Running Scared (18 page)

“If only it were that easy.” She let out a long, tremulous breath then abruptly stiffened. “Let me go.”

His hands dropped to his side and Bibi pushed him aside, as if suddenly his touch was foul.

“This—this—everything—it’s got to stop. Got to,” she said, tossing off the covers, unafraid to let him see her nude again. He turned his head and she threw on her clothes, stepped into her shoes, and gathered her purse and keys. “I’m sorry, Daegan, about everything,” she called over her shoulder as she fumbled with the lock and let herself out. He heard her footsteps retreating down the staircase as she half ran to her car. But even as she dashed away, he realized that it wasn’t over. Far from it. This was just the beginning. In the keen insight that sometimes warned him of the future, he sensed that because he’d slept with his cousin and committed one of the most scorned taboos of all, he was in for the worst trouble of his life.

Guilt stole after him all day. He kept expecting to hear from someone, anyone connected with the family, and was jumpy, always looking over his shoulder as he loaded coal into several trucks.

Nothing happened. The day was extraordinarily quiet, a cool summer afternoon with enough of a breeze to chase away the smog. After work Bibi wasn’t waiting for him. No one stopped by his apartment as he changed his clothes. Even his mother, who was shunning him in the hope that he would see the evil of his ways and return, didn’t break her silence.

By evening Daegan was able to breathe a little. He wandered over to Shorty’s, drank some beer, and won nearly a hundred bucks playing nine ball. Though his conscience still twinged with guilt, he figured things would work out; that sleeping with Bibi hadn’t been the end of the world.

Or so he’d thought until, like the sharp crack of Satan’s whip, retribution lashed out at Daegan O’Rourke with all the fury of hell.

Walking home from the pool hall that night, fists burrowed deep in his pockets, the fingers of his right hand curled possessively around his meager winnings, he ducked through the familiar alleys that skirted the waterfront. There were only a few people wandering through the narrow streets and a thick fog had rolled in off the harbor. Hardly a light blazed in any apartment window. Even the hookers and pimps seemed to have disappeared.

Maybe it was the fog, laying thick and cold along the shoreline, or maybe most people had more sense than he did. Probably a combination of both.

A foghorn moaned in the darkness.

Sidestepping garbage cans and puddles, he noticed a dog lying in a doorway. The animal let out a low, threatening growl. “It’s okay,” Daegan told the mutt, but the animal wasn’t watching him. His ears were cocked, his golden eyes fixed somewhere behind Daegan in the soupy darkness.

The hairs on the back of Daegan’s neck raised.

He picked up his pace.

The dog let out a deep bark and Daegan sensed rather than saw his attacker. Quick footsteps chased after him. Daegan started to run, but he heard the sound of rushed breath and felt a silent and deadly hatred oozing through the night.

“You’re a dead man, O’Rourke!” The voice was familiar—smooth and polished with years of education.

Stuart.

Daegan’s muscles bunched reflexively. He smelled a fight. All of his lovemaking with Bibi flashed through his mind as he turned and Stuart, breathing hard, emerged from the mist. Wielding a thick black crowbar, he walked forward at a slow, determined pace. “Now, you listen,” he said, rage contorting his aristocratic features. “I’m gonna beat the shit out of you and leave you lying in your own blood so that the pathetic beast back there can have a crack at you.” He thumped the crowbar menacingly against his free hand. Then, quick as a snake striking, he swung.

Daegan ducked, but the bar connected, smashing his jaw with a sickening crunch. Pain screamed through his face. Blood spurted from his mouth. His legs wobbled.

“You deserve to die, O’Rourke.” Crack! Another blow. Sharp. Fast. Daegan’s head snapped backward. His legs turned to jelly. He spun around and his head slammed into the cold concrete.

The dog was in a frenzy, snarling and barking and creating a ruckus.

