Colony 04 - Wicked Ways Read online

  SOMEONE’S WATCHING

  Elizabeth took another round through the house, snapping on light after light, opening closet doors, double-checking locks and latches until she was convinced she and Chloe were locked safely away from whatever terrors lived in the rest of the world.

  But even as she told herself that they were safe, that nothing could harm them in their home, she experienced a frisson of fear slip down her spine. All that she’d known and trusted had been shattered in the past few weeks and she sensed the horror wasn’t over.

  She walked to the living room window and peeked through the blinds. The neighborhood appeared serene and dark, bluish in the filmy glow from the street lamp. Elizabeth’s gaze scraped over the neatly trimmed shrubs, a few cars parked on the street. Her heart lurched painfully when she caught sight of movement, a blacker shadow in the night, then realized it was only a cat, scurrying across a neighbor’s lawn to disappear into the shrubbery.

  “Get over yourself,” she whispered but experienced another little zinging feeling, as if there were a disturbance in the atmosphere, as if someone, hidden in the shadows, was staring back at her. She let go of the blinds with a snap, chiding herself for her fears.

  And yet, though the blinds and shades were drawn, the doors shut and locked, she sensed that someone was silently observing her, almost close enough to reach out and touch . . .

  Books by Lisa Jackson

  Stand-Alones

  SEE HOW SHE DIES

  FINAL SCREAM

  RUNNING SCARED

  WHISPERS

  TWICE KISSED

  UNSPOKEN

  DEEP FREEZE

  FATAL BURN

  MOST LIKELY TO DIE

  WICKED GAME

  WICKED LIES

  SOMETHING WICKED

  WICKED WAYS

  SINISTER

  WITHOUT MERCY

  YOU DON’T WANT TO

  KNOW

  CLOSE TO HOME

  Anthony Paterno/Cahill Family Novels

  IF SHE ONLY KNEW ALMOST DEAD

  Rick Bentz/Reuben Montoya Novels

  HOT BLOODED

  COLD BLOODED

  SHIVER

  ABSOLUTE FEAR

  LOST SOULS

  MALICE

  DEVIOUS

  Pierce Reed/Nikki Gillette Novels

  THE NIGHT BEFORE

  THE MORNING AFTER

  TELL ME

  Selena Alvarez/Regan Pescoli Novels

  LEFT TO DIE

  CHOSEN TO DIE

  BORN TO DIE

  AFRAID TO DIE

  READY TO DIE

  DESERVES TO DIE

  Books by Nancy Bush

  CANDY APPLE RED

  ELECTRIC BLUE

  ULTRAVIOLET

  WICKED GAME

  WICKED LIES

  SOMETHING WICKED

  WICKED WAYS

  UNSEEN

  BLIND SPOT

  HUSH

  NOWHERE TO RUN

  NOWHERE TO HIDE

  NOWHERE SAFE

  SINISTER

  I’LL FIND YOU

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  LISA JACKSON

  WICKED WAYS

  NANCY BUSH

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  SOMEONE’S WATCHING

  Also by

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Near Deception Bay, Oregon

  “She’s never going to leave,” Lena muttered, thinking this was a bad idea. Just because they’d heard that the woman and her missing husband hid money in their house was no guarantee that they would find anything.

  “Shhh!” Bruce shushed sternly. “Just wait.”

  “I have been waiting. For nearly an hour.” Catching an angry glare from her boyfriend, Lena bit her tongue. Darkness had settled in. A thick fog, smelling of brine, was creeping through the crooked and pockmarked streets of the unincorporated town inhabited by what the locals called “The Foothillers.” It wasn’t much of a place in the daylight, only a few steps up from a shantytown in her estimation. With the coming night, the cul-de-sac looked foreboding, nearly malicious, as only half the houses on the street were occupied and those that were had overgrown lawns and staring, dark windows. Not exactly a place one would expect to find a cache of thousands of dollars hidden in the mattress or in a secret cubby in the floor, but the old guy in the bar last night had insisted that the people who lived here only looked poor. And, well, it was true that the vehicle sitting in the drive was a newer model Volvo wagon.

  Still . . . Lena was cold to the bone, the gusts chilled by the ocean as they rolled into town on the fog. For stealth purposes, the fog itself was a good thing, she decided. But did it have to be so friggin’ cold? Shivering, she blew on her gloved fingers. Come on, come on, she thought.

  According to the geezer in the Sand Bar, the woman, whose husband was often away, left every Tuesday night to have dinner with her sister somewhere south of Tillamook, so Lena and Bruce would have plenty of time to search the place and get away.

  “Here we go,” Bruce muttered, pulling down his ski mask. She did the same and watched as a tall, willowy woman came out of the front door carrying an infant seat, a diaper bag slung over her shoulder as she turned to close the door behind her. She hurried down the single concrete step and along a cracked walkway, heading to her vehicle, which she unlocked before strapping the baby carrier into the backseat.

  Finally!

