‘I have a status meeting scheduled on my side. I was going to let you sleep.’
She paused at the bathroom door, not yet ready to face him. The terror was too fresh and she needed to be by herself for a little while. To regroup. Settle down. Get control. ‘What time is it now?’
‘Twenty-five till.’
‘Let me wash up. I’d like to sit in, if it’s okay.’
‘Sure.’
She chanced a look over her shoulder, found him still sitting on the bed, frowning to himself. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. Just . . . unsettled. Go, get ready.’ His mouth curved. ‘I love the view, but I don’t think that’s what you want to show to the others.’
She cheeks heated. She wore only her pajama top. ‘No. Can you order me some room service for breakfast? I don’t think I’ve eaten since lunch yesterday. Thanks.’
She closed the door, sagged against it. Her legs were like jelly and she had to lean against the shower wall to wash her hair. Run. Run. Through the cabin, out the door.
Sighing through clenched teeth, she shoved the damn dream aside as she toweled off and went through her morning routine mechanically. Brush the teeth, comb the hair.
Run. Run. Climb in the truck. Hide under the tarp. Get away.
She paused as she blended her makeup, frowning at her reflection. Jerking her mind back to the here and now. ‘Stop it,’ she muttered. ‘You’ll make yourself crazy.’
Bronzer. Blush. If I find her I’ll bring her back to you.
Mascara. He sees me. The gas man sees me. Hide. Make yourself invisible.
She froze, her eyes wide as she stared at herself, mascara wand halfway through its stroke. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. ‘He was there.’
She burst through the bathroom door, much as Joseph had burst in earlier. She found him sitting in the same position on the bed, a grim expression on his face.
‘Joseph, he knew. The gas man knew.’
Joseph’s gaze shot over to meet hers. ‘What?’
‘The gas man knew where Beckett’s cabin was. What if we could find him? Track him down? We could find the cabin. Find Beckett. Save Heather?’ She ended the last on a note of question because he’d come to his feet, his gaze burningly intense.
She looked down at herself and felt her heart sink. Naked. She was stark naked. Everywhere. Reflex had her folding her arms over her breasts, but he was crossing the room, purpose in every step. Carefully he closed his hands over her wrists, tugging until she let go of the iron hold she had on herself.
He held her arms out, his eyes fixed on her body, a flush rising up his unshaven cheeks. His chest rose and fell with rapid breaths as he looked his fill.
Finally he glanced up. Met her eyes and she saw . . . greed. Reverence. Want.
‘Promise me,’ he rasped. Cleared his throat and started again. ‘Promise me that you won’t hide from me anymore. Because I like what I see. Very, very much.’ His voice had dipped low, like a caress, and she shivered. ‘Promise me.’
She swallowed, unable to look away from his face. Unembarrassed now, despite the fact that he was fully clothed while she wore not a stitch. ‘All right.’
He stepped closer, pressing his lips to the side of her neck while guiding one of her hands to his trousers. He was fully erect and very ready. ‘Do you have any doubt that I’m telling you the truth?’ He undulated against her hand, and she shivered again.
‘No. I think you’ve proved your case very well.’
He kissed his way from her neck to her shoulder. ‘If I didn’t have a meeting in five minutes, I’d have you up against the wall, your legs wrapped around my waist and I’d be inside you, making you moan.’
She moaned anyway, making him smile as he pulled away, leaving her trembling. ‘You’re beautiful, Daphne.’
‘So are you.’
There was a knock on the door of his room and he cursed softly. ‘Damn early birds.’ He kissed the tip of her nose and took a giant step back. ‘Come next door when you’re ready.’
The knock was repeated, harder this time, and Joseph shook his head hard.
‘Damn. How am I going to concentrate?’ He leaned toward the open adjoining door. ‘I’m coming. Keep your pants on.’ He winked at her. ‘That goes double for you until later.’ Adjusting himself, he walked stiffly, muttering under his breath.
Daphne blinked, disoriented. Then she remembered why she’d burst out of the bathroom stark naked. ‘Joseph, wait.’
He looked over his shoulder, brows furrowed. ‘Don’t tease me, please.’
