by Sue Henry
“Come on,” she told him with a grin, checking that her Smith and Wesson .44 was on her hip, and slipping the box of ammunition into her pocket. She debated, then decided not to carry along the cell phone, since it was impossible to use at the moment and would undoubtedly remain so until the storm abated. Leaning the shotgun against the bench near the stove, she leaned over to give the husky a pat or two of encouragement.
“Come on, guy. You won’t melt. We’ve had lots worse, and colder, on the Iditarod.”
Reluctantly, he got to his feet, stretched, and started to pad slowly across the room. Halfway to the door, he stopped suddenly, listening intently to something she couldn’t hear.
Oh, good, she thought, it’s Rudy…finally.
As she reached to unbar the rebar slides she had installed, the husky stopped her with a growl that reverberated deep in his chest, rising until the warning of it tensed his muzzle, exposed his teeth, and raised his hackles, along with her anxiety. Bracing his feet, he lowered his head and stared past her at the wooden door, as if he could see through it and what he saw on the other side aroused animosity.
“What the hell…?”
A pounding rattled the door on its hinges, leaving her no time to think.
“Who is it? Rudy? Is that you?”
A moment of silence. Then his voice.
“Yes…it’s me, Jessie. But don’t—”
An odd sort of thud interrupted what he had been about to say.
He’s hurt, Jessie thought. That damn A-frame’s tumbled down, or he’s fallen and hurt himself somehow.
Tank still growled menacingly.
“Stop it, Tank. It’s Rudy. Be quiet.”
She worked the slides, one of which hung up for a second or two before it slipped from the hole she had drilled in the frame. Pressing the latch, she pushed the door to let Rudy come in, and gasped as it was snatched away from her and swung wide.
In the opening Rudy stood, white-faced, wearing the slicker she had loaned him, a smear of blood on one side of his face, injured and, from his expression, frightened and sorry as well. It was obvious that he had been given no choice in persuading her to open the door and the blood told her he’d been hit. Behind him, holding a long, sharp knife in a fist that rested on Rudy’s shoulder near his throat was another man—a stranger that Jessie knew, as surely as if he had introduced himself, was her stalker.
She was suddenly cold all over and aware that her heart was thudding like a hammer in her chest as fear made her instinctively step away from the door. How the hell had he found her? How could he have known? Who was he? Oh, God—what did he want? What would he do now?
He was of average height, but taller and larger than Rudy’s small frame. She could not see his face, for he wore a dark green ski mask that revealed only his eyes. But it was the eyes that caught and held Jessie’s attention—sharp, intelligent, resentful eyes of no particular color—gray-brown-greenish. Full of anger, determination, and something else she couldn’t quite identify…hesitation? They narrowed at the sight of her, but a flicker of satisfaction gleamed in them briefly.
“Hello, Jessie,” he said in a mild mid-range voice, with no accent, no specific inflection, almost a monotone. “Yes, I think we’ll come in, thank you. Take care of the dog, or I will—and you already know I have no love for dogs.”
He nodded as Tank snarled and rumbled hostility. The dog stood his ground, but was confused by the sight of Rudy. Backing farther into the room, Jessie caught his collar in one hand and admonished him to silence with a single sharp word, never taking her eyes from the men. They stepped into the house and the man in the mask pulled the door shut behind them.
Once inside, he shoved Rudy forward into the kitchen space and out of his way. Jessie considered the .44 under her coat, but, reaching into a pocket, he took out a handgun as he unzipped the green rain slicker he wore and lifted a black sweatshirt, sliding the knife into a sheath that hung on the belt to a pair of loose fitting jeans.
Rudy turned to face him and backed up against the stove.
“I’m sorry, Jessie. I—”
“Shut it, old man.” The flat tone was cold, but Jessie thought it also contained a hint of nervousness. “I don’t need you now that I’m in, so you’ll be better off if you keep quiet, right?”
Rudy fell silent, staring miserably at the floor, after a glance of apology at Jessie.
