The hunt, p.20
The Hunt, page 20
“Do you have a moment, Detective Barron?”
“It’s Olivia, and yes, fill me in.”
Decker started from the beginning, with the disappearances of Bertram Lanz and Elsie Schulung. The search eventually led him, along with the local police, to do a welfare check at Elsie’s house, where they found blood. The DNA of the blood matched Elsie’s partner’s DNA.
“Her partner being Pauline Corbett,” Olivia said.
“Yep,” Decker said. “Then several weeks ago, we found Pauline’s body, buried near where Bertram Lanz was last seen. Now it could be that Baer had nothing to do with Pauline’s murder. Elsie Schulung has done a runner and that makes her look guilty.”
“Or scared,” Barron said. “Or even dead.”
“Exactly. I need to start finding people and eliminating them as suspects. Since Pauline had a series of rocky relationships, I need to investigate those contacts before I start elsewhere.”
“I’ll check our databases … see if our boy has been up to mischief lately.”
“Do you know Baer’s parole officer?”
“Not offhand, but I can find that out. Give me your number.”
Decker gave her three phone numbers. “The first set of digits are mine, the second belong to my partner, Detective Tyler McAdams, the third is the main line for Greenbury PD. We’re a small department. Your message will get to us. Thank you so much, Detective Barron.”
“Olivia,” she said. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I have some information.”
“Appreciate the help. Stay safe out there.”
“Yeah, right.” She laughed. “Remember when we were the only ones saying that to our officers in the field?”
“It was not so long ago, Olivia,” Decker answered. “Since COVID crept into the universe, it seems that the entire world has co-opted our first amendment.”
McADAMS HUNG UP after talking to Marion Vanderberg. “Yes, it was Brock, not Brook. She’s very sorry for the mix-up.”
Decker was looking at the computer. “Brock has a lengthy record.”
“For?”
“The usual: mostly domestic violence, but also assault, armed robbery, illegal possession of a firearm. Like Olivia said, he was released on parole a year and a half ago. His last known address was in Philadelphia. And we have a name and number for a parole officer.” Decker picked up the phone. “Let’s see if our boy has been following the rules.”
“Who are you calling?”
“Baer’s parole officer.”
“Is there a phone number or an address in the rap sheet?”
“Yeah.” Decker read the digits out loud. “It’s probably not current, but try it out anyway.” The line kicked in, a woman on the other end. He said, “Yes, this is Detective Peter Decker with the Greenbury Police Department in New York. I’m looking for Ivan Dublitz.” A pause. “He’s retired. Okay … do you know who has his case files?” Another beat. “Yes, I’ll hold. Thank you.”
McAdams said, “The phone number you gave me is disconnected.”
“What about social media?” Decker asked.
“My next step …”
A moment later, the woman returned to the line. “The case files were given out to three different people. Who are you looking for?”
“Brock Baer. He was released from prison about a year and a half ago.”
“Let me look up the name in the computer … We have more than one list … What?”
“Excuse me?” Decker said.
“No, I wasn’t talking to you. Sorry. We’re jammed right now. Why don’t I call you back?”
“Sure.” He gave her three phone numbers. “And who am I talking to?”
“Oh, sorry. Vicki Laslow. I’ll call you back in about twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.” He hung up. To McAdams, he said, “She’s calling me back. What’s going on with social media?”
“He has a Facebook account, but his last post was four years ago.” A sigh. “Nothing since he’s gotten out of prison.”
“He didn’t shut it down.”
“No. And Facebook never shuts down old accounts because a lot of subscribers look good for ad accounts.” As McAdams read, his face darkened. “Man, he’s an angry man. Come take a look.”
Decker read the posts on the Facebook page, starting with the most recent one.
U WONT get away with this, TANYA. UR a HORE and you know what happens to HORES!
TANYA, you lying, slut BITCH, drunk-assed HORE. UR fucking toast!
TANYA, UR a BITCH and WHORE. I DIDNT fucking lay a finger on you. LYING BITCH.
McAdams said, “At least the last time, he spelled whore correctly.”
“Scroll down,” Decker said. “See if you can get a last name for Tanya.”
“Got it … okay, here we go. Tanya Robertson.”
“Does she have social media?”
“I’m sure she does … here we go.” McAdams turned the computer to face Decker. “And hers is recent. Looks like she’s done some hard living.”
