“Nothing upstairs, huh?” she asked teasingly. “I should be offended.”
He laughed softly. “I panicked. Picked the most outrageous lie I could think of.”
She leaned up, whispered in his ear. “So the great in the sack was a lie, too?”
“That was true.” He let out a pained breath. “My heart stopped when he shot you.”
“Mine, too,” she confessed. “It happened too fast for me and Peabody to stop him from shooting you.”
“It’s okay. You saved Holly’s life. Thank you,” he said fiercely.
They came to a bend in the road where the little black Mercedes was parked along with Joseph’s and Clay’s vehicles, three ambulances, and a half dozen cruisers.
The morgue rig hadn’t yet arrived. Paige was relieved that they needed only one.
“Check them out,” Hyatt told the medics when they’d piled out of the squad cars. “Make sure they’re okay.” He turned to Grayson and Paige. “We found Mrs. Shaffer.”
“Adele?” Grayson asked. “Where is she?”
“In the hospital. A Dr. Burke called the hotline after seeing her photo. She’d treated her for massive stab wounds as a Jane Doe this morning. The first responding officer reported the stabbing occurred just before nine. A witness saw a car driving away and discovered Mrs. Shaffer in an alley near Patterson Park.”
“Senator McCloud,” Paige said grimly. “He’s hunted all the MAC women.”
“He’ll be questioned,” Hyatt said, “but he unfortunately has an airtight alibi. He gave the keynote address at a Rotary Club breakfast this morning.”
“Lippman might have done it,” Grayson mused, “but it would be close. He’d have been hard-pressed to make it from Patterson Park to the airport, then fly to Toronto to kidnap Violet, even if he had a private plane. Adele hasn’t given a description?”
“She hasn’t regained consciousness. We have an officer at her door, so that when whoever tried to kill her realizes they have failed, they will not be able to try again. Mr. Smith, your home is no longer a crime scene. Your window is repaired. Once you have received medical attention, you may go home. We’ll take your statements tomorrow.” Hyatt nodded formally, then strode to the squad car where Morton was being held.
Grayson skimmed his fingers over Paige’s back lightly, frowning when she flinched. “You need to be checked out by the medics.”
“I’m fine,” Paige insisted. “What I need is a long soak in a hot tub.”
“Then that’s what you’ll have. Hopefully somebody can give us a ride.” They walked to where the others stood, Joseph and Clay having joined Judy and Holly. “Joseph, Morton shot out your tires. We need a lift.”
“I’ll drive you anywhere you want to go,” Joseph said. He looked at Paige, his expression profoundly intense as he held his sister tight. “Holly told us what happened. That you threw yourself on top of her when Lippman fired. You saved her life. We won’t ever forget that.”
Judy wrapped her arms around Paige. “Thank you.”
Paige patted her back, embarrassed. “Grayson saved me. I had to even the score.”
“So is it really over?” Judy asked. “Please say yes.”
“Not quite,” Grayson said. “We still have some bad guys to round up. And importantly, I need to get Ramon’s conviction overturned. I’ll file first thing in the morning.”
“After you sleep,” Joseph said. “For now, let me take you two home.”
“And Peabody?” Paige asked.
“He saved Holly, too. If he growls at me forever, I won’t mind.”
Twenty-five
Friday, April 8, 8:15 a.m.
Grayson woke with a soft warm woman looking up at him and wondered if it got much better than this. He’d had her once during the night, hard and fast and desperate. He wanted her again, but slow this time. He wanted to linger. Savor. “Good morning.”
She lay half on him, half off, her chin propped on his shoulder. “How’re you feeling?”
“Sore, but I’ll live. How long have you been awake?”
“For about an hour. I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh no,” he teased, then sobered when she didn’t smile. “About what?”
“It’s going to be hard to prove the senator is guilty of sexual assault and murder, all these years later. He’ll have an alibi and it’ll be a good one. He can afford it.”
