Exposing a Killer

by Laurie Alice Eakes

No one on the train appeared to be anyone who could help. A handful of tired-looking women, a sleeping teen, a man in a suit. They all stared. None moved.

  Megan shoved through the door and grabbed hold of the burly man’s belt. She thought she was strong when working out on a weight machine. Faced with true strength pulling against her, she may as well have been a house cat trying to take down an elephant.

  If only she did carry a gun...

  She would never be able to shoot anyone. And yet one could bash someone over the head with the barrel.

  If she carried a handbag, she could club him with that. But handbags got in the way when climbing trees or running...

  The man she tried to stop had carried a gun earlier. He concentrated on Jack, seeming to not notice her feeble efforts to stop him. He couldn’t hear her over the rumble of wheels on track, echoing off buildings above the rush hour roar of traffic below, sirens wailing in the distance, wind whipping past at gale-force speed.

  Megan found the man’s gun holstered beneath his coat and yanked it free.

  “Hey.” He jerked around, towering over her, swaying with the rhythm of the rails. His face was red with effort or rage or both.

  Megan gripped the barrel of the pistol and swung the stock toward his face. A second before steel met bone, he grasped her wrist.

  “I don’t think so.” His voice rose above the tumult.

  “You...don’t...think.” His words coming between gasps, Jack snatched the gun from Megan’s fingers and tossed it onto the platform. In seconds they left it behind, a piece of evidence of the night’s work.

  And the man was gone, too, slamming through the emergency door and vanishing into the car.

  “You’re all right.” Megan started to sigh with relief.

  Then a hand clamped onto her shoulder and spun her around. “What are you doing, young lady?”

  “You.” Megan came face to coat buttons with the suited man from the train car. In the hand not holding her, he held a badge.

  A train cop. She knew they existed to keep the public transit system safer but had never met one. Now she was closer to one than she liked—one who obviously didn’t pay much attention to what was going on around him if he hadn’t heard her cry for help.

  He scowled at her beneath an upper lip needing a shave and eyes so tired they appeared hollow, haunted. “I asked you a question, miss.”

  “Someone was trying to push my friend over the railing.” She turned to point toward Jack.

  He wasn’t there, either.

  He had invaded her case, scared her out of a tree, which had got her shot at, hitched a ride in her car without her permission and jumped into her rideshare without asking. And now, when she risked her life to save him, he’d vanished on her the moment a cop appeared.

  She was beginning to see a pattern. Jack Luskie didn’t like the police. She didn’t understand that of a man with light brown hair and blue eyes, unless he was lying to her and was a criminal, not a forensic accountant.

  “Maybe he went after the man who pushed him.” She spoke to herself as much as to the cop.

  “Then let’s go find him.” The officer steered Megan to the only door through which Jack could have disappeared.

  But he hadn’t disappeared. He sat—slumped—on one of the forward-facing seats near the exit doors a third of the way up the car. He held his arm, and the bit of his face she could see appeared a little on the green side.

  He hadn’t abandoned her; he had gone to sit down before he fell and accomplished the other man’s task without him having to do anything. So Jack was probably not a criminal?

  Relief so profound her knees weakened flowed through Megan. She sped up the aisle, tripping on a suitcase someone had left in the way, and sank onto the seat beside him. “Do you need an ambulance?”

  “I’ll be all right in a few minutes.” He released his arm.

  Blood smeared his fingers.

  Megan shuddered. She didn’t really mind the sight of blood. She simply didn’t like it coming out of people she felt responsible for.

  Which was ridiculous. She was in no way responsible for a grown man who was at least half again her size. And yet...

  “You two are off at the next station,” the cop said.

  No problem. They had missed their transfer point and needed to backtrack anyway.

  He stood in front of them, arms crossed over his broad chest and above an equally broad belly. “We can’t have people on the trains who are fooling around between cars.”

  “We weren’t playing around,” Megan protested. “We’re not stupid.”

  The cop’s raised eyebrows said he thought differently.

  “Someone was chasing us and tried to—”

  “Forget about it, Meg,” Jack interrupted. “He can’t help us.”

  “But the—” This time, Megan interrupted herself.

  This officer of the law, probably near retirement and figuring the train patrol was an easy gig, wouldn’t be able to do anything about the gun on the platform, the possible murderer somewhere on the train, the danger she and Jack were in on and off the L. They would call Jack’s uncle when they got somewhere safe.

  If they got somewhere safe.

  Megan wasn’t sure where safe was. Her office? Her apartment? Jack’s house? These people could know very well who she and Jack were and where they worked and lived.

  Where they lived.

  Megan shot upright. “I have to get home. Now.” The slowing of the train came as a relief. “My roommate’s all alone. If someone shows up there, she might get trapped. Hurt.”

  “Call her,” Jack said.

  Megan held up her phone. One per cent battery power.

  “Use mine.” Jack handed her his phone.

  Megan raised her eyebrows at the phone’s age but said nothing as she tapped in her roommate Amber’s number. Ringing began...and repeated...and repeated.

