Shadowkiller (24 page)

Carrie Robinson wasn't the name Mack's first wife had been born with. And Allen Taylor . . .

For years, Allison has refused to allow herself to think about what her brother had once told her: that her father had, most likely, been living under an assumed name.

Now, the thought barges into her mind again.

She can't seem to push it back out.

Why live a lie?

What was he hiding?

Maybe it wasn't a dark secret, as she had assumed. Maybe it was a noble one. Maybe there was some redeeming aspect to the situation; some self-sacrificing reason that he'd left his family. Maybe her father had been a hero after all. Or a victim.

Was he, like Carrie Robinson, in the witness protection program?

Ha. What were the odds of that?

Only a fool believes in coincidences
, Detective Rocky Manzillo told Allison last fall, after the Nightwatcher case was resolved.

Yes. And only a fool would believe that a man who'd turned his back on his own child could have been anything but a miserable scoundrel.

She isn't going back to Nebraska in search of answers. She's going to visit her only living relatives. Period.

The only relatives who matter, anyway.

The man she had known as Allen Taylor might not be dead and buried, but he might as well be.

“E
xcuse me, ma'am?”

Carrie looks up from the airline magazine she's been pretending to read as the other passengers board the plane. She can't focus on it, but she doesn't want to make eye contact with anyone.

Now, however, she's forced to, looking up to see a gray-haired woman standing in the aisle.

“Would you mind switching seats with me, ma'am? I'm in this row, too, but I'm on the aisle and I'd rather have the window.” She lets go of the handle of her rolling carry-on suitcase to gesture at Carrie's seat with a wrinkled, blue-veined hand.

“Sorry,” Carrie mutters, shaking her head. “I can't.”

“Ma'am, please . . .” The woman shifts her weight, and her smile grows forced. “I have back and leg problems, so I need to lean against the window whenever I fly, but my travel agent made a mistake and got me an aisle seat.”

Travel agent? In this day and age?

Even Carrie, who hadn't flown in well over a decade, had figured out how to book her flight online.

Naturally, she had carefully studied the airline's online seat map before selecting hers. She had learned the back of the plane boarded first and that the overhead bins filled very quickly in this era of checked baggage fees. Checking her luggage—and risking the chance that it could go astray and ultimately fall into the wrong hands—was out of the question.

She settled on a window seat in the rear of the plane with an as-yet unfilled middle seat beside it, hoping it would stay vacant. She chose one on the left-hand side because she wanted the best view of Manhattan upon takeoff.

Of course, there were still no guarantees she'd be able to glimpse the skyline from the air even if the weather turned out to be perfectly clear—which it is this afternoon—but she conducted considerable online research into flight patterns to give herself the best chance. And there's no way in hell that she's about to give it up for this clueless stranger who didn't even board twenty minutes ago when their row was called.

“We all have our problems,” she says curtly. “Please don't expect me to make yours into mine.”

The woman's jaw drops.

Carrie turns away, going back to pretending to read her magazine.

She hears the woman asking a harried flight attendant to find her a window seat.

“I'm sorry, ma'am, they're all full.”

“I have a medical condition. I can't sit on the aisle.”

“What is the condition?”

“My back, and my hip—I'll be crippled with pain by the time we land if I can't lean against the window, and”—she lowers her voice to a stage whisper—“that woman sitting there in my row was very rude when I asked her to change with me.”

“I'm sorry, ma'am. I'll see what I can do after takeoff, but for now I just need you to take your assigned seat because we can't close the cabin doors until you do.”

“But my back—”

“Ma'am, please, if you don't take your seat right now, we'll lose our takeoff slot, and this is a very busy airport. You'll be inconveniencing an entire plane full of passengers.”

“What about
my
inconvenience? What about my health and well-being?”

“Ma'am, please. Stow your bag and be seated.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Carrie watches the flight attendant retreat to the galley as the woman huffily opens the overhead bin above their row. Of course it's full, as is the one across the aisle. And the two behind them, and in front of them . . .

“Stewardess! I can't find a place for my bag.”

What did you expect?
Carrie wonders, and clenches her jaw.

“I'm going to have to check it. I'll take it up front and—”

“I can't check it. I can't afford it, for one thing—”

“There's no charge for gate-checking items that won't fit.”

“But my prescriptions are in there, and my other glasses, and—”

“Ma'am, please take those items out if you need them, but you'll need to do it quickly because we really do have to close the cabin door.”

With what seems like deliberate sluggishness, the woman begins removing items from her bag and placing them on the middle seat. Seething, Carrie sneaks a peek at one of the orange prescription bottles.

It's from a pharmacy in Mankato. The woman's name is clearly typed on the label:
Imogene Peters.

Carrie files it away for future reference.

At last, Imogene allows the flight attendant to take her bag and settles into her aisle seat with a loud moan to ensure that everyone around her knows that she's in extreme physical pain.

Five minutes later, the captain comes on the loudspeaker and apologetically announces that they've lost their slot for takeoff and will be delayed for at least forty-five minutes, bringing a collective groan from the passengers.

Carrie sticks the magazine back into the seatback pocket and gazes out the window, eyes narrowed, fists clenched.

This is all Imogene Peters's fault, she thinks, when—an hour later—the plane finally creeps out to take its place in the endless lineup of planes waiting to take off. Someone should teach that woman a lesson. Someone should . . .

Maybe someone will
, Carrie tells herself,
but it's not going to be you. No matter how much you want to see that she gets what she has coming to her . . .

You can't.

It's all about self-control.

