Wicked Game

Chapter Twelve

Becca drove to Java Man with one eye on the rearview mirror, but none of the cars behind her seemed to have any interest in following her. Once parked, she flipped up the hood of her jacket, and hurrying through the rain, she caught sight of her friends through the window. Tamara’s red curls burned under Java Man’s lights. Evangeline’s blond paleness was even more ashen; she looked washed out to the point of illness. And Renee’s face was pinched, her dark hair untidy, as if she’d been running her hands through her brunette strands over and over again.

“Sorry I’m late,” Becca greeted them all, shaking excess water onto a mat by the door. “I was all set, wasting time actually, then suddenly I’m behind.”

“We ordered you a decaf latte. That all right?” Renee asked, indicating a steaming, foaming cup.

“Works for me.”

“Coffee first, then wine,” Tamara said.

Becca slid into the empty seat next to Renee, which left her across from Evangeline and catty-corner from Tamara. Everyone was more sober now, more careful than they had been at Blue Note, as if a current of tension was making them cautious. And Renee looked as if she’d dropped five pounds in less than a week.

“So, what’s up?” Becca asked, sipping her latte.

The corners of Renee’s mouth turned downward as she twirled her cup around and around again. “I think something’s going on. Something more than what we’re seeing.” She was picking her words carefully, as if afraid to panic them. “And I think we’re all in danger at some level.”

“Danger?” Evangeline drew back as if repelled.

“What kind of danger?” Tamara asked.

“Yeah, what kind of danger?” Evangeline tried to play it off like she thought Renee was overreacting, but her shoulders were hunched and her eyes practically swallowed her whole face.

“The same danger that killed Jessie.” Renee’s gaze swung to Evangeline. “She was damn near precognitive sometimes. Twenty years ago she knew she was in trouble and she tried to run, but she didn’t get away. She died in the maze. Someone killed her.”

“We don’t know it’s her,” Evangeline stated.

“It’s her.” Renee was positive. “Jessie had a sense of danger coming. ‘Trouble,’ she said. And I guess I feel it, too. Trouble.”

“So you’re precognitive as well.” Again, Evangeline tried to sneer at Renee’s worries, but she just succeeded in sounding more frightened.

“Is this from the Tarot reading?” Tamara asked Renee. Her brows were knit in concern. “Because you have to look at the cards as a guide. You can’t take them so specifically.”

Renee made a disparaging sound. “No. This isn’t about my Tarot reading, although I was at the beach and met this old woman-a psychic who gave me a creepy feeling.”

“Why? What did she say?” Tamara asked.

“She said we were…I was…I don’t know…”

“What?” Tamara insisted.

“Marked for death. You like that? She was nuts. The whole town knows it, but I wanted to ask about Jessie.” She shook her head. “It’s so silly I can’t believe it now. She spooked me.”

“Jessie?” Tamara questioned carefully.

“No. Look, I know you think she’s still alive, Tamara, but she’s gone. Even Madame Madeline said she was dead. It just feels like…whatever she was afraid of might still be a threat. I don’t know. I was doing some research, going through some of Jessie’s last days, thinking about all the things she said. Something happened to her, or she learned something, that made her decide to run. You know it, Vangie. You were her best friend. She must have told you.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Evangeline demanded. “I was not her best friend.”

“You can’t rewrite history,” Renee snapped. “You and Jessie were best friends. I was in there, too. Tamara and Becca were good friends, and Tamara brought Becca into the group. That’s the way it was. Those are the dynamics. Sorry. It’s just fact.”

Evangeline’s mouth trembled slightly. “We weren’t best friends,” she insisted. “We were pretty good friends. But I don’t remember her being ‘precognitive.’ Maybe she said something that scared us once or twice when it came true, but that was it.”

“Fine.” Renee sighed. “Have it your way. But you do remember Jessie telling us she was in danger.”

“I…don’t think so.” Vangie lifted a shoulder.

“Why don’t you want to go back there? What scares you so badly?”

“Back where?” Evangeline asked.

“To the past.” Renee didn’t bother hiding her exasperation. “To the fact that something was after Jessie. She tried to make light of it, but she said things that now…when I think of them with the benefit of hindsight, they make more sense.” Renee raked her hands through her hair and tugged on the ends.

Becca thought of her vision of Jessie with one finger over her lips.

“She said she wasn’t safe,” Renee said.

Tamara shook her head. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Okay, forget it. I’m trying to explain something I can’t explain. I feel…like I’m in danger, sometimes. That’s all. And it really started when I began looking into Jessie’s past.”

“I’ve had a weird feeling. Like I was being followed,” Becca confessed.

“You, too?” Tamara gazed from Becca to Renee and back again.

“Maybe it’s the cops,” Evangeline ventured.

Renee assured her tautly, “It’s not the police.”

