Blood Red (21 page)

Having raised two and a half teenagers, she's fairly certain that whatever is on Mick's mind has nothing to do with her. More likely it's something involving school, or basketball. Or a girl.

When she pulls up in front of Marrana's, he yanks down the visor and looks into the mirror. From the corner of her eye, she can see him finger combing his hair.

Definitely a girl.

He snaps the visor back up and pulls off the jacket, tossing it into the backseat before reaching for the door.

“Wait, Mick—­it's cold outside.”

“So? I'm not going to be outside.”

“So . . . what, you're going to tunnel underground to get over to the door?” she asks dryly, and is rewarded with a brief smile, a flash of the easygoing boy he used to be.

“I'll be fine, Mom. You have to stop worrying about everything.” Again, he reaches for the door.

“Wait.” She touches his arm, reluctant to let him go just yet. “Anything special you want me to pick up at the store for you?”

“Nah. See you later.”

With that, he's gone.

Watching him disappear into the restaurant, she basks in a moment of maternal normalcy as precious as the marital normalcy she'd appreciated on date night at Marrana's with Jake. If only she could go back to the time when her kids' tribulations were all that kept her up at night.

Whenever one of them decided the world was coming to an end, she felt the same way. Fretting along with her kids about breakups and SAT scores was nothing compared to realizing that someone might want to destroy her happily-­ever-­after.

She looks at the dashboard clock. She has plenty of time to go to the supermarket. Jake has a late meeting and won't be home for at least another hour, maybe two. She can make a nice dinner for a change. Not that she's hungry, despite the fact that she hasn't eaten since breakfast, and that consisted of a few bites of an apple.

Ah, stress: the most effective appetite killer there is. At this rate, her New Year's resolution will be to gain enough weight to fit back into her jeans.

She pulls away from the curb, winding back through the streets and around the traffic circle toward the Mundy's Strip Mall on Colonial Highway. It was built shortly after she and Jake moved back to town, on the site of the old Caldor discount department store where her mother used to buy all their back-­to-­school clothes. The boys and Rowan never minded much, but even as a little girl, Noreen longed for the designer brands they couldn't afford.

Noreen.

“I think you're blowing this whole thing out of proportion,” she said when Rowan told her about the burnt cookies. “It had to be Rick who sent them. Of course he'd deny it.”

“But why would he do it?”

“Who knows? Because the sky is blue? Because his wife died and he's lonely?”

“Ex-­wife. And she died on the same day that—­”

“I know, but the odds of that happening aren't really all that astronomical. Maybe he took it as some kind of sign that you and he were meant to be together.”

“I doubt that. And I wish I knew how she died.”

“Does it matter? The fact that she died was added stress for him. ­People get crazy enough when they go through a divorce. Believe me—­I've seen it all.”

“So you think it was Rick.”

“Of course it was Rick. Who else could it have been?”

Well, it wasn't Vanessa, and it wasn't Noreen. And it wasn't Kevin, even though he knows what happened.

She shouldn't have been surprised when her sister admitted she'd shared the secret with her husband immediately after Rowan told her. After all, she herself has shared plenty of secrets with Jake.

Other ­people's secrets, anyway.

Her trustworthy, honorable brother-­in-­law is no more likely to taunt her or sneak around sending anonymous packages than her sister is. If Kevin is the only person Noreen told—­and she swears that he was, and that no one could possibly have overheard the conversation—­then Rick himself is guilty, or he lied about having kept what happened to himself.

“Can you just make sure Kevin never mentioned it to anyone else?” she asked Noreen before they hung up.

Noreen promised that she would, though she reminded Rowan that Kevin works long hours and she sometimes goes for days without seeing him.

Rowan refrained from warning Noreen that that's how she got herself into trouble back when she and Jake were living in Westchester. Her sister isn't a young stay-­at-­home mom pining away for her husband or fantasizing about the stay-­at-­home dad next door. Even twenty years ago, she would never have fallen into that trap.

Doing the right thing has always come so naturally to Noreen.

It must be nice
, she thinks, sliding into the left-­hand turning lane at the intersection in front of the large shopping complex.

“You need to tell Jake,” Noreen advised. “Then your problem will be solved. This Rick guy will have nothing over you.”

“You're kidding, right? If I tell Jake . . .”

“What? He'll leave?”

She hesitated. “I don't know.”

“Jake isn't going to walk out on you because you kissed the neighbor fourteen years ago.”

Noreen is probably right, she concluded. About that, and everything else.

Rick must have sent the package of cookies. Without a spurned wife in the picture, he's the only person who would possibly have the motive to go to such lengths.

As she inches the minivan forward, her sister's words continue to ring in her head.

“You're lucky, Ro. Rejected men are capable of pulling a lot worse than this.”

“But how is he rejected? I mean, maybe he was years ago, but . . . it just doesn't add up.”

“He's nostalgic. It comes with age. He probably thinks of you as the one who got away.”

“So he sent me a box of burnt cookies, because God knows that's the surefire way to a woman's heart.”

“Maybe it seemed like a grand romantic gesture when he thought of it.”

“When I told him about it, he seemed as shocked as I was.”

“Of course he did. Because he'd probably come to his senses in the meantime and realized he'd look like an idiot admitting it. So he lied. He's a good liar. A lot of men are.”

Not just men.

Some women are expert liars, too.

If someone asked Jake whether it was within the realm of possibility that his wife had spent part of Saturday having lunch with another man instead of at the outlet mall, what would he say?

He'd say that was impossible.

Because I went out of my way to make sure he wouldn't doubt me. I bought all those presents so that I could come home loaded down with bags.

But I did it because I love him. Because I'd rather die than hurt him.

