Wicked Game Read online

  D’Annibal had smooth, silvery white hair, piercing blue eyes, and a love for Armani suits that was paid for by his wealthy wife’s substantial trust fund. He was also damn good at his job, and he expected excellence from all members of his staff. Mac watched as he hooked a leg over the corner of his desk and folded his hands together.

  Lecture time. Not a good sign.

  “Just got off the phone from the lab,” he said with only a trace of his West Texas drawl audible. “They’re sending PDFs on a couple of pictures of those bones you’re so interested in.”

  “Yeah?” At long last. It had been nearly a week since the body had been located, but the lab had been “backed up.” Which was nothing new. In the meantime, Mac had been forcing himself to be patient.

  D’Annibal rubbed his jaw slowly, a gesture that meant he was deliberating on how to deliver his next news. Mac braced himself, and after a moment, the lieutenant said, “You know, I wasn’t here when that girl disappeared. I hadn’t moved to the great state of Oregon from Texas yet. I was making my way through the ranks, proving myself, following the path, keeping my aim in sight. Meanwhile, you were out here stirring up a heap of trouble for yourself. Claiming murder without a body. Accusing the students at a private school, some of whom were quite well heeled and whose families were well respected, of killing a young girl—a runaway. From what I understand, you were a regular town crier about it all. That about right?”

  “There’s some truth in there,” Mac admitted, though he could feel how rigid the cords in his neck had become.

  “You really tore up the turf. Lots of people didn’t like your ways. High-handed. Bullish. Misconceived. Obsessive. Lots of words were bandied about. None of them too complimentary.”

  Mac nodded, wondering how long this was going to take. He, above anyone else, remembered what had come down. And yes, he’d been too gung-ho, too convinced on too little evidence, he thought now, in this glassed-in office that suddenly felt stuffy. “Has the lab nailed down the girl’s age from the bones?”

  “Give me a moment,” D’Annibal said. “I’ve got to get some things straight. I’ve got to hear a few things from you.”

  Mac held back his frustration as best he could but was having a helluva time with it. Mentally counting to ten, he asked, “What do you want to hear?”

  “I want to hear that you won’t go off half-cocked. I want to hear that you won’t act like you want to pistol-whip innocent people. I want to hear that you’ll conduct a proper investigation.”

  “I’ve never pistol-whipped anyone, sir.” Mac was having difficulty reining in his temper.

  “Only with accusations,” his boss agreed.

  “Oh, hell, what do you want me to say?”

  “That if I turn this investigation over to you, Detective, you’ll treat it, and everyone you interview, with respect. I don’t want some indignant ass-wipe whining to me about police brutality. And I know”—he lifted a palm against Mac’s protests—“that you aren’t physical. But you’re a badger, and I don’t want you badgering.”

  Mac’s pulse began a slow pounding and he was vaguely aware of a phone ringing on the other side of the closed door. “You’re giving me the investigation?”

  The lieutenant hesitated and Mac waited. He couldn’t believe it. Could—not—believe—it. After all the sideways looks, hidden sneers, and snickering, the case was coming back his way. Maybe they didn’t believe the remains were Jessie’s, but Mac felt it in his marrow.

  “It’s yours if you want it.” He didn’t wait for a response. “I think we both know your answer.”

  Jesus! About time. “Is that all?” Mac asked, anxious to get to work. Anxious to pick up where he’d been forced to leave off, so many years ago.

  “Not quite. I’ve been reminding you about all this for a reason. There was some…resistance to putting you on the case again, and information was deliberately withheld until a decision was made.”

  It wasn’t like D’Annibal to tiptoe, but then Mac could imagine what kind of meetings went on behind closed doors concerning putting him in charge of this case. He decided to push the issue a bit.

  “How old was the deceased when she died? Do we know that yet?” he asked.

  “About sixteen.”

  “Those remains are Jezebel Brentwood’s,” Mac said. I’ll eat a kangaroo if they’re not.

