Wicked Game (21 page)

“Maybe.”

Mac pulled out of the lot and, in his rearview mirror, noted that Becca and Hudson’s vehicles drove off in different directions.

“And what did you say that sent Rebecca to the bathroom for a dash of cold water to the face?”

Mac looked at Gretchen, then gunned the cruiser into traffic heading toward the station. “Who, me? I didn’t have a chance to say anything.”

“What then?”

Mac shook his head, but admitted, “She did look like she was about to pass out.”

“Something scared her.”

Mac reviewed what had been said and remarked slowly, “She was already scared when she got here. Why did she come?”

“’Cause she knew you were going to be calling her and she wanted it over with the support of Loverboy. Who, by the way, is just a friend.”

“They say that attraction in high school is the easiest to rekindle. What attracted once can really heat up in the now.”

“Look at you—Mr. Love Life.”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“But you might have something there. I went to my last class reunion about three years ago and I witnessed a couple of hook-ups. A few of ’em divorced their spouses and ended up together. I couldn’t believe it. My high school boyfriend was a jerk then and a major loser now. It wouldn’t have happened. No way.”

He eased down the road, barely noticing the other vehicles.

“I bet she’s the reason Brentwood and Walker had their little spat. You know, the whole ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ theory?”

He mentally chewed on that. Maybe there was something to it. “Rebecca Ryan wasn’t a big part of the investigation twenty years ago, so I didn’t expect her to be now.” Mac cut the cruiser through a back alley, avoiding a Dumpster and a double-parked delivery truck.

“I think
we’d
better add her to the suspect list.”

“Or elevate Walker a bit.”

“He’s close to
numero uno
anyway, isn’t he? Being the boyfriend and all? With her pregnant?”

“He’s up there.”

“Maybe Rebecca Ryan should be, too,” Gretchen said.

Mac didn’t respond. The more he learned about the Jessie Brentwood case, the stronger he felt he was growing closer to some dark and unexpected truth.

Becca watched her fingers shake as she threaded her key into the lock of her front door and let herself inside. Ringo jumped off the couch and trotted over to her happily and she bent at the knees and scratched his ears and held him close for long minutes. Then she checked that she’d locked the door behind her and walked into the kitchen, grabbed a glass, filled it with water, and drank it down completely, her eyes closed, her heart still racing.

She’d seen Jessie at the diner.

Outside the window. Clear as day. Her hair blowing in the sharp wind. She’d pressed a finger to her lips, asking for Becca’s silence. Another vision. Similar to the one at the mall. She’d glanced ahead into the eyes of Detective McNally, who’d been watching her so intently it made her short of breath.

I can’t faint
, she’d told herself sternly, feeling that familiar headache take over. Then she’d made an excuse and quickly headed to the bathroom, filling the basin with cold water and pressing her face into it, counting slowly to ten. She did it twice more, turning her skin red but bringing her ringing ears into line and her woozy head back to sharpness without actually passing out.

Jessie had dematerialized in those few moments. When Becca had returned to her seat in the diner and risked a glance at the window, all that was outside had been their respective vehicles and a stretch of parking lot gravel.

What did it mean? What did Jessie not want her to tell?

“Am I crazy?” she asked, bending down to the dog, who licked her chin line and woofed softly.

Becca headed for the living room couch and sat down heavily. Ringo jumped up beside her and curled in a ball, watching her with dark, sharp eyes.

What’s going to happen next?
she thought worriedly.

Renee felt they were in danger. Believed Jessie had said they were in danger. Twenty-year-old danger…

Becca ran her hands through her hair. She hoped she didn’t have to see McNally again. She hoped that this interview was it. She hoped he wouldn’t want to talk to her “alone” without Hudson. “Get real,” she muttered to herself. If the police thought that either she or Hudson were involved in Jessie’s disappearance, her
murder,
McNally would be back and it wouldn’t matter what she wanted.

She hoped this feeling of impending doom that seemed to be weighing on her was just an aftereffect of her vision.

But she knew better. Deep in her heart, she knew better.

With the ever-present notes of jazz surrounding him, Glenn looked down at the invoices on his desk, invoices that carpeted the entire cherry expanse, and wondered what the hell was going on. Blue Note shouldn’t be in the red, at least not this far in the red. They had customers. Not as many as before, but according to the receipts, Blue Note wasn’t doing that badly, and actually, they’d been doing great for a while. It was just that ever since that incident with the college kid who’d died after being served at Blue Note, things had gone bad. It wasn’t their fault that the kid had tried some kind of recreational drug and had a bad reaction to it before he’d come to their restaurant, but Blue Note kept getting lumped in with the event, so…

But that still didn’t explain the flood of red ink in which he was drowning, both here and at home, where the spending just kept happening.

