A Whisper in the Dark (35 page)

“Don’t talk to me as if I’m crazy,” he said calmly. “I’m not insane. Far from it, Julia. God has bestowed upon me the responsibility of saving you from your own immorality, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

She thought about getting into the Volkswagen and locking the doors. But then what? The keys were in her purse inside. He would probably just break a window. Then she remembered her father had given her a garage door opener. She’d clipped it to her visor. If she could get into the car and hit the button she could run out the door and find Ellis.

“Parker, let’s go inside and talk about this.” Reaching out as if to take his hand, she stepped closer to him, closer to the driver’s side door. “Please.”

He looked confused for a moment and lowered the gun. “You’re not going to talk me out of what I have to—”

Julia dashed to the Volkswagen and yanked the door open. Bending, she slammed her fist against the garage door opener clipped to the visor. Behind her she heard Parker’s shoes against the concrete floor. The garage door groaned and began to rise. One foot. Two feet. Not taking time to look back, she threw herself at the small gap between the garage door and the floor and rolled.

“Stop!”

She didn’t stop. In the driveway, she lurched to her feet and looked around wildly. Ellis’s Ford was parked in the circular driveway twenty yards away. “Help me!” she screamed and sprinted toward the car.

She could hear Parker behind her, but she didn’t stop. She didn’t slow down. She reached the car seconds later, darted around the hood, slapped both hands against the driver’s side window. “Help me!”

When the door didn’t open, she reached for the handle, yanked the door open. “Ellis!”

The private detective lay against the seat back, his face slack. The blood on his jacket looked black in the dim light from the street lamp. Horror and disbelief slammed into her like a giant fist. Julia tried to scream, but no sound came.

She sensed Parker behind her. She was about to turn and run when pain exploded at the back of her head. Black and white lights flashed before her eyes. She managed to grab the side-view mirror before her knees buckled. The world dipped and spun as she tried to crawl away.

“Help me!” she cried.

The second blow sent her into total darkness.

TWENTY-EIGHT

John had never been good at letting things go. It was his
scourge and, some would say, his saving grace. After Parker left, he threw the copies of the threatening letters in the trash. He poured half a glass of gin and carried it to the living room, where he turned on the television and stared blindly at the screen.

Old man Wainwright should have given him the opportunity to brief his replacement. It was PD protocol when a detective handed a case to another. Was the private detective capable of keeping Julia safe? Was he taking the assignment seriously? If no one would listen to John, perhaps he could ask Mitch to give the private detective a call and fill him in. Or at least get of sense of whether or not the man was competent.

But John knew that while all of those things were valid concerns, what he really wanted to know was how Julia was faring through all this. Picking up his cell phone, he scrolled through the numbers until he found Julia’s. He didn’t hit Send, but he was thinking about it. He could feel the desperation tugging at him. He hadn’t eaten dinner and the alcohol was going straight to his head. Not a good thing considering he was an inch away from making a call he had no business making. He was probably going to say things he had no business saying.

“What the hell,” he muttered.

Taking another long drink, he hit Send and waited. Her voice mail answered on the third ring. His chest actually went tight at the sound of her voice. He left a message asking her to call him and hung up.

For a crazy instant he considered driving by the Wainwright estate, just to make sure she was all right. But on some level he knew it would only tempt him to do more. Like walk up to the house and knock on the door. The Wain-wrights had made their position on his being there perfectly clear.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t continue to work the case. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do these days. Setting down the glass, he went to the kitchen, dug the letters out of the trash and spread them on the table.

 
He stared hard at the characters, thinking about the writer, trying to get inside his head. A tiny blotch of toner on each paper revealed that the letters had been printed from the same printer. It was barely larger than a comma and appeared at regularly spaced intervals on each paper. He stared at the blotch. Something pinged in his brain. Suddenly he was pretty sure he’d seen the blotch before. But where?

He slid the check Parker had given him from the envelope and laid it beside the letters. His heart began to pound, the way it did back when he’d been a cop and knew he was about to break a major case. The same blotch appeared on the check Wainwright had sent to him as final payment.

Disbelief and a cold new fear coursed through him. John stood abruptly, nearly knocking his chair over. He couldn’t take his eyes off the check. Was Benjamin Wainwright the stalker? Parker Bradley? John hadn’t eliminated them from his list of suspects. But neither were strong contenders.

John’s heart went into overdrive when he realized Julia was in imminent and grave danger. She was staying at the Wainwright estate, a place John had always believed safe.

“Shit,” he hissed as he sprinted to the living room and snatched up his cell. He hit Julia’s number as he grabbed his keys off the counter. Three rings and her voice mail answered. “Julia, this is John. You’re in danger. Lock your bedroom door and don’t let anyone in. Not your father. Especially not Parker Bradley. I’m on my way.”

Cursing, he hit the End button and quickly called Mitch. His brother answered on the first ring.

“I think Parker Bradley is the stalker,” John said without preamble.

“Bradley? How do you know?”

Quickly, John explained about the blotch of toner. “I’m on my way over to the estate now.”

“Stay put, John. I’ll handle it.”

“Not going to happen.”

“They don’t want you there. Damn it, you’re not a cop anymore.”

But John was already out the door and sprinting to his car. “She’s there alone, Mitch. There’s no way I can sit this one out.”

“Goddamn it, John, let me handle this. If Bradley is the stalker, that means he’s now a strong suspect in the murder case. I can be there in ten minutes with a couple of patrol cars and a warrant.”

“I can be there in two,” John said and disconnected.

 
John hauled the Mustang into Wainwright’s driveway,
skidded to a halt in front of a massive ornate steel security gate and hit the intercom button with his fist.

