Blind Spot (2010)

by Nancy Bush

  SEARCHING FOR A KILLER

  “Anybody can kill,” Lang argued. “And Catherine seems to be a woman of rigid rules.”

  “If Cat is really a member of the Colony, and she took a lover and became pregnant, that might certainly stir up some strong emotions in Catherine, but I don’t think it would set her on a path of murder. Either the baby, Cat, or even this Rafe.”

  “Then why won’t she even talk to me?” Lang asked.

  “You haven’t given her a clue what it’s about.”

  “She knows Cat left. She has to be worried about it. But for some reason she doesn’t want to face it, and why would that be? Because she’s at fault in there somewhere. Maybe criminally at fault.”

  “You’re trying to force facts to fit your own theory.”

  “Why are you so dead set on defending a woman you don’t even know?” Lang demanded. “You don’t think a woman could be diabolical enough to chase them down and knife them to death?”

  “Oh, yes, I do. Women can surprise you with their strength, fury, and commitment,” Claire said. “I just think you’re totally off base with Catherine. You’re focused on her and it’s taking you away from the real killer…”

  Books by Nancy Bush

  CANDY APPLE RED

  ELECTRIC BLUE

  ULTRAVIOLET

  UNSEEN

  BLIND SPOT

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  Blind Spot

  NANCY BUSH

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Contents

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Yes, there is a Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department but in my novel all the members of the department are fictional, and I’ve relocated the department itself to the center of town, rather than on Long Prairie Road, where you would actually find it if you were looking. All of the other characters in this book are fictional as well, and though some of the places are real, I’ve futzed with the geography enough to make driving from Portland to the coast more like a trip on a superhighway than the two lane, unlit road over several mountain passes that it mostly is. Anyone who’s traveled Highway 26 at night, in the rain or snow or whatever, will know what I’m talking about. And for the purposes of keeping the characters doing something other than driving, I’ve made the state of Oregon just a little smaller.

  Prologue

  A blast of wind slammed against the old pickup and nearly wrenched the wheel from Rafe’s hands. He muttered under his breath and with an effort kept the vehicle bouncing hard down the road. Night was thick and black, and the keening wail of the wind kept his senses on high alert.

  He glanced down at the crown of the blond angel snuggled up next to him. She was older than he was by six months, but she was so fragile that he felt manly and protective around her. He wanted to put an arm over her shoulders but needed both hands to wrangle this miserable old Chevy truck down the highway.

  They were running away. Running away together. It scared him and thrilled him at the same time.

  He saw her slide a hand over her protruding belly, and it made him feel warm inside. His baby. Their baby. He wanted to crow with delight.

  They’d gotten away!

  But there was still danger.

  She was silent as they continued to rattle and shake down the road. He hoped to hell the rough ride didn’t hurt the baby. They were going for a new start, a new life.

  Damn! It felt good!

  Rafe gazed through the inky blackness and saw tree limbs bend toward the vehicle as he passed, as if they were trying to stop them. Nothing could stop them. He wouldn’t let it.

  A dozen more miles passed beneath the tires and he mused into the silence, “You know they found that woman’s body. The whore that everyone kinda called a witch? She’d been dead a while. Nothing but bones, really.”

  Rafe was better at being a dope in love than a conversationalist; he just didn’t know it. The girl beside him listened quietly, neither encouraging nor discouraging him.

  “I told you about the Blackburns, right?” he went on. “I do some work for them sometimes? That old couple who hide behind their curtains in their big house and spy on other houses? They saw the fire across their field a few years back and thought the witch died then. Maybe she did. But the cops and stuff dug all around and didn’t find her. Guess he hid her. But they found her now. Just a bag of bones.”

  They drove on for a while. The crying wind rose to a shriek as they passed through the mountains. The Coast Range. Rafe was taking them away from the beach and toward Portland, though he didn’t have the foggiest idea what they would do when they reached the city. But Tasha had wanted to get far away, and so the biggest city in Oregon was where they were heading.

  They passed a rest stop, one lonely light shining through the cold night air. Rafe had been feeling his bladder and, with a grimace, stepped on the brakes and swung the truck back around.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded sharply.

  “Gotta drain the lizard, hon. I’m quick. You know how quick I am.”

  “Hurry.”

  He dared to touch her silken hair, comforting her. But she was tense and her blue eyes were shadowed and haunted as they looked up at him.

  Rafe drove into the rest stop and parked in the handicap spot closest to the restrooms. The men’s and women’s signs were visible under the yellow light by the doors.

  He started to get out and Tasha scrambled after him. Lovingly looking down at her awkward form, he asked, “What are you doing outta the truck?”

  “I have to go, too,” she said.

  “You’re peeing for two.” He grinned in the darkness, his dark hair flying around his face. “Pretty soon that little bugger’s gonna be here.”

