Dark Pursuit

by Brandilyn Collins

  Kaitlan threw another helpless look at Margaret. The woman’s face creased in sadness. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

  Oh. No.

  The horrible truth sank into Kaitlan. Her grandfather was talking nonsense. Forget not being able to write—the King of Suspense was now nothing but a mindless old man.

  Kaitlan’s heart folded up. She couldn’t bear this. She wanted to run out the door and forget she’d ever come.

  “Kaitlan!” He shook his fist at her. “Answer me. How did you know?”

  She licked her lips. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t lie to me!” He reared back, cheeks flaming. “I see what you’re doing. You’re playing with me. You want me put away so you can get my money.” He creaked around toward Margaret. “And you’re in on it. The two of you, planning against me. You told her about the cloth. You both want me to believe I’ve lost my mind.”

  Margaret stuck her palms out. “Now calm down, D. You don’t know what you’re—”

  “I know exactly what I’m saying! Strangled, using black fabric with green stripes—that’s what!” A ragged vein popped out on his neck. “I’m calling my lawyer. I’ll tell him you two are conspiring.” He jabbed his finger from Margaret to Kaitlan. “You won’t get away with it!”

  Kaitlan started to protest, but her mouth snapped closed. A tingle started down in her gut. The cloth. Was there something here for real? Not just the raving of an old man?

  “Wait.” She caught her grandfather’s bony wrist. “What do you know about the fabric? All I know is—this is the third victim in Gayner it’s been used on in the past year.”

  “Third? In a year?” He gaped at her, eyebrows jammed together over his nose.

  “Please. Lives may depend on it. Including mine. What do you know?”

  Her grandfather’s forehead flattened. He pulled back and looked to Margaret. She nodded in encouragement. His eyelids flickered. In that little motion, Kaitlan saw his vulnerability. He wanted to believe them.

  He straightened his shoulders. Lifting his arm from Kaitlan’s grasp with all the dignity he could muster, he raised his chin, surveying her with the haughty expression she knew so well. For a moment he looked like the grandfather she remembered.

  Relief burst in Kaitlan’s chest.

  “The fabric you spoke of. Silk, is it?”

  Her eyes widened. “Yes.”

  He nodded. “Of course. Because it’s straight from the manuscript I’ve been working on for the past year. My antagonist’s MO—the crazed killer who hears the dead knocking. He strangles his victims using a black silk cloth with green stripes.”

  UNTITLED MS.

  nine

  The fabric silks across Hugh’s palms like the soft kiss of a lover.

  Black with green stripes. An alluring sight, fraught with familiarity. He balls the long, enticing strip, raises it to his nostrils. Breathes in deeply. The scent of promise and lust, joy and betrayal, ecstasy and revenge.

  The scent of death.

  His eyes consume her lithe form across the dim and crowded bar. She leans with nonchalance against a railing, wine glass in hand, held up and crooked toward her bare décolletage. So casual, so cool. In a motion of pure fluidity her left fingers ease a strand of blonde hair from her temple. Her glossed red lips are parted, bent in a slight smile of amusement at the story of the hopeful male before her. Her lashes are feathery, thick. When she laughs her head tilts back, exposing the tan suppleness of her throat.

  Hugh’s fingers flex.

  She is a goddess.

  She is a witch.

  No one pays the slightest attention to him, but that’s the story of his life. No matter. He has learned to edit its once stuttered prose. He sits in a corner on a three-legged stool, his face and torso beyond the umbra of light. Pale white rays from an overhead lamp spill across his jeaned legs, puddling on the hardwood floor. His hands, rubbing the black and green vesture of his vengeance, rest against his chest. Hugh arches his shoulder blades against the wall, imagining the mystery his half-illumed body must surely project—should anyone notice.

  No one will.

  They don’t see, though they seek him. They don’t know, though the criminal profilers have psychoanalyzed him to the core.

  The cloth brought him here. To her.

