He sounded so philosophical, so detached that it worried her, until he added, “God, I miss her so much already.”
She heard the tears in his voice and felt in herself an answering emptiness. Tears brewed in her eyes, but this time she fought them back. She listened for as long as Eric wanted to talk, sometimes offering advice or encouragement, sometimes just the um-hmm of verbal agreement. Like with most who grieved, the most important thing was to allow those who suffered a loss the opportunity to talk about the one they'd lost.
After a while, he became quiet. “Thanks for letting me bend your ear like that. Roberta was a very private person. The day you two came here, I don't think she intended to let you know I was her brother except I spoiled the whole thing by calling her âsis.' But I know she wouldn't have minded me unloading on you. She spoke of you very highly.”
So Eric had known about her while she'd known nothing about him. Hearing Eric talk she'd realized how little she'd known about her friend. It occurred to her that Alex could say the same thing about herself. Was there anyone on the planet who really knew her? Roberta had come the closest.
To Eric, she said, “I'm glad I could be there for you.”
They talked for a few minutes more before hanging up, but as Alex disconnected the call she wondered if she weren't like Roberta in another way as well. Had she picked the significant men in her life because they needed fixing too? Devon's detachment had appealed to her. She knew he could never break her heart since he could never claim it either.
But what of Zachâa self-professed cynic, a man who allowed his family to think the worst of him, for what reason she couldn't fathom? Even as a young girl she'd recognized the loneliness in him. Did she want to fix him, too? And if she did, had she lost the opportunity by not confiding the truth to him before now?
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Alex was already in bed by the time he got home. One thing had led to another and another until it was nearly nine o'clock when he walked in the door. He'd called her to check on her a couple of times. Each time she'd answered, tried to assure him that she was fine, but he didn't believe that. Still, it was early for her to be in bed already. He'd witnessed Joanna's depression after her husband's death. Remembering that made him worry more for Alex. Psychologist or no, everyone had their breaking point. Had Roberta's death pushed Alex to hers?
The one thing that heartened him was that she hadn't withdrawn from him into another room. She was there in his own bed waiting for him. Without turning on the light, he slipped out of his clothes and left them in the chair by the door. He slid into bed beside her and pulled her to him. She was warm and soft, but she wasn't asleep.
She laid her cheek against his chest while her fingers stroked his shoulder. “I left some dinner for you in the microwave.”
He smiled and rubbed his hands up and down her back. Even after all she'd been through today, she still thought of him. “Maybe I'll get to it later.”
“All right.”
He heard the tentativeness in her voice and hated it. That wasn't the Alex he knew. He'd deal with that in a minute after he dealt with something more pressing. “I don't think it's safe for you to stay here any longer. I'm sure Williams knows who I am by now and it wouldn't take a genius to track you here.”
“No, it wouldn't, but that's been true since I've been here.”
“Before we weren't certain it was you he was after. I am now.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“We'll move you somewhere neutral in the morning.”
She nodded as if her own safety meant little to her. He supposed at the moment she had more on her mind than that. Although she allowed him to hold her, she shared nothing with him of her emotions, not in words or any other way. She seemed pulled up into herself, somewhere he couldn't reach. That didn't mean he wouldn't try.
He brushed her hair from her face. “Did you get to speak to Roberta's brother?”
She nodded. “He's pretty broken up. I don't know how her sister is faring.”
He wasn't aware Roberta had a sister, but he doubted questioning Alex about her would do much good. “What about you? How are you holding up?”
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I don't know.”
While he appreciated her honesty, he wished she'd elaborated or that he could come up with some words to entice her to say more. One more reminder of how little he knew her. He hugged her to him, hoping the tenderness of his embrace communicated to her that he was there for her if she wanted him.
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She had been here all along. There was a certain irony in that. Here within his grasp, and he hadn't known it. She had always been a crafty old bat, his grandmother. Like daughter, like mother, she'd found herself a new identity behind which to hide.
But nothing hidden could remain so forever, could it? The truth always sought the light, at least that's what he'd been told. And the truth was that Vernita Williams was as guilty as her daughter in helping create the grotesquerie that he was. And she would pay just as dearly.
