28. Diem

The red rubber ball had been abused over the past two days to the point I worried I might break the damn thing and spill sand—or whatever it contained—everywhere.

Giving up the case was killing me. Tallus didn’t see it. He’d taken it as a personal affront, but I couldn’t wait around for him to get hurt again. Not on my watch, and the risks mounted the more we learned. Someone was paying close attention to everyone involved in the Roan Guterson murder. Someone wasn’t satisfied and was seeking revenge.

For whatever reason, Noah had taken the coward’s way out. Beth was dead under suspicious circumstances. Natalia had almost been poisoned. Olivia and her family had barely escaped their house being burned down.

What next?

How long until our nose-poking drew unwanted attention?

Had Tallus not been tagging along, I might have risked it and kept looking for answers—despite Doyle and Fox’s protests. My welfare was my problem. But Tallus was glued to my hip, and stopping the investigation was the only way to ensure he stayed out of danger.

I talked to Doyle the previous day about Olivia’s house, strongly suggesting he bring her in for questioning. The cocky homicide detective didn’t like being told what to do, but I knew, in the end, he would listen. It was better this way. Let them figure shit out.

After I chatted with Doyle, I called Faye to arrange a meeting at the office. She’d refused to come on a Sunday, claiming she was busy. She insisted on seeing me later Monday afternoon. She was back at work but informed me she could swing by around five. I let her assume I had information about the case. I did, technically, just not the information she was expecting. The woman was convinced her husband had been unfaithful and wanted the names of his lovers on a list, but she wasn’t getting any. His crimes were something else altogether.

Hopefully, my discoveries would help change her attitude about Noah so she could mourn him properly as the faithful husband he was, murder notwithstanding. I wasn’t going to be the one to reveal he was likely involved in a 2010 hit-and-run. The detectives could have that privilege.

At quarter to five, my phone rang, and Doyle’s name flashed across the screen. I let it go to voicemail, knowing Faye would be there any minute. I didn’t have time for a chat. Besides, I’d given him everything. What more did he want?

I squeezed the rubber ball and eyed the pack of cigarettes I still hadn’t trashed. More than half of it was gone, smoked away over the past two days thanks to my weak will. Tallus had crawled inside my veins and was poisoning me. I couldn’t shake him from my system. At times, I wasn’t sure I wanted to and wished I had the words to express myself. But I didn’t.

I longed to be another man, one who could do normal things like date sexy clerks from the records department. Like cuddle in bed and kiss without feeling ten kinds of awkward.

But forming bonds with people was a recipe for disaster.

I’d tried once and failed, swearing I’d never go there again.

Dismissing Tallus and the case was for the best. Cut him loose. Clean break. Let him go. Don’t look back.

I would think twice before enlisting his help again. It had been a dumb decision, and the repercussions would likely haunt me for months.

He could go back to his routine. Forget about me. Join his friend Memphis at Gasoline and dance with guys his own age who didn’t have a metric ton of bullshit preventing them from being a normal person.

Down the line, some lucky schmuck would snag him and keep him.

But that guy wouldn’t be me.

A knock sounded at the door. My phone display read four fifty-six. Faye. I tucked the ball and cigarettes into a drawer and called out, “Come in.”

Faye appeared to have come straight from the office. What did she do for a living? I couldn’t remember. It was likely in my folder of information. It didn’t matter. Regardless, she looked less like the grief-stricken wife I’d met a few weeks back, who wore frumpy clothes and dark circles under her eyes. That afternoon, Faye wore slacks, heels, and a nice blouse. It complimented her full figure, accenting her best features. She carried a bulky leather purse over her shoulder. Her makeup gave her once sallow cheeks some color, and her eyes were brighter, shimmering with a spark of new life.

“Mr. Krause.” She held out a manicured hand to shake. “I was so happy to hear from you.”

If I were a different person, I’d have complimented her spirited looks, but since I wasn’t, I shook the offered hand and motioned for her to sit.

She lowered herself to the edge of the chair, a creaky molded plastic orange one in poor repair that I’d pulled from my waiting area by the door.

Worry creased her brow, and she wrung her hands. “I suppose you have news.” She blew out her cheeks. “I told myself I wouldn’t cry. I’m ready.”

I toyed with the edge of a file folder. “You can relax, Mrs. Willard. It’s good news.”

Murder aside, but again, it wasn’t my job to share that part. Doyle could shatter the pretty picture I was about to paint and unearth the skeletons in Noah’s closet.

The ridges along Faye’s forehead grew more pronounced. “Good news?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m confident in saying I don’t believe your husband was having extramarital affairs. I’ve done extensive surveillance and research over the past few weeks, and I discovered Olivia, the woman who visited your house, was an old university friend. They—”

“What do you mean he wasn’t having an affair? Yes, he was. You said so.”

