Crimson Eve

by Brandilyn Collins

  “Sure you got them all? Could make a real mess, leaving something behind.”

  Yeah, no kidding. Despite what he’d told Carla Radling, after finding those photos Tony could make a pretty good guess why he’d been sent here. Wouldn’t be the first time something like this had happened in America. Sometimes powerful people were powerfully stupid. “I told you I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Watch your tone; who do you think you are?” The voice hardened to stone. “Nothing you have ever done is as important as this job, Tony. So let me make this clear to you, in case you’re not getting it. This doesn’t go down as planned, you’re as good as dead. After I get through with your son. Do you understand?”

  Tony’s blood turned to water. His mouth hung open, fingers crushed against the cell phone. Knowing this person the way he did, the driving ambition involved, he didn’t dare doubt the threat.

  “Derrat?”

  “I hear you.”

  “Good.” Breathing sounded in Tony’s ear. “Tell you what, now that we’ve had our heart-to-heart, I’m feeling especially generous. I think you’re right about the hit at night. I’ll give you until . . . three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. That’s more than enough time.”

  Three o’clock. Timmy would be at preschool. Robyn would pick him up at five. Nobody would bother his son at school. Right?

  “No problem; I’ll call you by then.”

  “Be assured if you don’t, I’ll be calling you.” A pause, followed by a satisfied sigh. “Beautiful sunset over here. Hope yours is equally pretty.”

  The line clicked in Tony’s ear.

  Slowly, he lowered the phone and slid it into his pocket.

  More coughing shook him. Tony hacked and spat, his brain already spinning desperate plans.

  When the coughing ceased, he forced his feet toward the rental car. No matter that he could hardly see.

  Nineteen hours. No matter what it took, Carla Radling would be dead in nineteen hours.

  EIGHT

  In Tanya’s house, every light burned. In all bedrooms, all baths, the dining and living and family rooms, even the garage. Outside every porch light beamed, plus the powerful front and back spots at the house’s four corners.

  All doors were locked and bolted. All windows shut and double-checked.

  Tanya felt anything but safe.

  The violation of her home stretched from room to room. Every corner she turned, every door she passed threatened to yield another unwanted intruder.

  With one word, I can make you disappear . . .

  Tanya perched on the edge of her office chair, focusing on her computer screen. On her right sat a cup of tea, still steaming. To her left, beige blinds on the large windows were closed tight. Her desk was neat, every pen in place, the phone angled just so.

  The feigned orderliness of her life.

  Tomorrow loomed unyielding and unsure. But tonight while she had the chance, Tanya would follow the clarion of her conscience. It had begun to blow the minute the hated intruder disappeared out her door. After all these years of complacence, Tanya now felt driven to find the name that had so haunted her: Carla Radling.

  She went to Google.com, typed in her search. Up popped dozens of hits. Tanya sucked in a breath. Could it be this easy?

  She started down the list.

  Apparently, more than one Carla Radling existed. Tanya read the 2003 obituary of ninety-six-year-old Carol Whitamah in Atlanta, Georgia, survived by numerous children, one of them a Carla Radling in Westchester, Tennessee. Mother who was ninety-six. The ages didn’t fit.

  A Carla Radling in Little Rock, Arkansas, currently played in her high school’s marching band. A third in Wheaton, Illinois, age fifty-six, had been elected to city council. This one offered the most hits — Web site after Web site. Tanya skipped over all similar links, praying to find the Carla she sought.

  There — a fourth. Carla Radling, realtor in Kanner Lake, Idaho.

  The town name alone was enough to steal Tanya’s breath. The Kanner Lake, where the famous Edna San had lived and been murdered. Where just six months ago, other fearsome killings had occurred, spinning the town onto TV screens and newspaper pages for a second time. Over a year ago, Tanya had never heard of Kanner Lake. Now, who in the United Stated hadn’t heard of it?

  According to this Carla’s Web site, she was the realtor who’d listed Edna San’s estate.

  Tanya stared at the photo.