Sou’wester in one hand, Tank’s collar in the other, she, too, froze, waiting to see what would come next.
It was very quiet, except for the howl of the wind around the house and the crashing of the stormy surf on the beach. The man in the mask stood without moving or speaking, watching her thoughtfully.
“Well,” he said in a minute or two, “no questions. You seem to know who I am.”
Then she was angry as well as afraid, but very cautious. Who was this arrogant bastard? There was nothing about him that she recognized, though she could see little.
“You’re the shit who’s been harassing me,” she spat out. “You hurt my dog and wrecked my truck, almost killed us. What do you want? What did I ever do to you?”
Behind the dark green mask, he made a strange, half-choking, half-chuckling sound.
“Easy, Jessie. There’s no hurry—no hurry at all. We’re going to spend quite a lot of time together, you and I. Maybe I’ll even keep the old man around, if he behaves—and if you do. There’s nothing else you need to know at this point.”
She ventured a glance at Rudy and saw that he was looking at her with eyes that had lost their humility and were full of something else. He blinked rapidly and very slightly twitched his head toward the back of the house.
Quickly she returned her gaze to the masked man.
What was Rudy trying to tell her?
The stalker reached once more into his slicker pocket and took out a roll of duct tape.
“Just so we can all relax and stop watching each other so carefully, I think you should sit down. Now—where?”
As he looked over the furniture in the room, assessing each chair and bench, Jessie glanced again at Rudy.
In a flash, she knew what he was going to do, for as the stalker looked away, Rudy had reached to the stove behind him and taken firm hold of the coffee pot that was still on a low flame.
Oh, Rudy, no…it’s too big a risk, she thought, and almost spoke, but bit back the words and kept silent, afraid the gun would be turned on her friend.
“I think that one will do nicely.”
Having settled on the captain’s chair near the front windows, the man in the mask began to turn back.
“Now, Jessie, I want you to—”
Rudy hurled the pot directly into the masked face, hitting the man’s forehead with a thump, splashing hot liquid into his eyes and soaking the mask and coat front.
“Run, Jessie. Go. Go.”
His thin shout combined with a howl of pain from the stalker.
She spun and sprinted toward the back of the house, snatched at the shotgun as she passed it, but missed and knocked it to the floor, where she was forced to leave it. She could hear Tank scrambling beside her and the sound of Rudy’s following steps—through the curtain into the storage room, past the bunks, to the rear door. Fearful of not having time to unbar it, she was both relieved and chagrined to find she had neglected to refasten it after carrying in the water from the stream. Well, somebody loves me, she thought as she took advantage of her error. Throwing the door open, she leaped through it into the storm, trying to decide in an instant which direction to flee.
There was really no choice. At high tide, the storm made the beach an impossibility, and she could not go east around the house on either side without being seen and caught if the stalker came out the other door, so she ran up the hill toward the shed that housed the library and shop. A crash from behind made her risk a quick look back.
Rudy was struggling to get up from where he had fallen on the step at the back door of the beach house. He saw her hesi
tate.
“Don’t stop,” he called. “Run. I’m okay.”
He wasn’t, and Jessie knew it—had seen him testing a knee that must have slammed painfully into the ground. But he was right—what good would it do if they both were caught? She was already ten yards away and aware that the stalker would follow almost immediately. What if he shot Rudy? But, she knew, there wasn’t time for anything but escape, if she could manage it. Reasoning out a plan of action would come later.
She chose—and ran on up the hill, past the back of the shed, and into the trees and brush beyond it. Going over the crest, she heard a wordless yell behind her. Her heart sank at the sound of a shot fired, but a thud hitting the trunk of a nearby tree told her Rudy had not been the target. Then she knew she had dropped out of sight, going down the steeper western side of the hill, slipping and sliding into a thicket of devil’s club as she stumbled, fell, and rolled almost to the bottom. Going to ground within the dense clump of the thorny stalks tangled with ragged berry runners, she lay still, trying to silence her gasping breath, knowing he would listen for the sounds of her passage and presence, and use them, if possible, to track her down. Thrashing through the brush would only advertise her path of escape—as she had followed Rudy’s the night before. But the storm would cover most of any small sound she made from this hiding place, as effectively as it would keep her from hearing the direction from which her pursuer would come.
