At Risk (6 page)

“Honestly, I don’t believe you have anything to worry about. This could be a prank by one of your students.” He handed her the clipboard. “Sign here, please. And don’t hesitate to call if there are any more suspicious incidents.” He removed his hat and slid behind the wheel of his police car. “And it never hurts to double check when you leave the house.”

Tight-lipped, Liz watched as the officer turned his vehicle around and drove out of her yard. Maybe he was right. Maybe she’d only imagined that someone was following her tonight, but she hadn’t forgotten to lock her back door. She’d done that religiously since she was nine years old.

If this was someone’s idea of a joke, it was a sick one. And the only person she could think of who was capable of such behavior was that ass Cameron. Still seething, she went inside, turned the deadbolt, and prepared to scrub the muddy footprints off her clean brick floor.

Clouds held sway over the salt marsh, blocking out the thin moonlight, locking the mist-shrouded stretch of grass and water in a timeless prism of shifting images and surreal sounds. Primeval sighing was interspersed with the rustle of reeds and an occasional splash that echoed hollowly through the phragmites.

The electric motor was nearly silent. Birds fluttered restlessly and frogs leaped as the small boat slid past, but the gray fox crouching on a spit of land barely pricked his ears as the Game Master appeared and then vanished in the fog along the course of the narrow, mud-choked channel.

The maze of salt marsh was home to a myriad species of birds and wildlife. Few humans ventured here, and fewer still at night, but the Game Master needed neither compass nor artificial light to find his way to the exact spot where he’d dropped three commercial crab pots a month earlier.

He cut his motor and drifted the last few yards to the clump of marsh grass that concealed a long wooden stake. Running strong fingers down the slick pole, he found the chain and began to retrieve the first trap. The rectangular wire-and-frame cage was surprisingly light as he pulled it up. A six-inch jimmy clung to the grass inside, but the Game Master hadn’t come for crabs tonight. Gently he extracted the crustacean and released it into the muddy current.

“Enjoy your swim,
Number Thirty-six
?” He lifted a slim ulna from the pot, thrilling to the texture of the slick, clean surface. The bone didn’t answer, but he hadn’t expected it to. His ladies rarely had anything to say after a period of submersion. The Game Master chuckled. When dead women started talking to him, he’d know he’d lost it. After all, he wasn’t a madman.

No, he didn’t expect conversation, but it would have been an intriguing variation on what had become the dullest part of the game. He’d have to think of a more creative way to dispose of the remains, some method that offered greater challenge. Letting the crabs eat flesh and hair off the butchered carcasses had become routine, and if there was one thing that bored him, it was routine.

He sucked a gummy scrap of residue off a cracked rib and tossed the bone into the water. The marsh would soon reduce that bit of offal to crumbling shreds, indistinguishable from the layers of muck that formed the floor of the ancient salt marsh. He tucked the remaining ribs into the gunnysack on the floor of the boat before tending his second trap.

Most of the phalanges and the metacarpals were missing from
the nurse’s
right hand, but that was to be expected. This specimen had been short and petite, nothing like the supersized stockbroker last fall. Three traps had sufficed for
thirty-six
. He remembered her name, but she was a discarded game piece, too insignificant to bother addressing formally.

He frowned.
The nurse
had been a definite disappointment, not nearly as quick or crude as his first planned kill,
the waterman
, or as messy as
thirty-seven
, foolish Tracy, whose death had been hardly fulfilling.

The Game Master regretted that it had been impossible to remove Tracy’s body from the scene. A single finger hardly qualified as a trophy of . . . of . . . He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. Ah, yes, a trophy of
the sophomore
. Silly Tracy would be “
the sophomore
.” Not a particularly original classification, he supposed, but then she hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary. She’d been hardly worth the trouble it had taken to plan and carry out her execution.

Poor little sophomore, a mere pawn sacrificed in a larger game, that of his next quarry,
the professor
. He had great hopes for her. “Yes.” The Game Master smiled. “With a little assistance, the professor might prove my finest and most satisfying adversary.”

