Chapter 33
Ravinia sent Rex a speaking look as she walked past him into the kitchen. She knew he was trying to freeze her out in the homicide investigation surrounding Elizabeth and it irked her. Add to that, she’d failed to find a place near Rex’s house in order to get her phone up and running again. And she’d realized he’d set up a rendezvous with Elizabeth while she was gone.
She would have gone on being piqued if Elizabeth hadn’t given her a watery smile, turned her palm to the pile of envelopes on the counter, and said, “Looks like I have a stalker.”
Ravinia dropped her backpack with a thunk and reached for one of the letters.
“Be careful. We’re turning them over to the police, see if we can find any DNA that isn’t ours after we manhandled them,” Rex said.
Her hand froze midair and instead she leaned over one of the nearest letters. They were all laid out, so she could see them without touching them. She read them one by one, and felt the hair lift on her arms at their fervent tone. She read them a second time and frowned. Something about them struck a chord in her. What was it? Something she should recognize, something just out of reach. “They’re weird.”
“Obsessive,” Rex said.
The phrases burned in her brain. “This person feels they can communicate with you mentally. Can they?” She gave Elizabeth a look, wondering if she’d been holding back on her.
“No,” Elizabeth assured her.
“You sure?” Ravinia asked.
“I’m positive. I know these notes say that the writer’s sending messages, but I’m not getting them. Maybe it’s all a lie anyway, designed to make me feel like I’m going crazy. If so, they’re succeeding.”
“Have you felt anything at all? Like maybe there’s just something in the wrong frequency?” She could speak from experience on that one.
“No,” Elizabeth insisted. “Nothing.”
Ravinia gave up and glanced down at the cards. “These seem off.”
“Ya think?” Rex said.
“They sound wrong for Declan Jr. and he’s the one out there you need to worry about.” She suddenly had a thought. “Detective Dunbar’s the one you should talk to. She dealt with Declan Jr., and I bet she would help.”
“Who’s Detective Dunbar?” Rex asked.
“I called her last after you left,” Elizabeth said at the same time.
“She knows Declan,” Ravinia said, ignoring Rex who clearly didn’t like being left out of the conversation. “She knows him too well. He tried to kill her.”
“He tried to kill a police officer?” Elizabeth asked, looking to Rex in alarm.
“He wants us all dead,” Ravinia told her. “All of us connected to Siren Song. All of us who are related. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He’s the reason I came to find you. To make sure you’re safe. That’s what Aunt Catherine wants. To make sure you’re safe. But you’re not safe. This . . .” She waved a hand to the letters. “Maybe it’s him. I don’t know. But you should really get away from here as soon as possible.” She snapped her fingers. “Go to Siren Song. Meet Aunt Catherine, and you can talk to Detective Dunbar in person. She’s with the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department which is right there,” she added for Rex’s benefit.
“You just said this Declan is a killer,” Rex stated flatly.
“But he’s not there anymore. He’s somewhere else. That’s why Aunt Catherine was worried about you,” Ravinia repeated, exasperated. “With everything that’s happened to you, he’s probably here.”
“I can’t just go,” Elizabeth said, though her tone suggested that she was rolling the idea around. “I’ve got Chloe to think of. And Detective Driscoll would take it as a sign of guilt.”
“Chloe can go with you.” Ravinia was firm. “I don’t care what that detective thinks. It’s not true.”
“She’s right,” Rex said, shocking Ravinia and making Elizabeth’s head turn. “This killer’s making his move. You need to go somewhere safe.”
Elizabeth shook her head slowly. “I can’t just drop everything and go to Oregon. For how long? Driscoll will come after me and lock me up, and who’s going to take care of Chloe? I can’t be away from her. I can’t.”
Ravinia stared down at the handwritten notes. They were giving her a headache, messing with her mind. She walked to the sink and stared outside to Rex’s backyard. “Siren Song is a safe place and it’s far away. Aunt Catherine has made it like a fortress. She’s in charge. And she’s your mother.”
“We’re not sure about that,” Elizabeth said.
“You’re not sure about it. I am. Besides, Aunt Catherine’s a strong woman. Not afraid of looking evil right in the eye and doing whatever she has to, to protect us. All of us.” Ravinia dragged her gaze away from the window and stared at Elizabeth. “The same goes for you. Maybe even more so.”
