Nowhere to Run (5 page)
She hadn’t realized she was planning to reopen her own past, but since the package had arrived, the thought had been coalescing in her mind. That’s what she wanted to do. And with the new information her mother had sent, she was going to find out what really happened to her. Good, bad or ugly. Suicide, or something more malevolent . . .
She said as much to Lorinda, Della, her father and Hague, if he understood, and they looked at her as if she’d truly lost her mind.
“You’re seriously going to investigate this?” Della asked in undisguised disbelief.
“My mother sent the items in this package to me for a reason,” Liv said. “I’ve always wondered. Maybe it’s time I got some answers. Investigators are opening up cold cases and catching killers all the time. Why not this one?”
“But it was a suicide. There was no crime!” Lorinda declared. “Why can’t you let this go and give your father and brother some peace!”
“I don’t think it was suicide,” Liv argued. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I have to know. I thought Hague might be interested in helping. We’ve talked about those unsolved strangulations, and whether Mama was one of them. Hague’s the one who first questioned whether she committed suicide. You remember what he said when he was little? About Mama having a friend?”
“Deborah Dugan’s Mystery Man,” Albert said darkly.
She pulled out the picture of the angry man again, the one where he was stalking toward the camera. “Hague said, ‘There he is again,’ when I showed him this.”
“He said ‘zombie,’” Della reminded her. “And he said the man followed him.”
“Hague says a lot of wacko stuff. None of it means a damn thing,” Albert growled.
Liv didn’t want to go into the whole “zombie” thing. “Do you think this guy could be the ‘Mystery Man’?”
Albert’s eyes slid toward the photo again. “I don’t know him.”
“Did you put Hague into this state with these photos?” Lorinda asked Liv, throwing a thumb in Hague’s direction.
“I wanted to talk to him about the contents of the package,” Liv said, defending herself.
Lorinda lifted an “I told you so” eyebrow to Albert, who ignored her.
“None of you seem to care about Hague at all,” Della said angrily. “None of you! Maybe it’s time you all left. When Hague’s like this, it’s pointless to try and talk to him anyway.” She bustled them toward the door and Lorinda, Albert and Liv reluctantly moved into the hallway.
“Tell him I’ll come by again soon,” Liv said, just before Della slammed the door shut behind them. Not wanting to deal with Lorinda and Albert any longer than she had to, Liv headed quickly toward the lift. She wanted to get into it before her father and Lorinda could join her. She didn’t think she could stand being squeezed into that small space with both of them there as well.
As Liv was lowering the elevator bar Albert and Lorinda moved slowly her way. If they wanted to climb in with her, they sure didn’t act like it, and they let her take the rattling cage down on her own, which was a relief. When Liv reached the street floor, a young mother with three children traded places with her, and by the time Liv got past them, out of the building and into the street, she gulped down fresh air as if she’d been strangling.
She was nearly run over by a guy racing down the sidewalk in a rush. He jostled her and she grabbed the envelope closer to her chest as he put out his hands to steady her.
“Sorry. Are you all right?” The dark-haired stranger peered into Liv’s face. “You look familiar?”
Liv pulled herself together and tried to sidle away.
“Can I buy you a beer to make up for it? Please?” He inclined his head toward Rosa’s Cantina with its glowing green and yellow script. “I promise I’m not a homicidal maniac. I own the place and I’m late. Come on in.”
“You own the place?” Liv asked cautiously. She’d been planning how to blow him off, but maybe he wasn’t trying to hit on her.
“With my better half.” He moved toward the bar. “I am really, really late.”
“Do you know my brother? Hague Dugan? I think he comes here . . . sometimes?”
“Hague . . . ah . . .” One hand on the door, he peered at her through the gathering gloom from drifting fog off the river.
Liv could feel the censure, and she could well imagine why. “I’m not like him . . . much . . .”
He smiled faintly and inclined his head as he opened the door and happy music and loud voices spilled from inside.
Liv followed after him, but he strode quickly forward and was already pulling up a section of counter of the brightly tiled bar as she entered and looked around for a seat. He swooped up a woman whose dark hair was pulled back into a bun and gave her a big, sloppy kiss. She grinned, then snapped a towel at him and pretended to be angry.
