21 …But Fate Takes a Hand
The weather was supposed to become stormy but that Friday morning it was still beautiful and Rae and Jesse had taken everything outside so that they could spend their time together in the backyard. Susan's husband was due to arrive that morning and, as Jesse had discovered that she'd had a restless night and had to be sedated when he called, he had decided to stay home. The girls could play in the sand and on their toys and, as there was no breeze to speak of, Rae would work while Jesse, who had volunteered to read through Albert's journal, could enjoy the sunshine as he undertook his task.
Anneya was going to a birthday party in the afternoon; the first one she had ever been invited to without her sister, and both Rae and Jesse knew that she was, in her quiet way, despite her recent ordeal, very excited about it.
The large, oval, dark wood table which sat on the patio with a bottle green umbrella through the middle to protect its occupants from the California sun was covered with various files and folders and Rae was soon lost in her own working world. Susan's account of the attack that she had listened to the previous day had opened up the motives and reasons for the killings and, following a telephone conversation with Ron on the Thursday evening, Rae was making line after line of detailed notes.
The killing of Nadine, which had worried her because of the differences in MO and signature, had slipped into place when she realised that he had gone right back out and killed a prostitute, easy prey, because of those very differences. That hadn't worked for him either, and the lack of a flower and the remains of hair by the body told her that it was at that moment he had become even more dangerous. He hadn't seen Harriet Brown, the call girl, as one of his victims, hadn't felt the need to leave his calling card with her, but the signature had been the same, the feet, the hair, even though he had left it with her body, those were the things he had to do. Finally, Rae could begin to separate out the two patterns, the MO that he could change to suit the situation, and the signature, which he could not.
Krista's body, the only one she hadn't seen on its discovery, had born the brunt of his most vicious attack to date, although Rae had a feeling that if he hadn't been interrupted then Susan might well have been attacked just as badly. Rae was sure now that not only was he taking revenge again for what the victim in New York had done, but also for the mistakes made with Nadine and Harriet and the early turmoil in his life when he lost his mother and then went through a succession of foster homes. Rae had put a call through early that morning to obtain a copy of Dominic's records. She wasn't working and so Cheryl had obtained the search warrant and was going to fax the details through later in the day.
Rae wanted nothing more than for this case to be wrapped up. She didn't know if it was because of what Steve had said the previous day, the anniversary that she had coming up, or maybe even a combination of the two, but she realised that the disenchantment she felt with her life had to be faced. Right now she was fairly sure that moving with Steve was what she wanted to do, although, in the small hours of the night she had even pondered the possibility of resigning, taking a couple of months off, and then looking to the future. The other work related thing that weighed heavily on her mind was her need to discover who had murdered Albert. Until she could close the files on the old man's killing, and Dominic, she wasn't sure if she could seriously consider any future plans.
"Oh, my, God." Jesse's voice cut into her thoughts and she could tell instantly that he had found something.
"What?" Rae looked at her husband and to her dismay saw that he was pale, that the diary in his hand was shaking slightly as he sat with a look of horrified realisation on his face.
"Honey, whatever is it?" She stood immediately and moved so that she could put her arm around her husband and pull him close to her. "Jesse, tell me."
"He's here, in this book."
"Who is? Albert's killer, that's great, what does it say?" Rae went to take the volume out of his grasp but he jerked it away from her.
"No, Dominic, Dominic Little, Nicolas Large, Nika, whatever his name was, he's here in this book. He used the name Matthew too, didn't he?"
"Yeah, he booked in at Texas's riding stables as Matthew Little, with Leigh Ann. My God, it's been here at home all this time, show me." Rae sat heavily in the seat next to Jesse and then together they read through an entry that made two impossible cases seem suddenly irretrievably linked and maybe even solvable.
I had to go see Matthew, in 104, he's been burning stuff again, I knew it would have something to do with that Dominic guy he seems to hang around with, and it did. He said he'd ruined one of Dominic's shirts and had to get rid of it before he got into trouble. He seems such a nice kid, odd but nice, so I just told him to stop putting his trash can out on the fire escape and I'd deal with the residents committee. I didn't think I would tell him that I saw Dominic bringing a girl to his apartment. I guess he must have been out.
"I need to go and check with this Matthew guy. If he is a friend of Dominic maybe he can help us with our inquiries." Rae stood up, she knew that her Friday off was over, before it had almost begun, but if she could solve both cases in one go then perhaps her life could start again.
