The White Carnation Read online

  The first thing he noticed was how bare the room looked. Her collection of Depression-era glass that had filled the étagère in the corner was gone, as were the original folk-art prints that had adorned the walls. The leather couch and chair had been replaced by a cheaper fabric-covered set in dark green. He’d forgotten her demotion would have come with a cut in pay. How many of her treasures had she been forced to sell?

  Faye hung her coat on the hook in the hall and walked into the living room. She stared at him as if she blamed him for everything that had happened, and, he supposed, in a way, she was right. She claimed the damn file had been on his desk, and even though he’d never seen it, she believed he’d torpedoed her career. He’d been too angry and hurt to investigate her allegations, and after she’d broken off the engagement, he hadn’t seen the point. If she could believe he’d do that to her …

  “Can I change?” She looked down at her blood-covered clothes.

  “Take a shower. I’ll make you some tea, but give me the clothes. I’ll need them for evidence.”

  “Don’t bother bringing them back.”

  She walked away from him toward her bedroom and its en suite bathroom. Moving into the kitchen, he filled the kettle and set the water to boil. In the year they’d been apart, nothing had been moved, but many things had changed. He reached for the box of tea bags—they were a cheaper brand than the ones she’d favored before. Opening the fridge to get the milk, he stared at the bare shelves, the generic yogurt, and the lack of fresh fruit and vegetables. Margarine? She hates margarine. He opened the freezer and saw hamburger and a couple of packages of chicken, but even it was almost bare. Where was the Rocky Road? She always had her favorite ice cream on hand.

  The kettle whistled, and he turned off the burner. Pouring the boiling water into the brown teapot as she’d taught him to do, he rinsed it, poured the water out, and then added the tea bags and refilled it. He set it on the tray on the counter to steep. Opening the cupboard to get a mug, his hand froze when he saw the red, ceramic, Who loves you, baby? mug he’d given her, and he let sadness wash over him. Why had she kept it? He’d given it to her with the diamond ring she’d returned tucked inside it. He grabbed a yellow mug and slammed the cupboard door. Knowing how she felt about him now, she’d probably forgotten he’d given it to her in the first place.

  When he heard her bare feet slap the oak floor, he picked up the tray that held the teapot, milk, and mug, and returned to the open-concept living room/dining room. He set the tray on the coffee table.

  Faye entered the room at the same time he did. She looked like a lost little girl in the oversized Patriots jersey and pink plaid pajama pants she wore. Her bare feet, toenails painted hot pink, poked out of the bottoms. She dropped a plastic bag on the floor near the hall table, walked over to the green tweed wingback chair, and sat in it, curling her feet up under her.

  She’d pulled her wet hair away from her face into a loose ponytail. When it was loose, her hair curled slightly and reached midway down her back. How he’d loved running his hands through her silky tresses. Her complexion, so fair she could get sunburn in the shade, was blotchy now, the freckles she hated standing out against the translucent skin. Her expressive eyes, sometimes blue, more often green, were shadowed as if she’d been losing sleep. Was she still haunted by nightmares? She was thinner than he remembered, her cheekbones more prominent.

  He walked over to the liquor cabinet beside the breakfast bar that divided the kitchen from the dining area and pulled out a bottle of Irish whiskey. Like everything else he’d found, it was a cheaper brand than she’d preferred. He grabbed a glass and carried them both over to the table where he poured a generous measure into the mug before adding tea and milk. He handed it to her. He splashed a couple of ounces of whiskey into the glass.

  He’d heard about her stepfather’s death and had meant to call, but each time he’d picked up the phone, he’d put it down again. He hadn’t known what to say. She’d been close to Ralph Edwards, the man who’d rescued her mother from poverty and shame. Glancing at his watch, he grimaced. Technically, his shift had ended twenty minutes ago. He lifted his glass and took a mouthful of whiskey. It was going to be a long night.

