Level Five (23 page)

             
“Thank you.”

             
He frowned as he watched her unwrap the sandwich.  He didn’t want to talk about her appetite.  He wanted to talk about his mother, about his horrible childhood.  He wanted her to know, to understand that some people might think he was a monster, but more than that he was a victim. 

             
More than anything the balled up plastic from the sandwich she’d eaten the night before irritated him.  Didn’t she know that plastic could be used again?  That it shouldn’t be balled up like trash but straightened out and neatly folded?

             
“If you don’t mind, I’ll eat the orange later,” she said as she finished the last of the sandwich and balled up the wrapper in her hand.

             
Tension pooled in the pit of Anthony’s stomach, a tension that built with each breath he took.  The plastic.  It didn’t belong on the floor scrunched up like that.  That’s the way
she
had done things. 

He’d lived in a sea of chaos because
she’d
been too lazy to make order.  A place for everything and everything in its place. That’s what made him different, that’s what made him better than her.

             
He could stand the sight of the plastic no longer.  He jumped out of his chair and stalked over to the two plastic wrappers.  He leaned down and snatched them up, vaguely aware of Edie pulling her knees to her chest and lowering her head into a defensive position.

             
“Look at me,” he yelled.  He held out the plastic as she raised her head just enough for him to see her simmering blue eyes.  “There’s a place for these things.  You think I’m like her, that I just let things lay around?” 

He kicked her in the side, her sharp intake of breath not enough to ease his pain. He kicked her again…and again, until finally her cries of pain soothed some of the taut tension inside him.

              He suddenly became aware that she was saying something over and over again.  A prayer?  Prayers wouldn’t work here.  A mantra of some kind?  He stepped back from her in confusion as her words became audible.

             
“My name is Edie Carpenter.  My name is Edie Carpenter.”  She finally raised her head, her eyes awash with tears.  “My name is Edie Carpenter and I love buttered popcorn.”

             
He stumbled back from her, confused and slightly disoriented.  Edie Carpenter.  She was Edie Carpenter and not his mother.

The sharp awareness of her identity somehow ruined things and his desire to hurt her ebbed away. 

He drew several deep breaths and became aware of the plastic balls in his hand.  He squeezed and released, squeezed and released as the last of his anger dissipated.

             
He took the first wrapper and walked back to his folding chair where he carefully straightened it out on the seat. When there were no wrinkles in it he folded it in half, and then folded it again.  He did the same with the second wrapper. As he methodically worked, his anxiety slowly finally fell away.

             
When he was finished he looked at her.  She was lying on the floor, half-broken by his kicking fit, but her eyes held an intelligence that rose above whatever physical pain she must be feeling.

             
He held up the neatly folded plastic.  “This is perfectly good to use again.  I don’t throw out paper or plastic. But, I’m not like her.  I have a place for everything.”

             
Still holding the neat plastic wrap, with his other hand he folded the chair and picked it up.  He was afraid to remain any longer, afraid that he might lose his temper. He wasn’t ready to be done with her yet. 

They still had so much work to do together.

              He left the room, set the folding chair just inside the kitchen then closed and locked the door of the paper room. He carried the folded plastic to the countertop where thousands of folded plastic wrap were contained in two plastic bins.

             
It was only as he set the new wrappers into one of the bins that the he shuddered with the last gasp of emotion. He slowly headed upstairs to his bedroom.   

              Jake awoke with a start, surprised to find himself on the sofa in Edie’s house. The edges of dusk moved in outside the windows.

             
It had been around six that he’d sat on the sofa to take a break, to regroup after he, Teddy and two more Detectives had spent most of the day carefully checking the back yard for the cell phone.  Chief Decker had assigned the same two to the case that had been there the day before to investigate the poisoned dog. 

             
The Detectives had spent much of the day checking with neighbors and combing through the front yard in search of the phone.

             
The search had stopped at noon when pizza that Teddy ordered had been delivered.  Teddy insisted Jake sit and eat. When Jake rejected the idea it was the first time he’d seen his partner angry.  

             
He’d finally given in and had managed to choke down one piece of the pie. Then he’d returned to the large yard, going over it inch by agonizing inch to see if the cell phone was there.

             
He stirred from the sofa and realized he was alone in the house. Everyone had gone home to their wives or families.  It was growing too dark to continue any search.

             
Pulling himself to a sitting position he swiped a hand down his face, knowing there was little more that could be done tonight and dreading the next day.

             
It was time to go public, to make up posters and ask the public if they’d seen Edie.  It was time to acknowledge that she hadn’t just gone off in a pique but was in danger.

             
The unexpected nap had left him half-groggy and he was grateful for the numbness that had taken over his senses, keeping his emotions at bay for the moment.

             
He didn’t know what to do next.  He didn’t know how to save her.  He knew that just because the other Detectives weren’t here with him, it didn’t mean they weren’t still working the case. 

