by Karen Rose
She drew a breath and he could see her pulse throbbing at the hollow of her throat. The wind was whipping her hair and once again she scooped it back out of her face. “I see.” Her lips curved to lighten her words, but her eyes were stark. Haunted, even.
“What happened?” he demanded.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
Daniel clenched his jaw. “Alex.”
She looked away. “Nothing. I just had a bad dream, that’s all.” She looked back and met his eyes. “I had a bad dream, so I got up. And there you were.”
He pressed his lips to her palm. “I stopped here because I was thinking about you. And there you were. And I couldn’t stop myself.”
She shivered and he glanced down as she shifted, covering one totally bare foot with the other. He frowned. “Alex, you’re not wearing any shoes.”
Her lips curved, sincerely this time. “I wasn’t expecting to stand out on my porch kissing you.” She leaned up and into his mouth, kissing him a good deal more softly than he’d kissed her. “But I liked it.”
And it was suddenly as simple as that. He smiled down at her. “Go back into your house and lock your door and cover your feet. I’ll see you tomorrow night. Six-thirty.”
Chapter Seven
Dutton, Tuesday, January 30, 1:55 a.m.
Alex closed the door and leaned against it, eyes closed. Heart still racing. She brought her hands to her face, smelling his scent that lingered on her palms. She’d almost forgotten how good a man could smell. With a sigh she opened her eyes, then pressed her hands to her mouth to muffle a shriek.
Meredith sat at the table choosing a hat for Mr. Potato Head. She grinned as she plugged the hat in the hole meant for the feet because lips already protruded from the top of the head. “I thought I was gonna have to bring you your shoes.”
Alex ran her tongue over her teeth. “You were sitting there the whole time?”
“Mostly.” Her grin widened. “I heard the car stop outside, then heard you open the door. I was afraid you’d decided to test your new… thing.” She lifted a brow.
“Hope’s asleep. You can call it a gun.”
“Oh,” Meredith said, blinking innocently. “That, too.”
Alex laughed. “You’re so bad.”
“I know.” She waggled her brows. “So was he? Bad, I mean. It sounded bad.”
Alex shot her a guarded look. “He’s very nice.”
“Nice is not nice. Bad is nice. She’ll tell me all,” she said to the potato-head, which looked more like a Picasso-head with every feature out of place. “I have my ways.”
“You scare me sometimes, Mer. Why are you playing with this? Hope’s asleep.”
“Because I like to play with toys. You should try it, Alex. It might relax you a little.”
Alex sat down at the table. “I am relaxed.”
“She lies. She’s wound tighter than a corkscrew,” Meredith said to the potato-head. Then her eyes grew sober. “What are you dreaming, Alex? Still the screams?”
“Yes.” Alex took the toy, aimlessly twirling an ear. “And the body I saw today.”
“I should have gone instead.”
“No, I needed to see for myself that it wasn’t Bailey. But in my dream it is. She sits up and says, ‘Please. Help me.’ ”
“Your subconscious is a powerful force. You want her to be alive, and so do I, but you have to come to terms with what happens if she’s not, or if you never find her at all. Or maybe worse, if you find her and can’t fix her.”
Alex gritted her teeth. “You make me sound like some Dr. Roboto control freak.”
“You are, honey,” Meredith said gently. “Just look.”
Alex looked at the toy in her hands. Meredith’s Picasso-head was no more, every feature now properly placed in the right slot. “This is just a toy,” she said, annoyed.
“No, it’s not,” Meredith said sadly, “but you keep on thinking that if you need to.”
“All right. I like control. I like to have everything neatly labeled. That’s not bad.”
“Nope. And sometimes you get a wild hair and buy a thing.”
“Or kiss a man I just met?”
“That, too, so you aren’t without hope.” Meredith winced a little. “No pun intended.”
“Of course not. But I think that’s exactly why Bailey gave her that name.”
“I agree. These toys are important, Alex. Don’t discount them. Play takes our minds to a place where our guard comes down. Remember that when you play with Hope.”
“Daniel’s bringing his dog over tomorrow to see if Hope likes animals.”
