Quiet as the Grave (13 page)

Debra didn't think so…she hadn't seen very much…she'd been in shock…what had they supposedly found?

A gold ankle bracelet, with a charm in the shape of a pair of large lips.

The words were still ringing in Debra's ears as she entered the apartment.

Everything was quiet. Ledge must be in the bedroom. The living room was empty.

She slipped the pepper spray into her pocket. Her fingers weren't quite steady, and she wondered if she was making the right decision. Her sister, Lizzie, her best friend, Judy Stott, and even the nice reporter from Albany, all would have told her to go straight to the police.

But how could she do that?

She had been in love with Rutledge for three years. She'd lived with him, shared his bed. She'd loaned him money when he was overdrawn and held his head when he puked up the one six-pack too many.

They'd made each other laugh, and they'd made each other crazy.

So didn't he deserve a chance to explain himself? Even if he had given Justine that awful anklet, it didn't mean he had killed her.

She took off her shoes so that she'd make as little noise as possible walking down the hall. She wanted to know what he was really doing in there. If there was a woman with him, she'd drown them both in pepper
spray and then she'd head straight for the cops. She wouldn't even stop at red lights.

But when she opened the door, there was no woman.

The room was filled with dozens and dozens of red roses. In vases, wrapped in paper, in boxes and scattered across the furniture. Rutledge himself was curled up in the only clear space on the bed, sound asleep.

The sight brought stupid tears to her eyes. She was such a sucker for a good-looking bad boy, and this one really was something special. His blond hair needed a cut, and his bare, bronze chest was so sexy….

She knelt beside the bed. She picked up one of the roses and held it to her nose. A needle-sharp thorn pricked her finger.

“Ledge,” she whispered. “Ledge, wake up.”

He stretched, but didn't wake. He murmured something. It sounded like “baby,” which was his generic endearment, sprinkled thoughtlessly over every female from eight to eighty. She couldn't quite convince herself that he was necessarily dreaming of her.

“Ledge, wake up. I have something important to ask you.”

He sighed and rolled away from her, scratching his chest. Then her words seemed to sink in. He rolled back with a jerk. “Deb?”

“Hi,” she said. She gave him a minute to fully wake up.

“I missed you,” he said. He smiled, which morphed into a yawn. “Do you like the roses? I wanted to do something to show you how sorry I am.”

“They're pretty,” she said. She didn't ask him how he'd paid for them. If he'd used her credit card, she didn't want to know that right now. “Ledge, sit up. I have to ask you something.”

He yawned, but he did what she asked. A suddenly objective part of her noted that he was always easy to get along with after a fight. Until the next fight.

“What's up?” He picked up a rose and tickled her upper arm with it suggestively. “Besides me, that is.”

Could she really be getting over him? Once, that would have sent sexy shivers through her torso. Now it just felt annoying. She moved it away with her hand.

“This is serious, Ledge. I'm going to ask you something, and I don't want you to give me a snow job. I need a straight answer, okay?”

He frowned. He obviously knew that if the rules excluded snow jobs, he was at a disadvantage. “Okay,” he said. “But why are you acting all Gestapo all of a sudden? It's going to kill the mood, and these roses weren't cheap.”

Kill the mood? If he only knew what kind of mood she was really in. He'd be lucky if she didn't kill
him
.

“Okay, listen, Ledge, because this is important. Two years ago, I saw something in your sock drawer.”

He laughed. “Sounds like the opening line of a
Monty Python
episode.”

She didn't even smile. “It was an ankle bracelet, Ledge. It had a charm shaped like a pair of big lips.”

His smile dropped, and her heart sank along with it. She knew him the way a mother knows her little boy, and this subject made him nervous.

He reared back in a huffy indignation that wasn't at all convincing—especially coming a beat too late. “You were snooping around in my private things?”

“Yes,” she said. It was easier than arguing the point. Did washing a man's laundry and putting it away constitute snooping? Or was it just typical doormat behavior?

“I need to know what happened to that ankle bracelet, Ledge. You didn't give it to me.”

“No, I didn't,” he said stiffly.

“What did you do with it?”

“What do you care? You wouldn't have liked it. You would have thought it was vulgar.”

“It was vulgar. But what did you do with it? Where is that anklet now?”

