With Every Breath (15 page)

"That’s probably smart."

"Yeah, it’ll stay under our hats."

"She’s having some problems up here, and I’m trying to figure out if it’s Rick Graycie who’s giving them to her."

"What kind of problems?"

Joe told him and waited for an opinion, and he realized he was clutching the phone like a club. His heart was thudding too slowly and too hard against his chest. He wanted very badly for this guy to say, yup, sure enough, that’s Rick Graycie. A cop-killer was bad, he decided, but the alternative was worse. At least he knew who the cop-killer was.

"I don’t know," Goldwell answered finally.

"Gut instinct," Joe said shortly. "Just give me that." "Well, it fits his type—you know, sneaking around, that sort of thing. My experience is that stalkers play cat and mouse more often than they walk up and blow somebody away. Unless they’re driven over the edge. Half the fun is in tormenting their victim, and they’re obsessed with them, don’t really want to lose them. Your guy is playing cat and mouse from the sound of it. I’ll tell you what bothers me. Graycie never really fit the mold. He blew Ronnie Sanchez clear to kingdom come for no particular reason. I mean, he panicked, sure. He was going to lose the boy. But Sanchez had no way of taking the woman away from him, and I’ve got to think that that was Graycie’s prime concern. If he’d just let my boys take him in, he’d have been out on the streets again before we could belch. He’d have been able to start over, go back to pursuing her, probably sooner rather than later. He wouldn’t have gotten much time for attempted kidnapping. He hadn’t actually gone off anywhere with the kid yet, hadn’t had him for longer than his agreed-upon time. He might even have gotten off."

"Maybe he thought that by taking the kid, he’d draw her to him," Joe mused. "Maybe that’s what he was planning." "Like calling her later and saying ‘We’re in Nassau, come get him’? Then when she gets there, he keeps her there, in a place with no sympathetic cops on her side." "Yeah," Joe said.

"Well, that’s what we thought. Still, the bastard overreacted."

Joe swore.

"Look, I’m going to send this file up to you. Keep us posted. We want this guy real bad."

"Right." Joe hung up, breathing a little too heavily, as though he had been running. On impulse, he picked up the phone again and called Leslie Mendehlson.

"Look, I’ve got a situation here that I need to bring you in on," he said without preamble. "It’s Maddie Brogan." Leslie was instantly alert. "What is it?"

"Somebody killed her kid’s cat tonight. Keep it under wraps, at least until it hits the grapevine. God knows that’ll happen sooner or later."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Well, she’s seeing you because of Josh, right?" Leslie hadn’t actually told him so, but he’d figured it out. "So I’d guess she’s going to need you tomorrow," he went on. "I guess this is going to rock him."

"I could call her now."

"Her phone’s out. Somebody cut the line."

There was a long silence. "Joe, what’s happening up there?"

"Damned if I know."

"But you’re doing something about it."

"I’m trying."

She didn’t answer, but he heard her take a breath in, as though she had been about to say something, then had changed her mind.

"What?" he snapped. "Spit it out, Leslie."

"I think you do your own share of hiding, Joe," she said boldly. "From anything nasty and painful."

He was startled, though he shouldn’t have been. She'd said as much before. "This isn’t about me," he growled. "So don’t start that shit now."

"No, but it includes you, Joe. It includes you because you’ve chosen to play cops and robbers on a little island without any robbers."

"Well, we’ve got one now, we’ve got something,
and if you’ll let me get off the horn, I’d like to find out who and what it is."

"Then you’re going to have to chase him first."

"What the hell do you think I’m doing in this office at nine o’clock on a Saturday night?"

"I think you’re pretending. Going through the motions." He had the foresight to hold the phone away before he gave vent to a few choice words.

"Joe." Leslie’s voice was calm, quiet. "All I’m saying is that sooner or later you’ve got to take some kind of stand with your life. Do something. Break away from Gina and leave here. Or get on with your life here in spite of her. Stop doing penance. Stop hiding. You always let things slide rather than get involved in anything ugly. You’ve made a few noises about what happened to the Brogans twenty-five years ago, you put me on the spot with questions we both know I can’t ethically answer, but you’re basically content to do just that—ask idle questions—and not dig too deeply into what happened back then. It’s not your case, right? It’s just a file hanging around downstairs in archives. All I’m saying is that maybe the time has come to bring the file upstairs and do something. For your own sake and hers."

"I’m not paying you for this mind-shrinking." He wasn’t quite joking. "Get off it."

"I’ve said my piece."

"Good." He paused. "You think that whoever killed the cat also killed her folks? Is that it?"

"I’ve always been one of those who thought that Beacher killed Annabel," Leslie admitted. "But I’m starting to think maybe I’m wrong."

"Could be that her ex-husband killed the cat."

"But we won’t know, will we, until we rule one out? Anyway, I’ll stop by her place, say, nine o’clock tomorrow morning."

"I’ll meet you there."

There was another long spell of quiet. "Any particular reason?"

"Yeah," he said finally. "I’m thinking we probably ought to get around to telling her how she was found that day. I’m thinking it’s better coming from you, given that you know a thing or two about the human mind. If this thing is going to boil, then she’s the only one who can turn the heat off again, right? And she can’t do that until she remembers something." He hesitated. "Besides, I need to disinter the cat and give him a decent grave."

"You’re a good guy, Joe."

"Yeah, well, they pay me to do these things."

"And to shoot bad guys."

Joe snorted. He hadn’t discharged his gun anywhere but at the shooting range on the mainland in twelve years. He hung up and shrugged into his damp jacket, grimacing, thinking about things like fingerprints and evidence, thinking that maybe there was something else he should be doing up there at the cottage on The Wick. But the storm had probably already washed away any traces that the cat-(cop-?)killer had left.

