Grace Among Thieves (21 page)

Something deep within me responded, and I melted against him, our lips meeting in a slow, gentle caress. His hands came up around my back, drawing me closer, tighter. We kissed slowly, longingly, until neither could take the breathtaking pressure another moment. “Let’s go inside,” I said hoarsely.

As was my habit, I snapped on the kitchen light as we entered, mostly to ensure that Bootsie didn’t run out. But she wasn’t in the kitchen.

“I don’t think so,” Mark said. He shut the door behind us and turned the lights off again. “I like it much better like this, don’t you?”

He took me into his arms again, and for the first time in a very long time I felt what it was to be needed, desired, cared for. Mark took his time kissing, trailing warm lips along my neck, running his hands down along the inside of my upturned arms to settle on my waist. He pulled away and we were both out of breath.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do that?” he asked.

I rested my head against his chest as I curled a finger around his neck. “Me too.”

“Is there . . .” He broke away slightly. “Somewhere more comfortable?”

“My room is upstairs.”

I took his hand and led him through the dining room into the parlor, planning to make a quick right toward the steps. The two tall windows flanking the fireplace sent eerie tree-branch shadows across the floor. Even though I could make out the furniture with all the lights off, I walked gingerly. “I don’t want to trip over Bootsie,” I said in a whisper.

He whispered back, “I’m hoping to meet your little rascal, you know.” He waited a beat. “But not right this minute.”

“No, not right this minute.”

I turned around to smile . . . and screamed.

Chapter 21

“WHAT? WHAT?” MARK ASKED.

I grabbed his arm, pointing. “There, in the window. He’s here.”

Mark ran over to the window to the left of the fireplace. He cupped his hands around his eyes and stared out into the night. “I don’t see anything.”

“It was him,” I said, words spilling out so fast my breath caught. “The guy from the hotel. From Amethyst Cellars. The one I took a picture of. He was staring in.”

Mark turned, looking worried. “There are a lot of tree branches overhead. Do you think you may have seen a shadow?”

“I saw his face.”

“Okay,” he said, starting for the door. “Let me take a look.”

“Don’t go outside,” I shouted. “I’m calling the police.”

Mark took both my hands. “What kind of a man would I be if I didn’t at least go out and check?”

I pulled my hands away, knowing seconds counted. I ran for the house phone—the one I knew would give the 911 operators my address the moment the phone made contact—and begged him not to go outside. “He’s the killer, Mark. Don’t. Please don’t.” I pulled up the cordless handset and hoped to heaven the line hadn’t been cut. A dial tone. Thank goodness.

I flicked on the lights and shouted for Bootsie.

The dispatcher’s unemotional greeting helped calm me. “The Marshfield killer is outside my house,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice steady. I gripped the phone with both hands and spoke as slowly as I could manage. “The killer is here. He’s trying to get in.”

Bootsie meandered upstairs from the basement and wound between my legs, arching as though to scratch an itch. I picked her up and held her tight.

Mark had opened the front door and stepped outside. Watching him disappear through the gaping maw into the night terrified me more than I could say. I wanted to run out there after him, yet at the same time I wanted to stay on the phone with the dispatcher until help arrived. “Tell Detective Rodriguez,” I said, “and Detective Flynn.”

Her monotone voice and unruffled demeanor continued to soothe me more than anything could, but all I could do was stare at the open front door and listen to my heart speed beat.

“We have a car in the area,” she said. “They should be there very soon.”

“Please hurry.” I hung up.

I ran for the front door as Mark came back in. His mouth was set in a grim line. “Are you okay?” He looked as though he wanted to take me into his arms, but I held Bootsie for dear life and he gave a sad smile. “I’m glad she’s safe.”

“What did you see? The police are on their way.”

He nodded. “I didn’t see anything, or anyone. Whoever might have been out there is long gone.”

Even though that meant the killer had eluded our grasp, I was glad. “Thank God you weren’t hurt,” I said. “He knows you can recognize him.”

