Finding Sarah (26 page)

“I thought Laughlin told you to
stay put. You don’t want to compromise the case.”

“Ringing someone’s doorbell isn’t
compromising anything.” He took a deep breath, trying to ease the tightness in
his chest. Dammit, he was not going to be too late again.

“If she’s there and I don’t do
something …” Randy took his badge case and slapped it on his desk. Placed his
service weapon beside it. He gave Kovak an even stare. “I’m going.”

Sarah tried not to think about
what her wedding night meant to Chris. Maybe she should get flat-out drunk.
Would Chris do anything if she passed out? She’d have to figure out a way to
stall. She smiled. “Get you drunk? Of course not. Like you said, it’s a
celebration.”

“It’s getting late, don’t you
think? The guests are leaving.”

Aware of a sudden silence, she
twisted to see the television displaying the closing credits. Chris crossed to
the set. He pressed the rewind button on the VCR and stood there while the
machine whirred. “I can’t tell you how happy I am this finally worked out.
David was never right for you. And then, after you married him, you were never
supposed to make a go of it in that store.”

She blinked. What a fool she’d
been, an ostrich with her head in the sand, thinking Diana was the one behind
everything.

Chris went on talking, sounding
proud of his accomplishments. “I knew if you lost money, you’d get tired of
David and come back to me. It wasn’t hard. People do what I want. They could
mix up shipments for me, or tell people not to let you sell their stuff. But no
matter what problems you had, you and your store kept coming back.”

“You? You were trying to put us
out of business from the time we opened?”

“The store was holding you and
David together. If the store was gone, you’d come back to me. But it didn’t
work.”

Sarah’s mouth felt like
sandpaper. She reached for her glass before remembering she was avoiding the
alcohol. Chris was talking again, still watching the VCR wind down. She
wondered why he didn’t have a remote, but, for whatever reason, was glad he
didn’t. It meant he had to stand by the machine, which meant he wasn’t standing
beside her.

“I never wanted you to be hurt.
You were supposed to need me and let me take care of you. The fire didn’t work,
and I remembered that hold-up woman. I thought if I frightened you a little,
you might sell the store, so I hired someone to rob you. But then your nosy
neighbor and that cop started poking around. I needed to make them leave me
alone, too.”

“Diana? Did you—did you make
her—?”

“She was a lucky coincidence, but
I don’t think I’d really have bought her out. Now that we’re married, we’ll
sell the store. You’ll have plenty to keep you busy at home.” He twisted to
face her. “But I’m not sure I’ll let you get a kitten—I’m not much of an animal
lover.”

His satanic grin turned her
stomach. “You really did poison the cats.”

Without thinking, Sarah flew
across the room and swung the champagne bottle as hard as she could at Chris’
head. A look of incredulity crossed his face. His arm came up to block it, but
not quite fast enough. She heard a dull thwack. The impact of the blow surged
through her wrist and up her arm. His eyelids flickered and he slumped to the
wooden floor.

The pulsing blood in her ears
blocked all but the sounds of her own rasping breaths. Her brain refused to
function. Some instinct took over and she reached down and dragged him into the
bedroom. She patted his pockets, found a slim wallet, but no keys.

He groaned. Was he moving? Her
panic mounted. There was nothing in this room to hit him with. She had to get
out, get away from him. She raced out the door and locked it behind her. How
long would he be unconscious?

She stumbled to the second
bedroom. On the dresser were Chris’ keys. One of them had to open the front
door. She fumbled through them until one released the lock.

“Sarah. What’re you doing?”

She gasped and turned to the
bedroom. The door was still shut. Chris’ speech was slow, groggy-sounding, but
he wasn’t out cold. On television, people who got hit on the head stayed
unconscious until the other guy got away. Crap. Shuffling sounds came from
behind the door. Hiking up her gown, she scrambled across the porch and down
the steps. She had to get away. Away from Chris. Behind the cabin, the SUV
faced a stand of trees. Clicking the entry remote, she saw the interior lights
flash. She pulled open the driver’s door and climbed in. Trembling fingers
managed to insert the key into the ignition. She turned the key, but nothing
happened. Double crap. Maybe the battery was dead. After three more tries, she
looked down and saw a third pedal. A clutch. A stick shift. She had no clue how
to drive a manual transmission, especially not backward. Did she hear pounding
and shouting? She was breathing so loudly she couldn’t be sure.

