Hold Back the Dark (18 page)

Strange, how easy it was to recognize depression in someone else and how hard it was to see it in oneself. The anger hadn’t been easy for her to see, either. She’d only recognized how angry she was when it was time for the trial.

Her thirst for vengeance had been nearly insatiable. While she couldn’t lie when asked about Kyle’s violent tendencies, she couldn’t defend him, either. She hadn’t explained to the jury why Kyle had fixated on her—that she was the first woman entrusted with his care who hadn’t abandoned him or betrayed him.

Of course, that was no longer true. She
had
abandoned him. And when she hadn’t explained that to the jury, she’d betrayed Kyle every bit as much as his stepmother had when she’d allowed her own sons to use him as their personal punching bag and worse.

Worse yet, she’d betrayed herself.

Everyone expected her to press charges against Kyle, but she didn’t have to do it with as much gusto as she had. How could she claim to be a person who spoke out for those who couldn’t speak for themselves when she’d gone back on those convictions the second it became personally difficult? She, of all people, should have understood what led him to the night that he’d thrown her to the floor and struck her with such force that her jaw had to be wired shut. She should have understood the rage and the need for power and control over his own fate that had made him rip at her clothes and force her legs apart with his knee.

She swallowed hard as she navigated through the dark streets. She breathed in deep, let the breath out slowly, and kept her speed just a fraction over the speed limit. Her heart beat fast as if Kyle was here now, watching her, waiting for another chance to hurt her; to take from her what had been taken away from him through years of abuse and neglect.

Hurting her wouldn’t help him. And helping put Kyle behind bars hadn’t helped her, either.

At the time, she’d argued that she was only looking for closure and that she’d only wanted Kyle someplace where he couldn’t hurt her or someone else. In her heart, she knew it was a lie. She’d been furious. Her blood had been boiling. She had flown into rages at the least provocation. She had wanted him punished; she had wanted him hurt. She had wanted him to feel as powerless and small and vulnerable as she had, lying in the corner of her office, too hurt to even scream for help as she had watched him unzip his jeans, knowing what was about to happen and unable to make it stop.

Danny had made it stop. Danny, who had been impatient for her to meet him for drinks. Danny, who had called her cell phone and gotten no answer. Danny, who had come to her rescue, bursting into her office and throwing Kyle across the room.

And it had been on Danny that she had unleashed her rage next.

To everyone else, she’d managed to present a determined yet calm façade. Not to Danny. He was the one who was there when she’d hurled plates across the dining room. He was the one who saw the punched walls and uncontrollable weeping. He was the one who’d seen her half naked and bleeding—and Aimee had not been able to forgive him for it, even though he had been the one who saved her.

She had tried to pull it back together. She’d joined a women’s running group in the hope that regular exercise would help her get back into control. It had helped some, but not enough and it had been too late. She’d damaged the relationship between them so much, had pushed Danny away so many times, had punished him so harshly for trying to help her, that sometimes she wondered if she’d
always
wanted to force him to walk out the door.

She pulled into the parking garage and sat for a few moments, resting her head against the steering wheel. Finally she pulled the key from the ignition and, after doing a quick scan of the garage, got out and locked the car behind her.

As always, her heart beat a little faster as she walked through the deserted garage. As always, she repeated to herself the security measures in the condo she had moved to after Danny had left the house they’d shared. As always, she reached the elevator with no one leaping out from behind a column or from the shadows behind a car. As always, the elevator arrived empty and unthreatening. She entered with a sigh of relief that she had arrived unscathed. The elevator doors swooshed smoothly shut and she pressed the button for the third floor.

She idly watched the numbers over the doors. When she stepped out onto her floor, something smelled bad. That was unusual, but garbage pickup wasn’t until Tuesday; sometimes things got a little smelly at the end of the week. She turned the corridor to get to her condo…and froze.

The smell was coming from the pile of dirt and flesh and blood in front of her door. She gagged, fought back the vomit that burned the back of her throat, and ran for the stairs.

