Heartstopper (22 page)

As soon as they arrived at the park, Amber unhooked her seat belt, threw open the front door, and stepped outside.

“Be here at eleven o’clock,” John called after her as she headed toward a group of kids gathering under a nearby banyan tree. “Or call if you decide to come home earlier.”

“Thanks so much for the lift, Sheriff Weber,” Delilah said.

“Think nothing of it, Delilah. I’d be happy to give you a ride home later.”

“Thanks, but I probably won’t be staying too long.”

“Well, I don’t recommend walking home alone.”

Delilah leaned over the front seat and smiled, almost gratefully. “I don’t think you have to worry about me, Sheriff.” She opened her door and got out of the car, hurrying to catch up to Amber.

Mutt and Jeff, John thought, as Delilah waddled up to Amber’s side. Amber immediately picked up her pace, clearly embarrassed to be seen with Delilah. Why was it socially acceptable to look skeletal, John wondered, but not well-fed? He watched Amber blend into the group of kids under the banyan’s spreading branches, while Delilah remained on the outside. He heard somebody sing, “Oh, no, it’s Big D! I can tell!” and wondered what that was all about. He saw another group of kids gathered at the far end of the large park and watched the two groups start to drift together. He wondered where they’d settle, and if he should make his presence felt, then decided against it. He’d already assigned several officers to keep an eye on things,
make sure nothing got out of hand, and to call him if anything looked even vaguely suspicious.

It would be dark soon, John knew, watching his daughter fade into a silhouette. He hoped she wouldn’t disobey him, that she’d be there waiting for him at eleven o’clock. Why couldn’t she be sensible and leave early, like Delilah?

Although he didn’t like the idea of Delilah walking home in the dark alone. She might be an unlikely victim for attack, but she was still vulnerable. Maybe he’d drop by Kerri’s house on his way to the video store, tell her he didn’t think it was a good idea for her daughter to be out walking alone at night.

Except that wasn’t the real reason he was here, he recognized, as he pulled the car to a halt in front of Kerri’s house some ten minutes later, exiting the vehicle before he changed his mind. He knew he was being foolish, that Kerri had no romantic interest in him anymore, that she probably wasn’t even home. It was Saturday night, as Pauline had already pointed out, and Kerri was undoubtedly out with Ian Crosbie, and John would be stuck talking to that miserable mother of hers. He shouldn’t be doing this, he thought as he walked up the path to her house and knocked loudly on the door.

“He’s here,” John heard Rose shout from inside the house. Had she been watching him from the living room window?

“About time,” Kerri said with a laugh as she pulled open the front door. She was wearing black capris and a pink, V-necked jersey that matched her bright pink lipstick. Her blond hair was half-up, half-down, and John wondered if this was deliberate, or if she hadn’t been able to make up her mind. “John!”

“Kerri.”

“Is something wrong? Has anything happened to Delilah?”

“Delilah’s fine,” he assured her quickly.

“Well, of course, she’s fine,” Kerri’s mother, Rose, said from the sofa in the living room. “She’s a goddamn Sherman tank, for God’s sake. I told you you didn’t have to worry about her. Come on in and sit down for a few minutes, why don’t you, Sheriff?”

“I guess I can do that.” John stepped into the living room and sank into the leather chair across from the tan sofa in which Rose was securely nestled. A lace doily slid from the top of the chair onto his shoulder, and he jumped, as if it were a spider.

“A little jittery, are we, Sheriff?” asked Rose.

John removed the errant doily from his shoulder, setting it onto the glass coffee table in front of him. “I’m fine, Rose. And you?”

“Surviving,” she said wearily, as if the very act of survival required a superhuman effort.

John thought her continuing survival was probably harder on those around her, but didn’t say so. Instead he said, “Glad to hear it.”

“What brings you by?”

