Hiding in the Shadows

by Kay Hooper

Faith got to her feet and went into the hallway, intending to ask Kane if he’d found anything. She assumed he would have told her if he had, but the silence was wearing on her nerves and she wanted to hear the sound of his voice.

  He wasn’t in the hallway, though books stacked neatly on the floor gave evidence of his efforts. Faith went on down the hall, moving noiselessly, not sure why she felt the need to be silent. At the end of the hallway were the two bedrooms and bathroom.

  In the room that had undoubtedly been Dinah’s, Kane sat on the bed, his bowed head in his hands, shoulders hunched, utterly still.

  Faith had a confused impression of a lovely room decorated in cool shades of blue, of patterns and materials that were feminine without being frilly, of more bookshelves and oil paintings of seascapes and a few figurines that were beautiful and tasteful and didn’t clutter up the room.

  Then she crept away silently, back to the living room. Mechanically, she continued searching through the books, looking at each one from cover to cover before returning it to its shelf. She didn’t realize she was crying until everything got blurry and she saw wet splotches on the page she was staring at.

  “Dammit,” she whispered. “Dammit.”

  “Any luck?”

  Faith put one last book back on the shelf, got to her feet, and looked at Kane as he stood in the doorway. She thought he was calmer, less angry. Or maybe he was simply as tired as she was. They’d been in Dinah’s apartment nearly three hours.

  “No. How about you?”

  “Not so far.” He frowned at her, seemed about to ask something, but in the end didn’t.

  Faith wondered if her eyes were red. She said, “I thought of something a few minutes ago. My apartment was searched at least a couple of times. Do you think this place might have been searched too?”

  “Maybe. Right after Dinah disappeared, I went through here with a fine-tooth comb, and the police searched it as well. The security system has been active, and the only ones who are supposed to come in are the cleaning crew. But there’s always a chance somebody else got in. If they did, though, they were neat about it. The cleaning service was under orders to report anything out of the ordinary—and I certainly haven’t noticed anything out of place.”

  Faith went over to sit in an armchair near the fireplace. “I keep thinking I should know just where to look. That note … it assumed I’d know. ‘Inside the book,’ it said. As if there were only one book. One important book.”

  Kane sat on the arm of the couch near her chair. “And you have no idea what book would be important.” He didn’t say it derisively or accusingly, just matter-of-factly.

  She pressed her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes. “No. But I—” Her head lifted abruptly, and she stared at him. “Did Dinah use a day planner? A date book?”

  “Two of them. One she kept with her in the Jeep, for business, the other one here for personal stuff.” Kane got up and went to the antique desk near one of the windows. He took a black leather book out of the top drawer and came back to hand it to Faith. “I’ve been through it a dozen times,” he said, sitting on the couch. “So have the police. In the first few weeks, we retraced her steps those last days, trying to find some clue to what happened to her.” He paused. “I never saw anything unusual in there, nothing that drew my attention.”

  But that would have been the point. Not to draw anyone’s attention.

  Faith examined the book carefully. It was the usual sort of day planner, with an address book and calendar and tabbed sections for appointments and schedules and notes. There was a pocket in the front cover for Dinah’s business cards, and several pages of clear plastic sleeves for the cards people had given her.

  There was, as far as Faith could see, nothing out of the ordinary.

  She looked through the sections one at a time, turning each page slowly. It wasn’t until she reached the second-to-last section intended for notes that she looked up at Kane. “There are no pages here. The tab says notes should be in this section, but all the pages are missing.”

  “I didn’t notice that. But it might mean nothing. Dinah could have torn them out one or two at a time, never intending to keep them. People do that.”

  Faith closed her eyes, thinking. “If I knew somebody might try to get some information I had, that someone could come looking for it, I just might write it down twice. Once in a reasonable place where I could be fairly sure it would be found—and then again somewhere else.”

  “Where?” Kane asked.

  Faith stared down at the planner. “When you’re looking for something and you find it, you stop looking. Right?”

  “Right.”

  She turned the final tab, which was labeled MISC., and discovered several lined pages with a scattering of reminders written in Dinah’s hand. Faith ran her finger down them slowly.

  Get the Jeep’s tires rotated. Find out Sharon’s birthday. Have a putting green installed in Conrad’s office.

  Faith looked up at Kane and repeated that one aloud. “Conrad?”

  He smiled slightly. “Conrad Masterson. A financial manager who’s also a golfing nut. Dinah was wondering what to get him for Christmas.”

  “Oh.” Faith returned her gaze to the pages. More reminders. To trace the whereabouts of a catalog order that had not arrived. To schedule a routine checkup with her doctor. To return a Stephen King novel to the library.

  Faith stopped again at that one. “But she buys his books.”

  “What?” Kane leaned toward her.

  She looked up at him with a frown. “This note says she has to remember to return a Stephen King novel to the library. But she buys his books in hard-cover—I found half a dozen.”

  “I found two,” Kane said slowly.

  “Does—did she even take novels out of the library?”

