chapter Eight
Mark Willoughby was a burly man with dark hair and a chin that thrust outward as if he was expecting a fight at any moment. He eased down into the chair opposite Seth and even though his lips curved into a smile, it was obvious by the seething emotion in his eyes that he was ticked.
“You don’t look happy to see me,” Seth said as he leaned back in his chair across from his ex-brother-in-law.
“I wouldn’t exactly call this a happy family reunion,” Mark replied. “So cut the crap and tell me why I’m here.”
“Vicki Smith.” Seth watched intently Mark’s reaction to the name.
The only response was a slight narrowing of Mark’s green eyes. “What about her?”
“I understand you were seeing her at the time of her murder.” Again Seth watched intently for any telltale subtle expression that might reveal something Mark didn’t know he’d given away.
“Seeing her sounds a little more serious than what was going on. Vicki and I had dinner together a couple of times before she was killed. That’s all, just a couple of casual dinners. She was still totally hung up on Todd. We were just friends, that’s all.”
He’d gone on long enough that it had begun to sound defensive. “Did you beat her like you beat my sister?” Seth asked.
Mark jerked up in his chair, his chin thrust forward as he fisted his hands on the top of the table. “You’re out of line, Seth. I never laid a finger on your sister, never.”
He unfisted his hands and appeared to relax against the back of the chair. “I won’t deny that I made a lot of mistakes in my marriage to Linda, and I’m sorry every day for those mistakes, but I was never violent with her.”
“But you hated her when the two of you divorced,” Seth said.
“I didn’t want the divorce. I wanted my family to stay intact more than anything. I’ve never gotten over Linda.”
“And maybe that’s why you’re murdering dark-haired women who remind you of her?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mark scoffed. “I know you’ve never liked me, that you never thought I was right for your sister, and I might have been a controlling ass when I was married to her, but I’m not a murderer. Jeez, Seth, how could you even think of me that way and allow me to have my daughter living with me half the time?”
“When was the last time you saw Vicki Smith?” Seth asked, trying to take the personal out of the conversation.
“Two nights before her murder. We had dinner together. Of course she insisted we eat at the Golden Daffodil. It was obvious she wanted Todd to see her with me, maybe make him realize what he’d thrown away.”
“And after dinner?”
“I took her home, safe and sound. I don’t know what happened to her after that. All I know for sure is that I had nothing to do with her murder. Besides, the way I hear it Vicki’s murder is tied to Rebecca Cook’s death. I didn’t even know that kid and I sure had nothing to do with Tamara Jennings.”
Seth asked a few more questions and then released Mark. After he left the interrogation room Seth remained seated at the table, his thoughts a chaotic mess.
Was it possible that Mark hid such a hatred for Linda that he’d come up with an elaborate plan for murder? Kill three dark-haired innocent women as a ruse and then attack the object of his rage, thus confusing the investigators? Somehow he wasn’t sure Mark was smart enough, wily enough to come up with such a complicated plot. Besides, he and Linda had been divorced for years. If he was responsible, then why would he explode now? As far as Seth knew there had been no inciting incident, nothing out of the ordinary that would cause him to suddenly begin killing women. He and Linda seemed to have found a comfortable peace with each other, a peace that went beyond the sharing of their daughter.
And if his confusion about the crimes weren’t enough he had to deal with his conflicted emotions where Tamara was concerned. His heartbeat caught painfully in his chest as he thought of those moments when he’d been unable to find her in the building.
Raw terror had raced through him, and it hadn’t been the terror of an agent who had lost a key witness, but rather that of a man for a woman.
He didn’t want to go there. He didn’t want to feel the kinds of emotions she evoked in him. It was emotional suicide for him to allow himself to think there could be anything real, anything lasting between them.
She had a life someplace else, a life that hadn’t included him until somebody had buried her in a sand dune. He raised a hand and rubbed at his temple where a headache threatened to take hold.
He had two more interviews this afternoon and then he could call it a day. He expected nothing new to come from Rebecca’s best friend or one of Vicki’s coworkers, but he intended to leave no t uncrossed and no i undotted.
He’d even considered the possibility that the killer was a woman since there appeared to be no sexual motivation to the crimes. But he’d dismissed the idea almost as quickly as it had occurred to him. If the women had been basically comatose when taken to the dunes, it would have required a man’s strength to get them from a parking area to the place of their burial.
It had to be a man. But who? And why? And would Tamara ever retrieve the hidden memories that might solve the case? Certainly he had some men who were topping his suspect list.
Henry Todd appeared a likely suspect for Vicki’s death. It sounded like Vicki had become something of a stalker chick once Henry had moved on. Maybe she became such a pain he’d decided to get rid of her permanently. But that didn’t explain his reason for killing Rebecca Cook.
It was just after six when he called it a day and found Tamara in the break room. Her face wreathed into a smile and he wasn’t sure that she was glad to see him or just thankful her boredom was over.
