Last Look (20 page)

He cleared his throat and added, “I read somewhere that 45,000 women and children are trafficked into the US every year. My brother was responsible for some of those kids. He arranged for them to be sent here so they could be sold like puppies in a pet store. He didn’t give a damn about them. About what was going to happen to them. I just want to understand how he ended up without a conscience. I just would have liked to have asked him why.”

“We’re used to finding answers, that’s what we do. There’s a case, we solve it. We try to find out who is responsible and we try to find justice for the victim, justice for their family.” She sat up a little straighter so that her eyes could look directly into his. “It’s hard for us to accept that sometimes things happen and there are no answers, no explanations. So we deal with it the best we can.”

The label on the beer bottle had gone soft in the icy water, and she began to pick at it.

“You get called out on a case and you never know what you’re going to find. Last year we arrested a guy who liked to collect thumbs. He had a whole shoe box full of them in his refrigerator. A few months back, we caught a case, two men, nineteen and twenty-one, stopped by a deputy sheriff for speeding. The cop thought they were acting strange, so he called for backup. Walked around the back of the car while he was waiting and noticed the blanket on the backseat seemed to be moving. The backup arrived, they looked under the blanket, and find a nine-year-old girl who’d been missing for five days. In the trunk was the body of another little girl. I probably don’t have to tell you the rest.”

“Jesus,” Andrew swore and put down the pizza, his appetite gone that fast.

“The first thing the mother of the twenty-one-year-old said when she found out what sonny-boy’d been up to? ‘He’s a good boy, my Jon. It was that Rodriguez boy that put him up to it.’ They’re all good boys, though, right?” Dorsey made a ball out of the paper shreds from the label and tossed it at the wastebasket five feet away. It missed the rim and she got up, retrieved it, and tried again. This time she hit her mark. “Shit happens every day. We just deal with it.”

“It’s still easier to deal with someone else’s shit than with your own.”

She started back toward the bed when Andrew reached out and grabbed her by the arm.

His eyes on her face, he removed the wide silver bracelet that was always wrapped around her right wrist and exposed the lines that were etched into her skin.

“What was it you were dealing with?” he asked. “What did you tell me a few days ago, that you cut so that you can control the pain? What hurt you so much that you had to do this to yourself? What was it you had to take control of it?”

“Not what you’re probably thinking.” She made no effort to pull away.

“So you’re telling me your father didn’t have anything to do with this?” He tugged lightly on her hand.

“I didn’t say he didn’t have anything to do with it. I meant he didn’t molest me, because that’s the obvious.”

“Then what did he do?”

“He abandoned me,” she said simply.

“He…” He let her hand drop.

“Abandoned me.” She nodded without emotion. “After my mother died he just”—she shrugged—“pretty much forgot about me.”

“How can you forget about your child?”

“He was in shock for a long time, I think.”

“What happened?”

“Short version? My mom was hit by a car as she crossed the street.” She spoke calmly, but melancholy settled into the lines around her eyes and her mouth. “One of the neighbors saw it happen, and he ran to our house to tell us. When we got to the scene of the accident, someone held onto me so that I couldn’t see, but I saw.” The control began to crack ever so slightly. “There was a mound in the street with a blanket over it, blood seeping out from under the blanket. I knew it was her. They put her on a gurney and carried it into the ambulance, and I couldn’t understand why they didn’t hurry more, why they weren’t rushing. Years later I realized it was because she was already dead.”

“How old were you?” He thought she might have told him once but he didn’t remember.

“Nine,” she said matter-of-factly. “I was nine.”

“Where was your father?”

“He was with her. There on the street, then in the ambulance. He went with her. He stayed with her that night, or most of it, stayed with her body. At least I’m guessing that’s what he did.”

“He didn’t make arrangements for a neighbor to stay with you?”

“I kept waiting for him to tell me to come with him, that I could stay with her, too. Or to tell me to go home. But he never even turned around to look at me. He forgot I was there.”

“Did he know you were there? You said he left the house after the neighbor came to tell him about the accident.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. He never gave me a second thought.”

“So what did you do? Did you go home alone? To a friend’s?”

“I went to the church, and I hid in the choir loft. I stayed there for the rest of the day, and through that night. It was so cold in there….” She bit her bottom lip, which had begun to tremble. Andrew wondered how long it had been since she’d last talked about it, if she ever had. “Anyway, I went home when the sun came up. He was home, but he never noticed I wasn’t there.”

