Behind Her Mind: A Suspense Mystery Thriller (Kate Summers Book 5) Read online

  LEVI

  FULLER

  A Suspense Mystery Thriller

  Behind Her Mind

  5

  ALSO BY LEVI FULLER

  ALMA NOVELS

  Sound of Fear

  Eye of Fear

  Vision of Fear

  Taste of Fear

  Game of Fear

  ISLE OF BUTE NOVELLAS

  The Scent of Bones

  The Secret of Bones

  The Unburied Bones

  The Missing Bone

  Hide The Bones

  LUKE PENBER NOVELLAS

  Bend The Law 1

  Bend The Law 2

  Bend The Law 3

  Bend The Law 4

  Bend The Law 5

  NANTAHALA RIVER

  The Reticence 1

  The Reticence 2

  The Reticence 3

  The Reticence 4

  The Reticence 5

  TURQUOISE VALLEY

  The Kay Sister 1

  The Kay Sister 2

  The Kay Sister 3

  The Kay Sister 4

  The Kay Sister 5

  KATE SUMMERS

  Behind Her Mind 1

  Behind Her Mind 2

  Behind Her Mind 3

  Behind Her Mind 4

  Behind Her Mind 5

  AUDIO BOOK

  Sound of Fear

  Eye of Fear

  Copyright ©2021 by Blue Scallop Digital LLC. – All rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

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  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

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  1

  Fire is beautiful. It shifts and morphs, adapts, and fights until the bitter end. Fire is like a life that was trapped and is finally set loose. It consumes all, devouring the world, unwittingly recreating its dark prison by leaving nothing but ashes behind.

  Kate watched the match light. It was burning slowly towards her fingertips. A part of her wondered if being eaten by fire would feel different than watching it eat others. Would the pain blind her to the beauty of the flames, to their shifting colors, depending on what they were burning, to the way they seemed to caress and hold while they stole life?

  There were eyes watching her, waiting. Time was up. She looked at the flame and let it fall.

  ****

  Kate stumbled through the dark and tripped on a rope peg. The air whooshed from her lungs, as she hit the frozen ground and, slowly the fear began trickling back.

  I left one maze, just to enter another.

  She bit back a curse. She knew she’d left the mirror maze through the side of the tent, cheating her way out, unable to stand chasing the reflections any longer. She stopped and looked around. She was clearly in the back part of the fair, where the visitors were never meant to stray. In the distance, she could see the bright lights of the giant wheel. Kate frowned. The mirror maze tent had been pretty central to the whole fair. How had she ended up so far from the Ferris wheel?

  Fear snaked up her spine and locked itself around her, choking out the air. No. It was impossible. She couldn’t have lost time again so soon. A blast shook the night, and Kate looked up in alarm. Against the distant bright lights, she could see dark smoke gathering and a flicker of fire reaching high into the winter sky.

  Kate began to run, just as she did in her nightmares, racing for the flames, determined to help save anyone in danger. Why was there a fire here? Landers’s face swam to mind, and she shuddered. His insinuations, coupled with his envelope, made her certain he thought she was to blame. It was impossible. She would never be the bad guy. She spent her life defeating the criminals.

  Then how did you exit the maze and end up on the other side of the fair simultaneously?

  Kate felt her nails bite into her palms at the taunting question. She had obviously been frightened silly by the maze, left it in a blur, and kept running. She didn’t have any clear memories because it was a flight fueled entirely by instinct.

  Kate skidded to a halt as she hit the brightly lit thoroughfare. People were shouting, calling for loved ones, or yelling for someone to call everyone from the fire brigade, to 911, to the police. By the growing din of sirens, Kate was certain someone already had. She spotted Jack, arms akimbo, trying to keep the people back from the conflagration of tents, stalls, and booths stretching out behind him. Kate raced to join him, repeating his orders and flashing her ID. With this much brimming panic, no one would care what position she held on the force, as long as she was a member of it, they would feel reassured.

  “Kate! Thank God! I was worried you were still inside.”

  Kate spared Jack a small smile while glancing back to check on the fire trucks, which now had visible flashing lights to go with their noise.

  His words made her realize exactly where the fire was concentrated. The mirror maze. Her mind shuddered, and she forced the thought away, unwilling to give it strength by acknowledging it. Instead, she focused on Jack’s next words, as they managed to convince the crowd to back away further, reaching a safer distance.

  “Kyle told me not to worry. That you wouldn’t be in there.”

  “Looks like the cavalry is here,” she said, looking the other way. “Where is Kyle?”

  Jack’s face crumpled. “In there. I guess even if he really believed you weren’t in there, that didn’t mean other people weren’t.”

  Kate turned her head in horror to the flames that were rapidly eating away at everything in that section of the maze. She hesitated. Right now, the wide main thoroughfare of the fair was creating a natural barrier between the side being consumed by fire and the one still sparkling with lights. That would change if the wind shifted. These people needed to be moved.

