Unseen (25 page)

“Sir, you need to leave,” the nurse said sternly to Will.

Will flipped out his badge but it held no sway. He was forced to take a few steps away but Barry yelled, “Find Heather. She works at the diner.”

“Which diner?” Will asked.

The nurse glared at him and then at Barry.

“LuLu’s.”

Chapter Twenty

Gemma awoke as if from a bad dream. Faint illumination was filtering through her bedroom blinds, and when she pulled them up she saw that the sun was fighting its way out from between two large, dark gray clouds.

She checked the time. Nine-thirty. Glancing around the room, she let her mind shy away from the events of the night before, yet she couldn’t forget that a woman was missing.

Shuddering, she quickly went through her morning ablutions: shower, change of clothes, makeup. Macie had said she didn’t need her help today, and Gemma, although she felt drawn to the safety and routine of the diner, was determined to start new.

With Will.

She thought about calling him. She knew he’d gone to the hospital and she could imagine the craziness at the sheriff’s department today in the wake of the abduction. Though the feds had been careful not to let too much out about the two other murdered women, a decision that had been helped by the fact they’d been found in different counties, this third victim, if that’s what it turned out to be, was bound to blow the case wide open to the press. The “burn” psycho would be front-page news.

If Tim was right, which she kinda thought he was.

Her phone rang and she glanced at the Caller ID, didn’t recognize the number, so she answered cautiously, “Hello.”

“Gemma? It’s Tremaine Rainfield. I got your message. You sounded like you might be interested in going under hypnosis.”

“What I want is to move on,” she told him clearly. “I feel like I’ve been carrying around a lot of stuff I need to just let go of. That’s why I’ll do it.”

“Great.” He clearly didn’t care about her reasons, just was happy to get on with it. “This morning or afternoon? At my offices?”

“Let’s make it early afternoon.”

“See you then.”

Outside the PickAxe the street was filled with Halloween debris: rafts of Silly String in neon colors. A smashed bag which had been filled with candy, candy that was spread all over in sticky, mud-covered piles. A broken Lone Ranger mask, its elastic back torn. Dots, spilled from their ripped, shredded box, were dissolving gummily in standing water. A pirate’s sword which was really light cardboard covered with aluminum foil.

Kevin Dunleavy frowned down at the mess and kicked aside some of the Dots. He’d opened the front door to gaze across at LuLu’s, glaring at its raft of customers. He resented the diner’s booming business. He just about hated that Macie woman and her nosy bitch of a daughter. That girl was always watching, like she was taking notes, or something.

And the LaPortes owned the building. Gemma LaPorte. He’d like to smash his fist in her face and his boot in her hot little crotch before he killed her.

“Psychic, my fuckin’ ass,” he muttered, slamming back inside to the semidarkness. There’d been a Halloween party of sorts the night before and the black-and-orange streamers that hung limply around the windows and from the brass lights, just plain pissed him off. He tore down a streamer and stomped it into the floor.

Patsy appeared, her face wan as she walked in from the back door.

“What’re you doin’ here?” Kevin growled.

“I’m getting ready for lunch.”

“They’re all over at the diner, stupid bitch. That’s where they go. Pancakes and eggs sunny-side up and club sandwiches and hamburgers…when’s the last time we sold a burger, huh? When?”

“Last night.” Her words were clipped. He could almost hear the
asshole
she didn’t have the nerve to tack on at the end.

Fury licked through his veins. With an effort he charged through to the bar, his eye on the bottle of expensive scotch. He’d forced himself to keep to just four drinks the night before. Had to keep the damned partiers happy and buying. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d gotten in a fight with one of their big spenders and he’d been crawling on his belly and begging ever since. The dumb fuck just loved to see good ol’ Kev squirm.

Jesus. What a life.

The door opened, letting in weak sunshine and a blast of cold air. Burl Jernstadt’s bulky form entered and Kev grunted a hello at him. Here was someone who understood his frustration. A compadre. A drinking pal.

“What a fuckin’ mess out there,” Burl said. “Pardon my French.”

“Ready for a scotch? God, don’t tell me you think it’s too early.”

“I don’t have a job no more, courtesy of Detective Will Tanninger, so pour it neat and make it tall.”

