Nowhere to Hide (3 page)

She said as much to her, but Gretchen was zeroed in on the guy—Dominic, call him Dom—and didn’t seem to hear her. Deciding it was time to vamoose, September headed outside into a sultry evening with a hot wind blowing the first leaves around, sending them skittering over her boots as she walked back to her silver Honda Pilot. She really shouldn’t have come to the Laurelton steak house and bar wearing utilitarian black slacks and the button-up, short-sleeve shirt she’d worn to work. Even though it was popular with commuters Xavier’s screamed for plunging necklines and chandelier earrings and CFM shoes with four-inch-heels.

Like that was ever going to happen.

She should go to her father’s like she’d said she would and root through the attic and basement and garage and outbuildings in search of all the old flotsam and jetsam of her days at Sunset Elementary School. But like Auggie she didn’t like going “home.”
Ever.
She hadn’t been comfortable there after her mother’s car accident when September was in the fifth grade, and the thought of dealing with her autocratic father, who’d basically disowned her and Auggie when they went into law enforcement, wasn’t a pleasant one, either. And then to have to explain about a killer who was targeting her . . . Braden Rafferty would have an apoplectic fit and the “I told you sos” would come raining down in a torrent.

And don’t even get her started on Rosamund, the latest stepmother, whose age was closer to September’s than her father’s. The stepmom before Rosamund, Verna, lay somewhere in between; Braden’s taste had apparently grown younger as he grew older.

Peachy.

Switching on the ignition and the Bluetooth, September dug out her cell and hit Auggie’s number. That stuff she’d told him she wanted to talk about when he called on her birthday was bothering her and now she didn’t want to wait until she’d found her grade school papers and such to discuss it. The phone rang three times before he answered, “Hey, there, Nine.”

“Hey, yourself. I’m thinking of heading to Dad’s now, finally, and looking around for my grade-school memorabilia,” she said, negotiating into traffic.

“Took a while to work up the courage, huh. I feel your pain.”

“I just wanted to talk about . . . growing up Rafferty, a bit.”

He groaned. “Do we have to?”

“No one would have thrown our stuff out, would they? Dad? Verna, or Rosamund? I can’t think they’d bother. I’m guessing my stuff—all of our stuff—just got shoved into the attic or basement and forgotten.”

“Probably,” he allowed.

“If Dad’s there, I’ll ask him.”

“When was the last time you talked to him?” Auggie asked.

“He called me on my birthday, at a more civilized hour than you did.”

“When before that?” he challenged.

“We talked on the phone on March’s birthday,” September told him. “And, of course, I saw him at July’s birthday party at The Willows,” she added, referring to her father’s winery.

“Pretty good. Now tell me how long, every time, it took him before he suggested you seek other employment?”

“He’s been better lately about keeping it to himself.”

Auggie sniffed his disbelief. “Maybe going to the house will be okay, then,” he said, but his voice said something else.

“The killer got my artwork from somewhere. Dad’s house is the most likely place.”

“If it even was the killer who sent it to you.”

“Of course it was the killer,” she stated.

“Not necessarily. Pauline Kirby let the world know. Could be somebody trying to shake you up.”

Kirby was Channel Seven’s best-known reporter and she was fast becoming the nemesis of everyone in the police department, September included. She’d blindsided September in a recent television interview.

“One of our family members?” she asked him. “That’s what you’re suggesting, right?”

“Maybe. I’m just saying the message could be from someone other than the killer.”

“You just don’t want to think he’s targeted me. I get it. But yeah, it is a warning. And though I’ve got issues with some of our family members, I don’t think any of them could be involved in any way with this killer. Maybe . . . the message was from someone who knows who the killer is and knows I’m on the case, but it’s not our family. That I won’t believe.” Something in her own words tickled her brain, but when she tried to place what it was, it escaped her.

“You gotta keep your mind open, Nine.”

“Well,
whoever
sent it to me got it from somewhere. That’s all I’m saying. And the most likely place is the house.”

“If you see dear old Dad when you’re there, don’t mention my name.”

