Deadly Obsession (A Brown and de Luca Novel Book 4) (12 page)

“Because she believed he killed her daughter and tried to kill her grandkids.”

“She doesn’t think so now,” Cantone said. “She’s his biggest fan now.”

“I’ll be right in. Just gotta get dressed.”

“Good enough.”

* * *

Gretchen had driven to the psychiatric hospital after setting Dr. Cho’s house alight. She had her old uniform and, more important, her old keycard. She’d lost it once, three months ago, and had to go through tons of red tape to get a new one. But she had, and then she’d found her old one again and kept it. Just in case.

With her uniform and name badge on, no one paid much attention as she made her way through the various locked doors and took the elevator upstairs to the locker room. Once inside, she made sure the room was empty, then went from one locker to the next until she found an unlocked one. She checked inside but found nothing, so she moved on. Eventually she found one that was both unlocked and had another ID tag slash keycard dangling from a hook inside. She took it, because she was going to need two, and then she went back through the halls, making her way to Marie’s room.

“Hey, Gretchen,” someone said. “You back?”

She turned to see an RN she’d worked with before, but didn’t really remember her name. “Just taking a per diem shift. Downstairs. Thought I’d come up and say hi.”

“That’s nice. How’s that new gig with the hero cop working out for you?”

She smiled. “Best move I ever made,” she said. “I want to check in on a patient. Catch up later?”

“Sure. Doughnuts and coffee in the break room. Sam brought two dozen.”

“Can’t wait,” she said as she walked on.

When she got to Marie’s room, no one was around. She used her keycard and opened the door.

Marie was sitting on the side of her bed with her feet on the floor, hands clutching the mattress on either side of her, rocking. She was agitated. It was clear. Then she looked up and into Gretchen’s eyes, and grew even more agitated.

Gretchen didn’t waste any time. She held up the keycard she’d stolen. “Brought you a present, Marie.” She tossed the card toward her. “You want to stop me? You come on out and stop me. Otherwise...” She smiled and drew a forefinger across her own throat.

Marie surged off the bed toward her, but Gretchen ducked back out of the room, closing the door on her way out.

* * *

I took Amy’s advice and resisted the urge to start snooping around in Nurse Boobsalot’s life beyond my earlier cursory and unsuccessful internet search.

What’s more, I continued taking that advice even after Amy had gone home for the day.

I’d hammered out half a chapter on the new book, but it wasn’t coming easily. I was starting to feel like I’d said all there was to say on the topic of creating your own reality. Then again, I was just getting the hang of actually doing so. And I clearly had a lot more to learn, or that pesky nurse would never have shown up, right?

So you’re back to
her
again, Rache?

Yes, Inner Bitch. Yes, I am. Tell me you’re not right there with me.

Hell, yes, I’m with you. I want to march up to her face, grab her by the hair and tell her to get off my lawn.

Me too.

Why aren’t we doing it, then?

Because we’re civilized.

Fuck civilization.

“This is ridiculous. I trust Mason.”

Myrtle thought I was talking to her, and picked up her head. She was under my desk, taking up the space where my feet went. It was her usual spot when I was working at the desk. I’d put a round, plush dog bed under there for her. She kept my feet warm, so you know, bonus.

“Hey, I’m done for the day here. You wanna go for a walk?”

“Snarf!” said Myrtle, meaning “It’s about freakin’ time,” and then she smiled.

I pushed away from the desk, and she got up and came with me, straight to the front door where her leash and my sunglasses and flip-flops were conveniently located. I had changed into my writing uniform as soon as I’d arrived home from Mason’s this morning: yoga pants, a tank top and my favorite long gray sweater, because the house tended to stay cool in the summer, even without the AC running. I rarely ever used it. I glanced at the flip-flops and decided to go barefoot. I chose a pair of tinted goggles for Myrtle and slid them on. These were much smaller than her car-ride goggles. More like sunglasses. It was still pretty bright outside. I’d have to get ready as soon as the walk was finished. We had decided I should meet Mason at his place for our date tonight, so we could leave Myrtle there with the boys and Hugo. She hated being alone.

We headed out the front door and down the wide expanse of lawn toward the wrought-iron gate that was supposed to be closed. I was terrible about leaving it open. It was just easier to drive in and out without having to stop and open the damn thing every time.

Past the gate, we crossed our one-lane dirt road. I tiptoed to avoid sharp stones till we hit the bank of the lake and then spread my feet in the soft green grass. Myrtle smelled the air, then trotted down to the water’s edge, her nose twitching. I knew she was sniffing for frogs. She loved to sneak up on them. She knew when they’d spotted her by the splash as they dove into the water. But she was getting closer and closer every time. One of these days my blind bulldog might just catch one.