“Stay away from her! You stay away from her!” Stuart kicked him hard in the gut. Daegan’s body curled into a ball. “Bastard!” Stuart roared. “You dirty, rotten, fucking bastard!” Stuart’s voice rose an octave. Daegan fought a sickening wave of nausea and looked up through eyes already swollen. In the darkness Stuart, his face distorted in a savage, brutal fury, towered over Daegan. Still holding the crowbar in one hand, he slid a deadly, thin-bladed knife out of his pocket with the other. “I should cut your black heart out right now! Bibi trusted you.”

“Yeah, like she trusted you.”

Another vicious kick. Daegan’s ribs snapped. Pain, hot as liquid fire, shot through his chest.

“I
didn’t screw her!” Stuart screamed, waving the cruel knife high in the air. Its wicked, narrow blade glinted blue in the watery glow of the streetlamps.

“Didn’t you?”

“No way.”

“It doesn’t have to be physical,” Daegan said, his head beginning to clear. His jaw throbbed, his ribs ached, but he was getting his bearings. “You can screw up someone worse by messing with her mind. That’s what you did to your sister.”

“You don’t know anything.” Stuart lunged, the knife thrust forward.

Daegan rolled to his right and onto the balls of his feet. “Don’t,” he warned thickly, through teeth that were soft in his gums. Blood drained from his mouth and his eyes were mere slits.

“I’ll cut you to ribbons, maybe even fillet those illegitimate balls of yours.”

“Try it,” Daegan suggested, ready for the fight.

They were circling in the alley, Stuart’s Sullivan-blue eyes shining brightly, his lips tight over perfect teeth, his expression grim and dangerous. “You’re a fool, O’Rourke.”

“Yeah, but I don’t play peeping Tom while my sister’s making it with my cousin.”

“You cocky little prick.” Stuart flew at Daegan, but this time Daegan was ready for him. With a sharp kick, he swept Stuart’s legs from beneath him, ducked the slice of the knife, and landed on his own feet. Stuart went down. The crowbar clattered from his hand, but he managed to hang on to his more deadly weapon.

“Drop something?” Daegan asked, snatching up the metal bar and swinging it over his head.

On his feet in an instant, Stuart warned, “I’ll have you up on charges.”

“Fine.”

Stuart’s blade swished through the thick night air, carving wildly, nicking Daegan’s ear. Blood gushed and Daegan swung downward, glancing a blow off Stuart’s shoulder. Stuart let out a howl of pain and fell to his knees.

“Hey—knock it off down there,” a gruff voice yelled from a window three stories up. “Break it up. People are trying to sleep!”

The dog was barking like mad.

Daegan threw himself at his cousin, grabbing Stuart’s midsection and hurtling them both to the ground.

“Stop it, man,” Daegan ordered but Stuart sliced upward, the blade connecting with flesh.

Daegan’s restraint fled. As Stuart uttered oaths and kicked, Daegan grabbed his wrist and pushed it backward until the knife clattered to the ground and the bones snapped.

“Jesus Christ! I’m callin’ the cops!” the man in the window warned.

Stuart screamed in fury and pain just as Daegan connected, his fist slamming into his cousin’s jaw. He didn’t stop. As Stuart struggled, Daegan hit him again and again until Stuart stopped moving, just moaned in agony. Blood and bruises discolored what had once been even, patrician features and he lay face-up on the asphalt, his eyes rolled back in his head, his breathing raspy. Daegan’s rage dissipated as he realized what he’d done. “Oh, God.” Daegan stopped—his bloodied fist raised in the air. His own breath was quick and shallow. Blood was everywhere and Stuart looked as if he might be dead.

“Shit!” Daegan grabbed the knife and snapped it in half over his knee. Then he dropped both pieces near Stuart’s form and ran to the nearest phone booth. His hands shook as he tried to find change in his pockets, then quickly dialed the police.