"Not on your own, let me come." Jesse looked over to where their children were playing and knew that he would have to stay home.
"I have no intention of going alone, I'll call Steve; if you could look after Damita then David could go with Texas to the hospital today, besides you are on birthday party duty, remember?"
The grin on her husband's face told her that he hadn't forgotten. "Sure, I can do that; as long as her momma doesn't think I'm poisoning her by not flying in the water for her bottles!"
Texas had called around the previous evening having seen Rae and Jesse drive out of the parking lot at Community General in front of them. They had chatted for a little while and the subject of Debbie, her unexpected visit and her dog had come up.
"I thought about callin' Steve and tellin' him that the dog was there, but in the end I decided against it. The hotel that Miss Prissy Knickers is stayin' in doesn't take dogs, an' so I guess we're stuck with it." Texas had lowered her voice and spoken quietly. "I think that the marriage is comin' to an end. I wish I could say I'm sorry, but I'm truly not."
"A divorce is never pleasant however amicable it is, so I regret that for them. My divorce was awful, I lost my children, and myself there for a while too, but the thought of trying to work out a settlement with all your … um …" she had paused, not wanting to sound too flippant or rude.
"Money? Dollars? Yeah, I know. My grandmamma was a shrewd woman, she won't get any more than she deserves, but I just wish I could work out why she married him in the first place."
"Maybe she loved him?" Jesse had been quiet until then, knowing from experience, so he had once told Rae, that when the two of them got started it was a good idea to sit back and let the conversation flow around him.
"Yeah, right! No, Jesse, I'm sorry to burst your little balloon, but love was never the reason, not on her part anyhow."
"Oh. So what will happen, what about Damita?"
"She wants custody, Jesse, an' will fight him for it. I haven't said anythin' but I think she'll get it too. He's at work most of the time, she would be cared for by a nanny all of the days an' probably a lot of the nights too. She's a lovely chil' but I'm guessin' I won't see much of her."
The conversation had drifted onto other things but Rae had thought about the little girl a lot. Losing your child was an awful experience, one she wouldn't wish on anyone, and her heart had gone out to the little baby as she had worked late into the evening.
"Well, just as long as you behave and maybe get David to put a call through to the hotel and check with Debbie first I think you'll be ok." Rae paused for a moment and kissed him lightly on the cheek and then with a deep breath became businesslike and efficient. "I'll put Anneya's dress out on her bed; the present is in the breakfast room on the shelf by the door. I have no idea how long I'll be. I'll go call Steve and then see if I can't find myself a judge, but if not we have enough evidence to conduct a search anyway."
"Rae." Jesse moved across to where his wife had stopped on the patio as he called her name. "I realise this is just a friend of Dominic but still, please, be careful. You saw what he did to Susan, and … well he's gonna be scared, maybe hiding, he could even be there when you arrive … please."
"Shhh, I always am careful, but I promise I'll be even more so. I know this guy is more of a fruit loop than any other I've dealt with, which means his friends are hardly likely to be top notch so, like I said, I promise, I will be extra vigilant. Don't worry." Rae smiled and then leant over and kissed her husband on the lips. She felt his arms go around her and began to run her fingers into his hair. She had waited this long, a few more minutes wouldn't matter.
ooo
The search for a judge had been successful and, three hours after Jesse had read the fateful words in Albert's book, Steve and Rae, with guns drawn, stood one either side of the entrance to Matthew Little's apartment. There was a gloom about the hallway which wasn't just due to the fact that there were now dark clouds gathering outside. The tension seemed to increase as the partners glanced at each other and their gazes locked for just a little longer than usual.
Steve had already knocked and announced that the police were at the door but the answer had been a deafening silence, and so now he held up three fingers and saw Rae nod. He reduced them to two, then one and raised his foot kicking at the door, forcing it open and sending himself into the room his weapon raised and ready should anyone approach him.
The two of them moved in opposite directions scanning the area as they did so. "Kitchen's clear." It was Rae who spoke first; travelling on from that room towards what she thought would be the bathroom.
The apartment was normal and definitely empty and it wasn't until they got to the final bedroom that Rae and Steve realised just what they had found and where they were.
It was Steve who opened the last door and, switching on the light, stopped dead in his tracks, almost causing Rae to run into him.
"What?" Rae could tell by the way he instantly tensed that Steve had discovered something.
