Solid as Steele (9 page)

“You have a point. But I weigh more than that.”

“Not much.”

“There's something else,” she said. “The women were dumped beside the road, with no attempt to make it look like anything but murder. But Mrs. Conrad said the station actually was robbed. That sounds different.”

“That could be right. Or the guy could have decided that once he got away with the first one, he didn't need to fake anything.”

 

M
ACK SLID
J
AMIE A
sideways glance. He liked the way she was thinking this through, coming up with ideas. And he liked the way she'd dealt with Mrs. Conrad. She was good with people, and she had the advantage of sharing a very personal experience with the woman. He'd watched them together, and he was sure that the bond of widow-hood had helped in the interview. As far as he could see, the woman was being straight with them. She'd told them what she knew, which wasn't much. But she had his card, and maybe she'd think of something later.

They stopped at a grocery store on the way back and got some supplies, including milk, cereal and bags of chips and pretzels.

Jamie sighed as they brought the bags to the suite. “I hate living on this stuff.”

“You'd rather cook?” he asked.

“Actually, I would.”

“If you could fix anything you wanted, what would it be?” he asked as he set down the food on the dinette table.

She thought for a moment. “Coq au vin.”

“Fancy!”

She grinned. “Just a French name for chicken in wine sauce.”

“I'd love to taste it.”

The grin faded from her face, and he thought he'd stepped over another line that she didn't want him to cross. First he'd made love to her. Now he was thinking about her cooking for him.

Slow down, Steele,
he warned himself.

When Jamie excused herself and disappeared into her room, he breathed out a little sigh. He had some business to attend to, and he'd like to slip out while she was sleeping.

That sounded like a good plan until he remembered that she might have a nightmare, and he wouldn't be there to wake her up and hold her in his arms.

Was that what he wanted? Any excuse to climb into her bed again?

He wrote her a message on the hotel notepad, telling her he was going out, and if she woke up, she should stay in the suite. He set it on the sofa where he assumed she'd see it if she came into the living room. Still, he didn't like leaving her.

Before he could change his mind, he stepped into the hall, closing the door quietly behind himself.

 

I
N THE BEDROOM, JAMIE
lay rigidly in bed. When she heard the door close, she waited for several moments, then got up and cautiously opened the bedroom door. Mack was not in the living room, and when she walked in and looked around she found a note on one of the sofa cushions.

I have to go out for a little while. Don't leave the suite while I'm away. Mack.

Now he was giving her orders. And not even telling her where he was going.

Damn!

A while ago, she'd thought about making him dinner—which was not a good sign. She was a good cook, and she'd made dinners for Craig to impress him before they were engaged. She didn't have to make an impression on Mack Steele. They weren't dating.

No, she'd skipped that step and gone right to bed with him.

She clenched and unclenched her fists. She should call one of her friends who was still in town and ask if they could drive her back to Baltimore. In the next second, she remembered that she'd insisted on staying here to help with the investigation.

She couldn't even keep her priorities straight. What did she want more—to find the killer or to get away from Mack? Maybe she should leave
him
a note saying that she was getting her own room. Only he'd told her not to go out. And come to think of it, the killer had tracked them down here once. He could come back.

Her gaze shot to the door. Quickly she crossed the room and pushed the safety bar into place, making it impossible for anyone to open the door from the outside. Now she'd have to wait up for Mack to let him back in, and she would have preferred to be in her room when he came home. On the other hand, she wanted to ask where he'd sneaked
off to. Or was that acting like a wife who didn't trust her husband?

No. Not at all. It didn't matter to her if he was seeing another woman, although that was hardly likely in Gaptown. He didn't know anyone here.

She stopped short in the middle of the room and ran a shaky hand through her hair, knowing that her thoughts were completely jumbled. She should be focused on finding out who had killed those three people, and instead she was worrying about her relationship with Mack. She could no longer deny she was falling for him. Still, she didn't have to go racing into his arms.

Walking to the desk, she pulled open a drawer and found the local phone book. If Mack wasn't going to take her out to investigate the case, she could do something here. She still knew plenty of people in town. Maybe someone could give her information about Aubrey Rollins, the guy who'd dated both women. Maybe by the time Mack got back, she could tell him something he didn't know.

Flipping through the book, she thought of old friends, then settled on Marilyn Westerly and dialed her number. They'd been friends in high school, and Marilyn had come to her wedding in Baltimore.

Her wedding… she pushed that out of her mind and began to dial.

 

M
ACK TURNED ONTO THE
street where Jamie's mom lived, then drove past the house, looking at the lights in the front window and the beat-up Ford parked in front. He remembered seeing it when they'd first come over. Then Clark Landon had gone out, and the car had no longer been there. It must be his.

Of course, it wasn't the truck that had tried to run Jamie
over. Or the SUV from this afternoon. But it was easy enough to borrow—or steal—another vehicle.

