“On-again, off-again?”
“Oh, definitely. They spent quite a bit of time apart. His name was odd-sounding, something that always made me think of those Birkenstock shoes. Then there was another guy who was really nice to her. His first name was Daniel. I don’t remember his last name though. That doesn’t help you much, does it?”
It was never her intent to discourage a victim’s family, so she replied with an upbeat tone in her voice without being specific. “You know, it’s always the little things that help a case turn the corner. We’re hoping anything you remember might make it pop.”
“For the last ten years or so I believed Ellen might have been killed by that Ridgway guy. You know? But when they arrested him and the story made the news, I called the Seattle PD for details. The detective couldn’t give me much hope on that score, though. So we’ve waited for the last two decades for any word, anything at all. My mother died four years ago without knowing what happened to her youngest girl. My father died last year. They were both brokenhearted at losing Ellen.”
When Skye ended the call she was more determined than ever. Maybe back in the nineties they didn’t have a clue who had killed Ellen, but now she would do her damnedest to find the woman’s killer. She would do it to clear any suspicion from Daniel and to give Ellen and her family some long overdue answers.
Chapter 18 Book 3
At an upscale bar near Pike Place Market, he nursed his glass of Johnny Walker Red sitting at a table in the back. The pub was dim and noisy but it made for an almost perfect perch to watch Selma Tolliver meet up with her friends from work.
Her little outing gave him opportunity. He couldn’t very well approach her as long as she was with her friends. That would leave an impression, an imprint. Someone could remember the man she’d talked to at the bar. No, this way, there would be nothing to tie him to Selma.
Instead of dwelling on the ‘how to’ of intercepting her, he’d have to play it by ear, play out the entire scene with aplomb and patience until he got what he wanted. He didn’t doubt for a second that by the end of the night Selma would be his.
He wasn’t worried. The only thing he needed to get around was the pesky security cameras in the bar, in the parking lot and the one across the street. It reminded him how good he was at what he did. In twenty years he hadn’t been caught because he’d kept up with technology. He’d been willing to change his methods and he’d learned on the job and continued to evolve over time.
When he heard Selma laugh he turned to stare. He doubted the prudish woman would go easy. Selma might be a little older than he was used to but age didn’t matter when abducting her would make another in-your-face statement.
He wanted Skye Cree to remember without a doubt that he was around. He wanted her to know he was nipping at her heels.
Selma relished these nights out on the town with her friends. As an accountant with one of Seattle’s best firms she sometimes put in a seventy-hour workweek, especially during tax season. With her head jammed with things like capital gains and deductions, it was one reason why she and her associates tried to plan one of these happy hour gatherings at least once a month. Plus, since her ugly divorce three years earlier, Selma made a point to get out more to socialize. She had to. At forty-three, she wasn’t getting any younger.
She made her way off the elevator and into the garage parking to where she’d left her silver Lexus. Her heels clacked all the way on the pavement making an echo sound. The dark lot had her considering the late hour. She reminded herself that Seattle was one of the safest cities in the country.
Maybe she should have taken Tyler Elliott up on his offer to walk her to the car. The good-looking CPA had flirted with her all evening. But when he’d asked, she’d had to pee really bad. By the time she’d gone to the restroom and returned to the table, all her friends had left the bar, including the hunky Tyler.
When her vehicle came into view, she let out a sigh of relief. Her car was one of several still sitting among a throng of late-night partiers. She got a kick out of being one of them. Even that small thing made her feel a bit more at ease.
Pressing the remote on her key ring, she slid neatly into the driver’s seat. She made sure her doors were locked and started the engine.
She headed toward the exit and her loft, a short eight blocks away. With her mind on Tyler Elliott, she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel to Blondie’s Heart of Glass. When she had to stop for the red light at the intersection of Valiant and Premier, she turned up the volume on the CD player. All at once, she heard the sound of a police siren, three short bursts coming from behind her. It made her look up into the rearview mirror but all she saw was a set of bright lights. Checking her side mirror, she saw the officer jump from his vehicle. It didn’t look like Seattle PD, but he tapped on her window anyway.
Her first impulse was to keep it rolled up.
“Have you been drinking?”
That question and the badge he flashed ended any reservations. Selma hit the button to lower the glass—and saw the barrel of a gun leveled at her face.
Chapter 19 Book 3
By one-thirty, Skye was exhausted. She’d stuck Judy’s composite drawing under at least fifty noses without getting any reasonable results. Oh, there had been plenty of people who had insisted the sketch looked familiar. The boozehound trying to catch a nap on Howell was convinced it was the guy down the block panhandling, encroaching on his territory. The bartender at Magistrate’s believed it looked like the man behind the counter at the convenience store on Freemont. The streetwalker on Darrow felt like it resembled the cop who walked the beat between Fourth and Bell. But no lead panned out, nothing came of any of it.
Her boots were beginning to pinch her heel. Her feet were starting to cramp. Her head ached from defeat. It wasn’t the first time in eight years that Skye had grown weary of the hunt. But it was the first time she felt like giving up.
