Kevin O'Brien Bundle (115 page)

She squinted at him. “Is it really as bad as that?” she asked. “Because that’s what I wanted to ask you about. The other day, you said Paul was ‘obsessed’ with me—or words to that effect. Does he talk to you about me?”

“God, no,” Seth replied, shaking his head. “Paul doesn’t confide in me about his personal life. But I know him. I’ve seen how he is when he wants a woman. Believe me, he’s got it bad for you. And Paul’s used to having his way. He gets pissed when that doesn’t happen. And FYI, he ain’t a very happy camper lately.”

They crossed the street together, toward a block where two new condominiums were being built. Hannah never walked down this block alone at night. It was too dark and creepy—with the tall, skeletonlike frames to the buildings, the piles of wood and steel rods, and the portable outhouses. Hannah should have felt safe with Seth at her side, but what he was saying frightened her.

“You’re right not to get involved with him,” he continued. “He’s bad news. I’ve seen how he treats the women he’s with—and the ones he’s had.”

“So there have been a lot of women, huh?” she asked. “Students like me?”

“No one like you,” he said, a strange warmth in his voice. “But yeah, they were students. He must have a thing for blondes. The last was a blonde named Rae Palmer.”

Hannah stopped walking for a moment. Seth stopped with her. “What? Do you know her?”

“I’ve heard the name,” Hannah said, walking again. “What can you tell me about her?”

“Well, let’s see,” Seth said, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He lit one up with a disposable lighter. “Rae was in the class for two semesters. If I remember right, she started in September of last year, and dropped out in April. Hands down, she was the prettiest one in the class, and I could tell ol’ Paul was interested in her from the get-go. Anyone could see it. I can’t say exactly when they started up, but they seemed pretty hot and heavy by Christmastime. It had definitely cooled down when she dropped the class. It might have gone on a little longer after that, I’m not sure.”

“Did you ever see her again? Did Paul ever talk about her?”

He took a long drag of his cigarette. “No on both counts.”

The wind kicked up, and Hannah adjusted the collar to her jacket. She crossed her arms in front of her. “So—you don’t know what became of her?”

“Haven’t a clue.” Seth exhaled a cloud of smoke; then he paused. “I was surprised Paul waited so long after Rae to set his sights on you. Hell, it took him only a few weeks between Rae and the one before her. Can you believe that? You’d think Paul would have been freaked out enough to swear off sleeping with his students for a while.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The girl before Rae was Angela Bramford, and she was murdered.”

Hannah stopped under a streetlight on the corner at the end of her block. “When was this?” she whispered.

Seth took a last drag from his cigarette and tossed it away. “She was a summer semester fling, this very beautiful redhead, like a young Piper Laurie. She was an artist, very earthy. It only lasted a few weeks, from early June until—well, she’d dumped him before the end of the month. He was really bitter. She kept coming to class after, and it just drove Paul up the wall. Finally, she dropped out. About three weeks later—it was mid-August, she was killed.”

“How did it happen?” Hannah asked.

“They found her early in the morning, on the second-floor patio area of the Convention Center downtown. She was over by some steps. Somebody had strangled her. I remember reading about it in the newspaper. What a shame. She was so pretty.”

“Did they ever find out who killed her?”

Seth shook his head. “I always thought the cops should have had a nice, long talk with Professor G., but they never even approached him.” He glanced up and down the dark side streets. “Which way? Down there?”

Hannah nodded. As they crossed toward her block, Seth glanced over his shoulder.

“Do you really think Paul had something to do with this Angela Bramford’s murder?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Seth said. “He just pisses me off sometimes. He’s probably too much of a wimp to bump someone off. Still, I think the police should have at least talked with him. Like the weasel he is, he got out of that one unscathed. Then, a month later, he started chasing after Rae.”

Hannah stopped in front of her building. “This is me,” she said, pulling her keys from her purse. Again, she noticed the Capt’n Crunch decals Britt had saved for Guy.

“You okay?” she heard Seth ask.

She nodded. “Yes, I—I’m fine. Listen, does Paul have any male friends? I mean, have you seen him hanging out with anyone in particular?”

“Not really,” Seth said. “Then again, he might have a buddy or two at the newspaper where he writes his crummy reviews. I don’t really know.” Seth gave her a sidelong glance. “Why all the questions about Professor G.? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking.”

Hannah shrugged. “Oh, I was just curious. You said he likes me.”

Seth grinned. “And Ben? What did he want?”

Hannah was stumped for a moment. “Oh, he—he was just coming along with me. There’s nothing going on with us. Anyway, thanks for the talk. I’ll call Tish at the store tomorrow. She’s the manager. With your knowledge of film, you’re a shoo-in. She’ll probably want you to start right away.”

