Dead Ringers

by Fossen, Delores

  It was an older model two-door white Ford. Heavily tinted windows with a magnetic sign on the driver’s door that said Bailey’s A/C Repairs. It slowed in front of the San Saba apartments, but it didn’t just slow. It crawled to a stop just up the street from Cain’s rental.

  A man exited.

  Lanky build. About five, six. Maybe a woman. The androgynous guy carried a metal toolbox, wore a khaki uniform and a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. Perhaps to shelter his face from the rain. A bushy brown beard protruded from his chin.

  And the angle of the beard was wrong.

  Vince eased his hand inside his leather jacket and wrapped his fingers around the butt of his pistol. And he watched. Maybe this was one of Cain’s men, one of his overly paid PIs who worked for Sen-tron, his high-end security agency. Because there wasn’t a need for an A/C repairman today, and that was definitely a disguise.

  He brought up the binoculars for a better look, but a semi-truck came by, driving slower than a fuckin’ geriatric snail, and Vince lost sight of the guy for a couple of seconds. Seconds was all it took because he did more than lose sight. He lost the guy. Vince didn’t see him anywhere around the apartment, the van or on the sidewalk.

  Alarms the size of Texas went off in his head.

  Vince waited. And the guy resurfaced. He’d been on the other side of the large heating and A/C unit located just outside one of the windows of Dana’s apartment. Maybe doing something legit. But Vince had his doubts about that when the guy practically sprinted back to his van.

  Jesus H.

  Had the guy sabotaged the unit or something?

  Vince ducked his head against the rain and crossed the street. He tried not to draw any attention to himself, but he was pretty sure he failed. Because he started running toward that A/C, and he hoped like the devil that it didn’t literally blow up in his face. With each step he took, the lawyer’s words stayed right with him.

  Vincent Langford, it’s your lucky day.

  And he hoped to hell it was.

  #

  Dana striped off her clothes, throwing the wet skirt and jacket toward the exercise bike in corner of her bedroom. She missed. So did her bra and panties. But she didn’t bother to pick up the items when they landed on the floor. It probably wasn't a good idea to be naked very long with Jack in her apartment. The five rooms literally weren’t big enough for both of them.

  Heck, with the tension between them, Buckingham Palace wasn’t big enough.

  “Hurry,” Jack warned her. “I don’t want you to be here any longer than necessary.”

  It sounded as if he was on the other side of the door. And no doubt was. He was probably still stewing too over the fact that she’d insisted on coming home to change out of her wet clothes. He’d wanted her to go straight to a hotel or a safe house, after they made sure no one was following them.

  And Dana had considered it.

  Heaven help her.

  She’d considered a lot of things, but with her brain buzzing with all the things she’d learned, the questions and the residual effect of that mind-blowing kiss, she needed some time to think. Maybe that time wouldn’t turn out to be a fatal mistake.

  Dana heard his phone ring. He answered it, but she couldn’t make out his conversation. Besides, she had to concentrate on getting un-naked. She was still tingling from the kiss, and being naked only seemed to give her body the idea that it was about to have sex.

  With that uncomfortable realization, Dana grabbed some underwear from the dresser drawer. She didn’t have to worry about grabbing any Victoria’s Secret stuff by accident. Every piece of underwear she owned was of the plain white cotton variety. She could thank her former boyfriend, Trey, for that as well. After being nearly knifed to death, provocative underwear only reminded her that she had a body that could be knifed again.

  “I found your fax machine, and I need to use it,” Jack called out.

  “Help yourself. The number’s on the machine.” She frowned at her helpful tone and her non-reaction to his obviously having been in her office.

  It was already happening. The barriers between Jack and her were dissolving right before her eyes. And there seemed to be nothing she could do to stop it. If there truly was a killer, and there seemed to be, then she had to do something. She couldn’t handle another attack.

