Books by Maggie Shayne (211 page)

Someone had been shot in the head.
 
Right here in this alley.

A young man.
 
Early twenties, small and wiry, with brown hair.

God, Tommy had been shot right here.
 
This was where he'd died.

It made no sense, Michael thought as he returned to his car and drove away.
 
Someone had lured or forced Tommy into the alley only to then return him to his apartment.
 
The risk of being seen carrying a body should have been enough reason not to do such a thing.
 
And then to bind the boy to his own bed and burn the body—it was insane.

He was still no closer to learning what the police had found to implicate Mary, he realized.
 
Whoever had done this had known where Tommy lived.
 
Perhaps it was someone he knew, then.
 
Or perhaps it was simply someone who had watched him enough to have learned that minor detail.

Hell, they could have figured that much out from the address on his driver's license.

But why?
 
Why kill the boy at all, much less burn the body?

He found out more when he slipped into the police station and played mind games with the officers on duty to keep them away from the places where he needed to snoop.
 
The place was no small-town PD, but it wasn't an overwhelmed, understaffed urban one, either.
 
No, this was a wealthy community, and their police department was well funded.

There were the usual drawers full of paper files, but each folder had a pocket in the front, containing a CD-ROM.
 
A quick check told him everything in the folder—from the crime scene photos on down—had been recorded on the CD.
 
It couldn't have been any easier.

He found the box of unused CD-RWs and made a copy of the official records.
 
Then he put everything back where he'd found it and slipped quietly out of the police department.

Easy.
 
When you could plant thoughts in people's minds, convince them they needed to be elsewhere and move too fast for human eyes to detect more than a blur of color it was almost too easy.

He got into his Jag and drove back to Mary's apartment, eager to examine the evidence he'd found.

More eager, though, just to be close to her again

She paced, torn in two about what she should be doing right now
 
One tiny part of her brain told her she ought to be on the phone with the police, telling them everything she knew about Michael Gray—which was pathetically little.
 
Every other part of her trusted him implicitly on nothing more than instinct.

But with her life?

Licking her lips, she picked up the business card that Officer Dunst had given her.
 
She looked at the telephone number.
 
Officer Dunst had said they were "good people."

Glancing outside just once, seeing no sign of Michael, she picked up the telephone and dialed the number.

"Supernatural Investigations Service."

Mary had second thoughts.
 
She certainly didn't need to add any supernatural bent to what should be a simple background check.
 
"I think I have the wrong number.
 
Sorry."

"Don't you think you'd better make sure of that before you hang up?"

She sighed.
 
"Look, I just need an ordinary P.I. for a routine background check on someone.
 
There's nothing... supernatural about it.
 
I shouldn't have called."

"How'd you get this number?" the woman asked.

"I... um... a cop gave it to me."

"Officer Dunst?"

"Yeah."

The woman said, "Well, he sent us a lot of business.
 
I imagine he knew we'd be more than glad to take care of your routine background check for you, even if it's not precisely our usual area."

"You think so?"

"Either that or he has a feeling there's something supernatural about your case."

That was the feeling Mary had had when Dunst gave her the card.
 
But she didn't want to explore that suspicion too deeply.
 
"I just—look, there's this man who's shown up in my life.
 
He seems to know things he shouldn't, claims to be some kind of psychic.
 
I just wanted someone to run
 
a background check on him."

"We can usually do up a pretty thorough report within twenty-four hours.
 
It'll cost you a hundred bucks.
 
That's our special Dunst referral discount rate, by the way.
 
Sound acceptable to you?"

"Yeah.
 
Yes, that'll be fine.
 
His name is Michael Gray.
 
He's here in Bangor now, but he says he was a cop in Chicago, shot in the line of duty."

"Hell, girl, with that much to go on, we won't have any problem at all."

"Good."
 
She heard a vehicle outside and jerked her head quickly toward the door.
 
"Call me.
 
Make sure you only talk to me though.
 
My number is—"

"We have it, hon.
 
