CHAPTER 41
Harrison was gone.
Not in the bed, not on the settee, not
on the floor, where a pillow and blanket had been left, not in the
bathroom.
He was missing.
As was the gun.
Laura’s heart went cold. She threw off
the covers and noticed on the bedside clock that it was after nine
in the morning. Quickly, she tossed off her sleeping shirt and
yanked on her jeans and a sweater. With the distinct feeling that
something was very, very wrong, she was starting out of the room
when she heard his vile hiss:
You’re nexxxt,
Ssisster.
She nearly tripped on the stairs
outside the room.
She slammed up the wall before Justice
could terrorize her any further, wasn’t ready to get into a
telepathic shouting match. . . .
Her throat was dry as she raced down
two flights to the main level, where the scents of brewing coffee
and cinnamon tantalized her nostrils. Three couples and a single
man were already seated in the dining area. Two of the couples were
laughing and talking, planning a trip to the nearby Astoria Column,
a historic tower on the highest hill in the city, while the other
couple was just finishing up, sitting across from each other at a
small table for two and sipping coffee over their finished plates.
The sixtyish single guy perused the sports section of a newspaper
through reading glasses while absently picking at a gooey cinnamon
roll.
Normal people, with
normal lives . . .
Cloths covered the six tables; a bud
vase with a single rose adorned the center of each. Upon the long
sideboard, carafes of chilled tomato, apple, and orange juice stood
next to the coffee urn and teapot. A woman wearing an apron and a
bright, welcoming smile carried in plates filled with some kind of
quiche, sausage, and the rolls.
“Excuse me, have you seen Mr. Frost, in
three-oh-two?” she asked as the waitress left the plates on the
table.
Her smile faltered and she shook her
head as she headed toward the kitchen. “Sorry.”
“Thanks.” Don’t panic.
Just because he’s not in the room doesn’t mean . . . But the gun,
he took the damned gun! Laura’s heart was knocking, her mind
racing to all kinds of awful scenarios as she stepped barefoot onto
the front porch and jogged to the corner that overlooked the
parking lot.
Rain was slanting from the heavens and
gurgling in the gutters. Clouds were hanging low over the wide
chasm that was the Columbia River, adding to the
gloom.
Shrubbery fronds were dripping; the
ground was sodden; the asphalt of the parking lot, slick with
rain.
And Harrison’s car was
gone.
“Damn it,” she muttered and turned on
her heel. She hurried through the thick front door and raced up the
stairs, running up the two flights to their room. Finding her cell,
she checked for messages. . . . Nothing. No voice mail, no texts.
She punched out his number and, after four rings, heard his voice
mail message. “It’s me,” she said, going quietly out of her mind.
“Where are you? I’m—I’m still here at the B and B, but . . . just
call me.” She clicked off and felt a knot in her
stomach.
Why would he have left without waking
her or leaving a note or calling? “Come on, Harrison,” she said,
anxiety twisting her guts as she stared at the cell. “Come
on!”
With the phone in her pocket, she
packed her things, twisted her hair onto her head, and added a
little make-up. Justice’s vile message rolled through her brain.
You’re nexxxt, Ssisster.
She caught the edge of the sink to
steady herself.
What the hell did that mean? Next? Did
the monster have Harrison? Her heart filled with a new, dark fear.
If Justice had wounded Harrison . . . or killed him . . .
Spurred by her thoughts, Laura grabbed
her things and headed to her car. She thought of calling Kirsten
but didn’t want to worry Harrison’s sister. Nor did she want to
leave a message at the paper.
Climbing behind the wheel, she tossed
her overnight bag into the backseat, then jammed her keys into the
ignition.
Only to stop.
See her reflection in the rearview
mirror, witness the mind-numbing terror in her own
eyes.
So where are you going
to go? What’re you going to do? Harrison thinks you’re here. If he
comes back and misses you . . .
“He can damned well call!”
She turned on the car, flicked on the
wipers, and rammed the Outback into reverse. Her heart was a drum,
every muscle in her body tense, as she hit the brakes; then, before
her vehicle had stopped rolling backward, she shoved it into drive
and sped down the hill.
