One Scream Away (25 page)

How empty the world must be when that life went away.

She climbed up onto the sofa and curled her knees beneath her, keeping her hand in his. “Tell me about Mackenzie,” she said quietly.

And he did.

A
t one-fifteen Neil heard Beth get out of bed. A light appeared under her door and then she ventured out, wearing a thigh-length T-shirt embroidered with Winnie-the-Pooh. He cursed. How the hell could a woman look sexy with a honeypot perched on her breast?

“Couldn’t sleep, huh?”

She jumped when she heard his voice. He scooped up the cards from the coffee table.

“I guess not. What about you?”

He shuffled, the cards fluttering into a bridge. “Couldn’t get relaxed.”

“Are you still thinking about Mackenzie?”

“No,” he said, amazed. “No, for the first time in nine years, Mackenzie feels like the gift she was, not a painful ghost. Thank you for that.”

A smile curved her lips. “I’ll want to hear more.”

“You will. But not now. Now,” he said, letting his gaze linger on the swell of Pooh, “I’ve got something else on my mind.” He waited for the blush in her cheeks, then shuffled the cards and held out the deck. “Deal?”

She frowned. “You wanna play cards with me?”

“Hell, no,” he said honestly, “but it’s a start. Poker?”

“I don’t know. I just came out to—”

“You came out because you can’t sleep. Play some cards, Beth; be with me.” The suggestion was so heavy with implications Neil’s chest tightened. She knew what he was now: a man who’d failed his wife and daughter. If she still wanted him, there might be hope for his life after all.

And he understood her emotional baggage, too. Max had called. The results of Abby’s hair-band were in: preliminary DNA.

Neil buried the white-hot rage that threatened and patted the sofa beside him. She sat while he dealt a hand.

“Stakes?” he asked.

“You have to pick a game before you name the stakes,” she said.

“What did Suarez teach you?”

She was insulted. “What makes you think
he
taught
me
? I’m a crack poker player.”

“Okay, Doc Holliday. You name the game; I call the stakes.”

“Fine,” she said. “Five-card draw.”

“Fine,” he said. “Kisses.”

“What?”

“You know, where you pucker your lips and put them against—”

“I understand the activity. It’s the betting I don’t get.”

Neil fanned out his cards and leaned back. “Simple. If I win the hand, I get to kiss you.”

“What if I win the hand?”

“You get to kiss me.”

She actually laughed.
That’s right, Beth. Just kisses, nothing scary.
“How many cards do you need?”

She swallowed, the muscles convulsing in the hollow of her throat where her pulse thrummed. He’d put his first kiss there.

“Two,” she said.

He slid a pair of cards to her and discarded three himself. Two eights and a king. Five-card draw was a good choice—each hand took only a minute or so. Plenty of winners and losers, plenty of kissing. “Whatcha got?” he asked.

“Not much.” She spread out her cards. “A pair of fives.”

He nipped back a smile. “Better than mine. You win.”

She looked at him as he leaned toward her, tapping his cheek with a finger. She kissed him. He felt it like a brand.

He gave her the cards and she dealt the next hand. Silence.

“Two,” he said and took the new cards.

She took only one, grinned.

“This one must be yours, too,” Neil said, trying to sound frustrated. “I have a handful of crap.”

She laid out three tens and looked at him, dubious. But she leaned forward and kissed his other cheek, lingering a little this time. He shifted.

He gathered the cards, dealt. Lost. If she ever asked to see what he was throwing out, he’d be sunk. This time, he’d discarded three hearts to screw up a perfectly good flush. He let her take the hand with three of a kind instead.

She gave him a suspicious look. “You’re losing on purpose.”

“Don’t be a welcher.” He touched his lips. “Here, this time.”

Her eyes dropped to his lips, and she touched her mouth to his. Soft, tentative, almost experimental, and then she was shuffling cards again while his jeans shrank a size or two. Jeez, this was gonna be harder than he thought. No pun intended.

He lost two more hands, each of Beth’s kisses becoming longer and more provocative than the one before, each one dragging him a little closer to insanity. He closed his eyes and wondered how much longer he could take it, and when four Jacks showed up in the next round, he was done. He fanned out the cards. “Beat this.”

She hedged, frowning at her hand.

“What have you got, Ms. Card Sharp?”

