Нора Робертс: The Search

“You never know, do you? He was going to toss this old washtub.”

“Piece of junk,” Chuck said under his breath.

“It won’t be, once I fill it with these and put it in the yard. I’m thinking of sort of digging in one end, so it looks like it just got tossed there. It’ll be a bit of lawn art instead of a piece of junk.”

“Meg’s always figuring out how to repurpose things.” Fiona set the flowers in the cart.

“I hate waste.”

“I guess it saves us in the long run,” Chuck put in. “She mostly furnished the cabin out of thrift store and yard sale junk she fixed up.”

“So you’ve got a tenant,” Fiona said as she picked through the lobelia.

“A two-weeker. Husband’s down by himself this week. His wife and son are coming down next.” Meg picked up some lobelia, held it next to the dianthus and deemed it good. “The boy’s got some swim meet or some such thing he didn’t want to miss. The dad’s a teacher and writes travel articles. We’re hoping he does one on the cabin and Orcas. It couldn’t hurt. Kind of an odd one,” Meg added as they wandered through. “He came in a couple months back, asked to see it. Wanted a quiet place, private, so he could write.”

“That’s natural enough, I guess.”

“I guess he likes his solitude because he sure gave me the bum’s rush this morning. Wouldn’t have the housekeeping service, so I’m already feeling for his wife. But he paid cash, up front and in full, and that buys a lot of washtub flowers.”

“What kind of screening do you do on tenants?”

Meg blinked at Simon’s question. “Oh, well, there’s really not much you can do there. Most people take a week or two, or even a weekend off-season. You take a security deposit and hope for the best. We haven’t had any serious problems there. Are you thinking of buying a place for rentals?”

“No. Do you get many who pay cash?”

“Not a lot, but it happens. Some people just feel uncomfortable giving us their credit card number.”

“What did he look like?”

Meg glanced at Fiona, who’d gone uncharacteristically silent. “Ah, he’s... Oh my Jesus, you’re thinking he might be... God, Simon, you’re freaking me out. He’s, well, he’s in his mid-forties somewhere. I’ve got his driver’s license on file because we ask to see ID, but I can’t remember the birthday. He’s clean-shaven, bald as a hard-boiled egg. He’s well spoken, friendly enough. He talked about his wife, and how his boy was going to love the place. He even asked if his boy could bring a friend with him for a few days if he wanted.”

“We’re all just a little jumpy.” Fiona rubbed a hand up and down Meg’s arm.

“Do you want to go by the place, check him out?” Chuck asked.

“We can’t check out everybody who’s rented a place, or who’s camping or spending a few days at one of the hotels or B-and-Bs,” Fiona pointed out. “They’re watching the ferry.”

It had to be enough.

She waited until they were in the truck, heading back. “I forget, or don’t always realize, how worried you are. Don’t shrug it off,” she said when he did just that. “This thing has been there almost from the start with us. Like a shadow in the room, all the time. And I’m so busy thinking about it, or telling myself not to think about it, I can forget it’s weighing on you, too.”

He said nothing for nearly a mile. “I didn’t want you. Got that?”

“Simon, I hold that sentiment close to my heart.”

“I didn’t want you because I knew damn well you’d get in my way, and you’d find a way to make me like it. Need it. And you. So, now I do. I keep what’s mine, and I take care of it.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Like a puppy?”

“Like however you want to see it.”

“I’ll have to think about that.”

“Cops, feds, that’s all fine. They do what they do. But nobody’s getting through me to you. Nobody.”

This time Fiona fell silent, stayed silent until they made the turn to his house. “You know I can and will take care of myself. No, wait—you know that. And because you know that, hearing you say that to me, knowing you mean it, it makes me feel more cared for than I have in a very, very long time.”

She drew a breath. “So I’m going to plant window boxes, then I’m going to teach my evening class. And I’m going to hope with everything I’ve got they find Kati Starr, alive, and that soon—really soon—we’ll be rid of the shadows so it’s just you and me.”

“And a pack of dogs.”

She smiled. “Yeah.”

Eckle stepped out of the bathroom, freshly showered, in clean boxers and a T-shirt. On the bed, Kati whimpered behind the tape as her eyes, the left nearly swollen shut, ticked in his direction.

“That’s better. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about rape as I’ve never found sex to be particularly important. But I liked it. It was an entirely new experience for me, and every new experience is important to the whole—thanks for that. With rape, all the pressure’s off as there’s just no need to worry about pleasing the whore spreading them for you.”

He pulled the little desk chair over and sat beside the bed. “I like giving pain. I always knew it, but since it’s not acceptable under the rules ”—he gave the word quick air quotes—“I buried the urge. I was not a happy man, Kati. I was just going through the motions, living a life in the gray. Until Perry. I owe him for that. I owe him Fiona for that. But this, all the rest? You? That’s mine, entirely. Now.”

He tapped the mini tape recorder he’d taken from her bag and set on the nightstand. “I’m going to turn this on, and we’re going to have a conversation. You’re going to tell me everything you know, everything your source or sources have leaked to you. If you scream, even once, I’ll put the tape back on and I’ll start breaking your fingers. There’s no one to hear you, but you’re not going to scream. Are you, Kati?” As he asked her he reached up and bent the pinkie of one of her bound hands backward until her face went bone white. “Are you, Kati?”

She shook her head, arching up as if to escape the pain.

“Good. This is going to hurt.” He ripped the tape away, viciously, nodded with satisfaction as she bit back the scream. “Very good. Say thank you.”

Her breath shuddered out, in, her chest trembled with it, but she managed a barely audible whisper. And licked her dry lips. “Please. Water. Please.”

“This?” He held up the bottle. “I bet you’re parched.” He pulled her head up by the hair, poured water into her mouth so she choked, gagged, wheezed. “Better? What do you say?”

She said thank you.

They had more than he’d expected, but not more than he’d prepared for.

Tawney and his partner had been to College Place, though Kati couldn’t confirm they’d gone to his school or apartment. Even when he broke two of her fingers she couldn’t give him the exact locations. Her source hadn’t given her the data, or hadn’t had the data to give.

But they’d been there, he was sure of it. They’d pawed through his things, through the daily life of the person he’d once been. Not that it mattered, he thought. They weren’t his things any longer. They belonged to another life—the gray life.

They were, as he’d expected, watching the ferries. And Fiona had moved into her lover’s house. She was never alone.

He’d taken care of the first, and had plans for the second complication. The centerpiece of that plan lay unconscious on the plastic sheet.

He thought of the e-mail. A trap, just as he’d suspected. He was sure of it now. They thought they could trick him, outwit him, but he was much too smart for that.