Seeing Red (28 page)

He knocked back a burning swallow of scotch. If he drank enough, maybe he’d get some sleep today.

When his doorbell rang, he nearly ignored it.

What if it was the police about the murder? The instant he’d seen the photo of the Potter girl, he’d called and reported his suspicions. He’d seen Nate Vance slip out of Ellis’s condo that night and disappear into the marsh. Why sneak out if he wasn’t up to no good? And if it wasn’t Vance, the murderer was likely Alexander.

Greg walked to the front window and looked out.

A Charleston County Sheriff’s vehicle sat in his drive.

He set down his drink and went to the door.

When he opened it, the deputy on his doorstep held up an envelope. “Mr. Gregory Reinhardt?”

“Yes.”

“I’m here to serve you with this restraining order.” He handed Greg the envelope.

“What? From who?”

“The magistrate of Charleston County has ordered you to cease harassing Hollis Alexander. You are to have no contact whatsoever with him. And you are to remain a minimum of five hundred yards from his person at all times.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Greg’s face grew hot, and it wasn’t from the scotch.

“No, sir. The details are in the order.” The deputy returned to his car.

Greg slammed the front door closed and flipped the envelope like a Frisbee. It hit the wall with a snap. Then he retrieved his glass and refilled it to the brim.

Court protection for scum like Alexander! Had the entire world gone mad?

Ellis had always mocked clichés. She considered them a lazy and unimaginative way of expressing oneself. But as she looked at the crushed path she’d made in her carpet as she’d paced the hours away, the phrase “the walls were closing in” kept popping into her mind.

It was nearing noon, and she still hadn’t heard from Nate. She decided it was high time she stopped sitting around waiting for him to take care of her problems as well as his and do something about them herself.

With the focus of Kimberly Potter’s murder investigation turning toward Nate, she had to get out there and see what she could uncover. Who knew how long before the flimsy foundation of her alibi for Nate would completely erode?

He risked everything by staying here. If he hadn’t come back to protect her in the first place, he wouldn’t be under suspicion for murder right now.

Her first task was to find out what evidence the police had. What was this murder weapon with Nate’s prints? There had to be some logical explanation.

As she was sitting on her bed putting on her shoes, her home phone rang. She dove across the mattress to pick it up.

“Nate?”

For a moment, she heard only the hiss of an open line. Thinking it was a telemarketer, she was just taking it away from her ear to hang up when she heard a raspy whisper.

“Elllliiissssssss.”

She went cold and clammy. “Who is this?” She didn’t need to ask.

“Oh, Ellllliiissss, you’re making things difficult. But I do sssoooo love a challenge.” The voice sounded like a serpent, scales rasping across sand, tongue hissing in the air.

“What do you want?” She went from window to window, checking outside. She didn’t see him hiding in the foliage.

“Why, I want you, Ellliiisssss.” The voice slid through the phone line and snaked down her spine. “I told you I’d come.”

She listened as if she had no choice.

He went on, “So much work to do. Daddy. Uncle Greg. Nate. I’m saving you for last.” He smacked his lips.

Ellis barely suppressed the urge to vomit.

“What did you do to Nate and Greg?” Her voice rose as her fear spiked.

“You have no imagination, my dear. I didn’t do anything
to
Nate. I didn’t have to. Now he’ll get what he should have gotten fifteen years ago, plus some. As for dear Uncle Greg, he’s doing it to himself. All it takes is a little nudge now and again.”

After a pause, he said, “You have another day—or two. I don’t want to rush. A couple of things still have to play out and then . . . ” He smacked his lips again. “I want you to anticipate our time together as much as I am—”

She tore the phone away from her ear, disconnected the call, and threw the handset across the room.

It hit the carpet, then slid, hitting the woodwork with a crack that sent shock waves to the marrow of her bones.

Over and over, she swiped her hands across the belly of her T-shirt, wanting to rid herself of the feeling of filth that had oozed through the phone.

She dashed from window to door, checking again to make sure everything was locked.

This had to stop.
She
had to stop it.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

E
verything Ellis knew about rapists told her Alexander got off on bullying and intimidation. Like Nate said, Alexander was organized. He was patient. This was all a game to him, a game he’d had fifteen years to perfect. And part of his big payoff was having her locked up like a prisoner in her own home. Then he’d prove just how vulnerable her safe haven was.

Clearly he wouldn’t have made that call if he didn’t think he could get to her here, behind locked doors and alarm systems.

She retrieved her gun from the nightstand and put it in her purse. For a moment, she held it in her hand with her eyes closed, praying for the strength to do what she must. The thought of being out there, exposed, sickened her. And yet, that phone call had made her feel nearly as vulnerable here in her own home.

Nate was right. The offensive. Stop sitting here waiting for Alexander to make his move against her. That’s exactly what he wanted. He was counting on her hiding, sitting by in fear while his plan played out.

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. Then she called Sam at the front gate.

“This is Ellis Greene.” She cleared her throat, trying to stop the quivering in her voice. “I just received a threatening phone call, and I need to leave here. Would you please come and walk me to my car?”

“I’m on my way.” He sounded angry, protective.

She double-checked the revolver. All cylinders were loaded.

If Alexander came after her, it would be over. She’d shoot him. He’d never hurt another woman.

She called Les Winkler.

“Officer Winkler.”

“It’s Ellis Greene. Hollis Alexander just called me and as much as admitted he killed Kimberly Potter in order to frame Nate. He’s also made threats against me, Nate, my dad, and my uncle, Greg Reinhardt.”