“No, ma’am. I mentioned the discovery of emails that alluded to the possibility he was involved with—”

“A woman named Beth. Yes, I remember distinctly. You said she’s Olivia’s friend. Beth Rowell. I looked her up.”

“Correct, and Noah was involved with Beth—”

She slapped a hand on the desk. “See? Noah was involved with Beth.”

“Ma’am—”

“You just said it.”

“No, I didn’t. He was involved with Beth in university.” I spoke louder to prevent her from interrupting me again. “They dated when they were in their early twenties, long before you were involved with him. I found no proof that he was recently with either woman in the manner you suggest.”

Faye shook her head. “No. You’re mistaken. He was. My husband was sleeping around. First with Olivia. You can say what you want, but I saw them together. The chemistry was undeniable. I have no doubt about her. When you mentioned that Beth woman, I looked her up, and she wasn’t familiar, but I realized it didn’t matter. You were right.”

“But I never said—”

“After that, you told me about that slutty bitch at the university, asking if Noah might have known her.” Faye huffed. “I didn’t have a clue who you were talking about. I knew Noah went to York, but when I looked her up. Wowsers. Yeah. I had no doubt. None at all. He probably wanted to fuck her back when he was a student and couldn’t, so when the opportunity arose, he jumped all over it. I hope I look that good when I’m her age.”

I’d been about to cut in again, but the words died on my lips, and my blood ran cold. I stared at Faye as she continued to rant, the gears in my brain stalling on what she’d said. Natalia. When had I mentioned Natalia? I hadn’t.

Shit.I’d asked if Professor Shore ever taught Noah while at York. There were two Professor Shores.

“Let me tell you, Mr. Krause. A wife knows when her husband is unfaithful, and Noah’s eye always wandered to the beauty queens. I noticed. When I pointed it out, he always denied it. Told me I was delusional. But I was right. He had more than a wandering eye. More like a wandering cock.”

She brushed invisible dirt off her blouse sleeve as she sniffled, then glanced at her painted nails. “I used to be beautiful. Not like that blonde Barbie bimbo Olivia, but I had my day. I’m much prettier than Beth. She wasn’t much to look at.”

My phone rang, and I briefly flashed my attention to the screen and saw Tallus’s name.

Faye stopped talking as it continued, and she too stared at the device, her eyes hardening to granite.

When I slid my hand toward the device, she snapped, “Don’t answer that.”

Our gazes locked.

She knew I knew, but what could she do about it? I was more than twice her size.

The question answered itself when I reached for the phone, and she raised a pearl-handled revolver from within her handbag and aimed it at my face. The same revolver she claimed to have found among Noah’s stash of weaponry after he died.

“I said, don’t answer it.”

I stilled, keeping my hand on the desk where she could see it, fingers splayed. The device stopped ringing but immediately started again. I ignored it. If I knew anything about Tallus, it was that he was relentless. He would keep calling until he got through.

The room grew eerily quiet. Faye held the gun, and I held my ground, unflinching. Unmoving.

“I was afraid it would come to this. Call it a hunch, but I just knew you were going to try to tell me I was wrong.”

Fear was a funny thing. A familiar thing. A thing I’d experienced on so many different levels throughout my entire life. It was like a worn hoodie or beat-up pair of Converse. Fear was so common in my youth that if there was ever a lack of fear, it was almost more frightening. As a result, very few things scared me anymore. I was immune.

Even with a gun in my face.

During my childhood, fear set my system out of whack. The dump of adrenaline into my veins would make me cower, or run, or scream, or cry. Defending myself against a threat had never occurred to me. Not when I was smaller than the enemy. As a child, fear engaged the act of flight.

As an adult, the effects were more internalized, never visible on the surface. Not if I could help it. My heart ticked faster, beating mercilessly against my ribs. The blood inside my veins slowed and thickened. My senses grew alert to minute changes. Sounds. Smells. Touch. Taste. Sight. Everything was more amplified. My muscles coiled. My breathing slowed.

Fight kicked in.

Everything I’d learned about fear, I’d learned from my father.

So the gun in my face didn’t scare me, but it made me stop and think about how I wanted to proceed.

“I’m sick and tired of men thinking they are better than women. Thinking they know more than women. That they deserve more than women. That they can fool a woman. Well, guess what, Mr. Krause. I’m no fool.”

Process. Think.

Faye huffed a humorless laugh. “Cat got your tongue? I should have known this was the bullshit answer you’d give me. Had there been a female PI in this fucking city, I’d have hired her instead, but there wasn’t a single one. Not one. Can you believe that? How, in a city of millions, are there no female PIs? Explain that.”

She wasn’t looking for an answer, so I stayed quiet. Watchful.

“You’re just another man who thinks he can walk all over me. Well, you can’t. I know Noah was cheating, and you’re sitting there telling me I’m wrong. I’m not wrong, but you’re going to defend your species, aren’t you? You had one job, Mr. Krause. One. I wanted a list of the whores fucking my husband. That’s all.”

