Home Deadly Home

by Janice Kay Johnson

  It was true that his determination to protect her could be irritating, but she understood it. Even loved it.

  She frowned a little. That wasn’t a word she used often or lightly.

  I love him. Oh, lord…maybe. But what was she going to do about it?

  Cassie huffed out a breath. Was she really mooning over a guy, when she had so much to do?

  Um, yes.

  Determined to cut herself off, she reached for the notepad she’d been using for to-do lists. There was one concerning legal aspects of her father’s estate, two having to do with the house. Dealing with Dad’s stuff – and what work did the house require if she were to put it on the market?

  If? No, she corrected herself; when. She had never been happy in that house.

  What she had to do to keep the newspaper going in the immediate future was her latest list.

  Rick Oberg was right. Lists were the way to go. That way, you couldn’t forget something important, or skip a task you really, really didn’t want to do, not when it was right there in front of you. She hadn’t gotten quite so anal as to absolutely refuse to skip forward on any of her lists, but—

  Her thoughts screeched to a stop. Lists. Over coffee, Rick had told her how much he believed in making a list. He’d even sung the line from the Christmas carol: And checking it twice. How many times had the killer referenced lists during his calls?

  Rick had been on the football team. Probably a bench sitter, which made him a relative nobody in jock circles or with girls. He was short, slightly built, albeit having what appeared to be a wiry kind of strength. His voice…

  Nobody else was close enough to hear when she called up the one message she’d managed to record and listened hard. Played it again. The cadences were right. The tonal range. In person, Rick had been friendly, even easy-going, but he might act well enough to hide his darker nature, his secrets. She should know; she’d spent a lifetime making sure nobody saw the terrified little girl whose mommy had abandoned her in the most brutal of ways to a cold father. Her determination never to be seen that way had motivated almost every choice she’d ever made.

  Adrenaline trickling into her bloodstream, she picked up her phone and dialed Grant’s number.

  *****

  The two men walked around the side of the house Rick Oberg had inherited from his father. In a neighborhood dominated by rentals, it was a modest rambler. The siding needed scraping and a fresh coat of paint. The aluminum-framed windows probably didn’t insulate the way newer windows would. With the branches bare of leaves, Grant couldn’t identify the few shrubs around the foundation. Otherwise, the small yard was all grass, currently a winter shade of brownish-gray and crunchy underfoot.

  Grant kept a sharp eye on the windows and knew that Jed was as well. In back, Jed stepped up on the concrete pad and rapped on the glass inset in the door as Grant stood to one side.

  After studying what he could see through the square of glass, Jed shook his head. They completed their circle of the home, then parted to ring neighbor’s doorbells.

  An elderly woman at the house beside the Obergs’ came to the door so quickly, Grant guessed she’d been watching out the window, hoping for a little excitement in her day.

  He showed her his badge. “Ma’am, I have a question or two—”

  “You come right on in,” she declared. “My goodness, but it’s cold out here.”

  Since it was, temperatures having plunged again this first week of February, he obliged and had to take a seat in the small living room, too, as she was so shaky on her feet he couldn’t keep her standing.

  “I assume you know Richard Oberg?” he began.

  “Since he was a little boy.” Her lips firmed. “I never did like him. Nasty little thing. I know he’s the one who threw a rock through my kitchen window when he was a teenager, and after I complained to his father, I found my cat dead on my door mat two days later. I let them know, but his mother wouldn’t hear a bad word about her boy, and she ruled that house.”

  Grant nodded. “Thank you for telling me, ma’am. I wonder if you’ve seen him today?”

  His phone rang, and he glanced at the screen. Cassie. The compulsion to answer was extreme, but he’d have to call her back.

  “Why, he left not fifteen minutes ago. He’s coming and going all the time.” She shook her head, permed gray curls barely quivering. “He claims to be getting the house ready to sell, but I haven’t seen that he’s done much.”

