Dead Air Read online

  Bernie nodded. “Nothing illegal about that. Tell me about what happened last night.”

  Rodney gave up on trying to get comfortable and rose from the chair. The captain seemed to know what he was thinking. “Terrible, aren’t they? That’s the best the township will give me.”

  Rodney smirked, and then said, “I’d driven into the city last night—”

  “Why?” said Bernie.

  Rodney shrugged. “The floral delivery bothered me. We may be looking at an escalation in behavior.”

  Bernie folded his arms across his chest. “I’d agree.”

  “I offered to escort Ms. Ashe home. Just to make sure she got there safely. The rest is in the report.”

  “Did you get a look at the driver?” Bernie asked.

  “Not a good one. It was a Volkswagen. One of the newer Beetles. Couldn’t tell what color.”

  Bernie glanced at Julie. “You drive a Beetle, don’t you?” He laughed, “Where were you last night?”

  Julie returned a broad smile. “Playing naked Twister with my ex-husband.”

  “Again?” Rodney shook his head. “Why bother getting the divorce?”

  Bernie chuckled, then returned his gaze to Rodney. “License plate?”

  “It was a PA tag, but I only saw the first couple digits. BG. Julie ran a search this morning.”

  Bernie looked toward her. Julie shook her head. “Nothing. Hundreds of plates that start with BG, but none are assigned to Beetles.”

  “Faked plate?”

  Rodney crossed to the door, glancing out the window at the detective office beyond, then turned back to face the captain. “That’s what we’re figuring.”

  “How is Ms. Ashe doing?”

  “Bumped and bruised. She leaned into the fall, and her helmet and riding jacket took the brunt of it,” Rodney said. “They released her from the hospital this morning. Nothing too serious.”

  Bernie nodded. “Good. Keep me informed of any progress.”

  Julie rose from her chair, nodding toward the captain. “Yes, sir.” She crossed the room, opened the door, and stepped out.

  Rodney moved to follow her, but halted for a moment, turning back toward the captain. “You really don’t look all that great. You sure you should be here?”

  “It’s my wife that I’m worried about. She practically slept next to the toilet last night. Not the most pleasant of mornings, but at least I’m here.”

  Rodney laughed. “Hope you feel better.”

  Julie was perched on the corner of Rodney’s desk. He knew why she was waiting for him. He was already running the dialog through his head. She looked pissed. A frown on her lips. A furrowed brow. Her angry eyes, cold and hard, followed him as he approached.

  “Why didn’t you call me last night about the flowers?” she said.

  Her voice was stern, and Rodney couldn’t miss the accusation behind it. “Didn’t get a chance,” he said.

  “Bullshit.”

  Rodney circled the desk and lowered himself into the chair, forcing her to slide off and turn to look at him. He gave her a broad smile. “It didn’t seem that important. I thought it could wait until morning.”

  Julie’s hands landed on her hips. “It was important enough for you to go rushing into the city.”

  He sighed. “It didn’t start to bother me until later in the evening. Then, it was too late to call.”

  “Don’t give me that.” She scowled. “You know damn well that you can call me anytime.”

  “Julie, there’s no reason to get upset over this.” He leaned back in his chair. “There’s nothing you could’ve done with the information until morning.”

  “That’s not the point.” The sharp edge in her voice made some of the other detectives in the office steal discreet glances in their direction. She tapped her finger on his desk, punctuating each word. “I need to know everything you discover in this case.”

  Rodney raised his hands as a gesture of surrender. “All right. I’m sorry. Next time, I’ll make sure to call you.”

  Her eyes bored into him, but the anger seemed to be diminishing.

  “Happy?” he said.

  She folded her arms and glared at him for a long moment. Her scowl dissolved into a smile. It looked genuine enough, but her still narrowed eyes told him it was forced.

