Deadly Obsession (A Brown and de Luca Novel Book 4) (3 page)

And, oh man, was I ever going to have a talk with probable arsonist Mr. Rouse the Louse, whether my detective liked it or not. I just wouldn’t tell him. Not until after the fact, anyway.

For now, though, my main challenge was how I was going to convince him to come
home
to my house instead of to his own. I paced the hallway, tried to stay out of the way of the rush-hour nurse traffic and wished I knew how Mason was going to react to my suggestion.

* * *

Marie Rivette Brown’s life wasn’t pleasant. The doctors at Riverside Maximum Security Psychiatric Hospital kept her medicated. Heavily medicated. She didn’t hear her husband’s voice anymore. Once in a while he came through, but it was rare and usually only if she was stressed out about something else.

They even let her use the community room. They hadn’t for the first few months, but now they did. It was a big room, with small round tables and plenty of chairs, lots of games like checkers and Trouble, and several decks of cards. A TV set was always playing some happy family movie with no violence or death or ghosts or voices. Nothing that might upset the inmates.

She knew what she’d done. She’d tried to retrieve her dead husband’s donated organs. Eric had been a serial killer. Finding that out had been like a mortar round hitting her world. No one else knew. No one ever would. But
she
knew. She’d known for more than a year and had done nothing about it, unable to destroy her sons by letting it come out. Then, after his suicide, she’d lost the little baby girl she’d been carrying, and that seemed to make the walls of her sanity come crumbling down completely.

She didn’t feel remorse. She figured the drugs kept her from feeling much of anything, so she couldn’t feel sorry for what she’d done, the lives she’d taken. Without the drugs, though, she knew she wouldn’t feel it, either. Without the drugs, she was convinced that what she had done was completely rational.

She missed her boys, though. That was the one thing she seemed capable of feeling, on her meds or off, completely insane or doped into a state of zombie-like calm. She missed her sons. Jeremy would be graduating from high school soon. A couple of weeks, if that. She so wished she could be there for him.

“Hi, sweetie. How are you doing today?”

Blinking out of her thoughts, Marie looked up from the table where she sat alone, an untouched meal in front of her, at the nurse. She’d seen her around before, a stunningly beautiful blue-eyed blonde with a figure her tight-fitting white dress did nothing to hide. But she wasn’t anyone Marie interacted with very often.

“Fine.” That was always her answer.

“You should let me take you outside. It’s such a beautiful day. Lots of people are out enjoying the yard today.”

Marie shrugged. “Okay.”

The nurse smiled and took her arm, helped her up and held on to her gently as they walked together toward the doors, then she used her keycard to unlock them. Marie didn’t think it made any sense keeping them locked, because they only led out to a fenced-in lawn, with several patches of flowers and quite a few big shade trees. Marie scuffed across the soft grass in her foam slippers toward a pair of lawn chairs underneath a pretty red maple. The nurse was right. The fresh air was nice. It smelled like summer and sunshine, and reminded Marie of picnics at the lake house up north and the kids playing on the tire swing and jumping into the water. Skinny and shirtless in baggy shorts she used to say would fall right off in the lake one of these days.

She sank into a chair, closing her eyes and breathing the air, and trying to grab hold of the joy of the memory. But there wasn’t any. It was just a picture. It elicited no emotion.

Marie wasn’t aware that the nurse had sat down in the other chair until she spoke, breaking into the memory and bringing her back to the miserable present.

“I wanted to show you something. I’m not really allowed, but sometimes I think the rules here are over the top.”

Marie frowned as the nurse pulled a folded newspaper clipping out of her pocket, opened it and held it by two corners as the breeze made it ripple. It was a photo of a man carrying two blankets out of a fire. She looked closer, frowning. “That’s Mason.”

“Your brother-in-law, right?”

Marie nodded, her eyes eagerly skimming the words under the photo. Those weren’t blankets, they were children. Mason had saved them from a terrible fire that had killed their mother. Nodding slowly, she understood. “He’s a good man. He’s always been.”

“I can see that. I was so surprised when I saw this on the news and realized he was part of your family. You must be so proud of him.”

Marie
wasn’t
proud of him. Not really. After all, she’d had no hand in making him the great person he was. “His mother probably is.”

“Oh? His mother’s still living?”

Marie nodded.

“Close to him, I hope? He lives in...Binghamton, right?”

“Castle Creek,” Marie said, remembering the farmhouse and wondering if her boys were happy there. Probably. They loved their uncle so much. Maybe more than they loved her. Especially after what she’d done. “His mother’s in Whitney Point. Near Rachel.”

“Rachel? Who’s she?”

“His girlfriend, I guess. She’s a writer.” Something buzzed deep in Marie’s mind, a little trill of awareness that told her it was odd for a nurse to be asking about her family. “Why do you want to know?”

