Nowhere to Hide (12 page)

Something Myra had never known.

She didn’t have to close her eyes to see herself lying in the darkness in her little bed, listening with growing dread and heaviness for her father’s footsteps outside her door, to hear it open, to feel her bed sag with his weight. "Don’t tell anyone, Myra, honey. This is our little secret. No one will believe you, anyway."

And he was right; they hadn’t.

She’d been a basket case when she went to Ellen for counseling. Ellen had given her back her life. And now her friend was in trouble, and there was nothing she could do to help. She’d sounded so weird on the phone, talking about the blood and skin under Gail’s fingernails. It had made Myra’s own skin
crawl,
she hardly knew what to say. When she asked her how she could be so objective, Ellen had replied simply, "I have to be." Then she told her she was going to that place where Gail had worked,
The Shelton Room
, and asking questions. She wished she could fly to New York and be with her, but it was impossible.

She looked around at her cozy yellow and white, if slightly messy, kitchen. It was Ellen who was directly responsible for them having this place. It was an old, fix-it-upper they’d snapped up at once. Myra had been pregnant with Joey at the time. The retired couple who’d owned it was spending their declining years in Florida.

She began clearing the table. Taking the carton of milk to the fridge, she was met with Joey’s artwork papering the door. No sign here of the black-crayoned, disturbing works of
her own
childhood, but houses with smoke curling from chimneys, trees in full bloom, bright suns smiling down. Joey leaned toward reds and yellows. A couple of the pictures had stick figures standing in the yard—five in all.
Joey’s family.

She was putting milk in the fridge as Joey came bounding down the stairs and into the kitchen. He stopped when he saw her. The wary look he gave her made her heart clench with guilt.

"I’m so sorry I was rough on you, sweetie," she said, helping him zip up his snowsuit, smoothing the red and blue knitted toque over his ears.

"That’s okay, Mom," he said, standing still for her fussing, hugging her back when she hugged him. "Aunt Ellen is sad because the bad man kilt her sister, isn’t she, Mom?" Joey said quietly.

Kneeling, Myra hugged him more closely to her, feeling his slight, little-boy frame snug inside the snowsuit. He smelled of soap and cheeseburger. "Yes, Joey, she is."

"I would be sad if Todd or Kevin got kilt," he said, his voice muffled against her shoulder. "I would cry."

"So would I, baby," she said, feeling a cold panic at the thought of anything happening to any of them. "So would I." That’s how it is with Ellen, she thought. Gail had been every bit as much Ellen’s child as Joey was hers. Giving birth had little to do with it.

"I gotta go now, Mom," Joey said, squirming out of her too-tight embrace.

~ * ~

Within twenty minutes of backing out of his drive, Carl Thompson arrived at the McLeod building, a six-story, faded brick on King Street. Glancing at the name on the order form, he took the ancient elevator up to the fourth floor. Turning left, he strode down the corridor to the office of Anderson Insurance.

A young blond girl teetering on spiked heels, wearing a short, black leather skirt and dangling horseshoe earrings damn near big enough to pitch, distractedly showed him where they wanted the phones. There were two new people starting on Monday, she said and left him to join the small group already gathered around the man in the fishnet sweater who was down on one knee beside a stack of canvases.

"We’ve got a real good buy on this one," he said, referring to a seascape, assuring them that this was one of his most "popular" works. When he got no takers he moved on to the next, turning back the canvases, one by one, like he was selling wallpaper. Most of the interest seemed to be coming from the women in the office while the men were standing around with their hands in their pockets, looking "cool", but not entirely unimpressed, Carl noted.

"Got anything with a barn in it?" the girl with the earrings piped up, and Carl had to suppress a grin. He set his tool kit on the gray carpet beside him, and settled down to work, now and then glancing up with mild interest at the proceedings.

He knew a guy once who did this for a living. He said the broker had a studio where he employed young, talented and starving artists who had a knack for copying the work of the masters, who could work fast, and to order. A little change here and there, a cloud added, an extra rooftop, just to keep things on the up and up. They were original oils, just the same, and sold like hotcakes all across the country.

"I do have a lovely farm scene," the salesman said, and the girl with the earrings crouched low in her bottom-hugging skirt, and the earrings swung, making Carl think amusedly of a poor old horse out there somewhere walking around barefoot.

"I can tell you have a real eye for art, Miss..."

"Cindy," she said. "Cindy Miller." She smiled, clearly pleased at his astute observation of her good taste.

The guy was good. He knew how to play his audience. Carl went back to work, work he’d been at so long he could do it with his eyes shut, and thought about Myra. She’d cried out in her sleep again last night. And the headaches were getting worse. He was worried about her. He wasn’t at all convinced, even though she and Ellen were close, that it was all to do with Gail’s murder.

Maybe a little vacation was in order, just the two of them. He had some time coming. The boys could stay with his mother. She’d grab at the chance to spoil them rotten, and they loved being with her.

"That’s some dandy scratch you got there, fella," one of the older men commented, causing Carl to look up. "Get in a scrap with your girlfriend, did you?"

This was met with a few snickers.

Carl’s attention was drawn to the puffy gouge that started just under the man’s left eye and traveled down to the corner of his mouth. The dark makeup didn’t begin to hide it.

Looking momentarily bewildered, the salesman touched a hand to his face then let out a low chuckle. "A favorite aunt—at least, she used to be—gave me a Siamese cat for my birthday. I don’t think it’s going to work out," he joked.

