Creep

  “Mom! Mom! Mom!”

  Nobody answered. The closet was locked as it always was. The house was burning down, and she had locked him in a closet.

  He was trapped.

  “Bye, Ethan.”

  He looked up to see Ben waving at him from a few feet away. He waved back. “See you, buddy. Best of luck.” He forced himself to sound enthusiastic. “Remember what I told you about the laser,” he added, and nodded to the boy’s father.

  Ben grinned. “I will. Anything else I should know?”

  Ethan smiled. “Yeah. Don’t get locked in any closets.”

  CHAPTER : 22

  Morris missed Sheila the most in the evenings.

  On a night like tonight, with the television tuned to CNN, it was hard not to see her sitting in her usual spot near the fireplace, her small feet curled under her, marking papers or skimming a magazine while keeping her ears pricked toward the TV.

  Morris sat in his leather Barcalounger, his tired feet stuck in the wool house slippers he’d had for ten years. His whiskey—not the blended Johnnie Walker Red but a more expensive single-malt Macallan—sat beside him on the side table. Remnants of cold pizza were hardening on the plate next to the bottle.

  He’d fallen off the wagon all the way. Back to drinking, back to junk food. So much for all the weight he’d lost last year. Not that it made much of a difference. Losing forty pounds on a body his size was like brushing a long-haired cat—some fur might come out, but there was still a whole lot more where that came from.

  The phone rang, disrupting his gloom. At first he thought it was the television; it took him a second to realize it was his home phone line. Hardly anybody ever called him at home anymore save for telemarketers and a couple of golf acquaintances.

  He checked the number on the call display. Private name, Seattle number. Likely a telemarketer. Should he even bother? Then again, it might be Sheila.

  He picked up on the fifth ring. “Hello.”

  “May I speak with Sheila Tao, please.” The woman’s voice was crisp and unfamiliar.

  Morris muted the TV. “Who’s calling?”

  “It’s Dr. Chang, her therapist. Am I speaking with Morris?”

  “Yes.” He was totally caught off guard, and it took him a second to find his voice again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know Sheila had a therapist.”

  There was a pause on the other line. “She listed you as her emergency contact. I normally wouldn’t phone, but she missed her last appointment and hasn’t returned my calls. Would you put her on the phone, please?”

  “She’s not here.” Morris rubbed his head, trying to process that his psychologist fiancée had been in therapy. Another thing she hadn’t mentioned.

  “Would you tell her to call me?” The woman’s tone was careful. “I need to know she’s all right.”

  “I . . .” Morris was confused. “Can’t you call her? She went to the treatment facility.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Maybe he’d had too much whiskey. He rubbed his head again. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Marianne Chang.”

  He finally placed her name. “You were invited to our wedding. I didn’t realize you two were—”

  “Yes.” The woman paused. “I received the note about the cancellation your assistant sent.”

  “If you’re her therapist, you must know what happened. She called off the wedding. Over voice mail. I haven’t heard from her since Sunday.”

  There was a long silence on the other end. Finally Dr. Chang spoke. “What else can you tell me?”

  Morris shrugged even though he was alone in the room. “Well, she’s taken leave from her job. She said she was going to some treatment center for two months, and she might not come back to Seattle.” He stopped. “But shouldn’t you know this already?”

  Dr. Chang didn’t respond.

  “Listen, I think . . .” His voice finally cracked. “I think I’m the reason she left. She finally told me about her sex addiction. I reacted badly.”

  “I see.” Dr. Chang’s voice was carefully neutral.

  He stood up and started pacing. “I’m probably not supposed to ask, but did she give you any indication she was planning to do this?” He sounded desperate and hated it, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “I can’t speak about what Sheila and I discussed, Morris. I’m sorry.”

  “Can you at least tell me what rehab facility she went to?”

  Dr. Chang’s voice remained professional. “Again, I’m sorry. I wish I could help.”

