Lisa Jackson - Wicked Game

“I’ve got ’em under control,” Glenn snapped, miffed. Scott was always so quick to blame him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The two partners stared hard at each other. Scott seemed to be thinking very, very hard, and Glenn realized reluctantly that he wasn’t as immune as he would have liked the detective to believe. He was tense, too, and kind of spooked. So Glenn decided to come clean. “All right, look. Something happened,” he said.

He could see Scott brace himself.

“Nothing about the restaurant,” Glenn assured him. “It was this.” He pulled out the card and handed it to Scott, who seemed reluctant to accept it. Reading it over, Scott drew his brows together and seemed lost in a world of his own.

“How’d you get this? Where’d it come from?” he asked after a long moment where Glenn’s nerves were stretched tight as guy wires.

“It came in the mail, to my house, addressed to me.”

“What the hell does it mean?”

“I don’t know, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell McNally.”

“Christ, we have to call The Third. What kind of game is that bitch playing?” Scott said, shaking his head. “She’s alive. God. She’s alive…so who’s in the grave?”

Glenn lifted his hands to ward off that thought. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Whipping out his cell phone, Scott suddenly stopped himself in the middle of punching out a number. “What if it’s not Jessie who sent this? What if it’s someone trying to freak us out?”

“Who the fuck would do that?”

“I don’t know, but…oh, shit. Someone who’s just messin’ with us.”

Glenn nodded rapidly. He liked that idea better. “But why?”

Scott drew a breath. “Hell if I know.” He flopped into the chair so recently vacated by the detective. “It’s dumb. It’s a dumb joke.”

“It’s no joke,” Glenn assured him. “God, I could use a drink.” He picked up his watery bourbon and drank it down.

Scott was still tossing things over in his mind. “Why would she contact you? Jessie? If she were alive?” His face was a knot of confusion. “She wouldn’t, so it’s a joke.”

Glenn ground his teeth together. In the back of his mind he’d been asking himself the same question. Jessie had scarcely noticed him. That singsong nursery rhyme had been something she’d teased The Third with, or Zeke, maybe even Jarrett. It wasn’t something she’d used on him. He’d been wallpaper to her, nothing more.

Scott snorted, following Glenn’s thoughts. “Stop thinking about it,” he said dismissively. “That damn detective rattled me, too, but it’s all just routine stuff. Whoever sent this thing?” He tossed the card across the desk. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Jarrett or The Third, actually. Would be just like them. Trying to get your goat. We got more important things to worry about.”

“Like the business,” Glenn said, his eyes on the white square of paper.

“Like this fucking business,” Scott agreed. “I’ll bring you and me both a drink. Throw that thing in the trash.”

Glenn could have told him he had a bottle of Bushmills stashed in his desk drawer, could have offered him a drink, but he didn’t.

As Scott stalked out of the room, Glenn picked up the card. After a moment he grabbed a pair of scissors and shredded it and the blue envelope into slivers of paper, dusting them off his hands into the trash can. He closed his eyes then, consciously trying to put it behind him.

For a moment he thought he heard a girl’s giggling. Someone laughing at him. His eyes flew open and he glanced sharply around the room.

But he was alone.

Becca was working at her computer when the phone shrilled. She jumped like she’d been goosed, scrabbling to pick up the receiver of her land line.

Hudson, she thought, a smile crossing her lips. She instantly had a mental picture of him lying in the darkness of his bedroom, his arms reaching out as she tried to slide from the bed. “You’re not leaving.”

“I have to. I have a dog at home.” His hand had grabbed hers and he’d pulled her back atop him. It had taken her another hour before she’d disentangled and made her way home.

“Hello,” she said now as she answered the phone, not recognizing the number from Caller ID. She glanced at the clock. Late afternoon and almost dark as pitch outside already. As if aware she’d noticed, the heavens suddenly opened up and spewed rain, then hail, a storm of precipitation blasting outside her window. It was awesome in its power but it just meant that the dog wasn’t going to want to go for a walk.

“Becca? It’s Renee.”

“Oh, hey.” She sat up straighter. Did Renee know about her night with Hudson? It had been just a few days since they’d tumbled together in his bed. Since that time they’d been on the phone several times a day. It was thrilling. Unbelievable.

“I’ve just been feeling so weird about all of this, I guess,” Renee was saying, echoing Becca’s own thoughts. “About Jessie and those bones and all. I just wish we’d find out once and for all if the body belonged to Jessie.”

“I know.” She thought about the presence she’d felt in the maze and wondered if she should tell Renee. At the time the pure, unfiltered evil had seemed all too real. Even now, goose bumps raised on her arms and she looked hurriedly over her shoulder.

“Have you heard that McNally-the cop that was so into Jessie’s disappearance years ago-has been interviewing the guys?” Renee asked, her voice sounding edgier than usual. “He stopped by Blue Note to talk to Glenn and Scott, then called The Third at his office downtown. McNally already left a message on my phone. I called back but missed him.”

Becca’s fingers tightened over her cell. “Then they know it’s Jessie,” she said. “DNA must’ve come back or some other proof that the body is hers.”

“That’s what I think, too. God…it’s hard to believe.” She paused for a second, then said, “I thought maybe we should get together again.”

“All of us?”

“The girls. Actually, I’m already meeting Vangie and Tamara at Java Man after work. Around seven.”

Another meeting? For what? Because the police were sniffing around? So what? It almost sounded as if Renee wanted them all to get their stories straight, which was ridiculous. No one had anything to hide.

Right?

“What about Hudson…and Zeke?” Becca asked. “Did they get a call from the police?”

“Not that I’ve heard, but I haven’t talked to Hudson in a few days and Vangie didn’t say anything about Zeke when I called her. I think she would have. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if they have or not. They’ve got to be on the list. I’m sure we all are.”

“List? As in suspects?”

“Or persons of interest, whatever you want to call it. So, about tonight…can you make it?”

“I’ll be there.”

Becca hung up, then clicked off her computer. She double-checked all the doors and windows, then changed into a red cowl-necked sweater and added some lip gloss. Glancing at her watch, she turned on the news, wasting another half hour before she headed out. There was talk about discovery of an unidentified woman’s body, and Becca zeroed in on the newscaster. But it appeared to be that this particular body had been thrown from her car following an accident. Nothing to do with Jessie Brentwood.

“Of course not,” she said aloud, annoyed with herself. She grabbed her raincoat and bundled herself inside. There were other accidents and crimes out there. The world was huge. Just because her group of friends was affected by the remains found in the maze didn’t mean the discovery wasn’t already yesterday’s news. Maybe they would never know the identity of the bones for sure. Maybe this limbo they’d been living would continue just as it was.