  But Jack was right about the police. She didn’t trust them. Not after the way they’d let Trey get to her. That didn’t mean she should report all of this. She wouldn’t. But it also meant she had to hire some kind of security. Maybe get a gun. Buy more pepper spray.

  Dana caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Mercy, she was blinking back tears again, and her head was pounding. She was already so close to losing it.

  Cursing herself, she snatched a pair of jeans from the closet, put them on and topped it with a sangria-red sweater. Another glance in the mirror, and she rethought the idea of standing out like a neon sign. She changed to a dark brown sweater and some leather slip-on shoes.

  Bland. Ordinary. Exactly what she wanted to be.

  If she could make herself a wallflower, she would. Maybe the killer wouldn’t see her then.

  She threw open the door and hurried into the adjacent room where Jack was standing next to her fax that was chugging out something. The moment the paper was finished, Jack took it and started reading it. Almost immediately, the machine started to print another page.

  “Anything wrong?” she asked. She massaged her right temple to make her headache go away, and she prayed those smothering images and questions were gone for good. But it didn’t feel like it. Dana was afraid she might be on the verge of another round.

  “It’s information about the other four beneficiaries. Patricia Snyder was a photographer,” Jack mumbled, obviously picking out a random bit of info from the full page. “Grace Fletcher’s an artist in Austin.”

  Art and photography—both things that Dana had studied in college and careers she would have likely chosen if it hadn’t been for keeping her mother’s dream alive of owning the bar. It was an eerie coincidence that made her feel more unsettled than she already was. Those two women looked exactly like her and now they seemed to share similar interests.

  “What about the men?” she asked.

  Jack took a deep breath and rubbed his forehead. “James Murphy was a decorated vice cop. Vincent Langford is a former Marine.”

  A cop, a security specialist and a Marine. Similar as well. “By any chance are the other four…involved?”

  “You mean could it have been a pair of them in that picture? There’s nothing in the background about them being lovers, but it’s obvious they were.”

  Yes, obvious. And that made her wonder what else was missing from the background checks. “So, we’re going with a theory that we’re triplets?”

  He looked up from the pages, and she saw the skepticism in his eyes. It was no doubt in hers, too. Twins had been hard enough to accept.

  But triplets?

  “What about Vincent Langford and Grace Fletcher?” she asked. “Do either of them have anything in their backgrounds to indicate they’re the killer?”

  “Not Grace,” he quickly answered. “She’s somewhat of an open book, at least on the surface. But Langford might fit the killer profile. My employees weren’t able to find out what he’s been doing for the past four years. That’s not a good sign.”

  No. It wasn’t. “Is he maybe dead?”

  Jack shook his head. “No. Not dead, but whatever he’s doing, he doesn’t want a lot of people to know about it.”

  Dana tried to fight off the feeling of panic and the headache. God, both were getting worse.

  “We need to get out of here,” Jack reminded her.

  But Dana held her ground when he caught onto her arm. “Look, I’m not discounting the danger. I never discount danger, not after what happened to me, but I am debating if I should go with you.”

  “What other choice do you have?” He didn’t give her a cha
nce to answer. “If you go to the police now, they might arrest you.”

  Her shoulders snapped back. “Why would they do that?”

  “Think it through. There have been two murders, an attempt to murder me, and the number one suspect will be someone who stands to inherit more of the doctor’s millions.”

  “But I didn’t kill them.”

  “You and I know that. The cops don’t. Yes, you’d clear your name, eventually. I’d be able to clear mine, too, but by then at least one other person will likely die. Besides, just because you’re at the police station, that doesn’t mean you’d be safe. James Murphy was a cop and was killed in the parking lot of police headquarters.”

  Mercy. If the killer had gotten to him, then what chance did she have?

  “Are you ready to leave now?” Jack asked.

  More than ready. But first, Dana needed to take some meds for this blasted headache. She turned, but her cell phone rang, the sound shooting through the room and causing her to gasp. She hated her wussy reaction but hated even more that her reactions were likely to get worse before they got better.

