by Brenda Novak
Francesca led a very stable life. She wasn’t currently in a relationship so there was no romantic angst. She worked too much to date very often and rarely hung out at bars or other singles’ gatherings unless it was to stop by for a few minutes after work with Heather, her twenty-two-year-old receptionist. That gave Heather a break from the constraints of her single-parent life. Francesca didn’t consider herself a success in the “popular girl” category, but she’d established quite a glowing reputation in the investigative industry, especially after finding Janice Grey’s remains. That investigation hadn’t ended the way anyone would hope, but she’d been able to give Janice’s family resolution and justice. Sometimes that was all a client could ask.
Anyway, it wasn’t as if late-night calls were usual for her. “I ran into Jonah today.”
A long silence ensued. Finally, Adriana muttered, “Hang on. I’m going into the other room.”
Francesca probed her sore lip with her tongue while she waited. When Adriana came back on the line, she noticed that her friend sounded far less sleepy. Funny how the mention of Jonah could do that.
“Where did you see him?”
Even with all the other guys who’d come afterward, for both of them, Adriana hadn’t needed a last name. There’d been only one Jonah. And neither one of them would ever forget him. “In Prescott.”
“He lives there?”
“No, I think he lives in California. He works for a private security contractor based in L.A.”
“What’s Prescott got to do with anything, then?”
“He’s consulting on a case in Yavapai County, which is where my own case took me today.”
“Is he married?”
“I don’t think so. He’s not wearing a ring.”
“Okay. So…what happened? What’d he say?”
“Nothing, really. Our paths sort of…collided, that’s all.” She’d humiliated herself in front of him, but explaining that would only repeat the humiliation.
“I don’t understand. You don’t have anything to say about it?”
She had plenty to say. She just didn’t know how to get it out. “I guess not.”
“Are you telling me this to make me feel terrible again, Fran? To punish me? You think what I did isn’t hard enough to live with?”
Francesca covered her face. Calling Adriana had been a mistake. She’d forgiven her, hadn’t she? She’d told her she had; they’d patched up their friendship and moved on. “No. I’m telling you because…I needed to tell someone. And that’s what best friends are for.”
“What you’re saying is…you still have feelings for him.”
“No! I… It was a shock, that’s all.”
“A shock.”
“Yes.”
“And now you want someone to tell you that whatever you felt was normal.”
She’d felt as if she had an anvil crushing her chest. Could she really expect anyone to tell her that was normal? “Maybe that’s it. I mean, how much could he have meant to me? We were all so young, only what…twenty-three?”
“But you’ve never gotten over him, never fell in love so deeply again.”
“Of course I’ve gotten over him.” As for love, love was overrated.
“I know better.” Adriana blew out a sigh. “God, I made a mess of things, didn’t I?”
Francesca had never felt so torn between wanting to punish and wanting to console. It was true that Adriana had made a terrible mistake. She’d destroyed Francesca’s relationship with Jonah. And she’d nearly destroyed their friendship, too, a friendship that had lasted since preschool. But Jonah deserved his share of the blame. It wasn’t as if Francesca could hold Adriana entirely responsible for the affair. As a matter of fact, during the past several years, she’d found it easier and easier to pin most of the blame on Jonah. That had enabled her and Adriana to go on as though there’d never been a betrayal.
“It’s over,” she said. “It’s behind us. I just…” What? Wanted the pain to go away for good? Couldn’t imagine why seeing Jonah had been so earth-shattering? What was she hoping to accomplish by dragging Adriana back into that vortex of hurt and recrimination?
“I wish I could undo what I did,” Adriana said. “Not a day goes by that I don’t regret hurting you. But…it’s too late, Fran. There’s no way I can change what I did. All I can do is tell you how sorry—”
“Don’t. You’ve apologized enough.” Why torture her? She’d had to give up her baby, hadn’t she? That must’ve been hard. The pregnancy had been hard, too. She’d been sick for five of the eight months it’d lasted and bedridden for the final three.
“I still think about her, you know,” she said.
“Of course you do.” These days Adriana had two little boys with Stan. There had to be moments when she looked at them and couldn’t help remembering the little girl she’d borne before they came into her life. “Do you ever regret your decision to give her up?”
“No. I wasn’t ready to take on a child. I wasn’t even through with school. I had no resources. And it wasn’t as if Jonah and I were planning to be together. We both knew what happened that night was…out of line, nothing we’d ever repeat. He cared too much about you to—”
Francesca jumped to her feet. “Don’t even say that.”
“It’s true. I don’t know why he came on to me. It was…like he was purposely chasing you away, daring you to love him. You know how easily spooked he was. But I could tell he cared by how broken up he was afterward.”
Despite the lump suddenly clogging her throat, Francesca fought to keep her voice level. “We were just stupid kids. We didn’t know what love was, neither of us.”
The tenor of Adriana’s voice changed. “He didn’t want me to give her up. Did I ever tell you that? He offered to raise her. But I wouldn’t agree to it. He wasn’t any more ready to be a parent than I was…. It took a bit of convincing, but he’d finally agreed we should contact a good agency and let them do their thing. They found a great couple who was dying to have a baby and couldn’t. The Williamses.”
