To the Grave Page 13

“You,” James managed before striding toward her, grabbing her hands, and pulling her up from where she sat on the couch. He hugged her so tightly she could hardly breathe. “Darling girl, don’t you think there’s a happy medium between treating me the way Renée did and treating me like I either am too fragile to hear the truth or will get furious with you when I do? I’m not fragile and I know I can be stubborn and overbearing at times, but I’m not an ogre!”

  “I don’t think you’re an ogre.” Between her desire to cry some more and the pressure of James’s hug, Catherine had trouble squeezing out words. “But maybe I see something you don’t. James, Renée’s behavior didn’t just anger you—it traumatized you.”

  James stopped hugging her and took a step back, keeping his hands on her shoulders. “I’m not traumatized. I never was.”

  “Yes, James, you were. You’re just beginning to recover. Trust me—I’ve spent years learning to recognize the signs. I may go overboard trying to protect your feelings, but you’ve been hurt more severely than even you realize.”

  Finally, he said carefully, “All right, Renée did hurt me badly. I think saying it traumatized me is going too far, but if that’s the word you want to use, then go ahead. However, Catherine, keep in mind that she left me years ago.”

  “Yes. She just disappeared one day and a lot of people, including the police, suspected you of murdering her. Now she’s back. Dead. Murdered. And you’re the prime suspect—again. So don’t insult my intelligence by trying to convince me you’re just fine in spite of everything that’s happened the last few years, especially the last three days. I can’t let myself love a man who thinks I’m weak and stupid!”

  James looked at her disbelievingly at first, then with a flash of fear in his eyes. “Catherine, you can’t believe I think you’re either weak or stupid. My God! Are you telling me you don’t love me, you won’t love me, if I refuse to wear my heart on my sleeve, to let everyone, especially you, know how I feel—”

  Abruptly the front door opened and Marissa rushed in, full of apologies and questions because she’d heard at the newspaper office about the 911 call. Catherine saw James swallow hard a couple of times and then rapidly compose his expression. Before Marissa had shaken the rain off her coat and hung it up, Eric Montgomery arrived, also because of the emergency call. Marissa spent the next ten minutes checking Catherine’s neck where Arcos’s hands had squeezed; scolding her for not going to the hospital; getting everyone seated; fixing refreshments; and settling Lindsay.

  When she finally sat down, Eric leaned forward, looked at Catherine, and said in a low but authoritative voice, “I hate to make you go over this now, but I’d like to hear from you about the incident.”

  James had sat down beside Catherine on the couch and he took one of her still-trembling hands, holding it tightly as she gave Eric a concise account of Arcos’s approach to her and his subsequent attack. “I smelled alcohol on his breath and I’m sure he’d taken some drug—I could tell by the dilated pupils in his eyes. He was polite at first, and then he got more aggressive and grabbed me. He clutched my neck—not hard, more as if he were trying to scare me rather than strangle me. He was babbling—not making a lot of sense—when Steve Crown came. I didn’t see exactly what Steve did, but it broke the hold Arcos had on my neck.”

  Everyone in the room went motionless. Even Lindsay grew stock-still, focusing on Catherine.

  “What was Arcos babbling?” Eric asked gently.

  Here it was—the one question she’d dreaded, the one question she’d hoped Eric wouldn’t ask. Eric never avoided details, though. She should have known she couldn’t slide anything about her encounter with Arcos past him.

  For once, Catherine wished James weren’t with her. Earlier he’d been offended, saying she always tiptoed around his feelings, but when it came to all he’d been through with Renée—including her murder—Catherine knew for now she had to be extra-careful when it came to protecting his emotions. She couldn’t bear doing or saying anything that might cause him further pain.

  But Eric’s gaze bore into hers. He wanted to know what Arcos had said and for some reason seemed determined to hear it in James’s presence. Catherine knew stalling would be useless. She might as well tell Eric the truth and be done with it, no matter what the outcome.

  Catherine took a sip of Coke to ease the roughness in her throat. “Earlier in the day, I had a cancellation of my one o’clock appointment, which gave me a two-hour lunch break,” she began slowly. “I used the extra time to visit the Nordine Gallery.”