“I—” He glowered at her for a long moment. Then, with a low curse, he stood. He had unbuttoned his jeans, and they sagged around his hips as he walked out of the bedroom, deliberately stepping on roses whenever he could.

She followed him, her hand in her pocket. He stalked into the laundry room and yanked his toolbox down from the plastic shelf over the dryer. It hit the metal lid with a violent clatter.

He threw open the box and began to dig around. She had no idea what he was doing, but if his hand came out holding a nail gun, or a hammer, or even a screwdriver that was a little too big, he was getting a faceful of pepper spray.

He didn't pull out any of those things.

He pulled out a little gold ankle bracelet, with a charm shaped like a pair of very big lips.

S
UZIE WOKE WITH HER HEART
in her throat, sitting bolt upright on the sofa. The telephone was ringing.

Ordinarily she loved the sound of a phone. She supposed it meant that deep inside she was an optimist. She always secretly believed any call might be more business, a new commission, a million-dollar sweepstakes win.

But here in the living room of Mike's boathouse, which was still upended from the clumsy hands of the police, it sounded like a scream ripping the air.

Who was it? His lawyer? D.A. Quigley? Gavin?

What was wrong now?

Mike must have answered it upstairs, because after the first ring it fell silent. She sat on the sofa, holding the blanket in one fist, waiting for her heart to settle back into her chest. How had Mike had survived two years of this kind of uncertainty and dread? After only about a week, all it took to send her into cardiac arrest was one ringing phone.

When he didn't come down to fill her in, she decided to go up and ask. She might have closet optimism tendencies, but she was not hiding any secret talent for patience.

Because her clothes had still been wet from their swim, she'd worn one of his old T-shirts to bed. She
checked her pale reflection in the glass of the French doors just to be sure she didn't look as if she were staging a trashy come-on, but no way. The shirt had long sleeves, no shape, and it was so long it skimmed the tops of her knees.

Besides, washed-out, past-its-prime gray was not her color.

She went up, but at the top of the stairs she hesitated. Both doors were shut. Which one was Mike's room?

She knocked on the one that overlooked the lake. She leaned her head in toward the door and whispered, “Mike?”

Behind her, the other door opened. Feeling like a fool, she twirled around and smiled sheepishly.

“Morning,” she said. “I was just wondering who was on the phone.”

He was tucking in his shirt. “It was my dad,” he said.

Why was he getting dressed? It couldn't be more than nine, and they'd had only about four hours sleep. “Is anything wrong? Is Gavin okay?”

“He's fine,” he said. “But I have to drive up to Firefly Glen. Apparently he had a disturbing nightmare last night. He told my dad he's had it before, ever since Justine disappeared. It's all about being in a tunnel and meeting a scary man.”

Suzie felt her pulse accelerate. “A man? What man?”

“He says he hasn't ever seen the man in real life. He thinks he's just a nightmare. And maybe it is. But—”

“But of course we have to check it out! I think my clothes are almost dry. I'll hurry.”

“No, I really think you—”

She set her jaw. “Damn it, Mike. This isn't fair. I'm involved here. I
care
. Don't try to shut me out now.”

He shook his head, and she thought she heard him chuckle.

“It sure doesn't take much to detonate that temper of yours, does it? I was
going
to say I think you need some fresh things. I was going to suggest we run by your apartment first and pick up a suitcase.”

“Oh.” She tugged at his T-shirt and looked down the hall, toward nothing. “Oh, well, then, never mind. I'll just go back downstairs and…” She grimaced. “And hit my head against the wall for a while.”

“Okay,” he said, turning back into his room. “But remember, this is only a boathouse, so go easy. That's a mighty hard head you've got there.”

 

“I
HONESTLY DON'T KNOW
who he is. It's not a real person, Dad. It's just a nightmare. Granddad was overreacting. It's scary, but it's no big deal.”

Gavin sat on the picnic table just behind the Fromes' house, in the shade of a hundred-year-old maple tree. He had his portable video game on the bench seat next to him, and a plate of tuna-salad sandwiches—his favorite—in front of him.

Childhood in Firefly Glen. Mike remembered it well.

But, even so, Gavin looked miserable. Mike's chest tightened. The hardest thing in life was watching your kid hurt and not being able to stop it.

