Serial Bride (7 page)

She started down the stairs. As she reached the bottom of the first flight, a thunk from above echoed off cement walls. Apparently someone else was as impatient as she was, paint smell or no.

She continued down the next flight. Above, the sound of footsteps echoed her own. Perfectly matched. As if whoever had entered the stairwell was doing it on purpose.

Paranoia was setting in big time. Not surprising after all she'd been through in the last few hours, but ridiculous nonetheless. Still…

She slowed her pace.

The footsteps slowed, still matching hers.

Was someone playing games with her? She speeded up, circling the landing.

The footsteps accelerated, too.

Fear pulsed through her. She was in a public building, not some haunted house from a horror flick. Even though it was late, she could open the door on any floor and rejoin civilization. She stopped in her tracks.

Above her, the footfalls stopped.

Her breathing rasped in her ears. Whoever was following had stopped in the middle of the staircase. For no reason other than because she had stopped. “Who's there?”

No answer.

Why didn't he answer? “Is anyone there?”

Her heart thunked against her ribs. She looked back at the door, several steps above. She didn't dare retrace her steps. If she did, he'd hear her. And he could easily intercept her before she could reach the door.

She pressed her fingertips against her forehead. What kind of a person would try to attack someone in a public building? Just a few steps away from help?

Whoever had taken Diana
.

She looked down the stairwell. Reaching the next floor was her best bet. Once there, she could find help. Whoever was following wouldn't dare attack her in a hallway bustling with people.

Taking a deep breath, she launched into a run. Her
shoes clattered on concrete. She reached the mid-floor landing. Gripping the handrail, she whipped around the turn and headed down the next staircase.

The thunk of footsteps rang above her. Faster. Keeping time with hers.

She hit the landing and grabbed for the doorknob. She yanked the door open and lunged out of the stairwell.

And into silent, dusty darkness.

Sylvie willed her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. In the red glow of the exit sign above the stairwell door, she could see a hallway set up identical to the ICU floor, a short hallway splitting off the main one, the bank of elevators. But that's where the similarities ended. The level she was on was a mess. Giant power tools cluttered the space, each a hulking shape in the darkness. Dust shrouded the industrial tile floor, slick under her shoes. And being Saturday night, there wasn't a soul around.

She was totally alone.

Her throat constricted, making it hard to catch her breath. She had to get off this floor. She had to find people, find Bryce. But the
first
thing she had to do was to hide.

She dashed to one side of the hall, ducking behind one hulking obstacle, then the other. A pallet of tile. An oversize trash bin. When she reached what
appeared to be some kind of table saw, she heard the door of the stairwell open.

She crouched behind the saw. She didn't dare move. Didn't dare breathe. She thought she was going to be sick.

The door closed with a thud. Soft footsteps scraped across construction grit.

She tried to peek around the table in front of her. Nothing but more hulking shapes, more red-tinged darkness. He wasn't close enough yet. But judging from his footfalls, he would be soon.

She groped along the dusty floor with one hand. A construction area had to have tools laying about. Didn't it? If she could find something, anything, she could use as a weapon…

Her fingers hit something slick. Plastic. A section of PVC pipe. Not ideal, not anywhere near heavy enough, but it would have to do. She didn't have much to choose from. She wrapped clammy fingers around the pipe.

And waited.

Footsteps scraped closer.

A drop of sweat trickled over her temple. Dust tickled her nose and clogged her lungs. She didn't dare breathe.

The sound of footsteps halted on the other side of the saw. A hulking figure against the red glow. The outline of a man. He was not too tall, but his broad
shoulders suggested strength. Much more strength than she could overpower with a piece of plastic pipe.

She listened to his breathing, trying to sense the direction of his gaze. An eternity ticked by. Her lungs screamed for air. Her sinuses burned with the need to sneeze.

With a scrape, he pivoted and moved away. The door to the stairwell opened, then slammed with a bang.

A tremble seized her chest. She sagged forward, against the saw's heavy steel. Slowly she convinced her fingers to release the pipe, setting it quietly on the floor. But other than that, she still didn't dare move. He might still be here. Waiting. She had to be sure.

After a few more minutes she peered over the saw. She could see nothing in the exit sign's light but the tile palettes, sawhorses and other equipment. He was gone.

She straightened. Her legs tingled and stung as blood rushed back into them. Stifling a sneeze, she looked down the hall. There had to be another exit, another stairwell. She didn't dare try the one she'd entered.

Moving away from the red glow, she stumbled through the dark hallway, running her hand along a partially drywalled wall. She rounded the corner and
spotted another exit sign, glowing like a beacon. Slipping into the stairwell, she raced down the steps to the lobby level.

The light music of human voices greeted her. She pushed through the door and sprinted to the lobby.

“Where have you been?”