The nurse smiled, shrugged, lowered her head, blushed a little. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just impressed with him. To think we have a hero like that around. They don’t make men like that anymore, you know?”

“Oh.”

“What’s he like?”

She’s up to something. Look at her eyes.

Marie blinked. It had been so long since she’d heard her dead husband’s voice in her head. Oh, she knew the doctors kept telling her it wasn’t really his voice. It was her own subconscious, speaking to her in his voice in order to get her attention. And because she had a mental illness, she must not trust the things her subconscious said to her in the voice of her dead husband.

But she furrowed her brows and stared deep into the nurse’s eyes anyway. There was a fire in there. It was deep, but it was there, swirling and sparking, but hidden very well behind a facade that was blank. False. Empty. She’d seen that look before. She’d seen it in Eric’s eyes. It was the plastic mask of a killer.

“He’s nice,” she said softly, cautiously.

“He has your kids, doesn’t he?”

“How do you know that?” Marie asked.

Dangerous. She’s dangerous.

“I looked at your file.”

Marie’s eyes widened. “You stay away from him. You stay away from him and my boys.”

“Me?” The nurse got up from her chair, one hand fluttering to her chest, her eyes pretending to be offended and surprised. But she didn’t feel those things. Marie could tell. She was mimicking real emotions, the way Marie herself tried to do during every session with her shrink, in hopes of someday convincing him that she was well and could go home.

“My goodness, Marie, what are you talking about?”

“Stay away from them,” Marie said again.

The nurse smiled. And for just a moment she let the mask slip. There was evil in that smile. Evil. She was a demon, and the fire in her eyes was a window directly into hell.

Marie reached out and snatched the name tag from the nurse’s chest, tearing her dress in the process. She stared at the name, saying it aloud, over and over and over as the nurse jumped back with a squeak of alarm and then pressed a button in her pocket.

Orderlies came running out the door, crossing the yard toward them.

Marie was up on her feet. “You’re evil. What do you want with my family? You stay away from them. You stay away!”

Then the strong young men in white took her arms, and another nurse, a regular, jabbed her in the ass with a needle. Marie went out with the demon nurse’s name on her lips.

Gretchen Young.

3

“S
o when are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

Mason sat in the passenger side of Rachel’s hot little yellow T-Bird while she drove him home from his endless stay in the hospital. The top was down, and her hair was whipping like a flag in a hurricane. She drove way above the speed limit, despite the fact that her passenger was a cop. Driving usually had her smiling from ear to ear. Not so today. Today she was all nervous and jerky.

She glanced sideways at him. “You’re almost as good at it as I am, you know.”

“What? Reading people?” He shook his head. “Only criminals and you, babe.”

She crooked one brow at him but kept her focus on the road as she zigged into the fast lane to pass a jacked-out Mustang, then zagged back in front of it again. She didn’t even taunt the driver with a wink or flip him off or give him a cutesy little wave. Something was definitely wrong with her, he thought.

“So what is it?”

“Nothing. I just... Okay, there’s something.” She drew a deep breath, and her shoulders rose with it. He knew that look. She was preparing to blurt it out, whatever it was. He braced himself.

“Why don’t you stay at my place for a while?”

And there it was. He watched her face closely. She didn’t have the same opportunity to watch his, but he didn’t figure she needed to. The stuff she “got” didn’t come from anything she could see with her eyes. In fact, most of the time when she was trying to read people she had to close those gorgeous baby blues.

“You want me to stay with you,” he repeated without inflection.

“Yeah. I mean, why not? The boys are already there, and it really hasn’t been as bad as I expected it to be.” She bit her lip on one side, glanced sideways at him. “I mean, it’s been great.”

“You mean not as bad as you expected.”

“Which is great.”

“I think you need to look up the word
great
in the dictionary. Aren’t you supposed to be a writer or something?”

She shrugged. “Look, you need to take it easy, and you can’t run a houseful of boys and take it easy at the same time. Come to my place. Just for a couple of weeks, until you get your strength back.”

He tried to weigh his words before speaking them. He did not want to screw things up with her, but her invitation was weak. Or maybe he was just still stinging from that unrequited “I love you” he’d dropped on her a few weeks ago. She hadn’t said it back. And he hadn’t said it again. If she wasn’t ready for serious feelings, she sure as hell wasn’t ready for cohabitation.

“Well?” she asked. “What do you think?”

“I think,” he said, slowly and carefully, “that if we ever decide to...live together, I’d just as soon it not be because I’m too weak to be on my own.”

She looked disappointed. “Oh.”

“Jeremy and Josh will be a ton of help. My mother will probably want to move in. And there will be a home care nurse.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Sure, okay.”

“And you. You’ll be in and out all the time, too.”

“Sure,” she said again.

