Rising Heat (90 page)

“Tracy… Miss Whitcomb, I have some questions for you. I need to get your statement—”

I turned to look at Detective Cutter over my shoulder. “And what can I possibly add to what you saw last night at my house, Detective? Did I see anything? No. Did I hear anything? No.”

“Tracy, let me explain,” Hawk tried again.

I stood in front of him, my heart pounding with resentment and anger. After what we had done! After I’d let him do those things to me, and the things I’d done to him… my face flamed with heat, but whether it was from anger, embarrassment, or shame, I didn’t know. And at the moment, I didn’t care. I just wanted to get out of there. I needed to get away from all of them. None of them had done anything to help me.

I move toward the doorway once more. Hawk stepped in front of me and reached for me.

“Don’t touch me!” I snapped. I slapped his hand away and made to move once more around him. Again, he blocked my way to the door. I don’t know what came over me, but I balled up one fist and punched him right in the chest. It had no effect. I knew it wouldn’t, but I’d done it on impulse. “Get out of my way!”

“Tracy, where are you going?”

“I have no idea!” He reached for my arm, but I pulled away. “Don’t come near me. You’d rather go out and drink with your buddies than do your job, fine with me. You’re fired!”

This time, I did manage to step past him. Both Detectives Cutter and Westin protested, urging me to wait, to not act rashly. I ignored them both.

“Tracy, what are you going to do? Where are you going?” Hawk asked.

I paused in the doorway and glanced up at him. I was so angry my voice shook. “I don’t know. I’m going home to pack a suitcase, and then I’m going to get the hell away from here.”

“Tracy, don’t—”

“Miss Whitcomb, please, come sit down—”

All three of them were talking at once. I didn’t want to hear any of it. All I wanted to do was to escape, to get away from here, away from the pain, the sense of betrayal and hurt I felt. I had no idea where I was going, and for the moment, it didn’t matter.

I left the station in a hurry, leaving a trail of startled, curious glances from police officers in the bullpen staring after me. I didn’t give a damn. I quickly hurried to my truck, opened it and climbed in, trying to halt the tears that threatened to spill. I thought it was rather amazing that I would have any tears left to shed.

I started the truck and pulled out of the lot, glancing in the rearview mirror as I did so. Hawk rushed through the front door, calling after me. I pulled onto the highway and furiously blinked back the tears that, despite my efforts, streamed down my cheeks. A sob caught in my throat.

Seconds later, my phone rang. Thinking it was Hawk, I pulled it out of my pocket, answering it without even glancing at the screen. “I told you to leave me alone! I don’t want to—”

I heard a low rumble of laughter on the other end. I nearly slammed on my brakes as I pulled off the road and into the parking area of an auto parts store. I glanced down at the phone screen. Caller ID blocked. It was him.

“What the hell do you want from me?” I screamed into the phone.

Another chuckle, low and creepy. “
My heart’s desire.”

The call disconnected.

M
y heart pounded so loud in my ears that I couldn’t hear anything else. I stared unseeing through the windshield, sitting in the parking lot of the auto parts store, my ears ringing. Oh my God. How had he found the phone number to my throwaway phone? How was that possible? Should I call Hawk? I sat frozen, trembling as I held the flip-top phone, still open, in my hand.

The sound of that voice, like the image of the police officer’s slashed throat, would remain with me forever. It sounded as if he were speaking through a mask or filter or something had been used to distort his voice. It was slow, gravelly, deep, and filled with evil. That’s the only way I could think of the sound of the voice. Pure evil.

I wanted to call Hawk. The detectives. Somebody. But who could I trust? At this point, I didn’t think I could trust Hawk or Detective Westin. Cutter? He would tell both of them, I had no doubt about that. One was his partner, the other his friend. Their background and the animosity between Hawk and Westin was only going to distract each of them, no matter how much they protested that it wouldn’t. How could it not?

