Barrett no longer darkened the doorway of the kitchen. He’d come closer, too, to hear what I had to say. But I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t know what his reaction would be to the fact that I was saying Pamela hadn’t killed herself—that Pamela had been murdered. And I didn’t know how he’d react to what I was about to say next.
“I think,” I told Charlotte, “I know that, too. I went to Vance McCabe’s mother’s house. In the back, there’s a glider. I found a heart carved into the wood. With Vance’s initials in it. And Pamela’s.”
Stunned silence met my announcement. And then the sheriff plucked his radio from his belt. He called up his dispatcher.
“Put out an APB on Vance McCabe,” he said. “I want him under arrest tonight.”
“Now, hold on,” Barrett said, stepping up beside Charlotte. “I’ll be the first to admit Vance is a bit backward, but I can’t picture him attacking Pamela.”
“What about attacking Dawkins?” I asked. “Can you picture him doing that?”
“No, Jamie, I can’t.”
“Well, maybe you should ask him about it the next time you see him. When will that be, Barrett?”
He opened his mouth to tell me off.
And Charlotte laid a hand on his arm.
She said, “None of this in here, please. Adam, have a seat next to Jamie and I’ll bring your meal out here. I doubt that army sergeant will be looking for you at this time of the evening.”
I couldn’t agree.
“Jamie,” she went on, “what’ll you have? Your dinner’s on the house.”
But I didn’t have the stomach for fried chicken.
And I didn’t have the heart to sit quietly next to Barrett.
“Thanks,” I said, sliding from my stool. “I really appreciate the offer, but no thanks. I’ve got somewhere I need to be.”
“Oh, right.”
The smile Charlotte sent me was conspiratorial.
“You know, Jamie, I thought I saw your green car from the alley in the wee hours this morning. At the motel across the street?”
Apparently, she’d seen me there when I’d visited Marc.
And maybe even when I’d given him a little kiss in the parking lot.
“I was out back,” she went on, “taking a delivery.”
“Were you?” I asked, playing her game just to see which way the ball would bounce.
“Of course, I don’t have much experience with these things.” She slipped a sideways look at Barrett. “But I’ve always heard the best way to get over a man is to get under another one.”
I couldn’t read Barrett’s mind. But his fine mouth hardened as he took in what Charlotte was saying. And what she wasn’t.
For my part, I wasn’t sure whether Charlotte thought she was helping my cause or hurting it. I didn’t appreciate her interference in either case. And Barrett’s tight-lipped superiority made me furious. He didn’t get to make assumptions about what I did. Or judge what I didn’t do.
Still, with a cool shrug of my shoulders, I said, “Actually, Charlotte, that old saying’s not true at all.”
“No?”
“No. Take it from me. Sometimes, it’s better to be on top.”
And leaving behind four people with their mouths hanging open, I strolled out of the café like I owned the street. I got in my car. And I should’ve burned rubber.
But as soon as I cranked up the engine, the passenger door swung open.
Barrett slid into the seat.
“Mind if I ride with you back to the orchard?” he asked.
Chapter 29
I should’ve tossed Barrett out of my car on his ear. I should’ve resumed my search, too, rousted Vance from whatever nest he’d secured for himself, pressed him into disclosing his real feelings for Pamela—and whether he’d done anything violent about them. Instead, I put the Jag in gear, pulled onto the street, and drove into the evening shade.
Barrett’s irritation radiated from him like a high fever. And I myself felt as prickly as a porcupine. But as I drove, I kept one eye in the rearview mirror. I hadn’t seen Eric’s Mercury in some time and I didn’t want it sneaking up on me now. Likewise, I knew Shelby wouldn’t be far away. If she caught up with Barrett while we were on the road—
He said, “You know I only want the best for you, right?”
I didn’t know if that was an oblique reference to Marc and I didn’t care.
I said, “You seem awfully sure you know what ‘the best’ for me is.”
Barrett glowered out the passenger-side window. I kept my mouth shut, too. It was quite an effort.
