Brenda Novak - The Perfect Murder

“Hello, Luther,” she said.

“You called?”

“Yes. I wanted to make sure you’d heard the latest.”

“That Latisha e-mailed Gloria?”

“Yes.”

“Gloria told me.”

“Okay.” She’d expected his negative energy to be difficult to tolerate, but it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought. Tonight Latisha’s father seemed uncharacteristically subdued. “I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“He drives a van,” he suddenly announced.

Jane brought her phone back to her ear. “What did you say? Who drives a van?”

“The man who took Latisha and Marcie. I been talkin’ to the girls on the street. They tell me Officer Boss drives a white utility van.”

“You don’t happen to have a license number, do you?”

“Not yet, but everyone I know is keepin’ an eye out.”

“I appreciate the information. I’ll call you if we find anything on this end.”

He didn’t answer right away. Assuming he wouldn’t, she started to hang up again, but the sound of his voice made her hesitate. “Thanks for callin’,” he said. Then he was gone.

Jane pursed her lips as she pressed the end button on her phone.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?”

Preoccupied with Luther’s phone call, she met her daughter’s curious gaze. “That was a man from the case I’m working on. I thought I disliked him, but…”

“You don’t?”

“Not anymore. I guess I never really did. I was just scared of him.”

“Does he think you’re nice, too?”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” she said with a laugh. “But maybe he’s figuring out that I’m not as bad as he thought.”

“Is he like Sebastian?” she asked.

No one was like Sebastian. “Not really.”

Kate used her chewing gum to blow a bubble that popped in her face. “It’s too bad Sebastian doesn’t have kids,” she said as she pushed her gum back into her mouth.

Sensing a setup, Jane cocked her head. “Why’s that?”

“He’d be a perfect daddy.”

Jane rolled her eyes at her daughter’s attempt to be sly. “That’s quite a hint, young lady.”

Kate’s smile stretched across her face. “If you married him, maybe he’d go with me to the Daddy Daughter Derby at LeAnn’s house this spring.”

Sobering, Jane took her child’s hands and pulled her close. The Daddy Daughter Derby was a day of waterskiing and barbecuing sponsored by one of her friends, who was being raised by a single dad. “Hey, don’t get your hopes up, okay? He lives in New York. He’ll be going back there once this case is over.”

The sparkle in Kate’s eyes winked out, but she lifted her chin. “I figured it’d be something like that. I was just sayin’.”

Jane smoothed her hair. “Your grandpa will take you.”

“Yeah. That’ll be fun,” she said, but there wasn’t any enthusiasm in her voice, and her shoulders slumped as she headed down the hall to finish her homework.

Dropping the remote, Jane sank onto the couch. All this time, she’d believed she was protecting her daughter by barring any potential love interest from entering her life. But maybe she wasn’t protecting Kate so much as she was denying her the chance to have a complete family.

No matter what happened with Sebastian, maybe it was time to start dating. Even if she didn’t deserve the happiness that could come from meeting a good man, Kate certainly did.

Something had changed. Latisha wasn’t sure what it was, but she woke up feeling lost, disoriented. She didn’t even know where she was…

Wait-she did know. She was in Wesley’s bed, which wasn’t so unusual. They’d spent a lot of time here in the past couple of days. He couldn’t get enough of her. He was always telling her how beautiful she was, how much he wanted to be with her. It was flattering to think she’d made such an impact on an older man-a cop, no less.

So where was he? He’d been with her earlier, but now he was gone.

She tried to remember what had happened but couldn’t. He’d turned off the movie, put on some music and brought out a pack of cards. Whenever she lost a hand, he made her have a shot. And she’d lost practically every one. But then what?

Had she gone to sleep or passed out? Maybe she’d passed out and he’d carried her to bed. She felt woozy.

Squinting, she shoved herself into a sitting position and tried to bring the window into focus. It was dark outside-nighttime. That felt strange in itself, as if part of life had passed her by. Last she knew, it’d been the middle of the afternoon.

“Wes?” she called.

The house remained completely silent.

Dizziness overwhelmed her, and she dropped onto the pillows. They’d drunk too much. Her head was still buzzing. Tempted to finish sleeping it off, she rolled onto her side, but a sense of unease kept her from drifting off again. That unease had to do with Marcie, with the fire in the barrel outside, with the blood spatter on Wesley’s shoes…

But Latisha didn’t want to think about those things. Wes had explained them-or most of them, anyway. She hadn’t asked him about the barrel or the shoes, but if he said he let Marcie go, he did.

The alternative was too terrible to contemplate. She preferred to believe him. Then she could like Wes-the Wes she’d come to know in the past few days, anyway. He’d told her about the man who’d murdered his wife and kid. No wonder he acted out. Latisha knew all about people who acted out. Her father was one of them. Her mother hadn’t been any better. The best person Latisha knew was Gloria, but that didn’t make Gloria easy to live with. Stubborn and demanding, she gave Latisha little freedom. All she cared about was seeing Latisha graduate from college so she could “be somebody.”

Gloria wouldn’t be happy to learn that Latisha was now planning to skip college and get married. But even Gloria would be jealous of her ring. No one in their family had ever received one like it. Wes had also promised her a nice house and a family. She’d be a stay-at-home mom, giving her children the kind of care she’d always longed for. And she’d never suffer the poverty she’d known growing up. She’d be middle class. College couldn’t bring her much more than that, could it?

She allowed her eyes to close, but opened them a moment later. If Wesley was gone, she could use his computer to see if Gloria had responded to her e-mail. He was so protective of his laptop, and of her, that he hadn’t let her check her e-mail today. He kept saying, “Later.” She got the impression he was threatened by Gloria’s hold on her, that he might refuse until she’d given him the two weeks she’d promised, which meant this could be her only chance.

Dragging herself out of bed, she stumbled down the hall. “Wes?” she called, but she knew he wasn’t home. He would’ve responded to her when she called out the first time. Since he’d quit chaining her to the floor, he was at her side every second. She just hoped that, wherever he’d gone, he hadn’t taken his computer with him.

When she rounded the corner, she found it in its usual place and breathed out in relief. “Still here!” she said with a giggle and began to sing, “Here comes the bride…here comes the bride…”

She sat down and logged on, but it was difficult to see the screen clearly in her current condition. After blinking several times, she made out the list of messages in her in-box and was rewarded when she spotted what she’d been looking for.

“Ta da!” She clicked to open it.

I’m so glad you’re okay, she read. Where are you? Can you tell me? E-mail me, call me, do anything you can. The police are looking everywhere for you. So is a woman I contacted from a victims’ charity. I’m getting anyone I can to help.