Cooper Vengeance

by Paula Graves

  Massey shot a wary look his way.

  “Let him see them,” Natalie told Massey firmly. “He’s got an alibi for tonight, and he may have important insight regarding both cases.”

  “Because of that whole serial killer business he was telling me about?” Massey shot another appraising look at J.D. “I did a little checking. Did you know that fellow Dyson they picked up in Millbridge offed himself in jail?”

  J.D. nodded. “So they say.”

  Massey’s eyebrows ticked upward. “You’re thinking it was murder instead?”

  “I don’t know what it was,” J.D. answered flatly. “All I know is, I talked to Marlon Dyson earlier that day, and he didn’t seem the least bit like a man contemplating the end of his life. He was young. First offender. He could have convinced just about any jury that things just spiraled out of control, all because he wanted to be with a girl who barely knew he was alive. I saw him pull that act, and if I didn’t know better, I’d have felt a little sorry for him, too.”

  “Still would’ve been behind bars for eight to ten years—”

  “So he gets out before he even turns forty. I’m older than that, and I’d like to think I have my whole life ahead of me yet.” J.D. shook his head. “I just don’t buy that the guy I talked to in Millbridge the other day was planning to drink cyanide within twenty-four hours.”

  “The photos?” Impatience edged Natalie’s voice.

  “Let’s go inside,” Massey suggested.

  J.D. saw that Natalie had purchased a state-of-the-art security system from one of the best security companies in the business. It wasn’t a hundred percent foolproof, but it was better than staying here alone, completely exposed. Massey caught J.D.’s eye over Natalie’s head and gave an approving nod.

  The view from the front room was as beautiful as J.D. remembered, until Natalie turned on the overhead lights, turning the windows into mirrors. She waved J.D. and Doyle Massey over to the small round table in the breakfast nook just off the kitchen. J.D. took the seat opposite Massey, while Natalie slipped her chair in between them.

  Massey handed over the envelope. “These are copies. The originals are in evidence. If Roy Tatum finds out I gave you these—”

  “He won’t,” Natalie assured the deputy. J.D. noticed the look she gave Massey, a combination of wariness and hope. She’d hinted the night before that she didn’t really connect very well with her fellow deputies. She thought they were suspicious of her motives for taking the deputy job in the first place. J.D. was beginning to suspect she’d come into the job expecting—and dreading—that the other deputies would treat her differently. Her own tension and defensiveness could very well have created the exact situation she’d wanted to avoid.

  Massey was treating her as a colleague this time around, for whatever reason. Maybe seeing her charge hard after a case she wanted to investigate, despite the sheriff’s admonition to stay out of it, had proved to Massey that Natalie was serious about being a good law enforcement officer.

  Whatever Massey’s reasons, Natalie responded to his signs of acceptance, slowly relaxing as she studied the crime-scene photos with the eye of a real investigator.

  “There are signs of struggle.” Natalie pointed to a fallen lamp in the crime scene photo. “That wasn’t true at Annabelle’s.”

  “It’s not true of the other crime scenes, either,” J.D. said. “It’s one of the reasons I believed, for a while, that Victor Logan killed Brenda.”

  “Did he know her personally or something?” Massey asked.

  J.D. nodded. “Once we knew about Logan, we did a little digging. He’d worked as a journeyman mechanic in northeastern Alabama for a while. The trucking company where Brenda did the books was one of the places he’d done work.”

  “So Brenda would have known him,” Natalie said.

  “Yeah. I think she might have been surprised to see him waiting by her car after she locked up for the night, but she probably wouldn’t have been alarmed. From what I understand, Victor Logan didn’t come off as crazy or dangerous.”

  Massey clasped his hands in front of him and leaned toward J.D. “If your serial killer pair theory is true, how does that change things?”

  “I don’t think it does,” J.D. admitted. “In all the cases I’ve been looking at all these years, the victim didn’t seem to put up a struggle. My best guess, based on what we do know, is that Victor Logan—and Marlon Dyson after him—were like forward scouts or something.”