“There’s been a fight, down by the docks, near…near…” Oh, damn, where were they? He tried to think, get his bearings, but all he saw was Stuart’s white face staring sightlessly up at him. “I think it’s by Taylor’s Mill on the waterfront. One of the guys is beat up pretty bad. He looks dead. You’d better send an ambulance.” Then he thought of the cross street and rattled off its name before slamming down the receiver, wiping away the blood with an old gas rag he had in his pocket and taking off at a dead run, covering the few blocks to his apartment. He’d have to go back, to turn himself in—to explain what had happened, how Stuart had attacked him for sleeping with his sister. Oh, hell, what a mess!

With shaking hands, he poured himself a beer then saw his reflection in the mirror. His face was bruised and battered, his eyes blackened slits, his hands swollen, half his earlobe missing, and he could barely breathe, his ribs hurt so bad, and a deep nasty scratch, where Stuart’s little knife had reached him, arched from his shoulder to his navel.

As best he could, he cleaned himself and doctored his wounds using hot water, iodine, and strips of gauze.

He’d have to deal with the police, and if they didn’t have him up on charges, which would be a miracle, he’d leave Boston. There was nothing left for him here. He’d lost Bibi as a friend by taking her as a lover. His mother had chosen Frank Sullivan over her only son and the rest of the family would despise him after Stuart was hauled to the hospital and named the bastard black sheep as his attacker—or worse yet if he died.

Daegan’s life would be over, not that it was much of a life anyway. It was time to move on, head west. His only regret was Bibi, but she was better off without him. He’d sever all connections with this city, including his mother, his poor Irish roots, and his accent. In the West there were vast acres of land, room to move, a way of life so far removed from Boston that he’d erase every painful memory he’d ever collected.

He was folding clothes into his old duffle bag when the police arrived. A detective and sergeant, both of whom looked like they’d been on the force for a hundred years, were still pounding loudly on his door as he yanked it open. The younger man, Detective Jones, was redheaded and nervous, forever popping his gum, but the older guy, Sergeant Claud Traskell, was calm, his baleful hound-dog eyes penetrating as he announced that Stuart Sullivan had been found near the docks, his body beaten practically beyond recognition, a hunting knife broken and left near his hand. His heart had been beating when the paramedics had gotten to him, but he’d died on the way to the hospital.

Daegan’s legs nearly gave way. Panic took a strangle-hold on his throat as he read the censure in Traskell’s eyes.
Dead?
Stuart Sullivan was dead? Holy mother of God, no! Even though he’d told himself it was possible, he hadn’t been prepared. He couldn’t believe that Stuart was dead—Stuart the golden boy, Stuart the heir, Stuart the great manipulator.

Grief and fear settled like lead on his shoulders. He clamped hard on his jaw, willing himself to appear stoic when inside he was falling apart. Stuart—
dead?

Leaning against the wall for support, Daegan only half listened as the sergeant read him his rights and clamped a pair of handcuffs around his wrists. There was nothing he could do.

Daegan O’Rourke was the Boston Police Department’s number one suspect in the murder of Stuart William Sullivan.

1995

“Stay away from him, Jon,” Kate said, a cold frost burrowing deep in the folds of her heart after Daegan O’Rourke had driven away from the house.
Who was he and what had he done? A killer? Dear Lord!
She found that impossible to believe. Nervously, she shoved a stray strand of hair from her face and watched as the dust settled back in the drive. He was too close. Too damned close living at the McIntyre place. “Don’t go near him, ever again.”

Jon, eyes trained on the empty drive, bent down and scratched Houndog behind his ears. “I won’t,” he said, his young jaw tight, his eyes trained on the driveway, “but I promised Eli I’d take care of Roscoe—”

“Don’t argue with me,” she said testily, shaken inside. “Tell me what you saw.”

“Nothing.”

“But you said—”

“It wasn’t a vision,” he admitted, kicking at the gravel in the drive as if he were embarrassed. “Just a feeling. I can’t really explain it.”

“Just stay away from him.”

“I promised, didn’t I?” Jon said tightly, belligerence traced in the angles of his face.

“Yes, I know.”

“Don’t freak out, Ma. We’ll be fine,” he muttered.

