Fear No Evil (34 page)

“That’s Carina.” Dillon paused. “I’ll be coming home tomorrow.”

“I thought you were staying up there with Kate?”

“She’s coming with me.”

“Really.”

“So is Quinn Peterson. He needs to talk to Lucy.”

“Debrief her.”

“Essentially.”

“Do you want me to prepare her for it?”

“No. I don’t want her imagining the questions or trying to think up what she’s going to say. I’ll meet you at the hospital at noon. That’ll give Lucy time with Patrick, which should calm her.”

“You’re the boss,” Jack said.

“How’s it going with Mom and Dad?”

“You’re not talking about Lucy, are you?”

“No.”

Jack paused. “With Mama, it’s like I never left. Dad…you’re the shrink, you figure it out.”

“He’s acting like you betrayed the family and him, personally.”

“Bingo.”

“Can you hang on a couple more days?”

“Think you’ll find Scott by then?”

“I think Scott will find us. Be diligent, Jack. He wants Lucy and he’ll kill to get to her.”

It wasn’t yet dawn when the door to her room opened.

The fog of sleep disappeared immediately as Kate jumped up. The fluorescent lights blasted on and Kate blinked rapidly. She reached for a gun that wasn’t there.

Merritt. And two cops. “What’s going on?” she asked.

Merritt nodded to the cops, who approached her. “You can’t do this,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“No, you’re not. Sit down.”

“What do you want?” she asked.

It wasn’t until one of the cops took out handcuffs that a tingle of fear crept up her spine.

One cop held her while the other handcuffed her to the chair and the table. Why the table?

So she couldn’t move.

“I want to show you something.” Merritt dismissed the cops, and they left.

“Where’s Quinn?”

“It’s three in the morning. He’s probably at home with his wife.”

Merritt had a briefcase in one hand. He placed it on the table, opened it, took out a DVD player. While it booted up, he said, “I watched Paige die.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Then I watched you. And all I could think about was that I wished you had been in Paige’s place.”

Her stomach churned.

“You had no one. Evan had been killed. Your grandparents were dead. No one knew where your mother was, or even who your father is. No siblings, few friends. Paige had everything! A family who loved her. Lots of friends who cared for her.
Me.
”

He leaned over and for a moment Kate believed he was going to pull out his gun and shoot her.

“Paige was pregnant when she died. You thought she was your best friend? She didn’t even tell you.
She told me the week before she died.
” He turned from her, punched some buttons on the player.

Paige was
pregnant
? Kate was shocked. Paige hadn’t said anything. Not even hinted about it.

She’d thought they’d been best friends. Closer than sisters. But Paige had been drifting back then. Focused on the job. And Jeff. Had Kate missed the clues? Not only about Paige’s pregnancy, but about the reality of their relationship?

“Why do you think I wanted her pulled off the investigation?” Merritt said. “But no, you pushed, pushed, pushed.”

“I never pushed Paige on the investigation,” Kate said. “She told me you said everything was a go. She lied about the backup. Maybe
you
wanted her pulled, but she was going full-steam ahead.”

“Paige never lied to you!”

“Yes, she did!” Suddenly Kate remembered something about that fateful investigation five years ago. What Evan had said.
Kate, get out. There’s no backup.
How did he know? Had he been following them? Or had he been privy to inside information? Kate had told Evan everything about the investigation. He knew where she was going and why. He wouldn’t have come there unless he knew she was in danger.

“Unless you lied to her,” Kate said slowly. Maybe Paige believed she’d convinced Merritt to give them support against Trask. But he never had. He didn’t want his pregnant girlfriend to push it. Maybe he placated her?

But that didn’t make sense, either. Why would Merritt intentionally pull backup and jeopardize their lives?

Unless he thought the whole sting was a fraud and they weren’t in danger? But that would mean he had inside information—inside information that wasn’t even true. Or he really believed there had been no real threat in the first place.

“Don’t even go there,” he said with venom.

He stepped away from the computer screen. Kate stared as she saw Paige naked on a thin mattress, and a masked man—Adam Scott—naked and towering over her.