“I never thought you’d be the kind to take a warning from the Tarot so literally,” Tamara said.

“I told you, it’s not the Tarot,” Renee said with extreme patience, her voice lowering. “You know I’ve been investigating, trying to dig up an angle for my story on Jessie, but…” She heaved a deep sigh that seemed to come from her gut, then pressed her palms to her cheeks. “You’re not listening. None of you are listening. And I don’t know how to get you to.”

“We don’t know what the hell you’re saying,” Evangeline said tartly but her face was gaunt, her eyes wide. She hadn’t missed the emotion, regardless of what she said.

“Okay, so I’m warning you. Me. Us. If anything weird happens, let the rest of us know right away,” Renee went on doggedly. “Maybe we can-avoid it-if we work together. If we watch each other’s backs.”

Watch your back, Becca… Jessie’s last words to her reverberated through her mind.

Tamara snorted, but Renee forged on, again rotating her nearly full cup on the table. “It’s like stirring up Jessie’s bones has awakened it.”

“Okay…It?” This time Evangeline’s tone had a hefty amount of disparagement, as if Renee were out of her mind. “Now you sound melodramatic.”

“God, Renee,” Tamara murmured. “Whatever you’re feeling, it’s…just what you’re feeling. Real to you, yeah, but come on. Whatever you’re going through…with Tim or with your work, it’s affecting your judgment. This isn’t like you. There are no demonic forces coming after us.”

“I didn’t say demonic.”

“You said stirring up Jessie’s bones awakened it,” Tamara reminded her, picking up her purse and grabbing her coat. “Close enough.”

“I hope Jessie’s dead,” Evangeline said suddenly.

Renee frowned at her, then turned to Becca. “She is dead. You think so, too, right?”

Tamara hesitated, her shoulder bag over her arm, but she was half turned toward their table, waiting for Becca’s answer. In fact, they were all staring at her. Becca said, “It all gets back to, if those bones aren’t Jessie’s, then whose are they?”

“That’s a good question,” Renee said.

“It’s been twenty fucking years,” Tamara snapped. “I don’t know what you expect us to say to you, Renee. You’re, like…falling apart. And you’re the smart one! You’re really starting to scare me.” She shot Becca another look. “You look scared, too.”

“It’s…disturbing,” Becca said. “I don’t know what happened to Jessie, but the police’ll figure it out.”

“What if something happens to us before they do?” Renee asked.

“Nothing’s going to happen to us,” Evangeline said, her voice an unconvincing whisper.

“I have to run.” Tamara, with a wave of her hand, headed out the door, leaving a swoosh of cold air in her wake that sent a little shudder up Becca’s spine.

Renee stared at Evangeline, who gazed back almost defiantly. “Nothing’s going to happen to us,” Vangie repeated as the door slammed shut.

Renee turned to Becca. “Be careful,” she said, then picked up her purse and coat as well.

“I’m a part of this investigation,” Gretchen Sandler stated flatly, her palms spread on Mac’s desk as she stood in front of him. “Your latest after-hours attempt to get me out of the picture is…at the very least, amateurish.”

It was dark, but then it felt like it was always dark this time of year. Mac knew his partner was pissed at him and didn’t much care. She, like many before her, would hang around for a couple of months, maybe even years, but soon enough she would get one foot on his back and another on the next rung to success and catapult herself forward. He was more interested in when the autopsy report and DNA would land on his desk, and if an artist could do facial reconstruction on her skull if there was no DNA match. Twenty years ago, DNA was in its infancy as far as law enforcement went, but it was available, and there were hair samples from a brush of Jessie’s follicles intact, that were being tested.

He knew in his gut the girl found in the maze was Jessie, and her parents suspected it, too. They might not want to talk to him, but he’d heard the weary acceptance in their voices nevertheless.

Mac still felt his partner’s presence at his desk. “D’Annibal ask you to keep an eye on me?” Mac didn’t glance up as he reread his notes on Jarrett Erikson. The guy was the slip-periest eel in the barrel and the least forthcoming. What a bastard.

“I-am-your-partner.”

“Could you say that a little slower? I’m not quite catching it.”

“You can be as big an asshole as you want. I’m still part of this investigation.”

Mac gazed into her sharp blue eyes, then leaned back in his chair. No point in a stare-down. “Okay, so I’ve talked to most of the guys of the group.”

“I need to be with you when you interview anyone else. You need another perspective.”

“You have been talking to D’Annibal. Perspective. That’s one of his favorites.”

She moved sharply and Mac automatically flinched. He’d been around enough perps to sense a threat in a hairsbreadth. But Gretchen just twisted like a robot, then stormed away to her own desk, which was behind his and halfway across the room. She’d been seated closer to him once, but it had left her away from the rise and fall of gossip that other detectives and cops engaged in. She might be universally disliked, but she was going to be in the center of the action, by God. Hanging out with a has-been like Mac wasn’t going to cut it.

