Vicious (18 page)

“Sure, no sweat,” Jordan replied. “We’re expecting her back soon.”

“Maybe she noticed Allen or his car somewhere. Again, his name is Allen Meeker. He’s about six feet tall, good looking—”

“Silver-black hair, little scar on his cheek, late thirties,” Jordan finished for her. “And he drives a black BMW. I’ll remember.” He opened the driver’s door for her.

Eyes narrowed, she stopped to stare at him. “I never mentioned Allen had a scar.”

“Really?” Jordan let out a skittish laugh. “Huh, I thought I noticed a scar when I spotted him in the store.”

She gave him a slightly wary sidelong glance. “Well, he does have one. You must have been more aware of things back at the store than you thought.”

“Guess so,” Jordan said. “Listen, if I think of anything else—or if Moira can tell us something—should we just swing by your place on Birch and let you know?”

“Yes, I’d appreciate that, thanks,” she said. “If we’re not there, just leave a note.” She climbed into the car.

“I’m sorry we weren’t more help,” Leo piped up. He held out his hand for her to shake.

But Jordan stepped in front of him and closed the car door. “Take it easy, dude!” he called to the boy in the backseat.

Crestfallen, Leo backed up and watched her turn the car around and head out of the driveway. He tucked the note back in his pocket.

Jordan put an arm around him. Leo started to wrestle away, but his friend held on tightly and pulled him inside the house. “Give it to me,” he growled.

“What are you talking about?” Leo muttered.

“The note, goddamn it,” Jordan said. “You were going to pass her a note. Twice you tried.”

“Jordan, I—”

All of a sudden, his friend slapped him hard across the face. Leo reeled back, stunned. He bumped into the banister and almost knocked over a tall floor lamp by the stairs. The whole side of his head hurt. Stunned, he put a hand to the side of his face and numbly gazed at Jordan.

“Give me the note,” his friend said.

Leo dug into his pocket. “The guy downstairs wasn’t lying. He said she was his fiancée. Well, you heard her. She’s his fiancée, and she’s worried about him.” He handed the napkin to his friend. “And I’m worried about you, Jordan,” he added in a shaky voice. “Christ, in all the years we’ve known each other, and with all the fights we’ve had, you’ve never hit me before.”

Jordan didn’t seem to be listening. He frowned at the scribbling on the napkin and slowly shook his head. “I was counting on you,” he muttered. “And you were ready to betray me—”

“That’s because you’re not acting rationally, damn it!” Leo cried. “I don’t know who you are anymore! Good God, weren’t you listening to her? It’s just like he said. She’s his fiancée. He wasn’t lying—”

“What about the carjacking story?” Jordan shot back. “He was lying to us about why he had a gun. She didn’t know a damn thing about any carjacking. We’ve already caught him in a lie.”

“Maybe he just didn’t tell her,” Leo argued.

“Something significant like a carjacking, you don’t think he’d tell her?”

“Something significant like your mother being murdered, you don’t think you’d tell your best friend?” Leo was still rubbing the side of his face. “You’re acting crazy, Jordan. I’m sorry, but you are. He tried to make a deal with you downstairs. If we drop this in the lap of the law right now—and they find he’s innocent—he won’t press charges. God, take the deal, Jordan. Let me call the state police….”

His friend turned and headed into the kitchen. Leo followed him in there and watched him open the refrigerator. “You can take some money out of your trust to buy him a new BMW,” Leo suggested. “Let’s get some damage control on this thing before it’s too late….”

Jordan leaned against the counter and drank a bottled water. He peeled at the label. “The first Mama’s Boy murder in the Seattle area was Sarah Edgecombe in Auburn in November of 1997.” His voice was void of all emotion. He may as well have been reading off that label he was peeling. “Mama’s Boy broke into Sarah’s house and dragged her away while she was giving her son a bath. He left a stuffed bear on the boy’s pillow, and he left the mother’s body in the woods at Discovery Park.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Leo asked. He sank down in a kitchen chair.

“Two years before Sarah, there was a woman named Patricia Nagel,” Jordan continued. “A few days before she was killed, Patricia told a friend that a man had followed her and her toddler son home from the El station. The investigators—”

“El station?” Leo repeated.

Jordan kept on talking: “The investigators figured he’d been following her and watching her for a while. Someone broke into Patricia’s apartment on Diversey Street while she was waiting for her husband to get home from work. She was cooking dinner. Her little boy was there with her in the kitchen—in his high chair. Neighbors found one of those big, multicolored lollipops on the kitchen table. Three days later, a golfer at Skokie Country Club found Patricia Nagel’s body in the rough near the seventh hole. She’d been strangled.”

Leo’s head still throbbed from Jordan’s slap. He was amazed his friend knew all these facts and details. “I don’t understand,” he said, leaning forward in the kitchen chair. “What does all this have to do with the guy downstairs?”

