MIND READER (27 page)

“She’s why I’m here.” Sandy didn’t meet Caron’s gaze. “I thought you’d want to know...” His voice faded away, and he looked at Parker. “Linda Forrester was murdered
yesterday afternoon, about two o’clock.”

“What?” Caron gasped.

“Her husband’s been out of town on business since
Sunday. He found her at his house about six last night.”

Caron’s chest heaved with forced breaths. Parker clasped her hand. He’d talked to Forrester yesterday morning. The
man hadn’t been in the office—according to Nivens, via Mary Beth—but he had returned Parker’s call within minutes of Parker’s leaving the message. “Any suspects?”

“Not yet.” Sandy took his cigar out of his mouth. “She
wasn’t killed at home. There were no signs of any struggle,
or any valuables missing. I talked with the coroner this morning, and from the amount of skin he found under her fingernails we believe there would have been a struggle.”

Caron stiffened. “How was she killed?”

Sandy grimaced. “She was strangled with a dog leash.”

Caron frowned. Strangled. No blood. Sandy’s hand was
trembling. This didn’t make sense. “Was there blood?”

“A lot of it—all hers. She took a rough beating.”

  
Parker grunted. “But there was no blood at the house.”

He was confused, too. She tightened her grip on his hand.

“No,” Sandy said. “No oddball fingerprints, either.”

Parker narrowed his eyes. “And the coroner fixes the
time of death at two o’clock Tuesday?”

Sandy nodded and clamped his teeth around his cigar.

Parker looked at Caron. She’d caught it, he realized.
When she’d imaged the woman who’d taken Misty to
Decker, she’d thought the case was winding down. But it wasn’t. They’d barely scratched the surface.

“I’ve got to get back,” Sandy said. “I just thought you’d
want to know.’’

Parker walked Sanders to the door. “Keep us posted.”

“Sure will.” He headed down the stairs.

Parker looked back at Caron.

“It was half past one when my hands quit hurting,” she said. “Someone freed Misty’s hands from the ropes then.”

“And it was two forty-five when I left Charles Nivens’s I and the woman I thought was Linda Forrester.” Forty-five
minutes
after
the time of her death.

“That woman wasn’t Linda Forrester.”

“You knew that from the matches.”

“Yes.” Caron wanted to stand, but she knew her legs wouldn’t hold her. “But now we have proof.”

Parker frowned. “Sanders didn’t bat an eye when you
connected Decker and the Forresters.”

“No, he didn’t.” It was hard to admit, but Caron
couldn’t deny it anymore. “He knew they connected.”

“Yes.”

The regret in Parker’s voice encouraged her to continue. Caron rubbed her palm over the scratchy sofa arm. The fabric was rough, abrasive, suiting her mood. “He was deeply disturbed by her death. Deeply disturbed.” Those sensations had been too strong not to be accurate.

“Yes, he was.”

Sharing the knowledge that Sandy was involved in this
was somehow, oddly, a relief for Caron. She tucked her foot under her bottom. “You talked to Forrester yesterday morning. He set up the meeting with you and Linda. He
wasn’t out of town.”

“I left a message, and he returned the call. He could have
been anywhere.”

“He wasn’t.”

Parker slumped his shoulders. “More images?”

“No, just a supposition.” Caron let her head fall back against the sofa cushions. “What about Vanessa?” Caron was speculating on the mystery woman’s identity.

“Maybe.” Parker sat down beside her and propped his
hand on her thigh. “The morning we were at Hunt’s he was
talking to her about getting cold feet.”

Caron tossed his own words back at Parker. “That could have been about selling stock too early. Normal business.”

“Yeah.” She saw in his eyes that he remembered the
conversation. He sat back down beside her. “Or it could’ve
been about Misty’s abduction.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “What next?”

“We take five to think.” He lifted her chin with a fin
gertip until she looked up at him. “For a long time, I
doubted you, Caron. I regret that. I believe you now. And
I want you to forgive me.”

She blinked hard and nodded. .”If you haven’t experienced it, being psychic is a hard thing to grasp.”

It was. But now that he had, he was as afraid for Misty as Caron had been from the start. There was too much going down at once, and if they weren’t careful, they could
miss a vital clue. They’d pay the price. But so would Misty.

He hated to ask—focusing would bring her pain—but he
had to know. “Is Misty doing okay?”

Caron gave him a watery smile. “She’s sick, but she’s okay. Her fever is down, and her leg isn’t hurting so much
right now.”

“Good.” He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “I don’t like the way this is shaping up.”

“Me, either. Forrester needs five million for some unknown reason. He has some woman—let’s say for the moment Vanessa
is
Forrester’s redhead—who knows Misty’s
father and Misty bring Misty to Decker, Forrester’s brother-
in-law, so that if something goes wrong, Vanessa and Decker will go to jail for kidnapping.”

Parker took over. “Then Forrester’s wife, Linda, some
how finds out. She opposes the kidnapping and ends up
dead. Forrester ‘finds’ her body, and maybe lies about being out of town at the time of the murder.”

Caron scooted closer to Parker and propped her chin on
his shoulder. “Logic tells me Forrester killed Linda. So why
doesn’t it feel right?”

Parker kneaded Caron’s nape with his free hand. “Sandy’s gut-deep in this, Caron. You do realize that.”

