Rita ran to the bleachers on the other side of the field, checked behind the scoreboard, and rattled the handle of the locked refreshment stand. Loretta was not here.
At the south end of the field, at the frame for the goal, Rita stopped. “Loretta,” she cried into the still night air. “Loretta.”
Karin rushed to her. “It’s not your fault.” She put an arm around Rita.
“It’s not about fault,” Rita sobbed. “It’s not about that at all.” For a moment she bowed her head and hid her eyes with a gloved hand.
Rita took a deep breath and brushed away the evidence of tears. “I’m ok,” she said to Karin. “Thanks.”
Karin left her arm around Rita’s shoulders as they walked to the barn and shut off the lights. In the darkness they got into the Jeep and drove to Rita’s house.
“You haven’t even had any dinner,” Rita said as she turned into the drive that she shared with the Mondieu house. “Do you want me to drop you off before I go see Leonard?”
“I’ll go with you,” Karin said.
At Loretta’s house, her nephew, Pete, greeted them at the door. There was another young man there in cords and parka preparing to leave.
“Leonard’s doctor, Dave Roberts,” Pete said. Karin and Rita nodded as he exited. “Leonard was in a state. I was afraid he’d have a heart attack. Doc came over to check him out and give him a sedative.”
“Any word?” Rita asked as she followed Pete into the kitchen. Pete just shook his head.
“The Stevens had to give up. School night. Coffee?” asked Pete.
Rita and Karin took the offered mugs and the cookies.
“Finally I got more police to respond. Had to call our county councilman. There’s also a search team with dogs out there. Your friend, Bev, is still out there too. Got a call from him just before you came in.”
“I know we’ll find her,” Rita said as she wrapped her cold hands around the hot coffee cup.
“It doesn’t look good. I’d say she’s been gone a good three hours now. With the wind chill, temperature’s way below freezing. I know she doesn’t have her coat. I checked the closet.” Pete slumped into a kitchen chair and leaned his weary head back to stare at the ceiling.
Headlights from the driveway swung across the kitchen. More headlights. More.
Rita rushed ahead of everyone to the door. A police cruiser idled in the driveway. Behind it sat a gold Lexus with another cruiser easing up to its bumper.
A tall policeman, officer Brunell stamped on his badge, unfolded from the first car. He had a broad smile as he walked toward the house.
“We found her.” The policeman gestured with his thumb toward the gold Lexus. “Actually, a passerby spotted her. Thank God, he realized the situation and picked her up.”
The policeman led Loretta’s nephew, Rita and Karin toward the car. He tapped on the window. Already the door on the passenger side opened and Loretta emerged. She looked no more distraught than if she’d been out for a Sunday drive.
“Hey, Doc, roll down your window for a minute.” said Officer Brunell.
Karin froze.
Douglas Sevier leaned a smiling face to the group gathered around. His breath was dragon smoke in the chill night air.
“You son of a bitch,” Rita snarled in a growl so low no one else could hear. She ran around the car to gather Loretta into her arms. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? Did he do anything to you?”
Oblivious, Pete and Officer Brunell grinned and thanked the good doctor, who explained how he had “found” Loretta on Western Run Road and then spent the next hour trying to follow her directions home. When he realized she couldn’t help him, he had called police.
Karin was still as a statue on the other side of the car. Sevier winked at her.
The rear police cruiser started backing out of the drive. Brunell and Pete shook hands and Brunell reinserted himself behind the wheel of his own car.
Rita turned Loretta over to her nephew and rushed back to catch Sevier before he could escape. He was in no hurry. He hadn’t even rolled up his window against the cold.
Rita grabbed the bottom of the window frame and thrust her face close to the doctor’s. “If you hurt her . . .”
“Why I would never do such a thing. You’re so, so paranoid. You really should get help with that.”
“Doug, leave these people alone. It’s me you’re angry with,” Karin said, but she moved no closer to the car.
“My dear, I’m way past that. And I really must be going. I’m holding up the officer.” He gestured toward the police car ahead of him. Then he pushed the window button and Rita yanked her hands to safety.
Sevier halted the window midway. “It was just a reminder really, this little ride. You will remember, won’t you?”
Bev walked up behind Rita and Karin then.
“I have a very long memory.” Rita charged the Lexus, but Bev with one powerful arm swept her up.
“Don’t do it, baby,” she whispered.
“And do get some professional help. They’re doing wonders for anger management these days.” Sevier rolled up the window the rest of the way and dropped the car into gear. Rita, Karin and Bev watched him drift down the drive, followed by the police car.
Pete came out of the kitchen to thank the searchers for their help. He was shaking his head. “Damnedest thing. All Loretta will say is that she expected the devil’s car to be red.”
Chapter 15
The heart of night in the Belfast Valley was deep and black, and it made the silvery stars all the more bright in the clear December sky. A fox barked from far away. And beyond the tree line south, the muffled bumps and grinds of big rigs on the Interstate carried through the crisp air.
Bev trailed behind Karin and Rita as the three wearily tramped across the yards and drive. Breath steamed from their lips and every step crunched on frozen grass and twigs. Guided by the cool blue of the mercury lamp on Rita’s barn, they didn’t even bother to turn on their flashlights.
