Obsessed (9781617732393)

by Gibson, Jo

  Carla and Michael were the first to arrive, and they chatted with Mr. Calloway until the other guests began to troop in the door. Andy arrived with Linda, Berto, Tammy, and Winona. Phil and Rob rode with Marc Allen, and Jerry Maxwell brought the Alway Brothers and Gina and Nicole in his band bus. There were many familiar faces, and some who would become familiar. Mr. Calloway had hired ten new acts to audition tonight. The regulars would be the audience, and they’d get the chance to enjoy the show from the floor.

  “Are you cold, Carla?” Michael looked concerned as Carla pulled her beaded sweater around her shoulders.

  “No, I’m fine. But I wish I hadn’t worn a low-cut dress. I’m still a little embarrassed about my scar.”

  “I love your scar.” Michael bent over to kiss the top of her head. “And I especially love where it is. Another couple of inches lower, and you wouldn’t be here with me now.”

  “I know.” Carla nodded. She’d been very lucky in many ways, lucky that the tape recorder had worked to record all of Judy’s confession, lucky that Michael had rushed right over to Covers immediately after he’d called the police to tell them about Judy, lucky that he’d asked the paramedics to meet him there, and lucky that Judy had been caught just as she was unlocking Michael’s front door. She knew that Michael was right about her scar. The doctors had promised that it would fade in time, but she still shivered every time she saw it in the mirror. It was a tangible reminder of the terrible danger that they had been in.

  The scar from the knife wound was the only one she had. There was no scar from the arrow at all, and there was a good reason why she’d felt no pain when Judy had thrust it into her chest. Carla had been wearing a blouse with pockets, and the arrow had pierced the telephone message pad she’d forgotten to return to her desk drawer. The message pad had been ruined, but the arrow hadn’t even scratched Carla.

  “Are you happy, Carla?”

  Michael’s eyes were shining as he looked at her, and Carla knew that he loved her.

  “Yes. I’m very happy.” Carla leaned over and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. “I just wish that everyone could have been here.”

  Michael nodded, and hugged her again. He knew exactly what she was thinking. Ten members of the Covers’ cast and crew were gone forever.

  Andy approached their table with Linda in tow. He looked worried, and he was frowning. “I don’t like this. What if the caterers mess up my kitchen? It’ll take me weeks to get it back in shape. I think I’ll take a peek, and make sure they’re not using my new set of pans.”

  “I’ll go with you, if you’ll go with me.” Linda grinned at him. “I’ve got to check out the dressing room. Those new girls’ll never be able to figure out the light for the makeup table.”

  As Michael and Carla watched, everyone began to get up. Berto and Tammy went to make sure there was a supply of clean glasses, Winona decided to check out the bar and make sure there was plenty of juice on hand, Marc went off to give final instructions to his new assistant who was lighting the show, and every other performer suddenly decided to make sure their props were intact.

  “Don’t you want to check out the office?” Michael turned to Carla with a smile.

  “No. It’s all locked up and I’m the only one with the key. How about you? Are you worried about your dressing room?”

  Michael shook his head. “The other guys’ll check it out. I’d rather stay right here with you.”

  The first half of the show was excellent, and Carla and Michael applauded wildly at intermission. There was a lot of new talent out there, and some of them would be invited back to become regular performers. Appetizers were served, and fruit drinks were refilled, and then the lights dimmed again, for the second half of the show.

  “And now we have a special Christmas surprise.” Mr. Calloway beamed at the audience, and Carla noticed that he was carrying Michael’s guitar. “Michael’s written a new song for the holiday season, and he’s agreed to sing it for us tonight. Michael?”

  Michael reached out and grabbed Carla’s hand. “I told Marc to bring out two stools. This song’s for you, and I won’t sing it unless you come up and sit with me.”

  “All right.” Carla blushed, but she nodded. She wasn’t as shy as she’d been last summer. As the audience applauded, she took her place on the stool and smiled at Michael as he started to play.

