Chapter 03 Love Hurts
"Alex, wait!" Jesse had managed to extricate himself from Susan but his friend had already turned and was walking back the other way down the sidewalk showing no intention of stopping and listening to what Jesse had to say. Jesse wasn't used to being ignored and he paused, not sure what to do next. Looking back towards where Susan still stood he saw a look of such smug accomplishment on her face that he rounded on her.
"You planned that! What did you do, invite Alex for coffee too?"
"You may not believe me, but no, Jesse, I didn't. In case you haven't noticed I'm not prepared to share you with anyone!" She moved a little closer, half expecting him to back away, but when he stood motionless, she raised her hand and touched his cheek. "No one will be surprised at what he saw, like I said, we should be together."
Jesse brushed her hand away like would do an annoying insect, "No, you're wrong, I don't know how to get across to you that you are, but I will, one way or another. Just leave me alone, Susan, leave me alone!"
This time he did turn and walk off the other way, knowing that he had to find Alex, had to try to explain what it was his friend thought he had seen, tell him that it wasn't the way it looked at all.
ooo
The young police officer wasn't really sure how to handle the information he had just been given. He'd done missing persons calls before, but usually from a worried family member or work colleague. He wasn't used to taking down the details from someone who was, effectively, a stranger to those missing.
"How do you know that they haven't just finished their allotted time and gone home, Ma'am?"
"Because only one horse has come back and she has blood splattered on her coat."
"It could be her own couldn't it?"
"Officer, I checked that, believe it or not my first concern wasn't for the rider but the horse. She has no cuts or scrapes on her to cause any bleeding. She was part of a two man, or in this case, one man, one woman, hack and was booked out for two hours. She was due back four hours ago but arrived about forty minutes or so before you got here.
"Did they tell you where they planned to go on their hack?"
"No, Officer, they aren't planes with pilots, there doesn't have to be a flight plan logged." The stable hand paused and then took a breath, "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, I'm just worried that's all."
"It's alright, Ma'am, I understand that." He smiled, it made all the difference when someone apologised for their rudeness. "I'll call it in, but without some idea as to where they might have gone I'm not sure what we can do. I'll check to see if anyone called for medical assistance, everyone has cell phones these days, perhaps they just forgot to contact you in the worry of the moment. Did you call your boss or send anyone out looking yourself?"
"We looked around for a while, but there was no trace of the other horse, or either rider. I'll call my boss, but there is something you should know about that, her husband is a cop, a lieutenant I think."
"Should I get a message to him then?" He watched the young woman in front of him nod and made a note on his pad. "Do you know his name?"
"Sure, it's Sloan, Lieutenant Steve Sloan."
"Ok, you said that the man was about thirty, maybe a little older, he had blonde hair, was quite tall and nice looking. The woman was younger, early twenties maybe, with long blonde hair done up in a thick braid down her back. Both of them were wearing jeans and t-shirts, and cowboy boots. Is there anything else you can tell me?"
"No, not really." The woman thought for a moment and then nodded. "I would have said that they were still getting to know each other, they stood a little bit apart while he paid, and a groom helped her up onto her horse, not him."
"And the names again, what names did they give?"
"Matthew Little and … um, I don't have a second name, but I heard him call her Leigh."
"Ok, thank you. If they come back, or the other horse turns up, get in touch with the station." The young man put a card on the counter in front of him and then, placing his cap back on his head, he smiled and went out to his squad car.
ooo
Mark looked across the uneven ground to where his son was standing talking with Rae and Amanda and sighed deeply. He had been helping out on this case, on and off, since it started, but he hadn't appreciated the apparently frenzied violence meted out to the victims.
His daughter-in-law had mentioned to him that Steve was having the occasional nightmare, and although she hadn't been specific Mark was sure it was related to this case. Now, as he stood looking down at the broken body of yet another fatality, he could understand how the case would get underneath the skin of any compassionate person, and he knew that his son, however much he might try to cover it up, was definitely that.
