Chapter Nineteen
Arden sat at her desk, looking out at the valley where the fog billowed like smoke over the hills and fields.
But she didn’t see the gray-soaked green, the mountains peaked with white beyond it.
She saw Dustin Dubecki’s face as he choked her.
He’d choked her, beaten her, violated her. And they’d let him go.
Five months early. Five months where she could have, and damn it, should have continued to feel safe. Five months more to continue to build the life she wanted.
“He doesn’t know where I live,” she reminded herself.
Only a handful of people did.
Though her legs felt weak, she pushed to her feet so she could walk to the window.
The courts, the shrinks, they all deemed him ready for release. Early release—compassionate release—because his father was dying.
Detective Brill didn’t think he was ready. She hadn’t said it, but Arden had heard it clearly.
But he didn’t know where she lived. More, he’d have no reason to come after her again, not after all this time.
He’d find another target, develop another obsession. And that made her sick. He’d hurt someone else, and that someone else might not have neighbors to save her.
“He’s thousands of miles away, and he has to report to a therapist every week. Nothing’s changed for me.” She laid a hand on Zorro’s head as he stood beside her, leaned against her in the way of comfort. “Nothing’s really changed.”
But she glanced around at her office door. Yes, she felt an urge to lock it, but she could control it. Would control it.
She wouldn’t be a prisoner in her own home, not ever again.
But she had to prove it.
“Okay. Okay. The hell with researching a new book. Let’s go outside.”
Zorro immediately dashed to the office door. She followed more slowly, but she followed.
She’d go out, throw the ball for her dog.
Then she’d come back in, build a fire in the living room. She could turn on some music, make a soup or a stew for dinner.
Gideon was coming, if his duties as chief didn’t keep him away.
She really hoped they didn’t.
Gideon stood over the body in the tub of the upstairs hall bath of the three-bedroom Colonial. The room with its peach-colored walls smelled of blood and death and strawberries.
Lori Wheeler’s long blond hair floated on the surface of the water along with a thin skim of bloody bubbles.
The razor she’d used to slit her wrist lay on the tile floor next to the bottle of bubble bath.
She’d been sixteen.
Hawk Miller stepped in behind him.
“The coroner’s team’s on the way, Chief. Kim’s talking to the parents and the brother.”
“What do we know, Sergeant?”
“She got home from school, right about three-fifteen, said she had homework, went to her room. The mom was finishing up some work in the home office, and the kid—the younger brother—came in complaining that Lori had been locked in the bathroom for an hour.”
Hawk looked at the girl with pity.
“Mom figures he’s exaggerating, but went to check because Lori’s been upset the last couple days.”
“Because?”
“Rough patch. The boy she’d been seeing dumped her, she tried out for the spring musical, didn’t get the part. Had a fight with her best friend, tanked a big test.”
Hawk lifted his shoulders. “High school hell shit. Mom got worried enough when Lori didn’t answer that she got the key, unlocked the door, and found her. She rushed in, tried to pull the girl out of the tub, knocked over the razor and bubble bath bottle. The kid—the brother—called nine-one-one.”
Gideon nodded. “Did she leave a note?”
“In her room. It just says: ‘I don’t want to be here anymore. What’s the point?’”
Gideon could’ve answered that if she’d asked him. The point was to get through it, because high school hell didn’t last forever. Nothing did but death.
“See if you can find a diary, a journal, get her cell phone. I’ll talk to the family.”
They’d never be the same, Gideon thought when he left the nice Colonial with the Chevy Suburban in the drive. This day would stand as an indelible mark between Before and After.
It wasn’t his first teen suicide, but it was his first as chief, and that weighed just a little heavier.
“I’ll write it up, Chief.”
Deputy Kim Chung hit five-two and looked like some little girl’s pampered doll. He’d watched her spar with Hawk, and take him to the mat.
The only one holding back had been Kim.
She had deep, dark eyes that now held the combination of frustration and sorrow that sat like lead in Gideon’s gut.
“The boy who dumped her? My sister used to babysit for him and his little brother. That’s another family who’ll sail in the dark for a while.”
“Holiday dance at the high school in a couple weeks. She had the poster on the board in her room, the new dress in her closet. Sixteen,” he murmured. “Everything hurts more.”
Back at the station, he contacted the school principal. They’d need to arrange for counseling.
He dealt with some paperwork. Cops always had paperwork, but head cop? he thought. Jesus, it never ended.
