That was true. The shaking had stopped, but I couldn’t ditch this horrible sensation that I was being tracked.
“You shouldn’t be alone tonight, Claire. Why don’t you stay at my apartment? Or I can stay with you? On the couch,” he finished mildly.
That might not be a bad idea. Not that I was going to get a lot of sleep, but it might be nice to have some company. I shrugged noncommittally and directed Grant to Highway 150, and from there up the Lakeshore extension. I scanned every direction, with Grant’s help, for a black pickup. It wasn’t until we were on a more or less deserted stretch of the four-lane road that I was convinced we were alone. Grant took a right at West Oxmoor and within a few minutes we were in my neighborhood. As he pulled into my driveway, I was fiddling with the drawstring on my shorts so that I wouldn’t give him a full moon as I slid out of the van. As I tied a tight bow, Grant asked a question.
“Exactly how many men do you have stalking you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked back, looking at him.
He nodded toward the house. “That man is sitting on your stoop again.”
`
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Oh, Christ. Kirk Mahoney was the last thing I needed right now. But on my stoop he sat, as unwelcome as a pimple on prom night. This time with a plastic grocery bag beside him.
“Damn.” I muttered. What was I going to do now? I needed to talk to Kirk, but I didn’t really feel like introducing him to Grant. The less Kirk knew about my personal life, the better.
Grant rescued me from having to make some awkward excuse. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I go to my apartment and pick up a change of clothes? You can talk to what’s-his-name. I’ll be back in thirty minutes. You’ll be okay with him here, right?”
“Yeah, okay.” I picked up my clothes and slid out of the van. I turned to face Kirk, clutching my shorts again.
“What do you want?”
“That’s the second time you’ve shown up in that van. Who is he?” Kirk jumped down off the stoop and made his way down the concrete path to meet me as Grant backed out. I could think of little else except getting into the house and making sure no one had been there. And getting out of sight.
“None of your business.”
“Touchy, aren’t we? Can I come in? I want to talk to you.”
I was hurrying past him at a race-walk, keys out. I slid the key into the doorknob and motioned him inside, closing the door fast behind us, then locking it. Once inside, I scrutinized the living room. Nothing seemed disturbed.
Kirk began, “What —”
I held up one finger to silence him while I continued my search. Checked to make sure the door to the carport was locked, then the back door. Looked in the pantry and all the closets. Under the guest bed and under mine. Kirk followed me from room to room, confused.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure no one’s here.”
“Why would somebody be here? And why are you wearing those huge clothes?”
I was at the end of my emotional rope. I could not spend another second talking to anyone, or explaining anything. “Can you give me a minute? I’m going to go change.” I found some clean underwear, shorts and a top, then locked myself in the bathroom. I wet a pink washcloth with warm water, and, leaving the water running, pressed it to my eyes. I took deep, deep breaths to ward off the sobs. It didn’t work. The shakes were back, worse than before. I wet the washcloth again and pressed it to my face. Breathe. Breathe. I was tired. Tired of being scared, tired of grief. And my legs hurt like hell.
After a few minutes the hysteria passed and I felt more in control. I washed my face, changed, and put Royanne’s clothes in the wicker hamper to be washed. Took one last deep breath and went out to face the reporter in my living room who thought I was a paranoid schizophrenic.
He was sitting on the couch, watching CNN. I eased down beside him. “Hi,” I said, limply.
“You okay?”
“No, not really.”
“I didn’t think so.”
I was drained. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“I had a little incident today on Oak Mountain. Somebody threatened me.”
“God. What happened?”
“I can’t really talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Because of your work? Was it one of your clients?” “Yeah, sort of.”
“Did you call the police?”
“I’ll take care of it. You said you wanted to talk to me.”
“I wanted to say I’m sorry. I was rude to you on the phone. I feel bad.”
“It’s okay.”
“I brought you a peace offering.” He handed me the grocery bag, which had been sitting on the coffee table. In it was a six-pack of Michelob Ultra.
For what seemed like the first time that day, I smiled. “Thanks.”
“You look like you could use one, too. They’re probably a little warm. Let me go put them in the fridge.”
“Pour me one, while you’re at it. The glasses are to the right of the sink.”
He came back, carrying two pilsner glasses of beer. It was a little tepid. I didn’t care.
Kirk said, “You must get threatened all the time by your clients, no?”
I thought back to the few times it had happened. The tireslashing incident last week, the one I’d blamed on Flash. Now I wasn’t so sure. The client who’d left the lovely note spray painted in orange on my car. I’d put her kids in foster care. The police didn’t have a whole lot of trouble discerning whodunit. She’d been hanging out in the parking lot every time I left the office for nearly a week before committing the crime, screaming threats and obscenities as I walked out. She’d been charged and forced to pay restitution. She was now in a mental institution, and her kids had been adopted.
I’d been held at gunpoint too, while executing a pickup order, by a father who wasn’t too keen on DHS taking his kids away. Luckily the standoff didn’t last long. The police officer I was with called for backup and within five minutes the house was surrounded with SWAT officers. Daddy made the right decision and put the gun down before anybody got shot. Their mother had custody now, but he had supervised visitation. He’d actually sent me a letter of apology later.
