A Faint Cold Fear (17 page)

'Yeah,' he said, tucking his hands into his pockets.

'He seems like a nice guy.'

'He is,' Sara allowed. 'Are you in the parking deck?'

He nodded. 'Nice-looking.'

She walked out the door, saying, 'Uh-hm.'

'You sleep with him?'

Sara was too shocked to answer. She started to cross the street toward the parking deck, willing him to drop it.

He jogged to catch up with her. 'Because I don't remember you naming names when we swapped lists.'

She laughed, incredulous. 'Because you couldn't remember half of yours, Slick.'

He gave her a nasty look. 'That isn't funny.'

'Oh, for God's sakes,' she groaned, incapable of believing he was being serious. 'You sowed enough wild oats before we were married to qualify for farm subsidies.'

A group of people milled around the entrance of the parking-deck stairwell, and Jeffrey pushed through them without a word. He opened the door, not bothering to see if Sara caught it before it closed.

'He's married,' she told him, her voice echoing in the concrete stairwell.

'So was I,' he pointed out, something she did not think said much in his favor.

Jeffrey stopped on the first landing, waiting for her to catch up. 'I dunno, Sara, I came a long way to get up here and see you holding some other guy's hand with his kid in your lap.'

'You're jealous?' Sara could barely manage the question around a shocked laugh. She had never known Jeffrey to be jealous of anyone, mostly because he was too egotistical to consider the idea that any woman he wanted could possibly want someone else.

He demanded, 'You wanna explain this to me?'

'No, frankly,' she told him, thinking that any moment now he would say he was teasing her.

Jeffrey continued up the stairs. 'If that's the way you want to play it.'

Sara climbed after him. 'I don't owe you an explanation for anything.'

'You know what?' he said, continuing up the stairs.

'Blow me.'

Anger rooted Sara to the concrete. 'You've got your head so far up your ass you can just reach around and do it yourself.'

He stood above her, looking as if she'd deceived him and he was feeling foolish. Sara could see that he was deeply hurt, which took away some of her irritation.

Sara resumed the climb toward him. 'Jeff…'

He said nothing.

'We're both tired,' she said, stopping on the tread just below him.

He turned, walking up the next flight, saying, 'I'm back home cleaning your kitchen, and you're up here-'

'I never asked you to clean my kitchen.'

He stopped on the landing, leaning his hands on the railing in front of one of the large glass windows that overlooked the street. Sara knew she could either stand on her principles and spend the four-hour drive back to Grant in terse silence or make the effort to soothe his hurt ego so the trip would be bearable.

She was about to give in when Jeffrey inhaled deeply, his shoulders rising. He let the breath go slowly, and she could see him calming down.

He asked, 'How's Tessie?'

'Better,' she told him, leaning against the stair railing. 'She's getting better.'

'What about your folks?'

'I don't know,' she answered, and the truth was, she did not want to consider the question. Cathy seemed better, but her father was so angry that every time Sara looked at him, she felt like she was choking on guilt.

Footsteps announced the presence of at least two people above them. They both waited as two nurses came down the stairs, neither of them doing a good job of hiding their snickers.

When they had passed, Sara said, 'We're all tired.

And scared.'

Jeffrey stared at the front entrance of Grady, which loomed over the parking deck like the BatCave. He said, 'This has to be hard for them, being up here.'

She shrugged this off, climbing the last stairs to reach the landing. 'How did it go with Brock?'

'Okay, I guess.' His shoulders relaxed more. 'Brock is so freaking weird.'

Sara started up the next flight of stairs. 'You should meet his brother.'

'Yeah, he told me about him.' He caught up with her on the next landing. 'Is Roger still in town?'

'He moved to New York. I think he's some kind of agent now.'

Jeffrey gave an exaggerated shudder, and she could tell he was making an effort to get past the argument.

'Brock's not that bad,' Sara told him, feeling the need to take up for the mortician. Dan had been mercilessly teased when they were growing up, something Sara could not abide even as a child. At the clinic she saw two or three kids a month who were not sick so much as tired of the relentless teasing they got at school.

"I'll be interested to see how the tox screen comes back,' Jeffrey said. 'Rosen's father seems to think he was clean. His mother's not so sure.'

