Hiding in the Shadows (11 page)

Richardson lifted an eyebrow at Bishop, who said, “He should’ve been a cop.”

The photographer approached Richardson to report that he was finished with his work, and the detective got to his feet. His gaze traveled between Faith and Kane. “Be careful. I don’t yet know what’s going on, but all the signs here point to somebody who’s very determined, and very, very dangerous. For God’s sake, watch your step. And watch your backs.”

“We will,” Kane told him.

When the detective and the photographer had gone, Kane said, “We can get a cleaning service in
here tomorrow and have the damaged furniture replaced or repaired. In the meantime, Faith, why don’t you pack enough to last a week or so, just in case, and we’ll get out of here.”

She went off without a word to do as he suggested, and when they were alone, Bishop said, “She could have trashed this place yesterday before she came looking for you. It’s possible.”

“She could have. I don’t believe she did. Do you?”

Bishop’s reply was somewhere between a shrug and a shake of his head, not open distrust of Faith but certainly ambivalence. “You do realize that it won’t take a public connection between you and Faith to draw the wrong sort of attention if somebody happens to be watching this place.”

“I realize that. I also realize somebody could have followed her to my place last night, so the connection between us might already be made.” Kane shrugged. “My building’s a hell of a lot more secure than this one even with a part-time doorman. And I’ll be there. Any way you look at it, she’ll be safer with me.”

“I wasn’t thinking only of her. Kane, have you considered the possibility that Faith might be responsible—directly or indirectly—for Dinah’s disappearance? That she might have brought trouble with her from Seattle, trouble that Dinah got caught up in?”

“After hearing about the murder of her family, of course I’ve considered it.” Kane leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “So what should I do differently? She can’t remember, Noah. Her past is a blank. Did you see her face when you told her about the murders? Shock, yes, but you might as well have been telling her about
two people she’d never met before. She’s the most lost soul I’ve ever known, completely helpless to protect herself from whatever trouble might have followed her here. Whether she remembers anything to help me or not, I can’t turn my back on her.”

“I didn’t say you should. But Richardson was right to warn you to be careful.”

“And I intend to be.”

“Sure you do. If that lost soul in the next room leads you right into the lion’s den, you’ll be careful as hell.”

Kane was silent for a moment, then said, “She can help me find Dinah. I know she can. I can’t see further than that, Noah.”

“I know,” Bishop said.

It was dark when she turned off the Jeep’s headlights, dark as pitch, and cold for early October. Dinah shivered a bit even though she was wearing a sweater, and hesitated as she got out, her gaze going to the nylon windbreaker in the backseat. But in the end, she decided the sweater was enough. If she needed to move fast, the fewer layers that got in her way, the better
.

She stood beside the Jeep until her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, then moved forward cautiously
.

Dumb. This was so dumb
.

The building loomed ahead, virtually impossible to identify, and she felt a moment’s qualm as she asked herself if this was even the right place. The directions had been maddeningly vague, and she might easily have been mistaken in the conclusions she’d drawn from what little information she could trust. She was probably not even in the right section of the city—

What was that? A sound … from over there. A whimper?

Dinah crept forward, her heart thudding in excitement, trying very hard to keep her breathing soft and even, not to betray her presence. Straining to listen. No other sound now, if there had been one
.

Her overwrought imagination, probably
.

God knew she had reason to imagine monsters
.

Dinah stopped moving, standing still to better see and hear whatever lay around her. She had good senses usually, and there was also that little bit of something extra Bishop called a “spider sense”; it was a sharpened awareness of her surroundings, as though her five senses were somehow magnified by danger or the possibility of it
.

Her eyes having adjusted quickly to the darkness, she was now able to make out more details of the building. Windows were high and dark, offering no clue as to what lay behind them. There didn’t seem to be a door of any kind. Somewhere was a loose shutter or piece of tin on the roof; she heard it rattling faintly in the breeze. And she smelled wood, lumber
.

Something else as well
.

Dinah stood utterly still, her chin raised, sniffing the night air that was teasing her with an odor she knew she should recognize but which lurked just beyond reach
.

Primal. Animal
.

The hair on the nape of her neck was stirring
.

She needed to leave
.

She needed to leave right now
.

When it came at her there was no warning. No sound. Just a dark shape hurtling from its darker surroundings, and then the blow that knocked her off her feet
.

And then the hot, tearing pain …

FOUR

Faith jerked awake to find herself sitting up in bed, her arms raised as if to protect her throat and face. Her heart was pounding, her breathing ragged, and her skin clammy, as though she had just raced in from the damp, chilly night.

It took several minutes for her to reassure herself that she was not out in the dark, lying on the cold ground with an animal tearing brutally at her flesh. That she was inside, and safe.

That she was not Dinah.

She was in Kane’s bedroom, which was still filled with afternoon light, as it had been when she had retreated there after lunch, when the sudden need to sleep had overwhelmed her. The clock on the night-stand told her a little more than an hour had passed, but when she slid from the bed, she felt slow and clumsy and stiff, as though she had slept heavily for hours. She was also unnerved.

She could still feel those teeth tearing at her.

Shaking off the nightmare memory as best she could, Faith decided she didn’t want to be alone a minute longer. When she reached the living room, she paused in the doorway, unnoticed by the two men. Kane was on the couch, Bishop in the chair on the other side of the coffee table, and both were leaning forward as they studied the papers spread out before them.

“No sign another car was involved,” Bishop said. “In fact, there were several witnesses, and all confirmed she was driving erratically before losing control and plowing into that embankment.”

They were reading the police reports of her accident, Faith realized.

“No mention of a prescription bottle,” Kane said, frowning. “And no mention that anyone checked afterward to confirm that a doctor prescribed muscle relaxants. Just the notation that EMS reported alcohol on her breath, then the emergency room doctor’s report and the test results.” He paused. “Christ, her blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit.”

