With Deadly Intent

2:00 a.m., Saturday, October 22

Death.
She dealt with it every day at the crime laboratory. Husbands, wives,
lovers ... friends ... killing each other. Dr. Amy Prescott paced the length of the
beach cottage. All of them strangers until now.

Footsteps clumped on the porch. She swung around, saw her father, and caught her breath.
He wouldn't be here at two in the morning unless—

“Amy...” Dr. B.J. Prescott shoved open the door and plunged inside. “Thank God, you're
here.” Rain stippled his graying fringe of hair; dripped from his mustache and Van Dyke
beard.

She clutched her elbows to warm herself. “What's happened?”

“Something bad, I'm afraid.”

Her teeth began to chatter. “It's Oren. Isn't it?”

He stared at her. “How did you know?”

“He phoned while I was still at the crime lab—”

“When?” Rivulets of water ran off his yellow slicker and made dark spots on the braided
wool rug.

“Five-thirty, just as I was leaving for my apartment.” Her father gripped her arm and she
felt the cold dampness of his fingers through the sleeve of her flannel shirt.

“What did he say?”

Goosebumps prickled her skin. “What's Oren done?”

He regarded her with level blue eyes. “He's in trouble. Big trouble. I've got to know
what's going on with him—and fast.”

Fears that had scuttled around inside her brain on the eighty-mile trip from Seattle to
Lomitas Island settled into a lump in her stomach. “Oren said he and ... and ... what's
his fiancée's name?”

“Elise. Elise Dorset.”

Amy felt a stab of guilt. She and her cousin had once been best friends. If she'd kept in
touch, she would have known about his fiancée, about his problems. “They're coming to
the island for the weekend. He begged me to come too so I could meet her. He sounded ...
strange.”

“'Strange.' What's that supposed to mean?”

“Wild talk.” She shoved her fingers through short brown hair. “You know, like he used to
when he was a kid ... after Uncle Mike ran off and left him and Aunt Helen....
Remember?” She moistened her lips. “Evidently, he and Elise have been having some sort
of ... difficulties.”

Her father ran a hand over his face. “Damn! I was hoping—” He let out a noisy breath.
“—Sheriff Calder is over at Oren's apartment. The place is wrecked and Oren and Elise
are gone.”

“Oren said he hadn't been to Lomitas Island for weeks. Vandals could have broken in.”

“Could be, but Tom's convinced Oren and Elise were there earlier in the evening.”

“Hah! You know what I think about Calder and his screwball ideas.” She thought fast,
searching for explanations to reassure her father—and herself. “Chances are, after the
storm hit, Oren and Elise decided not to make the long drive after all. They're probably
still at their condo in Seattle. Shoot, Dad, you know what a calamity howler Calder can
be.”

“Not this time. A Mrs. Michaels claims Elise called her around midnight. Crying.
Hysterical. Terrified. Screamed Oren had—” His words thinned to a whisper and he stopped
to clear his throat. “—had gone crazy. Said he was going to kill her.”

Amy stood as if frozen, his words stinging her like pelting hailstones. “Oh, God! No!”
She pressed her hand against her mouth. “He couldn't.
He couldn't!"

Her father put his arm around her. “Sounds bad, Amy. Real bad. This Mrs. Michaels manages
the endocrinology clinic where Elise works as a nurse. The woman claims Oren has beaten
Elise before.”

Amy lifted her chin. “I don't believe it. Oren wouldn't do such a thing.” An instant
later, her certainty vanished. “Would he?” she asked in a small voice.

“Who knows, kitten? He's spent less time on the island since you kids grew up and went
off to college. Boys change when they turn into men.”

“Not that much.”

He fixed her with a solemn look. “Both of us have worked enough crime scenes to know
better than that.” He let out a long sigh and massaged a wind-reddened cheek. “I'd
better get in gear. Don't want to leave Tom on his own too long.” He turned toward the
door.

“I'll meet you there,” she whispered.

He forced a smile. “I was hoping you would.” He paused in the doorway. “This storm has
blown trees down all over the island, so be careful.”

“You too.” She grabbed her glasses, donned a slicker, and jammed a yellow sou'wester hat
on her head.

As she rushed out into the darkness, she remembered Oren's final cry.
One of us is
going mad. I have to know if it's Elise, or me.

Amy parked beside a white picket fence and dashed for the veranda of the converted
Victorian house. She forced open the heavy oak door and found herself in a dimly lighted
entrance hall. An odor of age-brittled wallpaper and thick dark varnish reminiscent of
old-time funeral parlors filled her nostrils.

When he called, Oren had told her he and Elise lived on the second floor. Making wet
tracks on ash-rose carpet treads, she tip-toed up the stairway. As Lomitas Island's
medical examiner, her father had a right to be here—she didn't.

A grating creak drew her attention to the floor below. She peered down and caught sight
of a sharp-eyed face beneath tousled white hair before the gap between door and frame
dwindled to a peephole. Oren and Elise's life wouldn't stay private for long with a nosy
landlady.

