Every Breath You Take: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 2) (15 page)

The passage Jimmy read said that after Jesus forgave her he told the woman to go and “sin no more.” So if she kept up the adultery stuff after being forgiven could the Pharisees have stoned her then? Forget the stoning. Would they have been okay to judge her?

Based on the way I go about life and interact with others, people don’t believe I think about things like this. I guess that makes them judgmental or at least profilers.

My mind starts to wander. Bears on Monday Night Football tomorrow night and I’ll be there in a luxury suite. Cool.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and someone gives me a little shake. It is Kaylen. Why is she standing? I look around. Everyone is standing. Their heads are bowed, thankfully. I wasn’t paying attention. I pop out of my seat. She scowls at me—pretty judgmental if you ask me—then shakes her head and gives a little laugh. Jimmy says “amen,” we open our eyes, sing a song, say a prayer in unison, and head for the exits.

Lunch at Jimmy and Kaylen’s as usual. Wonder if Jimmy wants to talk about today’s sermon.

• • •

“How is Marjorie?” Stanley McGill asks Robert Durham, Sr.

“Bad.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“She’ll be okay. She’s in Manhattan. Shopping will take her mind off things.”

McGill said nothing. He knew better. He and his longtime boss and client—and maybe even sometimes friend—were eating eggs benedict on the thirteenth floor of the Ritz Carlton, hidden behind the looming hulk of the McCormack Place. Robert, Jr. was supposed to be joining them but was late. Unusual. He was his father’s clone. Intelligent. Driven. Tireless.

What in the world had happened to Jack in the years between leaving home for college and his murder?

“Hey Dad . . . hey Stanley . . . sorry I’m late.”

“No problem, Son,” Robert, Sr. said.

“I was on Skype with Moscow the last couple hours. The deal is good to go. The man himself cleared it. We’re about to own a stake in the East-Prinovozemelsky natural gas fields.”

“Nice work, Son!”

“Well done, Bobby,” McGill said.

“It’s a long-term play with shale production booming here and sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict lingering. But that’s why we got it for a song.”

Durham and Durham was named for Robert, Sr. and his brother, now in semi-retirement. The day was coming soon when the name would reflect the father and son. The plan was one day it would be run by the brothers—now an impossibility, McGill thought sadly.

No question, Robert, Jr. was his father’s son. Jack had been dead for just two weeks but it was business as usual for the powers behind Durham and Durham. He wondered if Junior had remembered what his dad said and called his mom to tell her that he and Jack had been getting along. It might cheer her up a little.

25

I’M RUNNING AS hard as I can. I have to get there before the car door slams shut. I lengthen my stride, grit my teeth, and try to stoke my internal engines to push even harder. My hands pump higher and harder with a mind of their own. I call on all the discipline I have to follow my training when I ran track back in high school. I loosen my shoulders and lower my hands but continue to pump them as fast as I can, knowing my legs will follow.

She is fighting. She has clawed her way halfway out of the backseat and onto the street. Her blonde hair is disheveled. He is pushing and she is kicking. I might still have time. My lungs are screaming for oxygen. My legs ache with the exertion. Every stride is torture. They just want to quit but I can’t let them. Why am I not drawing closer? I can’t close the gap. My arms start to pump higher again, perhaps reaching for heaven in supplication for more oxygen. I have to have more oxygen.

I’m drawing closer now.
About time.
She gets her hands free from him and scratches jagged lines down both cheeks. He bellows in rage and draws back his fist to hit her. Am I three car lengths away? Two? I am suffocating. I have never in my life run harder and longer than now. What will I do when I get there? Collapse?

He’s got her stuffed back in the rear of the car and slams the door shut. He moves forward a step and slides into the front car seat. Only a few more feet. The door is closing. This is going to hurt like crazy and it might not stop his capture of her anyway. But the only thing I can do is dive forward and hope to get my arm in between the door and the body of the car.

I feel a sharp pain to my knuckles. I hear a crash. I am up on my feet, fists up and in fighting position. I am disoriented.

“Kristen, are you okay?” Mom yells from the door to the kitchen, a look of fear in her eyes.

She is the first to arrive in the small sunroom at the back of Jimmy and Kaylen’s house. Kaylen, Jimmy, and Klarissa are right behind her. Next to take a look in on the commotion is Patricia Williams. She and her husband Jeff came over for dinner. I met Patricia through my undercover work with AA. Jeff has already headed to the office. She has stuck around. The six of them have been drinking coffee, nibbling on Kaylen’s blackberry pie, and chatting around the kitchen table. I couldn’t keep my eyes open and decided to take a catnap on the lumpy couch. I think I could still hear their voices while I dozed in and out of my nap. Then I was dreaming. Apparently I came up punching because I’ve knocked over a floor lamp, slung a pillow across the room, and knocked all the magazines off the coffee table. The shade is smashed into an oblong shape and the bulbs are shattered.

“Sorry guys, weird dream,” I say sluggishly, still trying to clear the cobwebs in my head.

“You’re weird enough in real life, I’d hate to think what a weird dream for you would be,” Klarissa says with a smile.

I barely have the energy to look up and stick a tongue out at her. Mom looks over at her with frown—a judgmental frown from my angle—but Klarissa just looks angelic.

Kaylen has left the room and is back with a glass of water for me and a small brush and dust pan for the mess. Everyone is gathered around me, just a little too close for my comfort level and space needs.

“Just a dream guys, I’m fine.”

I smooth my hair and the back of my dress and follow everyone back into the small kitchen. Kaylen follows me into the kitchen at a slow waddle. I look back at her. Her lips are pursed. I can tell she isn’t convinced I am fine.

Jimmy pulls a sixth chair up and I crowd into the small round table between Mom and Kaylen.

“So what’d you dream about?” Kaylen asks.

