Freak

by Jennifer Hillier

  Abby wanted to smile, but she held back. A smile would not be an appropriate reaction to news like this. “So the killer carved ‘Free Abby Maddox’ into the woman’s back. That’s a serious way of sending the prosecuting attorney a message, Bob.”

  Her lawyer paused, a slight frown passing over his face. Immediately, Abby bit her lip. Shit. The man missed nothing, which was exactly the reason she’d picked him. Had Borden specifically said that the carving was on the woman’s back? Maybe he hadn’t.

  She squeezed his hand, and it immediately had the desired effect because his face reddened. “Those poor women.” Her voice was husky. “How did she die, Bob? Blood loss?”

  “Actually,” Borden said, his tone matching hers, “she was strangled with a zip tie before she was carved. You know those long plastic doohickeys you can buy at a hardware store?” He grimaced. “It’s actually a very efficient way to kill somebody. The ties are cheap, they’re quick to tighten, and once they’re on—”

  “You can’t get them off unless you cut them off,” she finished. “With scissors.”

  “Exactly. No blood. No mess. No fuss.”

  Abby said nothing as she processed this. It was a rather horrific way to die, wasn’t it? She closed her eyes for a moment, picturing what the death would have been like. She imagined the sound the zip tie would make as it was pulled tighter, ridged plastic against ridged plastic, and how it would feel cutting into her throat, cutting off air, cutting off the ability to even take a breath, small hands clawing at the plastic to try and tear it off, but to no avail. The world eventually going dark, until there was just . . . nothing.

  A zip tie. Who knew something so cheap, so readily available, and so easy to hide in a pocket would be so effective?

  Fucking brilliant.

  “There’s more,” Borden said. “Beneath your name was another message.” He paused again. He knew damn well he had her full attention and he was determined to soak up every second. Jesus, how did his wife stand him? “Two numbers. A two, a slash, and then a ten.”

  He let go of her hands and Abby resisted the urge to wipe her palms on her prison-issue slacks. She watched as he removed his pen from his breast pocket to scribble something on the yellow legal pad in front of him. He turned it around so she could read it.

  2/10.

  “Two-ten?” Abby frowned at his handwriting, her finger brushing over the page where he’d scrawled. “Is that a date? February tenth? What happened on February tenth?”

  “Nothing, which is why they don’t think it is a date.” Borden tapped the notepad with his pen. “February ten doesn’t correspond to anything. It’s not your birthday, it’s not your incarceration date, it’s not linked to anything relevant they can find. Not even anything to do with Ethan, as far as they can determine.”

  “So then what does it mean?”

  “The police think it’s the kind of number you would see at the bottom of a limited-edition print.”

  Abby waited. Her attorney interpreted her silence as confusion.

  “You know when artists make prints of their work?” Borden said. “And at the bottom, they sign it, beside the number of prints that will be in circulation? The dead woman who was found a week ago—who’s probably linked to this murder—was also strangled with a zip tie. Your name wasn’t on that one, or we’d have obviously heard about it then, but there was a number carved on that body as well. One-ten.” He scrawled it again for clarity.

  1/10.

  “I see.” Abby picked up the piece of paper and stared at it, tilting her head. “So it’s a counter. As in, one out of ten. Two out of ten.”

  “Yes. They think so.”

  She spoke softly, almost a whisper. “So there’ll be eight more victims? Victims who look like me, with my name carved into them?”

  “Possibly.”

  Abby leaned forward and took both his hands in both of hers, enjoying the flush that spread across his cheeks once again. “So you’re thinking I might have some leverage here. The police are going to assume I know something.”

  “Do you know something?”

  She shrugged and said nothing. A moment passed. Borden didn’t push. She knew he didn’t care whether she was innocent or guilty—he was her lawyer, for fuck’s sake. All he cared about was winning.

  Borden smiled at her, the rush from their skin-to-skin contact going straight to his head. “It’s okay. Even if you don’t know anything, there’s no reason to let them think otherwise. For now, anyway. This could definitely be to our advantage, if we play it right.”

