Now You See It (4 page)

“Timothy,
bí ciúin!”
Mike said, raising his voice a little to be heard over the mayhem.

The uproar stopped.

“So, the whole family’s learning Irish, huh?” Brady said. “I haven’t heard that since I was a kid in Canada. Neighbor’s grandma used to yell at us kids. She’d wave a wooden spoon around in the air—scared us silly when we were little.”

Mike chuckled. “Ma was an Irish speaker from Donegal. She made sure our first language was Irish, but we forgot most of it when we got older and too cool to speak anything but English. I want Tim to learn as much as I can teach him.”

Brady nodded. “Languages are good.”

“Yeah. You speak how many?”

“Classified,” Brady said out of the corner of his mouth and grinned. “Nothing as cool as Irish, though. Maybe I should learn.”

Gemma had to admit, he had a nice smile. Mischievous. The corners of that long mouth sort of folded into lines in his cheeks, and his teeth looked strong and translucent. She found herself watching his mouth and wondering how it would taste. She wanted to fidget, but held still with an effort, and tried to concentrate on Mike as he began to pour.

The first tart-sweet swallow of margarita hit her empty stomach with a punch that left her fingertips tingling and her mind just a little distanced, like the first breaths of laughing gas in the dentist’s chair. She gulped down a few more swallows until her throat felt frozen. For now, she’d take all the numbness she could get and deal with the headache later.

Gemma watched in silence as Mike sat next to her and pulled his chair close. He waited until Mary Kate and Brady were talking, and pitched his voice under the level of conversation, but Gemma could hear him clearly enough.

“You’re going to have to tell me everything, Gemma.
Every
thing. I know you’ve held back most of the cr—” he glanced toward Timothy “—details,” he finished. “But that stops, right now, between us. Have you got that? I can’t protect you unless I know all there is to know from your side.”

She stared at him. “Okay,” she said in a remote voice. “But I can’t think.”

He peered at her, then at her empty glass. “How many of these have you had?”

“Just one.”

“What have you had to eat today?”

She looked down and off to the side, trying to remember, but nothing came to mind.

Mary Kate touched Gemma’s hand, but her eyes sought Mike’s. “Brady and I will be fine out here. There’s more munchies in the fridge. I can see dinner’s going to be awhile.”

* * *

Brady picked up his glass and took a quick sip as he watched Gemma’s unsteady progress up the porch steps.

He’d missed what Mary Kate was saying, and now she had that amused twinkle in her eye married women get when they think they’ve got you all figured out. Okay. Maybe it wasn’t that hard in his case. He had been pretty obviously sizing up her sister-in-law.

He grinned at her. “Sorry, M-K. Listen, I’ve got some stuff to do, so I’m going to take off. Tell Mike I’ll bring his car back first thing in the morning.”

* * *

Gemma sat across from Mike at the small kitchen table, eating crisp sesame crackers he spread with rich cheese and handed to her as she babbled through a tequila-loosened brain.

She bit into another cracker and brushed her tongue over a crumb on her lip. The food and a glass of strong iced tea were helping to clear the fog from her mind and settle her jumpy stomach.

Gemma shook herself. “I don’t have very good luck, do I? First Dad, then Trev, now Ned. The men I love all die. Even the ones I don’t love.”

“And that makes me, what? Corned beef? Shit happens, Gemma. The Irish know that better than anybody.”

Gemma wiped tears away with the side of her hand.

Mary Kate knocked a warning and stepped into the kitchen. “That’s enough, Mike,” she said after a glance at Gemma. “The poor kid looks done in.” She turned and burrowed into the refrigerator, emerging with a heaped plate of wrapped sub sandwiches and a large pottery bowl with a smaller plate balanced on top.

“What have you got there?” Mike took the bowl as they followed Gemma out into the yard.

“I thought we should get started. We all need food. The chicken is for Timmy, because he’s starting to get cranky, and he hates sandwiches this week.”

A half hour later, replete and still feeling slightly dreamy, Gemma let the evening wash over her, her gaze resting on Timothy as he yawned into his plate of chicken nuggets and carrot sticks, until Mike stood and stretched.

