DEFENGING THE EYEWITNESS

by Rachel Lee

  Of course she had, but it apparently wasn’t over yet. It was always possible some sick twist just thought this was funny, but the lack of evidence on those notes combined with the lack of evidence at the original crime scene made that important. Too important to ignore. Humans just left detritus wherever they went, from hairs to skin cells, from clothing fibers to the stuff they tracked on their shoes. A clean crime scene was a feat, and now those notes were too clean. A definite link.

  Corey broke the silence. “You think this guy wants to kill me, too.”

  She had pulled the pin on the grenade. Had she done it because she wanted him to deny it? He met her gaze, found it steady, and anyway, he didn’t want to lie to her. As far as he was concerned, if he never told another lie in his life, he’d feel pretty good about it.

  “It’s crossed my mind and Gage’s.”

  Those brilliant blue eyes of hers closed. She dropped her spoon into the bowl where it began to sink into softening ice cream. “I knew it,” she whispered.

  “Knew what?”

  “I’m really good at denial,” she said, her voice thin. “But at some level, I knew it, anyway. One note I could dismiss, but not quite. Before Gage brought you here, I actually got the shakes from just reading it. I tried to tell myself a friend was pulling a prank, but I couldn’t believe it. Something about it didn’t seem like a joke. That’s why I didn’t throw it away. I knew.”

  He wanted to reach for her, to scoop her into his arms and try to hide her within his strength, but he figured that wouldn’t work at all. Just more denial, and she had clearly moved beyond that.

  Nor did he know exactly what to say. Any words of comfort that occurred to him sounded hollow even inside his own head.

  Then her eyes opened and he glimpsed the steely resolve that had gotten her through an incredible lifetime of pain and fear. “Okay. I guess nobody knows why, but this guy wants to kill me. That’s the reason for that bit about like mother, like daughter. He wants to do the same thing to me. I just wish I knew why.”

  “Knowing might help us identify him.”

  “What else do you know that I don’t? What made you and Gage think this was possible?”

  “Lack of evidence.” He explained about how clean the Denver crime scene was, how difficult it was to achieve that, and linked it to the notes that were every bit as clean.

  Her faced had paled, but she nodded. “It does seem unlikely that they’d get that way by accident. But that doesn’t give us any way to find out who’s writing the notes. What are we going to do? Stake out every mail drop in town looking for someone to mail something to me? Assuming there’s even another one.”

  “I’m going to reread the Denver police file. Sometimes a pair of fresh eyes can catch something.”

  For an instant, he thought he saw panic flutter over her face. “You’re going to Denver?”

  He shook his head quickly. “No, Gage is going to get a copy of the full file if he can.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “I’m honestly not sure this guy is ready to act. He’s leading you toward something, but I’m not sure he’s there yet. The notes have been amazingly vague.”

  “Not vague enough,” she muttered.

  “Only when combined with the absolute lack of evidence. Like Gage said, he’d have been happy to find a cat hair.”

  “It’s really that rare to leave nothing behind?”

  “Have you ever seen a clean room? Maybe on TV or in a movie? They cover up completely for a reason. It’s almost impossible for people not to leave some kind of residue behind. Skin constantly flakes, hair is always falling out. When we talk we spray sputum, even if only minuscule amounts. This guy has gone to extreme lengths to leave nothing in his wake.”

  “Except my dead mother.”

  Austin felt a shaft of pain pierce his heart. “Except for her,” he agreed quietly. “I’m so sorry, Corey.”

  “Yeah, well. It’s too late for sorry.” Then she paused. “I’m not blaming you. It’s just that...” She paused again. “I wonder if my mother got notes, too. If that’s why she left for Denver.”

  “Did anyone ever say why?”

  “My grandmother said she wanted more opportunity than this town could provide. She didn’t want to go into the family business. My aunt...” Corey hesitated.

  Austin forced himself to wait patiently. Under no circumstances was he going to beat on Corey’s memory. That was the last thing she needed.

  “Just before she died, my aunt told me something. She said my mom went to Denver because she couldn’t be herself here.”

  “Did she say why not?” But he already knew, or at least suspected, the answer. Somehow he didn’t think the rumors about Olivia had been entirely wrong.

  “My aunt said my mother was a lesbian. That she could never have the kind of life she wanted in a small town. Apparently having me had quieted the talk about her, but my aunt said my mother could never have a girlfriend here. Never live the way she wanted to.”

  “What did you think about that?”

  “Frankly?” Corey’s eyes seemed to burn. “That it’s nobody else’s business how someone chooses to live unless they’re hurting someone else. Nobody should have to feel unwelcome for loving who they want. Nobody should have to move hundreds of miles away just to be themselves.” Her statements were practically a challenge.

  “I agree with you,” he said quietly.

  “Anyway, I don’t know if it’s true. She did have me. I look a lot like her, so I know I’m not adopted. But...I don’t know. My aunt was on some pretty strong medication at that point, just trying to survive her days. She might have been telling the truth, or she might have been guessing. Either way, I don’t care. My mother was who she was, and nobody had a right to kill her for any reason.”