“Have you heard from Jonah since he came to the hospital that day?” Francesca already knew Adriana had never communicated with the Williamses. It’d been a closed adoption. But she’d often wondered if Adriana and Jonah had kept in touch, if only occasionally. In her determination to forget, to move on and allow Adriana the same opportunity, she’d never asked.
“No. Not once.”
“I hadn’t heard from him, either.” Not since they’d muddled through the next few months of working for the same police force, avoiding each other. By Christmas, she’d moved from Tempe to Chandler and secured a position with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. “Not until he walked into the sheriff’s station today.”
“How’d he treat you?”
She wasn’t sure how to describe the meeting. There’d been a surfeit of negative emotion but, considering their history, that wasn’t unexpected or unusual. “Fine.” She hadn’t waited to see what he’d do; she’d gone on the offensive. I know very well how much you like the ladies….
There was another long pause. “Are you okay, Frannie?”
For the first time since she’d picked up the phone, Francesca thought of Butch Vaughn and her gaze shifted to the knife on her nightstand. The blade gleamed in the light streaming in from the hall. She usually didn’t sleep with lights on, but tonight she’d left almost all of them blazing.
It’d be easier to talk about Butch than Jonah, but why scare Adriana? Then neither of them would be able to sleep.
“Of course. I shouldn’t have called.” She didn’t really understand why she had, not after so long. For a brief moment she’d been angry again and had wanted to lash out, that was all. The memories had crowded too close. “I’ll let you go. We can talk tomorrow.”
Adriana hesitated. “Will we have to talk about Jonah?”
“Damned if I know.” She hung up, but the pain she’d heard in her friend’s voice wouldn’t let her leave it
at that. Will we have to talk about Jonah? Although what had happened ten years ago still hurt, especially after seeing Jonah today, Francesca didn’t want Adriana to suffer any more than she already had. What was the point?
Aware that she was the only person who could release her, Francesca picked up the phone. But when she pushed the talk button, she couldn’t get a dial tone. Assuming the phone hadn’t had a chance to reset after she’d disconnected, she waited a few seconds and tried again.
Nothing.
“What the heck,” she complained. It was such a bother not having her iPhone.
Then it dawned on her. She didn’t have her iPhone because Butch had kept it; he’d made her dependent on her home phone. And now…
“No,” she breathed, but in her heart she knew. He’d cut the line.
5
Someone was out late.
Smiling at the fact that he’d caught Butch yet again, Dean stood at the back of the house, scuffing his shoe against the hard patch of dirt where his brother-in-law usually parked his big red truck under a metal carport. He could still smell the exhaust of the diesel fuel, could make out a dark spot on the ground where the engine had leaked oil. In the moonlight, it looked like blood….
So where was Butch this time? The way he’d pawed through Francesca Moretti’s purse after Paris went to bed made it all too easy to guess. He was going to pay the private investigator a visit. Paris had to know he was going, too, but she was turning a blind eye. Again.
The fact that she refused to see what Butch really was drove Dean crazy. Well, crazier than he already was, he thought, and chuckled at his own joke.
“You’re a bad boy, Butch,” he whispered into the darkness. “Such a bad, bad boy.” But Butch definitely made life interesting. Dean had to give him that.
Feeling safer than when his brother-in-law was stalking around the place acting like the king of all he surveyed—his sister’s husband was such a Neanderthal—Dean walked around the front of the house to the gate, took the key from his pocket and let himself into the salvage yard. Ever since he was a child and his parents took him to see a magic act where the magician could escape anything, no matter the lock, he’d been fascinated by the concept and spent hours on the Internet, learning to pick locks himself. But it was trial and error that had made him good. He could’ve picked this lock instead of using a key. He did it all the time, just to keep his skills well-honed. But he wasn’t in the mood for a challenge. It was tougher than any house lock he’d ever encountered.
Demon barked, but only to say hello. The noise wasn’t anything that would rouse the fam. He barked worse than that at a squirrel or a lizard.
“Hey, boy. How are you tonight?” Dean stopped long enough to give the dog a scratch. As friendly as Demon was to him, the sheer power in his body reminded Dean too much of Butch. He didn’t want to think about the damage either of them could cause if they really wanted.
Inhaling the warm night air, he closed his eyes to savor the unique scent of the yard—desert, metal, animals, residual cigarette smoke, motor oil. He liked all those smells. This was where he felt the best. These acres were more exciting to him than Disneyland to a kid, especially when it was late and Butch was gone. Then Dean had the run of the place.
Mentally skimming through the list of the various hidey-holes he’d created over the years, he tried to decide where he wanted to spend his time tonight. But he immediately chose the same thing he’d been doing every night, at least lately—searching for Butch’s cache of women’s underwear. There had to be one here somewhere. He’d seen several pairs under the seat of Butch’s truck or hidden in his office, where Paris was less likely to come across them. If Dean had his guess, they were trophies and went into some sort of collection. And he was dying to see how many there actually were.
