Zeitgeist Read online

  “I’m not certain what you’re getting at.”

  “I’m not listed as the owner of my house, and the utilities are in the owner’s name. He couldn’t have found me without you. When did you call your friend?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “And when did he return your call?”

  “This morning.” He frowned, and then his eyes sharpened. “You think the killer was already here, that he learned about you last night.”

  She sighed. He was in way over his head. “That’s exactly what I think. Besides my landlord, you’re the only person who knows where Valencia McDermott lives, and it’s beyond coincidence your friend called to warn you at the same time Chad was able to follow you. Your friend is dead.” She watched the color leave his face and felt a twinge of remorse at her cruelty. She’d been so long without using social graces, she’d forgotten how. She could have let him know more gently than that.

  He dug for his phone, pulling it out and punching a series of buttons. His eyes stayed on her while he held the phone to his ear. After a minute, he lowered the phone, staring down at it in silence before thrusting it back in his pocket.

  “I’m sorry about your friend.”

  “Just because he doesn’t answer his phone, it doesn’t mean he’s dead.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” But it did. He was in denial, much like she’d been after her father’s plane had exploded and she’d questioned what her eyes and ears and brain told her. Yesterday afternoon, Grant had called his friend. His friend had researched Valencia McDermott. His queries had raised flags. People had visited his friend, flying in from either Saint Paul or Massachusetts or both. Chad had gotten Grant’s location from the friend. This morning, once Chad was in place, the friend had been forced to make a call alerting Grant so Grant would lead Chad to Valencia. Afterward. Well, afterward.

  He pulled his phone back out of his pocket.

  “What kind of novels do you write?”

  He gave her a distracted look. “Romance. Why?”

  That was an odd genre for a man. She supposed he justified his stalking of her as research. “That explains it.”

  “What?”

  “Why you don’t know you can’t make the call you have in mind.”

  He cursed, powering off his phone and tossing it in the backseat. “What in the hell are you involved in?”

  Stupid, idiotic man! If he’d left well enough alone, he wouldn’t be on the run with her. Rather than tell him she didn’t have a clue, she skirted the question. “I’m guessing you didn’t notice the two black sedans passing us going in the opposite direction a half-mile before we took the I-29 entrance ramp.”

  “You’d be right in guessing that.” He looked confused and angry. She’d looked that way once.

  Fiona decided to take pity on him. “Open the console.”

  He popped open the console and, after a brief pause, pulled out a cell phone while giving her an incredulous look. “You have enough cell phones in here to start your own telephone company. Burn phones?”

  “Yes. If they lost their charge, there’s a car charger in the glovebox.”

  He flipped open the phone and powered it on. “This one’s good.” He punched in several numbers and held the phone to his ear, waiting several seconds before speaking. “Someone should check on patrol officer Thompson.” After powering down the phone, he slid it into his pocket.

  “You know you can’t use that phone again, right?”

  He swore, taking the phone from his pocket, tossing it unceremoniously over his shoulder, and frowning at the highway.

  He was a babe in the woods. She should have run him down. A few broken bones would have been preferable to what lay ahead of him. Romance. What kind of a man wrote romances? Her thoughts went to the pitiful flowerbed, which, if viewed compassionately, was more courageous than pathetic. “Why romance?”

  He didn’t look at her, and it took him a full minute to respond. “I have five older sisters. I read a lot when I was a kid. If I couldn’t find anything to read, I borrowed one of my sisters’ books. I developed a taste for romantic suspense: Mary Stewart, Helen Macinnes, Elizabeth Lowell. I tried writing testosterone-fueled, macho political thrillers, but my heart wasn’t in it, and I couldn’t find an agent. As a lark, I wrote a romance and found an agent right away, first query. I’ve now published six. They’re doing all right, paying the bills.”

  She shouldn’t be interested, but she was. “What do your sisters think about you writing romance novels?”

