Left To Die (53 page)

Her breath was lost somewhere in her throat and she began to perspire, to gasp, moving, faster and faster, nearly panting. He, too, was breathing quickly, his skin moist, his eyes glazed, his mouth parted slightly.

“Jillian,” he whispered hoarsely. “Jillian…”

He bucked upward and gave out a hoarse, wild cry.

A shudder ripped through her, as if from the inside out.

The room seemed to disappear, splintering into a million pieces. He released her and she fell down against him, her ribs aching a bit, her lungs desperate for air.

Her world, she was certain, would never be the same.

She wanted to tell him she loved him, but that seemed rash. It was too soon, though it felt as if she’d known him, been waiting for him, all her life.

Neither of them spoke. MacGregor just held her tight against him for the rest of the night, the second bed unused, as he sighed into her hair and she clung to him, certain she’d never been so safe in all her life.

Jillian blinked open a blurry eye and saw that she was alone in the rumpled bed.
Where the hell was MacGregor?
Images of making love to him flashed through her mind and she stretched lazily, blushing a bit, as she glanced at the clock. Eight in the morning and he was gone, no sound of him in the adjoining bath.

Rap! Rap! Rap!

A female voice called, “Room service.” This time she sounded a little impatient.

“We didn’t order any…” Oh. Of course! Grinning to herself, Jillian rolled over and her bruised ribs, tender ankle and a new soreness between her legs reminded her all over again why she was so tired. MacGregor had probably gone downstairs for a second, maybe to ask about his clothes, she decided, before seeing his robe discarded over the back of the desk chair near the fireplace where flames were still burning softly.

How odd.

“Hello? Are you in there? Room service.”

“Yes, yes. Coming,” she called. “Just give me a second.” She found her robe and flung it over her bare body. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of juice and coffee and French toast, or pancakes or bacon and eggs. It didn’t matter. Whatever MacGregor had ordered would be great. Suddenly starved, she cinched the belt of her robe and made her way to the door with only a little difficulty. She nearly unlocked the door before thinking twice.

Someone had tried to kill her recently.

Peering through the peephole, she spied a tall woman, arms crossed over her chest, looking pissed as hell. She was dressed in a black skirt, black vest and white blouse, and yes, the waitress was pushing a cart, a corner of it was visible through the fish-eye. Also a name tag was pinned to her vest, and it appeared to be one of the tags that she’d seen on the staff. As she watched her, the woman checked her watch and looked about to knock again.

Jillian thought about the gun in her jacket, but decided she was being paranoid as she cracked the door open. “Who ordered this?”

“You did.”

“No, not me.” Jillian leaned against the threshold, peering out the sliver of open door.

“No?” Frowning, the waitress said, “Well, let’s see.” She appeared perplexed as she opened a long leather receipt holder monogrammed with the hotel’s logo. “Well, no, not you. You’re not Zane, are you?”

“No, but…” The waitress reached for a cell phone tucked into her pocket. “I’ll straighten this out.” She glanced at the number mounted on the door. “Sometimes the kitchen messes up. But this does say Zane MacGregor and this is the right room…” She flashed a smile. She was a tall, athletic woman with curly brown hair, a few freckles and the etching of worry lines across her forehead and around her eyes.

The cart beside her, covered with a linen cloth, held two place settings, silver-covered plates, a large pot of coffee and a small vase with a red rose inside. Though the waitress’s perfume was a little on the sweet and noxious side, the scent of the coffee and what smelled like bacon did Jillian in.

“Come on in,” she said, opening the door wider, allowing the woman, Falda, her name tag read, to push the cart inside. “I’m sorry about the mix-up,” Jillian went on, as the door clicked shut behind the woman. “MacGregor didn’t tell me he ordered breakfast—”

The minute the words crossed her lips and she’d mentioned MacGregor’s name, she knew she’d made a mistake. MacGregor would never have ordered anything using his first name.

She spun. “Wait a minute,” she said, but was too late.

As Falda reached for something on the tray, a scar on her inner arm caught Jillian’s eye. A small, reddish crescent on the inside of her wrist. “Oh, Jesus.”

Fear sliced through her heart.

This was the woman who had left her in the forest to die!

She snatched up a table knife and started to yell for help.

