I’m at the cabin. Contact me in fifteen minutes or so.
She pushed send, then gathered her purse and opened the car door. As her foot hit the ground, she remembered her revolver. Should she take it? It seemed a little overly paranoid. Her phone dinged, and she glanced down at George’s text.
Take your gun.
Maybe she should. In preparation for such an event, she’d gone into the downstairs bathroom at the newspaper and clipped her Flashbang bra holster onto the front of her bra. Now she opened the glove box, removed the Ruger LC380, and made sure the safety was on; then, ducking down in the seat, she discreetly lifted her blouse and slid the gun into the holster. No doubt it was overkill for a completely harmless interview.
Her hands were still sweaty, so she wiped them on a napkin from the glove box and grabbed her phone, tucking it into her back pocket. A quick glance in her purse reassured her that she had her steno pad, pen, and recorder. By five o’clock she’d be back in the newsroom writing the final chapter in this bizarre string of murders. She’d ask for next weekend off to spend some time with her girls. Maybe go to Brookings at the coast. She wondered how Jordan’s photo shoot was going. On the way back to the paper, she’d call her.
Gravel crunched under her feet as she approached the front steps. The porch had a couple of rocking chairs, a wooden two-person table in the corner, and a variety of potted plants with colorful petunias. Someone must come around pretty often to keep them watered. She doubted if the Corderos were up here that frequently. She rang a doorbell and waited. Engraved on a rock next to a flowering stump were the words Martha Stewart does not live here.
After a decent amount of time, she rapped her knuckles on the screen door. It had certainly taken her longer than expected to get through the traffic at the lake, and her mini-breakdown in the woods made her even later, so Cordero might be waiting around back, but surely she’d heard Whit drive up. She walked along the creaking boards and found the back porch empty except for a couple of redwood lounge chairs. The only sounds were birds high up in the trees, the water gently lapping at the dock. She tried the back door and found it unlocked. Hesitating for only a moment, she pushed the door open. It wasn’t like she was breaking and entering. She was there by invitation.
“Hello?” Whit called, blinking her eyes to adjust to the sudden gloom. The kitchen and living room were combined into a great room with a vaulted ceiling and soaring river-rock stone fireplace. A large black-and-brown chiseled-edge granite island in the kitchen divided the room. Tan leather sofas surrounded the fireplace, and a long, rustic, wooden dining table sat before a two-story picture window facing the lake. The soft ticktock of a grandfather clock near the front door filled the silence. The place smelled of old wood fires from the previous winter, and coffee, probably from the morning.
Cordero might have taken a nap and overslept. She did hit her head the night before and had to get stitches at the hospital. An afternoon nap would make sense. This thought was dashed as Whit noticed two glasses on the counter with melting ice, rivulets of condensation on them, next to a pitcher of iced tea, most likely in preparation for her visit. She had to be here somewhere. Perhaps the bathroom?
Whit set her purse on the kitchen counter and approached the bottom of the stairs near the front door. She mounted the first step, her hand resting on the polished mahogany banister.
“Mrs. Cordero? Hello?”
She contemplated just waiting on the porch for a while. Remembering her panic attack, she decided the sooner she finished this interview and drove back to town, the better.
With a bit more gusto, she called again, eyeing the landing at the top of the stairs.
Silence, except for the grandfather clock ticking rhythmically.
She wondered if she should search upstairs, and the longer she stood there indecisive, the deeper her misgivings became.
Tick … tock … tick … tock … The gold pendulum’s rhythmic swing back and forth in the grandfather clock beneath the stairs was somehow unsettling in the absolute quiet.
The hair on the back of her neck began to rise.
Something was wrong. A sense of peril accelerated her heart rate.
