In Dark Waters (22 page)

Mitch gripped the steering wheel so tightly it was a miracle he didn't pull it off the steering column. Anger boiled inside him. Kelsey was being a damn fool. She was running scared and didn't have the sense of a gnat right now.

The last place he wanted to be now was his home where his sheets still smelled of Kelsey and their lovemaking. He turned right onto Main and headed to the office. So much for his day off. Pitiful.

He parked his car and strode inside. Mabel was sitting at her console.

She peered over her half glasses. "Don't tell me you volunteered to work today?"

"What's wrong with getting ahead?" His voice sounded harsher than he'd intended.

Mabel answered his surly manner with a look that had been perfected by mothers and teachers for thousands of years. "Don't bite my head off. You're the one that fell for Kelsey, not me."

"Don't tell me ESP is also one of your talents."

"It's a small town. More than a few folks saw the way you were mooning over that Warren girl at the picnic. And I hear you dropped her off at the scuba center this morning."

"I wasn't mooning. And mind your own business."

Mabel grinned. "
Lovesick puppy
was one of my favorite descriptions of you this morning."

Mitch muttered an oath. "This town is getting too small."

Before Mabel could answer, the dispatch radio buzzed. "Unit 26 to Dispatch. Unit 26 to Dispatch."

"Dispatch here 26," she said.

"The canines have found a body off Route 702. You might want to give the sheriff a call. It looks like Chris Hensel. He was murdered. Shot in the chest."

Mitch expelled a breath. Damn. "What's their position?"

Mabel glanced up at him. "Sheriff is standing right here."

"A half mile after 'The Flatlands' on the south side." The Flatlands was the police department's nick-name for a flat stretch of land. They had renamed most of the landmarks along Route 702, which extended the length of the county, to allow for quicker location identification.

"I'll be there in ten minutes." He went back to his office, retrieved his spare .45. "Mabel, call the state police and alert the coroner's office. Tell them we have another body."

"This is all feeling a little too coincidental, Mitch. Do you think we have a serial killer?"

"I don't know what the hell we have. All I know is that it's related to that quarry and somehow to Kelsey."

"Kelsey? So far, I just see a connection to her mother's body. What do Chris and especially the other Jane Doe have to do with Kelsey?"

"The Jane Doe was shot in the chest, too."

"Yeah. So?"

"Have the medical examiner see if he can connect the Jane Doe to Brenda Harris."

"Who is Brenda Harris?"

Mitch couldn't explain his hunch, but his gut told him to react on it. "Call Bill Cranston in Richmond and he will give you the details. He's an attorney on Main Street."

Stu grinned when he came out of the back room and discovered that Kelsey was there. But when he glanced at her red-rimmed eyes first and then the dog who stared at him with one cocked ear, his smile vanished.

He shook his head. "I figured you and Mitch were a train wreck ready to happen when I saw the way you two looked at each other at the quarry last week."

Kelsey rolled her eyes. "What makes you think this has anything to do with Mitch? I've had a lot going on lately."

"Kelsey, I'm old, but I'm not blind or deaf."

She sighed. "He wants me to stay in town for a while."

"Horrible."

"He said he cares about me."

"The bastard."

"Would you stop making fun of me?"

He limped toward her. "I've every right to. You're acting like a crazy woman. You've got a fine man like Mitch who'd like to spend some time with you and you're running away."

"I'm not exactly running."

"You're running like a scared rabbit." He held up his hand to silence her protest. "I know you've had good reason to run before. Hell, I'd have run from this town, if I was you, but you don't have to run anymore."

She scratched Buddy between the ears. "Mitch and I have a history."

He sighed. "I knew there had been something between you two, but I never realized it was so serious."

The pain and humiliation from eight years ago rolled over her. "I fell in love with him almost from the first time I saw him all those years ago. But I made a mistake and told him that I loved him."

"What did he do?" A hint of anger had crept into Stu's voice.

"I still remember the look of shock on his face." She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to block out the image. She opened her eyes. "He tried to tell me that he cared about me and that he wanted to be friends, but that was the last thing I wanted to hear after we'd just—" She stopped, too embarrassed to say.