  Same glossy black hair, same dark eyes, same lovely face. The eyes that had cried so hard, the face that gazed at her with a trust that shattered Tanya’s heart into pieces.

  Her throat tightened.

  She eased back in her chair, unable to rip her gaze from the picture. Pressed her palms to her mouth. The computer blurred, tears falling on her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away.

  When she could move again, she pulled pen and paper close and wrote down Carla’s office number. No cell number. Strange. Didn’t most realtors live on their cell phones?

  Tanya’s tea grew cold as she read every Web site that pertained to Kanner Lake realtor Carla Radling. One was a blog at www.kannerlake.blogspot.com called Scenes and Beans. “Life in Kanner Lake, Idaho, brought to you by Java Joint coffee shop on Main.” Java Joint. Tanya remembered the name. It too had made the news last spring after the town’s murders. Carla was listed as one of the blog’s contributing posters.

  For the next two hours, Tanya read the posts from Scenes and Beans.

  Carla rotated with the other bloggers, appearing about every two weeks. Tanya both laughed and cried as she read Carla’s posts. She could see the feistiness she once saw in the teenage girl. At least Carla hadn’t lost that. What Tanya didn’t see, as opposed to most of the other bloggers, was anything about Carla’s past. No mention of childhood, of her teenage years, of anything but the present. No mention, either, of a husband or boyfriend.

  Had the events of years ago cost Carla that?

  Fresh guilt pierced Tanya. What had she done to that young girl?

  She finished reading. For a long time she sat staring at the blue water background of the Scenes and Beans blog. And Carla’s name as contributor — “realtor at your ser vice.”

  With one word . . .

  No matter. It was too late to turn back now. She’d known that the moment she saw Carla’s picture. Maybe even before, when those threatening words had wound the noose around her neck, poised a foot to kick away the flimsy stool upon which she’d stood for all these years.

  Tanya erased the Internet history, then shut down her computer.

  Tonight she would sleep with her bedroom door locked and one of her son’s old baseball bats on the bed beside her. If she lived to see tomorrow, she would set out to do what should have been done years ago. Who knew if she would survive after she’d accomplished her task?

  Even so, for the first time in years, Tanya Evans’s conscience felt a hint of peace.

  PART TWO

  Driven

  NINE

  Eight-thirty. Less than nineteen hours.

  Tony Derrat’s eyes and throat still burned, and his face was beet red. But he had work to do.

  He parked the Durango a block away and headed for Carla’s house, keeping his head down. He’d stopped at a gas station and changed his clothes in the men’s room. Jeans, a navy button-down shirt, running shoes. His silk pants and expensive sport coat looked like they’d been dragged through the mud. It would be a miracle if they ever came clean.

  Tony didn’t expect to find Carla at home. No doubt she’d run off by now. But she’d probably stopped to pick up some things. Women were so predictable. About to die, and they’d want a makeup kit.

  He needed to know what she’d taken. Just might tell him which direction she’d headed.

  Tony reached the house. Nice-looking place. Green lawn and flowers. He walked up the driveway as if he belonged there, around the side and to the back. He put gloves on, then pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and ai
med it at the kitchen door lock. With practiced ease, he jimmied the lock for a second time that day and slipped inside. He closed the door without a sound.

  Tony moved through the dark kitchen, senses prickling. He could tell things about a person from her house. This one had a feeling of order and coolness. Everything in its place, no clutter. In the living room sat a light blue sofa — in the daylight he’d seen its color. Matching chairs grouped around a white-tiled fireplace, magazines stacked on a glass-topped coffee table. Knickknacks and books on built-in shelves. No photos. Art prints on the walls. Nothing commemorating Carla Radling’s life.

  Who was this woman?

  His own house was homey. Timmy’s shoes on the kitchen floor, toys in front of the TV. The smells of cookies and peanut butter.

  Timmy.

  Tony slipped into Carla’s bedroom.

  He aimed the flashlight down, avoiding windows. Feeble light from a streetlamp puddled on the dresser. Open drawers. The shoebox of pictures was dumped on the bed. In the closet clothes were pushed to one side.

