Until Dark

by Mariah Stewart

  “Don’t mention it.” Adam smiled as he passed.

  “Stay and have dinner with me.” Adam grabbed Kendra’s arm as she was about to get into her rental car.

  “Is it dinnertime already?” She looked at her watch.

  “Well, it will be, in about an hour or so.” He tugged on her sleeve. “Don’t leave yet.”

  “I’m finished here and . . .”

  “Okay, so you’re finished. I’m not finished.” He did a poor job of keeping the exasperation from his voice. “I’m going to be here for a few more days, so I can’t offer to drive down and pick you up for dinner. You’re here now. I’m entitled to one meal a day, dammit. And I want to have that one damned meal with you.”

  “Oh,” she said, startled by his outburst. “Okay.”

  “Thank you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I apologize for the tantrum. I usually handle rejection much better.”

  “That wasn’t a rejection. And for the record, I understand there’s a lot of pressure associated with this case.”

  “Pressure from the locals, pressure from my boss, pressure from the press, the families . . .” He leaned back against the car.

  “And pressure from yourself to find him before he kills anyone else,” she said softly.

  “Knowing that unless we get very lucky, he will most likely find his next victim before we find him.” He met her eyes straight on.

  “How lucky do you feel?” she asked.

  “Not lucky at all,” he told her. “And very, very tired.”

  “Then I’ll drive,” she said, pointing to her rental car, a sensible, late-model sedan.

  “Nah.” He smiled and pointed to the Audi that was parked two houses down from Grace Tobin’s. “I’m not that tired.”

  “Now, that was entertaining.” The man grinned broadly. “Very entertaining, indeed.”

  He tapped his fingers on the arms of the chair and processed all the information that had just fallen into his lap.

  Such a lovely pair they made, Kendra and Adam.

  Kendra and Adam, he mused. Adam and Kendra.

  He’d have to play with them a bit more. Perhaps it was time to give them something more to think about. He’d come up with something.

  She is a clever thing though, he’d noted as he’d watched her speak with the press. Her sketches were so accurate. He shook his head, once again admiring her ability. Of course, he’d known just how clever she was.

  Still, he couldn’t help but feel just a tad bit disappointed in her.

  But wasn’t she a pretty sight, in her black-and-white checked suit, her hair—his mother used to call that color strawberry blond—swept up off her neck, that thin gold chain and the delicate cross that dangled from it and rested in the hollow of her slender throat.

  The thought came to him so suddenly that it startled him, causing him to all but gasp.

  Smiling, he put his feet up on the hassock and rested his arms over his chest, feeling quite smug and more than just a bit pleased with himself.

  Now perhaps he’d see just how smart his Kendra really was.

  Chapter

  Ten

  “You look exhausted,” Kendra said after they’d been seated in the small, pleasant restaurant overlooking a golf course, where spotlights glowed here and there to illuminate the greens.

  “I am exhausted. Thanks for noticing.”

  “Hard not to,” she smiled gently. “Dark circles under the eyes, difficulty concentrating . . .”

  “My concentration is just fine.”

  “Of course it is. You keep looking back at the specials listed on the blackboard there to see if maybe they’ve changed it from one minute to the next.”

  “Very funny. I already know what I’m having.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Catfish.”

  “Ugh. Bottom-feeders.” She pretended to shudder.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Catfish. They’re bottom-feeders.” She smiled and leaned forward to add, “And we all know what sinks to the bottom, don’t we?”

  “Oh, and pray tell, what healthy little number will you be ordering?”

  “I’m having the steak. Rare. Baked potato—lots of butter.”

  “You need a vegetable,” he frowned.

  “I’ll have a salad.”

  He shook his head. “Someday, when your arteries are so clogged the blood can’t pass through, you’ll think of me and wish you’d have taken better care of yourself.”

  “I do take care of myself.”

  “Kendra, you eat crap.”

  She grinned and looked up at the waitress who appeared to take their orders.

  “How do you argue with a woman like this?” he asked rhetorically.

  “I think a better question might be why,” the waitress winked at Kendra as she took their orders. She was still smiling when she returned with Adam’s beer and Kendra’s club soda.

  “How can you lecture me on what I eat when you’re drinking beer? It’s loaded with carbohydrates.”

  “Carbohydrates are my friends.” He sipped at the beer gratefully, hoping to wash away the dust from the crime scene and the tension of the afternoon’s interview. “And after the two days I’ve had, I need all the friends I can get. I earned this beer.”

  “It’s been that bad, then?” she asked softly.

  “As bad as anything I’ve ever seen.”

  “The woman you found near the stream . . .”

  “She was nineteen years old, and he slaughtered her. Brutally raped and slaughtered her.”

  “That wasn’t the way he handled the other women, though. Why are you so sure it’s the same man?”

