TIL DEATH

by Annette Dashofy

  Thirty-Four

  Zoe awoke to distant muffled voices, beeps, and bells, as if swimming up through Jell-O. Surfacing, she opened her eyes, blinking against the harsh light. The noises around her cleared, and Pete’s handsome but worried face came into view.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he said.

  “Hey, yourself.” Her voice didn’t sound like her own and her throat felt raw. “What happened?”

  “We thought you were gonna miss your wedding.” Zoe shifted her eyes to find the source of the words. Seth.

  “Where am I?” She looked around. “The hospital?” The fog blanketing her brain cleared. Golden Oaks. The milkshake with the weird aftertaste. She brought her gaze back to Pete. “Harry. You have to make sure he’s okay.”

  Pete gave her a relieved smile. “He’s fine. She only poisoned you.”

  She? Loretta? No. “Jenna.” Zoe tried to push herself up in bed but the IV in her arm pinched. “You have to find her. Stop her.”

  Pete squeezed Zoe’s hand. “Baronick has her under arrest. He called a while ago to tell me they caught up to her at her house. She was packing her baby’s things and getting ready to take off with the kid, but they got her.”

  Zoe squinted against a headache. “Is her baby all right?”

  Pete lifted her hand—the one free of IV tubing—and kissed the back of it. “Relax. Everyone is okay. Jenna’s in custody. Her son is with her husband, who apparently knew nothing about his wife’s past or present crimes. Harry wasn’t a target. The milkshakes she gave both of you are at the lab.”

  “I should’ve known. The milkshake tasted funny. It had an aftertaste like sugar substitute.”

  “That’s probably right. Real sugar would’ve counteracted the insulin.”

  Another realization struck her. “Franklin. When I was in his room after he died, there was an empty diet pop can. Dorian, the nurse, mentioned giving what was left of it to him when his blood sugar was low.”

  “Loretta told us an aide brought it into his room.”

  “Jenna.”

  Pete nodded. “The description Loretta gave matches.”

  “Has Jenna confessed to that part of it? Killing Franklin?”

  “Baronick didn’t say.”

  “Why aren’t you over there finding out for yourself?”

  Pete smiled. “Because I have more pressing concerns on my hands right now.”

  Zoe looked around the room, taking it in fully for the first time. An Emergency Department cubicle, not a regular room. Abby in her own hospital gown and Seth stood across the bed from Pete. A heart monitor showed normal sinus rhythm, heart rate, respiration, and BP. The IV bag of dextrose and the oxygen had done the trick. “I’m fine. You should go,” she told Pete.

  “My place is here.”

  She wiggled her hand free from his grasp and tapped the badge on his uniform shirt. “You’re still on duty. Your place is in interrogation, building a case against Jenna. Go.” When he still didn’t move, Zoe pointed at Seth and Abby. “I have them to keep watch over me. Go.”

  Pete exchanged a silent conversation with his officers. Zoe didn’t need a translator.

  “We’ll stay with her until you get back,” Abby said.

  Pete cocked an eyebrow at Zoe. “Are you sure?”

  “What part of go don’t you understand?”

  He bent down and pressed a kiss to her lips…a kiss that was sweeter than any milkshake.

  Although she might have lost her taste for Harry’s favorite treat forever.

  Pete straightened and looked across the bed at Seth. “Can I borrow your car?”

  Pete had dealt with Zoe as a patient in the ER too many times in recent years. Smoke inhalation. A concussion. Even the strained ligaments in her shoulder a few months back. The relief of seeing those beautiful baby blues looking up at him again was just as strong this time as any of the others. But he was glad she’d booted him out of the room. He wanted to look Jenna in the eye and find out what all she’d done. And why.

  He called Baronick from behind the wheel of Seth’s car. The detective answered by asking about Zoe. Once assured she was out of the woods, he told Pete, “I’ve had Jenna cooling her heels in an interview room. I knew you’d want to be with me for the interrogation.”

  “You got that right. I’ll be there in five.”

  He found Baronick leaning on the front counter at HQ. “We have to quit meeting like this,” the detective said with his too-bright smile.

