by Lisa Olsen
“I know he is,” she insisted stubbornly.
“Fine, you know it.” He wasn’t about to argue in circles over it. “But for now focus on the police work and not the guy. If it’s him, great, but if it’s not, you might be missing valuable evidence by fixating on one guy.”
Natalie let out a long, sigh, slumping lower in her seat. “I guess you’re right.”
“Atta girl.”
“But I’m not sorry I chased that girl out of there tonight. I might’ve saved her life.”
“Let’s hope your superior sees it that way too.” If it showed up splashed all over the news, she was likely to get an earful if her boss was anything like his.
“From your lips.” She raised her mug high, draining the tepid coffee in one long gulp.
Satisfied that he’d done all he could to get her to chill out and back off, Nick turned to his own coffee, grimacing over the temperature before waving over the waitress to top them off. “Now how about a slice of pie? Their lemon meringue is to die for.”
* * *
Nick tried calling Annaliese as soon as he waved goodbye to Natalie and locked the front door, but it didn’t surprise him when she didn’t pick up. It didn’t surprise him when she didn’t return his messages or texts for the next hour either. He could understand why she was upset; the feeling of unease in the pit of his stomach had less to do with the sour coffee and pie and more to do with guilt over how he’d kept her in the dark about his motivations for meeting Jax and bringing Nat to the party. As the night stretched on, he resigned himself to the fact that she was either not near her phone, ignoring him on purpose, or it was too loud.
So it was quite a shock to find her pulling into the driveway.
There was just enough time for a quick check in the mirror (not too shabby), of his breath (not that great thanks to the coffee) and straighten his t-shirt before she let herself in without knocking.
“Hey, I was hoping I’d get to talk to you tonight,” he smiled, but Anna wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries, getting right to the heart of the matter.
“You knew about this murder investigation, didn’t you? You’ve been looking at Jax as a suspect this whole time and you never said a thing.”
“He’s not my suspect, but…”
“How could you not tell me? I thought we were closer than that, Nick.” There was real pain behind her voice, not just anger, and it hit him like a boot to the gut.
“We are. It’s… like I said, it’s not my case. I wasn’t formally investigating him, just keeping my eyes and ears open for a friend.”
“Some friend,” she snorted. “You didn’t think it was important to tell me that the old buddy you wanted to invite to the party has been stalking Jax for weeks?”
“I wouldn’t call it stalking. Investigating maybe.”
“Don’t try and defend her to me, Jax told me all about it. Did you know that she’s been reprimanded for trespassing on his property? Did you know that the police issued him a formal apology for insinuating he was a suspect in order to avoid being sued after they completely cleared him of any charges? But that wasn’t enough for her. This has hurt him, Nick. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be investigated for murder? To have your friends ignore your calls? To be vilified by the press?”
“Hey, they say there’s no such thing as bad press, right?” She was right though, Natalie’s actions had been way over the line. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know she was going to flip out like that. She’s just really, really invested in the case. You have no idea the kind of pressure there is to catch a killer, especially when new bodies keep turning up.”
“You met him, does Jax strike you as a killer?”
Nick struggled with the right response, torn between saying something soothing to smooth her ruffled feathers and admit what he felt in his gut. Honesty won out, he’d already gambled and lost big time in trying to keep things from her. “I don’t know, but there’s something off about that guy, I can feel it.”
Anna let out a snort of disgust. “I happen to think you’re wrong, and I can prove it.” With that dramatic pronouncement, she strode deeper into the house, long skirt frothing about her legs. Plopping her purse onto the kitchen counter, she pawed through it, muttering until she came up with a small brass pendulum. “Do you have a piece of paper?”
“Annie, I don’t see what you’re hoping to prove here.”
“Do you have a piece of paper?”
Nick stared at her for a long moment before retrieving a single sheet of printer paper from the closet. Patiently, he waited while she drew a set of perpendicular lines on it, the horizontal one marked no and the vertical one marked yes, as he’d seen her do before. “What about your magic herbs?” he mentioned, when she began to dangle the pendulum over the paper in a slow circle.
