Nowhere Safe (20 page)

“I’ve changed my mind. If it’s bad news, spit it out and let’s get it over with.”

“I’m moving to Portland permanently. That’s all.”

That’s
all
? she wanted to scream. She hadn’t realized how much it meant to be working in the same department as her twin. Sure, she’d scarcely seen him since she’d been promoted to detective, but she’d felt him with her, at least. A partner, a friend, an ally.

“Well, good luck with that,” she said, then she clicked off, knowing she was being an ungrateful bitch and not caring—much. Okay, she cared, but he was really pissing her off.

As soon as she hung up she remembered she’d wanted him to connect her with Jake. She hadn’t talked to him since she left this morning and she really wanted to hear his voice. If she couldn’t depend on her brother, she could at least depend on her boyfriend.
Boyfriend,
she thought. She detested that term because it didn’t say enough about their relationship. Fiancé said too much, but goddammit, why wasn’t there something in between?

She walked into the hospital with a dark cloud hanging over her head. Everybody and everything was bugging her, and yes, she knew, probably, that it was mostly coming from inside herself, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t
pissed off.

“Detective Rafferty with the Laurelton PD,” she said tersely to the woman behind the curving front desk. “I’m checking on a surgical patient who’s now in recovery: Stefan Harmak.”

Behind the woman, carved out of wood, was a hand-hewn plaque with the image of three Douglas firs chiseled into it and the words LAURELTON GENERAL HOSPITAL.

New art, she decided, grudgingly admitting to herself that it was better than the plain metal letters that had spelled out the hospital’s name without any adornment.

The woman checked her computer, then asked, “Did Dr. Rajput call you?”

“No one’s called me. I was here last night when Mr. Harmak was brought in and taken to surgery. I’ve asked to be updated, but so far that hasn’t happened.”

“Let me put in a call to the doctor.”

September walked to the windows that looked out on the front parking lot while she waited to hear something. She knew she was on the verge of stepping off the ledge, going from merely acting irritated to becoming totally unreasonable. Taking a breath, she told herself she just needed something to go right. One break to fall her way.

“Dr. Rajput will be right down,” the woman called to her, then looked away quickly, as if she expected September to bite her head off.

She heard the elevator bell
ding
and looked over to see an Indian man in a white lab coat step off the elevator. She turned toward him and there was just something about his demeanor that telegraphed the news to her before she even had to ask.

“Detective Rafferty?” he asked with a slight accent.

“He’s dead, isn’t he? Stephen Harmak is dead.”

He blinked several times, then nodded gravely. “Yes, that is what I was going to say.”

 

 

Jake looked at the queen-sized bed in his spare bedroom with satisfaction. He liked seeing it there, liked knowing September was almost completely moved in. Feeling Liv Dugan’s gaze on him, he glanced over at Auggie’s girlfriend, seeing the smile that quirked at the corner of her mouth. “What?” he demanded.

“You’re happy. That’s all.”

He didn’t know Liv that well. She and Nine’s brother had hooked up the previous summer before Jake had reconnected with the Rafferty clan. But he sensed that she approved and that was enough for him. “Well, yeah,” he told her.

“Living with a Rafferty . . .” She lifted a brow. “Be careful what you wish for.”

“I don’t see you complaining.”

“No.” The smile grew.

Auggie had left a few minutes earlier and now Liv gathered up her purse and headed for the door herself. She and Auggie had come in separate cars because he planned to go to his job with the Portland PD afterward. But then September had called him, and she’d asked—make that demanded—that he come help her, and Jake was all for that. Whatever it took to get September home earlier.

Liv and Jake had been left to wrestle the mattress on the bed and set up the nightstand. The rest of September’s furniture was dumped in Jake’s garage. Sometime in the future they would go through the pile together and sort out what she wanted to keep. There were still some smaller items at her apartment that she needed to box up and haul over, but the bulk of the heavy work was done.

Jake said good-bye to Liv, then dialed September. He could tell from Auggie’s conversation with her that she was a bit overwhelmed, but he was hoping to talk to her for a few minutes and tell her about the canceled dinner plans, although when Auggie caught up with her she would know. In truth, he just wanted to talk to her.

Her cell went straight to voice mail. Figured.

“You’ve reached Detective Rafferty,” her voice said on the message. “Leave a detailed message and a number where you can be reached.”

