“Have a good day,” he said as he gave it to her. Then he walked away, and she hurried to her car. Only once she’d driven a few blocks did she bother to open the note. And then she had to pull over so she didn’t cause an accident.
She’d been curious to know his name. But the note didn’t contain a name or a number.
We’ll be together soon. Love—O.B.
Nearly sideswiping a van that was coming from the opposite direction, Skye wheeled around and drove directly back to the restaurant. Her body was clammy, her hands cold, but she could think of only one thing—she had to figure out the identity of the man who’d passed her that note and discover his connection to Oliver Burke.
He wasn’t the person who’d called her. She would’ve recognized the voice. Or maybe not. She’d been too shaken by this man’s pointed interest, too absorbed with controlling her own reactions….
Shit! Dashing a hand across her upper lip, which was beaded with sweat, she double-parked, hopped out and ran inside. But he was gone. She searched every face, the bathrooms, studied all the men in the parking lot. She even asked the people who’d been eating near her if they’d seen a man fitting his description.
Some had seen him. But no one knew who he was, where he’d come from or where he’d gone.
With Oliver Burke getting out in the morning, David couldn’t sleep. He kept flipping through cable channels on TV, wondering what Skye was doing, what she was thinking. She had to be terrified. Especially after some of the fingerprints on that notebook, lifted through a chemical process using ninhydrin, proved beyond a doubt that it had, indeed, belonged to Oliver.
Fortunately, she’d taken the news well. She’d expected it. But that didn’t mean it didn’t bother her—or him. The dates in that journal of offenses went way back, beginning years before Oliver had even purchased the house in that gated community. Did he plan some sort of revenge for everyone he’d listed? Why else would he keep track of every insult or slight, and cross out some but not others?
David was willing to bet that most of the people in that book weren’t even aware they’d angered Burke. Or they didn’t care. Oliver was probably so insignificant to them that they’d bumped into him somewhere and gone on their way, scarcely acknowledging him at all, while he, offended by their lack of notice, plotted and planned his revenge.
David wished he could connect more of those initials to actual people so he could test that theory. He doubted Oliver had tried to kill all the people on his list. It was too long for that. There would’ve been bodies turning up everywhere. And he already knew that Miranda Dodge was alive and well.
Maybe Meredith Connelly was his first. Her initials weren’t the last ones listed, but she was close to the bottom. There was no L.F. for Linda Farello or P.P. for Patty Poindexter, both of whom had been murdered after Meredith.
Tossing his remote on the coffee table, David got up and went into his office. The “offense” beside the initials M.C. was “couldn’t even remember my name.”
How was such a small slight important enough for Oliver to record? How could anyone hold a grudge about something so inconsequential?
Maybe he’d met Meredith at Pepe’s, the restaurant where she worked as a waitress. If she was dealing with the public, she might be friendly, even warm, in her manner but it wasn’t personal. Oliver didn’t seem to understand the difference and adjust his expectations accordingly. It was possible he’d gone there to eat, had Meredith as his waitress, liked what he saw and left her a big tip and his card. Then, when she didn’t remember him the next time he came in, he’d been insulted and begun following her around, watching her—and eventually raping and murdering her.
David thought that scenario was plausible, but he didn’t know how he’d ever prove it. He’d checked Oliver’s credit card records to see if he’d ever paid for a meal at Pepe’s that way. Nothing. He’d spoken to Meredith’s coworkers, too. None of them remembered Burke coming in on a regular basis or having any contact with Meredith. But that wasn’t surprising. Oliver had one of those faces that could blend into a crowd. He certainly didn’t look threatening.
The phone rang. Dropping the printed list back onto his desk, David sank into his chair as he answered. “Hello?”
“Daddy?”
Jeremy. “Hi, bud. What’s up?”
“If Mr. Green Grocer has thirty-six cucumbers on sale for $1.39 each, how much would it cost to buy five of them?”
David smiled. Math homework. “First you have to decide how to set up the problem.”
“Just tell me the answer,” he said, his voice impatient.
He always tried to get out of doing the story problems. “Sorry. You have to solve it yourself, but I’ll help you figure out how.”
“Da-ad, I want to be done so I can watch the rest of my movie.”
Movie? David checked his watch. It was after nine o’clock. “Isn’t it a little late for you to be up?”
“No. Mom hasn’t told me to go to bed yet.”
“Where is she?”
“In her room.”
“Asleep?”
“Talking on her cell phone.”
“To whom?”
“Someone named after the sky. Isn’t that funny?”
David didn’t think so. “What’s she saying?”
“I can’t hear. When I went in, she made me leave and close the door.”
“Did Skye call her?” he asked. But he knew better. Skye didn’t have any reason to contact Lynnette. Besides, she didn’t have Lynnette’s number, and it wasn’t published anywhere.
“I don’t know,” Jeremy said.
“Never mind. Let’s get that problem done,” David said, but his mind was on Skye the whole time. And when he hung up, he tried to reach her himself.
Skye stood in her office with the lights off, peering through the blinds. Except for her car, the parking lot was empty. She had the doors locked, and her gun on the bookshelf close at hand, but she still felt uneasy, spooked by the fact that a total stranger, a man somehow connected to Oliver Burke, had tried to get her into his car. He must’ve been following her. How else would he have known she’d be at that restaurant?
Was he out there?
She didn’t think so, but it was difficult to tell. David’s wife had called, distracting her. For those few minutes he could’ve walked through the front door and she wouldn’t have noticed.