  “Please. Just tell me where she went. I need to tell her . . .” He took a breath. “She needs to know I love her.”

  The therapist was quiet. Finally she sighed. “Morris, listen. We both know Sheila’s a smart woman. We have to trust she’s made the best decision for herself. Please don’t worry. I’m sure she’s fine.”

  It was a twenty-five-minute drive to the Harvard-Belmont district in the historical Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.

  Morris drove slowly down Sheila’s street, parking his fat Cadillac in her skinny driveway. He looked up at the three-story home for the third time that week, breathing in the chilly night air. A few lights were on inside, but they were the same lights that had been on all week. A thick wad of mail was sticking out of her mailbox.

  “Can I help you?” a voice behind him said.

  Morris was startled. A spritely woman in her early seventies was standing behind him, holding a leash attached to a small, hairy dog. The dog eyed him suspiciously under a mop of rusty bangs.

  “Hi,” he said, feeling foolish. “I’m Morris Gardener. I—”

  “Oh, you’re Sheila’s fiancé.” Recognition lit the woman’s wrinkled face. “We met once, last summer, at Sheila’s barbecue. Julia Shelby.”

  “Hello again.”

  The woman was only vaguely familiar, but Sheila had spoken of her often.

  “Sheila with you?” Mrs. Shelby said, peering into the Cadillac’s tinted windows. “I haven’t seen her around for a few days.”

  “Neither have I.”

  The woman blinked.

  Morris softened his tone. “Sorry, I guess you haven’t heard. The wedding was canceled and Sheila’s . . . left town.” He was beginning to sound like a broken record. If he had to explain what happened one more time, his head might explode.

  “Yes, I got the note. I was sorry to hear that. I was looking forward to seeing you two get married.” Mrs. Shelby frowned and the dog at her heels barked. She bent down to pick it up, scratching its auburn hair thoughtfully. “So she’s away? Where’d she go?”

  “I’m not sure.” He couldn’t meet Mrs. Shelby’s eyes. “She didn’t tell me.”

  “I thought maybe the two of you decided to elope at the last minute. I was wondering if I should bring in her mail.” She spoke openly, no trace of awkwardness. “Guess not, huh?”

  He held up his left hand and wiggled his bare ring finger. “No such luck. Still single.”

  “Well, I’m very sorry to hear that,” Mrs. Shelby said again, her kind eyes filled with concern. “I didn’t realize you two were having problems.”

  Morris stuffed his hands into his pockets. “We were working on it.”

  “When will she be back?”

  “Seven weeks.” Morris hesitated. “Maybe longer.”

  “So I suppose you’re coming by to feed the fish and water the plants.” Mrs. Shelby put her dog back down on the lawn. It barked and nipped at his pants. “She should have asked me—it must have been terribly inconvenient for you to drive all this way. You live on the East Side, don’t you?”

  Morris stared at her. Jesus Christ, he hadn’t even thought of that. “She didn’t ask me, actually. I—I lost my key.”

  “That’s odd.” Mrs. Shelby’s gray hair was blowing in the chilly night wind. “If she didn’t ask you and she didn’t ask me . . .” Her voice trailed off and she looked toward Sheila’s house. “You want to go in and look around?”
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  It took a minute of jiggling before Morris got the door open. The alarm was beeping and he stepped inside quickly to enter the code the neighbor had given him, 0–6–1–5 for Sheila’s birthday. The beeping stopped, and he pocketed the key. The sudden silence was jarring.

  It was ridiculous to think they were engaged and he didn’t have a key to her house, nor did he know the code to her security system. He’d asked Sheila a few times over the past year, but she’d always joked that she didn’t want him walking in on her with her other boyfriend.

  In the end, it hadn’t really been a joke, had it? She’d always been a private person, and now he knew why.

  He stepped farther into the house. Immediately, something didn’t feel right. And it wasn’t because she’d covered the holes he’d made in her wall with an old mirror she’d been meaning to donate to Goodwill.

