Was he doing it all over again with Sam? Trying to protect her when she didn’t want his protection? He should walk away. He needed to walk away. Instead, he found himself picturing the sprinkled freckles across her nose, her full lips, the glimpse of her legs whenever she wore a skirt. All of it was torture. Plus, there were Rob and Derek.
He loved those kids. Hell, Derek was quiet, but he knew every damn Van Morrison song by heart—the album, the words, the year. And he had collected some unbelievable albums. And Rob was a great kid, too. He loved baseball almost as much as Nick did. He knew the stats, the players. Why wasn’t it easier? Where was the boy likes girl, girl likes boy? Gone before puberty. And if life didn’t confuse everything, Sam Chase certainly liked to add to the complication.
Now, from a hill near the crime scene, Nick watched the sky fade to scarlet and then orange and pink and finally dark. After the show was over, he started his car again and drove around, trying to clear his thoughts—on the case, on Sam. None of it had become clearer—in fact, it was more jumbled, if anything. His lights caught the reflections of families driving home together in minivans and sport utility vehicles. He should be home too. But he didn’t want to go home. There was nothing for him there.
Chapter Fourteen
Sam entered her office, ready to settle in. She had too many thoughts spinning around in her head and she was praying for a day of only work. She pulled her Glock from its holster, unlocked her top drawer, and set the gun inside before relocking it. Shivering, she stooped down and flipped on the space heater under her desk. A buzz cracked and a burst of electrical heat shot through her finger.
“Shit.” She jumped back as sparks flew from the machine, then flames. Smoke funneled out from under her desk, and she ran for the wall where the extinguisher was kept. It was gone. “Damn it!” she yelled.
Moving quickly, she kicked the plug from the socket and turned toward the door.
Aaron was perched on his chair.
“The damn heater exploded, and my extinguisher’s gone.”
“I’ll get the hall extinguisher.” Aaron spun around and took a fire extinguisher off a wall hook outside her office. Pulling the plastic tab, he motioned Sam to stand back as he sprayed thick white foam under her desk. The fire dissipated quickly, but not before setting off the overhead alarms. Sam waited for the sprinklers to start, but they didn’t.
No one on the floor headed for the exits, though. Instead, a crowd gathered in front of Sam’s office door. Ignoring them, she cursed and moved to open the windows, hoping to clear the smoke.
Aaron waved his arms at the crowd. “Party’s over, folks.”
“The invincible Sam Chase,” someone said.
Sam spun around, furious, thinking of the message slip someone had left in her office. “Who said that?”
Several people turned back, but no one took credit. Instead, the crowd moved away in a thick pack like the smoke streaming from under her desk.
She turned to Aaron. “Who said that?”
Aaron shrugged. “It’s a nickname. They all call you that.”
“Why?”
Aaron glanced at the empty doorway.
“Why do they call me that?”
Aaron slouched a bit. “Sam, you’re a tough personality. You demand a lot from people—some would say nothing less than perfection. Not me. I love working with you. But a lot of people think you’re full of yourself, that you think you’re perfect.”
“But invincible?”
Aaron smiled. “Among other things. Don’t take it too hard. Everyone’s got a nickname. You should hear what they call Williams.”
Sam picked up the notes on her desk and used some tissue to wipe the thick white foam into the trash. She worked with brisk, hard strokes, trying to funnel her anger into something more useful and failing.
“Here, let me clean that up.” Aaron returned with some paper towels and rags and began to clean off her desk. “Facilities is coming up with someone to clean the rug and clear away the heater. I’ll order a new one.”
“I don’t want another one. And I don’t want facilities taking this one. I want someone to look at it.”
“It probably just shorted. It can happen.”
She nodded, not mentioning her missing extinguisher, but she wasn’t convinced.
* * *
At almost five-thirty, Aaron rolled into Sam’s office and stopped in front of her desk.
“Hey,” Sam said, forcing a smile.