Leaning against the counter, Jordan still seemed focused on the label on the bottled water. “A lot of the Mama’s Boy investigators believe Patricia Nagel was his first victim, and that was two years before his first Seattle murder.” He glanced over at Leo. “Patricia was killed in Chicago, buddy. And you heard the woman at our door. Allen Meeker is originally from Chicago.”

With a sigh, Leo slumped back in the chair. “Oh, for God’s sake, that’s just a coincidence.”

“Is it?” Jordan said. He put down the bottled water and moved toward the kitchen table. He sat down next to him and grabbed his arm. “I don’t believe in coincidences, Leo. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our guest downstairs rented the same house where my mother and I were staying when she was abducted—and about a quarter of a mile from where her corpse was found. I don’t think that’s a coincidence at all. There’s a reason for it. Don’t you see? He’s returning to the scene of his crime. And I can’t help worrying about that nice, pretty lady and her son who were just here.”

Leo stared at him. What Jordan said was starting to make sense. And that scared the hell out of him.

“Don’t you see?” Jordan whispered, squeezing his arm. “He took them to my mom’s old house for a reason.”

As she pulled onto Birch Way, Susan couldn’t help hoping she’d find Allen’s black BMW parked at the end of the driveway. She took one curve after another on the long, winding tree-lined drive. She couldn’t see the house yet.

“Where’s Allen gone?” Mattie asked, kicking at the back of the passenger seat.

“That’s what your dear old mother would like to know,” Susan muttered, eyes on the road.

She was thinking about her visit with Jordan Prewitt and his friend. At least she knew Allen had headed for town after leaving Rosie’s. Maybe he’d gone to meet someone after all. She still couldn’t dismiss the notion that he’d had some secret agenda for this trip.

Jordan and his friend had acted a bit strange. Why was he asking all those questions about Allen? And his pal had seemed so nervous and fidgety. Then again, they were teenagers. Acting weird came with the territory. Besides, next to Sheriff Fischer—pilfering her panties—they’d come off as downright normal and nice.

Taking the last turn in the road, Susan saw the house ahead and the empty driveway. She figured there was always the chance Allen had come and gone. Maybe he’d left a note—alongside the one she’d written to him.

Susan had hoped not to come back to an empty house. But now as she took Mattie by the hand and headed for the front door, Susan prayed the place was indeed empty. She was terrified of running into that hunter again. She didn’t care what the sheriff had said; that man had seemed far more interested in the house than he’d been in the woodlands surrounding it. Stepping inside, she didn’t let go of Mattie’s hand until she’d circled through the entire first floor. Then she parked him in the sunroom with his bin of toys so she could keep an eye on him.

Checking the dining room table, she found her note just where she’d left it. There was nothing from Allen. A weird thought suddenly occurred to her. What if Allen’s hidden reason for this trip had been to meet up with another woman? What if he was with this woman right now?

Well, that would certainly let me off the hook
, Susan thought, plopping down on a dining room chair. Then she immediately felt horrible for letting that notion creep into her head. Allen was so good to her and Mattie. And everybody liked him. Her parents were crazy for him.

Yet she remembered something that had happened on the last day of their visit down in Florida a few weeks back—before the engagement. While she’d been packing for the return flight, her mother had come into the guest room. “That Allen is a real charmer,” she’d said with a smile and a hushed voice. “I think your father has just found a new best friend, and all the neighbors just adore him, dear. But I want you to know…” The smile had disappeared from her mother’s still-pretty, lined face. “You shouldn’t feel any pressure to make a commitment. Take your time, Suzy. It won’t be the end of the world if he’s not the one.”

Susan had been rushing around to get packed and make their plane that afternoon. She hadn’t had time to let her mother’s words sink in. Besides, her mom had loved Walt so much; any man after him would fall short in comparison. So it had been easy to shrug off what her mother had said about Allen that last day in Vero Beach.

But maybe her mother had known then what Susan was just recently figuring out.

Perhaps that was why she felt so tempted to pack up their things right now, leave Allen another note, and drive home. But she felt duty-bound to stay—just as she’d felt duty-bound to accept his proposal of marriage.

Where the hell was he anyway?

Frowning, Susan stared out the sunroom’s sliding glass door at
The Seaworthy
, tied to the dock. She wondered—once again—why he’d had to have that particular boat. And why had he allotted a specific time for sailing it this afternoon?

Susan opened up the leather-bound folder on the dining room table and glanced at the printout from Bayside Rentals. She folded it up and slipped it into her purse alongside the flare gun. Glancing at her wristwatch, she scratched out the time at the bottom of her note to Allen from forty minutes ago, and then wrote in:
3:05
.

“Sweetie?” she called to Mattie. “Better take a potty break. We’re going right out again.”

