Deadlier than the Male

by Sharon Sala

  Mrs. Somers caught him just outside his daughter’s bedroom. Though the light spilling down the hall was dim, he saw that her spine was stiff and her cheeks splashed with color, as if she were gearing up for battle. “I can’t stand seeing her this way. Those doctors and their pills couldn’t save Christine, and they won’t save—”

  “Don’t. You. Start. With me,” he warned, before stalking past her.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he found Mara waiting for him, alarm tightening her features, either because of what she had heard or what she saw now in his eyes. As she opened her mouth to speak, he snapped, “I don’t want to be placated right now. Don’t want to hear one more word on how I’m doing the right thing.”

  From upstairs came the sound of Mrs. Somers’ quiet snuffling before a bedroom door snapped shut.

  “You want to be upset,” Mara told him, “that’s fine. If you need to take it out on the help, we’ll get over it. But suck it up and focus on your daughter, Adam. Rebecca’s carrying a secret, and if this medication can help unlock it, she’ll move on. She’ll heal. I know she will.”

  “I said I don’t want to hear this.”

  Mara’s green eyes flamed. “If you think your guest suite and a paycheck buy you the right to shut me up, forget it. I’m here because I love Rebecca. Because I want the best for her.”

  “You’re here because you have nowhere else to go,” he shot back, regretting his temper even as the cruel words exploded from him.

  As she spun away from him, he said, “I didn’t mean that, Mara. It’s been a really long— I’m being an idiot. I know that.”

  She glared over her shoulder. “When you’re ready to be a human being again, we’re going to get some things straight. But you’re right about one thing. It’s been a long day, and I’m going to bed. And by the way, the door to my room will be locked, so don’t even think about trying to slip inside, boss.”

  “Mara,” he called as she stalked away from him. “I’m sorry. I don’t think of you as some employee. And I don’t know what I’d do without—”

  When she stopped, she didn’t turn to face him, but her voice betrayed her tears. “Tomorrow. We can talk tomorrow, Adam. But no more tonight. No more.”

  Defeated for the moment, he let her walk away from him.

  Chapter 13

  A dam holed up in his home office in a bid to distract himself with work, but while business kept him busy, it barely smoothed the surface of his worry.

  Distracted, he didn’t notice the flashing light on his answering machine until he was nearly finished. Frowning, he pressed the play button.

  “Adam, this is Barbara.” The silken seductiveness of her voice turned Adam’s stomach. “I’m afraid I might have said something to offend you last night. I’m known to do that after one too many glasses of the bubbly….”

  The squeak of her giggle nearly drove him to hang up, but her recorded voice soon sobered. “If you stop by tonight, I’m almost certain I can make it up to you. And I’m absolutely positive you’ll like the way I apologize.”

  Sickened, he wondered if it was truly possible that the woman had lost her mind, plunging over the edge that separated a cunning mantrap from a stalker. But one thing was certain. Sheriff Rayburn would laugh him out of the office if he came in with nothing but this tape and a theory based on nothing but speculation and Mara’s belief that her caller had been female.

  As Adam considered, he noticed for the first time that the wind had picked up outside, as it often did atop the bluffs. As well insulated as the windows were, he heard the air’s cold rush, the hiss of sand against the glass that sounded like a bad recording.

  It gave him an idea, a way to get the solid proof he needed to take to Rayburn. Digging through a desk drawer, Adam found a pocket digital recorder he hadn’t used in several years. After replacing its batteries and testing it, he went to Mrs. Somers’ room, where he apologized for his rude response to her earlier concern…

  …and then he told her he was leaving and might be gone for hours.

  Mara had no idea how long she’d been sleeping when the pounding started: a heavy, rapid knocking that jerked her suddenly awake.

  “The house had better be on fire, Adam,” she grumbled as she climbed out of bed and shuffled to the door, not caring that she’d opted for the comfort of old flannel pajama bottoms and an even older college sweatshirt. Served him right for first insulting her, then scaring her half to death.

