Bait (51 page)

“McCabe?” Welsh glanced at her. “Hell, yeah, I hate the bastard, damned workaholic Boy Scout. He's
incorruptible.
” Welsh's tone made this a bitter sneer. “He never lets up, never quits, never fucking goes home. You know what he did? He started looking into some old cases. Years old. Closed. Gone. And he started trying to solve them in his free time. You remember how it was back in the day. Shit happened, and one of these cases was about some of my shit that happened. He was digging into it, too. I had to distract him, to get his fucking mind off it, before he dug deep enough to find out I was the one who whacked Leroy Bowman.”

“Leroy Bowman?” Maddie said faintly. She hadn't heard a thing from the phone, but then again, Welsh's voice was growing louder the longer he talked. All she could do was pray she'd pressed the right button.

“Another fucking incorruptible special agent,” Welsh said with disgust. “You deal with guys like that, they don't see reason, they don't look at the big picture, what are you gonna do? He was easier than McCabe, though. Just
boom,
one night, and that was it. I was afraid that if I whacked McCabe while he was digging into the Bowman case, which everybody knew he was doing, somebody else would pick it up, thinking that maybe that was the reason. So I had to get him out on the road, provide a distraction, another reason why he'd get hit. And I needed to clean up some previous messes, too, like I told you. So I decided to combine it all, take care of the people I needed to take care of, lure McCabe out onto the road until I could whack him, and put a tidy little end to the whole problem at once so I could move on with my life.”

“Just like you put an end to your problems when you blew up that house my father was in?” Maddie could feel sweat running down her spine. They'd been driving on back roads that had grown progressively darker and less busy, and she had completely lost all sense of direction some time back. Now he seemed to be peering out through the windshield, like he was looking for something, a landmark or something, that he was afraid he might miss in the dark.

Maddie had a feeling that this was not a good sign.

“You're smart, aren't you?” Welsh sent her a glance filled with venom rather than admiration as the car topped a rise and came down the other side. “Yeah, I did that. And it
almost
put an end to my problems. Except for you. Again. Always you.”

They were at the bottom of the hill now. He pulled off to the side of the road. Glancing around with widening eyes, realizing that this might be it, Maddie saw that they were in a bowl-like depression with hills rising all around. The area was rural, with no lights visible at all. To her left, across a field of scraggly, knee-high weeds, she saw the gleam of water. It was a small pond, a farm pond, peaceful under the sky, which was vast and black and covered with endless stars. On the other side of the pond was a dilapidated-looking barn. Beyond that, the land rose up into rolling hills covered with scrub pine.

The tires bounced over grass and gravel. And then he stopped the car.

“I found this place yesterday,” he said, looking at her with a terrifying smile. Just having him smile at her like that made her blood run cold. “Just for you.”

He turned off the engine and the lights and got out.

Oh, God, this was it.

He was coming around the front of the car toward her. She was suddenly so frightened that she seemed to be disassociating from her body. She felt weird, light-headed, queasy. Her palms were sweaty, her fingers like ice. Was there nothing she could do? She struggled against the seat belt, but it held her fast. Could she somehow manage to twist her arms around and unlatch it? She tried—he was almost at her door—she couldn't do it. She couldn't do it.

He reached for the door handle. The starlight gleamed off something metallic in his other hand—
a gun.

All of a sudden, with hideous clarity, she remembered the sounds of Carol Walter being murdered. Now she was getting ready to find out what it felt like to die that way. Would she beg, too? Would she cry?

The door opened. The sweet smell of summer grass reached her nostrils. The chorus of insects was suddenly loud.

“C'mon, dollface, time to get out.”

Maddie's stomach twisted itself into a knot. Her heart threatened to pound its way out of her chest. Cold sweat poured over her in waves.

He reached in around her and unfastened the seat belt. Then he grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her from the car.

And saw the cell phone on her seat.

“What the hell?” He looked back at her, his face ugly, scary. Maddie's legs went all rubbery.

Then a helicopter topped the rise and plunged toward them. A bright searchlight caught them in its beam.

