One Scream Away (16 page)

“Pretty slick,” he muttered, then rooted through her closet and a couple of drawers, grabbing anything he thought she might need and folding clothes as neatly as a man is capable of doing. In the bathroom, a box of Tampax made him pause. He took it, just in case, then searched the drawers for birth control pills or something. There weren’t any.

You’ve been alone a long time…

Neil looked at a photograph of her husband on the nightstand. Some questions there, but he was honest enough to acknowledge they were mostly personal. Adam Denison didn’t appear to be a big guy: five-nine or five-ten, with the build of a tennis player, light brown hair, and kind of an intellectual look about him. Abby didn’t favor him; she was a carbon copy of Beth’s exotic looks. But it was obvious from the array of photographs around the house that Beth worked hard to keep Adam alive, and his ring was the only jewelry Neil had seen her wear.

Was she still in love with a ghost?

At five o’clock in the morning, he pulled into the hotel parking lot.

“It’s clean?” Neil asked when Rick met him.

“Yeah. My guys got security in place an hour ago.”

He woke Beth gently, not knowing what to expect of her temper when she realized he’d taken her to a hotel instead of home. He didn’t know if she still had any intention of taking on Bankes, but it didn’t matter anymore. He was finished letting her call the shots.

“Where are we?” she asked, testing her legs as she got out of the car. She handed him the sport coat he’d tucked around her in the car. He draped it right back over her shoulders again.

“Hotel. Keep you out of sight for a little while.”

She blinked but didn’t argue. Probably just too exhausted.

“Abby?” she asked.

“Covington police and a couple of Feds are on her twenty-four, seven. Adam’s sister will never know they’re there. But if Bankes discovers Abby, we’ll be on him before he can breathe.”

“Okay.”

“You’re damn right, okay. Get your purse.”

“I am getting my purse. You don’t have to order me around.”

It didn’t feel that way to Neil. She needed someone to take care of her, God help him.

Beth frowned when he pulled her suitcase out of the car. “That’s mine,” she said.

“We went by your house and I picked up a few things. If there’s something I missed, I’ll get it tomorrow.” She reached for the suitcase and Neil pushed her hand away. “I’ve got it.”

“I can carry my own suitcase,” she protested. “I do it all—”

“Damn it, Beth.” He grabbed the suitcase with one hand and her elbow with the other. “You aren’t alone anymore.”

He piloted Beth to a suite of rooms on the eighth floor of the Radcliffe Hotel. It had a comfortable central sitting room, with two bedrooms jutting out like wings, each with its own bath. Another half bath squatted between the wings, and to the right a pair of double doors led to a small kitchen.

Rick, his sleeves rolled to his elbows and tie yanked loose, had files spread out on a coffee table. A larger table had been commandeered for a laptop, printer, and fax machine. Neil wasn’t surprised at the man stationed there: thin, bespectacled, and slightly balding, he wore a black suit, white shirt, and navy-striped tie.

The Feds had arrived.

“Ms. Denison,” Rick said, gesturing to the setup, “I’m sorry to intrude on you, but we need to talk to you before you go to bed.”

“I’m not going to bed. I slept all the way here.”

Neil stopped himself before he scoffed out loud. She sure as hell
was
going to bed. For about ten hours, if he had anything to say about it.

“This is Special Agent Jack Brohaugh with the FBI,” Rick said, introducing the man with a laptop. “The rest of the task force will be assembled later this morning at Quantico. Brohaugh is a technology expert.”

“Computer jock,” Brohaugh editorialized. He smiled at Beth and shook Neil’s hand.

“Do you know Special Agent Geneviève Standlin?” Neil asked.

“She’s on her way,” Brohaugh answered. “She said to tell you to take a pill, chill out.”

Neil humphed. Witch. But, Jesus, he’d be glad to see her.

Rick started in with Beth: “We know about Anne Chaney and Bankes. But we need you to help us figure out what he’s doing now. Why he’s after you.”

Her cheeks drained of what little color they had, but she nodded. She picked her way around the room as if she didn’t know where to sit, then perched on the edge of a love seat. Brohaugh started typing, though nothing had been said yet, and Rick settled into a chair.

“Ms. Denison,” Rick began, “when did you receive the first phone call from Bankes?”

“About eight months ago,” she said. “I thought it was just a run-of-the-mill prankcall.”

“How many times has he called since then?”

