Wait Until Dark (33 page)

From the bedside table, she took the book she'd started reading on the plane back from the photo shoot she'd completed last week in Hawaii, and removed the old quilt from the bottom of the bed. She went into the guest room in the front of the house and plopped the quilt over an arm of the wide, overstuffed chair that stood in the corner facing the door. After turning on the lamp that stood behind the chair, she locked the door, snuggled into the chair, tucked the quilt around her, and pretended to read.

There were times, like now, when Valerie regretted ever having left the small Montana town where she'd grown up. And yet, at age eighteen, just out of high school, there hadn't been much of anything to keep her there. Her mother was long gone, having left home when Val was a baby. Between bouts with the bottle, her father, a long-haul truck driver, spent most of his time coming and going as he pleased, and hadn't seemed interested in providing much of a home for Val and her older brother, Cale. They'd been raised by their grandmother, who'd moved them into the small house in one of the lesser of Larkspur's neighborhoods. She'd died right before Cale's eighteenth birthday, and while she'd done the best she could for her grandchildren, there just hadn't been many jobs in a small town like Larkspur, Montana, for a woman her age. It never failed to amaze Val that somehow, her grandmother had managed to keep food on the table and oil in the tank in the winter. After she passed away and Cale had left for college on a baseball scholarship, Val divided her time between the little green house, and the home of her best friend, Eliza Hollister, who just happened to be the sister of the woman Cale had married just two summers ago.

Valerie wondered what her life might have been like had she grown up in a home like the Hollisters', where both parents were always there for their children, where love and hugs were freely distributed, where wonderful aromas always greeted you when you came in the back door after school, where there was always food and warmth and laughter, where people always cared about you, no matter what.

Even Val had been cared about in that house. Too ashamed to admit even to Cale when he called home from college that their father had not returned in months, Val had become adept at hiding the fact that she was pretty much on her own that last year of high school. And while the school administration had been fooled, Val was never really sure if Mrs. Hollister had been. How else to explain the fact that Eliza so often had an extra lunch in her locker ("My mother remembered that you liked chicken sandwiches, Val, so she sent an extra.")? Or those times, when heavy snow had been predicted, that Liza always seemed to need help with a school project that would necessitate Val going to the Hollisters' after school? And if she was snowed in there and had to stay for a few days, well, at least she had a warm bed to sleep in and the promise of wonderful meals until the storm passed and the roads were cleared.

Val never thought back on those days without an ache in her throat. Mrs. Hollister had been her fairy godmother, and certainly more of a mother than her own had ever been. There had been countless ways in which Catherine Hollister had quietly come through for Val in times of need.

Val shifted in her seat, remembering the senior ball, when she'd declined a date because there was no chance of being able to buy a dress fancy enough for the occasion. Somehow, Mrs. Hollister knew, and when she made over one of her older daughters' many dresses for Eliza to wear, she made one over for Val as well, insisting it was no more trouble to cut down two than one.

Val had never had a dress as perfect as that strapless number - pale gold satin with a full skirt - fitted to her perfectly by Mrs. Hollister's capable hands. To this day, Val could close her eyes and hear the
swish
it had made when she walked. It still hung in the back of her closet, after all these years, a reminder of Catherine Hollister's loving heart, and the way it had made Val feel to know that someone had cared enough about her to make certain that she had a dress to wear to a school dance.

Val had left high school with no particular plans, no money for college, no clear goals or skills. Most of her energy that last year had gone to surviving while managing to stay out of the child welfare system. A graduation trip to the east coast - a gift from her brother, who had just that summer left college to sign a contract to play major league baseball for the Baltimore Harbormasters - had led to a chance introduction to a photographer, a cousin of the team owner, who'd begged to take Val's picture. Two weeks later, while still pondering what to do with her life, Val had received an excited call from the photographer, who'd shown her pictures to a friend who worked for a major modeling agency in New York. How soon could Val get to New York? the photographer wanted to know. His friend wanted to meet with Val as soon as possible to see for herself if Val had what it would take to become a top model.

Despite her protests that she'd never thought of such a career - she'd never thought she was
that
pretty - but lacking any other prospects that summer, Val had gone to New York, met with the modeling agency, and before she knew it, was on her way to London for her first assignment. At five feet six inches tall, Val was too short for the runway, but with her dark hair and pale green eyes and features that were just enough short of perfect to give her a look that was slightly exotic, she'd photographed beautifully. Soon she found herself in demand, and making more money than she'd ever in her life dreamed possible.

No one was more surprised by her success than Val.

And while her agent continued to assure her that she was getting hotter by the week, and even as her business manager continued to invest her money, secretly Val wondered just how long it would be before someone figured out that she was just a girl from the hills who'd gotten lucky.

