The Off Season (11 page)

“I know.” She was addicted to it herself. And she was as jittery as if she’d already downed two pots’ worth, waiting for him to hurry up and clear out. Still, some perverse part of her had her offering, “Could you use a sandwich, too? Have you had anything?”

“I appreciate the offer,” he said, “but I need to be on my way. Before I leave, though, one more thing.”

She nodded. “Sure.”

“You want to go ahead and tell me what that was all about, with Lilly?”

Christina’s shoulders went rigid. “You mean . . . ?”

“Who’s this Kaydee that she mentioned? The Kaydee with the dead mom? The one you clearly didn’t want her telling me about?”

“I was embarrassed, that’s all. I never should’ve let her watch that stupid movie.” The story rattled out so quickly, she didn’t have a moment to think about it. “But I was so tired that night, and the TV was keeping her occupied while I put together dinner. I didn’t even notice how inappropriate it was until she started talking about this dead woman nonstop. And then there were the nightmares . . .”

Harris stared at her, his silence weighed down with expectation. Not far behind him, Annie, who had reappeared, tilted her head. Christina flicked a look her way, mentally begging her not to contradict the story.

Her sister blinked hard, clearly confused, but for once in her life, she thought, instead of popping off with whatever came to mind. Or mentioning the call she’d received from the woman who claimed to have once known Christina by that same name.

“What movie was this?” Harris asked.

“I’m not sure. Just something on cable I had on for background noise.” Christina shrugged. “Sometimes it can get a little spooky out here. I’m more used to hearing traffic, neighbors barbecuing by their pool. The quiet here’s been—it reminds me of the things I’ve lost.”

There was a momentary grimace, an acknowledgment in his nod. As if he’d sensed the truth in that part of the lie that she was spinning. “Well, rest assured my deputies are passing by more often,” he said, “and I’ve asked them to do their computer logs parked nearby so they can keep an eye on things. Until we figure out what’s going on and put a stop to it.”

“Thanks, Harris. And I hope you’ll let Renee know we’re keeping Jacob—keeping all of you—in our thoughts.”

He nodded before telling her he’d be in touch as soon as he had more news for her. At the front door, though, he turned and added, “And please don’t hesitate to call me if you think of anything, no matter how small, that could help with the investigation. Anything you might’ve . . . forgotten to tell me today.”

A chill detonated at her center, but she did her best to hide it, letting him leave without further comment.

It took less than half a minute for her sister to ask, “What’s going on, Christina? What is it you’re hiding from him?”

As Harris filled up his Tahoe on the way back to his office, he couldn’t stop thinking about the girl whose memory was choked with regret. In his mind, his sweet Christina had been so many things: smart, pretty, funny once you got to know her, with a blushing, awkward innocence that had left him hot and hard and wanting far more than some nobody like him had any right to expect.

Thing was, he realized as he replaced the gas cap, the Christina he’d recently encountered had been scarred by the passing years, just as he had. Not on the outside, maybe, but she was clearly not the person he’d once known so well.

Doctor. Mother. Widow. Liar, too. Of that part he was certain, convinced that the
Kaydee
her daughter had spoken of had nothing to do with any movie.

He’d seen it in her sister’s dropped jaw, in the startled blue eyes that so quickly sought Christina’s face. Annie had recovered swiftly, but it was clear that the name had meant something to her. Something that Christina didn’t want discussed.

Was it related to her husband’s death? Though she’d answered his questions when confronted about the recent lawsuit, Harris suspected she never would have volunteered the information if he hadn’t pressed for it. Maybe she honestly believed she’d worked things out with her husband’s other heirs. Or maybe her reticence had more to do with wishful thinking, the desperate hope that she could put the unpleasantness of the lawsuit behind her and move on with her life.

Whichever was the case, Harris wondered as he climbed back into his vehicle what else he might find if he kept picking at the scab of Christina’s recent past. His money was on a
Kaydee
—or perhaps
Katie
was the correct pronunciation. Find this person, whether she turned out to be a professional rival, her husband’s lover, or maybe even a long-lost relative who felt left out of the inheritance, and Harris’s instincts told him he was sure to come up with some answers.

But as he pulled back out onto State Street, it occurred to him that maybe it wasn’t really answers he was after so much as an antidote to the ache he felt whenever he spent any time around Christina Wallace Paxton. Feelings he had no business allowing to resurface, not with his son in the hospital, his ex-wife at his throat, and the city council growing increasingly impatient with his lack of progress on the recent break-ins.

