“Dr. Knudson?”
She smiled tightly. “Yes.”
“Maybe there’s someone else on staff I could speak to?” she asked, but the woman shook her shaggy gray hair.
“It’s Saturday. I’m sorry,” she stated flatly in a tone that suggested she wasn’t in the least. “Dr. Knudson is the one you should talk to.”
Realizing she wasn’t going to get any information by going through the correct channels, Liv thanked her and turned away. She didn’t want to draw too much attention by being a nuisance. She was just going to have to wait.
She returned outside and felt a rush of relief at the sight of the Jeep. Letting herself in through the passenger door, she slammed it shut. The interior still smelled like sausage and hash browns from their breakfast on the go. It took her a moment to realize how tense Auggie was.
“Thanks for waiting,” she said. Then, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. What happened? Something happened?” She looked around the car wildly, her gaze falling onto the glove box. Without any clear thought she pressed the button and it snapped open, the wires of an electric charger popping up.
“Don’t—panic,” he warned.
“What is this?” Her brain wasn’t connecting. “You had the glove-box key?”
“It . . . was under the mat.”
He was staring at her, and she realized he was expecting her to say something else. And then she finally woke up. “That’s your cell charger. It was in the car all this time?”
For an answer he pulled his phone from his pocket. “I plugged it in while you were inside,” he confessed.
“And made a call?”
“You didn’t give me enough time.”
“I don’t believe you. Hand it to me.”
“It doesn’t have enough power. I had to rip it out of the charger when you came back.” He placed the phone in her hand, and she stared at it, wishing she knew one damn thing about cell phones. She pushed the green button and nothing happened.
“You have to hold down the red button to turn it on, but it’s not going to work until it gets some power,” he said.
“You were going to turn me in.” She felt betrayed. Ridiculous, but true. She sank back against the seat and covered her face in her hands, struggling for composure.
“No, I want to help you,” he said again.
“If I had any energy left, I’d laugh,” she said behind the protection of her hands. She was moving to a strange psychological place, she realized distantly, the place where you just give up completely.
“I think there’s something there,” he insisted again. “With the package the lawyers sent you from your mother.”
“Why would you help me?”
“Because you need it.”
He sounded sincere and she dropped her hands to look at him through eyes that were watering. She wasn’t crying, exactly. She was just . . . done.
He reached over and caught a bit of the liquid that fell from the corner of one eye. “I’m kind of a sucker for women in need,” he admitted. “Just ask my last ex-girlfriend. It was on the top of her list of complaints. Well, at least number three or four. She also said I was uncaring, uncommunicative and dog shit, not necessarily in that order.”
“Don’t be cute. I can’t stand cute.”
“One thing I’m not . . . is cute.”
His blue eyes regarded her with warmth. Kindness, even. In another time, she might have argued that fact. He was a hell of an attractive guy and she was pretty sure he knew it.
“I thought it was an ex-wife,” she said.
“That,” he admitted, “was a lie.”
The starch just went out of her. Surrender. Capitulation. The aftermath of too much adrenaline. Whatever the case she felt her body start shaking as if she had the palsy and her watering eyes flooded in a rush of tears she found embarrassing.
“Hey . . .”
“Shut up,” she said through a thick throat. “I mean it.”
Silence fell between them. Fighting emotion, she lowered her gaze, focusing on his cowboy boots. “Go ahead and call the police. Charge your phone and call them.”
He didn’t answer, just started up the Jeep.
“Where are we going?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not turning you in,” he said, on a long-suffering sigh. “We’re going back to my house. Then, we’re going to take it from the top. Figure out what to do. We’ll start with what happened at Zuma. That’s where it all began. That’s why you and I are together now.”
The mood around the station was tense, and Lieutenant D’Annibal had actually said, “Damn,” which was way outside his usual vocabulary. He was the face of the authorities and looked good on camera, and he was as careful off camera as on.
It was a testament to his own anxiety when he used the word, and he used it when September questioned him, a bit tensely, about her brother.
“I just got a text from him,” the lieutenant told her and Gretchen after September asked to speak to him and Gretchen followed her quickly inside his office, as if she’d been invited. “He’s been with Olivia Dugan since about five o’ clock last night.”
