10 #3
Instead, Tean texted her, We’re working on it.
A response came almost immediately. Where are you? What’s happening?
And then another message: What have you done already
And then another: I’m freaking out
“Tell her to order room service,” Jem said. “That’d be fun, right? We never get to order room service.”
Instead of getting involved in that conversation, Tean texted a quick summary of the investigation so far. He ended with We’re checking out the mom’s house right now.
“Beating it to the boobies that fed him,” Jem said.
“What?”
“We should find a way to use that phrase. Because that’s what he was doing right?”
“Please don’t ever say that again.”
“He was! And I just came up with it right now.”
“I’m not ever using that phrase,” Tean said. And, just to make the point clear, he pocketed the phone.
Jem frowned, but all he did was tap the raw edge of the drywall. “Somebody had to have noticed this, right? Or what? Nobody ever moved this picture? Ever?”
“I don’t know,” Tean said.
Jem grimaced, but he nodded. “Bedroom?”
He insisted on going first, but like the rest of the house, the primary bedroom was empty.
The large bed that Tean had seen through the peephole dominated the space, with its crisp white comforter that meant—again—no dogs in the house.
A few framed photos hung on the walls, but these were only of Kai’s mother and stepfather.
This time, Tean spent more time looking at them.
She was thin, her hair limp, and her cheeks and throat and collarbone suggested a great deal of exercise or an eating disorder or both.
The man, on the other hand, clearly wasn’t missing any meals.
Stockily built, powerful across the upper body, he stared into the camera with a killer’s expression—unsmiling, flat, empty.
The thought caught Tean off guard, and he said, “Do we know what happened to Kai’s stepfather?”
Jem shook his head as he yanked open a dresser drawer.
Tean moved on to the nightstand. It held the usual clutter that accumulated—tissues, a journal that had never been written in, several Bic pens, a cluster of cough drops, and so many bottles of half-used lotion that he decided Mrs. Curtis had a dermatological problem.
An open door connected to the en suite bathroom, where he found a Lady Gillette in the shower and soap scum in the tub, but nothing interesting—no prescription drugs, although she had several sprays and pills for allergies.
Jem was still working his way through the dresser, so Tean tried the closet next.
It was a walk-in. He flipped on the light.
Three-quarters of the closet was full of women’s clothing—blouses, slacks, dresses.
Some of it was still wrapped in dry-cleaning bags.
Some of it still had tags. Shoes were lined up in neat pairs below.
The last quarter, though, was empty.
Tean moved over to check the hang rods—not that there was anything to see.
Then he began to search the hanging clothes.
He checked them in sections, patting down a few articles at a time for anything that might have been left in the pockets, pushing them aside to see what was behind them.
He found nothing but more drywall. No hidden safe. No secret passage. Nothing.
When he finished, he put everything back the way he’d found it.
“Some of her clothes are missing,” he said when he stepped out of the closet.
Jem was on the floor now, searching under the bed. His voice was muffled when he said, “Maybe she’s packing up her winter clothes.”
“I don’t think so. She has a lot of space.”
“She might have a lot of clothes.”
“But it’s only one section.”
“She might have just gotten started before Kai came back and killed her.”
“Something is weird about it.”
Jem backed out from underneath the bed. He checked his hair in a standing mirror, grimaced, and adjusted the angle of the glass. Then he said, “Let me see.”
But as Jem went to the closet, Tean found himself considering the mirror. He moved over to it. He and Jem were about the same height, and now that Jem had changed the angle, he had a good view of himself. He tilted the mirror back to where it had been.
The whisper of Jem’s ROOS on the floor made Tean say, “The mirror is too far back.”
“Maybe she bumped it,” Jem said. “Those are men’s shoes. So, I’m guessing men’s clothes were hanging there.”
“Her husband’s.”
“I guess.”
“So, where are they?”
“Maybe she got rid of them.”
“Or Kai took them.”
“Why would he take them?”
“I don’t know, Jem.”
Jem didn’t say anything for several long seconds. Tean waited for the dismissal.
Instead, Jem said, “Someone moved the mirror.”
Tean glanced over, and Jem pointed. Indentations in the carpet showed where the mirror had stood previously. In its original position, it had been against the wall. Now it had been pulled out and turned toward—
The bed.
Tean stepped over to the bed, looking at it more closely this time.
The bed was made, the comforter pulled up and over the pillows.
