Once Upon A Killing (A Gass County Novel Book 2) (19 page)

“What do you mean, Christine? Was Mary at the bakery that day you took that tumble?” Brody’s tone turned smooth, and she noticed the change in him. It wasn’t her friend Brody talking anymore. It was Officer B. Jensen.

“Yeaaaah,” her voice droned on, and her hands rubbed her tired eyes. “She was supposed to help me with things at the bakery before I promised to spend some time with her, you know, doing girl stuff that Wayne isn’t that great at.”

“Aha,” he sounded quite intrigued. “So, except for the bakery fall and today’s drinking, when else have things happened when you’ve been around Mary?”

“Um, I don’t know, Brody. I’m kind of tired, but Mary told me not to hurry home. She had things under control and wanted to make dinner. Anyway,” she exhausted a deep sigh. “I found her going through my bag I’d brought over for the stay one evening, but she said she was looking for money and we had a long talk about that. You know, teenagers, beer money,” she snorted a laugh. “I think she’s just trying to be overly helpful, because she wants to fit in to our lives.”

“What do you mean, precisely? Helpful in what way?”

“I think it was maybe two weeks after my fall at the bakery that she tried to help me down the stairs with my crutches, but somehow got them tangled together, and I was a bit high on pain meds, so I trampled over them and went head first down the stairs. Good thing I was able to catch the railing before I hit my head. She was really, really upset about that. She cried and thought she’d killed me.”

“Thanks, Christine,” Brody abruptly ended the conversation. “I’m going to put your feet back on the seat and close the door here for you since it’s getting cold. I’m taking you home.

“Thank you, sir.” Before the door closed she looked up and met Brody’s eyes in the night. “Brody?” she asked.

“Yes, Christine?”

“Do you think I’m crazy?”

“What?” he looked confused and leaned down slightly to see her better.

“Is it true that everyone who went through something dreadful goes crazy?”

“Um, I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me here, but to answer your question… no, that’s not true at all. Why do you ask? Are you talking about Mary?” his voice hit a low note.

“No, someone else. Never mind me, I’m drunk and don’t know what I’m saying. Please, just take me home.” She mumbled and closed her eyes.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Chapter Twenty-five

“You sleep tight, alright? I’ll call you in the morning and if you don’t respond, I’ll be right over here. Do you hear me, Christine?” It was like talking to the dead, he thought, having placed Christine in her bed. This was something Wayne should have done, not him, but since he was the officer on duty, and had driven her home in her drunken state, he had had no other choice but to make sure she was safely in bed before he left.

“Do you hear me, Christine? Tomorrow I’ll call you, okay?”

“Stay the night, Brody. You can warm me up.”

“On that note, have a pleasant night.”

When he turned to leave her hand grabbed his wrist and made him stop in his tracks.

“What is it, Christine?”

“Wayne…”

“Yes, what is it with Wayne?”

“His doctor died, and Lacie, or maybe it was Lucy, died.”

“You’re mumbling, Christine, I can barely hear you.” He bent over trying to better hear what she was saying.

“He slept with other girls when we were dating… I’m a little mad at him.”

He had no response to that. Even though it stung to hear, it didn’t surprise him, so he didn’t know what to say. Should he tell her he had anticipated it, or maybe he should have warned her before they started dating? He wasn’t sure if there was anything at all worth mentioning. What was done was done. Nothing could make it undone.

“I’m sorry,” he said, like a minister delivering the deepest of condolences.

Her hand had fallen away from his wrist and with that her breathing deepened. He quietly walked down the stairs leading to the front door shaking his head in disgust, not disbelief, at his friend’s actions. He knew they were common. He’d always just hoped they’d stop. Apparently they hadn’t and who knew if they ever would.

Since no other calls had come in that evening, he made the decision he knew wasn’t the wisest but one he couldn’t avoid. A few miles down the interstate the light of his cruiser turned from meeting vehicles to brighten open fields of grass, then slowly onto the short street leading up to the cul-de-sac, and the parking spot of a blue pick-up truck.

“Yeah, I’m coming, hold on,” a voice from inside could be heard moving from upstairs down the staircase, to the front door before it opened up.

“Brody, is everything okay?”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Drove all the way out here for that now, did you?” His hands fell from holding the door open to settle on his hips.

“Do you know who I picked up tonight, along the interstate with bare feet, drunk off her ass?”

“Who? Wait, if this is one of your random stories I’m not interested. I’ve got other things on my mind.”

“Christine.”

“What?”

“Christine.”

“Wait, are you telling me you just picked up Christine bare foot and drunk next to the interstate?”

“Affirmative. That bare foot of hers was sticking up from the ditch and nearly gave me a heart-attack when my flood lights hit it. Wasn’t sure if it was dead or alive. Luckily she was unharmed.”

“Oh my God! Where is she now? Is she okay?”

“At home. In her bed. Sleeping.”

“You took her home and put her to bed?”

“Sure did.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“She didn’t seem too keen on talking to you, and before I left she told me you’d slept with other women while you guys were dating. How dumb is that?”

“Why do you always butt in? Get your own damn love life and get involve out of mine.”

“Hey, I’ve known you for most of my life and for the love of God, you’re almost forty. Stop messing around and choose, and if you don’t want to choose then don’t get involved with someone. Shouldn’t it be that easy?”

“Says the one, the wise, the relationship expert.”

