The Lakeland Series, page 36
Drew wouldn’t like it. She was fairly sure his lack of phone calls meant he was still furious at her for following him over there that morning. Even furious, though, there wasn’t a molecule in Colleen’s body which even considered the possibility that Drew would physically hurt anyone he loved. Because he wouldn’t. End of story.
Which, Colleen imagined, must be what every woman believed about the men they chose to love. Along with pain, being physically assaulted by a spouse must be such a shock. What a terrible revelation to know the man you love possessed that kind of violence. And would aim it at you.
She had the sudden urge to call her daughter. One thing she knew, if any man ever laid a hand on Abbie, he would answer to her. She’d want to kill the bastard. The only way to stop her would be for people to physically restrain her.
Which, in Colleen’s opinion, was the only appropriate response to a man hitting on a woman.
She’d been lucky, she realized. Considering she was a young widow forced into raising a child on her own, Colleen hadn’t always seen that about her life. But despite losing Sean, it was the truth. The men who loved her loved her well. She was grateful for that.
Sean had loved them. Now there was Drew. Despite the grief at Sean’s loss, Colleen knew she’d been given a chance with another good man. She leaned back into the sofa cushions and thought about that.
She wanted to visit Gloria, instinctively knew Drew wouldn’t like it. After this morning, she wasn’t going to go rushing into a situation and mess up what she had with Drew. She refused to be that stupid and make things between Drew and herself even worse.
Reaching for the phone, Colleen dialed Gloria’s home. Staying put here at home didn’t mean she couldn’t still reach out.
She listened to the phone ringing in her ear, and by the fourth ring, Colleen figured her call was about to go to voicemail. It threw her when she got a voice instead.
“Hello?”
Colleen could hear the fog of sleep rimming the voice, and she flinched.
“Gloria? I’m so sorry, did I wake you?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and then, “Who is this?”
“It’s Colleen Lewis. I wanted to check on you, see if there was anything you needed. I can call back later if you’d like to go back to sleep.”
“Anything I need?” Gloria’s voice rose. Her words were slightly slurred, and Colleen realized it was drugs, not sleep, she’d heard in the woman’s voice. “First your boyfriend has my husband arrested, and then your daughter scares the shit out of mine. I need your family to stay out of my family’s business.”
“Gloria,” Colleen protested, “I want to help.”
“Help? You’ve done enough.”
“Gloria,” Colleen tried again, but the other woman interrupted.
“You want to help? Leave me alone. Don’t call here again.”
Colleen heard the click of the phone being disconnected in her ear. Gloria had hung up on her. She was still staring at the phone in shocked disbelief when the front door opened, then slammed shut. Frowning, Colleen stood. She didn’t even have a chance to walk to the foyer before Abbie stormed into the room.
One look at Abbie’s face had Colleen opening her arms. The girls flew into them, and the second her arms closed around Abbie’s back, the girl’s body started to heave. Colleen felt the wet warmth of her daughter’s tears soaking into her t-shirt. Holding on, Colleen waited while the sobs tearing from the back of Abbie’s throat slowly subsided.
“Rough day at the office?” Colleen said once Abbie’s crying had calmed. The lame joke made Abbie laugh, but it sounded more like she was choking than anything else. Still, she’d recovered enough that she pulled away from her mother’s arms.
“I really screwed up, mom.”
“You told Dani about her parents?”
Abbie nodded miserably. “How did you know?”
“I just got off the phone with her mother.”
Abbie gave her mom a horrified look. “She called you?”
“No,” Colleen said, “I called her. I was worried. I wanted to see if she needed anything. But she’s not feeling really friendly at the moment.”
Abbie’s eyes filled with new tears. “I didn’t mean to spill the tea. I thought she knew. And now they all hate me.”
“Oh hun, first of all, they don’t hate you. That would be impossible. Second, this isn’t your fault. None of it. And Gloria isn’t thinking very clearly right now, but Dani would have found out eventually. Her mom should have told her.
