Lie Catchers

by Anderson, Rolynn

  Encircling his waist, she said, “Other boyfriends? Which means you are…?”

  Blinking his surprise, he said, slowly, “I guess I am.”

  “You’re different tonight, Parker. With me, I mean.”

  He nodded. “Back at your place, when I watched you typing away at your computer and you said you identified with Bernadette. That got to me. She loved tripping up the bad guys, just like you do. Hell, I do, too. I couldn’t have stopped her from doing her job.”

  “In the same way you can’t stop me.”

  “She was a professional, Liv. We’re going to have to work even harder to keep you safe.”

  Lifting her hand to stop him, she said, “I know, I know. But there’s more. Between you and me.”

  With a shrug he said, “I like to be wherever you are, Livy.”

  “You’ve seen my closet and you still—”

  “You never let the other guys see your collection, did you?” he asked.

  “Are you kidding? They would have dashed out the door if I’d shown them what organizes my life.”

  He kissed her eyebrows. “Was that fair to them Livy? I mean I know I called them stupid, but you didn’t let them in on an important part of your life.”

  Leaning close so she whispered in his ear, she said, “They failed the initial litmus test; they weren’t…they’d never be ready to see what you saw.” She rubbed her chin against his stubble, amazed at how much she liked the feeling when the other night, he’d shaved for her and the smoothness of his chin turned her on. It’s not logical. She pulled away and looked deeply into his eyes. “I like everything about you, Parker.” She shook her head. “And I’m usually so critical.”

  He laughed. “Don’t talk to Pepper. She’ll give you a list of my issues.”

  Hugging him tightly to contradict Pepper’s criticism, Liv felt Parker’s arousal and hummed in appreciation. “I don’t want you to go.”

  With a groan, he said. “Same here. But first we have to solve this case.”

  “Keep our minds sharp, careers in the balance, a town’s well-being, etcetera, etcetera,” she sing-songed.

  He fingered the amber stones around her neck. “I’ll remember this night, Livy. This set of jewelry and the promise we made to each other. Let these be our placeholder,” he said as he twirled her earrings between his thumb and index finger. “Your skill was born with amber; you and I will begin with the same stone.”

  She hugged him tight before she let him go out the door, her heart full with his vow. But when she closed the door, he took all the warmth with him. Even when she touched her necklace in the place he’d held it, the stone was cold.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Nilson’s missing.”

  Ivor jerked his head up, eyes wide with surprise, while Parker paced in front of Ivor’s desk.

  “He didn’t sleep in his bed last night; I checked with my boss in Fresno and no one there has heard from him since yesterday morning.”

  “God dammit.” Ivor pounded a fist on the table so hard that pens bounced in the air. He stood, his chair shooting to the wall behind him. “What have you done to find him?”

  Parker said, “I checked with Fresno, with Mallen and Jenny at the B&B, who know zip. He had no friends in Petersburg I could contact, that’s for sure. I dragged him to the Landing the other night, so I checked there. No dice. Last time I saw him was before I sneaked over to your mother’s house.”

  “What does your boss say?”

  “He blew up. Thinks Nilson has gone AWOL.”

  Ivor pushed his fingers through his hair. “Jesus, we have to put out an APB on a Federal Agent? Where the hell did he go?”

  “I checked the airlines, boat rentals, car rentals. Nothing. Mallen said he left the B&B shortly after I headed for your mom’s. When I returned, I went straight to my bedroom and worked awhile. I assumed he was doing the same…that’s been our habit. Sometimes he goes back to our workroom in the Municipal Building at night, but we don’t typically check with each other.”

  “He’s a loner, all right.”

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Parker said as he looked out the office window on Nordic Drive, where the first snow of the season fell. Two deaths and a shooting. Now a missing agent. Anxiety crept up his neck and made his head itch. “We need help.” He turned to Ivor. “Where’s Chet? Tell me he’s with Liv.”

  “He is. Working in the store while Liv writes.”

  Parker let out a sigh. “Good. We’re here and they are there. At least we can count on one thing.”

