The Stranger You Know

  “Claire Hedgleigh came to visit me tonight. I didn’t invite her,” Suzanne added hastily. “She just sensed that I...needed some company. I remembered that you told me not to make the Forensic Instincts team suspicious. So I asked Claire in for tea.”

  “Interesting.” Glen’s mind was processing a mile a minute. There was no way Claire Hedgleigh had come over for a cup of tea. She had an agenda. The Forensic Instincts team had probably chosen her for a recon expedition because she was the least threatening, and because she was just the kind of woman Suzanne would gravitate to for female companionship. Smart move on their part.

  Time to find out what damage had been done.

  “What happened?” he asked his wife.

  “I screwed up.”

  Glen’s jaw clenched. “What did you tell her?”

  “Nothing. In fact, she didn’t even want to talk about you. We discussed the piano.”

  “How quaint. So how did you screw up?”

  In a quavering voice, Suzanne told him about the incident with the wig. “I don’t know how she found it. Either by accident or maybe she got some vibes that it was there. But she has it. And I don’t know what to do.”

  Glen began to laugh, first a little and then a lot. The idea of Claire Hedgleigh communing with Suzanne’s wig struck him as very funny.

  “Why are you laughing?” Suzanne demanded. “I’ve put you in danger.”

  “Cut it out, Suzanne. Yeah, it was stupid of you to leave the wig lying around. But other than that, the whole thing is ridiculous. Ms. Psychic probably thinks she’s going to find me through some cosmic connection.”

  Suzanne wasn’t laughing. “It’s possible. That wig is very personal to us. She could get damning energy off it.”

  “What kind of ‘damning energy’? That we like to keep things spicy in the bedroom?”

  “What if she puts it on? What if that helps her figure out where you are?” Yes, Suzanne was weak with relief that Glen wasn’t furious with her. But she was still worried to death over the ramifications of Claire’s having the wig.

  “And how would she figure that out?” Glen threw back at her. “Even if she’s the psychic of the year, she has nothing to use. Since I left Auburn, you wore that wig only once in my presence—in that motel room. The rest of our encounters have been over the phone. There’s nothing either substantive or metaphysical for her to use to figure out my whereabouts. Let her parade around midtown Manhattan with the wig on for all I care. We’ll get you a new one.”

  Suzanne was calming down now. “I was thinking we should get two so we always have a spare.”

  “Good idea. Only let me take care of it. I don’t want you drawing any more attention to yourself. No sense raising any red flags.” He chuckled at his own play on words.

  “Do you think I’m more at risk now than I was before?”

  “The only thing that’s at risk is your modesty, if your friend Claire Hedgleigh visualizes anything graphic pertaining to you and that wig. Other than that, just keep going about your regular routine.”

  He ended the call, still chuckling at the idea of Casey’s psychic friend trying to gain info from a cascade of hair. He knew the Forensic Instincts team was tight. He had to give Claire Hedgleigh points for balls and for creativity. Balls for dropping in on Suzanne with no backup. And creativity for deciding to play dress-up to gain insight into his plans for Casey so she could protect her friend. Suzanne was worried about what would happen if she put the wig on. Hell, maybe she’d learn a thing or two.

  Abruptly, Glen’s head came up, and his laughter faded. Of course. What an asshole he’d been. He was so busy trying to conjure up a way to infiltrate Casey Woods’s impenetrable world and grab her that he hadn’t thought of the obvious.

  He’d forget going after her.

  Instead, he’d force her to come to him. And he knew just how to do it.

  Adrenaline pumping, Glen rose from the table and chugged the rest of his beer. He walked over to the condiment area, dropped his cell phone in the garbage and walked up to the counter, where he asked one of the servers for a paper bag. He opened the bag, dumped the remainder of his French fries inside and then placed an uneaten hot dog on top of the fries. Folding the top of the bag, he polished off the last bite of hot dog on his tray, picked up the bag and left.

  No sense letting good food go to waste.

