Paranoid

by Lisa Jackson

  “What?” the man said, his head whipping around as he noticed the other cops. “Oh, fuck!”

  A second guy in full camo and a baseball cap filled the doorway.

  Hollander!

  “Aw, shit,” Swanson said.

  “I’m going for him,” Dillinger announced.

  Hollander, assessing the situation, quickly looked sharply around and started to back up, to retreat into the brewery.

  Cade shouted, “Police! Bruce Hollander, put your hands in the air!”

  Dillinger yelled, “Now! Hollander, put your hands where I can see ’em and get down.” More sounds came through the headset, sounds of patrons in the bar yelling as they tried to flee.

  “We’ve got customers exiting out the back,” another cop said.

  “Keep track of ’em,” Cade ordered, thinking Hollander might try to escape. “Watch for him.”

  But that didn’t prove necessary.

  As if zapped by a cattle prod, Hollander suddenly sprang forward as the man in the jean jacket hit the pavement, his cap flying off his bald head to skid along the sidewalk.

  “Don’t shoot!” the guy on the sidewalk pleaded.

  Hollander, seeing that he was trapped, yanked a gun from his pocket. “Get back!” he yelled, frantic, his eyes wide beneath the brim of his cap. “Get the fuck back!”

  “Gun! He’s got a gun!” Cade warned, his own weapon trained on Hollander. Then to the suspect, “Drop your weapon! Now!”

  Dillinger, weapon drawn, appeared in the doorway.

  “Don’t shoot! For the love of—Don’t shoot!” the guy on the ground covered his bare head with his hands.

  Hollander took a bead on Cade.

  Blam!

  The bullet hit him shoulder high, blowing him back, just as Cade squeezed the trigger. His shot went wild as he spun, his legs folding, the sidewalk rushing up at him. Crack! His head bounced against hard concrete. Pain jarred through his brain. His nose splintered, blood gushing in a warm rush.

  “No!” he heard a woman yell. “No! No! No!”

  “He’s hit! Ryder’s hit!” Swanson shouted.

  “Get him! Get Hollander,” a different man yelled, but Cade couldn’t concentrate, didn’t recognize the voice. The world was spinning, streetlights and stars . . . and . . . it was hard to think. His mind was swimming, the safety of unconsciousness trying to pull him under.

  He heard another burst of gunfire, crackling loudly for a few seconds, and somewhere in the back of his consciousness he was aware of people running, and screaming, the world spinning.

  Groaning, trying to stay awake, Cade felt someone touching him, sensed someone leaning over him. Breathing rapidly. A woman. One he knew. He blinked, thinking outrageously that it might be Rachel as he struggled to focus. She was bending over him, touching him gently.

  “Rachel?” he whispered.

  “No . . .” she said and her voice cracked. “It’s Kayleigh. Detective O’Meara.”

  But he couldn’t focus and was slipping further into the comfort of the darkness.

  She was ordering him to respond, yelling at him, maybe crying, but he couldn’t respond, didn’t want to. If he could just close his eyes . . .

  “Ryder! Stay with me!” she screamed. “Ryder? Cade? Do you hear me? Damn it, you stay with me! Don’t you dare leave me!”

  CHAPTER 37

  Thud!

  Rachel’s eyes flew open.

  She was sweating, her heart racing, the dream so real and vivid.

  In many respects it was the same as the others. She was twenty years younger and in the vacuous cannery with the others. She’d looked down, seen the gun in her hand, and seen Luke fall, but this time as he glanced up at her, he morphed, his image altering from one man in her life to another, from Luke to Lucas to Dylan, then her father, and finally Xander Vale. Still, she’d squeezed the trigger and the pistol had gone off in her hand and Luke was staring up at her again.

  Now she was awake. Something waking her. A noise that was out of place.

  A gunshot?

  For a second, she listened, lying still on the bed, ears straining over the rapid-fire beat of her heart, then heard the sound of a car’s engine. So probably she’d just heard the vehicle backfire, which had crept into her nightmare and jarred her awake. But that was odd, wasn’t it? How many times did you hear a car backfiring these days?