“Didn’t any of your neighbors—?”

She waved him off. “Not their fault. No one knew where I was. I think everyone thought I was with someone else. But to me, it was as if I’d become invisible. No one could see me. It was like I wasn’t there at all.”

“Don’t you think your dad probably thought you were at a friend’s house?”

“No, Andrew. That’s the point. He never even thought about me at all.”

He started to say something and she stopped him. “He admitted it, years later. He admitted he never gave me a second thought that night. He was embarrassed by it, and humiliated and apologetic as hell. At least he didn’t lie.”

“Who took care of you?”

“My Aunt Betsy—my dad’s sister—came to stay with me, because he left.”

“Where did he go?”

“I had no idea at the time. He just said he had to leave, and he did.”

“How long did he stay away?”

“I don’t know. It seemd like six months, maybe. A long time. He took a leave from the Bureau, went…wherever it was he went—I still don’t know—and when he came home, he went right back to work.”

“And your aunt stayed with you? Took care of you?”

“She did, yes. She was very good to me, very kind, very loving. I was a huge pain in the ass, but she stuck with me anyway.”

“I’m guessing you and your father worked things out.”

“Over time, we did, yeah. A few years later, he was wounded—shot in the leg—and he was home for a while.” She finished off the beer in one long swallow. “I understood how hard it was for him to be in that house, because I saw it on his face. He seemed to be in pain all the time, and not from the wound. I guess it was then I realized just how much he had loved my mother. I finally began to understand how much he’d lost.”

“But you’d lost, too.”

“That hadn’t occurred to him until he was off on medical leave.”

“You forgave him, though. You worked things out with him.”

“He’s my father. He’s the only parent I have.”

“And you began cutting after your mother died?”

“No. After my father came back.” She looked at him with eyes that suddenly seemed old. “I was so afraid, I kept waiting for him to leave again. Every day I’d wake up holding my breath. Was he still there, in the room at the end of the hall? And every afternoon when I came home from school, I’d have pains in my stomach. Had he left while I was gone? Would I ever see him again?”

“How did you know how to do that?” He pointed to her wrist. “I mean, what made you think it would help?”

“I saw another girl doing it. I walked into the girls’ room at school and she was in one of the stalls, but hadn’t locked the door. She was standing over the toilet with a razor in her hand, and the blood was streaming into the toilet.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t run screaming from the room.”

“I was mesmerized,” she admitted. “I asked her what she was doing, and she told me. A few days later, I tried it. It helped.”

“How long did you cut?”

“Five, six years.” She smiled sheepishly. “Not so long, by some standards.”

“Why did you stop?”

“I just didn’t need to do it anymore.”

“Did you ever talk to anyone? Your aunt, a school counselor, a therapist?”

“I was in therapy for three years, starting when I got to college.” She hastened to add, “Of course, that’s not on my official record. I didn’t put that on my app when I went to the Bureau.”

“You really think they couldn’t have found out if they wanted to?”

“Maybe. But I went through the clinic at school, which was free, and completely confidential. My dad didn’t even know. No one did.”

“You never talked about it?”

“Not until now.”

“Why now, Dorsey? Why tell me?”

“Truth?” she asked.

“Truth.”

“I have no idea. It just seemed like it would be okay.”

“It is okay.” He got up, went to the bed, sat behind her, then began to massage her shoulders. “Thanks for trusting me.”

“Ditto.”

“Damn, but your muscles are tight, girl.”

“It’s been a tough week.”

Dorsey let her head drop and he massaged the back of her neck with his thumbs for a few minutes before leaning back against him. It felt so good to have someone to lean on that she just rested there for a while.

“That feels so good. Don’t ever stop.”

“I wish, but we have a case to solve,” he reminded her.

“Guess you’re on your own from here on out.”

“Not necessarily.”

“If my name is out there, it’s out there. Mancini can’t be too happy about that.”

“John doesn’t know yet. I thought I’d wait until the morning to call in.” He locked his hands in front of her and just let her lean. It felt solid and right, letting her rest against his chest, and he felt her relax. He realized he’d wanted his hands on her from the moment he’d first seen her on the dock that first day.

He wished he didn’t need sleep as much as he did.

“I’m wondering if I shouldn’t just leave tomorrow instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop,” she said, thinking aloud.

