Nowhere Safe (26 page)

“Oh, yeah. Wenches Night. We all were. It’s fucking nuts around here on Thursdays.” Hearing himself, he said, “Sorry.”

“That’s all right. A young woman who was dropped off here on Thursday is missing. Gillian Palmiter?”

“Jilly?” He looked stricken.

“You know her?”

“She’s a regular on Wenches Night. Dresses the part.” He made a face. “She’s one of the vodka whores.”

“Vodka whores,” September repeated.

“Girls looking for a guy to buy them a few drinks. Sometimes they go home with them. More often than not it’s the same group of guys.”

“I heard she has a number of boyfriends.”

“I guess you could call them that.”

“Was she with her group of guys on Thursday?” September asked.

“I think she left with Tom. He’s one of her regulars. Drives a BMW.”

At that moment Blake came through the front door. He glanced at the suit of armor suspiciously before walking up to September and Mark.

Mark said, “You’re the cop who called me?”

He nodded and introduced himself, “Officer Maharis.”

September noticed how he scrupulously kept from calling himself a detective. She remembered those days. Wanting it so badly, wondering if it would ever happen.

Blake asked, “So where are we?”

“He remembers Jilly,” September said, then filled him in on the “vodka whore” label and that it looked as if she’d gone home with someone she knew named Tom.

“Thomas Eskar,” Maharis said. “I just talked with him. That’s why I’m late. He took her to his place but she was puking and he left her in the car. She never came upstairs.”

What a guy,
September thought. By the look on Maharis’s’s face, he felt the same way.

“He thought she might’ve come back here,” Maharis went on. They both looked at the bartender, who shook his head.

“Mark.” The female bartender jerked her head to indicate the back of the bar where she stood.

“I gotta get back to work,” Mark said to September and Blake.

“Any of her other regulars talk to her that night?” September asked.

“Nah. She was trolling.” He walked around and lifted the same section of bar the female bartender had and let himself in beside her, sidling around her as she refilled the drinks of the couple who couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

Mark suddenly looked at September as if he’d had an epiphany.

“What?” she asked.

“There was this older guy. In his late forties, maybe. Jilly was coming on to him pretty hard and he was going for it, buying her drinks, thinking he was going to get lucky. I warned him off her. Kinda to protect them both. I don’t know.” He shrugged and shook his head as if in wonder at his own altruistic motivations. “Anyway, he left and then she hooked up with Tom and a few hours later she went out with him.”

“Know anything about this older guy?” September asked.

“Never seen him before.”

“What did he look like?” Blake asked.

“Hungry,” he said after a moment. “Jilly was really laying on the ‘little girl’ bit. Calling him ‘Daddy,’ shit like that.”

“I mean his physical appearance,” Blake said officiously.

“Wait.” September cut in. “What else did she do?”

“Uh . . .” Mark caught a glare from his coworker and lifted a finger to September and Maharis as he poured the impatient guy at the end of the bar a draft beer. When he was finished he came back and said, “Jilly’s legal, okay? Twenty-one. I’ve seen the ID and it’s hers. But she looks like five years younger. Ten years. I don’t know. She’s proud of it. Likes to play little girl with guys and some of ’em get all hot and bothered and just go ape-shit. Her regulars don’t care. But this guy liked it. Wanted a big slice of Jilly pie. That’s kinda why I warned him off her. I told him she was with lots of guys and he got all pruny and left.”

“Pruny?” Maharis asked.

“Disgusted. Left in a hurry like he could pick up a disease just being around her.”

“Physical appearance?” he asked again.

“Light brown hair. Big smile, but fake-like. I guess you’d say he was decent looking. Kinda reminded me of that actor.”

“George Clooney?” the female bartender suggested. She hadn’t appeared to be paying attention but she’d apparently been avidly listening in.

“Nah. I know his name. . . .” He struggled, but couldn’t come up with it.

This older guy liking the little girl act set off warning bells in September’s head. “Did he pay by credit card?” September asked hopefully.

“Nah. Cash. I remember because he was careful with it. Some guys just don’t want to part with a dime even when they’re paying with big bills. He wanted Jilly to think he was loaded.” He shook his head. “That’s all I got.” Then he snapped his fingers. “Kevin Costner. Like in
Dances with Wolves.
”

September thanked him, then she and Blake headed outside into a dark, crisp night, the rain having let up and left pinpoints of stars peeking through scudding clouds. There were several cornstalks outside the front door but one of the jack-o’-lanterns that had clearly once been a part of the tableau was now smashed into mushy orange pieces against the nearest curb.

