by Diane Capri
Briefly, she tried to look into his face, but the gravel and dust swirled around and into her eyes and she closed them again as tightly as she could, feeling the grains embedded behind her eyelids.
The train sped past.
First the locomotive and then the cars, one by one, continuing for a long, long time, not slowing or stopping for even half a moment.
The ground beneath her vibrated with the rumbling wheels of the train on the tracks.
The man’s body seemed to vibrate on top of her, too. But he didn’t move away.
He might have said something in her ear, but the noise of the passing train obliterated every other sound.
Finally, finally, the caboose passed and kept going.
He rolled off her and left her cold and exposed at the bottom of the ditch, her body still quivering until the last vibrations of the caboose settled into the earth once again.
Her eyes popped open and she awakened from the nightmare.
Which was when she heard a terrifying sound through her open window.
Heart pounding, body still quivering, and fully awake now, adrenaline pounding through her body, safe in her bed.
She sat up to steady her rushing emotions, confused by sleep and the dream, and attempting to separate facts from fevered imaginings in the dark.
That was when she fully realized she’d heard someone screaming outside. Animal-like shrieks that had shattered the quiet night and carried through the open window.
Still shaking, Kim tossed back the soggy sheets, slid out of bed, and found her coat. She slipped her pistol into her coat pocket along with her cell phone and picked up the key card on the way out.
Briefly, she considered trying to find Sheriff Greyson on the third floor for backup. But by the time she thought of it, the door to her room had closed behind her and she was already dashing down the stairs toward the lobby.
The hotel was quiet. No one else emerged from their rooms or joined her downstairs. She ran to the front door and let herself outside.
On the sidewalk, she glanced in all directions, seeking the screamer.
Main Street was as dark and quiet and deserted as it had been when she’d arrived at the hotel several hours ago. No one lying dead or injured on the sidewalk. No vehicles on Main Street other than Chief Greyson’s cruiser and her Lexus, still parked where they’d left them.
Now that she was fully awake, she struggled to wrest more details from the lingering mental fog of the terrifying nightmare.
Were the screams clear or muffled? Male or female? Close or distant?
Toussaint’s Hotel was located in the middle of the block. She turned right and dashed to the south corner. She looked up and down the side street. Nothing.
She ran back the way she’d come, past the hotel, to the street north of Toussaint’s. Again, no vehicles, no bodies. And no evidence that anyone had been harmed during her nightmare or otherwise. No one else had run out into the darkness carrying a gun, either.
Now she wondered whether she’d heard the screams at all. Perhaps they’d been another figment of her overactive imagination. Like the train and the big man who’d rescued her.
Kim slid her hand into her pocket, still holding her Glock, and walked slowly back to the hotel.
She was sure she’d heard the screaming. Dead certain, once she regained consciousness, that the screaming had originated outside.
Yet…
Maybe she was losing her mind.
The nightmare had been terrifyingly real, too. But still, just a figment of her anxiety breaking through after she’d experienced the all too real midnight train.
One thing she could say about the dead woman. If Bonnie Nightingale had stepped in front of that speeding train simply to kill herself, she was braver than Kim would ever be, for damned sure.
Not that she believed the woman had done any such thing. Bonnie Nightingale had been murdered. The autopsy proved it.
But why would anyone who lived in Carter’s Crossing believe the suicide idea?
Every soul in this town had witnessed that speeding train. They knew what would happen to anything left on the tracks to be destroyed by the big engine.
Perhaps there had been suicides before. Maybe that’s why people around here might believe Bonnie Nightingale had taken that very horrifying way out.
But it nagged at her. Such an obvious lie. And yet people seemed to buy into the lie. It made zero sense.
Kim had reached the sidewalk in front of Toussaint’s once again. She peered into the darkness along Main Street as if she might have missed something that would explain the inexplicable.
She shook her head. No one here, dead or alive.
