DEAD BY WEDNESDAY (7 page)

She hesitated and then nodded. She leaned back against the booth and yawned.

“Tough day?” he asked.

“Sort of. Uncooperative pregnant teens can be a bit trying on the nerves.”

“How are things with Alexa Sage?”

“Okay. I got a message from her today. In the presence of her father, she told her mom the news. I guess there were lots of tears but it sounds as if everybody held it together.”

He felt a chill run down the back of his neck. Which was crazy because the air from outside was blowing in his face. “Don’t let your guard down around that man. There’s something about him that I really didn’t like.”

“I won’t. But I’m hopeful that he’ll get past his disappointment in his daughter and give her the support she needs.”

“I don’t think his daughter was too confident of that and she knows him best, right?”

“Yes, but teenagers don’t have the reasoning skills to understand that adults, once they’ve had time to assimilate new information, have the capability to deal with all kinds of things. When a kid messes up, she can’t imagine that her parent will ever be able to understand why she did it or how she could have made such a mistake.”

Her eyes were serious and her voice soft. There was pain in both and he wasn’t sure what had put it there. “But I bet you’re good at painting the picture that things can get better,” he said, wanting to make her smile again.

It must have worked. She lifted her water glass. “Here’s to sharp crayons,” she said. And she took a big drink. “How was your day?”

“Cold,” he said. “Irritating because we’re not making more progress on the case. Plus,” he added, “I had to go see my mother. Her husband is leaving her.” He wasn’t sure why he told her. He never talked about his mother.

“Oh, no,” Carmen said.

He waved a hand. “It’s okay. I mean, she’s sad and all. But she’s been through this before. Sometimes she’s even the leaver, not the leavee.”

She was looking at him as if he had two heads.

“I know that sounds bad. But she’s been married six times and she’s had a couple live-ins, as well.”

“I see,” said Carmen.

There was no way. Nobody could understand it.

“She likes being with someone, being part of a pair,” Carmen said.

That was a nice way to put it. “Yeah, well, she’s the left shoe and she enjoys the search for the right shoe very much, but then she quickly tires of wearing the same pair so she has to go shoe shopping again.”

She smiled. “I bet she’s fun.”

He nodded. “She is and she’s my mom so I can’t stay irritated with her for very long.”

“Of course not,” Carmen said.

Five minutes later, they got in the cold car and he drove to her apartment. “It will probably be hard to find parking,” she said. “You can just drop me off.”

He smiled and kept driving. She wasn’t getting rid of him that easily.

As they neared the building, she put her hand on the door handle. It looked as if she was ready to make a break for it.

“I’ll walk you in,” he said. “I want to make sure Raoul’s doing okay,” he added.

He found a parking spot, pulled in and was around the car before she could get her seat belt undone. They walked up the stairs to her apartment and she unlocked her door.

When she opened the door to the apartment, he saw that almost every light in the apartment was on. They hadn’t been when they’d left. That was a good sign that Raoul had been up and about, so maybe the kid was feeling better.

“I’m going to check him,” she said.

He watched her walk down the short hallway, appreciating the view. Her slacks weren’t tight but just snug enough to hint at a nicely rounded bottom.

He heard the door open and then slam shut. When Carmen returned to the living room, her face was pale and her eyes were big. Robert’s protective instincts shot up a notch.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, already moving closer.

Chapter Seven

“He’s gone,” she said. “He’s not in his bedroom.”

“Check the other rooms,” Robert instructed.

It didn’t take her long. There was only her room and the bathroom. She came back into the hallway and shook her head.

“Does he have a cell phone?” Robert asked.

Carmen nodded.

“Okay, check your cell phone for messages and then try his phone,” he said. “I’m going to take a look at his room.”

He supposed it was a typical teenage boy’s room. It looked a little bit like he remembered his own room. Posters on the walls. Dirty clothes in the corner. A single bed with covers in disarray.

There were no signs of a struggle.

