While You Were Dead (16 page)

“You can’t do this, Max.”

“The hell I can’t. I told you, I’m through with lies. Not telling her is the same as lying.”

“But she’s Lizzie’s mom.” When he glared at her, she glared right back. “She is, in every way that matters. I don’t know why she didn’t tell you, only she can answer that, but now is not the time. You don’t have proof Lizzie’s dead. Miriam’s sick–very, very sick. You could kill her with news like this.”

“Mim’s heart is fine. Twisted and black like yours, but fine.”

Kat’s black, twisted heart leaped into her throat when Max took a corner seemingly on two wheels. His truck’s big engine didn’t slow. She clutched the grab bar, braced herself against the dash board, and dove back in. “She’s her mother, Max. You can’t–“

Max swore and slammed on the brakes for a light that was too red to run at a busy intersection. Her seatbelt was all that kept her from ending up a quivering puddle on the floor. Kat peered into the inky afternoon sky, hoping the storm would break up soon. Otherwise they might not live long enough to tell Miriam a thing.

The light turned green and Kat braced herself for another round of NASCAR driving antics. Max didn’t move. His eyes searched the skies as hers had seconds before. Behind them an impatient horn sounded but it was drowned out by an explosion from Max.

“Son of a bitch!”

Kat peeled her heart off of the roof of the truck’s cab, shoved it back into her chest and faced him on the seat. “What?”

“You’re Lizzie’s mother.”

She waited. They’d covered that one. There had to be something else.

“Who knows?” Max didn’t wait. “You. Miriam. Doug’s dead. Who else?”

She shook her head. “No one.”

“Your mother?”

“No.”

His eyes narrowed, accusing her of yet another lie.

She shook her head. For once she wasn’t guilty. “No, I called her and wrote, but I didn’t visit once I started to show.”

“Mim’s neighbors?” The irritated motorist behind them gave up and drove around, horn blaring as the light turned red again.

“No. Unless she told–but she wouldn’t, not if she didn’t even tell you. She started gaining weight as soon as you disappeared. I rented a little house, here in Denver, and she moved in with me for the last trimester. No one knows.”

“Somebody does.” He still stared at her, almost through her, as though he expected an answer. When she only stared back in silence, he gave a groan of exasperation. “The note.”

“What note?”

“Mom’s next.”

“Mom’s next? I thought it said Miriam was. . . “ He thought they were after her. “That’s crazy, Max.”

He touched the fresh bandage on her forehead. “Is it? Two flat tires. A hold-up.”

She knew her eyes were too wide, but she couldn’t help it. “A bomb threat.”

“A what?” She filled him in and Max spun the truck around, narrowly missing a collision with an on-coming RTD bus.

“Where are we going?”

“Back to your house. I’ve been concentrating on me, but it’s not me. You’re the link, not me.”

Kat shivered and reached for the heater switch. Except technology didn’t make heat to warm this kind of chill.

Max flicked on the lights and went back to the computer. Kat followed more slowly. He knew he’d stunned her with his implications, and he still couldn’t prove that Kat was the link, but for all his searching, nothing as damning as that second note pointed to him. The link had to be Kat.

“No one knows,” she whispered again, uselessly.

Max ignored her protest. She was so stuck in denial about Lizzie it didn’t surprise him she wanted to stay there with this. The screen flashed to life and he flipped through open windows. The best way he knew to convince her, at least enough to get her marvelous mind focused on the possibility, was to offer her the proof he had. Kat slipped to her knees beside his chair, gaze fastened on the monitor as he added a few lines to the file and then scrolled back to the top.

Time Line.

1. Nine-thirty Saturday. Met with Kat at Miriam’s house.

He heard her softly indrawn breath and knew the inclusion of their encounter would rattle her further, but damn it all, running into her, at Mim’s house, on the day Lizzie was kidnapped was just too much of a coincidence. He said so, when she glanced up at him.

“You don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Got that right,” he agreed. “Who knew you were going to Wyoming?”

“Pam.”

“Your secretary?”

“My assistant. She’d never tell anyone. Besides, she didn’t know where I was going, only that I was going to be away. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.” She read off the second item on the list. “Fourteen-thirty Saturday. Back in Denver. Max to hospital, Kat to North Carolina.”

“Who knew about that trip?”

“Pam.”

“Who else?”

“No one. There isn’t anyone else in my life.” She looked as if the admission hurt, then her shoulders straightened. “I just want to find Lizzie.”

And he wanted her over the notion that finding Lizzie would help. Lizzie was beyond help. But he still needed Kat’s, so he wouldn’t push.

Kat turned the tables on him. “Who knew you were in Denver? That Miriam’s in the hospital?”

“All of Bluff River Falls,” he admitted grudgingly. “But keep going.”

“Fifteen-thirty, Saturday. Lizzie’s abduction.” Kat swallowed, but kept on reading. “Twenty three hundred Saturday. Two tires explode.” She tossed him a glance. “They didn’t explode.”

“That’s not what the garage said.” He showed her an e-mail he’d sent in her name–and the garage’s reply early this morning. “They’re holding the tires until we get an expert in.”

“Why did you–“

”Loose ends. Why would two tires blow? On the very day you and I run into each other?”

“Coincidence.” Kat got to her feet.

“Exactly.”

She returned after a quick trip into the kitchen with a soda for each of them. “What’s next?” She pulled a wing-back chair close to the computer and popped open her can. Max felt a glimmer of encouragement. Nobody solved a puzzle faster than Kat—when it kept her interest.

