Nowhere to Hide (4 page)

“I didn’t know you were pregnant,” September said in a wooden voice.

Rosamund’s eyes were a tawny brown, and her hair was a long, straight, lustrous, dark brown sheath. She lifted one brow and said obliquely, “If you and your brother would call Braden more often, you might learn things.”

Sideways accusations. Her way. “If memory serves, he basically disowned Auggie and me over our career choices.”

“He said he called you on your birthday.”

“He gets points for that,” she said without inflection.

“You carry such a grudge,” she said with a tsk-tsk.

“A Rafferty trait. So, when is this blessed event due to occur?”

Rosamund placed a hand atop her belly. “January.”

“I hope it’s a girl,” September said, “if you and Dad are sticking with the month-naming thing.”

“It is a girl,” she said. “I plan on naming her Gilda.”

“Gilda. Good luck with that.”

Her lips compressed and she said, “If you’re looking for your father, he’s at The Willows.”

The Willows was about forty minutes away, in the Oregon wine country of Yamhill County. September took it as a good sign that her father wasn’t in a closed-door conference with her older brother, March, heads bent together planning some sort of new business coup that would garner them a boatload of bucks while putting good people out of work, their usual modus operandi.

“I actually came to look in the attic for some of my grade school work,” September told her, seeking to ease around Rosamund who was firmly planted between September and the back stairs to the attic.

“Grade school? What for?”

“I’m thinking of framing some of my artwork and selling it for some extra cash.”

“Ha, ha. So funny. I don’t really want you to go into the attic right now, if you don’t mind. I’ll tell Braden, and you guys can figure it out later.”

“Are you serious?” September stared at her.

“As a heart attack,” she answered coolly.

For the first time it occurred to September that the awful Verna might have been a better choice for a partner than Rosamund. And she might even have been right about that Rosamund-bitch thing.

She was debating on telling Rosamund the true reason she wanted to search the attic, when March strode through the front door as if he owned the place. He stopped short upon seeing September and Rosamund together. “Nine, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Visiting,” she said. “Dad’s at The Willows.”

“I know. I’m heading there next. Since when did you start ‘visiting’?”

“Oh, you know. Just missed my family.”

He peered closely at her, trying to discern if she was putting him on. He looked like Auggie: dark hair, the Rafferty blue eyes, strong jaw, lean build. But where Auggie always had the light of amusement in his eyes, March was stern and cold, like their father. September’s older sister, July, favored both her brothers’ looks, whereas May, the sister closest in age to September—whose death when September was just fifteen shattered them all anew a few short years after Kathryn’s death—also looked the closest to September: the same athletic build, high cheekbones, auburn hair, and, of course, the Rafferty blue eyes.

Now, it appeared they were about to have a new member of the family.

As if reading her mind, March glanced at Rosamund’s rounded figure and frowned. He’d married a woman while in his twenties, but the union hadn’t made it five years; Jenny, his ex, had liked the money and lifestyle, but had liked her Pilates instructor more.

March and Jenny had one child together: ten-year-old Evie, who lived with him half the time, Jenny the other half. Evie was downright beautiful with long, dark hair and eyes so blue they looked violet, but she was as unsmiling and uncompromising as her father. At least that’s how September remembered her, and that’s certainly how Evie had appeared two months earlier at July’s birthday party at The Willows. But then Evie had been the only child at the outdoor picnic, so maybe that accounted for her attitude. September hated to think that, like March, who was as demanding, inflexible, and humorless as Braden, Evie had inherited those same Rafferty traits.

“Have you seen July?” he asked September and Rosamund both.

“She’s not at The Willows?” September responded, as her sister ran the winery for her father.

“I just called there and they said she hadn’t shown up today.” He sounded irked.

Rosamund shrugged and said, “I’m not her keeper.”

“I haven’t seen her since her . . . birthday,” September admitted, acutely aware that, though she’d gone to the picnic for July, she had merely called March on his birthday and had ignored her father’s altogether.

If March noticed, he gave no sign of it, saying impatiently to Rosamund, “When you see her, tell her I need to talk to her.”