His mind jumped to thoughts of Gia. Damn the woman. She’d tried to haul him into bed just before he’d bolted for the restaurant. He’d thought about telling her about the nursery rhyme, but all she wanted to do was get laid and conceive. He needed a baby like he needed a hole in his head.

“Glenn,” she’d called from the stairway. “Bring your big, luscious self over here!”

He’d been in the kitchen and he’d walked toward the front of the house. The blob had been bare-ass naked and hanging onto a newel post, jiggling her goods in a way that had made him feel slightly nauseous.

He’d run for his life. But now he was here, the clock on his desk reminding him it was after seven, the minutes of his miserable life ticking by, the dinner hour, what there was of it tonight, in full swing. Make that half swing. Or maybe no swing at all, he thought sourly as he sat in the midst of all this financial misery and wondered if it might not be a good idea to take a long walk off a short pier. Who would miss him? Gia? She’d find someone else. Scott? Like he cared about him beyond what he could get in sweat equity. His good friends from high school…?

If they’d been so good, where had they been in the last twenty years?

After the cop had come to the restaurant, he and Scott had told everyone about how Detective McNally had paid a visit. But Glenn had kept the nursery rhyme note to himself. Scott hadn’t mentioned it, either. Most of the guys had spoken with the detective and it had put everyone on edge. The Third had warned them to keep their cool. None of them had wanted to speculate about Jessie, at least not too much. They all wanted the investigation—and maybe Jessie herself—to just go away forever.

Glenn rubbed his temples.

Jessie…

He felt almost physically ill, thinking about her. Yanking open one of his desk drawers, he pulled out his bottle of Bushmills and poured himself a half glassful. Drinking sounded like a good idea. A damn good idea.

He was deep into his second glass when there was a knock on his office door. “Come in,” he called garrulously. He didn’t want to be disturbed by anyone.

“Glenn?” a female voice asked.

A shiver ran through him. Premonition. His lips parted and he half expected Jessie to enter the room, but it was Renee whose cap of dark hair and brown eyes peeked into the room. His heart rate had skyrocketed and now, with the rush of adrenaline dissipating, he felt goddamn good and mad. Hudson Walker’s sister—excuse me,
twin
sister—had always bugged him. Even in high school she’d been nosy and high-handed, as if she were better than everyone else.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

“Sorry. I know you’re busy. I tried to call, but my cell phone’s dead—forgot to recharge, so.” She shrugged, clutching her purse in a death grip as she walked into the office. Despite her apologies, she seemed tense, even worried. “Look, I heard from Hudson that you talked to McNally, and I’m sure my name’s coming up on his list. I just wanted some feedback. What did you tell him?”

So that’s what the visit is all about. Weird.
He wondered if Renee was working on her “story” about Jessie, or was this something else? Glenn selfishly didn’t offer her a drink. He hoped she wasn’t going to sit down, but she did just that, perching on the edge of one of the club chairs, her elbows now on her purse in her lap, her fingers pushing through her hair.

“I haven’t said anything,” Glenn told her. “There’s nothing to say. You sure look like hell.”

“Thanks.” Her voice was dry but oddly unsure.

He squinted at her, wondering if he was just feeling the effects of the Bushmills or if Renee was hiding something, holding something in. “Talk to Scott. He was here when McNally showed up.”

“Is he around?”

“Yeah. He’s going back to the beach tomorrow.”

Was it his imagination or did she stiffen slightly? “Where’s your restaurant again? What part of the coast?”

“Lincoln City.”

“Oh. South.”

“South of what?”

She hesitated. “Deception Bay. I go there sometimes.”

“Really? Why? It’s like…nowhere. We checked out all the towns before we opened Blue Ocean, well, Scott, he did the searching, and Deception Bay didn’t make the top ten, or even the top fifty.”

“It’s…a good place to get away. Writers, we need peace and quiet. But anyway, back to the cops.”

“Yeah?”

“If you thought you knew something. Nothing concrete, but…something that might actually have bearing on the investigation…would you tell the detective?”

“I wouldn’t tell him anything. Nada.” He thought about the nursery rhyme and wondered if he should mention it to Renee, but saw no reason. “You’ve been working this story. What do you think? Did you learn something?”

“No,” she said quickly.

“That sounds like a lie.”