‘I’m not. Joseph, listen. The gas man knew where Beckett’s cabin was. He went there every quarter to fill the tank. What if we could find him?’
He blinked. ‘Could we, after all this time?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s better than what we’ve got so far.’
He nodded once. ‘Get dressed and meet me on my side. We’ll figure it out.’
When the door closed behind him, Daphne exhaled slowly. Whoa. Her body felt tight, needy. Greedy. But she had priorities. Find the cabin. Find Heather. Find and punish Beckett and Doug, whoever the hell he is.
And then . . . A delicious shiver ran down her back, making her skin tingle. She went back into the bathroom and studied her reflection. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks rosy. All shadows from the nightmare were gone.
‘I think you just found a cure for panic attacks, sugar,’ she murmured to herself, smiling at the notion.
Now she was late, though, and needed to hurry with her makeup and clothes. Rather than pick through the makeup bag Maggie had included when she’d packed her overnight suitcase, Daphne dumped its contents on the bathroom countertop, creating a small mountain of lipstics, eyeliners, and compacts of blush.
Then she froze, staring. An antique silver compact sat on top of the pile. The compact had been at the bottom of her makeup drawer in her bathroom at the farm. In Maggie’s haste to get her packed and on the road to Ford, she’d scooped the contents of the entire drawer into the bag.
Daphne had almost forgotten she’d left the compact there. She always almost forgot – until she needed it again. Or more accurately, until she needed what was inside.
Had she had the Beckett nightmare while sleeping at the farm, this compact would have been the first thing she would have reached for. She opened the compact now, revealing the folded paper tucked within.
Carefully she unfolded it. The letterhead read West Virginia State Department of Health. Her voice was but a whisper as she read the first line aloud. ‘Name of the deceased: Wilson William Beckett.’
The original document she’d received from Claudia Baker was in her safety-deposit box, but she’d hidden a copy wherever she slept – in a wig box in the closet of her bedroom at home, in a box of tampons in the drawer of her nightstand at the condo, where Ford would never look, and in this compact in the bathroom drawer at the farm. And when the nightmares were bad, she’d pull out the copy as tangible proof that Beckett really was dead. That he could no longer hurt her.
But it was a lie. He wasn’t dead and he could hurt her. He’d tried to kill Ford.
She refolded the paper, put it back in the compact, and dropped the compact in her purse. Get dressed and get the certificate to Joseph.
Thursday, December 5, 6.58 A.M.
Joseph firmly closed the adjoining door and adjusted himself again. Looking down, he cursed. The bulge against his zipper was obvious.
The early bird knocked a third time. ‘Joseph? You okay?’ Deacon called.
‘I am fine,’ he ground out, grabbing a sweatshirt from the gym bag he’d left on the table. Holding it in front of him as nonchalantly as possible he opened the door to Deacon, who held a box of doughnuts in one hand, his laptop in the other. ‘You’re early.’
‘Good morning to you, too.’ Deacon tossed the doughnuts on the table. ‘Last time I bring you breakfast. How’s Daphne?’
Delectable. Joseph had to fight a shudder. The image of hims
elf dropping to his knees and burying his tongue inside her taunted him and he drew a hard breath.
‘She had a bad dream about Beckett.’ Joseph busied himself making a pot of coffee, giving himself a moment to regain his composure. ‘But she’ll be okay. Did you see Kate this morning?’
‘She left with Simone and Maggie just before the screaming started. Something about a quest for chocolate chip pancakes. Heavy on the chocolate. I’ll brief her later.’
‘We should have McManus and Kerr here soon.’ Joseph looked over, saw Deacon reading the newspaper. ‘Any of our news make the front page?’
‘Nope. Not yet. I expect that’ll change, though.’
‘Especially when the reporters get wind of Beckett.’ Joseph groaned quietly. ‘Shit. I forgot to tell her.’
‘Tell who what?’
‘Tell Daphne that Beckett doesn’t have a death certificate in the system and that the FBI agent she talked to doesn’t exist.’
‘Shit. That mucks things up.’
