Vicious

But she knew, in all likelihood, this guy wasn’t after money.

There was something else he wanted—something unthinkable.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Through the dirty corner of the windshield, where the wipers couldn’t reach, Susan gazed over at the break in the trees along Carroll Creek Road. It was the turnoff for Cedar Crest Way, which eventually led to the Prewitts’ cabin. Susan eased her foot off the accelerator. She was thinking about Jordan Prewitt and everything Tom had told her about him.

She couldn’t help wondering if Jordan had anything to do with Allen’s sudden disappearance. After all, as far as she knew, Jordan was the last person to see Allen before he went missing today.

The speedometer hovered around ten miles per hour as she approached the turnoff to the Prewitt cabin.

She’d left that place earlier feeling somewhat dissatisfied. Now that she knew Jordan was connected to the rental house, she wanted to go back and talk to him again. But talk about what—his murdered mother?

Shaking her head, Susan sped up and passed Cedar Crest Way.

In just a few minutes, she would be at the house on Birch—“the scene of the crime,” as Tom had referred to it. She told herself that she shouldn’t expect to see Allen’s BMW parked in the driveway or find him waiting for her.

Then she’d feel even worse for her dalliance with Tom Collins. For all she knew, Allen could have been in a car wreck. Right now, he could be dead—or in a hospital somewhere, hooked up to a respirator. And here she was giving her cell phone number to this charming, handsome man she barely knew. What was she thinking?

She glanced in the rearview mirror at Mattie. He was asleep in the child seat with that limp, absolutely- dead-but-still-breathing posture.

As she turned down Birch and approached the house, Susan didn’t see Allen’s car in the driveway. No surprise. She didn’t see anyone lurking around the house either, thank God. Mattie barely stirred as she took him out of his car seat. She carried him into the house, up the stairs, and put him on the bed in his room. She covered him with a throw. She planned to start packing their things in just a few minutes.

Back downstairs, she checked her note to Allen, and it looked untouched, unread. She glanced out the sunroom’s glass door at The Seaworthy—tied to that dock that had become a local landmark for the morbidly curious. The beautiful, orange-azure-streaked sunset reflected on the bay’s rippling surface.

Susan unlocked the door and slid it open. She didn’t want to leave Mattie alone in the house too long, even though he was sleeping. She trotted down to the dock and hurried across the same wooden planks where Jordan Prewitt’s mother had been abducted ten years ago.

Susan was just about to climb aboard The Seaworthy when she saw something that made her balk. There on the cockpit seat, someone had laid out Mattie’s and her life vests, which she’d discarded on the dock earlier. She remembered stepping around those vests the last time she was on the dock. Now they were neatly folded up on the boat.

A chill raced through her. Who would do something like that? Susan convinced herself that the sheriff or deputy must have folded the vests and put them there when they’d checked around for that hunter character.

She boarded the boat, then took out the keys, unlocked the cabin door, and pulled it open. All the while, the boat gently teetered from side to side. Stepping down into the darkened cabin, Susan turned on the power switch, and the interior lights went on. The computer started, but it took a while to warm up.

If someone had phoned Bayside Rentals asking if the Internet was working on The Seaworthy, perhaps that was how they’d planned to get a message to Allen. Had Allen seen something online when he’d been getting the boat ready? Maybe there was an e-mail or an instant message that might explain his sudden disappearance.

The Windows menu finally came up on the screen. Sitting on the edge of the captain’s swivel chair, Susan pulled out the drawer with the keyboard and mouse and clicked on the Internet Explorer icon. It was an old computer and took a few more moments to make the connection.

Waiting impatiently, Susan stood and gazed out the thin, long horizontal window at the house. No one was prowling around the woods; at least, she didn’t see anybody. Then she glanced around the interior cabin. She spotted something pink on the couch cushion. At first, she thought she’d left behind a toy from Mattie’s bin. But then she stepped toward the settee and saw it was a brassiere.

Susan picked it up. One of the straps was torn. She automatically moved toward the V-berth—to make sure no one was in there. The place was empty.

“You’ve got mail!” the computer announced.

Susan set the brassiere on the table, moved over to the navigating station, and sat down again. Biting her lip, she clicked on the MAIL icon. There were three unread e-mails within the last two hours, all of them from [email protected]. The e-mail subjects were blank.

Susan clicked on the earliest e-mail, sent at 1:55 PM. The screen came up:

Where R U?

It didn’t say anything else. Susan clicked on the next message at 2:40:

R U there yet? U can’t avoid me.

If these messages were for Allen, obviously, the sender didn’t know where he was either. The last e-mail was at 3:50:

U need 2 respond 2 me or I come 4 S & M in 1 hr.

“Oh, my God,” Susan murmured. She glanced at her wristwatch. The hour was almost up. She peered out the long window at the house again. She didn’t see anyone.

Turning toward the monitor again, she clicked on the REPLY icon and typed furiously. She tried to adapt Secret Admirer’s amateur shorthand:

Sorry 2 B late. Unavoidably detained. R U close by? I’m here & awaiting instructions.

She clicked the SEND icon, and—true to her word—waited. She glanced over at the brassiere on the table. Someone had left that bra there for her or Allen to find—no doubt the same person who had moved and folded up the life vests. The police hadn’t moved those vests, she knew that now. The vests had still been out on the dock after the sheriff and deputy had left.

Susan peered out the window again. She couldn’t linger, not if this person intended to come for Mattie and her within the next few minutes. She had to grab Mattie and get the hell out of there—no stopping to pack or update the note to Allen. She’d drive to Rosie’s and call the police from there.

She heard a click from the computer—and saw the MAIL icon blinking. It was another message from [email protected]. This one had a subject—Pink Souvenir—and it had some kind of image attachment.

Susan clicked on READ MAIL, and an automatic warning came up advising that she shouldn’t open e-mails with download files unless she knew the sender. Susan bypassed it. The text popped up on the screen:

She’s waiting 4 U. I’ll send U another message soon. U know better than 2 involve police. Yes, I M very close….

Below the text, a photo began to emerge—one section at a time from the top of the picture to the bottom. It was a blurry shot of a pale young woman with short-cropped dark hair. Susan recognized her. She’d been at the store yesterday with Jordan and his friend. They’d said her name was Moira. Naked from the waist up, she was sitting on a stained mattress in the dark. She had a dirt smudge on her forehead and looked startled and scared. She was covering her breasts with a bunched-up towel or sweater. Someone had obviously taken her top and her bra.

Susan turned and glanced at the brassiere on the galley table, the pink souvenir.

She heard a scream in the distance.

“Mattie!” she whispered. “My God…”

Rushing up the ladder to the deck, she leapt off the boat and stumbled onto the dock. She heard him scream