  Michael’s song was about Christmas wishes, and how all he wanted was love. Material things didn’t mean a thing, unless there was someone to share them. Carla’s eyes glistened with happy tears as Michael sang. Every word he was singing was true. Love was the most important gift of all, and life wasn’t worth living without it.

  The song ended and the audience applauded. Michael took Carla’s hand and he led her from the stage. When they were back at their table again, he pulled her close and kissed her.

  “Am I right?” Michael’s voice was a soft whisper.

  “Yes,” Carla whispered back. “Love is the most important gift of all. In a way, it’s a shame that Judy never learned that. She tried to take love, and you have to wait for it to be given.”

  Michael kissed her again, and then Carla asked the question that had been running through her mind all night. “Do you think she’ll ever get out?”

  “No. I talked to Andy’s uncle today, and he told me that Judy would be there for life. We’re safe, Carla. We’re safe, forever.”

  Judy shivered in the chill night air, and slipped on her jacket. It was nippy out tonight, and Christmas was coming. She knew exactly what she was giving herself for Christmas this year. It was the one thing she wanted more than anything else, her freedom.

  At first, they’d locked her up like a rat in a cage, but good old Buddy and Pamela had come through for her. They’d moved her to this expensive sanitarium where the food was excellent and she had a private suite with cable television. It looked more like a health spa than a prison, but the bars on the windows had been a continual reminder that she was a prisoner.

  Judy had formulated her escape plan on the very first day. She’d been a model patient, unfailingly polite to the staff of ugly nurses, and very cooperative with the young doctor who was assigned to her case. She’d insisted that she couldn’t remember anything about the murders, and when the doctor had told her exactly what she had done, she’d broken down in tears of remorse.

  Naturally, she’d been hoping for a plea of temporary insanity, and Judy was sure that she would have triumphed. But the process had been much too slow, and she’d quickly tired of acting sweet and innocent. All she’d been able to think about was how she’d failed to kill Carla and Michael. That mistake had to be rectified soon.

  Judy had started with the nurses. It was always good to get them on your side. She’d told Marta to bring flowers for them every week when she visited, and expensive boxes of candy from a gourmet chocolate shop. At Judy’s suggestion, Pamela and Buddy had donated a giant-screen television and a VCR for the nurses’ lounge. Then Judy had told Marta to purchase tapes of first-run movies, and that had made Judy the darling of the nursing staff.

  The doctor had been harder to win over than the nurses. He was smarter, and he’d been immune to Judy’s charms for several weeks. But Judy had managed to fool him, too, the minute she’d found out that he was writing a book. She’d asked to read it, and she’d been full of praise for the dull, technical passages. Then, as the icing on the cake, Judy had talked Buddy into buying the manuscript for one of the publishing houses he owned.

  It had taken Judy less than two months to earn unlimited privileges. She could go out on the grounds any time she wished, and that was also a part of her plan. Judy had taken a walk every night, and the nurses were used to seeing her go out and come back with her jacket on.

  Tonight, she’d yawned all through dinner. When the head nurse had asked her what was wrong, Judy had said she’d stayed up late the night before, reading a novel. She’d told the head nurse that she was going to take her nightly walk, and then she
planned to turn in early.

  After that, it had been simple. Judy had taken the movies that Marta had brought, three new releases she knew the nurses were dying to see, and left them in the lounge. Then she’d gone back to her room and piled pillows in a row under her blankets. The nurses always opened her door to do a bed check at night, but Judy’s status had been changed to nonviolent, and all they did was glance at the bed. The pillows would fool them into thinking that she was there, sleeping peacefully, with the covers pulled over her head.

  Next, Judy had checked her supply of cash. Pamela and Buddy always sent plenty of money with Marta on her weekly visits. They thought Judy used it to buy snacks and magazines and little gifts for the other patients. Since Buddy and Pamela had no idea how much to send, and money seemed to mean nothing to them, Judy had managed to squirrel away over a thousand dollars.

