Criminal Intent (MIRA) (18 page)

He tossed
Cosmo
on the passenger seat, shut down his surveillance equipment, started the van and pulled away from the curb. He’d driven five or six blocks when his attention was caught by the blue Chevy sedan a couple of car lengths back. Nondescript and anonymous, something that might have been driven by a card-carrying member of the AARP, it blended right into city traffic, just like the cars he usually drove when he was on a job. It had been following him ever since he left the Sarnacki house, but he hadn’t paid it much attention until suddenly his built-in radar went off.

Hunh. Interesting. Just as an experiment, he turned left at the next light. Behind him, the Chevy did the same. Coincidence? Yeah, right. He’d been in this business too long to believe in coincidence. Louis adjusted his sunglasses and tightened his hands on the wheel. Still just playing with the guy, he took a sharp right and watched his mirror. Sure enough, the Chevy followed suit.

Okay, then. Something very strange was going on here. Was it possible that Brogan had put a tail on him? For what purpose? Why would his own client have him followed? It didn’t make sense. Unless it wasn’t his client. Unless Brogan wasn’t the only one who wanted to find Robin Spinney. Unless Spinney had something, or knew something, that would be of interest to more than one person.

He’d left Sarnacki’s high-end residential neighborhood behind and was now traveling a commercial street lined with small
shops. Payless Shoes. Dunkin’ Donuts. A pet shop. In front of a styling salon called Hair There and Everywhere, he pulled into an empty parking space. The Chevy drove past him without so much as a moment’s hesitation, the driver obeying the speed limit and seemingly unaware of his presence. But Louis Farley wasn’t stupid. His instincts had never failed him, and right now, they were telling him that whoever was driving that blue Chevy was following him for a reason.

His mental wheels began spinning rapidly as he contemplated this unexpected turn of events. If not Brogan, who would have put a tail on him? What made finding Robin Spinney so important to not one, but two individuals? And just how long could Louis play cat and mouse with this guy before he figured out that Louis was on to him?

“Well, well, well,” he said aloud. “This is getting interesting.”

He wanted a drink.

Davy Hunter lay in the old hammock, his arms folded beneath his head, swaying gently as he gazed at the Milky Way spilling in a spectacular spread of stars across the sky. The night was warm, made tolerable by the light breeze that stirred the hair at his temple. He wanted a drink so bad he burned with it. This was the worst craving he’d felt since he quit drinking, worse even than the burning need he’d felt as he knelt by Chelsea’s grave and faced the hard truth that when she died, he’d buried himself right alongside her.

He wasn’t ready yet to be dragged, kicking and screaming, back to the land of the living. Living was too painful. What had happened this afternoon with Annie Kendall was meaningless. It had been nothing more than his subconscious responding to the power of suggestion. Jo had put the idea into his head, goddamn her, and now he couldn’t seem to get it out. The dark monster had been unleashed, and he wasn’t strong enough to corral it and lock it back up.

Inside
the trailer, Jonny Lang was singing in that husky, rode-hard-and-put-away-wet voice. “Breakin’Me.” Yeah, that was it. Like Kid Lang, he was broken, defective, irreparably damaged. Unfit for any woman, especially for one as classy as Annie Kendall. But that didn’t stop him from thinking about her. Didn’t stop him from wanting her.

She felt it, too. He could tell by the way she’d treated him after their little lunchtime incident. All afternoon she’d been cool and distant, stiff and businesslike. Sex had reared its ugly head, and Annie Kendall hadn’t decided yet how she intended to deal with it. So she’d chosen to pretend it didn’t exist, that hot and violent emotion that had sprung to life between them as they sat side by side on the front steps of her vandalized video store. Not that he blamed her. What she’d said about him to Jo was right on the money. He was grim. Grim and dark and brooding, a miserable excuse for a human being. Only a woman who was a masochist would willingly get mixed up with someone like him.

Above his head, a shooting star plummeted across the sky and burned out in a brilliant flash of light. Inside the trailer, Jonny Lang continued to wail. Davy took his cell phone from its clip at his hip, punched in a series of numbers he hadn’t realized he’d memorized, and put the phone to his ear.