  “Make the call quick,” Jack instructed, except it sounded more like an order than a suggestion.

  Dana grabbed the phone from her purse and answered it.

  “Dana?” the man on the other end of the line asked.

  She didn’t recognize his voice and instantly became suspicious. “Who is this?”

  “A friend. This is your lucky day, Dana, because I’m looking out for you. Get your ass out of there now,” he said. Like Jack’s, his was an order, too.

  Jack must have noticed that she was alarmed because he snatched the phone from her. “Who is this?”

  She could no longer hear the caller, but she watched Jack’s face. Whatever the caller said, it wasn’t good because Jack cursed, reached for his gun and practically threw the phone back into her purse.

  “Do you have a headache?” Jack asked.

  She nodded.

  “Me, too.” Jack hurried to the thermostat near the door and turned it off. Dana could still feel the heated air blow through the vent. “He says someone rigged your heating unit so there’s carbon monoxide being pumped in through it. He says we have to get out of here, or we’ll die.”

  Her stomach went to her knees. “Who’s he?”

  “He says he’s Vince Langford.”

  Dana had already hooked her purse over her shoulder and turned toward the door, but that stopped her. Jack didn’t move either, though she didn’t doubt there was something toxic being pumped into the room. Her head was all pain now, and she felt sick to her stomach. No doubt effects of the carbon monoxide. Worse, the unit was still running. If someone had indeed sabotaged it, then they’d probably fixed it so that the thermostat wouldn’t disengage the system.

  “This might be a trap,” Jack told her.

  Sweet heaven. He was right. If they went running out the door, they could be gunned down or hit with those tranquilizer darts. Either way, they could be killed.

  “We can’t stay here, either.” Since the queasiness was starting to overtake her, Dana caught onto the wall for support.

  “No,” Jack agreed. “There’s a back exit.”

  She nodded. “But what makes it safer than going out the front?”

  “Nothing. We’ll have to take our chances.”

  With his gun drawn and ready, Jack got her moving toward the door.

  Chapter Seven

  Jack had no idea if this was the right thing to do. In fact, the only thing he did know was that it’d been stupid to come here, something he’d known all along. Now, maybe Dana would realize she had to quit being so pig-headed about security and trust him.

  Of course, he had to earn that trust by getting her out of there alive.

  Might be easier said that done.

  After all, Vincent Langford was out there. Maybe. If he’d told them the truth. And maybe Vincent was the killer. Or Vincent could be in the same crazy place as Dana and he was. Short on answers and in big-assed trouble. Either way, Jack didn’t want to deal with the man yet. Well, unless the maybe was right and Vincent was the one who was trying to eliminate competition for all of Dr. Hartwell’s millions.

  Jack unlocked the trio of assorted latches that Dana had on the back door and eased it open so he could take a look outside and so that Dana and he could breathe in some fresh air. No one was out there. At least no one he could easily see.

  That didn’t make it safe though.

  Dana grabbed a bottle of meds from the kitchen counter and stuffed them into her purse. Probably because she realized, finally, that she might not be able to return for a while. She also took out the beneficiary letter, still tucked in the envelope, and she tossed it next to her toaster.

  “Maybe getting rid of it will change my luck,” she mumbled.

  Jack wished that were true, but he figured things--bad ones--had already been set into motion.

  “Stay behind me,” he warned her and hoped this time she would listen.

  This time.

  Like the soul question, those two words kept hammering through his head, and even though Jack didn’t like it, his gut told him that this time didn’t refer to here and now. He pushed that uncomfortable thought aside and got moving.

  With Dana right on his heels, he went down the four steps that led into a soggy courtyard where there were trees, benches and too many places for someone to hide. If the killer struck, it would likely be with a tranquilizer gun, and Jack could only hope that the guy couldn’t manage to hit both of them.