In the corner of the trench was a pile of broken plastic, metal, duct tape, and a battery. Moira had found a rock and smashed the SPY-TELL 300 Motion Sensor to pieces.

Until she’d destroyed the damn
Weatherproof-Waterproof
thing, its blinking red light had seemed like part of a time bomb. Each second that ticked away had her closer to meeting the creep who had set this trap.

Good luck picking up a signal now, asshole
, Moira thought, with another glance at the mess of plastic and metal in the corner. One shard of plastic was particularly sharp, and she held on to it—just in case he showed up.

She’d been in this stinking pit for over two hours now. In the opposite corner from the broken sensor device, she’d finally succumbed to the call of nature and peed. So, basically, she was trapped in her own toilet now. Swell.

Weren’t Leo and Jordan at all concerned? She’d thought by now she’d hear them calling for her. Was it possible that she’d been so awful to Leo that he didn’t give a damn about her right now? Would he start to worry about her by sunset?

Moira didn’t think she could stand it much longer. She was so cold, hungry, and scared.

She’d had only two more drive-bys, and had screamed and screamed—to no avail. She’d made another attempt to scale the wall, but hadn’t even gotten a foot off the ground. There wasn’t anything to hold on to—just loose dirt and mud. She felt so frustrated, only five feet away from freedom. It might as well have been fifty feet.

“SOMEBODY?” she yelled out—for the umpteenth time. She didn’t need any car or forest noise to trigger her call for help, just frustration and panic. Somehow, screaming for help seemed more productive than sitting there crying. “SOMEBODY?” she repeated—a bit frail this time.

Then she heard something in the distance—a bass beat. Music again, someone in a car with their window rolled down.

“HELP ME! HELP!” she screamed, her head tilted back. She dropped the shard of plastic, then gazed up at the light above. “PLEASE, HELP ME, SOMEBODY!”

The music was louder and clearer now:
“Rock the boat…. Don’t rock the boat, baby…. Rock the boat…. Don’t tip the boat over….”
A man was singing along with it. She could hear the car’s motor purring, too.

“OH, GOD, HELP ME!” she screeched. “HELP ME!”

The music suddenly shut off.

“Oh, sweet Jesus, he heard me,” Moira whispered. “Thank you, God.” Her throat hurt from screaming, but she let out several more shrieks for help. She stopped for a moment and listened. She heard what sounded like a car door shutting.

“HELP ME! HELP!” She leaned against the dirt wall. “Help me, please!” she croaked. Her voice was giving out. Her throat felt raw, and her mouth was so dry.

“Somebody out there?” she heard the man call in the distance.

“YES!” she yelled. “I NEED HELP! I’VE FALLEN IN THIS HOLE. I’M TRAPPED DOWN HERE!”

“I hear you!” the man replied, his voice a little closer now. “Keep talking! I’m trying to find you….”

Moira rubbed her neck. It hurt to swallow. “I’M HERE!” she managed to yell. “I SCREWED UP MY ANKLE WHEN I FELL! I’M STUCK IN THIS STUPID HOLE!” She pulled her sweater over her head, and then tried to toss it up and out of the pit. It missed the edge and fell back in the trench. Moira caught it. She tried again, and it sailed over the top and disappeared from her view. “LOOK FOR MY GREY SWEATER!” she yelled, wincing. She coughed to clear her sore throat. “CAN YOU SEE IT?”

“Keep talking!” the man called, but his voice sounded farther away now. “You’re fading out….”

Oh, no
, she thought, slumping against the pit’s dirt wall. “I’M HERE!” she screamed. “LOOK FOR A GREY SWEATER ON THE GROUND! IT’S RIGHT BY THE HOLE….”

“Grey sweater?” he repeated. He seemed closer now.

“That’s right,” Moira said. She just couldn’t scream any more. “I’m here….” She glanced over at the smashed sensor device in the corner of the pit. She couldn’t eliminate the possibility that the man now about to
rescue
her was the same person who had set this trap. Biting her lip, she searched around for that sharp piece of plastic.

“Keep talking! I—” he hesitated. Suddenly, his voice seemed closer. “Wait! I see the sweater now! Hold on!”

Moira found the shard of plastic and snatched it up. She couldn’t take any chances. She took a deep breath and looked up at the edge of the pit. She half expected to see a rifle barrel pointed down at her—instead of a friendly face.

She heard bushes rustling, and the ground vibrated slightly as he zeroed in on her. A bit of soot shook loose from between the old, rotting boards at the top of the pit. Moira put her hand up to cover her eyes.

When she took her hand away, she could see a handsome man gazing down at her. “Oh, my God,” he murmured. “Here I was thinking somebody was playing a prank on me. Are you hurt?”

