Underdead (8 page)

This time he slowly stepped aside. I was halfway through the door before I realized he wasn’t going to let me pass. As I stood, trapped, he reached out a hand and slowly pushed back my hair to reveal the bandage strip on my neck. His grey eyes burned into mine. “You should be more careful,” he said.

I pushed him aside and left the way I had come, my sensible low heels making angry clicking noises on the linoleum.

I sat in my car in the police station parking lot, practicing yoga breathing until I was calm enough to drive. As my temper cooled, I reviewed what he’d told me. Not much, I realized. He’d carefully left out any and all useful information. But then, he hadn’t asked
me
anything of importance, either. Not a single question about Will. Surely, since Will had somehow managed to leave the back area before Gavin arrived, the detective would have wanted a description at least. The more I thought about the past ten minutes, the less they made sense.

I began to get angry again, this time at myself. Why did I keep letting the man spin me gossamer tales? I should have stayed there and made him tell me more. I had a hundred questions I hadn’t gotten a chance to ask because he’d gotten me riled up and I’d dutifully stormed out like a fool. But as badly as I wanted answers, I wasn’t about to go back in there. He’d won this round, but I wasn’t done with Detective Gavin Raines. Not by a long shot.

Despite my resolve to keep a cool head, I was disappointed when I got back from my run that evening and saw no signs of Gavin or his Jetta. I was still angry enough to hanker for another run-in with the detective. After a long hot shower and a quick dinner, I sat staring at a stack of ungraded papers for twenty minutes without making a single mark before I gave in and went back out to look for the Jetta. I walked around the block twice before I accepted that Gavin wasn’t coming.

Why? Why would he stop staking out my place
now
?
Nothing that man did made any sense!
I headed back up the stairs to my apartment, but instead of going in I sat on the top step to mull things over. As I sat staring out to the street, a gold Ford Escort drove by, slowing slightly as it passed. I recognized the car because I’d parked next to it at the police station.

Gavin might not be following me anymore, but one of his minions was. Probably Officer Brady, if I read Gavin right. After another slow turn around the block, the car parked a little way down the street. No one got out. It was so obvious a stakeout it was almost an insult. I wondered if it was deliberate.

I sketched a wave to the officer and went back inside, sat down at my desk, pushed my students’ papers aside and began to plan. Really plan. This was war. If they were still watching me, they must think I was withholding information. That or I was still on the murderer’s list. And yet all Gavin had done was tell me to be careful.

I didn’t think much of the police work on this case. They hadn’t exactly done a stellar job with the other four victims, had they? Gavin had as good as admitted the last girl had been abducted right under his nose.

I needed to protect myself. And if the detective wasn’t going to level with me, give me the information I needed to arm myself, I would just have to go get it. The stalkee was becoming the stalker.

The next evening I waited until the sun went down before heading back to the police station. The darkness fit my mood and my purpose. As it was about the same time I’d gone the day before, I expected Gavin would still be at work, and I was right. After a little hunting, I found his Jetta in the back lot reserved for officers. I parked on a side street, gathered my “to grade” folder in case I had a long wait and ducked into the coffee shop across from the station.

The coffee shop was one of those old mom-and-pop joints that looked as if it had been around forever and probably had. Under its load of framed, signed portraits of grinning customers, the walls were a comforting color of coffee whitened with cream. Padded booths covered in well-worn avocado-green vinyl lined the perimeter. The rest of the place was crammed with an irregular assortment of heavily varnished tables, bumped out of alignment by the legs and hips of customers trying to squeeze by. A heady smell of coffee, grilled onions and bacon filled the air. The place was busier than I would have expected.

As I hovered uncertainly a few feet inside the door, a passing waitress told me the drill—table service and dinner at the booths, coffee orders at the counter. Ignoring the rumbling of my stomach, I opted for the latter and scanned the menu board while a crusty old proprietor waited, his pencil stub hovering impatiently over a small, plain white pad of paper. Normally I would have ordered a latte—they were on the menu—but it would have taken more courage than I possessed to bring up foam preferences with that man. I ordered a plain black coffee.

