Hush: A Thriller Part 8

At the very least, she had to accept that the FBI-the man beside her-most likely had done the same thing.

Luckily, the possibility had first occurred to her while she was still in her apartment, still able to take certain steps to cover her a.s.s. Call what she'd done her contingency plan. The only question now was whether or not to go with it. The alternative was to do nothing, and wait.

The uncertainty of it made her want to jump out of her skin.

It didn't help that he was making her nervous simply by sitting there.

His mouth was unsmiling, and his thick, dark brows formed two straight lines over his eyes. Seen by the uncertain freeway lights, his face was all hard planes and angles. The rugged strength of his jaw belied the calmness of his eyes. He was looking straight ahead, out through the winds.h.i.+eld at the busy road, and she saw that his eyelashes were short and bristly and his nose was straight except for a slight b.u.mp on the bridge. Crammed into her car, he looked to be about the size of an NFL linebacker. An NFL linebacker who was all muscle and att.i.tude.

Not a man anyone in her right mind would choose to mess with. Or lie to.

Unfortunately, under the circ.u.mstances she didn't have a whole lot of choice.

Oh, the tangled web we weave...

"So you think George still has the missing money?" Bradley asked. The question, seemingly out of the blue, was startling enough to cause a hitch in her breathing.

Her reply was cautious. "What makes you think I think that?"

"If you think Jeff-and the others; yes, I know about them, four close a.s.sociates of George's have died violently in the months since he was arrested-was killed to send a message to George to hand over the money, then you must think the money is still available for him to hand over."

His face, and voice, revealed absolutely nothing. Riley felt herself starting to frown and immediately stopped: it's perfectly logical of him to a.s.sume that.

Isn't it?

Careful, she warned herself, mindful that her brain synapses might not be firing at one hundred percent just at present.

"It's not so much that I believe it," she said. "It's that I think a lot of the people who George defrauded believe it."

He nodded agreeably. "They find it impossible to accept that that much money is simply gone." Riley didn't say anything, and he continued: "I have a working theory-and that's what I was heading to your apartment to talk to you about-that Jeff wasn't killed to send a message to George. I think he was killed by someone who was trying to torture information about the whereabouts of the missing money out of him." Another unreadable glance slid her way. "What do you think?"

An eighteen-wheeler roared past her window just then, shaking the small car, providing her with a providential reason to glance away, as well as an excuse for any change in expression she might be exhibiting as she dealt with what had just morphed from a worry into an electrifying certainty: He knows.

For a moment she couldn't breathe.

Stay calm. Impossible under the circ.u.mstances. Okay, stay focused.

What could he know? At a minimum, everything her attacker knew: that she had Jeff's phone. That she'd taken it from Oakwood.

Maybe a whole lot more.

Then again, maybe not.

In either case, her best move now was to go ahead with the plan. Done right, it should allay Bradley's suspicions while at the same time getting rid of that d.a.m.ned murderer-attracting phone.

Be cool. Then, Go for it.

"I think you might be right." Sitting up, ignoring the quick spin the interior of the car did around her at the sudden change in her elevation, Riley did her best to project a wide-eyed recognition of a just-revealed truth along with amazement at his keen intelligence. As that unreadable gaze slid over her face, she continued: "He wanted to know where Jeff's phone was. Right at first, right after he attacked me. He held me underwater until I was just about to die, then pulled me up and asked me where it was. When I told him, he dragged me into the bedroom and made me give it to him. Then he dragged me back into the bathroom and threw me in the tub and started trying to drown me for real. He would have done it, too, if I hadn't managed to get my hands on that comb."

For the briefest of moments, Bradley's face wasn't quite so unreadable. His lashes flickered; his lips compressed.

I was right, Riley exulted. He knew. He knew I had the phone.

"He was after Jeff's phone," Bradley said. His face was once again impa.s.sive. No inflection at all in his voice. Hah! She didn't trust that lack of expression for a minute. He was interrogating her. Subtly, thinking she wouldn't catch on. "You had it, and gave it to him."

"That's right." Riley's heart thudded uncomfortably. Lying didn't come all that easily to her, but in this case it was an absolute necessity. The question was, was the fact that she'd taken possession of Jeff's phone all he knew?

There was no way to be sure. Stick as close to the truth as possible. Reveal no more than you have to.

He asked, "Where's the phone now?"

"In the tub." True. Up next: not: "He dropped it when I stabbed him."

That penetrated his impenetrable calm for a second time. He shot a narrow-eyed look at her. "He dropped it in the water?"

Riley nodded.

"Did he get it out? Is it still there?" His voice was sharp.