  Ice cream sat melting in bowls, the house had grown extraordinarily quiet, and Austin sat there wishing he knew how to handle the situation. He was great at some things, but dealing with a woman who was looking down the dark path of her past...hell, he couldn’t even tell if she was upset or just remembering. She didn’t look very well, but he suspected that the time for comfort had passed years ago. Now she was at the just-dealing-with-it part.

  “‘Like mother, like daughter,’” she said. “How alike could we possibly be? I barely remember her. Does he have it in for blue eyes?”

  He didn’t want to say the thing at the top of his mind. There was no way to know for sure about Olivia at this late stage, but if that had been some kind of hate crime, why would the guy want to take out Corey now? Because she didn’t date? Because...

  Well, of course. Not only did she not date, but she rented rooms to women only, which most people would think to be perfectly sensible for a woman living alone. But this guy...

  Damn.

  He wondered if he should drag Corey out of here now, hold her hand as they walked down the street, give her a passionate kiss in the middle of the courthouse square, and hope that he could deflect this guy completely.

  Except for one thing. It would leave Olivia’s murder unsolved and leave Corey wondering for the rest of her life if her mother’s murderer was still out there. The shadow would never be gone. She’d never be fully free of the nightmare.

  No, that wasn’t going to work unless he thought that leaving Corey in the same hellish prison of fear would be okay. He didn’t think it would be okay at all.

  So what now?

  “Would it help,” he asked carefully, “to know that your mother’s murderer was behind bars?”

  After a moment of thought, she nodded. “You see how I live. Sheesh, Austin, you painted it pretty clearly. I’m living in a prison myself. Afraid. Trusting almost no one, at least when it comes to men. It’s not something I can turn off like a switch, obviously.”

  “Bu
t would catching him do it?”

  “How can I know? But it would sure help.”

  He nodded, thinking. “How much of your fear comes from what you can’t remember? How much comes from the fact that the culprit could still be out there? Do you have any reason at all to think he would want to come after you?”

  “Well, now I do,” she said irritably.

  “I meant before. All these years. Think about it. Have you been afraid that he might have a reason to come after you?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I might remember, and if I remembered I could identify him.”

  That made a whole bunch of sense to him. Remembering that night would not only be horrific, but remembering might put her at risk. This was starting to make a whole lot of sense, at least with regard to Corey. The reason her mother was murdered didn’t worry her as much as being able to identify the killer.

  So in some way she had chosen to go through life afraid of all men, rather than risk herself by remembering the one man, the murderer.

  A brilliant move on the part of a small child’s mind. Truly brilliant. Her amnesia protected her twice over. But it had also crippled her in important ways she couldn’t have imagined when she began taking this self-protective path.

  After all his talk about how she was in a prison of her own making, he sat there stymied, with absolutely no idea what would be best for Corey. Talking about getting her out of her shell was easy. Actually facing the reason for it made it a whole lot more difficult.

  “I’m sorry for the way I talked about you hiding,” he offered finally. “Cheap psychology. I should just keep my mouth shut.”

  She gave him a wan smile. “You were right. It wasn’t cheap psychology, it was something I needed to face. It comes in bits and pieces, Austin. It’s not like it can all be handled or identified at once. How else do you think I learned how to get out of visiting that therapist? Learning bits and pieces of telling her what she wanted to hear to convince herself I was okay. Everybody wanted to believe it.”

  “I’m sure they did.”

  “But I’m not, am I? I even deluded myself after a while. I wanted nothing but my shop, the women I’ve made friends with and a safe little home to come back to every night.” She froze and for an instant looked like a frightened rabbit.

  “Corey?”

  “It just occurred to me. If this guy wanted to kill me because he was afraid I’d remember him, he should have done it a long time ago. Besides, like you said, he was probably covered from head to foot.”

  “The Denver cops were pretty sure of it.”

  “So I couldn’t have recognized him, anyway, even if I remembered. There’s got to be another reason...”

  He let his suspicions lie. He didn’t want to add any more to her already huge concerns. Bad enough that she knew now she was probably being stalked by her mother’s killer.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  She jumped up suddenly and began to pace the kitchen rapidly. “Oh, I get it. I really get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “My mom’s decision to move. It was just a few months before she was killed. I’ll bet you anything that having me didn’t put this monster off her trail. Why would it? There was never a father in the picture, and you can get pregnant lots of ways. I bet she was getting these notes, too. I bet she figured the only way she could shake the guy was to leave town. My God!”

  “Corey...” But what could he say? He shut his mouth and waited, wondering where she would go.

  She looked at him, her eyes sparking with anger, but something else, as well. “Maybe she was a lesbian. She sure never told anyone a thing about where I came from. She went away for a month or so and came back pregnant. Why would she do that? To quiet the talk?”

  “Maybe,” he said gently, “she really, really wanted a child.”