While Cutter seemed sincere, he had to partner with Westin, and I was right back to the situation between Westin and Hawk. I felt sick. Wanted to retch, but I had nothing in my stomach. It felt like a hard knot. I felt a migraine starting, those funny spots and squiggles in front of my eyes. I moaned. Not now. Of all times to get a migraine, not now! I usually took a pill when I started to feel the first symptoms of a migraine, but dammit, they were in my medicine cabinet at the house. There is no way I was going back there, at least not now anyway.

So was that it? I was on my own now?

My heart’s desire.

What the hell did that mean? Was he saying that I was his heart’s desire because he wanted me, to have me, to possess me; because he thought he was in love with me? Or had he said those words because he wanted to kill me? To slash my throat like he did the police officer? Because he desired to rape me and stab me like he had the other two women? Or maybe he would take his time and strangle me with a ligature, like he had done to that poor old woman. I hoped to God she’d died of a heart attack before he could torment her.

I needed to calm down, to think of a plan. The problem was I didn’t have one. The day was only a couple hours old now, and once again I was scared to death. How long could a person be scared like this and continue to function? How long would it be before I had a good old-fashioned nervous breakdown?

At this point, I didn’t even care about my job anymore. I didn’t care if I went broke. I didn’t care if I lost my business. I wanted to get away, to disappear, but I needed money to do that, didn’t I?

Should I dare call my sister and mother out west? Have them wire some money to me for a bus, train, or airplane ticket somewhere? I didn’t care. If the killer had managed to get this phone number — a number the fucking police couldn’t even get — I had to wonder.

Was he a technical guru? After all, he’d located my website. Found out my name. Knew things he shouldn’t know. But how?

I continued to sit in my truck, the shoulds and woulds and coulds going round and round in my head. My headache was getting worse. My lips felt numb and my fingertips tingled. I should find a place that was secluded, park for a while so that I could rest, hope that my migraine would go away on its own.

I shifted the truck back into drive and pulled away from the auto parts store. I meandered through town, not looking for anything in particular, but watching carefully for a tail. Then I pulled into a grocery parking lot, drove behind the building, and there, by a back fence, I saw several shaded parking spaces.

Maybe this would do, at least for a little while. I carefully inspected the area. Deserted. A couple of large green trash receptacles, a truck container backed up to the loading bay of the grocery store, but no cab attached to it. A butterfly flitted in front of my window.

It was turning out to be a pleasant, warm day, but none of that mattered. I pulled into the shade, looked around again, and then, making sure that my doors were locked, I leaned my head against the headrest and closed my eyes.

The pressure in my head was building, but I tried to relax every muscle, especially the muscles around my eyes and my jaw. I forced myself to breathe slowly, taking in plenty of oxygen. I fought back a surge of nausea, tried to slow my heartbeat through will alone. Even though I tried not to think, I couldn’t shut off my mind. I couldn’t block the image of Hawk standing in that doorway, bruised and with dried blood on the cut over the bridge of his nose and his bottom lip.

I still couldn’t believe it. Of all the rotten timing. I knew I should call the detectives and let them know about the phone call. I would. Just not yet. I’d have to get a new phone, for all the good that would do me. For a second, I felt I couldn’t do anything without the killer knowing about it.

Why was he so fixated on me? And, God forbid, if he did get his hands on me, what was he going to do? I got a feeling that this was nothing but a game to him. A scary, horrifying, and potentially deadly game. But why? I was acting like anyone else who was being stalked, wasn’t I? I’d reported it to the police. When they suggested a P.I., I hired one. So what had I done to get this guy so focused on me? I hadn’t behaved out of the ordinary. Had I?

I hadn’t ignored the situation, hadn’t tried from the get-go to figure out who it was. Was that what he wanted? Did he want me actively searching for him? Would that be feeding into his fantasy or was it something he didn’t expect from me? Did he think I was an easy target and he was trying to liven up the game a little bit?

I opened my eyes. The squiggles were gone, but my lips and fingertips still felt numb and tingly. When I felt like this, I usually put a warm washcloth over my eyes and hid in the darkness of my closet… but I had no washcloth, no closet to hide in.

