Until Dark (7 page)

“You’re the one who did it, Mr. Tursky, by describing the man so accurately.”

“Mr. Tursky,” Adam spoke up, “you said you were surprised to see him the second time. Why was that? Because you’d thought he’d left the park?”

“No, because of where he was coming from.”

“Where was he coming from?”

“There’s an area that’s off limits, it’s marked off with a chain-link fence. ‘Course, the kids do get down there from time to time to party, so I hear, but it’s a tough way down and a tough way back up again.”

“What’s down there?”

“Couple of caves. They flood every time it rains, and since the township doesn’t have the manpower to patrol the area, they keep it secured.”

“Mr. Tursky, can you take us through the park and show us both places where you saw this man?” Adam asked.

“Sure.” Tursky nodded. “Be glad to.”

“I’ll be right back.” Adam rose to leave the room to gather the necessary investigators to search the woods for any trace evidence their suspect may have inadvertently left behind.

“Agent Stark, this is him, isn’t it?” Tursky asked as Adam reached the door. “The man who’s been killing those girls?”

“We believe it is.”

“If I’d known that,” Tursky said quietly, “I’d’ve let Casper have at him.”

“That’s him?” Lieutenant Barker looked over Kendra’s shoulder. “That the son of a bitch we’re looking for?”

“That’s him.” Kendra handed the state trooper the sketch. “All ready to make his debut on the local six o’clock news. Compliments of our new best friend, Joseph Tursky.”

“Looks like a cocky bastard, doesn’t he?” Barker studied the drawing. “Cocky and full of himself.”

“He’d have to be.” Adam walked through the open door. “To do what he does, in the manner in which he does it. He’d have to be damned confident. And bold as brass, as my grandmother would say.”

“I’ll pass this on to the press. A few of the local stations got wind that the FBI was called in and have had vans hanging around the parking lot all day. Let’s make it worth their while.” The trooper started to excuse himself, sketch in one hand, the other hand smoothing back his hair for the cameras, when he turned back and asked Kendra, “Would you be willing to come out to meet the media with me? Maybe just let me introduce you, show your sketch . . . ?”

“Sure. Just give me a minute.”

“I’ll meet you out front,” Barker said as he left the room.

“What’s next?” Kendra asked Adam.

“Well, we’re going to be heading out to the park. We’ll meet the evidence team down there. There’s a lot of ground to cover down there, and only a few hours of daylight left.”

“State, local, and federal investigators, I take it.”

“As many hands as we can get.”

Kendra finished packing her folders into her briefcase and closed the cover with a snap of the lock.

“Kendra, the sketch you did . . . it really is remarkable.”

“I had good information from a great witness.” She smiled as she picked up her purse and slung the wide strap over her shoulder. “Fortunately for us Mr. Tursky has a good memory. Let’s see what happens once the sketch is made public. Hopefully someone will recognize him and call in, and you’ll find him before he finds another victim.”

“Nothing’s ever that easy.”

“Maybe this time you’ll get lucky.”

She paused, feeling like the guest whose welcome has just worn out. “I think I’ll call for a cab to take me back to the hotel. I know everyone is anxious to get down to the park, and there’s really nothing more for me to do here once the press conference is over.”

“Why not take my car? I can grab a ride with Barker or Miranda.”

“I don’t really see any reason for me to stay in Walnut Crossing. My job was to sketch,” she reminded him. “I sketched.”

Adam stood with his hands on his hips, as if pondering some unexpected bit of news. He hadn’t thought about her leaving just yet.

“What if we get another good witness?”

“I don’t know what someone else could add to what Mr. Tursky gave us that would change the sketch. He said there were no distinguishing features. And if something really important came up, I can always come back, you know.”

“Yes, but you still have to get home, right? Why not drive my car back to Smith’s Forge and I’ll pick it up on my way back to Virginia?”

“Then what will you drive while you’re here?”

“I’m not worried about getting around.”

“I don’t know if I’m up to such a racy little number.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “It might be too much car for me.”

