by Jan Coffey
Tonight it was dark and solemn beneath the beech branches. The million tiny leaves, like the digital curtain of The Matrix, cut him off in a solitary world that contained him, Lyden Gray, and no one else.
He was alone. And it was Colter’s fault.
Last night he’d made a point of learning everything he could about Ben Colter. A rich playboy. A shrewd businessman. Lyden hated him. And he wanted Ben Colter away from Emily.
But he was still there. In her house. With her.
He began cracking his knuckles, methodically, with great care. Meanwhile his anger continued to build. Finally the light in the kitchen went out. Lyden left his place and started around the house. He wanted to see Colter go. He wanted to see him disappear forever from Emily’s life.
Long minutes ticked away in his head. The lights in the front hallway went off. He looked up at the second floor, the taste in his mouth becoming bitter.
He didn’t want to believe it. She wouldn’t betray him. Not his Emily.
Panic, anger, hatred and other emotions that his mind couldn’t decipher turned his stomach. Fury washed down his back, and thoughts of murder crowded his head. Thoughts of righteous vengeance. Retribution.
Lyden retraced his steps to the backyard. He waited until he reached the weeping beech tree before he looked back toward her house. The gusts of wind were coming hard now. The only light left on was in her bedroom, and he saw Colter walk right to the wide windows and look out. Gloating.
“You’re dead,” Lyden whispered through clenched teeth. He glared up at his nemesis for a moment more, and then turned and disappeared into the woods.
Also by JAN COFFEY
FOURTH VICTIM
TRIPLE THREAT
TWICE BURNED
TRUST ME ONCE
Jan Coffey
Five in a Row
To Marie Livigni
A special doctor who treats life not just as
a few single threads but as an entire tapestry.
Peace and Health.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Authors’ Note
Prologue
Three computers sat on desks arranged like a horseshoe. A laptop was docked to the middle one. The light from the monitors cast a flickering bluish glow on the walls, and the syncopated rap of Ludacris was coming from speakers in the corners. There were no windows in the basement room. The rented town house had been built into the side of a hill, and Lyden Gray liked it this way. He liked his privacy.
Boxes of computer parts and electronics supplies sat in piles, cluttering much of the floor. If anyone were ever to see the inside of this room, though—and no one ever did—it would not be the computers or the clutter that would attract their attention. It would be the walls.
The walls were a work of art. Covering the painted cinderblock from the top of the desks to the ceiling was a collage of pictures and articles, both downloads and actual photographs.
And it was a shrine to just one person.
Emily Doyle was a deity to Lyden. Beauty and brains all tied up in a package of pure woman. She was a goddess.
Everything Emily had ever published, whether in tech magazines or online, was on that wall. Every picture of her ever printed on the Internet was there. The weekly announcements of her Monday night online workshops were all taped up in perfect order.
In a special place, above a table filled with things she’d touched with her own hands, was a collection of photos that made Lyden’s temperature rise every time he looked at them. They were photos he himself had taken. Pictures of her speaking at a conference in Philadelphia. A photo of her on the street during a lunch break. Another of her sitting on a wrought-iron chair in front of the Eatopia Café in Wickfield. And that special picture of her in a bathing suit, lying on a towel on the beach in Rhode Island. The thrill that raced through him at the memory of the day he’d taken the picture was almost too much to bear sometimes. He’d laid out his own beach towel right next to hers on the sand. All he had to do was to stretch out his arm and he could have touched her. As he lay there that day, he could see the beads of perspiration glistening on her throat, her breasts. He was so close he could smell the lotion on her skin.
The scurry of new activity in the chat room drew Lyden’s attention to the monitor on the far right. More troops were arriving. An army of intruders. Annoying pieces of shit.
This was his time. These weekly hour-long chats with Emily provided the only source of real pleasure he had. Without these chats, he’d have to go to her. See her in person. Drive to Connecticut.
After all, she was his.
One
The eight-year-old Honda’s windshield wipers slapped back and forth, struggling to keep up with the sheets of rain battering Emily Doyle’s car. She peered through the watery smear covering the windshield. The beams of the headlights reflected blindingly off the bumper of the SUV ahead of her.
“Come on,” she whispered. The line of cars inched slowly through a maze of dirty orange cones toward the Exit sign of the high school parking lot.
