Fifteen years ago, not Mila’s first or even her sixth appointment with Dr. Fleischer, when she’d finally become resigned to the fact that she was going to see him every week whether she said anything or not, she’d thought she would shock him by telling some of the scarier stuff first. He had been shocked, scribbling notes furiously, stopping occasionally to absorb some particularly ugly incident, turning paler and tenser with each moment. She was watching the clock, and when the session ended, she stopped abruptly and just looked at him, and he’d looked back. Stared back.
Finally he put aside the notebook, clasped his trembling hands and leaned toward her. She had shrunk back even though six feet separated their chairs. “My heart breaks for you, Mila. I don’t even have the words to say...”
Everyone’s heart broke, and no one had the words to say. She did. She’d filled a book with nearly a hundred thousand of them. Until recent events, that book had been the story of her life. The beginning, the middle, the end.
But her heart was beating. She had Gramma and Poppy. She was learning people skills. She was learning woman-man skills. She had more living to do before she got to the real end.
It was Detective Little Bear who started the conversation again. “Did your parents have any close friends who knew about or took part in what they did to you?”
She shook her head. “He was all she needed, and she was—” almost “—all he needed. We didn’t socialize.”
“What about parents of the kids at school?” Detective Harper asked.
“I didn’t go to school.”
“Church folks? Neighbors? Coworkers?”
She breathed slowly through her nose. She needed to be careful. Sam hadn’t read The Unlucky Ones, and she doubted either detective had had time for it, either, but Officer Gideon—Lois—had read part of it. How much, and how much detail she remembered, Mila had no clue, but she couldn’t give them enough information to spark her memory. “No one. They were each other’s life. They didn’t need anyone else.”
Except when it was hunting time. They had tried it with her mother luring the victims, but it hadn’t worked very well. She was always excitable, too bright-eyed and a little bit crazy with anticipation. The sort of women who appealed to her father looked at her mother with disdain and distrust. That was why he’d brought Mila into the game. If they had to keep her around, she ought to be good for something.
“She’s right.” Gramma spoke up, her eyes red but her tears gone. “Lindy and Joshua...they were disturbed. They had their own little world, and there wasn’t room in it for anyone else. From the time they began dating, it was just the two of them. She gave up all her friends. I don’t know if he ever had any. They fed off each other. It was all they wanted.”
As Ben made notes, Mila wondered what, if any, information he would find on her mother and father. Lindy and Joshua weren’t the names they had died using, weren’t the names they were buried under. If they located a Lindy Ramirez, she wouldn’t be related to Mila. And if that led them to search for Milagro Ramirez...
She ground her teeth against the shudders trying to ricochet through her.
Sam settled his gaze on Gramma. “You’re convinced that no one who was part of their life could be behind what happened yesterday.”
“Absolutely.”
“And you, Mila?”
“There was no one. Truly.” She decided to risk a play for sympathy. “If there had been, maybe Gramma would have found me a lot quicker. Maybe they would have stopped doing...the things they did.”
It didn’t feel good, but she did score sympathy in his intense blue gaze, along with regret and sadness and pain. It was in his touch when he patted her arm, and in the air of frustration that simmered the air around him.
“So the wording on the note was coincidence,” Daniel said. “It’s not like thousands of people haven’t said it thousands of times. It wasn’t a reminder. Just a warning.”
“Which makes the theory that she saw something at the Carlyle house look better,” said Ben.
Mila’s breath caught in her chest. Was that it? No questions about names or places, no wanting details to confirm their deaths, no digging into her past? She was so relieved that it took her a moment to realize she should be saying something. She shrugged unconvincingly and shook her head. “But I didn’t see anything.”
“We think the killer believes you did,” Sam said.
“Did you hear anything? Footsteps, a door closing, rustling?” That came from Daniel.
She closed her eyes, putting herself back on the scene. “I was thinking how good a quick dip in the pool would feel, and then I stopped to look at the view. I always do. On top of the hill like that, the valley, the town, Tulsa in the distance...”
Now Ben. Tag-team detectives. “Did you look around the yard? Did you notice the fence across the back?”
She opened her eyes again. “Just that it was there.”
“The entire back of that house is glass. Did you see anyone inside? Shadows, a hint of movement?”
She shook her head. “The house doesn’t interest me.”
“Was there any sign that anyone else had been there? A glass on a table? A chair out of place? The smell of aftershave or perfume?”
Just the smells of flowers and blood.
“I don’t remember anything. I was there to do the job. I only noticed Mr. Carlyle because he was out of place. But I didn’t see anyone or anything else that was worth noticing.”
They asked her the same questions about Mr. Greeley’s house, and she gave the same answers. Lord, she really had to work on being more aware of her surroundings when working. Like writing, gardening was cathartic for her, but she couldn’t relax so much that she could get that close to a murderer twice and be clueless.
“We have to assume the guy saw her,” Sam said, his voice quieter, directed to the other officers. “When he saw her again at Greeley’s house, he was startled, maybe thought she was there because of him.” He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. There are too many questions and not enough answers.”
