Karen Robards

by Obsession

It was only as she turned it and nothing happened that she realized that of course the door was locked.

  And she didn’t have a key.

  She stared at the door, appalled.

  There’s a spare under the mat.

  The little voice inside her head came out of nowhere. It felt foreign, as though it had originated somewhere outside of her body. It doesn’t feel like me. The thought brought a rush of anxiety with it. But when she knelt down and checked, the little voice was right: A key was there. It was brass, substantial, and—when she fitted it into the lock—it worked.

  Taking a deep breath, she consigned the whole out-of-body problem to later, when she wouldn’t be quite so concerned with getting herself out of harm’s way.

  A quick glance around revealed no sign that she was being observed. The traffic in front of the house was still heavy, but the black Blazer was nowhere in sight. A teenage girl in a red Georgetown University T-shirt and denim mini walked her pug down the sidewalk. Faint strains of “What’s Left of Me” spilled from the headphonesshe wore draped around her neck, making a surprisinglycheerful—considering the subject of the song—counterpoint to the sounds of squeaking tires and gunning engines as various vehicles took their turns at negotiating the intersection. An elderly couple in matching khaki shorts and straw hats went into the art gallery across the street. A man in a striped polo shirt and jeans and a little girl in a pink sundress emerged from the ice cream shop beside the art gallery and, lickingaway at their already melting cones, started walking in the direction of Founders Park.

  If there was a threat in the vicinity, she couldn’t find it. Sucking in a big gulp of hopefully fortifying air, she mentally braced herself for whatever she might find. Then she opened the door and stepped inside the house.

  8

  What struck her first was how cool the place was compared to the sultry heat outside. And how dim, with the lights off and the curtains—at least the ones she had been able to see from the street—firmly drawn. Closing the door behind her quietly, checking a second time, in a textbook illustration of hope over experience,to be sure that she had locked it, that the dead bolt that hadn’t kept intruders out the last time was securedagainst them now, she paused for a second, listening.The house was quiet, hushed. She was almost sure she was the only person inside.

  That almost was paranoia at work—she hoped.

  But still, the alarm didn’t greet her with its usual forty-five-second warning—and chance to silence it— before exploding into a cacophony of police-alerting wails.

  For whatever reason, it hadn’t gone off last night. Why should she expect it to be working properly now? And anyway, for it to work, someone would have had to have set it. Who, besides herself, knew the code?

  The specter of two black-hooded figures rose terrifyinglyin her mind’s eye. Last night they had gotten in— somehow.

  Her heart started to pound.

  Get in and get out.

  Slipping out of the punishingly short shoes, she picked them up—no way was she leaving such impossible-to-miss evidence of her presence right there at the front door—and padded barefoot across the slightly uneven planks of the age-darkened hardwood floor. The hem of the too-big polyester pants dragged a little, creating a soft swishing sound as she walked to the alarm’s keypad, which was set into the wall only a few feet away. The blinking green light told her that the systemwas, indeed, not armed. The digital readout said Call for service.

  Great. For whatever reason, the alarm was down. Had that been the problem last night? But the panic button had worked …

  It didn’t matter. At least, not right now. Taking a deep breath, she turned a shoulder to the keypad and proceededon. The entry was a long hall that ran the length of the first floor, with all the living space to the right and Dan’s town house beyond the thick dividing wall to the left. The hall ended in the arched door that opened into the kitchen. The ceiling was at least twelve feet high, and two small, antique-looking crystal chandeliers hung from it. About halfway down the hall, a simple, old-fashionedstaircase that looked original to the building rose to the second floor, narrowing the hall before it reached the kitchen. The walls were real plaster, painted creamy white. An expensive-looking piece of modern art—stripes of horizontal colors in shades of red and orangeand purple—hung over a wrought-iron, glass-toppedconsole table. On the table was a pile of mail and a crystal vase full of gorgeous red roses. She was sure that their perfume must fill the air, but, courtesy of her damaged nose, she couldn’t smell it.

