Vicious

difficult to keep track of what happened.”

“Where did you take her, Allen?” Jordan pressed. “I’d really like to know where you killed my mother. Did you have a special place you took all your victims?”

“I haven’t killed anyone,” Meeker groaned. “I’ll say it again, I’m really sorry your mother was murdered. You have my deepest sympathies. But c’mon, how can you be so sure it was me? I heard you telling your buddy about it. When was she killed? I mean, shit, how long has it been—seven or eight years?”

“You know how long it’s been,” Jordan growled. “Ten years last August.”

“And you recognize me after all that time? Didn’t you say you were in a kayak in the middle of the bay? You had to be pretty damn far away if you couldn’t paddle to her in time to help her. You would have had to see the guy at a distance. How can you be so sure it was me?”

Jordan silently stared at him for a moment. “I never said I was in a kayak in the middle of the bay,” he whispered. “I said I was in a boat. But let me tell you something. It was a kayak. And you knew—without me telling you. You knew, because you were there.”

“Okay, so you said boat!” Allen yelled. He tugged at the rope around his wrists, and the worktable shook. “I figured it was a kayak or a canoe. Goddamn it, I was just guessing!”

“You’re pretending not to know, but you keep tripping yourself up,” Jordan said.

“Oh, Jesus, please!” Allen cried. “I’m aching all over! I can’t even feel my hands. I got to take a piss. I didn’t kill anybody! I came here for a quiet weekend with my fiancee. I wanted to treat her to a break from the city. She’s had a rough go of it. Her husband and her other kid died last year. I’m worried about her. God, please…” He glanced over at Leo. “I told you about this guy stalking her. She’s all alone right now….”

“If you’re so worried about her, why didn’t you just pack up your stuff and go back to Seattle?” Jordan asked.

“I wanted to take her sailing,” Allen whispered. He started sobbing again. “I just wanted to do that for her….”

Leo grabbed hold of the banister and stood up. “Jordan?” he said quietly.

His friend let out a long sigh. Scowling at his captive, Jordan walked around the worktable and approached Leo. “You can see I’m making headway here,” he whispered edgily. “Still think he’s innocent?”

Leo wasn’t sure, so he didn’t answer the question. “I’m worried about Moira,” he said under his breath. “She should have been back here at least two hours ago. She could be lost or hurt or God knows what. We should be out there looking for her, Jordan.” He glanced over at Meeker slouched across the worktable, weeping. “We can’t keep doing this. It’s not right. We need to call the state police and tell them we’ve captured a murder suspect. Then we can let them handle it. And maybe they’ll assign some cops to help us find Moira.” Leo put his hand on Jordan’s shoulder. “It’s the smart thing—the right thing to do.”

“Just give me another twenty minutes,” Jordan whispered. He clutched Leo’s hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. “Please, I need to hear him confess. Give me that much. I’ve waited ten years for this. Please, Leo.”

He stared at his friend for a moment and then sank down on the step again. “Okay,” he murmured. “Twenty minutes…”

From Tom Collins’s dock, Susan gazed down the shoreline at the rental house on Birch. But it was too far away to discern if there was any activity in or around the house. The place looked very pretty from where she stood right now, but Susan wasn’t eager to go back there—even just to pack up their things and leave.

Before stepping inside his house to make the lemonade, Tom had dug a twelve-inch plastic, multicolored beach ball and a plastic baseball bat out of a toolshed in the backyard. Mattie kept busy kicking and hitting the ball on the lawn.

Susan had offered to help make the lemonade, but Tom had insisted she and Mattie stay outside to avoid the construction mess in his kitchen and living room.

From the dock, she wandered over to the picnic table by the flagpole and sat down. The sun was just starting to set over the bay, and Susan felt a chill in the air. Above her, the Stars and Stripes flapped in the breeze. It was that magic time late in an autumn afternoon when the light made everything look beautiful and saturated with color.

Susan suddenly felt so lonely—and it didn’t really have anything to do with Allen’s unexplained absence. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Maybe she was just feeling vulnerable.

Tom brought out a tray with a pitcher of lemonade, a bag of Chips Ahoy! and three tall, ice-filled glasses that had Cheers! Tom & Viv Collins written on them in gold script. He sat down with her at the picnic table. He’d combed his hair and changed into a sexy black V-neck sweater while he’d been inside.

“Mattie, come get some lemonade,” Susan called to him. But he ignored her. He was having too much fun with the ball and bat. “Sweetie, did you hear me?”

Tom poured the lemonade. “Oh, let him play,” he said. “Looks like he’s having a blast.”

“I suppose you’re right. He’ll sleep better tonight.” She studied the inscription on her glass. “Did you get these in a divorce settlement or something?”

He shook his head. “No, I’ve never been married—engaged once, but never married. Tom and Vivian are my parents. They had a whole set of these cheesy glasses. I think the other ones said Skoal and Salute. My mom died in 2002. Dad moved to a retirement village in Arizona three years ago. He left me in charge of this place.” He glanced toward the house. “It’s been the family weekend and summer home ever since I was a kid. I used to hate coming here because all I ever did here was work on the yard and on the boat. Anyway, I teach high school in Everett. It gets a little crazy at times. I come here for a break—and once I set foot in the door, all I do is work. You go figure.”

Susan smiled at him and raised her glass. “Well, cheers. This is very good lemonade.”

“It’s a mix, Country Time,” he admitted, running the cool glass over his forehead. “So—be honest. Was I really that creepy at the restaurant yesterday? I mean, I was trying my best to be suave. On a scale from one to ten—with ten being I made your skin crawl—just how creepy was I?”

“You were about a twelve,” Susan replied, cracking a smile.

He laughed. “I may go back to hating you.”

Sipping her lemonade, she glanced over at Mattie while he chased the ball. “Can I ask you something?”

“Fire away,” he said.

“Earlier, when I mentioned that I was staying at the house on Birch Way, you got this funny look on your face. Why is that?”

He frowned slightly and then let out a sigh.

“Is it haunted or something?” she pressed. “I ran into this nice young man at Rosie’s yesterday, maybe you know him, Jordan Prewitt. His family has a cabin near here. When I asked him for directions to Birch Way, he got this strange, somber look in his eyes—sort of like you had when I mentioned I was staying there.”

“You asked Jordan Prewitt for directions to the house on Birch Way?” Tom asked, as if she’d committed a major faux pas. He ran a hand through his dark hair. “Oh, God…”

“What? What is it?”

“So Jordan’s staying at the family cabin this weekend? Is he here with his folks?”

“No, he’s with some friends, another boy and a girl.” Susan leaned forward, her eyes searching his. “And you’re changing the subject. What’s wrong with asking Jordan Prewitt for directions to the house on Birch Way?”

Tom sighed. “Maybe I shouldn’t say anything, since you’re staying there. I don’t want to give you nightmares, but—well, ten years ago, Jordan’s mother was abducted from the dock behind that house. Jordan was out on a boat in the bay when it happened. He saw the whole thing, the poor kid.” Frowning, Tom glanced down at the picnic table top. “Anyway, they found his mother’s body in the woods nearby. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Mama’s Boy murders from about ten years ago, but Jordan’s mother was one of the victims. Her name was Stella Syms. She dropped the Prewitt when Jordan’s dad dropped her.”

“My God,” Susan murmured, shaking her head. “I knew one of the women was killed up here in Cullen, but I had no idea it happened at that house….”

“The place belonged to Stella’s family,” Tom explained. “They wanted to unload it after that. But they had a hard time selling it, because of the murder. This local couple ended up buying it and turning it into a rental.”