But she was freaking out. Big time. All of Jon’s worries about the future had finally gotten to her, and his accusation that Daegan had killed someone had turned her blood to ice.

“The dog will be fine,” she said, her voice sounding distant to her own ears. “O’Rourke will feed him. Now, listen, I don’t want you setting one foot on the McIntyre place again. Not until we find out more about our new neighbor.” She’d call Laura back and throw Daegan O’Rourke’s name into the loop, though how he was connected with the East Coast was beyond her. She’d listened and she hadn’t heard a trace of Bostonian accent in his speech pattern, checked the license plate of his truck, and noted that it was registered in Montana, scrutinized him, and hadn’t noticed anything other than country ways and ranch charm, except for the feeling—just a shimmer of intuition—that he was deadlier than he looked, that if pushed hard, he’d push back just a little harder.

Despite all his rugged country-boy allure and regardless of the fact that he’d played the role of Good Samaritan, Daegan O’Rourke was a man to avoid.

Looking over her shoulder and shivering a little with premonition, she let herself into the house. Was Daegan the stalker in Jon’s nightmares? Or was it someone else…

Daegan unlocked a cheap hutch he’d bought in town and pulled out the file he’d begun on Kate Summers and her son, Jon. It was empty for the most part; there wasn’t a lot of information. After Bibi had originally contacted him, it had taken nearly a week to track down Kate, which wasn’t long, considering that she had wanted to disappear, but all he’d had to do was contact some friends he’d made in the investigation business, Lana Petrelli in Boston and Foster Investigations here in Oregon. Lana had come up with the birth certificate of Jon Summers, the death certificate of Kate’s husband and daughter, and some records through the DMV about bought and sold cars. The paper trail had led him to Oregon, where Foster had picked it up.

Daegan had called Bibi, checked with some real estate people in Hopewell, and lucked into the McIntyre place—if being able to rent this dump was lucky. To maintain his cover, he’d bought two horses and a few head of cattle at a local livestock auction, which he could either sell or move back to Montana at the end of this. The scheme seemed elaborate and contrived, but he felt it necessary to gain Kate and Jon’s trust. To do so, he had to look and act like a legitimate rancher—which wouldn’t be too difficult. Though he’d never much liked lying, it often came in useful, and over the course of his lifetime, he’d developed a talent for avoiding the truth when necessary.

But how, if Jon did turn out to be his son, would he ever be able to get past the lie? What would he do about the boy? About his mother? Damn it all to hell, this wasn’t supposed to happen. When he’d severed ties with the Sullivan family, he’d intended never to look back.

The kid had changed all that.

The man was a liar. Jon knew it. He’d felt it.
Seen
it the moment he took Daegan’s hand.

Now, as he lay on his bed and tossed a baseball in his hands, he barely heard the song on the radio. Everything faded at the memory of the sensation, the vision, that had sizzled through his brain, only to disappear as quickly as it had come.

Just a short glimpse into Daegan’s past, short but vivid.

In his mind’s eye he’d seen a bloodied unmoving man sprawled in a dark alley. Pain, fear, and rage had streaked from Daegan’s body to his. In a split second, Jon had witnessed a brutal fight. Knuckles and an iron bar had smashed into flesh. Bones cracked. Skin broke. Cartilage had crumpled. A horrendous series of blows had torn flesh until blood ran in the street.

Even now, hours later after shaking his new neighbor’s hand, Jon felt the aftermath, the residual thrum of adrenaline coursing through Daegan’s body. He felt the ache in his own teeth as if they’d been loosened, smelled the deep, primal scent of a fight in the cool night air.

It had been a long time ago, yeah, but it had happened.

And O’Rourke had lied about it. The other guy had died.

Jon raked his fingers through his hair and switched off the radio.

Who the hell was Daegan O’Rourke?

And why do I feel so in tune with this stranger’s distant memories?

