Nancy Bush's Nowhere Bundle: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide & Nowhere Safe. Nancy Bush

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ she didn’t immediately take a swallow.

      “Who else saw the pictures?” Auggie asked.

      “My father and his wife, my stepmother, Lorinda. And Della, she lives with Hague.” She paused, thinking a moment. “And my neighbor saw the picture of the stalking man, too.”

      “Your neighbor?” he asked.

      “In the apartment next to me. He stopped by at lunchtime on Thursday and I had the pictures out. He just noticed the guy looked angry and that the pictures were old.” She finally picked up the glass and took a delicate swallow. “Trask,” she said.

      Auggie lifted his brows, and she added, “My neighbor. He lives with his girlfriend, Jo, in 21B. They were there before I ever moved in. They’re not involved with this.”

      Auggie finished his sandwich, then carried the plate to the sink and rinsed it off. Turning around, he leaned against the counter, curling his hands around the edge. “Did the lawyers say when they originally received the package from your mother?”

      “Umm . . . no, I guess not. I just assumed it was right before her death. I don’t know. . . .” She trailed off, her brow furrowing.

      “What?”

      “It was the blouse. She’s wearing the same blouse in one of the pictures that she was wearing when, when she died. I think she got it for her birthday. Or, maybe she was just wearing it on my birthday. . . .” She shook her head, as if trying to clear out the cobwebs. “But it was around the same time, so she must have given the package to the lawyers right before she died.”

      “You’ve never really believed her death was a suicide.”

      “No. At Hathaway House they really tried to get me to believe. I think beneath all the therapy, that was the real goal: Liv Dugan needs to face the awful truth of her mother’s suicide. I finally pretended like I did believe it. It’s what it took to get out of there. But it was a lie.”

      “You think the serial strangler hanged her.”

      She pulled her shoulders in when he put it like that. “There were some things that just didn’t seem to add up. The timing was such, that I’ve thought, off and on, maybe the killer had something to do with my mother’s death. Maybe he strangled her first and then made it look like a hanging. . . .” She shook her head. “But apparently there was no evidence to support that.”

      “Your mother’s death doesn’t follow his m.o., at least not in the strictest sense.”

      “Maybe they never really looked to see,” Liv said. “The police just took her hanging as a suicide. Maybe they never checked for other evidence. I don’t think they wanted to add her to their homicide list. They had their hands full and a lot of public pressure building.”

      “Or, it wasn’t a homicide,” he pointed out.

      “My mother’s death doesn’t fit the pattern,” she agreed. “She was inside the house and so was I, and so was my brother. And she wasn’t killed and left in a field. She was . . . hanged.”

      “After her death, what happened to your family?”

      “We moved to another part of town. Dad met Lorinda and they got married. Nobody talked about Mama anymore. And then we moved out of Rock Springs and then I went to Hathaway House, and later, Hague went to Grandview.”

      “And your family didn’t talk about your mother’s death after that.”

      “They didn’t talk about it at all. Until I got to Hathaway House, then it seemed like it was the only subject we talked about. Dr. Yancy thinks I saw something that I’ve repressed.”

      “What do you think?”

      She lifted her hands. “Sometimes I think, if I could just reach a little further, I might get it. I don’t know.”

      He thought that over, then asked, “Your neighbor, your father and his wife and your brother and his girlfriend were the only ones who saw what was in the package? That’s it?”

      “Della’s my brother’s caretaker, not his girlfriend. Well, maybe she is. That distinction’s kind of fuzzy. But I don’t think any of them would say anything. And my neighbor, Trask, wouldn’t even know what he was looking at.”

      “You’re completely sure about that?”

      “Yes.”

      “And your brother’s caretaker, Della?”

      “Well . . . no . . .” she admitted. “Della’s been with Hague for years and she’s devoted to him. She’s older than he is, by about a decade. I think she met him at Grandview, and then later, when he was out, they kept in contact and he needed help and . . . there you go. Maybe she is just his caretaker. I really don’t know what their relationship is, but I do think, overall, she’s good for him.”

      “You just don’t like her much,” he said, reading between the lines.

      “I like her better than Lorinda,” she admitted honestly. She sighed heavily. “Maybe I should just go with the prevailing theory that the shootings were because of Kurt Upjohn. It was a massacre, for God’s sake. All of my stuff . . . is just maybe . . . my stuff.”

      “I don’t know if you’re right, exactly. About Zuma. But I think with the timing of the package, and your own history . . .” He pressed his lips together a moment, not wanting to give her too much to believe in, but also needing to bolster her trust. “Count me in on the investigation.”

      Liv’s eyes searched his face. He could see she didn’t trust him one iota; she couldn’t figure out his motivation. “Who are you?” she asked.

      He thought about telling her. The words leapt to his tongue. But her mistrust of the authorities stopped him. “You picked me,” he reminded her. “I’m in between jobs. My ex-girlfriend’s still in Canada. Not a wife, but close enough. We lived together quite a while.” The lie tripped off his tongue. Lies he’d used when he was Alan Reagan. “We broke up and I’m starting a new life.” When she didn’t say anything, he said, “Tell me from beginning to end, who saw the package.”

      She inhaled slowly, then exhaled. “I got it at work. I took it to my brother’s apartment.”

      “After your neighbor saw the pictures.”

      “Yes.” She nodded. “Then my father and Lorinda stopped by Hague’s. They thought it was strange that my mother had sent me the photos and documents, and we talked briefly about the strangler. I told them I was going to do some investigating on my own, that I never believed Mama had committed suicide. Della was mostly concerned about Hague, who had gone into one of his fugue states, a trance, so I don’t know how much she was really paying attention to the package contents. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t.”

      “This was how long before the attack on Zuma?”

      “The night before. Thursday.”

      “Go on,” he said, when she stopped.

      “There isn’t much more to tell. I went to work, went to lunch, came back and saw—the bodies. Then I ran and eventually СКАЧАТЬ