Decker regarded the pictures. She was wrinkled and very, very thin. Her hair was tied in a topknot and she was wearing a sleeveless shirt that showed emaciated tattooed arms. “Can you tell where she’s posting from?”
“You mean what city?”
“Yes.”
“No, but let me see if she says something about where she’s living in her posts.” McAdams scrolled down her posts with Decker looking over his shoulder. “She has several pictures of the same group of women.”
“Any captions that say names?”
“Let me scroll. Okay, here we go: Sam, Karina, Boz, and Kelsey. They’re all wearing summer clothing.”
“Yes, they are.”
“I can look up all these addresses of people posting to her. We can see who matches whom.”
Decker was still staring at the picture. “The landscaping looks like a desert climate. Look at this photo, at the house that the women are standing in front of.” He stood up. “That’s adobe.”
“There are probably zillions of adobe houses in the country.”
“Mostly in southern Arizona and New Mexico. Try New Mexico. Albuquerque, specifically. It seems to be a place where people run to when they want to hide.”
“Did not know that. If Tanya is hiding, her posts don’t reflect it.”
“Maybe she was hiding, but now she feels safe.”
“Brock is out of prison. Why would she feel safe?”
Decker shrugged. “Maybe Brock isn’t after her anymore. Maybe Brock was out to settle an older score.”
McAdams looked skeptical. “Tanya seemed to be the one who put him in prison.”
“That is true,” Decker said. “But look at the dates of all these posts. They’re recent. If she was nervous that he was coming after her, do you think she’d be putting her life online?”
“Probably not. I’ll see if I can find a number for her or any of her friends.”
“Great.” Decker’s phone rang. It was Vicki Laslow. “Thanks for calling back.”
“No problem,” Vicki said. “His current parole officer is Melody Simpson. If you have a pencil, I’ll give you her number. She’s not in right now, otherwise I’d transfer you.”
“I’m ready when you are.” He wrote down the numbers as she recited them. “Thank you. This helps.”
“No problem.” She hung up.
McAdams said, “Why are you always right?”
“You found a listing for her in Albuquerque?”
McAdams shook his head. “I yield to your superiority, oh wise man.”
Decker said, “Call her up.”
“Yes, sir!” McAdams was connected to her answering machine. He left a message and hung up. “What now?”
“Now we wait.”
McAdams checked his watch. “Getting near lunch. Hungry?”
“Why not?” Decker put down his pencil. “When all else fails, there’s always coffee.”
I HAD BEEN seeing Juleen on a regular basis, the highlight of my day because I loved her and it made us feel close and closer to what was once normal. We could almost pretend that everything was okay. I FaceTimed her in the morning, and after her studies, we spent the evening together, including dinner. We rarely brought up what had happened. Instead, we’d watch a movie or play a game or talk about her future in America, specifically in Nevada, where she could live a freer life. She always had something to chat about, much more loquacious than she had been at home with family and friends. She seemed to be thriving in a barren climate. I suppose in almost every ecosystem, there was always something beautiful that could pop up even under the harshest of conditions.
What was a bit concerning to me was her relationship with Chris. She seemed to hunger for his approval, which he doled out in small dollops. I hoped that this wasn’t a snapshot of her life to come, seeking attention from men by being obedient. I knew the trajectory of that road. I longed for the day when we lived alone in our own house and I could convince her of the power of self-reliance. I dreamed about a future with her and Sanjay. When my mind drifted to my little boy, I turned it in another direction. It was just too painful.
Today was an abbreviated lunch with my little girl. Chris had stuffed her itinerary with extra lessons twice a week. Did I approve? Yes and no. He was running the show, but she seemed to be okay with it. There was no need to step in unless there was a problem. He walked me back to his hermetic space so Juleen could continue uninterrupted with her education.
It had been nice getting out in the morning even for oatmeal. After he closed the door and turned the locks, I said, “When are you going to put me in your high-tech system so I can get out and visit Juleen without your help?” When he didn’t answer, I said, “At the very least, I’d like to take a walk. It gets claustrophobic after a while. You told me you’d do it as soon as I got a little better.”
“I’m responsible for your safety, Teresa.”
“No one is going to break in here. You’ve got a guy on me and guards everywhere.”
He looked at me, blue eyes focused on my face. “You’re already in the system. I just have to set you up with fingerprint and pupil recognition.”
I was quiet. Then I said, “When did you do that?”
