Epiphany (Legacy of Payne) (16 page)

He flinched, and I thought he was about to withdraw, so his next words surprised me. “Deb gave it to me on our first anniversary, the night we decided to start a family.”

“Aidan . . .” No words would lessen his grief; anything I said would offer minuscule comfort at best.

“I buried it with her.” He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. We watched a spider crawl above our heads.

“I’ll destroy the drawing. I’m sorry I drew it.”

“No, keep it.” He flexed his fingers around mine. “I’ve learned the hard way that memories can’t be buried.”

We had that in common. I slid my hand from his and sat up, figuring we both needed a little space. “Mind if I take a shower?”

He propped himself up on his elbows. “Of course not. We need to stop by your apartment today. You’re gonna need clothes.”

“I shouldn’t stay here.” I stood, and my bare feet sank into the plush carpet as I padded to the door.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No, but staying with you . . . it’s not a good idea.” Not when all I could think about was how amazing it felt to kiss him. I was too conflicted, too confused, to know what the hell I wanted. One minute I wanted to be as close as humanly possible, and the next I was panicking when I got my wish.

No wonder he’d put on the brakes.

“He broke into your apartment, Mackenzie. You can’t go back home, and you refuse to leave town, so that leaves you staying with me.” I heard his sigh from across the room. “This is my fault. He’s targeting you because of me.”

And there it was—the one thing that bothered me most. I didn’t want to be an obligation to him. He said he had feelings for me, but I couldn’t help but wonder how much of what he felt stemmed from guilt.

“I’ll think about it.” I grabbed the doorknob and hesitated. “I know you better than you think.” I left the room, wondering how he’d react if he knew how close I was to giving him what was left of my heart.

Despite my misgivings, I temporarily moved into Aidan’s guest bedroom. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stay with him, and I didn’t lack common sense either—I understood the danger I faced. No, the part I hated was how he considered protecting me his duty, as if keeping me alive would assuage his misplaced guilt. I wanted him to want me around because he just . . . did.

“What am I missing?” He crossed his arms and perused the mess of newspapers, records, and printouts arranged in slapdash fashion on the table. He’d turned the dining room into what I liked to call “Operation Find Psychopath.”

“No luck?” I slid a pile of tax records out of the way and made room for his cup of coffee.

He absently picked up the mug and gestured to the table. “Searching real estate sales and rentals turned up zilch. I haven’t found a single person—besides myself—who turned up from the Boise area in the last few months.”

“What about family members?” I fiddled with a notepad, the kind important people like lawyers used. Details of my dreams barely filled the first sheet, and my drawings—more useless sketches of the same cabin, of images that didn’t make sense—mocked me from underneath. “Maybe he has family here. If he’s staying with someone, I doubt you’d find any real estate records.”

“I thought about that.” He picked up the morning’s newspaper; the sheriff’s department was following all leads, blah, blah, blah. The only good thing about the front page was the absence of another murder announcement. “It’s more than just the lack of evidence that bothers me. There’s no logic. Why come here? Why kill in Watcher’s Point? My mother is the only connection I have to this town.”

“You think the murders might have something to do with her?”

He threw the paper on the table. “I have no clue. I’m at a loss. This makes no fucking sense.” He sipped from his mug, and as I watched the steam snake upward, an idea occurred to me.

“What if he didn’t relocate here? What if he’s been here all along?”

Aidan stilled. “You mean like a copycat?”

“I guess.”

“Impossible. He left a picture of Deb in your apartment.”

He had a point. But what if . . . “What if the Hangman didn’t kill your wife?”

“What? How did you come up with that theory?”

“I don’t know, but maybe you can’t find anyone with a connection to Boise because there isn’t one.”

“No.” His mouth flattened into a stubborn line. “It was him. Classic Hangman M.O.”

“Except your wife was a teacher.” I averted my eyes, uncomfortable with discussing her murder. “All of the other victims worked in bars or clubs.”

“Did your dreams tell you that?”

The grandfather clock announced the hour, unleashing its haunting melodic strains. I jumped every time the darn thing went off. Twelve chimes completed the ritual. We’d been going over the case since breakfast.

