Twisted Threads (A Cape Trouble Novel Book 3) Read online

  Evil, whispered that voice in her head.

  Nausea swept over her. She hadn’t wanted to believe she was the target even if, deep down inside, she knew. “I suppose I thought...” Her throat was so tight, this was hard to say. “That he might have seen me and...”

  Rage mixed with the sympathy in Sean’s eyes. “Had rape on his mind?”

  Her head bobbed.

  “When I searched your house, the doors were closed to the two spare bedrooms. Had you left them that way?”

  She nodded again.

  “Do you think you’d have heard him opening those doors?”

  Emily closed her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. She had been listening so hard, she hadn’t even breathed. She would have heard a pin drop.

  “That means he knew which bedroom was yours.”

  “How?” If she sounded pitiful, she couldn’t help it.

  “He was watching,” Sean said flatly. “He’d have seen which light you turned off last when you went to bed.”

  So easy. Oh, God. On top of everything else, it made her skin crawl to think that, while she had hand-quilted long enough to buy herself an hour of precious peace, he had been out there watching. And…what if it hadn’t been for just the one night? He could have been waiting for her to leave a window open.

  The worry on Sean’s face ratcheted up her fear. “Emily, a would-be rapist should have taken off, too. You might have called the cops. A lot of women living alone keep a gun handy. Even if he got as far as trying to open the bedroom door, his nerve should have broken when you screamed. He’d lost any chance to subdue you, keep you quiet.”

  She didn’t say anything, just sat staring at him. The champagne in her veins had gone flat. Fear had flattened her sense of well-being.

  “Emily.” His stare compelled her. “Do you possess anything at all that is either rare enough or valuable enough to make someone so reckless?”

  “Nothing,” she cried. “I swear. I have some diamond earrings, but they aren’t worth over a thousand dollars. And my engagement ring...I mean, it’s nice, and I’d hate to lose it, but it wasn’t that expensive, either.”

  His face changed. “Are you a widow?”

  She turned her face away. “Yes.”

  “Your husband wasn’t a spy, or doing some kind of research others would do anything to get their hands on, or...” He apparently ran out of ideas.

  “No. No, of course not! Tom was a pediatrician. A completely nice man. He didn’t even make the kind of money he would have as a doctor practicing in a metropolitan area. But he’d grown up here, wanted to come home. I didn’t care about money, either.”

  Sean nodded, although she assumed he was only acknowledging the information.

  They both sat unmoving for a long time. Not wanting to meet his eyes, Emily kept her gaze on his muscular chest, covered by a gray T-shirt. The silence grew until it made the air thick, hard to breathe. Goosebumps prickled. She slid each hand up the opposite sleeve of her sweatshirt and rubbed her arms.

  Finally she had to say it. “You think he intended to kill me.”

  The creases on his forehead reminded her of his expression the morning after that awful murder. “I think,” he said slowly, “that if you hadn’t made it out the window, and I hadn’t showed up when I did, he’d have either killed or abducted you. What I can’t figure out is why.”

  She shook her head, and rubbed even harder. “There’s no reason,” she said desperately. “I’m nobody special.”

  Something shifted in his eyes. “You’re beautiful.”

  “I’m not—” At his expression, Emily gave up her argument. She no longer thought of herself in those terms. Really, even as a woman. When pain didn’t tear at her, she was otherwise empty inside. Her only satisfaction – she couldn’t call it pleasure, far less joy – came from her creativity, from completing quilts that would endure, perhaps giving other people the happiness she’d lost.

  She tried again. “If he wasn’t going to rape me, what difference does it make what I look like?”

  “If he planned an abduction, rape might still have been his goal,” Sean said grimly.

  Her fingernails bit into her forearms. “Thank you for the thought.”

  With shocking suddenness, Sean leaned forward, anger crackling on his face, his teeth bared. “Do you think I like saying any of this?”

  Breathing shallowly, she gave her head a tiny shake.

  “You need to take this seriously. You need to be scared until we can figure out what this was all about and catch the son of a bitch. Do you understand me?”