So why was this so different? What was it about today that had me so incredibly shit-scared? Because Michael was murdered. This was different because someone was dead. And I could be next.
“Hello?” Kirk said, pulling me out of my musings.
“Sorry. Yeah, I mean, threats do happen. This was different though.”
“How?”
“It just was.”
“Man, you’re a tough nut to crack.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t share a lot. About anything.”
“I can’t, about my cases. You know that.”
“Yeah, but you know, I don’t put everything in the paper.”
“Ha! Sure you don’t.”
“You think I’m that untrustworthy?”
“I think you want to sell papers. Get the big story.”
“I —”
“Come on, admit it.”
A sheepish grin. I thought it was adorable until I caught myself.
“See? I was right.”
“I have to get the big stories. That’s the only way I’m going to get where I want to go.”
“Which is?”
“One of the big weekly mags. Time or Newsweek. Or U.S. News. One with real resources for investigative reporters. Another year or two with a big daily like The News, and I’ll be ready to move on. Or maybe I’ll freelance. I’m not sure. I want to go where the action is, across the globe.”
I sipped my beer, thinking of Kirk dressed in camouflage in some war-torn Middle East country. I shuddered. “Sounds dangerous.”
“So does your job. But you still do it.”
“Because I love it.” I said it without thinking, and realized the
impulsive statement had come from the heart. I wanted to keep my job. “So who’s the guy in the van? Is he your boyfriend?” I shrugged.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you have a boyfriend?”
“He’s going to be back here any minute.”
“So I should go.” He drained the last of his beer and put the glass on the coffee table. We made our way toward the door.
“Before you go, I want to ask you something,” I said.
“Shoot.”
“Can you look into something for me? There’s a company here, a local one, called Eclipse Entertainment. Run by a guy named Donovan Grayson. He owns a bar called Kaleidoscope, along with two or three others. Can you see if there is anything fishy going on with them?”
“Why? What do you think is going on?”
“Maybe nothing.”
“What do I get out of it?”
“If there is something, then you get a story.”
“I meant from you. You’ll owe me a favor.” There was that grin again.
“Kirk —”
“What?”
“No more kissing.”
He laughed. “I’ll dig around a bit and call you next week. Bye.”
I locked the door behind him, then knelt on my loveseat to peek out the front blinds. Kirk drove a dark silver Infiniti G35 coupe. I watched him roar down the street, then sipped another beer while I waited for Grant.
It was almost dark before he got back. He knocked on the door softly, and I unbolted it for him. He was holding a bag from Movie Gallery and two medium pizzas from Papa John’s. “Sorry to be so long. I didn’t think you were up for going out, so I brought dinner. I got one pepperoni and one cheese, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You like sci-fi?”
I did, actually. “Yeah.”
The movie was pretty good, humans-versus-robots with plenty of action. When it was over, we found an Indiana Jones movie on Showtime. By the end of that one, it was after midnight and Grant’s head was nodding to his chest. I reached over and ran my hand through his curls, the natural copper highlights glinting in my fingers. “Why don’t you go to bed? The guest room has clean sheets.”
“ ’kay”
I leaned over and kissed his stubbly, sun-browned cheek.“Thanks, for staying tonight.”
He reached a hand around the back of my neck and pulled me close for a tender kiss on the lips. “ ’Night.”
“Good night.” I watched him pick up his small duffel bag and walk down the hall to the guest room. The door closed and I suddenly realized that I was a bit let down. Kirk would have tried harder to get me into bed with him. Pulling my mind back from bedroom fantasies, I considered going to sleep. But thoughts of Jimmy were waiting in the darkness. I channel surfed, trying to concentrate on TV, but instead finding my mind replaying all of the events of the past week and a half. So I picked up a pad and pencil.
I am a compulsive list maker. Can’t live without them. From the grocery list on the magnetic pad on the refrigerator to the to-do list on my desk at work, lists run my life. They help me think clearly. This list started with ashley hennessy.
Claims she did it. I still didn’t believe it, and she wouldn’t tell me why she was willing to take the blame for her son’s death. Would she have killed him for Jimmy? Because he didn’t want kids? Did Jimmy threaten to leave her if Michael wasn’t out of the picture? Did Ashley love Jimmy so much that she’d kill her only son? No way.
Next,jimmy shelton. A big unknown. How much influence did he have over Ashley? Did he want her, but not her son? He was dangerous. Dangerous enough to follow me into the woods with a knife. The thought made me want to check the doors again.
Then there was zander madison. Michael’s dad. Not exactly a responsible guy, but not really a deadbeat either. Seemed to love Michael. Even provided for his son in his own way. I’d seen a lot worse. But Zander was dependent on his family’s wealth to support his drug habit. What would he do for drugs? Anything, probably. Including kill his own son, if his parents told him to?
alexander and karen madison. Powerful. A family used to getting their way and with a whole lot to lose. Including control of a huge corporation. But also desperate to get help for Zander. I thought about the love I’d seen in them for their son. Would two parents with so much concern for their child be capable of murdering a toddler? Their own grandson? My instincts said no. Careful, though, I told myself. You might be wrong. That made me uneasy. Self-doubt wasn’t something I was used to. Not until this case.