Amanda had instructed the photographer on the variety of shots she required and the young man was carefully making his way around the murder scene taking photos from all conceivable angles. He had seen Rae take some shots herself with a Polaroid camera and Mark knew that they would be used when they all discussed the case later.
He was also watching the British detective from a medical viewpoint, but he didn't see anything to cause him concern. She too would be affected by the Red Rose killings, he had no doubt about that, but Mark knew that with Jesse back home where he belonged Rae was far more able to cope with the case than she had been while she had been alone.
"Mark?" He hadn't realised that he had been daydreaming, but Amanda was suddenly standing right next to him and he jumped a little as she spoke.
"Sorry, Sweetie, what did you say?"
"I said that I am going to have the body turned over in a minute or two, and I would welcome another pair of eyes as I do so." Amanda smiled at him and was pleased to see him smile back. "What were you thinking about?"
"I was just wondering how a case like this affects those involved in it, how about you, you see more details than anyone, how are you doing?"
For a moment Amanda was silent, working out how much to tell her friend without concerning him too much. "It's hard, y'know, especially when I know the victim, like I did with Nadine, and when I see what was done to incapacitate them, but each one makes me more determined to find something which will catch this guy and see him punished." Again she paused, "I think I would find it harder if it wasn't Steve's case, and if I didn't have Ron at home and you at work to share it with if I need to."
A shout echoed across from the other side of the body calling Amanda's name and the two friends looked at each other with love and encouragement before moving across to where Steve and Rae were waiting for the body to be moved also.
"The hair was taken off, I think, although I'm not sure, not being an expert on long hair, that it was cut in one piece." Rae had discussed her assumption with Steve, and having seen his response had been undecided initially whether to say anything.
"Son?"
"What?" Steve almost barked the one word answer. "Sorry, Dad. Let's just get on with this can we? Any discussions can be held later."
"I think that we should wait a little longer." Mark was looking around again as he spoke. Amanda had mentioned another pair of eyes, and that had set him thinking. The crime scene he knew was vitally important to their killer, he had a feeling that it was the first main piece of the jigsaw that he made for himself each time he took a life and suddenly Mark needed another pair of eyes too, and he knew just who they belonged to.
ooo
"I think, Madam, that there is more to what you are telling me than maybe you are ready to admit to anyone." Michael's words broke into the quiet, which Jo had begun to find a little uncomfortable after her plea to her brother for his help.
The silence continued for a few more moments before finally Jo spoke. "I've always been careful with my money, oh I know I spend some of it, more of it since I've had a husband an' a chil' to share it with, but there have been a few things which have happened that make me wonder who I can trust and who I can't."
"I see, and are you wondering whether I am one of those people?" Michael was concerned that his sister seemed very upset but apparently unable to share her worries with anyone.
"No, no, Michael, never."
"Steve, perhaps?" He seriously doubted that, but if she hadn't shared her fears with her husband then did that mean that she was concerned that he was defrauding her.
"No! How do I explain this?" Jo stood up, she had been turning over her money problems for almost three months and she was beginning to wish that she had kept her concerns to herself.
"First of all I got a credit card bill from a company I have never used. It wasn't just an ordinary bill; it was a lawyer's letter tellin' me that if I didn't clear the balance on my card within the next seven days they would take me to court to reclaim the money." She paused and then looked right into the face of her brother, "Michael, I'd never had any dealin's with this company, I have never not paid my bills, in full, on the day the envelope drops onto the mat, an' I have certainly never been in debt before."
"What did you do?" Michael kept his voice soft, he already knew what she hadn't done, and now that she had finally decided to share he didn't want to slow her progress.
"I waited until Steve an' Daniel had left for the day, I sent Juan out to do some grocery shoppin' an' then I got on the phone to the lawyer's office an' tried to straighten the whole thing out."
"I see, and did that work?"
"Not right away. They wouldn't deal with any of it over the phone so I had to go into town an' see them." Jo shuddered, the offices had been plush and beautifully furnished but although they had been a reputable firm the deference with which she was used to being treated when she spent time with Gilbert had been sadly lacking.
