One Scream Away

One Scream Away

By Kate Brady

Chapter One

Bighorn Butte, Washington
2,780 miles away

A chilly night with just a wedge of moon, mist brewing on the water and congealing in gullies. Six thousand feet below, Seattle glittered in a haze, but here on the butte, the air was thin and clear, steeped in eerie stillness. No light but the blue-white column of a halogen flashlight. No movement but the trusty reels of an old cassette tape recorder. No sound but the strangled sobs of a woman about to die.

Chevy Bankes looked down at the woman. Lila Beckenridge, her driver's license said, the photo showing razor-sharp cheekbones and hair scraped into a bun. A dancer, he'd decided while roping her ankles - callused feet and spaghetti-thin body, the faint odor of perspiration layered beneath her perfume.

And a screamer, a good set of lungs. Well worthy of her role in the performance that began here tonight. Chevy stilled, the enormity of the moment weakening his knees. He'd had women before, he'd killed before, but never with such purpose. He'd never killed one woman to give to another, or taken a life for something greater than his own immediate need. In that sense, the dancer was unique. A first.

A perverse sort of gratitude washed over him, and he bent to stroke her cheek. She spit at him.

"Bitch!" He wiped his face with the edge of his shirt, snarling, and the rage jumped him. How dare she? That wasn't in the plan... Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the sparrow, with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin...

Chevy covered his ears. "No," he said, but the song threaded in - a haunting little folk tune like a mosquito buzzing in his ear. He slapped at the air around his head, trying to shoo it away, then drew back his foot and kicked the woman on the ground. Her jaw gave with the sound of wood snapping in a fire, a moan of pain ripping from her chest.

The song slipped away. Chevy waited, forcing himself to breathe. Control. Silence. There could be no singing tonight, not when a plan seven years in the making was finally under way. Shaking, he uncovered his ears, eyes wide as if he might be able to see the voice if it came again and ward it off. He glanced at the cassette- ten, maybe fifteen minutes of tape left-then at his watch. It was late, and he still had a phone call to make. Besides, his little sister was waiting, and she didn't like to be alone. Poor Jenny had spent enough of her young life alone and waiting for Chevy.

"Not much longer, Jen," he whispered, as if she might hear him. He turned off the recorder and picked up the box he'd carried all the way up the butte. It was two feet long and about a foot deep, not overly heavy, but awkward, and he set it on the ground beside the dancer and opened the flaps. Styrofoam peanuts fluttered to his feet as he pulled out the fragile bundle and he unwound the tissue paper, layer by layer, round and round until-

"Jesus." Chevy's breath caught even though he'd seen the face before: dark, soulful eyes, vacuous smile, thick ringlets of human hair. He swallowed and sifted through the stack of insurance statements in the box, making sure this was the earliest doll in the set: 1862 Benoit. Bisque head and breast plate, wood body. Rare opening/closing eyelids. Appraisal-$40,000-$50,000.

Who saw him die? I, said the Fly, with my little eye-

"Stop it," Chevy snapped, his teeth grinding together. For the space of five heartbeats he listened, then blew out a breath. Get on with it: the woman needed work.

He lay the doll on the ground, several feet away in case there was splatter, then pulled an exacto knife from his pocket and went back to the dancer. She squeaked and he stopped. Shit, he'd almost forgotten. He pushed PLAY and RECORD at the same time then crouched to one knee beside the dancer's shoulder. Whimpers reeled onto the tape, garbled now by the broken jaw but stunning all the same, her terror rising to a fevered pitch as he bent over her. Just a few screams away, now.

Heart galloping, Chevy went to work, glancing often at the doll, fighting to keep his hand steady. When he finished, he sat back on his knees and let the cries wash over him. A few minutes, no more, then, click. Out of tape.

A blessed silence rolled in behind the shot. Chevy held his breath, but he knew the singing wouldn't come now. It never came when the cries were good. He untied the dancer and arranged her limbs to his liking, then spent ten minutes gathering the things a crime scene team would spend hours looking for: exacto knife, gun and shell casing, tape recorder, the rope and tent stakes-all of it into his gym bag. Every last Styrofoam peanut. Once, as he shoved a peanut into his pocket and pulled his hand back out, he dragged out some snack trash. He noticed and picked it up, a pulse of relief tapping at his chest. Being smart was key, being careful was critical. Being lucky didn't hurt.