  Kane had to think about that for a moment. “I don’t think so. She used the library for research, but she was always willing to buy a book, even by a new author. Building a personal library was important to her.” He indicated the bookshelves throughout the apartment. “Obviously.”

  “Then I think,” Faith said, “we should look for more Stephen King novels.”

  They found the handwritten list of names in the fourth King novel on the bedroom shelves.

  There were six names, all men. Five were prominent Atlanta businessmen, two of whom were politically active. The sixth man, Kane told Faith, had committed suicide a week before Dinah vanished.

  The third name on the list was Jordan Cochrane.

  But what caused Faith and Kane to look at each other in surprise was the single word Dinah had written and twice circled at the bottom of the page:

  Blackmail.

  “Blackmail,” Tim Daniels said, “is a nasty business, and the kind of dirt men pay to keep under the rug tends to be bad enough to provide a motive for murder.”

  “Or suicide,” Kane said. “One man on the list took care of his apparent problems by blowing his brains out, and it emerged afterward that for about six months before he’d been trying to pay back some money he had borrowed from the company he worked for. It was a lot of money. He would have gone to jail for a long time if the company had found out, and his very nice churchgoing wife would have been disgraced.”

  “I’d call him a likely target for blackmail,” Daniels allowed. “Assuming somebody found out what he was up to.”

  “And if he was paying hush money, it was probably next to impossible for him to also pay back the money he’d embezzled. Which probably explains the suicide. Poor bastard was caught in a no-win situation.”

  “I’d say,” Daniels agreed.

  “We can also assume that since his name was lumped in with the five others, all these men were probably being blackmailed. Which begs the question—”

  “Who’s doing the blackmailing?” Faith supplied.

  “Exactly.”

  “It also,” Faith noted, “seems to indicate that Jordan Cochrane is on the victim side of the equation.”r />
  “That doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved in Dinah’s murder. Some secrets are worth killing to keep.”

  “True enough. But there are four other names on that list, Kane. And you said all five share one other connection besides apparently being blackmail victims.”

  “All are in some way involved in the construction business. The man who committed suicide was too. He kept the books for Mayfair Construction.”

  “Isn’t that the company—”

  “Working on the Ludlow building, yes. Or will be, when I can put them back to work.”

  Slowly, Faith said, “Another connection.”

  “Another connection,” Kane agreed.

  FOURTEEN

  “I don’t much like you waltzing around in my dreams,” Faith said to Dinah.

  “It’s not my idea of fun either,” Dinah retorted, very busy with what she was doing. “If you’d only get your head on straight, I could get on with my life.”

  Faith opened her mouth to remind Dinah once again that she had no life to get on with, but finally just shrugged and stepped closer, watching the other woman curiously. “What are you doing now?”

  “I’m fixing it, of course.” Dinah was carefully gluing together delicate porcelain pieces of a shattered figurine. It was, Faith saw with a shiver, the figurine of a woman.

  “Are you trying to say you put me back together?”

  Dinah sighed, a bit impatient. “Never mind this. You aren’t ready to think about it yet. What you have to do first is understand what that list means.”

  “The names? It means blackmail, doesn’t it?”

  Dinah looked at her sympathetically. “This is going to be very hard for the next little while. But you have to get through it. You won’t begin to see the truth until you get through it.”

  “Get through what?”

  “There’s another body, of course. Once you begin killing, it’s so easy to keep doing it. It even seems reasonable to use that means to solve a problem—especially if you’ve been successful before. And he has. First back in Seattle, and now here.”

  “Who? Who is he, Dinah?”

  “Just remember that the body isn’t who it appears to be. Don’t let them make that mistake, Faith. You have to be sure who the body is, or you won’t have the right answer.”

  “But—”

  “And when you find the bell, make him tell you the truth. He won’t want to, but you have to make him. He has pieces of the truth, and you need them.”

  “Dammit, why do you have to talk in riddles?”

  “It’s the only way you can hear me.”

  That made no sense to Faith, and she sighed. “Can’t you at least tell me where to look? There has to be a key to all this, and we need it. I don’t even know the right questions to ask!”

  Dinah returned her attention to the figurine. “Ask yourself this, Faith. Ask yourself how many people you would die to protect. And be careful. Be very careful. He’s watching, you know.”

  • • •

  It was the second time in as many days that Faith had jerked awake in the darkness just before dawn, but this time no intruder lurked outside the window.

  “Just the one in my mind,” she heard herself murmur.

  She remained in bed for as long as she could, but it wasn’t yet six-thirty when she finally got up. She slipped into the bathroom to take her morning shower.

  Ask yourself how many people you would die to protect.

  What frightened Faith about that question was her certainty that Dinah had done just that, had died believing her silence was protecting someone she cared about. And so far, the only person Faith could imagine the other woman caring for so deeply was Kane.

  Had he been in danger even before the last few days?

  Because he was somehow involved? Viewed objectively, she supposed it was possible—though nothing she had seen or felt supported the likelihood.

  But there was that elusive thing Dinah’s torturers had demanded of her, and Faith’s apartment had been searched at least twice. She doubted the simple list of names was the cause of all that. Whatever else it was, its threat against the equally elusive villains had to be incredibly explosive to justify torture and murder, gunshots and bombs.

