Jennifer Hillier: Creep

“Has he been acting strange since Dr. Tao disappeared?” Kellogg asked as she scratched notes into her pad. “Anything that might indicate he knew her whereabouts?”

Maddox shook her head. “No, but he’s been gone a lot. I don’t know where he goes, he doesn’t tell me. I work the late shift at Safeway, and sometimes I get in at three, four in the morning. And he’s not home. He’s been distracted for the past few weeks. And difficult.”

“We’ve learned he spends a lot of time up in Lake Stevens.” Torrance watched her face closely. “Any idea why?”

Maddox shook her head again and wiped her eyes. “Is that where Dr. Tao lives?”

Torrance glanced up at the camera again and Jerry knew what the look meant. Abby Maddox had no idea about her boyfriend’s Lake Stevens house.

She started to sniffle, and it wasn’t long before a torrent of sobs escaped from Maddox’s slender chest. Torrance watched dispassionately, but Kellogg, the rookie, obviously felt bad.

“I should have known something was off. I should have known.” Maddox struggled to contain herself, digging into her purse for another tissue.

“We don’t know anything for a fact yet.” The female detective attempted to sound reassuring.

“I should have known,” Maddox repeated, looking across at the two detectives. “I should have done something the moment I found it.”

“To what are you referring?” Torrance asked with a frown.

Maddox reached into her purse. It was hard to tell from the camera angle, but she appeared to be unzipping something. Women’s purses mystified Jerry-they had so many zippers and flaps and compartments, he was amazed women could find anything they’d stashed away. She dug for a bit, then pulled out a wadded-up tissue, which she placed on the table in front of the female detective.

“Open it,” Maddox said.

Kellogg hesitated, and Wolfe’s girlfriend said, “It’s not used or anything. I put something inside it. Something I found a couple of weeks ago in Ethan’s pocket.”

Kellogg looked at Torrance, who gave her a nod. The blonde put her notebook down and reached inside her jacket pocket for a pair of latex gloves. Snapping them on, she unfolded the tissue with the points of her fingers. Something shiny rolled onto the table.

It was a woman’s diamond ring.

Kellogg picked it up and examined it under the lights. Even watching on the computer monitor, Jerry could tell the diamond was huge.

“I found it when I was doing laundry. I’m pretty sure it’s Professor Tao’s. I remember admiring it from a distance when I went to meet Ethan at his office. I don’t know why he’d have it. I thought…” Maddox’s voice choked as another sob racked her. “I thought she’d left it behind and he’d stolen it. We’re broke and I thought maybe he was going to pawn it. Now I’m not so sure.”

Torrance put on a pair of latex gloves as well and took the ring from his partner. Turning it so he could see the inside of the band, he read the inscription aloud. “ ‘Now and forever, Morris.’” He dropped it into a plastic bag and looked at Maddox, his face grim.

“There’s something else,” the young woman said, her voice faltering.

Torrance and Kellogg exchanged a look. What now? Jerry thought.

Maddox rooted around in her purse again and pulled something out with shaking fingers. “I know I’m going to get in trouble because I found this and didn’t tell anyone…” She was barely coherent as she tried to speak through her tears. “It’s just, I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe he might have-”

Torrance’s face turned to stone as he took the object from her.

Kellogg looked confused. “What is it?”

Maddox’s hands shook. “Diana St. Clair’s gold medal.”

Jerry’s mouth dropped open.

Maddox’s husky voice lowered to a whisper. “From when she won the Nike Cup last year. I’m sorry. I should have told somebody. But he-I love him. I didn’t want to believe it.”

Diana St. Clair. Holy shit. This was worse than Jerry could have imagined. Morris’s instincts had been dead-on.

“You just happened to have these items in your purse, Miss Maddox?” Torrance said in a neutral voice.

“I knew… I needed…” A giant sob escaped her and Maddox collapsed, her ramrod posture folding under Torrance’s hard stare. The look of terror on her face was heartbreaking. “I wanted to tell somebody, but I…”

He beats her, Jerry thought suddenly. His gut clenched at the thought of Wolfe’s fists punching that beautiful face. He’d seen many battered women in his time, and though Abby Maddox displayed no obvious bruises at the moment, he’d bet his left nut that Wolfe smacked her around. And often. Bastard. Coward.

Torrance put the medal in another plastic bag. His expression would have been unreadable to anyone but his ex-partner. Jerry knew exactly what he was thinking. “Is there somewhere you can stay tonight, Miss Maddox? We’ll need to search your apartment.”

Torrance didn’t mention searching the house in Lake Stevens, which Jerry thought was a good call. No point in upsetting the poor girl further.

Maddox shook her head and started crying again. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“We’ll get you a motel room,” Kellogg said. She touched the top of the other woman’s hand lightly. “Just for tonight until we get things sorted out.”

All three left the interview room.

A few seconds later, Torrance poked his head into the control room where Jerry was sitting. “Consider your case reopened.”

“W e need to get out of here,” Ethan said. “But before we go, I want to tell you about my first time.”

Sheila’s fingers traced slow circles around his nipple. Her face looked the way it always did after sex, flushed and lazy. Her naked body was contoured against his, covered in a light, musky sweat. If Ethan closed his eyes, he could almost imagine they were back in room sixteen at the Ivy Motel.

Finally, finally, Sheila was his. The thought filled him with the deepest sense of contentment he’d ever known. Abby’s face drifted into his mind then, but he pushed it away.

“I don’t like thinking of you with other women,” Sheila said.

Her frown told him she was sincere. He pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. It smelled like wildflowers from the shampoo he’d bought her. “Do you love me, Sheila?”

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

“All of me?” He pulled away slightly and looked into her dark eyes. They were soft and full of promise. “Even the bad parts?”

She intertwined her fingers in his. “Do you love me, even with my bad parts?”

She was right. Nobody was perfect. Maybe that’s why, with Sheila, it felt so easy. Unlike with Abby, where he always felt he had to pretend.

“I need you to hear this,” Ethan said, looking at the television. It was tuned to CNN and muted, but the time was displayed on the lower right-hand corner of the screen. They didn’t have long. They’d be after him soon; he could feel it.

But this was important.

“I want you to know everything about me,” he said. “I want you to be sure about me. Because once we leave here, we can’t come back. And then it’s just you and me.”

“I’m already sure. I can’t wait to start my life with you.”

She settled into the crook of his arm, and he began to speak.

He was sixteen when they met.

She’d been sitting under a tree in front of their high school, bare legs tucked under, long hair glistening like silk in the thin rays of sunshine that filtered through the leaves above.

He had noticed her immediately, partly because she was beautiful, but mainly because she was alone, like him.