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Ravinia riffled through the pages of her mother’s journal. She’d skipped around, letting the book open to its most used places, but now she ran back to the beginning, examining her mother’s younger entries. The “J.” she’d written about, Janet Bancroft, was featured prominently when they were in grade school and high school. “J.” could easily stand for jealousy, too, Ravinia realized, because her mother was consumed with it whenever Janet was mentioned, which was on a regular basis for a number of years.
From Mary’s point of view, Janet Bancroft had everything. She was beautiful and rich and looked down on Mary and Catherine, who were considered outcasts by virtue of their odd family history. It must have shown in their dress, because Mary accused Janet of calling her “tawdry and embarrassing” and, later, “a psycho whore” and “sick in the head.” Ravinia found herself stirred to anger at Janet, but then her mother certainly had had her issues. Mary had then zeroed in on Janet as her enemy. She cast her web on every boy who showed an interest in Janet, though she clearly wasn’t interested in them herself. She called them “stupid larvae” and “immature sperm,” which Ravinia found kind of creepy when she considered this was her own mother’s writings.
The journal entries about “J.” slowly trailed off as Mary grew older. But then she found one passage that was full of her mother’s excitement.
J. got someone to marry her, and he’s here! Preston St. Cloud. He’s working for Declan. Cathy, are you reading this? I’m going to take them both.... I swear I will, if you don’t give him up. You’ll be sorry.
Ravinia shut the journal and set it aside. She hated to admit it, but she was kind of seeing Aunt Catherine’s side a little bit. No wonder her aunt had tried to shelter them so much. Screwed up as Aunt Catherine’s plan had been, maybe it was all she could come up with, and given what a complete nut job Mary was, it wasn’t half bad.
Savvy finished pumping both breasts, set the bottles aside, then rinsed out the equipment in Hale’s master bath before putting it all away. Grabbing up her bag, she headed down the hall and toward the front door. Janet had ranted on a while more, but the wine and the long day had finally done their job, and she was now either asleep or watching television in the den.
She moved quietly to the front door, but Hale suddenly materialized before she could twist the knob.
“You sure you don’t want to stay?” he asked with concern.
And stay where? she thought. In bed with you?
“I’d better get home. It’s after midnight, and there are things I need to do tomorrow. Oh, I left the breast milk in your bathroom.”
“I’ll get it.” Then, “It’s dark and wet and cold outside.”
“And I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Thanks, Hale. Good night.”
“Nothing I can do to get you to stay . . . ?”
He had no idea how tempting the thought was. Or maybe he did.
Her cell phone rang at that moment, muffled inside her messenger bag. It brought her back to her senses, as she’d been teetering. Recognizing Lang’s ring tone, she reached inside her bag. Given the time of night, that didn’t bode well.
“Hey, Lang,” she answered.
“Savvy, I just got a call from Trey Curtis. I asked him to go to DeWitt’s apartment and see why he hadn’t answered any of my calls.”
His unemotional tone told her more than she wanted to hear. “Uh-oh . . .”
“DeWitt’s dead. Stabbed in the chest. The doer put the knife in and sliced upward in a way that . . . Well, Curtis thinks he liked what he was doing. I’m going to Portland in the morning.”
“When . . . did this happen?”
“Not sure yet, but the body’s passed through full rigor. Yesterday sometime, probably.” A pause. “You sound wide awake. You’re not in bed?”
“Not yet. I want to meet you. I can come to Portland tomorrow.”
“Nah, stay put. But it looks like you may have stirred up a hornet’s nest. I know, with everything, you probably haven’t had time to write up a report on the interview with DeWitt, but do it now. And all the other interviews, too. Something happened when you were in Portland. Something that got somebody worried. Let’s figure out what it is.”
CHAPTER 27
Savannah was at her desk by eight thirty, too tired to think straight, too tense to sleep. She knew Charlie had killed Owen DeWitt. Knew it like she’d never known anything else. But Good Time Charlie was practically a figment of the imagination, a faceless demon with a Cheshire cat grin, a wizard who had cast a spell on Savvy’s own sister and then had murdered the only man who could finger him and therefore possibly bring him to justice.
Was Charlie Mary’s son, Declan Jr.? The more time that passed since Savvy’s improbable talk with Catherine, the more she wondered if she hadn’t checked her sane cop brain at the door when she entered Catherine’s hospital room and listened to more of her tales of strange and awe-inspiring psychic gifts, some with their own terrible backlash. Dark magic. That was what it all felt like now.
To hell with it all. She’d skipped breakfast this morning, a first since the onset of her pregnancy, and now, as she typed in her report on the interviews with the Bancroft Portland employees, she was feeling low on energy. She’d been staring at the computer screen for a solid fifteen seconds without moving, and now she saved the file and swung away from her desk. She’d laid her cell beside her desk phone, and now she looked a
t both phones, willing Lang to call her with more details, even though he probably hadn’t even made it to Portland yet this morning.
Stretching, she walked into the break room and raided the vending machine for a bag of potato chips. She grimaced, realizing she was going back to some of the bad habits she’d had before her pregnancy. Not good, but chips were what she felt like. Breaking the bag open, she headed for the coffee machine and poured herself a large cup of decaf. She dug into the bag of chips, munching slowly, contemplating the steaming cup of coffee she’d just poured. A few minutes later she crumpled the bag and tossed out the rest of the chips, then picked up the decaf and threw it down the drain. She then got herself a cup of regular coffee. She needed something. Good news would be the best antidote, but she couldn’t even think what that might constitute beyond the capture and conviction of Kristina’s killer.
She wanted her sister back.