Hands in his pockets, he rocked on his heels. “Thanks, Hannah.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “You know, I don’t mean to freak you out or anything, but I’m pretty sure someone has been following us since we left the store.”

“What?” Hannah stepped back and bumped against the door.

“I didn’t get a good look at him,” Seth explained. “I think he’s gone now. Just the same, I’ll wait here until I know you’re inside.”

Hannah glanced down the darkened street for a moment: at the shadowy trees and the unlit recesses between the houses and buildings. She didn’t see anyone.

She turned to Seth. “I don’t feel good, leaving you to walk all the way home alone. Let me phone a taxi for you. I’ll treat.”

He shook his head. “No, thanks. I’m cool. It’s only—what—seven-thirty? Besides, I have some errands to run back up on the main drag. I’ll be okay.”

Hannah unlocked the door, then impulsively kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, Seth. Be careful, okay?”

“You bet. Good night, Hannah.”

She hurried inside and ran up the stairs. Catching her breath, she stepped out on the third floor and started down the balcony walkway. As Hannah came closer to her door, she stopped abruptly. The keys dropped out of her hand.

She gazed at a padded envelope, balanced between the doorknob and the door frame. She didn’t have to guess what was inside the little package.

She knew.

“Well, I made it home in one piece. So you can relax.”

“Good,” Hannah said, talking into her kitchen phone. “And you didn’t see anyone lurking around outside?”

“Not a creature was stirring, honey,” Joyce said. “I don’t know why you need me to call and report in every night now. It’s only eight o’clock. And I’m just a couple of doors down, for Pete’s sake.”

“It makes me feel better, that’s all,” Hannah replied.

“Well, phone me tomorrow if something comes up. And honey, again, I’m really sorry about your friend.”

“Oh, thank you, Joyce. G’night.”

Hannah hung up the phone. She stared at the envelope on the kitchen counter. She hadn’t opened it yet.

She checked the front door again to make sure it was locked. She checked the living-room window, too. Then she started down the hall to Guy’s room.

He was sitting up in bed, using a crayon to connect the dots in a kids’ game book. He was biting down on his lip in deep concentration. His chicken pox looked a little worse today.

“I ought to connect the dots on you,” Hannah said, mussing his hair. “Do they itch a lot, honey?”

“Kinda,” he murmured, not looking up at her.

“Sorry I couldn’t stay home with you today,” Hannah said. She felt like the worst mother in the world, leaving her son with a sitter while he was ill. He adored Joyce. But he was sick, and he needed his mom there with him.

“Honey, did you hear me?” she asked, glancing down at the top of his head. “I said I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you company today. They needed me at the store.”

“It’s okay,” he said quietly, still not looking up at her.

She stroked his hair. “What do you think that picture is going to be?” she asked.

He studied his rendering. “A nellophant,” he muttered.

The telephone rang. Hannah gently patted his shoulder. “Can I see when you’re done?”

“Uh-huh,” he replied, focused on his work.

With a defeated sigh, Hannah headed for the kitchen. She grabbed the phone on the third ring. “Hello?”

There was silence on the other end.

“Hello?” she repeated.

More silence. Then a click. They’d hung up.

Hannah replaced the receiver on the cradle. She stopped to stare again at the unopened envelope on the kitchen counter.

The phone rang once more, and gave her a start. She snatched up the receiver. “Yes, hello?” she said.

Silence.

“Hello…” she said, angrily this time.

“Hannah? Hannah, how’s it going?”

She hesitated. His tone was warm and friendly, but she didn’t recognize the voice at all. “Fine…”

“Great to hear it. How’s Guy?”

“He’s all right,” she answered. “Um, I’m sorry. I—”

“You sound a little strange,” he said. “Is everything okay?”

“Um, yeah. I just don’t—”

“Well, you probably haven’t opened up my present yet,” he said. “Because then you’d know things aren’t okay at all. Why don’t you open it, Hannah?”

A chill swept through her. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

“Take a look at the video, Hannah. It’s going to happen tonight.”

There was a click on the other end of the line.

Hannah hung up the phone, then quickly picked it up again and pressed *-6-9. A recorded voice told her that the number dialed was blocked and could not be reached.

She hung up the phone again, then grabbed the envelope and tore it open. The video fell out on the counter. She remembered Scott reporting a couple of days ago that the store’s copy of
Psycho
was missing. But this wasn’t one of their videos. The cassette didn’t come with a cover, but it had a Blockbuster label on it. It was a movie from the nineties that she still hadn’t seen,
Bugsy
.

