The gate's bell sounded. The reporter. The reporter.

Margaret's footsteps clicked up the hall. Around the corner, unseen, Kaitlan listened dully as she answered the bell.

"It's Ed Wasinsky."

"Yes, good! Come on up."

Kaitlan wandered out to the entryway as her grandfather and Pete appeared. Soon two men were at the door, a notepad in the reporter's hand, a camera balanced on the shoulder of his partner. Ed Wasinsky was tall and broad-chested, thick blond hair parted on the side. Wide lips, a Grecian nose. Booming voice. The guy had TV written all over him.

He looked at Kaitlan's face, and his eyelids flickered.

Her gaze dropped to the floor.

Sam, the cameraman, was a bald guy with a bulldog face and one gold loop earring. "Where can I put this?" He jerked his head toward his equipment.

"In here." Pete gestured toward the north wing, then led him down the hall.

Ed shook hands with Kaitlan's grandfather. "So good to meet you, sir. I'm a big fan."

Of course. Wasn't everybody? The man who lived to write.

"Thank you. Glad you could do this."

They chatted about books for a moment-pure insanity to Kaitlan. A killer was coming here in less than an hour, and the world just turned on. Her grandfather had thrown back his shoulders, trying to stand straight, but Kaitlan saw the strain on his face. He was tired, too tired, and he hadn't had enough sleep, and besides he was half senile, and this would never work this would never work.

She pressed against the wall, sick to her stomach.

"You need to move your car," Margaret told Ed. "Follow the driveway on around back. I'll open the garage door."

"What's up?" Ed tapped his notebook against his leg, looking to Kaitlan's grandfather. "You told me this was good."

"Oh, it's good all right. And it'll only get better."

Ed's gaze cut to Kaitlan. Curiosity shone in his eyes, mixed with something else. Empathy?

"This involve you?"

She hesitated, then nodded.

"What happened to your cheek?"

Kaitlan stared back defensively. Reporters Reporters. But for some reason she didn't want this man to think badly of her. "I got hit-twice. And I fell. Running from a madman."

His eyebrows rose. "What madman?"

"The one you need to help us catch. If this works. Which it won't."

Her grandfather huffed.

Ed c.o.c.ked his head, as if considering which question to ask next. "And if it doesn't?"

"I'm dead."

He flinched. "What-"

"You really must move your car," her grandfather said. "Immediately."

The cameraman and Pete reappeared. Margaret's hands flitted about as she reopened the door. Ed stepped out onto the porch, then turned back. His eyes found Kaitlan's. "Come with me."

She drew back like a frightened child and shook her head.

As he retreated down the porch steps, she hurried to the kitchen for a drink of water.

Placing the gla.s.s in the sink, she thought of Craig, and last night, and a half dozen red roses. Suddenly she felt his presence, right behind her, reaching for her throat.

With a cry she whirled-to see only an empty room.

She sagged against the sink, fingers to her lips. She wouldn't survive this. Just the thought of being in the same house with him. If anything went wrong, if he somehow found out she was here ...

The door from the garage clicked open. Margaret and Ed pa.s.sed by in the short hall. Kaitlan flung her head up, trying to look normal, knowing she failed badly.

Minutes ticked, ticked away toward Craig's arrival, and the next thing Kaitlan knew their group was gathered in the darkened library, its lights off and shades drawn, her grandfather pointing to the monitor, explaining to Ed what he would see. "Keep your camera on the monitor," he told Sam. "Close up."

"Wait a minute." Ed held up a hand. "This guy doesn't know he's on camera?"

"No."

"I have to check with the station then. That's secret taping-"

"You're not taping him," Pete said. "I am. You're filming me me filming him. You're okay." filming him. You're okay."

Kaitlan's grandfather nodded.

He'd actually thought of this?

Ed scratched his jaw. "Who is the guy?"

"Craig Barlow." Kaitlan's grandfather spoke the name with disdain. "A Gayner police officer and son of the police chief."

"A policeman?"

"More than that. The killer of the three women in Gayner."