No hastily prepared note propped up against the pencil container. No clue as to why a sick fifteen-year-old boy would suddenly be gone.

He looked up. Carmen stood in the bedroom doorway, cell phone in hand. “Nothing. And he’s not answering. It went straight to voice mail.”

“Does he ever do this? Go out without letting you know?”

Carmen shook her head. “No. I mean, he goes out on his own, of course. But not usually at night. Not without telling me. And he was sick. Oh, my God, maybe he had to call an ambulance.” She stopped. “No, that’s ridiculous. He would call me before he’d call an ambulance.”

Robert could see when the full realization of the situation hit Carmen. Raoul hadn’t called her. So either something had prevented that or he simply hadn’t tried.

There was no sign of struggle, and the door had been locked.

“It’s possible he was lying,” she said. “Maybe he wanted to get me out of the apartment and figured he’d have a couple hours of free time. He thought we were going to Maxine’s.”

He appreciated that she wasn’t going to refuse to consider alternate realities. Her work with teenagers had taught her that teenagers lied.

“He had on jeans and a gray sweatshirt earlier. Do you see them anywhere?” Robert asked, sweeping his hand around the room.

Carmen shook her head. “His coat is a red jacket with a hood. I don’t see it, either.”

“Okay. We’ll assume that’s what he has on. I’ll call it in. Get our guys watching for him.”

She reached out a hand, stopping him. “Robert,” she said, her voice subdued. “I don’t know what he’s up to. I want to hope it’s not something bad. And I know that I don’t have any right to ask you to look the other way. But—” her voice cracked “—I don’t want him to be arrested. When that happened to Hector, things got so much worse. It was the beginning of the end.”

He hoped like hell Raoul hadn’t done something stupid that was going to make this woman sad. He was going to really have to kick his butt. He put two fingers under her chin and tilted her head up. “Here’s what I think,” he said. “Raoul is a good kid. I don’t think he’s involved in anything that’s going to get him arrested. Stop worrying. We’re going to find him. Now, why don’t you start with his friends?”

He watched while she scrolled through the numbers in her phone. He believed everything he had said to Carmen. The kid was probably fine. But just in case, he called in Raoul’s description to dispatch. He felt immediately better after doing that. It wouldn’t hurt for a whole lot of eyes to be looking. He sent a text to Sawyer, letting him know. Within seconds, Carmen’s phone rang.

She grabbed for it. “Liz,” she said, looking at him.

Robert nodded. “I figured it wouldn’t take long.”

Carmen answered and the women talked for a few minutes. While he couldn’t hear Liz’s side of the conversation, she evidently was volunteering to come over because Carmen repeatedly assured her it wasn’t necessary, that she should stay home with her baby. Carmen ended the conversation by assuring her friend that she’d call her if anything changed.

A half hour later, nothing had changed and they didn’t know anything more. Robert and Carmen had both tried his cell phone multiple times.

Carmen had talked to some kid named Jacob twice. She’d explained that he was Raoul’s best friend and that they often carpooled in the morning. After school, they each took different buses because Jacob’s house was a couple miles from their apartment. After the first call to Jacob and learning that the boy hadn’t talked to or seen Raoul since band practice had ended, she’d waited while he also tried to reach Raoul. She’d called a second time only to learn that Raoul wasn’t answering any of Jacob’s texts or calls, either.

Carmen sat at the table, her shoulders bowed, her head in her hands. Robert pulled his chair close and put an arm loosely around her shoulders. She seemed even smaller than usual, as if she were deflated.

He was so going to kick the kid’s butt if he was out fooling around and making his sister worry needlessly. If it was something more serious, he hoped he had the wherewithal to help Carmen deal with it.

He wanted to be out on the street, looking for Raoul. But he knew that he couldn’t leave Carmen.

So he simply sat with his arm around her. Maybe they’d sat for ten minutes when they heard footsteps on the stairs. Carmen’s head sprang up.

“Relax,” Robert whispered.