  Especially since the next Nathan’s he’d be eating would be in Dubai.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  After leaving the Fishers’ apartment, Claire went straight to the brownstone rather than home.

  She knew the FI team. They’d all still be there, hard at work. And she was eager to report what had happened during her visit with Suzanne Fisher. After that, she’d seclude herself in her preferred small office, and see what kind of energy she could pick up off the wig she’d taken.

  She was racing against the clock and she knew it.

  Suzanne had probably gone to pieces when she realized the wig was missing. And that would trigger some reaction from her husband. Claire just wasn’t sure what that reaction would be.

  She only prayed it wasn’t one that would accelerate Fisher’s plans for Casey.

  Claire had to do some yoga, calm down and free her mind of all the chaos it was experiencing. Then she could concentrate and, hopefully, put her efforts where they belonged.

  Calming down was not in the cards.

  Claire practically collided with Patrick in the front hallway, where he was talking with a few of his security guards, reassigning different people to different posts and letting others go home for a rest. He paused when Claire blew in, and angled his head in her direction.

  “Lose your cell phone?” he inquired.

  “Excuse me?” Claire gave him a baffled look.

  “Your cell phone. The thing we reach you on. It’s been going straight to voice mail.”

  “Oh.” Claire groped in her tote bag and pulled out the phone. She glanced down at it, feeling like an idiot. “I turned it off while I was meeting with Suzanne Fisher. I must have forgotten to turn it back on.” She quickly remedied that as she spoke.

  “Well, don’t bother checking your twelve voice mails. Just brace yourself.”

  “For what?”

  “For me.” Ryan was leaning against the second-floor bannister, glaring down at her.

  Totally puzzled, Claire climbed the stairs to the second level. “What’s wrong? You knew where I was.”

  “Yeah, I knew.” Ryan was clearly furious. “Are you out of your friggin’ mind? You were going over there for a visit, to commune with the energy in her apartment. Instead, you ripped off her sex toy? What did you think was going to happen?”

  Claire blinked. “How did you know I took the wig?”

  “Because I’m tapped into every cell phone call the Fishers make. Because I’ve had the outstanding fortune of listening to their before and after conversations—first, their make-me-barf phone sex, and then Suzanne’s hysterical call to her husband, telling him you’d stolen her Barbie doll hair.”

  “I assume, from your reaction, that Glen Fisher was mad?”

  “Shouldn’t that question have occurred to you before you took the wig?” Ryan wasn’t letting this go.

  “Probably,” Claire admitted. “But the truth is, I didn’t stop to consider the fallout. I just saw an opportunity and I took it. That wig was screaming with energy. I could barely breathe. All I wanted was to sort out the aura.” A pause. “You didn’t answer my question—how did Glen Fisher react?”

  “You’re lucky. Apparently, he’s not a big believer in psychic readings. He laughed off the whole thing and told Suzanne he’d buy her a new wig. Plus a second one for the road.”

  Claire searched Ryan’s face. “They’re planning on killing Casey and then taking off.”

  “Sure sounds like it.”

  “Did you trace the phone calls?”

  “Dead ends. One from a park bench in Brooklyn and one from a Nathan’s
at Coney Island. No chance of tracing them. And now it looks like Fisher’s dumped the burn phone. He’s probably got another one.”

  “But you don’t think he’s coming after the wig?”

  “No. It was still a stupid thing to do.”

  “I guess.” Claire was eager to start her process. “But what’s done is done. I’ve got to get busy to see if my hunch pays off.”

  Ryan waved his arm toward the third floor. “Have at it. But let me know before you take off on any more excursions.”

  “I will.” Claire was already halfway out the door.

  * * *

  Glen was lying on the sofa, arms folded behind his head, smiling, when Jack let himself into their rented Brooklyn hideout that night.

  “Hey.” Jack sent his uncle a curious glance. “You look like your day went well.”

  “It did.” Glen swung his legs over the side of the sofa and rose. “Did you keep your eye on Claire Hedgleigh the way I asked?”