“Bev, just stay the night. It’s after three,” Rita said as they reached her back door.
“Baby, I have to be at the gym in three hours.”
“Skip it for one day, for heaven’s sake.”
“You know I intend to be Miss Christmas Wish this year at the Hippo. And I can’t be skippin’ no rounds at the gym. Got to keep my girlish figure.” Bev popped the hatch of her black Land Rover and threw in her flashlight.
“I can’t thank you enough.” Rita threw her arms around her.
“Oh, you’ll be able to thank me,” Bev said as she closed the trunk and hugged her back. “You—and you,” she pointed at Karin, “are going to be in the audience clapping your hands off when I strut down that catwalk for the Christmas Wish title.”
“Absolutely,” Karin said. “I would not miss it.”
“Nor would I,” said Rita.
The Great White Hunter, sleeping by the woodstove in the living room, didn’t raise his head as Karin and Rita came in. Both flopped into convenient kitchen chairs and sat staring.
“Long night,” Rita said.
“I’m so glad we found Loretta.” Karin fidgeted in her seat. “But I can’t help but feel guilty that my being here brought on this whole ugly incident.”
Rita leaned across the table toward her. “You can’t do that. The bad guys are going to do the bad things, no matter what. If you’re afraid to stand up to them because of what they might do, you’re finished.”
“My head knows that,” Karin said. “But I shudder when I think of what could have happened to Loretta.”
“Nothing.” Rita got up and went to the refrigerator.
“What do you mean—nothing?” Karin followed her to stand behind and check the contents.
Rita took out a half gallon of milk. Karin pulled glasses out of the cupboard.
Rita turned to face her. “It’s a game. Your dearly beloved had no intention of hurting Loretta. His intention was to scare you and me with the possibiliti
es. He wants us to comprehend his apparent freedom of access and fear it.”
Rita then handed Karin a loaf of bread, peanut butter, and strawberry preserves. Karin started preparing the sandwiches.
“There’s another part of that game though,” Karin said, “and I need to make sure that you understand that clearly.” She poised a knife over a slice of bread.
“You mean the part where he might actually kill one of us?” Rita handed Karin two plates.
“Yes,” Karin said, “yes, that’s what I mean.” She turned to Rita with her face drained of color.
“That is very clear to me.”
Karin lowered her head and Rita put an arm around her. “I’ve known that from the beginning.”
“I’ve put so many people in danger with my foolish decisions.” Karin put down the knife and went to sit at the table.
Rita finished making the sandwiches quickly and put one in front of her.
“I don’t feel hungry,” said Karin.
“Who said you had to be hungry to eat?” Rita picked up half of Karin’s peanut butter and jelly and held it to her lips. “This is medicine. Peanut butter heals the troubled mind.”
Karin smiled and took a tiny bite. Then she took the sandwich from Rita. Rita picked up her own and snapped off a hunk.
“Peanut butter instead of therapy?” Karin said.
“Costs less. Tastes good.” Rita took a big gulp of milk.
“Every day I look back and every day is filled with ‘should haves’ and ‘what ifs.’ I’ve caused myself so much grief and I’m trailing it after me as I’m trying to escape.” Karin put down her sandwich.
“Stay with the peanut butter now. Don’t give up.”
“It’s not going to help.”
“Au contraire.” Rita put down her own sandwich. “What you just said is everybody’s dilemma. You know that deep in your heart of hearts.”
“Maybe.” Karin sighed.
“Every day we step up to our courage and strap it on like armor. And courage is getting up in the morning and going to work. Courage is taking the trash out and filling the car with gas, talking to other people—like we’re doing now—and eating our lunch. It’s about taking what life dishes out and, in spite of the bad, embracing the journey and keeping on.”
Karin looked at her for a moment. She picked up her sandwich. “Well said.”
“You would have told me the same thing.”
“I hope so.”
“I know it.
“Still, I find myself wondering how I came to fall in love with and marry someone like Doug.”
Rita started on the second half of her sandwich. “Everybody gets to that question at least once in their life. After I broke up with Diane, I wondered how people survived love.”
♏
Three days later Rita was driving to work as light snow danced in her headlights. It was 5:30 a.m., and she was beating the mad exodus of office commuters who fled the northernmost suburbs each morning. As she passed the exit to the Western Run Mall, she turned her head. Only fifteen more shopping days until Christmas and she wasn’t anywhere close to ready.
Rita shot down the Jones Falls Expressway into the city. If she played this right, she could swing by the mall in the afternoon and do a kamikaze gift run.
“Silent night,” sang the radio.
“Yeah, right.” Rita switched if off and swung into her garage.
Bev, in a wine-colored velour work out suit, was already at her desk. The coffee was made.
“My God, didn’t you go to sleep last night?” Rita headed for the coffee machine and the bag of doughnuts Bev had sitting beside it.
“Didn’t seem much point and I got a hell of a lot done.”
“I don’t know how you do it.” Rita grabbed a honey-glazed out of the bag.
“Clean living.” Bev reached under the desk and pulled out a Baltimore Sun . “Check this out, baby.”