  She paused midstride and finally nodded. “She did. Both my grandmother and aunt were definite about that. But how odd, to go away and come back pregnant. Almost nobody does that. So let’s just say for the sake of argument that having me quieted the gossip, but this creep wasn’t buying it. Maybe when she didn’t date after that, he decided he was right. Something sure made her up and take off quickly. My aunt said she was gone a week or so after she explained the move. Just gone.”

  “But nobody knows any more than that?”

  “Nothing that anyone shared.”

  “Maybe I’ll find something about it in the police file.”

  “I don’t know. When I talked to Gage about the case in high school, he said they didn’t seem to have a thing.”

  “Okay.” He was still amazed that she had tried to delve into the murder. That had to have taken a lot of courage, given that her mind had erased it all. So she had tried to open a Pandora’s box once before. Gutsy lady.

  “Will they tell you more?”

  “Since Gage is requesting the complete file, we might get every single thing Denver’s got.”

  She nodded and began pacing again. “I know I’m taking huge leaps here. I have no proof for any of this. But say my mom left to escape being harassed by this guy. Maybe she was getting afraid. Regardless, two months later she was killed. Which leaves me. If he was afraid of me remembering him, he should have come after me a long time ago. Then there’s that last note.”

  “‘Like mother, like daughter,ʼ” he repeated.

  “Exactly. What if he’s a nut and has decided I must be like my mother. That I’m a lesbian. God knows, it could easily look like it. It would probably never occur to this demon that I avoid men because of him.” She swore quietly and finally sank back onto her chair. “Tell me I’m crazy.”

  He couldn’t. The way she was adding it up was the only way it could begin to make sense. Whether or not her mother was a lesbian, whether or not this fruitcake thought Corey was, he plainly was after her for the same reason, like mother, like daughter.

  She took his silence as her answer, evidently. She nodded slowly. “Okay, I’m not totally in left field.”

  Time to walk carefully. He couldn’t imagine the emotions that must be coursing through her now, or what pitfalls might lie right ahead. “Maybe not,” he said.

  “Well, I’m onto something.”

  “I’d tend to agree. But there’s still a lot we don’t know. We can’t know.”

  “Of course not. But his linking her to me in this way...” She trailed off. “Maybe it’s too tidy. But it fits. All I know is, I don’t want to imagine how this guy must have scared my mother to make her take off like that. It was so sudden, her decision to move. I know that for sure because both my grandmother and aunt commented on it. To them it seemed to come out of nowhere, and once it did, she packed and left. I get that she might have been thinking about it for some time, but not to say anything to her family?”

  “It does seem odd, but the only family I know really well is my own.” He tried to lighten the moment because to him it looked as if she was edging into a bad place. Little by little she was battering at the past, and each thing she brought up was more scary. “In my family, a decision to move involves at least five people and weeks, if not months, of discussion.”

  “I think I’d like your family.” But it sounded as if she was hardly attentive.

  “You would,” he said confidently. “Mention you want a new place to live and you’ll have a bunch of people checking out housing for you. And when moving day comes, forget it. Every able-bodied person and every available truck will show up.”

  “That must be nice.”

  “It could be annoying, too, depending on your nature. It doesn’t happen without tons of advice.”

  At least she managed a wan smile. But then, to his horror, a tear trickled down her cheek.

  “Corey
?”

  “Can you imagine?” she asked, her voice wavering, “how afraid she must have been to leave that quickly? To take a child and move to a big city where she didn’t know anyone? She’d lived her entire life here, Austin. All of it. It must have been so hard to leave.”

  He’d reached his limit. He couldn’t just sit there anymore and let her walk her past alone. Rising, he scooped her up and carried her to the living room where he sat with her on his lap and wrapped her in the tightest of hugs.

  “You’re not alone,” he said quietly. “I won’t let that happen.”

  He expected her to dissolve into tears, but she didn’t. A couple more large drops escaped her eyes, then she seemed to relax into his hug and accept the comfort he was offering. It didn’t seem like much, but it was all he had.

  A long time passed. His hunger for her returned, but he couldn’t think of a worse possible time. Not when she was trying to handle a whole bunch of stuff that he figured had just shaken her whole world. Things she hadn’t thought about before, maybe had never guessed at, were front and center, and they needed tending more than he did.

  Finally, she spoke, her head still resting on his shoulder, her eyes closed.

  “We could go make love in the town square.”

  He would have laughed if he hadn’t understood exactly what she meant. “I thought of that.”

  “So what stopped you?”

  Ah, hell, back to the bad stuff. “First, we don’t know why he’s after you. We’re assuming. He could have another reason. Second, how safe will you feel if we merely put him off? I couldn’t guarantee that he’d never get a wild idea again. If I thought it would make a difference, I’d marry you tomorrow.”

  “Very generous of you.” She sighed and slowly opened her eyes. Even though she had barely cried, they were reddened.

  “Basically, we have two options here. You decide which one you want to pursue.”

  She sniffled once. “Okay.”

  “We can carry on in public and shame the porn industry as far as you want in the hopes he’ll give up on you. In the hopes that we’re not wrong about his motivation. He moves on and leaves you alone.”