  Catherine glanced at Marissa to see her eyes widen and could tell she wanted to demand why Catherine had gone alone, without her sister’s company. Fortunately, Marissa firmly closed her mouth without saying a word. “When Arcos got here, he said he just wanted to talk to me about my visit to the gallery. Then he began to seem somehow … menacing. I told him to leave me alone. He asked what I’d do if he didn’t—hit him? Or was I capable of violence? Was I capable of murder if someone stood in the way of what I want?”

  “Murder!” Marissa burst out. “You? That is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. How dare he—”

  “Go on, Catherine,” Eric interrupted, earning him a glare from Marissa.

  “He started asking me about what I thought of the portrait of his lady. I’m sure he meant Mardi Gras Lady. Then he rattled on about how she was his no matter what she let them think or made them think—”

  “Made who think?”

  “I don’t know, Eric. He just said she was his, it couldn’t be any other way, and even though she didn’t always understand that, he did. Then he said I was stupid for thinking she wanted him—it was obvious he meant someone besides himself—and that she’d never really wanted him, this other man.” James’s grip on Catherine’s hand tightened. “He said I’d killed Renée and gone to the gallery earlier today to look at the portrait of the woman I’d destroyed. And then … well, he was just babbling.”

  Eric gave her a look that made her feel like a bug pinned on a wall and wriggling but unable to free itself. “What did he say, Catherine?”

  “He said I couldn’t escape him or her.” Eric kept staring at her and Catherine knew he wasn’t going to let her off easily. She might as well give up, she thought as she drew a deep breath and added reluctantly, “He said Renée would follow me to the grave.”

  2

  Nicolai Arcos slowly turned his car into the morgue parking lot, turned off his headlights, and pulled parallel to the brick building where the shadows hovered deepest. For the last four hours, after escaping from the Gray home, he’d cruised backstreets and alleys, navigating by using only his parking lights and sometimes only the glow of the moon. He hadn’t returned home—the small warehouse with plenty of room for his art supplies, canvases, frames, and finished paintings.

  Heady with the success of his showings at the Nordine Gallery, he’d holed up in his warehouse to celebrate with vodka, some drugs of choice, and a CD marathon. He didn’t even own a radio or television and never saw the news. Not until this afternoon—Monday—had Ken Nordine called and told him about the dead woman found on the Eastman property and that everyone thought she was Renée. Ken had also given Nicolai a detailed account of James Eastman’s girlfriend, Dr. Catherine Gray, her visit to the gallery, and her agitated reaction to Mardi Gras Lady.

  As soon as Ken left, Nicolai had sent three shots of vodka into his slightly clearing mind and thought. Within what seemed moments, he decided exactly what had happened. Renée had been at the cottage and waiting for him—her pishiskurja, the Romanian word for “darling” she’d called him in intimate moments. Renée who had cared enough about him to learn the word without a hint from him. He shook his head, clearing it as the vodka hit his empty stomach with a dizzying slap. He must concentrate, he told himself.

  Ken said maybe she had returned to Aurora Falls because she’d heard about his exhibition. She’d come back because she wanted to see the exhibit. Nicolai knew immediately s
he had come back to see him. After all, Ken had claimed reluctantly, although without malice, she’d cared about Nicolai more than she’d cared about him. After all, Nicolai told himself, he was the artist, the genius, the one with the tender soul. He had been her true love. Still, Nicolai had been stunned that a man with Ken Nordine’s ego could admit such truth.

  Ken had also suggested that Renée had been killed somewhere else and her body dumped in the cistern of the Eastman cottage just to throw suspicion on James. Nicolai knew Ken was wrong, though. He pictured the scene. Renée had sent him a message on one of the technological gadgets she’d given him telling him she’d returned and would be waiting at the cottage. For some reason—probably because he was not good with the gadgets that he didn’t trust—he had not received her message. Someone else had, though. and while she’d waited innocently, eagerly, for Nicolai, the person who had intercepted her message had murdered her at the cottage. The cottage—old, shabby, but theirs because the Eastmans had cast it off; because it sat isolated in the winter and early spring when their affair had reached its zenith.

