Intimate Strangers Page 18

  She paced the living room for an hour, the way Mark had done earlier. Finally, when she felt like a pipe bomb about to explode, she marched back into the office. “You are not going down to meet Bill Bauder on his home territory,” she shouted.

  Mark whirled around in the desk chair, a startled expression on his face. “I wasn’t planning to,” he said.

  “Just what were you planning?” she demanded, placing her hands on her hips and glaring at him.

  He sighed. “I’m not planning to walk into a trap. I sent him back a message saying that I wouldn’t meet at the newspaper office. I told him I’d let him know the time and place later. If he still wants to get together, he can play by my rules.”

  She breathed out a little sigh. “Good. Where are you meeting?”

  “The old foundry.”

  She considered the location, picturing the redbrick building on the west side of town that had been a small iron foundry. The property was still in private hands, but the building was long neglected. “Why there?” she asked.

  “Before Veronica died I was asked to evaluate the place as a possible retail venue. I’ve studied it. I can hide out and watch him arrive and I can stay undercover until I know it’s safe. Does that meet with your approval?” he asked, an edge in his voice.

  She nodded. “But I have one important demand.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “If you’re not taking me with you, you can’t leave me here without transportation. I mean, what if something happens and I have to bail out?”

  She watched several strong emotions chase themselves across his face.

  “Let me work on that,” he muttered.

  IT WAS JUST BEFORE DARK when Mark got ready to leave. “Wait fifteen minutes, then send the message to Bauder with the time and place,” he instructed.

  Molly nodded tightly.

  He knew that she wanted him to tell Bauder to forget it, but he knew just as surely that he had to keep the appointment. Nothing had gone right since he’d come back to Perry’s Cove, but now he was going to change that or die trying.

  He left Molly in the office, then headed for the kitchen to moisten his parched lips with a glass of water. A flash of movement made his head jerk up to see that she had followed him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a voice that wasn’t quite steady.

  He carefully set down the glass. “About what?”

  “Saying you couldn’t go to Bauder’s office. Telling you I needed to have a car.” She gestured toward the driveway where two rental cars had been delivered for a sizable extra payment by a company in the next town.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Mark…” She crossed the room quickly and wrapped her arms around him. Her face was against his chest as she said, “Please be careful.”

  He held her close.

  “You’re important to me,” Molly whispered.

  “And you are to me,” he replied, his fingers combing through her silky hair. He wanted to stay. He wanted to tell her that he loved her. But he didn’t have the right to do that, not after the way things had started after he’d come back to Perry’s Cove—and not until he pulled himself out of the swamp that he’d waded into. So he contented himself with holding her for another few moments before easing away.

  “I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry.”

  She made a small sound that might have been agreement. He forced himself to turn away and step through the door, feeling her eyes on his back until the door closed. Then he sensed that she had moved to the window, but he didn’t look because he knew he might turn around and go back into the house.

  Instead, he climbed into the midnight-blue Ford that the rental car company had delivered.

  He had the carryall with him. It held the Glock he’d taken away from one of the thugs. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to use it, but keeping his appointment with Bauder unarmed seemed foolhardy.

  Staying under the speed limit, he headed for the old foundry, then parked on a side street of moderately priced homes about a quarter mile away. Once, the building had been off by itself, but development had crept up to the edge of the property. That was one of the reasons he hadn’t recommended using it for retail purposes. Even if the owners spent the money to get the building into shape, shoppers’ cars would clog the neighborhood streets.

  But now there was only residential traffic, and not much of that, he noted as he walked toward the building.

  The weed-covered lot was fenced off, but there were wide gaps in the chain links big enough to drive a truck through.

  The message he’d asked Molly to send Bauder had set the place for the meeting on the west side of the building. He arrived from the north and made his way around the structure, evaluating its condition as he went. The eight years since he’d done his study hadn’t been kind to the property. Debris littered the grounds, and someone had sprayed graffiti on the walls.

  He looked around at the site, wondering if this was really such a great location. But it was too late to change his mind now. Well, not too late, he reminded himself. He could still call Molly and tell her not to send the message to Bauder.

  He could take her with him and just walk away from Perry’s Cove.

  The temptation to ask her again was burning a hole in his gut. Maybe she’d even agree to go. But he couldn’t live with himself if he did. In prison, the guards had taken away his feeling of self-worth. When he’d gotten out, he’d decided that the way to get it back was to figure out who had set him up for Veronica’s murder. He’d thought he could do it. Too bad it was proving to be more difficult than he’d anticipated. He’d come here looking for one guy. Now he knew he was fighting a conspiracy.

  But that didn’t change how he felt. If he gave up now, he’d be admitting defeat. And he simply couldn’t do that.

  His jaw set in a grim line, he brought his focus back to the building, looking for the metal stairway that led to the second floor. If it was sound, that was where he intended to wait for Bauder.

