Fear Familiar Bundle (163 page)

Turning away from the tree, she forced herself to pretend to look in her car for something. Maybe she'd imagined the watching stranger. She had to see if she could trick him. Whirling around, she caught a glimpse of the figure again, this time ten yards closer and darting behind a big azalea.

Panic pulsed through her veins, her heart trip-hammering in her ears. The man, and it was a man, was too tall to be Frost. This was a large, lithe man who moved with the grace of a cat. And he was stalking her!

The Mace canister was on the back seat. Moving as swiftly as her trembling body would allow, she opened the door, reaching inside and caught it, at the same time encountering a purring Familiar.

"You!" she breathed, barely able to stop the scream. "How did you get here?"

Familiar hopped into the front seat and leapt to the ground. With a cat's keen vision he stared directly at the place the man had disappeared.

Holding the can of Mace at the ready, Jennifer edged around the car. There was no sign of anyone. It could have been someone out walking. Or someone planning on burglarizing a house. That wasn't comforting, except she'd probably frightened him away. But where was his vehicle? It was hard to steal enough stuff without a car to haul it off in.

Her mind whirred in circles as she started walking down the street. Time was ticking away. If she was going to make it into Crush's house and out again, she had to move. She had only this night, this one chance, before Mimi's father called the cops. And the truth was, if J. P. Frost didn't call them, she'd have to.

Familiar was like a moving ink spot beside her feet, and he'd completely lost interest in the area where the stalker had last disappeared.

"Maybe he went on about his business," Jennifer said, hoping that her own voice would give her some comfort. "I'm just being paranoid because I know I'm getting ready to break the law."

"Indeed."

The voice came out of the bushes to her left. Jennifer screamed and jumped sideways into the gutter of the street. Her foot slipped off the curb and she felt herself falling.

Two very strong hands grabbed her flailing arms and pulled her upright— against a chest that ignited a thousand small memories.

"James!" She knew it was him instantly, even though she couldn't see any of his features behind the ski mask.

"Jennifer!" He was trying hard not to laugh. "Guilty conscience? You act like you're up to some mischief."

"You low-life heathen. You pond scum, mud-licking gar. You ambushing, yellow-bellied muckraker. I'm going to split you and toast you until your toenails turn black and curl!"

Unable to stop laughing, James pulled her closer to him and held on tight.

"Unhand me, you villain!"

That provoked even more laughter, though he did a good job of muffling it in her hair. "Stop, please. You're killing me with those wild threats. Even the ones that date back to the silent movies."

Jennifer pressed both elbows out with all of her strength. She didn't break free, but it did allow her enough space to draw back her foot and put all of her energy into a healthy kick.

James dodged, catching her beneath the knee and pulling up so that she fell backward into his waiting arm. "Any more dire threats, milady?"

Jennifer snatched the dark ski mask off his face to reveal a mouth crooked in amusement, and desire.

"Why did you feel it necessary to scare the daylights out of me?" she said through clenched teeth.

"I didn't actually mean to frighten you. I knew you'd seen me. I thought you were trying to ignore me, hoping I would go away, since you tried so hard to avoid me."

As he held her with his right hand, his left moved provocatively up her rib cage to rest just below the weight of her breast. Jennifer's gasp made his smile widen and a ray of light from a street lamp touched the hunger in his eyes. Before she could think, he kissed her.

The adrenaline of fear evaporated, replaced by the intense pleasure his lips aroused. Jennifer's anger was gone as quickly, and she felt her body begin to respond to his hungry kiss with a hot desire of her own. Her arms moved around his neck and she felt that he was the only stable thing in her world as she gave herself to the intensity of her feelings for him. She'd never known such irrational, unreasonable, completely glorious hunger.

With a muffled exclamation of pain, James straightened abruptly, pulling Jennifer to her feet.

"What?" She looked down the street, expecting car lights or the footsteps of someone approaching. James had straightened as if he'd been scalded.

