Deadly Obsession (13 page)

“Some kind of plastic binding. It’s not thick, but it’s solid. I couldn’t get a good grip on it.” She coughed over the words.

He took a deep breath and dove under. Using the pillar as a guide, he trailed his hand against it as he descended. Everything was blurry but his heart leapt when he saw a woman. Her hands were bound behind her and around the pillar. She wore a dive suit and a mask. A regulator was in her mouth, and a dive tank was secured to the front of her body. Otherwise, she wasn’t moving.

He wanted to check her pulse, but didn’t waste the time. After cutting through the plastic ties, he hooked his arm under one of hers and kicked upward. Still, she didn’t move.

Braden sucked in air the moment they broke through the water. Thankfully Perry was already there. “Help me get her to shore,” he said to the detective. “You, swim now,” he ordered Lilly.

Her eyes were bright red and her skin was a pasty white, but she nodded and swam ahead of them.

He and Perry flipped the woman on her back and began swimming toward the shore with her in tow. Time seemed to stretch out in front of them as they paddled. As soon as they reached the sandy shore, Vanessa helped them drag the woman up onto dry land.

“The ambulance should be here in two minutes,” she said.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Lilly lie down in the sand, but she was alive so he couldn’t worry about her. He checked the other woman’s pulse. It was faint, but at least it was there.

With Perry’s help, they unhooked the tank and took the regulator out of her mouth. She breathed fine on her own, which was a good sign, but her pale skin had taken on a bluish hue.

He glanced up at Vanessa who hovered over them. “We need to get her warm. Grab a blanket out of my truck—” He stopped midsentence as two paramedics scrambled across the sand.

“Vanessa, stay with her in the ambulance. I’m going to follow with Lilly.”

“On it, boss.”

He hurried over to where Lilly lay on her back. “We need to get you to the hospital.”

“I’m fine.” Her chin and jaw tremored as she tried to keep her teeth from chattering.

“Come on.” She didn’t even protest as he pulled her to her feet.

She stumbled once and wrapped an arm around his waist. Her soaked top stuck to his chilled skin as she leaned closer into his embrace, but heat coursed through him at the contact. He had a hundred different questions, but didn’t want to push her now. Not until he’d gotten her to the hospital.

Everything Braden thought he’d figured out about this case had just drastically changed. The psycho they’d been hunting wasn’t content with killing anymore. Now he wanted to play games with them. And it was obvious he wasn’t going to stop until he got what he wanted.

Using the dunes and foliage as cover, he watched Lilly stumble against the sheriff. Even though he was far away, his binoculars let him see that her top was completely soaked through. As visions of her bare, perky nipples assaulted his mind, he shifted against the sand. If he played his cards right, he’d get to touch her soon enough.

Unwanted need coursed through him as he focused on her. That bitch was such a tease. In high school she’d flaunted her legs and hot body any chance she got. But no one other than the golden boy had been good enough for her. For that alone, he hated the sheriff too. Not as much, but watching him suffer this past year had been fun.

When the sheriff glanced in his direction, he tossed the binoculars behind him and scooted further down the dune. It was almost impossible that anyone could see him, but he wasn’t taking a chance. He’d come too far to be careless now.

From what he’d seen, it looked like his Page had been alive when they’d dragged her out of the water but she wouldn’t be able to give them anything on him. So far she’d been the easiest to kidnap. Completely unaware of her surroundings. She jogged with an MP3 player on a deserted stretch of beach four mornings a week. That alone made her dumb enough to die.

He wished he’d had time to enjoy Page, but that wasn’t what this had been about. Lilly was the real prize. Hell, he’d been patient this long. He could wait a little longer.

After a quick glance at his watch, he shimmied back up the dune and peered over it. With the exception of a deputy hanging around, everyone else seemed to be clearing out. Grinning to himself, he grabbed his backpack and stood up. Tomorrow was Debra Carmichael’s wake and he had a lot to do before then.

Lilly shoved the doctor’s black and silver stethoscope away from her chest. “For the last time, I’m fine.” Maybe the guy would take her more seriously if she wasn’t wearing a skimpy hospital gown and wrapped up in a blanket.

“Ms. Carmichael—” The door to her hospital room creaked open, cutting the doctor off.

When he turned, Lilly followed his gaze. Braden stood there holding a set of blue scrubs.

“Are those for me?” she demanded.

His lips twitched as he nodded. “Mind giving us a second alone, Doc?”

The doctor frowned. “Sheriff, she’s being unreasonable—”

“Mitch, she’s fine. I need a few minutes with her.” Braden’s commanding tone had the lanky doctor shaking his head and muttering something unintelligible as he left.

Braden handed her the clothes. “This is all I could find.”

“Thank you.” She clutched onto them as if they were a lifeline. As soon as they’d reached the hospital, the nurses had made her strip out of her clothes so they could bring her body temperature back to normal.