  MOLLY LOOKED at her watch. Mark had been gone for thirteen nerve-racking minutes. Her fingers itched to send the message and get it over with, but he’d been specific about what he wanted, so she sat there waiting. Finally, the second hand swept past twelve, and she brought up the Notepad message Mark had written and pasted it into an e-mail to Bauder. Of course, there was no way to know when the newspaper editor would pick it up, but Mark was betting that he was waiting by his computer.

  She didn’t expect a reply, but she sat staring at the screen for several minutes. Finally she got up and wandered back to the family room where she’d long since cleaned up the pieces of the puzzle box. But she hadn’t wanted to throw them away. They were in a plastic grocery bag that she’d found in the pantry.

  Now, because she needed something to occupy her mind, she reached into the bag, pulling out some of the pieces and turning them over in her hands. She couldn’t get out of her mind that Phil had made the box seem so important.

  Maybe there was some clue etched into the wood, she thought as she examined the pieces. She didn’t find anything on the outside. But when she turned over one three-inch strip of wood, her hand stilled. Taped to the interior surface was something she hadn’t seen before—something that made her whole body go rigid.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mark tucked himself into the dark recess under the stairs, pressing his back against the wall as he drew the gun from his belt and held it down beside his leg the way he figured an undercover agent might.

  The light was fading, and he was pretty sure that Bauder wouldn’t be immediately able to spot him hiding here. But the moon had risen, and unless a bank of clouds drifted across the silver orb, he’d have a good view of the newspaper editor.

  If he showed up. There was always a chance that Bauder didn’t like the meeting place and would choose to stay home. In which case, some rethinking would be in order.

  Endless minutes passed, and Mark had almost given up when he heard the crunch of s
hoes on a place where the blacktop had crumbled.

  Bauder walked hesitantly around the building, stopping a dozen yards from where Mark was hiding.

  “Where are you?” he asked in a low voice.

  Mark let him wait for several long seconds before answering, “Where you can’t see me. Put your hands up. I’ve got a gun trained on you.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “You just have to take my word for it. Put your hands up.”

  To Mark’s satisfaction, the newsman raised his hands above his head.

  “Why did you want to meet with me?” Mark asked.

  Bauder shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “To warn you that poking into the Mike Randall problem could get you in a lot of trouble.”

  “Very charitable of you.”

  “I don’t want to see you get killed.”

  “Why not?”

  Bauder sidestepped the question and said, “Why don’t you just tell Randall that you’re risking your life by sticking around Perry’s Cove, and you want out.”

  “Because I’m not the kind of guy who just gives up and goes away,” Mark replied.

  “Things have gone too far for them to back down.”

  “Them? Are you speaking as one of the group?”

  “I’m speaking for myself.”

  “And who are your associates? Oliver Garrison, certainly. And Doris Masters.”

  “What do you know about them?” Bauder demanded.

  “You called the meeting. Tell me something I haven’t already figured out.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, is Hammer in on the deal?”

  “No.”

  Could he trust that? Mark wondered. He didn’t have a chance to ask another question. Before he could open his mouth, he was stopped by a blast of gunfire. Each shot registered separately on his consciousness. He counted five.

  Bauder slumped to the ground in a pool of blood, as bright lights flicked on from somewhere, illuminating the area. Mark stayed where he was, hoping the shadows still hid him.

  Silence hung in the air. He had just ducked farther under the stairway, when he heard another shot and felt a bullet whiz past his ear. If he hadn’t leaned down at just that moment, he knew he would have been hit.

  The sound of a car horn split the night. He looked up and saw a vehicle racing across the blacktop, headlights off. He knew he was trapped.

  He raised the gun in a two-handed grip, prepared to defend himself. His finger was squeezing the trigger when he heard Molly’s voice. “Mark, no!”

  At that moment he realized that she must be in the car.

  With a sick feeling in his chest, he lowered the gun as the vehicle screeched to a halt beside him. His hand scrabbled for the door handle. Then, he flung himself into the front seat.

  Before he slammed the door closed behind him, Molly lurched away, making a tight circle around the now-lighted parking lot. Another crack of gunfire split the air, and another.

  “Get down,” Mark shouted above the pounding of the blood in his ears.

  Molly ducked below the level of the dash, but she kept driving, heading for one of the holes in the fence. With her head down, her aim wasn’t entirely accurate, and the side of the car tore against the cut edges of the chain links as it squeaked through.

  As soon as they were free of the barrier, she took off, barreling down the street as though the devil were after her.

  Maybe he was.

  Mark looked over his shoulder. He saw another car gaining on them.

  Molly made one turn after another, weaving through the neighborhood like a kid in a skateboard marathon. He kept his head and shoulders turned, watching their rear as she zipped down an alley then came out and made a quick right turn.

  The vehicle behind them disappeared, and Mark let out the breath he was holding. “You lost him.”

  “Let me make sure,” she answered, keeping up the same speed. A block later, he saw a side road that led into a scrubby area where there were no houses.

  “Pull in there,” he said, pointing to the narrow lane.

