You Can't Hide (48 page)

Aidan pul ed it from his wallet. “Tess, I’l talk to her.”

“No, I will. I have a few things of my own to say to this asshole. I’m taking my life back. He thinks he’s going to drive me into a closet, make me curl up like a baby and… snivel. Well, he’s wrong. Johnson, I need to use your phone.”

“I won’t let you do this,” Aidan said, blocking her path. “You’l make him so angry that he’l come after you.”

She sucked in one cheek and stared up at him defiantly. “I have a hell of lot more protection than she did.” She thumbed back at Sylvia’s body. “I have all of you. She didn’t have anybody. And neither will the next person. And goddammit, there better not
be
a next person. Let him come after me. We’l be ready.”

Friday, March 17, 2:35 A.M.

Tess sat down on the edge of Aidan’s bed. “It was nice of Lynne to meet us.” She and her cameraman had filmed the entire segment while Aidan paced in the wings. The look he threw over his shoulder was wry. “She’l get a decent share once this airs tomorrow.” He pul ed off his tie, tossed it on his dresser. “I’d say it was a win-win.”

Tied in knots, she fought the urge to get up and pace as he undid each button of his shirt.

“She said she’d air it on
Good Morning, Chicago
and
Chicago On The Town
with teasers at noon,”

she said, knowing she was babbling, unable to stop herself. He shrugged out of his shirt and her mouth went dry. Clothed, the man was lethally handsome. Bared…

“Yes, she did.” He looked over at her careful y. “Tess, are you nervous?”

She closed her eyes, now embarrassed as wel . “Yes.”

He sat next to her and pul ed her against his side. “Why?”

“I just called a killer a ‘spineless coward’ and challenged him to come after me.”

He chuckled, once. “
Now
you think about that?” He kissed the top of her head. “You did what you needed to do, Tess. I don’t like it, either, but something’s got to give.”

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You Can't Hide

The whirlwind inside her began to change, slowing to something harder and deeper. “I don’t want to go to any more funerals, Aidan.”

“I know. We’l find him soon, and al this will be over.”

She lifted her head, met his eyes. “And then what?”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I don’t know. What do you want, Tess?”

She considered her answer as careful y as he’d asked the question. Her response could set the pace for their entire relationship-because they did have a relationship. Born in fear, it didn’t have to continue that way. Maybe that was why she was so nervous. “I want a home and somebody to love me.”

“You want a husband.”

There was a kind of wistfulness to his words that made her throat hurt. “Yeah.” She drew a breath. “And if that scares you away, it would be better to know that now.”

“It doesn’t scare me, Tess, at least not the way you mean.”

“Then how? Talk to me, Aidan.”

He grimaced. “I’m trying to. I guess I’m not doing a good job of it.”

She touched her lips to his lightly. “Would it help if you lay down on the couch?” Splaying her hand against his hairy chest, she gently pushed him to his back so that he lay half on the bed, his bare feet still solidly on the floor. She came down on her side next to him, propping herself on her elbow. “Relax.”

He looked at her from the corner of his eyes, wary. “Okay.”

“You’re not relaxed.” Slowly she fanned her hand across his chest, enjoying the way the coarse hair tickled her palm.

“That’s not making me more relaxed, Tess,” he said dryly.

Her hand stopped. “Sorry. Who was Shelley, Aidan? And how did she hurt you?”

His eyes slid closed. “For a while, she was my best friend. Or I thought she was.”

“Hurts inflicted by a friend can be twice as hard to heal.”

“When I was a kid, my best friend was Jason Rich.” He paused and his thumb began to stroke the back of her hand. “Me and Jason, we were tight. And trouble.” His lips quirked. “Did you know that green army men melt in a saucepan on a high flame?”

“No, but I did play with Vito’s G.I. Joe. Joe had the hots for my Malibu Barbie. I think I would have been mad that you ruined my saucepan.”

“My mother was.” He was quiet, thinking. “When we were ten, Shelley moved in next door. Her mom was divorced and that was a big hairy deal in our neighborhood.”

“Mine, too. So did Shelley join the army soldier meltdown mission?”

“No. See, Shelley had eyes for Jason and I was a third wheel.”