“Which is easy for me to say, sitting here in my safe living room with my amazing kid, and no one has ever done to me what Frank Sampson did to his wife. Dani’s going to need her friends right now. She’s going to need you.”
“She doesn’t ever want to see me again.”
Colleen chuckled briefly, one side of her mouth lifting in a sad smile.
“I guarantee you, that’s not true. She’s hurting, that’s all. And honestly, probably embarrassed. But she’ll come around.”
“Hope so,” Abbie said. She looked so miserable, wiping her eyes with her knuckles, that Colleen felt her heart swamp with love.
“You know what we need?” Colleen said, “We need McDonald’s therapy.”
“I don’t think that’s a thing, mom.”
“Work with me here, child. Go wash your face. I’ll get the dogs, we’ll go driving.”
Abbie sniffed once. “Can I DJ?”
Colleen gave her daughter a pained look. “Usual rules apply.”
“You get three vetoes? But I’m really so sad, momma.”
Colleen snorted. “I think,” she said dryly, “You might be on your way to recovery.” When Abbie grinned, Colleen pointed in the direction of the washroom. “Go.” Her heart choked up a bit, though, when Abbie moved in, gave her a quick hard hug.
“Thanks, mom.”
Yep, no question about it. She’d rip the heart right out of anyone who ever lay a finger on her girl. If it ever happened, Colleen thought, she’d just get Drew to lock her up pre-emptively. Save the family the pain of a trial.
Colleen thought of Frank Sampson beating on his wife, and all the warmth in her heart went cold. She sincerely hoped Drew and his colleagues kept his wife-beating ass locked up for a very long time.
Putting violence and pain out of her mind, Colleen walked through the kitchen, grabbed the leashes off their peg on the wall, then opened up the door to the dog run in the back.
“Who’s coming for a ride in the car?” She held up the leashes, then laughed as Sylvester raced to her side, bending his body almost double as he wagged his docked tail in a furious effort at showing his approval of the plan. Rose’s approach was slower and far more dignified, but the fact that the little dachshund had joined them at all was consent enough for Colleen. Snapping the leashes onto their collars, Colleen smiled.
“Let’s go cheer up our girl.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Drew poured himself the last of the brewed coffee then rinsed out the pot.
It had been a long, frustrating, and -- as Drew had predicted -- fruitless day. He and Jimmy had been going non-stop, talking to drop-in visitors, answering phone calls, following up on tips. The artist sketch of the Realtor Killer -- as the local news channels were dubbing him -- had gone out three hours earlier, and the response had been massive and useless.
His brain was at that place where caffeine alone wasn’t going to get him through. He needed a moment of air. Taking his mug with him, he stepped out the back door of the station, then stood looking up into the twilight sky as he leaned against the bricks of the station house wall and sipped his coffee. Beside him, the door opened, and light spilled out into the dusk, then Jimmy stepped out.
Drew nodded acknowledgement, and Jimmy walked over and leaned his back up against the wall beside Drew. There was silence between them. Then Jimmy broke the moment.
“Another gorgeous summer night.”
Drew nodded, looked up into the darkening sky. Thoughts of Colleen entered his mind, and he wondered what she was doing, wished he was there doing it with her.
“Yep. And we’re spending it looking for a murderer.”
Jimmy glanced at him. “Remind me again why we do this job?”
Drew’s nostrils flared. “Serve and protect.”
“Sempre fi,” Jimmy said, giving Drew a mock salute.
Drew didn’t react, merely took another long sip of his coffee then continued looking at the sky and waited for Jimmy to say whatever he’d come out here to say.
“You get anything at all useful today?”
“Nope. Didn’t really expect to, though. The sketch is just too vague. Or, the guy’s features are.”
“Me either. You got any ideas on where we go from here?”
“Well,” Drew said, “There’s still the truck I saw. I’ve got about half of them eliminated as possibilities. It’s too late to do much more with that tonight, but tomorrow I’ll finish the list, see if there’s anything there.”
“You honestly think you saw him at a Tim Horton’s drive-thru window?”
