Chapter Twenty-One #2
“Can’t, just can’t. We had gifts upstairs, most of them wrapped. We’re meeting my family at the resort. They got some of that, too.”
She looked away, a woman who carried her forty years on a fit, leanly muscled body.
“I haven’t called my husband. He’ll be home soon anyway. Bastards, taking a kid’s sled.”
“Officer, why don’t you go talk to the neighbor on this side, find out if they saw anything.”
“I doubt it,” Livvy said when Kim left. “They both work, the two kids are in high school. I sent my boys to my other neighbor—they’re friends with those kids. She’s across the street and home most days. But this is her errand-running day. She didn’t see anything, anyone.”
She scrubbed her hands over her face. “I want a drink. Weeknight before five be damned, I’m having a goddamn drink. Do you want a drink?”
“No, thanks. What time did you, your husband, the kids leave this morning?”
He took her through it, and after she’d poured herself a jumbo glass of wine, convinced her to sit.
As he worked on the list of stolen items, Kim came back.
“Jeff Pritchette, age sixteen. He’s home sick today.
He states that between puke sessions, he saw a white Ford Transit cargo van, maybe a 2015, in the driveway.
He’s into cars,” Kim added with a smile.
“He didn’t think anything of it, figured you were having something repaired, since he saw two men in work clothes.
He was feeling really sick, didn’t pay much attention, but he thinks they were white guys. ”
“Do you know anyone with a white cargo van, Ms. Forrester?”
“I—I’m not sure what a cargo van is, but, God, Keith Masterville has an old white van. I just can’t imagine—he’s done our handyman work since before my youngest was born. Just last week, he was here replacing the faucets in the hall bath.”
“We’ll talk to him.”
When they did, they learned Keith Masterville, age sixty-eight, had whatever Jeff Pritchette had. Both he and his wife swore he hadn’t left the house all day.
From the pale, sweaty look of him, Gideon believed it.
“Does anyone else have access to your van?”
“Not as such.” Masterville rubbed a hand over his little gray beard. “I’ve been trying to work with my grandson, give him some work, teach him the trade. I let him drive it, but I’m with him when he does.”
“Keith, Josh came by twice today.” Rose Masterville looked at Gideon. “It’s not like him to visit, much less twice in one day, but I thought it was sweet of him to check on his grandpa that way.”
“He wouldn’t—”
“Keith.” She squeezed a hand over his. “Livvy and Ross are good people, and those boys of theirs? They shouldn’t have their Christmas spoiled this way.
Josh has had some trouble, with alcohol, drugs.
He’s taken money out of my purse, and other things.
And the one he hangs with? Steve—ah—Steve Hogan?
We won’t even let that one in the house. ”
“God, Rose.” Keith held up a hand, lurched to his feet. “I gotta—”
He made a dash, slammed a door behind him. The miserable sound of retching came through it.
“If Josh did this, it’ll break his heart. Our daughter’s, too. Keith loves that boy. He’s tried so hard to set him straight. Josh could’ve taken the keys, Chief Riley. They hang on a peg in the kitchen. I wouldn’t have noticed.”
“Where would we find Josh?”
She sighed, closed her eyes, then gave them an address.
“Our girl works so hard, Chief Riley. She tries so hard. Josh’s father left her, Josh, and our granddaughter when Josh was ten and Steffi eight. Steffi, she’s good as gold, but Josh? It seems he looks for the easy way, then tosses it all aside.”
They found Josh, and Steve, both of them happily stoned while they played on the stolen Xbox.
The toboggan leaned against one dingy wall, with various stolen items scattered around it.
Once they were in lockup, the Forresters informed, the stolen items recovered and logged, Gideon sent Kim home.
He sat at his desk, an hour past what should’ve been the end of his day, and wrote it up.
He’d just reached for his jacket, thinking cold beer, hot meal, when his phone rang.
“Chief Riley.”
“Chief Riley, this is Felicia Cohen. Dean Harwell contacted me. You wanted to speak to me about Dustin Dubecki.”
“Yes, I appreciate you taking the time to speak to me.”
“No problem. It’s been a few years, but I remember him.”
“You filed a complaint.”
“Yeah. He stopped being just an annoyance, and scared me. Now I find out he assaulted some woman, and my first thought was that could’ve been me.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
“We had a class together, second semester, sophomore year. He sort of glommed on to me. I wasn’t interested.
For one, I was seeing someone. For another, he just struck me as creepy.
Add he thought he was better than anyone else.