  But instead of Adam, it was Mrs. Somers, still dressed for the day, with her eyes wide, and her face as white and fragile as bone china. “Rebecca’s gone. She’s not in her room. I looked everywhere, and then I found the back door standing open.”

  Oh, God. What if she’d been taken? Taken by whoever had been behind the calls, the vandalism at the school and the resort site, and the attack on her own life? A recent news report flashed through her brain, the story of an unhinged mother who’d used the internet to stalk her nine-year-old’s class rival. Could Barbara Fairmont be insane enough to go even further?

  No. It couldn’t be true. Maybe Rebecca had been sleepwalking and now lay curled up in a corner somewhere. Could the new medication be to blame?

  “Where’s Adam?” Mara asked frantically. “Is he looking for her?”

  “He’s not at home!” the older woman cried. “And when I called his cell phone, I only got his voice mail.”

  Before Mara could process what she’d said, Mrs. Somers added, “Hurry, please. We have to find her.”

  Mara shoved her bare feet into slippers and ran after Mrs. Somers. Before she’d gone three steps, she felt a cold draft from the open back door. Desperately, she asked, “Are you sure she’s not here somewhere?”

  “I’d stake my life on it,” Mrs. Somers called over her shoulder as she headed for a closet just off the kitchen. “When I went to check on her, I found the kitten shut in her room but no Rebecca anywhere. Please, we need to hurry, before it’s too late.”

  Opening the closet, the housekeeper frantically pawed through the hangers. “Her coat’s still in here. If she’s gone out into this cold without one…”

  As Mrs. Somers grabbed her own coat, Mara asked, “You know where she is, don’t you?”

  And then Mara realized that she knew, too, prompted by her own instinct, coupled with picture after picture that the girl had drawn. “She’s gone to the bluff, hasn’t she? To where her mother fell.”

  “Don’t leave. Please don’t go,” Barbara Fairmont begged him as she stood in the driveway of her custom golf course home. She should have been freezing, wearing no more than a whisper-thin white peignoir over the bare suggestion of a negligee, but thanks to the champagne flute in her hand, Adam doubted she felt anything except a crashing sense of doom.

  Tipsy as she was, she’d allowed him to get a glimpse of the papers lying on a writing table in her study. Forms announcing the impending foreclosure on her house, which explained her desperation to quickly find a man to “save” her. And who better than the newly single owner of the largest bank account in town?

  But no matter how financially needy and terminally horny she might be, Barbara was no killer. Angry, yes, she proved as she hurled her champagne at his retreating Jaguar, but in the long run, more pitiful than dangerous.

  Adam pulled out his cell phone at a stop sign and reluctantly called the sheriff’s office. He was surprised to be put straight through to Rayburn himself.

  “This is Adam Jakes,” he said by way of greeting. “You’re working late tonight.”

  “What can I do for you?” Rayburn asked curtly. “Any more vandalism at your worksite?”

  “No, it’s Barbara Fairmont. I think you ought to do a welfare check. It’s a cold night, she’s been drinking, and last I saw her, she was standing outside her house in next to nothing.” That ought to get Rayburn’s attention. “I’d take it as a personal favor if you’d stop by and make sure she’s all right.”

  “A personal favor? You and she aren’t—I t
hought you were shacked up with that teacher?”

  Much as he hated Rayburn, Adam would not be baited. “I’m not involved with Barbara, but I had reason to suspect she might’ve been the one threatening Mara, who got another call last night.”

  Rayburn gave a derisive snort. “I can tell you, Barbara’s one woman who doesn’t have to resort to threats and murder attempts to attract a man’s attention.” The admiring rumble of Rayburn’s voice assured Adam that the sheriff had spent some time in her bed.

  Could the two of them have been spending time there recently? Adam felt a sick chill snake around his gut. Maybe Barbara didn’t have it in her to commit the acts that Adam had suspected, but what if she’d been coached and prompted? Manipulated by a man eager to pay Adam back for endangering his job? Could someone else be in on the plot with them—if such a plot existed?

