Obsession Falls (6 page)

The doubts she had experienced at breaking into the home of strangers, at eating their food and claiming their clothing, faded. Someday she would make it up to them, but if this was what she had to do, she would do it.

She rummaged through the drawers in the bathroom until she found the supply of Band-Aids. And, glory hallelujah, there was an Ace elastic bandage. She wrapped her wrist—it felt better—and went back into the bedroom.

A glance at the photos on the desk proved to Taylor that she was never going to wear the mother’s clothes. A wedding photo taken about twenty years earlier featured a very tall, very pregnant woman in a gorgeous white gown and a man who topped her by at least two inches. Both were beaming.

These were the owners of Taylor’s property.

The picture almost made her like them.

A more recent photo showed the entire family on the ski slope—father, mother, tall teenage son, and one glaring, resentful, eyebrow-pierced teenage daughter who was about five inches shorter than the mother.

The mother was the kind of person who had pewter picture frames etched with names: the father was Brandon, she was Susan, the son was Jules, the daughter was—improbably—Cissie. They were the Renners, so all-American they made Taylor’s teeth hurt. Holding the photo, she sank to her knees and
stared
.

Taylor used to be like them. She used to be the kind of woman no one noticed when she walked down the street. She wore semi-fashionable clothes, changed her hair color on a regular basis, used deodorant, brushed and flossed. Now she was … not normal. Not likely to remain clean, deodorized, or flossed. Not all-American.

Now she wore nothing but a towel. She had nothing that was hers except for a few drawing pencils kept in a hip pack. She was even worse than poor. She was dead, an outcast, a foreigner in her own country.

She stood, placed the photo back on the desk, and donned Susan’s robe. The hem probably hit Susan about mid-thigh; it hit Taylor right at the knee. She went back to the desk and contemplated the browser.

She needed to communicate with someone, to explain that she was alive and not guilty, and that she had information to provide. But to whom?

Simply to contact a random police officer or a random official of any kind seemed at best suicidal. She needed a name, someone she knew.

Kennedy McManus was the logical choice.

She went looking for a way to contact him.

She found no direct way. Not surprising—she had worked with many wealthy, powerful people and they weren’t readily accessible.

She’d worked on Maryland senator Bert Hansen’s home. But she was under no illusions; he was a politician first, and if he had the chance to bring a notorious criminal to justice, he would do so with all the fanfare of a magician revealing his greatest sleight of hand. While in Eastern Europe, she had run into a CIA agent. Yes, she knew the CIA only worked outside of the States, but surely any kind of official government contact was better than none. On the other hand, she and Elsa Medcalf had not hit it off. In retrospect, Taylor should have sucked up to Elsa.

Taylor could get in touch with her mother, who was married to an executive of a company contracted for government work. But the thought of going to her mother for help, after her mother’s betrayal of her and her father … Taylor could not. She could
not
.

She put her elbows on the table and dropped her head into her hands. This wasn’t as easy as it should be. She should be able to go to the police. She should believe they were honest and trustworthy. She did not.

Which brought her back to Kennedy McManus. She needed to research him, see if she could figure out any way to …

She lifted her head from her hands. Outside, she heard the spit of gravel beneath wheels. She turned her head and listened harder.

A car. A car had just driven up to the front door.

Her heart started pounding, strong, rapid.

She turned off the computer. She glanced at the French doors that led onto the porch. Should she run out? But what if someone came around that direction? What if … what if this was Dash? She would be caught. She would be killed.

The front door opened.

She crawled under the desk.

Men’s voices in the living room. Not angry, not threatening—not Dash—just chatting back and forth.

Not Dash, but still dangerous to her.
Did they live here?

The voices got farther away, then closer.

She huddled against the wall, then forced herself behind the desk drawers. She was not invisible, but unless these men bent down and looked, they wouldn’t see her. She hoped.

They came into the master bedroom. One guy said, “No sign of an intruder in here, either.”

