In Their Blood: A Novel

by Sharon Potts

  In Their Blood

  In Their Blood

  A Novel

  Sharon Potts

  Copyright © 2009 by Sharon Potts

  FIRST EDITION

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-933515-62-5

  Published in the United States of America by Oceanview Publishing,

  Ipswich, Massachusetts

  www.oceanviewpub.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  For my playful, loving, and beamish dad,

  who never doubted I could do anything.

  ABRAHAM GEORGE HECHT, 1913–1999

  and

  In memory of my mentor and dear friend, who

  touched so many with her words and wisdom.

  BARBARA PARKER, 1947–2009

  Acknowledgments

  While serving as treasurer of the Florida chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, I was given the nickname “The Countess” for my propensity to count things. And so, here I go, once again trying to count everyone who helped make In Their Blood possible:

  My kids, who were always there to remind me of what was truly important. Ben, when he logged onto my computer, “deleted” the text from my half-finished novel, and replaced it with an endless scroll of Priority— Ben or Book? And Sarah, who once wrote a short story about a demented woman, so obsessed with her writing that she stopped bathing and only sat hunched over her desk wearing a stained, torn bathrobe. Was I really that bad, kids?

  Kathleen Gordon, my unofficial creative writing teacher, who taught me how to see life through the loveliest metaphors by introducing me to Vladimir Nabokov’s swirling orange-peel goldfish, and so much more.

  My friends, critiquers, and mentors at Mystery Writers of America, who showed me how to transform my scribbles into suspenseful, believable fiction.

  Delia Foley, Jack and Marilyn Turken, and Maureen O’Connor, my cheerleaders, who never swerved in their optimism and willingly read anything I asked them to, and Mary, Alonda, and Renee, and the campers at Robin Hood Sports Camp, who checked out early drafts.

  My amazing mom and mystery aficionada, Anna Hecht, who even in her nineties, can spot a plot weakness, and isn’t shy about saying so.

  My indefatigable agent, Elizabeth Trupin-Pulli, who read and critiqued how many drafts, Liz?

  Everyone at Oceanview Publishing for their enthusiasm and professionalism, and special thanks to Patricia Gussin for leading the charge.

  The instructors at the Citizens Police Academy of Miami Beach for the terrific Cuban food, gunhandling instruction, and for explaining the inner workings of a great police department. Please forgive the liberties I took in describing my fictional investigation. Any improprieties were not based on anything I learned or observed about the MBPD.

  And of course, my alter ego and dear husband, Joe. Editor and sounding board. And yes, all the great ideas are his. Isn’t that right, darling?

  Jeez, is that everyone? Probably not, and I’m afraid I’ve lost count. But thank you all so much. I never would have gotten here without your encouragement, humor, and faith.

  In Their Blood

  Prologue

  Something was off. She had the uneasy feeling of being watched.

  Rachel Stroeb stepped away from the darkened portico, leaving her husband fumbling with his keys, their morose teenage daughter surrounded by a pile of winter coats and luggage.

  Tall hedges and drooping palms hid their neighbors’ houses, a film of dirty clouds blocking the light of the moon. But there was no sign of anyone, or anything amiss.

  “Everything okay, Rachel?” D.C. called.

  “I thought—” Rachel said. “Never mind. It’s probably just the jet lag.”

  “I don’t understand why the sconces aren’t lit,” her husband said. “I can’t see a damn thing.”

  The darkness— that must be why things seemed out of kilter. Or maybe it was disappointment that their family was still incomplete.

  Rachel returned to the stoop, slipping her arm around Elise’s narrow shoulders. Her daughter tensed. Rachel understood. It had been an exhausting flight, an unproductive trip. Just the three of them had returned home to Miami Beach from Madrid. Without Jeremy.

  “Here we go. Finally.” D.C. pushed open the door, depositing their coats, suitcases, and laptops on the white marble floor. “I’ll replace those burned-out bulbs in the morning.”