  Before she began to pull away from him.

  Nicolai was certain the fear had caused her desertion of him years ago. He knew Renée had panicked at the overwhelming love she felt for him. She hadn’t understood this—she didn’t understand so many things about herself—but he knew. He was an artist, which meant he had the sensitivity to understand so much other people did not. A lawyer like James Eastman? He could never come close to comprehending the complexity that was Renée. A businessman like Ken Nordine, with whom she’d had a short fling? She’d only done it to hurt Nicolai, to turn him against her, to drive him away. The performance had not worked. He’d seen right through her and he’d kept on loving her, maybe more than ever for going to such lengths to escape their love. Yes, even throughout the years, during the many times his thoughts had been fogged with drugs, he had always been certain of this one truth.

  For the last couple of years, Nicolai’s drug of choice tended to be the mind-expanding Ecstasy. Today, though, he had fallen back on his old favorite—cocaine—and he now snorted some of what he’d brought with him. As it tingled through him, he threw back his head and laughed, tossing the hair he kept long because it complemented his image. Renée had loved to run her hands through it—her exquisite, gentle hands never marred by her wedding and engagement rings. During their times together, she’d only worn the narrow platinum band he had given her. Earlier, he’d realized she must have been wearing it the night she was murdered.

  Over the last few hours, while he’d hidden from the police, he’d become obsessed with that ring. Where was it now? Nicolai knew they stripped corpses. He shuddered at the thought of Renée as a corpse lying naked in a cold metal drawer. Trapped. Alone.

  He lowered his head, snorting his last, small line of cocaine and wishing he’d brought more with him earlier today. The small amount had to be enough, though. It had to give him the strength to get him through what he knew he must do: free Renée.

  Power surged through Nicolai. He could do this. He could take her away from James, from her family—from the people who hated her. He would take her physical remains someplace safe, someplace sacred, and keep her hidden until their souls met on a different plane.

  Nicolai peered around the parking lot again and then stepped from his car. The rain had stopped, but the night felt heavy. He was already sweating from the cocaine, so he shrugged out of his coat and tossed it on the seat. Then he took a deep breath, trying to slow his rapid heart rate and cool his overheated body.

  The air smelled dank. He held his breath, uncertain, repulsed. The smell couldn’t be leaking from the morgue, he told himself. Calming down, he closed his eyes and smiled. He did not smell decomposing bodies. He was merely letting his imagination take control. Sometimes having an imagination as powerful as his was not a blessing. The combination of vodka and cocaine wasn’t helping to keep it in check, either.

  Nicolai crept to the back door of the morgue. He was sure the hospital didn’t pay for a security guard. They probably didn’t even have a security system. All he would have to contend with would be some weak, substandard creep. Who else would work in a morgue? Nicolai knew he would have no trouble overpowering such a pathetic being. Then he would find her.…

  He shook his head to clear it. The quick movement made him feel slightly nauseated, but he held still and took deep breaths. He still crouched by his car with the door he’d left open only a crack so the interior lights wouldn’t glow. Swiftly he opened the door, grabbed his lock-picking kit, and gently pushed the door to its former position. The police might still be looking for him, even here. Completely shutting the door would make unnecessary noise.

  Nicolai crept to the back door of the morgue. For a moment, he hesitated again, wondering if he was doing the right thing or if grief and drugs were controlling his actions. What would his grandparents think of this? They were distant memories but still lingered in his mind. Would his grandfather have let someone take away the remains of the one true love of his life if he hadn’t been lost at sea before she died?

  No. His grandfather would never have let such a travesty happen. He’d been a strong man, a man of principle and of passion, and he would have done anything to protect his mate for life, Nicolai’s kind and devoted grandmother, Iona. Yes, Nicolai reasoned in his churning thoughts. Taking Renée to safety was the only right and just thing to do.