Whit progressed up three more steps, her gaze fixed on the upper landing that stretched across and to the left in an L shape. Two closed doors on her left and two open doors at the top of the stairs. Nestled in the corner sat a cozy wide-windowed nook with bookshelves and a small desk. Through the nook window she could see dark clouds gathering, the silver lining dimming the sunlight to a soft haze and creating shadows upon the stairs and in the hall above. Swallowing her unease, she took a determined step upward. Her hand was slick on the banister, so she wiped the sweat onto her blouse, silently cursing her phobia of the woods. She slowly proceeded to the top of the landing.
“Celeste? It’s Whit McKenna from the Chronicle. Hello?”
In the answering silence, she let out a long pent-up breath. She was debating which door to try first when she glanced down. A red smear streaked along the left side of her white blouse. She frowned, wondering how that had happened, then looked at her hand. It was sticky, but not with her phobic sweat.
Blood?
A darting glance at the bottom railing revealed a smear of blood, feathered in a red streak by her hand. And midway down the stairs, she’d stepped in a pool of blood, overlooked because it lay in shadow on the dark mahogany. Her heart catapulted to a fast gallop in seconds. She reached under her blouse and yanked her gun out, ears straining. She unlocked the safety and began slowly backing down the stairs, trying to see everywhere at once.
Her breathing rapid and shallow, she gripped the gun in both hands, pointing at the ground as her instructor had shown her. With each descending step she sensed that she was not alone. Mouth dry, Whit edged to the next step, holding her breath as the pulse of her heart swished through her ears.
The floor creaked above her and she jerked around, nearly losing her balance.
“Celeste?”
Dust motes swirled in a sunbeam from the nook window, but all else was still and quiet. A flitting shadow bounced across the wall as a large bird flew beyond the panes of glass. Though the cabin was warm, a sudden chill shuddered through her. No longer questioning her instincts, she sensed imminent danger. Avoiding the puddle of blood on the stairs, she retraced her steps to the bottom, paused, and cocked her head to listen.
She stood frozen …
Whit jerked her gun toward a thump on the front porch. Another clump, clump, and her finger was on the trigger. Someone was on the porch. Just as she tightened her finger to pull the trigger, the head of a deer appeared in the window. It nibbled at the potted plants and pulled the blooms off the petunias. Sick with relief, she lowered her arms, and let out the breath she’d been holding.
She had certainly let herself jump to conclusions. The blood on the stairs had unnerved her. Cordero had prepared tea for her visit, so she was around somewhere. Perhaps she’d fallen on the stairs and opened up her head wound. She was probably upstairs even now, dressing her injury.
Determined to stop being so afraid of everything, she resolutely climbed the stairs. “Mrs. Cordero, are you all right?”
The first bedroom to her right appeared to be a guest room with a brass queen bed draped in a country quilt. A dresser and a chair finished the simple room. Everything looked in order. She tried the next door; it opened to reveal a small office with a window overlooking the lake. Distant boaters glided across the lake, creating white wakes behind them, and at the water’s edge the dock stretched its wooden planks out over the lake with the boat and canoe tied to it. Her gaze followed the lakeshore, and in the distance were two similar cabins.
Turning from the window, she examined the desk with its stacks of papers. Most of them looked like real estate contracts, and a half dozen scrolled house plans scattered the floor behind the desk. One wall had a large bulletin board with development plans for East Medford.
No rest for the wicked.<
br />
Back in the balconied hall, the next door was partially open. Droplets of blood dripped down the white wood siding inside the doorframe. Whit checked the safety on her gun. It was still off. She knocked and gently pushed the door wider. “Mrs. Cordero?”
She cautiously stepped into the room, her gun ready. Heavy drapes were pulled closed in the bay window, blocking much of the sunlight and casting shadows over two leather reading chairs. Directly in front of her was a huge log bed with a green floral bedspread. One side of the bed was turned back, the pillow dented as if Cordero had been resting. Above the bed hung a large gold-framed painting of mallard ducks in flight. Light from the adjoining bathroom fell upon a white bearskin run at the foot of the bed. A few drops of blood trailed the rug to the bathroom.