When he asked me out, I told him I was seeing someone.
He said something about how I should upgrade. Hold on a second.
“Dev? I’m talking to that police chief. The baby needs changing. Sorry,” she said into the phone.
“That’s fine.”
“Let’s see. I was in a political science club. He joined it. He had no interest, that was obvious, but he joined it. He bugged me about studying with him, or having coffee, a drink to talk about some class project. No and no, time after time.
“My boyfriend’s car got keyed. I didn’t put it together then, but after, I figured it had to be Dubecki. Asshole. Shit, that’s a buck in the jar. Two bucks because I said the S word, too. We’ve got a toddler, so we’re both trying hard not to swear.”
“How’s that going for you?”
“Over a hundred in the jar this month. We’re banking it for our kids.
Anyway, he seemed to lay off awhile—at least, I didn’t get the hard sell.
But he’d just show up. If I used the library to study, I’d see him come in, sit there, and pretend to study.
His grades were in the tank, you know? Say I went to a chick flick with some girlfriends, he’d show up.
I’d be shopping, look around, and he’d be in the store, that sort of thing. Seriously creepy.”
As she paused, Gideon heard that amazing toddler belly laugh.
“I ignored it too long. Spring break a bunch of us went to Cancún, and I swear I saw him. Everybody said I had Dubecki Delusion, but I swear I saw him. But during finals week was when it went beyond creepy.
“I had really good grades and wanted to keep it that way. I used the library to study for my astronomy exam. Why I thought astronomy would be fun and easy, who knows? It was fun, but not easy, and my weak spot. I really wanted to ace it, so I used the library because my dorm mate had had a bad breakup, and I knew she’d be in there crying and raging, and I needed to study. ”
He heard her blow out a breath.
“He was waiting when I came out. It’s late, really nobody around. He played it all casual, as if he’d just been walking, spotted me. He said he’d walk me back to the dorm. How a gorgeous redhead like me wouldn’t be safe alone.”
Redhead. Gideon noted it down, circled it.
“I said I was fine, but he kept walking with me, and saying how he’d given me plenty of time to admit we belonged together. Now that the term was over, we should go away together. He’d take me to Paris, and on and on even when I told him to fu … fork off.
“He grabbed my arm, and I lost it, shouted at him, called him a perv and other things that would cost me several jar dollars. His eyes changed. I know that sounds weird, but they did, and his fingers dug into my arm. I shoved at him, and he put a hand to my throat.
“And that’s when campus security drove up. I kicked him, then I ran to the security car. He fled. Security drove me to the dorm, and I made the complaint the next morning. I never saw him again. He got booted for plagiarism, and I never went anywhere those last few days of the term alone.”
She let out another breath. “Wow. I haven’t thought of any of that for a long time, but I sure remember it.
I think I got lucky. I think he’d have hurt me.
Instead, I came back junior year, then senior year, graduated, with highest honors, by the way.
I got a job I love, lived with, then married my guy, and we’ve got two great kids.
I look back at that night now, and realize I got lucky.
He’s a sick, dangerous man, Chief Riley. ”
He agreed completely. He spent more time at his desk, wrote up the interview, then sent copies to the detectives in Columbus.
She had the fire going when she opened the door to him.
The first thing Gideon noticed after the scent of something that stirred the hunger he’d ignored was a pair of stockings, as white as the snow on the mountains, little bells hanging off the sides of the Christmas-red cuffs.
One bore her name on the cuff, one his.
“Aren’t we a little old for Santa?”
“Not according to everyone else. Jamie tapped April. She made them.”
Fascinated, he gave them a closer look. “Like with her hands?”
“Apparently. If you don’t want—”
“Who said I didn’t? I guess you expect Santa to stuff something in yours.”
“I would not object.” When she lifted a hand to his cheek, his heart opened as if she’d put a key in a lock. “You put in a long one.”
“Yeah. I guess I’m late for whatever smells so damn good. Besides you. You always smell so damn good. And you’re sneaky about it.”
“Sneaky?”
“You change it up, so who knows what to expect? Summer garden, autumn forest, sexy siren, fresh and breezy.”
“Perfume samples. A small, harmless addiction. Which I’ll continue, since you actually notice.”
“I would not object.”
Lifting her off her feet, he let his hunger take a different form as he kissed her. The low sound she made in her throat, the way she wrapped her arms, then her legs around him, turned the hunger insatiable.
He carried her to the sofa, tumbled onto it with her.
He’d yet to take off his coat.