Kev snorted and filled Burl’s order and a glass for himself as well. He gave Burl the cheap stuff and his hand hovered over the expensive bottle, debating. Oh, hell. He deserved something good. He broke open the seal on the expensive scotch and filled himself one hefty dose.

Burl didn’t notice. He was already bitchin’ and moanin’ and whiny-whinin’ about Tanninger some more. Truth to tell, Kev was sick of it. The man’s constant crying made him want to puke.

“He’s been getting into that nutso Gemma LaPorte’s pants. I overheard Barb on her cell phone letting him know what she thought about it. She’s been all over him like white on rice, but nope, he likes the crazies.”

Kev’s fury resurfaced when he thought about Gemma LaPorte.
Touch me and you die.
Who did she think she was, threatening him? She was the one who was going to die, all right.

Burl worked his way through his drink, and kept on and on about Tanninger. Kev sipped more slowly and made a gross face at Patsy, who hovered around like a bad smell. He could tell she was gonna rat on him to Rome. Well let her.

“We shoulda played a trick on her last night,” Burl said suddenly. “Soaped her windows. Disabled her car.”

“On Gemma?” Kev was beginning to have a tad bit of trouble keeping interested, what with Burl’s monotone.

“Yeah, for fun. Something. Scare her shitless. Watch Tanninger run around like he’s got a hot poker up his ass, trying to figure out who’s after her.”

Kev liked that idea. It warmed him inside. But he didn’t want Burl involved in any way. He wanted to sneak up on Gemma LaPorte and scare her till she wet her pants. He had a sudden vision of throwing her down on the ground and sticking his dick inside her dirty little pussy. Take that, whore. And again. And again.

“I gotta go,” he said, tossing back the remains of his second drink. The cheap scotch. Not the good stuff. Not necessary after the first drink.

“Where ya off to?” Burl demanded, but Kev was out the back door, lurching toward his ’66 El Camino, his pride and joy. White. Beautiful. Shouldn’t be driving it drunk.

But hell, he wasn’t drunk.

And it was high time he taught Gemma LaPorte a lesson she wouldn’t forget.

Lucky had the distinct feeling she was supposed to be somewhere, but she was poised in her newly borrowed Hunk O’Junk brownish Chrysler sedan, parked on Quarry’s main street. She’d opened the door to her past and let little, jagged-sharp pieces of memory escape, memories she mostly refused to acknowledge. Now she thought of her father. Or the man who claimed to be her father, as he’d adopted her when she was too young to remember.

The day she’d walked him onto the jetty was dark and threatening. Everyone knew you shouldn’t walk on the jetty with a storm coming in. She’d been young, but strong, lithe and agile and she’d taken care of herself from the time she could remember. The doctor liked his pills and he liked to make it an evening at home with her as much as he could. Pills and his little girl. She’d grown up feeling first ashamed, then increasingly angry. Then she’d started recognizing the signs of what was to come: his stupid amorous talk, his lurching drunkenness.

She learned from others in town that they suspected what had been going on but had turned a blind eye.

So she took him out on the jetty. Begged him to take her, though he tried to back out. Said she’d be such a good little girl for him. Helped him with his pills.

And as they stumbled along, holding hands, she continued to coax even though the clouds grew black and the wind whistled and the waves swept upward, glorious in their force.

She tripped him. So simple. And right at that moment a wave crashed onto the jetty and knocked her down, sweeping dear old dad into the sea. He screamed and she saw the “O” of his mouth as he realized he was going in the ocean. She had to hang on with all the strength she possessed or be swept in with him and she did, head down, a grim smile of satisfaction on her face. She was found by a man who’d witnessed the whole thing, who rained scared accusations down on her about “idiots who walked on the jetty in a storm.” He blamed the doctor, not Lucky, though he’d seen that she’d been the one instigating the walk, because the doctor should have known better.

The doctor’s brother was brought in to take her. There was talk of giving her back to her real mother, but she was crazy. So, Lucky slipped away. No one was going to take her. Ever again. Without her consent.

Now Lucky gnawed on the back of one knuckle. That was the truth, wasn’t it? That was her history. It wasn’t a made-up story. That’s how she’d come to this point.

As she considered, she saw a vintage El Camino rattle past, its frame dent-free, its grillwork shining even if the engine sounded a little rough.

The bastard from the PickAxe was at the wheel. Bent over the wheel. Swerving a bit as he hauled ass down the main street.