“Come on, Rocket Man, time for bed,” he said, scooping the groggy little boy off his chair and carrying him into the house.

Gemma stood slowly and took a deep breath of the evening air. “I think I’ll turn in, too.”

“I’ve set you up in the spare room,” Mary Kate said.

Gemma bent to kiss her sister-in-law’s cheek. “Thanks, M-K. You’re the best sister I could ever have.”

* * *

Maybe it’s the potato salad that’s keeping me awake,
Gemma thought as she tossed and kicked at the covers. She hung half waking as emotions crashed and overlapped like waves on a beach. How could Ned be dead? She couldn’t believe it. Murdered. She shuddered. Loathing popped to the surface, shouldering out horror.

She’d been so stupid about Ned. Still too shocked from Trevor’s death, feeling so lost, so empty. And along came this handsome, articulate, sophisticated guy who seemed to worship the ground she stumbled across. He’d swept her off her feet, and she’d let it all happen too fast.

Mike had tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen. No one she knew really liked Ned, but she’d ignored all that and started shutting people out. Doing things Ned’s way. Eloping had been his idea. He’d kept pointing out how miserable it would be to have a formal wedding with everyone on her side of the church hating the whole idea. She’d been in some sort of emotional bubble, just floating along. She’d convinced herself she could be a good wife, but she hadn’t really loved him. Not like she had loved Trev. Trevor. The love of her life since the eighth grade. Sweethearts, best friends, lovers. She’d been so proud when he and Mike joined the Navy together right after college. Mike went into Intelligence, just as he’d always planned. Trevor—merry, loving, daredevil Trevor—fulfilled his life’s dream and became a pilot.

And three weeks before their wedding, he was gone in a ball of flame against a mountain in Bosnia. The Navy said it was mechanical failure, but that seemed too pale, too ordinary a thing to have extinguished someone so full of life and joy.

She punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape, but her mind kept racing.
Damn Ned.
The son of a bitch had ripped her life down, again. Okay, being murdered probably hadn’t been his idea—she’d grant him that much. But the effect was the same. It wasn’t his fault. Or maybe it was. Maybe he’d pushed the wrong person too far. God knew, there had been times she’d wished she could slip something into his soup, back when she’d cared enough to feel anything at all.

Now she was going to have to care again because he’d be in her face, everywhere she turned, until they caught the guy who killed him. She’d like to punch
that
s.o.b. for throwing her back into all this. Or kiss him for ridding the planet of that perverted slime ball.

Rats!
Okay. They could give the guy a medal and
then
shoot him.

She wondered what had happened to Ned. And how he’d ended up at Bob’s cabin.

He’d taken her to that cabin once, for a party. She’d felt completely out of place among the sleek, world-weary crowd of his friends. They made her feel gauche and naïve, just the way Ned did. No one had missed her when she wandered out of the house and spent the afternoon sailing alone on the little lake.

Gemma jerked the comforter off the floor and tugged one corner over to cover her feet. She didn’t have the energy for this any longer. Resentment swelled under her solar plexus and she clenched her teeth hard enough to make her ears hurt. The sharp little pain reminded her to take a deep breath and keep breathing.
Just keep breathing.

She finally dropped off into half dreams, where the cabin guests all watched her in a way that made her think of old vampire movies. Brady hovered around the edges of the crowd, juggling a keyboard and a huge margarita. Ned was there, charming, smiling, then dead, splayed across the deck, still smiling as Brady turned into a wolf and bit her with strong white teeth.

The throbbing of her orgasm was so intense it startled her awake. It had been so long since she’d felt this aroused. Since Trevor’s death. Almost seven years. Way too long. Maybe she was ready to come back into the world of the living after all. And Brady McWhatzis might be just what the corpsman ordered to tempt her over the threshold. She stared into the darkness. Every time her pulse and breathing subsided, she pulled the dream images back into herself and felt the sharp thrill all over again.

If Brady did try to bite her, she just might let him.

Chapter Four

“Come on in.” Mike led Brady down the hall. “We can talk in the kitchen. “Gemma’s still asleep and it was M-K’s turn to drive Tim to school this morning. What’ve you been able to find out?”

