B00NRQWAJI (26 page)

In back, a sliding glass door gave out onto a cracked concrete patio. Such doors can be an intruder’s best friend. The broomsticks homeowners invariably wedge in the track for security are notoriously easy to fish loose. I applied my shoulder to the glass and jiggled the pane. It was unusually firm, so I crouched low where one half of the door overlapped the other. I spotted a factory-made deadbolt deployed into the floor. As a security specialist, I was glad the McCabe boys had taken precautions to protect their mother’s empty house. And if I couldn’t get in without damaging the place, Vance couldn’t, either. But that didn’t lead me to where he was.

Frustrated, I flopped onto an old wooden glider at the edge of the concrete pad to think. It creaked under my weight, which didn’t help my attitude. Splinters waited on the armrest to grab at unsuspecting sleeves, so I kept my elbows to myself.

But there, in the gray, weathered wood, I saw a carving.

It had faded over the years and taken on a dirty patina. But where someone had pushed the tip of a penknife into the aged arm, I could make out a heart. Inside the heart were initials.

VM + PW
.

And in that moment, I felt like I’d been struck by a lightning bolt.

VM was clearly Vance McCabe. And PW? I was certain those letters stood for Pamela Wentz.

So as a senior, Vance had harbored feelings for Pamela, the freshman. Had he told her? And had she countered by telling him she only had eyes for Barrett? Had rejection given way to rage? And had Vance McCabe attacked his friend’s little sister in that meadow because she hadn’t wanted him?

I intended to ask Vance.

But first, I had to find him.

I hopped in my car, headed to the next address in the phone book. Vance could be sleeping on a cousin’s couch, so I had to stop at them all. But as I passed through town on my way to the next listing, my route took me by the Apple Blossom Café. The sheriff’s cruiser was parked in front. Impulsively, I decided to make a pit stop.

I swung into the diner just short of the dinner hour. Business was picking up. Patrons at tables perused their menus while Charlotte bustled by to take their orders.

Rittenhaus was planted on his regular stool at the lunch counter. Calvin sat on his right. The two had their heads together in a serious conversation.

I climbed onto the stool on Rittenhaus’s left. It took him a moment to notice me, but then again, I figured he had plenty of more important things on his mind. The collar of his uniform shirt was dark with sweat, and the fried chicken on his plate was practically untouched.

“Been meaning to call you back,” he said. “What’s this about Dawkins’s killer?”

“He may’ve helped Pamela Wentz leave this world, too.”

“What do you mean?” Barrett demanded as he appeared in the kitchen doorway.

My stomach did somersaults. All day, I’d fought off the worry that Shelby had caught up with him. But here he was, safe and sound. Except Charlotte, with her riotous red hair and curvy figure, stood at Barrett’s side. She was all ears and so was Cal.

“Maybe,” I told Rittenhaus, “we should discuss this in your office.”

The sheriff looked over his shoulder, noted that his friends and neighbors seated around the restaurant were engrossed in their own concerns.

“I think you’d better tell me now,” he said. And with a glare for his girlfriend, her brother, and Barrett, he added, “You three had better not repeat a word.”

I wasn’t sure spilling this to a crowd was such a good idea. But Rittenhaus wasn’t leaving me with much choice. So as tactfully as I could, I recommended he call up a forensics expert to examine the bruising on Dawkins’s throat—and to compare those marks to the photos documenting Pamela’s autopsy.

“You’re saying the same hand that choked Dawkins before lighting him on fire also choked Pamela Wentz before her hanging,” Rittenhaus clarified. “Where did you get this information?”

But I wouldn’t out Elise for the world. Not when the stakes were so high. And not when my last would-be informant had ended up dead.

“Take a look for yourself,” I told the sheriff. “You’ll see evidence of manual strangulation and just cause for making that call to a specialist.”

“That’s remarkable,” Cal said. “Jamie, you just closed Fallowfield’s cold case!”

“But
who
strangled them? Do you know?” Charlotte asked. She’d drifted to her usual spot behind the lunch counter. On autopilot, she set out a water glass for me and filled it to the brim.

Barrett no longer darkened the doorway of the kitchen. He’d come closer, too, to hear what I had to say. But I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t know what his reaction would be to the fact that I was saying Pamela hadn’t killed herself—that Pamela had been murdered. And I didn’t know how he’d react to what I was about to say next.