“Text her. You’ll probably talk to her first anyway,” Rosamund replied, running a hand through her hair, looking bored.

“How’s Evie?” September asked.

“Fine,” he said brusquely. He mumbled something about papers in Braden’s den, then strode on past them.

Rosamund watched him go and said to September, “He works with Braden. They’re always bringing papers and folders and briefcases into the den.”

“I didn’t think March had much to do with July and the winery. Does he see her that often?”

“Oh, sure . . . we all do now.”

“What do you mean?”

Rosamund gave an unladylike snort. “She’s been living here the past month. Just moved in without even asking me! I told Braden she has to leave before the baby’s born, but no one seems to want to listen to me.”

September couldn’t credit it. Though she hadn’t kept up with most of her family, she was surprised her older sister had moved back in with their father. March had his own place, and he and her father practically lived in each other’s skin. July had always, as long as September was aware, kept her own apartment or condo.

Rosamund was looking at her, waiting, and September thought about storming past her to the attic, then decided it just wasn’t worth it. Even if she found her grade school treasures, she doubted there was anything earth-shattering amongst them that would give her a new lead in the investigation.

“Tell Dad I’ll be by tomorrow,” she said, then headed back outside into the still warm evening.

She felt depressed. Without Auggie, she had no one to relate to within the Rafferty clan. Her mother and May, the women she’d been closest to, had been taken from her before she was an adult. July had always been on her own path and September had been too young to ever really relate to her. Maybe it was time to bridge that gap; it was worth a try. She just wished she had someone else who was close enough to confide in; Auggie was there but he’d been undercover off and on, and therefore had been unavailable a lot of the time.

No wonder she’d fallen for Jake Westerly when she’d been a senior in high school. No wonder she’d made a fool of herself that year, dreaming about him like a lovesick fool, making love with him only to learn from his vile friend T.J. that Jake had merely been trying to score with a virgin. Was it true? To this day, she didn’t know, and it didn’t matter anyway in the larger scheme of things. September had wanted to be with him and she’d gotten that chance. He’d actually been nice to her during that time—or she’d thought he was being nice, hard to say with T.J.’s reveal—which had been wonderful after all the years of teasing she’d endured from Jake throughout elementary school. Jake’s father had worked for September’s and there was a bit of the rich kid/poor kid thing that he’d needled her about. It was like a backward way of flirting she recognized now, but it had hurt when she was young, especially because she secretly liked him. And then everything changed in high school when Jake came into his own and money was no longer any factor in his social status, and for a brief moment he split with his longtime girlfriend, Loni Cheever, and he and September spent a night together.

When he learned about it, T.J. had had a lot of unkind things to say about that. Embarrassing things. September had pretended to be immune as a means to get him to stop, but when Jake went back to Loni, she started wondering if some of what T.J. had said might actually be true. Did guys really want to score with virgins just to get that notch on their belts? Guys like Jake Westerly?

It just was so damn lame.

Shaking off the thought, September drove back the way she’d come, arriving at her apartment around seven-thirty. She’d barely parked when she thought of the empty contents of her refrigerator, so she started the ignition again and turned the Pilot toward the nearest fast-food restaurant, Subway Sandwiches.

Twenty minutes later, pastrami sandwich in hand, she returned to her apartment, stripped off her clothes, ran through the shower, then placed her sandwich on a plate and went to eat at the sofa, in front of the TV Ever since she’d been interviewed about the Do Unto Others case a few weeks earlier, she’d set her DVR to record the Channel Seven nightly news at five-thirty and ten. Now she grabbed the remote and scrolled through the list of programs, punching up the recording of the five-thirty news as she took her first bite.

She was staring at the screen when the thought she hadn’t been able to catch earlier came back to her:
he’d seen her on the news.
He had to have. The killer had seen her on the news and that’s how he knew she was a detective.

And that very same night Glenda Tripp was murdered.

And shortly thereafter September had received the “bloody” message.

She set the sandwich down, and put the recording on
PAUSE
, catching Channel Seven’s newswoman and resident muckraker Pauline Kirby’s feral face in a really unbecoming moment where her eyes were half-shut and her mouth was opened in a snarl.

