Standing in the Shadows (47 page)

"Is Erin here?"

She frowned. "Didn't she call you?"

"The phone's been busy for a half an hour," he snarled.

"She told me she would call you and…" Barbara's voice trailed off. "Oh, dear."

"What?" His voice cracked with fury. "She left? Alone? You're kidding me. Where the fuck did she go?"

Barbara bristled. "Don't you dare use that language—"

"Just tell me, Barbara. Tell me now."

The desperate urgency in his voice made the color drain from her face. "She got a call," she said faintly. "From the museum where she used to work, for a lunch meeting, and then—"

"And then?" he prompted.

"Then she has to meet with that Mueller fellow. She told me she was going to call you. She took a cab to her apartment so she could change. She left almost a half hour ago. She's probably home already."

He bolted for his car. The screen door burst open and
Barbara scurried after him. "Connor, I insist that you tell me what's going on!"

He wrenched his car door open. "Billy Vega was murdered this morning, before I ever had a chance to find him or talk to him. Strange, huh?"

Barbara's face went gray beneath her makeup. "Go," she said. "Hurry."

He ran lights, swerved in and out of lanes, screamed obscenities at slow motorists, but his most aggressive driving was nothing pitted against weekday Seattle traffic. He called her apartment while trapped at an interminable red light, and the machine picked up. "Erin, it's Connor. Pick up if you're
there, please."

He waited, crossing his fingers. Nothing.

"Look, I just found out that Billy Vega's been killed," he went on. "I'm really wishing you hadn't broken your promise and left your mom's house. What were you thinking? Please pick up, Erin." The light went green. He dropped the phone and accelerated through it.

He double-parked, and took the stairs at the Kinsdale three at a time. No response to his knock. He used his ATM card again.

Erin was gone. The Mueller report was gone. Her perfume scented the air. She'd taken the time to make her bed, do her dishes, pick up her scattered clothes, feed her cat, and he'd still missed her. By so little that the animal was still crouched over its bowl, tail twitching for joy.

She had taken none of the items he had tagged with beacons, not even the goddamn organizer. He wanted to howl like a wolf, to break things, punch walls, smash furniture. He'd thought that she trusted him. He was bewildered, after the perfection of last night, that she would turn on him and disappear, with no warning, no explanation.

A sucker punch, right to the solar plexus.

He fished the phone number out of his freak memory, and dialed.

"Hello, you have reached the mobile number of the administrative offices of the Quicksilver Foundation," said Tamara Julian's melodious recorded voice. "Please leave us the date, time, and purpose of your call, and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Have a lovely day."

He grabbed the phone book and looked up the Huppert, wading through the voice mail menu until he heard the name Lydia.

"Lydia's out of the office right now," the secretary told him.

"I urgently need to get in touch with her," he said. "I know she has a lunch meeting. Do you know what restaurant? I could call her there."

"I'm sorry, I can't," the woman said. "I didn't make that reservation. She made it herself last night. I have no idea where they are.'"

He muttered an ungracious thanks, and slammed the phone down.

He ran down the stairs to let off steam, even though he had no place to run to. He tried throwing out the net for a pattern, a clue, any sort of jumping-off place, but his mind had to be soft and relaxed for that trick to work. This hurt was too sharp. It sank into his mind like claws, stabbing and rending, making him wild-eyed and stupid.

A door swung on the ground floor as he passed. An elderly lady with a shriveled apple-doll face and a lavender-tinted helmet of white curls peered out at him. "You're the fellow who's keeping company with that nice young lady on the sixth floor, eh?"

He stopped in his tracks. "Did you see her leave?"

"I see everything," the old lady said triumphantly. "She took a cab. Came in a cab, went away in a cab. Must've come into some money, because ever since her car got repossessed, she's been taking the bus."

"Was it a yellow cab? Or a private car service?"

The old lady cackled at his desperation. "Oh, it was a yellow cab. No telling where she's gone, no telling at all." Her voice was a sing-song taunt. "You're just going to have to sit that fine tight tush of yours down and wait for her. Young folks these days don't know the meaning of patience. The more she makes you wait, the better off you'll both be."

"This is a special case," he told her.

Her fearsome dentures gleamed. "Oh, they all think they're special."

The vindictive satisfaction in the lady's voice made him grit his teeth. "Thank you for the information, ma'am."

Her rheumy eyes blinked suspiciously. "Hmph. Pretty manners."

"I try," he said. "Sometimes. Have a nice day."

The old lady retracted her head like a turtle and slammed her door.

One last door to bang on. He groped for the phone and dialed Nick's number as he loped toward the car.

"Where are you?" Nick demanded.

"What the fuck did you say to Erin, Nick?"

"I told her the truth. It's time somebody did. You know about Billy Vega, right?" Nick waited. "Yeah," he said softly. "Of course you do."

Connor knew where this was going. "Nick—"

"I couldn't help but notice that the guy looked a whole lot like Georg Luksch looked after you were done working him over with your cane," Nick said. "Only difference was, Billy was dead. You're slipping."

