Moon Fever

by Susan Sizemore, Maggie Shayne, Lori Handeland

  This time, he held her as she came back down, held her while the trembling eased. And she felt warm, safe in his arms. She felt cared for, cherished. But eventually, her heartbeat slowed, and blood started making its way to her brain again. She had to do some digging. She had to know the truth. And she had to get away from him. Soon.

  “Why don’t we go on upstairs to bed?” she suggested.

  “Just as long as you don’t think we’re finished.” He nuzzled her neck, and she laughed a nervous, tight little laugh.

  “I can handle it if you can.” Bold words from a woman who had experienced more climaxes in the past few days than she usually did in a six-month stretch.

  But she could, and she did. She handled it until he was exhausted and snoring softly on the pillow beside her. And then she slid out of bed and tiptoed out of the room, closing the door softly behind her. She headed down the stairs and retrieved the notes she’d been reading, scanning them until she found what she was looking for: the name of the detective who’d been in charge of the case of the missing girl.

  She took the cordless phone and stepped out through the patio doors onto the deck in back. As she dialed directory assistance, she prayed the cop was still in the area.

  He was. Or at least, a man by the same name was. She dialed the number, looking around nervously as she did. No sign of the wet lady. And no sign of the phenomenal lover she’d left asleep upstairs. She was feeling tense, despite the tingling satisfaction that suffused her body. This was mental tension, and all the great sex in the world wasn’t going to ease it until she knew for sure what he was hiding from her and why.

  The man answered the phone in a sleepy voice.

  “Detective Monroe?”

  “Used to be. Who the hell is this? Do you know what time it is?”

  “I’m very sorry to bother you at this hour, Detective, but it’s important. I promise not to keep you long. Do you remember the case of Natalie Bruscheau, the missing nineteen-year-old?”

  There was a long pause. Then, “Of course, I remember. I retired without solving that one, and it’s haunted me. What do you know about it?”

  “Not a hell of a lot. But I was wondering why it was that the boy she used to babysit for had been questioned.”

  “The Lipton kid. Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you, I say to this day that kid knew something. I was a cop for a long time, I know when someone’s lying, and kids are the worst at hiding it. But I didn’t have any evidence. Nothing to back up my gut feeling. Well, almost nothing.”

  “Are you saying you think a twelve-year-old kid was involved in a murder?”

  “I’m saying that I couldn’t find evidence. Just one big coincidence and some drawings that could have been done after the fact.”

  “What coincidence?”

  “Kid used to live in Benton, Maine. Same town where another girl went missing, one who lived on the same street. Never nailed down a connection between them, don’t know if she babysat for him or not. His family said not, and hers said she babysat for everyone in the neighborhood but couldn’t say for sure if she’d ever sat for him. I never believed much in coincidence.”

  “Did they ever find the other girl, Detective?”

  “Never.”

  She closed her eyes, lifted her head. “Tell me about the drawings.”

  He grunted, hesitated, and finally spoke. “We found them in the kid’s room. Drawings of women, one with a knife in her chest, one with her head smashed in. Graphic. Disgusting. But not proof.”

  Caroline lifted her head slowly as her heart turned to a chunk of cold granite. She gazed toward the patio doors. The wet lady stood near the pool, watching her. “Thank you for your time, sir.” She hung up the phone and stared for a long moment at the apparition. “I’m trying, Natalie,” she whispered. “I’m trying, okay?”

  The girl didn’t respond in any way, just kept staring with those huge, haunted eyes. Caroline sighed and turned to go back into the house. She put the phone on its charger, then stood still and listened for any sign of movement from upstairs.

  There wasn’t any. Quietly, she moved through the house, took her keys from the rack without jingling them, and made her way outside to her car. She got in, closed the door as softly as she could, put the key into the switch, and turned it enough to let her slide into neutral and roll out of the driveway. Only when she was in the road did she start the motor, flip on the headlights, and drive away.

