by Nancy Bush
There was only one course of action and that was to approach Julia directly, be as honest as he dared.
Killing her now wouldn’t help, and he didn’t want to anyway. She held the purse strings and if she was gone . . . who would be in charge of Joseph Ford Investments? Who would be in charge of his money? Not Joe’s adopted daughter; she was too young. A much more likely candidate would be Joe’s brother, Samuel Ford, and he already knew that was a nonstarter. The man had been a cop, and there was no negotiating with cops unless they were dirty, and even then it was a risky proposition. And from all accounts Sam Ford was squeaky clean.
Fuck! He shook his head woefully. No, he had to confront Julia. Alone. And hope she made the right decision.
* * *
Stuart Ezra? Sam wrenched the wheel and pulled off the highway at a wide spot in the road when Jules made her announcement.
“Stuart Ezra. You’re certain?” he demanded as he stopped the truck on the side of Fifth Street and threw it into park.
“Yes . . . yes . . . pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure?” he questioned sharply.
“No, sure. Completely sure . . .” Her mind was reeling, images tumbling one after another. “He was on the boat. Oh, my God, Sam. He was on the boat!”
“With you and Joe?”
“Yes!”
“Stuart Ezra was on the boat with you and Joe when it caught fire,” he clarified. “You remember it?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. And it’s a real memory.”
“Jesus. Stuart Ezra . . .” He went silent, thinking hard.
You weren’t supposed to be here, Julia. . . .
“He was surprised to see me. He thought Joe would be alone on the boat.”
“How did he get on the boat?”
“He . . .” She squeezed her eyes closed, pushing it, needing to know. She was lying on the deck . . . his black Nikes coming toward her, and Joe . . . Joe’s body was in a heap in her line of vision, blood pooling on the deck, mixing with water....
“He . . . Stuart . . . was having trouble with his boat . . . a small speedboat. . . . I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before, at his house.... I don’t . . .”
“He was in a speedboat out on the water,” Sam said, seeking to corral her thoughts.
“Yes. He had a gas can, but he said his boat wasn’t running. Something else wrong with it. He needed help. He asked to come aboard.”
Permission to come aboard, Captain Ford, he’d said jauntily.
Jules’s eyes filled with tears. The gray veil had lifted, and the memories were coming fast and hard. “Joe let him on our boat. Helped him on. My head was hurting.... I had an ice pack, I think. When Stuart came aboard he had the gas can . . . which was weird. Joe said to just leave it, but he swung it and hit Joe across the head, threw him to the deck. . . .”
“He purposely hit my brother with the gas can?” Sam repeated in a hard voice.
“Yes. He went down and Stuart hit him again. I screamed and then . . . then Stuart looked at me. I’d been sitting and I scrambled to my feet and then I slipped, fell to the deck. I’d fallen before. . . .”
She could see the Nikes coming at her. Was powerless to get up. Behind those feet, Joe moving . . . staggering to his feet....
“Stuart grabbed me, yanked me up . . . k-k-kissed me . . . pressed me against the rail . . . and then he upended me. . . . Threw me overboard. . . .”
The shock of ice cold water covering her head. The taste of salt in her mouth. “I was in the water . . . swimming . . . and there was a life preserver. . . .”
Joe. Joe had thrown it to her. She could see him climbing to his feet, stumbling toward her as Stuart pressed against her, ran his hands over her body. Joe failing to reach her in time, the life preserver his last effort to save her.... “He killed Joe, Sam,” she said, voice quavering. “Stuart killed Joe.”
Sam’s face was set. Without a word he rammed the truck in drive again, turned around and got back on the highway heading south toward Fisher Canal, his eyes lasered on the ribbon of road in front of him. He muttered, “Where’s Ezra now? His job . . . he’s in sales of some kind . . .”
“Medical-equipment sales. Why . . . why did he do it?” she asked.
“I bet it’s about the money. People wanted to believe it was Joe’s fault they lost money.” He drove with a kind of controlled ferocity. “Was Stuart’s name in the Cardaman file?”
“I—I don’t know. I never looked it over closely. It was just a bunch of names and numbers. I gave it to Phoenix. I wanted her to fix it all.”
“Ezra must’ve blamed Joe for losing his money, just like everyone else did. The difference is, he acted on it. Took it to another level. Killed him because of it.” Sam’s voice was flint hard. “We need to know about the Ezras’ finances. And we need to know where he is right now!”
“He came to the hospital to finish the job,” Jules realized. “He never thought I’d survive. I shouldn’t have survived.”