He was quiet for a long moment. She was upset. Dammit, she’d asked him in a way that was a lot like a person pulling off a Band-Aid. Grit your teeth, close your eyes and get it over with. He didn’t think she’d really been hoping he would say yes.

“I just don’t want to risk messing up—”

“It’s fine, okay? It’s fine.”

It wasn’t though. Crap.

“You hungry?” she asked at length. “We didn’t have lunch before we left, and there’s a Nice N Easy off the next exit. They make the best wraps.”

“There’s a Mickey D’s, too,” he said, having seen the same road sign that she had.

“Yeah, but you need to heal. Junk food isn’t gonna cut it right now. And I’m sure your mother and the nurse would agree with me.”

He nodded. “Okay. Wraps sound good. And a Coke.”

“Or water.”

“Or Coke.”

She heaved a sigh, but nodded as she exited the highway and pulled in at the gas station slash convenience store.

* * *

So he didn’t want to stay with me. Fine, he could fucking stay by himself and take twice as long to heal if that was what he wanted.

I was sitting on my living room floor, working on my second vodka and Diet Coke, my poor blind bulldog lying with her head on my lap. “It’s actually kinda nice to have the house to ourselves again, isn’t it, Myrt?”

Myrt’s reply was a great big sigh. She’d been heaving them every few minutes, in between pacing the house looking for Joshua. Her buddy. She couldn’t stand that he wasn’t here. It was mean, that’s what it was. Mason shouldn’t be mean to a poor defenseless bulldog. Myrtle had gotten used to having the kids around. Every afternoon we’d make cookies or brownies or something, so when they got off the bus and came in the door they’d have a snack. I mean, I remember always being hungry after school when I was a kid, so why would they be any different, right?

Myrt would hear that school bus coming a mile away and jump to the door and stand there wiggling from her nose to her stump of a tail, waiting for the boys to come through.

It was heartbreaking to see her so dejected.

Poor dog.

I hadn’t packed up the boys’ stuff yet. I figured I’d tell them they had to do it themselves. That way they’d have to come back and spend some time, and Myrtle could get her groove back. I’d phoned the school from my car to let them know the boys would be taking the bus back to their old place from now on, and to drop them off there starting today.

When I drove Mason home I’d gone in for a few minutes to make sure he had everything he needed. He asked me to stay for dinner, but I said no, that he’d want to get acclimated and stuff. His mother had already filled his freezer with meals. I’d seen her several times while the boys had been my roomies, because of course she had to come by a couple of nights a week to try to talk them into staying with her instead.

Poor Angela. She was kind of stiff as grandmothers went, kind of cold, but she loved the kids in her way. I hope I’d managed to convince her that they liked my place better simply because of the lake out front, the dog they adored and the super short ride to school. They could’ve taken their bikes, if they’d wanted to. (They hadn’t.)

Anyway, I knew Angela had stocked Mason’s freezer with casseroles, lasagnas, meatballs, mac and cheese, and God only knew what else. So I got him home and kissed him goodbye, then made my excuses and headed home.

I’d pretty much been moping ever since. He’d really hurt my feelings by not wanting to stay with me, and I was really good and pissed at myself for being such a fucking whiny ass.

Sighing, I got up and poured myself another drink. Myrtle followed me, then left my side to wander from one room to the next again. She paused at the stairs, sniffing, but didn’t go up. Not only was it not in her nature to exert herself unnecessarily, but she probably knew the boys weren’t up there without climbing the stairs to find out. Her other senses were as sharp as mine. She sighed again, plodded back to our spot, and together we sat down. I grabbed the remote, flipped on the TV.

A news crew was ambushing some guy who was trying to get out of his pickup and into his front door, and the female reporter and her camera guy were apparently doing their best to keep him from getting there.

“If you didn’t set that fire, then who did?” said the reporter, who then thrust her microphone into his face and I was pretty sure bonked him on the nose with it.

Wait a minute. Fire?

“No comment.” He pushed the mike away with one hand and sidestepped the camera. He was an average-looking guy, beer belly that overhung his belt, typical blue work pants, plaid shirt tucked in nice and neat. He had a ruddy complexion, like he was outside a lot in rough weather, and a thick shock of black hair that looked as if he was wearing an animal pelt on his head.

“
That
guy?
That
is the guy who damn near killed my detective?” I turned up the volume.

“What evidence do the police have against you, Mr. Rouse?”

Yep, that was him all right. Rouse the Louse.

The man lowered his head, shook it slowly. I narrowed my eyes on him, but I couldn’t
feel
him. I wasn’t close enough. “No comment.”

“Mr. Rouse, again, if you didn’t set the fire that killed your wife, do you have any idea who did?”

His head came up fast and he opened his mouth, clearly about to blurt something. But then he clamped it closed again, and I could see he really regretted his almost-slip. “My lawyer says I can’t talk to you. I’m sorry. You’ll just have to wait for the trial.”

