Exposing a Killer

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  Oddly, Megan felt safe on the L train. A heater blasted beneath her seat, warming her feet, and Jack sat beside her, his hand over hers where it rested on her handbag, warming her fingers. They said little. They couldn’t talk in a crowded train car. She stared at the passing city below, then the people around them. None appeared familiar. None were the heavy-browed man and his blonde accomplice. Of course, they could have disguised themselves and followed. They could have more accomplices Megan and Jack didn’t know and thus couldn’t recognize. The extraordinarily thin woman on Jack’s right could be working with the killers, reporting to them. So could the freckled teen across the aisle.

  “They could have moved on when they failed with me,” Megan said with more hope than assurance.

  “They could have. I doubt they know where we are right now anyway.” He tightened his hand on hers.

  Warmth tingled up her arm. She wished she could rest her head on his shoulder and dream of no killers after them, of hot chocolate beside a warm fire, even a fake gas fire, of friends laughing and talking. She loved those things about cold autumn nights, or watching the snow fall in the winter.

  “I like cold weather,” she announced.

  Jack chuckled. “A true Midwesterner. I’m glad Virginia gets cold. People say the northern part is pretty moderate.”

  Of course. Virginia. He was moving to Virginia.

  Megan’s half daydream faded, and she pulled her hand free. Her fingers were instantly cold. No future. Once they had settled this mess, she doubted she would ever see him again.

  “I think Washington, DC, is beautiful in the spring.” She looked at the location board and rose, her arm curved around her handbag. Carrying her duffel, Jack followed her off the train and down the steps to street level.

  A crowd surrounded them on their way to the commuter train station that carried thousands of people into the suburbs. Safety in crowds. Safety in lighted streets. Safety at the end of the line and her parents’ gated community. She would accept their “I told you so” attitude in exchange for safety. She was tired of running. Without anything toward which to run, she would rather find security.

  “What about you, Jack?” she asked. “Will you be all right staying with your uncle?”

  “Probably better than you staying with your parents, from what you’ve said.”

  “You’ll have your sister.”

  “I will. And you’ll have your siblings?”

  Megan shook her head. “They don’t live here. One is in New York, the other in Boston. They’re married and have families.”

  A pang shot through her at how she was missing her nieces and nephews growing up. Somehow, she must change that. Surely God would want her to change it, to make her family a family again.

  If only her parents understood being a PI was her calling, as much as her siblings’ careers were their calling, their work.

  They walked fast, and the half mile to the station sped past. Most people used electronic tickets, so the line before the window was short. Megan bought two tickets to the North Point stop, which was nothing more than a parking lot, and they made their way to the correct departure gate. The train wasn’t there yet, so Megan took out her phone and began to scan the settings to see if one could recover voicemail as one could recover deleted email. Deleted text messages were unrecoverable, so she presumed voicemails couldn’t be gotten back either. Yet there it was—a section she had never noticed before in an archive of deleted voicemails.

  “I can undelete it,” Megan said, tapping her screen. “My mother’s message.”

  Surely that would make up for her being so immature as to erase it without hearing her mother through. Too often she shut out her mother’s words before she was finished speaking. A bad habit. She would never tolerate it in herself in her PI work. She should never tolerate it in her personal life.

  Her mother’s voice came through loud and clear once more, playing in speaker mode so Jack could hear. First the part she’d listened to about not being welcome at their house, then the part she had erased in anger and hurt.

  “We have relocated ourselves and no one will be at the house. I won’t say where we’re going. It’s best you don’t know while people connected with you seem to be in danger.”

  * * *

  Megan’s hand tightened on her phone so hard Jack feared she would crush it. Her knuckles whitened as pale as her face, but her clenched teeth suggested she suffered more from anger than fear.

  “Megan.” Jack used his most soothing tone. “She didn’t reject you.”

  “Of course she did.” Her face crumpled. “At least that’s how it feels.”

  Megan was such a tough lady, had put up with so much in the past few days without breaking down more than a little. She had kept moving forward knowing she was a target. She had nearly crashed to her death mere hours earlier. But her mother’s rejection had been the last straw, and Jack wanted to shelter her.

  He wished he could protect her from any harm. Somehow, he must expose the killer, draw him into the open so he could be caught and stopped. Jack knew he would protect Megan with his life. Hers was precious to so many people. He had seen it in Amber and Tess, in Janet and Gary. She had even made a strong impression on his sister.

  And him. Yes, her life was precious to him. Too precious for his comfort. She wasn’t his future. She couldn’t be. After his training, he could be assigned anywhere in the country, even the world.

  But he could protect her for now. He could comfort her for now. She needed a shoulder to cry on, and his were pretty broad.

  “Is everything all right here?” A security guard stopped in front of Jack.

  He nodded. “She just got some bad news.”

  Not raising her head, Megan nodded.

  “Glad she’s not alone then.” The guard moved on to break up a shoving match among some teens.

  “Being alone is the hardest thing,” Jack said.