“How often have you had this dream? When did it start?”

Gavin shrugged. “I don't know. Not all that often, just when I'm worried about something. Or missing
Mom real bad.” He toyed with his sandwich and blinked hard. “I guess it began right after Mom left, but I can't really remember. I'm sorry.”

Mike touched the boy's shoulder. “You don't need to be sorry. It's just that—look, Gav, you understand that we don't know yet who hurt Mom, right?”

“
Hurt
her?” Gavin frowned. “Somebody
killed
her, Dad. I'm not a little kid. You can say the real word to me.”

This wasn't a little kid? Mike looked at his son with an aching heart. That unflawed skin, those blue eyes as clear and shiny as new marbles. Those hairless, bony arms and legs that seemed to be stretching even as you looked at them. Hell, yes, this was a little kid.

“I'm sorry,” Mike said. “I didn't mean to be patronizing. It's just that it's very important for us to find out who did it.”

He saw the flicker in Gavin's eyes.
Did it?
Another euphemism, but he couldn't help it—he wouldn't just toss the word around.
Murder. Kidnap
.
Kill
. Those were not normal words. They weren't words a ten-year-old should have to be blasé about.

Even adults should think those words were evil.

Gavin was watching him carefully. “But aren't the police supposed to find out who did it?”

“Of course. They're looking, too. But they have a lot of crimes to investigate, so I want to help them if I can. And sometimes dreams—”

Suzie, who had been in the house with Mike's parents, appeared at the back door. She had her arms full of…

From this distance, Mike couldn't quite make out what it was. But he figured he was going to find out. She gave them a wave, and began strolling toward
them. She was wearing another of those long, soft dresses that seemed to be her new uniform, replacing the baggy black sweatshirt and black leggings of high school.

She looked great.

Gavin tapped his arm. “Dreams are what?”

Mike refocused. “Dreams can be completely imaginary, or they can be all mixed up with bits and pieces from our real lives.”

Gavin's eyes darkened. “You think the guy in my nightmare might be
real
?”

Suzie had reached the picnic table. She exchanged a quick glance with Mike, then smiled at Gavin.

“Hey, there,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact in that special Suzie way. She plopped a bunch of colored pencils and paper on the table. “I need your help with something.”

“Yeah?” Gavin looked interested. “What?”

“A picture,” she said. “Here's the deal. Just in case the rat fink in your dream is a real-life rat fink and not just a nightmare bogeyman, I want you to describe him for me. I'll draw what you say, and maybe we can get a picture of this guy for our own personal ‘wanted' poster.”

She held up a piece of paper. “Sound good?”

Gavin nodded. “You mean like when I was at the police station, and I described the man at the video store, and the artist did a picture on the computer?”

“Yeah, only without the computer.” She picked up a black pencil. “Now, if I get it wrong, you've got to say so right away. Don't worry about hurting my feelings. I know I am good at drawing, so if I don't get it right, that probably means you didn't describe it right. I need a lot of detail.” She winked at him. “Boys aren't very good with detail, I'm afraid.”

Gavin laughed. He knew he was being goaded, but his budding male ego still couldn't let it pass. “I'm
great
with detail. I can always remember every single thing about my video game characters, and their weapons, and their skills—”

“Good, then. Let's get started.”

Mike took a backseat from then on. He was fascinated by this experiment, and by the way Suzie had managed to make it sound fun instead of scary. She hadn't said anything very different from what Mike had said. So it must have been accomplished with body language and tone. She simply projected sassy, bogeymen-can-kiss-my-backside confidence. She always had.

He lounged backward on the bench, leaning on his elbows on the picnic table to help communicate his ease and relaxation. As often as he could, he tilted his head and stole a glimpse of the sketch over his shoulder.

There were plenty of do-overs and giggle fits, but never once did Suzie lose patience, and never once did Gavin lose his nerve.

Watching her nimble fingers making the pencil fly across the paper, and her mobile mouth pursing with concentration, then twisting with amusement, Mike realized there might be a lot Suzie-freaka could teach him about life. He knew plenty about how to maximize the good times. But face it, he stunk at handling setbacks.

When things started to quiet down, he realized they must be getting close.