  She hadn’t gone very far when she looked up to see a leering grin peering at her from the rearview mirror. She screamed, and he pressed the tip of a blade to her throat, silencing her as fear blocked her airway.

  “Keep it on the road, baby. We’ve got things to do.”

  She straightened the car and did as he said.

  Chapter 9

  J immy woke to find himself alone in the bed. He rolled over and looked around the room. “Caroline?”

  She didn’t reply. He glanced toward the bathroom, but its door was slightly open, its light off. She hadn’t gone in there. “Caroline?”

  He flipped on the bedside lamp, flung back the covers, and got up, still naked. He pulled on his shorts and jeans and went through the house, searching. When he got to the kitchen, he saw the files open on the table and rapidly scanned the pages she’d been reading.

  Then he closed his eyes and kicked himself. She knew. She knew he’d lied to her about not knowing the missing girl. And if she’d contacted the detective whose name she’d circled on the page, she must know about the other girl as well. And maybe even those damned, morbid drawings the police had found in his room. Dammit.

  Movement drew his eyes. He looked up through the patio doors, then sucked in a sharp breath when he saw her there—the ghost, the girl, his former babysitter. Natalie. She stood just beyond the glass, dripping and staring at him. He drew a steadying breath and met the girl’s eyes. “Where is she?”

  She said nothing, just lifted a hand and pointed toward the front of the house.

  Jim turned his back on her, hurrying through the house to the front, flinging open the front door. But Caroline’s car wasn’t in the driveway. He caught just a brief glimpse of taillights in the distance, wasn’t even certain it was her, but he grabbed his keys and cell phone anyway and jumped into his Jeep to follow.

  She shouldn’t be out in the middle of the night alone, not with her maniac ex-boyfriend still running around and probably still furious with her. He cursed himself as he drove. He should have told her the truth. Not just about knowing the missing young women—but about the real reason he’d wanted the house back.

  Now she was putting herself at risk, and he had no one to blame but himself. And dammit, he could not live with yet another woman’s blood on his hands.

  Trembling—as much with anger as with fear—Caroline drove. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Like you don’t know.”

  “I don’t. I swear, I don’t.”

  He glared at her, not answering. “Nice nightie you’re wearing. Where were you going dressed like that in the middle of the night, anyway?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  “I don’t even care. Turn here. Take the highway to exit seven, then get off.”

  A terrible fear was taking shape in the pit of her stomach. She knew what was off exit seven. She’d been there before—many times—with him. “Where—where are we going?”

  He met her eyes in the mirror. “Can’t you guess?”

  She didn’t know whether to guess or not. Would it give him ideas he didn’t already have if her guess was wrong?

  “Come on, Caroline. Guess.” He pressed the blade’s edge harder against her skin, and she swallowed reflexively even as she drew her head back against the seat as far as she could.

  “I can’t drive if I can’t see, you know.”

  “Then tell me where we’re going before we crash.”

  Crash. Maybe that was the best idea. Just turn the car toward a tree and stomp it. He was still p
ressing with the blade, though, and she felt something warm trickling from her neck, shocked to realize he’d actually cut her. She was bleeding.

  “The lake house?” she asked.

  The pressure eased. “Was that so hard?”

  She shook her head, reached up, and pulled her seatbelt around her, snapping it, adjusting it. If she could work up the nerve to crash the car, she didn’t want them both flying through the windshield. Just him.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the place,” she said. Maybe making conversation would help. Or maybe bringing up happy memories would change his mind. “We used to have good times there.”

  “We’re going to have one more. Or one of us is, at least.”

  She tried to breathe slowly and steadily, but panic was working hard to take hold. Every instinct in her gut, and every word he said, pointed to the same conclusion. He was going to kill her.

  “Are you scared, Caroline?”

  “Yes.” She searched his face in the rearview mirror and wondered, not for the first time, what she had ever seen in him.

  “You should be.”

