Deceived (Private Justice Book #3): A Novel (31 page)

“Do you really want to test that theory?”

He’d called her bluff. There was no doubt in her mind, based on what they’d learned over the past weeks, that the man who’d invaded her house
had
loved Kevin. But if he thought they were closing in on him and had snapped, he might not be that man anymore.

He might be the man who’d murdered John in cold blood.

Who’d watched the life bubble out of him.

Another wave of nausea swept over.

“I’ll g-go upstairs.” Hard as she tried to sound calm and in control, her words came out shaky.

“Now you’re being smart.” He released her and gestured toward the stairs.

As she started up, clinging to the railing for support, she could feel him following close behind her. At least with her back to him, she was able to extract the mushy pills she’d concealed in her gums. And by faking a stumble, she managed to drop them off the edge of the open staircase.

“Keep moving.” Sanders prodded her in the side, and she rose from her knees to continue toward the second floor.

To whatever fate he had planned for her.

Not that she was giving up. She would use every lucid minute she had left trying to think of some way to thwart him without putting Kevin in danger.

But as a bone-deep lethargy began to overtake her, she knew she’d have to think—and act—fast.

Because time was running out.

A
s his cell began vibrating against his hip, Connor twisted his wrist. Eleven-fifty-nine. His replacement was right on time, as usual.

“Hi, Dale.” Phone pressed to his ear, Connor scanned Sanders’s street. The retired detective had obviously approached with lights off and slipped into a surveillance position unnoticed. Good man.

“Hi. How are things on your end?” In the background, classical music played.

Connor flipped off his U2 CD. “Quiet. Lights went out about ten, as usual. Car’s in the carport. I expect you’ll have an uneventful night.”

“No complaints about that. Still expecting this to wrap up tomorrow?”

“If all goes well. I’ll give you a call by four if we need you for another midnight shift.”

“Got it. Drive safe and get some sleep.”

“That’s my plan.”

Slipping the phone back on his belt, he did one more quick canvass of the blue-collar neighborhood. Most house lights were off. There’d been minimal street activity for the past hour.
Everyone—including Sanders—seemed to have turned in for the night.

The next item on his own agenda.

He cranked up his CD again, tossed back another handful of pistachios, and started the engine. As the air conditioner kicked in, he guided the van down the street.

But instead of pointing it toward home, he detoured toward Kate’s condo. Professional protocol might have required him to keep his distance for the past week, but there was no rule against drive-bys. And he’d been doing one every night before heading to his own place. Official reason? Security check. Unofficial reason? He liked being close to her. Besides, her place was practically on his way home.

Shaking his head, he hung a right onto the entrance ramp of I-270 and accelerated north. Talk about having it bad.

But according to Cal and Dev, this was what happened when you met the right woman. You knew almost from the get-go she was different. That there was serious potential. Given that both his partners had recently been down this path, who was he to argue with their assessment?

He hummed along with a few tunes as he drove but sat out “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”—since he was pretty certain he
had
found what he was looking for—and in less than twenty minutes he was turning into Kate’s condo complex.

After weaving through the tree-lined streets to her cul-de-sac, he slowed as he approached her unit, frowning at the light burning on the second floor. Sleep had eluded her after all—yet she hadn’t taken him up on his offer and called.

He pulled into an empty parking space and drummed his fingers on the wheel. Should he call her? But if he did, he’d have to admit he was lurking outside. That he’d been driving by every night for the past week. It sounded kind of like . . . stalking.

Would she freak—or be touched?

Hard to say . . . but he was about to find out. Because no way could he drive off and leave her alone to pace the night away worrying about a reunion with the long-absent son who was likely to drop back into her life tomorrow.

Make that today.

He shut off the engine, retrieved his cell, and tapped in her home number.

Her phone was ringing.

As Kate struggled to remain alert, Sanders stopped pacing in the small hall upstairs where she sat propped against the wall. Waiting for what, she still didn’t know. Worse, she was beginning not to care. That’s what Valium could do to a person. But she had to care. Had to fight this. Couldn’t let the man who’d killed her husband and stolen her child win.

The phone rang a second time.

Gun in hand, Sanders loomed over her. “Who would call you this late?”

“I don’t know.” Her reply came out slurred.

“Don’t lie to me!” He leaned down and jabbed the gun into the side of her neck.

She flinched and pulled herself into a protective tuck. “I’m not. No one ever calls me at this hour.”

The echo of the third ring faded, and the condo fell silent again.

Sanders straightened up.

Started to pace again.

Stopped abruptly as a different ringtone broke the stillness.

“What’s that?”

“My cell. It’s in . . . the charger . . . in my bedroom.”

Three rings in, the phone went silent again.

Grabbing her arm, Sanders hauled her to her feet, dragged
her down the hall, and dumped her on the bed next to the nightstand. “Play back your voice mail. And put it on speaker.”

Fingers fumbling, she pushed the appropriate buttons.

“You have one new message. Wednesday, August seventeenth, twelve-twenty-five a.m.”

“Kate, it’s Connor. I tried your home number first. I’ll give it ten minutes and try again. If you get this before then, give me a call on my cell.” The message ended with the hum of a disconnected line.

Her spirits soared. Connor was checking on her! And when she didn’t respond to his call, he’d investigate.

“Who’s Connor?” Sanders prodded her with the gun again, his finger twitching on the trigger.

She tried to coax her sluggish brain into action. If Sanders didn’t know who Connor was, he wouldn’t know the man was a PI, either. That should work to her advantage.

“A friend.”

“Why would he call you in the middle of the night?”

“He knows I . . . haven’t been sleeping. He might think . . . I’m still awake.”

Sanders didn’t move for several heartbeats.

