by S W Vaughn
I sighed my target and squeezed the trigger.
I didn’t miss.
“Good advice,” I said as August Farnsworth’s body crumpled to the ground.
Chapter Forty-Two
Preston
She barely realized that she wasn’t dead, that the shot hadn’t come from August. Not even as she watched the hole blossom in his forehead, as she stood over his body and his wide, frozen eyes looked up at her and blood drizzled from the hole and more of it pooled behind his head.
She didn’t breathe until a hand gripped her shoulder, and a voice said, “You’re okay, Detective.”
But she wasn’t okay.
Donovan wasn’t okay.
“Oh my God, he shot you.” Speaking out loud broke the shell of shock that encased her, and she whirled to face him, alarmed — and, horribly, relieved that she had something else to focus on. Something that wasn’t August Farnsworth. “I’ll call it in,” she said, automatically reaching for her pocket, her phone. “Just … maybe you should …”
“Hey. Breathe.”
The hand again. This time taking hers, gently. So warm. And she was so cold.
She couldn’t pull the trigger.
It was August.
“You’re okay,” North said again.
She wasn’t. She had to get a hold of herself.
She closed her eyes. Breathed.
God, that smell.
“Let’s get out of here, yeah?” he said. “Nothing needs doing that can’t be done from outside.”
Yes. She wanted to be outside.
The hardest part was stepping across August’s body to get out of the room. She couldn’t believe he was dead, but it was easier to believe that than the fact that kind, earnest August Farnsworth had been a serial killer. A copycat serial killer.
Who’d learned everything he knew from Donovan North.
They made it outside. And it was better.
In the driveway, he opened the passenger door of his SUV and had her sit down, handed her something. Her phone. “You dropped this,” he said.
She had dropped it, hadn’t she?
In August’s driveway.
Somehow he’d found her phone, her car, and figured out that she was here. He’d tracked her down. Shot August when he would have killed her, because she’d been unable to pull the trigger. The Kid Glove Killer had saved her life.
She laughed, helplessly. The kind of laughter that was really sobbing, that contained the edges of a scream.
He hovered, his face concerned.
For her. When he was the one who’d been shot.
“Come here,” she said, reaching. “Your arm.”
His brow furrowed, as if he’d forgotten about the bullet. “Oh. That,” he said. “It’s fine.”
“He shot you.”
“Yeah, but I shot him better.” A smirk flickered across his mouth. He moved closer, shrugging his good arm from his jacket, reaching up to peel the sodden sleeve from the other arm. The right arm. “It’s just a flesh wound.”
“Sure it is.” Preston shook her head. “Can you lift your arm?”
He tried, got it about halfway up. Grimaced and lowered it again. “No.”
“All right. Let’s get the shirt off.”
He didn’t try to stop her as she lifted his black t-shirt, worked it up his left side. He pulled that arm out, and she eased the collar over his head. He hissed and closed his eyes as she peeled the material away from the wound in his right bicep. In and out. Nasty, but survivable.
There was no scarred X on his shoulder.
But he had other scars. Puckered bullet holes, knife wounds. Cigarette burns.
“I’m going to wrap this. Slow the bleeding,” she said, avoiding his gaze as she gripped the shirt and tried to tear it. Her wrists still throbbed, her hands stiff and sore.
He took the shirt from her, gently. Used his teeth and his good arm to rip it open. Handed it back to her.
“Thanks.” She accepted it, hesitant. Managed a smile. “This is probably going to hurt.”
“I know.”
Of course he knew. This wasn’t the first time he’d been shot.
She wrapped his arm, layering the material as much as she could, and tied the knots tightly. He bore the pain with only a few grunts. When she finished, he gasped out a breath and shuddered. “Guh, that’s gonna leave a mark,” he rasped.
“Unfortunately.” She looked at him, watched his hazel eyes. “Thank you. For saving my life,” she said. “I couldn’t …”
She failed to elaborate, but he nodded anyway. “He was your friend.”
“He was a monster.” Shivers gripped her, strong enough to raise gooseflesh as she realized just how close she’d come to suffering the same fate as Lynn Reynolds and Chelsea Mathers, and all those women in New York. If it hadn’t been for … him.
Donovan North was the Kid Glove Killer.
But this man was not Donovan North.
August was insane, but he’d been right about that much. Chief Palmer had hired Donovan North, the Kid Glove Killer, who’d been ready to move into Landstaff Junction and murder even more women, with his badge to protect him. But this man had come instead. Somehow, whoever he was, he’d taken the place of the real North and thrown himself into tracking the actual killer. Without him, they never would have stopped August.
And if Donovan North had showed up here … she didn’t even want to imagine how much worse it would’ve been.
This man was a hero.
But he was also impersonating a police officer. If he wasn’t Detective North, he could be anyone. Anything.
She had no idea what to do about that.
Donovan — not Donovan — nodded at the phone she’d set aside on the dashboard. “You’re not calling it in,” he said.
She made a decision.
“You’re right. I should do that.” She smiled as she picked up the phone and tapped through to the number for dispatch. “August,” she breathed. “They’re never going to believe this at the station.”