  “What do you suggest I do?”

  “Have a home security system installed.”

  After last night, she didn’t even hesitate. “I’ll do that.”

  “Until it’s installed, I want you to stay here at night.”

  Her first instinct was to rebel. Once an extrovert, she had crawled so deep inside herself after Tom and Cody were killed, she had trouble forcing herself to interact with other people at all. But the terror was fresh in her mind, and she knew she wouldn’t sleep at all alone in her house.

  “I have…” She hesitated to say friends. Once upon a time she’d had friends. Now she had…acquaintances. Associates. “There are other people I can stay with.” She made herself look directly at him. “You hardly know me.”

  How odd, it occurred to her, that she hadn’t said, I hardly know you. But she hadn’t because…she did know him enough to trust him.

  “Are any of these other people armed?”

  Oh, God. “No. Probably not.”

  “He could follow you.”

  She felt herself hunch, and she began again to rub her forearms. What was this, like ritual handwashing?

  Sean swore. “I’m sorry, Emily. I may be overreacting, but…”

  She shook her head. “No, you’re just not letting me hide my head in the sand.” She tried to smile. “And, unlike dust, we do have sand.”

  His chuckle was probably as forced as her smile, but he was trying.

  “Do we have a plan?”

  She took a deep breath, let it out, then nodded. “Yes.”

  *****

  After meeting with Daniel, in his role as the Cape Trouble police chief, to discuss the night’s events, Sean spent his afternoon trying to hunt down a recently released convict named Barry Rollins. Sean had found a message left on his phone by Sandra Graafstra, Frank’s law partner, saying that a client of Frank’s had been released from the state correctional institute in Salem something like a month ago. She remembered Frank seeming alarmed.

  “Frank considered the result of the trial to be a win because this Rollins was convicted only of second degree murder instead of first, but he was enraged that he didn’t get off entirely. This was a long time ago, of course, but I thought you ought to know.”

  Glad this wasn’t a Saturday or Sunday when he might have been frustrated in his inquiries, Sean checked to find that indeed Rollins had been paroled to live with his sister in Beaverton, a suburb of Portland. He reached the sister who, sounding very constrained, said her brother now had his own place. She didn’t have the address. Pretty clearly, she didn’t want to know where he was living. Apparently, taking in her ex-con brother hadn’t gone well.

  The parole officer did have an address, but when Sean asked the Portland P.D. to send someone out to contact him, he wasn’t there and none of the neighbors in the complex even knew who lived in that particular apartment. To be paroled, Rollins had needed proof he had a job lined up, but the roofer who had hired him told Sean that with so much rain these last couple weeks, he’d had to idle some of his crews. He felt bad because he hadn’t had much work for Rollins, but that’s the way it was.

  Sean had just hung up when Wilcynski stopped by his desk to ask for an update.

  “Nothing useful.” Sean told him what he’d learned. “I haven’t found any evidence this guy is actually here on the coast, but…” He spread his hands.

  The lieutena
nt half sat on the next desk, currently unoccupied, his dark eyes keen on his face. “You took the morning off.”

  Sean told him why. He didn’t admit that since coming in he’d had trouble keeping his focus on the job he was being paid to do. He kept reliving Emily’s piercing scream and his frantic race to get to her in time. Kept seeing her face when they talked this morning as he forced her to accept how much danger she had been in.

  “It’s freakin’ nuts,” he said in frustration. “This guy didn’t take off until she’d gotten out of the house and he heard my voice. Then, I think he had to have waited until I went in her bedroom window to go out the living room window.” Every time he pictured it, he shuddered. Certain the intruder had already fled, he had left Emily alone in the backyard and vulnerable to being grabbed. If he hadn’t told her to hide… If she’d been too paralyzed to do as he asked…

  Sean imagined how he’d have felt if he had returned to find her gone. Bile rose in his throat. After failing Matt, he’d been able to go on only by dedicating his life to protecting other people. And this was Emily.

  “You didn’t hear a car,” his lieutenant said thoughtfully.

