LITMIR.BIZ

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watched the rest of the report and then Liv dragged herself to her feet and headed back to the kitchen where she sank into the other kitchen chair, laying the gun on the tabletop in front of her. Auggie followed after her, clomping along with the chair on his hunched back. He banged it down, and they stared across the table at each other.

      “Looks like someone wanted to take out Kurt Upjohn,” he said. “This was about Zuma Software, not you.”

      “You’re wrong.” She wanted to believe him. She really, really wanted to believe him. But the timing of the package. . . and Dr. Yancy saying she’d buried the truth . . . and something about Hathaway House.

      “Why do you say that?” he asked.

      “Because I just know. I’ve always known.”

      “What have you always known?”

      “Stop humoring me. I know what you think. That I’m crazy, or deluded, or misinformed. And you think I’m wrong about these killings. That I’m egocentric, maybe, that it has to be about me, when it’s obviously not. That I’m a drama queen. That I have to make this about ‘my stuff’ when it’s clearly a different matter entirely.”

      He didn’t respond, which was a telling admission in itself.

      “They’re after me,” she said in an unsteady voice. “That’s why I jumped in your car.”

      Phillip Berelli was slouched in a chair inside D’Annibal’s unoccupied office. He’d needed somewhere to sit outside of the squad room, which, though mostly empty, had a feel of interrogation and criminal processing that scared honest citizens and felons, hopefully, alike. Those under arrest were brought in through a back door to a general booking area that led to several holding cells and then the squad room, holding some of the more raucous accused felons away from those at the station for other reasons, but that didn’t mean much to Berelli.

      He’d called his wife, then barely said another word on the ride over, looking for all the world like he might pass out at any moment. Since they’d been at the station, he’d mostly just sat, staring straight ahead. After half an hour Gretchen had left them and gone to find someone to complain about Guy Urlacher, the man at Laurelton PD’s front desk. Guy took his role seriously enough to piss off everyone. He wasn’t really wrong to make everyone identify themselves; he was just too eager and had turned following regulations into an art form. The good news? Guy’s attitude was the only thing Phillip Berelli had reacted to thus far. Berelli said that Paul de Fore, who’d been hired at Zuma as a kind of security guard, suffered from the same overzealous need to control. Since that admission, the man had simply sat in a blank-staring funk, so September had left him for a few moments and just returned.

      “Here,” she said, handing the man a cup of coffee strong enough to melt steel.

      He took the cup reluctantly and cradled it in his palms. Not an encouraging sign.

      “So, Paul de Fore,” September said. “Tell me more about him.”

      “Paul . . .” he murmured, shaking his head dolefully as his breath caught on a sob.

      “Take a drink, Mr. Berelli,” September said.

      As if he needed someone to tell him what to do, Berelli obliged, sucking in the dark liquid and coughing a bit as it went down his throat.

      “I know you want to go home, and we want to take you home, too. We just need some help. A little background. That’s all,” she said.

      “I don’t know anything. Kurt . . . Mr. Upjohn . . . he’s . . .”

      “He’s in surgery,” September told him. “Miss Maltona, too.”

      “Paul’s dead,” he said, as if trying the words out, disbelieving them.

      “Yes.”

      “So’s . . . Aaron . . .”

      September nodded. “But Mr. Upjohn and Miss Maltona are still alive, and the other employee, Miss Dugan.”

      “She called 911.”

      “Yes,” September said. The security tape had captured Olivia Dugan’s return, shock and phone call. If it was an acting job, it was a damn good one.

      “She’s lucky she wasn’t there,” he said. His face crumpled as he added, “She and Jessica didn’t like Paul much.”

      “She and Jessica were friends?”

      He shrugged. “Maybe.”

      “You said Paul took his job too seriously?”

      He nodded. “He kinda wore his own uniform. No one asked him to,” he added softly, as if by saying it quietly he could keep from maligning the dead.

      “His duties were . . . ?”

      “Nothing specific, I guess. He would go upstairs a couple of times a day and just patrol around. And he’d go outside and check the grounds. Mostly, he stood by the door.” He stared down at his shoes and admitted, “Nobody much liked him. He kinda took things on himself.” He made a face. “I overheard him tell Kurt that Jessica took off on her break. She left the building.”

      “That’s not allowed?”

      “Well, you can’t really stop anyone from leaving on their break, legally. Kurt just likes to know where every employee is at all times. He wants the girls to go at noon and be back at one.”

      “The girls . . . Miss Maltona and Miss Dugan?”

      “Liv musta gone to lunch late,” he said. “I was upstairs. I came down and she wasn’t there and Aaron had unlocked the side door.”

      When he trailed off, September encouraged him, “The side door’s generally always locked.”

      “Yeah. But Aaron got the key and unlocked it, and Kurt found out and they had words.”

      “Why did Aaron unlock the door, do you know?”

      “Like I said, he just likes messing with his dad. His mother and Kurt don’t get along. She uses Aaron to get to Kurt, and Kurt doesn’t really know what to do with him. Aaron’s kind of a slacker and . . .” He cut himself off, his eyes filling with tears.

      “Can you tell me a little more about Olivia Dugan?” she asked as Gretchen returned, her mouth a grim line.

      “Liv is quiet. Keeps to herself. I think Aaron likes her, but she’s careful.”

      “Careful, how? With his feelings?” September sipped from her own cup of coffee, hoping Berelli would drink up as well. He needed something to keep him going.

      “Careful in every way,” he said, looking into his coffee cup. “Afraid to say too much.”

      “Afraid?” Gretchen jumped on the word.

      “Not . . . like that . . .” he said. “She’s just . . . quiet.”

      Gretchen frowned. “Was there anything different in the last few days? Something you can think of that might have precipitated this event?”

      Berelli turned to September. “Can I go home now? I can’t think of anything else. I’m just . . . tired.”

      Gretchen looked irked, but she gestured to September and said, “Detective Rafferty will give you a ride home.”

      “My car’s still at Zuma,” he said.

      September said, “I’ll take you to it.”

      Berelli tossed a look toward Guy Urlacher as he and September passed by the front desk and pushed their way through the two sets of glass doors that led outside. “Liv isn’t involved in this,” he said. “I know she took off, but she was just scared, y’know.”

      “Uh huh.”

      “She’s just lucky she wasn’t there. Really lucky.”

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