Liv took a seat at the bar. “La Cucaracha
,
” or “The Cockroach,” was playing from speakers hidden by a raft of piñatas hung from the ceiling. Twice a year the cantina had an afternoon party for all the neighborhood kids who slammed away at the piñatas until all the candy spilled across the floor. The owners then replaced them for the next bout of pounding. Once a night, Rosa’s Cantina also played the Marty Robbins classic, “El Paso,” from which they’d taken the name for their bar. At least that’s what Hague had told Liv, but now she heard the owner calling his wife Rosa, so it looked like there were other reasons as well.
,
” or “The Cockroach,” was playing from speakers hidden by a raft of piñatas hung from the ceiling. Twice a year the cantina had an afternoon party for all the neighborhood kids who slammed away at the piñatas until all the candy spilled across the floor. The owners then replaced them for the next bout of pounding. Once a night, Rosa’s Cantina also played the Marty Robbins classic, “El Paso,” from which they’d taken the name for their bar. At least that’s what Hague had told Liv, but now she heard the owner calling his wife Rosa, so it looked like there were other reasons as well.
From her viewpoint Liv could see through the front window to the stretch of sidewalk outside the cantina’s doors. As she settled herself onto a stool, she saw her father and Lorinda pass by. Albert glanced in but Liv didn’t think he noticed her on the far side of the rectangular, center bar as she was squeezed up tightly against the young couple on the bar stools to her right.
The bar owner was pulling glasses down from the overhead rack. “What’ll you have?” he asked Liv. “My treat.” He pushed two empty margarita glasses toward Rosa. “I’m Jimmy.”
“And I’m Rosa. His better half,” the woman said, grabbing up the glasses. “What’d he do? If he’s buying you a drink, he did something.”
“He can buy me a drink,” the man next to Liv said. “And Nicole here, too.”
Nicole looked up from under her date’s arm and said, “El Grande Margarita.”
“I nearly ran her down,” Jimmy said to Rosa. “She deserves a margarita.” He gave Nicole a mock glare through narrowed eyes. “You don’t.”
“Yes, I do!” she declared. “I’m your best customer!”
“You’re not even close,” Jimmy snorted.
Her date said, “She’s close. Maybe she’s not first, but she’s close.”
Jimmy gave them both a look that said, “Bullshit,” but he relented, and Rosa whipped up two margaritas and slid one to Liv and one to Nicole.
Liv was pretty sure she abhorred tequila, but the drink was free and she was desperate to shake off the bad feelings meeting with her family had brought on.
Rosa slid a small bowl of chips and salsa Liv’s way, and Jimmy revealed that she was Hague’s sister. “The Hague?” Rosa asked.
It was a nickname that had followed her brother throughout his life, a reference to the city that is the governmental center of the Netherlands. It seemed that anyone who got to know Hague, even marginally, called him The Hague.
“If someone’s in
his
seat, he gets worse than upset,” Rosa said. She jerked her head toward the northeast corner of the bar, where a man and woman were staring at each other and holding hands, he with his back to the booth, she across from him in a chair. “That’s Hague’s place, and he makes sure everyone knows it.”
his
seat, he gets worse than upset,” Rosa said. She jerked her head toward the northeast corner of the bar, where a man and woman were staring at each other and holding hands, he with his back to the booth, she across from him in a chair. “That’s Hague’s place, and he makes sure everyone knows it.”
“It’s not that bad,” Jimmy said.
“Hah,” Rosa snorted. “We’re just lucky The Hague’s not here tonight, otherwise those two lovebirds would have to move. He’s not coming, is he?” She looked a bit stricken.
“No,” Liv said. She felt like apologizing for her brother, but knew it would do no good. Hague was Hague. He couldn’t be changed.
“He mutters to himself, and then shouts, then waves his arm, then goes into a trance,” Nicole said.
“He swears at people that pass by,” her boyfriend offered up.
“Stop it. Stop it.” Jimmy waved a towel at them. “You’ll make her want to leave.” To Liv, he said, “Don’t listen to them. The Hague’s just part of the colorful group that makes up our clientele.”
