Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Zebra Books
ISBN-10: 0821775758
Former FBI Agent, Liz Moncrief loses herself in the small rural Catskill community of Abundance after the death of her daughter, but she can't outrun the pain, and she can't hide from the killer who buried her daughter alive. He's coming for her, and the only thing standing between Liz and a terrible end is Jake English, her ex-husband, the man she hates.
Chapter One
Abundance, New York
August
Jake had to admit a grudging admiration for the woman’s ingenuity. Once she set her mind to something, nothing short of Hell or the Second Coming of Christ would deter her from accomplishing what she set out to do, and Liz Moncrief had made up her mind to disappear.
It had taken him two months and a PI with a network of New York contacts to track her down. He could only hope that the monster who had terrorized two states for more than three years had half as much difficulty finding her as he’d had, and a tenth as much aversion for a face-to-face.
It wasn’t that he didn’t respect Liz’s position–—former position–—he corrected mentally, or that he didn’t recognize God-given ability when he encountered it. It was that he didn’t really like her very much.
Okay, so maybe “like” was a mild way of putting it. The truth was that they hated one another.
Working with Liz had nearly given him an ulcer. Everything with her was strictly by the book, from her advanced degree in Criminology to her sensible shoes. When he’d known her, she’d been a suit-wearing-FBI-goody-two-shoes, and Jake just couldn’t relate. He had something of a reputation for cutting corners, but only when it suited his purposes, and if at times his methods stretched the letter of the law a little, well, it certainly didn’t keep him awake nights.
What had kept him sleepless for weeks was the unshakeable feeling that The Cemetery Man had found her first.
The son of a bitch was fixated on Liz, and being the object of a serial murderer’s obsession was a damned dangerous position.
Not that Jake failed to understand the attraction. Liz was a looker, with chestnut hair and eyes the shade of melting chocolate. When she wasn’t pissed, which wasn’t often, her mouth was full and red, giving her an earthy quality that made a man–—other men, he corrected mentally-—think of sweltering nights and steamy sex–—he broke off the thought abruptly as the Buick’s engine started to knock.
He’d already made the courtesy call to Sheriff Rhys of the local sheriff’s department to discuss the situation, and to keep him apprised that there was a good likelihood trouble with a capital “T” was headed his way. Rhys was at his office awaiting his arrival, and Jake wasn’t sure what to expect. The sheriff was operating in a rural area, but that didn’t mean the man was stupid. He was going to ask questions, and Jake could only hope that his answers satisfied him.
If Rhys decided to verify Jake’s arguments with a call to Quantico, things could get more than a little uncomfortable. He could almost hear Assistant Director Fletcher’s gravel-voiced whisper, and it seemed so real that Jake glanced in the rearview mirror to assure himself that he was alone in the car. “Look, English. You’re a good man, a valued member of our team, and I don’t want to lose you. But the plain truth is: you worry me. I see that you were scheduled to see a bureau psychiatrist last week, and you missed the appointment.”
“Something came up.” Jake winced at the memory of the unconvincing lie.
“You blew it off,” Fletcher corrected.
“Sir, I’ve kept several appointments. Quite frankly, I didn’t see the point. I’m not crazy, and I don’t feel the need to ‘open up’.”
“That’s a matter of opinion-—an opinion that’s biased, I might add, but we’ll set that aside for the moment. Bring me up to speed. What’s on your desk at the moment?”
“Sir? I’ve got a stack of case files-—”
“Yes, I know. But what’s your primary focus? You can’t answer that, can you? Not truthfully, in any case, because if you answer it truthfully you prove my point.”
At that moment, the floor seemed to shift under Jake’s feet. Before he could argue, Fletcher went on, his tone more urgent.
“Exactly what do you want from me?”
“I want you to listen. Jake, I realize your connection to Agent Airhardt and I know that her tragedy touched you deeply, but it’s time to move on. We have other matters, which, at the moment, are more pressing. We’re not closing any doors, here. As a murder investigation, the case is still open; the Virginia authorities are looking for leads. But The Cemetery Man has been inactive for nearly two years. Let them handle it. If they need our help, they’ll call.”
