Strings of Fate (Mistresses of Fate) (19 page)

He nodded.

Chris took in his broad shoulders, serious face, and long-fingered, elegant hands. “If it makes a difference, I think she was an idiot.”

That surprised a laugh out of him.

She grinned, pleased with herself, and added, “Raquel would say that it’s for the best; that everything happens for a reason. I don’t know about that. I see too much that seems completely meaningless and unnecessary, I guess.”

“You don’t sound much like a girl from a town called Fate.”

Chris half smiled. “Nice. Usually the Fate jokes start much earlier.”

“That’s too bad. I was hoping to stand out as an original.”

Chris tilted her head. “You are.” She paused. “And you’re not. No one is, really. We’re all—how did you say it—partly cobbled together from the pieces of others . . . most of us doing the best we can to find our way in the world.”

“So you really don’t believe in fate?” He sounded surprised.

“I do. Did it sound like I didn’t?”

He nodded. “It did, yeah.”

Chris thought of Summer, of the fall afternoon when she disappeared.

“Well, then let me just add . . . sometimes we have no control over what happens to us at all.”

21

SHE KNELT IN FRONT
of him, her hair pulled into a tidy ponytail, the blue T-shirt she wore for her new job clean and neatly tucked into her jeans.

“Are you sure?” he asked her, lifting her chin so she was meeting his eyes. Hers were wide and a little unfocused, like a woman experiencing an epiphany, her fast, shallow breath blowing over his wrist.

She nodded.

He was surprised, really, how easy it had been to change her, so fascinating to watch the strings of her world slowly fade, until there was only one left, black and thick and connected to him like a leash. He tugged it, very gently, and her mouth opened, breath shivering out.

He never felt anything like it; it was beautiful, so beautiful. He wanted the Creator to surrender to him in such a way.

“You’ll do it for me, then?”

“I’ll do anything for you,” she replied obediently.

“That’s good, then.” He stroked her hair. “That’s very good. Go over to the table.”

There was a dog tethered there, a Chihuahua mix; it was shivering, its tail tucked between its legs.

She walked over to it, her body tensing as she approached the animal, which looked at her with liquid brown eyes and wagged its tail. Joe could see the deep pink string that connected the dog to the woman even though the woman’s had faded to black on her end. The dog still loved her, didn’t understand why she didn’t pet him, love him, take him home.

She tensed. “Badger.” That was all she said, but the little dog’s tail tucked even farther between his legs. He looked uncertain now, like maybe he didn’t know her.

“He remembers me,” she said quietly, her voice shaking.

“You know what you have to do,” he told her, and turned away, only vaguely curious as to whether she would go through with it. If she didn’t, he would take her strings.

He turned to his computers; his Creator had yet to return to her computers for that day. She’d been busy with the FBI, he thought, though he wasn’t certain. He hadn’t followed her after she left the cemetery that morning. Instead he’d gone to see what had fascinated her so much in the old graveyard.

On Sunday, it hadn’t occurred to him to check the cemetery when the women had visited there after church; he’d assumed they were visiting a grave, but this morning he’d been curious about what had held her attention, what kept her so still in front of the tree, almost as if she were in a trance.

He’d seen the little cross with the frayed, faded ribbons, and the name Summer Haven. Her friend—the one they searched for. He thought maybe that was the key to forcing his Creator’s surrender and decided to find out more about the missing girl.

The task had taken him most of the afternoon and several visits to the Fate library, where a helpful librarian—with a few faded, raggedy strings and one deep red one that looked cut in half—had helped him locate microfiche from 1986. He’d scrolled through the tiny black-and-white newsprint images from the local paper, the
Fate Times,
finding the articles on the missing eight-year-old girl Summer Haven.

His Creator had been there; they’d been playing in the woods near their friend Tavey’s house when the girl, Summer, had gone missing. Theories about what had happened to her ranged from animals attacking and dragging her body away to a clan of child molesters that lived in the woods. Some blamed bootleggers, some the witches, whose family the girl had belonged to, and some blamed his Creator, claiming that she must have done something to the girl.

He found that interesting. Had his Creator taken the girl’s string? Was that the one she wore like a halo around her head? But if she’d taken her friend’s string, why continue to look, why search for a girl who was certainly dead, her life pulled from her?

He found her endlessly interesting, this girl, though it seemed he was not the only one. The lights came on in her apartment, he saw them in the webcam, but she didn’t go in her bedroom. Taking out his binoculars, he went to the window, training them across the circle at the big windows of her apartment. There was a man with her, one of the FBI agents. He’d seen the county deputy driving around the circle, but he hadn’t thought they’d assigned her any FBI protection.

He moved even closer to the window, unaware that he’d reached the glass and was pressing the binoculars up against the window. He found himself counting her strings, his strings, watching them sit together on the couch, sitting too close, their hands close together on the cushions, the colors of the fabric melting with her strings, melting with his strings, until it almost looked like they were connected by one long curling red string, their lives entwined.

Something cracked and he realized that he’d been holding the binoculars too tightly, that he’d cracked a piece of the plastic around the eyepiece. He didn’t like this. He would have to do something.

“Stay here,” he told the girl, who was standing frozen. He was so irritated with his Creator now that he barely noticed she’d done as she was told. “Put the body in the trash and go to bed.”

