Until Dark (29 page)

Selena looked back at the house. “Until I saw the flames around the house, saw Kendra’s face in the water . . . then I trusted.”

“And by calling Father Tim, you saved her home from being totally destroyed.”

“None of it should have happened at all.”

“Maybe there are some things that no one could have prevented.” Adam shook his head. “You’ve nothing to regret, Selena. Nothing to feel guilty about.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then got into her car, and turned around in the dirt driveway, her tires sending up a cloud of dust as she headed for the road.

Adam watched her drive off, then turned back to the house for one last look. Kendra would want to know everything, he knew.

He walked around the house, taking note of the broken windows here, the unbroken ones there, wishing there was something he could salvage for her at that moment, something tangible to bring to her to reassure her that her family home still stood. He’d started toward his car when the breeze picked up and the woody arms of the lilac that grew near the front corner of the house began to wave, as if beckoning him.

Sections of the bush were covered with debris, and several long branches were crushed on the ground, where ladders had been pushed up against the side of the house and firemen had trampled whatever was necessary to put out the blaze. But the branches farthest from the window still bore flowers, and Adam reached up a long arm to bring a few of the tallest ones to eye level. The blooms had just opened, and he had to hold them right up close to his nose to catch the fragrance over the stench of burnt wood. With his Swiss Army knife, Adam cut as many branches as his arms could hold, and carried them to his car.

It was all he could find to bring to her that had not been damaged. He hoped it would be enough to set her mind at rest.

“Mancini still in there?” Adam asked the agent who sat outside Kendra’s door.

“Left about ten minutes ago.” The agent nodded toward Kendra’s room. “I think they gave her something to make her sleep.”

“Swell,” Adam muttered under his breath as he opened the door and walked into the darkened room. The drapes had been pulled over, and all the lights were out except those directly over the bed. In their glow, Adam could see that Kendra’s eyes were closed. She smiled and sniffed the air as he drew closer to the bed.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, her voice still little more than a gasp. “Lilacs!”

She opened her arms as far as she could without knocking out the IVs, held up her casted hands, several fingers in splints, and reached for the flowers.

“I didn’t realize I’d cut so many,” Adam told her apologetically.

“I want them,” she said, and he lowered the enormous mound of branches into her outstretched arms. She gathered them to her body and buried her face in the blooms. “Oh, they’re wonderful. You’re wonderful.”

“I cut them from the tree next to your house.”

“The one near the front?”

“Yes.”

She raised her eyes, and he could see they were beginning to glisten.

“Thank you,” she whispered as the tears flowed more quickly. “Oh, thank you.”

She hugged the flowers closer.

“My father planted that lilac for my mother the year they were married,” she told him, her tears now flooding her face. “I was so afraid it had been destroyed. That my house . . .”

“Your house is going to be as good as new.” Adam leaned over the side of the bed and brushed a strand of hair back from her face. “Jess Webb is out there with the guy from the insurance company, and someone . . . I forget her name . . . is going to look at your antiques.”

“Karen Hill,” Kendra said, sniffing, annoyed that her nose was beginning to run.

“Yes, that was it. She’s going to meet with Jess and the adjuster today and see what needs to be done. So there’s nothing to worry about. The kitchen took the brunt of the fire.”

“Because I forgot to turn off the pancakes.”

“Pancakes?” Adam frowned.

“It’s a long story,” she said, her voice almost faded away completely.

“You can tell me later,” Adam said, taking the chair by her bed, “we have all the time in the world.”

“John’s not making you go back to Virginia today?”

“I’m not leaving,” he told her, and she opened her eyes just the tiniest bit. “The last time you needed someone, I wasn’t there for you. I waited too long to come back. I’m not making the same mistake again. This time, I’m not going anywhere. There is nothing that could make me leave Smith’s Forge now.”

She smiled and closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

“That might make things a bit awkward,” said a voice behind him.

Adam turned to see John Mancini leaning against the doorjamb.

“What would make things awkward?”

“Well, you sticking around here while she’s in North Carolina. I’d have thought you’d want to be with her, but hey, that’s just me.”

“John, what are you talking about?”

“She didn’t tell you? I offered her a job. No more freelancing. When she’s not in the field, sketching, she’ll be lecturing at the Academy. She’s a superb investigator, always asks the right questions. And I’ve never met anyone who has a better talent for homing in on physical descriptions.”