That was when it hit him: the return of his libido was more than just nostalgia for a time when they’d both been young, with the whole summer—their whole lives—spread out before them, wide and deep as the Atlantic. This was karma instead, payback for the harm he’d done, making him want her now, all these years later, when she was farther out of reach than she had ever been before.

The irony hit him so hard that it dislodged a bark of laughter. Grimacing, he clamped his jaw shut, glad no one was around to hear him. Or to take note of the pain and longing that had echoed with the sound.

He didn’t have time to wallow in it, though, not if he meant to put this case—and with any luck, his foolish attraction—behind him. Grimacing at the thought, he picked up the radio and asked the dispatcher to have Officer Del Vecchio meet him at the station as soon as possible.

Some forty minutes later, Harris was working at his desk, the door closed, as he did battle with the city council’s most recent request for him to tighten the budget’s belt another notch. He knew Seaside Creek had financial issues, but no department had been asked to sacrifice as much as his. Especially since the election of Reginald Edgewood just over a year before.

It had been his own damn fault, Harris told himself. When he’d slapped the cuffs on Edge the night he’d come across the one-car accident, the businessman had tried everything he could think of, from intimidation to threats, to convince him to overlook the mishap—since his BMW had only taken out a fire hydrant and not, say, a troop of Girl Scouts.
Then what about a contribution to your next campaign for reelection?
Edge had finally sputtered.

Irritated with his attempted bribery, Harris had told him, “I don’t need your money—or your vote. I serve at the pleasure of Mayor Bradford and the city council,” before hauling his entitled ass straight to jail.

After serving sixty days—the judge had been no more impressed than Harris—the businessman had immediately filed to run for an open council seat.

“Screw him,” Harris mumbled. He wasn’t trying to win any popularity contests with drunk drivers, and if pushing back on this budget pissed off some small-time politician with a bug up his ass, he wasn’t losing any sleep over that, either, not while he had the backing of Mayor Bradford and at least half the council. For now, anyway, though he knew their confidence was waning with every day that he failed to make an arrest in the recent rash of break-ins.

A tap at his door, and Marco Del Vecchio leaned inside. He was an athletic-looking guy with thick, dark hair that was nearly always too long for regulation. Harris didn’t care so much about that, but recently, he’d caught Del’s big, dark eyes checking out Aleksandra Zarzycki often enough that he’d pulled the younger officer aside to give him the standard
Don’t shit where you eat
lecture. “And, anyway,” he’d added, “in case you haven’t noticed, the rookie’s got at least two inches on you. Maybe three.”

“Some things in this life,” the lean six-footer had fired back with that cocky grin he flashed so often, “are well worth reaching up for, my friend—um, Chief, sir.”

“You need me to wait out here?” Del Vecchio asked now. “You look a little”—he waved vaguely in the direction of Harris’s budget printouts—“distracted.”

“Trust me, you’re not interrupting anything I wouldn’t pay good money to get out of. Come on in.”

“Sorry it took me a while to make it over,” Del Vecchio explained. “I was tied up with Mrs. Mosley. Again.” He rolled his eyes before those straight white teeth made another appearance.

“I’ve been telling you, you’ve gotta stop responding. Yeah, it’s sad, a woman in her eighties outliving all her family, but we’ve got a whole community to serve, not just one little old lady who thinks nothing of calling 911 so”—Harris pitched his voice to creaking heights—“
that handsome young Italian policeman can help me find my Mr. Whiskers.
Or did she need you to move her sofa back from where she had you put it last week?”

“I can’t help myself.” Del Vecchio shrugged. “She makes the best zeppole you’ve ever tasted.”

“A doughnut by any other name,” said Harris, who’d heard every cop-and-doughnut crack imaginable once too often but couldn’t resist needling his subordinate.

“An
Italian
doughnut,” Del Vecchio corrected. “Did you know her maiden name was Bartolossi?”

“Well, I’m afraid you won’t be available to cater to Mama Zeppole for a couple days, Del. I need to send you out of town to do a little actual police work.”

“Out of town?” Del Vecchio looked skeptical. “Tell me it’s a prisoner transport from Florida. I hear it’s nice down there this time of—”

“Get your head out of Disney World, Marco. This is serious. I’m going to need you to drive down to Baltimore and then out to Pittsburgh.” Harris gave him details on where to find Evelyn Paxton and her two kids, and the kinds of questions he needed answered. “I especially want you to get a bead on their feelings about Doug Paxton’s second wife, Christina. Figure out whether somebody’s nurturing a big enough grudge to harass her—or hire a third party to do it for ’em.”

