Scene of the Crime: Deadman's Bluff (11 page)

Although it was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done, he stepped toward her, kissed her on the forehead and grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around to face the direction of the hallway.

“Go to bed, Tamara. I think that’s the best thing for both of us, to go to bed alone and get a good night’s sleep.”

She looked back at him one last time, her beautiful eyes filled with the longing that he felt deep in his soul. He kept his features set and stern, refusing to give in to her, in to his own base needs.

“Good night, Tamara.”

She released a small sigh of obvious dissatisfaction.

“Good night, Seth.” As he released his hold on her shoulders, she walked down the hallway toward the guest bedroom.

She paused at the door and gazed back at him one last time and he fought the need to sprint down the hallway to her door. Instead he turned his back and walked to the hall closet where the top shelf held the sheet and pillow he’d been using to sleep on the sofa.

By the time he’d gotten his bed linens, she was gone and her bedroom door was closed. He was grateful for he knew another minute of seeing her in that clingy little black dress, another moment of thinking about the lush warm welcome of her lips against his and he’d lose all resolve to be smart.

Within minutes he was on the sofa, his gun within reach on the coffee table and his thoughts a mass of chaos that let him know sleep would be a long time coming.

Trying to keep his thoughts away from Tamara, he focused on the three guys he’d interviewed that day. They were just kids, trying to find their way through life, but that didn’t mean that one of them wasn’t a killer. Although he’d told Tamara that Sam was simply a person of interest, the truth of the matter was that all three of the kids were at the top of the suspect list and had been since the moment Tamara had been found.

Whoever the perp was, it was obvious, at least at this point in the investigation, that the only connection between the victims was the dark color of their hair, which probably meant he was playing out some sort of rage against a dark-haired woman who had negatively impacted his life.

It could be a mother, a sister or an ex-girlfriend. It could be a childhood friend or a woman who’d snubbed him in a way he found offensive. There was just no way of knowing at this point in the investigation.

He closed his eyes and tried to stay focused on the crimes, but his mind filled with the way Tamara’s eyes had sparkled in the dim light of the restaurant, of how easy and natural it had felt for the two of them to be out dining together.

It felt easy whenever they were together. Despite the fact that she had few memories of her past, they never ran out of conversation and he felt as if he could tell her almost anything and it would be all right.

Was that the way it had been with Linda and Mark when they’d first met? Had they felt a leap in their pulse each time they saw each other? Had they wondered what the other was thinking, feeling when they weren’t together?

How could a couple who had appeared so in love when they’d wedded come to hate each other so much in the ten years of their marriage?

Seth had seen too many divorces in his lifetime to believe that there was such a thing as lasting love. In any case, even if he did change his mind, Tamara was the wrong woman at the wrong time.

He drifted off to sleep and dreamed of the dunes. They rose up in a moonlight setting like an alien world he didn’t know. He wasn’t on his dirt bike but rather was walking.

Ahead he saw Tamara lying in the sand while a dark figure shoveled sand over her prone body.

She yelled his name, her voice filled with terror and he tried to run faster but the earth beneath him was suddenly like quicksand, sucking him down with each step.

He jerked awake, heart pounding with adrenaline, assuming it had been his own cry of fearful frustration that had pulled him from the nightmare.

Then Tamara screamed.

Seth grabbed his gun and raced down the hallway. He opened her door and flipped the light at the same time. He took in the scene in an instant...the missing screen, the opened window and Tamara in the bed.

“At the window,” Tamara managed to stutter. She clutched the sheet up tightly around her neck, as if the cotton was some magical material that could protect her from harm.

“Go to the living room,” he said curtly and then turned and bumped into Linda in the hallway. “Get her to the living room and stay there.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but stalked toward the front door, hoping he wasn’t too late to find whoever had attempted to get into Tamara’s bedroom.

The night air was warm and humid, the grass beneath his bare feet damp with dew. He headed toward the back of the house instinctively knowing the perp would have run back that way rather than toward the street where there was more light.

