by Gayle Wilson
Sean glanced back at Jenna. She was looking at him as if she were waiting for him to do something. And the only thing he could do—
Where the hell were the fire engines? he thought, physically turning to look toward the road that fronted the property. And more importantly, the paramedics they would carry? It wouldn’t do any good to get Daniels out if there was no one here to give him the treatment he would need immediately.
He glanced at Jenna again, her eyes dark in a too-pale face. She was still breathing as if she’d run a race.
They both had. One that had determined whether they lived or died. And this time they’d won.
Life and death. How many times had he thought that since this had begun. Decisions that hinged on a thread. Like Carol Cummings’s decision to get into a car with a stranger.
Or going back inside that cloud of toxins to look for a fallen man? One who could be anywhere on the smoke-shrouded first floor?
The familiar words and the burden they had conveyed throughout his career echoed inside his head. A fallen man…
But not his. And not his responsibility. Except that which every human being has for the life of another.
Despite what he’d thought when he’d heard the alarm, there had been no indication that the killer had anything to do with this. If he were here, he’d missed his best opportunity to take Sean out when, blinded by the smoke, they’d come through the front door.
Jenna was safe. And the kid inside…
The image of the baby in the photograph Daniels had shown him would haunt him if he didn’t try. He, as much as anyone, knew what this kind of loss would do to her.
“Here,” he said, holding the Glock out to Jenna.
“What’s that for?”
“Stand right here.” He pulled her roughly over to the oak that centered the right side of the yard, positioning her so that her back was against its massive truck. “Don’t move until I get back. If you see anybody out here besides me or Daniels or the firemen,” he added, trying to cover his bases, “point this at them—” He thrust the gun into her hand, wrapping her fingers around the grip. “And squeeze the trigger. Don’t try to aim. Hold it out in front of you like when you were a kid playing cowboys.”
At the look on her face, he knew she’d never done that. She’d probably been the kind to play with dolls.
Then pray God she wouldn’t need those hurried instructions, all he had time for if he had any chance of getting the cop out alive.
Suddenly he realized there were a dozen other things he needed to say. Some he hadn’t known he felt until this moment. And because of that, it was probably better he didn’t say them.
He turned and ran back across the lawn toward the open door. As he took the steps two at a time, he inhaled, filling his lungs with the clean night air. Then, without looking back, he plunged again into the swirling mass of smoke.
As he entered, he tried to remember the layout of the house. Because he was unable to see anything to orient him, he couldn’t even be certain he was headed in the right direction. The oxygen he’d taken in wouldn’t last long enough to search the foyer and hall on his hands and knees, the only sure way to locate a body in this darkness.
All he could do was keep going in the direction he thought would lead to the kitchen on the off chance he might stumble over Daniels’s body. And if he didn’t—
He blocked the possibility of that outcome as he moved, hands outstretched in front of him. The fact that there was no light coming from the back of the house indicated the fire was advanced enough that it had gotten to the wiring. If that was the case, he didn’t understand why he couldn’t see or hear it.
Suddenly he broke into a clearing in the dense pall that had surrounded him since he’d come through the front door. The smoke seemed to eddy away, revealing the kitchen doorway.
He ran through it, forcing his burning eyes to search the room that seemed remarkably clear, considering the thickness of the fumes in the front of the house. White cabinets gleamed dimly in the darkness and across the room—
He sprinted toward the dark shape sprawled on the pale tiles. He bent, grabbing the cop’s shoulder to turn him so he could see his face.
By that time he’d understood the significance of the black circle underneath the body. Although his eyes were opened wide, staring up at Sean with a silent entreaty, Daniels’s throat had been cut from ear to ear.
Realization was instantaneous. Sean released his hold on the body, allowing it to fall back facedown on the floor.
He sprang to his feet and was in the act of turning back toward the kitchen doorway, when something exploded against the side of his head. He fought to remain conscious, reaching out to grab onto the figure that had materialized in front of him.
It moved, eluding his fingers. And then, unable to do anything else, Sean watched as whatever his assailant had hit him with the first time again connected with his skull.
Too long. Far too long.
Jenna wished she’d at least tried to look at her watch when Sean had gone back inside. That had been the last thing on her mind. Now, as more and more time went by, she wasn’t sure whether her anxiety was turning seconds into minutes or whether he’d really been inside as long as she thought.
She’d still heard no sirens, she realized, glancing once more toward the highway. Surely by now the volunteer fire department that served this area had had time to respond.
She took a tentative step away from the oak, but Sean’s words echoed in her brain. She raised the Glock, holding it in front of her as she had seen him do, while she scanned the area around her.
She understood Sean’s fears. She even shared his suspicion that the fire was too coincidental.
But two lives were at stake. How could she continue to try to protect her own at the possible cost of theirs?
She took another step and then another until she was running toward the open door, only to slow as she approached it. The smoke that had been thick enough to obscure every object in the foyer seemed to have dissipated in the time she’d been outside.
