WHERE TIGERS PROWL

by Karin Story

  "You may not. Just try to act normal."

  She gazed quickly over her shoulder at him where he lay on his side with his legs curled up on top of the duffel bag on the floor. "Aren't you in agony? I hate seeing you back there."

  "I'll live. Don't look back here. Keep your eyes on the road."

  She frowned at his curt reply. Try to offer the guy a little sympathy and all he could do was growl at her.

  Six hours later, she was sure Tom was sorely regretting his decision to let her drive him. The only road out to Abbott Point had still been covered with water, although road crews were busy working on it. So, they'd gone four-wheeling through the woods on a barely-there dirt road that had pot holes and wash-outs the size of the Grand Canyon. He'd never said a word as the Jeep jounced and bounced and swerved. But every time she'd dared a glance back at him, he glared at her with those fierce tiger eyes that looked like they could chew her up and spit her back out again.

  She'd decided ignoring him was the only safe thing to do. So she slid a tape of Bon Jovi into the stereo and tried to forget that el tigre from hell was in her backseat. She'd been jamming down the back roads, listening to Bon Jovi crooning It's My Life when she heard a low growl and a string of muttered swear words about "goddamned rock music," followed by a grumbled comment about how no one appreciated George Straight anymore.

  She twisted her head around and stared at him. "Oh, jeez, you're a cowboy?"

  An icy stare had been her response.

  They'd run into road closure after road closure, and it had taken forever to get to Bridgeport, where they'd boarded the ferry to Long Island. The man at the dock said the ferry had just reopened a half-hour earlier. It was nearly deserted, no doubt due to the fact that the water in the Sound was still choppy and swollen from the storm. It was one of those miserable cold, wet, windy days that wasn't fit for man or beast. Tom sported a decidedly gray, pukey look on his face throughout the trip and spent the entire time crushed into the backseat with his eyes closed.

  Now, winding through the suburban streets of Warstanton Beach, Maris's shoulders were tight. She sensed a matching thrum of tension coming from behind her.

  "Drop me off several blocks away. I'll walk the rest."

  She turned onto a tree-lined residential street and was pleased to see an apartment building just up the block. The parking lot was mildly full and she figured it would be good cover if anyone looked for her Jeep. She pulled into a space as far off the street as she could get, and parked between an old, black Chevy conversion van and a sporty, new Dodge Viper.

  It had started to drizzle again, and she let the windshield wipers take one more swipe across the glass before she shut off the engine.

  They sat in silence for several seconds, then she heard him sit up with a barely muffled groan. She winced, and in spite of being peeved at his attitude during the drive, another wave of sympathy washed through her. He had to be totally miserable, and when he peeled himself out of the Jeep, he was going to be a seriously hurting unit.

  "All right, this is it. Once I'm out, you go back home and pretend you never met me."

  His words caused a knot the size of the Rock of Gibraltar to fill her throat. She turned to look at him. "I'm not going back home like some good little girl who's not old enough to be out after dark."

  His clean-shaven jaw clenched tightly, and his lips compressed into a firm, no-nonsense line. "This isn't about you being a good girl. This is about the fact that I may be wanted for murder. And that it's highly likely someone out there, aside from the cops, is looking for me right now—the same someone or someones who did this." He held his splinted hand up in the air for emphasis. "I will not allow you to get dragged into this any further. You're a nice woman, and probably have a real nice, respectable life. So what you need to do is go back to living it and forget I exist."

  A nice respectable life? A surge of anger swept through her.

  Yeah, a nice sterile little life, where she was expected to get a degree so she could have important little letters attached to the end of her name, and travel in the most respected intellectual circles. Where she could live in the family ancestral home, preserving the heritage for generations of uptight, solid, children and grandchildren to come. Where she could make up for all the failings of her talented but wayward mother who had dared to fall in love with a good-natured, gallivanting archaeologist, and leave her nice little life behind so she could pursue true happiness.