Braden stood there with his hands in his pockets, staring expectantly.

She still sat on the edge of the bed. “Can you turn around, please?”

“Oh, right,” he mumbled.

When his back was turned, she dropped the blanket and shrugged the gown over her head. Even though she wasn’t freezing anymore, chills raked over her exposed skin. “Where’d you find dry clothes? And why aren’t you in a room getting poked and prodded?”

His shoulders shook as he chuckled. “Perry had an extra pair of pants.” He started to move, and her heart skipped a beat.

“I’m not dressed yet!” Since everything she’d had on, including her underwear, was soaked, she was going completely commando. And now she was going to have to air out and clean her gun since it had gotten submerged. With her chilled fingers it took longer than normal to get dressed. Finally she managed to tighten the drawstring on the pants. “You can turn around now. And you didn’t answer my other question.”

His shoulders lifted as he turned. “You were turning blue and I wasn’t. Besides, I’m the sheriff.”

“So they have to listen to you, huh?”

A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “That’s right.”

“How’s the girl?”

“She’s going to make it, but she doesn’t remember anything. The insulated dive suit is the only thing that kept her alive.”

“So he didn’t want her to die?” It was impossible to get a handle on the killer’s thought process.

“I doubt he cared one way or the other. The girl’s name is Page Matheson. She doesn’t remember if she was physically assaulted, but they’re performing a rape test just the same. She said the last thing she remembers is jogging, struggling with someone as she jogged under the pier, then waking up underwater. Talk about a nightmare. Sounds like she passed out from shock, not the cold. She’s still disoriented, but I asked her about a connection with either of us and she says she knows you.”

Lilly’s lips pulled into a thin line. Page Matheson? Why did that name sound familiar? “Maybe I know her—I do, I used to babysit her when I was about fifteen.” She hadn’t gotten a good look at the girl’s face, but it had been almost thirteen years since she’d seen her. Lilly probably wouldn’t have recognized her anyway.

“You didn’t mention this girl in any of your therapy sessions, right?” Braden’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Uh, no.” Where was he going with this?

“This guy knows you. Knows
us.
Intimately. And this confirms it. This isn’t the kind of stuff he could have found online or from a high school yearbook. If he didn’t get this from your therapist…” His hands balled into fists at his sides.

She fiddled with the drawstring of her pants. “Do you think it’s Greg Murphy?”

“It’s looking more and more like it. After yesterday we know he’s been leaving for days at a time over the last year, but other than that you know as much as I do.”

“And his wife hasn’t seen him has she?”

He shrugged. “She said she’d call us if she heard from him.”

“Do you believe her?”

“What choice do I have?”

“So what are
you
going to do?’

He rubbed a hand over his stubble and sighed. “We’re already monitoring his credit cards and bank accounts and all the hotels have his picture. I don’t think we have a choice but to release his picture to the media…Listen Lilly, we need to talk—”

“About how I knew where to find the girl—Page.”

His jaw set, he nodded. “Yeah.”

She’d wanted to tell him earlier, but her teeth had been chattering so bad she hadn’t been able to string two words together. “Three years ago I was in Japan and there was a huge murder trial going on. This woman, Violet Tanaka, found out her husband was cheating on her. He and his mistress had afternoon quickies practically every day on Violet’s yacht. Apparently he married Violet for her father’s money. To get even, she killed his mistress and tied her up at the marina.”

“The same way we found Page?”

“Almost. Violet didn’t give her husband’s mistress a breathing tank. She stabbed her over forty times before stringing her up.”

He let out a low whistle. “What happened to the Tanaka woman?”

“She killed herself. I guess the shame she brought to her family was too much. The magnitude of the story was the equivalent of when the O.J. trials were going on here. It totally dominated the airwaves and a story like that is hard to forget, especially in a country like Japan. The guy said Violet had style, as if he was impressed with someone, not something. When you said ‘underneath’ the pier, something clicked. It was a long shot, but…” She shrugged.

“Now that he’s got our attention, it’s only going to get worse.”

A wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm her. “I know.”

“How did he even know you were in Japan during that time?”

She shrugged. “Who knows? It wasn’t exactly a secret. My aunt knew and she could have told her friends. This is a small town and if he knows people here, well, people talk. You know that. Plus, if I was under a lease during any given assignment I found someone to sublet so maybe he found out by talking to one of the tenants. I don’t know. There’s more than one way he could have found out.”

His phone buzzed, interrupting their conversation. When he looked at the caller ID, his eyebrows furrowed. “One second.”

As he talked, she retrieved her saltwater-soaked clothes from the bathroom floor and shoved them into a plastic bag one of the nurses had left her. The sterile smell of antiseptics was enough to make her gag.

She’d had enough of hospitals to last a lifetime. Thankfully someone had grabbed her tennis shoes and jacket so she slipped them on and sat at the edge of the bed.