“It’s always like that,” Lois said, now perched on the end table nearest Gramma’s seat and still holding her hand. “Half the people we deal with are crazy, and the other half are just plain mean. Their actions never make sense to the rest of the world.”
Mila’s father had been both crazy and mean. She’d spent entire days trying to figure out his games, to see if she did this, would he do that. Sometimes his actions were logical. Usually they came from the brutality that made up his core.
Just as she’d never been able to figure out her father’s thought processes, Sam and his people had no clue why the bald man had killed Carlyle and Greeley, no clue why he’d come after her and turned on Poppy. They didn’t even know for sure he was the killer. He would have to royally screw up for them to catch him. Crazy or mean was scary. Crazy and mean was terrifying, and it could also be sneaky and smart as the devil and very, very good at keeping itself hidden.
Until the last couple weeks, she’d believed she was very good at staying hidden, too. Now she knew better. Emotionally shutting herself off from everyone else, no problem. Being the quiet person on the corner that no one knew, excellent. Slipping in and out of neighborhoods, yards, houses and parks without being seen...not in her skill set.
Luckily for her, surviving was. No matter what.
* * *
Liam Bartlett was on duty in the lobby once again when Sam left. Lois had stayed behind to help clean up, or so she said. Sam knew she didn’t want Mila and Jessica to be alone just yet. Ben and Daniel would follow their paper-thin leads, while Sam had promised his mother he’d show up for dinner. You’ve got to eat. Might as well do it here.
The Douglases had been meeting at the family farm every Sunday after church for more than a hundred years. The yard looked like a used-car lot, the dining room li
ke a summer camp with its maze of tables and chairs. Maybe not the most comfortable chairs, he admitted, but with his father, his uncles and his cousin Mike at his table, who cared about comfort?
There was relative silence while Aunt Hazel said the blessing, then controlled chaos as serving platters were passed around from diner to diner. “Buffet style,” he’d told his grandmother back in the day, and she’d swatted him with a dish towel. “We’re a family, Sammy. We eat family style.”
“So tell us what’s happening,” Uncle Vance said.
“You know I can’t. I came here to listen.” The men in his family usually had a lot to say.
“Ol’ Curt Greeley,” Samuel, Sam’s father, remarked. “He was a piece of work. His own mama used to say she should have sold him to the circus at birth.”
Sam looked around the room for his cousin Zee, the only person in Cedar Creek who might mourn Greeley’s passing, but there was no sign of him. Samuel caught his eye and shook his head faintly. So Zee was either drunk somewhere or high, and his parents didn’t want to discuss it. Sam had to give Zee credit; at least he hadn’t done anything arrestable in Cedar Creek since Sam got the chief’s job.
“Any of you ever do business with Greeley?” his father asked around the table.
“I repaired some holes in the Sheetrock in his bedroom,” Uncle Stan volunteered. “He watched over my shoulder and complained every step of the way. I put on too much mud, I sanded off too much mud, the paint looked funny if he stood in the corner on one leg and leaned over backward to see it with one eye closed.” He paused for the chuckles he knew he would get. They’d all had too much experience with difficult people. “I told SuSu don’t accept any more jobs from him. If I’d had to go through that again, I would’ve killed him.”
One of Sam’s aunts passing by stopped. “Y’all are terrible. Are you talking about that man who was murdered?”
“Yeah, the second one.”
“Oh, Curt Greeley. Everyone would have killed him given the chance. It’s really sad about that other guy, though.”
And his aunt thought they needed chiding.
There were more stories about Greeley showing his greed, his need for control, his disdain for everyone. Firing people, stiffing them on money owed, acting out of spite. The gossip was right. Everybody hated Greeley.
As the conversation moved on, Sam leaned closer to his father. “You have anything to add?”
“I quit selling to him at the nursery. He’d order truckloads of plants, leave ’em sitting in the sun without water for a week before getting around to planting them, then want his money back, claiming I sold him weak stock. He was an idiot and a jerk.”
“What do you know about Ed Lawrence?”
“The man gives fertilizer a bad name.”
“You ever do business with him?”
“Nah. He’s too cheap to pay my prices.” His dad took his time chewing a piece of roasted chicken, his head tilted to one side to indicate he was thinking. “He underpays his employees and overcharges his clients. He cheats on his wife. That’s why she started working in his office last year. He pretends to be a smarter, better, richer man than he is, and he doesn’t know squat about growing anything, but he’s good with showing a profit. I wouldn’t believe him if he said it was raining until I felt the drops on my face and made sure it wasn’t the Jolly Green Giant taking a pis—”
“Samuel.” That came from Mom, coming to rest her hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Not at the dinner table.”
“Aw, Mom, how do we ever manage to carry on a conversation without you?” Sam asked, earning a light smack on the back of his head for the question. His grandmother had done that to her sons so many times that, as kids, Sam and his cousins thought she was the cause of the bald spots most of them sported by the time they were forty.
“You’ve been busy, I hear,” she said. “Two murders, one attempted murder...but you found the dog. Yay.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”
“Maybe not. But setting the mayor straight suited me very well after Sunday school this morning. I guarantee you, he’ll look twice to make sure no Douglases are around next time he opens his mouth.”