Slowly, she showed her hand. Nothing but a pair of deuces.

“Huh,” Neil said, smiling at her. “I win.”

T
he suite’s phone rang at nine-thirty the next morning. Beth had been talking to Evan on her cell; Neil was in the second bedroom. She’d seen him come out earlier to get coffee, dressed in jeans and an AC-DCT-shirt. Apparently he was planning to stay in for the morning.

Play cards?

The thought shrank her skin into a spread of goose bumps. She could still taste his kisses, feel them, all the way to her toes. Skillful, openmouthed, with his tongue sweeping deep and his big hands cradling her face at first as if he were afraid he’d break her, then almost fiercely. She’d been shocked at the intensity of the desire that flooded her, an almost aching need to be touched and filled. It was a need she thought had vanished seven years ago.

And a need Neil stoked shamelessly. She wasn’t naive enough to think he didn’t know what he was doing—taking her to the edge of insanity then backing off. He wasn’t going to take her to bed. He was going to make her take him.

Neil walked in from the bedroom just as the keypad on the front door beeped.

Suarez.

What was he doing here, if Neil was staying?

“The guard called and said you were on the way up,” Neil said, making a beeline to the door. “What’s going on?”

Suarez glanced at Neil, then Beth, then Neil again. Beth folded her arms. “I’m not leaving.”

Neil gave Suarez an almost imperceptible nod. Damn him for getting to decide what she did or didn’t hear.

“A car belonging to Foster’s crashed this morning,” Juan said. “One of the employees, Hannah Blake, was driving it. She’d just come from Beth’s house.”

“Oh, my God,” Beth said.

“She’s at St. John’s. She’s hanging on.”

Neil was furious. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“I’m telling you. It only happened thirty minutes ago, man. Copeland says he’ll call as soon as he knows something. Looks like tampering, though.”

“No,” Neil said. “How could Bankes tamper with a car at Foster’s? Surveillance is
this
thick. No way he could get to a vehicle on the premises.”

“Off the premises, then.”

Neil’s phone rang. “Sheridan,” he answered.

Juan eased Beth away from Neil. “Your friend’s in surgery,
querida
,” he said. “Her husband is there and both sets of parents are on their way.”

Beth reeled, half listening, feeling as if the floor were made of liquid. God, she thought. Not Hannah. “I’m going to the hospital,” she said.

Neil hung up. “No, you’re not. You stay here, with Suarez.”

“Damn you, Neil—”

He took her shoulders. “Beth. We need you here. There’s something you need to do.”

“What?”

“You need to look at the next doll.”

Beth’s heart stopped. “What doll?”

“The one they just found stuffed under the hood of Hannah’s car.”

Neil swung by the accident site—nothing to do there—then he and Rick went to see Lexi Carter.

“Evan Foster called,” she explained. “He told me Hannah was coming to pick up some pottery to show someone at the sale. She has a key card, so I stayed out of it.”

“What time did she get here?”

“I heard the garage door go up at eight. She pulled her car up and left the garage door open. She was in here for about twenty minutes. They said her steering failed, but I watched her drive away from upstairs. Didn’t see anything weird.”

Rick said, “The ball joint was separated from the tie-rod. Easy to do: Take off the cotter pin and loosen a bolt. Do it just right and it holds a while, then starts shaking loose and one sharp turn makes it fly. It could’ve taken minutes, days, even weeks to come apart.”

“We need to find out how much that car’s been driven,” Neil said, “where it’s been, and check on anyone who went to Foster’s and might’ve gotten to a car in the garages. Anyone who attended the preview or has a reason to have targeted Hannah.”

“Copeland’s got that going, Neil.”

“Who’s on surveillance at the antiques gallery?” Neil asked.

“Four of my guys and two Feds. Foster’s is under guard, Abby’s wrapped up tight in Covington, Beth’s tucked in safe at the hotel. Not much else to do until Bankes decides it’s time to act again. Call, or some thing.”

“Something.”

Neil went up the basement stairs into Beth’s family room, took a deep breath. He remembered coming here the first time, when Abby was on the couch with Heinz and Beth was trying to be so strong, pretending she wasn’t being terrorized by a psycho. The back of his neck prickled as Lexi Carter walked up beside him.

“Freaky, isn’t it?” she asked.

“What is?”

