Love and Death in Blue Lake (13 page)

She’d had that one talk with Gwennie about color when they’d gone through shelter magazines. Her parents had gotten the house painted and waited for the furniture delivery yesterday, which she had totally forgotten about. Her beloved irritating awesome sister had faithfully reproduced the palette of pale moss green and deep rose red, not just on the freshly painted walls, but incorporating shades of the predominant colors into every room on the main floor.

The east side of the four square were the large foyer and stairway, then through to the kitchen. On the west side, the front parlor and the dining rooms weren’t complete, she was glad of that. But as she walked through trailed by her loved ones, she saw that things were ready enough to live here.

In the kitchen, her dad and brother sat at the table, one she remembered from her grandmother’s home before she’d retired to Florida. “Honey, I hope this is okay. You can change anything you don’t like.” The appliances Courtney had chosen, whimsical in their retro look but practical in their contemporary energy efficiency, had been yet another gift from her parents, who had done so much already.

“I’m overwhelmed,” she said, meaning it. Even managing to smile. “Thank you.” The place where her baby should be was raw and bloody. She deserved these stabs of pain. She’d brought them on herself. But Ruby, currently perusing a fully stocked fridge, deserved a whole mother, so she kept her pain in her pocket, like the letter in her purse.

She was in mourning, for the life that would never be, but also for Edward. Life was like that. Joys and sorrows. Both had to be experienced. Nobody got it all right. She wasn’t sure what she’d done to turn Edward off so completely, but she was too tired to think about it now. He must have a reason, but she was confused and upset and not thinking straight, so what might otherwise be obvious just wasn’t at the moment. Her grief was all mixed up into a heavy ball of pain she had to roll in front of her just to be able to move at all.

She looked out the back door. No hammock. Someone had taken it down. Likely the blood had ruined it. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to lie in a hammock reading again. She suddenly hated all content smug people with lives that were like well-oiled machines, working away with ease and accord. Then she immediately felt guilty. She had a lovely daughter, a great family. They’d support her emotionally and even financially, although she didn’t think she’d need her folks’ money. It was Ruby she should be thinking of, not herself, not her own pain.

Ruby closed the fridge, said she’d already seen her room, approved everything. Could she go down to the beach, since it was a short walk and the day was fine, and it was time for her mom to have a pill and a nap?

Courtney felt utterly and completely exhausted. Her mother caught her in a hug as she swayed, almost faint. “We’re just leaving. Ruby’s right. You need to get your rest. I’m sure the beach is safe. Ruby’s met lots of the kids, and she’ll find someone to hang with, won’t you dear?”

Courtney chuckled at her mother’s use of slang, but she nodded and let herself be hugged and kissed. Gwennie and her mom stayed behind, helped her undress and get into her new bed. “Just for an hour,” Courtney said, setting the alarm on her phone and putting it next to her bed.

Chapter Seven

Lily saw him across the street, pure chance. Through her lens, and not even the most powerful one. Her cousin was here, in Blue Lake. Stalking her. Now maybe Eddie would believe her. Reflex, honed over five years, compelled her to unzip her lens case, put away the equipment, and pull out her 9 mm gun. Tiny enough for her pocket, but accurate and lethal. The rosewood grip gave her a hit of instant relief. The hunter had no idea he was being hunted.

She tucked her gun and phone into her pockets and tracked him from a discreet corner of Sanchez’s. Dinner time and the popular Mexican place hummed with tourists. She melted right in. He ambled along, not a care in the world. Pretty soon he’d care, by the time she was through. Her plan didn’t include shooting the gun, although Dean, after years of training, had given her the ultimate compliment. He’d trust her to have his back. Not that such a situation would ever happen. But hypothetically. Dean’s words meant everything to her. More than her degree, even. Way more.

All she wanted to do was point the gun at her cousin and tape his confession. Bob should be here to hold the camera while she held the gun, but things were moving too fast. If she didn’t jump on this opportunity, she might never get the chance again to hear the whole of it. What he did to her at sixteen; what he did to her mom after Christmas. She had the best hollow point bullets money could buy, but she never intended to use them. She just wanted the best of everything. Something about training with Dean made her want to be that way. Prepared.