  “Followed her with my binoculars nonstop until a half hour ago.” Jack went into the kitchen and got himself a beer. “The security on her is nil,” he reported, uncapping the bottle. “She comes and goes as she pleases. I’ve seen that dude Ryan go home with her sometimes, but he usually doesn’t stay. I guess he gets laid and goes home. Not a bad deal. She’s pretty hot.”

  “Good. Do your job right and you can enjoy her.”

  Jack perked up. “We’re taking her? She’s a blonde.”

  “Yes, I know. I have eyes,” Glen snapped.

  “Then what? You’re going to use the wig?”

  “I’m going to use her. She’s going to help us draw out Casey Woods.”

  Realization dawned in Jack’s eyes. “I get it. The Forensic Instincts team is tight, and Casey is their leader. There’s no way she’ll do nothing if she thinks Claire Hedgleigh is in danger.”

  “You got it.” Glen gave him a mock salute. “We’ll be threatening what she cares about most.”

  “And maybe have some fun in the process?”

  “Like I said, she’s all yours. But we need to keep our eye on the prize. A life for a life. They can have Claire Hedgleigh. We’ll be long gone when they find her.”

  “The new identities will be ready for pickup tomorrow, right?” Jack asked. “Suzanne and I sure went to enough trouble to get those photos taken without being tailed.”

  “Yup. I’ll take care of getting them while you’re waiting to grab your hot psychic on her way home. We’ll bring her to the new warehouse I scouted out on South 2nd Street, and use your iPhone to take clear, explicit photos.”

  Jack gave a smug nod. “Casey will be out the door the instant she can shake the guards.”

  “Which she’ll do as soon as she gets a look at what we’re doing to her blonde friend.” A cruel smile twisted Glen’s mouth. “What the hell. Maybe I’ll put the red wig on her and go at it. I’m in such a good mood that I’ll even take sloppy seconds.”

  * * *

  Claire squirmed as she sat on her mat in the third-floor office, then took two or three deep, cleansing breaths.

  It was no use.

  She’d been perched there for what seemed like forever, and she still couldn’t clear her mind. All her impulses were pulling her toward the tote bag across the room—the one with Suzanne Fisher’s wig.

  She finally gave up and gave in. Crossing over, she rummaged through her bag and pulled out the wig.

  The instant her fingers closed around it, a cascade of different images and energies accosted her at once. It was like opening Pandora’s box and trying to escape its contents.

  This time, Claire fought the onslaught of emotions and forced herself to ride them out. She was sucked into graphic sexual moments between Suzanne and Glen Fisher—most of those moments filled with fear and pain on Suzanne’s part. Suzanne couldn’t breathe. She was tossing her head back and forth to suck in air. Her body was being torn apart, battered to the point where she prayed for it to end. And yet she wrapped her arms around her husband, absorbed his anger along with the pain he was inflicting.

  It wasn’t excitement, not for Suzanne. There was a serenity about her that overrode the physical torment—the sense that she was alleviating her husband’s demons on whatever level she could.

  She loved him. She shut her mind to who and what he was. And when the thoughts crept in, uninvited, she justified his behavior by focusing on his past.

  His past.

  Claire squeezed her eyes shut and went deeper into Suzanne’s energy.

  Glen Fisher had been sexually abused. Claire couldn’t visualize it happening, but it was vividly part of his wife’s consciousness. Suzanne hadn’t been part of his life when it happened. That was many years ago, when Glen was in middle school.

  A math teacher. Redheaded. Petite. Beautiful. Perverse. She’d taken an already twisted adolescent and screwed with his body and his mind. She played into all his sick fantasies and dragged him into all of her own.

  The control had been hers, the scars his.

  He never actually discussed it. Instead, he revealed snatches of it when he was in a rage, venting. Suzanne had put together the pieces. And they made her sick. How could she fault him for the residual effects? His tightly leashed rage, his hatred toward women who reminded him of her?

  She couldn’t. She feared who he could sometimes be. She hated what she knew in her gut he did. But she understood it.