As Tank, on his belly, crawled in beside her she wrapped an arm around him to hold him down and gripped his muzzle with her other hand to keep him still.
Very low, he growled.
“No,” she breathed in his ear. “Quiet, Tank.”
He was. Good dog. He was in danger, too, and seemed to know it.
She waited, listening with all her might for whatever would come next.
Dammit—dammit. I could die here. What went wrong? Where are you, Alex, when I need you? Knight in shining airplane, indeed. But—not your fault. How could any of us know he would find me so easily? How did he find me?
Did Alex even know yet who this monstrous evil was, or that the stalker was no longer lurking in Knik? How could he? With a sinking feeling, she remembered that the cell phone was not in her pocket. She had left it on the table in the beach house. Now, even if the storm cleared or calmed enough for her to call, there was no way to contact him—or anyone else, for that matter.
21
Jensen stepped out of the interrogation room, where he had spent the last two hours with Moule, Caswell, and an APD officer who had operated a video camera, taping the session. Lifting both hands to his temples, he ran his fingers back through his hair, held his head for a second, and huffed in frustration.
J. B. Moule, contemptuous and recalcitrant, had told them almost nothing—practically daring them to prove they had anything with which to charge him. He had refused the offer of an attorney, but also refused to give them any information, except that he had been nowhere near Knik in the last month. Knowing he was already in serious trouble for parole violations, he had belligerently kept his mouth shut, glaring in anger at anyone and everyone.
“We’ll have to wait for word from John at the lab on the boots,” Alex told Cas. “Let him sit in lockup for the night. We’ll try again when there’s something more to hold over him. How about we find something to eat. I’m as empty as last year’s bird’s nest.”
“Linda called and said to bring you home for some of that goulash you’re so fond of.”
“Hey, I’m for that. Let’s go.”
As they drove away from Anchorage in Jensen’s truck, Caswell called to check on the weather in Kachemak Bay, which was, if anything, worse than it had been in the morning.
“Well, no news may be good news,” he said, hanging up the cellular phone. “If she needed to, she could always use the radio at Millie’s.”
“Check with the office in Homer just to be sure, will you?”
Cas complied, but Jessie had not communicated by radio, either.
“She’s okay, Alex. It’ll clear tomorrow and you can get through, or she can. Maybe later tonight, even.”
“Makes me nervous.”
“We’ve got the perp, and she’ll be glad to hear it when you finally talk to her.”
They reached the Caswells’ house to find Phil Becker waiting eagerly to fill them in on what he had learned about Mary Louise Collins. He had been assisting Linda in the kitchen—draining macaroni, mixing salad, opening beer for the two of them.
“Better get on the outside of one of these,” he told the other two troopers, uncapping a second pair of Heinekens as they came into the warm room, which smelled deliciously of bacon, onions, and cheese. “Beer goes bad if you leave it in the refrigerator too long. I barely rescued this one before it spoiled.”
Linda smiled at his foolery.
“He even set the table, Ben. Got the forks on the correct side, too,” she teased her husband.
“Use ’em right-handed—ought to go on the right side of the plate,” he responded, grinning. “Practical—reasonable, don’t you think?” he asked Alex.
“Absolutely. No question about it.” Jensen accepted the beer Becker handed him and raised it to his lips as he turned to Linda. “Need any more help?” he asked, and took a long swallow.
“Nope, we’re all set. Why don’t you guys go out on the deck. It’s been warm out there all afternoon. I’ll call you in about half an hour, when dinner’s ready.”
“Trying to get us out from underfoot, huh?”
“You bet. Too much law in one civilized kitchen.”
