And The Bride Vanishes

by Jacqueline Diamond

  “How will we get in?” he asked. “Is there a burglar alarm?”

  “I know where the key is buried, and there’s no alarm.” Linda jumped up. “The best part is, I didn’t want to travel while I’m pregnant, so Avery and I were going to spend our honeymoon there.”

  “Forget it. I’m not some damn substitute!” The words burst out of him.

  “This isn’t about your ego, it’s about where to hide.” His wife confronted him, hands on hips. “What I was trying to say was that I’d already taken some of my clothes and personal stuff out there. There’s even food. And a telephone. At least we can stay there for a few days while we figure out the next step.”

  Since he’d learned the truth about Sarah, Wick hadn’t been able to think clearly. He still couldn’t. It was lucky that Linda was thinking for both of them.

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll go there.”

  LINDA WASHED her face and hands in the trailer’s tiny bathroom. A small comb with broken teeth didn’t make much headway in her thick hair, and she found herself looking forward to using the sturdy brush that was among her possessions at the cabin.

  She wondered why she’d been so reluctant to let Wick leave her with the police. Was she really starting to trust him, or was she letting her emotions overwhelm her judgment?

  The prospect of never seeing him again filled her with a dark sense of hopelessness. Yet there was much about him that she didn’t know. He’d kept his suspicions from her during their brief marriage. He’d allowed her to believe him dead and he’d managed to kidnap her in broad daylight. What else was he capable of?

  For all she knew, it might have been Wick who’d strangled Sarah last night. The suspicion took her breath away. It didn’t seem possible, and yet she supposed that the scenario made sense.

  He’d gone to see Sarah, who’d admitted lying to him. He’d had both the motive and the opportunity.

  Gripping the edge of the sink, Linda fought to steady herself. The man she loved would never have done such a thing, even in a rage.

  But she knew what her parents would conclude. And the police. In fact, if they hadn’t already turned up evidence of Wick’s presence in Sarah’s apartment, they soon would.

  Unless he’d purposely obliterated any traces. In a way, the absence of evidence would be more of a condemnation than the discovery of it.

  Linda took several long, ragged breaths. She could still ask Wick to drop her at the police station. As long as he didn’t guess what she suspected, there was no reason for him not to comply.

  She had to make a choice, and she had to make it now. She could hear her parents’ voices as if they stood beside her, urging her to come home. And turn him in.

  The pressure of the sink against her abdomen must have awakened the baby, because it wiggled as if in response. She felt again that tremendous urge to protect her child, but the question was…protect it from whom?

  “Are you okay?” Wick called from outside the door. “Linda?”

  “Just a little shaky. Give me a minute.”

  Nothing in her ordinary world had prepared her to deal with these extraordinary circumstances. Her instincts urged Linda to stick with the people she’d always known.

  But there was something wrong with the cozy image of Inland that she’d grown up with. Why were so many people coming here from unstable countries, filtering their money so the sources couldn’t be traced? Why had a private investigator from Los Angeles shown up pretending to be a reporter, and then been murdered?

  Her knees were still quivering when she stepped out of the bathroom. “Give me your hands,” she told Wick.

  Puzzled, he held them out.

  She inspected them palm up, then turned them and regarded the outer edge. The radio had quoted the landlady as saying it appeared Sarah had been strangled with a thin object. Yanking a wire or cord with such force should have left a mark, but she saw none.

  His hands might have been wrapped or gloved, but only if he’d planned ahead. The man she knew might conceivably have attacked, but only in a rage, and he wouldn’t have thought to cover his hands.

  “What’s going on?” Wick’s expression darkened. “Linda?”

  “The police are going to find traces of your presence in Sarah Walters’s apartment,” she said. “When we finally turn up, they’re going to ask me if you could have killed her. I want to be able to say there were no chafe marks or cuts on your hands.”

  Perhaps he suspected that she’d been checking for her own peace of mind, as well, but he merely nodded. “Let’s get going. I don’t like hanging around this place.”

  “Me, neither.”

  As they threw a few things into a plastic shopping bag and hurried out into the heat of the day, Linda realized that she’d made her choice.

  There could be no turning back.

  Chapter Five

  To get to the lake, they needed to drive south toward town, then skirt the perimeter before heading east. Wick felt his heartbeat accelerate as he neared civilization.

  Since his “death,” he had ventured no farther than Sarah’s apartment. Even then, he had felt as if the other motorists were staring at him.

  Today was even worse. After this morning’s newscast, he expected to hear loud honking or a police siren with every passing mile. To his strained nerves, it seemed as if the entire population of Inland must be on the alert.

  Grimly, he reminded himself that the police hadn’t made a connection between him and Sarah’s death. But as Linda had said, it was sure to happen. His fingerprints must be all over the apartment.

  For once, Wick wished the state didn’t have such an up-to-date crime-fighting computer system. Not only arrestees but a wide range of people in positions of trust, from real-estate agents to teachers, were fingerprinted for its records.

  Beside him, Linda sat watching the road. She held her shoulders stiffly and pressed her lips together so hard they were blotched with white.