But Falda snagged the rag and lunged, cutting off Jillian’s scream before it began. Jillian gagged at the odor, twisting her head away.

The cart toppled. Hot, black coffee sprayed over the floor, scalding Jillian’s arms. She tried to back away but her ankle twisted under her. Pain shot up her calf and she cried out.

Falda was quick. She pressed the soaked rag to Jillian’s face, then straddled her quarry. Her skirt ripped, threads popping to expose her strong, muscular legs.

No! No! No!

Jillian gripped the table knife and swung wildly. She sliced at Falda’s arm, while writhing and trying to break free of the madwoman’s grasp. All the while the sweet, sickening scent of ether was forced into her lungs and esophagus, choking her. She coughed. Her eyes burned. The hotel seemed to sway.

Oh, God, please don’t let this happen!

Red-faced, nearly maniacal, Falda pressed harder. “You miserable bitch. Why couldn’t he forget you? Why the hell did you have to haunt him? Haunt me?”

What was this deranged lunatic talking about?

Jillian tried to scream, but the sound was muffled. She swung at her attacker, wielding the knife in one hand, striking out with her useless fist. Though she struck at Falda again and again, her blows were weak and glancing. Bruising, not cutting.

Oh, God, please, please, please give me strength!

But the room was spinning. Growing fuzzy. Everything surreal.

The Amazon used her weight to hold Jillian fast against the floor.

“He’ll never be able to think of you again, never want you,” she hissed, her eyes burning with a hot, seething rage Jillian didn’t understand.

What the hell was she talking about? The bed seemed to wobble in her vision, her crutch dimly in view. She thought of MacGregor and wondered if she’d ever see him again.
I love you,
she thought, nearly giving in to the overpowering urge to close her eyes, to let go.

Still she flailed, sensing the tiniest ounce of satisfaction each time Falda winced or squealed.

“He never stopped loving you, never stopped wanting to call you to explain,” she hissed, and Jillian was only half following. What was this maniac raving about?

“Well, it’s over now. Carl will never have another fantasy about you.”

Carl? Who the hell was Carl?

As if reading her mind, Falda hissed, “Carl’s my husband. Do you hear me?
Mine!
And he’s never going to go back to you. You get that? Never!”

Carl?
Sweet Jesus, this woman was nuts! Totally insane. The only Carl Jillian had ever known delivered her newspaper back in Seattle…a fortyish man in an aging Toyota pickup that scared her cat. Oh, Lord, she wanted to sleep…

“Oh, that’s right. You don’t know him as Carl, do you?” This horrible woman sounded smug. Pleased with herself. “You’d still call him Aaron, if you had the chance.”

Aaron?

In that moment of clarity Jillian’s heart nosedived. A thousand sharp images of her first husband darted through her mind, cutting painfully into her brain. Aaron standing at the front of the small chapel in a rented tux, swearing he’d love her forever. Aaron at the helm of a small raft shooting down the rapids of the Colorado River. Aaron smiling and sweating as he reached the summit of Mt. Hood. Aaron making love to her so hard and lost in himself, she’d thought she could be any woman. Aaron leaving on that last fateful hike in South America.

She glared up at her assailant. “Aaron is alive.”

Falda’s smile was pure, dark evil. “So now you get it, right?”

And she did. As she struggled and flailed, her strength zapped from the ether, her mind slow and dim, she did realize that she was being weighted down by the psycho who had lured her to Montana, this woman who was in love with Aaron and that the bastard who had disappeared years ago was, indeed, very much alive.

“I’m his wife,” Falda said victoriously, as if she’d won a great prize.

So Aaron, the bastard, not only was alive, but had remarried.

“And that’s never going to change,” Falda was saying. “He’s not going back to you, not begging your forgiveness.”

As if Jillian would ever want the lying, cheating, son of a bitch she’d once claimed to love. Oh, God…

Fight, Jillian, fight!

She swung her arm upward, but Falda deflected the blow and the table knife fell with a dull thud onto the thick carpet.

Falda clamped the rag firmly over Jillian’s mouth as she positioned one knee over Jillian’s throat, choking her, nearly crushing her voice box, denying her the very air that was thick with the ether meant to subdue her.

Though Jillian bucked and writhed, the larger woman held her fast, pinning her down as she gasped for breath.