He gazed down at his list. There were checkmarks and notations beside the names of the Preppy Pricks he’d already re-interviewed. Nothing much had come from those meetings other than a feeling that they all universally disliked him and that they were reluctant to give anything away. He probably deserved that. He’d pretty much squeezed them through the wringer back in the day.

The only ones he hadn’t met with yet were Hudson Walker and Zeke St. John. He hadn’t started on the girls-women-of the group yet. He hadn’t learned much from them twenty years earlier and he didn’t expect to learn much now, but you never knew. He paused over each of their names.

Tamara…Renee…Evangeline…Rebecca.

He circled Rebecca’s name, feeling something stir in his memory about that one. She was different. A bit of an odd duck. But there was just something about her, something he couldn’t quite remember. She wasn’t Jessie’s closest friend, but she seemed the most like her in ways he couldn’t quite analyze. “What is it you know?” he said aloud, staring at the old picture.

“What?” Gretchen called from the other side of the room, as if he were addressing her.

“Nothing.”

“Damn you, McNally. Don’t leave me out.”

As usual, Mac didn’t respond.

Becca had driven about two miles from Java Man when her cell phone jangled and she saw Hudson’s number on the screen.

“Hey, there,” she greeted him warmly. “I heard the police have started calling.”

Hudson made a sound of annoyance. “Bound to happen. McNally called me and we talked on the phone, but he still wants to interview me in person. That’s probably in the cards.”

Becca thought of Renee and the investigation that had led her to the coast. “I suppose we’ll all have to talk to him.”

“When can I see you?” he asked.

“I just happen to be free right now,” she said and smiled as she turned on her blinker and slid into the slower lane.

“Can I talk you into pizza at my place?”

“You just did. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

She clicked off, a grin on her face, and turned west onto the Sunset Highway to Laurelton. Traffic was thick through Beaverton and out to Hillsboro, but by the time she cruised into the area known as Laurelton, it had thinned to nearly nothing. She headed toward Hudson’s and when she turned down the gravel drive she was met by welcoming lights. She hurried up the steps and rang the bell.

Hudson called, “It’s open,” and Becca pushed the front door handle and entered. Leaving her coat on the hall tree, she walked toward the kitchen where the smell of tomato sauce, garlic, and onions beckoned.

“Hi,” he said, a slow grin stretching into place. Hudson was also in jeans, and he had on a chocolate corduroy shirt, the sleeves rolled up his forearms. They stared at each other a moment, then were in each other’s arms. She started laughing and couldn’t stop and he grinned at her.

Then he suddenly bent her over his arm so that her hair was almost sweeping the floor and he pressed his lips hard and hot against hers. She clung to him for fear she might fall backward, but opened her mouth when his tongue slipped between her teeth and the deepest part of her started to tingle.

She let out a low moan and he lifted his head. “Missed you,” he said.

“Missed you, right back.”

“Pizza can wait,” he said, blue eyes intense.

“Yes…” Becca murmured as he swept her off her feet and carried her up the stairs to his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind them as they fell together on the bed.

There wasn’t much more conversation after that. They yanked at buttons, flies, and zippers, and once the clothes were tossed aside, came together hot and fast. Hudson kissed her in all the places that made her go crazy, touching her intimately, sometimes gently, other times a little more rough, and she returned the favor, surprising him by exploring his body with her fingers and lips.

“God, Becca,” he finally muttered as he could stand the torment no more. Flipping her onto her stomach and holding her bare breasts in both hands, he slid into her and made love as if he’d never stop. She closed her eyes as she clenched around him, her spasms echoing his as he collapsed, sweating and breathing hard.

“Sweet Jesus,” he whispered against her ear.

She could barely breathe, couldn’t think, as she held him close, enveloped in a warm shawl of afterglow, lost in sensation.

It seemed like eons later when he lifted up on one elbow and the low rumble of his voice asked, “Is it pizza time?”

She turned to him and guided his head so that he kissed her, sucked at her breast and began rubbing his hands over the small of her back and the slope of her rump. “Not yet,” she murmured.

They made love again, more slowly this time, and Becca was slightly amazed at how much she wanted him, how languid and lovely she felt in his embrace, how wild and sensuous she could become without a whit of reserve. When finally they both stirred, dressed, and headed downstairs, it was hours later.

“I believe that pizza might be cold,” Becca said.

“That’s what microwaves are for.”

“Just so you know, that wasn’t a complaint.”

He shot her a warm look as he placed several pieces of pepperoni pizza in the microwave. Becca’s gaze fell on a dog bowl shoved by the back porch, something she’d missed earlier. He must have guessed what she was thinking because he said, “My lab, Booker T., died last year.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Becca said, heartfelt.