  “Just check on Barbara—if you really give a damn about her,” Adam told him before breaking the connection.

  At the moment he wanted nothing more than to get home and make things right with Mara—if she hadn’t decided he was really a killer after all.

  Chapter 14

  H orror exploded inside Mara, cold terror as she imagined Rebecca slipping through some unguessed gap in the fence to stand alone out on the bluff. “Have you called the sheriff?”

  Mrs. Somers pulled two flashlights from a shelf. “They’d take too long to get here. Please hurry. I have my phone. I’ll call someone on the way.”

  Mara reached into the closet and grabbed the first coat she reached, a long red wool one. It was far longer than her own, and from the way Mrs. Somers gaped at her, eyes glassy, Mara surmised it had once belonged to Christine.

  “Let’s go,” Mara urged, grabbing one of the flashlights and heading out into the wind-scoured night. A frigid gust induced instant chill bumps.

  She tried to look past the older woman, who was still standing in the doorway. Mara thought she had heard something, a sound from inside, barely audible above the wind. “What was that?” she asked. But Mrs. Somers didn’t budge.

  “Daddy?” Rebecca’s faint voice floated toward her. From the staircase, Mara thought, relief surging hot through her veins.

  Hadn’t Mrs. Somers heard the child?

  “That’s Rebecca calling.” Mara felt a grin forming. “From inside—upstairs.”

  As she still stood there like a statue, Mrs. Somers’ face went stone still. Certain the other woman was in shock, Mara attempted to push past her and return to the house.

  And stopped dead when she saw the gun in the housekeeper’s hand, the short barrel pointed straight at Mara’s chest.

  Shock slammed her, dropping her stomach to her knees. “What are you doing? Put that away—now.”

  “I don’t take orders from the likes of you.”

  Seeing the fierce determination in Mrs. Somers’ face, Mara said, “Please, Rebecca needs you. She’s calling for you right now.”

  “Don’t. You. Move.” Taking one step backward, Mrs. Somers turned her head slightly—still watching Mara carefully—and raised her voice to call, “Rebecca, dear. Go back to bed now. Your daddy will be home soon to tuck you in.”

  “I want Miss Stillwell,” the girl answered.

  “You will go to your room now,” Mrs. Somers said harshly. “Unless you want that wretched kitten sleeping outdoors in the cold where it belongs.”

  Rebecca began crying.

  “He’s going out on the bluff, Rebecca,” Mrs. Somers told her, “if you don’t get straight back to bed this instant.”

  Moments later, they heard the distant sound of a door slamming.

  “You bitch.” Mara took a step closer. “You heartless— She knows, doesn’t she? That’s what’s wrong with Rebecca. She knows it was you who killed her mother. Was she there that night? Did that poor child see you do it?”

  Backlit by the inside light, Mrs. Somers stiffened. “It was all for her, for her and Mr. Jakes. That woman wasn’t fit to be a mother to that girl, and she certainly didn’t deserve a fine man like my Adam. Cheating on him, she was, then wailing and whining around about the guilt it cost her. Cost her, as if she weren’t some filthy harlot.”

  “And you think being a murderer is better? Don’t you see how you’re hurting Rebecca, destroying the same child you meant to save?”

  “Everything was fine with my family.” The housekeeper’s storm-gray eyes were anguished. “With Rebecca and her father. The three of us were happy—very, very happy—before you came along.”

  Praying that she was guessing correctly, that the child was the key, Mara said, “Rebecca barely spoke. She wasn’t functioning on any level. Is that what you call happy?”

  Mrs. Somers lashed out, cracking the revolver against Mara’s forehead. Crying out with pain, Mara tried to jump back, but her legs folded, dropping her onto her hands and knees.

  “How dare you?” Mrs. Somers railed. “I’ve cared for that child since she was only two. She was always far more mine than Christine’s.”

  Wiping blood from her forehead, Mara used the door frame to pull herself to her feet. Above her, the night sky spun, the horizon tilting and the full moon flashing bright. “I only meant to help her. Surely you want her to get better. You must want what’s best for—”

  “I warned you and warned you to leave town. I did everything but kill you, and what did you do but come to my home and flaunt your body in front of Adam until he could see nothing else.”