“This’ll have to do in a pinch,” she replied, her heavy eye makeup making her look more like a fortune teller than usual. “Is Jax May the killer?” Annaliese asked in a ringing voice. The pendulum switched direction, swinging from side to side. “Ha, see! I told you so.”
“We both know that doesn’t work, remember what happened before?” When seeking the identity of whoever was killing off her coven members, the pendulum hadn’t indicated who the killer was because they hadn’t known her true name.
“Fine,” she scowled. “Is the person known to us as Jackson May the killer?”
The pendulum continued to swing back and forth in a horizontal line.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Nick insisted and she let the pendulum fall to the counter with a clatter.
“It proves you’re backsliding into a closed minded…” Her hand clenched around the pendant, lips pressed tightly together as she tried to rein in her temper.
“Maybe we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one, Annie. That’s not a problem though, isn’t it? There’s no law that says we have to agree on everything.”
“It’s a problem when I feel like I can’t trust you to be honest with me.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right, I should’ve come clean when I first found out you knew the guy, but I wanted to meet him with as little bias as possible. Can you honestly say you would’ve brought me to the hotel to meet him if I told you I wanted to investigate him?”
“You’re the one with the bias, you had him pegged as guilty right from the start.”
“I’m a cop, I can’t help it if that colors my judgment of people.”
“Maybe you should try not judging people at all,” she snapped, lowering her eyes when he didn’t say anything in response. “I’d better be going,” she said softly, gathering her purse up.
“It’s late, you can stay…”
“No, I don’t think I can.”
There didn’t seem to be much to say after that, and Nick escorted her to the front door with an air of glumness. Wishing her a safe drive home, he watched as she climbed into her car and drove away. Still standing in the doorway, he pulled out his cell and dialed Natalie’s number.
“Hey, long time no hear,” she answered with a smile in her voice. “Did you decide you want to go out for a nightcap?”
“I can’t help you with the case anymore,” Nick said shortly, not bothering to pussyfoot around it.
“Come again?”
“I’ve got my own workload to deal with and it’s getting too complicated for my personal life.”
“This is because of the witch, isn’t it?”
So, she’d bothered to check Annaliese out. While Anna was, in fact, a witch, he didn’t like the way Natalie said the word, as if there was something dirty about it. “Unless there’s a solid lead to follow up on, or a crime is committed in my jurisdiction, you’re on your own,” he said coldly.
There was silence on the line for a few moments before she let out a short breath. “That’s a shame, but I understand. I hope things smooth out for you.”
“Goodbye, Natalie. I hope you find the answers you’re looking for.”
“If I’m right, I’ll be talking to you again sooner than later.” With that, she hung up, and Nick wearily made the rounds, making sure all the doors and windows were locked.
“Hey, Dad.” Veronica perched on the bottom steps, folding her arms around her knees as she watched him.
“I’m sorry, kiddo. Did I wake you?”
“Nah, I was still up reading. Party didn’t go so great, huh?”
“You know that scene in the Poseidon Adventure where the ship turns over and everyone in the grand ballroom scrambles as things go topsy turvy?”
“Uh huh.”
“It was worse than that.”
“What happened?”
Nick sat beside her and she scooted over to give him more room. “I was stupid and kept something from Annaliese that I shouldn’t have.”
“That is stupid.”
“Hey!”
“Your word, not mine,” she exclaimed, hands held up in a supplicating gesture. “What kind of stuff did you keep from her? Stuff to do with your FBI friend?”
“My friend and her friend… it’s sort of complicated.”
“I’m smarter than I look.”
“You look plenty smart, muffin.” He pulled her in for a one armed hug. “But I don’t want to get anyone into trouble by throwing accusations around.”
“So… the FBI chick thinks that one of Annaliese’s friends is guilty of something,” Veronica ventured aloud. “Who, Ruby? Is it about the drugs?”
