“I’ve told him not to worry so much,” Kristie said.
Beneath the house, there was a flurry of confusion. Hands turned into tight fists. Stu wasn’t here. How could they be talking about him? How could they see him?
“Kristie’s right,” Annie continued. “Stu wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“I told you Stu didn’t kill the Huffs or anyone else,” Kristie said, her voice a combination of indignation and relief.
In the cool of the crawl space, the man who had killed the Huffs held his breath. How did they know? He’d suspected that Santana and Annie knew too much, but he couldn’t figure out how. How annoying. Obviously they’d told Kristie too much, which meant she and Stu wouldn’t be around much longer. Their deaths on top of the Huffs would raise too many questions, which meant he’d have to move again. He’d have to change his name again, and don a new persona for his new neighbors.
Who would he be this time?
“It’s not Stu,” Annie said. “I’m sure of that. But I feel like the man I’ve been dreaming about is close. It’s like that night we ate supper here, and I felt like his eyes were on me the entire time.” She gasped. “Lucky, he’s so close, I can…I can almost touch him. He’s here. Somehow, he’s here.”
The man beneath the house scurried toward the small cellar door at the back of the house. Dreams? Feelings? Was it possible that Annie Lockhart was some sort of clairvoyant? Witch. That was the word for women like her. If that was true, then he didn’t have time to plan. He had to eliminate her and everyone she’d shared her dreams with, as soon as possible.
He tried to leave the crawl space quietly, but it was too late. He heard the front door slam, the sound of Santana’s footsteps on the front porch.
Running for the woods, the watcher looked back. As he reached the edge of the forest, Lucky Santana rounded the house at a run.
Lucky was standing on the far end of the front porch when he heard the sound from behind the house. It sounded like a wooden door, slamming against the house.
He ran, bounding over the front porch railing and rounding the house with his eyes scanning the overgrown backyard. Movement caught his eye, and he watched as a figure of a man disappeared into the woods.
He increased his speed, drawing his gun as he pursued the man who’d been watching and listening. How much had he seen and heard? Did he know he’d been caught? Yeah, why else would he take the chance of running this way?
The woods were thick, and Lucky wasn’t far into them before he knew finding his quarry would be difficult, if not impossible. Especially if the man was familiar with these woods, as he most likely was.
Most terrifying was the possibility that the killer had circled around, and while Lucky searched the woods for a sign of the man’s trail, a psycho intent on harming Annie and her friend was making his way back to the house.
Lucky didn’t move any slower as he returned to the house. His imagination was working overtime. The women were alone. Annie, who meant more to him than he was willing to admit, and Kristie, who was carrying her first child.
Love was a bitch.
Lucky ran hard, determined to force out the thoughts he didn’t want or need with sheer physical force. Annie had been different from the beginning, but he hadn’t suspected that she might work her way so completely beneath his skin until it was too late. There were a thousand reasons why the two of them wouldn’t work.
And one reason why he wished it could.
He didn’t find the women inside the house. They were standing at the back, peeking through a low door that had apparently led the man they were searching for into the crawl space. As he moved closer he saw that Kristie shook, with fear and anger. He couldn’t blame her. A man had been under her house, spying on her and her husband. For how long?
Annie was oddly calm now. She knew the intruder—the killer—was gone, and he wasn’t headed back. Not now.
Lucky was so relieved to see them both standing there, well and unharmed and foolishly out in the open, that for a moment he couldn’t think of anything else. He didn’t care that the killer had gotten away. His job was here. His job was Annie.
He grabbed Annie’s arm, perhaps a bit more firmly than he should have, given that he had done his best to convince her that he didn’t care.
“You’re both getting out of here. Stu, too,” he added when Kristie began to protest.
Annie and Kristie both argued that they had businesses that could not be abandoned at a moment’s notice. There were guests in the bed-and-breakfast, and while Annie had managers in both her stores, those managers were accustomed to having the owner in the shop to handle certain duties.