Of course, fresh air had been pouring into the room. Since there seemed as yet to be no visible flames, maybe whatever had been on fire had literally burned itself out. Maybe Daniels had been cooking something and had fallen asleep.
Even as she postulated that, she knew there had been too much smoke for that. Whatever the reason for it, she had to find Sean and somehow get him out. Maybe by then the firemen would be here. Even if they were too late to help Daniels…
As she progressed down the hall toward the back of the house, the smoke thinned before her, so that by the time she reached the kitchen doorway she could see it. Obviously not the source of the fire as she’d thought.
She turned, looking back down the hall. From this point it seemed as if the whole house was continuing to clear. Although her throat was still raw, she discovered that she could take a breath without setting off that terrible coughing.
“Sean?”
There was no response. She took a step back toward the front door, pitching her voice in that direction.
“Sean? Where are you?”
Nothing.
The only thing she knew for certain was that, on her advice, he’d been headed to the kitchen when he’d entered. Without information to the contrary, that seemed to be the place to start looking.
There was a door there leading out to the pool. If Sean had found Daniels, it would make more sense to drag him out through that exit than back to the front of the house.
She turned and walked toward the kitchen doorway. Remembering Sean’s warning, she raised the weapon he’d given her, holding it in front of her in hands that trembled.
“Sean?” she called as she stepped into the room.
She looked through the wide windows toward the pool area first, hoping to find the two of them outside. There was nothing out there except the chaises and her mother’s plants, exactly as she’d last seen them after supper tonight.
Her gaze swe
pt back, checking the door. It was still closed. And in the kitchen…
She heard some sound before she picked up movement in her peripheral vision. The force of the downward blow that struck her outstretched arms knocked the gun out of her hands.
For a few seconds her forearm, which had taken the brunt of that vicious hit, was blessedly numb. Then, as the shock to the nerve endings wore off, pain, worse than any she could remember in her life, sent her to her knees.
From that position she looked up, still stunned by that agony, so that the movement of her head happened almost in slow motion. Standing beside the doorway, where he’d obviously been waiting for her, was a figure from a nightmare.
Her nightmare.
A black ski mask, especially incongruous in this locale, obscured his features. Despite that, there was no doubt in her mind who he was.
And no doubt that, despite the promises everyone had made to her, it was her time to face the Inquisitor.
Twenty-Six
“We’re still trying to work out how he got in,” Bingham said. “The security company had no indication anything was wrong. Actually, it wasn’t. A couple of army surplus smoke canisters. Some oily rags and rubber gaskets to give the stuff the right color and odor. The smoke detector he used to lure you downstairs wasn’t connected to the security system, so…” The detective shrugged. “Until you called 911, nobody had any idea anything was wrong out here.”
A few minutes after 3:00 a.m. If the severity of Sean’s headache was any indication of the length of time he’d been unconscious, that could have been several minutes after he’d been hit. All he was sure of was that when he’d come to and stumbled outside, Jenna was gone.
During their preliminary search, the cops had found nothing useful, either in the house or on the grounds. As with all the other victims, they had no clue who’d taken Jenna. Or where. And right now, the latter was the only thing that mattered.
He wished to hell he could think. He’d refused whatever they’d tried to give him because he was familiar with the mind-numbing effects of anything powerful enough to work against this level of pain. And if ever he’d needed his faculties intact, it was now.
He’d also refused the paramedics’ insistence that he go to the hospital for observation and to have the cut on his forehead sewn up. He had allowed them to bandage it, but nothing else.
Stitches weren’t going to help the headache, and he knew from experience that the double vision he was also dealing with would eventually resolve itself. In the meantime—
“What about the lead you had on the car?” he asked.
“We’re working it. But you have to understand that all we’re doing with that is narrowing the pool of suspects to a few thousand people. In a city this size—”
“Anybody else come forward?”
“A couple of people. Frankly…” Bingham shook his head. “Frankly, we don’t believe they’re credible. Typical out-of-the-woodwork nutcases, if you ask me.”
There had to be something else, Sean thought, struggling to contain his despair. Somewhere to begin to look. Someone to question. If there was, he couldn’t think who or where.
That was the problem. He couldn’t think. And the pain was bad enough that he was fighting an accompanying nausea.
He closed his eyes, forcing his mind away from it by remembering Makaela’s face when they’d pulled out the morgue tray. Remembering the details of the autopsy it had taken him more than three days to read because he could only stomach a paragraph or two at a time of the coroner’s detailed chronicling of what had been done to her.
So there had to be somewhere to start. Someone—
“Paul Carlisle.” He opened his eyes as he said the name, bringing Bingham’s face into focus by squinting.
“Dr. Carlisle? What about him?”
“Jenna told him where we were. He told you.”
“Yeah?”
Obviously the lieutenant wasn’t getting the connection. The only one Sean had right now. “Maybe he told somebody else.”
The detective’s eyes widened, before he nodded. “We can ask.”
“Not we. I want to ask.” Sean eased off the tailgate of the rescue truck where he’d been sitting.
