Killing Me Softly (16 page)

P
rofessor Olivia Dupree did not look glad to see them, Bryan noted. Usually, when someone was unhappy to see the police, that meant they had reason to be. He, however, wasn't there in uniform. He was a murder suspect—person of interest, he corrected himself—so her grim expression at the sight of him was nothing to find suspicious.

Still, he'd thought she would be a little bit more receptive toward Dawn, since she'd been the one to initiate additional contact. And talk about being receptive to Dawn…

He'd almost kissed her back there in the car. He'd almost kissed her. And damn, if he had to spend much more time with her…

Hell.

It was no longer just that he knew damn well she would turn tail and run at the first sign of a ghost. And there would be more ghosts for her, he felt that right to his toes. There was also the possibility he might end
up going to prison for life. Or he might get off on a technicality so shady that it ruined his career for good. He might even have to go on the run to avoid prison. He didn't have any business starting anything up with her, or any woman—not that there could be any other woman for him—with everything still unsettled.

Besides, the best thing he could do for Dawn right now would be to get her to leave here. To go back to the West Coast, to run as far from him as she could possibly go. She was putting her life in danger by being here with him.
He
was putting her life in danger.

One kiss, and he knew she would be even more un willing to leave him than she already was.

Until the ghosts came back, anyway.

Professor Dupree opened the door of her neat white Cape Cod and then went as still as deepwater. No expression crossed her face. She just stood there, looking from one of them to the other, and then she said, “How do you know where I live?”

“Phone book,” Dawn said, taking the lead when Bryan didn't. “Look, Professor Dupree—Olivia—we just have a couple more questions, and then, I promise, we'll leave you alone.”

Olivia didn't open the door wider or say “Sure, come on in.” She remained still, and then she shook her head. “I don't think I should talk to you,” she said, and she started to back up, started to close the door.

“Please, Professor,” Bryan said. “My life is on the line. Five minutes, I promise. And you don't even need
to let us in. We can do this standing on the front step if you want.”

She blinked at him and maybe saw some of the strain in his eyes. She'd probably questioned Nick about him. He knew she liked and respected Nick, so his reassurances probably went a long way with her. She would be scared if she thought there was any chance in hell he was a serial killer. She would be stupid to let him in if she thought that.

She wasn't stupid. And yet, she seemed to soften toward him, and he felt relieved.

She said, “Backyard. There are a table and chairs out there, on the deck. I'll be right out.” Then she backed in and closed the door before either of them could reply.

Sighing, Bryan looked at Dawn.

She gave him a reassuring smile and gripped his upper arm, tugging him with her off the steps, down the walk and over the perfectly manicured emerald lawn to the back of the house.

They had to open a tall chain-link gate to enter the fenced-in backyard. There was a semicircular redwood deck off the back of the house, French doors going inside and a glass-topped, umbrella-shaded table off to one side. Bryan took it all in and nodded. “Nice,” he said.

“It is,” Dawn agreed as they traipsed over more grass toward the steps. “But watch where you walk.”

He frowned, not clear what she meant, but then she nodded at the doggy door just to the left of the French
doors, and he understood. The backyard was fenced in for a reason.

And just then those French doors shuddered, and he went stone still, because there was a small brindle-patterned pony on the other side of them, looking out at them.

No, not a pony. That thing was, apparently, supposed to be a dog.

Steam came from its nostrils, misting the glass, and then it bounded to the side and came lunging through its dog door too fast to allow either him or Dawn a chance to escape.

Bryan pushed her behind him and started backing up at a brisk pace. “Easy, boy. Easy. Easy now.”

But the beast kept coming, bounding toward him, jowls flapping, reaching him in two leaps and then turning to one side just before crashing bodily into him. The dog pressed his side against Bryan, leaning into him with his full body weight—which was two hundred pounds if it was an ounce—wiggling and wagging, and panting a happy pant.

Bryan had to brace his legs hard to keep from being knocked over onto his backside, but even with that, his breath rushed out of him and he closed his eyes. “Okay, I guess he's not going to eat us.”