“Yes, I do. All the way up to his cigar stub. But Sandy
isn’t
capable of murder.” She paused for a second, then
went on. “It could have been Decker.”

Parker explored the possibility. “He does have it in him to kill, but he doesn’t seem the type to kidnap a child for
anything other than his own gain.”

“Linda died on Tuesday.” Caron plucked a speck of lint
off Parker’s lapel. “Ina said Linda visits Decker every Tuesday. And he has Killer, so he likely has a dog leash.”

“If Forrester was offering Decker part of the ransom, then, yeah, maybe.” Parker grimaced. “We still have too
many
ifs
and
maybes.
”

“We’ll eliminate them.” Caron patted his shoulder, then
stood up. “Let’s get some coffee.”

Parker followed her to the kitchen. “The more we find
out, the muddier the waters seem to get.”

“Isn’t every case like that?” At the cabinet, Caron pulled down two fresh mugs, then reached for the coffeepot.

“I guess so.” He pulled out a chair and sat down. “We haven’t discussed the Vanessa angle much. What if she
is
the redhead Mary Beth said comes into the I” with
Forrester?”

Caron sat down across from him and slid one of the
mugs over to him. “The word you’re looking for is
mis
tress.”

“Okay, then.” Parker sipped from the steaming mug. “What if Vanessa is Forrester’s mistress? And what if she wants to elevate her position to that of his wife?”

Caron tipped her head and kicked off a sandal. “Women have been known to kill for a man.” She wiggled her toes,
then slid them between Parker’s legs and rubbed her arch
with his calf. “I guess it’s possible.”

“What we need is a better fix on her.” Under the table, he lifted Caron’s foot to his thigh and began rubbing her
instep. “Mary Beth didn’t know anything?”

The firm sweep of his fingers over her
foot was a slice of
heaven. Caron shook her head. “Not even her name. Our
only clue is that she has red hair
.”

Parker’s hand slid to her ankle, and the strangest expression lit his face. “No, that’s not our only clue. Forres
ter identified the body, Caron. The woman I met with, who
I believed was Linda Forrester, was a redhead.”

Her mug in midair, Caron pursed her lips. “What color
is Linda Forrester’s hair?”

“I don’t know.” Without rising, Parker stretched and
grabbed the phone, then passed it to Caron. “But Ina does.”

Her heart sped up a notch. Caron called, spoke with Ina
,
then hung up and looked at Parker. “Ina says thanks for the irises. They’re beautiful.”

“Linda Forrester’s not a redhead.”

“Blonde.” Caron squinted. “What about a wig?”

“No way.”

“They make very good wigs, Parker. Are you sure?”

“I grew up with two women, Caron. Trust me, I know
about these things.”

She wanted to laugh, but Parker chose just that moment
to let his fingers dance across the back of her knee. “Okay,” she said, working to keep her voice steady. “I
know a woman is behind the entire abduction. She bound
Misty’s hands at the park and took her to the shopping center, to Decker. And I’m positive that she’s someone
Misty and her father know and trust. But, really, that’s all
I know.”

“We
know. Not I, Caron.
We.
”

“The way I see it, we’ve got a choice to make.”
 

He
rubbed his lip with his thumb. “You’re sure Misty’s all right
for now?”

Caron focused. Finally, Misty’s image formed. She was
lying on the floor in the wooden shed, sleeping peacefully.
There was a red plastic glass near her left hand, and the remnants of a hot dog on a plate beside it. Caron concentrated harder, pulling herself deeper into the image, but
couldn’t see anything else. Misty’s breathing was steady, at
least, settled. And the pain in her leg was better.

Caron opened her eyes and looked at Parker. “She’s
okay. Actually, she’s better. But don’t make too much of
that. I’ve seen this happen before, and then suddenly things
take a downturn.”

“She’s okay right now. We have to go with that.”

Caron could have kissed him. “What’s our choice?”

“We’ll need to do two things. It’s just a question of the order we do them in. We can pay Hunt’s a visit and try to get a fix on the Vanessa who called—maybe she’s a client—and then go to the morgue and see if the victim is a redhead or a blonde, or flip around and visit the morgue
first.”

“Jillian isn’t going to be overjoyed to see me, or to an
swer any questions. She caught me listening in on Forrester’s conversation. But the morgue doesn’t appeal, either.”
Caron drank the last of her coffee. “You choose.”

“The morgue,” he said. “I want to know who died.”

Startled, Caron snapped her gaze to Parker. “Sandy said
it was Linda Forrester.”

Parker slid Caron a level look that rocked her to the core.
“And who identified her?”

“Forrester.”

“So does he tag his wife, or his lover, as the murder vic
tim?”

A cold chill crept up Caron’s spine. “It could be either
one.”

Parker couldn’t forget.

The last time he’d walked through these corridors he’d
been with Harlan. They had taken these same steps down
these same stairs to the basement. They’d gone through
these same heavy swinging doors and walked into the same
cold room.

“You okay?”

He looked at Caron. “What?”

“You’re shaking. Does being here bother you?”

He considered lying to her; it would be so easy. But he
couldn’t do it. His days of lying to Caron were over. “Yeah,
it does.”

She rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb. “It
bothers everyone with an ounce of compassion and half an
ounce of sense.”

“We should’ve waited until morning.”