Exposure (23 page)

Another pause. Kaycee floundered for something to say. She didn’t want to hang up. Never had she realized how good Mark’s voice sounded.

“Kaycee, when this is all over, I’m taking you out. To celebrate.”

She blinked in surprise as her heart did a little dance. Had he even had one date since his fiancée left him three years ago? Rumor had it the answer was no. “Let’s hope we have something to celebrate.”

“We will.”

“Where will we go?”

“Kings Island. I’m taking you on the biggest rollercoaster they’ve got.”

Kaycee’s eyes closed. “You rat.”

“Okay, maybe I’ll think of something else.”

Please
, Kaycee thought but couldn’t form the word.

Mark cleared his throat. “I should go. You got me on speed dial, right?”

“Yeah, but only if I need you. I’ve got Tricia standing by. She’s promised to talk on the phone all night if I want.”

“That’s what a friend’s for.”

Long after they hung up, Kaycee’s thoughts hovered on the conversation. “
Most folks don’t have the courage.
” And he’d asked her out. No, not asked,
told
her. Mark Burnett wanted to take her out!

If she survived the night.

Time ticked on. The tingle of the conversation faded, and Kaycee was left alone with her fear. Every minute seemed a lifetime.

Where was Hannah on this dark night? Was she even alive?

God
,
save her.

Kaycee had called Tricia and tried to talk but couldn’t find much to say. The last thing she wanted to discuss was her terror, and spilling the beans on her date with Mark just might jinx it. Who knew, maybe it would never happen.

Now hours later Kaycee hunched on her couch, limbs atremble, and watched the crime drama, barely registering.

A loud creak sounded in the office.

Kaycee whipped her head around. She froze, muscles tight, eyes probing the visible part of the room. Her desk and computer, the arm chair, the door to the hallway off her kitchen. Some detective on the TV was droning on about mitochondrial DNA. She punched the mute button on the remote, then listened. She heard nothing but the whoosh-whoosh of her own pulse in her ears.

It was nothing. Her old house always creaked.

Kaycee’s fingers curled around her cell phone. She slipped off the couch and straightened, head cocked. Slowly she approached the arched office doorway, neck craned to gaze around it to the left.

Empty.

She walked to her desk and stared at the black screen of her monitor. Biting her cheek, she surveyed what she could see of the hall. They couldn’t possibly be in here. For all her paranoia, she knew that. Two officers had all four sides and every entrance to her house covered.

She sidled into the hallway. Peeked in the laundry room and bathroom. Then forced herself into the kitchen. The dining area. Living room. Back to the den.

There
,
see
,
Miss Courage?

Kaycee sat back down on the couch. On the TV a dark-haired actress in a white lab coat was silently positioning a thread on a microscope slide. Kaycee put her phone down on the table and picked up the remote.

Her skin prickled from the heat of unseen eyes.

“No one is here,” she said aloud.

She checked her watch. Not even twelve-thirty. This night would last an eternity.

Her nerves writhed.

The silence would swallow her. Kaycee pressed the mute button again, and TV voices kicked to life. Feverishly, she channel-surfed, looking for something light to occupy her mind. She blipped through the History Channel, a cell phone commercial, cable news, a car ad, an
I Love Lucy
rerun —

And a full-screen shot of the dead man in vivid color, his eyes half open, lying on the dark yellow floor.

Lorraine lay in the motel bed, staring up through the darkness. Dim light from a streetlamp filtered through the curtains, splotching the ceiling with vague patterns. Cars passed on the street. A dog barked. Lorraine had listened to latecomers pass in the hall and enter their rooms. Finally the motel settled into quiet. But sleep had not come. Like the world outside, her thoughts refused to still. Memories, fear of the future, emptiness, and grief jumbled in her head. And the crazy plan. The idea that would not die.

Beside her, Tammy sighed the even breaths of sleep. Such innocence. Such peace.

What would they do in the morning? And the next day, and the next?

Lorraine had never called Mr. Houger about cleaning up the apartment. While she was there, she’d forgotten. Then how to have the conversation at the motel with Tammy in the room? She closed her eyes. But those were just excuses, weren’t they? Deep inside a voice whispered that making sure the apartment was cleaned would no longer be her problem.

Over and over Lorraine had sifted through her choices. She could return to the apartment with Tammy after it was cleaned and resume their lives — without Martin. Somehow she’d have to live each day and endure each night with the fear that any moment Martin’s killer would come back to silence her. Maybe he’d kill Tammy too. Maybe he’d let Tammy live — to wake up alone and find her mother bloodied and dead.

Lorraine’s fingers dug into the bedcovers. It was too awful to imagine. And to think after all that killing, those evil men would be living it up, spending their millions.

Choice two: she could tell the police what she knew to be true. Martin had been involved in the robbery. The money may even be sitting in storage unit seven. They’d investigate the renter of the unit. Maybe break in and check it out. If the money was there, or if it wasn’t, Martin’s name would be dragged through the mud. Word would leak that he’d been linked to the Mafia. All those people at the bank who’d treated Lorraine and Tammy so nicely, who’d called Martin a hero? They’d turn on him. Plus, she and Tammy would
really
be in danger. The police would have to protect them. How long would they do that?

And how did she know she could even trust the police? Who on that force might be reporting everything to those Mafia men, including where she was hidden? Lorraine tried to tell herself she’d seen too many movies. But was she willing to bet her daughter’s life on that?

Tammy sighed in her sleep and turned over. Lorraine gazed at her through the darkness, just making out the back of her head, the tangled hair. Her heart constricted. Above all else, more important than anything in this world, she would protect her daughter.

Choice three: carry out her own vengeance and run.