Snatching the ball in midair, Jon sat up, rolled it under the bed, and went to the window. Two squares of gold light, windows at Eli’s old place, glowed through the trees, and Jon wondered what Daegan O’Rourke was doing now. What was the man even doing here, in nowheresville Hopewell, Oregon?

Cheek to the cool glass, Jon let his eyes fall to the dark spot below the trees where he’d worn a shallow path to the McIntyre place over the past few years. He could steal over and no one would know. Sure, he’d promised his mom he’d stay away, but then there was Roscoe to consider. The dog was still so freaked by Eli’s death that he wouldn’t come out from under the porch, except when Jon was there.

Going over there would be a mission of mercy.

Besides, no one had to know if he slipped over once in a while to check on Roscoe or visit the horses.

Or spy on the stranger with the scent of death in his past.

Kate answered the phone on the second ring. “Hello?”

Far away, her sister Laura’s voice was rushed, as if she was out of breath. “Hey, hi!”

“Laura.” Kate felt an immediate sense of relief and of longing. Right now she would have done anything to see Laura and be wrapped up in her optimism and carefree spirit. Stretching the cord so that she could peek from the kitchen to the living room, she made sure that Jon was nowhere nearby, then heard his footsteps overhead in his bedroom followed by the sound of bass throbbing. For the first time in her life she was grateful for the loud, hard-rocking beat of Metallica.

“Hey,” Laura was saying, “I got your message and it sounded like you were way beyond stressed.”

“I am. Oh, God, Laura.” Kate, suddenly weary, leaned her sagging shoulders against the kitchen wall. How could she even begin to explain something she didn’t understand?

“What’s wrong?” Her sister’s voice had lost a little of its normal lilt.

“I need your help.”

“That’s a switch! You usually come to the rescue when I need something, not the other way around.” Laura laughed with a touch of irony and Kate remembered some of the times she’d had to bail out her wayward, rebellious sister. “Anyway, rest assured your wish is my command. What’s up?”

“It’s—it’s about Jon.”

“So what else is new?”

“This time it’s different,” Kate said.

“Then it’s not about kids calling him a freak and all that shit, right?” Laura asked, her aunt antennae on constant alert. Laura, with no children of her own, had always been Jon’s champion.

“No…well, there’s that, too, but right now the teasing and taunts aren’t at the top of my priority list. What I want is for you to do some snooping—through the State of Massachusetts’s files.”

“Snooping?” Laura said and the laughter in her voice faded.

“Yes.”

“Uh-oh, I smell something underhanded here. I’m not sure I can help you out, but hold on a minute, will you? I need to get to the desk so I can write this down.” There was a pause, muted conversation, and then Laura was back again. “That’s better. Jeremy and I just got back from the gym and I’m sweating like a pig even though it’s still snowing out here. Can you believe it? Before Halloween and six inches of fluff on the ground. Those trick-or-treaters are gonna freeze their little tushes off.”

Kate could barely listen to Laura’s well-meaning babble and anxiously tapped her fingers on the phone.

“Okay, now, what was it you wanted?”

“I need all kinds of information on Jon’s birth, if you can get it, and I’m not talking about the phony birth certificate. I need the real thing.”

Laura let out a long, low whistle and Kate could imagine her digging long fingers anxiously through her red brown curls. “I thought you were never going to try and dig up all that mess.”

“I don’t want to, but I have to.” Deciding she had no choice, she quickly brought Laura up to date. Her sister, usually jovial, just listened and didn’t bother cracking one joke. “So,” Kate finished, “I want to find out Jon’s real birth mother and father, and if the father has a criminal record of any kind.”

“I don’t suppose you have any names, any place to start?”

“I’d tell you to check with whatever law office took over Tyrell Clark’s cases, but I doubt that he kept files on Jon’s case,” she said, glancing out the window in the direction of the old McIntyre place. She couldn’t see the house through the thick copse of pine trees, but wondered about her new neighbor. “And while you’re at it, maybe you can also check out the background of the guy who’s renting the ranch next door. His name is Daegan O’Rourke. He doesn’t look or sound like he came from anywhere near Boston, but then people can change in fifteen years. Just see if he’s connected to this in any way. He drives an old truck—a Dodge, I think—and at one time it was green. The license plates are from Montana, but I didn’t catch the numbers.”