* * * * *

On his way out, Randy stopped by
the first aid cabinet and grabbed a bottle of Tums. With fumbling fingers, he
worked his way through the safety seals as he hustled to the parking lot. Why
had he dismissed Scofield so quickly? He ran through motives as he drove. Would
Scofield hurt Sarah to get back at Diana? Her share of That Special Something
was out of Owen’s hands. Didn’t make a lot of sense, since the man seemed to
have more money than God, but greed had to rank in the top three motives for
wrongdoing.

How did the cats play in? Revenge
for what Owen had considered public humiliation when Randy had questioned him
in his gallery in front of employees? Filing a complaint wasn’t enough? But why
Othello? Or did Owen have something against Sarah? Had Diana whined that Sarah
was turning her brother against her?

The questions twisted through Randy’s
mind like a summer tornado. He finally realized his cell phone was ringing and checked
the display. Kovak. Randy opened the connection. “What do you have?” he
snapped.

“Hello to you, too.”

Randy eased his pickup onto the
shoulder and activated his flashers. Took a deep breath. “Talk to me.”

“The phone records you didn’t
want to wait for—over the last two months, there were over fifty calls from
Christopher Westmoreland, all during the day, all under a minute. I went to the
judge and convinced him to let me take a look at his place.”

“What did you find?”

“The guy’s an amateur
photographer. His den is a gallery of prints by the photographers on your alias
list. Books, too.”

A vat of acid spilled into Randy’s
stomach. Chris, not Scofield? “You have anything more? Now I’ve got two
suspects hooked to photography.” But Randy knew he’d moved without thinking.
Kovak’s evidence made more sense.

“Have you talked to Owen Scofield
yet?”

“I’m about fifteen minutes away.”

“I think you need to come back
here, big guy. I’m willing to bet Scofield’s not your man.”

“Give me more.”

“This Sarah Tucker. She brunette?
Blue eyes? Freckles across her nose?”

Randy’s stomach clenched. “Oh,
God. Is … is she … did you find—?”

“No, no. Not like that. He’s got
a darkroom behind his office. I thought you could confirm that the woman in his
pictures—and he has a
lot
of pictures—is the one you’re missing.”

Randy activated his siren and
hung a U-turn across the median. “I’m on my way. Send a uniform with one of
those pictures to Maggie Cooper for ID. Get on the phone to a judge and get a
warrant for every damn thing you can think of, and start working the house as a
crime scene.”

“I’m going to assume that lack of
sleep and stress has made you forget I’ve had a couple years of experience, big
guy. It’s covered. I’ll call if I need you.”

“You call me with every damn
thing you find.” And Randy did everything he could to convince himself that
this time it would be different. Not like with Gram.

What seemed like hours later, Randy
screeched to a halt in front of Chris’ house. Kovak’s unit was there, as well
as Connor’s van. He raced up the steps. “Kovak!”

“Bedroom, to your left. Give us a
minute. We’re almost done.”

“Where’s this darkroom hideaway
you talked about?”

“Through the den, door’s at the
rear of his office.”

Randy marched through the office,
into the darkroom and pushed aside a blackout curtain. Covered with cork, the
walls displayed a gallery of photos of Sarah. Color, black-and-white, large,
small, new, old. On top of the chest Randy saw a silver frame which he’d bet
was the one Harriett stole. Sarah’s face smiled from the photograph.

“It’s her, right?” Kovak said
from behind him.

Randy nodded. “Bag that picture,”
he told Kovak. “The frame was stolen.”

“Got it,” Kovak said. “I need you
in the bedroom. But I need you to be a cop.”

“Show me.” Randy followed Kovak
out of the room and down a hallway beyond the living room.

“How well do you know Sarah
Tucker?” Kovak asked.

Randy spun Kovak around by the
shoulder so his face was inches from his partner. “Why? You found something.
Dammit, tell me.”

Connor came out of the bedroom,
carrying an evidence bag. “I’ll check the panties for semen,” he said.

“What are you talking about? Let
me see that!” Randy reached for the bag. Connor held fast.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Stained
black lace panties. Looks like Mr. Westmoreland got his rocks off using women’s
underwear.”

Randy didn’t miss the glare Kovak
shot Connor.

“Why don’t you take everything
back to the lab,” Kovak said.

Once Connor left the room, Kovak captured
Randy’s gaze. “Did the two of them have anything going on?” His voice was
gentle, and Randy stepped back.

“Sarah and Chris? No way. She
dated him in high school, she said. Friends now. She said he wanted to give her
money, but she refused it. Why?”

Kovak nodded toward the closet. “Try
to be a cop. What would you think if this was anyone else?”