As adrenaline drained from her body, slowing her heart rate and her breathing to normal speeds, Kim trudged up the porch steps and swiped her key card across the sensor.
She pushed the door open and entered the lobby.
Where she almost collided with Chief Greyson, standing directly in her path.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Thursday, May 12
Carter’s Crossing, Mississippi
4:35 a.m.
Chief Greyson stepped back, allowing her to enter and close the door. He took in her disheveled appearance, pajamas under the coat, and the curtain of black hair spread across her shoulders.
She straightened her shoulders and said, “Were you watching me again?”
“I serve as security when I’m on the premises,” he explained. “There’s a sensor on the door that rings in my room after hours. I heard the door open and hustled down here, expecting an intruder.”
His explanation was believable enough. More than hers would have been. So she didn’t offer one.
She turned and headed toward the stairs.
“What were you doing outside?” he asked, not letting her off the hook so easily.
“Taking a walk,” she replied as she started up.
After the massive adrenaline rush, she felt exhausted. Maybe she could sleep another few hours. She continued her trek up the stairs.
He checked the front door to be sure it was securely locked and then took a few long strides to catch up with her before she reached the second floor.
“We don’t have a lot of crime around here normally,” he said. “But Bonnie Nightingale was murdered. Until we get that sorted out, you shouldn’t go wandering around alone at all hours.”
They’d arrived at her floor, and she turned toward her room. “Thanks, Chief. I’ll remember that.”
She could feel his gaze following her all the way to Room Seventeen. She swiped the key card and went inside without looking back.
Like a zombie in a trance, she put the “do not disturb” sign out, closed the door and flipped the deadbolt. She slid out of her coat and climbed back into bed, bringing her gun, which she tucked under the pillow within easy reach.
Within seconds, she was asleep again, unhampered by murderous trains and flying body parts and blood-curdling screams from persons and places unknown. Or big men with strong arms who said nothing.
It felt like only a few minutes had passed before a loud rap on the door was followed by Janine Wood’s cheerful, “Good morning! Room service!”
Kim groaned and rolled her head to look at the clock. Seven-thirty, on the nose. Room service, as ordered.
Pushing the covers aside, she padded across the carpet through the heavily air-conditioned room. She threw back the deadbolt and opened the door.
Janine whooshed inside with the tray. “Wow! It’s really cold in here. Something’s wrong with your thermostat. I’ll get maintenance up here right away.”
“Thanks. Can you wait a while, though?” Kim replied.
“Sure.” She set the tray on the desk, moving efficiently through the process. “Coffee and muffins, as promised. Libby’s mother bakes the muffins for us fresh every day. They’re great. Want me to pour?”
“That’s okay. I’ll do it. I’ve got a conference call and then an appointment, and
I need to jump into the shower…” She let her voice trail off, hoping Janine would take the hint.
“Well, stop at the desk on your way out and let me know the coast is clear for my maintenance guys to fix things. We’ll solve this meat locker situation pronto,” Janine said on her way out. “I don’t know how you got a wink of sleep with it so cold in here.”
Kim poured a mug full of black coffee, grabbed a bite of one of the muffins, and called Gaspar. There was no way to cloak the call from the Boss’s prying ears, so she didn’t try. He wasn’t likely to be listening in real-time anyway. By the time he discovered the conversation had happened, she’d have moved on.
Gaspar picked up on the second ring, “Good morning, Sunshine. What’s happening in Our Town, USA?”
She arched her eyebrows as if he could see her and gave him a teasingly haughty tone. “You’re mocking me? I’m sitting here in a frigid hotel room after three hours of sleep, and you think that’s funny?”
“Sorry.” He stuffed his humor, but she could hear it anyway.
“Apology accepted. Got anything for me?” She swallowed the muffin and sipped the coffee, both of which were pretty good.
She glanced outside. Main Street was slowly coming to life. The sun was shining and a few vehicles were passing by.