  Whenever he lifts it from his dresser drawer, cradles it in his arms, Hugh feels the power. It electrifies his veins with desire. Always, always it sings him into the night, and he follows, captive to its siren song. Until it leads him to the one who must die.

  Across the bar, for no apparent reason her head turns—and she gazes in Hugh’s direction.

  What thought made her

  He stills.

  Emotion wells within him.

  His hands

  No. Not yet

  He is

  A

  Her

  He

  jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

  ten

  Darell studied his granddaughter’s reaction. She may have fooled him before but not this time. He wasn’t a doddering old man. He still had his wits about him.

  Kaitlan’s cheeks washed white. She stared at him, arms sliding up to cross against her chest. A protective gesture.

  Her grandmother used to do that.

  Darell’s heart cramped.

  Kaitlan had grown to look so much like Gretchen. She was no longer the ragged, hard-faced teenager with movements jerky from crack. Her features had softened, filled out. And she had a new confidence. Those wide-set brown eyes held light in them, even now through her fear. Her shoulder-length hair was lustrous, stylishly cut in layers with bangs. That upturned nose, the oval face—all Gretchen.

  Don’t get sucked in. She still could be a lying little thief.

  Darell’s fingers tightened on his cane. He set his jaw, casting a sideways glance at Margaret. No deceit on that face he knew so well. She looked completely flummoxed. He could practically hear the wheels turning in her head. She held his gaze, obviously trying to read him, trying to figure out if this was one of his “loose goose” moments.

  Stupid woman.

  “Your manuscript?” Kaitlan swallowed. “I don’t … what do you mean?”

  He looked down his nose, surveying his granddaughter under half-hooded eyes.

  No sign of her lying either.

  It hit him then—a punch in the solar plexus. Breath snagged in his throat. Could this be true? A real-life killer, copycatting his newest antagonist?

  The killings—she said they’d started a year ago. Just about the time he began to write.

  But how could anyone get hold of the manuscript?

  If you could even call it that. Scattered, unfinished, frustration-producingscenes was more like it.

  No. A manuscript. The plot will come.

  Sudden weariness blanketed Darell. This was too much; his brain couldn’t hold it all. His shoulders drooped. Quickly then he caught himself and straightened as best he could. Whatever was happening here, he must remain in control.

  “Kaitlan,” he spoke her name harshly, “I will hear you out. But I want to sit down. Follow me into the library.”

  He turned and headed toward the north wing.

  Behind his back he sensed the exchanged questioning looks, the bonding of females in their shared confusion. So be it. He could handle them both.

  His heart fluttered. Who has gotten hold of my manuscript?

  Darell crossed the entryway and headed toward the long hall. He passed the formal living room on his left. Ten feet from the end of the hall he turned left into his stately library.

  He had chosen to meet in this room where he still reigned King. Darell Brooke novels lined the shelves—in over twenty languages and multiple formats. Hardcover, paperback, audio tape, CD, large print. Special editions, book-club issues. Not to mention an entire case of awards he’d won. On other shelves were other authors’ books—classics and contemporary, some cheaply bound
, some in leather. A sea of books, symbolic of the literary world in which the King of Suspense lived and moved and had his being.

  Kaitlan and Margaret trailing, he thumped over to his burgundy leather armchair and lowered himself down. He sat with back straight, palms on top of his cane. So many thoughts in his head. There had to be an explanation for this.

  Maybe these women were lying.

  Was his online data storage not secure? The company declared it was. The system automatically backed up any changed files in his computer. He’d used it since before the accident with never a problem.

  Heat flamed his nerves. If someone was reading his manuscript, they’d know he couldn’t write.

  Was it his agent? His publisher?

  But what would they have to do with a killer?

  Darell’s throat ran dry. “Margaret, get me a glass of water.”

  She scurried off, her footsteps pattering against the floor like a nervous child’s.

  Kaitlan stood before him, empty handed and trembling. She’d left her purse in the hallway.