  “Softening up the victims, who knew them, so they wouldn’t be on guard when the alpha killer showed up?” Natalie asked.

  “That’s what I think.”

  “It’s really kind of ingenious. Sick and twisted, sure, but psychologically smart,” Massey commented. “I mean, you’ve got a guy who clearly gets off on the blitz attack—swoop in, wield the knife, bring the blood and the gore, and then get out. That’s his signature, not just his M.O., right?”

  J.D. couldn’t view the murders with the sort of emotional distance needed to appreciate Massey’s enthusiasm, but he managed a nod. “Looks that way.”

  “But that’s not the most efficient way to kill. Most blitz killers just deal with that—the pros outweigh the cons for them—but this guy, he’s thought ahead. He’s recruited some Ted Bundy wannabe and given him a supporting role—Ted Jr. gets to be the point man. He’s like a gentleman killer—he prides himself on his charm, his ability to win their temporary trust. Doesn’t look like a dangerous guy, so the victims don’t treat him like one.”

  “But they don’t know he’s just the front man. The feature act is lurking in the wings,” Natalie added.

  “And he’s a very dangerous guy,” J.D. murmured.

  “So what does it mean that there was a struggle this time?” Natalie asked. “Why wasn’t he able to win her trust?”

  “Who was she?” J.D. asked. Part of him dreaded knowing, because putting a face—a life—to the bloodstained body in that photo added one more scar to his already ravaged soul. But it was the least he owed her—to learn her name and acknowledge her life.

  “Her name was Lydia Randolph. She was a nurse practitioner—worked at a low-income clinic in Moss Crossing. A couple of nights a month, she stays late to do inventory—she has to requisition supplies, drugs, that sort of thing from the county hospital, so she has to keep a tight control on her inventory.”

  “Tonight was one of those nights?” Natalie guessed.

  “Yeah.”

  “Who found her?” J.D. asked.

  Massey gave him a pained look. “Her husband.”

  J.D. felt sick.

  “Maybe this guy is having to work solo now,” Massey suggested. “It could explain the struggle. The—what do you call it, secondary killer?”

  “The beta,” J.D. supplied. At least, that’s what Gabe’s girlfriend, Alicia, called him, and she’d gotten the rest of the Coopers using the same term.

  “Maybe there’s no beta killer now. The alpha’s doing it on his own, and she doesn’t have a reason to trust him, so she struggled with him and knocked over the lamp.”

  “But Carrie didn’t seem to put up a struggle,” Natalie protested. “There wasn’t anything out of place there.”

  “I’ve always figured it’s not so much that they don’t struggle—it’s that the alpha always cleans up afterward—that’s why there’s never evidence.” J.D. looked at the crime scene photo again. “So the real question is why didn’t he clean up after himself this time?”

  “You think it’s a copycat?” Natalie looked at him, her expression thoughtful.

  “I’m not sure what I think,” he admitted, almost wishing he hadn’t agreed to give her a ride home. He could have done with one more day without dealing with another murder.

  “Well, these are yours, Becker.” Doyle Massey pushed the envelope of crime-scene photos toward Natalie. “If Tatum finds out you have them, I’m toast. I’m trusting you not to hare off and do something stupid to get us both fired.”

&n
bsp; Natalie gave him that same wary but hopeful look J.D. had spotted earlier. “Thanks, Massey. I’ll be discreet.”

  Massey looked at J.D. “You heading out now, Cooper?”

  “No, I think I’ll stay a few more minutes.”

  Massey glanced at Natalie, who was poring through the photographs. His lips twitched with the hint of a smile. “Okay. You two kids don’t stay up too late. I’ll let myself out.”

  Natalie dragged her attention away from the photos. “Thanks again, Massey.”

  “Cover my backside, Becker,” he called down the hall behind him. The front door opened and he was gone.

  Natalie broke the silence a few seconds later. “You don’t think it was the serial killer, do you?”