Quickly catching on, Del Vecchio took down the pertinent information, impressing Harris, at least until he dropped one final question like an afterthought.

“You think I should have a partner working with me? Maybe someone to assist with the note taking and all the driving?”

“Fiorelli, maybe?” Harris asked, just to mess with the kid.

“Actually, I was thinking this might be good experience for the rookie, a chance for me to teach her how to—”

“Nice try, but Zarzycki’s not coming along for you to flirt with and treat like some kind of personal secretary.” Not that Harris imagined she’d put up with either for five minutes. Since he’d hired her last summer, she’d taken to the work like a pro, but she’d unfailingly rebuffed her fellow officers’ questions about her personal life, along with friendly invitations to join them for a beer or coffee after her shift. Excluded from such gatherings by his rank, Harris didn’t care, but he had definitely taken notice. Especially in light of the inconsistencies between her résumé and his impressions of her.

“I’d never—” came Del’s protest, along with a look of offended innocence.

“Save it, and go on home, pack yourself an overnight bag, and get going. Let me know as soon as you’ve made contact. I may have some further inquiries for you to follow up on.”

“You’ve got it, Chief,” Del Vecchio said breezily as he started for the door.

“And one more thing,” Harris added. “If anybody asks, you’re going to Camden to brush up on new state mandates as part of your CSI training. Make sure to moan about it a little, too, so they don’t get suspicious.”

The younger officer did a double take. “You aren’t worried this could be connected to someone in the department, are you?”

Harris shook his head. “I don’t have any reason to suspect it, but people talk. It’s human nature. So let’s not take any chances of compromising our investigation, okay?”

But as Del Vecchio gave his assurances and left the office, Harris knew he wasn’t only concerned about word getting back to whoever had frightened Christina so badly that she’d run out into the freezing cold wielding a golf club as a weapon. He was more worried about how she’d react if she found out he was having his officer asking around about somebody named Katie.

CHAPTER NINE

The following day Christina reported to work, working her monthly shift at a satellite clinic in the underserved community of Bridgeport, about twenty miles to the northwest. If she’d thought her own ER was busy, the hectic pace of the clinic was enough to leave her breathless. All day long, a steady stream of mostly indigent patients crammed the tiny waiting room for their chance to have babies vaccinated, coughs addressed, and infected wounds cleaned out and repacked. By the time they made it to her, most were impatient from the long waits, their frustration compounded by the fact that a large percentage didn’t speak English or lacked the basic skills to fill out—or even read—the paperwork they’d been given.

She was yelled at several times, greeted with tears several more, and threatened at least once—if she’d correctly understood the large Hispanic man who appeared drunk but was actually having a diabetic emergency. Once he was transported to the hospital and the rest of the patients had been finally dealt with—an hour after the posted closing time—her neck and shoulders ached, and she was totally spent.

“I’m dead on my feet,” said Gina, the RN who’d been working with her, as she pulled her purse out of the drawer she’d just unlocked. “I don’t know how you do the ER day in and day out. Give me my usual geriatric patients any day. This place was insane.”

Christina commiserated for a minute, but she didn’t mind a shift like this one now and then. She could see the good that she was doing, even when the patients didn’t, and the time passed quickly. Blink, and it was dark already and time to head home to her daughter.

As dusk gave way to a scattering of stars, Christina climbed into the loaner vehicle she’d picked up that morning and headed through the small town, which she’d come through on numerous occasions as a kid. It had changed, she noticed, with many of the original redbrick buildings now shuttered since the town’s longtime main employer, a glass plant that had stood more than a century, had closed, taking most of the town’s jobs with it. But some of the oldest buildings at one end, she noticed, signaled an attempt at revitalization. Along with an antique store and a boutique, she spotted an arts-and-crafts co-op. And a number of vehicles were parked in front of a brightly lit place called the Sweet Shop, where she spotted a bakery counter and a collection of vintage ice cream parlor–style table-and-chair sets.

Charmed, she swung the small SUV into an empty space, thinking she would bring home cupcakes for her daughter and Annie, who’d been watching Lilly all day. And maybe a cookie to nibble for the ride home. The clinic had been so busy that Christina had worked straight through lunchtime.

After locking the Mercedes, she headed for the Sweet Shop’s front door, only to stop abruptly when her gaze was drawn to a couple sitting in the farthest corner, or rather, to the familiar wavy, reddish-blonde hair that fell down the petite woman’s back. Unable to see the woman’s face, Christina told herself it couldn’t possibly be Renee. Not here, so far from Seaside Creek, with her son in the hospital after a serious injury.

