Out of Control (15 page)

M
argot found herself flat on her butt. Her head spun in great, swooping curves like a nightmare amusement park ride. The golden disk swung lazily. Winking. Turning. Twirling in the breeze as the wind chimes clanked their hollow, horror flick theme song.

“…is it, Margot? Come on, breathe. What is it about the necklace?” Davy's voice penetrated the blanket of roaring in her ears.

She reached out, grabbed his hand. His long, warm fingers closed tightly around hers. “I pawned that thing today.” Her voice came out in a wispy croak. “Before my gym classes. Sixty bucks. He robbed me, but I would have practically paid him to take it off me.” She tried to swallow. Her throat bumped and scratched. “It's chasing me.”

Davy steadied her as she struggled to her feet. She reached out to stop its sickening, hypnotic swing, but Davy stopped her hand.

“It might have prints on it,” he said gently. “Let it be.”

She let her hand drop. Davy slid his arm around her waist, and she leaned into him gratefully.

“Why do you hate the necklace, Margot?”

“Long story,” she whispered.

“Yeah, I bet it is,” he said. “The time has come to tell it to me.”

Margot scanned the inky darkness that lay beyond the pool of light shed by the porch bulb. “He could be watching us.”

Davy pulled her inside and shut the door. “Let me get this straight. You pawned the necklace today. Your secret admirer bought it back, and attached it to your wind chimes. Right?”

She nodded. Her teeth had begun to chatter.

“So we've got a lead,” he said. “That's good news. The pawnshop will be closed by now, though. We'll have to go talk to the guy tomorrow.”

“I think I have his cell number,” Margot said. “He wrote it on the receipt while he was trying to flirt with me.” She fished in her jeans pocket and pulled out a crumpled sales slip.
Bart Wilkes
was scrawled on it, a cell phone number written beneath, heavily underlined.

Davy pulled out his own phone and dialed the number. Margot reached out for it. “He's more liable to talk to me than to you.”

He handed her the phone without comment. She listened to it ring. Ten, twelve…eighteen times. “Not picking up,” she said.

“Let's try the phone book. There can't be too many guys named Bart Wilkes in greater Seattle.”

He was in the book, but the phone just rang. Margot scribbled down the Central District address listed in the phone book. “I'm going to his house,” she said. “I'll hang out until he comes home. I can't wait.”

Davy looked for a moment like he was about to argue, and then he nodded. “I'll drive you.”

She was so dazed, it didn't occur to her to argue. She picked up Mikey and headed out the door with a shuffling zombie gait.

Davy followed her a moment later with a plastic freezer bag he'd found in her kitchen. He detached the pendant, careful to touch only the chain, and dropped it into the bag. “Try not to handle this,” he said, handing it to her. “I'll see if I can get somebody to run prints on it.”

“Don't worry. I won't.” She dropped it into her purse with a shudder of disgust and followed him out to the truck.

The flat quality of the silence in the truck inhibited her. She fished around for a loose end, a thread that might lead her into the story, but every thread led to such a complicated tangle. There was no good starting place, no clear middle. And no end in sight.

“I'm waiting,” he said.

His tone gave her something to react against. “Don't you give me that what-is-the-meaning-of-this-report-card-young-lady tone—”

“This is now officially my business,” he said. “If you don't want me to go to the police, cooperate with me. Right now.”

His flinty glance underscored how serious he was. She slid her fingers into Mikey's silky fur for comfort, and grabbed the first random thread that came to her head. “Nine months ago, I was seeing this guy, Craig Caruso,” she began. “He was a researcher in a biometrics firm.”

“Biometrics. Physical ID? Fingerprints, retina scans, that stuff?”

“Yes,” she said. “I was hired to revamp the Krell Biometrics web site, to make it more modern and edgy. That's where I met him.”

“So that's what you did for a living,” he said. “Web design.”

“I never told you that?”

“You never told me anything.” His voice was faintly accusing.

Margot stared down into her lap. “Oh. Well, anyhow. Things went relatively well for a while, and then they got strange.”

He made a noncommittal sound. “Strange how?”

“He got really tense and paranoid,” she said. “Started making noises about quitting his job. Said they were taking advantage of him, spying on him. He decided to break out on his own, rented a space and everything. Then one day I came home early from a conference and found another woman's panties in my bed.” She rubbed at her eyes with the backs of her arms. “So off I go, to Craig's new studio, to tell him what a worm he was, and he…” She blew out a sharp breath. “I found him hanging from the ceiling, dripping blood. Stuck full of needles.”

He glanced at her. “Whoa,” he said quietly. “That's severe.”

“Mandi, his assistant, was lying on the floor, half naked. Maybe dead already. I took one step towards Craig, and then, pow. Nothing.”

He frowned. “What do you mean, nothing?”

She fought down the nausea in her belly. “Meaning that I woke up in a motel room, hours later. Stark naked.”

He made a sound like he'd been dashed with ice water.

“My head was pounding. I'd been drugged,” she went on dully. “I found my clothes on a chair. My purse was there, minus the gun—”

“What the hell were you doing with a gun?” he demanded.

She winced. “It was so stupid. Craig had given it to me. I hated the thing. I was planning to give it back to him when I dumped him, but…well, anyhow. I put my clothes on and stumbled out to ask the front desk who had booked that room. They had no record of anyone checking in. As far as they knew, the room was empty. Nobody had seen this guy. Nobody had written down a name, or given him a key. I was carried up there and stripped naked by a ghost.”

“Weird.” His voice was thoughtful.