  Rachel flicked on the foyer light, reassured by the familiar arrangement of photos on the stippled wallpaper, the polished mahogany banister leading to the upstairs bedrooms. But the silence was unsettling. She was accustomed to the radio playing classical music, sounds of healthy family commotion. Their home on Lotus Island, where they’d lived the last twenty years, had mostly been a place of making wonderful memories.

  Rachel took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. Week-old flowers on the foyer table, and dog. No matter how frequently they bathed poor old Geezer, the smell of ripe fur like a dowager’s ancient fox wrap hung in the air.

  “Geezer.” Rachel whistled. After ten o’clock. He was probably asleep for the night in his corner of their bedroom. Some watchdog.

  Elise was twirling her long dark braid with one hand as she texted with the other. The smattering of freckles on the bridge of her upturned nose always reminded Rachel of cinnamon on vanilla pudding.

  D.C. called from the kitchen. “You wouldn’t believe how much junk mail we got in one week. And Flora left a note. She walked Geezer before she left around four.”

  “Can I go see Carlos?” Elise asked.

  “Sorry, honey,” Rachel said. “It’s late. You have school tomorrow.”

  “Please, Mom. I won’t stay out long. I promise.” Her daughter’s pretty green eyes were bloodshot, probably from crying on the plane. It hadn’t been the winter break any of them had wanted.

  “What’s that?” D.C. said, coming in from the kitchen. Two days’ whiskers covered his chiseled cheeks and chin. Jeremy had grown a beard while in Europe this past year and Rachel was taken aback by the striking resemblance between the father and son.

  “I want to go to Carlos’s,” Elise said. “Just for a little bit.”

  “Absolutely not,” D.C. said. “You’re not traipsing over to the Castillos’ at this hour.”

  “Fine,” Elise said, eyes overflowing with tears. “I can see why Jeremy didn’t want to come home.” And she raced up the stairs, the slamming of her bedroom door echoing in the empty house.

  “You didn’t have to be so harsh, D.C.”

  “Jeez, Rachel. So now I have to tiptoe around both my kids?”

  “You could try being a little less righteous.” Rachel slipped off her new boots and stashed them in the closet, noticing blood on them from the nosebleed she’d had on the plane. Her tee shirt was also stained— three drops that looked like splattered tears. She pulled it over her head, hung it from a hook in the closet, and put on one of Elise’s sweatshirts.

  D.C. was pacing beside their luggage and coats. In a stretched-out tee shirt and worn jeans he looked more like one of his students than a professor of international economics. “Less righteous?” he said. “I’ve got a twenty-two-year-old son who’s wasting his life and a teena
ge daughter who doesn’t like restrictions. What’s wrong with asking them to take some responsibility for a change?”

  “I’m just saying, maybe you should lighten up. Elise is having a tough time. She’s disappointed Jeremy didn’t come home with us.”

  “We’re all disappointed.”

  “Elise is only sixteen. She worships her brother.”

  “Well, maybe our daughter needs to find a new hero.”

  Rachel took a deep breath. Why did her husband have to be so damn stubborn?

  Geezer had made it down the curving staircase, tail wagging, arthritic hind legs moving stiffly behind him. He licked Rachel’s hand as she bent to hug him. “Stinky puppy,” she said. “Tomorrow, before I leave, you’re getting a bath.”

  D.C. touched his shirt pocket, perhaps hoping to find a cigarette, but they’d both quit smoking over a year ago, at least in front of each other and the kids. “Look, honey,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m as upset as you are that he didn’t come home.”

  Rachel picked a wilted chrysanthemum from the vase on the foyer table. “You know, Danny, deep down all Jeremy really wants is for you to be proud of him.”

  “Hey.” Her husband reached for her. He was a foot taller than she, and his chin rested comfortably on her head. “He’ll figure it out.”

