SEE HER DIE (9 page)

This was about Ned Harrison.

He was sure of it He’d felt that nudge at the Bumbalough crime scene, but now it was more than a mere nudge. Someone had murdered Ned Harrison and now appeared bent on killing his patients. But why? What did Vanessa Bumbalough and Deana Dell have to do with anything? Why these two patients? What did they have in common besides Harrison?

Those were the answers he needed.

The possibility that these two women would not be the last abruptly surfaced in the flood of scenarios crashing into his consciousness.

Elizabeth
.

She had been Harrison’s patient and lover. Had attended his funeral.

A cold hard fist of fear jammed into Mac’s gut. She might very well be hiding the answer to all this and not know it. He thought of the video of Elizabeth Young and then the ones of the two dead women. Was it simply being a patient of Harrison’s that marked these women for death, or was it the videos? Each one had likely already been viewed by the Gentlemen’s Association, whose membership was spread out across the country like a disease building toward an epidemic. It could be any one of those sick bastards. If someone high enough in the Association had realized that Harrison was under federal surveillance, his death may have been ordered.

But why the women?

There had to be something more.

And somehow Elizabeth Young was the key. He was certain of it. Whether or not she was guilty of murder, she most likely needed protection.

He motioned for Duncan to step into the hallway with him.

Once out of earshot of the crime scene techs and any of Brannigan’s men, he said quietly, “I want you to go straight to Elizabeth Young’s apartment and stay there until I relieve you.”

Duncan frowned. “But what about—”

“Go now.” Urgency had tied his gut in knots. He didn’t want her alone. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

None too pleased to have to give up a crime scene for a simple stakeout, Duncan nodded and headed out without further argument He had a lot to learn, but he never failed to follow orders.

Relaxing a fraction, Mac returned to the master bedroom where the ME was preparing to remove Deana Dell’s body. The ordeal to come would serve as further violation and injustice to her physical remains, but, hopefully, it would help identify her murderer.

She and Vanessa Bumbalough were the only witnesses they had so far and both were dead.

~*~

Elizabeth climbed out of the tub, quickly dried off and wrapped a clean white towel around her. She felt better already. She’d needed that long, steamy soak. Deciding a cup of hot cocoa was in order, she padded into the kitchen. As she poured the milk into the pan to warm, she attempted to block all thoughts of Agent MacBride.

But she failed miserably.

If he forced the issue, she would have no choice but to take the stupid polygraph test. It was too late to call her attorney, but she knew if she refused the test, it would be taken as a sign of guilt.

She was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t.

When she thought about the way MacBride had looked at her lips, heat swirled inside her. Her fingers instinctively went there, tracing her mouth, her mind struggling with the question of why he would have looked at her that way. As if he wanted to kiss her, as if he was attracted to her. But that was impossible. He only wanted one thing.

To solve his case at her expense.

All this surveillance crap was nothing but intimidation. Her attorney had confirmed her suspicions, but she hadn’t really needed him to. She’d already been down this road.

It was these other feelings that worried her. She hadn’t been attracted to a man sexually since Brian. Sure she’d had an affair with Ned, but that had been about pure physical release and nothing more. She’d needed someone in that way to prove it hadn’t been her fault that Brian dumped her. Ned had known it and he’d taken advantage of her vulnerability.

But this was different. This was overwhelming. Maybe it was nothing but a combination of all the events that had befallen her in the past year. The stress was making her crazy. She needed someone to take care of her. She was so damned tired. And Agent MacBride was strong and had that take-charge mentality down to a science.

She poured her warm milk into a cup and slowly stirred in the cocoa and sugar. All this time she’d been telling herself she could make it on her own. That she didn’t need anyone to support her.

Dammit, she didn’t. She was doing fine. If she hadn’t gotten behind on her schedule with all this insanity surrounding Ned’s murder, she would be fine, financially and otherwise.

She did not need anyone taking care of her. She was strong and self-reliant. She always had been.