“Yeah, like he won’t ask about you. ‘How’s your twin, September? Have you seen August lately?’ That’s pretty standard.”

“He disowned us,” Auggie said. “Not the other way around.”

“You’re preaching to the choir. But I gotta go see him.”

She negotiated around a tight corner and back to her apartment complex with its matching sets of upper and lower units that gave it a faux townhouse look, each set separated from the others by different facades, colors, and design elements. September and her lower neighbor’s unit sported tan shingles with black shutters. “I’m not crazy about going out there tonight, but I need to do something.”

“Be careful, Nine.”

“Oh, don’t start that whole big brother crap with me.”

“As soon as I can, I’m going to help you catch this bastard,” he said for about the fiftieth time.

“D’Annibal took me off Zuma, and put me on Do Unto Others even before I got the message from the killer or
whoever
. Give Sandler and me a chance, for God’s sake. We’re capable. Okay? Capable.”

“If it
was
the killer who sent you that artwork, then he’s zeroed in on you.”

“You’re deaf, I swear. Let me do this! If you—” September stopped herself from saying something she would regret. She knew the main reason he was acting this way was because he was afraid for her.

“If I . . . ?” he prompted.

“Just don’t do anything yet. I’ll go to Dad’s and see if I can find anything at the house. Gretchen and I are digging into the backgrounds of all the vics. Revisiting stuff we’ve already visited. Doing the work. Trust me, there’s nothing for you to do, so just . . . wait.”

After a long pause he finally said, “Okay.”

“Go be with Liv and forget about me for a while. I can take care of myself. Even with Dad. I’m going to ask him about the kitchen wall where Mom hung up our elementary school stuff. He might remember something about it. Mom put the artwork that was sent to me at the station on the wall, the falling leaves. I remember that. She had it up for a long time.”

“Your memory’s faulty. She had mine up there, not yours,” Auggie said.

“Uh-uh.” September pulled into her designated spot in the carport, cut the engine, but stayed in the car.

“It was mine,” Auggie insisted.

“She had your leaf artwork up there, too?”

“I don’t know about yours, but mine was there. We both did a bunch of the same projects all through elementary school. I didn’t remember it was from second grade, but if you say so I’ll believe it. Mom was always tagging up some stupid thing we’d done and declaring it art.”

“Mrs. Walsh was my second grade teacher. The artwork that came to the station was from when I was in her homeroom.”

“Well, there you go. But I know it was
my
artwork on the kitchen wall. Maybe yours was there, too.”

“What teacher did you have?”

“Mrs. McBride.”

“Ugh. She was no fun,” September remembered. “And the third homeroom teacher was Ms. Osborne. She was younger.”

“Uh huh.” He sounded like he was losing interest in the conversation.

“You’re sure it was your artwork?” September squinted, thinking hard as she got out of the car.

“I know it was.”

“God, Auggie, maybe you’re right. I left a lot of my stuff at school, I remember. You were always better about bringing everything home. It used to piss me off.”

“Ah, yes. I was an approval-seeker in those days.”

“So, what does that mean? That my project never made it home, and then . . . it fell into the hands of the killer . . . or whoever?”

“All I know is somebody sent you a message meant to scare you. If you find more elementary schoolwork at the house, it doesn’t necessarily mean anybody at the house sent it to you. Maybe that project was found by someone else, someone with a twisted purpose.”

“Someone who knew it was
my
second grade work and that I’m a cop, so they could send it to the station?”

“You were just on the news, weren’t you?”

“Yes, but—”

“I gotta go, Nine. Take it easy with dear old Dad. Don’t let him get to you. And call me later and let me know if you find some more artwork. We made so many beautiful pieces back then.”

“I’ve always wondered if maybe we should have chosen a fine arts school instead of the police academy.”

His snort of laughter was his sign-off, and she was smiling as she walked past the door to the unit below hers. She headed up the private flight of steps that led to each upper unit, then pulled out her keys, unlocked her door, and quickly let herself inside, closing the door behind her and throwing the deadbolt. She wasn’t nearly as cavalier as she would like Auggie to believe.