She raised an eyebrow. Parents tended to be the last to know when their kids were using drugs.

'Yeah,' he said, acknowledging her skepticism. 'I'm not sure about Brian Keller.'

'Keller?' Sara asked, crossing yet another landing and heading up another flight of stairs.

'He's the father. The son took the mother's last name.'

Sara stopped climbing, more to catch her breath than anything else. 'Where the hell did you park?'

'Top floor,' he said. 'One more flight.'

Sara grabbed the railing, pulling herself up the stairs. 'What's wrong with the father?'

'There's something going on with him,' he said.

'This morning, he acted like he wanted to talk to me, but his wife came back into the room and he shut up.'

'Are you going to interview him again?'

'Tomorrow,' he said. 'Frank's going to do some digging around.'

'Frank?' Sara asked, surprised. 'Why don't you get Lena? She's in a better position to-'

He cut her off. 'She's not a cop.'

Sara kept her mouth shut the last few steps, nearly collapsing with relief when he opened the door at the top of the stairs. Even this late in the day, the upper deck was packed with cars of all makes and models. Overhead, a storm was brewing, the sky turning an ominous black. Security lights flickered on as they walked toward Jeffrey's unmarked police car.

A group of young men was hanging around a large black Mercedes, their heavily muscled arms crossed over their chests. As Jeffrey walked by, the men exchanged looks, pegging him for a cop. Sara felt her heartbeat accelerate as she waited for Jeffrey to unlock the door, inexplicably scared that something horrible would happen.

Once inside the car, she felt safe cocooned in the plush blue interior. She watched Jeffrey walk around the front to get in, his eyes locked on the group of thugs by the Mercedes. All this posturing had a point, Sara knew. If the boys thought Jeffrey was scared, they would do something to harass him. If Jeffrey thought they were vulnerable, he would probably feel compelled to force something.

'Seat belt,' Jeffrey reminded Sara, closing his door.

She did as she was told, clicking the belt across her lap.

Sara was quiet as they drove out of the parking deck. On the street she leaned her head on her hand, watching downtown go by, thinking how different everything was since she had last been here. The buildings were taller, and the cars in the next lane seemed to be driving too close. Sara was no longer a city person. She wanted to be back in her small town where everyone knew one another - or at least thought they did.

Jeffrey said, 'I'm sorry I was late.'

'It's okay,' she said.

'Ellen Schaffer,' he began. 'The witness from yesterday.'

'Did she say something?'

'No,' Jeffrey said, then paused before finishing, 'She killed herself this morning.'

'What?' Sara demanded. Then, before he could answer, 'Why didn't you tell me?'

'I'm telling you now.'

'You should have called me.'

'What could you have done?'

'Come back to Grant.'

'You're doing that now.'

Sara tried to quell her irritation. She did not like being protected like this. 'Who pronounced the death?'

'Hare.'

'Hare?' Sara said, some of her irritation rubbing off on her cousin for not telling her this on the phone.

'Did he find anything? What did he say?'

Jeffrey put his finger to his chin and affected Hare's voice, which was a few octaves higher than Jeffrey's.

'"Don't tell me, something's missing."'

'What was missing?'

'Her head.'

Sara let out a long groan. She hated head wounds.

'Are you sure it's a suicide?'

'That's what we need to find out. There was a discrepancy with the ammo.'

Sara listened as he filled her in on what had happened this morning, from his interview with Andy Rosen's parents to finding Ellen Schaffer. She stopped him at the arrow Matt had found traced into the dirt outside Schaffer's window. 'That's what I did,' she told him. 'To mark the trail when I was looking for Tessa.'

'I know,' he said, but offered nothing more.

'Is that why you didn't want to tell me?' Sara asked.

'I don't like you withholding information from me.

It's not your decision-'

With sudden vehemence he said, 'I want you to be careful, Sara. I don't want you going on that school campus alone. I don't want you around any of the crime scenes. Do you understand me?'

She did not answer, mostly out of shock.

'And you're not staying at your house alone.'