Rita studied the front page of the Metro section. “Train Garden Draws Crowd in Rosedale?” She bit a hunk out of the doughnut.
“And you call yourself a journalist.” Bev pointed a demure ivory frosted nail at a photo and story in the lower right corner.
Rita snatched up the paper. “What the hell is this?”
“Interesting, don’t you think?”
“Dr. Douglas Sevier, professor of Clinical Psychology at Johns Hopkins University, has accepted the Heidegger Chair at Oxford University. Sevier’s award of this prestigious appointment is part of a distinguished teaching and publishing career. Of late, he has had his own popular radio show, Good Mental Health, where he responded to questions from a call-in audience.” Rita tossed the paper back on Bev’s desk.
“According to the article, Sevier is leaving for England,” Bev said.
“So, what was the Loretta thing all about?” Rita pulled a chair up to Bev’s desk.
“Last show of force,” Bev said. “Maybe a power play that didn’t go the way he expected.”
“You mean you think he was planning to hurt Loretta to scare his wife?”
“He was using Loretta as bait and somehow the police found them, and he had no choice but to return her.”
Rita sipped her coffee. “How about another scenario?”
“And that would be?” Bev leaned back in her chair.
“What if this award is phony? What if it’s intended to lull us into letting down our guard? I quit the case. Karin moves back home. All quiet on the western front. Then bang.”
“That could work,” Bev admitted. “He’s the kind of guy who would wait for the right moment.”
“But the newspaper story,” Rita said. “Now that would take some real work.”
“He’s not a stupid man.”
“True.” Rita finished off the doughnut. “I wonder if Karin’s seen this?”
“We need to check this out,” said Bev.
“I’ll use my sources at the Sun , and I have contacts on the other side of the water, too.”
“I’ll snoop around at the college and his apartment.”
“I don’t like this,” Rita said. “I don’t like this one damned bit.”
♏
By afternoon the snow had given up and true to Baltimore winter, the sky was dull slate. Karin had no late appointments, and the two were going to discuss the sudden change in Karin’s circumstance. They stopped in a coffee bar near her office.
“Ah,” said Rita as they entered. “Now when you die and you’ve been good, this is what heaven will smell like.”
“And all this time I thought it smelled like a summer night,” Karin said.
“Well, you know, there are seasons in heaven. Smells like that in summer—like this in winter.”
“I see.” Karin smiled.
They sat at a small table near the back with cappuccinos and a raspberry scone that they shared.
“I saw the article myself this morning,” Karin said. “For a minute I breathed a sigh of relief.”
“And then?”
“I’ve become so paranoid that I immediately thought of it as a ruse.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about.” Rita stirred the whipped cream into the coffee. “I mean we’ve frequently discussed your husband’s behavior, his motive, as a game. If we’re right and we continue our reasoning, we have to know his goal. Paranoia or real pain.”
Karin nodded.
Rita went on. “I’ve been traveling down this path where the good doctor had murder on his mind.”
“Murder?” Karin put down her cup in surprise.
“You thought the fire was a house warming present?”
“No, I . . . You’re right.” Karin picked up her cappuccino. “So, what do we do now?”
“I’m not sure,” Rita said. “I’ve spent the morning confirming this Oxford gig. I’ve talked to everybody from the head of the Hopkins Psych department, to Sevier’s landlord, to airline security. Bev is doing some research as well, but so far, everything checks out.”
> “The best of all end games for Doug.” Karin gave a small laugh.
“Meaning?”
“He leaves his presence, his threat. Tracking his coming and going will be infinitely harder. Paranoia to be punctuated at some point by pain. It could play forever.”
For a moment, Rita and Karin sat without speaking.
“We’ll think of a way around it.” Rita put her hand on Karin’s arm. “I promise you.”
Karin sighed, closed her eyes and nodded her head slowly.
With Karin returned to her office, Rita’s attention turned to her undone Christmas shopping. From her Jeep, she dialed Mary Margaret’s home number on her cell phone as she drove away from the city on I-83.
Clouds thickened across the afternoon sky. The deep slate tint on the horizon promised snow. A few drivers already had headlights on.
“Hey, it’s me,” Rita said when she got an answer.
“No comprende Inglés .”
“Tres droll, Captain Smooth.”
“It’s my day off, girlie, and I need to relax.”
“I haven’t finished my shopping,” Rita said.
“No, no way, not this again,” Mary Margaret responded. “I promised myself last year was the end.”
“I need you to help me.”
“You need a pair of rollerblades. I’m embarrassed to go anywhere with you. It’s like trailing the Tasmanian Devil,” Mary Margaret said.
“I don’t shop well.”
“Now there’s an understatement.”
“Please, come on, what else do you have to do? I’ll pick you up and bring you back.”
“The way you drive?” said Mary Margaret. “You think that’s inducement?”
“Besides I have to talk to you about my stalking case,” said Rita. “I’m almost at your door.”
“You are gonna owe me. Big time.”
True to form, Rita tore through the mall’s first anchor, Macy’s. She picked up a Lancôme gift set for Bev, Chanel for her mother, perfume for herself.
DRIVEN: A Rita Mars Thriller Page 12