“She’s going to be working for the Bureau?”

“Yes. The doctors all said she could leave in a few days, and since she doesn’t have a house to go back to right now, I thought I’d send her down to Nags Head. We’ve been asked to assist on a series of child abductions. Miranda Cahill’s already on her way down. She couldn’t wait to get back to work, so I thought we should accommodate her.”

“Do you think either of them—Kendra or Miranda—can handle working so soon, after everything that’s happened?”

“As I said, Miranda is restless. And of course Kendra can’t draw anything just yet, but the doctors all feel her hands and fingers will be good as new with therapy. And I think with her ability to pry descriptions out of witnesses, I can send another artist along to do the actual sketching if I have to. I have someone in mind, he might learn from the experience of working with her. It’ll be interesting to see how that works, don’t you think? And she can get the therapy she needs for her hands down there, there’s a good clinic.”

Adam merely nodded, and tried not to frown.

“Now, when you get down there, the first person I want you to speak with is . . .”

“When I get down there?”

“Sure. Someone has to be in charge. You’re senior on the team, aren’t you? Now, come on downstairs to the cafeteria and we’ll grab some lunch, and I’ll fill you in on this case.” John’s voice dropped. “It’s pretty nasty.”

“They’ve all been nasty lately,” Adam said without thinking. “It’s been a nasty couple of weeks.”

“It’s the nature of the job, Adam.”

“Is Will Fletcher assigned to this investigation?” Adam’s fists visibly clenched.

“No.” John was not oblivious to the tension. “I need him in West Virginia right now. Besides, I wanted to give him a little breathing room. He blames himself, you know, for what happened to Kendra.”

“As well he should. If he hadn’t left her there alone with Zach—if he’d had the presence of mind to check the ID of the man who claimed to be Joe Clark . . .”

“And how many IDs did you check, the night of the fire? Did you ask to see any?”

Adam met his boss’s stare with silence.

“That’s what I thought.”

“So you think it’s okay, that Fletcher just let Zach walk off with Kendra?”

“Of course not. But at the same time, I think the circumstances need to be taken into consideration. There were several law enforcement agencies at the scene. I doubt that anyone checked anyone else’s ID. Who would have thought the killer would walk into the midst of them, pretend to be one of them? Brilliant on Smith’s part, if you ask me.”

“Kendra could have been killed, John.”

“Well, then, consider this. We not only caught our killer, but Kendra has finally found peace of mind. She knows now what really happened not only to her brother, but to her mother, as well. Ask her if she’d rather it had played out any other way.”

Adam looked over his shoulder at the woman sleeping on the bed behind him. He knew without asking what her answer would be.

“You go on down,” he told John. “I’ll join you in just a few.”

John patted Adam on the back and said, “She’s going to be fine, Adam. I know it’s tough when it’s someone you care about, but she’s going to be fine.”

Adam nodded, and returned to the side of the bed where Kendra lay, her breathing more regular, her vital signs as recorded by the monitors above her bed just fine. He watched her for several long minutes, fussing over her slightly, moving a branch or two from her face, straightening her blanket out just a bit.

“I’ll be back,” he whispered to her sleeping form, “and then we’ll talk about Nags Head. For starters, anyway. We have a lot to talk about, you and I. . . .”

How long did they think they could keep him tied up like this? Where the hell was his lawyer, anyway? Isn’t this cruel and unusual punishment, shackling a guy to the bed? Where did they think he was going to go?

He smiled to himself. He knew where he’d like to go.

She was still here, right up two floors from him. He’d heard the nurses talking about her. How brave she was; how she’d broken both her hands trying to get away from her attacker.

Bullshit.

She was lucky, that’s all. She wasn’t brave, she was scared shitless. And she broke her hands beating the crap out of
him
. So why all the sympathy for her when he’d clearly gotten the worst of it all?

Bitch. Did she think she was going to get away with this? Damn near killed him, that’s what she did. Beat him till he could barely move, couldn’t run, though he’d tried. Took him nearly ten minutes to slip the ropes she’d tied him with. Tough to make ground with a broken leg. He’d tried swimming but he’d been disoriented and he swam right into the arms of the three police officers sent to bring him back.