The whole darn place was one major construction site. The school renovation project, which had started two years earlier, had only advanced about as far as tearing up the lot and forcing parents, teachers and older students to park a half mile away. Earlier tonight, Emily had heard more than a few of the other parents grumbling about it as they slogged through the mud and gravel to the old building. She promised herself that she’d stop nagging at her son, Conor, about tracking ten pounds of dirt into the house every day after school.
The four-wheel-dr
ive in front of her stopped to let another line of traffic join in. Emily glanced at the green LED numbers glowing on the clock on the dash. 8:51.
“Nine minutes. Plenty of time,” she said under her breath, pressing the defrost button and turning the heat up to high.
Her button-down shirt and dress pants were wet and sticking to her body. She was cold and uncomfortable. Emily gave herself a cursory glance in the mirror and cringed at the way her shoulder-length dark brown hair was plastered against her head. The little mascara she’d put on tonight had run down onto her cheeks. She took a soggy tissue out of her pants pocket to wipe the smudges.
Emily’s sister Liz had warned her about the impending storm, but she was too thick to take an umbrella. Liz had also told her about the temperature dropping off tonight, but Emily simply refused to admit that wintry weather was just around the corner. It was only the first week of October.
“Come on!” She banged her hand on the steering wheel as the driver in front of her seemed content to let the whole line of cars from the other lane cut in front of them.
Her cell phone rang, and she checked the display. It was Conor.
“So, how was back-to-school night?” her son asked in a cheerful voice.
“You’ve already made a name for yourself, you womanizing heartthrob. I met Mr. and Mrs. Gartner, Ashley’s parents. They couldn’t say enough nice things about you.”
“That’s because they’re in shock over their daughter getting a good grade on anything. She’s my lab partner. I think this was her first hundred percent ever.”
“So, is she cute?” Emily asked, actually tapping the horn for the car in front of her to move.
“She’s blond, beautiful, a foot taller than me and outside of the four walls of the biology lab, she doesn’t even know I exist.”
“She’s not a foot taller than you,” Emily replied reasonably. She was relieved as the traffic started to crawl again. “I saw the parents. There’s no way she could be over six feet tall.”
“Mom, I’m four-ten.”
“Four eleven and half,” she corrected. “And the last time we had you measured was August. I bet you’re five-three by now.”
“No, I’ve shrunk since August,” Conor said. “But I’m cool with it. So how did you like my teachers?”
Emily knew he wasn’t cool with being the shortest kid in the ninth grade, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She was five-two. Her ex-husband David was five-seven with his shoes on. She knew she didn’t have to remind Conor again that what he lacked in physical size, he more than made up for with intelligence.
“I like your teachers. Our time in the classrooms, though, was cut way short because of your rather long-winded principal.”
“I guess that’s because Mr. Peterson is new.”
“Maybe.”
“Though I do think he likes to hear himself talk,” Conor added.
“I met his wife, too. She was really nice. The quiet type.”
“Their son Jake is a freshman like me,” he commented. “Awesome kid. We’ve been sitting at the same lunch table. I was going to ask him if he wants to catch a movie with me this weekend. By the way, where are you?”
“Still in the parking lot.”
“You’re going to be late.”
Emily glanced at the clock. It was 9:01. She was late. “I know. Where are you?”
“At the café.”
The Eatopia Café had been a joint venture for the two sisters. Emily had come up with the start-up money, Liz the expertise. The health food sandwich and coffee shop faced the quaint village green of Wickfield, Connecticut. Liz took care of the operation of the restaurant as Emily saw to the books and the financial end. She was not usually trusted up front, where the customers gathered.
“Is Aunt Liz gonna drive you home?” she asked.
“No, she left half an hour ago for a hot date. I closed the place up for her, and now I’m in the back.”
“She left you alone?” Emily asked loudly.
“Mom, I’m fourteen years old. I’ll be driving in twenty-two months. I’ll be going to college in four years. I’m responsible enough to turn a lock and press a handful of numbers on an alarm keypad.”
Conor was definitely responsible enough for all of that and a lot more. Still, it didn’t lessen Emily’s worry. This was who she was. A single mother of a teenager, and a complete worrywart.
“I’ll see you at home,” he told her.
“How are you going to get there?” Emily asked.
“I’ll walk.”
“You’re going to walk two miles in the rain? I don’t think so. I’ll pick you up.”
“You’re already late for your online chat…or class…or whatever,” Conor protested. “Remember responsibility? How about punctuality? Do you remember lecturing me about that stuff?”
Yes, she did. The speech came up whenever Emily had a hard time getting Conor out of bed in time to catch the bus, which happened roughly five days a week.