So was Landon home or not? And if so, how long would he stay home?

Mack wanted to talk to the guy, but he didn't want Jamie's mother to know about it, so he drove to the end of the block, then pulled up under a maple tree and sat watching the house.

Twenty minutes later, Clark Landon strolled outside and walked to his vehicle. Mack slapped the steering wheel and uttered, “All right.”

Maybe the guy was going to a place he'd rented out in the country and had turned into a funhouse. Or maybe he was just getting away from the woman of the house, since she didn't seem like the kind of person you'd want to hang around with and make happy conversation.

When Landon drove away, Mack hung back, then started his SUV and waited until the guy was almost to the corner before following. He drove toward downtown, then veered off into a commercial area, where he pulled into a parking lot beside a bar called Louie's. The lot was full of pickup trucks and SUVs.

From across the street, Mack studied the grimy red brick exterior of the one-story building with a neon sign in the front window that said, “Open.” He remembering that Landon had mentioned the place when he'd left the house the night before.

Mack drove a little way down the block and parked, waiting in his car until Landon went inside, then gave the man another ten minutes to get settled in his regular routine before crossing the street.

When Mack stepped inside, the smell of beer and smoke almost knocked him over. He let the door close behind him and stood there looking around. The walls were made of
old-style knotty pine paneling, and peanut shells littered the floor. The tables were old and wooden, with barrel-shaped chairs around them. The bar was nothing special and occupied the wall across from the door. Behind it were several lighted signs advertising beer companies.

It was a working man's establishment. All the patrons were men, and all were dressed in jeans and flannel shirts or work shirts—Landon included. He was standing at the end of the bar with a mug of beer in his hand.

Mack studied the man. He was almost six feet tall and a bit on the chunky side. With the ski mask, he could be the guy who'd tried to force Jamie into the SUV, but there was no way of knowing for sure. Were his eyes brown?

Mack walked up beside Landon and slid onto a bar stool, like he was just a regular coming in for a drink.

Landon didn't look to see who was beside him. Did he usually like to drink alone, Mack wondered, or was something eating at him?

The bartender came over, looking him up and down, probably wondering how the stranger had found his way into this place.

“What'll you have?”

“Wild Duck,” Mack answered.

At the sound of his voice, the man he'd been following turned his head, looking surprised.

“You!”

Mack answered with a tiny nod.

“What are you doing here?”

“I'm thirsty.”

“There are plenty of other places to drink in town.”

Mack shrugged. When his beer arrived, he took a sip.

“What do you really want?” Landon asked.

“To make you think.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I'll bet you can figure it out.”

“I'm not going to play guessing games with you.”

Mack shrugged and took another sip of his beer, aware that the background buzz of voices in the bar had ceased. The other patrons had stopped what they were doing to follow the conversation between Landon and the new guy.

He might have turned around to tell them to mind their own business, but he figured that wouldn't go over so well with this crowd, so he stayed with his back to the room.

“Get out of here,” Landon said in a low voice.

“This is a free country.”

“I don't like you and that daughter of Gloria's comin' around making trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Whatever.”

“Maybe you're the one making trouble.”

“Oh yeah?”

Mack shrugged, hoping to get a rise out of the guy.

“I'm talking to you.”

When Mack didn't answer, Landon pulled him around on the bar stool with his left hand and aimed a right hook at his chin.

Mack was ready for the move. He dodged the fist as he sprang up and leveled his own punch, catching Landon on the jaw. They were both standing now, both in the middle of a battle that Mack had provoked. Not because he wanted a violent confrontation but because he thought it was the only way to communicate with Landon.

He traded another round with the jerk, ducking to avoid a direct blow to his eye but catching a fist on the forehead. Landon didn't have much style, but he had the power to inflict damage.

As Mack was about to come back with another right, two men caught him from behind and held his arms. To the credit of the regulars in the bar, two of them also came up behind Landon and stopped him from delivering another punch.

The bartender looked from him to Landon and back again. “You come here to make trouble?” he asked.

“I came here for information.”

“It sounds more like you came in to pick a fight.”

Mack didn't answer.

“Unless you get the hell out of here, I'm going to call the cops. Is that what you want?”

“No,” Mack muttered, sorry he hadn't thought his strat
egy through. He'd been keyed up for action and simply gone with gut instinct.

“Let me go,” he said to the men in back of him.

“If you head for the door and don't do anything stupid on the way out,” the bartender answered.

Mack jerked his head toward Landon. “What about him?”

“He comes here regular.”

Mack sighed. It wasn't going to do him any good to argue the justice of the pronouncement.

Instead, he turned and walked toward the exit. He didn't rub his sore forehead until he'd gotten outside.

Someone behind him opened the door and looked out, probably to make sure he wasn't going to hang around and try to jump Landon later.