Parked in the shade, I wondered what I could do to help myself. Running to my family was out of the question. For one, I didn’t want to lead the bastard to any of my family. Still, maybe getting out of Seneca would be a good idea. I knew I had enough money to rent a car, at least for a few days. Maybe if I hid my truck and rented a car, I would throw my pursuer off track. The more I thought about it, the better I like the idea. But how would I do it?

And what did I hope to gain? Time? More time for the police to find him? More time for me? I didn’t know. Was my idea foolish or sensible? I wanted someone to tell me, but I had no one. I truly felt that I was on my own now.

I waited in the shade behind the grocery store for about an hour. When I was able to look and not squint my eyes in pain at the light shimmering off the grocery store or the truck parked behind it, I started my truck and looked at the dashboard clock. It was just after ten o’clock.

There was something I could do, something proactive. A place I could go where a killer would not dare to attack me. Besides, I had something I needed to look up.

I pulled out of the parking space. I still had a whopper of a headache, but the worst of it seemed to have passed. Before I even considered leaving town, I would have to go home and pack a few things, and my migraine medication. I had a feeling I’d be needing it.

Anyway, for now, I had one thought on my mind. I drove to the public library, parked as close to the front door as I could, and then casually got out of my truck, locking the doors behind me. Shoving the keys in my pocket, I headed for the front door.

The minute I walked inside, I was taken back to my childhood, to the local neighborhood library. That one had had a strange, musty smell. Not just from old books, but old carpeting, old furniture. It was a hard aroma to describe. Not exactly distasteful, just different. This library wasn’t large. As soon as I walked in the door and through the sliding glass windows inside the foyer, I saw the checkout desk to my left. Children’s section to the right, fiction and nonfiction on either side of the main room. In the rear, tucked in front of the back wall were several shelves with a desk in front of them. The reference section.

I walked up to the reference desk, where a pleasant looking older woman with spiked gray hair highlighted with dark blue tips ceased tapping on her computer keyboard and looked up at me with a friendly smile.

“Can I help you?”

After I got over the surprise of seeing her hair, I nodded. “Do you have anything in the reference section about tarot cards?”

She stared at me for a moment, obviously taken aback. I elaborated. “What I’m looking for specifically is the meaning of the cards, and something that might show images of what the cards look like.”

She turned back to her computer. “Let me check.” Her fingers danced across the keyboard and a moment later, she nodded.

“Yes, we have several.”

She wrote down the reference numbers and handed me the slip of paper. I thanked her and then moved around the desk, searching the ends of the shelves for the range of reference numbers I needed. I felt her eyes on me the entire time.

After a minute or two of searching, I found the books I needed and pulled out all three of them before finding a small table against a wall, halfway between the reference section and the last of many shelves containing nonfiction books.

I opened the first book on tarot cards, disappointed that there didn’t seem to be that many images. Long, drawn-out explanations of what tarot cards were, how they were used, blah, blah, blah. I put that book aside and opened the second. More images in this one, with the card names underneath.

Oh my goodness, who knew? I’d never really been interested in tarot. Sure, like many, I had visited a psychic or two in my life, and even one tarot card reader. I hadn’t really paid close attention to the cards, but what the psychic said as she turned each one over. I always wondered how it really worked. I didn’t believe in it, not really, but looking through this book, reading a paragraph or two at a time, I was amazed that there was so much history behind it. So many different cards too.

I scrolled through one page at a time. The Fool. The High Priestess. The Tower. The Ace through the Ten of Cups, and then the Pentacles cards, the Swords cards, followed by the Wands.

I don’t know how long I sat there, distracted by all the different cards, curious despite my intended focus on finding the information about one particular card. The Wheel of Fortune. I finally looked in the index of the second book, found a reference to that specific card and turned to the page.

Dammit. A very small image that I could barely make out; a black and white print, no color. The colors on the tarot card that had been left under my windshield wiper had been vibrant, clean, and probably new. That left me with another thought. Where did you find tarot cards? Where did you buy them? Was there a shop in town that sold them? Would the killer dare buy them in person? Or would he have ordered them over the Internet?