The glow brightened and gelled into headlights. A car rounded the bend.
Kaitlan jumped into open grass and ran.
thirty-eight
Darell prowled the house, limbs quivering. He shuffled in and out of the office, his bedroom, then back up the long south hall to the kitchen. Down the north wing into the library. There he found himself staring at the couch where Kaitlan had sat. A pillow in the corner lay tilted, compressed by the weight of her back. He could almost feel her presence, as if her desperate spirit lingered, begging for help.
He shifted his feet, unnerved. If anything happened to Kaitlan, he would never forgive himself.
A plan to catch Craig. He had to come up with something tonight. Time had run out.
What a misstep to assume the body would be discovered quickly. He should have known that Craig would leave no evidence for Kaitlan to use against him.
But what to do without it?
The crush of the sofa pillow pulled at Darell. He stared at it.
Memories of Kaitlan’s childhood wafted into his head. Small and unsteady on her toddler feet, tugging at his pant leg. Older and asking if he’d play with her. What was that silly game? Something about climbing ladders. It had been her favorite. Darell had seen her playing it by herself, manning her own pawn and that of an imaginary opponent. Her mother, Sarah, never had time for such nonsense. Neither had Darell.
Sorrow hit him in the chest. Why had he been so busy? Would one game have hurt?
Kaitlan, a preteen, coming to visit, portable CD-player headphones plugging her ears. By then she had drawn away from him, from her mother, pretending to no longer care. The scene fuzzed in his mind. Darell vaguely remembered fighting with Sarah. A screaming match over … something. That was the last time he’d seen his daughter. Three years later she’d taken off for England, leaving fourteen-year-old Kaitlan with him to raise.
Regret graveled in Darell’s throat. If only he’d done it better.
He turned away from the sight of the pillow.
A plan. The tolling bell rang in his head. He needed a plan.
His gaze fell on his old hardback novel, lying on the desk by the phone. He frowned. Why would Margaret be reading that at a time like this?
He thumped over to the desk and picked up the book. The Neighbor. His lips bent downward. The Neighbor. He wrote that? Couldn’t remember it at all. He glanced at the shelves of his first editions and spotted an empty space about nine novels over from the top left. This was his tenth book?
Darell turned it over and read the back-cover copy. Still no memory.
He cursed and slapped the book down on the desk. Turning away, he stomped to his leather armchair. So what? He didn’t need long-term memory right now. Just a clear head. And he had that. Just before Margaret left, hadn’t his brain been working?
Besides, he had remembered those scenes of Kaitlan.
Darell stacked both palms on his cane, focusing on the rich wooden floor. Think, now. Think.
Nothing came.
His thoughts shifted, meandering out the window into the foggy night. There they thickened, soaking in moisture. Clouding covered his brain …
Sometime later his muscles startled. He looked around. What had he been thinking?
Where was Kaitlan? What time was it?
Darell blinked at the clock, trying to determine when she and Margaret would return. But he couldn’t remember when Margaret had left.
Panic bubbled in him.
He gripped the armchair, lips mushing in and out—the mouth of an old man. How he hated himself. Weak and mindless.
Just ten minutes of clear concentration. For that right now he’d give all the years of his fame and fortune.
Darell turned accusing eyes toward the heavens. “Can’t you help me for once?”
His fingers slipped off his cane. It fell to the floor with a loud crack. Darell jumped.
Leaning over, he picked it up. He thumped the rubber end against the hardwood floor as if hammering concentration into his head.
Leland Hugh.
Low current shimmied in Darell’s mind.
The scene he’d been working on that morning unfolded before him. Hugh, awaiting trial in jail, during a heated session with the defense psychiatrist. Riddled with guilt, yet denying it.
Craig clearly identified with Leland Hugh, down to using the same black and green fabric to strangle his victims.
Darell rubbed the hook of his cane. Why was Craig pulled toward Hugh? What similarity did he see, given that Darell had barely formed his own character? He hadn’t even been able to complete an entire scene.