“Montana’s a long way from here.”

“I know, but it’s a start, isn’t it?”

“Just because you have a new neighbor—”

“It’s more than that. Jon shook his hand and freaked out, accused the guy of getting into a fight and killing someone.”

“Geez.”

“Yeah. O’Rourke denied it, of course, said that he got into a bad fight with his cousin but he didn’t kill him.” Her insides were churning again. She couldn’t believe that she was discussing this—the fact that a possible murderer, someone connected with Jon—might be living next door. “I’d tell Sheriff Swanson, but he’d just laugh at me. His kid and Jon don’t get along—”

“Calm down, Kate. Take a deep breath and tell me about him.”

“Okay, okay.” Kate closed her eyes for a second and snatched at her rapidly fleeing composure. Losing it wouldn’t do anyone any good. She had to remain in control, keep her wits about her. “This guy is white—probably Irish, I’d guess if any part of his story is true—about thirty-five, give or take a couple of years. A little over six feet, six one or two maybe. He’s probably a hundred and eighty or ninety pounds. He’s lanky but has wide shoulders, clean-shaven, has gray eyes and dark brown hair, almost black but with streaks of red. He dresses and talks like a rancher or cowboy and has the lingo and swagger and faded Levis and cowboy boots down. But it seems more than a coincidence that he showed up when he did.”

“He came to your house?”

“Yeah, to borrow the phone. The telephone company hasn’t installed his yet.”

“Sounds like a criminal to me,” Laura mocked.

Kate counted to five in her mind. Her sister had never been as serious as she and more than once Laura had accused her of being melodramatic. “And he changed a flat for me.”

“Now I’m really worried.”

“Well, I am, Laura. I think he should be checked out.”

“You think he’s lying? About what?”

“I wish I knew. Maybe he’s okay, just who he says he is, but the timing’s all wrong.” Winding the phone cord around her fingers, she tried to picture Daegan O’Rourke as a cold-blooded killer, as the father of her son, as a man bent on evil. True, there was something suspicious lurking in his steely eyes—a shadow of deceit—or was it her imagination. Lately, with all Jon’s defiant antics, she’d lost her usual cool head and perspective. “I’m just nervous,” she admitted. “All this is happening too fast. Way too fast.”

There was a pause before Laura said, “You know, Kate, maybe you should do the checking personally.”

“But I need—”

“I mean just be friendly to him, instead of suspicious. Is he single?”

“Damn it, Laura, I don’t know; I didn’t ask,” Kate shot back, unable to hide her agitation.

“That’s the first thing I would have found out. From your description of him, the guy sounds…interesting.”

“As interesting as a desert sidewinder!”

“You don’t know anything about him except that Jon thinks he was involved in a fight.”

“Not just a fight. Murder,” Kate said angrily. For years Laura had suggested that she start dating, seriously dating, that being single and raising a son on her own was too much for Kate. Which was ridiculous. It was time to set Laura straight. “Look, even if he was just a regular guy, the most eligible bachelor on the face of the earth, I don’t have time for a man—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Kate, give it up,” Laura snapped. “When are you going to get off this guilt trip you’ve been taking and let go of Jim? He’s been gone for nearly sixteen years. He’s not coming back and it doesn’t mean you didn’t love him if you happen to find someone else.”

“I’m not looking.”

“Well, you should, for crying out loud! You’re young, Kate, not ready for spinsterhood. My advice is quit looking at this new neighbor as a potential threat and think of him as a possible love interest.”

“I don’t want—”

“Have you ever thought maybe that’s what’s wrong with Jon?” Laura demanded. “Look, I hate to be blunt, but you’re having a lot of trouble with him now, aren’t you? Fights? Ditching school? Out and out rebellion? Maybe he needs a father figure.”