“I think,” I told Charlotte, “I know that, too. I went to Vance McCabe’s mother’s house. In the back, there’s a glider. I found a heart carved into the wood. With Vance’s initials in it. And Pamela’s.”

Stunned silence met my announcement. And then the sheriff plucked his radio from his belt. He called up his dispatcher.

“Put out an APB on Vance McCabe,” he said. “I want him under arrest tonight.”

“Now, hold on,” Barrett said, stepping up beside Charlotte. “I’ll be the first to admit Vance is a bit backward, but I can’t picture him attacking Pamela.”

“What about attacking Dawkins?” I asked. “Can you picture him doing that?”

“No, Jamie, I can’t.”

“Well, maybe you should ask him about it the next time you see him. When will that be, Barrett?”

He opened his mouth to tell me off.

And Charlotte laid a hand on his arm.

She said, “None of this in here, please. Adam, have a seat next to Jamie and I’ll bring your meal out here. I doubt that army sergeant will be looking for you at this time of the evening.”

I couldn’t agree.

“Jamie,” she went on, “what’ll you have? Your dinner’s on the house.”

But I didn’t have the stomach for fried chicken.

And I didn’t have the heart to sit quietly next to Barrett.

“Thanks,” I said, sliding from my stool. “I really appreciate the offer, but no thanks. I’ve got somewhere I need to be.”

“Oh, right.”

The smile Charlotte sent me was conspiratorial.

“You know, Jamie, I thought I saw your green car from the alley in the wee hours this morning. At the motel across the street?”

Apparently, she’d seen me there when I’d visited Marc.

And maybe even when I’d given him a little kiss in the parking lot.

“I was out back,” she went on, “taking a delivery.”

“Were you?” I asked, playing her game just to see which way the ball would bounce.

“Of course, I don’t have much experience with these things.” She slipped a sideways look at Barrett. “But I’ve always heard the best way to get over a man is to get under another one.”

I couldn’t read Barrett’s mind. But his fine mouth hardened as he took in what Charlotte was saying. And what she wasn’t.

For my part, I wasn’t sure whether Charlotte thought she was helping my cause or hurting it. I didn’t appreciate her interference in either case. And Barrett’s tight-lipped superiority made me furious. He didn’t get to make assumptions about what I did. Or judge what I didn’t do.

Still, with a cool shrug of my shoulders, I said, “Actually, Charlotte, that old saying’s not true at all.”

“No?”

“No. Take it from me. Sometimes, it’s better to be on top.”

And leaving behind four people with their mouths hanging open, I strolled out of the café like I owned the street. I got in my car. And I should’ve burned rubber.

But as soon as I cranked up the engine, the passenger door swung open.

Barrett slid into the seat.

“Mind if I ride with you back to the orchard?” he asked.

Chapter 29

I should’ve tossed Barrett out of my car on his ear. I should’ve resumed my search, too, rousted Vance from whatever nest he’d secured for himself, pressed him into disclosing his real feelings for Pamela—and whether he’d done anything violent about them. Instead, I put the Jag in gear, pulled onto the street, and drove into the evening shade.

Barrett’s irritation radiated from him like a high fever. And I myself felt as prickly as a porcupine. But as I drove, I kept one eye in the rearview mirror. I hadn’t seen Eric’s Mercury in some time and I didn’t want it sneaking up on me now. Likewise, I knew Shelby wouldn’t be far away. If she caught up with Barrett while we were on the road—

He said, “You know I only want the best for you, right?”

I didn’t know if that was an oblique reference to Marc and I didn’t care.

I said, “You seem awfully sure you know what ‘the best’ for me is.”

Barrett glowered out the passenger-side window. I kept my mouth shut, too. It was quite an effort.

But when we’d reached the end of his grandmother’s long lane, when we’d circled behind her cheery house, when I’d cut the engine in front of her garage and the soft night settled over us, Barrett said, “Jamie, if you want to—”

The rest evaporated on his tongue.

Because we could hear Theodore, barking her head off.

The sound was muffled. I got out of the car to hear it better. Barrett followed suit, but it still sounded like the dog was raising a ruckus from someplace far away.

Barrett and I looked up at his apartment. The drawn curtains trembled as Theodore leapt at the windows. And then she began to howl.

“That’s funny,” Barrett said. “I left her with Elise when I came back this afternoon. I locked up the apartment, too.”

