drop me and Tim back at my house?”
Derrick swiveled around. If not for the uncomprehending shake of his head, he could’ve passed for a half- competent mental patient pumped full of Thorazine.
“It’s just that Tim isn’t feeling too well—” Mallory said.
“It’s okay,” Tim interrupted, not wanting to be responsible for ruining the night.
“No,” she assured, “we were supposed to hang out tonight, but we haven’t had much chance to.” She bit her lower lip and gave Derrick a pleading gaze that made Tim’s heart sag in his chest.
Derrick eyed Tim without comment then refocused on Mallory. “I could drop him off somewhere. You could still hang with us.”
“Yeah,” Elsa agreed. “Come on, the night’s young.”
Mallory glanced to Tim. “What do you think?”
He met her gaze, thinking of the conversation he’d overheard between Derrick and his friends. He tried not to imagine what the boy had in mind for her once he got her alone. “I don’t think so,” he answered.
The comment drew everyone’s attention, but before anyone spoke up, he opened the door and stepped out.
Mallory scooted after him along the seat. “Tim, wait a sec. Where are you going?”
He stood alongside the car, tipping his head toward the park. “I think I’ll stick around here for a while.”
“What, all alone?”
“Not for long. I thought I’d give Derrick’s ex a call and see what she’s doing.”
Mallory’s friends stared on in amazement.
“What’d you say, man?” Derrick asked from the driver’s seat. He leaned over Elsa’s lap to glare at Tim through the open passenger-side window.
Tim bent to meet the boy’s gaze. “What’s wrong with that? You dumped her, right? Why should she care if I told her you went to a party with another girl but I stayed behind to see if she’d like to join me here? Unless you’re full of shit and screwing around behind her back.”
The boy wordlessly unbuckled his seatbelt and exited the vehicle. Tim straightened up, waiting for him to round the front of the car. He didn’t even flinch when Derrick shoved him in the chest with both hands, slamming his back into the rear quarter panel of a pickup truck parked in the next space.
“Derrick,” Mallory shouted, but her cry vanished under Derrick’s bellow of rage.
“You wanna start some shit, smart-ass?”
A family of four had been passing by along the main avenue of the parking lot, and a middle-aged man in beige shorts and polo shirt stopped to face them. “This isn’t the place for that kind of language, young man.”
“Fuck off,” Derrick boomed at him.
The man got blown back a step by the force of Derrick’s reply. After a second hard look, he hurried after his wife and kids without saying another word.
Mallory slid all the way out the car and stepped up beside them. “Derrick, stop it. You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s okay,” Tim told her. “Better you see him for what he is, anyway.”
Derrick swung a fist at Tim’s head, and Mallory gasped. Tim sidestepped the blow—seizing the boy’s wrist— and used Derrick’s own momentum to yank him forward, into the truck. He locked the older boy’s captured arm behind his back and—
“Tim?” Mallory repeated.
He blinked and looked at the others sitting in the car around him.
“What do you think?” she asked again. “Do you want Derrick to drop you off before we go to the party?”
“That’s fine,” he said.
“Or we could all go back to my place,” Mallory suddenly added, turning back to Derrick. “My brother would be there, but otherwise we’d have the place to ourselves. Heck, he’s probably asleep now, anyway. It’s not exactly a rave, but my dad has a pool. We could go swimming.”
A sly grin inched across Derrick’s face, and he didn’t attempt to hide the glance he gave Mallory’s bare legs. “Pool party, huh? That sounds like a plan. A chance at seeing you in a swimsuit beats roll’n with a bunch of ecstasy freaks any day.”
A hint of red crept into her cheeks while she told him the directions to her house.
Derrick started the engine. “We’ll catch Troy at the turnoff on our way out of the park and let him know what’s up.”
On the way home, Mallory and her friends struggled to talk over the blare of the stereo. Twice she leaned over and asked Tim how he felt, but for the most part, she kept her head perched near the edge of Derrick’s seat, leaving him to stare out the window and imagine a whole host of fantasies where he stood up to Derrick and won Mallory’s heart.
CHAPTER 24
It was past nine by the time Melissa returned home and set about fixing herself something to eat. A lot had happened since morning, but because she’d made no headway in the investigation, she almost felt a meal and a shower were undeserved.
Skipping the shower, she made herself a simple dinner of tuna salad and hard-boiled eggs, accompanied by a large ice-filled glass of tea. She ate in the living room, seated on the couch, where she mulled over the day’s events.
Earlier that afternoon, after the medical examiner had bagged Father Kern’s remains and taken them to the morgue, Melissa stayed behind in the neighborhood. She went door to door, questioning residents if they’d heard or seen anything that would further her investigation, but like the Patterson case in Corcoran, nothing panned out.
Which reminded her; she had one last call to make.
After taking a generous bite of tuna salad, she pulled out her notepad and flipped to the page where she’d jotted down the phone number for Doctor Ryan Damerow and his wife. The Damerows were the closest neighbors to the Pattersons. Melissa had spoken with their gardener and learned the couple had gone to Duluth for a wedding. They weren’t expected to return home until sometime tonight. Hopefully, they’d be back now.
She picked up her cordless telephone from the end table and dialed the number, chewing while she waited.
The answering machine clicked on after three rings.
“Damn.” Setting the phone down, she turned her attention to the report on Mel and Florence Patterson resting on the table in front of her.
Melissa picked it up, then tossed it down again without opening it. She’d already read it twice. Through all the technical jargon, the coroner’s basic statement was that both people had died from a result of their injuries; the killer hadn’t left a single trace of himself on either of them, not even a microscopic one.
She stabbed at her salad, but then set it aside without finishing. Instead, she picked up the final item she’d brought home with her: Judge Anderson’s copy of Frank’s book.
Opening it, she leaned back and began to read.
The wall clock ticked off the seconds. Time slid by. She absentmindedly twirled a lock of her hair as she scanned the text, but with each turn of a page the twirling slowed. She straightened up as she read, her brow furrowing more and more often as the story unfolded before her eyes.
Halfway through Frank’s book, Melissa slammed the cover shut and tossed it aside.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
She picked up the remains of her meal and stormed out of the room, dropping the salad bowl into the sink a little too hard. She leaned against the counter.
Through the doorway, Frank’s book lay on the floor, cover up. His picture watched her.
In total, the book numbered two hundred eight pages, printed in big text that read, for the most part, like an elaborately worded police report. She’d skimmed through the beginning and middle, focusing on the parts they’d