They heard the key in the lock and the door opened. Raoul, wearing his red jacket, his gray sweatshirt and his blue jeans, walked in. He was carrying a bag from Walgreens.

“Hi,” he said. He looked surprised to see them.

Carmen ran to him and hugged him tight. He tried to duck her embrace. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Where have you been?” she asked. She held his face in her hands. “I’ve been worried sick. You didn’t answer your phone. I called you at least ten times.”

Raoul pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “It’s dead,” he said. “I was going to charge it when I got home.”

“You said you were sick. Too sick to go to dinner with us.”

“I started to feel better. I remembered I needed some things for school. I’m sorry, Carmen. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Don’t ever do that again,” she said, her tone gentle. “I mean it. For goodness’ sake, we had the police looking for you.”

That got Robert a swift and unfriendly look. Which Robert might have been inclined to ignore if his gut wasn’t telling him that something was very wrong. The kid had looked like death warmed over an hour ago. Yet minutes ago, his steps on the stairs had been quick and light. His color was good.

Maybe it was possible that within minutes of their departure, he’d suddenly felt much better and had remembered the school supplies. But it was Friday night. There was no school tomorrow. He’d have had the whole weekend to buy school supplies.

Maybe he needed them for a project he had to complete this weekend?

Or, maybe, as Carmen suggested, he’d heard Maxine’s, figured that his sister would be out of his hair for at least two hours and took off, fully expecting to be back before she was any the wiser.

He’d pulled similar stunts when he was Raoul’s age.

And rarely gotten caught. His mom had been busy wooing the next potential husband, and that had left little time to watch over a busy and sometimes rebellious teen.

“You need to get some sleep,” Carmen said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Raoul mumbled good-night as he walked past Robert. Very quietly, Robert took a deep breath. He waited until he heard Raoul’s bedroom door shut. “He smells like grilled onions,” he said.

Carmen frowned. “I guess.”

Robert shrugged. “I don’t want to make too big a deal out of it but the kid didn’t want anything besides chicken noodle soup to eat an hour ago. Now he smells like he swam in a vat of cooked onions, like maybe he got one of those steak sandwiches from the guy on the corner two blocks down.”

Carmen chewed on her pretty lip. “I’m just grateful that he’s okay,” she said finally. “Thank you,” she added. “For being here. For being a voice of reason. For knowing what to do. I swear my brain just stopped working.”

“I still want to do dinner with the two of you. Maybe tomorrow.”

She shook her head sharply. “Tomorrow. No. That’s impossible.”

Robert had learned years ago that sometimes retreat was an essential component of an effective offense. “No problem. I’ll give you a call,” he said. He gathered up his coat and gloves. “Take care,” he said.

And he left without touching her.

* * *

R
AOUL
HEARD
THE
apartment door shut and pulled his sack out from underneath his bed. His hands were still shaking. He’d seen Carmen and that cop sitting at the table and thought for sure that they would want to see what was in the bag.

He opened the thin plastic and pulled out the heavy black gun. He pointed it at the Spider-Man poster on the wall.
Bang. Bang. Take that, superhero.

Apollo had sent him a text about ten minutes before his sister knocked on the door to tell him that Robert was there. He’d already agreed to go to dinner and he had to do some fast talking to get out of it so that he could meet Apollo. But he’d been really anxious to see what Apollo had of Hector’s.

He’d sure as heck never expected that it would be a gun. Raoul ran his hand across the barrel and could almost feel his brother in the room with him.

Carmen didn’t like guns. Didn’t even like it when Raoul played video games where there were guns.

She never had to know.

But just having it made him feel better. Made him feel closer to Hector. Made him feel like he wouldn’t always be the kid who got pushed around.

He put the gun and the box of bullets that Apollo had given him in his backpack, underneath his history book.

Chapter Eight

Saturday

At ten the next morning, Robert was impatiently standing in line at a coffee shop. Sawyer usually took coffee duty, but they’d split up this morning. Sawyer was running down the Gottart Studio and Robert was following up on red handkerchiefs. They had identified three more retailers that carried the product. That was in addition to the four large retailers that they’d already spoken to.

