Killing Me Softly. Maggie Shayne

she just nodded slowly. “All right, Bryan. If you’re sure.”

      “I am. Besides,” he said, “I feel like I ought to call Bette’s parents tonight. And that’s gonna be—”

      “It’s going to be hell. Did you ask your lawyer about doing that? ’Cause it sounds to me like something he’d advise against.”

      “I did, and you’re right. He said no way. I’m doing it, anyway.”

      He turned and walked up the stairs. Dawn watched him go, more determined than ever to help him. But when she looked toward the front door, her mind made up to go to his house alone, she froze as a shiver of fear worked up her spine.

      Okay, maybe it would be stupid to go to the scene of a serial killer’s latest fun fest, in the dead of night, looking like the victim. Yeah. That was it. It wasn’t anything to do with the paralyzing fear of facing a dead girl in the darkness.

      She would wait till daylight. That was what she would do.

      A hand closed on her shoulder and she turned, knowing it was Nick before she looked at him.

      “That brick through the window bullshit shook you up, didn’t it, Dawnie? You all right?”

      She nodded. “Just tell me Bryan’s going to be okay.”

      “We’re gonna make sure of that, little girl. All of us together. He’s glad you’re here. You know that, right?”

      She smiled, liking the man’s easy, reassuring way. “I wasn’t so sure at first. And then I thought maybe he was, and then I wasn’t sure again.”

      “He is.”

      “I hope you’re right, Nick.”

      “About him being glad you’re here? I know I’m right.”

      “I meant about us making sure he’s going to be okay. We have to find out who killed Bettina Wright.”

      “I hear you,” he told her.

      “Don’t you worry, Dawn,” Beth called from the doorway into the dining room. “Nick is one of the best cops who ever served. The chief has put him back on duty, so he has all the authority he needs to help Bryan. And Josh is no slouch, either,” she added with a look behind her at her husband, who was carrying dinner plates into the kitchen. “To say nothing about Rico. And whether you know it yet or not, Bryan’s very good at his job, as well. And then there’s you and me,” Beth went on. “There’s no way we won’t solve this thing.”

      Dawn sighed, nodding and wishing she felt as confident as Beth did. “I’m gonna head up to my room,” she said. “It was nice meeting you, Nick. Really nice. I’m glad Bryan has you on his side.” He smiled warmly at her, and she felt a connection with him. Then she turned to the others. “And that goes for you, too, Rico. Night, Beth, Josh.”

      “Night, Dawn,” Beth called after her as she hurried up the stairs to her room.

      Once inside, with the door closed behind her, Dawn closed her eyes, took a breath and nodded firmly, knowing what she had to do. She went to her bag, which she had yet to unpack, and fished out the pills she used to keep the dead at bay. She took out the bottle of vodka she’d thought she might need if the pills weren’t enough here, where the ghosts had always been waiting. Then she went into the adjoining bathroom and emptied both of them into the toilet. She didn’t want to have them around at all—if the ghosts started showing up again, the temptation to medicate them away might be too great to resist. Best to remove temptation once and for all.

      She looked up at the ceiling then. “All right, here’s the deal. I’ll talk to the dead girl. Bettina Wright. But no one else. Okay?”

      She waited, goose bumps rising on her arms, demanding she rub them away. But nothing happened. There were no disembodied voices. No pictures hurling themselves off the walls. No misty figures hovering six inches above the carpet.

      “Yeah, well, I probably need to give it some time. The Ativan’s probably still in my bloodstream.”

      That was most likely it. And even more reason to wait until morning to go to Bryan’s house—the scene of the crime. Maybe by then she would be able to see Bette.

      She sank onto the bed, put her hand over her eyes and couldn’t believe she was actually hoping to talk to the dead again. Her father had been right, after all. You couldn’t run away from this thing. She wondered if he’d ever tried. Maybe that was how he knew.

      Damn.

      5

      “You look like hell, Bryan.” Beth met him at the foot of the wide staircase and pressed a hot mug of freshly brewed morning coffee into his hands.

      “Thanks.” The fragrant steam wafted up to his nostrils, waking up a few more brain cells, he thought, and took a deep sip. Then he took another as he walked with Beth into the kitchen.

      “Didn’t sleep, did you?”

      “Tossed and turned until around five. Then I finally passed out.”

      “From sheer exhaustion, I’ll bet. You think you can eat?”

      “He’ll force himself,” Josh called from the sunny breakfast room off the kitchen.

      “He’s right, I will,” Bryan said. “I need to try to keep myself strong through this. Keep my mind sharp, be quick on my feet. It’d be too easy to stop eating or sleeping at all.”

      “Go on out with your father, Bry. I’ll bring you a plate.”

      Bryan nodded and sipped more of the coffee as he walked through the kitchen, which smelled of bacon and, God help him, cinnamon rolls. He hoped he didn’t look too much like a zombie as he stepped into the sun-drenched breakfast room, which had been added on three years ago. The frame was hardwood, gleaming boards that curved, so that the room looked like the rib cage of a capsized ship. And in between those ribs, nothing but glass.

      Josh sat alone at one of the three round tables. Bryan was surprised. Not at the lack of guests—he’d known Beth would cancel any reservations and hustle out the stragglers when all this broke. She would want her full attention on him and his troubles. And on Dawn and her return. But he’d expected to see Dawn there at the breakfast table with his father.

      “She’s not here,” Josh told him before he could ask. “Sit down, relax. She’ll be back.”

      “Where is she?”

      “Borrowed the car,” Beth said, entering the sunroom with three plates heaping with food, one balanced on her forearm. She put one in front of each of the men, then took her own and sat in the empty seat between them. “She said she wanted to take a drive. Maybe pick up a few things in town.”

      Bryan lowered his head, and stared at his plate. “And you let her go? Alone?” He lifted his eyes again, spearing his father with his gaze. “Didn’t Nick tell you—”

      Josh laid his napkin down while Beth paused, her first bite halfway to her mouth. “If there’s something you feel I should know about, son, then you need to tell me yourself. What is it?”

      Bryan closed his eyes. “Of course Nick didn’t tell you—for the same reason I didn’t say anything yet. He probably didn’t want to scare the hell out of you both. Especially Beth. He’s old school about protecting the weaker sex.”

      “If he thinks Beth and Dawn are the weaker parts of this family, he doesn’t know them very well,” Josh said, sending Beth a reassuring—and adoring—look.

      It didn’t seem to soothe her at all. “What does Nick think he’s protecting me from, Bryan?” Beth asked.

      “From knowing that every one of the victims of the Nightcap Strangler was between five foot six and five foot ten, slender, had long, straight, blond to light brown hair, was in her early to mid-twenties, was—”

      “You