Jake tried, but couldn’t quite blot out the memory of the first of several major ass-chewings. A few more missed appointments with the Bureau’s resident shrink didn’t help. Charlie Calendar, Jake’s friend and colleague, had done his best to cover for him, but Fletcher had eyes and ears everywhere at Quantico, and Jake’s increasingly obsessive behavior hadn’t exactly rallied his co-workers to his defense. He put in late hours, and rarely slept. He reviewed the data, the psychological profile, and he came up with nothing.
Unofficially, he was described as “burned-out and more than a little belligerent.” It probably hadn’t helped that he’d objected to the official verdict, handed down by “Dr. Dread,” the in-bureau shrink six weeks later. Her claim that “Special Agent English is suffering from a form of post-traumatic stress disorder,” wasn’t well-received. She stated that it was her professional opinion that Special Agent English had difficulty dealing with his own emotions and she worried that he could be a danger to himself, or those around him. As if hellbent on proving her right, Jake’s temper exploded. His objections had been loud-voiced, and less than flattering to the female psychiatrist, and Charlie had to get in his face to get him to shut up.
Fletcher, livid that his attempts to handle Jake’s “problems” in a compassionate and humane manner had been thoroughly unappreciated, had put Jake on immediate enforced leave of absence for a period of six months, with pay, pending further review of his “mental state.”
“Mental state, my ass,” Jake muttered. “There’s nothing wrong with me.” That had been weeks ago, and the fact that the Bureau had cut him loose without listening to his concerns still stung.
But that wasn’t completely true.
They had listened. It wasn’t like they hadn’t seen men like him before, men who couldn’t let go of the unsolved cases that were so brutal, so devastating on a personal level that they continued to work them even after retirement. Only they had done it quietly, discreetly. Jake had never been quiet, and he was anything but discreet.
Oh yeah. They’d listened, they’d weighed the facts, and as the case had grown colder and colder, his reasoning had leaked credibility until that well went bone dry. Like the kid who cried wolf, no one heard, until The Cemetery Man reemerged and the body count once again began climbing, but by that time it was already too late....
“You’re still not an official part of this investigation, so you flash the credentials, warn the sheriff of what may be coming and find Liz... and with any luck, you’ll be out of here before anyone asks to see your badge, or looks too close.”
There was no time to lose. Once the grim task of meeting with Rhys was taken care of, he’d undertake the even grimmer task of finding and confronting his former colleague. He had no doubt that she would be equally as happy to see him as he was to see her and he sure as hell hoped she wasn’t packing any heat.
While Jake plotted his next move, the engine’s knock became steadily more insistent, like a sixteen-pound sledge instead of a ball-peen hammer, impossible to shrug off.
“Shit,” Jake said, irritated. “What lousy fucking timing.” Then he remembered the neglected notation in his day planner several months back. Check the oil.
With the town of Abundance somewhere up ahead, the sheriff checking his watch and wondering where his late date had gotten to, and a serial killer on the move, Jake had no choice but to slow to a crawl. Steam and smoke seeped in pale blue threads from under the hood, smelling of heat and oil. “You can remember every MO and every signature of every case you’ve ever been involved in, but you can’t remember to check the oil. What the hell is wrong with this picture?”
Jake’s vernacular turned the car’s interior as thick and as blue as the oily steam rising from under the hood. At the foot of a long grade, the engine stalled, refusing all attempts to choke a few more miles from it. The overhead map light had burned out last year, a week after the first anniversary of the last time he’d had the car serviced. He dug in the side pocket of his leather overnight bag and brought out his cell phone, intending a courtesy call to let Rhys know he’d be late for their appointment–—very late, but the illuminated screen indicated “no signal.”
“Great. Just great.” He turned off the key, euthanizing the dying engine.