But when we’d reached the end of his grandmother’s long lane, when we’d circled behind her cheery house, when I’d cut the engine in front of her garage and the soft night settled over us, Barrett said, “Jamie, if you want to—”
The rest evaporated on his tongue.
Because we could hear Theodore, barking her head off.
The sound was muffled. I got out of the car to hear it better. Barrett followed suit, but it still sounded like the dog was raising a ruckus from someplace far away.
Barrett and I looked up at his apartment. The drawn curtains trembled as Theodore leapt at the windows. And then she began to howl.
“That’s funny,” Barrett said. “I left her with Elise when I came back this afternoon. I locked up the apartment, too.”
“Anyone could pick that lock with a paperclip, Barrett.”
He sent me a frown—and ascended the stairs to see about his dog.
The back door was unlocked as always. I’d have to have a serious discussion with Mrs. Barrett about that. But maybe she and Elise hadn’t wanted to lock me out. After all, I didn’t have a key and I hadn’t told them when I’d be back. Admittedly, that wasn’t the best houseguest behavior on my part.
“Elise?” I called. “Mrs. Barrett?”
I received no answer.
But the kitchen lights were on and I spied a piece of stationery propped against the sugar bowl on the table. It was a note. In block printing that bore a shaky resemblance to a doctor’s scrawl, it read: TOOK GRAM TO THE GROCERY. BE BACK SOON.
Theodore had grown quiet. I imagined Barrett’s joining her had settled her. I shrugged out of my blazer, hung it on the back of a chair. I removed my Beretta, too, laid it on the tablecloth. And that turned out to be a mistake.
“Where’s Adam?” a voice behind me said.
I froze.
“I’ve got to talk to Adam,” Vance McCabe insisted.
“I’ll go get him for you.”
I reached for my coat—and for my gun.
But Vance seized me by my ponytail. He jerked me so hard, I thought he’d rip my hair from the roots. And my reaction to that was swift and sure.
I stomped on his instep in a bone-crushing move. He wailed. And the instant his body convulsed with the pain, I shot an elbow into his skull. He released me to clutch at his head. I stepped away—and into a roundhouse kick that would knock him on his ass.
But Vance charged me.
He caught me off balance. One of his hands latched around my throat. The other clamped my nose and mouth.
He forced me down, onto the kitchen table.
I could taste the salt in his palm, smell the sour sweat on his skin. He was shaking like an aspen leaf. And he was ruled by the herky-jerky twitches of a man habitually high on drugs.
“I’ve got to talk to Adam,” he told me. “He’s got to give me some cash. I’ve got to get out of town.”
I fought to pry Vance’s fingers from my face, struggled to force a knee against his hip. Darkness closed in on me as I battled to breathe. At the back door, I heard Theodore’s savage growls. With claws and teeth, she tore through the screen. And into Vance McCabe.
He screamed as if his soul had been ripped from his body.
And somehow Barrett was there. He dragged his old friend off of me, punched him in the face as Theodore sunk her teeth into the man’s thigh. But the chemicals coursing thr
ough Vance’s bloodstream made him bulletproof. He gathered his strength, shoved Barrett against the wall, threw Theodore to the floor. And then he was gone, off and running out of the house. Through the dark. With Theodore snarling and snapping in hot pursuit.
Barrett clambered to his feet just as I heard Vance’s old pickup rattle and roll down the drive. He must’ve hidden it behind the barn. Or alongside the garage. But he hadn’t fooled Theodore. She’d known he was here the whole time.
She returned to the kitchen, panting in victory. I knelt beside her, wrapped my arms around her neck in a thankful embrace. Barrett’s cell was to his ear.
He said, “Luke, Vance was just here. He attacked Jamie. He took her nine-millimeter.”
I glanced at the table where Vance had held me down. The salt and pepper shakers lay like fallen chess pieces and the sugar bowl had spilled its bounty. Elise’s note was nothing more than a crumpled scrap of paper—and the place where I’d laid my holster was bare.
“I don’t know,” Barrett was saying. “It sounded like he turned north.”