  “So tell me how to play it.”

  He squeezed her hands tighter. “Just keep doing everything we talked about. I’ve been getting some calls from television shows wanting to interview you, and we can work with that, too. You might be in prison, but you are in control here, Abby. Don’t you ever forget that.”

  Abby laughed. God, men could be so stupid. “Come on, Bob. As if I ever could.”

  chapter 5

  THE LOVEBIRDS WERE still inside the restaurant. How long did it take to eat lamb souvlaki, anyway?

  Jerry didn’t have the time to be sitting outside a Greek tavern. He was scheduled to meet Maddox in an hour, and the drive to Rosedale Penitentiary was a little over that, maybe fifty minutes if he really stepped on it. But none of that seemed to matter at this moment. Abby Maddox could wait. He’d been on an overnight stakeout when Torrance had called that morning, and he wanted—no, needed—to see how it all played out.

  He sat cocooned inside the tinted windows of his brand-new navy blue Jeep Grand Cherokee, bought last month after his old Honda Accord finally died. The afternoon was dark and wet, typical for a Seattle winter. With the rain pelting against the windshield, he was in the perfect spot to observe the entrance to the restaurant without being seen. An older Sony DSLR camera was in his lap, mounted with a 180 lens. Not the best one he owned, but good enough for the few shots he would take when the couple finally finished eating and came out.

  Jerry didn’t love being a private investigator, but he didn’t hate it, either. It was simply something to keep him busy since his retirement from Seattle PD two years ago. Jerry was still a young man, only fifty-three, and retirement in the cliché sense—golfing, vacations to Florida, early bird specials at the local diner—had never appealed to him. Relying on referrals from his cop friends, he’d started the business one month after his last day at PD and had been lucky to have a steady stream of clients from the first day he’d hung his shingle. The income wasn’t making him rich, but it supplemented his pension decently. He specialized in cheating partners and missing persons. There always seemed to be an abundance of both.

  This job was the former. Not Jerry’s favorite type of work by any stretch, because in infidelity cases like this, emotions always ran high. And he hated delivering bad news, which he almost always had to do, because if a husband or wife suspected their spouse was cheating, the spouse almost always was. There was something to be said for marital instincts.

  Jerry knew all about marital instincts. He’d been married for over fifteen years. He had damned good marital instincts.

  The glass door of the restaurant finally opened and the woman exited first. Her date held the door for her as she went through, laughing at something she’d said. Arm in arm, the pair strolled down the sidewalk to where the man’s Range Rover was parked in the pay lot. The woman narrowly avoided stepping in a puddle, and she grabbed her date’s arm for support. Jerry allowed himself a tight smile in the privacy of his Jeep. Not cool making her walk in the rain, buddy, he thought. You should have had her wait in the restaurant while you went to get your fancy car. That’s what I would have done.

  Rolling his window down a few inches, Jerry poked the lens of his Sony through the opening and took several photos in rapid succession. Pictures weren’t his strong suit, and nobody had requested these today, but he felt compelled to bang out a few shots anyway. You never knew if you’d need them later. Plus it was easy taking
pictures of this woman. Her smile was infectious, and Jerry thought she looked extra beautiful this afternoon, her long coat unbuttoned over a knee-length green dress, one he hadn’t seen before.

  As far as her lover went, Jerry had done a thorough background check, and not that much had come up. The man’s name was George Jackson and he was the head basketball coach at Puget Sound State University. His income was roughly $160,000 a year, obnoxiously high considering the Steelheads had been the losingest basketball team in the Pacific Northwest for the past three years straight. Jackson was forty years old, making him six years younger than the woman on his arm. An upstanding, taxpaying citizen with no criminal record.

  The wind picked up suddenly, catching the woman’s dark hair and pulling it back off her face. Even from this distance, Jerry could see the gorgeous diamond hoop earrings she wore, the stones glinting like little stars at her lobes.

  Diamond hoop earrings that the woman only wore on special occasions.

