As I lay once again on the bed I’d slept in as a virgin, I had to remind myself over and over that there was a corollary to that promise: not to offer what was not asked for.
I heard my sister next door in her old room, going through the same motions I’d gone through. I was sure she was hurting, sure she was suffering doubly since this blood and gore was happening at the time that was supposed to be the happiest in her life.
I felt helpless.
It was the most galling feeling in the world.
I was up and out of the house the next morning before my parents were stirring. I couldn’t wait for eight o’clock. I rose, took a hasty shower, and yanked on ordinary clothes, not much caring what they were as long as they were warm.
I started my car with a little difficulty and drove through the frosty streets. There were a few more cars at the motel, so my knock at Jack’s door was quiet.
He opened it after just a second, and I stepped inside. Jack closed the door quickly behind me, shirtless and shivering in the gust of cold air that entered with me.
What I had been going to do, planning to do, was sit in one of the two uncomfortable vinyl-covered chairs while Jack sat in the other and discuss his plans and how I could help.
What happened was, the minute the door was closed we were on each other like hungry wolves. When I touched him, my hands were pleased with everything they encountered. When I kissed him, I wanted him instantly. I was shaking so hard with wanting him that I couldn’t get my clothes off, and he pulled my sweatshirt over my head and yanked down my jeans and underwear, helping me step out of them, pulling me to the bed into his nest of residual warmth.
Afterward, we lay with our arms around each other. I didn’t care that my left arm was going to sleep, he didn’t seem to mind that there wasn’t an altogether comfortable place for his right leg.
He whispered my name in my ear. I smoothed his hair, tangled and loose, back from his face. I ran my fingers over the stubble on his chin. There were words in my mouth that I would not say. I clamped my teeth over them and continued to touch him. That stupid, fragile, ludicrous swelling in my chest had to remain contained.
His hands were occupied, too, and after a few minutes we made love again, not as frantically. There was nothing I wanted so much as to stay in that sorry motel bed, as long as Jack was in it.
I was dressing (again) after another quick shower. “What are you going to do next?” I asked, hearing the reluctance in my voice.
“Find out which of the little girls had seen Dr. LeMay recently.”
“I figured that had something to do with it. After all, the homeless man was in jail when Meredith Osborn was killed.”
“She wasn’t beaten like the doctor and his nurse.” Jack had been brushing his hair back into its ponytail. Now he gave me a curious look. He was wearing a long-sleeved polo shirt striped rust and brown, and the scar that ran down his cheek to his jaw seemed whiter in contrast. He ran a belt through the loops on his khakis. “Might have been a different killer.”
“Umhum,” I said skeptically. “All of a sudden, Bartley is full of brutal murders. And you’re trying to find a missing child. This is just coincidence.”
He gave me the look that I’d learned meant he was up to something: It was a sideways look, a quick flash of the eyes, to gauge my mood.
“The homeless man’s name is Christopher Darby Sims.”
“OK, I’ll bite. How’d you know that?”
“I have a connection here at the police department.”
I wondered uneasily if this was one of those good ole boy things, or if Jack meant he’d bribed a cop. Or perhaps both.
“So, can this connection look through the doctor’s records?”
“I can’t ask that much. I’m feeling my way. Are you still squeamish about frogs?” Jack asked, a little smile turning up the corners of his mouth.
“Chandler McAdoo.”
Jack lifted a corner of the curtain, peered out at the bleak day and the depressing motel court. “I stopped by the police station yesterday. Once I mentioned your name and hinted pretty strongly that we were tight, Chandler began to talk to me. He’s given me some fascinating stories about your teen years.” He tried not to grin too broadly.
As long as Chandler hadn’t told him about the later years. “I can’t even remember what I was like then,” I said. And I was speaking the literal truth. “I can remember some of the things we got up to,” I said, smiling a little, tentatively. “But I can’t for the life of me recall what I felt. Too much water under the bridge, I guess.” It was like I could see a silent movie of my life without hearing sound or feeling emotion. I shrugged. What was gone, was gone.
“I’m memorizing some stories,” Jack warned me. “And when you least expect it…”
I tightened my shoelaces, still smiling, and kissed Jack good-bye. “Call me when you know something or want me to do something,” I told him. I felt the smile slide right off my mouth. “I want this over.”
Jack nodded. “I do, too,” he said, his voice even. “And then I never want to see Teresa and Simon Macklesby again.”
I looked up at him, reading his face. I touched his cheek with my fingers. “You can do this,” I said.
“Yeah, I should be able to,” he told me, his voice bleak and empty.
“What’s your program for the morning?” I asked.
“I’m helping Dill put a floor in his attic.”
“What?”
“I just happened to be in the pharmacy yesterday afternoon and we were talking, and he told me that was what he was going to be doing this morning, no matter how cold it was. He wanted to get the job finished before the wedding. So I said I didn’t have anything to do since you were wrapped up in wedding plans, and I’d be glad to lend him a hand.”
“And ask him a few questions while you’re at it?”
“Possibly.” Jack smiled at me, that charming smile that coaxed so much information out of citizens.
I drove home, trying to think my way through a maze.
My family was up, Varena shaky but much better. They’d had a conference while I was gone and made up their minds to go through with the wedding no matter what. I was glad I’d missed that one, glad the decision had been made without me. If Varena had postponed her wedding, it would have made the time frame easier, but I had a concern I hadn’t shared with Jack.
I was afraid-if the murderer of Dr. LeMay, Mrs. Armstrong, and Meredith Osborn was the same person-that this criminal was getting frantic. And a person frantically trying to conceal a crime was likely to kill the strongest link between him and the crime.
In this case, that would be Summer Dawn Macklesby.
On one level, it didn’t seem likely that whoever’d gone to such extreme lengths to conceal the original crime- the abduction-would even consider killing the girl. But on another level, it seemed obvious, even likely.
I knew nothing that could help solve this crime. What did I know how to do? I knew how to clean and how to fight.
I also knew where people were most likely to hide things. Cleaning had certainly taught me that. Objects could be mislaid anywhere (though I had a mental list of places I checked first, when employers asked me to keep my eyes open for some missing item) but hidden… that was a different matter.
So? I asked myself sarcastically. How was that going to help?
“Could you, sweetheart?” my mother was saying.
“What?” I asked, my voice sharp and quick. She’d startled me.
“I’m sorry,” my mother said, her voice making it clear I should be saying that to her. “I asked if you would mind going over to Varena’s place and finishing her packing?”
I wasn’t sure why I was being asked to do this. Was Varena too scared to be there by herself? And it wasn’t
