by Linda Howard
“I let him in, never knowing what he intended.”
Him. Not Tabby, just as he’d suspected when he heard that she had been violated. Still, he could find out who’d raped and killed her, and then he could send her spirit to a better place. In that sense, his trip here had not been wasted.
Marcia Cordell’s spirit sighed and drifted down to sit on a flowery sofa, her pose proper. “Dennis was always such an odd boy, but—”
“Dennis. You knew him?”
Miss Cordell gave Gideon a withering glance. It was a glance she had no doubt silenced students with over the years. “Young man, you asked me to tell you what happened, and I’m trying to do just that.”
He didn’t point out that he was just a couple of years younger than she had been at the time of her death, hardly a young man. She had the spirit of an older woman, as if she’d carried something into this life too strongly from another. “Sorry, ma’am,” he said contritely. “Please continue.”
She nodded her head. “Dennis Floyd is a neighbor. The Floyd family has been living in that house going on twenty years. Dennis was in elementary school when they moved in, and he was a pupil in my English class several years ago. He was not a good student,” she said with reproach. “He stopped by that night and asked to use the phone. He said their phone was out. Of course I said yes.” Her mouth thinned. “I didn’t see the danger coming until he grabbed me and threw me to the floor like a…like a…” she sputtered, and her face grew red. Even in death, she could blush.
“I’m going to see that he goes away for what he did to you,” Gideon said. “He’ll be punished, in this life and in the next.”
She nodded, obviously relieved. “Dennis needs to be punished for what he did to me. So does she.”
The hairs on the back of Gideon’s neck prickled. “She?”
“The woman who was with Dennis, the one who urged him on. I didn’t see her, not at first. I would have had reservations about allowing a stranger into my home so late in the evening. Dennis knocked me down. He bound my arms and legs with duct tape, and left me lying on the floor while he went to the door to invite her inside.” She seemed to be as incensed at having a stranger in her home as she was at being murdered.
“You didn’t know this woman.”
Miss Cordell shook her head. “No. Dennis called her…” She wrinkled her nose in thought. “Kitty, I think, or…”
“Tabby,” Gideon said softly.
“That’s it.” Marcia Cordell pointed a fading and shaking finger. “She sat in that chair over there and watched while Dennis did unspeakable things to me. She smiled, and when I screamed for help she told me that no one would hear me way out here, so far away from everyone and everything else.” Her figure trembled, and she almost disappeared, as if she wanted to hide from the telling of her death. “When I cried, she asked me if I liked it. She asked me if I had always fantasized about having a young stud show up at my door to make a real woman out of me.”
“She’s going to pay, too,” Gideon said. “I’ll see to it.”
Miss Cordell nodded her head. “She’s the one who killed me.”
“I know.”
“I thought it was finally over, and then that horrible woman leaned over my body and put a knife to my belly. She…she cut me, and she enjoyed it. When she was tired of cutting, she started stabbing me and…”
Gideon listened, while Marcia Cordell told him every last detail of the way Dennis and Tabby had tortured and finally killed her. He didn’t want to listen to the details, but Miss Cordell needed to tell the tale to someone who could hear her.
He listened, and then he asked, “Is there anything you can tell me about the woman? You said Dennis called her Tabby. Did he ever use a last name? Did you see what kind of vehicle she was driving? Was there anything you remember that might help me find her?”
Miss Cordell shook her head. “They left together, Dennis and that awful woman.”
Which meant Dennis was likely dead, too. He couldn’t imagine Tabby leaving a witness behind. “Time to go, Miss Cordell,” Gideon said as he stood and looked down at her. “I promise you, I’ll make sure they pay for what they did. I’ll take care of them for you. Move on to the next phase of your existence and find peace. You deserve it.”
“So do you,” Miss Cordell whispered before she faded to nothing.
Gideon left the crime scene behind. If Dennis was still alive—unlikely, but not impossible—maybe he held the key to finding Tabby. If ever there was concrete proof that this world wasn’t fit for a child, this was it.