  And the sound had been different, muted.

  And coming from inside the house.

  At the foot of the bed, Reno stretched, then hopped down and padded to the door. He looked over his shoulder as if to say, “What’re you waiting for?” His cue that he wanted to go outside. “It’s the middle of the night,” she admonished, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

  He wasn’t budging. Started to whine.

  She was about to call him back to the bed when she heard something. A scrape against hardwood? Footsteps? Someone was up? Her heart kicked into double time even though she told herself it was probably Dylan, getting something out of the fridge. Sometimes he did that, staying up late on the computer and then being suddenly “starved” and raiding the refrigerator.

  But the thump?

  What was that?

  Reno started to paw at the door.

  “Okay, okay,” she whispered. She stepped into her jeans and threw a sweater over her nightshirt.

  Scraaape.

  The screech of metal on metal was audible.

  What was that?

  Rachel didn’t move a muscle. She strained to listen, hear anything out of the ordinary. And there it was, the soft scrape of metal on metal . . . like the sound of the back slider opening and closing . . . or . . . a window?

  No!

  Was Harper sneaking out again?

  She wouldn’t!

  Or would she?

  With the dog bounding in front, Rachel hurried down the stairs, nearly stumbling in the dark, slapped at a light switch at the foot of the staircase. She threw open the door to Harper’s room, hit the switch, and stared at the empty bed with its crumpled bedding. A glance at the window indicated it was cracked. What the hell? What about the damned security system?

  She flew out of Harper’s room and into Dylan’s. Again she hit the lights. He was asleep in the bed, one arm flung over his head, mouth agape. In a second his eyes flew open and he was blinking. “Mom? What’re you doing?”

  “Where’s your sister?”

  “What? In bed . . .” And then he came to completely. “Oh.”

  “Right. ‘Oh.’ She’s not. She just snuck out, probably to meet with Xander again. Where are they?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “God, no!”

  “But the security system?”

  He groaned.

  “Dylan?” Rachel said, closing the littered gap between the door and the bed.

  “Okay! Okay,” he said, as if she’d beat it out of him when all she’d done was drill him with her gaze. “Yeah. She asked me to fix it and I did.”

  “You mean fix it so it wouldn’t go off when she snuck out again. Like break the circuit to her window like before.”

  He nodded mutely.

  Fury grew deep inside her. “You are so grounded,” she said, trying and failing to calm down and telling herself that as long as Harper was with Xander, she was safe.

  But that wasn’t true.

  People were being murdered, people Rachel knew, people connected to her, a classmate having disappeared. Bruce Hollander, a known felon, was on the loose, probably had been stalking her, chasing her, probably had lurked in the shadows and watched the house only to spray that horrid message on her door. Didn’t Harper understand how dangerous it was?

  Nowhere was truly safe.

  “Stay here!” she commanded her son, who looked like he wasn’t about to go anywhere but back to sleep. “Hook up the system again, and make sure it’s working and stay here!”

  Back up the stairs she sprang, grabbed her phone fro
m its charger. She tapped out a message to her daughter: Call me! Come home! Now!

  After sending the text, she stopped at Dylan’s room again. He was falling back to sleep. “Fix it!” she ordered before speeding to the kitchen, where she snagged her purse and keys. With Reno barking in protest in the kitchen, she locked the door behind her, pulled on the running shoes she’d left on the porch, and was inside her Explorer in less than a minute.

  This was crazy, she knew, trying to find her daughter, but Rachel was desperate, her heart racing, panic threatening.

  At the stop sign, she checked her phone; although she hadn’t heard the ping of an incoming text she prayed her daughter had gotten back to her.

  Nope.

  She called Cade on the fly, hitting the gas and searching the deserted city streets of Edgewater. The call went to voice mail and she left a quick message: “It’s Rachel. Harper’s snuck out again, with Xander. I’m trying to track them down. Call me.”