Christina told herself to go inside, that her instinct had to be wrong. For one thing, she didn’t see Renee’s Jeep parked anywhere along the street, where its bright-yellow paint job would make it impossible to miss.

Besides, she couldn’t avoid her friend forever. If
friend
was still the right word, after what had happened between Renee’s son and her daughter.

The woman seated at the table tipped her head as she spoke to the man with her—a tilt that made Christina zip her jacket to ward off a sudden chill. She knew that mannerism, remembered it from all the way back in junior high school, when Renee went into puppy-dog-cute mode every time she flirted with a guy.

But it couldn’t possibly be Renee, not here, and not flirting with
this
guy. The shaggy, dark-haired specimen looked easily ten years younger—early twenties, she thought. His handsome face visible in profile, he tucked a thick strand of shiny hair beneath one ear and flashed a wry smile, as if the woman he was with had just said something witty.

Christina stood rooted a few feet shy of the door. Despite the thumping in her chest, she did her best to tell herself she should go inside as planned.

As she hesitated, the young man looked around the shop before leaning down to pull a large manila envelope from a backpack sitting on the floor beside him. With a few words, he passed it to the woman, whose head moved, sending a warning jolt up Christina’s spine.

Turn just a bit more my way. You have to.
Because she was almost certain it was Renee, with that hair, that build—even the jacket she was wearing looked familiar. But Christina had spotted something even more unnerving: the way she quickly tucked away something the young man had slipped her beneath the level of the envelope. Something she pushed down into her pocket quickly, clearly meaning to keep it hidden from view.

Had the young man given her money? Or had it been drugs that passed between them, along with whatever was in the envelope she slid into her tote?

Have I been leaving my daughter with an addict, a woman I only thought I knew?
Because Christina really didn’t know her, did she? Not after fifteen years punctuated only by a few phone calls before she’d gotten too busy, and the time or two she’d run in to her old friend at the grocery store when Christina had been in town visiting her family. Even those occasions had felt uncomfortable, awkward—both of them seeming to realize how little their adult selves had in common, other than the past.

“Excuse me,” a female voice said behind her, causing Christina to jump.

“Sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to scare you,” said a white-haired woman in a hot-pink ski cap with a pom-pom. Her nose was pink, too, from the early evening’s chill. “But are you going in, or could I get past? My George is like a little boy, waiting by the door at home for me to come back with his treat.”

In answer to the crinkling at the corner of the woman’s kind eyes, Christina stepped aside. “Of course. I was just leaving.”

“Are you—are you all right, miss?” the older woman ventured. “Forgive me for saying this, but you’re very pale.”

“I’m—I’ll be—I’m fine,” Christina lied, turning away and breaking into a run as she headed for the loaner. The suspicions twisting inside her made her feel as if she’d come down with a stomach virus.

Once in the SUV, she circled the block, checking side streets for the yellow Jeep. When she didn’t spot it, she told herself that she’d been wrong. The day had been both long and grueling, that’s all, causing her brain to assign meaning to a random interaction between a pair of strangers, one of them a woman whose hair color could’ve been bought at any drugstore.

But as she turned onto the state highway that would take her back to Seaside Creek, Christina wiped her eyes, reminding herself that hallucinations came in other than auditory forms.

That night in bed, she dreamed she was inside one of the painted, white rooms of the lighthouse living quarters, looking out through the salt-filmed window at the sea. Every fifteen seconds, the foghorn—though part of her knew that it had long ago gone silent—gave a mournful blast, and the steel-gray lightened to silver with each pulse of the light above.

Only this time, her father wasn’t there, explaining how coast guard crews had manned this lonely station for years. Her mother, too, was nowhere nearby, and she couldn’t find Annie anywhere.

Christina ran from empty room to empty room, calling their names with a child’s desperation, though she sensed she was grown now. As she raced for the staircase that would lead her to the beacon, she paused at another of the windows.

Looking down into the water outside, she saw a woman floating facedown—long, strawberry-blonde hair spread out on the waves that lapped around her.

With Jacob still in the hospital, Renee wasn’t happy about Harris leaving town first thing the next morning.

“I’m just heading up to Philly,” he told her when she met him outside their son’s room. “Call or text me if there’s anything you need, and I can be back in an hour and a half.”

“Philadelphia?” She frowned. “Why would you want to go there?”

“I don’t,” Harris told her truthfully, “but try to think about it this way. I’ll have a better chance of covering all these insurance co-pays if I’m still employed.”

