Next to Die (12 page)

Penny parked her car in front of her house and smiled at the lascivious-looking jack-o’-lanterns glowing across the darkness at her. He’d faced them deliberately in the direction of her home so she wouldn’t miss seeing them.

Apology accepted, Commander.
Happiness warmed her like a flame as she peered into his windows, wondering how his trip had gone. A bluish flicker told her that the TV was on. But then she caught sight of a second vehicle parked behind his Jeep, and her happiness disintegrated. The green Volkswagon belonged to yet another one of his girlfriends.

He was back in action. Well, she sighed, it beats drinking himself into a stupor.

Yet loneliness enveloped her as she gathered her groceries from her trunk and carried them into her dark and empty home. Lia hadn’t left a single light on when she left for work.

Dumping grocery bags on the kitchen counter, Penny went to hang her jacket in the closet. Was it too much to ask to find a helpful husband, someone with whom to share life’s everyday burdens, to snuggle with on the couch? She pictured Steven Parks, the surgeon who’d eaten lunch with her every day last week. He’d promised to call her this weekend, but he hadn’t yet. Perhaps he’d called while she was out.

She hastened to the kitchen to check her answering machine. The flashing light had her pulse accelerating. “You have one new message,” announced the digitalized voice. The machine gave a beep, but no one spoke. The sound of heavy breathing chased away Penny’s expectations.

Eric was at it again. To her amazement, he began to talk. “W-w-why’re doin’ this? Why? You’re gonna . . . end up d-d-d-dead, like your father!” The phone clicked, and the digitalized voice on Penny’s machine said, “End of call.”

Penny could only stand there, rocked by the heavy beating of her heart. But then she realized the recording was just the evidence they needed.

She snatched up the phone to alert the authorities. Special Agent Lindstrom’s business card was pinned to the corkboard. Beside it, on a scrap of paper, were Joe’s name and number, scrawled in Lia’s handwriting.

Penny eyed the information as she dialed Hannah’s number. How had Lia gotten their neighbor’s number, and why?

The agent’s phone bumped her over to voice mail, and Penny left a concise but shaken message, requesting Hannah to call her back.

She hung up and waited, suddenly conscious of how dark and quiet her house was. What if she wasn’t alone? She strained her ears and listened. A muted sound seemed to come from upstairs.

Fear had her snatching the phone up a second time. She tapped out Joe’s number, refusing to ask herself why she was calling him, of all people.

“Montgomery.”

Just the sound of his voice sent warmth rushing through her. “Hi, this is Penny. I know you’re busy, but can you come over for a sec?”

His leather sofa creaked. “What’s wrong?” he asked, obviously picking up on her fright.

“I want you to hear something on my message machine.”

“Be right there.”

She dashed to the porch to wait for him, too rattled to put away her groceries.

Joe found Penny standing on her front porch, trying not to wring her hands. Her enormous eyes hit him like a punch in the gut. “What happened?” he asked again.

“Come inside. I want you to hear this.” Casting a wary glance up her staircase, she led the way to the kitchen, where groceries had yet to be put away. She ignored them, pushing a button on her wall phone.

Joe listened to heavy breathing and then a panic-stricken message, while Penny wrapped her arms around herself.

“He admitted to killing my father,” she marveled, when the message came to an end. “That’s all the proof we need.” She was trying to sound cool, like the call hadn’t rattled her, but she didn’t fool him.

“This is the guy who’s been harassing you,” Joe guessed, forbearing to mention that the caller hadn’t admitted to killing anyone.

“My father’s former colleague,” she confirmed, “the one who sold the ricin to terrorists, we think.”

“And then murdered your father,” he added, for clarification.

“Yes.”

“I thought you said the FBI was working on this.”

“They are. I just called the agent in charge of the case and left a message. Hopefully she’ll call me right back.”

“I’m sure she will.” Her wide-eyed vulnerability made her look especially feminine, as did her civilian clothing—soft, faded jeans and a stretchy pink sweater that highlighted her perfect little breasts.

“I’m glad Ophelia wasn’t home to take this call,” Penny said breathlessly. “She would have totally freaked out. But hey, now we have we have his recorded confession. That should help speed up his arrest.”

Her quick chatter betrayed agitation. On instinct, Joe stepped forward and offered her a reassuring squeeze. “He’ll be out of the picture in no time,” he comforted.

He didn’t mean the hug to be personal, but it unsettled her enough to blurt, “So how was your trip?”

“Good,” he said, letting his arms fall. “I’m glad I went.” He could actually breathe again. Yes, some awful things happened that night, but he didn’t need to blame himself entirely.

“Thanks for carving the pumpkins,” she told him, with a wry little smile that drew his gaze to her full mouth.

“No problem.” A current of awareness passed between them. “You, uh, you want me to have a look around?” Joe offered. “Make sure nobody’s lurking upstairs?”

“Would you?” She sounded relieved.

“Sure.”

He poked his head around the first floor, then took the stairs two at a time as Penny trailed behind. He peered into closets and under beds, taking silent but approving note of the understated traditional decor. Her bedroom was tidy and neat, filled with a light, rosy fragrance. The room Ophelia used was a wreck.

“All clear,” he said, having assured himself that she was home alone.

They paused at the top of the staircase, next to their merging shadows. “Thank you,” Penny said, gripping the banister.

“You want to come to my place till the feds get here?” he offered. She was obviously still shaken.

“Oh. No, thank you. You already have a guest,” she added with a fluttering gesture.

“Cindy was leaving when you called.”

“Oh, well . . . I should wait for the agent to call me back,” she explained.

“Right,” he agreed. “So you’re going to be all right, then?”