Sheriff Webster stood by his patrol car, still working the brim of that battered hat. Gideon glanced around the overgrown yard. “Where’s Detective Malory?”
“She decided to interview some of the neighbors while we were waiting for you.” He nodded to a small white house down the road. It was almost a quarter of a mile away but still the closest house to Marcia Cordell’s. “Detective Malory seemed to think maybe they might’ve seen something that night. We interviewed them all and didn’t get squat, but…”
A knot of unease settled into Gideon’s gut.
“Dennis Floyd drove by while we were talking and…”
The sheriff didn’t get any further. Gideon turned toward the little white house and ran.
Hope glanced back toward the Cordell house. The sheriff continued to lean against his patrol car, obeying her instructions not to bother Raintree. There was no telling how long Gideon might be inside, talking to the ghost. Odd, how naturally those words came to her mind. Talking to the ghost.
If she could find something, any small detail, to add to what he learned, it might help. Maybe a neighbor had seen a car that night. That kind of information should have been in the report, but sometimes important facts were missed the first time around. Even if Gideon could find out who had killed the woman, they would need evidence in order to get a conviction.
“Come on in and I’ll fix us some tea.” Dennis Floyd was in his mid-twenties, at a guess. He was a rail-thin young man, with thinning blond hair and small, pale blue eyes. His car and his clothing had seen better years, but the house itself seemed to be well maintained. The front porch was clean, and a number of flowering plants in clay pots brightened the place considerably.
“My folks are at work,” he said as he opened the screen door for her. “I used to have my own place,” he added, apparently trying to impress her. “But when I was between jobs, I moved back in here. I’m workin’ steady now, but the folks need a little help with the yardwork and such, so I’m doing them a favor by stayin’ on.”
Hope stepped into his cool, semidark living room. It was clean but musty, as if years of stale odors had seeped into the walls and would never wash out. There was too much clutter for her taste. The room housed too many knickknacks and ashtrays and dusty flower arrangements.
“You’re investigating Miss Cordell’s murder, aren’t you?” Dennis asked as he walked past her.
“Yes.”
He headed for the kitchen, and Hope followed. The kitchen windows were uncovered, letting in enough light to make the room cheerier than the dismal living room.
“The sheriff said the killer was some perv from out of town.”
“Really? How does he know that?”
Dennis made himself busy, fetching glasses from the cupboard, filling them with ice, then taking a pitcher of tea from the fridge.
“No one around here could do such a terrible thing,” he said in a lowered voice as he poured two tall glasses of iced tea. “Why, we all loved Miss Cordell.”
“Did you see anything unusual that night?”
Dennis handed her a glass of tea, then leaned against the counter with his own glass in hand. “No, I don’t believe I did. The sheriff asked, of course, but I didn’t remember a thing that might help. Still don’t, I’m afraid.”
“A car that didn’t belong, perhaps, or a stranger on the road?” Dennis shook his head, and Hope placed her untouched tea on the kitche
n table. There was nothing of interest here, and still the hairs on the back of her neck were dancing. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Floyd. If you remember anything…”
“You know,” Dennis said, straightening sharply and setting his own tea aside. “Maybe there was a car, now that I think about it. It passed by here, oh, about eleven o’clock or so. It was movin’ real slow.”
“What kind of car?”
“Fancy car, as I remember. One of them sporty cars. It was green.”
Hope smiled. Dennis was lying. So she would stay a while longer? He had been leering at her, but why lie? Did he just crave the attention? Or was he curious to find out what she already knew?
Not only was this information brand-new, with no streetlamps on the narrow road, how had he been able to distinguish a color at eleven o’clock at night?
“Where were you standing,” she asked, “when you saw the car on the road?”
Dennis had to take a moment to think, and to Hope’s mind that proved he was lying.
“I had stepped outside to have a cigarette,” he said.
Did he think she hadn’t noticed the ashtrays in the living room? It wasn’t necessary for him to step outside to smoke, and she knew it. But she played along. “You were in the front yard,” she said.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I was in the front yard having a smoke.”
