In the Dead of Night (7 page)

Angry with himself, angry with her, Nick turned away and paced to the patio door. “Yeah, well, I don’t feel like sitting around doing nothing while you get yourself killed.”

She crossed to him, her eyes flashing, and planted her finger in his chest. “Don’t you dare try to manipulate me by scaring me.”

Nick braced, hating it because the reaction was more physical than intellectual. He refused to let his eyes sweep down the front of her. But her scent titillated his nose. The porcelain-white of her skin made his fingers itch to touch. The sheen of moisture on her lips made him hungry to taste her.

As if realizing the moment had turned into something she hadn’t expected, Sara stepped back. “I’m going to start looking for that manuscript.”

Nick watched her walk away, berating himself for enjoying the view just a little too much. “What the hell are you thinking?” he muttered and followed.

He found her in the formal dining room. Nick could tell by her expression she was remembering.

“I spent a lot of time here when I was a kid,” she said. “My mom and dad liked to cook. Lots of fancy meals Sonia and I couldn’t pronounce. They loved to entertain. We got in the way a lot, but Mom and Dad seemed to love the chaos.”

Not knowing what to say, Nick shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You miss them.”

“Every day.” She turned moist, thoughtful eyes on him. “This house used to be so full of life and laughter. It’s hard to see it so…empty.”

“It’s the people who fill up a house.”

Turning away, she left the room and went to the foyer. There she stood with her hands on her hips, looking around. “If my father wanted to hide something,” she said to herself, “where would he put it?”

Nick trailed her as far as the hall, careful not to get too close. He didn’t like the way he was reacting to her. Didn’t like the feelings boiling beneath the surface inside him. Or the edgy attraction tugging low in his gut. A moment ago he’d wanted badly to reach out, find a way to comfort her. But he was far too smart, far too cautious to let himself get that close.

“Closet?” he offered. “Built-in safe?”

“He designed and built the house himself. He was creative…”

“Secret panel? Floorboard? Attic? Crawl space?”

A flash of memory blinded Sara for a fraction of a second. She and her sister standing in her father’s study. A doll that had lost an eye. Her sister lifting a carved wooden panel for a decent burial.

“The study,” she said abruptly.

Without waiting for Nick, Sara jogged down the hall toward the study and flipped on the light. She heard Nick moving behind her, but she didn’t turn. The memory hovered on the outskirts of her mind and she was afraid it would slip away at any time.

The room stood barren and somehow lonely. Her eyes were drawn to the floor-to-ceiling bookcases and cabinets her father had built so lovingly. The bookcase section took up the top portion of the wall. The cabinets were located in the bottom half. In between, an eight-inch carved mahogany panel shone with a dark-chocolate patina.

Without speaking, Sara went to the panel. The hidden hinges creaked as she lifted it.

“I’ll be damned.” Nick knelt beside her. “A hidden shelf.”

“I remember now,” she said. “Dad had measured the shelves and cabinets incorrectly. When he installed them, they weren’t tall enough to reach the ceiling, so he added eight inches of dead space and hid it with a wood panel to make it look nice.”

“Makes a pretty good hiding place.” He shone his flashlight inside. “Let’s see if he put it to use.”

Sara craned her head and peered in. The shelf was wide, but shallow. She saw naked wood, rusty nails, cobwebs and dust bunnies. Before she could reach inside, Nick ran his hand along the length of the shelf.

“There’s something here.”

Sara choked out a laugh when he pulled out the one-eyed doll. “Misty! I can’t believe she’s still there.”

He smiled at her. “Ugly doll.”

“She had a lot of personality.”

Grimacing, he ran his hand once again along the shelf. “There’s something else.”

Sara’s heart pounded when the reel-to-reel tape came into view.

“What the hell?” Nick said.

“A tape.”

“Looks like eight millimeter.”

Her gaze went to his. “There was a reel-to-reel projector in the attic.”

He blew dust from the tape. “In that case let’s go see what someone left for us.”