After the beep, Jake drawled, “Detective Rafferty, this is Jake from Apartment to Home Delivery Service. Your belongings have been left in good order. Unfortunately two-thirds of my team had to leave before the agreed upon payment—Thai food, I believe—was delivered and therefore the debt is still outstanding. I’m sure some other arrangement can be made to . . . fill the bill, and I hope you can offer recompense later this evening. I’ve put the invoice in the Johnson file. Please open it as soon as you return.”

He was grinning as he clicked off. Hearing the dryer buzz, he realized the sheets were dry and he headed out to the laundry room off the garage. He was returning with the wad of sheets in his arms when he heard his cell phone buzz on the table.

Dropping the pile, he swept up his phone, but the ring-tone was his default, not September’s assigned song. Looking at the screen, he saw the number had no name attached to it but he recognized it all the same: Marilyn Cheever, Loni’s mother.

He said one choice word and debated on not answering. He didn’t want to talk to Marilyn or Loni or anyone in the Cheever family ever again. He was, in fact, sick to the back teeth of all the drama and endless conversations and hand wringing.

He actually walked away from the phone, but it kept on buzzing. “Damn it,” he finally said through his teeth, striding back to sweep up the cell. “Hello,” he said coolly.

“Jake? Oh, God, Jake. It’s Marilyn.” Her voice was unsteady.

“What’s happened?” he asked without enthusiasm. This scene had played out too many times for him to be nice.

“It’s Loni.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s . . . she’s missing. She took off and she left a note.”

“A note?” His heartbeat accelerated. A
suicide
note? Loni had never actually gone that far before.

“Could you—could you help me? She needs you.
I
need you.” And she started softly crying.

Loni’s parents had divorced years earlier. Her father had moved away and Loni had never been close to him. When her disease had become a serious problem, Marilyn had tried to turn to him for help, but he’d grown even more distant, not less. Jake had been the one who was there for both of them.

“What can I do?” he heard himself say.

“Help me find her.”

He looked at the pile of sheets on the table, sighed, and said, “Okay.” September wasn’t going to be home for a while anyway.

“Oh, thank you, Jake. Thank you.”

 

 

Lucky’s quarry rolled out in the station wagon late in the day. She waited until he was out of sight, then followed behind him at a good distance. When he pulled into a grocery store, she drove into the same lot a few minutes later, parking several rows back. She wanted his name, but wondered if this was the time to get close to him. So many people around.

When he went into the store, she climbed out of her car, squared the baseball cap on her head and walked across the lot toward him. She thought he was going to the grocery store but he turned into the cleaners beside it.

She slowed her steps, following his movements through the large, plate glass window at the front of the store. It was a small space with a counter. If she were inside with him, he would immediately notice her, and this was not the place to make his acquaintance. Besides which, what would she say to the Hispanic woman behind the counter? Ask her for prices?

No, it was better to just wait outside and so she walked past the store, darting a quick look inside. Her target was dropping off a woman’s blouse, pointing out what looked like a coffee stain to the clerk. Lucky kept on walking, turning before she reached the end of the strip mall where Dizzy’s Pizza stood, a local chain that had become both a place for tweens to play video games, hang out, and eat pizza, and for adults to sit in the bar area and watch sports on the lines of TVs suspended from the ceiling, and hang out and eat pizza as well.

Lucky had just turned around and was walking back when she saw her guy heading her way. Ducking her head, she kept on going, nearly overwhelmed by the scent of his desire. She dared to look back once and saw that he’d entered the restaurant. She could see him hesitate for only a minute before heading to the tween side.

She ground her teeth together. Bastard was escalating. She could feel it.

What should she do? She wasn’t dressed right to lure him in. There were too many people and cars circling the parking lot for her to hit him with the stun gun here. It was just all around the wrong place to be, at this time of day.

But she didn’t want to leave him alone with the unsuspecting tweens.

After a moment she walked into the restaurant. One look and she saw his attention was already lasered on a young girl who was playing a video game while her mother stood by observantly. Lucky decided to take a minute to use the restroom and when she returned she had a bad moment when she saw the girl, the mother, and her quarry were all gone.

But then she saw the mother and girl heading to a car and her quarry loitering by a newspaper box with change in his hand. However, his attention was really on them. Lucky dared to walk past him and toward the cleaners, but when the mother and child pulled out of the lot, he headed straight for his car.

She stopped and stared straight at the window of the cleaners, all the while watching his reflection. When he was in his car, she moved quickly toward her own, racewalking the last few steps. He was pulling out of the lot as she jumped into the Nissan.