He glanced back at the creepy house. “I think they’re gonna have to.”
Yes, they would have to believe it.
Just like she had to believe that she was doing the right thing. That some secrets should be kept.
That it was safer this way.
Chapter Forty-Three
Marco
At least I’d gotten to be a good guy for once. Not the mob kind, but an actual good guy.
They’d wanted to bring me to the hospital, keep me overnight, but I declined. It really was just a flesh wound. Yeah, it hurt, and I wouldn’t be able to lift my arm over my head for a while, but I’d survived worse.
It wouldn’t slow me down much while I packed up and snuck out of town in the middle of the night. August had gotten what he wanted, after all.
Except for the part about him being dead. I was sure he hadn’t counted on that.
I was surprised to find that leaving this place hurt more than my arm.
I’d never even considered that I wanted anything more than I had, back in my other life. City living, plenty of money, all the glitz and glamour. I didn’t have normal-people problems, mortgages and bills, family squabbles to navigate, roots to nurture. And it had been easy to get it all. Kill a few people who deserved it anyway, get paid, enjoy the high life.
I thought it was satisfying.
But what I’d done here … it made everything that came before it seem worthless.
I had no idea what I’d do now. I couldn’t go back.
But I knew I couldn’t stay here, either. Detective Clarke — Preston — had to know that I wasn’t Donovan North. Even if August somehow failed to inform her, I’d done enough when I got to that house to make sure she knew something wasn’t right with me. She might even know who I really was, though I doubted she had the whole story. She would’ve arrested me after I shot August if she knew that much.
Still, it was only a matter of time now until she put everyth
ing together. She was, after all, a real detective. And a damned good one.
So I had to leave.
Run out in the middle of the night, the same way I’d come in.
Even though I’d give just about anything to stay, and be the man that Donovan North should’ve been.
I’d repacked the suitcases, not that I’d unpacked much of them in the first place, and started bringing them out to the main room of the suite, when there was a knock at the door.
I froze.
She must’ve figured it out already.
And just like the first time she came to my door, I had nowhere to run. No way out. Except through her.
I still couldn’t do that, either.
The knocking came again, and then her voice. “Your light’s on. I know you’re still awake.”
This was not the way I wanted it to end.
I closed my eyes briefly, giving serious thought to how badly I’d injure myself if I jumped off the third-floor balcony. But that would only land me in prison with two broken legs if I was lucky, a broken spine if I wasn’t.
So I went to the door. Opened it.
She had no badge, no gun, no cuffs.
“Can I come in?” she said.
I shrugged and stepped back to let her through, closed the door behind her. She walked slowly into the suite and looked at the small stack of suitcases by the short hallway, the boxes and bags scattered about. She stopped in the middle of the room and turned toward me, her expression unreadable. “Going somewhere?”
Christ, what was she playing at? She had to know.
And if by some miracle she didn’t … I had to tell her. As much as it was going to hurt, as screwed as I’d be, I had to come clean.
It was time to stop this. Time to atone.
“I’m not Donovan North,” I said.
“I know.”
I stared at her. “You know?”
“Is there an echo in here?” She actually smiled. It was careful, uncertain, but it was there. “Yes, I know,” she said. “Donovan North is the Kid Glove Killer. You are not the Kid Glove Killer. Therefore, you are not Donovan North.” She spread her hands, a magician’s tah-dah gesture. “Ninth grade math logic. Gotta love it.”
“Was,” I said, too stunned to process everything she’d said, or the implications behind it. “He was the Kid Glove Killer. He’s dead.”
Faint lines marred her brow. “Did you kill him?”
“No.” I was glad to be able to tell the truth on that one, even though I still wished I had.
Preston blew out a short breath. “Didn’t think so.”
She didn’t?
I would’ve thought so, if I was her.
“Okay, so …” I waved a vague hand in the air, at a complete loss. She knew, and she was here. Alone, unarmed. Why? “I guess you arrest me now, right?”
“I should. I thought about it.” One corner of her mouth lifted slightly. “But I’m not going to do that.”
“So you’re … letting me go,” I said slowly.
“Actually, I was hoping you’d stay.”
Words refused to form.
“I thought about it,” she said again. “I thought, what kind of man would I want my partner to be? The answer is definitely not a serial killer with a badge.” She looked at me thoughtfully, cocked her head. “But the kind of man who knows he’s doing something wrong for the right reasons, and keeps doing it anyway — and then admits what he’s done, knowing that he’ll have to pay the price? I can work with that man. The man who saved my life, and the lives of who knows how many more women who would’ve died if he hadn’t been here.”
“You can work with me?” Damn, I sounded like a moron. “But I’m not a detective.”
“Yes, you are. The best one I’ve ever worked with.” She walked toward me, reached out and laid a hand on my arm. “I’d like you to stay. Please.”
This wasn’t going to work, as badly as I wanted it to. Someone, someday, was going to put together everything that she had and realize I wasn’t who I was claiming to be. Or they’d figure out that ‘Donovan North’ was the Kid Glove Killer. In either scenario, I’d lose. Everything.
