Deadly Pursuit (30 page)

Until the end.

Bev's lips flattened. The last part had been off script. And messy. She didn't like improv. So she'd moved offstage and let Daryl handle the staging problem. Not that she'd agreed with his fix after Alison had gone ballistic, but hey—it was his show. He was the director. And it wasn't as if Alison was dead or anything. She'd be fine once she woke up. Daryl had promised her that. He just wanted to teach Alison a lesson. Then he'd let her go.

At least Bev thought that was the plan. He'd never gotten too specific about the details. But what else could he do? He couldn't keep her prisoner forever. Chuck needed his truck back.

The bingo card Daryl had put on the seat beside her, facedown, didn't give her a warm and fuzzy feeling, though. That skull-and-crossbones stuff was creepy. He'd told her to leave it in the driver's seat after she got out of the car, as kind of a practical joke. Except she didn't think it was very funny.

But someone else might—and Daryl was the director. Like Mr. Montesi had always said, you have to trust the director. So she would.

Tapping her latex-encased finger on the wheel in time with the tune on the radio, she hummed along. She'd never snorted before, but wow! It had been awesome. She might have to switch from smoking.

Too bad she had to go back to reality already. Playing a part again had been fun. It had given her almost as big a rush as chasing the white dragon. And it was a whole lot healthier. She sure didn't want to end up like Chuck. He was a mess.

She glanced in the rearview mirror to check out her appearance, reassure herself the meth wasn't messing with her looks yet. But the reflection caught her off guard. It was amazing what a wig could do. She hardly recognized herself.

And no one else would recognize her either.

Or the car she was driving.

Hmm. Maybe this was her chance to visit her old digs and sweet-talk Stan into unlocking her apartment so she could get her stuff. No one would be looking for a brunette driving a Honda Civic. Breezing in and out ought to be a cinch. The whole thing shouldn't take more than a few minutes. Then she could exchange the cars and go back to Chuck's dump.

That prospect still didn't thrill her, but at least she'd have a consolation prize. Her mother's locket.

And didn't she deserve a reward after giving such a stellar performance?

Spotting a gas station up ahead, Bev signaled another lane change. After pulling in, she drove past the pumps and waited for a break in traffic that would allow her to reverse course.

This was one of the best ideas she'd had in a long time.

Why was it so dark?

Why did she hurt so much?

What was that odd vibration?

As she struggled to engage her mind and process those questions, Alison felt herself tilting. Her head exploded and she tried to scream . . . but no sound emerged.

Something was wrapped around her mouth.

She tried to reach up to remove it, but her arms wouldn't move.

They were tied behind her back. And her ankles were bound too.

Then she remembered.

She'd been kidnapped.

Now she was gagged, tied up, and—based on the rocking motion and road noise—in the back of some kind of vehicle.

She was also hurt. She remembered the fist coming toward her, and the side of her face ached. But why did the back of her head hurt too? Had she hit it when she'd fallen?

As the vehicle jolted again, she groaned and fought back a wave of nausea. She couldn't throw up! With the gag across her mouth, she'd choke to death if she did.

Tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked them away. Crying wouldn't solve anything. In fact, it might be just what her tormentor wanted. And she wouldn't give him that satisfaction. No matter what he did to her.

A shudder rippled through her and she closed her eyes. If her abductor and bingo man were one and the same, she knew what he was capable of doing. He'd shown no mercy to Bert. There was no reason to think he'd show any to her. But why had he put her in his sights? Was he a former client who'd been unhappy with the outcome? Could she reason with him? Bargain with him? Somehow convince him he was making a huge mistake?

Alison wasn't optimistic about any of those possibilities, but neither was she willing to give up. Mitch and Cole would be looking for her by now. Perhaps the entire St. Louis County PD was assisting with the search. Through Cole, she knew a lot of the officers and detectives, and they were pros. They'd find her—given enough time.

So that was her job.

She had to buy them time.

Ending his call to the unit supervisor, Mitch checked on Cole in the passenger seat. The other man was also slipping his phone back onto his belt.

“I just reached Jake. The arrest went down twenty minutes ago. He'll catch the next plane back, but Phoenix isn't exactly close.” Cole wiped a hand down his face. “He won't get here until the early morning hours.”

“I hope this is over long before that.”

“Yeah. Did our people have any luck finding anyone who worked late in the offices near Alison?”

“So far, everyone left on time.”

“That figures.”

“The CSU unit is there, though. We may have some prints soon.”

Mitch pulled onto Alison's street. A K-9 unit was on the way to the mall, and Alison's house was a closer source of her personal items than Cole's apartment. Once they gathered a few things, they planned to let the dog track her movements on the parking lot. Mitch wasn't sure that would yield much—but you never knew.