J
osh shot a grape into Dean’s cage. Dean favored him with the slow flicker of an eye, but didn’t pounce on the fruit. He’d have to go to the pet store tomorrow to get some crickets. Geckos did not live by grapes alone. Josh surveyed the remains of his own dinner. Perhaps someday he’d branch from his usual rare New York strip steak, baked potato, and salad washed down with a Dos Equis, but not tonight.

He knocked off the last of the beer and stood. The game had been over for a good hour. The A’s had lost again, two runs short of a tie.

He felt a little that way himself.

Today every road he ran down had ended in a blind alley or taken an unexpected turn. Boyfriends with alibis. Nonexistent contractors. Disgruntled employees with uncles on the job.

Beautiful shrinks with fiancés.

He scraped his plate and put it in the dishwasher, then rinsed the beer bottle and put it by its fallen brothers to be taken out to the recycling tomorrow. It was nearly eleven; he might as well turn in.

He was headed toward his bedroom when the phone rang. The caller ID told him it was the station. Why the hell would they be calling him now? He sighed. Why the hell did he bother wondering? They called when they called; that was the way it went.

“Wolf here,” he said into the phone.

“Hey, Josh.”

He recognized the voice of Betsy Stewart, who worked in dispatch. That was odd.

“What’s up, Betsy? How are the kids?” Betsy had two boys, one in junior high and one in high school. She complained about them endlessly, but obviously adored them both. She’d caught the oldest one smoking pot after school one afternoon and had asked Josh to have a little chat with him. He’d felt a little bad about scaring the kid quite that much, but he’d earned Betsy’s undying gratitude by doing it.

“They’re big and smelly,” she said.

“I believe that’s the natural state of the adolescent male until they discover girls.”

“We got a call I thought might interest you,” she said. “Wasn’t the shrink you called in for a consult named Gannon?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, she called in a disturbance at her condo. I thought you might want to know.”

Josh left so fast, he didn’t say good-bye.

Josh made it to Aimee’s condo on L Street in less than fifteen minutes.

“What’s up, Vu?” he asked the uniform in front.

Vu looked up, surprised. “What are you doing here, Wolf?”

“Dispatch buzzed me. Dr. Gannon’s consulting on my double homicide. I thought I’d come by and see what was up.”

Vu nodded his head. “Oh, yeah. I wondered why the name sounded so familiar. Your consultant came home and found a dead puppy on her doorstep.” He made a face.

Josh stared at him in disbelief. “What kind of freak puts a dead puppy on someone’s doorstep?”

“Got me. By the smell of it, it’s been dead a couple days, too.” Vu shuddered a little.

How did a dead dog on a doorstep connect to the Dawkin case? Or did it? “Any note? Anything else? Any strange symbols scrawled on the walls?”

Vu shook his head. “Nope. Just a dead dog. Your friend freaked, took off for the garage, locked herself in her car, and called us.”

That did not sound like the Aimee Gannon who faced him down at every opportunity. This must really have gotten to her. “Who’s with her now?”

Vu shrugged. “Hance maybe. Possibly Bonnet.”

“Who’s dealing with the dead dog?” If there was a connection, it was critical that the evidence be collected correctly.

“Clyde’s upstairs.”

Excellent. Clyde might be a goofball, but he was a very competent goofball. Josh took the stairs two at a time. The dead dog might have nothing to do with his case, but it’d be foolish not to check it out. Coincidence made Josh uneasy; life was rarely as random as it looked.

The smell hit him the second he opened the door to the hallway.

Two uniformed cops kept the neighbors who were clumped in doorways up and down the hall from approaching, although nothing could stop their curious glances. Josh flashed his badge at the uniforms and they nodded him through toward Aimee’s door. “Anybody talked to the neighbors yet?” he asked as he walked past them.

One of them nodded. “Yeah. You’re going to be shocked. Nobody heard anything. Couple people noticed the smell and figured someone’s garbage needed taking out.”

“Any idea when the mess got dumped here?”