But the price she would pay. Leaving Martin’s body behind, not even able to attend his funeral. Forever living with her secrets . . .

Restlessness vibrated through Lorraine. She slipped out of bed and padded to the bathroom. Leaving the door ajar she flicked the light switch. Tammy wouldn’t wake up. The little girl slept soundly at night. Lorraine’s eyes squinted, blinking at the floor until they adapted to the light.

Resting her hands on the sink, she stared at herself in the mirror. Could she do it?

If she didn’t, what then? Choice one or two? She’d rejected both of them.

Maybe the money wasn’t in the storage unit at all. The two men, one tall, one short, their black clothes, the timing, their hurried movements — all coincidence.

If the money wasn’t there, she would have no vengeance for her husband’s blood. With no vengeance she couldn’t bring herself to run and hide without even seeing him buried.

She’d be right back where she was now, facing the first two choices.

But in her gut she
knew
. The money was in that unit. The Mafia had stolen it. And with Martin dead and unable to testify against them, they were going to get away with it.

Lorraine held her own eyes in the mirror, looking down, down into her soul, to the black hole that kept on growing. For a long minute . . . she stared.

She pictured her husband lying in his casket. No family to mourn him. Her heart cracked.

“Martin,” she whispered. “Forgive me.”

She swiveled and strode from the bathroom to dress.

Kaycee cried out at the sight of the dead man on her TV screen. Her hand jerked. The remote flew from her fingers.

She gaped at the picture, heart flailing.

For one glorious second her mind flashed a stunning explanation of everything that had plagued her. This was a shot from some crime drama she’d watched before. The footsteps and screams, the dark place — they’d come next . . .

The picture on the screen didn’t move. This was no TV show. Just the dead man.

Kaycee doubled over and threw an arm over her eyes.

“ — this medication isn’t for everyone. Talk to your doctor . . .”

Her head snapped up. An ad for a prescription cholesterol pill played on the screen.

She froze, breath backing up in her throat. The dead man — he’d been there. Right? Maybe only for two seconds, but she’d
seen
him.

The TV switched to a dog food commercial. Kaycee sprang to her feet and snatched the remote from the floor. She jabbed a button, backing up one channel. No dead man. Backed up another. And another. Then surfed forward, back to the dog food ad, on past that, one, two, three, four channels. With each push of the button tension tightened like a turned screw in her chest. Five channels, six. Seven, eight. No dead man. Nine, ten, eleven. Not anywhere.
Come on
,
come on
,
I know I saw it!
Twelve, thirteen. No frozen bloody scene. Just commercials and shows and TV as she’d always known it.

Kaycee punched off the television and hurled the remote to the floor. It bounced off the hardwood, its battery cover popping off and skittering to rest at the base of a chair.

She fell onto the couch and thrust her head in her hands. Kaycee could barely breathe. How could these people get into her TV reception? You could hack a computer, put a camera on a table and a picture in a car. But her TV pulled in cable. How did they
do
that?

Terror washed over Kaycee in cold waves, trailing screams and running footsteps. The smell of blood flooded her nostrils, stronger than before. Kaycee yanked her head up. Where was that smell coming from,
where
?

She jumped up, searched the cushion where she’d sat. No blood. She pulled it off the couch and flipped it over. Nothing. With a gasp she shoved it back and grabbed the second. Seeing it clean, she snatched the third. When all three cushions were back in place, she ran both hands down her jeans, checked the backs of her legs. Felt around her T-shirt. No blood.

She still smelled it. It was here, right
here
.

Footsteps sounded. Shouts. Kaycee whirled left and right, every pore prickling. Where were they?

Panic stabbed her, bright and sharp. Kaycee ran. Past the staircase, through the living room. Small cries spilled from her mouth, her feet with minds of their own. Her wild eyes cut left and right, looking for blood, for a camera, a dead man. Kaycee barreled through the dining area, chased by screams. Into the kitchen. She banged into the table and bounced off, shaken. Darkness clouded her brain and snatched air from her lungs. She tumbled into the hall, rounded the corner to her office. Through the arched doorway back into the den.

No one was there. No dead man, no blood. Yet still she heard the screams. And that smell!

We see you.

Kaycee flung herself to a front window and edged back a curtain. Scanned what she could see of the porch.

No one.

What’s happening to me?

Maybe she had gone crazy. Maybe all of this was in her head — a far worse paranoia than her mother ever faced.

Mark.
Kaycee whirled toward the couch and her phone. No matter that he’d think she was losing her sanity, she needed to tell him —

The blood smell vanished. The screams and footsteps stopped.

All energy drained from Kaycee. Like a puppet with its strings cut, she fell onto the couch. Sinking onto her stomach, she buried her face in a cushion and begged God to heal her ravaged mind.

“Got to you, didn’t I,” a male voice sneered.

Midnight.

Lorraine drove through the darkened streets, back straight and hands gripping the steering wheel. In the passenger seat Tammy leaned against the locked door, head lolling. She was still in her pajamas. Belinda lay tucked in beside her. Lorraine had first carried their small suitcase and her purse from the motel room, stowing them just behind her seat in the van. Then she carried Tammy and her stuffed bear out. Tammy woke up as Lorraine belted her into the seat. But she’d fallen back asleep by the time Lorraine pulled out of the motel parking lot.

Lorraine halted at a stoplight. She’d gone insane, bringing her daughter along on such a mission in the middle of the night. At every block after that she nearly turned around. Then, suddenly, the north entrance of AC Storage loomed on her right.

She slowed, gazing down the concrete between the two long buildings. Past the lot on the other side she could see Huff Street. Two tall lamps lit the wide area between the buildings, one near each end. Unit number seven, in the middle of the building to her right, lay in dimmer light.