Unfortunately, these three stores were small shops and they didn’t have information systems that tracked all their sales data and could spit out reports at the push of a button. The big stores had been able to tell them the day and time the product had been sold. Had even been able to tell them if the merchandise had been purchased with a credit card or cash. Unfortunately, all the red handkerchiefs purchased in the last six months had been bought with cash.

The three places this morning hadn’t even been able to tell him that. And they had no recall of any specific customer who had purchased one or more of the handkerchiefs, which generally came in packages of three.

It made Robert sick to think of how many packages their guy might have bought.

He shuffled forward and gave his coffee order to the sixteen-year-old girl at the counter. She’d just given him his change when his cell phone rang. “Hanson,” he answered.

“Horton Davis here,” the caller said. “I had a chance to check out Raoul Jimenez late yesterday afternoon and figured you might be anxious to hear. He’s a freshman. Plays in the band, just like you said. Quiet kid. Small for his age. No known gang affiliations. That’s about all I can tell you.”

“That’s enough,” Robert said. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem. Wish this school had fifteen hundred just like him.” The man hung up.

Robert waited about fifteen seconds before dialing Carmen’s cell phone. There was no answer. He scanned the numbers in his phone until he found Options for Caring Mothers. He remembered adding it last summer when Sawyer had been fixated on Mary Thorton and her pretty counselor, Liz Mayfield.

He figured it was a good idea to call the office. Carmen seemed the conscientious type who might work a few hours on a Saturday morning even if she didn’t have to.

The phone was answered on the third ring.

“Carmen Jimenez, please,” he said.

“I’m sorry, but Carmen isn’t in today. Can I take a message?”

Not in. Holy hell. She wasn’t doing something stupid like meeting Frank Sage and his daughter again, was she? “Is she out of the office on business?” he asked.

The receptionist didn’t answer. “May I take a message, sir?” she asked again.

“Can I talk to Liz Montgomery?” he said.

“Just a moment, please,” she said.

Liz picked up within seconds. “This is Liz Montgomery.”

“Hey, Liz, it’s Robert.” He heard the quick inhale of breath and knew that she’d immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion. “Sawyer is fine. This call is not about him,” he said quickly.

There was a shaky laugh. “Sorry,” she said. “What can I do for you, Robert?”

“I tried Carmen and she’s not in. Do you know where she is?”

Liz sighed. “Robert, you are my husband’s best friend and I think the world of you. I know you were at Carmen’s last night and I’m really grateful that she wasn’t alone, waiting for Raoul to come home. But Carmen is like a sister to me. I just have to ask. What’s going on here?”

He adored Liz but he’d been a cop way too long to put all his cards on the table. “Carmen asked me to check with the officer at Mahoney High School to see if he knew anything about Raoul. I heard from him this morning and wanted to pass on the message. She didn’t answer her cell phone.”

“You just want to pass on a message? That’s it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Liz sighed, loudly. “I swear, what is it about cops? Haven’t you heard that transparency is the new thing? And don’t you ‘Yes, ma’am’ me. That’s what Sawyer does just before he convinces me to get up, put my feet on the cold floor and fetch him coffee in the mornings. But if you must know, I did expect Carmen for a couple hours this morning but she called in sick. I’m sure she’s at home sleeping and didn’t hear her phone.”

“Thanks, Liz. Appreciate it.”

He tried Carmen’s cell one more time, and again there was no answer. He grabbed his coffee from the counter where it had been sitting for a couple minutes and was out of the building in less than thirty seconds.

Ten minutes later, Robert knocked on Carmen’s door and stepped back so that he could be seen through the peephole. He heard a noise on the other side. He waited but no one opened the door.

He knocked again. “Hey, Carmen, it’s Robert. I called your work and they said you were at home.”

No answer, but he heard a quiet sniff and he got nervous. “Carmen. Either open the door or I’m going to break it down. Your choice.”