She was amazing, my dog was. Blind as a bat, and queen of the universe. She was like a walking life lesson. I hadn’t been like her when I’d been blind. I’d been capable, yeah. Successful, even. But I hadn’t had fun. Not like Myrt. Every waking minute was a grand adventure to that dog.

I should do a Myrtle book.
A Blind Bulldog’s Advice on How to Live.

Huh. You know, that’s not a bad idea.

It’s not, is it? Myrtle makes the best of everything, all the time. If she could talk, she’d tell us all a thing or two, I thought, as I watched her sprounce toward a resting frog, missing it only by an inch or two.

She’s smart as hell.

Yes, she is.

And even she doesn’t like that nurse bitch.

Dogs have instincts about people.

There must be something wrong with her. Myrtle senses it. Hell, you sensed it, too.

I
had
caught of whiff of something around Gretchen Young, but I had no clue what. But enough of that. I thought I’d decided to stay off this subject.

I sat in the grass and let Myrtle play for a solid hour, and my thoughts turned to Mason’s nurse only twice more during that whole time. Then we walked the entire fenced-in perimeter of our property, and Myrt found a thousand things to sniff and examine on the way.

Eventually we headed back to the house, and I went upstairs to shower and get ready for my dinner with Mason. I dressed to kill, in a low-cut black number that showed more cleavage than I actually possessed (women, you know what I’m talking about), and was short and tight enough that I’d be fighting the urge to tug it down all night. (Again, women know.) I don’t know why.

You know exactly why. You’re reminding him what he’s got.

I am not the least bit insecure about Mason.

No, but you
are
extremely competitive. You want him to notice you’re way out of that nurse’s league.

Only because I am.

That goes without saying. Black stockings, btw.

No one wears stockings anymore, Inner Bitch.

No, not unless they want to drive a man batshit.

Good point. I’ve probably got a pair around here somewhere.

* * *

The stockings worked.

I took Myrtle over to Mason’s. He met us at the door, and his eyes did that sexy thing they do every once in a while, where they travel from my lips to my hips and back again. And then he gave a low wolf whistle.

Jeremy was standing behind him, and he grinned. “You dress like that for graduation and I’m not gonna have any friends left.” When I gazed at him blankly, he said, “’Cause I’d have to kick all their asses.”

“Oh.
Oh.
Thank you. I think.”

He patted his thigh and said, “C’mon, Myrtle. We’ve got cookies.” They started toward the living room.

I leaned close to Mason and whispered, “Are they staying
alone
?”

Jeremy popped his head back through the doorway. “I’m seventeen. Josh is twelve. In some states, we can legally marry.”

I looked at Mason.

“We’ll be gone two hours,” he said. “Three tops. Jere’s graduating in a week. They’re fine.”

I nodded. It made sense. They were good kids; they wouldn’t get into any trouble.

“Come on, gorgeous. Let’s go before you talk me into ordering pizza and staying home. That would be a waste of a killer dress.”

“The only person I care about seeing this dress has already seen it.”

He was holding the door open for me. I walked through it. “Careful, woman. You’re getting sappy.”

“I know, that was pretty lame, huh? It’s been happening a lot lately.”

“To me, too.” He opened my car door, like he had manners or something.

“Sickening, isn’t it?” I asked, sliding onto the passenger seat.

He was staring at my thighs.

“Mason?”

“What?” He lifted his head up quickly.

I laughed at him. Okay, I was enjoying this romantic crap. I admit it. “You okay to drive?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should throw a blanket over your lap or something.” He winked and closed my door, then got behind the wheel and started his beloved Beast. The motor had this deep-throated rumble that you could feel in your sternum. It was one of those cars that run on a mixture of gasoline and testosterone.

Yep, I was having a great time.

And then I wasn’t.

It changed in the forty minutes or so between getting into the car, and ordering the appetizers. Suddenly it felt as if my whole body had been injected with Novocain. I looked at my hand, made it move, but it didn’t feel like my own. I laid my foreign hand on my foreign thigh, but it was as if my body were a puppet and I was only pulling its strings.

Blinking, I scanned the restaurant’s dim, black-and-wine interior, at the nimbus of light around all the little candles, and how they blended into one if I squinted a little. My head felt small and tight, and then I seemed to break out of it and float above, like a balloon on a string.

“Rachel? Hey, Rachel. Are you okay?”