  Not that it mattered. She didn’t allow herself more than a passing glance at the mail. She didn’t have time to worry about why it was that she couldn’t remember putting it there. There was a card tucked in among the roses, though, and that she couldn’t resist. There were so many blanks in her memory—and now she couldn’t remembergetting what was really a magnificent bouquet. Who had sent them? Why? Or had she bought them herself, maybe in honor of Lisa’s visit? Or … who knew?

  The thing was, the lack of answers was starting to drive her crazy, and here was a quick-and-easy answer. Pausing just long enough to thrust a hand in the midst of the velvety blooms and pull the card out, she read: With love from Ed.

  She dropped that card like it was hot. Ed. The very thought of him was enough to make her stomach knot.

  He was the man she loved … and just thinking about him scared her silly.

  Get going. There it was, what she was coming to think of as her guardian voice. She obeyed, turning away from the roses without another glance, padding swiftly for the staircase.

  Her goal was to get what she needed and get out, quickly. Her malfunctioning brain could ponder what was going on with it when she was in her car and makingtracks out of the city. With that firmly in mind, she didn’t go into the living room but instead merely glanced inside as she passed its white-painted pocket doors, which were ajar. The walls were silvery gray; the overstuffed couch and the one chair she could see—a velvet tub chair to the right of the couch—were charcoal.The lamp beside it had a black wrought-iron base with a tweedy gray shade. It sat on a glass-topped side table. The cocktail table in front of the couch was wrought iron and glass, too, with a big, glossy book called—she couldn’t see the cover, but she knew—Rose Gardens of the South. The Oriental rug was multicolored,with lots of ruby red.

  The decor was beautiful, expensive, and in the best of taste, but unfortunately, she felt no kinship with it. This was not, she felt sure, her taste. Had she used a decorator?Or had Ed, who owned the place, had it done? Even as she reached the base of the stairs, though, something still more unsettling occurred to her.

  It looks like nothing happened here.

  Not a thing was out of place in the hall or the living room or anywhere else that she could see.

  Her heart was thumping wildly now as she started up the steep, narrow stairs. Last night she had distinctly heard the living room being torn apart, along with the dining room and den. She couldn’t help it—even though she knew she was better off not doing it, she had to glance inside the kitchen. Leaning over the polished oak handrail, she was able to see most of one end of the room. As far as she could tell, everything was in order. Even the one bar stool she could see had been restored to its proper place, which was pulled up to the wrought-iron-and-marble kitchen island. The last time she had seen that bar stool and its twin, when she and Lisa had made their break for freedom, they’d been shoved back against the cabinets.

  Suddenly, she felt as if she were suffocating. Memoriesof the night before rushed back, compressing her chest, her lungs, making her gasp for air.

  Not now. You can’t think about that now.

  Closing her mind to the terrifying images, she forcefullydragged her gaze away from the kitchen and continuedon up the stairs.

  Someone’s cleaned up the house.

  Who, though? She tried to quiet her galloping heart by reasoning it out. A housekeeper? The name LouAnn popped into her mind, along with a picture of a scr
awny, fortysomething woman with short, graying brown hair and a lifetime’s worth of wrinkles already etched on her face. LouAnn came once a week, on Mondays, she remembered,pleased with herself. But it was still early in the day, and what she had seen of the house looked pristine.She didn’t remember much about LouAnn’s work ethic, but she doubted that, even if the woman could have been persuaded to come in on Saturday, she could have accomplished so much in such a short time. So who did that leave? Ed’s people? She might not remember them, exactly, but she remembered enough about them to know that they were frighteningly efficient. They might well have been hard at work restoring order as soon as the police finished up.

  Maybe even before the police finished up. If there was something they wanted to make sure no one else saw …

  Like any trace of whatever the intruders had really been after.

  She was, she realized, literally sick with fear. The pain in her head was suddenly so bad it was almost blinding. Gritting her teeth against it, squinting up at the rectangleof light that outlined the window—it was fitted with a Roman shade, which was closed—at the top of the stairs, she hauled herself determinedly up the last few steps. Thinking too much, just like dwelling on the horrorof the previous night, was an error. Her heart was beating like a rabbit’s. She was breathing way too fast. Her palms were sweaty.