Mark wrapped an arm around me, careful to not squeeze Bootsie. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

I broke away and tried to smile up at him. “I’m fine.” I took a deep breath, willing my pulse to slow, my heart to stop racing. I scratched Bootsie’s neck and behind her ears but I could tell she was getting antsy.

Sirens sounded in the distance, and moments later heavy treads landed on my front porch. “Police,” they called.

Two uniformed officers introduced themselves, listened to what I had to say, and then questioned Mark about what he might have seen outside. “You should not have gone after the intruder,” they told him.

He shrugged it off. “I had to.”

The two officers made a circuit of the house, searching outside first and then returning indoors, as Rodriguez and Flynn pulled up. They were surprised to see Mark with me. I excused myself to put Bootsie in the basement again. “I’m sorry, honey,” I said as I shut the door, “but I can’t risk you running out.” She gave me a disdainful look, a silent rebuke for taking her away from the excitement, but it couldn’t be helped. Her safety was the most important consideration right now. Rodriguez came up beside me as I made sure the door closed all the way.

He lifted deep-set eyes to indicate Mark, who was talking with Flynn, across the room. “Are the two of you seeing each other socially?”

I admitted we were. “It’s still pretty new.”

“I imagine,” he said dryly.

“He and I had just gotten back from dinner, but Mark didn’t see the guy’s face. I did,” I said. “It was the same man from the hotel and from the wine shop. I recognized him right away.”

“By your own account, you said your glance was fleeting.”

Was he doubting me? “So?”

“Do you think it’s possible that your fears are making you skittish? That you may have only thought you saw the man in the window?”

“Why don’t you believe me?”

Rodriguez rubbed his chin. “Ms. Wheaton, with your history, we can’t help but believe you. The thing is, Flynn and I were out front here minutes before you allegedly saw the man. We were watching your house.”

“You were?”

He nodded. “Nothing amiss. Nobody walking by. Complete quiet. We must have taken off a minute before you got home. We’d decided to take a break and get some food when the call came in.”

“How can that be?”

“He’s either very good at avoiding detection or you didn’t see anything after all.” Before I could protest, he added, “No one is blaming you. If I were in your shoes I’d be scared out of my mind, too.”

Bruce and Scott arrived home to chaos. “What’s going on?” Scott asked. “Where’s Bootsie?”

“She’s fine,” I said, tapping the basement door, “but I know she’d love it if you picked her up and gave her some attention. I’m sure she’s confused right now. All these people.”

Before they could rescue the kitten, Mark approached. Flynn had turned his attention to another matter, thereby freeing Mark to return to my side. He extended a hand to Bruce first, then Scott, introducing himself. “What a shame to meet under these circumstances,” Bruce said.

As we explained everything that had happened, Scott grabbed Bootsie from the basement. “She’s a little rambunctious tonight,” I said. “She doesn’t want to be carried around.”

“No problem,” he said and pulled out her harness and leash. We’d tried taking her outside on the leash, once. Ears flattened, she’d belly crawled along the driveway, as though looking for a place to hide. She wasn’t terribly fond of being tethered, or of being controlled via the harness, so we’d never tried it again. But tonight I was glad we had the option.

Flynn pulled me into the adjacent dining room, where he and Rodriguez asked me a few more questions. “One thing doesn’t ring true with your story,” Flynn said, adopting that condescending tone he was so fond of. “There’s no illumination in that part of your property.” He gestured toward the windows in the next room, where Mark was retelling the sequence of events to Bruce and Scott. “I put one of our guys out there and I stood right where you said you were standing.”

He walked into the parlor and turned sideways. “When I look out I see nothing. I even told my guy to cup his hands around his eyes and press up against the glass. At that point I could make out that he was there, but there was no way to recognize his face.”

I waited for him to finish. “Were the lights on in this room?”

“Of course.”

“They weren’t when we were in here,” I said, “maybe you should try your experiment again.”

“Why were the lights off?” Flynn asked angrily. He must have answered his own question because he flushed bright red and stormed away, calling for assistance.

While Flynn re-created his little experiment, Mark, the boys, and I took up a position in the kitchen to wait. “Can I get anyone anything?”