  Without responding, Pete led the way through the door and down the hall to the interview rooms. A uniformed officer stood outside one of the doors and held it open for them.

  Blonde, petite Jenna Haggerty Kidman sat alone, her eyes red and face streaked with tears blackened from mascara. A pile of crumpled tissues covered the table along with the box they came from. Nothing about her screamed “killer.”

  She didn’t say a word as Pete and Baronick sat across from her. Nor did she meet their gaze, keeping hers on the table. Baronick read the Miranda warning. She nodded when he asked if she understood.

  “Are you sure you don’t want an attorney present?” Pete asked.

  “I’m sure.” Her voice sounded like a four-year-old’s.

  Baronick folded his hands and leaned forward on the table. “Let’s start at the beginning with Dustin and Elizabeth Landis.”

  A fresh pool of tears gathered in Jenna’s eyes. “I was totally in love with Dustin. He was the sweetest, gentlest man I’d ever met. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Marry him. When I found out he was already married, I was devastated. But I still loved him. Still wanted to be with him.”

  Pete interrupted. “You told me you weren’t a homewrecker.”

  She lifted her tormented gaze to meet his. “I didn’t wanna be. But I truly believed he loved me. I knew in my heart if his wife wasn’t in the picture, he’d come back to me.”

  “What did you do to get his wife out of the picture?” Baronick’s voice was soft but carried an edge behind the feigned sympathy.

  Jenna dropped her gaze to the tissue, but not before Pete caught a hint of something hard and cold. Steel behind the cotton candy. Her voice, however, retained its little-girl-lost vulnerability. “I’d had some problems with rodents at my apartment and still had some of the rat poison in my cupboard. I figured no one would ever think to check for it after she died. I took some with me and went to see Dustin when his wife wasn’t home. I hoped he’d changed his mind, but he hadn’t. When he went in the other room, I mixed the poison into the sugar bowl. I knew Dustin never touched the stuff. And I only used a little so it wouldn’t be obvious. She was supposed to get sick and die.”

  “But she didn’t,” Baronick said.

  “Oh, she got sick all right. A mutual friend told me Dustin was worried about her and was taking such good care of her.” Jenna wrinkled her nose. “Not exactly what I had in mind. And, no, she didn’t die. Maybe she would have. Eventually.”

  Pete made no attempt to sound sympathetic to her plight. “But you got impatient and decided to speed things up.”

  She kept her eyes lowered.

  Baronick shifted in his chair. “Who’s the man you hired to shoot Elizabeth Landis while you were out of town?”

  “His name was Maurice King,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  Pete scrawled the name in his notebook. He’d call Special Agent Graley as soon as they finished here, knowing she’d be thrilled to finally have a lead.

  “Tell me about the gun,” Baronick said, “and how we came to find it in the dumpster outside Dustin’s office.”

  “I thought once his wife was gone, he’d come back to me. I called him after I got home from my trip to offer condolences and offered to go to his house. He had the nerve to hang up on me. Originally, I was going to toss the gun and the sweats in the Monongahela River, but
when Dustin refused my offer to comfort him in his time of loss, I got mad. I dug out the incriminating evidence from where I’d hidden it. I washed the clothing Maurice had worn to get rid of his DNA and stuck everything in a plastic bag I took from Dustin’s garbage. I put it in that dumpster and called in the anonymous tip.”

  Pete sat back, running a hand across his mouth. How could he have been so blind? This sweet little girl-next-door had played him. Just like she’d played Frattini and the jury.

  “I wanted a life with Dustin.” She went on as if pleading for them to understand. “When I saw there wasn’t going to be one, I had to make him pay. And with him in prison, no one would look any further into the case.”

  “Until the judge overturned Dustin’s conviction,” Pete said.

  Her eyes glistened. “I’d put that horrible time behind me. I’m married to a wonderful man. I have a beautiful son. And now that whole mess is being dredged up again. Not only was I going to have to testify and explain to my husband about the affair with a married man, but what if this time Dustin got off? The police would start investigating again. I couldn’t risk that happening.”