She continued her climb, dread increasing with each step. At the crime laboratory in
Seattle, where she worked as a forensic scientist, she often went out with the mobile
unit. Even so, it had taken her months to learn to distance herself from the carnage and
get on with the job to be done. Tonight, she felt as weak-kneed as she had on her first
run.

She grasped the flowered porcelain door knob with a sweaty hand and eased it open. A
pallid glow from etched-glass wall sconces gave the room a murky underwater appearance.

Sheriff Tom Calder sprawled on a Chippendale corner chair in the miniature foyer,
watching her father match up extension cords for his portable tripod lights.

When the door clicked shut, the sheriff wheeled around. “You can't come in here. Don't ya
know this is a crime scene?”

Her father straightened, groaned and rubbed his back. “Amy and I are going to do this
particular job together.” He eyed Tom narrowly. “Whether you like it or not.”

Tom's steely gaze fastened on her. “Humph! Just cause she's workin' with a bunch of
highfalutin' Seattle cops don't give her no call to come pokin' her nose in our
business.”

Stiff-necked turkey. Her glare would have incinerated him if he hadn't had a rhinoceros
hide. She opened her mouth to defend herself but her father spoke first.

“Back off Tom. If you're smart, you'll keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. You just
might learn a few things about processing a crime scene.”

“We'll see about that. You spill everything to her?”

“Sure did.”

Tom slumped back onto his chair. “Probably doesn't matter. Be all over town by morning.”

Amy dumped her rain gear out in the hall and came back to stand in front of Tom.
“Sheriff, don't you think you're jumping the gun a little? You don't even know if a
crime has been committed.”

“The hell I don't.” He sprang to his feet and glowered down at her. His long nose gave
him the appearance of a crane honing in on a fish. “The landlady heard them two
fighting. And just look at this room.” His arm flapped out to take in broken lamps and
turned-over chairs. “That cousin of yours wasn't just waltzing his fi-an-cee around in
here.”

A yellow-toothed grin split his long-jawed face at what he apparently considered a witty
remark. He swelled out his chest. “Besides, while I was waiting for B.J. here, I found
some blood in the kitchen.”

“I don't believe it.” Her anxious gaze sought her father's.

“I'm afraid it's true, honey.”

She shook her head in stubborn refusal. “Not Oren. He couldn't hurt anybody.”

“Not much he couldn't.” Tom smiled as if he relished the thought. “Thinks he's real
clever too. Tried to mop up the evidence, but I was too smart for him. Found wet rags in
their garbage can, I did.”

The wattle of grizzled hair on his forehead bobbled as he nodded his head emphatically.
“Looked innocent enough and mighta' fooled your average law officer. Not me. I gave
those rags a good squeeze. There was blood in 'em all right.” With that, he flopped
himself down and stroked his droopy mustache as if he'd performed a praiseworthy feat.

Amy stared at him in disbelief. Of all the dumb stunts—even rookie cops knew enough not
to contaminate physical evidence.

A noise shifted her attention to her father. His eyes blazed and he was clenching and
unclenching his fists. She moved to his side and whispered, “Forget it. Dad. Some people
can learn, others never will.” She knelt and plugged in one of the extension cords.
“Let's get these lights set up so we can take our pictures.”

The two of them made a good team and the work went faster than usual. With Sheriff Calder
dogging their footsteps, she and her father went through the apartment. They dusted all
surfaces for fingerprints, used an evidence vacuum with filter disks to go over floors
and furniture. After finishing each area, they stopped, sealed the disk in a labeled,
numbered bag and listed it in the evidence log.

By the time they were through, they knew two things for certain. One—the traps beneath
the kitchen and the bathroom sinks held clots of blood. Two—the apartment didn't contain
a single fingerprint—not even a smudged one.

Amy righted a gray damask wing chair and sank onto it. Drainage from meat or poultry
might explain the blood in the kitchen, but not the large quantity in the bathroom.

Tom stalked over to her. “B.J. tells me you and young Prescott been running around
together since you were kids. That the two of you know every trail, every hill, and
every cove on this here island.” He stabbed the air with a bony finger. “You got any
idea where your buddy might hole-up?”

She massaged the tired muscles in her neck. “Did you check with the ferry office?”

He curled his lip. “I called them first thing. No one on any of last night's return runs
saw either the Dorset woman, Prescott, or his van.”

Amy took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “How could they be sure? The workers might
not have noticed them.”

A muscle bunched along Tom's jaw. “Since Prescott started working for Senator Halliday,
his picture makes the papers real regular. Damn few people who wouldn't recognize that
pretty boy face of his.” He thrust out his chin. “You and his fi-an-cee pals too?”

Amy shriveled up inside. “We ... we haven't met. Oren and I drifted apart after I got
married.” Mitch Jamison, her ex-husband, and Oren hadn't liked each other.

“Well,” Tom said, drawing out the word as a prelude to another of his mind-shattering
announcements. “She's a real knock-out. Eyes like sapphires. Silver blonde hair. And
talk about shape. She coulda' given Marilyn Monroe a run for her money.” He bobbed his
head to give emphasis to his statement. “No way a man's going to miss a woman like
that.”