With no evidence to prove a crime, apprehending Craig could not be a chess match of forensics. This would come down to a psychological game.
Leland Hugh.
Darell took a deep breath. What might the man’s weakness be? Other than killing, of course. In the core of his being, how did he see himself? What did he want?
What did Craig Barlow want?
The answer hissed up in Darell’s brain like a bowling ball spat from its machine. All along it had been coming, he realized, sucked slowly through the invisible tube of his subconscious.
He stilled, a current of thought humming. Ideas began to form.
Yes. This was the right direction. This was good.
Darell stared at his feet, thinking.
Pete Lynch would help. The savvy private investigator had been research consultant on quite a few of Darell’s books. Darell hadn’t seen him since he’d visited at the hospital after the accident, although Pete had called more than once in the past two years to check on him.
At least he couldn’t remember seeing Pete since then.
Darell rubbed his lips. Pete would have the equipment they’d need.
Thoughts flitted in and out of Darell’s head, like elusive butterflies. He chased after them … lost himself.
Sometime later he turned toward the clock.
Pete.
It was late for making calls, but no matter. What was time in an emergency?
With renewed vigor he pushed to his feet. In minutes he was back in the south wing, crossing the office toward his Rolodex and phone.
thirty-nine
Kaitlan’s legs scissored through the grass, both arms above her head, frantically waving. Gasps spilled from her mouth, stabs of pain in her chest. So short a distance, but the car was coming fast. She didn’t dare shout. If Margaret didn’t see her in the darkness and passed her by …
The terrible thought fueled her body.
Kaitlan hurtled across the last five feet like she’d been shot from a cannon. The hard slap of her feet against sidewalk sent shock waves up her spine. Her head swung toward the car. It was a mere twenty feet up the road.
Too close. She couldn’t stop in time.
The moment spun out. Kaitlan’s muscles squeezed, everything within her straining to slow her pounding legs. Her limbs shuddered like machine gears at the throw of brakes. Both hands flung up, pushing against air. A horrified cry grated up her throat.
She sprang across the sidewalk to curb. Margaret wasn’t slowing.
I’m dead.
Kaitlan’s foot sailed out over the road.
Tires screeched. The car swerved. Not enough.
Her body slammed into the rear door at an angle and bounced off.
Kaitlan collapsed in a heap.
She lay on the road, stunned and groaning. Vaguely she registered the car grinding to a stop. Red hazard lights flashed. A door opened. Running footsteps.
“Oh, oh my—” A woman’s voice, not Margaret’s. A sob. “I didn’t see you—what were you—you came so fast—are you all right?”
Kaitlan raised bleary eyes to the dim form of a stranger, bent over her with hands flailing. Short brown hair. Her cheeks and gaping mouth strobed red to black, red to black.
“I … yeah.” Kaitlan’s words croaked. “Just … help me up.”
“Oh. I can’t believe …” The woman thrus
t both hands underneath Kaitlan and pushed her to sit up. “Are you dizzy? Is anything broken?” Her voice shook. “Can you stand?”
Margaret. Craig. “I have to get up. Help me.”
“Okay, okay.” The woman put her arm underneath Kaitlan’s shoulder. “Up you go.”
Kaitlan wobbled to her feet, the woman clinging tightly. Kaitlan’s mushy brain calculated bodily injuries. Nothing hurt too badly—yet. Shock? Or was she really okay?
“What were you doing out here?” Relief and fear pushed accusation into the woman’s tone. “You ran right at me!”
“I’m sorry.”
The woman blew out air. “Can I take you somewhere? Home?” Sweat on her forehead gleamed in the flashing red. “It’s not safe for you to be out here alone at night.”
A high-pitched chuckle popped from Kaitlan. “Tell me about it.”
The woman peered at her as if wondering at her sanity.
Headlights washed across the curve up the road. Kaitlan fingers sank into the woman’s arm.
“What—?”
