Haunting Refrain (4 page)

Kate rolled her eyes.

“An SUV?”
John asked, trying to keep her attention on the subject. “Big? Little?”

“No, just an average car.”
Her gaze focused on something he couldn’t see. “The roof was fairly long.
Maybe a four-door sedan.”

John thought Kate was either a very good actress—a possibility, considering her association with The Principal Players—or she really believed she had seen this stuff. Landrum's car was old, a dark blue Chevrolet Impala, but that was easy enough to find out.
Venice
he wasn't sure about. Though calm and confident, her visions sounded like something dreamed up by a roadside palmist. He asked Kate, “Where was she? Was she near a house, a shopping center? Did you have any other impressions?”

“That's all I saw. I’m sorry.”

“I did.”
Venice
patted her mouth with a napkin. “I saw trees swaying in the wind. She may have been at the edge of some woods, such as those at the library. The trees weren't overhead, but in front of her.

“There was such anger in the man. It overshadowed anything else I might have seen about him.”

“I hope we haven't upset you. It may not even be your friend we're seeing,” Kate said.

“Thanks for your concern, but I don't know her. This has been interesting, but I'm afraid I have to get back to the office or I won't make my deadline.” He might mention them as
a filler
if nothing turned up, but there was no real information here. Maybe he would call the professor to find out more about their parapsychology group.

“You don't know her? And what do you mean, deadline?” Kate asked. The frown was back, wrinkles or no.

“The deadline for tomorrow morning's edition.
I have some more things to check before I write the article.” He stood, wondering at Kate's reaction. What was the matter with her?
Venice
seemed to be deeply involved with the contents of her handbag.

“Tomorrow's edition?
Are you a reporter?” Kate sprang to her feet, enraged. To him, she looked like a bomb about to go off.

“Of course I'm a reporter. What did you think I was?” Maybe she was crazy after all. He looked at
Venice
, who continued to fumble in her purse.

“You can't use this! You can't take advantage of people this way. How could you pretend to be a friend of hers? Who do you work for—one of those supermarket rags? Don't ethics mean anything to you?” Kate looked at him as if he were scum.

“Look, lady. Your friend here called me. I didn't call her.”

Kate’s eyes widened. She turned to
Venice
. “You said he was a friend of hers!
Venice
, how could you?”

Venice
remained silent.

“I never said—” John found himself speaking to Kate's back as she stormed out of the restaurant. Who was she to question his ethics? John prided himself on his integrity—it was the code he lived by. She didn’t know the first thing about him. Put out by her unwarranted criticism, he turned to
Venice
. “What, exactly, did you tell her?”

Venice
's faded blue eyes rounded. She snapped her purse shut and smiled. “Wasn't the pastry
good.
”

Disgusted with them both, John was reaching for his wallet when Kate marched back in with her lips compressed into a thin line. She glared at them and slapped four crumpled bills on the table, then turned on her heel and left. The sudden spin dislodged the pencil, and her hair spilled down over her shoulders.

“I'm glad she's your friend and not mine.” John picked up the pencil, turning it over in his hand.
Non-repro blue
, it read. He shrugged and tucked it in his pocket.

“I must admit, she’s not at her best today.”
Venice
gathered her belongings, untangled her scarf from the arm of the chair, and started out. At the door she turned and said, “She’s not very fond of the press, you know.”

No, he didn’t know. And what was that supposed to mean?

He wakened before daylight, anxious to see the newspaper. When a soft
thunk
announced its arrival, he wondered briefly whether excitement or fear caused the tightness that gripped his stomach. He ran across the lawn and snatched up the plastic bag holding the thick Sunday paper, opening it on the way back to the house.

The story had dropped to the middle of the front page. Good. It meant the police had discovered nothing more about the bitch.

Inside the house, he quickly read through the brief article, laughing at the lack of information. The story began with a description of Kelly Landrum and her activities prior to her disappearance, including quotes from her roommate and friends. Finding her car with the keys in the door was the only discovery the police had made since she’d been reported missing.

Then he turned to the continuation on page three. The last paragraphs concerned a university-sponsored parapsychology test group. Two of the psychics, after handling an article belonging to the missing Landrum, claimed to have had visions of a woman being strangled.

Kate McGuire,
he read.
Venice
Ashburton!
He knew them both, had always thought
Venice
was nuts, but he had no idea Kate was a psychic. She seemed normal, had never mentioned anything. For an instant, he was overcome by panic.

What did they see? Could they describe him? Did they know who he was? Flinging the paper to the floor, he shoved his hand into the pocket of his robe, feeling for the worry stone he always carried. Stroking the smooth surface calmed him a bit, allowed him to think.