Kate couldn’t move, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t even breathe. Scott raped her, his hands around her neck. He was strangling her. But not completely. He gave her enough air to live, leaned up, and suddenly there was a knife.

Without preamble, he slit her neck. Not deeply, but the blood poured out. In a frenzy, he sliced her. No deep stab wounds, just numerous, repeated slices as she screamed, the sound hollow and tinny coming out of the player’s speaker.

Then he took the knife and planted it deep in her chest.

Kate watched the life disappear from Paige’s eyes, saw the terror embedded in her face.

She lay like that for nine minutes and thirty-six seconds. Kate knew that because of the counter in the corner. Merritt said nothing, and Kate couldn’t stop watching. Blood soaked into the mattress.

Paige, oh God, I didn’t know you were pregnant. Why didn’t you tell me? Did you lie to me—or did Jeff lie to you?

She saw a shadow on the side of the film, then heard shattered glass and watched as a younger version of herself jumped through the window, looked around. She felt like she was there again, finding the booby trap, watching the digital countdown. She’d often had nightmares of those damn green numbers counting backward, and she always woke up in a sweat when it reached 00:00.

Then her aiming her gun at the camera. For the split second she was full face in the camera, she looked crazy.

No wonder the FBI thought she was dangerous.

The screen went blank.

Merritt leaned over her and whispered, “Now you know exactly how Paige died. I hope it gives you nightmares for the rest of your pathetic life.”

“You bastard,” she said between clenched teeth.

“I’ve had to live with that for five years. Watching the woman I love be raped and murdered. Because of you.”

She had been taking the blame for so many years that she almost said she was sorry. She
was
sorry because Paige didn’t deserve to die. None of the women Scott murdered had deserved that brutal end. But the truth was, she’d thought they went into that warehouse with full backup. She’d thought Merritt had sent in a full team. Paige had told her they were covered. She had had no reason to doubt it.

And Evan had come in, at the right moment.

But no one else had followed. Because there was no one else.

Had Evan followed them, fearing something was wrong? Had he died because he thought she and Paige had gone vigilante? Had he died thinking she’d crossed the line?

Evan had said something before he died. Something that had made no sense until now.

“It’s a setup, Kate. Get out.”

She’d always thought he’d meant Trask was setting them up.

She stared at Merritt. Maybe it was someone closer to home.

Why would Merritt want them dead? Was it her…or Paige? Or had he made a fatal mistake he was still trying to cover up? Or maybe it wasn’t a setup in the traditional sense, but Merritt’s own twisted way of proving to Paige she needed to quit field work.

Merritt suddenly stood. He tapped buttons on the DVD player and set Paige’s rape and murder to play on a loop. He pushed the machine out of her reach.

“Enjoy the show.”

Then he walked out.

THIRTY-ONE

K
ATE COULDN’T STOP
watching Paige’s murder. Even when she finally closed her eyes, she still heard the screams. The sound was worse than the visual because the terror and pain somehow sounded more real.

And even when she closed her eyes, she saw that knife come down repeatedly.

I’m sorry, Paige, I’m so sorry.

She laid her head on the table and sobbed. The recording was twenty-six minutes long. She’d watched it seven times. It had just started the eighth playback when the door opened.

“Kate?”

She looked up, her eyes blurry, unfocused.
Dillon.
Never had she been so grateful to see anyone.

He rushed to her side, glanced at the screen. His jaw tensed as he watched Adam Scott slice Paige’s neck. He slammed it closed, cutting off her scream.

“What’s going on, Kate?” He tried to pull her from the chair to hug her, noticed the handcuffs. “Kate?” He knelt in front of her, holding her damp face in his hands. She shook in his arms.

“How’d you get this?” he asked, trying to conceal the anger rippling through his body.

“M-Merritt brought it in.”

“When?”

“A couple hours ago.”

“Good Lord, Kate.” He held her. She leaned into him, wanting him to hold her close, closer.
Don’t leave me, Dillon.

“Why didn’t you call for someone, sweetheart?”