John looked toward Kerri, who had remained standing. She was staring at him expectantly. “Well, I saw Delilah earlier,” he began, his voice at odds with his thoughts. What he was thinking was
Kerri’s home, and it’s a Saturday night.
“Actually, I gave her a lift to the park.”
And since it’s Saturday night and she’s not out with Ian Crosbie, maybe that means the good doctor has returned to his wife, which would mean Kerri is once again available.
“I offered to pick her up at eleven when I go to get Amber, but she said she probably wouldn’t be staying that late.”
And we wouldn’t have to get into anything serious. Just the occasional tryst, the occasional kind word out of those wildly exaggerated lips.
“And I just wanted to warn you that we still have a murderer out there, and it’s probably not such a good idea for Delilah—or you, for that matter—to be out by yourself alone at night until we catch this guy.”

“That’s so sweet of you,” Kerri said, “to worry about us.”

“Why are you really here?” said Rose.

“I’m sorry?”

“You didn’t drive over here to warn us about Delilah. The girl’s a Sherman tank,” Rose repeated, obviously enjoying the image.

“Mother, I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”

“So why is it you haven’t caught this guy yet?” Rose asked, ignoring her daughter’s admonition. “You can be replaced, you know.” She winked, as if to convey she wasn’t referring only to his job.

John tried not to react, although he wondered briefly if Rose had been talking to the mayor.

“Do you have any leads?” Kerri asked, perching on the arm of the sofa.

“Not really,” John admitted.

“What about Cal Hamilton?”

John was getting a little weary of people second-guessing him. “What
about
him?” he asked, his professional curiosity overtaking his personal angst.

“Just that there’s something really peculiar about him. I had to run over there last week when Delilah was babysitting his wife—”

“What do you mean, ‘babysitting his wife’?”

“He doesn’t like to leave her alone, claims she has all these phobias, but I don’t buy that for a minute. I think there’s something really creepy going on over there.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that I had to take a glass out of my own cupboard and rush it over there because Delilah accidentally dropped a glass on the floor—”

“A Sherman tank, I tell you,” Rose interjected.

“—and Mrs. Hamilton panicked, and Delilah said she’s obviously terrified of her husband, and she wouldn’t be surprised to discover a bunch of dead bodies buried
underneath the house. I told her I don’t want her going over there anymore, but she says that someone has to look out for poor Mrs. Hamilton. Can you do something, John?” Kerri continued, his name sounding almost musical on her tongue.

“Not unless Fiona Hamilton files a complaint.”

“Can’t you get a search warrant or something?”

“On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that he probably killed Liana Martin.”

“‘Probably’ isn’t good enough, I’m afraid.”

The doorbell rang.

Kerri jumped to her feet and tottered toward the front door on three-inch platforms.

“Pizza man,” John heard somebody say.

“You’re late,” Rose yelled. “I’m starving.”

“Mother, be nice,” Kerri said as Ian Crosbie entered the room, a large pizza box in his hands.

“I hope you remembered the double cheese.”

“Do I ever forget your double cheese?”

Rose giggled like the proverbial schoolgirl. “You know the sheriff, don’t you, Ian?” she asked playfully, as John rose from his seat.

“Of course.” Ian handed Kerri the box in order to shake John’s hand. “Is there a problem?”

“Just dropped by to say hello.”

“He gave Delilah a lift to the vigil,” Kerri offered as explanation.

“Your kids go?” John asked the doctor.

“As far as I know.”

What kind of an answer was that? John wondered.
As far as I know.
Why
don’t
you know? You’re their father, for God’s sake. A father should know where his children are. Especially now, when there was a murderer walking around.

“Thanks for stopping by, John,” Kerri told him as she walked him to the door.

“Take care,” he told her. On his way home, he decided three things: one, that there’d be no more impromptu visits to Kerri Franklin; two, that he didn’t like Dr. Ian Crosbie; and three, that he was personally going to take a closer look at exactly what the good doctor had been up to since his arrival in Torrance.

S
o, what do you think Mom’s up to tonight?” Tim asked his sister as they hurried toward the park. She was walking quickly, and her ponytail swung back and forth like a pendulum.

“What do you mean?” Megan asked impatiently. “You know what she’s doing. She went to Fort Lauderdale with Rita. Can’t you walk any faster than that?”

“No, I can’t. My foot’s sore.”

“Why’s it sore?”

“I don’t know. It just is. Why are you in such a hurry?”