  “Just don’t do it again,” she said. Her voice was softer, more relaxed. She hitched herself up on the edge of his desk, leaning toward him. “You can’t protect her, you know. It’s impossible for you to be there all the time. You can’t be there when she goes to work, goes shopping, or goes for her runs on the Heritage Trail. You just can’t do it, so don’t try.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Julie glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was listening, then lowered her voice. “You don’t think I noticed the resemblance? I’m not blind. Don’t make her a proxy for Carol.” She gestured over her shoulder toward the coffeemaker in the far corner. “You want some coffee?”

  Rodney nodded. Julie smiled, and then slipped off the desk, moving across the office. As he watched her walk away, he wondered why she’d come down so hard on him. He knew that Julie tackled every case with intensity, but this had been something altogether different. He recalled her reaction from earlier in the morning when he recounted the previous evening’s developments.

  “What were you doing there?” she’d asked, her voice filled with indignation. “It wasn’t your jurisdiction.”

  He tried to explain the situation, but she’d cut him off with the start of what he was certain would’ve been a five-minute tirade. A phone call from Captain Doyle requesting their presence in his office had been the timely intervention that saved Rodney from an even lengthier diatribe. It wouldn’t have been the first one he’d received from Julie. But this one felt a little over the top, even for her.

  He thought about Julie’s last remark. Was he turning Kaitlyn into a proxy for his daughter? It’d been so long since he’d visited Carol. He couldn’t even be sure that he would recognize her. Maybe that was the issue. Kaitlyn looked and acted like he’d always hoped his daughter would. A college graduate. Successful in her career. Even a lover who seemed genuinely in love with her. She fulfilled an ideal that Carol never achieved, and he wanted to protect her in a way that he didn’t with his own daughter.

  When Julie returned with two Styrofoam cups of coffee, he smiled, took one from her, and took a long sip. Rodney felt the warmth on his hands. How much coffee had he consumed in the past twelve hours? He’d lost count in the wee hours of the morning while he sat in the hospital ER waiting room. He’d made it home for a quick shower and change of clothes before coming into the office.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Go over everything again. Figure out what we missed.”

  15

  Kaitlyn stood before her bathroom mirror and gave her naked body a close inspection. Her fingers probed the large bruise on her hip. She winced at the pain. Twisting around, she caught sight of another contusion on her shoulder in the mirror. It had only just started to turn black and blue. There was one on each of her knees as well. Her whole body felt sore, and every joint was stiff. She’d taken a couple Ibuprofen an hour ago, hoping they would kick in soon. So far, no such luck.

  She moved back into the bedroom and stopped to examine her riding gear, which lay in a disheveled pile on the bed. She’d been lucky. Her helmet and leather jacket had suffered the most damage during the accident. Deep gouges in the leather and a several torn seams meant she’d have to cut her losses and replace the jacket. Kaitlyn picked up her helmet and studied the cracked shield. She’d have to pick up a new one, as well as buff out the scratches along the helmet’s crown. Better that it took the hit than her head. She tossed the helmet back onto the bed. She had no way of knowing for sure that the accident was related to the letters, but she felt fairly certain that it was.

  Kaitlyn stood by the bed for a moment, assessing the damage that couldn’t be seen. Her anguish,
the sense of an approaching reckoning. There was an uneasy quivering in her stomach as she fought back the sobs.

  “Jesse,” she said into the dead air of the empty room. “Why’re you doing this to me?”

  His face came back to her in her mind. She heard his shouts and curses. His arms flailing. Splashing. The gurgling . . . and then nothing.

  Tears crept down her cheeks. She rubbed her eyes with balled up fists. “Why can’t you leave me be?”

  Kaitlyn collapsed onto the bed and sobbed uncontrollably. The Shallows was calling her back. Drawing her back to face her crime.

  When her tears had stopped, she moved to the bathroom. As she stepped into the shower, Kaitlyn thought about her Harley. It hadn’t fared well in the accident. The handlebars were bent, the rear tire blown, the left foot pedal ripped off, and the paint and chrome had been scratched up. That was the damage as far as she could tell. Her mechanic would have to determine what else was wrong.

  The hot shower helped soothe her aching muscles. She should take the ER doctor’s advice and take the evening off. But Kaitlyn was already taking Friday night off for her weekend getaway with Brad. Scott would’ve understood, and probably have insisted, but Kaitlyn didn’t want to take advantage of the situation.

