Private Affair

by Rebecca York

  She grabbed the other woman’s hand. “Come on.”

  “No. Don’t you understand? You’re going to get us both killed.”

  Claire jerked away and lashed out again, landing a blow on Olivia’s cheek that stunned her. She tried to speak, but the only sound that came out of her mouth was a muffled gasp.

  Oh Lord, she had to get away from Claire. But then what? What if the guy who had been stalking her was outside right now?

  Olivia contemplated her chances of getting away from the house. It would all depend on if he was already here or if he was still on the road. But maybe her best chance was to leave. And abandon Claire?

  She didn’t want to do it, but the other woman had proved she wasn’t capable of rational thought. In fact, from the way she was behaving, she was almost as much a threat as whoever was stalking her.

  Olivia backed away, but before she could get out of the room, Claire grabbed her arm.

  “You have to stay here. With me. It’s the only thing that’s important.”

  “Okay, but we can’t stay in the house.”

  “We have to stay together.”

  “Then come on.”

  “No. He wants to talk to both of us.”

  “That’s what he said?”

  “Yes.”

  “You believe him—after all the nasty things he’s done?”

  “He said he’d stop.”

  She wanted to scream, “Are you crazy?” But she already knew the answer. This woman had passed beyond sanity.

  Claire gave her a pleading look. “Just listen to what he has to say.”

  Olivia hadn’t heard a car pull up outside or any indication that trouble had arrived. But just as Claire finished speaking, one of the windows shattered as a missile came sailing into the house. It hit the floor and began spewing smoke into the room.

  Chapter 16

  As the smoke filled the living room, both women began to cough. Wide-eyed, Olivia backed away from the thing.

  “Come on,” she tried to shout to Claire, but her voice came out as a hoarse croak, and the other woman didn’t move, only stared at the billowing smoke in confusion.

  Olivia crawled to her and grabbed her arm. “We have to get out of the house.”

  Claire only shook her off and started coughing as she crawled away.

  “Claire, no. Stay with me. He told you to stay with me, remember?”

  At least that halted the other woman’s progress. “That’s right,” she agreed.

  “We should go in the other room,” Olivia choked out, thinking that if they got through the dining room into the kitchen, she could pull Claire out the back door. But then what? They’d be out in the open. Maybe that was what the man out there wanted, after all.

  Another missile crashed through a second window, landing on the carpet and spewing more smoke. Tears ran down Olivia’s cheeks from the acrid smell, and she could barely see the other woman.

  Claire had been crawling toward Olivia. Now she stopped in her tracks.

  “Claire, you came to…me for help,” Olivia tried, her eyes stinging and her lungs burning. “Let me help you. We’re under…attack,” she managed to say between coughing fits. “We have to get out of here.”

  Claire made a muffled sound as the door crashed open.

  Olivia prayed that it was Max coming back. But when he didn’t call her name, she decided it wasn’t him. It must be the guy who had thrown the smoke bombs, coming in to put the finishing touches on his plan. But she wasn’t going to let him kill her without fighting back.

  Max had made sure she was armed and knew how to use a gun. There was one upstairs in her bedroom and another down here in the drawer of an end table. Knowing she had to get to it before the guy found her, she abandoned Claire and began crawling along the floor until she reached the front of the sofa. Trying not to cough and give away her location, she kept moving. It seemed to take forever to travel a few feet, but finally she reached the end table and eased the drawer open, rising up enough to fumble inside and wrap her fingers around the butt of the automatic Max had left there. She hadn’t thought she was going to need it, but now she was damn glad that it was in her hand. Whoever had come in was probably thinking that she was going to roll over the way Claire had, but he had another thing coming.

  She pulled out the weapon, made sure the safety was off, then backed up to the wall where she had a view of the room through the smoke.

  A figure loomed in the doorway, and she squinted through the hazy atmosphere, stifling a gasp as she tried to interpret what she was seeing. It might have been a monster with a darkened, elongated face that made him look part man and part animal. Then she realized it was a man wearing a gas mask. Gun in hand, she eased back around the corner of the sofa so that she was partially hidden by the arm. It took all her willpower to stay where she was, but she knew that if she moved, he would spot her. She saw him turn his head from side to side, then start toward the spot where she’d left Claire on the floor.

  Claire gasped as she took in the terrible-looking figure looming over her, but before Olivia could do anything, she heard a concussion reverberate in the room and realized the man had fired a shot—probably point-blank at Claire.

  Knowing she would be next, Olivia raised the gun in her hand and fired. But just as she did, the assailant ducked toward the woman lying on the floor and the bullet went over his head.

  He whirled toward Olivia and fired in the direction from which the shot had come, but he hadn’t actually spotted her, and at this distance in the thick haze, it seemed he couldn’t be sure exactly where she was. She let out the breath she’d been holding as the bullet whizzed past her. But she had to grab another breath, and dragging a lungful of the smoke unleashed a coughing fit. She waited for him to come toward her, but now that he knew she was armed, he apparently didn’t want to take the chance. Still with the gun trained on him, she picked up an ashtray from the end table and heaved it across the room, where it crashed against the wall.