"Get the crime scene guys up here. I want this place cordoned off, no one in or out. I want an APB on this Matthew guy and I want it all done right now!"
"Steve, what have you seen?" The doorway wasn't that wide and somehow Steve seemed to fill it. Gradually he took in a deep breath and stepped aside, knowing that even though Rae was a hardened cop, just as he was, the sight would shock her.
"Oh, my." Rae looked directly ahead of her; the room was an average size for a main bedroom. It would easily fit a double bed, closet and nightstand in it. There was none of that though. Instead there was a sofa and some large chests of drawers, six of them in all, each with five drawers the full width of the piece of furniture. They didn't match, but were all the same height. On the tops were some pictures in frames, and there were others on large cork style boards that covered three walls, the fourth was mainly window with a blackout curtain covering it. On each board were shot after shot of blonde haired women, dead blonde haired women, with their bloodied and slaughtered bodies pinned next to shots when they were alive and vibrant, and Rae realised that there were maybe two or three faces that she didn't recognize, bodies that they had yet to find.
Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, as her partner had already done, Rae stepped into the room before turning slightly and letting out a gasp. Steve, who had followed her looked in the same direction and saw that the wall behind the door was covered with photos of just one woman.
"That's the victim from New York, Sara Ann Miller. The one that was the first. She left him, somehow she left him alone, and it had something to do with her hair. Whatever it was it became part of the signature for all his other killings. Thank goodness she'll never know what she started."
"What? How can you blame her for that?" Steve looked at the photos. The woman was very beautiful, there was no doubt about that, tall, slender, her blonde hair hanging halfway down her back in a bright, golden curtain which, even in the photo, seemed to have a luminescence about it that caught and held his attention.
"I'm not blaming her, but whatever it was she did, whether intentionally or unintentionally; it set Dominic off on a campaign of murder that has taken him from one side of the country to the other and back again."
"No one becomes a serial killer because of one incident. I don't buy that." Steve turned back to face his partner, partly because he could no longer make eye contact with the woman in the pictures.
"He didn't become a signature killer overnight, and I didn't say he did. There was the girl on the subway whose hair he tried to hack off. He could have had a thing about hair long before he even knew Sara, but she is a huge figure in this, otherwise he wouldn't have mentioned her to Susan."
Steve had read the notes Rae had made as they waited to see the judge, but now he looked quizzically at her, he wanted to hear more of what she had to say.
"You called him a serial killer; I called him a signature killer. The difference is that he has to act in a certain set way, you know that." Rae watched as her partner, still listening intently, nodded his head and, encouraged, her mind full of thoughts, she continued.
"Think about this for a moment, each girl was killed in a different place; the only link that we could find was that they were quiet corners of popular locations. The people he mentioned to Susan all left him, that's why he takes trophies. I wrote down this morning that when we find him we'll find similar trophies. Look around you, Steve, none of these things can get up and walk away, like he said to Susan, he doesn't have Sara's hair, but he does have Susan's. He doesn't have Nadine, Jenna, any of these other girls any more, but he has their clothes, their pictures and … my god, look."
Rae pointed to one of the pictures of Sara Ann Millar. It was a shot taken from the back so that her face wasn't visible, and Rae blanched. "That could be Susan, if we didn't know it wasn't her … that could be Susan." Rae shuddered, she knew the young woman was still alive in the hospital, but she dreaded to think how she would have been left if the security guard hadn't spotted her on his monitor.
"That's why he said he had her hair?" Steve looked at the picture, he had known Susan a lot longer than Rae and he thought that he would have known it wasn't her, but he had to admit that a cursory glance wouldn't have been enough.
"Yeah, I guess so. He cut the other hair off, all of them had their hair either hacked at or styled, and some of these faces I don't recognise. There could be others who just had their hair attacked, I … I would feel violated if someone tried to take my hair, but I don't know if I would report it or not." She paused; again her mind was racing, thoughts now falling over themselves to get out. "He killed Sara, but he might well have attacked other girls before that. She could have unleashed the monster, or just been the final part of a pattern which had begun forming way before he met her. Don't forget Bundy dated women while he was killing others, he even got married in jail, so did the Night Stalker, Ramirez."
As Rae finished speaking, almost in reply to her words a flash of lightening lit up the sky and then more or less immediately the air was rent by a roar of thunder.