I realized Mason had been saying my name for a while. I looked down to see him holding my hand, but he might as well have been holding a piece of wood. I watched his other hand dip into his water glass, watched it coming toward me, cupping a few wet pieces of ice and moving to run them across the back of my neck.

I sucked in a breath so hard it hurt and slammed back into my body like a skydiver slams to earth when his chute fails.

Everything in me felt the physical shock and then trembled with its reverberations. That was what I felt. What I
thought
, that was more important. I emerged into consciousness again with only one thought. “We have to go home. Something’s wrong.”

Mason’s face went lax. “What do you mean, something’s—”

“We have to go. Now, Mason.” I didn’t wait for him. I grabbed my bag off the table, lunged out of my chair, and started for the door on legs gone as wobbly as if I hadn’t used them in days.

I heard his phone go off as he hurried behind me. Heard him answer it and then say, “Oh, Jesus, oh, God.”

My blood turned icy as I looked back at him. “What? What is it?” Grabbing his upper arm, I rushed us both out the restaurant doors, speed walking us to his car.

He unlocked my door first, then ran around to his own. “The boys. The house is on fire!”

10

I
t was a nightmare.

It had to be. I kept telling myself to wake up.

Mason skidded to a stop behind the fire trucks that filled the driveway and spilled out onto the road. He was out of the car and sprinting, the nice jacket he wore flapping like the wings of a frantic bird, his arms pumping, his face contorted in anguish and effort.

I ran behind him, but I wasn’t feeling my feet hitting the ground or the strain of my muscles. I was feeling pain. Mason’s pain. Overriding my own.

The house was engulfed, every bit of it being devoured by hungry flames that seemed to hiss and snap at the watery cannons that tried to beat them down. Mason was past the fire trucks, cutting such a sharp turn around the front of one that I thought he’d crash. He didn’t. I strained to keep up, my eyes on the blazing inferno that used to be Mason’s house. The boys were inside! Myrtle! My heart trembled. My lips formed the word
no.
I took the corner after Mason, trying to scan the crowd for any sign of the kids or Myrt. I spotted Vanessa Cantone, looking less like a police chief than ever with mascara tears streaming. I spotted Rosie, Mason’s partner. He stepped into the path of Mason’s mad sprint. Mason crashed into him, and they both went down.

“Mason, wait!” Rosie shouted, but Mason was already on his feet again. Rosie moved faster than I’d ever seen him move, springing up like some kind of overweight Chuck Norris, right into Mason’s path again. He put his hands on Mason’s shoulders.

“The firefighters are already inside, Mace.”

“They’re my fuckin’
kids
!”

Mason shoved Rosie aside, and then Rosie drew back, punched him in the jaw and knocked him flat on his ass. Before he could get back up, three more cops were on him, and Vanessa Cantone was one of them.

“There’s nothing you can do, Brown!” she shouted. “You’ll just keep them from finding the kids and getting them out by distracting them with your sorry ass.”

“I’m going in, goddammit.” He wrestled free of all of them and made it about two more strides before three firefighters ran out the front door and two more came crashing through windows like divers, hitting the ground, springing up again and running like hell toward us. Behind them the house just...it just folded in on itself like a tower of playing cards. The walls fell inward, the roof collapsed to the ground. A giant blast of sparks and flame shot upward. And then there was no more house. Just a mound of burning debris.

Mason fell to his knees, collapsing much like the house had. He said, “Rachel,” in this breathless voice like nothing I’d ever heard in my life.

I knelt down beside him, wrapped my arms around his neck. “They’re not in there,” I whispered, right up against his ear, but it came out all broken up by sobs, and my face was wet against his neck.

He held me harder. “Cantone, did my boys get out?”

“We don’t know, Mason. If they did, they’re not here. Maybe they went somewhere. Over to a friend’s house or out for pizza or—”

He lifted his head, looking around. “The Jeep’s here.”

I saw it, far from its usual spot. Someone had moved it away from the fire. One of the firemen, probably. Then Mason whispered, “Jesus, this can’t be happening.”

I clung to him, and then I said it again. “They’re not in there, Mason.”

He looked at me suddenly, sharply, maybe finally hearing what I was saying. “Are you...getting something?”

“No. I just... I would be, if they were... When they were in danger I felt it. If they’d been inside, I would have felt
that
, too.”
Maybe only if they were alive though, right? But no, I’ve felt things from the dead before.

Even thinking of the boys and the word
dead
in the same context made my chest spasm. I had to try not to lose it. Mason needed me. I dragged in a few open-mouthed breaths.