  “No corroborating evidence.” But D’Annibal didn’t sound like he disagreed. This was the first time the lieutenant had acknowledged that Mac might be right. Since he’d come to the Laurelton PD, like everyone else in the department, D’Annibal had been interested first in keeping Mac’s hopes in line, second in entertaining the myth that sixteen-year-old Jezebel Brentwood had simply run away. But these remains had revealed another, more obvious answer—the same one Mac had expounded for years: Jessie Brentwood had been killed.

  “How long have those bones been in the ground?” Mac asked.

  “More than ten years, probably closer to twenty.”

  “Then they’re Jessie’s until I hear differently,” Mac told him flatly.

  “All you have to do is prove it.”

  “Piece of cake.” He expected another lecture about running on assumptions rather than facts, but the lieutenant surprised him by keeping his own counsel. But D’Annibal had more to say, apparently, because his chin rubbing had turned into a vigorous buff and polish.

  “There’s something else…” More rubbing. Mac wondered if the man was going to wear off his top epidermal layer. He waited, watching D’Annibal go through his own mental decision-making, weighing the pros and cons of telling Mac whatever piece of news this was. Must be a doozy, Mac decided, just as the lieutenant drew a deep breath and said, “Nobody wanted to tell you as you were so convinced this was your old case, so we kept it under wraps till we could determine if these bones really belonged to the missing Brentwood girl. We still don’t know, but with the dates and the location of the remains…well…”

  “You think my obsession might have some credence now,” Mac hurried him along. Enough with the disclaimers. “What is it?”

  “There was a second, smaller skeleton mixed with the bones of the first.”

  “Smaller…” Mac grew sober. “A baby?”

  The lieutenant nodded. “She was pregnant when she was killed. If it’s your girl, Jessie, she probably knew. ME says she was about four months along.”

  Becca didn’t sleep for nearly a week.

  Her dreams were peppered with visions of Jessie and Hudson and some dark shape that loomed above them all.

  “Nuts,” she told her dog one afternoon. “That’s what’s happening, you know. I’m going damned nuts.” It was after five by the time she finished working on new contracts for the law firm, making the changes where indicated and sending them via e-mail to the administrator at Bennett, Bretherton, and Pfeiffer, checking her e-mail one last time before glancing outside where a few slanting rays of sunshine were actually permeating the clouds. “A good sign,” she said to Ringo as she made her way to the kitchen and checked his water bowl.

  She punched Renee’s number into her cell phone and listened to the series of rings, then Renee’s voice saying to leave a number and she’d get back to her. “Renee, hi, it’s Becca. You said you were going to call me, after you got back from your weekend at the beach? Since I haven’t heard from you, I thought maybe I should call you instead. Anyway, give me a call when you can. Bye.”

  She clicked off and tossed her phone onto the table. “Dumb message,” she said to Ringo. “I sound like I’m desperate for friendship. And now I’m explaining myself to you. I really have to get a life.”

  It wasn’t like she really wanted to connect with Renee, especially as she was Hudson’s sister, but Becca didn’t like this sense of being in limbo, either.

  She clipped Ringo’s leash onto his collar and took him outside for a walk. For once the rain and wind were on hold and the pavement was dry. They walked to the park, only a few blocks away.
The oak and maple trees were still bare, only a few other pedestrians on the cement pathways intersecting the thick grass and shrubs. A bicycle passed by, the rider balancing a cup of coffee from the local Starbucks, wires running from his ears to the iPod located in his jacket pocket. Ringo took care of business, tangled leashes with two pugs being walked by a teenaged girl, then barked at squirrels who had the audacity to run in front of him.

  But they didn’t encounter any dark figures in trench coats, no looming, indistinct embodiments of evil as they returned to the condo.

