The Obsession (33 page)

“He’s on the deck, assembling a gigantic grill.”

“A grill.” Mason stepped out and said, “Whoa,” in tones of awe and delight. “Now that’s a grill.”

“It will be.”

“I’ll give you a hand.”

“You’ve never been mechanically inclined,” Naomi began, and got a stony stare.

“You don’t know everything.” Obviously primed, Mason stripped off his suit jacket, tugged off his tie, and then rolled up his sleeves.

Naomi stood in the kitchen, listening to them talk. There could be normal, she realized. There could be pockets of normal even in the middle of the awful.

She would prize it.

—

A
nd she should’ve had faith. In forty minutes, despite what she considered Mason’s dubious assistance, Xander did just as he’d promised.

He fired up the grill.

“I’m duly impressed. And it’s beautiful. Big, but beautiful.”

“It gets covered.” Xander jerked a thumb at the cover, still in its package on the table. “You use it, it cools off, you cover it. Every time.”

“Without fail,” she promised. “And the side burners will be handy, plus it has all this storage.” She opened one of the doors. “That’s a rotisserie attachment.”

“Yeah. I’ll show you how to use it when you want to.”

“Restaurant kid. I know how to attach and use a rotisserie. And I will be. Let me get the potatoes ready.”

“You scrub them off, toss them on.”

“I’ll show you a trick. If I’d known this was happening I’d have picked up some liquid smoke.”

“I’ve got some. They threw in this thank-you package. There’s some in there. Why?”

“Why—get it and see.”

What he saw was her mixing up oil, the smoke, some garlic in a bowl.

“They’re just potatoes.”

“Not when I’m done with them.” In another bowl, she mixed salt, pepper, more garlic. Then she took one of her little knives and cut wedges out of the potatoes.

“Why—” he began, but she just waved him off and put pats of butter
in the wedges, then sprinkled the salt stuff in it before fitting the piece she’d cut out back on.

“It’s a lot of trouble for—”

She made a warning sound, rubbed the potatoes with the oil mixture, used the rest of the seasoning on them, then wrapped them in foil.

“Have a little faith,” she said, and handed him the three massive spuds.

When Mason came down, they were sitting on the glider with the dog at their feet.

“That’s one beautiful bastard,” he said, studying the grill.

He sat on the deck, back against the pickets. “Do you want me to wait until later?”

“No. I’m good. I’ve had a lot of time to think it through, work it out. We all need to know all we can.”

“Okay then. We profile the unsub from late twenties to early thirties.”

“More my age,” Naomi said.

“He’d have blended on campus, we believe as a student.”

“What campus?” Xander demanded.

“You’re not caught up.”

“He was in assembly mode when I came down. I didn’t talk to him about it.”

“Okay. We now believe, strongly, the first kill was a student at Naomi’s college, in Naomi’s second year.”

He filled in the blanks quickly.

“I didn’t get to all your notes, Naomi, but I did read the ones on that time period. You were part of a photography club, casually dating one of the other members. You were still living on campus, and you worked at a place called Café Café—coffeehouse, casual dining. You paid extra to have a single room—no roomie—in your dorm.”

“I learned the first year I couldn’t handle a roommate. They wanted to party when I wanted to work, and I still had nightmares off and on. I could put in extra hours at the café and pay the extra.”

“And the night Eliza Anderson was killed you got off about nine.”

“It was a Friday night—I looked it up, and I remembered. Most Fridays I got off at nine, walked back to my dorm, put in a couple hours on assignments or study. Even if the weather was bad, it was only about a ten-minute walk, on campus. But Justin came by right before I got off—the guy I was seeing. He wanted to show me some of the shots he’d taken earlier in the day, for this assignment. I liked his work, which is probably why I’d started seeing him, so he and another girl from our club walked back to my room together.”

“Three of you—not what the unsub was expecting. He’d watched you, he knew your routine. And he couldn’t move on you when you were in a group. So he took a substitute, an opportunity.”

“Eliza.”

“She left the library about nine thirty. Her car was in the lot—she lived in a group house off campus. She wasn’t dating anyone, but they were having a party at the group house, so she was expected. We believe she was forced into her car—we know she was raped and killed in it—forced to drive somewhere remote enough to do what was done. Then he put her body in the trunk, drove it back, left it in the lot. He would’ve been bloody, so it’s likely he had his own car close, he had a change of clothes, a place to stay. By the time she was found the next day, he was gone.”

She imagined the fear, like the terrible fear she’d seen in Ashley’s eyes.

“If he knew my schedule, he had to have watched me for more than a week.”

