Chapter 7

Ty reached for one of the bottles of water in her hand, glancing around the kitchen. "What do you mean?"

"Someone's been in here," she repeated, her gaze darting from one object in the kitchen to the next. Everything looked the same; the flowered china behind the glass panes, the kitchen towel hanging from the closed utensil drawer, the roll of paper towels hanging from below a cabinet, the peanut butter jar that now served as a vase, filled with flowers Ty had picked for her from his parents' yard. Even Ty's cell phone that she knew he had left in the kitchen looked right, and yet she knew something was different. "I'm not crazy. Someone's been in here since we left."

"Nobody said you were crazy."

Ty twisted the top off the water bottle, the sound deafening in Jillian's ears.

"What makes you think someone's been in here?" He continued to glance around as he sipped the water. "Nothing looks messed up to me."

"The list." She zeroed in on the table. "When you came in for the beer and to leave your phone, did you move it?"

He glanced at her grocery list written on the back of a receipt from a previous trip to the store. It read, mustard, lemons, dish detergent. He shook his head, still sipping from the water bottle. "No."

She stared at the simple objects, almost afraid to touch them. "The notepad was turned at an angle when I left it. The pen was beside the list, not above it."

Ty made a face. "You're sure? How can you remember something like that?"

Jillian, realizing she had been holding her breath, exhaled heavily. She was dizzy, but she didn't know if it was from all the beer, her fear, or lack of oxygen. She took a deep breath, exhaling again, forcing herself to be calm. There was something inside her, though just a glimmer, that told her she had to fight this time.

This time? What did that mean?

"I know because I always write at an angle," Jillian told Ty firmly. "I like objects at angles, not perpendicular."

"Now you are beginning to sound a little crazy. How many beers did—"

"Ty, listen to me," she snapped, dropping her bottle on the table. She grabbed her grocery list and shook it at him. "I'm telling you, someone was in here. He read, then straightened my list, and put the pen above it." She turned around toward the sink. "And that magazine, open to the recipe for crab cakes. I was going to try and make some. It's been straightened, too."

He stared at the magazine. "You think it was my mom, come to tidy up the love nest?"

"This isn't funny."

His demeanor changed at once. "You're right. I'm sorry." He put down his bottle, coming to her to pull her into his arms. "Why don't you let me walk around the house, look under the beds, in the closets and shit. You wait here."

She pressed her cheek to his chest. His T-shirt smelled of beer and the beach. "You can look, but he isn't here," she murmured. "I would know if he was here."

He closed his arms tighter around her and smoothed her tangled hair. "Want me to call the police? I'm sure McCormick could swing by."

"And tell him what? Someone broke into my house, moved my grocery list, and then let himself back out again?" She squeezed her eyes shut. She was caught between the feeling she was unraveling and that fierce stubbornness that she hadn't seen in herself before tonight. "No, thank you. People around here are already offering me a spot in the freak show at the carnival. I don't think I want anyone thinking I'm crazier than they already think I am."

He chuckled, but tenderly. "Ah, sweetie, nobody thinks you're crazy."

She held on to him tightly, as if the sheer strength of his young body could shield her from the world beyond the cottage walls. "No? Your friend Jones asked me if I thought I was the president of the United States."

"He was wasted."

She looked at him, into his blue-green eyes. "I hate to ask, considering Alice's position on this, but do you think you could stay tonight? I feel like such a baby, but—"

"Shhh," he hushed, hugging her against him. "Of course I'm going to stay. And if Alice doesn't like it, she's just going to have to have herself another hot flash."

Jillian laughed, though she knew it wasn't funny. Ty really wasn't being very understanding of his mother's position. It was subjects like this that reminded her that she really was much older than him, more mature. He had the selfish rashness of a young man who had not yet had his fair share of lumps in life, or known real responsibility. It was a wedge she knew would eventually drive them apart, but she didn't want to think about it. Not right now.

"I'll call home," he said. "At least she can't say she was up all night waiting to hear from the morgue. Why don't you get a shower?"

She nodded and lifted her chin to let him kiss her. It was a warm, loving kiss, not of sexual desire, but a different kind of intimacy she desperately needed right now. He made her feel like he cared.

