Dark Pursuit

by Collins, Brandilyn

  Darell shuffled across the hardwood floor of his thirty-foot-long office, repelled by his writing desk and computer. Every day they wooed, then shunned him. At the tall, mullioned window near the far corner he stopped and spread his feet wide. Hunched over, both hands on his cane, he brooded over the green rolling hills of his estate, the untamed and capricious Pacific Ocean in the distance.

  He used to go to the beach to write a couple times a week, tapping his laptop keys as the surf pounded in rhythm to his pulse. Now he never left the house except for doctor’s appointments.

  Darell Brooke had no use for a world that no longer had use for him.

  His mouth puckered with disdain.

  Characters’ faces in shadow, snippets of scenes filtered through his mind. Fredda Lee. Now there was a delectable killer. Or Alfred Stone with his black hair and eyebrows, an intimidating figure much as Darell had appeared in his younger days. Black Tie Affair, that was Alfred’s book.

  No. Not that one.

  Midnight Madness?

  Darell shook his head. He used to know. Before the accident, he remembered every story he’d written, every character.

  “You knocked your skull pretty badly,” the doctor had said as Darell watched the hospital room spiral from his bed. “The dizziness will pass, but you might find it hard to concentrate …”

  Now here Darell stood, a shell of his former self. As the undisputed King of Suspense he’d reveled in playing the part. No longer was there a part to play. His once stern, confident countenance—now blank-faced. His black hair turned an unruly shock of white. The wild gray brows jutting over his deep-set, dark eyes no longer intimidating, merely strawlike. Oh, how he used to love to use those eyebrows! The muscular arms—even into his early seventies—sagging. Straight back now bent.

  “Pshhh.” His lips curled.

  Slowly, with defiance, Darell raised his chin.

  He focused through the glass once more. At least the gnarled trees on his property still looked formidable. And his mansion looked just as severe from afar, with its black shutters and multiple wings and gables. From the outside looking in, people would never guess …

  Darell glared at the phone near his computer. On impulse he clomped over to it and picked up the receiver. His gnarled forefinger hovered over the keys.

  What was the number? The one he’d dialed countless times, year after year.

  He lowered himself to the edge of his chair and flipped through his Rolodex. There.

  Malcolm Featherling, agent to the country’s top writers, answered his private line on the third ring. Clipped tone, terse greeting. Malcolm was always pushed for time.

  “Hello, Malcolm. Just checking in to give you an update.” Darell pushed the old confidence into his voice. After all, his agent worked for him.

  “Well, Darell, nice to hear from you. It has been three days.”

  Darell blinked. He’d called three days ago? Surely it was at least a month. Maybe two.

  He cleared his throat. It sounded phlegmy, like an old man’s. He hated that. “I wrote some today. Almost a page. And another yesterday. You know what they say—write a page a day and you’ve got a novel in a year.”

  He used to write at least two a year. All of them brilliant.

  “That’s good, Darell, good …”

  “Maybe I can get that contract back. Just think, Malcolm, fifteen percent of ten million is a lot of dough. I’ll make you rich. Again.”

  “You do that, man, you do that. Keep up the good work.”

  He could hear the disbelief in Malcolm’s response. The agent was patronizing him. Darell’s publisher had waited eight months after the accident, strung along on the promise that he would be able to write his one hundredth bestseller—the assumed milestone that had landed him on the cover of Time magazine. But a worldwide publishing conglomerate couldn’t wait forever, even for Darell Brooke. Not with half the contract—five million dollars—already paid up front, and doctors advising he may never write again. The deal was canceled. Darell had been forced to give the money back. Malcolm had to cough up his fifteen percent.

  I’ ll show you, Malcolm. Maybe I’ ll even get a new agent.

  “All right. Well, got to get back to my writing. See you, Malcolm.” Darell clicked off the line and stared at the phone in his hand.

  Just three days ago he’d called?

  With a loud sigh he hung up the receiver. He shifted his legs and focused on the half-empty page on his screen. An emptiness he used to love to fill. Now it mocked him. His killer was still on his feet, frozen. The psychiatrist watched from his chair.

  What were they supposed to do next? Where had he been headed with this story?

  What was the story?

  Oh, to regain half the concentration he’d once had. A fourth. A tenth. The thought of s day after day in this mansion-turned-prison, in this office, unproductive and used up, filled him with an emptiness as deep as staring into the face of eternal hell …

  Straightening, Darell dredged up his will.

  He placed his fingers on the keyboard, straining to turn the gears of his mind. One more paragraph, just one. He’d give anything to finish this book. To gain back his reputation, his life. Anything.

  The gears refused to move.

  two

  Pregnant. She was pregnant.

  And her queasy stomach wouldn’t let her forget it.