"I don't know," Riley said, although she did. As soon as the paramedics had left, she'd deep-sixed Jeff's phone, sliding it silently into the water remaining in the tub-after first removing the SIM card with all the phone's stored information so that she could check out what was on it, which she meant to do the first chance she got. Any information that wasn't on the SIM card she was counting on the immersion in water to kill. She wasn't sure what that surviving information would be, exactly, but she didn't want to take any chances, especially considering how confident she was that the FBI had formidable data recovery capabilities. And when it was discovered that the phone's SIM card was missing-well, who was to say that her attacker hadn't taken it?

This way, she got to have the phone, and destroy it, too.

All she had to do now was publicly announce that she'd given Jeff's phone to the FBI, and she should be in the clear in the eyes of both Bradley and the sc.u.mbag who'd attacked her, as well as anyone else who might have an interest in acquiring that phone.

A slam dunk, if she did say so herself.

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" As he spoke, Bradley dug into his pants pocket and pulled out his own phone.

"Right afterwards, I was a little busy running for my life," she reminded him as he punched a b.u.t.ton on his phone with a savage jab of his thumb. "Then-well, you know what happened."

A moment later, presumably after somebody answered, he said into the phone, "I need you to go back to Mrs. Cowan's apartment and look for a cell phone. It should be in the tub, in the water. Get it." There was the briefest of pauses. He was, Riley presumed, talking to Bax. "Yeah, right now. And when you have it, call me. And get it dried out."

He listened for a couple of seconds longer, said, "Yeah," again, and disconnected. Shoving the phone back into his pocket, he moved into the far right lane and took the Farm and Market Road exit before shooting another glance at her.

"What was on that phone that would make someone try to kill you to get it?" His tone was more abrupt than any he'd used toward her thus far. Having subsided against the seat again while he was on the phone-she really wasn't feeling well-Riley met his gaze without so much as a blink.

"I have no idea. But if I were to guess-Jeff was looking into the deaths of those four people you mentioned earlier, the ones who were connected to his father." They were off the expressway now, and traffic was light. Margaret's house was maybe ten minutes away. Riley didn't know whether to be glad about that, or sorry. She wanted in the worst way to get out of this car and away from the man driving it, but she hated that she was going to have to add to Margaret's burden by telling her what had happened. "He was convinced they were murdered. He kept the details of his investigation on his phone." She gave a little shrug. "I don't know that that was what the sc.u.mbag was after, but it seems likely, doesn't it?"

Bradley's reply was a grunt. "So how'd you wind up with Jeff's phone in the first place?"

Riley was antic.i.p.ating the question. She had her answer all ready. It was even the truth, as far as it went. But for some reason the words stuck in her throat.

All of a sudden, she could almost see those narrow masculine feet dangling in front of her eyes again. The unnatural stillness of Jeff's body when she touched it, the horrible contortion of his face...

Her stomach clenched. She shoved the memories away. Or at least, she tried: they wouldn't go.

"I'm the one who found Jeff's body," she admitted in a constricted voice. As Bradley's brows twitched together and he slid a glinting look at her, she rushed out the rest of what she had to say. That's how she had planned it, to blurt it all out real fast like she was in a hurry to get the confession over with, which she was, although as it turned out the plan had nothing to do with how fast she spoke. She just really, really wanted to get it over with so those terrible images of Jeff would leave her alone. "Jeff asked me to meet him at Oakwood. When I got there he was dead." There was a sudden catch in her voice, and it had nothing to do with any kind of subterfuge. "I took his phone. Then I left, and called 911. Anonymously. I know I shouldn't have gone into the house, that I probably committed some hideous crime because it's been seized by the government, but-"

Her voice broke. For real. She stopped talking because she couldn't continue. The memory of how she had found Jeff was suddenly too fresh, too vivid.

He must have been so scared before he died.

She didn't realize she'd said it aloud until Bradley answered, "It would have been quick. Twenty seconds, and he would have been unconscious."

Oh, wow. Good to know I'm in a car with a man who knows that kind of thing. But this time she didn't say it, or anything at all, aloud, because her throat was too tight to allow any words to get out. The silence stretched as Riley concentrated on putting the terrible memories back where they belonged, in her mind's locked box of things she didn't want to think about.

"You loved him." Bradley slowed the car, then turned into the small subdivision where Margaret's house was located. With the garish lights of the strip malls and fast-food restaurants that had lined the main road behind them, it felt as if they were being swallowed up by darkness.

She felt as if she was being swallowed up by darkness.

"Yes."

"You were divorced."

"It was-I wasn't in love with him. We stayed friends. Family." Her throat ached. It felt as if her insides were being twisted into a giant pretzel. "I-knowing he died like that is really hard."

"Did he know anything about where George might have hidden the money? Could information like that be on his phone?"

What? He was asking that-why? Riley's mouth dried up. Her stomach turned inside out.