But there were also wrinkles and depressions in the bedding.
It was the kind of thing that happened if you made the bed and then sat down on it to pull on your socks.
Or if you had a Lab who thought the bed belonged to him, and as soon as you made it, he jumped up to make sure everything was the way he liked it.
The depressions in the bedding, though, weren’t at the edge. They were near the center. And there were two of them, spaced apart six or seven inches. Too small to be where someone had sat. And too round to be from feet.
“What is it?” Jem asked.
“I think he got on the bed,” Tean said. He gestured. “I think he was kneeling on the bed.” He turned to Tean. “Why was he kneeling on the bed?”
Jem made a face. Then he got on his knees and tilted his head as he studied the comforter. Then, with a laugh, he said, “Eww.”
“What?”
“I think I know what he was doing. Do you have a black light? We can check.”
Tean leaned closer, trying to see whatever had caught Jem’s eye. Then he saw it: a few whitish-yellow stains that had dried and left the fabric stiff. They were almost invisible against the white of the comforter. “He was masturbating?”
“Choking his chicken,” Jem said. “For sure. Clearing the snorkel. The old hotdog handshake.”
Tean didn’t say anything.
“Uh, sorry,” Jem said. “This is super weird, and I’m kind of overcompensating.”
“It’s okay.”
“Do you think he was wearing his dad’s clothes?”
“Oh my gosh.”
“Should we take a picture or something?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“But it’s gross, right?”
“Uh, yes.”
“And freaky.”
Tean nodded.
“And he totally wanted to bang his mom while he was pretending to be his dad.”
“Maybe we can just understand some things and not say them out loud.”
“But he did! And it’s super weird!”
“Jem, he’s a serial killer who wears a latex wolf mask and howls. ‘Super weird’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“I’m telling Amy,” Jem said in a hurt tone. “I’m going to tell her he was beating it to the boobies that fed him—”
“Oh my gosh,” Tean whispered as he made his way toward the door.
“—and that he wanted to bang his mom while he was pretending to be his dad.”
“How about instead you go downstairs and take another look around? I’m going to stay up here.”
With a shrug, Jem bounded down the stairs. He caught the banister at the bottom, jumped, and swung himself around. When he landed, his ROOS squeaked on the floor boards, and he took a few stumbling steps before he caught his balance. Then he looked up at Tean.
“Ten out of ten,” Tean said.
Grinning, Jem trotted off toward the back of the house.
Tean caught himself looking at Kai’s doorway again.
He gave up and made his way back into the room.
He looked at the cowboy poster taped above the bed.
At the desk, he thumbed through the scriptures.
Maybe the verses were important. Maybe Kai had highlighted something that, in context, would be significant.
Maybe there’d be some insight into Kai’s mind like—
The peephole.
The missing clothes.
The rumpled bedding.
The dried stains.
—like that verse of scripture he’d convinced Zeb to get as a tattoo.
But Tean’s eyes went back to the poster again.
Before he could think about it too much, he climbed onto the bed—aware that he, like Kai, was leaving impressions in the fabric.
From this new position, though, he could reach the poster.
The cowboy’s sinuously muscular body was right above him, toned stomach on display, the stubbled jaw and ruggedly attractive face only inches away.
A thumbtack at each corner held the poster in place.
Tean removed them and caught the poster as it fell.
Thumps on the stairs announced Jem’s return.
“Look at this,” he said. He was carrying a calendar. “Right before Christmas, she wrote River’s name on here.”
“So, they were going to meet,” Tean said.
“The appointment was for after that weekend at the lodge,” Jem said, “so it never happened. But yeah, she was definitely going to talk to River.”
“But what was she going to say?” Tean asked. “That’s what I don’t understand. She wouldn’t have told River what we’ve found today. And even if she had, it’s not exactly incriminating.”
“Yeah, but nobody wants everybody saying you wanted to drill your own mom while you were wearing your dad’s boxers.”
“But why kill her?”
“Tean, he likes killing people. Remember? Serial killer?”
Tean didn’t respond. Instead, he worked the poster down and climbed off the bed. With Jem’s help, he laid the poster flat. He didn’t see anything new, so they turned it over.
Written on the back in thick black marker were the words, For Kai, because he’s your favorite. You’re still my favorite cowboy. The my was underlined three times. Love you, love you, love you. And then a swooping capital S.
Jem rubbed his jaw. “Who the hell is S?”