Читать книгу Nancy Bush's Nowhere Bundle: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide & Nowhere Safe - Nancy Bush - Страница 11

Chapter 3

“You put him in a trance!” Della snapped.

Liv looked at Hague with resignation. She wanted to call him back, but it was too late. It was futile to try to rouse him when he disappeared into his own world.

She slid a glance at the photograph. Zombie man . . .

Della fussed over Hague, tilting his head back in the La-Z-Boy recliner he practically lived in. Hague didn’t trust computers or telephones, especially cell phones; he was more of a Luddite than Liv. He was absolutely certain malicious groups bent on evil and destruction were tracking him. He spent hour upon hour calculating figures on lined yellow paper with an ink pen. Della worked part-time as a care assistant at a nearby assisted living/nursing home facility. Hague, who’d never been able to keep a job, received government assistance, and she thought maybe her father subsidized them as well. However, that would only be if Lorinda, the evil stepmother, didn’t know about the tap on Albert’s finances, which was questionable.

As if she could read Liv’s thoughts, Della said, “Albert’s coming by.”

Liv reached for the pictures, note and birth certificate and she saw that her hands were trembling. She felt guilty enough for sending Hague into the trance; Della’s accusation hadn’t been necessary. “He is?” Liv couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her father.

“He called,” she said with a certain satisfaction.

Ignoring that, Liv asked, “Does he see Hague often?” Since Lorinda had entered their lives, both Liv and Hague’s relationship with Albert had suffered, and in Liv’s case it had become basically nonexistent.

“Now and again. He’s not good with Hague, either.”

“When is he showing up?”

Della shot a glance at the old grandfather’s clock, which stood against the living room’s far wall. It was the kind that was wound with a key. Hague liked to limit their amount of electricity use in any way he could, and it wasn’t that he was trying to lessen his carbon footprint, he just wanted to make himself smaller and more indistinct in the world, and therefore less traceable. The less information the “government” or “powers that be” had on him, the better.

“Anytime, now,” Della answered.

“I’ve got to be going,” she said.

“Oh, no, stay. Maybe Hague’ll come out of it. . . .”

Liv arched a brow. She and Della both knew Hague’s fugue states were unpredictable, but it was rare that he snapped back within a few minutes.

Della added, “We could go down to Rosa’s Cantina and talk. Hague has his own table there.”

Rosa’s Cantina was on the street level of the apartment building. Liv had seen its bright green and yellow neon sign when she’d entered. She knew Hague went to Rosa’s; his only habitual place of business, and she suspected his “own table” was the establishment’s way of appeasing him, and wondered what would happen were someone already at his table should Hague arrive. An ugly scene, no doubt.

In any case, he wasn’t going to make it there tonight, and Liv wasn’t interested in going there with Della. “Is Albert bringing Lorinda?” she asked.

“I’m sure.” Della made a face. Their mutual dislike of Lorinda was the only thing Liv and Della totally agreed upon. “Can I get you a cup of tea?” Now she was accommodating with a capital A. “Have you had dinner? No, you’re just off work. I could make up some sandwiches. Tuna. Hague doesn’t really like meat, as you know. Or, grilled cheese?”

“I appreciate it, but I really should get going.”

“I’m sorry I was a bitch,” Della said suddenly. “But with Hague like that . . .” She glanced toward him where he sat with head lying back, his eyes now open and staring sightlessly toward the ceiling, “I don’t really know what I’ll say to Albert. We don’t have a lot in common except your brother.”

Liv didn’t have a lot in common with her father, either. “I’ve got groceries in the car,” she lied.

“Tell me more about this package. I can talk about it with Hague and it’ll be easier coming from me. I know him.”

“He already read the note and saw the photos. There’s not a lot more to tell.” Liv glanced at her brother. “He was a toddler when our mother committed suicide.”

“I want—”

But what she wanted was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell, a deep dong, like a ship’s tolling bell.

“He’s here,” Della said. She lifted her chin as Liv girded her loins.