  As she stepped from the shower, Kaitlyn heard the phone ring in the bedroom. She grabbed a towel and threw it around her body, then rushed to get the phone.

  “Hey babe,” Brad said when she answered. “How’re you feeling?”

  He sounded chipper, but she heard the weariness in his voice. She felt bad. Brad had been up most of the night with her at the hospital. He’d even driven her home after she’d been discharged. He must be exhausted. “Sore, but alive. What about you? You’ve gotta be tired.”

  She heard a deep sigh, and he said, “I can’t say I’m not tired. At least I don’t have client meetings today.”

  Balancing the phone between her head and shoulder, Kaitlyn placed a foot on the bed and dried her leg with the towel. “Thanks again.”

  “For what? Rushing to your side in the hospital? Were you expecting any less?”

  She rubbed the towel over her wet hair. “I guess not. Just feel bad that you were up all night.”

  “You sure I can’t persuade you to take the night off?”

  Kaitlyn giggled. It sounded fake, but it was the best she could do. Rodney had asked her the same question when she was discharged from the hospital. “No. I’ll be fine. Just gives me more reason to look forward to that hot tub in the Poconos this weekend.” She went silent for a moment, then added, “I love you.”

  “Love you too. Be careful tonight.”

  After the call ended, Kaitlyn sat on the edge of the bed. She should have taken Rodney’s appearance in the parking garage as an omen. But what could she have done even if he hadn’t been there? She probably would’ve lain in the street until someone found her. Or worse, she might’ve been killed.

  She recalled the rain splashing down on her face. Rodney refused to allow her to get up, despite her repeated attempts to do so.

  “Best not to move until the ambulance gets here,” he’d said. “You could’ve injured your neck.”

  She couldn’t argue with his logic. Her body ached all over, making it difficult for Kaitlyn to tell what was broken and what wasn’t. The water seeped through her clothes, even getting inside her leather jacket and her boots. The cold rainwater drew out buried memories of Jesse.

  She remembered their first date, huddled beneath an umbrella in the bleachers, watching the Dragons—their high school football team—play a rainy Friday night game. The team lost that night, and they were both soaked by the time she got home. Their first kiss made her spine tingle.

  That was a memory she wanted to keep, but it was pushed away by the dark waters of the Shallows. A hand thrust upward, breaking the surface and grasping at the air. She shuddered at the thought.

  Brad met her and Rodney at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital emergency room. Both her fiancé and the detective paced the floor of her room like expectant fathers. For her part, she endured X-rays, a CT Scan, a physical exam, and blood work, all which left her feeling not only exhausted but also a bit like some science curiosity being studied for the first time.

  There had been little that Kaitlyn could remember from the accident itself. It happened too fast for her to see anything more than the flash of color and a blur of lights. She couldn’t even be sure of the make or model of the car that cut her off. She thought it was blue, but she could be wrong. Even the skid was a vague memory. Leaning into the fall had been more instinct than anything else. The motorcycle safety classes she’d taken paid off after all. Kaitlyn laid the bike down and let her gear take the brunt of the impact just as she was taught. She might’ve been able to keep it upright if the rain hadn’t slickened the road.

  She remained on the bed, feeling an ache in every fiber of her body. She suddenly realized how tired she was. She’d been so concerned about Brad that she’d forgotten that she hadn’t slept either. With her eyes heavy, Kaitlyn set her alarm clock to awaken her in four hours, then slipped her naked body between the sheets and drifted to sleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

  Kaitlyn took her time driving into the city that afternoon. As much as she loved her Harley, she was glad to be in her Prius today. Once her motorcycle was fixed, she’d be back on it. The car offered a level of protection she needed right now. As if a car could protect her from her remorseful memories.