Lucky barely listened. He didn’t care. All that mattered was keeping the women safe. They were his responsibility; only he could save them. Arrangements could be made for the bed-and-breakfast and Annie’s stores. For how long? He didn’t know. And didn’t care, either.
Annie remained oddly calm. She sent Kristie into the house to pack an overnight bag. She explained that Lucky was right, and arrangements could be made. And then, when Kristie was gone, she looked directly into Lucky’s eyes.
“It’s not your fault,” she said softly. One hand came up and touched his cheek.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No, I guess you don’t.” Her fingers rocked against his cheek. “You were nine years old. No one expected you to save your mother.”
“I don’t know where that came from—”
“Deep,” she said, interrupting him with a whisper. “Very deep. Logically you know there was nothing you could do to save your mother from the man who killed her, but everything inside us isn’t always logical, no matter how hard we try to make it so. I know that better than anyone. Let it go, Lucky.”
“Can we save the psychological touchy-feely crap for another day? At the moment, I’m not worried about saving a woman who’s been dead twenty-seven years,” he said tersely. “Right now, I’m only concerned with keeping you safe.”
“I know,” Annie said, and then she rested her cheek against his chest and sighed deeply. “I think I love you, too.”
Chapter 15
Lucky promised that within hours Mercerville would be swarming with Benning agents who would continue the search for the killer, probably in a not-so-subtle way. His plan was to get her, Kristie and Stu out of town that very afternoon. Annie wasn’t sure where he’d take them, but it was sure to be safe. Nothing else was on his mind.
Sundays in Mercerville were usually quiet. Tourists were traveling in and out, for the most part, so it wasn’t the busiest day. Several of the shops were open, at least in the afternoon, since tourism was such a large part of the local economy and weekenders couldn’t be discounted.
Annie’s Closet was closed on Sunday. The employees liked it that way, and since so much of Annie’s business these days was by phone and Internet it didn’t affect her too much to be closed for that one day of the week. A few tourists walked the sidewalks, moving in and out of the shops.
Kristie’s phone call to her husband had caught Stu in his car and almost home again, and then he was headed back toward town. Lucky was in the front of the store, making phone calls and barking orders. He did that so well.
Annie and Kristie were in the back office of the Mercerville location of Annie’s Closet. Annie scribbled several notes for the store manager and paid a few bills that needed to go out within the week. She didn’t know how long she’d be away from home. If it was more than a week, she’d have to make other arrangements.
Even though Lucky was determined that she would be leaving town this afternoon, and she was making all the proper preparations, deep inside Annie didn’t feel like she was going anywhere. It wasn’t a sensation she could explain, any more than she could explain why she dreamed some things and not others, why she could see into the killer’s mind and still not know who he was, why she couldn’t remember the smell from her vision that was, for some reason, important�
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“I have to go to the bathroom,” Kristie said, headed for the hallway. “This way?”
“Last door on the right,” Annie said as she stuck a stamp on a bill for feathers and sequins that would be used on a collection of holiday purses…if she ever got to them. Right now, she wasn’t certain that she would. Too many of the days and weeks that stretched before her were blank. Not yet decided perhaps.
She heard Lucky’s voice rise from the front of the store, and that gruff sound made her smile. He loved her. He didn’t like the fact much, and it confused him, which he really hated. But she had felt love.
What she didn’t know was if that love was enough. She was still odd; he was still wounded. A man like Lucky didn’t want a woman to be able to see his weaknesses. He didn’t want anyone to know that he was human, with human frailties and fears, just like everyone else.
Suddenly the air in her office turned cold, and Annie shivered. An unexpected aroma filled her head, as if it were real. It was a familiar odor, the one from her vision. Lemons. Sweet, tangy, somehow bitter lemons.
Kristie stumbled into the doorway, her face pale, her hands shaking. She wasn’t alone.
Wade Nance stood beside her. A knife gripped in one hand pointed into Kristie’s back, where Annie had felt the pain of flesh being sliced. In the other hand he held a block of candy.