  Nothing to worry about. Amber couldn’t always get to her phone. She might not want to answer the strange number so early in the morning. Nothing was going down in Megan’s third-floor walkup. Nothing.

  The train brakes squealed to a stop. Megan sprang to her feet, tossing Jack’s phone into his hand. “I’ve got to catch that train going in the other direction.” Dodging commuters made twice as thick by backpacks or wide by oversize messenger bags, skirting a newspaper machine and a stairwell, she reached the other side of the platform in time to leap onto the train a hair’s breadth before the doors slammed shut. The night had come to an end. She was hopeful she could go home and rest and leave the Cahill incident to the cops.

  * * *

  Jack gnawed on the inside of his lower lip as Megan sprinted from his life and Grace gabbled on the phone.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m sure it’ll be all right, but...”

  The but was the problem. The worry.

  A strange car had been idling in front of their house for the past hour. The rumble of its engine had awakened Grace, who slept in the living room downstairs because she couldn’t manage steps.

  She had been unable to see the car’s license plate. She didn’t know one car make from another. It was dark. Compact. The windows were tinted enough so she couldn’t see any possible occupants in the early-morning light.

  “I’m sure it’s all right,” she reassured him. “I just thought you’d want to know.”

  “I do.”

  But not when he was more than half the length of the city away. He could do nothing to save her.

  She wouldn’t be alone if she lived with us, he heard his uncle saying.

  And she’d probably be running wild in the streets.

  Except now she wasn’t running anywhere, not through any fault of her own. Not through any fault of his, Jack knew in his head. In his heart, he felt guilty for letting her go on her fi
rst date with a boy he barely knew. She was sixteen, after all. He’d dated at sixteen. And they weren’t alone. They were with an entire group of young people attending one of the city’s numerous festivals. Jack could no longer remember which one, just that it had been somewhere public transit didn’t easily reach, so someone’s parents had offered to drive them in their van, a rarity of a vehicle in the city.

  Not one person in that van was responsible for the other festival goer, who had been drinking all day before driving himself home. He’d T-boned them as they left the street on which they had parked. T-boned them right where Grace was sitting.

  Other kids were injured, along with the parents. Grace’s legs had been badly broken, and she suffered a head injury that had put her in a medically induced coma for nearly a month.

  Her legs would heal. She would walk again, but probably not run. The doctors were sure she would even lose her speech impediment with therapy. Her spirit, on the other hand, was still an iffy matter.

  Her friends had come around often during the summer. Now that school had started up again, their doorbell rarely rang, and Grace was no longer buried in her phone texting or on some social media app. She read far too much for a teenage girl who had once only done her homework because she knew she needed to, not because she liked it.

  Schoolwork seemed to be all that engaged Grace now, that and learning how to knit. An occupational therapist said it would be good for restoring her fine motor skills. And so it had been. Grace was good, to Jack’s untrained eye. At least he could help her with math.

  And he could keep her safe.

  “Grace,” he asked in as neutral a tone as he could, “have you noticed anyone near the house?”

  “Just some guy reading the meter.”

  Jack shivered on the warm train. A meter reader could be legitimate. It could also be someone checking out his house.

  How had he found it anyway? Oh, yes, Megan’s car. She had tossed aside his business card. The thief—the killer—could have gone to his house to intimidate him—or Grace, once they figured out she was there.

  “Grace,” Jack said with a little more urgency, “stay away from the windows. In fact, close the drapes.”

  “But that makes the house so dark.”

  “I don’t care. Just do as I say.”

  “Is something wrong?” Her voice shook.

  “Maybe.”

  Of course something was wrong. He had good reason to believe she was not safe at his house, yet she was safer staying there than trying to go anywhere on her own.

  “Just listen to me,” he said. “Please.”

  “All right.” Sighing, she agreed.

  He left the train station and flagged a cruising taxi. It would cost more than a rideshare, but it was there, not on the other end of an app he would have to navigate and then wait to accommodate him. The driver’s face lit with happiness the moment Jack gave him the address. The fare was going to cost a mint.

  He texted Grace his estimated arrival time and asked if the car was still there. She responded that it was and she was staying away from the windows.

  If I could get upstairs...

  She didn’t finish the thought. Jack understood. If she could climb stairs, she could probably read the license plate from an upstairs window.

  Give it time, he wrote back.

  A cliché everyone told the frustrated sixteen-year-old all summer. The bones will heal with time. The pain will go away with time. Your tongue won’t feel thick if you give it time.

  He and the therapists and doctors were right, but Grace wanted to be well now. She wanted to go to school and have friends again.

  The problem was, in March, Jack was uprooting them anyway when he entered the FBI Academy. She would go to a boarding school in Northern Virginia, where she could be close enough for him to visit, yet be well taken care of and have classmates with whom she could make new friends, away from those who had hurt her.

  He’d been saving for the school fees for a year. Every penny from their parents’ life insurance had gone to pay Grace’s medical expenses. He had intended it for her college tuition. Now he counted on selling the Beverly house for her future. He didn’t need the money for himself. His future was securely planned.

