You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone (33 page)

He heard the bedroom door creak open, and he froze.

The door closed once again, and the lock clicked. “Don't worry, it's me,” Bonnie whispered.

He stepped out of the bathroom. “What's going on? I heard someone come up earlier.”

Bonnie nodded. “It's my brother. He went into his room. Listen, I need to tell you something . . .”

“What?”

Bonnie looked nervous. Her eyes searched his. “The police—they found your therapist.”

“They got ahold of Diane?” he asked. “Did she vouch for me? She said she would—”

“Spencer, she's dead.”

Dumbfounded, he stared at her. He felt as if he'd just slammed into a wall. Everything stopped. He couldn't breathe.

“I'm sorry,” Bonnie murmured.

Spencer let out a gasp, and quickly covered his mouth. But he couldn't hold back his tears. “No . . . no . . . no,” he whispered.

She reached over and started to caress his arm. “I knew it couldn't have been you. I'm so sorry. They found her in her office this morning. She was killed earlier this week—bludgeoned. Spencer, somebody set you up. It happened some time after your last appointment. A book belonging to you was found in the office. The police are calling you ‘a person of interest' in the case . . .”

He could barely comprehend what she was saying. He was still so torn up about Dianne. She'd been one of the few people he could trust, one of the few people who believed in him. And now she was dead.

“If Damon's the one doing this to you, I don't understand why,” Bonnie said. “What did you ever do to him?”

Spencer just shrugged. Maybe it was because Luke liked him, and Damon couldn't stand that.

“We need to get you out of here—and soon,” Bonnie said. “The police are planning to ramp up their patrol on this block in the next hour or two.”

He pulled away from her and wiped his nose with his sweater sleeve. “I've got no place to go. I might as well give myself up. I'm screwed. Whoever's out to get me, they're winning. Maybe it's Damon, but we can't be sure. There's not enough in that video to prove he faked his death.”

“Don't say that. We just need to hold off the police for a few hours, a day at the most. I'll work on Tanya, while you hide out.” From her pocket, Bonnie pulled out a set of keys—on a ring with a four-leaf-clover medallion. “I lifted these from my dad's dresser drawer. They're the keys to the family boat. It's docked on Lake Union. No one will think of looking for you there . . .”

She turned and snatched a change purse from the top of her white dresser. “I have nearly fifty bucks in here,” she said, looking inside the little purse. She fished out some bills and handed them to him. “You probably won't need it. You'll have all you need on the boat. It's got a bathroom, bedroom, and a galley—with cheese and crackers, soft drinks, and soup in the pantry. The instructions for operating everything on the boat are in the first drawer of the cabinet—on your left as you step into the galley . . .”

Bewildered, Spencer looked at the keys in his hand—and then at her. What she was saying came all too fast at him. But he kept nodding anyway.

“It's the South Lake Union Marina, pier seventy-nine, dock C. Can you remember that?”

He nodded again. He tried to remember:
seventy-nine and C
.

“The name of the boat is the
Bonnie Blue
—yeah, after me,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I probably won't be able to get to you until early tomorrow morning. Maybe dawn, I don't know. I can't see you tonight. It's just too risky. You better not call me either. If you have to call, there's a pay phone down at the end of the dock, use that. Don't use your regular phone. You'll have to get rid of it. I'm pretty sure the police can track where you are through your cell phone number . . .”

She led him to the window by her desk. There was a tree outside, practically right beside the house. “This is probably too much information, but I snuck out one night about a month ago to meet Ron. From here, you can climb out on the tree and work your way down. It's not too far a drop from the bottom branch. And you'll land in the side yard, right by the dining room—so no one's going to see you. Are you up for it?”

“I think so,” he said, still a bit dazed. “Pier seventy-nine, dock C. The
Bonnie Blue
.”

Turning away from him, she opened the window. Spencer could hear the rain, but it seemed to have lightened up a bit. He stared at the tree branches outside the window, wondering which one he should climb onto first.

Bonnie turned toward him again and put her hands on his shoulders. Her face was just inches from his. “I'm going downstairs to make sure they don't wander anywhere near the dining room. Give me a good sixty seconds before you climb out the window. Leave it open. Once you reach the marina, give me a call from the pay phone. I'll put my phone on vibrate. Just let it ring once and hang up. Then I'll know it's you, and that you're okay.”

He nodded again. “Thank you for all of this,” he whispered, “and for believing in me.”

Bonnie smiled at him and kissed him on the lips. “Give me a minute, and then climb down. And watch out for the police on this block. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said, but he was thinking about that kiss. He was dazed and grateful.

