Darker Than Midnight (20 page)

“Jesus, that scared me,” Jax muttered. Then she patted Rex, because he was snarling and the fur on his back bristled upward as he stared at the wall. “It's all right, boy, there's nothing there.”

River blinked. “Whose coffee mug is that?” he asked.

Jax frowned, got to her feet and went to pick it up. It was an Asian patterned, rose-colored mug, broken into three neat chunks, and it was as cold as if it had come from the freezer. “I don't know. Must be one of the hand-me-downs my mother brought over.”

He was standing beside her, staring at the pieces she held. “It's just like Stephanie's favorite set. They were the only ones she'd use for her morning coffee.”

Jax put a hand on his chest as he stared at the wall. “Don't start seeing bogeymen in the shadows, River. This is nothing. It's a coincidence.”

“Do you feel how cold it is here?”

She nodded. “Yeah. It's always cold on this side of the room.”

“Didn't used to be,” he said. “This used to be where the entry to the other wing was. Here, and off the far end of the hallway upstairs. Is it cold there, too?”

“What, are you seeing ghosts now, River? Come on, don't make me put you back on the damn Haldol.”

He looked at her, his eyes unsteady.

“It was nothing. A cup fell off a freaking windowsill. You've got enough real problems without making up imaginary ones.”

He lowered his gaze, nodded. “Yeah. You're right. Just…the timing. Just when we read that the baby wasn't mine. God, I can't believe that.”

The cop in her knew that the obvious conclusion would be that this was River's true motive for murdering his wife. But she could see him, see his eyes, the shock and the horror. He hadn't known about this. He hadn't had the first clue.

“Stephanie…was with another man,” he whispered, as if it had just occurred to him.

“Yeah, it would seem so. I'm sorry, River. You okay?”

He looked at her, nodded distractedly.

“Good, because we need to find out who. Next to you, River, he'd be the obvious suspect in her murder.”

“No.” He shook his head, even as he got to his feet. “No way, there's no way. It's a mistake. My wife didn't cheat on me. She
didn't.
” He crossed the room in angry strides, kicked the folder and sent papers flying like a miniature explosion. The act made Jax jump, and even Rex seemed startled. The dog moved to put himself between Jax and River, almost as if he were…protecting her.

River stood there, looking from the mess he'd made to Jax's face. He held up his hands, started to say something, then just backed slowly away from her. Finally, he turned and went up the stairs.

Jax followed but he flung a hand behind him, palm flat and facing her. “Don't, Cassandra. Just…just don't.”

He continued up the stairs, into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Cassandra sighed, swallowed and fought with her urge to go after him. It wouldn't do any good, she thought. Not now.

So she turned to the papers strewn everywhere, and slowly picked them up and put them back in order. And when she'd finished, she carried them to the kitchen table, sat down and began reading. She didn't intend to stop until she'd finished, even though she kept feeling as if someone were watching her. Every time she looked up, there was no one there.

* * *

Dawn lay in the bed, shivering, and they were standing in the room staring at her. Not saying anything, just staring at her. That woman in scorched white, with the baby. And Mordecai, on the opposite side of her bed. Young again, handsome, with a deep sadness in his brown eyes.

She'd told them to go away, she'd tried to ignore them and fall to sleep, but she couldn't get warm, not with the chill they brought into the room penetrating her very bones.

She couldn't stand this!

Finally, she flung back the covers, sprang to her feet and ran out of her bedroom with little shivers chasing themselves up and down her spine until she'd put a hundred feet between herself and that room.

God, how she hated them.

She wandered down to the kitchen, thinking a hot cocoa might help relax her, or at least provide a good excuse to keep from going back to bed. But when she stepped into the kitchen, the shrink, Dr. Melrose, was there, sipping a cup of tea and staring pensively out the window.

He turned, sent her a smile that didn't cover up whatever else was going on with him. He had a lot on his mind, that guy.

“You couldn't sleep, either, huh?”

“No.” She moved to the stove, set the kettle on the burner.

“Anything you want to talk about?” he asked.

She lowered her head, not turning around. “You'd have me committed by morning.”

“No chance of that, Dawn. You're no danger to yourself, or anyone else. You're perfectly functional.”

She turned slowly, looked him up and down. “Do you know who my father was?”

“No. Should I?”

She nodded. “Ever hear the name Mordecai Young?”

His brows went up, that look of horrified recognition she'd grown used to seeing, appearing in his eyes.

“I see you have,” she said.

“To be honest, I've studied his story to some degree. He's a fascinating case.”

“Really,” she said, not surprised. She'd heard there were classes in shrink school devoted to the study of her father. “So what do you make of him? Was he gifted, or just insane?” She turned to the stove, half watching him as she went about putting her cup of cocoa together.

“I think he might have been a bit of both, actually.” The doctor pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. He was wearing a brown plush robe over blue pajamas, and a pair of corduroy slippers covered his feet. “You know, as a scientist, I'm basically a skeptic. But in your father's case…” He lowered his head, shaking it slowly. “Well, there seems to be a lot of evidence that he really did possess some sort of…of…well, he knew a lot of things he had no way of knowing.”

“So you think his gift was genuine?”

“I think it might have been. I also think he was suffering from a serious mental illness.”

She tilted her head. “That's kind of what I thought.
But…do you think it was the gift that made him insane? Or the insanity that gave him the gift?”