  She’d helped him in ways she could justify to herself—starting with supporting Jack when he needed her. He couldn’t do it alone; he didn’t have his uncle’s strategic brilliance. But he did have a flair for the creative. So Suzanne had put her touches on that.

  The lip gloss. Claire envisioned Suzanne standing several yards away from Casey in the department store that day, listening. Casey had asked for the lip gloss by name, and then purchased it. Suzanne had waited until she was gone, after which she’d bought five tubes of the same product and had them delivered to a post office box for Jack.

  Claire tried to visualize the address on the package, or the post office it was mailed to. Nothing. She then tried to see Jack with the package in his hands. Mentally, she groped for an image of his face, his build—anything. But she kept coming up empty. The only psychic connection she seemed able to make was with Suzanne.

  What else did you do, Suzanne? she asked herself, tightening her grip on the wig.

  Surveillance, of a sort. Claire could see Suzanne driving her dark sedan to the Columbia campus to watch a particular girl—Kendra Mallery—as she joined a bunch of kids eating pizza. That wasn’t Suzanne’s only visit. She’d returned to the campus on the night of Kendra’s vigil to take pictures of the attendees, and then to text the pictures to Glen—along with a dozen other pictures of different girls he’d asked her to watch.

  Suzanne didn’t want to think about the reasons he requested the photos. But she knew. God help her, she knew. He was hunting down potential victims.

  Potential victims.

  Claire’s breath caught in her throat, and she was plunged into that same terrifying place she’d been in before, during the time she’d been holding Glen Fisher’s pen. Vulnerable. Panicked. Gasping in air. Crying out. Screaming.

  This time she could feel herself being stared at by two pairs of eyes—eyes that were filled with evil. Cruelty.

  She was lying on a concrete floor in an industrial building. She was cold. So cold. She couldn’t get warm. Couldn’t escape.

  Abruptly, the image changed, and it was Casey who was living the nightmare. Only it was worse, more violent. There was a physicality taking place that hadn’t existed for Claire. They were hurting Casey, forcing her to the concrete floor, striking her when she fought back. And Claire had to watch the whole thing.

  The scene was dizzying. Claire alternated between being an active participant and an observer. First, she was right beside Casey, flat on her back, her head turned toward her friend. Casey was bound, nude, thrashing her head from side to side as she
was held down. Then Claire was floating above the scene, watching it as a viewer.

  The two men were hovering over Casey now, binding her wrists and tying a rope around each ankle, keeping her legs apart. They were fumbling at their own clothes, readying themselves for a long-awaited vengeance.

  And Claire was once again removed, fighting with all her might to get to Casey, to free her, to somehow help her escape.

  But escape was impossible.

  In the midst of Claire’s vision, a beam of light sliced through the room she was seeing, illuminating the face of one of the attackers.

  It was Glen Fisher.

  Claire willed the light to expand, to include Fisher’s accomplice. But it wouldn’t. His face remained in darkness. Why?

  The images were fading. Despite her own sense of dread, Claire battled to hold on to them. She needed to see more, to find something to focus on that would provide her with a clue. Something she could give to the team to stop this heinous occurrence.

  Her efforts were futile. She was back in the office, huddled on the carpet. Tears were coursing down her cheeks, and terror was pervading her body. She sank onto the floor, shaking violently, dragging huge gasps of air into her lungs.

  She had to think. To make sense of what she’d experienced. Now. While the images were still vivid and fresh in her mind.

  With the backs of her hands, Claire dashed the tears off her face, focusing hard on what she’d just gone through as well as what she’d just witnessed. As an active victim, it was like being a bug under a microscope. She’d felt the probing scrutiny. But she hadn’t felt any hands on her. No contact whatsoever. Why? If she was being attacked, why were her attackers just staring at her?

  That hadn’t been the case with Casey. They’d struck her, brutalizing her body. There wasn’t the slightest doubt in Claire’s mind that they were preparing to rape and kill her. The image had been as powerful as any reality.

  Why had she and Casey been lying side by side during that brief period of time? Had this been an actual premonition or was it a symbolic apparition meant for Claire to interpret?