by Brenda Novak
“Holly, I don’t think—” Madison began, but Holly cut her off.
“It’s nothing like before. I would like to come in for a minute, though, if you don’t mind. It’s a little cold and damp out here.” She rubbed her arms and shivered for added effect.
Madison still seemed skeptical. “Tomorrow would be better.”
Holly backed up as though she was about to leave, purposely acting as nonconfrontational as possible. “Okay. I understand. I just wanted to tell you I’ve been out all night thinking. And you should know you were right earlier. I have to let go of Caleb. It’s time. Past time, really, but—” she let her voice break, and swiped at the false tears gathering in her eyes “—sometimes it just hurts so badly. I still love him. I’ll always love him. And…” She gulped as though the words were difficult for her. “And I’m afraid if he can’t love me, no one else will be able to, either.”
Compassion softened Madison’s features. “I understand how you feel. Anyone who’s gone through a divorce experiences some of the same insecurities. But you’ll get over it and find your feet again.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” Holly said, and buried her face in her hands, sobbing brokenly.
Madison opened the door wider. “It takes time, Holly.”
“You’re probably right,” she muttered. “I’m just so alone.”
“You’re not alone…. Why don’t you come in, and I’ll make us both some tea?”
“I wouldn’t want to wake your little girl.” Holly sniffed, finally lowering her hands from her face. “Or anyone else who might be staying with you.”
“There’s no one else, just Brianna. And we won’t wake her.”
Wiping her eyes, Holly followed Madison inside. The house smelled like homemade cookies. Madison was so domestic, with her pretty little girl, her natural beauty and charming house.
“Maybe Caleb will be home by the time you finish your tea, so you can get your purse,” Madison was saying, her back to Holly now.
Holly felt in her pocket to make sure she hadn’t lost the pills. She’d only be able to use them if she could get Madison to drink something. But Susan had proved that she didn’t really need drugs. The shock would be enough.
“Maybe,” Holly said. But she knew she’d be long gone by the time Caleb returned. She’d leave a surprise for him, though. And no one would suspect her.
No one ever suspected a woman.
FRUSTRATED, CALEB PUNCHED Holly’s number into his cell phone again. He’d already called twice since leaving Whidbey Island and had gotten her answering machine both times. Where was she? She’d obviously been awake when she’d called Detective Gibbons only a half hour or so earlier. Even if she’d gone to bed, she wasn’t a heavy sleeper. He knew that from when they were married. There were plenty of nights he’d awakened to find her staring at the ceiling or gone, off to the corner convenience store or out driving.
He glanced at her purse in the seat next to him and considered delivering it to her tomorrow, then decided against it. Her place was on the way to this Margie White’s house, where he was supposed to meet Detective Gibbons. Taking it to her now, while it was so late and he was in a hurry, would be perfect. They’d have no time to talk, and she’d have no reason to contact him tomorrow. Especially if the police ended up proving that Tye was the one who’d murdered Susan. Then Caleb’s obligation to the relationships of his past would be fulfilled; his trip to Seattle would be over.
He could easily conjure up the smell of San Francisco’s crusty sourdough bread and the crabs and other seafood sold along the wharf, could feel the wind coming in off the bay. If picturing himself in his new home also felt a little lonely, he refused to acknowledge it. He just had to get back to work. At that point everything would be good again.
Slowing for the next off ramp, he exited Interstate 99 at Mill Creek and turned toward Alderwood Manor, where he used to live with Holly. The house they’d shared, which he’d given her as part of the divorce settlement, was nothing like the big estates on Mercer Island. But it had been new when they moved in and comfortable for a young couple just starting out. They’d both had great hopes when they’d bought that house.
He gazed at the quiet streets he’d frequented on and off for so long, feeling like a stranger now. Funny how things changed.
His cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID to see it was Gibbons before punching the Talk button.
“Where the hell are you?” the detective asked, nearly blasting out his eardrum.