“It’s not anyone else. I know
Sarah.” Randy pushed him aside and strode into the huge walk-in closet, the
scent of cedar assaulting his nostrils. The right side of the closet contained
uniformly spaced men’s suits, dress shirts, slacks and sport coats, but the
left held a section of skirts and dresses. Garments that looked like ones he’d
seen Sarah wear. He yanked open a drawer, freezing at the display of women’s
lingerie. The steel belt in his gut tightened two more notches. He clenched his
teeth.

“It’s not like that,” Randy said.
“Look.” He slammed the drawer shut, turned and yanked a skirt off the rod. “Most
of the clothes in here are brand-new. Price tags still on them. She wasn’t
living here. I know it. You saw the rest of the house. Nothing female. He’s
going to bring her back. I was just at her place. Her stuff is all there.”

“If he’s planning to come back
with her, he’s not going to hurt her, right? You said he wasn’t violent.”

“That’s what Sarah kept saying.”
Randy turned. “Let me look around a little more.” Trying to find some level of
detachment, he opened a bathroom drawer. An unwrapped toothbrush and a new lady’s
razor turned his stomach. He peered into cabinets, checked the tub and shower.
Two shampoo bottles sat side by side on a niche in the shower wall. One was
half empty. He picked up the second. Full. He opened the bottle and took a
sniff. Peach. His hand shook as he recapped the bottle and set it back where he’d
found it.

Chris had planned to bring Sarah
here. But when? Was the kidnapping always part of his scheme, or had he started
improvising? He was breathing was too fast. Too loud.

He felt like he’d been kicked in
the gut. Stepping back, he leaned against the bathroom wall, waited for the
room to stop spinning. The next thing he knew, he was sitting on the edge of
the tub, Kovak’s hand shoving on his head, keeping it between his knees.

Mortified, Randy didn’t budge.

“Jesus, Randy. You look like
crap.”

Randy lifted his head. “Shit, I’m
sorry.”

“Go back to the station. Start
working the desk end. You know your job. Pull it together and do it. Or go
home, get some sleep and don’t come back until you’ve got your head on your
shoulders.”

Sarah gave a quick search of the
glove box and found Chris’ cell phone. Her heart soared as she turned it on,
then plummeted when she discovered there was no signal. The car was empty, save
for the blanket she remembered being covered with on the drive out. She seized
it. The night was cold and she had raced out without thinking, without taking
anything warmer to wear. She definitely heard her name being shouted. Was it
from inside the cabin, or had Chris escaped?

Should she lock herself in the
car? She tried weighing the options, but lucid thought had deserted her for
panic. To reach the road, she’d have to go right past Chris. She heard the
sound of a slamming door from the cabin and raced blindly along a path into the
woods.

Propelled by fear, she clutched
the phone, wrapped the blanket around herself, and ran along the wooded trail as
fast as the darkness and terrain permitted. All she had to do was hide until
daylight. Keep away from Chris until she could see where she was. Maybe reach a
place where the cell phone would work. Once she could make her way to a road,
she would find a way to get help. She plunged on.

Branches whipped at her face.
Roots snagged her shoes. Clouds passed in front of the moon, obscuring her
light source. She ignored them all and kept running. She had no idea how long
she’d been running, or how much ground she’d covered when the sharp pain in her
side became impossible to ignore.

Doubled over, sucking in huge
gasps of air, she tried to get her bearings. The forest whirled around her,
animated by her fear, exhaustion, and emptiness. For all she knew, she’d been
running in circles. Trails had converged, branched off. What had she been
thinking when she ran off like that? She got turned around in the mall, for God’s
sake. The wind blew cold, chilling her now that she was no longer moving. A
strange sound, almost like someone crying, came from above. She held her breath
and listened. Tree limbs rubbing together. She exhaled. Something rustled in
the undergrowth. She had never considered what else lived out here. What other
dangers lurked behind these trees? She shivered.

Stop. Think.

She looked down. In the
moonlight, in this white dress, she’d be an easy target for Chris. She left the
open trail in favor of a narrower footpath through the trees, searching for
denser cover. Stay hidden from Chris until she could see. She heard the satin
fabric of the dress tear, felt the lace sleeves fall away in shreds. Her shoes
kept slipping off, and she wrenched her knee. She limped forward, shivering
with cold and fear. Somewhere, the blanket had disappeared, probably snagged by
a protruding branch. The car keys were gone. Here, where trees sheltered the
ground from the daytime sunshine, snow covered large patches of the trail. A
coat. She would have had time to grab a coat. But fear had taken over, and her
brain had ceased to function when she’d realized Chris was nuts. As she wrapped
her arms around herself, her new wedding band glowed with reflected moonlight.
She twisted it off her finger and hurled it as far as she could into the trees.