“Why don’t we shift you to a hotel for the time being,” Rex said. “Think about what you want to do, but get out of your house. I want you to talk to Cunningham, get your defense started.”
“I have a job . . .” Elizabeth said. “And I can’t afford a hotel.”
“We’ll work that out. You just need to be safe,” Rex said.
“But if I call Driscoll with these letters . . . maybe he’ll realize someone else is out there and go after him. Driscoll seems entirely capable.”
“But what about you?” Ravinia demanded. “And Chloe?”
“I can’t think,” Elizabeth muttered, climbing to her feet. “I have to go to the office.”
“I’ll go with you,” Rex said.
She held up her hands. “I’d rather have you take the notes to Driscoll. I don’t want to see him or talk to him. I have appointments at work. Thanks for the offer, but I can’t afford a hotel and I’m not letting you pay for one.”
“I’ll go with you, then,” Ravinia said, echoing Rex.
“No. Thank you.”
Ravinia saw the way Elizabeth looked away from her and realized that, though she seemed to trust Rex, she didn’t share that feeling about her. Elizabeth hadn’t completely accepted Ravinia’s tale of their family. It was damn frustrating.
“Call me every hour,” Rex told her, which pissed Ravinia off all the more.
She didn’t have a working cell, and she had a feeling Rex would try to shake her loose from him. Well, she was going to be like a burr, she determined, as Rex walked Elizabeth to the door. She saw the way he touched her arm and that kind of pissed her off, too. They were bonding in all kinds of ways, and yet Elizabeth treated her with extreme caution.
She’s wavering. I can feel it. Not only has Elizabeth fallen for that stupid private detective, but she’s actually considering leaving the area, leaving me. I can’t let that happen. What’s wrong with her? Didn’t she read the notes I penned for her? Doesn’t she understand the depth of my love? That we’re destined to be together? That I would do any damn thing to be with her.
My fists curl in frustration and a headache pounds behind my eyes. I can no longer suffer this loneliness. I have to stop her.
Feeling sick, I lean against the freezer, my hands braced against the top of the big chest. I need to stop her. I can’t believe that she won’t wait for me, or come to me. She must’ve gotten my messages . . . I thought she would respond in kind but so far . . . nothing.
My heart is breaking.
My soul is shredding.
She can’t leave me. Not now. Not ever.
I force myself to take several deep breaths as I conjure up my beloved’s face. I long to touch her. To kiss her. To seal our love . . . our special love.
I can wait no longer. I head upstairs to the kitchen to find my keys and slip the ring into my pocket.
Today, I will go to her. I know where she’ll be.
Today is the first day of our forever.
The day crept by. As she called Rex every hour on the hour, Elizabeth began to feel foolish. He had taken the letters to Driscoll who’d been noncommittal about his thoughts, but it made her feel better to know they were in the rumpled detective’s hands. While she’d talked with Amy Ferguson and, of course, Marg and Buddy, who wanted to see yet more houses—a plan she’d put off until next week—Rex had been following up on Gil Dyne and Peter Bellhard. He’d interviewed both men and had struck out. Though he was leaving the door open, Elizabeth could tell he didn’t feel either man was capable of writing such heartsick notes, and well, she felt the same.
She was meeting Detective Driscoll at Rex’s place as soon as she picked up her daughter. Ravinia had gotten on Rex’s phone once, reiterating that she felt Elizabeth should go to Siren Song ASAP. Well, maybe, but first the detective.
She was late, as ever. If she didn’t get to the preschool by six PM she was charged an exorbitant rate every fifteen minutes past the hour. She understood, but it didn’t mean she didn’t push the limit sometimes. It was two minutes to six when she finally wheeled into the lot.
Vivian was just leaving. She waved at Elizabeth and called, “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Working,” Elizabeth called back.
“Not every minute. Let’s go to the gym.”
“Can Chloe come over?” Lissa yelled.
“Not tonight,” Elizabeth told her.
“We’ll talk,” Vivian said, and drove out of the lot, her blond poof of hair visible through the back window.
Chloe was standing on one foot and then the other, the only child left in the room. She ran to Elizabeth and hugged her tightly.
