His Frozen Heart (14 page)

He shot me a wary look, “Candy, I told
you, I was here all night.”

Dave was trying to hide it. Did he
think I was some bubble-headed girl? Or maybe he was trying to do
some mind-control thing on me to try to convince me he hadn’t been
there. “Uh, so, you didn’t tear into Teddy for throwing the four
hundred dollars on the floor for Libby to pick up instead of
handing it to her?”

“
Holy shit, Libby won four
hundred dollars? Doing what?”

He seemed genuinely surprised. Dave
should be living in Hollywood. “Uh, playing pool.”

“
I didn’t know she played.
If you two want, there’s a great bar a couple blocks from here.
It’s a pay by the hour table instead of seventy-five cents per
game.”

Dismissing his suggestion, I answered,
“Yeah, Deuces Wild. She and I play there every now and
again.”

I couldn’t wrap my mind around things.
Did he have multiple personalities or something? He had always been
so quiet, and this was like a completely different person. Last
night he had wanted me to call him Mark. Was it possible he didn’t
know he was there?

I never knew much about him other than
he was in foster care. It never occurred to me that there might
actually be something wrong with him. He reached out a warm hand to
my shoulder as concern deepened his tone, “Candy, are you okay?
You’re white as a ghost.”

“
Um, yeah, I’m fine. Hey, I
gotta go. I must have seen someone who looked like you.”

I stood up quickly, his hand remained
on my shoulder, “Sit down for a minute. You don’t look so hot. Eat
some more of the bagel.”

He’s got multiple personalities and he
wants me to eat a bagel? “I’m fine. I’m just late. It was great
seeing you again.” I turned away from him quickly, knocking the mug
to the floor where it smashed into slivers. “I’m sorry.” My memory
of last night flashed before my eyes of a smashed casserole dish
with bits of marinara sauce everywhere. I stumbled away from
him.

“
Candy, relax. What’s
wrong?”

“
I’m fine. I’m sorry about
the mess.” I continued backing away from him toward the
door.

“
It’s okay, I’ll get it.
You sure you’re all right?”

“
Yeah.” I grabbed the door,
flung it open and practically flew to my car. I was inside with the
ignition turned over pulling away from the curb before he could
follow me out. I kept looking in my rearview mirror to see if he
was following me, but he wasn’t.

I couldn’t make sense of what he’d
said. I knew he was at the bar last night. He made fun of Teddy for
being beaten by a girl, and now he pretends he wasn’t there. If he
didn’t have multiple personalities, he was the best actor I’d ever
seen. He had to have been involved in the attack on Libby and was
trying to cover his tracks. Maybe that’s why he had said the stuff
about having a crush on me and hoping my car would break down. What
did he take me for?

Chapter 9

I couldn’t go back to the hospital –
not yet. I didn’t have the strength to see Libby’s lifeless body
again so soon. Was it the guilt that I was responsible for what had
happened to her, or the knowledge that the same thing could just as
easily have happened to me? Or worse, if I hadn’t been working
behind bullet-proof glass, I could be lying in the morgue right
now.

I didn’t want to go to school. My mind
was all over the place, and there was no way I was going to pass a
test or sit through a bunch of lectures today. Mr. Sanders had
given me the week off, so picking up hours there was a non-starter.
I wasn’t scheduled to work at the restaurant again until Saturday.
I worked as a housekeeper for a couple bachelors, but I had just
cleaned their house last week, so they wouldn’t want me back again
until next week. Bank Shot didn’t open for a couple hours, so
trying to find Chris wouldn’t be possible, either.

Home. I needed to go home, to take a
shower, to attempt to wash some of the fear off of me. Pointing the
car in that direction, my mind continued scrolling through several
possible scenarios.