  The throw pillows on the living room sofa were in disarray. A minor thing, but it wasn’t like her—she hated to leave the house messy if she was going to be away for an extended period. Once, before a weekend trip to Las Vegas, she’d made him wait an hour while she straightened and vacuumed the entire house.

  In the kitchen, the sink was filled with dirty dishes. One even had a chunk of dried chicken still stuck to it. Sheila would never have left those dishes to sit overnight, let alone for eight weeks while she was in rehab.

  Something was very wrong here.

  He crossed through the kitchen into her study. The desk lamp was bright and the computer was still on. The screen saver was flickering, and when Morris hit the ENTER key, he was prompted to enter a password. She had locked her computer—no surprise there.

  His eyes gravitated to the little fishbowl that always sat on her desk. His heart sank.

  The water in the bowl was cloudy. Mercury, the goldfish he’d won for her on their first date, was floating belly up, his bright orange color faded to a dull yellow.

  Sheila would have never let that little fish die.

  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.

  CHAPTER : 23

  There was no immediate danger, the desk sergeant on the phone informed Morris, so it would be forty-five minutes to an hour before somebody from Seattle PD would be at the house to take his statement. Or he was welcome to come in and file a missing-person report. Neither choice sat well with Morris, but he opted to stay at Sheila’s house and wait for an officer to arrive.

  He rifled through her desk drawers while he waited. Everything was meticulously organized, and he found nothing unusual amid the pens and Post-it pads.

  A small stack of invoices lay beside the computer, waiting to be paid. Electricity bill, gas bill, mortgage statement; all were unpaid for the month. He noticed her gas bill payment was due five days ago. He wasn’t intimately familiar with Sheila’s bill-paying habits, but it seemed odd that she wouldn’t have taken care of these things before she left. In the stack he’d grabbed from her mailbox there were more bills—why hadn’t she forwarded these to the rehab facility? Or arranged to make the payments some other way?

  He took one last look at the lifeless little goldfish, then headed down the hallway and up the long, straight staircase.

  Two bedrooms and a bathroom were on the second level. One bedroom was done up as a guest room, and the other was bare except for a treadmill and an old TV. He checked both rooms and the bathroom, even looked inside the closets, but nothing of note was in any of them.

  Turning down the hallway, he took the final set of stairs up to the third floor, which was entirely Sheila’s bedroom. By the time he reached the top, his knees were aching from carrying his big body up so many steps.

  Her bedside reading lamp was still on. The bed, though made, was slightly rumpled, as if she’d just been lying on top of it. A novel was lying open and facedown next to the indent left by her body. Her reading glasses were beside the book.

  It was all so peculiar—it didn’t even look as if Sheila had left in a hurry. It was as if she’d left knowing she’d be back right away. He was certain the police officers, if they ever arrived, would agree.

  He felt every inch the intruder as he sat on the edge of her queen-size bed. He was invading the wall of privacy she’d so carefully constructed, and it made him uncomfortable. He had been in her bedroom only half a dozen times, if that. They weren’t having sex and she had no television here, so there’d never been much reason for him to come upstairs. Now he was alone in her room, trying desperately to get inside her head. He picked up the novel she was reading. The latest thriller from Jeffery Deaver. Morris had never heard of the guy.

  He opened the top drawer of her nightstand and pawed through it. Hand lotion, another book by another author he’d never heard of, a few pens, receipts from various clothing stores. No recent purchases. He opened the second drawer.

  And stared into it, his jaw dropping open.

  It was a box of condoms. Jumbo pack. Trojans. And ribbed . . . for her pleasure.

  The box was open. Morris looked inside, knowing damn well what he was going to find but needing to see it anyway.

  A jumbo pack came with twenty-four condoms. In this box, only six remained.

  The doorbell chimed three floors down and he jumped.

