Level Five (11 page)

Last night as he’d sat in bed with his laptop he’d found her address easily enough and had Googled directions since he wasn’t familiar with the area where she lived, despite the fact it wasn’t that far from his home.

He’d take a drive by her place later this evening and check out the location.  It had taken him three weeks of stalking to finally manage to get his first project.  The second had taken only ten days. Maggie Black had been a gift heading to her car in the darkened area of the McDonald’s parking lot.  No fuss, no muss, just in his car and done.

It would be nice if Edie was just as easy, but he had a feeling she was going to be more difficult, because of the man, because she worked at home.  She was going to take some special skills on his part, but wasn’t that fitting? 

She stirred him like none other before her.  She tantalized and tormented as nobody had done since his mother. Whatever it took, he’d find a way to make her his.  He needed her.  Once again a wave of anxiety crashed down on him.

He’d find her home after dark, but in the meantime he needed things…wanted to fill his car with treasures to take home.  The need to possess at the moment was like a demon gnawing at his very soul. His very survival depended on it.

He left the bookstore with a backward glance at the woman who whipped a hunger inside him greater than he’d ever known.  She would be his.  Maybe she would finally be the one to ease the internal pain inside him.  Maybe when he was finished with her and buried her in his backyard he would finally, for the first time in his life, be at peace.

Jake watched Edie work the crowd with a sense of pride.  This was when her hours at the computer finally paid off, when all the research and her natural story-telling ability came together with her publisher and editor’s help to make something that touched people’s lives. She entertained and disturbed and provoked thought.

He suspected she didn’t know just how good she was, at writing, at reading people and seeing not only the darkness that
had created whatever crime she wrote about, but also the emotion left behind by victims and loved ones of victims.

Her books were about terrible crimes, but also inspirational testimonies of survival.  He suspected that the book she was working on about Colette would be her best ever, perhaps the gift that every writer dreamed about…the story of a lifetime.

He wrapped his fingers around his coffee mug as he watched her interact with an older couple who were at her table.  She exuded warmth with her readers that she showed few other people.

Always guarded and so damned private in so many ways, he thought.  She rarely spoke on her cell phone in front of him.  When she received a call she almost always walked away so she could have a private conversation.  She had few real friends and didn’t seem to feel a void in that area.  She was unlike any woman he’d ever invited into his life before and while he’d invited her wholeheartedly into his heart with each day that passed he was reminded that she had not invited him wholeheartedly in to his.

Secrets.  He knew if he did a full on investigation into her life, he might be able to glean the secrets she held. He didn’t want to do it that way.  In any case, he knew that if he did, she’d never forgive him for snooping around in her life.

There had been times when he’d found her cell phone lying on the coffee table or on her kitchen counter. He’d had to fight the impulse to check who’d called her, who she had called. But he knew if he stepped over that line, she’d banish him forever.

As the older couple left her table with a book in hand and moved toward the cashier, she cast Jake a smile. In that smile he found all the reasons he needed to stay where he was, to take what she gave and just hope that eventually she would trust him with everything.

There was only ten minutes left to the book signing when Colette walked in followed by a tall bear of a man who was obviously her husband.

Edie jumped up from the table, touched that Colette had come and eager to meet the man who had stood by her side even when she’d been in the clutches of evil.

“Colette, it’s so nice of you to come,” Edie exclaimed as she gave the woman a hug.

“I wouldn’t have missed it,” Colette replied.  “Edie, this is my husband, Frank.”

Frank’s hand swallowed Edie’s as he gave it a gentle shake.  “It’s so nice to meet you,” he said.  “Colette can’t say enough nice things about you.”  He released her hand.

Edie smiled.  “I could say the same about what she’s told me about you.”  At that moment Jake appeared at Edie’s side and introductions were made all around.

“We came late because we thought we’d see if maybe you’d like to get a bite to eat afterward with us,” Colette said.  “There are so many good restaurants right in this area.”

Edie looked at Jake, who nodded his head.  “Sure, we’d love to eat dinner with you,” she agreed.  In fact even though she was tired, she looked forward to getting to know the man who’d never lost hope when Colette had been kidnapped.

Thirty minutes later they were seated in a booth in a dimly lit Mexican restaurant.  For a few minutes Frank and Jake talked about the Chiefs football team and hopes that the next season would be a better one.

Edie picked at the tortilla chips in the center of the table and smiled at Colette.  “This was a nice surprise,” she said.

Colette shrugged.  “I thought it would be nice if you met Frank.”  Despite their frequent work at Colette’s house Frank was never home when they talked about the crime Colette had suffered.  It was as if Colette needed to keep her husband and her ordeal in two separate boxes.  Edie totally understood that kind of compartmentalizing. 

The conversation remained light and pleasant throughout the meal.  They spoke of the book signing, the weather and neutral topics that allowed Frank and Jake to get to know each other better.

It was after dinner as they were all enjoying a cup of coffee that Jake brought up Edie’s work with Colette.  “You are some strong lady,” he said to Colette, his admiration thick in his voice.  “I can’t imagine how you survived what you did.”

He turned his gaze to Frank.  “As a cop, I understand the enormous will to survive that Colette had, as a man I can’t begin to understand the anguish you must have been in during that time.”

Frank reached for Colette’s hand and the look he gave her was filled with such love, such devotion that it ached in Edie’s chest.  “As long as there wasn’t a body I wasn’t giving up hope that somehow, someway she’d find her way back to me.”

“But, three years…how did you get through each day?” Jake asked.