The guy who tried to shoot me last
night had gotten his money back, courtesy of Mr. Sander’s cash
register. He had broken the security cameras, probably betting that
they weren’t hooked up to a recorder. Idiot. Even if the picture
wasn’t clear enough for facial recognition, I had zoomed in on his
license plate, and I was sure he had left his fingerprints on the
restroom key. The cops shouldn’t have any problem finding him. What
he had done to Libby was grisly – no one inflicts that kind of pain
unless they enjoy it. Even if he did have his money back, I needed
to be careful until he was apprehended.

The hole in my windshield made driving
a nightmare. I leaned as far to the left as I could to keep my face
out of the path of the arctic air blowing directly on it. I wished
I had a piece of gum to try to stuff into the hole.

After the longest trip across town
that I could remember, I parked the car in front of my house.
Expecting to see police tape on my front door and neighbors
speculating over what had happened, I was surprised to see a
typical quiet morning on the street. Based on the number of cars
along the curb, most of my neighbors had gone to work. I climbed
out of my car and locked my door just in time to look up and see
Mrs. Bavcock standing inches away from me. Her proximity startled
me – that was twice today I’d been sneaked up on. She urgently
pleaded, “Have you seen Henrietta?”

I had learned long ago not to ask
which cat was which. She had a slew of them, and one always seemed
to escape for a few days. She would comb the neighborhood looking
for the escapee with little luck, but eventually it would come
back. Dismissively, I answered, “No, sorry, I’ll keep a lookout for
her.”

She lowered her voice
conspiratorially, “I saw the ambulance last night.”

My heart lurched. I wasn’t ready for
questions from nosey neighbors. What could I tell her? How much did
she already know? I wanted a few minutes of solitude in a hot
shower followed by bundling myself in my comforter and shutting the
world out for a little while. I did not want to face the reality of
what Libby or I had gone through last night. I couldn’t walk away
from Mrs. Bavcock. She wanted an explanation – I didn’t understand
the details any better than the police and struggled with what to
tell her. “Yeah, Libby’s at Saint Elizabeth’s. I just left a little
bit ago.”

Mrs. Bavcock took my hand in hers, her
voice an urgent whisper, “I didn’t want to get involved. Those
types of men prey on women alone.”

My eyes widened as I pulled her hand
toward me, “Did you see something? Did you see the guy?”

She looked to her right, then her
left. She answered in a sweet grandmotherly voice, “Why don’t you
come over for some tea?”

Tea? What the hell? Did she see
something or not? “Mrs. Bavcock, if you saw something, you need to
tell the cops. Libby’s still unconscious.”

Her voice was louder as she pried her
hand away from my grip. “No, of course not, dear. I go to bed too
early. The lights from the emergency vehicles woke me up last
night.”

Frustrated, I turned my back on her,
and stomped off toward my front steps. I didn’t need a grandmother
or a prying neighbor right now – what I did need was my loofah
sponge and enough hot water to cloud the bathroom in a blanket of
steam.

“
Oh, say, Candy,” her voice
echoed toward me, “I need you to help me move a box.”

I stopped before my foot could climb
the first step toward my front door. Blowing out an exasperated
breath, I couldn’t tell her “no” outright, but I was far too wound
up to be polite. “I’ll stop by later, Mrs. Bavcock. I need a
shower.”

She nearly shrieked, “Candy, please!
It’s very important. The box is leaking on my carpet.”

A box is leaking on her carpet? Why
wouldn’t she just empty out the contents of the box or slide a rug
under it? I turned around not even attempting to hide my
incredulous look, but saw pure fear staring back at me through her
aged eyes. Before I could turn her down a second time, a voice
inside me told me I needed to help her. She was old; for all I
knew, she was recycling motor oil or something dumb, and I’d never
hear the end of it if I didn’t save her carpet today.

Reluctantly I answered, “Okay, lead
the way.”

She smiled warmly and wrapped both her
hands around my elbow, I assumed to use me for support crossing the
packed ice on our street. She let me in the side door of her home,
closed the door behind us and secured the deadbolt. I wandered into
her living room to find the offending box, but nothing seemed out
of place. One thing I could say for her, she knew how to clean. Her
house always smelled like warm cookies with a hint of vanilla,
despite the number of cats that shared her home.