Della walked briskly to the door and threw it open. Liv followed after her, a few paces back, and when she looked past Della she saw her father and Lorinda appear inside the open freight elevator as it bumped to a stop on their floor. Albert slid back the metal bar, stepped into the hallway in front of his wife, then looked up to see them.

“Liv,” he said, stopping short in surprise.

Lorinda quickly moved out of the elevator and half stood in front of him, as if she were protecting him. “Olivia?”

“Hi,” Liv greeted them.

“What are you doing here?” Lorinda demanded and Liv inwardly sighed.

Lorinda Dugan hadn’t changed much in the almost twenty years since she’d married Liv’s father. Same dyed black hair that looked even more unnatural than it had then, same line between her brows, same flat mouth and lack of expression. If Albert had been in the market for a shrew, well, he’d hit the jackpot. Liv didn’t like her then, and she didn’t like her now, and the feeling was mutual. Della might be a pain, but she was good for Hague. What part Lorinda played for Liv’s father was a mystery that had no reasonable answer, but then, since the terrible night of Deborah’s death, Liv hadn’t been all that comfortable with her father either.

“I was just visiting Hague,” Liv answered.

Lorinda sniffed. “Yes,” she said, as if Liv merely stating the obvious were one more horrendous fault.

“How is he?” Albert asked, his jaw tight.

Della said, “He’s in one of his states. Come in.”

“He was last time, too,” Lorinda answered with a sniff, her dark gaze snapping between Della and Liv.

“Stress brings them on,” Della responded as she and Liv both stepped back, making way for Lorinda and Albert to enter the small apartment. Having them crowd into the room as well only made the place seem darker, the air denser. Liv felt anxiety crawl around under her skin and surreptitiously glanced toward the grandfather’s clock, wondering how many minutes of them she would be able to stand before she needed to bolt.

“What’s that?” Albert asked, his gaze on the envelope in Liv’s hands.

Liv couldn’t think of how to respond, but Della had no such qualms. “Pictures of Deborah and some documents,” she said. “A note from her.”

Albert blinked. “What?”

“Oh, my God,” Lorinda murmured, recoiling as if the package could somehow jump up and bite her.

“It’s nothing bad,” Liv assured them. “Just some snapshots of my mother with some friends.”

“Show him,” Della said.

“Her friends?” Albert asked.

Lorinda turned her face away and stared over their heads, lips pressed together as if she had a lot to say but was taking herself out of the situation.

Feeling like she was leaving herself bare, Liv reluctantly reopened the package and handed the envelope to Albert. “The package came to me at work,” she said, then explained about Crenshaw and Crenshaw and how they’d found her and sent the package to her.

Albert’s fingers were faintly shaking as he pulled out the pictures and examined them carefully. “Who are these people?” he asked.

“I thought maybe you’d know,” Liv said.

He shook his head. “She . . . your mother . . . had a secret life.”

Lorinda had deigned to look back and was now gazing raptly at the photos. She seemed to keep her own counsel with an effort. “There’s one of you with her,” she finally said tightly to her husband, but Albert merely grunted at that.

Liv glanced toward Hague, whose eyes were still open. He remained utterly still and she didn’t know if he was aware of them or not. To her father, she said, “Do you think . . . is it possible . . . that she didn’t commit suicide? That maybe these people know something about what happened, and they—”

“We’ve been over this,” he cut her off. “Deborah was sick and unhappy.”

“Who told the lawyers to send you the package?” Lorinda demanded.

“Well, my mother, of course. . . .” Liv had thought the answer was self-evident, but now saw both her father and Lorinda react with shock. “She set it up before she died.”

“It’s upsetting,” Della said, shooting a worried glance toward Hague. They all followed her gaze, but Hague didn’t respond in any way.

“You brought this to Hague?” Lorinda asked, as if Liv had lost the little bit of mind she still possessed.

“Goddammit, Liv,” Albert muttered, his face red.

“I thought Hague might remember something,” Liv defended herself. “Remember what he said about the zombie man?”

“No,” her father stated flatly.

“How old was he at the time of Deborah’s death?” Lorinda reminded them. “One? Two?”

