Faces Of Evil: Traceless Part 30

Nothing.

He flipped a switch in the kitchen and an overhead light flickered on. His apprehension mounting, Clint surveyed the room. Baker's wife must be on strike.

Clint moved toward the living room, then turned on a light in the short hall. Every d.a.m.ned blind in the house was closed tight. Baker was stretched out in his recliner apparently dead to the world. Clint watched a few seconds to make sure he was breathing. He looked like s.h.i.+t. Both eyes black, nose swollen.

Yep.

A .38 lay on the table by his chair. Using a dirty sock from the floor, Clint lifted the weapon and placed it on top of the entertainment cabinet out of sight and reach. Then he grabbed Baker by the s.h.i.+rtfront and hoisted him out of the chair. His eyes tried to open but couldn't seem to stay that way.

"Baker." Clint shook him. "Wake up, you little b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Baker's eyes started that blinking, upward-roll thing.

"I said, wake up!" Clint shook him harder.

He started to struggle, mumbling nonsensical words.

Clint hauled him into the nearest bathroom and shoved him into the shower. He turned the cold water on full blast.

Baker screamed and cursed and tried to bolt.

Clint blocked his path out of the three-by-three tile cubicle. "Come alive, Baker; we need to talk."

Baker's eyes widened and fury blazed across his face. "I knew you'd come if I called her over here."

"Where is she?" Clint slammed him against the wall and held him there. He ignored the cold water.

Confusion scrunched Baker's face. "I... she didn't show." The fury made a reappearance. "But you're here...."

Clint turned off the water and dragged Baker's a.s.s into the kitchen. He needed to speed up the process. He knew plenty of tricks. He'd learned them firsthand in Holman.

He plopped Baker into a chair at the kitchen table. Clint searched a couple of drawers until he found what he wanted. Baker attempted to get up, but Clint slapped a hand on his head and shoved him back down. His level of intoxication made him easy to control.

Clint sat down next to him and manacled the other man's right hand. He flatted it on the table, palm down, and held it in place with his left. "Now, tell me where she is."

"I don't have to tell you s.h.i.+t."

Using his free hand, Clint positioned the point of the knife's long, slender blade against Baker's hand at a strategic spot.

"Tell me."

"f.u.c.k you."

The slightest pressure and the knife pierced the skin, slid right between two bones and into the laminate tabletop beneath. Blood bloomed and slid around the wound. Baker screamed, thrashed his legs around a bit, but he didn't dare move his hand.

"Tell me where she is."

"She didn't come! I pa.s.sed out. If she came by after that, she left without trying to get me up." His eyes were wild when they connected with Clint's. "I swear. I didn't see her." His voice shook.

Clint pulled the knife free but didn't release Baker's hand. The guy howled as if Clint had cut the d.a.m.ned thing off.

"Why did you call her?"

Troy glared at him. His eyes looking like road maps, his face red from consistent overindulgence in alcohol.

"Why?" Clint repeated as he positioned the knife again.

"Nooo!"

"Tell me," Clint urged. "This only has to hurt as much as you want it to."

"Because I wanted to get you here," Baker cried.

"Why?" The knife remained poised for the next intrusion.

"I want you to pay, you sonofab.i.t.c.h!"

Clint let that go. "Any other reason?"

"My life is falling apart," Baker cried. He started to sob. "My wife left me. She took my kids." His whole body shook with his anguish. "My best friend is dead and it's my fault."

Clint stilled. "Why is it your fault?"

Troy wiped his face with his free hand. "What the f.u.c.k's it to you?"

The tip of the knife pierced skin in the next spot.

Baker howled. It really wasn't that bad, but the alcohol magnified everything. This technique didn't hurt nearly as much as numerous others Clint could have used. It was the watching it happen that got to the victim.

"We had a fight!" he screamed. "He told me that he cheated on Heather that night."

Clint wasn't sure her boyfriend's cheating was relevant to her murder but pursued it anyway. "That's it?"

Baker glared at him the best a drunk could. "He was f.u.c.king another woman the night my sister was murdered."

"That's what you wanted to talk to me about?" This wasn't right.

Baker's face fell into grim defeat. "I wanted to kill you," he admitted. "You came back here and tore all our lives apart." He stared at his b.l.o.o.d.y hand, at the knife Clint still held over him. "It doesn't matter now. I've lost everything I care about." He settled his drunken gaze on Clint. "You should just cut my throat and put me out of my misery."

"You didn't kill Turner?"

Long pause.

"Why the f.u.c.k would I tell you if I did?"

The fear and uncertainty in his eyes told Clint he wasn't getting more than that.

