Linda Howard - Kill and Tell

"I don't have an accent, honey. You do."

"If you say so. But if you by chance meet Piper, don't open your mouth, or your chances of getting out of Ohio go down drastically."

He smiled and winked at her. "You'll protect me."

The words reminded them both of why they were here, and the smile faded from his face. Karen blew out a deep breath. "What if we don't find anything here? What if the papers are just… papers, with nothing important in them?"

"Then I'll keep working on the case, and so will McPherson. Between the two of us, we'll figure this out. In the meantime, however, you will be in a safe place. Not my house, not for much longer. I'm not in the phone book, but hell, there are a hundred different ways of getting someone's address if you really want it, and most of them aren't that difficult."

"How reassuring. Turn right two blocks down, at the McDonald's. The storage company is about five miles down that road, on the right. Buckeye Stockit and Lockit. There's a sign. Turn just past the sign, into the center alley." She paused. "Is that guy following us?"

"I haven't seen him." Their shadow would have removed his baseball cap, because red was so noticeable, but Marc hadn't been able to pick up a particular car behind them, either—and he had been watching. He hadn't been driving fast, hadn't made any sudden turns, so he should have been able to spot him. Either he was remarkably good, or Marc had inadvertently lost him. They didn't speak again until Marc turned at the Buckeye Stockit and Lockit sign. The gravel alley separated twelve sections of storage units, six sections on each side. Chain-link fencing surrounded each section, accessible by a numbered gate secured by a combination lock. "Gate number three," Karen said, pointing. She opened her wallet and looked at the combination, which was changed each month and which she always wrote down and stuck in her wallet. "Six-four-three-eight."

"I'll get it," Marc said, stopping in front of gate three and getting out of the car. He unlocked the padlock and swung the gate open, then slowly drove down the row of storage units.

"Number one fifty-two." Karen pointed at it and took out the padlock key. They both got out of the car, and Marc took the key from her. After opening the lock, he slid back the lever that kept the door from being raised, then bent and caught the handle and lifted the overhead door with a rattle of metal.

The smell was musty but not, she was thankful, mildewed. Her throat caught as she looked at the boxes, the pieces of furniture. Her mother's bedroom suite, all her clothing, the other things Karen hadn't had room for when she moved.

Marc lifted one of the boxes down. Taking out his pocket knife, he neatly sliced through the sealing tape. Hayes checked his rearview mirror, then, at the next intersection, made a hard left turn, barely missing the oncoming traffic. Behind him, nothing happened.

He grunted in satisfaction. If there had been a tail, he'd lost it for certain. There was no way he could have been followed after that turn, not without a lot of tires squealing, horns blowing, and maybe some metal contact.

Time to find this storage place.

Chapter 20

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All the packing boxes were neatly labeled, but Karen couldn't remember in which one she had placed the smaller box. The first box Marc opened held Jeanette's clothing. She carefully took out each garment, trying not to think of her mother, blinking fast when her vision blurred, and then folding and replacing all the clothing when the search came up empty.

"I think—I think I already had the boxes packed, and all I did was set the other box on top of the stuff already there."

"Then we won't have to dig through the entire box. All we have to do is open each one and see if the small box is there."

"Theoretically. I was still pretty much in shock at the time. I'm not certain what I did." He was patient, and the heat wasn't as dreadful as she had feared. In fact, the shade inside the storage unit made their work more bearable than if they had been in the broiling sun. Occasionally, a small breeze managed to work its way among the row of units, further cooling them. Still, Marc's T-shirt began to show damp patches and cling. Clinging was good. She eyed him appreciatively. He sliced open the fifth box and grunted. "Here we go, I think." He lifted out a small cardboard box, not much bigger than a shoe box. Karen saw her mother's name printed on top.

"That's it."

She took the box and opened it. Inside were some papers and a small black-bound notebook, the type available in every discount store in the country, secured with a rubber band. She slipped off the rubber band and flipped through the papers. Seeing some letters in her mother's handwriting, she took a deep breath and handed the papers to Marc, keeping the notebook for herself.

"You look through those," she said, taking a seat on an end table. He gave her a searching look, then glanced at the papers and nodded in understanding. He scanned the letter Dexter had sent with the box. "He says the papers might be worth some money someday." He propped himself against the dresser and crossed his feet at the ankles. "I thought he was being sarcastic." Karen flipped open the book and stared at her father's handwriting, unusually neat for a man. He had used a small, square style, almost like printing, very legible.

"January 3, 1968," was listed on the first page. Bewildered, she read a description of the terrain, the weather conditions including wind velocity and direction, distance to target, spotter's name—Rodney Grotting—and other information such as the make and model of rifle he used, technical details about the

ammunition, and the final notation: "Head shot. Kill made at 6:43a.m. Viet Cong colonel." Below, Rodney Grotting had scribbled a verification and signed it.

Blinking, Karen turned the page. Another date, another description of conditions, ending with the casual, chilling outcome.

More pages. Most of the time, he took a heart shot, but sometimes he went for the head. Once it was the throat. She had seen such a wound once: the high-caliber slug had torn out half the throat, and the victim had bled to death. For such a terrible wound, with the jugular destroyed, there was nothing that could have been done even if medical personnel had been there when it happened. She couldn't read any more. Her face white, she closed the book and handed it to Marc. "Take a look at this."

He eyed her sharply, consideringly, then turned his attention to the book. Watching him, Karen didn't see any expressions of shock or distaste at such a sick record.

"It's his kill book," he said.

"Good God, do you mean everyone kept them?"

"The snipers did. I was a Marine, too, you know. The snipers in the Vietnam war were legendary. The best ones could take out a target at a thousand yards. Their kills had to be verified, so they kept track in their kill books."

The idea still made her feel ill. "But wouldn't the Marine Corps have kept the books?"

"I don't know. I wasn't a sniper, so I never asked. Maybe they did. Maybe he kept two books, one for his own records. It was a bad war, honey. It messed up a lot of good men." He continued flipping through the pages, scanning each one. When he reached the last one, he said,

"Sixty-one kills. He was good at his job." He started to close the notebook, and the pages fluttered; there was some writing on the last page, though about forty pages had been skipped and left clean. Frowning, Marc opened the small notebook to the last page.

"Holy shit," he said slowly.

Karen had been watching him, had seen the way his pupils flared, the quick compression of his lips.

"What is it?"

"Another kill," he answered, then lifted his gaze to hers. "An American soldier. He was paid twenty thousand dollars to do it."