Harrison heard his cell phone ring but
couldn’t answer it, as his hands were cuffed and he was locked in
the backseat of a sheriff’s department cruiser that smelled of some
kind of lemon cleaner, which couldn’t quite mask the scent of
vomit, probably from an arrest the night before.
He didn’t have to see the readout to
know that the caller was Laura.
She was awake and wondering where he
was. New panic assailed him.
Stay put. Don’t go
anywhere. You’re safe in Astoria.
Desperately, he yelled through the
glass and tried to get someone to talk to him, to tell Stone that
he was here, but he was left by himself as more cars arrived and,
to his horror, he saw a vehicle from the medical examiner’s
office.
He did kill them! That whack job killed
the Zellmans!
It seemed like hours before he saw
detectives Stone and Dunbar walking out the front door, when it had
been less than twenty minutes.
Serious faces, deep in conversation,
they didn’t notice. Dunbar said something Harrison couldn’t hear.
They stepped out of the way as a collapsible gurney was pushed
through the front door to a waiting ambulance.
Harrison craned his neck as the gurney
passed.
Zellman’s teenaged son, Brandt, was
lying pale as death, an EMT in attendance and holding an IV bag as
the boy was loaded into the back of the waiting ambulance. Thank
God. At least he was alive!
Stone looked up, spied Harrison in the
car and, with a quick word to his partner, strode over. He unlocked
the back doors. “Come on out,” he said and, as soon as Harrison was
on his feet on the drive, unlocked his cuffs. “You don’t listen,”
the detective said, “but it’s what you should expect if you show up
at a crime scene brandishing a weapon.”
“I know.” Rubbing his wrists, Harrison
heard the sound of a car’s engine racing and looked up just as Dr.
Maurice Zellman’s black Lexus, headlights glowing, squealed to a
stop.
“Oh, hell!” Stone was already heading
toward the doctor’s sleek car. “Stay put,” he ordered Harrison over
his shoulder as the doctor threw open the door of his
car.
“Brandt?” Zellman whispered brokenly,
his face ghostly pale, his eyes round in horror. “Oh, no, oh,
no!”
“Doctor Zellman, if you’ll get back
into your car until we sort this all out.” Stone was all
business.
“Not Brandt. Oh, God, not Brandt. He’ll
be all right!” Disbelieving, he collapsed across the hood of his
car. “Not Brandt. I . . . I have to go with him! I’m a doctor,” he
rasped weakly as Detective Dunbar crossed the drive to the
Lexus.
The doors to the ambulance slammed
shut, and an EMT got behind the wheel. Sirens shrieking, lights
flashing, the ambulance took off, roaring down the
drive.
Zellman appeared confused. “I don’t
understand . . . Brandt . . . son . . . I have to go with him. I
should never have left. . . .” His eyes were dark with guilt. And
then he swallowed hard, with difficulty, it appeared. He seemed
dazed, almost a zombie. . . .
“Dr. Zellman,” Savannah Dunbar said and
touched him lightly on the shoulder.
“Oh.” Blinking several times, he looked
around. “Patricia? Where’s my wife?” He cleared his throat and his
eyes glittered. “What the hell happened to Patricia?” His gaze was
nearly accusatory as he glared at the detectives. “What did that
bastard do to her?” He glanced from one of the cops to the other,
then collapsed to the ground. “He said he’d ‘get me.’ That’s what
he said. And I knew . . . oh, dear God.” His voice was nearly
mute.
“He threatened you? You never
said?”
“Patient-doctor confidence,” Zellman
snapped, sitting on the wet pavement, rain plastering his hair.
Then, less angry, he added regretfully, “And I didn’t believe him.
. . .”
“He was a convicted murderer,” Stone
said in disbelief.
Zellman’s eyes closed. Then he seemed
to gather himself and, with Stone’s help, climbed to his feet
again. “Where’s my wife?” he whispered. “Patricia. I want to see
her.”
Harrison felt that little tickle of
apprehension that was innate, an inborn response that came right
before a devastating blow. Maurice Zellman felt it, too. His head
was already shaking when Savvy Dunbar said, “I’m sorry, Dr.
