Undying (13 page)

She put both her palms on his chest and pushed. He rolled over onto his back and for a moment they just lay there in the dark, the ceiling fan ticking overhead, listening to each others’ labored breathing.

Arlan was suddenly so tired, so spent, that he felt himself drifting. She moved on the bed beside him and he reached for her, opening his eyes. “Where are you going?” he asked, groggy.

She brushed her fingertips across the palm of his hand and climbed out of the bed. “Back to the hotel.”

“You can stay the night.” He never invited anyone to stay after sex. No one but Fia had that privilege, but as the unexpected words came out of his mouth, he realized he wanted Macy here. He wanted her to sleep in his bed beside him.

“I don’t stay the night,” she said, picking through the clothing on the floor, trying to identify what was hers.

He closed his eyes. Just for a minute. Just to decide what he should say to make her stay. When he opened them again, it was daylight, the clock read 9:10, and he was late to repair Eva’s pantry shelves.

“You invited her
here
?” Arlan’s words were garbled by a mouthful of nails.

“She might feature the house in a magazine,” Eva said enthusiastically. “I don’t get anything for that but the fame, but she says that sometimes advertising money comes out of it. You know, people see photos of the house and they want to shoot their toothpaste or hemorrhoid cream ads in my rose garden.”

He plucked the nails one by one from between his lips and laid them on the counter that ran under the shelves on one end of the eight-by-six room. Arlan had specifically built the room back in the nineteenth century to store dry goods. “This is going to take more than nails. I’m going to have to pull down some of these shelves, rebrace them and then put them up again. I’ve been telling you for years that you needed some maintenance work in here.” He turned to her. “Eva, you can’t invite Macy here. You can’t get all friendly with her. She’s an HF.”

“And you’ve never had humans in your house?” Eva stood in the doorway between the kitchen and pantry, a perfectly plucked black eyebrow raised. “Puh-lease.”

“She’s here to talk to Fia about the Buried Alive Killings.”

“She’s Fia’s snitch?”

He frowned, not liking Eva’s choice of nouns. Not liking the connotation of the word. “No, she’s not a
snitch
. She might have some information that could help the FBI on the case, that’s all.” Arlan wasn’t sure how much he should say. He didn’t know what Fia would want him to say. What Macy would want him to say. He suspected he’d already blabbed more than he should. How did he always get into situations like this? Trapped among women.

“Okay, so she’s possibly got some info for Fia. I don’t see how that concerns me.” She lifted her elfin nose haughtily. “She’s a photographer. She takes great pictures. Arlan, she
understands
my rosebushes.”

He rolled his eyes. “She’s not a lesbian, Eva.” He removed his measuring tape from his leather tool belt and began to take down numbers on a scrap of paper. “You’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re looking for love.”

“How do you know what her sexual orientation is?” Eva was quiet for a second and then she gasped. “Don’t tell me you slept with her?” She slapped her muscular thigh. “Saint Mary, Mother of God’s bones! You screwed Fia’s snitch!”

“She is
not
Fia’s snitch!” He grabbed his scratch paper and strode past her, into the kitchen. He was aggravated. Aggravated with Eva for being too friendly with Macy. Aggravated with Macy for snooping around where she had no business snooping. Eva could be a dangerous woman; hell, he could be dangerous. He was even aggravated with Fia for
her
relationship with Macy. He was pissed at them all.

“I’m going to the lumber store. I might be back today. Might not.”

Eva followed him to the foyer, nonplussed. “You think she might be bi?”

“Stay away from her, Eva.” He yanked the front door open. “I’m warning you. And I don’t want her invited to any of your damned
feasta oiche
parties at your mom’s place.”

Eva was well-known for her bloodfest parties where all her friends dressed up in costumes to look like what humans thought vampires looked like. They invited human freaks who thought
they
were vampires. Everyone ended up in orgies or blood feasts or both. The
feasta oiche
had been banned from Clare Point years ago, but Eva had never been one to follow rules.

