In Close (Bulletproof #3)(89)
Author: Brenda Novak

Claire felt sorry for him, but with Isaac gone she might still have insisted he go back to bed. His babbling unnerved her, even if he didn’t know what he was saying. He unnerved her. But there were tears running down his cheeks, and the memory of how she’d felt in the days following her mother’s disappearance wouldn’t allow her to be that hard-hearted. At least she’d had her stepfather to rely on. If Jeremy’s dad was really gone, and he wasn’t coming back, Jeremy would have no one.

“Don’t cry,” she said. “Come on. You can sleep in the other bed while we wait for Isaac.”

He stepped forward as if he’d brush past her but grabbed hold of her instead. “Jeremy, don’t—”

Clamping a hand over her mouth, he pushed her to the ground.

Claire struggled, but he was freakishly strong. She’d just begun to realize he wasn’t joking, that he wouldn’t stop this unless she made him understand he had to let her go, when he leaned in close.

“Don’t scream,” he whispered in her ear. “Please, don’t scream. I don’t want to have to shoot you. I love you, Claire. I’ve always loved you.”

That was when she felt the hard muzzle of a gun between her shoulder blades.

29

The drive went by fast, probably because Isaac was no longer tired. He was too busy considering what might’ve happened to Don. Even though he was already expecting the worst, what he found when he arrived still surprised him.

The door was unlocked, and he didn’t have to step all the way across the threshold to smell the bleach. Jeremy had been right. A “cleaning smell” pervaded the whole house. And the couch and a big section of carpet were damp—again, just like Jeremy had said.

The odd thing was the bullet hole. It wasn’t anywhere near the place where the violence seemed to have occurred; it was on the opposite wall.

“What the hell happened here?” Isaac muttered.

Maybe Don had some dangerous company and attempted to defend himself. If so, he was either a terrible shot or he was drunk.

More likely he was drunk…?.

“Poor bastard.” Isaac felt as sorry for him as he did Jeremy. Don hadn’t had an easy life, either.

Myles checked the garage. Don’s Jeep was parked inside it. So where was he?

The evidence suggested he might be dead. Or hurt. It didn’t look good. Isaac needed to get out as soon as possible and call 9-1-1. But first he wanted to go through Don’s phone records to see who he’d been calling and if any of those calls corresponded to a number associated with Les Weaver. He also wanted to find Don’s bank statements. If Don had been hired to trash Claire’s place, maybe there’d be a corresponding deposit Isaac’s P.I. could trace back to the source.

It took nearly an hour for Isaac to come to terms with what he’d begun to suspect shortly after he started searching—he wasn’t going to find much in the way of documentation in Don Salter’s house, certainly not paid bills. The man didn’t have a filing cabinet, didn’t seem to keep any records at all. Isaac couldn’t find a single bank statement.

He did come across a big stack of outstanding bills shoved into a kitchen drawer, however. Most were overdue. And right there, near the bottom, he found Don’s most recent telephone bill, which showed several calls to Coeur d’Alene in Idaho. “That’s what I want.”

Feeling he was finally getting somewhere, Isaac grabbed a dish towel to pick up the phone, so he wouldn’t leave any prints. He wanted to see where the Idaho number went, see if Les Weaver answered. If Les was used to accepting calls from Don’s house, he’d recognize the number on caller ID and might pick up, despite—

But before Isaac could dial, he heard a noise that made him freeze.

Someone had just come through the front door.

Claire couldn’t feel her hands or her feet. Jeremy had ripped out the cords of the lamps in her motel room and used them to tie her up until he could get some rope from his car. Then he’d used that instead. He’d gagged her, too, with a strip of fabric he tore from the motel sheets. He said he couldn’t think with her begging him to let her go. He also said she’d be happy he’d done this in the end.

She couldn’t imagine that. But without the use of her limbs, or even her mouth, she couldn’t get free. Her wrists were already raw from trying. She wasn’t sure where he’d gotten the rope but it was the worst kind, so scratchy it hurt even before she’d rubbed the skin away. At this point, the slightest movement brought pain. There was nothing she could do except lie on the backseat of his car in a sideways crouch with her cheek pressed against the fabric of his seat, which smelled like dirty socks. She tried to brace herself against the jostling of the car, but even that became impossible once he turned off the highway.

The suspension in his old car wasn’t the best for such rough terrain. The vehicle bounced as he drove through potholes and rocks and ruts. He seemed to be taking her up into the mountains on one of the many fire roads that led to remote hunting or fishing destinations. She couldn’t tell if he’d chosen it at random or he’d been here before, but he rarely left home so she doubted he knew what he was doing or where he was going. She also had no idea how anyone would ever find her out here—or how, if she managed to get free, she’d reach the highway.

As the minutes dragged on, tears slipped from her eyes, but they weren’t tears of sadness or fear as much as anger and frustration. She’d tried to be so good to Jeremy. For years she’d put up with him and endured the teasing his devotion had inspired among her friends, the discomfort of his inappropriate remarks, the awkwardness of his constant and invasive staring, the lecturing from her parents about the less fortunate. And this was how he repaid her?

“I’m sorry I have to do this,” he said at length.

He was crazy. She was beginning to understand how crazy. She’d thought he was just slow and rather sweet. Someone who’d always been bullied. That was the whole reason she’d been willing to tolerate him. But he’d been telling her how his father had shot himself the night of the fire, and instead of calling the police, he washed the blood and brains off the wall and buried him under the house.

She didn’t know whether or not to believe him, especially when he insisted that her mother was down there, too. How could that be? Jeremy claimed his father had murdered her, but Don Salter had no connection to her mother. Except for the fact that he was seen burning the files, and the fact that Don had once been her father’s friend.