James bent to rub his leg. "Familiar. He was reminding us that we're neglecting our business, and time is wasting." The cat took a swat at Jennifer's jeans-clad leg in a fit of frustration.

"Of course." Jennifer cleared her throat, trying to hide the sudden embarrassment she felt. Familiar was right. They'd been necking on the sidewalk in the middle of a break and entry. They were behaving like teenagers— especially in view of the fact that James had scared ten years off her life with his jumping out of the bushes. But the anger was gone, and she didn't really want to resurrect it. She tugged her T-shirt back into place and confronted the question of exactly how James had come to be stalking her right at the corner of Crush Bonbon's home.

"Eugene called and told you, didn't he?" She felt a spark of irritation— and then gratitude. She'd specifically told Eugene not to involve James, but the writer had a definite mind of his own.

"He did. He was worried about you. He said he wanted someone with a level head…"

"Level head! You? The man who's risking his career in this little gambit? What if you're caught? You'll be fired and never get another job at a newspaper."

"True." James directed her along the bushes and closer to Crush's side yard. "All of that is true. But I don't intend to get caught, and if we do find the goods on Crush, I'll have the scoop of the year in this town. Crush has pushed this into a national media story, and I can finish it for him."

Jennifer felt herself stiffen. Was it the story for James? Or concern for her and Eugene? The doubt passed in the split second that it arrived, but it still left her feeling strangely upset.

Unaware of the cause of her sudden silence, James led her to a picket fence. With a deft twist of his wrist, he removed two pickets and made a space for her to climb over without danger from the sharp wooden spikes. His long legs put him right over, and Familiar crept through the crack.

"We'll put the pickets back on the way out," he assured her.

There was no night-light in the back of Crush's lawn, and the trees were simply denser blacks against the smooth black of the lawn. Jennifer tripped over a garden hose but James caught her elbow before she fell. "Spend a lot of time in charm school?" he asked.

"You are infuriating. I can't see, you myopic microbe." She jerked free of him, determined not to do another thing where he could come to her rescue.

James's only response was a warm chuckle.

The house loomed in front of them, an older building with a warm glow of light in three of the windows.

"Crush will be here in just over half an hour." All teasing was gone from his voice as he went to work. His quick hands checked first one screen and then another. They were all latched at the bottom with hook-and-eye locks. All of the windows were up, allowing the cool April breeze redolent with magnolias, wisteria and a million other sweet Southern smells to blow through the house.

James pulled a small pocketknife from his trousers and slit the screen just enough to work a finger inside and pop the latch. Five seconds later he'd lifted the screen from the high hooks on the side of the house and set it on the ground. The house was open.

Motioning Jennifer forward, he cupped his hands to boost her up. "Hurry," he whispered. "Get in, take the first floor, and I'll search the second floor and the attic. Find the cellular phone, and meet me back here at the window."

"What— "

Before she could ask her question he'd boosted her up to the window and she was wiggling through. Her hands found a smooth, highly polished wooden floor and she pulled her legs in behind her and rolled into a crouch. Familiar dropped beside her, another victim of James's muscle. Standing perfectly still, he sniffed the air beside her. Familiar stepped out of the way just as James pulled himself up and into the house.

It took a few seconds to get their bearings, but the weak light from another part of the house gave them the vague outline of heavy, overstuffed furniture and Jennifer realized they were in a denlike room with a big-screen television.

A small flashlight was hanging from a cord around her neck and she pulled it out and began a methodical search of the room. There was a telephone, but it was conventional.

James waved her toward the kitchen as he crept to the staircase. One of the old steps creaked loudly as he began to make his way slowly up into what appeared to be a half story on the upper floor.

Jennifer moved through the brightly lighted, immaculate kitchen, taking care to duck below the windows just in case a neighbor should be watching. She negotiated the darkened, more formal living room and hall and entered the master bedroom. The bed was neatly made, no clothes tossed around like many bachelors were wont to do. In fact, the entire house was suspiciously clean.

