Girl Blue (A Brown and de Luca Novel Book 7) Read online

  He nodded and rumpled the kid’s hair as he leaned over him to set the warm, gooey buns on the counter.

  I sat down with my cup, just holding it between my palms for a second, leaning back in my chair and looking at the boys and Mason passing food around, loading their plates, teasing each other with love in their eyes. Damn, we were lucky.

  Mason caught me looking, acknowledged what I was feeling, told me he felt the same, all with his eyes. His gorgeous, sexy eyes.

  We dug in.

  Halfway through my second bun, my phone pinged. I pulled it out to look, a no-no at mealtime. Hey, I just make the rules. I don’t necessarily follow them.

  The message on my phone was this; “We never got to have our tea, did we? Ivy’s out for the day. I think it’s time we talked. Just you and I.”

  Holy shit, Reggie D’Voe wants a one-on-one!

  I swiped the app off and slid the phone back into my sweatshirt’s kangaroo pouch. Mason was looking my way, so I said, “Great news. Five-dollar footlongs are back at Subway.”

  He smiled at me like he didn’t know I’d just lied. Well, I hadn’t really lied. For all I knew, five-dollar footlongs really were back. I didn’t exactly say that’s what the text had been.

  Are you really gonna fuck this up? Inner Bitch asked. He’s the best thing that ever happened to you, and that includes getting your eyesight back.

  I know, I thought. But I had to go. And I have to do it alone.

  The wrought iron gate with the wide-winged bat at the center was open when I arrived. I hesitated, sitting in my T-bird in the road with my blinker light on. There was enough of a nip in the air that we’d had to ride with the top up. Pretty soon it would be time to put the hardtop back on.

  Myrtle tapped my thigh, and her eyes reminded me that when the car stops, we either get out, or I pet her until the light changes. I stroked her head. “Okay, we’ll pull in. What’s he gonna do, close the gate and trap us? We could drive right through that magnificent-yet-rickety old thing. It’d do a number on the T-bird, though.”

  I turned the wheel and we drove over the long, unpaved driveway, up to the house. It stood there like an aging queen; once regal and proud, now sagging and in need of shoring up. I shut the engine off and bent to kiss Myrt on the nose. “You’re going to wait here for me, okay? If anything happens, Amy knows where to find you.” And she was the only person who knew where I was today. She was working at the house, scheduling all “my” social media posts for the coming week and handling fan mail. And, you know, keeping Hugo company. The car was running, the AC on, the gas tank full. Myrtle would be fine.

  A tap-tap-tap on my window made me jump out of my skin. Myrtle gave a snuffly “Snarf!”

  Reggie was standing there smiling in at us. He wore a red satin smoking jacket with matching pajama pants and an ivory neck scarf. He carried a different walking stick this time. It had a shiny black raven on top that might’ve been made of onyx. It had red jewel eyes. I’d lay odds they were rubies.

  I put my window down, and he said, “Welcome, Rachel. I see you’ve brought a companion.”

  “Myrtle’s my best friend and sidekick. But she’s fine waiting in the car.”

  “Nonsense! I wouldn’t hear of it. Bring her inside. I’m sure I can find a healthy treat for her.”

  At the word treat, Myrtle perked her ears, tilted her head, and thrust out her lower jaw, so her bottom teeth stuck up over her lip. The infamous bulldog smile. Reggie laughed, not the evil laugh for which he was famous, but a warm belly laugh that became a cough toward the end.

  I watched Myrt carefully. She was completely relaxed and a very good judge of character. Reggie opened my door and held it for us. So I shut off the engine and got out. Myrtle waited patiently until I went around the car to open her door and help her down. Then she assumed the position, her body pressed to my left leg. Reggie looked at this behavior curiously, and his eyebrow rose.

  God, I loved that eyebrow.

  “She’s blind, isn’t she?”

  “Just like I was for twenty years of my life. We understand each other.”

  “Remarkable. Will she do all right with the stairs?”

  “She’ll do fine.” The three of us walked up the wide steps side by side, and then Reggie held the tall door for us, and we entered first. Myrtle sniffed the air as Reggie came in, closed the doors, then led the way past the sitting room with the fireplace, deeper into the house.