“No, the Internet did.”

Aidan’s curious gaze followed me around the table. I lingered at the window and pressed close, and my breath fogged the glass as I peered down at the rhythmic tide. Waves frothed over the rocks, reaching a furious crescendo as seawater spouted through the cracks.

“After Six went missing, I Googled the Hangman. The name A.J. Payne popped up. The sheriff said you were a reporter, and I wanted to know if you were him.”

“All you had to do was ask.”

“Right,” I said, arching a brow as I faced him, “because you’ve always been a fountain of information.”

He folded his arms defensively. “I didn’t want to involve you.”

“Well, now I’m involved, and I’m asking. Is it possible a copycat was responsible?”

He seemed to consider the question. “Anything’s possible. The police looked into it because of Deb’s profession and the set-up in our bedroom.” He refocused on the disorganized mess that separated us. “But they didn’t find anything. They thought it was a personal attack aimed at me.”

I leaned against the windowsill and recalled what I’d read about the Hangman. “He disappeared a few months later, right? Only resurfacing in Watcher’s Point a couple of weeks ago?”

“Yeah, there was another victim after Deb, and then poof—he was gone. I don’t know what brought him here, but he made sure I had a front row seat.” Aidan rubbed the bridge of his nose, and I was struck with how exhausted he looked. My nightmares had woken him the past two nights, even though we slept in separate bedrooms.

“I received a letter three weeks ago, and whoever sent it claimed that Chloe Sanders had information about Deb’s murder. If I hadn’t been so desperate for a lead, I would have written it off as a prank.”

But then Chloe turned up dead, and that had pretty much ensured he was on the right path. The night of Aidan’s attack suddenly entered my mind. “So it
was
Chloe’s boyfriend who attacked you, wasn’t it? He must have assumed you had something to do with her death.”

“Probably.”

“Okay, let’s forget about the copycat angle for now. What about a connection? There’s gotta be a reason he’s targeting you.”

“Trust me, I’ve wondered the same thing. I checked out every person I could think of—people I’ve pissed off, people I’ve sent to jail. Digging into my past didn’t turn up anything.” He reached for a thin newspaper clipping, ragged around the edges from too much handling. Ragged, just like Aidan. He frowned at the smiling face of his wife. “Whatever the reason, it got Deb killed.”

“How is blaming yourself gonna help?”

He set aside the clipping. “Let’s go over your dream again. Tell me about this van you saw last night.”

“Aidan,” I began, unable to mask my frustration. He wore his guilt like armor; evidently, he had no intention of letting me talk him out of it. “I already told you. It was a white utility van.” I moved around the table and sifted through my sketches until I found the one I’d drawn this morning.

He frowned. “No license plates or windows? What about lettering on the sides? Dents, or cracks in the windshield?”

I screwed my eyes shut and visualized what I’d seen in my dream. He remained quiet, and the silence buzzed in my ears, morphed into the roar of the ocean. A wave of dizziness threatened to pull me under. Blindly, I reached for the edge of the table. Memories stuttered like movie clips behind my eyelids: foamy waves and jagged rocks, milky sprays of seawater, and the moon—a perfect circle to illuminate the night. The last thing I saw was a white van speeding toward a tunnel.

“No windows,” I paused, “and no lettering either. I’m not sure about damage, but there’s a tunnel. Gotta be Highway 101.” Upon returning to the here and now, I found that he’d inched closer. “There was a full moon.”

Aidan moved over to his laptop. A calendar of November popped up, and I realized instantly what he was looking for. Lunar cycles.

“There’s a full moon this Sunday.”

I slumped into a chair as the magnitude of the situation hit me. “If I’m right . . .”
Another woman is going to die . . .
“then we don’t have much time.”

He pulled up a chair and sat facing me. “What about the victim? Can you remember anything? Hair or eye color? Height?”

“I’m not sure . . . brown hair? God, Aidan . . . I can’t see who she is. He’s gonna kill again, and I can’t do shit about it because I can’t see what I need to see.”