  Pete realized the woman’s tears weren’t born from guilt but from the fear of losing her idyllic life. “You decided to get rid of anyone who believed Dustin was innocent.”

  “Clearly rat poison wasn’t as reliable as I’d hoped. Working at Golden Oaks, I had access to Miss Eloise’s experimental drug. She never remembered whether she’d gotten her meds or not. And I figured death by hypoglycemia wouldn’t throw up as many red flags as rat poison.”

  “Gina Wagner?” Baronick asked, his jaw tight.

  “She never believed Dustin was guilty. I couldn’t risk her testifying again. I went to Langley’s last Monday. When she was waiting on someone else, I slipped a healthy dose of insulin into her soft drink. I heard another salesclerk mention it was sugar-free, which was perfect.”

  Pete rubbed his forehead. He’d been right. Except he’d suspected Loretta as the scheming, conniving killer. Worse, he’d been so damned fixated on her, he’d failed to look further. “What about Franklin Marshall?”

  “That was easy. He was already sick and in the hospital. I put on some scrubs and brought him a can of spiked diet soda. No one should’ve suspected a thing. With his medical history, there shouldn’t even have been an autopsy.”

  Except Zoe had insisted.

  Baronick unfolded his hands, which he clenched into fists. “Why go after my sister?”

  Jenna appeared genuinely puzzled by the question. “Your sister?”

  “Officer Abigail Baronick,” Pete said.

  Jenna’s mouth formed a surprised “o.” “I didn’t make the connection between you two,” she told the detective. Flashing those innocent blue eyes, she added, “I hope she’s okay.”

  Pete felt the rage radiating from the detective. Before Baronick said or did anything to jeopardize the case—or his career—Pete demanded, “Why’d you drug her?”

  “I heard she was digging into Maurice’s death and was afraid she’d end up connecting him to me, so I started following her. She went into that new restaurant on Sunday, and when she got distracted by someone, I was able to slip the drug into her drink with no one the wiser.”

  “Maurice’s death?” Pete echoed, connecting the dots. Maurice King was John Doe. Not the DLK, who was still very much alive.

  “If she’d just left everything well enough alone, I wouldn’t have had to go after her.” Jenna shot a glance at Baronick. “But your sister made the connection between ‘John Doe’…” Jenna made air quotes. “…and Elizabeth’s death.”

  Pete noticed Baronick’s white-knuckled grip on his pen. “Start over,” Pete said to Jenna. “Tell us what happened from the moment you decided to speed Elizabeth’s death along. Your plan was brilliant, by the way.” She’d played them long enough. Time for Pete to play her. “And you’re right. If Dustin’s conviction hadn’t been overturned, you’d have gotten away with murder.”

  Jenna beamed, pleased by Pete’s praise. “I’d known Maurice for years. First from high school, then later, when I was doing social work. He was a track star in school until he blew out his knee and got addicted to painkillers. He managed to go straight and got clean. But he lost his job and his home and was living on the streets. He never had much of a moral compass, and was so desperate, trying to make ends meet, I knew I could get him to do anything.” She emphasized the last word. “I got the idea about how to get rid of Elizabeth for good while I was visiting friends in Morgantown. When I came home, I tracked Maurice down and gave him the money to buy the black pants and hoodie and a gun that couldn’t be traced. And a little extra cash for his time. I told him to wait in Elizabeth’s backseat during her yoga class.”

  Pete stopped her. “You knew about her yoga class?”

  Jenna nodded. “And I’d ‘borrowed’ her spare set of car keys when I was at their house.” More air quotes.

  Which explained why there were no signs of forced entry. “Go on.”

  “I told Maurice exactly how to do it. And I told him to wait two weeks to make sure I’d be long gone. We arranged to meet up after I got back from Chicago. He returned the gun to me, wrapped in the clothes he’d worn, just like I’d told him to. I was supposed to pay him five thousand bucks.”

  Pete knew where this was going. “But you never planned to give him the cash, did you?”