“That’s nice of him.”
Alex raised a brow. “I thought nice wasn’t nice.”
“Only when it comes to sex, kid. I’m going back to sleep. You should try, too.”
Tuesday, January 30, 4:00 a.m.
Someone was crying. Bailey listened hard. It wasn’t the man in the next cell. She wasn’t sure he was even conscious anymore. No, the weeping came from farther away. She looked up at the ceiling, expecting to see speakers. She saw none, but it didn’t mean they weren’t there. He might try to brainwash her.
Because she hadn’t told him what he wanted to know. Not yet. Not ever.
She closed her eyes. Or maybe I’m just losing my mind. The weeping abruptly stopped and she looked up at the ceiling again. And made herself think of Hope. You’re not losing your mind, Bailey. You can’t. Hope needs you.
It had been the mantra she’d chanted when Hope was a baby, when Bailey had wanted a fix so bad she thought she’d die. Hope needs you. It had gotten her through and would continue to do so. If he doesn’t kill me first. Which was a definite possibility.
Then in the next cell she heard a noise. She held her breath and listened as the sound became a scraping. Someone was scraping at the wall between the two cells.
She pulled herself to her hands and knees, grimacing when the room spun around her. She crawled toward the wall, a few inches at a time, then breathed. And waited.
The scraping stilled, but a tapping took its place, the same rhythm again and again. Code? Dammit. She didn’t know any codes. She hadn’t been a Girl Scout.
It could be a trap. It could be him, trying to trick her.
Or it could be another human. Tentatively she reached into the dark and tapped back. The tapping on the other side stopped and the scraping began again. She’d been wrong. The scraping wasn’t on the wall, it was on the floor. Wincing at the pain in her fingertips, Bailey pushed at the old concrete floor and felt it crumble.
She drew a sharp breath, then let it out, dizzy in her disappointment. It didn’t matter. Whoever was scraping was digging a tunnel to another cell. A tunnel to nowhere.
The scraping stilled once again and Bailey heard footsteps in the hall. He was coming. God help her, she prayed he was coming for the other guy, the scraper. Not me. Please not me. But God didn’t listen and the door to her cell swung open.
She squinted at the light, weakly raising one hand in front of her face.
He laughed. “It’s playtime, Bailey.”
Tuesday, January 30, 4:00 a.m.
He was a fortunate man to live in a county with so many drainage ditches. He leaned to one side and let the blanket-wrapped body fall to the ground. She’d died so beautifully, begging his mercy as he’d done his worst. She’d been so prissy and full of contempt when she’d held the power. Now the power was his. She’d paid for her sins.
So would the four pillars of the community who remained. He’d gotten the attention of his first two targets with the first note, with his tracing of the key that would exactly match their own. He’d get some of their money with the second, due to be delivered to the same two some time later today. It was time to begin to divide and conquer. He’d take down the first two, and by the time he was finished they’d be ruined, every last one of them. And I? He smiled. I get to watch it all crumble and fall.
He pulled the blanket away from her foot and
gave a final nod. The key was there. In the Review’s picture of Janet, she hadn’t been wearing her key, so the first one must have gotten lost somewhere. Disappointing, but he’d made sure this one was tied on extra tight. The threat would be delivered. Take that, Vartanian.
Dutton, Tuesday, January 30, 5:30 a.m.
A loud creak woke her and Alex snapped her head up, listening. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa after Meredith had gone to bed. She heard the creak again and knew she hadn’t dreamed it. Something or someone was on her front porch. Thinking of the gun in the lockbox, she quietly grabbed the cell phone she’d left on the end table instead.
Hell of a lot of good a locked-up gun did her now, but at least she could call 911. Although that wouldn’t do a hell of a lot of good either, if Sheriff Loomis’s response to Bailey’s disappearance was his norm. She slipped into her kitchen and chose the biggest butcher knife in the drawer, then crept to the window and peeked out.