“There are probably about two hundred ultra serious geeks from around the world in that chat room, waiting breathlessly to hear about…hear about…what’re you talking about tonight?”
“Securing e-mail using AspQMail software.”
“Yeah, that,” the teenager replied. “You’ll waste sixteen minutes coming to get me at the café first, and you’re already…let’s see…eleven minutes late. Jeez, what a rip-off, Mom. You’re robbing these guys of half of their session.”
Emily finally turned out of the parking lot and onto the country road. “Nice try laying on the guilt, buddy. Get off the instant messenger and log me in. I’ll save myself eight minutes by getting into the chat from there.”
She was never late.
Lyden cracked all ten knuckles at once. The chat room was buzzing with all kinds of drivel being messaged back and forth between the pests. He rolled his chair across the floor to pick up a new Emily flyer he’d printed from an upcoming computer show. Picking up a pair of sharp scissors, he carefully, lovingly cut out her picture. As he snipped away, though, his attention never wavered too far from the computer screen.
Eighteen minutes late.
One of the morons in the chat room posted the comment that Emily must have had a hot date and forgot about them. As he read it, Lyden’s collar tightened around his throat. The room was suddenly too warm. He kicked the piece of shit out of the chat room and got up to turn the thermostat in his office down to fifty-five.
Emily wouldn’t do this to him. She wasn’t a cheat.
Lyden’s pulse jumped uncontrollably when he saw the screen name Em V move to the top of the long list of attendees. He rolled his chair to the keyboard and waited like some devout acolyte for her to say something. A few of the brownnosers immediately broke protocol and leaped in, firing questions at her about whether she was okay. Lyden kicked a half dozen of them out, too.
“My time,” he whispered, putting the half-cut flyer and the scissors down beside the keyboard.
Sorry, guys. It’s not me. I mean, this is not Em V. It’s her son. But she should be here real soon. Back-to-school night tonight. My principal is a little long-winded, so she’s running late.
The disappointment was intense. Lyden could feel the heat burning his face, his scalp, and he was aware of pounding in his ears.
He stared at his right hand. It was fisted around the handle of the scissors. He didn’t remember picking them up again, but the tip had stabbed Emily’s face, nailing it to the desk.
“Shit,” he said thinly. “It’s not your fault.”
Lyden’s chair shot backward across the open space to the third computer. He had to punish the person who was responsible for this.
He knew everything about her life, about her family. Her son was a freshman at Wickfield High School. A couple of quick searches on the Internet and he had the school’s Web site up. The name of its principal was easy.
Another two minutes, and he was in Connecticut’s Department of Motor
Vehicles database, getting the vehicle identification numbers and the make and model of Principal Scott Peterson’s two cars. It was so easy.
“So, you like to drive new cars. Nice,” Lyden whispered, seeing his own reflection on the screen as the computer searched another database to match the VIN numbers of the cars with the component registry ID. Two numbers popped up.
He typed them in his laptop and waited. The first one was asleep. But the second one…
“Ready to have some fun?” Lyden asked softly. Smiling to himself, he went to work.
The high school parking lot was practically deserted. Jill Peterson figured that, with the exception of the night janitor, her husband must be the last person left in the building. Parked next to a temporary construction trailer, she watched the trees swing and bend under the force of the wind and rain. Before leaving North Carolina, her husband had warned her about the New England weather. It didn’t matter. She’d been ready for change. All of them were. After ten years as an assistant principal, Scott was ready for a promotion. Their son, Jake, was going into high school, so it was a good time to move for him, too. And Jill was happy wherever her men were.
A blanket of wet, gold-colored leaves covered the ground. Fall, only just here, was going to be gone soon. She turned up the radio as the weather report came on.
“The rain will continue…”
Jill saw her husband leave the front door of the school, and she worked her way over the center console to the passenger side of the car. Some rap music came on the radio. She changed the station back.
She didn’t like to drive in this kind of weather. She would just as soon stay home on stormy nights. But tonight she had to be here as a parent. Jake was a new student, in addition to being a freshman. Jill was as anxious as any of the other parents to meet his teachers, despite the fact that her husband was the principal. She had a feeling that Scott was happy to have her there tonight, too. This was his first night in the limelight.
Scott opened the driver’s door and climbed in, bringing with him the smell of rain and wind. He threw the umbrella he hadn’t bothered to open on the floor of the back seat.
“I’m sorry I was late coming out. The custodian had to fold up and put away two hundred chairs in the gym, so I gave him a hand.”