by Alexa Steele
At the mention of Harding, Jenna’s whole demeanor changed. Her smile disappeared, her lips clenched together tightly, and her brows furrowed. It seemed as if Mack had reminded her of someone she hated.
“He’s an ass. He gets off on his power. It’s probably the only time in his life he has any. I was tempted to do him in too, but I don’t know, somehow I have more control with men. It’s fascinating actually.”
Then, as if she thought of something else, she blurted out, “I was loved here.”
“Yes. By Bobby and Dr. Weber,” Bella said before she was cut off.
“Ha! Is that what you think? She wished!”
“But she tracked you down. She loved you enough to find you.”
“You think she found me out of love?” Her voice cracked when she asked this. “She thought she owned me—like when I was a little girl. I could have kept it all up if she hadn’t undone me.”
She stared at Mack as she gnawed on the twig.
“Those crests were a neat idea,” Mack said slowly.
“You think?” She looked really pleased with herself. “I thought so too,” she laughed. “I knew Marion would know it was me, and you would think it was her, and…” She stopped and giggled.
“She could have gone bye-bye, finally.” She almost sang the words.
“Yes. It was very ingenious of you,” Mack agreed. “So what happened? Why did you run?”
Mack sounded respectful and gentle and caring. Jenna seemed hypnotized by him. But she didn’t answer. She just stared.
“Was there a reason you came here?” he tried again.
“I wanted to go home,” she answered sadly. “I wanted to go home.”
Bella and Mack looked at one another.
“I understand,” he replied. “I’d like to go home too. Ya know, I think we all would.”
Jenna considered this.
“Are you here to collect me?”
“We are,” he said quietly.
She smiled bizarrely and started humming.
“You probably don’t want to come with us,” Mack acknowledged.
She plopped down on her blanket. She looked tired and worn. She sat Indian style and began rocking sideways.
“They had no idea who they were messing with,” she snarled, her voice low and gravelly again. “Joslyn was a spoiled princess who got whatever she wanted, all the time, all because she was rich. Her life was one big thornless rose. It was time she got pricked.”
She tried to readjust her position, but lost her balance. It looked like she was trying to stand on her knees, but she fell backwards and laughed again like a little girl.
“I’m not going back with you,” she said easily, lying on her back. “I’m not leaving here. Ever.”
Mack frowned, confused, and looked at Bella, who seemed calm but cautious.
“Jenna, it’s getting dark and pretty soon we gotta go. We don’t want to leave you here alone. Have you been sleeping here, outside?”
“Yes, and it’s been lovely. I will go inside when I get cold.”
“You can’t go inside anymore. This place is boarded up. It’s closed. Why don’t you make this easy and come with us. It’s over.”
She shook her head back and forth as though trying to block out a loud noise then, in an instant, ripped into the twig with a vicious bite, breaking it in two. Shards of bark slid down her chest as she laughed heartily, like she had just heard a hysterical joke.
She lay on her back sucking sap from the twig she had just torn open.
“Yes, it is over,” she screeched. “You are right about something. Finally!”
Her eyes went wide and she looked like she was choking. Before Bella and Mack understood what was happening, she lay writhing on the ground, convulsing, her blanket crumpling beneath her, her body shaking uncontrollably, the broken twig tightly gripped in her hand as she choked on her own vomit.
Bella ran over and desperately tried to steady her and pry the twig from her hand, as Mack frantically called for an ambulance. What the hell was this? What had she done?
Forty minutes later Bella and Mack were still on the ground in utter darkness as paramedics worked in vain to revive Jenna. She had a pulse when they arrived, but not for long. They were too late.
The hemlock sap had fully coursed through her veins, spreading its toxin without sympathy.
Jenna Jordan was dead.
CHAPTER 36
The precinct was dark and quiet as Bella and Mack sat with Billy in his office. It was 3:30 in the morning and Billy quietly read from the report that had been faxed over.
“A North American plant that’s sometimes used in floral arrangements but is, without a doubt, the most violently toxic plant on the continental USA. Also called the poison parsnip, the woody roots of the plant contain huge amounts of deadly sap, rich in the convulsant toxin cicutoxin. The tiniest quantity of this stuff, if ingested, will result in violent grand mal fitting, followed very soon after by a horrible death. This is not a plant you want anywhere near your garden.”
He sat back and surveyed his two detectives.
“You couldn’t have known,” he said somberly. “Not that it makes it any better. She was nuts. Knew way too much about this shit. You did what you could do.”
He was right. It didn’t make it any better. Bella blamed herself for not seeing what Jenna was doing sooner, for not knowing a twig could be so deadly. Mack didn’t beat himself up as much. He kind of felt she had it coming.
It had been harrowing to sit in the dark with her, waiting for the ambulance to arrive. It had only been five days since she and Mack had met and driven up to Greenvale but, for some reason, this case had turned her insides out. It had affected her.
“What can I say?” Billy sighed. “You two did great work—wrapped this up in less than a week. Dennis hasn’t stopped getting calls congratulating him from every corner, near and far. Hey, you solved this thing and threw in a drug bust to boot! Some guy named Nick in Dennis’s office is getting all the credit for breaking it up. Dennis asked if it’s OK to let him bask in the glory a bit. Mack?”