Rain tapped like impatient fingers on the roof as Sara pulled out the old silent movie projector. She wanted to think they would run the reel of film to see her and her sister frolicking on the beach or riding ponies at a nearby stable. She knew it was crazy, but she had a bad feeling about what they would find instead. She couldn’t ignore the trepidation twisting her gut into knots.

“Gotta be thirty years old.” Taking the projector from her hands, Nick looked around for a relatively clear wall on which to project the reel and proceeded to set it up on an old wooden crate full of 33 rpm albums.

“Any idea what’s on the tape?” he asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

He must have seen the tension on her face because he paused and gave her his full attention. “What?”

“I know this is going to sound silly, but I have a bad feeling about that tape.”

“How so?” His eyes lingered on hers a moment too long before he returned his attention to the reel-to-reel. “You think maybe you’ve seen it before?”

“I’m not sure.” Realizing her hands were knotted in front of her, she concentrated on relaxing them, failed.

“Only one way to find out.” Flipping the switch, he stepped back.

A square of light appeared on the wall. Minute scratches and flecks of dust flashed black within the square. Numbers flicked by, seconds counting down from ten to one. An instant later, the image of a young woman lying on what appeared to be a box-spring mattress came into view. Sara squinted at the blurred image, realizing with a terrible sense of foreboding that the woman’s hands and feet were lashed to the bed.

“Oh no,” she whispered. “My God.”

When Nick didn’t respond, she risked a look at him. His eyes were riveted to the scene unfolding before them. The muscles in his jaws were tight. His features were filled with some dreadful anticipation Sara didn’t understand.

Terrible realization assailed her. A gasp escaped her when the masked figure of a man entered the room. Sara caught a glimpse of the ivory-handled revolver in his hand. The deadly beauty of it. But her focus was on the young woman.
Please don’t let him hurt her,
she thought. But she knew the wish was in vain.

There was no audio, but Sara saw the woman’s mouth open in a scream. The gunman aimed the weapon at her, and the woman’s eyes went wild with terror. Her body bucked and twisted atop the narrow bed. Sara watched, paralyzed by a fear that ran so deep her bones felt as if they had been filled with mercury. She wanted to run from the room, but wasn’t sure her legs could do the job.

The pistol jerked in the man’s hand. A white puff of smoke rose from the blue steel of its muzzle. Blood trickled stark and black onto the floor. All Sara could think was that this was not happening. It was all some kind of horrific joke.

A sound that was part sob, part curse, choked from her throat. Her mind reeled with the images her eyes took in. Horror. Blood. Death. The utter darkness of pure evil. What in the name of God had they stumbled upon?

Before she could move or speak, Nick’s curse cut through the air. Lunging forward, he slammed his fingers down on the power switch. The projector rattled to a stop.

Sara sat down hard on a nearby storage trunk and put her face in her hands. Her mind whirled to process what she and Nick just witnessed. Disbelief mingled with the remnants of horror and spilled over into a mass of emotions she couldn’t begin to sort through.

When she found her voice, she raised her gaze to Nick. “That’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.”

He shook his head, his features a mask of revulsion. “Unbelievable.”

“What in the name of God was that?”

“They call it snuff. Urban legend mostly. The FBI has never found one to be authentic.” Nick shook his head. “It could be fake. Some amateur photographer or techno geek doing some creative editing.”

“It looked real.”

Scrubbing his hand over his jaw, he nodded. “Yeah, it did.”

For the span of several heartbeats the only sound came from the steady pound of rain against the roof. “These types of films may exist in other countries. But here…”

“Smuggled in?”

“I don’t know.” His gaze met hers. Within its dark depths, Sara saw the extent of his concern and an even darker worry, and she knew after this, nothing was going to be the same.

Crossing to the reel-to-reel, he switched off the projector light. “I’ll seal everything and courier it to the Bureau of Forensic Services Lab in Sacramento first thing in the morning, see if the geeks there can authenticate it. The lab will dust for prints. If they find any, they’ll run them through the database. If that son of a bitch is in the system, we’ll get him.”