No answer.

“Okay. Stand back because I’m going to shoot your door lock off.”

Because he was watching the peephole, he saw the quick flash of dark, proof that she’d looked out. She must believe him. Robert rubbed the bridge of his nose, where a full-blown, knock-you-on-your-butt headache was started to brew.

She opened the door a crack. “I’m busy,” she said.

He could see the middle six inches of her face and body. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said in a very conversational tone. “I can only see a little bit of you but your nose is red and your voice sounds like you’ve either been on an all-night smoking binge or you’ve been crying. I’m guessing crying. Did something else happen with Raoul?”

He heard her sigh. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I talked to the cop at Mahoney High School,” he said.

There was no response. “What did he say?” she asked finally.

“Open the door and I’ll tell you.” He’d learned to play dirty in preschool.

Slowly, the door opened. She had on old jeans, a sweatshirt and absolutely no makeup. Her eyes and nose were both red and she had a box of tissues in one hand.

“What did he say?” she asked again.

“Just tell me one thing,” he said. “Are either you or Raoul hurt, sick or in danger?”

She shook her head. He smiled at her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. He pulled her toward the couch. “Good. Then whatever else is wrong, we’ll fix it.”

She tried to pull out of his embrace. He let her go but when he sat down, he grabbed her hand and pulled her down next to him. When she immediately scooted several inches farther away, he smiled at her again. Smart woman. Having their thighs touch was probably not a good idea. Especially if they intended to have any conversation.

“Want to tell me about it?” he asked.

She shook her head.

Okay. That stung. He had this overwhelming urge to comfort her, to make it all better. “I’m a really good listener,” he said. “They teach you how in cop school.”

That got him his first smile. As absurd as it sounded, he thought the room lit up a bit. That even the plants in the window glowed a little greener.

“I can’t,” she said. “My issue. My problem. What did your contact say? Did he find out anything about Raoul?”

Robert looked down the hallway. “Is he sleeping still?”

Carmen shook her head. “Music lessons and then his friend Jacob is having a birthday party. He won’t be home until late afternoon.”

“Okay. Well, the cop at the school figured out who he was and basically doesn’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. He’s not a troublemaker and he’s not running with any gang. I’m guessing his problem is that he’s fifteen. Nothing worse than that.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said, not sounding convinced. “But thank you for checking. I really do appreciate it.”

“Okay. Show me,” he said.

Her eyes widened.

He stood up. “I need somebody to share my popcorn with at the movies. You’ve got your choice between a Gerard Butler action movie, a Keanu Reeves action movie, or a Matt Damon—”

“Let me guess,” she interrupted. “Action movie.”

“How did you know?”

She laughed. “Just lucky.”

He felt the first easing of the pressure on his heart. He didn’t want this woman to cry. Ever again.

“But I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t.”

“Philosophically opposed to cinematic entertainment?”

She shook her head. “No. That’s a ridiculous question. But my reasons don’t really matter. You can’t go anyway. I’ve read the paper. Every cop is working overtime on this case.”

“True. I’m working all day tomorrow. But I do get a couple hours of R & R today. You like ice cream, right?”

She frowned at him, not following his abrupt change of topic. “Of course, but what does that have to do with it?”

“Near the movie theater is the best ice cream shop in all of Chicago.”

“It’s freezing outside.”

Robert smiled. “The lines will be shorter.”

Carmen took a deep breath and looked around her apartment. Finally, her gaze settled on him. “I need some time to shower.”

“No problem. I’ll just sit here and wait. I’ve got my phone, which means I’ve got my emails, and I’ll work on those while you’re getting ready.”

“You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you?”

She was giving him way too much credit. He felt as if he were on a train and it had run off the tracks. He was hurtling through time and space. All he knew was that he wanted an afternoon with Carmen, with no worries about work or Raoul or anything else to cloud the horizon. He held up his phone. “If I don’t have the answer, I’ll just search for one on Google.”

She shook her head. “I’ll be ready in forty-five minutes. And I need to be home by six.”