So where should he start? The old boxcar? The cellarlike space he’d dug beneath the shed? The cavity he’d tunneled out of the junk heap along the back fence? That pile of oil barrels had been there since Dean was three or four years old….
The yard had so many titillating secrets, didn’t it? And, like the underwear cache he hoped to find, the best of those secrets were thanks to Butch.
Take the body in that old freezer. Julia. The young runaway who’d lived with them for a few months. Dean hated that she was dead. He’d liked her when she was alive. But there was some comfort in knowing she’d never leave him.
He figured he’d keep her company while he waited for Butch to return. The exact time of his brother-in-law’s arrival might be of interest.
Francesca held the knife and the pepper spray in one hand while she closed and locked her bedroom door. Such a flimsy barrier might not stop an intruder, especially an intruder who looked as powerful as Butch. But if he tried to reach her through the hall, he’d have to deal with that locked door and she’d definitely know he was coming.
Every bit as jittery as she’d been in the salvage yard, she drew a steadying breath. She’d been on edge since her last encounter with Mr. Vaughn, which made it all too easy to fly into a panic now. But panicking wouldn’t help. She had to be able to think clearly.
What next? What more could she do?
Setting her weapons aside, she shoved the dresser across the hardwood floor toward the door she’d just locked. Maybe her actions would be pointless—maybe he’d break the slider leading from the porch overlooking her pool. But she had to seal off as many points of entry as possible so she could monitor those that were left. Doing something was better than doing nothing.
After wrestling the dresser over to the door, she crouched against the wall where she could keep an eye on the windows as well as the slider. Now that she’d blocked out the light that had been filtering in from the hall, the darkness felt thick and palpable. She would’ve liked to throw the switch in her bedroom, but she didn’t want to make it any easier for Butch to see in. As counterintuitive as it seemed, darkness was safer.
What a bastard, she thought. Did he really believe he could get away with coming after her?
Apparently, he did. And maybe it was true. As long as he didn’t leave any evidence behind, he could do whatever he wanted without fear of punishment. Clever killers often escaped the consequences of their crimes, didn’t they? Of course they did. But whether or not she came out of this alive, Francesca was determined to make sure he left some proof of his identity.
His blood would work nicely.
A thump outside her window made her heart seize. Was that him?
Trying to differentiate one shadow from another, she studied the murky shapes beyond the glass until they began to blur. She was straining too hard. Blinking to give her eyes a rest, she peered out again.
This time she thought she spotted a man….
No. It was the tree that provided shade for the deck. Fear was causing her imagination to play tricks on her.
Breathe. Briefly letting go of the pepper spray, she wiped her damp palm on her bare leg, then did the same with the other hand, the one holding the knife. She wore a T-shirt and panties, nothing in which she felt comfortable confronting anyone who might try to overpower her.
She considered dressing so she’d feel less exposed, less vulnerable. But then she’d have to set her weapons aside for longer than a millisecond, and she was afraid he’d strike as soon as she did. It felt as if he was watching her already, waiting for the perfect opportunity….
Was he looking in while she was trying to look out? The idea that he could be so close raised the hair on the back of her neck. Had he brought his bat? Would he come crashing through the slider? Or would he bide his time—until the unrelenting tension took its toll on her nerves—and use her key?
As the minutes stretched out and nothing happened, she crept to the closest window and raised her head above the pane. The yard appeared empty. The gardener had been by earlier today. She could smell the fresh-mown grass, see the meticulously trimmed plants in the side yard.
The gate stood open. She remembered c
losing it when she’d locked up for the night, but the latch didn’t always hold….
She needed to see more.
Through the next window, she could make out the area around the deck and pool. Moonlight glimmered off the water and bathed the lounge chairs in pearly white. But she saw nothing that might—
Wait! At the shallow end. A dark shape sat in one of the chairs. No, he was lying down. She was sure of it. His hands were propped behind his head and he was staring up at her room as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
She jerked her head back. Had he seen her? What was he doing just…lying there?
Heart thumping erratically, she crawled to the slider, which afforded her the best view of all. Sure enough, she had a visitor—a visitor who was doing very little to hide his presence. She got the impression Butch wanted to be seen. While she watched, he leaned over to pick up a small rock and threw it at her window. It missed the glass but hit the side of the house with a crack.
He wasn’t sneaking around, as she’d expected. Clearly he wanted to frighten her.
And he did. Far bolder than she’d thought he’d be, he seemed completely unafraid of the consequences. He was flaunting that lack of fear, letting her know he enjoyed the game he was playing.
What should she do?
She didn’t get the chance to decide. Before she could respond in any way, he rose into a sitting position and cocked his head as if he’d heard a noise that put him on alert.
What was he reacting to? Possibly nothing. He didn’t seem overly concerned. He came to his feet and stood there, gazing at her room from beyond the patio. Then he offered her a mocking salute, as though he knew she could see him, and strode calmly to the fence, which he jumped.
A few seconds later she heard what must’ve chased him off—the crackling of a police radio—and rushed to the front of the house. A cruiser sat at the curb.
Suddenly far less concerned about her state of undress, she unlocked the door and charged through it, down the driveway and right up to the officer’s lowered window.