“Let’s just wait and see. There’s a chance the reporter’s already forgotten about you.”

“If he’s anything like the reporters I know in Florida, that’s one slim chance.”

She turned to say something else, lifting her face to his. Her mouth was so close, so pretty. He leaned toward her just as his cell phone rang.

He glanced at the clock and frowned. It was ten minutes after one in the morning. He eased her forward so that he could get up to retrieve the phone which he’d left on the desk.

“Shields.”

He listened without saying a word.

“But—all right. Yes, I understand.” He closed the phone. To Dorsey he said, “There’s something John wants me to check for him. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He averted his eyes and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. “Thanks for the pizza and beer. And the conversation. And the company.”

He went to the door and stopped. “Come lock up after I leave.”

“I will.” She got up off the bed and followed him, her eyes on his face. “Are you going to give me a hint?”

“It’s nothing, no big deal,” he told her. “Just something John wanted me to check into for him.”

He smiled and paused, his hand on the door handle. He turned and leaned over just a bit and kissed her lightly on the mouth, a kiss meant to promise something more some other time. Her arms wound around his neck and pulled him close, demanding he kiss her for real, her mouth insistent and needy. He met her demand, his hands on either side of her face, and felt the heat rise between them. He broke away slowly, with the greatest reluctance, and kissed a trail from her lips to her chin.

He sensed she was waiting for him to say something more, to give some explanation, but he could not. Instead he held her at arms length and merely repeated, “Lock up.”

He blew out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding and walked out the door, closing it behind him. He hadn’t been able to look at her face, didn’t want to see the questions he’d find there. There was nothing he could have said, no way he could have told her what he’d just heard.

He walked quickly in the general direction of his room. He stood in the shadows for a moment, scanning the parking lot for news vans or stubborn reporters who might have hung around hoping for some action. When he was satisfied there was no one there to follow him, he walked to his car, got in, and drove off into the night.

17

Something was going on, and she was being kept out of it. After they kissed—after that amazing kiss—Andrew had bolted out of her room as if he’d been shot. What the hell was up with that?

That had been the last thought in her mind when she’d finally fallen asleep the night before, and the first thought she’d had when she’d awakened the next morning. It rankled. One minute he was kissing her like she hadn’t been kissed in a long time, the next, outta there.

She’d expected, sooner or later, to be cut out of the action. She’d accepted that if her identity became known, she’d back out gracefully. That had been understood from the start, and she had no problem with that.

The problem was that she knew her identity as Matt Ranieri’s daughter was still under wraps. Sure, there was some danger of it coming out, what with Chief Bowden giving a reporter enough to figure things out with, if he were so inclined. But she hadn’t heard anyone say it. It wasn’t on the morning news. And if no one was saying it aloud, the story wasn’t out there yet. Which meant she was being cut out of the investigation for another reason. And that had not been part of her agreement.

The question had nagged at her all night. What was going on, and why hadn’t she been brought into it?

She’d called Andrew’s cell phone twice already without a response. The first time she figured he might be in the shower, the second time had been within the last five minutes. Where was he?

She took a quick shower and towel-dried her hair. Since she wasn’t working and could wear whatever she pleased, she dressed in a short jean skirt and a tank top. She brushed her hair out while she watched one of the network morning shows. There was a segment on kiddie-pool safety, followed by an interview with a popular romance novelist who was on tour with her latest book. When the show went to a commercial, Dorsey switched off the TV and tossed the hairbrush into her suitcase.

Dorsey tied back her hair, slid her feet into a pair of flip-flops, and grabbed her purse. She’d stop at Andrew’s room and see if he wanted to join her for breakfast. Assuming, of course, that he was there.

Which he was not, she discovered when she knocked on his door. She glanced around the parking lot and realized his car was gone.

Damn,
she thought.
He’s not back yet. Where the hell did he go?

She fished the keys from the bottom of her bag as she walked to the car. The least he could have done was given her a heads-up that he wasn’t coming back.

It was obvious there’d been something on the tip of his tongue before he’d left her room the night before, something that had nothing to do with the electricity that had passed between them when he’d kissed her. It had something to do with the call from John, any idiot could figure that out.

“It was nothing,” he’d said.

Right. At one in the morning? Your boss calls at 1
A.M.
and it’s nothing? Who did Andrew think he was kidding?