  The assailant whirled and fired. While his back was turned, she pushed herself out of the living room and into the dining room where the air was clearer, keeping her face to him and putting the table and chairs between them.

  When he realized that she’d fooled him with the ashtray, he turned back in her direction, and she heard an angry snarl from under the gas mask.

  He waited a moment, trying to locate her, she assumed. After long moments, he headed straight for her hiding place. She shrank back, wondering if she could get off a shot at him before he killed her.

  It was then that she heard someone call her name.

  “Olivia!”

  It was Max. Thank the Lord.

  At the sound of his voice, the man in the gas mask stopped dead in his tracks, turning away from her and toward the new threat.

  Olivia gasped. “Watch out, he’s got a gun,” she shouted.

  The man cursed and fired several rounds in her direction, but he was blocked from getting a clear shot by the table and chairs.

  Max pounded into the living room, starting to cough when he hit the smoke.

  “I’m under the table,” she shouted. “Aim high.”

  The assailant dashed past her and into the kitchen. She heard the back door slam open, then footsteps rushing away from the house.

  Max came streaking past, heading for the back door. She heard several more shots and assumed he was shooting at the fleeing guy. She wanted to get out of the smoke, but at the moment she knew she was safer where she was. She crouched there with her heart pounding, praying that Max was all right.

  “Olivia, it’s me. Don’t shoot,” he called out as he came back into the house. Then, when she didn’t answer, “Olivia, are you all right? Olivia?” he shouted, his voice urgent.

  She tried to talk, which triggered a coughing fit. “Sorry,” she wheezed and managed to say, “It’s okay, Max. I’m here. I’m all right.”

  “Thank God.” He followed the sound of her voice into the dining roo
m. Reaching down, he helped her up, then saw the gun in her hand.

  “Good girl.”

  “Thanks.”

  He started to cough. “We need to get the hell out of here. I don’t think there’s a fire. Just the smoke.”

  They reached the back door, and she took a grateful breath of fresh air. But when Max tried to tug her outside, she dug in her heels. “Wait. We have to see if he killed Claire.”

  “Claire? You’re not here alone?”

  “No. Claire Lowden showed up. That’s how it all started.” She stopped and coughed several times, then started again. “She came to me. She said someone was stalking her. I was trying to talk her into calling the police when the guy threw that smoke bomb through the window. She’s on the floor in the living room. Over by the far chair.”

  “Claire Lowden? You mean one of the other people who was at that party?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus,” Max clenched his fists, then relaxed them. “You stay by the kitchen door. I don’t think he’s coming back, but I don’t want you exposed in the house.”

  She did as he asked, watching him disappear into the smoke. When he didn’t come back immediately, her heart blocked her windpipe. Finally he emerged, alone.

  “She’s dead,” he said in a gritty voice.

  “I was afraid she was. I heard a shot. Then he went after me.”

  “Only you defended yourself. But why didn’t you call the cops—or me?”

  “Because she came here in a panic, and it only got worse. I tried to call 911, but she was in such a state that she grabbed my phone, threw it on the floor, and crushed it under her shoe.”

  “Jesus.” He looked from her to the interior of the house where smoke still billowed. “Wait here a minute.”

  Stepping onto the porch, he glanced around, then motioned for her to follow him. They both stood on the back stoop, taking in big gasps of air. When he turned to her, she saw the look of relief on his face.

  He reached out, and she came into his arms, clinging to him. He stroked his hands up and down her back and into her hair, touching her with a possessiveness that shocked her.

  “Olivia, I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his mouth against her cheek.

  “For what?”

  “I never should have left.”

  “But you came back in time to save me.”

  “You were doing a pretty good job of that yourself.”

  “At least I held him off.” She dragged in a breath and let it out. “Why did you leave?”

  “Because I was an idiot.”

  Before he could say more, they were interrupted by the sound of tires crunching on the driveway.

  “Stay here.”

  In a flash he was at the end of the house, gun in hand, and his posture told her that he was ready for another attack. Then she saw him relax.

  “It’s Shane and Jack.”

  “Over here,” he called out to them.

  The two other Rockfort agents came around the corner, and they all stood where they had a view of the fields and driveway.

  “What happened?” Shane asked as he looked at the smoke billowing from the broken window.

  “After he lured me away, he came after Olivia and another woman from her high school class—Claire Lowden.”

  Shane turned to Olivia, an apologetic look on his face. “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “My phone was stolen. I didn’t know it had anything to do with this case. Apparently he was texting Max.”

  Olivia’s gaze swung to Max. “About what?”

  She watched his face contort. “He said he had confidential information about you.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.” She could see Max’s face redden. “And believing it was Shane texting me could have gotten you killed. It did get your friend killed,” he added.

  “She wasn’t my friend. She was just one of the girls I knew in high school.”

  “And now she’s dead,” Max reiterated.