Mack shrugged. “You kidding? I ain’t looking for no glory.”
“You did me a solid. I owe you both.” He shook his head sadly. “I’m just sorry for what you guys endured tonight.”
He scratched his head and sighed.
“People coming out of the woodwork now, of course. Her neighbor has decided it’s time to talk,” Billy added.
“What did he say?” Mack asked.
Billy’s eyes widened. “We sent a unit in to ransack Jenna’s closet when you called. We found a shoebox filled with those crests. We also found the neighbor’s drivers license. Looks like she stole it. He’s an employee at Abbott Pharmaceuticals and, according to this guy, Jenna had shown interest in his work lately. During one of their talks he mentioned the in-house lab at Abbott requires only an employee’s driver’s license number for orders. She got a hold of his license and placed an order for cyanide, in his name, then had it FedEx’d to his home where it arrived via a ten thirty a.m. delivery. She was waiting on the front lawn when the FedEx guy arrived. Delivery guy remembers the wife who signed for it and ID’d Jenna in a photo. The guy never even knew it had been ordered in his name.”
“Where’s Weber?” Mack asked Billy.
“Back home. Inconsolable, according to Arthur. He believes she truly knew nothing about the murders.”
“Does she even realize Jenna set her up to take the fall?” Mack asked.
“I don’t know what she realizes or believes. If you listen to Arthur, she’s lost the love of her life.”
“He’s probably right,” Mack responded.
“How the hell did she get into the boat cabin anyway? Do we know?” Mack asked.
“The owner doesn’t remember Jenna specifically, but he’s a party animal when he’s not in Capri. His ‘Sailing Excursions’ are less about sailing than they are about mingling—plenty of lovely ladies in town join in on the
fun. Doug admitted Jenna had been to a few parties on Paradise Found. She must have gotten hold of a key to the cabin and made a copy. Lock wasn’t jimmied and she sure as hell wasn’t given her own set of keys to the kingdom. This broad planned meticulously, I’ll tell you that. She thought of almost everything.”
“What about Doug and Jessie? How have they taken the news?” Mack pressed on. Bella remained quiet.
“Sounds like the daughters are petty torn up. Husband is in shock. Maybe when the dust settles he’ll realize the bullet he dodged,” Billy answered.
“I still can’t believe Ridley waltzed into the station house, just like that. Fucking guy had the whole force out looking for him and he just walks right in?” Mack was dumbfounded.
“They’re keeping him in a halfway house. He refuses to go home. The stories he’s telling about his mother, well, they’re hard to believe. Crazy guy’s blaming his conviction on her, saying she’s the one who killed the woman in his house, said he’s been protecting her all these years. I am telling ya, man, Greenvale sure as hell ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.”
He and Mack shared a laugh and shook their heads.
“Hey, you know what they say. Life is stranger than fiction,” Mack grinned.
“Sure as hell is,” agreed Billy.
“And her fucking husband was having an affair after all,” Mack said in dismay.
Lillie had called Bella that morning and left a message that she walked in on Jamie and Stephanie in the library.
“From what I’ve heard, it’s a bad scene,” Bella added queitly. “His girls found out about it. I’m glad I’m not in his house tonight.”
“Like I said, let’s steer clear of those burbs for a while.” Mack laughed again.
“Has anyone contacted Sam’s and Sophie’s parents?” asked Bella.
“Dennis was going to handle that,” Billy replied. “He seems to have developed quite a close rapport with them.”
Bella imagined how they would take the news their daughters had been killed by a psycho mother in town who had staged their deaths as suicides, simply because their girls knocked her daughter out of the running at her coveted school.
“Man, that crew gave us a run for our money, huh?” Mack remarked, looking at Bella.
Bella didn’t crack a smile. She was ruminating on the ways things had gone down. She had known right away something was off about Jenna, but she hadn’t considered the possibility she would ever be a murderer. Why not? Ryan had been right: her cultural preconceptions had gotten in the way. She attributed Stephanie’s and Jenna’s behavior to shallowness and assumed they were harmless.
Harmless. Ha. One of them went after Joslyn’s husband and the other murdered her. Joslyn’s own beloved daughter had even lied. She painted her mom out to be overprotective and crazy, when she knew the truth all along. Even she herself had judged Joslyn harshly in the beginning. She had assumed she was a rich snob, not a decent woman.
Bella felt a twinge of guilt. It was as though she was covered in dirt and just couldn’t scrub it off. When she worked the streets in the Bronx, whether it was prostitutes, drug dealers, gang members, thieves—at least she knew whom she was dealing with. Good guy, bad guy—the lines were pretty clear. In this case, they had stepped into a mirage where money, status, looks, and charm hid the soil underneath. Where people like Jenna and Jamie lived on a pedestal, but someone like Erika was cast off to the side.