Her hand shaking, Hannah switched on the TV, then inserted the tape into the VCR. As with the other videos, this was cued to a specific scene.

On the TV screen, Warren Beatty, with his hair slicked back and looking dapper in a thirties-style suit and tie, stood in a darkened room in front of a sofa and a large picture window. He was watching a black-and-white movie of himself on a home projector. He picked up a newspaper and glanced at it.

Hannah flinched at the loud pop and shattering of glass. Beatty’s newspaper was suddenly punctured with a bullet hole. Dazed, he looked down at the blood on his chest, and he seemed to realize that he’d been shot. Another shot pierced through that picture window, then another. Beatty recoiled and twisted as he took each bullet.

Hannah quickly grabbed the remote and turned down the volume so Guy wouldn’t hear.

The bullets hailed through the splintered front window now, hitting Beatty and several art deco items in the room. He finally sank back on the sofa, bleeding and stunned.

Hannah gasped as a final, fatal shot hit him from behind and passed through his forehead. He lurched forward, then flopped back.

Numb, Hannah switched off the set.

Someone she knew would be executed like that.
Tonight
, he’d said.

Breathless, Hannah went to the window and peered outside. She didn’t see anyone below. She pulled the drapes shut, then hurried back to Guy’s room.

He’d fallen asleep with the crayon still in his little hand and the game book in his lap. Hannah padded to his window and quickly closed the blinds. She pried the crayon out of Guy’s grasp, then set aside the game book. She switched off the nightstand lamp.

Hannah glanced toward his window again. On the third floor, they were probably too far up for anyone to shoot at them from the street. Someone else had been targeted for tonight, someone who had a first-floor apartment or a house with big windows.

Ben.

She remembered his place in that tenement, the bars on the large picture window just slightly above street level. This time of night, if he had the lights on, anyone could see him from outside. He was an easy mark.

She rushed down the hallway to the phone. She hunted through her purse for his number. “Please, God,” she whispered, unable to find the scrap of paper upon which it was written. Finally, she dumped the entire contents of her purse on the counter. She saw the piece of paper and snatched it up.

Grabbing the phone, Hannah dialed Ben’s number. It rang only once; then his recorded voice came on the line:
“Hi, this is Ben. Leave me a message after the irritating beep. Thanks.”

“Shit,” Hannah muttered. She could tell from the way it picked up so fast that he was on another line. She waited for the tone. “Ben?” she said. “As soon as you get this, go to your window and close the drapes. I think someone outside your window might try to shoot you. I’ll explain later. This is Hannah. I’ll keep trying you.”

She hung up.

She couldn’t think of anyone except Ben. Joyce’s apartment was on the third floor. Seth lived above a garage. Tish’s house had bushes all around the first floor, and it was impossible to see inside. Scott’s hospital room was on the second floor and had small, narrow windows.

It was Ben. She’d been with him most of yesterday and part of today. They’d been seen together. And as much as she fought it, she had feelings for him. Perhaps her stalker could see that as well. So Ben had to die.

She would wait another couple of minutes, count to one hundred and twenty, then call again. Maybe she’d get the operator to interrupt.

She wondered whom he might be talking to, and if he was standing in front of that window right now.

“I can’t come back, at least not for a while,” Ben said into the cordless phone. “Don’t ask me to.”

He sat on the edge of the old, beat-up desk, his back to the big picture window. From the streetlight outside, the vertical burglar bars cast shadows on his living-room wall.

He heard the call-waiting tone, and chose to ignore it. If it was important, they’d leave a message.

“Well, do you have any idea when you’ll return home?” she asked.

“No, not really.”

“In other words, you’re not finished punishing me yet,” she said. “Is that it? You know, I go to bed crying every night.”

“You were doing that before I left. You were crying for
him,
Jennifer. How do you think that made me feel? It’s one reason I decided to leave. You can’t expect me to be there and comfort you while you grieve for this Lyle guy.”

“I know I hurt you,” she replied. “I’m not just crying for Lyle. I’ve been crying for you, too—and for us.”

“Well, I’m glad I figure somewhere in your grieving,” he muttered.

A car passed by with its windows open and rap music cranked up to full volume. Ben moved over to the picture window and glanced outside.

“This is really your fault, Ben,” she said.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t give Lyle his goddamn heart attack. In fact, when his widow told me about you and him, she said he had high cholesterol, problems with his weight, and he smoked—”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jennifer hissed.

