Solid as Steele (3 page)

 

J
AMIE SLID HER EYES
toward Mack, then away as she sat in the front seat of his SUV, wondering what she was doing there. She could have stayed home, but she'd insisted on coming along, and once she'd committed herself to the trip, she'd known that he wasn't going to let her drive her own car.

Now she felt trapped in the front seat with Mack Steele, wishing she were anywhere else. What if the dream was something she'd conjured up out of her own anxiety? She'd be embarrassed that Mack was driving her all this way to check out a figment of her imagination, but that would be the end of it. Despite her mixed emotions, she clung to that hope as they drove west, the terrain becoming more hilly the farther they got from Baltimore. Her refuge. She'd established a life in the city, and she was going to keep living there.

Last week, she'd gotten a letter from her mother, asking her to come home for a visit. She'd ignored the request, because going home always stirred up the bad feelings between herself and her mother's boyfriend, Clark Landon, along with memories from her childhood that she'd rather forget.

Her earliest recollections of her father were of him staggering around the house drunk, yelling at her mom. Because of his fondness for the bottle, he'd barely been able
to support the family with a series of jobs for the railroad, a couple of trucking companies and then as a delivery man for a local flower shop. Because home hadn't been a warm and comfortable place, she'd spent as much time elsewhere as she could. She'd haunted the library and gone home with friends after school. But the time would always come when she had to go back to the dilapidated bungalow where she lived. And she never knew what she was going to find there. Maybe her parents would be fighting. Or maybe Dad would be at one of the bars he frequented, and Mom would lock the door to keep him out. Then he might smash a window to get in and cut his hand and end up in the emergency room.

Dad had finally drunk himself to death before he was fifty, which had made home life calmer. They'd gone on welfare, which hadn't even made much difference in their lifestyle.

She'd still been living at home when she'd met Craig. Moving to Baltimore had been the first step in her break from the past. They'd had four good years together, and when he'd gotten killed, she'd been in danger of slipping into depression—until she'd pulled herself together and started over again on her own.

She'd thought she was in pretty good shape—until she'd woken up scared and shaken last night after a nightmare trip back to Gaptown.

The closer they got to home, the more her nerves jumped and the more certain she was that she wasn't going to like the outcome of this trip. Not at all.

“Slow down,” she said. They were the first words she'd uttered since she'd gotten into Mack's car. “There's a speed trap ahead.”

He pressed on the brake and they rounded a curve,
where a cop car with flashing lights had stopped another motorist.

“Thanks,” he said. “Was that a psychic insight?”

“No,” she snapped, then continued in a milder tone.

“I'm a native. I know the cops are lying in wait for out-of-towners around that bend.”

When she saw a highway sign coming up, she felt a little jolt as the exit name flashed by. Smokehouse Road.

“Take this exit,” she said.

“Why?”

“Take it,” she insisted.

“Why?” he asked again.

“I don't know for sure,” she answered honestly. “But I think we're going to…find something.”

She gripped the sides of her seat as he took the exit a little too fast. She wished she knew why she was giving him these directions. Or maybe she already knew, and she didn't want to admit it.

“Right or left?” he asked with an edge in his voice when they came off the exit ramp.

“Right,” she answered, wondering why she was so certain where they were going. There was absolutely no hesitation on her part as she gave him directions.

They drove for a few more moments before she told him to turn onto Jumping Jack Road.

 

F
ROM A HIDING PLACE
where he was sheltered by the woods, the man who called himself Fred Hyde took a bite of the caramel, nut and chocolate bar he'd brought along. He chewed with appreciation as he watched the activity down the hill through binoculars. All those cops rushing around looked like a bunch of ants serving their queen.

He laughed. Yeah, ants.

He'd considerately left the body where it was going
to be easily spotted—along the side of the road in a nice open valley. Then he'd made himself comfortable up here, waiting for the fuzz to show up and get to work. They'd be from Gaptown, but he knew there was a cooperative investigative unit that drew on some of the other surrounding jurisdiction.

He'd seen them find Lynn Vaughn's I.D., so they knew who she was, but they didn't know why she was here. And, of course, he'd worn rain gear that wouldn't leave any fibers on the body. He'd also moved the woman from his property to this location, so they weren't going to find any clues to his identity.

But he wanted them to understand that something serious was going on in their little town, with its speed traps and cops who were so quick to do their duty.

He would have liked to keep enjoying the show, but he had work to do. He took a last bite of the candy bar and crumpled the wrapper, but he wasn't dumb enough to drop the trash where someone could find it and maybe get a line on his DNA. Instead he put the crumpled paper into his pocket and started down the other side of the hill to where he'd left his car. Things were moving faster now. He had to set up the funhouse again to get ready for the next victim.