  ****

  Liv stood and stretched her arms to the ceiling, working out the kinks. Her neck ached and her eyes smarted from peering all day at the computer screen while she kept an eye on Tuck’s front door. She’d been on watch ever since the special edition of the Petersburg Pilot came out. If Tuck’s habits hadn’t changed, he’d already read the e-mail version of the paper, enraged about Liv’s veiled accusations in her latest Sing Lee article as well as the gossip around town about Liv’s newest date revelations.

  Her mom had taken charge of the store and gone home at 4:00 p.m., and Chet was doing last minute clean-up in the workroom before they joined Harriet for dinner. Parker had reported in by phone, hip deep in a search for his partner who’d gone missing sometime last night. Ev and Tilly gone. Now Nilson. What was happening?

  Liv skimmed fingers over her amber necklace. For the first time in her life, she’d worn the same jewelry two days in a row. Parker made a promise on this set of stones. I’ll wear it until he makes good on his vow. We’ve turned a corner, and I don’t want us to forget it.

  Pressing her hand to her heart, she marveled at how happy she felt. Even in the midst of murders and missing people, she felt more carefree than she could ever remember. Time to celebrate.

  Opening her apartment door, she yelled, “Chet! Come on up; let’s take a wine break before we go over to Mom’s.”

  Silence and darkness enveloped the downstairs, a little light spilling from the workroom off to the right. “Chet. Stop what you’re doing. Come on up.”

  “Liv…I,” Chet said weakly.

  “Chet,” she said, running down the stairs. Did he fall? Did he have a heart attack? Was he sick? “Chet?” She rounded into the lighted workroom. “What?” He lay on the floor, his face pinched in agony and an arm outstretched.

  “Liv,” he said, shaking his head.

  Fear flushed her body as she added up the mistakes she’d made by rushing down the stairs. Without a phone. Without a gun. Movement behind her made her stiffen as she glanced at the open back door of the workroom. She could run for the exit, but that would leave Chet here, on the floor with the person behind her. She pulled in a breath to get ready for whatever came next, and whispered, “Parker.”

  ****

  “Parker? Where are you?”

  “Harriet? I’m in the Municipal Building. What’s wrong?”

  “Liv and Chet aren’t here yet and no one answers the phone at the store. They promised to come to dinner at six o’clock and it’s fifteen after.”

  Parker shifted the phone in his hand to look at his watch. “I’m going over there, Harriet. Call Ivor. Tell him to meet me at the store.” He shut the phone, grabbed his gun and sprinted out the door, covering the distance to the back entrance in two minutes. The sight of the open door quickened his race to the workroom. Heart pounding and gun at the ready, he scanned the room, forcing himself to register the sight of his father’s body on the floor but remain aware that danger might lurk in the shadows. Where was Liv? What had happened to his dad? Was someone still in the store?

  He listened. Not a sound. Was his father breathing?

  “Parker,” came a growl. Ivor’s growl. Behind him.

  “My dad’s down. Don’t hear anything.”

  Ivor rushed past him, hitting the lights in the store, then scrambling up Liv’s apartment stairs. “Store’s clear. Going in.”

  Sprinting to cover Ivor, Parker took the
stairs two at a time and met Ivor exiting Liv’s bedroom. “She’s not here. No sign of struggle. Let’s check on your dad.”

  Chet stirred as soon as Parker grasped his father’s shoulder. “He took her. Hit me. Took her.”

  “Time?”

  Lifting up his watch to his eyes, Chet groaned. “Two hours ago. Shit.”

  ****

  Whap!

  Liv came to, moaning from the sting on her cheek.

  Bang!

  Her head jerked sideways with the second blow; this time she felt knuckles. “Ah…ouch. Stop,” she muttered, straining for consciousness, struggling to see while she shifted her body away from her attacker.

  “You scream, I’ll hit you again,” came a whisper only inches from her face. A male voice. Was it the person who grabbed her in the darkness while Chet lay groaning on the workroom floor? Chet. Oh, God.

  She smelled the sea, the acrid fishy smell of low tide. When she heard the rush of a wave, Liv nodded, feeling a sense of comfort that she was near a beach. Maybe she wasn’t far from home. From warmth. God, it was cold.

