by Jane Godman
The waterproof dressing Laurie had applied to his arm that morning survived the shower. A memory of her wrapped in a towel, laughing as she dodged his attempts to remove it, came into his mind, sharp and bright. Why hadn’t he grabbed hold of her then and told her how much he loved her? Why had he been so concerned about trivial things like timing and whether she would want to stay in Stillwater? One thing was for sure: if they came through this and out the other side, Laurie would never again be in any doubt about his feelings for her. Not if. When they came out the other side of this.
Getting into clean clothes was a struggle, but with a fair amount of stumbling and cursing, he managed it. When he got back into the kitchen, there was a smell of coffee. His stomach surprised him by welcoming it. Vincente was getting bacon and eggs out of the refrigerator, and Bryce was looking sheepish.
“Tell him,” Vincente said. “At least this house doesn’t have carpet. So, when he kills you, the blood will be easy to clean up.” Realizing his attempt at humor was misplaced, he grimaced. “Sorry.”
“I called Leon Sinclair and asked him to come and take a look at your head.”
Cameron had been easing himself gradually onto one of the high stools that flanked the central island, but those words made him pause halfway. “Why would you invite the town drunk over to look at my head?”
“Because before the town drunk, as you so charmingly call him, got a medical discharge, he was an army doctor.” Bryce’s fine, dark eyes held a measure of condemnation. “And he is a recovering alcoholic who has been in rehab.”
Accepting the mug of strong black coffee Vincente held out to him, Cameron mumbled an apology. Although he wasn’t clear what he was apologizing for exactly. All he really knew about Leon Sinclair was the guy knew how to party. Hard. There weren’t many bars in Stillwater, but in the twelve months since he’d arrived in the town, Sinclair had managed to get himself thrown out of every one of them. Army doctor or not, Cameron wasn’t sure he wanted him anywhere near his head.
He was about to say as much when Bryce’s cell phone pinged with an incoming message. “He’s here. Give the guy a chance. Okay?”
He went to get the door, and Cameron eyed Vincente over the top of his coffee mug. “This is my skull we’re talking about, so why am I being made to feel guilty because I don’t want it experimented on by a vagabond stranger?”
“How about you reserve judgment and see if he can patch you up? We don’t want your brain falling out just as we go in all guns ablazing later.”
Cameron joined in Vincente’s laughter, pleased he could do it without feeling like he was going to collapse. “You always were the poetic brother.”
It was into this scene of hilarity that Bryce walked a few moments later accompanied by a tall, rangy man with dark blond hair and a beard. Leon Sinclair generally had an unkempt look about him, but he appeared to have made something of an effort on this occasion. His flannel shirt, although crumpled, was clean, and it was the first time Cameron could recall ever seeing him sober. He carried a medical bag, which he set on the counter.
“Mayor Delaney.” Cameron noticed a slight hesitation in his speech, as though he might once have had a stammer he’d worked hard to overcome.
He held out his hand. “It’s Cameron. You’ve met my brother Vincente?”
Leon regarded his outstretched hand for a moment in surprise before shaking it. He seemed to be waging some sort of internal battle. When he spoke again, the falter in his voice was even more pronounced. “Before I take a look at you, there’s something you should know. Although I still have my medical license to practice, I was given a medical discharge from the army for mental health reasons.” He gulped in air as though he hadn’t breathed during his previous statements. “Do you want to proceed?”
This was Cameron’s chance to avoid having to tolerate having this clearly disturbed and probably incompetent man anywhere near his injury. Yet, as he looked into Leon Sinclair’s intense green eyes, he found himself nodding. I need my head examined. He almost groaned aloud at his own bad joke.
“Do you know what you were hit with?” Leon became businesslike as he opened his bag and donned disposable gloves.
“A rock.”
“And where was your assailant in relation to you?”
“Above and behind.” Cameron felt anger bubble up inside him once again. “I was standing on the ground and he was hiding in a railway cart behind me.” He mimed the action of Grant lifting the rock above his own head with two hands and bringing it down with force. “He brought it down on my head from above, like so.”
Leon began to examine the wound on Cameron’s head. “Did you black out?”
“Yes.” Cameron flinched at the pain induced as the other man probed his skull.
“How long were you out for?”
“I don’t know. Long enough for him to abduct the woman I was with.”
Leon evinced no surprise at this comment. Cameron got the feeling he’d lived the sort of life where little shocked him. “Okay. This is a nasty head wound and I’d advise you to get to an accident and emergency facility as soon as possible. There is no obvious skull fracture, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a hairline break I can’t see.”
“That’s it?” Bryce sounded slightly belligerent. “That’s all you can do?”
“This wound needs stitches and your brother needs an X-ray to determine whether there is, indeed, any fracture.” Now he was on familiar ground, Leon’s former nervousness had disappeared. “This sort of blunt force trauma can cause damage that isn’t obvious with a simple physical examination.”
“I can’t get to a hospital right now. Can you glue me together until I can?” Cameron saw the surprise on his brothers’ faces. In the space of minutes, he’d gone from not wanting Leon near him to placing complete trust in him.
