Shelter in Place (Page 103)

Satisfied, she opened the door, looked back over her shoulders. “Yes, Brett, I’m coming! Go ahead. We’re going for a walk, Kaylee,” she called out to the housekeeper. “You can do the bedroom anytime.”

“Have fun!”

“Oh, we will. We love it here. I’m just getting my water bottle and pack, honey. Men,” she said for the benefit of the housekeeper in the loft above. “So impatient.”

She left by the opposite door, and decided she’d take a stroll to the house a little chatter and gossip had revealed belonged to the chief of police.

A long hike for a pregnant woman, she thought with a smirk. But she felt up to it.

* * *

For the next few days, the vandalism eased off, making most conclude the troublemakers’ vacation had ended, and they’d gone off-island.

Reed didn’t buy it.

“She’s still here.” Reed drank a Coke on CiCi’s patio while the sun set like glory at water’s edge. “She’s smart enough to know screwing around could get her caught with the extra patrols, but she’s still getting the rhythm.”

He turned to them, these women he loved. “You could do me a big favor, get on the ferry in the morning, take a trip somewhere.”

“She won’t leave you,” CiCi said. “I won’t leave either one of you. Ask for something else.”

“If you were off somewhere,” he persisted, “Florence or New York—”

“Reed,” Simone interrupted.

“Damn it, staying just means I have to worry about you. She’s gearing up. It’s no goddamn coincidence she’s here—and she’s here—when we’re coming up on the thirteenth anniversary of DownEast. She slipped it in the card. My luck’s running out, hers is coming in. Unlucky thirteen. It’s less than a week, and I don’t need the two of you scattering my focus out of sheer, wrongheaded, female stubbornness.

“You’re in my way.” He didn’t shout, and his deliberate tone added edgy barbs to every word. “So get out of it and let me do my goddamn job.”

“That’s not going to work, either,” CiCi said, cool and calm. “Trying to pick a fight, make us mad isn’t going to change a thing. But damn good try.”

“Look, this isn’t—”

“I hid before,” Simone interrupted.

“Bullshit!” Now he did shout, and had Barney bellying under a table. “Don’t start that bullshit with me.”

“I did hide. I’m not saying it wasn’t the right thing to do because it was. But it’s not the right thing now, and it would strip away what it took me years to build back up again.”

“Simone.” At wits’ end, he pulled off his cap, dragged a hand through his hair. “I swore I’d keep you and CiCi safe.”

“You said you want to start a life with me. This is our life. You think she’ll try to … do this on the twenty-second?”

He’d try calm reason, again. “I think that makes a circle for her, yeah. I think she knows damn well you and I are together, and if she can take me out, she’ll come for you. Not you first,” he said. “You’re still higher on the chain than me. And she’ll want to eliminate the biggest threat. I’m the cop with a gun, you’re not. If the two of you went off-island until after the twenty-second, I wouldn’t have to factor your safety into the mix.”

“For me—and CiCi—not to be safe means she’d have eliminated you. You won’t let that happen. You won’t let that happen,” Simone repeated, rising and moving to him, “because you know if she kills you, she’ll kill me. Maybe not now, but sooner or later, and you won’t let her. I believe that, trust that, absolutely.

“Besides.” She framed his frustrated face with her hands. “I have too much to do to go off to Florence or New York or anywhere else. I have work, and it occurs to me the twenty-third’s a good time for me to move in with you. I have a lot to pack up.”

He dropped his forehead to hers. “That’s a damn sneak attack.”

“The twenty-third, Reed, because you’ll have ended this. I’m moving in. CiCi, you’ll come to dinner.”

“I’ll bring champagne.”

“I’ll need to keep my studio here until Reed and I finalize the design and plans for my workspace at … our house.”

“It’s always here for you, my clever, clever girl.”

“That day, the twenty-third, it’s going to be a symbol for us,” she told him. “A reminder that whatever terrible things happen, we’re together.”

“I think this calls for a big pitcher of sangria.”

Reed shook his head at CiCi. “I can’t. I’ve got to get back. Stay here,” he told Simone. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Come on, Barney, we’re not going to get anywhere with these two. Cast in the same damn mold.”

“That’s why you love us,” CiCi called as Reed walked out. “I’m proud of you, Simone.”

“I’m terrified.”

“Me, too.”

* * *

As Reed completed another patrol, Patricia sat in her war room, sipping a gin and tonic—heavier on the gin as time passed. It felt like a waste to pour it down the sink.

And the gin made a nice change of pace from scotch.

A couple of drinks—or three—helped her sleep. How was she supposed to sleep without a little help when her mind was so full, so busy?

It wasn’t like her father—she didn’t get drunk, did she? It wasn’t like her mother. She wasn’t using the booze to wash down pills.

She just needed a little help to calm her mind. Nothing wrong with that.

So, sipping gin, she studied her maps, her time lines, the photos taken with her phone.

The fact that two of her top targets were lovebirds both infuriated and delighted her. They didn’t deserve even an hour of happiness. But then again, she would slit their happiness at the throat and watch it bleed dry. And with a little more time—she still had a little more time—to observe the bitch, maybe she’d kill two birds with one stone.

On the other hand, she thought as she rose to pace, she’d always planned to take out the bitch who’d called the cops last. She still had a half dozen targets on her board, leading up to the cunt cop who’d killed JJ, then finishing it off with the interfering little bitch who’d hidden like a coward.

She’d come this far following the plan, she assured herself, and had the cops and FBI running in circles. She should stick with the plan. If JJ had stuck with the plan …

It hadn’t been his fault, she thought, rapping a restless fist on her thigh as she paced and sipped, paced and sipped. Simone Knox killed JJ, and she wouldn’t forget it.

So, maybe if—and only if—the opportunity fell into her lap, she’d take the bitch out early. Otherwise.

She picked up her gun, aimed it at Reed’s picture. “It’s just you and me, asshole. And taking you out? Yeah, that’s going to break your little whore’s heart—and the cunt cop’s, too. Delicious tears. That works for me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Sometimes the gin and tonic, the pacing, the planning, didn’t work. To relax, to calm the increasing busyness of her mind, Patricia indulged in her favorite late-night pastime.