The shorter of the two flipped open his notebook. “Guy in Three-H came home around seven and didn’t notice anything, but he didn’t actually walk by the door. He’s the opposite direction from the elevator. Still, he thought he would have noticed the smell. So, we figure after that and before when the lady got home at ten forty-five.”

The other one said, “That would be a good time for something like this. If people were going out, they’d already be out, but they wouldn’t be coming back just yet.”

Josh nodded. Their reasoning seemed sound. “Security tapes?” he asked.

“We’re getting them. We’ll send ’em down to the lab and watch them as soon as we’re done here.”

Clyde was crouched over the nasty partially decomposed mess in front of Aimee’s door. His saggy jeans had crept down, exposing a solid three inches of Bart Simpson boxer shorts.

Josh knelt down next to him. “What do you have?”

“Dead dog,” Clyde replied.

“I can see that. Anything else? Maybe a fingerprint? A hair?”

Clyde didn’t look up. “I’ve got all those. It’s going to take a little while to figure out what’s significant and what’s not.”

“Do we know how the dog died?”

Clyde sat back on his heels and gave Josh a baleful look. “Not yet, and I’m afraid the M.E. didn’t feel like coming out on a Saturday night to determine a C.O.D. on a dead puppy.”

“This could be connected to the Dawkin case,” Josh said defensively. “I don’t think it’s outrageous to ask for a cause of death.”

“I’m aware of the connection, Detective, even though it seems damned unlikely. It seems a lot more likely that one of your girlfriend’s loony tune clients decided to leave her a special present. Maybe you want to go ask her about that.” Clyde went back to what he was doing.

Josh stood up. “Fine. Where is she?”

“Down in the garage in her car. She hasn’t been willing to come out of it yet. She made Hance show his badge, and she called the station to verify his badge number before she’d even roll down the window.”

“She’s staying locked in her car? Even now that we’re here?”

Clyde nodded. “She freaked more than I would expect. I’d like her fingerprints for elimination purposes. See if you can get her to come up here for that.” Clyde went back to his work.

Josh took the stairs down to the basement garage since two of Clyde’s fingerprint technicians were busy with the elevator.

Sure enough, there was Aimee Gannon sitting in her car. The door was open now, and Hance was crouched down next to her.

She looked up as Josh walked to the car. He felt his chest constrict as he met her eyes, but he’d gotten used to that. He just wished it would stop happening: she was taken.

“Detective Wolf, what are you doing here?” she asked.

Hance stood up and shook hands with Josh. “Josh,” he said, slightly wary.

“Dispatch recognized your name,” Josh explained to Aimee. “They thought I should be notified that something was going on here.”

“This has nothing to do with Taylor,” Aimee said. “This is an entirely different matter.”

Her hands were grasped tightly together in her lap, and Josh could see them tremble. She was truly frightened.

“What kind of matter is it?” he asked, laying his arm across the open car door.

“I think it’s a former client of mine.” Josh watched the lovely line of her throat as she swallowed hard and obviously schooled herself to keep her voice calm and even. He wondered what it would take to make that mellow voice rise in passion, and felt his stomach clench at the thought. “He…he stalked me before. He’s just recently been released from Vacaville. I’m guessing this has something to do with him.”

Josh nodded. Stalkers were stalkers. Restraining orders and state-paid holidays in mental hospitals didn’t change their nature. “You’re talking about Kyle Porter.”

She looked up again, eyes wide. “You know about him?”

He shrugged. “Elise looked it up. Your name rang a bell, so she did a little digging. How long has he been out?” Josh drummed his fingers on the car roof.

“A few weeks.”

“Any contact from him before now?”

She took a deep breath and seemed about to say something, then let the breath out and looked down at her hands. “No. Nothing that I’m certain about, anyway.”

Josh glanced over at Hance, who lifted one eyebrow and shrugged.

“Has there been contact that you’ve been uncertain about?” Josh asked, wondering what sense that made. Either the creep had been hanging around and she’d noticed, or he hadn’t. People were never as slick as they thought they were, especially perps. They all thought they were criminal geniuses, but most of them couldn’t find their asses with both hands.