  “I meant it when I said I don’t know.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Some of the details match perfectly—the position of the body, for one thing. The situation—night time, all alone in a secluded area—”

  “I wish I had my file folder here. I locked it in the motel safe before I left for the party.”

  She flashed him a rueful smile. “Your experience with me notwithstanding, we’re not really a town full of lock-picking snoops. Honestly, around Terrebonne, you could probably leave the files in your truck with the door unlocked and nobody would bother them. They’re not valuable to anyone but us.”

  “Us,” he repeated, unable to hold back a small smile.

  She shot him a curious look.

  He released a soft sigh. “I was just thinking how alone I’ve been feeling lately.”

  She cocked her head. “Alone? Surrounded by all that family up in Gossamer Ridge?”

  “Yeah, but—” He paused, not wanting to give her the wrong impression of his family. “They’ve supported me completely. My sister and brothers have pitched in, helped me follow leads. My brother Luke, who was living all the way across the country, looked into a couple of killings in San Diego County for me just because they sounded similar. They went out of their way for me any time I needed help.”

  “But?”

  “How long can you keep going? Twelve years is a forever to keep looking for answers. It wears you out.”

  “They’ve given up?”

  He stood up, pacing toward the picture windows where his own reflection stared back at him, hollow-eyed and restless. “They’ve started their own families. Built their own lives. Luke and his wife and kid have prices on their heads, for God’s sake. Aaron’s got a wedding to plan. Sam’s wife just told us she’s pregnant with their first child. Hannah and Riley are trying to have another baby, and Jake and Mariah—”

  “I get it,” she said, her voice close. He turned to find her gazing up at him with gentle understanding. She put her hand on his arm, the heat of her fingers seeping through his cotton sleeve. “And now, there’s just you fighting the good fight?”

  “I don’t begrudge them any of the happiness they’ve found. I don’t expect them to mold their lives around my concerns.”

  “But you still feel alone.”

  He was surprised by how much he didn’t feel alone at this moment, with her hand warm on his arm and her sharp green eyes gazing straight into his soul. “Not at the moment.”

  The air between them grew heavy and heated, as if a storm were brewing, thick with unleashed fury. The need to touch her overwhelmed him, until the only way he could quiet the thrumming in his ears was to lift his hands to cradle her face.

  Her lips trembling apart, she lifted her other hand to his forearm, her fingers gripping tightly. “J.D.—”

  He kissed her before his caution could kick in to stop him. He didn’t want to be the careful man, the responsible man that life and circumstance had forced him to be. He wanted to feel something again. Fire. Hunger. Excitement. Even regret. Anything besides the numbing anger, grief and guilt that had driven him for twelve long years.

  Natalie responded with feverish ardor, her body pressing against his, driving him back until his body flattened against the windows behind him. She tangled her long legs with his, the soft heat of her sex cradling his thigh. He felt her soft gasp of pleasure explode against his lips, and his heart began to gallop.

  No. He couldn’t do this.

  He pushed her back, escaping her strong grasp, and retreated a few feet away, turning his back so that he could no longer see her flushed face or her kiss-stung lips.

  “I can’t,” he growled.

  “I’m sorry—” She sounded mortified.

  He turned swiftly, anger rushing in to feed off the fire of frustrated need. “No. This has nothing to do with you.”

  She stared at him, her eyes brimming with hurt. But not for herself. “Twelve years of this?”

  He knew what she was asking. “More or less,” he admitted.

  “You still love her that much?”

  “I’ll always love her that much,” he answered simply. The problem was much more complicated than just loving his dead wife, of course, but he didn’t want to stand here in the debris field of his screwed-up life and hold a postmortem of how things had gone so terribly wrong tonight.

  He just wanted to go back to his motel room where he could lick his wounds in private.

  Natalie’s silent regard felt like a rebuke, one he knew he deserved. But there was no censure in her wide-eyed gaze, only a dawning understanding. “You blame yourself for her death.”

  “I didn’t kill her.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  He hadn’t realized how much it would hurt to have the words spoken aloud. Nobody in his family had ever said them. He’d never voiced them to anyone else. It had taken Natalie, a woman he’d met only days ago, to toss the idea into the ether, giving it substance and heft.