Megan slowed her pace. What was the matter with her brother? It had taken him forever to get dressed. He’d eventually appeared in a pale blue, button-down shirt and fashionably ripped, stonewashed jeans, only to spend another ten minutes in front of the mirror in the hall on his hair—he kept glancing at her as if checking for her approval—only to have it end up looking exactly the same as before he’d started, the stubborn, dark blond curls refusing to unwind no matter how hard he tugged and pulled. At first she thought there might be someone at the vigil he was trying to impress—in truth, she was surprised at how quickly he’d agreed to come—but ever since they’d left the house he’d been dragging his feet, both literally and figuratively. Now they were almost
twenty minutes late, although maybe that was okay. Better late than early. It wouldn’t do to look too eager.
Treat ’em mean to keep ’em keen.
Isn’t that what Liana once told her? (Had Liana been too mean? Had someone killed her because of it?) On the other hand, if she was
too
late, Greg might decide to leave, or worse, to hook up with another girl. It was a delicate balancing act, this man-woman thing, one she’d have to learn to master.

One her mother had
never
mastered, she realized, gradually resuming her previous pace. Talk about your learning disabilities. And was such a deficiency hereditary? Did her mother’s incompetence in this area mean her social encounters with the opposite sex were doomed from the start? That she’d never be a success with boys? That any relationship she might have with a man was bound to fail? Was she destined to follow in her mother’s footsteps, tripping over her own feet at every turn? “Just be yourself,” her mother always counseled. But look where that advice had gotten her. No, if there was one thing Megan
had
learned, it was that “yourself” was never quite good enough. “Why do you think Mom’s up to something?”

“Well, for starters, she was all dressed up.”

Megan did a quick check of her own outfit—jeans by former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham, its blue crown insignia provocatively sewn into one of two back pockets, tight yellow jersey proclaiming the wearer a JUICY GIRL. “That horrible red-and-white silk thing? She’s had it forever.”

“You told her she looked nice.”

“What was I supposed to say? That she looked like a tablecloth?”

“I thought she looked pretty.”

Megan shrugged. To each his own, she thought. “Why else?”

“She didn’t give us a very hard time about going out tonight.”

“Are you kidding me? We have strict orders to stick together and be home by midnight.”

“That’s not so bad.”

“Are you kidding me?” Megan asked again. What was the matter with her brother? Did he really think that spending time with his sister and being home by midnight
on a Saturday night
was okay? Were the kids right about him? Was he gay? “What else?”

“I don’t know. She just seemed a little nervous to me.”

“So? She’s always nervous.”

“Maybe. I just … Forget it.”

“Just what?”

“Do you think maybe she has a date?”

“A date? You can’t be serious.”

“Why can’t I?”

“Because she’s not divorced yet.”

“Neither’s Dad,” Tim reminded his sister.

“True. Can’t you hurry up?”

“What’s the rush? Liana’s not exactly going anywhere.”

Megan stopped abruptly in her tracks. “What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

“I can’t believe you said that. You’re supposed to be so sensitive, for God’s sake. Mom’s always warning me to be careful what I say to you, ’cause you’re so damn sensitive.”

“I’m not so sensitive.”

“Obviously. Jeez. How could you say that?”

“It was a joke.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t very funny.”

Tim lifted his shoulders, then lowered them in an exaggerated shrug. If only he wouldn’t slouch, Megan thought. He always looked as if he were about to fall over.

“Who would she have a date with?” she demanded as
Pearson Park came into view. “She doesn’t know anyone in Fort Lauderdale.”

“Maybe Rita does.”

Once again Megan stopped in her tracks. Was it possible? Could her mother really be out on a date? And if so, why was Tim the one to intuit it and not her? “No,” she decided out loud. “She would have told me.”

“Did you tell
her
about Greg Watt?”

“What?”

“No,
Watt.
Funny name, I know, but—”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you mean,
Watt
am I talking about?”

“So, help me, God, Tim. This is
so
not funny.”

“It isn’t?”

“What
about
Greg Watt?”

“Who? What?
Watt?”
Tim asked, then laughed out loud. “Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.”

“Tim, I swear …”

“No, don’t do that. Greg might not approve.”

“Where is this coming from?”