It didn’t matter. Her smile warmed him like the sun after a cloudy gray day. “You ready to break out of this joint?” he asked.
She popped up out of the chair. “I can’t tell you how ready.”
“I thought maybe we’d stop by the pizza place on the way home. Order a large supreme to go.”
“Sounds like a great plan to me,” she agreed.
They were quiet on the way to the pizza parlor. When they got there, they ordered the pizza to go and sodas to drink while they waited.
“Just so you know, I’m probably going to pick off most of the pepperoni and eat it,” she said, finally breaking the long silence.
“Just so you know, I’m probably going to pick off all the black olives and eat them,” he replied.
“That makes us good pizza buddies.”
He smiled at her, knowing she was eager to hear what he’d learned during the day but also aware of the fact that she was giving him time to unwind.
She would make a perfect life partner. She seemed to know instinctively what he needed before he’d identified the need. She understood what he did for a living and that it was a large part of who he was as a man.
He took a sip of his drink and stared around the restaurant, willing away these kinds of strange thoughts. For years he’d told himself he was satisfied being alone, cooking for one and having his space to himself.
But Tamara made him think of dinners for two, of conversation to fill the long hours of an empty evening. She made him think of making love to her before closing his eyes to sleep, awakening in the morning to share coffee across a kitchen table.
He was grateful when the kid behind the counter announced their pizza was ready for pickup. He grabbed the box and together he and Tamara headed back to his truck.
“We’ll eat first, and then we’ll talk about our days,” he said as they pulled away from the restaurant.
“Does that mean you want me to keep my mouth shut unless it’s open stringing mozzarella cheese?” she asked, her voice filled with the lightness of a tease.
He flashed her a fast grin. “No, it just means we only talk about pleasant things while we enjoy eating.”
“Deal,” she agreed easily.
Fifteen minutes later they were seated at Linda’s table, the pie box open before them and each with a bottle of beer. “Nothing better than hot pizza and cold beer,” she said as she reached for a slice.
“You’ve got that right.” He smiled in amusement as she carefully picked off each piece of pepperoni and popped them into her mouth.
He grabbed his own slice and as they ate they talked about Linda and Samantha and about Kansas City and how much he loved it there.
“The best part is from the downtown area within a fifteen-minute drive you can be standing in the middle of a pasture. It’s a great combination of big city and small town all rolled into one,” he said.
“Sounds nice.”
He nodded. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Is Amarillo your hometown?”
“Born and raised there,” she answered automatically and then her startled gaze met his. “Ah, that was sneaky, you tricked me into having more memories.”
“I didn’t mean to be sneaky,” he protested. “I just asked a question.”
He watched her as she chewed a bite of the pizza, her brow wrinkled with deep thought. “I remember Amarillo,” she finally said. “And I remember my apartment. What I don’t understand is why thinking about it makes my heart fill with a terrible grief? Why when I think about it, I don’t want to go back there.”
“But you know you’ll have to sooner or later,” Seth reminded her. “This time now, here in Amber Lake, is just a single moment in a million moments that make up your real life.”
“But this moment feels so real,” she replied softly.
“Eventually it will just feel like a dream.” The conversation continued back to safe subjects as they finished up their meal. They cleaned up the kitchen and then moved into the living room where they shared the activities of their day while seated at opposite ends of the sofa.
“I leaned about the value of vitamin B on The Doctors and watched a couple of old reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond,” she said. “That was the high point of my day.”
“Are you prepared to do it all over again tomorrow?” he asked.
“More interviews?”
He nodded and then told her what he’d learned from the interviews he’d conducted that day.
“So Henry Todd can be tied to both dead women,” she mused as she kicked off her sandals and pulled her bare feet up beneath her on the sofa. “I told you I had a bad feeling about him.”
“But is your bad feeling about him because you encountered him as a killer or because you think he’s just an average slimeball?”
She leaned her back against the sofa cushion and released a sigh. “I don’t know. The night that I apparently ‘disappeared’ I ate at the café. I can’t imagine that I would have run into Henry anywhere else.”
“Still, we don’t know where you went after you left the café,” he reminded her. “And we aren’t sure Todd spends every minute of every night locked away in his restaurant.”
She worried a hand through her hair, the silky lengths causing Seth’s fingers to itch with the need to touch it. “It’s strange that this here and now feels so much more real than the memories of my former life. I have a serial killer apparently hell-bent on burying me in a sand dune and I know probably the best thing I could do is leave town, but I’m not ready to go back to my half-remembered life yet.”
“And I’m not ready to let you go yet,” Seth said, then hurriedly added, “at least not until you have all your memories back and know exactly where you fit.”
There she was again, messing with his mind, looking so soft and welcoming, forcing his thoughts to go places they had no business going.
“What if I never remember that night?” she said, bringing him back to the crime.