  “I hope you don’t mind having our tea in the kitchen. It’s a bit easier than moving things around.”

  “I wish you hadn’t fussed.”

  “No fuss to put a kettle on a burner, now, is it? The cookies are pre-existing.” He looked down at Myrtle. “Peanut butter. Freshly baked.”

  She seemed to hang on his every word.

  “Please, have a seat.”

  We’d arrived in a surprisingly ordinary kitchen, yellow walls, Corian countertops, light oak cabinets. Sunlight poured through a number of windows, including three tall ones, side by side. A small wooden table and two chairs were directly in front of them.

  I sat down, and Myrtle promptly sat on top of my feet.

  Reggie poured steaming water from a metal teapot into a glass one that held a tea-ball full of loose tea and herbs. “My favorite blend,” he said, bringing the glass pot to the table. “But I do detest those flimsy paper teabags."

  I was not going to tell Reginald D'Voe that I couldn't stand tea. I would drink it and I would like it. Even if it was chamomile.

  "Turn your cup, my dear.”

  “Oh! Sorry.” I flipped over the delicate china cup that had been upside down on its matching saucer. White china with pink roses and gold trim around the edges.

  He swirled the water in the pot, and it grew darker as he did. Then he filled both our cups and left the glass teapot in the middle of the table beside a platter of cookies. “May Myrtle have a cookie?”

  “Half of one,” I said, hating myself for saying it. Poor Myrt. “She’s at her goal weight and we’d like to keep it that way.”

  “One of my greatest regrets is not eating what I wanted when I wanted it. But Hollywood prefers its actors thin, and its actresses skeletal. I wish I’d challenged that more.”

  "You're right. Give her a whole one."

  He smiled, took a cookie, broke it in half, and finally sat down. Then he leaned so he could hold the cookie near enough for Myrt to smell it. “Here’s that treat I promised, Myrtle.”

  He spoke to her the same way I did, as if he was talking to another human. And Myrt responded, got right up and moved closer. She snatched the cookie and stood while she munched it, and Reggie watched, smiling warmly. “That’s a good girl,” he said. He petted her head and gave her the other half. She took it with glee, then she curled up right on top of his feet.

  My eyebrows arched. She liked him. Well, of course she’d be fond of anyone who gave her a cookie, but she wouldn’t take a nap on their bedroom slippers. Only mine.

  I looked at Reggie in a whole new light.

  “I appreciate your husband and you keeping my secret,” he said, nodding at the cookies.

  I took one. “Oh, we’re not married.”

  “Well, not yet.” He smiled at me when he said it, like he knew something I didn’t know.

  “How are you doing?” I asked. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “It’s a good day.”

  I nodded. He sat there a moment, just looking at me, and then he said, “You want to ask how long I have left. It’s all right. You’re curious, it’s natural.” He sipped his tea. “According to the doctors, I ought to be gone by now.”

  What an awful thing to know. “And yet, you’re not.”

  “There’s a reason, as there is for all things. But you already know that.”

  I got a little chill.

  “I looked you up after you left. Read snippets and reviews of your work. Your official biography did not mention that you were an amateur sleuth.”

  �
��Not even so amateur. I’m an official police consultant.” I lifted the cup to my nose and sniffed. It didn’t smell bad. It was minty. Warily, I sipped. Then I sipped some more. It was good!

  “You help the police by using your gift?” Reggie asked, as casually as if he was asking for the time.

  I spit tea out my nose, then started coughing, my eyes watering so hard I couldn’t see. Tea sloshed from my cup, so I set it down and grabbed a cloth napkin to hold over my mouth.

  “I’m so sorry, Rachel. Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” It came out all hoarse and I cleared my throat. “Yes, fine.” I settled back in my seat, took a few deep breaths, tried again with the tea. It really was good when one didn’t inhale it.

  “You knew I recognized it in you. I felt you recognize it in me, when you were last here.”

  I just sat there, blinking at him, not knowing what to say. I did not discuss my “gift” with anyone besides Mason. Others knew about it, but they also knew the rules. We kept it to ourselves and we didn’t talk about it unless there was a damn good reason.