Then let out the breath she’d been holding. It was just the paperboy, who looked like he was closer to college-aged. He was filling out a form on a clipboard, the small flashlight clenched between his teeth giving his face an unearthly glow. Just then he looked up and saw her. Startled, he let the flashlight fall from his teeth to the porch with a clatter. Eyes wide, he stared, and Alex realized he could see the knife in her hand.
Lowering the knife, she cranked the window open a crack. “You scared me.”
His swallow was audible in the predawn stillness. “You scared me worse, ma’am.”
Her lips quirked and tentatively he smiled back. “I didn’t order the paper,” she said.
“I know, but Miz Delia said she’d rented the bungalow. The Review gives a free week to folks new to the neighborhood.”
She lifted her brows. “You get many new people to the neighborhood?”
He grinned shyly. “No, ma’am.” He handed her the paper and the form he’d been filling out. She had to crank the window a little wider to take it from him.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Don’t forget your flashlight.”
He picked up the light. “Welcome to Dutton, Miss Fallon. Have a nice day.”
She cranked the window closed as he got back into his van and drove to the next house on his route. Her pulse nearing normal, she opened the paper to the front page.
And her pulse started to race again. “Janet Bowie,” she murmured. Alex had only a vague recollection of Congressman Bowie, but his wife she remembered clearly. Rose Bowie and her negative, very public assessment of Alex’s mama’s character had been the reason they’d stopped going to church on Sundays. Most of the women in Dutton had shunned Kathy Tremaine after she’d moved in with Craig Crighton.
Alex rubbed at the sudden pain in her temples and put Craig from her mind. The memory of her mother wasn’t so easily dismissed. There were the good years, when her father had been alive and her mother had been happy. Then the hard years, when it had just been the three of them, Mama, Alicia, and me. Money was tight and her mama had worried all the time, but there had still been some happiness in her eyes. But after they’d moved in with Craig, her happiness had been extinguished.
The last memories she had of her mother weren’t good ones. Her mother had lived with Craig to give them a place to live and food to eat. And women like Rose Bowie had shunned her for it and made her cry. That was hard to forgive. For years Alex had hated all the whispering biddies. Now, as she stared down at the headline, she had to wonder who’d hated Janet Bowie enough to kill her that way.
And why her killer had resurrected Alicia’s ghost after all these years.
Dutton, Tuesday, January 30, 5:35 a.m.
Mack got back into his van and rolled up to the next house. Old Violet Drummond came tottering out of her house to get her paper as she did every day. The first time she’d done it, he’d nearly freaked, but she hadn’t recognized him. He’d changed in the years since he’d left Dutton, in many ways. Old Violet was not a threat, but a great source of information, which she readily provided. And she was friends with Wanda in the sheriff’s office, so her information was usually pretty good.
He handed her her paper through his window. “Mornin’, Miz Drummond.”
She nodded briskly. “Mornin’, Jack.”
Mack looked over his shoulder at the bungalow. “Got yourself a new neighbor.”
Violet’s old eyes narrowed. “That Tremaine girl is back.”
“I don’t know her,” he lied.
“Girl’s no good. She shows up in town and this starts happenin’ all over again.” Violet thumped the front page on which Jim Woolf had described Janet Bowie’s demise in great detail. “Doesn’t even have the decency to behave properly.”
His brows lifted. “What’s she done?” His surveillance told him that Alex Fallon was single-mindedly determined to find her stepsister, but she’d done nothing improper.
“Kissin’ that Daniel Vartanian. Right on the front porch, for all the world to see!”
“That’s disgraceful.” That’s fascinating. “Some people have no class.”
Violet huffed. “No, they don’t. Well, I won’t keep you, Jack.”
Mack smiled. “Always a pleasure, Miz Drummond. See you tomorrow.”
Atlanta , Tuesday, January 30, 8:00 a.m.
Daniel joined Chase and Ed at the team table, fighting a yawn. “Our ID’s confirmed. Felicity said Janet’s dental records match. It’s amazing how fast things get done for a congressman,” he added dryly. “The dentist met me here with the x-rays at five a.m.”
“Good work,” Chase said. “What about the boyfriend? The jazz singer?”
“Lamar has an alibi, confirmed by ten witnesses and the jazz club’s security tapes.”
