Someone honked a horn, and Vince quickly shut the trunk. Our cars were blocking traffic. I saw a martial light come into his eye as he walked back toward the horn honker, badge coming out of his pocket.
I looked back at the closed trunk. “Parrish did that, too. Froze some of his victims.”
“Don’t touch anything,” Reed warned me, quite unnecessarily. If he hadn’t been holding on to me, I think I would have run home. Maybe something in my body communicated that to him, because he asked Ethan to drive me home and wait for them there.
“I can drive,” I said.
He shook his head. “Ethan drives. Both of you, wait outside the house. Before you go in, I want to make sure you don’t have any visitors.”
We had just pulled in the driveway when my cell phone rang. I recognized Frank’s number.
“Irene?” I could hear the worry in the way he said my name. Jumping to a conclusion, I was ready to kill Ethan for calling him, but then Frank said, “I just heard the news on the radio. Are you okay?”
For a wild moment, I wondered if the events of thirty seconds ago were already being broadcast. “What news?”
“You. The press conference.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yes, that.”
“I didn’t think it would air outside the local area.”
“You sounded shaken. And you sound shaken now. What’s going on?”
I ignored an impulse to gloss over events until he got home. I’d have too much explaining to do. And since he’d heard the press conference, trying to hide my feelings from him was an equally bad idea.
“I’m not really doing so well, to be honest, but Ethan and Ben have stayed with me, and now Reed and Vince are here. Kind of. They won’t let me go in the house, but Ethan’s waiting with me. Vince and Reed are at the end of our street, looking at a frozen body in the trunk of a car. She has moths painted on her. Or maybe inked.”
There was a silence, then he said, “What?”
I didn’t blame him. It wasn’t exactly a clear explanation. So I started over, with the story of the call from Aaron, then went on to the stories of the garden hose, Marilyn Foster, and finding the car. Although I hit a couple of rough patches in the telling, on the whole, talking to him about it calmed me down. I suspect it had the opposite effect on him, but he said, “I’m going to get home as fast as I can.”
“More important to me that you get here safely.”
“We’re still a couple of hours away from Las Piernas. God, I’m so sorry I haven’t been there with you, Irene.”
“Just tell me you and Jack and the dogs had a good time.”
“We did, but-”
“But nothing. I’m going to be so glad to see you.”
“Me you, too. Let me talk to Ethan.”
I handed the phone over. Ethan listened for a minute, then said, “Of course I’m staying here until you come home. Ben will be here any minute now-I texted him while Irene was talking to you.” He glanced at me, then away. He added in a too casual voice, “Give Vince and Reed a call, will you?… Not yet, but you know how they can be… We’ll be okay. See you soon.”
He handed the phone back. Frank repeated that he’d see me soon, told me to call him if I needed to talk again between now and when he got home. He told me he loved me, and I said the same back, not caring who overheard us.
I hung up and turned to Ethan. “I should have known he’d find out, but-thanks for not tipping him off before now.”
He shrugged. “I was tempted, but I figured it was your decision to make.”
I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. It didn’t help. “I need to wait outside the car.”
“Claustrophobia kicking in?” he asked, as we opened the doors.
“Yes.”
“I’m calling the paper,” Ethan told me.
I nodded, even as I wondered what the hell was happening to me that I hadn’t thought of that on my own.
After Ethan had talked to him for a while, John asked to talk to me. I told him what little I knew, which was no more than what Ethan had given him.
“I have to go,” John said suddenly. “Wrigley wants me at the board meeting. Tell Ethan to get something to me before deadline.” He ended the call before I could ask him what, if anything, he wanted me to write up.
I paced on the front lawn, watching as half a dozen patrol cars and a crime scene mobile unit pulled up at the end of a street.
“Wonder if Wrigley’s going to hold another press conference,” Ethan said, clearly trying to distract me. “He was in his glory this afternoon.”
The comment made me halt my pacing and stare at him.
“What?” he asked.
“Wrigley’s up to something.”
“Isn’t he always?”
“He’s asked John to come to a board meeting.”
“That’s happening a lot lately. You know how things are. Probably means more layoffs, which means I’m about to lose my job.”
“You don’t sound too broken up about it.”
He looked away, and in that moment I realized how wrong I was. When he looked back at me, he said, “Aren’t you in the same place? I mean, the threat hangs over you long enough, you half wish it would happen just to get it over with.”
“I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of hope, but-I don’t know. Right now, I’m just trying to figure out Wrigley. He’s never invited other media into the building. Even when newsworthy events happened in the building itself. Did you see who he was hanging out with after the show?”
“The show, is it? Well, I guess it was. No. I was too interested in making sure you got out of there without being buttonholed.”
Two of the patrol cars headed down toward the house, and minutes later, a couple of uniformed officers went into my backyard. A police helicopter began hovering overhead.
I didn’t believe for a moment that the killer was lounging around the neighborhood, let alone inside my house. But I kept thinking of Nick Parrish’s love of concealed traps and decided to let Vince and Reed and the uniforms clear the house. They did this quickly, and the patrol cars and the uniforms drove off. Reed stayed behind and asked me more questions about the time of night I first heard the water running, and other details, but it was hard to see how my answers could be of help. He thanked me, though, and hurried off to join Vince. Before long, the helicopter left as well. Fortunately, when the media helicopters arrived, they were focused on the activity near Marilyn Foster’s car.
Ben texted Ethan that he had been asked to help the coroner’s office but would join us as soon as he could.
I paced again. Ethan, who had taken out his laptop and started to write the story, suddenly halted, looked up at me, and said, “The universe is expanding.”
“What?”
“I just thought I’d let you know. Saw that on a science program. A show about Einstein and Hubble and a bunch of those guys. The Big Bang theory. There was this British scientist named Hoyle, and in the program-believe it or not, on this show, they actually used the phrase ‘according to Hoyle.’”
From this I understood he was making a determined effort to amuse me. He proceeded to give a recap that had a few black holes of missing information in it, but his retelling kept me distracted and probably more entertained than the original show would have. When he finally ran down, he said, “I just try to keep that in mind, you know. When things get shitty with work and all. There are bigger things than the Las Piernas News Express. Than assholes who try to bother you with garden hoses. And bigger than even-” He broke off and shook his head. “Well, no, I don’t want to make it sound as if I don’t care about those women, or as if I don’t understand why you’re scared.”
“Bigger even than Nick Parrish and his minions,” I said. “You’re right, Ethan. Letting myself become obsessed with him plays it just the way he wants it. I’ve got to keep perspective, not give him the attention he wants.”