God, how could she have been so blind, how could she not have realized? It all made sense now. She would have laughed at her own stupidity, but it would have used up too much precious air.
Forcing herself to calm down, she slowly inhaled. The air inside the trunk was hot and thick, musty, smelling of motor oil and grime. Something rigid dug into her hip, but she couldn’t imagine what it was. She lay on her side, slightly curled, her knees bumping against the spare tire.
Reaching up, she let her fingers move along the inside of the lid. Then forward, then behind her. The trunk was only slightly bigger than she was, but she did have a little wiggle room.
How long had she been in there? How much air had she breathed up; how much remained? How long before it would run out and she would drift off to sleep and not wake up?
Doubling her fists, she pounded on the roof. With each strike, her panic increased until she hit harder, and harder, until she was pummeling the metal like a street fighter flailing an enemy.
Gasping for air, she began kicking, thrashing around, letting her fear and anger out, venting her rage and humiliation and terror on the space that confined her.
Tears slicked her face and long sobs escaped her. She closed her eyes and kept kicking and hitting and crying, until her rage was spent, her lungs empty, her flame of hope diminished to a tiny, fragile flicker.
With one final blow to the roof, she let her hands fall to her chest, holding her bruised knuckles against her throat, sobbing until she could barely breathe.
Finally, she lay still and quiet, her muscles nearly spent from the exertion.
“Nate,” she choked. Her voice sounded tired, strained, but somehow talking out loud made her feel not so alone. “I love you, Nate. Why didn’t I have the courage to tell you when I had the chance? Life is too short. Sometimes even shorter than we expect. I should have told you…I should have let you know…”
Her voice trailed off into soft cries and throaty whispers. “I love you, you silly, arrogant, macho, funny, tender man. I love you…”
Closing her eyes again, she saw her mother’s face. How would Victoria bear another daughter lost in this way? How ironic and cruel were the Fates to do this again?
Tabitha’s heart jumped. What if they never found her? What if the car was parked in the woods somewhere, abandoned to time and the elements?
No. That wasn’t right. It didn’t fit Peter’s journal. In the dream log, he had used a knife and stabbed her. It wouldn’t work if she simply suffocated in the trunk of a car. No. Her fate wasn’t sealed quite yet.
She swallowed, and wiped away the tears. Doubling her fists again and steeling her spine, she prepared herself for battle.
The scent of chloroform still clung to her clothes, making her feel lightheaded, or maybe it was from lack of oxygen, but she fought not to go under again. Time was of the essence. She had work to do if she expected to save her own life.
Ethan’s mansion in Marin County had been built just after World War II, amid towering redwood trees, and offered a panoramic view of the wide-open Pacific all the way to the edge of the world. When he bought the place two years ago, he’d left the decorating to a professional. He liked what she’d done well enough, but it had that showroom quality about it that made it clear he’d had little to do with the final outcome. Since he rarely entertained, and his mother and Andie didn’t visit that often, as long as he had a kitchen with food in it, a bed at night, and a housekeeper to make sure everything worked and the bills got paid, he didn’t care.
Though the rest of the place was comfortably furnished in relaxing colors, his home office was every bit as high-tech as his glass-enclosed enclave in San Francisco.
As he eased back in his chair, his eyes never left the surveillance screens on the far wall. Three rows across, three down. Nine views from which to choose, and nothing happening on any of them.
Something was going on, though. He could feel it in his gut, but thanks to a four-car pileup on the Golden Gate Bridge, he didn’t know what it was.
Three hours ago he’d watched as screen number five flickered to life. A car pulled out of the garage and headed down the long drive. It was the move he’d been waiting days to capture. Immediately he’d contacted his field agent, Lucas Russell, and set the tail in motion. All had gone as planned, but as the subject drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, the car in front of Russell’s had spun out, slammed into three other cars, and stopped traffic dead. He called Ethan right away, but by the time he’d edged his way past the wreckage, the trail was cold.