The firemen closed in on the flames, manning their hoses, drenching the monster that writhed and raged at them. The men who’d been inside were near the biggest truck, pulling their respirators and helmets off. Mason pushed himself upright and dragged me over to them, one hand still clasped around one of mine. Not that I’d have left his side. “What did you see? What did you see in there?”

“Nothing, man. There was no sign of anyone inside.”

“Did you check everywhere? All the bedrooms? Under the beds? In the closets?”

The firefighters looked at one another, then at Mason again. “We checked the ground floor, two of the three upstairs bedrooms and the bathroom. We didn’t get to the farthest room back before it started to go bad.”

The farthest one back was Mason’s room. Would the boys have gone there to hide from the flames? I just didn’t think so. They were old enough to know that when there’s a fire, you get your ass out. They wouldn’t go upstairs to hide in Mason’s bedroom. Right?

I felt something, an awareness skittering up my spine, and I turned fast. Then I started sobbing, clutching at Mason’s shoulder and pointing with my other hand.

Myrtle was coming hesitantly across the grass toward me, apparently from the wooded lot that ran along the edge of the property, where Josh liked to play. She was carrying Hugo by the scruff of his neck like a mother dog would carry her pup.

I ran to her, dropping to my knees and skidding across the grass, tearing my black stockings all to hell and not giving a damn. “Myrtle! It’s okay, baby. It’s okay, I’ve got you.” I hugged her neck, sobbing into her fur. Mason came to kneel beside me and picked up the puppy, holding it beneath his chin. His eyes were stricken and wet. The man was devastated.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m sorry.” And I think he knew what I meant. Sorry that I was so relieved to see Myrtle, even though the boys were still missing. Maybe dead.

No, not dead. That just doesn’t feel true.

“Myrtle wouldn’t have left that house if the boys were still inside,” Mason said, and he crouched low and rubbed her head. She was trembling, the poor baby. “Would you, girl? No, I know you wouldn’t.” He met my eyes. “They’re not dead. She wouldn’t have left them, I’m telling you.”

“They have to be okay. They have to be.”

“Jesus Christ, why weren’t we notified before now?” The voice was Vanessa Cantone’s, and she was hurrying toward us, yelling into her cell phone. Rosie was beside her, hurrying to keep up. “I want every detail waiting on my desk when I get back, and I mean
every
detail.” She hung up just as she reached us, looked at me, at my dress and black stockings and shoeless feet. My stilettos were somewhere on the road. I’d run right out of them and only just now realized it. Then she looked at Mason. “Your sister-in-law escaped from Riverside sometime before five this morning. One of the staff reported her blue Ford Focus missing from the parking lot and her keys missing from her locker.”

Mason closed his eyes. “Thank God.”

“Are you losing it, Mason?” Cantone asked. “Marie’s a homicidal maniac. She
had
to have done this.”

“Yeah, but she wouldn’t hurt the kids. She wouldn’t. No matter how crazy she is, she would never hurt her boys.”

He looked at me for confirmation, because we both knew there was no telling what Marie was capable of. But he needed it, so I gave it, nodding and sniffling and knuckling my nose. “You’re right. She wouldn’t.”

Vanessa looked heartbroken. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Mason, I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

“Oh, no, no, get your hopes up, Mason,” I said, standing and stepping around in front of him so he had to look at me and not her. “You always want to have your hopes up, because you know as well as I do that you get what you believe in. So get those hopes up and keep ’em there. I am. I am, Mason.”

He nodded at me. “I’m right there with you, Rache.”

“Good.”

He looked past me at Vanessa. “Get as many people onto Marie’s trail as possible. Get an Amber Alert out on the boys.”

“Mason, we can’t put out an Amber Alert until we know—”

“You damn well
will
put out an Amber Alert or you can have my badge right now. Now, how fast can they get some dogs and an arson team in here to verify that Josh and Jeremy aren’t in that rubble?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find out.” She turned and made a beeline for the fire chief, a short, stocky man who should’ve retired two years ago. I didn’t know his name, but she was shouting “Tony,” so I guessed that was half of it.

“I’ll get that Amber Alert out myself, pal,” Rosie said. “Worst she can do is fire me. And I don’t think she’s gonna do that.”

* * *

Six hours. We sat outside the rubble of the house for six miserable hours. I called my sister, and she came over, took Myrtle and the puppy back to my house, and promised to stay with them until we got there. Myrt needed me, but so did Mason. I couldn’t leave him, and
he
couldn’t leave the fire. Misty stayed with us. We were all sitting on the tailgate of a Castle Creek Fire Department pickup truck. She was on my right, Mason on my left. We were draped in blankets and sipping the hot coffee someone had brought us. There were spotlights set up all around the house, and a small backhoe was sifting through the still-smoking rubble. They pulled the remains of Mason’s house away in layers, spreading the wreckage into shallow piles on the ground nearby so that other men in protective gear could poke through it in search of remains. Bone didn’t burn. Not completely, anyway. I knew that from something I’d read somewhere in my lifetime. Or maybe something I’d seen on TV. If anyone had been in that house, they would find bones. It was going to take all night, but they were paying special attention to that rear corner, where Mason’s bedroom had been, and so far...nothing.