She turned to Josh. “Look, it’s the weekend. Let’s take some time and do something for us. We have the move coming up. I say we’re entitled to take a day or two off from this crazy pace we’re keeping.”
Josh eyeballed the woman he loved. She’d been hinting at it for weeks. Dropping little nuggets that she’d grown fed up with the slow progress of the case. But this was the first indication she’d actually broken and given in, the first time she’d suggested they shirk patrols two nights in a row.
“You mean not go out tonight either?”
“If we do go out, we go somewhere other than the streets. Let’s do something for ourselves for a change.”
“Take the whole weekend off?”
In the dim light from the street, she stopped walking to meet his eyes. “Why is that so difficult to understand? I’m saying as clearly as I can that I need some time off from this case, if for no other reason than to have time to think because it’s driving me nuts. We’re no closer to nabbing him than the day the box showed up.”
“We are making progress, Skye. You have a piece of paper in your hand with a decent likeness of what he looks like.”
“Fifteen years ago,” she pointed out. “From a woman who has been too afraid to leave her apartment all that time. For all we know he could have been in a car accident and had plastic surgery to change his appearance by now.”
Josh rolled his eyes. “You’re reaching because you’re tired. I suggest we swing through the harbor area and call it a night. How does that sound? Then tomorrow we reassess taking two nights off.”
He picked up her hand, placed a kiss on the palm. “Let me take you to dinner Saturday night. Someplace that has tablecloths and candlelight, somewhere we have to dress up to get in the door.”
“It’ll be our date night.”
They settled on that as they made their last pass of the night through the neighborhood. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, the two headed down the quiet streets to make their way back home.
Their much-needed day off began by sleeping till almost noon.
Wrapped in a sheath of soft blankets, they lay bundled basking in the late-morning hour.
“It feels downright indulgent to wake up this late, rested and refreshed. Nine hours of uninterrupted sleep is what I call bliss.”
“We haven’t done this since St. Kitts. I’m starving.” When she started to move out of bed, he snagged her hand. “But first, we should stay right where we are and make the most of the situation.” To prove it, he rolled on top of her.
“So there’s a situation?” she asked with a lazy stretch of legs and arms while he made the point with his mouth.
In between velvet kisses, she nibbled an earlobe, ran her lips along his throat. “Then you should definitely take advantage of me, maybe a couple of times, as long as you’re thorough. Are you thorough, Josh? Do you take care of the little details?”
“I like to think so. But talk is cheap. How about I show you?” He cruised to a delectable part of her neck before running his tongue down to the fleshy curve of a breast. Pulling, tugging, savoring the textures, he made his way down her long, lean torso.
“I like being married. Who knew there would be so many perks?”
That sentiment had him looking up into her shimmering eyes and grinning. “Yep, the benefits package is great.”
Her laugh, rich and smooth, was playful in return. Because she could, she held onto his hips, bucked up, took him into her. “Yeah, I like the way the benefits package fits. It’s a real bonus.”
That got him laughing as he shifted deeper, found a fluid tempo. Clinging to each other, that tempo quickened. The ultimate fall came in shattering feathers of glowing light around the fringes.
Breathless, they lay bound, still linked as one. He trailed fingers through her loose hair. “I’m a lucky man.”
She guffawed with laughter. “Damn straight you are, especially this morning. And I’m not about to let you forget it.”
Later, Skye discovered they didn’t even have a box of cold cereal in the house. In fact, they were fortunate to have enough coffee beans for a full pot of brew.
“Who runs out of Cheerios?” Josh wanted to know, his head stuck in the cupboards as he dug past four different kinds of cracker boxes, each containing no more than four crackers.
“People hunting for a killer, people too busy to stop at the grocery store to pick up a carton of milk.” Studying the contents of the fridge, she ran through the inventory. “We have exactly four eggs and some frozen hash browns in the freezer. It’s either peanut butter on crackers or I throw together a scrambled mixture with potatoes. Your choice?”
“At this point I’d settle for a stale piece of bread. We don’t even have an apple or a bottle of orange juice.”
“I know. The pantry is down to the stash of stale crackers, a box of macaroni and a jar of olives. You could eat the olives with the eggs,” she suggested.
After making do with what they had on hand for breakfast, they headed to Pike Place Market to remedy the bare cabinets. They bagged fresh fruits and vegetables, hunted down the best fish possible, and picked out the prettiest batch of gerbera daisies. They even sampled tamales from a man who promised them a genuine “south of the border” flavor.
But like other trips she’d taken here, as they made their way through the vast array of merchants, Skye had a hard time stopping at picking up produce. There were too many pots of herbs to pass up, too many shiny things that caught her eye.
They ended up hitting the jewelry booth, picked out a sterling silver charm bracelet for Zoe’s upcoming birthday and decided on a plum tourmaline necklace for Lena as a little reward for being Lena.
They stopped to eye the pottery display and ended up buying several pieces of bright red stoneware that would look good in their new white and blue kitchen. While Josh browsed through the comic book shop, she snuck in several hardbacks on gardening and growing organic veggies under the bottom of his stack.
