A Bat in the Belfry (13 page)

Now the assembly was ending, and she was talking about grief counselors, a memorial project, and getting together in groups to discuss their feelings. David got up. The idea of talking about his feelings only intensified his certainty that very soon he’d need to run to the boys’ room and vomit.

Because he’d been home, all right. When the clock on the living room mantel struck twelve last night, he’d still been in his own bed. Bogie hadn’t shown up until about twelve-thirty. But …

Bogie … and Harvey Spratt.

A full-on druggie and all-around creep, Harvey was the downside of being protected by Bogie Kopmeir. Harvey had Bogie’s back the same way Bogie had David’s, or anyway Bogie thought Harvey did. David had his suspicions about what would really happen if Bogie ever actually tried to depend on Harvey. He was pretty sure that Harvey’s ideas of loyalty only ran one way, toward himself.

But right now that was neither here nor there, David decided as he made his way out of the gymnasium with his classmates. Right now what he knew was that
after
their outing together, Bogie would’ve probably gone downtown to the breakwater to meet up with his unsavory older friend.

What one of them might’ve been doing
before
Bogie came to roust David from his bed, though, was David’s question. Because Bogie was tough and violent, but Harvey was another can of worms altogether.

Harvey was
nuts
.

  
6

“R
ats.” Lizzie Snow faced herself in the motel room mirror. “Of all the damn fool …”

A knock at the door stopped her. Great, she’d come back too soon and the maid wanted in. “No, thank you,” she called, making her voice sound as cheerful as possible.

Which wasn’t very.
Nice work, genius. In less than twenty-four hours, you’ve made an enemy of a local cop, gotten a pair of town busybodies involved in your private business, and fixed it so some poor guy just out for a late-night stroll is sitting in an interview room right now, wondering what hit him
.

If they even had interview rooms here. Eastport was pretty, but that was about all; as far as she could tell, the only hot spots were the hardware store and the marine-supply shop.

At least if I need a boat hook or belaying pin, I’ll be all set
. Not that she actually knew what those things were, nor did she want to. Most everyone else in town seemed to, though, at least to judge by their clothes: jeans and sneakers, mostly, with here and there—on men and women both—a pair of work boots so big and clunky, you could drive railroad spikes with them.

Among them, her own skinny black pants, polished boots, and leather jacket looked wildly out of place, and so did her careful makeup, which back in the city had looked normal, even restrained.
But up here I might as well be wearing a clown costume, a big red nose, and some floppy shoes. Maybe a squirt-gun daisy in my lapel
.

Defiantly she ran a comb through her hair and freshened her lipstick. Pretending to be one of the gang hadn’t ever gotten her anywhere, and she doubted it would here, either, no matter what the accepted costume might be.

Or pretending she was anything but what she was. She’d begun brushing more blush onto her cheeks when the knock came again.

“I said I don’t any need maid service, thanks,” she called, somewhat less pleasantly than before, because what she really didn’t need was more hassles, not even of the well-meant variety.

“It’s not maid service I’m offering,” came the reply.
That voice …

Dylan’s voice. Her heart punched the inside of her chest. Until last night, she hadn’t seen him in over a year, hadn’t thought she’d ever see him again. But now—

One year, three months, and five days
, a sly whisper in her head commented knowingly before she could shut it up.
D’you want to know how many hours and minutes?

Oh, but I forgot—you already do
. She strode to the door and yanked it open. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He stepped past her into the room, taking in her bag messily unpacked with its contents strewn all over the bed, makeup scattered across the dresser, and the new bottle of bourbon on the bedside table, beside the room’s plastic ice bucket.

“Made yourself at home already, I see.” He let his gaze rest a little too long on her unmade bed, the sheets in disarray from where she’d tossed and turned in them, unable to sleep.

Thinking of him, replaying the glimpse she’d caught of him at the crime scene last night … 
Damn, damn
.

He caught her expression and a look of innocent hurt crossed his lean face. “Aw, Lizzie, don’t be that way. It’s me.”

Tall and slim, with dark, thick-lashed eyes and high cheekbones, he held his arms out the way he used to, for her to step into them. “You know I don’t bite,” he said.

The look of innocence changed. “Not too hard, anyway,” he added softly. “Remember?”

I do, indeed
, she thought.
But if you think that’s going to get you anywhere, you can go piss up a rope
.

“Hello, Dylan,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

The night before, she’d turned her back on him and walked away, not giving him more than a flat “hello.”
Yeah, like that was really going to work
.

“You look great, Lizzie,” he said, ignoring her question. “A little thin. And sad, as if you haven’t been having enough fun.”

His eyes said he could remedy that last part, if she would let him.
Dream on, Binky
.

“I’m fine. Working in Boston until recently. You know the drill, guns and knives, a poisoning now and then, and—oh, yes, a disemboweling a couple of months ago. That one was a pip, you probably read about it in the papers.”

She’d been censoring her thoughts since even before she’d arrived in Eastport, knowing that the first rule of keeping a secret was keeping it from yourself. People here didn’t need to know what she was.

But Dylan already knew. She turned back to the mirror, began combing her hair again though it didn’t need it.