  He helped her toward the door and made sure the women’s room was unlocked, then whistled as he strode toward the men’s room. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. She loved him. Loved. Him. They’d only made love a half a dozen times or so, all under the cover of secrecy because she would be in deep, deep shit if anyone at the house found out. Once they’d gone out to the graveyard and made love right on top of one of her dead relatives. Cold as a witch’s tit, and he’d felt guilty and strange, but she’d been so beautiful. White skin, blond hair, a kind of smile that made him want to throw her down and screw the hell out of her. Brand her as his. And he had, too. God, it had been something. She’d had to clap her hand over his mouth ’cause he’d wanted to howl and scream that he’d claimed her.

  Another time they’d made love standing up—their usual way, ’cause of the weather—under her bedroom window. It had been a lot colder, and they’d had to be quicker. The danger was heightening. He’d come so fast he’d been a little embarrassed but she’d said it was okay. Had to be that way. Only way they could be together.

  And then the people in the house had started to guess what was going on. They’d gotten strict
er with her. He’d had trouble seeing her alone. But she loved him. She told him she loved him over and over again. And he loved her just as much.

  They’d had a heck of a time seeing each other. Stolen moments here and there. And then they’d learned she was pregnant. She’d whispered it to him when they were outside, under a cold spring night. He’d been scared shitless at first. Then thrilled. He’d begged her to run away with him and she’d said yes.

  So here they were, months later, fulfilling their dream. Their destiny.

  Zipping up, Rafe strolled out of the bathroom. She wasn’t out yet. Women never were. He glanced at a small field surrounded by the waving firs and decided to walk over and have a smoke.

  Tasha leaned against the side of the stall, feeling cumbersome and fat. Her eyes were closed and she was mumbling encouragement to herself. She had set them on this path and now it was just a matter of timing.

  A curtain of darkness was descending inside her head. Nothing new. She’d had the same trouble since she could remember. An affliction, she’d been told. Well, they were never going to tell her that again!

  She heard the rumble of another vehicle pulling into the rest stop, the noise just barely discernible over the keening of the wind. Her heart clutched. She waited and then footsteps headed into the women’s room, carefully measured treads.

  Tasha’s eyes flew open and her lips parted. The saliva dried in her mouth.

  The footsteps slapped against the concrete floor, pausing a moment by Tasha’s door. She was glad for the dim illumination; the lightbulbs barely worked at all. She dug her fingernails into her palms.

  They didn’t even bother going into another stall. Just turned around and headed back outside without using the facilities.

  Carefully, Tasha slipped her lock, peeked out, then tiptoed toward the outside door. She would be seen under the yellow light if she made a break for the pickup. Yet she had no choice.

  Silently cursing her ungainly shape, she drew a long breath, then hurried as best she could into the night and to the passenger door. It was open and she clutched it like a lifeline. But there was no Rafe inside. Where was he?

  Sidestepping the door, she slipped around the rear of the pickup. The newly arrived vehicle was three spots over, a dark sedan. She gave it a long, hard look. The driver was nowhere to be seen.

  Then she thought she heard voices. A snatch on the wind.

  “…baby…”

  “…wasn’t supposed…”

  “…get…away…”

  “…you can’t…!”

  Tasha moved from the rear of the Chevy back to the side, keeping the pickup between her and the grassy area where the voices seemed to be coming from. She couldn’t discern who was talking. But they were talking about a baby. They were talking about her.

  Clenching her fists, she waited, counting her breaths. Minutes passed. Eternities, it seemed.

  She finally dared to leave the security of the pickup, but when her feet hit the muddy field grass she slipped and went down on one knee. She glanced around anxiously but there was no one. Nothing but the shrieking wind and rattling limbs and wet slap of water that flew off the branches.

  She opened her mouth. “Rafe?” she called softly, sliding one clenched hand inside her coat pocket. “Rafe?”

  No sound. But then…something…near?

  The knife came swiftly. Slicing down on her. Cutting through her coat and piercing the skin of her left shoulder. Tasha screamed. Shocked. The blade was pulled back, then stabbed again. She jerked herself away and stumbled into the field.

  “Rafe!” she screamed and she heard him crashing toward her.

  “Tasha?”

  But then her attacker was on her again and she went down, rolling with them in the mud, frantically trying to stop the blade. Rolling and rolling. Fighting.

  Then Tasha was on her back, the knife blade held high above her, glinting in the yellow security light. She recognized the figure looming over her as the devil himself.

  The devil herself.

  Long-haul trucker Denny Ewell had to take a whiz really bad. Damn motherfuckin’ coffee. Went through you like you had no pipes. He pulled into the rest stop as the faintest sign of daylight, more like just a lifting of darkness, started moving over the hills.

  He pulled his rig into a spot designed for RVs and big semis and leaped from the cab, racewalking to the men’s room. He was peeing by the time he got the damn zipper down and he let out a huge sigh of relief.

  Finished, he looked at his reflection and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Fuckin’ A,” he said to his receding hairline. Making a face at his craggy mug, he headed back outside. A little lighter. Little better. He’d be in Astoria in an hour or so, depending on the snowpack in the Coast Range.