Shows right up on our caller ID box.
 
I'll talk to you tomorrow."

She hung up the phone, feeling guilty as hell and hoping to God Michael would keep his promise not to go poking around in her mind, reading things that were private.
 
The call she'd just made felt to her like a deep and unforgivable betrayal.
 
To keep her mind off it, just in case he snooped, she thought about Tommy, and the moment she did, the horror of the way he had died came flooding back to her.
 
She didn't think she would have any problem keeping her focus on that—she might have a problem driving it from her mind later on, though.

Someone knocked on the door, and she knew it was Michael, could almost feel his presence, but she looked first, all the same.
 
Then she opened the door and let him in, and forcibly resisting the impulse to slide her arms around him and press herself close to him and whisper that she'd missed him.

Maybe she was losing her mind.

He looked tired.
 
Or it might have been worry that made his eyes seem so careworn, his face so tense.

"Did you find out anything?"

He nodded.
 
"Many thing.
 
Still not everything.
 
I think I ended up with more questions than I had before."
 
He searched her face, and she almost squirmed with guilt, wondering what he could see there.
 
"How are you doing?"

"I'm fine.
 
And you'll have to take my word for it, since you promised not to do any more trespassing in my private thoughts."

He smiled just a little.
 
"I wasn't.
 
I told you I wouldn't, Mary, and I won't.
 
I promise."

"Just making sure.
 
What did you learn about Tommy?"

"You want the good news or the bad news first?"
 
He set his brown leather bag on the floor and shrugged out of the trench coat, then hung it up on the coatrack.

"You mean there's good news?"

He nodded, picking up the brown bag again, and walked through the apartment taking a seat on one of the stools at the bar.
 
"Yeah.
 
There's good news.
 
Tommy wasn't burned alive.
 
He was shot in the head in the alley outside his apartment."

"But... but the police said he was tied to his bed and burned alive."

"He was tied to his bed and burned, but not alive.
 
He was already dead."

As Michael spoke, he pulled a laptop computer out of his case, flipped it open and pushed the button that made it come on.

She wondered how the hell he could know any of that, then guessed.
 
"You must have got a look at the autopsy report."

He shook his head as the computer went through its warm-up routine.
 
"The autopsy hasn’t' been done yet."

"Then—"

"I went to the apartment.
 
I touched the bed.
 
I got nothing.
 
But in the alley outside, I felt the bullet.
 
It entered here."
 
He poked a forefinger to the spot between his eyebrows.
 
"Exited here."
 
His palm open, he cupped the back of his head.
 
"There was an explosion of blinding pain, but very brief.
 
Like the flash of a camera.
 
Then he was gone."

She closed her eyes.
 
"You don't know how much I want to believe it happened that way, Michael, but—"

"I found the spray of blood on the alley wall.
 
The police will find it, too.
 
And when they do get their autopsy report, it will verify that Tommy was shot in the head and killed before his body was burned."

"You're that good?" she asked.

"I'm that good."
 
He pushed a button on the computer, and the slender CD drive popped open.
 
Ten he dropped a shiny disk into it and closed it again.
 
He hit a few keys.
 
"I stopped on the way back to take a look at this.
 
It's gonna be hard to take, Mary."

"So this would be the bad-news part?"

He nodded.
 
"The police were investigating Tommy."

She frowned.
 
"For what?"

"He was their lead suspect in your break-in and the stalking."

"They told me that.
 
But I... I find it very hard to believe."

"They were going to execute a search warrant at his place today.
 
As it turned out, they didn't have to.
 
The fire was pretty much contained in one part of the bedroom.
 
The rest of his place only suffered smoke and water damage, I imagine the fire department contaminated any forensic evidence that might have been there, but... well, they did find these."

He flicked a button, nodded at the screen.
 
There were rows and rows of thumbnail-sized photographs—and they were all of her.
 
She squinted.

He moved the mouse until its arrow pointed at one, clicked it, and the photo appeared full-size.
 
It was her making drinks, standing behind the bar at The Crypt.
 