Shoving the phone back into place, he grabbed the bag which contained a few essentials: toothbrush, a change of clothing, and his notebook computer, and opened the door. The smell of hot metal and motor oil mingled with the heavy fog, the sickening smell of yet more complications in an already frustratingly difficult, high-pressure situation. Glancing at his watch, Jake unconsciously ground his teeth and began walking in the general direction of the town. The time he was wasting just getting to Abundance was precious. If his theory was correct, and TCM had located Liz, then she was in real trouble.
Not far away from the spot where Jake slogged through the mud, B. B. Bratt crouched in a patch of thick woods, resting his arthritic knee and listening to the ghostly bay of Catskill Belle his bluetick coon hound. Belle was a Grand Night Champion, with a voice that put chills up B. B.’s spine every time she gave a full-throated cry. A hunter from Alabama had offered him three thousand dollars for his little girl, and B. B. had refused it, but he was beginning to wonder if he’d made a blunder. There was something off about Belle these past two weeks. She’d trail all right, but she wouldn’t tree, and he could almost imagine the raccoons doing a little jig down by the creek because that big old scary dog had returned to wiffle and whine around B. B.’s feet.
Her crazy behavior was starting to piss B. B. off. Ten minutes in the woods and Belle quit baying. Another minute or two and sure enough, she came slinking out of the dark with head down and tail tucked. B. B. was about to scold her good when the brush rattled near at hand and something, or someone gave a strange sounding groan. The hound pressed close to his legs, quaking.
A groan and a curse and someone stumbled out of the brush. B.B.’s miner’s lamp hit Samuel T. Turner square in the face... or rather, what was left of it. B. B. recoiled from the failed suicide, falling over the hound and knocking down his .22 rifle, which went off with a sharp “crack” the shot spent in the direction of the Skunktown Road.
Turner laughed as B. B. picked himself up off the ground. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Turner! You near made me shit myself! What are you doin’ lurkin’ around out here in the dark, anyhow?”
The right side of Samuel Turner’s face was concave, a section of his jawbone missing, the skin scarred and drawn... the socket where his eye had been shone dark and empty. Perversely, Turner refused to wear an eye patch, and B. B. had garnered from local gossip that Turner was as ugly on the inside as he was on the outside. It was a damned hard truth to swallow, but there was no disputing that the younger man had been in and out of trouble of one kind or another since the age of fifteen.
“Buryin’ somethin’,” Turner said, taking a threatening step forward, jutting that nightmare mask into the older man’s face. Whiskey fumes mixed with the smell of body odor made B. B. gag. Turner glared at him from one dark eye, then, without explanation, he walked away.
B. B. Bratt let go the breath he’d been holding. He was relieved to see him go, but the evening’s hunt had already been ruined. Bratt had suffered through two hitches in Nam, and he’d seen a good portion of Hell, but Samuel Turner still made his skin crawl.
Putting a traumatized Belle in the cab of the pickup, he slammed the Dodge into four-wheel high, spun out of the gas well road and headed back to his place. As soon as he cleared the cleft, he picked up his car phone and called his wife Eunice, asking her to be sure and turn on the porch light. He didn’t want any more surprises. B. B. didn’t risk a glance back, afraid of who stood watching from the woods, and he remained oblivious to the man lying face down in the middle of the rutted road with a bullet hole in his back.
Elizabeth Moncrief was on the periphery of what passed for a social scene in Abundance, and she liked it that way. She knew most of the residents not at all, a few well enough to hold brief and impersonal conversations, but Julianne Rhys and Doctor Katherine Fife were the only two residents she’d allowed to tread on the intimate fringes of her life. She considered them friends, yet she continued to keep even them at arm’s length.
It was easier that way. She didn’t like having to explain herself when reliving the past was so painful... and she’d had a ton too much pain already.
She liked to keep her private life private, separating the past and the future into neat little compartmentalized areas with very thick, heavily padded walls to kept a keening scream from escaping. Failed marriage, lost child, shattered emotions, lack of closure, a raging case of burnout, none of which could be allowed to touch her current day-to-day existence for fear she would enter a tailspin she couldn’t pull out of. A low level of isolation and a rigid control were the only things that kept the devils at bay, and kept her from falling apart.