He slapped a thick white mug on the counter, told me refills were a quarter and moved on to the person who had queued behind me while I dallied. I was headed toward the window to scout for a table when I felt a tap on my elbow.

I turned to see a familiar blond head. “Bob?” This was the last place I expected to find anyone from ritzy Bayshore, even another teacher.

“Hey, Jo,” he said, greeting me with a friendly smile. “Looks like my secret’s out.” He gestured toward the thick stack of papers he’d been grading. “I come here to grade. It’s the only coffee shop I know of that the students don’t go to.”

Poor Bob. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the more assertive female students followed him home. I gave him a sympathetic pat on his burly shoulder. “Your secret’s safe with me,” I assured him. “Is this place always this busy on weeknights?”

“Only on Blue Plate Special Tuesdays. Entrees are half-off before six. Otherwise it’s dead as a doornail.”

Before he could ask me what I was doing there, a short, athletic-looking woman in her early thirties hailed Bob from the doorway and headed toward us.

Bob performed the introductions. “Rachel, this is Jo, our eighth-grade science teacher. Rachel used to be my assistant soccer coach, but she’s head coach over at Polytech now.” He gave her an exaggeratedly martyred look and then clapped her good-naturedly on the back. “It was a huge loss for Bayshore, but I’m not surprised someone snapped her up, she’s a great coach! We all miss her terribly.”

Rachel’s plain face glowed from the praise but she modestly shook her head. After she and I exchanged the usual pleasantries, she pointed to her watch and said to Bob, “We should get going, the game starts in half an hour and there might be traffic.”

“Is it that late already?” Bob quickly stacked the papers he’d been working on and stowed them in a soft canvas case. “We’re going to check out the competition,” he told me. “Silton Prep has a good soccer team this year, Bayshore will probably face them in the division finals. Wanna come?”

God, no
. “Thanks, but I’m swamped. Lab reports.” I held up my bag, glad I had thought to bring some along. “I’ll take your table, though.”

When they left I did a quick survey of the parking lot to make sure Gavin hadn’t slipped away while I was chatting, and then settled down to do some work. I got through a scant handful of the lab reports I needed to grade that night before an eye strain headache kicked in. I really needed to go see an ophthalmologist about some glasses. Even if, as I still chose to believe, my “sun allergy” was only a temporary condition, papers waited for no man. The thought of all the finals I would have to grade once the semester ended made me decidedly queasy. I turned away from my papers with a sigh and stared out the window. Gavin was getting into his car.

Drat it!
I shoved the labs back into my bag and ran to my car, but by the time I made the light, he was gone.

The rest of my week of stalking went much the same way—that is, badly. On the second night I tried hanging out in my parked car instead of in the coffee shop, but after a police cruiser circled the block twice, slowing each time it passed, I gave up on that plan and went back to the coffee shop. The third night, I managed to catch up with Gavin, only to lose him again after two blocks.

The coffee shop, meanwhile, was quickly on its way to becoming a Bayshore hangout. A few days after seeing Bob there, I ran into Kendra, literally. I was rushing out a little before six, intending to get to my car before Gavin got to his, and collided with her in the doorway.

“Kendra! Hi. Sorry I almost mowed you down there,” I said, steadying myself on a newspaper rack. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She had changed from her usual teaching uniform of neatly pressed khaki pants and cotton shirt into dark sweatpants that flattered her lean physique. She probably had come straight from working out or coaching. As usual, she made me feel like the worst couch potato. “Where’s the fire?”

Through the glass door behind her, I saw Gavin’s blue Jetta exit the parking lot. “What? Oh. I don’t think I put enough money in the meter,” I lied.

She checked her watch. “You should be fine. You can park for free after six, you know.”

“I know, but I’ve still got a couple minutes to six by my watch. I’d better check that meter in case the meter maids are trying to get in a few last tickets before the shift ends. You can have my table if you want.” I pointed over to where I’d been sitting, and rushed out, leaving Kendra standing a little bemusedly in my wake.

