Valentine (25 page)

“What are you going to do?” Tara asked.

She turned around to confront her friend, noting Tara’s look of surprise when she saw the dangerous expression on her face.

“I’m going to stop this,” she said. “I’m going to stop it right
now!
”

Jane Fleck was awakened by the soft ringing of the telephone on the night table beside her. She rolled over on her side and fumbled for it, nearly knocking it off the table in the process. She glanced at the luminous dial of the alarm clock next to the phone: six-thirty.

“Hello?”

“Hello, umm, Mrs. Fleck? My name is Jill Talbot. I’m a client of your husband’s, and I’m terribly sorry to disturb you at this hour, but it’s important that I speak to him.”

“Oh, yes. One moment.”

She reached over to nudge the giant, still form in the bed beside her.

“Hmmm?”

“Phone for you. Jill Talbot. Wake up.” She deliberately rubbed the cold receiver against his neck. That and the name of the caller was all it took. He was
off the bed and around it in an instant, reaching for the receiver. He stood beside his wife in the dark bedroom of their Cobble Hill apartment, naked and shivering, listening to the voice on the other end of the line.

Jane opened one eye to watch him. His face was immediately drawn, tense. She knew that look: bad news. The series of short grunts he emitted only confirmed her suspicion. Finally, she heard him say, “Okay. Stay there with your friend. Don’t go back into your apartment till I get there. Give me twenty minutes.”

She closed the eye and drifted, only half listening as he went over to the closet and dressed. She was nearly asleep again when she heard the odd sounds, the little series of metallic clicks from the other side of the room. When she looked over and saw what it was, she immediately sat up in the bed.

“What?” she said. “What is it?” She watched, fearful, as he checked that his gun was loaded, placed it in his shoulder holster, and quickly put on his coat.

“Nothing. Go back to sleep.” He came over, leaned down, and kissed her cheek. “Back in a while.”

With that, he was gone. She lay back in the bed, listening as the apartment door closed behind him.

Twenty minutes later, having given up on the idea of sleep, she got out of the bed and shuffled nervously into the kitchen to make coffee.

Jill sat in Tara’s living room, piecing everything together. She had learned so much in the last half hour that her brain was numb, threatening to shut down from the overwhelming reality of it. She was trying desperately to concentrate.

What now? she wondered.

Well, that, at least, was decided. She’d told Barney Fleck on the phone, and nobody was going to talk her out of it.

And then, what?

No. She wouldn’t think about that. She’d just do what had to be done now, and cross that bridge when she came to it.

Those bridges. Plural.

Right.

She looked at her watch again. Where was Barney . . .?

Tara watched her friend. She’d been sitting quite still for a while now, staring down at the coffee table, an unreadable expression on her face. Now and then she glanced at her watch or sipped from the mug of chamomile tea Tara had given her when they’d first come downstairs to phone the detective. That had been right after Jill had performed what Tara, the actress, could only describe as her “mad scene.”

She had shouted her threat to this Victor person,
this Valentine, and closed the curtains. Then, she’d suddenly started babbling almost incoherently, something about him knowing more than he could just from watching. He always knew when others were with her and when she was alone. He knew when Nate stayed over, and when he didn’t. He knew everything she was doing, even before she did it.

With that last statement, her eyes had grown very wide, and she’d glanced wildly around the room. Then, before Tara could grasp what was happening, she’d rushed from the living room into her office. By the time Tara arrived in the doorway, the receiver of the telephone was in two pieces. She’d gone to stand next to Jill, who silently pointed down at the little metal thing inside the mouthpiece. She did not remove it: instead, she’d screwed the mouthpiece back onto the receiver and replaced it in its cradle.

Then she’d gone nuts. She raised a finger to her lips, instructing Tara to remain silent, and began—very quietly—to trash the room. Every stick of furniture was overturned and inspected. The closet, the filing cabinets, the bookshelves, even the framed cover art on the walls. She’d grabbed a pen and a pad of paper and scribbled furiously, then ripped off the page and handed it to Tara. It read,
Bugs! You take bdrm & bath. Look EVERYWHERE!!!
The last word was capitalized and underlined twice.

Tara had nodded and gone immediately into the
bedroom. She quickly, quietly checked the bedside tables, the vanity, and the closet. She then attacked the bedframe and mattresses, silently thanking God for her kid brother’s teenage phase as an electronics geek. Years ago, he’d bored her and their parents endlessly with his nonstop monologues on the subject. Now, thanks to him, she knew that what they were looking for was of considerable size. The tiny devices you saw in the movies and on television were only good for a few hours—unless they were being operated from the next room. Anything that remained active for weeks, relaying transmissions a decent distance, would involve not only a microphone but an electronic gadget for activation and some sort of battery or power pack. It would definitely be bigger than a thimble. Her brother’s words—only half heard at the time—came back clearly to her, and she made a mental note to call him.

She’d finished with the bed and gone into the bathroom. Jill had done the kitchen, opening every cabinet and fixture, even the oven, and progressed to the living room. Tara was removing the porcelain lid of the tank behind the toilet and peering down inside when she felt the hand on her arm. She’d replaced the lid and followed Jill out to the living room.

The couch was lying on its back. Jill had knelt at the bottom and pointed. There, taped to the inside
above the legs, was the object of their search. Tara had stared, the rage growing inside her as she knew it was growing in Jill. Without a word, the two women had left the apartment and come downstairs. Tara had closed her own front curtains as Jill had called Mr. Fleck, and now they were waiting.

