naked.

  Holly turned her head and smiled at him. The knife was in her right hand.

  ‘I’m going to kill you,’ Nick said. ‘You’re going to give me my baby, and then I’m going to beat your head in until I know you’re dead and gone for ever and ever.’

  ‘Remember the song?’ Holly said. ‘It was our song,’ she said. ‘Remember?’

  Zoë started to cry.

  ‘Give me my daughter,’ Nick said.

  Holly held up the knife.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Not till you’ve heard me out.’

  ‘I don’t have time to hear you out,’ Nick said. ‘My wife is lying on the floor in the room next door, bleeding to death.’

  ‘Is she still alive?’ Mild interest, nothing more.

  On her stomach, Zoë kicked her legs, and Holly held her still with her left hand. The baby cried harder.

  ‘Give me the baby, Holly.’ Nick still gripped the bat. ‘The cops are on their way.’

  ‘No, they’re not,’ Holly said. ‘You wouldn’t take the chance of calling them – not while I was alone with your wife and our baby.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  Holly moved Zoë onto the bedspread and sat up.

  Nick got ready to swing the bat.

  ‘She’s too close, Nick. That’s another chance you won’t take.’

  His trembling was worse than ever. He stared at her.

  ‘Ready to listen to me yet?’ Holly asked.

  Nick thought about Nina and all the blood in the cold, empty room. There were things of his all over this room. Not just the photographs. Clothes he’d missed, a palette he thought he’d lost. The room even smelled of the Armani cologne Nina had bought him a few months back. It was like a surrealist nightmare.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he said.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  The song went on and on.

  All the way.

  ‘Go ahead, Holly.’

  ‘In my own time,’ she said.

  Zoë was still crying. Her arms and legs were flailing, and she had wet the bedspread, and Nick’s whole body ached to grab her, but the knife was less than two inches away from her.

  ‘Why don’t I just hold her while you talk?’ Nick said.

  ‘No one holds my baby but me,’ Holly said, suddenly sharper.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Don’t be in such a rush, Nick.’

  ‘My wife is bleeding.’ Hate bloomed in his voice.

  ‘It’s taken me a long time to get you to listen to me,’ Holly said.

  ‘And now you’ve got me. Captive audience. One night only.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

  ‘What do you want, Holly?’

  ‘Put the bat down.’

  ‘No.’

  Holly held the knife up, over Zoë’s tiny, fragile face.

  Nick put down the bat.

  ‘Better,’ she said.

  He straightened up and waited.

  ‘You’re going to need me, Nick,’ she said.

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Badly.’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘When they come for you. When they arrest you for the murders of Teresa Vasquez and your wife.’ Holly paused. ‘Did you enjoy your ride out to Napa, by the way?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘I thought it was fun. And so simple to organize. Just a few calls – I didn’t even have to go out there myself – just paid someone to type the note and
leave it in the right place – someplace you’d find it, but not too easily. Did you think we were up in a balloon?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  She smiled. ‘You never were as clever as I was. My mother always used to ask me, when we were kids, why I liked spending so much time with someone who was so obviously beneath me.’

  ‘Why did you?’

  ‘You know why.’ The smile was gone, and she was very serious. ‘You were everything to me. You still are.’ She paused again. ‘Which is why I’m going to be the best lawyer in the world for you. Because I still love you. And because I know you so well. Better than anyone.’

  Nick wasn’t really listening to her any more. His eyes were on Zoë, who had stopped crying. The sash window in the room was wide open and it was raining again outside and there was a cold wind, and she was too exposed, and it frightened him that she wasn’t crying any more – though maybe it was just because she was always such a good, easy baby, and maybe that meant she was still okay now.

  Her mother wasn’t okay.

  Her mother was alone in an empty room, dying.

  Holly stood up.

  ‘Here.’

  She held out the knife.

  ‘Take it.’

  Nick stared at it, thrown.

  ‘Take it, Nick.’

  He put out his hand and took it.

  ‘Use it, by all means,’ Holly told him.

  He eased it into his palm, settled it, got a grip.

  ‘Except, of course,’ Holly said, ‘then there’ll be no one to defend you. No one to believe in you, like I do. Your prints all over your own knife – it is yours, you do realize that, don’t you?’