“What about the woman?”

“I’ll see if the lab can lift a still of her face, put it out over the wire. If we’re lucky, we might be able to get an ID.”

A disturbing new question struck Sara. “What were my parents doing with that tape?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think it has something to do with their deaths?” Her mind spun out rapid-fire questions. “With the person who called me? The person who stole the notes?”

“I don’t know.” His expression turned granite-hard. “One thing I do is that this has just turned dangerous.”

Her mind was still reeling from the horror of what she’d seen. She couldn’t get her brain around the ugliness of it. Couldn’t believe it was real. “It’s almost as if someone
wanted
me here to find that tape.”

“Or else they were looking for it, couldn’t locate it and wanted you to do their dirty work for them.” He motioned toward the wall where the images had played out. “You can bet whoever made that tape and the guy with the gun don’t want to be exposed.”

Sara pressed her hand to her stomach. “Where does this leave my investigation?”

His scowl deepened. “I don’t know about your so-called investigation, but I’d venture to say it leaves you in danger. If you’re smart, you’ll pack up and go back to San Diego.”

It was Sara’s turn to laugh, but there was no humor in the sound that squeezed from her throat. “Surely you don’t expect me to walk away from this now? I finally have something to go on.”

“What you have is a savage murder on tape, and a killer who probably won’t hesitate to do it again to keep his secret safe.”

“And what about my parents? My father has been painted as a murderer. My mother an adulteress. Am I supposed to just walk away and let that stand?”

“You’re supposed to do the smart thing and let the police handle this.”

“The way they handled it twenty years ago.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Sara, come on…You know better.”

“Nick, please, I know this could be dangerous. And, yes, I’m frightened. But I can’t stick my head in the sand. I need to see this through.”

“You can’t stay here alone. You’re a sitting duck up here. You’re isolated with no way to defend yourself.”

“Then help me, damn it!”

He shot her a hard look. “Pack your things. I’m taking you into town to find you a room. I’ll talk to my mother. Tell her to back off.”

“She hates me. There’s no way she’s going to give me a room at the B&B.”

He raised his hands. “Then at least compromise. Meet me halfway.”

“How do you suggest I do that?”

“Stay with me. At the bungalow.”

N
ICK WASN’T SURE
why he’d offered up his bungalow. The last thing he wanted was for her to stay with him. He didn’t like the way he was reacting to her. Didn’t like the feelings she conjured. Or the temptation of having her near.

But it was worse when he considered all the terrible things that could happen to her if she stayed here alone. As a cop, Nick had seen plenty of ugliness over the years, but the images on that tape were worse than all of it combined. There was no way he could walk away from this and keep a clear conscience. He’d never be able to live with himself if something happened to Sara.

A foot away, she stared at him as if he’d just splashed ice water on her face. “Stay with you? At the bungalow?”

“I know it’s small,” he began. “But I’ve got an extra bedroom. You’d be safe there. You’re still close enough to the mansion that you can drive over during the day and do what you need to do.”

Turning away from him, she strode to the window and looked out at the darkness beyond. Even in profile he could see she was troubled. “Nick, I don’t want to intrude.”

“Hey, I’d be happy for the company.”

She turned to face him. “You’re sure?”

Nick struggled not to let his eyes drop to take in the length of her. “As long as you don’t snore.”

“I don’t.”

Something went soft in his chest when she smiled. Against his better judgment, he smiled back. It had been a long time since he’d experienced this level of affection for a woman. Not since his late wife. There was a part of him that wanted to believe his burgeoning feelings for Sara were a good thing. A sure indication that he was healing.

But after losing Nancy, he’d sworn he’d never care for another human being the way he’d cared for her. Life was too precarious. One minute the woman you loved could be in your arms, the next she could be lying alongside the road dead. Nick had no intention of ever having his heart ripped from his chest that way ever again.

