As Darkness Fell Read online

  Had the killer merely left the interstate and driven the twelve miles along the state highway, winding up in Prentice with the urge to kill tearing at his soul? Or was it someone Sally knew and trusted? A betrayed lover?

  But if there had been a lover, the Martin family had never heard of him. Their story was that Sally had flunked out of Auburn University last semester and had come home to get her act together before returning to school. Now she was dead.

  Sam had no reason not to believe the parents. Their grief seemed heartbreakingly genuine. Besides, Sam’s gut feeling was that the killer had picked Sally randomly or from some search criteria only he understood. He’d stripped her naked, but there were no signs of sexual assault.

  Still, Sam was fairly sure the perp was male. The MO wasn’t that of a woman. The knife, the nudity, even the marks on the breasts all indicated that the killer was a guy, either one strong enough to overcome the victim or charming enough to have convinced her to go with him willingly.

  And unless Sam had this all wrong, the guy wasn’t through with Prentice yet. Nor was he through with Caroline. Sam had no evidence to support that or even to prove that the note left on the reporter’s window was from the killer. It was all instinct. The stock and trade of any homicide detective worth his paycheck.

  His mind went back to Caroline Kimberly. He’d done some checking on her this afternoon. She was new at reporting. New to Prentice, as well. Could she be…?

  No. No way was she in this with the killer. And he doubted seriously she’d faked that note just to draw more attention to her reporting. Still, it never hurt to check out all the angles.

  After all, his instincts weren’t infallible. Peg’s death was proof of that. He walked back to the desk and made a note to himself to call Sylvia in records tomorrow and have her run a more thorough check on Caroline Kimberly.

  BY WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON Caroline had run out of things to write about Sally Martin’s murder, but the town had not run out of their avid fascination for details. She didn’t know if it was due more to their fear or their curiosity for the morbid, but the Prentice Times was selling twice as many papers as usual.

  John was pleased with her work, but he kept pushing her for more articles. He wanted interviews with Sally’s neighbors, her family, the people she worked with, even her high-school friends. It was almost to the point where anyone who’d ever passed Sally Martin on the street could get his or her name and opinions in print.

  “I’m making a Starbucks run,” Dottie said, walking through the office with pen and notebook in hand. “Who wants what?”

  Dottie was their teenage assistant who came in two afternoons a week to earn extra credit for her journalism class. Caroline used her to proof copy occasionally, but mostly she filed or ran errands for John. And went for coffee for those who wanted something other than the thick black goop John brewed.

  “A caramel latte,” Caroline said.

  “Nonfat milk, medium?”

  “You got it. I’m a creature of habit.”

  “In the old days reporters all lived on straight black coffee,” John said.

  “Yeah, yeah, we know,” one of the grunt reporters said. “And walked a mile in the snow barefoot to get a good story.”

  That brought a rumble of laughter. Caroline went back to her typing. She was trying to stretch five good sentences from one of Sally’s friends from Auburn into half a column. She didn’t know about the old days, but being a reporter these days was tough enough.

  Ron Baker stopped by her desk, which he made a habit of doing a couple of times a day when she was in the office. She usually didn’t mind. He was even newer at the paper than she was and didn’t quite fit into the camaraderie routine yet.

  Fitting in was always harder for the nonreporters, but Ron was nice. Pushing fifty, a little shy, but a hard worker. His main job was seeing that the newspapers got to the carriers and the dispensers every morning, but he was a kind of jack-of-all-trades and John took advantage of all his skills. Today he was putting up some new shelves in the supply room.

  Ron looked over her shoulder. “You must get tired of writing about that murder every day.”

  “I wouldn’t, if there were something new to say.”

  “No new leads, huh?”

  “If there are, the cops are keeping the news to themselves.”

  “What do you think of that detective they put in charge of the case? Sam…something or other.”

  “Turner.” What did she think of Sam Turner? Now that was an interesting question. Rude. Irritable. And sexy. “I haven’t been around him enough to form an opinion yet.”

  “Not doing much about finding the killer, is he?”

  “Hopefully there’s more progress than we know about.”

  Ron nodded. “Guess I better get back to my shelves.”

  But after he left, the question of Sam Turner stayed on her mind. Maybe she should do an article on him. He was certainly fascinating in his own way. Kind of a man’s man, but there had been that minute in the park when he’d picked up on her fear and had actually seemed protective. And the way he’d looked at her when she’d first opened the door in the satin dress had been a little heated. He’d recovered fast, though.

  The bottom line was that he was all business. Which probably wasn’t a bad thing when there was a killer on the loose. She just needed to remember that any interest he showed in her was all business, too.

  She still had Sam’s card in her pocket, but fortunately she hadn’t had to call him to report any more contact from the weirdo who might or might not have been the killer.

  But since she had his card in her pocket, perhaps she should call him. She was a reporter, after all, and he was the detective in charge. If he had new information, the public had a right to know. And this wasn’t because now that she was thinking about him, she really wanted to hear his voice or have him suggest they get together. Sure he was sexy and masculine to the core, but this was business. All business.

