Chapter 13

My mother was in a semi-state of mourning during our family dinner on Saturday. Coburn was still on his business trip, and she missed her little boy severely.

“Look at this,” Mom said, beaming as she handed me a postcard she’d pulled from the pocket of her apron. “It’s from Coburn.”

The card showed a picturesque Miami beach at dusk. Shades of purple and pink from the sunset glinted on the sand. I turned the card over. ‘Miss you, Mom. See you soon. Love, Coburn’ was scrawled in Coburn’s bold, masculine handwriting. No, ‘Having a wonderful time banging the blonde with the fake tits.’ Hmmm… would thought he’d give her a complete update.

“Nice,” I said, handing it back to her across the table.

“He’s so thoughtful,” she crooned. “A busy doctor like him, taking the time out to send his mother a card.”

Suddenly losing my appetite, I pushed my plate away, the pork chop and mashed potatoes only half eaten.

Naomi was absent from the dinner, probably sitting at home pining for Mr. Wonderful. Gable and Mitchum were unusually subdued. Sighing, I scooted my chair back.

“I need to go right after I clean the kitchen,” I announced.

“You can’t stay and visit? Why not?”

I took perverse delight in telling her why not. “Josie is at the house. I don’t want to be gone too long.”

My mother’s mouth tightened and her eyes got that look that said I’d disappointed her yet again. “Of course, dear. I know how important your friends are.” Slight emphasis on the ‘friends.’ Translation: Your family is not important. Or, at least, not me, your own mother. “You don’t need to clean the kitchen. I’ll do it so you can rush off. That way you won’t have to waste any more time with your family.”

Gable looked from me to my mother, then back to me. Clearing his throat, he said, “How is Josie? I’m glad she showed up.”

I knew he was trying to avert a disaster and I smiled gratefully. “She’s okay. I think maybe this time, she’ll—”

“Your sister’s too busy to talk to us, Gable,” Mom interrupted. “We need to let her tend to what really matters.”

I blew out a breath between my lips and jumped to my feet. Heading into the kitchen without another word, I let the swinging doors hurl back forcefully.

Mom came in right behind me. “I said I’d do these, Monroe. You can leave now.”

“I’ll do them,” I gritted, my back to her as I rinsed food from the dishes into the disposal.

“Then I’ll help.”

I tensed. The last thing I wanted was to be in close quarters with my mother. The only benefit was that I would finish more quickly and be able to make my escape.

We worked together in a silence thicker than the gravy I scrubbed from the plates. Nerves tightened my gut. I almost wished we were arguing again. It was better than the anxiety building inside me.

I clenched my teeth and looked up, my gaze falling on the clock. The damned stupid, broken clock.

“Can you tell me something?” I said, trying but failing to keep the ire out of my voice.

“Yes?” she asked, drawing it out in that defensive tone of hers.

“Why the hell do you keep that clock up? It hasn’t worked for more than twenty years. Don’t you think it’s time to take it down?”

Her gaze went to the wall where the clock hung. Her features softened and a wistful smile touched her lips.

“I used that clock to teach you to tell time.”

I halted my movements, leaving my hands beneath the running water. “You what?”

“You were six. We’d sit in the kitchen and I’d feed you Rice Krispie treats. You remember?”

I grinned. “Marshmallow creme and cereal. Who’da thought they’d taste so good together? You know, the packaged kind just aren’t the same.”

Mom shook her head. “They’re not made with love, dear, that’s why.”

Tears pricked the backs of my eyes.

Sighing, Mom said, “You were so willful, even as a child. I know I was rougher on you than I was on the boys, expected more out of you. But, you were just so darned smart, so curious and fearless. Gave me cause to worry, day in, day out. You were always so independent, wanted to take care of yourself. You didn’t need me.” She took her gaze from the clock and looked at me. “You’re still the same way, you know. Stubborn and independent. Almost to a fault.”

The words weren’t exactly compliments, but she said them as though she admired that about me. Shrugging, I said, “Don’t mean to be.”

“The older you got, the less you wanted to be around me. I think back over your childhood. All the conflicts we had. The mistakes I made. All the fond memories. I regret that the mistakes outnumber the fond memories. But this,” she gestured to the clock, “was one of my fondest. Maybe I just wanted to hold onto it.” Her voice grew thick with emotion. “It was the last time you needed me.”

The tears that had been taunting me finally fell. I shut off the water and dried my hands. Turning to my mother, I saw that her cheeks were wet, too. She held out her arms.