Dorsey drove to the diner she’d seen a few blocks from the motel on the way into Hatton and took a seat at the counter. She wanted a real breakfast, one with toast and eggs and bacon and home fries—not grits, she specified to the waitress who took her order—and coffee.

While she waited for her food, Dorsey tried again to reach her father without success and was forced to leave another message. “This is your daughter. Please call me as soon as you get this message.”

What the hell was it with the men in her life today?

Not that Andrew was a “man in her life,” she reminded herself.

When she was alone, she could admit to herself she liked him a lot more than she’d expected to. More than she really wanted to. Her fingers traced the path his lips had taken the night before, from her mouth to her chin. Best not to dwell on that. She recalled in excruciating detail what happened the last time she got involved with someone she worked with. Of course, she apparently wasn’t working with Andrew, not anymore.

She finished her breakfast and paid her bill, then walked outside from the cool air-conditioned diner into the muggy morning. What to do with herself now, was the question.

She drove back past the motel to see if Andrew had returned, but he had not. She drove past the Randalls’ house on Sylvan to see if anything was going on there, but all appeared quiet. She swung around to Paula Rose’s street and drove slowly past the church. Kids were gathering outside, with backpacks over their shoulders, and coolers at their feet. Judging by the number of adults who had gathered around the church van, there was some sort of picnic or outing planned. She slowed again as Paula Rose came out of the back of her house and walked across the parking lot to the church next door. She chatted with the maintenance man Dorsey and Andrew had spoken with.

When Paula Rose disappeared into the church, Dorsey turned off the engine and watched for a while. When ten minutes had passed, she started up the car again and drove off, with no particular destination in mind. She wasn’t even sure why she’d driven to the church, except to have a place to go.

She drove hesitantly, not knowing which way to turn when she reached the stop sign at the end of the street. She was restless and feeling put out, and wondering if perhaps she shouldn’t go on back to Florida, back to working on her own cases. “Fat chance,” she muttered. She wasn’t going to leave until she was sent home.

A right turn would take her back toward the Randalls’. A left would take her out of town. She took the left, the road less traveled, and all that.

She wondered if John Mancini had given any thought to her request to join his unit. She had the feeling that her time here in Hatton might have been a test, and she couldn’t help wondering if she’d passed or failed.

Her cell phone rang and her hand reached out to grab it before it could ring a second time. She couldn’t answer it fast enough.

“Collins.”

“Miss Collins?”

Dorsey’s heart fell just a little. It wasn’t Andrew’s voice, but a woman’s.

“Who is this, please?” Dorsey asked.

“Miss Collins, this is Edith Chiong. Shannon’s roommate.”

“Yes, Edith, of course. I remember you.” Dorsey paused. “How are you?”

“I am fine. I’m trying to reach Agent Shields, but he hasn’t returned my call. Then I remembered I had your card.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I, I have something I want to—you see, I’m leaving for Cincinnati and I want to make sure…but I don’t know…” She spoke quickly, then stopped.

“What is it, Edith?”

“I need to see you or Agent Shields before I leave Deptford.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Tonight. I have a ticket for the bus that leaves at six o’clock.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m at the apartment. It’s on—”

“I remember.”

“Do you think you could come here? There’s something I have to give you.”

“What’s that?”

“Shannon’s diary.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Teach you to ignore my calls, Agent Shields.” Dorsey made a U-turn and headed back through the center of Hatton, then stepped on it once she got to the open highway. By noon she was knocking on the door of the apartment Edith Chiong had shared with Shannon Randall.

“I should have called before,” Edith said when she opened the door. “I should have told you before.”

“You’re telling me now.” Dorsey stepped inside and noticed the two small suitcases that stood in the middle of the living room. The furniture was gone except for a folding chair and the coffee table.

“I sold almost everything,” Edith explained.

“You mentioned you were going to Cincinnati. Do you have relatives there? A friend?”

“No.” She shook her dark head. “I heard about this place they have there. It’s for girls like me. Working girls? They help you make changes in your life.”

“Off the Streets?” Dorsey had heard of the program, newly begun in several cities across the country, that was formed to help prostitutes find another way of life.

“Yes, that’s it.” Edith smiled shyly. “A girl downtown told me about it. She left a few months ago and I heard from one of the other girls that she’s doing real good. She’s staying there at the shelter they have. She said the people there are real nice. I thought it might be worth a try.”