The buzzer sounded, and Tara went over to let him in downstairs. A few minutes later, she opened her apartment door and saw the detective for the first time since the incident with Betty Hanes at the television studio. She’d forgotten how big he was. Amazed and comforted by the sheer size of the man, she stepped aside and watched as he went immediately over to Jill.

“I want to see,” he said.

Without a word, Jill stood up and led him out.

Ten minutes later, Jill and the detective were back in Tara’s living room. She noticed that Jill was now fully dressed, and she had her coat and purse with her. Tara sat across from them, listening to their conversation.

“Okay,” the detective said, “we’ll leave them in place, and active. We don’t want him to know you’ve found them. But how are you going to keep up the charade?”

“That’s simple,” Jill said, her voice curiously flat. “I’m not going back there. Not for a while, anyway.”

“Where will you go?”

Jill looked up at him, then over at Tara. She shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll be with friends. I’ll be perfectly safe, but I don’t want any of you to—to have that information. Not now. I’ll be in touch with both of you.” She turned to the detective. “It’s okay. My agent gave me the idea, and I remember our conversation clearly. Neither of us mentioned our friends’ last name, or where they were. Even if he was listening, he wouldn’t be able to put it together. I called them once from the apartment, but they weren’t home. I left a brief message, again revealing nothing specific. Yesterday, when I called them back, I did so from a pay phone on the street. Otherwise, I haven’t mentioned it—not in the apartment, certainly.”

“What about with Nate?” Tara asked.

Jill shook her head again. “No. I—I haven’t even told him. I’m just going away for a few days, maybe ten. Until after Valentine’s Day.”

Tara and Barney stared at her. She turned again to the detective beside her on the couch.

“Do you have your notes from yesterday?” she asked him.

He nodded and pulled them from a coat pocket.

“When you spoke to the relatives,” Jill continued, “did they mention dates, or at least times of the year?”

Tara watched as Barney Fleck read over the pages and his eyes suddenly widened.

“Shit,” he muttered. “Sharon Williams disappeared three years ago, in early February. That’s what Mrs. Williams said, ‘early February.’ Belinda’s husband mentioned a holiday. He said it was two years ago, and something about a ‘holiday ski trip’ He didn’t say which one, though. . . .”

“Call him back,” Jill said. “I’m willing to bet it was Valentine’s Day. And I think—I think he killed Cass on Valentine’s Day last year. Of course, we have no way of tracing her. But I see a pattern here. The cards, the flowers, the jewelry box. He’s paying us all back for that Valentine’s Day in college. My God, it’s so
sick!
” She shuddered. “He must have listened to me in my bedroom. In my bathroom . . .”

“I don’t think so,” the detective said quickly. “I’m no expert, but I don’t think that mike would pick up much more than the living room.”

Tara noticed that Jill took little comfort from that. Then she watched as Jill reached into her purse and produced a checkbook and a pen.

“On second thought,” Jill said as she wrote, “don’t call Belinda’s husband back. Don’t approach Mrs. Williams with this. Not yet. For now, I want you to concentrate on Victor. Can you go to that town in Pennsylvania, what’s it called, Mill City?”

“Yeah,” Barney said. “Monday or Tuesday. But it’s quite a drive—”

“Don’t drive,” Jill interjected. “Fly to Pittsburgh, then rent a car. Ask around the town. Go to his house. The local newspaper. Whatever. I want a picture of him. There must have been pictures in the papers after he killed his parents. The prison will have pictures.”

“He killed his
parents?”
Tara stared, amazed at the snippets of information being tossed back and forth between her friend and the detective. This was the first she was hearing of any of it. An icy knot began to form in the pit of her stomach.

“Later,” was all Jill said. “Now, I’m getting the hell out of here.” She tore out a check and handed it to Barney. “That should cover expenses, and then some. There’s a Sergeant Escalera at the Sixth Precinct. If you find anything in Mill City, you should tell him about it.”

Barney nodded. “I know him.”

“Good,” Jill said, rising. “That check should also fix the window in my office. I want you to get someone to put bars on the back windows as well, and a good alarm system. Can you handle all that?”

The detective nodded again. “But how will I get in touch with you?”

“I’ll call you at your office on Thursday. You should be back from Pennsylvania by then.” She
handed her apartment keys to Tara. “I’ll get in touch with you, too. And Nate. Gloria Price lives on Bedford Street. Her husband, Louis, is listed in the phone book. Call her and tell her I won’t need her to come in for a couple of weeks. Now, I’m going to catch a cab.”

“I’ll go with you,” Barney offered. “He may be watching the building, and we don’t want him following you to—wherever you’re going.”

Jill smiled. “Oh, he won’t. I’m not leaving, as far as he’s concerned. You go on home now.”

The detective rose. Tara walked him to the door. He turned around in the doorway and looked back at Jill.

“You take care of yourself,” he said.

Jill nodded. “You too.”

As soon as Tara shut the door, Jill picked up her coat. “I’ll take the back way, if you don’t mind.”

Tara shrugged. “Sure. I have about a million questions, but I’ll save ’em for later.” Then, her decision made, she said, “Let me help you with that.”

Jill smiled as Tara took the coat from her and stood behind her, helping her into it. “Thanks.”

They embraced. Then Tara went into the bedroom at the back of her apartment, opened the window, and watched as her friend climbed out onto the fire escape. She handed Jill her purse.