Dying to Please Read online

  She turned to punch in the code on the security panel and stopped when she realized it wasn't beeping the little warning that a door had been opened while the alarm was set. Frowning, she examined the lights. No wonder it hadn't beeped; the alarm wasn't set. Merilyn must have forgotten it. She and Sonny both were a bit lax about the house's security system, since the property was walled and gated. They figured if the outside property was secure, so was the house.

  She went into the kitchen and started the coffee, then carried the newspaper through the tangle of halls and rooms to Sonny's den, where he liked to read it while he caught the morning news. He didn't like to hurry, so he was usually awake and downstairs by six-thirty, giving him plenty of time for the newspaper and breakfast before he left for the office at eight-forty.

  The low-level lights were on in the hallway, as were the lamps. Come to think of it, the light over the front door had also been on. Sarah frowned, suddenly uneasy. Something was wrong; maybe one of them had gotten sick during the night, because she thought she smelled—

  The smell.

  Panic hit her like a tidal wave, sending her reeling back toward the kitchen. That smell! It couldn't mean what she thought; it was just that she associated the scent with something terrible. Anything similar brought back the nightmare. Either Sonny or Merilyn had a digestive virus, that was all. They had her cell phone number, they should have called, and she'd have come back immediately to handle things.

  She swallowed the bile in her throat. “Mr. Lankford?” she called. “Hello?”

  There wasn't an answer. The house was silent around her, except for the almost inaudible hum of electricity that said the house was wired and everything was working.

  “Hello,” she called again.

  She didn't have her pistol; it still hadn't been returned to her. Since she wasn't performing any bodyguard function for the Lankfords, she hadn't worried about it. The police department would eventually return it to her. Now, with every tiny hair on her body lifting in alarm, she wished she had it.

  She should retreat, maybe call Cahill and get him to come check out the house. But the house felt . . . empty, just as the Judge's house had felt—as if there was no life inside it.

  She eased down the hallway, then halted, gagging a little.

  The smell. That damn smell.

  I can't do this again. The thought burned through her mind. This couldn't be happening. Not again. She was imagining things. Maybe not the smell, but she was letting it panic her. She should find out what was wrong, who was sick. She should be calm, and take charge. That was part of her job, handling whatever crisis arose here.

  She took two more steps. The door to the den was maybe three more steps away. She forced herself to take those steps, practically throwing herself forward like someone who had finally worked up enough nerve to leap off a tower bungee-jumping. The odor had an almost oily quality to it, sticking to her throat, coating her tongue. She gagged again, and covered her nose and mouth with her hand as she looked inside the den.

  He was sprawled on the floor in a half-sitting position, his head and shoulders supported by the heavy coffee table. His head was bent at an unnatural angle, as if he hadn't had room to lie flat. The wound was . . .

  She didn't look for Merilyn. As she had done once before, she backed away, slowly, shaking, little mewling sounds coming from her throat. She was vaguely shocked at herself for making such sounds. They sounded so weak, and she was strong. She had always been strong.

  She didn't feel strong now. She wanted to run screaming from this house, find someplace safe and dark and cower inside it, until this horror was gone.

  She wanted . . . she wanted Cahill. Yes. When he was here, she wouldn't feel so helpless, so shaken. She had to call Cahill.

  She kept backing down the hall, and as she had once before, she found herself standing in the kitchen. She was shaking violently now, and she knew she was on the verge of hysteria.

  No. She wouldn't give in to it. Couldn't. There were things to be done, that all-important call to make.

  Not Cahill. Not first. The first call had to be 911. She had to do things right. Maybe Merilyn was still alive, maybe the medics could get here in time to save her, if she made the 911 call first.

  Her hand was shaking so hard she couldn't hit the right numbers on the keypad. She disconnected and tried again, with the same result. Weeping, cursing, she banged the phone against the counter. “Work, damn it! Work!”

  The phone came apart in her hand, plastic sections flying. She threw what was left of it against the wall. She needed another phone. She needed . . . another . . . damn . . . phone!

  She tried to think. Phones were all over this house, but where exactly? She hadn't worked here long enough for the knowledge to be automatic, not now when she could barely form a single coherent thought.

  And she couldn't hunt for one. She might find Merilyn instead.

  She couldn't think about it, couldn't think of that energetic, cheerful, good-hearted woman lying in a pool of blood somewhere. Concentrate. Find a phone.

  The bungalow. She knew where the phone was in there.

  She tried to run, but her legs wobbled beneath her and she staggered, falling to one knee on the courtyard pavers. She didn't notice any pain, but bounded up and staggered the rest of the way to the bungalow door.

  There was a phone just inside, in the living room. She grabbed it and started to jab at the buttons, but stopped herself and managed to drag in a few deep, shaky breaths. It was hard won, but she found a small measure of calm. She had to get herself under control; she was no good to anyone if she let herself fall apart.

  Her hands were still trembling, but she managed to push 911, and she waited.

  Cahill couldn't believe it. He fucking couldn't believe it. At first he thought he'd heard wrong, that the report was a hoax, or that the address was wrong. Something. For one murder to occur in Mountain Brook was unusual enough, but a double murder only a matter of weeks after the first one? And discovered by the same woman who had called in the first one? Un-fucking-believable.

  He had an icy feeling in the pit of his stomach, a cold hard knot of dread that had nothing to do with Sarah's safety—she'd called the murder in, so she was okay—and everything to do with being a cop. He was a damn good cop, combining experience, intuition, and a talent for analyzing cold hard facts without letting his emotions cloud the issue. Intuition was telling him now that this stretched coincidence way the hell too far.

  When he got to the house, the scene made the one at Judge Roberts's house look organized. Squad cars, unmarked cars, vans, medics, and a fire engine clogged the driveway and street, but at least they belonged. The curious, the sightseers, the media vans, the print reporters, all formed a crowd that had brought traffic to a grinding halt. Hell, there was even a helicopter overhead.

  He clipped his badge to his belt where it could be seen and waded through the clog of onlookers, ducking under the crime scene tape and asking the first uniform he came to, “Have you seen the lieutenant?”

  “He's inside.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sarah was somewhere inside, or in that little house behind the pool. He didn't search for her, though; he had to see the lieutenant first.

  The house was a warren; a big warren, but a warren nevertheless, as if the architect had been both schizophrenic and dyslexic. He finally found the lieutenant standing in a hallway peering inside a room, but not stepping inside and carefully not touching anything. The room would be the crime scene, then, or one of them.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said to the lieutenant, motioning his head to the side.

  “This is a fucking mess,” the lieutenant muttered under his breath, still staring inside the room. He looked tired, though the day had just begun. “Yeah, what is it?”

  “You may want to keep me clear of this case. Conflict of interest. I'm involved with Sarah Stevens.”

  “The butler?” Lieutenant Wester said sharply. “I