Dark Pursuit

Margaret caught Darell’s eye as if to say, see what your stubbornness has done?

Darell grimaced at Kaitlan. “How long have you lived here?”

She swallowed. “Four months.”

“Four months. And you’re only now coming to see me.”

“I’m sorry. I should have—”

“Only because you need something.”

She shook her head hard. “Not ‘only.’ I missed you. I want my family. Please believe that.”

Darell sniffed.

Silence rang in the room.

Kaitlan lifted her hand in a helpless gesture. “Craig’s writing a suspense novel. He won’t let anyone read it, but I know he scribbles on it whenever he gets the chance. He told me the scenes in the killer’s point of view come easily. Now I think about that and just …” She shuddered.

How very interesting.

Darell ran his tongue behind his teeth. “When did he start writing?”

“I think about a year ago.”

A year. When the first murder occurred. And when Darell started his own manuscript. As soon as Kaitlan spoke the words, he saw the revelation on her face.

Is that boy stealing my work? If Craig thought he would never recover from his injuries … Easy thing to believe, after all the salacious news articles to that effect.

But Craig had used the fabric to kill for real.

Was he using it in his book as well?

Which came first, fiction or reality?

Darell struggled to unwind the vicious circle and found only confusion. The gears in his head gummed up as if an unseen hand squeezed glue into the cogs. His thoughts creaked and groaned.

Margaret’s hand lay against her cheek. “I’ve heard about the murders from local news. They must have mentioned the cloth.”

Kaitlan shook her head. “No. Craig said only a few people working the case know.”

“The police would withhold the information in case they ever got a confession,” Darell said distractedly. He still struggled with the conundrum of Craig Barlow. “Too many crazies confess to crimes they didn’t commit. This way only the real killer could describe the full MO.”

“Oh.” Margaret frowned. “But I …”

The puzzlement in her voice caught Darell’s attention. He pierced her with a look.

Understanding poured like ice water over his head. She’d heard of the fabric. And there was only one place that could have come from.

Indignation rolled up his back. His face went hot. “You’ve been reading my manuscript, haven’t you.”

“Well, I—”

“How dare you!” She may as well have laid his soul bare. Checking on his damaged brain, was that it? Critiquing his ability to write. “You stay away from my computer.”

Margaret spread her hands. “D.—”

“Do you see what you’ve done?”

Her eyes darted from him to Kaitlan. She shook her head.

“You told somebody about my story.” Darell’s voice rose. “Who was it? A friend? Some big mouth at that church you attend? What if that person told another and another—until it got to Craig Barlow? And now, thanks to your big mouth, he’s imitating Leland Hugh. And three women are dead.”

Margaret’s face blanched white.

OBSESSION

eleven

Yesterday I talked to a mother of two young kids. She’s on drugs. Meth. Pure vileness. “Hey,” I told her, “why give the dealers your money? You want to ingest poison, just mix up some bleach, ammonia, and gasoline. About as good for your system.”

Her kids were put in foster care. They screamed when they were taken from their mother. I wanted to hit something.

The woman’s pretty in a hardened way. She was probably once beautiful. Three months from now, if she keeps doing the methamphetamine, she’ll look like death walking.

“Why?” I asked her.

“I don’t know.” And she started to cry.

Her words haunted me.

That night I watched local TV news, hoping to see something about the second murder. Nothing. As if it carried no importance at all. One life gone five days ago. The world turns on.

I paced around, ill at ease, restless.

In time I picked up a magazine. Read an article about a football player who’d made it to the top of his game. He couldn’t stop gambling. Ended up losing his house, his wife. All that money he made—all that money. And it wasn’t enough.

“Why?” the interviewer pressed him.

“I don’t know.”

Disgusted, I threw the magazine in the trash.

What is wrong with these people?

twelve

Darell glared daggers at Margaret. “Well?”

Slowly the color returned to her cheeks. She stared back with rank indignation. “I have not told anyone what you’re writing.”

Blood whooshed in his ears. “So you did read my manuscript.”

“Only the beginning pages. I was just—”

“I know very well what you were trying to do.” He threw the words at her, cold and accusing.

Kaitlan’s eyes darted from him to Margaret, bottom lip drawn between her teeth.

Margaret pulled her head back and looked him square in the eye. “D., we can talk about this later. Right now you want to help Kaitlan, don’t you? Then listen to me—search somewhere else. I’m not your leak.”

She held his gaze until the ice flow of his anger broke up and drifted out to sea.

His thoughts floated back to Craig Barlow.

“Then he’s hacked into my computer somehow. Or my online data storage. Craig has read my manuscript.”

Silence throbbed. The three of them focused on the floor, across the room, as the reality settled in their minds.

Darell forced himself to regroup.

He turned to Kaitlan. “I’ve been out of touch with local news in the past year.” All news, for that fact. Except for Googling his own name in masochistic curiosity to see what they were saying about his demise. “I’ve heard nothing about these murders. Are the women sexually assaulted?”

“No. The police have said that much.”

Darell calculated the information.

Kaitlan thrust both hands into her hair. “Look, I can’t imagine how Craig knows what you’re writing. Even with so much pointing to him, I just can’t believe he killed those women. He’s a good person and I … I love him.” She aimed a pleading look at Darell. “Tell me how he can be innocent. I must be missing something.”

His heart squeezed. “What about your landlords? Wouldn’t they also have a key to your place?”

“Yeah, the Jensons have one. But they left for Europe a week ago.”

“Anyone else they might have given a key to? Family in the area?”