Long Gone Man (17 page)

Forty-three

“Missy!”

Lauren started outside, but Singer barred the exit with her arm. “We don't know who's out there.”

Lauren pushed Singer aside and stepped out.

“Wait!” Singer shouted. “There's a killer still loose.”

Lauren gave a startled gasp. “But Missy . . .”

“She'll come back.” Singer shuffled farther away from the door. “This may be just what someone wants, to separate us or to get us outside. Come in and close the door.”

Once again, Lauren called to her dog, but only silence answered.

“Lock the door.” Singer made her way to the middle of the room. “She'll bark when she wants in. Please, Lauren.”

Lauren stepped back over the threshold. “Are you sure you saw someone?” She locked the door.

“Just for a second.”

“It could have been an animal.”

“It was no animal. It was big, big like someone . . . a man, not small like an animal. What I saw was a pale face on a tall shadow, moving and indistinct. The person out there didn't want to be seen.”

Normally Lauren never bothered to close the drapes, but normal had disappeared with John's death. Now she drew the window coverings closed but remained standing by them, holding on to the velvet fabric, waiting to hear Missy yapping to be let in. “Silly dog. Thinks she's a Great Dane.”

Someone was out there watching them, and it made Singer feel vulnerable and afraid. She fumbled with the housecoat, trying to draw it tighter around her. The bandages made Singer's hands clumsy and the fine, wool material refused to co-operate.

“Maybe it was one of those reporters,” Lauren said.

“Did you hear a car?”

“No, you can't hear a thing through log walls.”

“So who's out there, and how did they get up the drive?”

Lauren released the curtain. “Assuming Foster is still blocking the drive, if you really wanted to sneak up on the house, you could leave your car on the road and walk up through the woods. Or you could just give Foster twenty bucks and walk up the drive.”

“Shit,” Singer said. “Help me get dressed.”

Singer sat on
the bed, pulling at the bandages on her hands, while Lauren pawed through Singer's clothes before throwing them back in the rucksack. “You really wear this?”

Singer didn't even look up. “What do you think I've been doing with it, dragging it around as penance?”

Lauren tossed the bundle aside. “I'll get you something decent to wear.”

Annoyance flashed through Singer. While her whole being was concentrated on staying alive, Lauren was still focused on how Singer looked. Lauren hadn't grasped the seriousness of their situation, but perhaps that was for the best.

As Singer worked to free her hands, her brain went over what she needed to do. First, she had to be able to use her hands. She was totally vulnerable without them. Then she had to get dressed and get away. But before she ran she had to make sure she wasn't running into something worse outside the house. How could she make sure of that?

Nothing came to her. They had to get help. The first thing to do was to call Wilmot. She'd made a mistake keeping the truth from him.

Singer pulled at the gauze with her teeth and thought about why she was a threat to someone. The only reason anyone would want to kill her was because of what happened twenty years ago. Dead, Singer would never be able to tell the truth about why Michael died. With her death, the secret would be safe forever.

“Shit.” Frantic, Singer attacked the bandages, pulling and yanking until her right hand was bare. The gauze stuck in her wounds and she pulled it roughly away, making the cuts bleed again. She should have left on some of the bandage. Too late now. She wiped the blood with the bundle of gauze and started on her left hand.

Lauren returned with an armful of clothes. “These are Janna's. She's about your size, so they should fit.” She held out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and then she saw the pile of bandages in Singer's lap and the blood dropping onto it. “Here, let me.” Lauren started rewrapping Singer's hand.

“There's no time for that,” Singer said and reached out for the jeans.

Singer tried to maneuver the denim material. Half the bandage remained on her left hand, like a mitt, and hindered her attempt to fit her bandaged foot down the pant leg.

Lauren knelt and started guiding the jeans over Singer's cumbersome foot and up her leg. “Are you going to tell me why you're getting dressed at ten o'clock at night and what's going on?”

“I don't know. Absolutely no idea, but whatever happens, I'll deal with it better if my ass is covered.” She stood so Lauren could pull the jeans over her hips. “Good fit. I've kept my girlish figure.”

Lauren wasn't distracted. “I think you know more than you're telling me.” She stepped away from Singer. “You come here and John dies, and then someone tries to kill you. And now we have reporters sneaking around in the bushes, watching us.”

“Are you sure it's a reporter?”

Lauren's body stiffened. She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it.

“Johnny's death has nothing to do with me.” Singer raised her right hand. “Swear. I don't know why he was killed or who did it. And it wasn't because I came here.”

Lauren was still skeptical. “So it's just a coincidence that John died the night you arrived?”

“No one knew I was coming so Johnny's death has nothing to do with the past. It's some new evil and now someone is out there watching us.”

Lauren looked towards the window. “Why would anyone be watching us?” She went quickly to the thin curtains and pulled them across the bedroom windows.

“Think about the people on this mountain and why they wanted Johnny dead.”

Lauren hesitated, her hands still raised to the center of the curtain. “Pretty much everyone had a reason.” She went to the bed and picked up a black T-shirt with a sparkling, silver band logo. “Even me.” She opened the neck of the shirt and held it out towards Singer.

“Details, I want details,” Singer said as her head emerged from the neck of the T-shirt.

“Why?”

“Because we need to know what's happening if we want to stay safe. Tell me everything you know.”

“There was all sorts of petty stuff. The animosity and bitterness between the members of Vortex long ago ceased being interesting or unusual to me; it was just a part of our lives.” Lauren held out the shirtsleeves for Singer to push her injured hands through. “John still controlled them, doled out the money. He controlled all of the royalties, not that they amounted to much. No one plays their music anymore. John is listed as the writer of ‘Long Gone Man.' The other band members didn't get any royalties from it, and they aren't in any of the businesses John owned. I think the others are all hurting. They need the developer's money.”

