Acquainted With the Night (11 page)

“Yes,” Alex could only agree. “It’s goddamned unfair.”

“Anyway, it was a nice afternoon, and Charlie enjoyed it. So we’ll see how it goes.”

Moving on, Alex thought. Vivien, Charlie, Nicole, other people were taking up their lives again, slowly recovering. Was she recovering?

As she brushed her teeth she looked at herself in the mirror, something she had avoided the last few months. She looked thin, not in a healthy, lean way, but in a “not eating well” sort of way. She’d actually been getting up earlier to go running on the weekday mornings, and taking longer runs on Saturday and Sunday.

Usually CJ had gone running with her on weekends, and as a result the runs were actually shorter, more relaxed. Often CJ would lure her back into bed. It had been one of their favorite times to talk, touch, make love.

Alex snapped off the bathroom lights so she didn’t have to look at her face anymore, the skin stretched high over her sharp cheekbones, her eyes dark and smudged.
I look like a refugee. I hardly look as though I’m recovering.

She undressed and crawled naked between the sheets. CJ liked sleeping nude, and Alex had grown accustomed to the pleasure of it. She turned off the bedside light and lay still, staring into the darkness.

Some nights the memories were of good times, the best moments of her relationship to CJ playing out before her mind’s eye. In some ways, those were the worst, because Alex always remembered the sadness coming underneath the joy. Other nights she replayed other, more terrible moments.

This night, she remembered every moment of the afternoon of last July Fourth.

“How many people are we feeding?” Alex had complained as she hauled the cooler across the grass to the picnic pavilion.

“Oh, come on now,” CJ had responded, her arms full of paper plates, napkins, utensils and cups. “My favorite nephew is a growing boy.”

“He’s nine years old.”

“And this is the time to make sure he grows up nice, strong and tall.”

“Honey, have you checked out his gene pool lately? If he finishes taller than five seven, it’ll be a miracle.”

CJ drew herself up to her full height. “I’m hoping to contribute by osmosis.”

Alex laughed at her and murmured, “Always the optimist, my treetop lover.”

CJ laughed too as they were met by Charlie, running jubilantly across the grass. “Aunt Alex!” he yelled. “Aunt CJ! Mom says you have watermelon!”

Alex grinned at CJ and said, “We sure do. Want to take a peek?”

“Yeah!”

Alex showed him the big slices wrapped in clear plastic wrap and tucked into the cooler. He helped her drag the wheeled cooler the rest of the way to the table.

“Hey, guys,” Nicole greeted them, kissing Alex and then CJ. “Glad you got here. The chef was getting ready to throw the burgers on.”

David, standing by the grill, rolled his eyes. “Dear, I keep telling you that you can’t put the food on as soon as you light the coals.” He made eye contact with CJ and added, “It’s a genetic defect in the Ryans. High intelligence coupled with a complete lack of cooking acumen.”

CJ went over to hug him and said, “Well, thank goodness they have us, then.”

“Yep. I’m pretty sure they married us for our kitchen skills.”

Mindful of Charlie a few feet away helping to unload plastic containers of food, CJ merely lifted her eyebrows and murmured, “Well, in
your
case maybe.”

David gave a hearty laugh. Nicole said suspiciously, “What are you two cooking up over there?”

“I’m not cooking anything, dear,” David said mildly. “The coals aren’t ready yet. We need about five more minutes.”

CJ looked at Nicole and said, “Would it be okay if Charlie and I went over to the play area for a bit? We promise to be back for lunch.”

Charlie jumped off the picnic table bench and said, “Yeah!”

“You want to come, Aunt Alex?” CJ asked.

“I think I’ll stay here and supervise,” Alex said. “Maybe later we can walk down to the pond and look at the ducks before fireworks.”

“Fireworks!” Charlie yelled happily and took off at a run toward the slide and swings.

Nicole said, “Do you remember when we used to run everywhere?”

CJ, trotting after Charlie, said over her shoulder, “Talk to your sister. She still does that.”

Alex and Nicole finished setting up the table, then Nicole fixed lemonade, asking David every sixty seconds if it was time to put the meat on. Finally David asked Alex, “Are you like this with CJ?”

“Like what?” Alex asked innocently.