“But you want to tell your side of the story, don’t you, Mr. Rouse? I can see you do.”

He stopped walking, and I thought he was going to do it. Spill his guts. She was good, this reporter. What the hell was her name? I knew it. I’d seen her on the local news often enough. Trisha Knight. That was it.

She was holding her breath, and so was I. And then he pressed his lips tight, shook his head. “No comment. Now please let me go into my house.”

He pushed past her, not giving her much choice about “letting” him.

I located the remote, hit the back button and watched the entire story again, pausing it every few seconds to try to read the man visually. But visuals were not my strong point. I had to be near someone. I had to
feel
them.

Or, you know, dream about them. At least, it had happened that way a few times. I always tended to think that gift of dreaming about things was just going to vanish and never come back, but it hadn’t, not really. It had morphed instead, turning into some kind of a sixth sense that I didn’t like admitting I had.

Still, I had a feeling about that guy. I backed up the action and watched again, paying attention to the surroundings this time around. I noticed the house number: 117. Now if I could just get a glimpse of a street sign...

I probably watched that clip until my eyes bled, until Inner Bitch cuffed me upside the head (you know, figuratively) and said,
You about ready to look the guy up online yet or what?

I rolled my eyes. It was another classic “duh, Rachel” moment. But at least no one was there to witness it.

Why the hell did I catch myself wishing that someone was? Three someones, to be exact.

* * *

I searched Peter Rouse, found his address, jotted it down, took my bulldog upstairs and went to bed. It was way too late at night to be paying impromptu visits to murder suspects. Besides, I had to figure out how to approach him. He was being hounded by reporters. He wasn’t going to just open the door and let me in. And also, I had to figure out how to keep myself from kneeing him in the balls the second I got within reach. There are pills to make you happy when you’re sad, pills to make you chill when you’re stressed. Why the hell hadn’t anyone invented a pill to make you less likely to assault a person who sorely deserved it?

Myrt followed me upstairs, but not into my bedroom. She went to Josh’s room instead. Sighing, I followed her, stood in the doorway and watched her sniff around the entire perimeter. The bed was still unmade. His pajamas and a used T-shirt lay on the floor, even though I’d bought each kid a big plastic hamper to put their laundry in. Myrtle found that pile of clothes, smelled them, pawed them into a perfect little bulldog nest, and then, sighing, collapsed on top of it. As always, she was snoring before she even hit the floor.

Broke my damn heart.

I tugged the blanket and pillow off Josh’s bed, tossed them down beside Myrt and curled up next to her. She snuggled a little closer. And that was where the two of us spent the night. She was missing her guy as much as I was missing mine.

You’re fucking doomed, you know that, right?

Yes, Inner Bitch. I know it.
I hadn’t intended for it to happen. I’d tried real hard to keep this—God, I hated the word—
relationship
in perspective. Don’t get too close. Don’t use the L word. Don’t
need
him, because if you do, then when you don’t have him anymore, it’ll hurt.

Too late. Too late for all of the above. Except for the use of the L word, of course, but that was on my to-do list. I just needed the right moment. And it probably ought to be one when I wasn’t as pissed off at him as I was right now. Damn him for not being here with me.

Damn him for taking the boys back.

Wow. If you’d told me a year ago that
those
words would whisper through
this
brain, I’d have called you a dirty liar.

* * *

Saturday morning dawned bright and beautiful, and Mason was up, showered, dressed and halfway down the stairs before he smelled the coffee. His heart took a little leap in his chest. Was Rachel here? Had she come over bright and early to make them breakfast and assure herself that he wasn’t overdoing it?

By the time he entered the kitchen, his grin was a mile wide. But Rachel wasn’t there. Just the boys. Joshua was setting the table, and Jeremy was making French toast and a lot of smoke. The coffeepot was full and calling to him, though, so he grabbed a cup off the table.

“Morning, boys.”

They were so focused on their work they hadn’t seen him. “Morning, Uncle Mace! We’re making breakfast,” Joshua said.

“I see that.” He moseyed to the coffeepot and gave the burner a sneaky downward turn underneath Jeremy’s pan before filling his mug. “Mmm. Looks great.”

Jere shrugged. “You’re supposed to take it easy. We figured we’d help out.” He turned the burner back up, but not as high as it had been.

Josh ran behind his uncle to pull out a chair, and Mason sat down. “Don’t feel like you have to do this every morning, guys. I’m fine. I really am.”

He wasn’t. His lungs still felt as if they’d been scrubbed on the inside with steel wool. And his arm still hurt like hell. It was healing, but he was pretty sure there were going to be lasting scars.

Jeremy brought a plateful of charred bread to the table. Mason helped himself to a couple of slices, and applied liberal amounts of syrup to help it go down. “Nice job, Jere. Thank you.”

Jere shrugged. “It was no big deal.” He stabbed a slice for himself.