A slight smile touched Leon’s lips. It was an unexpectedly engaging expression. “Glue won’t work on a wound this deep. I’ll stitch it.”
Cameron groaned and flexed his arm. “My second lot of stitches in twenty-four hours.”
“Someone really doesn’t like you, does he?” Leon laid out his anesthetic and suture kit and spoke in the voice of a man who didn’t expect an answer.
“Believe me, the feeling is mutual.” Cameron suffered in silence as Leon meticulously cleaned the wound, injected his scalp with anesthetic and carefully stitched the edges of the cut together. It took a long time, and no one seemed inclined to make small talk.
“You still need to get yourself some emergency care as soon as you’ve done whatever it is you have to do,” Leon told him when he’d finished.
Cameron managed a nod without feeling like his head was coming off. He felt able to tentatively touch his head. There seemed to be a lot of stitches back there. “What do I owe you?”
Leon flapped a hand. “Buy me a drink sometime.”
Bryce frowned. “I thought you were on the wagon?”
“If I could find that damn wagon, I might just clamber on board.” Leon waved a hand as he left. “I hope you get to rescue her.”
“What’s his story?” Cameron asked when Bryce returned from showing Leon out. His brother seemed to have become the designated contact for troubled veterans in the area. That was all very well, but who was helping Bryce?
“The answer to that question always seems to be ‘don’t ask.’” Bryce looked out of the window. The afternoon was already well advanced. “So what’s the plan?”
Cameron nodded at the bacon and eggs Vincente had taken out of the refrigerator. He was suddenly desperately hungry. “How about you cook while we talk?”
* * *
Because of the silence, Laurie heard the car approaching when it was still a long way off. She had watched the light change through the prison bars and knew it must be early evening. Using a mindfulnes
s technique she had always found helpful, she closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. Letting go of her thoughts and allowing her breath to flow freely and naturally. When Grant’s boots echoed on the tiled corridor, she was able to accept the sound, even welcome it. It was the next stage in what had to happen.
The door opened slowly as though he wasn’t sure what to expect. Laurie supposed each woman he had locked in here must have reacted in her unique way. She hoped some of them had given him a hard time. Her own act of rebellion had been a subtle one. She had removed the bow from her gold-colored bra and slid it behind one of the legs of the bed. It would be proof she had been here. She only hoped she would still be around to identify it.
If Grant was surprised to see her sitting calmly on the bed, he showed no sign of it. His eyes skimmed over her, taking in the change of clothing. She had donned the waterproof jacket now, noting with surprise it didn’t fit with the rest of the outfit. It was clearly a man’s garment. Way too big for her, it hung almost to her knees, and she’d had to fold the sleeves back several times. And it was old, the surface cracked and worn in places.
Coming fully into the room, Grant held out a plastic garbage sack. “Put your clothes in here and tie the top.”
Clever. He hadn’t touched her belongings. She assumed he would burn them at the first opportunity. When Laurie had followed his instructions, Grant stooped to pick up the bag. The temptation to bring her knee up under his chin was overwhelming, but she forced herself to resist it. The best she could hope for with that was to unbalance him. She had to play a long game here. The only chance she had was to try to outwit him.
He pressed his gun into her ribs. “Carry your clothes to the car. Walk out ahead of me. Don’t do anything stupid.”
She nodded. As they reached the cell door, she drew a breath. Turning her head to look at him over her shoulder, Laurie tried for a soft, slightly husky voice. Nervousness made her lip quiver slightly, but she didn’t think that was a bad thing. “It was scary in there on my own. Thank you for coming back for me.”
Something shifted in his eyes, and for a moment she thought she’d blown it. Had he seen through her? Could he guess what she was attempting to do? He hesitated, then gave a curt nod and gestured for her to continue. With a heart pounding so loudly she thought he must be able to hear it, Laurie walked ahead of him along the corridor and out into the open air. When they reached the car, Grant opened the trunk and gestured for her to climb inside.
Having stored the bag containing her clothes, Laurie placed her hands on the edge of the trunk. She lifted her left leg, resting her knee on the edge in preparation for hoisting herself in, but, before she did, she allowed her right leg to slide out from under her so she fell backward. Giving a soft cry, she clawed desperately at the trunk. Once again, she was surprised by Grant’s fast reaction. For such a big man, he had lightning reflexes and could put them into practice at whiplash speed. Catching her around the waist, he scooped her up into his arms. It was exactly the reaction she’d been hoping for when she’d faked the fall.
Laurie linked her arms around his neck, feeling his indrawn breath reverberate right through her whole body. Gotcha. Even though touching him made her skin crawl, she had to convince him she saw him as her white knight.
“Thank you.” For saving me? Should she utter those words? She didn’t want to push things too far too soon, so she decided against it. Her judgment had always served her well. She trusted it now, adding the single word she believed would resonate most with him. “Grant.”