One could say that his stars had been poorly aligned last night. He’d certainly had a run of bad luck.

Of course, he reminded himself, he shouldn’t complain. After all, look at all the good luck he’d had over the past few years. He pondered this for a while. He had been inordinately lucky. Why, he’d never even come close to being caught. Until now. And if it hadn’t been for her, he’d still be free.

Free.

How long, he wondered, before he’d be free again?

Maybe never
, he whispered softly.

Maybe
, he smiled, pulling on the cuffs that bound him to the bed. They couldn’t keep him locked to the bed forever. Sooner or later they’d have to uncuff him.

Maybe sooner than later. A good lawyer, a good plea. Was insanity a defense in this state? In any of the states that would want to try him? He thought about this. If he could plead . . . and get himself into the right facility . . .

If one was very, very clever and very, very alert, well, who knew if—and when—the right opportunities might present themselves? He’d just have to be alert, that’s all. Alert and smart and willing to take a chance or two.

Just like he’d been doing for the past ten years.

Smiling, musing on the possibilities that could come his way, he closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

BY MARIAH STEWART

Until Dark

The President’s Daughter

Read on for a sneak peek of

EXCERPT FROM DEAD WRONG

the wonderful new novel from Mariah Stewart

Oh, sure, I heard the little one crying. And the middle one, too. Only one I never heard was the older one, the boy. They ain’t lived here long—maybe a month or so. I never saw much of them. Oh, once in a while I’d pass the boy on the steps. He never had much to say. No, never saw the mother bring men home. Never saw her much at all, though, don’t know when she came or went. Heard her sometimes, though. God knows she was loud enough, screaming at them kids the way she done. No, don’t know what she was doin’ to ’em to make ’em cry like that. No, never saw no social worker come around. Don’t know if the kids went to school. Did I what? No, never called nobody about it. Wasn’t none of my business, what went on over there. Hey, I got troubles of my own. . . .

Mara Douglas rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers, an unconscious gesture she made when deep in thought or deeply upset. Reading through the notes she’d made while interviewing the elderly, toothless, across-the-hall neighbor of the Feehan family, she was at once immersed in thought and sick to her stomach. The refrain was all too familiar. The neighbors heard, the neighbors turned a deaf ear rather than get involved. It was none of their business what a woman did to her children, none of their business if the kids had fallen through all the cracks. In neighborhoods as poor as this, the tenants all seemed to live in their own hell. Who could worry about someone else’s?

Mara rested her elbow on the edge of the dining room table, her chin in the palm of her hand, and marveled at how a child could survive such neglect and abuse and so often still defend the parent who had inflicted such physical and emotional pain.

Time after time, case after case, she’d seen the bond between parent and child tested, stretched to the very limit. Sometimes even years of the worst kind of abuse and neglect failed to fray that connection.

She turned her attention back to the case she was working on now. The mother’s rights were being challenged by the paternal grandparents, who’d had custody of the three children—ages four, seven, and nine—for the past seven months. Mara was the court-appointed advocate for the children, the one who would speak on their behalf at all legal proceedings, the one whose primary interest—whose only interest—was what was best for the children.

As their champion, Mara spent many hours reviewing the files provided by the social workers from the county Children and Youth Services department and medical reports from their physicians, and more hours still interviewing the social workers themselves, along with neighbors and teachers, emergency room personnel, family members and family friends. All in an effort to determine what was best for the children, where their needs—all of their needs—might best be met, and by whom.

Mara approached every case as a sacred trust, an opportunity to stand for that child as she would stand for her own. Tomorrow she would do exactly that, when she presented her report and her testimony to the judge whose job it would be to determine whether Kelly Feehan’s parental rights should be terminated and custody of her three children awarded to their deceased father’s parents. It probably wouldn’t be too tough a call.

Kelly, an admitted prostitute and heroin addict, had been arrested—again—for solicitation. Her nine-year-old had stayed home from school to take care of his siblings until Kelly could make bail. Unfortunately for Kelly, her former in-laws, who had been searching for the children for months while their mother had moved them from one low-rent dive to another, had finally tracked them down. After calling the apartment several times a day for two days in a row and having grown suspicious when their young grandson never seemed to know where his mother was, the senior Feehans had called the police. Their next move was to take temporary custody of the children, who were found to be bruised, battered, and malnourished.

