Expire

by Danielle Girard

  Both Patrice and Cheryl Ann had called her the following day, but Georgia didn’t answer. She did send an email to Patrice to be sure Bill was all right. He was. But since leaving Cheryl Ann’s, Georgia found herself sticking closer to home. And while she’d assumed that she would attend the lunch, she couldn’t find the resolve to go, even when she told herself she could easily avoid the bridge ladies. There were always at least three tables to choose from, but she felt certain that the conversation from their bridge night—the speculation about Spencer’s recent dating and about his strange behavior—would have made the entire loop by now.

  Not that she could blame them. She would have done the same in their place. But suddenly, she felt like an idiot for never asking these questions. He’d been so solid, so successful, not to mention handsome.

  A perfect groom.

  A perfect husband.

  And Bella had been—well, young, for one. And so totally destroyed by her father’s death. And then there had been her insistence on going to medical school, something she’d never talked about before. Georgia had felt certain this wild idea had been a side effect of the grief, an impulsive decision she would regret later. All those years of school would put her life on hold. It would be impossible to get married or start a family while she was getting her degree.

  Then Spencer had asked Bella out. At that first date, Spencer had come to the house and brought Georgia flowers. Not that she was swayed by a bouquet of flowers—though they were beautiful.

  But she had been swayed. Spencer had made Georgia believe he could heal Bella. She missed the daughter who listened to her, who liked the things she liked, who enjoyed spending time with her. Not that she was wrapped up in her daughter like some mothers were. No, she had a life outside of Bella, her weekly lunches and managing the upkeep of her house. But it felt lonely, too, and somehow she thought Spencer might be able to bring the two women back together.

  Now she didn’t know what she thought.

  A week after his first date with Bella, Spencer had invited Georgia to lunch. “I’ve got a favorite spot,” he told her. “It’s a quiet little place where we won’t be disturbed.”

  Georgia had not accepted on the phone. She said she would let him know. It seemed odd that he’d reached out to her at all. After all, Bella had said the date didn’t go well. She’d seemed too upset even to talk about it, so why would Spencer want to see Georgia?

  Georgia had probed a bit more about the date, but Bella had remained tight-lipped and quiet. Georgia, in turn, had made no mention of her lunch date with Spencer. He’d called again, two days later. “It’s only lunch, Georgia,” he’d said in that buttery voice.

  So she had accepted.

  For two days, she’d built it up in her mind—what he wanted, what she would wear. The closer it drew, the more she’d let the crazy ideas go to her head. There had been no one in her life since her husband’s death. The thrill of a date—it wasn’t actually a date, she told herself. But the thrill felt like a drug, and no amount of reason could wash it from her system.

  She’d laid out a yellow sundress with white flowers and a thin band of eyelet at the waist and along the bottom edge of the skirt. She’d spent an hour in front of the mirror, doing her hair and makeup. Put on a pair of Chloé ballet flats. She had felt twenty.

  Seated in the living room reading, Bella hadn’t even noticed her mother when she’d left the house. Georgia had snuck out like a teenager and driven to lunch, blaring music much too young for a woman her age.

  And when they were seated, Spencer had ordered a bottle of expensive wine, a white burgundy. After the glasses had been poured, he’d raised one, clinking it against Georgia’s. “To the woman I want to marry,” Spencer had said.

  A rush of heat had moved through Georgia, head to toe.

  He’d clinked his glass against hers, and before she could respond—thank God, it was before she’d said anything—Spencer had said, “To our Bella.”

  22

  Wednesday, 5:15 p.m. MST

  Schwartzman felt better than she had since she’d arrived. She was clearheaded, alert. The drugs were surely flushed from her system. The speed with which she’d metabolized them made her think it was likely a short-acting benzodiazepine. She recalled a case in which a woman had been drugged with Halcion and held captive for two days prior to her death. When the body came to autopsy, Schwartzman had found no trace of triazolam, the active ingredient in Halcion, in her urine or blood. It was only by chance that the Crime Scene Unit had happened upon a sample of the drug that had spilled at the scene. Triazolam was a hypnotic agent with a short plasma half-life, somewhere in the range of two to six hours, if she remembered correctly.

  By her estimation, she had been flushing the drugs from her system for about nine hours, which meant Halcion was a possibility, as were some of the other shorter-acting benzos. Rohypnol, on the other hand, had an elimination half-life of ten to twenty-five hours. She didn’t believe she had been roofied.

  With easy access to water, she now ate the foods she’d been avoiding for their high sodium content—cheese and meat. Her stomach had shrunk after days with little or no food, so she made herself eat every hour. The rest of the day, she melted snow and drank. While she waited for the next cup to be ready, she canvassed the farthest corners of the collar’s reach for anything she might have missed in her earlier state—nails, pins, or any sliver of metal that might cut.

  She found nothing.

  Satiated with food and water, Schwartzman spent the remaining hours of daylight filling up all her containers with snow and hiding them in the oven to melt, in case someone should visit during the night. By the time she had filled every available cup and bowl, the snow that was easily accessible from the bedroom window was almost out of reach.