  Megan nodded. “I knew they didn’t want to see me until I came to my senses, of course. But this? I thought they would change their minds. I thought my own parents would protect me. I didn’t want to go to them, but they didn’t give me a chance.” She raised her head and wiped her sleeve across her eyes. “I don’t know why they still hurt me after all this time.”

  “Because they’re your parents. They’re supposed to stand up for you no matter what.”

  “Did yours? Stand up for you, that is?”

  “They did. They didn’t have any problem telling me when I was wrong, but they didn’t punish me until they had the facts.”

  “You were blessed.”

  “I was. And so are you.”

  She frowned. “How?”

  “Your parents are still alive. You still have time to mend your fences with them.”

  “They rejected me.”

  “Or did you reject them?” Jack risked touching her curls, brushing wayward strands behind her ears. “They planned a future that would leave you safe and secure.”

  “Not one I wanted. Not the one I felt I was called to do.” She pushed herself away from him, hands on his chest. “But everyone always takes their side.”

  “I’m not taking their side.” Jack covered her hands with his. “I’m just suggesting you look at things from their perspective. They don’t think you were raised for the rough life of a PI.”

  “Yes, I’m a North Shore princess.”

  “I think you’d survive any revolt of your subjects.”

  Megan laughed and freed her hands. “Now I have to figure out where to go.”

  “To my aunt and uncle’s. You know they’ll have you.”

  “I don’t want to be trouble.”

  “You’ll be trouble if we’re all worried about you.” Jack hefted her duffel onto his shoulder and laced his fingers through hers. “Let’s go. Rush hour is nearly over, and the trai
ns will come slower than a deep-dish pizza.”

  “Oh, pizza.” Megan drew tissues from her bag and mopped at her face. “I could use some.”

  “You just had some yesterday.”

  “And the problem with that is?” She smiled up at him, though tears still clung to her lashes.

  Had they been alone, he would have kissed her again. A good thing they were moving through the lobby of a busy train station. He should not kiss her. He should not touch her at all.

  He didn’t let go of her hand. As long as he could hold onto her, he knew she was safe.

  Back on the street, they walked fast and aware of their surroundings, of the people passing them in either direction. A mist rolled in from the lake, creating halos on the streetlights and turning people into mere shadows. Cars drove toward them like white-eyed monsters, then swooshed past on rain-wet streets. Swooshed, sped, crept past depending on the traffic patterns, until one car didn’t continue in the flow of vehicles along Madison.

  Jack never knew what alerted him. Maybe the glimpse of a face through the windshield. Maybe a change in the engine. Whatever the signal, he knew that car wasn’t going to continue with the flow of traffic.

  “Megan,” Jack said quietly. “Run.”

  She didn’t hesitate. With a glance at the car, she took off, Jack with her, still holding her hand. They were together. They could survive if they stayed together.

  No one could outrun a car. Their only advantage was their direction of egress. The car would have to turn.

  Turn it did. No waiting for the corner to complete a U-turn. No driving around the block. The sedan gunned the engine to clear the curb and spun a 180 in the middle of the sidewalk.

  People screamed and shouted and scattered into blackened doorways. These were businesses here and not shops and restaurants. These places were closed for the night. No way to duck inside the shelter of solid brick and mortar. Jack and Megan were on their own in the open.

  They darted between cars in the street. A cacophony of horns followed them. One vehicle came close enough to Jack he felt the heat from its radiator. But they were on the other sidewalk, headed in the opposite direction of the errant car. A moment’s reprieve.

  Only a moment. Behind them, the car roared back into the street, once again headed in the same direction as Jack and Megan.

  With tight maneuvers that probably took the paint off one or two cars, the pursuing vehicle cut across traffic and onto the opposite pavement. The engine roared, louder than the rest of the cars together. Drawing closer. Closer. Too close. The only thing slowing it were the throngs of people not yet out of its way. The driver couldn’t mow down a dozen pedestrians and still reach Jack and Megan. But people were scattering left and right, into doorways, into the street.

  Jack and Megan dared not do the same. They needed more secure shelter. If they ceased, the driver could more easily shoot them. He hadn’t proved to be a good shot so far, but that could change if they stopped moving.

  Jack risked a glance back. The monster’s eyes loomed like death beams. To their right, traffic flowed fast and thick, bumper to bumper, compacts interspersed with trucks and buses. Just as dangerous as the beast behind him and Megan. To their left, revolving doors and plate glass windows. If just one was open—

  Megan tugged his hand and pointed. One was open ten feet ahead. Heads down, they sprinted toward it just as the car behind them stepped on the gas with the roar of a V-8 engine.

  FIFTEEN

  The headlights streamed past them, bright paths of danger on the night-dimmed sidewalk. The roar may as well have been a freight train ready to charge right over them. It filled Megan’s ears, her heart, her every breath.

  No, not breath. She couldn’t breathe. Concrete had replaced her lungs. Each inhalation was an effort. Every muscle screamed in protest as more effort was demanded than it could provide. Still, Jack clutched her hand, drawing her forward, pressing on to greater speed.