  She pulled the card from her handbag, checked the number and punched it in.

  “Sam Turner.”

  “Hi, Sam.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Caroline Kimberly, reporter with the Prentice Times.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  The concern in his voice surprised her and made her feel a little guilty for calling the number he’d given her to use in case of an emergency. But she’d called, so she had to say something.

  “Nothing’s wrong. I was just working on an article for tomorrow’s paper and I thought you might have a statement to make.”

  “If you want a statement, call someone in PR.”

  “I’ve tried that. There is no one in PR, only whoever happens to be manning the phones.” The silence grew awkward. “I’m sorry if I caught you at a bad time.”

  “You didn’t. I mean you did, but I don’t know when a good time would be. The only statement I can make is we haven’t made an arrest.”

  “Does that mean you have a suspect, or suspects?” She was really pushing it now.

  “It means I don’t have a statement except that we haven’t made an arrest.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “Yeah.”

  The man’s conversation skills were abysmal.

  “If you get any more messages,” he said, “call me immediately. It’s important that you do that. Don’t play with this guy, Caroline. He’s dangerous. Remember that.”

  There was the concern again. Sam Turner was a hard man to figure.

  “I promise I’ll call. I’m just your basic coward when it comes to dealing with murderers.”

  “Good. Cowards have a much better chance of living to old age.”

  She thanked him again, said goodbye, and that was the end of that. Feat accomplished. Results nil. Still, Sam stayed on her mind.

  “Do you have that copy for me?” John asked, stopping at her desk with cup of goop in hand.

  “Give me twenty minutes.”r />
  “Make it ten. You write too much filler, anyway. Cut to the chase. It makes what you have to say more powerful.”

  She went back to her typing, but it dawned on her that perhaps Sam should have been a reporter. If fewer words translated to powerful, he’d have won a Pulitzer.

  CAROLINE BREATHED a sigh of relief as she pulled the car into her garage and killed the engine. It had been a long day and she was ready to slip out of the black pumps that were starting to squeeze her toes, pour a nice cold glass of chardonnay and watch a rerun of Will and Grace.

  The garage, a fairly recent addition, sat a few yards behind the two-story house in the spot where a carriage house had been. The walk from the car to her back door was a pain when the weather was cold or rainy, but tonight it was clear and the brisk air felt good.

  Only, tonight the area next to the garage was darker than usual. Much darker. For some reason, neither of her outdoor lights were burning, though they were on a timer and should have switched on at dusk. Probably a temporary power outage had them off schedule. Fortunately, she’d left the outdoor light over the back door on so she’d at least be able to see well enough to fit the key into the lock.

  Something moved in the bushes behind her. Her heart slammed against her chest, but when she turned, it was only a cat that she’d startled from the bushes. Constant talk of murder had her spooked.

  As she neared the house, she noticed a small package propped against the back door. She stopped in her tracks. The package was probably perfectly harmless, but no one had ever left one there before.

  What if it had been delivered by the same man who’d left the note on her windshield? He knew what kind of car she drove. Maybe he also knew where she lived. He could be here now, lurking somewhere in the shadows and watching her the way he’d obviously watched her that night in the park. She couldn’t see him, but it was almost as if she could feel his presence.

  Her heart pounded so loudly that if he was anywhere near, he could surely hear it. Probably even smell her fear. A killer. And her only defense against him and his knife were the keys in her shaking hand.

  And there was nowhere to run.

  Chapter Four

  Caroline made a dash for the door. So far, so good, but her hands were shaking so badly that she had to try twice to get the key into the lock. Finally she was able to turn it. The door swung open and she rushed inside, giving the package a kick so that it slid across the threshold and onto the tiled kitchen floor.

  Once inside, she slammed the door shut and fell against it, twisting both the lock and dead bolt into place. The package was still on the floor. A small white bag, folded over at the top, like the kind that came from McClellan’s Bakery. It could be anything, maybe something a neighbor had left. She’d probably overreacted, panicked at nothing. There was only one way to find out.

  Still she procrastinated. Instead of opening it, she went to the sink and filled a glass with tap water, letting the cool stream splash over her fingers and hands. She drank every drop, then finally stopped and picked up the white bag.

  It weighed only a few ounces. Nothing too dangerous could come in a package that small. She unfolded the top and peeked inside. A cookie. A damn heart-shaped cookie. And she’d practically had a coronary over it. She was definitely not cut out for the crime beat.

  She almost laughed as she took the cookie out of the bag, but the sound caught in her throat. Beneath the cookie was a note on the same sort of sticky paper as the one that had been on her windshield.

  The cookie slipped from her fingers and fell to the cold ceramic tile, crumbling into a thousand pieces. She picked up the note, holding it by the upper right-hand corner with two shaking fingers.

  Hello, my beautiful Caroline. I read your stories about me every day and know you are thinking of me the way I am thinking of you.

  Happy Valentine’s Day.