Ty scooped up his cell phone from the counter. He punched the buttons as he went down the short hall in front of her, flipping light switches. "I'm still checking under the beds and in the closets," he told her. "Just to be sure." Then, "Mom?" he said into the phone. "What are you doing up so late?"

Jillian heard Ty pause as she stepped into the bathroom.

"Mom, we talked about this before. I don't think the morgue calls directly. I think a cop or priest or someone comes to the door to tell you your kid is dead and has been scraped off the road with a shovel."

Jillian managed a grim smile as she lowered herself to the toilet and peed, not caring if the bathroom door was open and Ty saw her. She was still too shaky to be closing any doors between them yet. She then stripped out of her sandy clothes, leaving them on the pink tile floor, and turned the shower head on over the old bathtub that was easily big enough for two. Turning the cantankerous knobs until she got pleasantly cool water, she stepped in and pulled the plastic shower curtain shut to keep water off the floor.

Jillian lathered her head with shampoo, rinsed, added conditioner to the ends, and then reached for a disposable razor in the soap dish. The routine of her shower calmed her. She wasn't crazy. She had seen the man on the beach tonight. Someone had been in the cottage.

She heard Ty come into the bathroom, pee a stream only a twenty-three-year old male could produce, then flush and drop the toilet seat with a bang. When she stepped out of the shower, he was seated there waiting for her, a towel from his mother's linen closet on his lap. He stood and opened the towel, wrapping it around her wet body. He handed her a smaller towel.

"For your hair," he said.

She smiled as she took it and leaned over to wrap her wet hair up, turban-style. "You act like you've done this before."

He offered a boyish, I'm-not-kissing-and-telling grin.

She leaned over the sink, gazing into the steamy mirror to wipe away any mascara smudged under her eyes. "Come on, tell the truth," she coaxed. "I know very well you were no virgin there the other night, Ty."

"Why do women always want to know about the other women you've slept with?" he asked, moving to the doorway to give her some room.

She glanced at his refection in the mirror as she reached for a tube of moisturizer. "Hon, I've got bigger matters to be concerned with than who you've slept with or even who you'll sleep with when I'm gone." She applied the moisturizer to her face, then propped one foot up on the toilet lid to smooth it over her legs.

"I went out with the same girl for almost two years, sophomore and junior year. Thought I was in love."

She met his gaze in the mirror again as she switched legs. "Or at least in lust?"

He leaned lazily in the doorway. "Definitely in lust."

"What happened?"

"You know. The usual college romance bullshit. She didn't want me hanging with the guys anymore. She wanted a commitment. So on, so forth." He paused, his eyes getting a distant look. "Sounds clichéd, but I miss her."

"You think you'll ever get back together?"

He frowned. "Nah, I pretty much screwed those chances up." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I think I'll hop in, too, if you don't mind."

"No, go ahead." She tried to duck under his arm to leave the bathroom, but he caught her. The towel tucked under her armpits fell away as he pulled her naked and wet into his arms.

"Jilly, I didn't mean what I said in there about you being crazy."

She looked up. "I know."

"You sure you don't want me to call the police?"

She shook her head. "Maybe you were right. Maybe I did move the pad of paper—the magazine."

"Don't do that." He lowered his head, brushing his beard-stubbled cheek against her smooth one.

"Don't do what?"

"Doubt yourself."

She drew back to meet his gaze again.

"Did you leave that list on the table like that?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Then someone moved it. But that doesn't mean Jack the Ripper is after you. Who knows who could have done it? There must be two dozen realtors in town who have access to keys of rental properties. Some kid could have found the key or climbed through the living room window. The summer I was fourteen, a couple of friends and I were the terrors of our neighborhood. We'd climb through open windows and leave tomatoes from my mom's garden on people's pillows. Chief Drummond—the one before Claire, her dad—was going crazy trying to figure out who was doing it."

She laughed. "Why tomatoes?"

He laughed with her. "Who knows?" He kissed her, grabbed the towel she'd dropped off the floor, and handed it to her. "I'll be in in a minute."

She wrapped the towel around her again as she went down the hall toward the bedroom. Behind her she could see that Ty had shut off the kitchen and living room lights. "You tell Alice you were staying the night?"

"Yup."

She heard the shower come on.

"What did she say?"

