Obsession

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  Unless she was planning to walk, she wasn’t going anywhere.

  Dear God, what do I do now?

  How had she and Lisa gotten home? Had they taken a taxi? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t quite remember. . . .

  The last of the adrenaline was draining away. She could feel herself crashing, feel the weakness in her muscles, the wobblies in her knees, the pounding in her head even as she stood there gaping at her empty garage. Drawing in big gulps of air, she whirled around to look fearfully back at the town house just as Dan appeared, framed by the back door. He looked reassuringly normal, and she was conscious of a little burst of gladness that he hadn’t been hurt. His gaze found her immediately, and some of the tension that had tightened his shoulders and mouth seemed to leave his body. Without acknowledging her beyond that one assessing look, he closed the damaged door behind him and came down the steps. His movements were calm and controlled. Clearly he’d found nothing he felt he needed to run away from. The intruder must have fled.

  She sagged with relief.

  Which was not to say that her attacker couldn’t circle around to where they were, she cautioned herself as she felt the last of her strength ebbing. Or that someone else—Ed’s people came instantly to mind—wouldn’t appear. A thought occurred to her then: A bullet could come from anywhere. The killer didn’t even have to be close. A quick burst of alarm set her pulse to racing again, and she glanced anxiously all around.

  Where is he? Where did he go?

  From where she stood, she could see only a double row of brick buildings and a seemingly endless line of small backyards. They were only one backyard (Dan’s) away from the cross street, but a tall honeysuckle hedge backed by a six-foot-high brick wall ran from the far side of Dan’s house to the garages and beyond, permanently providing privacy from the street. No one was coming at them from that direction. Looking the other way, perhaps six fences down, a golden retriever paced. A man in a lawn-care service uniform mowed grass. Until she spotted him, the roar of his mower had been all but drowned out by the thundering of her pulse in her ears. Still farther along, there was another tall brick wall where the residential section of the street turned commercial, which meant no one was coming at them from that direction, either. The lineup of garages cut her and Dan off from the alley, and the town houses blocked them from the view of anyone on Union Street. They were, in effect, standing inside a rectangle of brick walls, but still someone could get to them, someone could cut through the narrow swath of green grass between their town houses and the quartet of nearly identical town houses next door, someone could sneak through the small backyards, hopping fences, hiding behind bushes and trees—or someone could turn sniper and fire on them from a roof, or a window, or just about anywhere.

  Her breath caught at the thought: If someone wanted her dead badly enough, they didn’t even have to get up close and personal to do it.

  The idea was terrifying.

  Wait, she told herself firmly even as her poor, tuckered-out heart started to thud again. If the guy she had just escaped from had wanted her dead, he would have killed her at once. He’d had plenty of time. Instead, he had tried to force her to tell him where something was. What something? She didn’t have a clue. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that he, and whoever he was working with, thought she knew what it was and, more important, where it was, and he/they almost certainly weren’t going to kill her until either she told them where it was or they were finally convinced she didn’t know.

  Great. From them she could look forward to being tortured before she died. From everyone else—assuming there was an everyone else, that this wasn’t just a single group of bad guys, which she didn’t think she could afford to assume—a quick and bloody death remained a real possibility.

  She should be running right now, running for her life, she knew, but the problem was she was just so tired. Luckily, if her calculations were correct, for the moment she was probably safe enough. That being the case, running was going to have to wait at least until she got her breath back.

  Wheezing audibly as she leaned back against the doorjamb, which was smooth with paint and warm from the sun and comfortingly solid, she watched Dan come toward her, walking quickly through the dappled sunlight past the small maple, which was still tall enough and full enough to partially shade the concrete path and part of the yard. His stride was long and athletic. His eyes were narrowed against the sun. As he drew closer, she saw that his mouth was grim. Suddenly, she was struck by another of those niggling flashes of familiarity. She had seen him striding toward her like this before. . . .

  While she might not remember when, or how, or even remember him, exactly, some part of her somewhere deep inside indisputably did. The knowledge was both comforting and disturbing. She knew him, no doubt about it, but the details were missing.

  Just like the details of her life were missing.

  Am I having a bad day or what? The thought popped into her head out of the blue, surprising her. Then, when its truly ridiculous degree of understatement occurred to her, it almost—almost—made her smile despite everything.

  “He got away,” she said as Dan reached her. Her tone made it a statement rather than a question. She saw that he was carrying the purse and duffel bag she had dropped in the hall, and thought about straightening away from the door to take her things from him. But the truth was, she just didn’t have the energy; she was too spent to move. It was all she could do to keep herself from collapsing in a little heap where she stood. “Thanks for bringing my things. I was just getting ready to leave with them when he surprised me.”

  He nodded. “There was just one guy? Was he one of the guys from last night?”

  “I don’t think so. In fact, I’m pretty sure not. His voice was different. His eyes were different. But he wore the same kind of black knit ski mask they did, and he had a big silver gun, like they did. He held it to my head.” She shivered at the memory. “Pressed the mouth of it right against my temple.”

  His lips thinned. “So how’d you get away?”

  “I smashed a vase over his head.”