Liv nodded. She couldn’t think of anything to say, but when they clearly expected her to add something, she asked, “Does he come in here alone?”
“That nurse is with him sometimes. Or, whatever the hell she is,” the boyfriend said.
“Caretaker,” Nicole clarified.
Rosa shook her head. “I think he likes to get away from her. He mostly comes when she’s out, but then she always comes looking for him.”
This little insight into her brother’s life gave Liv some hope. At least Hague seemed to want to escape Della’s smothering sometimes, maybe even often. In her mind, she couldn’t see how that was a bad thing.
Forty-five minutes later, and after refusing another margarita several times, she thanked them all and headed out. Jimmy and Rosa urged her to come by again soon, and Liv promised to stop in the next time she visited her brother.
As soon as she was outside the establishment again, however, she felt her skin prickle as age-old fears crept up again. Talking about her mother with Hague first, and then her father, had jarred something loose that wouldn’t go back into its place. With one eye looking over her shoulder, she hurried to her Accord and jumped inside, driving a circuitous route home, wondering if her paranoia was overtaking her good sense once and for all.
When she got back to her apartment Jo and Travis . . . Trask . . . whatever . . . were out on the balcony and they invited her to have a drink with them. She almost said no, but decided she needed to foster neighborly relations since Trevor, or whoever he was, had seen the contents of the package. It just felt rude not to.
“Come on in,” Jo said, and as Liv entered, she added, “Get her a drink, Trask! We’re having gin and tonics, or just gin, as in martinis. Whaddya want?”
The smell of cannabis was thick in the air, but neither one of them was smoking a joint at the moment. “Gin and tonic,” Liv said.
“Comin’ right up,” Trask said, dropping ice into a glass, splashing in a healthy dose of gin, then topping it off with tonic. He added a lime wedge and handed it to Liv, who was committing his name to memory.
Jo was half-drunk and dancing to some rock music with a lot of bass that Liv thought might bring the downstairs neighbors up and pounding on their door. As if reading her mind, Trask turned down the volume.
“How ya doin’?” he asked.
“I’m okay. How about you?”
“Can’t complain,” he said, nodding as if they were involved in a truly meaningful conversation.
“Doesn’t anybody wanna dance?” Jo asked.
Liv shook her head and sipped her drink, which was way too strong and made her feel like her bones were melting. She stopped about halfway through, knowing she had work in the morning.
Still, she stayed at their place until past midnight. Trask gallantly offered to accompany her the ten feet from their door to hers. She tried to decline but he insisted, saying, “Trask Martin always walks a lady home.” At her door, he looked over his shoulder, focused a bit fuzzily on the parking lot below, and said, “Hey, y’know, I saw this dude outside your door a couple weeks ago. He was just standin’ there and I asked him, ‘What’s up, dude,’ and he just turned and left.”
A cold jolt of fear ran through Liv. “
My
apartment?”
My
apartment?”
“Uh huh. Acted kinda weird, I thought.”
“What did he look like?”
Trask screwed up his face like he was really thinking hard. “Wore a hoodie and jeans. Didn’t turn my way. Headed down the stairs to the lot and went over there. . . .” He gestured to the far end of the parking lot which was lined by thick Douglas firs. “Gray truck. GMC. 2005. I know ’cuz I had one just like it once,” he said wistfully. “Now, I’ve got a piece of shit with a bad alternator. One of these days I’ll get it fixed.”
“How old was the guy?” Liv asked. She was coiled and tense.
“Don’t know. Young? With that hoodie, I kinda thought . . . Hard to tell, though.”
“And he was at my door? Just mine?”
“Maybe he was sellin’ somethin’. You just seemed kinda freaked out earlier, so I thought maybe you should know.”
“Thanks,” she said with an effort.
“No problemo.” He headed back toward his door and Liv hurried inside hers and slammed the dead bolt shut. The apartments didn’t come with dead bolts as an option; she’d had hers installed when she’d moved in. Now, she wondered if she should move out.
Was someone looking for her?
There was no reason for someone to be looking for her. No reason at all. That was her problem . . . this deep-seated fear that could never be fully quashed. She just couldn’t help feeling like she was being watched. Like someone wanted something from her.
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