He studied her stance, the amused expression on her face.

“I doubt it.” He tossed her the keys. “I seriously doubt it.”

Chapter
Six

Kendra left the highway, opting for the back roads that wound around the hill on which Walnut Crossing was built and led back to the main road on the far side. She wished she’d asked Adam to show her how to put the top down, though she suspected it wouldn’t be all that difficult, since it was automatic and there must be a manual somewhere. But having the windows down and all that lovely country air rushing through was just fine. Especially for someone accustomed to driving a car that had to be coaxed to go over fifty, and had long ago lost its ability to provide heat, air-conditioning, and music. The Audi could chew up her old Subaru and spit it out in less than thirty seconds.

A green station wagon pulled out of the hotel’s back parking lot as Kendra slowed to pull in. The driver beeped his horn in greeting as he sped past. Kendra waved idly, with little more than a cursory glance in his direction.

“Guess he’s admiring my wheels,” Kendra said under her breath as she parked as close to the front door as she could.

“And such nice wheels, they are.” She nodded while she locked the door, then stepped back to admire the saucy car. “Very, very nice. Though sadly not mine. I am tempted. I have to admit.”

In spite of the grind of the past few days, she felt . . . lighter, might be the best way to describe it, she thought as she got into the elevator and pushed the button for the fifth floor. Could be the car.

Could also be the car’s owner.

Kendra was pondering this as she unlocked the door to her room and dropped her briefcase in front of the closet, recalling her brief relationship with Adam four years ago and what had happened to bring it to an end before it even had a chance to begin.

Her mother’s death had happened, for one thing.

Greg Carson had happened, for another.

Kendra had only recently begun to acknowledge the relationship between the two.

In the aftermath of her mother’s death, Kendra had been totally unanchored, numb with grief, with only the haziest memory of her mother’s funeral and none whatsoever of going to the cemetery, of placing flowers on her mother’s coffin.

For weeks after, Kendra had floated through an unreal landscape that was barren and unfamiliar. Greg, her college boyfriend, had brought the known, the dependable, back into her unstable life. An assistant in the local district attorney’s office, Greg had heard about Elisa Smith-Norton’s suicide at almost the same time that Kendra was being notified. He’d rushed to the senator’s home, and finding that Kendra was living in Smith’s Forge, drove there himself to bring her back to Princeton so she would not have to be alone through the ordeal until her stepfather arrived. Greg helped them to deal with the funeral home, the press, and the florist, and made phone calls to family and friends on her behalf. He’d held her hand in the receiving line at the funeral home and offered his shoulder as often as she needed it. When a mere six weeks later he’d been offered the opportunity to start a firm with a classmate from law school, only the thought of leaving Kendra alone made him think twice about moving to Washington state. His solution was to offer marriage. Kendra, still shell-shocked, had said yes.

The wedding had been small and intimate, attended only by a few close friends and the groom’s family. Kendra’s reluctant stepfather had given her away. While he liked Greg and held him in high regard, Philip Norton had made no secret of the fact that he believed the marriage was a mistake, that Kendra was in no condition to make such an important decision. He feared that, feeling adrift, Kendra reached out for whatever mooring she could find. Time had proven him right.

Greg had been a fine husband, had tried everything he could to help Kendra overcome her grief and to find some happiness in life again. She was the first to praise his efforts. And the first to admit that she’d been a poor excuse for a wife.

Gentleman and genuinely nice guy that he was, Greg had never blamed her for being less of a marriage partner than he deserved. It was to his credit that he’d let Kendra go when she insisted that his life would be better in the long run with a woman who loved him with her whole heart. It hurt Kendra terribly to know that she’d never be that someone, but they were close enough as friends that she believed she owed him her total honesty. It had been with much regret that she’d left Washington to begin the long ride back across the country, alone.