"Have fun."

"Yeah, right, "Jillian laughed, pulling the towel off her head. "I'll believe that one right after the 'you were still a virgin' story."

By the time Ty had showered and entered the bedroom, Jillian had taken her ibuprofen, finished the water bottle, and pulled on a pair of clean panties and a T-shirt. She left her hair to air-dry; it would be a frizzy mess in the morning, but she didn't care.

He slid into bed beneath the faded yellow top sheet, naked. "What's with girls and clothes in bed, anyway?" he asked, punching his pillow.

She turned off the light and rolled onto her side, against him. He wrapped his arm around her so that she could rest her cheek on his shoulder. "I don't know," she asked rhetorically. "What is it with girls and clothes in bed?"

He kissed her forehead and then lay back and relaxed. Suddenly, Jillian was so tired that she couldn't keep her eyes open. Within minutes, she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The Bloodsucker stood barefoot on the cool tile of the bathroom and buttoned up his pajama top.

He had been very naughty tonight. Done something he knew he should not have done and he was ashamed. Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around his waist to protect himself, then remembered he no longer had to.

Mistakes like tonight were stupid. Mistakes like that would get him caught.

He reached for his toothbrush and squeezed a long worm of blue gel toothpaste on it.

He didn't know what had made him go to her house tonight. He hadn't meant to. He was getting everything out of order. Getting confused.

He continued to brush, up and down, never back and forth.

You don't go into their houses. Not even wearing gloves. It was too easy to leave evidence behind. Something physical. Something about himself. He had to remember it was a small town. So many people knew him... or thought they did.

And he had to stay in order. He couldn't hop around the board no matter how excited he got about a new prospect. No matter how excited she made him. It was too easy to make a mistake.

He picked up the plastic cup on the edge of the sink, filled it with water, and rinsed his mouth. Then he used mouthwash. One cap. He put everything back in its place, adjusted the angle of his toothbrush so that it hung properly in its holder, and then he was ready for bed.

Shutting off the light in the bathroom, he went down the hall toward his bedroom.

Tonight had been strange. He had been himself and yet he had not felt like himself. It was almost as if he had been watching a movie and he was the main character. He got gas in the car. Checked the oil level. He knew they did it in the shop where the car was serviced regularly, but he liked to double-check it anyway. Then he parked a couple of streets off the boardwalk. It was a nice evening there, hot but not too hot. Lots of girls, young women in skimpy tank tops. Lots of blondes.

He had had a piece of cheese pizza and a Coke. Several people stopped to speak to him. They smiled. He smiled. Chatted. Even flirted with a couple of tourists hanging around outside one of the few bars on the boardwalk. Then he went for a walk. The next thing he knew, he was there, standing in front of the cottage.

Out of order, he remembered telling himself. Out of order.

He barely remembered climbing through the window, walking through the house in the dark. He looked at her things. The bed where she slept. The hairbrush she used on all that pretty blond hair. He saw a magazine on the kitchen counter; the recipe looked like one he might want to try sometime. She was out of lemons.

The next thing he knew, he was on the beach, in the dunes. Hidden by the sea grass.

She had gone to a party. Young people drinking beer. Singing. Laughing. He had never been allowed to go to those kinds of parties when it had mattered the most.

The next thing The Bloodsucker knew, he was running. Someone was chasing him. Ty. Other college boys.

Then, he was back in his car, driving slowly down the street as if nothing had happened.

Ty had actually spoken to him as he drove by. Silly boy.

* * *

Jillian saw the rumpled bed sheets first. Same sheets. Same bed. Again, the room was hot and stuffy. She heard the click of the ceiling fan, felt the warm air stir without offering any relief.

She heard the shower running. Water splashing against the side of the shower stall. Then it stopped.

Jillian couldn't quite place herself. It was as if she were hovering above the bed, the room. Drifting. She was in the bedroom, yet she wasn't.

She saw the steam-fogged mirror inside the bathroom door. Saw the man step out again and reach for a white towel.

She knew the man. Knew his compact, muscular body. The dark, prickly hair on his legs and chest.

Her heart began to race. Her mouth went dry.

She didn't belong here. Shouldn't be here.

The next thing she knew, she was in the bed. Naked. He was there beside her, their limbs entwined.

