CHAPTER FOUR #2
My brow furrows. “I really don’t understand what’s going on here.”
“Just go catch me a killer, Agent Love.”
“I will,” I assure him. “But you should know that Rivera wants me off the case. He’s going to be a problem, but I’ll handle it.”
“If you need me to—”
“I don’t. This was just an FYI.”
“Noted. Check in tomorrow.” He ends the call and I start the engine, but I pause as Kane’s words come back to me: I handled it. Let it go.
I’m suddenly not sure whether he was talking about the past and my secret, or the present and tonight’s murder.
I pull onto the highway with one thought: my secret has secrets.
It’s that thought that directs my path. I start driving and instead of ending up at the cottage I rented, I find myself in the garage of the beach house I inherited from my mother, while my father maintains what he calls the “Master House.” I never really understood why we had two homes only miles from each other, but I always suspected my mother kept this house to get some much-needed space from my father.
Although he tended to follow her, so I’m not certain it worked.
Whatever the case, it became my getaway after I left Cornell to recover from her death.
And then later it became a weekend getaway from the city when I decided two years of law school was enough and joined the NYPD.
This is also the place.
This is where the man with the tattoo attacked me. Where a strange turn took place that I can’t explain. Something beyond self-defense. Something that now defines who I am. Or maybe it defines who I always was and didn’t dare admit, even to myself.
Whatever the case, if the man from that night is connected to these murders, and I believe he is, then this is where I will find answers and how I will catch a killer. And you don’t catch a killer by hiding from him. You catch him by getting to know him.
Killing the engine, I don’t give myself time to replay the past. I open the door, grab my bag, walk straight to the entrance, key in my security code, and then dial the security service, giving them a password and letting them know that the house is occupied.
Entering the kitchen, I flip on the light, illuminating whitewashed cabinets, then pull my bag over my head and toss it on the granite island.
My gun I keep, but I don’t scan the house.
I don’t even see the house. Not now. I can’t see anything right now but the past. I need to face my fears, and I walk across the tiled floors and go straight to the patio, shoving the curtain aside to open the door, then walking outside, shutting it behind me.
A chilly breeze gushes off the ocean, and my stomach knots.
But I’m doing this. I’m going to the beach.
I’m going to that spot where it all happened.
I start walking. And walking. And then running.
I run as hard as I can until I’m standing in the place where it all happened.
I inhale the salty sea air and hold my hands out, letting my face reach to the sky, the full moon seeming to cast a light on my guilt.
Images flicker in my head but refuse to take form.
I’m back in my recurring nightmare, but I’m awake.
I look down and blood is pooling at my feet.
So much blood. Too much blood. I blink and it’s gone.
Now, there is just sand. I sit down. I inhale and then lie back, stretching my arms and hands to my sides, willing the memory of the past to come to me.
In it I will find answers, and I realize now that’s what I need.
Real answers. But nothing comes to me. I lie there, and lie there some more, and after all the times the past has haunted me, it eludes me now.
I don’t know how long I stay there, but finally, I force myself to give up.
I stand, scanning the ocean, expecting it to turn to blood, but it simply crashes to the shore.
I turn to the house and take a step, then stop abruptly, a shadow flickering by the house.
A shiver runs down my spine. There it is again.
Another shadow. Someone is there. It’s then that I flash back to being on this very sand with that tattooed man on top of me.
Then that I remember Kane grabbing my arms and saying, “I’ll take care of it.
” And I let him, and did so without asking questions, until it was too late to change the outcome.
Because I was weak that night, and he was strong. But I am not weak anymore.
I pull my weapon and start running for the house, wind in my hair and face, my heart thundering in my ears, and I don’t stop until I’m staring at the blood splattered all over the patio glass, some kind of note pinned in the center.
Adrenaline surges through me, but I am in my Otherworld now.
I retain my cool. I walk to the patio door, using the end of my shirt to open the door, and then I systematically search every inch of the house.
When I know I’m alone, I walk to my bag, pull on gloves, and then walk back outside, yanking the note off the door.
Returning back inside, I lock the door and pull the blinds, and then I open the note.
At the top is the alphabet, pasted in paper letters, with an X across the letter A. The note reads:
A is for the Apple a day that keeps the doctor away. But a doctor couldn’t help him, could he?
I KNOW.