As I turned back toward her to ask
where the box was she needed help with, her feeble hands were
gripping an ornate wooden chair from her dining room set. Confused,
I asked, “Mrs. Bavcock, are you all right?”

“
Help me with this, Candy,
quickly,” she demanded.

I took the beautifully handcrafted
chair from her as she pointed to the door we had just come in.
Unable to make sense of her request, I asked, “I don’t understand.
I thought you needed help with a box?”

“
For God’s sake, Candy,
there is a man in your house! He’s been there for hours. Secure the
door and call the police.”

A shot of adrenaline ripped through my
body as my hand dropped the chair. “What? Who?”

I stood paralyzed with fear as she
rushed in front of me, scooped the fallen chair up off of the floor
and rushed to the door to wedge it under the door knob. She
answered me urgently, “I don’t know. I couldn’t see his face. He’s
been looking through the curtains most of the morning. I don’t
think he saw me watching him. What are you waiting for? Call the
police!”

Still in shock I challenged, “Why
didn’t you already call them?”

“
I’m an old woman, Candy.
Until you came home I wasn’t sure what to do, but I couldn’t let
you go in there with him waiting.” She shoved an old-time rotary
phone at me.

Instead of using hers, I fished my
cell out of my pocket. Just as I was dialing 911, a throaty rumble
reverberated down our street. My thumb hovered over the send button
as I looked through her front window at the unfamiliar car crawling
down the narrow road. The car was sleek, a black matte finish and
all muscle – it pulled in directly behind my car. The car’s finish
reminded me of the Nova from last night. I couldn’t see the driver
through the tinted windows, but I recognized the car: not the Nova
from last night, but one of the show cars partially snow covered at
Dave Brewer’s garage. My heart began picking up speed in my chest
as all the worst possible scenarios started playing at warp speed
through my mind.

The car door opened and a shiny black
motorcycle boot eased out onto the icy pavement. A second later I
watched Dave pull himself out of the beasty car. I had gotten out
of his shop before he could pounce, but he knew where I lived. My
stomach sank to my toes. He had followed me here. He might have
even told the creep in my house to wait for me to return, and Dave
was going to finish me off. What had I ever done to him? I had been
one of the few people who was nice to him back in school. If it
weren’t for me, he might not even have the auto repair place he has
now. Why would he be involved, and why all the fuss over a few
hundred dollars?

Mrs. Bavcock grabbed my arm, squeezing
far harder than was necessary to pull me out of my daze, “Who is
that? Do you know him?”

I didn’t answer, but she must have
read the fear on my face. She demanded, “Call the police. Now. Call
them.”

I watched Dave climb my front steps.
He stood at my front door, using the glare from the storm door to
check out his reflection and smooth his hair, then he pressed the
doorbell. I wanted to shriek. I crouched down on the floor close to
the ledge of Mrs. Bavcock’s front window. This gave me a great
vantage point, but the sheer floral curtains hanging in front of my
face precluded any prying eyes from seeing me. I watched him press
the doorbell a second time.

Dave shoved his hands deep into his
pockets. He still didn’t own any gloves? He eased himself a few
feet to the left where an enormous picture window looked out onto
the street. He tried to look in between the gap in the curtain,
holding his hand over his brows in an attempt to cancel the glare.
Walking back in front of the door, he rang the doorbell a third
time, then proceeded to pound on the front door. I could see he was
shouting something.

Mrs. Bavcock was crouched beside me on
the floor, “What’d he say?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I
couldn’t hear.”

Dave bounded off the front porch,
landing hard on the pristine snow surrounding the house. Dave
walked around to each window on the first floor, desperate to see
inside. What was he doing?

The third window he approached, he
must have seen something that startled him, because he had been
leaning in close to the glass then took three rapid steps away from
it. Dave shouted at the window. It sounded like, “Hey!! What’s
going on?” But I couldn’t be sure.