  Grant let her complain for a few more minutes, thanked her for her help and escaped. Jed waited at the department SUV.

  “Nobody home next door,” he said briefly. “Tried the place across the street, too, but it’s completely empty. Must be a vacant rental.”

  Grant told him what the elderly woman had said.

  Jed grunted. The possibility that as a boy Rick had killed an animal surprised neither of them. “We can try the plumbing business again, but I doubt he’s there. Getting the feeling Oberg doesn’t want to talk to us.”

  “No shit.” Grant took out his phone. “Cassie just left a message. Let me listen to it.”

  They got in and Jed started the engine to warm the interior as Grant accessed voicemail.

  “I think it’s Rick Oberg,” she blurted. “He talked a lot about making lists, how it kept him on track with everything he had to do to deal with his father’s estate. I should have realized sooner that the killer mentioned lists several times, too. I replayed the call I recorded, and…I’m almost sure, Grant.” That was the end of the message.

  “Shit,” he said tautly, and touched Reply. Her phone rang and rang, then took him to her voicemail.

  She’d sworn she wouldn’t go out alone…but he had trouble believing she wasn’t keeping her phone close.

  On a spike of fear, he looked at Jed. “We need to go by the newspaper office.”

  *****

  Cassie laid her phone on her desk, wishing Grant had answered. How was she supposed to concentrate on anything else now?

  He’d call back. Of course he would.

  Lifting her head, she realized Helen wasn’t at her desk. Bathroom? No, wait – she’d gone out a few minutes ago for coffee, promising to bring Cassie a latte, too. Cassie hadn’t thought twice about it, because Andy had been here, too, making calls.

  Uneasy, she glanced around. No sign of him. In truth, he could have walked right by her. In the last half hour, she’d been so preoccupied, she was afraid she wouldn’t have noticed.

  She hadn’t expected to find herself here alone, although she ought to have. It happened often. In fact, that first time the killer called, she’d answered the phone because no one else was here to do it. Helen would be back in no time. Besides…she wasn’t his target. Grant was.

  The street door opened, letting in a burst of cold air. Nervous despite herself, Cassie rose to her feet in relief that flipped into apprehension when she realized it wasn’t Helen walking in. It was someone wearing a fleece hat pulled low on his forehead, leather gloves and a parka with the hood keeping his face from being instantly visible. Definitely he – she could see stubble on his jaw.

  Just inside, he reached behind himself almost casually to lock the deadbolt.

  Heart thundering, Cassie was already backing up.

  “Read my mind,” Rick Oberg said. “We’ll go out the back.”

  “Wait.” She tried very hard for surprise. “What are you talking about?” Her phone lay on the desk, taunting her. Why hadn’t she grabbed it?

  He dipped a hand into his parka pocket. The next instant, he held a black gun on her as he advanced. “You already knew, didn’t you? How?”

  Delay. Helen would see him through the glass in front. Someone walking by would see him.

  “I…wondered. That’s all.”

  “Where’s your coat?” he snapped, his hazel eyes utterly expressionless.

  She jerked her head toward the back. Could she count it as a positive that he didn’t want her to freeze?

  “Then m
ove.” The barrel of the gun waggled to send a message.

  Cassie shuffled a few steps backwards, watching for movement through the glass behind him. Please. Let someone come along.

  He lifted an eyebrow at the sight of her phone on the desk. At that moment, it started to ring, but he ignored it and kept walking. “Don’t think you can dawdle. I can shoot you here if you don’t cooperate.”

  “But…why me?”

  “I’ll tell you once we’re out of here.” With his free hand he shoved her, sending her staggering. “I’m not a man you want to annoy.”

  She let herself be herded down the hall. He allowed her to stop only long enough to put on her parka and grab her scarf and gloves before ordering her to open the back door.

  If she could slip through fast and slam it in his face…

  He thrust out a foot to block the heavy door from closing. To her dismay, she saw an older pickup parked close to the steps. In fact, covering the spot where Paul Lawseth’s body had lain in a pool of blood.

