The Next Victim (17 page)

Kali had always seen John more as the dating type than one who would settle down in a long-term relationship, but there was clearly a lot about him she hadn't known.

"Did he ever mention me?" Susan asked after a moment. The hopeful tone of her voice made Kali cringe for her.

"We didn't talk much," Kali explained. She made a mental note to ask Sabrina when she woke up.

"I take it that's a 'no.'" Susan drew a quavery breath. "I thought things were going well between us. Then last time I was there, well, we'd planned to go out. He called at the last minute to cancel. A business meeting, he said."

"That happens."

"Yes, but I...I went to the restaurant anyway. I needed dinner, right? And Jack's Bistro was someplace I knew. We'd been there before."

Kali recognized the restaurant name from John's calendar. "You and John had planned to go to Jack's Bistro?"

"Right. It was one of his favorites." Susan paused. "I saw him there. With another woman."

"When was this?" Kali asked.

"Gosh, let me think. I had a Monday meeting in Phoenix, so it would have been a week ago Tuesday."

The night Sloane Winslow had been murdered. John had canceled a hot date with Susan in order to have dinner with Sloane, a woman with whom he was at odds. It didn't make sense, but at least Kali understood now why John's appointment book had listed a dinner reservation with "S." Susan, not Sloane.

"It didn't look like a business meeting," Susan added.

"What makes you say that?"

"They looked like they knew each other pretty well, if you know what I mean. I was devastated. I left as soon as I saw him, even though I'd already been shown to a table."

"He didn't see you, then?"

"I'm sure he didn't. He was totally focused on her. Whatever they were talking about, it must have been pretty intense. Then when he never called again...well, I assumed...I almost didn't call this time." Susan paused. "I hate to seem desperate, but I liked John. A lot."

Enough to kill "the other woman" in a fit of jealousy? Kali wondered.

"For what it's worth," she told Susan, "John's dinner companion was someone he worked for."

"Really?" Susan seemed to take heart in this information. "Maybe it actually was business, then." She drew in a breath. "My condolences to you and your family. Your brother was a special guy."

"Thank you." Kali felt the loss doubly. Not only for the brother she'd known, but for the one she hadn't.

When she'd disconnected, she hit the message button. Kali knew there were no new messages, but Susan's call had made her curious about other people John might have talked to in the week or so preceding his death. She mentally chastised herself for not checking before now.

She held the PLAY button down and listened to an appointment reminder from his dentist; a short message from Sabrina; and another from a man named Wayne Clark, who sounded Australian and said only that he'd "talked to Jim, who knew nothing."

Kali had no idea who Jim was, but Wayne Clark rang a bell. She frowned, trying to remember why.

Then it came to her. The date book Graciela had returned yesterday. She found it on the counter where she'd left it and flipped back through the pages.

She'd remembered correctly. John had noted a two o'clock meeting with a W. Clark on the Monday following the murders. She checked the log of incoming calls. Clark's must have been one of the numerous "private caller" listings because his name didn't show up.

Her own name and number did. Hers had been the last call John had received before he died. Kali recalled that hurried conversation where she'd hung up on him in a huff. Her eyes filled with tears and she brushed them away. God, she was such a fool sometimes. A self-righteous ass, as Sabrina would say. She'd known John had been trying hard to reach her, yet she'd been unwilling to cut him any slack. Was she so busy telling others how to live their lives that she never looked at herself? There was time still to build her relationship with Sabrina. But she'd run out of chances with John.

She took her coffee into John's office to work on her remarks for the funeral tomorrow, pushing aside boxes she and Sabrina had packed up. She wished she had access to his computer and again tried a few possible passwords before giving up. Instead, she wrote out in longhand ideas for what she'd say.

Half an hour later, she heard Sabrina shuffling about in the kitchen, and then the sound of the doorbell. Sabrina appeared a moment later.

"We got flowers."

"Who from?"

"Bryce Keating. Isn't he the detective you've been seeing?"

Kali nodded.

"Come into the kitchen and look. They're lovely."