“Possibly. But I’ve worked cold cases with Hyatt’s team before. Don’t give up yet.”
“You’ll need motive for a murder charge and you’ll only have that if you can prove what he did to all those little girls. If Adele doesn’t live, you won’t even have a complainant. And even if she does file a complaint, it’s her word against his.”
“The rape-of-a-minor charges are going to be hard to prosecute,” he admitted. “The evidence in the Crystal Jones murder is circumstantial at best. The murders of the other women even more so. But I won’t stop trying.”
“I know.” She kissed his jaw, sighed. “I started on something last night while you were picking up dinner. I’ve been working it in my mind this morning.”
He sat up and shoved another pillow behind his head. “All right. Let’s hear it.”
“The MAC program ran for sixteen years. That’s a long time to get away with having a little girl go missing from the ice-cream party every year to be molested.”
“You assume it happened every year.”
“They’re all dead,” she said.
“True.”
“We know the McClouds’ driver knew. He took the kids home. He probably took the victim home last. If the kids were being driven in groups, nobody would have known where all the others were at any given time. Plus, they were twelve. And Dianna McCloud simply had to have known. She chaperoned, every year.”
“I find it easier to believe that she did know than that she didn’t.”
“I worked a timeline based on all I’ve read on the McClouds,” Paige said. “Dianna married the senator when Claire, Rex’s mother, was a little girl—nine or so. Claire moved out when she got married and had Rex. That was in 1984.”
“The first year of the MAC program.”
“It ended in ’ninety-nine, the year Reba went to the Peace Corps in Cameroon.”
She left the statement to hang and he frowned down at her. “Surely you’re not suggesting Dianna brought the girls there… on purpose?”
“Think about what Rex said his mother’s response was when he told her what he’d seen. Claire said it never happened. That if he told, she’d say he was delusional and send him away. That’s an odd response, don’t you think? Unless she’d learned to deny that it had happened to her.”
“I did wonder about that,” Grayson admitted, “when Rex said his grandfather took the girls to his mother’s old bedroom, which he’d kept exactly the same as when Claire slept there. Pink, like a little girl’s dream.”
“Exactly. So if we assume the senator molested one daughter, what was to stop him from molesting the other, when she was old enough, especially once the oldest moved out?”
“That’s the usual pattern… So you’re saying to keep the senator from touching Reba, Dianna brings him other little girls? Like as a sacrifice?”
“It’s possible,” Paige said defensively.
“It’s a lot of conjecture,” he said gently. “It might have happened that way, but the McClouds are just as likely to claim we’re spinning tales from thin air.”
“If we knew what the senator did, we could work the family against each other.”
“It only works that way on TV,” he said. “But there is one thing that bothers me.”
She lifted her head, brows arched. “Just one?”
He smiled briefly. “Brittany Jones. We never would have known about the MAC connection if she hadn’t given us that medallion.”
“She wanted us to know. Maybe she wanted justice for Crystal?”
“Then why not just tell us? Why give us the bankbooks? Sh
e made it clear that Crystal was a thief, looking to score. Why did Brittany call Lippman, who I assume is the one who paid Kapansky to blow us up?”
“If we could find her, we could ask her.”
“If we could find her, I’d charge her ass for conspiracy to commit murder,” he said sourly. “She gave me a key to a safe-deposit box. Why?”
“Why don’t we get dressed, go to the bank, and find out?” She started to get up, but he held her a little closer.
“Because I’ll have to get a court order first and I don’t want to let you go just yet. Let’s take another few minutes.”
She relaxed into him. “I think we’ve earned that much.”
He thought he’d earned a lot more than that, images of lingering and savoring still playing in his mind. But first… “I need to talk to you about something. This secret of mine that wasn’t so secret. It will come out and it could be unpleasant.”
“Are you afraid of unpleasant?”
“No,” he said, and found it was true. “But I don’t know if you are.”
“After all this, you can really ask me that? You think I’m afraid of a little bad press?”