As he pulled to a stop in the driveway, Cole fished out his keys. “This won't take long. You want to come in or wait here?”

“I'll come in.”

Mitch followed Cole in. As Alison's brother focused on his task, Mitch went into the kitchen for a glass of water. The blinking red light on Alison's answering machine caught his eye, and he detoured toward it.

In all probability, the message or messages would be innocuous. A donation solicitation. Or a friend setting up a lunch date. Why would her abductor call? But it was worth checking.

The standard mechanical voice kicked in. “You have one message. Monday, 8:47 p.m.”

A woman's voice followed.

“Hi, Alison. It's Nicole Larson. I'm sorry to bother you, especially at home, but a troubling situation has come up and I wanted to get your advice. I'll give you the details when we talk, but Daryl is out of prison and Kyle spotted him sitting outside our apartment the other night. He's also called and come by, trying to convince me to take him back. Thanks to you, I've learned a lot over the past four years, and I turned him down flat. He wasn't happy, though, and I'm concerned. Can you call when you have a minute? Sorry again about bothering you. Everything else is going well.”

As the woman recited her number, Cole entered the kitchen with a bag of Alison's personal items.

“Who's on the phone?”

“A woman named Nicole Larson. Sounds like she's one of Alison's former clients.”

“Yeah. I remember Alison talking about her. She was living with some meth dealer but claimed she didn't know about his business. The state took her son for a while until she got her act together. Alison went to bat for her, though. I think the woman still sends her Christmas cards. Why'd she call?”

Mitch furrowed his brow. “Her ex-boyfriend is out of prison and trying to get her to take him back. She wants Alison's advice.”

“Sounds messy. You ready to roll?”

“Yeah. Look . . . let me jot down her number.” He hit the play button again and pulled a notebook out of his pocket.

“Why?”

“Doesn't the timing of this call strike you as odd?”

Cole squinted at him. “You think it's connected to Alison's disappearance?”

“I don't know. But I want to follow up with her. Get a few more details on this Daryl guy.” Mitch waited as the message played, then wrote down the number and tucked the notebook back in his pocket. “Okay. Let's go.”

Cole's color had gone from pale to pasty, and Mitch thought about offering to carry the bag of Alison's things. Decided against it. Cole didn't strike him as the type of guy who was comfortable accepting help.

Kind of like his sister.

As they secured the door behind them and started toward the car, Mitch's phone began to vibrate. He pulled it off his belt, answered, and slid behind the wheel.

“Mitch, it's Paul. I've got some information you and Cole may want to check out. Two patrol cars were dispatched a little while ago to investigate a report of a woman's screams coming from an abandoned storage facility in an industrial park not too far from Alison Taylor's office. The officers found two sets of tire prints—a car and a truck—and a small amount of fresh blood at the scene.”

His pulse kicked up a notch. The incident could be unrelated to Alison's disappearance, but the timing was too fluky for his taste. This might be the lead they'd been hoping for. That was the good news.

The bad news was the blood.

“Give me an address.” Mitch pulled the notebook from his pocket again and scribbled down the information as the unit supervisor dictated it. “We had a K-9 unit dispatched to the mall parking lot. Can you redirect it to this location? We just collected some of Alison's things from her house.”

“No problem. Stay in touch.”

“What's going on?” Cole shifted toward him, twin grooves etched on his forehead.

Mitch started the engine and put the car in gear as he gave him a recap.

“It could be a coincidence, but I thought it was worth diverting the K-9 unit.”

“I agree. And I think we feel the same way about coincidences in this business.”

They did. True coincidences happened, but they were rare. Most weren't coincidences at all. Mitch had a feeling this one fell into the latter category.

And they'd know soon enough.

The sun was starting to set. If he didn't get back soon, Ms. Walker would worry about him. And Erik didn't like to cause problems.

He looked at his watch. Twenty-five minutes had passed since he'd sat on this bench by the bus stop, and he'd been thinking hard the whole time. About that man in the quick shop. About what Daniel had said. About Alison.

Mostly about Alison.

He kept trying to picture the photo of her with her family that he'd dug out from under the rack of candy the day she'd dropped her purse in the grocery store. It had taken him a few tries to coax it from under the metal rack, and he'd gotten a long look at it. Everyone had been wearing those pointy hats, like it was a birthday party, and . . .

Erik blinked. The people in the picture in that man's wallet had been wearing pointy hats too.

And the woman he'd thought was Alison had been standing between two men, all of them clustered behind an older woman.

The same way they'd been in Alison's picture.

That wallet
had
been Alison's. He was sure of it now.