“Sorry,” Elizabeth said to the teacher as she gathered up Chloe’s things. “Traffic was a nightmare.”
“It’s getting awful, isn’t it?”
“Yessiree.”
Chloe held Elizabeth’s hand as they walked out, something she rarely did.
“You okay?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yeah . . .”
She slid Chloe a look and a cold feeling stole over her as she recalled Ravinia’s words from the morning.
Have you felt anything at all? Like maybe there’s just something in the wrong frequency?
“Chloe, have you been getting mental messages from someone? More than what you’ve told me?”
“What are mental messages?” Chloe was walking toward their car, but looked back at Elizabeth.
“Like in your head. You said the man loves me, but you can’t see him.”
She nodded soberly.
“Does he say other things?”
“He says lots of things. He’s kinda mad now.” And with that she ran for the car.
“Chloe!” Elizabeth hurried after her. “That’s the wrong car!” she called as she realized her daughter had run to another vehicle that looked a lot like hers, only it was two spots away, closer to the exits and faced out.
Chloe had her hand on the door handle. “What?” “That’s not our car,” Elizabeth said, pointing to her own Ford Escape.
At that moment, a woman slid around the side of the vehicle in question and moved toward Chloe.
Elizabeth looked at her blankly, then at the vehicle, a dark Ford Escape, and then to the gun in her hand that was leveled at Chloe’s temple. “Nadia?”
“This is odd,” Rex admitted to Ravinia. He’d spent most of the day tracking down Elizabeth’s friends, the women from the circle she called the Moms Group and their husbands, though one of the women wasn’t a mother. He’d also contacted the Sisterhood group who were singularly unhelpful.
He thought back to the conversations.
Because Elizabeth didn’t want her friends to know she’d hired a private detective he told them he was with the police. He just asked them general questions, letting them think he was checking up on Elizabeth’s story.
Jade Rivers told him flatly that she had nothing to say and neither did her husband, Byron. Looking at the list Elizabeth had supplied with all their names, their husband’s names, and their places of work, Rex called Byron at work, but he wasn’t much more forthcoming than his wife.
Deirdre Czursky admitted that Elizabeth and her husband were having problems, but she staunchly insisted that the police were pretty much all pigs and that she knew he was just trying to railroad her. She told him he should call up her husband Les. “In fact, I’ll give you the number right now!”
When Rex put through the call, Les greeted him coldly, having been warned by his wife. He, too, told Rex he was barking up the wrong tree.
Tara Hofstetter said she was going to call Elizabeth up immediately after she got off the phone and tell her that the police were asking about her. And then she’d added, “She saved that family, you know. All of them. They would be dead if it wasn’t for her, so you just leave her the hell alone!” Her husband Dave was actually taking a workday at home and said that Elizabeth should be considered a savior, and it was just like the police, and in the larger sense, the government, to get everything back-ass-ward.
Rex couldn’t get hold of Vivian Eachus. Her husband, Bill, asked more questions than he answered but sung Elizabeth’s praises as well.
“What’s odd?” Ravinia asked, interrupting Rex’s thoughts.
“Nadia Vandell hasn’t answered her cell phone all day, so I finally decided to call her husband, Karl. He’s an investment banker, and though Elizabeth didn’t have a number for him, she knew where he worked. I just called his office, hoping he hadn’t gone home yet.”
“He wasn’t there?”
“He wasn’t there, but his boss still was. Looks like Karl hasn’t been there for six weeks. His wife called his boss and said he’d up and left her and that she hasn’t seen him since.”
Ravinia stared at him hard. She was so still for so long that Rex’s brows lifted.
“You okay?” he asked as he picked up his own cell and hit speed dial to Elizabeth.
When she didn’t answer, he returned Ravinia’s stare as he counted the rings for Elizabeth, staying on until the call went to voice mail.
“It’s him,” Ravinia said.
“Karl Vandell?” Rex’s pulse leaped and he was on his feet. “How do you know?”
“I can hear him. No . . . I can hear Chloe. . . .”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Rex rasped.
“He’s got Chloe and Elizabeth in the car!” Ravinia held her hands over her eyes and then suddenly yanked them away, her sea-green eyes distended wide with shock. “It’s not him. It’s her. Nadia Vandell!”