Discovering Normal (9 page)

Her eyes traveled back to the bed. She’d changed the sheets the morning she’d left and she’d never known Chris to care if they were crisp and April-fresh anyway. Beth fell to the bed and ran her hands up and down her arms though the room wasn’t cold. 

What in God’s name was going on?

She closed her eyes and tried to think. Admittedly she was rusty on procedure and hadn’t taken part in any operations since before her own brainwashing, but there were things she still recalled. The first lesson any agent
-
in
-
training was ever taught was to never underestimate inherent intuition. The facts she knew for certain were limited and random, but it was a start.

Aside from the obvious--the absolutely uncharacteristic move of Chris committing suicide--there were several other indications that something was off, strange, different. The green pepper. Chris detested green pepper and could find the tiniest minced piece in any potato salad. Why were there the remnants of a pepper?

Beth shook her head and gave a sinister chuckle. She was reduced to putting stock into a pepper seed.

But the stripped bed and yellow paper and the fact that he didn’t say more to Noah and Audrey on the phone than, “
Enjoy your first day of school
” and “
Keep Mommy company when Noah goes to fifth grade
,” made it even stranger. Her mother had sat in the room and relayed most of the conversation to Beth--simple pleasantries between a father and his children who missed him. No, “
You’re my world, my life
;
my everything
.
”

Beth looked around the area she knew so well and took that final, crucial assessment. She stood up and walked to the laundry room just off their private bath. Sure enough, the
480 thread count Egyptian cotton
sheets that her mother had sent for Christmas were stuffed into a twisted heap in the dryer. Beth slammed the white metal door.

Then like a bolt of something fast and needy, she flew down the stairs.

“Jack! Jack!”

Jack stepped into the kitchen from the back porch where he’d been
smoking
a cigarette with the mopey Sundance at his side.

“Jack, who did he sleep with?”

Ramona sucked in a breath and laid her hand over her mouth. Larry and even the wizened Dee
j looked uncomfortable as hell, but Beth was relentless
. “Tell me who it is because I know there was someone. Who did he sleep with?”

Jack crushed the butt into the sink. “Beth…”

Beth grabbed the lapel of his sport coat. “Jack, I need to know. Maybe I can figure some
things
out if you’ll just tell me. Who was it?”

Jack glanced around and then back to her. “Anita Borden.”

The 38, 24, 36 barmaid who said a polite hello to Beth every time she saw her in the grocery store and then sent an unmistakable glare her way when she thought she was no longer looking.

“Just once?”

“Just the other night and he was sick about it.”

Deej stepped to Beth’s side. “Another reason there, Bethie.”

Beth released the lapel and swatted at her eyes. “I don’t have a yellow legal pad anywhere in this house. There’s not one here.”

“Maybe he picked one up, or got the paper somewhere else?”

Beth took the napkin Ramona handed her and sounded a mighty blow. “Can you just investigate, please? Go to Anita Borden’s and see if she gave him a sheet of yellow legal paper.”

“Beth,” Deej whispered. “This isn’t a criminal investigation, honey. It’s a sad thing and I know you’re feeling shit that I can’t even imagine, but there’s no crime here. Just an unhappy man who couldn’t take it anymore.”

Beth stamped her foot and felt approximately twelve, but she didn’t care. “I have to go tell his children that their father is dead, Deej, and I won’t do that until I’m certain myself.”

Larry pushed a button on his radio. “We’re looking high and low for his body, Beth. You know how ruthless that terrain can be when you venture
just
a little bit off the beaten path. He could be any one of a thousand places.”

“But why would he leave a note and then wander away so we couldn’t find him?”

Deej pulled her arm and turned her to face him. “Bethie, we don’t know the answer to that. But you’re in denial here, sweetheart. He’s gone.”

And then the grief moved over to make room for fury. “How can you give up on him? You’ve seen so many unbelievable situations, Deej. How can you
not
believe that something just isn’t right? You know Chris almost as well as I do. He would never, ever do this.”

“The handwriting is his, Bethie.”

“I don’t care!”

Deej sighed and plopped into one of the kitchen chairs. It creaked under his heavy frame. “Officer Thomas, could you please have someone check out Ms. …” his voice trailed. He’d forgotten the slut’s name.

“Borden,” Beth said.

“Borden’s home and interview everyone who saw or spoke with Chris last night.”

“I can help with that,” Jackson said. “I was with him until last call.”

“Thank you,” Beth whispered and sat down too because she couldn’t remember how to stand for a moment more.

“What can I do?” Ramona asked as she squatted beside Beth.

Beth tilted her head toward Deej. “How are we approaching this, Captain? Do I tell my children and my in-laws, or do we wait quietly and see if I’m right?”

Deej closed his eyes, sighed and exhaled. “Tell his family that the press may get hold of this and whatever they hear, to just hold on. There may be more to it. Tell your parents not to say anything to the kids until we know more.”

“I can call everyone,” Ramona said and hopped up as if she were grateful that she finally had some use.

The room was empty then--just Beth and Deej and all of the uncertainty. “I’m sorry, Deej, but something isn’t right.”

