Текст книги "Blind Rage"

Автор книги: Terri Persons

Соавторы: Terri Persons
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Chapter 25

WAITERS AND BUSBOYS and customers dressed in black. An effusive menu that read like a romance novel. A wine list as thick as an issue of National Geographic. Tables set with crystal, candles, and white linen. Floor-to-ceiling windows draped in sheer white curtains.

Matthew VonHader looked as trendy as the restaurant he’d selected. He’d eschewed the unofficial dress uniform for Minnesota men—khaki pants and a blue oxford shirt—and had shown up in a sophisticated black turtleneck, black blazer, and black slacks. Bernadette felt like a slouch for wearing one of her work suits.

She’d spent part of the afternoon on her home laptop, trying to research the accomplishments of the younger VonHader. There weren’t many. The older sibling was the overachiever. She’d found scant background, good or bad, on Matthew. Unless hanging out at his brother’s office qualified as a career, he seemed to have no job. He was unmarried and had an appetite for expensive cars and a thirst for expensive booze. She got a glimpse of the Cabernet Sauvignon he’d pointed out to the waiter, and the wine list priced it at two hundred dollars a bottle.

Their twenty-something server—a skinny kid with spiked hair who’d earlier introduced himself as Clive—came up to their table with pad and pen in hand. “Have we decided yet, or would we like a few more minutes?”

Bernadette flipped the pages of the menu. She’d initially intended to stick with a quick salad but decided to stretch out the meeting to increase her chances of getting dirt on the doc. “I’m debating between the pineapple teriyaki salmon and the Moroccan chicken with chickpeas,” she said, glancing up at Clive for guidance.

“Are you in a stew mood?” he asked.

“Not particularly,” she said.

“The Moroccan dish is a tagine of sorts, a stew,” said Clive. “So if you’re not in a stew mood, I’d suggest the salmon.”

She closed her menu and handed it to him. “The salmon it is.”

Clive turned to Matthew. “For the gentleman?”

“I’m not in a stew mood either, but Moroccan sounds good.” Matthew pointed to his menu. “The Moroccan swordfish with yogurt sauce.”

“Excellent choice,” said the waiter, scribbling. He nodded toward the half-empty wine bottle. “If you would like something with your fish, I could recommend—”

“The Cab is fine,” interrupted Matthew.

“Very well, sir.” Clive took their menus and disappeared into the kitchen.

Matthew looked across the table at Bernadette. “The wine police are going to slam me for pairing red with fish, but screw ’em. I’m sick of all whites, especially the Pinot Grigios everybody’s drinking. They’ve been so overproduced and rushed, they’re practically tasteless. The light beer of white wine.”

“What I know about wine you could fit on the back of a postage stamp,” she said, taking a sip of water.

“Are you sure you won’t have a glass with me?” he asked, refilling his own.

Bernadette didn’t want him getting plastered. So to keep him from guzzling it all, she pushed her glass toward him. “I’ll have one.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said, filling hers to the top.

“That’s more than enough. Thank you.” She’d have to pick up her own tab and tried to calculate the cost of a single glass of two-hundred-dollar wine. Garcia was going to have a fit when he saw her expense account.

He took a sip of wine. “Were you surprised that I called you?”

“I was curious,” she said, fingering the stem of her wineglass. “How’d you get my number? Did you steal my card off your brother’s desk?”

“I rescued it from Chaz,” he said. “He was about to deposit it in the circular file.”

“Chaz?”

“Charles, my brother’s manservant.” He took a sip of wine.

“Chaz … yeah—he hustled you out of there before we could talk at the office,” said Bernadette. “Did Luke tell him to do that? What was your brother afraid of? What didn’t he want you to say to me?”

Matthew dodged her questions by rambling on and on about Charles. “Luke was going to hire a woman after Rosemary retired, but then Chaz called for a job. One of the old neighborhood gang. He’s more my brother’s friend than mine. I don’t like him. He’s so—I don’t know—smarmy. Don’t you think it’s odd to have a male receptionist? He makes shit coffee. A pretty young woman would be so much more—”

“What are you intending to tell me or give me?”

“My brother said you were interested in lithium.”

“I am,” she said.

“Lithium is one of the oldest and most frequently prescribed drugs for the treatment of bipolar disorder. There’s nothing criminal in the fact that a bottle of lithium was found in Kyra Klein’s home.”

“What if I told you Klein could have been murdered with the help of those meds? Would you classify that as criminal?”