~ * ~

There’d been a cancellation, and the receptionist had called Myra back in the afternoon to tell her if she could get there in the next half hour, the doctor would see her. Now, sitting in a room with others who also waited, she picked up a dated
Reader’s Digest
and began thumbing through the pages, trying unsuccessfully to ignore her pounding head. She stopped at an article titled "Helping Friends Who Grieve." She began to read, and it was then that she had her first blackout.

She didn’t know that’s what it was, of course, couldn’t know that her body had jerked spasmodically in the chair, causing heads to turn in her direction, or that the magazine had slipped from her grasp and fallen to the floor.

The episode lasted mere seconds.

"Are you all right, dear?" the elderly woman sitting in the chair next to
her
said, leaning toward her, laying a blue-veined hand on Myra’s. Her thready voice was filled with concern and not a little nervousness.

"What?"

"You looked like—something frightened you very badly just now."

"Oh. No, I-I’m fine, thank you." Seeing the
Reader’s Digest
at her feet, Myra bent to pick it up. As she straightened, the room went out of focus, beige walls hanging with framed degrees, diplomas and medical illustrations tilting crazily. Spots danced before her eyes.

After a moment, the awful sensation left her. Her hands were clammy and trembling as she gripped the magazine.

What’s happening to me
?

She was afraid to look up, afraid to see everyone staring at her. Dropping her eyes, she began again turning the pages in the magazine, pretending to read.

She was grateful when her name was called.

Fourteen

"Angela, honey, don’t you think that sweater’s just a tad too small for you?" Lieutenant Mike Oldfield said, sitting at the Formica kitchen table, drinking his second cup of coffee of the morning. He watched his sleepy-eyed daughter scurrying about the room, taking a quick gulp of milk in lieu of breakfast, gathering up her books and stuffing them into her book bag.

Though she was only eleven, she was already starting to develop breasts, little buds that pushed at the yellow fabric of her sweater, hinting at the lovely young woman, that, as far as Mike was concerned, she was too-fast becoming. It scared the hell out of him.

The vision exploded when she wiped the milk mustache from her upper lip with the back of her hand.

"Oh, Daddy, I like this sweater, it’s warm." Giving a swish of her caramel-colored, slightly scraggly hair, she awkwardly shoved her arms into the orange sleeves of her neon green jacket. "I gotta go," she said. She planted a kiss on his cheek, simultaneously plucking a half-slice of toast from the plate. "I’ll miss my bus." She gave him a dimpled grin. "You need a shave, Daddy. Your face feels scratchy."

He heard the door slam. It was all Mike could do not to go after her and make her go back upstairs and change into something baggy and unattractive.

Outside, the voices of children rang out like happy geese. A moment later he heard the rumble of the school bus arriving, the hiss of airbrakes, and moments after that,
silence
.

Why couldn’t she just remain his little girl, always? He understood her as a child. He could deal with that. He could protect her. Sometimes he felt so damned inadequate. A girl needed a mother. But Karen had abandoned them when Angela was only two; she barely remembered her mother, though she kept the picture Mike had given her on her nightstand, and tried to understand.

He wondered if Karen had ever become the actress she’d wanted to be. He’d never seen her in anything.

He was thinking about this, putting the video he’d made at the cemetery in its plastic case, when the phone rang.

He took the call in the living room. It was long distance, from a Detective Shannon at N.Y.P.D. He was sorry to call him at home, he said, but he was having a little problem that maybe Mike could help him out with.

Mike picked up the blue mixing bowl from the sofa and set it on the floor. A few uncooked kernels of corn rolled around on the bottom of the bowl. He settled himself on the sofa. "Whatever I can do, Sergeant," he said.

Before getting to the crux of the call, the detective tossed Mike a few crumbs, related to him the grotesque fact that Gail Morgan’s killer had painted her face up to look like a clown’s as a parting gesture. It was the one piece of evidence they were keeping under wraps, the detective said. The one detail that might help them
nail
the bastard. The sister was in New York, he said, had dug herself in at the victim’s apartment,
was
going around asking questions.

So there
was
a problem, Mike thought.

"I’m expecting her any minute now," Shannon said. "I can set my watch. The woman is obsessed."

"The landlady found the victim, didn’t she?"

"We’ve sworn her to secrecy."

"And you think it’ll take."

"Who knows? Let’s hope so."
Not that he wasn’t sympathetic
, of course he was, but there was nothing more they could tell her. What the hell did she think she could do that they weren’t already doing? Never mind that they were already up to their eyeballs in unsolved killings. "She doesn’t even know her way around the city, for Christ’s sake," the detective barked. "She’ll only end up getting herself hurt.
Or worse, ending up another statistic, like her sister."

Clearly, Shannon wanted Mike to get her off his back. Because Mike had been the one to have to tell her that her sister wasn’t coming home this Christmas, she had somehow become his responsibility. He felt a stirring of resentment.

"You asking me to travel to New York and bring her back here, Sergeant?"
Mike asked, not bothering to keep the sarcasm from his voice. "What should I charge her with?
Harassment?"

"That won’t be necessary, Lieutenant." Mike heard the grin in his voice. "I think she’s planning on going home tomorrow, anyway—not that I’m kidding myself we’ve seen the last of her. She’s one driven lady. With a little luck, though, maybe I pushed her in a different direction."