  “Wake up,” the man growled, still whispering.

  Liv blinked and her eyelashes caught on something. When she moved her cheeks, cloth prevented free movement. Blindfolded. That’s why I can’t see and why his voice is so muffled. The blindfold is wide and tight against my ears, but he didn’t put anything across my mouth. She wiggled her torso and felt a post on her back, her wrists tied together behind the thing. She sat on an icy, flat surface, the cold leeching through her jeans. Occasionally she’d feel drops of wet on her forehead. Snow? At least I’m mostly under cover; something’s keeping the rain and snow off me. Her legs weren’t bound, but they were useless to her, rigid in the freezing temperature.

  “What do you want?” she asked, her teeth chattering with cold and fear.

  “Everything you know,” he whispered. “Suspects. Dates. About Everett’s killer, the person who shot at you, and Tilly’s death. Everything.”

  “I’m not in on the investigation. Why would they tell me?”

  “You wrote the column. You have inside information.”

  She bit her lip to keep it from trembling, “I’m writing about a 1932 murder. I—”

  Bang! He popped her cheek with his fist, bouncing her head off the wood post. Again, the horrible whisper. “You’re working with your brother and the Feds, you bloody bitch.”

  Liv shook her head to clear it after the blow, tears streaming from her eyes and wetting the blindfold.

  “I don’t know anything.”

  His finger twined around her amber necklace and he twisted it until it tightened against her throat. “You and your fucking jewelry,” he said, wrenching it tighter with every word.

  “Gagh! I can’t brea—”

  The string broke, stones popping to her shoulder and bouncing to the ground. The snap of the necklace reverberated in her heart. Her first necklace. But he hadn’t been able to strangle her with it. That was something.

  “Shit!” he yelled in frustration before he socked her in her cheek.

  Moaning from the pain, Liv dropped her chin to her chest, pulling in deep breaths. When she felt the cold steel of a gun at her temple she gasped. At the click of the safety, she began to shake uncontrollably. This time, when he’d hit her, she’d smelled aftershave, a scent she knew. I know who this man is, but if I let on, he’ll kill me. Since he’d taken all the trouble to blindfold her and whisper his threats, maybe he meant to let her go. She had to play along. Parker would want her to tell him everything she knew in order to survive.

  She cleared her throat. “Everett Olson was heading to the Grand Caymans with Susanna, probably to claim several million dollars,” she said, shivers making her voice bobble. “Tuck Barber was Everett’s friend as was Tilly, so they are suspects. They are picking Tilly or Tuck as Ev’s killer. Tuck as Tilly’s killer. But they haven’t written off Halley, Josh or Susanna, because they all have motive.”

  “Evidence?”

  “They think Tuck wired Tilly’s office and her home. Tuck figured Tilly was colluding with Ev to take the money all three had contributed to. Or Tilly was ready to confess to the Feds, scared that Tuck would kill her once Ev was dead. Whatever Tuck heard, he didn’t like, so he killed her. Sneaked a date rape drug into her, then forced her to swallow a deadly amount of sleeping pills.” Liv sighed, adrenaline waning and cold taking over her body. “I know the exact time when Tuck returned home the morning after Tilly’s death. He doesn’t have an alibi.”

  When Liv heard a car approaching, the man put his hand over her mouth and growled, “Shut up.”

  The car passed and quiet returned. They both breathed hard, a harmony oddly soothing to Liv. She straightened her back against the post and clasped her hands behind her, trying to get feeling back into her arms. “That’s all I know. All we know. We were using the Sing Lee series to flush out the killer. I was pretending to pull more dates out of my memory when, in reality I don’t remember anything more than I put on that chart.”

  She heard him pace at her feet. Then he stopped, the quiet enveloping them once again, the sound of surf keeping time to her breathing. Liv wanted to assure the man she didn’t know who he was, but she remained silent, worried he would catch the lie in her voice if she spoke. Let me go home!

  To soothe herself, she closed her eyes and conjured the Hanson dinner table, set with the good china and silverware, wine and water glasses standing shoulder to shoulder. Liv would handle the seating arrangement. Parker next to her, she’d make sure. Ivor at the head of the table in her dad’s old spot. Mom at the other end, presiding over all. Chet next to Harriet. Maybe invite Mallen and Jenny. Ivor would say grace.