  He faced her, his expression alarmed. “They don’t know, and I’m planning on keeping it that way. I write under a pseudonym—Hester Stanhope—and use a photo from one of the online photo websites.”

  “Why?” She signaled for I-90 East and turned onto the entrance ramp.

  “I’d never hear the end of it. My family’s pretty traditional, with clear-cut gender roles. I’m a man. I’m supposed to write manly books.” He faced the windshield again. “Where are we headed?”

  “Saint Paul.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going home.”

  Chapter 7

  Grant stared straight ahead, pretending to watch the car’s hood bullet down a white-striped ribbon of gray, parting a sea of lush soybeans and majestic corn plants in varying shades of green. His thoughts, however, lay with Darren Thompson. He couldn’t remember whether or not the man had kids, but he knew he’d been married the last time he’d spoken with him. If Grant had known Valencia was in this much trouble, he’d never have called Darren.

  What in the hell had he gotten himself involved in?

  He darted a sidelong glance at the driver. She was an enigma, this Valencia. And he was in love with her, had been since the first time he’d laid eyes on her. She’d been sitting at one of the library’s reading tables, poring over a weighty tome, her brow furrowed, her slender shoulders stiff, her hands curled in her lap. He’d sat across from her and stared at her, liking what he saw: the warm, brown skin; the glossy, straight, blue-black hair running down her back; the large, thickly fringed brown eyes; the delicately arched eyebrows; the perfect nose; the high cheekbones; and the wide, generous mouth. She was beautiful, perhaps not the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but definitely the most exotic, calling to mind a Raja Ravi Varma painting.

  It had taken her five minutes to realize she wasn’t alone. She’d stiffened and raised her eyes to his face. He’d watched them focus, first widening with what may have been fear and then hardening with animosity. Without a word, she’d risen, closed her book, and walked away, every action measured, graceful, and controlled.

  Rather than putting him off, she’d intrigued him. He’d sat across from her as a means of initiating a flirtation with a beautiful woman, but he hadn’t been able to get her off his mind. Not only beautiful, she was mysterious. She had a backstory, one filled with pain, one turning a beautiful young woman into a bitter recluse.

  She’d called him a stalker when talking to the intruder, and maybe she was right. He’d become obsessed with her. If he saw her drive past on old 77 while on one of her regular trips to Sioux Falls, he’d drop what he was doing and follow her. He’d watched her work out at the local gym, either pummeling a speedbag or, after she started taking taekwondo classes, kicking the hell out of a punching dummy. He’d driven past her while she was jogging alongside the gravel road they shared, a sweatband securing her hair, her body damp with sweat, the look on her face determined. He’d followed her to the gun range once and watched her empty a clip into a paper silhouette target, shredding a two-inch center-mass hole.

  The woman he’d first seen in the library six months ago had toughened into an Amazon warrior, fit, strong, self-confident. She was preparing for battle, but against whom? He’d assumed an ex-boyfriend, maybe an ex-husband, certainly a stalker, but she’d never given him the opportunity to ask, resisting every attempt at communication. The more he tried, the more resistant she’d become, until she began occupying his
thoughts, disrupting his ability to concentrate on anything.

  His latest novel was finished but only because he’d forced himself through the scenes, one at a time. There was no joy evident in his writing, none of the pleasure he generally took in choosing the perfect word, in varying and balancing his sentences, in applying figurative language to enhance a descriptive passage. He couldn’t submit it, not as it stood, and as bland as it was right now, revision would take every bit as long as the drafting before he was satisfied.

  He’d needed to get her out of his system. He’d needed to know who she was and why she hid and prepared and hated. Her character had become more important to him than the characters on the page of a novel he may never submit for publication.