“Possibly, or he asked. Just asked someone. But he took Friday, which has proven to be significant. He may have been in school himself, taken time off. He may have gone to the same university, and have developed his obsession with you there.”

“I never felt unsafe there. You were right before about noticing things. I think I would have, I would have felt it if someone that close had been focused on me. Someone I saw routinely, on campus, in class, in the café. But I didn’t.”

“How did he know you went there?” Xander asked. “How did he know where to find you?”

“If he looked hard enough, had decent computer skills?” Mason shrugged. “You can find anybody. I’m exploring the possibility you knew him, Naomi. In New York.”

“Knew him.”

“Know him,” Mason corrected. “Even casually. Someone who came into Harry’s restaurant. You may have waited on him. He could have asked anyone, casually, about you. Especially if he’s near the same age. They’d think he had a little crush maybe, something that innocent. And it’s
oh, Naomi, she’s studying photography
, or
Naomi’s going off to college in the fall to study photography
. He says,
wow, at Columbia?
and it’s
oh no, some college in Rhode Island. We’re sure going to miss her
.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “It would be easy.”

“Bowes released another name and location the summer before your sophomore year. He was all over the press again. Vance’s book got another bump back onto the bestseller list,” Mason added. “The movie ran on cable.”

“I remember. I remember,” Naomi said again. “I was so afraid those first couple weeks back at school someone would connect me. But no one did. Or I thought no one did.”

“Something like that could’ve triggered it. Bowes got a lot of attention, a lot of mail, more visitors—more reporters getting clearance to interview him from that July when he made the deal, right through to October when the attention waned again.”

“And in November, this man came to Rhode Island, probably for me.”

“We’re checking all the correspondence, the visitors’ logs—back ten years, the records aren’t as easy to come by as they are now. But this is someone who keeps tabs, who’s probably developed a relationship with Bowes—or believes he has. Just as he believes he has one with you.”

“He does have one with me.”

“Everything you remember helps. Your memory of that first Friday night, it helps, it gives us your movements, and with them helps us see his. You remembered something else from college.”

“The club trip my junior year. Presidents’ Day weekend. Cold as it gets, but we piled in a couple of vans and drove to New Bedford. Winter beach theme. We shot for a couple of hours on the freezing beach, then we went into town to eat. That’s what I remembered. How this other student sitting across from me—Holly, I don’t remember her last name—said something about how come guys stared at me, I already had a boyfriend. And she pointed toward the bar, kind of smirked. I looked around, but the guy she’d pointed out had his back turned.”

As she had that afternoon, Naomi walked through it again.

“She got up—I guess she was feeling the beer—she was one of the seniors, and ordered a beer. She walked up to him. I even heard her say he could buy her another beer, that I was taken, but she wasn’t. He just walked out. Didn’t look back, just walked straight out, which annoyed her. And I did feel something. I felt uncomfortable, exposed. I put it down to embarrassment because she was a little drunk, and she said how Barbie dolls like me always got the attention, how he’d watched me on the beach earlier. We took some more shots around town, then drove to Bridgeport, spent the night at a motel, took more pictures the next day. We were supposed to keep at it, come back on Monday, but a storm, a bad one was coming in, and we opted to go back, finish up closer to the campus. I never heard about the woman he’d killed until you told me this morning.”

“Who was she?” Xander asked.

“She worked at the restaurant where you had your early dinner. She got off at seven that Friday, had a yoga class in a studio in town. Her car was still in the lot the next morning, her husband frantic. They found her body Sunday morning on the beach where Naomi’s club spent that Friday afternoon.”

“It’s not a coincidence. Did he use her car?” Naomi asked. “The way he did with Liza?”

“No. We believe he had his own vehicle. Incapacitated her or forced her into it.”

“Middle of February,” Xander speculated. “Cold, windy, storm coming in. He sure as hell didn’t kill her outside. Maybe he rented a motel room, or had a van.”

“A lot of motel rooms in that area. The locals checked every one, came up empty.”

“He’d had time to think about it,” Xander pointed out. “To prepare. You put down a tarp, do what you’re going to do. TV or radio on, she’s gagged, who’s going to hear?”

“I wish I’d gotten up, gone to the bar, gotten a look at him. At least I could give you a description.”

“This Holly did. Maybe she remembers.”

Naomi just shook her head at Xander. “She was half lit, a decade ago. In any case, I don’t remember her last name, have no idea where she is.”

“Your brother’s FBI. I bet he can find her.”

“Yeah, we can find her. We will find her. She’s the only one we know of who knows what he looks like. Or looked like, so it’s worth a shot. Do you want a break from this?”