“FBI! Freeze! Drop your weapon!”

The order boomed through the air. Glancing up as the chopper hovered over them, Maddie saw a sharpshooter armed with a rifle. His weapon was pointed at Welsh. Then, over the rise, she saw a whole convoy of headlights speeding toward them, and heard the distant sound of sirens.

“Drop your weapon!
Now!
”

Welsh did. With a single deadly glance at her, he let go of her hair and raised his hands. Then the ground troops were there, and it was over. Maddie's knees gave out, and she collapsed in a little shivering heap on the ground.

LEAPING FROM the first car as it screeched to a stop, Sam saw her collapse and thought, for one heart-stopping moment, that the bastard had shot her. Icy terror ricocheted through his veins. His life passed before his eyes. He raced toward her, crouching beside her as the rest of the cavalry rushed to take control of the suspect.

Who, he was surprised and yet not surprised to see, was Leonard Smolski. He and Gardner had listened to every word the bastard had said from the time the cell phone had been activated. They hadn't recognized his voice—the technology he'd used to disguise it had held up—but some of the things he'd said, plus the information that Smolski had worked in the Baltimore field office during the time in question, which had come in over Cynthia's cell phone as they had driven in hot pursuit of their suspect, had made the discovery much less of a shock than it would have been.

“Sam,” Maddie said in a voice like a sob when she saw that he was there, and wrapped her arms around him. He did a quick check to make sure that she was in one piece, then gathered her up in his arms and buried his face in her hair and held her until they both stopped shaking.

EPILOGUE

Friday, August 22

 

 

Maddie hurried into the small private terminal at St. Louis airport at shortly before five p.m. Jon had called her an hour before to tell her that Susan Allen had gotten an urgent call and was returning to New Orleans.

As Creative Partners' owner, she wanted to see Susan—and Zelda—off.

The last day and a half had been hectic. Sam had had to fly back to Virginia to wrap things up, although he was scheduled to return today. She would be picking him up after seeing Susan off. He'd called last night to tell her that, among other things, the strongbox had been found. The key to locating it was an address her father had scrawled on the back of a business card and told her to keep. She'd snatched it, Fudgie, and a few necessities from their apartment before running, then sewn it, along with a last few relics of her life as Leslie Dolan—the watch her father had given her, her senior-class ring—into Fudgie's stuffing. The strongbox had been just where Charles Dolan had left it, and in it had been enough evidence to put all kinds of bad guys away for a long time—and to completely clear her name. Charles Dolan had recorded Ken Welsh—Smolski—talking about the charges that had been filed against his daughter, and had asked him point-blank if it bothered him that they were bogus. And Smolski had laughed and said not at all.

Maddie spotted Jon and Susan and Zelda across the plush beige waiting room before she was anywhere near them. Not that they were hard to spot. Zelda, confined to her carrier, was once again giving vent to her inner wolf.

Everyone in the terminal was staring. The gate attendants were hovering around helplessly. Jon was trying to comfort Susan, who looked on the verge of an apoplexy.

And no one was feeding Zelda.

Maddie rolled her eyes.

“Does anyone have any food?” she asked over the din.

Jon fished in his pocket and produced a mint. Maddie snatched it, unwrapped it, and popped it through the grate. The howling stopped instantly, and Maddie heard the familiar snuffle.

Her heart gave a little pang. She was actually going to miss Zelda.

“You like her, don't you?” Susan asked, looking at Maddie intently. The gate attendant was opening the door that led out to Brehmer's plane.

“I
adore
her,” Maddie said, and realized that she wasn't being insincere at all.

“Then keep her.”

“Keep
Zelda
?” Maddie asked, wondering if Susan had lost her mind.

“That isn't Zelda,” Susan said with a sniff, and Maddie's jaw dropped. “That is a dog I picked up from a Pekingese rescue organization in New Orleans. She's had three different families and nobody's ever kept her and
I can see why.
”

She shot a venomous look at the crate, from which ominous snuffling sounds were emerging.