One last look around, and Chevy hiked back down the butte, carrying his bag and the box, stopping to check the dancer's cell phone about every twenty yards. He got halfway down before a cosmic little tune trickled out: service. His pulse picked up. It was midnight in Virginia, but it didn't matter. This was the moment he'd been waiting for.

Let the games begin.

* * *

Arlington, Virginia

Midnight, the house tucked in, the child long asleep. A hundred-watt bulb glared down at a yellow mat in the basement, the air thick with the odors of perspiration and leather, the usual silence scuffed by illogical sounds of violence. Grunts, thumps, pants of breathlessness. The occasional screech of rubber soles.

The telephone. Beth Denison scowled. She drew a deep breath, the air settling in her lungs like wet sand, then pulled herself back. Inhale, focus, balance. Strike. Her fist slammed into a hundred-and-fifty-pound sandbag. A hard left hook followed, a roundhouse spinning her around to land a kick that would have crushed an attacker's windpipe. She ducked from the rebound, pivoted, and jammed her heel where the average man's balls would be.

The ringing stopped. She braced her hands on her knees, panting. No eerie message this time, no moans or heavy breathing. Maybe the caller was getting bored. She straightened and uncurled her fingers, wincing as each knuckle stretched through the pain. Tomorrow, she'd pay for not bothering to wear protective gear. Tonight, she needed sheer physical exhaustion to smother her thoughts - about the future of the antiques firm, about Evan, and about phone calls from some jerk who apparently had a phone book, a few spare minutes in his evenings, and a flair for the perver-

Ring.

She whirled and turned a dangling red speed bag into a blur, the flurry of sound beating at her ears. Not loud enough, though. The phone still sang out over it. Four rings, five. He wasn't hanging up this time.

"Damn it." She threw up her hands and took the stairs two at a time, planning to...what? Pick up and tell the caller what she was wearing? Tell him to go to hell? She eyed the kitchen phone, frowning at the number that dribbled across the caller-ID screen. Area code 206. Seattle, again, but she didn't recognize the number.

Six rings, seven. The answering machine picked up, her own cheerful voice spinning out. Hi. You've reached the Denisons, or rather, our machine. You know what to do. Beeep.

"Hello, doll." The voice was low and clear. A finger of fear pressed down. "Beth. I know you're there. Pick up the phone." Beth?

The finger turned into a fist. She shot a worried glance toward Abby's bedroom. No sound, no stirring of the bedcovers. Thankfully, Abby had sunk into the kind of sleep nature reserves for the very young.

"Be-heth. It's been seven long years. Don't you want to talk to me?" Her lungs seized. No. Please, no. It couldn't be.

"Yes, Beth." And his voice lowered. "Surprise."

The past sputtered to life, the chilling drops of memory trickling down her spine. "I bet you thought I'd never find you," he said. "But I'm a resourceful man. In fact, I'm so resourceful that I've arranged some very special gifts for you. I can't wait until you see them."

He paused, as if he knew she'd had to grab the back of the kitchen chair to stay upright, and that her world was suddenly careening into orbit. Idiot, Beth said to herself. Of course he knew. So don't answer. Just ignore him and don't pick up the-

"By the way, Beth, how's your daughter?" She snatched up the phone. "Bastard."

"Ah, there you are. For a moment I was beginning to worry."

Red sparks burst behind her eyes. "H-how?"

"How, what? Oh, I guess you haven't heard. Well, it's no wonder, of course. Why would anyone think to contact you with the news?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Freedom. Comeuppance. Getting what I've been denied all these years."

The room seemed to be in motion. Beth couldn't even swear her feet were still on the floor. She closed her eyes. Think, think. Why, no, how was he calling her? "I don't understand," she said.

"I'm sure you'll find the whole story on the internet with just a few keystrokes. For now, suffice it to say that I'm free. I've been free a while now, in fact, using the time to arrange the details of our reunion."

Nausea crawled up the back of Beth's throat, lodging there like a burr. Free? Hold on. Stay in control. If he was out of prison, there was only one reason he would contact her. And he couldn't possibly want to dredge up the past to get it.

"I'll call the police. I'll tell them every-"

He chuckled. "No, you won't. You think you have everyone fooled, living your pretty life with your pretty daughter, but you've forgotten: I know your secrets."