"I'll call the station and then we can look around. I wonder where he is, this Matthew guy." Rae opened her phone and began to make the arrangements Steve had asked her to, knowing that they both had a difficult day in front of them.
ooo
Jayden was waiting for his mom to arrive, and the smile which warmed her heart so easily worked its magic charms again as she approached his crib. She knew it wasn't really a smile it was him focusing on what little of the world he could actually see, but it was a smile to her.
"Hi, Sweetie, I have Uncle David with me today, Daddy is workin'. How're you doin'?" Jo watched her brother, still uncertain in the confines of the NICU, breathing rapidly through his mask.
Belinda was busy with a baby who looked tiny even to Jo's experienced eyes and a woman that she didn't recognize, and so she waited, hoping against hope that today was a kangaroo care day, and trying not to think about her husband and best friend going off in search of their Red Rose Killer.
"Hi, Jo, I'm sorry about that, unfortunately it's getting kinda busy in here. I wondered whether, in a little while, you could do me a favor?" Belinda's voice cut into her thoughts and Jo looked up and nodded.
"Sure, as long as it doesn't include bungee jumpin' or cookin' it's no problem."
"No, not this time. The lady I was talking to, she just delivered her baby at twenty-six weeks, because of pre-eclampsia, would you speak with her? She is so scared, and she doesn't have a husband to help her through like you do."
"Of course, whenever you want me to, just ask. Oh, Belinda, this is my brother, David, Steve's on duty today."
"I'm very pleased to meet you, and don't look so scared, once you get used to it, this is a very peaceful and tranquil place to be." Belinda's smile and quiet assuredness wasn't quite enough to convince David but he managed to nod his head.
"Well, if you say so, then I guess I'll take your word for it, Ma'am."
"Texas, huh? Just like your sister but stronger. You live there?"
"Yes, Ma'am, breedin' cattle."
"Don't most people?" Belinda smiled and laughed her quiet, work laugh, which disturbed no one, then she turned back towards Jo and began to speak again.
"So, Momma, you have your favorite shirt on, kangaroo care?"
Jo just nodded, the top she had on, which was white and had snap fasteners all down the front, was easy to undo so that she could quickly position her son. She hadn't realised it, but she guessed that she wore it quite often.
The routine, undertaken most days, was second nature to her now and Jo watched as the lines were attached to her gown before her baby was gently positioned on her chest and covered by the soft blanket she had brought in just the day before. As usually happened Jayden's oxygen saturation levels rose almost instantly and he seemed to snuggle against her breast. Having made eye contact with her son momentarily she now looked up and into the face of her brother.
"My God, Jo, he is just so small, aren't you afraid of breakin' him?"
"No, not now that he's grown some, but first of all, oh yeah, terrified." Jo relaxed back into the chair and, with her brother's hand in her own, gently placed them over her son's body and together they sat silently enjoying the moment.
"I need to talk to you about his weight gain." Belinda spoke quietly to them almost ten minutes later, the hushed tones of her voice not disturbing Jayden at all.
"Is there a problem with it?" Jo looked instantly scared stiff, and realised that however well Jayden had been doing the fear of him slipping back was still there just beneath the surface.
"No, there is no problem at all, just the opposite in fact. We think we are ready to try bottle feeding Jayden."
The terror rose in Jo, and must have been transferred to her son because he squirmed and then set off the heart monitor alarm. Carefully, but quickly, Belinda moved him back into his isolette and watched as the figures began to steady.
"Ok, that was bad timing, I'm sorry, I thought you would be pleased." Five minutes had passed, and now the nurse felt able to turn away from her young charge.
"I … I am, but how … he's so small … I mean. What do I mean?" Jo looked so flustered, so unsure of herself that Belinda wanted to laugh, to hug her, probably both at the same time, but instead she checked the figures once again before sitting in the chair still vacant next to the nervous mother.
"We have tiny bottles, just express enough to fill one and then we'll have a practice. He'll still get food by gavage, so if he doesn't take to it right away we won't starve him."
"Gavage?" David spoke for almost the first time in fifteen minutes, and Belinda turned to look at him.
"So far all his feeds have been given by a gavage tube. That's the one which is going down his throat to his stomach. Your sister's breast milk is in there, so he is getting her antibodies and the nutrients just as a full term baby would. He's been sucking his thumb though and making little kissy noises, so we thought it was time to give a bottle a try."