  "No one does my thinking for me anymore," she said, keeping her voice even. "And no matter how he-mannish you believe you are, you're not recovered from what happened to you. You're doing a damn good job of faking it, but you can spare me the act. Whether you like it or not, you need my help."

  His chest rose and fell, and she knew he was trying to control his anger. Another sign to her that he wasn't some kind of murdering criminal. He had too much control over himself. Too much compassion, given the way he was always wanting to protect her.

  But what he said when he spoke surprised her. His eyes were hard as granite, his voice low. "Who are you? What do you want with me?"

  "What's that supposed to mean? I already told you who I was."

  "Then what do you want with me?" he repeated, his eyes not giving her any quarter.

  But for the life of her, she couldn't come up with an answer to that second question. What did she want with him? Did she want to use him as a free ride out of her nice little life? And if so, was she any better than Eric—a user, an opportunist? Was Tom just a thrill to conquer after her grandmother-imposed exile for three years?

  She studied his serious-faced countenance, trying to find an answer. The dark circles under his eyes stood out prominently, and a wave of guilt hit her unexpectedly. She didn't want to be a user. Not with him. Not with anyone.

  Finally, he let out a long, tired sigh. "Go home, Maris."

  She looked up into his golden-brown eyes, so deep and haunted, and her chest tightened to the point where she couldn't breathe.

  "I can't."

  "Why?"

  "Because I don't know where home is anymore."

  She dragged her day pack off the passenger seat, shoved open the door, bowed her head against the cold, October drizzle, and started up the road toward the morgue.

  * * *

  The low-slung, dark sports car, flecked with mud from the detour around the washed-out road, cruised by the old colonial house on Abbott Point Friday afternoon. Black clouds scudded overhead and drizzle fell silently on the macadam.

  The car continued down the street a discreet distance before it made a U-turn back. It stopped on the side of the road, inconspicuously parked near a beach outlet.

  A small red glow lit up the interior of the car for a brief moment, illuminating the face of the man behind the wheel.

  It had been so simple, he thought. His boy hadn't put up much of a game and he was mildly disappointed. He would have expected better from his protégé.

  An emergency 911 call made on a dark, stormy night, by a woman alone on an isolated point. All too easy to trace.

  He smiled.

  The police report claimed his boy had run off while the woman placed the call. A pity. But his boy could be quite charming, and he'd bet his finest bottle of cognac that the dear woman knew more than the police thought she did.

  He picked up a newspaper from the passenger seat and chuckled as he reread the beginning of the article. Maris Rhodes, the daughter of eminent archaeologist and Yale alumnus, Geoffrey Rhodes

  Maris Rhodes.

  Ah yes. So simple.

  He pushed open the car door and lifted his tall, graceful body out of the seat. With a quick flick of the wrist, he sent his cigarette butt skittering across the road, where it lay, still glowing. The car door shut with a sigh.

  Some time later, he returned. With a muttered curse, he slipped back into the sports car. The engine gunned and rather than cruise away as slowly as it had driven up, the car sped off with a squeal of rubber on w
et asphalt.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  Tom gritted his teeth, pulled up the hood on the borrowed all-weather mountaineering jacket he was wearing, and forged after Maris's swiftly retreating figure. Her jacket was a red blob in the quickly closing evening darkness. His leg ached already, and he knew they were a good eight or ten blocks from the brick building that housed the morgue. They'd driven by it before they parked.

  Maris's empty expression when she got out of the car haunted him. She'd been so feisty during the time he'd spent in her company, and seeing her looking like she'd just lost her last friend in the world had ripped at his insides. He'd enjoyed baiting her this morning and watching her react. But something had definitely hit a nerve with her this time, and damned if he knew what it was. He groaned as he recognized the sick feeling in his stomach as guilt.