  “I understand, you see.”

  “You…you’re…psychic?” I asked.

  “Oh, heavens no. I’d never refer to it that way. It’s more like a…a heightened sense of empathy. I think many actors have it. They speak of reading a crowd, or even absorbing its energy. No, I’d never call it psychic.” He gave a gentle shudder. “What a pretentious word.”

  “I call mine, NFP,” I said. “For not fucking psychic.”

  He tipped his head back and laughed, took a breath, and laughed again, dabbing tears from his eyes with his napkin. He did not break out in a coughing fit that time.

  I laughed, too. It was impossible not to. He was…he was wonderful. I liked him.

  You don’t like anyone.

  I know, Inner Bitch, and this is two in twenty-four hours. What’s up with me?

  “I believe we all have this extra sense,” Reggie said. “But only a few notice it and spend time exercising it, and usually then, only by accident. I assume you learned to rely on your abilities while you were blind.”

  “Yes. And then they got a big boost when I received corneal tissue from a man I suspect also had it. Although, his, I think, drove him nuts.”

  “Yours won’t. You’ve a core of solid steel, my girl.”

  “Wow. Thank you for saying that.”

  “Have you…picked up on anything about the death of Dwayne Clark?”

  “Nothing that’s made any sense.”

  “Ah.” He didn’t ask more.

  We talked about other things for a while, sipping our tea. We talked about my books and his films, and the love of his life, an actress who’d died tragically and mysteriously in the 1960s. It was ruled a suicide but conspiracy theories were still out there. Some had even suspected him, he told me.

  He never ate his cookie, and only sipped a small amount of the tea. Eventually, I felt a hot pain radiating outward from his belly. Not belly, pancreas. That’s what was killing him.

  “You should rest,” I said.

  He pulled his feet out from under Myrtle, got up and went to the fridge, then took out a tiny brown bottle, and used its dropper cap to squeeze some liquid medication into his mouth. “There. I’ll now have fifteen minutes or so to get to my bed.”

  “Just time enough for me to clean up.”

  “Aren’t you the sweetest thing? Juan did that, too. Helped Ivy clean up after she served him cookies and milk here last week.”

  He was telling me something. I was concentrating so hard I was frowning. “Juan comes over for cookies and milk?”

  “Only that one time,” he said. “It’s been so good having you, Rachel. You can talk to me about your…NFP–” he laughed softly. “–anytime at all. At least, until I go.”

  “Maybe even after,” I said. “I sometimes hear from people on the other side.”

  “Do you?”

  “I do. That’s how I know we don’t end. I know it for sure.”

  “What a beautiful thing to say to a dying man.” He hadn’t sat back down, just tapped his walking stick back to the table, and stood with his hands on its onyx raven. Myrtle got up and went to press her head against his shin, a very gentle version of the head-butt she gives everyone else when she wants affection.

  Smiling, he bent with much effort and rubbed her head. “It was lovely sharing a cookie with you, dear Myrtle.” Then straightening, he said, “I’d better go to my room. But I won’t object if you want to rinse our cups before you leave.”

  I got up, too. “Of course I will. This visit meant a lot to me.”

  “And to me.” He took my hand in one of his and held it warmly for an extended moment. “Safe drive home. And if you don’t mind, could you close and lock the gate on your way out?”

  “Of course.”

  “But…finish your tea first.”

  He turned to leave the kitchen. Myrtle started to follow him, which was a stunner. I got in front of her and guided her back to the table. “Lie down, girl.”

  She did, but sighed in disappointment.

  Reggie tapped up the stairs. I listened carefully in case he seemed to stumble or get stuck. But he didn’t. Eventually his steps moved overhead, and I heard the creaking of his bedroom door.

  I sank back into my chair with a heavy sigh and wondered what this had all been about. After I finished my tea and my cookie, I poured the remaining cookies into the cow-shaped cookie jar on the counter, so they wouldn’t get stale. Then I took the teapot, cups and saucers over to the double porcelain sink to rinse them. As soon as I put my hands on the faucet, I felt something as jolting as an electric shock, but different. I jerked my hands away reflexively and stood there blinking.