             
They’d be checking her bank records, looking for unusual charge activity on her credit cards.  They’d be on the phones, attempting to find somebody who knew something.  Jake knew they had called Edie’s mother who said she hadn’t seen her daughter in years.  Jake wasn’t surprised.  Edie had been a missing person in her mother’s life since the day Francine had been murdered.

             
Unable to sit still, knowing that any more sleep would prove impossible, Jake grabbed his car keys and headed for the front door.

             
Up until this point, there had been a tiny little bit of hope in his heart that Edie had gone off somewhere to think about her life, to think about him.  That hope had died throughout the day.

             
All he wanted was for things to go back the way they were.  He wanted Edie home and sitting at her computer in a pair of sexy panties and a worn T-shirt, bitching about the heat and falling into his arms.  He wanted Rufus dancing around the table as he and Edie made breakfast together.  He tightened his hands on the steering wheel.  God, he wanted her back so badly, on any terms.

             
The numbness took over again as he pulled into the driveway where the sign announced he’d arrived at the Healthy Pet Animal Clinic.  He didn’t drive up to the neat little ranch house, but rather drove past it to a long, low building with fenced areas on either side.

             
Jake had been here several times when Edie had brought Rufus in for his shots and once because Rufus was limping and neither he nor Edie could figure out why.  A bee stinger in the pad of Rufus’s foot had been the culprit. Once it was removed, Rufus happily danced back to the car.

             
As he parked the car his stomach tensed.  Dr. Burrows called earlier in the day to say that Rufus had made it through the night but it was still touch and go.

             
The front door of the building led to a reception area.  Jake knew it was a family operation and the only person who occasionally ran the receptionist desk was Ed Burrows’ wife, Sarah.  

             
Sarah wasn’t present at the desk, but the door that led into the examining rooms and actual clinic opened and Dr. Burrows greeted Jake.  “Detective Warner, I assumed either you or Edie would show up here sooner or later.”

             
“Edie’s missing.”  The words clawed from Jake’s throat with scratchy emotion he barely controlled.  He quickly told the older man about the search that had begun, a search that so far had yielded no results.

             
“At least I have a bit of good news,” Dr. Burrows said.  “I think Rufus has turned the corner.  I suspect he ingested some sort of rat poisoning and that it was delivered by way of a piece of steak.  I found a piece of meat still in his throat.”

             
“So, the poisoning was deliberate,” Jake said flatly.  He’d suspected as much.  But he also knew that like most dogs Rufus was curious and he’d thought it possible the dog had gotten into something poisonous on the property.

             
“Definitely deliberate,” the vet said, obvious irritation in his eyes.  “I don’t understand people who do things like this.  I can’t understand anyone who preys on the weak.”

             
“Can I see Rufus?”

             
Dr. Burrows nodded.  “Follow me.”  He led Jake through the door, past the examining rooms and into a small surgery facility. From the room where Jake knew animals were boarded came the sound of raucous barking.

“He’s still pretty weak, but he’s definitely a little fighter.  I’ve been pumping liquids in him and in the last couple of hours he appears more alert so I’ve stopped the liquids.”  Dr. Burrows raised his voice to be heard above the dogs.  “I’ve kept him isolated so he doesn’t get too anxious.”

He opened a door that led to a smaller room with a large pen. In the center of the pen was Rufus.  He lay on his side, as if too exhausted to rise, but as he saw Jake his tail thumped once.

“Can I sit with him for a little while?” Jake asked.

“As long as you want.  I’m heading to the house.  Just let me know when you leave so I can come back out and lock up.”

             
Minutes later Jake entered the pen and sank down next to Rufus, who crawled to him and laid his head in Jake’s lap. The room was silent except for the sound of Rufus’s slightly labored breathing.

             
“It’s going to be all right, buddy.  Everything is going to be fine.”  As Jake stroked Rufus’s soft fur the emotions he’d been stuffing since the moment he’d realized Rufus was in trouble and Edie was gone, began to spill from him.

             
She had to be okay.  Edie was a fighter. She was smart…smarter than any woman Jake had ever met. But, he’d investigated the murders of lots of smart, savvy women who had found themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time.

             
Would you wait for me for three years?

             
Edie’s question played and replayed in his mind.  He’d told her at that time he’d wait forever for her.  But he didn’t want to wait three years or forever.  He needed her now.

              As the tight control he’d fought so hard to maintain slipped, he leaned his head into Rufus’s fur and began to cry.

                      
Chapter 23

              “My name is Edie Carpenter and I love Mr. Wok’s sweet and sour chicken.”  Edie stood in the center of the paper room, her body aching with the abuse it had taken the night before. 

             
By her estimation she’d been gone for three days and two nights. That made it Friday. She had come to realize that the sound of water running was Anthony showering for work in the morning. When he appeared with the folding chair and a sandwich it was evening.

             
She’d saved the orange he’d given her the night before and

had
eaten it this morning.  Remembering the debacle with the plastic wrap, she’d stared at the orange rind in her hands, unsure what to do with it, save it in case he had a special place for it?  Hide it someplace where he wouldn’t see it?  To solve the problem she’d eaten it.