Aquamarine (2 page)

“Hey, Harris! Sounds like congratulations are in order. I hear you got the nod on the Massacre Island job.”

Teague turned to face Joe Merchant, Crescent County’s number one landscape architect and Teague’s main competitor. He liked the older man, respected his ability, but they were still rivals. Normally, Teague would have gloated a little about his victory, but right then all he could concentrate on was the Kirsten look-alike. “Yeah, thanks,” he said, and turned back to the midway. He had to see her eyes. Then he’d know for sure.

Or not.

The woman had vanished. He’d glanced away for what? Three seconds at the most? Yet she was gone. Nowhere in sight.

What the hell was going on? Maybe he
had
imagined her. Or maybe he was drunker than he thought.

Joe touched his elbow. “You okay, Teague? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Shea McKenzie strolled along the midway, nibbling cotton candy and thinking what an idiot she’d been to drive two thousand miles to visit this mountain resort town just because of an old postcard.

Two weeks earlier, shortly after her mother and stepfather had left on vacation, their home had been burglar
ized. While Shea was clearing away the mess the detectives had left behind, she’d found among the papers scattered near the open safe a color postcard of Liberty, Idaho. Addressed to her mother and inscribed with a brief, somewhat ambiguous message, the card had intrigued her, not just because her mother had evidently deemed it important enough to keep in the safe, but also because the picture itself fascinated her. The photograph of the scenic little town nestled beside a lake and surrounded by rugged mountains had triggered a strange feeling of déjà vu, strange since she’d never been west of Chicago in her life.

Shea had already been planning to drive to California to visit her godmother. Liberty was right on the way, she’d told herself. Why not spend the Fourth of July weekend enjoying the resort’s amenities while keeping her eyes and ears open for a clue to the identity of the woman who’d written the postcard?

Enjoying, she thought. What a joke! Ever since she’d arrived in Liberty people had been giving her surreptitious sideways glances that made her wonder if she was walking around with lipstick on her teeth or toilet paper stuck to her heel.

As she debated whether to return to her motel room—carnivals were no fun anyway when you were on your own—her built-in pervert alert suddenly went wild. Someone was watching her. Again.

She paused on the fringe of a group in front of the shooting gallery and let her gaze drift casually over the crowd. He lurked in the shadows beyond the knife-thrower’s tent, staring at her.

Being stared at didn’t usually concern her much. Shea was no busty blond beauty queen, but she’d attracted her
share of attention since hitting puberty. There was even, she’d discovered, a select group of males who actually preferred slim, athletic brunettes. So it wasn’t staring, per se, that bothered her. It was the way this man was staring that had tripped her alarm. She felt threatened even though he was a good fifty feet away. His eyes seemed to drill right through her.

Suppressing a shiver, she told herself she was letting her imagination get the better of her. The man was probably just an off-duty carnival worker with time on his hands. After all, Liberty ran more to wildlife than nightlife. But whatever his motive, that expressionless stare of his bothered her.

Pretending a sudden fascination with distorted mirrors, Shea ditched what was left of her cotton candy and joined a family heading for the funhouse. She tracked the man in her peripheral vision and was somewhat reassured when he made no move to follow her inside.

However, her anxiety level rose a couple of notches when she emerged ten minutes later to find him still waiting outside, lounging with a loose-limbed grace against the trailer that housed the taco vendor.

Broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, he was dressed in faded jeans and a loose white tank top that bared muscular brown arms. His dark hair was cropped short, and a hint of stubble shadowed his jaw.
Yeah.
Tall, dark, and dangerous just about summed him up. He was the type who inevitably turned out to be the hero in the movies, but in real life probably spent all his free time knocking over 7-Elevens, starting barroom brawls, and making lewd suggestions to women caught next to him at stoplights.

She wished she’d headed straight back to her room
after the fireworks instead of trying to prolong the evening. Single women traveling alone were targets for crazies, according to her mother. And maybe, for once, her mother was right.