  Judy had stuffed the cash into her jacket pocket, and waved at the nurses as she’d walked past the desk. And now she was out on the grounds in the moonlight, only a few feet from the high fence running around the perimeter. She knew she wouldn’t have much trouble getting over the fence. She was athletic, and she wasn’t doped up on tranquilizers like the rest of the patients.

  There was a tree, close to the fence. Judy grinned as she climbed up the thick branches, and dropped easily over the top of the fence. They wouldn’t start looking for her until morning, and by then she’d be hundreds of miles away.

  Judy slipped on the black wig Marta had bought for her, and walked confidently to the nearest road. It didn’t take long to wave down a passing motorist, and the man was very sympathetic when she told him how she decided to walk back to town when her friends started drinking. She got him to drop her off at a truck stop, where she could supposedly call her parents, and Judy was on her way.

  The waitress brought her coffee, and Judy smiled as she tasted her first dose of caffeine in months. She checked her appearance in the mirror behind the counter, and smiled in satisfaction. The denim jacket and jeans she’d bought in the trucker’s shop next to the restaurant were a good disguise. She’d changed clothes in the ladies’ room, and dropped her old things in a Salvation Army box. By the time they were discovered, she’d be long gone.

  The truckers sitting in the back of the restaurant were a friendly bunch. Judy won their sympathy immediately, when she told them that her boyfriend had deserted her and left her here in Northern California, miles from her home in San Diego. A trucker who was high-balling it to Los Angeles said he’d be glad to take her that far.

  Los Angeles would be perfect. Judy gave him a teary smile as she followed him out to the parking lot and swung herself up into his truck. Of course she wasn’t actually planning to go home. That was the first place they’d look for her. But she had some unfinished business in Burbank, and she’d disappear into the street scene and get herself another identity. That shouldn’t be so hard. Money could buy anything and she had plenty of that.

  Judy sank back, into the comfortable passenger’s seat, and relaxed. Then she watched the miles click off on the odometer and listened to country western music on the trucker’s radio. The song they were playing reminded her of one that Michael had written, and she sighed softly. She still loved Michael, and she’d decided to give him one more chance. She’d kill Carla first, and then she’d concentrate all her energies on Michael. If he still refused to cooperate, she’d just have to cut out his unfaithful heart.

  “You got a job waiting for you at home, honey?” The trucker glanced over at her with a friendly smile.

  Judy nodded. She’d just thought of the perfect answer, and she didn’t even have to lie. “I sure do. I work, for an exterminator service.”

  WHERE INNOCENCE DIES . . .

  Expectant parents Karen and Mike Houston are excited about restoring their old rambling Victorian mansion to its former glory. With its endless maze of rooms, hallways, and hiding places, it’s a wonderful place for their nine-year-old daughter Leslie to play and explore. Unfortunately, they didn’t listen to the stories about the house’s dark history. They didn’t believe the rumors about the evil that lived there.

  . . . THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS.

  It begins with a whisper. A child’s voice beckoning from the rose garden. Crying out in the night. It lures little Leslie to a crumbling storm door. Down a flight of broken stairs. It calls to their unborn child. It wants something from each of them. Something in their very hearts and souls. Tonight, the house will reveal its secret. Tonight, the other child will come out to play . . .

  Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of

  Joanne Fluke’s

  THE OTHER CHILD

  coming in August 2014!

  Prologue

  The train was rolling across the Arizona desert when it started, a pain so intense it made her double over in the dusty red velvet seat. Dorthea gasped aloud as the spasm tore through her and several passengers leaned close.

  “Just a touch of indigestion.” She smiled apologetically. “Really, I’m fine now.”

  Drawing a deep steadying breath, she folded her hands protectively over her rounded stomach and turned to stare out at the unbroken miles of sand and cactus. The pain would disappear if she just sat quietly and thought pleasant thoughts. She had been on the train for days now and the constant swaying motion was making her ill.