“Right after you asked me to do it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask about it so I didn’t say anything.” When I stared at him, he said, “The truth is I prefer to keep you locked up. It’s safer.”
“You can’t keep me locked up forever.”
“Actually, I could. Who’d stop me?”
And what could I say to that? He waited for an answer. I finally said, “No one, I suppose.”
“Think about that.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go back to my office. I’ll set you up with the system tomorrow morning.”
“Why can’t you do it now?”
“Because it’ll take time and I have a lot of business to take care of.”
“Then you’ll do it tomorrow?”
“Yep.”
“Promise?”
He smiled at me. “What are my promises worth?”
“Zero.”
“More like fifty-fifty.” He laughed. “Tomorrow I’ll show you how to get your freedom.” He bit his bottom lip. “I’m not sure how much I’m liking that idea.”
“What freedom, Chris? I can’t go anywhere. I’m completely without resources. What are you worried about?”
He raised an eyebrow. “So, if you had resources, you’d leave?”
“That’s not what I meant.” I walked up to him and stroked his cheek. “Look, I know you don’t trust me—”
“I don’t trust you at all.”
“Well, I don’t trust you either.” A pause. “What a relationship, based on mutual distrust.” He didn’t answer. I said, “I won’t leave you, okay?”
“Well, that’s not true,” he said. “As soon as you get your kids, you’ll move away.”
“And when will that be?” I asked.
His face turned unreadable. If he had something, he wasn’t going to tell me. There was no sense nagging him.
I said, “I’ll be here every other weekend. I promised you and I do keep my promises.”
“Mostly.”
“I will marry you, Donatti. I will get my tubes tied, and I will come to this place just like we talked about. And when you see that I’m fully committed to you, you’ll probably dump me because I won’t be challenging anymore. I know men. You’re only in it for the hunt. Besides, you can’t keep up this sexual pace. You’ll die. I’ll die.”
He raised his eyebrows. “It’s called a little blue pill.”
I wagged my finger. “You shouldn’t take that unless you need it. And obviously you don’t need it.”
He grew serious. “I’ll never tire of you. Never! I’ve always loved you, Terry. But now, with you here with me, I’ve fallen back in love with you. Those intense feelings that I had when we first got together. Only better, because you’re the only person in this world that I trust.”
“You just said that you didn’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust your commitment to me, but I do trust you with my life. And by that I mean that every night when I go to sleep, I leave my gun on my nightstand. In the beginning, every time you moved, I woke up. Now … I wake up and you’ve been up for hours. Don’t hear you get up, don’t hear a thing. And I’m naked in the wind. You could take me out and I wouldn’t even know what was coming.”
“No, I’m not going to shoot you,” I said. “That’s a pretty low bar for trust, Donatti.”
“You’d be surprised. You get pretty mad at me.”
“Stop it.”
“Also,” he continued, “and this is truly, truly remarkable … you’ve never asked me for money.”
“You always gave me money.”
“You never asked for anything more than I gave you.” He shook his head. “Your woman gene must be defective.”
“Stop it.”
“Even when we divorced, my lawyer had to beg you to retain a lawyer so we could get the process going. You know, at that time, you owned my entire ass. It took a while to transfer it to Gabe. Everything I had was in your name. You never skimmed a penny from me.”
“I know.”
“Did Devek know what was going on?”
“He knew you had money. He even told me that if we didn’t marry, I could get alimony. I told him where to go with that idea.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“It was a terrible idea,” I said. “I wanted Juleen to have married parents. And the last thing I needed was to antagonize you. I was scared of you, Chris. I knew what you were capable of doing. I told him that my divorce was my business. That I’d handle it. And I did.”
“Not to your benefit. Even when I finally offered you a settlement, about a tenth of what you should have gotten, you gave it all away to Gabe.”
“It was your money. I figured that’s what you would want.”
“Terry, I was already supporting him. We were married. You were entitled to something.” He shook his head. “I used to think, God, this woman must really hate my guts if she won’t even take my money.”
“I didn’t hate you. I just thought it was best to cut ties.”
“You certainly did do that.”
I didn’t say anything.
He looked at me for what felt like the longest time. “Probably a good thing. If you would have taken the money, Devek would have just gambled it away.”
“That is true.” I paused. “Christopher, I promise I won’t ghost you again. I swear I’m committed.”