Brady sat on a stool at the kitchen counter. “This wasn’t your everyday domestic homicide.” he said, and accepted the cup of coffee Mike held out to him. “The Pierce County cops are saying it was one of the worst crime scenes they’ve ever walked into. The guy was tied to a chair—what was left of him. He was alive and probably awake when they started carving on him.”

“Carving? Jesus. What’d they do to him?”

“There’s a guy in the ME’s office used to patch up the Frog Guys,” Brady said, using a phrase SEALs used to refer to themselves. “He said they’ve got one big, messy jigsaw puzzle. It’s going to take at least a full day just to put all the pieces back together.”

“Think they were after information?”

Brady shook his head, once. “He’d have told them everything he knew in the first couple of minutes, probably less. No, whoever did it was really into their work, and didn’t much care about how messy things got. They enjoyed it. Rage, sadism—I don’t know. It was a fucking horror show. Guy said it was like a big stump tied to a chair in the middle of a lake of blood with pieces everywhere, like the doer had flung them around with the point of the knife.”

Mike whistled through his teeth.

“Yeah. The thing is, there were photos on the body, on the floor, in the blood, everywhere. Dozens of them.”

“Photos of what? The murder?”

Brady folded his arms across his chest. Unfolded them. Reached for his coffee, but didn’t drink. “Sex photos. Carrow with different women. One photo in particular they’re holding close to the chest. Not sure why.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. The whole scene’s a little over the top for a pissed-off wife, even a redhead.” He flicked an eyebrow upward and shot Mike a look out of the corner of his eye. “Cops are looking her direction, though. Not too hard right now, but they are.”

Mike snorted. “Gemma? Not a chance. She’d never use a knife—she’s too impatient. She might empty a clip into the guy, given enough provocation, but what you’re describing is insane.”

“Cops think so too. They’re looking at her maybe hiring somebody to do him, but their main thinking at the moment is Asian gangs. The women in the photos were Asian.”

“Revenge killing? He messed with someone’s wife? Daughter, maybe?”

Brady shrugged.

“There’s always been something just a tad wrong about Ned,” Mike said. “Never could pin it down. Just got my fur itchy. I was sure he was going to do something to Gemma to get even for divorcing him. I’m glad somebody got him first, but I wish she didn’t have to go through all this.”

He got up and pulled a paper towel off the roll to wipe up the few drops of coffee on the counter. “We’ve got an interview with the Pierce County detectives at ten thirty. It’s been moved to Seattle. Any ideas what that’s about?”

Brady shook his head. “Something to do with the photos, from what info I’ve been able to pick up. They link to an ongoing case, but it’s being kept really quiet.”

“Any threads you can pull with your Task Force buddies? Is Tran Nguyen still head honcho over there?”

“Far as I know. I’ll see what I can find out.”

“Maybe we’ll learn something at the interview.” Mike glanced at his watch. “Listen, Brady, I’ve got court today. Can you clear your schedule to stay with Gemma this afternoon? I don’t think she should be alone until somebody figures out what’s going on.”

“Not a problem. Give me a call when you need me.” He paused a beat. “One more thing before anyone gets up,” Brady looked down the hall, “or gets back. You didn’t tell your sister about me, about the Team, did you?” Mike gave him a “Puh-leeze” look from under heavy red eyebrows.

“That’s what I thought.”

* * *

Oh, terrific
, Gemma thought as she inched her way across Mike’s kitchen toward the coffee pot on the far counter.
What’s he doing here again?
She so didn’t want him to see her looking like this. Her swollen eyes felt like lead, and she had seen her face in the bathroom mirror, pale and puffy. A cool washcloth and an extra minute with the toothbrush had helped, but she knew she needed about a quart of strong coffee and another four hours of sleep to feel fully human.

Well, coffee would have to do. And she would try to be polite to Brady, no matter how irritating it was to have to deal with a sexy almost-stranger in jogging clothes at 7 a.m. Maybe he could just jog right on out. He’d been in her face since yesterday. Okay. That wasn’t fair. He did leave. But even when he was gone, she couldn’t get him out of her head. And it was wearing really thin, dammit. She braced herself as an aftershock from last night’s dream rippled through her. She could admit he was distracting. Or rather,
it
was distracting, having him there. How was she supposed to think? Her brains felt scrambled whenever she got within a few feet of him—and it would be a little obvious to drag a chair across to the far side of the room when he and Mike were sitting at the kitchen table, cozy as kittens in a basket.