  Okay, deep breath.

  Reaching the second floor, she swiped her palms against her slinky-feeling pants. Then she turned and walked quickly back along the dim hallway toward the master suite, which consisted of a bedroom, a sitting room, and a bath at the front of the house. The rooms Lisa had used were slightly smaller and closer to the top of the stairs. The door to those rooms was closed; her eyes slid over it as she passed. No matter how much she was tempted to go inside, she would not, could not, stop. Not now. Not when time was of the essence …

  Lisa’s dead. Her things—a suitcase, her purse, her clothes—are in there. Someone’s going to have to deal with them.

  An upsurge of nausea caused Katharine to swallow convulsively. The image of Lisa’s widening eyes as the bullet hit her sprang full-blown into her brain. It was as vivid as if it were happening again, right before her eyes.

  Don’t think about it. You can’t think about it.

  Not if she wanted to be able to function.

  Firmly closing her mind to anything besides the present,she hurried down the hall. She was freezing, so cold she was shivering with it, and with every step she took, the weird out-of-body sensation she was experiencing grew worse.

  The thing was, she knew her way around inside the house. She knew exactly where she was going, where everything was. She knew what the rooms looked like, how many bedrooms and bathrooms there were, even where the linen closet was located. (She had just passed it; it was in the middle of the upstairs hall.) The house itself,the colors and furniture and accessories, all felt familiar.

  But they also felt wrong.

  No way do I live here.

  The thought rang with conviction. It also made her stomach cramp so hard she wanted to throw up.

  Whatever the hell was going on, it was one more thing she didn’t have time for just now.

  Rushing into the spacious, expensively furnished master bedroom, she spared no more than a cursory glance for the profusion of stylish black-and-white toile that papered the walls, covered the twin windows in the form of luxurious, drawn drapes, was quilted into a bedspreadcustom-tailored to fit the queen-size bed …

  Wait. The bed’s been made. One more quick glance around confirmed it: The bedroom’s been cleaned up, too.

  Panic clutched at her heart as memory assaulted her again. The last time she’d been in this room, she’d been dragged from the bed …

  Her skin prickled as cold sweat broke over her in a wave.

  Flying to the huge walk-in closet—yes, she knew that it was the first door on the left just inside the bedroom, right beside the one that led into the sitting room—she pulled open the door, flipped on the light switch, and stepped inside. Then she stopped dead.

  She was neat, meticulously so; at least, she thought she was. But her closet was a mess. Clothes had been pulled from their hangers and thrown in a heap on the floor. What looked like drawers full of lingerie had been dumped on top. The drawers themselves had been tossed about haphazardly.

  Somebody searched my closet. She took a deep breath. They did this last night, probably, when they were searchingthe house. Everything else has been cleaned up. Why not this? The explanation was obvious: Either they were careless or they weren’t finished.

  The thought set alarms to jangling all over her centralnervous system.

  Jesus, get the hell out of here.

  But in order to make good her escape, she had to get what she had come for. Five minutes, no more, and then she was out of there for good. Anyway, why did she feel so sure that the cleaning crew, whoever they were, posed a threat?

  The answer to that was, she just did.

  Calm down. A split second later, a corollary thought made the first almost impossible: Hurry.

  Biting her lip, her heart pounding, she set the shoes on the floor—no way would they be noticed in this— then stumbled over a misplaced drawer as she grabbed for a black duffel bag that looked like it might have been used to travel to and from the gym.

  If so, she realized grimly, she couldn’t remember it. There was lots of black in the heap, she saw at a glance, and lots of tailored jackets and skirts that she thought were probably suits. Right now, they weren’t what she needed. Colorful, silky panties and bras were on top, and she grabbed random handfuls and thrust them into the bag, feeling no more familiarity with them than if they were new items she was grabbing off the sale table at Macy’s. Then she rooted through the equally unfamiliar clothes, snatching up the simplest things she could find: T-shirts, a couple of casual skirts, white shorts, a pair of jeans. Weekend clothes. Everythingelse looked too formal, too pricey. She wore a lot of designer stuff, Dan had said.

