My fingers brushed the phone just as the ring tone switched to the Friends theme. Jenn. She’d have to wait. I sent her to voice mail and answered the summons of Peter, Paul, and Mary.
“Father,” I said instead of hello. Why waste time?
His breath rushed out. Was he worried? He so rarely showed emotion, I wasn’t sure.
“Mrs. Knudson called. Said that young man from away ran up your steps, burst inside, and then there were shots. I didn’t like the way he looked at you. Did you have to shoot him?”
Since I’d refused to take the gun he pressed on me that would have been a neat trick. A burble of hysterical laughter threatened to burst free. I slapped my hand over my mouth until the urge went away.
“Raye? Raye! I’m coming over there.”
“No!”
I did not need another person in this apartment. I did not want my father here at all. I was uncertain of what to say to him under normal circumstances. This would be a nightmare.
Wait, it already was.
“I’m fine. Bobby saved my life.”
Silence came over the line. I wanted to ask just how Bobby Doucet had looked at me, but the man in question appeared directly in front of me. I glanced up; he smiled. I forgot I still had my father on the phone.
“Raye?”
I blinked, came back to the earth. “I’m here.”
“What happened?”
Quickly I told him.
“Why would someone want to kill you?”
“I wish I knew.” Would knowing make me less shaky, or more?
“You can’t stay there.”
“I don’t want to stay here.”
“You won’t be able to,” Bobby said. “I’ll take you home, but tell your father it’ll be a while. You’re a vic—” I must have flinched because he paused. “A witness. You have to give a statement.”
“Father, I—”
“I heard,” he interrupted, and then he was gone. Typical. No words of love or concern—never his strong suit—although perhaps him calling at all meant both.
My phone beeped. Three messages. All from Jenn. She wouldn’t stop until I answered. Or worse, she’d show up. I called her back without listening to the messages.
“Shit, Raye! Every cop in the land is at your house.”
As that meant three, it wasn’t exactly a convention, though the EMTs and the fire department had come too. In New Bergin, they always did. I never had been sure why. Perhaps boredom.
“I’m there, Jenn. I know.”
“What happened?
I seemed doomed to answer that question, but I answered it again.
“I’ll come over.”
“Don’t. It’s a madhouse. And a crime scene. I have to give a statement, then Bobby—”
“Bobby is it?” She made a purring, revving sound that was Jenn-speak for hubba-hubba and phrases less fifties and more R-rated.
“He’ll take me to my father’s.”
“Convenient.”
“It is.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
As there wasn’t much she wouldn’t do, I wasn’t worried.
Over the next hour and a half I learned a lot. For instance, Bobby was in New Bergin because the brand on the dead woman matched that of several victims in New Orleans, which equaled serial killer. Ain’t life grand?
Bobby had come here only to compare the marks, ask a few questions. But he hadn’t figured on the killer still being in town, and really, really wanting to kill me.
I answered the same question in a variety of different ways, from a variety of people, including Bobby. But he never did voice a query as to why I’d lied about the maniac the first time. At least while we were in the hearing of any of the others.
Once I’d been released, packed a bag, and gotten into his rental car, which was parked sideways in front of my building, that was his second question, right after, “Where’s the closest decent restaurant?”
As he’d qualified closest with decent we had to head out of town. I gave him directions, and a few minutes outside the city limits, he cast me a sidelong glance. “Why did you lie?”
“Why did you let me?”
He returned his gaze to the road. “Are you going to answer my question?”
“As soon as you answer mine.” I was stalling; we both knew it.
He let out a long breath. “I figured you must have had a good reason to lie. You don’t seem the type to do it just for fun.”
“People lie for fun?” It had always made me twitch. Although I’d gotten better at it. I’d had to.
He flicked another glance toward me, then away. I was still stalling. He still knew it.
“You checked my apartment that night. No maniac. No sign of one. What was I supposed to think?”
“That the guy was fast, not invisible.”
“I didn’t say he was invisible.” I’d only thought that. “I said I’d imagined him.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Technically, yes. Invisible means someone or something is there but can’t be seen. Imagined means they weren’t there at all, except in my head.”
“Potato. Po-ta-toe,” he said. “You still lied.”
“If you consider my not telling the chief I’d imagined a man in my apartment lying, then I guess I did.”
“A lie of omission is still a lie.”