He polished off his glass of wine. “You may not be privy to the fact that Miss Klein’s own mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and committed suicide when Kyra was a child.”

“How would I know that? Your brother is sitting on her file.”

“You should also be made aware that Miss Klein attempted to kill herself a couple of years ago.”

Big brother had no qualms about sharing with his younger sibling. So much for patient privacy, thought Bernadette. “Sounds like Luke was having trouble helping his patient manage her illness.”

Matthew emptied the remainder of the bottle into his glass. “Her suicide attempt was while she was under the care of another physician. She’d been improperly diagnosed as having depression and was on medication that made her bipolar disorder worse.”

“So your brother rescued her.”

“My brother made the correct diagnosis and got her going on the proper medication.”

“And she died anyway.”

He shrugged. “It happens.”

“Is that going to be your brother’s defense if Kyra Klein’s family drags him into court? Death happens?”

“I really doubt her family is going to sue,” he said.

“Your brother is worried about it,” she said. “That’s why he won’t talk to me.”

He took a long drink of wine. “He’s protective of his patients and their privacy, as he should be.”

“I’ll tell you what I told him: Kyra Klein is dead!”

Diners a table away stopped talking and looked over at them. “You’re scaring the children,” Matthew said with a smirk.

She leaned forward and said in a lower voice, “He needs to give me those files.”

“The police didn’t ask for them.”

“We’re approaching this case from different angles.”

“Can we please get off the subject of Miss Klein?”

“Fine.” She took a drink of water. “What can you tell me about Zoe Cameron?”

He sipped his wine. “Never heard of her.”

She didn’t believe him. “You seem to know a lot about your brother’s business. Have you got one of your own? What do you do for a living?”

“I’m in between jobs.” He eyed her untouched wineglass. “Is there something wrong with the Cab?”

She picked up her glass and took a small sip. “No. It’s fine.”

He grinned. “Oh, I get it. The wily FBI agent gets the dummy drunk so he spills his proverbial guts.”

“Now, Matt, if I did that, I couldn’t trust or use what you gave me.” She took another sip of wine to appease him. “Besides, I’m not the one who called this meeting. In fact, I’m a little mystified as to why you even bothered. This is your brother’s problem.”

“Problem? Is he in trouble for declining to answer your questions?”

His concern for his brother sounded genuine, and she played off it. “His lack of cooperation doesn’t look good. He seems more interested in covering his backside than in getting to the bottom of what happened.”

“He’s following federal patient privacy guidelines.”

“Baloney,” she said. “He’s got a lot of wiggle room when it comes to those regs. He could help us more.”

“Has he done anything illegal?”

“Maybe not illegal, but certainly unethical.”

“My brother is not only one of the top psychiatrists in the country but also an honorable and generous man. On his own time and at his own expense, he developed a school-based program that screens teens for mental illness. He’s worked hard to increase the public’s understanding of brain disorders through free educational seminars. He goes to bat for patients who are discriminated against on the job. He started a suicide help line that is still up and running and saving lives today.” He took a deep drink, nearly finishing his wine, and pointed a finger at her. “You’d be hard-pressed to find a more ethical and giving man than Luke.”

“He needs to give to me. When a patient dies—”

“It’s tragic, but it happens.” He drained his glass. “People with mental illness are at great risk for—”

She held up her hand to stop him. “I already heard the company line.”

“It’s not a line,” he shot back. He ran his eyes around the restaurant. Catching the waiter’s attention, he pointed to the empty bottle.

She took a sip of water and checked her watch. She regretted ordering dinner. The conversation was moving in circles, and he was getting drunk. “Why am I here?”

“You’re here because you’re hoping I’ll say something inflammatory that you can use against my brother. Get him to turn over those patient files.”

Staring at him, she wondered if he was one of those rare individuals who actually got smarter as they got drunker. “Fair enough. Why are you here?”

He grinned. “I wanted to have dinner with a beautiful, interesting woman.”

“Spare me.”

His smile flattened. “I wanted to see why you were focusing on my brother. He doesn’t make a very good first impression, and I wanted to …”

“Do a little PR work for him?”

He shifted in his seat. “Don’t you have any siblings, Bernadette? Someone you feel protective of?”

She noticed a catch in his voice. Had he somehow found out that she’d lost a sister years ago? Rather than answer his question, she said evenly, “Your brother is a smart man. He doesn’t need your help.” She took a sip of wine. “He went to Harvard, I noticed. Saw the degree on his office wall. Did you go there, too?”

Matthew barked a laugh.