“Something tripped the sensor.”

The sensors. Of course. There
were
motion sensors in this house. She should have known.

“The branch broke the window. The debris set off the sensors.”

The other guy was stubborn. “Last night the branch broke the window! The monitors recorded the break
then
and the motion
then
. That shouldn’t have tripped the sensors
today
.”

These were the guys from the local home-security office. And it had taken them over twelve hours to arrive from town to check out the problem? The Renners should be informed. Not that Taylor was going to do it.

“There’s nothing out of place here,” the first guy said.

Thank God she had wiped up after herself.

He continued, “If we don’t find anything, we’ll send a technician. I’ll tell you what he’ll find—he’ll find a mouse chewed on wiring and we’ve got a short.”

Legs walked past the desk.

Heart pounding, Taylor pressed herself into a compact ball. When Dash had chased her, she had given everything to her physical reactions. She had gasped, feared, run, sought refuge. She had been an animal in flight.

Now she was an animal in hiding, frozen in place, trembling, afraid to make a sound, to allow a single panicked breath to escape her. She wanted to stand, to shout she was innocent, to tell them she had entered the house only in the most dire of circumstances, to ask what they would have done in her place.

But she knew, without having ever faced this situation before, that she did not want to deal with smug, homegrown guys who couldn’t wait to bring in their first trespasser.

The second guy said, “I’m going to check upstairs again.”

“Sure. You do that.” The first guy walked into the bathroom, didn’t shut the door, took a pee that echoed along the tile floor and back to the place where Taylor trembled.

Would he notice the evidence of her recent shower?

He flushed, walked out into the bedroom, and stood there.

Was he looking for her?

He sighed, and the bed creaked.

She couldn’t believe it. He was sitting on the bed?

The mattress creaked again.

Was he getting up? Leaving?

No. No footsteps.

That guy was lying on the Renners’ bed! What a creep. He was in someone else’s house, and he made himself at home in the owners’ bedroom!

She
hated
this guy.

He sighed. A moment of silence, then, “Hey, Brian. It’s Logan. I’m out at the Renners’ place. No sign of a break-in, but for sure a broken window and probably some wire damage by rodents … Yeah, happens when you live in the middle of a prairie. Listen, when do you think you can send someone out?… Sounds good. I’ll let Gary know. He’s searching the attic.” Chuckling. “Yeah, he’s still got that rookie enthusiasm.” Logan clicked off.

Two minutes later, Taylor heard a faint snore. She really,
really
hated this guy. She was crammed under the desk in a bathrobe, getting chilled. Her foot kept cramping. And the ignorant jackass snored on the bed as if he owned the place. If she was in charge of security, he would be kicking shit down the street.

Five minutes. Ten minutes. Her wrist hurt. She tightened the Ace bandage. She stretched out her leg to ease the cramp, then tucked it back in. Fifteen minutes. She tried to arrange the bathrobe to cover more of her legs and closed her eyes. Twenty …

From the door, Gary said, “What the hell?”

She jumped so hard she bumped her head on the desktop.

Thank God Logan jumped, too. “You son of a bitch! You scared me to death.”

“Quick draw on the gun. Now put it away.” Gary sounded breathless.

“Sorry, but you shouldn’t have scared me. Ever since that woman tried to murder that kid and then she disappeared, I’ve been nervous.” The bed creaked.

I did not try to murder that kid.

“You didn’t look nervous to me.” Legs walked past. “You looked asleep.”

“Tough night last night.” Logan yawned. “My three-year-old is having nightmares, and when he does that, no one sleeps. One of the women at day care was talking about Taylor Summers in front of the kids. Can you believe how stupid that is? Now half the kids in town are scared to death about the Taylor boogeyman, who steals children and shuts them in the trunk, and the other half are egging them on with stories about how she’s going to get them.”

“She’s dead,” Gary said.

A pause. “Sheriff doesn’t think so.”

“You’re kidding.”

