Trust Me (20 page)

Maybe Meredith Connelly was his first. Her initials weren't the last ones listed, but she was close to the bottom. There was no L.F. for Linda Farello or P.P. for Patty Poin-dexter, both of whom had been murdered after Meredith.

Tossing his remote on the coffee table, David got up and went into his office. The "offense" beside the initials M.C. was "couldn't even remember my name."

How was such a small slight important enough for Oliver to record?

How could anyone hold a grudge about something so inconsequential?

Maybe he'd met Meredith at Pepe's, the restaurant where she worked as a waitress. If she was dealing with the public, she might be friendly, even warm, in her manner but it wasn't personal. Oliver didn't seem to understand the difference and adjust his expectations accordingly. It was possible he'd gone there to eat, had Meredith as his waitress, liked what he saw and left her a big tip and his card. Then, when she didn't remember him the next time he came in, he'd been insulted and begun following her around, watching her--and eventually raping and murdering her.

David thought that scenario was plausible, but he didn't know how he'd ever prove it. He'd checked Oliver's credit card records to see if he'd ever paid for a meal at Pepe's that way. Nothing. He'd spoken to Meredith's coworkers, too. None of them remembered Burke coming in on a regular basis or having any contact with Meredith. But that wasn't surprising. Oliver had one of those faces that could blend into a crowd. He certainly didn't look threatening.

The phone rang. Dropping the printed list back onto his desk, David sank into his chair as he answered. "Hello?"

"Daddy?"

Jeremy. "Hi, bud. What's up?"

"If Mr. Green Grocer has thirty-six cucumbers on sale for $1.39 each, how much would it cost to buy five of them?"

David smiled. Math homework. "First you have to decide how to set up the problem."

"Just tell me the answer," he said, his voice impatient.

He always tried to get out of doing the story problems. "Sorry. You have to solve it yourself, but I'll help you figure out how."

"Da-ad, I want to be done so I can watch the rest of my movie."

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Movie? David checked his watch. It was after nine o'clock. "Isn't it a little late for you to be up?"

"No. Mom hasn't told me to go to bed yet."

"Where is she?"

"In her room."

"Asleep?"

"Talking on her cell phone."

"To whom?"

"Someone named after the sky. Isn't that funny?"

David didn't think so. "What's she saying?"

"I can't hear. When I went in, she made me leave and close the door."

"Did Skye call her?" he asked. But he knew better. Skye didn't have any reason to contact Lynnette. Besides, she didn't have Lynnette's number, and it wasn't published anywhere.

"I don't know," Jeremy said.

"Never mind. Let's get that problem done," David said, but his mind was on Skye the whole time. And when he hung up, he tried to reach her himself.

Skye stood in her office with the lights off, peering through the blinds.

Except for her car, the parking lot was empty. She had the doors locked, and her gun on the bookshelf close at hand, but she still felt uneasy, spooked by the fact that a total stranger, a man somehow connected to Oliver Burke, had tried to get her into his car. He must've been following her. How else would he have known she'd be at that restaurant?

Was he out there?

She didn't think so, but it was difficult to tell. David's wife had called, distracting her. For those few minutes he could've walked through the front door and she wouldn't have noticed.

Is something going on between you and my husband?

Taken completely off guard, Skye hadn't known how to answer. She'd finally come up with, Your husband? Last I heard, you were divorced.

We 're still trying to make it work. We don't need you getting involved and destroying that. There's a child to consider.

Why had she answered the phone? She wasn't trying to destroy anyone, least of all David's son.

The office phone rang, causing her to glance over her shoulder. But this time Skye didn't even move close enough to check the caller ID. She didn't want to speak to anyone. Tonight, the whole world felt hostile.

Damn you, Oliver Burke. Damn you to hell. Without him, her life would've been completely different. Before that night, she'd been a happy, 128

confident, carefree young woman. She'd had no fear of anyone. But Oliver had left more scars than the one on her face.

She fingered the raised bump that followed the arc of her cheekbone.

