The Fourth Victim (23 page)

Was he the person waiting to kill Clay? For saving me?

But how would he know I was in Clay's house? He
wasn't David Abrams. He didn't have seemingly unlimited connections.

Rick Thomas. What if it was someone who was after him? Or the gang leader in Florida? How could I possibly win against either of them?

The thoughts ran crazily through my brain. Some I dismissed. Others lingered.

One remained steadfast.

If I didn't figure out what to do, and do it soon, Clay and I could both die.

C
lay knew the second he opened the door into the kitchen that someone was in his house. Someone besides Kelly Chapman.

There was a smell. A density. And silence.

Keeping the door between him and the inside of the house, he paused, pulled his gun, tripped the trigger and then, weapon leading the way, he slowly pushed into the room. Ready to shoot first, to take out whoever dared to invade his home.

Beyond taking down the interloper, he had one thought.

Get to Kelly.

If she'd been hurt…

No one charged him as he came into the room. No one lunged or shot or even moved.

Eyes adjusting quickly to the light, Clay immediately noticed the lump on the floor. A body. A female body.

“Freeze. I've got a gun and I will use it.”

The voice was off to his left. Clay couldn't see who spoke, but he recognized the voice. He was flooded with a relief that almost made him weak. For that brief second, his gun felt heavy. His arms felt heavy.

“Kelly, it's me, Clay,” he said firmly. “Stay against the wall and don't move.”

“Someone's here, Clay.” Her voice had lowered. “I…”

Clay flipped on the light.

And groaned when he identified the body lying limply on the floor.

“Oh, my God! A woman! Who is she?” Kelly wasn't flat against the wall as he'd told her to be. She'd rushed over and was leaning down, placing two fingers along the neck of their trespasser, obviously feeling for a pulse.

“She's alive, Clay. Call an ambulance.”

“We don't need an ambulance.”

“But…”

“She's not dying, Kelly, she's asleep.”

“In the middle of the kitchen floor?”

Those vivid blue eyes stared up at him. Her panic and fear gave Clay a glimpse into the day she'd spent.

Spent in vain. He had nothing for her.

No name. No arrest. No freedom or even safety.

“She's breathing, isn't she?” he asked. “Yes.”

“Normally.”

“Well, yes.”

“Her color's okay.”

“Yes.”

“She hyperventilated. Had a panic attack. And then took a tranquilizer.”

Frowning, Kelly looked at him as though he'd lost his mind. He wished he had. He wished he'd conjured up this recurring nightmare in his life.

“You know her.”

“Yes.”

“Who is she?”

“My mother.”

 

Clay didn't waste time hating many things. He hated asking Kelly to hide again while he dealt with his mother.

Kelly needed answers. She needed space and peace. She didn't need to be treated like a fugitive.

But instead of tending to his invited guest, he had to deal with a woman who couldn't ever find the strength to help herself.

“I don't trust her not to say anything,” he said to Kelly as he walked her back to the bedroom. “I'm going to call my aunt—my mother lives with her. She'll come and get her. And then we'll talk.”

“I've waited all day, Clay. A little while longer isn't going to make any difference.” Kelly's calmness unnerved him almost as much as his mother's hysteria would when he woke her up. “It looks like she needs you far more than I do.”

Maybe. Clay wasn't sure anymore.

But looking at the frail body of his mother lying on his cold kitchen floor didn't bring feelings of compassion and concern as much as resentment.

He detested that about himself.

But all of this was old news.

Really old news.

“I'll be as fast as I can,” he said.

“She's your mother, Clay.”

He figured his tone of voice had led to that comment. He nodded, rather than responding further. Some truths weren't worth the time it took to tell them.

 

It took Clay ten minutes to rouse Lynn Thatcher. He'd placed her on the couch and was sitting beside her, holding her hand, when her eyes fluttered open.

“Aunt Bessie's on her way,” he said, hoping to cut the
worst of the episode off at the pass. Bessie, his mother's younger sister, was a widow who doted on Clay's mom.