Jillian became weaker, her blows hitting off the mark, her struggles pathetic as the biting ether slid through her nostrils and into her lungs.

The world swam as she stared upward, looking deep into the eyes of a woman she hadn’t known existed.

“It’s over, Jillian,” Falda assured her, straddling her weakened body. “This time, trust me. You
are
going to die.”

Chapter Thirty-One

MacGregor knew it was him.

The man who showed up at the sporting goods shop at five minutes before eight had to be Carl Rousseau. Chilcoate had given him a description and, besides, the man wore a baseball cap and the very jacket he’d worn the day the fateful picture had been snapped, the photograph someone had sent to Jillian from Missoula. Idiot.

It was light now, snowing lightly in tiny, hard flakes as Rousseau walked down the street carrying a paper cup of coffee. As he made his way to his shop, he dodged a woman walking a Greyhound and kept his gaze trained on the sidewalk in front of him, trying to avoid icy spots.

From the cab of the truck where he’d been waiting for Rousseau’s store to open, MacGregor watched in silence, the visor tilted down to darken the pickup’s interior. Just in case the son of a bitch caught sight of him.

Rousseau was reaching into his pocket with his free hand, probably searching for his keys. MacGregor felt the urge to strangle the life out of the bastard who had let Jillian think him dead. The guy had bilked investors out of their life savings, faked his own death, left Jillian to deal with the fallout. Then, somehow he had the gall to be living what seemed a normal life here in Spokane.

A prick of the lowest order.

MacGregor’s back teeth gnashed. He’d love to tear the guy limb from limb.

The bastard deserved it.

But there were still too many questions. Who sent the photographs to Jillian? This man? A guy who seemed to be going about his work day as if he didn’t have a care in the world? If so, why? And who was the photographer? A tripod on a timer?

No friggin’ way.

Something wasn’t right, and MacGregor felt a niggle of apprehension deep in his gut.

He waited for a sports car to roar past, heavy music throbbing, then opened the door of his truck and stepped into the street where snow, and slush, and gravel crunched under his boots and the cold winter air held the city in its grip.

Caruso/Rousseau didn’t appear the least bit concerned as MacGregor jogged toward him, one hand firmly in his pocket, the fingers of his gloved hand wrapped around the handle of his pistol.

“Carl?” MacGregor called, forcing a smile that felt so fake he thought it might crack.

Rousseau looked up, his expression blank, snow on the shoulders of his jacket. “Yes?”

“Carl Rousseau?”

“Yes.” He was a little irritated now, but not aggressive as he juggled his steaming cup of coffee and tried to insert a key into the lock. “Is there something I can do for you?”

A delivery truck rumbled past, belching blue smoke as it turned the corner too tightly, one big tire rolling over the sidewalk, a huge fender narrowly missing the street sign.

“Yeah,” MacGregor said. “There is.” He was nodding. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Who? No, wait a minute.” The key slid into the lock and as he pressed a shoulder to the glass door, it swung open. “Do I know you?”

“Not yet.”

Caruso visibly tensed. “Who are you?”

MacGregor felt a cynical smile twist his lips. “Trust me, Caruso, you don’t really want to know.”

“Caruso?” Some coffee slopped over the lip of Rousseau’s cup and onto the wet sidewalk, an area protected by the awning of the shop. Stunned, he said in a low whisper, “What are you talking about?”

“Your real name. The one your parents gave you. Aaron Caruso. Remember?”

“What? No. I’m Carl Rousseau—” he began, but he blanched and his eyes moved quickly from side to side, as if he were a trapped rat searching for a quick escape.

“Your name is Rousseau
now
,” MacGregor corrected, his blood beginning to boil. “But that’s not real and we both know it, so don’t bother trying to argue. The truth is, I don’t know how you wrangled that, but your real name is Aaron Caruso. You’re forty years old. You were married to Jillian White, then you took a hike in Suriname and didn’t come back. Faked your own damned death and took off with other people’s money. Left Jillian holding the bag. The empty bag.” His hand curled over the butt of his gun. “What kind of a coward are you?”

“I’m not—”

“Like hell.” MacGregor snapped. He shoved Caruso into his shop, forcing him out of the street and into the dark interior that smelled of dry goods and oiled wood.