Dark Pursuit

My legs trembled.

I unwrapped all five yards from the bolt and gathered them to my chest.

That night I slept with the cloth.

I told myself the next day I would be back to normal. Whatever this … thing was, it couldn’t last. I would toss the cloth in a dumpster. A few days later I’d be laughing at my own idiocy.

Morning dawned. Time came to leave for work.

I couldn’t leave the cloth.

I cut a piece of it and slipped it in my pocket.

Throughout the day whenever I was alone I pulled it out, felt it, smelled it. Luxuriated in it.

What was happening to me?

That night I cut a bigger piece. A strip about ten inches wide, running the fabric’s width of three feet. I laid it out across the kitchen table and stared at it.

This was it. What I had longed for.

Cut this way, the fabric vibrated heat. For a minute I had the crazy idea it would self-ignite, burn up right before my eyes.

The piece seemed too big to keep in my pocket. The next morning I folded it carefully and placed it in the glove compartment of my car.

There it called to me. All day as I worked. And the next, and the next. Wooing me but keeping its secrets.

One day—soon, I hoped, or I would go completely insane—it would answer my questions.

It would tell me why.

eighteen

Kaitlan pulled into her carport and shut off the engine. Her brain had stayed numb all the way home. She’d driven like a total robot.

The engine ticked as she got out of the car, purse in hand. She glanced around, half expecting Craig to jump out at her. But there was no sign of him.

Wait! If Craig was here when she’d gotten home around three o’clock, where had he left his car?

Kaitlan froze.

A narrow private road formed the Jensons’ east property line, leading to three houses about a half mile down. Craig could have parked there, out of Kaitlan’s sight. But then how would he have gotten his victim here?

Grandfather hadn’t mentioned Craig’s vehicle at all. Hadn’t he thought of it?

Kaitlan’s hope soared. This was huge. If Craig had been here when she arrived unexpectedly, where was his car?

Why hadn’t she thought of this before? It was so obvious.

If her grandfather missed it—what else had he missed? He couldn’t even possibly know if Craig was the killer.

But if he wasn’t, wouldn’t the body still be on her bed? Then what would she do?

Kaitlan tried the door. Locked. As it should be.

She pulled the key from her purse and inserted it. Pushed open the door. For a moment she stood there, listening. Feeling.

She stepped into the kitchen, her body turning to lead. Whatever she found in the next sixty seconds was going to change her life. Either she would become the most desperate actress on earth or the most desperate fugitive.

Kaitlan put her purse on the table. She took a deep breath and turned around. Walked to the doorway into the living room.

Everything looked in perfect order.

The red throw blanket—draped over the couch. Her lamp sat on its end table. The coffee table and magazines—all as she’d left them this morning.

Panic and disbelief punched her in the stomach. She sagged against the doorway, face in her hands. Maybe she was crazy. Maybe she’d come home, nauseated and tired, and imagined the whole —

Craig’s pen. She’d left it on the kitchen table.

Kaitlan whirled around. It wasn’t there.

She strode back to her purse and picked it up. No pen underneath.

With a cry she dropped the purse and ran for the bedroom. She swiveled around its angled entrance.

Her bed was empty. Coverlet smoothed, pillows at the top. No strangled woman, no black fabric with green stripes.

The memory of the smell hit her—the flowery perfume mixed with urine. She lifted her face and sniffed.

No scent remained.

In a half-daze Kaitlan sidled to her bed and ran her hand across the coverlet where the woman’s hips had lain.

Dry.

She placed her palms on the mattress, leaned over and breathed in. The faint smell of urine wafted up her nose.

Kaitlan jerked up and stumbled two steps backward. She stood, hands clenched, air stuttering in her throat, as panic rappelled down her spine. She wasn’t crazy. That woman had been here.

And so had Craig.

Kaitlan turned toward the sliding glass door, her focus landing on the carpet. The footprint. He’d forgotten to clean it up.

She stared at it, visualizing Craig’s flurry of activity as he restored the apartment, his fear of being caught. Or had he been methodical, so confident he could control her that he hadn’t bothered with the print?

Maybe he thought she was too dumb to notice it.

She couldn’t believe this.

She had to believe it.

Margaret. She and Kaitlan’s grandfather would be waiting to hear what happened.

Kaitlan hurried back to the kitchen. She fumbled in her purse for her cell phone. With shaking fingers she dialed the unlisted number she’d never forgotten.

“Kaitlan?” Margaret’s voice pinched.

“She’s gone.” Kaitlan’s tone sounded flat. “Everything’s in place.”

Margaret sucked in a breath. The sound chilled Kaitlan’s blood. It was a sound squeezed by fear.

Her grandfather had been right. Craig was a killer. Now her life depended on what she did next.

You play your charade, he’ ll play his.

Kaitlan’s eyes bounced to the clock on the kitchen wall. Ten after six. Craig would arrive in twenty minutes.

This was insane.

“Gotta go, Margaret. I’ll call you tonight when I get back home.”

“I’ll be praying for you.”

“Thanks. I believe in that.”

She snapped the phone shut and dropped it in her purse. With a deep breath, Kaitlan swiveled toward the bathroom to make herself presentable for her boyfriend—a man who had killed three women.

nineteen

He was right. Darell knew it. He was right!

Perched in his office chair, back erect, he stared at his monitor. But his mind barely registered the empty