“No, keep going. You said a runaway in New York. In July—between these two murders.”

He took her through that, plucking at her memories, then called it when Xander got up to grill the steaks.

“Just give me the next you have,” Naomi insisted. “So I can think about the time and place, what I was doing.”

“April of my sophomore year—your senior year. Spring break. You, me, the uncles, we road-tripped it down to South Carolina, stayed a week in that beach house Seth found.”

“I remember. It rained four of the six and a half days we were there.” Remembering made her smile. “We played a hell of a lot of Scrabble and rented movies. But . . . that’s nine months, isn’t it? Nine months between. Doesn’t it usually escalate?”

“It does, and I think he practiced between July and April. Disposed of the body or bodies.”

“It’s going to be like . . . Bowes. Even when you find him, you might never know how many he killed.”

“Let’s worry about that when we get to that.”

“But—”

“How do you want your steak?” Xander interrupted.

“Oh. Ah. Medium rare for me, medium for Mason.” She sloughed it off, rose. “I’ll go dress the salad.”

They’d take that break, she decided, dig into that pocket of normal. Then she’d go back to that rainy week at the beach, and whatever came after it.

She wouldn’t stop.

W
hen she turned to him in the night, Xander came half awake.

“Just a dream.” He slid an arm around her, hoped she’d settle again. “You’re okay.”

“He was chasing me. Through the forest, along the beach, everywhere I went. Right behind me, but I couldn’t see him. Then I fell into a pit. But it was the cellar. And when he put the rope around my neck, it was my father.”

He lay quiet a moment. “I’m no shrink, but that’s pretty straightforward, right?”

“I dream of that cellar more than anything else. I can even smell it in the dreams. I never get out of it, in the dreams. He always comes back before I can get away, get away from him.”

“He’s not going to get out.”

“But he has an apprentice, a competitor, whatever this is. I can’t be afraid, Xander. I can’t live afraid. Before all of this, before that night, I used to dream of finding a puppy and being able to keep it, or riding the brand-new shiny bike I wanted so bad. I’ll never go back to that, that simple, that innocent, but I won’t live afraid. I did get out of the cellar. I got out. I got Ashley out. I won’t live afraid of what didn’t happen, or what’s going to happen.”

“Good. Smart. Can you go back to sleep now?”

“No.” She rolled on top of him. “And neither can you.”

Fisting her hands in his hair, she took his mouth aggressively, took her fill of it.

“I have purpose.”

“Yeah,” he managed as she ravished his mouth again. “I got that.”

“Not that.” Her laugh came low and husky. “Or not just that. Oh God, I love your hands on me, so hard and strong it feels like you could break me in half.”

Those hard, strong hands gripped her hips. “You don’t break easily.”

No, she didn’t. She’d nearly forgotten that. She didn’t break easily. She scraped her teeth along his jawline, down his throat, reveling in the taste and texture, gathering pleasure and excitement from the rapid beat of his pulse against her lips.

His heart, a quick, thick thud against the press of her breast. He’d given that heart to her. She didn’t know, not yet, couldn’t be sure, not now, what to do with it, for it. But she wouldn’t be afraid of being loved.

She wouldn’t fear the gift.

Strong, she thought. He was strong, body and mind and will. She would never be weak, never forget her own strength. His strength would remind her, even challenge her.

She rose up. Moonlight again, she thought. Here was moonlight, as it had been the first time they’d come together like this. Light, dark, shadows, living together to tint the air, to somehow sweeten it.

She took his hands, brought them to her breasts, to her own heartbeat.

“I’m what you need.”

“You are.”

For a moment, she pressed her hands to his. “Everyone should have what they need.”

She took him in, slow, slow, stretching the moment like a fine silver wire. “Oh, what being with you does inside me.”

And she began to move, a gentle, sinuous roll. Torturously arousing, a smoky, smoldering fire in the blood. He fought to let her set the pace,
that slow burn of a pace, to stop himself from simply clamping around her like chains, taking her, taking his release.

Pleasure, so acute it sliced. Desire, so intense it seared. And love, so deep and yet so new it drowned him.

As if she knew, she smiled. “Wait.” Her eyes closed as she rolled her hips, kept him trapped and on the edge of torment. “Wait. And you can take what you need. Take what you want. How you want. Just wait.”

While he watched, barely able to breathe, her head fell back, her back bowed. Her arms rose to circle her head. All movement stopped. She was a statue, bathed in moonlight, made in moonlight.