“Come on. I’ve seen you at my parties,” she teased.

He walked out the door, pointing at her with his carpenter’s pencil. “I’m not kidding, Eva. Not this time. I’m serious. I don’t want Macy caught up in your nonsense.”

She followed him onto the porch and leaned on the railing, calling down to him as he climbed into his pickup. “Arlan’s got a human girlfriend,” she teased. “Arlan’s in love.”

As he slipped on his sunglasses, he caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror. Was that what was going on here? Was he
falling in love
with Macy?

The idea scared him to the very core of his black soul. If he was in love with Macy, could he still love Fia?

F
ia cradled her cell phone between her shoulder and her chin as she searched for quarters in the bottom of her handbag. So far she’d only come up with pens, a roll of mints, and unidentifiable lint. Frustrated, she dug deeper, feeling along the seams.

She was beginning to think that this had been a bad idea.

She had chosen the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk to meet Macy, primarily because it
wasn’t
Clare Point. In just a few days’ time, the young woman had apparently made quite an impression on the town. Arlan was sleeping with her. Eva
wished
she was sleeping with her, and Mrs. Cahall wanted to adopt her. Everyone was talking about Macy, about her success as a freelance writer, about how beautiful she was, how mysterious. Fia didn’t have time for that kind of crap. She cared for her family. She felt a deep responsibility for them, but they were definitely full of crap sometimes and they could never keep it to themselves. They were always in each other’s business. Always in
her
business.

Here in Rehoboth Beach, Fia could get away from all her nosy relatives and conduct her interview out of earshot of telepathic eavesdroppers. A public place, it was a good location to meet an informant who was skittish. There were plenty of humans around, lots of activity, commotion. Fia was hoping Macy would feel safe here.

What she hadn’t counted on was just how busy the boardwalk was on a Friday night in June. She’d had to park blocks from Rehoboth Avenue, the main street in town. She’d have to hustle if she was going to meet Macy on time at the Dolly’s Popcorn stand.

“Fia, are you still there?” came the voice on the other end of her cell.

Damn.
She’d almost forgotten Glen. “Yeah, yeah, I’m here.” Her fingers finally grasped several coins in the bottom of her bag and she pulled them out. “Sorry. Trying to do ten things at once. It’s been crazy…today.”

“I just wanted to let you know that I can’t make dinner tonight.” He sounded uncomfortable. Not like himself. “I…there’s probably no sense in you stopping by later, either. I’ll probably be late.”

“Oh, okay.” She tried to sound disappointed. She had completely forgotten that it was Friday. Well, she
knew
it was Friday, but she’d been so caught up with trying to make some headway in the Buried Alive Killings that she had forgotten about her and Glen’s standing Friday night date for dinner and sex. They usually met at some restaurant and then went back to his place.

“I really am sorry,” he said.

What she was, was relieved. When she got around to remembering, she would have called and canceled; something she was doing often lately. And she
would
have remembered. Eventually.

Fia fed the parking meter three quarters and a peppermint. It didn’t take the peppermint.

“No, it’s okay,” she said. “I’m out, anyway. Not sure when I’ll be done here.” She didn’t know why she hadn’t told Glen she was back in Delaware working on the case. No reason not to tell him. Except that he got funny about her going to Clare Point too often. He didn’t like Arlan. He didn’t like the relationship she had with him. He didn’t understand. Sometimes she liked the idea that he might be jealous. This week, she just didn’t have the time.

She strolled away from the parking meter, headed toward the boardwalk and the sound of the waves washing up on the beach. She smelled popcorn, cotton candy, and fried clams, with just the faintest hint of human blood in the air.

“So…” Glen said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

Their conversation sounded so stiff. When had things gotten awkward? “Sure.” She tried to sound cheerful. “Tomorrow. Maybe we can do something. A movie, maybe?”

“Maybe a movie.”