  Molly did as he asked, driving into a narrow track that led across a large vacant lot. They came out in another development.

  “Is Bauder dead?” she asked.

  “He took five slugs. He was lying in a pool of blood. I can’t believe he survived.”

  She let the answer hang in the air for several seconds before asking, “Is it safe to go to the highway?”

  “I wish to hell I knew,” he growled. Was it better to wait here, or take a chance on the road? “If we make a run for it now, there’ll be one car looking for us,” he said, thinking aloud. “If we wait, that could give the bad guys time to organize a posse.”

  “Then let’s make a run for it,” Molly answered.

  “Okay.”

  She found the entrance to the highway and hesitated for several seconds before turning on her lights and heading toward their hideout.

  He watched their back. When he was pretty sure they were home free, he switched his gaze to her. “What the hell were you doing there?” he demanded, struggling to keep his voice from turning rough. “You were supposed to stay out of this. I almost shot you!”

  She glanced at him briefly, then fixed her gaze back on the highway. “It came out okay.”

  “Don’t scare me like that again,” he growled. “What the hell were you doing there?”

  “I came because I found a message from Phil taped to the inside of the puzzle box.”

  That was the last thing he’d expected to hear.

  “I couldn’t throw the pieces away,” she explained. “After you left, I needed something to occupy my mind, so I started going through the wreckage, looking for some clue. There was a very thin piece of paper taped to the inside of one of the pieces.”

  “But how? If we couldn’t get the box open, how did Phil get anything inside?”

  “The only thing I can figure is that he carefully took it apart then carefully put it back together.”

  Mark thought about that. “It must have been a lot of detail work.”

  “He was a real craftsman when he wanted to be.”

  “Yeah. I remember.”

  “I guess he was feeling really ambiguous about the note. He wanted to leave a record, but he wasn’t sure whether he wanted me to find it.”

  “I wish he’d been more direct.”

  “I guess he couldn’t be,” Molly said. “He knew that if anybody found his record of what had happened, it could get me killed.”

  Mark reached to squeeze her hand. “Yeah. But now that you’ve found the note, you’d better tell what it said.”

  “It said…” She heaved a sigh. “It said that there was a conspiracy to frame you for murder. Which I guess you already figured out. But there was other stuff, too. It said Bauder was part of it. That’s why I couldn’t leave you there.”

  “You put yourself in danger!”

  “So did you.”

  “You have Phil’s message with you?”

  “Yes, but I don’t want to turn on the inside lights.”

  He nodded in agreement, then forced himself to wait. In the driveway of the house, she pulled up by the side door, opened her purse and reached inside. When her hand emerged, she was holding a small, folded strip of paper.

  Instead of reaching for the paper, he reached for Molly, pulling her from behind the wheel and crushing her against him.

  He clung to her with all his strength, and she held him just as tightly.

  “Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” he said, his voice going low and rough.

  “Oh, Mark,” she murmured, her hands stroking his back and shoulders and hair. Finally, she raised her head, her eyes searching his. “I was right about Phil. He…was smack in the middle of it.”

  “That’s not your fault, Molly.”

  She nodded. “Let’s go in, and you can see for yourself what he had to say.”

  “Okay,” he agreed, th
inking that under ordinary circumstances he’d call the authorities and report Bauder’s shooting, and the attack on himself and Molly. But these were far from ordinary circumstances.

  She was standing nervously in the kitchen when he stepped inside and closed the door.

  Better get it over with, he thought as he took the paper she was holding and walked to the light over the sink.

  The writing was small and cramped, and it took several moments before he was able to make sense of it. Words and phrases jumped out at him.

  The note was written to Molly. Apparently, Phil had been afraid to tell anyone the sordid story of what was going on in Perry’s Cove. Yet he’d felt the need for confession.

  Dear Molly,

  If you are reading this, you have broken into the puzzle box. I’m sorry for what I have done. I got sucked into a situation that I thought would solve our financial problems. Instead, it’s led to a trumped-up charge of murder against an innocent man.

  Mark read that phrase again. A trumped-up charge of murder. What that sounded like was that Veronica wasn’t dead—but that he had been framed for her murder anyway.

  He continued reading.

  They said Mike Randall would never go along with something illegal. Or maybe it was just that his wife and Oliver wanted him out of the picture.

  He digested that and kept reading.

  I let myself get swept along in their scheme. At the time it made sense. Then one day I woke up and realized what we’d done.

  Mark stopped and thought about what he’d read. So Oliver had been having an affair with Veronica. He’d wondered if something was going on between them. But now Oliver had a new love—Doris Masters.

  He read on, trying to take it all in. Phil had been deep into a plot with many of the other antique dealers, and other people in town as well, including Jerry Tilden. Jerry wanted to go from so-so builder to hotshot developer.

  Phil had signed on to an elaborate scam. The plan was to buy the property where the antique mall was located and develop it as a high-priced resort. That was why they’d wanted it to look as if there were problems with the building, so it would make sense to tear the structure down.