“It’s one of the ugliest cases I’ve ever worked on, Ali. You already spend your days soaking up other people’s crap. Why would you want more soul pollution?”
“And you? What about your soul?”
“Such as it is.”
“I won’t accept that it doesn’t affect you.”
Unborn children…
I didn’t answer.
She said, “You can handle it, but I can’t?”
“I don’t ask you about patients.”
“That’s different.”
“Maybe it really isn’t.”
“Fine,” she said. “So now there’s a new taboo in our relationship. What binds us together? Hot sex?”
I pointed to the toast. “And haute cuisine.”
She worked at a smile. Got up and took the mug to the sink, where she emptied and washed. “I’d better be going.”
“Stay.”
“Why?”
I walked behind her, slipped my arm around her waist. Felt her abdominal muscles ripple as she tensed up. She removed my hand, turned, and looked up at me. “I’ve probably put some kind of wedge between us. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and feel like a first-class idiot, but right now I’ve still got some righteous indignation burning in my belly.”
I said, “The higher stakes are six murders, maybe seven. If you include the girl who succeeded Beth as Daney’s assistant. She seems to have vanished and she’s not on the foster rolls.”
She stepped out of my arms, braced herself against the counter, and stared out the kitchen window.
“Plus a toddler,” I went on. “Two teenage boys, three women, a mentally challenged young man. And so far, no way to prove any of it.”
She lowered her head into the sink, heaved and dry-retched.
I tried to hold her as she shuddered.
“Sorry,” she whimpered, pulling away. Splashing water on her face, she dried it with her sleeve. Snatched up her purse and keys, left the kitchen.
I caught up as she opened the front door. “You’re exhausted. Stay. I’ll take the couch.”
Her lips were parched and tiny blood spots freckled her cheeks. Petechiae from the strain of vomiting. “It’s a nice offer. You’re a nice man.”
“I’d like to be a good man.”
Her eyes shifted. “I need to be alone.”
CHAPTER 40
I returned to the kitchen, chewed on the toast I’d made Allison, and thought about what had just happened.
Tomorrow I might also wake up feeling rotten. If I slept at all. Right now I was glad to be alone, reunited with the possibilities that had flooded my head.
It was eleven-fifteen. I figured Milo wouldn’t be sleeping much either. And if he had drifted off, too damn bad.
“What time is it?” he rasped.
“Cherish Daney told me she tried to open Rand up, wished she’d been more effective. For his sake. But what if she had another motive? What if she found out what Drew had done, wanted Rand to come forward about Drew’s involvement in Kristal’s murder?”
He let out a couple of barking coughs, cleared his throat. “Good evening to you, too. Where’d all this come from?”
“You’ve been saying all along Cherish had to know something. Maybe she had suspicions but was able to deny them until she finally came upon something blatant.”
“Like what?”
“Trophies. Someone with Drew’s control obsession might very well keep some. He got a kick out of sneaking around Cherish, a hidden cache would be great fun. But arrogance leads to carelessness. Maybe he slipped up and left something for her to find. Or all those trips with ‘assistants’ got her suspicious and she started to snoop around the house. If she’s anything but a monster herself, finding hard evidence of Drew’s crimes would horrify her. She’d also be scared on a selfish leveclass="underline" If the truth ever came out, she was sure to come under suspicion as an accomplice. One way to deal with all that would be to come forward with evidence of her own and bail. Having Rand corroborate Drew’s involvement in Kristal’s murder would be a big step in that direction.”
“Daney molests and murders for years and she’s Little Miss Clueless until now?”
“Nothing we’ve learned so far says she did anything worse than exceed the foster limit. Beth Scoggins said she filled her days cooking, cleaning, and teaching. My bet is she kept busy so as not to think.”
“Not to mention seven grand a month.”
“For Drew it was the money,” I said. “Maybe for her, too. But she drives an old heap and lives simply. Plus you saw how she worked with Valerie. Patient, despite Valerie’s resentment.”
“The dutiful hausfrau,” he said. “Meanwhile Drew’s out doing his sperm thing… I’m still not convinced she’s squeaky clean, but fine, let’s run with it. She wants Rand to rat out Drew, does therapy with him, then what?”
“She fails. The most common errors unqualified therapists make are moving too fast and talking too much. Toss in Cherish’s anxiety and she’d have come on way too strong. She needed Rand to ‘see’ that Drew had contracted Troy to kill Kristal. Whether or not he had.”
“She tried to plant it in his head?”
“It started during prison visits. Hinting around, hoping to set off a spark in Rand’s head. Rand was a submissive personality, impressionable, so perhaps he actually recalled something- seeing Drew talk to Troy shortly before the murder, an offhand comment by Troy about Drew. Or he thought he did. Because an adult mastermind would be welcome news for him. Reduce his own culpability.”
“ ‘I’m a good person.’ ”
“ ‘I’m a good person because Daney was behind it and Troy was his henchman and I was in the wrong place at the right time.’ Cherish could’ve even presented it to him that way.”
“If he bought it, why didn’t he open up?”
“Eight years in jail, being beaten and stabbed and left to fend for himself, had taught him to be wary. Nevertheless, the idea Cherish planted took root and it terrified him: He’d be living under the roof of the devil who’d ruined his life. That’s why he was so anxious when he was released to the Daneys.”
“Then why’d he go there in the first place?”
“He had no immediate alternatives. No family, no resources, no grasp of what the world outside prison was like. He also had to be careful not to set off Drew’s suspicions with a sudden shift in plans. But I’ll bet he intended to get out of there as soon as possible. As soon as he could get someone to listen.”
“You.”
“Cherish’s eagerness could have made him even more wary. Lauritz Montez had defended him by the numbers. He sure wouldn’t view the D.A. or the police as sympathetic. That left me.”
“Modesty, modesty,” he said. “So he gives the Daneys a phony story, walks away, somehow makes it over the hill, calls you from Westwood.”
“I don’t think he made it over the hill alone. He couldn’t keep his anxiety under control and Drew did catch on that something was wrong. Drew was out of the house when Rand left. He could’ve been nearby, watching Rand. Or he called in and Cherish told him Rand had gone to the construction site. That fed Drew’s suspicions because he knew the site was closed Saturday except for cleanup. He went after Rand, spotted him, picked him up in the Jeep.”
“And took him into the city? Why?”
“To allay Rand’s fears,” I said. “Rand’s shuffling along, disoriented, looking for a pay phone, or just trying to clear his head. Daney cruises by, all smiles, says hop in, let’s grab a bite. Caught off guard, Rand would’ve felt forced to comply, so as not to appear nervous. Daney drove over the hill and disarmed Rand further with small talk. Dropped him off at the entrance to Westside Pavilion with some pocket change, told him to have a good time, he’d pick him up later. No one from the mall remembers Rand, he may never have gone in. This was a dull, confused kid who’d grown up behind bars. It would have been like dropping him on Mars.”