When she didn't answer, he looked at her. "Mrs. Cowan?"

Breathe. Just breathe. Only she couldn't. There wasn't any air. She fumbled at the door to find the b.u.t.ton that rolled down her window, pressed it. The window didn't budge. Of course: she'd forgotten the front pa.s.senger side window was stuck.

It's my fault that Jeff's dead. That was the thought she'd been avoiding since she'd found him. It slammed into her then with all the force of a speeding train.

"Could you pull over please?" she asked, perfectly polite. "The window's stuck, and I need some air."

He threw her a quick look.

"Hang on," he said. She didn't know what she looked like but it must have been pretty bad, because he immediately pulled over to the side of the road.

As soon as the car stopped, Riley opened the door and got out. The headlights speared a metal mailbox at the end of a driveway about twenty-five feet away, and then as the lights were cut the mailbox disappeared into deep shadow. The whirring of the cicadas was loud, but not any louder than the buzzing in her ears. They were on a narrow residential street lined with small houses with neat yards. Except for a few glowing windows and the uncertain light cast by the fingernail moon, it was now completely dark. No one in sight. She took a few shaky steps away from the car, into parched gra.s.s that crackled faintly beneath her feet, toward the protective shadow of a large yew tree that anch.o.r.ed a scruffy hedge that presumably separated one yard from the next. Keeping her back turned to the car, she closed her eyes.

The corollary thought that she'd been doing her utmost to keep at bay hit her then with full force: I could have warned him. I should have warned him. Then he might still be alive.

s.h.i.+vering, she crossed her arms over her chest to ward off the sudden chill.

The twenty seconds of consciousness Bradley said Jeff would have had was plenty of time to be scared. To say nothing of whatever he'd endured before the electrical cord had been wrapped around his neck.

The thought of Jeff experiencing the kind of terror that she had felt when her attacker had tried to drown her made her fists clench. The difference was, after that he'd actually died.

Oh, G.o.d, why?

The world wobbled around her. Sorrow joined with fear and guilt to bring a lump to her throat. Her chest was so tight it ached. Even though she was out in the open, she couldn't seem to draw in enough of the warm, pine-scented air to fill her lungs. Lightheaded suddenly, she dropped into a crouch, balancing herself with one hand in the p.r.i.c.kly gra.s.s.

You've got to get it together. You've got to keep it together.

"Mrs. Cowan."

Bradley. He'd turned off the car-she only realized that she'd been able to hear the engine rumbling beneath the noise of the cicadas now that she could not-and was beside her, close enough so that it sounded like he was practically on top of her. In fact, he sounded way closer to her ear than any six-foot, three-inch man should sound to the ear of a woman who was practically huddled in a ball on the ground. Fighting for composure, trying to take another deep breath-her lungs just would not fill-she opened her eyes.

He was crouched in front of her, a large blurry shape in the dark.

Blurry because she was crying.

d.a.m.n it.

Even as she blinked furiously, doing her best to rid herself of the tears, his hand curled around her upper arm just above her elbow. It felt warm against her chilled skin. The way he was looking at her-was surprisingly sympathetic.

Riley realized that she was actually starving for a little sympathy right then, a self-pitying thought that made the tears flow faster.

It's too dark: you can't even see his expression. You're imagining it. d.a.m.n it! d.a.m.n it!

"Do you feel sick?" Bradley asked. Forget sympathy. His voice was totally impersonal.

Gritting her teeth, she shook her head.

"You probably want to get back in the car. Your mother-in-law's house is just a couple of minutes away." He spoke with calm, cool detachment. "Or I can take you to the hospital."

Riley shook her head again. Forcing speech out of her constricted throat was hard. She did it anyway. "I'm fine."

Her voice sounded like it had been dragged through sandpaper.

"Sure?" he asked, and she nodded.

Still holding on to her arm, he stood up, drawing her up with him. It took every bit of willpower Riley possessed to get to her feet, but she managed. Once again she tried sucking in air with limited success. Her knees felt shaky, but she locked them. The ground threatened to tilt, but she knew that if she refused to give in to it the dizziness would soon settle down. Bradley was so close that she automatically used him for support, grabbing on to a handy lapel.

He gripped her wrist, to steady her, she thought.

"You're not going to faint on me, are you?"

Whoa, there was actually an inflection in his voice. Like he was a little worried she might.

"No." Her response came out husky, scratchy. Her chin was tilted up so that she could look at him, but she still couldn't read his expression: the pale slip of a moon was behind him, which meant that all she could see of his face was the faint gleam of his eyes.

He was looking down at her. Belatedly, she realized that if the moonlight was behind him, it was falling full on her face.

His eyes narrowed. His breath eased out through his teeth with a sound like a hiss.

Riley realized he was seeing the tears that were sliding down her cheeks.

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