“Anderson said that when the courts find out about me, I won’t be able to prosecute anymore—that there’ll be too much conflict of interest.”
“Anderson was a crook.”
“But he could be right. I might have to give up my career.”
“That would suck. But you’d deal. You’d find another way to stand for the victims.”
“You sound so sure.”
“It’s who you are. The job is just the means to the end. If you want to tell your story, tell it. I’ll stand by you. But if you think it’s nobody’s business, then don’t.”
“I don’t want anyone to think they have a hold over me.”
“Grayson, you knocked on Rex’s door, knowing Anderson would tell your secrets. You confronted Rex when you could have walked away.”
“No, I couldn’t have walked away. It would have been wrong.”
“My point exactly,” she said. She leaned up over him, brushing his mouth with her lips. “I think that you think too much.”
He ran his hand down her side. “I was thinking this morning, too.”
“Oh no,” she teased.
“Oh yes. About how I’d rushed before.”
Her eyes darkened, impossibly. “I liked it. But if you think you can do better…”
The feline challenge in her voice set his pulse pounding. He reached for her, took her mouth slowly, making her hum deep in her throat. When she reached for him he stopped her, linking their fingers together, rolling her on her back.
“Does that hurt?” he whispered. “Your back?”
“Not enough for me to tell you to stop. Let me touch you.”
A shudder shook him. “Not yet. Let me have you.”
“You do.” She lifted her hips against him. “Grayson, please. Hurry.”
“No. Not this morning. Let me have you. All of you.” He dipped his head to her breast and her sigh turned into a moan. “Every last inch of you.”
He lingered and he savored and he made her breath catch in her throat. When she urged him to hurry, he slowed down even more until he had her begging. He kissed his way down her body and back up, wondering if he’d ever get his fill.
“Please.” Her whispers had become hoarse. “Please. I need—”
He slid into her and her eyes closed. “This?”
“You. I need you, whoever you want to be.”
“Look at me.” She opened her eyes and he knew exactly who he wanted to be. “Yours.” Holding her gaze, he started to move. “I want to be yours.”
He linked their hands again, watching every flicker of her eyes, every bite of her lip, increasing his thrusts until she writhed, until she arched like a bow, her body gripping his in one long slow beautiful spasm as she went over, dragging him with her.
It was quietly cataclysmic, different from anything he’d ever had before. Different from anything with her before. He hung over her, breathing hard, looking into her eyes as her body softened like warm wax. He didn’t have words, so he kissed her, knowing that this was a moment he’d remember. When he lifted his head, tears ran down her cheeks. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she whispered. “It’s just… so… big.”
He might have made a joke at another time. But not now. He knew exactly what she meant. This was sacred. “I know.”
He rolled them to their sides, holding her as tightly as she held him. The minutes passed and he didn’t want to let her go, but the ringing of the phone intruded.
Grayson reached for it, not wanting to move. “Hello?” It came out of him surly.
“Good morning, Mr. Smith.”
Grayson rolled his eyes. “Good morning, Lieutenant Hyatt.”
“Mrs. Shaffer has regained consciousness. We get five minutes to talk to her. How fast can you be at the hospital?”
He was suddenly alert. “Thirty minutes or less.”
“Then I’ll wait for you to arrive.”
“What is it?” Paige asked.
“Adele’s awake.” Grayson forced himself from the bed, looked out the window, and blessed his brother. Sometime during the morning hours the Escalade had materialized at his curb. “We’ve got thirty minutes to get dressed, walk the dog, and drive.”
Friday, April 8, 9:45 a.m.
Adele Shaffer was in ICU, Darren sitting at her side. Adele stared at the wall, her face as pale as the pillowcase. Darren rose when Paige, Grayson, and Hyatt entered.
“Mrs. Shaffer?” Hyatt said. “I am Lieutenant Peter Hyatt, with the homicide division of the police department. This is State’s Attorney Grayson Smith and his associate, Paige Holden. They’ve been investigating the MAC program. And the McClouds.”