Stu frowned. "If I'd have known that then, I'd have gone after that punk with a harpoon."

"Nothing happened that I didn't want. And I did give the impression that I had a certain amount of experience and I was just looking for kicks." But when she'd laid nestled in his arms that first time, the emotions had welled up inside her. All pretenses had melted away.

Stu let her talk.

"Looking back, I can see now why my words of love would have spooked him. I'd come across as some streetwise femme fatale and then I started spouting words of love." She sighed. "Talk about
Fatal Attraction
. He handled the whole situation as gracefully as possible."

"That's why you left town so suddenly that last summer."

"I needed to get away."

He sighed. "I didn't try to stop you because I knew you needed a fresh start. Ruth's house was not a happy place."

"No."

"Eight years is a long time. You're different. Mitch is different. Is a fresh start so bad?"

"It's very tempting and very frightening."

"No one said you had to marry the guy. What would it hurt to stick around for a couple of months?"

The dog started to wiggle in her arms and she set him down. "I'm supposed to be in Africa at the end of the summer to photograph leopards in Zimbabwe."

"You can fly out of Virginia as easily as the next place."

"Ruth's house is gone. I'm not sure where I could stay."

"Now you're grasping at straws. You know you can stay with me until you find a place and I'd bet Mitch wouldn't mind you bunking with him. The question is, do you have the guts to stick around and make a life here?"

A weight lifted from her shoulders. The worry melted away. "I could give it a try."

He grinned. "You sure could."

"I wasn't very nice to him this morning."

"Talk to him like you're talking to me and he'll get over it."

The bells on the front door of the shop jingled. "You've got a customer."

"Do you want a job here? I could use the help."

The offer caught her up short. Accepting it would mean she really was going to stay for a while. "Sure."

"Then it looks like
you've
got a customer. Give me the mutt and get to work."

She handed the dog's leash to Stu. "His name is Buddy. He might need a walk."

Buddy stared up at Stu, his large eyes looking especially pitiful. Stu shook his head. "Come on you oversized rat. Let's go out back."

Kelsey grinned as she watched the two head out the back door. She smoothed her hands through her hair and headed to the front.

Sylvia Randall leaned over a display case, her manicured finger tapping softly against the glass. She looked up and smiled. "Miss Warren, how are you?"

Kelsey hesitated then smiled. "Quite well, thank you. Is there something I could help you with?"

She lifted a neatly plucked eyebrow. "You work here now?"

"For the summer. I thought I'd stay a while."

"Why, I think that is a fine idea. Summer is the best time in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Where do you hope to stay?"

"I haven't figured that out yet."

"Well, you are resourceful and I've no doubt you'll find something very quickly."

Kelsey's gaze dropped to the display case filled with dive computers. "Did you want to buy another dive computer?"

"Actually, I wanted to speak with Stu—or you— about diving lessons. My husband loves the sport and I'd like to be able to dive with him on our next vacation instead of sitting on shore and reading magazines."

"I've given lots of lessons before—it's how I first supported myself until my photography became popular."

"How wonderful." She leaned a little closer and dropped her voice a notch. "To be honest, I'd rather learn from a woman. I can't say I'm excited about squeezing into one of those skintight suits and parading around."

Kelsey glanced at the woman's trim figure. "I think you'll look just fine."

"You're kind." Her blue eyes sparked with excitement. "My husband is out of town today. Could it be possible for us to start our lessons today? We've a pool and all the privacy we'd need."

Kelsey hesitated. "I'll have to check with Stu on his lesson rates."

"I'm sure it's all very reasonable." A faint smile tugged at the edge of her lips. "How about we meet at my place in an hour? That should give you enough time to gather the equipment we'll need and meet me out at my house. You do know where it is, don't you?"

The Randalls' home was one of the largest in the county. Who didn't know where it was? "Out on Route 702?"

"Exactly."

"I'll see you in an hour."

"Excellent." Sylvia grinned. "This is so much easier than I'd ever imagined."