  • • •

  Faye raised the cup of spiked tea and swallowed a mouthful of the scalding liquid, letting the burn of the Irish whiskey warm her. Even after her shower with the hottest water she could stand, she was cold—not her limbs, where a blanket might have helped, but deep inside. Her heart ached. Damn Rob for invading her space once more. No doubt calling him had been a knee-jerk reaction. The last thing she ever wanted was Rob Halliday in her life again. She needed him now on a professional level alone, and that’s all it was or would ever be. Someone had to pay for what had happened to Lucy Green.

  “Okay, Detective, start your inquisition.” She took another sip of her tea.

  “Faye, it doesn’t have to be like this. We can be civil—do this as friends.”

  “Friends?” she exploded, all the emotions coursing through her colliding in a cataclysmic outburst. “The last thing you and I can ever be is friends. We burnt that bridge long ago. I don’t want a friend. I need a detective who will move heaven and earth to find out who did this. I found her. I saw what that animal did to her. I want him caught! I want the son of a bitch to rot in hell for it. I saw him. He knocked me down. If I’d been on time, he might have killed me, too.”

  The sudden image of herself lying on the floor next to Mrs. Green made her tremble and drained the last bit of anger and defiance from her. She felt empty, alone, and scared. Tears pooled in her eyes. “She never hurt anyone. What am I going to tell Mary?”

  “What do you mean you saw the killer?”

  The barely controlled emotions in his voice—concern, fear—surprised her. You only worried about the people you cared for, and from the way their relationship had ended, she knew he didn’t care and probably never had.

  “I didn’t get a good look at him, but he was wearing a hoodie from O’Halloran’s and ran into me, almost knocking me down the steps. The bastard broke the strap on my peacock purse. That’s why I dropped it.” Her voice caught at the memory of her bag lying in Lucy’s blood, and fresh tears threatened. She swallowed. “There was an O’Halloran’s take-out bag on the dining room table. Her wallet was there, too, and there was money on the floor beside her. I’m not an idiot. This wasn’t a robbery. Any junior reporter can see that.”

  “You’re right,” he conceded. “Whoever committed this crime was looking for something, and we need to figure out what it was, and whether or not he found it. Why were you there?”

  He stopped talking when his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the call display screen, and frowned. “I need to take this.” He walked into the kitchen, keeping his back to her, no doubt to muffle the sound of his voice.

  Why did I ever think we could’ve made it work? Their jobs had been stumbling blocks in their relationship from the onset. They’d had some dandy arguments over what he saw as the confidential nature of a case and what she believed was the right of the people to know what was happening.

  Faye watched him through the opening above the breakfast bar. The familiar scent of his aftershave stayed with her. She took another sip of her potent tea. How many months had it taken to get that smell out of the apartment? It wasn’t a heavy cologne, but it had clung tenaciously to the drapes and furniture—or had it just lingered in her mind, a ghost of what she’d lost? She frowned. There’d been an odor this afternoon, too—something unpleasant but vaguely familiar—not quite as bad as Jimmy’s deer musk, but close. She couldn’t remember, couldn’t concentrate. She sipped her tea and focused on the man in the kitchen.

  His dark-gray suit jacket stretched tautly across his broad shoulders. He hadn’t changed much since she’d seen him last. His ginger hair, usually brushed straight back from his forehead, was mussed as if he’d been running his fingers through it, like he did when he was upset
or frustrated, and curled at the nape of his neck, needing to be cut. He turned toward her and ended the call.

  His blue eyes were shadowed, testifying to the fact that he’d been working long hours again. When he’d worked vice, he’d had days with twelve- and fourteen-hour shifts. Obviously homicide was just as bad—maybe worse, because a five o’clock shadow darkened his chin and cheeks. He’d shaved his mustache, and that was a good thing—she’d hated it. It had looked like a wooly, orange caterpillar crawling over his upper lip. A piercing shaft of need left her unbalanced. The physical attraction had been there from the start. Just because the man had turned out to be a first-class jerk didn’t make him any less sexy, and her body craved him as much now as it had when they’d been together. There’d been no one since, and God knew how long it would be before she’d trust any man ever again.