She answered on the second ring, sounding tentative. Wary. Well, hell, she should be wary. She should run as fast as she could in the opposite direction. He’d only fuck up her life. She didn’t deserve to have her life fucked up by the likes of him.

“Hi,” he said.

He heard her let out a hard breath. Of relief? Disgust? Exasperation? He couldn’t tell. “Hi,” she said.

“Are you still up?”

“It’s past eleven, Hunter, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Still gazing at the stars, he adjusted the phone so he could
hear her more clearly. “I know what time it is. Are you still up?”

“I am now.”

“Got coffee?”

“Coffee?” she echoed blankly, as though she wasn’t quite following his train of thought. “You want coffee at—”

“Eleven o’clock at night.”

At her end of the line, there was a long silence. He breathed in. Breathed out. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about him. Still wasn’t sure what she wanted.
News flash:
Neither was he. “I have coffee,” she said at last. “Or I could have it.”

Some of the tension eased in his chest. She could have told him to take a flying fuck, but she hadn’t. “Is that an invitation?”

“It seems to me,” she said, “that you just issued your own invitation.”

In the darkness, he smiled, a rare thing for him these days. Annie Kendall was the kind of woman who could hold her own. He liked that.

“My name is Davy,” he said, “and I’m an alcoholic.” He hadn’t admitted those words to another living soul. Not until now. “I’ve been sober for twenty-three days, and I could really use a cup of coffee. And somebody to talk to.”

Not just somebody,
he thought. He needed to talk to her.

At her end, there was another brief, reflective silence before she made her decision. “I’ll put the coffee on,” she said.

When she heard his car out front, she was standing on a stepladder, paint roller in hand, attempting to cover the graffiti by painting the walls a soft shade of blue. It wasn’t working very well, but then this was only the first coat, and it was still wet. Maybe subsequent coats would make a difference. If they didn’t, she’d just cover it all with cheap paneling. It would be ugly, but then so was what she had now, fifties-chic knotty
pine criss-crossed with neon-pink spray paint. This afternoon, Hunter had painted the shelves and the checkout counter. Those could stand a second coat, too. The white paint had camouflaged the worst of the damage, but in a few spots, the neon pink was starting to bleed through.

At his knock, she got down off the ladder to let him in. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that this was a blunder of monumental proportions. The man had a dark side that he didn’t hide very well, and a plethora of secrets he seemed determined to keep hidden. She should have told him to look elsewhere, should have told him she wasn’t interested in anything he had to offer. But on the phone, he’d sounded so, well—needy, for lack of a better word. Looking at him now, six feet of bone and muscle and sinew, that word sounded ridiculous. He didn’t look needy, he looked dangerous. Dangerous and hungry and troubled, those blue eyes boring into her as if he could see clear through to her insides. Somehow, in spite of the barriers she’d erected in order to stay alive, he’d managed to get to her. Somehow, when she wasn’t paying attention, he’d managed to burrow under her skin, starting an itch she didn’t dare to scratch. But she wanted to. God help her, she wanted to shimmy up that long, lean body, wrap herself around him, and hold on tight for what was sure to be a tumultuous ride. If not for the thin veneer of civilization that tempered her baser instincts—and her sleeping fifteen-year-old daughter upstairs—she might have jumped him right here and now.

Instead, she held open the door, every nerve ending in her body going haywire as he moved past her. Without speaking, he followed his nose to the coffeepot she’d set up next to the cash register. He filled the oversized ceramic mug she’d brought downstairs for him, took a long swig of black coffee, and turned to look at her. “You didn’t have the door locked,” he pointed out. “You’re working here all alone, and it’s almost midnight.”

She
reached into her pocket and pulled out a small canister. “Pepper spray,” she said, holding it up so he could see. “I’m fully capable of taking care of myself.”

Instead of answering, he crossed the room to where her ladder stood. Sipping coffee, he studied her paint job. “Nice color,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“It’ll need another coat. Maybe two.” He took another sip of coffee. Still studying her paint job, he said, “The thing is, I want to touch you. I want to touch you so fucking bad I’m aching with it. But I’m not particularly happy about it. I haven’t so much as looked at another woman since—” He stopped abruptly, raised his coffee mug, and emptied it as though it were a shot of whiskey.

