Twice Dead (10 page)

The woman had pretty sucky luck.

Now all he had to do was make her come to trust him.

Then, just maybe, he would have a very big surprise for her.

But first he had some reconnaissance to do. It never paid to rush into things.

So Adam kept his distance the next day, watched her house during the morning and saw Tyler McBride and his little boy, Sam, pay her a visit around eleven o'clock. The kid was really cute, but he didn't yell and jump around like other kids his age. Was everyone right? Had the son witnessed McBride killing his mother, or was it just talk?

Adam wondered what was going on between Tyler McBride and Becca Matlock/Powell. He watched Sheriff Gaffney pay her a visit, even overheard the sheriff speaking to her outside the front door, on the big wraparound porch. He heard them clearly.

“Nothing yet from the medical examiner's office, Sheriff?”

“They say hopefully tomorrow. I wanted to go over the basement again, see what I could sniff out. My boys didn't find any fingerprints, but maybe there's something there we all missed. Oh, and another thing, Rachel Ryan asked me to tell you that some boys would be arriving to remove the tree and fix the window for you.”

The sheriff left after an hour, a chocolate chip cookie in his hand. Adam knew it was chocolate chip. He could smell the chocolate from twenty yards and was salivating.

He sent an e-mail after lunch and within an hour knew all about how Becca Matlock had met Tyler McBride at Dartmouth College. Had the two of them been college sweethearts? Lovers? Perhaps. It was interesting. And now everyone believed the skeleton was Tyler McBride's missing wife, Ann. He'd find out everything he could about Tyler McBride. He supposed there was a certain possible irony at play here. What if she'd managed to get away from one stalker only to stumble upon a man who'd done away with his wife?

Yep, her luck sucked, big-time.

He still wasn't ready to approach her, she was too spooked. So he kept an eye on her that evening as well. She didn't leave the house. Since it stayed light so late in Maine during the summer months, five guys, all armed with chain saws, came to take care of the old fallen hemlock that lay along the west side of the house. They pulled the limb out of the upstairs window and sawed it up. They cut off and sawed up the branches from the tree, then wrapped thick chains around the trunk and dragged the tree away.

Through all of this, Becca read outside on the wraparound porch, sitting in an old glider, rocking back and forth until he was nearly nauseated watching that slow back and forth, that never-ending back and forth, and hearing the small creaking sounds that went with every movement in between the loud grating bursts from the chain saws.

She went to bed early.

 

AROUND noon the next day, Becca was thanking the windowpane guy for replacing the glass in her bedroom window. Not half an hour later, Tyler and Sam were there, eating tuna fish sandwiches at her kitchen table. She said, “We should be hearing from Sheriff Gaffney soon, Tyler. It should be today, that's what he said when he came yesterday. They're sure taking their time. Then all this nonsense will be over.”

He was silent for the longest time, chewing his sandwich, helping Sam eat his, then said finally, some anger in his voice, which surprised her, “You're quite the optimist, Becca.”

But she wasn't thinking about the skeleton at that moment. She was wondering why that man—Adam Carruthers—was watching her house. He was standing motionless in amongst the spruce trees, not twenty feet away. He wasn't the stalker. It wasn't his voice, she was sure of that. The stalker's voice was not old, not young, but unnervingly smooth. She knew she would recognize that voice anywhere. Carruthers's voice was different. But who was he? And why was he so interested in her?

 

ADAM Stretched. He went through a few relaxing tae kwon do moves to ease his muscles. He was in the process of slowly raising his left leg, his left arm extended fully, when she said from behind him, “Your arm is a bit too high. Lower your elbow at least an inch and extend your wrist, yeah, and pull your fingers back a bit more. That's better. Now, don't even twitch or I'll shoot your head off.”

He was faster than she could have imagined. She was a good six feet behind him. She had her Coonan .357 Magnum automatic, chambered with seven bullets, aimed right at him, and in the very next instant, his whole body was in motion, moving so fast it was a blur, at least until his right foot lightly and gracefully clipped the gun from her hand, and his left hand smacked her hard enough in the shoulder to send her flying backward. She landed on her back.