Was she making connections that weren’t there?

No. It was too coincidental. He’d sent her that message and it was personal.

With a feeling of dread—she hated seeing herself on video—she switched from today’s news to the interview she’d done with Pauline Kirby. She’d watched it once, horrified at how she looked. She didn’t know how actors and people like Pauline Kirby did it. Whenever she saw herself on camera all she wanted to do was close her eyes and groan at the flaws.

Now, she exited the news program and scrolled through the lists on her DVR until she found the recorded interview again. It had been taken at the crime scene where Emmy Decatur’s body had been discovered.

Setting her teeth, September pushed the button and the program started. She fast-forwarded to the clip with Pauline Kirby and the two hikers who had found the body, an interview that had occurred before September had arrived at the scene. Sitting on the edge of the couch, she braced for what was to come, determined this time to pay strict attention to the words and not get distracted by her own shortcomings, real or imagined.

It began with Pauline introducing the two hikers to the camera: “The body of Emmy Decatur was found by Brian Legusky and Dina Wendt, hikers familiar with this area near the foothills of the Coast Range. They called 911 and turned the case over to the Laurelton Police Department, but they agreed to come back to the site for us and give us a recap of just what happened.” She pointed the mic toward Legusky and said, “Tell us what happened.”

“Well . . . me and Dina had been on some trails and we were coming back and our truck was over there . . .” He motioned toward the gravel road that September had parked on when she’d joined the interview. “It was a nice day. We thought we’d maybe put our packs down in the field, have somethin’ to eat . . . I dunno. And then, there she was . . .” He glanced over at Wendt, who was staring wide-eyed, looking sick with the memory.

Pauline then tried to engage Wendt, who could barely squeak out a word or two. Then back to Pauline, who said she was about to interview one of the investigators on the case, Detective September Rafferty of the Laurelton PD.

Enter September, wearing black pants, a black V-necked T-shirt, and her light gray, linen jacket. It had been hot that day, too, but she’d worried about sweat stains so she’d put on the jacket for her television appearance. Her auburn hair was normally clipped back, but she’d let it down for the interview and when the handheld camera brought her up, she looked too young to have any experience at all.

“Dammit.” Lieutenant D’Annibal had asked her to be the face of the investigation and she’d been sent as a missionary of department goodwill.
Never fear, good citizens of Laurelton, the police are here to serve and protect and we’ve sent out our finest
—
youngest
—
detective to put you at ease.

Pauline began by asking September about the circumstances that had brought Decatur’s body to their attention, which was the 911 call, and then brought up Sheila Dempsey, the first victim discovered strangled and left in a field in the area, though Dempsey had been across the county line and not in the Laurelton PD’s jurisdiction until D’Annibal wrested the case away after the discovery of Decatur’s body. Then when the third victim, Glenda Tripp, was found within Laurelton city limits, it was understood the case had been given to Laurelton generally, and to September and Gretchen Sandler specifically.

But at the time of the interview with Pauline, Tripp’s body hadn’t been found yet, so the thrust concerned Sheila Dempsey and Emmy Decatur, a surprise to September as she’d hoped to keep the crimes separated, at least as far as the public knew. She’d had to go with the flow, however, and said, “. . . we’re still checking the evidence to see if the two crimes are truly related,” hoping to put an end to the speculation.

Pauline was nodding and regarding her with an intense, “I get you” look, but then she uttered her pièce d’ résistance: “We understand there were markings on the bodies. Words.”

September watched herself glance toward the hikers. They’d been asked not to reveal anything about the words carved into Emmy Decatur’s body, but Pauline had apparently gotten to them. She then turned from them, faced Pauline squarely, and said, “Cause of death was strangulation in both cases.”

“But there were markings . . .” Pauline also looked over to Legusky and Wendt. “There were words, cut into Emmy Decatur’s torso. ‘Do Unto Others As She Did To Me,’ right?” The camera pulled back to include Legusky, who nodded several times. Pauline then focused on September again, asking, “Can you confirm, Detective Rafferty?”