The Obsession

by Nora Roberts

  wanting to draw eyes to him.

  Look at me, look at me, look at me.

  He would’ve asked a follow-up, but the ugly bitch beside him tossed a question out first.

  Later he wrote up the story for the bullshit Daily Crime blog he freelanced for, working on his laptop in the pizzeria because most of the media types retreated to the motels or the coffee shop that looked out over the marina.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  He looked up, saw the pretty blonde he’d targeted and lost. He thought: You should be dead.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “Ah, gotta get out of my head.” He offered a big smile. “Forgot where I was for a minute.”

  “I can come back.”

  “No, that’s okay. I could use a Coke, and, yeah, I could eat. How about the calzone—loaded.”

  “Sure.”

  She brought the drink in under two minutes. “Are you staying in the area?” she asked. “You’ve been in before.”

  “For now, yeah. I’m a reporter.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes went sad and blank.

  “Sorry.” Immediately he coated himself in sympathy. “I guess you knew the . . . Donna Lanier. She worked here.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m really sorry. If there’s anything you want to say, want me to write about her—”

  “No. No, thanks. Enjoy your Coke.”

  When she scurried away, he had to hide the smile.

  Maybe he’d snatch her up after all. Maybe he’d just circle back for her, then make Naomi watch while he did the little bitch with her tight ass and tight tits.

  Can’t save this one, he imagined saying. Not like Ashley this time. And when I’m done with her, when I’m done with you, I’m going to pay your good friend Ashley a visit, too. Finish what your old man couldn’t.

  He worked right through the calzone, putting together another piece on spec, and listening to the chatter around him.

  Small towns, the same everywhere, he thought. If you wanted to know what went on, you just had to sit in the same place long enough.

  He learned the mechanic was moving in with the photographer, into the big house on Point Bluff. He learned people were scared, and some of them impatient with the police.

  Why hadn’t they caught him? they asked.

  Because he’s smarter, better, more than they are, he wanted to answer.

  He learned that some people speculated the killer lived in the national forest, like a survivalist.

  And thought: No. He’s sitting right here, asshole.

  He heard that Naomi’s new fuck buddy was playing at the bar on Friday night.

  So he began to make his plans.

  —

  Lucas Spinner.” Mason tapped the photo on the kitchen counter again. “You’re sure, no bells?”

  “Not even a muffled gong.” But she studied the face—young, a lot of disheveled brown hair, a beard that needed shaping. “Why do you keep coming back to him?”

  “He had press credentials, a small paper in Ohio, visited Bowes six times between July 2003 and August 2004. Corresponded with him for another eighteen months afterward. Then he’s reported missing, presumed dead while covering a brush fire in California in 2006.”

  “Well, if he’s dead—”

  “Presumed,” Mason qualified. “And shortly after, correspondence begins between Bowes and a Brent Stevens, initially with a Queens return address and postmark. But there’s no Brent Stevens from Queens during that time period. And I’ve read the correspondence, Naomi. I’d swear the same person wrote Stevens’s and Spinner’s letters. There’s an attempt to change it up, but the syntax, the terminology. We’re having an expert analyze the letters.”

  “If they’re the same person, you think this is the man you’re looking for.” She picked up Spinner’s photo again.

  “Some of Stevens’s letters were postmarked from areas you were in, and the timing jibes. Then he drops off the grid. It all stops.”

  “And that worries you.”

  “Because it wouldn’t stop. He’s found another way to communicate. Smuggled cell phone, smuggled snail mail. Somebody looking the other way when Bowes gets his supervised computer use. It happens.”

  “Maybe without all the hair, the beard.” Naomi shook her head. “I’m going to scan this onto my computer, work on it. I’ll work on it while you’re flying to West Virginia. That way if I have any luck, you’ll be right there with Bowes. You could push on it.”

  “He’d be older now. Remember that, too.”

  “You said he blends. He wouldn’t blend with the hair and the beard, so let me work on seeing him without them. First thing tomorrow,” she promised. “We need to get going. I promise you’ll have a good time.”