  He was just about back to his rig when he heard something. Something like a groan. He glanced around. There was a beat-up Chevy pickup in the lot and he realized its passenger door was ajar.

  “Hey,” he called.

  No answer.

  Squinting at his watch, he went to the opened door and pulled it wider. No one there.

  The groan was louder. Coming from beyond the pickup. Circling the vehicle, he checked the field opposite. Something there. Movement of sorts.

  “Hey,” he called again as he walked cautiously toward it. Wouldn’t do to run into some kind of wild animal searching for food scraps. He could do without that encounter.

  Something on the ground.

  Something with clothes on…

  And then it rose to its feet, a bloodied figure, towering over the prone body still lying on the wet grass.

  Denny’s heart nearly exploded from his chest. “Holy shit!”

  “The baby,” it said, clutching its chest.

  Denny stepped back—he couldn’t help himself—as the figure before him staggered toward him, then fell to its knees. A man. Twisting to bend over the limp mound on the ground.

  “Hey. Hey, man,” Denny said, reaching out a hand.

  The mound on the muddy grass turned out to be human. A woman, pregnant, her belly exposed like a white mound with black marks across its crest. Bloody marks. From knife wounds scored across her taut skin.

  “Oh, Jesus.” Denny pushed the bending man away, not sure what he intended. He fell over without resistance, his eyes staring at the sky, blood dampening his chest.

  Horrified, Denny dragged his gaze back to the woman. She was breathing shallowly. Alive. Barely.

  And the baby? Whoever had tried to cut the poor little thing out had not succeeded.

  Sending a prayer to the man upstairs, he ran for his truck and cell phone.

  Chapter 1

  “Get over here,” Leesha said. “You need to meet our new patient. Someone tried to cut her baby out!”

  Dr. Claire Norris wheeled into Laurelton General’s parking lot and peremptorily nosed her car into another doctor’s designated spot. She wasn’t affiliated with Laurelton General. She was a psychiatrist at Halo Valley Security Hospital, a facility located some fifty miles south of Laurelton for patients with mental problems. But today, on her day off, she’d gotten the call from Leesha, a friend and associate, who believed this patient would be transferred to Halo Valley as soon as her physical ailments were addressed.

  Damn near catatonic. Knifed across her shoulders and abdomen. Not deep enough to cut to the baby, but Jesus, Joseph, and Mary…

  Claire drew a steadying breath. She’d seen the damage a knife could do to human flesh. In her office. Directly in front of her. A knife slashing through a woman’s throat, the last awful sounds as the victim lost her life and the murderer turned his attention on Claire…

  As she had since the beginning, she pushed the memory aside with an almost physical effort as she switched off the ignition. But, like always, it nagged at her. Wouldn’t let her go. The killer had been one of her patients. Heyward Marsdon III. A paranoid schizophrenic who suffered from hallucinations and delusions. He hadn’t meant to kill his girlfr
iend, Melody Stone. He hadn’t known what he was doing. He’d dragged Melody to see Claire and then been overrun with visions of ghoulish zombielike creatures who he believed were trying to attack Claire. He’d grabbed Melody, no longer his girlfriend but an evil being out for blood, and threatened to kill her. Claire begged him to stop. Begged him. Cajoled and reasoned and expected results. Heyward hesitated briefly, just long enough for Melody to whisper “Do it!” to him, as if she were under the spell of some rapture, and then he slit her throat. Just like that. Slaying the woman he believed to be a soulless monster in one stroke.

  Claire screamed. Shock ran through her like an electric current. But then Heyward was on her, the knife to Claire’s throat, determined to kill her—or, more accurately, the evil being Claire had become. He pressed the knife’s edge to her throat, his hand quivering. Claire told him over and over that she was his doctor, that she meant him no harm. She asked quietly if she could get help for Melody and somehow her words finally penetrated his brain and he allowed her to call in Wade, one of the hospital guards. But Melody Stone was long gone before help arrived. Only Claire survived.

  Six months ago. As real a nightmare now as it had been then. Claire had been in her own kind of therapy ever since it had happened. A memory that wouldn’t go away. Ever. She could only hope she could put it aside a bit with time.

  Now, glancing through the windshield and spotting rain, her gaze extended to the sprawling gray concrete-and-stone hospital that was Laurelton General. She probably shouldn’t be here. Was doubtlessly overstepping her limits. By all rights she should leave this to the higher-ups at Halo Valley who had so uncaringly thrown her to the wolves after the incident with Heyward Marsdon. That’s what they’d reduced Melody Stone’s death to: the incident. And though Claire’s life had been threatened, too, they let her take the fall alone.

  In the time since the incident Claire had been seen by a barrage of other psychologists and psychiatrists and varying concerned hospital administrators and investors who’d rubbed their chins and offered antidepressants, which she’d refused, and then tentatively, finally pronounced her mentally good to go. Everyone professed great relief for her well-being, but all they really wanted was to dust their hands of her: the sole witness to a murder on hospital grounds.