“So if the green sports car had turned into Miss Cordell’s driveway, you would’ve seen it.”
He swallowed hard. “Maybe it did turn into her driveway. I can’t rightly remember.”
“A woman was brutally murdered, and the next morning you didn’t remember that maybe you saw a car pull into her driveway?” Hope snapped.
“It was a traumatic experience,” Dennis explained. “To hear that one of my favorite teachers from high school, a neighbor, had been raped and sliced up by some stranger—”
Hope very subtly moved her hand to her pistol. Sheriff Webster hadn’t even told Gideon that Marcia Cordell had been sexually assaulted until they were here. He hadn’t put that detail in the official report or told the newspapers, and given how protective he was of the woman’s memory, odds were he hadn’t started any gossip about that night, either.
With a start, Dennis realized what he’d done. He cursed, then took his glass of tea and threw it at Hope’s head. She simultaneously ducked and drew her weapon. The glass flew past her head and shattered against the doorjamb behind her. Bits of broken glass, cold tea and ice cubes exploded around her.
Instead of running to the back door to escape, which was what she’d expected him to do, Dennis charged her, knocking her gun hand aside just as she fired. He grabbed her, and they both slipped on the tea and broken glass.
Hope landed on the floor hard, a struggling Dennis on top of her. She tried to bring the gun up and around, but he grabbed her wrist and pushed it away. They struggled for control of the weapon, and he was winning that struggle. For a skinny man, Dennis was strong. There were muscles in those ropey arms, and he was desperate. Only a desperate and dangerous man would do what he’d done to Marcia Cordell.
She thought of the protection charm she wore beneath her blouse, and as she fought for control, she wondered if it would do her any good at all in this particular situation.
“Did she send you after me?” Dennis asked breathlessly as he tried to take the pistol.
Was it possible that Dennis knew what Gideon could do? Did he think Marcia Cordell’s ghost had given them his name?
Dennis pinned Hope to the floor with his knee and ripped the gun from her hand. One word popped into her mind, unexpected and powerful.
Emma.
THIRTEEN
Gideon was halfway to the white house, running as fast as he could, when he heard the gunshot. His heart jumped into his throat.
It was hard enough to talk to the ghosts of complete strangers, people he had never seen alive, never touched, never cared about. As difficult as it was to be visited by the shells of murder victims, he’d never had to confront the battered and weary spirit of a friend—or a lover. Last night and this morning Hope had been his in a way he’d thought impossible. She knew who he was, and still she stayed. She was probably carrying his child. Probably, hell. Dante’s “gift” had worked too well; it was impossible to dismiss Emma as imagination.
He didn’t want to be haunted by Hope; it was too soon to lose her.
Would Emma haunt him, too?
He jumped onto the porch and burst through the front door, pistol in hand. Sounds of a struggle in the back of the house drew him there, and still at a run, he glanced into the kitchen to see a man on top of Hope. Her gun was in his hand, and he was doing his damnedest to turn it on her.
Gideon had his pistol ready, but no clear shot. Hope was holding her own, but that meant his target wasn’t steady. He was rushing for Floyd in order to knock the gun away and pull him off Hope when she executed a well-planned and impressive move that simultaneously pushed the man off her and wrested the gun from his hand as her elbow slammed into his face. The entire maneuver took a few seconds, no more. With a whoosh of air and a grunt, Dennis Floyd ended up on his back, unarmed and bloody-nosed. A panting and red-faced Hope pinned him to the floor with her knee.
She lifted her head and looked at Gideon, her chest heaving with deep, quick breaths, her hair not as sleek as usual, her eyes strong and angry but also afraid. Outside, the sheriff’s car pulled into the yard, and heavy footsteps sounded as the lawman made his way to the scene.
Gideon couldn’t take his eyes off of Hope’s face, and his heart hadn’t yet slowed to a healthy pace and rhythm. He had come this close to losing her and Emma. He had come this close to being forced to bury them.
He was this close to asking Hope to marry him and never again leave his sight when the clumsy sheriff blundered into the house.