  Shortly after eleven o’clock, Rachel and D.C. climbed into their high four-poster bed. The sheets were cool against her cheek. So much nicer than a hotel. Geezer was panting in his sleep in the corner of the room. D.C. slid his arms around her and Rachel pressed against his chest. He smelled like perspiration and smoke. So, he’d found a cigarette after all. She wondered where he kept his stash.

  Rachel snuggled closer to her husband. In twenty-five years of marriage, there had been a few bumps and missteps, and this one, too, would pass. He kissed her hair.

  Before they went to bed, they had taken Geezer for a walk around the island. When they returned home, Rachel had been surprised to get a text message from Elise. Please don’t be upset with me, Mom. I’m over at Carlos’s for a little. He promised to walk me home.

  And Rachel had been furious. But then the anger seeped out with her fatigue. Maybe their restrictiveness was what had pushed Jeremy away from them. Just this once, she’d let it go with Elise.

  A key turned in the front door. Rachel glanced at the clock on the night table. Just before midnight. Elise had to get up at six thirty for school. She’d be exhausted. D.C.’s breathing was deep and even. Rachel hadn’t told him Elise had gone out, preferring to keep her daughter’s secret to starting another altercation. She listened for Elise’s light footsteps running up the stairs. Rachel always left the bedroom door open a few inches to hear her kids coming and going. What was Elise doing downstairs? The thin beam that leaked in through the crack in the open door went out. Elise must have turned off the downstairs foyer light. Why would she have done that?

  There were footsteps climbing the stairs. Slow, heavy, not Elise’s. Had Carlos come back with her? Was Elise trying to sneak him into her room?

  Rachel sat up, annoyed. This wasn’t like her daughter. She strained to see, but the room was a mass of hulking shadows. The footsteps got louder. But only one set; where was Elise?

  Rachel’s chest tightened. Could there be an intruder with a key?

  She shook her husband. “Danny, wake up. Wake up. I think someone’s in the house.”

  He groaned.

  Rachel grabbed her cell phone from the night table and pressed the Contacts button. “G.” She scrolled down to “Guardhouse.”

  The footsteps were just outside the bedroom door. Please God, don’t let Elise come home now.

  She pressed Send. It rang. Once. Twice. Come on, answer.

  The bedroom door opened slowly.

  Geezer grunted in his sleep.

  There was a shape in the doorway. No face, just a creeping shadow. It was holding something. Pointing it at her.

  Rachel heard only the blood pounding in her head. She dug her fingers into D.C.’s arm. Please, take what you want, she thought, but don’t hurt us.

  The shape moved closer.

  Finally, a voice in her ear. “Guardhouse.”

  “Help,” Rachel shouted into her cell phone. “Help us.”

  Geezer was barking hysterically, wildly.

  “Rachel, get down,” D.C. hollered.

  The weight of her husband’s body pressed against hers, protecting her, blocking her. There was a flash of light, then a deafening noise shattered the night. A blow, like a violent wind, threw Rachel against the headboard, taking her breath away.

  Something warm and wet spread over her, covering her, drowning her.

  “Elise, Jeremy,” Rachel whispered as she faded from consciousness. “I promise I’ll never leave you.”

  Chapter 1

  Dark, cool, silent. The thick scent in the air reminded him of the fresh flowers his mother always kept in a vase on the foyer table.

  His mother. His father.

  Jeremy stared at the shiny wooden caskets. Sealed, the man in the black suit had told him. Their ashes inside.

  Their ashes inside.

  Impossible. Impossible. His parents were back in their house on Lotus Island. Angry with him. They always seemed angry with Jeremy these days. But that’s where they were. Not here. Not here in this dark, cool, silent room with a smell that didn’t belong. Or maybe they were at work. His dad playing big prof on campus, his mom intense and serious at the accounting firm where she was a partner. And they’d be very busy. Maybe too busy to be thinking about Jeremy. About what an idiot he’d been a week ago. But they definitely weren’t here. They couldn’t be here.