“He was performing when Janet was killed?” Ed asked.
“In front of a full house. The boyfriend’s really torn up. He sat and sobbed when I told him she was dead. Said he’d heard about the murder but had no idea it was Janet.”
Ed frowned. “What did he think when she didn’t show up for their weekend date?”
“He got a voicemail from her. He said she told him her father had some state function and he expected her to be there. Call came in Thursday at eight p.m.”
“So she was still alive at eight p.m. and probably dead around midnight,” Chase said. “She spent the day at Fun-N-Sun and left when?”
“I don’t know yet. Lamar said she’d taken a group of kids from Lee Middle School.”
“She was a teacher?” Chase asked.
“No, a volunteer. Seems Janet was ordered to do community service after a little diva-brawl with another cellist in the orchestra last year.”
Chase snorted a surprised laugh. “Cellists brawling? What, did they cross bows?”
Daniel rolled his eyes at the lame joke. “I haven’t had enough sleep for that to be funny. The other cellist accused Janet of damaging her cello so that Janet could get the first chair. The two women had an out-and-out catfight, pulling hair and scratching each other. The other cellist charged Janet with assault and property damage. Apparently they caught Janet on tape messing with the cello, so she pleaded out. Her brother Michael said the volunteer work had made an impact. This group of kids was important to her.”
“They went to an amusement park on a school day?” Ed asked skeptically.
“Lamar said it was her reward to kids with straight As and the principal approved it.”
“It’s a four-hour drive from the amusement park back to Atlanta,” Chase said. “If she called Lamar at eight under duress, her killer had her by then. We need to find out what time she and the kids left the park. We could have a nice, tight window of opportunity.”
“I called the school, but nobody was there yet. I’ll head out there when we’re done.”
“Hopefully you’ll get more than we got at her apartment,” Ed said glumly. “We took prints, checked her voicemail and computer. So far, nothing pops.”
“We’re assuming she called Lamar
under duress,” Chase said. “What if she was two-timing him? What if she was meeting some other guy for the weekend?”
“I’ve got a request for her LUDs,” Daniel said. “I’ll see if she called anyone else. But speaking of LUDs, we got the warrant for Jim Woolf’s. I should have them soon.”
“Woolf was there last night, at the Bowies ’ house,” Ed mused. “How did he know?”
“He said he followed the line of cars up the hill,” Daniel said, and Ed sat up straighter.
“Speaking of cars, Janet Bowie drives a BMW Z-4 and it’s not in the parking garage under her apartment or at the Bowies ’ house in Dutton.”
“She didn’t get those kids down to Fun-N-Sun in a Z,” Chase said. “It’s a two-seater.”
“I’ll ask the principal. Maybe a parent drove. None of the kids would be old enough.”
“Chase?” Leigh opened the door. “You’ve got a call from Sheriff Thomas in Volusia.”
“Tell him I’ll call him back.”
She frowned. “He said it was urgent. Danny, here’s your fax-it’s Woolf’s LUDs.”
Daniel scanned the LUDs as Chase took his phone call. “Jim Woolf got a call at six Sunday morning on his home line.” He flipped pages. “He got a call two minutes earlier from the same number on his office phone. And… he got another call from that same number… Oh, hell.” He looked up with a frown. “This morning at six.”
“Fuck,” Ed muttered.
“Fuck is right,” Chase said, hanging up the phone.
Daniel sighed. “Where?”
“Tylersville. One girl, brown blanket, with a key tied to her toe.”
“You were right, Ed,” Daniel murmured, wondering if this could be Bailey. The possibility of breaking the news to Alex made him sick, but the reality of their situation made him sicker. “Gentlemen, we’ve got ourselves a serial killer.”
Tuesday, January 30, 8:00 a.m.
She heard the scraping again. Bailey blinked, the pain in her head nearly unbearable. He’d been brutal last night when he’d taken her away, but she’d held on. She hadn’t told him anything, but at this point she wasn’t sure it would matter if she did. He was enjoying the torture. He laughed at her pain. He was an animal. A monster.