Zellman. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Laura’s cell phone rang just as she was
driving through the north end of Seaside, trying to determine if
she would attempt to locate Harrison’s apartment or stop at the
offices of the Breeze to see if someone had
heard from him.
Eyes on the road, she dug through her
purse, retrieved it, and flipped it open. Ignoring the fact that it
was illegal to talk on a cell phone without a hands-free device,
she answered, “Where are you? I was scared out of my mind that
something happened . . .”
“Lorelei?” a fragile woman’s voice
said.
Laura’s heart dropped like a
stone.
“It’s Catherine. You said to call if
there was trouble.”
Oh,
no!
“What’s he done?” Laura demanded, fear
jetting through her blood as she remembered Justice’s
threat.
You’re nexxt,
Ssisster.
“It’s Ravinia and Isadora,” Catherine
admitted, her throat catching. “Justice attacked
them.”
Laura’s heart froze as she braked for a
red light.
“He had a knife. . . .”
My knife, Laura
thought, remembering her missing butcher knife in Justice’s hand as
he stood outside her kitchen door.
“I’ve been so wrong,” Catherine said,
her voice, barely a squeak, catching.
“Are they all right? Isadora and
Ravinia, are they okay?” Laura demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“But they’re alive?” Oh, please God.
“Yes.”
“Call the sheriff’s department.
Detective Stone. No, better yet, call nine-one-one. Have you done
that?”
“No, we’re private here, you
know—”
“Damn it, Catherine! He attacked my
sisters! Your nieces! In the one place they were supposed to be
safe! Where is he now?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Look, I’ll be there in . . . ten
minutes, maybe fifteen. Hang on.” She hung up and then, before she
thought twice, dialed 9-1-1. To hell with Catherine and her
secrets, her need for privacy, the gates, and the whole damned
thing.
Until Justice was either locked up
forever or killed, no one would be safe!
Paying no attention to the speed limit,
hoping she would pick up a cop who was in some unseen hidey-hole
and waiting for speeders, she blasted on toward Siren Song. Was
that where Harrison was? Where was he?
No police car followed, only a guy in a
low-slung Porsche, who sang past her as she pulled into the turnoff
to the lodge, swerving to a stop. For the first time in memory she
saw the gate open and a man standing on the far side.
“You Lorelei?” he asked, eyeing her and
nodding to himself as the front door to the lodge swung open and
Cassandra flew down the steps, her blond hair flying out behind
her.
“Yes, Earl. This is my sister. Come
on!” Cassandra’s pretty face was twisted with worry, her eyes
round, and she paid no attention to the fact that the hem of her
skirt was taking on water and dirt as it skimmed the wet ground.
“Hurry, Laura!”
“Where’s Catherine?”
“Inside.”
Laura glanced at the man.
“Who’s—?”
“Earl’s our groundskeeper. You don’t
remember? He’s been gone for a week or so, but he’s back. It was
his cell phone Catherine used to call you.”
The groundskeeper was tall and slightly
stooped, with a thin swatch of gray hair. He wore an open rain
jacket over a flannel shirt and overalls and boots caked in mud. He
was nodding his agreement as he closed the gate behind the two
women.
“Don’t lock that!” Laura ordered. “And
please, stay here. I’ve called the police.”
“Oh, no!” Cassandra sent her a panicked
glance as they reached the porch. “Catherine will kill
you.”
“She’ll have to stand in line. What
happened?”
“It was Justice!” Cassandra shuddered.
“He climbed over the wall and tried to kill Ravinia. If Isadora
hadn’t been there . . .” She shuddered again. “I don’t know what
would have happened.”
They walked through the open front door
and into the parlor, where a fire smoldered and Ravinia was lying
upon one of the long couches that had been draped in white sheets.
Isadora was seated in the rocker, bandages surrounding each of her
forearms, while Ophelia and Lillibeth hovered nearby.
The smells of ashes, smoke, and
something savory, like stew, were partially hidden by the acrid
scent of antiseptic. Bleach and iodine, Catherine’s answer to
ridding germs from everything.
Catherine, ashen faced, was filling
glasses of water from a pewter pitcher Laura remembered from her
youth, something that had been passed on for generations, or so
she’d been told.