The third pot lay some distance away. He’d saved the best for last, and anticipation made his hands tremble as he pulled up the wire cage containing
Number Thirty-six’s
skull. Her hair had been long and blond. He hoped a few strands remained. Skulls proved such interesting diversions—all those delightfully shaped holes—and those with hair were always the best.

“Ah,” he crooned as the water drained away, leaving his prize gleaming ivory in the mist. “So many of you waiting for me . . . So many women, and all I have to do is collect them.”

Liz’s night had passed without further incident. She got up minutes before the alarm went off and followed her normal morning routine for a workday. She filled Muffin’s water dish and had started for the door, briefcase and sweater in hand, when the phone rang. She almost didn’t answer. It was getting late, and she had a class. But then curiosity got the best of her, and she picked up.

“Liz! Good, I caught you.”

Damn. “Russell.” Liz grimaced at the sound of her ex-husband’s voice. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

“How are you?”

“Russell, I can’t talk now. I’m due at—”

“At school. I know. But I was talking to Katie, and she’s worried about you. She asked me to call.”

“I’m fine.” She shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“I read about the incident in the papers. Awful. A terrible thing—terrible for you.”

“Worse for Tracy Fleming.”

“It’s too early in the morning for sarcasm,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re still pissed about Katie going to school in Dublin. It’s the experience of a lifetime. She’s having a ball.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Liz glanced at her watch. “Did you want anything, Russell? Have you had a change of heart and suddenly decided to contribute toward her tuition?”

“Are you going to start bitching about money again?”

“Why not? Who’s paying for our daughter’s education? I am. You’ve never given me a dime of child support.”

“It wasn’t because I didn’t want to. You know the bankruptcy wasn’t my fault. My partner—”

“Your financial problems didn’t stop you from remarrying. Twice. Or from fathering other children.”

“That comment’s beneath you. You’ve been fortunate. You’ve always had enough income to provide for Katie’s needs. And now you’ve inherited the family farm and—”

“
Bought
the farm,” she answered. “Bought, as in an exchange of money. All I inherited were past-due taxes, a leaking roof, and debts.”

“There were good reasons why I couldn’t help out more when Katie was small.”

“You were broke because you gambled away every cent you could get your hands on.” She sounded like a shrew, but then, she could always count on Russell to bring out the worst in her.

“That was years ago. Dr. Elliott says I—”

“You don’t need your shrink’s excuses. You have an endless supply of your own.”

“I didn’t call you to argue.”

“No? That’s a surprise.” She was annoyed and not about to let him weasel away from the subject. “Katie had a full family scholarship at Somerville,” she reminded him.

“Apparently, she wasn’t happy there.”

“She was happy enough until you filled her head with dreams of castles and shamrocks.”

“That’s unfair, Liz, and you know it. Katie has always wanted to study abroad. With my cousin living in Ireland, it seemed the perfect solution.”

“I’m hanging up, Russell.”

“I’m worried about you. You never used to be so bitter.”

“I don’t think I’m bitter enough,” she answered. “Contribute to her education fund, or Katie’s coming home at the end of the semester. And give my love to Danielle and all the little Montgomerys.”

“Liz—”

“Go to hell, Russell,” she said before placing the handset gently on the receiver. “Damn.” She’d forgotten to warn Katie not to give the new number to her father. And now that he had it, he’d probably buy billboard space and advertise it to the world. It was going to be another world-class morning.

She wasn’t deceived by her ex-husband’s apparent concern. He wanted something. A loan? Russell Montgomery never bothered being charming without a reason. Unfortunately, it had taken her four years of marriage to discover that.

“Experience is the best teacher,” her father had always said. “A man learns more by living than he can get from books.” She supposed that counted for women as well. She knew that being married to Russell had given her quite an education.

She paused long enough to gather Muffin in her arms and give the cat a quick hug. “At least I can depend on you,” she murmured. Muffin was a superb mouser, and if she could just train her to drop the little rodent bodies in the trash instead of carrying them up to deposit on her bed, life would be that much calmer.

