Jan Burke - Nine

Kit caught Meghan looking at it with a wistful expression. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m remembering your grandmother. She always made Gabe and me feel so welcomed here. Do you miss her when you visit this house?”

He nodded, not trusting his voice. How had she known?

He stopped the car near the front steps. “We’re home,” he said, then wondered immediately what had led him to use the phrase.

Meghan smiled to hear Kit call this home. Elizabeth Logan would have liked that, she thought. Memories of visiting her while Kit and Gabe were in school came back to her. Despite the difference in their ages, Meghan had always enjoyed talking to Elizabeth and found it easier to confide in her than in her own mother. Meghan’s mother had always been a beautiful butterfly, fragile and delightful in her way, but unable to stay still or concentrate. “Be thankful you got her looks and my brains,” her father used to say. “If the dice had rolled the other way, you would have crapped out in both departments.”

Elizabeth encouraged Meghan to come by anytime, and in her, Meghan found the listener she so needed then. Most often, Elizabeth could be found standing near the deck of the pool, wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat. The pool was built at the top of the cliff that ran along that side of the property. Although Elizabeth seldom swam, this was where she spent a great deal of time in the afternoon, peering over the railing at the canyon below. Meghan had wondered why she didn’t choose one of the other decks, which had more striking views of ocean and hills. Then one day Meghan realized that Sedgewick was just below that cliff, hidden beneath trees. She somehow knew that Elizabeth would not want Kit to know of those afternoon vigils, but as she thought of them now, she felt Elizabeth watching over them as surely as she had then.

Spooky was already out of the car, not bothering to close her door. “Moriarty!” she called, running toward a tall man with short silver hair who was coming down the front steps. He had an athlete’s build and grace.

“Hey, you scamp!” he said, smiling at Spooky as she gave him a quick embrace. “What? You aren’t going to try for my wallet?”

“You always catch me,” she said.

“Hello, Moriarty,” Kit said, coming up to them, wondering how it was that being around Moriarty always made him feel a weight lift from his shoulders, to feel as if everything would be all right.

“Good to see you made it safely,” Moriarty said, shaking his hand.

“Moriarty, this is Meghan Taggert. She’s the friend I called you about yesterday.”

Meghan’s brows rose in surprise.

“I hope the man we sent to meet you at the hotel worked out all right?” Moriarty said.

“Oh-yes. He saw me safely to the tram. Thank you.”

“Why don’t you get the ladies settled in, Kit? I’ll start unloading some of the luggage.”

“I’ll get it later. You aren’t hired to be a bellman,” Kit said. Moriarty was his last real link to Elizabeth Logan. He had never asked the nature of their relationship, but he knew it had not been merely employer-employee, whatever they might have said to the nosy.

“I’m not here because I’m hired, either,” Moriarty said, as if reading his thoughts. “Go on, you all look as if you walked from Colorado. We can talk later.”

As they drew nearer the front door, Meghan saw Kit holding a rabbit’s foot and stepping carefully on the large marble tiles of the entry, avoiding cracks. At the door-over which, she noticed, he had at some point added a horse-shoe-he slipped the rabbit’s foot back in his pocket.

Spooky hurried past him, but Meghan moved more slowly-she took care as well not to step on cracks as she approached. She paused when she reached him, and heard him draw in a breath. She looked into his eyes, only inches away from hers now, and said, “I’m lucky to know you, Kit Logan.”

She kept moving, and when she was sure he could not see her face, allowed herself a small smile.

Later, Kit was in his study, while Spooky and Meghan were fast asleep in their bedrooms at the opposite end of the house. He looked out at the ocean, which could be seen from most rooms of the house, but didn’t really see it. He was still thinking of that moment on the threshold. He loved her scent. Maybe it was something she used on her hair or the soap she used, but he thought it might be more than that, something that was essentially Meghan.

As he shifted in his chair, his foot struck a soft object. He looked down and saw one of Molly’s toys. He felt his chest tighten.

Was it wrong, he wondered, to feel so much grief for a dog?

When Kit had called to say he was coming here, Moriarty had offered to gather the dog’s bedding and toys and clear them out of sight for him. Kit had declined. Perhaps, he thought now, that had been a mistake.

He saw that it was seven o’clock and turned on the small television set in the room to watch a local newscast on Channel Three.

“Our top story this morning-the FBI and the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department have released the identity of the fourth fugitive from the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list to be found here in Los Angeles County. We’ll have that and more when we return.”

He held fast to the rabbit’s foot throughout the commercial. “Not Gabe, not Gabe, not Gabe,” he whispered over and over.

He waited impatiently while the newscaster basically repeated himself, then breathed a sigh of relief as the photo of an older man appeared on the screen. Kit had memorized the Ten Most Wanted list by now. He knew the man in the photo was Victor Elliot even before the newscaster said so. A man who had masterminded armored car robberies.

“There have been other developments overnight,” the anchorman said, “and the FBI and sheriff’s department will hold a joint press conference at three this afternoon. We are expecting more details on Elliot’s death at that time.”

Some footage of police cars outside a home were shown. “This bizarre string of murders began with the discovery on Sunday of…” They recounted the previous cases, showing pictures of the victims. They cut away from these to a reporter named Diana Ontora. She was asking people on the street what they thought of the “Top Ten Exterminators,” as she called them.

“They’re great. They’re doing what the cops can’t do,” a man in a shopping mall said.

Diana Ontora came back on. “While most of the people we talked to said they think of the Exterminators as good citizens who had simply had all they could take of crime, Alex Brandon, the lead detective on these cases, doesn’t agree.”

Hearing Brandon’s name, Kit moved closer to the screen. The newscast cut to a clip of Detective Brandon saying, “They’re not heroes.”

Apparently taken from the press conference Meghan had seen yesterday, the clip showed Ontora badgering the detective at a press conference. Kit concentrated on Brandon himself. He remembered him-the youngest of the detectives to talk to him after he killed Jerome Naughton.

The newscast cut back to a live broadcast of Ontora, who was standing on a city street. Some kids were making faces behind her and mouthing “Hi Mom.” Ontora appeared irritated as she said, “This set of cases has thoroughly frustrated the sheriff’s department, which has finally called the FBI in to help investigate. Diana Ontora, Channel Three News.”

The anchorman thanked her. Another photo appeared, this one of a young man. Kit was about to turn off the television when he realized this was a related story.

“Sources close to the investigation tell Channel Three that law enforcement officials believe one of the suspects may be using the identification of Eric Grady, a young man who died under mysterious circumstances in Malibu last year…”