  Liv opened her eyes to blackness and the soft surging of the waves. She heard footsteps in retreat, the sound of a car door opening and closing, a motor starting up, a car backing up and going forward.

  “Hello?” she asked, praying no one would answer.

  An owl hooted.

  “Is this meeting over?”

  The surf slapped against the beach, soothing like a steady heart beat.

  She wiggled her legs and rocked back and forth on her butt, bringing feeling back into them. Then, pulling her knees up, she braced her back on the post and worked her arms up and down to get more blood pumping. “You bastard. I’m not waiting for you to come back.” She rubbed the knot of her blindfold against the post until it slipped off the top of her head. Blinking to adjust her eyes to seeing again, she examined her surroundings. She kicked aside a length of tarp hanging from the post to see hear the ocean. “Hello, Sandy Beach Park, I think.”

  Wriggling up the post to a standing position, she pounded feeling back into her legs, all the time wondering how she’d get her wrists free when her arms, especially her wounded one, hurt like hell and her fingers were limp as sausages. Screams? Maybe a couple of nocturnal animals would hear her cry. Hardly any traffic on the east side of Sandy Beach Road. One car in say, half an hour. The sun had set around 4:30 p.m. and in the pitch black, she yearned for light.

  The dining room table, candlelit, pushed into her brain, reminding her of warmth, her family, and Parker. And obligations. I’ve got to help Mom in the kitchen; her knees can’t handle the strain. She tugged against the ropes with all her might and felt something give, allowing her to twist her hands and bend her finger to hook a section of the binding. Gritting her teeth, she set to work on getting free.

  ****

  “We drive around again,” Parker ordered.

  Ivor shook his head. “We’ve been up and down every road in town and along the coast five times, Parker. What good will one more trip do us? We’d be better off waiting until early light.”

  “Fuck light. God dammit, if only we had the benefit of a full moon. Instead we get this shitty light snow that makes everything look polka-dotted. If she’s out here, hypothermia will kill her, Ivor. We have to find her.”

  “Why do you think she’s outside? M
aybe she’s in a cabin or a boat.”

  “The worst place for Liv is outside, so that’s where we have to look.”

  “We’ve got thirty people out here, each with a grid to search.”

  “And ours is the coast.”

  “It’s too fucking dark,” Ivor said, slowing down at Hungry Point. “We can’t search every inch of beach and beachfront in the dark, even if we have big flashlights and I keep my searchlights on. I’ve called in a helicopter that will touch down at first light.”

  “Too late. Too late,” Parker muttered as he peered into the night. Ivor was driving at a crawl, but unless Parker could get out and walk on the shoulder of the road, he wasn’t able to see much past the concrete. “We can’t find Barber or Halley. Cameron is supposedly with friends in Wrangell, but we can’t get ahold of him. So not only are we trying to find Liv, we’re searching for Barber, Halley, Nilson and Cameron.”

  “It’s typical police work,” Ivor said.

  Parker spoke as he looked out his window. “Why aren’t you panicked? It’s your sister we’re looking for. Why aren’t you guilty about how we’ve gotten her into this mess?”

  “She smart, even smarter than I gave her credit for. She wants to help, and we needed her help.”

  “She is something, isn’t she?” Parker’s voice caught. “But as you’ve said, she may not be up to fighting whoever has her.” He squinted into the dark over Ivor’s shoulder. “What’s that over there?”

  Ivor directed the searchlight to his left. “The shelter for Sandy Beach Park.”

  “When I was driving with Cameron the other day, I didn’t see that tarp hanging from it.”

  “A shelter against the wind left by a camper?”

  “Josh Cameron told me about tarps. Said they were everywhere. We didn’t see that one when he gave me the tour. Let’s check it out.”

  Ivor stopped the car at the building and Parker popped out, intent on finding out what was behind the plastic screen.

  “Liv?” When Parker trained his flashlight on the area behind the tarp, he pulled in a breath. “Oh, Livy. Oh, God. What have they done to you?”