“What do you think?” Blake asked her.

“The last anybody saw her was when Tom left her in his car.”

“The guy calls himself Thomas. He corrected me.”

“Well, naturally,” September muttered. “Because he’s so goddamned proper that he’d leave his girlfriend out in the car, puking.”

“Didn’t sound like she was such a great girlfriend,” Blake said.

“Don’t be an asshole,” September warned him.

He looked at her in surprise, then added insult to injury by saying, “Everyone told me you were the nice one.”

“Yeah, well, don’t believe them,” September stated flatly. Gretchen’s reputation as a bitch preceded her. She’d come by the label honestly, but September was starting to think it wasn’t such an awful moniker after all. Maybe channeling her inner bitch might not be that bad an idea. “We’re not here to judge Jilly. We’re here to find out what happened to her.”

Somewhat chastened, Maharis said, “You think this Costner look-alike’s got something to do with it?”

“Chase down the other boyfriends and recheck with
Thomas.
Find out if anyone saw Jilly after he left her in the car. Make sure he did leave her in the car and he’s not lying about that. See if there are cameras around.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know if the Costner guy has anything to do with it or not, but maybe,” September mused.

“You gonna run with that, then?” he asked her.

“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do. Maybe he trolls other bars.”

Or maybe I’m just too sensitive to the issue,
she thought, which reminded her to put a call in to March, which she did as she walked to her car. The line rang and rang and when her brother’s voice asked her to leave a message, she said, “Hey, March, it’s September. I know Verna’s at the house and July told me that the memorial service for Stefan is coming up on Wednesday. I’ll be there, but I’d like to talk to you beforehand. Call me back when you get a chance. Bye.”

She clicked off and climbed into her Pilot.

By the time September got to the hospital it was after eight. She’d done a pretty good job of pushing her deepest fears aside while she was working, but now, walking through the hallways of the hospital, smelling the underlying odors of astringents and cleaning supplies and maybe even sickness, she could feel her anxiety return as if she’d suddenly opened a box and released it.

“Pandora’s box,” she muttered.

Her steps slowed as she drew close to Jake’s room, and for one moment she sent up a desperate prayer for him to be all right. Auggie had texted her earlier, wanting to know how she was doing, but she hadn’t responded. She hadn’t wanted to stop and allow herself to
think
.

But she could no longer escape from her new reality.

Pushing open the door, she stopped short upon seeing the woman sitting in the chair, her head bent forward in abject misery. September had seen the same thing in Verna after Stefan died. Hearing her enter, the woman’s head lifted and she stared at September through dull eyes.

“You’re her,” she said. At the same moment September thought:
Loni’s mother.

“Mrs. Cheever,” she greeted her.

Marilyn Cheever swiveled her eyes toward Jake and said in a voice dry with grief, “I’m so sorry. . . .”

 

 

Lucky woke up in the dark on Tuesday morning feeling chilled. Outside her bedroom window there were no hummingbirds. It was still too dark for them to be flitting about but she felt they wouldn’t be there anyway, that they might feel, as she did, the need to scatter and hide.

She’d packed up all her belongings and stowed them in her car the night before. Now she turned on her light, stripped the bed and threw the sheets in the washer, then she ran wet wipes over all the furniture in both her bedroom and bathroom. She glanced around the garage and saw that all of Mr. Blue’s jars and tins and boxes had been moved. The place was empty and smelled stale and only the faintest hint remained of the musky, earthy odors that had permeated the air, nothing anyone would be able to discern.

She hadn’t seen Mr. Blue the night before. He’d been in his rooms. He and she had said their good-byes already, so maybe he just wanted her to go.

Taking the box of wet wipes into the kitchen with her, she switched on the interior lights and blinked against the sudden brilliance. She was about to scrub down the table, cabinets, and counters, but was arrested by the sight that met her eyes. In the center of the table was a box containing items from Mr. Blue’s vast supply, a cornucopia of drugs and herbs and exotic extras with a note that read:
You may need these.

Picking up one particular bag, Lucky stared through the plastic at the dried item within. The wheels in her mind started turning. Quickly, she gathered up the box and stowed it in the trunk of her car along with the thermos that she’d used to tote sweet dreams.

Back inside the house, she finished rubbing off any sign that she’d ever been there, then she picked up the pencil Mr. Blue had left beside the note and wrote:
Thank you
.

Taking the pencil and plastic container of wet wipes with her, she then drove through the early dawn to a gas station to refuel first, then back to Ugh’s house, parking in one of her usual spots. She was going to have to find a new home base. Some No-Tell Motel where the manager wouldn’t blink when she paid in cash. A place, in fact, that might actually prefer cash to a credit card. A place where no questions were asked.