‘Exactly. I’d like not to blindside her with that in front of the others.’ Joseph checked his watch. McManus and Kerr were a little late. ‘Can you call Grayson, Bo, and Brodie? I need to talk to her before the locals get here.’
‘Sure.’
‘And start wrapping your mind around this one – when she calmed down after that scream, she remembered that the gas man who unwittingly helped her escape knew where the cabin was. It was on his route.’
Deacon’s eyes widened. ‘Holy hell. It’s been thirty years. Hopefully the same gas companies are still around.’
‘Got a better idea?’
‘Nope.’
‘All right then.’ Joseph went back into the hall and knocked on Daphne’s door. Now that the locals were due, he didn’t want to compromise anything by having them see him moving freely between their rooms.
She opened the door, fully clothed in jeans and a sweater, munching on a slice of toast. ‘I was leaving to come to your room when my breakfast arrived. You ordered me enough food for an army. You want some of it?’
‘No thanks.’ He followed her into her room, giving her a cautious look. ‘I need to tell you something.’
Her hackles rose as she closed the door. ‘What happened?’
He let out a breath. ‘There’s no death certificate for Beckett in the system.’
‘That’s impossible.’ She looked up at him, confusion in her eyes. ‘I have a copy. With a seal and everything.’
‘Well, since he’s not really dead, that the certificate was a fake isn’t that big of a stretch. That isn’t the big thing. There never has been a Claudia Baker with the FBI.’
She froze, then swallowed the toast with a gulp. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Somebody lied to you. Set you up to think you were giving a statement. There’s no record of a Claudia Baker in the Bureau, in the DC office or anywhere else.’
She sank onto the sofa, stunned. ‘That means . . . what does that mean, Joseph?’
‘I don’t know yet. But Bo wants answers. He might be less . . . friendly than before.’
Her eyes widened. ‘He thinks I’m lying?’
‘He doesn’t know for sure,’ Joseph hedged. ‘He wants to talk to you himself.’
She looked up sharply, studying his face. ‘Does he think you’re covering for me?’ Joseph hesitated. Shrugged. ‘He doesn’t know for sure,’ he said again. ‘Do you need a minute to regroup?’
‘No.’ Her expression had grown hard. ‘Let’s do this.’
She grabbed her handbag and followed him back to his room, her breakfast forgotten. Kerr and McManus had arrived and were eating the doughnuts. On the phone were Bo, JD and Brodie. Kate wasn’t able to get to a secure place to call, and Hector still stood watch over Ford.
‘Good morning,’ Joseph said. ‘We’ve got a lot of new developments so let’s jump in. First up, a possible ID for Doug. One of the neighbors of Odum’s house in Timonium reported seeing Doug try to buy superglue at the local drugstore. We weren’t able to get any photos from the store’s surveillance video, but we forgot about the superglue itself. Dr Brodie?’
‘Local uniforms are at the store now,’ Brodie said. ‘JD and I are about five minutes away. We’re hoping the package Doug touched is still in the store. If it’s not, the store has a record of anyone who bought superglue in the past two weeks, since everybody who buys it is carded. If someone’s bought that specific package, we’ll try to track them down. Hopefully they’ll still have the packaging in their possession. We’ll keep you up to date.’
‘Thanks. We’ll keep our fingers crossed. Second.’ Joseph glanced at Daphne, saw her jaw set grimly. It grew tighter as he explained the situation concerning Beckett’s death certificate and the non-existent Claudia Baker.
Bo cleared his throat. ‘Can you tell us exactly how you were contacted by the woman claiming to be Baker?’
‘I wrote to the FBI to ask whether they ever provided security for the families of informants whose information about a killer could endanger other members of the family. I said it was for a school project, a paper I was writing. I put the letter with all the outgoing mail at the Elkharts’ DC house. A few days later I got a visit from Agent Baker.’
‘Why did you write a letter?’ Bo asked. ‘Why didn’t you call or go in person?’
‘I didn’t call because I didn’t know who was listening to my calls. I’d just moved into my ex-mother-in-law’s house in Georgetown. She was very strict and didn’t let me have any contact with the outside. I had a tutor and a doctor, that was all.