Her hair pulled into a long, solitary
braid that snaked between her shoulder blades, Catherine looked up
as Laura and Cassandra entered. “Thank God you’re here,” she said,
hurrying to greet Laura. “You’re a nurse. I was hoping you had your
own kit with you.”
“Let me see how bad it is, but no, I
don’t have a kit.” She noticed gauze strips and patches, in sterile
packets, along with a role of adhesive tape that had to be a
quarter of a century old. “Don’t suppose you have any butterfly
bandages or . . . never mind.”
A bandage was over Ravinia’s shoulder,
the white gauze turning scarlet. “What happened?” Laura asked and
Ravinia looked away.
“She was trying to escape,” Catherine
said, not bothering to hide her accusatory tone. “And she ran into
Justice.”
“He was here?”
“Inside the
fence,” Ravinia clarified, her voice low, her lips turned down at
the corners. Obviously, her run-in with Justice and brush with
death hadn’t lessened her rebellion. Her gaze flicked to Catherine,
as if the older woman were a jailer. “It wasn’t safe here. If he
hadn’t seen me, he might have come into the house and slaughtered
all of us. All he had to do was wait until we were
asleep.”
“She’s right,” Cassandra
said.
None of the other sisters were in the
room besides Ravinia, Cassandra, and Isadora.
“Tell me what happened,” Laura said to
Ravinia as she knelt beside the couch on which her sister lay,
“I’ll take a look at your wounds.”
“He tried to kill me.”
“You were outside?” Laura was unwinding
the bandage. Blood was still seeping a bit.
“I’m just so sick of this place.”
Ravinia threw her aunt a look. “We never get to do anything, not even socialize with other home-schooled
kids, and no computers or telephones, and television only once in a
while. . . .” She cast a look at an ancient bubble-eyed console
that stood in the corner. “It’s a weird, weird life.”
“That’s because we’re weird-weird,”
Cassandra murmured ironically.
“But you got out.” Ravinia glanced up
at Laura as she unwound the last bit of blood-soaked gauze. “You
and Becca. She even married and had a kid. And you, you were
married, too. You got to have a real life!”
Laura’s lips flattened. Real life, be
damned. She lifted the bandage, and Ravinia sucked in her breath as
the gauze pulled away from her wound, a deep, nasty cut that might
have been deeper if the knife hadn’t been partially deflected by
her collarbone. Fortunately, her artery hadn’t been nicked, but she
thought Ravinia’s muscle might be damaged. “So you were outside. .
. .”
“Then he was there! I stepped around
the corner and caught him looking at the window. I gasped and he
saw me and just leaped.” She outwardly trembled. “I saw the knife
in his hand and tried to run away, but he caught up with me and
whirled me around. He hissed at me! Called me names and I was
kicking at him when he swung the knife down. Then . . . then
Isadora came running.”
“I’d been looking out the window,”
Isadora said. “Pulling the curtains shut when I saw him. It was
dark. I didn’t know what was happening, but I grabbed the first
thing I could find, which was the cast-iron skillet, and ran
outside. I screamed and hit him over the head with it, and his
knees buckled for a second. . . .”
Laura watched as Isadora swallowed
hard, her lips moving silently as she relived the horror. “Then,”
she said, her voice softer, “he turned and I saw his eyes. There
was light. . . . The moon? I don’t know, but they were glowing! Ice blue. Horrible! He sprang at me, swinging
his knife. I put my arms in front of my face and was screaming and
running backward when Catherine came with the gun.”
“Gun? You shot at him?” Laura asked,
reaching for a fresh roll of gauze.
Catherine shook her head. “I couldn’t.
It was too dark. I was afraid I’d hit Ravinia or Cassandra. . . . I
shot into the air and he bolted. Disappeared into the
night.”
“And you didn’t call the police? When
you knew they were looking for him?” Laura accused as she began to
cover Ravinia’s wound with a fresh bandage.
Catherine’s jaw was set, her eyes
narrowing, as in the distance the sound of sirens split the
air.
“Looks like I didn’t need to, now, did
I? You took care of it.”