“Annoyingly compulsive.”

Nicole said with asperity, “I’d like to point out that it’s people like us who get things done in the world.”

David wandered back over to give her a kiss. “And people like CJ and me that make sure people like you have fun,” he responded mildly.

Nicole reached up and brushed a leaf from his apron, which featured Uncle Sam and read “With Liberty and Hamburgers for all.” With a note of humor in her voice, she asked, “Is it time to put the burgers on yet, sweetheart?”

Eyes twinkling, David said, “Why, I believe it is.” He strolled back to the barbeque grill and picked up the plate.

Alex looked over to see CJ pushing Charlie on a swing in the warm afternoon, the sunlight bouncing from her red hair like a flame. Then a loud noise penetrated Alex’s consciousness, and she looked around for the source.

There was a sedan driving recklessly across the grass of the park, scattering pedestrians and picnickers. The car was heading toward them. A drunk driver?

From the driver’s side open window, she saw a sudden flash. Alex had time for one scream.

“CJ! Gun!”

As adrenaline flooded her, the scene unfolded for a moment in slow motion. CJ grabbed Charlie from the swing and rolled them both beneath the metal slide, curling herself around Charlie entirely.

Alex heard the first gunshot as she grabbed for Nicole, shoving her under the concrete picnic table, and trying to wedge herself under as well. Nicole was screaming for Charlie, for David, and Alex gripped her tightly as bullets seemed to pour around them like hail. Alex felt something hit her back, a spray of dirt or a chip of concrete, but it didn’t hurt enough to be a bullet. She tried to count the gunshots but there were too many.
More than one gun
, she thought.

Time had slowed so much it seemed like forever before the firing stopped, although it was probably less than a minute. She heard the engine roar away, and she rolled out, trying to spot a license plate, but it had been carefully mud-splattered to be unreadable.

Alex scrambled to her feet, looking desperately for CJ. She was still curled motionless beneath the slide, Charlie wrapped in her arms.

“CJ!” Alex yelled frantically. “Are you hurt?”

No, God, please, I can’t take that again.

She watched CJ unfold herself and get to her feet, saw her lift Charlie into her arms and speak briefly to him, her hands touching him slightly.

“Okay! We’re okay!” CJ called, beginning to move back toward them.

The next moment, Alex became aware of Nicole screaming behind her, and she turned.

David was on the ground, the white apron bloodied and torn. Nicole was bending over him, hysterical and trying to get him to talk to her.

Alex whirled back to CJ and said, “Take Charlie away.”

CJ’s green eyes went wide, then she grasped Charlie firmly with one arm against her shoulder and turned away again, groping with her free hand for her cell phone.

Alex went to Nicole and said, “Honey, please, let me look at him.”

“No, no,” Nicole was moaning loudly.

“Nic, please. Let me help.”

“David, talk to me! Honey, please…”

Alex said, “Here, move here.” Nicole shifted, reaching for David’s hand.

Jesus, her brother-in-law was mess. She tried to see where he was hit, but it looked like he’d been used for target practice—chest, abdomen, arm. So much blood.

Far away, she could hear sirens beginning their journey, and she mentally blessed CJ for calling and knowing what to say. She knew CJ had what little description they had on the car already on broadcast. With any luck, a patrol unit would spot it in a minute or two.

Alex was afraid to feel for a pulse, but she did anyway, putting two fingers against his neck, feeling for his carotid artery. She thought she felt a flutter, but the harder she pressed, the less there was to feel. She moved to the other side, but there was nothing.

Nicole was sobbing against her, still holding David’s lifeless hand.

The rest of the memories always came in pieces: the useless ambulance ride, after which David was solemnly pronounced dead on arrival. Nicole’s incoherent grief, Charlie crying. Alex took them home, while CJ went back to help with the investigation. Alex called Frank Morelli and Chris Andersen, her best team, to take the case, and they left their holiday celebrations to get there within the hour.

But despite two dozen witnesses in the park, lots of physical evidence from tire tracks to bullets, they’d never found a single suspect. Twenty-six bullets had been fired at them, and no one else in the park had been hurt, so it seemed as if they had been targeted. But why? David had been a college history professor. At Alex’s insistence, Frank and Chris had dug into every aspect of his life, of Nicole’s caseload at her law firm, and they had come up with nothing: no motive, no suspects.