“Well, I’m keeping my promise to you both,” Billy said. “Mack, I’m cutting you loose. You’re a free bird once again, if you feel like flying.” Billy stood as he said this, and came around to his favorite spot in front of his desk. He looked at Mack with an endearing expression. “Although I gotta tell ya, I kind of liked having you around here again. Big guy like you made all of us feel safer.”
Billy and Mack laughed and gave each other a quick hug.
“I don’t know, man. It wasn’t so bad to be back,” Mack said, as he sat back down and smiled. He snuck a peek at Bella, but looked mostly at Billy. “Somehow my bed just doesn’t seem as enticing after this week.”
He rubbed both his hands through his hair and then ran them up and down the side of his cheeks.
“Arthur called me personally to ask if you were officially back. I think he’s worried,” Billy laughed.
“What did you tell him?” Mack asked.
“I told him the truth. That I got a case call this morning that would blow your socks off, and twenty more behind it. That if you want back in, we got more than enough business. Murder and sex crime is recession-proof—that’s for sure.”
Mack winced. “Always nice to be wanted.”
“Yeah, well, you never have to worry about that around here, my friend,” Billy replied warmly. “This new case that’s coming in—hell, it’s more than a case. It’s a raison d’être.”
Billy glanced at Bella, who was uncharacteristically quiet. He could see her struggling, taking this one real hard. Very unlike her.
“A doozie, huh?” Mack asked.
“Big time,” Billy answered. “A kiddie porn ring we’ve been watching all year here in the city just expanded its reach. It has been bumped up a level with the number of subscribers tripling these past six months. Just last week three high school girls disappeared from the same high school up in Harrington, not too far from Greenvale now that I think of it. Feds think they’ve been sold into the ring we’ve been watching. They want our sex crimes unit in on this, to take a lead role with them. We’ve agreed to help nail these fuckers to the wall. You want in?”
He could hit them over the head with the details soon enough, but for now he wanted to give Mack a reason to come back and jog Bella out of her fog. She wasn’t reacting, but he knew sure as hell she heard what he just said. He needed Jenna and her crew to work its way out of her system and knew the best way to do that was to replace this case with a new one.
“I’m in, baby,” Mack smiled. “Full throttle in.”
Bella was quiet. Both Billy and Mack, as if on cue, looked at her at the same time. Her silence was deafening.
“Bella, Bella,” Billy sighed, as he leaned down and took her hands in his, inadvertently making her feel worse. He had no idea that was Ryan’s nickname for her.
She thought of Ryan now and it dawned on her she would not be celebrating the closing of this case with him. It would be her first time having to simply go home, alone, and dial it down on her own. She felt a pang of sadness. She wished she could share this with him.
“You need a break, my dear,” Billy said, seeing the way she looked. “I am ordering you to take a week off and not to come anywhere near us for at least seven days. Do you hear me?”
He’d give her a week to unwind, but knew she’d be back in a few days.
She nodded.
“You’re my girl, you know that,” Billy said gently.
Bella looked at him with tenderness.
“I know Billy,” was all she said.
She felt like she might cry. What was wrong with her?
“Hey, where’s Hausner?” Mack interjected. “Is someone gonna get his butt down here so he can give Bella the apology she deserves?”
“He will if I have something to say about it,” Billy answered.
“Good,” said Mack. “I want him to eat crow. To her face.”
Billy smiled. He liked that Mack was looking out for her. That was a good sign.
“Speaking of eating, you guys gotta be starving. I would buy you a drink but, as it’s morning, breakfast’s more in order. My treat? I’ll splurge and take you to Johnny’s.”
Billy winked at Bella and Mack slowly smiled.
She was starving, actually.
Mack stood and opened the door for her, and they both stood there, waiting, watching her. She knew they were not just inviting her out to breakfast: they were both looking at her, with that look in their eye, wanting to know if she was OK, if she would make it, if she could rebound from all this darkness. Bella stare
d back, and she wanted to jump up and join them, but for the first time in her life, she felt unsure. The events of the past few days had hurt her—more than she understood.
She sat there in the silence as they looked down, waiting—and to their credit, they didn’t rush her, and they didn’t leave without her. They understood. More than anyone else, they understood.
Bella felt her eyes well with tears as she sat there, frozen, and she didn’t want them to see her like this.
“Let’s go, Billy,” Mack said.
Bella loved him in that moment; he knew what she was going through and wanted to give her her privacy.
He gave her a long, meaningful look before he walked out:
“You’ll meet us there, kiddo,” he said, looking her in the eye. “I know you will.”
They turned and walked out the door, and as Bella sat there in the silence, staring out the window, she wanted to say yes. She would go on. She would take the next case.
But as she stared into the rain, descending on the Bronx like a plague, she was no longer sure of anything.
Coming soon!
Book #2 in the Suburban Murder series
About Alexa Steele
Alexa Steele is an attorney, practicing in New York City, where she lives with her family. A lifelong crime and mystery reader, she is also a critically-acclaimed author of non-fiction. THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS is her debut work of fiction. Alexa loves to hear from you, so please visit www.alexasteele.com to join the email list, receive a free book, receive free giveaways, get the latest exclusive news, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and stay in touch!