She looked around the small space: U-shaped kitchen, living room with television and DVR. Along the back of the overstuffed couch was the quilt her maternal grandmother had given her. September had called her grandmother Meemaw when she was learning to talk and it stuck. Meemaw had died the same year her daughter Kathryn, September’s mother, had been killed in an automobile accident. Meemaw had had health issues, or so her father had told her, but to this day September believed Meemaw’s death was from a broken heart at the loss of her only child.

Before she could change her mind, September traded her work clothes for jeans, a black tank, and sandals, and headed to the Rafferty estate on the southern edge of Laurelton. The Raffertys, already wealthy, had been made wealthier by September’s father, a businessman. After Kathryn’s death, Braden had become even more single-sighted and hard driving, and he’d added to the Rafferty fortune, often on the backs of others, which had earned him more than a few enemies along the way . . . and lost him relationships with his youngest children, September and Auggie.

Braden Rafferty was known for his money, his influence, his business acumen, and his winery, The Willows, but he was not known for being a family man despite having five children. He was also not known for his fidelity and stick-to-itiveness. Though September still ached for the loss of her mother, and though she knew her father had loved Kathryn as much as he was capable of, she also knew Braden had made her mother’s life a living hell. She liked to think Kathryn Rafferty had found peace in the hereafter. It made the “here” so much more bearable.

Now, driving through the pillared gates, September drew a fortifying breath. She pulled up to the sprawling Rafferty home and parked on the wide concrete apron, edged in travertine, that Braden had put in for his guests, which really, when you thought about it, was all September was to him anymore.

She climbed from her silver Pilot into a dense, black night, studded by stars, pushed the remote to lock the vehicle, then turned toward the house.

Showtime, she thought a bit grimly.

Chapter 2

The Rafferty house itself was a monstrosity. Built to resemble a Bavarian castle complete with front turret, gables, and pinnacles, its interior had been remodeled twice, once each by the two successive wives her father had married after her mother’s death, both times to the serious detriment of the home. The last time September had visited she hadn’t recognized one item of furniture, one dish, one picture from her growing up years. Everything had been changed. Everything had become something that either Verna, her father’s second wife, or Rosamund, his current one, had added to the house, although Verna’s contributions were slowly being eradicated: the crystal chandelier had been replaced with a modern one sporting polished nickel spikes that ended in bulbs; the heavy damask brown drapes had been replaced with even heavier damask black drapes; the kitchen cabinets, natural cherry once, had been painted burgundy during Verna’s regime, and now were a malignant lime green.

September wondered briefly, as she had before, what had happened to Verna’s sly, glance-at-you-out-of-the-sides-of-his-eyes son, Stefan Harmak, who was two years younger than September and Auggie. Verna had been married to Braden for about ten years before he met Rosamund, during September’s tween and teen years. September’s memory of that period was of just trying to keep her head down to stay out of the way of Verna’s mercurial wrath. To this day Verna complained loudly and bitterly to anyone who would listen that Rosamund Bitch Reece was a money-grubbing slut (which actually had been said about Verna as well, though September wisely kept that to herself) and that the much younger Rosamund had seduced Braden with her sexual ways, otherwise she, Verna, would still be with Braden.

Which was, of course, utterly false.

September knocked on the front door, but, finding it unlocked, let herself in before anyone could answer. She headed down the thick Moroccan carpet that ran from the foyer to the living room and called, “Hello? Rosamund? It’s September.”

At the edge of the living room September halted, listening. Her eyes fell on the picture on the opposite wall. When Verna was queen of the castle, she’d put a photo of Stefan in pride of place on the mantel above the black, marble-faced fireplace, but now September saw that Stefan’s picture had been replaced by a larger one of the beautiful Rosamund. She glanced away from the picture, then jerked back.

Was that a
baby bump
in the picture?

A moment later she heard footsteps padding toward her, and then Rosamund appeared in bare feet and a light tan linen sleeveless top and capri pants. To her disbelief the baby bump was now a full-fledged hill.

“My God, September! I thought some stranger had just walked in! Suma must have forgotten to lock the door after she left. Doesn’t matter how many times I tell her, she always forgets.”