Hope rose, and Gideon gladly took charge of Dennis. He hauled the little man to his feet and slammed the skinny bastard against a wall.
“Ow. Be careful of my nose,” the man said, squirming. “I think she broke it.”
It took all the self-control Gideon possessed to read Dennis his rights. Since he was well out of his jurisdiction, he asked the sheriff to repeat the process. At this point Dennis hadn’t been charged with anything, but Gideon was taking no chance that this little man—this little monster—might get off on a technicality.
“I know what you did,” Gideon said in a lowered voice.
“I…I didn’t do anything,” Dennis blustered.
“I don’t care about you, you little pissant.” Gideon pressed Dennis more forcefully against the wall. “The sheriff will take good care of you after I’m gone. I want Tabby.”
Dennis swallowed hard a couple of times before answering. “I don’t know anyone named Tabby.” He was a very bad liar.
“Fine. Don’t talk. When she finds out I’ve been here—and she will find out—I imagine she’ll pay you a visit. You’ve seen her work, so you know what to expect when she gets her hands on you.” He leaned in until his mouth was close to Dennis’s ear, and he whispered, “She likes that knife of hers, doesn’t she? I’ve run across plenty of killers who prefer a blade to a gun, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who enjoys what they do as much as Tabby does. I wonder what sort of keepsake she’ll take from you, little man? What body part will she take to remember you by?”
“I just met her that day,” Dennis said, his voice high and quick. “I was at the gas station, filling up and getting something cold to drink, and this woman walks up to me and says she knows what I’m thinking. I hadn’t been thinking anything,” Dennis said. “She put them ideas into my head.”
“Bad ideas,” Gideon said as he backed slightly away.
Dennis nodded. “It’s true, I always did think Miss Cordell was kinda uppity, thinking she was better than everyone else….”
“You wanted to put her in her place, didn’t you?” Gideon pressed Dennis harder against the wall again. “You wanted to show
her who’s boss.”
Dennis tried to nod, but with Gideon’s arm against his throat, it wasn’t easy. He wanted to kill this man with his bare hands, and he could. With Hope and the sheriff watching, he could shoot the bastard or break his neck or, even better, fry his ass until there was nothing left but dust. All he had to do was allow his anger to manifest itself in a powerful jolt of electricity. He was always so careful to hide what he could do, to contain himself whenever anyone was watching. That caution had kept him from stopping Tabby when he could have, and it had kept him from using his talents on more than one murderer when they were finally in his hands. Right now, with his heart still pumping hard and the unthinkable possibilities still too real in his mind, he didn’t feel at all cautious. Gideon allowed a small shock to escape and shoot through Dennis’s body.
“Ouch! What was…?”
He did it again, and Dennis began to shiver. As wound up as Gideon was, he could easily smoke this no-good waste of space and air. For Marcia Cordell. For Hope and Emma. But he didn’t. Tempting as the idea was at this moment, he refused to let his anger turn him into the kind of man he’d spent his entire adult life hunting. The sheriff and the system would take good care of Dennis. And if they didn’t, he could always come back.
“Tell me everything you remember about Tabby,” he ordered.
The drive home had been quiet except for a few phone calls. Gideon got terrible reception on his cell, thanks to a combination of a weak signal here in the boonies and his unpredictable electrical charges, so he finally handed the phone to Hope, and she made the calls. Charlie was going to run a check on the type of car Dennis said Tabby had been driving. They still didn’t have a last name for her, but maybe they could find her through the vehicle.
Hope had begun to accept that maybe, just maybe, she really was pregnant. In that moment when she’d thought she might die, when she’d expected to be shot with her own gun, the baby—or at least the possibility of the baby—had seemed very real. She’d realized she would do anything to protect Emma. What a kick in the pants that was. Hope Malory didn’t have a maternal bone in her body! She liked being an aunt well enough, because she could visit her nephews and then leave when they got too rowdy or whiny. But to be a mother…She hadn’t thought she was anywhere near ready, but maybe she was. Maybe.
