Shadowed Paradise (38 page)

Claire dove beneath her desk, dragging the
landline phone with her. With shaking fingers she punched in the
numbers for Brad’s cell phone.

The chopper was on its pad outside the
sheriff’s department. The pilot, unfortunately, was coaching Pop
Warner football forty-five minutes away. No one was surprised when
Brad volunteered. The sheriff and his two detectives plunged into
the helicopter right behind Brad, leaving the Whitlaws on the run
to Garrett’s Lincoln. En route to Amber Run, Brad sent out a call
to the FBI. Claire’s stalker might, or might not, be the serial
killer. If merely a stalker, they might be in time. If he was their
killer, not the Task Force, the FBI, the county cops, or the
Florida Highway Patrol were going to make one damn bit of
difference. It might already be too late.

When Sheriff Jeffries called the model, there
was no response.

Claire winced as her leg muscles protested
her cramped stance beneath her desk. Not a sound anywhere. Not even
birds or the sighing of the evening breeze. No footsteps. Yet all
the man behind the mask had to do was walk around the deck, peer
through the plate glass windows overlooking the pool area . . . and
there she was, plain as day.

Was he the man from the mall? The Realtor
killer?

Maybe both?

Brad was twenty-five miles away. The only
person who could save her was herself.

Stupid, stupid,
stupid!
Small children knew enough to call 911. Claire
punched in the numbers. Nothing. When she pressed the phone to her
ear, the line was dead. Fear rose in her throat, threatening to
choke her.

Think. Don’t let him win. Think!

Her cell phone had to be on the desk
somewhere. With so little furniture in the model, where else would
it be? But if she reached for it, he might see the movement. And if
she didn’t, she’d be stuck here with
him
until Brad arrived. Which might be too
late.

Claire inched her way toward the front
of the kneehole. Her hand crept out, up, sliding, patting . .
.
Got it!

Darkness obliterated the light. Claire
stifled a shriek. A monstrous face of tan mesh, shadowed by the
last rays of the sun behind the trees to the west, was pressed to
the glass right outside the tall window. Malevolent features
squashed against the window pane, eyes unwavering, staring right at
her. Oh, dear God, this was Florida, the glass a single layer
thick. Easily broken.

Claire longed to stay put, surrounded by the
cold comfort of her desk, but she had no choice. She scrambled out,
awkward, terrified, repeating the three-digit security code like a
mantra as she ran. If he had a gun, she was dead. She reached the
alcove that housed the security system, punched in the code. Heard
the beautiful, insistent sound of the warning buzzer. One-two-three
. . . She punched in a random set of numbers. Forty-five seconds to
enough noise to wake the dead.

Glass splintered, shards tinkling onto the
tile, as the monster pounded out an opening with the aid of a
leftover length of two by four. A foot, raised high to avoid the
jagged glass, stepped through broken window.

He was inside! The horror of that amorphous
face, the aura of evil singed her soul.

Move, idiot, move!
Claire dashed for the master bedroom, slammed and locked the
door.
Thirty seconds.

She kept going, straight into the
ballroom-sized bathroom with its high narrow windows, locking that
door as well.
Twenty
seconds
.

Claire’s knees buckled, plunging her
onto the cold tile floor.
Ten
seconds
. The South County Sheriff’s Department was
three or four miles away. Unless the noise frightened him away,
help was going to come too late.

The klaxon went off in all its glory. A
wonderful, horrible, ear-splitting noise. Maybe . . . just maybe .
. .

In the momentary pauses between the blaring
wails of the horn, Claire heard nothing. No footsteps, no rattling
doorknobs. Nothing. She sat, heart pounding, on the floor, ready to
wrestle with the door knob if it so much as twitched. It didn’t
move. Finally—after what seemed like an eon—the wail of a siren
sounded through the klaxon, followed shortly after by the
distinctive whirr of helicopter blades.

The monster was gone. Intellectually, she
knew that. But she was still sitting, hugging the floor, when Brad
pounded on the bathroom door, calling her name.

