by Lisa Jackson
She felt a little uptick in her pulse, which was just plain ludicrous. Bonzi stood beside her, his wagging tail a whip of friendly excitement, once again dispelling any of her hopes that he might just be a guard dog.
Companion? Yes. Final line of defense? Very unlikely.
He was already lowering his head, ready to be petted, as Trace, bundled in a heavy jacket, crossed the snowy lawn in that athletic/ cowboy way she’d never found all that attractive.
Until now.
Swinging from one of Trace’s gloved hands was a laptop computer, which changed his image just a bit.
“Is that what you want to show me?” she asked as he climbed up the few steps and walked into the pool of light cast by the porch lamp.
“Something on it. Yeah.” He paused to pet the dog before they both followed her inside and down the short hall to the kitchen. Trace flipped open his computer. “You got a wireless setup here?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Security code?”
When she shook her head, he said, “Let’s put one on.” He offered her a bit of a smile as he kicked out one of the café chairs. “Just to be on the safe side.”
She wasn’t going to argue. Not with everything else that was happening. “You want something? I’ve got coffee and tea and”—she peered in her refrigerator as he connected to the Internet—“Diet Coke, oh, or a light beer?”
“Sure, the beer,” he said but didn’t even glance up. “Okay, so here we go. Take a look.”
She opened two bottles, twisting the tops off, and handed him one as she sat next to him. On the computer screen were several pictures, and at first she thought they were of the same woman, but as he clicked through them, she saw the differences. Her fingers tightened over her long-necked beer, and she felt her stomach knot. “What is this?” But she knew.
“Pictures of women I know who resemble each other. Here you are,” he said, and she recognized the photograph as one she had uploaded to the clinic’s Web site. Next up was the school class picture of Jocelyn Wallis.
The third was of a woman Kacey couldn’t name. It was a photograph taken at a distance and obviously scanned into the computer. “That’s Leanna,” he explained, his lips barely moving. “Eli’s mother.” He zoomed in so that her face, though blurry, was a little more visible.
Kacey’s blood ran cold as she stared at features so like her own. “You were married to her and involved with Jocelyn.. . .” She looked up at him, heart in her throat.
“You’re thinking just what the cops will, but I had nothing to do with any of this,” he said, shaking his head in confusion. “I’m apparently attracted to a certain type of woman, but that’s as far as it goes.”
“So where is she? Leanna?” Kacey asked carefully.
“I don’t know.”
Kacey heard something in his tone. “You think she might be dead,” she whispered and then was inordinately aware of the clock ticking off the seconds, of Bonzi snoring softly in the living room, of Trace’s rock-hard jaw, the tension evident on his features.
He raked stiff fingers through his already tousled hair. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know what to think, but I’m pretty certain that since I was the last guy Jocelyn dated, and I went to her house when the school called, I’m already on the police’s radar. If they see pictures of Leanna, who could be missing ... they might make a connection.” He leaned back in his chair. “Then again, they could find Leanna, see that she’s okay, which would be good. I can’t seem to reach her. Eli misses her.”
Stunned to think he’d been married to someone so much like her, Kacey stared at the image on the screen. This was all too freaky, and a part of her said she was going out of her mind, letting paranoia get the better of her, but she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed her uncanny resemblance to the other women, including Trace’s ex-wife. “Do you miss her?” she asked.
“Leanna?” He made a huffing sound. “Not hardly. Not that I would deny my kid a mother, but just not Leanna. She walked out and made it very clear she didn’t want anything to do with either of us.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “I took her at her word.”
“You have to find her,” she said suddenly. Maybe Leanna O’Halleran was the missing link, the person who knew what was going on. She could be key.
“If she can be found. Trust me, I’ve been giving it my best shot.” He took a long swallow from his beer, and Kacey decided it was time to give him some more bad news.
“Leanna and Jocelyn, they’re not the only women missing, or possibly killed, who look like me.”
“We don’t know that Leanna’s dead,” he reminded. “She’s . . . too mean to die.” Kacey tried to keep her expression neutral, but he must have seen something in her expression, because he asked, “There were others?”
Could she trust him? Confide in him her half-baked theory? He was right; he was involved with one missing woman and one who was murdered, but in her heart of hearts she couldn’t believe that he was dangerous. Not to her. Not when she’d seen how he cared for his son.
Decision time.
Trace was staring at her intently, and she decided to make a leap of faith. “Let me get my purse.” She hurried from the kitchen, located her bag, and dragged out the pictures she’d shown her mother only hours before. Carefully, she placed each image on the table where her grandmother had served so many meals.
“This is Shelly Bonaventure,” she said.
“That actress who died recently. I know she looks a little like Jocelyn, and you. Suicide, wasn’t it?”
“That’s the official version.”
“You think she’s part of this? Seriously?” he asked, obviously skeptical. “Other than her looks, what kind of connection is there to the others?”
“She was born in Helena, Montana, as were Jocelyn Wallis and myself.” Kacey pointed to the picture she’d printed off of Elle’s Facebook page. “This is Elle Alexander—”
“The woman in the one-car accident last night.”