  Kaitlan Sering stopped her Toyota Corolla at the edge of the driveway she shared with the Jensons and reached out the open window to check her mailbox. The northern California September air was warm, sun heating her skin. She moved like some robot, her mind on her troubles. The infamous stick had turned pink just last night, and she was still trying to wrap her mind around it.

  Would Craig be mad? Disappointed? They’d only been dating three months, but they were the best months of her life.

  Kaitlan sifted through envelopes. Advertisements and bills. Bills she wouldn’t be able to pay if her customers kept canceling their hair appointments at the last minute. Two of them today, right in a row. One of them an expensive cut and highlight. Altogether, she was out almost two hundred dollars.

  And now she needed the money more than ever.

  How was she going to pay for having a baby without health insurance? How was she going to raise a child on her own?

  Maybe Craig would marry her. He’d certainly shown his dedication to family. His father and sister meant the world to him.

  Kaitlan tossed the small stack of mail on her passenger seat. Then—dumb, dumb—checked herself in the rearview mirror. She looked terrible. More like forty than twenty-two. Well, twenty-three next week, but the birthday wasn’t here yet. Her lips, usually curving up, were all drawn down. Dull brown eyes. Lids drooping, forehead wrinkled.

  “Ugh.” She tore her eyes away.

  For one crazy second she wanted to lower her head onto the steering wheel and cry. How long had it been since she’d done that?

  She had no idea how to be a mother. But she wanted the baby more than anything in the world. Unlike her own mother, she would be warm and loving. Never abandon her child. Never.

  Kaitlan took a shaky breath. What an overwhelming day. Sick stomach and now a throbbing head. Fact is, if her clients hadn’t canceled, she’d have been a basket case at those appointments. Three o’clock in the afternoon and all she wanted was some aspirin and a bed.

  Wait, can you take aspirin when you’re pregnant?

  She drove down the long driveway, past the Jensons’ large two-story house and to her renovated garage-turned-apartment at the back of their five-acre lot. The Jensons’ property lay on the outskirts of Gayner in a rural area, the closest neighbor about a half-mile away. Kaitlan loved the quiet, the woods surrounding the place.

  Beat the streets of L.A. any day.

  She parked in the carport and slid out of the Corolla, toting her purse and the mail. Her footsteps dragged across the hard cement toward the door leading into the kitchen.

 
She pulled the key from her purse and slid it into the lock.

  A noise.

  Kaitlan’s head came up, her hands stilling. Ears cocked, she listened. Her gaze roved beyond the carport, over the trees in the back of the lot, the large stump with raised and tangled roots.

  A gray and white cat pranced into sight, proudly carrying a mouse in its jaws.

  Kaitlan let out her breath. Boomer, a neighbor’s pet who wandered far and wide.

  He veered in her direction.

  “No! Go on, shoo!” She stomped her foot, and he ran away.

  “Oh.” Kaitlan pressed a hand to her forehead. That jarring hadn’t helped at all. With a sigh, she opened the door. She stepped inside and set her purse, mail, and keys on the table.

  She looked around the kitchen. Pale yellow appliances. White sink with a chip in the left corner. Brown-flecked Formica countertops. The place wasn’t fancy, but plenty big enough. Its high ceilings added to the feeling of space. Most of all, the apartment was hers.

  Her gaze landed on the floor—and she spotted a blue pen. Frowning, she walked over to pick it up. She turned it over in her fingers and saw the familiar engraving of Craig Barlow along its side. Craig’s expensive pen, a present from his father. He always carried it with him, in uniform or out, using it in spare moments to work on his novel.

  Kaitlan was sure the pen hadn’t been there when she left for work this morning.

  She ran a finger over its slim smoothness. Why had Craig been here today? She’d given him a key, but he never just came over while she was at work.

  Kaitlan checked the wall clock. Three-ten. At six-thirty Craig would be picking her up for his sister’s birthday dinner at Schultz’s restaurant. She should call him now and tell him she’d found his pen.

  Laying it on a counter, Kaitlan first crossed to a cabinet for two aspirin and washed them down with water. Her glass clinked as she set it in the sink.

  Kaitlan carried the pen over to the table and set it down. She reached into a side pocket in her purse for her cell phone.

  A fleck of color in the living room caught her eye.

  She focused through the doorway that led from the kitchen. Just within her line of vision—a bit of red.

  Now what?

  She walked to the threshold. Stopped.

  Her red throw blanket was bunched on the floor. It should have been on the back of the couch. Her wooden coffee table sat at a funny angle. Two of its magazines were knocked off, one lying open. The small lamp on the end table—on its side on the carpet.

  Electricity careened down Kaitlan’s spine. Craig wouldn’t have done this.

  Maybe it was a burglar.

  She gripped the door frame. Glanced left and right. Nothing missing. The TV was there, and her VCR and stereo. The CD tower.

