Undying (25 page)

“No, I don’t. But you don’t either. There are some things we can’t understand, Macy. Maybe we aren’t meant to.”

“He sent me a condolence card with the obituary in it. Then, over the next three years, while I bounced around in foster care, he sent me clippings from newspapers. Those ridiculous pictures of the little boys. Three years after he killed my family, he killed another. And the asshole had the nerve to send me that obituary, too.”

“We’ll get him, Macy.”

“Why me?” she asked. “Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?”

“I don’t know. But Fia—”

“Fia’s not going to find him. It’s not going to end.” Her jaw trembled. “It’s never going to end until he chooses to end it.”

He looked into her eyes, smoothing back her hair. “You don’t know that.”

Macy lifted her head until her lips met his. She kissed him hard, silencing him. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore. She didn’t want to feel this way.

She wrapped her arms around Arlan, pushing him onto his back. She climbed on top of him, flattening her body over his. They kissed deeply, tongues entwining.

She just wanted the agony to go away.

Macy sat up, panting, and unzipped her sweatshirt. The T-shirt came off next. The cool ocean breeze and the erection growing in Arlan’s shorts made her nipples pucker. She yanked his T-shirt over his head, knocking his glasses into the sand.

They kissed again and she ended up on her back, him on top this time. They lay halfway on the towel, halfway in the sand. He kissed her mouth and then he did that amazing thing he did with his mouth on her neck. She moaned softly, dragging her fingers through his salty hair.

“It’s all right, Macy,” he whispered in her ear.

She didn’t want to hear soft words of encouragement. She just wanted to feel him inside her.

Macy slid her hand downward, between them, over the bulge in Arlan’s shorts. He groaned and she massaged him roughly.

He kissed her face, her neck, and then her breasts. She dug her nails into the flesh of his back, mad for him.

“Take them off. Take them off,” she panted, struggling to get her shorts off.

“Shhh,” he hushed in her ear. He pushed her hands aside, raised up and sat on his heels between her legs, and smoothly unbuttoned her jeans shorts. In the semidarkness, he made eye contact with her as he slid her shorts down, over her thighs, over her knees, and then her feet.

“Yours, too.” She closed her eyes, unable to stand the scrutiny of his gaze. He didn’t understand what a bad person she was. He didn’t understand. They died and she didn’t. What right did she have to live?

Arlan stood up in the sand to take off his shorts and she opened her eyes to watch. She had always loved men’s bodies. Loved the hard, planed muscles, the anatomy that was different than her own. She put her arms out to him, parting her legs, brushing her fingers across her blond tuft of hair. She was already wet for him. Pulsing with need.

He knelt and then climbed over her. “Me on top, you on top?” he asked huskily, straightening the towel so that her head didn’t rest in the sand.

“You on top.” She lifted her hips, needing to feel him hot and hard inside her.

He smoothed her hair, kissing her temple. His gesture was tender, but tenderness wasn’t what she needed. Tenderness didn’t make her feel alive. Passion did.

Macy clasped Arlan’s narrow hips and lifted off the towel, opening herself up to him. She moaned with satisfaction as he drove deep. This was the one part of her that Arlan did understand. He pushed hard into her and she welcomed his thrusts again and again.

Macy wrapped her arms around his neck and held tightly as she rode the waves of building pleasure. A part of her wanted to make these few minutes last for hours, but the need for release was greater than the need for lingering gratification. She rocked beneath him, moaning.

Arlan whispered her name in her ear.

Macy had once read that simultaneous orgasm was rarely possible with a couple. Certainly not common. Did that mean Arlan was the perfect lover, or were they just perfect together?

All too soon, the pressure inside Macy swelled until it burst. Every muscle in her body seemed to contract and release as the orgasm rippled through her. She clung to Arlan and he grunted and pushed hard into her one last time. He collapsed over her, cradling her in his arms as he rolled onto his side. Macy nestled her head on Arlan’s shoulder, pressing her face into his damp, musky skin. The air smelled thick with the salt of the ocean and the scent of lovemaking and Macy breathed deep, wishing this could be the end of her life, instead of what was coming.

In clean boxers and a T-shirt, Teddy sat down with a cup of chamomile tea to watch the eleven o’clock news. His mother had often given him chamomile tea to help him sleep. He hated the taste, no matter how much honey he put in it, but if Mother said it was good for him, it had to be.