“With?” September asked. “What does that mean?”
Gretchen said, “So, she wasn’t involved with the Martin murder?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” D’Annibal said.
“Well, where are they?” September demanded. “Why doesn’t Auggie bring her in for questioning? What’s the big secret?”
“What does he think about the Martin shooting?” Gretchen asked.
“I don’t know if he knows.” D’Annibal was crisp. “I told Channel Seven I’d give them an update. Maybe he’ll see it on the news.”
“Update.” Gretchen snorted. As if she were reporting, she said, “Person or persons unknown shot him in the residential parking lot of Zuma Software’s employee, Olivia Dugan, missing since yesterday’s massacre.”
“Have you tried calling him?” September asked the lieutenant. “’Cause he’s not picking up for me.”
“He’s not picking up for me, either,” D’ Annibal admitted. “For the moment, I’m going to trust he knows what he’s doing. Dugan apparently went straight to her apartment after she fled the homicide scene. Then she grabbed up some belongings and headed out on foot. Rafferty picked up her trail at that point. He was in his Jeep, and he caught sight of her and called it in. He was going to keep with her.”
“Well, that was yesterday.” September couldn’t stem the irritation in her voice. “And then he texted you today? You sure it’s him, and not her with the phone?”
“You think she took Detective Rafferty’s phone off him, found my cell number, and texted me an
alibi
for herself for last night’s murder?” The lieutenant gazed at her calmly and September felt her face heat up as she heard how improbable that sounded.
“From what we know of Olivia Dugan, that’s not likely,” she admitted.
“From what we know of your brother, it’s quadruple unlikely,” Gretchen said. “He doesn’t let women get the upper hand on him.”
You don’t know him as well as you think you do
, September thought, but she’d said enough already.
She and Gretchen were dismissed from D’Annibal’s office and September said, “Where were you last night?”
Gretchen made a sound of disgust. “On a date. With a man with grabby hands. Slid ’em over my ass about ten times while we were waiting for a table. So, I ordered the most expensive things on the menu and stuck him for a huge bill. He liked the idea of taking out a cop, but got pretty nasty when he realized the night was ending at my front door. Told him I’d arrest him for sexual harassment if he didn’t let up. He believed me and left.” She made a face. “Turned my phone off. Sorry. Would’ve rather been with you. So, the girlfriend blamed Olivia Dugan?”
September had given her the highlights before they walked into D’Annibal’s office, and now she gave her a more complete report. Gretchen listened closely, then nodded a couple of times.
“All right, let’s go see Kurt Upjohn and the ex, if she’s still at the hospital.”
“Camille. What about Maltona’s boyfriend . . . um . . . Jason?”
“Jason Jaffe.” She humphed her annoyance. “Slippery bastard. Yeah, I’m gonna track him down after the hospital. When’s the interview with Channel Seven?” September shrugged and Gretchen said, “Probably soon. They’ll put it on like a teaser. D’Annibal looks good on camera and so does the viper.”
“Pauline Kirby? Wes called her a barracuda.”
Gretchen smiled thinly. “You’re bound to have a ‘moment’ with her sooner or later. You’ll find your own adjectives.”
Liv watched the landscape flash by outside the window. “Actually, this started long before Zuma,” she said to Auggie, picking up the conversation where it had dropped off. They were almost back at his place.
He shot her a look. “You’re thinking it started with your mother. Her death. Or, maybe something to do with the things she sent you?”
“Her death . . . And there were other deaths at the same time of my mother’s supposed suicide.”
“Supposed,” he repeated.
“The official version is she hanged herself, but I’ve never been able to make myself believe that. There was a serial killer, just outside of Rock Springs. Twenty years ago. He strangled them, and left their bodies in fields. And I think it’s connected to my mom’s death.”
“You think he’s responsible.”
“It’s a theory.”
He asked, feeling his way, “You lived in Rock Springs at the time of the killings?”
“Strangulations. Yes.”
He thought in silence for a few moments, then said, “I remember some about that case. They never got the guy, and the killings seemed to stop.”
“The theory is that he’s either dead or in prison for something else.”