She gripped the receiver so tight cramps screamed up the tendons in her arm. "You don't know anything."

"Really?" he asked. Something clicked on his end, and for a second Beth thought he'd hung up. Then he was breathing in her ear again, a faint whrrr on the line. "Let's review: I know what happened to Anne Chaney. I know why you moved from Seattle, all the way across the country to Arlington, Virginia." He paused. "I know about your little girl-"

She gasped, then bit it back. Too late.

"Oh, that was nice, Beth. Do that again."

"Stop-" She spat the word but caught herself. Quiet, now. Don't make a sound. She remembered how much he liked sounds. Scream, bitch. Cry for me.

"Let me hear your voice again, Beth," he said. "It doesn't need to be much, not yet. Just a few small sounds to get the opus started-"

Beth hurled the phone across the room. Fear and fury coiled in her belly like snakes, and she forced herself to breathe, letting fury writhe to the top. Damn it, she had to keep her head. Even as a free man he wasn't half the threat to her that she was to him. He was the one who should be afraid. Besides, the call hadn't even come from this part of the country.

Area code 206...Seattle.

Reality sank to the pit of her stomach. This wasn't a dream. It wasn't some vile memory from the bowels of another lifetime. It wasn't a prank caller with a six-pack and a phone book, who'd latched on to a number he liked and kept hitting REDIAL. It was Chevy Bankes.

The need to see Abby kicked Beth in the chest. She raced upstairs and peered into the bedroom. Abby lay sprawled in a puddle of moonlight, a toy cat clutched against her tummy, a real dog draped over her ankles. The dog swished his tail and lolled hopefully to his back, oblivious to the chill creeping through Beth's veins as she stood watching the rise and fall of Abby's stomach: one breath, two breaths, three. Three was the magic number. Beth always counted three breaths in a row before she went to bed at night.

This time she counted ten.

She slipped back into the hallway, the heels of her hands bullying back tears. Don't cry. God knows, tears had never accomplished anything. This wasn't supposed to have happened, but she'd always known it might. Bankes wasn't the only one with a plan.

Inhale, focus, balance. She called on years of Muay Thai to center herself, then went to the master bedroom. She dragged a rocking chair across the room and set it beside a huge Chippendale chest of drawers. It was an early New England piece with heavily carved aprons, the escutcheons all original, the patina rich and dark. Still, she hadn't bought this dresser for its age or beauty. She'd bought it for the cornices.

She climbed onto the tottering rocker and wrenched the finial on the top right cornice of the dresser. It creaked and gaped open. A folded piece of paper sprang out. Beth tucked it under a sweatband on her wrist and reached back into the secret compartment. Her fingers curled around the butt of a 9mm Glock, cool and powerful, neglected but never forgotten. She lifted it, straightened both elbows, and sighted the little red light on the phone across the room. She could do it. If she had to-for Abby's sake-she would.

She lowered the gun, climbed down, and unfolded the list of names from her wristband. Cheryl Stallings, her sister-in-law. Two attorneys, one who had authored Beth's will and another who had a reputation for winning at any cost. Three early-American furniture dealers, each of whom had offered cash for a few of Beth's finer pieces and would buy them, no questions asked.

Reviewing the list had a calming effect, a tangible reminder that she had a plan and the resources to achieve it. She took a deep breath. Despite the hour, she picked up the phone, then paused. The digits nine and one seemed to glow brighter than the rest. I'll call the police, I'll tell them everything. But it was a bluff and Bankes knew it. She couldn't call the police. She couldn't do that to Abby.

Steadier now, she muttered a prayer-forgiveness, just in case there was a God after all. She cleared her throat and schooled her voice into the calm, composed tone she'd perfected years ago. Dialed the top number.

The first lie would be the hardest.

Chapter Two

New York, NY

Thunder rolled in, dragging Neil Sheridan from the depths of a stupor he'd worked on for weeks. A jackhammer pounded in his skull and he reached up, expecting to find his head split in two. His fingers closed around something warm and soft. His brain? No, a breast. He moved his hand. A second one. Oh, that's right, they usually came in pairs.

The thunder intensified. "Neil. Goddamn it, open the door."