Although he didn’t speak, his chest expanded even farther and his eyes raked her face hungrily. She had been right to use his name. It had created a connection between them. She was sure she didn’t imagine the trace of regret in his expression as he lowered her carefully into the trunk. Laurie curled up in the tight space. As Grant lifted a hand to bring the lid down, she fixed him with the full force of her gaze, a gaze she knew was almost identical to Carla’s.
“Is there any way to leave a light on in here?”
He frowned. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip. “It’s just so dark and—” she managed to introduce a creditable wobble to her next words “—I don’t like the dark.”
Laurie had been hoping this damsel in distress act would get her a ride in the car with him. It was going to be hard to work on his chivalrous instincts when she wasn’t actually in his company. It looked for a moment or two as though her ploy might have worked. She could see the conflicting emotions flitting across his face. Valor was fighting common sense. In the end, she also saw the moment when self-preservation won. Grant was too good at protecting his own back to drive around with a future murder victim sitting up next to him in the passenger seat. The shutters came down on his expression once more and he slammed the lid of the trunk down hard.
Laurie cried out loud enough for him to hear, hoping to feed his White Knight Syndrome a healthy dose of guilt for the journey. The thought almost made her laugh. You seriously think you can guilt-trip a serial killer? That he’s sitting up there worrying because you’re scared of the dark? Get real, Laurie. He’s sitting up there fantasizing about how much he’s going to enjoy killing you.
Riding in a trunk was never going to be a pleasant experience. Laurie was cramped and uncomfortable, jolted up and down most of the time and sometimes thrown around wildly. The only thing that didn’t bother her was the darkness she had claimed to be fearful of. She supposed anyone who had ever been unfortunate enough to find themselves in this position went through the same range of emotions. Seesawing back and forth from numb helplessness to terror and everything in between. The experience of being in the trunk was bad enough, but the dread of what would happen at the end of the journey was even worse. Laurie didn’t know whether her situation was easier or harder than most. She had a good idea of what was coming next. She was fairly sure it would involve a boat.
Sitting in that cell, there had been plenty of time to think. She had reasoned Grant would want to use her to turn back time. If the picture she had built up of him was correct, he had met Carla when they were both troubled teenagers and had developed a crush on her that had rapidly become an obsession. It was so powerful, he had never forgotten her, to the point where he had never dated or even, it seemed, looked at another woman. Laurie wondered why he had never made a push to seek Carla out once he was an adult. Maybe it didn’t fit with his idealized view of romance; possibly he preferred worship from afar? Then she remembered what Cameron had said about Carla going into witness protection at the age of sixteen. What if Grant had tried to find her, but failed? His passion would have intensified even more if the object of his desire had disappeared without a trace.
Then, of course, there had been that memorable night when Carla had appeared, as if by magic, in Grant’s hometown. In the restaurant he frequented every Saturday night. It must have seemed as if fate had stepped in to make all his dreams come true. Except fate had a habit of being cruel. Not only was Carla on a date with his best friend, when Grant got her alone and asked her out, she didn’t even recognize him. This was the woman he had dreamed of every night for at least—Laurie tried to calculate the timescales—twelve years. If she hadn’t been lying in his trunk, if she didn’t know he was a killer, she could almost have felt sorry for Grant Becker. Then, after the shock of that encounter, he had to suffer the humiliation of watching her fall in love with Cameron, had to witness their very public happiness. It was no wonder a mind traumatized by childhood abuse had become completely unhinged.
Within six months Grant had killed—or in his twisted view of the world, rescued—Lisa Lambert. He went on to kill three other women in West County, and possibly others beyond that immediate area, before Carla’s death. But Laurie still didn’t believe he intended for Carla to die that night. She was convinced he had followed Carla’s every move from a distance. Laurie could picture Gr
ant’s agitated state of mind: knowing Cameron was away from home, aware she intended to take her boat out alone and apprehensive about the approaching storm. He would have to step in and stage a rescue. His need to be the knight in shining armor would not allow him to stand back and let events unfold. And the damsel in distress on this occasion was the woman who had haunted his dreams since he was a lonely, impressionable adolescent. What had Carla’s reaction been when he brought his boat alongside hers? Had she been annoyed? Dismissive? Scornful? Maybe she’d even been angry at the interruption to her training schedule.
The coroner’s report said Carla had suffered “a blow to the back of the head and bruising to the throat consistent with strangulation” before she drowned. Lying in the darkness of the trunk, Laurie pictured the scene. Carla, her impatience thinly disguised, making some offhand remark to get rid of Grant so she didn’t waste any more valuable training time. Grant, his face suffused with rage, hands reaching for her slender throat. Carla hitting her head as she fell overboard into the stormy waters... Maybe that wasn’t exactly how it happened, but she was sure the scenario playing out in her head wasn’t a million miles from the truth.
Laurie didn’t know how deep Grant’s emotions went. She could only guess at what he felt next. Grief? Remorse? Fear? She was sure all of those things played a part in his life during the aftermath of Carla’s death. But the killing spree continued soon after. His compunction to play the white knight hadn’t gone away, even though Carla was out of his life. Within weeks of her death, Grant was lining Deanna Milligan up as the next person in need of rescue.
