Mariah Stewart - Coming Home

He walked toward her, half expecting her to turn and run back out through the double doors, but the closer he got to her, the more he realized that wasn’t likely to happen. She stood firm and watched him approach.

“I need to speak with the chief of police,” she said in a voice that was barely audible, as if she wasn’t sure she really wanted to be heard.

“I’m the chief,” he told her. “This week, anyway.”

“Something really bad is going to happen,” she said, her face as white as the T-shirt she wore. “You need to stop it. He’s going to hurt her.”

A chill went through him, but he never blinked.

“When?”

“Right now.”

“Where? At the shop?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. All he said was that it was time, and we’d be leaving as soon as he took care of her.”

He took her arm and led her to the conference room.

“You’ve got to warn her,” the woman whispered. “He’s going to kill her.”

He did not have to ask who either he or her was. He turned the woman over to Gus and set off running up Kelly’s Point Road. It would be faster than getting the car and waiting for traffic to permit him to cross at Charles Street. As he ran, he dialed Vanessa’s cell.

When she answered, he said, “Is Grady with you?”

“Yes, he’s right here,” she told him. “Did you want-”

“Tell him to stand at the door and watch for me. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Just tell him…” Hal hadn’t realized just how out of shape he was until he started to run up the hill to the main street. He had a mental picture of himself passing out in the middle of the street, but he made it to the shop without collapsing and was happy to see Grady in the doorway.

“Lock the door,” Hal panted. “We have a problem.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Vanessa cried. “Dear God, Hal, did you run all the way from the police station?”

He nodded, and she went into the back room and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

“What the hell is going on?” Grady was asking when she came back to the front of the shop. She twisted the cap off the bottle and handed it to Hal.

“The woman-Jackie-just came into the station. Told me that something very bad was going to happen, like now. To Ness.” Hal paused to take a drink. “That Dent is planning on ‘taking care of her’ and then he and the woman were going to leave town.”

“She told you this?” Vanessa felt the blood drain from her face.

“Yeah.” Hal fought to get his breathing under control. “She doesn’t know what he has in mind, only that it’s going to be soon. As in now. This morning.”

“Well, he isn’t likely to be able to get past the two of you,” she noted warily.

“Is the back door locked?” Hal asked.

“It was earlier,” she replied.

“I’ll check it.” Grady walked to the back of the shop and tried the door. “It’s locked and dead-bolted,” he told them when he returned.

“So what do we do now?” Vanessa tried to keep the rising panic under control.

Hal rested his upper body on the counter. “I guess now we just have to wait to see what his next move is going to be.”

“Swell,” Vanessa muttered.

Maggie couldn’t remember the last time she felt this good. It seemed that ever since Carl had passed away, things had just gotten better and better for her. Oh, not that she was happy that he died. Far from it. His death had saddened her greatly. Carl had been a really good man and he’d adored Maggie. While he was lacking in certain of his husbandly duties, he’d made up for it in other ways. He’d been her friend, and he’d provided very well for her. It was the first relationship Maggie had ever had with a man who’d demanded nothing more of her than her companionship. So she’d kept him company every day, and when his eyesight began to fail, she’d read the newspapers to him as well as the crime novels he loved so much. In return, Carl had given Maggie a lovely if somewhat isolated home and the first financial security she’d ever had. But lately, she was beginning to secretly think of Carl as her geriatric guardian angel.

She smiled to herself as she walked up Vanessa’s driveway with the bag from the plant nursery in her arms. Hal had said that Vanessa wanted water lilies and koi-well, then, water lilies and koi she would have. Maggie could hardly wait to see Vanessa’s face when she realized that her mother had single-handedly cleaned out the old pond and brought it back to life again. There’d been so few times in Vanessa’s life that Maggie had done something unexpected and just for fun. Well, this was the new Maggie. She was aware that her daughter was annoyed that she’d come to Beck’s wedding uninvited and that Vanessa had, well, issues with her. But she was going to do everything she could think of to win her daughter’s affection. She’d move heaven and earth, she told herself, why, she’d even-

Maggie rounded the corner of the house and went into the yard, and walked smack into a man who stood near the door leading down into the basement. He was dark-haired, short and stocky, and had long sideburns, an unkempt mustache, and eyes like a ferret.

“Oh my God!” Maggie gasped when she recognized his face. The realization took her breath away. “You. It’s been you…”

She started to turn back to the driveway, her only thought being to run like hell, but he moved more quickly. In one stride, he had one arm around her waist and the other hand over her mouth. The bag slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground.

“Don’t make a sound,” he hissed in her ear. “Not one little peep. And stop struggling, damn it, or I will put a hole the size of Ohio through the back of your head right now.”

She froze.

“That’s better.” He began to move backward, dragging her along with him. “I’m going to turn you around, and you’re going to go down the steps ahead of me.”

He pointed to the basement, which loomed dark and deep before her eyes.

“No, no, please…” The thought of what might lie below in the dark terrified her, and the old movie mantra-don’t go down into the basement-rang in her ears. She pushed against him, and he laughed.

“You have a short memory, Mrs… I can’t remember what your last name is, but it doesn’t much matter. I know who you are. I know that you helped that bitch after she put my man Eugene in that damned prison so he could die there. I know you took her out of town before any of us knew she was gone. So it’s going to give me a real thrill to do you, lady. An unexpected pleasure, but it’s going to be a pleasure all the same. Now, walk down those steps, or I do it right here.” He pulled the gun from his waistband and held it to her forehead.

Maggie descended the steps, Edmund Dent at her back, his gun pressed hard between her shoulder blades. The air below was close and redolent of dried herbs. It was dark and twice she fell slightly forward, and twice more she tripped over something before the toe of her shoe struck the bottom step.

“Lift your foot and find the stair,” he told her.

She counted as she climbed, thirteen steps to the top. He reached around her and pushed open the door. Maggie blinked several times at the bright sunlight that flooded the kitchen. He led her across the room to the table and pushed her into the nearest chair. A length of rope lay coiled on the countertop, and she guessed that it had not been placed there by Vanessa. That, and the fact that the basement door was already open, told her that he’d been in the house earlier today. What else had he brought with him? she wondered. What did he have planned for her daughter?

“What’s her cellphone number?” Dent demanded.