He picked up the remote and turned the channel to the local Philadelphia station. It was nice to be home. While he had a teenaged neighbor check on his house and water his flowers when he was gone, Teddy never liked to be away from home too long.

The first piece that ran on the nightly news was a report on the Liberty Bell and how many U.S. citizens visited it each year. Then a piece on the rising crime rate in the city. Homicides were down, but assaults and robberies were up. Good thing he lived in the country, away from the crime and pollution. The next piece featured a schoolgirl collecting used eyeglasses for poor, elderly citizens on her block in downtown Philly. When the station flashed a post office box number where donations could be made, Teddy jotted it down. He liked the smile on the little girl’s face and he liked the idea that a young person was trying to help the less fortunate. He would send a donation.

Teddy was sipping his hot tea when Senator Malley’s handsome face flashed on the screen. Apparently he was the grand marshal in his Independence Day hometown parade today. How nice. Teddy smiled at the sight of the children with their cotton candy and red, white, and blue balloons. As the senator said something about our Founding Fathers, the camera panned the crowd. A face caught his attention. A face he recognized.

Teddy nearly spilled his tea setting his cup down. A woman passed behind the crowd in the camera shot. She was only on the TV screen for a split second, but it was long enough. It was Marceline! It was Teddy’s Marceline, and she was in Clare Point, Delaware.

He sat back in his recliner, flabbergasted. It had been years since he had known exactly where she was. She always kept moving. She was smart, his Marceline. Even though he’d been worshipping her from afar for a very long time, he could not have necessarily found her if he wanted to. But now he knew where she was.

Was this divine intervention?

Was it time for them to be together?

It was. Teddy was sure of it.

“I
t’s all true,” Fia stated incredulously.

Arlan shifted his cell phone to his other ear and opened the barbeque grill on his back deck. He was surprised to hear the animation in her voice. When he’d talked to her this morning, she had sounded plain worn out from pulling another all-nighter. “What’s true?”

“Everything she said about her family being murdered in Missouri. It happened just the way she said it did.”

“You thought she made the whole thing up?” He checked the heat coming off the grill with the palm of his hand. He was hoping to get dinner made before the skies opened up. He could smell the rain thick and heavy on the night air.

“It’s not as if she has a history of being truthful and forthright with me.”

“I knew it was the truth,” he said. Satisfied the grill was hot enough, he placed two steaks on it, leaving the skewered shrimp on the plate on the table. “It was too bizarre, too…tragic a story to make up. That tragedy was the profound sadness I saw in her face that first night.”

“Please don’t get sappy on me, Arlan. I’m hanging here by an emotional thread.”

“You’re upset about this? A case, Special Agent Kahill?” he mocked, only half joking. A part of him was just a little annoyed that she hadn’t had more faith in Macy. Maybe in him. “That’s not like you.”

“It’s not just the case. It’s…”

He turned his back to the grill. It was after eight and growing dark. Insects chirped in an overgrown flower bed off the end of the deck. It was hot and humid and the atmospheric pressure was dropping. A thunderstorm was building. He could smell it in the air. “He broke up with you.”

“We broke up. It was a mutual agreement and I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Okay,” Arlan said. “Later?”

“Sure. Later, after I’ve arrested this Teddy bastard.” She hesitated. “It was a bad day all around. I also talked to Regan.”

“And?” He poked at a steak with a fork.

She exhaled.

“He confessed to being involved in coke,” he said for her. “Fee, I know how hard this is for you—”

“He didn’t exactly admit to anything,” she interrupted. “He did say he had
some problems
. I’ve got a call in to the rehab place in London and he’s agreed to go.”

“That’s great news, Fee.”

“Okay, back to the problem at hand,” she said, sounding like Special Agent Kahill again. “Here’s what I’ve got. None of the names connected to any of Teddy’s murders have cross-matched, but now I have a list of all the people the police talked to at the time of Macy’s family’s murder. I have lists of neighbors, teachers, repairmen, business associates, you name it. Macy’s the only one who’s ever survived; he’s obsessed with her. Her family was the first he killed. The connection is Macy. Our man has got to be on this list,” she said emphatically. “I’ve been running everyone through the system. I stayed up all night.”

Arlan was tempted to push Fia back toward the conversation concerning Glen, but he thought better of it. Work was how she always got through her personal pain.

So he would talk about what she wanted to talk about. He’d help her any way he could. “Any possibilities, so far, on this list of names?”