  Nick looked down at it.

  The Sinatra tape, or CD, or whatever the hell it was, paused between end and restart, and in the brief silence, Nick heard a sound.

  An awful sound.

  Nina.

  Holly smiled.

  ‘I think maybe your wife just died,’ she said.

  Something snapped.

  He dropped the knife and threw himself at her. She fell backwards onto the floor beside the bed.

  Memories swam through his mind like wild, black, ugly, dizzying fish. All the things she’d done to him, and to Nina, and to Phoebe, and to Zoë, and to poor, poor Teresa.

  No more.

  It ends today.

  He was on his knees, straddling her, pinning her arms to her body with his legs, and Holly was staring up at him, silent and waiting. He put his hands on both sides of her face and banged her head against the floor – once, twice –

  She made a strange, gasping sound, and he felt her body arch beneath him.

  And realized that she was climaxing.

  Shock poleaxed him.

  He let go of her head and fell back, winded.

  On the bed, Zoë was screaming.

  Sinatra was still singing.

  Nick was losing his mind.

  He didn’t hear the feet treading carefully up the staircase.

  Didn’t register the movement of the police officers in the doorway behind him, or the sound of their voices, or the static of their radios as they assessed the scene and broke silence.

  Holly’s voice, faint but clear, was the first thing Nick was conscious of hearing.

  ‘Thank God,’ she said.

  Nick’s eyes were fogged up. He blinked, trying to focus.

  He saw Holly on the floor. Crawling away from him, clasping her head. ‘He’s crazy,’ she was telling someone behind him, and her tone was terrified and convincing. ‘He’s already killed two other people and he was trying to murder me too—’

  ‘Okay, ma’am, take it easy,’ a man said, still from behind Nick.

  Nick tried to sit up. The room was spinning.

  ‘My name is Holly Bourne Taylor,’ she said, still gasping. ‘I’m an attorney.’

  And Nick heard another voice.

  Another woman.

  ‘My name is Inspector Helen Wilson, SFPD.’ Hard-voiced.

  He blinked again. There were a bunch of people in the room, some in uniform, some in plainclothes. All cops.

  More voices in the hall outside, raised now, and someone was yelling something about paramedics.

  Nina.

  Nick struggled, made it to his feet. ‘My wife.’

  ‘She’s okay,’ someone else said.

  Capelli. Dark and lanky, his eyes concerned, positioned between Nick and the door.

  ‘She’s been stabbed,’ Nick told him. ‘The bitch stabbed her.’

  Inspector Wilson was talking. Nick looked at her, saw her messy fair hair, saw the cuffs in her left hand, the gun in her right.

  ‘Charlotte Bourne Taylor,’ she was saying to Holly, ‘I’m arresting you . . .’

  Still dazed, Nick looked for Zoë on the bed, but the cover was obscuring her, maybe suffocating her—

  ‘Zoë!’ he shouted. ‘My baby!’

  Wilson’s eyes – everyone’s eyes – flicked away from Holly to Nick’s face for a second.

  Too long.

  Holly was up, too, moving fast, and she had Zoë.

  ‘No!’

  Capelli grabbed Nick, pinioned him from behind.

  ‘Let me go! She’s got my baby!’

  ‘Take it easy, Miller,’ Capelli ordered.

  ‘Someone turn that music off.’ Wilson was pointing her gun, two-handed, straight at Holly. Sinatra went on singing. ‘I said turn the fucking music off!’ she snarled.

  Capelli was still holding Nick in the doorway.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Nick cried out. ‘She’s got my baby!’

  Holly was backing away from the cops, away from Nick, holding Zoë tightly in her arms. She’d lost a shoe and her bloodstained white dress had a rip down one side.

  ‘Stay away from me.’

  She was moving towards the window – the open window.

  Everyone froze.

  She got up, backwards, onto the sill. Sat on it.

  ‘All right, Holly,’ Wilson said. ‘Let’s not do anything foolish.’

  A man in a blue suit, a balding guy with glasses and a thin, tight mouth, appeared out of nowhere. ‘I’m Lieutenant Begdorf, ma’am,’ he said, his tone gentle, conciliatory. ‘How about we calm things down a little bit here? How about you let me just take the baby while we talk about things for a few minutes?’