“Knowing he’s out there, planning another one, just biding his time.”

She was right. Bankes was closer now, had called from nearby, and had struck someone Beth knew. Closer and closer, just like Standlin had said. Neil looked at Lexi: “You okay sitting here waiting for him?”

“Sure. Wish he’d hurry, though.” Carter glanced around. “This place is a little too domestic for me. Starting to make me think about kids and dogs and white picket fences.”

“Do I hear a biological clock ticking?”

“Screw you, Sheridan.”

“Not me,” Neil said, striding to the door. “Reggie would pound in my face.”

Hotel
, Chevy thought. Of course. That’s where Beth was. They had her holed up in a hotel, probably with a dozen guard dogs surrounding her.

And one of those dogs was a lot closer than the others. Sheridan. Chevy could hardly believe it: Neil Sheridan. Chevy had seen him interviewed years ago after Gloria Michaels was found. Deep voice, heavy shoulders, long, screw-you strides. Chevy had laughed at him when Anthony Russell confessed to Gloria’s murder, had laughed even harder when Russell escaped and Sheridan chased him down a second time.

He wasn’t laughing now. Neil Sheridan was back and staying at a hotel with Beth. The rage was so intense he trembled with it, the thought of Beth receiving comfort nearly driving him mad. She should be suffering, not cuddling up with some cocky bastard like Sheridan.

A door opened a few feet away. Chevy listened, the air around him closing in. She was there, the impostor. He could feel her, almost see her, as she stood in the doorway looking around Beth’s workshop. He held his breath, waiting, and she finally went back upstairs.

Chevy blew out a breath. He had to get out of here. Tonight, when things were quiet again, he’d have his chance. Catch the impostor sleeping, then move. Once out, he could get things going again, but he’d have to be careful. Margaret Chadburne couldn’t help him anymore.

But there was someone else who could. Another old woman—a woman named Mabel Skinner who drove a Lexus and lived all alone on a quiet street called Lexington Avenue. He’d chosen her on his first night in Arlington, before he holed up at Beth’s. Mabel was just waiting to help him out.

She just didn’t know it yet.

So hold on until tonight, get Lexi Carter, then get the hell out of here. Mabel would give him cover while he made his next move.

Covington… Wonder how far that is?

* * *

Hannah Blake’s “accident” was pivotal for the media: a twenty-four-hour feeding frenzy. By morning, the Bankes file had fattened by an inch. People who were unwilling to talk just days ago were suddenly coughing up every memory they had of the Bankes family, filling TV screens, clogging up the FBI tips line.

“Mom beat Chevy; Chevy beat Mom,” Copeland said. “Chevy killed Jenny; Mom killed Jenny. Mom was pregnant
before
Chevy. There’s even one faction out there talking about the grandfather now, that he was somehow responsible for Jenny’s poor health.”

Bullshit followed by bullshit followed by bullshit.

Neil had started out the door—he couldn’t stand around for one more meeting—when a secretary intercepted him, pasty white. “Mr. Sheridan,” she said, “there’s a call for you. It’s Chevy Bankes.”

Silence, then everyone moved at once, whispering, gesturing, calling into headsets, manning a trace. Neil’s heart kicked into high, and he lunged to the phone on the conference table. He stopped, looking at it as if it were a snake dripping poison from its fangs. “How long has he been on hold?”

“I came right in,” the secretary said, breathless. “I told him I wasn’t sure you were here. It’s been maybe twenty seconds, and it would’ve taken another thirty or forty getting through the phone tree up to this office.”

“Don’t answer yet,” O’Ryan said. “String him out ’til they can get a trace.”

“He’s too smart for that,” Harrison snapped. “Take it, man, take it. The bastard isn’t gonna sit on hold.”

A nerve jerked in Neil’s jaw. He looked at Copeland, got a fractional nod.

He lifted the phone and pushed the Hold button. “This is Sheridan,” he said.

A second of silence, then Bankes’s amused, condescending voice came through: “She’s a fake, you idiots. But it was fun anyway.”

S
heridan?” Copeland’s voice. “What did he say?”

She’s a fake…
Neil’s blood ran cold. “Get Carter on the phone.”

“What?” asked Copeland.

“Carter!”

Copeland punched in Agent Carter’s number on his digital phone. Neil waited, hardly able to breathe.