Perhaps if she ignored him, he’d lose interest.

Then again perhaps he wouldn’t. Even though she wasn’t looking in his direction, she could feel the man’s gaze boring into her.
Dammit, what is his problem?

Shea angled herself so that she could keep an eye on him without being obvious about it.
All right, think, McKenzie!
But it was hard to think when every nerve ending in her body was playing hopscotch.

As she hesitated on the bottom step of the funhouse, the man straightened and started to walk across the midway toward her.

Adrenaline pumped through her veins. She dove for cover in a knot of lanky middle-schoolers.

“Hey!” protested a kid she elbowed as she worked her way toward the far edge of the tightly packed group.

“Watch it, lady!” said another whose toe she’d just stepped on.

“Sorry.” She couldn’t see her stalker from there, which meant he couldn’t see her, either. She told herself that the thunder of blood pounding in her ears was the sound of opportunity knocking.
Now
was the time to make her move.

The kids migrated en masse toward the carousel, but she split off from the group, squeezing between the duck shoot and the ring toss next door. The dimly lit area behind the booths was deserted. She ran toward the far end, dodging hoses and electrical cables.

Breathing hard, she stopped behind the second-to-the-last booth to risk a quick glance over her shoulder.
No sign of Tall, Dark, and Dangerous. With her racing heart still drumming out a hard-rock version of “The William Tell Overture,” Shea edged back between the two end booths and scanned the crowded midway in both directions. Where was he?

She spotted him at last, ten yards away with his back to her. Quickly, before he had a chance to turn around, she ducked into the nearest booth. Once inside, Shea heaved a sigh of relief. Out of sight, out of mind. She hoped.

Teague didn’t even realize he was swearing until he noticed people around him giving him dirty looks and hauling their kids out of earshot. Hell, he’d lost her again. And this time he was pretty sure she’d given him the slip on purpose.

The question was, if Kirsten had come back, why was she avoiding him? It didn’t make sense. Dammit, this
X-Files
stuff wasn’t supposed to happen in real life, and sure as hell not in a sleepy little backwater like Liberty.

Located in the Bitterroots just west of the Montana border on the shores of Crescent Lake, Liberty’s only claims to fame were a couple of played-out silver mines west of town and the fact that it had once—back in the heyday of the mining camps—been home to the state’s most opulent brothel.

Only twice in recent memory had it merited mention in the Boise
Statesman
, once last spring when mud slides isolated the town for two weeks and once seven years earlier when millionaire Jack Rainey’s daughter, Kirsten, was kidnapped from her father’s Massacre Island estate.

The kidnappers had never been caught. Every once in
a while some clever local reporter would drag the story to light, pushing his or her own theory of what’d happened. But the truth was, nobody knew. Not the FBI. Not the dozens of private investigators Jack Rainey had employed over the years. Nobody. Both Kirsten and her kidnappers had disappeared into thin air. Vanished.

Just the way her look-alike had already done twice this evening.

“You wish your fortune told?”

Shea jumped in surprise at the voice close behind her. She turned to find a Gypsy draped in flowing scarves and glittering bangles, her black eyes sparkling with intelligence in a wrinkled brown face.

Shea shrugged, ignoring a little ripple of unease. Why not? Having her fortune told gave her an excuse to linger awhile longer. “Sure. I guess.” She paid the woman and took a seat.

“I am Madame Magda. Do you seek to know the future, or is it the secrets of the past that trouble your heart?” The woman pursed her lips over ill-fitting dentures. Her bony, beringed fingers fidgeted with the fringe on her shawl.

“A little of both?” All she really wanted to know was why Tall, Dark, and Dangerous was so interested in her.

The Gypsy peered into her crystal ball for a full minute, then pushed it away with a grunt of dissatisfaction. “All I see are shadows. I need your hand. Your left hand.” She rapped out the order.