“Looks like the motorcyclist, Brian Jasper, died during the night,” Gaspar said, bringing her attention back to the call.
“Yeah, I thought that might happen,” she replied. “He was as well protected as possible, but when a human hits the pavement at a high rate of speed with that much velocity, it’s never going to end well.”
“Right.” Gaspar cleared his throat. “But that’s not the real news.”
“What is?”
“They’re trying to keep it quiet, but it looks like he died of a drug overdose. Fentanyl, probably. It’s easy to get and way too easy to produce a deadly overdose.”
“That stuff is nasty enough to kill anybody pretty quickly in a variety of ways,” Kim replied.
“Yeah. But how did he manage to overdose while immobilized and monitored around the clock in an ICU bed?” Gaspar said.
“Suicide? Unintentional overdose while self-medicating?” Kim cocked her head, listing all the options that fit the facts. “Hospital error?”
“Maybe.”
“But you don’t think so,” she said flatly.
He swallowed something. She imagined the sweet creamy coffee he loved and shuddered. Just thinking about all that sugar made her teeth hurt.
“Rather unlucky, wouldn’t you say? Guy survives a head-on crash at sixty miles an hour. Neither the crash nor his survival should have happened. Gotta be long odds on both. But he did crash, and he did survive.” Gaspar paused, giving her a chance to stay focused. “Then the guy is lucky enough to have me get him a medivac. He stays alive until he makes it to the ICU. They get him stabilized. He’s waiting for surgery.”
He paused.
She waited.
He took a deep breath and a long exhale before he finished, “And then he dies of hospital error within the first twelve hours he’s there? They barely had time to get his name into the computers.”
She nodded, finished the last of the muffin, and poured more coffee, thinking things through. “Yeah. It does seem like an extremely unusual bit of bad luck, at the very least.”
Gaspar said, “I don’t believe it.”
“You’ve always been the suspicious type.” She was suspicious, too. Most cops were. Suspicion was a life-saving skill in their line of work. “So you’re chasing it down. Starting with the video in and around the hospital.”
“Yes. But that hospital is busy. There’s a lot of people moving around at all hours. Lots of video to wade through,” Gaspar replied. “I’ll let you know if I turn anything up.”
“Thanks. For what it’s worth, I think you’re right,” she said, and not to stroke his ego. “It’s just too odd that he’d die of an overdose like that. Too many odd things happening around here. What else?”
“Two more things,” Gaspar replied at the end of a really long slurp that sounded like he was licking the sugar from the cup.
She shuddered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Thursday, May 12
Carter’s Crossing, Mississippi
8:45 a.m.
Kim heard him clicking keys on his keyboard before he replied, “Elizabeth Deveraux. Mayor of Carter’s Crossing. You’re meeting with her this morning at ten o’clock, right?”
“I ran into her last night briefly at Libby’s Diner. But, yeah. She was the sheriff here when Reacher investigated his last case,” Kim replied. “The case started out small. One dead woman. Then it turned out to be three dead women. Probably all murdered by the same guy. Who was most likely stationed at Kelham at the time.”
“And you’re meeting with Deveraux because Cooper told you to,” Gaspar said. “But he didn’t tell you why or what she’s supposed to know.”
She shrugged. “You know how this works. The Boss wants me to go in with fresh eyes. No agenda. I talk to the witness. See if I can get her to tell me anything helpful. Sometimes they do, and most times they don’t.”
“Except Deveraux was more than a simple witness. She was the town sheriff’s daughter. Then a Marine, Suzy Wong. Then she was the sheriff while Reacher was in town. Now she’s the mayor. And she was actively investigating the last case of Reacher’s army career,” he said, exasperation oozing with every word as if Kim was too slow on the uptake here. “Think about it, Otto. Reacher’s women are never willing to talk to you when you first show up. So why the hell would Cooper think Deveraux is likely to tell you anything at all? Let alone spill intel that’s even remotely useful?”