Ethan glanced down at the cell phone sitting on his desk. Maybe he should call Nate, warn him. But warn him about what? Going for a drive in the city wasn’t a crime, and maybe that’s all this was.
Flicking aside the cell phone with his thumb, he returned his attention to the screens.
As he watched, the same car that had driven away three hours ago turned onto the long drive, pulled into the garage, and cut its engine. He narrowed his eyes on the screen. Everything looked normal, but it wasn’t. He knew it.
Hell, anything could have happened in San Francisco in those three hours—another lady in a polka-dot dress, another bum in an alley, another old man fishing quietly in his boat. The authorities wouldn’t know about it until somebody found the body.
Damn, talk about rotten luck.
The cameras he’d installed on O’Hara’s property were well hidden. Unfortunately, a little clarity had to be sacrificed in the name of secrecy, and the garage camera didn’t yield up the detail he’d been hoping for.
As he peered at the screen, the car door opened. Nothing amiss, as far as he could tell. As the driver began walking to the house, there was a slight pause at the trunk, then a gloved hand reached out and patted the fender.
When the kitchen door opened, the interior camera picked up the action. Again, nothing out of the ordinary.
No staff tonight. The house was empty. Convenient, Ethan thought. He suspected it had been that way on the other nights, too. The other nights when a lone figure had slipped out of the O’Hara house, gone for a drive, and come back a murderer.
On the console to his right, a red light flashed. Somebody coming for a visit. Switching on the monitor that displayed the entrance to his driveway, he recognized his brother’s Accord.
By the time Ethan reached the front door, he could hear fists pounding on it as curses filled the air. Throwing the safety locks, he yanked the door open to face his furious brother.
Nate lunged over the threshold, grabbing Ethan by the collar. Shoving him up against the doorframe, he snarled, “What kind of security cameras did you install at O’Hara’s, and how do I get past them?”
Without moving a muscle, Ethan said quietly, “Let go of me, or I’ll take you apart.”
Nate shoved harder. “Later, big brother. I’m going to enjoy beating the shit out of you, but right now I want to know how to get into Peter O’Hara’s house undetected.”
Ethan cocked his head. “So you figured it out.”
“Yeah, I figured it out, no thanks to you.”
Nate pressed his face close to Ethan’s. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his brown eyes were hard with fury and purpose. “Listen, smart-ass, and listen good. Tabitha’s missing. Kidnapped. According to the diary, O’Hara kills her with a knife. If anything has happened to her, I’ll hold you personally responsible, got that?”
“Fuck.” With a twist of his body, Ethan thrust his hands between them and broke the death grip Nate had on his collar. “Come with me.”
As they ran through the house toward the office, Ethan shouted, “I’ve been monitoring the surveillance cameras. I can get us past the security system, no problem. But what if she’s not there?”
“She’s there.”
At the door of the office, Ethan stopped. “How do you know?”
“Because that’s got to be the plan. That’s where the murder will take place, in O’Hara’s room. Her blood on his hands. It’ll be the f
inal blow and it’s what will put him away for good. He’ll either get arrested or turn himself in. Either way, he’s history.”
Ethan pointed to camera three. “That’s O’Hara’s bedroom. He’s in bed. Been there since about ten.”
Nate’s eyes narrowed on the screen. “He won’t even know what happened until he wakes up with blood on his hands and Tabitha’s body on his floor. How far is it to O’Hara’s place from here?”
“Five miles over very winding roads. They’re a bitch to navigate in the dark.”
“Then we’d better get going.”
Tabitha scooted around until her feet were pressed against the interior wall of the trunk. She knew something about cars now that she hadn’t known when she was five, not that it would have made any difference back then. She’d been too little to kick out the back seat—but she wasn’t little anymore.
Her head was spinning and she felt weak. Her skin was wet and clammy, her breathing labored.
It was now or never.
