Closer Than Blood (27 page)

Read Closer Than Blood Online

Authors: Gregg Olsen

BOOK: Closer Than Blood
10.09Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Fifteen minutes later, Tori appeared in her bedroom and faced the webcam. She mouthed the words “Stupid bitch,” indicating her sister.
Next, she blew a kiss at the webcam and whispered, “I love you.”
A teenager with barely noticeable stubble on his chin was likely smiling back. She couldn't see Parker, but she knew the power she held over him. It felt very, very good.
The shower in the guest bath was running and the door was shut. Tori Connelly set down her coffee cup and walked over to the bureau next to the canopy bed. Her sister's purse was sitting on top, slumped over like it was just waiting for her to reach inside. She shifted its contents until she found Lainie's cell phone. The water turned off and she heard her sister get out of the shower. With the precision and speed of a kid at a mobile phone kiosk, she opened the back of the phone and removed the SIM card. She inserted another, closed it up, put it back into the purse.
Too bad Lainie doesn't have enough money for anything better than a Coach,
she thought.
When Lainie emerged from the bathroom, she noticed that her sister had brought her some coffee. It wasn't hot and it wasn't a full cup, but Tori was never the “hostess with the mostest,” so it wasn't a bad effort.
She's not all bad. She just can't be,
she thought.
“Don't you think it's odd that neither one of us had any kids?”
Tori looked at her sister as they stood in the foyer of the grand Victorian.
“How do you mean, odd?” she asked.
Lainie watched the street for the taxi. She wondered if the same driver would pick her up for the ride back to Seattle.
“I wanted to,” she said. “But Alex didn't. He said that Parker was enough and that he was getting too old.”
“He wasn't that old. At least not by today's standards. Look at Larry King.”
“I'd rather not. But, really, the point was pretty moot,” Tori said. “He'd had a vasectomy years ago. I didn't push it. I might have enjoyed being a mother, but honestly, I didn't really want to ruin my body.”
“No, not when you've put so much money into it.”
The remark was a dig and Lainie wished she hadn't said it. Tori didn't seem to care. It might have been that she was just as glad that the O'Neal sisters' reunion was over. Lainie had come to Tacoma to help her sister get through a very rough patch. She was uncertain if she'd been asked out of love or because there was no one else who her twin would be able to call.
“How many years this time?”
“Excuse me?”
“How many years will pass before I see you again?”
“You'll see me soon. I'm thinking of coming out to the class reunion. I'd like to show those losers that no matter what life has handed me, I'm still smarter, better looking, and, yes, richer than any of them.”
The taxi parked and a driver started up the walk.
Lainie turned to hug her sister good-bye. The past few days had been full of drama, resentment, bitterness. Except for the murder, it seemed like old times.
Or maybe it was because of that.
“See you soon. Call me,” she said, as she walked out the door.
Lainie smiled warily at the cab driver as he lifted the door handle to let her inside.
“Heading home. Stayed with my sister.”
“Nice visit, I hope,” he said.
“I guess so,” she said. “I stayed about as long as I could, as I was needed.”
“I've got a sister like that, too,” he said.
Oh, no you don't,
Lainie thought. She got into the backseat and reached for her phone. The screen was dead.
“Damn,” she said.
The driver looked over his shoulder at Lainie before pulling away from the Connelly house.
“What's the trouble?”
She held out the phone. “I recharged it, but it isn't working. Says that the SIM card is corrupted.”
“That sucks,” the man said. “That happened to me one time. You'll have to start over.”
Lainie didn't say anything, but she agreed. She would have to start over. Seeing her sister brought back so many memories that needed to be laid to rest. Once and for all.
Kendall walked across the plaza toward the sheriff's office. She looked down at her ringing phone.
It was Lainie.
“How are things? How are
you
?”
“A nightmare. But you could have guessed that.”
“It wouldn't take a detective to figure that out. You're right,” Kendall said. “How's Tori?”
“She's mad because the police want to question her. Again.”
“Tell her to get a lawyer,” Kendall said, stopping by a parked car and squinting up at the damp May sky, hoping no more drops would rain down. It had been the soggiest spring in recent memory and she had to fight the urge to wring out her shoes.
“I'm surprised you'd offer up that kind of advice.”
“Look, it's the right thing to do. How long are you going to stay?”
“I'm about ready to leave.”
“Funeral this week?”
“Get this ... no funeral. She says she's too upset. Or something.”
“Sounds like the Tori I remember.”
“You'd be surprised. She hasn't changed a bit. Except for a boob job. She's about the same.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Lainie said before switching the subject. “What's going on with the Jason investigation?”
Kendall sighed. “You know I can't talk about that. But not much. I guess you are caught up in the Mike Walsh murder.”
“You know he was there the night of the accident?”
“Yes, I do. But that's all I can say. You know that.”
“I guess so. I hope you catch his killer. Sad to think of a man who'd pulled his life around only to get murdered.”
“All murders are tragic,” Kendall said. “But, yes, this one is very sad.”
“Tori doesn't remember Mikey, but I do. Tori doesn't remember anything that doesn't move her ahead in any game that she's playing.”
They talked a bit more, about Tori, about the committee and the reunion, before saying good-bye. Kendall slipped the phone into the pocket of her purse. She wondered what it was like to have a sister like Tori. She was always a drama queen, the center of attention, the kind of person who truly believed that any attention was better than none at all. She'd wanted to be a singer, an actress, something that would get her noticed by everyone.