Process. Think.

“I took a chance on you, and it started off fine. You were on board. You saw what I saw. You agreed it all looked suspicious. You gave me good leads. Solid leads. Beth. Professor Bitch Face. But now you’re going to sit there and retract everything? You’re going to take my husband’s side and pretend he was faithful? I don’t think so. It doesn’t work that way.”

My phone rang again. Tallus. The display said it was after five thirty. He would be done work by now. Goddammit. If I didn’t answer, he would drive over here to confront me face-to-face, and it was the last thing I needed.

“Got nothing to say?”

I had a lot to say, but all that made it past my lips was, “You killed your husband.”

Faye smirked. It was an ugly thing, and I took back all the flattering thoughts I’d had when she’d walked in the door. “Of course I did. He was a lying, cheating bastard, and he didn’t want to admit it. He called me paranoid. No, he got what he deserved. It was the easiest thing in the world to feed him pills when he was half in the bag. Men are stupid and gullible. Like feeding candy to a baby.”

Beth, Natalia, and Olivia had fallen prey to this woman’s psychotic delusions. I couldn’t sort out the nuances, but I knew I was right. Faye was out for blood. Vengeance. She’d hired me to find the women she thought her husband had been with, but she’d moved long past listening and had set out to destroy.

Faye had no intention of keeping me alive, but to this point, her methods of killing were meant to look self-inflicted or accidental, and they’d been sloppy and unsuccessful in two cases.

A gun was outside her modus operandi. Could she pull the trigger?

Was I going to risk it?

When my phone rang again, I didn’t flinch. I knew Tallus. The next step was breaking down my door.

But the constant interruption annoyed Faye and offered me the distraction I needed. She flicked her attention to the device, and in that momentary lapse, I threw myself sideways and to the floor behind the desk.

The gun went off, and bits of the wood-paneled wall behind me splintered and flew into the air.

Faye’s chair clattered to the floor as she pushed to her feet, screeching, “Get out from under there.”

Sure, you crazy fuck. I’m just going to stand up and let you shoot me.

“Get out,” she screamed. Another shot. This time, the desk near my head cracked, and pieces of the particleboard exploded.

I wrenched a drawer open and snagged the first item I saw—Tallus’s red rubber stress ball—and I whipped it toward her, buying myself another fraction of a second. It thudded against the wall on the other side of the room. I grabbed a stapler next and launched it.

Faye screamed and shot again.

That was three.

Keep going, you bitch. Empty it.

In our first meeting, Faye had shown me pictures of the guns Noah had collected. I’d admired the revolver specifically because it was an antique. A gorgeous piece unlike any I’d seen before. A collector’s item. It was a single-action, five-round cylinder. Of all the choices Faye had had, it was the least practical if her intent was to kill. The revolver required cocking between each shot, so unless she was a professional marksman—which she wasn’t—it would slow her down.

I fished inside the drawer for more ammo, but there was nothing else worth throwing. Without thinking, my back planted against the desk, I heaved the desk chair off the ground and launched it over my head.

The second it left my hands, I rounded the desk, clocked Faye as she avoided the latest missile, and was about to launch myself at her when she spun and fired at random. The shot went wide, landing with a deadening thunk in the office door several feet away.

Despite what I knew about the gun, instinct made me dive back behind the desk for cover. Once hidden, I cursed the missed opportunity. I’d had a window. She couldn’t have fired twice in quick succession. I could have taken her down.

Four shots.

One left.

But I was fucked.

I had nothing to throw, and my hiding place was a joke. If I thought for one second some friendly neighbor might hear the shots and call the cops, I was dreaming. This building was a carcass on a good day. There were more vacant offices than full ones, and at this time of night, the likelihood was they’d all closed shop for the day.

I was the only idiot illegally living where he worked.

Listening to Faye’s labored breathing, I calculated my next move. I could run and take my chances that she would shoot erratically again. I could…

“Stand up,” she demanded.

I didn’t. The woman really did have a low opinion of men. Well, we weren’t all stupid.

Three full minutes passed. No sound outside our ragged breathing. What was she doing? Did she realize the predicament she was in? If I lived, she was fucked. If I died, she had yet another unexplainable crime scene to cover.

Was she calculating a new strategy?

I strained to hear.

Prepared to take my chance and run, the unthinkable happened.

A knock sounded at the door. Tallus called out, “I know you’re home, Guns. I saw the Jeep in the parking lot. You’re not ignoring me. I’m coming in.”

And he did because the fucking door was unlocked since I had a fucking client with me. I wanted to scream.

There was no pause or hesitation.

As the doorknob turned and Tallus pushed his way inside, I stood with a roar, hoping to distract or disorient Faye so she wouldn’t take her last shot at an unsuspecting Tallus the second he showed his face.

I threw myself over the desk toward her as the final shot echoed in my ears.