  "Wait up," he called after her. As soon as she'd gotten out of the Jeep and slammed the door, he'd resigned himself to the idea that she was going with him. One thing he'd discovered about her in a very short time: when she made up her mind about something, it took an atom bomb to deter her from it.

  Maris stopped walking, but didn't turn back to look at him. Just stood still until he came alongside her, then started walking again.

  When they got within sight of the building, they stopped next to a Dumpster at the end of the parking lot.

  "It looks closed," she said softly. "There aren't many cars here." She glanced at her watch and he saw over her shoulder that it was a little after 5:00 P.M.

  Just then a plus-size older woman came out the front door and popped up a hot pink umbrella. Her clear plastic raincoat slapped against her calves from the wind, and she juggled her bulging black purse and a tote bag up onto her shoulder.

  They watched her sway and weave her way out to a white Toyota Camry, one of only two cars in the parking lot. When she'd driven away, Tom started toward the building.

  "How're we going to get in? Don't you think they're going to notice if we just waltz in the front door?" Maris said.

  "The front door may be locked at this hour anyway."

  "Then how?"

  He eyed the several-storied red brick building. There were no windows on the ground floor except one on either side of the main door. And there was no obvious way to get up to the higher level windows. He led her around to the back of the building, trying to stay as unobtrusive as possible by keeping close to the shrubbery and the brown vines that clung to the brick. On the back side of the building, they came to a large metal garage door at a loading dock. A metal emergency exit door loomed next to it, but there was no knob on the outside. However, farther along, about center of the building, he saw the "in" he'd been hoping for—another metal door, but this one propped open with a trash can.

  "Bingo," he said under his breath.

  They slipped in the door and found themselves standing in a dimly lit, white-tiled hallway.

  A clatter of metal caused him to grab Maris's hand and yank her into an alcove. They stood silently, listening. He could hear her breath coming out in quiet measured hisses, as if she were concentrating on keeping it even.

  "Janitors," she whispered after several seconds.

  Yeah, that's what it sounded like to him, too. A low-pitched mumble of words, an occasional clank of metal that could easily be a bucket being picked up and moved on a tile floor. Someone whistling an off-key version of California Girls. Probably the same idiots who'd propped the door open and created a security risk.

  "So where's the morgue?" Maris whispered.

  "Ever seen a horror movie?"

  She gazed up at him with probing green eyes and he couldn't help but smile.

  "In the movies the morgue's always in the basement. So I'd say, let's find a way downstairs."

  She ducked her head, but he was pretty sure he heard a soft laugh. "Okay, He-man, lead on."

  The stairwell leading down was just a few yards up the hall. There was only one problem. It was a card access entry security door.

  "Damn." Maybe they could search the offices up here and see if anyone had conveniently left their access card lying around.

  Yeah right.

  Maris dragged him into another doorway alcove, and pain shot up his leg. He glared at her.

  His gall rose even higher when she said in a no-nonsense whisper, "Wait here." She stepped back out into the hallway.

  "What are you—?"

  She put a finger against her lips and shot him a "shut up" stare. Then she pulled her jacket hood over her head, dug around in her pocket, and came up with a ballpoint pen.

  What in the name of hell was she doing? He reached out to pull her back and get her out of sight, but before he could close a hand around her arm, she tossed the pen she was holding. It clanked against the door where the voices were coming from.

  Son of a bitch!

  He held his breath when the door opened and a head of very straight black hair appeared. It belonged to a young Asian man in dark blue pants and shirt, obviously a janitor, as they'd suspected.

  Maris whisked down the hall toward the man. Shit! She was going to get them both picked up by the cops after all. Fury built in his blood.

  Then she did the unthinkable. She plowed right into the guy.

  The janitor let out a vocal grunt and a string of broken swear words. "What you doing, you crazy lady?"

  They were a tangle of arms and legs.

  "Oh, I'm so sorry," Tom heard her say. "I'm new, I work upstairs, and I forgot my house key in the office. I just came back to get it." She extricated herself from the janitor, ducked her head and moved toward the front door. "I'm sorry!" she called again over her shoulder.