Taken from behind.
 
Michael closed it and clicked on another, then another and another.

In one she was walking through the front door of her apartment.
 
In another she was in her bed, sound asleep.
 
There were photos of her at the grocery store, at the bank, photos of her car, with close-ups of the license plate.

"He had an entire album full of these."

"He was that obsessed with me?"
 
She stared at Michael, shaking her head in disbelief.

"No, Mary.
 
I don't think he was obsessed with you at all.
 
I think he was hunting you.
 
These aren't the kind of photos a man with an obsession takes.
 
These are surveillance shots.
 
Every one has the date, time and place noted on the bottom.
 
And there's more."
 
He clicked on another image.
 
Enlarged, it revealing a hand-drawn map.

She frowned and looked again.
 
"That's my route home from work."

"He made maps of all your routes.
 
To and from the gym, the store, anywhere you went regularly.
 
Along with charts of the times and dates you visited those places."

"But... why?"

He licked his lips.
 
"This is the work of a professional, Mary.
 
Those phone calls—they weren't meant only to shake you up.
 
They were probably also checks to see if you were home, or how much time you spent in the shower or the laundry room or whatever.
 
He had your every movement charted and mapped."

She blinked slowly.
 
"And the break-in?"

He sighed, clicking on another image.
 
This one grew large enough to fill most of the screen.
 
It was her apartment, laid out like a blueprint, every item in it, including light switches, windows, doors, furniture and telephones, marked and labeled.

"The mess he left was just to cover what he was really doing here.
 
Mapping the place so he'd know it backward and forward when he came to do the job."

She lifted her eyes to Michael's.
 
"He... he was in the car when that phone call came.
 
You were there too.
 
Remember?"

He nodded.
 
"They found equipment at his place—a device that blocks any attempt to trace the call, another capable of being programmed to make a call and play a recording at a specific time before hanging up."

Mary couldn't believe what he was telling her.
 
"Tommy... was going to kill me?"

He nodded.
 
"I'm afraid so."

"But... but why?"

"I don't know.
 
But I think it's the same reason he killed the other women with the antigen.
 
They, uh, they found some photos of them at his place too"

She tried to prevent the tears, but she felt so betrayed.
 
So deceived.
 
Tommy had seemed like an innocent, naive young man, little more than a boy nursing a crush.
 
Not a cold, calculating murderer.
 
He'd had her fooled.

Searching her reeling mind for answers, she hit on only one ray of hope.
 
"At least I don't have to be worried anymore.
 
He's dead.
 
The full moon is the day after tomorrow, and I'll be able to go outside and look up at it if I want to, without worrying about some maniac attacking me."

She tried to force a lightness to her tone.
 
Even a false smile to her lips.
 
But Michael still looked grim.

"What?
 
What is it?"

"I don't know.
 
It's killing me that I don't know, but—Mary, I just don't get the feeling that the threat is gone.
 
I still sense danger around you."

She searched her mind, wondering why on earth she might still be in danger.
 
And then it hit her.
 
"I know what it is.
 
It's the police.
 
If they know all this...?"
 
She sent him a questioning look.

"They do.
 
This all came from their files."

She sighed.
 
"Then to them, it must look like I have the perfect motive for murdering Tommy.
 
They'll assume I found out he was a serial killer, and that I killed him to keep him from killing me."
 
She tapped a finger on her chin.
 
"What I don't understand is why they haven't arrested me already."

"Because it's a far-fetched notion to think that a bartender without any special training could take out a professional killer like Tommy Campbell.
 
That's why.
 
They're searching for something in your background that would make it believable."

"Like what?"

"Like that you're an expert marksman, or you have a black belt in some martial art, or that you spent ten years working as a CIA operative or something."

"Or that I was a former cop?"

He looked at her sharply.

"Michael, you knew he killed before, and you knew he was coming after me next.
 
I couldn't even blame you—not if you did it to protect me.
 
Given the power of our feelings toward each other, I might have done the same."