Intimate Strangers

by Rebecca York

  They’d been working behind the scenes to collect enough money for a down payment by smuggling in fake antiques and selling them at the gallery.

  Phil said from the grave:

  I asked why they couldn’t just borrow the money from the bank. Apparently, they’d tried. But none of them had the clout to swing a bank loan. And they weren’t seen as a stable enough group to hold together a consortium.

  Mark digested that even as his mind flashed to the boxes he’d seen stashed in the vacant house. No doubt that had been a shipment of fakes.

  He glanced up and saw Molly watching him.

  “You got to the part about what happened to Veronica?” she asked, tension tightening her voice.

  “Not yet.” He kept reading, then sucked in a strangled breath.

  She wanted her husband out of the way. And she’d wanted to disappear and start over.

  Start over.

  As he grappled with that, the image of a woman leaped into his mind. When he gasped out loud, Molly took a step toward him.

  “You’re thinking the same thing I am?” she whispered as though she hadn’t dared to ask the question until now.

  “Doris Masters,” he managed to say as his mind began comparing details. She weighed more than the Veronica he remembered. Her hair was a different color. Her face was different, her eyes wider apart and her chin bigger. She’d cultivated a different voice quality. But she was the same height. And there was something about her that had seemed as familiar as the landscape hanging on the wall in their old dining room. Only, the context had changed so much that he hadn’t recognized the pattern. “Is it possible she did the same thing I did?” he asked, his tone matching Molly’s. “That she had plastic surgery, made a bunch of other changes, and came back to Perry’s Cove.”

  “I think so,” Molly whispered.

  Mark nodded in agreement. Even so, he was still struggling to take it in. Veronica had come back as Doris Masters.

  “That fills in some of the blanks in the story Phil wrote me,” Molly murmured.

  “But there are a couple more pieces of the puzzle we need to fit into place. What about Dean Hammer and Cory Daniels?” he asked.

  “Lord, I wasn’t even focusing on them. I have good reason to hate the local cops. Do you think Hammer was so hard on me after Phil died because he’s in on the conspiracy?” Molly asked.

  He didn’t give her an answer just yet. And he didn’t tell her what Bauder had said, because he wanted her to consider the evidence on her own. He watched her gaze turn thoughtful. “I was jumping to a conclusion a moment ago,” she said slowly. “But to be honest, I don’t think Hammer was in on the plot. I mean, Phil wasn’t the kind of guy who acted on partial information. He wanted to know every detail before he signed up for anything. I remember he drove Oliver crazy before we rented a space at the antique gallery. He had to nail down every detail from how far our space was located from the front door, to the average income dealers made per week, per month.”

  Mark considered the information. Phil had been pretty anal retentive, but that wasn’t proof positive. “Bauder said Hammer wasn’t involved,” he finally admitted.

  “When did he say that?”

  “Just before they shot him. Which doesn’t prove anything. Hammer could have been in on the deal and kept a low profile.”

  “No. Bauder would have known. He knew everything. But was he lying?”

  Mark shook his head. “I wish I knew. Right now Hammer and Daniels are probably out at the foundry, trying to figure out what happened.”

  Her gaze shot to his face. “What if the investigation focuses on us?”

  “Why should it?” he asked, fighting to dredge up air around the knot that had suddenly formed in his chest cavity.

  “If Hammer’s an honest lawman, he’ll try to solve the crime,” Molly answered. “And he might find evidence that we were on the scene.”

  A chill rippled over his skin. “Yeah, but what if he’s not an honest lawman?”

  “I guess he’d come after us, like the guys who broke into the condo. But the conspirators didn’t send Hammer. They sent a couple of thugs,” she added quickly, probably in response to his queasy look.

  “Yeah.” His mind jumped back to her first scenario. An honest lawman going after criminals. Mark told himself he hadn’t done anything illegal tonight, then quickly amended the assessment. Well, besides carry a gun that didn’t belong to him and leave the scene of a crime. What if Hammer could figure out he’d been there? What if he got framed for another murder? He didn’t want to be within a hundred miles of the sheriff or his deputy. Yet he didn’t want Dean Hammer going after him again.

