Twice Dead - Catherine Coulter [58]
Sherlock had said, “But if he’s not dead, sir, and he is orchestrating all this, then he already knows about Becca and is trying to terrorize her with the ultimate goal of getting to you through her.”
Thomas had said, “I know only enough to scare myself spitless, Sherlock. I want to keep a lid on all of this until I’m certain. In the meantime, I want to keep her hidden from all the cops and the FBI because I’m certain they can’t protect her from this stalker.”
Becca said over her shoulder as she led them into the kitchen, “Before anyone comes over, you’ve got to tell me who you are and why you’re here. As I told you, Adam’s cover is that he’s my gay cousin.”
Adam said as he cocked the soda can at Savich, “You want to be her other gay cousin?”
“Then what would that make me?” Sherlock said. “I can’t keep my hands off him. That would blow the cover right off.”
“Maybe we’ll be your friends, Adam. I know quite a bit about you and your background. You and I went to school together, how about that?” Savich said.
“Then what are you doing in Riptide, Maine?”
Sherlock took a glass of soda from Becca, sipped it, and said, “We’re here because of that skeleton that fell out of your basement wall, Becca. You guys wanted some help, and since we live in Portsmouth, it wasn’t tough for us to get up here.”
“How do you know where I went to school?” Adam said, his eyes dark and hard on Savich’s face.
“MAX gave me most of your particulars. It took him a while longer to find out about all your other activities. You went to Yale. No problem. Did we crew?”
Well, damn, Adam thought, it was a good idea. “Yeah,” he said. “We did crew. We also beat Harvard, that bunch of pissy little wimps.”
Sherlock wondered why Adam Carruthers didn’t want her or Dillon there. Didn’t he realize that they could help? The stalker was here in Riptide, he’d tried to kill them.
Sherlock gave Adam a sunny smile. “Why don’t we go look in the woods and try to uncover a trail for this guy?”
“Yeah,” Savich said, rising. “Then we need to figure out why he would want to kill Becca like this. It doesn’t make sense. He’s into terrorizing her. Why shoot her and end it all? He’d have no more fun.”
“Good question,” Becca said. “We haven’t had time to think about anything since it happened. Me, I don’t think he wanted to kill either of us, just scare us real bad, just announce that he was here and ready to play again.”
Becca sucked in her breath. “Oh dear, we need to get the front door repaired before our neighbor, Tyler McBride, or the sheriff come to visit. I don’t want to try to explain bullet holes in the door.”
“Let’s check for a trail first,” Sherlock said. “Then, Becca, you can tell us what the stalker said to you this time while we all repair the door.”
“You’re good,” Savich said some thirty minutes later to Adam. “You said there was no trail and there isn’t.”
Adam grunted. “Let’s go out a bit farther. Maybe we’ll see some tire tracks.”
“No way,” Sherlock said. “The stalker is a pro, which means that he isn’t really a stalker. That’s just a cover. A misdirection.”
Savich nodded. “I agree. He isn’t a stalker.”
Becca said, “What do you mean, exactly?”
Adam said, as he slowly lifted leaves some ten feet away, “It doesn’t make sense, Becca. Usually stalkers are sick guys who, for whatever strange reason, latch on to someone. It’s an obsession. They’re not pros. This guy’s a pro. This was well thought out.”
And Savich thought: If Krimakov is alive, then it’s a terror campaign, and Becca’s the means to the end. Thomas Matlock is right to be afraid. And the ending Krimakov planned wasn’t good for either father or daughter.
Becca was shaking her head. “But he sounds nuts whenever he’s called me. He called a couple of hours ago. He said much of the same things. He sounded all sorts of excited, very pleased with himself, like he couldn’t wait. I know he’s toying with me, getting a real kick out of my fear, my anger, my helplessness.” She stopped a moment, looked at Adam, and added, “The thing is, I can’t help but feel