  Grant kicked himself again for having underestimated the extent of her troubles. He’d accidentally opened her car door while she was at the gym yesterday and, the door being accidentally opened and all, leaned in to make certain everything was still where she’d left it, accidentally bumping the driver’s side visor and accidentally reading the car registration before he replaced it. Massachusetts. That matched the plates. The date was another story. This registration had expired over two years ago. When he’d walked around the rear of the vehicle, he’d studied the tag. It was the right color and the right year. He’d bent down and scraped a fingernail against it. Different texture. She’d made her own tag rather than register the vehicle. Again, her actions intrigued rather than repelled. So he’d called Darren in Denver and asked his cop friend to look into the name listed on the vehicle registration.

  Darren’s voice during the phone call this morning had been strained. Grant should have known something was wrong. Darren was tough, but his voice this morning hadn’t been that of a tough cop. “I had a visit from a couple of goons last night, wanting to know why I was checking on this McDermott woman.”

  Grant had felt his own strain tightening the cords on his neck. “Mobsters?” he’d asked, assuming she was in witness protection.

  “I didn’t think to check.”

  “What did you tell them?” Grant asked, strain supplanted by a sense of panic.

  “I told them you’d asked. I gave them your phone number and address. I asked them to give you my greetings. I’m hanging up now, Grant. Take care.” Was it his imagination making him now suspect “take care” had been a warning?

  After speaking with Darren, Grant had known he’d screwed up. He hadn’t wasted any time getting out to Valencia’s place, but neither had they. Of course they hadn’t. One of them, the goon’s accomplice, had been standing beside Darren while the man made his call. Grant had gotten his friend killed.

  Shame rose at the thought of how he’d told Valencia he’d help her. He’d gotten lucky. He darted a quick glance at the singed holes in her right jacket pocket. She must have armed herself when he arrived. That’s how frightened she was.

  And angry.

  She called the thug “Chad.” She’d known him. And she didn’t have fond memories of their last encounter. Grant had still been groggy when Chad had laid out his plan for them, and he’d thought it was all over, sincerely regretting his choice in a future mate until he heard the first gunshot. Then he’d lain there and listened to the next nine. He’d lain there some more, listening to the firing pin repeatedly snap on an empty chamber. He was glad she didn’t hate him as much as she hated Chad. There was hope for him. The thought spawned an involuntary, rueful smile, not so much from anticipation of their untroubled future together as from self-deprecation. One man’s poison is—

  “What are you smiling about?” she asked, shooting him a glare.

  “Our long and happy future together on the run.”

  She scowled at the highway. “It will be neither long nor happy, of that you can be assured.”

  “We’ll see. I don’t want to call you Valencia. We both know it’s not your name. What shall I call you?”

  She continued to stare straight ahead, the skin on her face taut.

  “Rebecca. I like that name. No, you’re not a Rebecca. That’s too soft a name. Delilah? No, you’re not evil, simply troubled. How about Stacy? No, definitely not a Stacy. There’s nothing Valley Girl about you. Shall I continue, or are you going to help me out?” Grant waited for a response. She would respond; he could tell by the vein pulsing in her temple. He hoped her response was vocal, not physical, and wondered whether she’d reloaded the gun.

  “Fiona.” She didn’t take her eyes off the road, and the name emerged in a hissing breath.

  Fiona. The name suited her. “I like it. Fiona. Fiona what?” He saw her struggle for control. She’d been a long time away from her real name.

  She glanced at him, and for the first time he caught a glimpse of the woman she’d been before whatever happened had happened: Confused, frightened, despairing. The look was transitory, there and then gone, replaced by the hard glitter he’d seen that first day in the library. “Fiona Delaney.”

  Grant froze. That was about the last response he’d expected. No, not about the last. The last, right up there with Amelia Earhart. He should have recognized her from the newspaper photos. No, even if he had, he wouldn’t have thought the woman was Fiona Delaney. Instead, he would have noted a remarkable resemblance to a young woman who’d died with her father three years ago, Fiona Delaney having been on the plane with him when it exploded over the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, killing all four passengers and the pilot and injuring over a dozen bystanders when parts had rained down.