  Kate turned back and continued yelling, along with Jack, turning people towards the car park, telling them to gather there and let the fire department do their job. Their words gained some movement, but it was really the arrival of the huge fire truck and Olsen, with what appeared to be every officer Asheville had to boast, that really cleared the way.

  Olsen eyed them, then barked an order to the other officers, before speaking to them. “You two can have a breather. We’ll take crowd control from here. Carson, you ensure the fire department gives us something. Summers, Dr. Adams is en route. Wait for her.”

  They nodded, and Kate stumbled back with Jack, relief conflicting with her innate need to be helping in some way.

  Jack winced and rubbed his shoulder. “Are you hurt?” she ask
ed, suddenly realizing that if he had thought she was still in the maze, then he and Kyle must have still been pretty close to the exit.

  He gave her a tiny smile. “I’m fine. Some civilian nearly bowled me over in panic after the gas at one of the food stalls exploded. That’s what started the fire. Took the mirror maze tent in seconds.”

  Kate nodded. “That’s why I asked. You two were waiting for me. I could hear you laughing.”

  “We were lucky, really,” he said, pulling her a little further away. The flames were dying now, doused by the hoses and deprived of fuel.

  “Lucky?”

  “Yeah. Landers came around the side of the tent, inviting us to try some dish from there. Kept rambling on. You know how he is.”

  Kate followed Jack’s gesture to see a now-abandoned food stall, offering various types of curry. The stall didn’t matter, but it gave her a legitimate excuse to look away from Jack. Something triggered in her memory. She’d come out of the tent, relishing in the fresh air and the starry sky above, then a small figure had shifted in the shadows.

  Landers.

  Had they spoken? Or was that why she’d fled?

  “You okay? You look kind of pale. Where were you, anyway?”

  Kate looked back. “I’m fine. It’s just, well, fire,” she said with a shrug, and watched realization dawn. Now any trace of fear or discomfort would be equated to the fire and the memories it’d bring up. She saw him still waiting and realized she’d have to answer the last question. “That maze seriously freaked me out. I got out through a gap in the tent, but then I was lost, I guess.”

  Jack’s face looked torn between wanting to laugh and deep relief. “I guess you’re lucky then too, not to have been close when the fire hit.”

  Kate began to nod, then spotted a team of paramedics—one of many that had begun entering the blackened stretch of land in search of survivors—coming back out, a man being supported between them.

  “Kyle!”

  She raced over, Jack’s footfalls echoing hers. “Is he alright?”

  “I’m fine,” Kyle said, with a voice scratchy from smoke inhalation. “Just a bit cooked.”

  Jack laughed, and Kate shook her head. “Why must you always be the hero?”

  “A habit I picked up from you.”

  Kate shook her head, then turned, as her name was called. “Adams is here. I gotta go. See you later.”

  She caught Jack’s wince and glare. Her words had been for Kyle alone. According to Jack, they had spent a night together, but she had no memory of the event, though he was adamant. He had toned down his advances for the moment though. A fact she was glad of.

  Kyle watched Kate rush over to Adams and felt his gut twist.

  “I’d better get the fire department’s preliminary,” Jack muttered, clearly hurt by Kate’s words.

  Kyle nodded, resisting the urge to sigh. If Landers was right, then it was better for Jack to give up.

  But do I think he is right? Kyle asked himself, looking from his childhood friend to the blackened wasteland behind him. He had saved four people from the fire but knew there’d still be casualties.

  He sighed. Landers had been here tonight.

  “Time is up, Detective Green. The game has begun. I hope you have listened and are prepared.”

  Those had been his words. Jack hadn’t been paying attention. Kyle had. He felt the pit widen further with fear, anger, and loss—then his eyes alighted on Kate again.

  She had always been the hero, the one who’d step in if someone was being bullied. If Landers was right, then Kyle had to save his Kate, the one that stood for justice.

  2

  Kate sat on her bed in Kyle’s house. He wasn’t there. The smoke inhalation had been bad enough for the doctor to insist he stay in the hospital, where they could monitor his lungs and ensure he wasn’t about to develop any complications.

  She held her face in her hands, remembering the flames, the screams, the crying people. She alone had found three corpses. Adams and the team had found another five and enough parts to make at least two more.

  She raked her hands roughly through her hair and looked up, glaring at herself in the small mirror on the dresser. She couldn’t keep doing this. She had never been a coward—she wasn’t about to start now, just because Simon Landers had rubbed her the wrong way.

  Kate looked down at his note that he had sent along with the report she had discarded. A report that had to be wrong.

  I thought you might want these. Remember. Courage and honesty. Time, as I am sure you’ve noticed by now, is slipping away from us. Only you can stop it before it runs out altogether ~ S. Landers.