  She would need another source soon. The bathroom window was too high, but maybe she could reach out the kitchen window. For the night, she returned the slat onto the baseboard heating unit. With the bent end and the missing bracket, it hung slightly crooked, but someone would have to be paying attention to notice. So far, it didn’t seem like anyone was paying that much attention.

  Seated at the kitchen table, nursing a glass of melted snow, her thoughts returned to Roy Butler. She tried to remember who had hired him, but that had happened while she was dealing with her mastectomy and the chemo. Roy just seemed to appear one day.

  That was impossible, of course.

  If her being in this cabin had been Roy Butler’s plan from the start, then how did he come upon her? Were female medical examiners his choice of prey? Some combination of power and death that merged into an ultimate, twisted fantasy?

  She found herself searching for things that might have lured Roy Butler to her morgue. Newspaper articles always mentioned her involvement in various cases, and the name Schwartzman would have stuck out to someone who made a point to hate Jews. And her appearance, too—the dark wave of her hair, the prominent nose. She looked Jewish. If she’d had her mother’s looks, would she be collared inside this cabin?

  Surely it wasn’t just luck that she’d been chosen as the plaything for another crazy man. Spencer was behind this. He had to be. But then why hadn’t he shown up to claim her? How long would he let her sit here? It had been four days, by her guess. Four days under the power of a strange man, a man Spencer would find despicable. Why risk it? What could Spencer possibly be doing that was more important than being with her?

  And how long did she have before he arrived?

  Rising from the table, she went to the sink and looked out the window. Through the metal bars, all she saw was snow. The source of the drug she’d seen when she first arrived was now buried. She scanned the view beyond the bars—just a field of white interrupted by the occasional tree, like a handful of tally marks on a sheet of notepaper.

  Climbing up on the counter, she reached through the open window, took hold of the bars, and tried to rattle them. They were solid. The snow outside this window was thicker t
han the layer she’d been harvesting outside the bedroom window, which got more sun. Getting the makeshift scoop out through the bars was possible, but only if she held it vertically. The bars were too close together to allow for the slat to go horizontally, which meant scooping the snow would be nearly impossible unless she could somehow hold the slat out past the bars. But then how would she get the snow back inside?

  The light leached from the sky, blue growing to indigo toward black. She pressed her face to the cold bars and thought about what was out there. All she needed was one little break. A tiny tool that would help her escape. An idea.

  It was there somewhere.

  She shifted on her knees and turned to sit down on the counter. To the right of the window, tucked just past the bars, she noticed a long, thin icicle. The lightest shade of blue, it was almost transparent. Up on her knees again, she edged closer to the window and reached for it, pressing herself against the window. If the collar retracted, the pressure against the bars would easily break her arm. She held her breath and wiggled her fingers slowly, cautiously, until she could touch the hard, cold surface. Then she walked her fingers up along the icicle, stretching her arm until the window cut uncomfortably against her shoulder.

  Gripping the icicle in a tight fist, she twisted her wrist. Felt it snap in her hand.

  With slow movements, she brought her arm back toward the bars, shifted the icicle to the other hand, and set it carefully on the sink before getting down from the counter. She closed the window and held the smooth, cold column across both palms.

  She could drink it. It might be another 150 ml of water.

  But the sharp end suggested it might be more useful another way.

  Moving slowly, she headed to the freezer and tucked the icicle at the very back of the box, where it settled in a small channel, almost invisible.

  A weapon.

  For the moment, she had clean water and a weapon.

  23

  Wednesday, 10:47 p.m. PST

  From the San Francisco airport, Hal was tempted to catch a bus that would take him to Bryant Street and the Homicide Unit. He glanced at the clock on his phone. It was almost 11:00 p.m. here, 1:00 a.m. in Dallas. Nothing he could do at the department at this hour. While he waited at the airport curb for an Uber to take him to Anna’s house, a quick call to Roger caught him up on the search. No leads, no suspects. Hal couldn’t imagine going home to bed. He knew he wouldn’t sleep. He hadn’t slept since she’d been taken.

  Being awake, he preferred to keep busy. Odd how his perception of time had changed, how it mattered only if the hour meant he had access to other people—to the labs and crime scene techs working the evidence from Anna’s house; to Telly, who had gone on to Denver without him; to the FBI agents in the Dallas office who’d run reports on MacDonald and were now expanding the search to everyone Anna knew, every case where she had presented evidence in a trial.

  They didn’t need to bother, Hal told them. If they turned MacDonald inside out, they would find Anna. He was certain.

  But they insisted on protocol. Telly would listen, though. He kept the focus tight on MacDonald. And Hal would have to depend on Telly now.

  Hal texted Hailey that he was on the ground. Headed home. Suggested they meet early so she could fill him in on the case. He waited to see if she would reply, but his phone remained quiet. To pass the time as the Uber driver made his way north on the 101, Hal opened the email app on his phone and read a report on Penny Moore, the woman MacDonald had dinner with two nights earlier. Her late husband, Patty, had started with nothing and built an empire. At the time of his death—he’d died of an aneurysm last year—his net worth was estimated at something north of $2 billion. The report referenced some shady dealings and a handful of lawsuits against him, but aside from those, there was nothing much on Moore. Was it possible Spencer MacDonald was her money manager? Why had she sought out a man from North Carolina to take over her husband’s holdings? There had to be a manager as capable as MacDonald in Texas.