She watched the end of the driveway, her mind wandering. After a while, she decided to walk along the neighbor’s hedge again and see if she could get a closer view of what was going on. Ugh would probably be getting ready for work and—

Her attention suddenly snapped back as the nose of the black Lexus appeared at the end of the drive. The car pulled out with Ugh at the wheel and his roommate sitting in the passenger seat. Lucky turned over the ignition and followed, keeping far back from the vehicle. By the time they’d crossed the Willamette River and were heading east on I-84 she’d decided they must be heading to the airport. Maybe the girlfriend was going on another trip?

Fifteen minutes later her suspicion was answered in the affirmative when they turned onto Airport Way. She followed the Lexus onto the upper level drop-off zone. When Ugh squeezed the Lexus to the curb in front of the United counter, she drove on by, pulling over at the far southern end, slipping into a spot in front of Alaska Airlines and hoping she wouldn’t be hassled by the airport traffic cops.

Luckily, Ugh’s drop-off was fairly quick. In only minutes the Lexus slipped past her and headed back down to Airport Way eastbound. She followed at a discreet distance as he took the curving ramp to 205, figuring he was now on his way to Twin Oaks and, apart from his quick jog into a Starbucks drive-through, that’s exactly what he did.

So, the wife, or girlfriend, or whoever she was, was on a trip.

Maybe it was time to make his acquaintance, and, on the heels of that thought, wondered just how young she could make herself look.

 

 

September had planned to be at work early but could barely make it out of bed by eight-thirty and only then because her cell phone forced her up. Yesterday had been horrendous. The bug had gotten her down and just wouldn’t release its grip on her. This morning her headache was gone, but she still felt achy and stiff and uncoordinated, as if her limbs were reluctant to respond to the messages her brain was sending them.

It hadn’t helped that Marilyn Cheever had been half out of her mind with grief, alternately apologizing for what had happened to Jake and almost blaming him for her daughter’s death, praising him for all the hours he spent trying to help her get better and railing at him for failing at the task. September had listened without saying anything; she’d had to tune it out to keep from saying hurtful things back. Her eyes kept turning away from Marilyn and back to Jake, taking in his bandaged head, his growing beard, the closed eyes, the drip of the IV, his arm in its protective sling.

At times she’d wanted to snap at Marilyn Cheever for her unfairness, but she’d held herself back. And truthfully, she’d also been just too damn tired and sick with worry to engage her, so she’d let Loni’s mother do her worst and simply said nothing.

Eventually, the woman had taken in a last deep, shuddering breath and closed her eyes.

Then September turned all her attention to Jake and just ignored her. She still didn’t want to get too physically close to him. She didn’t want to risk infecting him with the virus, but at least she could look at him from across the room. She’d let herself wonder when the surgery on his arm was scheduled, but she couldn’t think about his head injury and what that might mean.

She’d left his room about an hour after she’d entered it, and Marilyn had roused herself and followed September out of the room as well.

“I’m sorry, too,” September told her at the elevator and she’d nodded, accepting September’s words, though Marilyn could have just as easily launched into another diatribe about Jake, his relationship with September, and what that had done to her daughter.

She’d driven home and fallen into the bed she shared with Jake, pressing her face into the pillow, drinking in his scent. In the darkness she’d completely broken down, feeling the soft scratch of the pillow against her cheek, recalling how it felt to be wrapped in his arms, remembering the way his mouth curved in amusement at things she said, the sweep of his lashes, the feel of his lips.

She’d awakened slowly, not wanting to leave the bed as dawn stretched its gray fingers across the room. Then her cell phone rang by her ear and she reluctantly plucked it from the nightstand to hear July’s voice asking her how she was doing.

“Fine,” she’d told her, seeking to get off the phone as quickly as possible, but not before July extracted a promise from her that they would go to Stefan’s memorial service together.

Just what she wanted to do.

Now she wheeled into the station’s back parking lot and entered the building through the side door, which was generally unlocked during the daylight hours. She could hear the babble of voices, hushed through the walls, and the sound of the furnace and the squeak of desk chairs as she entered. The place sounded as if it were almost back to capacity, and as if to prove her right, she rounded the corner into the squad room and there was George, still a bit peaked, back at his desk.

She set her fears aside with an effort and said, “You look like you’ve lost a few pounds.”