She managed to find him easily enough. He was stopped at the light and through the rear window she watched him slam his palm down on the steering wheel in frustration.

“No luck, huh, fucker.”

He drove back toward his house. Just before he made the last turn to the side street that led to his driveway, Lucky pulled alongside him in the left lane. She kept on heading forward, stealing only a small look, watching his tail lights turn red as he slowed for his driveway. He’d been thwarted in his hunting. Probably because the only girl he wanted—the youngest one—had been under her mother’s watchful eye and he couldn’t approach her. Or, maybe the woman she’d seen him kissing in the window kept him on a very short tether.

Whatever the case, she sensed her hunting was over for today. Nevertheless, she reparked her car along the street, further back now and flanked front and rear by different cars, which might make her less noticeable. She would wait a few more hours and see what developed. Then she would go back to Mr. Blue’s and see how things stood there. If the situation were getting hotter, he might ask her to leave. She didn’t want to go, but she didn’t want to get caught, either. Hiram wasn’t known for exaggeration, and so she had to believe the police might come to his door, asking questions. Better for her not to be there when that happened.

So . . . she might as well keep up her vigil.

Switching off the ignition, she popped open the glove box, withdrew two energy bars, then pulled the baseball cap down over her eyes and leaned back, unwrapping the first bar and settling in for a long wait.

“This isn’t a suicide note,” Jake said with some relief.

He glanced over at Marilyn Cheever with a sense of growing frustration. There was no denying that Loni had serious problems, but her mother’s fears were set off by a hair trigger these days, and they always included phoning Jake.

Marilyn dabbed at her nose with a tissue, staring down at the unfolded page Jake now held in his hands. They were standing in her kitchen where Loni had propped her message in front of the salt and pepper shakers, so Marilyn had told him as she’d been holding the paper between shaking hands when he arrived at her house. Recently, apparently, Loni had moved back in with her mother, and though the arrangement seemed to suit Marilyn, Jake wasn’t sure how well it was working for Loni.

Maybe that’s why she had started calling him again.

“It’s for you,” she said, a little testily. “And it’s full of sorrow.”

He gazed down on the note again.

It was full of Loni’s special brand of manipulation, guilt, and sadness, meant to pull at his emotions, but he wasn’t about to tell Marilyn that. Surreptitiously, he checked the time on the microwave clock, but she caught him at it.

“You just can’t wait to get back to your life, can you?” she said bitterly.

“Loni does this when she’s feeling low. You know that. It’s when she reaches out to me.”

“She’s bipolar. She can’t help herself.”

Jake almost said, “Bipolar and maybe something more,” but again, he kept that to himself. Loni’s problems, which had seemed manageable once upon a time, felt as if they were gathering speed like a boulder down a hill. He was certainly no doctor, but he knew her very well. Marilyn knew her, too. Though she said all the correct, clinical terms and espoused belief in medical treatment, Loni’s mother had made herself believe that her mentally ill daughter would be all right if Jake would just play his part.

He’d done that for far too long.

“What place is she talking about?” Marilyn asked. “I’ll go get her.”
Since you won’t,
her tone added.

“I’m not sure,” Jake said.

“Well, where does she mean?”

“Marilyn, I don’t know.”

“Is it some place you used to meet?” she pressed.

He spread his hands. “There was an Italian restaurant in downtown Portland that we used to go to, but it closed.”

“Come on, Jake.”

His frustration mounted. “If I knew, I would tell you. Believe me.”

She gazed at him, determination in her set jaw, but as he met her stare that determination fell by degrees until her chin was quivering and her eyes were welling with tears.

“Won’t you help find her?” she asked.

He wanted to say no. He really did. He wanted to tell her he couldn’t keep spinning on this merry-go-round with Loni. He did have a life he wanted to get back to. Very much. A life with September.

Instead he said, “All right,” and headed for the door. Later, he knew, he would mentally flagellate himself for giving in, again, but he couldn’t callously walk out on Marilyn Cheever when she was so brokenhearted and sick with worry.

He checked the time on his cell phone. God knew what Loni was up to. He sure as hell hoped he would find her quickly.