Jillian couldn't breathe. There was something wrong about the scene. She shouldn't be here. She was afraid. But she was also angry.

This was wrong. Wrong.

She heard the feminine laugher again, reverberating off the shadowed walls that seemed to have no shape or form. She recognized the sexual undertone of the laughter.

But who was laughing? Was that her?

The man rolled over, reached out to her. She felt his fingertips brush against her bare belly. She knew him. Knew his touch. She felt that flutter of sexual desire deep in the pit of her stomach, but she resisted. She had the distinct feeling that this was a clandestine meeting. No one could know.

It was wrong.

Jillian bolted upright in the bed and clutched her chest. She could feel her heart racing. Her breath short, labored. She glanced over in the bed at Ty, sound asleep on his back.

She took a deep, shuddering breath and climbed out of bed. Without turning on any lights, her eyes accustomed to the dark, she went to the kitchen for a bottle of water.

She was not afraid now of the dream, but shocked. Appalled. Her dream. She had been the one in bed with the man. In bed where she didn't belong. Having sex with a man she should not have been having sex with.

Since Jillian woke from the coma, she had been focused on figuring out who she was. She had been intent on finding herself so that she could return to the life she had once possessed, become the person she had once been. But one thought had never occurred to her until this moment.

She opened the refrigerator, and the stark, blinding light made her recoil.

What if she found out who she was and then was sorry she had asked?

* * *

"One box," Claire said, leaning on the shopping cart. She was dead tired. It was after eight and she had gone to work at six this morning. She had picked up Ashley at her parents' house, intending to go straight home, but her daughter had reminded her that it had been more than two weeks since they'd been to the grocery store. They were out of everything.

"Mom."

"You heard me." Claire tossed a box of granola bars into the cart. "Only one box of Toastie Sweetie Peeps, which disguises itself as a breakfast cereal and probably causes cancer in lab animals."

"But I'll need more than one box if you're not going to go to the grocery store for another year," Ashley whined.

"So get a box of something else." It took a great deal of effort for Claire to push the half-loaded cart forward. "How about Cheerios? I like Cheerios."

Ashley made a gagging motion with her finger in her mouth, complete with sound effects. "I'd rather eat Styrofoam packing chips."

"Then do." Claire offered a quick, motherly, don't mess with me tonight smile and turned the corner to go down the paper goods aisle.

"We forgot hot dog rolls," Ashley called.

"Be my guest. Back on the first aisle." Claire raised her hand and let it fall in surrender. She stopped in front of the paper plates and grabbed a stack. Depositing them in the cart, she scanned the shelves for paper cups. All she saw was plastic. Ashley insisted plastic was bad for the environment, or whales or something. Ashley wouldn't drink from plastic. Unless, of course, it came from a fast food place with biggie fries. Claire chose to pick her battles carefully.

"Look at her."

An elderly woman's voice penetrated Claire's cup-search daze.

"Who does she think she is, shopping in here?"

"I don't know, Mary Lou," came another crotchety voice. "I just don't know."

Claire spotted the cups Ashley preferred and grabbed them.

"A killer on the loose, stalking our streets, and look at her, doing her shopping, just as you please."

Realizing the old bats were talking about her, Claire snapped her head around to see who it was. Mary Lou Joseph and Betty Friegle. They both attended church with her. They were friends with her mother and played cards on Tuesdays with her. They didn't seem to notice that Claire had noticed them... or that she could hear them. Both apparently needed to have their hearing aids adjusted because they were talking loud enough for everyone in the store to hear them.

"Well, I spoke with Mayor Tugman this morning, and he says the city council is about to convene over this matter. She refuses anyone's help with this investigation and then look at her." Mary Lou dared a glance over her osteoporosis-hunched shoulder, then back at Betty again.

Apparently she needed a prescription change with the glasses, too. She still didn't notice Claire coming right for her, pushing the shopping cart.

"You know, when they hired her, I said this isn't a job for a woman," Mary Lou continued. "I don't care if her father was the chief of police for forty years. Of course, I would never say so to Marlene."

"Of course not," Betty echoed.

Claire resisted the temptation to just release the cart. All the momentum she had going, she could probably take out both blue-hairs and still catch up to make the turn and head down the dairy aisle.