  Probably Molly could see the warring emotions on his face. “You could set up a meeting with Hammer, and I’ll cover you,” she said.

  “I’m not letting you—”

  She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Don’t go back to that line about my not being involved. Not after reading that note.”

  He nodded. “Okay, let me think about it. I’m not going to meet with Hammer unless I think the odds are in our favor.”

  IT HAD TAKEN Mark a full twenty-four hours to set things up the way he wanted. This time he was being smart, he told himself, hoping it was true. It was dark as pitch when he got into position in front of the Thompson house where he and Molly had found the boxes.

  She was behind him in the sand dunes, as safe as she could be under the circumstances. But the knowledge that she was here at all twisted his gut.

  According to plan, he and Molly had come in separate cars. She had gone straight to the house, parked around back and gotten into position in the dunes. He had found a phone booth at a gas station on the highway and made a terse call to Hammer, saying that he wanted a meeting.

  When the sheriff had tried to question him, he’d given the meeting place then hung up.

  He shifted from foot to foot, waiting for a police cruiser to appear. The wind was picking up, and he wished he’d listened to a weather report. He was pretty sure a storm was coming. But how bad and how soon?

  When he caught the glint of headlights around a curve in the access road, he tensed and kept himself from looking toward the spot where he knew Molly was hiding.

  The wait had seemed endless, but now that the moment had arrived, he had to force himself not to turn and run.

  Hammer cut the engine but left the lights on to illuminate the scene. Then the driver door opened, and the sheriff heaved his bulky body onto the pavement.

  “Ramsey?”

  “Yeah.”

  The wind seemed to snatch the syllable out of Mark’s mouth. Debris went whipping past the other door of the cruiser as it opened and Deputy Cory Daniels joined his boss.

  “You wanted to talk?” the sheriff asked.

  “Alone. What’s your deputy doing here?” Mark asked, struggling to keep the edge of fear out of his voice. If there was anyone in the sheriff’s department he didn’t trust, it was Daniels.

  Hammer didn’t have a chance to answer.

  Instead, Daniels shouted, “He’s got a weapon.”

  In a flash of movement, Mark saw that both men had drawn their guns. And he was certain that he had made the final mistake of his life.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mark threw himself behind a concrete planter.

  Two shots rang out.

  When he heard Molly scream, only one coherent thought remained in his brain. He’d failed her.

  “Get down,” he shouted.

  In the next moment a harsh voice cut through the sound of the wind wailing and the fear clogging his brain. “Hold it, Ramsey,” Hammer growled. “I nailed the SOB.”

  Mark’s gaze zeroed in on the sheriff. He was kneeling beside the still body of the deputy. “Daniels is dead,” Hammer said as he looked up. Mark saw raw emotions chase themselves across his lined face. Shock, sorrow, anger, regret. Like all the stages of grieving for a loved one compressed into seconds.

  He stared at the
sheriff, trying to clear the confusion from his brain as Molly tried to run toward him. A man standing behind her grabbed her by the arm and held her back.

  “It’s okay,” Hammer said, his voice raw and angry as he stood up. “Daniels was going to shoot you. But I took him out first. Up until that last moment I couldn’t believe he was going to do it.” He fixed his gaze on Mark. “You’re not carrying a weapon, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, trust Daniels to shoot an unarmed man and claim it was self-defense. If I hadn’t gone along with him, I would have been next. And he would have claimed we were actually working together on something dirty.”

  “What are you talking about?” Molly demanded. She was still holding the Glock Mark had given her.

  Hammer, who had holstered his own weapon, eyed the gun. “Maybe you’d best put that away,” he said dryly.

  Molly blinked, then complied. Hammer switched his focus to the man who stood behind her. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Dan Cassidy.”