“It wasn’t,” she assured him and seemed about to unload. God, he hoped it wasn’t about her divorce. Women
loved
to talk about relationships, good or bad, but he just wasn’t interested. He had his own domestic problems.

“What then?”

“I was at the coast a couple of days ago. I ran into some people…that I think knew Jessie.” Renee looked away from him, to the pictures on the wall, snapshots of Scott and Glenn when they opened the restaurant.

“At Deception Bay, right?” Glenn was having trouble following and sitting up straight. The booze was hitting hard.

“Jessie’s family used to have a house there and there was talk of a cult nearby and—”

“Does this have a point?” Glenn asked just as the door opened and Scott stepped into the room.

“Renee,” he said in surprise.

Doesn’t anybody goddamned knock anymore?

Renee got to her feet. “I’m glad you’re here. I came by because I heard that you two met with McNally.”

“More like he met with us.” Frowning slightly, Scott threw a look Glenn’s way. “Are you drunk?”

“Workin’ on it,” Glenn said, wishing they’d both just go away so he could continue his drinking in peace.

It wasn’t about to be.

Renee and Scott discussed McNally for what felt like eons before they headed out together.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Glenn drew out the bottle and sloshed his glass a hefty refill.

He just wanted to stop thinking.

Mac rubbed his face as he sat at his desk, poring over all the details from twenty years ago, trying to mesh the past with what the Preppy Pricks recalled now. He’d been at it all day and should hang it up. But the station was quiet now and he had time to himself, time to concentrate. Not that being alone was helping. There was nothing new. Nothing he could grasp on to. It was all just as it had been. Maybes. Possibles. Tiny mysteries. Nothing concrete and credible.

He’d listened to the cassette tapes he’d taken of their interviews twenty years ago and thought how young their voices sounded, how young his own voice sounded. He wasn’t taking audio notes now, though he supposed he should. Instead, he wrote copious notes on the interviews from today, comparing them to the tapes and chicken scratchings he’d jotted down at the time of Jessie’s disappearance.

Now he glanced at the more detailed report from the lab that had been tossed on his desk earlier that day. No DNA results. Just more about the bits of detritus found at the scene. The little bit of white plastic turned out to be a teensy bit of oyster shell—no prints on it.

Mac thought about that hard. Oyster shell…from the beach? Was it significant? Was it even related to the victim in the shallow grave?

And then the thought he’d tried to come up with when he’d been interviewing Hudson surfaced. It had been prompted by Hudson’s mentioning a weekend getaway. Mac’s mind had touched on a trip to the beach. And that reminded him of something about a guy—a caller who, twenty years earlier, after seeing mention of Jezebel Brentwood’s disappearance on the news, claimed to have picked her up hitchhiking several weeks before. It had seemed superfluous to the girl’s disappearance and Mac had pushed the incident aside, deeming it not that important. Her parents had a cabin in some little burg on the coast, and he’d assumed she’d been coming back from there.

Now Mac meticulously combed through his notes till he found the small information he’d written on the stranger. He remembered how impatient he’d been. How little he’d cared for any information that took him away from the Preppy Pricks. He’d been so hotheaded, with his head stuck up his ass in those days. A young buck determined to nail one of those kids.

Hell.

He reread the passage. The stranger was a man named Calvin Gilbert who lived outside of Seaside and made a living selling firewood from an old pickup. He traversed Highway 26 from Astoria, Seaside, Cannon Beach, and a string of smaller coastal cities through the Coast Range and nearly to North Plains and Laurelton. He happened to catch a news report about Jessie on his television and he called the Laurelton police and was connected to Mac.

Re-examining his notes, Mac could almost hear the guy’s voice again. “I picked ’er up outside of the cutoff to Jewell and Mist, y’know? It was black as hell’s furnace and rain sheetin’ somethin’ fierce. This little girl is just trompin’ along, so I rolls down the window and says, ‘I could be one of them psychos, or I could be a guy just offerin’ you a lift,’ and she says back, ‘You’re not a psycho—probably a nicer guy than people think,’ and she jumps in and asks me to take her to this school. Saint Teresa’s, I guess.” Mac had interjected at that point, “St. Elizabeth’s,” and the fellow had said, “Could be. So I drives her there, and it’s still black as hell’s furnace, so I try to talk her outta gettin’ outta the truck, but she gets a little stubborn and says it’s where she wants to go. To change the subject, she asks if I cut my firewood off Highway 53. And I says, ‘Yeah, missy. How’d you know?’ And she gives me this sexy little smile and says, ‘I know things,’ as she gets out of the truck. Kinda eerie, like out of one of them damned Stephen King movies. Anyways, she slams the door and doesn’t look back. Not once. Which was okay with me, cuz I’m thinkin’ she might have snake eyes or somethin’, you know—that she wasn’t quite human. I watch her go, till she was out of the glare from the headlights, you know, and she kinda disappears into the darkness. Then I leave, though I didn’t want to, fire up the truck again and take off. Then I saw ’er face on the news, so I called you.”