He ran his tongue in his cheek. “I can’t stand to lose control. I especially can’t stand to lose control of you. And when you’re here with me, I’m always in control of everything.”
“Nobody is in control one hundred percent of the time.”
“I’ll take ninety-nine-point-nine, then.” Another glance at his watch. “One thing I learned about myself while you were gone is how truly warped I’ve become. I can’t live in the real world, Teresa. Things that annoy normal people make me homicidal. Which was why I shot heroin. It numbed me enough so I didn’t go around murdering people, which I wanted to do all the time. When I built this place—this physical construct where I am king—I didn’t need drugs anymore. I rarely, rarely, hear the word no. You leaving me for the purpose of properly raising your children—even under my terms—is a big, fat NO to my face. And I don’t like it.”
His eyes studied my face. It was an expression I had seen long ago, right before he was about to tie me up to sketch me in the nude. Oh, those carefree teenage years.
“But I do deeply love you and I want you to be happy,” he said. “So … I’ll take a big breath and let you leave when the time comes. And now I really do have to go attend to my affairs.” He walked over to me and kissed me gently. “I know this has been hell for you, but it’s been great for me. Just like in high school. I was walking around in a fog until I met you. Now, like back then, the fog has been lifted and I can see again.” He slowly backed away and then turned and closed the door behind him, locking me in my tomb.
It was hermetic. Sometimes I didn’t mind. After all the noise in my life, the quiet was pleasant, even peaceful. I’d work out on his weight and exercise machines; I’d listen to music. I’d read; I’d take a nap. I was still very tired and sleep was a welcome refuge.
But sometimes the quiet left me alone with my thoughts, which immediately went back to that dark day. And that was never a good thing.
CHAPTER 13
AT TEN THE next morning, Decker glanced at the station house message machine. A plain red light indicated no one had called. McAdams was already at his desk. “You’re here early.”
“No, you’re later than usual.”
“I am,” Decker admitted. “Without Rina’s coffee, I decided that nothing was worth getting up for.”
“You can make your own coffee, you know.”
“I can, but my coffee doesn’t turn out like her coffee.”
McAdams smiled. The station house’s line rang and he picked it up. “McAdams.”
“This is Tanya Robertson. I believe you left a message for me.”
“It’s Olivia, and yes, fill me in.”
Decker started from the beginning, with the disappearances of Bertram Lanz and Elsie Schulung. The search eventually led him, along with the local police, to do a welfare check at Elsie’s house, where they found blood. The DNA of the blood matched Elsie’s partner’s DNA.
“Her partner being Pauline Corbett,” Olivia said.
“Yep,” Decker said. “Then several weeks ago, we found Pauline’s body, buried near where Bertram Lanz was last seen. Now it could be that Baer had nothing to do with Pauline’s murder. Elsie Schulung has done a runner and that makes her look guilty.”
“Or scared,” Barron said. “Or even dead.”
“Exactly. I need to start finding people and eliminating them as suspects. Since Pauline had a series of rocky relationships, I need to investigate those contacts before I start elsewhere.”
“I’ll check our databases … see if our boy has been up to mischief lately.”
“Do you know Baer’s parole officer?”
“Not offhand, but I can find that out. Give me your number.”
Decker gave her three phone numbers. “The first set of digits are mine, the second belong to my partner, Detective Tyler McAdams, the third is the main line for Greenbury PD. We’re a small department. Your message will get to us. Thank you so much, Detective Barron.”
“Olivia,” she said. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I have some information.”
“Appreciate the help. Stay safe out there.”
“Yeah, right.” She laughed. “Remember when we were the only ones saying that to our officers in the field?”
“It was not so long ago, Olivia,” Decker answered. “Since COVID crept into the universe, it seems that the entire world has co-opted our first amendment.”
McADAMS HUNG UP after talking to Marion Vanderberg. “Yes, it was Brock, not Brook. She’s very sorry for the mix-up.”
Decker was looking at the computer. “Brock has a lengthy record.”
“For?”
“The usual: mostly domestic violence, but also assault, armed robbery, illegal possession of a firearm. Like Olivia said, he was released on parole a year and a half ago. His last known address was in Philadelphia. And we have a name and number for a parole officer.” Decker picked up the phone. “Let’s see if our boy has been following the rules.”
“Who are you calling?”
“Baer’s parole officer.”
“Is there a phone number or an address in the rap sheet?”