“Shhh!” Kaitlan held her breath and listened. The car came around the bend. The engine wasn’t —
“Out of the street or it’ll hit us both!” The woman tugged at her.
Headlights lit them up as Kaitlan let herself be pulled to the sidewalk. She hung on to the woman, breathing hard, nowhere else to go. Panic and hope sparred in her veins. Too late, too late if her ears betrayed her, if this was Craig.
The car skidded to a stop. The driver’s door flung open. “Kaitlan!”
Hot relief flooded her. Both knees caved. “Margaret.”
The woman held her up. Kaitlan disentangled herself in a half daze, blathering her thanks and sorrys, but her ride was here now and she was fine, just fine. Her unsteady legs moved beneath her, scuffling toward Margaret’s car, to safety. Margaret was getting out, hands slapped to her cheeks, her mouth a round O.
“Get out of here fast!” Kaitlan threw back over her shoulder at the woman. “It’s not safe.”
Uncertainty stalled the woman on the sidewalk. She stared, eyes wide.
“Go!”
The woman’s hands flew up and she shook out of her mindlessness, a sudden blur of motion. Jumping into the street, she hustled toward her flashing car to escape the crazed scene.
Kaitlan yanked Margaret’s passenger door open and fell inside. She slammed the door shut.
“What hap—?”
“Go, just go!” She scrunched down in her seat, peering over the dashboard. Some thirty feet away the woman had reached the back bumper of her car. “Go around her, don’t wait!”
Margaret hit the gas pedal and carved deeply into the other lane. They passed the woman as she slid behind her wheel, the car’s overhead light spilling upon her head. For a long second Kaitlan’s eyes met hers, the woman’s glazed with fear as if recognizing she’d barely escaped some monstrous nightmare.
Kaitlan fell back against her seat. She wiped her forehead. “Where have you been?”
“I got lost.”
“Heck of a time to get lost.”
“I know!” Air shuddered down Margaret’s throat. “I was just beside myself. I couldn’t …” Her head shook in tiny trembles.
The Jensons’ house glimmered into view on Kaitlan’s right. A sudden, wild knowledge blared in her head. She couldn’t go home again anytime soon. And she had nothing with her, not even her purse. Shouldn’t she go to work tomorrow and pretend to the outside world that everything was okay? Craig couldn’t hurt her at work.
“Turn into that driveway.” She pointed. “I’ve got to get something in my apartment.”
“No! We’ve to get away—”
“Just do it, Margaret!”
“What about Craig? What if he comes back and finds us there?”
If she only knew how close he was. “I won’t be long. But I don’t dare go back there tomorrow morning, and my shears are in my car. I can’t work without my shears.”
“I don’t—”
“Turn!”
Margaret swerved.
They tore down the long driveway, every tree alive and closing in on them as if angered at the spray of headlights.
To think she’d walked this alone, in the dark.
“Keep going to the end.”
Margaret took the curve fast and soon jerked to a hard stop in front of the carport. Kaitlan jumped out. “Turn off your lights and lock your doors. I’m going inside.”
“But you said—”
The door to her kitchen stood ajar. Kaitlan ran inside, mind crackling like wildfire. This was insanity, but she was so close. Better risk it now than in the morning, when Craig would lie in wait for her.
From below the kitchen sink she snatched two plastic grocery bags and sprinted to her bedroom. She threw open her closet door and yanked out three shirts and a pair of jeans. In the bathroom she grabbed handfuls of makeup items and shoved them into a bag. Her brushes, blow dryer. Face cream, shampoo and conditioner.
She hurled back into the kitchen, aiming for the door. At the table she skimmed up her purse, barely slowing. Banging her apartment door shut, she jumped into the passenger side of her Corolla and dug into the glove box for her shears in their case.
By the time she reached Margaret’s car it was turned around, ready to flee.
Panting, Kaitlan fell into the back seat. “Let’s go!” She dropped the plastic bags onto the floor.
Margaret took off.
