The One Safe Place

He touched her shoulder, careful to avoid the stitches. “It’s all right,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me this part if you don’t want to.”

“I do want to.” She was standing very, very straight and her gaze was looking at something he couldn’t see. “I had gone out for supplies for lunch, and when I got back, I saw Spencer sneaking out of the building. He had Tigger with him. I’m sure Grace had told him not to leave the apartment, but my apartment building was next to a park, and it probably was just too enticing.”

She smiled a little. “You likely can’t believe it, but before his mother died Spencer was a very mischievous little boy. Very active. Talked a mile a minute. She used to say she couldn’t keep him still long enough to tie his shoes.”

Reed smiled, too. It was a cute picture. He wanted to see the little boy like that again.

“He was sneaking out to play with Tigger at the park. He was so ashamed when he saw me coming after him. He’s not naughty, just mischievous. He came with me right away. And that’s when I saw Doug Lambert. Coming out of my apartment building.”

She put her hand over her eyes. “He saw me, too. I’ll never forget the look on his face. It was as if he’d seen a ghost.”

“Oh, my God.” Reed hadn’t heard this part. He hadn’t realized that Doug Lambert had killed the wrong sister. Suddenly he could feel the pit of guilt that must yawn before Faith Constable, and he marveled at her ability to keep her balance, to keep from falling into it and never coming out at all.

“That’s right. He thought he had just killed me. I honestly believe it wasn’t until he saw me on the street with Spencer that he had any idea he had killed Grace instead.”

It was too horrible. “You and your sister—were you twins?”

“No, but she was only a year older than I was, and we looked so much alike. She wore her hair the same way. We even shared clothes. I think he was just so angry, when he came in and heard her talking to Kenny on the telephone, when he heard what she was saying. Kenny told the police that they had been so playful, kissing each other through the phone, and talking about—”

He heard the moment her voice broke. She made a choking sound, struggling to hold back. And then, defeated, she ducked her head, trying to hide the tears. “I hate him,” she said. “I hate him so much.”

He didn’t think. He just reached out and pulled her up against him.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Go ahead. It’s all right to cry.”

She didn’t try to free herself. But she didn’t surrender to the emotion either.

“No, it isn’t,” she said tightly. Her voice was muffled against his shirt, but he could still hear that it was thick with tears that needed desperately to fall. “I can’t let Spencer see me crying.”

“Spencer is asleep,” he said. Her hair was as soft as the black satin sky, and he ran his hand down it over and over, as if he could stroke the tears out of her with the rhythmic touch. After a few minutes, he imagined that her muscles were relaxing, just a little

“Go ahead,” he said. “Let it go. It isn’t good to keep it all inside.”

He knew that all too well. He hadn’t cried, either, after Melissa died. He had taken refuge in liquor the way Faith was taking refuge in her anger. Either way, the unshed tears would poison you, until you hardly knew who you were.

She shook her head, but his shirt was warm and wet where she had been, and he knew she was losing the fight.

“Crying is weak,” she whispered. “I haven’t cried since the day she died. I can’t afford to be weak, can’t you see that? I have to be strong until they catch him.”

It was too cruel. He tightened his arms around her. And as he felt her slender body press against him, he was suddenly reminded of a small, broken bird he had once treated. It had been brought to him much too late. The bird had died in his hands.

Determination shot through him like a burning streak of light. She had come here for protection, and by God he would make sure she got it.

“No, you don’t,” he said softly. “You’re not alone anymore. Just this once, let someone else be strong for you.”

She tensed again, holding her breath. And then, weeks and weeks too late, this brave, grieving woman finally allowed herself the luxury of tears.

DOUG LAMBERT laughed to himself as he passed a policeman on the street. For a minute, he considered asking the cop for a dollar, just to enjoy the thrill of looking into his eyes and knowing the dumb bastard had no idea who he was.

But ultimately it wasn’t worth it. Cops were too stupid to live—fooling them wasn’t even very much fun.

While they scrambled around, putting out their asinine all-points bulletins about millionaire murder suspect Douglas Lambert and scouring all the obvious places in vain, Doug was hiding in plain sight.

Living at a squalid, smelly homeless shelter.

See, that was the key. The cops had no imagination. They never even thought of looking there. They believed he was rich, spoiled, incapable of enduring hardship, unwilling to sleep on anything but his expensive Turkish sheets or to eat anything but five-star cuisine.

Morons. They didn’t know a damn thing about Doug Lambert. He came from a filthy, wretched nothingness, and he was perfectly comfortable returning there for as long as it took.

Actually, it had been almost embarrassingly easy. Get a box of Clairol do-it-yourself color and go a few weeks without a shave or a hundred-dollar haircut.

Take out your expensive front bridgework and let your lips cave in over a toothless mouth. He felt smug to think how everyone had urged him to get implants—he could certainly afford them. But he didn’t like doctors, he didn’t like pain, and so he had settled for the best damn dentures on the market. See, now, what a good decision that turned out to be?

Then splurge five bucks on cast-off jeans and a T-shirt and a pair of stained sneakers. After that you could walk right up and spit in that flatfoot’s ugly face, and the damn fool would never know the difference.

Still, Doug knew he had to find out where Faith had gone. He could feel the urge building inside him, until it was so big now it was almost a physical pain. Sometimes he thought he couldn’t breathe around it.

He had to find her.

He wasn’t stupid enough to hire a private detective. The police would be looking for that. But there were other ways. A man like him knew plenty of useful people whose names weren’t in the Yellow Pages.

By the time he arrived back at the shelter, he had come to a decision. He wouldn’t wait any longer, with this anger, and the desire that was its twin, building inside him like a tumor. He was patient, but he wasn’t a waffler. He liked action.

He sat down, put his hand into the pocket of the drunk slumped next to him and pulled out a couple of quarters, staring in the man’s eyes the whole time, daring him to object.

And then he dropped them into the pay telephone in the hall and dialed a number he knew well but almost never used.

He needed relief, and there was only one way to get it.

Faith Constable had to die.

CHAPTER FOUR

“LET GO OF THAT, you diabolical son of a—”

Faith squatted down by the vacuum cleaner, tugging with all her strength at the drapery pull that was half-in, half-out of the Hoover-monster’s long silver snout. But she’d forgotten to turn the motor off, so the monster was still roaring, sucking in, as if green tassels were the most delectable treats on earth.

“I…said…let…go!”

It was too late. By the time she reached the power switch, the tassel had disappeared. The monster’s roar dwindled to a sick choking sound, and the air smelled ominously of burned rubber.

She bit back a curse, remembering just in time that Spencer was in the room. She glanced at him.

“Sorry,” she said. “This machine is giving me a hard time.”

Tigger had been watching her the whole time, whining and growling and thumping his tail. But Spencer just kept staring out the large picture window, which offered a spectacular view of the hickory, birch, sycamore and maple that dotted the Autumn House property, thickening until gradually they blended with the untamed woods beyond.

It was gorgeous. But she was pretty sure Spencer wasn’t communing with nature. His shoulders were stiff, his arms tightly wrapped over his bony chest, his eyes unblinking, probably fixed on his own tragic thoughts.