Twisted

by Laura K. Curtis

  It scared him, too, Ethan reflected as he shut the door behind TJ. It also explained the quality and quantity of firepower Lucy Sadler Caldwell owned. He picked up the earliest of the books she’d left him, Finding Sarah, and the list of precincts she’d given as references. Matching one to the case described in the book, he dialed the number. Rather than asking for any of the men she’d named specifically, however, he explained that Lucy was in town doing an investigation, and asked to speak to whoever could give him the best background on her. As he’d suspected, the man he was transferred to was not on Lucy’s list.

  “I don’t suppose Lucy gave you my name, Donovan, so I’ve got to ask myself how you come to have it.”

  Ethan heard tapping in the background. Artie Buck was checking on him. No surprise; he’d do the same in Buck’s shoes.

  “The Sarah Lowell murder case was the subject of Lucy’s first book. To get what she did from your department, someone had to have vouched for her, which meant she had a personal connection. No one talks that openly to a writer with no previous credits unless someone’s gone to bat for her.”

  Buck was silent so long that if it hadn’t been for the steady sound of keys tapping in the background, Ethan might have thought he’d hung up.

  “You’ll do,” he said finally, with a bark of harsh, smoker’s laughter. “What can I tell you?”

  “I’ll take whatever you’ll give me.”

  “You read her books?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Tell you what. You read one. Not the first, though. It’s good, but it won’t give you what you need. Pick one of the others, then call me back.” He gave Ethan his cell phone number. “Don’t worry about the time. I’ll be up.”

  • • •

  HER BROTHER WAS mowing the lawn in front of the house when Lucy pulled up and, as always, her heart twisted at the sight. Tim hated her fear of his disease, hated how tight, how close she held him, but she couldn’t help herself. He frequently reminded her that, at twenty-one, he no longer needed a mother, and he was probably right. But she needed him. He was the only family she had left, the only person she trusted right to the bone.

  A genetic mutation, the doctors had explained three years before, when the symptoms had begun to appear. Spinal muscular atrophy occurred approximately one time in ten thousand, usually the result of having two parents with the recessive gene for it. Since Tim hadn’t noticed the persistent weakness in his shoulders and thighs until he was eighteen, they’d classed his case as adult-onset, the form with the best possible prognosis. In fact, he might live an almost normal life. Then again, he might not.

  He cut the motor when she climbed from the car.

  “I hope you’re planning to help rake all this stuff up,” he groused. “I told you no one would have done a lick around here in ages.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You were right to insist on bringing the mower. I admit it.”

  “Hah!” He did a crazy little victory dance that made her giggle as she watched from under half-closed lids. She’d learned the art of evaluating his health without appearing to. He hadn’t pushed too hard; he just wanted her to get her hands dirty, too. “Okay. Let me get changed, and I’ll give you a hand.”

  In the house, Lucy pulled off her suit and let her hair down from its punishing knot. She’d been determined not to let Dobbs Hollow’s self-righteous citizens see her sweat, and not to let them believe—even for a moment—she’d take the kind of abuse they’d given her mother. Lucy Caldwell might look like Cecile Sadler, but there was a world of difference between them. For a moment, she flashed back to Ethan Donovan and the way he’d held her hand when she’d introduced herself.

  She wished she knew what she’d revealed to that fathomless, assessing stare. She hadn’t missed the first flare of heat in his moss-green eyes, but he’d banked it, flattened his gaze almost immediately. And it didn’t have to mean anything. Some men reacted that way to all women. Perhaps that was Donovan’s weakness, the flaw that had left a man so apparently strong and smart vulnerable to a shark like Mayor Andrew Dobbs.

  The house had only two bedrooms, so Lucy had taken Cecile’s old room and given Tim the one they’d shared as children. Her sleeping bag lay on the floor where a bed would rest soon enough, and two suitcases lay open next to it. She selected a pair of shorts and a tee and ducked into the bathroom to change. Nothing in life had ever felt as good as peeling off the horrible, hot nylons and shaking her hair loose.

