by Rebecca York
Damien was about to drive up to Route 40 and get himself some fast food when he spotted a car coming around the corner.
The cop. Rollins pulled into his driveway, got out of his car, then started for the back door.
Damien walked quickly toward him, the tranquilizer gun under his coat. “Officer Rollins. Thank goodness you’re home. Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked.
As the cop turned, Damien shot him in the shoulder with one of the powerful, fast-acting little darts. Rollins staggered as he reached for his gun.
Rushing forward, Damien wrested the weapon from fingers that were already limp. As he knocked the gun away, he sent the guy sprawling in the gravel driveway.
“Got ya,” he said, excitement bubbling in his voice as he bent down and turned the bastard over, then looked up to make sure nobody had seen what was happening. “You thought you could get away from Damien Hardon. But you’re wrong. You and I are going for a little ride together. And when you wake up, I’m gonna have you call your wife and get her to come rescue you. Only it’s not going to work that way, because I’m going to kill you both.”
Chapter Fifteen
Beth’s body jerked.
Granger, who had been sitting at her feet, raised his head and whined, his brown eyes fixed on her face.
“What is it?” Jo asked. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly, pressing her hand to her shoulder. “Something…I felt this sharp pain…” She raised her eyes to the P.I. as if Jo could tell her what had just happened. “I have to talk to Cal,” she said, feeling urgency tighten her chest.
“Did you remember something—some information he can use?”
Beth shook her head. “I…no. I’m worried about him. I have to…” She didn’t know what she had to do. All she knew was that she had to hear his voice.
“He should be home by now. Why don’t you call him?”
“Yes.” She sprang up, then gave Jo a strained look. “I don’t even know his phone number. He gave me his business card when I first agreed to work with him, but it’s in my kitchen. I’m married to him, and I can’t even call him on the phone.” She could hear her voice rising, hear Jo trying to soothe her.
“Let’s go inside. I’ve got his home number and his cell phone number.”
They walked rapidly to a small office, the dog at their heels. Standing by the desk, Jo picked up the phone, dialed a number, then held the receiver slightly away from her ear so they could both listen. Beth breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Cal’s voice. She realized quickly that it was only an answering machine.
“Beth wants to talk to you,” Jo said. “So please call us as soon as you get in. Unless we get you on your cell first.”
He didn’t answer on the cell either.
“I’m going to his house!” Beth said, starting toward the door.
Jo put a firm hand on her arm. “You can’t do that. Cal wants you where he knows you’re safe. But I can get one of the Randolph men to check out his house.”
Beth closed her eyes for a moment. “I don’t want to put anyone to a lot of trouble. But I’d feel better if somebody made sure he was okay.”
“It’s no trouble,” Jo said, already making another call. “Hunter,” she said into the phone, “this is Jo. Cal went home to do some research on his computer, and we can’t get hold of him. Since you don’t live too far away, I was wondering if you could stop by?”
After thanking him, she hung up.
“Let’s go to the kitchen and have some tea,” Jo suggested.
Beth nodded, not because she wanted tea but because it was something to do.
Both of them were tense as they waited, trying to make small talk.
When the phone rang, Beth jumped up and snatched it from the cradle.
“What about Cal?” she said as soon as the man on the other end of the line identified himself as Hunter Kelley.
“I don’t like giving you bad news over the phone,” he said. “But I thought I should get in touch with you as soon as possible. His car is in the driveway. But he’s not there, and his gun is lying on the ground.”
“Oh God,” was all Beth could manage.
“Give me the phone,” Jo demanded.
Obeying orders, Beth handed over the receiver, then she sank into one of the kitchen chairs because her legs would no longer hold her weight. She’d known. Not exactly the same way she’d known when she’d had her psychic experiences. There had been no premonition, no headache. Only a swift, sharp jab like a needle piercing her flesh.
Far away she could hear Jo’s voice speaking to Hunter, giving more orders, it sounded like.
After hanging up, Jo knelt beside her. “It’s all right. We’ll find him.”
Beth made a low sound and started to shake. “You know, I prayed to be normal. Prayed for my psychic ability to go away. Now I’ve got what I wanted! I should have known something was going to happen to Cal. But I didn’t! I didn’t!”
Jo rubbed her hands over Beth’s back. “But you knew something was wrong. I saw you jerk, like you’d been hit.”
Beth raised her eyes to the other woman. “Something. I felt something. But it was too late.” Barely able to breathe, she continued, “Suppose one day you could see just fine, and the next day you were blind. Well, not quite blind. You could still see a little bit of light. Just a tiny bit. That’s what it’s like.”
Jo nodded, although Beth wasn’t sure if she really understood.
Forcing air into her lungs, she let it out again. Somehow she got a grip on her emotions. Because if she let herself fall apart, she wouldn’t be doing Cal any good. If she couldn’t help Cal through her former psychic powers, she had to use the same powers as everybody else. Raising her head, she looked at Jo. “Before you call anybody else at Randolph Security, call Alex Shane,” she said.
“Who?”