  What the hell was that?

  I don’t know, Inner Bitch said. But I’m pretty sure it’s why you’re here.

  I took a deep breath and put my hands back on the faucet knobs.

  And suddenly, I was doing another ride-along. Looking out through someone else’s eyes, hearing through their ears. I was still there, though, in Reggie D'Voe’s kitchen, at his sink. But the hands on the faucet were not my own. They were smaller than my hands, with longer nails in a pale pink French manicure. They were soaking a cloth in ice cold water. I glimpsed a pink watchband on a slender wrist.

  I think this is Ivy.

  We turned around, so I could see a crying child. Six-year-old Juan Clark was sitting in the chair Reggie had been in only moments ago. He was sobbing so hard his lungs were spasming. His face was red and wet and his eyes were scarlet and puffy.

  We moved closer. Ivy’s hands pressed the wet cloth to his face, held it to his forehead, and then to each cheek to soothe the sting of his tears. Then she refolded it and pressed it to the back of his neck, where she held it gently. “Just breathe,” she told him. “Nice, deep breaths, that’s it. That’s it.”

  She got him a glass of water, and he sipped it. The sobs stopped wracking his tiny frame after a moment. He blinked up at her, up at me, big brown eyes still puffy, still wet and pleading. “I can’t spend the weekend with him, Miss Ivy. I can’t. He’ll do it again. He’ll hurt me again.”

  Ivy knew what her favorite former kindergartener was talking about. And I knew what Ivy knew, because I was inside her head.

  Dwayne Clark had been abusing his little boy.

  In that moment, as she held the shuddering, frightened child in her arms, Ivy made up her mind to stop him from being hurt again, no matter what it took.

  And I made up my mind that any way she did it was all right with me.

  The flash ended, and I was just me, standing by the sink, realizing that she probably had stopped it.

  And it was still all right with me.

  I wiped my hands on a dishtowel, called my dog to my side, and went straight to my car. I didn’t know what I was going to tell Mason, if I was going to tell him anything at all. And no part of me was okay with that. I felt like a fissure was opening in my heart.r />
  If I told him, he’d have to arrest her. And if I told him why she’d done it, it would kill him to arrest her. He’d been in that position before, when doing what was right meant breaking the law he was sworn to uphold. His brother's suicide note was a confession to a string of murders. And Mason did the wrong thing for the right reasons. He destroyed evidence. He did it to protect Jeremy and Joshua from the truth about their father. And it haunted him to this day.

  I couldn’t put him through that again.

  On autopilot, I helped Myrtle up onto her seat, buckled her custom harness, and put her leopard print sun goggles on, because her eyes were sensitive to bright light. Then I got behind the wheel and drove back down the driveway and out through the gate.

  I put the T-bird in Park, but left it running, got out, and went back to pull those giant gates closed. Then I snapped the hasp on the biggest padlock I’d ever seen. I turned to get back into my car, and almost bumped right into Gary Conklin’s concave chest.

  Mason stood beside Rosie at the edge of the Susquehanna River, in a wild patch of tangle and scrub. Teams had excavated six shallow graves so far, all of them in different locations along the riverbank. Each body was wrapped in burlap. Three were intact. The other three, including this latest one, not so much.

  Someone yelled, “I’ve got an arm. God, Jesus. Both of ‘em.”

  “Oh fuck, I have the head.”

  “These can’t all be the same killer,” Rosie said. “Two were buried intact, same as Clark. Almost respectfully.”

  “You gotta love a respectful killer,” Mason said.

  “And the other three are brutal. Chopped the ef up.”

  Mason said, “Same dumping ground, same killer. Burlap shrouds again, near the river again, shallow grave again.” He nodded at the cop with the head in a bag, held at arm’s length. “Any ligature marks on his neck?”

  “Why don’t you come and take a look? Sir.”

  “I got this!” A car door slammed, and the perkiest ME in the east came running, pulling on gloves, inappropriately eager. “Give it, give it here.” And she took the bag. “Where’s the torso?”

  Mason nodded toward where some guys were zipping the headless, limbless torso into a body bag.