  Morris gave his statement to the Seattle PD officers, trying hard to maintain a sense of professionalism. But in between every sentence was the nearly empty box of condoms, glowing like a fluorescent beacon in his head.

  It didn’t help to know that she had at least practiced safe sex. No, sir, not one bit.

  “So you don’t live here?” The younger detective was a petite woman named Kim Kellogg. Dressed smartly in a tailored pantsuit, she’d been making notes the entire time using a small black leather notepad she kept clipped to her belt. Her partner, Detective Mike Torrance, was wearing a shirt that needed ironing and a tie that looked outdated. He had been listening to most of the exchange without comment, his hawk eyes missing nothing.

  “No,” Morris said. “But I am—was—her fiancé. I haven’t seen or heard from her since she left a message calling off our wedding.”

  “When were you supposed to get married?”

  “This Saturday.”

  “And she called you from where?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

  “She called you on your cell phone?”

  “No, the home phone.”

  “Did you check the call display?”

  “I can’t remember. I was upset when I got home.”

  “Can you check it when you get home and give me the number she called from?”

  “Certainly.”

  Torrance cleared his throat, interrupting them. He had a jawline full of razor bumps, and his short black hair stuck straight up from his scalp like he’d been electrocuted. “So, Mr. Gardener, if you don’t live here, you must have a key to get in.”

  Morris suddenly wondered if he was going to be arrested for trespassing. “I do,” he lied. “We were engaged, after all.”

  Detective Torrance’s face was expressionless. “And why is it you think something’s happened to your fiancée?”

  Morris hesitated. “Truth be told, I don’t know what to think.”

  Torrance stared at him. “Then why are we here, Mr. Gardener? Either you’re reporting her missing or you’re not.”

  Kellogg was jotting everything down furiously, her pencil making loud scratching noises against the paper. Torrance frowned at her as if he wanted her to stop.

  Morris rubbed his head. “It feels like something’s not right. Her house is messy. She wouldn’t leave it like this if she knew she was going away for a while. It would have bothered her. And her fish is dead.”

  “Fish?”

  “Her pet goldfish. It’s dead.”

  Torrance and Kellogg exchanged a look Morris couldn’t decipher. “Let’s go see,” Torrance said, and Morris led the way to Sheila’s study.

  Detective Kellogg looked closely into the fishbowl, her blond ponytail bobbing. ?
??It’s dead all right,” she confirmed, jotting it down in her notebook.

  Torrance grimaced. “Thank you, Kim.” He looked around the office before directing his gaze back to Morris. “So you’re saying it’s out of character for her to leave so suddenly, but she did call you to say she was going away for a while.”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Have you tried looking for her?”

  “She asked me not to.”

  Torrance frowned. “You still have that message on tape?”

  “I didn’t erase it.”

  “Can you drop it by the station tomorrow?”

  Morris stifled a sigh. “I can do it tonight.”

  “What were the problems between you and your fiancée?” Torrance asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The problems between you and Ms. Tao.” Torrance’s voice was patient, as if he were explaining something to a five-year-old child. “Obviously things weren’t going well between you if she decided to blow town a week before your wedding.”

  Kellogg looked up, her pencil paused midair.

  “It’s Doctor Tao.” Morris felt his jaw tighten, and he forced himself to relax. “We did have an argument, yes.”

  “What about?”

  “It’s personal. But we were still getting married.”

  “Sir.” Torrance’s voice was flat. “Everything’s personal. We can’t help her if you don’t tell us everything you can.”

  Morris stared at him. The detective stared back.

  “Relationship stuff,” Morris said finally. “Nothing we wouldn’t have gotten past.” He didn’t want this man to know about Sheila’s sex addiction. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

  Torrance sighed. Kellogg’s pencil scratched into the silence.

  “And tell us again when the last time was you saw her?”

  “A week ago. Wednesday.”

  They were treating him like a goddamned suspect.

  “But she was okay when you left her.” Torrance’s voice was breezy, but there was no denying the ice behind it.