"It just seems so sudden to me, but I guess I'm not lookin' for all the different improvements you are. Part of me is just satisfied every day that he is still alive, an' I am watchin' for little movements, his eyes bein' open for longer than the day before, things like that. The medical side of it, well it just scares me witless, so I am takin' no serious notes."
"And you the daughter-in-law of the head of internal medicine." Belinda smiled as she spoke and was relieved when Jo did too.
"I know, terrible isn't it?"
"I would suggest that we let him rest for twenty minutes or so, he isn't quite due for a feed yet, and then we will see how we get on."
"Ok, I'll go an' have me a little talk with the lady over there, an' then express the milk. David can you sit with Jayden on your own?"
"Um, yeah, I can do that. Can I talk to him, touch him, anythin' like that?"
"Of course, but one thing at a time or you will over stimulate him." Belinda smiled again at the worried man in front of him. His eyes were kind, but slightly haunted, and she could tell that his life hadn't been easy lately.
Jo watched Belinda look at her brother for a moment before heading off to speak with the new mom the other side of the room. David could do with a friendly woman companion to counteract Miss Prissy Knickers. It might be a bit soon, but she would speak to Juan about having Belinda over for dinner before Davie and Damita returned to Texas.
ooo
Daniel, with gracious permission from his Aunt Debs, had brought his cousin round to Oak Place and asked Jesse if he could stay as well.
They had sat on the patio watching the two older girls playing happily while Damita bounced in her little chair watching the shadows her sunshade and mobile made as she moved.
"Can I ask you a question, Jesse?"
"Sure, no problem, fire away." Jesse turned and smiled, he was very fond of the young man sitting beside him, and enjoyed his company.
"I know lots of things have happened to you over the years, and to Rae too, how do you cope with that?" Daniel paused for a moment, not sure if he was explaining what it was he needed to know. "Some days I think I'm fine with all that goes on in our house, and then others I can't deal with it at all. Even things I thought I was over come back bigger and more scary than before." Daniel was blushing furiously by the time he finished speaking, embarrassed but relieved at the same time to get his worries out in the open.
Jesse nodded his head in understanding; he had been there many times. "I think that's a natural reaction. I had a period of time when I didn't cope with things at all well, I tried to ignore the fact that they had even happened, pushing the blame in all directions to get it away from me, because then I could move away from the memories too."
Daniel was silent for a moment, digesting what Jesse had said. "That was when … when you left? When you were staying with Grandpa?"
"Yes, but I'd left prior to that too, before we were married when Rae was hurt. Both times I learned a valuable lesson. The same one actually, I guess it just took me a long time to get it into my brain, that running away doesn't work. The memories are always gonna be there, and some days you'll be able to see them, with hindsight, for what they are, just recollections of something which isn't likely to happen again, other days they'll scare you, worry you, almost make you unable to function for a while. I sure hope that's normal because it happens to me." Jesse smiled, he didn't know what Daniel wanted from him, but his face seemed more relaxed than it had done.
"Mom was taken, just like you were, and it didn't seem to bother her that much when she got home. I know she dreams about it sometimes, but that's it, and Dad, well, I know it wasn't your fault, but he nearly died, and yet he just carries on like it didn't happen at all. And now Jayden, I think he's gonna survive, and Mom and Dad they're getting the nursery done, that playhouse is waiting for when he can go play in it. But what if he doesn't? How will they feel? All these things for a child who has gone? I guess I just don't understand it." The confusion was apparent on his face now, and for a moment Daniel looked far younger than his sixteen years.
"They … last night, they talked, and I listened, they knew I was at the other end of the room, but I didn't say anything, it … it started as an argument, but they were ok in the end." Daniel began to think back, and Jesse, seeing that he needed a few moments, closed his eyes and let the last vestiges of a rapidly disappearing sun warm him.
"Jo, I know you want to do all these things for Jayden, but, Honey, nineteen thousand dollars!" His dad's voice hadn't been raised, he had just sounded amazed.
"But he can play in it with his little friends, an' Eliana an' Anneya can come, an' that poor chil' can play safely there in a wonderful playhouse." Her eyes had filled with tears but Daniel, who could see his mom's face, hadn't moved, knowing that he wasn't who she needed right now.
"Anneya isn't a poor child, she is doing just fine, and even if she weren't it isn't your place to do this type of thing for her."
"It's for Jayden first; anyone else who uses it will do so when he says." His mom was defending herself now, her hand slipping over her stomach as she raised her voice.