  “I was her husband. I should have been there to stop it.”

  Natalie wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold, although the room was a little warm, the heat from the June day not yet having dissipated. “Where were you?”

  “On temporary duty in Groton, Connecticut, working on submarine maintenance for the Navy.”

  “So you were serving the country,” she said, her voice bone dry. “Yeah, I can see why you’d beat yourself up for that. Rather than, you know, blaming the actual killer.”

  He glared at her, not wanting her easy absolution. “You know damned well it’s more complicated than that.”

  “Yeah, I do,” she admitted, looking away.

  So, apparently there was more to her story as well. “Where were you the night your sister died?”

  “Ignoring her phone calls,” she answered bleakly, crossing to the window. She pressed her forehead against the glass pane. “We’d fought about Hamilton earlier that day, and I was so angry.”

  “Why were you angry?”

  She whirled around to face him, tears glittering in her eyes. “She wouldn’t leave him. She thought he was having an affair. He was gone all the time, didn’t tell her where he was going. He’d stopped wanting to sleep with her—all the classic signs of an affair. But she didn’t want to confront him about it.”

  “How long had they been married?”

  “Since this February.”

  Her answer caught him by surprise “That recently?”

  “We’ve known the Grays for years, but we didn’t really socialize that much. Last January, Carrie and Gray reconnected at a charity event in Mobile. Next thing I know—”

  “Whirlwind marriage?”

  “Yes. I tried to slow her down. I knew it was a bad idea.” Natalie rubbed her bare arms. “I was so sure Hamilton was behind her murder, but I don’t see how he could be, now. You’re right about the serial killer, aren’t you? I’ve made everyone’s life hell for the last few weeks, and for what?”

  “I’m not sure you’re wrong,” J.D. admitted, voicing a realization he’d been trying to ignore over the last couple of hours. “I think the serial killer angle could be a misdirection.”

  Natalie frowned. “So, you’re saying—what?”

 
“I’m saying I think you may be right. I think it’s possible Hamilton Gray killed your sister.”

  Chapter Nine

  Natalie shook her head as J.D.’s words sank in. “But he has an alibi. I know I doubted his first one, but I saw him tonight myself. Several times. No way he had time to drive to Moss Crossing, commit a murder and drive back.”

  “He could have hired someone to do it for him.”

  “But why? To cover Carrie’s murder?”

  “People have killed people at random to cover their tracks before,” J.D. pointed out. “As wealthy as your brother-in-law is, he’d have no trouble coming up with a tempting amount of money to convince someone to kill for him.”

  Natalie pressed the heels of her palms to her forehead, over the throbbing pain that had settled behind her eyes. “I don’t know. It’s such a convenient answer. Maybe too convenient.” She dropped her hands, forcing her gaze to meet his. “Maybe I want to believe it’s true because I need someone to blame, and I dislike Hamilton so much.”

  “I don’t want to believe it,” J.D. murmured. “This whole thing will have been another wild-goose chase for me. But I do think it’s possible.”

  Natalie licked her lips, imagining she could still taste him there. A tremor ran through her, but she stiffened her spine against the resulting weakness. “I think it’s late. We’ve had a hell of a night. And we both are working too hard here to make the evidence fit our theories instead of letting our theories fit the evidence. Maybe we need to take a step back.”

  J.D. was silent for a moment, but then he nodded. “I should get out of here. Let you get some sleep.”

  She walked him to the door, tamping down the temptation to ask him to stay. He wouldn’t do it, even if she asked, and she knew deep down it wasn’t a good idea to get involved, casually or otherwise, with a man who was devoted to another woman.

  Even one who was dead.

  He turned in the doorway. “I’m sorry things went as far as they did tonight. I knew it was a bad idea and I shouldn’t—”

  She pressed her fingertips to his lips, silencing him. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want, except stop.” She managed a wry smile, though her chest was tight with unexpected pain. “And I’ll get over that.”