“He’s the Howard County police detective who came to my house after that guy Harold Mason was killed. He’ll want to be informed. He can work through the police department, and maybe he can get us a lead on Dave Garwill. Cal thinks he’s the killer. But he’s gone underground. Disappeared.” She thought of something else, then rushed ahead. “His picture’s in my yearbook. Back at the house. If we get the picture, can’t we get a computer to update it?”
CAL WOKE beside the pool, and a feeling of vast relief rolled over him. He was safe. Back at Jo’s.
He sat up, looked around, rubbing his shoulder where it felt as if he’d been stung by a bee or something.
Looking up, he saw the sun shining in a perfect blue sky. The sight made him wrinkle his forehead in confusion.
Hadn’t it been late in the afternoon when he’d headed for home? Almost dark, in fact. But now it was noon.
How long had he slept, anyway?
He stood, ambled toward the cabana, thinking he’d get a beer from the refrigerator. Then go find Beth and have a little fun.
Where was she? They were on their honeymoon, even if he was still working the reunion murder case.
He stopped when he saw the bed sitting in the middle of the cabana, feeling doubt crawl through his brain.
It was the bed where he and Beth had first made love. In the dream. But in the real world, there was no bed in the cabana.
Standing very still, he scrubbed his hand across his face, then noticed something else. He should have a five-o’clock shadow by now, but his face felt as though he’d just shaved.
Carefully, he looked around, thinking how quiet it was. Like he was all alone here. Like there wasn’t another soul in the universe.
And at that moment he knew. There wasn’t another soul in the universe. Not this universe. He was back in the dream. Alone.
No! It couldn’t be.
Why the hell was he back here? In the place where he had almost died.
Last time he’d gotten hit by a bullet.
This time…
His whole body went rigid as he strained to remember
what had happened to him. This time…
And then in a terrible burst of memory it came to him, literally knocking him backward, almost off his feet, like a bullet to the chest. He’d been going back to his house to use the computer. Someone had called his name, and he’d turned. Then had come the pain in his shoulder, the woozy feeling in his head.
He’d been lying on the ground staring up at the bastard’s smug, satisfied face, hearing him say, “You thought you could get away from Damien Hardon. But you’re wrong. You and I are going for a little ride together. And when you wake up, I’m gonna have you call your wife and get her to come rescue you. Only it’s not going to work that way, because I’m going to kill you both.”
“No!” he screamed. “No! Leave Beth out of this. For God’s sake, leave her alone.”
The sound of his own voice roared in his ears. Then it was swallowed up by the terrible silence around him.
He staggered on his feet, sank into a fancy deck chair, cradling his head in his hands, trying to think this through.
The guy had shot him with some kind of tranquilizer dart. Lord, he had to warn Beth. Tell her to stay where she was safe.
He stopped short. Safe from whom?
The guy had said his name was Damien Hardon. But he’d looked like the picture of Dave Garwill he’d seen in the yearbook.
Cal thought about the man’s face. And the name he’d given. Damien Hardon.
He gave a mirthless laugh. Could the guy really have picked something that stupid? Yeah. Probably he thought it was macho and full of hidden meaning.
But it didn’t matter what the killer was calling himself. Cal had to warn Beth to stay away from him. No matter what the maniac told her.
Warn Beth. Again his brain lurched. There was no way to warn Beth. Or was there?
His head throbbed as if he were deep underwater trying to work his way to the surface before his brain exploded. The last time he’d been here, she’d joined him in the dream. She’d pulled him back to reality and saved his life. And that had used up all her psychic reserve of energy, or whatever you called it.
Since then she hadn’t had a damn extrasensory twinge. He gave a bark of a laugh, caught in the irony of the situation. Just a few weeks ago he’d been convinced that all psychics were charlatans. Now he was absolutely convinced that Beth had been blessed with extraordinary powers—until she’d gotten mixed up with him.
He cursed, roaring the words at the top of his lungs because there was nobody here to cringe at the vile language.
Then he calmed himself, thinking that cursing wasn’t very constructive.
Lord, was there any way to reach her? Any way to break through? Could he be the one to make the mind-to-mind connection?
He’d always had hunches, feelings about people that turned out to be right, insights that came to him like a gift from the ether.
Was that some kind of minimal psychic talent? Could he boost that little bit of talent and use it to communicate with Beth?
He didn’t know. He didn’t even know where to start.
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES after Beth had first spoken to Hunter, the house was full of people: Hunter Kelley and his wife, Kathryn, Jed Prentiss, Jason Zacharias, Steve Claiborne and Thorne Devereaux from the Randolph Security team, and Alex Shane from the Howard County P.D.
Cam Randolph himself had come back from his conference in Oakland to find a command post had been set up in the living room, with banks of computers and phone lines.
Jed and Jason were scraping up every piece of information they could find on Dave Garwill. Alex was relaying everything the police had on the case. Sam Lassiter was evaluating other members of the class, on the chance that they were going after the wrong guy. Jo was asking Beth questions about Garwill, helping her dredge up every scrap of memory. And Kathryn Kelley was interviewing other members of the class, starting with Donna Pasternack, who had organized the reunion committee. Kathryn, of course, couldn’t say they thought Garwill had abducted Cal. Instead, as a psychologist, she was pretending to be doing an article about the in-crowd and the out-crowd in high school and how they had changed or were the same.