She glanced nervously over her shoulder through the open door and down the stairs. Deciding she had no choice but to check on Cordero, she slowly crossed the room and pushed the bathroom door all the way open. The counter, littered with perfume bottles, lotions, and assorted makeup, was splattered with blood. More frightening than that, bloody handprints smeared the sink and mirror. A brightly colored glass bottle of some sort lay shattered at her feet.
Clearly this was the scene of some sort of struggle. Alarmed for good reason now, Whit stepped carefully over the broken glass and saw a claw-foot bathtub with a white shower curtain. A bloodied hand, glittering with diamonds, protruded from the curtain at the back of the tub. Cordero. Her heart skipped a beat.
The chime on her phone dinged. George!
In the same instant she saw movement in the mirror behind her and found herself staring into the hazel eyes of Wilhelm, the masseur from Eden Retreat.
“All you had to do was walk away, but you just had to snoop.”
Whit flipped around, gun ready, only to have Wilhelm’s vicelike grip catch her wrist and twist. When she tried to wrench away, he slammed her wrist against the counter. She cried out in pain as the gun dropped onto the sink. In seconds she was disarmed. Wilhelm tucked the gun into his belt, then pulled her roughly into the bedroom and shoved her into a leather chair.
“I was just about to clean up my little mess when you arrived.” Wilhelm shook his head. “Ah, well, two birds with one stone.”
“The newspaper knows where I am.” Whit told him, rubbing her wrist.
“They don’t know I’m here.”
“You can’t clean up all the blood. Forensics will find it.”
“That doesn’t matter. She fell down the stairs, busted open her stitches, you arrived and helped her clean up, and then you both went for a boat ride. All that matters is that they don’t find her body. The teratoma in her spine. They will have no way to connect her to the other deaths. Hers will be a tragic boating accident.”
“So you admit to killing the others.”
“They killed themselves with their greed for more. All I had to do was appeal to their egos.” Wilhelm opened the closet door and dug around looking for something.
“Why?” With his back to her, Whit edged to the side of the chair, waiting for an opportunity. Unfortunately, the closet was between her and the exit. “What was in it for you?”
“Here.” He pulled out a couple of cloth belts from the closet, stretching them between his hands. “For me? Fifty grand each. All cash.”
Whit stood, defiantly taking a step toward him. “This is not going to end well for you. You’ll be caught and spend the rest of your life in prison. If you left now, you could disappear with all that money.”
He cocked his head to the side as if considering her suggestion. “Too many loose ends. Give me your hands.”
She faced him, considering her options. If she tried to scramble over the bed, he would just catch her. There was no time to open the window and leap out, landing on who knows what.
With a jerk on the belt, he warned, “If you don’t, I’ll do it for you. Make it easy on yourself.”
He could easily overpower her. Pretending to give in, Whit held out her hands close enough to bring him nearer. When he seized her wrist to pull her to him, she bent over and clamped her teeth into his hand and bit down hard.
He yanked his hand free with a scream of pain.
She tried to run past him, but he was surprisingly quick for such a big guy and grabbed hold of her arm and swung her around to face him. He backhanded her across the face, knocking her into the dresser, then grabbed her by the shoulders to haul her up. Furious, her cheekbone throbbing painfully, Whit kicked her knee up as hard as she could between his legs. Wilhelm bent double, groaning, and let go of her.
With a burst of adrenaline, she rushed past him, shoving his hand aside, and raced down the stairs. She could hear his panting breath right behind her, his stumbling steps. He caught hold of her hair, yanking her head back. She twisted and landed hard on the stairs, punching her fist into his eye. She half stumbled away from him, missing a step, and slammed into the wall, using it to keep herself upright.
She’d reached the bottom of the stairs when Wilhelm’s brute weight landed on her, knocking her to the floor. Gasping for air, the wind knocked out of her, she turned her head to the side and shoved away from him, but he was too heavy. He flipped her over, his face purple with rage. His beefy hands wrapped around her throat. She tried to pry his hands away, but they were like steel and she felt herself fading, her lungs burning for air.
