Playing Dead_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [139]
“Cliff Warren isn’t answering his phone, and Claire isn’t answering hers.”
“I’m on my way.”
Thirty years ago he’d made a mistake that had cost him his soul.
Fifteen years ago he’d made another. But when you knew you were going to hell, protecting the new life you’d so carefully built seemed crucial.
But he knew now that it was over.
He finished digging Claire’s grave. Burying her was burying his past. He could start fresh. He’d have to leave the country; a new identity in America wasn’t going to help him this time.
He couldn’t go back to his true identity, or the new one he’d created. He’d be too easy to find. He’d taken the identity of a dead man to stay close to Claire, but it was only a matter of time before the FBI put it all together. Fifteen years of watching her, protecting her, loving her—all gone.
He was both angry and relieved.
Now he could kill her. Though he didn’t completely understand it, he’d stopped trying to figure out Claire’s deep connection to him. He’d known the day he’d seen her photograph before killing Taverton and Lydia O’Brien that Claire was his fate; but he also accepted that there was no rational explanation. Just like he knew the runaways he killed were all pale imitations of Claire.
And wasn’t Claire just a pale imitation of Bridget?
He couldn’t kill Bridget again. He wished he could. He dreamed of it, tried to re-create it, but her death had happened too fast, without thought. When he stood over her dead body he wanted to do it all over again. Experience every sensation again. And again. For everything Bridget had done to him, and everything she hadn’t.
Killing Claire would satisfy him more than the runaways. Like Bridget, he’d loved and protected Claire for years. And like Bridget, Claire never returned his feelings. She never would. Just teased him, took other lovers and rubbed them in his face. The damn Fed was the worst, the way she was all over him at the Fox & Goose. Touching him. Kissing him. Sliding her body over his, her breasts rubbing against his chest.
He’d sacrificed everything for her, and she’d never give him what he needed most from her. But he could take it. He could take everything, including her last breath.
After she was dead, he’d disappear. He didn’t have much time. It wouldn’t take the FBI long to discover Claire was missing. The truth would come out.
Claire needed to die before then.
He had his police scanner on, listening for odd chatter. If they figured it out, they would demand radio silence—in case he was listening. Radio silence was as good as announcing they were coming for him.
The sound of an approaching car disturbed his work. He jumped off the backhoe and looked into the newly dug grave. It was deep enough. He walked quickly toward the house, rounding the corner at the same time Jeffrey Riordan stepped from his car.
“You fucking lunatic!” Riordan screamed at him. “You screwed up everything. You killed Hamilton and Richie. Now the cops are all over my ass.”
What was Riordan thinking, coming out here to confront him? Bruce Langstrom was a hired assassin. Riordan knew that; he’d paid him enough money over the years. Did the idiot really think he was just another employee he could jerk around?
Riordan had a gun in his hand.
As if that would do him any good.
FORTY
Claire had the worst hangover of her life.
She couldn’t open her eyes, her tongue was thick, her mouth dry. All she wanted was a gallon of water and sleep. In the back of her mind she imagined she’d heard a gunshot, but it was quiet now. She was alone.
As she became more alert, she dismissed the idea that she had a hangover. She hadn’t been drinking. She’d been drugged.
The first sign that something was really, really wrong came from her sense of smell. She wasn’t in her house. She breathed deeply, struggled to open her eyes—but every time she opened them, they closed, the strain too much. And everything was blurry and out of focus, all light and dark with no form.
Maybe she’d passed out and Dave had taken her to the hospital. She’d been sitting on