Beth looked up to see that Lucas and Hannah had also come in.
Hannah came straight over to her, knelt down and hugged her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But we’ll get him back.”
Beth nodded, because she knew that if she tried to speak, she would start weeping.
HOURS DRAGGED BY like centuries. Finally, Hunter, who had been typing steadily at the computer terminal, looked up. “Garwill’s parents are dead. But there’s no record that their property has been sold. It’s an old farm. You reach the house up a long driveway off Linkletter Road. I got the specs from the county planning commission computer because it’s on the right-of-way for a highway across the upper end of the county.”
“I can go in to reconnoiter,” Sam said. “Then if he’s there, we send in a team.”
“I’m going along,” Beth told him.
Hunter gave her a direct look. “I assume that when Cal left you here, he told you to stay where you are safe.”
She glared at him. “It doesn’t matter what he told me, I’m going.”
In the end they compromised. Beth and Jo went along in the SUV with Hunter and Lassiter. They also had portable phone equipment with them that was connected to the line at the house, in case Garwill wanted to talk to Beth.
They parked down the road from the property. Beth sat in the back seat with her heart pounding, trying to pay attention as Jo gave her a quick course in what to say if the killer called while they were in the midst of this operation.
She suspected that only a quarter of what Jo was telling her was getting through, because so much of her attention was focused on the patch of underbrush where Sam had disappeared.
Eventually, Jo must have realized it was a lost cause because she stopped talking.
Finally, Beth spotted Sam trotting back to them and she was out of the SUV and running toward him before Jo could pull her back.
“Is he there?” she asked. “Did you find him?”
Sam shook his head, looking disturbed.
“What?”
“The house is abandoned, as far as I could tell. Nobody’s inside. But there’s a room where it looks like he took his victims.”
Beth made a low sound of distress.
“Cal’s not there. At least we know that. I’m sorry we didn’t find him,” he added.
“It’s not your fault. I guess it couldn’t be this easy.”
“I do have a piece of information, though. There were some pieces of junk mail dumped in a corner—addressed to Damien Hardon at an Ellicott City town house. I think that’s the name he’s been using.” Reaching for the phone, he reported the information to Randolph Security.
THERE WAS a faint glow of light in the eastern sky as they rode in silence back to the Randolph estate. Finally Hunter, who was sitting in front of her, turned and leaned over the seat. “I have been thinking about this problem, and I have come to several conclusions. I think that Damien captured Cal because he wants to get to you.”
Beth nodded miserably.
“He is making you wait. Making you worry. He is giving us the chance to trap him.”
Her heart leaped. “How?”
“You must contact Cal.”
The slender thread of hope snapped. “I can’t communicate with him! I’ve lost the ability.”
Hunter gently laid his hand over hers. “I was thinking about how you could do it.”
“How?”
“I want to talk to Kathryn first.”
Again conversation in the SUV came to a halt. When the phone rang, they all tensed. But it was only Cam calling to say that the name Damien Hardon had turned up in area credit records.
“Hannah and Jason are on their way to the Ellicott City town house,” he added. “But I don’t think they’ll find Cal there. It’s too populated an area. But we’re checking it out.”
They we
re back at the estate fifteen minutes later. Beth kept her eye on Hunter as he drew his wife aside for a quiet conversation. Watching them together made her heart tighten. They loved each other, and they seemed so in tune. That was what she wanted with Cal if they got him back. No, when they got him back, she corrected herself before her eyes could start to swim with tears.
To her relief, Kathryn approached her as soon as she and her husband were finished talking.
“Hunter’s had the idea that I could hypnotize you. That way, I can accomplish two things—I can suggest that you’ve got your psychic powers back, and you’ll be in a state close to sleep. Hopefully, that will allow you to reach Cal—if he’s sleeping. If not, I don’t know.”
“All right,” Beth agreed, not because she was confident that it was going to work. There were too many problems. But she was willing to try anything that had a chance of panning out. And willing to try anything that would put her in communication with her husband.
The others kept to their tasks in the command center. Kathryn took Beth down the hall to a television room, then gestured toward a recliner. “Why don’t you kick off your shoes and make yourself comfortable.”
Kathryn sat opposite her in a small armchair. “Let’s talk for a few minutes,” she said. “Can you tell me something about your previous psychic experiences?”
Beth sighed and fought to damp down her anxiety and her impatience. She didn’t want to take up time explaining, but she knew that she had to give Kathryn some information if this plan had any chance of succeeding.
After a few moments of thinking about what to say, she began to tell the psychologist her painful history, starting with her father’s auto accident. As she spoke, she watched Kathryn’s face, looking for some sign that this woman saw her as a freak. But she only detected sympathy and understanding.
When she finished, Kathryn nodded. “You have rare talents that appear to have started developing at puberty. And even though you’ve fought against them, they’ve grown. Your getting into Cal’s dream when he was in a coma and bringing him back was extraordinary. And it shows you can adapt to new circumstances. You’d never done anything like that before, but you reached a new level of proficiency.”