Caleb jerked the phone back a few inches. Couldn’t Gibbons say anything without shouting? “I’ve got to drop something by Holly’s. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“I’ll wait ten. Then I’m going to the door with or without you. I want to sleep sometime tonight.”
“Good enough,” Caleb said, and ended the call. But when he finally reached the small stucco, two-story home he’d shared with Holly, he found it dark. Evidently she’d gone to bed.
Shoving his phone in his pocket, he grabbed her purse and went to the door, leaving his car idling in the drive.
Susan’s dogs barked as he waited impatiently for Holly to answer the bell, but seconds turned into minutes and she didn’t appear.
He pushed the doorbell again, then knocked. Finally he tried the door handle. It was locked, but the small lockbox he’d bought to secure their spare key back when they were together was still right where he’d left it, inside the front flower planter. He doubted Holly knew how to change the combination. He’d always done that sort of thing. So he wasn’t surprised when he pushed 1-9-4-3, the year of his mother’s birth, and it opened.
“Holly, you home?” he called, poking his head inside the foyer as soon as he’d unlocked the door.
Susan’s schnauzers growled low in their throats, but when he bent down and offered his hand for them to sniff, they remembered him. One even licked him. But there was no response from his ex-wife.
“Holly?” He stepped inside, immediately noticing that the house smelled different than it had when they were living together. He supposed that was normal, since his cologne, hair products and clothes were no longer part of the equation—since he was no longer part of the equation. But it didn’t smell of perfume, like Susan’s place, or feel-good food and crayons, like Madison’s. Or even like the dogs. This scent was more…musty.
Once he flipped on a light, Caleb could see why. Piles of everything from clothes to magazines to books to papers covered all horizontal surfaces—even most of the floor—along with a thick layer of dust. The clutter seemed to be growing from the walls like some kind of space-eating plant, until only a narrow pathway remained, leading from room to room.
With Susan’s murder, he could certainly understand why Holly wouldn’t be worried about cleaning. But what he saw wasn’t the result of days or weeks of neglect. It would take months, maybe even years, to collect so much junk. Holly must not have thrown anything away since he’d left her.
“Jeez, Holly,” he muttered. She’d always been a pack-rat. They’d had a million arguments over cleaning out the garage and the closets. But now that she was living alone, without anyone to check her tendency to hang on to absolutely everything, she seemed to be taking it to new extremes.
He pulled a newspaper from the bottom of a stack of papers and grimaced at the date. It was thirteen months old.
Setting her purse on top of a box of envelopes and copy paper on the dining room table, he turned to go, counting himself lucky that he’d managed to miss her. But it seemed odd that she wouldn’t be home when she’d told Gibbons she would be. There was something strange about the house in general. The mess, the shut-up feeling…What was going on with her?
Grudgingly, he turned back. He should at least let her know he’d returned her purse. He’d placed it in a prominent spot, but there was still a good chance she’d never see it in the mess.
“Hello?” He rapped on the walls as he made his way up the stairs and down the hall toward the
master suite.
Again, no answer.
The bedroom door stood ajar. “Holly?” He turned on the light, just in case she’d managed to sleep through the dogs barking, the bell-ringing and calling.
The bed was empty. Clothes were piled everywhere, and boxes of God-only-knew-what were stacked on the dresser, the nightstand, the cedar chest and the floor, making her room as difficult to navigate as the rest of the house. Next to a heap of what looked like clean laundry, he even found toys—a giant box of dolls and jump ropes and roller skates.
What was Holly doing with children’s toys? And why was there so much paper, wadded into tight balls, strewn across the floor?
Curious, he picked one up and smoothed it out. Holly had written “Madison” over and over in red ink, scribbled it out until the paper tore, and started again. He ironed out another one to find more of the same. And another. And another. He was just wondering what the hell this was all about when Susan’s dogs caught his eye. Growling playfully, they were fighting over some kind of leopard-print fabric.