Annie hadn’t expected him to be so blunt. She realized now that she should have. Davy Hunter was a straight arrow, the kind of man who didn’t believe in bullshit. With him, she would never wonder where she stood. And he’d expect her to be just as straight with him.

He finally turned to look at her. “If anything ever did happen between us—and I’m not saying it will, I’m just saying if it ever did—it wouldn’t mean anything. It couldn’t. And I don’t think that’s fair to you.” His gaze ran over her face, studying. Contemplating. “A woman like you,” he said, “you could do a hell of a lot better than someone like me. I’d just drag you down. You’re not the kind to roll around in the mud. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Hunter,” she said, “why did you come here tonight?”

“It was either this or Walt’s Tavern. Considering the circumstances, you seemed the more prudent choice.”

“Congratulations.” She glanced at the clock. It was two minutes past midnight. “Looks like you just made it to twenty-four days of sobriety.”

“Yeah,” he
said, looking a little startled. “It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“Just for the record,” she said, “I’m not in a position right now to start anything with you, either. Or, for that matter, with any other man. There are things about me that you don’t know.” She licked her lips and shoved her hands into her pockets so he wouldn’t see that they were trembling. “I’m not exactly free. That’s all I can tell you.” Irritated for some reason she couldn’t explain, she said, “I don’t know why the hell I’m attracted to you anyway. You’re not that good-looking, you’ll never win any personality contests—I’ve seen you smile maybe once since I met you—and you just admitted to me that you’re an alcoholic. That’s 0 for 3 in my book. Still—”

“A sober alcoholic,” he corrected. “Twenty-four days sober. And thanks for that comprehensive list of my character flaws. I think you might’ve missed one or two, but I’d be glad to—”

“I’m not done talking.”

“Oh. Well. Excuse me for interrupting.”

“Still,” she began again, more forcefully this time, “if the situation wasn’t what it is—if I were free and you were willing…I wouldn’t be averse to—” She stopped, not sure how to word what she wanted to say without sounding like she was issuing an invitation. Which she wasn’t. She definitely wasn’t.

“If you’re trying to tell me you think I’m hot, you have a damn indirect way of giving a man a compliment.”

She actually blushed. She could feel the heat climbing her face. Thirty-six years old, and this man had her blushing like a schoolgirl.

“Damn it, Annie.” He took a step toward her, raised a hand as if to brush a lock of hair away from her face, and she stopped breathing. The world tilted crazily as she frantically wondered how the hell he’d managed to move from the opposite
side of the room to six inches from her without her even noticing. He stood so close she could smell the coffee on his breath, so close she could feel the heat from his body, shimmering in the air between them. This was insane. She was old enough to know better. They both were. Davy Hunter would bring her nothing but trouble. He was the kind of man who would expect absolute honesty, and her entire life was a lie. She had no excuse to be standing here, the paint roller still in her hand, her heart racing and her knees knocking together as his callused fingertips moved steadily closer to her face.

When his cell phone rang, they both froze.

The emotion that flickered across his face could have been relief, could have been regret. He dropped his hand, and Annie sucked in a breath of oxygen as he reached for the offending object and flicked a button. “Yeah?” he said. He listened, and she saw his expression suddenly grow intent. “Shit,” he said. “When? Yeah. Yeah, of course. Where’d they take her?” He drew a hand down over his face as if to wipe away his fatigue. “I’ll be right there,” he said. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“What?” Annie said as he pushed the button to end the call. “What is it?”

Grimly, he said, “My grandmother.”

“T
his
is where you live?” Sophie asked, eyes wide as she gaped at the tiny, ancient trailer, caught in the Jeep’s headlights. It was so ugly it reminded her of the abandoned sharecropper cabins that still existed here and there in rural Mississippi.

“For the summer,” Jessie said, putting the Jeep into park and shutting off the ignition. “It’s Davy’s place.”

There was something in her voice, Sophie thought, that reminded her of herself and the way she used to talk about her dad. Except that Davy Hunter wasn’t Jessie’s dad. He was some kind of stepdad, or something like that. But the way Jessie said his name, with an overtone of hero worship, you’d have thought he was her father.