  No, it wasn’t the list. She thought it was something she herself had found not long before the accident, some evidence that not only identified but condemned those behind the blackmail, and the murders of her family and Dinah.

  The list was a beginning, at least, the beginning where Dinah had started.

  Faith made her way to the kitchen. She didn’t go near the couch, hoping that Kane was sleeping. He needed to sleep.

  She turned on the dim light above the stove and got the coffeemaker started. Then she leaned back against the counter and waited, trying not to think because she felt so weary of her thoughts chasing one another around in her mind.

  “You’re up early.” Kane stood in the doorway, his pale hair tousled and stubble on his jaw.

  “Sorry if I woke you,” she said.

  “You didn’t.” He came in and busied himself getting the cups. Faith moved away a bit nervously to get the cream from the refrigerator. Kane didn’t appear to be watching her, but she thought he noticed.

  “You cried out in your sleep,” he said suddenly.

  That surprised her, and she looked at him uncertainly. “I did?”

  “About two-thirty. I opened your door and looked in. You seemed restless, and you’d thrown off most of the covers.”

  Remembering the thin nightgown she’d slept in, Faith felt heat rise in her face. But Kane was pouring coffee into their cups and didn’t notice.

  “I went in to straighten the covers, and I thought for a minute you were awake. You said my name. But you were sound asleep.”

  “I must have been. I don’t remember.”

  “Bad dreams?” He looked at her finally, as he handed her a cup.

  “Just the usual. Bits and pieces.” Faith dumped sugar and cream into the coffee and took a sip. Kane tasted his and grimaced.

  “Sorry,” she said wryly. Clearly, he didn’t like the way she made it. She sipped her own again; it tasted to her the way coffee always tasted—slightly bitter.

  Kane said, “If you don’t mind …” and poured the entire pot down the drain.

  She was not offended. “I suppose there’s a knack to it. I don’t seem to have it.”

  He got the second pot started. “Some people don’t. I’ll shave and shower while this is getting ready. You wanted to go by your apartment for your watch, and I have that appointment with the building inspector. We might as well clear out before the work crew gets here.”

  “Okay.” She thought he was a little abrupt but didn’t protest or question his mood. She was still unsettled by his announcement that he had gone into the bedroom while she slept and that she had said his name out loud. She was bothered by the knowledge that some dream or nightmare had caused her to cry out, had caused her to say his name.

  There’s another body, of course.

  “My subconscious doesn’t know what it’s talking about,” she murmured to herself. But she went into the living room and turned on the TV anyway. She wanted to see the news, even though she didn’t believe there would be another body. Not really.

  The first part of the program was taken up with a rehash of Dinah’s disappearance and the discovery of her body, complete with all the gory details the media had been able to obtain through their various sources. There were numerous shots of Kane as he had been in the early days, haggard with worry but determined to find Dinah, saying little except that.

  And someone had unearthed a short video clip of Dinah herself, caught unawares about six months before by a news crew as she was working on interviews for her magazine article about Haven House. The news crew had been there because a rather well-known Atlanta wife, supposedly taking shelter there, had called a reporter friend to come and tape her tearful accusations of repeated abuse.

&
nbsp; It was, of course, a complete coincidence that their divorce proceedings had turned nasty a few weeks before that.

  The only positive note about the situation was that the news crew had been responsible enough not to show any identifying characteristic of Haven House—such as a street number or a long shot that might have placed its location. Even after having been there, it took Faith a couple of minutes to realize it was Haven House she was looking at.

  She listened to the society woman’s accusations with half an ear, her attention fixed on the background of the shot, where Dinah, notebook in hand, was cradling a sleeping infant.

  She had been a beautiful woman, Faith realized. And her lovely face wore compassion and empathy so openly and naturally. It was a face to which even strangers would be drawn to tell their secrets, even their shames, and Faith wondered how many confidences Dinah had carried with her to her death.

  Before Faith could do more than ponder that question, her attention was caught by another person moving in the background, someone across whose face an expression of anxiety appeared when she saw the news crew filming the place. And her. Someone who darted through the doorway and disappeared into the shelter.

  Herself.

  Faith frowned at the set as the news piece continued. What was it about the scene that nagged at her? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known she had met Dinah at Haven House when Dinah was researching her article.

  What was bugging her?

  Kane came into the living room just as a perky weather lady was saying it might rain today, and Faith knew she had to tell him. Whether he believed her or not.

  She drew a breath and stared at the television. “I didn’t really answer you when you asked if I’d had nightmares last night. I don’t remember everything I dreamed, but I do remember one of those … those odd dreams. There was a warning. A warning that another body will be found.”

  Kane sat on the arm of a chair near her. He was gazing at her, not in disbelief but in apprehension. “Whose body, Faith?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where did the warning come from?”

  “I don’t know. My subconscious, which seems to know more than I do. Or that psychic ability I might have but can’t control. Or even that—that connection with Dinah.”