Caleb’s blood suddenly ran cold. That fabric looked like…
Bending closer, he took the article away, and saw that it was exactly what he’d feared—a halter top. Exactly like the one Susan had been wearing the night she disappeared. Exactly like the one Holly had said she’d never seen before.
Caleb’s phone broke the silence. It was Detective Gibbons. “I don’t know what’s going on here,” he said, “but I just dragged Margie White out of bed for nothing. She claims she never called Holly and doesn’t know anything about a note from anyone named Tye.”
CALEB’S HEART jackhammered against his chest as he dashed out of Holly’s bedroom and pounded down the stairs. He took the halter top with him, but didn’t bother locking the front door. Slamming it behind him, he jumped into his Mustang, popped the transmission into reverse and squealed out of the driveway.
He was at least thirty minutes away from Madison’s, and Gibbons was even farther. Gibbons had just contacted the station. A car was on its way. But fear that they were already too late made it difficult for Caleb to breathe.
Holly says this woman won’t talk to me tonight unless you’re there….
She’d purposely drawn him away.
It’s Madison, isn’t it? You’ve fallen in love with her….
Madison…Madison…Madison, written all over those sheets in red ink…
Holly was crazy, obsessed.
He rounded the corner, then looked both ways before running a stoplight. “I’m coming, Maddy. I’m coming,” he muttered, but he couldn’t avoid the images dancing in his mind—images of finding Madison like Susan had looked.
Holly had seen pictures of the crime scene. She’d poured over every bit of evidence, right along with him. She could definitely have copied the Sandpoint Strangler, but now that he saw her as capable of doing what she’d done to Susan, bits and pieces of memories assaulted him one after the other, making him sick. He had a terrible feeling that Holly had been lying and manipulating him and everyone else for a long, long time, using the fact that she was a woman to evoke sympathy instead of suspicion.
He was driving a blue Ford truck with a white camper shell….
Holly had said that the first day they’d met. Now Caleb wondered if she’d been lying from the start. All the papers had mentioned the Ford. Cunning as she was, she could even have tracked down Purcell in order to come up with the partial plate number. She’d been the main reason the investigation had focused on Purcell.
I’m afraid our killer is close, Gibbons had said. Close to the investigation. Close to us.
Holly was close, all right. She’d stuck to Caleb like glue since he’d first knocked on her door about Anna Tyler’s murder. Anna, the ninth victim, had been living next door to her. Talk about opportunity.
I think I was wrong about you. I don’t think you’re going to find this killer. He’s much too smart….
Such calm, cool confidence wasn’t the result of one freak, accidental murder. Caleb thought of all the pretending Holly had done, all the setting up. A person didn’t turn into a cold-blooded killer overnight. She never would’ve been able to pull it off if she’d felt even a morsel of regret. She’d fed him misinformation, manipulated his emotions, used him to stay one step ahead of the investigation the whole time. And he’d looked everywhere but right in front of him.
“God!” he said, and smacked the steering wheel.
Only she’d finally slipped up. If she hadn’t kept that halter top…
Did you see anything like this in her apartment, Holly? No, I’ve never seen a halter top like that before in my life. I’d definitely remember it….
Grabbing his cell phone, he tried Madison’s house again. “Pick up,” he pleaded. “Pick up.”
But it just rang and rang and rang….
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“SO HOW MANY TIMES have you slept with Caleb?” Holly asked.
Startled by the question, which had come out of nowhere after fifteen minutes of small talk, Madison set her cup in its saucer with a clumsy clank. She blinked several times because Holly was no longer in clear focus, and shook her head. “I’m…I’m not going to answer that,” she said, but her speech seemed hopelessly slurred. She wanted to tell Holly to leave, but the words eluded her. Probably because the room was spinning, scrambling her brain.
“Have you slept with him?” Holly persisted. “Has he made you shudder in ecstasy like he does me?”
Madison grimaced. The image of Caleb with Holly, especially in the present tense, made her nauseous.
“What? Don’t you like thinking about what I’m going to do with Caleb later, when I console him over your death?” Holly said.