No one in Abundance knew where she had been before she purchased the country house eighteen months ago, or what she had been before she came to Ulster County. Kate Fife hadn’t asked, but Liz strongly sensed the dark-haired physician had her own personal demons.
Julianne Rhys, even more intuitive than Liz, knew more than she let on. But she never asked, and for that small courtesy, Liz was grateful.
Julianne came from the rear of the Book, Bell, and Whatnot as Liz stepped over the threshold. Julianne’s bookstore had odd hours, due to her law practice. The red-haired Wiccan lawyer took another cup down off a shelf and socked a tea bag into it. “Hey, there. I thought you’d be all fogged in. That’s some heavy stuff rising out there. A great night for spooks and hobgoblins.”
“Not to mention witches,” a very pregnant blond put in. She was seated in the rocker with Hissy, Julianne’s cat curled in what remained of her lap. “You love this kind of weather, and you know it. The spookier, the better. Hi, Liz, how’s that gorgeous stud of yours?”
“She could ask you the same question,” Julianne said with a laugh. “You’ve caught the literary world’s most eligible, and you won’t even say ‘yes’.”
Liz ignored the conversational thread. She wasn’t about to discuss the merits of matrimony with anyone. Her experience with it had left her cold, and wary, and more than a little wounded. “He’s doing a little better, I think. The vet’s out of town, but Kate has been good enough to drop by.”
“Kate Fife, M.D.?” Abby said.
“One and the same.” Liz shoved her hands into the deep pockets of a cracked wax chore coat. She’d met Abby Youngblood a few times in passing, and the blond seemed nice, but Liz wasn’t anxious to get too close. It wasn’t really about Abby. She came from a good family, and she seemed genuine. If she was hiding anything, it wasn’t anything earthshattering. The thought made Liz feel hypocritical. After all, she had more to hide than most people.
The young woman’s expansive waistline dredged up memories of her own pregnancy and along with them a poignant wave of bittersweet emotion. Birthdays and cakes and candles reflected in a bright and shining angel’s face flew past in a blinding blur, eight of them, until she felt the numbness stir in the pit of her stomach and creep up to anesthetize her soul, to turn her stiff and remote once more, a shell of a woman with a hollow existence. “I was just on my way to the hardware, and thought I’d stop in. Did the books I ordered arrive yet?”
“They did, actually. They’re in the back. I’ll get them.” Julianne moved past the rocker, pausing to glance back. “Are you sure you don’t have time for tea?”
Liz glanced at Julianne, intentionally raising the invisible barrier that kept the world out and special people like Julianne from accessing her thoughts. She saw the redhead’s puzzled frown as she caught Liz’s sudden secretiveness, and offered a remote smile. “Some other time, maybe. I don’t want to leave Anglican with Jersey for too long. It’s his poker night, and he’ll be impatient to leave.”
“Another time, then, and I intend to hold you to that. Abby’s here at least twice a week. We’re what passes for girl’s night out since J.T.’s out of town and Matt’s hunka burnin’ love caught up with her.”
Abby blushed. “Julianne! Will you stop?”
“What?”
Julianne put the books on the counter, and rung them up. “Forty-eight dollars even.”
Liz dug in her jeans’ pocket and paid with cash. Always cash, no checks, no credit cards, no paper trail. She took the change and the stack of books. “Abby, take care. Julianne, I’ll see you later.”
“You too, and be careful out there. It’s more than just creepy with all that fog. It’s dangerous.”
Outside, the fog was getting thicker. Lampposts and buildings were an indistinct blur. Liz walked a few yards toward her Explorer and sucked in a lungful of relief. She didn’t like lying to Julianne. The truth was Anglican was healing, and her hired man, Jersey Delacour had already gone home for the night. She’d just wimped out on the tea because of Julianne’s friend, Abby. It hadn’t been that many months, and the pain was like a sharp stab to the heart. She didn’t want to deal with it, didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to face the fact that her little girl was gone, that she would never brush her long dark curls again, that she would never hear her voice.
In some ways, she was every bit as bad as Richard. He’d found the perfect method to escape the pain, and damn him, there were moments when she envied him that. For her there was no true escape, just avoidance.