“Zero hundred Sunday, Kat home.” Kat gave a grimace at that, but didn’t say anything. Max continued, “Oh-eight hundred. Note found on hospital tray. Now look at this. Eleven hundred Sunday. Kat involved in robbery.”

“I wasn’t involved!”

Max ignored her. “Thirteen hundred Sunday. Box found at hospital.”

Kat stared at the time line on the screen. He could almost hear her brain whirling. “I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Why would the kidnappers deliver a meaningless note in the morning and another threat in the afternoon? On the same day?”

“Good question. I have another. Did you read that letter you got this morning? About your mother?”

“No. He’s just another crazy. Mom collects them. Why? You can’t think she’s involved?”

“Of course not.” Max glanced at the time line again. Two notes. One day. Hours apart. Why? When his gut started screaming out a possible answer, Max dragged Kat to her feet. “Walk with me.” He checked to make sure he had his cell phone, then detoured by the kitchen where her neat and tidy stacks of mail still stood. Kat followed him silently, not that he gave her a choice, until he headed for the front door.

“It’s raining.”

“I know. Great time for some fresh air.” With that he shoved her out, firmly closing the door behind them. He pulled her to the center of her yard, where they were sheltered from the bulk of the steady rain by a tall old oak tree. “Read this,” he commanded, handing her the letter he’d skimmed earlier in the day.

She gave him a look that threatened a twenty-four-hour hold at a private mental institution if some answers weren’t forthcoming soon, but she accepted the paper from his fingers. Max reached for his cell. “Reicher? Max Crayton. Can you spare another couple of guys? If not I’ll make other arrangements. I want them at Dr. Jannsen’s house. The note may threaten her, not Miriam.”

Kat gave her attention to the letter he wanted her to read, wondering if it was just a means of distracting her. The fact that they were standing in her front yard, getting soaking wet while he made cell phone calls made no sense at all.

Dear Katherine
. Irritation flared all over again at Max’s accusations. Of course this Mitch, whoever he was, called her Katherine. Her mother called her Katherine and he knew her mother, right?

I have information which will prove your mother did not kill your father.

Oh, brother. Kat sighed. What was the point? Bad enough she had to go through this every month in person with her mom, but a letter? Max was still on the phone.

The people who offed your father don’t know I have this information, which I got by accident
. “Get to the part where you want money,” Kat murmured, forcing herself not to skim ahead and find it. Only it wasn’t there.

There isn’t any safe place for us right now, and especially not your house. I’ll call you and when I do, don’t mention this letter. I’ll say I’ve got something to show you, something you bought. Play along and we’ll set up a meeting. Don’t go to the police. Mitch

“Not a chance of that,” Kat whispered, but a part of her wondered. He hadn’t asked for money. Hadn’t asked for anything. But he would. At their meeting? And what did he mean, especially not her house? Why wasn’t it safe? She glanced at Max, who was in the middle of a second phone call.

“Right. Just the exterminator for tonight. Thanks.”

Exterminator? As in bugs? She didn’t have bugs. “Max.”

“Did you read it?” She nodded. “And?”

“And what? He wants to meet me. He’ll want money and promise information if I produce it. The information will be some pile of crock that he and my mother dreamed up–“

”What if it’s not?”

She frowned. “Not what?”

“Not a crock. Do you remember the accident you had right after we met? You were on your way home from seeing your mother.”

Kat nodded again. What did an old accident have to do with anything now?

“I’d just started investigating, remember?”

She did now, but the sheer impossibility of what he suggested made her want to laugh, not run for cover. Or call for an exterminator.

“Do you still have those files?”

“The notes you collected?” Kat stalled. She had the files. She had every single thing he’d left behind. And she knew exactly where they were. There were two boxes, full of his things, including shirts and sweaters she’d worn out with the wearing, trying to be close to him once more after his death. No way was she digging out those boxes in front of him.

“Any chance you’ve still got that information?”

Kat sighed. No way, except that Max obviously believed this all somehow connected to Lizzie’s abduction. She’d do anything, including dragging her bruised heart over hot coals, to help Lizzie. “I’ve got them.” Her feet turned toward the house, but a gentle hand on her arm stopped her.

His wet fingers slid over her skin, reminding her of the night before, reawakening her body’s unique reaction to him. “There’s more.”

She fought the urge to throw her arms around him and beg for his forgiveness. Nothing in his eyes spoke of that. But he wasn’t angry any more either and that was definitely a step in the right direction. Forcing her attention away from the distraction of his skin against hers, she met his gaze, shadowed in the cloudy dusk.

“Mitch thinks your house is bugged.”

“Mitch thinks my mother didn’t kill my father. My mother thinks Mitch has pretty eyes and therefore is to be trusted above all. Why would anyone bug my house?” When Max could only shake his head, Kat rolled her eyes. “But you believe him?”

“I might. It’s too soon to tell.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Watch what you say. We’ll go in, you get me the files, and then fix us something to eat. I’ll turn on some music, and then we’ll eat and I’ll let you know. Okay?”

She told herself it meant a lot that he was asking for her assistance, like it was important to him. When she followed him into the house, she couldn’t shake a shivery feeling that they were indeed being watched. Ignoring the fact that little puddles collected under her feet wherever she stood, she gestured to the couch, but Max followed her into the spare bedroom. Kat bit down on her lip and opened the closet door. Two boxes sat alone on the floor, loudly labeled, “Max”. She tried to ignore the heat flushing her cheeks as she handed him the one she knew was just filled with photos. It didn’t have the files. But it wasn’t as incriminating as the one she carried, either. It was packed just as carefully. The files Max wanted were on the bottom. Under shirts and sweaters folded around photos in which he wore each item of clothing. Max headed back to the living room.