Kaitlan thrust herself down in the cloth seat, gripping the edge. They were nearly home free. If they could just get to the end of the driveway …
She twisted her neck up toward Margaret. The woman’s back was ramrod straight, not touching the seat. Her hands clawed the steering wheel like talons.
Kaitlan’s body listed as the car swung around the driveway’s curve. She held on tighter. “Turn right onto the street. It’s longer to the freeway, but Craig could be circling back.”
“Circling back?”
“He was here. About two minutes before you came. I hid in the woods. He drove right by me with a spotlight.”
“Are you kidding? And you had me bring you back here?”
Kaitlan felt the car turn onto the road. “See any other headlights?”
“No.”
Cautiously she raised her head. “Go left at the next road, then the second left after that. After about a mile you’ll see a sign to the freeway.”
Kaitlan whipped around toward the rear window. Only blackness.
Come on, come on.
She collapsed against the seat, utterly spent.
The car turned … turned again.
Kaitlan lifted her chin. “See the freeway sign?
Margaret hesitated. “There it is.”
In another minute they hit 280. They’d done it.
Kaitlan sank her cheek against the seat and closed her eyes. For the first time since barreling into that woman’s car she realized how much her body hurt.
forty
Nothing but panic and fury were left in Craig’s veins. They ate at him like acid, bubbling and gurgling all reason away.
If he’d just done what was needed. If he hadn’t been so stupid.
But no, this was not his fault. She hadn’t listened.
Craig cruised the dark rural streets, recklessly panning the woods with his spotlight. He didn’t even care who saw, who might ask questions. He just needed Kaitlan silenced.
Long, long, he looked. Way past when he knew it was hopeless. Where had she gone?
Defeat hurled fire in his belly.
Fingers curled into the steering wheel, lungs like stone, he smacked off the searchlight and threw it on the passenger seat. He screeched around in the middle of the road and aimed toward Kaitlan’s apartment for one more search—even though he knew she wasn’t there.
On the way he gulped oxygen, forcing his head to clear.
Minutes later he swerved into Kaitlan’s driveway.
All right. Okay
. All wasn’t lost yet.
Craig Barlow was a policeman. He could contain this. He would contain it. He just had to think what to do. Reason through things.
He pulled up behind Kaitlan’s car.
Tomorrow was another day. For now he’d scared her sufficiently. Just because she’d fled didn’t mean she’d told someone. What was there to tell? There was no evidence of a murder. None. That woman would be reported missing. But without a body …
And nearly twenty people had seen him and Kaitlan at a party tonight, acting just fine.
Slowly he tapped the steering wheel.
He could only hope she’d be scared enough to show up at work tomorrow, like he’d warned her to do. The longer she acted like nothing was wrong, the harder time she’d have trying to prove anything had happened.
Besides, if she tried that, his irate father would shut her down in a hurry.
If she’d already told someone, and that person believed her … Craig closed his eyes. He had to keep his father out of this.
Containment. At any cost.
Jaw set with determination, Craig got out of the car to search Kaitlan’s apartment one more time.
forty-one
“Where’s Kaitlan, what took you so long?” Darell pounded his cane against the kitchen floor, his cheeks heating with anger born of relief.
“She’s right behind me, just getting her things.” Margaret looked flustered and shaky. She dropped her purse on the counter, hands fluttering about. “I got lost. Couldn’t see the street signs in the dark—the lamp posts are so far apart out there. I thought I’d have a heart attack. And then—there she was. On the street.”
“On the—”
“Grandfather!” Kaitlan drew out the greeting, as if she’d thought never to see him again. She dragged in from the hallway, threw some plastic bags and a purse beside Margaret’s, and came at him, arms out. Before he could say a word, she wrapped him in a hug.
Kaitlan hung on. He could feel the shiver of her body. Or maybe it was his own. How many years had it been since a family member had hugged him like that?
Darell’s left hand lifted and found its way around her back. He patted her gently.
She drew away, hands sliding to his shoulders. Her eyes glistened.
Dark Pursuit Page 14