“Yeah.” Decker read the digits out loud. “It’s probably not current, but try it out anyway.” The line kicked in, a woman on the other end. He said, “Yes, this is Detective Peter Decker with the Greenbury Police Department in New York. I’m looking for Ivan Dublitz.” A pause. “He’s retired. Okay … do you know who has his case files?” Another beat. “Yes, I’ll hold. Thank you.”
McAdams said, “The phone number you gave me is disconnected.”
“What about social media?” Decker asked.
“My next step …”
A moment later, the woman returned to the line. “The case files were given out to three different people. Who are you looking for?”
“Brock Baer. He was released from prison about a year and a half ago.”
“Let me look up the name in the computer … We have more than one list … What?”
“Excuse me?” Decker said.
“No, I wasn’t talking to you. Sorry. We’re jammed right now. Why don’t I call you back?”
“Sure.” He gave her three phone numbers. “And who am I talking to?”
“Oh, sorry. Vicki Laslow. I’ll call you back in about twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.” He hung up. To McAdams, he said, “She’s calling me back. What’s going on with social media?”
“He has a Facebook account, but his last post was four years ago.” A sigh. “Nothing since he’s gotten out of prison.”
“He didn’t shut it down.”
“No. And Facebook never shuts down old accounts because a lot of subscribers look good for ad accounts.” As McAdams read, his face darkened. “Man, he’s an angry man. Come take a look.”
Decker read the posts on the Facebook page, starting with the most recent one.
U WONT get away with this, TANYA. UR a HORE and you know what happens to HORES!
TANYA, you lying, slut BITCH, drunk-assed HORE. UR fucking toast!
TANYA, UR a BITCH and WHORE. I DIDNT fucking lay a finger on you. LYING BITCH.
McAdams said, “At least the last time, he spelled whore correctly.”
“Scroll down,” Decker said. “See if you can get a last name for Tanya.”
“Got it … okay, here we go. Tanya Robertson.”
“Does she have social media?”
“I’m sure she does … here we go.” McAdams turned the computer to face Decker. “And hers is recent. Looks like she’s done some hard living.”
Decker regarded the pictures. She was wrinkled and very, very thin. Her hair was tied in a topknot and she was wearing a sleeveless shirt that showed emaciated tattooed arms. “Can you tell where she’s posting from?”
“You mean what city?”
“Yes.”
“No, but let me see if she says something about where she’s living in her posts.” McAdams scrolled down her posts with Decker looking over his shoulder. “She has several pictures of the same group of women.”
“Any captions that say names?”
“Let me scroll. Okay, here we go: Sam, Karina, Boz, and Kelsey. They’re all wearing summer clothing.”
“Yes, they are.”
“I can look up all these addresses of people posting to her. We can see who matches whom.”
Decker was still staring at the picture. “The landscaping looks like a desert climate. Look at this photo, at the house that the women are standing in front of.” He stood up. “That’s adobe.”
“There are probably zillions of adobe houses in the country.”
“Mostly in southern Arizona and New Mexico. Try New Mexico. Albuquerque, specifically. It seems to be a place where people run to when they want to hide.”
“Did not know that. If Tanya is hiding, her posts don’t reflect it.”
“Maybe she was hiding, but now she feels safe.”
“Brock is out of prison. Why would she feel safe?”
Decker shrugged. “Maybe Brock isn’t after her anymore. Maybe Brock was out to settle an older score.”
McAdams looked skeptical. “Tanya seemed to be the one who put him in prison.”
“That is true,” Decker said. “But look at the dates of all these posts. They’re recent. If she was nervous that he was coming after her, do you think she’d be putting her life online?”
“Probably not. I’ll see if I can find a number for her or any of her friends.”
“Great.” Decker’s phone rang. It was Vicki Laslow. “Thanks for calling back.”
“No problem,” Vicki said. “His current parole officer is Melody Simpson. If you have a pencil, I’ll give you her number. She’s not in right now, otherwise I’d transfer you.”
“I’m ready when you are.” He wrote down the numbers as she recited them. “Thank you. This helps.”
“No problem.” She hung up.
McAdams said, “Why are you always right?”
“You found a listing for her in Albuquerque?”
McAdams shook his head. “I yield to your superiority, oh wise man.”
Decker said, “Call her up.”
“Yes, sir!” McAdams was connected to her answering machine. He left a message and hung up. “What now?”