  Maybe so, but right at the present moment she didn’t feel like a designer-stuff kind of girl.

  The shoe rack had been left untouched, and she surveyedit with mounting dismay. Somewhere she must possess sneakers, or even a pair of flats, but they definitelyweren’t in sight. Heels were the name of the game. Dozens of heels. They ranged from four-inch leopard-print spikes to three-inch businesslike pumps to maybe an-inch-and-a-half casual sandals. In despair, she tossed a pair of black pumps into the bag and slid her feet into a pair of beaded turquoise sandals with kittenishheels.

  They fit.

  See?

  Letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, she took them off again. The idea of clattering around the house in noisy heels made her skin crawl even though she was almost positive that she was the only one there. Then she tossed the sandals into the bag, to be retrieved before venturing onto the hot pavement outside the house and, bag in hand, headed for the bathroom.

  The bathroom was big, beautiful, all black and white tile to match the bedroom, with a marble Jacuzzi tub, a toilet that was set off from the rest in its own little enclosure,and a separate shower stall. She did what she had to do, then headed straight for the gleaming white porcelain sink. Seeing her terrifyingly unfamiliar reflectionin the mirror that fronted the medicine cabinet was still a shock, but she didn’t have time to panic, so she kept her eyes averted from it as much as possible. She hastily washed her hands, did her best to wash her face without getting her nose wet, and brushed her teeth. Then she opened the medicine cabinet and scooped the contents into the bag wholesale, pausing only to drag a small brush she found there through her surprisingly stiff-feeling hair and run a tube of tinted ChapStick over her dry lips. Closing the cabinet again, though, she couldn’t help it: She had to look in the mirror. No magicaltransformation had occurred: However impossible it seemed, she was now a slim, tanned blonde with a bum nose and hair as straight as broom straw.

  Could anybody say Invasion o
f the Body Snatchers?

  The thought sent icy prickles of horror racing over her skin.

  Later, she reminded herself grimly, and tore her gaze away. A quilted robe lay on top of a hamper behind the door, and she grabbed that, too, and thrust it into the bag. Made of heavy silk, smooth and luxurious, it felt like nothing that could possibly be hers.

  The robe was jade green, she registered as she headed out the door.

  One of my favorite colors.

  Because it made her eyes look even greener than they were.

  O-kay. How much evidence do you need?

  A cheery little voice saying Hello, moto to the accompanimentof musical notes stopped her in her tracks just inside the bedroom. A phone, she realized after a few seconds in which her heart leaped for the ceiling. The sound made her cringe; muted as it was, it still seemed scarily, attention-grabbingly loud. It wasn’t the bedside phone, though. That was right beside her, and the singsong voice came from farther away. Tracking down the sound, she discovered a slouchy black leather handbagtucked behind the nightstand on the side of the bed she’d slept on last night. The repeated Hello, motos were coming from the purse.

  It’s not mine.

  That was her instinctive reaction as she stared at the obviously expensive purse. But the phone inside kept on keeping on, and after a second she grabbed the purse anyway. The sound was making her frantic. She had to shut it up.

  Of course, the annoying summons stopped just as she got the purse unzipped and was reaching for the phone. But even as she paused, on the verge of withdrawing her hand, she saw, along with the phone and various cosmeticsand other assorted items including a set of keys, a wallet.

  If the purse wasn’t hers, and she felt strongly that it was not, this was her chance to prove it.

  The wallet was Gucci. She recognized the distinctive design. Flipping it open, she found a shopaholic’s dream: at least a dozen credit cards, including a black AmEx, in little leather slots; what looked like a substantial amount of cash in the pocket designed for it; and, in the plastic rectangle on the inside flap of the cover, a driver’s license.