“How could that be?” Faith came into the room and sat on the couch, staring at the report. “I had just left work. There hadn’t been time to—to drink so much.”

“We don’t think it happened that way,” Kane told her, and picked up a legal pad covered with notes. “I talked to your supervisor. Listen to this. At five thirty-five that day, she reports that you handed in some paperwork you’d stayed a bit over to complete. The two of you talked for, she says, about five minutes, then you got your purse and left. That building has
underground parking for employees, with a gate that requires a keycard. The gate receipt for your car was time-stamped at five-fifty.” He paused again. “At six-thirty, you plowed your car into an embankment—six miles from your office building.”

Faith thought about that for a moment, frowning. “Maybe it’s not so unusual to take forty minutes to drive six miles in rush-hour traffic, but—”

“But it would take a good chunk of that time to drink enough to screw up your reflexes and boost your blood alcohol level to three times the legal limit. And you would have had to be throwing back hundred-proof scotch straight out of the bottle while you were driving.”

“Then, if it wasn’t possible …”

Bishop said, “Possible, maybe. Likely? No. First of all, there was no bar along the route you must have taken, and we can assume you didn’t drink in your car because there wasn’t a bottle found in it.”

“I could have thrown it out along the way,” Faith offered, playing devil’s advocate.

“You could have, but since you were on your way to meet Dinah for drinks, why on earth would you have drunk so much before?”

Kane said, “And then there’s the famous prescription for muscle relaxants, which from all evidence doesn’t seem to exist. There was no bottle in your apartment or your desk at work, and none was found in your purse or anywhere in the car. We used the entries in the checkbook you brought from your apartment and called the pharmacy you normally go to. The only prescription they filled for you during
the six weeks preceding the accident was the regular one for birth control pills.”

Birth control pills. Was there a man in my life after all? Or was I merely prepared for the possibility?

“Faith?”

She looked at Kane and forced her mind to focus on more important matters. “I can check with my regular doctor at that clinic tomorrow just to make sure, but it does sound like those muscle relaxants weren’t mine. So how could I have gotten them into my system?”

“The obvious answer,” Kane said, “is that someone slipped them to you without your awareness.”

“While they were getting me drunk in about half an hour?” Faith shook her head. “That’s the part I just don’t get. To drink so much at all doesn’t feel right to me. To drink that much in so short a time …”

“Unless someone’s lying and you had nothing at all to drink,” Kane suggested. “Maybe it was a setup from the get-go. I’m willing to bet there are drugs that mimic a combination of alcohol and some kind of prescription med, resulting in death—or coma. Maybe someone drugged you, gave it a few minutes to take effect, then splashed a little alcohol in your mouth and on your clothes and put you behind the wheel, knowing damned well you couldn’t drive a block without wrecking the car. In downtown Atlanta traffic, chances were good you’d be killed or seriously injured. And when you survived the crash, how hard could it have been in a busy emergency room for someone to get at the paperwork and make sure it tells the right story?”

“Are we talking about one person here, one enemy?” Faith asked. “Somebody who influenced everything from the wreck and my hospital records to Dinah’s disappearance? Maybe even what happened in Seattle?”

Bishop said, “There may be one person behind everything—always assuming it’s all connected—but there’d have to be more than one person involved.”

“Aren’t you the man who told me once that true conspiracies are almost as rare as hen’s teeth?” Kane asked.

“Yeah. But note that I said
almost
. They do happen. And if Dinah was telling you the truth when she said she was working on a story involving business, politics, and something criminal, then I’d say that’s probably what we have here.”

“How could a story like that have any connection to me?” Faith asked.

“That,” Kane said, looking at her broodingly, “is the question. And we have to find the answer.”

Bishop checked his watch and got to his feet. “There’s a flight out just after six. I’ll head for home tonight, and if they don’t put me on another plane before I can unpack, I’ll see what I can find out about that restricted file tomorrow.”

Faith was a little surprised. “Didn’t I hear you say you weren’t leaving until tomorrow?”

“That was the plan. But something came up.” He didn’t explain further.

Faith suddenly heard the whisper of a not-quite-alien voice in her mind.
He wouldn’t leave if he thought I was still alive
.

She went absolutely still, conscious of a deep chill
as she tried desperately to listen to whatever else that quiet voice might tell her. But there was nothing else. Just silence.

“Faith?” Kane’s voice now.

She blinked and focused on Bishop. He was staring at her, his sentry eyes narrowed and an arrested expression on his face. As if he knew, as if he’d heard it too.

Faith drew a breath to steady herself and give herself a moment to think. Could she reach Dinah consciously, gain some information that might point them to her or her captors? Until she knew for sure, there was no reason to tell Kane about the voice in her head, no reason to baffle or unnerve anyone else, to try to explain the unexplainable.

“Is anything wrong?” Kane asked her.

“It was nothing,” she said, so calm that she nearly convinced herself. “I thought I remembered something, but it slipped away.”

Bishop didn’t contradict her, but she wondered if he could have.

Faith debated telling Kane about her latest “dream” but decided not to, simply because she could see nothing helpful in it either to his search for Dinah or her own search for knowledge of her past. The dream had revealed virtually no detailed information; the area had been too dark and unfamiliar for her to recognize, so she couldn’t even provide a location from which Dinah might possibly have disappeared.

Always assuming it had been more than a dream.

That was what worried her most about the dreams
and flashes of knowledge—that they might well be no more than her imagination coupled with a few lucky guesses. It seemed so incredible that there could be some kind of psychic connection between her and another woman, one so strong that she was actually reliving the other woman’s experiences and memories, feeling emotions not her own.

Hearing a voice in her head that belonged to someone else.