Bruce made me sit. “We’re the ones who should be waiting on you,” he said.

Mark didn’t want to sit. He paced. “I don’t like this,” he said. “I want to get out there and find this guy. Rip his head off.”

Scott and Bruce exchanged a look that Mark didn’t see, but which I read as approval.

“Listen, Mark, I think the police are finished talking with you. Why don’t you head back? There’s not much else either of us can do,” I said.

He stopped pacing long enough to look at me. Rubbing both hands up his face and into his hair, he said, “You’re probably right. Walk me to the car?”

The place was teeming with police inside and out so I didn’t worry about the killer jumping into the fray to have another go at me. “Sure.”

We made it to the driver’s side of Mark’s rental car. “I’m really sorry about all this.”

“Not your fault,” he said. He pulled me into a hug. “But I do want to ask you something. It’s hard for me to put it into words . . .” I tried to pull back to see his face, but he kept me close to his chest. “Do you think we were rushing things?”

I didn’t answer immediately. “Maybe.”

“Don’t get mad at me, Grace.”

“For what?”

“What I’m about to say.” He breathed in deeply, then said, “I think it’s possible that you
thought
you saw the killer. I turned the minute you screamed and I didn’t see anyone there.”

I tried pulling back again, but he held tight.

“Just listen,” he said. “Maybe, just maybe, you didn’t want to take that next step and your subconscious invented a distraction.”

This time I pulled away hard enough to make him let go. “Absolutely not.”

His eyes were sad. “Okay, I believe you.” But I could tell he didn’t. He got into his car and rolled down the window. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Chapter 22

AFTER REPLAYING OUR LAST CONVERSATION in my head all night, I wasn’t quite ready to talk to Mark Sunday morning, so I wandered around the house, nervously checking the front and back doors and every single window to ensure I wasn’t being watched.

Scott and Bruce had already gone in to Amethyst Cellars, but only after they’d argued at length about one of them staying home with me. I knew their income was tied directly to how much business they brought in and that every minute at the store counted. As did every customer. Both of them needed to be there, so I shooed them out with the promise that I’d stay safe.

Bootsie followed me around from room to room until even she grew bored of my impatience and promptly fell asleep on the couch.

I decided enough was enough and pulled up the phone book to look up Larry the locksmith’s number again. He wasn’t thrilled with my Sunday-morning phone call.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’ve got my grandkid’s first birthday party this afternoon. Besides, I haven’t even been able to order the parts yet. Nothing I can do until they arrive. Remember, as long as you make sure the door is secure, you’re fine. It’s when it doesn’t catch that you might have a problem.”

The logical part of my brain that didn’t lend weight to the scary noises I heard every five minutes, reminded me that I had plenty of work to do. But Tooney’s and Flynn’s words haunted me. There was a missing piece to this puzzle. A big one.

Why did the killer appear to be targeting me? Why had he followed me to the wine shop, and why had he spied on me here at home? It didn’t make sense. He had gotten into Marshfield, stolen a few items, and gotten away with it. Whether he’d intended to kill Lenore and Mark was beside the point. He was wanted for murder and attempted murder. There was no good reason for him to stay in town.

Unless his job wasn’t finished.

The thought popped into my brain again. I paced, mulling it over. What could be left for him to do? And how on earth did I figure into it? I remembered Nadia telling me that there had been a series of smaller robberies before the big one. Our early robberies had triggered the decision to reschedule the DVD filming to hours when the mansion was closed. If, by making that change I’d thwarted the killer’s plan for a bigger haul, he could be seeking vengeance. Still, getting away with murder ought to trump any aspirations for doing me harm. At least it would in my world. But then again, I didn’t think like a criminal.

I stopped pacing, heart in my throat. Would Lenore still be alive if I hadn’t changed the schedule? The thought that I may have played an unintentional role in her murder made it difficult for me to swallow. Even more, it made me determined to do whatever I could to bring the killer to justice.