A quick check of the dresser drawers and closet showed carefully folded and hung clothes, shoes arranged side by side in order of black to brown to white. The total organization made Jennifer's search a snap.

Jennifer had a bitter thought— clean house, clean mind. Or in Crush's case, empty mind. She hurried into the next bedroom and caught her breath.

The room was filled with stuffed animals. They hung from shelves on the walls and curled along the canopy of the beautiful bed. They clung to the bedstead and doorknobs, blending perfectly with the sunflower wallpaper. An entire bookshelf was filled with the stories of childhood. Fascinated, Jennifer stepped into the room and went straight to the bookshelf. Eugene's books were there, dominating the top row.

Jennifer's fingers closed around a copy of
Tribe of the Monkey Children.
She could hear her own breathing as she opened the book. Page 123 was missing— the exact page that had been left beside Mimi Frost's things when she was kidnapped.

"Holy cow." Jennifer hastily replaced the book, regretting now that she'd touched it and disturbed any fingerprints. To be on the safe side, she wiped the binding clean, cursing herself for such a stupid, careless mistake. She'd removed traces of her own prints, but she'd also taken anyone else's with them.

"Double damn!" She had to be more careful. Swinging the light around the room, she saw a telephone on the bedside table. It was designed like a red racing car, but it was conventional. With a sweep of the flashlight beam, she checked under the bed— nothing.

Throughout the search of the entire house there'd been no sign of a cellular phone. That disappointment was receding as Jennifer found more and more peculiarities that clearly implicated Crush in the disappearance of the two children.

The roof overhead creaked and Jennifer caught her breath. It was James, investigating the rooms above her, but it was still scary. The child's bedroom where she stood was eerie, filled with the dolls and stuffed animals that seemed to stare at her, waiting, watching, wanting a little girl or boy to play with them. A child that had never belonged to Crush Bonbon. "Creepy," Jennifer whispered, then looked down to discover that Familiar had abandoned her.

With each beat of her heart she knew her time was running out and she had to get out of the house before Crush returned. She checked her watch— ten forty-eight. Twelve minutes before Crush went off the air, and then maybe another ten minutes for him to drive home. There was time to go through the room, but she had to hurry.

She checked the drawers and found them as empty as the closet. No child had ever lived in the room. A closer inspection of some of the stuffed animals showed they still had their tags on them, and Crush had spent a pretty penny on some of them.

The bookshelf gave up no clues— except for the nearly complete collection of Eugene's books. It took her a moment to realize that Eugene's second book,
If Frogs Could Fly,
was the missing title. It was a delightful frolic about a redheaded boy whose classmates tormented him endlessly about his carrot top— until a wizard garbed in the disguise of a cardinal gives the young boy his wish, to be able to fly.

Jennifer had not worked at Grand Street Press when the book was originally published, but she knew every one of Eugene's works by heart, and she felt a surge of fear. In the book, the main character flew far from home to seek out adventure and to find friends who wouldn't make fun of his red hair. It was a harrowing adventure story filled with near tragedies, not to mention the fact that the boy's parents were hysterical with worry.

Jennifer's heart drummed in her ears as she thought through the possibilities of the missing book, coupled with the missing page in the other book. The evidence was circumstantial, but it certainly marked Crush as a prime suspect in the kidnappings— at least, in her opinion.

She forced herself to continue her search. If she could find one solid bit of evidence that Mimi or Tommy had been in the house, then she could call the authorities and demand action. Maybe there was even a clue as to where he was holding the children. She remembered Mimi's frightened voice and gritted her teeth in determination. If there was any way possible, she wanted to see those kids safe in their own beds before another night came around.

She went through the rest of the bookshelf. There were the standard childhood stories, from fairy tales to the more modern Dr. Seuss classics. Her flashlight beam returned to the top row of Eugene's works— all first editions, none of them signed. Jennifer's eye for detail noted that they'd been well read. Unlike most of the toys in the room, Eugene's books had seen a lot of use.

She had an impulse to take them, but knew it would be foolish. She crept out of the room to explore the bathroom.