“Thank God you did.” He slipped her a warm look. “Jesus, the Ezras live right next to you, Jules. I shouldn’t take you anywhere near there!”
“No, we have to go back! I’ve got to get Georgie!” She felt a new panic now, tried to stay calm, but the horror of that day on the boat, the knowledge that Stuart had deliberately killed Joe, who had tried to save her.... She swallowed against tears, refused to back down as Sam drove, hands clenched over the steering wheel, jaw set hard.
“I know. We will. We’ll go to Joanie’s and pick her up. Use my phone. Call Georgie and tell her we’re on our way. Make sure she’s ready to go. Then I’ll call Griff, put him on finding Ezra. . . .”
* * *
It had been a long, long night and he was filled with an underlying fear that had shaped his life since he was a kid. Fear of his old man beating him for screwing his stepmother . . . fear of being caught breaking into homes around the neighborhood and stealing drugs . . . fear of being found cheating his way through community college courses . . . But the fear in itself was a high. He loved balancing on the knife’s edge of danger. Knowing he could be found out at any moment. It was an added sexual thrill he craved like an addict.
It was barely light out as Stuart slid from the bed and looked at the woman lying on the pillows, her dark hair fanned out around her face. Jackie Illingsworth . . . ah, man . . . His mind traveled along the pathways of their relationship, including last night when they’d screwed for the last few times, culminating in the scarf that he’d wound tightly around her neck.
He touched his own throat where that blood-red scarf now hung as he dragged on his jeans, pulled his T-shirt over his head, put on the gray hoodie that his wife had tried to throw away once. He’d had to fight himself from beating her senseless over his lucky sweatshirt. Luckily, he’d just managed to keep control, hang on to his facade. He was like Batman, by day a mild-mannered sales rep, chatting up the women he met on his job, shaking hands with the men, clapping them on the back, using his spare time to work out, making friends with everyone at the club where he’d met his lovely wife, Bette, watching her through the window into the yoga studio. He’d wooed her with everything he had. He’d desired her toned body, her flexibility. She’d been perfect for him and he’d had to have her. He’d even thought being with her might be enough. Everybody, but everybody, loved him, and for a time, he’d traveled the straight and narrow, lived a so-called normal life.
But . . . the old need for fear, danger, to heighten the senses was an addiction that had never let him go.
So he’d started fooling around. A woman here, another there. When Bette had wanted to move to the canal, he’d balked. Too suburban. Too removed from his hunting grounds, which were small enough in Seaside already. He needed a bigger city, like Portland, or Seattle, or maybe south to San Francisco or Los Angeles, where the pickings were plentiful.
But Bette had started to suspect something, had wanted the move, so he’d had no choice but to go along with it. Luckily, there were unha
ppy women living all around him. Tutti had come on strong and he’d thought about hitting that, but Jackie was a better prospect. She was unhappy with her life, too. Bored with her husband, Rob, father of the year. Jackie felt disenfranchised from Rob and the boys, but she didn’t go on and on about Rob the way Tutti did about “the bastard,” her ex, Dirk Anderson.
He and Jackie had started a little tickle. Nothing much. It just kind of waxed and waned. Rob had begun to suspect something was going on between them, he knew, and Tutti, jealous, had picked up on their sexual chemistry and started rumors. Stuart had been pissed about that. Had wanted to confront Tutti, maybe give her what she was begging for, but she was always unavailable, with her two sons, the video game morons, whereas Jackie’s boys were quieter, more well behaved. The whole Illingsworth family was worried about Jackie’s drinking and bonding together over the problem, forcing her away from them with their “good intentions.” Stuart had half expected some kind of intervention, and he’d backed off from Jackie, big-time. Too messy. He’d basically ended their affair and had his eye out for someone else, something new.
But then . . . that day at the lookout, and the matching Hofstetters, Jerry and Jeri. Holy God! His life had changed in one second. His old pal fear had reentered big-time and he’d welcomed the shivery sensation as he helped push those annoying tourists over the edge. He’d never been so high.
But now . . . a serious problem.
He threw a glance at Jackie, her face white with death. They’d used the scarf on each other, first on him, then on her, ostensibly to increase her sexual pleasure, and after she’d choked, fought, and stilled, he’d pulled the scarf from around her neck and wrapped it around his own, trying fruitlessly to yank it tight enough to limit oxygen while masturbating, but it just hadn’t worked. He’d desperately wanted to regain the high she’d just given him by damn near strangling him with it in the midst of sex.