Sam cursed under his breath.

Ed's jaw sagged. "What ... there's a third woman dead?"

"One's missing. You'll hear about it soon."

"You mean the gal running for town council? Martina Pelsky?"

Kaitlan's grandfather shot up his eyebrows. "You heard?"

"Oh." Margaret brought a hand to her cheek. "It was on the news this morning, D."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't have a chance-"

"I'm trying to catch her killer, and you didn't even give me this very important very important information?" information?"

Like he was going to bring it up to Craig.

"I'm sorry, we didn't have time."

Kaitlan's grandfather glared at Margaret, the confidence he'd displayed seconds ago rippling from his face. "Anything else I need to know?"

"No, you're fine."

A pitiful laugh escaped Kaitlan. None None of this was fine. of this was fine.

Ed blinked at her, then her grandfather, as if the whole lot of them was crazy. "How do you know Pelsky's dead?"

"Because I found her," Kaitlan blurted. Her voice sounded shaky, off-tune. She crossed her arms and pulled in her shoulders. Ed gawked at her, and for some reason that made her mad. "She was on my bed, in my apartment. Craig is-was-my boyfriend. He killed her, he buried her body where it won't be found, and now he's trying to keep me quiet, and because I ran from him, now he's trying to kill me too. And he doesn't know Darrel Brooke is my grandfather, so he has no idea this meeting's about him him. There. That enough for you, Mr. Reporter?"

Silence. Ed's shocked expression mirrored Sam's. Ed pulled out of it first, the experienced calm of a reporter in crisis smoothing his brow. Sympathy pulled at the corner of his mouth. "Craig's the one who hit you?"

Kaitlan's defensiveness dwindled away. She nodded.

The gate bell sounded.

Everyone froze.

"That can't be him!" Margaret burst. "It's only two-thirty."

"It has to be him." Kaitlan's grandfather paled, as if reality suddenly hit. He pushed himself into motion. "I have to answer it."

He shuffled up the north wing hall as fast as he could go, Kaitlan and everyone else chuffing behind him. In the entryway, her grandfather hesitated, visibly pulling himself together. The rest of them crowded around, muscles tense, eyes riveted to the intercom.

He pushed the b.u.t.ton. "h.e.l.lo?"

Kaitlan fisted her hands to her mouth.

"Hi, it's Craig Barlow." A car engine rumbled in the background-too quiet for his Mustang. "Sorry I'm early. And I thought I'd be late." He gave a nervous laugh. "At the last minute I had to put my car in the shop and borrow my sister's SUV."

SUV?

Her grandfather motioned for everyone to remain quiet. "That's all right, Craig. I'm opening the gate for you. You can park in front of the house."

"Thank you."

There was nothing wrong with his car last night ...

The distant clank of the gate filtered through the intercom. Sam started to move and Margaret caught his arm. "Wait," she mouthed.

The engine surged as Craig drove through the gate.

Seconds later the intercom fell silent.

"Go, all of you!" Kaitlan's grandfather snapped. "Into the library! And don't come out no matter what. Remember, he thinks we're alone."

Margaret shot him a final desperate look. "I could send him away, tell him you're sick."

"Go!"

She hung there, uncertain. Then she turned and trotted for the hall. Pete and Sam followed.

"Come on, Kaitlan." Ed grabbed her elbow.

"No, wait!" She yanked her arm away and swung back to her grandfather. "Something's not right. Why would he have such a big car?"

Her grandfather swiped a hand in the air. "Get out of here!"

"But I don't believe him."

"Go, Kaitlan, before he drives up and hears you!"

"Listen to me-"

"Get out out of here!" Her grandfather thwacked his cane against the floor. "Ed, take her!" of here!" Her grandfather thwacked his cane against the floor. "Ed, take her!"

"No-"

"Come on, there's no time." Ed clamped a hand around her shoulder and pulled her toward the hall.

Kaitlan's head twisted back for one last look at her grandfather before the corner of the hallway shut him from sight.

CHAPTER fifty-five

A heady business, meeting a murderous antagonist face to face.