At the Boardwalk Plaza Hotel, Fia turned right and headed south. As she hurried, she scanned the crowd of families with strollers, couples holding hands, and singles cruising. She kept her eye out for Macy. Or at least for the woman Arlan had described to her in detail. The girl was illusive. Fia didn’t want her getting away, not at this point. She was tired of playing phone tag. Tired of playing games. She wanted to know what Macy knew.

It wasn’t until after Fia hung up that she realized Glen hadn’t said what he was doing tonight that prevented him from meeting her. If she’d had the time, she might have been annoyed.

Fia ended up arriving five minutes late, but she beat Macy by ten. They met in the center of the boardwalk, between the avenue and the Atlantic Ocean. Fia held two small boxes of Dolly’s famous caramel corn in her hands, one for each of them. A peace offering.

“Macy Smith.” The strikingly beautiful woman offered her hand.

“Nice to meet you at last. This is for you.” Fia handed her the box, taking her in through the dark lenses of her sunglasses.

“Thanks.”

They juggled the boxes and shook hands. Macy’s grip was firm.

“I was afraid you weren’t going to show.” Fia nodded in the direction of an empty bench facing the wide expanse of the ocean. “You want to sit down?”

“Sure.”

The young woman, late twenties, Fia guessed, was dressed for an evening at the beach in a graphic T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. Fia felt painfully conspicuous in her dress pants and sleeveless silk blouse. Even without the jacket, her ensemble screamed
cop
.

The two women sat down on the wooden bench close enough to each other to keep their conversation private from the people on the benches that flanked theirs, but not so close as to be in each other’s personal space. “Heard you’ve had a busy week in Clare Point.”

“Did you?” Macy spoke quietly, making eye contact with her intense green eyes. She held the box of caramel corn in both hands. “Where’d you hear that?”

Fia smiled, looking away as she untwisted the tie on the bag that held her box of caramel popcorn. Macy’s voice was soft, shy, but she sensed a spine of steel beneath the timidity, the model good looks, and golden locks. “The whole town is full of gossips. And Arlan is probably one of the biggest.”

Macy turned her head and gazed straight ahead. She set her box down beside her. “He doesn’t strike me as the gossipy kind. He’s a good man.”

Fia popped a piece of caramel popcorn into her mouth to cover her moment of discomfort. Where had that bitchy comment of hers come from? “Arlan is that. So, uh…what’s your relationship with him?”

“Why do you ask?” Macy continued to look out beyond the sand dunes at the panoramic view of the incoming tide.

“Okay, I’m sorry.” Fia crunched her popcorn. “Don’t be offended.”

Of course Macy was offended; Fia had just maligned the man Macy was sleeping with. But Fia needed to establish their relationship here. She needed Macy to know she was in charge and she wasn’t above bullying a little to do so.

Macy opened her box of popcorn and sampled a piece. “I don’t like personal questions.”

“You don’t want personal questions, but you want me to believe you when you tell me you know something about this case? You want me to trust you merely on your word?”

Macy delicately popped another piece of popcorn into her mouth. “I talked to him the other night.”

Fia knew, without explanation, who he was. “He calls
you
?”

She shook her head, taking her time as she chewed. “That’s why I always use the rechargeable phones—you know, they’re disposable. Not registered. No, he IM’s me.”

“And he IM’d you the other night?”

“Monday night around midnight.”

“You were up at midnight at your computer?”

“I suffer from insomnia.” She turned to Fia, thoughtfully. “You do, too, don’t you? I bet you get restless just like I do. When I get restless, I have sex with men I don’t know. Or…I work.” She put another kernel of popcorn in her mouth. “What do you do?”

Fia did suffer from insomnia. Had for lifetimes. But how did Macy know that? Fia had to fight the urge to bring her fingertips beneath her eye. Bags? As for what she did to ease her
restlessness
…She thought about her embarrassing call to Arlan in the middle of the night. The man she had picked up and handcuffed to a drainpipe. Not a pretty picture. Not something she was proud of. Certainly not anything she wanted to share.