Mack walked across the street to his SUV, climbed in and drove away, thinking that he'd made a mess of that encounter. So much for his professional detective skills.

It was because of his own frustration, he thought. Frustration with himself, with Jamie, with the situation. He wanted to have a normal conversation with her, but she didn't want to talk to him. So he'd gone after Landon instead. What had he thought? That the guy was going to confess to trying to run her down? And when that hadn't worked, he'd returned and tried to shove her into his car? Then Mack would come back to Jamie with the news of the confession, and she'd leap into his arms in gratitude.

He snorted. If that had been the scenario, it hadn't panned out. Using the technique he'd employed with Jamie, he thought about the encounter. Landon's eyes were brown. But his nose wasn't anything remarkable.

Mack pulled into a gas station, bought a soft drink from the machine and held the icy can against his temple as he drove back to the hotel. With any luck, Jamie would
be sleeping, and he wouldn't have to see her until the morning.

But when he tried to open the door, the interior latch stopped him, and he had to knock.

Through the crack in the door, he saw Jamie looking out, a wary expression on her face. When she saw it was him, she opened the door fully, and he stepped quickly inside, his head turned slightly away.

But she spotted the red mark on his forehead where Landon had hit him.

“What happened to you?”

“I walked into a door.”

“I don't think so.”

He sighed. “I tried to ask your mom's boyfriend some questions, and he didn't take kindly to my interfering with his evening.”

“At Louie's Bar?”

“Yeah.”

Her face had taken on a look that made his heart beat a little faster. “Worried about me?” he asked.

She took a moment before answering, “Yes.”

He wasn't prepared for the catch in her voice. Instead of commenting on her reaction, he said, “I gave as good as I got.”

She came back at him with a sharp retort. “That's just great. He's dangerous. And despite what we think of him, he's got friends in town. You should have stayed away from him.”

Mack wasn't going to admit he'd done anything wrong. “I want to know if he's the guy who went after you.”

“You said it was the killer.”

“I said it could be the killer or Landon. There's still no way to be sure.”

She made a small sound of distress. “I wish…”

“What?”

“I'd like to know if they were both the same guy.” She straightened and gave him a closer inspection. “You need to put some ice on your forehead.”

“Yeah.” He walked toward the small refrigerator, bent and pulled out the ice tray, thinking the evening wasn't going the way he'd planned. Not at all. But had they made some sort of breakthrough in their personal communications? At least they were talking again. He should ask for clarification, except that he didn't know how to do it without maybe setting her off again. Damn, he hated feeling like he was trying to walk through a bed of hot coals without burning his toes.

After wrapping some cubes of ice in a dish towel, he turned back toward Jamie.

“Putting on the safety lock was a good idea,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“I decided to make some calls to people I know in town.”

“And?”

“Some of them know Aubrey Rollins. I didn't get any bad reports on him. He's an aggressive real estate agent, but he hasn't made anyone mad. Actually, he's considered a good catch by the women my age.”

“Okay.”

She cleared her throat. “It felt like I wasn't getting anywhere with questions about him. Then I started thinking about something else.” She paused a moment, then started again. “You remember we drove around looking for the funhouse, and I couldn't find it? Maybe there's another way.”

“Like what?”

“Suppose I try to go there in my mind. The way I did in the dreams.”

“You can do that?”

She hesitated. “I never tried it before.”

“But you think you can do it now?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I've been there a couple of times already. I never did that in a dream before. I think it means I've got a connection to the place.”

“I don't like it.”

“Why not?”

“Because going there scares you. With good reason. It's not a nice place. I hate to have you do it deliberately.”

“But I want to try.” She cleared her throat. “And I waited until you came home. That was sensible, wasn't it?”

“Yes.”

He studied her anxious expression. At first he'd thought that she couldn't possibly be getting any information about a murder with some kind of psychic mumbo jumbo. Then he'd come around to the point of view that there was no other way she could have known about it. Now the idea of her deliberately going to the site of two murders made his skin crawl, but if she'd done it once, maybe she could do it again. And so far they didn't have any other leads.

“You're sure you want to try it?”

She nodded.

“How do you want to do it?”

Some of the tension went out of her shoulders. “I guess the first thing I should do is get comfortable.”

She sat down on the couch, leaned her head back against the cushion, and closed her eyes.

After watching her for a few moments, he asked, “Where should I be?”

Her eyes snapped open again, and he wondered if he'd broken her concentration.

“In one of the chairs,” she answered in a barely audible voice.

He took the easy chair facing the sofa where he could easily monitor her.

 

J
AMIE CLOSED HER
eyes again and folded her hands in her lap. She took a deep breath and let it out. Then another. She could feel Mack across the room, watching her, and she wanted to ask him to go in the bedroom.