“Tons of fun,” she said. “A laugh a minute, actually.”

He came up behind her, not touching her. “Oh, really. That why you quit?”

She met his gaze in the mirror. “How’d you know about that? And how’d you find me, anyway?” She’d have sworn he hadn’t followed her from the church last night.

His answering glance was mocking, as if he’d read her mind. But then he gave up the Lothario act. “I saw your car outside.”

Which
could
be true. She’d had the same car back when they were … 
but no, don’t think about that
, she ordered herself. “And I know you quit because I keep track of you,” he added.

He let his hands rest lightly on her shoulders. “Or is that not allowed, caring about what’s happening to someone I was close to?”

She stepped briskly sideways, out from under his touch. “I’m not in charge of what you do or don’t care about. But I can tell you that you’re wasting your time.”

“Come on, Lizzie, I’ve really changed—” he began again, but she cut him off roughly.

“No. No, you haven’t. You’re a
liar
, Dylan. And that’s never going to be different.”

She took a shaky breath, fighting tears suddenly. But no, she was done weeping about him, had been for a long time. “But maybe you don’t remember. Maybe it’s slipped your mind, what you told me.”

He looked caught.
Too late, buddy. You bought this trip by knocking on my door after all this time. And now—

Now he was taking it. “You told me she was leaving,” Lizzie snarled the words out at him. “You said your marriage was over. While you and I were in bed together, you said she’d be
glad
,” Lizzie finished, feeling again the fresh anguish of his betrayal even though it had happened over a year ago.

Not that a year was long enough. A century wouldn’t be long enough. Her nails stabbed the palms of her hands.

He stared at his shoes, his easy, charming line of chatter stopped in its tracks by her outburst. “I’m sorry,” he said.

And to his credit, he actually looked sorry; sounded it, too. That didn’t undo any of what he’d put her through, though. And anyway, this could all be a charade; Dylan was an actor
par excellence
, as she knew only too well.

A master at the art of keeping a secret. After a long moment, he spoke again. “We did have a good time together, though, didn’t we?” His tone softened as he reached out and plucked her bone-handled jackknife from the dresser top, then put it back. “I mean, come on, Lizzie, admit it. It wasn’t all bad.”

“I don’t have to admit a thing to you. I thought I’d never see you again. Which was fine with me,” she retorted.

Lies, lies … and then you accuse him of being deceitful?
His glance went to the bottle on the dresser and then to her face, questioningly.

Right, like you care. It never bothered you before
. “No, I was not having a drink,” she told him. “That’s for later.”

There’d been a while there, right after she found out about his wife, that she’d hit it a little hard. But bottle-emptying was a fool’s game, even more than he had been. “And anyway, may I remind you that until I met you, I’d never tasted a drop?”

Strange but true; her tenement upbringing, in a neighborhood known for drug busts, domestic abuse, and arson, had featured a dad so deadbeat that he couldn’t even be bothered to leave. She might’ve just numbed herself to it, but after their mother died she’d needed to stay alert to protect her younger sister from her dad’s drunken outbursts and—just once—his midnight attempt at groping Sissy.

Once had been enough. By the next morning, both girls—Sissy fourteen, Lizzie four years older—had left the house, never to return. It was the start of Lizzie’s path into law enforcement as a career … and of Sissy’s much different route, one that ended in her body getting washed up onto some rocks.

And led to this, to what I’m doing now. To finding my niece if I can, or finding out what happened to her
.

And Dylan’s no part of that
. “So you can keep your advice to yourself,” she finished, “and everything else to yourself, too.”

If she’d known last night that he would find her today, she would have gone back to Boston and waited until this other thing, this local murder case, was over, and Dylan was back in Augusta.

Uh-huh
. The skeptical voice in her head was relentless.
Sure you would. Give me a break, when you saw him across that church lawn last night, you could’ve eaten him up with a spoon
.

Like right now … and you know it. So does he. He always did
.

And he always will
. “Lizzie,” he said simply, letting his hands drop to his sides again.

But knowing is one thing and doing’s another
. And no matter what kind of chemistry they’d had in the past, he was bad news. Turning away, she grabbed a sweater from the dumped bag on the bed and began folding it.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment, shrugging. “Well. I guess I couldn’t expect open arms, could I? Not even if I …”

Oh, enough
. She flung the sweater down. “Not even if what, Dylan? You had a wife, she loved you, and she was wrecked when she found out about me. And you’d never told me.”

He looked down once more, no doubt remembering just as she did the awful scene: Lizzie’s apartment, the wine and the candles and silken caresses. They’d already drunk most of the wine; the music, she recalled, was a guitar concerto they’d discovered together in a used-record shop that afternoon.

And then the door bursting open. Locked, of course, but Dylan’s wife had had a key, a copy of the one she’d found on her husband’s key ring and hadn’t recognized. After that it had been a simple matter of following him on several evenings, then finally staking out Lizzie’s apartment and waiting.

At least Dylan’s wife hadn’t had a gun. All this time later, Lizzie was still grateful for that little detail. It was the only thing she was grateful for about that night. That night, and all the ones since then …