Lemon fudge.
Annie glanced toward the front room, and Wade shook his head. His ordinary, commonplace, friendly head. He lifted the hand, which gripped the fudge, to his mouth, and touched a finger to his lips, ordering silence. With the blade held at Kristie’s back, Annie had no choice but to comply.
He would have no qualms about stabbing Kristie if they didn’t do as he said.
“You won’t get away with this,” Annie whispered. “Lucky is in the front of the store. Hurt either of us, and you won’t escape. Where do you think you can go from here?” And how on earth had he gotten past Lucky?
“I’ll get out the same way I got in.” Wade glanced up. “Did you know that the attics in these old, connected buildings are separated by next to nothing? Making my way from the fudge shop to this place was easy, and by the time anyone knows you two are dead, I’ll be back where I belong, selling fudge to the tourists and making small talk. I promise to be devastated when I hear the news.”
He guided Kristie into the room and placed the lemon fudge onto the desk where Annie sat. “Make a sound and you’ll both be dead before Santana can get here. Trust me, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” He gestured to the fudge. “Eat it. I made your favorite flavor.”
“What…what’s in there?”
“Sugar, butter, lemon flavoring, lemon zest—that’s the secret to the recipe, I believe—and of course walnuts. The walnuts have been soaked in a particular rodenticide. Not enough to kill you. Just enough to cause you to become disoriented and weak.”
And then, when she was disoriented and weak from ingesting rat poison, Nance would be able to do whatever he wanted. He’d be able to kill her and pose her body—and Kristie’s—in whatever way he chose. A robbery. A suicide. A murder…
“You, too,” Wade said, giving Kristie a shove toward the desk and the poisoned fudge.
Annie’s heart leapt. “Kristie’s pregnant. You can’t make her eat that…”
“Can’t?” he whispered hoarsely. His eyes flashed with a depth of anger she had not been able to see in him in the past. What exactly had she seen when she’d touched Wade’s hand?
Emptiness. A vast, cold emptiness he’d been trying for years to fill. If she’d seen the truth on that day, they wouldn’t be here. Lucky would’ve proven that the seemingly harmless man was guilty of murder. He would never have gotten close to Kristie or her. But she hadn’t seen the truth. All she could do now was use what she’d felt of this sick man, what she knew of his dark soul, to reach him. Somehow.
“Kristie has done nothing wrong,” Annie said. “She hasn’t disappointed you. She hasn’t hurt you or abandoned you or revealed the kinds of weaknesses that make you angry. She’s perfect, isn’t she? Pretty and loyal and loving. Why on earth would you want to kill her? She’s everything you’ve been searching for, for such a long time.”
“I don’t want to kill her,” Wade said. “It’s all your fault. You and that man, you ruined everything. Why is he here? What brought him here?”
Annie knew she had to drag Wade’s attention away from Kristie, just long enough for the pregnant woman to make her escape. She stood, her hands gripping the edge of the desk. The desk and the offered poison fudge were between her and the man who had invaded her dreams. “I brought him here,” she confessed. “I dreamed about what you’d done, how you’d killed the Huffs and I brought Lucky here to find you. To stop you. He will, you know. Even if you kill me and Kristie here and now, if you escape through the attic and play innocent when someone tells you that we’re dead…they’re still going to catch you.” She actually had no idea what was going to happen next where Wade was concerned, and she cursed this unreliable ability that had brought her to this place in time.
But she could bluff. “My psychic powers led me to you, and now, with you standing so close, I can see your future in great detail.”
She could tell by the terror that bloomed on his face that he believed her.
“Do you want to know what I see?” she asked.
“Yes.” Wade shook visibly. “I mean, no! I don’t know what your game is. But you don’t see anything. You’re just…a girl.”
“I see that your wife left you for another man,” Annie said calmly. “She’s not dead, though you prefer to tell people that she is. Some days you wish she was dead. You wish you’d killed her, the way you killed the others.”
