If Looks Could Kill (35 page)

Chris gave Mac a quick look before turning back to Shelly. "No, Shel. I haven't. What happened?"

"She just kinda wasn't there this morning. Tracy said she's been screamin' a lot about you last couple of days. I was afraid..." Her admission died in an uncomfortable little shrug.

Mac was already unhooking the radio mike from his collar.

Shelly came right to attention. "Oh, no," she begged. "Don't..."

"Judge is up in St. Louis today," Mac said. "Right?"

She nodded.

"We'll keep it real quiet. Just John and me."

Shelly couldn't decide who she wanted to look at.

She finally settled on Chris. "I'm sorry," she said miserably. "She has no right."

Chris took hold of the girl's hand. "Don't worry, sugar. It'll be okay."

It only took John a couple of minutes to roll to a stop alongside them. Mac ushered Shelly into the car as he filled John in. A couple minutes and a plan later, John was shifting the car into gear.

"Oh, by the way," John said, idling a moment longer.

Mac was already turned back to the sidewalk where Chris waited, arms wrapped around herself like protective armor. He paused to hear John out.

"All the Cooters finally went through their daddy's things. Seems he did have something that's missing, and they want it back. For the sentimental value, no doubt."

"No doubt. What is it?"

"A vintage silver dollar. 1898, I think."

"That's it, then," Mac acknowledged with a nod of satisfaction. "We've officially been visited by the angel of death. Thanks, John."

John waved and took off. When Mac turned back to check with Chris, she was no longer on the sidewalk. Her door was open, and Mac could hear her hurried footsteps on the hardwood floor.

Now really curious, he followed.

"You planning on tossing the place again?" he asked placidly from the open doorway.

She was raking through every teapot on the counter. At this rate, it would take her all week to get through the lot. She never gave any indication that she knew he was there.

A nasty chill slithered down Mac's neck.

"Chris?" he tried again, pulling open the screen door and stepping inside. "What's the matter?"

Still it took her a minute to react. When she did, Mac saw real desperation in her eyes. He stepped farther in and shut the big door behind him.

"What's going on?"

She took one more look into the teapot she held, a fat, garish caricature of Queen Victoria. Whatever she was looking for didn't seem to be residing in the queen's head, though.

She was shaking and pale, and Mac was afraid for her.

"I thought..." She gave a little laugh. "I thought for sure I put it here."

"What?"

She considered him as if she were a dog about to get kicked. Then she shook her head. "I'm not sure anymore."

Mac took a couple steps closer, only to make her shy away. Nothing major. She didn't exactly run screaming for the kitchen. She straightened, her grip tightening on the poor queen's ears. Defensive, frightened. Teetering on some edge Mac couldn't see.

"You want to tell me what's wrong?"

That provoked another small laugh. Another small, frustrated shake of the head, the kind Mac had seen in confused old people found wandering the streets. He held his place, fought the urge to reach out to her. Reined in his impatience.

"Nothing," she finally said, not looking at him. "Nothing." With shaking hands, she found the royal tiara and fitted it into the hole on the royal hair.

Mac knew better. He wanted to stay and find out what the hell was going on. He wanted to find out just what was dragging her right to the edge of the precipice.

Abruptly, Chris looked up. Smiled. Still shaking, all but throttling the ceramic monarch in her hands, she did her best to flash him an attitude of nonchalance. "John's gonna need your help," she said.

Mac was amazed. He was about half an inch from throttling her himself. "I don't think I should go anyplace."

"I'm not going to stack the furniture in the living room," she promised. "Louise hasn't ever disappeared before. I think she might be in real trouble."

Mac lifted his cap and finally gave into temptation to rub at the old scar. It didn't ease the sudden throbbing that always preceded disaster like achy knees predicting the rain. "You think she could be our killer?"

Chris settled the little queen back on her table. She slumped a bit. "Anything's possible."

"Yeah," Mac agreed, relieved to at least have her considering her surroundings with a wary eye. "It is. Would you mind starting the search for me while I'm gone?"

Chris looked up, surprised.

"I am not computer friendly. Especially when it takes any kind of creativity."

At least he got a smile out of her for that. He really wasn't sure about leaving her right now.

"Where do you want me to start?"

"Your friend Dinah," he said, ignoring her start of protest. "Victor, Weird Allen... Louise Axminster, I guess. Get printouts of anything you find."

"My editor was with a sick friend," she said. "He has a hospital full of alibis."

"Good. One less name to check. Oh, and see if you can find any history of mental illness on any of them. Any unexplained disappearances."

She startled again. Obviously hadn't remembered that she'd been the one to tell him that she'd misplaced her agent for the last few days. Mac knew it wasn't making her feel any better. He didn't care. Rather she suspect everyone than confide in the wrong person.

"I'll call..." He stopped, chagrined. "No, I guess I won't."

Chris managed a grin. "If you'd like, bring Garavaglia by here when he shows up. I promise to hide the printouts so he doesn't find out we're conducting illicit investigations."

Mac shook his head. "You're probably a bad influence on me."

"I also have plenty of surveillance equipment gathering dust if you want."

"Don't tempt me." Resettling his cap, Mac shot her a conspiratorial smile. "I'll try and give you some kind of warning before we descend."