Becca grabbed the gun, on the ground not two feet to her left, and brought it up only to have him kick it out of her hand again. Her wrist stung for a moment, then went numb.

“Sorry,” he said, standing over her now. “I don't react well to folks holding guns on me. I hope I didn't hurt you.” He actually had the gall to reach out his hand to help her up. She was breathing hard, her shoulder was aching and her wrist was useless. She scooted backward, turned, and tried to run. She wasn't fast enough. He grabbed her and hauled her back against him. “No, hold it a minute. I'm not going to hurt you.”

She stopped cold and became very, very still. Her head fell forward and he knew in that moment that she had simply given up.

He knew her shoulder had to hurt, that her wrist was now probably hanging numb. “It'll be all right. You'll get feeling back in your wrist soon. It'll burn a bit but then it'll be okay again.”

Still drawn in on herself, she said, “I didn't think he could be you—your voice is all wrong, I would have sworn to that—but I obviously was wrong.”

She thought he was the stalker, the man who had murdered that poor old woman in front of the museum, and then shot Governor Bledsoe. Automatically, he let her go. “Look, I'm sorry—” He was speaking to the back of her head. She'd taken off the second he'd let her go. She was off at a dead run, through the spruce trees, back toward her house.

He caught her within ten yards, grabbed her left arm, and jerked her around. She moved quickly. Her fist hit him solidly on the jaw. His head snapped back with the force of her sharp-knuckled blow. She was strong. He grabbed both her arms, only to feel her knee come up. His fast reflexes saved him. Her knee got him in the thigh. It still hurt, but not as bad as if she'd gotten him in the crotch. That would have sent him to the ground, sobbing his guts out. He whirled her around and brought her back against his chest. He clamped her arms at her sides and simply held her against him. She was breathing hard, her muscles tensing, relaxing, then tensing again. She was very afraid, but he knew she'd act again if he gave her the opening. He was impressed. But now he had her.

“I don't know how you found me,” she said, still panting. “I did everything I could think of to hide my trail. How did you track me down?”

“It did take me two and a half days to track you to Portland, actually longer than I'd expected.”

She twisted her head to look at him. “Let me go.”

“Not yet. I want to hang on to my body parts. Hey, you didn't do too badly for an amateur.”

“Let me go.”

“Will you stop with the violence? I can't stand violence. It makes me nervous.”

Her look was incredulous as she chewed her bottom lip. Finally, she nodded. “All right.”

He let her go and took a quick step back, his eyes on her right knee.

She was off and running in a flash. This time, he let her go. She was fast, but he knew that from her dossier. She'd spotted him watching her house. It amazed him. He was always so very careful, so patient, as still as one of the spruce trees. In the past, his life had depended on it more times than he cared to remember. But she'd cottoned on to the fact that someone was out there, with her in his sights.

Well, the stalker had been after her for more than three weeks in New York. That had sharpened her senses, kept her alert. There was no doubt she was afraid, but it hadn't mattered. She'd come out and confronted him anyway. He whistled as he walked over and bent down to pick up her Coonan automatic. It was a nice gun. It had a closed breech that gave it very high velocity. His brother had one of these babies, was always bragging about it. It was steady, reliable, deadly, and not all that common. He wondered how she handled the recoil. He dumped the seven rimmed cartridges into his hand, then dropped them into his pocket. He paused a moment, wondering if he shouldn't leave the gun in her mailbox or slip it just inside her front door.

He imagined she wouldn't feel safe without it.

He saw Tyler McBride and his son leave about ten minutes later. He saw her wave from the front porch. He saw her looking over toward where he quietly stood, surely not visible through the trees. She went back into the house after Tyler McBride and his son drove off. He waited.

Not three minutes later she was back, standing on the front porch, looking toward him. He saw her thinking, weighing, assessing. Finally, she trotted toward him.

She had guts.

He didn't move, just waited, watching her. He realized when she was only about ten feet from him that she had a big kitchen butcher knife clutched in her hand.