  “The roses?” For an instant his expression lightened. “I wondered about those.” He frowned again. “So was it another robbery attempt, do you think? What did he want? What did he say?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what he wanted. But he thought I did. He kept asking me where ‘it’ was.”

  He was frowning in earnest now. “What?”

  “Like I said, I don’t know.”

  The ramifications apparently occurred to him then, because he took a careful look around. “Okay, we probably need to head on into my house and call the police now.”

  “No.” Her voice was sharp, her reaction instinctive. “No police.”

  Reasons why not came to her in jumbled spurts only after she spoke: Bringing the police in would delay her escape; they might call Ed, whose house it was, and he might ask them to hold her, which they would certainly do because of who he was; or while she was talking to the police, Starkey and Bennett might show up; or the police, or at least certain members of the police force, might even be involved in what was happening. The point was, she didn’t know what was going on, didn’t know whom she could trust, and she wasn’t prepared to risk her life to find out.

  Besides, given that she was almost sure her attackers, both last night and just now, were covert-ops types, there was little the police could do. Ed and his ilk were way out of their league.

  Dan was frowning at her. She realized she must have sounded pretty fierce. Her tone moderated slightly. “No police. Please.”

  His frown deepened. Her chin came up. She wasn’t backing down an inch, and it must have shown in her face. Dan’s mouth compressed. She could tell he wasn’t happy about it, but he didn’t press the issue.

  Good man. Fast learner. She approved.

  “You’re bleeding.” His gaze shifted. He was looking down at her feet.

  She looked down, to
o, to discover blood on her right foot. It oozed out between her little toe and the one beside it, the bright scarlet blood garish next to the soft shell pink of the pricey pedicure she didn’t remember getting. There were smears of blood on the concrete around her, and more smears on the walk, she saw.

  “Oh.” She lifted her foot to examine it, propping it against her knee. Sure enough, there was a cut near her toes. It was small, maybe half an inch long, barely bleeding now. At a guess, she would say she had cut it on a piece of the broken vase. The blood felt warm against her chilled skin, but there was no pain, which was probably why she hadn’t noticed it. “It’s nothing. No big deal.”

  “Are you hurt anywhere else?” His voice was perfectly even. But something about it made her glance at him in surprise. His jaw was tight, and there was a glint to his eyes that told her that this nice, gentle doctor was angry. On her behalf.

  Which, actually, was kind of sweet.

  “No. I mean, I may have a few more bruises, but nothing serious.”

  Letting her foot drop back to the ground, she took a deep breath and straightened away from the doorjamb. Her head swam, and that plus the pounding headache that had never really gone away made her unsteady on her feet. Dan, and the backyard behind him, seemed to tilt, and she took a staggering sideways step to recover her balance.

  He caught her arm.

  “You’re just fine and dandy, huh?” The sarcasm in his voice was unmistakable. Her vision might not be totally clear, but it was impossible to miss the thinning of his lips. His hand felt warm and strong just above her elbow. If he hadn’t been there, she probably would have just toppled over.

  She took a deep, steadying breath and the world slowly righted itself on its axis.

  “Basically,” she said. He was watching her closely, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that maybe she wasn ’t looking so good. She pulled her arm free of his hold.

  “I really am okay,” she insisted, and stood perfectly still without swaying to prove it.

  He didn’t reply, but then he didn’t have to: Skepticism was plain in his face.

  The lawn mower shut off just then, and the sudden sound of not-so-distant traffic that replaced its steady roar served as a reminder that Starkey and Bennett—or anyone else—could show up at any moment. Hurting or not, exhausted or not, dizzy or not, she couldn’t stand around just shooting the breeze. She had to get a move on. Her life might depend on it. The knowledge brought with it another microburst of energy.

  Her eyes sought his. She wet her lips.

  “Look, I hate to involve you in this any more than you already are, but my car’s not here. Could you possibly give me a ride to the airport?” Her eyes narrowed on his face. “The airport, mind. Nowhere else.”

  She added that last as visions of being carted off to the hospital willy-nilly danced in her brain.

  That was the plan she had come up with since discovering her car wasn’t in the garage: Go to the airport, buy a plane ticket to somewhere, anywhere, just to throw them off, then hop on the Metro and disappear until she had time to recover her balance a little and think things through.

  For someone whose brain was missing in action, she thought it was a pretty good plan.

  Dan’s eyes slid over her. He looked less than happy, and for a moment she thought he might be going to argue, probably in favor of the hospital. Or the police.

  Then he shrugged. “Why not?”

  Moving toward the access door to his garage, which was approximately ten feet farther along the brick wall, he glanced back over his shoulder at her.

  “If you want to walk through your garage, I’ll pick you up in front of it. That way you won’t have to climb the fence.” He had reached the fence, which was only about three feet high, as he spoke, and was already throwing a long leg over it.

  “Oh. Good idea.” A little belatedly she added, “Dan, thanks.”

  He merely nodded once in reply.