  Kate shivered but pushed the fear away. Clearly, Landers was hinting that the report was not wrong—that she somehow had something to do with the fires that took her family. Kate gripped the blanket. He had to be wrong. Maybe that was why Uncle Ben had sounded almost angry when he had said that Landers had come back. If this was what drew him back, then it wasn’t unreasonable that Uncle Ben and Aunt Mae would have been against the man.

  She tilted her head to the side. There was another way to look at this all. The note, his insinuations, his being present twenty years ago, and again now. His coming to town for reasons other than her request to meet. Landers could be the killer.

  Kate stood, her face vanishing from the little mirror, as she was taller than the reflection within. She had always sought the truth in her work. That was why she did such a good job. She never let preconceived ideas get in the way. She followed the evidence with no attempts to make it fit a mold. Just because this was personal, didn’t mean she should behave any differently.

  Kate moved to the small desk and pulled out her laptop. She’d left a spare key to her apartment in New York with Kirk, to let in cleaners once a month and in case of emergency.

  She stared at the blank email for a while, trying to find the best words for her request. Kirk, while a good guy, was still her boss, and asking him to go digging through her apartment’s loft storage was beneath his dignity. Although he had become a sort of father figure, she didn’t want to blur the lines further.

  She decided to compose a new email, this one to her subordinate, Matt. He could be asked to fulfill the task, and Kirk would only be asked to give him the key for a day so he could fulfill her request.

  Happy with her decision, Kate quickly typed up two emails and sent them off. Hopefully in a few days, she’d have the still-sealed box from New York, containing her unused microscope. From there, she could make comparisons with the one found in the ruins of her aunt and uncle’s house. The one the report said had never been touched by anyone but her.

  Kate moved back to the bed, suddenly exhausted. Her shoulders hurt, as if she’d been dragging heavy objects, and her ribs felt bruised, probably from the fall over that rope peg. Things were in motion, for now. She could do no more, except try and keep tabs on Landers. Maybe she’d ask Jack or Kyle for help with that, just in case.

  ****

  “You did what?” Dr. Adams barked, looking at Simon Landers in horror.

  Kyle shook his head. They were closeted in Olsen’s office again.

  “Mr. Landers,” Olsen said, his voice coming out constricted, an angry vein throbbing in his temple. “I allowed you to stay—to pursue your idea—despite your complete lack of hard evidence. I didn’t do that so that you could incite a psychopath to lay waste to a fair, filled with innocents.”

  Landers shifted his sharp gaze to Kyle. “You seem awfully quiet, Detective. Has my proof been too much?”

  Kyle met the disconcerting gaze steadily. “Proof? You are still only making claims. Yes, the coincidences are racking up, and no, I am not ignoring evidence because of sentimentality.”

  “Are you not?”

  Kyle spared Olsen a momentary glare, filled more with tried patience than real irritation, before continuing. “But by the same coincidences, there is another prime suspect.”

  Olsen’s brows dipped together in con
fusion, and Dr. Adams raised her eyebrows in question.

  Landers, however, chuckled and dipped his head. At a glance of the other’s confusion, he added, “He means me. And he would be right. I, too, have been at all scenes with no alibi to prove my innocence and no witness to prove my guilt.”

  “Then why should we not consider you?” Kyle asked, as the penny dropped for the other two.

  “Because I am missing no time, because I came to you, and most importantly, because of this.”

  Kyle watched as he pulled a small voice recorder from his pocket.

  “I trust all of you will recognize her by voice alone?”

  Kyle tensed as the others nodded. “What is this?”

  “Proof. Not the take to court kind,” Landers said, meeting his eyes. “But hopefully enough to get us started.”

  He hit play, and they listened in silence

  “I see you’ve come out to play. No need to be rash. I’ll play. How about we make it a wager?” said Landers’s voice.

  “A wager?” replied a feminine voice, so familiar that it hurt.

  “To keep things fair, you see. Equal time.” Landers replied.

  “I like your confidence. I’ll enjoy seeing it shatter when you lose.”

  “How shall we agree to divide the—” Landers’s words were cut short by a sudden grunt and the sound of something hitting the ground.

  “I’ve agreed to play. I accept the wager. The rest is up to me. Now I have some irritations to be rid of. Run fast—if you don’t want to lose already.”

  The recording shifted through static and hurried footfalls, then loud noises created an unintelligible din until, “Detectives. Walk with me a minute? I hear the curry at the elephant stand is outstanding.”

  “Kate does like curry,” mused Jack’s voice.

  “Sure.” Kyle recognized his own voice as Landers switched the device off.

  “I trust you all recognized my companion?”

  Kyle shuddered. When this meeting had started, Landers had begun it by saying he had confronted Kate. While that voice was undeniably hers, it didn’t make his skin crawl. But there was an undercurrent in the words: a cold pleasure in the last threat.