  She splashed cold water on her face and tied her hair back into a loose ponytail. The light in the bathroom sputtered and went out. She hadn’t thought to bring bulbs, so focused had she been on bringing only the essentials. Well, she could go shopping later.

  She pulled on the work clothes in the darkened room and went back downstairs. Even now, after living with it for a day, she had a hard time reconciling the living room with the picture she held in her memories. Someone had replaced the olive-green shag with a tan-and-chocolate cut-and-loop that wouldn’t show dirt, and had painted the walls a pale cream.

  In most cases she’d written about, she had extensive crime-scene photos to work from. She doubted she’d be offered that kind of courtesy from the Dobbs Hollow Police Department, and she refused to get Tara in trouble by asking her to go behind her boss’s back. The lack wasn’t particularly important. She’d found her mother’s body; the image wasn’t likely to fade.

  The emotions were another matter entirely. She’d stuffed those down so deep she wasn’t certain she could access them again even if she wanted to. And she did want to. To write a good book, she needed to.

  She shook off the troubling thoughts and stopped in the kitchen for two glasses of the iced tea she’d made that morning, then went out to join her brother. Tim had separated trash from the leaves, and was stuffing junk into a contractor’s garbage bag when she joined him.

  “Some kids around here are gonna be upset we’ve moved in,” he said, holding up a bong he’d found loosely hidden in a pile of leaves. “This seems to have been the local party spot.”

  “They’ll find another. They always do.”

  “What was it when we lived here?”

  “Like I would have been invited to the party spot?” She laughed, punched him lightly in the shoulder, and turned to work, avoiding the question. Tim didn’t need to hear about his sister’s teen angst, her imaginary friends. Parts of the past she’d have to admit to him before she finished the manuscript, but not all. Never all.

  They were sitting on the front porch, sweating, laughing, and drinking tea while looking with satisfaction at the seventeen leaf bags they’d filled with grass, leaves, and twigs when a dusty, blue, crew cab pickup pulled into the driveway. They were unable to see who was driving, and Lucy sent Tim inside to get the shotgun. Not that she expected trouble. Not so soon. But it didn’t hurt to let people know she wouldn’t take any flack. If Ellen Wilson and Marge Bollingham knew she had come home, so did the whole town of Dobbs Hollow.

  Tim stepped back outside just as Ethan Donovan unfolded himself from the vehicle, and Lucy motioned to her brother to set the gun aside. She didn’t know what to make of Donovan—she wouldn’t until she could press a few friends for details, and find out who he was and why Andrew Dobbs had hired him—but she didn’t figure he posed an immediate threat. The cable company was due that afternoon, and she’d check him out on the Internet once they’d installed everything.

  He nodded to Lucy, then held out a hand to her brother. “Ethan Donovan. You must be Tim. TJ told me Lucy had a brother.”

  They shook hands, two wary male animals assessing each other. “Who’s TJ?”

  “Tim doesn’t remember the people from around here. He was too young when we left.” She put her arm protectively around her brother’s waist, but he shrugged her off.

  “Well, then. TJ—or Tara Jean, as your sister calls her—is a cop. And, if Lucy didn’t exp
lain, I’m Dobbs Hollow’s chief of police.” Ethan spoke easily, casually, as if he greeted every new member of the Hollow personally. Lucy estimated he had an inch or so on her brother’s six feet, putting him almost a foot over her own five three. His clean, pressed, tan shirt stretched only slightly to cover his wide shoulders. She’d noticed that at the police station, but she’d missed the fact that his jeans, while neat and clean, were old enough to have molded to a very nice pair of thighs.

  All in all, he presented an intimidating front, especially with the duty belt circling his waist, badge, gun, radio, and cuffs all in place. Could be he donned it any time he was farther than a block or two from the station, or could be he was trying to make a point about the official nature of his visit.