  What had happened?

  Her jewelry—what little she had. The cash in her top drawer. Maybe somebody had come to steal that.

  Kaitlan scurried through the kitchen, driven to see, afraid to know.

  The doorway at the other end of the kitchen led to a short hall. Kaitlan first veered right toward the front door and checked to see if it was locked. It was. She retraced her steps, hurried to the left of the kitchen and toward her bedroom—the biggest room in the apartment, running from front to back.

  She stopped just outside.

  Her bedroom door was angled. Peering straight ahead, Kaitlan could only see the back part of the room. She gazed at the sliding glass door that led onto a small rear patio. Closed, like it should be. Black lever down—the locked position.

  But there, next to it on the light blue carpet—a footprint. Almost parallel to the door. Craig’s, or a burglar’s?

  Kaitlan’s heart tripped into double time. She pressed against the doorframe.

  What was that smell? Something flowery, like perfume. Mixed with … urine?

  The back of her neck tingled.

  Kaitlan’s feet propelled her into the room. Two steps in, she looked to the right.

  On her bed—a woman.

  Breath backed up in Kaitlan’s throat.

  The woman lay on her back, clearly dead, chin jutting into the air and mouth open. Clad in jeans and blue knit top, legs and arms askew. Knotted around her neck—the telltale strip of black fabric with green stripes.

  Kaitlan’s knees turned to water. In the time it took for her to sink to the floor—in those staggering, life-altering seconds—two words screamed in her numbing brain.

  The fabric.

  three

  From the armchair in his south-wing bedroom, Darell glowered out the window, heavy brows hanging into his vision. In the distance, under gloomy skies that matched his mood, spread San Francisco Bay.

  His killer and psychiatrist, still frozen, taunted his thoughts. He’d gotten so angry he turned off the computer and stormed from the office. If you could call his cane shuffle storming.

  Darell’s mouth twisted.

  Down a slope he could see Highway 35 leading to Highway 92. Follow 92 east and you’d end up in the Peninsula flats, teeming with people and cars like flies on a corpse. Take it west, and you’d come to Half Moon Bay, a small coastal town. From his mansion’s perch at the apex of hills between the two vastly different areas, Darell could view all directions. Here in his bedroom he used to enjoy the city lights at night. Now he couldn’t stand the sight of them. They symbolized people, the world in which he once reigned.

  Footsteps on the hardwood floor signaled the approach of his assistant, Margaret Breckenridge. Darell did not turn his head.

  “Hello, D.,” she said with bounce in her voice. Margaret was always cheery.

  He pulled in the corners of his mouth.

  “Time for your afternoon pills.”

  “Oh, joy.”

  She set the small ebony tray on the table next to his chair. He wrinkled his nose.

  Margaret chuckled. “I swear if you acted any different one day when I brought your medication, I’d fall over dead.”

  “What do you want me to do, woman, dance a jig?”

  “Oh, stop.” She patted his shoulder, then plucked three small pills from the tray. His antidepressant, a pain pill, and one for his sluggish brain. “Hold out your hand.”

  He obeyed, swinging his head toward the window. She placed the medicine in his palm.

  “Bombs away.” He threw the pills into his mouth, took a water glass from her efficient fingers, and swallowed.

  Three times they repeated the process. Pills, always pills, day and night. He didn’t even know what he took anymore. Most of them were vitamins and herbs. Did no good at all, except to keep snake oil salesmen in business. As for the inventor of the one that was supposed to make him think more clearly—Darell could imagine a million torturous ways to kill the shyster off in his next book.

  If he ever had a next book.

  Margaret nodded with satisfaction when he swallowed the last batch. She stood back, folding her arms across her ample chest. Darell tilted his head to view her with unspoken challenge. A weak ray of sun filtered through the window, showing up the crow’s feet around her eyes. The woman was looking old.

  She was only sixty-one. Compared to her he looked like death.

  “Have you done your exercises this afternoon?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Her lips pressed. “D., you know you should.”

  He shrugged. “They don’t work anyway.”

  “They might, if you’d do them three times a day like you’re supposed to.”

  “Aaah.” He swatted the air with his hand.

  She exhaled loudly. “What am I going to do with you?”

  Put me out to pasture, like everyone else.

  “Where’s your Thera-Band?”

  The hated thick rubbery band from the therapist. At first he’d worked hard with it, determined to regain all the movement he’d lost. But as time ticked by and progress proved slow, the choking cloud of depression set in.

  “I don’t know. Maybe
in the office.”

  Margaret picked up the glass and tray. “I’ll go get it.”

  Darell focused out the window, waiting until she was almost to the door, far enough away to allow him space.

  “Margaret. Thank you.”

  She turned back. “You’re welcome, D.”