  Her cell phone played the theme from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to let her know she had an incoming call.

  “Don’t answer it. Just turn it off,” he ordered.

  She nodded jerkily and reached to the center console, where her phone was still playing.

  “Don’t even flip it open, Caroline. I’m warning you.”

  “I hear you.” She thumbed the button on the side, which didn’t turn the phone off but instead turned off the ringer. Then she held the phone up. “See? All turned off.” She flipped it open as if to show him, knowing the action automatically answered the call, and without hesitation shouted, “Kidnapped! Help me!”

  “Bitch!” Before she could say another of the key words she’d wanted to get out, like “my car,” and “knife” and “lake house,” he had yanked the phone out of her hand and snapped it in half. Then he calmly lowered a window and tossed it out.

  “You’re going to pay for that, Caroline. You just earned yourself a little more pain than was really going to be necessary.”

  There was no emotion in his eyes when he said it. They were like stones, cold and lifeless and deadly serious.

  Jim heard her cry for help and then a man’s voice calling her “bitch.” That was all. His entire body went icy cold, and he pressed down harder on the accelerator, even as he hit the buttons to call her brother.

  Peter answered, and it didn’t even sound as if Jim had interrupted his sleep. “What is it, Jimmy?”

  Hell, Jim thought, it sounded as if he’d been expecting the call. And his tone was tense. “Caroline’s been abducted. I don’t know what happened. She left the house while I was sleeping, and I was driving out to look for her. Just now, I tried her cell, and she picked it up just long enough to say she’d been kidnapped. A man swore at her, and then the call cut off.”

  “I knew damn well something was wrong. Woke up a half-hour ago with my goddamn heart in my throat. Have you called the police?”

  “No. I called you first.”

  “I’ll call them. Head over to that bastard Brian’s. He’s probably not there, but—”

  “I’m already on my way. And if he’s not there, I fully intend to sack the place for a clue to where he’s heading. I don’t give a shit if it’s legal or not.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  “No, let’s not double up. We can cover more ground separately.” He was pulling up outside Brian’s apartment building as he spoke. “Besides, by the time you can get here, I’ll be done. Get a photo of her for the cops to circulate.”

  “Right. They’ll want to know what she was wearing.”

  He closed his eyes, remembering the sexy little bit of nothing and the satiny robe she’d worn over it. “The black one,” he said.

  “The black what?”

  “Ask your wife. She’ll know.” He hung up the phone, pocketed it, and slammed out of the car and into the apartment building. No buzzer to open the main door. Nothing that fancy. He knew the apartment number because he’d been with Caroline when she’d given Brian’s address to the police after he’d assaulted her. 2-C. So he stomped up to the second floor, getting angrier and more afraid for her with every step. He didn’t knock on the door of 2-C. He pounded on it.

  Nothing. He pounded again.

  “Jesus, hold on a second,” a groggy voice from the other side muttered.

  Nice acting, he thought. He took a step back and kicked the door so hard it sprang open, and the wood splintered. It hit the wall and bounced back, but Jim slammed a palm against it, so it hit the wall again.

  Brian stood there with his mouth and eyes wide, spluttering, “What the—how the—who the—” He was unshaven and wearing a dingy white T-shirt and a pair of plaid boxers.

  Jimmy strode up to him, gripped him by the shirt, and said, “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! Let go of me, you little—”

  Jim decked him, uppercut to the chin, so his head snapped back. “I don’t want to hear anything from you except an answer. Where is she? What the hell have you done to her?”

  Brian jerked free of his grasp and rubbed his chin. “You talking about Caroline? She’s missing?”

  Jim drew back a fist to hit the bastard again, but Brian held up his hands and backed out of reach. “Look, I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her. Shit, I’ve been out of town since that night in the backyard. Dodging cops, thanks to you two. I only came home tonight for some clean clothes and something to eat.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He shrugged, palms up. “Search the place.”