“No,” Dawn said. “Doesn't look that way.” She reached out a hand to let him sniff. He licked it instead, and she laughed. “My God, what a dog. He's got a head the size of a bear's!”

“English mastiff. Biggest breed in the world.”

They both looked up to see Olivia Dupree standing on the deck, carrying a tray that held three glasses full of dark liquid and clinking ice cubes.

She set the tray on the table. “As the lion is to the cat, the mastiff is to the dog. Or so someone is quoted as saying. Come here, Freddy.”

The humongous beast bounded toward her, and she hugged his neck, without having to bend over very far to do so. Then she pulled out a chair and sat down.

Dawn and Bryan walked up the three steps onto the deck and joined her at the table, and the dog proceeded to move from one to the next in search of affection. Olivia set a glass in front of each of them. “Rum and Coke,” she said. “I could use one.”

“I know it isn't pleasant to keep dredging this up,” Dawn said. “We really will try to be brief.”

“All right.” Olivia had, Bryan noted, a cell phone clipped to her pocket that hadn't been there before. She was taking precautions, just in case he
was
a killer. Though he thought the dog would have been plenty of protection even if he had been.

“Olivia, how well did you know your roommate, Sara Quinlan?”

She looked at her glass, not at Dawn. “I told you. Not well at all. I'd only moved in a few weeks before her death.”

“Did you know she'd been pregnant?”

Olivia's head came up fast, and her brown eyes widened. It was a real reaction, too knee-jerk to be fake, Bryan thought.

“The autopsy report says she probably gave birth four to six weeks before she was killed. She never mentioned it to you?” Dawn went on.

“No. My God. And there was no baby. There was no baby stuff. No clue.” She frowned and looked at Dawn. “What happened to the child? Was it stillborn?”

“Nobody knows,” Dawn said.

“Someone knows,” Bryan cut in.

“After Sara's body was claimed by a woman who said she was her cousin, the police tried to contact her, to tell her there might be a child somewhere. But they couldn't find any woman by the name she'd used.”

Now Olivia turned to her dog, and she kissed his nose and stroked his head. “That's the oddest thing. Who would want to claim a body badly enough to lie about it?”

“That's what we'd like to know. Did you ever hear of a cousin?”

“No.”

“Is there anything you can tell us about her, Olivia? Anything at all?”

She finally met Dawn's eyes again, then shook her head. “I can tell you that I knew nothing about any baby. I swear I didn't.” Then she shifted her eyes to Bryan. “What's going to happen? I mean, now that the police know about this?”

“They've known all along,” Bryan said. “They just didn't have any leads, didn't have anyone to contact, and let it drop.”

“But there's a missing child out there somewhere.”

“Missing sixteen-year-old now,” Bryan said. “Unless it was stillborn and she just buried it or something.”

“Why would she do that?”

He shrugged. “It happens.”

She downed the rest of her drink. Then she took a breath and sighed. “So why are you asking me about it now?”

“Because I just found out myself. Nick never asked you?”

“No.”

“I wonder why not.”

“I don't know. Ask him. I certainly plan to.” She looked at the sky. “It's going to be dark soon.”

Dawn nodded and started to get to her feet.

“Wait,” Olivia said. “Do you…do you want to stay and have something to eat?”

Dawn looked at her curiously.

“I've got some chicken soaking in barbecue sauce, and a salad. And a lot of questions, to tell you the truth. Why don't you stay?”

Bryan glanced at Dawn and knew they were both thinking the same thing. By staying they might glean some tidbit that Olivia hadn't told them already. By staying, they might find something out.

He had the feeling, though, that Olivia was asking them for the very same reasons they were saying yes. She was fishing, too. For what? he wondered.

“Okay. We'll stay.”

 

It was surreal, Dawn thought. They were grilling chicken on a gas grill, and sipping rum and Coke
under the stars. Crickets chirped and lightning bugs glittered, and the giant dog lay on the deck, snoring like a chainsaw.

It was an ordinary idyllic evening. And yet Bryan was being hunted by the police and Dawn by a crazed killer.