Whether Aimee had noticed was a different matter. Most people walked through their lives oblivious to their own surroundings. After years of being a cop, noticing was what he did. Being aware of his environment could mean the difference between life and death someday. Most people didn’t seem to realize that it could make that kind of difference to them, too. He would have thought that after having been stalked once and knowing her stalker was on the loose again, Aimee would be aware though.

“I…I’m not sure,” she said to her clasped hands.

Josh crouched down to eye level. Even braced for it, he still found the impact of her gaze powerful. “Dr. Gannon, is there something that happened that you weren’t sure about, but that made you nervous somehow?”

She nodded, and words tumbled out of her in a rush. “Ever since Kyle attacked me and I found out how long he’d been stalking me, I’ve never felt safe. I constantly have the sensation that I’m being watched, or that something’s out of place.”

The pieces started to click together for Josh. Her caution. Her occasional stances of bravery. Aimee Gannon was afraid all the time, and she didn’t think she had any right to be.

“I think we need to go over some of those sensations from the past few weeks and sort through them. If this isn’t Kyle, it’s somebody else.” He stood up. Clyde should be finished upstairs, and the carcass should be cleaned up by now. It would take longer for the smell to go away, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. “Let’s get you back to your condo now. Your fiancé is probably worried sick about you.”

Aimee shook her head. “We split up almost a year ago, Detective. I don’t have a fiancé.”

Josh’s broken engagement had left him devastated and he wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but he couldn’t help being happy that Aimee Gannon’s fiancé was out of the picture. A million things raced through his head, from wondering what had gone wrong to wondering if he had a shot.

Aimee got out of the car and slung her purse over her shoulder. “I think I’m ready to go home now.”

Kyle couldn’t believe what he was seeing. What the hell was going on? The place was crawling with cops. What had Aimee done?

He crouched back farther into the alley between the travel agency and florist shop across the street. He’d been certain that she’d see the gift he’d left for her and come looking for him. Instead, minutes after she’d pulled into the garage, the first police car had come. And then another. And another.

And then
he’d
come. Kyle should have known the big Neanderthal was a cop. He had that swagger. Thought he was a big swinging dick, did he?

Kyle lit another cigarette and ducked down the alleyway to L Street. There were too many cops to try and find out what had gone wrong. He’d have to wait until he could teach Aimee a lesson about what happened when you called the cops.

Aimee walked through the hallway with her head held high, not looking at her whispering neighbors. The stench was still so bad that she pulled the neck of her shirt over her mouth to keep from gagging.

“You got any candles?” Detective Wolf asked.

She nodded, not wanting to open her mouth.

“It’ll help. You should light some as soon as we get inside.”

We.
He clearly intended to come inside the condo with her. For a second, her knees felt weak with relief. The police had said there’d been no sign of anyone tampering with her lock, but they’d also said there was no sign of tampering with the locks on the front door of her “secure” building—and clearly someone had gotten in.

Tears filled her eyes. This condo had been her haven. She had left the house that she and Danny had shared six months ago, too tortured by the memories that assaulted her every time she turned around. The kitchen where he’d proposed over a truly fantastic Zinfandel and shrimp risotto they’d cooked together. The living room where they’d cuddled together on the couch under blankets and played Scrabble when the power had been knocked out by a storm. The bedroom, where Aimee had turned her back on her lover when the shame and humiliation of having him see her half-naked on the floor, bloody and helpless, had overwhelmed her. The dining room where she’d sat, looking at her folded hands, as he’d moved his belongings out.

She had come here to start over again and had felt safe here. Now Kyle had taken her sense of security once again, and she was powerless to do anything about it.

She couldn’t stay in Sacramento; she was too easy a mark here. Forget packing, she’d just leave. She didn’t care about the things in her apartment. Actually, she didn’t care about much anymore. It was too hard to care. That was another thing that Kyle had managed to do to her.

The mess in front of her door had been cleared away, but a stain remained on the carpet. Now
there
was a metaphor for what had happened to her life.

Josh nodded to the officer who stood outside her door. “You checked it out?”