Killing Me Softly (15 page)

“Not much. Just another one, that's all.”

“Another one?” Nick looked sharply at the body bag on the table. “And you moved the body before I got the chance to—”

“You want in on things, keep your damned phone turned on. She was found at 6:00 a.m. when her housekeeper showed up. The crime scene was photographed, the evidence gathered. You're not the only one who knows what he's doing, Di Marco.”

Dr. Westcott unzipped the body bag. “Let's get her out of here,” she said. “Give me a hand.” Nick and the chief got up closer, and the three of them lifted the body just enough to peel the bag out from underneath, then lowered it onto the stainless-steel table again.

Dawn turned her face into Bryan's shoulder. He closed his arms around her, moving carefully, slowly, so as not to jostle the gurney that hid them or move the sheet draped over it. Leaning closer to her, he whispered, “Are you seeing any…you know, dead people?”

She shook her head. “Just the one on the table. But
look
at her, Bry.”

“I am.” And he was. From this distance, with the thin sheet as a veil, he could have been looking at Dawn's lifeless body on that table. The lean length of her, the
long, straight hair, the delicate facial features. At least there were no colors—all they could see was her silhouette, due to the sheet.

“She was found in her bed?” Nick asked.

“Yeah, just like all the others,” MacNamara told him. “Shot glass beside her, whiskey in her mouth. Ligature marks suggesting strangulation.”

Westcott was already flipping on the light above the table, leaning over the dead woman, getting far closer than Bryan ever would have wanted to. He needed to get Dawn the hell out of here. This wasn't anything she had to see. But they were trapped where they were, and she was starting to shake. He held her a little tighter and wished with everything in him that he could make this go away. He hated seeing her suffer this way. “Hold on,” he whispered directly into her ear. “It won't be much longer.”

She nodded and lifted her head, turning slightly and staring at the table through the sheet. Seeming to gird herself, she stiffened her spine; he felt it, and he saw her eyes narrow as she focused on the body.

He knew what she was doing then. She was trying to talk to the dead girl. And Bryan didn't know whether to hope she would succeed or pray she would fail. If she could get an answer, he might get his life back. But if she saw the dead again, she was probably going to run away when this was over. All the way back to the West Coast.

It was a no-win proposition for him either way.

Dr. Westcott was moving her gloved hands over the
corpse now, feeling the neck, the shoulders, the slender, still arms, all the way down to the dead woman's bagged hands. As she lifted one arm, even through the sheet Bryan saw the darker-colored bruising—or at least it looked like bruising—on the underside of it.

He knew Dawn saw it, too, when she tensed.

“He beat her,” she whispered, lips moving near his ear, barely any breath emerging, barely any sound.

“No, Dawn. It's normal. Just the blood pooling at the lowest points. Gravity does that. He didn't do it.”

“Why's she wearing a watch?” Dr. Westcott asked, interrupting their nearly silent conversation.

The chief shrugged. “It's what she had on when we found her.”

“Who the hell wears a watch to bed?” Westcott asked. The flaring of her temper made both Nick and the chief look at her in surprise. She bit her lip, nodded firmly. “Sorry. I'm getting tired of cutting up gorgeous young women in their prime because of this jackass, whoever he is. Get him, will you?”

“You know we will,” Nick promised, and he moved closer. “So, little lady, why were you wearing your watch to bed? Hmm?” He bent and stared at it, and then he straightened and shook his head. “She wasn't.”

The other two both looked at him, and he nodded at the dead woman's wrist. “It's on upside down. She wouldn't have been able to read it. Someone else put this watch on her. Ten to one it was Nightcap. Gimme a bag, Rita.”

Dr. Westcott was already striding away from the
table, and in an instant she handed Nick a pair of cutting pliers, then held the plastic bag for him. “Here, snip the band. Less chance of disturbing trace evidence that way.”

He nodded, slid the shears underneath the watchband, snipped, then clamped the end of the pliers onto the cut band and held the watch up. Turning it slowly, he studied it. From his hiding place, Bryan did, too.