Grayson gave the chair to Paige, crouching by the bed so that he was at eye level with Adele. “Hi,” he said with a smile. “We need your help. Your husband said you thought someone was trying to kill you. You were right.”
Adele’s eyes widened briefly, as if that was all the energy she had.
“The MAC program ran for sixteen years,” Paige said. “Every year there was a twelve-year-old girl with curly blond hair, just like you had. Of those sixteen women, you are the only one left alive.” Behind her, Darren Shaffer gasped.
Adele closed her eyes. “They said no one would believe me,” she breathed.
“We will,” Grayson said. “We promise. Please tell us what happened.”
“They said they’d kill my family.” A tear ran down Adele’s cheek and Paige dabbed it with a tissue. “I didn’t have a dad. My mother was always high. But I had three little brothers and I didn’t want them hurt. They said they’d give us money for food. I didn’t want my brothers to starve. So I never said anything.”
“It’s time to tell,” Paige said. “You were a MAC kid in 1994. You were twelve.”
“I thought it was the best day of my life,” she whispered. “They got me a new dress. We had ice cream and so much food. Then the kids from the other schools started to go home, a few at a time. I was the only one left. She asked if I wanted to see upstairs.”
“Who’s ‘she,’ Mrs. Shaffer?” Hyatt asked quietly.
“Mrs. McCloud. His wife,” she spat the word weakly, but her sentiment was clear. “The room was pink. I hate pink now.” She swallowed. “And then he came in. The senator.” Another tear slipped down her cheek and, again, Paige wiped it dry.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Shaffer,” Hyatt said, “but we have to ask you exactly what he did.”
“I never wanted to remember. But I never forgot. He pushed up my dress…” She began to cry softly. “He raped me. I tried to fight, but he was too big. He held me down. Held his hand over my mouth. I thought I was going to die. I wanted to.”
Paige took her hand. “I’m sorry, Adele. We’re so sorry this happened to you. But please try to tell us what happened next?”
“He thanked me
. I’ve always remembered that. He thanked me. Like I had a choice. Left me there, crying. A man came in. He was the one who’d picked me up from my house. He… washed me. I was too scared to move by then. He was the one who told me what would happen if I told. Then he put my medallion box in my hand and took me downstairs and put me in the car. She came, too.”
“You mean Mrs. McCloud?” Paige asked gently.
“Yes. She made me eat chocolate. It made me sleepy.”
“She drugged you,” Grayson said.
“Oh,” Darren breathed, horrified. “That’s why you were so freaked by the chocolates that were left at the house on Tuesday.”
More tears ran down her cheeks. “I thought I was losing my mind.”
Paige brushed Adele’s hair from her wet cheeks, dried her tears. “You weren’t. So Mrs. McCloud made you eat the chocolate. Then what?”
“When the car got close to my house, they stopped. I was so groggy, I couldn’t wake up. She pushed me out the door and I fell in the dirt. I woke up later and it was dark and I was cold. I went home. My mother didn’t even know I was gone. My dress was ruined, so I took it off and burned it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Darren asked.
Adele kept her gaze on the wall. “I… it messed me up. I went to a mental hospital. I didn’t want you to know. Didn’t want you to know that I was crazy. Think that I’d hurt Allie. I went to see my psychiatrist on Tuesday. Then I went shopping. That’s the truth.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” Darren said, anguished. “I didn’t understand.”
“I know. But I hoped you loved me enough so that it wouldn’t matter.”
“Mrs. Shaffer, who did this to you?” Grayson asked. “Who stabbed you?”
“Mrs. McCloud.”
Paige sucked in a startled breath. “Mrs. McCloud?”
“The senator’s wife stabbed you?” Grayson clarified.
“Yes,” Adele whispered. “I asked her why… I told her I had a life. She said that was the problem.”