She spun around and spotted Bryce. Worry knit his brow. Worry for her.

She held up her hands in front of her. “I'm fine.”

“What happened?”

“Someone followed me. Down the stairs.”

He grasped her upper arms. His grip strong, solid. Holding her in front of him, he searched her eyes. “Did you get a look at him?”

“Not really. It was dark, but…”

“But what?”

“It wasn't Louis Ingersoll. The man I saw was bigger. Not as tall as you, but broad. Strong.”

“And he chased you?”

She nodded. She didn't want to think about it. The desperate fear. The sudden sense that this was the man who'd taken Diana. “I lost him on a floor that was closed for remodeling.” She glanced down at her hands, the knees of her jeans. She hadn't realized until now that she was covered in dust and grit.

“Why didn't you stay in the ICU?”

What? She tilted her head and stared, as if looking
at him from a slightly different angle would enable her to understand. “You called the nurses' station. You told me to meet you down here.”

He opened his mouth, a stricken look on his face. “I didn't.”

“Then who did?”

“Walker?” a gruff voice said from behind them.

Sylvie and Bryce both jumped. Stepping out of Bryce's grip, Sylvie turned and looked into Detective Perreth's bulldog face.

Bryce stepped toward him. “About time you checked your voice mail.”

“Voice mail?”

“I left you half a dozen messages. You didn't get the calls?”

“I haven't had time to check my phone.”

“Then why are you here?”

Perreth's eyes shifted to Sylvie. “I need you to come with me.”

Bryce stepped between her and Perreth. “For another bullying session like the one you subjected her to earlier? You can't still think she had something to do with her sister's disappearance.”

Perreth grunted. “It's not that.”

“What
is
it then?” Sylvie's voice rose shrill in her ears. Worry descended heavy on her chest.

“Come with me and we'll discuss it.”

“You don't expect her to go with you without
knowing what she's getting into, do you? I won't allow it.”

Again Bryce was standing up for her, protecting her. Coming off her experience in the stairwell, she wasn't inclined to tell him to back off. But even though she was scared of what Perreth might say, what he might want, she had to know. “I'll go.”

Bryce frowned and gave his head an abrupt shake. “Not until he tells us why.”

“Us? There is no ‘us.' I'll go.”

Perreth's bushy brows hung low. He squared his broad shoulders as if preparing for a fight. “Not here, Walker.”

“As her attorney, I can't recommend it.”

She opened her mouth, about to remind him he wasn't her attorney, about to demand they leave at once, when Perreth cut her off.

“Fine. Whatever you want.” The detective swung his focus to Sylvie. His gaze looked so flat, so dispassionate, it made her shiver. “We need you to identify a body.”

The trip to the city-county building seemed to take an eternity. Sylvie twisted her hands together in her lap and stared out the window of Detective Perreth's car, willing him to move faster. Every stoplight turned red in front of them. Crowds of revelers decked out in red Wisconsin Badgers gear spilled out of the bars and over the sidewalks, stopping traffic. And even when the street was clear, the cars in front of them never accelerated above a crawl.

Everywhere she looked in the darkness, she could see visions of Dryden Kane's eyes.

Bryce sat next to her in the backseat. She could feel him watching her, his gaze searching her eyes and moving over her face, but he didn't speak. It was as if he sensed she couldn't handle kind words right now. As if he understood nothing could possibly soothe her.

When they finally reached the Madison police's downtown district offices on the first floor of the
City-County building, Perreth led them into a small, cluttered office and gestured to a pair of chairs. “Have a seat.”

Sylvie stood. Even the thought of sitting, of allowing her body to be so passive, smacked of giving up. She couldn't believe Diana was dead. The buzz in her ears that had become her constant companion the past few hours was still going strong. The hitch in the back of her neck still pinched like crazy. Wouldn't that have changed if her sister was dead? Wouldn't she feel nothing? “Why did you bring us here? When can I see the body?”

“First things first, Ms. Hayes. Really, why don't you have a seat?”

“I don't want to take a seat. I want to see this body you found.”

“Time to quit playing games, Perreth,” Bryce said, his voice quiet yet edged in steel. “If you don't at least show Sylvie a photograph right now, we're walking out of here.”

Perreth let out a heavy sigh, as if he felt more bored than threatened. “It won't do any good.”

“What do you mean? I thought you said you needed me to make an identification.”

“I do.”

She wasn't following him.

“DNA?” Bryce asked.

Perreth nodded. “We'll take a swab of your cheek.”

Sylvie looked from one man to the other. She didn't just want to give a DNA sample. She needed to see the body. If her senses were wrong—the buzz in her ears, the pinch at the back of her neck, the feeling that Diana was still alive—she needed to know. “I have to see the body for myself.”

“I'm sorry. That's impossible.”