  “The big-time lawyer I read about? The guy from the Light Street Foundation who got Mike Randall’s conviction reversed?”

  “I wouldn’t call myself big-time. But I’m here now as Mark Ramsey’s and Molly Dumont’s witness to this meeting. And, yes, I’m from the Light Street Foundation.”

  Mark nodded to Dan, then swung back to the sheriff. “Want to tell us what just happened?” he asked, gesturing toward the dead man spotlighted in the glare of the police cruiser’s headlights.

  “I’ve known for a long time that something funny was going on in town and I was pretty sure Daniels was mixed up in it. But I didn’t want to believe it, and I couldn’t prove anything—not until tonight.”

  “You mean until you took a chance with Mark’s life,” Molly said, her voice high and shaky as she raised it above the roar of the rising wind.

  Hammer swung toward her. “I had the situation under control,” he growled.

  Mark gave her a sharp look. They might still be reeling from what had just happened, but he knew one thing: questioning the sheriff’s judgment wasn’t the best policy—not when they were having this conversation over a dead body.

  Hammer turned to Mark. “Let’s get out of the wind.”

  Mark reached for Molly and guided her to the overhanging roofline of the house, thinking that was better than climbing into Hammer’s cruiser. Dan Cassidy followed.

  When they were somewhat sheltered from the weather, the sheriff said, “You came to town to figure out who set up Mike Randall. I want to know what you’ve found out.”

  Mark’s mouth hardened. He looked at his lawyer. Cassidy gave a small nod, letting him run the show for the time being. “If you put it that way, nothing,” he said.

  The lawman looked at him. “You realize I’m going to have to explain what happened here. I’d appreciate something coherent to tell the state police.” He looked at each of them in turn. When Cassidy kept silent, he focused on Mark again.

  He considered the sheriff’s position. He wanted to ask the man how it felt to be on shaky ground with the law, but he figured it was better to keep the question to himself. Better to consider his own position. He’d been at a disadvantage since he’d come back to Perry’s Cove. But with a dead deputy lying on the ground, for the first time he felt as if he had some leverage. “You go first,” he said. “Tell me why you suspected Daniels.”

  The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “This is a small department. I have to operate with reduced manpower. When I got wind that illegal merchandise was moving through the area, I put Daniels on it. He’d be out on patrol and come up empty-handed. I thought it was bad luck. Then—” He stopped and heaved a sigh. “It tears up your insides when you start to suspect someone you trusted has gone bad. Someone who’s supposed to be watching your back. You don’t want to believe it at first. Then you start to believe.”

  Mark nodded. “Who else did you think was involved?”

  “Oliver Garrison. His girlfriend, Doris Masters. Bill Bauder. Jerry Tilden.”

  “That matches the suicide note that Phil left Molly.”

  The sheriff’s gaze zeroed in on her. “You’ve been withholding information all this time?”

  “Certainly not!” Cassidy interjected. “Her husband hid the note inside an antique box. They found it yesterday.”

  “Before or after the meeting with Bauder?” Hammer asked.

  “When I was waiting for Mark to come back,” Molly said, then clamped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she muttered.

  Hammer’s gaze drilled into Mark. “So you were there last night?”

  “I was there,” he said, emphasizing the pronoun, thinking that he could be writing himself a ticket back to prison. “Are you going to frame me for Bauder’s murder?”

  “I’m not in the habit of framing innocent people.”

  He almost said, “Funny, you could have fooled me.” But he kept the angry words locked in his head. Instead, he gave Hammer a quick summary of what Phil had said in the note.

  The lawman stood silently, taking it in, and Mark wondered if he was going to accept the story.

  After several tense seconds, Hammer cleared his throat, glanced at Cassidy, then gave Mark a direct look. “Well, that explains a lot. Like how Mike Randall got railroaded into prison.”

  Mark felt light-headed. Six years ago, Hammer had been sure of his guilt. Now was the man really saying he’d been wrong?

  “So you believe us?” Mark asked carefully.

