Exposing a Killer

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  If he and Megan had enough time for observation.

  “Get in.” The woman poked him with the gun.

  “You’re going to let me sit in the back with Megan and not tie me?”

  “Plan to outrun a bullet, do you?” The woman smiled and was rather terrifyingly pretty when she did so.

  “Guess not.” Jack smiled, too, then opened the car door and slid in beside Megan.

  She wasn’t going to be outrunning any bullets, either. The man in the front sat sideways as though he merely engaged her in conversation around the high back of his seat. But on the console between the front seats, he held a pistol trained on Megan’s middle.

  Smart, going after the middle like that. Hit the aorta and a body was dead before an ambulance could arrive. And the aorta was a huge artery, too easy to hit. And plowing a bullet through the liver, an even bigger target, didn’t do a body much good, either. Center mass was easy to hit and most often led to a pretty quick death.

  They didn’t need ropes to bind them, ropes that were hard to explain after bodies were found. Bodies in accidents didn’t wear ropes or have rope burns on their bodies.

  Jack grasped Megan’s hand. She clung to his fingers, hers freezing but steady and strong.

  “That’s my girl,” he murmured.

  The woman rounded the car and slid into the front passenger seat. The click of the child locks engaging preceded the driver turning the key in the lock and starting the engine.

  This was an electric car, nearly silent gliding through the streets. Without lights, few people would even notice it had passed. No one would miss him and Megan. No one was expecting them.

  They drove in silence until they reached Lake Shore Drive. Once they sped along the lake, Jack spoke. “Do you two have names? I mean, it’s not like we can tell anyone who you are once you off us.”

  The man chuckled.

  “Cahill,” the woman said. “I’m Mary Cahill.”

  “Cahill.” The name burst from Megan. “You’re Cahill’s sister?”

  “Cousin. We have the family nose.”

  “So look alike from a distance,” Megan said.

  No wonder they had been confused when they saw her on the street that first night.

  “And your buddy there with the Cro-Magnon brow?” Jack asked.

  The man grunted.

  “Blake Davis,” Cahill supplied.

  “Yeah, right.” Jack snorted.

  The name sounded like a movie star, not a criminal.

  “So where are we going?” Megan stared out her windows at the city speeding past, lights flashing from buildings as they passed. “I don’t recognize this side of town.”

  “I do.” Jack squeezed her hand. “We’re on the southside. Never been here before?”

  She shook her head.

  “You were told it’s too dangerous, right?” Jack asked.

  She nodded.

  “Some of it is, but mostly it’s just people trying to live their lives.”

  He hoped she got the message—that they would work to keep living their lives.

  Even if she didn’t understand his cryptic words, he never doubted she would work hard to keep them both alive.

  “It’s dangerous enough.” Cahill snickered. “Or will be for you.”

  “You had no business watching us,” Davis blurted.

  “I’m a PI,” Megan said. “Of course I did. More business than you killing Ms. Cahill.”

  “She wanted to keep too big a share of the money,” Davis said.

  “Of course.” Jack looked into the rearview mirror and curled his upper lip. “Money. What else?”

  “She had plenty already and wanted to keep our share,” Cahill, the cousin, said.

  “But didn’t she embezzle it?” Jack asked.

  “Sure, but we were going to get her away safe out of the country,” Davis said.

  “So you killed her.” Jack shook his head as though he pitied the two culprits in the front. “You should have taken off then and there.”

  “And leave witnesses?” Mary Cahill grimaced. “We couldn’t leave you two loose ends.”

  “Loose cannons,” the man grumbled.

  “So now you have us and plan to do what with us?” Jack asked with all the skill he possessed to maintain a mild manner.

  Beside him, Megan shuddered.

  “We’re not going to tell you and let you think you can stop us,” Davis said.

  Not so dumb after all.

  They all fell silent after that. Davis left Lake Shore Drive and began wending his way through streets seemingly at random. After a while, Jack figured out he was moving at random as if he thought he could confound them as to their destination. But Jack knew the city too well for that. He realized they moved through the part of the city that ran along the south side of Lake Michigan, stretching toward Indiana. With each zigzag pattern of the car, they moved closer to the lake. That lake and its numerous aging piers jutting over the water. The water was pretty polluted there from past and current industry. Yet people fished off the piers. Jack had fished off that pier with his father. They never kept anything they caught. They just liked the quiet time together.

  Maybe someone would be fishing there that night. Not that anyone fishing on the pier on a cold night would do much to help. Long ago, the old men, most of them homeless, had learned to see nothing that went on around the southside piers. Too many bodies that disappeared beyond the water reclamation plants offshore, where the lake was deeper than anyone wanted to dive in water colder than a refrigerator, had begun their journey in a boat moored at one of the piers.

  Not good. Very much not good.

  He wanted to warn Megan so she could take an opportunity to get away if it offered itself. No, not offered itself. They would have to make one. But he dared not say anything and alert their captors they knew what was going on. Though their goal was mutual—staying alive—Megan and he had to work on their own and help one another if they could.

  Davis stopped the car, and Jack’s senses went on high alert. He must be aware of each sight, sound and touch around him. Anything could be a weapon. A piece of paper. A loose nail.