  “I was inside her place, but I was listening. Cape Trouble is pretty quiet at night. If it was parked close by, I should have noticed.”

  “He could have been on foot.”

  “Maybe a bike.” Sean hadn’t liked what he had been thinking. “Easy to leave where it wouldn’t be seen, and once on it he could move fast.”

  Either possibility meant abduction had never been part of the plan. And that understanding squeezed his heart in an icy grip.

  He’d much rather believe the guy had had a vehicle in a driveway nearby, and had only hunkered down until no one would notice a car driving away. Also a good possibility.

  Wilcynski grunted. “You’re thinking he lives in town.”

  “Not necessarily. He could have had a vehicle up by the highway. There’s some traffic up there at all hours.” Because of Highway 101, there was an all-night restaurant and a couple of gas stations that kept their pumps open. “With a pickup or SUV, he could toss the bike in the back and be gone.”

  “But you think he’ll be back.”

  He was so tense, pain was creeping up his neck. “I don’t want to think so. But this asshole was determined beyond common sense, which means we have to take precautions.”

  A dark eyebrow rose. “It’s not our jurisdiction.”

  “You know we’ve been working major cases with Chief Colburn.” Sheriff Mackay’s hope was for the cooperation to become routine and county-wide. He’d hit a stumbling block, however. North Fork, the county seat, was the only other city besides Cape Trouble with its own police department. Unfortunately, the North Fork police chief, an old-timer named Howard Lundy, wasn’t about to tolerate any infringement on his authority. By God, his department didn’t need any help.

  After a minute, during which the lieutenant crossed his arms and said nothing, Sean said, “Ms. Drake is my next-door neighbor.”

  He did his damnedest to keep his expression impassive. If he got an ass-chewing and a lecture on priorities, he wasn’t sure he could keep his mouth shut.

  But the other man only nodded. “I understand. If you need support, let me know.”

  Blown away, Sean was left gaping after him. Had he just been given permission to split his time as he thought appropriate?

  Yeah, he thought he had.

  That being so, he was going home. Tomorrow, he’d set the eager-beaver Jason Payne to trying to locate Barry Rollins. Payne might as well learn the patience it took and how many tedious details had to be sifted to pursue an investigation when the killer’s identity was a genuine mystery. Sean would be doing him a good turn while freeing himself up to chase down other leads…and to try to figure out who had targeted a woman who tried so hard not to draw anybody’s attention at all.

  *****

  Guilt and gratitude had compelled Emily to do something she hadn’t in four long years: cook dinner for someone else.

  She had already been far more aware of her new neighbor’s comings and goings than she’d wanted to be. Until this week, she’d convinced herself she had noticed only because he didn’t have the same kind of routine everyone else on the block did. Naturally she’d pay attention when she heard his car at strange hours.

  Since she had no idea when Sean would be home, she put on a goulash to cook in her crock pot. She suspected he wouldn’t be late. Sean hadn’t liked leaving her alone.

  Earlier, she’d gone online to find companies that installed home security systems. It turned out there were none in Burris County. The closest was in Cannon Beach, with another in Nehalem. A representative from the Cannon Beach company had promised to come tomorrow morning to take a look at her house, make suggestions and sell her on a system. Emily hoped Sean could stay home long enough to talk to him. He would have a better idea what she needed than she did.

  She found herself clock-watching, trying to deny her tension. Not long after Sean left, she had begun to wonder what would keep last night’s intruder from returning in the daytime. Many of her neighbors would be at work. Would it be so impossible for someone to slip into her house unseen, even in daylight?

  At least every half hour, she’d made the rounds to confirm to herself that every door and window really was locked. The house felt stuffy. She resented not being able to open a window. What would happen when summer came? Fear would turn her into a shut-in.

  Aren’t you already one? murmured her inner critic, but right now, she didn’t want to listen.

  She froze at hearing every noise on the street or in surrounding yards until she identified it. She accomplished almost nothing.

  At barely five o’clock, she heard Sean’s SUV turn into his driveway. Not two minutes later, her doorbell rang.