  “It’s a wild story but it fits.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s one more piece of the puzzle we figured out,” Mark said. “The reason you never found Veronica’s body is that she’s not dead. She arranged to make it look like her husband killed her. Then she came back to town with a new face and a new identity. If you want to scoop her up, go arrest Doris Masters.”

  Hammer’s jaw dropped open. When he closed it again, he said, “You’re claiming that Doris Masters is Veronica Randall? But how?”

  “She had plastic surgery. She changed her face, made her eyes look different. She gained weight and she dyed her hair.”

  “That’s a lot to swallow—someone changing their looks so much that none of their former neighbors and associates recognizes them.”

  Mark laughed. “Then I suppose you’re not willing to believe that you’re talking to the former convict Mike Randall, come back with a brand-new face.”

  “What the hell…?”

  “I’m Mike Randall—with a different face.” He touched the fingers of his right hand to his cheek, the side of his nose, the corner of his eye.

  Hammer stared at him. “That’s crazy! If you expect me to believe that, you must think I’m soft in the head.”

  “Think about it, Sheriff. I wanted to find out who framed me for murder. And I wanted to do it in secret. What better way to poke around town without being recognized?” As he spoke, he worked hard to create his old voice.

  Hammer goggled at him, took a step closer, then inspected him more closely in the headlight beams. Long moments of silence passed before he said, “Maybe I can see it, now that you clued me in.”

  “I planned it carefully, just like Veronica did,” Mark said. “I came back to find out who killed her. Instead, I found out that she’s not dead and that she and her friends are working overtime to protect a moneymaking scheme gone bad. It looks like they killed Bauder because he’d had enough and wanted to get out. They tried to kill me and Molly,” Mark added, recounting the break-ins at the condo and at Molly’s house.

  “You’ve had an exciting couple of days,” Hammer muttered.

  “Unfortunately,” Mark answered. “The only good news is that you’re not in on the conspiracy.”

  Hammer’s face hardened. “I’ve been working overtime to get these scum.”

  “You have to admit, it looked like you and Bauder were pretty friendly.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what I wanted him to think.” He shifted his weight
from one foot to the other. “Now I have to call the state police and report this shooting.” He gestured to Daniels’s body. “I assume the three of you will back up my account of the incident?”

  “Yes,” they all answered.

  Hammer fixed Mark with a direct look. “I’m sorry I played a part in sending you to prison.”

  Mark could only answer with a nod. He wasn’t about to tell the sheriff there were no hard feelings.

  “I hope I can make amends by rounding up the bastards who did this to you. The trouble is, we still don’t have the proof we need to arrest them.”

  “We’ll get it,” Mark said, thinking of the plan he and Dan had already started discussing. For long seconds he considered the wisdom of his next words, then decided to make a stand. “You owe me for what happened with Veronica,” he said. “Why don’t you go about your business and we’ll go about ours? I mean, I’ll call you in if I need you to mop up after we get taped confessions from those responsible.”

  Hammer’s eyes narrowed. “You mean, forget we ever had this conversation about nailing the suspects?”

  “Yeah.” Mark held his breath, waiting for a response, watching Hammer’s deadpan expression. One thing he’d learned tonight, the sheriff would make an excellent poker player.

  Finally the lawman cleared his throat. “I guess I owe you one.”

  “Thanks,” Mark answered.

  Hammer turned to Dan. “I assume that as his lawyer you’re not advising him to do something that will get his ass killed.”

  “That’s right.”

  Hammer gave him a nod, headed back to his cruiser and reached for the phone.

  WAS HE CRAZY? Mark wondered as he sat in his car at the far edge of the antique mall’s parking lot, his vehicle partly hidden by low-hanging branches. It was almost dark, but he could see the wind whipping stray trash across the blacktop.

  Climbing out of the car, he took a deap breath. He would have liked better weather for this confrontation, but he hadn’t dared put it off. The longer he waited, the more chance there was that Garrison and company might take the money they’d collected and bail out.