  His mind settling, Nicolai stooped down and looked closely at the doorknob. He let out a snort of derision when he didn’t see a dead-bolt lock—only the relatively simple doorknob lock. No one had wasted any money on this building, he thought, almost laughing until he abruptly wondered if administrators had spent much money on modernizing, or even maintaining, the inside.

  The inside, where bodies lay.

  Nicolai no longer felt like speculating or wasting time on scorn and ridicule. He merely wanted to rescue Renée and never see this awful place again.

  He opened his lock-pick set, pulled a small penlight from his pocket, and shined its narrow beam on the utensils. He picked one and withdrew it from the kit, quickly inserting it into the cylinder running through the center of the doorknob. Abruptly he stopped as fear passed through him like a cold wind. Shocked, he froze into immobility, unable to move anything except his eyes. He saw no one.

  Still, he knew he was not alone.

  Someone had come into the parking lot. They could not have driven—he would have heard a car. They had walked, cautiously, stealthily—

  From behind him came a smooth voice. “Good evening.”

  Nicolai, agile even in a drugged state, had shot halfway to his feet before the muscles of his back cramped violently, sending shock waves of pain through his midsection. In a moment, another flare of excruciating pain sent him facedown to the ground.

  A foot rolled him onto his back. Nicolai, fully conscious, squinted upward. His vision wasn’t as keen as usual, but he saw expressionless eyes and a gun pointed steadily at his face. He muttered a pitiful “no” before the bullet hit.

  And for Nicolai Arcos, the world ended.

  CHAPTER NINE

  1

  Eric Montgomery pulled into the morgue parking lot, stopped the patrol car, and looked out the windshield at the second murder scene he’d witnessed in less than a week. He took a sip of coffee from an extra-large Styrofoam cup and sighed. “Here we go again,” he said to Deputy Jeff Beal.

  “When I was a teenager, I always thought going to murder scenes would be exciting, but they aren’t,” Jeff said morosely. “I guess I’d watched too much TV.”

  Eric took another sip of coffee. “At least I’ve never seen you vomiting into the shrubbery at the sight of a dead body. That’s a plus.”

  “I guess.” Jeff frowned, his eyes narrowing into a sharp stare. “Isn’t that Marissa?”

  “Damn!” Eric threw open the car door and made a beeline for her. “What are you doing here? It’s seven thirty!�
��

  “Good morning to you, too, and it’s seven thirty-five to be exact,” she said calmly, glancing at her watch. “I’m here because I got a call on my cell phone over half an hour ago telling me Nicolai Arcos was here. Murdered.”

  “Nicolai Arcos? The artist?”

  “The voice said only, ‘Nicolai Arcos.’ Nothing about him being an artist.”

  Eric gaped at her. “Why didn’t you call me? Who called you? What else did he say? Or was it a she? Are any other reporters here? Does Catherine know?”

  Marissa took a deep breath. “I did call you. I got no answer on your landline phone and your cell phone was busy. I don’t know who called me. Whoever it was used a voice distorter and only said, ‘Last night Nicolai Arcos was murdered trying to break into the back door of the morgue. He’s still lying there.’ I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. When I couldn’t get hold of you, I called nine-one-one. They said they’d already been notified and I knew they’d called you—that’s why your cell phone was busy. I left a note for Catherine saying only that I needed to go into work early—that’s all. Any other questions?”

  “No, but I wish you weren’t here.”

  Marissa lifted her right eyebrow. “Thank you, Eric. I love you, too.”

  “You know what I mean. You’re a reporter.”

  “I’m a reporter who cooperates with the police, which is why, under usual circumstances, I wouldn’t be here. This time my editor had no say in the matter, though. Even he doesn’t know about this murder unless he was my anonymous caller.” Marissa looked closely at Eric. “You’re tired and you have a headache.”

  “How did you deduce that information?”

  “You’re carrying a twenty-four-ounce cup of black coffee from Starbucks—you only drink that much black coffee in the morning when you need extra caffeine. Your eyes are slightly bloodshot, indicating you either went on a bender last night or didn’t get much sleep—I’d rather it was the latter reason—and the crease between your eyebrows is deeper than usual. All of that adds up to you having a headache.”