Everything wavered as the air thinned around his head. He put his hand on the door to maintain a necessary contact with something unmoving.
“Let’s get you to the hospital,” Bingham said, taking his elbow. “You ain’t gonna do her any good this way.”
“Carlisle.” Sean freed his arm, straightening his body through an act of will. “I want to know everybody that son of a bitch has talked to about Jenna in the past two days.”
“If you’re implying that I somehow—”
“This isn’t about you, Dr. Carlisle,” Sean broke in. “You do understand that a madman who cuts women to pieces has Jenna. And we have no idea where. All I’m asking from you are the names of the people you talked to about her in the past couple of days. Nothing that’s confidential. Just some information that might help us find a woman you profess to care about.”
The psychiatrist closed his mouth, looking at him a long moment. “Why don’t you come into my study and sit down before you fall down? That isn’t going to help find Jenna.”
“Can you?”
Despite his mental acknowledgment that Carlisle was right, at least about the probability of him falling facedown onto the black marble floor, Sean refused to move. As a concession to the possibility, however, he leaned forward, placing the knuckles of his right hand on the long, narrow table that centered the right-hand side of Carlisle’s foyer.
Unwilling to wait until daylight, Sean had made the detective drive him to the home of Jenna’s boss. Although Carlisle lived more than twenty miles from the Kincaids, the houses were eerily similar. Both too big, ornately and expensively decorated.
They’d gotten the psychiatrist out of bed. Despite the hour and the presence of a police cruiser in his driveway, Carlisle had still taken time to throw a cashmere robe on over his silk pajamas.
When he’d discovered why they were here, he’d seemed shocked by the news of Jenna’s abduction. His first question had been what he could do to help. Yet as soon as Sean asked who he might have told about where they’d been hiding, he’d taken the inquiry as a personal insult.
“I don’t know that I can,” Carlisle said. “Believe me, I would do anything in my power to help find Jenna. The problem here is that you’re mistaken in your assumption—”
“Maybe you didn’t do it deliberately. Maybe you said something that inadvertently gave her location away. Until you tell us the people you discussed Jenna with, we have no way of checking that out.”
“You intend to question every person I mentioned Jenna to in the past few days? Do you really think that’s the best method of finding her?” The psychiatrist’s gaze shifted to Bingham. “Or is it simply the best you can come up with? If so, I’m afraid I have serious doubts about the efficiency of your investigative techniques.”
“Let me be frank, Dr. Carlisle. We got nothing here.”
The detective’s voice was remarkably calm, considering the accusation that had been made. And although his answer was accurate, it was a truth Sean didn’t need to hear again.
“We got a description of a car,” Bingham went on. “One that fits thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of vehicles in the area. All of which we’re checking out the only way we can. One vehicle at a time. In the meantime, we got no other clues. And no suspects.”
Sean let the silence build a few seconds before he patiently said again, “All we’re asking for—”
“I told Lieutenant Bingham where Jenna was because he asked,” Carlisle broke in. “You know that. I didn’t feel that was information I had a right to withhold from the police. Not in the middle of a homicide investigation. If you have a problem with that—”
“I don’t. It’s whoever else you may have told.”
Sean put his other hand on the table, lea
ning forward. Although it was a matter of maintaining his somewhat precarious balance, the posture must have appeared threatening. Carlisle’s eyes widened.
If you only knew how empty any threat coming from me right now would be…
“Several people on the staff,” the psychiatrist said, “friends of Jenna’s, asked me if I’d talked to her. I tried to reassure them that she was being adequately protected, but at no time did I tell anyone her location.”
“A list, please.” The economy of words was necessitated by the realization that any movement, even the minimal amount required for talking, would make the nausea start again.
“A list of our staff members?”
“Just the ones you talked to.”
Carlisle’s lips pursed as he thought about the request. “Beth Goldberg is the person who asked the original question. There were others in the room at the time. I’m not sure who was listening to the conversation. Actually, I’m not sure why any of this intrastaff communication is pertinent to your investigation. I’ve assured you I gave the information about Jenna’s whereabouts to no one other than Lieutenant Bingham.”
Sean wasn’t going through that again. He wasn’t up to it. “Then maybe the question we should be asking is where you were around 2:00 a.m. this morning.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We know that you knew Jenna was at her parents’. And you’re the only person we know she told. So…where were you, Dr. Carlisle, when she disappeared?”
“I was here, of course. Asleep. Not that I acknowledge your authority to ask me for that information.”
“Anybody who can verify that?” Bingham’s intervention prevented Sean from having to come up with a response to the psychiatrist’s challenge. No one could argue with the lead detective’s right to ask where Carlisle had been tonight.
“Are you seriously suggesting that I could be a serial killer, Lieutenant? I’m flattered that you think I could work my ass off for twenty years in this town to build a practice of this size and reputation and at the same time manage to commit a series of apparently unsolvable murders in different parts of the country. Flattered, but still, I’m afraid I’m going to have to plead not guilty. I’m not Superman. Nor am I the Inquisitor.”