Tall, Dark, and Deadly Read online

  “She lost an awful lot. You, her father, the drums.”

  “I heard about her father. I was so sorry. But as to her music, well, maybe she’s only misplaced it.”

  “Oh, Rowan, I guess I’m being selfish, I would have loved to have had you for a relative. How did you manage to leave it all behind?”

  He shrugged, then told her, “I guess I thought I could change the world.”

  “But you found out that you can’t change the world.”

  “No. I found out that you can change the world. What you can’t change is people.”

  Laura nodded slowly and smiled with a new understanding.

  Rowan looked toward Sam’s house. It was quiet and dark. So was Marnie’s.

  He walked to his own house, fit his key into the lock. He turned back, feeling an odd sensation of being watched.

  The night was so still. So dark… and ominously silent.

  He let himself in.

  From out on the water, he watched.

  It was so intriguing… watching people. And he could see so much from the water. People who lived on the bay loved the water, and though they protected themselves with walls in front and gated entries, they would never dream of protecting themselves from the water they loved.

  So he could see…

  Yes…

  He could see. Into their windows.

  Into their lives.

  He felt such power. Like a god, omniscient. He did have power. He’d proven it already. Power was the ability to bend others to your will.

  Power was life…

  And death.

  The breeze moved so softly, the moon played on the water with gentle, beaming kisses. And looking to the land, he could see…

  Sam. A silhouette in her window, lithe, slim, watching for something. He couldn’t see her features, of course. Just her slender and shapely form as she looked out into the night.

  Worried about Marnie?

  Or the return of…

  Her lover.

  He moved his binoculars, focusing them on Rowan Dillon’s house. It was darkened. He couldn’t see. It made him angry. He was strangely disturbed.

  He needed to leave; he had business awaiting him, the most entertaining business. And yet…

  He lingered.

  Watching.

  She seemed so forlorn. Awake at this late hour. As if she sensed something. Why, it even looked as if she turned…

  To see him.

  But of course she could not. He watched from the darkness. He loved darkness, he had learned to accustom himself to see against ebony shadows. He’d always known that his had to be a realm of shadows.

  And still, she searched. He saw the incline of her head, the way she stood. She was a beautiful woman. So intuitive, intelligent, and aware. Watching…

  As he watched.

  Oh, Sam! he thought. I can see you! I am watching… Take care, Sam. Take care!

  He thought he had come that night to watch Marnie Newcastle’s house. To see if there was any commotion yet.

  But no…

  He realized suddenly that he had not come to watch Marnie’s house at all. He had come to watch Sam.

  Chapter 6

  There was something odd about the scene.

  Rowan walked out to his front yard to get the paper, and there was a boy. He was perhaps eight to ten years old, a handsome kid with dark hair and a striking face. He stood in front of Marnie’s house, in the side yard closer to Sam’s place. The boy rocked, back and forth, staring at the house. Curious, Rowan forgot his paper, and sipped from his coffee cup, watching the boy. There seemed to be no real recognition in his eyes; the lad just stood there, watching.

  “Hey, you all right, son?” he called.

  He might as well have been talking to the moon. The boy continued to stand there, just rocking sideways on the balls of his feet.

  “Hey, you okay?” he called again.

  And again, no answer. He just stared at Marnie’s house.

  Had Marnie returned? Rowan doubted it. Watching the boy, he walked to Marnie’s door and banged on it. “Marnie! Hey Marnie, you home yet?”

  Inside, he knew that she wouldn’t respond.

  But what was the boy looking at?

  Who was the kid? Sam wasn’t married, but he had to be Sam’s guest—unless he had wandered down from one of the other houses farther along the canal. That would be a long way for such a kid to come.

  A short way, he realized, if the boy were a normal eight- to ten-year-old. But this one had something wrong. His heart suddenly went out to the boy. His brother, Ewan, hadn’t suffered from the type of neuro disorder that seemed to afflict this child. His difficulties had been physical, and yet, watching this boy, Rowan felt something of the same pull on his soul. The boy looked lost, out of this world, in need of a friendly hand.

