Dark Pursuit

In and out of fog Leland Hugh ran, chased by phantoms. Cloud wisps wound around his head, squeezing his thoughts to cotton. Somewhere he’d lost his way. He saw nothing, heard nothing, felt no earth below his feet. His muscular arms pumped, pumped …

Both biceps crumbled. His fingers turned inward, gnarled, the legs beneath him now wobbly and stiff. His mind thickened, and he didn’t know what to do, where to go, his thoughts gauzy and white, while something, something snatched at his hand, calling him, pulling him —

“D.” A voice out of the ether.

His hand jiggled.

“D., wake up.”

Darell’s eyes opened. He lay in bed, Margaret standing over him. Anxiety tangled her expression.

The dream roiled in his mind. Leland Hugh. The fog. The confusion.

He blinked.

“It’s nine o’clock,” Margaret said. “Time to get up.”

Memory poured over him. Craig Barlow. Kaitlan.

Darell pushed up on one elbow and tossed back the covers. “Okay. Right.”

Margaret stood back as he finagled his feet to the floor. Detritus from the dream drifted fitfully in Darell’s mind like sand settling after the tide. Hugh, lost and alone, becoming him.

Why?

A sense of urgency rose within Darell. So much to do. So many details. He reached for his cane, throwing Margaret an impatient glance. “Go on, I don’t need your help. I’ve got to make that call right away.”

She folded her arms, determination etching her face. “D., I don’t want you to do it.”

“Huh?”

“You’re not going to lure that killer here.”

What a way to put it. He gawked at her. “Have you gone mad, woman?”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“I have to save Kaitlan.”

“We’ll find another way.”

“You got a better idea?”

“Yes, let the police handle it. Like we should have done in the first place.”

“Oh, right. They’re doing a real good job.”

She shook her head impatiently. “I was reading your old novels, thinking one of them might give us an idea of what to do. That’s why one was lying out in the library last night—”

“What are you blathering about, woman?” One of his books off its shelf? He had no memory of any such thing.

“See?” Margaret hunched forward as if she’d scored a major point. “You can’t even remember that. Yet you think you can outwit this killer—”

“I know I can outwit him!” Darell waved his cane.

“D.—”

“Stop talking to me like I’m an old man!” He lurched to his feet. “My only grandchild needs saving, and I’m going to do it.”

Margaret stood her ground, vertical lines puckering around her tightened lips. “Is this really about Kaitlan? Or is this about proving yourself—to you?”

The words stabbed to the core of him. Darell’s face went hot. He threw back his shoulders and stalked around her with all the dignity he possessed. “Out of my path, woman, I’ve got work to do.”

She reached for his arm. “D., please—”

He yanked from her grip. Stepped sideways to push his face into hers. “Do not say another word!”

Darell jerked around and steamrolled for the bathroom. Once inside he slammed the door.

Rage rattled in his chest. He glared at himself in the mirror, seeing nothing but a grizzled man, his eyebrows moldy gray bundles of straw, white hair tufted and wild.

He had not seen a book out of place in the library last night. Margaret was making things up just to confuse him.

How dare she question his abilities? Even worse, his motives?

Leland Hugh materialized in his thoughts. Hugh in the fog, lost. Turning into him.

“Aah!” Darell thwacked the mirror with his palm and wrenched away. Bent over his cane, he fumed at the beige tile floor. Hugh was turning into more of a mystery than ever. Darell’s last hope for finishing his book could well lie in Craig Barlow’s manuscript. Tonight before he trapped the man if he could just glean some insight …

Hugh’s voice echoed in his head. Joined by Margaret and Kaitlan and Craig. Soon all four clamored, jumbling Darell’s brain. Concentration started slipping, slipping …

Darell buffed his face. What was that first thing he had to do?

His eyes rose to twin blue towels hanging on their gold rack. He frowned at them, through them …

Tonight’s meeting. He had to call Craig to set it up.

Just like that a moving pathway in Darell’s mind cleared. He stepped upon it. But as he rode along, purpose morphed to fear. What this day would demand of him.

At the sink he splashed his face, dried his hands, his movements jerky, nervous. By the time he left the bathroom his heart thwacked his ribs.

Ridiculous. This is only the phone call.

Margaret had moved across the hall to plant herself in the office doorway. Her face still scrunched with worry, one hand pressed to the side of her neck. “D., I’m sorry. I’m just … scared.”

“You ought to be. Sorry, I mean.” He made a move to brush around her but she stayed firm. He threw her a withering look. “Let me by.”

She slapped both palms against the doorposts, blocking the entrance. “Remember your book Over the Waters? About the couple on a cruise ship and the wife disappeared?”

“No. I don’t. Now move before I make you.”