  Although he’d pretended to believe her explanation for examining his hands, he knew that wasn’t the whole story. His own wife thought him capable of murder.

  He knew she had every reason to be cautious. He had faked his death, disappeared for months, then kidnapped her on her wedding day.

  But they’d sworn to love and honor each other for the rest of their lives. For a few precious months, he had felt at home with Linda in a way that was new to him. Didn’t she understand that he had opened his heart to her?

  It might be irrational, but he had expected her to give him the benefit of the doubt, no matter what might happen. He loved her. It was such a powerful emotion that it seemed to Wick it should imprint its reality on his face for everyone to read.

  Especially for Linda to read. Her suspicion felt almost like a betrayal. But perhaps, he thought, it was her own susceptibility to him that she mistrusted. She couldn’t rely on him because she couldn’t rely on herself to perceive him objectively.

  Speculation would get him nowhere, Wick thought. Sooner or later, Linda’s true feelings would show themselves, and in the meantime he must cultivate patience.

  “Look behind us!” She spoke tautly, without taking her eyes from the side-view mirror.

  He checked, but a motor home with Oklahoma plates turned into place, blocking his view. “You mean the RV?”

  “No. There’s a gray Chevy behind it. It’s been following us for several blocks, always keeping another car in between.”

  “Did you see the driver’s face?”

  She shook her head.

  It was probably nothing, Wick told himself. The vehicle that had run him off the bridge had been a van, or he thought it was. It had been hard to tell, with the headlights glaring in the rearview mirror.

  On the other hand, a professional killer wouldn’t use the same car twice. He would steal one before the hit, then abandon it. Even if the car were later connected to the crime, there would be no way of determining who had been driving.

  If they really were bei
ng followed, then, judging by what had happened to Sarah, it was likely that the driver intended to kill them. That meant Linda and the baby were in immediate danger.

  Wick stole a sideways glance at his wife. She sat in profile, brown hair tangling around her shoulders, chin held high. From the set of her jaw, he could see that she was determined not to panic.

  The first step was to test whether they really were being followed. As they approached an intersection, he waited until the last minute, then turned right abruptly.

  The motor home rumbled by. After it, the gray car cornered in their wake, then lagged to let two other cars pull between them.

  If he stopped and forced it to pass, they could get a look at who was inside. On the other hand, the driver might take the opportunity to rake them with gunfire.

  “We can’t let him get too close to us,” he said. “If it’s the killer, he won’t miss another chance.”

  “But he’s hanging back,” Linda said.

  “He might be waiting until we get to a less populated area.”

  Or maybe the guy was just trying to keep them in sight until they reached their destination, Wick thought. Their pursuer had picked up their trail with no problem this morning. He must have known where they were, all along.

  Maybe he thought they could lead him to something or someone he wanted. But what would happen when he found out he was wrong?

  In any case, they needed to lose him. The next question was, how? Frustrated, Wick tightened his grip on the wheel. A career in the financial and real estate fields hadn’t prepared him to play this deadly game of cat and mouse.

  “The mall,” Linda said. “Head for that.”

  “Why?”

  “The underground parking lot. It’s like a maze.”

  Thank goodness she had grown up here and was keeping a level head. Following her directions, Wick took a route toward the Inland Mall.

  The gray car stayed behind, sometimes disappearing briefly as other vehicles swerved between them, but always showing up again. Wick considered briefly that it might be an unmarked police car, but by now the blackand-whites would be moving in for an arrest.

  For the thousandth time since his plunge off the bridge, Wick tried to picture the man behind the wheel. Or woman, he reminded himself.

  It must be someone with quick reflexes and steely nerves. That description might fit an athletic young man like Avery Lyme, but Wick couldn’t picture his easygoing college roommate as a cold-blooded killer.

  On the other hand, Avery could have hired some excon or soldier of fortune. So could Granville.

  As they curved down an entry ramp to the underground garage, he wished there were some way to double back, force the car over and finally resolve the question of who sat behind the wheel. But the price of doing so would likely be a double funeral.

  Given Linda’s condition, make that a triple funeral, he amended, and geared all his attention to losing their pursuer.

  It was past ten o’clock, and the first level of the garage was starting to fill up. Wick slowed to avoid a pair of women with children in tow, and felt grateful when they hurried out of the way.

  The Chevy cleared the ramp and swung into place behind him. By now, the driver must know he’d been spotted. This was no longer a matter of being tailed, but a ruthless hunt.

  As he swung toward a ramp to the lower level, Wick realized that he had seriously miscalculated. Because it was so early, the lower level would be empty. Instead of giving cover, it would lay them bare to an attack.

  “Don’t turn yet!” Linda had obviously reached the same conclusion. “I told you it’s a maze! Go that way!” Barely in time, Wick spotted another ramp, also leading down, but only half a level.

  “This used to be an outdoor mall,” Linda explained. “When they enclosed it, they added a new wing. The terrain’s uneven, and the parking came out all zigzaggy.”

  Wick checked the mirror. The Chevy had overshot the ramp and was backing up, preparing to follow. “What now?”

  “Take a hard right.”