Sometimes, like now, when she was feeling nostalgic, Val would think back to those early days and wonder what would have happened if she hadn't gone to Baltimore that summer. If she'd stayed at home and maybe gotten a job at one of the two boutiques in town. Where might she be now? Married to a cowboy, most likely, with a couple of kids.

Not so bad a life, with the right cowboy, she mused.

Of course, back in those days, there'd only been one cowboy who'd caught her eye. And a trip back to the hills just two years ago had proven that he still could. Eliza's older brother, Schuyler - Sky - had always treated Val in the same manner in which he'd treated Eliza, like they were pesky little beings that needed to be tolerated and kept from getting underfoot.

So different from his manner at the wedding of his sister and Val's brother just two summers ago, when Sky had apparently noticed - finally! - that Val was all grown-up.

She'd planned to stay for a while after her brother's wedding, had thought that Sky, in his own quiet way, was hoping she would. Though they'd known each other all their lives - Sky and Cale had always been best friends - Val and Sky had spent precious little time together as adults. That week, it seemed they were together every day, every night, enough for her to realize that the crush she'd had on him from the time she was fifteen was growing into something more. They'd barely begun to explore just what that might be, when a call from Val's agent sent her unexpectedly to Rome for almost two months, then to Africa for several weeks. By the time she got back to Montana, Sky had left for the valley and the farm he and his brother had taken over from their grandfather. While debating whether or not to follow, she'd been called for a shoot in Brazil. She'd repacked her bags and headed for the airport, gone before Sky had even been aware she'd be there.

Val drew the old quilt around her, chilled in spite of the warm California night, and wondered where Sky Hollister was right at that moment, what he was thinking about. And if he ever thought about her.

3

“VAL?
Are you there?" Derek Marx's voice popped from Valerie's answering machine in short, emphysemic puffs. "Pick up if you're there. This is important."

"Yes, Derek, I'm here." Val resisted a sigh as she picked up the receiver. Her agent was the last person she felt like speaking with at that moment. Calls from him this late in the day could only mean one thing.

"How's the weather?" he asked, as if he'd be expected to make small talk.

"Lovely." Val decided to cut to the chase. "Where to this time?"

"The Florida Keys," he told her, then added because he knew she would ask, "Another swimsuit shoot."

"Derek, it's July. Last week we did parkas and ski wear."

"And this week you'll do tropical vacation wear. Sorry it's so last minute, but I just got the call five minutes ago. They had someone lined up for the shoot but she had a death in the family and the agency isn't willing to wait a week while she buries her father. All heart, you know what I mean?"

"I know what you mean." This time, Val did sigh. "All right. What are the arrangements?"

Val wrote the next morning's flight information on the white erasable board that hung on the wall next to the phone in her kitchen. When she'd finished with her call, she hung up and turned to Detective Rafferty, who'd leaned against the kitchen counter, waiting patiently for her to complete her call.

"I'm sorry for the interruption," she apologized. "Now, what else do we need to do here?"

"Actually, nothing," the detective told her. "We have your fingerprints - and mine, too, of course - for elimination. I'll go back to the station and compare the prints I lifted here today and run them through the computer and see if we connect with anyone. Then I'll let you know if we have a suspect"

"And if we don't?"

"Then we have nothing to go on unless we get very, very lucky."

"How do we get very, very lucky?"

"Someone gets arrested for something, starts talking about something he heard from someone on the street, thinking to make a deal. Or we catch the right guy by accident and he decides to tell us his life story...."

"Right. I won't hold my breath waiting for you to call to tell me that someone pulled over for running a stop sign has come clean and confessed that he stole the little porcelain wedding cake from my coffee table and lifted a bunch of family photos," Val said wryly. "Do you see that happening?"

"You never know what people will come out with if they think it will help them."

"What you're saying is that the chances are slim that you'll find the person who broke into my home."

"Possibly. Unless, of course, he decides to come back."

"Why would he come back?" Val frowned. "Once should have been enough to convince him that there's not much of great value here, except the stereo and television and my cameras, which would be a pretty obvious heist. Frankly, I don't understand why he didn't take them the first time."

"Maybe you startled him when you opened the front door," Rafferty said, then hesitated, as if debating, before adding gently, "Maybe it was someone just trying to get close to you. Someone who wanted to have something of yours?”

"Don't even suggest that." She shivered. "That just totally gives me the creeps."

"I'm sorry. I'm not trying to scare you, but you do need to be aware that a lot of women are stalked."

"No one has been stalking me," she told him flatly. "I'd have known if someone was watching me."

"Don't kid yourself. If he's really good, you wouldn't know."

She shivered again and rose. "Sorry. There's been no one following me, no one hanging outside my house, no anonymous phone calls ... none of the things you read about that are associated with stalkers."

"Stalkers don't all follow the same pattern, Ms. McAllister. Some are smarter than others. But look, let's see what we get after we've run these prints through the system. For all we know, the guy who did this was picked up at midnight on a B and E in Beverly Hills. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, okay?" Rafferty said as he collected his equipment.