I studied the list so far.al mackey, I wrote next. Had a history of hurting his own daughter. In debt up to his eyeballs and had gone so far as to directly ask about life insurance for Michael and Ashley. A scumbag. But a murderer for money?
gregory bowman, aka flash. He was in love with Ashley, and he’d stalked her before. Unstable was an understatement, especially when he was high. I was fairly sure he’d been the voice of the threatening message at work. Reacted rather violently to the idea that he could be Michael’s father. But Ashley had never asked him for child support because she knew all along who Michael’s dad was. What motive could he have for killing Michael? None. But Ashley? Possession. He could have tried to kill Ashley for dumping him. If I can’t have her, no one can. That sort of twisted, abusive logic. I’d bet he knew how to get his hands on some GHB if he wanted to.
Then I wrote others. A question mark after that one. Ashley had lied to me about knowing the identity of Michael’s father. What else was she lying about? Who she was hanging out with? Was she staying clean? If she wasn’t sober, she sure knew how to fake a drug screen. Who knows what kind of partying she’d been doing behind my back?
kaliedescope. Another question mark. A hangout for Ashley and her friends. A club whose name always seemed to come up when GHB was the subject. And Ashley knew the bartender.
So, what now? My brain was being sucked into an undertow of exhaustion. I studied the list. I’d just have to do what I did with every other list. Tackle each item one by one until I was done. Until I was satisfied that I had answers.
It was after one. I yawned an enormous yawn and closed the notepad, then curled up under a chenille blanket on the couch. The Empire Strikes Back was on one of the cable channels. I knew it by heart, watched it anyway. I fell asleep while Luke Skywalker was on Dagobah and dreamed of a man with Darth Vader’s voice, except he had long, bushy hair and a beard.
I woke with a start to the sound of someone opening my carport door.
`
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The carport door had a distinctive squeak, and my eyes flew open when I heard it. Sunlight filtered through the closed blinds and made a pattern on the hardwood floors. I jumped up like someone had poked me with a pin.
My father was closing the door behind him. He looked to the couch where I sat, hair tangled and eyes puffy. I started breathing again and tried to get my heart rate down. The grit in my eyes had grown overnight to the size of pebbles. I rubbed them. My legs ached.
“Good morning. You’re sleeping late.”
“What time is it?”
“Nine thirty.”
“Oh.”
My father suddenly noticed something and started. I followed his
surprised gaze to see Grant, standing in the hallway outside the bathroom door, wet. His glasses were steamed over. All of his important parts were wrapped in a pink towel.
“Hello,” my father said. “Hi,” Grant said, with a nod. He turned quickly and ducked into the guest bedroom.
“New friend?” Dad asked me.
“He’s the guy I met at the computer store.”
“I see.” There was an edge to my father’s voice. His liberalism didn’t extend to wanting to know any details about his daughter’s sex life. Or that I even had one. “Something wrong with his place?”
“I asked him to stay. It’s a long story. And if you are going to let you
rself in to my house, you have no right to make snide comments. Next time, knock.”
“Sorry.”
I shouldn’t have been short with him. “Me too. He slept in the guest bedroom, by the way.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“It’s okay.”
Grant, dressed, walked into the room. I introduced him to Dad and they shook hands. Awkward. Probably would have gone better if my father hadn’t seen him in a towel.
“I came over to do some edging,” Dad said. “I guess I’ll get started.”
“Thanks.”
I ran a hand through my hair and walked, sore and stiff, to the kitchen to make coffee.
Grant said, “What are you going to do today?”
First item on my agenda for tomorrow, Monday, was to get to the jail to see Ashley, but in order to do that I need to get some things done at work. I had several home visits to schedule and court Monday afternoon. Not to mention the ever-present pile of pending paperwork. “I’m probably going into work.”
“You going to be okay? I told my parents I’d come down today, but if you need me —”
“I’ll be okay.”
“What about tonight?”
“If I get nervous, I’ll call you. Or go to my father’s.”
Grant and I had coffee, then we decided on breakfast before going to get my car. We waved to Dad as we pulled out of the drive. After satiating ourselves on biscuits and gravy and grits at a nearby restaurant, we made our way to Royanne’s. I knocked on the door and let her know I was taking my car, said good-bye to Grant with promises to call him, and drove downtown to work.
There were enough cars in the parking lot to make me feel somewhat safe, but nonetheless I compulsively checked behind my back as I entered the building and signed in with the weekend security guard. I spent an uneventful afternoon doing paperwork, and at four thirty left for home. At my request, the guard walked me to my car.
I picked up the ingredients for vegetarian spinach lasagna at the Piggly Wiggly and called Grant on my way to my father’s. He was still at his parents’ house and declined my invitation to join us for dinner. I parked behind Dad’s hybrid, as usual, and lugged the groceries into the kitchen.
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