If it weren't for Oliver and what he'd done, she probably would've been married by now, started a family...

Her cell phone chimed in her purse. Evidently, whoever had just called the office was looking specifically for her. But she couldn't bring herself to move away from the window.

When the chiming stopped, the office phone started again.

"Go away," she muttered. Then, more exhausted than she could ever remember being, she forced her legs to carry her over to the couch, where she lay down below the portraits of the killers that faced her every day.

"Why do you do what you do?" she asked them, ignoring the persistent ringing.

A lack of caring? A lack of empathy? That was what the professionals said. Skye suspected there was more than that, but she wasn't sure exactly what. No one was. She only knew that Burke had changed her life irrevocably.

Finally, whoever was calling gave up, and she was able to close her eyes. The warmth provided by her coat felt like a protective cocoon. If only she could sleep for a few hours...

But it wasn't twenty minutes later that she heard someone at the door.

Trying to get in.

The interior of The Last Stand was dark, which made David uneasy because Skye's Volvo was in the lot. If she wasn't here, where was she? She wasn't answering the office phone, her cell phone or her home phone, even though Sheridan and Jasmine had both told him she'd gone to the delta house to get some rest.

Standing in the harsh glare of a motion-activated floodlight, David continued to pound his fist against the door, hoping to draw her out from some inner sanctum, a break room, conference room or kitchen. After the frightening call she'd received earlier in the week, he didn't like not being able to get hold of her. But his knocking brought no response.

"Skye, it's David," he shouted. "Are you in there?"

Silence.

"Skye?"

She wasn't around. But she couldn't have gone far. It wasn't all that long ago that Lynnette had been talking to her on the phone.

His pulse raced as he turned around and stared at the busy street. She wouldn't have walked anywhere. She knew better than that. Or maybe not.

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The way she could handle a gun made her feel safe.

He gazed at the fast-food restaurant across the street. There wasn't anyone in the place. It was closed, except for the drive-through.

He was about to drive to the delta house--to see if she'd gotten a ride with someone else--when a light finally snapped on.

Closing his eyes for a second, he told himself to
calm
down. She was fine. He could see her coming toward him, but she looked more like the shocked, disillusioned woman he'd met in the hospital than she had in three years.

When the lock clicked, he swung the door open before she could even touch the handle. "Are you okay?"

She didn't answer right away. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to check on you."

"I'm fine," she said, but he could tell that wasn't true. She was having a bad night--and he wasn't sure how much of her misery could be attributed to Lynnette, which meant it came indirectly from him.

"Something's wrong," he said.

She reached into her pocket and handed him a piece of paper.

When he'd read it, he understood. "Who gave you this?"

"A man at a restaurant."

He wanted more details. But not here. "Come on," he said, still holding the door.

She blinked in surprise. "Where're we going?"

"To my place." He knew it was crazy to take her home, especially now that Lynnette was suspicious of their relationship. But Skye was so busy trying to help every victim in Sacramento she wasn't taking proper care of herself. And with Burke getting out...

The dark smudges beneath her eyes testified to the fact that she was exhausted. "When's the last time you had a good night's sleep?" he asked.

She shrugged. "You know how it is. Places to go, people to see."

He wanted to run his hand over her cheek, cup her chin and promise to make everything all right. But he knew he'd kiss her if he did--and his decision to do the right thing by Lynnette stopped him.

"Let me stand guard tonight, okay?" he said softly.

Her eyes connected with his, and although he could sense how weary she was, she straightened her spine. "You don't need to worry about me. I can handle this."

"I know you can." Taking her hand, he rubbed the fine bones above her fingers. It wasn't much, but it was all he could allow himself. "This way, maybe I'll be able to get some sleep myself."

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A smile curved her lips. "Okay. I'll do it for you."

He chuckled as he led her outside. "Thanks for the favor."

