The Killing Game(21)

“Yes. Please.” Andi got up from the couch. She felt vaguely light-headed, but as he’d pointed out, she hadn’t eaten. “Maybe a little food is a good idea.”

“We can pick up your car and follow each other somewhere.”

She thought she should disabuse him of this protection thing. It felt ... self-indulgent ... but she said instead, “There’s The Café near the Wren offices.”

They were heading outside to his somewhat battered Ford truck. Luke asked, “What’s the café’s name?”

Andi broke into a grin as she climbed into the passenger side of his vehicle. Seeing her face, he asked, “What?”

“Never mind. Let’s get to my car and I’ll show you how to get there ...”





Chapter Five



Sometimes it’s easiest to let the game begin on its own. I’ve tried forcing the start a time or two, but it’s better to see what move your opponent makes first. I’m watching several players. I have them ranked already. One of them will be there at the end . . . the others are way stations. Incidental stopping points. Sidebars.

So much to do. Tumblers must fall in place.

Unconsciously, I start to pleasure myself just thinking about it, but I stay my hand.

I need to draw out the ending until it’s excruciating.

My blood races hot. I can feel myself slamming into her already, my fingers on the delicate bones at her neck. It’s so easy to crush little birds.

Little birds . . . so incredibly perfect.

*

Detective September Rafferty shaded her eyes against a persistent afternoon sun and watched a hawk glide over the scrubland at the end of Aurora Lane. Pointing, she asked, “Where does that field end up?”

Her partner, Gretchen Sandler, flicked a look in the same direction, westward from the end of Aurora Lane’s cul-de-sac toward distant trees against the horizon. “Dunno.”

They were standing outside the home of Jan and Phillip Singleton, who’d apparently poisoned each other after living together most of their lives in mutual hate. They’d had the fortitude to take the poison while seated across from each other at the table and just waited for each other to die. Unbelievable. But that was the story their granddaughter and her husband, Frances “Fairy” Walchek and Craig Walchek, wanted them to believe. Maybe it was even true . . .

Jan Singleton’s sister, Carol Jenkins, late seventies, with bleached, flyaway blond hair that showed a lot of scalp underneath, looked from one detective to the other, dragging her gaze away from the house her sister, Jan, had lived and died in. She then followed September’s gaze. “Schultz Lake,” she said.

“I didn’t know we were so close to it.” September scanned the faraway trees, figuring it was about a mile away. “That’s where they’re building that new lodge.”

“Oh yeah, now it’s the big deal.” Carol sniffed and held a Kleenex to her nose. It could have been from emotion, but her sister had been gone a while, so September thought it might be to cover up a sneer.

Gretchen squinted, her almond-shaped eyes screened by thick black lashes. Gretchen’s hair was a wild mass of black curls that she sometimes wore back, but today the strands were sticking to her face. She brushed them back with one hand, held on to a clump of hair impatiently, and said to Carol, “So, Fairy and Craig . . . They’re out on bail and you know they’re still insisting they had nothing to do with your sister and her husband’s deaths—”

“Frances. Her name is Frances.”

“Frances and Craig claim they had nothing to do with their deaths,” Gretchen reiterated, “and that after Harold died—”

“My brother,” Carol said.

“—of natural causes, the Singletons moved his body to their basement, which is, by definition, abuse of a corpse in the second degree, a Class C felony. But the ME couldn’t find anything in Harold’s bones that said he’d died any differently, so it’s not a homicide. Still, there are four bodies down in that basement.” She swept a hand toward the house that had held the cache of human bones she was referring to: Great-Uncle Harold’s, both Jan and Phillip Singleton’s, and an unidentified adult male’s, the main reason Gretchen and September were on Aurora Lane today.

Carol declared, “Well, I should say. Jan couldn’t hurt a soul and she’d never hurt Harry in any case! He’s our brother and we loved him.”

“Must be long-distance love; he’s been gone a while,” Gretchen pointed out.

Carol’s face turned purple. “Harold didn’t communicate for years at a time. It was just his way, and anyway, we were never the kind of family that had to check in all the time.” Neither September nor Gretchen responded to what was so blatantly obvious, which seemed to piss her off. “I’ve told you this a thousand times. I don’t see how you could let Frances and that filthy hippie out of jail. He’s responsible for everything! He’s the one who killed Jan and Phillip, and he got Frances involved!”

“You think they killed your sister, your brother, and your brother-in-law and left all their bones in the basement.”

“Yes,” she answered belligerently.

“Harold died years before of natural causes, and your sister and brother-in-law kept on cashing his social security checks. After Jan and Phillip poisoned themselves, Frances and Craig saw a good thing and kept to the same program, pocketing three social security checks every month, forging your sister’s signature. It’s fraud, not murder.”