“You shouldn’t have brought this to him,” Albert chastised her.

“Should I have brought it to you first?” Liv asked tightly. “There were other women killed about the same time that Mom died, remember? Strangled. One of them in the field practically behind our old house. That’s a fact.”

“That woman was a prostitute,” Albert bit out.

“So?”

Lorinda said, as if Liv were dense, “Your mother committed suicide. That’s a fact. You shouldn’t be digging into this!”

“This came to me for a reason,” Liv said, holding onto her temper with an effort. “I’m sorry that I want to look into it. I’m sorry that I still want answers. I see her, you know. In my nightmares. Hanging there. Sometimes she even talks to me.” They both looked at her sharply. “I’ve always found it hard to believe that she would kill herself. Especially that way, with me in the other room. She wrote me a note and put it inside.”

“A note.” Albert, holding the photos, reached inside the package again to pull it out, but his wife snatched the package from his hands before he could. She would have grabbed the photos back too but he jerked them out of her reach.

“Stop all this,” Lorinda snapped, shoving the package back into Liv’s hands. Upset, she told her husband, “Give Olivia the photos.”

Liv put out a hand and Albert, very reluctantly, handed the pictures back to her. “I think my mother was afraid,” Liv said, tucking everything back inside the manila envelope and closing the clasp. “Those women’s deaths scared her.” She hesitated, thinking over whether she should reveal her thoughts to them or not. “Most of the victims were strangled . . . and hanging’s a form of the same thing.”

“Some maniac strangled them with nylons. That’s how he killed them, not by a noose,” Lorinda said. “And they were all whores, anyway.”

“Not all of them,” Liv said levelly. Lorinda’s prejudices never failed to rile her.

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Della whispered harshly. “If Hague wakes up, I don’t want him to hear this.”

“All I’m saying is she was scared of something, and she sent me this package for a reason,” Liv said.

Albert stalked over to Hague and looked down at his son, then he turned to gaze hard at Liv and stated flatly, “You don’t really think she was scared of the strangler.”

Liv frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You’re still blaming me,” he spat out. “Just like you told the police.”

“I don’t—”

“Deborah and I had that fight,” he interrupted angrily. “That’s all. It got physical. I told the police all about it after you turned them on me.”

“Turned them on you,” Liv repeated. “I was six years old!”

“Those bastards ran me through the wringer, all right,” he growled. “Didn’t matter that Deborah gave as good as she got.”

“You’re making this about you, and it’s not. It’s about my mother. I think she was scared of the strangler, and she sent me this because she was . . . I don’t know . . . scared for me, too.”

He lifted both arms and tossed them down as if he were completely through with Liv and her issues.

“Can’t we ever put this to bed?” Lorinda asked tiredly.

“She hanged herself,” Albert said. “That’s all there was.”

“You shouldn’t have brought this here,” Lorinda declared, waving a hand toward the package.

“I didn’t expect to see the two of you,” Liv reminded them. “Like I said, I thought maybe Hague would remember something.”

“It’s just so disrespectful of you to bring all this up again!” Lorinda declared.

Liv counted silently to ten. All this was her father and mother’s physical fight. Her parents had been furious with each other that night and Albert had left in a silent rage, banging out the back door. He told the police he didn’t remember leaving it open, but it hadn’t been locked, either, so the consensus was the door stayed open after he left. Liv half-believed someone had come back inside after she’d been banished to the den, and that someone had then killed her mother and staged the suicide. And Liv still thought it was a good bet the killer was the same one who’d left several women’s bodies in the rocky foothills of the Cascades twenty years earlier, too. That’s where she wanted to start looking for her mother’s killer. That’s where this trail led.

She hadn’t realized she was planning to reopen her own past, but since the package had arrived, the thought had been coalescing in her mind. That’s what she wanted to do. And with the new information her mother had sent, she was going to find out what really happened to her. Good, bad or ugly. Suicide, or something more malevolent . . .

She said as much to Lorinda, Della, her father and Hague, if he understood, and they looked at her as if she’d truly lost her mind.

