Shattered (13 page)

“Could I bring my friends? I'm here with friends.”

A momentary annoyance seemed to cross his face, but it was quickly gone again. “Sorry,” he said smoothly. “Closed set.”

Mickie shrugged disinterestedly and turned back to her cone.

He said in a moment, “Truth is—I wasn't going to mention this—but if you weren't on vacation, and if you were in the market for something a little more permanent, I'm looking for a production assistant, and I thought maybe we could talk about it after I finish shooting this afternoon. I start filming in Daytona next week though, so whoever I got would have to be able to travel on pretty short notice.”

Daytona. Production assistant. She was interested, oh, yes, she was, but it wouldn't do to let him know that.

She said casually, “So what kind of money are we talking about there?”

“Five hundred a week plus expenses.”

She stared at him, big eyed. Whatever hope she had of nonchalance was abandoned. “Whoa. Making commercials must pay some okay bucks.”

He grinned. “That's why they call it 'commercial.' Anyway, you might mention it to your friends. I'll interview anyone who's interested.”

Mickie made sure that was one thing she would not do. The less competition the better.

She said, “Why can't we talk about it now?”

He glanced at his watch. It was gold, and looked to be the real thing. “Sorry, I have to go set up for the shoot. But if you're interested, I'll be at the pier—you know the one by the public parking lot—at four. I'm picking up a few other kids there and driving them to the site. I'll have you back by six.”

She thought it over. “Maybe I'll see you there.”

He smiled. “I hope so.” He turned toward the door.

“Hey, wait.” She reached to slip the necklace over her head. “Don't you want this back?”

He smiled. “Keep it,” he said, “for good luck. And maybe it will remind you to think about that job.”

“Hey, thanks.” She grinned as he turned toward the door. “And I will—think about it, I mean.”

He waved at her. “You know where to find me.”

She finished off the cone, browsed a little more, and went back out on the street, feeling pretty damn good about life in general. Then she saw Donny across the street, and she thought maybe that good luck charm was starting to work already. She waved at him, and he waved back enthusiastically. She dodged traffic to get to him, then jumped in his arms and clamped her legs around his waist. He laughed and whirled her around and for the next hour or so she forgot all about commercials and trips to Daytona and the man in the Indian shop.

But he did not forget about her.

~

Chapter Fourteen

Bridge Construction Causes Traffic Delays

Teen Rescued From Near Drowning

Twelve Arrested for Ordinance Violations

Bicyclist Injured in Collision

Guy manipulated the various headlines on his computer, trying to decide on a lead story, but only half his attention was on his work. The weekend had come and gone, and the machine attached to his telephone had not been activated once, nor had Carol's. He was beginning to feel foolish, more than a little impatient, and perhaps worst of all, to wonder about the soundness of his judgment.

They said survivors of tragedy—be it violent crime, war, even an airplane crash—were never afterward to achieve the same level of security they had known before the event. It was as though, once that barrier of “it can't happen to me” was removed, they almost began to expect the worst, to take it as their due. He and Carol had survived a tragedy. Would he have been so quick to assume the call was more than an idle prank if he hadn't stepped over that line of “it can't happen to me” once before, and seen what was on the other side?

“Shall we do a layout meeting today or do you just want to sit and brood?”

Guy glanced up to see Ed Jenkins leaning against the frame of his open door. He frowned a little. “Yeah, I'm on my way.”

“So what's your lead?”

“They're paving the parking lot at the Piggly Wiggly.”

Jenkins lifted an eyebrow. “I'll stop the presses.”

“Well, it's a lot more relevant to our readers than what we've been running all weekend. Personally, I want to know when the last three lanes of the parking lot are going to be closed so I can schedule my beer runs accordingly. Can you believe we live in a place where the feature story is accompanied by pictures of some teenage girl pushing her boobs into the camera for three days in a row?”

“I don't know about you, but that's why I live here. I'd take a guess that's why the photographer lives here, too.”

“Let's run the bridge construction story. If we do one more spring break headline, I'm going to quit.”

“Now that'd be a shame.” He waited as Guy lined up the stories and locked them in. Then he said, in a tone that was carefully casual, “So how's Carol holding up?”

“Great, just great. You ought to have us over to dinner some time.”

Jenkins nodded toward the machine attached to his telephone. “Look, nobody likes to ask but—”

“Yeah, I know.” Guy released a breath that was both frustrated and apologetic. “It's the waiting that's making me crazy. I'm starting to think the whole thing doesn't amount to anything.”

“That'd be good, right?”

“Right.” But Guy was frowning. “Wrong. Hell, I don't know.” He picked up his notebook and left the desk. “I just don't like unanswered questions, you know? I've got too many of them floating around in my head as it is.”

Ed nodded sympathetically, and turned away from the door just as Rachel was coming through it. She was carrying a colorful arrangement of pink and blue flowers.

Guy feigned delight, though not very well. “For me? Sweetie, I didn't know you cared.”

“I care all right,” Rachel retorted, and set the arrangement on his desk. “I care a lot about knowing who your new sweetheart is, and why she doesn't know any better than to make sure the florist doesn't send baby shower flowers to a gentleman. Or is there something you'd like to tell us?”

“Just what I need at eight o'clock on a Monday morning, a secretary with a sense of humor.” He took the card off its forked holder and read it. Ed came back into the office and waited, a half-curious, half-amused smile on his lips.

The card read:
Just didn't want you to think you were forgotten
. There was no signature.

He handed the card to Ed, and told Rachel in a carefully calm tone, “Why don't you give the florist a call and see who paid for these?”

“On it.” She left the office with a purposeful stride.