She closed her eyes, shook her head into his chest. Breathed in the warm, masculine scent of woodsy soap. “I guess I deserved it.”

Dillon held her at arm’s length. “Dammit, Kate, you don’t deserve it and you know it!”

Her lip quivered and he kissed it. Kissed her over and over. Held her close. Her heart rate began to return to normal.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she whispered.

“I need to get someone to take off these handcuffs. Will you be okay for a minute? Peterson is at his desk.”

She nodded, sniffed, tried and failed to smile to reassure him. He held her chin. “Kate, stop torturing yourself. Okay? What happened five years ago was a tragic accident. It wasn’t your fault.”

She nodded again, unable to talk. She took a deep breath and put her head back on the table.

“I’ll be right back,” Dillon said and ran out.

A pang hit her hard in the chest. Merritt’s words came back with a vengeance.

You had no one. Evan had been killed. Your grandparents were dead. No one knew where your mother was, or even who your father is. No siblings, few friends. Paige had everything! A family who loved her. Lots of friends. Me.

The loneliness of her life hit her hard. Dillon Kincaid was everything she wanted in a lover, everything she wanted in a man. But he also had a family, something she’d never really had and knew she wouldn’t fit into. How could she? She had no practice with people. No friends, no family. Growing up she’d been a loner. Not because she didn’t want to make friends, but because people thought she was odd.

And she was. She was a computer geek before computer geeks were fashionable. A tomboy well into her high school years. And when her grandparents died, the foster homes were a blur. She didn’t act up, but she moved every six months because of other problems. One woman had a job and was transferred out of state. Another couple needed room to keep a family of children together. An elderly woman died in her sleep.

Kate wanted a family, but every time she got attached, something happened. With Evan, she thought she had everything she wanted.

But he was dead, too.

Now she felt too old to learn how to be part of a family. Five years of virtual solitude didn’t make it any better.

Were these feelings for Dillon real? They’d been forged in adrenaline, in the hunt for a killer. When Adam Scott was found, could they have something? Something that lasted?

Kate didn’t know. But she didn’t want to let Dillon go. She was a loner, but she no longer wanted to be. She wanted to be with Dillon.

Quinn Peterson stormed in, Dillon on his heels.

“Merritt just nailed his coffin shut,” Quinn said, crossing over to her and using a master key to release her from the handcuffs.

“Paige was pregnant,” she said.

Quinn’s eyes flickered. “Merritt told me the other day.”

“I didn’t know.”

Dillon sat next to her, took her hands, and rubbed them in his. “You have to do something about Jeff Merritt,” Dillon told Quinn. “He can’t get away with doing this to her.”

“He won’t,” Quinn assured them. He ran a hand over his face and Kate realized he hadn’t slept the night before, either.

“Did something else happen?”

“I got a call at two in the morning that the police in Anacortes found a woman dead in her house. Paula Corbin. She’d been found by her sister who came by, worried because Paula wasn’t answering her cell phone or her house phone. The description matched the recording Scott sent to Kate, so I went out and confirmed that it was our gal. The FBI is working with the local police on collecting evidence.”

“What else?” Dillon asked.

“I talked with the head of the OPR this morning. She said that there’s paperwork missing from the Trask Enterprises investigation. Someone took them after the fact—there are references to certain documents that are nowhere to be found.”

“Why?”

“Because someone made a mistake.”

“Merritt.”

“Possibly.”

“Remember how I said Paige lied about the backup? I think Merritt lied. I think he was trying to scare her into quitting. Because she was pregnant.”

“But why would Merritt jeopardize her life if she were pregnant?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t think we were on to something. There were a lot of people who thought we were making a mountain out of a molehill, that April Klinger wasn’t dead and we were wasting resources.”

“That’s clear from the reports—in fact, that’s all that’s clear.”

“I have a copy of everything that’s supposed to be in those files,” Kate said.

“Where?”

“Mexico. I kept computerized files of all my reports out of habit. I have them all on CD.”

“I’ll send someone to retrieve them.”

“Someone trustworthy. If Merritt had anything to do with that sting going bad—”