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Throwing back the covers, she climbed out of bed again, tossed on a light robe, and walked to the window to look out at the skyline of houses, trees, and a winter sun that looked like it might actually warm her frozen insides. It was no good telling herself she wasn’t to blame for random acts of violence and accidents. She felt responsible, and though no sane person would point a finger at her for the deaths of Officer Unfriendly, Mazie, and Court—not to mention Whitney Bellhard—Elizabeth felt as if she were holding her breath, waiting for the other shoe to fall. Could all of these violent deaths really be coincidence? Could they? She couldn’t help feeling like the common denominator. For months, she’d told herself she was making too much of it, that she was normal, that coincidences do happen, even really spooky ones . . . but with Court’s death . . . She shook her head to stop the thoughts.
She had to go to work this afternoon. Misty was coming over to take care of Chloe and give Elizabeth time to show more properties to the Sorensons who were the couple Mazie had fought over so hard. After all the months of viewing every home that came on the market, they’d finally settled on a house . . . only to be outbid. Now, they were deciding between two sprawling mansions and Elizabeth should have been a helluva lot more excited about the possible sale. In truth, all she felt was anxiety and a deep, dark fear that she might be going out of her mind.
Drawing a breath, she stared out across the backyard fence to the roof of the house next door. She needed to rouse Chloe from her favorite spot, squarely in front of the television set. It was time to start readying the little girl for the rest of her day.
There were other decisions to be made, as well. Financial decisions relating to Court’s death, but Elizabeth dreaded the thought of meeting with the lawyer. Just talking to the man on the phone had made her feel weary.
“Mommy?”
She glanced over to see her blond, blue-eyed daughter standing in the doorway. Chloe’s nightgown barely reached her knees. Her daughter was growing like a weed, growing up too fast. In the back of Elizabeth’s mind she made a mental note to go through Chloe’s drawers and donate all the clothes she’d outgrown.
“Hey, there,” she said, padding to the doorway to pull her daughter into her arms.
Chloe immediately squirmed to be free. She wasn’t much of a hugger and never had been. “When are we going to the park?” she demanded.
“I don’t know if we have time. Misty’s coming over.”
“I want to go to the park now.”
“I know. But it’ll have to wait. Come on. I’ll make you breakfast.” Elizabeth was firm. Since Court’s death, Chloe, always willful, had been more stubborn than usual. Considering that the little girl had just lost her father, it wasn’t hard to understand. Still, letting Chloe always get her way was a slippery slope.
“I already had breakfast,” Chloe declared.
“A banana does not a breakfast make.” Elizabeth walked past her to the kitchen, pulled out the frozen waffles, tossed them in the toaster oven, then went back to the refrigerator for the blueberry syrup and an aerosol can of whipped cream. Lurching into the room behind her mother, Chloe carried herself half bent over as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders and sighed dramatically.
Elizabeth ignored her. Sometimes the less said, the better.
If this kind of acting out and being argumentative was the way Chloe chose to deal with the fact that Daddy wasn’t coming home any longer, it was a small price to pay. Elizabeth figured the obvious rebellion was far better than if her daughter were internalizing, which had never been Chloe’s way.
Even when Elizabeth had pulled Chloe onto her lap and broken the news that Court wasn’t coming home anymore, that he was, in fact, in heaven—words she’d nearly choked on as she had trouble thinking of Court and heaven in the same thought—Chloe had stared at her long and hard, then said, “No, he’s not,” and had climbed off Elizabeth’s lap and stomped off to her room. When Elizabeth had peered in to ask if she was okay, Chloe had looked up at her guilelessly, big blue eyes round with innocence. “Fine,” was her answer before playing with some dolls that were scattered on the floor. She hadn’t asked anything further about her father, and though Elizabeth had purposely kept mentioning Court, Chloe hadn’t responded.
And then she’d told Barbara in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t going to the funeral.
An odd reaction, but one Elizabeth had defended in her true mother-bear style, telling Barbara to back off. As she started the coffeemaker and heard the water hissing through the pump, she was beginning to worry that something else was going on.
Thinking of her daughter’s recurring and still undiagnosed illness, she wondered if Chloe’s disaffection was hiding some deeper, darker emotion and decided to make another appointment with the doctor. She seemed to be adjusting, but maybe she should ask Dr. Werner for the name of a child psychologist, just in case.
Watching her daughter pour blueberry syrup in a thick pool over her waffles, Elizabeth reminded herself they were in an adjustment period and not to look too hard for problems above and beyond normal grieving. Still, she didn’t want to miss anything. Most important to her was that Chloe was all right, that her daughter was reacting normally, that Elizabeth hadn’t misread a sign of deeper psychological problems.
As Elizabeth watched her little girl tuck into her meal, she was overwhelmed with a sudden terrifying thought. If you killed those people . . . if somehow, some way, it was because you were angry with them, because you thought dark, dark thoughts, and yes, even wished them dead, that they did perish in horrific deaths, you need to make sure you keep a tight lid on your emotions. Keep things copacetic. Stay calm. No extreme mood swings.
Because, Elizabeth, you don’t know whom you could hurt.
With a new fear slithering through her, she stared at her daughter. Elizabeth loved Chloe with all her heart, but that didn’t mean she was never angry with her child, didn’t mean her temper didn’t flair when Chloe disobeyed.
Oh. God.
“What?” Chloe demanded, glancing up as she felt the weight of Elizabeth’s intense gaze. Her little eyebrows drew together as if she were confused.
“Nothing,” Elizabeth hastily said, her heart in her throat, her insides quivering at the dark turn of her thoughts. “Look, honey, when you’re finished, why don’t you grab your coat. It’s nice out now, but it’s supposed to rain again. Maybe we can sneak in a quick trip to the park after all.”
The first Rex Kingston learned of the girl was when she walked into his office and immediately rubbed his part-time helper, Bonnie, the wrong way. The raised voices caught his attention just as he was about to send Bonnie home and slip out and start his evening surveillance of the cheating Mrs. Cochran who was quasi-famous for being on two different reality shows, breaking up one of the other contestants’ marriage on both, then marrying the producer of an entirely different show who believed she was screwing yet another guy who seemed to be a fitness guru of some kind.
Hollywood. It doesn’t get any better than this, he thought drily.
He’d pulled an Angels baseball cap low over his eyes and changed into gray sweatpants, sneakers, and a black sweatshirt over a T-shirt with a zipper at his throat. He could be a jogger, or someone planning to work out, or just a person hanging loose on a Saturday afternoon. What he didn’t plan to be was the man in the casual dress shirt and sunglasses who’d been watching the house from his vehicle the last few days. He was someone else. A stranger in a different car. Just in case Kimberley Cochran or her lover or anyone else was looking.
He turned toward the back door and the parking lot where he kept his own non