“Your mindreading skills are as good as mine, Chico,” she replied. “Hell, I don’t even know why the Boss thinks Reacher might be hanging out around here. The murdered woman—”
“Which one?” he interrupted quietly.
“What do you mean, which one? I’m talking about the here and now.” She blinked. “There’s only one. Bonnie Nightingale.”
“Well, that’s what Reacher thought when he came to town back then, too. Remember? He found out there were more victims after he got there.”
“Yeah. So?”
Gaspar paused another beat before he said, “The sedan driver in that crash you witnessed yesterday, the one who died. Carolyn Blackhawk. She was murdered, too.”
Kim sat up straight and clutched the coffee cup in both hands. “What do you mean?”
“We had satellite coverage. We also had the dashcam from the big rig. I watched the videos of the crash, and events leading up to it, from way better angles than you had.” He drew a deep breath and exhaled before he replied, “Long story short, it’s clear now that the cyclist definitely had plenty of time to avoid that wreck.”
“Which is what we thought at the scene.” She stood and paced the cold floor in her bare feet. “So you’re saying it’s a fact. Jasper hit that sedan intentionally.”
Gaspar sighed as if the intel exhausted him. He was likely running on less sleep than she was. He usually did. “There’s no other reasonable explanation. Trust me. I looked half the night for a different answer. It’s not there.”
“So what did you find, then?”
Gaspar said, “After a few of hours analyzing everything we’ve got, it looks like Jasper intended to hit the sedan. He got a running start before he did it. I’m thinking he meant to jump over the oncoming car.”
Kim stopped dead in her tracks. “What? That’s crazy. Why in the hell would he do that?”
“Sorry. Hang on.” Gaspar paused, covered the speaker, and mumbled to someone before he came back. “Anyway, when Jasper hit that sedan head-on like that, he had to know he could fail the attempted fly-over. And if he failed, the sedan’s driver would be injured, at the very least.”
Kim thought about what he’d said, which made a crazy kind of sense. Maybe. “Did Jasper know the woman?�
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“Seems likely, but I haven’t found a way to connect them yet. Blackhawk lived in Carter’s Crossing and so did Jasper. From what I can tell, that’s a pretty small town. Most people there know each other, wouldn’t you say?”
She tensed. “The sheriff told me as much. No reason for him to lie.”
“You mean Sheriff Scott Greyson? The one who was married to Mayor Deveraux?” Gaspar’s tone suggested something nefarious, and he was probably right.
But she wanted to finish running down one rabbit hole before she headed into another.
“The very same Sheriff Greyson.” Kim nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “Finish your thought about Jasper.”
“Well, look. Within a few hours of Blackhawk’s death, which we’re pretty sure was a murder, Jasper is rather conveniently terminated. Drug overdose. In the hospital. ICU. Where he’s supposed to be monitored every minute, twenty-four seven.” Gaspar paused to let everything he’d said sink in. “What does that sound like to you?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to call Blackhawk’s or Jasper’s death murder. Not yet. “Sounds like a mess. For sure.”
“It’s way worse than that. Add in Bonnie Nightingale, murdered before her body was tossed onto those train tracks, and that’s three homicides in less than a week. And those are just the ones we know about. You don’t believe that’s a coincidence any more than I do.”
Her breath caught. “You’re saying we’ve got some sort of spree killer here?”
“Three murders. Three different locations. That’s a spree killer by definition and we both know it,” Gaspar said. “In this case, it’s a spree killer who is somehow connected to Carter’s Crossing. And Kelham. And likely to Deveraux and Reacher.”
“Because the Boss wouldn’t have sent me to Deveraux if there was no Reacher connection to the Nightingale murder. Hold on.” She took a quick breath.
She’d already bought into the spree killer theory. It did make sense. He was right.
Then the other shoe dropped right on her head. “You think Reacher is killing these people?”