Solid as Steele

by Rebecca York

  After making sure the door to the cell and also all the doors to the house were locked, he climbed into his SUV and drove to an area down by the Potomac River where there were some shops, artists’ studios and restaurants. The Chamber of Commerce or some other group was sprucing up the town, but they’d left some major messes. Right down by the river was a half-demolished brick building that used to be a dye works. It dragged down the whole area. And there should be more restaurants to choose from. He’d had Italian for dinner last time before the fun. This time he was going to try that place where you could get Maryland crabcakes and barbecued ribs.

  MACK HAD CONTINUED DRIVING as they talked, and Jamie looked up to see that they were on a road that ran parallel to the CSX train yard where more than a hundred freight cars were parked.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You said the funhouse was in Gaptown. Maybe we can find it.”

  “Gaptown’s a big place.”

  “Not like say, Baltimore or Washington. Maybe you’ll have some…insights.”

  “Okay.” She took in a sharp breath.

  “What?”

  “I do remember hearing a train whistle in my dream.”

  “Which means it could be down here.”

  “No. The train goes right through town. There are even bridges over the tracks on the west side—the elegant part of town. You can’t get away from CSX. The railroad’s been here since before the company bought the Chesapeake & Ohio.”

  “Then which way should we go?”

  “You know more about murder than I do. Would the guy leave the body somewhere near the house, or would he drive far away?”

  “Far away. Unless he wanted the cops nosing around his playground.”

  “Then we might as well head west, into the mountains.”

  He did as she asked, and they drove into the countryside. She looked at houses, but nothing seemed right. They were all too small and modern. Unless he had an enormous underground complex. No, that didn’t seem right, since she remembered climbing upstairs.

  “It’s got to be bigger,” she murmured. “There were lots of rooms. Lots of corridors. He must have modified the interior himself.”

  “We could try a development of tract mansions,” he suggested.

  “It’s not a new house.”

  “How do you know?”

  She thought about her impressions. “The floorboards were old. And some of the walls were real plaster. I guess drywall and plywood were added to make all those hallways.”

  “Okay.

  “So how did Lynn get there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Either she drove herself there, or the killer drove her.”

  “Why would she drive herself?”

  “Because she knew him and felt he wasn’t a threat. Do you have any idea what kind of car he had?”

  “No.”

  “I guess an emergency room nurse wouldn’t moonlight selling any kind of products,” he mused.

  “She might. Something like cosmetics. Or cleaning supplies for one of those big companies that rope in a lot of owners. But she’d sell them to people she knew at work or at church, not door to door.”

  “I guess that’s right.” He thought for a moment. “You said the dream started when she was already in the house.”

  “I jumped into it when she was running from him. I had the impression that the…game had been going on for a while.”

  They drove through the countryside for almost an hour until Jamie said, “This is just wasting time. I didn’t see the outside of the place. I’m not going to find it this way.”

  “I guess we might as well head back to town.”

  Since she had spent most of the previous night tossing and turning, she leaned back and closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep. Her eyes snapped open again when she felt the car stop.

  “Where are we?”

  “A hotel.”

  They were under a marquee, and she looked to her right, into the lobby of a multi-story upscale establishment that commanded a large plot of land near the old C&O canal and the river. Swinging her head back toward Mack, she said, “Surely you don’t expect me to stay in a hotel with you?” She could have added, “After that kiss,” but she left that part unspoken.

  “I’m not going to come on to you, if that’s what you mean,” he snapped, revealing that he wasn’t as relaxed as he looked. “We’ll get our own rooms.”

  “That’s too expensive,” Jamie protested.

  “Expense account.”

  “Are you saying you’re charging the Light Street Detective Agency for this trip?”

  “I can do that, yeah.”

  “Who’s your client?”

  “The wife of a deceased colleague.”

  She stared at him. “Wait a minute, I didn’t ask for you to go that far.”

  “There’s no charge when we do jobs for each other. You included. We have special funds set aside.”

  “I don’t want Light Street involved.”

  He shook his head. “You called us,” he reminded her.

  “Which meant that you couldn’t…didn’t want to handle it by yourself. And you could be in trouble. I’m not letting this go.”

  Of course, he was right. She had called because she’d known she had to tell someone about the nightmare, but she hadn’t let her thinking process carry her beyond that when she’d picked up the phone. She simply hadn’t wanted to be alone with her own fears in the middle of the night.

  They walked into the comfortably furnished lobby together, and Mack asked about two adjoining rooms. When he found out he could get a junior suite for less money, he took that.

  The sixth-floor suite consisted of a bedroom and a living room with a fold-out couch.

  “I thought it would be two bedrooms,” she said, as she checked out the arrangements.

  “You can have the bedroom. I’ll take the sofa.”

  Feeling trapped, she nodded.

  “We’ll relax for a while. Then we can go out to eat or order in.”

  “Let me think about it.” She turned and walked into the bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her, wishing she had her own car so she could go back home. Only maybe that wasn’t such a great idea.

