Chapter 54

CHAPTER 54

W e stood in front of Geoffrey's place. His hearse wasn't parked in front or in the alley behind, so he probably wasn't there. Max had filled us in on what the video had revealed about Harvey's truck and then the hearse trailing it out of town and coming back after the deed was done.

The guys had gone to Luke's, and now they both had submachine guns hidden under their coats. Max stood to one side of the door and pointed at the lock, looking at me. Luke took the other side. Maggs watched all of this with avid interest, probably wondering what the humans were up to now, alert to help.

"Pick it, then step aside," Max whispered.

I walked up and tried the door and it opened. "First rule of lockpicking: See if it's open."

He gave me an exasperated look, and Luke snorted.

Then Max said, "Please get out of the line of fire, Rose," the "dummy" part of that implied, and Luke pulled me behind him, where it was crowded because Poppy and Marley had come to join us. Luke was big enough to protect all of us.

"What are you doing here?" Max hissed.

"Marley found bugs in Oddities," Poppy whispered, and I said, "What?" but Max was focused on the open door.

"Go," he said to Maggs.

She was in the door like a shot.

Max looked over his shoulder. "Luke, keep them out." He slid inside, and after a few seconds came for Luke, making some sort of hand signal that was evidently sign language for the two of them.

The three of us waited outside like, well, idiots. I mean, on the one hand, if Max and Luke were going to start blazing away at Geoffrey, it would be good not to be there. On the other hand, I didn't see Geoffrey coming at them with a gun—if he was guilty, he'd pretty much been poisoning people all week—and I didn't think Max and Luke would just gun him down if he was unarmed.

Maybe.

Luke came back for us. "First floor is empty," he said, "but be quiet, Maggs and Max are clearing the second now."

"Shouldn't we wait out here until that's done?" Poppy said. "And what about the basement?"

"No basement," Luke said, the submachine gun looking small in his hands. "You got any idea what you're going to tell Geoffrey if he pulls up in his hearse and finds you standing in front of his place?"

"Girl Scout cookies?" I suggested.

"Do we have Girl Scout cookies?" Poppy said.

"Wrong time of the year," Marley said. "Starts in January."

"I'm beginning to see why heroes always work alone." Luke pointed to the door.

Inside, Geoffrey's funeral parlor was very funeral parlor-ish. More old-fashioned than Melissa's, Victorian to the point of Goth but still dark and dignified. And now that we knew how hard Geoffrey worked to get customers, really eerie. I realized I'd never been in here during my nineteen years in Rocky Start. Geoffrey Nice and his funeral home had just been part of the background, something taken for granted.

Max's voice carried down the stairs. "Clear."

So we all trooped up the heavily carpeted stairs to where Max waited at the top, Maggs at his side.

He jerked his thumb toward the first room. "His listening post."

Marley pushed past me and I followed.

A large display, more a big screen TV, was against one wall. On it was an outline of the town. And little red glowing dots were blinking in several places. There was also a computer on a desk in front of it.

"What the hell?" Poppy asked.

Marley pointed to the big screen at a spot at the end of State Street that I recognized: Oddities. "Where he planted bugs. See, that's the one I spotted. Inside the shop."

"And in the kitchen," Poppy said, the sense of violation evident in her voice.

"At least it appears like he didn't put any upstairs," Marley said. "And it looked like audio only. No camera."

I tried to remember when Geoffrey had been in my kitchen, but over all these years it was highly likely I'd made him a cup of coffee or tea and invited him back. Because, you know, Cheery Boost. But never upstairs, which was a relief.

"He heard what Harvey said to me," Poppy said. "That's why he was there when Marley tossed Harvey into the street. I said I hoped he died. Harvey, I mean. I hoped the serial killer would get him next."

Marley nodded. "Mr. Nice heard Harvey threaten Poppy and talk about marrying Mrs. Malone."

"What?" I said. Poppy had left out that part.

"Yeah, I was gonna tell you about that later," Poppy said.

Marley sat down at the computer and I braced myself. If he had a camera in my bedroom, I'd shoot him myself. But instead, we were looking at a very clear picture of State Street. Just like the one on Lionel's computer.

Max nodded. "He's tied into Lionel's CCTV feeds."

"Which is why he's not here," Luke said. "He saw us coming for him."

"Take Poppy and get back to Oddities," Max said, his voice grim.

"You need us," Marley said calmly. "Assuming you want to look at more than these screens."

"Since when are you a computer expert, kid?" Max said.

"Looked at a car engine recently, Max?" Marley said.

Max pointed up. "I'm going to check the roof. Just in case." He disappeared into the hallway.

I heard Poppy say "Mom?" from what sounded like the next room.

I went next door with Marley while Luke looked over the computer room.