  The boy’s gaze remained fixated on the house.

  Rowan started walking to him. “Hey, hello?”

  The boy still didn’t look at him. He just kept staring at Marnie’s place. It was as if he saw something that wasn’t there, as if he knew something…

  “Hey.”

  Rowan had come right up to him. The lad still didn’t respond. Rowan waved a hand in front of his face. Even that gesture went unacknowledged.

  But at that moment the door to Rowan’s house, left ajar when he had come outside, swung open on a gust of ocean breeze. The sounds of his stereo filtered out to the street, and to the beat of drums and a twang of guitar, the boy turned at last.

  He started walking toward Rowan’s.

  “Music. You like music. All right, that makes you a good man in my book already, son. Come on, there’s lots of music in the house. We’ll give Sam a call and tell her you’re over here. Whoever you are.”

  Sam sighed with frustration and hung up the phone. An Officer Aldridge had taken her call regarding her request to file a missing-persons report on Marnie. Officer Aldridge had seemed irritated that she had called. He told her she couldn’t file a report until the person had been missing for forty-eight hours. Call back tomorrow.

  That wasn’t good enough. Taking a stab in the dark, she asked if Detective Ted Henley happened to be in.

  He was. Teddy told her not to be so worried, that he would come out himself, do the paperwork beforehand and make sure that her concerns were taken seriously the next morning. She thanked him, hung up the phone, kicked the leg of the table, and sighed, still angry with Aldridge.

  “Gregory, it’s so frustrating!”

  Her young friend was back with her because his mother had gone into the hospital—apologetically—for an emergency appendectomy. The phone had rung at eleven—late enough, but since she hadn’t slept until the wee hours of the morning, it had seemed like a rude awakening. Gregory had arrived fifteen minutes later. She didn’t mind. Despite the fact that he didn’t speak, he was good company. She felt like a time bomb, ready to explode. Marnie was gone, no one seemed to listen, and Rowan had moved into the neighborhood and gone clubbing with her cousin. She felt mad enough to throw things.

  “Gregory?”

  She put the phone down and looked toward the television. He wasn’t seated in the chair before it. Her heart leaped instantly into her throat. “Gregory?”

  In a panic, she tore through the house, running upstairs and back downstairs. It was then that she realized he had opened the door. Her body froze with fear. The water.

  He can swim, he can swim, she reminded herself. Water was a therapy that Gregory loved. Getting him out of the water was sometimes difficult. He had tremendous strength for a boy his age, and when his mind was set and he wanted to stay in the water, it was difficult to convince him that it was time to get out.

  But the whole bay was there, endless water where a boy could easily drown…

  She sped out back. Barely daring to breathe, she looked into the pool. No sight of him. She hurried to the water’s edge, terrified that she would see his body, floating facedown. But he wasn’t there.
She raced around to the front of the house. “Gregory!”

  Frightened, she screamed his name. Gregory wasn’t just any child; he was more vulnerable than most.

  “Gregory!”

  She screamed the name again, suddenly feeling a sense of the unreal. First Marnie, now Gregory, disappearing…

  She looked toward Marnie’s house again, thinking of an old episode of The Twilight Zone in which a child had fallen beneath his bed and from there been swept into a fifth dimension. His parents could hear his cries, but they couldn’t see him, couldn’t find him; he had drifted into oblivion.

  “Hey!”

  She swung around. The call didn’t come from Marnie’s house, but from next door to it.

  Rowan was in his doorway. Again, he was in cutoffs, hair tousled, coffee cup in his hand. “The boy is here.”

  “What?” she demanded blankly.

  “The boy—you’re looking for a boy, right? He came over here.”

  She walked to his house, furious. “How dare you? What the hell is the matter with you, taking an autistic child—”

  “Whoa!” he countered, snapping back. “Your autistic child was wandering around by himself. Where were you? I take it you were supposed to be watching him?”