She was also very active in her church and left his mom alone a lot, something Clay and his father had never done. The times they'd left her, they'd always paid someone to care for her until their return.

Lynn raised a hand to his face, caressing him gently. There'd been a time, long ago, when that caress had been a comfort to him. Now he didn't trust it to mean anything.

“Oh, Clay, I'm so sorry, honey.”

“It's okay, Mom. You have a key to my house because I gave it to you.”

She was his mother.

“I needed you, Clay. I just needed to be near you.”

“I know.”

“You're angry with me.”

“No, I'm not.” He wasn't. He was angry with himself.

Angry because he'd spent the past couple of days with a woman whose voice was already in his brain, challenging him to face what was inside of him instead of just accepting it and moving on.

He wasn't about to let Kelly Chapman get to him. To question his beliefs and decisions. He needed his mother to be stronger than she was. He didn't need a shrink.

“Can I stay here with you tonight?”

“You know you can't, Mom. I have to work in the morning. I'm on a case. And Aunt Bessie takes much better care of you than I could.”

“You take fine care of me.”

He'd learned from the best. And had been at it his entire life.

“So does Bessie.”

“Yes, she does. I'm very lucky to have the two of you.”

Her voice was getting stronger and Clay breathed a little easier. The panic had passed.

“How'd you get here?” he asked Lynn. She was still pretty, still slim, her limbs slightly twisted by the disease that sometimes rendered her incapable of caring for herself.

The rest of the time it scared the shit out of her.

“Took a cab.”

“Where's your walker?”

“At Bessie's. I didn't want to have to lift it in and out of the cab.”

“The driver would've done that for you.”

“I didn't want to ask. I was stronger today. It was only a few steps from Bessie's door to the curb and a few more to get in here.”

“I found you on the kitchen floor.”

“I tripped when I bumped into the leg of the chair. I fell.”

And couldn't get up. Panicked. And swallowed one of the pills she kept in a little porcelain vial on a chain around her neck.

Clay's father had bought the vial for her, to alleviate her worries that she'd have a panic attack and not be able to help herself. He'd made a big deal out of the fact that the vial was pretty enough to be jewelry.

“You should've called my cell and told me you wanted to visit, Mom. You shouldn't have come out here alone. You know that.”

Being trapped in her body was hard for Lynn Thatcher. Clay understood that. Sympathized with it.

The last tears he'd shed had been for his mother. With his mother.

After his father died and she'd been so physically helpless, believing she couldn't survive without him.

That had been a long time ago.

“You just would've told me you were busy,” his mother said now.

She was right.

“And you would've told me if you really needed me and I would've come,” he answered. Because he always did, if she insisted. Just as his father had.

Usually, as long as she wasn't alone, Clay could soothe his mother's fears with a phone conversation.

And when that didn't work, he went to see her.

Her lower lip started to tremble, and Clay's insides cramped. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too, son.”

 

Maggie hadn't been able to eat much dinner. She'd tried. Samantha and Kyle were, like, all over her, fussing around her as if she was a sick kid or about to croak on them or something.

If everything hadn't gotten so messed up, she'd probably have started to like Kyle. She already loved Rad, Kyle's six-month-old colt. She'd always wanted her own horse. And Zodiac was great for a big dog. The farm would be all right, too, if she wasn't trapped there.

It wouldn't be long now before stuff just fell apart. If they didn't find Kelly—and it wasn't looking hopeful, was it?—Maggie knew she wasn't going to be able to survive on her own.

Where was Mac? Why wasn't he doing something?

He'd promised. If she really needed him, he'd be there. He'd said so.

Her stomach was hurting again.

The TV was on and Kyle and Sam were watching some show about a guy who went around the world eating weird foods. Maggie didn't think they were really paying attention. They were just sitting there staring. Waiting.

People were still out looking for Kelly. Flyers had been printed up and posted all over. The FBI was getting tons of calls. Samantha was monitoring a lot of it by phone and
still going over records and paperwork and stuff. If not for Maggie, Samantha would be out there, too, searching for Kelly. Maggie knew that.

She wished she could do something. She was about to freak out.