Before Laura could respond, her cell
rang. She saw on her caller ID that Harrison was finally calling
her, and she felt instant, gratifying relief. “Hold this,” she said
to Ravinia, placing the fingers of her unharmed hand over the
sterile gauze patch. “Hold it tight.” Then, “Hey,” she
answered.
Harrison was terse.
“Sorry about running out on you.
There’s been trouble down at Zellman’s house. Turnbull was
here.”
Laura glanced in surprise at her
sisters, all of whom were staring at her and eavesdropping on her
conversation. “Then he’s been busy, because he came to Siren Song
last night. Wounded a couple of my sisters. I called nine-one-one
when I heard about it, and I think the cops are just showing
up.”
“Don’t go anywhere. I’m on my
way!”
Harrison snapped his phone shut and
headed for his car. Stone was standing near one of the police
cruisers, cell phone pressed to his ear, his eyebrows drawn
together in a hard scowl, while Detective Dunbar was still dealing
with Dr. Zellman, trying to reason with the man as they all stood
in the rain. While the detectives and deputies of the department
were wearing caps emblazoned with the sheriff’s department logo,
Zellman and Harrison were bareheaded.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Dunbar
asked the psychiatrist, who, after watching his wife’s body bag
being placed in the back of the medical examiner’s van, had somehow
pulled himself together.
“I need to go in and change.” He tugged
at the bandage at his throat.
“Sorry, not until the investigators for
the crime lab are finished.”
“I need to go in—”
“It’s a crime scene now.”
“But—”
“Is there anyone we can call to be with
you?”
“No,” he said, his tone rasping with
the effort. “I need to get to Ocean Park, to see my son! Brandt, he
was injured and . . . I’m leaving!”
“I don’t think you should be driving
alone.”
Zellman pulled himself together and
breathed down his nose in that superior way of his. “I said, I’m
fine. I’m a doctor. I should know.”
Without another word, he turned on his
heel and strode to his car. Seconds later he was wheeling out of
the drive. Dunbar caught Harrison watching and just shook her
head.
Harrison turned to witness Zellman’s
Lexus streak through the trees and rain. What kind of a man acted
like that just after learning his wife was murdered and his son
brutally attacked and fighting for his life? Something was
definitely off with the good doctor.
But then Zellman always had been a
prick.
A tech came through the front, carrying
a plastic bag of bloody bedsheets.
“From the kid’s room?” Dunbar
asked.
“Yeah. Someone left him for
dead.”
She took one look at the blood-soaked
sheets, then turned quickly and doubled over to vomit in a stand of
rhododendrons just shedding their blooms.
“You okay?” Harrison
asked.
“Yeah.” She wiped at the back of her
mouth with her hand. “Nothing to do with this.”
One of the officers overheard and
grinned like a ghoul. “Sure, Dunbar. It couldn’t be blood and death
and violence. Must be some other reason.”
Spitting into the ground, she stood up
and regarded him coolly. “I’m pregnant,” she said.
The officer started to laugh
uproariously, then cut himself off when he saw her expression.
“You’re kidding.” Then, “Who knocked you up?”
Stone joined their group at that point,
just in time to hear her say, “Don’t worry about it. It isn’t
mine.”
He did a double take, and he and
Harrison exchanged a mystified look. “Uh . . .” Stone had
momentarily lost his train of thought, but then he shook himself
out of it and said, “That was the boss. Seems our boy was busy last
night. An attack was reported at Siren Song. Two of the women
injured. A unit and ambulance have been dispatched.”
Harrison said, “I heard. I just called
Laura. She’s there.”
Stone was already striding to his car.
“I’m on my way.”
“I’ll wrap things up here and then head
north,” Dunbar said.
Harrison didn’t wait. He was already
jogging to his Impala. He figured the detectives would try to talk
him out of driving to Siren Song, but they might as well save their
collective breaths. He was going to see for himself that Laura was
all right.
“Hey!” Stone yelled at him. “You might
want this.” He was holding up the 9 mm. “You do have a license. I
checked.”
“Told you.”
Stone handed him the gun, then slid
behind the wheel. “It’s nothing personal, Frost,” he said. “It’s
just I don’t trust reporters.”