He was turned away, but he must have heard her coming down the hall, because he stiffened a little and stopped talking.

Mike cleared his throat and looked apologetic. “I asked Brady to stay until you woke up. I hope you don’t mind having him here, Gemma. He’s had more experience with the other side of the law than I have.”

Gemma lifted an inquisitive eyebrow and helped herself to coffee. “Other side? You’re a criminal?”

Brady laughed. “Cop,” he said, still grinning.

She felt the blood rise in her cheeks as she met his eyes, and hoped it would pass for embarrassment at her blunder.

Mike looked from one to the other and pursed his lips.

“I’ve got to get rolling, Mike.” Brady pushed his coffee cup away. “Tran’s taking me back to my car.”

“Tran’s here in Seattle?”

Brady gave him a straight look. “Yeah. I’ll see about those threads you want me to pull.”

“Tell him I said hi. You’ll be around later?”

Brady’s dark eyes flicked toward Gemma. “Yeah,” he said again. He nodded to Gemma and strode to the door.

The room felt different when he was gone. Emptier. Gemma hated to admit it, even to herself.
Damn
. “I like him.”

“I noticed.”

“You can stop grinning,” she said. “Just what does he do, exactly?”

“Internet security for law firms, some large corporations.”

“That doesn’t fit him.”

“I didn’t phrase that right. He’s a penetration tester-cum-security consultant. He hacks their systems—under contract. They know it’s coming—and then he shows them how to make their data safer. Back in the day, he was with the SEAL teams, and later he worked a couple of years for one of the alphabet agencies as a consultant.” Mike put just enough emphasis on the last word to let her know there was more to it than sitting behind a desk.

“I thought he said he was a cop.”

“Yeah. Sort of.”

“Oh.” That meant
classified
. Terrific. A spook? Just peachy.

“This is his latest gig,” Mike said. “I’m glad it seems to be working for him. He was in pretty bad shape when he left the Team.”

She wanted badly to know more about Mike’s taciturn friend, but she needed to change the subject. It was too easy to go on talking about him and she wasn’t sure she could deal with anything more, right now. “What time is our interview with the guys from Pierce County?” she said as she walked over to the fridge for another sploosh of milk.

“Ten thirty. And it’s going to be in Seattle. I’m not sure why the Seattle P.D. is involved. Yet. Brady’s checking on that. Look, I know Dad told us about interviews a zillion times, but I need you to remember the crucial things. Take a breath after they finish asking each question. For one thing, that gives me time to talk, if I need to. If I don’t jump in, then answer exactly what they ask. Don’t volunteer anything.”

“At least a zillion times.” She closed the refrigerator door and crossed back over to the table. The concern and love in Mike’s voice as he repeated the too-familiar admonitions reminded her of happier days, when all she needed was the comfort of her big brother’s presence to make the world safe and warm. She smiled at him, but couldn’t hold back tears. “I’ll remember.”

Mike stared at her, his face grim. “Sit down, Gemma.”

She was glad to sit. Mike’s expression had loosened her knees and dried the spit in her mouth.

“Brady did some checking around downtown.” He took a deep breath. “Listen, Gemma, there’s no easy way to say this. Ned’s death was ugly—”

She started to speak, but he cut her off.

“Worse than you can imagine, okay?” He rubbed his chin and mouth, and wrapped his hands around his coffee mug. “I know you too well to soften this up. The cops are thinking now it was an Asian gang. A revenge killing. Add in the connection to Doug Wheeler, and you need to be ready for a big media mess. They’re already camped outside your house.” He cleared his throat. “One more thing. When the cops came, you said, ‘This time. He’s really dead this time.’ They caught it, and so did I.”

She turned her head away. “Two years ago, when Ned was on a trip to Portland, I got a call from someone pretending to be a Portland police officer, saying Ned was dead, that he’d been killed in a car wreck and could I come down to identify the remains.”