He cracked his eyelids and sunlight bleached his eyes. He twisted from it, the breasts rolling over with a soft moan.

"Neil. I'm about to have the hotel staff unlock this door. Fair warning."

"Stop yelling," he muttered, lumbering to his feet. He found a pair of jeans at the foot of the bed and humped into them, bracing a shoulder against the wall.

"Go ahead, unlock the door," the voice in the hallway was saying.

Rick? Damn it.

The thunder had stopped, though pain still ricocheted around his head like a round from an M-16. Somewhere outside, a female voice took off in quick-fire Spanish and Rick cut her off: "I'm a police lieutenant, lady. Just unlock the damn door."

"Hold on," Neil said, but his voice was a croak. He fumbled with the lock and pulled the door opened. A maid gawked at him.

"Whoa, you look like hell," Rick said, pressing a twenty into the maid's hand. He watched her skitter down the hall then stalked into Neil's suite. "I've been calling you. Heard you quit The Sentry. You've been back in the States over a month."

"Time flies." Rick picked up an empty whiskey bottle, bent to the floor and hooked a lacy camisole between two fingers. He set both on a table littered with Chinese carry-out boxes, peeking into one. He sniffed. "General Tsao's chicken," he said. "With whiskey?"

"The beverage that goes with anything."

Rick nudged a second bottle with his toe. It rolled over a ripped-open foil packet on the floor. He glanced at the bedroom door, shaking his head so fractionally Neil thought he might have imagined it.

"I want you to come to Arlington with me. You been wallowing in self-pity long enough."

"I've been wallowing in Jack and Jill. And they're still waiting for me in the bedroom."

"Jack Daniels and Jill Who? Do you even know her last name?"

"Didn't ask," Neil said, dropping into a chair and bullying his brow with his fingers. His brain ached, and that shouldn't have been possible. He shouldn't even have a brain anymore. At least, that's what they taught boys in high school: too much drinking, too much screwing, and your mind goes blank, your soul goes numb, you become an empty shell of a man who can't think or feel.

Promises, promises.

"Don't you wanna know why I'm here?" Rick asked.

"I know why. You think I'm less likely to eat my gun in front of your wife and kids than I am here."

A beat passed.

"Are you?"

Neil closed his eyes, but the pictures came anyway: video footage of his brother visiting a refugee camp, running, running, until the ground exploded and Mitch went flying through the air. He blinked to kill the images. "Eating my gun would be too easy."

"It wasn't your job to stop the attack, Neil. The Sentry is a security organization."

"Right. And I provided security for the bastard who blew up a refugee camp and nearly killed my brother."

Rick grimaced. "Where's Mitch now?"

"In Switzerland, healing. Getting good at phrases like mea culpa and fuck off."

"I thought you held the copyright to those," Rick muttered, thumbing three tablets from a roll of Tums.

Neil looked at him as if he were an alien. "Murder cases haven't interested me in nine years."

"A woman was killed near Seattle three nights ago."

"Not interested."

"Hikers found her body early this morning."

"Not interested."

"She was a dancer, twenty- six years old. Had a little girl in preschool."

Neil closed his eyes.

"The murderer could be the same-"

"I. Don't. Care." Neil ground out the words, his jaw so tight that for a second he wondered if he could break his own molars. He reached for the nearest bottle, but Rick got there first and heaved it across the room. The last precious sips of oblivion splattered all over the wallpaper.

"Well, now look what you've done," Neil groused, coming to his feet. "And that was the last bott- "

Rick sprang. In two seconds, Neil's spine was against the wall.

"It looks like Anthony Russell, you stupid, self-serving son of a bitch," Rick said, his fingers biting into Neil's arms. "This murder could've been done by Anthony Russell."

Neil's lungs shut down. Seconds passed before he got them working again, and when he did, he broke free of Rick with a shove.

"Go to hell," he said, but two strides later he spun back around. "Anthony Russell is dead. I shot him."

"After he jumped a bailiff and took off from his own arraignment. I remember." A vein pulsed in Rick's forehead. "It was never a sure thing, though, was it? That he killed that college girl?"

"He confessed. How much more of a sure thing do you need?"

"I mean- "

"What? What do you mean?" Neil advanced. "Anthony Russell abducted Gloria Michaels after a fraternity party. He stabbed her almost dead then shot her in the head for good measure, and when he escaped from custody, I killed the bastard. So whatever this Seattle woman looks like, there's no way she was killed by Anthony Russell."