  While she checked the locks on the back door and got Tag a rawhide bone to keep him busy, Mason checked his watch.

  “A bar, a rock band, a Friday night. Yeah, I’ll have a good time, but only a couple hours, max. We’re leaving at seven thirty tomorrow morning.”

  “Will you let me know when you’re on your way back? After you’ve talked to him?”

  “I’ll text you. I’ll call if there’s anything you need to know. You do the same,” he added when she set the alarm, stepped outside.

  “We haven’t done this in a long time. Gone to a bar together.”

  “My twenty-first birthday, you flew home to surprise me.”

  “Not since then?”

  “Not since. We went to the bar at the Spot, so I had my first legal drink with you, Seth, and Harry, then you took me to that weird little place.”

  “The Hole in the Wall, in Chelsea. And that girl hit on you.”

  “I might’ve hit back, but I had a date.”

  Laughing, Naomi closed her eyes, let the wind blow over her face as Mason drove. “Let’s make a pact. Once a year, wherever we are, we meet somewhere and have a drink in a bar. Even when we’re a hundred and ten.”

  He held out his hand, pinky crooked. She hooked hers with it. “Even when you’re married with five kids,” he warned.

  She snorted. “That’ll be the day.”

  Yes, he thought. Yes, it will.

  —

  He saw her come in. He’d been watching, waiting, and felt a tightening in his loins when she stepped into the bar. Pale yellow shirt, snug jeans.

  Had her kid brother with her, and after one look at the stage where the mechanic and his grease monkeys hammered away on some ancient Rolling Stones bullshit, the kid brother began to scan the room.

  So he angled away, picked up his beer.

  Grabbing a stool at the end of the bar hadn’t been a problem. Most people wanted tables—and he didn’t. A solo at a table drew attention. A guy sitting at the bar drinking a beer didn’t.

  He shifted on the stool just enough to keep them in his line of sight as they worked their way through the tables to sit with the asshole carpenter and his asshole wife.

  He’d thought about killing the wife—Jenny—just for the hell of it. But she really wasn’t his type.

  Maybe, if he ever decided to come back this way, just for the memories, he’d pay her a little visit. But he didn’t have time to play with her now.

  Now, it was all about Naomi. So he’d watch awhile, finish his beer, leave a decent tip. Nobody remembered a decent tipper, just the lousy ones or the big ones.

  Then he had things to do. It was going to be a big night.

  —

  You said they were good,” Mason shouted at Naomi. “You didn’t say they were really good.”

  Delighted, she nudged him toward the table. “They’re really good!” She locked eyes with Xander and thought: Oh yeah, I’m with the leader of the band.

  After laying a hand on Jenny’s shoulder, she leaned down. “We’re a little later than we planned. I’m going to the bar for a round. Are you guys ready for another?”

  “We could be.”

  She gave the shoulder a squeeze, started towa
rd the bar. Because she wanted to connect with Loo, she aimed for the middle, idly scanning as she went.

  She saw a man at the far end, bill of a ball cap pulled low, head down toward the nearly empty beer glass in front of him. And felt him watching her.

  He rubbed his fingers up the bridge of his nose, shouldered away from her. Something shivered up her spine like a warning. Despite it, or maybe because of it, she changed directions, started toward the other end of the bar.

  “Hey, Naomi!” Krista popped up from her table, grabbing Naomi into a hug. “We sold the print of Xander with the dog. Ten minutes before closing.”

  “That’s great.”

  “We need more!”

  “I’ll get you more.”

  “Can we have a sit-down next week, talk about it?”

  “Sure. Email me. We’ll set it up.”

  She broke away in time to see the man in the cap walking casually toward the exit.

  Nothing, she told herself. Probably nothing. Changing directions again, she walked up to the bar and Loo.

  “Guy walking out was giving you the eye,” Loo said before Naomi could speak.

  “I saw that. He was sitting alone, end of the bar.”

  “Didn’t like the look of him.”

  “Why?”

