Belching loudly as the jalapeños did battle with the acid in his belly, he went back to Hernandez’s report, and the copy of Costanza’s address book she’d made for him, the request for which had earned him one of the poisonous glares she thought he didn’t know about, but that were visible enough in the reflective glass of the wire-reinforced window in the squad room door that he could see them as clearly as if he were facing her.
She’d glared, but she’d done as he asked, which would get her good marks on her first review. By then, he hoped, she’d have worked up enough trust in him to glare directly at him instead of waiting until she thought he couldn’t see.
Picking up his phone, he jabbed in the digits for the number listed for a Beverly Amondson, one of the people Hernandez had been unable to contact that afternoon. There were three of them, and Amondson’s name — along with Rochelle Newman’s — sounded vaguely familiar to Oberholzer, though he couldn’t quite place it. Beverly Amondson answered on the second ring, and she sounded genuinely upset that Costanza was dead. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard yesterday,” she told him. “We’ve been friends since college and it’s just so hard to imagine anyone would want to kill her.” As to the possibility of a boyfriend, she’d agreed with Rosenberg and everyone Hernandez had talked to. “She hadn’t had a boyfriend in years. In fact, we were joking about it at lunch a few months ago.”
A faint bell sounded in Oberholzer’s mind, and then he remembered. Reaching for the copy of Costanza’s Day-Timer that had gotten him yet another glare from Hernandez, he flipped through it quickly until he found the page from last spring with the lunch date notation. “Would that be the one at Cipriani’s?”
“How did you know that?” Bev Amondson asked, then answered her own question. “Never mind: the Day-Timer, right? Andrea wrote down everything. I bet she even had all our names, didn’t she?”
“Only initials. B being you, I assume, along with R and C.”
“That would be Rochelle and Caroline,” Bev supplied.
“Last names?” Oberholzer asked, but as both names were on the list Hernandez had given him of people she hadn’t been able to reach, he was pretty sure he already knew.
“Newman and Fleming,” Bev told him, confirming what he already suspected.
Another bell rang in Oberholzer’s memory, and he flipped through the calendar again. “Is Caroline Fleming the same Caroline who got married last month?”
“The very one. To the most fabulous man. We all adore Tony. And after what happened, we’re all so happy for Caroline.”
“I’m afraid I’m not following.” Oberholzer repeated. “Something happened to Caroline Fleming?”
There was an instant’s silence, then: “Her husband. Not Tony — her first one. He—” Bev Amondson hesitated a moment more, then finished. “He got killed in Central Park last year. One of those stupid things — he went running after dark and a mugger… ” Her voice trailed off for a moment, then picked up again. “Well, I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I?”
Now the bell in Oberholzer’s mind was ringing loud and clear. “Was Caroline Fleming’s husband’s name Brad? Brad Evans?”
“Good Lord,” Beverly Amondson breathed. “How did you know that?”
“I’m a homicide cop,” Oberholzer replied. “It’s my business to know.”
After he’d hung up the phone a moment later, he went back to the report Maria Hernandez had made on her progress with the phone book. Next to Caroline’s name was a notation: Sick — will follow up tomorrow.
“Sorry, Detective Hernandez,” Frank Oberholzer said out loud to his empty kitchen. “I think I’ll take this one myself.”
CHAPTER 31
When the dream began, Laurie knew she wasn’t asleep. but she had to be asleep, because if she wasn’t asleep, how could she be dreaming? But if she was asleep, how could she remember the day? And she remembered all of it, remembered getting up early and feeling much better than she had the day before; good enough to go to school.
Remembered getting dressed and going down to the kitchen where Tony had breakfast all ready. There’d been fresh scones — ones Miss Delamond had made — and they’d been so good she’d eaten two of them, even though she knew she shouldn’t. But it hadn’t really been her fault, since Tony had kept telling her to have another, even splitting it apart and buttering it, then putting it under the broiler and toasting it until it was so golden brown and smelled so good that she just couldn’t resist it.
She remembered going to school, too. Meeting up with Amber Blaisdell just before lunch, then sitting with her at lunch, displacing Caitlin Murphy to the chair at the far end of the table where Laurie herself had found herself stuck on the first day.
After school she’d come home to find her mother sick in bed, and felt like it must have been her fault, even though her mother had told her it wasn’t.
She’d had dinner with Tony and Ryan — who seemed like he was even madder than usual — and then she’d done her homework, gone to bed, read for awhile, and finally turned off the light as she heard the big clock downstairs striking ten.
So she was still awake — she was sure of it.
But there was a funny smell in the room, and she didn’t feel right — her body felt all heavy, like it did in one of those dreams where something’s chasing you, and you have to run, but your feet feel like they’re mired in thick mud and no matter how hard you try, you can barely move at all.
She heard the clock striking again and counted the soft chimes as they rang twelve times.
Then the voices began, the voices whispering from behind the wall, as if there were people in the empty room next door.
She tried to sit up, but couldn’t. It was as if her whole body was being held down by some invisible weight.
She opened her mouth, wanting to cry out, but her mouth felt as if it were filled with feathers.
The voices grew louder, and then she felt more than saw a flicker of movement next to the bed. She tried to turn her head, straining to see through the murky darkness that was unbroken save for a dim ray of light that had found a small gap in the blinds.
A shape, darker even than the room, loomed above her.
A moment later, there was another.
Laurie’s heart began to race, and another cry welled up in her throat, but again it was as if she was trapped in a dream, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t give voice to the terror building inside her.
Now the whispering voices surrounded her like sylphs drifting in the darkness.
“… young…”
“… so luscious…”
“… soft…”
“… tender…”
Something touched her — an unseen finger pressing gently against the flesh of her thigh.
Another, prodding at her stomach.
A pinch on her upper arm, not quite strong enough to hurt.
The voices again: “… yes, she’s perfect now. Perfect…”
More fingers, wriggling beneath her back like worms writhing under her. The fingers followed by hands.
How many hands?
She didn’t know.
The shadowed figures were on both sides of her now, leaning over her. Then she felt herself being lifted up, raised from her bed and transported through the darkness.