“You’re a helluva profiler, Beth and that’s the only reason that I’m allowing this. I came because it’s procedure and because you’re my friends, but nothing seems amiss. If I didn’t love you and that stupid SOB husband of yours, I’d be back on a plane heading for Boston right now. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“And we will deem this a suicide as soon as I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that that’s what it is. Do you understand me now?”

“Yes,” Beth said in a ridiculously tiny voice.
             
“All right then.” He crossed his arms over his expanse of stomach. “How are you holding up?”

Beth blew into another napkin. “I don’t know.”

“That’s understandable. Now to tackle the next uncomfortable subject matter; I want to call George in on this.”

Beth raised her head.

“I know how he feels about you, Beth. Chris told me a few months ago that he suspected something was up with the two of you.”

“He did?”
”Yeah, he did. I called to ask his advice about a case, but you’re all he seemed to

be able to talk about.” Deej leaned up and snatched Beth’s hand. “Do you see why, though I trust your instinct and training implicitly, I don’t think you’re going to find any more here than a broken
-
hearted guy?”

             
“Call George if you have to. Call anyone you want because I’m not wrong about this.”

             
“I hope you’re right, Bethie. I goddamn hope you’re right.”

Chapter 9

It was an effort, but Chris bumped the back of his head against the wall and realized before he even attempted the movement that rising from the floor would be impossible. He shifted, flinched.

Not much
worse than broken ribs.

He bit his lip and clenched his side as he adjusted, using the wall behind him for leverage. He felt the steady whir of an engine beneath him. Train maybe? But there was no bump of track. A shift, a purr
and then
elevation. He was on a plane heading God only knew where.

What the fuck was going on?

He could hear muffled voices, but no one seemed to be in the same area he was confined to. He tried desperately to piece together what had transpired to bring him here. Amidst the pounding of his head and gut he remembered the bar, the drive home, the glaring light, the limo in the dark, the punch that knocked the wind from his sails.

He remembered two thick bodies stretching and pinning his so only his right hand was mobile. A forced pen into his hand and a paper shoved into his face. He wrote what they told him because even groggy and pummeled he was well aware that until you knew for certain who your foe was, it was useless to try and defeat them.

Chris clenched his eye, drew in a breath that hurt like hell and tried to remember the dictation he’d taken like a scared secretary in a burning high-rise. The words spun in his mind until he could piece them together.

He’d drafted a suicide note.

But why the hell would someone want to make it look like he was suicidal? George flashed into his mind--a swirling image of his neatly combed hair, Pepsodent smile and tailored suit. George had made the mistake of telling Chris the very first night Beth had joined the Bureau that he knew that she was the girl he was going to marry. Trouble was, Chris had known the very same thing. He’d won her of course, but only temporarily as it turned out. Beth was still young, still beautiful, still able to give George the children he hadn’t yet had and be his wonderful wife. From where Chris stood it sure as shit looked like George was winning this game, so why the hell would he want him eliminated now when it would’ve been so much more effective for Chris to be around and suffer the reality of watching George squirm into the lives of his family?

But George was a smart guy; and a guy that Chris was never able to completely trust. The combination was less than comforting.

Now here he was, on a plane bound for anywhere. Beth had probably already been informed that he was dead and she was most likely seeking comfort against the smooth texture of George’s all-season black Armani.

And Noah and Audrey. Did they know? Had Beth told them that Daddy didn’t love them enough to play it through no matter how much he was hurting inside? He’d walk through flames laced with broken glass for those kids--for Beth too, but she was an adult and she’d made her choice. It couldn’t matter anymore what she thought, but the kids were another story.

Chris lifted his cuffed hands and smashed his elbow into the smooth wall of what had to be a fairly decent-sized plane. Pain rippled through him, but he repeated the motion. A moment later a door slid open and a beefy bald guy pushed through.

“Quiet.”

Chris repeated the painful, noisy move. “Did George Bauman hire you?”

“I know of no such man.”

Chris squinted. An articulate thug. “What the fuck do you want with me?”

“I know nothing. Quiet now.” He backed out of the door.

He’d bet next year’s crop on the fact that that guy was one of the ones who’d beaten him and then pinned him. What’d happened in the ensuing time though? He didn’t remember a thing after he’d finished the clipped and cryptic note.

What the fuck was going on?

Chapter
10

Beth lay in her otherwise empty bed and listened to the wind whistle through the trees. In the eleven years that this had been her home, she’d never spent an entire night alone in the house before.

She flipped onto her side and stared at the branches outside of her bedroom window, dancing in the thick breeze. Tomorrow was Noah’s first day of fifth grade in a brand new town. He didn’t know a soul; she wasn’t even sure her mother would find his backpack in the Target bag in her room. Audrey had never had a night away from her. What would she feel when she woke up tomorrow and her mother still hadn’t returned from the mystery trip that she’d fled to yesterday morning?

And what would either of them think or feel if her intuition proved wrong and she actually had to divulge that their father had taken his own life in a selfish act of revenge. There was no question that
if that was
the case, Beth would lose her son too because Noah would never find it in his heart to forgive her for robbing him of his father.