“Well, I should. Couldn’t keep anything down till last night.” A small, opened bag of Fritos sat by his left hand, and he reached into it without looking up from his computer, placing several chips in his mouth.

Blake Maharis was already at Gretchen’s desk, talking on the phone, and September fought back a wave of annoyance. She liked Maharis. But she didn’t like the way he usurped her partner’s desk. Auggie might have left, but Gretchen was coming back.

“Where’s Wes?” she asked.

“Break room,” George said. “He got here just before you did. I was early.”

That’s a first,
September thought.

Wes appeared at that moment, looking loads better than the day before. “I left a message on the Tiny Tots Care voice mail last night and got a call back from Mrs. Linda Vasquez this morning.”

“What’d she say?” September asked.

“Well, she didn’t say she moved because of Christopher Ballonni. Said it was because of a lot of other things: her husband’s job, the cost of the Laurelton rental, a chance for a lease option, like that. But she did remember Ballonni. And yeah, she thought he was a little too friendly, but her day-care kids were always in the back if they were outside, on the equipment. Not in the front by the mailbox.”

“That’s a relief.”

“We might take a trip to Tiny Tots Care,” he said. “She was distracted when we talked. People dropping off their kids. Maybe she’ll say more if we’re actually there.”

“All right.”

Maharis looked over at her. “Jilly still hasn’t shown up.”

“No calls from her picture?” she asked.

“Not so far. I talked to Thomas and he’s finally worried.”

“What a guy. Did you connect with her other boyfriends?”

“One of them was out of town last Thursday. I checked and he’s telling the truth. The other one finally answered his phone. When I mentioned Jilly’s name, he was kind of rude about her, but in an affectionate way.”

“How do you do that?” September asked coolly.

“Said ‘my little slut’ and stuff.” Maharis was slightly embarrassed. “He said he hasn’t seen her since before Thursday, though.”

September nodded, her lips tight. She didn’t really want to talk to Maharis anymore and it must have shown on her face, because he protested, “Hey, I’m not trying to be an asshole, here.”

“Try harder,” September suggested, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Wes fight a smile and turn away so that Maharis wouldn’t see him.

“What about that older guy who was interested in her?” Maharis asked now, a bit belligerently.

“I haven’t got to him yet, so check with some other bars. See if he’s been trolling for young girls elsewhere,” September suggested. “Gulliver’s probably isn’t the only place.”

He nodded curtly and turned back to Gretchen’s desk.

September looked over at Wes, who was on the phone. He caught her eye and held up a finger. A few minutes later he hung up and said, “If we get to Tiny Tots around four, some of the kids’ll be gone.”

“Isn’t Tiny Tots the name of a brand of sardines?” George put in.

September turned her attention back to him, thinking his weight loss might be very short-lived. “I’m going out for a while,” she said.

“Where to?” George asked, and September could see Maharis cock his head, listening for her answer as well.

“Gotta talk to my brother about something,” she said.

“I heard he’s moved to Portland PD full time,” George said.

September didn’t bother to answer. For one thing, she wasn’t interested in talking about Auggie right now. She was still wrapping her head around the fact he was leaving and she didn’t feel like sharing. Yes, she knew Auggie found the work more fulfilling in the larger arena, and she also knew she would slowly forgive him. She just didn’t feel like sharing that with the others yet. He was her twin, and he was there for her when she needed him and she would get over feeling left behind.

But the other reason she hadn’t responded to George’s comment was because she hadn’t meant that brother. Where she was going was Castle Rafferty to talk to March, her oldest brother. March was as stiff and remote as Auggie was accessible. She was planning to broach a delicate subject with him, one she had no earthly idea how to go about—their ex-stepbrother’s suspected pedophilia and the long periods of time he’d been in close contact with March’s daughter, Evie. And it wasn’t going to be easy.

 

 

The Creekside Inn was located near a culvert that had a dirty stream of water moving behind it, runoff from I-5 mainly, which, Lucky supposed, in the widest sense could be considered a creek. It rented rooms by the day, week, or month, and that was all she cared about. She wore a sloppy shirt and her loosest jeans, unlaced shoes that she could clomp in, her hair in a low, untidy ponytail with strands falling around her face, and a pair of big, round sunglasses. She’d specifically adopted a vacant look, dropping her mouth open a little, when she asked the day manager—a young man still fighting acne—for a room for a week. He was reading an erotic novel that he slid under the counter when she walked in, and he was apparently so distracted by it that he took in her sloppiness in a glance and simply had her fill out a form. Paying with cash in advance didn’t phase him, either. As she headed to the car for her bag, he was already back deep into the book.