Ahead in any game she was playing. That was Tori to a T.
After hanging up the phone in her Tacoma bedroom, Tori rolled closer to snuggle her lover.
“That went pretty well,” she said. “She thought I was Lainie. People are so stupid.”
“It was genius to dog yourself over the boob job,” he said.
“Genius. That's me. A very naughty genius.”
“Let's make love again,” he said.
She smiled. “Fast, okay? We've got things to do.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Tacoma
The hospital cafeteria at St. Joseph Medical Center was having a special on salmon in a creamy dill sauce, and the entire space smelled like a fish and fry shack. While waiting for the two nurses to join her, Kendall Stark stupidly selected the salmon. It was a light gray with a swath of green sauce that was anything but appealing. Ultimately, she wasn't hungry. Not really. She was way out of her jurisdiction and she hadn't bothered to notify Eddie Kaminski that she was going to talk to his witnesses. It was a lapse in protocol, but she thought it was worth the ethical misstep. No one could understand Tori O'Neal like those who knew her.
To know her was to distrust her.
She'd told Josh that she was running an errand. He didn't seem to understand her preoccupation with Tori, either, and it was just as well. Steven, however, was another matter. He deserved to know what she was thinking. But she wasn't ready for that.
It was around 1:00 P.M. and the cafeteria was busy. Kendall shuffled her tray along the steel shelf to the cash register. A young man with heavy-lidded eyes and a soul patch that was so overgrown it might have required a hairnet if he'd been on the food-serving side of the operation took her money and told her that refills were free.
“Hopefully, you aren't an iced tea drinker,” he said. “That spigot's dry.”
Kendall took a seat next to the window. It had rained most of the day and the parking lot glistened. If there was anyplace she hated more than a hospital cafeteria, it was probably the visiting room at a mortuary.
Slumber room
, as the mortuary staff had called it, in the euphemistic vernacular of an industry that sought to make death seem transitory, rather than permanent.
Corazón White and Diana Lowell caught her attention from across the cafeteria as they ambled over with their trays of assorted lunch items.
“Salmon's good,” Corazón said.
“Good for you, I guess. But not so good here,” Diana said.
“I'm glad that you could see me,” Kendall said.
She waited for them to sit before she gave her spiel that the Connelly murder investigation was ongoing and that she'd need them to sign statements later if she thought what they had to say was important to the investigation.
“Administrator says we can cooperate,” Diana said. “They like to help the police—”
“—when the death isn't on our watch,” Corazón said, interrupting her.
Diana gave the younger woman a cool look. “You didn't hear that from me.”
Kendall drank her mocha, a regular, not the Tuxedo from Starbucks that she favored. It gave her one more reason to hate hospitals. As if she needed one.
“Of course not. What I did hear from you,” she said, looking at Diana, “is that you and Corazón observed a few things that bothered you a little during Ms. Connelly's brief stay here.”
Corazón pierced a limp lettuce leaf with her fork before dipping it in a small container of low-cal Thousand Island dressing. “That's right. She was arguing with someone on the phone. Telling someone that she didn't want him to call the hospital.”
“A
he
?”
Corazón shook her head. “No. She said it was her sister. But she talked to the person like he was a man, maybe a boyfriend. I don't know. Thought you'd want to know.”
Kendall was interested, but she kept her affect flat. “What specifically did she say?”
“ ‘Don't call here.' That kind of thing.”
“How about you,” she said, this time to Diana, the older of the pair of nurses.
“About the same thing. I distinctly remember her saying, ‘Don't ever call me here again.' She told me it was her sister from Seattle or Portland and that she was coming. She was all sweetness when talking to me. But she was full-bitch when she was talking to her ‘sister' or whoever it was.”
“You going to eat that?” Corazón pointed to Kendall's Dutch apple pie.
“Nah. You can have it.”
Corazón smiled broadly. “Thanks.”
Diana lowered her glasses to get a better look at her barely toasted BLT. She didn't say a word. And for a woman like Diana Lowell that was not an easy thing to do.
On her way back across the Narrows Bridge to the office, Kendall wondered about the tenacity of a caller such as the one who'd been dialing Tori Connelly's room.
Someone she didn't want to talk to. Someone who wouldn't take no for answer,
she thought.
Once behind her desk, she rifled the furthest reaches of her desk drawer for an antacid. Her stomach was a sour mess and she needed something to calm it. It had to be the salmon she had for lunch.
Josh Anderson flopped himself down in her visitor's chair.
“Where'd you go for lunch? Amy's?”
She shook her head.
“I wish I did.” She patted her stomach. “I grabbed a bite at a drive-through and now I'm paying for it.”
“Biting you back, huh?”
“You could say that.” Kendall paused for a moment, weighing her options. “You might need to run things around here for a few days. A family emergency has come up and I might have to leave town.”
She hoped he wouldn't ask where she was going. She'd already lied to him too many times. Lying, she was sure, didn't get easier with practice.
“Anything serious?”
“Just family stuff.”

Other books

Tough Love by Nancy Holder
Rod by Nella Tyler
Finding Obscurity by Emma Shade
Infection Z (Book 4) by Casey, Ryan
Shtum by Jem Lester
AD-versaries by Ainsworth, Jake
For Duty's Sake by Lucy Monroe