Authors: Ingrid Weaver

Tags: #mobi, #Romantic Suspense, #Paranormal Romance, #Fiction, #Shadow, #epub

Delaney's Shadow (24 page)

BOOK: Delaney's Shadow

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“If our lab has time, but I doubt whether there are useful prints. Anyone who watches TV these days knows enough to wear gloves.”

“But you will speak with Miss Graye, yes?” Leo persisted.

“I’ll follow every avenue of investigation. In the meantime, call me if there are any further developments.” He handed each of them his business card, then stood, signaling that the interview was at an end.

They returned to the car. Delaney waited as Leo fidgeted with his seat belt, then started the engine and pulled onto the street. The traffic had thinned while they’d been in the police station. Nevertheless, she kept her attention on the road and a firm grip on the wheel. “Toffelmire didn’t sound hopeful,” she said.

“I didn’t expect him to. Our primary aim today was to get an official record of this incident.”

“And also to get those photos out of the house. I hadn’t known you had copies, Leo.”

“I saw no reason to upset you with that particular detail. I’ll add the police report to the affidavits I’ve already gathered from the staff at Grayecorp.”

“You can add my phone records that cover the night of the accident, too. It proves Elizabeth called me. You obtained them, didn’t you?”

“It wouldn’t support our harassment case, since there’s no record of what you discussed. The affidavits should provide sufficient basis to get a restraining order against Elizabeth.”

“Do we need to go that far?”

“I realize you weren’t keen on taking the offensive the first time I raised the subject, but in light of what she’s just done, it’s the prudent course to pursue.”

“All right. Do whatever you need to do.” Two weeks ago, she had refused to consider bringing legal action against her stepdaughter. She’d tried to be patient, but Leo was right. It was the only reasonable course. Her loyalty to her husband didn’t extend to allowing herself to be victimized . . .

The thought niggled at something in her mind. A memory stirred briefly, then subsided into the darkness.

In its place rose the image of Stanford’s charred skull. She shivered.

“Delaney?” Leo touched her elbow.

The pressure on her sleeve set off an echo of panic. She yanked her arm free. The car swerved toward an oncoming delivery van.

Brakes screeched. The van’s horn blared. Delaney wrenched the wheel to the right, barely avoiding sideswiping the vehicle.

Leo grunted as he was thrown into his seat belt. “What happened?”

She pulled into a vacant spot at the curb. It was in front of a fire hydrant, but she didn’t care. She needed time to catch her breath. She flexed her fingers. “My hand must have slipped. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He blotted his forehead against his sleeve. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you drive.”

“I don’t need your permission,” she snapped.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“You have no right to decide what I can or can’t do. You—” She halted. Leo wasn’t the one she wanted to say that to, just as it wasn’t Leo’s touch that she’d been trying to free herself from.

God. What
had
happened?

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I thought I might have been remembering something, but it’s gone now.”

“About the accident? Delaney, you’re not still attempting to push past your block, are you?”

“I’m making progress, Leo.”

“At what cost?” he asked, waving one hand toward the traffic. “I’ve told you what I think about that idea. There’s no need to torment yourself further. Wasn’t seeing those photos of Stanford traumatic enough?”

Blackened eyeholes. Shreds of burned flesh. In her mind, she heard the screech of twisting metal and breaking glass and the liquid gurgle of her husband’s agonized screams . . .

She tried to blank the nightmare image. “What if Elizabeth doesn’t want me to remember, either?”

“Why would you say that?”

“It could be the real reason she sent me those pictures.”

MAX PRESSED THE HEEL OF HIS HAND TO HIS FOREHEAD. The image of a corpse had flashed across his vision. Red and black, with patches of bone gleaming through the gore, like something out of one of Deedee’s nightmares.

He closed his eyes, opening his mind as he listened for her, but she wasn’t calling to him. His thoughts touched the edges of hers. He didn’t sense the skin-peeling agony that accompanied her nightmares. She wasn’t asleep; her mind was too alert. She stiffened, as if she recognized his presence.

He stroked her fingers and eased away without completing the link.

“Hey, Johnny, you holding out on me?”

The sound of Oz’s voice brought him the rest of the way back with a snap. Max blinked and lowered his arm.

Lamont Osborne leaned against the support column at the edge of Max’s kitchen, his arms crossed over his massive chest. Tattoos crowded his coffee-colored skin. He had the swelled-tight, no-neck build of a weightlifter, a product of years of free access to the exercise facilities at various penal institutions.

He’d been finishing up a stint for grand theft auto when he’d shared a cell with Max. Out of necessity, they’d fallen into the habit of watching each other’s backs. Aside from that and a mutual determination never to get locked up again, they had little in common. This was only the second time he’d looked Max up since he’d gotten out. “You’re high,” Oz said. “What are you on?”

“I’m not on anything.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Hell, are you still doing that spooky thing?”

“Depends what you mean.”

“Zoning out. That used to scare the crap out of me.”

Max laughed. One aspect of living in a cage was the complete lack of privacy. The first time Oz had seen Max “zone out,” he’d thought he was having some kind of fit and had yelled for the guard. After that, he got accustomed to the occasional naps with open eyes that his cell mate took. Max opened the refrigerator, took out two cans of Coke, and tossed one to Oz. “Here.”

His lips curled as he regarded the can. “Don’t you have any beer?”