“With or without your memories, we’re going to find this guy. Eventually he’s going to make a mistake or we’re going to find a clue. I’m not leaving Amber Lake until this killer is caught or killed.” A swell of tension filled his chest as he thought of the man he sought.
He was obviously a planner...organized and bright. How many women would die before he made a mistake? How many bodies would be uncovered in the dunes before they finally got a break?
Just that quickly he was exhausted. The thought of the murders weighed heavy in his soul, as heavy as the thought of letting Tamara go.
Maybe it was best if Tamara headed back to Amarillo. She was right. If last night was any indication, she had a serial killer actively seeking to finish what he had begun with her. Surely she’d be safe in Amarillo even without all of her memories.
He gazed at her for a long moment, drinking in the sight of her lovely features, the long length of her shiny hair, and realized he was more than a little bit in love with her.
“Maybe it really is time for you to go home...back to Amarillo,” he finally suggested tentatively, although they were the last words he wanted to speak.
Her eyes opened wide. “But I’m not ready,” she replied, an edge of panic making her voice a bit higher than usual. “I don’t remember enough. Besides, we know the killer wants me, otherwise he would have just taken another woman rather than trying to break into the window of the bedroom where I was sleeping.”
Her lower lip began to tremble and her eyes filled with the sheen of tears. “You’ve all said he’s smart and if he has any information at all then he already knows where I live in Amarillo. What’s to keep him from following me there? Who says he has to adhere to his pattern of burying women in the Deadman’s Dunes? What if he just kills me and buries me someplace outside Amarillo?” The tears spilled down her cheeks. “Please don’t send me home, Seth.” Her crying began in earnest, the sobs of a woman still terrified, still unprepared to face an uncertain future in a place she barely remembered.
He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand her tears. Without thinking he reached out to her and she fell into his embrace. As she wept into the front of his shirt, he could feel her heartbeat banging against his own.
“Please, Seth. Please don’t send me away yet.” The words came from her as hiccupping sobs.
He stroked her hair and held her tight, unable to imagine what fears might reside inside her head, what anxiety must burn in her soul. This place and he was all she really knew. Was it any wonder that the idea of being sent away would upset her?
She did have a point about the killer. If he had any inside information at all, if he’d heard any idle gossip around town, then he knew she lived in Amarillo. The last thing he wanted to do was send her away from here and into the arms of a killer. If he were perfectly honest with himself he’d admit that the last thing he wanted to do was send her away from him.
“I won’t make you go anywhere you aren’t ready to go,” he murmured into her sweet-smelling hair. He held her for several long minutes, until her tears had halted and the only thing he was conscious of was the soft warmth of her in his arms.
He released her, needing to separate, needing to draw enough distance from her to inhale a full breath. “You know that sooner or later you’ll have to go home.”
“I know.” She leaned back against the opposite side of the sofa and wrapped her arms around herself, as if shielding herself from something. “But every time I think about going back there I’m overwhelmed with grief and anxiety and I can’t imagine why.”
“Whatever it is, you’ll have to face it sooner or later. That is your life, Tamara, and I’m sure there are plenty of good things and good people waiting for you there.” At least that’s what he wanted for her, that’s what he hoped.
“Then where are all these good people? Why hasn’t anyone been looking for me? You all can’t even find anyone who knows much of anything about me.”
It was true. Tom and his men had tried to find people who knew Tamara, but her life had obviously been one of isolation. Other than neighbors who professed to know her only superficially and people she’d worked with on webpages who had only known her professionally, nobody had come forward anxiously seeking her. No frantic boyfriend relieved she had been found. Seth didn’t even want to examine why he was perversely pleased by this.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, his heart breaking more than a little for her. He glanced at the clock on the mantel. “We should probably call it a night. Tomorrow is going to be an early, long day.”
She nodded and stood, but as she looked down the long hallway toward the guest room he felt the tension that filled her heart.
“There’s nothing for you to be afraid of,” he said softly. “I boarded up that window this morning. Nobody is coming through it without a chain saw.”
“Then I’ll just say good night,” she said.
She turned and he watched her walking slowly down the hallway. She broke his heart and revved his adrenaline.
She paused at the door of the bedroom and turned back to look at him. “Seth, if this is just a single moment of time in a lifetime of moments, I want to spend it with you. I want making love with you to be one of the memories I take away from this experience. I don’t want being buried in the sand to be the most intense memory I have of my time in Amber Lake.”
He stared at her and felt her longing wafting down the hallway with sweet seduction. His brain worked to process all the reasons why they shouldn’t spend the night together, why if they did it would be an enormous mistake.
But his brain was trapped in a vision of her naked in the bed, in the sensation of her soft skin against his, in the fire of her lips kissing him.
He should be strong, but even as he thought it, he stood. He should be the one capable of denying temptation, but still his feet moved forward down the hallway toward where she stood.
His brain was in utter denial up until the time he stood face-to-face with her, up until the moment she took his hand in hers and only then did he completely surrender to his own desire, to his own need.