While living in Virginia, it hadn’t been as easy. There had been too many reminders. It had been far too convenient for friends and colleagues to drop by, and their uneasy sympathetic murmurs and pitying looks had gotten to be more than she could stand... especially when she’d been all too aware of the comments made when she was beyond hearing.
My God, what a pity, losing your kid like that. How does she go on? I’d lose my mind. Her husband did, but Richard never was as strong as Liz... or as involved in all of this. If I was her, I’d end it. I couldn’t live with the guilt.
Not only did the common consensus agree that poor Richard had been blameless in Fiona’s death, they held her solely responsible-—and God help her, in a way, she had been.
It had been her fault, for getting involved.
For being ambitious.
For being too damned good.
In the end the director had begged her to stay, to finish the job she’d started... but she’d walked away.
“Walked?” Liz said, steadying herself with a hand on a parking meter while she struggled to check her roiling emotions and catch her breath. “At least have the guts not to lie to yourself. You didn’t walk. You fucking ran.” And she didn’t even pause until she’d crossed the Pennsylvania border into New York. The rounded green hills that flanked the broad Hudson Valley had proven a godsend, timeless and solid, tamer than the Blue Ridge, somehow even more remote, perhaps because they were far away from Quantico.
When she saw the for sale sign at the end of a rutted, tree-lined lane some miles to the northwest and the centuries-old one-and-a-half story fieldstone house with steep gabled roof and double chimneys, cedar shake barn, and a stable for horses, she knew the end of a painful journey was nearing an end.
She’d sought out the owner and amazingly, bought the farm on a handshake and a promise that he’d have half of the asking price within the month. The remainder of the balance would be paid out in an Article of Agreement: monthly installments over the next five years. The former owner had seemed unconcerned. He gave her the mailing address for his fishing camp, signed over the deed, and shook her hand a second time, remarking that she had a face a man could trust.
Liz had nearly welled up at that-—irrational tears? Maybe. Yet, she couldn’t help thinking: If only you knew. She couldn’t comprehend how the older gentleman with the silver hair and pleasantly lined face could possibly trust her, when she couldn’t trust herself.
She blinked away the memory and opened the driver’s door of the Ford, carefully placing her precious bundle of books on the bench seat. Abby Youngblood had been right about one thing. The fog made for dreadful conditions. She kept the headlights on low beam and the sport utility vehicle in second gear, creeping along the Skunktown Road. It wasn’t much more than a cow path, and the heavy rains earlier in the day had turned the unpaved surface into a mire. Water rushed along the ditch on both sides of the road on its hurried way to Esopus Creek.
There was something unsettling about a night like this. Maybe it was the concealment the fog offered. Anything, anyone, could find cover in it and watch, unseen, undetected. The thought was enough to raise Liz’s hackles. She glanced in the rearview mirror. Had she checked the backseat and cargo bay before getting in?
She hadn’t. She’d been too caught up in fighting back the memories of a dead child seeing pregnant Abby Youngblood had triggered. She glanced back again, and when she looked back at the road he loomed up out of nowhere... a half-drown apparition, covered in mud and barely standing.
Liz stood on the brakes, but the anti-lock devise prevented her from achieving a screeching halt and she hit him, knocking him back onto the road where he disappeared into the mist.
For a few seconds, Liz sat shaking, too stunned to even cry out. Then she was moving, throwing the gear shift into park and opening the door. “Oh, my God. Are you all right? This can’t be happening.”
But it was all too real. A long body lay crumpled almost under the front wheel of the SUV. In the misty halo cast by the headlights Liz saw the neat round hole in the back of his shirt, and fumbled in the pocket of her chore coat for her cell phone. She turned it on and dialed 911 before she realized there was no signal. Skunktown Cleft was too deep a valley, the hills surrounding the road too steep to allow the signal to reach the tower.
She knew that. But she was panicked, and she shouldn’t be panicking.
“Calm, Liz. Just breathe.” She took a breath, and another. “Well, I can’t just leave him here.”