This too would pass and she’d be fine again. That was her mantra of late. She sipped her cocoa and wandered into the living room. It wasn’t as if it was the first time she’d been faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles to overcome.

Feeling a little more relaxed, she set her cocoa on the table next to the sofa and clicked on the television. She might as well catch the news before she hit the sack. Although it was April and the weather was pretty good for this time of year, a sudden winter storm wasn’t unheard of. When self-employed, you had to stay on top of anything that might set the work schedule back.

Before she could sit down, her telephone rang. She answered on the second ring. “Hello.” A beat of silence, then the distinctive click of the party at the other end of the line hanging up.

“Jerk,” she muttered. She hated telemarketers. Why the hell would they call so late? And when they did, they always wanted to speak to Mr. Young, assuming the man of the house would be more receptive to their pitch. She’d tried to tell previous callers there was no Mr. Young, but they didn’t seem to believe her. Apparently the new way to handle the situation was to simply hang up when a female answered the phone.

“There ought to be a law against it,” she hissed.

Then she remembered. The
law
was too busy intimidating innocent people like her.

She was so caught up in her law-bashing session that the knock on the door made her jump. Renewed anger claimed her. If MacBride was knocking on her door in the middle of the night Mrs. Polk would not be happy. The elderly woman didn’t want anyone living above her who partied or who had late-night guests. Elizabeth couldn’t blame her. She was an old woman who supplemented her income by renting out her unused upstairs. She didn’t need any additional turmoil in her life. Who did?

Too furious to think rationally, she went in search of her robe, then stomped over to the door in her bare feet, unlocked it and jerked it open.

The tiny landing atop the private rear stairs stood empty. She stared out over the narrow alleyway that separated Mrs. Polk’s small frame house from her neighbor’s. The moonlight that managed to penetrate the darkness and surrounding trees provided little in the way of illumination. Elizabeth blinked and looked again. Nothing. She stepped out onto the landing and squinted into the darkness to survey the steep set of stairs leading to the drive where her truck was parked. Nothing. No one.

Had she imagined the knock? There’d been only one. Maybe a passing car backfired.

She heaved a sigh, evidently more exhausted than she’d realized.

After closing and locking the door, she had another thought. What if the jerk had called and knocked on her door just to make sure she was home? Maybe MacBride was worried she’d skip town.

Indignation burst inside her. She strode to the front window and stared down at the street. A dark sedan sat at the curb directly across the expanse of pavement from the house.

“Damn you.” If she hadn’t taken the time to find her robe she would have been at the door in time to catch him and tell him just what she thought of his mind games.

A smile slid across her face. She let the curtain fall back into place and rushed to find her purse. Dumping the contents, she rifled through the mess until she found MacBride’s card.

She’d punched in the number and heard the first ring before she allowed the second thoughts to surface. When she would have hung up, he answered.

“MacBride.”

Renewed fury flared inside her. “Look, you pompous jerk, I don’t appreciate being harassed in the middle of the night.”

“Elizabeth?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she went on. “I can’t stop you from watching my house or my job site, but I will not tolerate you calling and hanging up, or knocking on my door and then disappearing. Just leave me alone!”

Before Mac could ask what the hell she was talking about, she hung up. He replayed her words. Someone had apparently called her and hung up and then knocked on her door and disappeared.

Why the hell would Duncan do anything as ridiculous as that? If he’d wanted to ensure the suspect was indeed at home, he should have asked when he called, not hung up.

Something dark and foreboding crawled up Mac’s spine. He put through a call to Duncan’s cell and held his breath until his partner answered.

“Duncan.”

The noise in the background made Mac frown. Horns blowing. People arguing. “Duncan, what the hell’s going on? Elizabeth Young—”

“I was just about to call you,” Duncan shouted into the phone. “I’ve been in a little fender bender. I’m trying to talk the investigating officer into releasing me now.”

He wasn’t even at Elizabeth’s house.

Mac’s blood ran cold. Then who the hell knocked on her door?