  “He was there. We’ve established that. He was there with Karen Meyer, he killed her there. And there’s evidence to show that after he killed his second victim, he washed up in the stream afterward, then, his clothes still wet, carried Karen out of the park. Her clothes were still damp when they found her, from her body being held up against his wet clothes when he carried her. And the lab is testing her clothes and water from the stream for traces of marine life that might match.”

  “You think it’s a mother-thing?” she asked. “I mean, except for this young girl, all of his victims were single mothers. Maybe he has a screwed-up relationship with his mother. Maybe he’s killing her. Maybe he thinks it’s okay as long as it’s done neatly.”

  “Could be. It will be interesting to see what our profiler has to say when she joins us.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I’ve thought about the mother angle. All of his victims, with the exception, as you noted, of the young girl at the park, were all mothers of young kids, all single mothers. Not just mothers, though, almost professional moms. Super-moms. The moms who go season to season, from softball practice to soccer games to hockey camp. You know how law enforcement hates it when the press comes along and tags these guys with cutesy nicknames, but Soccer Mom Strangler pretty much sums it up.”

  “You think he had a super-mom? Maybe one who pushed him into sports or whatever, things he didn’t want to do?”

  “I think it’s just as likely that he had a mother who didn’t give a shit. Or maybe one who directed her energies elsewhere, making him feel that everyone was more important than he was. Maybe he still resents her for it.”

  “So maybe he’s killing women who were the type of mother he never had?”

  Adam shrugged. “We’ll see what McCall thinks when she gets here.”

  Kendra sat back to permit the waitress to serve their salads, then set about pouring the dressing over the bowl of greens. When she’d been quiet for longer than he thought was necessary, Adam asked, “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “There’s something,” he prodded. “What are you thinking about?”

  “How mothers do what they think is best for their kids, and how sometimes it can turn out that what she did might have been the worst for that kid.”

  “Where’s this
coming from?”

  “This whole thing has just made me think about my mother. She was one of those mothers who always had you moving, always had you involved in something. Ian, even more so than me. She had hoped that keeping him busy would settle him down a little, but it seemed to just make things worse.”

  “What things?”

  “Ian had . . . issues, when he was in grade school. Mom thought it had something to do with our dad dying when he did, with having to grow up without a father. Whatever it was, he went through a stage, starting when he was around nine or ten, when he was a real handful.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, you know, getting in trouble in school . . .”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Oh, fights. Not doing his homework. Lying.” She paused, then added, “He’d gotten pretty defiant toward my mother.”

  The admission appeared to embarrass her.

  “How long did that last?” Adam asked.

  “It never ended.” She averted her eyes, toyed with a piece of radish with her fork. “My mother almost canceled the summer thing that last year.”

  “What was the ‘summer thing’?”

  “Every summer, starting when he was about eight, our cousin Zach would come east and stay with us for two weeks, then Ian would go spend a few weeks in Arizona with Zach and my aunt. But my mother almost didn’t let him go to Arizona that last summer. Somehow, in the end, he managed to convince her that it would do him good to get away from home, to be with Zach. Spend some time outdoors, that sort of thing. Ian worked on her for weeks to let him go, to the extent that he did a total about-face. He seemed to change his attitude, picked up after himself, stopped sneaking out at night. . . .”

  “He was sneaking out at night as a young child?”

  Kendra nodded.

  “No wonder your mother was concerned.”

  “She was beside herself, worrying about him. And then he did such a turn around, that she agreed to let him have his summer. It seemed to mean so much to him.” She blew out a long breath. “I guess I don’t have to tell you that she never forgave herself.”

  “She had no way of knowing what was going to happen to him.”

  “I guess we’re back to the old wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time thing again.”

  They ate in silence, then she asked, to change the subject, “So, what do you think of his latest victim? Annie McGlynn? You think this shows departure from his past MO?”

  “Not really. He obviously watched this woman, obviously knew where to go to find her, how to approach her, and how to get her to step outside with him. Something a woman like that wouldn’t do under ordinary circumstances.

  “So he created circumstances that weren’t ordinary.” Adam stabbed at a tomato. “Wonder what kind of car he told her he had outside in the lot?”

  “You really think that was it?”

  “It makes as much sense as anything else. Miranda’s going back to the bar tonight to interview several of the regulars. We’ll see if anyone noticed something special in the parking lot night before last. She’ll show around the sketch you made of the suspect before he shaved his head, see if anyone noticed if he was there the week before. By the way, did I mention that Annie McGlynn had little red marks on the back of her arm?”

  “He used the stun gun on her.” Kendra set her fork down on the side of her plate.

  Adam nodded. “She never knew what hit her. At least not for a while.”

  “This whole thing is making me sick.” Kendra pushed her salad plate to one side. “All of these women who wanted nothing more than to live their lives, raise their kids . . .”

  “It is pretty sickening,” he agreed. “No one will be happier than I when we finally catch up with him.”

  “You really think you will? Catch him?” Kendra asked after the waitress served their entrées.