“Sure,” she said, pinning on a bright smile.

“Okay.” He started down the stairs. The last impression he wanted to give was that he was coming on to her.

“Thank you,” she called, seeing him off.

“’Night,” he called back.

On his way to his house, he heard Penny’s phone ring.

Under the glow of her desk lamp, Special Agent Hannah Lindstrom flipped through Eric Tomlinson’s folder one more time. She had to be overlooking something. If Tomlinson had sold the ricin to terrorists, then why was there no trail?

She flicked a glance at her silent phone, willing it to ring. Last night, the police had left Miss Price’s home armed with evidence of harassment, if not an implicit statement of guilt, and promising to arrest Tomlinson the next day. Hannah had waited since then to hear that they’d made more headway questioning him than the FBI had.

The man would not confess to selling the ricin.

Nor was there any proof to suggest that he’d murdered his partner: no accounts, foreign or domestic, in his name, holding mysterious sums of money; no history of an e-mail account from which the printed e-mail had been sent, not even on microfiche.

To make matters worse, the original investigation of the ricin theft had been headed up by an old-school detective who’d scoffed at forensics. Hannah could only guess that the man had had his palm greased for slapping a lid on the case. She’d never reviewed a sloppier investigation.

The jangling of her phone cut through her bleak thoughts. She flashed out a hand to answer it. “Special Agent Lindstrom.”

“Sweetheart.”

Her stomach tightened with mixed guilt and pleasure. “Oh, hi, honey.”

“I thought you’d be home by seven.”

“Oh, yeah, you know this case is hot.” What a lie that was. As cases went, this one wasn’t even lukewarm. The police had grounds for arresting Tomlinson—on a harassment charge—but the FBI still did not.

“I know what you’re doing, baby,” Luther chided.

She loved it when he called her baby. It made her melt.

“You don’t have to hide from me,” he added. “If you’re not ready, you’re not ready.”

She wanted to be ready. No man in the world would make a better father than Luther. She could picture him down on the floor wrestling with a brown-haired toddler. It was herself as a mother that she couldn’t quite see. But the fact that Luther so completely understood that made her want to please him all the more.

She slapped Eric’s file shut. “I’ll be home in ten minutes,” she promised, feeling breathless and scared and excited all at the same time.

“I love you, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart
did the same thing that
baby
did. She hung up the phone knowing she was doing the right thing.

Snapping off her desk light, she grabbed her purse and hurried for the exit. “’Bye, Emilio,” she called, waving to the janitor as she disappeared.

Back in her office cubicle, the telephone rang again. On the fourth ring her voice mail picked up.

The caller left a muted message. “This is Sergeant McCaully with the State Police. Uh, getting back to you regarding Eric Tomlinson, we still do not have the suspect in custody at this time. We do have a warrant, but he’s flying low. He’s in the NCIC, so if we get a hit, we’ll pick him up and hold him. Just thought I’d let you know.”

Eric huddled in his car on a dirt road that dead-ended behind him, surrounded by trees and falling leaves. With what felt like a block of ice in his chest, he reached for the gun in his glove compartment, checked his arsenal, and left it on the seat beside him.

The Price sisters lived just a block away. He’d been watching them, waiting for the right moment to confront them. At the same time, he could sense the enemy closing in. The vultures were circling.

Danny’s daughters hadn’t heeded his warning. They’d gone and gotten the cops involved. Stupid, stupid girls. Because of them, he was forced to take more drastic measures.

Chapter Eight

Ophelia applied her eyeliner with dramatic strokes. She scowled as she considered the likelihood of an unprofitable evening ahead of her.

Penny was right. Waitressing was not a career—at least not in this tourist town. She couldn’t live like this forever, with cash to burn one month, empty pockets the next.

The worst thing was subletting her apartment to a couple of friends because she couldn’t afford to pay the rent herself. She trusted them to care for her cherished stuff, but it felt just awful to leave everything behind, like a traveling gypsy.

Assessing the results of her heavy hand with a frown, she realized she looked just like a gypsy. With a grimace, she reached for a tissue to wipe it off. But then the doorbell rang.

She was home alone.

Penny wasn’t due in until six o’clock, two hours from now.

Peering out of the powder room, Lia eyed the front door. The visitor was a man. She could tell as much by his silhouette, visible through the oval window with a pink-washed sky behind him.

What if it was Eric? The police were on the prowl for him, but they hadn’t found him yet.

It didn’t look like Eric. The caller was of average height, while Eric was tall and spindly.

Wetting her glossed lips, Lia tiptoed to the door for a better view. The man had turned away. All that she could see was a broad back and short black hair. There was something vaguely familiar about him. It definitely wasn’t Eric.

She pulled the door open.

The stranger turned, and she gasped her dismay. It was Al Pacino’s young look-alike, the driver of the Honda Civic, only he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, which made him look even younger. She went to slam the door in his face, but he was faster than she was, jamming a foot between the door and the threshold.

“Go away,” she said, pushing with all her might. The door didn’t budge.

His gaze fastened with amazement on her orange Hooters T-shirt, paired with tiny black shorts. “You’re a Hooters girl?” he demanded with his Philadelphia accent.

It was none of his business. “Get lost or I’ll call the cops,” she told him coldly.

“Oh, I don’t think so. You didn’t want cops to come last time, remember?” he said. He cracked a cocky smile, displaying strong white teeth.

“Look,” she said, alarmed that he’d gone to such lengths to find her, “I don’t want you here. What part of get lost don’t you get?”

“You owe me a debt,” he stated simply.

“And I offered to repay that debt. With a check,” she reminded him. “I don’t date younger guys, got it?”