For the first time in a long time, I went into my mother’s hug.

****

Blood was everywhere, the rusty smell of it sharp and pungent in the air. The odor of fresh paint competed with the scent and lost. The basement was in an unfinished home, bare and pristine other than the savaged mess tied to a chair. The girl had been blonde, or so it seemed. Hard to tell. All that blood.

She was slumped over, still tied to a chair. Lane wished the ME would hurry. He wanted her bindings loosened.

He’d been to a lot of crime scenes, but there was something about this one… something heart-wrenching about the lone girl in the abandoned basement. She deserved to be free… deserved to rest.

“Find out who owns the property,” Lane told a patrol cop. “There’s a sign out front, Redway Properties. Get me a person to talk to.”

The cop nodded, made a note, and fled as if glad to have an excuse not to be in the room.

The walls were freshly painted with a white-ish gray color. Red lettering marred the otherwise clean surface, declaring, ‘In You I Trust.’

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Lane snapped.

Tony’s eyes flew to him. Probably because he seldom swore. Seldom showed anger. Well, he was angry now.

“I don’t know, Huck. Wondered the same thing myself. Different from the other scene, but it’s the same guy.”

“Yeah. Same lettering, same shade of red. Just decided to wax poetic a little differently this time.” Lane felt tension build in his shoulders and he sucked in a deep breath, let it out. The tension remained. “Who found her?”

“One of the construction guys. Came by the house this morning, even though they weren’t working today. Some story about leaving his cell phone.”

“You don’t believe him?”

“Haven’t talked to him. Only the first responders have. He’s waiting upstairs. Nervous as hell.”

A sound at the basement stairs made them turn. The ME came toward them, followed by two crime scene investigators.

“What do you have for me this time?” Keaton asked.

Without waiting for an answer, the ME went to the body. Lane watched as he examined the girl, and the CSIs bagged the items taken from the body.

“Nothing noteworthy on her person,” Keaton said. He stood, looked over to where her purse lay. “That belong to the victim?”

“Far as we know,” Tony said.

Keaton picked it up with gloved hands, digging among the make-up and mints, the keys and odds and ends, until he found her wallet. “According to the driver’s license, her name is Laurel Lohman. Twenty-nine years old.” Keaton shook his head. “Someone didn’t like her very much.” He handed the purse to a CSI to bag. “We’ll let you know when we have a positive ID.”

After the body was removed, and the ME left, Lane said, “Let’s go talk to the guy who found her.”

Lane followed Tony up the stairs. The smell of fresh enamel was stronger here, the odor of blood gone, and Lane took a deep breath, cleansing his lungs with the scent of the paint.

“Bronson Edgars,” Tony supplied as they walked outside.

They found Edgars, a young, heavy-set guy, leaning against the garage door. He wore a thick, Carhartt coat and had plenty of flesh padding him, yet he shivered like a man with palsy. He smoked a cigarette, furiously drawing on the butt and puffing the smoke out in rapid bursts.

“Mr. Edgars?” Lane asked as they approached.

He turned wild, unfocused eyes on them.

“Yeah?” Another animated drag from the cigarette.

“You found the victim?”

His ruddy face paled. “That was some fucked up shit, man. I just needed my cell phone.” He shook his head slowly, regretfully. “Forgot my goddamned cell phone.” It was said as if that oversight caused the girl’s death.

“Can you take us through it? Step by step?”

“Step by step?” He shrugged. “Not a lot of steps to it. I forgot my cell phone. Went to get it. Saw the basement door open and found…” He shuddered. Tears filled his eyes. He ground the cigarette beneath his boot heel and lit another. “God. She was so… bloody. I called 9-1-1 and got the fuck out of there. No. Wait. Got the fuck out of there first, then called 9-1-1.”

“Did you see or hear anything? Anything at all, before you went into the house, or while you were there?”

A shake of the head, then the same frenzied attack was launched on the second cigarette.

“Nothing. No one lives around here. The neighborhood is just a bunch of new homes going up. No one around.”

Lane figured the killer was long gone by the time Edgars showed up. All signs pointed to some time last night as the time of death.

“Do you know the girl?”

“No.” It was almost a shout. “I never saw her. I didn’t do nothing, man. Nothing.”

Lane was tempted to say, “If you didn’t do ‘nothing,’ then you did ‘something,’” but he didn’t think now was the time for a grammar lesson.

“Laurel Lohman. Name sound familiar?” Tony asked.