“You’re seriously going to investigate this?” Della asked in undisguised disbelief.

“My mother sent the items in this package to me for a reason,” Liv said. “I’ve always wondered. Maybe it’s time I got some answers. Investigators are opening up cold cases and catching killers all the time. Why not this one?”

“But it was a suicide. There was no crime!” Lorinda declared. “Why can’t you let this go and give your father and brother some peace!”

“I don’t think it was suicide,” Liv argued. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I have to know. I thought Hague might be interested in helping. We’ve talked about those unsolved strangulations, and whether Mama was one of them. Hague’s the one who first questioned whether she committed suicide. You remember what he said when he was little? About Mama having a friend?”

“Deborah Dugan’s Mystery Man,” Albert said darkly.

She pulled out the picture of the angry man again, the one where he was stalking toward the camera. “Hague said, ‘There he is again,’ when I showed him this.”

“He said ‘zombie,’” Della reminded her. “And he said the man followed him.”

“Hague says a lot of wacko stuff. None of it means a damn thing,” Albert growled.

Liv didn’t want to go into the whole “zombie” thing. “Do you think this guy could be the ‘Mystery Man’?”

Albert’s eyes slid toward the photo again. “I don’t know him.”

“Did you put Hague into this state with these photos?” Lorinda asked Liv, throwing a thumb in Hague’s direction.

“I wanted to talk to him about the contents of the package,” Liv said, defending herself.

Lorinda lifted an “I told you so” eyebrow to Albert, who ignored her.

“None of you seem to care about Hague at all,” Della said angrily. “None of you! Maybe it’s time you all left. When Hague’s like this, it’s pointless to try and talk to him anyway.” She bustled them toward the door and Lorinda, Albert and Liv reluctantly moved into the hallway.

“Tell him I’ll come by again soon,” Liv said, just before Della slammed the door shut behind them. Not wanting to deal with Lorinda and Albert any longer than she had to, Liv headed quickly toward the lift. She wanted to get into it before her father and Lorinda could join her. She didn’t think she could stand being squeezed into that small space with both of them there as well.

As Liv was lowering the elevator bar Albert and Lorinda moved slowly her way. If they wanted to climb in with her, they sure didn’t act like it, and they let her take the rattling cage down on her own, which was a relief. When Liv reached the street floor, a young mother with three children traded places with her, and by the time Liv got past them, out of the building and into the street, she gulped down fresh air as if she’d been strangling.

She was nearly run over by a guy racing down the sidewalk in a rush. He jostled her and she grabbed the envelope closer to her chest as he put out his hands to steady her.

“Sorry. Are you all right?” The dark-haired stranger peered into Liv’s face. “You look familiar?”

Liv pulled herself together and tried to sidle away.

“Can I buy you a beer to make up for it? Please?” He inclined his head toward Rosa’s Cantina with its glowing green and yellow script. “I promise I’m not a homicidal maniac. I own the place and I’m late. Come on in.”

“You own the place?” Liv asked cautiously. She’d been planning how to blow him off, but maybe he wasn’t trying to hit on her.

“With my better half.” He moved toward the bar. “I am really, really late.”

“Do you know my brother? Hague Dugan? I think he comes here . . . sometimes?”

“Hague . . . ah . . .” One hand on the door, he peered at her through the gathering gloom from drifting fog off the river.

Liv could feel the censure, and she could well imagine why. “I’m not like him . . . much . . .”

He smiled faintly and inclined his head as he opened the door and happy music and loud voices spilled from inside.

Liv followed after him, but he strode quickly forward and was already pulling up a section of counter of the brightly tiled bar as she entered and looked around for a seat. He swooped up a woman whose dark hair was pulled back into a bun and gave her a big, sloppy kiss. She grinned, then snapped a towel at him and pretended to be angry.