  Lena just wanted this to be over. Yes, they’d robbed homes and cars before, but tonight was different and more dangerous. She felt it intuitively. Their plan didn’t seem as well thought out, and the crummy one-story house with its peeling paint and sagging porch didn’t give her any confidence that they would score anything, not even a bag of weed or ounce of cocaine, much less a cache of serious money.

  “Damn,” Bruce whispered frantically. “Get back!” He yanked her farther into the shrubbery and threw her face down as a car turned onto the dead-end street and slowly drove by. Lena managed to peek up and her heart nearly stopped as she recognized a yellow and black cruiser for the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department.

  Oh, Jesus.

  Closing her eyes, she lay motionless, facedown in the carpet of pine needles.

  Headlights cutting through the fog, big engine purring, the cruiser rolled slowly around the arc of the deserted street.

  Lena chanced another look. The woman whom they intended to rob had her driver’s door open. She’d halted in the act of getting inside a
s the Crown Vic rolled past her drive.

  Neither Lena nor Bruce moved for long moments. They huddled in the salal bushes beneath the low branches of a contorted pine. As the cruiser passed by a second time, they could hear the officer talking on his radio. Suddenly, he gunned his engine and, with a chirp of tires, sped away, blue and red lights strobing the area until the vehicle disappeared around the corner.

  Lena’s heart was pounding so loudly she thought everyone in the entire county could hear it. This had to be over and soon. Maybe they should abort. But they were out of cash and Bruce was sure the house would be a big score.

  God, she hoped so.

  The woman took a last look at the baby in the back, then slid into the driver’s side just as a phone started ringing from inside the house. She glanced up and looked back toward the front door. Muttering something unintelligible, she climbed back out and hurried toward the front stoop, unlocking the door, and rushing inside. Lights snapped on and through the window they watched as she picked up the phone.

  Bruce was on his knees, straining to see. “Why the fuck can’t she just leave?”

  Lena looked up at him. “This feels wrong. We should just go.”

  “And do what?”

  “Pick a pocket at the bar, scoop up a purse—”

  “Didn’t you hear the old man? He said tens of thousands are hidden inside.”

  “How does he know?”

  “He’s an uncle or something. I don’t know. But it’s worth a shot, babe.” Bruce placed a gloved hand around her arm. “It could be like winnin’ the fuckin’ lottery. Change our lives.”

  She liked the sound of that and stole a glance at the house. Through the front window she could see the woman pacing, holding the receiver to her ear and shouting loudly.

  “This could take a while,” Lena said.

  “I know, I know.” Bruce, too, was nervous.

  “And that cop. What was he doing here? What if he finds our car?”

  “He won’t.” Bruce glanced at the house where the woman was so engaged in her conversation, so agitated, that she was gesticulating wildly with her free hand.

  Lena doubted she was aware of anything other than ripping the person on the other end a new one. “It’s dangerous,” she muttered.

  He rubbed a hand feverishly over his masked forehead. “I got this.” He looked at the window one more time and must’ve mentally calculated how long the mark would be engaged in the conversation. “Stay here.”

  “What?”

  “I’m gonna get the kid.”

  “What! No!” Bruce was teasing, right? “You’re not serious.” No way would he kidnap the baby. But the set of his jaw and determination in the eyes staring deep from the slits in his ski mask said otherwise. “Bruce . . . God . . . No. Don’t even joke about—”

  “No joke.”

  “But she’ll be out any second and what will we do with a baby?”

  “Sell it.”

  “Oh, dear Jesus.”

  “I know a guy, who knows a lawyer in LA somewhere. Does private adoptions. Asks no questions and the fee is astronomical.”

  “But the woman . . . the cops . . .” Lena shook her head, disbelieving, her hands clammy. “You can’t just steal a kid!”

  “Oh, no?” he countered, his lips twisting into a cold smile. “Just watch me.” He stole quickly toward the car, opened the back driver’s door, unhooked the car seat, and pulled the baby out.

  Chapter 1

  Twenty-five years later

  Southern California

  Elizabeth watched through her front window as two police officers trudged up her walk. She knew what was about to come. She’d seen this walk to the door before in varying incarnations on television dramas. It seemed like every cop show had at least one scene where officers came to talk to someone and deliver the bad news. A death, she guessed, her heart hammering, but whose?

  A wave of fear enveloped her. After closing the plantation blinds, she hurried away and down the hall to the room where her daughter was sleeping. She knew Chloe was safe in bed, but she had to see her. Pushing open the door to Chloe’s room, she gazed in fearfully, her pulse racing with premonition. Her daughter’s golden-brown curls were splayed on the pillow. She saw the sweep of her eyelashes, the way her arms lay flung around her head in the abandonment of deep sleep, the soft puffs of her breath.

  Knock, knock.

  The sound was so loud she jumped. Gently closing her daughter’s door, she race-walked back to the living room to flip on the exterior light before cautiously opening the door and eyeing the two officers through the screen.

  They stood in a circle of yellow light, their expressions grim.

  The woman spoke first. “Mrs. Elizabeth Ellis?”

