Ralph was on the other end. He wanted to see if she and Thor wanted to meet up with him and the rest of the cast for dinner. “We’ve got our lovely young Connie Shaw joining us. I thought we’d all welcome her here. This has got to be unsettling for her.”
She grinned. Leave it to Ralph. She was the one who had been in the hands of a killer. But she was glad Ralph thought of her as the strong one!
“Sure,” she said. “Well, I’ll be there. I’ll have to check with Thor.” She went on to tell Ralph that she thought Thor was going to take the cruise. He was thrilled and told Larry, who was equally delighted.
When she hung up and her phone rang again immediately, she thought that it was Ralph calling back.
It wasn’t.
But it was another invitation—or favor.
She jumped up. “Astrid, could I possibly borrow a car? I’m going to run into town and do a friend a favor. I don’t want to wake Thor—especially since he never sleeps.”
“Sure!” Astrid said. “Mine is the Subaru. Keep it as long as you like.”
She tossed Clara her keys, and Clara asked Astrid if she’d mention dinner with her cast to Thor. “I don’t know if he is going into work today or what his plans are. Anyway, dinner will be later.”
“Of course,” Astrid assured her.
Smiling, and thinking it was a way to really do a good deed, Clara headed out on her errand of mercy.
*
Thor should have slept well.
But Mandy Brandt was in his dreams again.
She seemed to hover over him, as if she was worried.
He reached up to gently touch her face and tell her that she could rest in peace. “We got him, Mandy. This time, he’ll never kill again.”
“No, he’ll never kill again,” she said, and she brushed his face with a gentle caress, as well. But she didn’t smile. She was frowning. “Something isn’t right, Thor. Something just isn’t right.”
He woke with a jerk. Mandy Brandt was not with him. He felt a warm body at his side.
With something definitely not right.
An excited half howl and half whine told him that the warm body was that of his husky Boris—and not Clara.
He couldn’t remember when he’d slept so deeply and so hard. He was usually awake in a heartbeat at any sound. “Hey, boy!” He scratched the dog and arose, padded into the bathroom and the shower, and dressed for the day. He figured that Clara was already out with his sister and the horses, dogs and creatures that made up the compound.
He was glad that Clara exceptionally loved huskies. He wondered if he could ever really live without one in his life.
No one was out in the kitchen or the dining room. He headed outside and saw that Astrid was putting one of her new puppies through a training session.
“Hey!” he called to her.
“Hey!” she called back. She stopped what she was doing, told the puppy to sit and walked over to him, studying him anxiously. “You really okay, Thor? You guys seem great, but...”
“We are fine. Really,” he assured her.
“You slept! You never sleep.”
He smiled weakly at that. “Where is she?”
“She was going to go into Seward. Apparently, a friend called her. A friend in need. Anyway, she’s off to do a favor, and she wants to know if you want to meet up with her cast mates for dinner. I don’t need my car back, so whatever you want to do is great.”
“Who is she doing a favor for?” Thor asked, puzzled, and damning the fact that he’d slept so well.
“I don’t know—she didn’t say. She just mentioned dinner. Call her cell.”
He did so.
She didn’t answer.
There were a dozen reasons she might not answer. She might be driving. She might have forgotten her phone; it might have run out of battery. It could be in her purse, or it might have fallen on the floor.
Didn’t matter; he didn’t like it.
“How long has she been gone?” he asked Astrid.
“About an hour. What’s wrong?” Astrid asked him. “You got Morley,” she said quietly. “And the guy working with him.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Something isn’t right...” His voice trailed off, and then he remembered the words.
Something isn’t right!
The ghost of Amelia Carson had said the words to Clara before she’d come to find him.
Mandy Brandt had said the words in his dream.
He suddenly knew what wasn’t right.
He was dialing his phone again, even as he ran through the complex to meet his car. He jumped in and found that he’d been followed; Boris and then Natasha plowed in right behind him.
He started to command them out...
What the hell. It might be good to have them, though they were wagging their bushy tails, howling softly in anticipation of a car ride.
“Down!” he said simply, and revved the motor.
Something wasn’t right at all.
It was very, very wrong.
17
Emmy Vincenzo was waiting for Clara when she came around in the hospital driveway; she was smiling and waving—grateful to have her there.
“I can’t thank you enough!” Emmy told her.
“It’s my pleasure.”