But she didn't do it, because she didn't want to be alone. But being alone, she reminded herself, was the only way she could do this. If she could do it at all.

She wasn't even sure what she was doing. Trying to sleep? Well, not a normal sleep. A sleep that would take her away from her body to another place.

As she sat on the sofa, she called up a picture of a hallway in the funhouse, trying to recapture the feeling she got when she was in one of the nightmares. Maybe that was too threatening, because nothing happened.

Switching tactics, she let her mind drift.

For a long time, she knew she was sitting on the couch, trying to do something that she didn't really understand.

Then she felt a change. It was like her mind was drifting away from her body.

A jolt of fear pulled her back, and she made a low sound.

“Jamie?”

That was Mack, calling to her. But his voice was far away, and she knew that only part of her was still in the hotel room.

She felt her lips form words. “I'm okay,” she whispered, wondering if she'd spoken aloud so that he could hear her.

 

A
LARM ZINGED THROUGH
Mack as he watched Jamie. Her eyes were closed, but her face looked strange. Flat and smooth. Like she'd left her body sitting on the couch and gone somewhere else.

Well, wasn't that what she was trying to do?

She'd said she was all right.

Should he believe it?

The seconds ticked by, and nothing much seemed to change. Then she jerked a little and slumped to the side.

He started to jump up, then stopped himself. If she was really going to the funhouse, he'd pull her out of it.

He forced himself to stay where he was, watching her. Her body jerked again and slumped over more. He knew she was going to wake up with a kink in her neck if she stayed that way.

Quietly he stood and crossed to her.

“I'm going to pick you up,” he murmured as he bent to slip one arm under her legs and the other in back of her shoulders.

Gathering her in his arms, he straightened and held her against his chest. She felt limp.

After making sure she was secure in his arms, he carried her to the bedroom.

The covers were already thrown back, and he laid her on the bottom sheet.

But he wasn't going to leave her there alone, because every other time she'd been to the place, she'd awakened in a panic. Quietly, he eased onto the bed beside her, then rolled onto his side so that he could watch her face.

She looked calm, until an expression of alarm crossed her features.

“What is it?” he whispered.

She opened her eyes and stared at him, although he wasn't sure she was really seeing him.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“You're with me. With Mack.”

“No.”

“Then where are you?”

“The funhouse. I think.”

It was a strange conversation. Was she there or not?

Alarm sizzled through him. Could he wake her if he needed to? Maybe he should do it now.

He reached out a hand and pulled it back. If he woke her, he might be the cause of the experiment going wrong.

“Jamie,” he whispered again.

Again she looked at him. Then her body began to shake.

“What's happening?”

“I'm cold.”

“Wake up.”

“No,” she protested again. Then she was silent.

“Jamie. I don't like this. Jamie.”

 

“I
T'S ALL RIGHT
,” Jamie managed to say.

Was she talking to Mack? She was vaguely aware of him, of the hotel suite. She could feel the pillow and the sheet below her. She remembered that she'd been lying down and hadn't remade the bed. Then the room where her body was lying became less important as the funhouse became more real.

She shivered. It was cold in here. Nobody had turned on the heat.

She'd hoped to arrive outside so she could have some idea of where the house was. But she had come directly inside, into a wide front hall.

Whirling, she turned to look out the windows and found they were covered with opaque panels. When she clawed at them, they stayed in place.

Giving up the attempt to see outside, she walked farther into the house and found there were no open areas. As soon as she stepped out of the front hall, she was in a long corridor. Like the ones she remembered from the dreams.

She ran her hand along one wall, then the other. The left side was smooth plaster. The right was plywood.

Apparently he'd changed the structure of the house to create the environment he wanted, but not permanently.

She glanced back over her shoulder. She could walk down the hallway…but what if she got trapped? What if he came up behind her?

Could he catch her here the way he had caught his other victims? But she wasn't really here, was she? Surely she'd be able to leave the same way she'd come.

She wished she had a flashlight. To her amazement, her fist closed around something cold and cylindrical.

The object she'd wished for.

That emboldened her. This wasn't reality, nor was it exactly one of her dreams. There must be different rules because she'd brought herself here. She had control of the situation. Or at least that was the best explanation she could come up with.

She clicked on the light and shined it on the walls, examining them more closely. She could see the nails in the plywood. And on the plaster side, she could see a high, old-fashioned baseboard.

She kept walking, shining the light ahead of her. There were little doors in the walls, like doors to cabinets, and when she opened one, a monster with green skin, red glowing eyes and black horns sprang out at her.

With a muffled cry, she jumped back. Even as she did, she knew the monster wasn't real. But she was too on edge for that to matter.

When she reached for it, the texture was sticky, like
a nest of spiderwebs, and she dropped the thing with a grimace, watching the head bounce back and forth. She should put it back before the guy who owned this place noticed.