At Risk (3 page)

Michael nodded. “Sure. I’ll be there all week. But if you’re nervous staying alone after what happened—”

“I’m used to being alone.” She opened the utensils drawer, looking for a paring knife. “And I grew up . . . God, Michael!” She snatched her hand back. “Do you have handguns hidden in every drawer in this house?”

“Never know when you’ll need one in a hurry.”

She scowled at him. “I suppose it’s loaded.”

“Not much use if it isn’t.”

Liz removed a knife and slammed the drawer shut. “Don’t you worry about children?”

“No kids ever in here but your Katie. And she’s what? Nineteen? Old enough to respect firearms.”

Liz began to peel a cucumber. “You know my opinion of handguns.”

“I keep trying to talk sense to you.”

“I’m not afraid of staying by myself. I grew up on Clarke’s Purchase. Daddy always said that if you lived this far out in the country, the bad guys couldn’t find you. Besides, I’ve got good locks on the doors, and a cell phone as well as a house phone. If I need help, I’ll call the police.”

“Fair enough. Just remember, I’m a lot closer.”

Liz didn’t feel quite so sure of herself when she stood at her front window watching the taillights of Michael’s van grow smaller and smaller until they disappeared around the bend in her long gravel lane. Maybe Michael was right. Maybe she should consider getting a dog, as much for companionship as for protection.

The old Dutch farmhouse seemed twice as large since Katie had gone away to school. Sometimes Liz could swear she heard her father’s voice calling, “Rise and shine, porcupines! Time to get up!”

So many memories here . . . some happy, others best forgotten. And among them, those of her father were always the strongest. She’d read somewhere that the Chinese believed a house soaked up the events that had transpired there, that wood and brick and stone retained emotion. She’d never seen the ghosts that were supposed to haunt the brick farmhouse on Clark’s Purchase, but she’d often felt them around her.

“What do you think, Muffin?” she asked her cat. “Are you willing to share your quarters with the canine species?” Muffin closed her eyes, obviously unwilling to be drawn into a discussion that involved dogs.

Suddenly Liz needed to hear her daughter’s voice, to make certain that Katie was alive and safe. She was only nineteen, just a baby. The same age as Tracy Fleming.

Gooseflesh rose on Liz’s arms as she remembered Tracy’s eyes, wide and lifeless, empty of all expression. So what if it was the middle of the night in Dublin? Hadn’t Katie gotten her out of bed enough times? What else were mothers for if not to make their kids’ lives miserable? Liz hurried back to the kitchen. There wasn’t any need to look up the number. It was written in red marker on every page of her calendar.

Quickly she punched in Katie’s number, and after what seemed like an unusually long wait, the phone began to ring. Once. Twice. “Pick up, kiddo,” Liz urged.

After the sixth ring, there was a metallic click and Katie’s cheerful voice proclaimed, “Linda and Katie aren’t here. This is our day to have tea with the leprechauns. Leave a message and we’ll get back to you. Ta-ta.”

Liz replaced the handset with enough force to send a pen rolling to the floor. It was after nine p.m. here. That made it two in the morning in Ireland. Two a.m. on a school night and Katie wasn’t in bed. She hoped her daughter would have a good excuse. Studying at the library wouldn’t fly.

The irrational thought that something might have happened to Katie sent a chill through her. God, how she loved that kid. Her daughter was the only good thing she’d gotten out of four years of marriage to Russell Montgomery.

She’d been furious with Russell for suggesting Katie leave her tuition-free place at Somerville to go abroad and study. Now, despite her foolish fears, she was glad Katie was far away from Dover, where college sophomores who kept appointments with their professors ended up dead.

Too agitated to sleep, Liz made herself a cup of caffeine-free herbal tea and went upstairs to shower for the third time that day. She’d just stepped out of the tub when she heard the phone ring. Grabbing a towel, she wrapped it around her and darted into the bedroom. She snatched up the receiver but was too late. Whoever had called had hung up.

“Damn it.” She dropped the towel and rifled through a drawer for her phone book before dialing Katie’s number again. When the answering machine at her daughter’s flat clicked on, Liz said, “It’s Mom, Katie-Bird. Call me when you get in. I don’t care what time it is. Phone home, E.T.”

Something furry brushed against Liz’s leg. She jumped, and then saw it was only Muffin. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack, cat?” She groaned and dropped onto the bed. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up as paranoid as Michael.

