Mike Omer - In the Darkness

“On the street or any men she recently met?” Bentley was saying.

“I’m sorry?”

“I asked if Maribel had been mentioning any strangers she saw on the street or men she recently met.”

“No. Why?”

“Is there somewhere your daughter frequented?”

“She went to her job. She worked at the supermarket near her home.”

The woman kept asking questions. Endless questions, no answers. And throughout the conversation, Bentley seemed as if she were judging her, blaming her. Finally, Delia lost her temper.

“What do you want from me? I don’t know anything about Maribel. Once she was eighteen, she just left, no thank-you, nothing! When we talked, we always argued. Is that what you want to hear? Yes, we argued. She would never listen to anything I said. I’m her mother, and she wouldn’t listen. I just tried to help her grow up—that’s all! If you find her, can you tell her that? Can you please tell her I just wanted to help?”

Her voice was strange, and her vision was blurry with tears. She didn’t understand why they were there and what they wanted from her. She thought of the gas stove. Her eyes flicked to the kitchen’s doorway and back to Bentley. The way this woman looked at her . . . she knew. Delia didn’t know how, but she knew. She clutched her towel-wrapped hand.

“Thank you, Mrs. Howe,” Bentley said, her voice softening. She drew a card and handed it to her. “If you think of anything else about your daughter, please call me.”

They finally left. Delia locked the door behind them. Then she went straight to the kitchen and turned on the gas, the blue flames flickering. She touched her wrist to the fire. Just two seconds, maybe less. The sharp agony shot through her body, and she groaned, stumbling back, the emptiness and guilt hidden safely away behind a blanket of pain.

Zoe sat on the motel bed, her back propped against the bulky pillow, laptop on her knees.

She’d spent the last couple of hours trying to understand Schrodinger’s theories, reading some papers, even watching an online lecture. Though she understood the basics, the details quickly became incomprehensible. She became consumed by an irrational rage and hate against all physics and physicists everywhere.

Then her stomach grumbled. In all likelihood, her fury was mostly fueled by hunger. She was, like Andrea liked to say, hangry.

She could go grab a bite, but the thought of eating oily Chinese takeout as she did the evening before was depressing. She wanted to go out and eat somewhere. And she wanted company.

The obvious company was next door. But he was still sulking.

If she was honest with herself, it bothered her quite a bit. Tatum was usually easy mannered and pleasant. Sure, they had their disagreements here and there, and he could be a frustrating man to deal with, but she couldn’t recall a single instance in which he was really angry at her.

It was time to talk to him. Though she wasn’t sure what had made him fly into a tantrum, she’d make a blanket apology for the night before. She’d make amends, buy him dinner. The fact that she rarely ever apologized would only make it easier for him to understand she truly was sorry. She got up and rummaged in her bag and retrieved a short-sleeved white T-shirt and a pair of cutoff jeans. She put them on and glanced at herself in the mirror. She undid her hair, letting it drop on her shoulders. If anything positive could be said for the dry hot weather, it was that it made her hair look much better. Usually she struggled with spontaneous curls, knots, strange-looking clumps, and an overall fuzziness. But here, her hair was as straight and smooth as a shampoo commercial model’s. She smiled at the reflection. Not bad at all.

After grabbing her purse and keys, she left the room and walked over to Tatum’s door. She knocked on it. Her stomach rumbled. She knocked again.

He opened the door, looking tired and cranky. He wore a blue T-shirt and a pair of shorts. His eyes widened as he took in Zoe’s appearance and attire. But then his jaw clenched tight, and he frowned.

“Hey.” Zoe tried for a natural tone.

“I was just about to call you,” Tatum said.

“You were?” she asked, feeling encouraged.

“I found one open murder case from eight months ago that could be relevant to our investigation. The body of a twenty-two-year-old prostitute named Laverne Whitfield was found buried a few miles north of San Angelo. Her arms were tied with an electrical cord, and she’d been stabbed several times.”

“How did they find the body?”

“Wild animals dug it up.”

“Any suspects?”

“One. A guy who used to be her pimp, named Alfonse . . . something.” Tatum frowned. “I’ll send you the case file. You can check out the exact details. It looked like a solid case, but when it got to court, the defense managed to point at some issues in the investigations. They’d missed a crucial witness, the time of death turned out to be wrong, and the main suspect wasn’t Mirandized properly. A lot of the evidence was deemed inadmissible. The suspect walked.”

“And you think it’s relevant?” Zoe asked.

Tatum shrugged. “She’d been buried. But it was obviously done to hide the body, which isn’t the case with the current killer. The stabbing doesn’t match the current MO either.”

“And she was found by wild animals, which means she wasn’t buried deep.”

“Right. I don’t think it’s the same guy, but I wouldn’t rule it out either.”

Zoe nodded, agreeing with his assessment. “I wanted to talk to you about something else. Regarding last night.”

Tatum’s face remained impassive.

“I’m really sorry you feel like what I said was hurtful. I was trying to help, but I can see how you would see what I said as criticism. I can sometimes be a bit too blunt.” She expected his face to soften a bit, but it remained tense, full of hard edges and angry angles. “That thing in LA was years ago, and it’s totally legitimate to want to avoid talking about it. I promise not to mention it again until you’re ready.”

It almost seemed as if his jaw clenched tighter. Had he missed the initial part, where she’d apologized?

“So anyway, I’m sorry. I was about to go get something to eat. Do you want to join me? My treat.”

“You’re sorry I feel that way,” he said dryly.

Oh, he got that part after all. “Yes.”

“You now realize you may have been too blunt.”

This whole apologizing thing was not going as planned, and Zoe began to feel short tempered. “I really am sorry.” Third time she said it. “So do you want to join me? I think there’s a place—”

“I’m not hungry. Good night.” The door slammed.

She stared at the closed door in disbelief. Then, just barely containing the urge to kick the door, she turned around and stormed off to get some dinner on her own.

Harry sat in the motel’s lounge, just about to give up on his stakeout, when he noticed Zoe outside, walking briskly toward the street. For a moment, he almost didn’t recognize her, the T-shirt and the jeans so different from the pantsuits he saw her wear in Chicago. But then she turned her head, and there was no mistaking that face.

He lunged from the couch and dashed outside. “Dr. Bentley!”

She paused and turned around, looking at him distractedly.

“So nice to meet you here.” Harry mixed innocence and surprise in his tone, walking casually toward her.

Her gaze focused, and he halted in his place, a bit unsettled. As a child he would often worry that some people could read his thoughts, know about all the dark corners of his soul. Zoe’s eyes almost made him feel like that all over again.