“Minute by minute,” Frank replied.  “I’m not going to
lie, some of those minutes were pretty dark.  Hell, for about six months after she’d been gone I got lost in the bottom of a bottle.  I drank from the moment I opened my eyes in the morning until I fell into bed at night.  After a couple of weeks of that I woke up one morning and stumbled into the bathroom and caught my reflection in the mirror.”  He shook his head, his eyes dark with old memories.  “I looked at myself and thought why on earth would Colette ever come home to this?  I put the bottle away and got back to work reminding the police that she was still missing, sending out flyers everywhere in the United States and praying.”

“I don’t know if I could do it,” Jake said.

“What?  You couldn’t wait for me for three years?” Edie asked teasingly.

His eyes were dark and filled with pain as he gazed at her.  “I’ve told you
before, I’d wait forever for you.  I just don’t know if I could keep my sanity that long.”

“It wasn’t easy,” Frank replied.

Still Jake seemed quieter than usual an hour later as the two of them sat on Edie’s deck.  “You okay?” she asked as she twirled her wine glass by the stem.

He glanced over at her and smiled.  “I’m fine.  I like your friends.  They’re a pretty fantastic couple.”

“Initially when I first found out that I was going to work with Colette, I was afraid that she’d be this psychologically damaged victim, but instead she’s this amazing survivor who is determined to get on with her life.”

Jake took a drink from his bottle of beer and then absently reached out to pat Rufus on the head.  When he turned to look at Edie again his features were stark and silver-lit from the moonlight overhead. “I don’t think I could survive what Frank did. I can’t imagine going longer than a day or two without seeing you, without talking to you.”  He reached forward and cupped her cheek with his warm palm.  “I’d get lost without you.”

She covered his hand with one of hers.  “Then if I ever disappear, you just have to use all your cop magic to find me as quickly as possible.  Besides, I have no intention of going anywhere so this is a moot conversation.”

Together they dropped their hands and leaned back in their chairs, this time a more comfortable silence reigning between them.

The adrenaline that had rushed through her since she’d begun to dress for the signing earlier in the day had finally vanished, leaving her with the bone weariness of a drug crash.

Rufus laid his head in Jake’s lap and Jake absently scratched behind his ears.  Edie smiled at the two most importantly men in her life. 

After a moment or two of Jake’s attention Rufus ran to her side, obviously looking for more loving affection.  She gave him a few loving scrubs behind his ears and then he flopped down on the porch and heaved a happy doggy sigh.

“We can never have kids,” she said.

“And why is that?”

She pointed to Rufus who had begun to snore.  “Because we’ve spoiled that dog until he stinks and we’d probably do the same thing to our children.”

“I’ve got to get a ring on your finger and an ‘I do’ out of you before we even talk about how badly we’d spoil our children,” he said softly.

A whisper of anxiety filtered through her at the thought.  She got up from the chair.  “I’m going to go get out of these clothes and then I think it’s going to be an early night for me.  I’m exhausted.”

He said nothing as she left the kitchen, but she was aware of his gaze following her, needing things from her she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to give to him. She hated herself for not being what he wanted.      

Chapter 12

              Anthony had consciously chosen not to drive by Edie’s house on Saturday night. Instead he’d called Susan and invited her to dinner on Wednesday night.  She’d told him she’d be delighted to go out to dinner with him again, as he knew she would.

             
It was important that he keep up the façade of normalcy while inside his mind he felt himself spiraling out of control.  But he worked hard on maintaining control because he had to, because it was important.

             
What he wanted was Edie in his paper room right now. But he had to admit to himself that the anticipation of this project, his best project yet was exhilarating.  The hunt and capture aspect of his work hyped him up almost as much as the actual act of destruction that came after.

             
He still didn’t know who the man was who had been with Edie at the signing. Before making a move he needed to find out.  He’d followed them as they’d left the bookstore with another couple and gone to a nearby Mexican restaurant.

             
Once they’d disappeared into the restaurant, Anthony had left and spent the rest of the night taking, possessing and filling his car with treasures he found in dumpsters. It had taken him nearly three hours to unload his car and make room in the house for his new items.

             
Once he finished, he got into bed with his laptop and pulled up Edie’s webpage once again.  He’d stared at her picture for a long time.  It was as if the mother of his youth was alive again. This time he wasn’t a helpless child needing mommy’s attention or approval. 

This time he was in control and all the rage and the need for revenge burned hot in his belly.  He’d fallen asleep with her picture in front of him and dreamed of all the ways he’d make her pay for him being what he’d become. 

              He slept later than usual on Sunday and once he’d made himself coffee and zapped a breakfast burrito, he carried the papers he’d picked up the night before into the paper room.

             
He’d found several dispensers of free throw papers and had emptied them out.  As he carried them into the room he lowered his nose to them, able to smell the scent of paper and ink.  They wouldn’t smell so fresh and clean for long. 

             
Just like in his youth, he’d grown accustomed to the odor of his house.  On a logical level he knew it stank, but he was completely immune to the foul odor.

             
He frowned as he eyed the towers of paper.  They were all tall enough that he couldn’t add anymore on top.  There was only maybe a foot between the top of the stacks and the ceiling. 

His mother’s body had been dug out of her hoard after she fell and broke her hip and had been unable to find a phone to call for help.  He’d found her body wedged between a recliner and an end table.  A stack of framed photos of foreign places had tumbled on top of her.  At the time, he’d suspected the Eiffel Tower had done her in, the gilt-edged corner of the
wooden frame slamming into her temple.