  Thank goodness she was almost to California. Dorthea sighed gratefully. The moment she arrived she would get her old job back, and then she would send for Christopher. They could find a home together, she and Christopher and the new baby.

  She never should have gone back. Dorthea pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the window and blinked back bitter tears. The people in Cold Spring were hateful. They had called Christopher a bastard. They had ridiculed her when Mother’s will was made public. They knew that her mother had never forgiven her and they were glad. The righteous, upstanding citizens of her old hometown were the same cruel gossips they’d been ten years ago.

  If only she had gotten there before Mother died! Dorthea was certain that those horrid people in Cold Spring had poisoned her mother’s mind against her and she hated them for it. Her dream of being welcomed home to her beautiful house was shattered. Now she was completely alone in the world. Poor Christopher was abandoned back there until she could afford to send him the money for a train ticket.

  Dorthea moaned as the pain tore through her again. She braced her body against the lurching of the train and clumsily made her way up the aisle, carefully avoiding the stares of the other passengers. There it started and she slumped to the floor. A pool of blood was gathering beneath her and she pressed her hand tightly against the pain.

  Numbness crept up her legs and she was cold, as cold as she’d been in the winter in Cold Spring. Her eyelids fluttered and her lips moved in silent protest. Christopher! He was alone in Cold Spring, in a town full of spiteful, meddling strangers. Dear God, what would they do to Christopher?

  “No! She’s not dead!” He stood facing them, one small boy against the circle of adults. “It’s a lie! You’re telling lies about her, just like you did before!”

  His voice broke in a sob and he whirled to run out the door of the parsonage. His mother wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be dead! She had promised to come back for him just as soon as she made some money.

  “Lies. Dirty lies.” The wind whipped away his words as he raced through the vacant lot and around the corner. The neighbors had told lies before about his mother, lies his grandmother had believed. They were all liars in Cold Spring, just as his mother had said.

  There it was in front of him now, huge and solid against the gray sky. Christopher stopped at the gate, panting heavily. Appleton Mansion, the home that should have been his. Their lies had cost him his family, his inheritance, and he’d get even with all of them somehow.

  They were shouting his name now, calling for him to come back. Christopher slipped between the posts of the wrought-iron fence and ran into the ov
ergrown yard. They wanted to tell him more lies, to confuse him the way they had confused Grandmother Appleton, but he wouldn’t listen. He’d hide until it was dark and then he’d run away to California where his mother was waiting for him.

  The small boy gave a sob of relief when he saw an open doorway. It was perfect. He’d hide in his grandmother’s root cellar and they’d never find him. Then, when it was dark, he’d run away.

  Without a backward glance Christopher hurtled through the opening, seeking the safety of the darkness below. He gave a shrill cry as his foot missed the steeply slanted step and then he was falling, arms flailing helplessly at the air as he pitched forward into the deep, damp blackness.

  Wade Comstock stood still, letting the leaves skitter and pile in colored mounds around his feet, smiling as he looked up at the shuttered house. His wife, Verna, had been right, the Appleton Mansion had gone dirt cheap. He still couldn’t understand how modern people at the turn of the century could take stock in silly ghost stories. He certainly didn’t believe for one minute that Amelia Appleton was back from the dead, haunting the Appleton house. But then again, he had been the only one ever to venture a bid on the old place. Amelia’s daughter Dorthea had left town right after her mother’s will was read, cut off without a dime—-and it served her right. Now the estate was his, the first acquisition of the Comstock Realty Company.

  His thin lips tightened into a straight line as he thought of Dorthea. The good people of Cold Spring hadn’t been fooled one bit by her tears at her mother’s funeral. She was after the property, pure and simple. Bringing her bastard son here was bad enough, but you’d think a woman in her condition would have sense enough to stay away. And then she had run off, leaving the boy behind. He could make a bet that Dorthea was never planning to send for Christopher. Women like her didn’t want kids in the way.