Garavaglia wouldn't be in the least happy. Rule one of control in interrogation is keep it on your own turf. That put the advantage on the home court. Mac had never had a problem siding with a fellow officer before this. He must have been getting too much of that small-town air in his lungs.

* * *

She couldn't find it. Teapot after teapot ended up on her table until it looked like she was having a close-out sale. Her hands were shaking and her stomach churned. She knew she'd seen it. Held it in her hands, a scarred, dull silver piece that had winked up at her when she'd moved the couch.

A 1898 silver piece.

Chris spent another half hour looking for it, even when she knew that she'd put it right inside Queen Victoria.

At least she thought she had. She wasn't so sure anymore. She wasn't so sure of anything.

She had to get over to the bank. She had to walk calmly in, present Hattie McDermott with her safe deposit key, chat about the weather and the sales of the last book, and then closet herself away with her past.

Her past.

Chris clutched the plump queen to her chest, as if she could forcibly hold in the terror, shore up the certainty.

She would have told Mac. Would have admitted that she had held Cooter's good luck charm in her hand—had thought she'd held it—if not for what had finally begun to come clear the night before.

The pattern. The unnervingly familiar series of events that only she had seen.

The answer.

It was waiting for her in the safe deposit box in the bank. It had been waiting there, in banks like it, since the day she'd walked away from Springfield with nothing more to her name than her clothes and the fifty-eight dollars she'd saved up working at Burger King. Crumpled, smudged looseleaf papers filled with erratic words, terrifying images, terrible conclusions.

She couldn't face them.

She had to.

She had to go back into that cramped, untidy handwriting, because it might explain some of what had been happening. What shouldn't have been happening, because it was impossible.

Impossible.

Because no one had seen the words on those pages but her.

It hadn't occurred to her at first. After all, only books were coming true, and she'd never thought of it as a book. Only murders had been taking place, and there had never been a murder in this story. Not exactly.

But there had been a villain.

There had been things misplaced, phantom footsteps, half-seen images at the edge of perception, sounds and smells no one else perceived. There had been a stalking figure.

If she was right, though, then the rest of her reality wasn't. If, indeed, the words she'd written so long ago were coming true, she couldn't trust anything else she'd seen or heard. Because the villain of the piece was Christian Charity Evensong. And the figure stalking her was her own conscience.

Chapter 15

"
When we go
in," Mac suggested, pulling the car to a stop and killing the engine, "take it easy on her. She's really had the fuzzy end of this lollipop."

"You mean she's had to deal with Lawson?" Garavaglia retorted, pulling a huge unlit cigar from his mouth and scratching his chin with it. "I'd be a little fucked up, too, I had to sit in interrogation with that dickhead."

Mac took a look over at the gray-haired tower of humanity next to him and felt right at home. Harmonia Mae had damn near fainted on the spot when she'd caught sight of the good detective.

"Lawson really had a way with her."

They both climbed out of the car. Mac could see the shocks lift by inches when Garavaglia popped out.

"They're treatin' her like Joan of Fucking Arc up at HQ," Garavaglia groused. "She probably pissed the perp off so bad he just couldn't stand her anymore. Pumped a couple of slugs in her and rolled her off a cliff. Can't really say the idea didn't appeal to me when I heard about it."

Mac settled his cap on his head and hoped that Victor and Lester Presley had given Chris enough notice. He hoped she was in the right frame of mind for the visit. "Check with the lab at Cape," he suggested. "I'll bet you get a match on the gun that did Taylor. They definitely ID'd her?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah. She had crappy teeth and a coupla old broken bones. Turned into a real easy ID, once we had her records."

Mac nodded, unsure why he didn't feel better about it.

"The lab didn't find traces of the files in the car?"

"Nada.
The question is whether they were in there at all." Garavaglia lifted the second set of copies under his arm. "I'm glad she left you something. Although I have to say I'm surprised as shit. That woman was as territorial as a she-wolf."

Alongside him, Mac stepped up to the screen door and knocked. Chris was already there waiting for them, smiling.

"Afternoon, gentlemen."

Upon stepping into the high foyer, Garavaglia leaned his head way back and stared up at the ring of furry legs over his head. "Well, fuck my duck and call him Albert."

* * *

Chris was in her black jumpsuit, tucked into the shadows behind Victor's house. It was Monday evening, which would put Victor about three hymns into the Rock of Ages evangelical services. A perfect time for a little B-and-E. Chris's hands shook as she pulled the oblong little leather case from her pocket and popped it open to reveal her picks. She hoped Lester hadn't decided to stay home alone tonight. She'd hate to be caught.

Behind her a tree hissed in the wind. She wiped the sudden sheen of sweat from her forehead. God, she hated the dark.

Three pins. Easy. Victor's grandparents had probably had the old locks installed sometime in the twenties. Simple, dependable workmanship. Sliding the rake into the bottom of the lock, she inserted one of the rake picks and began to slowly tickle the pins.

A car turned the corner on the other side of her house. Chris hugged closer to the building, her heart pounding so hard that it was making her hands shake. She was glad she had the gloves on. She was sure her palms were getting slippery. Wiping at her forehead, she decided that she hadn't had a clue back at the How Do of what it felt to really illegally break into a place. She'd been playing before, sure she'd be forgiven her silly transgressions. If anybody found her tonight, she'd not only end up in the Cooter Taylor Memorial Cell, she'd do it without any flowers from Victor.