that morning. Maybe there was something along the way that would give him a clue to where Rudolf had gotten the list. Or what had spooked him into seeking out the pastor to arrange his funeral.
It was probably a wild-goose chase, but anything was better than sitting around twiddling his thumbs.
Chapter 29
Lynne woke with a throbbing headache and her body stiff with cold. Even worse, she was shrouded in an impenetrable darkness.
Where was she? What’d happened?
Time ticked past as she struggled to clear the cobwebs from her mind. Something that would have been easier if her heart hadn’t been hammering and her breath coming in short, painful pants.
At last she managed to conjure up the fuzzy memory of driving to the sanctuary. Yes. Bernadine had been with her, and she’d gone to check on the puppies. Once she was done, she’d gone into her grandparents’ house and found the older woman lying in the hallway.
Then someone had shot a dart into her.
Forcing herself to a sitting position, Lynne pressed a hand to her aching head and tried to peer through the gloomy shadows. She couldn’t see anything, but she had a sense of a vast space around her. As if she was in a cavern. That would also explain the sharp chill in the air.
But where was there a cavern near Pike?
Unless they’d traveled away from the town. After all, she had no idea how much time had passed. She assumed she’d been hit with the tranquilizer that had been stolen from her clinic, but without knowing how much had been in the dart, she couldn’t begin to calculate whether she’d been out a couple minutes or half an hour.
Panic burst in the center of her being. Somehow the thought that she’d been driven far from her home was even more terrifying than the darkness.
“Hello,” she called out, wincing as her voice echoed through the shadows. She could sense someone was out there. . . watching. “Who’s there?”
“Did you know that fear has a smell?” a low, male voice whispered through the air. “It’s thick and rich, like an expensive spice.”
Lynne stiffened. She was too frightened to try to identify the speaker.
“Who are you?”
There was the sound of approaching footsteps. “The invisible man.”
She placed her hands on the cold floor. She knew she was too weak to try and stand, but she covertly felt around her, inanely hoping for something she could use as a weapon. There was nothing, but she did determine that there was cement beneath her.
Which meant she wasn’t in a cavern. So where?
“I don’t know what that means,” she managed to mutter.
“Invisible. Unseen.” A soft, rasping laugh. “A ghost from your memories.”
Memories? She was forced to clear a sudden lump from her throat. “We know each other?”
“Not as well as I’d once hoped.”
She shuddered at the mocking words. “Show yourself.”
“If you insist.”
There was a crunch of boots against the crumbling cement, then a loud click. Far overhead a single fluorescent bulb flickered to life and Lynne could see her surroundings.
She frowned, confused by the huge square of a room with a high ceiling lined with heavy steel beams. There were stacks of old steel desks and chairs shoved in a corner and the walls looked as if they’d been built out of concrete blocks. It wasn’t until she caught sight of the window that revealed a cramped inner room with dozens of old-fashioned computers and radar screens that she realized where she was.
This was the abandoned air base.
The knowledge hit her at the precise moment that someone stepped into the pool of light. A gasp of shock was wrenched from her throat as she allowed her gaze to take in the familiar man with dark hair and gray eyes.
“Parker?” she rasped. “Parker Bowen?”
He was wearing an expensive trench coat with a cashmere scarf and leather gloves. The elegant attire made him look like he was about to report the news, not create it.
He offered a mocking bow. “Surprised?”
Lynne blinked. She wasn’t just surprised. She was stunned. She’d made the stupid mistake of assuming the killer would be a ruthless lunatic, not an intelligent, successful man. A man who had shared countless hours with her at the animal sanctuary.
How was it possible?
“Why?” she eventually managed to choke out.
He flashed his white-toothed smile, pacing from one edge of the pool of light to the other. Like an actor on a stage. “Let me tell you a story.”
Lynne shuddered. Like she had a choice? There was no way anyone