Lucky read his emotions as he passed by as if they were written against the sky. He wanted to rape and kill someone.

She said simply, “No,” to the empty bench seat of her car, and she pulled out behind him.

He drove to a long lane that was bordered by shrubs and looked to Lucky like it could be a trap. She parked her Chrysler about fifty feet away, in a turnaround that bordered the property but was screened from the main road by Scotch broom and scrub pine. She then worked her way back to the drive and walked down it carefully, ready to dart into the underbrush if he suddenly came back the way he’d gone in.

She reached the end of the lane and the back of the El Camino at the same moment. He was striding up to the front porch of a farmhouse, not bothering to hide his approach. He was drunk as a skunk, too, she realized, which probably accounted for his poor judgment. If he really wanted to attack whoever lived here then he would have been wise to be more discreet.

He pounded on the front door, pressed a hand against the bell half a dozen times. When nothing happened, he screamed, “LaPorte, you fucking bitch! Answer the goddamned door!”

LaPorte? So was this the home of the well-hated Gemma?

A few moments later Kev turned around, slipped on some leaves on the porch, swore pungently, then staggered back to the El Camino. Lucky eased into the surrounding shrubbery, squatting down, making herself small.

He turned the vehicle around, throwing mud from beneath spinning tires, then headed back the way he’d come. Lucky stood up and stepped from her hiding spot, her gaze on the farmhouse. A strange frisson of awareness came over her. She felt caught in a tractor beam, dragged by forces other than her own will toward some nameless and unwelcome truth.

The sound of an approaching car broke the spell. Lucky jumped back toward her hiding spot, scrambling behind a clump of Scotch broom. A county law enforcement vehicle entered the drive and pulled up to the house. As she watched, a tall, somewhat familiar dark-haired man stepped from the car and walked toward the house.

Lucky was hit with a wave of desire so strong it made her inhale sharply. It broke over her head and left her heart pounding, her thighs weak. She almost sat right down in the mud because she had the most powerful feeling that she’d made love to him. Recently. Her legs wrapped around him, his hips grinding deliciously into hers.

Who is he?

Will knocked on Gemma’s door and waited for nearly a minute. He knocked a second time, louder, then stood back and squinted up at the place. Maybe she wasn’t here. He called her home phone, and when he got her voice mail he tried her cell, which sent him to its voice mail immediately.

Frustrated, he drove by the diner, but neither her truck nor Gemma herself appeared to be at LuLu’s. Sensing how disappointed he was, he swore under his breath. He needed to forget about her for a while. He was inordinately bad about picking women, and he didn’t want whatever this was with Gemma to be another mistake. He wanted it to work.

The whole area was being searched for Heather’s body. Will had gone to visit Heather’s parents, whom she still lived with, and had broken the news that their daughter was missing. Their panicked gazes were embedded in his inner vision. He’d planned to go from their place directly to join the hunt, but between the feds and the rest of the sheriff’s department, the search was well in hand. He was debating heading on into LuLu’s and explaining Heather’s disappearance to Macie, but decided against it. If the girl wasn’t supposed to work today, it would just be fanning the flames of gossip and worry. If she was, the Yateses had probably already called and informed Macie of Heather’s possible abduction.

And he wanted to tell Gemma who the missing girl was first.

Jesus, what a mess. He prayed to God he was wrong about what had happened to Heather, but he suspected she was either dead already, or dying at the hands of their psycho flesh burner.

His cell rang and he glanced at the Caller ID. Barb. “What’s up?” he answered.

“Where are you?”

“In Quarry, but I’m thinking about following up on that partial license plate number unless the search team wants me.”

She snorted. “The feds have made it clear they’ve got it in hand. And anyway, if it’s our guy, the feeling is that he took the girl with him. Like he took Inga Selbourne. We’ll probably discover her barbequed in a few days.”

Will winced at the terminology. “They said that?”

“Just quoting Burl. He was outside the offices, trying to talk Dot into letting him inside. I came out and said he was wasting his time and he went off on you.”

Will made a noncommittal sound.

“I told him his banishment was directly from Nunce but he won’t believe it. He’s an asshole. We all know it.”

Will decided to change that subject. “I’ve got four possible trucks. Two in Portland, one in The Dalles, and one in Seaside, that could match the partial.”