Linda’s backyard wasn’t fenced, nor were her neighbors’, giving Seth a half a dozen options for pursuit. He jogged to the edge of the property and then stopped, listening to see if he heard the sound of running feet, sensed a presence hiding nearby.

Nothing.

As he gazed in all directions with narrowed eyes he figured the perp was long gone, having made tracks when Tamara had screamed.

God, that scream, coupled with his nightmare, still had the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. He stood as still as a statue for several long minutes, then believing the danger passed, he walked back to the window to check out the damage. He stayed far enough away that he wouldn’t be contaminating any evidence.

The screen was on the ground and the window was wide open. If Tamara had slept another minute longer the person would have been in the room and on top of her. It would have been easy for her to be overwhelmed, perhaps drugged and then dragged out the window and into the night.

Dammit. He cursed himself soundlessly. He’d been so stupid. With all the news in the media about the murders and her amnesia, with him parading her all around town, of course the killer had known exactly where to come to find her.

And it wasn’t just Tamara he’d put at risk with his own thoughtlessness, but also Linda and Samantha as well, both brunettes and both potentially fitting the killer’s profile.

He’d put everybody he cared about at risk by not anticipating that the killer would return for Tamara. Because nothing had happened so far he’d thought maybe the killer’s focus had moved to somebody else, but this was proof he apparently had somebody in the house in his sights.

This had been a tragedy averted, but things had to change and they had to change immediately. The first thing he needed to do was check on Tamara and make sure she was okay. The second thing he wanted to do was call Tom and get somebody over here to dust the window for fingerprints or any evidence that might have been left behind.

He only hoped this near-miss might actually yield some clues.

* * *

T
HE FIRST THING
T
AMARA
thought when Seth walked into the front door was that he looked lethal and hot in a pair of boxers with every muscle tensed and his gun in his hand.

“You both okay?” he asked, his gaze going to Linda and then to Tamara, who sat side by side on the sofa.

“Just shaken up a little,” Tamara admitted. “Thank God I woke up when I did.” She fought a shiver as she thought of that moment when she’d suddenly awakened and seen the dark shadow of a man at the window.

Seth walked over to the coffee table and picked up his cell phone. Tamara and Linda sat silently while he made a call to Sheriff Atkins.

“I guess you didn’t see him outside,” Tamara said.

“I didn’t even know which direction to give chase,” he replied. “You two stay here and don’t open the door for anyone but Tom and I’m going to get dressed and head back to the bedroom to check out the window.”

As he disappeared down the hallway, the shiver Tamara had tried to control swept over her. Linda leaned over and patted her hand. “How about a cup of hot tea? Maybe that would take away some of the chill.”

Tamara nodded absently. Her thoughts were scattered. She knew she should be scared to death...and she was, but she also felt as if she was still trapped in a bad dream where nothing seemed quite real. There was a faint numbness that had swept over her through the past couple of minutes, a numbness that kept her from screaming once again in terror.

Seth returned to the living room, this time wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He frowned with concern at her. “Are you sure you’re okay? He didn’t hurt you in any way, did he?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t even get inside the room. I don’t know what woke me up, but I opened my eyes and he was there at the window and I just screamed.”

At that moment a knock on the door indicated the arrival of the local law. Seth opened the door to admit both Sheriff Atkins and Raymond Michaels. As he led them back into the bedroom, Linda urged her to join her at the kitchen table for a cup of hot tea.

“You need anything else?” Linda asked sympathetically as Tamara sat across from her at the table and cupped her hands around the warmth of the mug. “You look a little shell-shocked.”

Tamara forced a smile and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was just a few minutes after two. “Don’t you feel a little of the same? I’m sure the last thing you expected was for some man to try to break into your house in the middle of the night. I think the best thing for me to do is head back to Amarillo first thing in the morning.”