  At the time she’d called the agency, she’d told herself she didn’t know for sure what had happened to Lynn Vaughn. Now she knew Lynn was dead, and she couldn’t just walk away. But why did she have to be stuck with Mack Steele?

  When she pulled back the covers and lay down on the bed, her mind flashed back to the incident in the car. She wasn’t going to kid herself about that. She was attracted to him, and she’d responded to his kiss, even when it never should have happened. Unfortunately, now they were going to be in each other’s pockets.

  At least she could stay in this room for the time being and keep away from him.

  She closed her eyes, thinking that she was much too jumpy to relax. But the tense hours last night had taken their toll, and after a few minutes, sleep claimed her.

  IN THE SITTING ROOM of the suite, Mack walked back and forth across the carpet, wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into. Kissing Jamie had been a big mistake. But it had happened, and now he had to deal with it, because it confirmed what he’d known all along. They were attracted to each other. The kiss had proved beyond a doubt that the chemistry was there. He sure as hell hadn’t been the only one responding. She’d been as into it as he had. Although that didn’t mean they’d suddenly both made up new rules for the relationship.

  He clenched and unclenched his fists. He’d been fighting his attraction to her, but what was wrong with getting involved, damn it? Her husband was dead. She wasn’t cheating on him by starting a relationship with someone else. Only both of them obviously thought otherwise. Could he get over his guilt about going after Craig’s wife? Could she stop thinking of herself as a married woman? He didn’t know if either one of them could handle the relationship, and he had another problem.


  Jamie had knowledge of a murder. She’d claimed to have gotten it through some kind of psychic dream. But could he believe it?

  He knew some pretty weird things had happened to some of the Light Street staff and also to the men and women who worked for their sister organization, Randolph Security. He’d never gotten involved in anything he’d call extrasensory. Now he was caught between doubting Jamie’s account and wondering if he could believe something that wasn’t grounded in any reality he understood. He’d like to consult someone at the office. Jamie had been trying to get in touch with Jo O’Malley, and he knew that something paranormal had happened to her and her husband, Cam Randolph, years ago. But talking to his boss about the woman who’d closed herself in the other room would make him feel like a snitch.

  He sighed. It seemed like he was caught in a trap. He didn’t love being forced to explore his own feelings. At the same time, he couldn’t simply walk away from a murder investigation. He could turn the problem over to someone else at Light Street, but that would mean he’d have to come up with a good reason for ducking out.

  Since he wasn’t prepared to do that, he was stuck for the moment. As he saw it, his only option was to investigate the murder the way he’d investigate any other case. Which made the expense account perfectly appropriate.

  He turned on the television, keeping the sound low as he scanned for local news. Apparently there wasn’t a station right in Gaptown, but there seemed to be two in a city about sixty miles away. And both of them had sent reporters here.

  As he watched, he noted that the police hadn’t released Lynn Vaughn’s name yet, but he knew they were going to be interviewing her colleagues at work and her neighbors. Could he duplicate their research? And would the people he talked to wonder why he wasn’t working with the cops? He’d started out on the Columbus, Ohio, police force. But he’d been caught in a personnel reduction. Since he had no seniority, he’d been let go. But Jo O’Malley, from Light Street, had been on a recruiting trip, and she’d offered him a job. He’d been with them for five years, and he loved the job.

  When he’d watched the same news report several times without learning anything more, he knew he was just spinning his wheels.

  After turning down the sound on the TV, he got out his laptop and checked his mail. There was nothing urgent, and nothing on the Net about the murder that he hadn’t already seen on TV.

  He closed the laptop and left it on the desk, then looked toward the bedroom. He’d given Jamie some space. Now it was time to get some dinner, turn in and start fresh in the morning.

  He crossed the room, hesitated for a moment, then knocked on her door.

  When she didn’t answer he knocked again. “Jamie?”

  Still no answer.

  He twisted the knob and pushed the door open. The light was off, and it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. When they did, he saw Jamie lying on the bed. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was regular. He walked closer, seeing that her lips were slightly parted. They looked so damn kissable. Quickly he flicked his gaze away, where it landed on her breasts as they rose and fell. She was sleeping and totally vulnerable to him. He could look at her in a way he’d never done when she was awake.

  Only it wasn’t any fun because he felt an immediate sense of guilt at invading her privacy. He caught his breath, then backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  Obviously, she was worn out. She’d hardly slept the night before, and he wasn’t going to wake her to go out to dinner, but he could bring back something they’d both like.

  The question made him realize how little he knew about her tastes. But he remembered a Light Street Fourth of July party where he’d seen her eating ribs and buffalo wings. Something like that was probably safe.

  The hotel had a binder with information on local restaurants. He found there was a place down by the river where you could get ribs and crabcakes. Kind of a weird combination, but it looked like he could walk down a path along the canal and get there in a few minutes.

  In case Jamie woke up and wondered where he was, he wrote her a note explaining that he’d gone out to get them dinner. He left the sheet of paper on the rug where she’d be sure to see it if she stepped out of the bedroom.