Bringing her knees up, she thrust out, kicking the interior wall of the trunk. It didn’t budge. She pulled back and kicked again, harder. Something gave. Encouraged, she kicked again, and it gave a little more. A few more well-placed kicks and the back seat broke away from the frame. Writhing around, she used her hands to shove the seat forward a couple of inches. Immediately she put her face to the opening and took a deep breath. Then another, and another. Relief eased her panic. She wasn’t out of the trunk yet, but she wouldn’t suffocate, not today, anyway.
Turning so she was on her side, she put her shoulder to the seat, planted her feet against the spare tire, and shoved as hard as she could. The seat move forward a few more inches. Just as she felt it begin to give way, she heard a click.
The trunk lid popped open and the interior light flickered on.
Raising her hand to shield her eyes from the sudden brightness, she blinked several times, trying to assess the person standing before her, car keys in one hand, a gun in the other.
Her captor smiled. “I’m happy to see you’re still alive. Sadly, that’s a condition that won’t last much longer.”
As Tabitha uncurled her body and climbed out of the trunk of the car, she held on to the fender to keep from falling. The chloroform, combined with lack of fresh air, not to mention screaming and kicking, had weakened her considerably. But her brain still functioned, and that was all she needed.
Raising her head, she looked into the deadest blue eyes she’d ever seen.
“When you touched me, before the chloroform,” she said, appraising her captor, “I saw it all. Everything.”
“Really.”
Tabitha nodded slowly, buying as much time as she could. With each passing second, her strength was returning, and she was going to need it.
“I know what you have in mind, and it’s never going to work,” she warned. “The police aren’t stupid. There’s no way you can get away with this, Zoey.”
A dense midnight fog had rolled in off the Pacific, slowing their progress to a near crawl. All Nate could think was that Tabby was in the hands of a murderous madwoman, and may already be dead for all he knew—
No…wait…stop. If she were dead, he’d know it. He may not have fully accepted her abilities, but if being psychic was akin to a sense of finely tuned intuition, that he understood.
Tabby was alive—he’d know if she weren’t.
But she could be suffering. That alone was enough to break his heart and fire his blood.
Just then, he felt something of her move through his body, her life force, her energy, her thoughts, her soul, for all he knew. The two of them were connected to each other in some way he never had been with another human being, and he relaxed his death grip on the steering wheel a little, as certain as could be about anything on this earth that she loved him. Maybe she hadn’t said it back, and maybe that was okay, but it was there all the same. He knew it.
“Turn here,” Ethan said, gesturing to a road that veered off to the west. “It doesn’t look like it leads anywhere, but about a half mile farther in, there’s a wrought-iron fence. I’ll tell you where to park so the cameras won’t pick us up.”
As they drove along the smoothly paved street, the headlights reached out in front of them, illuminating tufts of gray mist blowing over the road. No houses, no lights, just tall trees with thick red bark and the bone chilling fog.
“Talked to my partner,” Nate said. “The lab went to bat for us and got a match on a partial we found on the diary.”
Ethan nodded. “The sister.”
“Bingo. She was hauled in on a DUI a few years ago. Her big-shot uncle lawyer got the charges dropped, but not before she’d been printed.”
Ethan nodded. “O’Hara began to suspect it might be her, so we set up hidden cameras to monitor her activities. She’s been slipping him knock-out drops, reading his journal, and mimicking the murders he’d dreamed about.”
“Bitch,” Nate snarled.
“That would be my—pull over here,” Ethan ordered. “There’s a cipher-locked side gate next to the garages, but I know the code.”
A moment later, letting the gate close quietly behind him, Nate pulled his weapon and moved silently through the shadows to the garage. He could see a black Jag parked there, and next to it a white Bentley. The trunk was open. It looked like somebody had kicked out the back seat.
Panic hit him right between the eyes.
Dear God, Zoey had locked her in the trunk. His eyes closed for a moment and he felt nauseous. What had she gone through, locked inside the trunk of a car…again? What kind of terror had she endured? If Zoey had tried to, she couldn’t have come up with a better way to torture Tabby than to lock her inside that small dark place.