  A part of her brain told her that what she was doing was nuts, that she couldn’t possibly locate them, that she should just go home and wait. But that would be impossible. She knew that she’d go out of her freakin’ mind.

  What if Harper didn’t come back until morning? What if she didn’t come back at all? What if Xander had talked her into moving to Eugene or they’d decided to just keep driving and leave everything and everyone else behind? Wouldn’t she have done the same with Cade if he had suggested it when she was seventeen?

  So trying to find them wasn’t crazy; it wasn’t paranoid.

  Her heart ached, her stomach cramped, and her hands were sweaty on the wheel. She had to do something. Anything. Even if it was futile. The memory of her dream and the fears that were forever a part of her propelled her to keep going. Traffic was beyond light, only the occasional car or truck driving through the night-darkened town. She swung past St. Augustine’s and Charles Ryder’s offices, thinking they might have returned to familiar territory, but no vehicle was in the lot or parked on the nearby streets. Charles had kicked Xander out of the apartment and presumably taken his key back or changed the locks, and she hoped they wouldn’t try to break in.

  But the apartment windows were completely dark; the building looked deserted.

  She drove on slowly along the empty streets, peering down alleys, scouring this little town for signs of Xander’s Jeep. They wouldn’t go far if he intended to get her home by morning, in time for school.

  But there were the hills, she thought, glancing to the south, where above the old Victorian houses such as Lila’s there were thick evergreen forests, county roads and lanes winding through the hills. Would they go that far? Or into Astoria? What about Lila’s home? Would Lucas have sneaked them in?

  She didn’t think so. Not after the blowup where Charles had in essence fired and kicked him out. Rachel doubted the kid would risk it; despite his fascination with Harper, Xander Vale had seemed like a decent enough person, and too smart to make that kind of mistake.

  Except he was a horny teenaged boy. They tended to not think with their brains. “Where are you?” she asked, cruising the streets and feeling more hopeless with each passing second but bolstering herself with the thought that her daughter was safe with the college boy. She rolled into the parking lot at Abe’s, where three vehicles, an SUV and two sedans, were parked. Through the large windows she saw tables and booths sparsely occupied.

  No Harper.

  Of course.

  Idling in the lot, she took the time to text Cade: Harper’s still missing. She’s not picking up. I’m worried. I’ve searched Edgewater, but didn’t see them or his Jeep. I’m at Abe’s now and I’ll look some more. Call me.

  She slid the phone back in her purse and looked up to see the headlights of a vehicle driving along the seldom-used lane to the cannery.

  Odd.

  Who would be going there in the middle of the night?

  Two kids who wanted to be alone?

  What better place to stop and make out?

  The lane was private and that’s what Harper and Xander would be looking for.

  Headlights cut through the darkness, and then the vehicle suddenly stopped, probably by the old gate.

  The headlamps died.

  Rachel rammed the car into gear, then, fingers surrounding the steering wheel in a death grip, drove out of Abe’s parking lot and headed straight for the old cannery lane.

  * * *

  “I just don’t get it,” Harper said, frowning and feeling as if she’d been duped. “Why didn’t Xander come himself?” She’d risked life, limb, and, worse, her mother’s wrath by sneaking out of the house through the window again to meet Xander after he’d texted, but when she’d reached his car, he wasn’t inside. Instead she’d found Lucas behind the wheel of Xander’s Jeep.

  “He’s getting the place ready.”

  “What place?” she asked and felt a little nervous. Why the hell was Lucas here? She and Xander were supposed to be alone. That was the whole point, wasn’t it? And why was Lucas driving Xander’s car and not his own?

  “You’ll see,” Lucas said with a smile that bothered her; it was as if he knew more than she did or was holding something over on her. He put the Jeep into gear and pulled away from the curb, hitting the gas, making the tires chirp.

  Suddenly this seemed like a bad idea.

  Hadn’t her mother said, “If you want it bad enough, you’ll make it happen” when she was talking about her relationship with Xander? So when Xander had finally texted, she’d jumped at the chance to meet him like before.

  And then Lucas had showed up.