  Was this woman toying with him?

  He recalled the brief glimpse of confusion, fear, and despair on her face right before she’d decided to share her name. She wasn’t toying with him. She really was Fiona Delaney.

  It took him a while to find his voice, to find the right voice. Glib wouldn’t work. Questions could wait. She’d opened the gates to him for the first time in six months of battering her fortifications. He wasn’t certain what to say, only that he must say something. “I’m sorry about your father.”

  She laughed, a short, mirthless burst. “Thank you. And I’m sorry about yours.”

  Grant frowned at her, confused. “Come again?”

  “You being a bastard and all.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” He struggled for a grin and found one. “That was unfortunate.” He sent dear Dad a mental apology for the liberties he was taking with the truth. His thoughts went to the brother, Whitley Delaney, now sole owner of Delaney.com. She couldn’t turn to him. That in itself told its own story. “Your brother—” he began.

  “My brother hired a hitman to kill me and my father. He missed on me. He tried again today. He missed again.”

  Grant digested the brief recounting of what had been a horrifying experience, filling in the blanks. She’d known the hitman. She’d pretended to be happy to see him. He’d abused her trust, using her, and while hiding beneath a desk, she’d learned what he and her brother had done. “And who is Valencia McDermott, or do you know?”

  Tension emanated in the face she kept pointed straight ahead. “I don’t know. She wanted to change places with me. Valencia wanted to meet with my father. I wanted—it’s not important what I wanted. I’m not that person anymore. We exchanged outerwear and purses. The bomb was in my purse. It exploded when the plane reached a certain altitude. I killed my father.” She glanced at him again, this time with a hint of vulnerability. She wanted reassurance she hadn’t killed her father, but she didn’t need reassurance. Or did she?

  She’d said the man named Chad had killed her father. The only way she could blame herself for her father’s murder would be if she’d given Chad access to her purse. Enlightenment dawned. She’d spent time with Chad, leaving her purse where he had access to it. Planting a bomb capable of taking out a small plane would have taken a while. Given his experience with five older sisters, Grant knew a little bit about women and their purses. When women went out, they took their purses with them. When women were at home, they kept their purses in clos
e proximity. The only way Grant could plant a bomb in one of his sisters’ purses would be if she were sleeping, suggesting the hitman had been in Fiona’s bedroom, probably in her bed, prior to planting the bomb.

  No wonder she hated men.

  “You didn’t kill your father. If this Chad hadn’t been able to get to you, he’d have gotten to someone else. If the bomb hadn’t been in your purse, it would have been in someone’s briefcase or the caterer’s cart or the pilot’s lunchbox. I can think of a dozen ways I might have planted that bomb. Your purse was only one of many possibilities.”

  She didn’t look at him, but he saw her frown. She was considering his words, applying them to the guilt she must have borne now for three years. She wouldn’t thank him for having raised alternative theories. She’d been too long alone and too long afraid to thank anyone for succor.

  She’d think about them, though, and maybe one day she’d let herself off the hook for another person’s actions, for her brother’s actions.

  Chapter 8

  She didn’t speak again, and they drove in silence while Grant considered various conversational gambits. In light of all she’d suffered and in light of her acrimony toward him, standard conversation openers addressing weather, education, employment, or hobbies were pretty much non-starters. Also to be considered was her insistence he keep his mouth shut.

  After several minutes, he decided to chance another question, to steer the conversation where he wanted it to go: answers territory. The worst that could happen would be her deciding to shoot him and dump his body by the side of road. Although the thought gave him pause, he plowed ahead anyway. “Why did Whitley want to kill you, your father, and, I guess, Valencia McDermott?”

  She took her time responding. Based on the myriad of expressions crossing her face, she was torn between her dislike of him and her desire to discuss the situation with someone, anyone, regardless of aversion. When she finally spoke, the words emerged clipped, in a brusque tone. “I don’t know, not yet. I’m researching what I know.”