  Kaitlyn tried to put the previous evening’s accident out of her mind, but she found herself glancing at the rearview mirror far more than usual. Any time a car would linger behind the Prius for more than a few minutes, her grip on the steering wheel would tighten. She hated the fact that someone was using her deepest secret to make her afraid of her own shadow. What could they possibly gain from it all? Who could hate her so much to put her through this? Jesse’s parents didn’t blame her for what happened. Even if they were still alive, Kaitlyn would never believe that they would do anything like this.

  Taking the parking spot nearest the elevator, Kaitlyn sat in her car for a moment. The walk to the elevator—although short—gave her pause. The parking garage appeared devoid of life, but what if someone was waiting for her? She reached for her phone and considered calling Brad. Maybe he could talk her down from her fear-fraught ledge. She stared at his name in her list of contacts; her thumb hovered over the screen. He’d still be in the office. Then, with a brisk motion, Kaitlyn slipped the phone into her bag. No, I’m going to do this on my own. It wasn’t fair to expect him to blindly carry a burden that she refused to share with him. Opening the door of the Toyota, she stepped out, scrutinized the surrounding area, and then walked toward the elevator. Her legs trembled with each step and her pace quickened the closer she came to the doors. It wasn’t until she was in the elevator that she let out a long exhale.

  When Kaitlyn entered the offices at WPLX, Scott Mackay had his back to the door, his elbows leaning on the reception desk’s high counter. He was deep in conversation with Sammy, who stood on the other side facing him. When she caught sight of Kaitlyn coming through the door, Sammy’s eyes widened, and she let out a gasp. She rushed around the desk and grasped Kaitlyn’s hands. She said, “Holy fuck! What happened?”

  Scott turned as well, cursed, and crossed the office to stand beside Sammy. “My god, you okay?”

  “Do I look that bad?” Kaitlyn tried to put on a smile but found it difficult. It took too much energy to make it appear even remotely genuine. “I took a tumble. Nothing’s broken except the bike.”

  “Should’ve taken the night off,” Scott said.

  Kaitlyn shook her head. “I’m fine, really.” She tried to sound convincing, but even she was having difficulty believing her own words.

  “Sweetie, sweetie! You’re not okay,” Sammy said. “Scott’s right. You should go home.”

  Kaitlyn held up her hand, motioning for them to stop with their fussing. “Stop
it, both of you. I’m working my shift tonight. Period.”

  Sammy wrapped her arms around Kaitlyn, squeezing just hard enough to make her wince. Kaitlyn pushed back on the embrace. “Ow! Easy!”

  “Tell you what. I’ll hang out with you tonight,” Sammy said. “I’ll grab us dinner and keep you company.”

  “You don’t have—”

  Sammy glared at her. “Don’t argue.”

  The phone at the reception desk rang and Sammy gave her one final stern look as if to signify that the discussion was over. Then she returned to her desk and answered the phone. Scott gestured for Kaitlyn to follow him, then walked down the hall toward his office.

  Once in his office, he ushered Kaitlyn to the leather sofa along the far wall, pushed the door closed, then turned and leaned his back against it. Scott folded his arms, then frowned. “How bad is the bike?”

  Kaitlyn shook her head. “Don’t know yet. Terry’s going to look at it later this week and let me know.”

  Scott sighed. “What’s going on?”

  Kaitlyn turned her eyes away from him and looked around the room, avoiding his stare. Scott had a long career in broadcasting, and framed photographs adorned his office walls as a testament to it. Backstage shots featured Scott with a cavalcade of pop and rock bands, from Devo, Journey, Gin Blossoms, and even Justin Timberlake. Kaitlyn’s eyes lingered on the photo featuring REO Speedwagon. Her spine prickled. When she turned back to him, she smiled. “Nothing. Just an accident.”

  Shaking his head, Scott crossed the room and sat down next to her. “Come on. Something’s up. You got a crank letter. Then flowers.”

  Her shoulders stiffened. How did he know about the letters? She’d been keeping that to herself. “How did—”

  Scott interrupted her question. “You know what they say, telegraph, telephone, tell Kevin.”

  Kaitlyn allowed her shoulders to relax and slumped back into the sofa. “Yeah. There’s been a couple of letters.”