  “Sit.” He waved the back of his hand at her.

  She sidled over to the matching couch and perched on its edge.

  Margaret returned with the water, placing it on a coaster on the table beside Darell. She faded back and sat on the opposite end of the couch from Kaitlan.

  “Now.” Darell gave his granddaughter a stern look. “Tell me your story, and I’ll decide whether or not to believe it.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. “It started this afternoon when I came home early from work …”

  Time stalled for Darell as she rattled out her tale. A crazy, heart-stopping scenario that sounded as if it had been pulled from one of his novels. The young, unsuspecting woman returning to her out-of-the-way apartment. The noise outside. Was it the cat? Signs of an obvious intruder. A body. Victim’s identity unknown. The boyfriend with a key to her place. Who knew too much. His pen on the floor.

  Somewhere along the way Darell’s disbelief faded. Kaitlan, with her wildly gesturing hands, the round eyes and uneven voice, was not spinning a lie. She was reliving.

  Panic trailed down his spine. Kaitlan was indeed in terrible trouble. What if he couldn’t help her? What if puzzling through the mystery lay beyond him? Wait, slow down! he wanted to cry as she hurried on. So many details for his mushy mind to remember.

  Even so, excitement began to sing in his veins.

  He gripped the arms of his chair, torso bent forward, listening for all he was worth.

  “… then I looked away from the footprint toward—”

  “Stop.” Darell lifted his hand. “Explain the print.”

  “Um.” Kaitlan blinked. “It was just inside the sliding door that leads to the little patio off my bedroom, like I said.”

  “Pointed what direction?”

  “Oh. Sort of like parallel to the doorway, but not quite.”

  “Explain ‘not quite.’ ”

  “It was like the heel was closer to the threshold than the toes. So maybe at a … forty-degree angle to it?” She scrunched her face. “Does that make sense?”

  “How big was it?”

  “Bigger than mine. I think it was Craig’s.”

  “Left foot or right?”

  She thought a minute. “Left.”

  Darell closed his eyes, picturing. Forty-degree angle. As if someone had hurried outside, then stepped his left foot back in, not intending to enter but merely leaning in to listen …

  For what?

  The sound of a key in the lock?

  “Grandfather?”

  He grunted impatiently. “Yes, yes. Did you see an unknown car in the area?”

  “No.”

  “And this area is pretty rural, you say.”

  “Well, on the edge of town. Neighbors are kind of scattered. We’re backed up to woods.”

  Woods. Nice place to hide things. Maybe the victim’s car?

  “Describe the body.”

  Kaitlan did. Darell pulled from her every nuance. Position of the victim’s arms and legs. Marks on her skin. Was she warm or cold to the touch? He shivered to hear she’d been still warm. The woman hadn’t been dead long. Kaitlan might have been able to establish an alibi for time of death had the woman died much earlier. But if it was soon before she came in the door …

  “How wide are they?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “The stripes on the cloth. Tiny? Medium? Large?”

  “I don’t know. Medium, I guess.”

  “And green.”

  “Yes.”

  “Grass green?”

  Kaitlan stilled. “Yes.” Her eyes swept over Margaret’s face, then pulled back to Darell’s. “Is all of this … ? I mean, is it really from your manuscript? The body and everything?”

  “Not the body. Nothing about the scene. Just the cloth. But it’s a perfect match. Perfect.”

  Kaitlan’s gaze roamed the library, as if searching for an answer to this madness. “Craig talks about you a lot.” She looked to Darell. “You’re his favorite author. He dreams of meeting you—having you look at the manuscript he’s writing.”

  Darell tilted his head—of course. “Does he know you’re my granddaughter?”

  A pause. “No.”

  “No?”

  She licked her lips. “I … no one knows. You and I weren’t talking. I moved to this area, hoping some day … But I was afraid to come see you. I knew you’d throw me out. If I told my friends who I was, they’d ask questions.” Kaitlan’s voice lowered and she hugged herself. “Questions that would have been too painful to answer.”