  “Damn him.” She hadn’t even remembered that it was Valentine’s Day and the only reminder she’d gotten was from a lunatic. She pushed the toe of her shoe into the cookie crumbs and ground them as if she were putting out a lit cigarette, the way she’d like to grind his head. How dare he try to suck her into his twisted life?

  But she couldn’t let him turn her into a shivering mass of nerves. She’d already spent way too much of her life like that, fighting the demons that lived in her nightmares, remnants of a life she didn’t even remember.

  Still shaken from the panic, but determined, she crossed the room, picked up the wall phone and dialed Sam’s number.

  SAM READ THE NOTE for the second time. He’d expected it, just hadn’t known precisely when it’d come.

  “What do you think?” Caroline asked as he placed the note back into the plastic bag for evidence.

  “I think he’s one sick bastard.”

  “But do you think it’s really from the man who killed Sally Martin, or just some kook seeking attention?”

  “There’s no way to be sure, but either way, we have to assume he’s dangerous.”

  “Why does that not make me feel better?”

  “You’re a smart woman.”

  “So what do I do, Detective?”

  He watched her pad over to the sofa in her bare feet, sit down and curl her feet up under her. She was wearing sweats the color of peaches. She looked incredibly vulnerable, and much too soft to be a reporter.

  “You could get the hell out of Dodge. Go somewhere this ghoul can’t find you and stay there until he’s caught.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Sure you can. All you have to do is give up the story.”

  “I know what you think of reporters, Sam, but we’re not all bottom feeders. The press is important. People do have a right and a responsibility to stay informed.”

  “You have me all wrong. I don’t have anything against reporters unless they interfere with my doing my job.” But this wasn’t about him. It was about her. “Your leaving town for a little while won’t destroy the free press, Caroline. There are plenty of reporters not being stalked by a lunatic who can handle this assignment.”

  She stared into space, frustration etched in the lines of her face. “Running away is not an option. In the first place, I have nowhere to go and no funds to go on. Secondly, I need this job to pay the bills. Besides, if I leave, who’s to say this man won’t just find someone else to focus his sick attentions on?”

  He couldn’t argue that. “So what’s your solution, Caroline? Just go about your business and wait for the next gift, or note, or whatever else he conjures up in his depraved mind?”

  “No.” She met his gaze head-on. “He obviously reads the newspaper. Maybe I should write an article encouraging him to communicate with me more directly. If I could talk to him, we could set a trap for him.”

  Or she could just go out and commit suicide, Sam thought. It would amount to the same thing. “You’d be playing the killer’s game. You think you’ll get inside his head, but he’ll get inside yours.”

  “I’m not a fool, Sam. I won’t be manipulated.”

  “You already have been.” His phone rang. He excused himself and went to the kitchen to take the call.

  “What’s up?” he asked when one of the cops from the precinct identified himself.

  “Just heard from the local TV station. They got another call.”

  He muttered a couple of well-chosen curses. “A body?”

  “Caller didn’t say. Just gave specifics as to where they should go.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “Cedar Park. It’s on Jackson Avenue, in the Hunter’s Grove area. That’s where those historic homes are located.”

  Cedar Park. Three blocks from where he was sitting right now. “I’ll be there in five minutes. Call Matt. I want him there, too. And get me a crew to work crime-scene detail.”

  When he broke the connection, Caroline was standing right behind him.

  “He struck again, didn’t he.”

  “They’re not sure. I have to g
o.”

  “Where?”

  He ignored the question. “Stay here and keep your doors locked.” He knew that telling her to stay would do about as much good as telling that to the stray dog who’d parked himself on his doorstep.

  When he left, she followed him out the door.

  “I GOT A COUPLE of great closeups before Officer Friendly herded us back,” Steve said. “John’s gonna love us.” Steve moved his camera from his right shoulder to his left.

  Caroline marveled at her photog’s enthusiasm for gore. “Nice you could make it this time.”

  Steve was like a grinning porcupine, with his short spiky hair. “Hey, I’d have made it last time if you’d told me what was waiting for me. Doreen always gave me a heads-up on stuff like this.”

  “I didn’t know what it was the last time, but your job is to come when I call.”

  “Okay. Just made that one little slip. Don’t have to hit me over the head with it. I’m your guy. Besides, John called before you did tonight. Told me my ass better be here, not that he’ll run any of the really good stuff.”

  “John must have gotten the word about a second after the TV station did,” Caroline said.

  “Be nice to hear about something before the TV folk do every once in a while. But who can compete with TV?” Steve said. “Hey, let’s grab a six-pack and get down to the newspaper office with our goodies.”

  “You go ahead.”

  “All right. Catch you later,” he said, and loped away, his long, skinny legs at odds with his fat gut. Steve was only four years younger than she was, but life for him was still a six-pack and a party.

  She pulled her jacket tighter as she watched him go, then turned back to the activity in the park. There were only a few guys left. Sam, of course, and a few other cops, some uniformed, some not. Channel Six had left almost immediately, no doubt in time to make the ten-o’clock broadcast with late-breaking news. As usual, the Prentice Times would be several hours later with their late-breaking coverage, so she’d be expected to supply a lot more detail.