  “Yes, I do.” He looked at her levelly. “He’ll make a mistake. He’ll screw up. Sooner or later, he’ll do something stupid, because he’s been very successful so far and that kind of success will make him cocky. He’s a man who wants to be noticed. Men like that always go one step too far. He can’t help but call attention to himself.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” she said. “And that it’s sooner rather than later.”

  “Can I interest you in some dessert?” The waitress asked a few minutes later when she passed by the table and noted that both Adam and Kendra had finished eating.

  “We’ll take a look at the menu,” Kendra said, and brightened.

  “Of course you will,” Adam muttered, recalling that, once upon a time, he’d taken great delight in teasing Kendra about her sweet tooth.

  She made a face at him and studied the menu the waitress brought her.

  “In addition to the items on the menu, we also have fruit salad,” she noted.

  “I’ll have that,” Adam told her.

  “And I’ll have the Chocolate Overdose,” Kendra said, smiling up at the waitress.

  “Oh, God.” Adam shook his head, and Kendra laughed.

  “What is a day without a little chocolate?”

  “Overdose implies more than a little.”

  “And with any luck, it will deliver.”

  He groaned as the chocolate concoction, served in a brandy snifter, was placed before her. Cups of coffee were offered, along with his fruit. He stared blatantly at her dessert: two brownies separated by a layer of chocolate ice cream and covered with hot fudge, topped with whipped cream.

  She loaded the spoon with ice cream and hot fudge, waved it in front of him, saying, “You know you want a bite.”

  “I’ll stick with the strawberries.”

  “Bleh.” She wrinkled her nose. “Don’t you ever want something you know isn’t good for you?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly, the mirth fading. “Yes, I do.”

  “Don’t you ever just say, the hell with it, and go for it anyway?” she said, oblivious at first to the solemn note that had crept into his voice. Too late, she caught it.

  “I’m thinking about it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

  She hadn’t intended on having the conversation turn serious, and was unprepared for it when it did.

  “Sorry, Kendra. But since it’s come up, I’m going to have to admit that I never did get you out of my system.”

  “I wasn’t aware that I was in your system.”

  “Neither was I, until you left.”

  “I didn’t mean to leave.” She put her spoon down, dessert unimportant now. “I got caught up in something—”

  “You got married,” he reminded her. “I’d say that was caught up in something.”

  “I never meant for that to happen either. All of a sudden, I was so alone. Everyone was gone.” For a brief moment, a shadow passed across her face, laying bare the raw bewilderment, the terror, that must have followed her mother’s unexpected death, and suddenly Adam was sorry he’d opened the door onto what was obviously a painful episode in her life.

  She swallowed hard. “And Greg was there. We’d gone together in college, he’d moved away, then moved back right before my mother’s death. He helped me out so much . . . dealt with things I couldn’t deal with. Took care of things for me. When he was offered a position in Washington and asked me to go with him, my first thought was, great. It’s the opposite side of the country. I can have a different life there. And maybe if I leave, maybe this numbness will go away. Maybe I’ll be able to feel something again.”

  “Didn’t love enter into this at all?”

  She looked him squarely in the eyes. “I depended on him a great deal. Cared about him so much—I still do. He’s a very good man. But no, I wasn’t in love with him, and it occurred to me that I never would be. Once I realized that, it seemed that the best thing I could do for him was to leave while we were still friends.”

  She toyed with her napkin, realizing that she’d never put it into words so succinctly before. She wondered if Adam though
t she was shallow and callous, and was just about to ask, when she looked up at him.

  “What did he say, when you told him you were leaving?”

  “He said okay, he understood.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Just, okay? You can leave?”

  She nodded. “Why?”

  “If you were my wife,” he said as he reached over and touched the tips of her fingers with his own, “you’d have to do a hell of a lot better than that. I would never give up on you that easily.”

  His hand tugged on hers, then covered it. “I would move heaven and earth to prove that you were wrong, if you were my wife.”

  “Adam . . .” she whispered, surprised by his admission.

  “Sorry.” His face colored slightly as the waitress appeared with the check and handed it to him. “I probably shouldn’t have said that. And I shouldn’t have asked about your marriage. It’s none of my business. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

  “I didn’t think you were prying,” she said in his defense. “Look, I probably should have gotten in touch with you and explained what was happening back then but everything happened so quickly and—”

  “No explanations owed—then or now. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” His smile was terse as he removed several bills from his wallet and left them on the table. “You ready to go?”

  She followed him to the cash register, waited while he paid the bill, and politely thanked him for dinner as she followed him out into the cool April evening.

  “Adam, I really want to . . .” she said as he opened the car door for her.

  “It’s okay, you don’t have to. . . . Look, we’d only had a few real dates. I didn’t even know if you were interested back then.”

  “I should have called you. I wanted to call you. It sounds weak and stupid now, but I just got swept up in everything after my mother’s death. I was depressed and scared to death, and as hard as it is for me to admit it now, I needed someone to take care of me, Adam. I was at a very low point in my life.”

  “I would have happily done that.” He was close to her now, close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. “I’d have taken care of you.”