 

 

The pain in September’s shoulder, mostly a jolt whenever she moved too suddenly, started in as a dull ache about the time Auggie and Verna appeared at the hospital, walking in from the parking lot together. Verna had gone home to take a shower as she’d spent the night in the hospital despite everyone’s attempts to shoo her out, and now she hurried inside and found September waiting for Auggie. By coincidence, the elevator door softly
dinged
as September was greeting both Verna and Auggie, and Dr. Rajput stepped out. He came over to them, sober and quiet, and Verna, who initially turned expectantly toward him, took one look at his face and went white.

“Oh, no,” she said, staggering backward.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Harmak,” the doctor began regretfully, but Verna waved him off, warding off the words she sensed he was about to say.

“Oh, God.” Verna’s knees wobbled. Auggie swiftly moved to catch her the split second before she collapsed.

He carried her to a nearby chair where she began to wail and shake. Dr. Rajput sat next to her and asked her to come with him to a private room. If she heard him, September couldn’t tell, but Auggie and the doctor managed to get her to the elevator, and on the third floor several nurses helped usher the group of them into a small, unmarked waiting room apparently designed for this purpose.

Verna was inconsolable, shaking and crying.

“The bullet did too much damage to his lungs and heart,” the doctor told her.

While Verna cried, September felt a headache build inside her skull. Verna was given a sedative and Auggie offered to drive her home.

“I can’t go back there,” she cried. “I can’t ever go back there.”

Stepping completely out of his own comfort zone, Auggie called their father and said he was bringing Verna to Castle Rafferty, and Braden, apparently so bowled over at having his younger son call him, agreed.

“What are you going to do?” Auggie asked September as they both walked across the parking lot to their respective vehicles with Auggie helping Verna to his car.

“My car . . .” Verna said weakly.

“I’ll drive her car to Dad’s,” September said, “but I’m not staying.”

“Me neither.” Auggie was clear on that. “I’ll bring you back to your Pilot.”

September nodded. She wanted to ask Verna some more questions about Stefan, but she didn’t have the heart or the energy right now.

They caravanned to the house, then September climbed into Auggie’s Jeep and they returned to the hospital and collected her SUV. “You going home?” he asked her as he dropped her off.

Her headache hadn’t dissipated. “We’re so short staffed I should check in at the station, but I really don’t give a shit.”

“I’ll meet you there,” he decided.

By the time she wheeled into the department lot, this time choosing the front of the building and damn the visitors who might use the spots, the rest of her energy had leaked away and even the thought of a few extra steps felt like too much.

She passed Guy Urlacher with her ID raised and her eyes focused on the door, willing him to buzz her in without speaking, which, for once, he did.

Auggie came into the squad room a few minutes later and said, “He’s a putz.”

“I thought Guy never asked for your ID.”

“He did this time.”

“Serves you right for abandoning us.”

Her brother gazed at her through knowing, Rafferty blue eyes. “You okay?”

“Hell, no. I’m overworked and tired and probably getting sick.”

“What do you need?” he asked.

September hardly knew where to begin. It wasn’t often these days that she had her twin’s undivided attention, and in the future, at least work-wise, it didn’t look like she was going to have it at all.

“Start with Stefan,” he suggested, as she sank into her desk chair.

“Stefan . . . You know, he lied about what happened to him from the beginning,” she said, then told him how he’d initially said he’d been attacked at the school, but just before going into surgery he’d said he’d been accosted at a mall by a woman who’d hit him with a stun gun, driven his van to the school, forced him to write the words on the placard they’d found around his neck and to drink down a concoction of drugs, then left him tied to the basketball pole. “. . . the van’s still missing. Verna called me with that information last night, and the next thing you know, he was shot.”

“A woman.”

September nodded. “So, maybe it was a woman who killed Christopher Ballonni, too.” Quickly, she reminded him of the similarities to the Ballonni case. How Christopher Ballonni had also been tied to a pole outside his place of work. How he’d also been wearing a placard around his neck written in his own hand. How he’d been stripped down to his boxers and left to the elements.

“Ballonni died, and maybe Stefan was meant to, but when that didn’t happen she attacked him at his house,” September added, then she went on to tell him about Rhoda Bernstein’s complaint, her conversations with Janet Ballonni and Chris Jr., what Chris Jr. had said about Shannon Kraxberger, and how she planned to interview Gloria del Courte, Ballonni’s coworker, as soon as she had some time. She finished with, “The two cases are tied together and even though Stefan was Wes’s, the Ballonni case is mine. Now that Stefan’s dead I think I can be on both. Wes plans to continue investigating the apparent suicide of Carrie Lynne Carter. He wants to backtrack and find who supplied Carrie Lynne’s boyfriend with ketamine. And we had another homicide today—a wife shooting her husband, maybe in self-defense. I put Maharis on it because there’s nobody here, including D’Annibal. They’re all sick.”