"And when is he gonna say? Jo, he isn't a month old yet, he shouldn't even be here yet, and you are building his first house!"
"You think I don't know that? You think that I don't wish he was still here," she had pointed to herself as she yelled, "still inside me safe an' sound?" The tears had fallen then, and Daniel had stood up only to be looked at by his dad and so he had sat back down.
"What if … what if I don't do this now an' I don't ever get the chance? What if he doesn't make it, I'll never get the chance to have a room, a nursery, for my baby, a future for him to play in an' enjoy, what if …?" Her words had stopped then and his dad had taken her into his arms and gently held her, whispering into her hair. Daniel had seen that Steve's eyes too had been bright, and, picking up the sports pages, he had quietly left the room and gone to see Debbie's dog.
The clouds had gathered as they sat in silence but still no one moved and Jesse was quiet for a while longer, even after the young man looked at him and smiled, mainly because he wasn't sure if Daniel had finished thinking or not, but also because he wanted to word what he had to say correctly. Jesse had seen the turmoil going on inside Daniel, seen it well up and then either burst or be pushed away, and knew that now the boy had spoken about some of it, it was up to him to put his mind at rest.
"Daniel, the things that happened to your mom and me, we just dealt with them differently, and for me … well they led, gradually, to what I did to your dad. I had been kidnapped years before, drugged and abused, in my mind I joined the two things together, and they definitely made me a bit unstable there for a while. The guilt I feel about what I did to Steve won't ever go away. It isn't the type of feeling that is ok one day and awful the next either. It's always awful, which is why I try not to think about it. But I am, and always will be very, very sorry for what I did, I hope you know that."
"Yeah, I know. I wouldn't have mentioned it if I didn't think you felt that way. But what about Jayden? What about all the things that Mom has bought for him? Nursery furniture, even a play house?" Daniel didn't think he would mention the cost, he still couldn't believe it himself.
Jesse had known that a lot of the boy's problems would relate to his new baby brother and trying not to smile he spoke again. "Think about it for a moment. Your mom and dad love each other, they have you, who they also love, dearly, and then Jo becomes pregnant. That means there will be a baby in the house. A baby needs a place to sleep, it needs diapers, bottles, tiny clothes, and strange toys made of soft materials. They know that in their case it could also mean NICU isolettes, heartache and tears. What would you rather concentrate on? You do all the normal things because if you do, then maybe, just maybe, the other things won't happen and if they do then it will still be ok, because everything is ready for this little one to come home to and be a normal new baby. Do you see that?"
Again Daniel was listening hard and thinking through what his friend was saying. "Yeah I do, but, Jesse, how do you cope if the baby dies, or if it's … not quite right? How do you help, how do I help?"
"First of all, I agree with what you said earlier, I think Jayden will survive, and hopefully, like Eliana, he'll be fine."
"Like Ana? Was she … did Rae have what Mom had, the pre-eclampsia?"
Jesse shook his head, "No, Rae was kidnapped by a guy who had been stalking her a couple of years earlier. He gave her all sorts of drugs, as well as physically assaulting her. We think that's why Eliana was born at seven months." Jesse didn't mention the sexual assaults and rapes that Rae had also endured, for this discussion they weren't necessary and it wasn't his place to mention them especially to someone so young.
It was Daniel's turn to shake his head, but in amazement, as he listened to Jesse speak. "Why do these things happen? My life was never as good as it is now, I wasn't happy, not after my mom left, but, man, it wasn't this dangerous."
"Why do these things happen? I don't know, it could be because your dad and Rae are cops; they deal with desperate people all the time. The guy who took your mom, he'd lost his wife to another man, who he'd killed, he didn't want to go down for murder, he was desperate. Rae is a great believer in fate. She says that the main things in life, which are supposed to happen, always will, no matter what else is going on. I'm not sure if I agree with her or not, but she would tell you that even though Jo and I were meant to be taken we were also meant to be found. I know that she would also say that you were always meant to end up a Sloan, everything else that went on before was leading to that. Your mom leaving, your cousin Zeke deciding to rob the grocery store, Alex and Shannon being there too. Who knows, she may be right."
"So we do what? Take every day as it comes, putting in no effort because everything is predetermined anyway?" Daniel knew that wasn't what Jesse meant, at least he thought he did.
"No, it's not that easy. We do our best, for ourselves and those we love. If those people are in a difficult situation we make sure we're there for them, that they know all they have to do is ask, and then we get on with our own lives. There is nothing else we can do.