 

“N
OW WHAT
?” M
ACK CLIPPED
out as he continued down the blacktop.

“Keep going,” she directed, hardly able to speak around the tight feeling in her throat. Pictures were forming in her mind, but she thrust them away. She could be making them up. She hoped she was making them up.

He drove past a couple of farms and a country store.

“You know this area?”

“Of course. When I was in high school, my friends and I would come out here to drive around.”

They didn't speak again until she saw a crossroads with a restaurant, bar and gas station.

“Turn left here.”

He slowed the car and made the turn. From the small commercial area, they drove into the mountains, where they passed widely spaced farms and houses. When they rounded a steep curve, they were stopped by a police car with flashing lights blocking the road.

A few cars were pulled up along the shoulder, and several spectators were standing along the blacktop, craning their necks toward the center of the activity, where two more patrol cars were pulled up, along with an ambulance.

Mack rolled down the window and pulled up beside a man in jeans and a plaid shirt who was standing on the shoulder and staring toward the cop cars. “What's going on?”

“Guy found a woman's body.”

Jamie had been hoping against hope not to hear that news. Now she dragged in a sharp breath as the words slammed into her.

“A local resident?” Mack asked.

“Don't know. The cops have been asking if we know a Lynn Vaughn. That must be her name.”

Jamie felt a shiver go over her skin as her worst fears were confirmed. She'd been with Lynn Vaughn in her dream. She'd been afraid someone had killed the woman, and now she knew for certain it was true.

“You know her?” the guy asked, looking from Mack to Jamie and back again.

“No. We just happened down this road. I guess we'd better go back the other way,” Mack answered easily,
giving nothing away before he rolled up the window, made a U-turn and got them out of the vicinity. He kept going toward the road where they'd exited the highway, then turned into the parking lot of the country store they'd passed earlier. After finding a parking space, he cut the engine and turned to Jamie.

His face looked grim. “I thought maybe the dream came from your imagination,” he said.

She lifted one shoulder. “Even after I gave you a name, and you confirmed that she was a real person?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe that's what you wanted to think, but I knew something had happened.”

“You dreamed about a murder that turned out to be true….”

Somehow she managed to keep her voice even as she said, “I was hoping it didn't end that way.”

His eyes boring into her, he said, “People don't dream about a murder one night, then find out the next day that it really happened.”

Jamie swallowed, wishing that Mack would stop using the word
murder
like a bludgeon.

“Tell me
exactly
what you dreamed.”

She'd deliberately been vague with the details of the nightmare when she'd told him about it. Now she knew she was going to have to be more specific.

“Jamie?”

She stared straight ahead, her hands folded one on top of the other in her lap. “In the dream, I wasn't myself. I was that woman, Lynn Vaughn. She was in a…I guess you'd have to call it a funhouse.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Did you ever go to a haunted house on Halloween when you were a kid? Like maybe something set up by a local charity to raise money? They had a bunch of spooky stuff to give the kids a fright, but everybody knew it was all for fun.”

“Yeah.”

“It was like that, only it was serious.” She clenched her hands together as she remembered the experience and the place. “It was dark and enclosed. There was scary music. A musty smell. Hallways with things set up to startle you, like witches jumping out. But some of it was a lot worse. One place had a trapdoor where she tumbled through and
ended up on a slide that took her to the basement. She landed hard on the cement floor and hurt her shoulder.”

Jamie winced, remembering the pain.

She hated dredging up more details, but Mack was staring at her with an expectant look on his face, so she gulped in a breath and let it out before she went on.

“The light was weird. Someone had worked hard to make the place into a creep show. In one section, there were horror movie posters. Dead-end hallways. Spatters on the floor that looked like blood.

“At first she was alone. But she kept hearing a man's voice coming from hidden speakers. Then he was
there
. With her.”

Details came fast and furious now.

“He was wearing black clothes, a black cape, a hood, boots. His face was a mask with a skull. He was talking to her, telling her she was going to pay for what she'd done to him. But he was also telling her that if she could find her way out, he'd let her go. Then she came to a place where she could go right or left. She didn't want to go on, but he forced her to choose.

“When she did, bright lights went off in her face so she could hardly see, and he came at her with a knife. I don't think it would have mattered which way she went.”

Jamie rushed on, wanting to get the recitation over with. “He slashed at her, and I felt her pain. Then everything went black. I was hoping she'd fainted, but I was afraid he'd killed her. I guess he did.”

She said the last part with a little hitch in her voice as she turned to Mack, seeing the set lines of his face.