The trailer looked a little better on the inside. It was spotless, and nothing was falling apart. Mr. Hunter obviously took good care of things. The kitchen had brand-new cabinets that looked handmade, and brightly-colored scatter rugs in the living room brought life to boring beige floor tiles. “You can take your things into my room,” Jessie said. “Down the hall, first door on the right. I have to call Davy and let him know we’re home.”

Sophie
found the room and flipped the light switch. It didn’t look like much. A doorless closet, hung with Jessie’s clothes. A three-quarter-size bed, shoved up against the wall and covered with a white chenille spread. A bunch of travel posters on the wall. London. Paris. Berlin. They brought a touch of class to an otherwise tiny and unremarkable room.

She wandered back into the living room. Jessie had the cordless phone up to her ear, and she was rummaging through the kitchen cabinets. “Everything’s fine,” she said. She rolled her eyes and winked at Sophie. “Yes, I locked the door behind me. Tell Mrs. Kendall that Sophie’ll be just fine here with me.” She sobered a bit. “How’s Gram?”

Not knowing what else to do, Sophie sat down on the couch, next to a big, ugly, sleepy mutt who barely acknowledged her presence. Sophie patted his head. He twitched an ear, but didn’t bother to lift his head. Soph wouldn’t have admitted it to a soul, but she was secretly glad that her mother had woken her up and insisted that she pack her pajamas and come spend the night with Jessie. Not that she was a chicken, or needed a babysitter. But Mom had no idea how long she’d be at the hospital with Davy Hunter, and the idea of staying alone at the Twilight, at night, especially after the recent break-in, was a little too creepy for Sophie’s taste. She might not know Jessie well, but they were only a year apart in age, and they seemed to get along okay. Staying here with her sure beat spending the night alone, listening to every creak of the old motel and waiting for the bogeyman to get her.

“Okay,” Jessie said into the phone. “Call if there’s any news. No, we won’t stay up too late. Bye.” She hung up the phone. To Sophie, she said, “That’s Buddy you’re sitting next to. He’s our watchdog.”

The dog opened an eye at the sound of his name, then closed it again. Sophie eyed him long and hard. “He doesn’t look like much of a watchdog to me,” she said.

“That’s
the beauty of it,” Jessie said. “Nobody looking at him would ever believe he’s a watchdog. He’s like having a secret weapon. We have a cat, too, but he’s probably hiding. He and Buddy don’t play on the same team. Frosted Flakes or Froot Loops?”

“Hunh?”

Jessie took two boxes of cereal out of the cupboard and held them up, one in each hand. “Frosted Flakes or Froot Loops?”

“Frosted Flakes.”

“Good choice.”

Jessie put the Froot Loops back into the cupboard and took out bowls, spoons, a half-gallon of milk, and they sat at the kitchen table together and chowed down. Through a mouthful of Frosted Flakes, Sophie said, “So what do kids find to do in this heinous burg?”

Jessie shrugged. “I guess the same things kids do in other places.”

“Serenity is the pits. There’s absolutely nothing to do here.”

“Maybe I can introduce you to some of my friends. They’re pretty cool.”

Sophie picked up the cereal box and poured more Frosted Flakes into her bowl. “So have you lived in this place all your life?” She tried to hide the contempt she felt, but it was there, in her voice, and she knew Jessie heard it.

But Jessie wasn’t fazed. “I was born here,” she said, “but my mom and I moved around a lot. New York, Boston, Montana, Florida. You name it, we probably lived there for a while. But we always kept coming back to Serenity. She grew up here, so it was home to her. And Davy was here. Now it’s home for me.”

“Sounds like you’ve moved around even more than I have.”

“Where else have you lived?”

Because
her mother had taught her that the easiest lie was the one that was closest to the truth, Sophie answered honestly. “Las Vegas. Before that it was Detroit. But we didn’t stay there very long. Mostly we lived in Mississippi.” She stirred her cereal with her spoon. “Why don’t you live with your mom?”

“She died last year,” Jessie said. “I’ve been living with her cousin, Faith, and her husband. But they had to go away for the summer, and I decided to stay here with Davy.”