  As she went to let him in, Emily’s intense gratitude was mixed with more resentment, because she didn’t want to need him. She felt apprehension, too, and a host of emotions she couldn’t even identify. She so rarely felt anything for anybody. Pain did that. It had made her self-centered, in a way. Until now, she hadn’t thought of it that way, and she wished she hadn’t.

  When she let him in, she said, “I didn’t expect you so early.”

  His blue eyes took in her face, making her wonder if he could read her thoughts, see the unavoidable strain.

  “I hit a roadblock and decided to hang it up for the day.” He shrugged. “I was going to ask you out to dinner, but I smell something good.”

  “Hungarian goulash. I made plenty if you’d like to stay.”

  His grin surprised her. His face was craggy enough to seem harsh when he was in cop mode. Right now, she had a sudden picture of him as a little boy, probably dirty, adventurous, stubborn. The center of a gang of boys. Of course, his hair would always have been sticking up no matter how his mother tried to tame it.

  “I was hinting at an invitation,” he admitted. “I think my nose is quivering like a rabbit’s.”

  Not liking how breathless that smile had made her, Emily couldn’t help returning it. “Let me put on the noodles, then. I have asparagus,” she added as she led the way to the kitchen. “Or we can just have a salad, or both.”

  “Both, if it’s not too much trouble. I don’t eat enough greens. My mother lectures me on a regular basis.”

  As she put water on to boil and took the vegetables from the refrigerator, she asked about his family, although the minute she did she knew she’d made a mistake. He’d want to know about hers.

  Some flash of emotion in his eyes made her think the question might have been a mistake in another way, too, but the next second whatever she’d seen was gone.

  “I grew up in Cannon Beach,” he said. “My parents are still there. Hey, I can do the salad if you want.”

  He wouldn’t be able to watch her with that thoughtful gaze if he had to concentrate on dicing carrots and bell peppers, so she put him to work. It felt so strange, having a man in
the kitchen again. And this one filled the space in a way her lanky husband hadn’t. The effect wasn’t all physical, either, she realized; Sean’s intensity charged the air, as if a lightning storm threatened.

  “I had a brother who died,” he said, making understandable his reluctance. “That’s…tough to get past.” He reached for the peeler. “Then there is my bossy older sister, who is married and lives in Portland. Thanks to her, I have two nieces and a brother-in-law who makes more in a year than I will in ten.”

  Emily set the box of rotini on the counter and looked at him. “You don’t like him.”

  “I shouldn’t have said that.” He was obviously chagrined. “I don’t know why I did. He’s okay. Just…”

  When he didn’t finish the thought, Emily said, “Does he look down on you?” The idea fired a temper she’d almost forgotten she had. Would the smug brother-in-law have raced to the rescue of a neighbor he didn’t even know well?

  Sean laughed. “You can dial it back. The truth is, I don’t know. We get along okay. I make myself play a round of golf with him once in a while. We’ll never be best friends. It’s possible the disdain is all in my head.”

  She found herself curious, in a way she hadn’t been about anyone in a long time. “What do your parents do?”

  “My dad is a physician, like your husband. Family doctor, not a specialist. Mom was a nurse, although she quit work when my sister was born. When I was a teenager, she went back part-time.”

  His casual mention of her husband surprised her. Out of misplaced sensitivity to her pain, or their own discomfort, people usually shied away from saying anything about Tom or Cody. Perhaps it was having lost his brother that made Sean different.

  “Your sister?” she asked, as if he hadn’t said anything surprising.

  “Planned to go to law school but ditched it when she met Michael.”

  So far he’d talked with seeming willingness, so why not ask?

  “How did you end up a cop?”

  “I wasn’t interested in medicine, I knew that. And I was never the student my sister was. When a subject interested me, I aced it. When it didn’t, my attention drifted,” he said ruefully. “The cop part… I guess I can blame it on a couple of things that happened when I was growing up.” He glanced at her. “You know about the bodies we found last summer at the old resort across the river.”