“I see.” He didn’t sound overly alarmed. Ellis thought of the look of disappointment on his face when he’d sensed her lie. “Did he call your cell or your home phone?”

“Home—so you can check the records. My point is, you need to stop wasting your time chasing Nate Vance and arrest Alexander. At the very least, his contacting me should be a violation of his parole.”

“Yes, ma’am. Of course we’re checking into Hollis Alexander too.”

She ground her teeth. “
Please
tell me you’ll check the phone records. You have my permission, if that’s what you need.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She hung up, feeling like she’d wasted her time.

Sam arrived at her door, chest puffed like a rooster.

“Thanks for coming,” she said as she reset the alarm and locked the door.

“Glad to help.” He put a protective hand on her upper arm as they walked down the outside stairs and to the garage.

When she opened the overhead garage door, he escorted her to the car, opened the door, checked the backseat, then assisted her in. Before he closed the car door, he said, “Are you sure you should be out running around?”

She slipped the key into the ignition. “I’m not safe
anywhere
right now.”

It was true. And yet hearing herself say the words aloud frightened her more than she cared to admit. The vindictive confidence that had gotten her out the door wavered.

Looking up at Sam, she said, “I appreciate your help. I’ll probably ask you to come back here with me when I get home . . . if you don’t mind.”

A smile crossed his square face. “I’m doing a double shift today, so I’ll be right here when you need me.”

She smiled her appreciation as he closed the door. Not wanting to wait for the doors to lock themselves when she started moving, she hit the auto-lock button. Sometimes overkill just made sense.

Sam waited in the drive until she’d backed out and closed the garage door.

As she put her car in drive, her gaze searched the area beneath the old oak, where Alexander had no doubt watched her in the night. A little shiver caused the hair to stand up on her arms.

She turned away and drove on.

Keeping an eye on her rearview mirror in case Alexander or the police were following her, she made a circuitous route to Seaside Apartments. She drove past the complex twice, turned around, and came back.

No one followed.

Finally, she pulled into the parking lot. The complex consisted of two 2-story buildings laid out in an L-shape. They were made of cinder block and stucco and had been erected in the late fifties as a motel. Sometime in the early eighties, they’d been converted into apartments. This was one of the few beachside apartment buildings to have survived Hurricane Hugo. And it was no doubt the ugliest.

Natural disasters were odd in the way they picked and chose which buildings to destroy. Beautiful examples of architecture succumbed, while ugly testaments to man’s lack of architectural imagination lived on. Charleston and the surrounding low country was a perfect crosssection of that kind of selective devastation.

Earthquakes tumbled one structure yet spared the one across the street. Wildfires completely consumed one house and leapt over the one next door.

Ellis supposed all of life was like that. Her family had been wrecked by tragedy while others remained untouched. What, she wondered, had made Laura be the one? What twist of fate had led her to Alexander’s iniquitous path?

According to Nate, it hadn’t been pure fate. Even so, something had brought Laura and Alexander together in the same place at the same time.

Ellis drove slowly through the small parking lot. Beneath the windswept loblolly pines, leggy azalea and crepe myrtle had overgrown the perimeter of the lot, blocking it from street view. Tall grasses and tangled vine took over on the ocean side of the aged and broken pavement. Fingers of sand reached across the asphalt, like clawing hands trying to reclaim what had once been dunes covered in sea oats and sweetgrass.

Ellis had planned on looking at names on the group mailboxes in each building to find Kimberly Potter’s apartment. Now it was clear she wouldn’t have to. There was a parking space piled with flowers, balloons, teddy bears, and angels. That parking space and the one next to it had the number 1555 F stenciled on the asphalt in faded yellow paint.

There was a car parked in the other space allocated to Kimberly Potter’s apartment.

Ellis parked in a space marked visitor. Apartment 1555 F was on the second floor. She climbed the stairs and stood outside the door. Mournful Celtic music played softly inside the apartment. Normally, kids’ apartment walls thrummed with bass when their stereos were on. But what had happened to this girl’s roommate had knocked normal right off its axis.

Ellis knocked on the door.

The music stopped.

After a moment, she knocked again. “Hello,” she said softly against the closed door. “This is Ellis Greene. I think I know who murdered your roommate, and I want to ask you a couple of questions.”

After a moment, she heard footsteps. The sheer curtain on the window beside the door moved slightly. Then the dead bolt clicked. The door opened as far as the flimsy security chain would allow. Half of a young woman’s face appeared in the crack, its one brown eye red and swollen from crying.

“May I speak with you?” Ellis said.

The eye blinked. The door closed. The chain scraped, then clattered against the jamb.

When the door opened fully, Ellis was shocked to realize she knew Kimberly Potter’s roommate. Ava Robinson was the girlfriend of Rory’s nephew Daniel.

Ellis said, “Do you remember me? Ellis Greene. I used to date Daniel’s uncle, Rory. We met once at a family picnic.”

A thin smile curved the girl’s pale, washed-out mouth. “Yes, of course. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have opened the door.”

“I’m very glad to hear that.” Ellis couldn’t help herself when she added, “You know that chain won’t keep anyone out.”

Ava held up her cell phone; 911 showed on the lighted screen. Her finger was on the send button. “I know.” She stepped back. “Come on in.”

Once Ellis was inside, Ava closed and locked the door, slipping the safety chain on once again. She said, “I haven’t been out of this apartment since I found—”

She pressed a crumpled tissue to her mouth.

“Are you here alone?” Ellis asked.

“Mom’s flying in this afternoon. I’m moving back to Omaha. I leave Tuesday after the funeral.”