She'd fled from him that day, the day he'd finally had enough. The day he realized Messy Nessy had stopped bringing home men for herself. The ones who came now were meant only for him. She took the money and they took him. In a rage he'd taken a knife to her while she slept. He'd been in such a rage that he hadn't noticed until the haze cleared from his eyes that he'd sliced off her breast, her right breast. He'd laughed then, because he'd given her her wish. Too bad she was too dead to enjoy it.
It wasn't hard convincing the hick cops that she'd run off with some man. She was already known as the town whore in every town they'd ever been to. All he had to do was hide the body, clean up, and get The Mirror to keep his mouth shut. He'd told him, “I'll sew up your mouth like she sews up those dresses.” That had been all that was needed to gain his silence.
He'd wanted to kill her then. That's why he'd run away. He wanted to deal a death blow against everyone who'd made him what he was. That's what he required to start over. Even at ten years old he understood that. He had to kill what he was to become something new.
But he had her now. He'd seen not her but her house on the news. She had to know he would come. Would she be ready for him?
He walked down her blockâtrim attached houses with multicolored awnings. All except hers. Hers was the solitary eyesore, sans decoration of any kind, save for a falling-down fence and a screen door that hung off to the side. She'd never been able to keep anything worth a damn. Everything she owned she ruined, including her own family.
He continued down the block, past the police car parked in front, and rounded the corner. A drive ran the length of the length of the block by which home owners could pull into their own garages. There was no police car here, no one minding the store. It was a mistake.
He hopped the waist-high fence and climbed down into the yard at the corner. Nearby a dog barked, and he froze, but the mutt stopped yapping soon enough. From where he crouched now her house was the seventh from the corner. He inched along until he reached that yard, soundlessly slid over the rusty fence, and crept up to the house. He flattened himself against the back wall, momentarily looking up at the sky. The moon was low, full, and seemed to be winking at him. It seemed to whisper to him, “Go for it.” What kind of warped lunar presence was that?
He'd come prepared tonight. He'd tucked a cord into his pocket, but he also carried a bowie knife disguised in the length of his pants. Choices again, but of the two of them he preferred the cord. Anyone could wield a knife, especially against an old lady. That took no skill and little strength. He enjoyed the challenge of the jerking body trying to free itself, knowing it was only his power and control that kept the ligature in place. He reveled in the slow lingering death, first the weakness, then the surrender, then nothing. Nothing was worth doing if you weren't willing to take your time about it.
He didn't expect the back door to withstand too much tampering. One butt with his shoulder and it eased open. Inside was pure darkness, but he shut the door behind him, softly, with as little click as possible. He pulled out his flashlight and turned it on, covering the muzzle so that it wouldn't shed too much light. He made it to the stairs through a maze of dilapidated boxes and other contraptions; all of it valueless and ill cared for.
The stairs curved at the base and also at the top, leading to a flimsy wooden door that she hadn't bothered to lock. He eased the door open, but he wasn't worried about her spotting him yet. He knew where he'd find her, passed out or still drinking in a chair in the living room. Dull voices and a flickering light told him which way to go.
He edged along the wall until the archway that opened out into a front room. He peered around the corner to find her propped up in an old recliner, her feet up. A small lamp with a dim bulb and a bottle of whiskey rested on a small oval-shaped table beside her. Her hands were folded over her mound of a belly. Her eyes were closed and a strangled sort of snore emanated from her.
For a moment he contemplated killing her right then, before she knew what was on her. But that would kill his purpose as well. He wanted her to know it was him. He stepped more fully into the room, and she stirred, opening her eyes half-mast to peer at him.
“Walter?” she said, confusion written on her face. She'd always called them by the names they'd adopted when they were little older than babies. She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. But when she looked at him again, she knew. Her blue eyes bulged with realization, shock, but mostly fear.
He smiled, showing just an edge of his teeth. “Hello, Nana,” he said.