On the floor of the trunk lay a crumpled rag. Judging from the lingering scent, it had been doused with chloroform.
He let the anger roll through him, chill his blood, strengthen his resolve.
Ethan had drawn his weapon and sidled up next to Nate. Glancing into the trunk, he said quietly, “No blood. She’s okay, Nate. She got up and walked out. She’s smart and resourceful. We’ll find her.”
Nate lifted his gaze, and the two brothers locked eyes for a moment. For the first time, he saw worry, maybe even fear, on his brother’s face.
Simultaneously, they glanced at the house, at the partially open kitchen door. Though they stood only thirty feet from the porch, the thick fog obscured much of the house’s façade, and since few lights were on inside, Nate hoped they could make their way upstairs without being detected.
“As soon as we get in,” Ethan whispered, “I’ll disable the security system. It’s in a small room just off the kitchen.”
Nate nodded. “I’ll head upstairs. Follow me when you’re done.”
As the two men silently moved through the fog to the kitchen door, the night was shattered by the sound of a gun blast. Upstairs, a window splintered, and a woman screamed.
“Tabby.” Nate mouthed her name, unable to find any breath in his body to give it voice. A second later he broke into a run, his brother hard on his heels.
Chapter 24
To dream of winding yarn into a ball symbolizes romance and domestic bliss. This is especially true if the yarn is pink, purple, or white.
FOLKLORE
Tabitha flattened herself against the bedroom wall, her heart racing. While her bones had frozen stiff, her muscles had turned to Jell-O. Against her heaving ribs, she felt the hard barrel of a gun.
“That was a cute move, Tabitha,” Zoey said sarcastically. Thrusting out her full bottom lip, she chided, “But it only works in the movies. Try knocking the gun out of my hand again, and I won’t care how I kill you, I’ll simply do it.”
Judging from the masculine décor of the room, and the man lying prone across the bed, this must be Peter’s bedroom. Gesturing toward him with her chin, Tabitha rasped, “Is he dead?”
“Now, what good would killing him do? If I’d wanted him dead, I�
��d have done it months ago.” Zoey gave a little shrug. “If I’d killed him, suspicion would have fallen on me. This way, he’s convicted of murders even he thinks he committed, and I get all the sympathy and none of the blame.”
Tabitha tried to find some moisture in her mouth. Licking her lips, she said, “You’ve been drugging him so he’d be asleep on the nights you crept out to commit the murders.”
Zoey laughed as though Tabitha had just told a great story. She was dressed all in black—boots, leggings, sweater, cap. Her gun was black, too.
“How else could I make sure he didn’t have an alibi? I’ll tell you, that dream log of his was a stroke of genius. When I read it, I felt like it was the answer to my prayers. And it was fun, too, a real test of my skills.”
“Your skills?” Tabitha stared into the eyes of the woman who held her life in her hands. “Killing innocent people is a game to you?”
“No,” she said. “Of course not.” Her lovely blue eyes sparkled now, not with joy or happiness, but with a menace so astonishing, Tabitha wanted to look away. “I have an infinite capacity to compartmentalize. I set aside my human feelings and focused on the job. In order for the plan to work, people had to die. I’m sorry for it, but that’s just the way it had to be.”
Stepping back, Zoey lowered the gun a little as her expression changed from anger to regret.
“You have to understand, Tabitha,” she said, her expression sincere, her voice soft. “I worked my ass off for my father. I got the highest grades in every school I attended, I graduated with honors, I even ran the company when Dad got sick. I did it all, while Peter played, gambled, partied, and screwed everything in skirts.”
Taking a breath, she gazed around the large room, but Tabitha was sure she wasn’t seeing her brother’s bedroom, but a whole different world, a world in which Zoey O’Hara ruled.
“I drove myself, night and day, with board meetings and data analyses, trips all over the world to talk to our subsidiaries and our customers. I made that company work.”
Arousing Suspicions Page 23