  She’d been through here in a hurry, all right.

  In Tony’s head, a clock loudly ticked. But he forced himself to check every inch of the room. A small red suitcase was missing from the closet. Tony could barely make out its wheel tracks on the carpet. Also gone were a laptop and case that had sat on the desk.

  He should have been more careful this afternoon. But he was in a hurry to meet Carla at the estate. Then, it hadn’t mattered. He’d figured he could return here if necessary after he’d dumped her body where it wouldn’t be found. In that case he’d have known exactly what he was looking for and where it was. He hadn’t planned on killing Miss Wit until he’d forced every piece of pertinent information from her.

  Tony panned the flashlight beam over the closet again. Something wasn’t right.

  The hatbox on the closet shelf.

  The top was crooked, and it wasn’t where he’d put it. He’d replaced it close to the shoebox, just as he’d found it. Now the thing lay some four inches away from where the shoebox would have been, and it stuck out beyond the edge of the shelf.

  Tony’s heart fell to his toes.

  He pictured a frantic Carla, stumbling through the room. Yanking clothes off hangers and out of drawers was one thing. But out of a hatbox? Especially when it sat right next to the shoe-box of pictures . . .

  But he’d looked through that hatbox. Nothing but baseball caps in there.

  With his gloved hands, Tony lifted down the hatbox and set it on the bed. Holding the flashlight in one hand, he rifled through its contents.

  Baseball caps, just like before.

  He unstacked them, examined each inside and out. A green one sat on top, yellow next, followed by others of red, blue, and black. He reached the bottom one — white — and turned it over. Again nothing.

  With all caps out, the hatbox was empty.

  Why had Carla Radling, running for her life, stopped to look through this stack of caps? And then taken the time to replace it on the shelf?

  He stared at the box, his blood running cold. He’d missed something. More pictures? Letters? Something important, tying back to the past.

  Something that could get his son killed.

  A minute ticked by. Tony’s fear melted away. In its place, a dead, iron-willed calm.

  When he slipped out the back door, he relocked it, leaving no trace of his presence.

  He hurried to his rental and drove to an unlit back corner of a grocery store parking lot. From there he would throw out the net to catch his target. People thought they could hide, just up and leave no trace. Didn’t work that way. There were always traces. Throw out the net, reel it in. Throw it out, reel it in. Keep doing that, and he’d catch Carla Radling.

  First, some calls, using the second cell phone he’d bought for this job.

  The people he called knew him as “Barry.” They weren’t surprised at his new cell phone number; his numbers were always new. Some had never seen him. They figured he was CIA, a private detective, whatever soothed their consciences. They never asked why he told them to do certain things. Barry wanted information, they gave it to him, he paid them — that’s all they cared about.

  Within fifteen minutes he had people watching the roads leading north, south, east, and west. They knew the make of the car, color, license number.

  Next he talked to a man in Spokane. The man agreed to take up his assigned post in Kanner Lake by six a.m. He would report to “Barry” the minute he heard anything useful.

  Finally, a small surveillance matter Tony took care of himself. Nothing to it, with his experience. When you’re paid to dig up dirt on people, you learn a lot of tricks, and you always come prepared to play them.

  That job done, he drove through the night streets, looking for Carla’s car. He knew where some of her friends lived. Maybe she’d been stupid enough to run to one of them, not believing his threats. Hope so. Tony smirked. The way he felt tonight, he’d shoot through a whole household of people just to get to Carla Radling.

  The clocked ticked toward his deadline, but Tony had no fear. He knew he would win. He always won. Good thing his orders were for the target’s body never to be found. He would so enjoy getting rid of Miss Wit.

  One piece at a time.

  TEN

  Carla hunched behind her steering wheel, back muscles tight, fingers cramped. Her left ankle ached. She’d give anything to put it up. With all the swelling, she’d kicked off her shoes long ago.

  It felt like she’d been driving for hours.

  At the edge of Kanner Lake, she’d nearly had a meltdown from the mere decision of which way to turn. West toward Spokane? North toward Canada? Nope — no passport. East to Montana? South toward Boise?