A rapid head shake. “Don’t know her, man, I’m telling you.”

“We need your name, address, phone number, place of employment. We might have some follow-up questions. Might need you to come to the station.”

Edgars nodded and, between puffs of the cigarette, recited the information.

Lane jotted it down, then said, “We’ll have to process your footprints and fingerprints.”

Tony called one of the techs over to take Edgars’ prints and when they were done, told Edgars he was free to go.

“But don’t leave town, right?” Edgars barked a nervous laugh, his face stretched in a grimace, then headed unsteadily to a white Ford truck smeared with dirt and bits of cement.

Lane took down the license number. He and Tony headed back toward the house.

They stopped on the porch, the two of them staring out over the neighborhood of partially built homes and no sign of human existence. Lane looked across the empty lots to where a grade school sat half a mile away. It appeared to be within spitting distance, but when the neighborhood was complete, the barrier of homes erected, the more diligent parents wouldn’t let their kids make the trip unescorted. Although it seemed close enough, safe enough at the moment, it wouldn’t then. Proof positive that safety was only an illusion.

“It is quiet around here,” Tony said.

“Quiet as a sinner on Sunday,” Lane agreed.

“Good location if you want to kill someone,” Tony’s voice was low, yet still loud in the quiet of the night. “No one around to hear the screams.”

****

I went to work early on Monday morning, before anyone else arrived. I wanted to look up some information from when Katie was murdered. Our computers held software that couldn’t be accessed from my home terminal.

I left off all the lights, other than the one directly above my cubicle. Sipping from the mug of hot, strong coffee I’d just brewed, I scrolled through the limited data available about the murder.

The only viable suspect they’d had was Cameron Cooper. He’d been twenty-one at the time. He’d served three years for a rape that occurred when he was a juvenile.

I did a search on his name. He’d be forty-six now. I wondered if he were still alive, if he were still in the area. Had the police looked at him for Maya’s killing two years ago? I hadn’t found anything to indicate they had in my two years of research. Hadn’t found anything to indicate whether or not Cooper was still around. Was he in jail now for some other crime? Maybe another rape? Once a rapist, always a rapist. The question wasn’t had he done it again. The question was, had he been caught and convicted.

Nothing came up on the search.

A noise sounded behind me and I turned. A figure lurched toward me from the darkness. I let out a scream.

“Monroe? Is that you?” a male voice said.

My heart pounded furiously, but I recognized him now. Adam.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“What are you doing here so early?”

He came closer and in the circle from the light above me, I got a better look at him.

His clothing was wrinkled, as if he’d slept in it. His face, however, looked like he hadn’t slept at all. Deep lines etched the sides of his mouth and dark circles surrounded his eyes, their vivid green now dulled. His hair was uncombed. He smelled of stale cologne and sweat. He squinted at me, blinking like he was coming out of a daze.

“I came in to do some research,” I told him. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

He peered at the computer screen. “What kind of research?”

Adam knew about Katie, but not everything. In the two years we’d dated, I hadn’t told him half of what I’d told Lane.

“It’s not important,” I said, minimizing the web site I had pulled up. I repeated my question. “Are you okay?”

He shook his head, shoving a hand through his hair. Shaking his head again, he stared at me. For just a moment, I saw a longing in his face. The old feelings I’d buried surfaced briefly, my body responding to the look in his eyes. I shoved them aside.

“Adam, has something happened?”

“Did you read yesterday’s paper?”

“No.”

“Tabitha’s best friend.” He sighed and dropped into the chair next to my desk. I waited for him to continue. After a long silence, he did. “Tabitha’s best friend was… murdered.”

“Oh, Adam. I’m so sorry.”

He nodded slowly, staring at his hands where they rested on his knees. “Murdered. Tabitha’s a wreck. We were up all night.”

“How did it happen? Do they know who did it?”

“Not yet. She was stabbed.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “Murdered,” he said again.

Not knowing what to say, I sat silently. Reaching out, I placed a hand on his shoulder. I could feel him tremble beneath my fingertips.

“I need a drink,” he said.

“It’s six-thirty in the morning.”

He gave a weak grin. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.” Leaning back in the chair, he closed his eyes. “I can’t believe it. Can’t believe Laurel’s dead.”

A chill weaved its way through me and I shuddered. “Laurel?”

He nodded. “Laurel Lohman.”

My blood froze. I couldn’t speak.

Laurel Lohman was the girl’s name. The one in the obituary with the wrong date.