“Let’s wait and see what Seth and the sheriff have in mind,” Linda said, appearing unruffled by the middle-of-the-night chaos. “It’s never any good to make decisions in the heat of the moment.”

Tamara sipped her coffee, her thoughts scattered in every direction. Somebody had tried to get to her through the window. Seth had kissed her and thoughts of her previous marriage brought with them a sense of anxiety that made no sense. The kiss and the odd feeling concerning her marriage had kept her awake for a long time after she’d gone to bed.

It was easy to figure out why the kiss had kept her awake. Seth’s lips against hers had fired a heat inside her that, despite her amnesia, she was certain she’d never felt before.

She knew he was right, that the two of them making love would only complicate what was already a muddled situation, but she’d so desperately wanted to be in his arms, to feel the warmth of his nakedness against her own. She’d wanted to leave this place with a single memory of making love to Seth to take with her back home.

She frowned and took a sip of the hot tea, knowing that her mind was focusing on Seth and what might have happened between them rather than what had just happened...somebody had tried to get to her, probably the same somebody who had already once buried her in the dunes.

The Sandman. It didn’t take a brilliant scientist to make an educated guess that the person who had tried to get into the house was the serial killer, and that his goal was to finish the job he’d started.

Even the warmth of the tea couldn’t stanch the shiver of horror that shuddered through her, a horror that eased somewhat as Seth came back into the room, followed by Tom and Raymond.

“Whoever it was must have worn gloves,” Tom said. “Raymond here dusted the sill and screen and couldn’t find any prints. You were lucky you woke up when you did. Another minute or two and he would have been on the bed with you.”

Tamara nodded, tuning out of the conversation as she felt the back of her throat close up and a tight pressure against her chest.

As the three lawmen moved into the living room, their voices became white noise as the scrape of a shovel against the sand filled her head. If she hadn’t awakened...the words thundered in her brain. If she hadn’t awakened when she did it was possible that by now she’d be buried in the dunes, without anyone knowing she’d been carried out of the house in the darkness of the night.

Hollowly she gazed at Linda. She’d brought danger to Linda’s home. She’d brought danger far too close to a woman and her daughter, both of whom had been kind to her.

She needed to go. It didn’t matter that she didn’t have her memories back. She needed to return to the life she didn’t remember and try to pick up the pieces. She had to do that in order to protect the people she had come to care about so very much.

* * *

S
ETH RETURNED TO THE KITCHEN
alone and sat in the chair between his sister and Tamara. He reached for each of their hands and Tamara held on tight, feeling as if he was once again pulling her from the suffocating weight of a sand dune.

“So, we need to make some changes,” he said, his voice calm in contrast to the utter chaos in Tamara’s head. He turned and looked at his sister, his eyes gunmetal-gray. “We can’t remain here and put you and Samantha in danger.” He frowned, as if assessing the options.

“Actually, I have an idea of my own,” Linda said. “Next week Samantha had planned on staying with her dad for a couple of weeks. She does that every summer. I can talk to Mark tomorrow and I’m sure she can move right in over there. As far as I’m concerned I’ve got a friend in Oklahoma City who has been nagging me for the past six months since her husband passed away to come and stay with her for a while. I’ve got plenty of vacation time coming and I can be on the road first thing in the morning. Then the two of you can stay here and get things figured out.”

Tamara pulled her hand out of Seth’s grip. “Absolutely not. I can’t let you be chased out of your house because of me,” she protested. She wanted to weep, she felt so helpless and out of control.

“I’m not being chased out by you or anyone else,” Linda protested. “I’m making a choice.” She looked from Tamara to her brother. “It’s the logical thing to do. Besides, if you move someplace else he’ll just end up finding you again. At least you know the layout here. Seth knows how best to protect you in this house rather than someplace else in town.”

Seth rubbed a hand across his forehead as if fighting back a headache. His frown was so deep it tugged his dark eyebrows close together as he gazed first at his sister and then back at Tamara. For the first time since she’d known him, he seemed to be at a loss for words.