She pressed her fingertips against her temples. “I don’t know.”

“Two, ten, twenty?” Neil pushed.

“I don’t know.” She looked at Neil. “You were monitoring my phone calls, why don’t you know?”

“Jesus, Beth, we weren’t monitoring your phone calls. All we knew at first was the phone that called you on Wednesday night belonged to a woman with her eyelids cut off.”

“Wh-what?”

Well, shit. Beth went ashen, looking suddenly like she might pass out. Neil glanced at Rick, whose face said,
Nice work, asshole
.

“Ms. Denison—” Rick stopped. “May I call you Beth? We only know of three phone calls. The one from Seattle you received at midnight this past Wednesday night, the one from Omaha we played for you at the station, and the one we tapped into tonight”—he looked at his watch—“I mean, last night. Do you remember the first call?”

She nodded. “It was a Monday night, Labor Day. I remember because I’d just flown back from an antiques show in Dallas.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. I hung up. I thought it was just an obscene phone call.”

“Okay,” Rick said. “But there has to be a reason Bankes called you. It wasn’t random. Think about people you’ve met through Foster’s, maybe someone you dated—”

“It’s not that.” She looked up, and the words seemed to choke her. “I wasn’t trying to be uncooperative. I thought he just wanted to get back at me. It’s me he wants.”

Neil’s heart began to squeeze.

“But this last time—t-tonight—when he called, he said he’d—” She drew in a deep breath. Agony carved lines in her face. “He said he’d killed a woman in her van. Wh-what if it’s true?”

“It is true, sweetheart,” Neil said. “He shot a woman, just before he called you.”

She jerked as if she’d been struck. A pallor like a death mask crept over her face.

“Beth,” Neil said, “that was the third woman we think Bankes has killed—on
this
spree—and two others are miss—”

She shoved past him, swung the bathroom door closed behind her. She vanished so quickly Neil felt the air move in her wake, caught her scent in his nostrils. He frowned, then heard the unmistakable sounds of coughs and gags.

They gave her a few minutes, nobody talking, until Neil couldn’t stand it any longer and started toward the bathroom. The door opened, and he stopped.

“It’s not because of something at work,” Beth said, her voice thready. “And it doesn’t have anything to do with someone I dated.”

Neil stepped closer. “Then what is it, Beth? Why does Chevy Bankes want to ‘make you pay’?”

She looked up at him, forcing out the words: “Because I killed Anne Chaney.”

S
ilence. For the space of three heartbeats, the room went absolutely still, then Sheridan scraped out an order: “Don’t say another word, Beth.”

“I didn’t me—”

“Stop.” He shushed her with his hand, his voice so severe she blinked. His expression virtually dared anyone else in the room to continue the questioning.

“Uh…” Sacowicz rubbed his head, looking confounded. “Okay, get her lawyer,” he said to Sheridan. And to Beth, “This might be a good time to take a break, maybe go lie down, whatever.”

She opened her mouth, but Neil was already beside her, his hand on her elbow. “Do it.”

An hour later, Beth sat on the edge of a hotel bed, water dripping from her hair and soaking the back of her hotel robe. There was a time she’d almost drowned herself in hot showers—it had been the only way to get warm when the chills came, vibrating on the heels of the memories. Memories now shared with the Arlington Police Department, the FBI, and Neil Sheridan.

I won’t tell, Adam, I promise.

“Beth.” A rap at the door.

She smoothed back her hair and considered standing. She didn’t have the energy. “Yes.”

The door cracked open. “Hey.”

Neil. Ex–Special Agent Sheridan, rather. She wasn’t sure when she’d started thinking of him as Neil. For such a startlingly handsome man, he looked terrible—from his altercation with Joshua Herring, the long drive, the long hour spent reading about Anne Chaney and Chevy Bankes.

He stepped in front of her. “You should dry your hair. You’re shivering.”

So, what else is new? she thought.

“Adele Lochner is on her way. Don’t say anything more until she gets here, do you understand?”

Don’t tell, Beth. You’ll go to prison.

“I didn’t mean for it to happ—”

“Don’t.” He placed his finger over her lips. “Tell me later, with your lawyer.”

The emotional dam threatened to crack. Damn it, she shouldn’t need a lawyer to explain what happened. And damn it, she thought she’d gotten past the guilt.

