Living with the Dead (13 page)

HOPE

Karl rubbed Hope's forearms as she shivered, caught up in the chaos still swirling around her brain.

"Ride it out," he said. "Stop fighting it."

"I have to get back to Robyn."

"You can't let her see you like this."

"I know," she said through gritted teeth. "That's why I'm trying – "

" – to fight it. And that's why I'm telling you not to. Robyn's in a public place, surrounded by people. Look after yourself first." He bent to her ear. "Enjoy it."

He was right, but that didn't make the advice any easier to take. She wanted to be able to say "sorry, bad timing," and move on.

Karl straightened, still rubbing her forearms as he looked around.

"Any sign of him?"

He opened his mouth to answer, then scowled and swiped at the blood dripping from his lip, drops spattering the wall beside them. The blow that split his lip was what had brought Hope running. She'd been talking to Robyn and seen the younger werewolf's fist connecting with Karl's jaw, blood spraying, Karl reeling back.

The vision came without any spark of pleasure, more like the blast of a warning alarm, shutting down common sense and sending her flying to his rescue even when she knew he didn't need it. She could only imagine what Robyn thought. Probably still sitting there, shaking her head.

Hope had followed that chaos burst to find Karl alone on this strip of land where he'd fought the werewolf, cursing as he'd tried to clean his bloodied face with a scrap of tissue, his fury and frustration like a beacon guiding her in.

Earlier, as they'd driven past the ice cream stand, it had taken him only one whiff to confirm his fear – that the werewolf he'd smelled earlier had tracked him back to the motel room. Karl had set out in pursuit while Hope went to watch over Robyn. He'd caught up with the other man – Grant Gilchrist, a younger werewolf he'd bumped into a few years before.

The blow to Karl's mouth had knocked him off balance just long enough for Gilchrist to take off. Karl had been about to follow when a security car had turned the corner. By the time Karl could cross, Gilchrist was running through a busy supermarket parking lot where, with his white shirt covered in blood, Karl couldn't follow. The last thing he'd seen was Gilchrist getting into a cab.

So Karl had retreated to clean up. The blood on his shirt and the wall came from Gilchrist. Karl's only injury was the split lip, which bothered him no more than a broken nail. Still, Hope pulled out napkins from the ice cream stand and wiped his injury for a better look, which he withstood with an exaggerated patience that said he really didn't mind being fussed over.

"That's the best I can do." She balled up the napkin. "And it's still not good enough for you to walk around in public. I'll run back to Robyn, make sure she's okay, then grab a shirt at one of the stores. It won't be up to your standards..."

"I'll make an exception."

She nodded and jogged off. She didn't look back, but knew he was there, watching over her for as long as he could.

ADELE

Adele stood in the empty motel room and eyed Robyn's laptop as if it was a coiled snake ready to strike.

"What were you doing?" she whispered. "Checking your e-mail? Your stock portfolio? Your horoscope? Or something I should know about?"

Adele wasn't a computer whiz. She could use one for e-mail, banking, uploading her photos... A tool limited to what it could do for her, her interest extending no further.

The green light said it was turned on. The screen was dark, though, presumably to save power. Could she turn it back on without a password? If she tried, was there a way for Robyn to know she'd been on her computer?

Adele spent another minute eyeing the beast. There were other things she could search in Robyn's motel room. She hadn't done more than take a cursory look around, her attention snagged by the laptop, its promise making her heart race.

Bold moves, she reminded herself. She had to make the bold moves. Something on this computer had fascinated a fugitive, which was surely more important than anything she'd uncover rifling through drawers.

She touched the keyboard with a gloved finger. The screen lit up, colored lights flashing, and Adele stumbled back. But it wasn't an alarm. Just a Web page advertising computer games.

She stared at it. Computer games? That's what Robyn had been doing?

While Adele could believe Robyn Peltier would calmly play a game, confident that her name would be cleared any moment, she wasn't about to walk away without a more thorough check.

She clicked the browser's back button and was taken to a site about celebrities. This page seemed to be about Portia Kane. She read a few badly spelled messages – she might be homeschooled, but she was a lot better educated than most of these people, she reflected with satisfaction. Most of the messages seemed to be badmouthing Portia, though, so maybe they weren't as dumb as they seemed.

She flipped through more sites Robyn had visited. Some were on Portia, others on Jasmine Wills, and all nothing more than mockery and rumors, people regurgitating and debating what they'd learned from that most unimpeachable news source – the tabloids.

Why was Robyn visiting sites about Portia and Jasmine?

Had she been checking whether there were any final rumors she needed to deal with before moving on to her next PR project? Compiling a final list of news agencies to contact later, and do her final duties, giving the tabloids something nice to say about the dearly departed, suggesting the best photos to use...

Photos...

Adele minimized the browser and popped open Robyn's e-mail. And there it was, still in her in-box, an e-mail sent from her cell phone to her computer with that damning photo attached.

The message had been read, but didn't look as if it had been forwarded. So Portia had sent the photo to Robyn's cell and Robyn had forwarded it to her e-mail, where she could compile a message for her tabloid contacts. But she'd never gotten that far.