Spencer waited until Bonnie had left the bedroom and quietly closed the door. He crept back to the bathroom and put on his damp shoes and jacket. Then he padded back to the window. He figured he'd already given her sixty seconds. He took a good, long look outside to make sure no one could see him.

Throwing his leg over the sill, he reached out for the closest branch and pulled himself outside. He dangled in the air for a moment, then swung forward and planted his feet on a lower limb. The tree seemed to shake with his weight, and a few twigs snapped and fell to the ground. Spencer winced at the noise. Did anyone in the house hear it?

He glanced down at the twenty-foot drop below. His heart racing, he worked his way down from one branch to another. He was looking right into their dining room window as he reached the bottom limb. The room was empty, thank God. He thought he heard someone talking inside the house—a slightly muted murmuring.

He sat on the branch and then lowered himself down. He had about a five-foot drop, which he could have done easily—if the grass weren't wet. The minute he hit the ground, he slipped and landed on his ass. It didn't hurt as much as it unnerved him.

He scurried to his feet and glanced back at the dining room window. It sounded like the voices inside were louder.

Spencer raced toward some bushes bordering the neighbor's property. Weaving around the shrubs, he cut through the neighbor's yard toward a side street. He didn't see any police cars down the road.

Catching his breath, Spencer forced himself to slow down. He figured people were more likely to notice him if he was running. At a brisk clip, he started down the sidewalk, and didn't look back.

“South Lake Union Marina, pier seventy-nine, dock C,” he said to himself, as he felt the light rain on his face. “The
Bonnie Blue
. . .”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

 

T
he phone on his bedside table rang—a reminder to Luke that he'd forgotten to turn it off.

He'd fallen asleep for a while, but didn't feel much better. When he'd told Andrea that he had a headache, it was a polite way of saying that he was in excruciating pain. Everything hurt. They were trying to wean him off the painkillers, and had lowered his dosage for the first time. He'd hated the sensation that he was all doped up. But right now, he'd have preferred to be a little out of it—instead of in this constant agony.

It was an ordeal just to reach for the phone with his good arm. From the night table, a get-well card—with a monkey in a nurse's cap on the cover—fell to the floor. He finally managed to grab the receiver on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

“Luke? Hi, it's Spencer. Did I get you at a bad time?”

“It's okay,” he said, trying not to sound like he'd just woken up. “How are you?”

“I—I'm really sorry to bother you, but I'm in trouble,” he said, his voice cracking. The words rushed out of him: “Ron Jarvis is dead—and my therapist, they killed her, too. They're trying to set me up. I can't call Aunt Dee. I'm pretty sure the police are with her . . .”

Luke closed his eyes. “Just—just slow down, okay? Where's Andrea?”

“At your place, I think. Last time she called—almost an hour ago—she said the police were waiting outside your house. They think I killed Ron Jarvis—and my therapist, Diane . . .”

Luke had seen something on the local news at noon about the death of Damon's former tormentor, but they'd reported it as a suicide. He'd had no idea Spencer's therapist was dead, too.

“They're trying to frame me,” Spencer said. “They've set it up so it looks like I killed them.”

“The police are trying to frame you?”

“No, Damon is,” he replied. “Luke, I don't know how to tell you this without sounding crazy, but I'm pretty sure Damon's still alive. Check the video again. Look close. You never actually see him get into the car. I think he faked his death so he could get back at all the people who bullied him. And he's trying to make it look like I killed these people.”

Luke sighed. “Spencer, this isn't funny . . .”

“I'm not trying to be funny. I know you don't want to hear this, and I hate telling you. I mean, he's your son. But check the video. Tell Andrea to check the video. Damon opens the car door and then picks up the camera to reposition it. But that's all a distraction while Damon's accomplice loaded another body into the car. I think his friend Tanya might have helped him . . .”

“Spencer, I've heard enough,” Luke said.

“After the explosion, there was nothing left to identify. Don't you see? He had it all figured out . . .”

“They found a couple of Damon's teeth,” Luke said evenly. He was angry, hurt, and in pain. “The dental records matched, Spencer.”

“Well, he could have knocked out those teeth ahead of time.”

“You saw the webcast,” Luke said. “Damon's mouth looked fine.”

