LITMIR.BIZ

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but that she might cause Clay to panic and run with Claire again before he could be arrested.

      Yes, there it was, 4147 Elk Run! Tara had cross-checked the address through purchasing the subscription lists for two of Clay’s favorite magazines, Western Big Gamer and Poker Player U.S.A. Now Clay was the hunted and, she prayed, his hiding game was over.

      To doubly confirm Clay’s location, Tara had used an online telephone directory, then phoned Clay’s neighbor to the north, pretending to be a previous owner in the area. She’d asked if the Brown family still lived at the 4147 address, claiming their phone number had evidently changed. Pretexting, it was called; P.I.s used the chat-someone-up practice all the time to get information.

      “Oh, no, the Browns don’t live there,” the woman had told her. “Carl Weatherby and his cute little daughter, Claire, live there now. Moved in ’bout Thanksgiving, though they kinda keep to themselves. He keeps funny hours, goes to play poker in Black Hawk sometimes. Steve—that’s my husband—saw him there once. I mean, Steve don’t go there much, ’cause we’re churchgoing and all, but Carl does, comes and goes, you know…”

      Unfortunately, everything the woman told her about “Carl Weatherby” and his daughter, Claire, was also detailed in the report that Alex had evidently pilfered from Tara’s active file on her desk.

      The road here was so narrow and steep that she couldn’t park on the berm, nor was she going to take that crooked, single-lane driveway to Clay’s residence. She couldn’t even see the house from here. Could Alex already be here and have driven in? Surely she wouldn’t approach like a storm trooper, however desperately she wanted her daughter back. After all, Clay was an avid, skilled hunter, so that could mean guns on the premises.

      Tara had planned to phone the Central City P.D. today, so they could take Claire into protective custody and arrest Clay. But with Alex possibly on the scene, she was afraid to get them here in case it turned into a hostage situation. Little Claire was like a niece to Tara and she wanted to protect the child, as well as Alex, at all costs. If she could only find a place to park on this narrow road, she’d sneak onto the property to look for Alex’s car. Then she’d escort Alex—hopefully with Claire—out of here and call the cops.

      Just past the property, Tara pulled as far over as she could, parking tight to a line of precariously tipped pines. After she hit her warning taillights on and killed the engine, she got out and opened her umbrella. The rain drummed hard against it. The mud and grass were slick where she started up, veering off the twisting driveway so the trees would hide her. The shifting air, unfortunately, had cleared some of the mist away; it would have made perfect camouflage. The wind seemed to howl as if in protest or warning, and her footsteps crunched incredibly loudly.

      She almost went down to her knees in the slippery pine needles. Hanging branches shuddered more cold water onto her. The wind changed again, whipping the rain sideways. She closed her useless umbrella and left it on the ground. At least these thick boughs provided some cover from which to view the house.

      From behind a shroud of shivering, new-budding aspens and spiky blue spruce, a small A-frame of dark-brown-stained boards emerged, with an attached one-car garage. This place was a far cry from the beautiful home Alex had up for sale in Evergreen. Knowing Clay, he had big plans for recouping his losses and moving onward and upward in the world soon. Maybe he just needed time to buy himself a new legal identity as Carl Weatherby, then find a job. As he’d often said when pushing his opinion about anything onto others, “You can bet on it!”

      No, Alex’s car was not parked outside. Surely it wasn’t in the small garage. Could she have been wrong to assume Alex had come here with her information? Had she come and gone, maybe with Claire? If so, Tara knew she’d better get out of here.

      She went farther up toward the back of the house. The line of trembling, drooping trees threw cold water on her each time their branches moved. Rocks and thick forest fringe clung tight to the back lot line, but she didn’t want to go higher and get cut off from a quick exit to her car. Her sopped hair stuck to her face and neck and dripped cold water down her back.

      Oh, no! Alex’s car was here, driven around in back, parked on the grass next to a sodden sandbox that must be Claire’s. Her stomach lurched. Could Clay and Alex have reconciled? In her wildest dreams, she never thought that was a possibility. Or had something else happened?

      Bending low, she rushed toward the back deck. It was elevated, with a narrow set of wooden stairs going up. On them, her footsteps sounded too loud despite the eaves and gutters spouting noisy rivulets of rain. Above, two house windows stared at her like blank eyes, running with tears. If she could just glance in…

      No lights shone from inside, even on such a dark day. Surely Claire would be home from school by now. But where could Alex have gone?

      Her heart thudded so loudly it almost drowned out the rain. Tara huddled against the wooden back door on the deck, then leaned slowly inward to peek in the closest window.

      Alex! Alex, sitting in—no, tied to—a kitchen chair! Slumped over. Dead? Oh, dear God in heaven, help her—help me! She didn’t see blood, but it was so dark in there….

      Tara’s first instinct was to scream her friend’s name, to break a window and climb in to help, but her gut told her that Alex could be bait. Where was Claire? Worse, where was Clay? This was a crime scene.

      She thudded down the stairs, fumbling for her cell phone in her pocket as her car keys jingled. Hide back in the trees, she told herself. The number of the Central City police was on her instant dial. Call them. Hide, wait, watch until they come.

      She hit their number, tried to whisper for help, then just shouted, “Nine-one-one! Forty-one forty-seven Elk Lane, above Black Hawk—a woman’s been hurt—”

      Her panicked cry was prophetic. She slipped and went down in slick mud and pine needles, twisting her ankle.

      In the screaming wind, she heard fast footsteps behind her. A man’s booted foot slammed on her wrist. Her phone skidded away.

      A moment’s stunning pain screamed deep into her brain. Blackness fell on her. Was this death? She wanted to live. Hide! She had to hide.

      In that dark, secret place, some scents and sounds still clung to the her: sharp, stabbing smells; muted music; her heart pounding in her ears and someone crying, crying, crying.

      1

      September 6, 2007

      “I’m really kind of nervous today,” Tara told her new doctor’s nurse as the spiky-haired blonde prepared to take her blood pressure. “Because of my coma and rehab, I haven’t been to a personal physician in years, only specialists and physical therapists. I figured I’d better get back on track with pap smears and all. Here I am, thirty years old, and I feel like a teenager facing her first time again—for a cervical exam, I mean.”

      The nurse, whose name tag said only Pamela, nodded and smiled. She was young but seemed kind and efficient. “I’ve got to tell you,” Pamela said as she inflated the blood-pressure band around Tara’s arm, “I’ve never known anyone in a coma that long—a whole year?”

      “Eleven months, and then a lot of physical therapy to get my body working again, especially my left leg. I went from a walker to a cane. I’m finally back to normal, though I guess I’ll never be the same person again.”

      “I read that article in the paper about you, and about your friend being lost. I’m really sorry.”

      Tara blinked back tears and said, “Thanks.”

      She lay back on the examining table while Pamela prepared to draw blood. B.C.—Before Coma—she used to hate needles and shots, but they were familiar ground now, as were doctors, medicines, pain. But all that was nothing next to the agony of these last long months since she’d been out of the coma. She could recall no events from the day Clay had struck her with the butt of the gun with which he’d shot Alex, but other people had pieced everything together for her. Alex was dead, and Clay Whetstone was serving a life sentence

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