Блейк Пирс - If She Ran

“How about you? Has the love life picked up at all since the last time we had this awkward conversation?”

DeMarco shook her head and smiled. “No, but that’s by choice. I’m still enjoying the Land of One-Night Stands while I still can.”

“Does that make you happy?”

DeMarco seemed genuinely shocked by the question. “It sort of does. I don’t need the responsibilities and requirements that come with a relationship right now.”

Kate chuckled. She had never been in the Land of One-Night Stands. She’d met Michael while in college and married him a year and a half later. It had been the kind of relationship where she had started to understand that they would spend their lives together as soon as their first kiss.

“So where’s the next step in this case?” DeMarco asked.

“I’m thinking about revisiting the initial case rather than just using it as a reference. I’m wondering if there’s new information that might have come up within the Nobilini family. But…well, like your story about your girlfriend being killed while you sat on her parents’ sofa, it’s not territory that is easily ventured back into.”

“So more awkward visits and conversations tomorrow?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure yet.”

“Is there anything worth filling me in on before I step blindly into it?”

“Probably. But trust me…it would be better saved for the morning. Going into it right now is only going to keep us up late and screw with my sleep.”

“Oh. Those kinds of stories.”

“Exactly.”

They finished their current glasses of wine and paid their checks. On the way up to their rooms, Kate thought about the story DeMarco had just told—of that sad glimpse into her past. It made her very aware that she knew very little about her partner. If they were working in a normal relationship, seeing one another nearly every day rather than once or twice every few months, that would certainly be different. It made her wonder if she was doing her part to truly get to know DeMarco.

They parted ways at their rooms—Demarco’s directly across the hall from Kate’s—and Kate felt the need to say something. Anything, really, to let her know that she appreciated DeMarco’s willingness to open up.

“Again, I apologize about last night. It’s dawning on me that I don’t know you well enough to be making decisions like that for both of us.”

“It’s fine, really,” DeMarco said. “I should have told you about it last night.”

“We need to be intentional about getting to know one another. If we’re trusting each other with our lives, it’s kind of necessary. Maybe outside of work sometime.”

“Yeah, that would be nice.” DeMarco paused here as she opened her door. “You said you had some thinking to do…about the old case. The Nobilini case. Let me know if you need someone to ping ideas off of.”

“I’ll do that,” Kate said.

With that, they entered the rooms, ending the day between them. Kate kicked off her shoes and went directly to her laptop. As she booted it up, she called Director Duran. As she’d expected, he did not answer his phone but the line was then redirected to his assistant director, a woman named Nancy Saunders. Kate put in a request to have digital copies of the Nobilini files sent to her email as soon as possible. She knew that DeMarco had brought a few, but it was just the overview of the case. Kate felt the need to get back into the grittiness of the case, right down to the finer details. Saunders committed to getting it done, letting her know she’d have them by nine o’clock the following morning.

Cass Nobilini, Kate thought.

She’d thought of the woman almost right away, after Duran had told her about the possible connection. She’d thought of her again when she’d heard the wails and screeches of Missy Tucker as she grieved her murdered husband, and then again while talking to Jack Tucker’s friends.

Cass Nobilini, the mother of Frank Nobilini. The woman who had found it insulting and darkly improper for the media to latch onto the event of her son’s murder just because he had once worked closely with a few popular men in Congress as a financial advisor. Kate felt that she had been a fool to even pretend that this case was not going to lead her back to Cass Nobilini in some way.

It was that thought that remained with her for the remainder of the night, clinging to the forefront of her mind as she eventually lay down in bed and drifted off to sleep.

She could still see the crime scene in her head. The wear and tear of memory made it a little faded and rusty, but the haziness was stripped away whenever she dreamed about it. In her dreams, it was as clear as if she were watching television.

And she saw it that night, managing to fall asleep shortly after nine yet twitching and moaning slightly in her sleep as the midnight hour approached.

The scene: Frank Nobilini, killed in the alley and still holding his BMW keys. The case had eventually led her back to his home, a four-bedroom house in Ashton. She’d started in the garage, which had smelled faintly of lawn trimmings from a recent grass-cutting. She’d felt like she was in some haunted place, like Frank Nobilini’s spirit was there somewhere, waiting for her. Maybe in the empty space where his BMW was supposed to be but, at that time, had sat in a parking lot several blocks away from where his body had been found. The garage had been cold and like some weird tomb. It was one of the handful of scenes from her past that always came back vividly for reasons she had never understood.

There had been no clues of any kind at the house, no signs of why someone might want to kill him. One would think that maybe it was for his very nice car, but the keys had been in his hand. The house had been clean. Almost eerily so. No paperwork trails, nothing of note in the address books or the mail. Nothing.

In her dream, Kate was standing there, in the alley. She was touching the still-sticky smear of gore on side of the wall in the same experimental way a child might touch a stray drop of syrup on the kitchen table. She turned and looked behind her, wanting to look down the alleyway, but saw the interior of the Nobilinis’ garage instead. As if she had been invited inside, she walked to the wooden stairs that led to the door that would take her into the kitchen. She then moved in the way that only dreams allow, fluidly, almost being projected rather than moved by her legs. She somehow ended up in the bathroom, looking to the large tub/shower combo installed in the wall. It was filled with blood. Something was moving beneath the surface, causing little bubbles to rise to the top of the blood. When one would pop, it would send tiny droplets against the porcelain side of the wall.

She backed away, stepping through the bathroom doorway and into the hall. There, Frank Nobilini was walking toward her. Behind him, his wife, Jennifer, simply watched. She even gave Kate a harmless little wave as her dead husband lurched down the hallway. Frank walked very zombie-like, slowly and with an exaggerated gait.

“It’s okay,” someone said from behind her.

She turned and saw Cass Nobilini, Frank’s mother, sitting on the floor. She looked tired, defeated…as if she were waiting for an executioner’s blade.

“Cass…?”

“You were never going to solve it. It was over your head. But time…it has a way of changing things, doesn’t it?”

Kate turned back to Frank, still advancing. As he came by the bathroom door, Kate saw that some of the blood had come out of the tub and into the floor, seeping out into the hallway. When Frank stepped in it, it made a wet sucking sound.

Frank Nobilini smiled at her and raised his hand to her—slightly decayed and mottled. Kate slowly backed away, raising her own hands to her face, and let out a scream.