  Davis and Cahill opened their doors. The child locks popped. Neither Megan nor Jack moved. Not with guns trained on them. Unless they could divert those guns from their persons, they needed to act meek and obedient.

  But not too much so. Too much meekness could be just as suspicious as outright rebellion.

  Jack gave Megan’s hand one last squeeze and swung his legs from the car. “Let me guess, a long walk off a short pier.”

  “Ha ha. That was so funny I forgot to laugh.” Davis laughed anyway. “But I will when you two are no longer a nuisance.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  The gun poked Jack in the spine. He headed for the pier, dimly lit after dark. The sky was clear, but without a moon. A low-lying glow at the end of the pier suggested someone did fish there, a lantern beside him.

  A lantern. A potential weapon.

  Cahill and Megan started out first. Their footfalls rang in hollow thuds on the wooden planks. The light at the end swayed. The pier was ancient, wobbly. An advantage.

  Jack followed six feet behind Megan and Cahill. The barrel of the pistol ground into his spine. The pain annoyed him mostly because he figured Megan was getting the same treatment and he didn’t want her to suffer. If he couldn’t save her, at least he hoped she wouldn’t suffer.

  He kept his gaze on that lantern, on the man who studiously kept his back to them. The man would never see a thing. He could be questioned for hours and be able to claim he never saw a thing.

  Weapon. Distraction. Fuel. He needed fuel for his weapon, a way to arm it.

  He set his hands on his hips as though he were too cool to care he was on his way to being executed—and felt th
e crackle of paper in his pocket. The brochure from the lady at the subway station. Jack made his first move, a simple trip over a loose board. Davis growled something and yanked him upright. A precedent was set. Another yard, two, three.

  Jack stumbled again, caught hold of a mooring post for balance, and kicked over the lantern. The glass chimney broke. Oil and a tiny flame poured onto the pier. Jack dropped the brochure into the fuel as a little easier kindling than the waterlogged pier.

  “What did you do?” Davis shouted.

  Cahill spun, gun momentarily off Megan’s back.

  And Megan dove off the pier and into the frigid water of Lake Michigan.

  * * *

  Water closed over Megan’s head oily and foul and the best thing she’d felt since Jack let go of her hand. Better at that moment because it meant freedom, potential rescue.

  She had plunged between two moored boats. Not much protection, especially when Davis began to fire into the water. One bullet smacked the surface less than a foot from Megan’s head. Holding her nose against the stench of the water, she drew in a lungful of air and dove. She had no idea how deep bullets could penetrate. She needed to be out of range, needed a shield.

  She dove under the pier. Slimy pilings slithered past her. She shuddered from more than the cold. And the cold was bad enough. If she remained in the water too long, she would contract hypothermia and be no good to Jack, let alone herself. The killers wouldn’t need to murder her. The water would do it for them.

  Or maybe they planned that all along. Dump their bodies where the lake grew deep. Even if they were recovered, they would have no rope marks or wounds on their persons.

  If she stayed in the water much longer, she would be sick. She would also be of no use to Jack.

  She continued beneath the pier, listening hard for what might be going on above. Shouting. Davis shouting at Cahill. She was stupid for letting Megan go. She’d better find her.

  Glad the pier wasn’t very wide, Megan emerged on the other side. So far, no one had come to look for her there. She grasped the gunwale of a boat and hoisted herself up. If she kicked, she could get herself inside the craft and seek a weapon. If she kicked, she would draw attention to herself. If she drew attention to herself, Jack had a chance to get away.

  Sadly, she smelled no smoke. Davis or Cahill or even the fisherman must have put out the fire. Clever Jack for starting it, though. She was free. If she could get into the boat.

  She risked a strong enough kick to propel herself over the gunwale and into the boat. It wasn’t much, merely a fiberglass fishing boat, big enough to be lake-worthy and small enough to be easy to maneuver. Maybe it had a blanket she could exchange for her soaked coat.

  On her knees in the bottom of the craft for a low profile, she looked over the edge of the pier. Davis stomped along the edge of the pier, staring down. Looking for her. Cahill held her gun on Jack. The fisherman had vanished. Megan didn’t dare hope he would go for help. He was more likely to disappear into a distant alleyway. At the moment, she saw no way for Jack to escape. Too soon, Davis would begin searching for her on this side of the pier.

  She turned her attention to the boat, seeking a locker with a blanket, a life jacket, an emergency supply kit.

  Emergency supplies.

  Careless of noise, she sought more frantically, tossing fishing gear into the bottom of the boat, a thermos, a number of unidentifiable objects. No blanket. No life jacket.

  But an emergency kit.

  A shout yanked her attention back to the pier. Jack had turned sideways to Cahill and looked about to dive into the lake. Cahill raised her gun hand, squeezed off a round.

  Megan crammed her arm between her teeth to stop herself from screaming, sure Jack would be shot at that close a range.

  But he didn’t fall. He ducked and shoved his shoulder into the woman’s solar plexus. Her gun fired again, the bullet slamming into the pier. She shrieked as Jack hoisted her over his shoulder and toward the edge of the pier until she was screaming longer and louder as she tumbled into the water to land with a splash.