“Maybe. There’s one guy who’s just fallen off the face of the earth. Someone who worked with Macy’s father. I talked to his ex-wife last night. She says she hasn’t seen him in fourteen years.”

“So he fell off the radar about the time of the murders?” Arlan sat down in one of the chairs on the deck. Macy had said she was coming for dinner. She was late. More than half an hour late, which wasn’t like her. He couldn’t help wondering if this was it. Had she flown?

“Anybody else?” Arlan reached for the bottle of beer at his feet.

“Let’s see.” Fia sounded as if she was scanning the list. “Got a traveling salesman. Unmarried.”

“Good possibility.”

“Definitely. He lives in Pennsylvania, has for years. The software company he works for operates mostly on the East Coast.”

“Sounding better all the time.”

“Who knows? But I have a call in to his employer.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a good start.” He hesitated. “Fia, you’re going to get him. I know you are.”

“Going through these names is going to take days. My boss actually gave the okay to bring in another agent from our office to help me rather than waiting on those guys from the Baltimore field office to arrive, or have me join them in Baltimore. But I was thinking that I’d like Macy to look at the list. See if there’s anyone in particular she thinks we should check into.”

“I imagine the Missouri police did that at the time of her family’s death.”

“Sure, but she was fifteen and in shock. And things look different from a distance. Maybe she’s far enough from the murders now that she can be more objective. She there with you?”

“No, but she should be on her way.”

“I called her cell. It’s still connected, but she didn’t answer.” Fia sounded annoyed. “She swore to me she’d answer if I called.”

“She’s running late. Maybe she was in the shower.” His words sounded perfectly logical, but rang hollow in his own ears. Arlan wasn’t the paranoid type, but with every passing moment, he was growing concerned.

“Why don’t you fax me the list?” he said. “I’ll have her look it over after dinner and then call you.”

“I don’t know.”

He could hear the hesitation in her voice.

“The FBI doesn’t take kindly to agents faxing sensitive stuff like this to civilians.”

“Fia, do you hear yourself? You’re talking about faxing it to
me.
You’ve known me forever.” And as if she could have forgotten, he added, “And that’s
eternal
forever. You know I’m not going to let the information fall into the wrong hands.”

“I don’t know. I guess I kind of wanted to be there to see her reaction when she read over the list.”

“Fine, then.” Arlan tried not to be perturbed. He knew that sometimes Fia had to follow conventional rules. She had to, in order to remain the most effective in her job. He knew it wasn’t easy living and working among mortals. “Come tomorrow. You know she’s not coming to you. Hell, come tonight if you want.” He tipped back the beer bottle, finishing it off while she thought about it.

“No,” she said. “You’re right. I need to stay here where I have access to the bureau computers.”

Realizing that the steaks had been on for five minutes, Arlan bolted out of his chair. If steak wasn’t bloody rare, it was ruined. “I’ll go make sure the fax machine is on. Give me five minutes. We’ll call you after dinner.”

“Okay. Okay, thanks, Arlan,” Fia said. “For everything.”

He dropped his cell into his pocket and reached for the tongs. Damn it. He hated to waste perfectly good bloody steaks.

When Macy stepped out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around her, her hair bundled on her head in another towel, she wasn’t surprised by the man sitting on the end of her bed. Adrenaline shot through her body, but the fact remained that, in a way, she was almost relieved he was here. This was it. Live or die, she knew her nightmare was finally coming to an end.

“Marceline,” he said as he picked up the remote and turned on the TV, cranking up the volume.

“Teddy.” She just stood there in the bathroom doorway, naked except for the towel.

“It’s a full moon,” he said. “You just can’t see it. The rain.”

She always wondered if she would recognize him if she saw him. She did not. He looked entirely ordinary and nothing like she thought he would. He was at least forty-five, though he seemed fit. Receding hairline. Soft jaw. He was wearing a polo shirt and madras shorts. Madras shorts, for God’s sake. Who expected a serial killer whose kill numbers were so high to wear blue madras? And black Velcro sandals.

Had she spotted him before, the sandals would have been a giveaway, she joked to herself. Only a killer could have taste that bad.

“The full moon,” she repeated numbly. “I should have guessed.”

“Please don’t scream,” he said quietly. “Or try to run.” His voice was gentle. Calm. He tried to avert his gaze as he spoke. “Others will only…get hurt.”