Rosie came over to us and said, “You should go home. You should get some rest.”

“I don’t have a home at the moment.”

“Yeah you do,” I said. I don’t know if he heard me. He was all twisted up inside himself. I didn’t know if I could get to him there.

No one had left. No one seemed willing to go. All the firefighters were still there, and so, apparently, were a large number of cops from the Binghamton Police Department. Vanessa was still there, too, along with the fire chief, whose name I now knew was Tony Fuscillo. The arson investigation unit from Mason’s own department was also on hand. It was a beautiful night. Just a little bit chilly from the steady breeze, but clear. There were a million stars in the sky, and the crickets were chirping like a chorus.

“I can’t leave until I’m sure,” Mason whispered. Then he closed his eyes. “Thank God my mother’s on a cruise. At least she’ll be spared this...the not knowing. The waiting.” He shook his head slowly and said, for the hundredth time, “I never should’ve left them alone.”

“Mason—” I began.

Vanessa hurried in our direction and held one hand in the air, snapping her fingers rapidly. “Where? When?” she asked her cell phone.

We looked at her expectantly, and then she lowered the phone. “We have what looks like a credible sighting in response to the Amber Alert.”

“Details, details!” Misty shouted, jumping off the tailgate.

I tried not to smile too soon, but my heart seemed to shed a layer or two of ice at her words.

“The car that was stolen from the psych center parking lot has been seen. Same plate number, the whole nine. A woman matching Marie’s description, and two kids matching Josh’s and Jeremy’s, were inside it.”

Mason sighed so heavily I thought he’d deflate like a punctured balloon. But he didn’t; he turned to me and he whispered. “They’re alive.”

“I told you.”

He hugged me close, and I cried in relief, then peeled one arm away from him and wrapped it around my niece, who was standing in front of us and blubbering, too.

Vanessa kept talking. “They stopped for gas in Cortland, and a woman at another pump thought the older boy was trying to signal her, so she wrote down the plate number, got back into her car and checked her phone for local news. Saw the Amber Alert and called it in.”

“How long ago?” Mason asked.

“An hour. Witness said they got back onto I-81, heading north.”

He nodded, jumping down from the tailgate to the ground. “Okay. Okay, then. We have to get after them.”

“Hey,” I said and took his face and turned it toward me, so he would pay attention. “We have to go home. To my house—and that
is
home for you now, and I don’t want to hear it, so don’t start. We have to change clothes at the very least, okay? Every department in the state is on this, probably Pennsylvania, too. Come on. You don’t steal a cop’s kids and get away with it.”

“She’s right, Mason,” Rosie told him. “You ought to get some food in you, too, and then try to rest some.”

Mason nodded at me. “We’ll change clothes. Grab some food.”

“Takeout,” I said. “And then we’ll go after them.”

“You’re crazy. You both need to get some sleep,” Rosie said. “Mason, you’ve only been out of the hospital for—”

I jumped off the tailgate. “Let’s go!” And that effectively silenced Mason’s worried partner, who could sometimes nag like a housewife. Then, with Misty beside us, we headed back up the road to where Mason’s car was still parked where he’d left it. Someone had closed the doors. Misty got into the backseat, I slid into my customary spot in the front passenger side. I’d been in this car so much the seat was starting to shape itself to my butt.

Mason started it up, looked at me and smiled. “They’re okay.”

“I know they are. And they’re gonna stay okay until we can get them back. Marie’s a lot of things, but she loves those kids.”

Neither of us acknowledged that we were pretty sure she had intended to kill both the boys last Christmas so she could to reunite her family in heaven. Or that she’d framed her own son for her crimes so she could keep on committing them while we were distracted. Neither of us brought it up, but we were both thinking about it. We could pretend we trusted Marie with the boys’ lives, but we didn’t. We couldn’t. And she was so fucking crazy, she could hurt them unintentionally just as easily as not.

But we were choosing to stay positive. To believe the best of her. There was a mother underneath Marie’s insanity. A devoted mother who loved her kids even from within the hurricane of madness in her mind. She loved them. I was praying that love would shine through and keep the kids safe long enough for us to find them.