She made a sound, half sob, half triumph. Then she smiled again; her eyes, opened and slumberous, met his.

His tether snapped. He had her on her back, under him, her arms still over her head, his hands clamping her wrists.

All that need, all that want, all that torment rushed together inside him. He drove into her like a man possessed; perhaps he was. Her shocked, breathless cries only added fuel.

He took what he needed, what he wanted. Took until there was nothing left for either of them.

And that was everything, for both of them.

—

I
n the morning Xander scowled at a tie as if deciding whether to wear it or hang himself with it.

“I don’t think Donna would care if you didn’t wear a tie.”

“No. But . . . I’m a pallbearer. Her daughter asked Kevin and me to be pallbearers.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize.” How much harder would that be for him? she wondered, and walked to her closet—which needed organizing since most of the clothes shipped from New York remained in boxes.

“You don’t have to go.”

She stopped, her hand on the black dress. “Would you rather I didn’t?”

“I don’t mean that. I mean you don’t have to. You don’t have to feel obligated.”

So much easier to stay home, she thought, to work in a quiet, empty house, as everyone in both crews would attend Donna’s funeral. And he was giving her the out.

“I didn’t know her very well, but I liked her. I know I’m not responsible for what happened, but I’m connected. I know you’ll have more friends than I can count there, but we’re together. It’s not an obligation, Xander. It’s respect.”

“I’m pissed off.” He tossed the tie on the bed, shrugged into the white dress shirt. “I’d shoved it down, but today I’m pissed off I’m going to carry a really good woman to a hole in the fucking ground.”

“I know.” She laid the dress on the bed, went to the dresser for a bra and panties. “You should be pissed off.”

While she dressed he picked up the tie again and, resigned, slid it under the collar of the shirt. “Ties are for bankers and lawyers,” he complained. “Or like Elton John said, the sons thereof.”

In her underwear, she turned to him, finished the knot herself. “Uncle Seth taught me. He said every woman should know how to tie a man’s tie, facing him. And I’d know why someday.” She smiled, smoothed the fabric down. “And now I do. Look at you, Xander Keaton, clean shaven.” She stroked a hand over his cheek. “Wearing a tie.” She angled her head. “Who are you again?”

“It won’t last.”

“And that’s fine, too.” She pressed her cheek to his. “This time I’m going to help you through. Let me.”

He let out a curse that ended on a sigh. Then put his arms around her. “Thanks. Tell me when you need to go. They closed Rinaldo’s for the day. People are supposed to go there after, but if you—”

“Just let me help you through.”

“Right. You’re half—more than—naked, and I’m not. Something off about that.”

“I’m about to be un-naked. Maybe you could let Tag out, make sure he does everything he has to do. I don’t want to leave him outside alone while we’re gone.”

“We could take him.”

“No, we’re not taking the dog to a funeral. He’ll be fine in the house as long as he has a rawhide and his stuffed cat. And a ball. I’ll be down in ten minutes.”

“You’re the first and only woman I’ve known who says that and means it. Hey!” He snapped his fingers at the dog, who instantly grabbed his ball in his jaws and body-wagged. “We’re going out the back, pal, and keeping out of that topsoil.”

Xander grabbed his suit jacket, headed out the bedroom doors to the deck with the dog flashing ahead of him. “Lock this behind me,” he told Naomi.

She did, then put on the dress she hadn’t worn in . . . she couldn’t quite remember, and finished getting ready for her second funeral in the Cove.

—

H
e waited just inside the forest until Naomi and the grease monkey she was doing it with drove by in her car. Then he waited five full minutes.

Sometimes people turned around and came back, forgot something. His mother did it all the time, and once nearly caught him digging in the fake coffee can she used to hide cash from thieves.

Not that she’d ever been robbed, except by her son.

So he waited, watching the road through the screen of trees before he began the hike to the house on the bluff.

He’d parked nearly a quarter mile away—in the opposite direction from town. Had even put a white handkerchief on the side-view mirror, like he’d had a breakdown.

Getting into the house would be a nice little bonus. He’d seen how she lived, what she had. He wanted to touch her things, her clothes. Smell her. Maybe take a little souvenir she wouldn’t miss, at least not right off.

He knew about the alarm system, but he’d gotten through that sort of thing before. He’d done a lot of studying, put in plenty of practice.

She might have forgotten to set it—something else people did all the time. And he should know.

More than once, he’d walked right into houses, and right into the bedroom where some dumb bitch was sleeping.

He didn’t always kill them. You had to mix things up or even brain-dead cops might start piecing things together. Like sometimes he used ketamine—a jab with that, and down she went. Chloroform took longer, but there was something so satisfying about the
struggle
.

