“You pushed him away because of your boyfriend in college?”
Kaine nodded. “Yeah. That. And also because I was always the one who had to take care of Leah after Mom died. Grandpa tried. He loved us. But he was old, you know? It was self-preservation, survival of the fittest. I had to be strong all the time. Put myself out there for Leah, for myself, even for Danny.”
“You’re the protector in your family. Like Ivy was.”
Kaine frowned. She didn’t see the correlation.
“Her memory book at the museum. The stories she logged of people whose lives she believed merited preservation. She protected their legacies. She empathized with them. She fought for Gabriella.”
“She did,” Kaine acknowledged.
Grant nodded. “And whoever this creep is that’s still out there, he sees what we don’t. That quilt piece he left behind was a direct message. If the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, then that means you must be like your great-great-grandmother in some significant way.”
Kaine bit her lip. “There isn’t a soul alive who would be able to draw the conclusion that I resembled her.”
Grant squeezed her hand, then released it to put the truck into drive. “If I can draw that conclusion, someone else certainly can. And we’re going to find out how. Then we’re going to find out who.”
Chapter 34
Kaine clawed at the piece of material positioned between her car’s windshield and wiper blade. Morning mist dotted the glass with tiny pinpricks of moisture. She looked over her shoulder at Joy’s modest ranch house. The windows were dark. Joy and Megan still slept on this Saturday morning. Kaine scanned the short blacktop driveway, the street in front of the house, and the line of neighboring yards.
The quilt that had brought a smile to her face when Leah told her of it now served as a reminder of one thing: She wasn’t alone. Apparently, more than one piece of the quilt had been cut from it. She wouldn’t know. The police had kept it as evidence.
Danny’s face flashed in her memory, and Kaine blinked her eyes fast to clear it. His killer had been caught. Her hunter had been put behind bars and yet there was another one. A copycat. Someone who knew far too much about her life in San Diego, her life here, and her vulnerability. Kaine crumpled the quilt scrap in her hand, her breaths coming rapidly in short gasps.
“What do you want!” She yelled into the morning’s emptiness. A pickup truck and a work van drove past the house, oblivious to her shout.
Kaine spun in a circle. Olive barked from inside the car where she waited. “If you’re there, show yourself. Let’s have this out!”
A mourning dove cooed. Another car drove by, the woman at the wheel focused on the road, her red hair so red that Kaine had the fleeting thought the poor driver had overdyed it.
“Fine.” She jammed the material into her pocket. “Be a coward.” She yanked open the car door and slid into the driver’s seat. Olive nosed the back of her head, and Kaine scratched the dog’s chin before turning the key. The Jetta hummed. She cast a disconcerted glance at the rear window. No red handprints.
She put the car in gear and headed toward downtown Oakwood. Filing another police report was a must, but she needed to meet Grant first. He’d told her the night before that he’d be heading out early to his office at his house but then would meet her at a little coffee shop. It beat Joy’s burnt gas-station coffee—the woman brought home the leftovers.
Her phone trilled, and Kaine snatched it from the passenger seat.
“Hello?”
Expecting Grant, the whispered voice in her ear made Kaine let off the gas.
“Are you still lonely?”
“Who are you?” Kaine demanded. How on earth had he gotten her replacement cell number? She steered the car off the street into the Walmart parking lot, her knuckles white from gripping the wheel.
“I’ve been lonely my entire life.” The man’s voice was so soft, so muffled, it was like he’d covered the mic of his phone with a thick towel.
“Well, stinks to be you.” She was goading him. It felt good. She felt strong—and maybe reckless.
“No, no. I’ll be fine.”
As if she was concerned with his welfare.
“How dare you stalk me? Why did you paint my husband’s name on my porch? Put my great-great-grandmother’s quilt piece there?”
“Why did you come to Oakwood?”
“That’s cryptic.” Kaine fumbled for paper in her purse. A pen. She had to write down snippets of what he was saying. To remember. To tell Grant later. To report to the Oakwood authorities. He wanted her to believe this was still tied to Danny’s murder, but she knew better. And if she wasn’t mistaken, he would too in a matter of days. When news of Danny’s case hit the online world, her stalker would know the jig was up. He would be exposed as a sole entity with an entirely different agenda. But what was it? And how did it link Kaine, Ivy, and Foster Hill House?
“Do you love him?” The question took Kaine off guard.
“Who?” Danny was dead. He knew that. Kaine jotted down the question.
“Grant Jesse.”
Kaine’s breath halted. “I haven’t even known Grant for more than a month.” Why had she answered? The creep didn’t deserve one word.
But he would capitalize on it. “Mmm, you do. I see.”
“No.” Kaine’s hand shook as she pushed her straight hair behind her ear. “I don’t.” And even if she did have feelings for the man, she would never admit it. Not to this pathetic piece of humanity.
Olive jumped from the back seat onto the passenger seat. Her paw crinkled the paper Kaine was writing on. She pushed on the dog, and Olive readjusted but whined deep in her throat.
“I saw Grant at the coffee shop.”
Okay, that was it. Kaine was now determined to jump-start her prayer life. How in the world did this man know where Grant was? Please, God . . . “You leave him alone.”
“Ooooh.” The dry chuckle riveted Kaine to the phone. His words were slurred, the voice undiscernible. “It’s so hard when what you love is threatened, isn’t it? Sort of consumes you.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to stop gripping your steering wheel so hard. I want you to hang up the phone and drive yourself home. To San Diego. You never should have left, you know. It wasn’t wise. It wasn’t smart. Foster Hill House should be left alone, as it has been for years.”
Stop gripping her wheel? Kaine pulled her hand from the black steering wheel. He was watching her! She scanned the parking lot of Walmart. Cars. Empty. Another car drove down aisle four. Female. With two little children in car seats.
Kaine turned her attention to the narrow two-lane street with its one stoplight at the Walmart intersection. A few cars drove by, the 25 mph speed limit allowing her to see the occupants. A blue sedan. A tan minivan. A Dodge Neon from the late nineties. A jalopy that should have been retired in 1982. A white Suburban.