Dawn lifted her head from his shoulder to take a look for herself, and she kept on looking, even moving the sheet slightly so she could peer around it.

Nick dropped the watch into the waiting evidence bag and let the pliers clatter onto an otherwise empty instrument tray. “Take that back with you, would you, Chief?” he asked, handing the bag over and taking two steps toward the door, almost as if his motion would pull the chief along in his wake. “I want to hang out here a bit longer.”

“Don't be long. I want you out at the crime scene ASAP.” Yanking a pad from his pocket, he scribbled on it, tore off the top sheet and thrust it at Nick. “Here's the address. Be there within an hour.”

“Sure.”

The chief went out the door. Nick stood there, watching for a moment, then he turned and gave a nod. Bryan pushed the gurney away from them and stood, then helped Dawn get to her feet.

She was pale, and he thought he saw beads of sweat on her forehead.

“I know,” he told her. “That was way too close.”

“Yes, it was,” she said. “But that's not what has me shaking like a leaf right now, Bryan.” He frowned, tilting his head and scanning her face. Was it the dead? he wondered. Had the dead woman's ghost risen up and spoken to her? God, he couldn't imagine how frightening it must be to live with something like that.

Rita Westcott and Nick were staring at her just as intently, so he couldn't come out and ask. She pressed her lips together, swallowed, then spoke again. “It's not what you're thinking, either, Bryan. It was…it was my watch. That dead girl was wearing my watch.”

 

Bryan drove, because Dawn was still shaking. She sat there, head back, eyes closed, telling herself it was stupid to be scared.

“What do you think about Nick's offer?” Bryan asked.

She felt her brows pull into a frown. “It's not my call, Bryan. I mean, you know him better than I do, and you're the one who's going to end up in jail if they find us.”

“And you're the one who's going to end up—” He cut himself off, but she knew the next word, the one he hadn't spoken.
Dead
.

“Do you really think we can trust him not to rat you out if we stay in his cabin like he wants us to?” she asked. She didn't open her eyes, just waited.

“I trust him,” Bryan said. “Nick Di Marco doesn't say anything he doesn't mean. If he says he'll keep it to himself, he will.”

She nodded, mulling over their options. “Have you seen it? This cabin of his?”

“Yeah.”

“So what's it like?”

He shrugged. “Isolated. It's out near the falls, a good distance from just about everything else.”

“So it's either very safe or very dangerous.”

“If no one knows we're there, we can lean toward ‘very safe,'” Bryan said. “It's small, but nice. Got a fireplace, full kitchen, big front porch, bigger back one.”

She opened her eyes. “Phone, Internet, indoor plumbing?”

“Satellite dish on the roof,” he said. “That takes care of the TV and the Internet. No cell reception that far out of town, but there is a landline. And yes, it has fully functional indoor plumbing.”

She sighed. “I
am
getting sick of takeout, and those microwaved baked potatoes were just sad. A real kitchen would be nice.”

“So?”

She shrugged. “So I'll mull it over while we go talk to Olivia Dupree again.”

“Good enough.” He looked at her, then went quiet again.

She swallowed and nodded. “Yes, the watch was in my purse.”

“But you went through the purse after the locket showed up on the last body. You didn't notice anything else missing,” he said.

“I don't keep an itemized list of the contents of my
handbag, Bryan. So shoot me. I didn't notice anything else missing, but now I'm telling you that watch was in there. It needs a new battery, so I grabbed my spare and threw that one in, and then just forgot about it, with everything going on. There could be other things missing that I just didn't notice. A handbag is just a catchall to me, you know that.”

“Okay, so it was in your bag, and there might be other things missing that we aren't yet aware of. Got it.”

“That makes me doubly suspicious of Jaycam,” Dawn said slowly. “He was there that day I left the car unlocked and came back to find my bag dumped all over the place.”

Bryan sighed. “It doesn't make any sense, though. He doesn't even know you. Why would he want to torture you like this?”

“I don't know.”