Self-control—she's had to dig deep to find that ever since she took up residence a few weeks ago in the house next door to the MacKennas. Spying on Allison in the yard with her children, it was all she could do not to push through the shrubbery and confront her on the spot.

But it wasn't time for that yet. It was going to happen back in Nebraska.

In the meantime, all Carrie could do was watch.

A couple of times, Allison glanced idly in the direction of the Lewises' deserted house. Once—early this morning, when Carrie snuck out for one last look at the MacKennas before they drove away—Allison even seemed to look right at the spot where she was standing.

Carrie swiftly and silently stepped back, grateful for the cover of trees and shrubs . . .

So different from the landscape where they were headed. On the wide-open plains, she knew only too well, there would be no place to hide.

That was okay. When the time was right, she would be all too willing to step out of the shadows at last.

The pilot's voice comes on the intercom again. “Ladies and gentlemen, we're next for takeoff. Flight attendants, please be seated.”

With a great rumbling rattle, the plane hurtles down the runway. Carrie smiles as it lifts off the ground, and presses her forehead against the window.

Her online research paid off. The aircraft banks sharply as it begins its steep climb, allowing her to glimpse Manhattan's skyline off to the left.

She thinks of the passengers on the doomed flights that crashed into the twin towers on September 11. This was one of the last things they ever saw on this earth—albeit with the World Trade Center still intact on the lower tip of the island.

As the historic events unfolded on that fateful day, Carrie had been in full-on carpe diem mode, making the most of the opportune situation for her own benefit. Only when she was safely out of the country did she allow herself to reflect. For her, hindsight brought mostly relief—and self-serving glee.

Now, catching her first glimpse of the island without its familiar anchor, a new structure rising where the twin towers once stood, she's caught off guard by a stirring of emotion deep inside her.

Regret. That's what it is.

She remembers what it was like to belong there, in an office high above the bustling city streets. She remembers her choreographed commute through a network of corridors and elevators and tunnels that no longer exist. She remembers the night she deviated from that daily routine and met a man named Mack because she listened to her gut as Daddy had taught her. She remembers the dream catcher, and believing in dreams, and a sense of loss trickles in like contaminated groundwater seeping through fissures in a stone foundation.

Things could have turned out differently if she hadn't given up and let go.

Things could have turned out differently if Allison hadn't stepped in to take what should have belonged to Carrie.

Regret gives way to rage, just as it has in the past.

I was so mad . . .

Rage, undiluted, leads to loss of self-control.

The plane has begun to level off as they head west. Far below, she knows, the MacKenna family is moving in the same direction.

In a few days, their path and Carrie's will converge at last. She and Allison will come face-to-face again—right back where it all began.

Of course, Allison might not even recognize her. Just as before, in New York.

But don't worry
, Carrie tells her silently.
This time,
I'll be sure to tell you exactly who I am.

In the meantime, she needs to do something about the turbulent emotions that are now bubbling inside her. If she doesn't find a way to let off some steam, she's going to explode.

She sneaks a sideways glance at Imogene Peters just as a two-bell signal dings through the cabin, followed by the click of an intercom.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the flight attendant says, “we have now reached a cruising altitude and it is safe to use approved portable electronic devices. Wifi service is available.”

Internet on an airplane? Incredible. Carrie reaches under the seat in front of her and takes out her laptop. She opens it and angles the screen toward the window, just in case Imogene is as nosy as she is obnoxious.

A few moments later, Carrie is online looking at a Minnesota road map.

She'd already plotted her course from the airport across the state to her first stop, in South Dakota. But that doesn't mean a detour can't be arranged. The MacKennas won't even be in Nebraska until Tuesday.

There will be plenty of time to visit Mankato.

Plenty of time to expel this brewing rage from her system.

“C
an we go sightseeing after dinner?” Hudson skips a little as they cross the hotel parking lot, her
Child's First Atlas
in hand.

“
Sightseeing?
”

Allison and Mack echo their daughter's ludicrous question in perfect unison, exchanging a weary, but amused, glance.

It's been a long day—one that started five hundred miles ago, at four
A.M.
—and Allison suspects it might be an even longer night. J.J. dozed all morning in the car, woke infuriated to find himself strapped in a car seat, and fussed against the restraints for the next several hours until he exhausted himself into unconsciousness again. Allison was so relieved not to have to ride backward in the front seat, trying to entertain him so that Mack did the driving, that she let him sleep through most of the afternoon.

She actually had to wake him when they reached the hotel just off the interstate in Ohio. As his glassy-eyed parents and sisters dragged themselves out of the car, J.J. was refreshed, wanting to play. At this point, his schedule is so thrown off that she's certain they're looking at a restless night—all five of them crammed into a small hotel room.

Allison and Mack would have been content to go straight to bed after they checked in, but the girls got a second wind and are hungry. Allison is hoping she can muster enough energy to make it through a meal without her head falling into her salad bowl.

But
sightseeing
?

“Sweetie, we can't,” she tells Hudson as she straps a loudly protesting J.J. back into his car seat.

“The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is around here someplace. I want to see it, and the zoo, too. There's a lot to do here.”

“I know, but it's really much too late for that.”

“It's still sunny out!”

“I know,” Allison says again, summoning every ounce of patience, “but look at the time.”

Hudson, who never goes anywhere without her watch, glances at her wrist, and her green eyes widen.

“What time is it?” Madison wants to know, buckling her seat belt.

“Almost nine o'clock,” her sister tells her, and it's Maddy's turn to look surprised.

“We're so far west that the sun doesn't set until after nine at this time of year,” Mack explains, climbing into the front seat beside Allison. “Any idea where we're going to eat?”

“There were a bunch of restaurants back by the exit where we got off the road.”