“Yes, and this woman is still alive and works at a local gym.” She slid the brochure from Fit Forever. “A trainer named Gloria Sanders-O’Malley.”
“She from Helena, too?” He picked up the brochure, squinting as he studied her features.
“Don’t know,” Kacey admitted. “But I’m going to talk to her or check one of her social network sites. Lots of people list their hometown or where they’ve lived on Facebook or the like. If she’s not there, I’ll just talk to her.”
“And say what?”
“I haven’t completely figured that out yet,” Kacey admitted.
“Huh. Yeah. How do you tell someone you think she’s next on the list of some psychopath, especially when there’s no real link established yet?”
“I’m working on that, along with finding out if Elle gave me false information or really didn’t know where she was born.”
“I don’t know about this,” Trace said after a long, silent moment.
“You came here,” she reminded him. “With pictures of Jocelyn and Leanna. Don’t you think it’s damned odd that so many women who look so much alike, who are in their early thirties, are dying?”
“Yes . . . I do . . . but what are you really saying? You think a serial killer is searching for a type? And that the victims aren’t random targets? That he stalks them? That maybe he knew these people while they were in Helena?”
“That’s probably unlikely,” she admitted, as frustrated as ever. “Shelly left Helena when she was really young, and if Elle was there, she didn’t know it. Her birth certificate’s from Idaho.”
He slid the picture away from the others that were clustered together. “So she’s different.”
“In that respect. But she’s in the region. I don’t know.” Again she looked at the picture of the woman to whom Trace had once been married. “What about Leanna?”
He made a face. “She said she’d once lived around Helena, but she didn’t remember any of it, either. I think her parents split, bu
t the truth is, I don’t know much about her. She liked it that way. Didn’t want to talk about her childhood.”
“You don’t know where she went to school? Or her friends?”
He shifted in the chair. “I met her in a bar, it went down hot and heavy, and she ended up pregnant. We got married a few weeks later. Then she lost the baby and split.”
“Leaving Eli?”
“That’s the kind of woman she is. Not that I want it any other way. If she tried to take Eli from me, I’d fight her till the end. The marriage was one of those six-week wonders.” Another swig from his bottle. Kacey watched his Adam’s apple move, then turned her attention to the images.
Another woman near her age, who looked like her, who’d lived around Montana’s state capital, possibly born there, and who was now missing.
“Here’s something else,” she added. “I just found out that the man who I thought was my father wasn’t. My mother had an affair with a doctor in Helena, and even when my dad found out, he kept raising me as his own.”
“So?”
“These women don’t just look alike. Some of us are dead ringers for the other. For a while the staff at St. Bart’s thought I was the woman in ICU when Jocelyn was brought in.”
“You think you’re related to these victims, these women? That this one guy fathered all of you, and now he’s. . . what? Knocking you off?” He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“I know it sounds crazy, but there’s a connection there. I’m not making it up. Come into the den. . . .” She scraped her chair back and led him to her computer, where she pulled up the information she’d gotten from Riza and printed it out.
He read the reports, looked through the pages, checked pictures on driver’s licenses, scanned obituaries, and scowled thoughtfully. “Where’d you get these?”
“A friend. It’s mostly public record.”
He examined the pages a second time. “If you’re right ... and I don’t think you are . . . but this is pretty sick. It could all still be coincidence. These deaths . . .” He held up a stack of death certificates. “They were all ruled accidents.”
“A lot of ’em. A librarian in Detroit, a ski instructor in Vail, a single mother and stay-at-home mom in San Francisco. Two others in Seattle and three . . . in Boise.”
“All women.”
“That we know of. But ... I think we’ve just tapped the surface.”
“We don’t know anything yet. Some of these people died over ten years ago.” He shook his head, denying the evidence, even while his eyes kept coming back to the pages. “Let me get this straight. You think one person is behind these deaths and is just incredibly patient. Taking time, over a long period of years. And now a rash of murders?”
“He’s escalating,” she said. “It happens.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We don’t know a lot, like you said, but something’s really off here, and now the deaths, the ‘accidents,’ are happening closer together.”
When he didn’t seem convinced, she reminded him, “You came over here. You recognized that the women you were involved with are a type. I’m just taking it one step further. I think we might all be genetically linked. In fact, I’m running some DNA tests to prove it, but unfortunately, that takes time.”
“Seriously?” He appeared skeptical.
“Yes. Elle Alexander was a patient of mine.” She pointed to the picture of the woman. “I’m having tests run comparing her DNA to mine. I know already that we both have B-negative blood, and that’s not common, so it’s a start. Not real proof, but a start.”
His eyes searched hers. “And if you find out something concrete?”
“Then I, or we, go to the police. Right now it’s too early. They would blow me off as a nutcase. Kinda like you want to do.”
“I’m keeping an open mind here,” he said, though he didn’t seem convinced as he finished his beer while going over again every scrap of information that Kacey, with Riza’s help, had amassed.
