Shimmer (23 page)

She could certainly understand Jerome's loathing of Sam Becket. Though it seemed, luckily, that the black Jew wasn't that much of a cop if he hadn't read Jerome his goddamned rights as soon as he'd stuck his idiot nose through his front door.

But if only her son had possessed the brains of a fucking flea,
she
wouldn't have been forced into taking her stepdaughter prisoner or assaulting a goddamned police detective, not to mention leaving her own home and flying halfway across the country.

On the run, at her time of life.

Jesus, but he had a lot to answer for.

83

Grace was in meltdown. Every last cell of her being was shrieking to be out there trying to find her son, even if meant ransacking every house or apartment or store, every warehouse or garage or hotel room in Miami – in Florida – in the whole
country
 . . .

‘They could be anywhere,' she told the men and women, uniformed and plain-clothed, who had invaded and all but taken over her house. She paced as she spoke, moving in and out of the kitchen, walking to and fro in the small hallway, her eyes wide with desperation, her voice uncharacteristically loud and shrill, because she needed them to listen to her, to understand, to be
out
there, not in here, doing nothing but standing around. ‘We need road blocks, we need—'

‘We're doing everything we can, Mrs Becket,' one of the female officers told her, a stranger in a blue trouser suit with short fair hair and pale eyes.

‘You are
not
,' Grace told her back, with venom, ‘because if you were, then my baby would be back here with me.'

More people came into the house and she raked each one with her eyes, but they did not have Joshua in their arms, which made them worse than
useless
to her. And the only useful thing anyone seemed to have done was to take poor doped Woody to an emergency veterinarian, and she felt so bad for him, but at least he was now being cared for, while her son was not, her son was with an evil man somewhere out there.

‘You have to let me go look for him,' she told them.

‘Plenty of people doing just that, ma'am,' a man told her gently.

She didn't recognize him, but he was in a blue Bay Harbor uniform, and deep down Grace knew very well that he was in no way to blame, but right then she wanted to shove him aside or even pound his kind, earnest face with her fists, to scream at him.

Except, of course, he was
not
to blame, any more than the patrol officers who had not been outside the house at precisely those moments when Jerome Cooper had put drugged meat through the doggy door. And somewhere in the recesses of her torn-up mind, she supposed that
they
were very much to blame for that, she and Sam, most
especially
Sam, because if anyone knew better . . .

She told herself to stop that.

Because there was only one person really to blame.

Why had she been so
stubborn
, insisting on being left alone? Why had she not let Saul stay with her, as he'd suggested over and over? Why had she not given in to her impulse to bring Joshua into bed with her? Why hadn't she made certain she spent every single second in the same room as her innocent boy until Sam was back and Cooper safely under arrest?

She'd convinced herself that there was no real danger, that Jerome could not possibly be the double killer, that whether he was or not, he would not come back here, where it was so obvious that he would be placed under arrest.

But Sam had figured differently. Sam – who knew more than she did about the ways that evil worked and connived – had arranged the patrol, had called his father and brother because he'd
known
there might be danger.

And she had thought she knew better.

More people came through the front door – David and Saul back again.

‘Gracie,' David said.

She collapsed into his familiar, kindly arms, weeping, then quickly pulled away again, wiped fiercely at her eyes. ‘You're sick. You shouldn't be here.' She turned on Saul. ‘You should have known better.'

‘Stop that,' David told her. ‘Is there no news?'

Grace shook her head, saw how pale Saul was, felt another pang of guilt, tossed it quickly aside for more important things. ‘They won't let me go look for him.'

‘They're right,' David said. ‘You need to be here.'

‘I need to be out there, finding our son.'

‘You need to be here,' Saul said, ‘in case Cooper calls.'

She knew that he meant for a ransom, because of what had happened the last time Jerome had come here – and for a moment, Grace felt fresh fury sear her insides at Claudia for bringing this to them.

‘He won't call,' she said, swallowing down the anger.

‘You don't know that,' David said.

‘Anyone can answer the phone,' Grace said. ‘I want to be with Joshua.'

It rang.

Everyone froze.

Grace didn't wait to be told, moved suddenly, snatched up the phone on the kitchen wall, close to the door. ‘Yes?'

‘Gracie, it's me,' Sam said. ‘I'm on the ground, coming straight home.'

‘Don't come home,' she said. ‘You need to look for Joshua.'

‘Better people than me doing that already,' he told her, sounding halfway steady, ‘and I'm going to be out there with them soon as I can, but right now I'm coming home to you.'

Grace saw and felt everyone on the first floor watching her, listening, and she turned her back on them as best she could, stepped into the corner of the kitchen closest to Joshua's playpen, wishing she could melt through the wall, escape them all, escape her own shame.

‘Sam, I'm so sorry,' she said.

‘Are you crazy?' he said. ‘What do you have to be sorry for?'

‘I let him take our son,' she said.

84

Ten minutes into Thursday, huddled below on
Baby
, Cal heard the trill of his cell phone.

He knew without looking that it was her, because no one else ever called.

He shrivelled at the thought of hearing Jewel's voice.

Yet in another way he longed to talk to her.

Pitiful.

‘Hello, Mother.'

‘What the fuck have you been doing, Jerome?' asked Roxanne Lucca.

Cal felt his blood turn to ice, because she truly
was
a witch, otherwise how would she know? And then that overwhelming need descended on him, the need for confession, the need for her
help
, because what he'd done was way too much for him, he realized that now. The thing was, he didn't know what to do next, and up until now he'd thought he mightn't care if he got caught, but that wasn't true, not at
all
, because the things he'd done were so terrible, and now he was more scared of what they'd do to him on Death Row and after than he was of Jewel and her brand of punishment.