“I’ll take that as a no,” she said with a small smile.

“It’s a difficult school to get into,” said Matthew, trying to recover a little dignity. “I don’t know any other people in our circle who went there.”

“I just met a professor at the U. Wakefielder. He went to Harvard. He’s about Luke’s age.”

“Don’t know him,” said Matthew. “Is he at the medical school?”

“Literature professor,” she said.

“The liberal arts,” he said somberly. “Good stuff.”

“You’re sure you don’t know him? Luke wouldn’t know him?”

“Sorry.” He perked up as he saw Clive approach. The waiter showed Matthew the label, uncorked the bottle, and poured a small amount. Matthew tasted it and nodded. “Very good.”

“Matt, I’m only good for the one glass,” she interjected.

“That’s fine,” he said. “I’m good for more than one.”

A lot more, thought Bernadette. Watching Clive refill Matthew’s wineglass, she hoped she wouldn’t have to give her dining companion a ride home. As far as she was concerned, she’d wasted enough time with this man. “Will our food be much longer?” she asked as the waiter set down the bottle.

“I’ll check,” said Clive.

Matthew took a drink of wine. “What’s the rush? It’s a Saturday night.”

“Believe it or not, I still have work to do,” she said.

“Now you sound like my brother.”

“He’s a taskmaster?”

“Taskmaster. Perfectionist. Always on the job.”

“What do his patients think of him?”

“They like him.” He took another drink. “No. Wait. Like isn’t the correct word. They respect him. I doubt any of them actually like him. For all his good works, he’s not a likable man. I don’t think his own wife likes him. She loves him, I’m sure. But she doesn’t like him.”

If not enlightening, the conversation was at least getting interesting. She wondered what a third bottle would do for him. “Why is Luke unlikable? Does he have a temper?”

He retrieved his goblet and used it to motion toward her. “You’re trying to get me to say something incriminating about Luke, and I refuse to do it. As I said, he’s a saint.”

“An unlikable saint.”

“Like our father,” he said, and downed his glass of wine. “Strict. Disciplined. Very moral. Very Catholic.”

“Hence Matthew and Luke,” she said.

“Exactly. My parents were very fond of biblical names.” He tipped his empty wineglass toward her. “Not that Bernadette is a slouch name when it comes to holiness.”

“What do your parents do for a living?”

“Mother was a homemaker. That’s the politically correct term, isn’t it? Father was a psychiatrist.”

“Was. He’s retired?”

He shook his head. “Deceased. Both my parents are deceased. And you?”

“My parents are dead, too,” she said. “Heart stuff.”

“That’s what did my mother in,” he said sympathetically. “Bad ticker.”

“Your father?”

“He had a lot of health problems. He was older. They were both older parents. At least they never had to be in a nursing home.” He sighed and asked wearily, “So … no husband? No Mr. Saint Clare?”

This conversation was depressing her. She held up her barren left hand. “What about you?”

“Unattached,” he said, sighing again.

Mercifully, the waiter materialized with their dinners, setting a steaming plate down in front of each of them. Clive noticed Matthew’s wineglass was nearly empty and refilled it. “Is there anything else I can get for the two of you?”

“I’m good,” said Bernadette, her hands folded in her lap.

“I’ll check back in a few minutes,” said Clive, moving on to the next table.

“This looks divine,” Matthew said, picking up his fork.

She waited for him to resume the melancholy Q and A, but he’d put his head down and was poking at his fish. She tried to keep her voice light. “How large of a family did you come from, Matt?”

Rather than answer he took a drink of water. “Would you please pass the bread?”

She handed him the basket. His eyes were down as he fiddled with a pat of butter. He’d gone from a painfully personal discussion to a quiet fascination with hard-crust rolls. The wine must have loosened his tongue too much and now he was reining it back in. Maybe if she gave him an opening, he’d resume the proverbial gut-spillage. “I came from a small family, especially by farm standards.”

“Came?”

She pushed a cube of pineapple around with her fork. “I had a twin sister. She died when we were in high school.”

He looked up from his food. “I’m sorry. An illness or … an accident?”

“Drunk driver.”

He nodded. “It must have been hard. Did they get the fiend?”

“Slap on the wrist,” she said.

“Do you have any others in your family?”

“Cousins,” she said. “Otherwise—”

“You’re all alone.”

“Yes,” she said, although she didn’t like hearing someone say it out loud.

“How does that make you feel?” he asked somberly.

“I’m okay with it,” she said hesitantly.

“I suppose your work helps.”