“I haven’t seen you this glum since Williams beat you in the annual gun tests.”
Sam frowned. “Well, I’m ten times better than he is.”
Aaron smiled. “You haven’t said much all day. Something I can help with?”
Sam looked around the office she had once felt so confident in. She shook her head. “Just busy with this case. You should get out of here. Don’t you have some training to do? You’ve got what, three weeks?”
“Twenty-five days and counting. I’m training six days. I swam this morning. I use a float on my feet and I do the butterfly—for about thirty minutes twice a week. Builds the arm muscles fast.” He flexed.
“I’ll say.” She smiled and felt her chest relax. “Reminds me how great you are.”
Aaron lowered his arm and turned the chair toward the door. “Thanks,” he said, grinning. “If you’re sure you don’t need me . . .”
She waved him out. “Positive.”
Settling back into her chair, she opened her drawer and pulled out her date book. There, in the section most people used for addresses, she had an alphabetical index of all her homicide cases. Each case had its own page, filled with her tiny block handwriting, including the location of the scene, the police and detectives working the case.
When she’d worked homicide, she’d kept a detailed journal of her cases—it was the closest she’d ever come to keeping a diary. Every day, she wrote the status of the case, her impressions of the people she’d spoken with, any detail anyone could recall that related to the case. There was nothing official about what was written and she had never told anyone what she kept there.
Sometimes, when a case wasn’t moving, she would curl up in bed and read the journal as though it were a novel. The scene would draw itself in her mind, the images and characters coming alive, as in any good book. She sometimes got her best ideas that way. She wished she’d done the same with her abuse cases—but the numbers had been too high, the volume of work too overwhelming, not to mention the disruption in her life when the boys came.
Still, she hadn’t scrapped the idea altogether. Now, instead of a detailed journal, she kept her date book. In it she wrote appointments and a to-do list on the left side and everything about whatever case she’d worked that day on the right. The eight years’ worth of notes were in a labeled binder beside her homicide one at the back of a bookshelf in her house. The notes went far beyond the minimal reporting that was required in the job, but they’d never come close to making her feel as though she gave each case her all.
She flipped to the current week and scanned the names, dates, and clues about Sandi Walters that she had entered the day before. She flipped back to the notes on Sloan and stared at them again. Then, on a fresh sheet, she wrote the two cases down side by side. She couldn’t find the common denominator. No, that wasn’t true. She couldn’t find the common denominator other than herself. There had to be something else she was missing. She focused on Molly Walters again, searching for something new. Her old binders from the Sloan case were at home. She would have to look through those, too.
Molly Walters had been brought to her attention after a visit from her paternal grandparents in the fall of ’98. The grandparents, who lived in Oregon, had been concerned because the girl was rail-thin and bruised. It had been a difficult case to try.
None of them were easy—children rarely wanted to see their parents get in trouble. And if it weren’t the irrational devotion to a parent, it was the threat of later consequences. She thought
back on her own parents.
No one had ever questioned her father. She couldn’t imagine what she would have told someone had they come to her. She remembered, even until the day she left, how desperately she wanted him to look at her once and say he was proud. But he couldn’t.
When she got old enough to keep him away—by staying out late, sleeping in the same room as Polly, or rigging ways to lock her door—he didn’t even look her in the eye. She always blamed herself—worried that he didn’t look at her because he was so disgusted with her. Only now, with nearly twenty years of hindsight, did she realize that it wasn’t about her at all. He was only frustrated that she had grown big enough to keep him away.
And she wished she’d been able to keep Molly Walters away from her mother. The judge had ruled in their favor, but the sentence was only a paltry eight weeks of counseling for Sandi and Molly. It was a typical run through the courts, especially for first-timers. It would have taken at least two, probably three, appearances in court before Sandi Walters would have lost custody of her child. Sam wondered how much better the grandmother, Wendy Mayes, would have been.