He told himself that wouldn’t be a problem. He’d learned to be cautious. He’d had the chance to begin several relationships in the last year, but all of them had ended badly.
Because you sabotaged them,
a little voice reminded. Only later did he realize he’d only been going through the motions. The truth of the matter was he’d never let himself get too close. Never even had sex. Some shrink would probably call it fear of intimacy. Nick figured he was just playing it safe.

There was nothing safe about Sara. She was different. For the first time since Nancy’s death, he wanted more. More than was wise. More than he could ever allow.

Realizing he was staring at her, he put the reel-to-reel projector in a large plastic bag and sealed it with boxing tape. “Let me get this processed and we’ll go.”

Nick removed the reels and sealed them in a separate bag. He gave his work only half of his attention. The other half was on Sara as she wandered the attic, looking in boxes, checking floorboards and any dark niche someone might use as a hiding place.

It was nearly midnight when he piled everything into a beat-up cardboard box and the two of them carried it down the stairs.

Rain fell in sheets as Nick carted the box to his vehicle and shoved it into the trunk. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Sara lugging her suitcase down the sidewalk. The damn thing was almost as big as she was. Crossing to her, he commandeered it. “Get in!” he shouted to be heard above the rain.

“I need my own car.”

“Sara…”

But she was already digging for her keys and walking away.

Shaking his head, Nick watched her get into her car and waited for her to start the engine. Starting his own vehicle, he pulled from the driveway and onto the coast road.

He should have been concentrating on his driving. But by the time he hit the speed limit, the only thing Nick could focus on was the headlight glare of the car behind him, the memory of Sara's sultry perfume, and the knowledge she would be spending the night with him.

One night, he promised himself. Tomorrow, he would make sure she checked in to one of the bed and breakfasts in town for safekeeping. There was no way he was going to risk spending the night with a woman he couldn't keep his eyes off of no matter how hard he tried.

N
ICK’S BUNGALOW
sat at the end of a long narrow lane shrouded with trees and fog. The rain had slowed to a drizzle by the time he parked adjacent to the garage. Sara disembarked, the earthy scents of wet foliage, rich earth and clean air filling her lungs. Because of the dark she couldn’t see much of the house itself. Just that it was a small one-story structure with cedar siding and a river-rock chimney. Mullioned windows looked out over the woods. The front porch was made for sitting.

“This is a beautiful location.” She lugged her suitcase from the trunk.

“I like the privacy.” But his smile looked tight and uncomfortable on his face. “Wait till you see it in the daylight.”

He carried the box containing the projector and tapes to the front door, unlocked it and turned on the light. Sara rolled her suitcase inside and was immediately taken aback by the rustic charm of the room. Huge cedar beams ran the length of the ceiling. A colorful Native American print rug covered glossy oak floors. An overstuffed sofa in hues of turquoise, yellow and beige blended nicely with the adobe-textured walls. But it was the river-rock hearth that dominated the room and drew the eye.

“It’s lovely, Nick.”

“A little messy. I wasn’t expecting company.”

Two thick novels lay face down in front of the fireplace. A reader, Sara thought, and smiled. Several fringed pillows lay on the floor. A soda can sat on a coaster on a rough-pine coffee table.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Almost two years.”

“You live alone?” Sara wanted to believe it was an innocent question. But it wasn’t entirely. A small part of her was curious about this man—and wanted to know if there was a woman in his life. Not because she was interested in anything more than friendship, she assured herself, but because Nick was an old friend and she wanted to get caught up on what was going on in his life.

“Just Homer and me.”

“Homer?”

“I’m sure he’ll come skulking in as soon as he’s figured out you’re not going to pick him up and squeeze him.”

Sara laughed outright, surprised she could do so after the film they’d seen earlier. “I take it Homer is a cat?”

Nick grinned. “Don’t tell him that.”

As if on cue a large orange tabby shot out of the kitchen and began rubbing against Nick’s denim-clad legs. “Don’t let him bully you into petting him.”

“I love cats.”

“In that case.” Bending, Nick scooped up the cat and passed him to Sara. “I’ll put your suitcase in the extra bedroom.”