  “Yes.” Her throat was dry as dust.

  “I’m Officer Maya, and this is Officer DeFazio.” They already had their badges out and Elizabeth’s eyes traveled toward them as Maya continued. “We regret to tell you that there’s been a car accident.”

  Car accident.

  “Is it Court?” Elizabeth whispered.

  “Ma’am, may we come in?” the male officer asked.

  Elizabeth wordlessly opened the door fully. Their faces blurred in front of her. She was seeing something else. The entire last week in bullet points....

  On Monday, she reluctantly kissed her husband Court good-bye as he left for yet another business trip. They had that fight . . . again . . . about what she referred to as her ability to foreshadow.

  “You really think you can sense danger?” her husband of six years demanded. The face she once thought so handsome stared down at her in scorn, his brown eyes simmering with fury, his lips twisted into a snarl. “Don’t act like a crackpot, Liz. I’m about to make partner at the firm, and I swear, you better not get in the way.”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone else,” she assured him. She was scared, worried. After she’d predicted Little Nate’s accident on the monkey bars before it happened, her friend Jade had gazed at her with wonder, awe, and maybe a little horror. But when she’d tried to tell her husband about Little Nate and other times similar things had happened, incidents she’d dismissed as coincidences—because honestly, what else could they be?—he’d shut down completely. Their marriage was disintegrating, had been for a long time. She knew it, but was unable to put her finger on what was wrong.

  “Make sure you don’t,” he said, then left in anger.

  On Tuesday, Chloe had a fainting spell at school. It was troubling, because she seemed to be having more and more of them. Elizabeth picked up her daughter and brought her home. Chloe assured her that she was fine, fine, fine, in a loud, five-year-old voice that never seemed to have any volume control.

  Nevertheless, on Wednesday, Elizabeth kept Chloe home from school and took her to the doctor who checked her out and pronounced her good to go, a fact that made Elizabeth slightly uncomfortable. Something was going on with Chloe that no one seemed to be able to diagnose. But maybe that was just Elizabeth being paranoid again, a helicopter parent, as Court had accused her of often enough.

  On Thursday, Elizabeth took Chloe back to her preschool class, then met with one of the women from her Moms Group for lunch. Tara Hofstetter was the closest to a real friend Elizabeth had in the group that had been formed online and consisted of women in the area who had delivered babies around the same time. Court had wanted Elizabeth, who’d always been somewhat introverted, to meet people around the Irvine, Costa Mesa, and Newport Beach cities where he worked as an attorney in a high-rise business center near the Orange County airport. Dutifully, she had gone outside her comfort zone and joined the newly formed group after Chloe was born. Since that time, a number of women had left and entered the group, but Elizabeth and Tara were two of the original members, and Tara’s daughter, Bibi, played well with Chloe.

  Elizabeth was running late. She blew into the sandwich shop and could tell by the look on Tara’s face that something was wrong. Before she could even as
k, Tara reached across the table and grabbed Elizabeth’s hand. It was a surprise as Tara, with her bleached-to-hell blond hair and taut dancer’s body, wasn’t exactly known for demonstrative displays. “I saw Court with Whitney Bellhard yesterday.”

  “Whitney Bellhard . . . where? What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked. Whitney Bellhard was an aesthetician who gave Botox parties around the area and her picture was plastered on flyers she passed out in every neighborhood around the school. Whitney was big-breasted, big-eyed and about as subtle as a Mack truck.

  “They were holding hands at this bistro I go to whenever I’m in Santa Monica,” Tara revealed.

  “Santa Monica?” Elizabeth repeated faintly. “Court’s in Denver.” Santa Monica was at least an hour away from Irvine in good traffic, and it wasn’t a city on Court’s recent itineraries.

  “Elizabeth, they were staring at each other so hard they didn’t even see me. I ducked out and watched a little while from outside the window.”

  “Maybe they were . . . just . . .” But she hadn’t been able to come up with any reasonable excuse for them being together in a city far enough away that they wouldn’t expect to be seen by someone they knew.

  “They were acting like they couldn’t wait to get the bill,” Tara finally said in a reluctant voice, her blue eyes regarding her friend regretfully.

  At that, Elizabeth nodded and silently accepted the unwelcome realization that her husband was having an affair.

  On Friday, Court got home late after Chloe was already tucked into bed. Elizabeth was lying in bed with a book, reading one page over and over again as her mind worried about what she was going to say when she saw him. She’d run the gamut of disbelief—fury, despair, and a kind of angry acceptance. She tried to self-assess, asked herself if she cared enough to try to save the marriage. For Chloe, she wanted to, but for herself? That was a trickier question.

  By the time Court entered the bedroom, loosening his tie and telling her he’d come straight from a meeting, really wanted a drink, and did she want something, Elizabeth put down the book and was simply waiting, her hands folded on her lap. Court didn’t wait for her answer. He went into their living room and she heard the squeaking hinge that indicated he’d opened the bar, which was hidden inside a tall chest made of ebony wood. Next, she heard him slam a glass on the counter.