"You went on your own?" Michael was scandalized and without realising he began to speak to her more on an equal footing than he had ever dared to before.
"Yes, I am quite capable of doin' these things myself, an' Steve was busy bein' captain an' Rae was still sick …" She lowered her eyes, there had been one person, one person who would have gone, but she had been too proud, still too shocked, to call on him.
"I see, and when you went to the offices, were you able to sort out the matter satisfactorily?"
"I took the details of my other cards with me, an' the man I talked with was very nice. I've checked up on them since an' they are a good firm, an' they were just doing their job for the credit card company."
"Did you check all the details which were taken when the card was issued?"
"Of course. I'm a good catch. Any card company would want me to have one of their pieces of plastic in my purse. The card was, apparently, sent here, although I never received it, it was signed an' activated an' then it was used for smaller purchases, never too big, never over $100 or so. But in three months $25,000 was spent. The bills were sent to an address in Compton."
"Did you have to pay the $25,000?" Michael knew that, realistically, it was a small amount to take from the Walter's purse, but as she hadn't spent a dime of it that was immaterial.
"No, the legal requirement is $50.00 which I did pay, even though I was told that if it was proved that I had nothin' to do with the fraud I wouldn't be liable for that either. I suggested that if they had someone who couldn't afford the fifty, to use mine for that."
"Was it proved?" Michael was relieved when Jo nodded her head.
"Yeah, but only because I could show I was in one place when the card was used somewhere else. I attended a gala dinner at the Beverly Hills Hilton an' my picture was in the paper, at the same time I was, apparently, in an electrical shop in Van Nuys buyin' DVD's. I also bought theatre tickets over the Internet while I was havin' an prenatal exam!"
They both smiled, but the underlying worry was still there.
"Someone did that to me, I have also had some disturbin' telephone calls, but they have only been happenin' this week. Hang ups, heavy breathin', I had two yesterday where music was played down the line. We're not in the phone book but they aren't comin' to the house, just my cell. Someone seems to want to make me feel vulnerable. They're succeedin' too."
"You know what I am going to say, don't you, Madam, Jo."
"Tell, Steve, Michael, I can't. He is so worried about this Red Rose killer, he isn't here tonight because there has been another killin', how can I have him worryin' 'bout me any more than he is already? He calls me almost every hour to make sure I'm ok, he's drivin' me nuts. If I tell him that I am havin' anonymous calls, or my finances are bein' invaded, he'll never leave the house."
"And how do you think he will feel if he finds out that you have been keeping all this from him?"
Jo didn't answer, not because she couldn't but because even thinking about what Michael had said brought up the vision of her husband's kind and handsome face in her mind and she knew that he would be incredibly hurt.
"You are married to a police lieutenant, he can get your phone calls traced, make sure that your mail isn't tampered with any more, I imagine he would get in touch with the postal inspection service about the frauds. Jo, he's in a far stronger position to help you than anyone else."
The phone interrupted their conversation then and Jo sighed as Juan came in to inform her that she was required on the phone, and Michael watched as she left the room before looking round and realizing again just how much he missed not only the people but the house as well.
ooo
He didn't know what had gotten into his colleague, how could he do something like that, and in public too? Alex sat in the very back of the first coffee shop he had come to, the latte he had bought cooling in front of him and shook his head. He had been friends with Jesse for a long time, almost from the day he started working at Community General. Alex remembered with a deep sigh the day he'd found out his father had died of a massive heart attack and he hadn't been there. They had talked and Jesse had made him realise just how proud of him his dad had been, how much he had known he loved him. But Rae was his friend too, and he had seen her suffer when Jesse was away from her. He couldn't tell her, not yet, he owed Jesse the chance to explain himself, and then he would decide what to do next. With the decision made Alex drained his cup, stood up and made his way back out onto the sidewalk. He needed to find his friend; somehow nothing else mattered quite as much as that.
ooo
The crime scene had seemed strangely empty once the body had been removed. Steve wasn't sure if it was because she had been lying on a blanket which was now, apart from the newly revealed red rose, bare or if was just his imagination. At his dad's suggestion he had called Ron and they had waited to remove the body until the tall FBI agent had visited the scene. Now, as he watched, Rae was talking earnestly with Amanda's new husband and Steve knew that he would get to hear all they had discussed a little later.