  “Please, Rebecca needs us—all of us—working to help her,” Mara implored. Sick and dangerous as her obsession was, Mrs. Somers clearly cared for the girl.

  “I won’t have her loving you!” Mrs. Somers shouted, eyes burning with jealousy. “And I won’t have him ever touching you again. Now move. We’re going for a walk, girl.”

  Mara glanced around, looking for anywhere to flee, any way to fight.

  “Try it and I will shoot,” Mrs. Somers warned her. “I’d rather go to prison than allow the likes of you to take my family from me, to be the one to raise my child.”

  Mara’s mouth went chalk dry. There was no reasoning with insanity—and no running from a bullet, either. But maybe she could overpower the older woman—if she remained alive long enough to find an opportunity. And horrible as the thought was, if it came down to her own death, Mara didn’t want it happening where Rebecca might bear witness.

  “Drop the flashlight and raise your hands where I can see them,” Mrs. Somers ordered. “And walk. Walk out the gate and toward the edge.”

  Adam had expected to come home to a dark house. Instead, he found lights on and the place as cold as a tomb. He ran through the downstairs to the back door and found a bright red smear staining the open doorway—a streak that looked like fresh blood.

  Dear God. Had an intruder somehow bypassed the security to break in, then killed or injured—

  “Rebecca!” Heart in his throat, he raced up the stairs, flipping on more lights. “Mara! Mrs. Somers!”

  His daughter burst out of her bedroom and flung herself into his shaking arms. “You have to help her, Daddy. You have to save her this time,” she said before disintegrating into sobs. “Save who? Who, Rebecca?”

  Weeping too hard for coherent speech, she pointed downstairs, in the direction of Mara’s room. Scooping Rebecca into his arms, Adam paused, then rushed back to Mrs. Somers’ room, which he found empty, before pounding down the steps.

  “Where did they go?” he asked his daughter, who was clinging to his neck so tightly he felt as if he were choking. “You have to tell me. Who took them?”

  Hurrying to Mara’s bedroom, he threw open the door and called her name. No answer.

  “No, Daddy. No,” Rebecca finally managed, and he saw her pointing toward the open back door.

  Toward the door and the bluff’s edge beyond it, where he couldn’t bear to imagine what horror he might find.

  Chapter 15

  W ith Rebecca in his arms, Adam called 9-1-1, then found a flashlight in the ga
rage, along with a small utility knife, which he tucked inside his jacket.

  “I need you to stay here,” he told his daughter, but she clung even tighter, weeping so piteously that he raced outside with her, running toward the bluff.

  Had it been Mara’s blood, smeared inside the door frame? After all, she had already been the target of one attempt on her life. Had the threats and the destruction been about her all along?

  From the rocks ahead, he heard a female voice, whipped by freezing wind and strong emotion. He couldn’t make out the words, but he thought it might be Mara, arguing with someone.

  Instinct brought her name almost to his lips, but then he realized surprise might be his best weapon, his only hope of saving the two women from whoever had abducted them.

  Because he couldn’t just sit around and wait for Rayburn and his deputies to get there. He had already failed Christine; he wasn’t about to risk Mara’s life, or Mrs. Somers’, either.

  Setting Rebecca down, he hugged the shivering child against him and realized he’d failed her, too, carrying her so close to danger. “I need you to go back to our house. Once you get there, lock yourself inside my office and dial 9-1-1. Tell them where you are, and where I’m going.”

  Digging her short nails into his hand, Rebecca looked up, terror in her moonlit face and pale eyes. “You have to save her this time. You can’t let Mrs.—Mrs.—” She struggled to get the words out, failed.

  But Adam understood—Rebecca was terrified that something would happen to the housekeeper who had taken care of her for as long as she could remember. “Don’t be scared, please, sweetheart. Now be a big girl for me and go back inside where it’s warm.”