Preface

The woman marked for death was prettier than most, but otherwise, in many ways, an ordinary woman living an ordinary life in a quiet let-the-world-go-by beach town on the coast of Oregon. For Linda Darby, Sea Crest was a retreat, an escape, a place to hide. She had grown up knowing only that she did not want to become her mother: housedresses, housecleaning, and a butt too wide. That mindset had led to her present state, an ex-husband and enough one-night stands to have stopped counting.

Linda jogged on the beach most mornings. There was nothing better for maintaining trim legs and a tight tush. She dined alone most evenings before returning to her computer to enter any day trades she wanted executed upon the next opening of the financial markets. She had positioned the desk in her oceanfront condo so she could watch the comings and goings of her neighbors, whose lives seemed more exciting than her own. She was good enough at day trading to have bought her condo with cash, and several jumbo CDs that provided a steady living income.

Day trading was flexible work and Linda appreciated the insulation from the questions of coworkers: Do you have children? What happened to your marriage? She just wanted to be left alone.

Then Linda Darby went out the door to go for a walk, and nothing for her would ever again be the same.

Chapter 1

The mild beach town night air cooled Tag’s arms. Despite being well muscled, his arms felt chilly. He considered asking his partner to hold their position while he drove back to the motel to get his windbreaker. He could be back in fifteen minutes. But he knew he couldn’t chance it. The call could come at any moment, letting them know Linda Darby had settled in for the night. They were ready. The drop cloth and dental instruments were in the back of the rented van. Tag’s partner would have her talking nonstop in no time. No one resisted the dentist for long.

* * *

Linda Darby did not believe in the supernatural, yet tonight felt different somehow, as if gods long forgotten were whispering just beyond human hearing. She worked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. It felt dry and tasted metallic.

Her fortieth birthday was fast approaching. Perhaps her premonition had been born of that and nothing more. The days came and went, the seasons repeated, and all of it merged into history. Another year spent without any real change. The only constant, the horizon at sea always looked close enough to reach out and trace with her fingers. But her life remained just as she had made it, a mire. Every day aged her, gradually but definitely. Her body had never screamed, you’re getting old at least not in any meaningful way, but her mind knew. Men still noticed her. Thank God. She hoped they always would, but one day they wouldn’t, at least not in the same way. Time remains the true enemy of us all.

Her sense of foreboding had started just before dusk, but Linda had forced herself through her routines. She entered her stock trades for the morning. Then called Cynthia Leclair to confirm they were on for lunch tomorrow. Her friend had sounded distant and preoccupied on the phone. Perhaps Cynthia also sensed whatever was crawling along the edge of Linda’s consciousness.

Her neighbors were home, but she was too restless to spend another evening watching others. She decided to go for a walk. The pleasant evening, along with the easy breeze carrying the sounds of the tossing surf might just blow away her sense that something unseen was on tilt. She had not jogged on the beach this morning, so all this second sense could be nothing more than her body craving some activity. If so, the four-mile-roundtrip walk into town might be just what she needed to trim the crust off her mood.

She would stop in at Millie’s Sea Grog. Millie’s was mostly about drinking, but the place had the town’s best clam chowder, not to mention a nightly crowd of area hunks wallowing in the town’s bawdiest bar talk. Millie’s also meant getting hit on, but, by now, the message on the boys’ boner network said: Oh, sure, Linda Darby puts out, puts out rejections. She had heard the rumors: Linda is a lesbian. Linda has a secret lover. Linda is an old-fashioned girl with a steady guy overseas. Whatever. She could deal with those guys, and she’d enjoy the laughs.

After drawing her hair back into a ponytail and strapping on her fanny pack, she paused at the mirror. She didn’t like the plumpish look that came with the pack, and neither would the fellas in Millie’s. She unhooked the pack and dropped it on the chair in her bedroom. When she glanced at the ocean through the back slider, she saw low clouds on the far horizon moving horizontally, a mist more than a fog. She’d seen this pattern many times. There were no white caps out beyond the breakers which meant mild wind off the ocean. Her prognosis, she would be home before the dampness reached the shore. She grabbed her purse and headed out the door.

* * *

“Linda Darby’s on the move,” the voice said into Tag’s earphone. “She walked up Ocean Road and angled onto Main Street, on the inland side. It looks like she’s heading into town. I’ll let you know if she changes direction. If you don’t hear from me, you know where to take her.”

* * *

Linda brushed back the strands of hair the breeze had swept across her forehead and eyes, and angled onto Main Street. In the next block, a local couple came toward Linda, rollerblading their way home as they did each night after closing their glass blowing shop in town. They coasted across Main and began laboring up the only street cut into the hilly inland side. They lived on that side street, their property cut out of the tangled wild berries that crowded in wherever man had left the local land to its own devices. About one mile up, that side road deteriorated into a gravel trail fit more for deer and four wheelers than passenger cars.

