Tough Customer

Caroline let go of the cordless phone. Oren moved it along the floor with the toe of his shoe, then kicked it out the back door before slamming the door shut.

Berry worked herself into a sitting position. She shook back her hair and tried to blink the blood from her eye as she looked up at her mother. Caroline cried out in shock at the sight of her bleeding head. 'What did you do to her?' she screamed.

'Shut up! You scream again, I'll shoot you.'

'I'm okay, Mother.' Berry tried to stand up, but Oren placed his hand on her shoulder and shoved her back down. 'Did I say you could get up?'

'Don't hurt her,' Caroline pleaded.

'Oh, she's going to hurt. So are you.'

'My mother's done nothing to you. It's me you want. Let her go.'

He laughed. 'As if. Carl had my permission to kill her, too, if she should happen to be in the house on Friday night.'

Berry looked up at him with bewilderment. 'Carl?'

'My twin.'

'Twin?' she echoed faintly.

'Twin?' he repeated, mocking Berry's tone.

Berry's blood-filled eye sought her mother to gauge her astonishment, but Caroline was staring at Oren, her face devoid of expression, probably due to the shock of seeing him alive when she'd thought him safely dead.

'Carl was the millstone around my neck my whole life,' he was saying. 'I couldn't have friends because Carl was such a psycho. No one wanted to play at our house, and I couldn't go play with other children because I had to play with him.

'Finally, my stupid excuse for a mother put him in a mental institution, where he stayed for years.

Shh! Dirty family secret. We moved from Beaumont to Houston. 'Let's not tell anybody about your brother and his mental illness, Oren.' As if I wanted to advertise that my brother, my womb mate,' he said, giggling over his play on words, 'was a lunatic.

'Thank God I'm finally rid of him. Stupid son of a bitch. Couldn't even kill himself without botching it.' Suddenly his voice changed. 'Where the hell do you think you're going?'

He'd caught Caroline inching toward the door that led into the dining area. Berry remembered that her mother's cell phone was on the dining table. She'd been using it to try to call Dodge.

Dodge, why aren't you here?

Ski, where are you?

She couldn't depend on their rescue, on anyone's. This was her fight. It was up to her to keep her mother and herself alive.

Ski was speeding toward the lake house when his cell phone rang. He answered without reading caller ID. 'Berry?'

'Sheriff Drummond. Am I understanding correctly that Oren Starks is still at large?'

'I'm afraid so, sir.'

Ski gave him the shorthand version. Drummond was in midsentence when call waiting beeped. 'Excuse me, sir. I'll fill you in on details as I get them, but I need to take this call.'

He didn't even wait for his boss to acknowledge before clicking over. 'Berry?'

Another deputy identified himself. 'Ski, we've got a problem.'

'Go ahead.'

'Somebody's horses got out of their pasture.'

Ski's mind was so fixed on the crisis, it took him a moment to process. 'Horses?'

'They're running along the highway, going haywire. Motorists are having to dodge them. You told us to check out all the boat rental places, which is what Andy and me were doing. But we can't split up, and if somebody hits one of these horses...'

Ski didn't need to be told what could happen. The animal could die, but anyone inside the vehicle could also be seriously injured or killed. 'You're together in one car?'

'Yeah, Stevens was gonna take--'

'Never mind. Get the horses back where they belong. Then get on those boat rentals. Keep me posted.'

'Ten-four.'

Ski checked his phone for recent calls, thinking he might have missed one. There had been none. He hit speed dial for the lake house. It rang until voice mail picked up. Swearing, he dialed Berry's cell number. It went straight to voice mail. He checked the time. It was seven minutes since he and Caroline had talked. He rang the house phone again and, when he got no answer, called Dodge.

'Talk to me.'

'Can you call Caroline's cell for me? I don't have her number programmed into my phone.' He told Dodge about instructing her to call him. 'Caroline promised me that one of them would as soon as they were safe inside the house. I haven't heard from them.'

'You're on your way there now?'

'Turning onto Lake Road as we speak. I'll try Berry's cell again. You call Caroline's.'

'Roger that.'

Ski called Berry's cell. Then the house. Got voice mails. Eleven minutes had elapsed. Ample time for Caroline to have called Berry indoors. Unless, he thought with a modicum of relief, she wasn't swimming in the pool.

When Caroline had mentioned her taking a swim, he'd automatically thought pool, which was right outside the back door off the terrace. But Berry could have gone swimming in the lake. In which case, it would be taking longer for them to get inside.

Caroline would have had to walk to the end of the pier. Maybe Berry had been far out. Maybe it had taken a while for her to notice Caroline signaling from the shore, then several minutes for her to swim in and for them to walk back to the house.

His phone rang. 'Berry?'

'Me,' Dodge said. 'She didn't answer.'

'Christ. I should have told Caroline to take the phone with her when she went to get Berry.'

'She ain't stupid, Ski.'

He was right. Caroline didn't need it spelled out for her. She would have immediately grasped the implications of Starks's being alive. She would have taken every precaution, and that would have included keeping a telephone in her hand.

Dodge's thoughts were running parallel. 'The only reason she wouldn't call you back is if she couldn't.'

Ski's stomach dropped. He started swearing, started praying, stamped the accelerator.