  He thought of MacDonald, sitting in that car across the street from the restaurant. What was he planning? Spencer MacDonald was just a man. One man.

  Then again, MacDonald had pulled off some impressive stunts before, seemingly on his own.

  Forcing MacDonald from his mind, Hal opened the initial report on the two homicides in Union Square—both gunshot wounds, same caliber, almost certainly the same gun. The victims were found about twenty feet apart, three entry wounds in one and a single wound in the other. Hailey’s notes suggested the second victim might have been collateral damage. Nothing connected the two victims, and so far, nothing in either’s background suggested an obvious motive. Even as he read the notes, shifting his focus to a regular case felt impossible.

  He looked up as the Uber driver exited the freeway and turned toward Anna’s house. He hadn’t heard back from Hailey. She would be fast asleep. He would have to wait until tomorrow to get caught up. More waiting. He scrolled back to the message that had come from Telly while he was on the plane.

  We’re making progress.

  That was becoming Telly’s buzz line. What the hell did it mean? What progress? What, specifically? It was like politicians saying how well things were going under their leadership. From where Hal stood, he didn’t see any progress at all. Once again, Hal reminded himself that Telly was a kid. But a smart kid. And he’d seen young officers solve complicated crimes.

  Leaving Spencer MacDonald felt like leaving Anna. And he didn’t know what he’d do if Telly screwed up tailing MacDonald to Denver. No. He knew what he’d do. He’d kick the kid’s ass.

  The rush of anger flattened back into fear. He focused on what he’d do if Telly screwed up, trying to stir the heat of rage back to life. Fear was cold and empty, its icy tentacles slowing him down. It made him want to sleep, and then it made sleep impossible.

  How had Anna survived so many years of living in fear?

  As the driver turned down Anna’s street, he thought about Buster. Wished he could have picked the dog up from Helen’s house. He would have liked the company. Too late now.

  The Uber stopped at Anna’s house. Hal’s Toyota was still parked in the narrow spot behind her SUV. There were parking tickets on both cars. Bastards. He reached the front door and took out her keys, his fingers worrying the little silver heart on her keychain. He closed his eyes and rested his head on the door, steeling himself for the assault of her that would confront him.

  Her smell, her things . . . he both dreaded and longed for them.

  The times when he was inside Anna’s house, with Buster beside him, were the closest he felt to her. Tomorrow he would call Helen and pick up Buster. Reaching down without opening his eyes, he let the door fall open and inhaled her—her perfume, her laundry detergent, the geranium dish soap she used in the kitchen.

  He stepped inside.

  “Hal.”

  He started at the woman’s voice, eyes open. His mind spun momentarily. Anna? But no. The voice was out of place. The small table light went on, and his mother rose from the couch. Buster rose behind her, trotting to Hal’s side.

  He swiped at his eyes. “Mom? What are you doing here?”

  “You’re not calling me back.”

  “I—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” She walked past him toward the kitchen. “I’m putting on tea.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “Helen next door let me in, brought this guy back.” She nodded toward Buster.

  Hal dropped his bag and got down on his knees to nuzzle the dog.

  The teakettle was shrieking before he’d finished greeting Buster. Middle of the night, and his mother had the teakettle going. Waiting for him. For how long?

  She poured water into a mug already holding a tea bag. He recognized the blue tag dangling against the side—Sleepytime Tea, which meant she’d brought the tea from home. Suddenly, he knew exactly what had happened. “Hailey called you.”

  His mother added a
dollop of honey, stirred the tea, and offered it to him.

  He took the mug. “You didn’t have to come.”

  “Like hell, I didn’t. Your sisters would be here, too, if I’d let them. I told them to stay home. For now.” She started back into the living room.

  “Mom, there’s nothing to do here. We just have to wait.”

  She sat down on the couch and folded her hands in her lap. “Then I’ll wait right here.”

  He thought about arguing with her, but he knew better. “I can sleep on the couch.”

  “I’ll stay in that back room,” his mother said. “My things are already in there. I’m sure you could stay in Anna’s room.”

  He’d forgotten about the guest room. At the back of the little house, he’d always found it too far away from her, even before they were together. He rubbed his chest.

  “You’ll find her,” his mother said.

  He opened his mouth to respond when his phone rang. A glance at the screen. Dispatch.

  “Harris,” he answered, holding his breath.

  “It’s Officer Conrad at the desk. Inspector Wyatt said to call you in on this one to find out if you were back from Dallas.”

  Hal exhaled. “I’m back. What’ve we got?”

  “Man knifed on Stockton Street.”

  “We caught it?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “Where on Stockton?”

  “Near Sutter. I can text the address.”

  It was two blocks from Union Square, close to the two gunshot victims. “A connection to our other case?”

  “Don’t know,” Dispatch said.

  Hal watched his mother listen intently while pretending to read a Smithsonian Magazine she’d brought with her. Just like when they were kids. The woman didn’t miss a beat.

  “Should I tell Inspector Wyatt you’re on your way?”