They
are
lovely
, Kali thought, as she looked at the bright, colorful arrangement. And thankfully not at all funereal. She recognized tulips, irises, alstroemeria, and yellow baby roses, but there were probably half a dozen other flowers she couldn't name. The note, addressed to both her and Sabrina, was short:
You are in my thoughts. Remember, I'm here for you. Love, Bryce
.

"That's so sweet," Sabrina gushed. "He must be a good man."

"Yeah, he is." In ways Kali had perhaps failed to see before.

Bryce was an attractive guy, a "stud muffin" as her friend Margot put it. Dark hair, dark eyes, a sexy smile, and a body that was lean and muscular. They'd met working a murder investigation when she'd been on special assignment with the DA's office. With an ex-wife and, as rumor had it, countless on-again-off-again girlfriends, he wasn't someone Kali had taken seriously when they'd first started going out. But somehow, without her fully realizing it, the relationship had grown. She still found him too brash at times, too hardheaded at others, and a bit of a cowboy when it came to the fine lines of law enforcement. But she'd also discovered that he could be generous and tender and kind, and that he seemed to care for her a great deal. For someone who was used to keeping her emotional distance, it was an unsettling realization.

"Guess I'd better call him," Kali said.

"Tell him thank you from me, would you?"

"Will do." Kali started to leave, then turned back. "Did John ever talk about a woman he was dating? Someone from New York named Susan Harris? She called here this morning looking for him."

"I don't know her name, but he did say he'd met someone who lived in the East. She came to town on business sometimes."

"Sounds like the same person," Kali said. "John broke a date with her in order to have dinner with Sloane the night she was killed. I wonder why."

Sabrina shrugged. "Must have been important. Or maybe Sloane insisted. She liked to call the shots."

Kali went into the bedroom and called Bryce.

"Thanks for the flowers," she said when he picked up. "And the sweet thoughts. Sabrina says thanks, too."

"How's it going?"

"It's weird. I'd go for weeks, even months, without talking to John. I rarely thought about him. Now that he's gone, I feel this incredible sadness and loss. On some level, I feel closer to him now than I ever did. It doesn't make a lot of sense."

"Makes sense to me," Bryce said. "Family has a hold on all of us, whether we like it or not."

Kali sat on the bed and leaned against the headboard. "I think I'm just now beginning to realize that."

Growing up, she'd seen her home life as a collection of individuals--a mother who'd deserted those who loved her by taking her own life, a father who'd done the same by losing himself in a bottle. John and Sabrina, she knew now, had been battling their own demons, but at the time she'd seen only that they ignored her. In recent years, though, and especially in the few days since John's death, family had taken on new meaning to her.

"When are you coming back?" Bryce asked.

"Another week probably."

"That long?" Bryce sounded disappointed.

"Sabrina's husband and kids will be arriving any minute. The funeral is tomorrow, and then we have to finish cleaning out John's house. There are also loose ends about the murders. I guess I need some answers, even if nothing comes of it with the cops."

No matter how damning the evidence--and knowing that one of the women in the photo was Olivia Perez didn't help matters--Kali couldn't see John as a cold-blooded killer. "We may never learn what really happened, but I have to try."

"I understand, but I miss you."

"I miss you, too."

Peter and the kids arrived in a flurry of boisterous energy. Kali hadn't seen any of them in over a year, and she was surprised by how much the boys had changed. Joey, at eighteen, had grown from a gawky kid into an athletic-looking young man who towered over her. Todd, fifteen, was no longer the shy little boy she remembered. His blond hair was shoulder length, his pants baggy, and the earphone jack from his iPod appeared to be permanently attached to his ear. He greeted her with a thumbs-up and a "Yo, Aunt Kali." Even Jeremy, whom she still thought of as a baby, was very much the teenager at fourteen.

Peter gave Kali a kiss on the cheek. Sabrina, she noted, didn't get much more.

"I'm sorry about John," he told Kali. "It's a rotten shame what happened. And that stuff about Sloane..." Peter shook his head sadly.

He'd aged in the last year, as well. His dark hair was noticeably grayer and thinner, the lines on his face more pronounced. He'd never been what Kali considered handsome, but there'd always been an easy, blue-blood confidence about him she'd found appealing. Now he looked like a miscast actor playing the role.