Nicole had survived by writing it off as some drug-fueled violent spree, tragic and random. Part of Alex had wanted to do that, too, but the absence of any suspects made her suspicious. Men too drunk or too high to know what they were doing didn’t cover their tracks—or their license plates—quite so successfully. Yet she hadn’t been able to come up with a single good reason why anyone would want to kill any of them.

Alex hadn’t been able to stop thinking about being run off the highway last March. It seemed impossible that David’s shooting was connected to the attempt on her life, yet it seemed equally unlikely that they were unrelated, chance events. Two violent occurrences in four months couldn’t be coincidental, yet she hadn’t been able to see any link between the two.

They had buried David that Saturday. And the next Tuesday, CJ had disappeared.

Alex kept thinking there had to be another connection, something, that somehow made David’s murder relevant to CJ leaving.

She left because she loves me.

There wasn’t anymore logic to it now than there had been when she’d said it out loud in Dr. Wheeler’s office.

Alex turned over in the bed, curled on her side, facing the empty side of the bed to her left, CJ’s side. She had tried sleeping in the middle, trying to take up the whole mattress, but it hadn’t worked. She hadn’t told Dr. Wheeler what was in the note CJ had left for her, but she had it memorized, and it had never made much sense to her, not from the moment she’d first read it, stunned and shocked, in the foyer of the condo.

I have to go. Please don’t look for me. On the love I know you have for me, I beg you not to look. And for the love of God, take very good care of yourself.

Alex had refused CJ’s request and had looked everywhere for her, in vain. What had CJ been thinking?

She was tired of questions with no answers, so tired of being alone. She should go out tomorrow, to Regina or some other lesbian bar, and pick somebody up for a night of mindless sex. She wished that she were Vivien, who could manage that with aplomb.

Then Alex wanted to laugh. No, Vivien was home with the woman who had finally tamed her, settling down awkwardly into the different challenges of a long-term relationship. Even Nicole had been out on a date. She was the only one alone.

No, she thought again. That’s not quite true. Wherever she is, CJ is alone, too.

Or perhaps not.

That thought tortured her for another hour before she finally fell asleep.

* * *

Sunday morning she put the laundry in, then began reorganizing the kitchen cabinets. It was what she did when she was stressed or upset. That and running, and after really looking at herself yesterday, she decided she needed to give herself a day off from exercise.

By evening she was jittery, restless, unable to sit and relax. She hadn’t spoken to anyone all day and, despite her desperate thoughts from last night, she had no desire to go out and see anyone, much less a stranger.

She had no desire of any kind, she thought sadly. The sexual rebirth she’d experienced the first time she’d slept with CJ had led to a pleasant, constant simmer of arousal, sometimes bubbling quietly in the background, sometimes boiling over into a passion that CJ could always quench. From the day CJ left, it was as if the heat inside her been shut off. CJ had apparently taken Alex’s sexual desire away with her when she left, and some days Alex wondered if she’d ever want to sleep with anyone again.

All right
.
At least I’m going to take one or two of those dinner invitations I keep getting. Maybe Chris or her partner Beth know some nice single woman to introduce me to. If I don’t find a way out of this soon, I really am going to be alone for the rest of my life.

She hadn’t yet straightened up the second bedroom that they used as an office. Alex had her desktop computer set up in there on one desk, and CJ often used her laptop on the table near the other chair. The laptop had gone with CJ in her car, and Alex’s emails to her had, not surprisingly, gone unanswered. Alex hadn’t sent any messages for months.

She straightened up her desk, which didn’t really need it, and paid a couple of bills online. As she logged off, she saw the box of files she’d taken from CJ’s office on Friday, and decided to finish up with them.

She ran the paperwork with CJ’s personal information on it, the leave slips and copies of insurance information, through the shredder. She’d forgotten the second file folder marked Notes, and she picked it up.

A glassine, transparent evidence envelope slipped out and fell onto the floor. Alex frowned at it. CJ wouldn’t have evidence in her office, certainly not in a personal file. Whatever it was would have been logged into the evidence room.