"Good point." Val nodded, then followed him to the front door.

"I'll give you a call as soon as we have something. In the meantime, try to be aware of the people around you. If you see anyone acting suspicious, give me a call. A car seems to be following you, you let me know. Strange phone calls, anything out of the ordinary, call me."

"I'll be leaving first thing in the morning for some work out of town," she told him as she opened the front door, "but you can leave a message on my answering machine if you need to get in touch. Or if it's really important, Bruce, next door, has the number of my cell phone." She paused, as if thinking, then said, "I should probably give you that number now, in case something comes up and you can't get Bruce. His hours are erratic, since he's waiting tables while he's waiting for that sitcom he's hoping for."

"Oh, another out-of-work actor, eh?"

"Bruce is really very good," she said as she went to her desk and tore a page from small notepad upon which she wrote the number of her cell phone. "He does a killer stand-up routine. He should be doing television. And I'm absolutely positive that sooner or later, someone will recognize his talent and he'll be pulling up stakes out here and hauling Prudence off to Malibu."

Val handed the slip of paper to the detective and added, almost as an afterthought, "Bruce also has a key in case you need to get back in for any reason."

"He has a key? To your house...?"
Rafferty asked.

"Yes." She nodded. "I'm sometimes gone for weeks at a time. Bruce brings in my mail, waters my plants, generally keeps an eye on things."

"Does he also have the code for your security alarm?"

"Of course. How else could he ..." She paused, then folded her arms across her chest with open indignation. "Are you suggesting that Bruce was the person who was in here last night?"

"It's not out of the question."

"It's absolutely out of the question. Why would he have done such a thing? He's free to come in anytime he wants when I'm not here."

"I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss him."

"Sorry, you'll have to look somewhere else. Bruce has been in this house a hundred times. He never left the trace of ... of
violation
that I felt when I opened that door last night. Sorry, detective, but you'll have to work a little harder than that to find the intruder. Besides the fact that Bruce had no motive and respects my privacy too much, he wasn't home last night. As a matter of fact, he arrived home at the same time I did. I was speaking with him, if you recall, when you got here."

"Ms. McAllister, I don't mean to upset you. I just think we need to explore all the options at this time."

"My next-door neighbor is not an option."

Recognizing defeat when he met it, the detective shrugged and said, "I'll give you a call after we run these prints and I'll let you know if we have others."

Val stood inside her front door and watched the detective walk to his car. She'd already gone inside and closed the door behind her by the time he'd turned to wave good-bye.

The tinny bell over the door jangled as it opened to admit the customer. The woman behind the counter looked up and smiled absently before returning to the paperwork she had almost completed.

"I'll be with you in a minute," she called to him with little enthusiasm. It was late in the afternoon on a day when business had been very slow. She didn't expect the newcomer to be adding to that day's cash receipts.

"No hurry," he assured her, as he glanced around the small shop as if trying to decide where to begin.

Handing the receipt to the customer she was waiting on, the saleswoman walked around the corner to where he stood. "Now, is there something I can help you with?"

"Well, I'm here to pick out something for my fiancée," he told her.

"We sell only wedding dresses here," she said.

"Yes, yes, I know that." He nodded. "That's what I'm here for."

Seeing her puzzlement, he added, "My fiancée is out of the country on business, and we'd decided to get married in two weeks and since she won't have time to look for a dress, I told her I'd pick up her dress for her."

"Oh, I see. So it's up to you to take care of all the details while she's gone." She patted his arm reassuringly. "What is your fiancée’s name?"

"What difference does that make?" he asked.

"Why, so I can get her dress for you from the back. And I'm assuming you have a sales slip."

"Oh, no, no, you don't understand." He shook his head. "She hasn't bought the dress. I'm here to do that."

"Your fiancée sent you to pick out her wedding dress for her?" The woman's eyes grew wider.

"Yes. I know it sounds odd, but we'd decided to get married, then unexpectedly, she was called off on business, and rather than change the date - her father is very ill, you see - she asked me if I'd mind getting her dress and veil for her."

"She must trust your judgment very much. And she must be
very
busy." Louise's eyebrows were still raised. No matter how busy a woman might be, when had any bride ever been too busy to pick out her own wedding dress? She'd never heard of such a thing.

"Yes, to both." He smiled agreeably. "So, a small size, a four I think she said. Something not real fancy, she prefers things on the simple side...."

"Did she give you a price range?" Louise asked. He smiled patiently. "Price will not be an object."

"I see." Louise beamed. She might yet salvage this day. "In that case, come this way. Just last week I received a small shipment from New York. Perhaps you'll find something there that you like. And you said you wanted a veil?"

"Yes." He nodded.

"Will her hair be short, or long, up or down?"

He paused to ponder, then said, "Long. Down, I think."

"Perfect." Louise said. "I have just the thing...."