Damn. Her cousin had stopped to talk to a young girl. Ruby. Shit! They were laughing, and Ruby pointed to the bike shop on the edge of town. Then they turned and walked there together. No. That fucker had a baby face hiding his murderous heart, and Ruby looked a little older than fourteen. The town had grown so much in the past five years, even Lily couldn’t tell tourists from townies. Ruby and that monster would be perceived as a casual summer hook-up. Nobody would blink.

Lily quickly threw her equipment into her trunk. Checked pockets. Phone. Gun. Good to go. She cut down the boardwalk and got to the bike shop just in time to see them come out. He grabbed a bike from the rack, and Ruby hopped on the handlebars. Fuck. They wheeled down the deserted bike path. She was well behind them. Even running, she soon lost visual.

Her mind tried to piece Ruby into the picture. Just a taunt. Because he could. She’d handed him Ruby on a pretty plate. She pulled out her phone, but who to call, what to say? She told Bob she was working, which wasn’t a lie exactly, but would take too long to explain. Eddie didn’t believe her, Courtney didn’t know her, and Dean, the man she trusted like no other, was hours away. Also, nothing had happened. Yet.

When she heard Ruby scream, she yanked out her phone, pressed record, and shoved it back into her left pocket. A voice recording would have to do. This scenario was the one she had not prepared for, but she could handle it. She pulled her gun out of the specially stitched right pocket and slid off the safety in one smooth motion.

She walked, slow and steady, in the shadow of the giant pines along the path. Ruby was nowhere. There was no sound. Had that scream been laughter? A silly shriek? They had ridden the bike too far up the trail for Lily to see or hear. She was not taking chances. She held her gun at her side and kept her eyes peeled.

No Ruby.

Lily’s palm sweat a little on the rosewood grip of her gun, so she discreetly switched it to her left hand, felt exposed as she swiped her right palm dry on the back of her shorts, and then got the gun back in her right hand, away from public view. Not that there was anyone on the path today. It was perfect beach weather, and though the bluff on the other side of the pines that ran the length of the bike path was too tall for any beach-goers to see her, she could hear them. The water sparkled between the trees, a blue jewel just out of reach.

She kept her right arm low and relaxed, close against her body. Her trigger finger itched, like it often did when she got the gun in her hand for target practice. She ignored it, inching along the patch of clipped lawn parallel to the bike path, breathing slow and steady.

In her practice sessions, her finger had always been on the trigger. It was the only way he’d take her seriously. He had to believe she’d shoot him. She had to believe it, too. But not yet. Not yet.

Ten or twelve yards ahead, the bike. Dumped on its side between two trees. That son of a bitch. He was nowhere. Neither was Ruby.

Lily turned toward the abandoned bike. Toward the lake. There was another patch of lawn on the beach side of the trees. She followed it. Once she had cover, she raised her gun to shoulder height, gripped it with both hands, and with her shoulders down and relaxed, pointed her gun and sighted a target that was not there. Not yet. But around or under the next tree, or the one after that. Had to be. She kept her finger off the trigger. For now. She drew a deep breath and put one foot in front of the other. Again. Again. Nobody. Not ahead. Not left. Not yet.

Three pines down, beach side, half under the long stiff branches, she found them. His pants were already down; he had Ruby pinned to the ground with his repulsive body. One hand held a knife against her neck. Lily eased her finger onto the trigger as he used his free hand to tug off Ruby’s skimpy summer shorts.

Ruby, eyes widened in terror, saw Lily first. He turned to look, the knife digging into Ruby’s throat. Lily saw blood. Her lower body didn’t move, but her hands ticked the gun a fraction until it pointed right between his eyes.

“Get off her.”

Instead, he pressed the knife harder against Ruby’s neck, still looking at her. She glanced at the blood running down Ruby’s neck, made sure the girl was not in the line of fire, and took her shot.

He dropped and her mind exploded with the gun, strobe flashbacks mixed with the present situation. Her blood. Ruby’s blood. His blood. Ruby yelled one long howl as she scrambled out from under him, wildly pulling on her shorts. Lily allowed the arm holding her gun to drop, then went still. She’d shot to kill. And he looked damn dead, his brains sprayed all over the lawn, the tree, and poor little Ruby.

Lily carefully put her weapon away, pulled out her phone, dialed 9-1-1. Then she went over and tightly hugged Ruby. Her neck was cut and bleeding, but not profusely. She wasn’t spurting. The knife must have been dull. Both of them shook harder than the trees blowing from the wind coming off the water.