Adele let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief and pressed her hands to her stomach.

We're safe.

Their future wasn't entirely secured yet. There was still a lot to do, including one task regarding the photo: getting it off Robyn's cell phone. There was a good chance she'd already deleted it, and hadn't sent it anywhere except her laptop, but there was still that second picture – the one of Adele in the alley.

She needed that cell phone. Preferably without killing Robyn. Not that she minded the killing, but it complicated things unnecessarily. A simple theft should finish this. And if Robyn had forwarded the second photo, Adele might need her alive to question and figure out what she'd done with it and how to proceed. But she'd worry about that when the time came.

Adele deleted the e-mail.

Would that be enough or should she take the laptop? No. With all that had happened Robyn had probably forgotten the photo. If her laptop vanished, though, she'd know someone had broken in and that something on it had been valuable, probably linked to Portia's death –

A rap at the door.

"Housekeeping!"

Adele shot to her feet. "I'm – "

The rattle of a key in the lock drowned her out. She wheeled toward the bathroom, but the door swung open and an old woman with a nut-brown face and a shock of white hair peered in.

"Is okay? Clean now?"

Adele checked her watch, ready to make some excuse.

"You say after three," the woman said. "Okay now?"

It was 2:45. The woman's timekeeping was as lousy as her English. But the bigger a deal Adele made of it, the more likely the woman was to remember her, maybe report it to her boss.

"Sure," Adele said. "Now's good."

She cast one longing look around the room, wishing she'd searched it before getting sucked in by that damned computer. Other than a trash can overflowing with take-out cartons, the room was as neat as a pin. Even the beds were made. There was no way she could start hunting now and mess things up with the cleaner watching, and the longer she stayed, the more of an impression she'd make.

"I'll just... head out," she said as the woman wheeled her cart in. "Let you work in peace."

Adele got as far as the neighboring room when the door clicked open behind her.

"Miss? Miss?"

Adele turned, her lips smiling, legs tensing, ready to bolt. "Yes?"

"Phone ringing."

"Oh, that's okay. They can leave a message."

She waited until the door had almost closed, then darted back and caught it before it locked. "On second thought, I'd better get that."

She walked slowly to the silent phone, giving the person time to finish his message. When the light flashed, she picked up the receiver and retrieved the message. As she listened, her smile grew.

When she hung up, the light continued to flash, message delivery incomplete. That was fine. She'd heard what she needed to know. Better if there was no sign someone had already listened to the message.

HOPE

When Hope reached the rear of the ice cream stand, she slowed her jog to a more respectable fast walk. Her gaze was already on the horizon, scouring the strip malls for stores selling shirts. If the same store sold moist towelettes for Karl to clean up, all the better. She just needed –

Hope stopped. While her gaze was focused beyond the ice cream stand umbrella tables, something about those tables pulled her attention back. Before she left, six of the eight had been occupied. Now, only two were, and Robyn was at neither.

Their two cups were still at their table. At the ice cream stand a single patron waited – a round-faced teenage girl.

No cause for panic. Robyn might have needed to use the bathroom or decided to grab a magazine.

Hope called Karl. He answered on the first ring.

"Small delay." She walked toward their table. "Rob stepped away. Looks like she'll be back in a sec. She left her drink – " She stopped, staring down at Robyn's cup.

"Hope?"

"Her milkshake melted."

"What?"

"She was drinking a milkshake and it doesn't look as if she touched it since I left. It's melted, with a puddle of condensation under it." Hope shook her head. "Probably because she wasn't that interested in it in the first place. Just buying an excuse to sit down. Sorry, I'll stop worrying."

"Do you see a place to buy a shirt?"

"Not from here, but I'll go across the road and take a better look."

"Just grab anything. I'm going to start heading that way."

"You think something happened?"

"No, but I think you'll feel better buying my shirt rather than sitting around waiting."

Hope bought Karl a shirt and pack of wipes and hurried across the road. An elderly man was clearing their table, shaking his head at the nearly full cups.

"Excuse me," she said. "That's my – My friend was sitting there."

"Not now," he said, wiping the table.

"You work here, right?"

That made him glance up, watery blue eyes meeting hers. "No, I just like clearing tables. A good hobby for an old – "

"Has this one been vacant long?"

"Long enough." He shuffled off.

One last look for Robyn, then Hope strode around the ice cream stand and broke into a jog.

Hope handed Karl a t-shirt advertising Coors Light and a box of baby diaper wipes. He didn't comment, just shucked his shirt, wiped himself down and pulled on the new one as she trashed the old shirt and the bloodied cloths.

By the time they arrived back at the tables, they were almost full again. There was still no sign of Robyn. Hope's racing heart hit full gallop. Robyn shouldn't be gone this long. Something had happened.

"He didn't circle back," Karl said as they wove through the tables.

She glanced at him.

"Gilchrist. He didn't come back."