Since the station house coffee when he took over made pine tar seem palatable, he’d brought in machines for his office and the break room.
That single simple act had cleared any lingering wariness about the new guy. He drank a cup now standing at his window, looking beyond the parking lot to the mountains.
Hawk rapped on his doorjamb.
“I’m caught up. Brig’s got a bad tooth, so I’ve got Moreno covering his morning shift so he can get into the dentist. Patterson and Yang caught a vehicular, no injuries.”
Gideon drank some coffee. “Why didn’t you take this job, Hawk?”
“I’d rather stand here and tell you all this than stand in there and have somebody tell me. And I’d sure as hell rather not deal with the media that’ll come calling for a statement on Lori Wheeler.
“You’re a good boss, Gideon.”
“It’s early days yet.”
“I know one when I see one. We had that unattended death this morning. I can go by, get the coroner’s report on that and the suicide.”
“I’ll do it. That’s why I’m chief.” He checked the time. “I’ll head there now, get the reports filed, then call it a day.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
He took his own truck, and did his duty. Ben Granger, age ninety-six, had sat down to watch the morning shows after his breakfast of oatmeal with raisins, then had just dozed off into the long sleep.
A long sleep, Gideon thought, after a long life. Lori Wheeler had the opposite, a violent, self-inflicted end to a short one.
He texted Arden to see if she wanted him to get takeout.
Not tonight. I made tortilla soup.
You can do that?
I guess you’ll find out.
Heading your way now.
Not home. He was careful not to call it home. Spending three, occasionally four nights a week in someone’s house didn’t make it home.
Even if he had a few things in the closet, in the bathroom. For convenience.
He had to admit he felt comfortable there, and that worried him some. He liked being with her, listening to her, even talking to her. He liked her dog, her house, and her carefully thought-out plans for it.
She remained interesting. And she’d yet to complain when work kept him away, or called him out at night.
He’d nearly finished her bookcases. Who’d have thought he’d get a kick out of shelving books—alphabetically and by type? Her taste and scope in the reading world went well beyond his.
He liked that, too.
And she, clearly, had a love affair going on with his grandfather. That alone made her someone he valued.
Had it been a big step for him to take her over for Pop’s chicken potpie? Yeah, but he’d found it an easy one.
The population of Riverbend was down by two today, he thought as he pulled up to her house. In the homes of people he’d sworn to protect and serve, grief would live awhile.
In a young girl’s home, longer than a while.
But here, in this house, he’d end his day with soup and a woman who appealed to him more, he had to admit, than he’d prepared for.
He heard the dog bark as he approached the door. She hadn’t offered a key, and he hadn’t asked for one.
She opened the door with a smile, but he saw it.
Something off, something wrong.
He greeted the dog, who sang his happy song, then kissed Arden when she leaned in.
“Not a drop of rain today, but plenty of fog. And it still feels raw enough for soup.”
“Rain’s coming tonight, and tomorrow’s a wet one.”
Since she liked things in their place, he hung up his jacket, put his weapon on the shelf next to her tub of scarves.
He didn’t wear a Stetson. He kept a ball cap in his truck, another in his official vehicle to grab if rain warranted.
“It smells good.”
“That’s what I thought. I’m about to have a glass of wine. Or there’s beer if you want. How’s the crime fight going in Riverbend?”
“We’re holding our own.”
“What, no gunfights, no locked-door murders?”
A locked-door suicide, but he wouldn’t bring it up.
“Maybe tomorrow.”
He went for a beer, watched her pour wine. He didn’t intend to ask. People, even people you were involved with, had a right to privacy.
So he didn’t intend to ask, but he did.
“What happened today?”
“Oh, I’m researching a new book.” Wine in one hand, she turned away, picked up a spoon, and stirred the soup. “I’m sort of all over the place right now. I still need to find the next nugget.”
“Arden. What happened today? Something’s wrong. It’s all over you.”
With her back still to him, she put down the spoon. “I don’t know where to start. I wanted to leave it behind. I knew I couldn’t, but I thought I had more time.”
Something clutched in his gut. “Are you sick?” Hands on her shoulders, he turned her.
“No, nothing like that. I’m making it bigger than it needs to be. It happened, it’s over. I’m here.”
“What happened?”
“I got a call today from a police detective from back in Columbus. Detective Brill. She was one of the responders when I was attacked.”
He’d known it, seen it, and still it jolted. “Attacked? When? How?”
“That’s not where I should start. The beginning’s where I should start. I know that.”