With a nod toward their boys, Sabrina shot her husband a silencing look. "How was the drive down?"

"It's not much of a drive," Peter said tersely.

Sabrina gave a martyred sigh. "I was just asking."

"And I answered."

Kali winced at the tension in those few short remarks. "I've got stuff to do in the kitchen," she said, excusing herself.

Jeremy had shoved a stack of boxes out of the way and turned the television on to a football game. All four males gravitated toward it. Sabrina shot daggers in Peter's direction, then turned and followed Kali to the kitchen.

Dinner was casual. Salad and takeout pizza, with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for dessert. A far cry from the formal, solemn affair Kali had been dreading. They shared memories of John, fond remembrances as well as irksome habits, all delivered with a mixture of tears and laughter. Then the conversation moved easily to other topics, from SATs to soccer to video games. With enough wine, the tension between Sabrina and her husband seemed to ease. Or maybe the wine Kali had drunk only made it seem that way.

After they'd finished eating, the kids commandeered the television and DVD player while the adults remained around the kitchen table talking. At one point Kali went outside for some fresh air. She was surprised when Todd followed a few minutes later, minus the iPod.

"So, you're in high school now," she said to him. "Pretty exciting."

"Yeah." It was about as unenthusiastic a response as Kali could imagine, but she realized her own comment had been pretty inane. It was the sort of meaningless banality people had thrown at her when she was Todd's age, and she'd vowed not to inflict it on future generations.

Todd dropped into the patio chair next to hers. "Is it true the cops think Uncle John killed a couple of women?"

Oh, God. How was she supposed to answer? She didn't know how much Sabrina had actually told them. "Where'd you hear that?"

"It was on the news. Did he?"

"They were investigating the possibility," she said, treading lightly.

"What do
you
think?"

There was a reason she'd never had children, Kali decided. She clearly wasn't up to the task. Todd was looking at her intently, his strong features pinched, his blue-gray eyes troubled.

"I don't know," she said finally.

"My mom refuses to talk about it. She says John never killed anyone and that's the end of it."

"She knew him better than I did."

"Why? You're his sister too. Didn't you guys get along?"

"We got along okay," Kali said. "It's just that we never...we never really connected, I guess."

Todd shifted in his chair. "I figure the cops wouldn't be saying he did it if they didn't have something to back it up."

Kali nodded. "But lots of times the police are wrong. Even when they go so far as to arrest someone. And they never arrested John."

"Still"--Todd wiped his palms on his cargo pants--"it's just so hard to believe. Uncle John was always good to me. I mean, he was good to all of us, but him and me, we really hit it off. We'd shoot skeet, hang out, talk about music and stuff. Both black sheep of the family, I guess."

Kali couldn't help smiling. "You're a black sheep?"

Todd shrugged. "I'm not a Goody Two-shoes like Joey or a baby like Jeremy. I kind of do my own thing."

Kali was sure Sabrina would dispute the goody-two-shoes label. She'd listened to her sister vent enough about all three boys to know they each presented challenges. But she hated that Todd, who clearly identified with his uncle, was now struggling with the possibility that John might be a killer.

"John was good to you and he cared about you," Kali told her nephew. "That's what you need to remember. The other stuff, well, maybe we'll be able to get some answers at some point."

"Find out if he really killed them, you mean?"

"Yeah. I guess in my heart I can't believe he did it either."

Todd kicked the sole of his shoe against the flagstone patio. "What about
his
death?"

"What about it?" Again, Kali wasn't sure how much Sabrina had told the kids. Did they know about the drugs and alcohol?

"Do you think he did it on purpose?"

"Committed suicide, you mean?" Kali shook her head. "No, I don't. It's not that the thought never crossed my mind, but there are better ways." Better ways to kill yourself. What a conversation to be having with a fifteen-year-old. There were pitfalls to parenting she never imagined.

Todd rocked in his chair, a sort of upper-body nod of agreement. "Yeah, I guess. It's just that it's pretty hard to drown in a backyard pool."