It was as if she had read his thoughts, and they scared her.
"We need to talk," she said.
He heard it in her tone. He knew it was coming. Divorce. The only question was which one of them would say the word first.
"I'm sorry," she said in a hushed voice.
"I'm the one who should be sorry," Stride told her.
He spread his arms wide, and she came to him. He folded up her wet body in his grasp. He saw anxiety in her bloodshot blue eyes. He put his hands up to her face, cupping her cheeks, and they both smiled weakly, trying to make the pain go away. He was conscious of her naked body on top of his, and he responded automatically. He shifted, wanting to enter her, but she let go and rolled off him onto her back, tugging gently on his shoulder. He followed her, sliding on top. His hands slid behind her neck. He went to kiss her, but she turned her face away. He felt her legs spreading for him, her knees bending and coming up. She didn't move; she just held onto him as he slid into her. The sex was quick and unsatisfying. Eventually, he eased down on top of her, and they lay like that for several minutes. When he felt gentle pressure from her hands, he knew to roll off her. She kissed him, a brush of her lips, then got out of bed quickly before he could touch her.
He heard her clean herself up in the bathroom and watched her as she hurried to put clothes on. She didn't say a word. When she was dressed, she hesitated in the doorway. She looked at him with an empty expression on her face, then turned and left, leaving him alone.
He was in the midst of uneasy dreams when the phone rang, startling him awake. He noticed the clock and groaned as he fumbled for the receiver. It was nine-thirty, an hour past his morning meeting.
"I'm late," he growled into the phone. "Sue me."
Stride expected a sarcastic barb from Maggie. Instead, after a pause, he heard a low, teasing laugh that was new to him.
"Is that Lieutenant Stride? You sound like you just woke up."
He lay back in bed and closed his eyes. "I did just wake up. And I won't admit to being Stride until I make a pot of coffee. So how about we call this a wrong number?"
That's too bad. Someone named Maggie told me you give great phone sex."
Stride laughed, confused now, but also intrigued. "Not that Maggie would know. Who the hell is this?"
"My name is Serena Dial. I'm with the Las Vegas Metro Police. Unfortunately, I have news about an old case that you're not going to like, Lieutenant"
Las Vegas. Stride was immediately awake. It didn't matter that three years had passed-he knew why Serena was calling. Rachel. He heard the girl's name in his head and saw her body again in that amazing photograph.
The silence stretched out on the phone. Finally, Stride said, "I'm guessing you have her in custody."
"No. In the morgue."
"Rachel's dead?"
He didn't understand. In his idle fantasies, when someone from Las Vegas called him, Rachel was still alive. Sometimes he imagined Rachel herself would call.
"Dead. Murdered. Dumped in the desert. I know this causes problems for you."
Stride wondered if he was dreaming. "When?"
"Last few days, as near as we can tell," Serena told him.
She really was alive, Stride thought Until now. "Do you know what happened? Who killed her?"
"Not yet," Serena said. "But if you can pick me up at the airport this evening, maybe we can work it together."
"You're coming here?"
"That's where the trail leads, Lieutenant To Duluth."
38
Maggie readily confessed to everyone who drove with her that her body wasn't made for driving a truck. She sat on a phone book to make sure she could see over the steering wheel, and the accelerator and brake pedals had blocks to allow her feet to reach them. Before she married Eric Sorenson two years ago, she owned a miniature Geo Metro. But Eric, an ex-Olympic swimmer, didn't fit in her small car, and so their first purchase together was a much larger vehicle, in which Eric could ride without hugging his knees on his chest.
Stride didn't like driving with Maggie. She wasn't the greatest driver to begin with, and the jury-rigged modifications to make her body SUV-compatible didn't help. He also suspected she drove more recklessly with him, purely out of spite. He tried not to jam his foot into an imaginary brake or to wince audibly at the many close calls.
It was early evening on Thursday. Serena Dial's plane from Las Vegas, via Minneapolis, was expected in half an hour. As they climbed farther from the lakeshore, heading up Miller Hill toward the Duluth airport, the air roaring between the open windows got warmer.
Maggie shook her head. The light ahead of them turned red, and she honked her horn as she sped through the intersection, not slowing down.
"She was alive the whole damn time," Maggie said. "Archie Gale's going to love this."
Stride nodded wearily. "Dan won't be happy to learn that he prosecuted a man for murdering a girl who wasn't dead. I don't think it's going to give his campaign a boost."
"Have you told him yet?" Maggie asked.
"Not yet I asked K-2 if I could hold off until tomorrow. The detective from Vegas agreed to keep it under wraps until we could tell Emily."
Maggie frowned. "I hope Emily doesn't fall to pieces. Imagine killing your husband for killing your daughter and then finding out he was innocent."
Stride shrugged. "Innocent of murder, maybe. I still think Graeme was sleeping with Rachel."
"The question is, what the hell really happened to her?"
"She had to have help disappearing," Stride said. "No way she left town on her own. We would have picked up some trace of her. Maybe she got someone to drive her to Minneapolis. She disguised herself and hopped a bus from there. The friend drove back to Duluth and kept quiet"
"And the evidence we found at the barn? The bracelet, the blood, the footprints?"
"I know, that's the problem. We know Rachel was at the barn that Friday night" Stride rubbed his lower lip and stared out the window at the fast food restaurants and liquor stores passing by. "Okay, what about this? Rachel gets home that night Graeme wants a rendezvous, since Emily's out of town. He and Rachel drive to the barn, climb in the back of the van, and start steaming up the windows."
Maggie frowned. "Why go to the barn? No one's home, why not just do it in the bedroom?"
"Who knows? Maybe the barn was their place. Maybe Graeme didn't tell her what he had in mind. One way or another, he gets her out there. But something goes wrong. Maybe Rachel says no this time, and that's not what Graeme wants to hear. Or maybe they're playing a kinky game with the knife that starts to go too far. Rachel manages to get out of the van, and he chases her. They struggle, she loses her bracelet, her shirt is torn. He wrestles her back to the van."
"And then what?" Maggie asked. "Remember, he didn't kill her."
"I know. Graeme suddenly comes to his senses. He's never gone this far before, and it scares him, like a cold shower. Or maybe it's just like what happened with Sally. He hears another car coming and hightails it out of there. He pretends it was all a mistake, drives Rachel home, and tells her to forget the whole thing."
Maggie jammed on the brakes as a car turned in front of them. She squealed into the left lane and roared around the other car, shooting a dirty look through the window.
"But when they get home, Rachel is scared shitless," Maggie speculated.
"Me, too," Stride said.
"Big baby. You taught me to drive like this, you know. So what happens next? Rachel is scared. She's fed up."
"Right She calls a friend and says, 'Get me out of here.' And she's gone."
"Okay," Maggie acknowledged. "Then why not take her own car? Why not pack some clothes to take with her?"
Stride bit his lip, thinking. "Panic, maybe. She doesn't want to be found, and the car is easy to trace. She doesn't want to stick around another minute, even to pack. Maybe she thinks Graeme is going to try again, so she doesn't even go in the house with him."