Dark Pursuit

Darell hung on her every expression. What was Kaitlan saying?

Margaret shook her head. “We don’t know yet. But we’ll come up with something tonight. He has to be caught—there’s no other option.”

She listened. Her face slacked.

Darell swiped at the phone. “Give it back, what’s going on?”

Margaret laid the receiver against her neck. “He took her cell phone and car keys. She’s calling from her landlord’s house. They’re on vacation and she has a key.”

Darell struggled to process the information. This didn’t make sense. Why had Craig left at all? Why not stay to make sure she didn’t go anywhere?

A light snapped on in his brain. “Give me the phone.”

“But—”

“Give it to me!”

Margaret handed it over.

“Kaitlan.” Darell gripped the arm of his chair. His voice came clipped and intense. “Craig doesn’t know you have a key to your landlord’s place?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

She hesitated. “Yes. Why?”

“I just need to make sure this isn’t a setup. That what I’m thinking is correct.”

“I didn’t see him anywhere around when I walked here.”

Darell closed his eyes.

“So what are you thinking?” she asked.

“He could have stayed with you tonight, but he didn’t.”

“Because he has to be at work early. And he didn’t have his uniform with him.”

“You think he couldn’t have planned ahead and brought it? You think he didn’t know he’d have to intimidate you to shreds tonight?”

“I guess. He was different as soon as he walked in the door. All on edge and changing one minute to the next.”

“Because he’s scared. Because he knows you know, and now he’s got to fix it.”

And he would—sooner than Kaitlan realized.

Darell could hardly breathe. “He told you the body wouldn’t be found?”

“Yes.”

“He’d have been too rushed this afternoon to make sure of that. Getting rid of a body takes time, and he was on duty. Besides, it was daylight. He pulled that woman from your apartment, but he couldn’t take her far. That’s why he left you tonight. Right now he’s disposing of the body for good.”

And when he finished with that, he’d come back for Kaitlan.

thirty-two

Craig had left only to move the body?

Kaitlan stilled on the chair in the Jensons’ kitchen. Her grandfather’swords sank inside her like millstones. Her eyes cut to the sliding backdoor as if any second Craig might leap from the darkness. The house felt like a mausoleum. Huge and still and cold. Able to swallow her whole.

“Are you saying”—her voice sounded so small—“he’ll come back?”

But she already knew the answer. Of course he wouldn’t leave her alone all night. Everything he’d said had been designed to terrify her, keep her from running while he was gone.

“Listen to me,” her grandfather snapped. “You have to get out of there.”

“I don’t have a car!”

“We’ll come get you.”

“But he told me not to leave. He’ll chase me down, and if he can’t find me, he’ll plant drugs in my apartment.”

“That’s a chance we have to take. You have no choice now, things have gotten out of hand.”

Like they weren’t before.

And just what had her grandfather been doing all evening while she followed his advice and went to a party with a killer? “Have you figured out how we’re going to catch Craig?” she demanded.

Her grandfather’s hesitation screamed.

“Have you?”

“I need to refigure it. The situation’s different now.”

Kaitlan shoved to her feet. “You told me I could count on you! Now look at me. I never should have left your house!” Desperation choked her lungs. She bent over, dragging in air. Craig was coming back tonight—who knew whether to beat her up again or kill her?

She had to get out of here.

“Pull yourself together, Kaitlan,” her grandfather snapped. The fear vibrating through his anger heightened her own. “I’m handing the phone to Margaret. She needs directions.”

Muffled sounds came over the line as the receiver was passed from hand to hand. Margaret’s voice trembled into Kaitlan’s ears. She could barely think straight as she tried to spout directions. Twice she blanked on names of streets.

“Okay. Got it.” Margaret’s words spluttered. “Wait! Your grandfather wants to tell you something.”

Kaitlan’s fingers cramped around the phone. She grabbed the counter and scanned the void of the Jensons’ backyard. Through the line came the sound of her grandfather’s rattled breathing.

“You stay in that house now, hear me? Stay down where you can’t be seen through the windows. Don’t come out until you see us pull up front.”

Kaitlan’s heart beat in her ears. “Okay.”

The line clicked.

She hung up the phone with shaking hands.

The lamps. They would illumine her through any of the front windows. If she turned the living room one off and Craig came back, would he notice?

She couldn’t take the chance.

Bent over double, Kaitlan skulked out of the kitchen to find a darkened room to wait in.

thirty-three

“I’m going with you.” Darell fumbled around the floor for his cane. Where on earth was the thing?

“No, you’re not.” Margaret strode for the door.

“Margaret!” He straightened halfway, shooting her back a look to kill. “Stop right now and wait for me.”