He smiled, trying to make light of the comment. Except that his ex-wife didn’t smile back.

“I guess you’d better go, then,” she said. “Is Jacob—how is he this morning?”

Harris’s smile widened. “He woke up asking for dino-pancakes. Whatever the heck those are.”

“Just something I make with batter, blueberry eyes, and a little imagination.” Her eyes shining, she added, “I can’t wait to get him home to make him some again.”

“I know,” Harris said, wanting to reach out and offer her the hug she clearly needed. Despite the relief provided by her mom, who was sitting with Jacob as much as she could manage, and his own overnight stint, Renee looked as stressed and exhausted as she had the last time he’d seen her. Knowing that his touch would be unwelcome, he instead asked, “You hanging in there? Eating? Sleeping?”

“Trying. It’s just—I kept waking up last night, thinking I was hearing him crying from a nightmare. I jumped out of bed and ran into his room to check on him two different times before I remembered he wasn’t there.”

“He’ll be home soon. I’m sure of it.”

Her mouth tightened, her eyes avoiding his.

“What, Renee? What is it?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It clearly does,” he said.

“It’s only—Mom got a letter from her community association. You know, it’s supposed to be fifty-five and older to live there, with absolutely no kids under eighteen. They’ve given us thirty days to move out. Can they even do that?”

Harris nodded. “They’re legally within their rights.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. And with me still laid off, there’s no way I can even think of—”

“You need another loan?” he asked, knowing she wouldn’t accept it if he called it a gift. He paid child support and plenty of it, but he understood it wouldn’t be enough to keep her out of a dicey neighborhood like Creekbend. And he’d be damned if his son would grow up there, no matter what the cost.

She shook her head. “No. I’m going to fix this, Harris. I’m fixing it myself.”

So he wouldn’t have to deal with any jurisdictional niceties, he was driving his personal vehicle, a blue Charger. He pulled onto the Garden State Parkway, still wondering how Renee thought she was going to manage. After she’d been laid off, she’d talked about finding a new job within commuting distance, but as far as Harris knew, she hadn’t had an interview since the new school year had started. She was hoping, she kept saying, that the strapped school district would get the federal grant it needed to rehire her. And after what had happened at The Kid Zone, he didn’t see working for Christina Paxton as an option for her any longer.

He shelved the worry for another time and allowed his mind to wander to last night’s conversation with Del Vecchio, who’d called from Baltimore after tracking down Christina’s sort-of stepson, DJ Paxton. Del had learned that the med-school student’s mother had taken leave from her bank job in Pittsburgh to care for her widowed mother as she lived out her final days in hospice. The nineteen-year-old sister had gone with her, in part to put some distance between her and her latest loser of a boyfriend.

After giving him the address—in a Philadelphia neighborhood just over the river from New Jersey—Del Vecchio had told him he’d head over first thing in the morning.

“Tell me about Doug Junior first,” Harris said. “Did you get the idea he might’ve decided to take a road trip to Seaside Creek to harass his dad’s second wife?”

“I don’t see it,” said Del Vecchio. “Vibe I get from this kid, Christina Paxton and his little half sister aren’t even on his radar. Looks to me like he’s frantically paddling, trying to stay afloat with his course work and dealing with his mother’s meltdowns over the grandmother dying and his younger sister’s boyfriend drama of the week.”

Something in Del Vecchio’s words, a note of dismissal in the younger cop’s tone, had made Harris reel him back in so he could conduct the interview himself. Because to him, it sounded like Del had already ruled out the first wife as a suspect, judging her too overwhelmed by responsibility—or maybe just too middle-aged and female—to do something as nutty as carving an offensive word into her former husband’s car.

But in Harris’s experience, people who were pushed beyond their capacity to cope—whether they were struggling med-school students or stressed-out mothers sandwiched between the needs of their parents and children—were likely to do the damnedest things. Things like taking out their frustrations on another woman via a baby monitor and paint damage.

After crossing the Ben Franklin Bridge an hour later, Harris pulled up at the address his officer had given him in front of a tan-brick row house in the middle of the block in an older working-class neighborhood. Judging from the number of Flyers pennants, Italian flags, and Christmas lights still hanging in the windows, he suspected the tall and skinny attached homes were packed to the rafters with the kind of old guys who wore black socks with their sandals in the summer and unzipped parkas with white wife-beaters in the winter months. The old women would be hockey fans, too, the kind who asked their visiting children,
Are youse stayin’ for dinna? I could take out a lasagna from the freezer, or we could maybe pick up cheesesteaks.