Chapter Eight
Kane
“What are you doing here, Mi,” I asked as I looked at my ex-wife on my doorstep. She was smiling that megawatt smile she always had for people and holding a glass dish with tin foil over the top.
“Can I come in?”
I stepped to the side and let her walk into my apartment.
She looked around, and probably thought I’d been living like a Spartan compared to our life together.
I searched for Kemp outside but he didn’t appear to be out there.
Closing the door, I turned to face her. She set the glass dish down and continued to look around.
“Mimi,” I started.
“How are you?” she asked, turning to me finally. “You look like you’re keeping your fitness up.”
“This isn’t about my fitness,” I stated. “What are you really doing here?”
She sighed. “I’m worried about you, Kane. You are acting recklessly, getting in trouble with your Captain, almost being killed in a house fire after you went after a suspect alone and without telling anyone. This isn’t like you.”
“I made some errors in judgment,” I said, almost wanting to laugh at the fact that there were many. “But I’m all good. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I still love you, Kane,” she said. “You know that, right?”
“Are things with you and Kemp okay?” I changed the subject, hoping she’d lay off the emotional stuff. I couldn’t deal with it right now, not after the trip to Chicago.
“Yeah, he misses his friend,” she said, but I could see the sadness behind her eyes when she spoke about him. “I think he really is struggling, you know?”
“What did he expect?” I countered. “What did you expect? You know I only left you because I knew I couldn’t be the husband you deserved. I did not expect you to move on with my best friend.”
She looked down at the ground. “I know, we didn’t mean to do it, Kane. It just…happened.”
I ran my hand over my face, feeling guilty immediately. “I know, I’m sorry.”
“No, I am sorry,” she said, moving closer, as if she were going to take my hands in hers before she stopped herself. “I made you a pie. Judging by this place, I probably should have made you a casserole to make sure you’re eating properly.”
“I’m doing okay, Mi,” I said. “Thank you for stopping by. You can report back to Kemp that I’m doing good.”
She smiled. “I know it’s complicated between you and I, Kane, but you can call me for anything. I’ll be there. I still like to think of us as friends.”
“Of course we are,” I offered her a smile. “And thank you.”
She moved toward me and gave me a quick hug before she headed for the door. I’d caught a whiff of her vanilla shampoo, and the reaction it used to inspire was no longer there. It wasn’t like the violets Maurelle smelled like.
“I mean it, Kane, call me or Kemp if you need someone.”
“I appreciate it, Mi, I do.”
She smiled as I watched her walk to her car and drive off, closing the door, I let out the breath of air I’d been holding and walked over to the glass dish. Feeling back the tin foil, I chuckled at the thick layer of meringue on top.
Lemon meringue pie.
My favorite.
I picked it up and put it in my bare as bones refrigerator before I sat back down on my couch and channel surfed.
Seeing her again…it always stirred up bad feelings, coupled with Maurelle getting the best of me, yet again, it was a recipe for disaster. I was getting nowhere on my cold case file and generally no closer to finding Maurelle again. She’d completely up and disappeared off the radar after Chicago.
Just like she said she would.
There has to be a way I can find her. She can’t just be a ghost in the system. No one was that good.
I shot off a text to Petra.
GARRICK
Did you find her?
PETRA
Good morning to you too, sir. No, I didn’t. She’s off the grid or she’s burned through another alias.
GARRICK
Can’t you track her some other way?
PETRA
Maybe if we were the CIA and I could search using some fancy machine that uses face ID, but we’re just a police department, so you’re going to have to use my limited resources available.
Jesus Christ she was a smartass but she was the only tech we could handle my gruff attitude.
GARRICK
Keep the alerts up.
Petra responded with a thumbs up and I threw my phone onto the couch next to me.
Closing my eyes, all I could think of was that beautiful face hovering over me as she rode my cock for her own pleasure.
I was out of it, but bits and pieces had returned to my memory, making me angry that she’s bested me twice already and yet, I didn’t want to arrest her, I wanted a third time where I was in control.
I wanted her again, yet she was the bad guy.
She was the fucking black widow I was chasing, and I wanted her to ride my cock again and again, like a sick fucking creep.
