Dark Pursuit Part 19

Margaret handed it over.

"Kaitlan." Darell gripped the arm of his chair. His voice came clipped and intense. "Craig doesn't know you have a key to your landlord's place?"

"No."

"You sure?"

She hesitated. "Yes. Why?"

"I just need to make sure this isn't a setup. That what I'm thinking is correct."

"I didn't see him anywhere around when I walked here."

Darell closed his eyes.

"So what are you thinking?" she asked.

"He could have stayed with you tonight, but he didn't."

"Because he has to be at work early. And he didn't have his uniform with him."

"You think he couldn't have planned ahead and brought it? You think he didn't know he'd have to intimidate you to shreds tonight?"

"I guess. He was different as soon as he walked in the door. All on edge and changing one minute to the next."

"Because he's scared. Because he knows you know, and now he's got to fix it."

And he would-sooner than Kaitlan realized.

Darell could hardly breathe. "He told you the body wouldn't be found?"

"Yes."

"He'd have been too rushed this afternoon to make sure of that. Getting rid of a body takes time, and he was on duty. Besides, it was daylight. He pulled that woman from your apartment, but he couldn't take her far. That's why he left you tonight. Right now he's disposing of the body for good."

And when he finished with that, he'd come back for Kaitlan.

CHAPTER thirty-two

Craig had left only to move the body?

Kaitlan stilled on the chair in the Jensons' kitchen. Her grandfather'swords sank inside her like millstones. Her eyes cut to the sliding backdoor as if any second Craig might leap from the darkness. The house felt like a mausoleum. Huge and still and cold. Able to swallow her whole.

"Are you saying"-her voice sounded so small-"he'll come back?"

But she already knew the answer. Of course he wouldn't leave her alone all night. Everything he'd said had been designed to terrify her, keep her from running while he was gone.

"Listen to me," her grandfather snapped. "You have to get out of there."

"I don't have a car!"

"We'll come get you."

"But he told me not to leave. He'll chase me down, and if he can't find me, he'll plant drugs in my apartment."

"That's a chance we have to take. You have no choice now, things have gotten out of hand."

Like they weren't before.

And just what had her grandfather been doing all evening while she followed his advice and went to a party with a killer? "Have you figured out how we're going to catch Craig?" she demanded.

Her grandfather's hesitation screamed.

"Have you?" you?"

"I need to refigure it. The situation's different now."

Kaitlan shoved to her feet. "You told me I could count on you! Now look at me. I never should have left your house!" Desperation choked her lungs. She bent over, dragging in air. Craig was coming back tonight-who knew whether to beat her up again or kill her?

She had to get out of here.

"Pull yourself together, Kaitlan," her grandfather snapped. The fear vibrating through his anger heightened her own. "I'm handing the phone to Margaret. She needs directions."

m.u.f.fled sounds came over the line as the receiver was pa.s.sed from hand to hand. Margaret's voice trembled into Kaitlan's ears. She could barely think straight as she tried to spout directions. Twice she blanked on names of streets.

"Okay. Got it." Margaret's words spluttered. "Wait! Your grandfather wants to tell you something."

Kaitlan's fingers cramped around the phone. She grabbed the counter and scanned the void of the Jensons' backyard. Through the line came the sound of her grandfather's rattled breathing.

"You stay in that house now, hear me? Stay down where you can't be seen through the windows. Don't come out until you see us pull up front."

Kaitlan's heart beat in her ears. "Okay."

The line clicked.

She hung up the phone with shaking hands.

The lamps. They would illumine her through any of the front windows. If she turned the living room one off and Craig came back, would he notice? They would illumine her through any of the front windows. If she turned the living room one off and Craig came back, would he notice?

She couldn't take the chance.

Bent over double, Kaitlan skulked out of the kitchen to find a darkened room to wait in.

CHAPTER thirty-three

"I'm going with you." Darell fumbled around the floor for his cane. Where on earth was the thing?

"No, you're not." Margaret strode for the door.

"Margaret!" He straightened halfway, shooting her back a look to kill. "Stop right now and wait for me."

She turned around, her neck mottled and a tic in her cheek. She clutched the paper with directions as if it might spin away. "I'm not not waiting for you, D., you move too slowly. I've got to get down there now!" She swiveled around. waiting for you, D., you move too slowly. I've got to get down there now!" She swiveled around.

"Mar-!"

"You want to help your granddaughter?" She jerked back to face him. "Figure out what we're going to do when she gets here."

"I'm trying."

"Don't try, D. Do Do it!" it!"

She whirled from the library and disappeared.

Darell stood up, agitated and helpless, as her footsteps trotted up the hall toward the kitchen. He heard a faint thud against hardwood like the sound of a purse knocked to the floor. Then her hurried tread down the short hall toward the garage at the rear of the house. A door opened. Slammed shut.

In the silence, air stuttered in his quaking chest.

CHAPTER thirty-four

In the forested hills above town, leaves rattled and hissed like skittish snakes beneath Craig's feet.

His breaths came short and swift. So little time.

He'd blown it at Kaitlan's. Totally blown it. He'd planned to kill her then, get it over with, but when the moment came he just couldn't.

Containment.

No way could he keep her quiet day after day. What did he expect to do, take her car keys and phone every night? She'd end up telling someone, somewhere.

He had to get back to her place. Now.

Fast as he could Craig hurled himself through the darkness. Some fifty yards off the rutted path, he frantically sought the crumbling stone wall. His fingers gripped a flashlight, but he didn't want to use it.

Where was the wall?

He skidded to a halt, neck thrust out, eyes struggling to penetrate the blackness. Slowly he scanned.

Huge trees, only trees.

Craig cursed under his breath.

He slapped the flashlight's beam end against his hand and switched it on. His palm glowed red. Raising the flashlight, he pointed straight ahead.

No wall.

He aimed left. More trees.

Right.

There?

He sidled over two steps and cut the beam through two close trunks. Some twenty feet beyond-the rounded edges of stacked rocks.

Craig turned off the flashlight and hurried in their direction.

His toe found the body before he saw it. Stuffed into a hefty-sized black garbage bag, it gave a slick rustle when he kicked it.

The wall lay just behind.

Why the rocks were there at all remained a mystery. No old cabin nearby, nothing to show a longer barrier had once been there.

Fate.

He'd hauled the woman here this afternoon in the trunk of his patrol car, shock and fear injecting him with near Superman strength. A ditch in the earth just behind the six-foot wall offered what he sought-a natural grave. Spotting it, he'd dropped his heavy load in front of the rocks and sprinted back to his car, terrified that his radio might be going off while he was away.

Not until he'd flung himself back into the vehicle had he realized he should have at least dumped the body in the ditch until he could return.

He needed to keep a cooler head.

Before even removing the body from Kaitlan's bed, he had thought to untie the black and green cloth from its neck. That cloth was long disposed of. Even if by some wild fluke this body was was found, it would not be tied to the other deaths. found, it would not be tied to the other deaths.

Craig threw down the flashlight and attacked the wall. Yanking up stones he dropped them to one side. Before long his arm muscles screamed and his breath chugged. Sweat beaded down his forehead and plinked into his eyes.

Desperation drove him on. He had to get back to Kaitlan.