Seeing the Light (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 1) (33 page)

“She’s awake!” one of Jasmine’s kids bellowed, outside the now opened bedroom door. I was pretty sure it was Billy. “Can we turn on the TV now?”

“All right.” That was Jasmine, but she didn’t sound like herself. As I swung my feet over the edge of her bed, gingerly, she walked into the room, and I noticed she was moving gingerly too. We both jumped when the TV blared on.

“Turn it down!” she yelled, then turned back to me. “How do you feel?”

“Not bad.” I was lying, and didn’t try to hide it. “How do I look?”

“You look like absolute crap.” She breathed out the words as though awed by my bruises. I glanced at the mirror, and was momentarily awed myself.

“Wow, you’re not kidding. I look terrible.” I tried to laugh, and almost pulled it off. “I have to go out tonight. I don’t think there’s enough make up in the world to hide this.”

“You and I have to talk, Marie.”

I could tell by the look on her face, and the fact that she hadn’t jumped at the mention of me going out that something had happened. Something not good.

“What’s wrong?” I couldn’t read her face past “not good”, and it made me afraid.

“I found something, when I got home.” She frowned, and shook her head. “What’s going on, Marie?”

I thought she’d found the flowers. I honestly thought that’s what she’d found. I knew it wasn’t Farley, wherever he was. She was good with the living, but had no clue about the dead.

“What do you mean?”

“There was a message left on my answering machine.” She frowned again, ferociously this time. “My kids listened to it. What’s going on, Marie?”

“What message?” I asked, my mouth drying with fear. If it was Carruthers—and I kicked myself for not thinking about the fact he knew I was there. What had he said? Had he threatened the children?

“I think you better hear it,” she said. “Can you get up?”

“Yes.” Now, I was very afraid. If I’d brought that man down on her and her family, I would never forgive myself. I pushed myself to standing, and hobbled over to the bedroom door.

“The police just got here,” she said. “I called them when I heard it. They want to talk to you.”

“The police?” It was as bad as I thought. “We need the police?”

She nodded.

Well, at least I didn’t have to make the trip to the police station the way Farley and I had planned. They’d come to me.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome.” She walked ahead of me, down the hallway and to the living room.

The police officers were both sitting on the plastic covered couch, untouched coffees in front of them on the mock antique coffee table, acting supremely uncomfortable. Farley was on the floor between Amber and Billy, two of Jasmine’s kids, appearing happier than I’d ever seen him. He didn’t look up when I came into the room, so I decided to ignore him, and focus on the police.

“What’s going on?” I asked, trying for breezy, but sounding like a crotchety old woman. I took a tottering step into the living room, and grabbed for the wall to steady myself. “Is there a problem here, officers?”

Jasmine didn’t crack a smile. “This is Officer Landsdown and Officer Regal,” she said. Then she walked into the kitchen.

“Come here!” she called. “All of you!”

We all jumped to, the police acting embarrassed that Jasmine’s mother voice had pulled them to attention. Officer Landsdown obviously decided to assert his authority by the time we were all assembled around the phone.

“What can you tell us about this voicemail message?” he asked, pointing to the machine as if I could tell him purely by osmosis.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. I looked to Jasmine for help. She merely stared at the machine as though she wished it was no longer in her house.

“I don’t want you turning that thing on when my kids can hear it,” she said, grabbing Landsdown’s sleeve as he reached for the button that would start the message. “Please.”

I’d never heard that pleading tone in Jasmine’s voice before.

“What’s on there?” I asked, fear trickling down my spine like ice water.

“It’s nasty. Really nasty.” Farley had snuck up on me, and I jumped about a foot and a half. “You won’t want to hear it,” he continued, and I groped for a chair, to sit down.

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know,” Farley said.

Not Carruthers, then.

“We would like you to listen to it and tell us,” Officer Landsdown said, then looked at Jasmine. “Please send your children to their rooms. She has to hear this.”

“Fine.” Jasmine’s voice was cold, and she did not look at me as she went into the other room and herded her complaining children into one room, and slammed the door. She stayed with them. For a minute, I wanted to join them. But I couldn’t. I had to identify the voice on that tape.

Farley glanced at me sympathetically, then went down to the room where the children and Jasmine were hiding. He gave me one more look that I couldn’t read, then disappeared through the door. I was alone with the police.

“How bad is this?” I asked, hearing the quake of fear in my voice, and unable, unwilling to stop it.

“Bad enough,” Landsdown replied. “You ready?”

“Okay.”

He pressed the button, and the voice started. I knew who it was, of course. After the first three words. After that sing-songy “I see you!” I knew exactly who it was. Jerk Arnie. My ex-boyfriend. Unfortunately, it sounded like he’d made the quantum leap from stalkery jerk to full-fledged psycho.

“I know who it is,” I whispered, my mouth so dry I could barely speak. Landsdown made a move to shut off the voice, but I stopped him. I had to hear the whole thing. After all, he’d left it for me.

Jasmine had an old fashioned machine, one that didn’t stop after a few minutes. This one ran and ran and ran—and Arnie had used the whole thing to tell me in great detail exactly what he’d do to me if I didn’t come back to him. Not only what he’d do to me, but to anyone who helped me. I closed my eyes through that bit, thinking about Jasmine hiding in the other room, with her kids. What had I brought down on them?

After the voice finally stopped, Landsdown turned to me. “Who is that, Miss Jenner?”

“It’s Arnie Stillwell. We used to date, up in McMurray.”

“Have you had any contact with him lately?”