After several minutes, Lily tried phoning Ruby’s mom, Dr. Fass, but the line rang and rang. Finally she phoned Eddie and told him what had happened. Asked him to call his cop buddy. Asked him to come, too, to take care of Ruby.

****

By the time Eddie arrived, Harlan Tucker, chief of police and Eddie’s good buddy, was at the scene. “We got us a justifiable homicide,” he said, cutting away from the team of official looking folk behind the yellow tape. “Girl here”—Harlan hiked a thumb behind them at Ruby—“says she’s your daughter. She gave me a statement, and I can release her to you if she’s not just a crazy tourist. Got a scrape on her neck; EMT bandaged it up. Says she’ll live.”

“Ruby?” Eddie called. He was on the wrong side of the tape. He needed to get to her. It felt exactly like she was his daughter.

“Yep. That’s her. She needs her momma real bad, but nobody at home is answering the phone.”

“Her mom is Courtney.” Eddie assumed Harlan knew which Courtney he was talking about even though Harlan was not a homeboy but had been hired and moved here from Detroit five years ago when Blue Lake added a police station.

Harlan made a note. “Your wife, Courtney Fass?”

“That’s right. She’s Ruby Fass. It’s complicated.”

“She your daughter?”

Eddie avoided the question. “I’ll take her home.” Lily stood stoically in the background next to Ruby, her eyes on the distant water. Eddie thought Lily? Homicide? Somebody or something was covered with a green sheet. It almost blended into the lawn. What the hell? Had Lily’s wild story been true then? There had never been a killing in Blue Lake. The kind of first that nobody wanted to claim.

Ruby had spotted him and hurled herself across the tape and into his arms. Harlan lifted the tape so she was on the public side. He’d decided to trust Eddie. And why shouldn’t he? The man knew where he could be found, since they were in the same place every night when Harlan got off his shift and came into Eddie’s place for a beer or two to wipe away the taste of the day.

Ruby was not weeping or dramatic except in that gesture. She buried her head in his chest and wouldn’t budge, her arms clenched tightly about his waist.

“Where’s your mom?” Eddie asked Ruby.

“I-I think at the new house. She said I could go to the beach and I met this guy…” She eased away from his body but kept her head pressed into his shoulder.

“Are you okay, honey?”

She finally looked up and nodded. “Lily saved me. He didn’t get inside me.”

Eddie winced. “Why isn’t your mom answering her phone?” He didn’t let his arm fall from her shoulder, not even to use his own phone.

The police siren started an abrupt wail as the ambulance loaded the body. After a brief exchange, both vehicles left, the cop car holding Lily full of noise and fury. The ambulance with the body beyond saving quietly exiting. Eddie looked around. The two of them were alone, everyone gone from inside the crime scene tape. Lily must have gone to the station with Harlan. He’d better call Bob.

“Let’s get you home.”

Once they were driving, Ruby said, “Mom lost the baby. It happened last weekend. She just got out of the hospital. There were…complications.”

“She’s okay?” Eddie wondered when exactly over the weekend. Had to be Sunday. After he’d given her those damned divorce papers.

“Pretending to be.” Ruby answered his question with a strange lilt in her voice. She was keeping it together for him, he realized. He was grateful because he didn’t know what to say to a teenage girl who had been assaulted and almost raped at knifepoint. He knew what he wanted to do to the guy who had done it, but Lily had already taken care of that.

Feeling ineffective, less than useless, he pulled up into the driveway of Courtney’s new home. He couldn’t let Ruby face her, tell her this, alone. He walked her up to the house and they stepped into the foyer. Courtney met them there. She’d clearly just woken up. Her phone was in her hand, the alarm still ringing. Ruby kissed her mom on the cheek, gave him a one-armed hug and headed up the staircase. “Shower,” she said.

Eddie took the phone from Courtney’s hand and turned the alarm off. Then he put it in the pocket of her robe. Courtney looked up at her daughter’s retreating back.

“What happened?” Courtney scrubbed her face with her fists. “Why did you bring Ruby home?”

There were a couple of chairs in the foyer and Eddie led Courtney over to one. He was going to tell her straight and get the hell out of there. She was a shrink, she’d figure it out. “Ruby was almost raped today. Courtney, you have to get it together. This town is not the way it used to be. You can’t let her run around on her own.”