Joe wondered if it was possible to do an autopsy on a cat. He wondered if there was any clue
there
as to what

had gone on up at Maddie’s house that night. But dead was dead. And the gaping tissue at the poor thing’s throat left little doubt as to how it had gotten that way.

He was halfway to the door when his phone buzzed. He went back to it.

"I’m going to patch Hector through," Lou said. Then, a moment later, there came Hector’s thin, reedy voice. "What am I supposed to be looking for up here?" "Maddie Brogan had a bit of trouble tonight. Keep an eye on her place, and if anything happens that hasn’t happened before in the thirty-odd years you’ve been patrolling The Wick, then give me a call. Easy enough?" "Well, Angus is hanging around on her front porch." Joe dragged hard on his patience to keep it from slipping too far. "Angus lives up there. Hector, and he visits her a lot."

"Okay, I just thought I’d let you know."

Joe sighed. "Tell you what. You can come on in. I’ll keep an eye on things myself until Kenny shows up." What’s the sense in going home? he thought again. There was nothing waiting for him there. Besides, he found that he was uncomfortable with the idea trusting Maddie Brogan’s well-being to the likes of Hector Marks.

It was what he got paid for, he thought again. It was that, and nothing more.

Maddie couldn’t sleep.

She dozed for a while, but she kept thinking about Rick, about the terror coming back and starting all over again. She worried about how it would affect Josh this time. She finally got up to check on him again. The house felt damp and drafty, and she nudged the heat up a little.

Tomorrow this would all start sinking in on him, she

thought dismally. She really would have to get in touch with Leslie as soon as possible.

She turned away from the heating element, listening to the furnace chug and clank in the bowels of the cottage. And that was when she saw the dark shape on the front deck.

By sheer dint of will, she didn’t scream and wake Josh. She staggered backward, moving instinctively away from the bay window, a hand clapped to her mouth. She looked around for some sort of weapon, and then her pulse steadied, slowly, slowly, as rationality seeped back in.

The figure on the porch was too big to be Rick.

Rick had been slender, though strong enough, whippet-lean and muscular. He had been only a few spare inches taller than she was. Not so the figure on the porch. Maddie crept to the window and peered out, and her breath escaped her on a burst. She went to the door.

"Angus!"

He jumped a little and turned to look at her. "Hello, hello."

"What in the world are you doing out there?" The rain had let up some, she realized. It was a relentless drizzle. But it was late, and the wind still howled and tried to snatch her voice, and it was not a good night to be out and about.

"Protecting you," Angus answered. "Saw the cat."

"You did? You saw the kitten?" Her heart picked up its pace. "Did you see who hurt him?"

"The cat’s dead."

"Yes," she agreed, then she sighed. It was virtually impossible to get an intelligent conversation out of the man, and tonight she was in no mood to try. "Well, thanks, Angus. It’s awful out there. Go on home. I’ll be okay tonight. Joe gave me flares."

"Flares?"

"To shoot up if there’s a problem."

"You should call."

"Call—oh. No, I can’t. The phone’s out."

"I’d better stay then."

Maddie opened her mouth and closed it again. She half thought to invite him in, but she really didn’t want the company. Yet there was no sense in arguing with him. When he got something in his head, it was in his head, period. There was no dislodging it until nature got around to letting it go.

"Well, good night," she quietly. If he wanted to sit on the porch, there was nothing she could do about it.

She closed the door slowly. Actually, it made her feel better, safer, to know that he was out there, she realized.

She went to the kitchen for a cup of tea, thinking she would watch television for a while. As she passed the counter, she saw the sales circular she had dropped there earlier. She picked it up to throw it away, but something about it caught her attention this time.

It was that dangling feeling, she realized, that sense of an unnatural loose thread that made you look at something twice. She turned the paper over in her hands, looking at it more closely. Then she knew for sure that Rick had killed the kitten.

It was the label.

Richard Graycie, Jr., 110 Wick Road, Candle Island, Maine. His name. Her new address.

Impossible.

"N-n-n-no," she stammered, whispering. "No!"

She flung the circular away from her. It fluttered to the floor. She put her hands to her temples. There was no connection between them anymore. She had never taken Rick’s name in the first place. The only connection was Rick himself, so he had sent this to her, had

had it sent to her, to taunt her and to let her know that he knew how she had tried to protect them.

Maddie cried out and ran back to Josh’s bedroom, bumping painfully into furniture on the way. She dropped nervelessly to the floor beside his bed and touched him.

It would not happen again. She wouldn’t let it. If Josh was taken, it would have to be from her fighting, protesting arms.

It was the only thing that truly terrified her, she realized, her worst fear, the single thing she knew instinctively that she could never survive. She could handle Rick hanging around, staring at her, watching her again, but she could not allow any of it to touch Josh. He couldn’t take much more, and she couldn’t bear to lose him.

When the sun came up she was still curled on the floor, one hand protectively on his leg as though to hold him.

Chapter 12

When the knock came at her door, it jarred Maddie awake. She sat up and looked at Josh. He was still asleep, but it was an unnatural sleep. She glanced at her watch. It was not quite nine o’clock. He was sleeping too long, too soundly.

The rapping started on the door again. She was loath to leave him.

She stood up, feeling battered, hopeless, impotent. It was a feeling she’d been free of since she had decided to go to Maine. Josh had been doing so well! She had starting thinking of pictures again! And then this.

It was clear to her that Rick was back. She would never escape him, she thought, would never get away from him.

Her legs were unsteady and achy as she went back to the living room. She looked warily out the bay window. It was Leslie Mendehlson.

Maddie’s breath left her. She hurried to the door.

Only when she saw the woman’s expression did Maddie realize that she probably looked as bad as she

felt. She gave a nervous laugh, waving the doctor inside. "It’s been a long night."