Over time, it became apparent that Kelly wasn’t doing much to rehabilitate herself. She’d shown up high on two of her last three visitation days, and the grandparents promptly filed a petition to terminate Kelly’s rights permanently. Total termination of rights was a drastic step, one never made lightly nor without a certain amount of angst and soul searching.

After all, Mara knew all too well the torment of losing a child.

In the end, of course, the decision would rest in the hands of Judge McKettrick, whom Mara knew from past experience was always reluctant to sever a parent’s rights when the parent contested as vehemently as Kelly Feehan was doing. Much would depend on the information brought to the court in the morning. The responsibility to present everything fairly, without judgment or embellishment, was one that Mara took very seriously.

With the flick of her finger, the screen of Mara’s laptop went blank, then filled with the image of a newborn snuggled up against a shoulder covered by a yellow and white hospital gown. The infant’s hair was little more than pale fuzz, the eyes closed in slumber, the perfect rosebud mouth puckered just so.

Another flick of a finger, and the image was gone.

Mara’s throat constricted with the pain of remembrance, the memories of the joy that had filled her every time she’d held that tiny body against her own. She abruptly pushed back from the table and walked to the door.

“Spike,” she called, and from the living room came the unmistakable sound of a little dog tail thumping on hard wood.

“It’s time to go for a walk.”

Spike knew
walk,
but not
time,
which was just as well, since it was past one in the morning. But once the thorn of memory began to throb, Mara had to work it out of her system. Her conditioned response to emotional pain was physical. Any kind of sustained movement would do—a walk, a run, a bike ride, a trip to the gym, anything that got her on her feet was acceptable, as long as it got her moving through the pain so that she could get past it for a while.

Mara pursued exhaustion where others might have chosen a bottle or a needle or a handful of pills, though there’d been times, in the past, when she’d considered those, too.

By day, Mara’s neighborhood in a suburban Philadelphia college town was normally quiet, but at night, it was as silent as a tomb. She walked briskly, the soles of her walking shoes padding softly on the sidewalk, the occasional street lamp lighting her way, Spike’s little Jack Russell legs keeping the pace. Four blocks down, four blocks over and back again. That’s what it usually took to clear her head. Tonight she made the loop in record time. She still had work to do, and an appointment in court at nine the next morning.

The evening’s earlier storm had passed through, and now a full moon hung over her small house and cast shadows behind her as she made her way back up the brick walk to her front door. She’d let Spike off the leash at the end of their drive, and now stood watching as the dog sniffed at something in the grass.

“Spike,” she whispered loudly, and the dog looked up, wagging his tail enthusiastically. “Come on, buddy. Time to go in.”

With obvious reluctance, Spike left whatever it was he’d found on the lawn and followed his mistress to the front steps. Mara unlocked the front door, but did not go immediately inside. She crossed her arms and stared up at the night sky for a long moment, thinking of her own child, wondering once again where in this vast world she was at that exact moment, and who, if anyone, was standing for her.

On the television screen, the earnest five o’clock news anchor droned on and on, his delivery as flat as his crew-cut hair. Mara turned the volume down to answer the ringing phone.

“What’s for dinner?” Mara’s sister, Anne Marie McCall, dispensed with a greeting and cut to the chase.

“I was just asking myself that very thing.” Mara grinned, delighted to hear Annie’s voice.

“How ’bout a little Chinese?”

“You buying?”

“And delivering.”

“You’re home?”

“I’m on my way.”

“What time will you be here?”

“Thirty minutes, give or take. I’m just leaving the airport. If you call in a take-out order at that little place on Dover Drive, I’ll swing past and pick it up.”

“Perfect. What do you want?”

“Surprise me.”

“Done. I’ll see you soon.”

Pleased with the unexpected prospect of Annie’s company, Mara found herself whistling while she hunted up the menu. She called in the order, then set about clearing the kitchen table of all the mail that had accumulated over the past several weeks while Mara had worked on the Feehan case. That case having been heard just that morning, Mara could pack up the materials she’d reviewed and return them to the courthouse in the morning. She wondered where Kelly Feehan had gone that night to drown her sorrows, her parental rights having been severed by Judge McKettrick until such time as Kelly successfully completed a rehabilitation program and obtained legitimate employment, at which time she could file for visitation rights. The odds that Kelly would follow through were slim to none, but the option was there. It had been the best the judge could do for all involved.