"You didn't find Gloria's body where he said you would."

A thread of doubt began to fray. Not for the first time.

"The fucker confessed."

"In exchange for the DA lessening three other charges."

The pounding in Neil's head picked up again. Anthony Russell's reasons for confessing weren't something anyone had bothered to examine too closely. They had a confession; that's all that had mattered.

"Why are you pulling Anthony Russell up on me?"

"The report about the Seattle woman rang some bells."

"What bells?"

Rick ticked them off on his fi ngers. "Woman disappears with her car. Car was dumped, wiped clean. Body found days later in a wooded area, and some knife- work done on it. Thirty- eight- caliber hollowpoint to finish her. Piece of candy wrapper at the scene." He paused. "Reese's Cup."

The ancient doubt began to dig roots. That did sound like Gloria. Even down to the tiny piece of candy that had been left in the car by her killer. Neil swallowed.

"Raped?"

"Can't be sure yet, but"- he paused and ran a hand over his face- "it looks that way."

Fingers of dread crawled across Neil's neck. He paced, trying to talk himself out of it, but the possibilities rose in his mind like specters: The possibility that Anthony Russell had lied about Gloria in order to strike a deal with the DA. The possibility that a jury might have sprung him, had he gone to trial. The possibility that when Neil turned his back on his family in order to catch a murderer, he'd caught the wrong man.

And the right man had murdered a woman in Seattle last night.

"Neil, you knew the Gloria Michaels case better than anyone. Come take a look at it. We can catch the next shuttle back to Virginia."

Neil narrowed his eyes. "Why is a lieutenant in Arlington, Virginia, looking at a murder three thousand miles away?"

"Seattle PD asked me to check on someone. The dead woman's cell phone was used to call a woman in my precinct the night of the murder."

"Who?"

"Her name's Elizabeth Denison."

Neil combed his memory for the people he'd once connected to Anthony Russell. He couldn't come up with anyone named Elizabeth Denison, but then that was no surprise. Because Anthony wasn't involved in this.

"You talk to Denison?"

"No one home. I put a car on her street to wait. Then the Gloria Michaels bells started clanging, and I decided to come see if you wanted to look at it."

Neil blew out a curse. Hell, no, he didn't want to look at it. For nine years, he hadn't concerned himself with such futile things as right and wrong, good and evil. He was nothing but an exorbitantly paid guard dog. Jungles, mountains, deserts. Places where he never bothered to ask if he was guarding the good guys or the bad guys, where all that mattered was getting off the first shot.

Fuck it. That was his motto now, and it was a far cry from the words inscribed on the federal shield he'd once carried.

He braced his arm against the wall and tipped his forehead onto it. "If you're right," he finally said, "I killed an innocent man."

"Innocent? Anthony Russell was shooting at you. He left a bailiff paralyzed for life."

"He was in custody because I collared him for Gloria."

Rick stepped closer. "He was a murderer with a rap sheet as long as your dick. The only reason it matters whether you were wrong about him doing Gloria is the chance that her real killer hit Seattle last night. You get that?"

I get it, Neil thought but was somehow afraid to breathe. If he did, it might infuse new life into his veins, might make him start caring about something again. He'd sworn that off nine years ago.

But even as the warnings trolled through his mind, his hand slid into his pocket, a battered piece of ribbon and plastic squeezing into his palm. He held it tight, closing his eyes against the worst possibility of all. If he'd been wrong about Anthony Russell, then Mackenzie had died for nothing.

That thought almost buckled his knees. That, and the thud of something landing hard on his conscience. The body of a Seattle dancer.

He pulled his hand from his pocket, leaving the barrette in its hideaway. He took a deep breath and looked at Door Number One, knowing he wouldn't choose it, and that Jill Something was going to wake up there alone. A better man might have felt guilty about that, the kind of man who had room on his conscience for such things.

But Neil didn't. Too many corpses there.