“I haven’t spoken to him since I got the restraining order,” I whispered. “But two days ago, he sent me flowers at the hospital.”

The officer’s eyebrow quirked. “Why were you in the hospital?”

“I was in that explosion. The Palais.”

“Hmm.” He jotted something down. “You’ve had a busy week.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I replied. I ran my fingers through my hair, wishing I could have a shower. I suddenly felt filthy, as though his words were all over my skin.

“He found me twice after I came to Edmonton. The last time, I got the restraining order. I thought he understood.”

“Understood what?”

“That I don’t want to see him again.”

Landsdown snorted. “Doesn’t sound like he got it,” he said.

Understatement of the year.

“So what do I do now?”

“We’d like you to come down to headquarters with us and answer a few more questions.”

I was about to say all right when the front door rang, and I jumped about a foot and a half straight up instead. As the other officer went to answer the door, I shakily glanced at the clock hanging on the wall above Jasmine’s fridge. It was seven o’clock. On the dot.

“That’s James Lavall,” I said. Landsdown stared at me. “We work together. We’re supposed to be going out for dinner.”

“You’re not going,” Landsdown replied.

I turned my head and watched James handle having a big, pissed off cop glower at him through the suddenly opened door. He did well, all things considered.

Marie:
Bringing James Up to Speed, Sort Of

“What is going on here?” James asked.

“Nothing,” I replied.

I don’t think he believed me. We were in the kitchen, where I’d dragged him after the police had finally decided to believe that he was, in actuality, James Lavall.

“Tell me right now,” he said, and grabbed both my hands in his. I knew without looking at him that the other James was back. The hard-eyed James who got things done.

You wouldn’t believe how much I wanted to tell him everything and let him look after me. So, of course, I acted like an ass.

“I’m not telling you anything, James. This has nothing to do with you.” I slapped his hands away from mine, and turned.

Jasmine was standing at the kitchen door, staring at us.

“Another of your men, Marie?” she asked. Her tone sounded sour, and I didn’t blame her. “Am I safe?”

“This is James Lavall,” I said. “You remember, I told you about him.”

“Oh.” Jasmine’s voice warmed appreciably. “So, this is James.” She held out her hand to him. “So nice to finally meet you. I was beginning to think she’d never take the plunge.”

James took her hand, and shook it. “The plunge?”

Before Jasmine could speak, or I could clap my hands over her mouth to keep her from speaking, he frowned. “What did you mean ‘am I safe’? What happened here?”

And then Jasmine spilled the beans.

“Please don’t,” I whispered.

“He needs to know this,” Jasmine said. “Why would you keep it a secret?”

Because it made me look like the biggest victim in the world, that’s why.

She wouldn’t stop, and James didn’t even look at me again as she told him everything she knew about Arnie Stillwell. Which was pretty much everything.

“I tried to get her to take one of those self-defence classes after the last time he messed with her, but she wouldn’t, would you?” she said. She looked at me and smiled brightly.

All I could do was stare at her, because I didn’t want to look at James. And for sure, I didn’t want to look at Farley. He’d wandered in halfway through Jasmine’s explanation of my absolutely dismal love life, and had leaned against the kitchen counter, his arms crossed and a bemused expression on his face.

He was going to be an ass about this. I could just tell.

“And then he called here,” Jasmine said. “He was very threatening, wasn’t he, Marie?”

I grunted something close to affirmative. Why wouldn’t this stop?

Because Jasmine wasn’t finished. That’s why.

“So we called the police, didn’t we, Marie?”

I grunted again, wishing with all my might that all of this was over and I could go crawl in a hole in the back yard and become a hermit, or something.

“Now we’re going to give the little bastard what for, aren’t we, Marie?”

“Your kids are in the house,” I said weakly. Jasmine didn’t allow swearing in the house, even if the kids were not there. All she did was laugh.

“They’re still in my bedroom,” she replied. “And sometimes, it is important to use the proper word, even if it is a little bit naughty. Isn’t that right?”

“Fuckin’ eh,” Farley said, sourly. Though I desperately wanted to glare him into the ground, I couldn’t. No one was standing close to him, and I didn’t want either Jasmine or James to think I’d suddenly lost my mind on top of everything else, so I did the only thing I could do and I ignored the heck out of him.

“Because he is a bastard for what he’s done to you,” Jasmine continued, her smile disappearing. “This can’t continue. Something must be done.”

“Well, the police are here now,” I said, still sounding weak and victimy, but not knowing how to stop. “They’ll look after everything, so let’s just let it all go. Okay?”

“Nope,” James said. “That’s just not going to happen.”

Fantastic. Now he was going into knight in shining armour mode. I desperately tried to think of something—anything—I could say that would calm him down, but came up with nothing.

Luckily, or maybe not so luckily, James’ cell phone rang, and he had something else to think about.

“Yes?” he snarled. Then I watched the blood literally drain from his face as he listened to the reply. He didn’t say another word until whoever was on the line stopped speaking.

“I’ll be right there,” he said, and rammed his finger on the screen of his phone to end the call. I was pretty sure I heard something break, but didn’t point it out to him. He was angry enough already. “That was Sergeant Worth. She wants to see us both. Right now.”

“Why?”

“Because someone firebombed my place, Marie.” His face was stone. Absolute stone. “Worth thinks it’s connected to your place and the Palais. We gotta go in. Now.”

“Oh my God, James,” I said. “How bad was it?”

“I don’t know.” His face was still stone, and I took my hand from his sleeve. He didn’t want me touching me. I didn’t think he even wanted me near him. I didn’t blame him. He’d had a nice life, before he met me, but now?