He glanced briefly at her strings, satisfied that she had removed the final link that tied her to anyone else but him. The thread connecting her to the dog remained, but it had changed, grown thinner and transparent, like the edge of a knife at a certain angle.

He picked up the van keys from his desk. He didn’t worry about gathering knives; there were knives in the van, more than he would ever need to take the strings he had in mind, strings that would be taken more easily than those of a small dog.

22

AT EIGHT-THIRTY,
Chris and Ryan still hadn’t heard from Midaugh on the identity of the body they’d found. Ryan had called when they left the restaurant for updates from the team on the search for Martha Cooper, but though no bodies fitting her description had been reported, she hadn’t shown up at her job as a store clerk at a pet store for two months or been seen around her apartment. Her car and her Chihuahua were also missing. Her mother claimed she was flighty and an addict, so the police hadn’t reported her as a missing person. Agents had also spoken with Caroline Coffee, who hadn’t checked her Facebook or seen the messages sent from the unsub. When asked about any suspicious characters that may have come into the bakery, she’d said she couldn’t recall any, but that students paraded in and out because of the discount she offered.

Another agent was also looking into references the unsub had made to a “rainbow-haired” girl, but so far no additional bodies had surfaced.

Chris cupped her green tea and curled her legs up on the couch. The rain had finally started to pour in earnest, large drops drumming against her windowpanes. Ryan sat next to her. He’d taken off his jacket, which had gotten wet running back across the circle from the restaurant. Chris had changed into her standard outfit of gray yoga pants, a long-sleeve shirt, and fuzzy socks. She’d taken her laptop from the bedroom, but it sat, closed, next to her on the couch.

She’d gotten Ryan a towel for his hair, which stood up in wet spikes on his head. He looked sexy and rumpled, very different from the buttoned-up FBI agent who had come into her house yesterday.

He’d begun telling her about living with his grandmother, at her farm just outside of Rome, and how the old woman’s dogs, a Great Dane and a pug, were the loves of her life. She’d told him about growing up playing with Raquel, Tavey, and Summer and how they’d loved going on adventures together in the woods behind their houses.

“How old were you?”

“When we pretended we were Robin Hood?”

He nodded.

“Six, I think. We’d just seen the Disney movie.”

“Who was Maid Marian?”

“Tavey, of course.”

“Why not Summer?”

“Summer wanted to be Maid Marian’s lady-in-waiting—the chicken. She liked the sound of her voice.”

“Who were you?”

“Robin, of course.”

“And Raquel?”

“Guess.”

“The sheriff.”

“Yep. She was a great one, too; we even made a star from tinfoil that she wore on her chest.”

He was sitting next to her, not touching, but Chris was aware that if she shifted over, just a little, she would be leaning against him, against the warmth and heat and strength of him. She wanted him to touch her.

His phone rang.

He sat up quickly, pulling his cell phone off the holder on his belt. “Helmer. . . . When? . . . Okay. I’ll be there.”

He hung up and looked at her, his face conflicted. “I have to go. They have the identity of the body and a report of a murder in Rome.”

“Okay,” Chris agreed, trying to mask her disappointment. Even the prospect of having Raquel come over wasn’t enough to make up for the loss of Ryan, who was starting to look at her as if she were more than just a witness in his latest case.

He looked at his phone, at the time. “When is your friend getting here?”

Chris had checked her phone ten minutes ago. “She’s in traffic; the rain has caused a few accidents.”

“How long?”

“Thirty minutes.”

He ran a hand through his messy hair and stood. “I’ll stay until she gets here.”

“Ryan, just call the county deputies, let them know you had to leave. They can come park next to my building like they did last night.”

He didn’t want to, she could tell by the tension in his arms and shoulders as he paced behind the chair where he’d laid his jacket. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, revealing wiry forearms with a dusting of red-brown hair and more freckles. She’d never thought about freckles on a man—whether she liked them—but she liked him, and the thought of where else he might have freckles was . . . interesting.

“All right.” He put on his jacket and came to stand next to her.

She looked up at him. He didn’t say anything for a moment, but his fingers twitched, like he wanted to touch her.

“Call me when your friend arrives.”

“Okay.” She closed her eyes and sipped her green tea. She didn’t want him to leave; in fact, all she could think about was how badly she wanted him to kiss her.

She felt the air move as he bent down. He touched a finger to her hair, smoothing back a wayward curl. It seemed strangely intimate, more intimate than any kiss she’d ever received, but maybe that was her imagination.

“I’ll be back. I promise.”

She nodded, because that was the only appropriate response she could make. Clinging to his leg and begging him not to go really wasn’t an option.

“Don’t do anything crazy,” he warned softly, and Chris heard the sound of his keys jingling as he fished them out of his pocket. “Lock the door behind me.”

“Okay.”

He left, closing the door behind him with a soft snap.

“Shit.” She put the mug against her forehead, wishing she could suck the warmth from the tea into her body. It was too quiet without him. In the dim light of her living room, thoughts of what she’d seen that afternoon floated back. Unnerved, she walked to the big windows and drew the gauzy curtains shut. It didn’t help much. She still felt . . . hunted. The familiar streets of her hometown had transformed into a foreign world.