Chevy tilted the doll upright then tipped her down again-up and down, up and down-studying her eyes. Despite what the insurance
appraisal said, this doll's eyes had never closed. They remained open and watchful, taking in every little thing. Who saw him die? I, said the Fly, with my little eye- "Stop it," Chevy snapped, his teeth grinding together. For the space of five heartbeats he listened, then blew out a breath. Get on with it: the woman needed work. He lay the doll on the ground, several feet away in case there was splatter, then pulled an exacto knife from his pocket and went back to the dancer. She squeaked and he stopped. Shit, he'd almost forgotten. He pushed PLAY and RECORD at the same time then crouched to one knee beside the dancer's shoulder. Whimpers reeled onto the tape, garbled now by the broken jaw but stunning all the same, her terror rising to a fevered pitch as he bent over her. Just a few screams away, now. Heart galloping, Chevy went to work, glancing often at the doll, fighting to keep his hand steady. When he finished, he sat back on his knees and let the cries wash over him. A few minutes, no more, then, click. Out of tape.

He opened his eyes and looked down at his handiwork. A little messy, but good enough. He dug his .38 Ruger from a bag of supplies and wiped off the woman's temple. She was beyond noticing, her cries just snags in her breaths now, as if she knew it was over. Chevy measured an inch straight up, marked the spot with an eyebrow pencil, and placed the barrel of the pistol exactly on the spot. Squeezed.
A blessed silence rolled in behind the shot. Chevy held his breath, but he knew the singing wouldn't come now. It never came when the
cries were good. He untied the dancer and arranged her limbs to his liking, then spent ten minutes gathering the things a crime scene team would spend hours looking for: exacto knife, gun and shell casing, tape recorder, the rope and tent stakes-all of it into his gym bag. Every last Styrofoam peanut. Once, as he shoved a peanut into his pocket and pulled his hand back out, he dragged out some snack trash. He noticed and picked it up, a pulse of relief tapping at his chest. Being smart was key, being careful was critical. Being lucky didn't hurt. One last look around, and Chevy hiked back down the butte, carrying his bag and the box, stopping to check the dancer's cell phone
about every twenty yards. He got halfway down before a cosmic little tune trickled out: service. His pulse picked up. It was midnight in Virginia, but it didn't matter. This was the moment he'd been waiting for.

Let the games begin.

* * *

Arlington, Virginia

Midnight, the house tucked in, the child long asleep. A hundredwatt bulb glared down at a yellow mat in the basement, the air thick with
the odors of perspiration and leather, the usual silence scuffed by illogical sounds of violence. Grunts, thumps, pants of breathlessness. The occasional screech of rubber soles.

The telephone. Beth Denison scowled. She drew a deep breath, the air settling in her lungs like wet sand, then pulled herself back. Inhale, focus, balance. Strike. Her fist slammed into a hundred-and-fifty-pound sandbag. A hard left hook followed, a roundhouse spinning her around to land a kick that would have crushed an attacker's windpipe. She ducked from the rebound, pivoted, and jammed her heel where the average man's balls would be. The ringing stopped. She braced her hands on her knees, panting. No eerie message this time, no moans or heavy breathing. Maybe the caller was getting bored. She straightened and uncurled her fingers, wincing as each knuckle stretched through the pain. Tomorrow, she'd pay for not bothering to wear protective gear. Tonight, she needed sheer physical exhaustion to smother thought-about the future of the antiques firm, about Evan, and about phone calls from some jerk who apparently had a phone book, a few spare minutes in his evenings, and a flair for the pervert- Ring. She whirled and turned a dangling red speed bag into a blur, the flurry of sound beating at her ears. Not loud enough, though. The phone still sang out over it. Four rings, five. He wasn't hanging up this time. "Damn it." She threw up her hands and took the stairs two at a time, planning to...what? Pick up and tell the caller what she was wearing? Tell him to go to hell? She eyed the kitchen phone, frowning at the number that dribbled across the caller-ID screen. Area code 206. Seattle, again, but she didn't recognize the number.