Shadows? Great.
Reluctantly, Shea extended her fingers.

She expected the woman to read the lines on her
palm. Instead, the Gypsy trapped Shea’s hand between her own moist palms, closed her eyes, and began to rock back and forth in her chair. The wood creaked in a hypnotic rhythm. The lights dimmed. The air crackled with static electricity.

The old woman put on a good show. Almost too good. Where was that cold air coming from? Goose bumps raised along Shea’s arms. Why had she agreed to this?

Suddenly the Gypsy’s eyes opened wide, so wide a rim of yellowed white showed all around the irises. “Two.” Her voice echoed hollowly, flooding the tent with sound and filling Shea’s head with a deep, sonorous vibration. “Two from one. Two who are one. You.” The Gypsy drew a hissing breath, squeezing Shea’s hand with surprising strength. “Blood links you to the other side. To the other one. The secret’s in the stone.”

Then she released Shea’s hand, moaned softly, and slumped back in her chair like a bag of old clothes.

Shea drew a shaky breath. “Madame Magda? Are you all right?” Tentatively, half afraid the Gypsy had suffered a stroke or a fit of some kind, she prodded the old woman’s shoulder.

The Gypsy’s eyes flew open, her pupils fierce pinpoints concentrated on Shea’s face. “You must be careful,” she warned.

Fear trickled down Shea’s spine. She’d been to fortune-tellers before, but never one who was quite so convincing.

The old woman struggled to her feet to indicate that the reading was over. “Be careful,” she repeated.

Teague Harris, you are one sick puppy.
She had to be a figment of his imagination. But he started another circuit of the carnival grounds anyway—his third in the last twenty minutes.

Tired and thirsty, he stopped at a food stall to buy a drink. When he turned back toward the midway, stuffing the change in his pocket, he caught a glimpse of Kirsten’s double as she emerged from the makeshift alley next to the Ferris wheel.

So he hadn’t imagined her.

She flipped the hair off her face, a familiar gesture Teague recognized with a twist of pain. Not a double then. Impossible as it seemed, it was Kirsten herself.

A confusing mix of emotions—relief and joy, then confusion and anger—churned his gut. What the hell had happened seven years ago? Had Kirsten been kidnapped? Or had the kidnapping been a setup she was in on all along? If not, then how had she escaped and why hadn’t she returned before now?

Her return made no more sense than her disappearance had unless … Had she heard the rumors? Was she worried about her father?

But, dammit, if she’d decided to return, then why did she run every time she saw him?

Teague shadowed Kirsten at a careful distance this time. No use spooking her prematurely.

Shea strode quickly through the crowd, trying to ignore the creepy-crawly sensation at the back of her neck. He was there somewhere. She couldn’t see him, but she was sure of it.

The carnival swarmed with noisy life. Kids, up past
their bedtime, squealed with laughter. Music blared. Hucksters enjoined passersby to “Take a chance! Take a chance! Fifty cents! One half-dollar!” Teenage girls screamed with every swoop of the Zipper. Adults yelled good-naturedly at each other, trying to be heard over the din.

On all sides the colorful tide of humanity flowed around her in a warm flood. Yet Shea had never felt so alone, so vulnerable in her life.

She was nearly at the edge of the carnival grounds. Beyond lay the shadowy path through the park that was the shortest route back to the lodge, where she was registered.
Run
, screamed a cowardly little voice inside her head.

The crowd was sparse at this end, and she felt conspicuous in her red T-shirt. The safe haven of her room beckoned, but setting off down that lonely path through the trees might prove a fatal mistake if the stalker was still hot on her heels.

Shea paused at the exit to see if she could pinpoint his whereabouts. Unfortunately, the heavyset teenager behind her didn’t anticipate the sudden stop. He plowed into Shea and sent her sprawling in the dirt.

“Sorry.” The boy’s apology was a nearly inaudible mumble.