“I appreciate it,” Mac had told him, though it didn’t mean much.

“You know what’s weird, son? My pickup was empty that trip. I’d dropped my load and swept the truck bed. How’d she know about the firewood?”

Mac hadn’t offered any explanation, expecting there was more evidence of Calvin Gilbert’s pursuits in his vehicle than he’d believed—sawdust, a chainsaw, bits of bark. Now he thought about that odd bit of information and wondered what Jessie Brentwood had been doing hitchhiking in the dead of night and why she’d asked to be taken to St. Elizabeth’s.

Not home.

Not to a friend’s house.

To the campus.

Where she probably died.

Shit.

The guy, Calvin Gilbert, it had turned out, spent a lot of time at a local watering hole and he’d been drunk more often than not, picked up for a DUI twice since that report. He hadn’t been specific about the date he’d found Jessie in the mountains with her thumb out. Had it been the day of her disappearance? Three days prior? Mac had tried to piece together the last days of Jessie’s known existence at the time, but Gilbert’s call had been almost considered a crank. A guy getting his jollies by acting as if he knew something.

But maybe he’d been straight with them.

Maybe Calvin Gilbert had been the last person known to see her alive.

Rolling the small bit of oyster shell between his thumb and forefinger, Mac considered Jessie Brentwood. She was secretive, had run away from home several times before her final disappearance, was somewhat psychic, by all accounts, and there was something about the beach that seemed to run like a thread through the fabric of her life. Why he thought that, he couldn’t quite say. It was more than just this bit of oyster shell, more than the fact that she was found halfway from the coast to Laurelton. But if she was hitchhiking—well, more accurately, just walking, apparently—along the highway that led straight west to the coast, where had she been? What or who had she seen? What was she looking for?

Hudson had said she felt trouble was after her. What kind of trouble? Did it have anything to do with her pregnancy? Hudson didn’t seem to know about that, or else he was a consummate actor worthy of an Oscar as he hadn’t even lifted a hair when Gretchen asked if he thought she was pregnant.

And Rebecca…Mac wished he could have talked to her more. She struck him as another person with secrets, though he couldn’t begin to guess what they were at this point.

He sat at his desk and thought, stretching minutes to hours. The department went into night mode, with only a skeleton crew at the station. He sat and thought, and thought and sat, and when he finally surfaced it was after midnight and all he’d learned from his ruminations was that this cold case—which had warmed right up with the discovery of the remains at St. Elizabeth’s—was cooling off again. Even when he got the DNA evidence, what did he have to compare it with? Just twenty-year-old hair with, he hoped, enough of the root attached to pull the DNA. But if not, how would he prove the body was Jessie’s?

“And it might not be,” he said aloud, accepting that fact for the first time, listening to his own voice finally entertain the possibility. As he left the station he heard the janitor warming up on “Blue Hawaii.”

Glenn Stafford was dead drunk. Drunken. Drunked…

He eyed the liquid at the bottom of the bottle and could not believe—simply—could—not—believe—that it was gone except for a swallow or two. He’d done that? Drank down the whole dang thing?

Vaguely he remembered the cooks going home and the wait staff closing up. Several people had stuck their heads inside his office and given him updates on the ending of the evening, but they were gone now, the restaurant closed. Scott had cruised through again and given Glenn the old evil eye.

Screw you, buddy. I’ll get goddamn good and wasted if I want. It’s my booze, too!

Now he staggered to the door, steadying himself on the jamb. The place was quiet. Unearthly quiet, he thought. Unearthly. Kind of like he felt. He could see his feet moving one in front of the other as he navigated his way toward the front entrance. Outside, the parking lot lights made little bluish moons on the pavement. Inside, the ambient lighting around the floor sent a diffused yellow glow to sections of carpet.

Glenn turned back toward the kitchen and bar area. What the hell? He deserved another bottle. He thought of Gia. Man, would she be pissed. Probably lying naked on the bed waiting, hoping he’d come in and screw her just to make a damned baby. Talk about taking the fun out of things. She’d called twice—or had it been three times?—but he’d told the hostess to tell his wife he was busy, and he’d let his cell phone go straight to voicemail.