He went pale. “You’re just…guessing.”
“I know you’re empty inside, and you try again and again to steal other people’s happiness, because it’s too hard to try again to make your own. If you fail, it will hurt all over again. If other people fail in your stead…” She shrugged her shoulder and glanced down at the poisoned fudge.
“Eat it,” Wade commanded.
Annie lifted the fudge from her desk and broke off a small piece. How much could she ingest before she did permanent damage to her body? How much before she was useless and Wade Nance could do with her whatever he wanted? How long before she didn’t have the energy to put up a fight, if the opportunity arose?
“Let Kristie go, and I’ll take a bite.”
“I can’t do that,” he said. “She’ll tell.”
“Lock her in the bathroom. It’s not like you’re actually going to get away with this. You’re going to be caught. You’re going to prison, where you’ll spend the rest of your life in a small, dark, damp cell. Everything there is gray, including you.” She tried to sound confident. “I disappointed you, Wade. Kristie didn’t. Let her go.”
He nodded his head. “Take a bite, and then we’ll take her to the rest room.”
“You don’t want to hurt the baby, do you?” Annie asked.
“No,” Wade whispered. “I don’t.”
Annie held her breath as she popped a small piece of the poisoned fudge into her mouth. The effects were not immediate, but she knew she’d ingested enough to have an effect, possibly within minutes.
From the front room, she heard Lucky’s voice. He was still talking on the phone, making arrangements with other Benning agents, collecting some of the information they’d gathered since the last report.
Together she, Wade and Kristie walked away from Lucky, heading to the far rear end of the shop. Annie remained calm. Once Kristie was safe, she’d call out for Lucky. If Nance was planning to kill her anyway, what did she have to lose? At least Kristie and her baby would be safe, and maybe Nance wouldn’t kill her before Lucky reached them. He would use that knife, though. She had no doubts about that. Nance examined the rest room to make sure there was no way to escape. This little bathroom didn’t even have a window, so there was no way for Kri
stie to escape or call for help.
He ordered Kristie to sit on the toilet seat and she sat. He pulled a length of rope from inside his jacket, and ordered Annie to tie her friend’s hands. He didn’t want her making her way up and through the attic, as he had. Annie glanced up. He’d moved one of the ceiling tiles aside. If he had the opportunity to slip out that way again and replace the tile, would anyone think to look in that direction—if she and Kristie were dead and couldn’t tell them what had happened?
Kristie was too short to climb to the ceiling, and there was nothing but a toilet for her to climb on. It wasn’t tall enough to do the short woman any good at all. Annie tied Kristie’s hands, as ordered. When that was done, Wade closed the door on the bound—but safe—woman. In the dimly lit hallway, Annie felt the first effects of the poison. Light-headedness. Not a lot, but certainly enough to alarm her.
She drew in a deep breath to scream—and Nance clapped his hand over her mouth. With only one prisoner in hand, instead of two, he was able to hold her tightly. The knife he held touched her side. “They’ll blame him, you know,” he whispered. “When they find you and Kristie dead, they’ll blame Santana. I have everything planned to the last detail. You’ll both be killed in your office, one at a time. No one will think to look in the bathroom for my escape route, and there’s no one else here but your lover.”
Nance seriously underestimated Lucky and the men he worked with, if he really thought he could get away with this. That overconfidence was likely the only advantage Annie had, at the moment.
In the past few days she had been able to reach into Lucky so easily. So completely. She heard him—his thoughts, his fear, even his love. Was it possible that he could hear her now?
Annie closed her eyes and reached for the man she loved.
Lucky. Save me.
Lucky paced amid girlie things, talking and listening and making plans to get Annie to safety. Sadie had informed him at the beginning of their phone call that Stu Bentley had been cleared. They’d gone back several years, and found no suspicious deaths in his immediate area. He was exactly what he appeared to be; a quiet man who led an ordinary life.
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