Her eyes darted around the room, perhaps searching for some weapon to use against him. Finding nothing but her whiskey bottle, which she wouldn't part with unless she had to, she sat back, a look of steel in her eyes. Like a cornered rat, she turned on him. “What are you doing in here, boy? Don't you know those boys outside are looking for you?”
He understood her implication. All she'd have to do was scream and the cops outside would come in. But he knew she wouldn't do that. Nana was a Bronx girl; she'd fight her own battles.
“I came to see you, Nana.” One last time. He'd needed to see her. He remembered her as a looming presence, but in reality she was a gnome of a woman. Nothing. Yet she'd been as terrifying to him as any ghoul unleashed from hell.
To think he owed his existence to her. First she'd pimped her daughter to whatever men would pay. Then she'd refused to pay for the abortion that would have killed them. For that alone she deserved to die.
“Well?” she demanded. “What do you want?”
She tried for bravado, but the fear was still in her eyes, fear he'd put there. He grasped the stiletto hidden in his sleeve and took a step toward her. “I just wanted to say good-bye.”
Twenty-five
Zach woke in the early morning to the sound of his cell phone ringing. He retrieved it from where he'd left it, on the nightstand next to his gun, and connected the call without bothering to check the caller ID. Whatever had prompted the call was most likely urgent and not good besides. “Stone.”
“Bad news,” Smitty said without bothering to identify himself. “About an hour ago the boys outside Vernita Williams's house noticed the light was still on in her living room. Even an old lady's got to go to bed sometime. So one of the guys goes in to check on her. She was dead and Williams was nowhere to be found.”
Zach ground his teeth together and muttered some words he was glad Alex wasn't awake to hear. He knew she could handle a little profanity, but he'd hoped to give her a little more time to adjust before the next wave of whatever Williams had planned rose to the surface. Anyone with half a brain could see that revenge was as much a part of Williams's plan as anything else. Even though he apparently killed his brother himself, Walter Thorpe's death had been the catalyst for the rest of it. McKay had brought Alex into it and Williams had made sure she stayed in it. By leaving Walter's body in his grandmother's former house, he'd initiated a police search for a woman he couldn't find.
When Williams had escaped leaving Alex mostly unharmed, Zach had been grateful, but that hadn't stopped him from wondering why Williams had done so. He knew the answer now. He planned to save Alex for last. Now that the grandmother was gone, hers was the only name on the list. That knowledge scared him shitless, considering how Williams had murdered Roberta, someone he ostensibly cared about. Or at least he'd been a good enough con to convince Roberta of that.
When he'd finally managed to get Alex talking last night, he'd remarked on that to her. She'd told him to look at Williams's paintingsânot the sun-filled landscapes he made his living from, but the othersâstark, horror-filled vignettes. To Williams, the world was full of horror. If he'd cared for Roberta in his own warped way, he probably thought he was doing her a favor.
“You still there, buddy?”
Zach wiped his hand down his face, trying to banish the remnants of sleep. “I'm here.” His mind turned to focus on Vernita Williams. After he'd left her, Craig had tried to convince her to leave her home in the interest of her own safety. She'd refused, threatening to raise a stink about police brutality if they took her against her will. Zach hadn't agreed with the decision to leave her where she was under surveillance, but then no one had asked him, either. She'd seemed afraid of the possibility that Williams would find her, but if she'd put up much of a struggle before Williams got her the cops outside would have noticed.
“How did it happen?”
“Knife at the base of the head.”
A nice clean kill. Hitting the cerebellum would stop all brain and bodily functions at once. There'd be no time to cry out, little blood, if any, hence the popularity of the execution-style killâthe .22 to the back of the head. The victim just fell over dead.
Zach rubbed his temples with his thumb and middle fingers. He'd say this for Williams, the guy was crafty, knowledgeable, and bold. Fearless, in a way only those with nothing left to lose can be. He suspected Williams did have one fearâbeing stopped before he finished.
“Any leads on where he might be now?”
“None. Ever since we got into his house we've been running down every contact in the place. There haven't been any hits on the credit card, but we weren't expecting any. He cleaned out one of his bank accounts a couple of days ago. For all we know, he's shacked up with some woman somewhere again.”