  She probably shouldn’t have gotten into the Jeep with him, she thought as he sped through town.

  It just felt off.

  She decided to text Xander, so she pulled her phone from her pocket and typed a quick: Where are you? I’m with Lucas in your car. Is something up?

  And then she saw it. Right on the console. Xander’s phone, glowing with her latest text. What? He was never without his phone.

  The bad feeling intensified. “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  In the glow of the dashboard lights a tiny smile played across his lips.

  She stated the obvious. “Xander’s phone is here.”

  “He must’ve left it.” He just kept driving.

  “He wouldn’t.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “Oops.”

  “‘Oops’? What does that mean?” He acted as if they were playing some kind of weird game. What a dick! Leaning against the passenger door, arms crossed over her chest, she glared at him. “Where is he?”

  “Waiting,” Lucas said, toying with her.

  Her eyes narrowed and she felt all of her senses go on high alert. Something was wrong here. Very wrong. “I don’t like this.”

  No response.

  “Take me home.”

  “No can do.”

  “What? Lucas, I mean it,” she said with more authority than she felt. “Take me home. Now!”

  “And disappoint Xander?” He shook his head, blond hair shimmering oddly in the dash lights. “Don’t think so.”

  She glanced through the windshield and saw that they’d left town and he’d slowed in the darkness, turning onto the long, pockmarked lane leading to the old fish-packing plant. It loomed in the distance, an aging behemoth settling onto old piers over the river. “Why are we here?” she asked, her anger dissolving into fear.

  “Geez, Harper. What’s with all the questions? We’re here to meet Xander, just like I said.” Hands on the wheel, he slanted her a quick smile. Meant to be disarming.

  It wasn’t. Something was up with Lucas. Something terrifying.

  The Jeep bounced along the lane until they reached the chain-link fence sectioning off the riverfront part of the property. A sagging metal gate, rusting in places, was hanging open, the chain that usually secured it cut and dangling over a side post where a long-handled bolt cutter had been propped.

  He’d broken in. To this evil
place where his father had died, at the hands of her mother.

  “I don’t like this.” Dread was pumping through her bloodstream. Somehow Harper had to tell her mom where she was. Or her dad; that made more sense. He’d know what to do. She swallowed hard and though she was so scared she was nearly shaking she felt for her phone, sneaked a peek, and hit her father’s name on her contact list. The phone was still on silent mode so, hopefully, Lucas wouldn’t know what she was doing.

  “But you will. Like it. Even love it. I promise.”

  It was a lie. She knew it.

  “You broke into the cannery?” she asked, giving away their location.

  “I guess if you want to get technical. Well, yeah.”

  “I’m not going in there, if that’s the idea,” she said, and pointed at the cannery. What the hell was this? She had to escape. Get away from him. Avoid that damned packing plant like the plague. This was wrong. All wrong.

  But Xander? Where was he? In that menacing old building? Her stomach curdled at the thought.

  “Where’s your sense of adventure?” he was asking, cutting the engine.

  “Where’s your sanity?” she threw back at him, then thought to use his name. “Lucas, this is nuts!”

  “Don’t think so.” All joviality was gone. Now he was dead serious and she fought a rising sense of panic. She had to get away. Run. Think, Harper, think. He was a football star, remember? A runningback or something? He’s faster than you even though you ran long distance in track. You have to be smarter than he is.

  “Okay, let’s go.” As the engine ticked and cooled, he pulled the key from the ignition, and when he opened the door and the interior light flashed on she saw him withdraw a gun from the pocket of his jacket.

  Oh. God. No.

  “You have a gun?” she said, hoping the phone was recording her dismay.

  “Think of it as insurance.”

  “For what?”

  Cold, numbing fear crawled through her.

  “To make sure you do as I say.” He glared at her across the front seat, his face in shadow. She thought, for a second, of another man, one she’d known all her life, one who had no connection to him. The image—of a picture of her grandfather at a younger age—dissipated. She licked her lips. Lucas wasn’t kidding. His face was set in stone, his eyes those of a killer.