There had to be something in her past that would lead me to her. Everyone had something to hide and no skeleton stayed in the closet, whether you cemented it in there or not.
I got up and moved over to my makeshift board where I had pinned everything up on her case. All of Stanley’s notes and my own, including photos of her.
My eyes landed on the name of her daughter’s company, and that’s when I realized what I’d been missing. I hadn’t interviewed her daughter yet.
Surely, she would know where her mother was. I looked up the address of where she worked and got ready, mentally running through some questions I needed to know the answer to before I asked her where she was.
For some reason, I was nervous.
Nervous that I was about to go and meet the woman who Maurelle loved, and probably the only woman that she would protect.
It was a gamble, but I had to try.
“Can I help you?” the cheery voice from the all too proper receptionist asked as I approached the desk in the ultra modern office building.
“My name is Kane Garrick, I’m a detective with the East Wendell Police Department. I need to speak with Camille Delaponte?”
Her smile disappeared. “Oh, uh…is she in trouble?”
“No, I just need to ask her about someone we are investigating.”
She took a deep breath. “Oh, I was worried for a moment. She does appear to be free, let me call up and see if she’s in her office.”
I stood to the side of the desk, keeping an ear on the conversation to see if she divulged anything to alert the woman to flee. She didn’t, it was an honest exchange and once she’d hung up the phone, she smiled back over to me.
“She’s free and expecting you,” she said. “Take the elevator to level 5, and head through to the reception desk there. They will direct you to her office.”
“Thank you,” I replied as I walked off to the elevator bay. The music playing in the elevator was enough to make me want to take out my pistol and shoot myself. Did they do this on purpose?
As the doors opened, I saw this level had an artist explode all over the walls with art and vibrant colors. Not at all like the dull beige and whites down in the reception area. Another woman smiled at me as I approached. “Detective Garrick?”
“Yes.”
“This way,” she said, as she all but glided out in front of me.
The carpets drowned out what I knew would be click clacking of her stiletto shoes, as she led me to the very end of the floor.
The large double doors opened and I saw a blonde woman sitting behind a desk with two large monitors.
She was finely dressed but I could see instantly the genetics were strong in her family line.
She looked up, her sharp eyes landing on me before she politely dismissed her worker.
“Come in and take a seat, Detective,” she said, motioning to the chair in front of her desk. She pushed her monitors to the side, they were hanging off a bar that seemed to swivel to the side. “How may I be of assistance?”
She was polite, charming, and I knew she was playing me to see how much I really knew. She had slight tells that she was nervous.
“I’m here to speak to you about Maurelle Picquet.”
She moved subtly in discomfort, but I caught the minor adjustment.
“I’m sorry, I meant Maura Benoit-Clayton.”
The smile that made its way on her face told me she was no fool, and she didn’t pretend to be one.
“I think we both know it wasn’t a slip up the first time, Detective.”
“Good,” I replied. “I don’t have time to waste. I’m looking for your mother.”
“You won’t find her, she’s gone underground. When she is close to being captured, she does that. No one will know where she is, least of all me.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” I said, sitting back in my chair.
It was comfy, probably a little too comfy for a visitor chair.
She didn’t seem like the type to want people to be uncomfortable, and she had a kindness to her eyes that told me she was nothing like her mother.
“I have to say, you are older than I expected. Maurelle doesn’t appear to be that old. ”
“She’s not,” Camille said. “She’s more like an older sister really. She was far too young when I was born.”
I recalled her sad history, wondering how old she really was when she had Camille.
“Where is she, Camille?”
“Detective, I’m not lying to you. She doesn’t tell me where she goes, or the finer details of what she does. All I can tell you is you won’t catch her. She’ll never see justice done to her because she won’t ever let anyone put her in a cage again.”
Her words hit hard. I knew she’d had a rough life, but from the way Camille explained it, it would have been harder than I could imagine.
It didn’t change facts.
She was a serial murderer. I had to put her in a cage, whether she wanted to be in one or not.
That was the law.
“She’s done a lot of bad things, Camille. She must know what’s coming.”
Camille sat back in her chair and sighed, folding her hands over her lap. Everything about it was just so elegant, so delicate, it made me wonder how she had such a privileged life when her mother was always on the run.