Yuletide Stalker (15 page)

A smile of satisfaction crossing her face, Edena watched as Tivini, Steve to most people, lowered the sedated blonde to the bed and trussed her up like a goose ready for the oven.

Determining which side of the room was Maddie's, she emptied the drawers of the chest, pulled all the garments from the closet and stuffed them in Maddie's luggage. When she thought she'd removed all traces of the girl from the room, she propped a typewritten note on the empty dresser.

Pleased with her handiwork, Edena peered out the door. The hallway was empty, and she motioned
for Tivini to go first. He lifted the unconscious girl and crept out of the room. Edena picked up the two suitcases and followed him down the back steps and out the door, left conveniently open by a friendly cop who was a Sanale cousin.

Her departed family could rejoice tonight. Soon their deaths would be avenged.

T
o his annoyance, it had been necessary for Linc to delay his departure from Maui an extra day. Circling the small private airport in Honolulu waiting clearance for landing, he struggled to keep a tight rein on his emotions. He was worried about Maddie, and he didn't know why.

If he'd entered the shelter's phone number in his cell phone, he would have called Maddie the first day he was gone. But he didn't have the number, so he'd worried away the days, while one irritating business matter after another kept him from coming home.

He taxied toward his hangar and turned the plane over to a mechanic for servicing. When he got in his car, he drove a few blocks from the airport, pulled into a shopping center parking lot, found a bank of phones, looked up the shelter's number in the directory and dialed. It was only eleven o'clock, so Maddie should still be working. The phone rang and rang. Finally a man answered the phone and Linc stifled his disappointment.

“May I speak to Miss Lee?” he asked, remembering at the last minute that Maddie didn't use her family name at the center.

“She ain't here,” he said. “This is Luke, the janitor. I'm sweeping the office.”

“Will you call Miss Lee to the phone?”

“I tell you—she ain't at Open Arms Shelter anymore.”

A sinking feeling in his stomach, Linc strove for patience, and said, “Then please get Stella for me.”

“I'll see if I can find her.”

Linc waited a full ten minutes, which seemed like an eternity, before Stella's voice came over the line.

“Yes?”

“Stella, this is Linc Carey. Where has Maddie gone?”

“I don't know. She went last night without telling me. She left a note, saying she was going home in a few days. All her clothes are gone. I don't know what to make of it.” She explained about the people who'd seen Maddie without her disguise. “I suppose she thought the word would get around that she was staying here.”

“Haven't you tried to find her?”

“No. Maddie is a competent woman. She made her move to Open Arms Shelter without any help when she thought you were in danger. I figure she left here for the same reason. I don't have a clue where to look.”

A chill black wave of anxiety swept over Linc.
“Do you mind if I come and look at the note she left and at her room?”

“She did say goodbye to you in the note, so you can look at it if you like. I'm sorry not to be more helpful, but one of our residents committed suicide yesterday. We're in an upheaval around here now—police and social workers all over the place.”

“I'm sorry I bothered you at such a time, but I'll come and see what I can find. I feel responsible for her.”

With a sinking suspicion that Maddie hadn't walked away voluntarily this time, Linc wended his way through the crowded Honolulu streets. He had to show his identification to the officer on duty at the front door of the shelter, momentarily wondering why there was so much security over a suicide.

He asked for Stella, and she soon came and took him to Maddie's room and unlocked the door. She had such a worried look that he said, “Is there anything I can do?”

“No, I'm just distressed over this situation. We admitted a young girl a few nights ago. She was on drugs and we were making arrangements to send her to a drug rehab center. She was shot yesterday. We thought it was suicide, although I couldn't imagine where she would have gotten the gun, for she didn't bring it in with her. Now the police are treating the case as a homicide, suspecting her father may have had her killed.”

She opened the door into an austere room, which contrasted poorly to the room Maddie had
occupied at his home. She had made quite a sacrifice for his safety.