“It was nothing,” I say.

“Must not have been nothing or you wouldn’t have attacked the sunporch and killed the lamp like a Ninja warrior,” Klarissa snipes.

We really are doing okay and back to normal.

Kaylen puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me in close and says, “C’mon, Baby Sis, what was your dream?”

“I thought I was Baby Sis,” Klarissa says with a pout.

“You are,” Kaylen and I say in unison with a laugh.

Everyone is still looking at me. I’m awake but still feel slow. In my mind I sometimes complain that I can’t grab and hold attention like glamorous Klarissa or angelic Kaylen. But when I finally do get attention I don’t want it. I feel embarrassed now.

“Let’s hear it,” Jimmy says.

“A lot of it is a blur,” I say. “It started out kind of nice, then it turned scary. I was in a big house and all of you were there—except you Jimmy. And Patricia.”

Mom and my sisters laugh and he just shrugs and makes a face. Patricia just watches me closely.

“There were others there too. I’m not sure who they were but it was kind of like they were relatives. Maybe cousins.”

“You don’t have cousins,” Mom says.

Do I remind her I am recounting a dream and not a genealogy lesson? Nah. I press on.

“Everyone had their own room, but when it was time to meet for dinner everyone started yelling because their doors were locked and they were trapped inside.”

Okay, this sounds crazy. I’m ready to stop. But everyone is still looking at me. Like they are actually interested.

“Then I heard a scream. I looked out the window and a man was dragging a woman down the street.”

“One of us?” Klarissa asks, serious now.

“I don’t know. I think for a moment in the dream it was you. Then I think it was Kaylen. Then—and I know this sounds crazy—I think it was me. Then I think it was some girl I interviewed on a case I’m working.”

“Her name?” Klarissa asks with a smile. “Off the record?”

We make faces at each other.

“What happened next?” Kaylen asks, her arm still comfortably around my shoulders, her pregnant belly pressed into my side.

“I tried the door but it was locked. I kicked it a couple times.”

“Naturally,” says Klarissa.

“Then I opened the window and jumped out. I was a couple stories high but I landed in some soft bushes.”

“You jumped out the window?” my mom asks with incredulity.

“Not really, Mom. It was a dream.”

I pause and think. Dreams are funny. They are so clear when you are dreaming them. When you wake up they start shifting shapes. You start to confuse what you dreamed and what you think about what you dreamed. You can watch parts of it disappear into forgetfulness.

“And?” Kaylen prods.

“I chased him down the street to save her. He was trying to stuff her into the backseat of a car and drive off. I had to get there before he could get his door shut.”

I pause. Kaylen has a half empty cup of coffee in front of her. I pick it up and take a swallow of lukewarm watery decaf—I never knew pregnant women weren’t supposed to drink regular coffee—with sugar in it. Yech.

“Who did the man look like?” Klarissa asks.

“Do you really want to know?” I ask in response.

“I kind of figured this is where it was going to go,” she said.

A heavy silence settles on the table. I can do that to conversations.

I’m glad no one asks me more about the mystery man. For a fleeting second it was Klarissa’s on-again, off-again—now off-again—boyfriend Warren. Then it was Zaworski. But at the very end, right when I reached the front car door, the kidnapper looked directly at me and smiled. It was Dad.

“I don’t want to think about him,” Mom says. “I just know my girls are safe and sound now.”

“I think your dream means something,” Patricia says.

“You’re probably right,” I say, ready to move on.

“When you say it like that I know you’re not going to try and think about it,” Patricia says.

Really?

“Have you talked to a counselor about your experience with the Cutter Shark?”

I look at her blankly.

“Don’t you think you might have some post-traumatic issues?”

“I’m fine,” I say, uncomfortable with the renewed attention.

“I know you’re fine, Kristen, but I’m surprised Chicago Police doesn’t require some form of counseling after being in the middle of something like that.”

It is required. I wasn’t looking forward to it. But then I got the invite from the FBI to train and rehab in Virginia. I’ve kind of assumed that my rehab might count toward the counseling—or that CPD has forgotten about it.

Why should I be forced to go to counseling anyway? I’m fine. What happened, happened. Talking about it will change nothing. And I’m realistic about life. Sometimes it’s great. Sometimes it’s tough. A lot of time it’s somewhere in the middle. Maybe a deeper understanding can help, but even if you can’t figure it out, what are your options? You live. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The conversation has ground to a halt. I jump up, now fully awake, and say my good-byes.

“Long day tomorrow, I better go,” I say.

“Dinner tomorrow night?” Klarissa ask. “I’m off-air.”

“No can do. I’m working late.”

I give hugs all around and save a big one for Patricia. I whisper in her ear, “I’m so proud of you. And I promise, I’m doing fine. Don’t worry about me.” She pulls me in harder.

My affection quotient has reached its limit so I break away and beeline for the door. Everyone follows me.

Let it go, folks. It was only a dream.

My family is funny. We talk about almost everything and get in the middle of each other’s lives. But then we completely sidestep the two most traumatic moments in our family’s history. Maybe we need group therapy.

Just as I think I’ve made my escape, Jimmy blurts out, “Did you save her?”

“I don’t know. I woke up just as I got there.”

• • •

Kelly Granger, Derrick Jensen, Roger Smith, Alan Gerhardt, Daniel Taylor, Grayson McGuffey, Joseph Smith, Dennis Disney, and Adam Spencer. The Lost Boys. There are others that come and go but these are the nine regulars. I snap the notebook shut. I know more about these guys than their mothers do.

I know the names, working names, and faces of Bobbie’s harem as well. All twenty-three girls who spent time in the Durham posse.

I’ve read the interview notes of all the players. The fact that everyone had an alibi that has stayed standing after a first round of scrutiny is almost suspicious in and of itself.