You’re kidding.

Logan lowered his voice. “You can’t tell anybody this. It’s top-secret stuff. I was sworn to secrecy.”

“You know I won’t.”

You lying assholes.
But she strained to listen.

“Sheriff didn’t get called to the car explosion until after the scene was cleaned up. His deputy, Otis Sincoe, and I went to high school together, and Otis said Sheriff thinks that rich guy tampered with the evidence. Apparently, the rich guy has a thing about talking to her himself and getting the whole story.”

Would Kennedy McManus listen? Or would he blindly take revenge?

Logan finished, “He hired trackers, you know.”

“So that Taylor Summers bitch is still alive?” Gary sounded eager, incredulous, hopeful.

“No. I don’t know. Maybe. The rich guy pulled the trackers, so they must figure she’s dead.”

“Rough out there in the mountains at night.”

“Yep.” More yawning, some walking back and forth in front of the bed—Taylor figured Logan was straightening the comforter—while Logan said, “My mother and her mother were friends when the Summers were married, and after the big kidnapping/escape/explosion, Mom called to offer her condolences. Mrs. Summers said she felt terrible that she’d let Taylor’s father drag Taylor into the mountains, just the two of them. She figures he was abusing her, that’s why Taylor was so warped.”

Taylor wanted to get up then. She wanted to tell them her father had never abused her. The abuse had been from her mother: the constant nagging, the subtle undermining, the resolve to make Taylor into a carbon copy of the prima donna beauty queen that Kimberly Summers Huddlestone had been and was.

But Logan was sleep-deprived, he had a gun, he would be thrilled to bring her in.

“That’s rough, but it doesn’t mean she had to become a killer,” Gary said.

“Exactly. Mrs. Summers is going to be on
Dr. Phil,
though.”

Taylor cringed.

The two men walked toward the door.

Logan said, “So, you checked the whole house? Did you find anything?”

“Nothing.” Gary sounded disappointed.

“We’ll kill the interior motion sensors.”

Yes! Kill the sensors.

Logan continued, “Brian is sending a technician out here first thing in the morning to find the electrocuted mouse and fix the damage.”

“Electrocuted mouse. Okay. Makes sense.” Gary sounded relieved. “Now, tell me more about this Summers chick. What else did your mother find out?”

Their voices faded as the two men headed out to turn off the sensors. Then the car outside started up, and they were gone.

She shivered there for another ten minutes. Then she emerged and checked the front door, to make sure it was locked, and the drive to make sure they were gone.

She had to search this house, find the equipment and food she needed, and get out fast. Get out before tomorrow when the security technician came back.

And right now, she did not dare contact anyone. Not until she’d investigated every possibility, not until she’d considered every possible response.

She had to save herself.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Owning a successful business had taught Taylor to prioritize. So now, she turned on the computer and checked the weather report. A cold winter for the area.
Great
.

Next, she Googled how to pick a lock.

She learned with the right tools and a lot of patience, picking a lock was relatively simple. So simple, in fact, that she would never feel safe behind a locked door again. All she needed were lock picks and a small tension wrench, or she could substitute paper clips or bobby pins, and a small Allen wrench filed down at the end or a flathead screwdriver.

She rummaged through the desk and found paper clips
and
bobby pins
and
a cheap flathead screwdriver. Obviously, Mrs. Renner liked to be prepared.

Taylor printed out the information on the lock-picking, cleared the history, and shut down the computer. Picking up the Renners’ photo again, she considered the daughter, Cissie. This girl was a midget in a land of giants. She had issues. Best of all, she was approximately Taylor’s size.

Fine. Taylor went off in search of the daughter’s room. She knew when she found it; the bedroom was trashed. Except it wasn’t. That was the way the kid kept it. The open dresser drawers had barfed clothes all over the floor.

Cissie was nothing if not predictable.
Taylor, meet Miss Rebellious Out of Place Teenager … who reminds you of you at that age.