Velocity (Karen Vail #3)(56)

Vail sighed. She had talked with Jonathan about what happened between her and Deacon but held back some of the details. She wasn’t sure what the raw truth would do to a young teen and his place in the world. Then again, it was no secret to Jonathan that his father had turned into an abusive deadbeat. And Vail explained to her son that Deacon was a different person when she had met and married him. It was a good lesson as to the depths one can sink when a perfect storm of mental imbalance, medication indifference, and the spiral of depression conspire to bring down a person to the nadir of human suffering.

“How’d he take the answers?” Faye had a background in counseling, so Vail was not surprised that she had broached the topic with her nephew.

“Very maturely, I thought. He had a healthy perspective. I think he’ll be fine. So—your trip.”

“It started out wonderful and I stuck my nose where it shouldn’t have been. I got involved in a case. And because of that . . . ” She looked down at the coffee table. The short, squat bottle of V. Sattui Madeira she had shared with Robby was still there, a memory of their night together. A reminder of the start of a meaningful relationship. If she thought there was a chance it would hold Sebastian’s fingerprints, she would’ve driven it directly to the lab.

“And because of that,” Faye prompted.

“Because of that . . . Robby went missing a few days ago.” She brought her eyes up to Faye’s. Her aunt’s mouth was open.

“What do you mean, ‘went missing’?”

Vail got a couple glasses from the adjacent kitchen, poured some Madeira, and told Faye the whole story, beginning with their arrival in Napa. Soon the alcohol was flooding her bloodstream, making her head and arms feel like dumbbells.

“Do you think Detective Bledsoe’s friend will be able to help?”

It was a question Vail had asked herself on the drive home from Clyde’s. “I sure as hell hope so.” She set her glass down on the table. “Aunt Faye, I have a favor to ask. And a proposition.”

Faye leaned forward, apparently sensing the weight of Vail’s request.

“Because of the nature of the investigation into Robby’s . . . disposition, it may be necessary for me to come and go. Where, I don’t know. But it could also entail long hours away from home.” She put two fingers to the bridge of her nose. “Point is, I have no idea what’s coming around the bend.”

“You need me to stay,” Faye said. Her demeanor was flat, neither excited by the idea nor turned off by it.

“And that brings me to my proposition,” Vail said. “The room in the back. It’s got a separate entrance, its own bathroom. There’s even a plug for a mini fridge.”

“Move here, move in with you.”

“You’d be closer to me and Jonathan, and to Mom.” Vail’s mother, Emma, had Alzheimer’s, and Vail had moved Emma from her childhood home in Westbury, New York, to an assisted care facility in Virginia.

“First things first,” Faye said in a measured response. “Of course I’ll stay for as long as you need me to. As to a longer-term arrangement, let me think about it. I don’t have much keeping me in New York, but I just need to sit with the thought for a while. Okay?”

“Take as much time as you need.” Vail barely got out the words before a yawn overtook her and flooded her eyes with fluid. “I’ve gotta get to bed. I haven’t slept worth anything in days.”

“Don’t worry about anything here, Kari. You just work on finding out what happened to Robby. I’ll handle the rest.”

Vail said good night to Jonathan, walked into her bedroom, and collapsed onto the mattress.





37


Following their dinner at Bistro Jeanty, Robby ordered dessert to go, and when they arrived at their bed-and-breakfast room, he made her wait outside. When she protested, he smiled. “You said you trusted me.”

She tilted her head back and looked up into his eyes. “I do.”

Inside, a room full of candles. And a night of passionate lovemaking . . .

Vail awoke from her dream curled into a tight ball. Her shirt was soaked, her hair matted to her face. Only this was not a nightmare—it was a memory. A memory of their last night together. The next morning, when she gave him a kiss on her way out, would be the last she would see of him.

Vail sat up in bed, wiped away the tears, and steeled herself. It was time to go to work.



VAIL WALKED INTO the behavioral analysis unit and found it a flurry of activity. Despite Thomas Gifford’s claim that most of the profilers were out on leave, on assignment, or engrossed in vital projects, there was plenty going on.

Vail entered her office and sat down heavily. A stack of files on the corner of her desk was exactly as she had left it when she departed for California. A pile of messages was skewered on a pin to the right. She pulled them off, flipped through them, determined that none were time sensitive, and put them back on their holder. Except one: a reminder of her forthcoming counseling appointment with Dr. Leonard Rudnick.

She turned on her PC and watched as Windows booted up. While she sat there, she began to acknowledge the feeling she’d been fighting for days: that Robby had been murdered. The blood on the carpet in the B&B bothered her. If tests showed it was Robby’s, it would increase the odds of a violent confrontation that Robby likely did not survive.