“Christ, if you had to cheat on me, why did you pick this guy? He sounds like a mess—”

“He paid attention to me, and you didn’t, goddamn it,” she replied, her voice cracking. “You were so busy trying to get ahead at work.”

“Do you know how much we owe on the house?” he countered. “Jennifer, I don’t give a crap about getting ahead at that place. I merely want to get out of debt. And that means focusing on the job, giving them what they want.”

“And do they want you in Seattle on a leave of absence without pay?” she argued. “How’s that going to get us out of debt, Ben?”

“You know why I left,” he said glumly.

From the window, Ben noticed a man coming up the street. He wore a bulky jacket with the collar turned up and a hood pulled down almost over his eyes. His hands were shoved in the pockets of that jacket.

He heard the call-waiting beep again. “Listen, Jennifer, that’s my other line,” he said. “I should—”

“It can’t be more important than what we’re discussing right now,” she interrupted. “Can it?”

Outside, the man with the hood stopped. He seemed to stare back at Ben with those shrouded eyes, almost as if he wanted a confrontation. There were guys like that, roaming the streets of this neighborhood, intent on stirring up trouble. Then again, maybe this one was merely looking at the building.

“Ben? Are you listening to me?”

He turned away from the window. “I hear you,” he said tiredly. “But I don’t know what’s left to discuss—unless you want to know about Rae. She’s the main reason I came out here, and you haven’t even asked about her yet.”

“All right, how is Rae?” she asked.

“I think she’s dead,” he answered soberly. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure someone murdered her.” Ben sighed, then glanced over his shoulder—out the window. The hooded man had moved on. The sidewalk was empty.

“I’m sorry, Ben,” she whispered. “I truly am. Isn’t that all the more reason for coming home? There’s nothing you can do for her now.”

“The police still show her as missing. I have no actual proof that she’s been murdered—”

“Let the police take care of it,” she said. “And let me take care of you. We’ve both lost someone dear to us. Come home, Ben. I know what you’re going through. We need each other right now.”

“Wait a minute,” he said, rubbing his forehead. He began to pace in front of the window. “Are you trying to draw a parallel here? You were screwing this guy behind my back for three months before he dropped dead of a heart attack. I’ve known Rae half my life. She was my friend.”

“She was still in love with you,” Jennifer argued.

“You had nothing to be jealous about, and you know it.”

“She made you feel important. I was jealous of that. Maybe if you’d made me feel a little important, I wouldn’t have needed Lyle.”

Ben watched a car slowly pull up the street. He sighed. “Maybe,” he granted, pacing again. “Listen, even if I wanted to come home right now, I couldn’t. The same thing that happened to Rae is now happening to someone else. And she’s all alone. I’ve got to do what I can to help her.”

“I’m all alone, too,” Jennifer whispered.

He said nothing.

“Is she pretty?” she asked.

Ben heard another call-waiting beep. At the same time, he noticed the car, a beat-up, red Subaru station wagon, had stopped in front of his building. He sighed. “Yeah, Jennifer, she’s very pretty,” he grumbled. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Ben? I’m really sorry about Rae. I’m sorry about everything. Okay?”

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll talk to you in a couple of days. Take care.”

He hung up, and the phone immediately started ringing. “Oh, fuck off,” he muttered. “Goddamn telemarketers won’t give up.”

Ben decided to let the machine answer it. While his recorded greeting clicked on, he remained at the window, gazing out at that car. Someone on the passenger side slowly rolled down the window.

“Ben? Are you there?” Hannah asked urgently. “Ben? It rang more than once. You must be off the phone. Please, pick up!”

He reached for the phone on the edge of his desk.

“Ben, listen—”

“I’m listening,” he said into the phone. “What’s going on?”

“Are you by the front window? Are the drapes open?”

“Yeah. Why?” He moved toward the window. “What’s happening? Are you okay?”

“Ben, don’t—”

He couldn’t see who was in the passenger seat of that old Subaru. But he noticed something pointing at him from the car window.

Hannah heard him on the other end of the line:
“Oh, God, no!”

“Ben, what’s happening?” she cried. “Ben?”

The sound of the first shot made her jump. Hannah heard glass shattering, then another loud pop. There was a sudden thud on his end of the line, and she realized Ben must have dropped the phone. Helplessly, she listened to him cry out. His voice was muffled.

The gunshots came one after another, so close together. Each discharge made Hannah recoil. She clutched the phone to her ear. “Ben?” she cried.

There was another round of gunfire, and glass splintering. A hollow ping resonated, perhaps a bullet hitting one of the bars across his window.

Then silence.

Hannah thought she heard gasping. He sounded like he was dying. “Ben? Are you there?”