When that was done they took everything back to the loft to put away and then went furniture shopping. It didn’t take long to discover they had different tastes in style and fabric. It took them several hours of back and forth before they were able to settle on a plump-cushioned, contemporary design in a durable, honey-color fabric.
By the time they got back home, Skye looked at Josh and grinned. “After all that I’m too tired to get dressed up in a fancy dress to go out anywhere. How about I grill the fresh salmon we picked up for dinner instead?”
Put on a suit and tie or stay home? No man he knew in his right mind would push for wearing formal attire unless he had to. When the opportunity to lounge around in a comfy T-shirt and jeans was thrown into the mix, he went with the prudent thing. “Whatever you want to do is fine with me.”
They stayed in, ate the fresh fish they’d grilled and watched a movie, a romantic comedy that got their minds off murder. The light and silly film made them laugh and feel as though they were like any other couple spending a Saturday night under normal circumstances instead of tracking a serial killer in their spare time.
Sunday was spent packing for the move to the new house. As they jammed to hard-hitting classic rock, they stuffed whatever went to the farmhouse into boxes or bags.
Neither one was allowed to go near their laptops. But as afternoon approached they decided to wander out and ended up eating lunch at Country Kitchen. It was the first time back for them since Willa’s body had been discovered. It was painful to walk inside and know Willa wasn’t coming back.
Their upbeat weekend pretty much ended there. The same way as all the other days had since the box of bones had shown up: the realization the killer was still out there, doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to whomever he felt like targeting. And no one seemed to be able to find a way to stop him.
Chapter 20 Book 3
By Monday evening, Josh was ready to sit down and have a beer, maybe watch a replay of the Mariners preseason game from Arizona. He pulled his Fusion into his parking space about the same time Edna Grossman did hers.
Edna wasn’t yet ready to give up the job she’d had for a quarter of a century. At sixty-seven her brown hair might be almost completely gray but she still got up to go to work five days a week at the marketing company she’d founded twenty-five years earlier.
Her husband had died the previous year of cancer, leaving her with a sizeable estate as well. But Edna wasn’t one to trot out her bank account. Other than the ten-year-old Mercedes she drove and the prestigious loft address, she much preferred downplaying her lifestyle. A testament to her thrifty nature was the fact she still wore the same coat she’d bought in 1998.
Glad to be home after a long day, Josh grabbed his briefcase from the passenger seat and started for the elevator. When Edna joined him in the wait for the car, he nodded at her in polite fashion and asked, “How’s it going?”
“Did you hear about Selma Tolliver?”
Josh’s radar went off. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. “What about Selma?”
“She went out Friday night with friends, never made it back home. No one’s seen Selma since she left that bar over on Pike where they were partying.”
“Maybe she met up with someone, went back to his place.” But even as he tossed the theory out there, he didn’t believe it.
“And not call anybody the entire weekend, especially her sister, Suzanne?” Edna leaned in toward him. “You don’t know those two women. Suzanne spends almost as much time here with Selma as she does back in Sammamish.” Edna shook her head. “No, you don’t know Selma at all if you think she’d get lucky at a bar on Friday night and not tell Suzanne first chance she got on Saturday.”
Josh had to admit he’d lived in the building for years and hadn’t done much to get to know any of his neighbors, let alone the perky brunette he’d only met a few weeks ago. “What do the police say?”
When the elevator doors dinged open, Edna let out a harrumph. “Don’t know their asses from a doughnut hole if you ask me. With all these murders and abductions of you
ng women in the news, you’d think the cops would do a whole lot more than blow smoke up the family’s ass.”
“Is that what they’re doing?”
“Oh, the police eventually found Selma’s Lexus parked on Valiant this morning—two days later. That’s seven blocks from here, but right around the corner from the bar. They told Suzanne that maybe Selma had car trouble and someone gave her a lift.” Edna made another noise in her throat. “Selma’s Lexus was less than a year old, not a thing wrong with it.”
“When did the sister call the cops?”
“Suzanne came in from Sammamish Saturday afternoon, went through Selma’s apartment herself to see what was what. That’s when she got scared, when she knew Selma hadn’t made it back to the apartment.”
By the time Edna stepped off on the fifth floor, Josh was doing a checklist in his head of all the coincidences since that box of bones had showed up. Vanessa Farrington, Maggie Bennett, Willa Dover, and now Selma—all people connected to them in one way or another.
As soon as he got to his penthouse, he dropped his briefcase and went in search of Skye. He found her in the kitchen layering noodles in a pan to make deep-dish lasagna.
“Were you aware that Selma Tolliver vanished Friday night and hasn’t been seen or heard from in two days?”
Skye stopped what she was doing long enough to look over at Josh. “Your neighbor? The one from the lobby? No, I hadn’t heard.”
“Our neighbor,” Josh corrected. “And yeah, the woman who was heading out the door that night and found the second package. This guy’s hitting us close to home, Skye. Too damn close to home.”
“And doing a damn good job of it,” she groused.
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