In a blind rage, he squeezed her neck until she thought it would snap like a twig.
In that half-conscious moment, she remembered her gun tucked into his pants. Letting go of his wrists, she fumbled around his belt, frantically searching. The tips of her fingers felt hard metal, but the gun was jammed into his pants. She clawed and pinched until she had the butt of the handle. With a last surge of lucid energy, she yanked hard. So intent on choking her to death, he realized too late what she was about to do and released her throat. She gasped, fighting for oxygen, while he wrestled with her arm; fortunately, she managed to get a strong grip on the gun before he could stop her. She squeezed the trigger, aiming at his stomach. With a howl of pain, he rolled to the side.
Whit scrambled backward, coughing and choking for air, grasping at the front door handle, and pulled herself up. Before she could open the door, Wilhelm lunged at her again, trying to wrestle the gun from her hand, but she squeezed the trigger twice. One bullet shattering the front window, glass splintering, and the other bullet blew through Wilhelm’s jaw. Horrified, eyes bulging, he fell backward, holding his profusely bleeding bits of jaw together and moaning.
The back door flew open and two police officers rushed into the room, guns drawn, shouting for them to raise their hands.
Sick with relief, Whit raised both hands. Wilhelm fell backward on the stairs, blood oozing between his fingers holding on to his jaw.
One of the cops moved forward and removed the gun from her grasp, while the other officer radioed for an ambulance.
The officer who had taken her gun asked, “Are you all right?”
Coughing and wheezing, she nodded.
“Anyone else in the house?”
Remembering Cordero, not knowing if she was dead or alive, she managed a raspy whisper. “Upstairs. She’s hurt.” Eyes tearing with the effort to talk, she wiped her face with the back of her hands as the cop cautiously climbed the stairs, his gun still drawn.
“McKenna!”
To Whit’s amazement, George stood in the open doorway. She almost burst into tears, she was so happy to see him.
He hurried over. “Are you injured?”
She shook her head no. Still wheezing, she began to tremble.
“Here.” He offered his arm and led her to the couch.
She leaned back with her eyes closed, rubbing her bruised throat, still consciously forcing air into her lungs. She was lucky to be alive. She heard George rummaging in the kitchen.
George shoved a glass in her hand. “Drink this.”
She sniffed it. “Whiskey?”
“Nature’s reme
dy for catastrophic events.”
She tossed it back, felt the burn, and breathed a sigh of relief. She darted a glance at Wilhelm, who was whimpering in pain and bleeding profusely. As one of the officers administered aid to him, he went limp, and appeared to have passed out on the floor.
Coughing, trying to clear her throat, she asked, “How did you get here so fast?”
“I arrived not long after you and parked in the woods. When you didn’t answer my text, I was sure something was wrong, so I called state park police.”
“Thank God you had the sense to follow your own judgment.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said. Cordero being the bad guy, so I looked up Cordero’s property taxes, found the cabin’s address, and drove on up.”
Whit shook her head. “You might make a damn good reporter after all.”
CHAPTER
32
RIGGS PUSHED THE elevator button for the fourth floor of Rogue Community Hospital and stepped back as the doors closed. Not long after collecting the cadavers at Eden Retreat, Whit had called to tell her about the frightening experience at Cordero’s cabin. Although Riggs was sorry Whit had experienced such a close call, it was a huge relief to catch the killer. And it didn’t hurt that her quid pro quo with Whit about Cordero had actually panned out as a legitimate lead. Maybe now she’d be back in the department’s good graces.
A few minutes earlier she’d stopped by the intensive care unit on the third floor to see Cordero. The doctor said she’d been injected with sodium barbital, which had induced a heart attack, but she might pull through. She was still in a coma. They had also done a scan and found a tumor on her spine that would need surgery when she was stronger, if she survived.
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