Muffin’s tail was fluffed to a bottle-brush, and her ears were flattened against her head. She leaped up into Liz’s lap, and her back claws dug into Liz’s bare thighs.

“Ouch! Get down! What’s wrong with you?” Liz switched out the light and went to the window.

Without the lamp to blind her, stark moonlight illuminated the backyard, dock, and marsh. Liz stared out, taking in the familiar objects: trees, the overturned boat that she’d been painting, and the stand of cedars near the lane. Reeds and cattails swayed soundlessly beyond the bull’s-eye window glass, and ghostly clouds scudded across a pale lemon moon.

No wonder I’m jumpy,
she thought. It was on nights like this that she and her sister used to scare each other witless with tales of headless apparitions and long-dead pirates. She’d been born in this house, the same as her father and grandfather, and his grandfather before him. There had been Clarkes living on this spot since the first Robert Clarke had traded a seaman’s sewing kit and a French musket to a Lenape Indian named Dancing Otter for his daughter and three hundred acres of swamp and woods.

Since she’d been a small child, Liz had been accustomed to staying alone. Few days or nights at Clarke’s Purchase had ever made her uneasy, but tonight was an exception. What was it that Michael had said? “When you get used to seeing violent death, that’s when you need to worry.”

She’d never get used to it.

A movement outside caught her attention. Something that could have been the figure of a man loomed at the edge of the cedar grove. Liz’s mouth went dry. Were her eyes playing tricks on her? She watched for a space of time without seeing anything suspicious, before turning away from the window.

“See what you’ve done?” she said to the cat. “Maybe I should give up history and teach creative writing. I’ve got the imagination for it. Next I’ll be seeing swamp angels.”

Resolutely she returned to the bathroom, but before she could turn on the water, the phone rang again. “Katie? Is that you?” Liz asked when she picked up the receiver. “Hello?” The crackling hum lasted for another thirty seconds, and she could have sworn she heard someone breathing before the connection broke.

“Son of a bitch!” Liz wondered if she should call Michael. Was she overreacting, or was it possible that Tracy’s killer had her unlisted number? Impossible, she thought. She hadn’t even given it to Michael yet. She reached for the phone.

The ring startled her, and she snatched her hand back. Heart pounding, she snatched it up.

“Lizzy?”

“Who is this?” The voice on the other end of the line was hauntingly familiar.

“I know it’s been a while, but—”

“Jack?” She stared at the receiver in disbelief. It couldn’t be Jack, and yet she knew his voice as well as she knew her own. “Is that you?”

“Guilty.”

She exhaled with relief that just as quickly became irritation. “I thought you were in prison.”

“I got out a month ago.”

“How did you get this number?”

“I heard Tracy Fleming is dead. Is it true?” Jack’s deep voice sliced away the years.

Liz felt her insides clench. “Somebody murdered her.”

Jack swore.

“Was Tracy a friend of yours?” she asked.

“Hell, she lived down the street.”

“She’s half your age.”

“Damn it, Lizzie, I’ve known Tracy since she was in third grade. What happened?”

Liz shuddered at the memory. “Somebody cut her throat. In my office at the college.”

“Somebody, hell! It was that friggin’ little shit, Wayne.”

“Who?” Liz asked. Goose bumps prickled the nape of her neck.

“Wayne Boyd. Her ex-boyfriend.”

“What makes you think he would kill her? Was he abusing her?”

“If you call beating her black and blue, and breaking her wrist, abuse. Yeah, he did his best. Six weeks ago, Tracy threw the bastard out, and he’s been harassing her ever since. Last week, she found her tires slashed.”

“You should be telling the police this, not me.”

“Right.” Jack’s tone got deeper, his words more deliberate. With the Rafferty temper, when a Rafferty stopped shouting, it signaled trouble. “Tracy had a protection order against Wayne. It didn’t mean shit.”

“This is a matter for the authorities.”

“A little late, don’t you think?”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she said.

“See you around.”

“Jack. Wait!” There was a soft click as he hung up the receiver.

Liz curled up on the bed and hugged the feather pillow. She didn’t know if she could deal with Jack Rafferty on top of Tracy’s murder. Jack was a part of her life that she’d thought she’d put behind her. He was the reason she’d almost refused the position at Somerville, and it was because of Jack that she and her only sister ignored each other except for cheery cards on holidays.