  Either way, Police Chief Donovan she could handle; it wasn’t until he glanced her way and Ethan the man peered out through the cop’s eyes that she found herself backing up a step. It was there again, the slicing heat that suddenly made her conscious of how little she was wearing. She straightened her back. This was her home. She’d dress how she liked. She was not her mother, and no one, no one would ever make her feel cheap.

  He took a long stride forward, narrowing the space between them, and for a moment she had the completely irrational urge to flee, along with the equally ridiculous idea that he could see exactly what she felt. He held out a manila envelope.

  “A copy of the file on your mother’s death,” he said. “I’m afraid there’s not much there. We have some physical evidence. I’ll get it pulled and sent to the county lab.”

  For a moment, simple shock robbed her of words. He’d brought her the file? Without her even asking? Beneath the gratitude, suspicion nagged. What did he want? And physical evidence . . . that was more than she could have hoped for. But it couldn’t stay in the county.

  “Thank you,” she said at last. She carefully avoided touching his hand as she accepted the envelope, remembering the calloused heat of it from their first meeting. “And you have no need to apologize. I’m glad to have whatever I can get.” And she was, regardless of his motive. After all, Billy Pike wouldn’t have given her the time of day, let alone the report on her mother’s murder. But if Ethan thought such a simple action could win her over, he had another think coming.

  “As long as you’re being so cooperative, though, is there one more favor I could ask?”

  “I guess that depends on what it is.”

  “Would you mind sending the DNA tests to the state lab rather than the county one?”

  He tilted his head to the side and surveyed her in silence for a full minute. “You want to tell me why?”

  Lucy swallowed. “Not so much. Like I said, it’s a favor.”

  After another long examination, he nodded. “State it is. I hope you’ll trust me enough one of these days to tell me why. They’ll take longer, though. They always do.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve waited seventeen years.”

  His lips curved into a crooked half smile. “I guess you have, at that.”

  The glass of the windows caught the afternoon sun and Ethan nodded to the plywood leaning up against the side of the house. “You’re not staying out here, are you? This place has been abandoned for years.”

  “It wasn’t exactly abandoned.” Lucy bristled. “We just couldn’t get here before.”

  • • •

  ETHAN CURSED HIMSELF for a fool. Caldwell. He’d spoken to the man himself after the third time kids had broken into the place. The man had apologized, and a week later a crew from out of town had rolled in and repainted the place, cleaned it up, nailed fresh plywood boards over the windows, and installed new deadbolts and padlocks on all the doors. He flicked a glance at Lucy’s left hand, but she had jammed it into the pocket of her jeans. Could Caldwell be her husband? She hadn’t been wearing a ring that morning. He would have noticed. He’d sure as hell noticed everything else about her from the wisps of blonde hair escaping an almost painfully tight bun to the pointed heels he was pretty sure weren’t her usual footwear.

  But maybe she’d left the ring behind for some reason. Perhaps she’d split from her husband even while keeping his name for professional reasons. Even so, how could a man who’d ever cared about her let her come out here with only her brother for protection? A brother who, unless his instincts had atrophied completely, wasn’t quite what he should be.

  “So the two of you are going to live here?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “I suppose there’s no point in trying to talk you out of it?”

  Tim snorted. “Good luck, pal. I’ve been working on that for months.”

  Lucy frowned at her brother, and Ethan restrained a smile. She wouldn’t thank him for it, but he appreciated Tim’s point of view.

  “Ah, well. No point in arguing a lost cause, so I’ll be on my way. I wouldn’t stay outside too much after dusk if I were you. With the woods right across the street and the lake less than half a mile from here, the mosquitoes are killer this time of year. Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.” He nodded to both of them as he climbed into the truck.

  Time for him to get home. He had reading to do.

  • • •

  ERIC ALLENBY WAITED, slowly becoming one with the stillness of the woods. He lived in a small house on two acres of land, worked late as a security guard in an empty factory, and yet he never felt as alone, or as right, as he did surrounded by the scrub cedar and tall, straight oaks. His heart beat with the night, and he took a deep breath, inhaling the very forest into his body.