  Rob came back into the room, his face shadowed. Whatever he’d discovered hadn’t been good news. He picked up his glass and drained it. He ran his fingers through his hair again and loosened the knot of his tie, unbuttoning his dove-gray shirt as if the collar were choking him.

  “I wish I could make this easier, but I can’t. Why were you at Lucy Green’s today?” His words were cold and clipped. Where was the concern she’d heard there moments ago?

  “She called me at work a couple of days ago and left a message asking me to stop by.”

  “Why?”

  “She wanted to talk to me.”

  “About what?”

  “She didn’t say, but she thought I could help her.”

  They were like boxers in a sparring match, dancing around one another, avoiding the punches. She watched, knowing instinctively from his face that he was preparing to deliver a left hook. She stiffened herself to fend off the imaginary blow.

  “Did you know she filed a missing person’s report on Mary last week? According to the information she gave the police in New York, Mary was pregnant.”

  Chapter Three

  Faye stared at Rob as if he’d grown a second head, and she couldn’t stop the guffaw of laughter from erupting. She laughed so hard, it brought tears to her eyes again and a stitch to her side. Rob stared at her as if she’d gone crazy, and she fought for the composure to speak.

  “You’re joking, right? Mary pregnant? Never! Mary wouldn’t go near a man with a ten-foot pole. She’s gay! Believe me, if she switched teams, I’d be among the first to know.” She put her empty mug down on the table. “I know Mary and Lucy have been having problems the last few years. After her dad died, Mary came out of the closet, and Lucy wasn’t prepared to accept that. They argued constantly. As far as I know, Mary kept in touch with her mother but hasn’t been home since Christmas. I’m surprised you didn’t realize Mary’s sexual preference when we met her in New York.”

  She stopped speaking. Damn. Why the hell did I bring that up? The look on Rob’s face told her clearly he remembered the last weekend they’d been together.

  “It was one of the reasons I was surprised when Lucy called,” she continued, in an attempt to erase the memory. “She wasn’t too happy with me for supporting Mary’s lifestyle. I’m sure Mary isn’t missing, and she sure as hell can’t be pregnant—not unless it’s time for the second coming. She might have gone on holiday or something. I have her personal email address. Let me message her.” Standing, Faye crossed the room to the laptop computer she’d left on the dining room table. “Someone needs to tell her about her mom. She’ll need to make arrangements. I’ll ask her to call me. When she does, I’ll have her contact you right away.” She entered her password, opened her email program, wrote a quick message to Mary, and clicked send.

  Rob nodded. “Thanks. Tom’s looking into the police report now. Maybe it is a misunderstanding, but about the pregnancy—you do know there are ways to get pregnant that don’t involve direct contact with a man. Maybe she decided she wanted a child …”

  “No way. Believe me. If by some miracle Mary’s pregnant, it isn’t by choice. At one time, I might have wanted a family”—Faye felt the pain of crushed dreams as her stomach threatened to give back the tea she’d consumed—“but Mary was adamant. Having kids was for other people, not her. If she has a biological clock, it’s ticking to a different beat.”

  “What if she found a partner, and they wanted to be a family …”

  Faye threw up her hands and rose from the chair. “If Mary found a partner, I’d be the first to know about it, and even if she were in a relationship, she wouldn’t be the one having the baby. Her partner would have the child.” Frustration added to the tension between them, and her voice was louder than she’d intended.

  “Don’t get mad at me, Faye.” He clenched his fists at his sides and gritted his teeth; he was as upset as she was. “I don’t bat for the same team. I don’t know the rules.”

  “Well, neither do I, on both counts, but Mary is my friend. I know her, and I’m telling you she’d never willingly get pregnant.”

  She paced, breathing heavily, her heart thumping, fury barely held in check. The anger wasn’t only on Mary’s behalf. Seeing Rob standing here released emotions she’d suppressed for the last fifteen months. She took a deep breath. Their past was dead—just like Lucy Green, like her career at the Examiner, like the roses in the crystal vase on her desk. Dwelling on what might have been served no purpose.