  “I never had that kind of money. I did have access to opioids though and made a deal with an acquaintance. I traded him pharmaceutical grade oxycodone for some heroin he’d cut with fentanyl. A very special dose, especially for me.” Her smile raised the hairs on the back of Pete’s neck. “Now, everyone does it. Back then, lacing heroin with fentanyl was very trendy.”

  “Trendy.” Pete threw the word back at her. “And I bet you used an extra high percentage of fentanyl.”

  “Absolutely. Nothing but the best.” She smiled, pleased with herself, but must’ve seen the look of disgust in Pete’s eyes. Her jaw jutted. “Hey, I gave him a choice. The cash, if he’d give me a little more time. Or the drugs right then and there. It was his decision.”

  The pen in Baronick’s hand snapped. Pete flinched. The detective opened his fist and let the plastic shards trickle to the table. “Of course, Maurice was an addict struggling to stay clean and couldn’t resist the temptation of your ‘trendy’ gift,” Baronick said through gritted teeth.

  Jenna shrugged. “I knew he was on shaky ground. When I waved that stuff under his nose, he gladly accepted it as payment in full.”

  Pete could hear Baronick’s heavy breathing next to him. “You knew he’d never cause you problems again,” the detective said.

  “It was perfect. He had no ID on him. He was just another bum who overdosed. There was no investigation at all.”

  “Until Abby.”

  “I really am sorry about your sister.” The feigned regret fell flat.

  Pete placed a firm hand on Baronick’s shoulder before he could lunge over the table.

  Jenna had answered most of Pete’s questions. But not all. “Why Zoe?”

  “She was working to clear Dustin. She learned about the rat poison. Even though she suspected someone else, I knew it was only a matter of time before she figured it out. I hated to have to kill her, but then she walked into Golden Oaks earlier, and your dad asked me to bring them milkshakes. You can’t pass up an opportunity like that when it presents itself. I made hers with the sugar-free stuff and added my own secret ingredient.” Jenna’s self-pleased smile made Pete consider releasing his grip on Baronick’s shoulder.

  But he wasn’t done yet. “Why’d you run?”

  The smile faded. “I realized it wasn’t going to end. Ever. Too many people knew bits and pieces and would eventually put it together. I couldn’t silence them all, so I left work and went home to get Wylie. I planned to just
—” She waved a hand in a flourish. “—disappear.”

  “Except I got there before you could leave,” Baronick said, his voice laden with rage.

  Tears again gleamed in her eyes. No regret for anything she’d done, but for being caught.

  “How did you find out that Abby was investigating your hitman and that Zoe suspected someone other than Dustin?” Pete fought to keep the fury from his own voice.

  “That reporter. Lauren somebody? She kept asking me questions for the story she was doing on Dustin’s retrial. But I managed to get more useful information from her than she did from me.”

  Pete closed his eyes. Lauren Sanders. He’d be livid with her except he’d been as much of an idiot as she had. One last question surfaced in his consciousness, and he opened his eyes. “You said you got the idea for having Maurice shoot Elizabeth while you were visiting friends?”

  Jenna leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “Like I said. I was visiting friends in Morgantown. While I was there, a guy killed a girl in a car in a lonely parking lot and got away clean. I thought the same plan would work for Maurice. And it did.” Her gaze, hard and cold as ice, locked onto Pete’s. “As it turns out, the man from Morgantown has killed quite a few other girls over the years.”

  The knowledge that something awful was coming sat in Pete’s gut like a block of lead.

  “I’m actually quite good at keeping secrets, Chief Adams. I kept my own all this time, but I also kept one for someone else. You see, I knew that guy. The one who killed that girl and all the others. And I never told anyone.”

  “Give us the name,” Pete growled.

  Jenna smiled. Not the vulnerable girl-next-door smile that had suckered Pete for so many years, but a smug, triumphant one that chilled Pete’s blood. “Now I want that attorney. Someone who can make me a deal. My life in exchange for the identity of the Deserted Lot Killer.”

  Thirty-Five

  Most of the chairs in the country church’s basement nursery were toddler-sized, so Zoe, bundled in a fluffy robe she swore her mother had stolen from some fancy hotel, perched on the edge of a table while Rose Morales held a mascara wand aimed at Zoe’s eye.