  They veered around some pillars and into a tunnel. Startled, Wick realized that it must lead under Fairview Avenue and into a second parking garage beneath the adjacent Inland Civic Center.

  He hit the gas, praying there wouldn’t be any surprises ahead. The tunnel amplified the squeal of the tires, and the acceleration pressed him back into the seat. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” Linda said “Now we’re going to have to time this really close.”

  “Time what?”

  “Just concentrate on putting some space between us. Turn left at the end of the tunnel and floor it.”

  He did, and heard the rip-rip of rubber on concrete. He wasn’t sure whether that was his car or the Chevy which had been gaining on them but again overshot.

  “We’re nearly to the entrance,” Linda said as they zoomed forward. “It’s got those metal prongs that cause severe tire damage if you exit.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “When it was installed, the fire department objected for safety reasons, so the builder put in a manual switch. I’ll hop out and get it.”

  Wick supposed he must have sensed the reserves of strength in Linda, but he’d never been consciously aware of them until now. “Do you know how to work it?”

  “Janet and I used it once when we got lost in here,” she said.

  He could see what she’d meant about timing. They would lose precious seconds while he let her out and picked her up again. On the other hand, once they got past the tire-piercing rods, they’d be home free.

  But the Chevy had finished backing up and was screeching toward them. Far from having time to stop, Wick wasn’t sure he could avoid being rear-ended.

  The blast of a truck horn startled him, and his hands nearly slipped off the wheel. As he zipped across an intersecting aisle, a delivery truck pulled out from behind a wall and blocked the Chevy.

  A series of ear-splitting honks filled the garage. It must have either annoyed or alarmed the truck driver, because he stopped dead.

  Trying to ignore the blood pounding through his arteries, Wick hit the brake as they neared the metal prongs. Before they had even quite stopped, Linda flung her door open and jumped out.

  It seemed to take an eternity as she opened a panel and fumbled with the switches. Wick was beginning to think the system must have been disconnected, and then the prongs vanished into the pavement.

  He eased the car forward, making sure he’d cleared the obstacle before stopping. But Linda didn’t run to join him. Wick couldn’t see why, until he realized the prongs were still lying flat and she must be trying to reactivate them.

  Behind them, the truck cleared the aisle. The Chevy leaped through the air toward them.

  Linda gave up. She trotted forward, still in those ridiculous high heels, and flung herself inside. “Go! Go!”

  He stepped on the gas, keenly aware that the Chevy was nearly at the gate. He felt rather than heard a faint rumble, and didn’t realize the significance until the pursuing car jolted to a stop.

  The prongs had sprung back into place.

  “It must have a delayed reaction,” he said as they spiraled up a ramp. “To make sure emergency vehicles can get clear.”

  Linda strapped on her seat belt. “Let’s get out of here. The other guy might figure out how to do the same thing.”

  Wick wound a circuitous route through town, making sure to keep within the speed limit and obey all traffic signals. Not only was he anxious to avoid arrest, he suspected the killer would be monitoring the police-radio frequency.

  By the time they reached the lake, he was certain they’d shaken their tail. His heartbeat finally slowed.

  The morning overcast was burning off, and the sunlight gave an air of serenity to the vacant lots, vacation cottages and mom-and-pop market. A few bright green lawns interspersed brown stretches of spiky desert shrubs and squatty palm trees.

  As they approached the Ryans’ cabin, the crystal blue
of Inland Lake spread before them. Only a couple of sailboats and a flock of bobbing ducks disturbed its surface.

  “It looks so normal,” Linda said wistfully.

  “You can still go back,” he reminded her. “I could drop you at a store.”

  She regarded him in disbelief. “Someone just tried to kill us.”

  “Maybe they were only after me.” He hoped so, anyway.

  She grimaced, dismissing the possibility. “Wick, you must have some idea who’s behind this.”

  “Let’s get settled in the cabin,” he said. “Then we’ll review everything I know or suspect and come up with a game plan.”

  It sounded reassuring, if only he had a clue how one went about solving a mystery. Wick wished they had an expert investigator to consult, someone like Sarah. But, then, she hadn’t done all that well, had she?

  On the approach, he examined the cabin for any sign of occupancy. A throwaway newspaper lay yellowing on the porch, and the curtains were drawn. Unless someone was setting a trap, the place hadn’t been disturbed for a while.

  “How do we get into the garage?” he asked. “We’ll need to hide the car.”

  “My dad keeps a motorbike inside, but there should be room for both,” Linda said. “The side door opens with the same key as the house. I’ll go dig it up.”

  “Not in your condition—”

  “It’s in a shallow flower bed, and there’s a spade around back.” She sound almost lighthearted as she got out. Wick could understand why. It must be a relief to arrive on familiar territory, not to mention the exhilarating sense of having cheated death.

  Well, not that exhilarating. They might not have cheated it for very long.

  A few minutes later, after Linda retrieved the key and he put the car in the garage, they stepped over the moldering newspaper and into the cabin.

  It smelled of carpeting and dust. The large room was divided into two separate areas, with a dining table and sideboard defining a dining space, and a wicker couch and chair marking the living room.