Six rings, seven. The answering machine picked up, her own cheerful voice spinning out. Hi. You've reached the Denisons, or rather,
our machine. You know what to do. Beeep. "Hello, doll." The voice was low and clear. A finger of fear pressed down.
"Beth. I know you're there. Pick up the phone." Beth? The finger turned into a fist. She shot a worried glance toward Abby's bedroom. No sound, no stirring of the bedcovers. Thankfully, Abby had sunk into the kind of sleep nature reserves for the very young.
"Be-heth. It's been seven long years. Don't you want to talk to me?" Her lungs seized. No. Please, no. It couldn't be.
"Yes, Beth." And his voice lowered. "Surprise." The past sputtered to life, the chilling drops of memory trickling down her spine. "I bet you thought I'd never find you," he said. "But I'm a resourceful man. In fact, I'm so resourceful that I've arranged some very special gifts for you. I can't wait until you see them." He paused, as if he knew she'd had to grab the back of the kitchen chair to stay upright, and that her world was suddenly careening into orbit. Idiot, Beth said to herself. Of course he knew. So don't answer. Just ignore him and don't pick up the- "By the way, Beth, how's your daughter?" She snatched up the phone. "Bastard." "Ah, there you are. For a moment I was beginning to worry." Red sparks burst behind her eyes. "H-how?" "How, what? Oh, I guess you haven't heard. Well, it's no wonder, of course. Why would anyone think to contact you with the news?" "What are you talking about?" "Freedom. Comeuppance. Getting what I've been denied all these years." The room seemed to be in motion. Beth couldn't even swear her feet were still on the floor. She closed her eyes. Think, think. Why, no, how was he calling her? "I don't understand," she said. "I'm sure you'll find the whole story on the internet with just a few keystrokes. For now, suffice it to say that I'm free. I've been free a while now, in fact, using the time to arrange the details of our reunion." Nausea crawled up the back of Beth's throat, lodging there like a burr. Free? Hold on. Stay in control. If he was out of prison, there was only one reason he would contact her. And he couldn't possibly want to dredge up the past to get it. "I'll call the police. I'll tell them every-" He chuckled. "No, you won't. You think you have everyone fooled, living your pretty life with your pretty daughter, but you've forgotten: I know your secrets." She gripped the receiver so tight cramps screamed up the tendons in her arm. "You don't know anything." "Really?" he asked. Something clicked on his end, and for a second Beth thought he'd hung up. Then he was breathing in her ear again, a faint whrrr on the line. "Let's review: I know what happened to Anne Chaney. I know why you moved from Seattle, all the way across the country to Arlington, Virginia." He paused. "I know about your little girl-" She gasped, then bit it back. Too late. "Oh, that was nice, Beth. Do that again." "Stop-" She spat the word but caught herself. Quiet, now. Don't make a sound. She remembered how much he liked sounds. Scream, bitch. Cry for me. "Let me hear your voice again, Beth," he said. "It doesn't need to be much, not yet. Just a few small sounds to get the opus started-" Beth hurled the phone across the room. Fear and fury coiled in her belly like snakes, and she forced herself to breathe, letting fury writhe to the top. Damn it, she had to keep her head. Even as a free man he wasn't half the threat to her that she was to him. He was the one who should be afraid. Besides, the call hadn't even come from this part of the country.

Area code 206...Seattle.
Reality sank to the pit of her stomach. This wasn't a dream. It wasn't some vile memory from the bowels of another lifetime. It wasn't a prank caller with a six-pack and a phone book, who'd latched on to a number he liked and kept hitting REDIAL. It was Chevy Bankes.
The need to see Abby kicked Beth in the chest. She raced upstairs and peered into the bedroom. Abby lay sprawled in a puddle of
moonlight, a toy cat clutched against her tummy, a real dog draped over her ankles. The dog swished his tail and lolled hopefully to his back, oblivious to the chill creeping through Beth's veins as she stood watching the rise and fall of Abby's stomach: one breath, two breaths, three. Three was the magic number. Beth always counted three breaths in a row before she went to bed at night. This time she counted ten. She slipped back into the hallway, the heels of her hands bullying back tears. Don't cry. God knows, tears had never accomplished anything. This wasn't supposed to have happened, but she'd always known it might. Bankes wasn't the only one with a plan. Inhale, focus, balance. She called on years of Muay Thai to center herself, then went to the master bedroom. She dragged a rocking chair across the room and set it beside a huge Chippendale chest of drawers. It was an early New England piece with heavily carved aprons, the escutcheons all original, the patina rich and dark. Still, she hadn't bought this dresser for its age or beauty. She'd bought it for the cornices. She climbed onto the tottering rocker and wrenched the finial on the top right cornice of the dresser. It creaked and gaped open. A folded piece of paper sprang out. Beth tucked it under a sweatband on her wrist and reached back into the secret compartment. Her fingers curled around the butt of a 9mm Glock, cool and powerful, neglected but never forgotten. She lifted it, straightened both elbows, and sighted the little red light on the phone across the room. She could do it. If she had to-for Abby's sake-she would. She lowered the gun, climbed down, and unfolded the list of names from her wristband. Cheryl Stallings, her sister-in-law. Two attorneys, one who had authored Beth's will and another who had a reputation for
winning at any cost. Three early-American furniture dealers, each of
whom had offered cash for a few of Beth's finer pieces and would buy
them, no questions asked. Reviewing the list had a calming effect, a tangible reminder that she had a plan and the resources to achieve it. She took a deep breath. Despite the hour, she picked up the phone, then paused. The digits nine and one seemed to glow brighter than the rest. I'll call the police, I'll tell them everything. But it was a bluff and Bankes knew it. She couldn't call the police. She couldn't do that to Abby. Steadier now, she muttered a prayer-forgiveness, just in case
there was a God after all. She cleared her throat and schooled her voice into the calm, composed tone she'd perfected years ago. Dialed the top number. The first lie would be the hardest.