As he did, he turned on the news, and they both learned that another car might have been involved in Elle Alexander’s accident. The sheriff’s department had issued a statement, then had asked for the public’s help in letting the department know if anyone had witnessed the minivan going into the river.
“They think it’s a hit-and-run,” Kacey said as the news segued into the weather.
“It still could be an accident.”
“Could be,” she allowed.
“I’m just saying that her car could have been hit, her tires spun out on the ice, and the driver of the other vehicle freaked and left the scene.”
“That makes him a criminal.”
“But not necessarily tied to the other deaths.”
“So you believe this is all coincidence?”
“Just playing devil’s advocate here.”
“Don’t you think I’ve done the same thing?” she demanded. “Tried to talk myself out of this ... bizarre situation. I wish I were wrong, I really do, but I don’t think I am.”
They turned off the news; then Trace, declining another beer, went to work setting up a security code for her computer and Wi-Fi. “The least I can do,” he told her when she protested that she was taking up too much of his time. “For everything you’ve done for Eli.”
She didn’t argue, and if she admitted it to herself, she was grateful for his help. During school Riza and some other techie-type friends had helped her, and during her marriage JC, who considered himself brilliant in all aspects of his life, had set up all their computer equipment. But since moving to Grizzly Falls and dealing with a house that was ill equipped with outlets, much less anything remotely electronic, she’d had to do the work herself or once in a while hire it out, which was what she’d done with the broken furnace, plumbing leak she’d had in the bathroom upstairs, and the new exterior lights she’d had installed on the garage.
As Trace pulled out the desk and began examining her wiring, she watched him work and gave herself a swift mental shake for noting how his jeans stretched over his hips and butt as he reached over the desk. His sweater rode up a bit, showing off a quick glimpse of his back, skin stretched taut over smooth muscles.
Dragging her gaze away, she told herself she was acting like a teen.
“That should do it,” he said as he straightened. “All set. I’ll show you how to use the security code.” Then he took hold of her wrist and, to her shock, pulled her tight against him. His hand found the back of her neck, and he whispered into her ear. “I think you’ve been bugged.”
“Wha—,” she started to say, but he held her fast, her body crushed against his.
“It’s not that hard,” he said loudly. “Just a matter of making a few changes!” But he didn’t release her. In a voice barely audible, added, “We need to talk as if we have no idea about what’s going on, okay? Just follow my lead.” Pulling his head back, he stared into her eyes, and she nodded slowly.
“What should I use for the code?” she asked as he released her.
“Something that you’ll remember. Here. But only you, just to keep it secure. Let me show you where the password needs to be entered. . . .”
CHAPTER 25
“ Son of a bitch!” He ripped the listening device from his head and nearly threw it against the wall. He had been recording any noise in the house for hours and had determined that she was working fast. Somehow in the few hours since that withered hag Maribelle had spilled her guts, Acacia had found an ally, one in whom she’d confided that she’d connected the deaths of the women . . . but what was the remark about the man being “involved” with the women?
Whom had she meant? Jocelyn Wallis?
Someone else?
The conversation had been hard to hear, but he’d pieced two and two together. The male on the tape, the one providing her with security precautions, was Trace O’Halleran, Leanna’s ex and the father of a kid who was her patient.
But he didn’t understand why th
e guy was at her house so late at night and fucking up her computer! Why had she confided in him, told him about what that old hag Maribelle had told her, showed him whatever documentation she had?
He silently cursed himself for fucking up. He should have killed her back in the parking garage years ago! What a mistake to allow Acacia to live. And that bitch of a mother of hers.
He should have bugged Acacia’s entire house, not just a few key rooms. He’d not been able to decipher the first part of her conversation with O’Halleran due to the radio playing too loudly, distorting his clarity.
Everything was unraveling.
Far too fast.
She was ruining things, would tell others, including the police, and everything he’d worked so hard to accomplish would be destroyed.
He couldn’t let it happen. Not after his years of patient, hard work; he’d have to up his game even further. Who was she to force him to take more risks, to abandon his sense of caution?
Despite all his planning and his own desire to make her the last, to drag it out for her, to let her feel the terror, as payback for all her sins, he had to change things up. She had to be next.
He was quivering inside, rage storming through his body. He opened a drawer in his desk, then pulled out a narrow locked case with a combination lock. Turning the dial, he snapped open the lid and withdrew the knife. Holding the blade upward so that it glinted in the night, he remembered seeing her face-to-face as she turned, felt again the surge of power as he leapt at her, heard her surprised shout as their bodies collided.
God, what a rush!
He twisted the knife in his hand. Thin. Razor sharp. Perfect for skinning or boning or killing. One jab to her heart or lungs, or a quick slice across her throat, and she would die while she looked into his eyes, knowing he had drained the life from her.
But it hadn’t happened seven years earlier.
She’d been stronger than he’d expected, and they’d been interrupted.
So she’d escaped. And he’d decided to wait. A mistake, it seemed now. He felt his blood pressure rising, his fury burning through his veins, images in his head turning red.