‘When Agent Baker showed up, I was terrified that Nadine – my ex-mother-in-law – would find out. But she was taking her daily nap and my tutor was out sick so nobody saw me talking to the agent at the front door. I didn’t want Nadine to be angry. I was pregnant and fifteen and she had promised my baby a good life. I wasn’t about to get thrown out for breaking the rules. The agent said she knew who I was, that she’d searched the files and had finally found my story.’
‘How did she say they found out?’ McManus asked.
‘She said that my letter sounded like more than a school project, so she checked unsolved cases, found Daphne Sinclair and Kelly Montgomery. She said it didn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math. Plus, she could see my resemblance to the newspaper photos she’d found of me at eight years old.’
‘Plausible,’ Bo admitted.
‘Thank you,’ Daphne said sweetly, but Joseph wasn’t fooled. She was pissed at having to defend herself.
As well she should be. ‘What happened next?’ Joseph asked her.
‘She told me she’d wait for me in the park the next day if I could get away. My tutor was still sick the next day, so I slipped out during Nadine’s nap and met Baker in the park. I told her the story. I even gave her Beckett’s name. She said she’d see what she could find out and for me to meet her again the next day. I did, and that’s when she told me that Beckett was dead, that there was no reason to proceed.
‘I wanted to believe her, but I was afraid for my mother and then for my baby. I wanted to be sure that Beckett really couldn’t hurt them, so I contacted the state records department in West Virginia. They sent me a form to fill out and return by mail to get the certificate. I had one more follow-up with Baker and told her I’d requested the death certificate, but that the records office said it would be a month. She got it for me faster. Later the copy from the records office arrived.’
‘Do you still have the death certificate?’ Bo asked.
‘I have the original one I was given by Baker in my safety-deposit box.’ She opened her handbag and took out her silver makeup compact. From it she withdrew a folded piece of paper, so worn it was falling apart. She gave Joseph a quick glance. ‘I have a copy with me. I’m giving it to Agent Carter right now.’
Joseph stared at her for a moment before taking the worn piece of paper. ‘It’s a photocopy of a death certificate, Bo. It says Wilson Beckett, gives his date of dea
th as the year before Daphne made the request. There appears to be a seal, looks like it’s raised on the original. It’s signed by the county coroner. Says cause of death is myocardial infarction. Beckett had a heart attack. It looks official.’
Joseph passed it to McManus, keeping his eyes on Daphne’s face. She wasn’t looking at him and that bothered him.
‘We’ll check out the county coroner who signed this,’ McManus said, ‘but I think I recognize the name from other documents from that period. Why do you keep a copy with you, Miss Montgomery?’
Yeah, Joseph thought. I want to know that too. And why you didn’t mention it when we were talking about this last night.
Her cheeks had grown flushed with embarrassment and she kept her eyes on her hands. ‘I don’t carry a copy with me all the time. I have nightmares. Most of the time they’re about Beckett. When I wake up I have panic attacks and sometimes I get them in the daytime too. I have various methods of controlling these attacks. When they get really bad, I look at that death certificate to prove to myself he’s really dead. That he was anyway. I’ve got several properties and often decide to sleep at one versus another on short notice. I needed to keep that certificate handy, wherever I was. I hid the copy I kept at the farm in this compact. It was in the makeup bag that Maggie packed for me yesterday. I didn’t know I had it with me until I was putting on my makeup this morning. That’s all.’
‘Okay,’ Bo said. ‘We’ll need a description of Baker, if you remember.’
‘I’m happy to. It has been twenty years, but I’ll do my best.’ She finally met Joseph’s eyes and he saw apology. She hadn’t wanted to surprise him with the copy of the certificate. He wondered why she had. ‘Can we talk about the gas man now?’
‘In just a minute,’ he promised. ‘First we need to figure out who knew you were planning to reveal Beckett to the FBI, because somebody didn’t want you to do it. Beckett himself would have a reason to keep you from talking, but he had no way to know your plans. We have to assume your mail was intercepted by someone. Who would have had access?’
‘Nadine, Travis. My tutor. Any of the servants.’
‘Hal Lynch, too?’ Joseph asked and she frowned.