Gavin was long gone.

The following Monday, I arrived at five-forty-five and made loops around the block. I almost missed seeing Gavin. He was leaving early.

I pulled into a bus zone until he passed me, let a few cars get between us, and then pulled out after him, feeling like a P.I. from the movies. Until I lost him. I cursed my incompetence until I realized where he was going—my apartment. It was merely his night for a stakeout. I stopped driving like a lunatic and just headed home.

Gavin wasn’t there. After some more cursing and a few ever widening loops around town, I found him—or rather, his car parked near the local sports bar. I wasn’t sure if he was there for business or pleasure, but there was only one way to find out. I parked and went in.

He wasn’t at the bar or in the pool table area, which meant he was either in the men’s room or had gone out to the back deck. The bartender was already giving me odd looks—apparently I was as bad at lurking inconspicuously as I was at tailing—so I decided to try the back deck first.

It was a weeknight—no cover charge—and cold. They hadn’t hired a bouncer to man the back door so there was no one to notice or care as I opened the door just wide enough to slip through.

It didn’t take a brain surgeon to realize my clandestine efforts were totally unnecessary. Gavin wasn’t there. In fact, I was alone except for two strangers making out as if
they
were alone, which they had been until I came out to watch. I felt as much like a voyeur as it sounds. Even more, I felt stupid. I stepped farther back into the shadows and prayed they didn’t see me.

I was about to go back inside when the man let out a shrill, almost feral scream, fell to the ground and didn’t get up again. His date didn’t move to help him, just stood watching as he gave a last gasping breath and lay still. It had all happened so quickly I hadn’t had a chance to help him.

I finally found my voice. “Oh my God, is he okay?” I stepped out of the shadows and hurried toward the fallen man. My sudden appearance startled the woman. She whipped around to face me and I let out a gasp of horror. There was an ugly smear of dark lipstick around her mouth. To my surprised and panicked brain, it looked like blood. She took a step toward me and then stopped, turned away and disappeared over the railing.

I felt his presence before I saw him.

As if mesmerized, I turned. He stood, tall and dark, on the edge of the platform as if waiting for me. Our eyes locked and my anger toward him melted away as if it had never been, leaving only the aching desire I remembered too well.

“Will,” I said in a hushed voice.

He was just as piercingly handsome as I remembered, his body just as long and lean, his eyes as hauntingly blue. The little voice urging me to flee withered and died. I wanted him more than anything, with every particle of my being. I took a step toward him and then another until I stood before him, close enough to feel the warmth of his skin, to see his lips form my name as he reached for me.

As I lifted my foot to take the final step into his arms, something crossed my vision and struck Will in the chest before ricocheting to the ground with a clatter.

Will’s eyes glittered with anger as he whipped around to see who had hurled the missile. I turned too, in time to see Gavin hurtling toward us, a long thin rapier in his hand. Will reached the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a knife.

“No!” I cried, watching helplessly. Will spared me a glance and in the next second was gone.

Gavin lowered his weapon, which I could now see was not a knife, only a wooden facsimile of one. “Was the ‘no’ for him or me?” He scowled, breathing heavily, and his grey eyes were hard with anger. He picked up the object he’d thrown at Will and sheathed the wooden knife in it with an angry
snick
. I recognized the innocent-looking result as the odd baton he’d held the morning after he’d spent the night unbidden in my apartment.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I backed up until I felt the hard wall behind me. I clung to it like a drowning person clings to land. “I don’t know what’s going on…” My voice shook so much I barely recognized it as my own.

Gavin ignored me. He knelt by the fallen man and checked for signs of life.

I had forgotten about him. A sudden wave of guilt pierced the bubble of shock that had enveloped me. “Is he okay?” I asked in a small voice.

“He’s dead.” Gavin pulled out his cell phone and punched a button. “Yeah,” he spoke quietly. “Another one. Same M.O. No, male. I don’t know either.” He flipped the phone shut and slid it back into a pocket. Still kneeling by the dead man’s side, he bowed his head and let out a deep breath. “Dammit.”