His dad was walking around the area, carefully placing his feet, but alive and alert to everything around him. Steve didn't think they had missed anything at the other murder sites, but he did know that if there was a consistency they had overlooked then his father would find it.
The sound of his phone ringing in his pocket made him grimace; Daniel had been at the ringer again. Instead of its usual beeping noise it now played the theme from Star Wars. He checked the display and a smile lit up his face. "Hi, Honey."
Mark turned at the sound of the tune and smiled, he knew that Steve would reprimand Daniel for the altered ring tone, but he also knew that his son would be secretly delighted that he'd had it happen.
"Hi, Honey, are you ok ...? What? You're sure? You're sure they were the names used?" the tone of his voice stopped all other conversations in the area and everyone's eyes were instantly on him. "Umm, no, I don't think so. Look I'll call in on my way home … I don't know, it's what, oh, about eight … yeah, I guess you're right. Call and tell her to go, I'll be there at eight in the morning … I know, and I love you too. Bye." Steve shut down his phone and looked across at the faces of his friends and colleagues. "Rae, Dad, Amanda." His voice told the three of them that they were needed. The look that he gave his friend and sometimes partner, meant that Ron also moved across to where he was standing, but it was Mark who spoke first.
"Son, what is it? Is it Jo?" Mark had heard the beginning of the phone conversation and now was worried about both his son and his wife.
"No, well, not directly anyway." For a moment Steve stopped talking; the case, which had been getting more and more personal the longer it went on, had just hit home, right home, and he had no idea how to deal with it.
"Steve?" Rae reached out and touched his arm. Something had happened, something that had taken the case to a different level for her partner and once again she wasn't sure how to approach him. Suddenly she was furiously angry, not at Steve, or anyone nearby but with Dominic; he was tearing apart their partnership and she couldn't let him do that. Consciously forcing her thoughts into an inaccessible part of her brain until later, Rae looked back at Steve and smiled, she would not take out any of her temper on him.
Steve saw something flare in Rae's eyes, he thought for a moment that it was anger, but then he saw those same eyes soften and she smiled at him. "What is it?"
"The victim's name was Leigh. I don't know her surname yet, but she had been out horse riding, her and a man named Matthew Little."
"How do you know that?" Ron began to speak, but then put two and two together. Jo had called; Jo had a riding stables. "He used your stables."
"Yeah, he used my stables." For Steve, right at that moment, there was nothing else to say and so he turned his back and moved away into the gathering darkness.
ooo
Jesse had been unable to find Alex and so had called him on his cell phone, and now they were sitting back at Oak Place, uneasily staring at each other, neither man knowing how to start what would be an awkward conversation for both of them until in the end they both spoke at once.
"Alex."
"Jesse."
Deciding he had to take the plunge Jesse carried on talking. "Look, Alex, I know what you think you saw, but you have to trust me, it wasn't like that, it wasn't like that at all." Vicki had made them both coffees and now he gratefully drank down a mouthful of the hot steaming liquid.
"Jess, I don't want to interfere in your private life, but …" he paused, unsure what to say, or how to express himself.
"But you saw me kissing another woman. Yeah, I know, and I guess it's an old cliché, but I wasn't doing any of the kissing, you have to believe me."
"Jess, I'm not about to cause trouble between you and Rae, but you need to get this sorted out. I know she saw you kissing Susan at the hospital, and that she saw you at Bob's. I also know she thinks it's over, it just didn't look over to me today." Alex felt so uncomfortable he found he couldn't sit still, and so he got up and moved to the window, watching the lights out across the city. It wasn't dark yet, but already the apartment blocks and offices were sending out their bright beams like beacons into the gradually dimming sky.
