FATAL FORTY-EIGHT: A Kate Huntington Mystery (The Kate Huntington Mysteries Book 7) (25 page)

Anger surged. She ground her teeth. “Too bad that damned neighbor didn’t consider the possibility that someone was in trouble. If she’d reported the thumping, Sally might be safe now.”

And Charles too.
Where the hell is Charles?

Knowing it was probably a futile effort, she rummaged in her purse for her cell phone, then scrolled through contacts until she found his number. Her call went right to voicemail. “You’ve reached Tolliver Graphic Designs. I’m not available at the moment to take your–”

Kate disconnected.

~~~~~~~~

2:30 p.m. Sunday

Skip was halfway through yet another cup of coffee. He wasn’t sure but he thought it might be his twelfth. He figured he’d know every fast food and Starbucks drive-thru in a fifty-mile radius by the time this was over.

They’d eliminated all but one of the single-family homes on their list. That one had shown no signs of activity and no one had answered the door. He planned to go back to check it out again before starting on the townhouses and condos.

He glanced over at Officer Lindsey, the uniform Judith had assigned to them. She’d insisted that a law enforcement officer be with each team. Skip wondered if she’d assigned an officer to go with Julie. He hoped the young agent wasn’t knocking on doors without backup.

Skip looked in the rearview mirror at Manny Ortiz in the backseat. “We’re not that far from the precinct. I’m gonna swing by there and use the men’s room.”

“Excellent idea.” Lindsey squirmed in the passenger seat. Apparently he had also consumed one too many cups of coffee.

Officer Lindsey, it had turned out, had been buddies with Rose when she was a member of the Baltimore County police force. Lindsey had reminded Skip that he had been one of the responding officers to a call regarding threatening notes Kate had been receiving.

Skip had done a quick calculation in his head. “You’ve got a good memory. That was seven years ago, almost to the day.”

It was a bittersweet memory. The threats had been aimed at Edie who was eleven months old at the time. He and Kate were dating, and he’d already grown to love her cheerful baby girl. He’d gone ballistic at the thought of some anonymous kook threatening the child and scaring Kate out of her wits.

But two good things had come out of that evening. The detective who had responded to the call was Dolph Randolph, now his operative and one of his closest friends. And that was the night he’d proposed to Kate, and she accepted.

Skip swung into a parking space a quarter block from the police station. Officer Lindsey threw open his door and bolted from the truck. Skip and Manny followed at a more sedate pace.

As he came out of the men’s room a couple minutes later, Skip almost collided with Special Agent Wallace.

She tried to pull away from him. He grabbed her shoulder. “Julie, wait. This is so not what you think it is.”

She froze, turned her face away.

“Come on. Ride with me while I check out the rest of these properties.”

“I have my own list.”

“How many do you have left?”

“Two single-family.”

“I just have one.”

Manny came out of the men’s room behind him. Without taking his eyes off Julie or his hand off her shoulder, Skip said, “Manny, why don’t you and Officer Lindsey take some of these properties? Do you mind using your car?”

“No problem,” Manny said.

Reaching into his pocket with his other hand, Skip fumbled the folded pages of addresses out. Praying Julie wouldn’t bolt, he let go of her to pull the second sheet of the list loose. He held it out to his operative.

Manny stepped up next to him and cast him a sideways glance. After a beat, he took the sheet of paper. “Sure, boss.” He went off in search of Lindsey.

“Come on, Julie,” Skip said.

She hesitated, then shrugged.

He made an after-you gesture that was not about being a gentleman. He wasn’t sure she’d follow him if he led the way.

Once they were settled in his SUV, he pulled away from the curb. “You mind if we go first to this one I checked out earlier? Nobody was home then.”

Julie shrugged again.

He pointed his GPS in the right direction.

It took several minutes for him to work up the courage to speak. “Look, Julie, I never meant to lead you on. I was just trying to support you.”

She snorted softly.

“I
am
a happily married man. I took off my ring because I got into some poison ivy last weekend when I was working outside.”

A louder, exaggerated snort.

He felt the heat rising in his cheeks.