The lady rollerblader wore a lightweight sweatshirt about the color of a blouse Linda had tried on last week. The top had a cowl neckline. She had liked the fabric, just not the price. Over the years she had tried on a lot of clothes that she liked at the moment, but soon forgot. This top she had remembered. And it had fit her just right. What the hell, she’d stop in the House of You. Besides, she thought, the new top might just be the ticket to shake off my funk—therapy. She smiled, thinking that maybe her doctor would give her a prescription for the top. The young doc liked to look at her, but she dated no local men, no exceptions, not even for doctors.

Downtown Sea Crest was like a morgue after dark, shrouded by a billion living stars. Linda had never understood why this one clothing store stayed open until nine. She stepped off the curb into the intersection that began her favorite stretch of downtown. The air here tasted of donuts from the nearby shop, and there had been no scientific studies claiming you could get love handles just smelling them. On Sundays, she often walked down to get one glazed and one cream-filled bismark. Nothing beat donuts, hot coffee and the Sunday newspaper on her deck overlooking the ocean.

The House of You was just past the hardware store on the other side of the alley. She quickened her pace toward the store, its light reaching out across the sidewalk.

Then, just as the pungent odors from the alley pushed the heavenly donuts from her nostrils, Linda stopped smelling everything.

Chapter 2

A strong hand clamped over Linda’s mouth and nose, a wide hand, a man’s hand, a suffocating hand. His strength coiled around her shoulders pinning her right arm. He wore a short-sleeve shirt, his arm carpeted with tattoos of snakes coiled around a busty topless woman. His other hand gripping her left elbow, allowed him to steer her deeper into the alley.

Oh, God.

She staggered, twisting her head in a desperate attempt to free either her mouth or nose. She fell back against his head and shoulders. He was clean shaven. His height nearly matched hers, five-eight, but he was powerful. She needed to remember all she could so she could tell the police. But for now her attention was riveted not on staying alive, nothing that long term, but on her desperate hunger for one more taste of air.

This is only a robbery. Only a robbery, she kept telling herself as each erratic step pulled her deeper into the darkness between the rows of two-story brick buildings.

Linda’s attacker abruptly jerked her arm, navigating her around a filthy puddle in the trough gutter that centered the alley, the action momentarily easing his grip.

She sucked a mouthful of air through his smelly, tobacco-stained fingers.

He smokes. All right, that’s something else I know about him.

Just as quickly, his hand retightened and the two of them went back to stumbling as if their clothes were sewn together. An idea had come with that quick breath. Her right arm was pinned against her side, but she controlled her hand. She opened it letting her purse drop to the pavement.

There’s my purse. Take it. Leave me alone.

The tattooed man ignored the purse.

Desperately she searched for another idea. Something. Anything. Nothing more came.

Take my purse. Let me go. Please. Please.

Linda could no longer see the brightness from Main Street. The meager light finding its way back this far had been frayed by the century of grime coating the twists and turns of the buildings lining the alley.

Her holder suddenly jerked her to a stop. The foul-smelling trough water penetrated the canvas uppers of her walking shoes. His breath slithered down the back of her t-shirt. “I’m going to let you breath. If you scream, I’ll hurt you.”

* * *

Tag knew the assignment was not a straight hit. First they needed to talk with Linda Darby to learn what she knew. If the woman resisted, the dentist would start with his gum pick and battery-operated drill. No one resisted for long, but someone would hear the screams. Tag had worked under the field leader for this mission before. The man was competent, one of the best, but Tag did not agree with his decision to use the alley for this interrogation. The woman would have been home in an hour or so. They should have waited.

* * *

Linda breathed, heaving breaths, again, and again. The damp, salt-rich air raced through her body. She considered screaming. But she had been warned. Instead, her voice scratched out from her dry throat. “What do you want?”

His hand moved from her arm to the top of her shoulder, his fingertips burrowing into her collarbone like a carving fork piercing a roast turkey. She buckled some hoping to alleviate the pain, but he increased the pressure.

A second man stepped out from the shadows, his belly waging war against the lower buttons of his dress shirt. His tie loose at his neck, the collar unfastened.

The near electrical punch of her adrenal gland stunned Linda. Her legs buckled. Her head felt light. She didn’t recognize this as a panic attack. But labels didn’t matter. Escape mattered.

I’m a jogger. If I can get free, I’ll have a chance.

Suddenly, the man holding her from the back jerked upward onto his toes, exhaling a loud painful grunt. From the corner of her eye Linda saw the outline of a third man fully in the shadows.