Great, so he had enough cash and resourcefulness to disappear for a while, if that's what he wanted, though Zach didn't think he did. He'd struck within hours of his grandmother's location making it onto the news. He, like the rest of them, wanted this over.
Alex started to stir, stretching and making purring noises. For the first time that morning, he smiled. “I gotta go,” he told Smitty. “I'll call you back in a little bit.”
Smitty chuckled. “Try not to enjoy yourself too much.”
Zach disconnected the call, but it wasn't pleasure of any kind he had on his mind. He needed to tell Alex about Williams's grandmother. He didn't know how she'd take that news, but it wouldn't please her, either. He needed to make arrangements to move her. For now, he'd take her to his brother Adam's house, which was at least one more step removed from the investigation. After that, he'd see.
Alex opened her eyes, a contented smile on her face. That smile eased away until a look of wariness replaced it. “What happened?”
Zach swallowed. How could she read him so well when half the time he had no idea what she was thinking? “Williams paid a visit to his grandmother last night. She's dead now.”
Alex sighed. “Damn. What now?”
He noticed she didn't ask any of her usual questionsâhow, where? Maybe it didn't matter anymore or maybe she was on overload, as he'd suspected last night. If she was, he knew he'd had a hand in getting her there. Forcing her to reveal what she had about her father coupled with his own response to her revelation undoubtedly contributed to her mental state. He wished now that he hadn't pushed her so hard, but he was glad for the information. It slid a large piece of the puzzle that was Alex Waters into place.
“I'm taking you to my brother Adam's house for now. We'll see after that.”
She didn't object, though in the past she'd balked at going anywhere that might involve others. “I guess I'd better get dressed, then,” she said.
She started to rise, but he pulled her back down. He stroked her hair from her face. “Sweetheart, understand something, I'm not going to let him get to you. We'll find him. It's not like when we were looking for Thorpe. It was like searching for a ghost since that's basically what he was. Live humans leave trails. And Williams's picture is out there, both as a man and a woman. Someone will spot him and turn him in.”
Even to his own ears that sounded like an oversell job, but he couldn't seem to stop talking. “The best minds in the NYPD are on this.”
She bit her lip, looking up at him with an expression he couldn't fathom. “I know. I'm just weary of all this, I guess. Weary and heartsick over Roberta. All this death, and for what? One man's perverted sense of justice. Whatever happened to him as a child may well have been horrific. I don't doubt that. As a psychologist, I can explain all of his actions. But as a human being it just sickens me. The fact that I'm his next target doesn't even factor into it that way. At this point, I'm too numb to be scared.”
He hugged her to him. That was okay. He was scared enough for both of them. He didn't doubt his ability to protect her, but that didn't mean either of them would come out of an encounter with Williams unscathed, if not physically, then emotionally. Undoubtedly, Williams saw his brother's attempts to confide in Alex as the catalyst that got this ball rolling. It was their friendship that put Roberta in his path. Zach wondered if Alex took any of that blame on herself, but he was afraid to ask her that. He suspected she did, knowing how she'd blamed herself for her father's actions when she knew she shouldn't.
This he knew without a shrink having to tell him: Voicing something out loud made it real, made it something to reckon with. On the off chance she wasn't blaming herself, he wouldn't give her a new area of concern on which to focus. Still, however this played out, she'd be affected by the outcome. He wanted to minimize that as much as possible.
He smacked her bottom. “It's time to get up, woman,” he said in a manner that suggested that the fact they were still in bed was her fault.
She smacked his shoulder. “Didn't I say that?”
Hearing the humor in her voice heartened him. “Come on.” He swatted her butt. “Let's go.”
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Alex knew Zach hadn't bothered to inform his brother they were on the way the minute Barbara Stone answered the door.
“Zach, what are you doing here?” she asked. She ushered them in the door before closing it behind them.
“I was hoping to speak to your husband. Is he still here?”
“Barely. Another ten minutes and you would have missed him.”