Chapter Two

New York, NY

Thunder rolled in, dragging Neil Sheridan from the depths of a stupor he'd worked on for weeks. A jackhammer pounded in his skull and he reached up, expecting to find his head split in two. His fingers closed around something warm and soft. His brain? No, a breast. He moved his hand. A second one. Oh, that's right, they usually came in pairs. The thunder intensified. "Neil. Goddamn it, open the door." He cracked his eyelids and sunlight bleached his eyes. He twisted from it, the breasts rolling over with a soft moan. "Neil. I'm about to have the hotel staff unlock this door. Fair warning." "Stop yelling," he muttered, lumbering to his feet. He found a pair of jeans at the foot of the bed and humped into them, bracing a shoulder against the wall. "Go ahead, unlock the door," the voice in the hallway was saying. Rick? Damn it. The thunder had stopped, though pain still ricocheted around his head like a round from an M-16. Somewhere outside, a female voice took off in quick-fire Spanish and Rick cut her off: "I'm a police lieutenant, lady. Just unlock the damn door." "Hold on," Neil said, but his voice was a croak. He fumbled with the lock and pulled the door opened. A maid gawked at him. "Whoa, you look like hell," Rick said, pressing a twenty into the maid's hand. He watched her skitter down the hall then stalked into Neil's suite. "I've been calling you. Heard you quit The Sentry. You've been back in the States over a month." "Time flies." Rick picked up an empty whiskey bottle, bent to the floor and hooked a lacy camisole between two fingers. He set both on a table littered with Chinese carry-out boxes, peeking into one. He sniffed. "General Tsao's chicken," he said. "With whiskey?" "The beverage that goes with anything." Rick nudged a second bottle with his toe. It rolled over a rippedopen foil packet on the floor. He glanced at the bedroom door, shaking his head so fractionally Neil thought he might have imagined it. "I want you to come to Arlington with me. You been wallowing in self-pity long enough." "I've been wallowing in Jack and Jill. And they're still waiting for me in the bedroom." "Jack Daniels and Jill Who? Do you even know her last name?" "Didn't ask," Neil said, dropping into a chair and bullying his brow with his fingers. His brain ached, and that shouldn't have been possible. He shouldn't even have a brain anymore. At least, that's what they taught boys in high school: too much drinking, too much screwing, and your mind goes blank, your soul goes numb, you become an empty shell of a man who can't think or feel. Promises, promises. "Don't you wanna know why I'm here?" Rick asked. "I know why. You think I'm less likely to eat my gun in front of your wife and kids than I am here." A beat passed. "Are you?" Neil closed his eyes, but the pictures came anyway: video footage of his brother visiting a refugee camp, running, running, until the ground exploded and Mitch went flying through the air. He blinked to kill the images. "Eating my gun would be too easy." "It wasn't your job to stop the attack, Neil. The Sentry is a security organization." "Right. And I provided security for the bastard who blew up a refugee camp and nearly killed my brother." Rick grimaced. "Where's Mitch now?" "In Switzerland, healing. Getting good at phrases like mea culpa and fuck off."

Company Name

Chapter Two