Pacing again, I remembered the idea I’d come up with at dinner last night and decided not to wait until Monday to send Nadia the photo. Who knows, maybe she occasionally came into her offices at the Kane Estate on weekends, the way I did. No matter, I could at least get things moving on my end. I had to. Maybe then I’d feel as though I was doing something worthwhile.

“Duh,” I said aloud as a new thought occurred to me. I’d texted the photo to Rodriguez and to Tooney, but I hadn’t sent it to my home or work computers where it would be easy to pop it into an e-mail.

Bootsie was lying on her back in one of the parlor’s wing chairs, her rear white paws braced up against one arm, her body curled outward toward the seat, one paw over her nose. She opened her eyes for a moment to see if I’d been talking to her. Assured I wasn’t, she closed them again.

I raced over to my purse and pulled it up from its spot hanging over the back of one of our kitchen chairs. All I needed to do was send the photo to myself, either to my computer here at home or to the one at work. Then I’d be able to forward.

I opened the Velcro strap that kept my phone in place, so engrossed in thinking about this new possibility that I didn’t look down until my fingers came up empty. The phone was gone. I straightened, remaining in place as I scanned the room, trying to remember when I’d used it last.

I looked under the table, on the countertop. I checked every horizontal surface in the room and in the dining room. Nothing.

I thought about having dialed 911 last night, but I’d done that from the house phone. The boys and I had made the decision to maintain a landline despite the added expense. This morning I’d called Larry the locksmith. Again from the house phone.

Why not use it again? I picked up the kitchen receiver and dialed my cell, walking into the parlor to listen for its ring. But the house was completely quiet.

Wait. I snapped my fingers. Yesterday I’d e-mailed the photo to Tooney while I was getting ready to go out. I might not be able to hear it from here. I bolted up the stairs to look for it, getting halfway up before I remembered pulling it out at dinner to show the photo to Mark. I also distinctly remembered returning the device to my purse. But I’d done so without looking. Could I have dropped it instead?

I immediately looked up the phone number for Bailey’s and called. Their recording informed me that they wouldn’t open until three o’clock. “Great,” I said aloud.

The only other possibility was that I might have lost it in Mark’s car. It had to have fallen out at some point, and I closed my eyes trying to remember. When I’d gotten into the passenger seat on the way back from Bailey’s I’d put my purse down by my feet. When I’d grabbed it again at home, it had been upside down. I’d righted it immediately, but had never thought to double check for my phone.

I growled my displeasure and started for the house phone to call Mark.

That’s when I realized I didn’t know his cell phone number. I’d programmed it into my own cell but had never made the effort to memorize it.

This was turning out to be one of
those
mornings, wasn’t it?

“Fine,” I said to no one.

I lugged the phone book up again, thinking about how Bruce, Scott, and I had debated even keeping the thing, but I’d won out. This time I turned to the residential pages; I was certain I’d find a landline for the listing I sought. Scanning down the page with my fingers I read . . . yes, there!

Tooney, Ronald, and his phone number.

He picked up after one ring, saying, “Grace?” with puzzlement in his voice. “Is anything wrong?”

I explained about my lost cell phone and the fact that I didn’t have Mark’s number memorized. He asked, “Why don’t you call him at the Marshfield Hotel? He’s still staying there, isn’t he?”

I could have smacked myself in the head. “Good idea. In the meantime, do you remember that photo I sent you? The one I took at Amethyst Cellars?”

He didn’t need me to explain. “What do you need me to do?”

Wanting to get off the phone in a hurry so I could reach Mark at the hotel, I decided not to tell Tooney the story of my visitor last night. “Could you send me the photo?” I rattled off my e-mail address even though I knew he already had it.

“Sure,” he said and I heard clacking in the background. “Doing it right now.”

“Thanks, Tooney. I owe ya.”

“Done. Hey, don’t forget I’ll be going around to the secondhand stores first thing tomorrow,” he said. “The minute I hear anything I’ll let you know.”

“I appreciate that.”