Fresh from a hot shower, Skye sat at David's kitchen table, wearing a T-shirt, a pair of boxers and his robe. He still had the note she'd given him earlier and seemed engrossed by it. She sipped the glass of wine he'd poured to help her relax--and it was obviously working because she was now distracted by the contours of his body, apparent beneath his Gold's Gym Tshirt and worn jeans. Unfortunately, she was even distracted by the clothing he'd lent her. The T-shirt and boxers were right out of the laundry, so they smelled of soap, but the robe hadn't been washed in a while. She could tell because it smelled just like him.

"Who could this guy be?" He frowned as he pushed the paper into the center of the table.

She pulled the collar of the robe higher, practically up to her nose. She was still tired, but she was hungry, too-- hungry for physical intimacy, reassurance, the positive things in life. She'd dealt with the devastating results of violent crime on an up-close-and-personal basis for too long. She needed to compensate, and she knew exactly how she wanted to do that.

But David had been very careful not to touch her since he'd shown her into his apartment.

"I'm thinking he's a friend of Oliver's." She let go of the robe's collar for a moment to take another sip of wine. "Or maybe someone he paid to scare me."

"Describe him again."

"He was about five-eleven, 190 lbs. Dark, shoulder-length hair, brown eyes, an olive complexion, a giant piercing in each earlobe and a goatee."

"Any additional scars? Tattoos?"

"No. Other than the holes in his ears, he could change his looks easily enough. All he'd have to do is shave off the goatee, bleach and cut his hair and put on a pair of glasses. At that point, he could probably walk right past me and I wouldn't recognize him--unless I happened to focus on his earlobes."

David rubbed at the condensation on the table from his glass of water and turned the paper over. The man had written on the back of a fast-food receipt. "It's not like this tells us much, either."

"I wonder how long he's been following me. If he knows where I live." The fear of that had stopped her from going home, even though she hadn't felt like working anymore.

"It's not like Burke to collaborate. He might appear friendly on the surface, but on a deeper level he's very antisocial."

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"He strikes me as a loner, too," she agreed. "Only a loner would make that list. It's such a juvenile way to react to people." She shook her head.

"He's a dentist, an educated man, for crying out loud."

"Just because he's advanced intellectually doesn't mean he isn't retarded emotionally."

"What do you think screwed him up?"

He raised one shoulder. "Tough to say. It might have to do with his upbringing."

"But he has a good family."

"In most respects, I suppose."

She liked the sound of David's voice, his large hands loose around his glass. "Have you found something I don't know about?"

"Nothing earth-shattering. A guard at the prison told me he saves every letter from his father, but throws away all the others. And there've been a couple of other statements by various people in Oliver's life that make me wonder if there wasn't some problem between him and his father when he was growing up. Jealousy of his brother. Feelings of inadequacy.

Confusion over his sexual identity. Something."

"I wish his mother would open up and talk honestly about what he was like as a child."

"She's too deep in denial for that. She has a son who's a serial rapist and murderer, yet she insists he was a perfect boy and had a perfect family."

"Noah seemed to turn out okay," she said.

He arched an eyebrow. "You've met Noah?"

She braced herself for more of David's disapproval. "I spoke with him today. At his office."

"Do I want to hear this?"

"Probably not. But you can't do your job with only half the facts. This isn't directly related to those three murder cases, but it's peripherally connected."

"Why'd you go see him?"

"Why do you think? I had to warn him what could happen if Oliver found out about the affair."

"Warn him?" Obviously frustrated, David stood up and shoved a hand through his hair, making it stick up in front. "You realize that means the person who approached you at the restaurant could've been Noah's hired man and not Oliver's, don't you? Now he's aware that you know he's having an affair with his brother's wife. And I'll bet he's told Jane that you know, which makes two people--besides Oliver, of course--who'd love to see your lips sealed forever."

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"At least they're all members of the same family," she quipped, watching him pace.

He gave her a dirty look and didn't answer.

"What did you expect me to do? Ignore the risks Jane and Noah are running? They believe Oliver's like everyone else, David. And I knew that if Jane ever wound up dead, I'd feel responsible because I saw it coming and did nothing to prevent it."