Black spots danced in front of Connor's eyes. He leaned against his car. "You can't believe that. Come on, Nick. You know me."

"I thought I did," Nick said. "Novak is dead, Con. Blown up. Burned to a crisp. It's all over. All. Over. Am I getting through to you?"

Connor's head spun. The phone call. Georg, on the freeway. Billy Vega. "But that's not possible. I talked to him. And I saw Georg—"

"Don't bother," Nick said. "Georg's in France. Like I told you before. Novak's death is confirmed. Not that this changes anything for you, of course. You need a focus for your anger, and if you can't find one, you'll create one. Sure, Billy Vega was no big loss to the world, but I—"

"Don't be stupid, Nick," Connor said grimly.

"I deduced from my conversation with Erin that you don't have a real alibi for the hours of five a.m. to six A.M. this morning. I also deduced that she will lie to protect you. Is that what you want?"

"Fuck you, Nick," Connor said. "This is bullshit."

"We'll see. Get yourself a good lawyer. Because I'm all out of patience. I want this thing to end."

"You and me both." He hung up. His leg and head were both pounding now, a nauseous throbbing pain. He wrenched the door of the Cadillac open. He had to sit down. Quick, before he fell down.

Nick had been one of his best friends, once.

He dropped the phone into his pocket. If it weren't for Erin, he would throw the thing into the Dumpster right now.

Erin. Panic dug in its claws at the thought of her. His fight with Georg at Crystal Mountain began to play in his mind. The cane, rising and falling. Blood streaming from Georg's shattered nose, his broken teeth. The cane, smashing down onto the windshield of the Jag. Fault lines, running in every direction.

The cane. Something about the cane was tugging him. He checked the backseat, and then recalled prying the thing out of Barbara's fingers and throwing it into the trunk. He fished his keys out of his jacket pocket and walked around the car.

The back of his neck was prickling so much he already knew what he would find, even before the trunk light flooded into the dark interior.

The trunk was empty. The cane was gone.

"Try a bite of my mousse, Erin. It's even better than the crème brûlée," Lydia urged.

Erin dabbed her mouth with a napkin and forced herself to smile. "Thanks, but no. I'm full."

"Of what?" Rachel complained. "You barely picked at your salad. You don't have to diet with that cute, curvy figure of yours, Erin. You've trimmed down some since you were at the Huppert. Good for you."

Erin coughed, and hid her mouth behind her napkin.

"Come on, Erin. You're as tight as a clam about how you landed Mueller. 'Fess up, now. We've been courting him for years, and all of a sudden we find him eating out of your hand!" Rachel gushed.

"I'm so excited. This donation puts us ahead by fifteen years," Lydia said. "You are just the one to spearhead our efforts, Erin. We need your innovative spirit to carry the Huppert into the new millennium!"

Erin didn't have the energy to hide her disgust, but it didn't matter, since none of them appeared to notice it.

"With a budget like this, Erin, you can name your own salary," Fred boomed. "You're the belle of the ball! How does it feel?"

She got to her feet. "I'm afraid I have to go."

"Oh, really?" Lydia exchanged meaningful glances with the other three. "A hot date? Is that why you're saving your appetite?"

"Not at all. Just business," Erin said. "I'm meeting with Mr. Mueller to discuss some of his new acquisitions."

Lydia and Rachel waggled their eyebrows at each other. "I imagine you're having dinner with him this evening, too?" Rachel cooed.

Erin shrugged wearily. She could care less whether or with whom she ate dinner tonight. As queasy as she felt right now, it would be all she could do to get through the day without throwing up on anyone.

Wilhelm whistled. "So that's the way the wind blows."

"Hardly," she said sharply. "I have never even met Claude Mueller, Wilhelm, and I don't appreciate your insinuations."

"Oh, don't be so sensitive, Erin," Rachel purred. "We're all adults."

Lydia's smile was calculated and cold. "Have a lovely time this evening, Erin. Ah, youth is wasted on the young. Just wasted."

Erin fled the table and hurried out of the restaurant, gasping for fresh air. These people were awful. How could she ever have tolerated their falseness, their manipulative games? What had changed in her? She wanted to take a bath after lunch with those four.

She hailed a cab, gave the driver directions, and stared miserably out the window, pressing her hand against the sharp ache in her belly. It ate at her like acid, how bad Connor must feel: his anger and confusion and hurt. And his fear. His fear for her was very real to him. How well grounded it might be in outside reality she could not say, but that didn't make it any less painful for him. Or for her.

It felt so cruel, so incredibly wrong, to turn away from him. But she had to break out of his hold on her. She needed some air, some distance, so she could figure out where she stood. What was real.

Connor's charisma was so powerful, he warped her reality into any shape he pleased. He was so intelligent and intense, his force of will so overwhelming. She couldn't think straight when he was near her. He swept her away every time, no matter how hard she tried to resist.