“Impossible? What do you mean?”

“Just that. You're not seeing her.”

“Why?” Bryce asked.

Sylvie let out a relieved breath. Despite her need to get away from Bryce, to not let herself to rely on him, she couldn't help feel grateful that he was here now, backing her up.

Perreth grunted. “The body we found was burned. Beyond recognition.”

“Dental records?” Bryce prompted.

“Her teeth were removed.”

“Removed? Oh, my God!” A sympathetic pain ripped through Sylvie's jaw. What had happened? What kind of horrors had this woman endured before death had finally taken her? “If the body was burned and the teeth are missing, what makes you think it's my sister?”

“Height, build, what's left of the hair—all match your sister. And she's the only missing person we have fitting that description. We need your DNA to be certain.”

“But there's a chance it's not her?”

“There's always a chance.”

A chance. A hope. No, more than a hope. Sylvie's senses had been telling her Diana was alive all along. The body couldn't be Diana. It couldn't be. “How long will the DNA match take?”

“Our lab will expedite. But the time depends on a number of factors. I can't be any more specific than that.”

Specific? He hadn't been specific about anything since she met him. “You'll still look for Diana while you're waiting for the results?”

That bored look again. And no answer.

What little oxygen was in the room seemed to leech away. The scenarios she'd discussed with Bryce on the university campus swirled in her mind. What if Perreth was responsible, after all? What if
he
had killed her sister? Bryce hadn't believed it, and after seeing the guard at the hospital, Sylvie had been inclined to agree. But that didn't necessarily clear the detective. And if Perreth was responsible for Diana's disappearance, he wouldn't have a reason to continue looking for Diana. In fact, he wouldn't want
anyone
looking for her.

She swallowed the accusations she wanted to hurl at him. She didn't have any proof he was involved. Not one shred. And if he was, she didn't want to tip him off that she suspected him. If he wasn't, the last
thing she wanted was to alienate him further. Either way, she couldn't let the police call off the search. “You can't stop looking for her. Please.”

“Of course we'll keep up the investigation.”

“But you're not going to look very hard, are you?”

“We'll continue the investigation, I said. If she's still out there, we'll find her.”

She opened her mouth, trying to pull more air into starving lungs. She'd thought Perreth's belief that Diana had attacked Reed and subsequent hunt for her was the worst thing that could happen to her sister. But if the police stopped looking for her entirely… “She isn't dead. She's my twin. I know she's still alive. I feel it.”

Perreth glanced at her sideways.

Of course he wouldn't believe she could sense things about her sister. Perreth wouldn't believe her if she told him the earth was round. She turned to Bryce. “She's not dead.”

He met her gaze. He
wanted
to believe her. She could see it in the lines of stress fanning out from his eyes, in the pained press of his lips. He reached out and took her hand in his, giving her something to hold on to. “Okay. Then no matter what the police do, we keep looking.”

Tears pressed hot against the backs of her eyes and burned through her sinuses. She was so afraid,
so very afraid she would never see her sister again. But Bryce was here with her. And though she could tell he feared she was wrong, that deep down he probably believed Diana and the body were the same, he was willing to listen, willing to help, willing to hold on to her—more solid than anything she'd ever known.

 

I
T WAS WELL PAST
midnight by the time Bryce walked Sylvie back to her hotel room. He tried to swallow the guilt creeping up his throat. He could never make up for his decision to represent Kane. He could never wash Ty's blood from his hands. And now, if Diana Gale was indeed lying in the morgue, he would have her blood to contend with, too.

He eyed Sylvie as she walked beside him. He couldn't change the past. Couldn't erase what he'd done. All he could do now was to help her get through this, to help her find her sister, provided Diana was still out there somewhere, and bring whoever was responsible to justice.

But they'd done all they could for tonight. Now Sylvie had to rest. To regroup. At least for a few hours. And judging from the way she'd tried to push him away since he'd met her, he doubted she'd let him help her with that. Just as well. He didn't know how much help he could be, anyway. “Do you have someone I could call? Someone to stay with you?”

“No.”

“No one?” She had to have someone, didn't she?

Reaching the door, she fumbled in her pocket for the key card. “I'll be fine. Really.”

Like hell she would. She might have insisted her sister wasn't dead at the police station, but that didn't mean she wasn't scared out of her mind that it was true—that despite her feelings, the burned, mutilated body in the morgue really was Diana Gale.

She hadn't yet shed a tear, but the dam holding her emotions would crack eventually. When the raw anger and fear finally caught up with her, she was going to need someone to turn to, someone to help her through it.

He had no business being that person. Hell, he'd more than proved he wasn't good at thinking of others. His single-mindedness had been a plus in the world of law, not so in the area of personal relationships. He couldn't count the times he'd let his mother down. And Ty…

He tried to fight past the ache in his gut. The timing now was worse than ever before. Now he wasn't working on a mere case. Now he was working on setting things right, winning justice. For Ty. And maybe now for Diana, as well.