  Diamond hoop earrings that had been an anniversary present five years ago.

  Diamond hoop earrings that Jerry had spent hours picking out at the jewelry store, because that was the kind of thing a husband did for his ten-year wedding anniversary.

  Through the long lens of his camera, Jerry watched as another man held his wife’s arm, leading her toward a shiny white Range Rover. He watched as Annie climbed into the passenger side, still laughing as her date climbed in beside her and started the engine.

  A minute later, Jerry pulled out onto the street behind them, careful to keep one car back. Not that he had to worry about being spotted. Neither was expecting he’d be behind them, and of course Annie wouldn’t recognize the brand-new Jeep.

  Like the last six times, he was planning to follow his wife and her boyfriend back to Annie’s apartment, because that’s where George Jackson, the college basketball coach who was thirteen years younger than himself, richer, and in much better physical condition, had picked her up.

  Like the last six times, Jerry needed to see the goodbye kiss. He needed to see the man’s arms around his wife in that passionate embrace that always seemed to top off their dates together.

  Even though it stung like hell. Even though it aggravated him. Even though it caused the scar at his throat to itch like crazy from the stress. It was all as fresh and real as it had been six months ago when Annie had left him. She may have done the leaving, but it was Jerry who’d done the hurting.

  He knew he had to stop following her. None of this was healthy.

  The Range Rover turned left toward Annie’s place, and at the last second, Jerry turned right, which would take him to the freeway. There was someone he needed to see before he headed to the prison.

  He’d had enough self-punishment for one day.

  chapter 6

  SHEILA CARED ABOUT Jerry a lot, but he was her close friend’s soon-to-be ex-husband, and the whole situation was awkward as hell.

  Jerry was one of Morris’s closest friends. Marianne (or Annie, as only Jerry was allowed to call her) was Sheila’s best friend, and the four of them had been through a lot together. But in a marital separation, it was always more than just the couple who split. Social circles fractured right along with the marriage. Sheila hadn’t seen Jerry in a couple of months at least, and she had no idea why he was here now, sitting in her office with a big manila folder in front of him. The morning had been difficult already, and she thought she’d escape to the university to catch up on some work. She sensed now that that wasn’t going to happen, and she pushed the papers she’d been grading aside.

  Jerry didn’t look good. Tired and skinny, he was dressed in a black turtleneck to hide the scar on his neck. He seemed to only wear turtleneck sweaters these days, and it was not a good fashion choice for him. They only made him look skinnier.

  “Sure you don’t want coffee?” she asked him again. “I can grab you a cup. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have stopped and picked up some muffins.”

  Jerry shook his head and glanced at his watch. It made her nervous that he wasn’t smiling. Usually he was always smiling.

  “I only have a few minutes,” he said, his voice raspy and raw. Even after a year, it still surprised Sheila to hear it. “I’m glad I tracked you down here. I stopped by your house and nobody was home. Where’s the big guy today?”

  Sheila smiled. Jerry always referred to Morris as the “big guy,” even though the two men were about the same height. Morris, however, outweighed Jerry by about seventy pounds. “Out, schmoozing clients from Hong Kong.”

  “Investment bankers work on Saturdays?”

  “If you consider golf, dinner, and poker to be work,” Sheila said drily. “I was lucky to see him this morning. He probably won’t be home till midnight.” She winced, trying not to think about the scene she’d made at brunch earlier.

  Jerry glanced at his watch again. “I’m actually glad he’s not around. It was you I came to see. I need to talk to you about something important.”

  “Something about you and Marianne?” The words were out before Sheila could stop herself. Shit. She hadn’t wanted to bring up Jerry’s wife, and now she had done just that.

  Jerry looked surprised. “No. Why would you think that?”

  “I—” Sheila stopped. She’d already stuck her foot in it and wasn’t sure what to say next. “Shit,” she said instead.

  Jerry was quiet for a moment. He drummed his fingers on her desk. “I know she’s seeing someone,” he said finally.

  “Jerry . . .”