  Then he stopped at the desk to make sure he knew which way to walk. On the way to the restaurant, he passed an old dye works that was partly demolished. Too bad it was sitting right down in the tourist section of town. But maybe they could use the part that was still standing for shops or something.

  Inside the restaurant, he grabbed a menu and scanned the selections. The cream of crab soup sounded good. He asked for two cartons and two orders of barbecued ribs. And salad. Women always liked salad.

  While he waited for the kitchen to prepare the food, he looked around the restaurant and found a rack near the door with local newspapers. Maybe they’d give him some information that would help lead to the funhouse.

  As he turned from the rack, he saw a man at a corner table watching him. The guy was pretty ordinary looking, but there was something unsettling about him.

  Mack took in details. The guy was sitting down, but from the way he filled the chair, he was probably about six feet tall. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, with dark hair. Dark eyes. Wire-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a blue flannel shirt, hiking boots and dark slacks.

  When he caught Mack scrutinizing him, he bent to his plate of crabcakes.

  “Your order’s ready,” the woman behind the counter called out, and Mack turned away to get the food. When he’d paid with his credit card, he took one more look at the guy in the corner and saw he was now reading an outdoor magazine.

  Mack exited the restaurant and took the path back to the hotel. When he walked into the room with their dinner, Jamie was sitting on the couch watching a recap of the earlier newscasts.

  She used the remote to turn off the television and silence rang in the room.

  “You’re up,” he said, thinking that was a pretty dumb line. “How are you feeling?”

  “Rested.”

  He set the bags down on the coffee table. “Sorry. I forgot to get drinks. But we can grab something from the minibar.”

  She got up and crossed the room, opening the little refrigerator. “What do you want?”

  “Do they have Dr Pepper?”

  She laughed. “That’s your soft drink of choice?”

  “Yeah.”

  She got out two cans of Dr Pepper and brought them to the table.

  “You, too?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I hate to find we’ve got something in common.”

  “Why?”

  The question hung in the air between them. When she didn’t answer, he sat down and gestured toward the food, as he told her what he’d gotten.

  “There’s only one place in town where you could have scored that combination.”

  She reached into one of the bags and took out the cartons, not hesitating to spoon up some of the soup. “I haven’t had this in a while. It’s as good as you can get in Baltimore.”

  He took the chair across from her, pulling it closer to the table.

  After taking a spoonful, he nodded. “It’s strange to specialize in crab when you’re this far from the ocean.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  It was an oddly polite and cautious conversation. A few hours ago, they’d gotten intimate too fast. Now they were both backing off.

  He wasn’t sure how to get comfortable with her. She was obviously having similar thoughts, because she didn’t offer any other topics of conversation, so they ended up eating most of the meal in silence.

  After she’d eaten about half of her soup, ribs and salad, she got up and went into the bedroom, leaving him to clean up the trash, then open up the sleep sofa.

  It wasn’t the most comfortable bed he’d ever lain on, and it didn’t make it any easier to sleep when he kept thinking about the woman in the next room.

  JAMIE TOOK A SHOWER, then pulled on a long T-
shirt over her panties and climbed into bed. There was another television in the bedroom, and she turned it on, flipping through the channels to find the local news. It was the same information she’d heard before. Nothing new. Yet she couldn’t shake the conviction that there was something about to happen. Something she wasn’t going to like.

  Another dream?

  She shuddered. She didn’t want to dream about Lynn Vaughn again. And why should she? Lynn was dead.

  Still, to keep herself awake, she kept pressing the buttons on the remote, finally finding an old movie that she’d seen before, but it was something to keep her mind off the man in the next room and the growing unrest that was making her chest tighten. She kept the television on past midnight, then worried she was going to keep Mack awake. When she finally flipped off the set, she was wrung out.

  When she slid down under the covers, sleep claimed her easily. For a little while, she was at peace. Then the dream that had been hovering at the edge of her consciousness since she’d climbed into bed grabbed her by the throat and made her gasp.

  She was back in the funhouse, running down a dark corridor, the breath sawing in and out of her lungs as she tried to get away from the man who had brought her here.

  He’d drugged her and left her in a cell. She remembered that part. Then he’d told her to wake up and play the game he’d planned for the two of them. He’d said it was going to be fun. She’d known from the tone of his voice that he was lying.

  It was deadly serious. For both of them.

  He was behind her again, letting her get far enough away for her to hope that she could escape. Then he’d catch up with her the way he had before.

  For Jamie, it was a replay of the previous trip through the funhouse. Only this time, it wasn’t Lynn Vaughn. She was sharing another woman’s thoughts and panic gripped her when she realized she had no idea who the woman was.

  That had never happened to her before. When she’d had dreams before, they were always about a person she knew, a friend or someone from school. But even as she struggled to figure out who it was, she could detect no sense of familiarity. She didn’t know this woman. Yet something tied them together, something she didn’t want to examine too closely.