  Jack pulled her behind the first tree and looked around. At the roof of the apartment complex and then at the adjacent buildings. Still nothing. But he knew Vincent was there. Jack could sense him. Too bad his senses couldn’t tell him if his twin was friend or foe.

  Without taking his attention off their surroundings, he grabbed his phone and called Rusty. “I need a car ASAP. Leave it on Briarwood, two blocks east of the San Saba apartments. I also need sirens. Lots of them. I need to scare someone into running.”

  “Anything else, boss?” Rusty asked.

  A prayer or two wouldn’t hurt. “Just get here fast,” Jack settled for saying.

  “Your car’s out front,” Dana reminded him when he ended the call.

  Yeah. “And it’ll stay there. We can’t take it because someone might have attached a tracking device.”

  Or a bomb.

  But he doubted that this bozo wanted to blow them to smithereens. No. Strangulation was a hands on, personal kind of kill, and this guy wasn’t going to settle for anything less. He wanted to squeeze the life right out of both of them.

  Jack tipped his head to one of the trees. “We’re running there,” he let her know.

  After that, he’d have to wait for the sirens. And wait even slightly longer to make sure the killer had gotten out of position. Then, Jack would have to hurry Dana to the back parking lot and to the car that Rusty would have waiting for them.

  They both bolted in that direction. Just as Jack heard the swishing sound. He shoved Dana away from the sound, and she went stumbling forward.

  The dart slammed into the ground, in the same spot that Dana had just left.

  Jack latched onto her and hauled her behind the tree. He wasn’t fast enough. A second dart arrowed right into Dana’s purse.

  “Oh, God,” she mumbled, and she just kept repeating it.

  “Did it hit you?” Jack ripped it from her purse.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  Well, they’d know soon enough, and he really hoped he didn’t have to carry an unconscious Dana out of there.

  If he’d been alone, he would have stayed put behind cover and made this SOB come to him. However, Dana was clearly the target now, and Jack wanted some distance between the dart-shooter and her.

  But how?

  He mentally followed the trajectory of the darts. It had likely come from the apartment building directly in front of them. He
didn’t see any windows open or anyone on the roof, but there were open stairwells. Dark places that the killer could be using for cover.

  “How many darts do you think he has?” Dana asked. She was shaking again. Probably a combination of fear and the cold rain.

  “A lot no doubt.” The guy might be a crazed killer, but he was also determined. A half a billion dollars was a lot of determination for pretty much anybody.

  Still no sound of sirens. No zinging darts, either. Just Dana and him pressed against a tree. Well, she was against the tree, and he was pressed against her again. He sure seemed to be touching her a lot. All necessary, of course. But the touching reminded him of those naked photos, and it was a bad time to be reminded of what it would feel like to touch her that way for real.

  His phone buzzed, and Jack automatically cursed. He wanted sirens, not calls. One glance at the screen and he especially didn’t want this. The caller had blocked his number and identification. People generally didn’t do that for good reasons.

  Jack pressed the answer button, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Cain,” the caller greeted. “It’s me, Vince Langford. Are your people on the way?”

  Jack wasn’t sure he wanted to answer that.

  “I’ll assume that means yes,” the man said a moment later. “I’ll also assume that you need help right now and that you’d rather not wait a minute or two.”

  Those were two right assumptions. “What do you want?” Jack demanded.

  “I want to help you. I’ve pinpointed this ass wipe, and I’ll create a diversion and try to draw him out.”

  Dana’s gaze cut back to his. Probably because the phone was close enough for her to have heard. He saw the questions, doubts and fear in her eyes and figured his next question wouldn’t ease any of those much.

  “Why should I trust you?” Jack asked the man.

  Vince, or whoever was pretending to be him, huffed. “Because you don’t have a choice. Just get her out of there now, Cain.”

  Jack didn’t miss the way he’d said her. There was something about the inflection. Some emotion that the man hadn’t been able to cover up. As if the caller knew Dana and knew her well.