 
He snatched the phone book off the shelf.
Ashburton
was easy:
V. T.
was the only listing. He wrote the address in a small notebook and then flipped to
M
and searched the
McGuires
. There were several, two with the initial K, but one of those was
a middle
initial. It could be any one of them. Women did such funny things with their telephone listings—she might not even be in the book. But he knew she was a photographer. He switched to the yellow pages and quickly found what he was looking for. It would be better to wait until Monday, when she should be at work and he could be sure of finding her. Still, he could drive by those addresses, but with his distinctive car, he’d have to be very careful. He couldn't do anything about it today, but maybe tomorrow he could borrow the bookkeeper's
junker
, tell her his car was in the shop. Or he could use
Carson
's old Dodge. The janitor was always willing to loan out the gas-guzzling pickup for a tank of fuel and a six-pack.

He poured a glass of tomato juice and began thinking of ways to get to the women. First he would watch them, learn their habits. He wouldn’t mind watching Kate. She had a tight, sexy little body that had always appealed to him. And that hair—he bet she was a tiger.

That was it—he’d watch her and then decide what to do. He couldn’t afford to do anything unnecessary. It would only add to the risk. But he really wanted to get started. Waiting was risky, too, he told himself. He could always rent a car for one day.

* * *

Distant bells signaling the start of early church services woke Kate. Monsters and murderers had pursued her though the night. She dreamed of Kelly Landrum. A brisk run was the simplest way to clear her head. Dressing quickly in shorts and her favorite T-shirt, she stopped at the mirror to put her hair in a ponytail. She smiled at the picture on her shirt. Under a fat, warty bullfrog, it read
my handsome prince turned into a frog
. Hers certainly had. Kate reminded herself of her grandmother’s warning: “Beware of handsome men.”

The smile disappeared when she placed a terrycloth band over her forehead. Kelly Landrum. Kate pictured the girl with wet hair clinging to her face. She shivered, dispelling the image from her mind, and reached for her worn Nikes.
 
Talk about auras,
she thought,
I wonder what kind of images one could pick up from old shoes
.

After minimal ablutions in the bathroom, she put on a pot of coffee to be ready when she got back. On the porch, she locked her front door, dropping the key into the pocket of her shorts, and, after stretching a few times, took off on her three-mile route.

As she started down the street, the rear end of a red Taurus vanished around the corner. A sudden coldness enveloped her. Somehow, that car didn’t belong, wasn’t right.
 
She felt a mindless urge to run back to her house and lock herself in.
 
Instead, she searched for a rational explanation for the feeling. In this neighborhood,
her own
1995 Mazda was dangerously ostentatious. She told herself the Taurus probably belonged to an investor out cruising for property, but the uneasy sense stayed with her for several minutes after the car had gone.

Jogging past the rickety boarding house on the corner, she carefully wound her way through the sprawl of rusty, battered vehicles. They littered the yard and spilled over onto the sidewalk—she was glad it was too early for the inhabitants, whom she dubbed the “motley crew,” to be up and about. She ran on and crossed the street, sidestepping the potholes, reveling in the cool of the late September morning.

 
Gradually, her muscles loosened and the tension slipped away. At a long, uninterrupted stretch of road, she opened up, running flat out until she reached the main intersection. She loved the exhilarating burst of speed, the feeling of flying.

Slowing to an easy lope for the last mile, she completed her loop in good time. Two blocks from home, as she dropped to a cooling walk, she saw
Venice
's Cadillac idling on the street in front of the house.

Venice
stepped out of the car and, like a scarlet macaw surveying sparrows’ nests, stood for a moment gazing at the drab street and decaying houses. She gave a faint shake of her head before waving a bakery bag as she joined Kate on the front steps. “I wish you would move to a nicer area, Kate. I'm afraid to get out of my car until I see you.”

“It's cheap. When I get rich, I'll move.” Kate eyed
Venice
's bag. It did smell good.
A peace offering, probably.
Kate hadn't completely forgiven her for calling that reporter. “Why are you here at this hour?”

Venice
, ignoring the question, studied her through narrowed eyes. “You haven't been sleeping much, have you?”

“So-so.” Kate glared suspiciously over her shoulder at
Venice
as she unlocked the door. There had to be a reason for the woman to be here this early. “What do you want,
Venice
?”

“Have you seen the morning paper?”
Venice
asked as she followed her into the house.

“No.” Kate spun around and stared at
Venice
. A chill ran down her back. “Why?”

“Well,”
Venice
said, taking a folded newspaper from her bag. “John has an article on Kelly Landrum this morning.”

“How bad is it? Did he use my name?”

“It wasn't a very interesting article. I doubt if anyone will read it.”

“
Venice
!”

“Yes, he did,” she admitted. “But only at the very end.” A gray wisp, still threaded with brown, peeked out from under the auburn curls. “If you had been a little nicer, I'm sure he would have written more about us.”