Undying. V.K. Forrest

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      Macy was done by midafternoon and made arrangements with the homeowners to return in a week. By then, she would have had time to look at the photographer’s prelim shots and have a better idea of exactly what she wanted her to take for the spread.

      Ordinarily, Macy would have gone home. Home to read. Home to work. Instead, she drove east, not knowing where she was going or why. She wasn’t surprised when the disposable cell phone on the car seat beside her rang.

      “Special Agent Kahill,” Macy said into the phone.

      “You were expecting me.”

      “I don’t give my number out to many people,” she said glibly.

      “If you’d give me your permanent number, this would be a whole lot easier.”

      “But it wouldn’t be as much fun, would it, Special Agent Kahill? You wouldn’t be able to spend all those hours contemplating who I am and why I picked you.”

      “Good point,” Fia agreed.

      They were both stalling. Macy could feel the dread again, creeping up with long, black claws. In the moment of silence, she knew Fia felt it, too.

      “You were right,” the FBI agent said on the other end of the phone. There was no emotion in her voice.

      “Where?”

      “Outside a little town called Accomack on the eastern shore of Virginia.”

      Macy knew the area. She knew the whole country. She’d been to almost every state in the Union. Driven through most. Running. Always running.

      “Maggie?” Fia said after a moment.

      “I’m still here.”

      “I want you to think about meeting me. There,” she said.

      “There?” Macy shook her head. She signaled, glanced over her shoulder and passed an SUV pulling a pop-up camper. She tried not to look at the happy faces of the family inside as she cruised by. “Oh, no. I’m not going there. I don’t want to see them.”

      “No. You don’t have to,” Fia said quickly. “It wouldn’t be allowed, anyway. Let me go to the scene, then we could meet. Maybe you could help me out. Help us catch this guy.”

      “I can’t help you,” Macy said incredulously. “This was a bad idea. I should never have called you. I’m going to hang up now.”

      “No, no. Don’t hang up. Maggie?”

      Macy signaled and edged back into the right lane.

      “Maggie, listen to me. I don’t know what your connection is to the guy, but I know it’s got to be personal. I know you want me to catch him.”

      Macy didn’t say anything.

      “If you didn’t want to help catch him, you wouldn’t keep calling me. You wouldn’t keep checking on the cases. You wouldn’t keep making sure we were doing our job.”

      “I…I just call because I want him caught. He…he’s a monster.”

      “It’s more than that. We’ve got plenty of monsters out there, Maggie. This is personal, somehow, between you and him. You want to help me. You need to.”

      Was that true? Did Macy want to help the FBI catch him? The idea was ridiculous. She couldn’t help. What could she do? She was helpless. She had always been helpless when it came to him.

      “Maggie?”

      “I…I don’t know if I can do it,” Macy said, her voice shaky.

      “I think you can.”

      Macy gripped the wheel, staring straight ahead. She was going in the right direction. She had been for more than an hour. It was as if she had known, subconsciously, where the murders had taken place. It was as if she had known she would go this time. She could be there in a couple of hours.

      “Maggie?”

      “I’ll think about it.” The phone beeped in her ear. “Look, my time’s about to run out on this phone. I’m going to have to go. Sorry.”

      “Maggie—”

      Macy hit the End Call button and tossed the phone on the car seat beside her. She wanted to turn the car around and head back to her cottage.

      She didn’t.

      Couldn’t.

      Chapter 4

      Arlan watched Fia set her cell phone on the console between them. He glanced out the window at the scenery flying by. Green grass. Trees. She was driving a good fifteen miles over the speed limit on Delaware Route 1 South. She always drove this car too fast. She’d had the old BMW for years, a six speed. Arlan owned a pickup truck. He didn’t understand Fia’s need for speed. Being immortal, they had forever.

      “Weird call,” he commented when she said nothing about the conversation he’d just overheard.

      She kept both hands on the wheel, ten and two o’clock. They had learned to drive together around 1910. The two of them had spun circles in a cornfield for hours. Fia had laughed, hanging out the open window, letting the wind blow her then short-cropped red hair. It had been a Model T pickup belonging to one of the old guys in town. Arlan wished he still had that Model T. He wished he could see Fia laugh the way she had laughed that day. But they had been young. Seen less. Killed fewer.

      “What’s she got to do with this?” He pointed his index finger in the direction of the cell phone.

      “I don’t know exactly.”

      Arlan watched Fia. He couldn’t see her eyes because of her black Ray-Ban sunglasses. They looked as good on her as they did on Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. Better. Very clandestine and FBIish. “You don’t know what she’s got to do with the case? Is she an informant?”

      She lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “Sort of. It’s an unusual situation.”

      She СКАЧАТЬ