  “Open the driver’s side door.”

  She sneaked glances each direction down the alley. The advice was always to run. Anything was better than getting in the car. If she could make it to the Dumpsters…

  “Fine,” he said right behind her, closer than he’d been. She felt movement more than saw it. Then something slammed into the back of her head. Cassie had an instant of crushing pain and knew her knees were buckling. Blackness closed over her.

  *****

  The minute they turned the corner, Grant saw Helen standing on the sidewalk right in front of the door into the newspaper offices, seemingly peering through the glass. Why wasn’t she going in?

  Jed swerved to the curb and braked hard enough to throw Grant forward against his seatbelt. On a huge surge of fear, he leaped out. “Helen.”

  She turned, her face crinkled with bewilderment. She held a cardboard carrier with two coffee cups in it. “Sheriff. The door is locked. I don’t understand. If Cassie had to go out, she’d have hung the closed sign or a note saying when she’d be back. And she knew I wouldn’t be gone long.”

  Oh, Jesus. He looked in, too. Unless she had ducked – or fallen – behind the counter, or was in the conference room, a bathroom or storage room in back, she wasn’t there. And if there were an innocent reason for her to be in any of those rooms, why would she have locked the door? Grant didn’t believe for a minute that she’d have voluntarily gone anywhere.

  Helen shook her head. “I left my keys in my purse! All I took was my debit card.”

  “Back door?”

  “It’s always locked.”

  Without hesitation, Grant drew his gun, turned it, and slammed the butt into the glass. Helen cried out in shock, but he ignored her, reaching in to turn the lock. When he stepped inside, glass crunched under his feet.

  He moved fast, gun in firing position now. Jed had quickly moved up right beside him. Cassie wasn’t behind the counter. Shit, shit, shit – her phone lay abandoned on her desk. The light was off in the conference room. Jed switched it on. Empty. The detective went in the storage room to the left as Grant pushed open first the men’s restroom door, then the women’s. Not a goddamn soul was here, and they were facing the metal door leading out into the alley.

  Afraid in a way he’d rarely been in his life, Grant turned the knob and pulled the door open. He had a fleeting moment of relief because Cassie didn’t lie dead at the foot of the two concrete steps. The relief flickered out, leaving a hollow space inside his chest. Terror.

  “He took her.”

  His shoulder brushing Grant’s, Jed said, “We don’t know that. She could have stepped out to do a quick errand.”

  “She wouldn’t.”

  “Why would he have taken her?”

  The answer was easy. “You have to bait a trap.”

  Grant’s phone buzzed at his hip. He snatched it up. Not a call – a text.

  Want her back?

  That was it. Throat constricted, he replied, Yes.

  Neither man moved.

  Two minutes later, the phone buzzed again.

  Follow instructions exactly

  He typed, Yes.

  No reply.

  “I’ll get a trace on the phone,” Jed said, and vanished back inside the building.

  Instead of following him, Grant ran for the tavern that had the only surveillance camera pointing at the alley.

  *****

  Cassie surfaced, aware first of a splitting headache, then of darkness. Her surroundings vibrated.

  The next time she rose to consciousness, she was aware even through the agony in her head that she was squeezed into a space not meant for the human body. A hard lump squished one breast and hurt her ribcage beneath her arm. She tried to move, without much success.

  In a sort of doze, she lost herself in the pain. But the vibrating surface she lay on suddenly sounded, and felt, as if it had been hit by machine gun fire. Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat. Her mouth had been open, and her teeth clinked rhythmically together until she managed to clamp them shut. It was like running over railroad tracks.

  The answer appeared in her head. Cattle guard. She was in a car. The trunk? Shouldn’t she remember? If it was a car, it began to sway. When it hit a bump, she bit her tongue. Blood filled her mouth. Where was she being taken? Why?

  The sight of a pickup truck flashed into her mind. Hurt so much, knees caving in…

  Rick Oberg.