She popped a wedge of fish into her mouth and waited for him to say something, but he returned to his meal in silence. She washed the salmon down with a drink of water. “Your turn to share.”

He glanced up. “My turn?”

“What about your family? Besides your parents, anyone else? Any other siblings?”

“There’s just the two of us.”

“You and Luke and that’s it?”

He nodded and looked away.

Something is wrong there, she thought.

AS THEY STOOD under a streetlamp outside the restaurant, the October wind buffeted their backs and sent crumpled McDonald’s bags flying past their ankles. Urban tumbleweeds. She waited patiently while the swaying man searched for his buttonholes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a man in St. Paul wearing fur. It wasn’t something moderately rustic, like a raccoon jacket or a beaver bomber. It was a full-length black mink coat with wide lapels.

“I wish you had let me pay,” he said, finally unearthing the holes and buttoning up. “Going Dutch with a woman is so junior high.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she said, pulling on her leather gloves. “Let me hail you a cab and you can pay for that.”

“I don’t need a ride,” he said, pulling on his gloves.

“You can leave your car in the ramp,” she said. “It’ll be fine.”

They both stepped to one side. A Wild hockey game had just let out, and a wave of green jerseys was rolling down the sidewalks. A couple of the female fans eyed the mink as they passed Matthew.

“I walked here and I can walk back,” he said.

“Where do you live?”

He thumbed over his shoulder, toward the Mississippi River. “Across the bridge. I’ll be home before your car warms up.”

“That’s convenient.”

He buried his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the gale. “Are you in the ramp? I can at least walk you to your car.”

She didn’t want him to know she lived downtown and had walked to the restaurant. “Don’t worry about it. I’m close. Parked on the street.”

“You sure? I don’t mind a little walk.”

“I’m good.” She held out her hand. “Thank you. It was interesting.”

“Interesting,” he repeated as he shook her hand.

“No. Seriously. It was … nice.”

He stood staring at her for a moment, his weight shifting from one foot to the other. A teenage boy trying to put closure on a disastrous first date. “Well, good night,” he said with a tip of his head, and turned his back to leave.

“Matt?”

He pivoted around, a pained expression on his face. His escape had been delayed. “Yes?”

“Ask your brother to think about the files,” she said.

“I’ll talk to him,” he said dully.

As she watched him go down the sidewalk, she wondered if his unsteadiness was from the wind or the wine. The mink bumped shoulders with a hockey jersey going the opposite way on the sidewalk. It was the wine.

She waited until he was a block away before she started to follow him.

Chapter 26

DEFTLY WEAVING THROUGH the people crowding the downtown sidewalks, Bernadette kept Matthew at a distance but within eyeshot. While she’d easily found a home address for Luke, she’d been stumped when trying to track down the younger brother’s residence. Did he live in his Jag?

When he stepped onto the west side of the Wabasha Bridge and continued south over the river, she slowed her pace. There were few pedestrians on the bridge, and she didn’t want to risk being spotted by her quarry. The walk was ten feet wide, and the side bordering the road was dotted with fat concrete pedestals topped by streetlights. She hugged that side of the walk, moving from pedestal to pedestal. Burying her hands in her coat pockets, she felt the comforting outline of her gun tucked under all the clothing.

About a third of the way across, Matthew stopped to look out over the river. Afraid he’d spot her, she stepped onto one of the overlooks that jutted out from the bridge like concrete balconies. The apron was surrounded by a cagelike structure that camouflaged her but still allowed her to keep him in her sights.

While the river side of the walk was bordered by railing as high as Matthew’s shoulders, Bernadette was still nervous at seeing him lean against the bars and stare into the water. Nighttime on the river was always the most dangerous. The downtown lights became a string of pearls cast against black velvet, making the Mississippi appear deceptively safe and beautiful. Alluring. More than one person had jumped off that bridge at night on a stupid dare. Some were saved. Others died in the black water.

She sidled next to one of the light poles that lined the overlook and continued to watch him. What was he doing there all by himself, half in the bag from four hundred dollars’ worth of wine? Was he frustrated he hadn’t charmed the FBI bitch into backing off? Were his thoughts even darker? Perhaps he was wondering what it would be like to drop into the river, sink to the bottom. She could almost understand that sort of fantasy.

A frigid wind rolled down the deck of the bridge. A man and a woman, both dressed in jeans and flannel shirts with puffy down vests zipped up over them, hustled past Bernadette without giving her a glance. They wore matching Minnesota Wild stocking caps pulled over their heads. They’d been to the hockey game and parked on the outskirts of downtown to save money. As they moved past Matthew, they shot a quick look at his back. They were probably wondering what a guy in a mink coat was doing walking.