I left him to his phone call, blazed through the darkened sitting room, and tripped up the stairs. At the top, I fumbled for the hallway light, flicked it on, and made a beeline for the bathroom. All I could think about was that I was all right—and that I couldn’t wash Vance’s handprints from my body fast enough.
I didn’t bother with the light switch in the bath. Instead, I peeled off my turtleneck, let it fall to the floor. In the darkened mirror and the half-light from the hall, my flesh shined pale against the delicate blue of my Belgian lace bra. But I could see bruises developing on my skin.
I yanked the elastic from my ponytail, let my long hair tumble free. And snatching up the bar of soap from its dish, I cranked on the spigot in the sink. The water was hot. I liked it that way. The scent of the soap was lavender, earthy and rich.
Thoroughly, I lathered my face, my throat, my arms and my hands. The splashing water washed away what had almost happened. And when I buried my face in a fluffy towel, I felt more like myself—but not quite.
I paused with a palm on either side of the sink, let my head hang for a long moment. I heard the squeak of the step in the stairwell and knew that Barrett was near. Without a word, he joined me. Standing at my shoulder, his fingertips slipped over mine where I clutched the towel to the countertop. His touch was gentle and it made me ache inside.
“I’m fine,” I said, maybe more to myself than to him. “Vance wasn’t going to— He didn’t want to—”
I couldn’t say the word.
But then, I didn’t have to.
“Jamie…” Barrett breathed.
He nuzzled my temple. And I closed my eyes. Barrett kissed my cheek—and I began to tremble.
Slowly, his palm swept along my bare arm. His other one slid around my waist. He whispered, “When I saw Vance…with his hands on you…You were right.”
“I was wrong.”
“No.”
“Yes. Vance grabbed me by the face so I’d listen to him. Pamela’s attacker squeezed her by the throat to—”
“Jamie—” A tremor racked Barrett’s strong body. And mine shivered in answer. “I want you to go home. I want you to forget about me. If anything ever happened to you because of me—”
“Nothing will happen.”
But that wasn’t true. Because something was happening at that moment between us. Barrett knew it as well as I did.
His breathing grew hard as his hands skimmed my skin. And my heart skipped beats when his lips brushed my bruises. I got lost in his touch, lost in his intensity, lost in my love for him. Until his skillful fingers found the hook on the fly of my trousers—and released it. He slid the zipper south, too. And I grabbed his wrist to halt him.
“Just once, Jamie. Let me be good to you just once.”
But once wasn’t going to be enough for me.
And I couldn’t tell him that.
I knew sex wasn’t difficult to come by and if that were all I wanted, I could find it anywhere. With Barrett, however, I wanted something else. I wanted something more. Already, I felt a loss because he didn’t love me. And I knew a quick tumble tonight would only leave me feeling bereft tomorrow.
My conscience concurred.
Don’t do something you’ll regret, it warned.
Stop before you get hurt, my heart pleaded.
But these words got tangled together in the heat of the moment. And when I spoke, I said something else altogether.
“Don’t stop,” I told him.
And Barrett didn’t.
He eased my trousers from my hips, stroked the soft lace of my panties. The sensation had me burying my face in his strong shoulder. I was ready for this. Ready for him. So ready.
But a creaking on the stairs stayed his hand—and sent a chill crawling over me.
“It’s your grandmother,” I reasoned.
“Or it’s Vance.”
Barrett was in the hall in a flash.
“Hey!” he yelled.
Boots hammered on the stairs, one pair after another.
I zipped up, snatched up my turtleneck, and got myself together on the run. Vance had my weapon. And if he fired it at Barrett, I’d never forgive myself.
Chapter 30
I stumbled down the stairs in time to see Barrett bolt through the front door. Theodore raced from the back of the house, barking all the way. She shot past me in the foyer, but I was only a step behind her when she launched onto the porch.
She lunged at the dark bumper of a car tearing up Mrs. Barrett’s lawn in its haste to get away. Full-on night had descended while I’d been getting tangled up with Barrett. But in the light of the rising moon, I could make out the outline of the vehicle.
