Part 17 (1/2)

She left, turning out the light. She descended the stairs and walked to her mother's room. Her mother and father had had different bedrooms for as long as she could remember.

The room was large and, like the rest of the house, looked as if it waited for visiting royalty. The walls were of a sky blue, and the floor covered by a rich, deep royal blue. Lovely delicate bottles lined the dresser.

Meredith looked in the night table. A recent bestseller. A notebook and pen.

She looked in the notebook, feeling a little like a Peeping Tom. This was her mother's world, one she'd never quite been allowed entrance. But the pages were blank, or they had been torn out.

Undeterred, she looked in the dresser, then a large chest, and finally the closet.

The walk-in closet was filled with clothes neatly separated into casual and dressy. Built-in drawers were filled with lingerie. Shoes lined racks. Sweaters were neatly folded on two shelves.

She sighed, then spotted a shelf in the back. Books. She reached back and found three yearbooks for the private girls' school her mother had attended. There was also a book of poetry.

They were out of sight but not hidden. She took all four volumes, feeling as if she'd caught the golden ring on a carousel. Her mother had cared enough to keep them. Perhaps they held some secrets.

She took the stack to the small antique writing desk and sat down. She picked up the book for the year her mother was a senior. Her mother was in the cla.s.s photos and some group scenes, but there were no scrawled messages as there usually were in yearbooks. No writings from cla.s.smates. She picked up the second book. She found her mother's photo in the junior cla.s.s. Fellow cla.s.smates had written all over their photos.

Her glance rested on the photo of her mother. She had long blond hair and looked at the camera with a huge smile.

Meredith couldn't remember ever seeing that smile.

An observer could see the energy and life in the girl, even in a black-and-white photo. Meredith looked through the group photos. Drama Club. Choir, Art Club. Homecoming court. In the latter, she looked like a princess.

Meredith thought how different her mother and she had been. She had gone to a different private school where she excelled in scholastic activities and not much else. She had been in the Latin Club and Honor Society, on the debating team. She'd been editor of the school paper.

And her sister? Was she more like their mother?

Meredith suspected she had been a disappointment to her mother. She had her father's a.n.a.lytical mind and introspective nature. She'd never liked parties and fancy dresses and dancing cla.s.ses.

Then she turned her attention to the book of poetry. A collection of romantic poetry.

She looked inside for an inscription. There was none. So it probably wasn't a gift. It certainly wasn't something her father would have given her. At least Meredith didn't think so. But then nothing was as she had thought.

She put the book of poetry down and rifled in the drawer of her mother's desk. The contents were spare and neat. Stationery. Pens. Envelopes. An address book. She flipped through it and recognized the names of many of the city's social figures. Nothing that caught her attention.

She picked up her purse and the books. It would soon be time for Mrs. Edwards to return, and she would rather that neither she or her father knew Meredith had been inside. Not now.

There were too many puzzles. She needed more information before she confronted her father again.

She would start with some of the girls in the yearbook, particularly those with more personal messages. Surely her mother had confided in one of them.

It was, at least, a place to start.

Gage woke to the sound of heavy panting. Beast was standing on his bed, exhaling dog breath on him in an effort to get his attention. He obviously wanted his breakfast and this was his way of making an offer that Gage couldn't refuse.

He'd had d.a.m.n little sleep. Despite the captain's warning, he'd spent his day off going over the Prescott files. He was missing something. He knew it. Then, frustrated after failing to find anything, he'd gone to a blues bar and stayed far too long. He wondered who had gotten to the captain. He had wondered that when he went to bed and again now as he reluctantly put feet to the floor. He looked at the clock. Seven in the morning. It had been three when he had arrived home, and he'd been unable to sleep.

Beast nudged him and Gage scratched his ears. Beast sighed with delight.

Gage had named him Beast for lack of anything better.

Beast was big, probably part Doberman and G.o.d knew what else. He had been a watchdog for some drug dealers Gage had busted. The animal had been pacing the interior of a fence surrounding a house suspected of being a lab. The dog had bared his teeth and growled, and one of the officers had taken out his pistol. Gage had a soft spot for animals, though, and had shook his head. Instead he'd started talking to the beast, and the d.a.m.n thing stopped growling and started wagging his tail. He followed Gage to the door and knocked him down just as a bad guy fired at him. Gage wasn't hit. The dog was.

h.e.l.l, that d.a.m.ned animal saved his life. He couldn't let him go to the dog pound after that.

And so he had taken the dog to a vet, then home. The sixteen-year-old son of his neighbor loved dogs, and he and Beast had taken to each other immediately. When Gage worked late, Foster would feed Beast and play with him.

But Gage was his person, and Beast was ecstatically happy when Gage was home. He would crawl up in the king-size bed one leg at a time. Slyly. As if he were invisible and putting something over on his person. At first, Gage had tried to discourage the practice but Beast would stand there, looking at him with heartbreak in his eyes.

Beast had been Gage's first impression and Beast he had remained. The dog seemed perfectly happy with the name.

”Okay,” he said as a huge red tongue darted out and licked his forehead. ”I get it. You want to eat.”

He rose, still feeling the effect of two days without much sleep, and grabbed the pair of jeans that always lay next to the bed. He was getting too d.a.m.ned old for these kind of hours.

He went into the kitchen, started a large pot of coffee and poured dry food into the dog dish. Then he went to his bathroom and stepped into a shower.

He thought best in the shower.

He especially thought best as steaming water poured over his body. So many questions echoed in his mind. Who had called the captain about his reopening the Prescott case? Someone had. That much was for sure.

Who had the kind of power to stop an investigation, to bring out a captain late at night to remove a detective from a case? That alone would raise questions. So why had it been risked?

Was there something to be found?

The only people with whom he'd discussed the case were Glenn Wagner, the homicide detective who'd previously looked into the case, Meredith Rawson and her father. The father was the most likely person to intervene.

He turned off the shower and stepped out. Beast was sitting there, waiting.

Beast barked.

”Okay,” Gage said. ”I know. You want to get the paper.”

The tail wagged frantically.

Gage dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-s.h.i.+rt, then opened the front door. Beast raced out, picked up the newspaper lying in the driveway and raced back in, plopping the paper into Gage's outstretched hand.

”Good boy,” he said, giving Beast dessert--a giant size dog biscuit--as the smell of coffee permeated the kitchen. Gage poured himself a large cup of coffee, took a donut from a box he'd bought yesterday and sat down at the table to read the paper.

He found little of interest, probably because his mind was wandering. It kept returning to Meredith Rawson and the Prescott case. Why had he been told to leave it alone? And did either the father or the daughter have anything to do with it?

He'd never liked being told to leave something alone once his curiosity had been piqued. It was certainly piqued now.

Perhaps he would go into the station and talk to Morris, the detective handling the attempt on her life. Or had it been an attempt? Had it only been a ruse to try to find something in her home? If so, what?

The questions wouldn't go away.