  Moments later she was once again ensconced in the warm, cushiony passenger seat of his car as the Blazer, with Dan at the wheel, rolled away from the quartet of garages. With the brick wall blocking the end of the alley behind them, a succession of squat brick buildings on the right, and a tall wooden privacy fence running continuously on the left, it was like being in a tunnel, safe and protected. Katharine was busy sticking a Band-Aid, from the first-aid kit in the glove compartment to which Dan had directed her, over the cut in her foot. The purse was in the footwell at her feet. The duffel bag was in the backseat.

  And all four doors were securely locked.

  Just in case.

  “So,” Dan said as the vehicle bumped over the alley’s uneven pavement and sunlight beat down through the windshield and the air conditioner blew rapidly cooling air into the vehicle’s passenger compartment in a so-far vain attempt to counteract the ovenlike heat, “you want to clue me in on what’s really going on here?”

  Katharine looked at him. The temptation to confide in him, to pile her problems on his shoulders and see if he could help her figure them out, was strong. She felt she could trust him.

  But . . .

  Before she could explore that “but” further, the phone in her purse came to life, its cheery Hello, moto musical ringtone once again making her jump.

  “You might want to get that,” Dan prodded, as she stared down at the black purse like it was alive without making the slightest move toward it.

  Hello, moto.

  She glanced at him in surprise. “Oh. Right.”

  Of course, it was her purse, and her phone. She kept forgetting that. The call, therefore, was obviously for her. Pulling the purse up from the footwell, she fished inside for the phone, feeling a tense kind of anticipation.

  It could be anyone. A friend, maybe, or . . .

  “Hello, moto,” it singsonged as she picked it up. It was one of those new black Razr phones, expensive as all hell, like everything else she apparently owned. It felt as unfamiliar in her hand as it sounded.

  Staring down at it, trying to ignore the big, blue rock on her finger that was, at the moment, gleaming brightly in the sun, she watched a parade of numbers running merrily across the small display window.

  A closer look revealed that a name appeared along with the number: Ed.

  Her stomach clenched.

  Hello, moto.

  Ed was calling her. Her breathing quickened. Her heart started to pound. She felt like a rabbit with the hounds closing in.

  Hello, moto.

  She sat frozen, staring down at the cheerily chattering phone as her breathing suspended and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

  Ed was calling. Oh, God, what should she do?

  10

  "I take it you don’t feel like talking?” Dan’s voice was dry. Katharine realized that she was gawking down at the phone like it was a live grenade getting ready to explode in her hand. With her peripheral vision she saw that they had reached the part of the alley where parking lots and Dumpsters took the place of the row of garages. With no more brick walls to protect her, she felt suddenly, hideously vulnerable.

  As if they—Ed’s people, her previous attackers, whoever the hell “they” were—could see her now.

  Sucking in air, she threw Dan a hunted look. “It’s Ed.”

  She said it as if it explained everything.

  The phone stopped ringing. She stared down at it, unconvinced, waiting. Her heart still pounded. Her pulse still raced. Her stomach twisted tighter—but the phone stayed silent.

  “Ed Barnes? That’s who you don’t want to talk to? I thought he was your boyfriend.”

  Her head swiveled toward him. Her gaze focused on his face. She frowned, suddenly suspicious.

  “How do you know who my boyfriend is?”

  He arched an eyebrow at her. “Hey, I read the paper. There was a photo in it of the two of you a week or so back. It identified him by name, and said you were the ‘mystery woman’ in his life. You’re pretty photogenic, b
y the way. Him, not so much.”

  Katharine relaxed a little, her spine curving thankfully back into the seat. That damned picture again. Had everybody in the city seen it? Still, as an explanation, it made sense.

  Dan glanced at her, his expression curious. “You talked to him in the hospital earlier, right? So why don’t you want to talk to him now?”

  She was too tired to try to think up a lie, and she hadn’t yet decided whether or not she should tell him the truth. Her frown returned. This time, she directed the full force of it at him.

  “You know, I appreciate the ride and all, but maybe you ought to mind your own business.”

  “Fair enough.” His brow knit, and he held up a conciliatory hand. “Only trying to help.”

  A beat passed in which she felt bad for being rude to such a nice man, who had, moreover, saved her life at least once, probably twice. A man who was helping her to escape even as she was obnoxious to him.

  Okay, so she was an ingrate. Lower than a snake’s belly. A worm.

  He glanced her way again, his expression tentative now. “I was just thinking that if you were my girlfriend, I’d be plenty worried. Seeing as how you disappeared out of the hospital like you did. Maybe you ought to think about calling him back and letting him know that you’re alive, so he won’t be siccing the National Guard on us or something.”

  Katharine’s eyes widened. She hadn’t thought of that. Much as she hated to admit it, Dan had a point. Ed had nearly infinite resources if he chose to employ them. Putting herself beyond his reach would be much easier if he didn’t know that that was what she was trying to do.

  “Good point,” she said, and he nodded, then glanced at her expectantly.

  Her hand tightened around the phone. As she looked down at it, steeling herself to do what she had to do, a tiny warning bell rang in her mind. For a moment she stared blankly at the phone’s matte black surface as she tried to clarify just what, exactly, her subconscious was getting all hot and bothered about. The answer came slowly, but at least, thank God, it came.