It was Eric’s silver Mercury.
The driver didn’t bother with switching on the headlamps. He flew down the lane—and almost smashed into Elise’s Volvo rolling in from the opposite direction. She hit the horn, swerved just in time to avoid a crash.
Halting before the porch, she sprang from her car. The Mercury was just a small, black smudge out on the road now. I never got the chance to see who was inside.
“Who was that?” Elise demanded.
“A man, I think. It was too dark to see,” Barrett said, pacing on the walkway and glaring after the car as if he could will it to come back. “It wasn’t Vance.”
He wasted no time placing another call to Luke Rittenhaus. In the meantime, I helped Elise get the groceries and her grandma into the house. I strongly advised the women to keep Theodore close and to lock up the house for the night.
And then I got in my Jag.
“Where are you going?” Barrett slid into the passenger seat beside me.
I had the phone book open in my lap. And I was perusing the map in the front of it. “I didn’t see Vance’s truck. Do you think he could be driving Eric’s car?”
“It sounded like he took off in his truck after Theodore chased him from the kitchen.”
This was true. I could’ve sworn I’d heard it, too. But I hadn’t heard the car arrive. Of course, I’d been rather busy at the time. Acknowledging as much—even to myself—made me blush. I was glad for the moonlight so Barrett couldn’t see the color in my cheeks.
But then he said, “Jamie, about what almost happened—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I didn’t know if he meant Vance’s attack. Or what we’d nearly done upstairs. But I didn’t want to discuss it in either case. “You should go in the house. I don’t like that your grandmother and sister are vulnerable.”
“I don’t like it, either, but they’re inside and Luke’s got a patrol car on the way. You’re the one out here alone.”
I had an emotionally distant father, a horse’s ass of an ex-husband, and the friendship of men like Marc who offered nothing more than to pass through my life from time to time. So all in all, alone was the only way I knew how to be. I didn’t point this out to Barrett, however.
; Instead, I said, “I want to go after Vance. He’s got my nine. And even if he didn’t come back to shoot me full of holes with it, I have a couple of questions for him.”
“About Pamela?”
“Among other things. You said it yourself, Barrett. Vance has been keeping something from you. Something about Eric, maybe. And Marc would love to know more about Vance’s meeting with that Llewellyn guy.”
“Have you been in touch with Marc much?”
I took his meaning. Barrett’s double entendre should’ve felt gratifying. Except it didn’t. Because he hadn’t asked about Marc out of jealousy. If he had, it would mean he cared for me as much as I wanted him to. But he swore he didn’t, so to read more into his remark would be wishful thinking on my part. And as far I knew, wishful thinking had never gotten a girl like me anywhere.
“Buckle up,” I told him, “if you want to go along for the ride.”
Barrett complied.
“I want to try two more McCabes listed in the phone book,” I said, cranking the engine and heading out to the road. “If they’re Vance’s relatives, he may be crashing at one place or the other.”
Barrett pulled the directory from my lap, tipped it to see my pencil marks in the dashboard lights. “One’s his brother. The last is his uncle. There’s no way they’d let him in the door.”
“Well, he’s got to be living somewhere, since the family closed up his mother’s house.”
But thinking of Vance’s mother’s house gave me an idea. The place was empty. Which meant the brothers had sold off her household belongings. Or they’d stored them somewhere. If they’d stashed them in a basement or a barn, maybe that’s where Vance slept nights.
When I told Barrett as much, he said, “Turn left ahead.”
I did and we drove on into the night. Until a glow on the horizon suggested we were getting close to some outpost of civilization. Four miles more and I saw structures in the manmade haze.
Under the blast of a dozen pole lights, warehouses of corrugated steel lined up on a gravel lot. They were surrounded by a ring of chain-link fencing. Razor wire tumbled across the top of the barrier. A rolling gate set into the fence kept interlopers out. Powered by the keypad mounted on the post next to it, it wouldn’t open without a code.
The Kill Box Page 21