Sam stood and kissed her forehead. “Thanks, Mom.” He picked up his empty dishes, plus his father’s and Mike’s. “How’s business?”
“Busier than usual for July,” Samuel answered. “Kat’s baby is due in a couple weeks, and she won’t be coming back, and Trista is heading back to college the middle of August, and we’re starting to get our fall products in.”
“So you’ll be hiring someone soon.”
“We-ell,” his father began, and LeeAnn scowled and spoke over his drawl.
“Yes, he’s hiring someone. His part-time help is not going full-time. Why? Do you know anyone looking for a job?”
Sam thought of Mila, of how quickly his father would take to her, how intensely his mother would be interested in her. Was it fair to subject her to more than one intensely interested Douglas? “I don’t know. I’ll ask around.” It was always good to have an option.
Holding the dishes in one hand, he hugged his mother, then his father and said his goodbyes. No one was surprised that he was leaving so soon. Of course, they’d all heard about the two murders, one attempted murder and the found dog. Some of them thought he’d already handled the important part: finding the dog. Fellow dog lovers would make fitting in easier for Mila, wouldn’t it?
Whoa, Sam. You haven’t even kissed her yet.
The reminder surprised him. The list of things they hadn’t done was long, but it felt like they’d done so much more than they had. It felt like he knew her. Not all the details, not the facts and statistics, but the person she was inside. It felt...
He couldn’t even describe it. Like this was something he’d wanted without knowing he wanted it. Like there was some bond there before they’d even met, just biding its time until God or fate or whatever brought them together.
Damn, when had he damaged such a huge part of his brain? He liked her. He liked her a lot. He wanted to get closer to her. He thought they could have a future together. He wanted to protect her and keep her safe and make her smile and laugh and forget all the bad in her past.
But...
But they’d known each other such a short time. But she had trust issues. But she was damaged by her past. But he hadn’t even kissed her.
But he still felt he knew her in all the ways that counted, and he still liked her a lot, and he still thought they could have a future, and he still wanted her, damn it. Everything about her, easy and tough, good and bad, the pretty beyond description and the ugly beyond pain.
It still felt right.
* * *
Mila was sitting on the windowsill in Gramma’s living room when Sam came back. He let himself in—she hadn’t realized Gramma had given him a key—and hung up his damp hat on the coatrack near the door. She tried to tamp down the warmth and comfort just the sight of him created. She’d spent so much of her life alone. She could handle a few more hours of solitude. “Still raining, huh?”
He grinned. “You have a talent for stating the obvious.” He started toward her, stopping to give Poppy a rubdown where she half slept on the couch. “Where’s your gramma?”
“She’s visiting Mrs. Bushyhead on the third floor. Officer Gideon escorted her down there, and she’ll call Officer Bartlett when she’s ready to come back.”
“Mrs. Bushyhead...why don’t I know her?”
“Well, she’s probably about 107, and she doesn’t get out very often, but she has every sports channel known to man, so she’s good with that.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember. You have a gift for exaggeration, too. I have it on good authority she’s not one day over 104.” He smelled sweet as he came nearer, of rain and fresh air and home-cooked something or other. She imagined him at his family’s we
ekly dinner, in a crowd so big he hardly stood out, loved by all, liked and respected by most. She didn’t envy him. She was just glad he had it.
And she wondered if she could ever have it. She could envision a lot of things she’d never experienced before, but being a welcome member of a big family just wouldn’t form. Not enough experience, not enough knowledge how those things worked.
Small steps, she reminded herself. She’d sat at a table just this morning with five other adults, eaten and talked. That had been a huge deal for her. There were a lot more firsts between that and meeting his family.
Assuming that he would stick around long enough to want them to meet her, and that she could overcome enough fear to want to meet them.
Little tiny baby steps.
He nudged her, and she dropped her feet from the sill, straightening to make room for him to sit beside her. “I love these old buildings—the tall ceilings, the deep windows, the woodwork, the floors. The mayor wanted all of them torn down and rebuilt so we could have more consistency in styles, methods and materials in our downtown area.”
“He’s a putz.” Mila smiled when he narrowed his gaze at her. “He may have come up in conversation with Officer Gideon, and someone may have called him that, though it could have just as easily been Gramma. He tried to stop her from having her garden, and I believe she compared him to a cow—full of crap and shouldn’t be holding office.”
Sam’s responding smile was tinged with smugness. It was always nice when someone you liked disliked the same people you did. “I thought she gave me the complete tour last night. I didn’t see a garden.”
“Would you like to?” Mila slid to the floor before he could say no. She’d been inside more than twenty-four hours, and it felt like an eternity. She hadn’t even been allowed to take Poppy on her bathroom runs. She needed to breathe fresh air soon, or her skin might start mummifying.
He stood, too, and she headed for the door. Poppy raised her head and looked, then laid it down again. Maybe it was because of her own traumatic experience at Cedar Creek the day Gramma found her, but wet wasn’t something she particularly enjoyed.
Killer Secrets Page 19
