“I’m sure she’s sleeping. There were heavy drugs in her system with harsh side effects. But I’ll call my agent and have him check on her.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Meg dialed Cliff Warren’s cell phone, with a tingle of worry. She’d met Claire, and while she’d tried to appease Nelia Kincaid, Meg didn’t think Claire would sleep through a ringing phone in the middle of an investigation where she had a vested interest.
Cliff didn’t answer his phone.
Meg called out to her secretary. “Bonnie, call Sac PD and have them drive by Claire O’Brien’s house and check in with her. Send two agents to follow up.”
Meg dialed Mitch. “Mitch? Are you still in Midtown?”
“I’m at Mancini’s, yes.”
“Cliff Warren isn’t answering his phone, and Claire isn’t answering hers.”
“I’m on my way.”
Thirty years ago he’d made a mistake that had cost him his soul.
Fifteen years ago he’d made another. But when you knew you were going to hell, protecting the new life you’d so carefully built seemed crucial.
But he knew now that it was over.
He finished digging Claire’s grave. Burying her was burying his past. He could start fresh. He’d have to leave the country; a new identity in America wasn’t going to help him this time.
He couldn’t go back to his true identity, or the new one he’d created. He’d be too easy to find. He’d taken the identity of a dead man to stay close to Claire, but it was only a matter of time before the FBI put it all together. Fifteen years of watching her, protecting her, loving her-all gone.
He was both angry and relieved.
Now he could kill her. Though he didn’t completely understand it, he’d stopped trying to figure out Claire’s deep connection to him. He’d known the day he’d seen her photograph before killing Taverton and Lydia O’Brien that Claire was his fate; but he also accepted that there was no rational explanation. Just like he knew the runaways he killed were all pale imitations of Claire.
And wasn’t Claire just a pale imitation of Bridget?
He couldn’t kill Bridget again. He wished he could. He dreamed of it, tried to re-create it, but her death had happened too fast, without thought. When he stood over her dead body he wanted to do it all over again. Experience every sensation again. And again. For everything Bridget had done to him, and everything she hadn’t.
Killing Claire would satisfy him more than the runaways. Like Bridget, he’d loved and protected Claire for years. And like Bridget, Claire never returned his feelings. She never would. Just teased him, took other lovers and rubbed them in his face. The damn Fed was the worst, the way she was all over him at the Fox amp; Goose. Touching him. Kissing him. Sliding her body over his, her breasts rubbing against his chest.
He’d sacrificed everything for her, and she’d never give him what he needed most from her. But he could take it. He could take everything, including her last breath.
After she was dead, he’d disappear. He didn’t have much time. It wouldn’t take the FBI long to discover Claire was missing. The truth would come out.
Claire needed to die before then.
He had his police scanner on, listening for odd chatter. If they figured it out, they would demand radio silence-in case he was listening. Radio silence was as good as announcing they were coming for him.
The sound of an approaching car disturbed his work. He jumped off the backhoe and looked into the newly dug grave. It was deep enough. He walked quickly toward the house, rounding the corner at the same time Jeffrey Riordan stepped from his car.
“You fucking lunatic!” Riordan screamed at him. “You screwed up everything. You killed Hamilton and Richie. Now the cops are all over my ass.”
What was Riordan thinking, coming out here to confront him? Bruce Langstrom was a hired assassin. Riordan knew that; he’d paid him enough money over the years. Did the idiot really think he was just another employee he could jerk around?
Riordan had a gun in his hand.
As if that would do him any good.
FORTY
Claire had the worst hangover of her life.
She couldn’t open her eyes, her tongue was thick, her mouth dry. All she wanted was a gallon of water and sleep. In the back of her mind she imagined she’d heard a gunshot, but it was quiet now. She was alone.
As she became more alert, she dismissed the idea that she had a hangover. She hadn’t been drinking. She’d been drugged.
The first sign that something was really, really wrong came from her sense of smell. She wasn’t in her house. She breathed deeply, struggled to open her eyes-but every time she opened them, they closed, the strain too much. And everything was blurry and out of focus, all light and dark with no form.
Maybe she’d passed out and Dave had taken her to the hospital. She’d been sitting on the couch talking to Bill. They’d just had lunch. .
There were no hospital sounds. Total silence. This place smelled clean-Pine-Sol and bleach and some other fruity fragrance that made Claire’s stomach turn. But definitely not the antiseptic scent of the hospital.
When she tried to speak, only a moan escaped. Every limb felt heavy, but her mind awakened as a faint sense of panic pumped adrenaline through her body. She continued breathing deeply, trying to regain full use of her eyes and body. It seemed to be working. She still felt sluggish, but at least she could open her eyes and focus on her surroundings.
A bright pink wall. She’d had a bright pink wall when she was a kid. In the old house, the house where her mother was killed.
She turned her head and saw white furniture with pink and green flowers. Her heart raced. This was her furniture! Or it used to be hers. Hands fisting in the comforter, trying to push herself up, she saw the myriad brightly colored pillows on the bed.
And the bear.
As if in a trance, Claire sat up on the bed and struggled to stand. Unsteadily she crossed to the rocking chair and picked up the teddy bear. It was brown, a plain, ordinary stuffed bear, but she’d had one just like it growing up. She’d had it for as long as she could remember. It was well-worn, like this one. It was missing an eye. Like this bear.
She turned it over and stared at the embroidery on the paw. At one time, the thread had been bright pink. It was faded now.
She dropped the bear as if he burned her hands. It had been months after her mother had been killed when she realized Bill hadn’t brought the bear when he packed up her old room. She’d asked him to go back and look for it; he did. He said there were no teddy bears in the house. She had cried over it, certain that someone who didn’t like her dad was punishing her. Stupid to cry over a stuffed animal.
The entire room she now stood in had been designed exactly like the room she’d lived in when she was fourteen. One pink and three blue walls. On the back of the door was a corkboard, but instead of the collage of photos she’d kept, there was only one.
It was of her. A snapshot that looked like the pictures she’d had in her old room. Her and her best friend, Amy, who’d been killed by a drunk driver when they were freshmen in college. Amy had been the only one of her childhood friends who’d supported her unconditionally all those hard years.
This wasn’t right. Where was she? Who knew about her old life?
She turned the doorknob. Locked. She was locked in this room. Heart thudding painfully, she pulled and pushed and kicked and couldn’t get out.
There was only one window. She ran to it, pushed open the blinds. The light had changed-it had to be five or six in the evening. How long had she been unconscious? How long had she been held captive? What had happened to her friends and the bodyguard?
The landscape was unfamiliar. She was on the second floor of a house in the country, but there were no other houses she could see, no landmark to tell her anything about her location. It was mostly flat, but with some small hills and large trees. Not the mountains, not quite the foothills.