“You are smart,” Nick grinned, impressed with her deductive reasoning. “No, it’s not about the drugs, it’s much more serious. Speaking of drugs though, what do you think of your idols now that you’ve seen them up close?”
“It was definitely an eye opener,” she said after a moment’s thought. “I mean, I didn’t expect Jax to look at me twice, so it wasn’t a big surprise when he totally ignored me. I’m a nobody after all.”
“You’re not a nobody to me.”
“That’s sweet, papabear, but it’d be nice to hear that from someone who didn’t have a genetic link to me. And I can’t say I got to know Ruby much either, she was so zonked out on whatever she was high on. I don’t even know if she knew what she was talking about.”
Nick smiled at that, but couldn’t resist asking her about Anna’s ex. “But Jax, he struck you as a straight shooter?”
“I guess so, I didn’t have a chance to talk to him all that much. What is it you think he’s done?”
“Who says I think he did anything at all?”
“I told you, I’m smarter than I look.”
“You are at that,” he agreed. Maybe he could use a fresh pair of eyes on the case from someone who wasn’t a cop, even if he had told Natalie he’d have to let it go. “Okay, full disclosure here, but you have to promise you won’t breathe a word of it to anyone and that includes twittering or anything online. Pinky swear.” Nick held up his pinky and she clasped it with hers.
“Wild horses couldn’t drag it from me,” she grinned.
Nick went over the basics of the case, the three dead girls and their ties to Jax, glossing over the more gory details. Veronica listened in silence, her lips pressed together until she offered her opinion.
“It seems like you should be tracking down the tattoo artists, not Jax. That’s the biggie they all have in common, right?”
Could it be that simple? The thought had never once occurred to him, but surely Natalie had already investigated that angle. “Ah, I’ll have to see if that’s been done. I can’t imagine she would’ve narrowed down the investigation to Jax unless he was the only viable option.” Or had she skipped over that possibility in her desire to railroad the rock star?
“I don’t know, it doesn’t sound like you have much on Jax at all. I mean they all like his music? So what? And he’d have to be stupid to kill a girl he’d slept with. Wouldn’t that lead the cops right to his door?”
“People don’t always plot everything out when they kill.”
“But this killer does. You said the razor blades didn’t have any prints on them, that means the killer either wore gloves or wiped them clean. If it was an act of passion, it’d be less likely he’d even bring a razor blade with him, right? He’d just kill them with whatever was available or strangle them or something.”
“That’s possible. Or maybe he’s starting to lose control. The first two victims didn’t have any real ties to Jax other than being fans of his. Maybe by the time he got to the third killing he lashed out at the girl he’d slept with because she was available. The wrong place at the wrong time kind of thing.”
“That’s a lot of maybes, Dad.”
“You’re right, it is. Besides, I decided to leave the whole thing in the hands of the Feds for now anyway.”
“Do you think that’ll satisfy Annaliese?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a step in the right direction.”
“What happens if there’s another murder up here?”
That would change things. “Then Jax May moves to the top of the suspect list.” Annaliese couldn’t blame him for investigating then. “In the meantime, Jax May is definitely on the short list of people I want you to avoid like the plague. Maybe he’s a nice fella who’s good to his mama and is sweet on kittens, but on the off chance he’s a psycho killer, you stay away from him. Do you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
Chapter Ten
It wasn’t like Veronica was anywhere near Jax May, not exactly. Unless you counted being part of a sold out crowd of fifteen hundred screaming fans close to a guy. Even from the VIP section, she was still farther away than she’d been in his hotel room. Her dad couldn’t object to that, could he? He already knew she was going to the concert thanks to free tickets from Annaliese and he hadn’t gone too ballistic over that. Mostly she thought that was because he was trying to act all cool, like he didn’t have a problem with Jax in front of Annaliese. Hey, whatever got her into the concert was fine with Veronica.