“You don’t believe that,” Auggie guessed.
“No. I don’t. Like I don’t believe it was suicide. Mama’s death. I always thought it was . . .”
A long pause fell between them, and then Auggie said quietly, “The bogeyman.”
“The bogeyman,” Liv repeated.
The old hag put me in a rage today.
She asked about the truck.
It is hidden away, but I couldn’t think up an answer and I felt the need rise in me, hot and hard. My hands clenched. Did she know?
Does
she know?
I could feel the worms inside my brain, feeding on me. I’m getting sicker, that’s what the doctors will say.
Sicker and sicker.
I just need to be careful. And keep with the plan.
The bitch may have to be killed, too. It would be a pleasure.
But first Olivia.
Liv . . .
I’m coming for you.
I will throw you down and shove deep into you, my thumbs at your throat.
And you will scream.
Chapter 11
Laurelton General Hospital sat on a hillside, its north side sporting two more levels than its south. The main entrance and emergency were on level three, which was street level except for the north end where the slope added two levels beneath it. September and Gretchen walked toward the main front doors together. The outer glass doors slid back to allow entry and started closing behind them while the inside set whispered open.
A middle-aged woman sat at a semicircular desk. She looked up at the two women and September could practically read her thought: Cops. Maybe it was the way they walked, she thought. Shoulder-to-shoulder. Determined. No emotion visible. Maybe it was something more indefinable.
“May I help you?” she asked. Her hair was short, dyed dark and thinning.
Gretchen took the lead, explaining who they were and what they wanted. Both Kurt Upjohn and Jessica Maltona had been whisked into surgery at Laurelton General; Upjohn for two bullets through the abdomen, Maltona for a shot to the chest that, surprisingly, hadn’t killed her outright. Both were stabilized and had brief moments of lucidity, though the jury was still out on their long-term prognosis. No one was saying anything but September sensed it boiled down to two words: “not good.”
“Dr. Denby’s on rounds,” the receptionist told them, as she pushed a button on her phone. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”
With extreme patience, Gretchen said, “He’s expecting us. Which room is Mr. Upjohn’s? We’ll meet him there.”
“North wing,” she answered sourly. “Fourth floor.”
Gretchen gave her a cold smile of thanks. Knowing she was bound to get in trouble for it, September pointed out, “You set out to piss people off.”
“Not consciously.”
“Consciously,” she argued.
Gretchen slid her a look. “I’ve been the only woman on this team until you, Nine. I’ve developed a style that works. Watch and learn.”
September didn’t respond. She’d been watching and she’d been learning, and she knew that Gretchen pissed people off, coworkers and witnesses and perps and victims alike.
Dr. Denby met them at the fourth-floor elevator. He was a short, slight man with a pencil-thin, blond beard that traced the length of his jawline and made his head look a little too large for his body. His brown eyes were stern and when they locked onto Gretchen’s blue cat-eyes, they grew sterner.
September suspected Gretchen was about to piss him off as well and braced herself.
“Dr. Denby?” a woman’s voice asked, before a word was spoken. All three of them turned to the nurse approaching in the pink uniform.
“Yes,” Denby snapped out.
The nurse gave Gretchen and September a harried look. “Four-twenty-seven. Mr. Upjohn? You said to tell you when he woke up?”
“Good timing,” Gretchen said, and Denby simply brushed past the nurse and strode with short, fast, irritated steps to Upjohn’s room, with September and Gretchen following behind. At the door to the room, Denby blocked their entrance. “Wait here,” he commanded, before going the rest of the way inside.
“Prick,” Gretchen said. She waited about a minute and then walked in the room anyway. September slipped in behind her—
watch and learn
—and caught the fulminating look on Denby’s face, but mimicked Gretchen, who’d already turned her attention to the patient. Denby bit back whatever he’d planned to say, though it was hard for him.
Kurt Upjohn looked at them through bleary eyes. His skin was sallow and his hair stuck out from his head. The blankets covered everything but a hint of bandage by his neck. If she hadn’t known about the surgery, September might think the man had been on a bender. She’d seen his corporate image picture: big smile, smoothed bald head, something was a little feral about his smile. Now, he just looked fragile.