  After a moment of paralysis, she headed toward Highway 41 and turned south. She hit Interstate 90, veered east for a few miles, then exited onto south 95 toward Moscow — a university town. Carla knew the road would be lonely and dark — the very thought made her sweat — but that also meant fewer cars. If Thornby had people watching for her Toyota, they’d more likely be on the freeway.

  I hope.

  Eight miles out of Coeur d’Alene, passing the Kidd Island Bay turnoff, Carla started watching the rearview mirror. Her head pounded and her imagination ran wild. Every car behind her held an insane Thornby, ready to shoot at her out the window. Or she’d be forced off the road and strangled. Tomorrow morning someone would find her purple-faced body, ripped of clothes and dignity. Within a day her friends at Java Joint would be mourning her death over their lattes and mochas. Maybe even Wilbur would shed a tear or two.

  Bailey would make a small fortune on all the lattes.

  Dark forested hills alternated with open fields — usually beautiful country. Now the fields rolled sullen and cold, the trees gnarled and monstrous.

  Carla passed the turnoff to Windy Bay on Lake Coeur d’Alene, followed by a sign that read “Moscow, 76 miles.” The road narrowed into one lane each direction. The Indian casino loomed ahead, the block-lettered sign flashing in garish yellow. Inside people drank and laughed, slot machines chink-chinked. A normal night — while she ran for her life.

  Why was this happening now? She hadn’t done anything.

  Maybe the fact that she lived was enough. Imagine what could happen if she ever talked. And now that her enemy was rising to the greatest power he’d ever known . . .

  He had a lot to lose, all right.

  Carla swallowed hard. Even after all the years, the thought of him brought familiar pain. She’d been so young, so naïve. He’d played her like a fiddle. She should hate him. She did hate him.

  Most of the time.

  Carla slowed through the tiny towns of Worley and Plum-mer. As she sped up again, bright headlights shone in her rearview mirror. A large car — maybe an SUV — loomed close behind. Was it black? Was it him? How could she know in this darkness?

  Just drive.

  She passed a lumber company, logs
stacked like gaunt corpses against the night sky. The forest closed in, trees crowding the road. Carla gulped in air until the trees shrank back, replaced with open fields.

  Another tiny town — Tensed. Weird name. A sign read “Moscow, 37 miles.”

  Her headlights bore into the night. Bugs hit her windshield with wet smacks.

  Carla’s neck felt like iron. How long could she drive like this? And to where? Her brain was a battery-drained engine, chugging . . . chugging. Carla shook her head, blinked hard. She had to think.

  Thornby knew the make of her car. Probably knew her license plate number too. What if he did have “people looking for her everywhere,” as he’d threatened? What if they were watching the roads in all directions? She’d chosen the most obvious southern route.

  The hair on her arms rose.

  She should get off the road — as soon as possible. Hole up for the night. In the morning she’d ditch her car for a rental. That was the most important thing — getting out of this car. More important than driving all night, putting miles between herself and Kanner Lake. Tomorrow in the rental she’d drive as far as she could.

  But she’d have to show her driver’s license to rent a car. And use a credit card. She’d leave a trail.

  And where would she go?

  Carla’s eyes burned. She didn’t cry often — enough tears had fallen years ago to last a lifetime. But she’d never felt this alone and desperate. Not even then.

  You’re doing this to me, aren’t You, God.

  After Vesta Johnson’s death, Carla had gone to Pastor Hank’s church a few times. One Sunday he talked about how God could “use our past to change our present.” That a person first had to ask God to forgive the past, then “walk with Him in victory over it.” Sounded good, but it wasn’t for her. One, her past was unforgivable. Two, God seemed to only want to punish her for it.

  Haven’t I been punished enough?

  At ten o’clock Carla entered Moscow.

  Highway 95 ran through the town. Carla glanced right and left. She had to find a motel off the highway — with a place close by where she could hide her car. She didn’t dare leave it in some lit parking lot.