Max didn’t have beer. He kept no liquor of any kind in his house because he never drank it. The smell made him nauseous. “If you want a drink, there’s a roadhouse on the highway south of town,” he said, popping open the Coke. “According to their sign, the band doesn’t start until eight. If you leave here now, you won’t need to pay the cover charge.”

Oz shrugged and opened his can. “This’ll do.” He took a long swig, burped, and pushed away from the column. He wandered into the living area, his boots thudding on the floor. It was hardwood, like the rest of the house. A fireplace of fieldstone took up one wall. The furniture was large and upholstered in oxblood leather. Oz dwarfed it as he sat. “So, it looks like you’re doing okay for yourself.”

“I get by. What about you?”

“Can’t complain.” He used his chin to point to the painting that hung over the mantel. It was one of Max’s earliest works, a depiction of a summer thunderhead. “Do people really buy this shit?”

“Nobody bought that one.”

“I remember when you started messing with those paints. I thought you were just trying to suck up to the social workers.”

“I was.”

“It sure paid off. What kind of money would you charge for one this big?”

“I leave the pricing to the galleries. They’ve got a better idea of what their clients are willing to pay.”

“Ten grand? Twenty?”

“Why? You looking to invest in art?”

Oz laughed. A diamond stud flashed from his earlobe. “No way. If I can’t wear it or drive it, it won’t impress the ladies. What good is that?”

Max thought about the Mustang he’d seen Oz park behind his Jeep. It was cherry red and probably hot. “What happened to your girlfriend? Luanne, wasn’t it?”

“Her? She’s long gone. Hooked up with a dude who runs a diner.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yeah. She packed on at least a hundred pounds.”

“I thought you liked a woman with meat on her bones.”

“Not if she’s liable to crush me if she rolled over.” He drained his Coke, pancaked the can between his hands, and held it up to illustrate his point. “Nope, the cook can have her.”

“Where are you living these days?”

“I move around.”

“How’s the car business?”

“Why? You looking to buy one?”

They went around like that for almost an hour, talking about nothing as they felt each other out. Max took the empty cans and dropped them into the recycle bin. Oz made a crack about what a good citizen he had turned into. It wasn’t until they’d moved out to the back deck so Oz could have a smoke that he worked his way to the reason he’d come. He propped one hip against the railing as he drew on his cigarette. “You keep in touch with anyone else from inside, Johnny?”

Max shook his head. “Haven’t heard from anyone besides you.”

“That’s right.” He blew a smoke ring toward the yard. “You kept to yourself. I wasn’t the only one who thought you were weird.”

“Works for me, Oz.”

“Then you didn’t hear he’s dying.”

“Who?”

“That guy you tried to kill. Budge.”

The breeze that had been wafting across the deck suddenly dropped. The birds in the woods went silent. Or so it seemed as time crawled to a halt. Max braced his hands on the railing. He couldn’t feel the wood. An insulating distance was settling around him. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Liver cancer. A friend of mine was doing time at the Ohio state pen, got out last month. He told me about Budge, said they’re shooting him up with a bunch of drugs at the medical center, but it’s a waste of time. They say he’s only got six months, maybe a year.”

“Couldn’t happen soon enough.”

“Yeah, figured you’d say that.”

“The bastard doesn’t have the right to draw even one more breath.”

“Some preacher’s been going to bat for him. Said he got religion and is a changed man.”

“He snowed him like he snowed the judge. He would never change.”

“That’s why I thought you’d want to know he’s on the way out.” Oz flicked his cigarette butt toward a patch of dirt. “Just in case you’ve got a mind to party.”

Max remained where he was long after Oz had left. Clouds rolled in to cause an early dusk. The nightly chorus of bullfrogs started up. The wood beneath Max’s fingers was beginning to splinter from the force of his grip on the railing, but he couldn’t risk letting go. Not until the rage was back under control.

He should have killed Virgil himself. He should have looped that belt around his throat and finished him instead of enjoying the sound of his screams and the slick heat of his blood.

It was right here, on this very spot, that he’d last seen him. The deck had been built over the place where there had once been a cement foundation block that had served as the trailer’s front step. Virgil had crawled through the doorway and slid over the step to the dirt when he’d heard the sirens, the only time in his life he’d been eager to see the police. They’d taken a while getting out of their cars so Max had still had the opportunity to end it. He could have slammed the bastard’s head against the cement block and split his skull open before the cops could reach them. Or he could have driven the steel-reinforced sole of his construction boot into his throat and crushed his windpipe, but that would have been too easy. He’d wanted him to suffer and bleed and whimper the way Mommy always did . . .

Max realized he was on his knees. He hadn’t been aware of dropping. His legs had simply given out on him. He shoved the heels of his hands against his forehead, the same way he’d done when the skull from Deedee’s nightmare had slipped into his mind, only this wasn’t her past; it was his.

His mother had been the one to call the cops. She’d lied even then. She’d never once stepped in to protect her son or herself, but she’d committed perjury to protect her husband, and all in the name of love.

He pushed himself to his feet. Violence bubbled within him like a living thing. He’d believed he’d buried the past. He’d wiped out every trace of the evil that had happened here, but all it took was the thought of Virgil, and the beast he’d once released was eager for one last chance. He didn’t want to leave Virgil’s death to fate. He still wanted to do it himself.

He lifted his gaze to the light that shone through the trees. He thought of Deedee.

And the violence shifted to something equally primitive.

SIXTEEN