Her death? Was that supposed to be some kind of joke? If Madison wasn’t mistaken, Holly was smiling faintly. But her eyes seemed strangely blank. They didn’t act like windows to her soul; they were more like mirrors, reflecting Madison’s image back at her.
And Holly didn’t make sense. Nothing did. Madison could see Holly’s words shimmering in the air between them, floating in space as though she could reach out and capture them with her hands.
Summoning all her mental energy, she focused hard on the question, because it seemed important that she reply. “Why are you trying to upset me?” she asked, and tried to take another sip of tea, but the cup was too heavy to lift.
“I’m not trying to upset you. I don’t care about you at all. I’m just saying that Caleb takes making love pretty seriously. Once he goes to bed with me again, things will be different.”
“Diff…differ…” Giving up on the longer word, Madison went for the more important one. “How?”
“He doesn’t sleep with just anyone, like some men I know. Sex has meaning to him. He makes you feel as though you’re the only woman in the world. It’s very erotic.”
Madison knew how erotic it was. She felt flushed just remembering. Or maybe she was coming down with the flu. Certainly something was wrong….
“Madison? Are you still with me?” Holly snapped her fingers in Madison’s face.
Madison closed her eyes to stop the room from shifting. “Yes. Yes, I think so.”
“Aren’t you going to finish your tea?”
“No, I—” She used her hand to prop up her head, which suddenly seemed too large for her body. “I think it’s time…for you…to go.” There. She’d said it. It had taken supreme effort to remember all the words and string them together in the appropriate sequence. But she’d managed to say what needed to be said. She had to get back into bed, had to sleep until she felt better.
“To go?” Holly echoed. “That isn’t very polite of you, now is it?”
Holly’s laughter grew loud, then soft, then loud again. When her chair scraped the floor, Madison knew she’d gotten up, but she couldn’t figure out what Holly was doing.
“Are…are you leaving?” she asked, having to take several breaths to get the whole sentence out.
“Of course not. At least not yet,” Holly said. “I need to get my rope before I visit your daughter’s room. But don’t worry, it’s just out in the car.”
“Holly?” Madison felt disoriented, confused. Silence fell for an interminable time. Holly was gone, evidently. But then she was back and moving down the hall. Holly wanted to visit Brianna’s room. Why? Holly was no friend….
At first Madison told herself it was all right; Brianna was at her father’s. But then she heard Brianna’s frightened voice calling, “Mommy? Mommy, who is this? Where are you?”
She lurched to her feet. “Brianna? Brianna, run, hide!” Madison used the table, the refrigerator, the wall to help her reach the hallway. She would have called out to her daughter again, warned her, but blackness was closing in on her fast, rolling toward her like a sudden storm.
BRIANNA SLIPPED UNDER her covers, away from the unfamiliar image of a stranger in her doorway. Her mother had said to run, to hide, but Brianna didn’t know where to go. Her room had always been safe. What was happening? Why should she run?
She wanted to cry out for her mother again, but the blankets were thick and it was hard to breathe. She lay perfectly still, listening, trying to decide if Mommy was playing some kind of new game. But Mommy usually didn’t trick her. And it was very late to be playing a game.
“Brianna? That’s your name, isn’t it? Come here, sweetheart.” It was the stranger, a woman. Or maybe it was a monster with a woman’s voice. That would be a very mean monster. Her mother had said to run and hide….
Brianna held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut as the she-monster patted the bed, searching for her among the blankets. She was drawing closer. Her hand nearly touched Brianna’s arm, but Brianna slithered away and slipped into the crack between the bed and the wall, where she sometimes liked to stuff Elizabeth. It was their little hideout.
“Damn it! Come here.” The monster grabbed her arm through the covers, and Brianna screamed. Jerking hard, she twisted free because of the blankets, and scooted under the bed. She stayed there on the floor in the corner, crying now because she knew this was no game. The she-monster was pulling away the bed, and there wasn’t anywhere else to go.