  This time, Jack tried to follow. He didn’t make it. Davis had his left arm around Jack’s neck and his gun against Jack’s temple.

  “If you can hear me, Miss Megan O’Clare,” Davis said, “get back here or he’s dead.”

  Megan didn’t move. She knew Jack would want her to save herself, and she knew she couldn’t leave him there to die while she went free. She wanted to stay with him, keep trying to rescue him, as long as she was allowed. Stay with him forever no matter what.

  “Don’t listen to him, Megan,” Jack called.

  “To the count of ten,” Davis said.

  Helped by the splashing from the other side of the pier, Megan tore into the emergency kit as quietly as she could. Everything she needed was there.

  “Five, four, three,” Davis was counting.

  “Two, one,” Megan mouthed with him—and struck the match.

  With a crackling whoosh, the red flare arced into the sky. Too high. Too high. Too high. But a distraction nonetheless.

  Still holding Jack, Davis spun toward Megan. She ducked and prepared a second flare. She only had it and one more. It needed to count. She threw it this time, tossed it into a boat two moorings away. Fiberglass wouldn’t burn, but boats always had fuel spilled somewhere.

  This one did. It lit like an Independence Day celebration, a bottle rocket gone wild. The percussion and heat knocked Megan backward. But she’d remembered to close her eyes.

  Final flare in hand, she opened her eyes and scrambled onto the pier, half expecting to be shot on sight. Light from the burning boat lit the stage of the pier like floodlights. Lit it enough to show Jack and Davis fighting, Jack taller and faster, Davis burlier and meaner. Jack’s right arm wasn’t working right. His wound from the other night. It must have opened again, weakening him. If Davis knocked him down, he could go for his gun. It lay on the planks like a snake ready to bite.

  Megan crept forward, aware of punching fists and kicking feet. Davis wore boots. Jack wore running shoes. The latter were nearly useless for subduing an enemy. Blows from the boots made Jack wince. He favored his left leg already.

  Megan stopped creeping and lunged for the gun. Her fingers closed over the barrel.

  Davis snatched it from her hand, pointed it at her middle.

  Megan held the match toward the last flare.

  “Drop the flare,” Davis commanded.

  “Drop the gun.” Megan made herself smile.

  “I can’t swim,” Cahill shouted from the water.

  “I can kill you before you can set that off,” Davis said.

  Megan shrugged. “Willing to risk being wrong?”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow moving, Jack’s shadow ducking behind the row of stations in the middle of the pier. If she could keep Davis’s attention...

  She scraped the match on a mooring post to light it. “You saw what that flare did to that boat over there. What do you think one would do to you?”

  “A bullet will mess up your pretty face for an open casket.”

  Megan laughed. “Who’s going to find my body but a few thousand fish?” She held the match perilously close to the flare.

  Davis’s eyes widened.

  “Desperate times and all that,” Megan said.

  Jack was nearly behind Davis, reaching out.

  Davis must have sensed the movement, heard a footfall. He spun the gun toward Jack.

  Megan sent the third flare into the pier a foot behind Davis’s feet. He yelled and jumped. Jack chopped the side of his hand into Davis’s forearm, and the gun dropped.

  This time Megan got it into her hand, muzzle pointed at Cahill’s killer. The flare fizzled out on the wet planks of the pier. And in the near distance, sirens began to wail. The burning boat had done more than di
stract a killer—the flames had attracted law enforcement.

  SEVENTEEN

  Megan woke in a hospital bed with her mother seated beside her. She blinked against the sunlight flooding the room, closed her eyes and opened them again.

  Her mother was still there.

  “How?” was all she managed.

  “Your former boss called me.” Mother’s voice, like her appearance, was perfectly modulated. Every hair was in place. She wore diamond earrings and pearls around her neck over a powder blue sweater. Her hair had once been red like Megan’s but was now carefully dyed blond. “He thought I might like to know what you’ve been through because I was so callous as to not let you come stay with us.”

  “He would defend—Wait!” Megan sat up, wondering with a corner of her mind why she was in a hospital bed. “You said former boss. Did he fire me?”

  “No, he apparently turned the agency over to you, so you’re the boss now.” A mild shudder was all the emotion she showed.

  “But I don’t have the money yet.”

  “He said he knows you’re good for it.” Mother smoothed her black pencil skirt with French-tipped fingers. “But I apparently have a choice between a daughter who is a private investigator and not having a daughter at all.” Her lower lip gave the tiniest of quivers. “Apparently I came too close to not having a daughter at all.”

  Megan held out her hand. “You’ve always had a daughter. Please forgive me for not being a better one.”

  “I guess you can’t deny your calling.” Mother took her hand.

  They sat like that for several minutes. Then her father slipped into the room, dressed in his white coat. A stethoscope dangled from his pocket, and for a moment, Megan thought he was going to take her vitals. He simply took her other hand, careful not to dislodge the IV sticking out of her wrist, and the three of them remained in silent understanding until a nurse did arrive to take Megan’s vitals.