Cold feet (19 page)

Had he really? But what other explanation could there be? Madison wasn't sure she wanted to ask herself that question, or confront the answer that came so readily to mind. She'd given the house keys to Tye when he agreed to clean up after Ellis shot himself. She'd gotten them back, of course, but he could easily have made copies. Which meant her father wasn't the only one who'd had access to the crawl space beneath the house. Ellis wasn't the only one familiar with the campus area. Ellis wasn't even the only one who drove the blue Ford. If Johnny knew about the spare key, certainly Tye did as well. And Tye hated their father. He probably wouldn't mind if Ellis took the blame for a crime he'd committed himself.

Even more chilling, what about her missing sister-in-law?

That Tye might have had something to do with the women who were murdered was a horrible possibility, one Madison couldn't quite bring herself to believe. Especially because he had no reason to tell her about the box if he thought it might implicate him in some way. Yet his calm acceptance of what was hidden beneath the house disturbed her.

"Why--" Madison began, but her voice broke, so she tried again. "Why didn't you say something before?"

"I knew it wouldn't be welcome news. Not when you and your mother had stood by Ellis through the whole thing."

"Didn't you feel you had a duty to go to the police?" she asked.

"What was the point? Dad wasn't going to hurt anyone else."

Faced with her own logic, Madison winced at how selfish it sounded. Even if Tye
hadn't
murdered those women, he'd shown no consideration for the victims, and she'd done her best to shove them out of her mind, too.

"How long have you known about the box?" he asked.

"Just a couple of weeks."

"So why didn't
you
report it?"

She'd thought it was to shelter Brianna and her mother from any further repercussions of the past. Now she knew there was more to it than that. Deep down, even though she'd seen the contents of that box, she couldn't believe her father had killed those women.

If you can't trust your heart, what can you trust?
Maybe she wasn't so different from her mother, after all. "I still don't think he did it," she said.

"What?"

Madison's heart was not only beating again, it felt as though it might jump out of her chest. "I don't understand where that stuff came from, Tye," she said, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. "But our father didn't kill those women."

He shook his head. "My God, what would it take to convince you?"

"Haven't you heard? Another woman was murdered."

"I know that. It's a copycat killing," he said.

"I don't think so." She hesitated, trying to search within the intuition that had kept her strong through the past--the same intuition she'd switched to "off" once she'd found that locket. "The original Sandpoint Strangler is still out there. I can
feel
it." She watched him closely, waiting for his response, and was greatly relieved when he merely scowled.

"But the evidence--"

"I don't care about the evidence." Throwing off the blanket, she got up.

"How can you say that?" he asked.

"Because I knew Dad."

"Where are you going?"

"To find my shoes so I can walk you out. Then I'm driving over to the house to get that box."

"What are you planning to do with it?"

"I'm going to destroy it," she said, in case he might object to anything else. But she wasn't going to destroy it. She was going to take it to the police.

T
HE HOUSE WAS AS DARK
as Madison hoped it would be. She knew her mother sometimes had trouble sleeping and would lie on the couch and watch television until dawn. But there was no flicker in the window indicating a television might be in use--thank goodness.

After driving past the house twice, just to be sure, Madison parked in front of the neighbor's. She didn't want to risk waking her mother with the sound of her father's truck, which was the only vehicle available, since she'd left her own car here yesterday. And Madison certainly didn't want to go through the alley by the garage and risk waking Johnny. It was spooky back there.

Turning off her lights, she cut the engine and got out. It wasn't raining anymore, but the pavement shone like a mirror beneath the streetlights. Puddles filled every low spot and the entire area smelled of clean air and damp wood. She liked both scents. She just didn't like creeping up to her parents' house in the middle of the night.

It'll only take a few minutes,
she told herself, fighting off the sick feeling in her stomach.

Shivering in spite of her warm-up suit, she rubbed her arms as she hurried to the house, moving as silently as possible. Her mother's car was where she always parked it, but there was steam coming off the hood, which told Madison it probably hadn't been sitting there long.

Where would Annette have gone so late at night? She pressed her palm to the hood. It was warm, all right. If her mother had been out, it was entirely possible that she'd just gone to bed and wasn't asleep yet. Madison would need to be extra cautious....

Good thing she'd decided to wait until Caleb's lights were off before she left. She might have arrived only to find her mother gone, with no clue as to when Annette might return.

Caleb...God, she'd made love to her sexy tenant, and was just beginning to realize that the ramifications could stretch far beyond one night, whether she wanted them to or not. That was why, when she called him after Tye had gone home, she'd told him she wanted to pretend it hadn't happened.

That he'd agreed so readily came as a surprise. She wasn't sure if she was relieved about that or upset. But she wouldn't think about him right now. She
couldn't
think about him. She needed to keep her mind on what she was doing.

Slipping through the gate and into the soggy backyard, she glanced toward the garage to check for any hint of light--and saw nothing. She paused to listen as well, and heard only the steady drip, drip, drip coming from the downspouts.

With a bolstering breath, she searched her keys for the one to the back door--and dropped them in her hurry. The loud jangle as they hit the cement made panic clutch her insides.

She leaned against the house, waiting to see if perhaps a light would come on. When nothing happened, she squatted slowly and recovered her keys, going through them even more quickly this time. The sudden noise, exaggerated in the quiet night, had obviously rattled her because she was beginning to feel as though she was being watched.

She cast another furtive glance at the garage as she found the right key and inserted it into the lock. She was anxious to get inside. The thick clouds that had been covering the moon had rolled away and her shadow now fell across the lawn, looking strangely grotesque, like someone sneaking up on her from behind.

Bracing for the click, she turned the handle and slipped inside.