She crouched beside him and felt for a pulse in his throat. The first rule of emergency first aid was not to move the victim, yet as she saw it, she had no other choice. He was alive, but he needed medical attention, and he needed it now. If she left him lying in the road, someone else might come along and finish what she’d started, or he could die of shock right there in the mud. “Just hang on. I’m going to get you to a doctor. But first, we’ve got to get you on your feet.”
Gripping his shoulder, she struggled to turn him over. It took everything she had, and she just hoped to Christ she didn’t make things worse. He was heavy and it took several false starts, a lot of grunting in the muddy track, but she finally succeeded.
He fell onto his back with an audible groan, and at the same time, the beams of the headlights illuminated features that were achingly familiar, a hard masculine face she had hoped never to see again. “English? Oh, Jesus. This has got to be some sort of sick joke.”
He struggled for a deep breath and didn’t quite make it, his eyes slitting open, a grimace-like smile flitting over his mouth and then gone. He looked like he’d just gone ten rounds with Boxing’s heaviest hitter, and lost. “Liz.... I take it-—from that-—rather forceful-—hello-—that you’re still-—steamed.” Then, he passed out.
Liz’s heart stood still. Had she killed him? Shaky and sick at heart, she bent near, her cheek to his mouth, and felt the gentle rush of his breath against her skin. Relief flooded her. “Oh, God, Jake. Don’t you do that to me again.”
She thought about wrapping him in a blanket and tying his sorry ass to the bumper, but he hadn’t done anything quite that bad to her recently, and a good, but gentle dragging through the mud wouldn’t do a damn thing to improve a generally nasty disposition. So she settled for shaking him until the pain brought him around again, then nagged him onto his feet, and into the Ford before he lost consciousness again.
Dr. Kate Fife lived in a huge white Victorian on Howell Street. The light was on it the kitchen when Liz pulled into the drive. Reaching out, she lifted one of English’s eye lids, receiving a groan in return. “You stay where you are,” she warned. “Do you hear me? Any theatrics and I swear, I’ll leave you to die where you fall.”
A shallow breath. “You’re such a heartless bitch. It’s what I always-—loved most about you.”
“Stay in the vehicle, Jake. I’ll be right back.”
As Liz ran up the flagstone walk, the porch light came on and Dr. Kate Fife’s slim form appeared in the doorway. “Thank God you’re still awake! Can you lend me a hand? I just hit someone out on Skunktown Road.”
“Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be alive?”
“Since you’ve told me at least ten times, I think it’s starting to sink in.” Jake was flat on his stomach with a view of Kate Fife’s slender feet. “What kind of doctor wears tennis shoes, anyway?” he wondered.
“The kind who likes to play tennis.”
“Shouldn’t you buy something hellishly expensive?”
“Pretentious doesn’t go well around here, I fear.”
“Don’t expect gratitude,” a voice warned from a corner of the room he couldn’t see. “He’s a wimp when it comes to pain.”
“Look who’s talking,” Jake muttered, and Liz went dead silent.
“Small caliber bullet,” the voice above him mused. “Probably fired from a distance, which is why you’re still breathing. Do you realize a .22 caliber bullet can carry over flat, open ground for a mile? This one glanced off your shoulder blade. You’ve got a hairline crack, according to the X-ray, so you’ll have to keep your right arm immobile for a couple of weeks, and then nothing strenuous for another four.”
“No cast,” Jake insisted. “I can’t afford to lose my mobility.” The local anesthetic she’d administered had deadened the pain from the gunshot wound, but the aches and pains from his front-on tackle of Liz’s SUV made him feel as if he’d been trampled by a herd of elephants. There was a tugging sensation on his upper right side and a metallic chink as the slug was dropped into a metal container. “Just like I thought. .22 caliber. You two know each other?”
They answered simultaneously, Jake in the affirmative, Liz deep in denial. “This is too weird,” Kate muttered. “Mr. English–”
“It’s Special Agent English, but call me Jake. I hate formality.”