  It was dark and threatening rain again by the time Becca unlocked the door to the condo and stepped inside. Ringo danced wildly to be fed while Becca checked all her doors, windows, and locks before measuring out a half cup of dog food. Then she double-checked the front door and slider to her small patio area. She was not only desperate, she was becoming obsessive/compulsive, she thought. Ever since the discovery of the bones, and the meeting with the old gang, and seeing Hudson again, then later feeling spooked at St. Elizabeth’s, she seemed trapped in this loop that kept circling back to high school and whatever had happened to Jessie Brentwood.

  Her cell phone buzzed on the table, moving itself across the hard surface. Becca snatched it up and saw that it was Renee’s number. “Hello?”

  “Oh, hey, Becca. I got your message. I’ve just been so busy since I got back from the beach. Swamped at work and…well, dealing with some personal stuff. Sorry I didn’t call.”

  “Not a problem. You just gave me the feeling there was something you wanted to talk about.”

  “Yeah…” Renee hesitated and Becca sensed she was in a serious debate with herself. She braced herself for something about Hudson, but when Renee let the silence grow to an uncomfortable level, Becca finally had to speak first, “I went to St. Elizabeth’s, to the maze the other night.”

  “Really?” Renee sounded flabbergasted. “Why?”

  “Good question. I can’t really explain it.” So why try? And why to Renee?

  “So…was it still taped off?”

  Becca nodded, flipped on the switch to the fireplace. Within seconds flames began licking the ceramic logs. “Yeah, I went around the tape. There was no one there, not at the maze or anywhere near the old school. It was almost dark. Well, it was dark by the time I got there.”

  “You wanted to see the…grave?” Renee asked.

  “I guess I went up there to check things out, see for myself…maybe even to, I don’t know, commune with Jessie.” The minute the words were out, she regretted them.

  “And did you? Commune with her?” There was less sarcasm in Renee’s tone than she expected.

  Becca thought of the malevolent presence she’d encountered and seen. Had it been real? Or a product of her visions? “I don’t know.”

  “You want to meet for coffee?” Renee asked suddenly. “Or a glass of wine? I’d really like to talk to you, in person, and I’m heading back to the beach this evening.”

  Becca considered. “I could meet you.”

  “Say in about an hour? At Java Man?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Java Man was a coffee shop–cum–wine bar not far from Blue Note. Becca changed into jeans, boots, and a heavy jacket with a hood and was on her way to the meeting spot within the half hour. She beat Renee by a good fifteen minutes, checking in her rearview mirror often, just in case.

  Just in case, what? Some unknown demon predator is stalking you? Some evil person or beast, the presence you felt in the maze? Get real, Rebecca. Pull yourself together. Just because you had a damned vision…

  “Stop it,” she warned herself aloud. She could not fall apart; not now. Not when she was meeting Hudson’s sister, a woman she wasn’t even sure she liked. Snapping on the radio, she listened to songs from the eighties, which was a bad idea. High school. Jessie. Hudson. Old emotions came flooding back in a rush. Angrily, she switched to NPR and some talk radio about the environment.

  Safe.

  Becca ordered a glass of merlot and a small plate of fruit, cheese, and crackers, then seated herself at a table with a view of the hand-painted dishware, candles, and assorted knickknacks. She wasn’t a person who collected things. Her place was remarkably bare as, without fully realizing it, she’d systematically removed almost all traces of Ben. There were a few items still around: a photograph he’d taken of her on a weekend jaunt, the needlepoint footstool from his grandmother he’d forgotten to grab when he left, a gray parka hung in the laundry room she sometimes threw on to battle the elements.

  She glanced around to find the barista cleaning the countertop of the bar. Several couples sat over coffee, and a group of three women in their thirties huddled around a small table sipping wine. Jazz floated from speakers mounted over the wine rack, and a few glasses clinked.

  Renee came bustling inside under the protection of an umbrella that the wind seemed determined to snatch away. But her grip was hard and she snapped the umbrella shut and looked around, briefly running a hand through her wind-tossed hair. When her eyes met Becca’s she lifted her chin in acknowledgment, then went to the counter and ordered herself a cup of black coffee.

  “Back to the beach, huh?” Becca greeted her as Renee brought her cup to her table.