But as she edged closer to the backstage area, Veronica was pretty sure she was violating the spirit of her father’s warning, if not the letter of it. Ruby had said she’d leave backstage passes for her at the box office, not that she’d actually expected her to do it. More than half the stuff Ruby had said to her over Facebook hadn’t made much sense.
The idea that a famous rocker might be interested in her poetry as lyrics for an actual song was thrilling, but she didn’t seriously expect anything to come of it. Still, Veronica had promised her friend Kristen she’d get to meet the siblings in exchange for a ride to the concert, in the hopes that Ruby came through. Sure enough, there were two backstage passes left under her name, and she and Kristen were admitted almost an hour before the rest of the rabble.
The Crystal Ballroom was as grand as its name, with giant crystal chandeliers, delicately carved beams and moldings, and floor to ceiling, arched windows letting in lots of natural light during the day. The stage was tucked away in the corner. A smallish stage as venues go, nothing like the big amphitheater concerts, but it was big enough for the kind of bands that didn’t travel with their own pyrotechnic shows. The VIP area was marked off to the right of the stage, bordering the entrance to the lower level that housed all the dressing rooms and such.
“I can’t believe you got us backstage passes!” Kristen squealed, holding tight to her hand so as not to be separated in the crush of people.
“I know, right?”
“And we’re really going to meet Jax May?”
“It’s a distinct possibility,” Veronica smiled, still waffling back and forth over whether or not she should be doing this.
She’d tried her best to fit into the groupie stereotype in the hopes of catching Jax’s eye this time, since that’s what he seemed to like. Hair wound up in a spiky twist that showcased her electric blue highlights, ample amount of skin showing from her nearly bare shoulders to her ultra sheer stockings lightly patterned with tiny black skulls, and a swath of pale midriff in between.
They’d spent nearly an hour getting the makeup just right – a deep, smoky eye that gave them an almost cat-like cast, her full lips stained a soft pink that matched her nails for a touch of innocence. Not that her father would’ve ever let her leave the house like that in a zillion years, that’s why they’d gotten ready at Kristen’s house. They could go out dressed in pasties and a g-string and her alkie mother would never notice.
Veronica had even painstakingly drawn a tattoo above the curve of her bodice – the symbol of the band, just like the murdered girls. Maybe she was playing with fire, but Veronica needed to see if Jax had any reaction to it. She was fairly sure he wouldn’t recognize her in her current getup, she wasn’t sure she recognized herself.
“Ooh, they’re starting!” Kristen yelled as the band took the stage. “I think I’m going to faint…”
“You’re not going to faint,” Veronica muttered, well used to her friend’s brand of exaggeration. Kristen was the polar opposite of Veronica when it came to looks. Blonde hair teased within an inch of its life, wide blue eyes that appeared never to blink. Pointy chin and long, gangly limbs. Veronica was jealous over how tall and thin she was and Kristen envied Veronica her lush curves – it was a perfectly symbiotic friendship except that the only attire they could trade were shoes. When it came to the opposite sex, Kristen was all swoons and giggles, but Veronica admired how she never played the games so many of her peers did with boys.
“If you faint you’ll miss it,” Veronica reminded her, and Kristen instantly perked up, her gaze riveted to the stage. Half expecting Ruby to be zonked out again, it was a pleasant surprise to see her strut out on stage bright eyed and full of energy as she greeted the crowd. Of course, that could mean she was just high on something else to keep her sharp, but the music didn’t suffer for it. Dressed in purple and black patent leather, her hair loose and wild with long purple extensions in it, Ruby May looked every inch the rock goddess she was.
Without much in the way of preamble, they struck up one of their biggest hits, Send Me Your Love, featuring Ruby on vocals and Jax on lead guitar. The crowd went nuts, jumping up and down to the distinctive beat. The energy in the room was electric, the hair standing up on Veronica’s arms as she found herself a part of it. This was why she loved Forsaken, the way their music grabbed you on a visceral level and made you sit up and take notice. That Jax was sex on a stick didn’t hurt matters either.