Surreal.

“I can't believe the police never told me. About…the baby, I mean.” Olivia set a platter of chicken on the glass-topped table, beside the foil-wrapped baked potatoes and giant Pyrex salad bowl. “Help yourself.”

Bryan stabbed a chicken leg before Dawn could even pick up her fork, and she managed to suppress a smile. His appetite almost never failed him, no matter how dire the circumstances.

He snagged a potato, too, then spent time carefully splitting it, so the steam wafted in his face while he dolloped a heaping spoonful of sour cream into the crevasse, before he returned to their earlier discussion. “Well, you weren't a relative,” he said. “They wouldn't automatically inform you of stuff. They tried to find the child. Nothing but dead ends. What were they supposed to do?”

Olivia shrugged. “I don't know. Send someone back to where Sara came from—Chicago, right?”

“So we were told,” Dawn said softly.

Olivia shot her a look. “So did they do that? Send someone to Chicago to ask around about her?”

“Nick says they did—discreetly,” Bryan said. “That it was a dead end.”

Olivia sighed and ate a piece of chicken.

“You had connections to Chicago, too, didn't you, Olivia?” Dawn asked.

Olivia choked. Her eyes widened and flooded with water, and she slammed her palm against her own chest repeatedly.

Bryan was up and moving behind her, no doubt about to deliver the Heimlich, when she held up her free hand, and waved him off. Blinking, she dabbed her mouth with a napkin, and took a drink of her rum and Coke.

“Damn,” she muttered.

“You all right?” Bryan asked.

Olivia nodded. “Yeah, fine. It went down wrong.”

“It wasn't something I said?” Dawn asked, her eyes watchful, because she knew damn well Olivia was hiding something. She just wasn't sure what.

“Of course not. As to your question, I've never even been to Chicago.”

Dawn nodded. “Oh. I thought—well, I was noticing in the crime-scene photos that the bed where Sara was found had a lot of New York team paraphernalia, even some Syracuse University stuff, hanging near it. But no Chicago stuff. That was all on your side of the room.”

Olivia narrowed her eyes and licked her lips. “You're very good at this, Dawn. None of the police ever picked up on that before. Not even enough to ask me about it.”

“Oh?”

Olivia nodded. “The truth is, Sara was in my bed that night. I was staying over with friends, and when
I came home in the morning, that's where I found her. In my bed, dead.”

“Why do you think she would have crashed in your bed, Olivia?”

Olivia shrugged. “She'd been complaining about her mattress, saying it needed to be replaced. Mine was brand-new. Maybe she just wanted one comfortable night.”

“She didn't ask you first?”

“She knew I wouldn't mind.”

“But you'd only been rooming together a few weeks. How could she know you that well so soon?”

Olivia sighed. “All right, look, I don't like to talk about this. It's a painful part of a painful childhood. But the truth is, I had met Sara once before. We…we shared the same foster home for a few weeks, years ago.”

Bryan and Dawn exchanged a quick surprised look. “In Chicago?” Dawn asked.

Olivia shook her head hard. “In New York. We were both in our teens. It was only a few weeks, like I said. I have no idea how she wound up in Chicago. But when I came to Shadow Falls I saw her ad for a roommate, recognized her name and the rest…” She shrugged. “The rest is as I've told you. But she would have known I wouldn't care about her using my bed. We shared a bed in that foster home.”

Dawn frowned. “Where were you the night she died, Olivia?”

Olivia sent her a sharp look. “I told you. I was with
friends. And before that I was at the park, near the pond, reading the latest Aaron Westhaven novel.”

“That's pretty specific.”

“His novels are important to me,” Olivia said. “Getting a new one is an occasion. I wanted privacy and silence to read it straight through in a single sitting. And all of that should be in Nick's report, anyway.”

“It was,” Bryan said. “Almost word for word. And those friends you were with verified your story.”

“What happened to Sara's stuff, Olivia?” Dawn asked then. “I mean, you know, her clothes, her photos, everything she had in the apartment?”