She continued to make notes about each of the last few days, commenting in as much detail as she could squeeze onto the compact page. Her mind drifted over the bloodstained photo. She didn’t write that down. Although it seemed otherwise, she reminded herself that this case wasn’t about her. It was about Sandi Walters and maybe someone who had known Charlie Sloan.
But there was no denying that someone was purposefully tying Sam to this case. The question was why. Why kill the woman she had prosecuted for abuse? Why copy the M.O. of the killer she had tracked and caught? She had no answers.
She wished she could stop her mind from returning to Nick, but her train of thought had already taken her to the other night. She’d behaved terribly. No one would blame him if he never wanted to see her again. And as much as she would have liked to shut him out and turn away, a part of her longed to see him.
Why hadn’t she just kissed him? Let him kiss her? She had wanted to. And yet, when he was close, when his lips were on hers, she’d felt her chest tighten until she couldn’t breathe. She’d lost control. She couldn’t lose control. For all those years, she’d been warning herself not to lose control.
Nick was the one thing in her life that had the potential to be wonderful at the moment. Her job was going okay, but not great. The boys were tough right now. And then there was this case.
Like a child after too much sugar, she’d been antsy and excited ever since their dinner, laughing over something he’d said, or listening to jazz on the car radio, wanting to ask questions about one artist or another, wondering what interesting facts Nick would offer about them. He had told her about Django, the musician who invented Gypsy jazz, who had taught himself to play all over again after being badly burned in a fire. Sam thought momentarily about Derek, wishing he’d been able to teach himself to run again.
Laying her hands flat against the desk, she pulled her chair in close until she was up against the wood surface. She spread her files out and turned her attention to work. The case, Rob’s recent escapades, her involvement with Nick—all of it had thrown her work off track. She didn’t need to spend more time thinking about things that wouldn’t be. She needed to work.
In the quiet of the after-hours office, she returned phone calls, prepared her paperwork to be filed by Aaron the following day, cleaned off her desk, and even got through several of the reports put out by government agencies on crime statistics in the state of California. She bundled up the charred space heater to take it with her, then realized it was almost six-thirty and she hadn’t heard from the boys.
They knew she was working late and she’d left a note telling them to cook a frozen pizza. Still, Derek normally called to check in. She glanced over the boys’ activity schedule she kept on her computer with Aaron’s help and then lifted the receiver to dial.
The line was dead. She clicked on the receiver. No dial tone.
Just then, the lights in the hall went off.
Chapter Fifteen
Nick was tired. His day had passed slowly and without any progress on the case. Captain Cintrello had ordered the release of James Lugino for the homicide, and he’d probably walk on the possession charge. Cintrello also told Nick that someone was suing the state on behalf of Charlie Sloan. The D.A.’s office was fighting it on the basis that this killer was a copycat and Sloan was the real killer. Problem was, the copycat had access to inside information, and the D.A. needed to know how the information had been obtained in order to argue against the suit.
“You’d better figure out who the hell did that shit and fast, Nick,” his captain had warned. “If they gather enough evidence to prove that this department executed the wrong man, we’re going to get slaughtered in the press.” Nick knew that in a sheriff’s office, where everyone was elected, bad media attention even a year from an election could cost the whole department their jobs—from sheriff right on down.
It was five-thirty now, and he decided to drop by Sam’s house, hoping to catch her to talk. He rang the bell and Rob came racing to the door. “I’m glad you’re here. Derek’s sick. He’s been lying on the couch, moaning. I don’t know what to do.”
Nick followed Rob through the kitchen into the living room.
Derek lay across one couch, a blanket pulled to his chin.
“Sick?”
Derek’s eyes fluttered open and he shifted slightly.
Nick looked at Rob. “He go to school?”
Rob nodded. “He just came home and collapsed. He looks pale, doesn’t he? Man, you think it’s contagious?”
Nick knelt beside Derek and pressed his hand to the boy’s forehead. “Derek?”
Derek’s eyes opened.