The shivering grew worse. Her
teeth chattered. She needed to keep moving, or find shelter. She plodded on,
one arm in front of her face to fend off branches, one hand lifting her dress
so she could walk, favoring her sore knee.

Eventually, she couldn’t pick out
any semblance of a trail, even when the moon gave forth its maximum light. She
could go no farther in this direction. Leaning against a pine tree, she took a
shaky breath. The scrapes on her arms and face stung, and she didn’t want to
think about the crawling sensations on her limbs. Could she hide here until
daylight? How long would it be? Why wasn’t Randy here? He was so big, so
strong. He’d carry her out of the forest, he’d kiss her and the pain would all
go away. She sniffed back tears.

Stop it.

There was no point believing in
fairy tales. Had Randy even realized she was missing? If she was going to get
out, she’d have to do it herself. Shivering uncontrollably, she began picking
her way through the trees. She stumbled, then got up and pushed forward again.
It couldn’t be the champagne—she’d hardly had any. She tripped again. Stupid
tree roots. She didn’t feel the crawling things on her legs anymore. Come to
think of it, she barely felt her legs at all. Or her hands. She looked at her
hands. There was something missing. She struggled through the cotton batting in
her skull. The phone. She’d had a phone. So tired. She needed to sit down. Just
for a minute. She found a large fallen tree among some undergrowth and huddled
behind it, trying to still the chattering of her teeth. Just for a minute. With
any luck, the tree would provide enough cover so Chris couldn’t see her. The
moon hung lower in the sky now. Morning would come. She’d rest. Just for a
minute.

* * * * *

It was after eight by the time
Randy got back to the station. He grabbed a cup of coffee, some crackers and
settled in. Tried to regroup. One step at a time. When he was halfway down the
hall to Dispatch to put a lookout order out on Chris’ Eclipse, he realized how
badly he’d lost it. Punched Kovak’s number into his cell phone.

“Did you check the garage? Is the
Eclipse there? If not, I’ll put out a BOLO.”

“No Eclipse,” Kovak said. “A
green Lexus.”

“Plates?”

Kovak read off the number. “I’m
going to knock on doors after I finish here. I know my job.”

“Sorry.”

“Would you quit apologizing? I’ve
requested Westmoreland’s phone records. They’ll fax them over. Some day they’ll
computerize them for us like the big city folks do. Hope your eyes can take it.”

While Kovak talked, Randy called
up the DMV database. The Lexus was registered to Metro Rentals in Woodford. Why
the hell would Chris have a rental car in his garage? He reported his findings
to Kovak. “I’ll follow up. Keep me posted.”

Randy popped another Tums and
dialed the number for Metro.

The receptionist left him
listening to Hank Williams for five minutes before the manager picked up. Yes,
Mr. Westmoreland had rented a car. Always happy to cooperate with the police. A
green Lexus. He’d rented it on Wednesday, no return date specified. Said his
car was in the shop. Metro had an agreement with the Mitsubishi dealership. Of
course he’d be happy to give Randy the number.

The Mitsubishi dealership was
closed. Opened at seven the next morning. Randy called Woodford PD and asked
them to dig up the service manager. He put out the BOLO for the Eclipse anyway.
Sweat trickled down his neck. His shirt stuck to his back. He yanked off his
tie and rolled up his sleeves.

Who else would know where Chris might
be? Randy reached for the phone again. The night security guard at Consolidated
checked the logs. No, Mr. Westmoreland hadn’t been in today, but he was noted
as being on vacation until the following Monday. No emergency contact numbers,
no itinerary, but maybe his secretary would know, if Randy wanted to call back
in the morning.

Randy grabbed his Consolidated
directory. Found a secretary for Development. Clicked through phone directory
databases and found her home number. No, she didn’t have a way to reach Mr.
Westmoreland. He was adamant about his privacy. If he checked in, she’d be sure
to tell him Detective Detweiler wanted to speak with him.

Shit. Like the man would call him
back. The pencil Randy had been clenching snapped.
“No. Please don’t tell him I called.” Nothing like lighting up a neon sign
saying,
I’m on to you.

He started calling the airlines
and bus depot. Cab companies. His ear throbbed. His head pounded. His stomach
churned.

Three cups of coffee and twice
that many trips to the men’s room later, Randy found that Chris Westmoreland’s
cell phone had indeed called Oregon Trust, Tony Mazzaro, Rose Tanaka and Harriett
Pickett. Any gratification at having all this evidence was negated by the
earthquake in his gut. He leaned his elbows on his desk and lowered his head
into his hands.

For now, Chris was a dead end.
Try it from the other direction. God, he’d have to call Sarah’s mother.