Uneasiness flooded her. As Sylvia walked out of the shop, Kelsey pushed her worries aside, rationalizing that her nerves came from the decision to stay in Grant's Forge. For the first time in eight years, she'd be staying in one place long enough to build relationships. She thought of Mitch and knew she owed him a big apology. As soon as she finished her dive lesson with Sylvia, she vowed to find him and make amends.

Mitch watched the deputies load Chris's body into the coroner's wagon. His throat was tight with anger and sadness. Stu was going to be heartbroken. Chris and he had been friends for years.

Chris had been found off Route 702, about a half mile into the woods. His body had been lain in a shallow grave and covered with a layer of dirt, sticks and twigs. A preliminary look at the body showed that he'd been shot through the chest, just as the other two bodies had been.

He'd never believed in coincidences. In his gut, he knew whoever had killed Donna and Jane Doe had killed Chris. Three murders, each one spanning a decade. And somehow they were all connected to Kelsey.

He went to his car and dialed her cell number. The phone rang once and went straight to voice mail, which meant it was off. Then he remembered they hadn't bought a charger for it yesterday. Likely the batteries were dead.

She might not want to see him face-to-face now, but he didn't give a damn. He wanted to check in with her and let her know what was going on. He had a bad feeling about all of this. As soon as he visited Stu at the dive shop, he was going to track down Kelsey.

A maid let Kelsey into the Randall home and escorted her back to the pool area. The older woman quickly excused herself and left Kelsey alone by the pool.

Kelsey stood by the Randalls' glistening stone pool, surrounded by lush gardens that blended seamlessly into the mountainside. In the distance, nestled in the valley below, was the town of Grant's Forge.

The Randall home was more stunning than she'd ever dreamed. When Kelsey had first gotten her driver's license, she'd driven by and looked at the house. She'd tried to imagine what it would be like to live in a place like this. In those days, she'd been certain that living in such a lavish home would have solved all her problems.

Footsteps sounded behind her and she turned. Sylvia Randall appeared wearing flawless makeup, white linen pants, a silk top and Bandolino sandals. She looked lovely, but not ready to dive.

Kelsey wondered briefly if she'd misunderstood the woman, "Did I make a mistake? Are we going to have a lesson today?"

"A lesson." Her eyes darkened. "Yes, we are going to have a lesson today."

"What you're wearing is very lovely, but you may want to change into a swimsuit before we begin."

Sylvia walked to a chaise, sat down and stretched out her feet on the white cushion, "I thought we'd take a few minutes to get to know each other."

Frustration welled inside of Kelsey. She'd run around like a crazy woman this last hour trying to get herself together. While Stu had rounded up the equipment, she'd run to the ATM to get cash and then to the department store to buy a swimsuit, shorts, sandals and a couple of towels for herself. She raced down Route 702 as if her hair were on fire so that she wouldn't be late. And now Sylvia wanted to talk.

Customers. She'd seen them all. And in all honesty, she'd had stranger requests from them before. She smiled. "What would you like to know? My dive qualifications?"

"Oh, I have no doubt you are qualified, Miss Warren. Stu wouldn't have hired you if you weren't. I want to know about you. You've had a very colorful life."

Her guard slammed into place. "Maybe."

Sylvia steepled her manicured fingers in front of her. "It must have been hard to find your mother in that quarry."

Kelsey drew in a breath. "Mrs. Randall, I'm happy to discuss my dive qualifications and the jobs I've had, but I don't discuss my mother."

Sylvia smiled. "Please, call me Sylvia. I'm sorry, dear. I can imagine it must be very hard for you. She wasn't the ideal mother."

Pride had her coming to Donna's defense. "How would you know what kind of mother Donna was?"

"Well, for starters, you call her Donna. When's the last time you called her Mom?"

"Never."

Sylvia shook her head. An odd sense of sadness and anger sparked in her eyes. She rose from the chaise. "I knew your mother
very well
."

Curiosity got the better of her. Despite all the trouble Donna had put her through, Kelsey still found herself hungry for information about her. "I can't imagine you two as friends. You said you knew her from the University Club."