Laughing, she shooed them toward the back door.
The three troopers followed her advice and found comfortable chairs on the deck, facing the backyard and, beyond it, the picturesque mountains of the Chugach Mountains that lay to the south of Eagle River. The sun was about to go down behind the western peaks in a blaze of color, but until it did, the quiet space was, as she had indicated, warm for September.
Almost before they were settled, Becker began to talk.
“Mary Louise Collins,” he informed them, “is still in Palmer.”
“What a shame for Palmer,” Cas commented. “She can’t be much of a concerned citizen, or up to anything good.”
“You’re probably right, though she’s at least working steadily and has established a permanent address in a trailer park on the east side. But the company she keeps fits right in with what we know about her already.”
“Why? Who’s she seeing?” Jensen asked.
“Well, I tracked her to the pub were she works—that pit called Aces Wild—and spoke with the owner, an extremely stupid sort who looks and acts like he got the shit kicked out of him once too often.”
“That’s a biker bar we know personally.”
“Right. She’s the night bartender—been there over six months. The owner, a questionable alcoholic named Purdy—who’s probably his own best, or worst, customer—says, and I quote, ‘She may be a bitch on wheels, but she keeps the S.O.B.s in line.’ I’d say keeping things cool would be a valuable ability, considering the regulars in that hole. Evidently she doesn’t take guff from anyone, and looking the way she does, I’d be willing to bet she gets handed plenty.”
“Why? What’s she look like?” Caswell questioned, the only one of the three who had not seen Collins.
As Jensen grinned and nodded, Becker drew an hourglass shape in the air, “Great pair of…”
“—Ears?” Linda Caswell finished, giving him a grin, along with an all-innocence, wickedly wide-eyed glance, as she stepped out onto the deck with a bowl of chips in her good hand. “I’ll just assume that’s what you were going to say.”
Leaving the chips, she vanished back into the house, as he sputtered till his ears turned red and the other two men burst into guffaws at his expense.
“If you’re going to say something you don’t want her to overhear, never turn your back on a door Linda might come through,” Cas advised, when he could
catch his breath.
“Collins is pretty spectacular in that particular department,” Becker confirmed.
“She’s that, all right,” Alex agreed, “but powerful, too—broad shoulders and strong arms. She could easily have killed that old woman five years ago, and she’s probably in better shape now than she was at nineteen.”
“She’s living with a guy who works Aces as a bouncer,” Becker told them. “Tough, leather freak—biker—former professional wrestler from the East Coast somewhere, tattoos and all. Purdy says he’s bonkers over her, would do anything to keep her and keep her happy. She evidently leads him around by the balls. Interesting, since—and here’s the bomb—he’s missed work for over a week and she won’t say where he’s gone. On business was all Purdy could get out of her, even when he threatened to fire—would you believe—Spike? Spike Jones.”
“You are kidding, right?”
“Nope. Can’t be what he was born with, but that’s what he calls himself. Thought I might go back tonight and put a little pressure on Mary Lou, see what I could find out about him. Whatcha think?”
Jensen frowned thoughtfully, remembering Collins’s vitriolic last words as she left the court five years earlier. Her furious statement echoed again in his mind: “Someday I may decide to make you sorry—or dead. And you’ll never know when or where it’s coming from.”
She was definitely not the type to shrug off old hatreds.
He shifted uneasily in his chair, emptied his beer in one long swallow, and looked up at Caswell, who was also frowning.
“It’s not as clear, that’s for sure,” Alex said. “But we’d better check it out before we assume Moule’s our man, and before we interrogate him again in the morning.”
Cas nodded, chewing at his upper lip.
“You got Moule?” Becker questioned in surprise. “Hey, fill me in.”
They did, and used the briefing to review the facts of the afternoon’s arrest. Becker listened in fascination till they finished, then asked, “John’s working on the boots?”
“Yeah,” Jensen told him. “I think maybe I’ll see what he thinks before we check out Collins at the Aces.”
