Jeffery Deaver - The Bodies Left Behind

She wondered if he’d been talking about her to the children. She sensed he had been. She’d interrogate the boy later.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said and ushered her son off the couch and ordered him to get her a soda from the kitchen.

She watched Brad wander off. And the jealousy switched, finger snap, to overwhelming love.

Unable to have children, despite trying since she was sixteen, Michelle Kepler had been lucky enough to befriend a single mother in Milwaukee’s netherworld, on the pretext of volunteering with a nonprofit organization to help the disadvantaged.

HIV-positive from sex or drugs or both, Blanche was often sick and would leave her son and daughter in Michelle’s care. Despite her prescription-drug cocktails to keep AIDS at bay, the poor woman’s condition worsened fast-but she could take some solace in her written agreement to name Michelle as the custodian of the children if anything happened to her.

Which was fortunate because the woman died much sooner than expected.

A sad event.

Not long after which Michelle spent some time flushing down the toilet the six months’ worth of prescription AIDS medicines she’d withheld from Blanche, substituting Tylenol, Prylosec and children’s vitamins (which, thriftily, she also gave to the kids).

Now these two children were hers. She loved them with all her being. Doing what they were told, adoring her and-as the therapist told her in a court-ordered session years ago-validating an otherwise unremarkable life. But fuck the therapists; Michelle knew what she wanted. Always had.

In fact, one of the tragedies of that night in April-thanks to the unexpected appearance of Brynn’s husband with a gun-was Michelle’s loss of Amy, another girl she could have brought into her family. After killing Brynn and Hart (Lewis too, if Hart hadn’t done that for her), she’d have slipped away with her new daughter.

But that hadn’t worked out.

Add one more offense to Brynn McKenzie’s charge sheet.

Michelle now glanced at Tory, who was showing a picture she’d drawn to Rolfe. Michelle thought: The fat pig’s not your daddy. Don’t you dare ever think he is.

It was then that her phone rang. She noted caller ID, said to Rolfe, “I better get this.”

He nodded complacently, complimented the little girl on the picture and turned back to the TV.

Brad brought the soda for his mother. He held it out.

“Do I look like I’m on the phone?” Michelle snapped, then stepped into the bedroom. In a Latina accent she answered, “Harborside Inn. Can I help you?”

“Hi, yes. This’s Deputy McKenzie. From Kennesha County. You called about a half hour ago?”

“Oh, sure, Deputy. About that guest. The one with the suitcase.”

“Right. I’ve checked my schedule. I can be in Milwaukee about five.”

“Let’s see…could we make it five-thirty? We have a staff meeting at five.” Michelle was pleased at her performance.

I’m really an actress…

“Sure. I can do that.”

She gave Brynn the address.

“I’ll see you then.”

Michelle hung up. Closed her eyes. God or Fate…thank you.

She walked to the closet and took out a locked suitcase. Opened it. She removed her compact Glock, put it in her Coach purse. She stared out the window for a moment, feeling both nervous and exhilarated. Then she returned to the living room. She said to Rolfe, “That was the nursing home. My aunt’s taken a bad turn.” She shook her head. “God, that poor woman. It hurts me to the bone what she’s going through.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” he said, looking at her tormented face.

Michelle hated the endearment. She winced. And said, “I have to go see her.”

“You betcha…” He frowned. “Who is she again?”

Cool eyes turned his way. Meaning: Are you accusing me of something, or have you forgotten my relatives? Either way, you lose.

“Sorry,” he said fast, obviously reading her expression. “Haddie, right? That’s her name. Hey, I’ll drive you.”

Michelle smiled. “That’s okay. I’d rather it was Brad and me. I’ve got to deal with it with family, you understand.”

“Well, you betcha. It’s okay for Brad to see her, you think?”

She looked at the boy. “You want to see your auntie, don’t you?” He damn well better not say that he didn’t have an auntie. She held his eyes as she took the soda from his tiny hand and sipped it.

He nodded.

“I thought you did. Good.”

BRYNN MCKENZIE GATHERED up her backpack and pitched out her second cocoa cup of the day.

Thought again about Graham and their first date. Then about the last time they’d been out together alone-at a woodsy club on Route 32, dancing until midnight. It was one week before she’d found out he was “cheating.”

Why didn’t you ask me to go with you?…

And why hadn’t he invited her to a therapy session?

“Hey, B?” a woman’s voice interrupted. “How ’bout Bennigan’s later?” Jane Styles, another senior deputy, continued, “I’m meeting Reggie. Oh, and that cute guy from State Farm’s going to be there. One I told you about.”

Brynn whispered, “I’m not divorced, Jane.”

The words “not yet” tagged along at the end of the sentence.

“I just said he was cute. That’s only information. I’m not calling the caterer.”

“He sells insurance.”

“We need insurance. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got something going on. Buy a policy for me.”

“Funny.”

Thinking of Hart, thinking of the Harborside Inn in Milwaukee, Brynn McKenzie walked down a corridor she’d been up and down so often that she tended not even to see it. On the walls were pictures of deputies killed in the line of duty. There were four over the past eighty-seven years, though Eric Munce’s portrait wasn’t up yet. The county had the photos mounted in expensive frames. The first fatality was a deputy with a handlebar mustache. He’d been shot by a man involved in the Northfield, Minnesota, train robbery.

She passed a map of the county too, a big one, pausing and glancing at the azure blemish of Lake Mondac. She asked herself, So, is what I’m about to do now a good idea, or a bad idea?

Then she laughed. Why bother to ask the question? It doesn’t matter. I’ve already made the decision.

She fished the keys out of her pocket and pushed outside into a beautiful, clear afternoon.

Is it true he’s a killer?

That’s our understanding.

DRIVING THROUGH A gritty neighborhood of Milwaukee toward Lake Michigan, Michelle Kepler was saying to her son, “What you’re going to do is go up to this woman and say you’re lost. She’ll be parked and when she gets out of her car you go up to her and say, ‘I’m lost.’ Say it.”

“I’m lost.”

“Good. I’ll point her out to you. And make sure you look, you know, upset. Can you do that? You know how to look upset?”

“Uh-huh,” said Brad.

She snapped, “Don’t say you know something when you don’t. Now, do you know how to look upset?”

“No.”

“Upset is what I look like when you’ve done something wrong and you disappoint me. You understand?”

He nodded quickly. This, he got.

“Good.” She smiled.

In downtown Milwaukee, Michelle drove past the Harborside Inn then around the block. Returned to the hotel. The parking lot was half full. It was 5 P.M. Brynn McKenzie wasn’t due for another half hour.

“Better work.”

“What, Mommy?”

“Shhh.”

She circled once more, then pulled into a space on the street, twenty feet from the parking lot. “What we’re going to do is when the woman drives in, she’ll park somewhere there. See?…Good. And then you and me both get out. I’m going to go around that way, behind. You go up to her and knock on the window closest to her. Tell her you’re lost. And scared. She’ll get out of the car. What are you going to tell her?”