Chapter Six

Despite driving like a bat out of hell and zooming through the Lincoln Tunnel, which would have been impossible had it not been the middle of the night, it still took Mac far longer to reach Leonia and Elizabeth’s apartment than he’d have liked. He didn’t bother to covertly park on the street, choosing, instead, to roar straight into the driveway and skid to a halt right behind her beat-up old truck.

He was out of his car before it stopped rocking and took the exterior stairs up to her door two at a time. Despite his hurry, he took note of each vehicle within a block of the house on either side of the street. The surrounding homes were quiet and dark. Mac knew this section of the small town. Low crime rate, mostly blue-collar workers, all probably tucked in for the night in anticipation of church on Sunday morning.

Sucking in a deep breath to calm the thrashing in his chest, he pounded heavily on her door. He refused to consider that he might be too late already or that he was overreacting. He shook his head as he let go a ragged breath of fatigue. He shouldn’t have left her without surveillance. Every instinct had warned him that something far beneath the surface was going on and somehow she was the key. For more than forty-eight hours he or one of his men had watched her every move.

And what had he done tonight? He’d left her on her own.

The door opened just as he raised his fist to pound on it again. Relief, mixed with a kind of vague defeat, gushed through him at the sight of her.

Her hair mussed and her glasses askew, she stared at him for a moment before recognition flared. In the next beat her eyes widened in surprise, which was quickly followed by unbridled fury.

“What are you trying to do? Wake the whole neighborhood?”

Highly trained agent that he was, he couldn’t even respond when faced with the fact that she stood in the doorway wearing a tee-shirt that scarcely reached the tops of her thighs. Backlit by the interior light behind her, the gentle curves of her slender figure were clearly silhouetted beneath the thin cotton fabric.

Before he could stop himself, he gazed down the length of her, all the way to her neatly manicured toes. But it was the return trip that did the most damage to his control. Long toned legs, a slim torso and small breasts that jutted firmly against the flimsy fabric covering them and on to a slender throat that curved upward into delicate cheeks and full lips. When his gaze at last came back to rest on hers, the look of rage in those amber eyes jerked him from the trance of lust he’d lapsed into.

“I’m calling the police.” With those snapped words, she executed an about-face and left him standing there like the unwelcome guest he was.

His own temper flaring, Mac crossed the threshold uninvited and slammed the door behind him. “I am the police.”

The frightened rabbit expression that captured her pretty face sent him hurtling back into reality. What the hell was wrong with him? He never lost it like this. It was that damned video. He’d watched more than a dozen but it was hers that haunted him. Made him ache to see more. Fool he was, he couldn’t not want her.

Elizabeth couldn’t believe her eyes, much less her ears. Maybe it was her, but she didn’t think so. MacBride was behaving strangely, and she didn’t know whether to run for her life or slap some sense into him. Either way she was reasonably sure he had no intention of backing off.

“What is it you want, Agent MacBride?” She planted her hands on her waist and marched straight up to him, lifting her chin defiantly. How dare he barge into her home in the middle of the night! It was bad enough she’d endured his shenanigans with the phone call and the anonymous knock on the door. “I’m sick and tired of you and your people following me around.” When she was toe-to-toe with him, she poked him in the chest with her forefinger. He flinched. That mere touch sent an electrical charge surging through her, but she quickly recovered. “This is blatant harassment”

“You called me, remember?”

The sound of his voice shimmered over her already exposed nerve endings. “Only because you called first and hung up like a kid playing a prank.” She huffed a sigh of exasperation. “And let’s not forget you knocking on my door and then vanishing like Houdini. What’d you think? That I’d sneaked out the back door to go murder someone else? I don’t even have a back door.” Control snapped. “Why are you doing this?”

As she fought to regain her composure, something changed in his eyes, and that lean, chiseled profile softened just the tiniest bit. “That’s just it,” he said. Even his voice was softer now. “I didn’t call you and I damn sure didn’t knock on your door until just a few seconds ago.”