Once you knocked her out, tied her up, gagged that bitch—blindfolded her if you figured on letting her live—you could rape the shit out of her. He really liked when they came out of it
while
he raped them.

Then you mixed it up. You killed them, or you didn’t. He liked the kill even more than the rape, but sometimes you had to resist. You beat the crap out of them, or you didn’t. Cut them up some, or didn’t.

And you kept your mouth shut unless you were going to shut theirs, permanently. No DNA when you wore a raincoat, no voice to remember, no face.

When the time came to do Naomi—and that time was coming right up—he’d take his sweet, sweet time. Maybe even keep her a couple weeks.

Stupid bitch got lucky, got rich enough to buy herself a big house. And was dumb enough to buy one this remote.

He could’ve taken her before, and he’d thought about it, oh, he’d thought about it so many times. But the wait, the long wait was better. And now he was—Christ—an
aficionado
. Oh, the things he’d do to her.

But not today. Today was a little opportunity.

Who knew he’d end up killing the fricking town sweetheart? He’d heard the buzz—he always made sure he heard the buzz. Everybody was going to her send-off. He’d never have a better chance to get in the house, get a solid lay of the land.

He could take her there, he was nearly sure of it. Just had to get the
grease monkey out of the way for a few hours—or altogether. Make sure her asshole little brother was off playing Special Agent.

But he wanted the lay of the land first.

He strolled right up the drive.

He had lock picks and knew how to use them. If she’d set the alarm, he had a reader that should break her code before the alarm sounded.

If not, he just locked up again, moved off. They’d figure it was a glitch, nothing more. But the reader rarely failed him. He’d paid good money for it.

He glanced at the pots of flowers on the front porch, thought
Home sweet home
, and wished he’d thought to bring a little weed killer or salt. Wouldn’t she wonder
what the fuck
when her posies croaked?

He heard the dog bark as he got out the picks, didn’t worry about it. He had a couple of dog biscuits in his pocket—and he’d seen the stupid dog playing around with the yard crew, the carpenters. He’d even seen Naomi walking around town with him, and how the dog let anybody who came along pet him.

But as he went to work on the locks the barks grew louder, sharper, and made way for throaty growls and wet snarls.

He had a knife—
Don’t leave home without it
—but if he had to kill the damn dog it would spoil the surprise. And he didn’t relish the idea of having the dog try to rip a chunk out of him.

He reconsidered.

He’d go around the back first, to the glass doors. Let the dog see him—and the dog biscuit. Make friends through the glass. She may have left them unlocked on top of it.

He circled around, making note of windows on this far side—ones he hadn’t been able to study up close before. And the trees, the potential cover.

He took the stairs to the deck. More pots of flowers. Yeah, he might just come back with weed killer, give her plants a good dose for the fun of it.

Then, slapping on a big, friendly smile, he pulled out a dog biscuit and walked to the big glass doors.

The dog wasn’t even there.
Some guard dog,
he thought with a snort, and pulled on thin latex gloves to check if the doors were locked.

The dog—bigger than he’d remembered—flew at the glass, barking, snarling, even snapping. Shocked panic had him stumbling back, throwing up his hands as if to protect his face. His heart banged in his throat, his mouth went dry. Infuriated him even as he trembled.

“Fucker. Fucker.” Breathless, he tried the big smile again, though his eyes transmitted pure hate even as he showed the dog the biscuit. “Yeah, asshole,” he said in a friendly singsong. “See what I got. Should’ve poisoned it, you ugly fuck.”

But no matter the tone, no matter the bribe, the dog’s relentless barking increased. When he made a testing move toward the door, the dog peeled back those canine lips and showed his fangs.

“Maybe I’ll stick this down your throat instead.” He pulled the knife, stabbed out with it.

Rather than cowering back, the dog leaped at the glass and stood on his hind legs, barking madly with eyes creepy blue and feral.

“Screw this.” His hand shook as he shoved the knife back in its sheath. “I’ll be back, you fuck, I’ll be back. I’ll gut you like a trout and make her watch.”

Furious, shaken, hot tears, hot rage burning behind his eyes, he stormed off the deck. Hands fisted, he hurried around the side of the house, stomped back to the drive and down.

He’d be back. And she and that fucking dog would
pay
for ruining his day.

—

I
n Xander’s opinion no one had ever wanted to get out of a suit as badly as he wanted out of his. And once he had, he decided, he intended to toss it into Naomi’s closet, leave it there, and forget it for as long as humanly possible.