  He was doing just that even as Brian spoke, moving fast from room to room, checking the closets, under the bed, the fire escape. “My truck’s out back. Search that, too. I’m telling you, I haven’t seen Caroline.”

  There was nothing in the apartment, no sign of her. He left the asshole to his own devices and ran back down the stairs, outside, and around to the parking lot in back. The truck was there, but again, no sign of her. And the engine was stone cold. If Brian didn’t have her, then who the hell did?

  Exit seven loomed ahead. She was deliberately driving slowly, hoping to postpone what she hoped to God wasn’t inevitable. She hadn’t managed to work up the nerve to crash the car just yet. She’d been thinking her chances might be better at the lake house. After all, she knew the place, and there would be room to maneuver, and woods nearby in which she might manage to lose him. She knew her ex-husband well enough to know he didn’t have a gun. Shawn had never owned a gun. Probably wouldn’t know what to do with one. So it was just the knife. A lesser weapon.

  But a considerably tougher way to die.

  She thinned her lips and told herself to stop imagining that blade, which was big and very sharp, plunging into her chest over and over. Or would he just slide it cleanly across her throat and stand over her while she choked on her own blood?

  A shudder worked through her, and she changed her mind, tested her seatbelt, took the exit, and picked up speed on the ramp.

  “You remember the way, don’t you?”

  “I sure as hell do.” She also remembered the giant maple tree, right on the shore beside the house, just beyond that final hairpin curve in the road. He’d never see it coming. Probably wouldn’t believe she had the nerve to do it. Unfortunately for her ex, she’d become a lot tougher since the divorce. Tougher than even she had realized.

  She drove a little faster, turning right off the ramp and then left onto the side road that led to the lake. It wasn’t more than another ten minutes, and she drove it in silent tension, using the visuals of that blade to keep her nerve.

  He wasn’t directly behind her now but sitting in the middle of the backseat, leaning forward, the knife in one hand only inches from her neck. She hoped the impact wouldn’t end up making her impale herself on the damn thing.

&n
bsp; Okay, there was the hairpin curve. She stomped the pedal.

  “Slow down. Don’t forget that last bend in the—slow down, Caroline!”

  “Fuck you, Shawn.”

  She wrenched the wheel, taking the car halfway around the curve, then straightened it, cutting directly across the lake house’s lawn, bounding up over a tiny knoll with a towering tree waiting on the other side.

  There were two things she hadn’t counted on.

  First, that the tiny knoll would act like a ramp, so that the car shot off it like a rocket. They were airborne.

  And second, that the giant maple tree would be missing. Someone had cut it down.

  She had enough time for those two thoughts and only one more. We’re going into the lake!

  Chapter 10

  J immy was heading back to his Jeep when his cell phone rang. He snapped it up fast, nearly dropping it in his haste. “Caroline?”

  “It’s Pete, pal. Something just came in over the scanner. A car veered out of control and took a nosedive into the lake.”

  His brain scrambled to make the connection even as he dove into the Jeep and started the engine. “You think it was Caroline?”

  “The location is right on top of the lake house she and Shawn bought when they were still married. The one he screwed her out of in the divorce.”

  “Shawn. Jesus, Shawn’s the one who has her?” Jim shifted gears, heading toward the lake. “Address?”

  “Twenty-two Lakeshore Road. Take—”

  “I know where it is. Meet you there.” He shifted again, dropped the phone to the seat of the car, and pressed the accelerator to the floor. But the entire time, he was swamped with nightmare images of Caroline, trapped in her car as it sank slowly to the bottom of Camry Lake. And the only thing that chased those images away was the sudden, blinding realization that this was his fault. He was the one who’d kept the truth from Caroline, made her mistrust him enough to run away when she found out. He was the one who’d blackmailed Shawn into paying Caroline what he owed her. He was the one who’d backed the bastard into a corner, even knowing a cornered animal will usually attack. He’d expected Shawn to come after him, not Caroline. Damn, if she didn’t survive this—