Stevie came bounding into the room and threw herself at Zach. “Uncle Zach, I missed you,” she said as if she hadn't seen him in two years rather than a couple of days.
“Hey, munchkin,” Zach said.
Alex braced herself as Stevie turned her attention her way. “Alex.”
The embrace wasn't as fierce as Alex had expected, thankfully. “Hi, Stevie.”
Barbara frowned. “Stevie, stop smushing people and let your father know his brother is here.”
“I'm already aware of that.”
Alex focused on Adam Stone coming down the stairs. Like Zach, he was a handsome man, though their coloring differed. Both Adam's eyes and hair were black. There was also a harshness to his features, lacking from both his brothers'. Or maybe it was the gravity of events in his life that was mirrored in his face.
Adam stopped beside his wife, placing an arm around her waist. “We're all on our way out the door.”
In other words, whatever they wanted needed to be worth his time. Adam might be Zach's brother, but she had yet to decide whether she liked him or not. That kind of attitude wasn't helpful.
“It'll only take a minute.”
Adam made a move that might have passed for a shrug. He led the way toward his study. Once they were all seated, Adam said, “What's going on?”
Alex would love to know that as well, since Zach hadn't been very forthcoming on the subject himself. She'd heard him speaking on the phone to someone while she was in the bathroom fixing her hair, but she couldn't make out what was said. When she asked him about it, he'd told her he'd tell her later. That had not been helpful, either.
Zach shifted in his seat. “I'm doing what I should have done in the first place. I'm getting Alex out of here. A friend of mine has a house out on Long Island that he'll let us use for a bit.”
Zach glanced at her, she supposed to gauge her reaction. Why couldn't he have told her that? She had no objection to getting the hell out of Dodge, except for the fact that it didn't make tactical sense. If Williams wanted to find her, wouldn't he look for her elsewhere if she wasn't at Zach's?
Adam nodded his approval. “What do you need from me?”
“I want you to know where we are and the loan of a car. I spoke to Craig this morning. Two decoys will be picking up mine and going back to the house. If Williams acts with his usual urgency, he should make a move tonight.”
“No problem. I can have Barbara drop me at work.” He stood. “I'm sorry to have been so gruff before. I've got a lot on my mind.”
Alex didn't doubt that. But she did notice the warmth with which Adam hugged her good-bye and wished them luck.
When Adam left to help get his brood out the door, Alex turned to Zach. “Why couldn't you tell me what your plans were?”
Zach turned to her. “It's not that I couldn't ...”
But he hadn't wanted to. “You thought I'd object.”
“There was the possibility.”
And by getting her out of the house he eliminated the possibility that she'd turn stubborn and refuse to leave. In a way she couldn't blame him. They'd tried to get Vernita Williams to accept protective custody and now she was dead. Alex might be stubborn, but she wasn't crazy.
“You shouldn't have worried. What's the plan now?”
“Once the undercovers get here, they'll take my car back to my place. We'll head to the Island in Adam's car.”
That sounded simple enough. They stayed out of the way while the others brought Williams down. It would have been simple if she didn't sense in Zach a desire to be the one to catch him himself. She didn't know if that was due to his cop's ego or to some macho protective thing, but she acknowledged either feeling as valid. Why shouldn't he want a hand in bringing Williams down? Half the cops in the city were champing at the bit for that opportunity.
Even so, she wouldn't mind some time alone with Zach, however long it lasted. She'd be deluding herself if she didn't acknowledge she'd fallen in love with him again, that is, if she'd ever really stopped. But she wasn't foolish enough to convince herself that a bit of passion and a few hasty promises constituted a future for them. Not a second time.
She had no doubt Zach wanted her physically and she didn't question his desire to protect her. But she'd seen the look in his eyes when she told him about her father. He'd tried to explain that away, but she wasn't sure she bought it. He'd been hurt to realize how Sammy had manipulated him, and worse, that she'd been a party to it. He said he wasn't angry with her, but she wasn't sure she could believe that, either. Or maybe the situation they found themselves in was so far from normal it was impossible to gauge what felt right. Maybe a couple of days alone would provide a little perspective.