“Do you have another mint?” Maddie asked Jon urgently. Jon obliged, and Maddie pacified Zelda.

“What happened to the real Zelda?” Jon asked, looking as floored as she felt.

“She got away from the groomers,” Susan said. “They're friends of mine, and we've all been searching frantically for her for the past three weeks. We even hired pet detectives. I didn't dare tell Mrs. B., of course.” Susan shuddered. “But I got a call this morning: They found her. Thank God. So I can go home.”

“You can go home?” Maddie asked.

“I only brought Zelda—no, not Zelda,
that dog
—here on such short notice because I was afraid Mrs. B. was starting to suspect. And don't worry, it won't affect your having our advertising account at all. Just consider this a dry run.”

Maddie knew her mouth must be hanging open, because Jon's was.

“Miss,” the gate attendant said, “are you ready to go?”

“Yes,” Susan said. “I'm leaving.” She looked at Maddie. “Do you want her or not? I can always take her back to the rescue society if you don't. Although I hate to fly with her again.”

She gave a shudder.

Zelda was snuffling.

“Mint,” Maddie said urgently to Jon, who complied. She popped one in to Zelda, and suddenly knew that there was nothing in the whole world she would like better than to keep her.

“I'd love to have Zelda,” Maddie said.

“
That
is not Zelda.” Susan turned to go. “I'll be back in a couple of weeks with the real Zelda.”

“Are you
nuts
?” Jon said when Susan had gone and they were exiting the terminal. Since he was now out of mints, Zelda had once again started to howl. “That dog is a monster.”

“No she isn't.” Maddie set the carrier on the pavement and carefully opened the grate. The dog bounded out, silenced by the prospect of freedom, and Maddie grabbed the end of her leash just in time. Then she reeled her in, picked her up, and looked her in her bulbous black eyes.

“You're mine,” she said. “And just for the record, you'll always be Zelda to me.”

Then, walking across the pavement toward her, she saw Sam. He was dressed in a jacket and tie, and looked so handsome that she caught her breath. He looked up and smiled when he saw her, and Maddie felt her heart skip a beat.

Then it occurred to her: She finally had everything she'd always wanted.

A man. A dog. And her life back.

For keeps.

Read on for a gripping
preview of Karen Robards's
next novel of suspense,

 

SUPERSTITION

 

Get away from me! Oh, God, somebody help me!” Tara Mitchell screamed, glancing over her shoulder as she fled through the dark house, her widened eyes seeking the blurry figure of the man chasing her.

She was slim. Tanned. Blonde. Seventeen years old. Blue jeans, T-shirt and long, straight hair: In other words, she pretty much had the average-American-teen thing going on. If it hadn't been for the terror contorting her face, she would have been more attractive than most. Beautiful, even.

“Lauren! Becky! Where are you?” Her cry was shrill with fear. It echoed off the walls, hung shivering in the air. No answer—except for a grunt from her pursuer. He was closing in on her now, narrowing the gap between them as she fled across the living room, the knife in his hand glinting ominously in the moonlight that filtered in through the sheer curtains that covered the French doors at the far end of the room. Tara reached the doors and yanked frantically at the handle. Nothing happened. They were locked.

“Help!” Glancing desperately behind her, she clawed at the dead bolt, her nails scraping audibly over the wood surrounding it.
“Somebody help me!”

The doors didn't budge. Giving up, Tara whirled. Her face looked ashen in the gloom. A dark stain—blood?—spread like a slowly opening flower across the pale sleeve of her T-shirt. Her back flattened against the French doors as her eyes fixed fearfully on the man stalking her. He was no longer running. Instead, having cornered his prey, he was slowly closing in on her. The sharp pant of her breathing turned loud and harsh as she seemed to realize that she was out of options. Besides the locked doors at her back, the only way out of that room was through the pocket doors that led into the hall—the doors through which she had run moments earlier. They were ajar, admitting just enough light from some distant part of the house to enable her to see the outline of shapes—and to backlight her pursuer.