“You hate rules,” Liz put in, “and discipline, and being told what to do, and anything else that applies to the rules of polite society, and human decency, and-—”
He let out a low groan, struggling for breath. “Liz,” he said in a voice gone suddenly weak, motioning with two fingers on his good left hand to the corner where she stood. “Come closer. There’s-—something-—you need to hear.” She hesitated, but couldn’t resist, bending near. “Kiss my ass.”
Kate Fife choked on a suppressed laugh. “Well, Special Agent Jake, can you sit up without help?”
Jake rolled to his side and pushed upright, keeping his gaze fixed on the woman who retreated to the corner while Kate bandaged the bullet wound and at his direction brought a clean white shirt from his leather case.
“I’ll be filing a report with the local police department–—standard procedure with all gunshot wounds,” the physician told him. “But I’m sure you already know that. I’ll leave the car accident to your discretion since all you sustained were some minor contusions. If you want to file a complaint, you’ll have to talk to Sheriff Rhys.”
“Oh, shit. That reminds me.” He dug in his case and extracted the cellular phone, punched a few numbers and waited. “Sheriff Rhys.”
“This is Sarah from Dispatch, I’m afraid Sheriff Rhys is out on a call. May I ask who’s calling?”
“Special Agent Jacob English. We had an appointment.” He glanced at his watch. One a.m. “Any idea what time he’ll be available?”
“I’m sorry, sir. There’s been a three-car pile-up out on Rt. 213. There’s just no way to gauge these things.”
“So much for immediacy. All right. Tell him I was unavoidably delayed, and that I’ll stop by first thing in the morning.”
He hung up the phone. Kate Fife was in the adjacent room, writing out a couple of prescriptions, while Liz watched him, a look of acute wariness on her face. Her suspicion aside, she still looked damn good. Two years of self-imposed solitude hadn’t changed that... two years of self-imposed punishment. That’s what this living the life of the upstate recluse was all about. She’d buried herself as surely as the Cemetery Man had buried her eight-year-old daughter alive two years ago.
She was punishing herself for something she could not have predicted, or controlled, and in Jake’s world, it was as futile an exercise as it was stupid. That didn’t mean he couldn’t relate. He’d done “futile” a time or two.
“You know of a decent motel close by?” The question had been directed to Kate Fife, but Liz answered.
“There’s a bed and breakfast here in town, but I hope your credit card balance can take it. It’s pricey and exclusive. As a matter of fact, you might want to keep your mouth shut over there or you’ll be lucky if they’ll have you.”
“Always good with a verbal jab,” Jake muttered. “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your touch. I hope your other talents are intact as well, because it looks like you’re going to need them.” He put away the phone and stepped off the examination table. “Seeing as how you ran me down, giving me a lift over there is the least you can do.”
“It’s one o’clock in the morning. That’s the middle of the night around here. Besides, it’s getting close to Labor Day. They’ll probably be full up.”
“Do you have another suggestion?” Jake asked. She was so full of negatives. It was becoming obvious that had she possessed the power to do so, she would have wished him into nothingness.
“As a matter of fact, I do. Rent a car and go back to Quantico.” Pitiless, not to mention oblivious.
“I can’t do that. Besides, I just got here.”
“You hate New York. You said being in New York was like being in Hell.”
“Well, at the moment, Hell is where the action is, and where I can do the most good.” It was said quietly, but it obviously struck a nerve.
Her head snapped up, and the look in her narrowed eyes said it all. She didn’t want to hear it. Especially not from him.
“Jesus,” he said. “TCM is active, and he’s relocated. He’s here, Liz, in New York.”
“That has nothing to do with me,” she said. “I’m out of it now. He won’t get a rise out of me. There’s no one to impress, no challenge.”
“That’s not the way this works, and you know it. You don’t get to dictate what happens here.”
Liz glared at him. He was standing beside the exam table, his long-tailed white shirt hanging open in front over a pair of dark gray trousers. His skin was tanned, making his sapphire eyes seem even bluer, and his black hair had more than a slight smattering of gray at the temples.