Real Estate brokers were supposed to enjoy
peaceful Sunday afternoons while their agents answered the phone,
showed property or held Open Houses. Brokers were supposed to play
golf or tennis, take a picnic to the beach, visit friends, catch up
on a good book. They were not, Phil Tierney kept telling herself,
supposed to be tearing long red nails to the quick wondering why an
ex-husband’s new wife wanted her current lover’s cell phone number
or why Garrett answered her call to his cell phone with a curt,
“Sorry, Phil, not now!” And hung up.

She’d tried to call Claire at home. No
answer. She’d tried the model; the phone rang endlessly busy.

Phil’s imagination was off and running. Why
had Claire needed Garrett’s number? Where was Brad? Phil dialed his
cell phone; his response was as curt as Garrett’s: “Can’t talk now,
Phil. Call you later.” Phone off.

What was she expected to do . . . sit around
like some Victorian ninny waiting for the big strong males to come
home and tell her what happened? Phil jumped into her Lexus and
headed east toward the river. As she approached the model, she
counted six county patrol cars, two black and tan Florida Highway
Patrol cars, an ambulance, and a variety of other vehicles
including Garrett’s Lincoln Continental . . . and a helicopter.
Fortunately, before she could assume the worst, she saw Brad coming
down the front steps, holding Claire tight to his side. Phil parked
the Lexus between Garrett’s Lincoln and an oddly skewed abandoned
deputy’s car and threaded her way through the maze of vehicles.
Standing at the foot of the stairs, waiting for Brad and Claire,
was as impressive an array of powerful men as Phil had seen since
she left Washington, D.C., to return to Florida. Garrett and Wade
Whitlaw, Sheriff Bill Jeffries, two men she recognized as Calusa
County homicide detectives, and two others her experienced eye
immediately pegged as FBI. There was only one uniformed deputy. All
the others were fanned out, guns drawn, in a massive search of the
area.

When Brad and Claire reached the ground, the
phalanx of VIPs drew together, forming a circle around them. Brad
kept right on walking, propelling Claire along with him. “I’m
taking her home,” he announced grimly.

“
You know damn well we have to question
her,” the sheriff protested.

“
You want to talk her, come to the
house. Any and all of you, but right now she’s going home. So get
the hell out of my way.”

“
Does that invitation include the FBI?”
Doug Chalmers called to Brad’s retreating back.

“
Hell, yes, even Phil,” said Brad
coldly. “We’ll have a party.”

Phil hadn’t thought he’d seen her; she should
have known better. Though far from the most gracious invitation
she’d ever had, there was no way she was going home without finding
out what was going on.

But what would Claire think?

Phil looked at the cluster of men preparing
to follow Brad to Palm Court. Claire was the only female in the
bunch. Maybe, just maybe, under those circumstances Claire could
use the support of another woman. Even if it was her husband’s
ex-wife.

Phil joined the procession back to town.

As they drove home, outwardly Brad was calm,
solicitous, even gentle. Inwardly, he raged. He’d left her alone.
Unprotected. Because of who and what he was, Claire had nearly
died. Because the sheriff knew his work history . . . because Brad
Blue had a reputation for hot women as well as dangerous living,
he’d been forced to abandon Claire to her fate. One day married,
and he’d failed her. He was still swearing to himself as he settled
Claire on the oversize sofa in the courtyard room, poured a snifter
of B&B, and handed it to her.

After taking two hefty swallows, Claire
managed to raise her eyes to the rather amazing group of people who
had followed them into the room. Oddly, Doug Chalmers seemed an old
friend set down in the midst of those who should have been friends
and suddenly weren’t.

“
We’re going to have to shut down the
search ‘til morning,” Sheriff Jeffries announced. “Too dark. We’ll
get the dogs in at first light.”

“
Did you see anything from the
chopper?” Paul Markham, the local FBI agent, asked.

“
Not a damn thing,” Tom Rausch replied.
“Everyone travels near sixty on that road along the river. All the
guy had to do was strip off his mask and join the traffic. If his
car was on that road—and it probably was—we’d never know it was
him.”

