Identity Crisis(103)
Carla felt ice snake up her spine. ‘All day yesterday.’ Quickly she calculated the time, and … ‘Phil,’ she spoke slowly, mostly to be able to hear her own voice above the fluttering in her ears. ‘Phil, Gleason was with me until the rain started at four this morning. We were playing cribbage. I sent him home, told him I’d call him back if anything happened.’
Carla was a freelancer; it wasn’t unusual to have some of the real Web-Z staff on stories with her, and Gleason was decent with a camera. Web-Z usually went for more fluff and human interest than she did.
‘So?’ came the reply she barely heard.
‘Nothing. I’ve gotta go.’ She disconnected and held the umbrella gripped between her neck and shoulder to steady it as she began to text. She wasn’t sure why she did it. She must be insane. With her fingers unsteady from more than just the cold, it took her three attempts at the text, but eventually she managed it and read it back, wiping residual rain from the screen. Then she sent it. To the stalker, hoping against hope that it had all been a lie and that Gleason had just been pulling her chain too.
What time were you at Thorne’s mansion last night?
The reply was almost instant. So much so, in fact, that she jumped and uttered a little yelp that caused Mike Pittman to glare at her like she was some nutter.
Not long after dark. I told you, I was home in time for a midnight snack. Oh yes, I saw the news, Carla! Who knew that our dear Tess had so many admirers?
Almost before she actually knew what was happening, Carla broke ranks from the soggy front lawn vigil and ran to the motorhome, slipping and sliding on the mud-slickened lawn and drawing the attention of several of the press in her less than graceful departure. She crawled into the driver’s seat and started the engine. How she managed to get out of the neighborhood without hitting someone or something was beyond her. In her peripheral vision she could see Mike Pittman, now standing on the sidewalk at the edge of the lawn, no doubt trying to decide whether or not to follow her. At the moment, she didn’t give a fuck what he did. This was way more than just a story.
As she hit the freeway faster than her dad would have approved of her driving in his motorhome, she punched in the Pneuma Inc. switchboard on her iPhone. She still had the number from when she was working on the story from John Day. When the operator picked up, she didn’t wait for a greeting.
‘I need to talk to Wade Crittenden. It’s urgent.’ She sounded like she’d just run a marathon.
‘I’m sorry, but Mr. Crittenden isn’t available at the moment. Could I take a message?’
She nearly hung up on the woman, but thought better of it. ‘This is Carla Flannery, I’m a journalist. I need to talk to him about Tess Delaney’s stalker. I’m serious. It’s urgent.’ She recited her cell number, then repeated it. ‘It’s urgent. I mean it!’ she said, then she hung up and stepped on the gas.
Chapter Twenty-Five
He switched off his cell phone. He didn’t want to be interrupted, not even by Carla, busy playing her little detective games. Though she was entertaining, she was just a diversion, just someone he could toy with until he got what he wanted. The fact that someone else would be getting the blame for some silly little email threats was also irrelevant. Whoever it was could be of no real consequence or he would never have gotten caught. He wasn’t jealous that someone else had gotten the attention. It wasn’t the attention he wanted, at least not yet. It was nothing, really. Nothing at all compared to what he was about to do. The man would be totally eclipsed for his petty little dabblings when the world discovered what he had planned. In the background, the television whispered. Her television. He only had it on to listen for the latest news as the Tess Delaney saga unfolded. He could hardly contain himself when he thought about the next chapter, the one no one could have ever guessed in ten lifetimes, the one even she couldn’t guess.
As he walked from room to room, he took in the scent of her; sweet, so sweet. He had caught that sweet scent in the woods the other night, but then it was contaminated by the reek of sex, by the stench of Thorne. Here, in her private space, in her flat, it was the pure, distilled, exquisite essence of her. Not of Tess Delaney, not of K. Ryde, not of the Bird Woman or any of the other people she had been in her deceptive life, but of Kendra Davis, raw, laid bare, Kendra Davis in the place where she would have never brought anyone for sex. He was sure she’d never brought Thorne here. He would have known if she had. This was the place she would keep from everyone, maybe even her closest friends. And he knew her well enough to know that here, in this place, on her home turf, she did have friends, powerful friends. But even they were no match for him. They only made the game more interesting. They would only make the final chapter more satisfying.