That
was
what she'd been worried about, that while they were recuperating in the office complex, the werewolf had returned and lured Robyn away. Whether he'd connected Robyn with Karl, Hope didn't know, but if he did, he might return for her as a way to get at Karl.

"You were sitting here?" he asked, pausing by the table, now occupied by a couple and two young children.

When Hope nodded, he said to the couple, "Excuse me. My wife was here earlier and she dropped her keys. May I take a look under your table?"

The couple backed their chairs out. Karl crouched and checked one side, then the other. A word of thanks, and he put his fingers on Hope's elbow, guiding her toward the stand.

"Two trails for Robyn, both leading this way," he said under his breath. "One coming, one going, I presume."

When people walk, they shed skin cells and hair, which fall to the ground and lay a scent trail. Hope had researched it, looking up how search-and-rescue dogs track so she'd understand what Karl could and could not do. He wasn't comfortable with questions about what he considered one of the more undignified aspects of being a werewolf.

Canines tracked two ways. One was by air scent, which led straight to a person if he was still around. The other was ground scent, which told where someone had been. What ground scent couldn't tell Karl, though, was which of two recent trails was fresher.

As they drew close to the ice cream stand, he paused. From Karl's expression, Hope knew the trails had grown fainter, meaning he'd veered off course. Short of sniffing the ground, though, it was difficult to find exactly where they'd diverged.

She looked up at the menu board and absently reached into her pocket. She pulled out her change, letting it fall, clinking on the pavement and rolling away.

"Oh, of all the stupid – " she began.

"I've got it."

He knelt, sniffing nearer the ground as he gathered her scattered coins. When he rose, he bent to hand them to her and said, "One goes to the left, through the parking lot. The other heads right, around the back of the stand."

"The second is the way Gilchrist went earlier," she said. "And the way I went."

"Then that's where we'll go."

Once past the strip malls, Robyn's trail became easier for Karl to follow, partly because he could stoop and sniff and partly because they'd figured out where she'd been going – following Hope. When Hope had run to see Karl, she'd checked for a tail a few times, but had been too anxious to do a decent job. If Robyn had stayed a reasonable distance away, Hope would never have noticed.

Robyn's trail ended at the corner of a building. Looking around it, Hope saw the spot where she'd waited out her chaos rush with Karl.

"She saw me," Hope said. "Dammit. What did she think? I must have looked – "

"She didn't see your face, not from this angle. You had your back to her. What she saw was me... and a lot of blood."

"Shit! She must have panicked and – " Hope shook her head. "No, not Robyn. She doesn't rattle that easily."

Karl said nothing, but his expression disagreed. The old Robyn would have seen blood and marched over to help. But she hadn't been herself since Damon's death. After witnessing two murders, had seeing Karl covered in blood been too much?

Or had something caught her attention? Lured her away?

Karl followed her trail. This time, it didn't cling to the shadows. She'd made a beeline for the road, crossed to a gas station and headed into a phone booth.

"It ends here," Karl said, crouched in the lot.

"She called a cab."

"That would be my guess."

"So she sees you bleeding, finds the nearest phone booth and calls a cab... Where? Back to the motel?"

Hope checked her cell. No missed calls. Maybe Robyn had run out of change and decided to call from the motel.

She hoped so. Otherwise, she had no idea where her friend had gone.

When they arrived at the motel, Hope leapt from the car while Karl was still parking it. A cleaning woman near their motel room shrank back behind her cart, then relaxed as Hope pulled out her key, as if the cleaner had thought she was racing over to demand extra towels.

Hope opened the door. Their room was empty.

She remembered the cleaning woman. Had she been in here? Hope had told her to come after three, so she could get Robyn out first.

"Excuse me!" she called as she hurried back outside.

The cleaning woman's shoulders tightened, but she didn't turn, as if praying Hope wasn't hailing her.

Hope jogged up beside her. "The room looks great. I just wanted to give you this."

Hope passed her a five. She looked at it, still in Hope's outstretched hand, her sunken eyes wary.

"Really, thanks," Hope said. "I appreciate you coming later for us."

The woman took the money.

"Oh, and before you go. Did you see another woman in my room? My friend was supposed to meet us there."

"Friend... ?" She shook her head. "English no good."

Hope switched to Spanish and repeated the question as best she could, though her Spanish was probably worse than the woman's English. Karl came up behind and took over. His international jobs meant he had a working knowledge of about a half-dozen languages.

Karl translated on the fly. There had been someone in their room when the cleaner arrived. A young woman with shoulder-length blond hair, who'd left right after the cleaner arrived. She'd seen her get into a cab a few minutes later.

Hope thanked her. As the woman pushed her cart away, Hope checked her watch. It was 3:15. "Fifteen minutes to clean our room? I think I overtipped." They headed back toward their door. "But I guess that means I can relax. Wherever Rob went, she won't expect the cleaning to be done for a while, so I'll take advantage of the wait and make a few calls."

As Karl opened the door, Hope noticed the light on the bedside phone blinking. "Oh, we have a message. Let's hope it's Robyn."

It was. And she
was
calling to explain where she'd gone. But it wasn't "to the corner for a coffee."