She was standing in the middle of what must be Geoffrey's bedroom. It had a very neat lived-in look with a bedside table on each side, one with a lamp, a pitcher of water and drinking glass—on a coaster, of course—reading glasses, and a small bag of Pepperidge Farm cookies.

"So the Girl Scout thing wouldn't have worked anyway," Marley said.

The bed was made and covered by a bizarre multicolored quilt. Make that multi-patched, I noticed as I got closer to it.

"He made these," Poppy said, pointing to a basket by an armchair on the far side of the bed that had a quilt-in-progress in it, what looked like four squares folded over.

I looked at the work-in-progress and then the quilt covering the bed. The colors and fabrics were random, but the squares hinted at their own stories. Different fabrics, different colors, patterns, but each a life.

I felt a little woozy. "How many quilts are there?" I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

"The one on the bed, and the one on the shelf," Poppy said, her voice calm. "The pieces are all different sizes, but at least thirty squares each."

"Do you know what these are?" I said to her, aghast. I dropped the quilt onto the chair.

"Trophy quilts," Poppy said, shaking her head. "Man, do you know what we could get for these on eBay?"

I gaped at her.

"Stop freaking your mom out," Marley said to her.

"Why aren't you freaked out?" I asked her.

"Well, he's not here with a gun and a knife telling me he's going to cut my nipples off," Poppy said.

" That's what she said to you? " Marley said, his face twisting out of its usual placidity, and it was a good thing Serena was dead and gone.

"Concentrate on the trophy quilts," Poppy said, still calm. "I'm pretty sure this is evidence. I mean, like, for the real law. Because Mr. Nice was clearly not just killing here in Rocky Start."

Right then, Max came back in. I assumed he hadn't found Geoffrey hiding on the roof.

"Find anything?" Max said to me.

I pointed at the basket. "A four-square with a piece from Melissa's coat and from Sid's lab apron. And a loose square that's Harvey's flamingos."

I heard Poppy yell, "Mom!" sounding terrified, and I ran to find out where she'd gone to and almost got run down by Marley as he ran past me and then by Max on my other side.

At the end of the hall was a big open room with a bay window, set up exactly like our kitchen.

Exactly like.

"Okay, this is creepy," I began, and Poppy pointed to the peg board where we had pans and other cooking stuff hung.

Geoffrey had put a chair there and pushed the table up to it, putting another chair, I assume his chair, across from it. There were a few pans hung there, but the majority of the board around the chair was covered with pictures that looked like they'd been taken with his phone, some of them not centered, some of them with the subject blurred as if in movement, and some of them, the ones in the middle, perfectly focused on the subject smiling.

They were all of me. Smiling.

That's a lot of Cheery Boosts.

I lost my breath and then I felt Max next to me.

"You are not leaving my side until we get this guy," Max said.

I looked over at Poppy, but she was calm again, Luke on one side of her and Marley on the other. "Creepy," she said, but the terror was gone from her voice, and I realized she'd been alone with Serena, that maybe she would have been okay or at least not so scared then, so angry now, if she hadn't been alone.

Well, she wasn't alone now, nestled between two guys she trusted and who weren't exactly bound by the rule of law. But something was bothering me, beyond the stunning revelation that Geoffrey Nice had killed dozens of people and had been stalking me.

Something that I had seen.

Something my brain didn't want to accept.

"Hold on," I said, putting my hand up to try to steady myself. "Hold on."

"What?" Max asked.

I turned and walked back into Geoffrey Nice's bedroom, terrified. The basket with the pieces in it was on the floor in front of the chair. I picked it up and took out Melissa's damask and Sid's polyester. It was folded in half, another two squares sewn to it underneath, and when I unfolded it, there was a square of camo with part of a name and another square of blue-checked wool, old and faded, almost gray?—

"No," I said and tried to get my breath, hyperventilating now because I couldn't breathe, couldn't?—

"What?" Poppy asked, Marley behind her.

Breathe, I told myself. Breathe.

A blue-checked square.

I started to cry and then I couldn't stop. I'd been telling myself I was fine with Ozzie's death, he'd been old, I was over it, but I wasn't, that man had saved me and my daughter and kept us safe for nineteen years . . . and I hadn't saved him.

"Mama, what's wrong ? " Poppy said, her voice high.

I shook my head, sobbing too hard to speak now, too angry to speak, and she took the square of patches from me, puzzled and worried.

And then she saw it.

" No ." She almost screamed it.

"What?" Marley said.

She showed him the square, fighting back the tears, gulping between the words. " That's Ozzie's shirt. That's . . ."

"Rose?" Max's voice was distant, as if he were outside the building. But I could pick up his worry. " Rose? "

Oh, God, Ozzie .

I looked at Max, trying to speak around my sobs.

"Geoffrey killed Ozzie."