Braden’s heated gaze locked on hers. “That was Hailey. She needs to see us.”

“Okay.” She hoisted the plastic bag over her shoulder and stood.

“I’m taking you back to your aunt’s to change and then we’re stopping by my place,” he said as he held open the door.

“If it’ll be any easier, you can take me by the rental company so you don’t have to keep hauling me around everywhere.” Not having a car was a foreign experience.

She took the metro in D.C., but she’d never given up owning a car. The power and control of being able to go where she wanted, when she wanted, was something she didn’t know if she could ever give up. Which was why she never understood why her aunt had sold her car a few years ago.

Ignoring her statement, Braden took the plastic bag from her as they got into the elevator. “You’ll probably need to sign some paperwork before we leave.”

Okay.
So he was ignoring her offer. She couldn’t muster enough energy to argue so she followed him without commenting. As long as he didn’t care, she sure didn’t mind him chauffeuring her around. Protective custody or not, being close to him all the time was driving her libido crazy.

It had been a while since she’d been with a man and even longer since she’d enjoyed it. Braden knew all the nuances of her body. If those hot kisses were anything to go on, the fire they’d once shared was still there and it was obvious he felt the same way. Unfortunately, she knew she couldn’t get physically involved with him without getting emotionally involved too. Not to mention, he was hell bent on keeping his distance from her.

“Lilly?” Braden’s voice cut into her thoughts.

“Huh?” She glanced at him.

“We’re on the bottom floor. Are you going to get out?”

Her surroundings immediately registered. She could feel her cheeks heat up, but she quickly exited the elevator and brushed past him. After filling out a few more forms, she and Braden went to her place first. After changing out of the scrubs and into her own clothes, they headed to his place.

By the time they pulled into his garage she’d finally gotten the chill out of her bones. He lived in a two-story house in a small subdivision not far from her aunt’s place. She was grateful he’d stopped at her aunt’s house first. She’d taken a short—blessedly hot—shower and bundled up. An extra thick scarf and gloves seemed to be warming her up. “Why don’t you live at your parents’ estate?” His family had a huge mansion on the outskirts of town.

He shrugged as he turned the ignition off. “My grandmother still lives there, but I’ll probably sell it in a few years. It’s too big and…there are too many memories.”

She still couldn’t comprehend how he’d managed to deal with the loss of practically his entire family. She’d been young when her parents had died so she’d had no choice but to adjust. But to lose so many people at once. It was unimaginable.

Fighting a sudden overwhelming sadness, she unstrapped her seatbelt and got out. She followed him through the inner door into his kitchen. Relief coursed through her when they were greeted by a continuous beeping sound. Since his place was alarmed she didn’t have to worry about masked men jumping out of closets here.

“One sec,” Braden said absently as he punched in the alarm code to turn it off.

“When did you buy this place?” Everything looked brand new, but unlike her place, the kitchen actually looked used.

“A couple years ago. It was in bad shape when I bought it. Took a while, but I finally finished the kitchen about a month ago.”

“You did all this yourself?” Walnut cabinets, antique-style fixtures, crown molding trim and a marble island top gave the room a traditional, show room quality.

He shrugged, but she didn’t miss the red flush that spread across his face.

“So do you have anything in that big fridge or is it all for show?”

“Grab whatever you want. I’m going to go change.” Braden disappeared through the swinging door so she opened the stainless steel refrigerator.

Her stomach rumbled painfully as she stared at the array of food. Finally she settled on an apple and milk.

She shut the door and her throat seized painfully. In the reflection, a masked figure stood right behind her. Panic tore at her chest like a razor wire. She swiveled around but no one was there.

Her heart thumped wildly against her ribs as she swept the kitchen with her gaze. With the exception of the marble and stone island, there wasn’t anywhere to hide in two seconds.

Lilly set the apple and milk on one of the counters and rubbed her hands over her eyes. If she couldn’t decipher what was real and what wasn’t, she was putting herself and everyone else in danger. Blindly, she reached for her phone, then just as quickly shoved it back into her jacket pocket. She couldn’t bother her boss with any of this. He was thousands of miles away and he would order her to come home. Or worse, he’d force her to take even more time off. Braden was right here. She should tell him. But could she?

Her mouth dried up at the thought of admitting what had just happened, but she swallowed her fear. Appetite lost, she leaned against the counter and tried to steady herself.

“Lilly? Is everything okay?” Braden’s deep voice caused her to jump. He wore dark jeans and a polo shirt, but he had on his sheriff’s jacket and hat.

“Yeah, except that I think I’m losing my mind…” She took a deep breath and tried to gauge his expression, but his face was unreadable. “I saw the masked figure again—”

His shoulders tensed. “What? Where?”

She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t real. I saw it in the reflection of the refrigerator, but when I turned around, I was alone. What happened at the funeral home was very real, but I thought you should know that it’s possible I’m seeing things.”