Doranna Durgin - Survival Instinct

Dave got them settled at the Woodward House, a bed-and-breakfast overlooking Front Royal. Then came the errands…sucking up beauty-parlor fumes at Eclips, not to mention the nail-polish lacquer. Dave sat in a comfortable spouse-oriented corner with his laptop, digging into news items on Rashawn. Doubting the path he’d chosen…doubting Karin. She offered him an opportunity he wasn’t sure he could turn away.

He wasn’t sure he could deal with it, either.

Lost in dark thought, he was taken unaware when Karin emerged and struck a pose for his benefit. He floundered in a double take, classic man-lost-for-words.

Her dark honey-and-chestnut hair had been cut and shaped into something shoulder-length and classy but with a definite kick. The darkest shade came from her former honey highlights; the rest of it was pure sunshine, and the carefully placed spike of bangs added an edge of punk. It was a style suited to the newly dark-eyed woman before him, with her bluntly manicured hands and waxed brows. Nothing here spoke of Karin; nothing spoke of Ellen. Even the clothes-clothes Dave had looked at all day-appeared different on this woman.

He cleared his throat, but before he could say anything, Karin gave him her most wicked grin, the one he’d never seen until she’d completely dropped her Ellen persona. “Now,” she said. “Shopping.”

Dave swallowed hard.

Shopping with a vengeance. Karin seemed to know just what she wanted and just where to find it. They walked out of Royal Quality with two mix-and-match business outfits, trendy wide-cuff trousers, a slim-line skirt, a tailored jacket that highlighted her athletic form. A couple of colorful camisoles. On top of that, a sleek evening dress that Dave vaguely remembered as deep blue and sparkly, but his mind’s eye couldn’t much get past the way it turned that athletic form into something just-right curvy.

From there they hit Cato, where she picked out clothes for the casual side of this new self he was watching her create. Someone who looked enough like Ellen to get Longsford’s attention, but not so similar that he’d even consider it might be her look-alike sister. Features obscured by the new coloring and makeup, body a stronger, more capable form than Ellen’s and covered in clothes Ellen wouldn’t even have considered. “My new name is Brooke,” she informed him, standing over the chair provided for weary Significant Others to gesture at his laptop. “Brooke Ellington. Two l’s.” And she waited for him to pull up a new document in OneNote. Pointedly. So she’d already caught on to his compulsive note-taking nature.

“Hey,” he said. “It works for me.” He meant the note taking, but if she took it to mean the name, that was fine, too.

He had the feeling she knew exactly what he meant.

He dropped her off at the Woodward House, disappearing inside only long enough to help carry her haul, including the small suitcase he’d purchased to carry it all. She’d insisted on something pricey for the suitcase, reminding him that she needed to play her role on all levels. The implication that Longsford might be in her hotel room made his voice rough and Karin looked at him in surprise as she picked out the tapestry carry-on case.

He kept his mouth shut for a while after that. Long enough to drop her off and run out to grab a couple of subs, lingering in the room only long enough to leave her food, grab his briefcase and head for the veranda. Before they’d left the farm, Karin had offered him another small box-the things she’d taken from Ellen’s desk. In light of the newly discovered photo, she thought they might have meaning to him. It was time to take a look. He shuffled through the contents, skimming at first, and then making notes. Checking his old records.

And then he sat and looked out at dusk over Front Royal. The bed-and-breakfast sat above the village, offering a clear view of a vista framed by layered ridges on the distant edges. Another couple came out to cuddle in a wicker love seat, leaving him to his scowls.

There was plenty to scowl about. All the dark thoughts and doubts of the day might plague him, but they wouldn’t sway him. Not after what his briefcase had spilled out for him.

Ellen had dated Longsford for several years; Dave had known that. Always a decorous, low-key relationship. She appeared on his arm in public at decent intervals, and she had a variety of keepsakes from those events. Museum brochures, benefit programs, a few matchbooks from clubs most people couldn’t get into.

And then there were the travel brochures. Not faraway exotic places, but national parks within a day’s drive of Alexandria. Special nature programs, traveling historical displays, modest day hikes…

Dave recognized those places. Places where children had disappeared, never to surface again. Not all cases that he’d worked, but cases he’d looked into while he was hunting Terry Williams. Hunting patterns, just in case.

Well, now he had it. Longsford was a park predator. Neighborhood park, national park…he liked variety.

Ellen must have picked up on it. When she came across that photo after he’d interviewed her…she must have realized what she’d been dating all that time.

Right through the shopping, Dave hadn’t been sure if he would let Karin go through with her plans. Right up until the moment she made contact with Longsford, he’d left himself the option to change his mind.

Not any longer.

Ellen had discovered a monster. Karin would unmask him.

And Dave wasn’t about to stop her.

When he returned to the room, the misty scent of shampoo and soap lingered on the air and the room was empty. He stared around at the heavily decorated room-log-cabin quilt over a queen bed, heavy antique bed frame offset by a flowery white pair of wing chairs. Visual overload for masculine eyes, but he’d have been happier to find one more thing in it.

Karin.

He squelched an impulse to go find her, suddenly suspicious of the entire day. She had a whole new look, a new wardrobe. She could well have gone on the run again.

He didn’t like himself for thinking it.

He didn’t like himself much for the thought that came next, either.

The one that wondered just what lurked in her past. The one that noted the ease with which she’d transformed herself. The one that urged him to check up on her.

First he took his own shower. He pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a Bully Hill T-shirt. Not all that far from Hunter’s Full Cry Winery, the family business that had once supported the development of the agency. Now it supported itself…and then some.

Owen could have gotten him answers about Karin Sommers’s secrets. But the safe house was already one favor too many.

Still damp, Dave sat in one of the wing chairs, pulling the other chair over for a footrest. He fired up his laptop for a quick e-mail check-there was one from Owen, with the safe-house details-and then found the e-mail for a good feeb friend in California. That much he knew: Karin had come from California. Those old notes were occasionally good for something after all.

He made the query vague, protecting the lie about Karin’s death.

For now.

And when he’d written the e-mail, he stared at it a moment. He rubbed his hands down his face and scruffed his wet hair and wondered if he truly wanted to know.

And then he hit Send.

That was when she returned, of course. He heard the key in the lock and flipped the lid down on the laptop. It beeped plaintively and went into hibernation, hiding only his innocuous e-mail inbox. Guilty conscience, Hunter?

Hey. He wasn’t the one with all the lies layered around him. The one pretending to be dead. The one who had spent his life scamming people out of their savings.

She slipped inside the door, closed it and leaned against it to regard him. The silence stretched between them.