Shivering, she pulled her gloves tighter over her fingers and told herself that she’d picked the wrong night to chase after someone out of curiosity. What would she do once he got home? Knock on his door?

FINALLY, MATTHEW moved off the railing, buried his hands in his pockets, and resumed his walk. She hesitated, telling herself it would be more sensible to abandon this foolish hunt and go home. Her gut had other ideas.

As she trailed him south on the bridge, she tried to guess where he was leading her. Anchoring the south end was Harriet Island, a groomed park directly across the river from downtown. It had picnic tables, a pavilion, and a playground. Tied up along its shoreline were a floating dinner theater, a floating restaurant, and massive paddle-boats. To its west was Lilydale Regional Park, a long, narrow tangle of woods and marshes that ran along the river. The area immediately south of the parks was mostly commercial, with a gas station, a health clinic, office buildings, and assorted factories. Beyond that, overlooking downtown and the river, were bluffs dotted with trees. Atop the bluffs were homes. If that was where Matthew lived, she had a long hike ahead of her.

After the bridge, however, he hooked to the right and jogged down a set of steps that led to Harriet Island. Strange, she thought. Even the homeless folks would avoid hanging out in that park on such a frigid night.

There was a small parking area near the entrance to the island, and Bernadette figured Matthew was going there to collect his car. He passed the parking lot, however, and crossed the street to a chain-link fence that followed the banks of the river. He stopped at a gate in the middle of the fencing and dug into his coat pockets. He pulled a key out of his pocket and dropped it on the sidewalk. “Fuck!” he said, loud enough for her to hear. He bent over, retrieved the key, and inserted it in the gate’s lock. After some fiddling and more cursing, he pushed the gate open and stepped through. It clanged shut behind him.

Leaving her hiding spot, Bernadette jogged over to the gate and hunkered behind some bushes planted on either side of it. There was enough light cast by the streetlamps for Bernadette to read the small signs posted on the gate. One read “Slips Available” and listed a phone number. The other read “St. Paul Yacht Club, Gate G, Lower Harbor, 100 Yacht Club Road.”

Peeking through the bushes, she saw that behind the fence were steps leading down to the docks. Matthew was thumping along the wooden boards, heading for one of the few houseboats still tucked into the slips.

During the summer months, the popular yacht club was crowded with watercraft. As the cold weather settled in, however, only a handful of winterized houseboats remained. Their owners, called “liveaboards,” resided there permanently. Was this his home or just his crash pad when he partied too hard downtown?

She could see there were some luxurious year-round crafts—one floating mansion had to be more than sixty feet long—and some tiny boxes that appeared to be the equivalent of efficiency apartments. Every other one had interior lights on, and almost all of them had bright floodlights shining against their exteriors. It could have been a well-lit street on any block, except for the fact that the river was everyone’s backyard.

Matthew stopped at a houseboat near the end of the dock. He’d left the boat’s interior lights on, as well as an outside floodlight mounted near the door. The cabin was about forty feet long and had modest decks at each end. The suburban rambler of the neighborhood. The craft’s flat top was railed and littered with lawn chairs. In the summer, sunbathing women probably populated that upper level. Matthew’s party palace.

He dropped his keys while standing next to his boat. When he bent over to pick them up, his door popped open. Bernadette could see a long-haired woman standing in the doorway. Was her hair brown, like the woman she’d observed through her sight? Bernadette couldn’t tell. The woman was clothed in a short black nightgown, and the interior lights of the boat shined through the flimsy fabric, leaving little to the imagination. She had a glass in her hand.

Bernadette strained to listen. The woman’s words were indecipherable, but Matthew bellowed loudly enough to be understood.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, standing up with his keys. “How in the hell did you get inside? I told you, we’re through!”

The woman extended the drink to him.

“You’re not staying. I’ve got commitments tonight. Places to go.”

Like detox, thought Bernadette.

Matthew snatched the glass out of the woman’s hand and stumbled inside the houseboat, the door slamming behind him.

Bernadette stood up and tried yanking on the gate. Locked tight. The fence was about six feet tall. Not a big obstacle, but she wished she were in jeans and sneakers instead of a suit. Wedging the toes of her shoes through the chain link, she climbed to the top of the fence, threw her legs over, and jumped down. She was grateful she’d worn flats.