“Another one of our staff members sleeps on the right side. Her things are still here.” Stella pointed to an unmade bed. “As you can see, everything has been removed from Maddie's side. We've been in such turmoil that we haven't even made her bed.”

Linc looked at the empty bed and closet with a sinking heart. He experienced again the lonely bereft feeling that had threatened to overwhelm him when he learned that Maddie had moved out of his house.

“What time did she leave?”

“I can't tell you. Ailina, Maddie's roommate, was away for the weekend, so Maddie was alone in the room. And with the shooting of the girl in the dormitory about midnight, we were all disorganized. It was midmorning before I knew Maddie was gone. I'm sorry I wasn't more attentive to her.”

Linc put his arm across Stella's slumping shoulders. “Don't blame yourself. You couldn't watch her all the time.”

The note was still propped on the dresser and Linc picked it up. He read it twice before he asked, “Does this sound like Maddie to you? She wouldn't have signed it Madison. Was it written on the computer in your office?”

Stella reached for the note. “As I told you, I've been so distraught since this child's death that I couldn't concentrate on this note. But you're right, it doesn't sound like Maddie. You can go to the office and check
out the computer font if you want to. It's on this floor at the end of the hall, and the door is open.”

“Did there seem to be any kind of struggle?”

“The room is just as I found it. I'm as concerned about Maddie as you are, but I have a police detective waiting to talk to me. Are you through in here?”

“No. I'd like to look around, if you don't mind. Are you going to report Maddie's disappearance to the police?”

“I don't think I should until I know she has disappeared. If she's gone into hiding—for her own protection—we should let it go for now. Stay as long as you want to, but please lock the door when you leave.”

Linc agreed, and he sat on the low bed where Maddie had slept. He smelled the scent of the body lotion Roselina had given Maddie for Christmas. He'd learned to associate the scent with Maddie in the few days she'd stayed in the house.

The top sheet and blanket were folded neatly, just as Maddie would have done when she'd stepped out of bed. If there had been a struggle of any kind, the covers would have been disarranged. The pillow showed plainly where Maddie's head had rested.

Feeling more desolate than he had since his parents had died, Linc picked up the pillow and hugged it to him. Was the faint scent of her body lotion all that he had left of Maddie? He closed his eyes, a dull ache in his heart, as he wondered if he would ever see her again.

Shaking himself out of his lethargy, he opened his
eyes. Instead of moping around in her bedroom, he had to find her. He refused to believe that Maddie was lost to him. As he stood, he noticed an object that had been under the pillow.

Her mother's ring!

Maddie would never have left it behind. This fortified his conviction that Maddie had been taken against her will! He picked up the ring, kissed it and dropped it in his pocket, now galvanized into action.

He locked the door behind him, rushed down the stairs and into his car. He first telephoned Claudia Warren, the detective with the Hawaii State Police, and reported on Maddie's disappearance. She promised to check on the Sanale family members in the city. She would also talk to the officers who'd investigated the homicide at Open Arms Shelter to see if there was any connection.

He next telephoned Ed Blake, the detective who'd found Maddie before. He intended to spare no expense in finding Maddie. He knew now that all he'd accomplished in his life would count for nothing if Maddie was lost to him.

 

Maddie's head hurt. She couldn't understand why her mother didn't come and help her. And she was sick at her stomach, too. The bed was swaying back and forth. The mattress seemed damp. Why had her mother left her alone?

Maddie opened her eyes and instead of seeing the ceiling of her childhood bedroom, stars shone
over her head. And she wasn't in a bed, but lying on the deck of a motorboat. The boat, swaying back and forth in the oncoming tide, agitated her squeamish stomach.

When her eyes adjusted to the semidarkness, she saw two men on the seats in front of her. When she heard the soft voice of Steve Kingsbury, Maddie remembered what had happened.

Linc!
her heart cried, but she couldn't speak, finding her mouth was sealed with duct tape. Her hands and feet were tied, too. Was Linc really hurt, or had that been Steve's ruse to get her to open the door?