Liz was halfway to her car when she noticed a small boat approaching her landing. The operator stood and waved. Liz got into her car and drove across the lawn to the dock.

Jack Rafferty cut his motor, allowed his boat to drift against the mooring post, and leaped ashore. “Morning, Lizzy,” he called.

Uncertainty made her voice sharper than she intended. “What are you doing here?”

He paused and gazed at the house. “You’ve cleaned the old place up,” he said. “Looks good.”

“Jack, I’ve got to go to work. If you stopped by to reminisce about old times—”

“No, I didn’t. Come with me. There’s something I want you to see.”

“Why would I go anywhere with you? I have a class this morning.”

He strode toward her, and the years fell away until she was seventeen again, standing on this spot and watching him come up the dock. Jack had added muscle since then, but the Rafferty eyes were the same intense hue, and he still moved with grace and purpose.

“What’s happened to you, Lizzy? Lost your nerve? You didn’t mind missing school in the old days.”

“I was a stupid kid, Jack. I’m not that anymore.”

He stopped. “No, guess you’re not,
Doctor Clarke
.” He shrugged. “But this has to do with you and probably with Tracy’s murder.”

“Can’t you just tell me?” She knew the answer.

“Showing’s easier.”

He’d told her the same thing the time she’d asked him if he cared about her. Jack had never said the words she’d longed to hear. Instead, he’d pushed her down on the deck of his father’s fishing boat and kissed her. No boy had ever kissed her that way before, and if she shut her eyes, she knew she’d feel the sun-heated planks beneath her bare back again and taste the salt on Jack’s skin.

Oh, Lord, Jack Rafferty was her weak spot.

“Come on, unless you’ve gotten too high and mighty to take a ride with an ex-jailbird.”

Common sense told her to turn the car around and drive to school, but Jack had always known how to make her break the rules. “Give me a minute to change into jeans and call to let the school know I’m not coming in.”

He nodded, and she hurried to the house. She took the stairs at a run, located clean jeans, boat shoes, and a T-shirt, and pulled them on. Using a pad and ballpoint pen from a drawer in her nightstand, she left a note on her pillow.
Gone for a boat ride with Jack Rafferty.
If she disappeared, at least someone would know whom she’d been with last.

Liz wondered if she was getting paranoid. This was Jack, for God’s sake. She ran a hand through her short hair, then picked up the note and crumpled it into a ball. She was about to toss the paper into the trashcan when she hesitated, unsure if she was behaving irrationally or not. Hadn’t she just found a dead girl in her office? That wasn’t normal. Maybe she had good reason to be paranoid. She threw the message on her bed and hurried downstairs.

Twenty minutes later, she was seated in the bow of Jack’s boat as he steered a course out of the river and into the Delaware Bay. He turned south and headed down the coast. The tide was low, and Jack kept the small craft far enough from the beach to keep the motor from hitting bottom.

It had been too long since Liz had been on the open water. Another day, she would have reveled in the sound of the waves and the feel of salt spray hitting her face. But being with Jack, under these circumstances, kept her from fully enjoying the experience.

She twisted to look at him. One bronzed hand was on the tiller; the other rested on his left knee. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and he had a baseball cap pulled low on his forehead. He looked as though he hadn’t bothered to shave this morning. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“What?”

She raised her voice, trying to make herself heard above the wind and tide. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

At forty-four, Jack was as infuriating as he’d been at twenty. He revealed what he was thinking when he wanted to or not at all. The habit annoyed her no end, and she knew that he was aware of it.

They passed a lone fisherman anchored in the shallows in an aluminum pram and an older couple heading north in a twenty-four-foot Grady White. Gradually, Liz felt herself relaxing. She didn’t know why she was here, but she felt better than she had since she’d found Tracy’s body. She found herself caught up in the familiar sights and sounds of the bay: flocks of migrating shore birds wheeling in formation overhead before descending to the beach in search of horseshoe-crab eggs, a black and white osprey carrying twigs to her nest atop a channel marker, and the wind-blown shrieks of laughing gulls.