Deadly Intent (42 page)

It wasn’t until she saw the person sitting in a high backed chair, with a gun pointed at her, that she let out a soft cry.

It was Liz Tilly.

Forty-Four

“Hello, Abbie. Did you have a nice trip?” Confused and speechless, Abbie looked around her. “There’s no one else here, Abbie. We’re alone.” “But the voice on the phone,” Abbie murmured when she found use of her own voice again.

“Was male. Yes, I know.” Looking pleased with herself, Liz picked up an instrument from the table beside her, which, at first glance, resembled a small answering machine. “This little gadget is an absolute marvel. It can make you sound like a robot, it can lower or raise your tone, or it can change your voice from male to female and vice versa. Clever, isn’t it?”

Abbie stared at her, trying to control the rage tearing through her. “You? You did this? You kidnapped my son?”

Now it was Liz’s turn to look surprised. “You mean my performance was so brilliant you never had a clue?” She threw her head back and let out a laugh. “Wow. And to think a Broadway producer once told me I had no acting talent. It goes to show you how much they know, doesn’t it?”

“Where is Ben? What have you done with my son?” “First, be a good girl, Abbie, and put your gun on the floor—slowly, or I might get nervous and shoot you. Then kick it over to me, very gently.”

Abbie didn’t move. “What gun? What are you talking about?”

“The gun that activated the metal detector when you came through the front door. This house belonged to Jude, you see, and he was paranoid about security. Not that he didn’t have any reason to be. With all the hate mail and death threats he received over the years because of the offensive songs he wrote, I would have been scared, too.” She waved a pistol Abbie recognized as a Glock. “Come on, Abbie, the gun.”

Abbie did as she was told, watching Liz bend over and pick up the PPK and put it on the end table. “Now do the same with your purse.”

Once again, Abbie complied. After inspecting the purse’s contents and turning off Abbie’s cell phone, Liz set the bag on the floor.

“Now can I see my son?”

Liz picked up a remote control on the table beside her and pushed a button. A panel on the left wall slid away to reveal a window overlooking a room with a minimum of furniture.

Ben sat on a sofa, dressed in the same clothes he’d had on the morning he had disappeared, looking more bored than frightened. Abbie couldn’t believe that only a little more than twenty-four hours had passed since she had last seen him. It felt as if he had been gone a year.

“Ben!” She ran to the glass panel and started pounding on it. “Ben! I’m here! Ben, look at me!”

“He can neither hear you nor see you.” Liz’s voice was calm and even. “The room is completely soundproof. Jude and his band used to rehearse in there.”

Abbie let her arms fall to her sides and turned around. “I want to talk to him. Let me in there, Liz. I’ve done

everything you asked. Now it’s your turn to keep your word.”

Liz laughed. “You’re hardly in a position to make demands, Abbie.”

“I’m not making demands. I’m pleading with you. Keep me if you want, but let Ben go. He’s just an innocent little child. Just let him go.”

“I can’t do that, not now that we’re all reunited.” She snapped her fingers. “I keep saying that, but we’re not all reunited, are we? One is missing—Irene. Actually, I had planned to include her in our little powwow, but I changed my mind. She’s living in her own hell, a hell worse than any I could have engineered for her.”

Abbie glanced toward the room where Ben was being kept, grateful for those few glances. He hadn’t moved. He was just sitting there tapping his foot and staring out the window. I’m here, Ben. Don’t be afraid, baby. I’ve come for you.

“Why did you bring us here?” she asked, turning back to look at Liz.

“Justice, Abbie. You do believe in justice, don’t you?”

“For God’s sake, stop talking in riddles. Justice for what?”

“For all the injustices I have suffered.” Liz pressed the remote again, and to Abbie’s dismay, the wooden panel slid back. “Starting with this.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, exposing the scar Abbie had glimpsed at the cemetery.

“Are you still blaming my mother for what happened in Palo Alto? Is that it? I told you, Irene had nothing to do with that fire—“

“I was not only disfigured that night,” Liz continued as if she hadn’t heard her, “I also lost two people—two people I loved more than anything in the world.”

Two people? To Abbie’s knowledge, Patrick McGregor had been the only casualty. “I thought you hated your father. You told me once you wished he had died instead of your mother.”

“I wasn’t talking about my father.” She stroked the barrel of the Glock along the side of her face and smiled. The gesture was almost sensual, as if the feel of the cold metal against her puckered skin brought her intense pleasure.

“Then who?”

“Glen Fallon. The first and only man I ever loved. We were going to get married, did you know that?” She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘ ‘Then the fire happened. A week later, when the doctors removed the bandages, Glen saw my face and ran.” Her eyes went flat. “I scared him, Abbie. The man I loved with all my heart and soul, the man I thought loved me just as much, couldn’t bear to look at me. He called me a freak—not to my face, but you know how kids are. My so-called friends made sure I knew all the nasty things he had said about me—word for word.”

Abbie remembered Glen Fallon, who had spent a lot of time at the McGregors’ house. She wasn’t aware, however, that they had split up because of her scars. How could she have known? She was just eight years old.

“I’m sorry for all you went through, Liz, but you have to stop blaming my mother. She didn’t do this and now I can prove it. Detective Ryan went to Stateville Prison to talk to Earl Kramer. He confessed to having lied, Liz. It was Ian who went to see him with that fabricated story about my mother, not the other way around.”