“Anyone could pick that lock with a paperclip, Barrett.”

He sent me a frown—and ascended the stairs to see about his dog.

The back door was unlocked as always. I’d have to have a serious discussion with Mrs. Barrett about that. But maybe she and Elise hadn’t wanted to lock me out. After all, I didn’t have a key and I hadn’t told them when I’d be back. Admittedly, that wasn’t the best houseguest behavior on my part.

“Elise?” I called. “Mrs. Barrett?”

I received no answer.

But the kitchen lights were on and I spied a piece of stationery propped against the sugar bowl on the table. It was a note. In block printing that bore a shaky resemblance to a doctor’s scrawl, it read:
TOOK GRAM TO THE GROCERY. BE BACK SOON
.

Theodore had grown quiet. I imagined Barrett’s joining her had settled her. I shrugged out of my blazer, hung it on the back of a chair. I removed my Beretta, too, laid it on the tablecloth. And that turned out to be a mistake.

“Where’s Adam?” a voice behind me said.

I froze.

“I’ve got to talk to Adam,” Vance McCabe insisted.

“I’ll go get him for you.”

I reached for my coat—and for my gun.

But Vance seized me by my ponytail. He jerked me so hard, I thought he’d rip my hair from the roots. And my reaction to that was swift and sure.

I stomped on his instep in a bone-crushing move. He wailed. And the instant his body convulsed with the pain, I shot an elbow into his skull. He released me to clutch at his head. I stepped away—and into a roundhouse kick that would knock him on his ass.

But Vance charged me.

He caught me off balance. One of his hands latched around my throat. The other clamped my nose and mouth.

He forced me down, onto the kitchen table.

I could taste the salt in his palm, smell the sour sweat on his skin. He was shaking like an aspen leaf. And he was ruled by the herky-jerky twitches of a man habitually high on drugs.

“I’ve got to talk to Adam,” he told me. “He’s got to give me some cash. I’ve got to get out of town.”

I fought to pry Vance’s fingers from my face, struggled to force a knee against his hip. Darkness closed in on me as I battled to breathe. At the back door, I heard Theodore’s savage growls. With claws and teeth, she tore through the screen. And into Vance McCabe.

He screamed as if his soul had been ripped from his body.

And somehow Barrett was there. He dragged his old friend off of me, punched him in the face as Theodore sunk her teeth into the man’s thigh. But the chemicals coursing through Vance’s bloodstream made him bulletproof. He gathered his strength, shoved Barrett against the wall, threw Theodore to the floor. And then he was gone, off and running out of the house. Through the dark. With Theodore snarling and snapping in hot pursuit.

Barrett clambered to his feet just as I heard Vance’s old pickup rattle and roll down the drive. He must’ve hidden it behind the barn. Or alongside the garage. But he hadn’t fooled Theodore. She’d known he was here the whole time.

She returned to the kitchen, panting in victory. I knelt beside her, wrapped my arms around her neck in a thankful embrace. Barrett’s cell was to his ear.

He said, “Luke, Vance was just here. He attacked Jamie. He took her nine-millimeter.”

I glanced at the table where Vance had held me down. The salt and pepper shakers lay like fallen chess pieces and the sugar bowl had spilled its bounty. Elise’s note was nothing more than a crumpled scrap of paper—and the place where I’d laid my holster was bare.

“I don’t know,” Barrett was saying. “It sounded like he turned north.”

I left him to his phone call, blazed through the darkened sitting room, and tripped up the stairs. At the top, I fumbled for the hallway light, flicked it on, and made a beeline for the bathroom. All I could think about was that I was all right—and that I couldn’t wash Vance’s handprints from my body fast enough.

I didn’t bother with the light switch in the bath. Instead, I peeled off my turtleneck, let it fall to the floor. In the darkened mirror and the half-light from the hall, my flesh shined pale against the delicate blue of my Belgian lace bra. But I could see bruises developing on my skin.

I yanked the elastic from my ponytail, let my long hair tumble free. And snatching up the bar of soap from its dish, I cranked on the spigot in the sink. The water was hot. I liked it that way. The scent of the soap was lavender, earthy and rich.

Thoroughly, I lathered my face, my throat, my arms and my hands. The splashing water washed away what had almost happened. And when I buried my face in a fluffy towel, I felt more like myself—but not quite.