Sara could not stop herself. 'Hold on-'

'I'll sleep on your couch if that's what it takes,' he interrupted. 'This is not about getting you to spend the night with me. This is about me not needing another person to worry about right now.'

'Do you think you need to be worried about me?'

'Did you think you needed to be worried about Tessa?'

'That's not the same.'

'That arrow could mean something. It could be pointing back toward you.'

'People draw marks in the dirt with their shoe all the time.'

'You think it's just a coincidence? Ellen Schaffer's head is blown off-'

'Unless she did it herself.'

'Don't interrupt me,' he warned, and she would have laughed if his words were not tempered with his obvious concern for her safety. 'I'm telling you, I'm not going to leave you alone.'

'We're not even sure if this is murder, Jeffrey. Except for a few things that are out of place and those could be explained away easily enough this could prove to be a suicide.'

'So you think Andy killed himself and Tess was stabbed and this girl today killed herself and they're all unrelated?'

Sara knew it was not likely but still said, 'It's possible.'

'Yeah, well,' he said, 'a lot of things are possible, but you're not staying alone in town tonight. Is that understood?'

Sara could only offer her silence as acquiescence.

He said, 'I don't know what else to do, Sara. I can't worry about you like that. I can't feel like you're in jeopardy. I won't be able to function.'

'It's okay,' she finally said, trying to sound as though she understood. Sara realized that what she'd been looking forward to most was being in her own house, sleeping in her own bed, alone.

Jeffrey told her, 'If it's all unconnected, you can call me an asshole later.'

'You're not being an asshole,' Sara said, because she knew that his concern was real. 'Tell me why you were late. Did you find out anything?'

Jeffrey said, 'I stopped at the tattoo parlor on the way out of town and talked to the owner.'

'Hal?'

Jeffrey gave her a sideways glance as he merged onto the interstate. 'How do you know Hal?'

'He was a patient of mine a long time ago,' Sara said, stifling a yawn. Then, just to prove that Jeffrey did not know everything about her, she added, 'Tessa and I were going to get tattoos a few years back.'

'A tattoo?' Jeffrey was skeptical. 'You were going to get a tattoo?'

She gave what she hoped was a sly smile.

'Why didn't you?'

Sara turned in her seat so she could look at him.

'You can't get them wet for a while. We were going to the beach the next day.'

'What were you going to get?'

'Oh, I don't remember,' she told him, though she did.

'Where were you going to get it?'

She shrugged.

'Right,' he said, still disbelieving.

'What did he say?' Sara asked. 'Hal?'

Jeffrey held her gaze a few beats before answering.

'That he doesn't do tattoos on kids under twenty-two unless he talks to their parents first.'

'That's smart,' Sara said, thinking Hal must have done this to stop the flood of angry phone calls from parents who sent their kids to school for an education, not a permanent tattoo.

Sara suppressed another yawn. The motion of the car could easily lull her to sleep.

'There could still be a connection,' Jeffrey said, but he did not sound hopeful. 'Andy has the piercing.

Schaffer has a tattoo. They could've gotten it done together. There are three thousand tattoo parlors between here and Savannah.'

'What did his parents say?'

'It was kind of hard to ask directly. They didn't seem to know anything about it.'

'That's not the thing a kid would normally ask permission for.'

'I guess not,' he agreed. 'If Andy Rosen were still alive, he would be my number-one suspect for Schaffer.

The kid was obviously obsessed with her.' His face took on a sour expression. 'I hope to God you never have to see that drawing.'

'Are you sure they didn't know each other?'

'Her friends are positive,' Jeffrey said. 'According to everyone at the dorm, Schaffer was used to guys having unrequited crushes on her. Happened all the time, and she never even noticed them. I talked to the art teacher.

Even he noticed it. Andy mooned over Ellen, and she had no idea who he was.'

'She was an attractive girl.' Sara could not remember much prior to Tessa's stabbing, but Ellen Schaffer was beautiful enough to leave an impression.

'Could be a jealous rival,' Jeffrey said, though he did not have much conviction in his tone. 'Maybe some kid had a crush on Schaffer and took out Andy?' He paused, working through the theory. 'Then, when Schaffer didn't come running to the would-be suitor, he killed her, too?'