  She gave Becca a look as she scooted in her chair. “Tim and I keep telling ourselves that we want to work things out, but I don’t know. I’ve been staying at a beach house almost every weekend, trying to put things into perspective. Jessie’s not the only story I’ve been working on. I started on this small-town story—you know about the largest Sitka spruce tree in the world? The one outside of Seaside that recently broke apart in a storm?”

  Becca nodded. Sipped her wine. “I remember seeing it on the news.”

  “People have been sending me pictures from their lives, their parents’ lives, their grandparents…all of them around the tree. Really great photos. Anyway, it’s a piece for the local paper but it could get picked up as a human interest piece in national papers. You never know.” She twirled her coffee cup slowly, spinning it by its handle with one finger. Becca sensed that Renee was prattling on as a means to build up some courage to talk about what she really wanted to discuss, so she just let her go on.

  Eventually, Renee wound down with, “The whole area has a kind of small-town mentality, which has been great. It’s hell staying at the house with Tim now, so I do it as little as possible. I wish he’d just move out.” She rubbed her temple with two fingers as if just talking about her husband gave her a headache.

  “This isn’t why you wanted to talk to me,” Becca said into the sudden silence. She pushed her cheese and fruit plate toward Renee. “Have some.”

  She waved off the offering. “Got a weird stomach thing going on. I know, I know, coffee’s not good, either, but I want to stay awake; I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping at night. All this stuff with Tim. I have to be sharp to drive to the coast. There’s been snow in the pass and I don’t do chains. Period.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Renee took a breath, held it a moment, then released it slowly. “You know…it’s…kind of surprising…what you can stumble across. Like fate’s intervened. I’m not trying to sound like Tamara,” she added quickly. “It’s just, working on Jessie’s story and then having that skeleton appear at St. Lizzie’s.” She hesitated. “It would be nice to have a source in the police department to find out, y’know?”

  Becca nodded.

  Renee made a face. “Sometimes…well, this is going to sound strange because I really do want to write that story, but sometimes I wonder if we should really open Pandora’s box. Maybe we should let bad things lie. Go with the Sitka spruce nostalgia and leave digging into graves alone.”

  “You were the one who called the meeting at Blue Note,” Becca reminded her in surprise.

  “I know. I’m not giving up.” She ran her hands through her short, dark hair. “I don’t know why I’m going back and forth on this.” She switched gears and, frowning a
t herself, picked up a small wedge of Edam cheese. “I guess I can try this.” She took an experimental bite. “So tell me more about your trip to the maze.”

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  Becca dutifully described her trip to St. Elizabeth’s, including the moment when she felt there was something there, something…if not evil, certainly not good. Renee listened attentively and Becca finished with, “I don’t want to sound crazy or anything. It was raining and hailing and windy, and I was probably more susceptible than usual. But it was more than that. I really felt like I wasn’t alone.”

  “Did you think Jessie was there?”

  Becca shot her a look to determine whether she was patronizing her, but Renee appeared totally serious as she blew across her cup, then took a swallow of coffee. “No. Not Jessie.”

  “Who, then?”

  “No one, I guess. No one I saw, anyway. It was just a feeling, and maybe I was just too susceptible. The atmosphere: the dark, the maze, the Madonna. It spooked me.”

  “You don’t have to make excuses,” Renee said. “I believe you. I’ve had some experiences that weren’t…explainable.” She glanced to her side, to make certain the trio of women on their second glasses of wine weren’t eavesdropping. They were too caught up in their own conversation to give a second glance Becca and Renee’s way.

  “Like what?” Becca asked, prodding.

  Renee hesitated. “I know we’ve never been the closest of friends. Maybe that’s more my fault than yours, but…this should be all in the past now.” She narrowed her gaze, seemed to want to say something again, then thought better of it. Finally, she added, “Sometimes I have a feeling of persecution. Like someone’s after me. But then, I’ve written a few articles that have really pissed some people off, so maybe they are!”