“I have no idea.” He tilted his head to one side and studied her. “This is bothering you on a very deep level, isn't it, Dawn?”

She nodded. “Deeper than you could probably imagine.”

His lips pulled into a slight, sympathetic smile. “I don't see many private patients anymore. But I see a few. I'd be willing to make time if you'd like to come to my office.”

“Your office?”

He nodded. “Neutral ground. No one likely to walk in and interrupt. If you'd like to talk about this some more, it might be easier there.”

She licked her lips and studied him. He seemed sincere. “I'll think about it. Seriously, I will.”

“Okay.”

She hugged her cocoa cup in her hands and got to her feet. “Thanks, Doc.”

“You bet, Dawn.”

Sighing, she headed back up the stairs to her room. It was empty when she got there. No more chill. She let the warmth of the cocoa mug heat her hands and whispered, “Please stay away from me tonight. I just want to get some sleep. Okay?”

There was no answer.

* * *

River paced. He sat and he thought, and then he paced some more. He battled tears and fought against denial. He knew damn well Steph had loved him. Things had been good between them. She'd told him they were going to start over, that they were going to be all right.

He closed his eyes and sank onto the bed, lowering his head. Yeah, things had been good. At the end. Before that, though, their marriage had been strained. For a while, he'd been sure it was over. That she was on the verge of leaving him.

He'd never once believed it would have been for someone else. Never.

But now…now whispers of memory came crawling out of the depths of his mind. Things he'd seen and ignored. Things he hadn't wanted to see, but could no longer deny. Times when she'd gone out shopping and come home without any bags. Too many times. Occasions when she'd hung up the phone as soon as he'd walked into a room.

The time when she'd gone to visit a friend he'd later learned had been out of town that week. And so many days when she'd simply been away without explanation.

He fisted his hands in his hair. He'd been stupid. Blind. Or had he?

“River?”

He lifted his head when Cassandra's voice came from the other side of his bedroom door.

“Can I come in?”

He got up, blinked to clear his eyes, hoped to Christ his anguish didn't show on his face—and then he wondered why he hoped it. Cassandra wasn't going to buy that this wasn't killing him. She was too insightful, too sharp for that.

He opened the bedroom door and drew a breath. “I'm sorry about…acting like an idiot downstairs.”

“Don't be. This is hell on you, River, and it would be on anyone. You're not made of stone.”

He shook his head. “No reason to take it out on you. I blew up down there. I lost it, and—”

“Yeah. That was one scary burst of temper. You scattered the hell out of those sheets of paper.”

He frowned, searching her face. She was getting at something, but he wasn't sure what.

“Your idea of ‘losing it' is kicking a file folder across the room. You didn't break anything. You didn't scream or yell. You didn't knock me over the skull and burn the house down, River.”

He lowered his head, getting it now. “That doesn't mean I'm incapable of it.”

“Can I come in or not?” she asked.

He sighed. “Not the best idea, Cassandra.”

She lifted her hands. He saw the cups in them, smelled the rich chocolate wafting from them. “Yeah, I figured it would take a little bribe. So I brought hot cocoa.”

His mouth pulled into a slight smile at the coaxing tone, and the innocent expression she put on to go with it—an expression he knew to be utterly false. “Well, hell, you should have said so.” He pulled the door wider, stepped aside.

She walked in, set a mug on the dresser beside the bed, then walked to the other side and placed the second mug on the nightstand. She sat on the bed with her back to the headboard, legs stretching out on the mattress, then turned those eyes his way and patted the spot beside her.

Damn, but this was not a good idea. Still, he crossed the room, sat on the bed, mimicking her position before taking his cup.

She sipped her cocoa. “So have you been asleep yet?”

“Right.”

She shrugged. “You were awfully quiet up here. I was hoping you'd caught a nap. You need one.”

“So do you,” he said. “Have you slept?”

“No, I finished reading the file.”

“Find anything else earth-shattering?”

“No. Bits and pieces, nothing that adds up to anything. No clues as to who—” She bit her lip, didn't finish.

“Who my wife was fucking,” he said.

She flinched a little when he said it. And he knew damn well it wasn't the language. She'd worked with men her entire career. She was used to the language and threw it around herself when the need arose. He thought it was the fact that it had come from him that caused the involuntary
twitch. “Maybe you were right, and it was a mistake in the lab work.”

“No. It was no mistake. I've been sitting up here, thinking.” She shot him a look and he said, “Okay, wallowing. I'm a pathetic, self-pitying asshole.”

“You're allowed. But only for another half hour.”

Again, she drew a smile out of him when he hadn't thought there had been one left. How the hell did she do that? She wouldn't let him get away with pouting, with being morose and feeling sorry for himself. Good for her.

“So you've been thinking…” she prompted.

He had to look away from her face before any thinking could resume. “Yeah,” he said, studying his cup of cocoa instead. “There were signs. I just didn't want to see them.”

She nodded. “Try being a cop, instead of a grieving husband, if you can, River. Not the easiest thing. But pretend it's not Steph you're talking about. Pretend it's a case. A stranger. What's the evidence?”

He blinked, nodded, knew she was right. Wasn't sure it was possible, but it was the only way he had even a shot of seeing through the fog of emotions to the clarity of truth.

“I'd walk into the room and she'd just hang up the phone. Not say goodbye, nothing. Just hang up.”

“You ever go pick it up and hit Redial?”

“No. Should have. I was probably afraid of what I'd find out.”