  An image of Megan flashed across his memory. When the time came for him to marry and have a family, once his law enforcement career was settled and Grace’s future was assured, Jack hoped he’d meet another woman like Megan wherever he was assigned. He liked her spirit.

  He would have ensured she reached her door without incident if Grace hadn’t called. Megan seemed secure enough when she entered the train. If her walk home was short, she should be fine in broad daylight. Should be. But what about Grace and the idling strange car, and the suspicious meter reader?

  Lips pressed in a thin line, he stared out the window at the masses of cars crowding the side streets the cabbie had taken. An old-timer, apparently, he knew the backways to avoid the worst of rush hour, though nothing helped in the narrow, old streets overflowing with too many vehicles for their width. Even the L trains they passed under looked packed to the gills. So many people smashed together made Jack restless. Any one of them could be dangerous, and not necessarily the ones people thought were dangerous. The man at Cahill’s had looked wealthy, maybe a little uptight, with his tucked in polo shirt and tailored slacks above loafers and no socks. His hair had been cut short, but Jack couldn’t recall its color. Brown? Dark blond?

  He shifted on the cracked vinyl seat as he tried to force his mind to recall every detail. He couldn’t. But Megan had pictures and a video on her phone. Jack didn’t need to remember.

  He should have called his uncle to have someone go to the house and check out the vehicle idling in front. That way, he could have walked Megan home and assured her safety. She was in danger until she got that video uploaded to the cloud or to another electronic device.

  But that would have meant admitting to his uncle he wasn’t one hundred percent capable of ensuring Grace’s safety. If Grace wasn’t safe, Jack wasn’t a good guardian or brother. If he wasn’t a good guardian, he should let his uncle and aunt have custody.

  He leaned forward, peering through the windshield as though doing so would make the taxi move faster. They were making good time considering the hour and the distance. Fifteen miles could mean as much as an hour.

  But, no, they were turning onto 103rd Street. Not much farther...

  At last, they reached his street and turned. Jack peered down the block to his house. Several cars and a couple of trucks lined either side of the road. One truck was running as its driver checked a utility line. So was one of the cars.

  “Stop here.” Jack was already swiping his credit card through the machine, as the cabbie stomped on the brakes.

  “You’re okay here?” the cabbie asked. “The GPS says it’s another block.”

  “It’s fine.” Jack gave the man a generous tip for getting him there so quickly, stuffed his card into his wallet, and slid out the door.

  He didn’t tell the man he doubted he was all right there. Worse, neither was Grace, not with Megan O’Clare’s car idling in front of his house.

  FIVE

  The four blocks between the L station and her apartment proved an exercise in extreme observation for Megan. She didn’t merely look into the face of everyone she passed—a considerable number because of the time of day—she found herself stopping every quarter block to look from the tops of the buildings around her, to the pavement she had already traversed, to the gaps in between houses, for signs of danger. What that danger looked like she didn’t know. She simply felt it in the hard oblong in her pocket—her cell phone. Until she uploaded that video to another computer, to a server where others could access the data even if her phone was destroyed, she doubted she would feel safe.

  While crossing the third alley along th
e route, she peered along the passage, counting dumpsters and other hiding places for someone with a gun, and she wanted Jack with her. He had been an imposing presence, with his height and his apparent strength. Not to mention his lighthearted way of speaking to ease tension.

  Tension was no good in her work. Tense people made mistakes. She couldn’t afford a mistake.

  She started to pull her phone from her pocket to text him, then realized she had lost both his business cards. That was silly of her...and disappointing. His business should be listed somewhere. She looked it up under his name online but only found an office number with electronic voicemail, not his cell phone.

  She would have to wait to see if he got in touch with her. Not that he had any reason to now. Or ever.

  Another disappointment. Nothing she should worry about. She needed to worry about her case now being in the hands of the police. She could make her report to the insurance company, but if Cahill was dead, they had no one to pursue for recompense for moneys paid out through fraud.

  If she was dead, Megan needed to figure out who had been their female pursuer.

  Head spinning, Megan reached her building. She fed her key into the lock and entered the minuscule foyer. The smell of her neighbor’s curry lingered in the confined space, and Megan’s stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten in hours. Too many hours. She was so hungry she doubted she could manage the forty-two steps up to her flat.

  She started to pause and gather the mail she saw through the window in her mailbox, then grew aware for the first time that the front door was mostly glass. Not even plate glass. Just window glass. A bullet would smash through it in a second, and the shooter could be gone before anyone other than Megan realized what happened.

  The thought spurred her up the first fourteen steps to the landing and the source of the delicious smells lingering from one more tasty dinner the night before. Another fourteen steps took her past a neighbor she never saw. Mail disappeared from the mailbox, so he or she or they had to come and go, but no one knew if one or six people lived in the flat even after the year Megan had been there. She took the final fourteen steps to her apartment door, unusually winded because of fatigue and hunger. Normally she considered the several trips up and down each day her workout. She no longer huffed and puffed when she reached the top flat.