By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс
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have paid me any heed. They didn’t do anything when I complained about the Macks family—or about the guy watching my apartment. So I decided to bring them directly to Ms. MacPherson. I figured they’d listen to her.”
“Would you send those video clips to my cell right now?” Skinner took out a card and pushed it toward Lightman, then waited for the man to push the buttons.
“Thanks,” Skinner said when the transmission was completed. “I’ll see they get to the police in D.C. How did you know where to find Ms. MacPherson?”
“Abe’s office told me she was out of town for a few days, and I figured she’d probably come up here. It was a lucky guess.”
“Thank you for your help,” Piper said as Duncan slid out of his side of the booth. “I appreciate your making such a long trip from D.C. Have a safe journey back.”
“Oh, I’m not leaving Glen Loch.” Lightman took his glasses off, replaced them in his pocket and picked up his cell phone. “Didn’t the sheriff tell you? I’m staying at a charming bed-and-breakfast, the Eagle’s Nest.” He kept his eyes on her as he slid out of the booth. “Till we meet again.”
Piper absolutely hated the fact that she had to suppress a shudder. Duncan remained standing until Lightman had exited through the diner’s doors. The instant he sat down again, he took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze.
Edie hurried over and delivered three mugs of coffee. “What a creep. These are on the house. If I had my way, I’d have put something stronger than coffee in his.” She dropped a hand on Piper’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t you worry. We’ll keep an eye on him.”
“She will, too,” Skinner said. “As will I. Are you buying his story?”
Duncan answered first. “Not entirely. He’s not telling us everything he knows. And Sid Macks has an airtight alibi for the time Lightman was shooting that video.”
“I don’t believe Macks staged the scene in my apartment,” Piper said. Then she told Skinner about the two vases of flowers that had been delivered and the message on the second one.
“He used the exact words that were on the third card,” Duncan said.
“But if he’s the guy behind all this, he’s breaking pattern,” Piper said.
“And who’s the guy in the hoodie?” Skinner shifted his gaze out the window to where Lightman had settled himself on a park bench. “I’ll keep my eye on him. While we’ve been chatting, my deputy Tim has been checking out Lightman’s room at the Eagle’s Nest. It’ll be wired by the time he’s finished. Other than that, my hands are tied. Lightman’s a free man.”
“Thanks to me,” Piper said.
Duncan took her hands and held them so tight, Piper was afraid he was stopping the blood. Startled, she met his eyes and she saw anger, this time hot enough to nearly singe her skin.
“He wasn’t hanging out over at your apartment to say thank-you. My theory is he was stalking you and ran into some competition. I want to get you away from here. Now.”
Before she could even open her mouth, Skinner spoke in a voice that didn’t carry. “Not the place to make a scene.”
He was right. And she and Duncan could hardly take the discussion outside when Lightman had decided to sit down on a park bench across the street and enjoy the view of the lake. Still, Piper had to bite down hard on her tongue. It gave her some satisfaction to see that Duncan was struggling also.
When he spoke, it was in a very low tone. “A serial killer has taken a fancy to you. He’s followed you up here and he intends to stay.”
She could see the argument he was making. She did fit the description of the RPK’s victims. And the fact that Lightman had taken pictures of her the day before made her skin crawl. But she couldn’t run. Where could she go?
Pitching her voice very low, she asked, “What if he’s telling the truth?” Impatience flickered across Duncan’s features, but he eased the pressure on her fingers enough for her to turn them and grip his. “Or at least a partial truth. Why would he pick me as his next victim? He’d have the spotlight turned on him full force and he’d lose his good friend Abe as his defense attorney.”
“Go on,” Duncan said. He was listening now.
“Even if he was stalking me, he isn’t anymore. If he were, why seek the spotlight like this? Why come all the way up here, contact the sheriff and offer to turn over those video clips? That isn’t the RPK’s profile. He’s gotten away with what he has because he stays in the background. No one ever sees him. If I were to end up on a sheet with rose petals strewn over me now, he’d be the prime suspect.”
“She’s making sense,” Skinner said.
Duncan was aware of that. She was making perfect sense. And she was doing what he should be doing—getting into Lightman’s head and thinking the way he was thinking. The RPK was very smart, and while he might have been tempted by the idea of targeting Piper, might even have been considering it, he wouldn’t have come up here, notified the sheriff and moved into the bed-and-breakfast. Would he? Duncan wasn’t sure. Usually, he was. “He was on your street, watching your apartment, yesterday morning.”
“Maybe out of concern. I did help to get him out of jail. The crazy thing is he might even be trying to do the white knight thing,” Piper said.
Duncan’s lips almost curved. “Let’s not get carried away.” He glanced at the sheriff. “Even when we were kids, Piper never liked to play the role of damsel in distress. White knights riding to the rescue are not her thing.”
He admired that about her, he thought as he studied her. It was part of what had always attracted him. He also liked the way her mind had zeroed in on the facts and then arranged them into a persuasive argument. He could see what she was saying about Lightman as clearly as she did. The problem was that his emotions were blurring everything. If he wanted to keep her safe, he had to keep his mind as focused as hers was.
He turned to Skinner. “Can you verify Lightman’s whereabouts shortly after noon?”
“No. My first contact with him was just before I called you at about one-forty-five, give or take a few minutes. That was right after he made his request for a meeting. I can see when he checked in at the Eagle’s Nest.”
“Do that.”
The sheriff made a quick call and got the answer.
“Ada says he checked in at one-fifteen, took his bag up to the room and then asked for directions to my office. Why do you want to know?”
He told the sheriff about their adventure and their discovery in the caves.
At the end of it, Skinner said, “So another piece of Eleanor Campbell MacPherson’s dowry has surfaced. I assume you’ve secured it.”
“It’s in the Fort Knox-quality safe that Cam had installed,” Duncan said.
Skinner took a sip of coffee. “And it could have been Lightman who followed you into the caves. But you say the person you saw was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. I know they’re pretty common apparel, but could it have been the guy Lightman filmed going into Piper’s apartment?”
“Both are possibilities. The hooded sweatshirt guy could have taken a lucky guess and followed her up here just as Lightman did,” Duncan admitted as he cursed himself silently. The problem was that he hadn’t been thinking straight since Piper had walked into her apartment yesterday morning. If he had, he might have found a safer place to take her. Although where that might be, he didn’t know.
“Or the person who followed us into the cave could be the person Cam believed was paying regular visits to the library,” Piper said, then explained what she and Duncan had theorized about in the woods.
“Or someone new,” Skinner mused. “The Stuart Sapphires have