She wished she was back home with Mom in the trailer with the hole in the floor. Back then, all she'd had to worry about was Mom going off on her for putting highlights in her hair. That, and staying away from that creep, Deputy Sewell, and trying to pretend Mom wasn't having sex with him.

The phone rang. The one that had Kelly's line forwarded to it. Maggie tensed.

Please, God, let Kelly be okay.

She glanced at Samantha. So did Kyle. Samantha picked up the phone.

“Hello?

“Hello?

“Hello-o?”

Shrugging, Samantha put down the phone. “No one's there.”

That was creepy. And Maggie wondered what else was going to happen. If someone else was going to get hurt. Like Samantha and Kyle. Because they had Maggie.

The phone rang again.

“Hello?” Samantha sounded weird, like she knew the hang-up meant something bad.

“Hello?”

She hung up again.

And then something clicked in Maggie's brain and she knew. It was a sign from Mac. Just like that other time when there were hang-ups at Kelly's and she'd seen Mac the next day around the corner from school and he'd looked her straight in the eye and smiled. Mac was telling her he knew where she was staying.

Or maybe he didn't realize that Kelly's line was ringing at Sam's now. Maybe he was just letting her know he was thinking about her. That he was working on a plan for them. He was telling her to be strong. To hold on. He'd contact her when it was safe to do so. She had to wait, but it was so hard. She had to tell him her plan. And then she had to leave town with him.

The whole thing made her feel jittery and queasy. But she had to suck it up. She wasn't a kid anymore. And she couldn't stay in this town. She was Mom's kid. And now, because of her, Kelly was gone.

Mac
had
to contact her soon. She'd tell him her plan, and they'd go away.

She couldn't take another day like this one.

Edgewood, Ohio
Monday, December 6, 2010

Clay came to get me as soon as his mother was gone. He'd picked up Chinese for dinner and retrieved the cartons from the workbench in the garage outside the kitchen door, dumped the rice and chicken in separate bowls and put them in the microwave.

I uncapped a couple of beers. I didn't need to ask him what was going on to know that I was going to want one.

“I'm assuming you didn't get him,” I said when he seemed prepared to busy himself with silverware and plates in total silence.

I wanted to talk to him about his mother, but Ezekial Greene was the reason I was there, in his kitchen, hiding out.

“We got him.” His voice was grim.

And I stood there. Waiting. If they got him, then why wasn't I going home?

“He didn't kidnap you, Kelly.”

I wasn't hungry anymore.

“Maybe he did. Maybe he's lying. You can't believe a thing he says, Clay….”

He turned to face her. “His alibi checked out.”

“So he's free.”

“No.”

I was surprised—and confused—when Clay shook his head. My father didn't kidnap me. I supposed, in one sense, that was good news—but then why wasn't
he
free?

And we were back to square one.

“He's dead?” I asked the next obvious question.

“No. He's in custody. He didn't kidnap you, but he
was
behind the ransom calls. He'd heard about your disappearance on the news and saw his ‘ship coming in,' in his own words.”

I wished I could say that didn't sound like dear old dad. But it did. He'd had a price on my head my entire life. He'd never wanted me, never wanted to be a father, but I'd always been a form of insurance to him.

Well, maybe now I could be done paying his premiums.

“What's he charged with?” Inciting panic?

Clay arranged the plates on the table. He sat. But he was more interested in the bottle of beer I'd opened for him than in the steaming rice and spicy chicken.

“You were right about the adoption agency.”

The answer seemed strangely disconnected from my question.

“The bomb wasn't a bluff.”

I got hot all over. I knew what was coming. And didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to know.

“They got the kids and staff out. The bomb squad was there, working to disarm the bomb, but it detonated. A member of the squad was killed. A thirty-five-year-old father of three.”

No. An innocent man dead. A father—a real father—gone. Because of my own father's selfish greed. I had to find that injured family. Do anything I could to help them.

If they'd let me. For as long as they'd let me.

I wasn't just the daughter of a couple of druggies anymore. Or a pimp and his hooker. I was now the daughter of a murderer.