Liv took a seat at the bar. “La Cucaracha,” or “The Cockroach,” was playing from speakers hidden by a raft of piñatas hung from the ceiling. Twice a year the cantina had an afternoon party for all the neighborhood kids who slammed away at the piñatas until all the candy spilled across the floor. The owners then replaced them for the next bout of pounding. Once a night, Rosa’s Cantina also played the Marty Robbins classic, “El Paso,” from which they’d taken the name for their bar. At least that’s what Hague had told Liv, but now she heard the owner calling his wife Rosa, so it looked like there were other reasons as well.

From her viewpoint Liv could see through the front window to the stretch of sidewalk outside the cantina’s doors. As she settled herself onto a stool, she saw her father and Lorinda pass by. Albert glanced in but Liv didn’t think he noticed her on the far side of the rectangular, center bar as she was squeezed up tightly against the young couple on the bar stools to her right.

The bar owner was pulling glasses down from the overhead rack. “What’ll you have?” he asked Liv. “My treat.” He pushed two empty margarita glasses toward Rosa. “I’m Jimmy.”

“And I’m Rosa. His better half,” the woman said, grabbing up the glasses. “What’d he do? If he’s buying you a drink, he did something.”

“He can buy me a drink,” the man next to Liv said. “And Nicole here, too.”

Nicole looked up from under her date’s arm and said, “El Grande Margarita.”

“I nearly ran her down,” Jimmy said to Rosa. “She deserves a margarita.” He gave Nicole a mock glare through narrowed eyes. “You don’t.”

“Yes, I do!” she declared. “I’m your best customer!”

“You’re not even close,” Jimmy snorted.

Her date said, “She’s close. Maybe she’s not first, but she’s close.”

Jimmy gave them both a look that said, “Bullshit,” but he relented, and Rosa whipped up two margaritas and slid one to Liv and one to Nicole.

Liv was pretty sure she abhorred tequila, but the drink was free and she was desperate to shake off the bad feelings meeting with her family had brought on.

Rosa slid a small bowl of chips and salsa Liv’s way, and Jimmy revealed that she was Hague’s sister. “The Hague?” Rosa asked.

It was a nickname that had followed her brother throughout his life, a reference to the city that is the governmental center of the Netherlands. It seemed that anyone who got to know Hague, even marginally, called him The Hague.

“If someone’s in his seat, he gets worse than upset,” Rosa said. She jerked her head toward the northeast corner of the bar, where a man and woman were staring at each other and holding hands, he with his back to the booth, she across from him in a chair. “That’s Hague’s place, and he makes sure everyone knows it.”

“It’s not that bad,” Jimmy said.

“Hah,” Rosa snorted. “We’re just lucky The Hague’s not here tonight, otherwise those two lovebirds would have to move. He’s not coming, is he?” She looked a bit stricken.

“No,” Liv said. She felt like apologizing for her brother, but knew it would do no good. Hague was Hague. He couldn’t be changed.

“He mutters to himself, and then shouts, then waves his arm, then goes into a trance,” Nicole said.

“He swears at people that pass by,” her boyfriend offered up.

“Stop it. Stop it.” Jimmy waved a towel at them. “You’ll make her want to leave.” To Liv, he said, “Don’t listen to them. The Hague’s just part of the colorful group that makes up our clientele.”

Liv nodded. She couldn’t think of anything to say, but when they clearly expected her to add something, she asked, “Does he come in here alone?”

“That nurse is with him sometimes. Or, whatever the hell she is,” the boyfriend said.

“Caretaker,” Nicole clarified.

Rosa shook her head. “I think he likes to get away from her. He mostly comes when she’s out, but then she always comes looking for him.”

This little insight into her brother’s life gave Liv some hope. At least Hague seemed to want to escape Della’s smothering sometimes, maybe even often. In her mind, she couldn’t see how that was a bad thing.

Forty-five minutes later, and after refusing another margarita several times, she thanked them all and headed out. Jimmy and Rosa urged her to come by again soon, and Liv promised to stop in the next time she visited her brother.

As soon as she was outside the establishment again, however, she felt her skin prickle as age-old fears crept up again. Talking about her mother with Hague first, and then her father, had jarred something loose that wouldn’t go back into its place. With one eye looking over her shoulder, she hurried to her Accord and jumped inside, driving a circuitous route home, wondering if her paranoia was overtaking her good sense once and for all.