On her way east, she drove into Montana, searching for the place where her family had camped during the last trip they’d made together before her father succumbed to his illness. Jeff Smith had wanted one last wilderness trip with his wife and children, had insisted on it, and Elisa, understanding that this would be their last time alone as a family, had made certain that he’d had that trip. They’d hiked into the hills and made camp along a stream that moved smartly over rock, underscoring the time there with a constant rippling of water rushing around stone.

They’d lain under the stars together, lined up like sentries beneath the big sky that rose over the landscape, before retiring to the tent they had shared. They hiked and fished for trout in mountain streams and told ghost stories around the campfire at night. They followed cougar tracks—from a distance, of course—one afternoon and awoke one morning to a rainstorm so fierce the hail blew a hole in the roof of the tent. Every day, Jeff grew a little weaker, and every day, Elisa remained determined that he have the best of his family while he could still enjoy them. It was only when she knew he would only have a few more days to make it home that she agreed to leave.

Their ten days had been filled with poignant moments, many of which Kendra had caught in photographs. But few were more touching than the one capturing Elisa’s struggle to help her husband down the mountain. Years later, when she ran for the Senate, those photos had surfaced, and the image of the small, fiercely determined dark-haired woman supporting the tall, gaunt man down a dusty trail, his arms around her shoulders, had said all there was to say about Elisa’s strength and courage. Later, the picture had appeared in the local papers, and later still on the cover of a national newsmagazine in their issue on women in the Senate. The framed original now stood on the mantel in the front room of Smith House, where Kendra could see it daily, along with other beloved family photographs.

Driving into the hills had been a lonely journey for Kendra, but a necessary one. It was there that they’d last existed as a family, there that she’d first begun to understand the bonds between herself and her parents. Coming back so many years later had the feel of a sad pilgrimage. She couldn’t remember exactly where they’d camped or what streams they’d forded, but with the weather just starting to change, it wouldn’t have mattered. She’d have had to have a death wish to venture up into the mountains alone when the first of the winter storms was brewing. She went far enough to find a winding stream, sat on an outcropping of rock, and watched the water rush below her feet. The sun had been warm on her back and shoulders, and she tried to remember everything she could about that last trip. The way the coffee smelled and tasted first thing in the morning. The way the breeze blew up from nowhere and cast the scent of wildflowers from the hills across the meadow where she and Ian, still a toddler, chased butterflies. The stories her father had told them at night, huddled together around the fire as the air chilled, about his youth, about his hopes and aspirations, about his love for his family and the Pines where he’d grown up . . . about his dreams for his children . . .

And Kendra realized that the last thing her father, or her mother, would have wanted for her, would have been half a life. And that was exactly what she’d been permitting herself.

Survivor’s guilt, Kendra’s friend Selena, a psychologist, had suggested after she’d returned to the Pines the previous October.

“Not anymore,” Kendra had vowed on that autumn day, and she set about to renovate Smith House to accommodate her taste and her requirements. At the same time, she vowed to restructure her life, to set a new agenda for herself, one that would focus on her work and her personal commitments.

Her house was a joy to her now, she reflected as she stripped off the navy suit jacket she’d worn that morning and dropped it onto the bed that housekeeping had so neatly made up while she was gone. It had been worth every bit of time and effort and money she’d put into it. Smith House was truly her home now.

And working again was a joy as well, she acknowledged. She’d felt more alive over the past few days than she had in years.

Working with Adam Stark seemed to be just the icing on the cake.

She debated on whether to take him up on his offer for her to drive his car home, which of course would then require Adam to make a visit to the Pines to pick it up. Kendra lay back across the bed and closed her eyes. She had no trouble calling up his face. It was right there, in the forefront of her mind. Strong jawline, sculpted cheeks, and wide-set blue eyes. A mouth that drifted easily into a smile, a deep dimple on the left side. Dark hair just slightly longer than the Bureau liked.

The last time she’d gone out with him, they’d had dinner at a small Thai place that Adam had found in Georgetown. He’d brought her back to the hotel room she’d been staying in while she worked the case the Bureau had given her, and had kissed her goodnight, cupping her face in his hands and moving his mouth across hers as if he owned it—

The ring of the telephone startled her, and she sat up with a jolt and reached for it.