"Of course not," Claire mocked, halting inches from Mary Lou's well-padded behind, covered in an orange flowered housecoat.

Mary Lou turned around, looked stunned for an instant, then rebounded with a great big denture smile. "Claire, how are you, dear?" she asked sweetly.

"I have to eat," Claire said.

"Excuse me." Mary Lou leaned over, continuing with the sweet old lady shtick. "What's that, dear?"

"I said, I have to eat!" Claire snatched a bag of napkins from above Betty's head. "Serial killer or not, I'm still permitted to eat, right? Feed my child? Everyone has to eat." Claire was angry. Frustrated and angry. Angry with these old biddies, with herself. With him.

"Of course, dear," Betty offered.

Claire steered the cart around them both. "And next time you speak to Mayor Tugman, Mary Lou..."

"Yes?"

"Tell him that if he has something to say, he should have the balls to come say it to my face." Claire turned the corner to the next aisle and pushed right past the skim milk.

"You go, Mom," Ashley breathed from behind Claire.

Claire glanced over her shoulder. "You heard that? I'm sorry. It was completely uncalled for." She pointed back to the milk case.

"No, Mom, that was way cool." Ashley grabbed a cardboard milk container. "Nobody stands up to Mary Lou Who. She's the biggest gossip in the county."

Claire looked at her daughter's grinning face and thought to herself how pretty she had become, black eye pencil and all. "Go find the syrup, light, and you can get one more box of Toastie Sweetie Peeps. I'll meet you in the checkout line."

"Thanks, Mom." Ashley darted down the aisle as if she were a carefree kid again, instead of the moody teenager she had become.

"You're welcome," Claire whispered with a bittersweet smile. If only her other problems were solved so easily.

* * *

That night Claire lay in bed on top of the Navajo patterned bedspread. Ashley was already asleep and the house was quiet.

Claire had to get up in less than five hours, but she couldn't sleep. Couldn't turn her mind off long enough to surrender to sleep.

She'd been doing phone and personal interviews for days. She had officers who could do them for her, but she felt as if it was important that she hear what each friend or family member of the victims had to say. There might be something, some tiny thread of a clue that had been lost in the stacks of already recorded interviews.

And Claire thought about the old ladies in the grocery store. She knew they were harmless. She even knew that for the most part they liked her and supported her in her position, even if they didn't like to admit it. They just liked to talk.

Maybe they were right. Maybe she needed to hand the investigation of the homicides over to the state police. But she knew what they would do. Take over her office. Order her employees around. Bad-mouth her to her officers behind her back.

Just because she hadn't caught the killer yet didn't mean she was running a poor investigation. It didn't mean she wasn't doing her job. Serial killers were almost never found quickly. These were not random acts of passion and this killer was not a stupid man. She had to outsmart him. And she would. She knew she would. It just might take a little time.

Claire stared at the turning ceiling fan over her head. So to hell with Mary Lou and Betty and anyone who claimed she couldn't do her job. And to hell with them criticizing her for going grocery shopping after pulling a thirteen-hour day and charging the city for eight. Everyone had to eat.

Everyone had to eat....

Claire bolted upright in bed. "Everyone has to eat," she repeated, this time aloud.

She scrambled out of bed, jerked open her door, and ran down the dark hallway to the dining room where she had left her now numerous legal pads of notes.

Everyone had to eat. Of course! That was the connection.

She turned on the wrought-iron chandelier over the dining room table and began to sort through the legal pads. She had one just for April, and that was where she had to start. April had only been in town four days when she was abducted.

It didn't matter how long a person had been in Albany Beach. It didn't matter if she was here for a week of a lifetime. She had to eat.

"Where did you go, April?" Claire whispered. She knelt on a dining room chair and shoved her reading glasses on. "Where did you eat?"

She flipped through her pages of notes on April. "Arrived Saturday," she read. She reached for a brand new pad of paper, fresh out of the six-pack she had bought. "Went grocery shopping."

Where? Claire scrawled across the page with a big question mark. She would have to call April's husband yet again. But she would wait until a decent time of day. She checked her watch. 12:45 a.m. It was going to be a long night. This was going to take a while, maybe days, but Claire knew she was on to something. She could feel it in her bones.