  The room had high ceilings, drapes over the windows, rows and rows of benches. Flowers everywhere. A pulpit at the front. And two caskets. Two. STROEB MEMORIAL SERVICE, the sign outside the room had read.

  “Can I help you?” the man in the black suit had said when Jeremy arrived at the funeral home straight from the airport a short while before.

  “I’m, I’m Jeremy Stroeb.”

  “Jeremy,” the man had said, his face saddening. “Their son. I’m so sorry for your loss. We held off on the memorial service as long as we could, but your uncle said your flight had been delayed. I’m really sorry, young man. But you’re welcome to sit for a while in the chapel with their caskets.”

  With their caskets.

  Jeremy touched the dark mahogany. Their caskets. Impossible. He rested his face against the cool smooth wood. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, everyone would jump from the shadows shouting “surprise!” A stupid, terrible joke. A hoax to get him to come home. But he was ready to forgive them for that.

  Please, God, let this be a big terrible joke.

  A hand rested on his shoulder. Jeremy jerked up, expectantly.

  The man in the black suit. “Your neighbor, Mr. Castillo, has opened his house to anyone wishing to pay their respects. I’m sure your family’s waiting for you there. I’ve asked my limo driver to take you. Whenever you’re ready, of course.”

  The man was being very nice, and it made Jeremy’s throat close up. He didn’t know what he should say, even if he could speak. Thank you for your kindness, but you’ve made a mistake?

  The limo stopped at the guardhouse at the entrance to Lotus Island. It had been a year since Jeremy had been home and things looked different. Darker and greener, somehow. The flag was flying at half-mast. They did that when one of the island residents died— lowered the flag. His father used to joke that it was a signal to the real estate agents that a fresh property would be coming on the market. He loved irony, his father. Jeremy turned to see if he was smiling. But his father wasn’t there. Just the driver waving to the guard.

  The car took a right on Lotus Circle and Jeremy was about to correct the driver, until he remembered they weren’t going home. Would he ever be able to go home? Jeremy’s brain was clogged. So tough to process what was happening. For the last twenty-four hours, he’d refused t
o think about it. His focus had been on getting home. Getting home. And now here he was.

  Mansions, tall hedges, and gated driveways went by in a blur. Something wasn’t right. The quiet island had turned into a carnival. Cars were parked along both sides of the street, extending back as far as the guardhouse. Several had pulled onto the grass of the bayfront park. Jeremy and Elise used to play hide-and-seek there, near the huge banyan tree they called “the grotto.”

  The driver continued just past the park to the Castillo mansion, stopping at the base of the circular brick driveway, which was blocked with cars. The huge ivy-covered house was just visible behind thick hedges and the tall wrought-iron gate. So different from his own house. Jeremy had never been inside this place. Enrique Castillo was a client of Jeremy’s mother and Carlos Castillo was Elise’s boyfriend, but the Castillos hadn’t been close to his parents. So why was the gathering here?

  Jeremy thanked the driver and hoisted out his worn backpack and ski jacket. The shirt he’d put on hours ago— the best one he owned— stuck to his perspiring back. The Miami air was so thick, even in January, he could hardly breathe. Or maybe it was something else.

  He passed some people his age. The guys, in jeans and sport jackets, were leaning against a car smoking cigarettes. The girls, holding Kleenexes to their eyes, were mostly in short black dresses, though one wore tattered jeans and dilapidated army boots. Probably his dad’s students. They eyed Jeremy as he walked up the driveway. The girl with the boots took a step toward him, a confused expression on her face. Jeremy picked up his pace so she wouldn’t try to talk to him. He pulled open the heavy front door.

  Harsh whiteness struck him like the flash from an atomic bomb. The walls, marble floors, baskets of lilies, columns stretching toward the domed ceiling— everything white, as though life had been sucked out of this place. Mingled voices, sounding like a record played backward, floated toward him from the rooms beyond the entrance hall. The air smelled sickeningly sweet. He dreaded going in there, receiving their condolences, seeing the awkward sympathy in their eyes.