  He lifted a hand, his expression pained. “That’s not why I’m here. But since you brought it up . . . I saw her with him the other day. It’s pretty obvious they’re . . . close.”

  “You saw Marianne the other day?” Sheila looked at him closely. “You saw her, or you followed her?”

  Jerry wouldn’t meet her gaze.

  “Oh, Jerry.” She sighed. “That’s not the way to get her back.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted her back.”

  “Of course you do. She’s your wife. You love her. Fifteen years of marriage is a long time.”

  “She left me.”

  Sheila was growing more uncomfortable by the second. “You know why she did.”

  “Because I pulled away,” Jerry said, frustrated. “I know I was terrible to live with, for months. Maybe I still am, I don’t know.”

  “It was a difficult time for us all, Jerry.” Sheila hadn’t wanted to have this conversation with him, but she supposed now it was inevitable. They were friends, after all, and it wasn’t realistic to think they could sit alone in her office and not talk about something major that was affecting them both. “People cope with it differently.”

  “Your hair is longer.” Jerry looked at her, his eyes soft. “Like Annie’s. You look more like her.”

  Sheila and Marianne were both of Chinese descent, and yes, Sheila had let her dark hair grow out over the past year. It now fell well past her shoulders. “We’ve been mistaken for sisters more than once,” she said with a smile.

  Jerry sighed deeply and tugged at the collar of his turtleneck. “Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. I was at a crime scene this morning. There was a body found at a hotel downtown.”

  Sheila was instantly intrigued. Despite the craziness of last year, she still had a thing for true crime. “Yes, it was all over the news this morning. I heard it on the radio as I was driving in to the office. What happened?”

  “A young woman was murdered.” Jerry cracked his knuckles. “She was strangled, then carved.”

  “The news didn’t say anything about her being carved.” Sheila found herself both fascinated and repulsed. “Do they know who did it?”

  “They’re working on it. You remember my old partner, Mike Torrance?”

  She nodded. Detective Torrance had interviewed her at length after her rescue from Ethan’s basement. Mid-forties, scruffy, gruff voice, generally unsympathetic and a borderline jerk. Morris couldn’t stand the guy, and She
ila couldn’t say she blamed him.

  “He called me over to the hotel. Wanted me to see the body.” A dark look flitted across Jerry’s face. “Not my idea of a fun Saturday.”

  “I don’t understand. You’re retired. What does a murder victim have to do with you? Did you know her?” Sheila sat up with a start. “Oh God, Jerry, I’m so sorry—”

  “No, no, it’s nothing like that,” Jerry said. “I didn’t know her, but she . . .”

  Sheila waited for him to continue. After a few seconds, impatience and curiosity got the better of her. “Okay, out with it already. What does a dead body in a hotel room have to do with you? Or me? Because you wouldn’t be here if this didn’t have something to do with both of us.”

  Jerry sighed, and it was then she noticed how deeply the lines were etched into his forehead. He’d really aged in the last few months, and Sheila didn’t have to wonder how bad his scar looked under the turtleneck. There was a reason he was still wearing them. Marianne had tried for months to get him to go to a plastic surgeon who might be able to improve its appearance, but apparently Jerry had never been willing to discuss it.

  “The victim had the message ‘Free Abby Maddox’ carved into her back.” Jerry spoke clearly but softly, his rasp worse than ever.

  Sheila froze. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  “The cops think Seattle has a new serial killer on its hands,” Jerry said.

  Her gaze fell to the manila folder sitting on the desk between them, and she finally found her voice. “Is that what’s in there? Pictures?”

  “Crime scene photos. Do you want to see them? You don’t have to look if you don’t want to, but I brought them in case you did.”

  She hesitated, then reached forward and slid the folder toward her. Taking a deep breath, she flipped it open, bracing herself. The first sheet was a typewritten page of notes, and she skipped past it to the color photographs underneath.

  The images were difficult to process. At first glance, they weren’t nearly as gory as she was expecting—she’d seen much worse on TV and in the movies. The only difference was, in these photos, the women were real people, and now they were dead.