While the decision was clearly in the best interests of the children, it still gave Mara pause to have played a part, however small, in another mother being separated from her babies, even though she knew full well that Kelly had brought her troubles upon herself. She’d wanted to shake the young mother, shake her good and hard, for having put herself and her children in such a situation.

You had a choice
, Mara had wanted to shout at the sobbing woman as her children left the court room with their grandparents.
We don’t all get a choice. . . .

Mara scooped dry dog food into Spike’s new Scooby Doo dish, then gave the dog fresh water. She turned up the volume on the television, hoping to catch the weather forecast for the morning. She’d been looking forward to her early morning twice-weekly run with several friends and was hoping that the earlier prediction of rain had been revised.

“. . . and in other news, we have a somewhat bizarre story of two women who have the same name, who lived in the same town, and who met with the same fate exactly one week apart.” The anchorman spoke directly into the camera. “Jason Wrigley is standing by at the Avon County courthouse with the story. . . .”

Headlights flashing through the living room window announced Annie’s arrival. Mara had just begun to open the front door when a face appeared on the screen.

“This is Mary Douglas,” the reporter was saying as he displayed a picture of a white-haired woman in her early sixties.

Mara watched in fascination as he held up a second photograph of another woman and said, “And this is Mary Douglas. What do these two woman have in common besides their names?”

The reporter paused for effect, then faced the camera squarely, both photographs held in one hand, the microphone in the other.

“Both of these women lived in Lyndon. Both women died in their homes in that small community, in exactly the same manner, exactly one week apart, the body of the second victim having been found earlier this afternoon. Local police have admitted that they are clearly baffled as to motive.”

Video played of a prerecorded press conference.

Spike ran to the door and barked when he heard Annie’s heels on the walk, but Mara’s attention remained fixed on the television.

“. . . without divulging the manner in which the women were killed, we’re investigating the possibility that the first killing was an error. That the second victim may have been the intended target.”

The police spokesman paused to listen to a question from the floor, then repeated the question for those who had not heard.

“Do we feel it was a contracted killing, was the question. I can only say at this point that anything is possible. It has been suggested that perhaps the killer had only known the name of his victim—no description, no address—and that after killing the first victim and perhaps seeing some news coverage or possibly reading the obituary in the newspaper, he realized that he hadn’t killed the right woman. According to friends and family of both victims, neither Mary Douglas had an enemy in the world. Both women were well liked, both lived somewhat quiet lives. So with no apparent motive, we can’t rule out any scenario yet.”

“Mara . . . ?” Annie called from the doorway.

The face on the television was taut with concentration as he spoke of the victims.

“Yes, then we think he sought out the second Mary Douglas and killed her, though we do not know why either of these women would have been targeted, for that matter. . . .”

“Mara . . . ?”

“This is bizarre,” Mara shook her head.

“What is?” Annie set the bag she carried on the coffee table.

“This news report . . .” She was still shaking her head slowly, side to side. “Two women named Mary Douglas were murdered one week apart. Killed in the same manner, though the police aren’t saying how they were killed.”

“Wow. Doesn’t that give you the creeps?” Annie frowned. “That the name is so close to yours? Mary Douglas. Mara Douglas . . .”

“A little, yes,” Mara admitted, “But what makes it really freaky is that there’s a woman who works in the D.A.’s office at the courthouse—she’s administrative staff—named Mary Douglas.”

“Was she . . . ?” Annie pointed to the television.

“One of the victims? No, thank God. I was holding my breath there for a minute, though. She’s such a nice person—a real ray-of-sunshine type. Friendly and a good sport. Not a day goes by when each of us doesn’t get at least one piece of mail meant for the other.”

“You don’t work in the D.A.’s office.”

“Right, but very often the mail room will mistake Mary for Mara, or vice versa, and we get each other’s mail. And if something is addressed to
M. Douglas,
it’s anyone’s guess whose mailbox it ends up in.” Mara watched the rest of the segment, then turned off the television. “I feel sorry for the families of the two victims, but I can’t help but be relieved that the Mary Douglas I know wasn’t one of them.”