After we hung up I opened Tooney’s e-mail. I was about to send it to Nadia at Kane, when I had another idea. I could ask Corbin to take a look at the photo, too. With all the filming they’d been doing at the manor—including the day of the murder—one of his team may have caught the culprit on film. It was a long shot but worth pursuing.

Why hadn’t I thought of that sooner? Yesterday’s fright had left me more frazzled and scatterbrained than I’d realized. Unfortunately, I didn’t have Corbin’s number here at home. It was, again, on my cell phone.

I stood, clenching my fists for a long moment to try to regain control.

I dialed the Marshfield Hotel and asked for Mark’s room. No answer, but our hotel offered a high-tech messaging system so I left a voicemail asking him to call me at home. “I may have lost my phone in your car last night. Would you mind taking a look? Here’s my home phone number. I’ll be here all . . .” I thought quickly and changed my mind. “I’ll be here for a little while longer, then I’m heading into Marshfield for a bit. Here’s my number there.”

I hung up, blew my bangs out of my face, and decided to head out.

Flynn appeared on the driveway as I pulled my back door closed. “You get that lock fixed yet?”

“I’ll spare you the boring details, but Larry the locksmith can’t get to it for a few more days.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’d think a town this size could afford more than one locksmith.”

“He said it requires special parts.”

Flynn made a noise of disgust. “An excuse to overcharge, I’m sure.” He watched me secure the back door and walked me to my car. “Where are you going now?”

“Marshfield. I thought of a few more people I want to show that photo to.”

“Stay out of trouble.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

WHEN I SAT BEHIND MY DESK AT MARSHFIELD I finally relaxed. I felt safe here, safer than I did at home. I doubted the killer would skulk around my house during daylight hours, but as a precaution, I’d set up a soft bed for Bootsie in the basement with her litter box, food, and water all handy. The house would be vacant until I got home tonight and I didn’t want to take any chances.

Within moments of my arrival, I’d located Nadia’s contact information, sent off a concise, clear e-mail explaining what had gone on, and asked her to take a look at the attached photo. I decided to do the same with Corbin. I checked my files, pulled up his phone number, and was delighted when he answered on the second ring.

“I hope I’m not bothering you, Corbin,” I began.

“On the contrary, you’re just the person I wanted to talk to.”

“What about?”

“You first,” he said.

I explained about the photo I’d taken and asked if he wouldn’t mind having a look. “You never know. He may have shown up in some of the guest footage you shot before we changed schedules.”

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll get my guys to take a look at that picture of yours on one condition.”

Warily I asked, “Condition?”

“I’ve got a free afternoon and I still need to film you and Bennett.” He hesitated. “And Hillary, if you two don’t mind. The shutdown last week screwed up our schedule and time is so tight it’s squeaking. If I can get you three together today I can cross at least one big task off my list.”

“I don’t really think I belong in the Marshfield video—”

“Not my decision. Not yours either, from what I gather. I’ll get back to you. Stay put.”

The phone rang seconds after I’d returned the receiver to its cradle. It couldn’t be Corbin. A glance at the caller ID let me know it came from within the Marshfield property. “Grace Wheaton,” I answered.

“Grace,” Mark said. “I got your message. I am so sorry. I’ve been on the phone all morning.”

“Everything okay?”

“No,” he said, making my heart sink. “Problems back home. One of my employees called. I may have been the victim of identity theft.”

This was too much of a coincidence. “You don’t think it’s tied to what’s going on here, do you?”

“I don’t know what to think. All I know is that I have to get this squared away. I can’t reach my bank today because they’re closed. I can’t access my accounts online because I’m blocked. It’s like someone changed all my passwords.”

“Oh my gosh, Mark. I’m so sorry.”

“I promise to check for your phone as soon as I can,” he said.

“Do
not
make that a priority. Take care of yourself first, okay?”

“My head is swimming,” he said. “I’ll keep you updated.”

When we hung up I felt worse than I had before. How could so much bad luck happen like this all at once?

I wasn’t able to ponder long. The phone rang again. Corbin. “Bennett and Hillary can’t make it until tomorrow. We’re meeting at eleven. Can I count on you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”