"Alex, I need you to promise me that you won't tell Rae. I have to sort this out, but I have to do it my way." The words came out as a plea, and Jesse realised that he didn't know what he would do or say if Alex didn't agree.
The room descended back into its uncomfortable silence as both men wrestled with what had transpired until finally Alex turned back from the window and looked at his friend.
"I don't like deceiving anyone, and I won't deceive Rae. If she asks me, Jesse, I'll tell her what I saw, but I won't volunteer the information. She is at her happiest when she's with you; you know that, if you cheat on her you'll destroy her."
"I'm not cheat …" Jesse realised that he had spoken too loudly, too quickly and he shut his words off with a snap. "I am not cheating on her, I never have and I will sort it out, I just … I just don't know how yet."
Alex heard the pain in his friend's voice and moved closer to him. "Jesse, I can't give you advice, but I will help if I can, you know that."
Jesse nodded his head and was about to answer when his cell phone began to ring, and he knew without looking who it would be.
ooo
The ground was bumpy and seemed to fall away from him on all sides. Steve knew he had to get to the blanket that he could see just out of reach ahead of him. There were voices calling to him, accusatory voices, telling him how it was his fault that they died, his fault that they had been attacked, raped and killed and then their faces, their beautiful faces were wearing the grotesque masks of death that Dominic had left them with. They swirled in front of him, pulling him closer and closer to the blanket, and he could see a body, another body, but this was different, and as he stared at it he heard Amanda's voice instructing someone to turn it over, he tried to call out, to stop her, to tell her to wait, but his own voice wouldn't work, his legs wouldn't let him run away, and hands held him, stopping him from doing anything but watching as the body was turned and Jo's lifeless face looked up at him. "NO! Jo, no!"
"Steve, Honey, wake up, it's only a dream, Baby, please, wake up." Jo could hear the tears as they tried to overwhelm her but she wouldn't let them through. Steve was tossing and turning, restlessly pulling at the sheets, and she placed a hand on his arm to try to reach him, but it seemed to make him more agitated, and so she moved back not sure what to do but needing to do something.
The evening had been difficult, at least the short part of it they had spent together. Steve hadn't arrived home until a little after ten-thirty and Jo had been getting very worried about him. She had told Michael how he was calling her incessantly during the day and how it drove her nuts, but she hadn't heard from him since she'd let him know about the information she had received from her stable hand, and it had taken all her willpower not to pick up to phone to him again.
Jo didn't want to wake Steve up suddenly, but he was sweating, his upper body covered in a sheen which was caught in the moonlight, and she knew that he was suffering. For a moment Jo wished that Michael were still here, that she had taken him up on his offer to stay with her. Juan was a capable butler, but she would never let him see his employer this way. Michael would have known what to do, she didn't, and she wished with all her heart that her brother were with her.
The problem was suddenly solved as Steve sat up in bed, shaking with emotion.
"NO! Jo, no!" The words held such urgency, such fear that without thinking she reached over and touched him, causing him to jump and cry out again. "No!"
Steve looked around him, his eyes darting left and right, he didn't know for a moment where he was, and when he felt someone touch him his heart leapt into his throat and he heard himself yell out in fear. Slowly though the room around him became clear and he realised that he was at home, in his own bed, safe and sound and as his wife's soft, loving voice broke through he turned, tears in his eyes and pulled her towards him, finally aware that she was still with him.
Jo couldn't get very close to anyone in her condition, and she didn't touch him, just let him hold her and spoke softly, hoping that she could break through his waking nightmare with more success than she had his sleeping one. "Honey, it's ok. It was just a bad dream, but it's over now, it's over."
"Oh, God, Jo. Oh, God." He was shaking, his voice tremulous, and as he held her tightly he knew that she was wrong, it wasn't over, and until he found Dominic it never would be.