“Hello?”

“I’m sorry,” the pleasant male voice on the other end of the line apologized. “I must have dialed the wrong room number.”

“That’s all right.” Kendra hung up the phone, then looked down at her watch. It was close to six.

She snapped on the remote and pulled up the channel menu, searching for the local news. She wanted to see how the case had been presented and how her sketch looked.

The pretty blond reporter led with the story, and, Kendra nodded, did a fine job with it.

There was the press conference with the state police, the FBI, and the chiefs of police from several local towns who’d been brought in to assist in the search of the park in Walnut Crossing. Kendra could see Adam standing off to one side, slightly behind Miranda Cahill. He leaned over and whispered something in Miranda’s ear, and she tilted her pretty head slightly, nodding solemnly without taking her eyes from the speaker.

A little surge of something—something mean and green—shot through Kendra. She swatted at it and tried to ignore it as best she could.

Adam doesn’t owe me anything,
she reminded herself sternly.
We’re friends. Just friends. We work on an occasional case together. That’s all.

“Damn it,” she couldn’t help but add aloud.

The tape that had been shot earlier of Kendra holding her composite drawing now took center stage, and she pushed aside her pique and leaned forward to see the face she’d drawn as others would see it. She was grateful that the camera had not lingered on her. She hadn’t realized how severe, how businesslike she appeared in her dark blue suit and crisp white cotton shirt. Only the small gold cross resting in the hollow of her neck lent any touch of warmth to her image.

It was a good sketch, though, she acknowledged, and true to the images the witnesses had presented to her. As true as her art could make it. And that, not how she looked on camera, was the only thing that really mattered.

She wondered if he—the man whose face was held on the screen—was watching, wherever he was. If he recognized himself in the sketch. If he was surprised by the accuracy of the likeness. If it frightened him to know that his secret—his
face
—had been revealed for all to see. Would it make him careless now? Angry?

The joint task force that had been formed to investigate the matter was announced. Four FBI agents were named. Adam and Miranda were the only ones Kendra recognized.

She turned off the television and picked up the phone, dialing the front desk, and requested assistance in renting a car.

“Yes, tonight . . . whatever you can get on short notice would be fine. Yes, I’ll be here.”

Next she called Adam’s room and left the message that she’d rented a car to drive home and had left the keys to the Audi at the front desk in an envelope.

“Thanks anyway,” she added, lest she sound too strident. “I appreciate your offer, but it’s probably a waste of your time for you to drive all the way to my place just to pick up your car. It isn’t as if you don’t have other things to do. Well, I guess I’ll see you next time. Thanks again . . .”

What was the point in staying another night? she asked herself as she began to pack her things. The job she’d been hired to do was done. And Adam? Well, he had more important things to do. Driving his car to Smith’s Forge
was
silly when he’d have need of it here. The fact that she had gotten the impression he wanted to see her again, well, she could be wrong about that. So all in all, it was better that she leave, alone, now, before she got in the way of the investigation.

And besides, she thought as she tossed her belongings into her suitcase, if Adam found his way back to Smith’s Forge, she wanted it to be for a reason other than to pick up his car.

“Hey, Selena!” Kendra called from her kitchen window. It had been less than forty minutes since the rental agent had picked up the car and less than twenty since she’d phoned her friend and neighbor Selena Brennan to let her know she was home.

Selena waved to Kendra at the same time she whistled for Lola. The dog had taken off for the stream behind Kendra’s house and was eagerly investigating something on the ground.

“I told you that you didn’t have to bring the mail down, that I’d walk up later and pick it up,” Kendra said as she came out into the yard.

“I know, but I have appointments this afternoon in town and wanted to leave a little early to run a few errands, so I thought I’d drop your mail off before I started getting ready to leave. Besides,” the young woman grinned as she tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear, “Lola missed you. She made a beeline down the road as soon as I opened the door.”