He smiled. She was her father's daughter.

NINE

Slowly, he pulled her gun out of his pants pocket and aimed it in her general direction. “Even that big honker knife can't compete with this Coonan you managed to get off that guy you met at the restaurant in Rockland. He was, however, pissed that you wouldn't go to bed with him.” He grinned at her. “Hey, you got what you needed. You did good.”

“How did you know about that? Oh, never mind. My knife can certainly compete with the Coonan now. I watched you take the bullets out.”

He grinned at her again, he couldn't help it, and held the automatic out to her, butt first.

“What good is it? You've got the bullets. Give them to me now.”

He scooped the seven bullets out of his pocket and handed them and the automatic to her.

She eyed the gun and the bullets, then backed up another step. “No, you want me to come a bit closer and then you can kick my knife away. You're fast, too fast. I'm not stupid.”

“All right,” Adam said, and he thought, Smart woman. He laid the bullets and the gun down on the ground and took a good half dozen steps back.

He said easily, “It's an effective weapon, that Coonan, but if I have to carry one of those things, I prefer my Colt Delta Elite.”

“It sounds like some western debutante.”

He laughed. “Aren't you going to pick up the gun?”

She shook her head at him and didn't move. She was holding the butcher knife like a mad killer in a slasher movie, her arm pulled back, the point out and arched. The sucker looked really sharp. He could get it from her, but one of them could easily get sliced up. He stayed put. Besides, he wanted to see what she'd do.

“Tell me what you're doing here. Why did you come up to me at Food Fort? Why are you watching me?”

“I'd really rather not tell you yet. I hadn't expected you to see me. When I've wanted to stay hidden in the past, I've managed it quite well.” He suddenly looked pissed off, not at her but at himself. She almost smiled, then tightened her grip on the knife.

“Tell me, now.”

“All right, then. I'm here to do research on why women dye their hair.”

She very nearly ran at him with the knife. She was so mad she nearly forgot the bone-grinding fear. “All right, you jerk, I want you to lie on the ground and fold your hands underneath you. Do it now.”

“No,” he said. “The windbreaker is new. It looks good on me, hey, maybe it even looks dangerous and sexy. What do you think? Women like black, I've heard. Nope, I don't want it to get dirty.”

“I called Sheriff Gaffney. He should be here any minute.”

“Nah, you can't bluff me on that. The last person you want here is the sheriff. If I spilled the beans, he'd have to call the New York cops and the FBI.”

She was so pale he thought she'd pass out. Her hand trembled a bit, but then she got ahold of herself. “So you know,” she said. “I don't think you're the stalker—your voice is all wrong and you're too big—but you know all about him, don't you?”

“Yes. Now listen to me, Becca. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to—Hey, think of me as your own personal guardian angel.”

“You're so dark, you look more like the devil, but you're taller than I think the devil is. What's more, unlike the devil, I'll bet you don't have a lick of charm. The last thing you are is a guardian angel. You're a reporter or a paparazzo, aren't you?”

“Now you've offended me.” She nearly laughed. But she had to remember he was dangerous, fast and dangerous. She couldn't afford to forget that, not for an instant. She would still have laughed if her gut hadn't been frozen with fear for nearly as long as she could remember. He was trying to disarm her, at least figuratively this time. Thank goodness he didn't have use of her gun. And he was too far away to kick out at her. But he was fast. He had long legs. She took another step back, as insurance.

She waved the knife at him. “I've had it. Tell me who you are. Tell me now or I might have to hurt you. Don't underestimate me, I'm strong. No, it's more than that. I'm beyond frightened. I've got nothing to lose now.”

He looked at her—too pale, her flesh drawn tightly over her bones, too thin, so stressed out he could nearly see her insides quivering. He said slowly, his voice as unthreatening as he could make it, “To hurt me you'd have to come closer. You know better than to do that. Yeah, you're strong, maybe I wouldn't even want to run into you in a dark alley. But there's a big something you're wrong about. Everyone has something to lose, including you. Things have just gotten a bit out of hand for you, that's all.”