“Mr. Upjohn, these women are from the Laurelton police,” Denby said tightly. “They would like to have a few words with you. If it’s too much of an effort, we can postpone it.”
Gretchen said, “These women are Detectives Sandler and Rafferty.”
Denby blinked, a bit shocked at Gretchen’s open hostility. September guessed not many people took him on, certainly not many women.
Upjohn’s tongue rimmed dry lips, then he croaked out, “Ask away.”
“The big question on everyone’s mind is why Zuma?” Gretchen began without preamble. “Why did this guy attack your company?”
“Don’t know.” With a pained twist of his lips, he rasped, “My son . . . is dead?”
Denby cut in, “Your wife was here. Do you remember?”
“Um . . . Camille, yes . . . she told me.”
“Can you think of one reason . . . any reason . . . for this to happen?” Gretchen persisted. “Sour business dealings? Anything personal?”
“No . . . Are they . . . is the second floor still working? The gamers?” he clarified.
“The business is shut down,” Gretchen said.
“Where’s Berelli? What happened to Berelli?” His eyes rolled around as if loose in his skull.
“He’s fine. We’ve spoken with Mr. Berelli,” Gretchen assured him.
“I want to see him.” He focused on the doctor. “I want to see him.”
“Mr. Berelli . . .” Denby repeated, nodding.
Gretchen intervened, “I can contact Mr. Berelli and tell him you wish to see him.”
“I want to see Phillip today,” Upjohn said. His voice was fading out and he cleared his throat with an effort.
Denby said, “It’s time to leave.”
“I have a few more questions.”
The doctor practically stepped on Gretchen, who stood her ground for a moment, but Upjohn’s eyes had closed and Denby didn’t look like he would be put off. She finally acceded, and September and Denby followed her into the hallway.
“Is Camille Dirkus still here?”
“I don’t know. His wife was here this morning.”
“She’s not his wife,” September said.
“Ex-wife.” He looked irked that she’d corrected him.
September wondered if they would get anything further from the officious doctor, but Gretchen wasn’t intimidated.
“What about Jessica Maltona?” she asked Denby.
“I’m not responsible for her. She’s under Dr. Egan’s care.” He seemed delighted to be able to throw that out.
Gretchen didn’t hesitate. She dropped Denby cold and strode to the fourth-floor nurse’s station, asking for Jessica Maltona’s room number. Denby was torn between the desire to charge after her and get in her way some more, or turn on his heel in a show of pique and disgust.
He chose the latter, practically clicking his heels as he stalked down the hall in the opposite direction.
“Dr. Egan is Ms. Maltona’s doctor,” the nurse at the station said.
Gretchen showed her badge. “I need to talk to her. Just tell me which room.”
The woman bristled, but another, older nurse dropped the file she was perusing and came to the first one’s rescue. “That’s for Dr. Egan to decide.”
“Then find him.” Gretchen stared at her and she stared back. After a moment, she picked up the receiver, practically shoving the younger nurse aside, and punched in a number. “Please call the fourth-floor nurse’s station,” she clipped out.
“There’s a policewoman insisting on seeing Ms. Maltona.” She hung up and said, “It’ll just be a moment. . . .”
A moment turned into five minutes and Gretchen said, “You can turn this into a war, or you can work with me. Either way I’m going to see Ms. Maltona.”
The younger nurse was gazing at Gretchen with a sort of fear mixed with awe. “Dr. Egan usually answers his page fairly quickly.”
The older nurse flashed her a look of fury, as if she’d given away state secrets. Gretchen simply nodded and turned her back on them.
A few minutes later a good-looking doctor with dark hair and eyes came their way, his lab coat billowing behind him. He had a smile on his face and he looked at Gretchen, then September, then back to Gretchen. “You wish to speak to my patient, Ms. Maltona?”
“That’s the plan.” Gretchen’s eyes narrowed as she sized him up. He appeared more genial than Denby and she was feeling her way.
“She’s in room 505. We’ll take the elevator.” He’d already turned toward the bank of elevators, which was a short walk further down the corridor. “I’m not sure what good this’ll do you. She’s surfaced once or twice since yesterday’s surgery, but she hasn’t completely come back to consciousness.” He gave them a considering look as they crowded into the elevator car. “The bullet did extensive damage to her heart. You understand she may not recover.”