Drew shrugged. “Psychopath's gotta eat, too.”
Jimmy snorted. “I like that.” Then he sobered. “If you’re wrong, though, man, then you’re looking in the wrong direction. Wasting a lot of time.”
Drew just shrugged again. “You get info that says he wasn’t the guy, I’ll go where your lead tells us to go. Until then, I trust my gut more than I trust that artist’s sketch.”
“So, what do we now? The guy has a hard-on for realtors. Doesn’t seem to care about age as long as they’re female -- even though there’s no sexual assault.”
“No, this guy’s a killer. He skips the foreplay.”
“Geez, Hayes. That’s cold.”
Drew glanced sideways at Grisham. Exhaustion was pulling at him, hard. It might be time to call it a day.
“His territory involves lakefront homes. All his assaults have happened on waterfront properties.”
“All?” Jimmy frowned. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. That would seriously limit his potential targets.”
Drew nodded. “Yeah, we need to get a comprehensive list of all waterfront listings. There can’t be that many. Maybe we can set up some sort of patrol.”
“Great. Like we aren’t already stretched thin enough.”
“That’s the job, man.”
“Like I said, remind me why we do it?”
Drew pushed himself off the wall without answering. “I’m gonna make a quick call, see if I can’t get that list. Then I need to call it a night. You should, too. It will be another long one tomorrow.”
Back at his desk, Drew tipped the mug, drained the last of his coffee, then picked up the receiver on the phone.
“Hey,” he said, when Colleen answered.
“Drew.”
Her voice, Drew realized, sounded like home. Warm, soft, his. She also sounded sleepy, and just a touch hesitant, and it tugged on his heart.
“How’s your face?”
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have followed you this morning.”
“Was that only this morning? Man, this has been a long day.”
“Yeah? Why don’t you come home, and let me help you relax?”
Drew huffed out a laugh. “You know something Colleen Lewis? You have a way with words.”
“Oh yeah? You like that? You should see what I can do with my hands.”
Drew’s laughter was soft. “Colleen are you talking dirty to a cop while he’s at work?”
“Maybe.” She’d grinned. Drew could hear it in the tone of her voice. “If you’d come home, I could do more than just talk.”
He groaned. “You’re killing me, Collie.”
There was a pause while Drew’s mind filled with all kinds of interesting images, then Colleen spoke again.
“That mean you’re not coming home?”
Drew’s eyebrow quirked up. Colleen was throwing that word home around mighty freely. He wondered if she even realized.
“You have no idea how amazing that sounds. But actually, my night’s not done here. I do need to get Anna’s number off you, though.”
“Oh, sure.” She rattled off the number. “You know you can come over anytime. It doesn’t matter how late.”
“As much as I want to, I think I’ll take a rain check. I’m going to be at it for awhile still tonight. Then I think I’ll crash at my place. I’ll swing by tomorrow at some point. If it works out, maybe we can grab pizza and neck on your couch.”
Colleen laughed. “You want to neck on the couch?”
“Colleen, I spent a lot of years fantasizing about the things I’d like to do to you on your couch. Just go with me on this one.”
“Alright, Officer,” Colleen said, “But when you’re finished fooling around, I’ve got a few fantasies of my own. And we’re going to need to find a bed for all of mine.”
Drew groaned one more time. He could picture her sitting in her living room grinning at him through the phone, and he almost reconsidered his plans for the evening.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
“I’m unbuttoning my shirt now,” Colleen sing-songed into the phone. “Oops, it fell right off me onto the floor. And oh my, I think my bra just popped open. Oh no. It fell off, too. I should just bend over and pick that up. Oh dear, my pants…”
“Good night, Colleen,” Drew said, laughing when she answered him with her sweet and innocent voice.
“Sweet dreams, Copper.”
He was still smiling when he punched the number Colleen had given him into his phone and waited for Anna to pick up the line.
“Well, you’re in a good mood,” Anna said, when she heard the sound of Drew’s voice.