  “Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t know it wasn’t Shane,” Olivia murmured. “Whoever called you had the whole thing planned out pretty carefully.”

  “Don’t make excuses for me,” he snapped.

  She saw he was still cursing himself, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about his leaving her alone. But she understood why he had believed the messages had come from his partner.

  Max was speaking again. “I’d like to say we should just clear out of here, but another member of your class is dead, and we have to call the police.”

  “Did you see who did it?” Shane asked.

  “I saw someone I think was a man. But I couldn’t see his face because he had on a gas mask.”

  Max made a snorting sound. “It hid his face and kept the smoke from getting to him.”

  In the distance, they heard the wail of a siren.

  “That sounds like the cops,” Shane said. “Or the fire department.”

  “How did they know to come here?” she asked.

  “Maybe your neighbor, Mr. Yeager, heard the shooting,” Max said.

  She nodded, thinking that was probably right. That and the smoke.

  Two police cars with flashing lights came roaring up the driveway.

  “Put your guns down,” Max muttered.

  “Why?” Olivia asked. “We didn’t do anything besides try to defend ourselves.”

  Max gave her an urgent look. “They don’t know that. Haven’t you read stories about innocents getting shot by cops?”

  “Yes,” she answered. To his relief, she put her gun on the ground. Max and the other two Rockfort men did the same—just in time.

  “Raise your hands,” Max ordered Olivia. “They don’t know what happened here. Surrendering is the only way to make sure we don’t get shot.” He hoped. He’d known some trigger-happy cops in his day, and he was praying these weren’t some of them.

  She gave him a quick look, but apparently understood his logic and complied as four uniformed officers got out of the two squad cars and made it official. “Keep your hands in the air,” one of them shouted.

  The cops eyed them with suspicion. “What’s going on here?” a guy who seemed to be in charge called out. Unfortunately, he wasn’t anyone Max had met when he’d been with the Baltimore PD.

  “We were attacked by a man who came here with a gun,” Max answered. “He’s gone, but he shot a woman. She’s in the house.”

  “Ambulance?” the officer asked.

  Max shook his head. “It’s too late for that.”

  “Don’t move,” the officer in charge ordered.

  They all stayed where they were with their hands in the air.

  “We’re unarmed,” Max said as two of the cops went into the house. They were back pretty quickly, coughing.

  “She’s dead all right,” one of them confirmed. He looked at Max. “Smoke bomb?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Turn around. Hands against the wall. Legs spread,” the man in charge said.

  Max heard Olivia gasp.

  “It’s okay. They have to be sure we’re the good guys.”

  They all complied, and Max endured a very thorough pat down. He knew his partners understood why the police had to do it, but he was sure Olivia was hating the process and being a suspect when she’d just almost been killed. Turning toward her, he saw that she wanted to speak, but he shook his head. “Not yet,” he mouthed.

  When it was clear they were unarmed, the lead officer said, “Okay. Let’s get this sorted out.”

  Max glanced at Olivia.

  “I was here alone, and a woman I knew in high school came over in a panic, saying someone was stalking her,” she said. “While I was trying to calm her down, he showed up and threw a smoke bomb through the window.”

  One of the officers walked several yards away and turned his back, and Max assumed he was using his body mike to call in a detective.

  The officer who had been asking the questions looked at the three Rockfort agents. “And
how are you involved?”

  “I was here earlier, but the assailant lured me away from the house with text messages,” Max answered. “When I realized what was going on, I came rushing back, but it was already too late for the other woman.”

  “Claire Lowden,” Olivia supplied.

  “She thought she was being stalked, but she didn’t report it?” the officer asked, sounding like he didn’t believe the story.

  Olivia answered. “From what she told me, I think he’d convinced her that if she asked for help, she’d be killed. He told her to come here. He said it was the only way for her to stay safe, but I think he was planning to kill us both.”

  “This is the fifth member of the Donley High ten-year-reunion class who’s been murdered,” Max said.

  The officer swung toward him. “Oh yeah? Then why don’t we know about it?”

  “You know about Angela Dawson,” Olivia said. “But the other murders didn’t look connected—or even like murders. And they happened over several months—and years.”

  “And the Howard County PD didn’t figure it out?” the officer asked in a hard voice.

  When Olivia started to answer, Max put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Let me handle this.”

  The cop swung back to him with an inquisitive look on his face and asked, “And what is it that you want to say?”

  “This is the first time the guy has come in shooting. Three of the previous murders looked like accidents. But one was that Ellicott City businesswoman, Angela Dawson, who was strangled.” As the officer stared at him, he kept talking. “I’m a private detective from Rockfort Security. Olivia hired me to protect her after the Dawson murder.”

  It wasn’t exactly what had happened. She’d really hired him to find out who had killed Angela, but he knew that the cops weren’t going to like hearing that someone had been called in to do their jobs.

  To his relief, Olivia didn’t correct his false statement, and he thought everything was going to work out okay, until another car came speeding up the driveway. It was an unmarked cop car, and the man who got out looked them over, then zeroed in on Max.