He certainly hadn't taken her to the hospital as he'd indicated, so she consoled herself that the rest of his story must have been a lie, too. Linc had told her he would be away a few days on business, but how long ago had that been? Praying that Steve's story had been fabricated to get his hands on her, she wondered how he was mixed up in the threat to her life. Was Ahonui also her enemy? Was it possible that Ahonui and her brother were involved with the Sanales?

The way she'd agreed, without hesitation, to go with Steve when she thought Linc was wounded, convinced Maddie beyond any doubt that she loved him. And remembering his kiss in the taxi the last night she'd seen him, she believed he loved her, too. Surely they could work through his doubts about the differences in their ages. Maddie realized that she looked as immature as a baby, but life had dealt her a lot of rough knocks and she'd learned to deal with them.

How she wished she hadn't been so quarrelsome the night Linc had taken her to dinner! Her attitude was really foreign to her true nature, and she would try to convince Linc that she hadn't meant what she'd said. That is, if she had the opportunity to see him again. Tears trickled from her eyes, and with her hands tied behind her back, she could do nothing about it.

Was she in the hands of the Sanale family? Had she been kidnapped by the ones who sought to avenge the death of their family members? Maddie feared that was the situation.

Where was she anyway? The boat wasn't moving. The two people were talking louder now, and Maddie's mind was more alert, so she concentrated on their words.

“Daylight is a long time coming this morning,” one complaining voice said. Maddie didn't think it was a male voice. A few times she'd thought the person shadowing her was a woman; other times, she'd decided it was a man. Could her stalker have been the same person but in different disguises, as she herself had changed appearances?

“No longer than any other time,” Steve said. “You're just impatient.”

“Yes, impatient to fulfill the obligation to my family.”

“You have other family members, why did you take on this vendetta single-handedly?”

“Because it is
my
father,
my
brothers who have died. I have cousins who have helped, but it is
I
,
Edena, who will wield the knife. It is I who will satisfy the souls of my loved ones.”

“There are too many Coast Guard patrol boats passing by to suit me,” Steve observed. “If one of them stops to see why we're sitting here, we're in trouble. The way seems clear now. You've got radar on this tub, and it should help us if we get lost. Let's get out of here.”

“Don't get impatient, Tivini. I'll not take a chance on wrecking the boat. I've never learned to swim.”

Shortly, however, Edena started the engine and revved the motor. Steve loosed the rope to the dock and jumped on board as the boat eased out into the open water of the Pacific. Maddie saw Diamond Head as they circled the island of Oahu, and she knew that wherever they were taking her, Linc was being left behind.

The spray of the water dampened her clothes, and the blanket they'd wrapped around her was scant protection. Her body was numb from being tied hand and foot. She longed for a drink of water, but gagged as she was, she couldn't get their attention. She pretended to be asleep, hoping to hear more.

“She should be awake by now,” Steve said. “Are you sure that sedative wasn't stronger than you said?”

“She'll come around soon. I didn't want her to wake until after we left Oahu.”

Despite her discomfort, the hum of the motor and the splashing waves lulled Maddie to sleep. She woke up when the motor nudged into a dock. Steve
secured the boat and came to Maddie's side. Her contempt for him must have shown in her eyes as he loosened her bonds and lifted her from the boat, for he wouldn't meet her glance.

When he stood her on her feet, Maddie crumpled to the rocky beach. She had no feeling in her legs, but she struggled to sit up and when she started rubbing her legs, sharp burning pain coursed through her limbs. She could barely refrain from crying out as the blood started circulating in her arms and legs. They hadn't yet loosened her gag, and she figured they didn't intend to until they got her to wherever they were taking her.

They were on a rocky strip of land. Behind them was a steep, rugged incline, barren except for a mass of scrubby vegetation and a few trees. Maddie watched as Steve's companion, who was unmistakably a woman, piled brush over the boat and the dock.

“Are you able to stand now?” Steve asked, and she nodded.