Liz’s angry fist hit the chair’s armrest. “Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter how the fire got started. Your mother is still responsible for what happened to me. Your mother and you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. If Irene hadn’t been so intent on saving you first—“

“What was she supposed to do?” Abbie cried. “’I was her daughter! I was screaming for her to come and get me.”

“She should have gotten me out, too. My room was just two doors down.”

“She tried. She couldn’t find it. The hallway was filled with smoke. She tried to go back for you after she handed Ian and me over to the neighbors, but by then the firemen had arrived and they stopped her.”

Liz’s eyes were filled with hatred. “Your mother left me to die. She didn’t like me. She was scared of me because I was always sneaking up on her, or taking the jewelry my father gave her, jewelry that should have been mine. She kept telling my dad I was nasty, that I had a dangerous streak. She even suggested I see a shrink. Can you believe that?”

“I know you two had problems, but—“

“She hated my guts! That’s why she left me there to burn.” She fell back against her chair, almost gasping for breath. “And in so doing, she killed my baby.”

Abbie stared at her. “Baby? What baby?”

“Glen’s baby. I was three months pregnant. I miscarried in the ambulance.”

“My God.” Abbie searched her memory, trying to remember the conversation that had taken place in the hospital when she and her mother had visited Liz. She couldn’t remember hearing about a baby. Or a miscarriage. So, that’s what Liz had meant when she’d said she had lost two people. She was talking about Glen and her unborn baby.

“Did my mother know?” Abbie asked in a whisper.

“No.” Her voice had turned dreamy, and the sound of

it was so disturbing, so eerie, it sent an icy shiver down Abbie’s spine. There was something terribly wrong with Liz. Something...unnatural. Why hadn’t she seen it before?

“I wanted that baby so badly,” she continued. “It would have helped me get over Glen. And who knows? It might even have helped me get Glen back.”

“Why didn’t you tell him you had lost his baby? Maybe he would have come back to you if he had known.”

“I did. He didn’t give a damn. And he already had another girlfriend.” She turned the barrel of the gun toward herself and gazed into it, shutting one eye. “That’s why I killed him.”

Abbie went still.

Liz brought the gun down. “Why the shocked expression, Abbie? You don’t think Glen deserved to die?”

“I don’t believe you killed him. You’re just trying to scare me.”

“Oh, be scared, Abbie, be very scared, because I’m telling the truth. I killed Glen Fallon.”

“But how could you? You just finished telling me you loved him more than anything.”

“That was before I realized that love wasn’t being returned. Do you know he and Joanna were an item before I even left the hospital?”

“No.”

“I tried to accept it. I tried to tell myself he didn’t deserve me. That Joanna, who had the reputation of a harlot, would make him miserable. Nothing helped. So I killed him. It really wasn’t that hard.”

“I thought he had a car accident.”

“An accident I caused by draining the fluid from his brakes. Glen’s father was a mechanic, if you recall. In order to be with Glen as much as possible, I hung around his father’s garage, where Glen worked part-time. I even

helped out on occasion, and learned a lot.” Her chin tilted up a little. “Mr. Fallon even said I had potential.”

Abbie was aghast. “My God, Liz, you killed a man. How can you live with yourself?”

“Actually, I killed two men—if you count my ex husband.”

¦’You killed Jude Tilly?”

‘ ‘He deserved to die just as much as Glen did. I had just found out I couldn’t have any children, you see. Apparently, something had gone wrong with the D & C the doctors performed after my miscarriage, and as a result, I was sterile. So Jude dumped me. Do you know what that feels like, Abbie? To be thrown away like yesterday’s garbage? No, of course not.” She waved the Glock in the air. “How would you know? You have everything your little heart desires—a mother and a son who love you, a successful business, a beautiful home, good friends. And judging from the way that hunky cop was looking at you at the cemetery, you’ll have him too before long. Do you think it’s fair, Abbie? That you should have so much and I should have so little?”

How could she have believed there might be some good in this woman? Abbie wondered. Why hadn’t she at least gotten a tiny glimpse of that twisted, maniacal mind? A small sign that would have warned her to back off.

“You have your job at the Towers, which, from what you told me, you seem to enjoy.” Maybe if she made her talk, she would have time to think of a way to get herself and Ben out of here. “And this house.” She cast a quick look around the room, noticing for the first time the simple but expensive furniture, and a second piano, even grander than the one she had seen in Liz’s New York apartment. “That has to be worth something.”

She made an impatient gesture. “Those are all material

things. I don’t care about material things. Jude did, but I don’t. The only reason I fought to keep this house was because Jude hurt me and I wanted to get back at him by taking something from him that he loved. But I really don’t give a damn about the place. All I ever wanted was a family, children of my own, a guy who loved me—really loved me. I wanted the little house in the suburbs, complete with the white picket fence, the station wagon in the garage and the kiddie pool in the backyard. It would have been enough.”

Every time Liz glanced away, Abbie threw a furtive look around her, searching for a weapon, something she could use against her captor. The vase on the piano seemed to be the only possibility right now, although Abbie wasn’t sure how much damage it would do, or how she could use it without getting killed.

“I tried to make you part of our family. You didn’t want anything to do with us.”

“You threw me a bone, Abbie. How grand of you.”

She had to get her gun back, Abbie thought. That was her only way out of here.

“What do you want from me?” she asked quietly.

Liz let both of her hands dangle between her legs and leaned forward. Her eyes had a shiny, almost feverish expression to them. “I want you to feel the pain I experienced when my baby died. I want you to know the wrenching despair, the hopelessness, as you lay there and death takes your child.”