“
I just got a report about your car,
Miz Blue,” said the sheriff, turning to Claire. “Somebody put a
hole in your gasline.”

Bill Jeffries glanced at Brad, received a
grudging nod of consent. “You feel up to telling us what happened,
Miz Blue?”

Briefly, Claire outlined the series of
seemingly innocuous mishaps that led to her going back into the
model. She tried to be concise, professional, calm. It wasn’t easy
as she described her first sight of the grotesque figure standing
by the pool, her attempts to use the model’s phone and then the
cell phone, her mad dash to set off the alarm as the stalker broke
into the greatroom; and, finally, locking herself in the bathroom.
The waiting.

She did not mention the praying.

“
Can you describe the man?” Sheriff
Jeffries asked.

Claire frowned, shook her head.

“
Was he as tall as I am?” Brad
interjected.

“
I saw him from above,” Claire said,
“and then bent over at the window.” She paused for a moment, trying
to picture something more concrete than terror. “I’d say he was
tall, but not as tall as you. About your build, though.”

“
What was he wearing, other than the
stocking mask?” the sheriff asked.

Claire closed her eyes, pictured the figure
standing by the pool. The mask was so terrifying she had taken in
little else. “He was one color,” she said at last. “His clothes
matched the mask. Tan. A safari look. Long sleeves, long pants.
They were . . . stylish, expensive-looking. Not the usual casual
look. Don’t ask me why I think so, I really couldn’t tell you. It
was just an impression.”

“
What about his feet?” Brad
asked.

Claire grimaced, swallowed hard. That foot
coming through the shattered window was so vivid it would be with
her for the rest of her life. “Expensive sneakers. Like the stalker
at the mall.”

A general murmur swept the room. Were
Claire’s stalker and the murderer the same? One particularly
versatile madman?

“
Did the man at the mall wear a
stocking mask?” Detective Guthrie asked.

“
I never saw anything but his feet,”
Claire replied. Guthrie groaned and subsided into his
chair.

“
Well, he sure as hell didn’t wear a
mask for the Realtor killings, or the women would have done what
Claire did, run for their lives,” Brad said. “For some reason he’s
changed his MO.”

“
And what makes you so damn sure it’s
all the same person?” the sheriff growled.

“
Well,” Brad drawled, “I have the
advantage of knowing I didn’t kill Diane, though her death sure as
hell gives me incentive to figure out who did.”

“
Diane?” Phil cried.
“
Diane Lake?
”

“
Phil, I’m sorry,” Claire said swiftly.
“I didn’t tell you why I wanted Garrett’s number because I was too
upset to talk about it at the time.” Claire looked at Brad. “Will
someone please tell her what’s been going on?”

When the various police officers in the room
were silent, almost shame-faced—they were, after all, guests in
Brad Blue’s home—Brad gave Phil a brief account of Diane’s death
and his own unexpected trip to the Calusa County sheriff’s office.
Wade Whitlaw contributed a few pithy comments along the way.

“
Well, of all the stupid things I ever
heard, that tops them all,” declared the sole owner of T & T
Realty, eyeing Bill Jeffries with disgust. “You ask Brad to help
you find a killer and then you drag him in for questioning. Do you
really think he’d be stupid enough to copycat the killer? If Brad
wanted that bitch dead, she would have turned up drowned without a
mark on her. Or something equally clever.”

For the first time in hours, Claire smiled.
Maybe she and Phil would end up friends, after all.

“
I think just about everyone agrees
with you on that,” said Doug Chalmers. His voice was mild, but
there was steel behind the look he turned on Jeffries. The sheriff
kept his mouth shut.

“
Let’s talk about why the stalker wore
a mask,” Brad tossed out. “Any ideas?”

“
Easy. He didn’t want to be
identified,” said Tom Rausch.

“
Did it matter if he was going to kill
her?” countered Special Agent Markham. “I think we agree the unsub
in the Realtor deaths didn’t wear a mask.”

“
She knows him,” Phil
volunteered.

“
I agree,” said Bob Guthrie. “It’s
likely he’s someone Claire knows.”