“He could have gone to a—a crooked dentist days or weeks ahead of time,” Spencer argued. “He planned this thing, Luke. Look at how Reed died. He was trapped inside a refrigerator. That was Damon getting even for locking him inside a storage space. Ron, he was strung up from a tree. Ron threatened to string up Damon from a ceiling pipe in the restroom at school. They stripped Damon, too. Aunt Dee should ask the police if Ron was naked when they found him hanging from that tree—”

“Stop,” Luke breathed. “Stop it. Just tell me where you are, Spencer.”

“I can't say. I need to disappear for a while. Please tell Aunt Dee I'm okay. And she needs to look at the video. I'm sorry, Luke. I'm really sorry.”

Luke heard a click on the other end. Then the line went dead.

* * *

Spencer stood at one end of the University Bridge over Lake Union. The rain had tapered off to a light mist.

The bus had dropped him off one block from the drawbridge. According to the Seattle Metro route directions he'd gotten off his smart phone, the transfer bus would pick him up at the same spot in ten minutes. He hoped the police hadn't tapped into his phone yet. If they had, then they'd know exactly where he was headed.

He leaned on the bridge walkway railing with the phone in his hand. He hated upsetting Luke—especially when the guy was in a lot of pain. Luke had sounded furious with him. Why wouldn't he be? Three weeks ago, he'd watched his son die in a very public suicide. If that wasn't bad enough, the kid took Luke's former wife and two others down with him. And now here he was, telling Luke that Damon was still alive and out there killing even more people. It was a wonder Luke hadn't hung up on him.

He could see why Damon had gone after the people who had bullied him. And he understood why Damon, out of jealousy, tried to pin their murders on him. After all, he was sort of taking Damon's place with Luke.

But why kill Diane? What did she ever do to Damon?

His phone rang.

Spencer wondered if it was Luke calling back—or maybe Aunt Dee. The caller ID showed:
CALLER UNKNOWN
.

He reluctantly answered: “Hello?”

“Hey, Spencer,” the man said. “How are you doing?”

“Who is this?” he asked.

“Where are you right now?”

He realized it was probably a cop. “I didn't kill anybody,” he said, a tremor in his voice.

“We know that,” the man replied. “We just need to ask you some questions. Your aunt is very worried about you. We're all worried about you, Spencer. Tell us where you are, and we'll come pick you up. I promise we'll—”

Spencer clicked off the line.

He had a pen, and took a Seattle's Best Coffee punch card out of his wallet. On the back of it, he copied down Bonnie's phone number. He slipped the card back into his wallet and tucked the wallet into his pocket.

With a shaky hand, he set his smart phone on the railing of the bridge. He gave it a push and watched it drop into Lake Union.

Then Spencer went to catch his bus.

* * *

“Can't you see that Spencer's been set up to take the blame for these murders?” Andrea said, pacing around Luke's kitchen. “I mean, whoever's doing this isn't exactly subtle about it.”

Detective Talwar, in a beige pantsuit, sat with a uniformed cop at the tall, glass-top breakfast table. Andrea had served her coffee in a Huskies mug. None of the other cops wanted anything to drink. Two more were in the living room with Deputy Marston—obviously waiting to pounce on Spencer the moment he came through the front door.

She'd given them permission to search Spencer's room. At this point, if he was hiding something from her, Andrea figured the police were welcome to it. She'd told them: “I'm doing you a favor allowing you to go through his room without a search warrant. Do me a favor, and try not to tear the place apart, okay? Please, put everything back the way you found it.”

They hadn't found a thing—except Reed Logan's baseball cap, which had been bagged as evidence and now sat atop the kitchen counter.

She'd shown Talwar the varsity jacket and rope from the trunk of her VW, and another cop had already bagged them and whisked them away to their lab. Andrea had been trying to convince Talwar that someone had framed Spencer. But the policewoman didn't seem to believe a word she was saying.

“Let me put it this way,” Andrea said, stopping and putting a hand on the kitchen counter. “Do you think it was just a coincidence that I got a blowout after being sent on a wild-goose chase across town by someone pretending to be a doctor? They did something to my tire. If I hadn't gotten a flat, I wouldn't have found the rope and that jacket in my trunk. Don't you see? Those items were planted there. Someone wanted me to think Spencer killed Ron Jarvis.”

“And who would that be?” Talwar asked.

Andrea sighed. “I told you. Talk to Troy Slattery—and maybe check on some of his roommates at that dump where they live on Capitol Hill. You'll probably find a ton of stolen property in there. Troy's a meth addict. He had an affair with Evelyn Shuler, and he hates Luke. Check that Mazda CX-9 for his prints and traces of crystal meth. I wouldn't be surprised if he has a record and his fingerprints are on file. I'd say he's your best candidate. Find out where he was the night Luke was mowed down—and when all the murders took place. I'm pretty sure he's the one who broke in here the other night, too . . .”