  ‘How about you fuck off?’ Holly said.

  Someone stopped the music.

  ‘Let me talk to her,’ Nick said, suddenly.

  His own voice startled him. It sounded almost calm. Level.

  ‘That’s okay, sir,’ Lieutenant Begdorf told him. Polite but firm.

  ‘No, it’s not okay,’ Nick said.

  He felt Capelli increase the pressure on his arms.

  ‘Get Miller out of here,’ Wilson told Capelli, no longer prepared to take her eyes off Holly for so much as a millisecond.

  ‘I’m the only one she’s going to listen to,’ Nick said to Capelli, quietly, insistently. ‘It has to be me.’

  ‘Go on, Capelli,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Take Mr Miller outside.’

  Nick wasn’t going anywhere. He rooted his feet to the floor, watching Holly’s face. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Holly?’ he said, raising his voice. ‘It’s me you want to talk to, isn’t it? It’s me you want, period.’

  ‘You can go fuck yourself, too,’ Holly replied.

  She shifted a little on the sill and kicked off her second shoe. There was a ladder in her left stocking. Zoë wailed more loudly, her cheeks scarlet, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘It’s like you said to me,’ Nick said, quieter but clear. ‘You’ve always loved me. And you know I’ve always loved you back.’

  ‘Crap,’ Holly said.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  He felt Capelli’s grip ease a little. He waited for the lieutenant to intervene, but the balding man stayed silent.

  ‘Because you love Nina.’

  Nick glanced sideways, imploring Capell
i, who looked at Begdorf for assent. The lieutenant nodded.

  Nick moved a few feet back into the room.

  ‘So what’s happening here, lieutenant?’ Wilson, not taking her eyes off Holly or the baby, asked Begdorf quietly.

  ‘Let Mr Miller talk to her,’ the lieutenant told her. ‘Back off a little, inspector.’

  Wilson backed off two feet.

  Nick walked past her, closer to the window.

  ‘Stay where you are, Nick,’ Holly said.

  ‘Or what?’ Nick asked.

  ‘You know what.’ She gripped Zoë more tightly. The little girl, who’d quietened down for a moment, started wailing again and urine ran down her chubby, naked legs.

  ‘You won’t hurt the baby,’ Nick said as if he meant it. ‘Not our baby.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ Holly said.

  ‘I know that, Holly.’

  He moved another step closer, then stood still.

  Zoë stopped wailing again. Her little nose was red and blocked. Nick could hear her breath, rasping a little. It killed him to hear that and not be able to hold her.

  ‘It’s like you said, Holly,’ he said, hanging on. ‘Like you’ve always said. I’m here for you. I always will be.’

  Suddenly his mind felt crystal clear – he couldn’t believe how clear it was – every thought and word seeming to flash into place with pinpoint accuracy.

  He knew what he was doing now – knew where he was going.

  ‘The way I always was,’ he went on, ‘when we were kids.’

  ‘Yes, you were, back then.’ Reproach in Holly’s voice.

  ‘I was, wasn’t I? I always took the rap for you, didn’t I, Holly? Whatever we did, whenever we got caught. Didn’t I always take care of you?’

  ‘Not always, no.’ Holly’s right hand was squeezing the skin on Zoë’s right arm too hard, and the baby was crying again. ‘You let me down.’ Holly raised her voice over the noise. ‘You betrayed me.’

  ‘You mean with Nina?’

  ‘Yes, I mean with Nina,’ Holly answered coldly.

  ‘That was my mixed-up period,’ Nick said, easily. ‘And it lasted a long time, I know it did. But I’m not mixed up any more, Holly.’

  ‘Oh, I think you are,’ Holly said.

  ‘No, I’m not.’ Nick felt himself starting to lose it for a moment, felt his head swimming again, but then he made himself focus on Zoë again, and the sharpness returned. ‘I can see now how much you’ve been willing to do for me, Holly. All this. All the things you’ve done, the risks you’ve taken, everything you’ve given up. Just for me.’ He paused. ‘It’s made me realize that I married Nina on the rebound.’