At last, Rowan makes her left turn into the parking lot, snaking her way along behind a string of cars as if she's on autopilot, trying to convince herself that Noreen's theory makes perfect sense.

“Look, this guy started to stalk you and then he changed his mind and he lied about it,” her sister told her. “Stuff like this happens all the time. It's tame in the grand scheme of things, believe me.”

Rowan believes her. Noreen should know.

So should I.

Of course Rick sent the cookies. Of course he regrets it now. And of course he wouldn't pick up the phone this afternoon when Rowan called to confront him about it.

Well, good. That means the tables have turned.

All she said when she left her message in Rick's voice mail was “Call me. I need to talk to you.”

Too bad she hadn't called her sister first. If she had, she probably wouldn't have bothered calling Rick at all.

Oh well. If he was embarrassed enough to avoid her call, he's sure as hell not going to return it.

As she pulls into a parking space near Price Chopper, she can almost see her way out of this mess. With any luck, it'll just fade away.

For the first time in a week, she's going to focus on what matters most: taking care of her family.

A
ccording to the forensics team, Sullivan Leary's latest Jane Doe wasn't your run-­of-­the-­mill stabbing victim.

She was slashed to death. Her wounds were long and deep, had clean edges and neatly severed vascular structures, and lacked tissue bridges. They were consistent with a straight-­edged razor, the kind you might find in a barbershop or your grandfather's medicine cabinet.

Not only that, but judging by the streaks of the victim's own blood found on her scalp—­which was free of slash wounds—­the killer appeared to have used the same razor to shave her head post-­mortem.

The same was true of Heather Pazanno, who had lived just outside Erie, Pennsylvania. She went out one night last March to pick up a prescription for her sick mother and never came home. Her car was left in the parking lot. The store security cameras had captured a hooded figure on crutches trailing her out of the store, but the footage was grainy and the outdoor range didn't extend far enough beyond the front entrance to see what had happened next.

Having spent the last few hours painstakingly combing the online databases, Sully and Stockton have discovered two more slashing murders that bear similar details. One was in Rhode Island over the summer; another in Virginia back in January. Like Heather Pazanno and the West Side Jane Doe, both of the other victims were relatively young and attractive, and shared a striking physical characteristic: long red hair.

The local authorities in all three cases not only confirmed that the bodies were found wrapped in dry cleaner's plastic and that the hair had been painstakingly shaved off post-­mortem, but that the murder weapon was most likely a straight razor and used to do the shaving. Those facts had been concealed from published reports in all instances, just as they have been here in New York.

It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for local police investigators to spot a pattern that would link homicides unfolding so many miles and months apart. Viewed individually, the cases would appear to be random, even when checked against a state's unsolved homicide database.

The federal databases are considerably more effective than they used to be, but they're far from ideal. Crimes continue to slip through the cracks.

Sully and Stockton alerted the FBI that they might have evidence of a highly organized serial killer crossing state lines. If this were a television show, a string of black government SUVs would immediately be dispatched to hunt down the killer. In reality, the bureau is as overburdened and understaffed as the NYPD, and it will take some time and red tape before they'll be able to assist in the case.

At least they're making progress on their own, although it's painstaking. None of the missing persons reports filed over the past ­couple of days fit their Jane Doe's description. The distinctive ladybug tattoo might help to identify her, but for now, they're holding that detail back from the public as well.

“You know what I could go for?” Stockton asks, leaning back and stretching.

“Coffee? Sleep? San Shan soup and shredded beef with spicy Asian green chili leeks and white rice?”

He groans. “Szechuan Emperor
again
?”

They've had takeout from her latest favorite Chinese place at least two days out of the past four.

“It's a serious craving, Barnes. I can't stop thinking about that beef.”

“Maybe you're pregnant.”

She snorts. “With my track record lately? Yeah, sure. It would be an Immaculate Conception.”

Naturally that comment sets Barnes on a snarky roll until the phone rings on Sully's desk, cutting off his comment about the Blessed Virgin Gingersnap.

It's the desk sergeant, informing her that he's putting through a tip line caller. “She's the real deal. Got a missing roommate who fits the bill.”

“Go ahead,” she says, and grabs a pen and paper as the call clicks in. “Hello, this is Detective Leary.”

There's a long pause. Then a halting female voice says, “I, um, just saw on the news . . . there was a thing about a . . . um, death, and I'm worried . . . I haven't been able to get ahold of my friend in a few days and when she blew me off the other night I thought she was just being annoying but now I'm scared that . . .”

“Okay, what's your name?” Sully asks, pen poised.

“Dana Phelps.”

“And what's hers?”

“It's Julia. Julia Sexton.”

B
ob Belinke hasn't been stood up since . . . since . . .

Wait, has he
ever
been stood up?

Not that he can recall. But there's a first time for everything.

“Would you like to order your entrée, sir?”

The waiter has materialized yet again, the furrow between his brows deepening with every visit to this cozy table for two since Bob sat down over an hour ago. Clearly, he thinks Bob is waiting for a date—­something he figured he and Rick could laugh about when Rick gets here.

But it looks like he'll be laughing alone—­if at all.

“I'll hold off a little longer,” Bob tells the waiter. “I'm sure my friend is coming.”

“Shall I clear away the appetizer?”

“Why don't you leave it for now? My friend might have some.”

Friend . . .

Remembering that Rick had used the same term yesterday to refer to his previous diner companion, Bob wonders again why he was so cagey.

As the waiter walks away, he checks his cell phone.

It's been nearly two hours since Rick texted to say he was leaving the office. He didn't pick up when Bob called to say he was going to be seated to keep the reservation, and he still hasn't called or texted back, which isn't like him.

At least, it
wasn't
like him.