‘Who the fuck,' she went on, ‘is stupid enough to blackmail a cop's family?'

Which meant she didn't know the half of it.

‘I need you, Mom,' he said, already quaking.

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he wasn't sure that he did need her, knowing she was poison, knowing she was the root of all his evil, but he'd said it now and there was no pulling it back, no magic rewind.

‘Tell me where you are,' she said, ‘and I'll come to you.'

‘I'm in Miami,' he told her.

‘Me too,' Roxanne said. ‘Now tell me the fuck
where
?'

She was still at the goddamned airport, waiting in line in the hot, humid night air for a cab.

Going to see her idiot son.

On the fucking run.

85

Sam was back home on the island.

Two crazed parents now under one roof.

Outside, the stars and moon had disappeared again behind the dark weight of another brewing June storm, but almost everyone in the semi-circle of their street was up and about now; startled, shocked, well-meaning people checking their back yards and garages, allowing the police to move in and out of their houses.

Sam went with Grace out on to their deck, trying not to let her realize that he was scanning the dark water out back.

‘Do you think I haven't done that fifty times already?' Grace said tightly.

They both turned, came close together, clung on for a moment, then stepped apart again.

‘If anything happens—'

‘Hush.' Sam raised two fingers, held them against her lips.

Grace stared into his eyes, waited till his hand dropped away.

‘If anything bad has happened to Joshua,' she went on – ‘worse than
this
, I won't blame you if you kill me.'

‘You fell asleep,' Sam said. ‘You thought he was OK and you fell asleep.'

‘How could I do that?' Grace asked, bewildered.

‘You woke and checked on him.' Sam knew he sounded more rational than he felt, knew he had to do this for her. ‘Like the patrol checked on the house, and he still came in.' He shook his head. ‘Shall we kill those officers too?'

‘They're not his mother.'

‘I'm his father,' Sam said. ‘I installed that damned door for the dog.' His first lost son, Sampson, came into his mind as he had many times since he'd heard Grace's first cry, and he gritted his teeth and sent him away again. ‘I'm his daddy,' he said, ‘and I wasn't here.'

‘Because of my family,' Grace said.

Sam took hold of her hands, gripped them tightly, felt how cold she was. ‘Shall we go on with this, go on punishing ourselves? Or shall we go and help get our son back home?'

‘You already lost one son.' She couldn't seem to stop.

‘Which is why I'm not going to lose another,' Sam said.

‘You trusted me with Joshua.'

His grip was tighter than ever, his eyes darker, fiercer.

‘And I always will,' he said.

86

It was almost one thirty when Roxanne reached Flamingo Marina.

Another five minutes before she found the boat.

She saw him on board, hunched down at the dock side, waiting for her.

He stood up.

‘Well blow me down,' she said. ‘Captain Cooper.'

‘Hello, Mother,' Cal said, and put out a hand to help her aboard.

‘Very gallant,' Roxanne said. ‘My son, the failed blackmailer.'

And then she slapped him, as hard as she could, across the face.

‘How do you know about that?' Cal's eyes and cheeks were stinging, but he didn't care, it was what he wanted. ‘How did you know I was in Miami?'

‘Your stepsister Claudia told me,' Roxanne said. ‘Paid me a visit to complain about you. Like that's what I needed in my miserable life.'

‘But that's part of why I was doing it,' he said. ‘For you. So you could leave the old man, come away with me.'

‘Bullshit,' Roxanne said. ‘You're almost pissing yourself now, you're so scared of me.'

‘I think,' Cal said slowly, ‘I'm more scared of me.'

Even in the dark, his mother's eyes were like knives.

‘What the fuck else have you done?'

‘You have to help me,' Cal said.

A night heron circled overhead and called.

‘I'm your mother,' Roxanne said. ‘Now tell me.'

The bird's raucous cry came again, was buried beneath a rumble of thunder.

‘Come below,' Cal said. ‘And I will.'

87

Martinez arrived at the house, his face strained with a mixture of dismay and staunch determination to keep it together.

He came out back with Sam on to the deck while Grace was upstairs, helping Saul persuade David to rest a while in Cathy's room. No rain was falling yet, but the sky flashed and flickered with an almost phosphorescent shimmer and thunder rolled around somewhere over to the east.

‘Biggest manhunt on the Beach since Cunanan,' Martinez said.

Which most law enforcement officers considered a failed manhunt because Gianni Versace's killer had committed suicide before he could be arrested. Which both Sam and Martinez felt, in their souls, Jerome Cooper was more than welcome to successfully attempt.

After they had Joshua safely back home.

Martinez had only one piece of half-good news.

‘Mildred's in Miami General.'

‘I thought you said he killed her,' Sam said.

‘Not quite.'

Sam had thought his hate quota for Jerome all maxed out.

‘What did he do to her?'

‘Stabbed her,' Martinez said. ‘On her bench sometime last evening.' He paused. ‘They don't know yet if she's going to make it.'

Sam took another moment to absorb that and to regroup.

‘So what are we doing hanging around here?' he said.

‘You have to stay here,' Martinez told him.

‘Not while my son is out there with a goddamned killer.'

‘Grace needs you, man.'

‘What Grace needs,' Sam said, ‘is for me to bring Joshua home.'

88

Cal could see that it was a lot for any mother to take in.

Even Jewel.

The fact that her son was a multiple murderer.

And now a kidnapper, too.

Of the baby son of a policeman.

‘Let me get this straight,' she said. ‘You did this for money?'

Cal saw incredulity and something else, something darker, richer, that made his insides quake.