“That really bites,” Sophie said. “My dad died two years ago. Sometimes—” she’d never admitted this to another soul “—I have a hard time remembering what he looked like. It’s so awful.”

“Want to see a picture of my mom?”

“Sure.”

Jessie got up and walked the length of the trailer, to the master bedroom. She came back carrying a framed five-by-seven photo of a pretty, impish-looking blond woman. Sophie could see a little of Jessie in her, around the eyes. “She’s pretty,” Sophie said. “How’d she die?”

“She drowned.”

Sophie shuddered, thinking of her dad, and how he’d gone off the road and died in his patrol car. She wanted to tell Jessie all about it, tell her about how it hadn’t been an accident, but Mom had warned her that she never could tell anybody, so she kept quiet. Instead, she said, “What kind of music do you like to listen to?”

“I really like Celtic music,” Jessie said.

Sophie went bug-eyed. “You mean, like that gay River-dance stuff?”

Jessie laughed. “I like all kinds of traditional Irish and Scottish folk music. You should give it a try. Keep an open mind. You might be surprised.”

“For sure. Why on earth do you listen to that stuff?”

“It
gets me, right here.” Jessie balled up a fist and pressed it to the center of her chest. “A lot of those ballads are just so sad, it chokes you up to listen to them.”

“Hunh.”

“So what chokes you up? What gets you right there in the heart?”

Sophie opened her mouth to respond, then realized she couldn’t. There was nothing that grabbed her that way, nothing she could point to and say, “That speaks to me.” It was a terrible revelation. Lamely, she said, “I listen to a lot of Marilyn Manson. Nine Inch Nails. Korn.”

“Oh, my ears, my ears!” Jessie grabbed the sides of her head in mock anguish. “They’re bleeding!”

“Those bands aren’t that bad.”

“They’re not that good, either. Hey, I have an idea. Let’s put this stuff away.”

They cleared the table, Jessie wiped it clean, and Sophie rinsed out the bowls and spoons in the sink. She followed Jessie to her room, where the older girl picked up an instrument case that had been standing at the foot of the bed. “What’s that?” Sophie said.

“My violin.”

“You play the violin?”

“For years and years. Sit down. I want to play something for you.”

Sophie watched as she cautiously and lovingly removed the violin from its case. “I used to play soccer,” she said.

“That’s cool.” Jessie picked up the bow, tossed her dark hair back over her shoulder, and held the violin up to her chin. “How come you don’t play any more?”

“We’ve moved around too much in the last year.”

“Well, maybe you can play here. Serenity High has a great soccer team.” She positioned the bow. “This is called a lament.”

“Why
do they call it that?”

“Listen, and you’ll figure it out.”

The music was sweet and somehow tragic, evoking images of past times and lost loves and windswept moors. Goose bumps popped out on Sophie’s skin as Jessie played. The music made her feel all funny inside, as though her heart was breaking right along with the heart of whoever had written this poignant music. No wonder they called it a lament.

When the final note sounded, there was a moment of absolute, crystalline silence. Sophie tried to find her voice, but it took a minute to swallow the lump in her throat. “Not bad,” she said. “It’s no Marilyn Manson, but it’s not bad.”

Jessie smiled, an enigmatic, Mona Lisa smile, and tucked the violin back into its case. “Let’s watch TV,” she said. “Davy has a satellite dish. With three hundred channels to choose from, we should be able to find something on.”

At this time of night, they were the only people in the hospital waiting room. Davy had spoken briefly with the E.R. doctor, but he hadn’t seen Gram. By the time he got to the hospital, she was already in surgery. They’d promised to notify him once she got back to Recovery, but after two hours, he still hadn’t heard a thing. He’d thought about calling Dee, decided there was no sense in waking the whole family in the middle of the night. There wasn’t a thing Dee could have done if she’d been here. If she even bothered to show up. After their last conversation, he wasn’t in the mood to talk to his sister anyway.

He didn’t have to be reminded that at Gram’s age, the complications of a broken hip could be life-altering. She’d be out of commission for weeks, maybe months. She’d almost certainly be spending time in rehab. He’d heard that elderly people in rehab had a tendency to get depressed. He’d have to visit her regularly to prevent that from happening. And somebody
would have to keep an eye on the house, keep the plants watered and the cat fed. He knew who that somebody was. If Gram came home from rehab and found all her plants dead, she’d have his hide.