He slid his hands into my hair, and I froze. We’d been tiptoeing around each other ever since our heavy talk about sex, and how, apparently, we’d come to the conclusion it didn’t need to be rushed. His warm fingers held me steady as he seemingly debated with himself. I waited, barely breathing, until he brought his lips to mine. A moan escaped, and reality faded for a few delirious moments as the world narrowed to only him.

“What was that for?” I asked after we’d broken apart. “I mean, you barely touch me for two days, and now you’re kissing me?”

“You were having a meltdown.”

“Now I’m having a different kind of meltdown.”

He pressed his forehead against mine. “I can’t keep my head on straight when I’m around you, which makes touching you a
really
 bad idea.”

But then he was kissing me again.

I weaved my fingers through his silky strands. He needed a haircut, though the thought of shortening the length made my fingers ache. I loved his hair.

“We’d better stop,” his words ghosted across my mouth, “or we’re gonna end up in bed.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“Mmm-hmm. When I think of a reason, I’ll tell you why.” His phone vibrated on the table. He reached for it and stared at the display. “Finally.”

“Who is it?” I asked when what I really wanted to do was strangle whoever had interrupted us.

“My brother.” He answered the call with, “What did you find?” and got up to pace the floor. “You want me to come to Portland? Why?” A pause, and then, “No, that’s okay. I’m on my way.”

“Did you find out who was following us?” I asked after he’d slipped the phone into his pocket.

He nodded. “The plate traced back to a private investigator.”

“The car belonged to a PI?”

“So it seems, and for some reason Logan wants to talk to me in person.” He stopped pacing. “Feel like going to Portland?”

Didn’t the man know I’d follow him to the gates of Hell by now?

* * *
 

Three and a half hours later we arrived in the “City of Roses.” Portland was possibly the most gorgeous city in the US, even if a sheet of rain obscured the view. Several bridges connected eastern and western Portland over the Willamette River, and high-rise buildings towered amongst a thicket of greenery.

Aidan steered the car off I-5 and headed into the heart of the city.

“I’m surprised Mike gave us the night off, especially after what happened Saturday.” I strained to get a glimpse of the skyscrapers through the gray.

“Maybe he’s taking bets on whether or not I’ll get arrested again.”

“Can I get in on this bet?”

Aidan’s laughter filled the car. “When I told him how Brad accosted you on the dance floor, he said I should have knocked out a couple of teeth while I was at it.”

I smiled despite myself. “I can’t believe you got yourself arrested.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“You’re kidding.” My attention shifted to him, and the tall buildings and riverfront scenery were forgotten.

“When I was a reporter, I didn’t always play by the rules.”

“What did you get arrested for?”

“Breaking and entering, mostly. I wasn’t about to let a little thing like a locked door keep me from landing a story.” He shot me a dimpled grin. “Though one time I got arrested for jaywalking.”

“
Jaywalking
?”

“The cop was an ass. He said I had an attitude.” Aidan quirked an eyebrow. “Imagine that, huh?” He steered the car onto SW River Parkway. “I suppose ripping the ticket to shreds didn’t help my case.”

“Probably not.” I tried to hide a smile but failed. He pulled into the underground parking garage of one of downtown’s riverfront high-rise buildings. “This is it?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He armed the car alarm, and we headed toward the lobby where a doorman greeted us.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Payne.”

Aidan nodded his acknowledgement and then escorted me into the swankiest elevator I’d ever seen. Dark wood and marble surrounded us, and a cushioned bench, tucked against a wall, invited people to relax and enjoy the ride. He pressed the button marked with “P.”

“Your brother lives in the penthouse?”

“Yeah.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes as the mirrored doors closed.

The name of the building, carved into seashell marble, drew my attention. Payne-Davis Riverscape.

“Payne-Davis . . . as in the 
corporation
?”

As in the largest conglomerate in the Pacific Northwest?

He must have been fascinated by his reflection; his gaze never strayed from the doors as the elevator continued to climb. With forty floors to travel, we still had a ways to go.

I gaped at him. Payne-Davis did business in everything from weaponry to pharmaceuticals. “You’re one of
those
Paynes?”

“Hamilton Payne is my father,” he finally admitted as we passed the twenty-eighth floor.

The CEO was his 
father
?