“It’s definitely worth it. Good for you, Edith.”

“Shannon and I used to talk about it, getting out of the life, you know? She didn’t get the chance.” Edith’s eyes welled.

“But you can. You’re taking it.”

Edith wiped her face with the side of her hand.

“You’re going to do fine, Edith. It’s a good first step.”

“I hope so. I hope I can.” She cleared her throat and stuck her hands in her pocket, and suddenly looked very young.

“You said on the phone…”

“Shannon’s diary.” Edith nodded. “Yes. I have it.” Edith reached into a large white leather handbag sitting on the floor near the door leading to the kitchen.

“I knew I had to give it to you. I just wanted to read it a few more times. When I read it I can hear her voice in my head, you know?”

She handed it to Dorsey.

“I wanted to keep it.”

The diary had a dirty white faux-leather cover and a lock that had long ago been broken.

“I don’t know if there’s anything in there that could help you find the person who killed her, but I thought maybe you’d see something I didn’t.”

“Thank you, Edith.” Dorsey slipped the diary into her own bag.

“What will happen to it?” Edith asked anxiously.

“It depends on what’s in it. If she talked about the night she left Hatton…”

Edith shook her head. “She didn’t write about that.”

“Then maybe there’s no reason for us to keep it. Look, I’ll read it through, and if there’s nothing in here that can help us solve the case, I’ll see what I can do about having it returned to you.”

“You will?”

Dorsey nodded. “Just make sure I know where you are, once you get there.”

“I will. Definitely.” Edith smiled. “It’s just that, I don’t have a lot of her, you know? She didn’t leave much behind.”

“By the way, where did you find the diary?”

“It was under her mattress. In an envelope.” Edith laughed. “The envelope said
Carnival
on it, so I wasn’t sure what was in it.”

“Edith, do you still have that envelope?”

She nodded. “Did you want that, too?”

“If I could.”

“Sure.” Edith took the brown envelope from the bag and gave it to Dorsey. “If you think it could help you.”

“I don’t know if it will, but maybe it will come in handy.” Dorsey smiled her thanks.

Dorsey had driven six miles out of Deptford before stopping at a convenience store. She went in and purchased a large soft drink with a lot of ice, then drove to the back of the lot and parked under a live oak with a huge sheltering canopy. She moved the seat back as far as it would go, got comfortable, and began to read. Shannon Randall had been twelve when she’d started to write in her diary. In it she’d recorded all the things that are important to girls of that age. What happened at school. What movies she saw. Who said what—did what—to whom. Who liked who that day, that week, that month. What grade she got on her history test. What silly thing happened in homeroom. What it was like to go from junior high to high school.

Dorsey sipped her cool drink and read it, cover to cover. When she finished, she closed the book gently and placed it on the seat next to her.

Before starting the car and heading back to Hatton, Dorsey placed another call to Andrew.

“I have Shannon’s diary. I found one of the missing pieces of the puzzle. Not a big piece, maybe, but still, it’s something. Guess you’re going to have to start returning calls if you want to know what it is.”

Dorsey headed back toward Hatton, but couldn’t get there fast enough. Her first stop would be her motel room. She needed the list of names and addresses Judith had given them the first time she and Andrew had visited the Randall home. She hoped it was among the notes she’d kept in her folder, and not in Andrew’s briefcase.

She all but flew into the motel parking lot, kicking up some pebbles as she rounded the corner. She turned the key in the door and went right to the desk where she’d left the notes she’d been making all week. Relieved to see that the information she needed was there, she was back into her car within minutes of having left it. She drove straight out of town, following the directions Judith had given them. She turned right two blocks past the center of town; at 1813 Meadowlark Lane, she parked the car and got out.

The two-story colonial was perhaps a decade old and well landscaped. Dorsey admired the flowering shrubs and lush flower beds that lined either side of the walk as she approached the front door. She rang the bell and waited. The woman who answered appeared to be in her mid-thirties. She was trim and pretty and held a toddler in her arms.

“Yes?” the woman asked.

“Kimmie White?”

“Kim White was my maiden name, yes.” She tilted her head slightly, as if about to ask a question.

“I’m Special Agent Collins, FBI.” Dorsey held up her badge for the women’s inspection. “I’d like to talk to you about the Shannon Randall investigation.”