Finding Claire Fletcher (43 page)

“Claire,” he said.

I looked at him. His face was lined with pain. He held out a hand and I grasped it, helping him to his feet. Connor's limp was more pronounced as we hurried toward the rental cars.

“You'll have to drive,” Connor said. “Leave mine here. I'll deal with it later.”

I drove back to the hotel. The entire drive Connor kept looking behind us as if he expected a squadron of police cars to descend upon us in pursuit, but we made it to the hotel without incident.

Once inside the room, Connor locked the door. When he turned to look at me, the anger on his face jarred me back to the present moment. My fantasy of battering Sheila flicked off in my mind like a television channel being changed.

Suddenly, I felt my body again and in spite of having just come out of the Houston heat, my skin was cold and clammy.

“What the hell are you doing?” Connor demanded. “What are you thinking, Claire?” He advanced toward me. “Are you out of your goddamn mind? You could have been killed, and now Sheila Johnson will probably file assault charges against you. Claire, what the hell were you thinking? Your family is worried sick.”

The closer he came, the smaller the room seemed. I was suddenly aware of the fact that I was alone in a locked room with a man. A low thrum—the vibration of terror—worked its way up from my toes to my scalp, constricting my throat as it passed. Abruptly, Connor froze. The angry tension in his face slackened. He glanced at the locked door.

“Claire,” he said, voice noticeably softer. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

I stared at him, my throat working but nothing coming out. Connor sank onto the edge of the bed and rubbed his scalp with both hands. He looked at me again.

“I would never hurt you.”

I knew that was true. We'd been alone together several times. Connor had never been anything but warm and protective toward me. Most of the time, I wanted to burrow into the safety of his arms and let him hold me. The memory of our first night together remained vivid in my mind—a tactile memory complete with the heady scent of his skin. All the things that Reynard had done to me hung between Connor and I like dead weight—a pendulum that could not be budged.

Connor sighed. His voice was full of resignation. “I would never hurt you,” he repeated. “I'm trying to help you, but you're not making it easy. What do you think is going to happen when you find Johnson?”

I stared at him. “I’m going to kill him,” I said. The words were as much a surprise to me as they were to Connor but in that moment I realized it was true. I wanted to stop him and killing him seemed the surest way of doing that.

“Claire.”

“I can do it. If I have to kill him to get to Emily, then I will,” I said firmly although I had no idea how I would accomplish this. I would worry about the logistics later.

Connor's eyes were sad. He pursed his lips. Then he said, “Claire, you're not a killer. You don't know—”

I thought of Miranda Simon, who Johnson had strangled before my eyes. I cut Connor off in midsentence. “Have you ever watched someone die?”

The question stung. He looked as if I had slapped his face. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “The day I met you.”

I had forgotten. I looked away from him.

“I shot that guy close range, dead center in the chest,” Connor added. “Aim for center mass—that’s what they tell you in training. People think because you have a badge, you’re some kind of expert marksman. They think because you’re the police, you should be able to control yourself better than any common criminal. It’s all bullshit. They teach you to aim for center mass because the only time you have to fire a weapon in the line of duty is when all hell is breaking loose and your adrenaline is pumping so hard you can hardly fucking think or see, let alone make a split-second decision like you had all day to contemplate it.

“When shit goes down, you aim for center mass because even if you’re a crack shot, you’re liable to miss nine out of ten times. I watched that guy bleed out right there on the floor while the paramedics worked on him.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Yeah. Me too.”

“I mean I’m sorry I brought it up. I forgot. I’m not sorry you killed that man.”

I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out the crumpled piece of paper with Carolyn Johnson's handwriting on it. It said,
Langdon Hotel, Julian California.
I thrust it at Connor.

"I know where he is. I'm going to find him and bring Emily home. Will you help me?”

The box held three thousand dollars. Connor and I counted it before we left the hotel while I recounted my strange meeting with Carolyn. I left out her last instructions to me to pick up a package from her upon my arrival at the Langdon Hotel. Julian was a small town nestled among the Cuyamaca Mountains. It was an hour east of San Diego and a highly-trafficked tourist area. Reynard would blend in easily there.

I was going with or without Connor's help, which he quickly surmised, his brilliant blue eyes darkening as his resolve gave way. We compromised on our way to the Houston airport. The two of us would go to Julian alone. Connor insisted we notify the local police chief upon our arrival, but after that I would have one day to track down Reynard before he called in the state police and FBI.

Connor reasoned that we had a better chance of tracking Johnson alone since the two of us would invite little attention. Based on Johnson's previous success eluding capture, Connor was certain that Johnson already had escape routes and contingency plans in place to resort to at the first sign that authorities were onto him.

The only other condition of Connor's assistance was that if we did locate Reynard, I was not to pursue him myself. At that point, Connor maintained, we had to call in the cavalry. I knew Connor was not entirely at ease with the plan, in spite of the compromise. He was a police officer, and even though he'd seen and heard horrific things on the job, he could never know or understand what it was like to be hurt and violated the way I had been.

Connor's idea of justice was different from my own. He had killed a rapist, and he still lost sleep over it. Connor's regret over killing that rapist came from the same place inside him that now forced him to help me against his better judgment. He knew the only way he would stop me from going after Reynard and finding Emily would be to use physical force or arrest me. Connor had meant it when he said he'd never hurt me. He didn't have a choice. I'd backed him into a corner.

We caught the first flight to San Diego. In spite of Connor's protests, I used Carolyn's money to pay for the tickets. It seemed fitting that the money used to find and kill my abductor come from the family who had knowingly turned him loose on society, sealing my fate before I was even born. I could never use the money for anything else.