She’d been doing so well, living on her own. He’d seen it with his own eyes just a day or two ago. The old girl was as spry as a teenager. According to the E.R. doctor, she hadn’t been able to adequately explain how she’d fallen. It had happened too quickly. She’d gotten out of bed and was headed to the kitchen for a drink of water, apparently tripped over something, and boom! She was on the floor. In excruciating pain, she’d still managed to crawl to the phone and call Elsa Donegan. It had been Elsa who’d called 911, Elsa who’d called him after the paramedics carted Gram off to the hospital. He instantly forgave the woman for the alien abduction thing. She might be a fruitcake, but in an emergency, Elsa maintained a level head.

From across the room, Annie said softly, “Why don’t you sit down? You’ve been pacing ever since we got here.”

He paused, hands in his pockets, to look at her. He’d actually forgotten she was here.
Good going, Hunter,
he thought. Aloud, he said, “I’m sorry. This can’t be much fun for you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sure it’s even less fun for you. But you’ll wear a path in the floor tiles if you don’t stop pacing.”

“Thanks for coming with me,” he said. “I owe you one. I’ll have to buy you dinner sometime.”

“I’ll take the dinner,” she said, “but only because for some crazy reason, I enjoy the pleasure of your company. What that says about my sanity, I don’t know. But you don’t owe me a thing. I’m here because I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“You went out of your way to be decent to me. You dragged your kid out of bed—”

“You did the same with yours.”

“Yeah, well, I
figured they’d be safer together. Nobody’ll bother them at my place. The bottom line is, you didn’t have to do it, but you did. And I appreciate it more than you can imagine.”

“Sit down,” she said, patting the couch next to her hip. “Talk to me. Tell me about your grandmother. How old is she?”

“She’s eighty-six,” he said, sitting beside her on the rock-hard couch. “She hasn’t had an easy life. My grandfather died before I was born, and she never remarried. Said he was her husband, dead or alive, and there wasn’t room in her heart for any others. Her only son—my dad—died when I was a little kid. My mom had a drug and alcohol problem. She’s spent most of her life in and out of jail. I don’t even know where she is now. Don’t even know if she’s dead or alive. She pretty much wrote us off when we were little kids, so Gram raised the three of us. She was the only real mother I ever knew. Now she’s legally blind and on insulin, and the tables have been turned. Now I’m taking care of her.”

Softly, she said, “You love her, don’t you?”

“She took care of me when nobody else gave a damn. She’s a stubborn, irritating, manipulative old bat. And if anything happens to her—if she doesn’t make it—” He shook his head, unable to imagine a world without Gram in it. “Hell,” he said, “I know it’s inevitable. I mean, the woman is in her eighties, for Christ’s sake. I know she’s not going to live forever. But I’m not ready for her to go just yet.”

“I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“That underneath that grim and gruff exterior, you were a marshmallow.”

“You must be psychic, then, because I didn’t know it myself.”

“You’re a good man, Davy Hunter.”

Why
was it that coming from her, those words seemed to take on such significance? He barely knew the woman. But since she’d walked into his life, the emotions he’d kept on deep freeze were thawing at a terrifying rate. He was still trying to decide whether that was a good or a bad thing.

“Mr. Hunter?”

At the sound of his name, Davy was on his feet in an instant. He knew the doctor who stood in the doorway, still dressed in surgical scrubs. Everybody in town knew Ryan Gates. He was head of surgery at Androscoggin Valley Hospital. A big fish in a very small pond. His kid, Cooper, had been peripherally involved in the drug deal that had led to Chelsea’s death. Cooper Gates hadn’t been the one responsible for her death, but he’d known who was, and had kept that information to himself. The courts had gone easy on him because he was a juvenile, and because his family could afford a good lawyer. Dr. Ryan Gates would never be on Davy’s list of favorite people, but he was a decent surgeon, the best that Androscoggin Valley had to offer, and at this point, Gram’s best hope. Sometimes, you had to let bygones be bygones. No matter how much you didn’t want to. “How is she?” he said.