At last he grabbed her arm and propelled her into the hall, pausing for a moment outside the door of the bedroom she’d decorated for Kevin. His nostrils flared as he glared into the shadows, as they had when he’d first noticed it. Then he towed her the rest of the way down the hall, into the bathroom.

“You’re going to get some rest tonight, Kate. The eternal kind. But we’re done waiting for the Valium to knock you out. I’d give you more, but I want this to look accidental.” He lowered her beside the tub. “Put in the stopper and turn on the water.”

She blinked up at him. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

Moving even more slowly than her drugged state dictated, she dragged out the task as long as possible. As water at last began to fill the tub, he waited in silence.

She wasn’t as far gone as he thought, but she was slipping. Badly. Her vision was going in and out of focus, her balance was evaporating, and the weakness in her limbs was bordering on debilitating.

From her spot beside the tub, she watched Sanders spread a few Valium tablets on the vanity next to the water glass he’d told her to bring up, trying to figure out what was going on. And praying Connor would realize there was a problem sooner rather than later.

Once the water in the tub reached the halfway point, he backed into the doorway and looked at her. “Take off your clothes.”

Her jaw dropped. “What?”

“It’s bath time, Kate. As soon as the water gets deep enough.”

And then she knew.

He was going to drown her, just as he’d drowned John, and make it seem like another accident. A poor, grieving woman who’d leaned on the crutch of drugs again and slipped under the water when she’d fallen into a stupor after taking one too many pills.

Kate stared at the rising water—her nemesis since childhood. Even after all these years, she could recall with heart-thudding intensity the feeling of slipping beneath the waves as the sailboat her father had rented on a family vacation capsized, of sucking in a lungful of salty sea, of blackness and suffocation and choking.

No!

She wouldn’t die that way. He’d have to shoot her first.

And as she looked into his hate-filled eyes, she had a feeling that was a distinct possibility.

She still wasn’t answering.

Connor punched the end button on his cell, his attention focused on the illuminated window on the second floor.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

He could feel it in his gut.

Time to arrange for backup—and take action.

After tapping in Dev’s speed dial number, he pulled out his compact Sig and moved toward the back of Kate’s condo, staying in the shadows of the trees and bushes that bordered the front yard.

“This better be important. You’re interrupting my beauty sleep.”

At Dev’s mumbled greeting, he cupped a hand around his phone. “I need you on standby.”

Three seconds passed—and when Dev spoke again, no vestige of sleep remained in his voice. The man’s ability to go from cutup to über professional in the blink of an eye never failed to impress. “What’s up?”

He gave his partner a rapid-fire debrief. “She told me once she kept an extra key on her deck. I’m heading that direction now. If you don’t hear back from me in fifteen, get 911 here.”

“You want them now?”

“No. If something is going on in there, I’d rather take them by surprise.” He stopped next to the small deck and gave it a quick inspection. There were several potential hiding places for a key.

“You think this involves Sanders?”

“I don’t know how it could. His car is still at his house.”

“Okay. I’m on standby, and the clock is ticking.”

Tucking the phone back into its holster, Connor searched the most likely places for a hidden key.

He hit pay dirt with the water-filled plastic dog bowl beside the back door, stenciled with the name Rocky. The key was taped underneath Kate’s frugal security system. Probably effective, though. How many thieves would want to risk tangling with a canine named after a famous boxer?

Except he had a feeling it hadn’t worked tonight.

Sig at the ready, he fitted the key in the back door. Turned it. Twisted the handle.

Nothing.

There must be a dead bolt.

The key probably worked only on the front door.

Uttering a word he seldom used, Connor circled back to the front at a trot and tried again.

This time the door opened.

No lights were lit on the first floor—but faint illumination shone on the steps leading to the upstairs bedrooms.

He moved toward them, his rubber-soled sport shoes silent on the hardwood floor.

“No!”

At Kate’s sudden, panicked cry, a surge of adrenaline catapulted him up the stairs two at a time.

On the top step, however, he stopped, pressed himself against the wall, and looked around the corner, down the hall.

Light spilled from two rooms—and the sounds of a scuffle emerged from one of them, along with darting shadows.

“You want your son to live? Do it!”

The bottom dropped out of Connor’s stomach. That had to be Sanders. But how had he gotten away from the house undetected—on
his
watch?

A sob tore through the silence—and through Connor’s heart. “How do I know you won’t kill him too? That you won’t use your gun on him after you’re finished with me?”

Sanders had a gun.

Bad news.

And Kate’s words were slurred, as if she was barely conscious.

More bad news.

Crouching, Connor hugged the wall in the hall and crept closer.

“You’ll just have to trust me.”

More sounds of struggle. Fabric ripping. And then Kate burst through the door, her ripped blouse flapping about her, Sanders on her heels.

They both saw him at the same time.

But Kate was directly in front of Sanders, giving the other man a human shield.

He took advantage of it.

Throwing one arm around Kate’s neck, he pulled her back against his chest and aimed a Colt .45 at her head.

“Drop your gun.” Sanders’s voice was curt, but his hand was shaking. Whatever his plan had been, it was disintegrating—and he knew it.

But that didn’t help their situation. Desperate people were inclined to do desperate things.

Slowly Connor lowered his weapon to the floor.

“Move back.”

He retreated a few steps.

Sanders closed the gap between them, pushing Kate ahead of him until he was beside the gun. Then he kicked it behind him.

Connor did a quick assessment of Kate. Her pupils were dilated, and she seemed to be having trouble focusing and standing.

What had Sanders done to her?

“Go downstairs.” Sanders motioned for him to precede them down the steps.

Turning his back on a gun-toting maniac wasn’t his first choice, but when the man tightened his grip on Kate and she gasped, he didn’t have much choice.