But maybe, until that happened, I could keep doing this. Hold onto being a good guy for as long as possible.
Atone.
“Well, if you really want me to,” I finally said, looking around at all the damned boxes and suitcases. “But now I have to unpack again.”
She laughed. “I’ll help you. And hey, did I mention that I can hook you up with a great real estate agent?”
“You did.” I finally managed a smile myself.
The Kid Glove Killer was dead — and so was Marco Lumachi.
I was Donovan North.
Epilogue
Donovan
A few days later
Somewhere in New York
I woke up sweating, my mangled guts throbbing like an infected tooth. Christ, this pain was never going to let up. The leg still hurt too, though not as much as my midsection, which felt like a furnace full of broken glass. “Hey, asswipe!” I shouted hoarsely. “I need more fucking morphine.”
There was a clatter from the other room. After a minute, Jake rushed in, cringing like a whipped dog. “Sorry, sorry,” he murmured as he went to the rickety table next to the bed and forced the swollen drawer open. “Didn’t know you were awake.”
“Yeah, just … give me the shit.” I dropped back on the pillow, exhausted already. It’d be a long damned time before I was up and around again.
If Jake hadn’t been in the car with me that night, I would’ve died. I supposed I should be grateful to the little toerag. Even though he had, predictably, run off to hide until the shooting stopped and he’d just barely managed to drag me out of there alive.
But if I started treating him with respect, he’d get ideas.
Not that he ever had any of those before. It’d been my idea to swap clothes with the tow truck driver, torch the place, take good old George’s truck.
At least Jake was good at following directions.
I hissed through my teeth as Jake injected the syringe, and then shuddered with relief when the blessed numbness hit my bloodstream. The pain eased, muted but still present, no longer a screaming ache but a thorn in my side.
Like Marco Lumachi. Who’d stolen my identity and left me for dead.
I knew, from the moment I saw him across the yard at New Heights all those years ago — standing by the fence, guarded and uneasy but in complete control of himself — that he would come in handy someday. My doppelganger. When I left juvie a week after he’d arrived, it was with strict instructions for Jake, who still had six months on his sentence.
Make friends with him, I’d said. Find out everything about him. Hook him up with your father, with the mafia. Get him into the life.
Make sure that I could keep track of his every move.
I’d already decided what I was going to do. What I truly wanted … to kill her, over and over and over again. But I had to be careful. I couldn’t get caught. So I went legal and got myself a badge, an impervious shield of protection that no one would ever be able to see through to the killer inside.
Well, almost impervious. There was always a chance someone would figure it out.
That’s where Marco Lumachi came in. The man with my face.
I’d engineered him into a hitman, but the darkness was already inside him. I saw it in his eyes, that day in the yard.
It didn’t take much to push him over the edge, into that darkness he carried.
Just like me.
Soon now, the NYPD would find all the evidence I’d planted before I left. They would learn that Marco Lumachi was the Kid Glove Killer, that he’d murdered all those girls and shot Sam Kennedy, the lead detective on the case, who’d been onto him.
The truth was that Kennedy — that alcoholic asshole — had been onto me. Had been asking me too may pointed questions at the office, sniffing around my life. So I’d worked with Jake
to set up the hit, made Lumachi take out the threat to me without ever knowing why, or even who the guy was.
I’d been particularly proud of that one.
Now, Marco Lumachi was dead. Burned beyond recognition, but with his wallet and ID still in his pocket, his car parked at the pumps. At least, that’s what the cops believed. And why would they look any harder, when they had clear evidence right in front of them?
Cops were lazy. Didn’t do any more work than they had to.
I knew that all too well.
“I heard from our guy up in Vermont,” Jake said. The sound of his voice irritated me, but for now I had to let him take care of most of the details. Until I healed, until I could do it myself, I had Jake Paladino. Lucky me. “Farnsworth is dead. They’re pinning all the murders on him.”
“Great,” I muttered. August had been a loose cannon ever since we were kids. Still, it was a shame to lose him. He’d worshipped me, the way Jake did, but he’d been a lot smarter than the toerag. And he never questioned me, not even when I fed him the names of Marco’s targets and told him to trust me, it’d be enough to rattle the cold bastard. I’d never told him my lookalike’s real name.
That was my secret to use, when I saw fit.
“And Lumachi?” I said to Jake.
“Apparently, he’s staying there. Still pretending to be you.”
Anger flooded me, burning brighter than the still-weeping gunshot wound in my gut. This nobody hitman, this juvenile delinquent, had some balls on him. But I pushed back the rage, folded it carefully and tucked it into a back corner of my mind, where I could take it out later and shape it into a weapon.
One I planned to aim squarely at Marco Lumachi.
“That’s fine,” I said, outwardly calm. “We know where he is, and it means that no one will come looking for me. If he’s Donovan North, then I can be … anyone.”
Anyone at all.
And when I recovered, I’d come for him.
My doppelganger.
A smile spread on my face as I settled into a morphine-laced sleep, and dreamed of sweet revenge.