“That’s tempting.” Becca had a terrific craving for a chocolate truffle and a stiff drink. She let the prospect of escape play out behind her closed eyes, a luxury suite in an exotic city, far away from bloody dolls and severed brake lines. She knew she couldn’t do it. “Jo, please, get out of here if you can. I’ll understand. I can’t go with you. She’s my mother. But you didn’t bargain for any of this. I don’t want you hurt because of me.”
“I won’t grace that suggestion with a reply.” Jo was steadier now, color returning to the high planes of her face.
And through the post-crisis calm and questions of ghosts and murder mysteries, Becca found room to marvel all over again at their shadows on the thin grass. Jo’s tall figure outlined darkly beside her smaller one, leaning against her. She still couldn’t believe her shadow might be finding a twin; but there Jo was — breathing and real and, thank Christ, safe for now.
Becca heard the far-off whine of a siren approaching. Pam Emerson was setting a land speed record. The Bentley sat sadly in the distant corner of the sunny lot, both its front doors open.
“What gift?” Becca whispered to the air.
Chapter Seventeen
“Tell me again, who could have gotten to your car last night?”
Pam had ushered them into a coffee shop, a break from the growing heat of the day and a chocolate opportunity for Becca. Still feeling a little unsettled, Jo watched Becca delicately consume a fudge cupcake.
“Jo?” Pam nudged her.
“Sorry. Anyone could have gotten to my car last night.” Jo sipped her latte. “It was parked on the street.”
“But you had visitors at the house, right? Not me, only the good Lord knows why, but other visitors?”
“Yes. Rachel Perry and Becca’s aunt came over. But I was outside on the front steps while they were there. I saw them come and go. Neither of them went near my car.”
“Damn. Okay. What are you two going to do for wheels?” Pam flipped through the pages of her notebook.
“I’ve leased something.” Jo expected the BMW to arrive shortly. She’d given the service the address of the coffee shop. “What about my office, Pam?”
“Damn place is clean of prints. We drew a couple of boot outlines from the floor, but they’re real generic boots. We’ll have the doll tested. Guess we’ll have to overlook any prints left all over it by some slimy scientist.”
Jo sighed, penitent once again. “I’ve apologized for touching the doll three times now.”
“Well, keep at it.”
Becca snickered into her coffee, and Jo wondered again at her resilience. Becca looked centered again, fully herself. They watched the Bentley roll by, hitched to the back of a tow truck, its image wavering across the shop’s paneled windows. It was nothing. A machine, a toy.
“And we have one hit from a hooker.”
“Excuse me?” Jo frowned.
“A working girl was standing at the corner of Broadway and Roy, late Tuesday night.” Pam consulted her notebook, her tone sardonic. “She saw ‘a man’ walking away from your office shortly after midnight.”
“A man,” Jo repeated.
“Real helpful.” Pam nodded. “A white man, she thinks. Average height, average weight, nothing distinctive at all. Just that he was wearing a long coat, which no one needs in Seattle in late June in the middle of the night.”
“So he could have been hiding something in it?” Becca asked.
“A crowbar, a baseball bat. Might be.” Pam folded her arms. “Okay. I’m strongly suggesting the two of you stay the hell away from that house. He knows you’re there. This perp burned through an iron lock with acid. He wouldn’t have any problems getting to you.”
“Well, that would be true wherever we went.” Becca drew her hands through her hair. “I don’t want to live my life looking over my shoulder every day. I hate this. And that house is still the best place to hear my mother.” She looked to Jo for confirmation.
“That’s not necessarily true. We’ve heard your mother speak from the Healys’ place and from my car radio. She seems to travel with us. We haven’t heard her in that house since—”
“She talked to me in that house last night.”
“Excuse me?” Pam asked. “The what? The mother what, now?”
“My dead mother.” Becca was smiling at Jo’s abruptly arched eyebrows.
“You heard her again last night?” Jo was confounded. “She spoke to you? Becca, you might have mentioned this!”
“She wasn’t talking to you,” Becca told Jo politely. “It was a private conversation.”
“All right.” Jo drummed her nails against the glass tabletop. “If it’s not too private, what did your dead mother say?”
“Well.” Becca hesitated, and that connection beamed again between them, light and effortless. “She told me I was right to be falling in love with you.”
Jo stopped drumming on the table. She found herself smiling back, not a broad grin, just a small lift of one corner of her mouth.
“The mother what, now?” Pam seemed to relent and slapped Jo on the back. “I mean, congratulations. I’m real happy for y’all. But you’re talking about hearing Madelyn Healy’s voice?”
“We have a lot to tell you, Pam.” Becca patted Pam’s hand with real sympathy. “And we will fill you in, I promise. But right now, we have to make plans for the day. My hip is vibrating for the fourth time, and I think it’s Rachel, yelling at me for missing our breakfast.”
Jo shook her hair out of her eyes, the motion needed to break that tingling bond with Becca. “Right. We stay in the house, then.”
Pam sighed. “Guess we can step up patrols in the neighborhood, but that won’t cover it. You guys own a gun?”
Becca shook her head in the same moment Jo nodded, and she looked at her in surprise.
“I’m licensed to carry a Magnum six thirty-two. It’s a revolver, Becca. A hand gun.”
Pam whistled softly. “What’s the caliber on that?”
“Three twenty-seven. I’m quite accurate with it.” Jo was berating herself for not retrieving the weapon the last time she had been home, the day they found her ruined office. She had taken only the music box with her, Consuelo’s gift. She spoke to Becca softly. “I thought you’d be uneasy around a gun. Given your history.”
Becca nodded, then shook her head. Then she nodded again, and shrugged helplessly. “I am. Uneasy with guns. Thank you for thinking of this. But I also think we need some protection.”
“I never, never advise civilians to arm themselves.” Pam regarded them pensively. “But arm yourself, Jo. I’m not sure why a scientist dense enough to handle evidence is sharp enough to carry a classy weapon like that, but go get that gun. You a good shot?”
“I have many skills.” Jo winked at Becca.
“All right.” Pam thudded Jo’s back again with the flat of her hand, and if she kept punching the bruise below her shoulder, Jo was going to deck her, but she liked her catching the Xena reference. “I’m coming by your place tonight. Don’t know how long I can stay, but it won’t hurt to have a visible police presence there for a while.”
Jo lifted her chin at Becca. “Would you like a calling of the clan?”
A natural shorthand had developed between them. She knew Becca understood her.
Becca grinned at Pam. “Bring popcorn, please. And prepare for at least three Xena episodes.”
Becca made her way upstairs, pulling on the bannister as covertly as possible. She felt Jo’s concern following her as palpably as touch.
“Those recordings of ghost voices flat knock me out.” Pam’s dazed voice drifted up the stairs. “Wish we could call Becca’s mother to the stand, let her fry the son of a bitch who’s messing with her girl.”