  So charged, she caught her breath, backing away. “I was on the phone. With the police,” she added defensively.

  He arched a brow. “So, anything new?”

  She shook her head. “No. The officer I spoke with said that I can’t file a report until forty-eight hours have passed.” Rowan didn’t respond, so she switched back to the original subject.

  “I’m sorry to have bothered you. Gregory must have wandered out. He never does. I mean, really, he never does. And you have to understand the child. When he watches a videotape, he doesn’t move. I mean, he has never moved. Until—”

  “Until today,” Rowan supplied. He stood in his doorway, watching her. She felt at a disadvantage, and hated feeling that way. He had just woken up, she thought; he’d showered, slipped on the cutoffs, and run a comb through wet hair. He was relaxed. Unperturbed, sipping coffee. She was a basket case. Showered, yes. Dressed in a comfortable old knit halter dress that was great for the heat. Nearly threadbare. She didn’t have on a stitch of makeup. Not the way she wanted to look to see Rowan Dillon.

  “You don’t understand the child,” she said stubbornly, feeling somewhat like a sulky child herself. Her fingers curled into fists at her side. “Well, I apologize. He is my responsibility. I’ll take him back now—”

  Rowan shrugged. “Fine. Come in and get him.”

  She stared at him. He backed away from the door and grinned.

  “ ‘Come into my house, said the spider to the fly!’ ” he taunted softly. Then he asked more seriously, “Are you afraid of me, Sam?”

  “No, of course not!” she snapped. But then she shook her head. “Yes, maybe I am. A little time with you and suddenly my name is mud, and to the whole world, at that.”

  “I’m sorry. I did try to keep that from happening.”

  “Did you?” she murmured. Then she was sorry she’d voiced the question because she didn’t want to discuss the answer. “It seemed that once my name was mud, all you did was scrape me off your boots.”

  “That wasn’t the case at all, Sam, damn it. I—”

  “Look, please, sorry, I shouldn’t have spoken. It doesn’t matter, it’s in the past. I’ll just get Gregory and be on my way.”

  “Stay and have some coffee,” he suggested.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Why not? We are neighbors.”

  “Yes, but you’re the one who pointed out that I didn’t even need to wave from the lawn if I didn’t want to.”

  “But Gregory is enjoying himself. Have some coffee.”

  “Look, I—”

  “Take a chance,” he taunted. “What are you afraid of? That you won’t be able to resist my raw sexuality and we’ll simply start back where we left off?”

  “No!”

  “Good,” he said, and grinned. “There is a child in the house.”

  “You’re impossible. Rude and conceited—”

  “Then you’ll have no trouble resisting me, and a cup of coffee will be fine.”

  She let out a sigh of exasperation and stepped into the foyer.

  The house was nice. Paneled with warm woods, decorated with earthtones. It was much bigger than her own, yet it somehow had the same quality. Her parents had always made the house a home, not a showplace. Children could play at her house. Rowan’s place, though wonderfully neat—far neater than her own—still had a comfortable feeling. He hadn’t been here long, but it already bore a mark of his personality.

  “Cream, sugar—” he began.

  “No!” she said, almost barking out the word. She didn’t want to think that his house was comfortable, that there was anything nice about it. She was afraid of him, afraid that it felt far too natural to be near him.

  “Sorry,” he said, ignoring her tone. “I should have remembered the way you like your coffee—”

  “No, you shouldn’t have remembered anything!” she assured him. She tried to keep her voice and tone low, aware that her tension was growing. “Really, I don’t want to stay, I don’t want to talk. I want to get Gregory and go home. And honestly, Rowan, I’m not sure how to say this without being rude, so I will be rude. You made my life hell. I really don’t want to know you again, I really wish you had bought property elsewhere.”