  Loo shrugged, continued to mix a dirty martini. “Warmed that seat nearly two hours, nursed one beer—and had his eye on the door half the time. Kept his head down, wouldn’t look you in the eye.” She shrugged again, added a spear of two fat olives to the glass. “But he watched you, all the way to the table.”

  “I couldn’t get a good look at him. Did you?”

  “Not much of one. Suz! Order’s up! Kept his head down, like I said. Early thirties, I’d say, looked like brown hair under that cap. Long, skinny fingers. Couldn’t keep them off his face. Nervous like, if you ask me.”

  She pulled the next ticket, set two beer mugs under taps, drew them both at once.

  “Or maybe it’s me who has the jitters, between one thing and the other.”

  “Are we all right? You and me?”

  “No reason for us not to be. Terry! You’re up. Are you here to chat or drink?” she asked Naomi.

  “Both, I guess. A round for the table. Kevin’s beer, Jenny’s wine, and I’ll have the same. A Corona with lime for my brother. I’m so sorry, Loo.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about. If you want to talk, we’ll talk when I don’t have to yell back at you. My boy up there loves you. Anything else is just noise.”

  “I’m really going to try not to screw it up.”

  On a bark of laughter, Loo set the two glasses of wine on a tray. “Aren’t you the positive thinker?”

  “That’s pretty positive for me.”

  She carried the tray to the table, served the drinks. Suz breezed by, grabbed the tray, kept breezing.

  “Jenny says they’ve got a CD.” Mason hefted his bottle. “I’m going to buy it. You know the uncles are going to love this.” He drank some beer, sighed. “Thought you’d never get back with this.”

  “They’re busy, and I was talking with Loo. There was this guy . . .”

  Immediately Mason set down his beer. “What guy?”

  “Just a guy at the bar. We both felt he was watching me.”

  “Where?”

  “He left.”

  “Did you get a good look at him?”

  “No. Mason—”

  “Did she?”

  “Not really.”

  He got up, left his beer, and headed toward the bar.

  “Hey! I was going to talk him into dancing with me.”

  “He’ll be back—and he can dance.” Wishing she’d said nothing, Naomi picked up her wine.

  When Mason came back, he leaned in close and spoke directly in her ear. “She says early thirties, white, short brown hair, average to slim build, about five-ten.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’d say. And I can pick out twenty more guys in here that more or less fit that.”

  “But you had a feeling, both of you. Feelings count. I’m going to have someone work with you tomorrow.”

  “Mason.”

  “People see more than they think they do, especially observant people. It can’t hurt.”

  “Okay, okay. Now dance with Jenny. She wants to dance, and Kevin has to be cattle-prodded onto the dance floor.”

  “I could dance.” He took another swig of beer, then got up to grab Jenny.

  With Kevin grinning after them, Naomi turned her attention back to the stage. Xander watched her—and that gave her a feeling she could live with.

  —

  Pleasantly tired, absolutely relaxed, Naomi settled into Xander’s truck.

  Ky leaned in the window. “Sure you don’t want a postgig brew, man?”

  “I’m on call, as of ten minutes ago.”

  Ky shook his head. “One beer isn’t going to impair you, son.”

  “One beer could cost me my license. I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

  “You shouldn’t feel like you can’t decompress because I’m here,” Naomi began.

  “We go that same round after nearly every gig when I’m on call. Plus, I’m ready to head home.”

  “I bet the dog’s more than ready to get out.”

  “And there’s that. And there’s another way to decompress.”

  She smiled. “Is that so?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  After the dog went out, made his rounds, and settled down for the night, he showed her why home and bed was a much better idea than a beer.

  —

  When his phone went off at four fifteen, Xander sincerely wished he’d stuck Jimmy (first night in his new apartment, and with a female companion) on the graveyard shift.

  “Shit, fuck, shit.” He grabbed the phone, stared blearily at the readout. “Keaton’s. Uh-huh. Right. Okay, got it. About fifteen minutes.”

  “You have to go.”

  “Dead battery—probably. Between here and town, so I’ll check it, jump it if that’s it, and be back in a half hour.”

  “You want coffee?” she mumbled.