“He was old.”

“I have a dog. A mutt. Ringo. He’s kind of…my sanity meter. As long as Ringo’s around, everything else can be a problem and it’ll still be okay.”

Hudson glanced at the empty bowls. “I suppose I should put them away.”

“When you’re ready, you will.”

When the pizza was hot, they took their plates and sat down at the banquette in the corner, a scarred version that was surprisingly comfortable with gold cushions.

“I’ve always liked this place,” she said, looking out the window toward the barn, visible beneath the security lights. How many times had she and Hudson made love in the hay loft?

“Yeah…” He sounded pensive, as if his thoughts had traveled down the same path. “I told you I have a new foreman? My old one, Grandy, was with my parents for years. He was so much a part of this place, it’s a whole new world without him.”

“Did he retire?”

“He’s got personal stuff going on, so he suggested someone else to help me.” Hudson shrugged. “Hasn’t quite been the same. I’m hoping he’ll be back soon.”

“Personal stuff encompasses a lot of things,” Becca observed, thinking about her own issues as she bit into a pizza.

“His son is raising kids alone, broke his leg or something, and Grandy’s granddaughter’s pregnant. The whole family thinks the father’s a loser. She might be moving in with him. It sounded messy.”

“A baby?” Becca asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.

“Grandy’s stepping in to help. Not the ideal way to bring a new life into the world, without any kind of stability.”

“She’s keeping it?”

“I think that’s the plan, but there doesn’t seem to be any solid decision-making going on.”

She swallowed and looked away, wondering if she’d ever be able to tell him about the baby they’d almost had, wondering what kind of effect it would have, if any, at this late date, wondering if he would be glad the decision had been taken from them.

The conversation turned away from the tricky subject and Hudson gave her an oversized jacket and they walked through the rain and darkness to the barn where Hudson switched on the light and Becca was greeted by the smells of dry hay and old leather mingled with the warm scents of horses. She was introduced to three mares, Christmas, Tallulah, and Boston, an Appaloosa who seemed heavy with foal. “This is really more of a hobby than anything else, I guess,” Hudson admitted. She knew, though he didn’t say so, that he’d made his money elsewhere. That this farm was a dream he’d turned into a reality.

“You’ve never been married, have you?” Becca said as the horses snuffled in their mangers and she petted Boston’s soft nose. Tallulah, the bay, nickered softly for attention and Hudson scratched her between her dark ears.

“Nope.” He shot her a look. “Would you do it again?”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Ben and I, we…just weren’t suited to each other.”

“What was wrong?”

“What wasn’t.”

“Mmmm…”

“I don’t know why I married him,” she said, not wanting to sound completely bitter. “I wanted the dream, I guess. A husband. A family. Children. After we were married he would always tell everyone we didn’t want children, when he knew good and well that I did. I never knew what to say in front of people. I couldn’t really respond by saying, ‘No, my husband’s wrong. I do want kids. He’s lying. He just doesn’t want kids.’ I couldn’t figure out how to put that in words without starting a huge argument, so I said nothing. And then he got involved with someone else and he died in her arms. And she was pregnant when he died. So she has a baby now.” Becca stuffed her hands in the deep pockets of his jacket. She could feel him looking at her, but she couldn’t meet his gaze.

“You still want the dream?” he asked.

“Well, yes, but I don’t really expect it to happen.”

He seemed to want to ask her more questions, but in the end he let the conversation shift back to safer topics and entertained her with a story about how Tallulah had scraped him off her back using tree boughs and how he’d had to trudge home on a sore ankle only to find the mare waiting expectantly at her stall for her next meal, completely unrepentant.

Hudson snapped off the lights. As they returned to the house, skimming puddles and ducking against the rain, he said, “It’s strange, but all this stuff about Jessie seems to have brought us together again.”

“Yeah.” She half laughed. “Fairly ironic,” she said over the patter of the rain hitting the roof of the porch as they walked up the steps.

The phone was ringing as they walked back inside and Hudson let the answering machine pick up.

“This is Detective McNally,” a deep male voice said. “I’d still like that face-to-face meeting with you, Walker. Call me back.” He finished by leaving his number.

“Guess there’s no way out of it,” Hudson said, frowning as he stared at the phone.

“Maybe he has more information.”

“More likely he wants some.” But Hudson returned the call, catching McNally and agreeing to meet the detective the next day at a diner a couple of miles from the police station.

“An informal meeting, whatever the hell that means,” he said, reaching into the fridge for another beer. “Want to come with me?”

“Hell, no. But I’m sure my name’s on that list somewhere, too, so…”

“Then it’s a date,” he said.

She laughed as she exchanged his jacket for her coat in the front hallway. “You, me, and Detective McNally.”

“I’m sure it’ll be a blast.”