Now he squinted at the rows of bottles of booze and caught sight of himself in the mirrored wall behind the hedge of liqueurs and spirits. Damn, Stafford. You’re…too…stocky.

“Stocky,” he said aloud, then grinned at his reflection like an idiot. Fuck ’em. It was time for another drink.

He rooted around and found an unopened bottle of Bushmills.

Clink.

He cocked his head toward the sound, his hand hovering over a bottle. He was alone, right? Hadn’t Luis said, “Good night, I’ll lock up, Mr. Stafford,” a little while ago?

The noise had come from the kitchen.

Or had it?

Maybe he’d tipped one bottle into another himself as he was checking labels. He was a little wasted. He could have thought he’d heard something from the kitchen. Yeah, that was probably it. He strained to listen, but could hear nothing but that irritating smooth jazz that Luis hadn’t turned off. Still…

“Hey,” he called, swaying on his feet, his fingers around the neck of his next bottle. Geez, maybe he didn’t need another drink.

He sniffed and froze. Wait a minute. Was that smoke? Was someone in the kitchen smoking?

“Goddammit,” he muttered. Holding the bottle by its neck, he weaved his way into the kitchen. Under-cabinet fluorescents showed him the gleaming stainless steel surfaces and he felt a moment of pure pride. Why wasn’t the restaurant making it? Why…

Glenn’s nostrils flared. The smell of smoke was much stronger here. “Who’s there?” he yelled.

Bang!

Something hit the floor. Hard.

“Jesus!” His heart began to thud. “Hey,” he said, more cautiously, stepping forward, a sense of panic overtaking him.

Whoosh!

The sound was as loud as wind through a tunnel.

“What the fuck?”

SLAM!

The back door?

The skin on Glenn’s nape crinkled. Fear congealed his blood. Something was wrong here, but he was too drunk to figure it out.

He blinked as he realized smoke was billowing from a back closet, the one behind the stove. He tried to step back, but slipped and smacked on his ass just as molten gold flames suddenly shot upward. Glass broke, the Irish whiskey splashing over the floor. The stainless steel changed to a blinding mirror of flame.

“Oh, God!” He tried to backpedal, crawl away, but it was too late.

Glenn’s eyes popped open as a wall of fire rushed at him. He opened his mouth to scream.

Ka-BOOM!

An explosion rocked the restaurant. Glenn was tossed against the wall.

Trapped.

Crackling, wild flames shot outward. Heat seared his skin. His lungs burned hot as hellfire.

“Gia!” he shrieked, knowing he was about to die.

His mouth was an “O” of horror as he cowered and coughed, black smoke filling his lungs, his skin curdling.

He was screaming and screaming and the last thing he remembered was the roar of the inferno burning through his ears.

The phone rang loudly on Becca’s nightstand and she shot into a sitting position, her pulse leaping. She fumbled for the receiver and glanced at the clock as Ringo growled from the foot of the bed.
One thirty-six? Who would be calling? Oh, God…

“Becca, it’s Hudson,” she heard as she pressed the phone to her ear. “Sorry to wake you. I thought you should hear it from me. Scott and Glenn’s restaurant is on fire.”

“What?”

“Scott just called. He thinks Glenn was still inside.”

“What? What?” Becca snapped on a light, panic running through her. Ringo was now on all fours on the bed, the fur at his neck standing on end. “No…we were just there a couple of weeks ago.” An image of Glenn with his short brown hair and thick build came to her. “There must be some mistake.”

“Something exploded in the kitchen, apparently. Or that’s what they think. Neighbors heard the explosion, saw a tower of fire shoot through the roof. It happened less than a half hour ago.”

“And Scott called you?” Becca felt sick inside.

“He’s panicked. Hoped that Glenn might have been at my house. I’m on my way.”

“I’ll meet you there,” she said, climbing from the bed, her senses returning.

“No, you don’t have to come. I just wanted to keep you informed.”

“Thanks, but I’m going to come. See you soon.”

“Be careful,” he said, then hung up.

Be careful…

The same warning Renee had issued at Java Man, as if she’d known something terrible might happen.

The words followed her around as she stumbled into her clothes, brushed her hair into a quick ponytail, then ran out the door. She was in her car and driving to the scene of the fire before she’d really thought through what might have happened. The kitchen exploded? How did that happen? Faulty gas line, or a stove left on unattended, unwittingly? Or arson?