Shivering, Moira smiled. He seemed nice. “I might have sprained my ankle when I fell in here,” she said. “I didn’t think anyone was ever going to come by. I’ve been stuck down here for two hours.”

He cleared some branches away and then took off his navy corduroy jacket. Bending over the pit, he lowered the jacket down to her. “Grab on to the sleeve,” he said. “I’ll try to pull you up.”

“Thank you, thank you so much,” Moira said in a raspy voice. She dropped the plastic shard and then reached for the sleeve.

He let out a grunt as he tried to pull her up. More dirt came loose at the edge of the trench and fell onto her face. She kept her head turned away and held on. Her feet had just left the ground when she heard a tearing noise. “The sleeve!” she cried. “It’s ripping!”

“Okay, okay,” he said, gently lowering her back down.

Moira let go of the jacket, and he hoisted it back up. He examined the torn seam at the shoulder. “Goddamn cheap J. Crew!” he muttered. He glanced down at her again. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Moira,” she said.

“I’m Jake. Listen, I’m going to get you out of there, Moira. I have some rope in the car. I’ll be right back. Stay there, okay?”

“Stay here?” she repeated. “Yeah, I’ll try not to wander off.”

He laughed. “Hey, cut me a break. I’ve never rescued a damsel in distress before. Sorry if I suck at it.” He lowered the jacket back down to her. “Here, you look cold. The sleeve’s torn, but at least it’s warm. I’m keeping your sweater out here for a marker.” He let go of his end of the jacket, and it fell on top of her. “If you’re hungry, there’s a Twix bar in one of the pockets. I’ll be right back, okay?”

Moira put on the oversized jacket. She glanced up—just as he started to move away. “Jake?” she called.

He peered down at her again. “Yeah?”

She smiled up at him. “I think you’re a very good rescuer.”

He smiled back at her and then ducked away. She could feel the ground shaking a bit as he ran off.

He was right. The corduroy jacket was warm—and it smelled of a musky, spicy men’s cologne. And yes, there was a Twix bar in the pocket. She ate it slowly, savoring every bite. The smooth chocolate seemed to help coat her sore throat.

Moira glanced over at what was left of the SPY-TELL 300 Motion Sensor—the shattered plastic pieces and metal parts in the corner of the pit. She felt the lump in the pocket of her jeans, where she’d stashed the tortoiseshell barrette. If her theory was right about whoever had set up this trap, the son of a bitch wouldn’t be hunting after today.

Once Jake got her to a hospital, she’d call the police. And while she was at it, she’d get word to Leo and Jordan that she was okay—if they even cared.

Moira glanced at her wristwatch. He’d been gone at least ten minutes. Every second dragged—now that she was so close to getting out of there. “Jake?” she called anxiously.

But there was no answer. Had he driven off? No, she would have heard his car. Maybe he’d run into the demented person who had set this trap. Or maybe there were other concealed pits around here, and he’d fallen in one and broken his neck.

“JAKE, ARE YOU THERE?” she cried out.

“Moira?” she heard him respond in the distance. “You didn’t wander off, did you? Took me a while to—” He let out an abbreviated yell.

Moira heard a thud. She held a hand to her throat and listened to the silence.

“Jake, are you okay?” she nervously asked.

There was no answer, but she could hear a rustling noise, and the ground shook as someone approached the trench. Moira shrank against the dirt wall and gazed up.

“Jake, is that you?”

“I tripped over the stupid rope,” she heard him say.

She let out a sigh and laughed.

He peeked down at her. “I figured you were thirsty—if you don’t mind my germs. Here, catch….” He tossed her a bottle of Evian.

She gratefully guzzled half of it while he lowered the rope down to her.

He told her to tie it around her waist and hold on. It was a struggle, but with her one good foot she got some leverage and pushed up while he tugged at the rope. Even with the cool breeze, she felt warmer as she got closer to the surface. The air was fresh. She could take a deep breath and not taste dirt.

Once he’d hoisted her up past the edge of the pit, they both collapsed on the ground. Moira lay there for a minute, half laughing, half crying. “Thank you,” she gasped. “Thank you so much….”

He helped her to her feet, but her ankle gave out. So she held on to her sweater and the rope while he carried her piggyback-style down the trail along the hill. Moira realized how horrible she must look—and smell. She was so embarrassed, yet she fiercely clung to him. “I’m not too heavy, am I?” she asked.

“I’ve gone hiking with backpacks that are a lot heavier than you—and not nearly as pretty,” he replied.

He told her he was from Everett. He’d come up to Cullen to tour the winery and camp out for the night. He was supposed to meet some friends up here. “I think they’re waiting for me,” he said, out of breath, as they neared his car. His black Jetta was parked on the shoulder of a two-lane road. “My pals can wait a little longer. Let’s get you to a hospital first—or at least the local country doctor.”