* * *

C
ARMEN
COULDN
’
T
REMEMBER
ever having more fun at the movies. Of course, she hadn’t been to the movies with a man in a very long time. The last time someone had paid for her ticket, it had been four dollars. She’d been almost embarrassed when Robert plunked down a twenty for the two of them and hadn’t gotten any change back.

They walked up to the snack counter. She pulled money out of her pocket and after a quick glare, he let her pay for the treats. They each got a soda and a large popcorn to share. Robert picked out a bag of M&M’S candy. He raised one eyebrow at her and when she nodded, he dumped the whole package into the popcorn.

“Now we have to get married,” he said.

She shook her head at him. “I never marry on the first date.”

“Okay. We can probably go out a couple more times before we tie the knot.”

He looked so serious. She could feel her heart rate accelerate. She thought she might pass out until he winked at her.

She started to feel a little dizzy again, however, halfway through the movie, when Robert reached over and gently held her hand, his thumb caressing the soft inner flesh of her palm. She knew it meant nothing to him. But when she closed her eyes, she could shut away the world, shut away her memories, shut away the knowledge that thirteen years ago to the day, something had happened that had changed her whole life. His warm hand, his soft touch, it all gave her a little bit of peace.

They left the theater shortly after four, her hand still in his, and walked along the frozen lakefront. The weather was the warmest it had been in days, maybe weeks, and the wind was almost nonexistent. The sun wasn’t as warm as it had been at noon but still it had to be at least thirty degrees.

“It feels almost tropical,” she said. “That is, if one wears a hat, scarf and mittens in the tropics.”

He looked around. “Seems like a spring soap kind of day.”

She nodded. “Yes. Very mangoish.”

“Mangoish?” he repeated. “Is that a word?”

“It is in the spring soap world.” But he was right. It was as if someone had opened the cage and let all the mice out to play. Old people in pairs, young women in knee-high boots and moms pushing baby strollers that probably had a baby in them but all you could see was blankets.

She turned away from the strollers, not willing to let them intrude on her happiness.

“Ready for the ice cream?” Robert asked.

“I guess. I’m going to need to get home soon. I like to be there when Raoul comes home.”

“He’s having cake. That’s means you’ve got time for a double chocolate chip in a waffle cone.”

“Okay. But one scoop.”

He took her to an old-fashioned ice cream shop with white tables and red chairs. It was at least half-full, proving that it was never too cold for ice cream. Of course, the owners had the place toasty warm, making it easy to forget that winter raged outside.

She ordered a single scoop of butter pecan in a cup, and he got the waffle cone with two scoops of chocolate chip. He found them a booth in the corner, and they took their coats off. A young girl wearing a short red skirt, a white ruffled blouse and a red hat brought the ice cream to the table.

Halfway through her ice cream, Carmen sighed. “This is so good. Raoul is going to be mad when I tell him that I had homemade ice cream. He loves desserts.”

“Based on the meal I had at your place, I think the kid is eating pretty good most nights. I dreamed about those brownies and I woke up craving caramel and chocolate.”

She waved a hand. “They’re easy,” she said, dismissing the compliment. But it left her feeling warm inside.

“Where did you learn to cook?”

“From my grandmother. She lived with my family. There was always a pot simmering on the stove and something baking in the oven. I’m sure she’d think I was a terribly lazy cook.” Carmen mockingly glanced over both shoulders. “Don’t tell anyone,” she said, her voice soft, “but I buy my refried beans in a can. No soaking and boiling for me.”

He smiled. “No problem. I buy mine already spread on a burrito shell and topped with melted cheese. And they get passed through the drive-through window.”

She shook her head in mock disgust. “They should not call that Mexican food.”

“Maybe not, but the city has some great Mexican places. I’ll take you to my favorite spot for enchiladas.”

She swallowed hard, feeling as if she had a pecan stuck in her throat. He’d said it so casually, as if it was a foregone conclusion that they’d be seeing more of each other.