“Wow,” Auggie said.

“That’s why I wanted you here,” she added with more energy. “I could use some damn help.”

He lifted his hands. “D’Annibal has my resignation already, but I’ve got about an hour before I have to be in Portland.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“I told you I took the other job,” he reminded her.

She clamped her lips together again. She’d just expected he would help her. “Maybe I should have taken up Jake’s offer,” she said, fighting anger. “He wanted to come with me to the station.”

“You look like hell, Nine,” he said softly. “You’re not a one-woman show. Let Maharis and some of the other uniforms fill in for you.”

“I can’t.”

“Being stubborn isn’t going to help.”

“There’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

“And Stefan’s death is a shock, whether you want to admit it or not.”

A long silence passed between them as September assessed his words. She did feel like shit, and learning of Stefan’s death only added to it. “I didn’t like him,” she admitted.

“None of us did. Don’t feel guilty about it. He was weird. It’s a fact.”

“Do you think he was a pedophile? That’s the direction we’re headed.”

“The investigation will go where it goes.”

“Don’t get all wise on me,” she said on a sigh, but she knew what he meant. “Whoever this
woman
is who tied Stefan and Ballonni up, she must have a damn strong reason. From what she had them write on the placards, it sounds like Ballonni acted on his perversion, but she stopped Stefan before he could.”

Auggie nodded and September realized that none of the phones were ringing. “Calls aren’t being sent to the detectives?” she said, straightening at the realization.

“That’s because you’re all sick.”

The Laurelton Police Department was small to medium sized and the uniforms were always eager to fill a vacationing, or “on administrative leave” detective’s job. That was exactly how September had felt and she’d worked hard to move up.

“What’s the connection between this woman and her victims?” Auggie posed, bringing her back to the case. “How did she meet them? How did she get close enough to them to figure out their deviancy?”

“Suspected deviancy. I don’t know. Maybe she worked with one of them . . . ?”

“But not both of them,” Auggie pointed out.

“Did she date them?” September made a face. If this woman had dated Ballonni, it was a secret affair outside his marriage, and if she’d dated Stefan . . . wouldn’t Verna have some idea? “I’ll make that talk with Gloria del Courte a priority. And I’ll check in at Twin Oaks Elementary. I already know the principal, Amy Lazenby.”

“When will Wes be back?” Auggie asked.

“God knows,” she muttered. “That’s the problem.”

Maharis came into the room at that moment, frowning down at a piece of paper he was carrying. He looked up, saw Auggie and grinned. “Hey, Rafferty. Where ya been?”

“Moving on,” he said. “Nine could use some help with the workload since everyone’s down with the plague.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” he said. “Mrs. Calgary’s waiting for arraignment, and then I’m ready.”

“The wife who shot her husband,” September said for Auggie’s benefit.

“I got this missing girl, too.” Maharis glanced down at the paper again. “Gillian Palmiter. Twenty-one. Her roommate said she went out to a bar called Gulliver’s last Thursday and never came home.”

“I know Gulliver’s,” September said. “Gretchen and I were there on the Do Unto Others case.”

“Did she go by herself?” Auggie asked Maharis.

“The roommate wasn’t feeling all that great. She drove Gillian—Jilly—to the bar and then went home. Said Jilly was supposed to call her but never did. At first the roommate was glad she didn’t have to go pick her up because she was praying to the porcelain god. Thought Jilly went home with one of the guys she dates. Then she got worried when she hadn’t heard from her by this morning. Jilly’s not answering her cell.”

“The roommate have the norovirus?” September put a hand to her stomach. Was it just the pain in her shoulder and all of the talk of the virus making her feel a bit queasy, or was she really coming down with it?

“Huh?” Maharis asked.

“The plague around here,” Auggie said.

“Ahh . . .” Maharis nodded. “I didn’t ask, but that’s all you see on the news. Everybody sick. They said to wash your hands a lot. It lasts like—hours—on surfaces or something.”

“Great,” September muttered. “How many guys does Jilly date?”

“I got a few names.” Maharis handed the page to September to look at. “I was going to make a few phone calls.” He glanced around the room and picked Gretchen’s desk to settle into. “I’ve got a picture from the roommate to broadcast.”