Dark Pursuit Part 25

Margaret opened her eyes to sickly dawn.

Her night had been fitful, plagued by wraithlike dreams not fully formed. As she gazed blearily at the ceiling she couldn't remember a single detail, but they haunted her just the same.

The clock read 6:45 p.m. Four hours of sleep. Her head felt like mush.

She and D. and Kaitlan had talked past 2:00 a.m., discussing D.'s scheme. There wasn't much to it, really, and that's what petrified Margaret. Yet he insisted it would work.

They could not unequivocally prove Craig did the murders. But they could gather enough circ.u.mstantial evidence for the California State Police to be forced to take a look at the situation.

Especially with the media involved.

Craig's biggest mistake was hacking into D.'s ma.n.u.script-and using Leland Hugh's black and green fabric for the killings. D. had already gathered information from some key phone calls. The hacking was likely on his own computer, he reported, not the online data storage site, which would employ heavy encryption to guard against such theft. The house's internal wireless network had long been secured, but it wasn't completely infallible. Still, the hacker would have faced the challenge of "pus.h.i.+ng" a Trojan Horse or some other kind of spyware onto D.'s computer.

Margaret could believe his own computer was the vulnerable point. He wouldn't let her on it, and likely he hadn't kept up with security updates.

He could prove the hacking with the help of a savvy computer crimes technician, D. said. The tech would need a couple hours to run his software, looking for the spy program. The harder issue was tracing where it had come from, but thanks to brand-new technology that could now be done.

D. would present this proof to Craig, threatening to call the Sheriff's Department over the theft unless Craig admitted what he'd done and promised to stop. Craig's confession would be secretly filmed by a local TV reporter. A copy of that tape and D.'s ma.n.u.script-along with the photos Craig had so thoughtfully chosen to give them-would be taken to the state police. Kaitlan would tell them her full account. They would have to investigate. With the TV station blowing the story wide open, the Gayner chief of police wouldn't be able to keep the lid on evidence they hadn't pursued. Public pressure would mount to find the truth.

"But why would Craig admit to the hacking in the first place?" Kaitlan had pressed. "He knows that ma.n.u.script could tie him to the fabric."

D. smiled sagely. "But he doesn't know I I know about the fabric. He has to meet my demand and confess in order to contain me. If I pressed charges, the media would be all over the story. Every point of my ma.n.u.script-including the fabric-could be made public. And some homicide detective on the Gayner police force would wonder at the coincidence." know about the fabric. He has to meet my demand and confess in order to contain me. If I pressed charges, the media would be all over the story. Every point of my ma.n.u.script-including the fabric-could be made public. And some homicide detective on the Gayner police force would wonder at the coincidence."

Amazing, Margaret had thought-that D. had been able to logic through all this.

Kaitlan thought the plan absurd. "So you tell him that's why you really brought him here, get his confession, and see him to the door. And you expect this maniac, the guy who wants to kill me, to just go along with it?"

D. reared back his head. "I write dialogue for a living, girl! I'll finesse the conversation. I'll look at his ma.n.u.script first and give him some pointers. When I bring up the hacking it'll be with disappointment, not anger. Just an unfortunate detail I choose to deal with quietly, between him and me. He'll do what I ask because he'll want to keep it that way."

"Something will go wrong."

"No, it won't."

"You don't know that!"

D.'s features blackened. "How many evil antagonists do you think I've created in my lifetime, girl? You think I can't keep a step ahead of this one?"

"This isn't a book!"

"I know know that!" that!"

The argument boiled over. D. and Kaitlan shot points back and forth, back and forth. Margaret didn't say much-Kaitlan covered it all.

D. pounded his cane. "Unless you come up with some other bright idea, I'm through talking about this!"

"But I don't want to end up on TV!" Kaitlan burst. "Everybody will be looking at me, my privacy gone."

D. growled. "Don't be a fool, Kaitlan. You lost your privacy the minute you found that body on your bed. What do you think-Craig's going to be arrested and tried in secret?"

That did it. Kaitlan was beaten down. Margaret could see the fight drain from her limbs. Besides, D. was right-they had no other plan.

Feet on the couch, Kaitlan pulled her knees up and buried her face.

D. looked utterly spent. He slumped in his chair, piercing the floor with an angry stare. Soon it smoothed to hollow-eyed blankness.

Margaret hadn't liked the plan then. Now in the light of day it seemed nothing short of insane. A frail elderly man facing down a killer one third his age?

She had to talk D. out of it.

Throwing back the covers she slid from bed.

She showered and dressed by rote, her mind on the list of arguments to abort the plan. Too much could go wrong. They had no fallback. All three of them could get killed. The more she envisioned Craig Barlow here, in this house, the more her muscles tied in knots. By the time her makeup and hair were done, she vowed to go to the police herself rather than let D. carry out his harebrained idea.

Except she had no absolute proof yesterday's murder ever happened. What if they believed the photos had been staged-all for publicity for a has-been writer?

The news.

Margaret slapped down her brush and trotted over to turn on the television, weak hope floundering in her chest. If by some miracle the victim at least had been found ...

She punched the remote to Channel Seven, where Good Morning America Good Morning America would cut away at intervals to a minute or two of local news. would cut away at intervals to a minute or two of local news.

Commercials.

Margaret ma.s.saged her neck and waited. Come on, give me something. Come on, give me something.