  A last, anguished image of Grant’s face, the stark need in his eyes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The camera showed no movement but a rat scuttling across the alley. If the son of a bitch had taken Cassie out the back, he’d have parked there. If so, he’d backed in, which meant he knew about the surveillance camera.

  Grant jogged back, to find Jed squatting to look closely at something on the pavement.

  “Blood,” he said, when Grant reached him. “I’ve already called for investigators.”

  Grant’s stomach did a dive when he, too, crouched to see several smears of obviously fresh blood.

  “Hands,” Jed suggested, spreading his own in illustration, “and maybe her cheek?”

  “I want to kill him.”

  “Odds are good someone is going to have to.” Jed stood. “Hasn’t texted you again?”

  “No. Fuck.” Grant scrubbed his hands through his hair, yanking until it hurt. “We need to canvass the businesses on the block. Look for surveillance cameras anywhere within a couple of blocks. He’d have driven here.”

  “Let me call FHPD. This is their turf.”

  “After the reporter was killed, Cassie wouldn’t open the back door for any reason. He has to have come in the front.”

  “I agree.” Jed walked away to make the call.

  When he returned, Grant said, “Where would he take her?”

  His detective put his hands on his hips and gazed reflectively at the brick wall of the building on the other side of the alley. “I’m thinking out in the boonies. He’s obviously done his share of urban murders, if Taylor is right, but this time he’s gotten every victim except the woman in isolated spots.”

  “And the reporter.”

  “Lawseth wasn’t part of the plan. He didn’t kill him the same way, either.”

  “This part of Oregon has one hell of a lot of empty country.”

  “Finding the two of them won’t be a problem,” Jed pointed out. “He’s going to issue an invitation. This is all about you.”

  It was – but no man with Rick Oberg’s history and skewed thinking would let Cassie go after he took down Grant, even if he hadn’t let her see his face.

  “Do you think he has any idea we suspect it’s him we’re chasing? Or does he imagine he can step back into his I’m-just-home-to-take-care-of-Dad’s-estate persona?”

  “No clue.”

  “It’s friggin’ cold out there.” God, Oberg had all the time in the world to do what he wanted to Cassie. Grant’s voice came out hoarse with fear. “We have to
find them.”

  “Let’s take another look at whether his father owned any other property,” Jed suggested pragmatically. “And you need to think. Is there someplace the popular kids partied, where he never felt welcome? Or a place that means something special to you?”

  Bingo.

  Grant felt unbelievably stupid. He should already have been asking himself the same questions, but he wasn’t thinking right. He’d always been good at jamming the emotions out of sight until he was well away from a homicide scene, or until an investigation was concluded. Psychologists called it compartmentalizing. Right now, he was almost too consumed by fear for the woman he loved to function.

  “There is a place,” he said hoarsely. “It would be perfect for setting up an ambush.”

  Jed responded obliquely. “Maybe Helen can get us into Cassie’s phone. Find out if he texted or talked to her. Or if she had a chance to snap a picture.”

  More common sense.

  After Helen told them she had no idea what Cassie’s password could be, the two men went out to sit in the department SUV where they could talk privately. Jed cranked up the heat, and waited.

  Hard to concentrate. “You ever seen the county’s most impressive rimrock, south of here?”

  “The one you can see from the highway?”

  “In the distance. Yeah. We used to party, take girls there. Camped out sometimes. You can get there on an ATV or dirt bike, but we mostly rode horses. Once we all had driver’s licenses and could take our parents’ pickups and trailer the horses, we were out there damn near every weekend. On the map, it’s Parson’s Rimrock. We called it Butt Crack, because it’s split right in the middle. We did dumb-shit things there – laid a narrow plank and walked it even when we were tanked.” He shook his head. “Here’s the sad part. We claimed it as our fort. Invitation only.” Grant wanted to go back and give his cocky young self a kick in the ass.

  “Out in the middle of nowhere.”