Detective Talwar frowned. “Why in the world would he want to frame your nephew for these murders? And what motive would he have for killing high school kids?”

Andrea was stumped. “I'm not sure. These were people who bullied Damon. Maybe he and Damon had a friendship—and he's doing it out of revenge. He was close to Evelyn, and she wanted to make my life miserable. Troy could be carrying on her mission. I don't know. I really wish you'd ask him.”

Andrea glanced at the baseball cap in the evidence bag on the counter. “We've been up front with you from the very start,” she said, nodding at their “find” after searching Spencer's bedroom. “Spencer told you about someone leaving that hat in his school locker, and you dismissed it as some classmate's joke. And now you're accusing him of killing his therapist. Good God, if you knew how he depended on that woman. She did so much to help him. Why would Spencer kill her? Diane was like a second mother to him.”

Detective Talwar put down the coffee cup. “I'm sorry, but didn't he serve time for killing his mother?”

Andrea sighed. “That happened when he was eleven years old—and there were extenuating circumstances. He's already paid his debt for that. He isn't—”

Her cell phone rang.

Andrea grabbed it off the kitchen counter, and checked the caller ID: HARBORVIEW HOSP.

“Who is it?” Talwar asked, hopping off the tall kitchen chair.

“It's from Harborview,” she said. “It could be the same guy who called me earlier, the one pretending to be a doctor . . .”

“Put it on speakerphone,” Talwar urged her.

Andrea clicked on the phone, and then switched to speaker mode. “Hello?”

“Hey, babe, it's me,” Luke said, sounding groggy.

She gave a wary glance at Detective Talwar and the cop by the breakfast table. Marston and the two other policemen came to the kitchen doorway. They must have heard the phone ring.

“Hi, Luke,” she said. “I have you on speaker. You remember Detective Talwar? Well, she's here—along with a few policemen. We have a—a situation here.”

“Well, okay,” he said. “Does it have to do with Spencer?”

“It does,” she replied.

“He called me about twenty minutes ago,” Luke said. “He said someone was framing him for murdering his therapist—and Ron Jarvis. Last I heard, this Ron person committed suicide. But maybe that's changed. Is that right, Detective Talwar?”

She hesitated, and then spoke up loudly. “Yes, we now have reason to believe it may have been a homicide.”

“Spencer says he didn't do it,” Luke said. “He says he hasn't killed anyone, and I believe him . . .”

“Did he give you any indication where he might be?” Talwar asked. But then she suddenly seemed distracted. Her phone must have been on vibrate, because she reached for it.

“He wouldn't say where he was,” Luke answered. “He—well, he thinks Damon is still alive. He says Damon faked his death. He wanted you to look at the webcast video again, Andrea. He claims Damon never really got in the car . . .”

“What?” Andrea gasped.

“I don't believe it either,” Luke said. “But it's clear to me that Spencer does.”

Andrea glanced at Detective Talwar, who clearly wasn't interested in what Luke had to say about Spencer's fantastic theories. In fact, she wasn't even listening. She was holding her phone close to her face and murmuring into it.

She wasn't the only one. Marston and another cop were on their phones, too.

“Spencer wasn't making much sense to me,” Luke said. “He went on and on about how Damon was pretending to be dead so he could kill the people who bullied him—or something like that. I'm afraid I wasn't very patient with him . . .”

There was a buzz throughout the room. A couple of the cops whispered to each other. The others were still on their phones. Andrea could hardly focus on what Luke was saying.

“Ah, you said he called about twenty minutes ago?” she asked him.

“Yeah,” Luke replied. “Spencer said he had to disappear for a while, and then he hung up. I tried calling him back—three times—but didn't get an answer, not even his regular voice mail. It was an automatic recording from the cellular company . . .”

“Tell Luke you'll call him back,” Talwar whispered, giving Andrea a nudge.

Andrea frowned at her. “Pardon me?”

“Mr. Shuler, something's come up,” the detective announced. “Andrea's going to call you back.”

“Oh, well, okay, I guess,” he said, obviously confused. “Um, I'll be here.” He clicked off.

Andrea switched off her phone. “What's going on?”

“He sounds pretty strong,” Talwar said. “Can he sit up? Is he in any condition to be moved?”

“I doubt it. Why?”

“He's at Harborview, isn't he? Do you think the doctors there could at least wheel him down to the morgue?”