“Kind of like I feel when I’m at Jon and Robin’s,” she said lightly. One blue eye opened. “You could have told me about Robin.”

“You didn’t ask.” She sobered. “And it’s never been important to me. They’re my friends. Did Jason and Shelley stay your friends?”

“Sure, but everything changed when we hit puberty. Jason and Shelley were inseparable. Shelley got pregnant when we were seventeen. She and Jason eloped.”

“Oh, dear,” Tess murmured.

“Shelley’s mom was married again by then and moderately comfortable. She moved and gave the old house to Shelley and Jason.” He sighed. “Then Shelley lost the baby. But she didn’t want to be divorced like her mom had been and she did love Jason, so they stayed together. I decided to be a cop like my dad and brother. So Jason did, too. I went on patrol. Jason went to Narcotics.” He shook his head. “He got caught ‘appropriating’ evidence for personal use. He got fired. Shelley was distraught. Jason was…” He pursed his lips. “Suicidal.”

Her heart was pounding harder. “Oh, no.”

“But he was thoughtful, my pal Jason. He didn’t want Shelley to find him dead. So he came to my apartment instead.” His throat worked as he swallowed hard. “He took a lot of pills. Washed

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them down with a fifth of Jack Daniel’s. And went to sleep. I came home from my shift twelve hours later and he was dead.”

“How cruel of him.” Her voice was harder than she’d intended it to be. He opened his eyes. “I thought you had sympathy for suicides.”

“I have pity for the emotional trauma or mental illness that drives people to suicide. I have sympathy for the ones they leave behind. I have respect for the ones who get help. Jason had a life and wasted it. And he took you down with him. That’s despicable.”

His eyes flickered. “I always felt the same way and wondered if I should.”

“I would if somebody I cared about took their own life. Unless of course they were too mentally ill to stop themselves. Was he?”

“I don’t know. I guess I never will. But Shelley was devastated. She had no income, no life insurance. No pension. No education. No one to lean on.”

“Except you.”

“Except me. We got close. I’d always had a thing for her when we were kids, but she was always Jason’s girl. Now she was mine. I was happy.”

“And guilty because you were happy at your friend’s expense?”

“A little. Yeah. Anyway, I asked Shelley to marry me and she said yes. I’d saved some and bought her a reasonably sized ring.”

“Did she like the ring?”

“Said she did. But she didn’t show it off to our friends. Once she hinted at a bigger rock and I refused. I couldn’t afford it and that was that. But her mother’s new husband made a fortune when his business went IPO. Her mother bought Shel ey a bigger ring.”

“Oh dear.”

“Yeah. It was the first big fight we had. It wasn’t the last. Stepdad was dripping in cash and generous with it. Shelley got new dresses, furs. Then she said she wanted a house in North Shore.” His jaw tightened. “Daddy was going to help.”

A blow to his pride. “And you said no.”

“Damn straight I said no. Asshole looked down at me every chance he got.”

That explained a great deal. “So what was the straw that broke the camel’s back?”

“Daddy offered me a job.” The sneer hardened his voice. “I wouldn’t take it and Shelley pouted. Said I could make three times a cop’s salary. Cop’s salary,” he spat it out. “She said it just like that. Like it was something to be ashamed of.”

Tess tried never to judge the motives of patients’ families that she’d never met. But this man wasn’t a patient. He was her lover, and he was hurting. “She didn’t love you if she would have changed you. And she didn’t know you if she thought she could have.”

His chest expanded as he drew a slow deep breath. “Thank you.”

She wriggled her fingers until they twined with his. “And?”

“That’s all.”

No, it wasn’t. But it was clear that was all he planned to say. “Okay.”

He opened one eye. “Okay? That’s all?”

She gave him a wry smile. “You want me to pout? Not my style.” She snuggled her head on his shoulder. “There is one thing I would like to get out in the open, though.”

He stiffened. “What?”

“Harold Green.”

Abruptly he sat up, leaving her lying on her side staring at his broad back. “No.”

Tess flinched. “Why not?”

“Because…” He stood up and walked to the window. “Because I don’t want to talk about him. It was an accident, nothing more. End of conversation.”

“That’s what you told your father last night.”

“Tess, let it go. Please.”

“I can’t. If you won’t talk, will you listen?”