“They don’t do that.”

“I wasn’t thinking. I was on a lot of medication because it was a touchy pregnancy, and I was supposed to stay really calm. He showed up a couple of hours later. Ha, ha. Surprise. Fooled you. He acted like it was all just a big practical joke.”

“Motherfucker.”

“Yeah.” She swallowed hard. “It was too late. I’d already started having contractions.”

* * *

As they came to a stop outside the interview rooms, Mike took Gemma’s hand. “Ready for this?”

“As ready as I’m going to get.” It was hard to keep from rubbing the goose bumps on her arms. Part of it was the chill inside the police station—the air conditioning had to be working overtime, and the cold shocked her after the heat outside. But even worse was the oppressive weight on her chest that made her want to reach for a medi-haler, or throw open a window, no matter if the outside air was already sweltering hot. Even at the reception desk, she had to work at not returning the challenging, unblinking stare of the officer who led them back through a door into a corridor that was wide enough for two or three large men to walk down side by side. But it still felt airless and cramped, as if helplessness and rage had fused to the gray-green walls, forcing the oxygen out of the air around her. The bland color was no doubt intended to be soothing, but for Gemma it just added to the sense of being trapped in an underwater cave.

Their escort stopped halfway down the hallway, in front of one of the nondescript doors spaced along the length of the wall. Gemma took a deep breath. Mike touched her shoulder as if to get her attention, but whatever he was going to say was cut off by the arrival of Olsen and Abernathy and a tall, competent-looking African-American man they introduced as Detective Lyons, from Seattle.

They shook hands all around.

All Gemma’s senses alerted as she took a seat at the table in the claustrophobic little room. The big mirror on the wall might have added a sense of space, if she hadn’t been so aware there were almost certain to be people on the other side watching, studying her every reaction, every response. Her nostrils flared at the throat-clogging reek of disinfectant and stress sweat. She concentrated on keeping her body still, her demeanor composed, even though she wanted to toss her head like a frightened horse and run for safety.

“Keep your hands on the table,” Mike had told her. “Just pretend it’s poker.” She was good at poker. Not lucky, but good at bluffing. Would they think she was bluffing now?
Swell
.

He gave her arm a reassuring squeeze as Abernathy and Olsen took seats across the table, and Lyons drew a chair over from the wall to sit beside them.

Olsen pulled out a small recorder. “Ready?” he said.

Mike nodded, and the session began.

The first questions covered the same ground as yesterday’s interview, establishing her identity and Mike’s, her address, her whereabouts over the weekend.

Then Olsen shifted in his chair. “How was your relationship with the deceased?”

As Mike had instructed, Gemma waited a beat before answering, in case he had something to interpose. This time, he didn’t. “My husband and I were separated, but the divorce wasn’t final.”

“When did he move out of the house?”

“June seventeenth.”

“Was the separation amicable?”

“I suppose,” she said. “As much as something like that can be. I think we were both happier to be separated.” Her life had certainly been easier without him around. She didn’t think saying so would be at all helpful.

Olsen nodded, and to Gemma’s astonishment, asked, “How do you get along with your mother-in-law?”

“Julia? I barely know her. She and Ned had some long-standing feud going, and it spilled over onto me. I think that was the problem. I know she’s never forgiven him for marrying me.”

“When did you speak with her last?”

“Last night. I called yesterday afternoon to tell her Ned was dead.” Gemma grimaced. “She called back twice to yell and swear at me. I haven’t taken her calls this morning. When I see it’s her on caller ID, I don’t answer. It’s not very charitable of me, I guess, but I just can’t do it right now.”

“Did you know she’s asked for your husband’s body?”

“No, but it doesn’t really surprise me,” Gemma answered.

“So, when did you last see your husband?”

“Thursday. He came by to pick up some more of his clothes and things.”

“Did you argue?”

“No. Not at all. It was all very civilized.”
Julia would have been proud of us, the old battle-axe.

“Did he seem worried or preoccupied at that time?”

Gemma quirked an eyebrow downward. “Preoccupied. A little stressed, maybe.” That sounded better than “childish and pissy.”