When he spoke, it was like he hadn't listened to anything she'd said. “Explain to me how you knew about what was happening to Lynn Vaughn.”

She sighed, deep and loud. “It's what I said the first time. I dreamed about her.”

“That's all? You didn't talk to anyone about her? Get some information from someone?”

“It was a dream!” She heard her voice rise.

“Just a dream. Out of the blue?”

The question made her want to open the door, jump out of the car and run down the road to get away from her interrogator, but she was pretty sure she wouldn't get very far. Mack would catch up with her and drag her back.

Instead, she raised her chin. Struggling to keep her voice steady, she said, “I used to have bad dreams when I lived in Gaptown. I'd have a nightmare and it would turn out to be true.”

Before he could demand an example, she went on quickly. “It started when I was nine. I dreamed that Peggy Wickers, a girl in my fourth-grade class, was in an automobile accident. I woke up crying, and my mother came in to calm me down. She was angry that I'd gotten her up in the middle of the night. She told me it was just a nightmare and to go back to sleep. I lay there the rest of the night, thinking about it. Then in the morning, Peggy didn't come to school and the teacher told everyone about the accident.”

She stopped to catch her breath, then went on. “I'd have dreams like that off and on. Sometimes one every six months, sometimes it wouldn't happen for a year. It was always something bad, and it always turned out to be true. It stopped when I moved to Baltimore, and I thought I was over it. Then last night, it happened again. I think it's because it was happening
here
.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you saying you don't believe me?”

“It's a pretty strange story.”

“Why would I come up with something so weird if it wasn't true?”

“You tell me.”

She exploded with an unladylike curse. “I told you everything I could.”

“Why did you call the Light Street office in the middle of the night?”

She wasn't going to tell him that she'd awakened wishing her husband were lying beside her in bed. Instead she said, “I was upset when I woke up. I was hoping to talk to Jo. She wouldn't have put me through the third degree.”

“She would have been remiss if she hadn't questioned you.”

“She wouldn't have acted like I was part of a murder conspiracy!”

Mack sighed. “Okay.”

“So you finally believe me?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Jamie heard herself saying words she thought she would never utter. “Why don't you drop me off at my mom's house. I'll catch a ride home on my own.”

“We can visit your mom, but then we're going to try and figure out what happened to Lynn Vaughn. Where's the house?”

Feeling trapped, she gave him the address. Maybe she could slip out the back door and call one of her old friends in town while he was having a nice chat with the family. That thought made her bite back a sharp laugh. Yeah, Mom and Clark were going to charm the pants off Mack.

She felt her stomach knot as Mack put the address into his GPS. Apparently going to see Mom was as threatening as being questioned about a murder.

The place was at the south end of town—the low-rent district—and she gave the familiar location a critical look
as they pulled up in front of the one-story bungalow. The lawn and shrubbery were scraggly, the porch sagged and paint was peeling from the wooden siding. Home sweet home.

Embarrassed that one of her friends from Baltimore was seeing this house, she climbed out and headed up the cracked sidewalk with Mack right behind her.

She thought about him as a friend, she realized. Maybe
associate
was more accurate. Or maybe they were playing detective and suspect.

At the front door, she stopped and knocked. From the corner of her eye she saw a curtain move in the dirty front window and guy with a ruddy face and thinning hair look out.

Clark Landon. Too bad Mom's boyfriend was there.

He opened the door and stared at Jamie.

“What's the Princess of Baltimore doing here?”

“Mom asked me to visit.”

“But that's no reason for you to stop by, is it?” he shot back.

Mack cleared his throat. “I asked Jamie to show me around Gaptown.”

Clark took notice of the man standing behind Jamie and straightened his shoulders. “And who the hell are you?”

“Mack Steele. A friend of Jamie's.” He didn't say, “Nice to meet you.”

If Mack hadn't been right behind her, she might have turned and left, but now she was trapped by her own bad idea.

“Hey, Gloria, you won't believe who's here. It's your hoity-toity daughter.”

He stepped aside, and Jamie and Mack walked into the living room, which was cluttered with two beat-up sofas, an old-style clunky television set and beer cans on the
maple coffee table. The brown carpet had turned several shades darker since Jamie had been home last. To the right, in the kitchen, the sink was piled with dirty dishes. The house smelled like cabbage that had been cooked a week ago and left out.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, wondering how she could have brought Mack here.

As they stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, Clark grabbed a corduroy car coat from a hook beside the door.

“I'm going down to Louie's,” he said, then stepped out the door, slamming it behind him.

“Friendly,” Mack muttered.

“He and I never got along.”

“He's not your father, right?”

“Mom's longtime boyfriend.”