  So why do I? I need to put it all behind me and move on. The sooner Rob gets what he needs, the sooner he can find the bastard who did this and leave me alone again.

  “You’re right, Rob. I have no reason to bite your head off like that. You’re just trying to do your job, the job I need you to do. What do you need to know?”

  The muscle jumped in his jaw, and he dragged his fingers through his hair once more. She clenched her fist, fighting the sudden urge to reach up and smooth it. When he spoke again, he was all business, the consummate police officer at work. Instead of standing still, he paced, something he always did when he needed to think.

  “The Greens’ apartment was trashed, and it would have taken some time to do it. Tom says the concierge didn’t see anyone go in or come out. He was busy in the back garden most of the afternoon. It isn’t a secure building—he’s more of a handyman than a security guard. According to Amos, Mrs. Green had been dead a little more than an hour when you found her. The forensic team’s poring over the place, but so far the only thing they can find missing is the tape from her answering machine. They’re looking for a cell phone or a computer ...”

  “They won’t find any. Lucy didn’t care for modern technology, and she pretty much stopped trying to move ahead after Harvey died five years ago. Mary bought her mom a new laptop last August, but Lucy would have none of it. In the end, I got it.” She pointed to the table. “Lucy didn’t trust all that new-fangled stuff as she called it. That was part of the problem she and Mary had. That’s the last time I saw Mary. She came home for Christmas, but I stayed in Maine with Mom.”

  “Okay. The killer must have taken the answering machine tape for a reason. We won’t know what it is until we find it or figure out what’s on it.”

  A new wave of nausea suffused her, and she swallowed the bile in her throat. “Among whatever other messages she may have had, unless she erased it earlier, there was one from me saying I’d be there after four today. I was an hour and a half late. Whoever took it may have my name and cell phone number. If I’d been on time, I’d have interrupted him …”

  “Full name?” Rob stopped moving.

  “Yes, and the fact that I work at the paper.”

  “If he thinks you know something, you could be in danger.” There was an edge to his voice. “What time did you leave the message?”

  “Around half past eleven this morning. I spent the afternoon in Wellesley rubbing elbows with obnoxious clowns and the upper crust. He has to know she didn’t tell me anything. She was dead when I got upstairs. I never had a chance to talk to her.”

  “Must have been a hell of an afternoon. I know how you
feel about clowns.” He resumed his pacing, his voice less confrontational than it had been. “The killer won’t know you didn’t talk to her. She could have returned your call and forgotten to erase the message, or you could have called again and spoken with her. Since you didn’t get a good look at the delivery boy, he couldn’t have gotten much of a look at you—and remember, we don’t know for sure that he’s the killer. He’s just a person of interest for now.” He cleared his throat and stopped in front of her. His closeness seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room.

  “In spite of what happened last year,” he began, touching on the very topic she’d hoped to avoid at all costs, “you still have a reputation as a first-class investigative reporter. You could be working on something that affects the killer, or he could think you are. Get some rest. You look like you haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a while. I’ll check with O’Halloran’s—see who was delivering for them today. The person who ran into you may just have been making a delivery, found her, and ran off scared. I’ll come by around nine tomorrow, take you down to the precinct, and hook you up with Nancy, the new sketch artist. I think they’ve still got your prints on file, but if not, we can take them and eliminate them from any found at the scene. As far as your name and number on the tape, let’s hope she got the message and erased it. Lock up behind me, and for God’s sake, stay put until we know more. I’ll contact the Cambridge police and ask them to increase patrols in the area for the next little while.”

  “Do you really think that’s necessary?”

  “I do, and if the killer thinks you know something …”

  Physically and emotionally exhausted, Faye nodded and almost burst out laughing at the look of surprise that crossed his face. He’d fully expected her to argue the point. In the three years they’d been together, she’d never once given in without a fight. Before he could comment, his cell phone rang again. He scowled and answered, his voice clipped.