  Eric heard the rumble of Jed Martin’s SUV as it pulled up. Normally, supplying the prey for their hunts was Eric’s job. He knew how to take them at places and times they wouldn’t be missed. But that required planning, and Jed had wanted to hunt tonight. He’d found the perfect prey, he claimed. Eric hoped he hadn’t done anything stupid.

  But surely he wouldn’t have brought Lucy Sadler out. Not yet. He wanted to, that much Eric understood, which was why he’d scheduled tonight’s hunt so precipitously. Jed needed to reassert his power. That was the essential difference between the two men: Eric hunted for the joy of outsmarting the prey, for the thrill of the chase. Jed was in it for the kill. Night-vision goggles, waiting for moonless nights, duct-taping the prey’s hands behind its back, all were fair in Jed’s book. Eric preferred a more equal fight. But it wasn’t worth ending their partnership over, especially since, beneath his genial good-old-boy persona, Jed Martin was violent as hell. Eric never let himself forget that.

  Jed pulled up next to him and opened the back of the SUV.

  “Give me a hand with this.”

  The back of the SUV held a large black trunk with chrome latches. Eric held a gun pointed at the trunk while Jed popped the locks. The woman inside remained utterly still.

  “Get up, you stupid cow,” said Jed. “You’re not fooling anyone with the unconscious act.”

  Slowly, the woman raised her head. Big, brown, pleading eyes stared out at them. Doe eyes. Eric hoped she proved more of a challenge than the average deer, or the hunt would be completely unsatisfying. Duct tape had been wrapped around her mouth, preventing her from calling out for help.

  Putting a knee up on the bed of the SUV, Jed dropped a cloth bag over her head. She began to struggle then, but he managed to keep her down and tie the drawstring around her neck. When she could no longer see, Eric tucked his gun back into the holster at his side and helped Jed drag her from the trunk. They couldn’t begin the hunt so close to the road. Even at one in the morning, she might find her way to civilization before they could trap her.

  They half dragged, half carried her deep into the forest. Then they pulled the hood up and off.

  “You get a full minute head start. After that, we’re coming after you.” Eric repeated the words in Spanish. When she just stood there, Jed pulled a knife, and she finally got the id
ea. With a single, desperate, backward look, she took off into the forest.

  “She’s quick,” Jed observed.

  “Yeah, but she’s headed in toward the lake. No way she survives more than a half hour, max.”

  “Yeah.” Jed pulled the night-vision goggles over his face. “Well, time to play.”

  They surged off into the darkness, splitting up after a few steps. Eric was an excellent tracker, and the woman was terrified, making no effort to hide her trail. But he preferred to give her a bigger head start, to give himself more of a challenge. He wasn’t likely to lose her, not with all the noise she made. Clearly, she’d been a city dweller once, wherever Jed had found her. He yawned and stretched. Over to his left, Jed was making almost as much noise as the prey.

  Suddenly, everything quieted. Interesting. What could the woman have done? What could she be planning? He began following her trail. Carefully, slowly. They always let the prey keep their clothes. Eric knew determined prey could make weapons out of shirts, shoes, even socks. He never underestimated them.

  He got about a half mile into the woods, and the trail ended. Just ended. Her shoes were there, next to the end of the trail, a pair of cheap, worn-out running shoes. Why would she have discarded them? He tied the laces through his belt so the sneakers hung down at his side. Children and adults walked these woods by day; nothing could be left for them to find.

  The woods were too silent, with the notable exception of Jed’s heavy boots off to Eric’s right. Eric sniffed the air, thick with humidity and heavy with the scent of decay. A storm was coming. As long as it didn’t descend tonight and ruin the hunt, Eric didn’t care. But the heavy air made scenting her difficult.

  He squinted and turned in a slow circle. There. To the right. A tree limb bent awkwardly forward. She’d been through here. Or had she laid a false trail? No, she was too urban and too scared. She’d run; she’d just decided to be quieter about it. He slipped after her, following the bent and broken branches and crushed leaves on the ground.