  He stood still, watching her. His eyes seemed shaded, a look she had seen before. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that I was mining your neighborhood. No one mentioned that you lived here until I’d moved in.” His tone was far from apologetic.

  “Well, perhaps you’ll discover a real dream house somewhere else now that you’re down here.”

  “No, I don’t think so. I like my house just fine.” He smiled. “Maybe you’ll move,” he said politely.

  She gritted her teeth. “Perhaps you could just take me to Gregory.”

  “Fine,” he said softly. “Come this way.”

  He walked downstairs to the basement of the house, the level facing onto the pool. He had a drum set and keyboards in a large room, along with all manner of amplifiers, guitars, recording devices, and a grand piano. Rowan, she remembered with a pang, could play anything, though he liked the piano best. He wrote music on his piano, an old one. It had been his mother’s, she knew, and he had brought it with him from Scotland.

  Gregory was sitting at the piano. Seeing him there immediately sent a wave of guilt rushing through Sam. It was Rowan’s beloved piano, one of the few material items he really cherished. And he had allowed Gregory to play it.

  The boy’s fingers were moving lovingly over the keys. He was playing one of Aidan’s songs. As always the fact that he could listen to a piece and instantly pick it up amazed her. So often he didn’t respond to his own name.

  His parents thought themselves blessed. Autism covered such a wide range of behavioral problems, the Lacatas were just grateful that Gregory had music as a language. He was so beautiful when he played. She knew that his parents went through terrible times of frustration. He would learn a few words, he would forget them. He would like a certain food, then he would refuse to eat it. Certain days he functioned well, other days he didn’t. But he always loved his music.

  And he was enjoying himself—just as Rowan had said. She had been blunt and rude—her right, of course—but she was suddenly remorseful, anxious that Rowan like Gregory, and continue being kind to him.

  “He—he really won’t hurt your equipment,” she heard herself explaining. “He loves music. Honestly, he won’t hurt—”

  “Obviously,” Rowan interrupted firmly.

  Startled, she found herself trying to explain the situation again. “He’s autistic, but he’s what they call a—”

  “Savant,” Rowan supplied.

  “Yes,” she murmured. Gregory hadn’t given any indication that he had noticed t
he arrival of either of them. He looked perfectly normal playing the piano.

  “One out of about ten thousand,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Autistics. People tend to think that more of them should be savants, that because of their disorder they have greater powers of concentration. Maybe they all do. No one knows yet. But the statistics state that only one out of every ten thousand children afflicted with autism is a true savant. This lad seems to be one of the few.”

  Startled that Rowan understood Gregory’s condition, she felt grudgingly compelled to give him an apology. Not that she wanted him to think she had any desire to create so much as a casual friendship between the two of them again, but this fell in the category of common decency.

  “You should watch your instruments down here. If we have any kind of a storm with flooding, this level of the house does sometimes get drenched.”

  He nodded, watching her. “So I’ve heard. I’ll be sure to pull this all out if we get any kind of a weather warning. Thanks.”

  Sure.”

  She stood awkwardly, wondering how she was going to get Gregory away from an instrument he so obviously loved. She needed to be in control here.

  “He’s welcome to stay here for a while.”

  “He’s my responsibility.”

  “His folks are relatives or friends?”

  “Friends. His mother is in the hospital. Emergency surgery.”

  “Look, you may not like me, but I am dependable with children. He’s welcome to stay and play the piano until he tires of it.”

  She exhaled on a long breath, possessively wanting to keep an eye on Gregory but equally concerned regarding Marnie. “I just want to file a report on Marnie.”

  “She still hasn’t shown up?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it is still the weekend.”

  “I don’t care. I know Marnie.”

  She watched Gregory, and she suddenly wanted the same freedom. She wanted to walk over to the drum set and play. Her fingers itched to play the drums. She wanted to touch…

  She wanted to be touched.

  Arguing was better. Safer. The urge to do so was irrational and immature, but it was sure there. “You’re sure it’s all right if he stays a while? He’s different—”