“This is John Merrick,” he said. “Open the gate.”

A minute ticked by, but it felt like an eternity. He glanced through the massive gate. The mansion was large and surrounded by stately live oaks. There was no sign of Julia’s Volkswagen. A Ford sedan was parked in the circular driveway. It was too dark for John to see if there was anyone inside. In the back of his mind he wondered if the car belonged to the private dick. If it did, where the hell was he?

He hit the intercom again. “This is Merrick. Open the goddamn gate or I’m coming through it.”

He laid on the horn and watched for lights, but nothing happened. Getting out of the Mustang, he strode to the gate and tested it with a vigorous shake. But the mechanism held strong and secure.

Not letting himself consider the consequences of what he was about to do, John climbed back into the Mustang, secured his safety belt and put the car into reverse. Halfway down the driveway, he slammed it into drive and floored the gas. The big V-8 roared. The car shot forward. Zero to thirty in three seconds flat. The bumper hit the gate. Steel screamed against steel. The impact jolted him, but he didn’t let off the gas. The gates exploded open. The one to his left was ripped from its hinge and clattered to the cobblestone. The one on the right slammed against the fence hard enough to bend steel.

John brought the Mustang to a screeching halt outside the three-car garage. He was out of the car and running for the front door when headlights played over the stucco exterior. A glance over his shoulder told him Mitch had arrived. “Shit,” he muttered, not sure if that was good or bad. The only thing he knew for certain was that his cop’s instincts were telling him something was terribly wrong. He wasn’t going to let police protocol keep him from finding out what.

He tried the front door, but found it locked. Cupping his hands, he looked through the beveled glass sidelight, but the interior was as dark as a cave.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

John turned to see Mitch jogging up the sidewalk, his face incredulous and angry.

“She’s in trouble.”

“How do you know?” Mitch looked around.

“I can’t get her on the phone.”

“Maybe she’s not taking your calls. For God’s sake, John, can you blame her?”

“The bedroom light is on, but she’s not answering the intercom.”

“So you obliterated their security gate?” Mitch gestured angrily toward the gate. “How are you going to explain that to the old man?”

John started toward the garage, but Mitch stepped in front of him, blocking his way. “Not so fast, hotshot.”

“Get out of my way.” Shoving his brother aside, John started toward the back door that opened to the garage.

Mitch stayed on his heels. “What are you going to do now? Break in?”

“If that’s what it takes.” John reached the door and tried the knob.

“For fuck sake, John, don’t make me arrest you.”

At the door John halted and spun to face his brother. “Look, if I’m wrong about this I’ll cover the damage.”

Mitch didn’t look appeased. “If you’re wrong about this I’m going to make damn sure you get some help.”

“Fine. Deal.” John looked toward the garage door. “I’m not wrong. Something isn’t right here. Where the hell is the private dick the old man hired?”

Mitch glanced toward the street. “I didn’t see a car.”

“Check the car in the driveway.”

Turning on his heel, Mitch started for the Ford sedan. When his brother was out of earshot, John removed his shoe and broke a windowpane on the door. He reached in, disengaged the bolt lock and stepped inside.

In the dim light slanting through the window, he could see the silhouette of Julia’s Volkswagen. He found the light switch, flipped it on. At first everything seemed to be in order. Car parked neatly in its bay. Tools hung on a rack against the wall. Dual garbage cans next to the door. But as he drew closer to the car, two small dark droplets on the concrete outside the driver’s side door caught his eye. Kneeling, he looked more closely at them. The hair at his nape prickled when he realized it was blood.

He’d started toward the door to get Mitch when his brother burst into the garage. “The PI is dead,” he said.

The words struck John like a punch. “
What?
”

“His throat was cut. I called it in.” Mitch was breathing hard. “Goddamn it.”

Vaguely he was aware of Mitch speaking on his radio. John stood there dumbly, his heart pounding, his mind scrambling wildly for explanations. But there was no explanation that would keep his worst nightmare from coming true.

The stalker had Julia. The blood on the floor told him she’d already been hurt, maybe even murdered. And nobody had the slightest idea where he might have taken her.

Consciousness returned one sense at a time. The first
thing Julia was aware of was the cold. She was shivering with it. Her clothing was wet. She was lying on her side. Whatever was beneath her was hard and cold and damp. The second thing she became aware of was the pain in her head. The back of her head throbbed with every beat of her heart.

In the next instant everything that had happened at her father’s mansion rushed back. Finding the mask in the crate. Parker accosting her in the garage. The dead private detective. The ensuing struggle . . .

Terror and adrenaline sent her bolt upright. Panic went through her like electricity when she found her hands bound in front of her. She looked around wildly and realized she was on the floor of some dilapidated church. To her right, rows of old-fashioned wood pews stretched toward a boarded-up doorway. To her left stood a high altar surrounded by several rickety wood pallets and an old tire. Beyond, the cross of Christ sat against a broken stained glass mural.

“Welcome to Our Lady of St. Agnes.”

Julia gasped at the sound of Parker Bradley’s voice. Hindered by her bound hands, she scrambled awkwardly to her feet and faced him. A shock went through her at the sight of him. He’d changed into a white robe that was belted at the waist with a gold sash. Except for the pistol in his hand, he looked peaceful and eerily priestlike as he approached her.

“What do you think of my church?” he asked.

“Parker, you don’t want to do this.” Her throat was so tight she barely recognized her voice.

“You have no idea what I want.”

“Let me go.”

He raised the pistol, his eyes going hard. “I asked you a question, Julia. Show some respect and answer it.”