“Hey, don’t mock me. I may not be dating but I sure as hell know the main rule: sleep with one woman at a time. Anyway, I need to get going, just wanted to let you know she is safe and sound in her bed and that she probably doesn’t want to talk to you in the morning.”

“I already knew that.”

“Bet you did.”

“Shut it, Brody.”

Wayne watched the cruiser drive away on the street, away from the quiet cul-de-sac lined with Victorian houses, ending with the yellow one he called home. The clock on the hallway wall showed almost eleven, yet he was contemplating hopping in the car for a late drive. Instead he raked his hair and turned off the lights before returning up the wooden stairs. As soon as he hit the top floor he cursed himself loudly, turned on his feet, and took the staircase down in three leaping steps, grabbed his jacket and was out the door before the clock hit three minutes past eleven.

Chapter Twenty-six

The night was dark, dense fog around the car, and as he watched the whiteness of the atmosphere lick the ditches of the road the thought of Christine, lying barefoot and alone in the ditch made his entire being tremble. He was glad no one else but Brody had noticed her, as truckers and random strangers drove through the town and stopped for a bite to eat, never to be seen again.

The thick fog spread across the open fields as he drove in the night, glad to know his way not needing to read road signs or look for turnouts. A few turns from the highway and his blue truck rolled into park next to hers on the gravel lot outside her garage, and within a few steps he found himself banging on the front door.

              “Christine, are you in there?”

              “God, do you think I’m deaf? The head beams on your truck woke me up when my bedroom lit up like the next space ship was arriving,” her voice said heatedly through the door.

“Oh, so you’re right on the other side of the door, again.” The fact that she had already moved downstairs to the door made him smile a little. She had a habit of doing that, and it made him feel a little less rejected. At least she hadn’t slammed it shut, run up the stairs, and buried herself under bedcovers refusing to answer the door.

“Maybe,” she mumbled, and he felt as though her breath was almost coming through the keyhole of the door.

“I’m sorry, Christine, I really am.”

“You’re always sorry for stuff. You do things and then you’re sorry for them, and it seems like they keep repeating themselves. Haven’t we been in this situation before? I’m done with hearing how sorry you are.”

“What else do you want me to say then? That I’m not sorry?”

“Well, are you? I mean, how can you be really sorry but still be with other women while you’re seeing me?”
“I didn’t know we were ‘seeing’ each other at the time. We had just had that one kiss in the bakery, I took you out for coffee, and then you blew me off in New York.”

A laugh ridiculing his words could be heard from inside.

“Don’t you even try to turn this around and blame it on me. So, you mean that just because I didn’t put out you had to sleep with others?”

“Not exactly. I just meant, well, you’re the first girl to
not
sleep with me even after a few dates. And when you blew me off on our trip, in the hotel room, I just figured, well maybe you weren’t that interested after all. “

His feet moved across the stone pavement outside the door and the night engulfed the silence between them.

“While I went home after each little date with you, getting more and more interested, and feeling special, I really wasn’t anything special after all. Now knowing you moved to the next girl in your phone book makes me feel… used.”

“That’s not how it was at all. You shouldn’t feel that way.”
“Don’t tell me how I should feel! It’s just the way it is and I’m done being the ‘sometime girl’ in your life. Please leave or I’ll give Brody a call.”

“Yeah, well, Brody was the one who told me to come over.”
“Oh, great, you couldn’t even figure that out yourself. Now that just shows something.”

“Hey, no need to be nasty, okay. I’m here to apologize, and tell you that you are very special to me.”

A low voice came from the other side of the door. “I don’t know Wayne. I wasn’t prepared to be in a relationship where I’m not the one and only in someone’s eyes. If you don’t like me enough to be that, well, then we need to stop here before it goes any further.”

His breath blew a few frustrated snorts in the air. “People I know or have been in contact with seem to disappear, Christine. They’re found dead. Two people, Christine, two already. On my drive over here I heard from my mom, who never contacts me, that my father had been in a slight car accident from faulty brakes but will hopefully make a full recovery. I’m just afraid if I get you any closer than you are to me already, something might happen to you, and I cannot risk that.

A click awoke him from his thoughts, and in the slight light of the lamp the door opened into a woman’s shoulder.

“Why didn’t you just tell me that to begin with, Wayne,” she whispered, eyes slightly glossy from his confession, and the drinks she’d had earlier.

His shoulder hitched to his ears, and quietly he shook his head. “Nothing worth mentioning, unless you really want something to work with someone, I guess. You’re the only girl who has ever known things about me, about my family, about my fear of closeness. I think you pressed my panic button getting too close to me, my sore spot. Please don’t give up on me. Please don’t. I happen to think you’re fantastic and wonderful, you’re great in the kitchen, in the bedroom, you have a great sense of humor, and when you’re not around I always wonder what you’re doing.”

“You mean you miss me?”

“Um, yeah, I guess do.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Brody walked into Rick’s pub at exactly six fifty-eight and placed his hat on a table for four in the middle of the room, and while looking around the empty space, he corrected his tie and polished the sides of his hair. It wasn’t everyday he was having a woman join him for breakfast, but he quickly felt at ease knowing this had nothing to do with romance. Romance he couldn’t do, especially not in the mood of attempting it this morning. But this was not a date, he reminded himself and stopped touching his tie. This was a breakfast meeting, purely business, yet he couldn’t strangle all the butterflies tickling the inside of his stomach.

              “Scrambled or fried, Brody?” Rick’s dark haired head poked through the open window going into the kitchen behind the bar.