The Raffertys were watermen, commercial crabbers and fishermen. When Liz’s dad had been sober, he had captained a boat for Jack’s father. The families had been friends and enemies for as long as Liz could remember. But when she’d become a teenager, her dad had threatened to shoot Jack and his brother George if they came near his daughters. He always said that the pair of them would end up dead or in jail, and he wasn’t far from wrong. George was doing ten to fifteen for running cocaine up the Delaware Bay on one of the Rafferty fishing boats, and Jack had just gotten out of jail.

Jack calling her . . . after all these years.

She and Jack had been an item the summer she’d turned seventeen. They’d been hot for each other until the romance came to an end when he dumped her for her sister Crystal. God, had it been that long since she’d spoken to him?

The first haze of a migraine flashed a rainbow of colors in her head. She thought longingly of the bottle of Scotch gathering dust in the kitchen cupboard. A drink might be what she needed to stave off the headache, she thought as she padded down the back stairs to the kitchen in her T-shirt and Jockey hi-cuts. Considering what she’d been through in the last twenty-four hours, maybe she deserved a double.

She had her foot on the first rung of the stepstool and was reaching for the cupboard’s wooden latch when common sense took over. Rule #1: Never drink alone. Rule #2: Never drink because you need one. Rule #3: Alcohol is a waste of calories that could be used for chocolate.

Muttering under her breath, Liz shoved the stool back in front of the fireplace and fished two Excedrin Migraines out of the bottle in the cupboard. She was washing the tablets down with a glass of chocolate milk when the phone rang again.

Liz answered with trepidation, but this time she was rewarded by her daughter’s voice. “Hi, Moms! What’s up? Don’t tell me you’ve got a boyfriend.”

“No such luck.” Liz licked the chocolate off her upper lip and sank into the cushions of an oversized rocking chair.

“Is anything wrong?”

Liz wondered where to start.

“Moms?”

“No, I’m good.” Darkening Katie’s world with the horror of Tracy’s murder seemed as foolish as trying to dilute her own worries in a glass of Scotch. “Just missing you.” That, at least, was the truth.

“You sound a little weird.”

“I’m fine.” Lying to Katie had to be better than scaring her half to death. And she couldn’t bear to go over the gruesome details again tonight.

“Got another headache?”

“I wanted to hear your voice,” Liz said. “Is that a crime?”

“Not checking up on me, are you? I’m an adult.”

“Nineteen or not, I’m still your mother, and I’m paying the bills. Isn’t this a little late to be getting in? Don’t you have an early class?”

“S.U.C., Moms. Situation under control. I was at the pub with Niall and Liam.”

“Pubs close at eleven.”

“We went to Niall’s to study.” Katie rattled on, full of gossip about new friends, a pair of Italian sandals she’d found at half price, and a rock concert in Glasgow that Niall had bought tickets for. They ended up talking for the better part of an hour, and finally said their good-byes so that Katie could get some sleep before her first class.

“Be careful,” Liz said. “When you go to Scotland, stay with Niall and don’t wander off with strangers.”

“Not unless he’s six feet tall, gorgeous, and wearing a kilt. I’ve always wanted to see what they wore underneath.” Katie giggled. “Not to worry. I can take care of myself. Give Michael a hug. Love you much.”

Liz checked all the doors and windows to make certain they were securely locked, then turned on both the front and backyard lights before going upstairs. “Next I’ll be jumping at shadows,” she said to the cat, who trailed after her. Muffin meowed softly in agreement.

What Jack had suggested made her feel better. If the boyfriend, this Wayne something or other, had killed poor Tracy, other girls at school weren’t in danger. Hadn’t Michael said that the murder was probably a crime of passion? Certainly,
she
had nothing to worry about. Who would want her?

Still, she mused, it wouldn’t hurt to get caller ID. And spending money on a security system might be a good investment. There was no telling when Katie might be here alone some night. She decided to ask Michael’s advice on the best one to buy without annihilating her budget.

Budget. Liz grimaced. That was a sore subject. Putting a new roof on this house had cost double what she’d expected, and she’d been forced to have the whole place rewired. Painting, fixing the occasional leaky pipe, even a little carpentry, she could do. But electrical wiring was different, and hiring dependable servicemen who would come when they said they would was almost impossible. “I should have majored in electrical engineering instead of American history,” she muttered to the cat. “Then we’d all be living in the lap of luxury.”