Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [88]
“Something important?” Kendra asked when she emerged from a trip to the ladies’ room to find Adam standing as if in a trance, staring out the window, his cell phone still in his hand.
“What? Oh, maybe. Look, they’re letting passengers on board our flight. Let’s get ourselves settled in, maybe we can grab a little rest between here and Philly.” He took her arm.
“Is that your way of telling me that you’re not going to tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s my way of telling you that I will tell you once I’ve put it all together.”
She’d been tempted to ask, but didn’t. Once seated on the plane, she closed her eyes and tried to relax. When she fell asleep, her dreams were a murky collage of faces, of mouths moving but no words emanating forth. Edward Paul Webster and Christopher Moss. Her brother, her mother, Emmy Moss. Father Tim. Adam . . .
It wasn’t until they arrived in Philadelphia and Kendra saw Miranda Cahill waiting for them at the gate that she began to sense that Adam was keeping more than his suppositions from her.
“Where did you leave your car?” Adam asked Miranda, the appropriate greetings having been exchanged.
“Right outside the terminal door.”
“I thought no one was permitted to leave cars unattended in the airports anymore,” Kendra noted.
“It’s not unattended,” Miranda told her. “One of Philly’s finest is standing guard waiting for us to claim it.”
They entered the concourse, Kendra walking between the two agents, trying to keep up with their long strides, wondering when Adam was going to tell her what was going on and why Miranda was waiting for them when their plane touched down.
“Is this it?” Adam asked, pointing to a Taurus sedan next to which stood a uniformed police officer.
“Yes.” Miranda nodded.
When Adam asked “May I have the key?” Miranda tossed it to him, then paused to have a few words with the officer who’d been watching the car.
Adam unlocked the passenger side door, and held it open for Kendra, then went around to the driver’s side. Once behind the wheel of the car, Kendra in the front seat next to him, Adam asked, “How would you feel about a little company for a few days?”
“Company? At my house?” A smile tilted her lips. After the intensity of the past few days, a little down time with Adam in the midst of the Pines could be just what the doctor ordered.
“That’s right.”
“You mean, you?”
“No, I mean Miranda.”
“Oh,” she said, trying not to let her disappointment show. Whoopee.
He was watching Miranda chat with the police officer she’d left in charge of the car.
“Adam, would you please tell me what’s going on?”
“Roll your window down and tell her time’s up, will you?” was all he said.
She did, and moments later, Miranda was sliding into the backseat, waving good-bye to her admirer.
“Did you pack a bag with clothes for a few days?” Adam asked.
“Yes, it’s in the trunk. Now are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“You don’t know either?” Kendra turned in the seat, somewhat hampered by her shoulder restraint.
“No. All he said was to pack for a few nights and get a rental car and meet your flight.”
“Miranda’s going to stay with you for a few days,” Adam told them both.
“I already got that much. Why?” Kendra demanded.
“Because I don’t like the way this whole thing is playing out.” Adam drove onto I-95 and headed south. “Let’s start putting things into perspective, shall we?”
He accelerated, passing a white stretch limousine, before continuing.
“Six months ago, Kendra moves back East. A few months later, a serial killer starts leaving bodies all within the area she’d be covering if the Bureau called in a compositor. And she was called in. She’s seen on television wearing a small gold cross around her neck. Within twenty-four hours, corpses start showing up wearing similar crosses. And then Miranda does a little investigating and finds that the earlier victims all had tiny plastic tortoiseshell butterfly clips in their hair, which their nearest and dearest have confirmed they never saw these women wear, by the way.” He paused, trying