"Daniel, I know you're scared about Jayden, I was terrified the first time I saw Eliana in her isolette. No one will expect more of you than you can give, but they may be a bit preoccupied and not listen as much as usual. We're here, Rae and I, we'll listen and help you if your mom and dad are busy, but remember, that won't mean they love you any less or any differently than before. They may see you differently, but not love you that way."
"Because all of a sudden I'm the big brother?" Daniel smiled, "I feel different, y'know? As soon as I heard that Jayden had been born … you, as soon as you told me. I was scared, and I've been scared for him, for all of us, every day since, but I've felt … I don't know, different is the only word I can think of, but I … I think I like it."
The silence that descended over the patio was friendly, companionable and, as Jesse and Daniel both reached for and then drank from their soda cans at the same time, they relaxed and felt no need to say anything further.
ooo
Rae's senses were reeling; she had seen things that made her head whirl, and was sickened to the very pit of her stomach. She had no doubt that whoever Matthew was, Dominic Little, Nicholas Large, it didn't matter what name you used, had been living with him in this apartment, storing his perverted treasures here, and no one had even noticed. She guessed that it fitted the pattern. Signature killers were more social than serial killers, moving through the society they lived in, usually on the edges but known, recognized by those around them.
"How the hell could Matthew have let this go on?" She had said roughly the same thing two or three times already, Steve hadn't had an answer then, he didn't now, but knew he should respond to her.
"Fear? Maybe he was just too scared to say anything."
"Oh come on!" Rae looked amazed. "It goes way past that when someone has killed as many times as Dominic has. He must have gotten off on it. Albert said he was weird, maybe he got his kicks second hand when Dominic told him what had happened on his dates."
Rae had opened the first drawer of the piece of furniture nearest to the door of the bedroom and found a plastic sealed bag containing neatly folded, but bloodstained, clothes in it." The bag had said Tanisha on the label and Steve had explained that it was the sister of the woman who had set them on Dominic's trail in New York.
Gradually they had looked at the clothes and belongings for all the victims they had found so far, along with others, which they knew were for the two faces they didn't recognise.
Finally, in the bottom drawer of the first chest Rae had discovered another bag, the final link in the chain of what Dominic did, and why. The bag had been full of hair, each lock or locks separated, combed and named and she had dropped it back into its hiding place and taken a horrified step back.
"My God, Steve, I'm sorry." It had been too much for her, and she had turned running blindly from the room, making her way to the fire escape where she could throw up without contaminating the scene.
ooo
He had recognized the car; it belonged to that cop, the woman, the British woman who was after him. There was another car as well parked next to it, he hadn't seen that one before, and his defences and fears rose within him.
Dominic-Matthew looked around, he could hear the ordinary sounds of a Friday, and that calmed him a little. She had probably just come back to speak with the residents who had been out the other times she'd called. The other car could be someone visiting for the wake. There had been a lot of different vehicles around since Albert died. What he'd do was go up the fire escape, that way he could be sure no one would spot him. The rear door to his apartment was stiff to open, and had a lock on the inside by the handle. He could reach it through the window, which didn't fasten properly, so he would be able to get in that way.
He climbed up the flights of steps and his heart nearly stopped as he peered in through the murky, grimy glass and saw two people in his apartment and worse than that saw they were at the door of the third bedroom. The Matthew part of his persona screamed at him to run, to make a bolt for it right now, but Dominic was still the stronger and he stood, resolutely, needing to see what they were doing, what they were looking at.
For a while he was unable to hear them inside the room, and Matthew fought hard to keep Dominic from moving closer so that he could eavesdrop. Then to their joint horror the female came out and made a call on her cell phone, he knew that reinforcements were being called for, and for a moment he wavered, he should go, but if he left now all his treasures, apart from the ones in his suitcase, would be lost. If he waited he might have the chance to get at least a picture of the one, that showed just her back view, then he would leave.
The two cops worked quietly again, occasionally they had a short conversation but mainly they looked and kept their own council. Then, suddenly, almost without warning the woman was coming towards him, her hand was over her mouth as she fought desperately with the bolt.
Dominic-Matthew moved a little further back, his hand curling around the knife he always kept with him and he waited. The door finally opened and she rushed unseeingly past him and, as she headed for the rail, he pushed her, hard, and listened to her scream as she disappeared from sight.