  Margaret caught Darell’s eye as if to say, see what your stubbornness has done?

  Darell grimaced at Kaitlan. “How long have you lived here?”

  She swallowed. “Four months.”

  “Four months. And you’re only now coming to see me.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have—”

  “Only because you need something.”

  She shook her head hard. “Not ‘only.’ I missed you. I want my family. Please believe that.”

  Darell sniffed.

  Silence rang in the room.

  Kaitlan lifted her hand in a helpless gesture. “Craig’s writing a suspense novel. He won’t let anyone read it, but I know he scribbles on it whenever he gets the chance. He told me the scenes in the killer’s point of view come easily. Now I think about that and just …” She shuddered.

  How very interesting.

  Darell ran his tongue behind his teeth. “When did he start writing?”

  “I think about a year ago.”

  A year. When the first murder occurred. And when Darell started his own manuscript. As soon as Kaitlan spoke the words, he saw the revelation on her face.

  Is that boy stealing my work? If Craig thought he would never recover from his injuries … Easy thing to believe, after all the salacious news articles to that effect.

  But Craig had used the fabric to kill for real.

  Was he using it in his book as well?

  Which came first, fiction or reality?

  Darell struggled to unwind the vicious circle and found only confusion. The gears in his head gummed up as if an unseen hand squeezed glue into the cogs. His thoughts creaked and groaned.

  Margaret’s hand lay against her cheek. “I’ve heard about the murders from local news. They must have mentioned the cloth.”

  Kaitlan shook her head. “No. Craig said only a few people working the case know.”

  “The police would withhold the information in case they ever got a confession,” Darell said distractedly. He still struggled with the conundrum of Craig Barlow. “Too many crazies confess to crimes they didn’t commit. This way only the real killer could describe the full MO.”

  “Oh.” Margaret frowned. “But I …”

  The puzzlement in her voice caught Darell’s attention. He pierced her with a look.

  Understanding poured like ice water over his head. She�
��d heard of the fabric. And there was only one place that could have come from.

  Indignation rolled up his back. His face went hot. “You’ve been reading my manuscript, haven’t you.”

  “Well, I—”

  “How dare you!” She may as well have laid his soul bare. Checking on his damaged brain, was that it? Critiquing his ability to write. “You stay away from my computer.”

  Margaret spread her hands. “D.—”

  “Do you see what you’ve done?”

  Her eyes darted from him to Kaitlan. She shook her head.

  “You told somebody about my story.” Darell’s voice rose. “Who was it? A friend? Some big mouth at that church you attend? What if that person told another and another—until it got to Craig Barlow? And now, thanks to your big mouth, he’s imitating Leland Hugh. And three women are dead.”

  Margaret’s face blanched white.

  OBSESSION

  eleven

  Yesterday I talked to a mother of two young kids. She’s on drugs. Meth. Pure vileness. “Hey,” I told her, “why give the dealers your money? You want to ingest poison, just mix up some bleach, ammonia, and gasoline. About as good for your system.”

  Her kids were put in foster care. They screamed when they were taken from their mother. I wanted to hit something.

  The woman’s pretty in a hardened way. She was probably once beautiful. Three months from now, if she keeps doing the methamphetamine, she’ll look like death walking.

  “Why?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know.” And she started to cry.

  Her words haunted me.

  That night I watched local TV news, hoping to see something about the second murder. Nothing. As if it carried no importance at all. One life gone five days ago. The world turns on.

  I paced around, ill at ease, restless.

  In time I picked up a magazine. Read an article about a football player who’d made it to the top of his game. He couldn’t stop gambling. Ended up losing his house, his wife. All that money he made—all that money. And it wasn’t enough.

  “Why?” the interviewer pressed him.

  “I don’t know.”

  Disgusted, I threw the magazine in the trash.

  What is wrong with these people?