September’s stomach did a slow somersault. She swallowed and nodded as Gretchen said soberly, “We understand. We just want to see her.”
The elevator
dinged
and the doors opened and Dr. Egan led them down a hall and around a corner to Jessica Maltona’s room. She lay white-faced against the white pillowcase, barely a shade’s difference between her flesh and the pillow. A bandage wrapped around her chest was visible as the gown gapped in the front. Her eyes stayed closed and her breathing seemed low and faint.
She’s not going to make it,
September thought.
They only stayed a few minutes then headed back to floor three, street level and out to Gretchen’s Jeep. Once inside, September asked, “What do you think?”
“I got nothing. Upjohn’s sad about his son and worried about his company. He wants to talk to his accountant, and maybe there’s some book-cooking, or something, but he didn’t act like a man who felt real danger.”
“He doesn’t think whoever did it is going to strike at him again, while he’s laid up in the hospital,” September clarified.
“That’s my hit. What about you?”
“I don’t know. If Camille Dirkus doesn’t call me back soon, I’m going to have to track her down.”
Gretchen made sounds of annoyance low in her throat.
“What did you think about Jessica Maltona?”
Gretchen sent her a sideways look as she drove out of the lot. “What did you think?”
“Doesn’t look good.”
“If the shooting had anything to do with her, she’s paying a heavy price. Maybe her squirrelly boyfriend got her into something. I don’t know.”
“Could the boyfriend have done this, do you think?”
“My opinion? Not a chance. Jaffe’s hiding something, though. I don’t know what yet. I’ll figure it out, but it doesn’t feel like it’s germane to the killings. We’ll see.”
“So who does that leave?” September asked.
“I don’t know. De Fore? One of the gamers? Olivia Dugan?”
“Auggie’s with her.” September felt that same faint touch of betrayal that her brother hadn’t contacted her. “And what about Trask Martin?”
“Somebody killed him right outside her door.” Gretchen considered that. “I don’t believe in coincidence, do you?”
“No,” September said.
“Then Martin’s death is related to the Zuma shootings, too. You said the girlfriend blamed his death on Dugan.”
“Jo. Yeah. But D’Annibal doesn’t believe that.”
“Only because your brother texted him that he was with Dugan,” Gretchen said. “Man, Auggie sure didn’t get any time off between the task force and this job, did he?”
“No.” September felt irrationally irked.
“Huh,” Gretchen said, “I asked D’Annibal about him, but he fobbed me off some more.”
September didn’t want to talk about Auggie. He was her twin and she sometimes felt closer to him than anyone else in the universe, but at other times he was beyond annoying. What the hell was he doing? She’d known his work with the task force was winding down. Though his cover hadn’t been blown, he’d said he needed to get out while the getting was good, and besides, he’d gathered as much intel as he could, or so he’d told her.
She knew Gretchen had hoped he would come back and partner up with her, but she’d gotten the feeling that would never happen. September suspected Gretchen had a little bit of a thing for him, but she kinda thought Gretchen wasn’t his type. As if she’d asked the question, September said aloud, “My brother tends to go for damsels in distress.”
Gretchen made a retching sound. “Sounds like Olivia Dugan’s right up his alley.”
“Yeah . . .”
Detective August Rafferty was in a quandary. He’d managed to plug in his car charger for a few minutes while Liv was inside Hathaway House and text his lieutenant, but then Liv had come out and he’d scrambled to hide the evidence, to no avail. The wires had been in plain sight.
She hadn’t said anything about it much, and he’d driven them both back to the “safe” house after filling the Jeep’s tank and now . . . what? What should he do next? He wanted to follow along the path of Liv’s zigzag investigation because this whole thing seemed to be morphing into something different than what it had first seemed. Did he think it was all about her? Not completely. But he did believe something was going on. Whether it was part of the massacre at Zuma Software, or something else entirely, he wasn’t sure. But he wasn’t truly the investigating officer on the Zuma case; D’Annibal had told him his sister and Gretchen Sandler were in charge.