We arrived in San Diego at seven in the evening. We rented a car and drove to the Langdon Hotel. By the time we arrived, it was dark. Connor insisted on getting rooms for the night, even though I wanted to start looking for Reynard immediately. He briefed the hotel’s night manager on the purpose of our trip and secured the name and home phone number of the local police chief. A crisp hundred dollar bill ensured that the manager would not run to the press the moment we stepped into the elevator.

Our rooms were side by side. Connor escorted me inside my room. He checked the locks on the doors, pulled the curtains closed and plopped down on the edge of the bed. He used the phone to call the police chief and then my mother. He offered me the phone, but I couldn’t take it. I was afraid if I talked to her I would lose some of my resolve. It was enough that she knew I was okay and that Connor was with me.

As Connor filled her in, I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. My clothes were wrinkled and smelled slightly stale. I hadn’t bathed since I left Sacramento. My skin was filmy and moist, my teeth grimy. My curls sagged with oily buildup. All of it registered as a fleeting annoyance. Emily planted herself stubbornly front and center in my mind.

I put the clothes back on after my shower. When I emerged from the bathroom I found Connor asleep on the bed. He sat upright, his head resting against the headboard. One of his legs dangled off the edge of the bed, as if he'd been in the act of standing when he dozed off. The other extended the length of the bed. He had tucked a pillow under his knee to elevate it. I stared at him for a long time.

He looked so peaceful. Carefully, so as not to jar him awake, I climbed onto the other side of the bed. I laid on my side and watched his face. The rhythmic sound of his breath easing in and out of his body soothed me.

After an hour, he woke. He scrunched up his face as though he'd eaten something sour. It made him look like a little boy, and I laughed in spite of the situation. Sleepily, he looked in my direction. It took a few seconds for him to remember where he was and why. His eyes widened abruptly.

“Shit,” he said. He leaned forward to get up. “I'm sorry, Claire.” He fished in his pocket and came up with a set of hotel keys which he handed to me. “Those are yours. I'll go next door.” His voice was still husky with sleep and his movements slow.

I put a hand on his forearm. “No,” I said. “Stay.”

He paused and studied me, the sleep gradually receding from his eyes. “I'll be right next door,” he said.

“No. I want you to stay.”

This surprised him. His eyebrows rose. “Are you sure?”

I nodded and pulled him toward me. We lay side by side staring up at the ceiling. I snaked my hand down between our bodies and laced my fingers through his.

“Tomorrow we'll canvass,” Connor said. “I've got a photo of Johnson. We'll go door to door if we have to—starting with businesses. I already gave the hotel manager a copy of the photo.”

I squeezed his hand in acknowledgment. Tension ebbed between our bodies. I closed my eyes and felt my body drawing heat from his, instinctually wanting to move closer. After several minutes Connor said, “Claire, it's really no problem for me to sleep in the other room.”

I sighed. “This is silly. We already spent a night together.”

“That was different,” Connor pointed out. “You were playing a role, trying to manipulate me.”

I jerked my head toward him, but he wasn't looking at me. “Is that what you think? That I was only trying to manipulate you?”

“Does it matter?”

“It matters to me.”

“I don't know, Claire.” He sounded tired, more tired than I'd ever heard him.

Tears sprang to my eyes. He had to know that I felt something for him—whatever that was—whether it was a simple crush or more definitive feelings. But I couldn't protest because as we laid there, I was manipulating him into helping me find Reynard so that I could confront him myself and kill him if it came to that.

“Connor, I…”

He didn't respond. His eyes were closed, but I could tell by his uneven breathing that he was not asleep.

I swallowed and tried again. I couldn't get the words out so I asked him for the thing I had wanted since I had seen him again in the ER—the thing I had also been afraid of since my return. “Connor? Could you just hold me—the way you did that night?”

He didn't speak. He looked over at me for a long moment. Then he rolled over and pulled me into him, circling my body with his arms and settling his warmth all around me. Within minutes, he was fast asleep.

I skimmed the edges of sleep, exhaustion tugging at every muscle in my body but not pulling me into sleep. In fits and starts, the endless possibilities of what Reynard might have done or might presently be doing to Emily flitted through my mind. Each one was worse than the last. Occasionally, I shivered and each time Connor squeezed me more tightly against his body, pressing the ugly images outside the tortured confines of my mind.

I was still awake when the man knocked on the door to our room. Connor snored lightly, his body limp and heavy against mine. I disentangled myself and answered the knock, stepping quietly into the hallway.

He was a local auto mechanic who had happened to eat breakfast in the same diner as the hotel's night manager that morning. He'd heard all about us and the man we were looking for. He thought he had towed a car for the man—for Reynard Johnson. There was a girl with Johnson, the man said, and they were staying in a cabin in the nearby mountains. The man's sister-in-law owned the cabins in that area and rented them out all year round—weather permitting.

I took directions from him before sneaking back into the room and delicately removing the keys to the rental car from Connor's jacket pocket. He didn't wake up. At the front desk, I gave them my name and told them I was expecting a package. The hotel manager presented me with a small box, not much bigger than the first one Carolyn had given me in Texas.

Clutching the box against my front, I hurried to the car. Inside the package, a shiny new Glock winked at me, its firm sleek form inviting me to use it. I hadn’t thought about how I would kill Reynard. I relied on the kindness of a universe that had punished me long enough to provide the manner of his death when the time was right. And it had used Carolyn to do so.

I looked around the parking lot to make sure no one watched me before I picked it up, checked its sight, and loaded it with the ammunition that accompanied it. Its cool steel was a balm to my ragged nerves. I was grateful Connor had given me gun lessons, although I knew he would not approve of my present intentions.