He was thirty-nine years old, in good physical shape, and he shouldn’t be graying. The last time she saw Jake’s father, Ranald, he’d been sixty-nine and he’d still had a full head of dark hair, and only a smattering of gray. Jake wouldn’t admit it, but the pressure cooker of Quantico’s Investigative Support Unit was getting to him, and she couldn’t help feeling a minuscule pang of remorse for the way she was treating him. “I know how it works, Jake,” she said quietly. “Now, ask me if I give a damn.”
Kate came back into the room with a couple of prescriptions, which she handed to Jake. “You can get these filled tomorrow at Arrow’s Pharmacy. Tylenol for the pain, and I’ll stop by tomorrow and check your shoulder. I’m scheduled to look in on Anglican tomorrow anyway.”
“Anglican?”
“Liz’s stud. He came up lame after an injury. You’re staying at the farm until you find lodging, right?” She looked from one to the other. “I mean, you are friends–—or colleagues, or something–—right?”
He was looking at Liz, a level, gauging look, awaiting her rebuff, refusal, reaction. “One night,” she said, and she meant it.
They made the drive back to her place in total silence, stopping at his car long enough to tie a white rag to the door handle and to grab the garment bag from the back seat. Liz’s sanctuary was quaint and old, with a solid, lived-in, comfortable feel. Three huge pines shaded the front of the house, protecting it from the wind that swept down from the Adirondacks and tore through the cleft in the raw months of winter.
The house was dark, and Jake found that odd, but he refrained from asking questions. As a guest in her home, he would try not to irritate her any more than necessary. She got out of the Saddle Tan Ford, locked it, and took his leather carryall out of his hands. “Kate said you aren’t supposed to lift anything.”
“I have two hands, Liz. There’s nothing wrong with the left one.”
She plunged ahead, up the flagstone walk, between rows of perennials, hellbent on ignoring him. She inserted a key into the lock and pushed the door wide. A pair of dogs boiled out onto the porch, barking and wagging their tails. One was a golden retriever, the other a black lab. Liz didn’t make the introductions, but she did fuss over her canine companions, and little bypassed Jake unless he wanted it to. A flick of the light, and they went inside.
The great room had that same aged and weathered look that the house’s exterior projected. He could feel the stability and reassurance it exuded, and knew she must have found it comforting after the turmoil of her life in Virginia. A massive stone fireplace occupied a place on the east wall, dominating the room, giving it the rustic air of a mountain cabin. There were bookshelves and a comfortable sofa, over-stuffed side chairs, and a roll-top desk, but no stereo, and no television. He stood looking around, taking it all in, puzzling over what had become of the sophisticated high-tech Liz he’d known in Virginia. Few personal items, few luxuries. “You do have indoor plumbing?”
“Down that hallway, first door on the right.” She plunked down two pillows and a wool blanket that had seen better days. “I ride early, but I’ll do my best not to wake you when I leave.”
“You ride?” Jake repeated. “As in horses? I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
It was the wrong thing to say. All traces of the uneasy truce they’d slipped into since she’d offered him a roof to keep the rain off blew up in his face. Her dark eyes seemed lit from within by an anger that wasn’t totally his. “Let me make it very clear to you, Jake English. You and I are not friends, and we’re not colleagues. You are a guest in my home for one night-—one! I don’t know what you’re doing here in Abundance and I don’t want to know, but I am warning you. You do not tell me what to do, and you stay out of my business. No one knows about Virginia, do you hear me? And I damn sure want to keep it that way. Ruin what I’ve built here, and I swear to Christ I will make you pay!”
Liz stomped from the room, the dogs tracking at her heels, not stopping until they were safely upstairs. Locking the bedroom door and leaning against it, she tried not to dwell on their earlier cryptic exchange. TCM is active, and he’s relocated. He’s here, Liz, in New York.
That has nothing to do with me. I’m out of it now. He won’t get a rise out of me. There’s no one to impress, no challenge.
That’s not the way this works, and you know it. You don’t get to dictate what happens here.
Oh, she knew how it worked, Liz thought darkly. The twisted, sadistic game The Cemetery Man was playing wouldn’t end until he was ready to end it, or until one of them was dead.
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