“So you’re going to play that card again?” she asked, tucking the edge of the wet towel under her armpit. “That’s getting a little old.”

“You know I’ll do it. And you know it will be
your
fault.”

He slipped his hand inside a white fast food bag that she hadn’t noticed on the bed beside him. He withdrew a gun. A very expensive-looking gun, with a silencer.

How the hell did a man like Crazy Teddy, Moon Boy, the Buried Alive Killer manage to buy a gun like that? It wasn’t for hunting, or target practice; it was a gun meant to kill—kill people.

“It was purchased perfectly legally,” he said, seeming to know exactly what she was thinking. “The silencer.” He looked apologetic. “Not so legal.” He turned it in his hand, admiring it. “You’d be amazed what can be bought over the Internet.”

Macy shivered. She’d turned the air-conditioning up before stepping into the shower because she’d gotten hot, walking around town. Sort of saying good-bye, she saw in retrospect.

But she’d thought leaving would involve a couple of good-byes, a farewell wave, one more Oreo Cookie Blizzard for the road, not a handgun with a silencer.

Macy was late for Arlan’s surf and turf dinner. She’d be even later now.

In the back of her mind, she wondered if he would come looking for her. But she knew he wouldn’t. He would follow the rules they had laid down from the beginning, rules she had set in place, and that would mean not coming to look for her. Not at least for many hours, maybe a day, maybe two.

Her gaze shifted to the phone beside the bed. Next to it had been her cell phone. She looked back at him.

“Of course you can’t make calls. Who are you going to call, your mommy?” He chuckled at his stupid, cruel joke.

Macy walked to the dresser and opened the top drawer. She let her towel fall.

Teddy surprised her by jumping off the bed and turning away, both hands up in defense. He still held the pistol. “Please…please don’t do that. I won’t tolerate that kind of licentious behavior from you, any longer, young lady.”

She ignored him. First she stepped into a pair of gym shorts. Then a faded blue T-shirt.
What did one wear to one’s death?

She pulled the towel off her head and let her wet hair fall over her back.

“You going to do it here, or somewhere else?” She picked her brush up off the dresser, feeling oddly detached from the whole situation.

“Going to do what?”

She turned to face him, giving him a look as if what she spoke of was obvious.

He gasped. “Oh! No, no, Marceline, dearest. I don’t want to
kill
you.” He took a step toward her, lowering the gun to his side. “I’ve come for you. It’s time.”

She held the brush at her side, looking at the madman who didn’t appear all that mad, except for the pistol with the silencer at his side. And the Velcro sandals. “It’s time for what?”

“My love, for us to be together, of course.” The expression on his face softened. “Forever,” he breathed.

She turned around to face the mirror and run the brush through her wet, tangled hair. “You have got to be shitting me,” she muttered under her breath.

“Hey, hey, turn around.”

She could see his reflection in the mirror. He was waving the pistol at her. “We have no time for grooming. We have to go. I’ll allow you to pack your bag if you hurry. But we have to go. It’s a long ride and the storm is rolling in fast. The roads will be slick and dangerous.”

Macy had always assumed that when he came for her, he would just kill her. It had never occurred to her that he might kidnap her. She tried not to think about why he would take her or what he was going to do. She just needed to figure how she was going to get away from him without putting anyone else in danger. “Where are we going?” she asked.

He lifted her knapsack off the floor and tentatively offered it to her, a glowing smile on his face. “Home, of course, darling.”

“I’ll take Marvin Gardens.” Kaleigh, lying on her stomach on the carpet in her parents’ basement, handed over the paper money. Her mom had been annoyed that her friends hadn’t even arrived until nine and Monopoly games could go on for hours. But Kaleigh’s dad had convinced his wife it was perfectly safe to go to bed and leave the “young folks” to play a board game in the basement on a rainy night.

“Stay in the house and don’t wreck anything,” her dad had warned.

“No problem, Dad,” had been Kaleigh’s response. Where had he thought she was going to go in the rain?

“You can’t buy Marvin Gardens. I’ve got Ventnor and Atlantic,” Pete, Katy’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, protested.

Like Kaleigh and Rob, Pete and Katy were life mates. But sept rules didn’t require that they date exclusively while teenagers, only that they pair off as adults. Katy broke up with Pete at least once a month, just to show she could, but they always ended up back together again after a few days of drama.