There was a smaller houseboat moored next to Matthew’s. Even though its interior and exterior were unlighted, she could read its name by the light of the neighboring boats. Good Enuf, it said across the transom. It had a deck at each end, and neither one of them was railed. She hopped onto the closest, grimacing while the boat rocked and groaned. Dropping behind a large planter filled with dead flowers, she peered into Matthew’s lighted windows.

Matthew and the woman were in the houseboat’s galley; Bernadette could see kitchen cupboards, granite counters, and a stainless-steel refrigerator. The place wasn’t huge, but it was outfitted beautifully. He was pacing back and forth with the glass the woman had given him, but he wasn’t drinking from it. Maybe Matthew finally figured out he’d had enough liquor for the night. He set the drink down and peeled off his fur and his blazer. The woman went up to him and twined her arms around his neck. Now Bernadette could clearly see her hair was brown. Was she the one Bernadette had watched in bed, getting the rough treatment during sex? Had Bernadette been seeing through Matthew’s eyes?

He seemed in no mood to touch this woman, let alone hop into the sack with her. He pulled her arms down, turned his back to her, and marched to the other end of the boat. Bernadette followed, sliding down a narrow walkway that ran along the side of the Good Enuf. When she got to the far deck, she didn’t bother trying to hunker down; there was nothing to hide behind. Matthew’s craft was nearly twice the length of the Good Enuf, extending much farther into the river. Even posted at the very end of the shorter craft’s deck, Bernadette had trouble observing everything that was going on next door. She was gambling that the feuding couple couldn’t see her standing outside, especially with all the lights on inside their houseboat.

Looking into the last window, Bernadette saw clothes flying. She spotted a corner of a headboard and figured she was spying into the master bedroom. More clothes sailed through the air. Was Matthew stripping? No. He was tossing the woman’s own garments at her. The woman stepped in front of the window and was catching each article as he hurled it. Black bra. Black panties. Black sweater. She likes black. Both of their mouths were moving like crazy. Bernadette wished she could hear what was being said, but the boat was too well insulated. At least that meant they couldn’t hear her thumping around on the neighbor’s deck.

Matthew pivoted and tried to walk away from the woman, but she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him from behind and molding the front of her body against his back.

“Have some pride, lady,” Bernadette muttered under her breath.

Matthew pushed the woman’s arms off him and spun around. He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her at a distance while saying something to her. Surprisingly, his expression was calm. Patient. It was not the face of an out-of-control killer.

The pair moved away from the window.

“Dammit,” mumbled Bernadette, bobbing her head and shuffling along the end of the deck in an attempt to locate the couple. “Where are you?”

They suddenly slid into view in a middle window positioned directly across from her. Nervous about being spotted, she dropped to her knees and sat back on her heels to watch. They were standing a foot or two apart, their mouths still going. While Matthew’s expression remained relaxed, the woman’s face was red and distorted with rage.

Suddenly the woman rushed at Matthew, her arms raised. He caught her wrists and held them over her head. She pulled away from him and lunged again, her nails ripping his face. Looking up at his bloody face, Bernadette contemplated barging in to help. Then Matthew pushed the crazy woman off him again and she fell back against the windows. The crack made Bernadette start. Matthew could take care of himself.

They moved out of view, with Matthew heading toward the far end of the houseboat. The woman was on his heels, her brown hair and her black nightgown flying behind her like a witch’s cape.

Bernadette waited a minute to make sure they didn’t rematerialize in the window across from her, then stood up. She went to the very end of the deck and leaned over as far as she could to scan the bedroom window at the end of Matthew’s boat. No one popped into view. She looked back at the window directly across from her. Still nothing. She scaled the ledge to the other deck and studied the kitchen windows. No action there. They had to be in that bedroom, she thought, and skated back to the far deck.

Standing on the end of the Good Enuf ’s deck, she locked her eyes on the window and waited. The lights stayed on, but nothing moved. All she saw was the corner of that headboard against a white wall. With each passing moment, the knot in her gut tightened. What if the crazy killed him? Bernadette wasn’t sure whether to go for her cell or her gun. Eyes glued to the bedroom window, she started to unbutton her trench coat when a creak behind her sent a rush of ice water shooting through her veins. She spun around and looked behind her. No one there. She darted from one corner of the small deck to the other, checking the ledges along the sides of the boat. Nothing. She reached past her blazer, put her hand on the butt of her gun, and waited. A loud groan vibrated the small boat. The Good Enuf was like an old house settling.