“How do you feel?”
“Lousy,” he whispered.
“You’ve got a fever. Tell me what hurts.”
Derek’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “My throat mostly. I’m tired. Everything hurts.”
Nick turned to Rob. “You have a thermometer?”
“I’m sure Aunt Sam does, but I don’t know. I could check.”
“Show me where she keeps the medical stuff.”
Rob led Nick down a hall past the boys’ rooms. It was as far as he’d ever been in the house and he suddenly felt like he was trespassing. Rob opened the door to Sam’s room and went in. Nick found himself pausing at the threshold and taking stock of the room. It was white and simple.
Several Guy Buffet prints, including the famous one with the Buena Vista restaurant at the corner of Powell and Bay in San Francisco’s North Beach, decorated the walls. The bed was queen-sized with a thick dark denim comforter, and he could just see the tops of navy flannel sheets. He resisted the temptation to run his fingers across them.
The room could as easily have been a man’s room as a woman’s. But everything about it spoke of comfort. A pile of books was stacked in perfect order on each of the bedside tables. He walked by them and glanced at the titles.Corelli’s Mandolin, Snow Falling on Cedars, Under the Tuscan Sun.
Most were titles he’d never heard of. One had fallen to the side of the bed. He glanced down at it:The Teenage Jungle: A Parent’s Guide to Survival. He imagined Sam in her sheets reading to try to understand her nephews. On the floor beside the bed was a thick brown folder with pockets labeled A–Z. He saw a coupon for Palmolive dish soap sticking out of the “D” pocket and smiled to himself.
“I found the medical supply kit, but there’s no thermometer.”
Nick followed Rob into the small bathroom off Sam’s room. Rob had the medicine cabinet open and had pulled down a red plastic kit with the Red Cross emblem on it. He’d also emptied two small cosmetic bags, and the contents of all three were piled on the floor.
“No thermometer in here, and I don’t know where else it would be.”
Nick nodded. “I’ll look up here.” He stood and ran his finger along each shelf. The contents were perfectly lined,
labels front. He couldn’t imagine anyone keeping a medicine cabinet so neat, but the image of Sam lining up the bottles made him smile.
There wasn’t a single prescription drug, but she had every type of cold medicine from children’s Dimetapp to Theraflu and Alka Seltzer. Most of the packages remained unopened. In a canister on the second shelf, he found gauze scissors and two thermometers. “Got it.”
He pulled a thermometer from the hard plastic case, shaking the mercury down as he carried it and the Tylenol back to Derek in the living room.
Rob trailed behind, almost on Nick’s heels. The boy’s concern was evident in his wide eyes and frazzled pace.
“Derek, we’re going to take your temperature,” Nick said, sitting on the edge of the couch. Slipping the thermometer under Derek’s tongue, he glanced at his watch.
“How long does it take?” Rob asked.
“About a minute.” He motioned to Sam’s room. “Why don’t you get the stuff in Sam’s room put away. By the time you get back, he’ll be ready to go.”
Rob nodded and headed back into Sam’s bedroom.
Nick ran his hand through Derek’s hair, remembering being sick as a kid. His house was always so full, there was hardly ever a quiet spot to go. He shared a bedroom with two brothers until they both left home. But when someone was sick, his mother always set up quarantine in the living room. Except when someone was sick, the room was strictly for adults, its old door pulled closed to the constant mess of six children.
Nick read the mercury as 102 degrees. He passed the thermometer to Derek to let him read it.
“One-oh-two.”
Derek handed it to Rob, who twisted it back and forth in the light. “Wow, that’s pretty high.”
Nick nodded. “Not too bad, but we should call Sam.”
Rob got up and found the phone.
“Are you allergic to anything, Derek?”
He shook his head.
“Do you ever take Tylenol?”
He nodded. “Sometimes.”
Nick opened the bottle and shook out two tablets.
(2002) Chasing Darkness Page 12