Neil sat down so close the heat of his body penetrated her robe. “It was fifty-two degrees the night Anne Chaney died. You were cold.”

Beth looked at him. No one had ever understood the physical legacy that haunted her all these years later, yet in the past few days Neil had seen it come over her time and again. Shivers and chills and bone-deep cold that wouldn’t go away. “Sometimes I think I’ll never get warm,” she said.

“You will,” he said, opening his arms, “right here.”

It didn’t occur to her not to accept; she simply leaned in. Strength. Heat. Safety. His protectiveness wrapped around her like a blanket, and she had the feeling all the evil in the world might simply fade from existence.

“Damn,” Neil said, pulling back. There were new voices in the other room.

“What?”

“We need to get out there. I called an agent I used to know. That’s her voice I hear.”

“Oh.” Beth noticed his shirt and rubbed her hand down it. “I got you all wet.”

He jerked and caught her hand, something fierce in his eyes. His lashes dipped and he tugged the lapels of her robe together.

“I, uh, guess I should get dressed,” she said, taking the lapels in hand.

His Adam’s apple bobbed once.

“Neil, I—”

He stood. “Beth, for God’s sake, don’t say something to me now that some lawyer can dig out of me later. Just wait.”

“Ironic, isn’t it? You’ve been wanting me to talk for days, and suddenly when I can’t, it feels like the most important thing in the world to tell you.”

“There’ll be time. Right now you need to talk to the FBI, police.”

“Wait. What about you? Are you leaving?” she asked, alarmed.

“Leaving?” For a second he looked baffled, then he curled his fingers into the edges of her robe, pulled her in, and kissed her with a thoroughness that was loud and clear.

“Get it?” he asked when he was finished. “Or do you have any more stupid questions?”

Beth cleared her throat. “No. I think I got it.”

She braved the audience in the common room ten minutes later. Lieutenant Sacowicz and the agent named Brohaugh bent over a laptop, while a fax machine behind them spit page after page into a tray. A newcomer pulled off the pages, reading them and handing them to Neil. Her hair was cut stylishly short and threaded with gray, and she wore a navy pantsuit set off with a yellow-and-blue scarf. His friend from the FBI, Beth supposed, and looked around the room. She thought she’d heard someone else, too.

Neil saw Beth and held up a hand to the newcomer. “Leave her alone, Standlin. She’s going to eat first.”

“It’s okay,” Beth said. “I’m not really hungry.”

“The hell you’re not.”

The woman ignored him and stuck out her hand to Beth. “I’m Geneviève Standlin. I’m with the FBI. A psychiatrist.”

Beth froze.
What?
She turned on Neil. “You called a psychiatrist? I’m not going to fall apart.”

“Well, that’s good,” Standlin said, “because I didn’t come to keep you from falling apart. I came to profile Chevy Bankes and give you something so you can sleep.”

“Here’s your profile: Chevy Bankes is a psycho,” Beth shot back. “And I don’t need anything to help me sleep.”

“Beth,” Neil said, “Standlin’s not the enemy. Come eat break—”

“And
you
can stop giving me orders.” Her voice was strong, but a sudden, overwhelming wave of panic made her reel. She was finally prepared to tell them about Anne Chaney’s death, and now some headshrinker was going to dig and poke and prod, searching for more.

Well, they weren’t going to get it. Not all of it, anyway.

A brick-red blazer emerged from the middle bathroom. Adele Lochner.

Beth walked over to her. “You knew,” she said, her voice vibrating with emotion. “You knew what he was doing and didn’t tell me.”

Lochner’s spine grew a full two inches. “I told you they were hunting for him based on evidence that was pure speculation, and they were. It didn’t seem prudent for you to go admitting to murder on the basis of that.”

“It’s not speculation anymore, is it, Counselor?” Neil said.

“My obligation was to protect my client, Mr. Sher—”

“Enough.” Lieutenant Sacowicz stepped in. “We’re all on the same side now. The rest was just everybody doing his—or her—job.” He turned to Beth. “There’s food in the kitchen. Better go grab some.”

There must have been some sort of breakfast buffet in the hotel. A little bit of everything had been kept warm on the stove, and fresh coffee dripped into a pot. Decaf. “I need some leaded coffee,” Beth complained.

“After you get caught up on your sleep,” Neil said. “Not until.”

Tyrant.

But, Lord, it felt nice to have someone looking out for her.