She closed her mouth abruptly as Gloria Wheeler shuffled into the living room. Jamie tried to see her from Mack's point of view and took in a woman in her late fifties with graying hair dyed black-cat dark, a ruffled yellow blouse and beige polyester slacks, the outfit finished off with scuffed red slippers.

No hug. No kiss. And she didn't invite them to make themselves comfortable.

Mom just stood with her hands on her hips and gave Jamie a long look, then switched her gaze to Mack.

“I wasn't expecting you to drop by, and Clark sure didn't warn me that you had someone with you,” she said in an accusing voice.

Jamie wondered what difference that made. Would Mom have rushed around cleaning up? Would she have had the table set so she could offer them tea and cookies? Or maybe she'd have changed her clothes and put on real shoes before coming out here.

“We were in town,” Mack said, “and Jamie mentioned that she wanted to stop by.”

“In town for what?”

“I'm a private detective on a case. Since Jamie's from here, I asked her to show me around Gaptown, Mrs.…?”

“Wheeler,” she supplied as she looked Mack up and down, then switched her gaze back to her daughter.

“You've taken up with another detective?”

Jamie answered in a rush. “I haven't taken up with him.”

“I was a friend of Jamie's husband, Craig,” Mack said.

Mom's knowing smile made Jamie cringe. What did she think? That they were sleeping together?

“I guess it was a bad idea coming here,” she said.

Gloria shrugged. “You said it, not me. You too good for Gaptown now?”

Unable to contain her exasperation, Jamie asked quickly, “If you didn't want me here, why did you write to me?”

Gloria tipped her head to one side, considering. “I didn't write you.”

“But I got a letter from you last week.”

Gloria's voice hardened. “Not from me you didn't.”

Jamie swallowed, wondering why her mother was lying, but she knew from experience that making a point of it wasn't going to get her anywhere. “I guess this was a mistake,” she murmured. “We won't take up any more of your time.”

“Suits me.”

Without waiting for Mack, Jamie turned and fled the house. On the porch she took a deep breath. Behind her, she heard him say, “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Wheeler.”

Yeah, sure.

Then he was hurrying after her down the sidewalk.
When she'd climbed into the car, she kept her gaze down as she fumbled with her seat belt. Her hand was shaking, but she finally got it hooked.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “It was obviously a mistake dropping in there.”

“Yeah.” He pulled away from the curb, and they rode in silence for a few moments until Mack cleared his throat.

“Was your mom like that when you were little?”

“Like what?”

“Mean. Self-centered. And not much interested in keeping her house or herself neat.”

“She was never much for housework, but she wasn't so mean when I was little. I think she started reacting to her life.”

“Some people cope better than others.”

“She's a very dependent woman who can't function without a man to take care of her. Not that Clark Landon does much for her. My dad drank. She couldn't leave him either. After he died, she went looking for another man and ended up with Landon, unfortunately.”

She sat tensely in her seat, expecting some kind of cutting remark about Gloria from Mack. Instead he pulled up along the curb, under the branches of a maple tree and turned toward her.

“I understand better than you think. My home life was no sitcom, either.”

That surprised her. “What do you mean?”

He laughed, the sound low and rough. “From what I can pick up on short acquaintance with Gloria, I guess my mom was the polar opposite of yours. When I was ten, she decided that she was tired of taking care of a husband and two kids. One day my older brother and I came home from school, and she wasn't there. We went looking for her and
found out she'd cleared out the clothes she wanted and left the rest for Goodwill.

“There was a note on the kitchen counter telling my dad not to try and contact her, and that she'd taken her share of the money in their bank account—which turned out to be most of it, since she said she'd been an unpaid housekeeper for years. That was the last we heard from her.” He sighed.

“I don't actually know if she's dead or alive. I guess, being a detective and all, I could investigate and find out, but it doesn't seem worth it.”

“I'm sorry,” Jamie murmured as she tried to imagine what his childhood must have been like.

“Yeah, well, I guess neither one of us had the pleasure of growing up in a stable home. After she bailed out on us, Dad did the best he could, but he had to work, which left me and Sammy on our own a lot of the time. At least there was an upside. It made me self-sufficient. I learned to cook and do my own laundry. And I can sew on a button, come to that.”

Jamie searched his face, touched that he'd revealed so much to her when he could have simply kept silent. She'd always thought of him as stable and grounded, and now he was letting her know that he'd overcome some serious obstacles. He was doing something else as well. Trying to help her understand that his visit to her family hadn't shocked him. She appreciated the effort.

She'd been through an emotional wringer during the past twenty hours, and the glimpse into his unhappy background made her want to…