Her laughter had a bitter, crazy edge. “Hah. It gets worse. I called Dougie, my receptionist. He was hysterical. He'd gotten worried after a few hours, so he went to Craig's studio. He found the bodies, poor guy. They'd been shot, many times, at close range. He called the cops.”

“And?”

She stared at her hands, twisted into Mikey's fur. “They asked him lots of pointed questions about my relationship with Craig. Asked about Craig's infidelities. If I had a gun. If I was hot-tempered. Dougie's a smart boy. He told me to watch out. That they thought I'd killed them.” She covered her face. “Me. As if I were capable of slaughtering two people. God. I cried for a week when I had to put my cat down.”

She waited for some kind of cue from him. None was forthcoming.

She took a deep breath and forged on. “So that's it. I panicked. I ran. From the cops, from whoever framed me and took my clothes off me and put me in that room, from everyone. I stopped at a branch of my bank, wrote a check to cash, took out all my money. And that was the end of Mag Callahan. Maybe it was cowardly, but I was so scared.”

“I would have been, too,” he said.

She shot him a doubtful look. “You? Get out.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Me.”

“The ballistics analysis proved it was my gun that killed them. I should have gone to the police, I guess, but I was convinced that Craig's killer would get me if I poked out my nose. I followed the manhunt on the news. Little old me, the modern day Lizzie Borden.” She sighed. “I don't have family living. I decided not to contact my friends. I didn't want them endangered. Bad enough that I compromised poor Dougie.”

Davy caressed her bare shoulder. “What about the necklace?”

“Oh, that,” she said wearily. “I was wearing it when I woke up in the hotel room. Like his dog collar, or something. I haven't been able to find anything in the library or the Internet to explain where it's from or what it means. What scares me the most…” She shivered.

“Is what?” His voice was gentle.

“I wasn't supposed to wake up before he got back,” she said. “Suppose I'd woken up, say, an hour later? Maybe he just stepped out for a burger or to gas up his car. Maybe I got away from that monster by pure chance. It gives me nightmares.”

“There is no such thing as chance,” he said. “You got away because it's not your destiny to get eaten by a monster.”

She braced herself to ask the question. “So you believe me, then?”

He didn't answer for a long time. She tried not to hold her breath.

“Yes,” he said.

The simple word rang with sincerity. Her eyes filled.

It had been months since she'd had any point of reference in the world that was not her own shaky, vulnerable self. He'd just given her one, and she loved him for it. She sniffed back the tears and fumbled for something to get her over the awkward moment. “So do you think Craig's killer and Snakey are the same guy?” she asked.

He shot her an eloquent look. “You have doubts?”

“Hopes. Not doubts.” She shook her head. “I swear, I did everything I could to cover my tracks. Not that I'm any great shakes as a fugitive, but I did hitchhike all the way to—”

“You
what?
” He sounded outraged. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”

Her laughter had no real amusement in it. “Please. After what I'd been through, hitchhiking doesn't hold much terror for me. Besides, I got lucky. It went fine. I got lots of nice rides. Decent folks. No scary moments, comparatively speaking.”

He grunted his wordless disapproval.

“No, really,” she insisted. “Not all my luck is bad. I mean, look at Mikey. I defy you to show me a more incredibly special animal.”

Upon hearing his name, Mikey leaped up and put his paws on Margot's knees. Davy glanced down at the dog. “I decline the challenge.”

“Wise.” Margot echoed his cool, remote voice. “Very wise.”

“Let's get back to the subject,” Davy said. “You've had this stalker problem for what, two weeks? What have you done recently that's different from what you've been doing for the past months?”

“I did buy some fake job references,” she faltered. “But not with my old name. I got a job in a graphics firm in Belltown, but the place burned down ten days later. It was right after that when—oh. Oh, my.”

“It was your references,” he said. “They raised a red flag.”

“But I never used my old name,” she protested.

He shook his head, started the truck back up and drove on, giving her time to get used to the new ideas jostling in her mind.

“I just don't understand it,” she said forlornly. “I didn't step on anybody's toes. I didn't steal anything. I'm not rich, or connected. I don't have a microchip with a code to explode the planet embedded in my teeth. I just design web sites. That's all. Why I should grab somebody's attention to this extent? I swear, I'm just not that special.”

“Makes perfect sense to me,” Davy said.

Her head whipped around. “How do you figure?”

“I've been thinking about you since the moment I saw you,” he said. “You don't need a microchip in your teeth to get noticed.”

She licked her dry, swollen lips. “Oh,” she whispered. “Wow.”

“I can tell you, from direct personal experience, that there doesn't need to be any outside reason for this guy to have fixated on you. You yourself, Margot Vetter, are reason enough.”

She couldn't think of a reply at all for over a minute. “Um, I'm not sure whether to say, gee, thanks for what I think was a freaky, twisted sort of compliment, or to just throw up right now.”

His mouth twitched. “Please, please do not throw up in my truck.”

She started to giggle. “Oh, God. Why am I laughing? This is so not funny. And I just don't get it. Why play me like this? He could nab me or kill me any time he wanted. There's no one to stop him.”

“There is now,” Davy said.

She looked away. She wasn't ready for this soft, hopeful feeling unfolding in her chest. It was dangerous. Like everything else in her life, it could turn around and chomp her at any time.

“Did you get yourself checked out by a doctor?” he asked, his voice gentle.

“God, yes,” she said. “There was no evidence that I was raped, but I still feel raped. I don't know what happened when I was with him. I don't know what I did, or what was done to me. I don't know how I felt about it. I hate it. It makes me feel sick. And helpless.”