“Damn it, Julie, I’m technically old enough to be your father.”

“Yeah, like that’s stopped horny old men before.”

Skip gripped the steering wheel and tried not to react right away. He processed what she’d said. In as calm a voice as he could muster, he said, “Sounds like you’ve had a bit too much experience with dirty old men.”

She turned sideways in her seat. He could feel her gaze on him. “Seriously, you think you can play shrink with me?”

“No, I’m trying to tell you that I can relate.”

“Relate to what?”

“People coming on to you.”

“Huh?”

He glanced at her, then returned his gaze to the road. “Sometimes being attractive sucks.”

She stared straight ahead for a full minute. “Yeah, it does,” she finally said in a low voice.

He pulled to the curb a half block away from the house that had been empty earlier. He turned toward her. “I’m really sorry that I caused you pain, Julie. That was never my intention.”

She looked out the window toward the house. He thought she wasn’t going to answer, but she whispered, “Apology accepted.”

He quietly blew out air.

They watched the house for a few minutes.

“I wasn’t always attractive,” Skip said. “I was the scrawny runt of the litter until senior year of high school. Suddenly I started growin’ like a weed and next thing I knew, I was the tallest kid in the class.” He paused, remembering. “In one school year, I went from the kid the girls laughed at to the one they all wanted to date.”

After a beat, she said, “That had to be weird.”

“It was, and I still do a double-take now and then, when I pass a mirror.”

That got a small smile out of her. She shook her head slightly. “I’ve always been adorable. That’s what everybody called me as a kid. And then it was ‘gorgeous.’ ‘You’ve turned into such a gorgeous young lady.’ Made me want to puke.”

Skip had lived with a psychotherapist long enough to know that was an extreme reaction. The pieces fell into place. He resisted the urge to ask who had molested her.

“It gets tiring having people throw themselves at you,” he said instead.

Her cheeks colored.

Maybe that had been the wrong thing to say. He swallowed hard. “Look, it’s not your fault. I wasn’t wearing a ring. That’s totally on me.”

She gave him a sly look. “Your wife’s really pissed at you.”

He sighed. “Yeah, she is.”

She tried to hide her smirk but wasn’t totally successful.

He let out a short bark of laughter. “This hasn’t been my best weekend in the female department.”

She gave him a genuine smile. He was surprised by how grateful he felt at the sight of it.

A curtain flicked in the window of the house they were watching.

They both sat up in their seats.

A young man strolling down the sidewalk turned onto the walkway to the house. The curtain flicked again.

“What have we here?” Skip said under his breath.

“Good question.”

They watched the young man climb the porch steps and ring the doorbell. After a too-long pause considering the surveillance through the window, the door opened.

A short, dapper man invited the visitor in.

“Does he look like Delaney to you?” Skip said.

“Couldn’t tell for sure, but damned close.”

“Let’s go.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Skip couldn’t remember when he’d been this embarrassed this many times in one short interval. He apologized again to the gay man whose date had jumped the porch railing and taken off as soon as Julie had flashed her credentials.

Incredibly, the man had allowed them to search his house. No signs of prisoners or hidden rooms.

“Thanks for your time, sir,” Skip said as the man ushered them to the door. Again he resisted the urge to ask why his date had bolted at the sight of an FBI badge. After all, being gay wasn’t against the law. But maybe the guy had brought some illegal substances along, to share with his date.

Skip paused on the porch to let Julie precede him down the steps. As she passed him, she glanced sideways and snickered softly.

He suppressed a smile.

Once they were in his truck, he pointed to the GPS screen on the dashboard. “Plug the address of your first house into Bonnie.”

Julie raised her eyebrows at him. “Bonnie?”

Skip gave a slight shake of his head. “Kate’s idea. Her GPS has a male voice.”

“Lemme guess. Clyde.”

He grinned at her. “Yup.”

~~~~~~~~

3:30 p.m. Sunday

Four-thirty. Two and half hours left. Sally hated that clock but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. The urge to pick it up and hurl it across the room was so great her arms strained against the canvas of the straightjacket.

Where is he?