Ed handed the card back to Guy with a puzzled expression, but Guy didn't take it. He had just noticed the small stuffed lamb nestled at the base of the blossoms.

Guy picked up the toy and turned it over in his hand. He could feel the blood drain out of his face as he looked at it. “Oh, shit,” he said. His voice sounded weak and he felt sick inside.

He looked up at Ed slowly. “Jesus Christ, I know who it is,” he said. “I know who the son of a bitch is.”

~

Chapter Fifteen

S
he heard him arrive, but a long time passed before he came to her. Enough time so that anticipation turned to dread and dread turned to resignation and resignation turned to simple waiting. She could hear things from the dark place where she was: his muffled voice, the occasional thump. She didn't know what the sounds meant. Long ago she had learned it was best not to listen.

She heard the scrape of the key in the lock and he swung open the plank door. She lifted an arm to shield her eyes from the dim glow of the camping lantern he carried. He always held it high so that it shown in her eyes, hurting her, blinding her.

He said pleasantly, “Hello, lovely.”

She answered, because she knew what would happen if she didn't, “Hello.”

He smiled. Sometimes his smiles were cold, but this one was filled with genuine pleasure. And that pleasure terrified her.

“I brought you a present,” he said. But he stood blocking the door with the lantern held up so that she could see nothing but his face, his smile.

“Well, not a present, really,” he corrected himself. “An object lesson, really. But it's for your own good. Because you've been very naughty, haven't you, darling?”

She shook her head slowly, pressing back against the wall. “No,” she whispered, eyes wide and fixed on him. “No, I haven't done anything, I haven't.”

He smiled. “Oh, yes, you have. And you want to know something, little darling? I've thought about it a great deal and I've decided this is exactly why I love you so. Because you're always doing and saying the unpredictable. Because you're never boring. You're a challenge, love, and that's why I've kept you so long. Even though you make me very, very angry sometimes.”

With no warning, he grabbed the leather thong around her neck and jerked her out of the enclosure into the open room. Now his face was dark and tight; she read him well and let herself grow limp, offering no resistance. He jerked her upright and gave her a shake, startling a cry of pain from her.

“You took my telephone without permission, didn't you? You called that nice Mrs. Dennison, bothering her in the middle of the night, upsetting her so, getting her hopes up about her poor lost Kelly. That was a bad thing to do, wasn't it?” His fist tightened on the thong, cutting off her breath, and he shook her again. “Wasn't it?”

“Yes!” she gasped. “It was bad!”

He twisted his fist another turn, and two. The leather dug into her neck, spots of light danced before her eyes. “Do you know why it was bad?” he demanded.

She nodded wordlessly, eyes blurred with pain.

“Tell me!”

“Because,” she managed, gasping, “because—Kelly is dead!”

He released her so abruptly that she stumbled. Bright throbs of red-hot pain from newly awakened nerve endings burst through her neck and throat. Her lungs felt as though they would explode.

But that wasn't the worst. The worst was that when he released her, when he stepped away, and she saw what he had brought.

The girl was naked, blindfolded, and lashed with her hands tied behind her back to an upright post in the center of the room. One cheek was purple and swollen and her lip was split. She was drunk or drugged or simply unconscious. Her head lolled sideways on her shoulder.

He said, smiling, “She looks a little like you. Don't you think?”

“No,” she whispered. “No, please...”

He hooked his fingers over the leather-thong necklace he made her wear and jerked it over her head. She lost several strands of hair to the effort, but hardly felt the sting. She watched in horror as he went to the naked girl and dropped the necklace over her head.

“Stupid bitch,” he commented carelessly. “She lost the one I gave her.” Then, smiling, “Don't worry. I'll get you another.”

Then he took out the knife.

An involuntary moan was wrenched from her and she sank to her knees. She drew up her arms to cover her head, and the sounds she made were low and animal-like, helpless and terrified. “No. No, please don't make me watch, don't make me please...”

But he made her watch. He made her listen to the screams. And afterward he didn't lock her up. He left her in the big room with the telephone in plain view and waited to see if she would touch it.

She never did.

~

Chapter Sixteen

L
iving on the Gulf Coast, one got used to expecting every day to be perfect. It was always refreshing for full-time residents to discover Mother Nature still had a few tricks up her sleeve, and that some of them were reserved for St. Theresa-by-the-Sea ... yes, even during spring break.

The day was gray and misty, cold enough for a fleece running suit, and so fogged in that not even an outline of the lighthouse was visible from the beach. Carol had manned the office over the weekend, putting up with endless phone and walk-in inquires from groups of students looking for houses to rent, and she was entitled to Monday and Tuesday off. Generally, she would have simply taken a few hours off in the mornings to run errands, but under the circumstances, she had decided to take the entire Monday off. She hadn't decided about Tuesday yet.

She pulled the hood of her jacket over her head and walked down to the end of the boardwalk, frowning a little as she noticed that hers were not the only footprints that had disturbed the damp, filmy coating of sand over the boards. She hadn't been down to the beach in almost a week, which meant that sometime—probably over the weekend—someone had come up onto her private walk and had gone at least halfway to her door. Perhaps he had stood there, looking into her windows or, perhaps, in a drunken confusion, had stumbled all the way to her garage before he realized he had the wrong house.

That was far, far too close for comfort.

Carol tried not to make too much of it. Homeowners with beachfront boardwalks were constantly fending off tourists who mistook the private residence sign for a shortcut to the parking lot, even in this protected community. And with all the kids who had crowded the beaches that weekend, she was lucky she hadn't been disturbed by more than a few footprints. Still, it made her uneasy in a way it wouldn't have if Guy hadn't started making such a production over security.