The familiar face of local anchor Matt Hagerty appeared. He clipped through stories of an Oakland attorney indicted for trying to bribe a judge, a string of home burglaries in San Francisco's Marina District. Traffic conditions on local freeways. "And now," he nodded, "back to Good Morning America Good Morning America."

Margaret's shoulders fell.

Punching off the TV, she strode to her desk in the far corner of her room. It was less likely the papers would carry anything about the murder this quickly, but she'd look anyway. She turned on her computer, idling with impatience as it booted. She clicked to the San Jose Mercury News San Jose Mercury News website and scanned its headlines. website and scanned its headlines.

Nothing.

Margaret returned to Google and searched for "Gayner homicide victim"-the same words she'd run yesterday for D.

No breaking stories. Only those of the last two victims.

She typed in "Gayner missing woman." Her heart leapt at the returned hits, but again none of them linked to current news.

Who was this woman, that no one had even reported her missing?

Margaret made a face at the computer. This was useless.

As she exited the bedroom she left the computer running.

In the kitchen she made coffee and choked down some toast. The house screamed the silence of a tomb. Darell had instructed her to wake him at nine.

Margaret prowled the kitchen, coffee in hand, unease a leaden block in her chest. How to convince Darell to change his mind? When the man decided something his feet set in concrete.

And even if she did convince him-what then? They'd be back where they started, with Kaitlan trapped here, helpless.

Toting her coffee cup, Margaret returned to the computer. She refreshed the San Jose Mercury San Jose Mercury page for updates. Nothing new. page for updates. Nothing new.

She stared out the window into thick fog. The backyard lay obliterated.

Maybe she should go back to perusing D.'s old novels. Yesterday she only read the opening chapters of the first ten. How driven she'd been. But that strong urge had been swept aside amid the events of last night.

Perhaps within one of the books lay an idea not to help Darell catch Craig Barlow after all, but to talk him out of trying.

As Margaret considered that possibility, the urge returned.

She pushed back from the computer. Eight-twenty. She had forty minutes-enough time to scan through the openings of ten or so novels.

In the kitchen Margaret refilled her coffee mug. With purpose she headed to the library and planted herself before the bookcase holding D.'s first editions. An empty s.p.a.ce spoke of the novel she'd been reading last night.

Margaret fetched the book from the desk where it lay and returned it to its place on the shelf. She stared at the next novel, D.'s eleventh. Out of Time. Out of Time.

Appropriate t.i.tle.

Breathing a prayer, she slipped it off the shelf.

CHAPTER forty-five

In and out of fog Leland Hugh ran, chased by phantoms. Cloud wisps wound around his head, squeezing his thoughts to cotton. Somewhere he'd lost his way. He saw nothing, heard nothing, felt no earth below his feet. His muscular arms pumped, pumped ...

Both biceps crumbled. His fingers turned inward, gnarled, the legs beneath him now wobbly and stiff. His mind thickened, and he didn't know what to do, where to go, his thoughts gauzy and white, while something, something something s.n.a.t.c.hed at his hand, calling him, pulling him - s.n.a.t.c.hed at his hand, calling him, pulling him - "D." A voice out of the ether.

His hand jiggled.

"D., wake up."

Darell's eyes opened. He lay in bed, Margaret standing over him. Anxiety tangled her expression.

The dream roiled in his mind. Leland Hugh. The fog. The confusion.

He blinked.

"It's nine o'clock," Margaret said. "Time to get up."

Memory poured over him. Craig Barlow. Kaitlan. Craig Barlow. Kaitlan.

Darell pushed up on one elbow and tossed back the covers. "Okay. Right."

Margaret stood back as he finagled his feet to the floor. Detritus from the dream drifted fitfully in Darell's mind like sand settling after the tide. Hugh, lost and alone, becoming him. him.

Why?

A sense of urgency rose within Darell. So much to do. So many details. He reached for his cane, throwing Margaret an impatient glance. "Go on, I don't need your help. I've got to make that call right away."

She folded her arms, determination etching her face. "D., I don't want you to do it."

"Huh?"

"You're not going to lure that killer here."

What a way to put it. He gawked at her. "Have you gone mad, woman?"

"It's too dangerous."

"I have to save Kaitlan."

"We'll find another way."

"You got a better idea?"

"Yes, let the police handle it. Like we should have done in the first place."

"Oh, right. They're doing a real good job."

She shook her head impatiently. "I was reading your old novels, thinking one of them might give us an idea of what to do. That's why one was lying out in the library last night-"

"What are you blathering about, woman?" One of his books off its shelf? He had no memory of any such thing.

"See?" Margaret hunched forward as if she'd scored a major point. "You can't even remember that. Yet you think you can outwit this killer-"

"I know I can outwit him!" Darell waved his cane.

"D.-"

"Stop talking to me like I'm an old man!" He lurched to his feet. "My only grandchild needs saving, and I'm going to do it."

Margaret stood her ground, vertical lines puckering around her tightened lips. "Is this really about Kaitlan? Or is this about proving yourself-to you you?"

The words stabbed to the core of him. Darell's face went hot. He threw back his shoulders and stalked around her with all the dignity he possessed. "Out of my path, woman, I've got work to do."

She reached for his arm. "D., please-"

He yanked from her grip. Stepped sideways to push his face into hers. "Do not say another word!"

Darell jerked around and steamrolled for the bathroom. Once inside he slammed the door.