The heater was on. She could hear the steady hum of air blowing through vents as she closed the door behind her, but she heard nothing else. Her mother was asleep. There wasn't anyone around. She was fine. It would all be over in a few minutes.

Cutting through the kitchen, she headed for the stairs and took them as fast as she dared, quickly descending into the cool, pitch-black basement.

She blew on her hands to warm her cold fingers as she came around the foot of the stairs and stood in front of the door to the crawl space. She'd conquered the garage and her father's truck. She would conquer this, too. She just needed some light. She wished she had enough nerve to scramble under the house and drag that box out with only the bulb in the crawl space to guide her, but she couldn't make herself so much as open the door without first getting her bearings. Even if her mother woke up, she wouldn't see the light from here.

Madison felt a little less spooked once she'd dispelled the darkness. The room appeared as it always had, especially with that photograph of her father looking on. "Tell me I'm right to believe in you," she whispered, and crawled under the house.

It's almost over...it's almost over...

She made her way past the boxes and storage items she'd seen before. Her knees hurt as they knocked against the plank floor. She could hear her own breathing and movement, but then something else scurried off to her right, and she froze. What was it? A mouse? A rat? God, this place gave her the creeps.

But she
had
to get that box.

Finally she reached the end of the makeshift path, where the smell of mildew was strongest, and encountered the moist dirt that spread beneath the rest of the house. She heard another rustle, this one sounding as though it was caused by something much bigger than the average rodent. A squirrel? A possum? Surely it was her imagination that it sounded even bigger than that....

Madison caught her breath, listening. Drip, drip, drip, coming from somewhere beneath the house. She strained her eyes as she stared into the dark void before her. She couldn't see
anything.
But she had no doubt that anyone out there could see her.

Fear made her palms grow moist, but she refused to let her imagination run away with her. The house had been locked. The sounds she heard were simply settling noises.

She quit trying to see where there was only blackness, and started shoving things out of the way. But the box wasn't where she'd left it. She had to search through the junk piled around her before she spotted it a few feet away, turned on its side.

The moment she touched it, she knew something was different. It felt light, far
too
light.

She didn't dare take the time to look. Not right then. Not when she was so close to the rustling and the dark.

She pulled it to the door, beneath the light, and opened the flaps to find--nothing. No women's underwear or shoes. No locket. And certainly no rope.

The box was empty.

"Tye?" she whispered, wondering if he'd beaten her to it, wondering if that scurrying was him.

No answer.

"Tye, if it's you, answer me."

Again, no response. The hair was standing up on the back of her neck. But she wasn't willing to ask a third time. Quickly shoving the empty box back under the house, she closed the door to the crawl space, flipped off the light and hurried away.

T
HE MOMENT
C
ALEB HEARD
a car pull into the drive, he yanked on his sweatshirt and headed for the door. He had no idea where Madison had been for the past two hours, but he was certainly going to find out. It was nearly three in the morning, for crying out loud. And there was a serial killer on the loose.

When he knew she'd caught sight of him standing at the edge of the drive, he slid his hands in his pockets and waited.

"Why are you awake?" she asked as soon as she'd killed the engine and climbed out of her father's truck.

Caleb hadn't realized until he saw Madison safe and whole just how worried he'd been. Maybe what had happened to Susan, along with all the atrocities he'd chronicled in the past, had skewered his perception of violent crime. But he hadn't been able to think of anything except the possibility that someone might hurt her while she was out so late at night. "I've been waiting for you," he said.

A perplexed expression crossed her face, replacing the tense, nervous look that had been there before. "What for?"

"You didn't tell me you were going out. Where have you been?"

There was more accusation in his words than Caleb had intended, and for a moment she looked as though she didn't know how to react. He thought she might come back with something like, "None of your business." They'd agreed to pretend their sexual encounter had never taken place. Considering his position, he was especially grateful for that. So why he was pushing things with her now, he didn't know. He just didn't want to lose anyone else he cared about.

"Am I
supposed
to let you know when I go out?" she asked. Her tone was measured, but she didn't fly off the handle the way Holly would have. Madison seemed to be giving him the benefit of the doubt.

He raked a hand through his hair and softened his voice. "I was worried," he said.

Her eyebrows drew together. "You're sending
me
mixed signals, you know that?" she said, stealing his line from the restaurant. "What's going on?"

Caleb tried to tell himself that making love to her had been a slip-up, the result of having been too long without a woman. But deep down he knew it wasn't that simple. If he'd had his way, she'd still be in his bed.

Briefly he considered telling her who he really was, but things had gone too far; he couldn't. Making her hate him wouldn't improve the situation. "Nothing," he said. "It's late, and we're both tired. That's all."

He started toward the cottage house, but she called him back. "Caleb?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for waiting up," she said. "It...it helped to have you here."

"I'd like to know where you went," he said.

She hesitated. "I'd...rather not say."

He wanted to press her, but now that he knew she was safe, the desire to touch her again felt much more immediate. "Are we still pretending what happened earlier didn't happen?" he asked.

She nodded.

Too bad. He figured that enjoying the rest of the night couldn't make matters any worse. Jerking his head toward the cottage house, he said, "Do you think we could start pretending in the morning?"

Her eyes met his. "Are you asking me to spend the night with you, Caleb?"

He was really climbing out on a limb. He might be able to attribute what had already happened to a thoughtless mistake, but that wouldn't explain the premeditation involved in asking her to stay with him now. "I am."

When she didn't answer right away, he was tempted to move closer to her, to convince her with his mouth and his hands. After her response to him earlier, he knew he'd stand a better chance that way. But, considering the circumstances, he needed her to come to him without coaxing.