Suddenly Lauren headed for the door. “I'm going to see if Missy is back.”

“Wait.” Singer limped after her. “I'm coming.”

In the hall, Singer asked, “What about Chris Ruston? Did he have a reason to kill Johnny?”

Lauren's stride hesitated. “I doubt it.”

“Not even to get you?”

“Get real.”

Forty-four

Lauren stepped out onto the
flagstones. “Missy.” Ground fog swirled, hiding things and obscuring plantings and shifting the landscape. “Come here, Missy.”

“Be careful.” Singer raised the cane as if she could bar Lauren from stepping farther into the night. “Stay close to the door.”

“Missy,” Lauren called. Her voice was plaintive and desperate now, but there was no answering bark in the night. “This isn't like Missy,” Lauren said. “She never stays away for more than a few minutes. I'm going to get a flashlight and go search for her.”

“Don't.”

“But Missy could be hurt.”

“Then we need to get help, should have already called for it, but don't go out there yourself. Let's get help.”

Lauren heard the pleading in Singer's voice and turned to her. “You're afraid.” She stepped over the threshold, back into John's office, and locked the door behind her, pulling heavy, brown drapery on the night. As the drape rattled closed, the security light clicked off. Lauren shivered and turned back to the room with its dark furniture and walnut floors, a space of gloom. “Why is this happening?”

Singer had no answer.

“I'm going to the kitchen to see if Missy is at the back door.”

Lauren unlocked the
sliding doors, then flicked on the patio lights as Singer entered the kitchen.

“Stop!” Singer screamed.

Lauren turned on her, ready to argue.

Singer never took her eyes off the fig tree, spreading its arms towards the kitchen window. “Shut the door and come here.”

Something in Singer's voice galvanized Lauren. She closed the door and slid home the lock. “What is it?” She came to join Singer.

Singer lifted her arm and pointed.

Lauren's mind tried to fight through the shock to identify what she saw. “But it's for flowers.” She couldn't make sense of the obscenity. “That's my hook for the hanging plants. Where are the flowers?”

It wasn't logical, but her stunned brain couldn't grasp what was suspended in front of her. The hook should hold a basket filled with blossoms, but now the only thing blooming was a red flower of blood on Missy's chest.

Wind caught the small body and began to turn it in the air as Lauren started to scream.

When she stopped screaming she tried to break away from Singer and go to Missy. Singer held Lauren tightly in her arms, saying, “No, no, that's what they want.”

“I have to go out and get her down.”

“They want to separate us and get you out there. It's too late. Don't go out.”

Lauren fought Singer now, slapping at her and pushing her away, but Singer struggled just as hard. Her arms were around Lauren's waist and she didn't let go even when Lauren's open palm smacked across her face. Knocked off balance, Singer slid back against the counter, falling but holding on to Lauren and taking them both to the floor.

Lauren broke away and scrambled to her feet.

Singer yelled, “Nothing will hurt Missy anymore.”

“I have to get her down.”

Singer was trying desperately to get to her feet. “You can't help Missy.”

Lauren stopped. Her shoulders slumped and she raised her hands to cover her mouth and keep the cry inside.

Singer limped over to her.

“But why?” Lauren choked out, lowering her hands. “Why is Missy hanging from the fig tree?”

“I don't know.”

“Who did this?” Anger took over and she was ready to fight, but there was nowhere to direct her rage except at Singer. “This mess is your fault.” She pushed Singer away.

Singer grabbed the edge of the counter to keep herself upright, but her eyes stayed focused on Lauren. “We need to get out of here, away from the windows.”

Lauren looked back over her shoulder to her darling friend and let out the breath she didn't know she was holding. “Is it the same person who killed John?”

“Not sure.” Singer's eyes were fixed on Missy.

Lauren reached down, picked up the cane, and handed it to Singer.

“Thanks.”

“Why is Missy dead?” Tears rolled down Lauren's face.

“I don't know.”

“I do. Someone is trying to kill you.”

“Missy was your dog. Someone is attacking you, not me, by doing this.”

“Oh god, who could hate me that much?”

“Maybe it was Ian,” Singer said. “He didn't have to come up the drive past Foster. Maybe he didn't like being thrown out.”

Lauren covered her face with her hands.

“Where's my van?” Singer said.

“In the garage.”

“Is the garage locked?”

“Yes. I wedged a board in the mechanism so it can't be opened from the outside.”

“Good, show me.”

It took Lauren a minute to decide if she trusted Singer, but she had survival instincts of her own and now they told her that Singer was the only thing that stood between her and what was out in the night. Decision made, Lauren nodded in agreement. “This way.”

“Wait.” Singer limped back to the door to the kitchen. She peeked around the doorframe. Knives set in a block of wood were on the granite counter. Was it worth the risk? She couldn't bear to be unarmed. She had to take the chance. She bent down as low as she could and scuttled over behind the bar. She waited. Finally she slipped around the bar to the counter under the window, reached up, and pulled out a knife. She paused and then reached up for another knife before scurrying back to where Lauren waited in the hall.

Singer held out a butcher knife.

“My god, you're serious, aren't you?”

“Missy is dead.” Singer's gentle tone underscored the violent act. She pushed the butt of the knife at Lauren. “Just in case.”

Lauren stared down at the knife. Slowly she reached out and took it.

“Now,” Singer said, “let's get to Beastie.”