  She sashayed out the front door of the building like she owned the place.

  The janitor rubbed his elbow and his jaw where she'd run into him, and stared after her as if he'd just been blindsided by a whirlwind. Then he laughed and disappeared back into the room from where he'd come, whistling the Beach Boys again.

  Tom stood in the alcove and banged the back of his head against the cinderblock wall. How had he let her talk him into bringing her with him? She was damn well going to screw any chance he might have of getting information.

  "You're going to make your headache worse if you keep doing that."

  He jerked his head around. There she stood, not even breathing hard, with that little smirky smile on her face.

  "How'd you get back in here?"

  "I ran around the building and came in the back door again."

  "What in the name of hell did you think you were doing?" he hissed as he pulled her back into the alcove.

  "I was getting us a way into your horror movie morgue." She held up a white plastic employee badge, dangling it from the metal clip. There was a photo on the badge, a picture of the man she'd just slammed into in the hallway. Kung Po, the name said.

  "What the—?"

  "This oughta do the trick, don't you think?"

  He stared at the badge, then at her face. "You stole this from him?" He shook his head and let his gaze burn into her.

  She merely stared back. Then one delicate chestnut-colored eyebrow rose. "Do you want to go see your dead guy or not?" She waved the badge in front of him.

  Tom grabbed it out of her hand and stalked toward the stairwell. The card slid through the reader and a green light appeared like magic.

  He led the way down the dimly lit steps, through another card reader and door, and into another hallway that was lit by a single fluorescent light about midway down the hall. It didn't take long to find a set of white metal double doors labeled "Morgue" in red letters.

  "God," Maris said with a visible shudder, as they stood in the office inside the door. "Where do we start looking? For that matter, how do we even know your guy is still here? Or that he was even brought here in the first place?"

  "He was brought here." Tom searched the desk, and found a large black book with a list of dated entries. "They probably performed an autopsy."r />
  He ran a finger down the list. "What day did you find me?"

  "Two days ago, Wednesday night. It would have been the twenty-fifth."

  "And that's the same night you heard about the body on the news?"

  She nodded and pushed her hood back off her head.

  "Here it is. John Doe. Brought in at 3:22 P.M. on October 25. It looks like…" He scowled. "Looks like nothing's been done to it yet and it's still in a cold locker."

  Tom heard her groan under her breath. "Great. He's an ice cube."

  He pushed a damp curl off her cheek and tried to ignore the heat that pulsed up his hand from touching her. "Wait here. There's no reason for you to see it."

  She shook her head fiercely and looked at him as if she were offended he'd even suggest such a thing. "No way. I go where you go."

  He sighed. "Fine, then let's get to it."

  When they stood in front of the refrigeration units, he gave her one last chance to bow out. "This probably isn't going to be a pretty sight."

  She slid her backpack off her shoulders and dropped it on the floor. "I used to be a paramedic. I've pretty much seen everything. Let's get this over with."

  He had to give her an A+ for courage.

  As his hand closed around the metal latch of the body drawer, he wondered just what he'd find. Would he recognize the man? Maybe remember some portion of his own lost past? Would he remember if he'd…a black wave of dizziness hit him…if he'd killed the guy?

  He slid the drawer out.

  Maris sucked in a ragged breath. "Good God," she whispered.

  His stomach churned, the sweet taste of nausea filled his mouth, his mind swirled…

  Pain.

  Anger.

  The fuzzy vision of someone standing over him…a glint of white teeth…whoever it was, was smiling. No…laughing…

  "Hey, are you okay?" Maris's soft voice.

  Dragging air into his lungs, he blinked at her. Her eyes were dark with concern, her eyebrows drawn together.

  "Did you remember something?"

  "I don't know." He drew in another deep breath to steady himself. "Maybe. Nothing concrete. Just a shadowy image."