“What do you mean? That bump on your head give you ESP or something?”
“No, I can just hear the smile in your voice. I take it you and Colleen worked out whatever it was that had that stick up your butt this morning.”
“Hey, hey, hey. I do not believe that is an appropriate way to speak to an officer of the law,” Drew said, making Anna laugh, and making him think of the other inappropriate conversation he’d just been part of. Then he got down to business. “So, how are you? Do you need anything?”
“Well, thanks, hot stuff,” Anna said, “But I’m okay. My daughter’s here now. What about you? Why do I think there’s something you need from me?”
Drew hesitated a moment, tried to think of the best way to phrase his request. Anna might be a strong, brave woman, but she was still one of the victims. He didn’t want to traumatize her in any way.
“We noticed what might be a pattern with the guy who attacked you.”
“All the homes are on the waterfront. That is what you mean, right?”
“Yeah, actually.” Drew was impressed. “We don’t know for sure if that’s really his M.O. or if it’s some unlikely coincidence, but we thought it would be worth compiling a list of all the waterfront properties for sale locally. Who would I call to do something like that?”
“Just call Jack,” Anna said. “He and I were talking about this. He’s already been working on it.”
“Wow, okay great.”
“You sound surprised. Jack’s a smart man, Drew, and the beach connection popped out at us right away. I mean, we’re realtors. We notice those sorts of details. Not to mention, this asshole attacked two of the women in Jack’s life. He is not a fan.”
“Hmm.”
Anna was right, Drew realized, and was mad at himself for not noticing it sooner. Jack Halverson was connected to two out of three of the victims. What were the odds of that? And what if it was more than coincidence? Was it possible that Jack actually knew all three women? Drew made a mental note to add looking into this possibility to his to do list.
“Drew,” Anna said, in a slightly annoyed, don’t-mess-with-me tone. “Jack had nothing to do with these attacks.”
“I didn’t say he did.”
“I can hear you thinking it. Just forget it. Jack is a good guy. He’s not violent. Not this kind of violent, anyway. So just stop. Understand?”
Drew sighed. “Anna…” The exhaustion was back, and it lowered the pitch of his voice several notes, “You got a number where I can reach him?”
He thanked her when she reluctantly read off Jack’s cell number, but when he called, the phone went to voicemail. It left Drew with a bad feeling, even though he knew there could be any number of perfectly rational explanations for why Jack hadn’t picked up the phone. Leaving a message asking Jack to call him, Drew rubbed a hand over his tired eyes, then decided to call it a night.
He was halfway home when his cell phone buzzed, and Drew heard Jack’s voice on the other end of the line. If he was exhausted, the other man sounded like he was half dead. Somehow, Drew found this reassuring. He asked after Jack’s niece, then explained what he needed.
“Well, I haven’t got the list fully finished,” Jack said wearily, “But I’ll send you what I’ve got right way.”
“Great,” Drew said. “Send it to my home email, would you? I’m on my way there.”
Disconnecting, Drew felt a bit of hope course thru him, reviving his system. Maybe, just maybe, there’d be something helpful in the listings Jack had compiled. He’d know soon enough, Drew thought, and pulled his cruiser into his driveway.
Drew headed straight for the door, his fatigue keeping him from immediately noticing the Cadillac parked across the street. He heard the car door slam, though, and looked over warily. When the dark figure crossed the street and started walking down the drive in Drew’s direction, his hand dropped to his gun belt without conscious thought. He recognized the vet’s booming voice when Jim called out to him, and relaxed.
“Jim?” Drew said. “What can I do for you at,” he flipped the cell phone screen on and glanced at the digital read out of the time, “Nine fourty-three at night?”
“Well, laddie, it might be me who can do something for you.”
Drew maybe didn’t have the same degree of familiarity with Jim that Colleen did, but he knew the man well enough to know that Jim’s brogue was more pronounced when the man was stressed. Right now, Jim’s tongue was thick as honey in a jar. With his tired body cursing him, Drew unlocked the door to his house and waved Jim inside.