“Now we wait.”
McAdams checked his watch. “Getting near lunch. Hungry?”
“Why not?” Decker put down his pencil. “When all else fails, there’s always coffee.”
I HAD BEEN seeing Juleen on a regular basis, the highlight of my day because I loved her and it made us feel close and closer to what was once normal. We could almost pretend that everything was okay. I FaceTimed her in the morning, and after her studies, we spent the evening together, including dinner. We rarely brought up what had happened. Instead, we’d watch a movie or play a game or talk about her future in America, specifically in Nevada, where she could live a freer life. She always had something to chat about, much more loquacious than she had been at home with family and friends. She seemed to be thriving in a barren climate. I suppose in almost every ecosystem, there was always something beautiful that could pop up even under the harshest of conditions.
What was a bit concerning to me was her relationship with Chris. She seemed to hunger for his approval, which he doled out in small dollops. I hoped that this wasn’t a snapshot of her life to come, seeking attention from men by being obedient. I knew the trajectory of that road. I longed for the day when we lived alone in our own house and I could convince her of the power of self-reliance. I dreamed about a future with her and Sanjay. When my mind drifted to my little boy, I turned it in another direction. It was just too painful.
Today was an abbreviated lunch with my little girl. Chris had stuffed her itinerary with extra lessons twice a week. Did I approve? Yes and no. He was running the show, but she seemed to be okay with it. There was no need to step in unless there was a problem. He walked me back to his hermetic space so Juleen could continue uninterrupted with her education.
It had been nice getting out in the morning even for oatmeal. After he closed the door and turned the locks, I said, “When are you going to put me in your high-tech system so I can get out and visit Juleen without your help?” When he didn’t answer, I said, “At the very least, I’d like to take a walk. It gets claustrophobic after a while. You told me you’d do it as soon as I got a little better.”
“I’m responsible for your safety, Teresa.”
“No one is going to break in here. You’ve got a guy on me and guards everywhere.”
He looked at me, blue eyes focused on my face. “You’re already in the system. I just have to set you up with fingerprint and pupil recognition.”
I was quiet. Then I said, “When did you do that?”
“Right after you asked me to do it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask about it so I didn’t say anything.” When I stared at him, he said, “The truth is I prefer to keep you locked up. It’s safer.”
“You can’t keep me locked up forever.”
“Actually, I could. Who’d stop me?”
And what could I say to that? He waited for an answer. I finally said, “No one, I suppose.”
“Think about that.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go back to my office. I’ll set you up with the system tomorrow morning.”
“Why can’t you do it now?”
“Because it’ll take time and I have a lot of business to take care of.”
“Then you’ll do it tomorrow?”
“Yep.”
“Promise?”
He smiled at me. “What are my promises worth?”
“Zero.”
“More like fifty-fifty.” He laughed. “Tomorrow I’ll show you how to get your freedom.” He bit his bottom lip. “I’m not sure how much I’m liking that idea.”
“What freedom, Chris? I can’t go anywhere. I’m completely without resources. What are you worried about?”
He raised an eyebrow. “So, if you had resources, you’d leave?”
“That’s not what I meant.” I walked up to him and stroked his cheek. “Look, I know you don’t trust me—”
“I don’t trust you at all.”
“Well, I don’t trust you either.” A pause. “What a relationship, based on mutual distrust.” He didn’t answer. I said, “I won’t leave you, okay?”
“Well, that’s not true,” he said. “As soon as you get your kids, you’ll move away.”
“And when will that be?” I asked.
His face turned unreadable. If he had something, he wasn’t going to tell me. There was no sense nagging him.
I said, “I’ll be here every other weekend. I promised you and I do keep my promises.”
“Mostly.”
“I will marry you, Donatti. I will get my tubes tied, and I will come to this place just like we talked about. And when you see that I’m fully committed to you, you’ll probably dump me because I won’t be challenging anymore. I know men. You’re only in it for the hunt. Besides, you can’t keep up this sexual pace. You’ll die. I’ll die.”
He raised his eyebrows. “It’s called a little blue pill.”
I wagged my finger. “You shouldn’t take that unless you need it. And obviously you don’t need it.”
He grew serious. “I’ll never tire of you. Never! I’ve always loved you, Terry. But now, with you here with me, I’ve fallen back in love with you. Those intense feelings that I had when we first got together. Only better, because you’re the only person in this world that I trust.”
