Dark Pursuit

“Glad you found them.” Kaitlan’s grandfather placed his palms on the table.

Pete sat down in his folding chair and reached for the gear shift on his console. Watching the monitor beside him, he nudged the control forward and slightly to the left. Craig’s body edged into a close-up.

“So let’s have a look.” Kaitlan’s grandfather’s voice, offscreen.

Kaitlan and Margaret locked eyes.

“Okay.” Craig opened the case. “Only now I’m really nervous. My writing’s probably horrible.”

“You have to start somewhere.”

Craig slid the pages across the table until they disappeared from the screen.

A pause.

“Your first chapter’s in the detective’s point of view?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

Craig watched. His lip began to curl.

Ice melted down Kaitlan’s back. “Look at him.”

She pictured her grandfather’s head down, focused on the manuscript. Unaware of the transformation taking place.

Pages rustled.

Pete zoomed in even closer on Craig’s face. Kaitlan saw the hard, cold look in his eyes. The smugness. The same killer expression he’d used to terrorize her last night.

Margaret sucked in a breath.

Abruptly Craig’s smirk vanished. Chased by a small, pleasant smile. The drastic change chilled Kaitlan to the bone.

“Your detective is—”

“Mr. Brooke, you didn’t really bring me here just to see my manuscript, did you?”

“Well, no, I have questions to ask you.”

“Then why don’t we get to them?” That pleasant look hung on, but Craig’s tone edged.

Kaitlan’s muscles turned to wood. He knows something’s up.

Her grandfather hesitated. “What, are you pushed for time?”

Craig leaned forward, his smile gone and eyes narrowed. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we, Mr. Brooke? Why did you really bring me here?”

fifty-seven

Margaret swiveled to Kaitlan, feeling sick. “This isn’t right.”

“Shh.” Pete flung up a hand, eyes riveted to the monitor. “If something goes wrong, I’ve got a gun.”

Surprise flicked across Kaitlan’s face. She looked at Margaret and swallowed hard.

So what, Margaret thought, we’re too far away to help! She swung away, a hand thrust to her scalp. Why hadn’t she stopped this?

Her focus landed on the bookcase of Darell’s first editions. Ratcheted up to the top shelf.

Over the Waters. The cruise-ship story, with the protagonist’s plans to catch the killer gone so awry. The warning was right there this morning, if only she’d made Darell listen —

Life After Death. The next novel in line. The title leapt out at her.

Margaret stared at it.

Vaguely, she registered Darell’s voice on the monitor.

Life After Death. The title screamed.

Dreamlike, Margaret drifted to the bookcase, already knowing. Ancient memory bubbled like lava, her nerves singeing hot, so hot. Her arm reached up to the top shelf, to the book she would have read next if she hadn’t stopped too soon, if she hadn’t been so terribly, utterly stupid …

She slid out Life After Death.

Craig’s and Darell’s voices were arguing. They barely registered.

Sam, Pete, somebody in the room uttered a curse.

Margaret opened the hardback book. She skimmed the first page. The second.

Darell’s story of years ago—the homicidal ER doctor, the hospital on a far-flung island.

In Margaret’s mind, the lava-memories boiled higher and plunged over a cliff.

“Ah!” Kaitlan cried.

On the third page Margaret found it. The fabric. Black silk with green stripes. The cloth the doctor used to strangle his victims.

The novel slipped from Margaret’s fingers and slammed to the floor.

fifty-eight

Darell stared at Craig Barlow. What was happening here? And how dare the kid talk to him like that?

He tossed down the manuscript papers. “What makes you think I have another reason?”

“’Cause I don’t buy the one you gave me.”

“That so?”

Craig lasered him with his eyes.

Okay, if this was the way he wanted it. “You sound guilty to me, boy.”

“Guilty? About what?”

“About stealing from my work, that’s what.”

Craig’s face scrunched. “Huh?”

“That’s right. You hacked into my computer. Don’t think I don’t know.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Not half as crazy as you. I had a computer tech out here. He found your little spy program and traced it straight to you.”

Craig sneered. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I was going to handle this more delicately, till you flew off the handle. Just admit it and promise not to do it again, and I won’t go to the police.”

“I am the police.”

“How about the Sheriff’s Department? This house is in their jurisdiction. Or the state police. I have some good friends there.”

“You can’t have half the friends in the state police that my father does.”

A rank sense of injustice scissored through Darell’s head. Its blades shredded the last of the script he’d hoped to use.

All right then—Plan B. He was ready.

“This is about you, Craig, not your father. About how I’m going to prove what you’ve done.”

“That I’m stealing your work?” Craig laughed derisively. “What’s to steal? The way I hear it, you can’t even write any more.”

Darell slammed a palm against the table. “Do I look like somebody who can’t plot a suspense? Who doesn’t know how to figure out things? I can tie your hacking to the murders!”

Craig stilled. His blue eyes burned white hot. Slowly he leaned forward, a snake positioning to strike. “Say again, old man?”

“You want to see what this ‘old man’ can do?” Darell spat. “I’ll connect you to the black and green fabric. The cloth you used to strangle three women. Yes, three. You were stupid enough to take pictures of the last one.”

Craig shoved back and jumped to his feet. His chair bounced against the wall and clattered to its side. “I knew this was a setup.” He slid a hand into his jacket and pulled out a gun. “Call Kaitlan in here. Right now.”

fifty-nine