“It just feels…personal, you know? Maybe…maybe we should be looking at
your
enemies, Dawn. Maybe this whole thing is directed at you. Setting me up, knowing it would bring you back here, could have been the first step.”

She frowned, as a dark fear settled even more deeply into her mind. “But who would want to do that to me?”

“Think about it. Do you have any unpleasant history with anyone?”

“You mean, besides you?” She said it as a joke, a lame attempt to lighten the mood, but his quick look
told her it had missed the mark. “No, Bry, that's not what I meant. You know I don't believe you could have done any of this.”

He nodded, but she could tell the barb still stung, even though she hadn't meant it that way.

“I haven't been as cruel to anyone as I was to you,” she said quickly. “I hope I never will be.”

He glanced at her again. “Is that an apology?”

“No. This is. I'm sorry, Bryan. I'm so sorry my cowardice hurt you the way it did.”

“You're no coward, Dawn. That much I know.”

“I ran away. I was too afraid to face who and what I was.”

He shrugged. “It drove your father mad. Turned him into a killer.”

She nodded and fell silent. But then she blinked and looked at him again. “Do you think there's any way he could have something to do with all of this?”

“Who? Mordecai?”

The sound of his name made her want to look around fast, to be sure it hadn't somehow summoned him. But there was no sign of her long-dead father. No sign of any ghosts.

“Dawn, he's dead,” Bryan said softly. “He can't get to you anymore.”

“He could before I left. What's changed so much?”

“I don't know. But I think if he could still get to you, he would. Don't you?”

She frowned, then nodded. “Maybe he's finally—I don't know—at peace or something.”

“Or burning in hell.” He bit his lip. “Shit, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”

She shrugged. “I was thinking it, too. But…”

“But?”

She drew a breath. “It's like I'm afraid to say it. Afraid it will make it true. That's stupid, isn't it?”

“You're a lot of things, Dawn, but stupid isn't one of them. Tell me, what are you thinking?”

“Maybe…maybe he
can
still get to me. Maybe…this is how. Maybe it's the only way he still can.”

“Dawn…”

“I think he…he wants me with him, Bryan. I think he's come back for me, and he's going to keep on killing innocent women until he gets the one he's come for. Until he—” She choked on the sob that blocked the rest of her words, then suddenly just burst into tears and covered her face with her hands.

“Oh, hell.” Bryan slowed the car to a stop on the shoulder of the road, then turned and pulled her into his arms. “Come on, Dawn. Come on, baby, it's not that. You know it's not that.”

“How?” she muttered, her words muffled by his shoulder. “How can I know?”

He ran a hand through her hair to push it out of her eyes and stared down into them. She blinked at him through her tears.

“I won't let him get to you. I won't let
anyone
hurt you, Dawn—living or dead. I promise.”

“If it
is
him—”

“It's not.”

“But if it is,” she pressed, “then we can't beat him. You know that, Bryan. You knew him.”

“Yeah. I knew him. But don't forget, Dawn, we beat him once already.”

She blinked, oddly reassured by that simple reminder. “We did, didn't we?”

“And we can do it again. And I'll tell you something else, too. If we can take on your father and win, then there's no one else who stands a chance against us. Including the mortal human murderer who's behind all this.”

She sighed, the tension leaving her all at once. “Thank you, Bryan. I don't deserve you.”

“No. You deserve someone a whole lot better.”

She lifted her eyes to his. “There isn't anyone better.”

He smiled just slightly, and then his gaze locked on her lips. She closed her eyes, waiting for the kiss she knew was going to come.

But instead she felt his arms fall away as he put the car into gear again and started driving.

She'd lost him. She'd forgotten that for one precious moment. And she had no one to blame but herself. She'd walked away from the best man she would ever find. She never should have left him.

And she knew, right then, that she wouldn't make the same choice again. Not knowing what she knew now. She would face all the ghosts there were—she would face down Mordecai Young himself—if it meant keeping Bryan's love for her alive.

But she couldn't do it all over again. It was done. His love for her was dead; she'd killed it. And not even its ghost was going to come back to her now.