“You just said that you didn’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust your commitment to me, but I do trust you with my life. And by that I mean that every night when I go to sleep, I leave my gun on my nightstand. In the beginning, every time you moved, I woke up. Now … I wake up and you’ve been up for hours. Don’t hear you get up, don’t hear a thing. And I’m naked in the wind. You could take me out and I wouldn’t even know what was coming.”
“No, I’m not going to shoot you,” I said. “That’s a pretty low bar for trust, Donatti.”
“You’d be surprised. You get pretty mad at me.”
“Stop it.”
“Also,” he continued, “and this is truly, truly remarkable … you’ve never asked me for money.”
“You always gave me money.”
“You never asked for anything more than I gave you.” He shook his head. “Your woman gene must be defective.”
“Stop it.”
“Even when we divorced, my lawyer had to beg you to retain a lawyer so we could get the process going. You know, at that time, you owned my entire ass. It took a while to transfer it to Gabe. Everything I had was in your name. You never skimmed a penny from me.”
“I know.”
“Did Devek know what was going on?”
“He knew you had money. He even told me that if we didn’t marry, I could get alimony. I told him where to go with that idea.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“It was a terrible idea,” I said. “I wanted Juleen to have married parents. And the last thing I needed was to antagonize you. I was scared of you, Chris. I knew what you were capable of doing. I told him that my divorce was my business. That I’d handle it. And I did.”
“Not to your benefit. Even when I finally offered you a settlement, about a tenth of what you should have gotten, you gave it all away to Gabe.”
“It was your money. I figured that’s what you would want.”
“Terry, I was already supporting him. We were married. You were entitled to something.” He shook his head. “I used to think, God, this woman must really hate my guts if she won’t even take my money.”
“I didn’t hate you. I just thought it was best to cut ties.”
“You certainly did do that.”
I didn’t say anything.
He looked at me for what felt like the longest time. “Probably a good thing. If you would have taken the money, Devek would have just gambled it away.”
“That is true.” I paused. “Christopher, I promise I won’t ghost you again. I swear I’m committed.”
He ran his tongue in his cheek. “I can’t stand to lose control. I especially can’t stand to lose control of you. And when you’re here with me, I’m always in control of everything.”
“Nobody is in control one hundred percent of the time.”
“I’ll take ninety-nine-point-nine, then.” Another glance at his watch. “One thing I learned about myself while you were gone is how truly warped I’ve become. I can’t live in the real world, Teresa. Things that annoy normal people make me homicidal. Which was why I shot heroin. It numbed me enough so I didn’t go around murdering people, which I wanted to do all the time. When I built this place—this physical construct where I am king—I didn’t need drugs anymore. I rarely, rarely, hear the word no. You leaving me for the purpose of properly raising your children—even under my terms—is a big, fat NO to my face. And I don’t like it.”
His eyes studied my face. It was an expression I had seen long ago, right before he was about to tie me up to sketch me in the nude. Oh, those carefree teenage years.
“But I do deeply love you and I want you to be happy,” he said. “So … I’ll take a big breath and let you leave when the time comes. And now I really do have to go attend to my affairs.” He walked over to me and kissed me gently. “I know this has been hell for you, but it’s been great for me. Just like in high school. I was walking around in a fog until I met you. Now, like back then, the fog has been lifted and I can see again.” He slowly backed away and then turned and closed the door behind him, locking me in my tomb.
It was hermetic. Sometimes I didn’t mind. After all the noise in my life, the quiet was pleasant, even peaceful. I’d work out on his weight and exercise machines; I’d listen to music. I’d read; I’d take a nap. I was still very tired and sleep was a welcome refuge.
But sometimes the quiet left me alone with my thoughts, which immediately went back to that dark day. And that was never a good thing.
CHAPTER 13
AT TEN THE next morning, Decker glanced at the station house message machine. A plain red light indicated no one had called. McAdams was already at his desk. “You’re here early.”
“No, you’re later than usual.”
“I am,” Decker admitted. “Without Rina’s coffee, I decided that nothing was worth getting up for.”
“You can make your own coffee, you know.”
“I can, but my coffee doesn’t turn out like her coffee.”
McAdams smiled. The station house’s line rang and he picked it up. “McAdams.”
“This is Tanya Robertson. I believe you left a message for me.”