  Useless. They couldn’t outrun a speeding car. Cars didn’t speed on sidewalks, but this one did. She and Jack had been found. How. Why? No time to think of that now. Must run. Get away.

  Mercifully no one else seemed to be in the way. Just her and Jack. Two flies about to find themselves flattened by tons of steel.

  Unless they reached the revolving door spinning slowly ahead of them. Spinning into the glorious golden light of a lobby. Spinning into relative safety. A car could smash plate glass, damage bricks. Megan planned for her and Jack to be in the next street by that time.

  They hit the revolving door together, both of them cramming into the wedge between panels together. When it spilled them on the other side, they didn’t stop. A security guard shouted to them, but they kept running straight back, past the sign-in desk, past the elevator bank.

  “Duck,” Jack shouted to the guard.

  Before Megan and Jack reached the doors on the other side of the building, a crash of breaking glass and the female guard’s scream reverberated in the vaulted chamber. Megan and Jack didn’t stop. They slammed through the opposite revolving door, across the street, and down the entrance to a subway train.

  At the bottom of the steps, they stopped and leaned against the tiled wall, hands on knees, breathing like aged locomotives puffing steam.

  “I don’t think I can walk another step,” Megan gasped in bursts. “Not...one...step.”

  Jack merely nodded as he let her duffel slide to the floor.

  She stared at it. “You didn’t drop that?”

  “You need it.”

  “But the extra weight. It must have slowed you down.”

  She must have slowed him down.

  She stared at him. “Were we really just chased by a car driving on the sidewalk?”

  “We were.” Jack brushed his coat sleeve across the beads of perspiration on his forehead.

  “But they could have hurt so many people out there.”

  He adored her for thinking of others.

  The wail of a siren kept him from responding.

  Megan groaned. “Not again.”

  They started to laugh. The situation wasn’t funny, but it called for laughter or tears, and they opted for the former. No one—surely no one—had ever filed so many police reports in so few days.

  Until now.

  Laughing left them breathless again and brought them a number of odd looks from passersby. They were a spectacle. They would be remembered.

  “We’d better go up and take our medicine,” Jack said.

  “You make it sound like we’re the bad guys.”

  “Filling out police reports makes me feel like a criminal.” Jack hefted her duffel over his shoulder again and held out his hand.

  She placed hers in it as though doing so were the most natural act in the world. It felt natural. Warm. Permanent.

  Except it wasn’t. He wasn’t. A relationship with him certainly was not.

  Walking up the steps to the street level looked as difficult as climbing Pike’s Peak. The elevator was nowhere to be seen, so they began to climb, resting on the landing, and starting up again.

  Flashing lights lit the sky above, a sea of emergency vehicles.

  “Not our doing,” Megan repeated. “I keep telling myself I’m not to blame.”

  Yet she felt responsible. She had climbed that tree to finish a case with haste. She was anxious for closed cases and more cases, wanting to be worthy of owning the agency.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Jack said. “This is the work of a greedy, immoral man and woman at the least.”

  “But I was greedy. If I hadn’t been—”

  “Hush.” Jack laid a finger across her lips. “You were doing your job in the most ethical way you could. You aren’t responsible for someone else’s wrong choices.”

  They reached the sidewalk and began to loop around the now cordoned-of
f building. They could have gone to a police car on the back side of the building but chose to reach the front. By tacit consent, they agreed to see what had happened to the car and people inside before they found themselves tangled in hours of speaking to detectives.

  From a block away, they witnessed the destruction the car had caused. The set of revolving doors and surrounding plate glass windows had been shattered into billions of shards of glass. Mortar and bricks lay on the sidewalk and crumpled hood of the car. Steam rose from the radiator, and two firemen hosed the engine down with foam, suggesting it had caught fire.

  What they didn’t see was anyone in custody. No cops held either a man or woman on the pavement, and not one cop car had passengers in the back.

  The would-be killers had gotten away.

  Megan sighed and squared her shoulders. Surely the killers left some clue behind with every attempt on their lives. Something would link them to the Cahill murder and several attempts to kill her and Jack.

  She fished her PI credentials from her bag and made her way to a man who wore jeans and a sport coat but held himself like a police officer.

  She took a deep breath and called to him. “Sir, I can tell you what happened here.”

  He faced her, scowling. “I can see what happened here. Move along.”

  “No, I mean I can tell you why this happened.” She held up her PI license. “I’m Megan O’Clare, and the driver of that car was trying to kill us.”

  * * *

  The rest of the night was as tedious as Jack feared. Questions. Written reports. More questions. A meal of fast food that filled his stomach and left him hollow.

  Or maybe that was from something else. He’d been feeling hollow all day. Maybe since kissing Megan, one of the most foolish moves of his life. Maybe from simple fatigue and worry. Maybe he had been feeling hollow before he kissed Megan and that had driven him to making that poor decision.

  Except the only error he truly believed he had made with Megan was startling her so she fell out of that tree.

  That was a mistake toward her and a mistake toward him because he had come to like her too much.