“Can I stop you?” he asked curtly.

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She tried not to be hurt. “Yes. Just tell me no and I’l go to sleep.”

“I did tell you no and we’re still talking about it.” His voice was like ice.

“Fair enough.” And she tried to keep her voice even. “It’s late, Aidan. Let’s go to sleep.” With a helpless backward glance, she went into the bathroom and shut the door.
Chapter 20

Friday, March 17, 2:55 A.M.

Tess emerged from the bathroom wearing one of Aidan’s shirts, startled to find he hadn’t moved. “Is someone out there?” she asked and he shook his head.

“No. Dol y would let us know if there were.”

“Come to bed, Aidan. I promise I’l let you sleep.” She slid between the sheets and flipped off the light, leaving them in semidarkness. His profile was stark, his fists on his hips as he studied something outside only he could see.

“I found her,” he said suddenly, roughly. “The third little girl.”

Tess sat up. The third little girl Harold Green had so viciously killed. “I know. Murphy told me the first night. I’m sorry.”

“She was eviscerated. Did you know that?”

She swallowed. “Yes.” It had been horrific. The pictures of all three children brutalized so senselessly seemed to mock the decency of anyone who looked at them. But looking was necessary to treat the man who’d inflicted such hideous wounds.

“We thought she was still alive,” he said. “Green said she was still alive.”

“In Harold Green’s mind, she was.”

“Bul shit,” he hissed. “Harold Green was a stinking murderer.”

It was better to face it head on. “And I let him go?”

He said nothing, which was everything, of course. She tried not to feel hurt, but it was hard. So she fell back into the familiar and talked to him as she would a patient, never forgetting she sat on his bed wearing one of his button-up shirts and nothing else. “Aidan, what did you do when you found her? The third little girl?”

His throat worked. “I dropped to my knees and sobbed like a damn baby.”

“I’m sure you weren’t the only one,” she murmured.

“She was only six years old.” He choked on the words. “Goddammit to hell. I didn’t want to remember her, but that night, seeing that woman all open like that…”

Cynthia Adams. A suicide, covered by a man on whom suicide had left a personal scar. And still he’d cared enough to try to find Cynthia’s killer. “And I let him go,” she said again and he shuddered in a breath.

“It was a mistake,” he said, a little too desperately. “You’ve made the right calls on so many others. You’re entitled to one mistake.”

She understood where he was coming from, but was unsure how to show him he was wrong.

“Did you ever see the movie
The Sixth Sense
?” she asked suddenly and his head whipped around, his eyes wet. Appalled.

“You’re talking about a
movie
?”

She nodded, her voice calm despite the tension coiling in her gut. “Yes. Did you? It’s the one where the little boy sees ghosts all around him.”

“I’ve seen it,” he bit out. “Four stars.”

“The scariest part was that he saw ghosts in the day when it’s supposed to be safe.”

“Is this going somewhere, Doctor?” he asked acidly.

“Yes. Harold Green didn’t see ghosts, Aidan. He saw demons, and not just at night in his dreams. They were everywhere, watching him all day, every day and every night, wherever he

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went, waiting to pounce and eat him. They had fangs that dripped blood. It turned out the demons were precious children. But he couldn’t see the difference.”

“Of course he said that,” he spat. “He’d say anything to keep from going to prison.”

“There are all kinds of prisons, Aidan. Have you been to a psychiatric hospital?”

“No.”

“When this is over, I’d like you to come with me to one. Green is constantly sedated so that he can’t hurt the staff. He is in a fog where only strong meds keep the demons at bay, and stil he sees them. He screams and thrashes and they have to restrain him to the bed for his own safety. He cries and rants, because he’s so damn terrified. His entire existence comes down to what he sees and can’t change. He’s all alone.”

“His rich parents don’t go to visit him?” Aidan asked bitterly.
How could I have missed that?
“Money means power, but in Harold Green’s case, it means little. His mother comes to visit sometimes, but the visits have become rarer over time. She keeps hoping he’l improve, that he’l go back to being the man she knew. The son she loved. That despite everything, she still loves. But the days go by and he’s trapped in that prison in his mind, afraid and alone.” She drew a breath and slowly let it out. “Sometimes…” She shook her head, her eyes filling with hot tears.