What if he didn’t come back and let her out of this contraption so she could wash up? She jiggled one knee up and down. Worse yet, what if he let her bathe but then didn’t leave again before seven? She needed time alone to get out of the straightjacket.

Her nostrils flared. How could he not let her wash up? The scent of vomit had now been added to the bouquet of stale food smells and body odor. He wouldn’t be able to stand being near her.

Then again, it would be just like him to hold the idea of washing up out in front of her, like a carrot on a stick, but never actually let her do it.

She couldn’t push the idea too hard. If he knew it was important to her, he’d be more likely to withhold it.

Click, whir.

Sally jumped. Adrenaline shot through her system.

Showtime!

She’d never been much of an actress.

He waltzed into the room, stepping gingerly over the regurgitated chicken soup without commenting on it. He was grinning and clutching a brown paper bag to his chest as if it were the love of his life. “How are you doing, my dear?”

Red hot rage engulfed her.

I’m just ducky, you asshole!

She managed to smile despite clenched teeth. “That smells good.”

“So would you rather eat first, or wash up?”

She pretended to contemplate that decision. “I’d enjoy the meal a lot more if I washed up first.”

“The food may get cold.”

She tilted her head as if considering that factor. She was about to say that wouldn’t matter, then suddenly remembered her earlier claim that she preferred hot food. “There’s always the microwave.”

“Very well then.”

She hid her relief and tried to look submissive.

 He set the bag down on the floor and extracted the smaller of his pistols from inside his jacket. “Stand up and turn around.”

She complied. The pressure on her arms tightened slightly, then loosened as he undid the buckles of the straps behind her.

He stepped back and pointed the gun at her. “Okay, you can take it off now.”

She intentionally moved awkwardly. “Give me a minute. I think my arms have fallen asleep.” They hadn’t because she had been tensing and relaxing the muscles periodically to keep the blood flowing.

Once free of the straightjacket, she glanced down at her favorite silk blouse. The cream-colored fabric was sweat-stained and wrinkled. She looked forward to burning it when this was all over.

He gestured with the gun toward the bathroom.

She shuffled across the room, the hobbles on her legs reminding her of slave shackles. A slight shudder ran through her.

Once in the bathroom, she said, “Do you mind if I close the door?”

He hesitated a second, then nodded.

She nudged the door most of the way closed with her elbow. No need to close it completely. Better to not make him nervous about what she was doing. The washing up was not the critical piece to her plan.

She leaned down and undid the velcro straps holding the sheepskin hobbles to her ankles. Then she stripped off her clothes, pushed aside the shower curtain and stepped into the shower. She turned the handle and cool water pelted her skin. She sighed out loud.

Might not be the critical piece but it sure felt good.

Not wanting to push her luck, she turned off the shower long before she wanted to. Using the lone towel hanging from the towel rack, she dried herself off.

She picked up her bra and put it on, then grabbed her slip and pulled it on over her head. She contemplated the rest of her clothes for a moment. They were rank, and she’d probably be better off with the slippery nylon next to the canvas of the straightjacket.

She wished he hadn’t taken her panties. She felt incredibly vulnerable in nothing but a bra and slip.

Sitting down on the closed toilet lid, she wrapped one of the sheepskin straps around her left ankle. She paused, every cell in her body resisting the task of closing the velcro tabs.

Could she get away with leaving them loose? Better not. If he checked them, then he might be more vigilant as he put the straightjacket back on her.

She gritted her teeth and finished securing the hobbles around her ankles. Bracing herself, she pulled the bathroom door open. “I can’t bring myself to put those stinky clothes back on.”

After a half beat, he nodded and motioned for her to come out into the bedroom.

She did so, stifling a surge of humiliation.

He lifted the straightjacket into the air and pulled a long face. “Speaking of stinky, such a shame that we can’t wash this.”

He motioned with the gun in his other hand for her to come closer. “Turn around.”

She did so.

“Hold up your arms.”

The moment of truth. She lifted her arms in the air, and he dropped the straightjacket over them. Her hands slid into the sleeves. She quietly sucked in her breath and held it, her chest and belly swelled with air.