When she got back to her apartment Jo and Travis . . . Trask . . . whatever . . . were out on the balcony and they invited her to have a drink with them. She almost said no, but decided she needed to foster neighborly relations since Trevor, or whoever he was, had seen the contents of the package. It just felt rude not to.

“Come on in,” Jo said, and as Liv entered, she added, “Get her a drink, Trask! We’re having gin and tonics, or just gin, as in martinis. Whaddya want?”

The smell of cannabis was thick in the air, but neither one of them was smoking a joint at the moment. “Gin and tonic,” Liv said.

“Comin’ right up,” Trask said, dropping ice into a glass, splashing in a healthy dose of gin, then topping it off with tonic. He added a lime wedge and handed it to Liv, who was committing his name to memory.

Jo was half-drunk and dancing to some rock music with a lot of bass that Liv thought might bring the downstairs neighbors up and pounding on their door. As if reading her mind, Trask turned down the volume.

“How ya doin’?” he asked.

“I’m okay. How about you?”

“Can’t complain,” he said, nodding as if they were involved in a truly meaningful conversation.

“Doesn’t anybody wanna dance?” Jo asked.

Liv shook her head and sipped her drink, which was way too strong and made her feel like her bones were melting. She stopped about halfway through, knowing she had work in the morning.

Still, she stayed at their place until past midnight. Trask gallantly offered to accompany her the ten feet from their door to hers. She tried to decline but he insisted, saying, “Trask Martin always walks a lady home.” At her door, he looked over his shoulder, focused a bit fuzzily on the parking lot below, and said, “Hey, y’know, I saw this dude outside your door a couple weeks ago. He was just standin’ there and I asked him, ‘What’s up, dude,’ and he just turned and left.”

A cold jolt of fear ran through Liv. “My apartment?”

“Uh huh. Acted kinda weird, I thought.”

“What did he look like?”

Trask screwed up his face like he was really thinking hard. “Wore a hoodie and jeans. Didn’t turn my way. Headed down the stairs to the lot and went over there. . . .” He gestured to the far end of the parking lot which was lined by thick Douglas firs. “Gray truck. GMC. 2005. I know ’cuz I had one just like it once,” he said wistfully. “Now, I’ve got a piece of shit with a bad alternator. One of these days I’ll get it fixed.”

“How old was the guy?” Liv asked. She was coiled and tense.

“Don’t know. Young? With that hoodie, I kinda thought . . . Hard to tell, though.”

“And he was at my door? Just mine?”

“Maybe he was sellin’ somethin’. You just seemed kinda freaked out earlier, so I thought maybe you should know.”

“Thanks,” she said with an effort.

“No problemo.” He headed back toward his door and Liv hurried inside hers and slammed the dead bolt shut. The apartments didn’t come with dead bolts as an option; she’d had hers installed when she’d moved in. Now, she wondered if she should move out.

Was someone looking for her?

There was no reason for someone to be looking for her. No reason at all. That was her problem . . . this deep-seated fear that could never be fully quashed. She just couldn’t help feeling like she was being watched. Like someone wanted something from her.

She rechecked the locks on her door, then made sure all the windows were closed, then rechecked everything again before heading to her closet, pulling out the shoe box on the floor, the one she’d buried beneath a pile of shoes that she never wore. Placing the shoe box on the bed, she lifted the lid, then gently reached inside for her handgun. She hadn’t purchased it; Della had confiscated it from Hague years before when he’d been suicidal and had found it at some gun show. Back then, Della thought Liv was an ally, that they were both interested in Hague’s well-being, but she’d slowly lost faith in Liv over the years. Now, Della only warmed to her when they had a common enemy like Lorinda. Liv had gotten the .38 out of the deal, however. Sometimes she asked herself why she had a gun. She knew how to load and unload it, but she wasn’t proficient in its use. Still, it made her feel secure, just knowing it was at hand, and tonight she put the .38 under her pillow and fell asleep wondering if she should load it, never wakening to do so.