But he couldn't just walk away.

“Would you like me to stay? For a little while at least?” The words were out of his mouth before he
realized it, but he couldn't have stopped them anyway. Call it guilt. Call it attraction. Call it sympathy. Whatever had prompted it, he knew it was the right thing to do. The only thing he
could
do.

“I can't ask that.”

“You didn't ask. I offered.” He waited for her to push him away, as she'd done since they met.

Instead, she dipped her chin. “Thanks.” Swiping the key card, she waited until the indicator lights flashed green, then opened the door.

He followed her into the room. It looked the same as it had hours before, but it seemed everything had changed since then. The mood. The heaviness of the air. Him. The last time he'd entered this room, he'd been looking for a way to prove Diana was a murderess. Now he clung to the hope that she wasn't a victim.

He turned to bolt the door. When he turned back, Sylvie was still standing in the center of the room, arms hanging limp by her sides. She glanced around as if unsure where to go, what to do next.

Sylvie had changed, too. A few hours ago she'd been adamant about renting her own car. Now she'd actually taken him up on his offer to stay, to help her through this.

And he'd be damned if he'd let her down. “Sit. I'll get you something to drink.”

She sank onto the love seat.

Booze would be good. Just a little to take the edge off. Unfortunately there was no minibar in the room, so he settled for tap water in a plastic cup. He took a seat beside her and handed her the cup. She gripped it with both hands and brought it to her lips. After two swallows, she lowered it. “Thank you.”

“Maybe I should run down to a liquor store and pick up some whiskey.”

She shook her head absently, as if his words didn't register. “I do have friends. The people I work with at the restaurant, my neighbors, stuff like that. But they are the kind of friends you chat with, maybe drink with after work. That's the kind of friends I have. That's the only kind of friends I really wanted.”

“Why?”

She shrugged a shoulder, as if to show it really didn't matter.

But it didn't take a psychiatrist to see how much it did. “Because that kind of friend will never—how did you put it?—leave you in the lurch.”

“No,” she said. “Everyone will leave you in the lurch sooner or later. With that kind of friend, it just doesn't hurt as much.”

“You're kind of young to be that cynical.”

“I suppose. But I learned how things work young. I was a foster child, remember?”

He'd forgotten. “Did you live in a lot of different foster homes?”

“Not as many as some kids do.” Although her eyes were dry, she brushed them with the back of her hand. “They say you should be grateful for the time you have with someone. But I've never been able to muster that.”

They'd been speaking of friends, but he got the idea Sylvie was now thinking of her sister. “I'm not known for being grateful, either.”

She searched his eyes.

“I lost my brother recently.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't know.”

Of course she didn't. She didn't know anything about him. But for some reason, he wanted her to. At that moment he wanted her to know everything. “I had twenty-nine years with my brother. And all I feel is anger that he's gone.”

“How did he die?”

“He was murdered.”

“Oh, my God.”

He needed to tell her the rest. But something stopped him. It seemed cruel to tell her the story of Ty's death just as she was waiting to hear if her sister had suffered the same fate. Probably at the hands of the same man. And if Bryce was being honest with himself, he'd admit that the part of him that agreed to represent Dryden Kane was a part he never wanted her to know, a part he'd set out to eliminate after Ty's death.

“Are your parents still living?”

“My mother is. She lives in a skilled-care facility here in town. But she doesn't really remember Ty, or me. His death never registered.” A fact for which he
was
grateful.

“I'm so sorry. Alzheimer's?”

He nodded.

Sylvie slipped a hand over his. Her skin was so warm, so soft.

The ache in his gut spread into his chest. He hadn't talked to anyone but Ty about their mother's illness. How her memories had slipped away, bit by bit, until she hadn't even recognized her sons anymore. “I visit her, even though she doesn't know who I am. I take her for walks, pretend she's still there. She loves looking at the gardens. She's never forgotten her love of flowers.”

Sylvie watched him, her expression soft and sad. As if she was absorbing his heartache and making it her own.

As if she needed more. “I don't want to talk about my mother.”

“Why not?”

“I stayed to help you.”

“You are helping me. Talking is helping me.”

He looked at her dubiously.

“I'm sure your mother remembers you. Somewhere deep, I'm sure she senses you're special. I
think it's like that with family. I like to think it, anyway.”

“You're not so cynical, after all.”

She shrugged. “I have my moments.”

He smiled. She had more than moments. With just a few words, she'd rekindled his hopes about his mother. They might be only a flicker, but they chased a few of the shadows away. “I don't know. Maybe she does have some idea, however vague. Some days I like to think she might.”