Clint pushed out of his chair. He grabbed a clean dishcloth from one of the drawers he'd looked in before and wrapped Baker's hand.

Before leaving, Clint picked up the receiver of the kitchen extension and punched in 911. He placed it on the counter. When no one responded a deputy would be dispatched. Baker would survive the injury to his hand, but Clint wasn't altogether sure the guy was safe from himself... or whoever the h.e.l.l had killed Turner and Ray.

Clint wiped the knife clean and tossed it into the sink. "Sober up, Baker."

"He's dead because of me."

Clint, hesitated at the door. "Who's dead because of you?"

"Keith," Baker said, his voice feeble. "I called him a coward, told him he should just kill himself and get it over with for what he'd done... or I'd make him wish he had."

This conversation wasn't going to make sense until Baker was sober. But something had gone down between him and Turner before he died.

Right now Clint had to find Emily.

9:00 p.m.

Clint drove around for hours with no luck. He finally returned to the inn. She hadn't come back there, either.

He'd gone by her parents' house and all of her friends', at least the ones he knew about. She wasn't anywhere.

Fear had his heart pumping double time. He was calling Caruthers. Emily wouldn't just disappear like this.

The phone's message light blinked at Clint. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and punched the necessary b.u.t.tons for retrieving the message.

"Clint..."

It was Emily. Her voice sounded shaky.

"I'm at the hospital. Can you come when you get this message, please? I need you."

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT.

Mercy Hospital 10:00 p.m.

Emily just wanted to get out of this place.

"You're sure it's okay to leave?"

She was just about to lose her patience with Clint. "Yes. That's why they released me. I'm fine."

"But you have a concussion."

"Let's go, Clint." She'd had enough trouble talking the doctor out of keeping her overnight. She had to get out of here. She and Clint were on to something and it wouldn't wait until tomorrow. Someone had attacked her in Troy's garage. She wasn't ready to believe it was Troy... but she had to face the fact that he might be involved.

Clint kept his arm around her waist as he gently guided her to his truck, then helped her inside.

"I don't like this," he muttered.

"I'm fine," she repeated. No thanks to whoever had tried to kill her. She shuddered. Someone had tried to kill her.

Clint looked at her a long moment, then closed the door.

He hurried around the hood and slid behind the wheel. "Tell me what happened?" He started the engine and backed out of the parking slot.

"Troy called." She hadn't been able to talk to Clint around all the hospital staff.

"I know that part," Clint said tightly.

"I went into the garage to try and get into the house, since he didn't answer the front door. Someone ambushed me. Drove me and my car out to Route Ten."

Clint's silence told her he was fuming.

"Thank G.o.d for OnStar." She closed her eyes and fought the emotion that tried to overwhelm her. She hated to tell Clint the rest, but considering he'd had to bring her clothes there wasn't really any way to get out of explaining what had happened to the ones she'd been wearing.

"Someone set my car on fire with me in it," she said finally. "When they pushed it into the ravine it hit a tree and the air bags deployed. The voice coming from OnStar helped me get out...." She shuddered, remembered the moment when that adrenaline rush had given her the strength she needed to move.

One of the cops had told Emily that the fire had been in the front seat and had burned itself out since so much of the vehicle's interior was flame-r.e.t.a.r.dant. What could have killed her, though, was if her clothes had flamed, since she'd been drenched in gasoline. For some reason, that hadn't happened. Either she was d.a.m.ned lucky or her would-be killer had screwed up. Emily shuddered again. "I stumbled out of the car and the next thing I knew the police and fire department were there. They're towing my car in for forensics testing."

"Sonofab.i.t.c.h!"

Emily closed her eyes and rode out the rest of the curse words, some of which she'd never heard before. Prison slang, she supposed.

"Feel better?" she asked when he'd finished. He shot her a look that was a definite no.

She had no idea where her purse was, but at least she had her cell phone. She'd found it on the ground next to her car. She didn't remember grabbing it inside the car before she got out or dropping it. Since it was her phone and the last call made on it was one she'd made and she'd obscured any possible prints, the officer had agreed to let her keep it and not log it into evidence.

"Okay." Clint glanced at her, his face lined with fury. "My turn."

He told her how the interview with Deputy Caruthers went off without a hitch. Or so it seemed.

"When I got back and found your note I went to Baker's looking for you."

She tensed. "Did you find him?"

He nodded. "He was pa.s.sed out in his living room."

"So," she ventured, "he wasn't likely the one who did this to me?"

Clint thought about that a moment. "I don't think so."

Emily sagged with relief. Another thought occurred to her. She moistened her dry lips. "So, did you talk to him?"

"Yeah. In fact, he was brought into the ER just as I got there to pick you up."