“I’m asking the questions here.” What she really wanted to ask was about Macy’s men. She wondered if they were like hers—easily forgettable and practically disposable. But that would be totally unprofessional. “I’m the FBI agent trying to gather information on this case,” she pointed out.

“Okay, Special Agent Kahill.” Macy gestured with a piece of popcorn. “But tell me something first. Is everyone in your town related to each other? There’s an awful lot of Kahills,” she said thoughtfully. “And come to think of it, all the surnames I’ve encountered sound similar. Kahill with a K. Cahill with a C, Cahall, Hill…”

“I thought we agreed that I was the one asking the questions.” Fia dug into her box of popcorn. She normally prided herself on how well she controlled interviews. Something told her she was
not
in control of this one right now. “Back to this man who contacts you. You think he’s the killer?”

“I know he is.” She rubbed her hands together, brushing the sticky crumbs from them.

“How do you know?”

“He tells me he is, but even if he hadn’t told me, I would know.”

Her words seemed mysterious but they came from her mouth sounding very matter-of-fact. Deep down, Fia knew Macy was telling the truth. She
knew
this was her connection to the killer.

“And you’re sure he’s a he?”

“He’s able to physically control entire families. He digs holes deep enough to bury people up to their chins.” She eyed Fia. “There aren’t too many women who could do that, except maybe a woman built like you. Besides, most serial killers aren’t women.”

Fia ignored the personal comment. At nearly six feet tall, she probably did seem big to petite, slender Macy. “How do you know most serial killers are male?”

“Male, white, middle class. Thirty to fifty years old. I watch TLC and the Discovery Channel. Someone’s always got a show on about serial killers. They’re very in, apparently. Ever since the BTK Killer.”

Fia smiled to herself. She didn’t know that she liked this young woman; it wasn’t her job to like her. In fact, liking her could get in the way of her job. But she could see why Arlan would like Macy. Besides the obvious reason—the fact that she carried the X chromosome.

“So you’re sure it’s him. How does he know you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s your connection to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“He just randomly picked you and started e-mailing you? A year ago when you called me? Two?”

“Something like that.”

Fia looked directly at her. Fia was wearing sunglasses; Macy was not. Fia could see the dark specks of brown in her green eyes. She could also see the slight dilation of her pupils. “I’m not sure I believe you.”

“I’m not sure I care.”

Fia exhaled and gazed over the sand dune that had been constructed after a nor’easter a few years ago. It had been built to hold back Mother Nature, to retain expensive beachfront property and protect landmarks such as the popcorn stand. Nonetheless, the strip of sand between the boardwalk and the ocean narrowed each year. A century ago, it had extended more than a hundred yards from this spot. Sadly, she knew that it was only a matter of time until the boardwalk, the bench she was sitting on, and Dolly’s would disappear under the relentless, crashing waves.

“Macy, you’ve been calling me for a year. You obviously want to help me catch this monster. So, let’s stop dancing around each other. Just tell me what you know.”

Macy clasped her hands in her lap. “I don’t want to talk about myself.” She spoke so quietly that Fia had to move closer. A child in a stroller at the next bench over was screaming for another bite of corn dog.

“He’s been stalking me for years,” Macy continued. “It used to be that he only told me after he killed people. He would tell me to pick up a newspaper, check the evening news, something like that. About a year ago, though, he started hinting at when he would kill. This…this last time…in Virginia. He basically came right out and he told me he was going to do it before he acted.”

“But he didn’t tell you where or when, or who?”

She shook her head. “Teddy’s too smart for that.”

“Teddy.”
Fia looked directly at her. “How long has he
really
been contacting you?”

“Since the Downings in Chattanooga in 97.”

“Since the very first case? Mary, Mother of God.” Fia shifted on the bench. “How old were you?”

“Eighteen. He sent me their obituaries from the newspaper. I moved. He found me again about a year and a half later.”

“The Shorans in Pennsylvania.”

“So I moved again,” Macy said. “After that, I just kept moving. When he found me on the Internet, I decided that that was relatively safe. He seemed satisfied to be able to talk to me that way.”