“What do you think?” Chewing her lower lip, Suzie angled the paper toward Gavin. “Mouth like that?”

A shimmer of anxiety had returned to Gavin's face.
He hesitated, swallowing several times in quick succession. “I don't know. It's almost right, but not. It's hard to be sure, because in my dream I'm really scared. He's always smiling, so maybe if you could make that mouth smile.”

“Smiling…” Suzie erased the mouth quickly and began again. “Ugly smile? Mean smile? Twisted smile? Wide smile? One-sided? Dimples? I need details here, buddy. Come on, you promised me details.”

Gavin began jerking his leg, pumping his heel nervously on the ground. “I don't know. No dimples. And it's mean, but not
obvious
mean, you know? It's not twisted, but it's really long, side to side. It's kind of gross….” He closed his eyes and scrunched them tightly, as if he were forcing himself to remember.

Suzie's hand kept moving.

“I know!” Gavin's eyes shot open, and he jumped on the seat. “Wet! That's what his smile is! It's wet!”

Suzie's hand froze.

Giving up the pretense of nonchalance, Mike turned all the way around. He couldn't see the paper well enough from this angle, so he stood and walked to their side of the table.

He met Suzie's gaze. Then she turned back to the table, picked up a silver pencil and began adding tiny highlights at the edges of the long, reptilian mouth. It looked exactly like light bouncing off saliva, and something turned over in his stomach.

“Like that?” Suzie's voice was utterly neutral.

Gavin looked at the picture for a long, silent moment. He seemed to be holding back, too, as if he needed to keep his fear under control.

Then, finally, he turned to Mike.

“That's him, Dad,” he said. “That's exactly what the guy in my dream looks like.” He sneaked his hand into Mike's. “See why it's so scary?”

Mike did, indeed.

The man in the picture was District Attorney Keith Quigley.

 

S
UZIE SPENT THE NIGHT
at the boathouse again. Mike had to do some work on a dock project the next day, and she'd offered to help clear up some of the mess the cops had left behind.

She began as soon as he left for work, and it didn't take as long as she'd thought. Most of the chaos was superficial, just books tossed out of cases and boxes of old checks and carefully folded blueprints dislodged from the backs of closets.

She tried not to pry, but she couldn't help learning things as she worked. Mike apparently liked classic detective novels, biographies and books about the sea. He had an old copy of
Treasure Island
that he'd put his name in twenty years ago. The cute, looping handwriting showed he'd just learned cursive. The “Frome” sloped steeply up, until it almost went right off the page.

Best of all, the book had a marker at chapter twelve. She'd bet anything he was reading this to Gavin right now.

Frankly, the sheer volume of books surprised her. Once upon a time, she would have bet big money that Mike the Dumb Jock didn't know how to read.

By midafternoon things were in pretty good shape. She'd rehung the pictures and refolded the clothes in the drawers. She'd even arranged Gavin's impressive display of action figures on the windowsill. She didn't
know how he usually staged them, so she improvised an intergalactic battle. She actually enjoyed that part. However, when she found herself making vibro-flash star-blaster noises, she decided she should call it a day.

She forced herself to call her mother, though she didn't enjoy the grilling she always got. Her mother was clearly torn between the thrill that Suzie was hanging out with one of the prestigious Fromes, and the anxiety that she might be hanging out with a murderer. She was glad when at about two o'clock, the doorbell rang and she had to hang up.

But…should she answer it? She hesitated, unsure what Mike would want her to do. If she went all the way to the door so that she could look out the sidelights, she could be seen, too. The last thing she wanted, until she and Mike decided what to do with the information Gavin had provided, was to get into a tangle with Quigley.

She and Mike had accepted that, if they took the sketch to the police, they'd be laughed right out of the station.

The police would undoubtedly contend that she'd led Gavin to the identification. Could she deny it? When Gavin talked, maybe Suzie's inner eye had conjured up Quigley because she hated him. Hundreds of other men looked like that. Her sketch wasn't evidence of anything except her antipathy.

In the end, she decided to answer the door, and to her relief, it wasn't Quigley. It was a woman—and she looked strangely familiar. More importantly, she didn't really look as if she might be one of Mike's girlfriends. She was in her midthirties, maybe, and had a distinctly matronly look.