The problem was, she’d really intended to strangle him! He’d seen it in her eyes as she rode him. She’d screamed loud enough at her own climax to get the guy in the room next to them to bang on the wall, which had her laughing like a banshee. But the shock of her intent had nearly ruined his enjoyment. Luckily, he’d managed to finish before she actually asphyxiated him. Furious, he’d shoved her off him and dragged in a long, tortured gasp of air, his lungs near to bursting. She’d tried to laugh it off, tell him that she would never have let it go that far, but he’d seen her eyes and knew differently. That’s when he’d removed the scarf from his own neck and wrapped it around hers, yanking and pulling and twisting while she bucked and struggled beneath him, her eyes bulging, her fingernails raking the skin on his hands till he bled.
Which was a damn nuisance because now there was blood on the sheets. His DNA-rich blood.
He’d just been so angry! Not only at her but at the man, that fucker P. J. Simpson, a goddamn charlatan! The bastard had tried to take out Phoenix himself. Unbelievable! And he’d done a piss poor job of it to boot. And now . . . all the money P. J. owed Stuart was at risk.
Stuart knew. He’d talked to P. J. On the phone last night the guy had sounded like he was coming undone. He hadn’t met with Stuart because he didn’t have the money he owed him, and he’d whined about his failure with Phoenix, moaning that he’d fucked things up so much, it looked like he was never going to get his money. Stuart had worried P. J. was going to actually break down and cry. Some man, all right.
“I’ve got one more play, though,” P. J. had told him, pulling himself together at the last minute. “Julia Ford.”
Stuart had wanted to reach through the phone line and throttle him. He’d respected the man. Believed in him. And he’d been taken by him.
Nobody took Stuart Ezra.
“I said I’d do it,” Stuart had growled. “How the fuck are you going to take care of her? You failed with Phoenix already!”
“I’m not going to kill Julia, Tom,” he’d sneered, growing some balls. “And it’s lucky you didn’t, either.”
There was unspoken blame inside his words that had made Stuart burn with rage. His daily affable persona had been stripped away. He’d decided right then and there that P. J. had to go, too, and he would love nothing better than to rip the man’s head off.
And so he’d taken his frustration out on Jackie. She’d pissed him off, too, and now . . . now . . . what the hell was he going to do with her? Maybe he could cram her in the Civic’s trunk, maybe not. And what about security cameras? This motel Jackie had chosen wasn’t top drawer, by a long shot, but there were bound to be a few security cameras around. There always were.
It was a hell of a conundrum and he didn’t have tons of time. How was he supposed to get Jackie’s body out of here? If only he had a wheelchair . . . He also needed to wipe the place down and get rid of the sheets, make sure there was no trace of DNA.
Jackie had paid cash. He’d watched her from the car. But she’d had to give the older woman with the caftan and the seen-it-all expression a credit card number for incidentals. Incidentals, in this fleabag motel? They were lucky they hadn’t gotten bedbugs, but Jackie loved the lowness of it. She was like that. A rich bitch who got off on getting dirty. Still, it added a layer of secrecy that helped keep him anonymous, and he needed to keep it that way.
He went out to the Civic to get the bottle of bleach he always kept on hand in a plastic grocery bag inside the trunk, grabbing it from where it was caught beneath the shovel that he also kept handy. But as he returned to the room and turned the corner of the hall, his neighbor from the room next door appeared. What the fuck was he doing up this early? Stuart’s heart pumped madly, and he walked directly past his own room; he didn’t want the man to see him, know he was the occupant of the room that he’d banged on the wall. But the guy, fiftyish, sent him a wolfish smile anyway. “Quite a woman you got there,” he said, not fooled for a minute as he strolled back the way Stuart had come.
Shit.
As soon as the guy was out of sight, Stuart reversed and beelined to his room. He had to get Jackie out of here!
He nearly had a heart attack when he opened the door and she was sitting up on the bed and staring at him as he walked in.
“Jackie!” he burst out, closing the door behind him as quickly as possible. Oh, shit. Oh, God. Oh, fuck.
She didn’t move other than to blink.
“Jackie?” he asked cautiously.
She opened her mouth and said, “Wha—wha—wha . . .”
He froze for a moment, eyeing her from across the room. Something wrong there. Lack of oxygen to the brain.
“Can you get up, sweetheart?” he asked, moving toward her, his brain whirling. Her clothes were on the floor and he picked up the scrap of underwear and push-up bra.
“Wha . . .” she said. The ligature mark around her neck was clear. He suspected he might look the same way.
“Gotta get dressed, babe. Get outta here. Rob’s gonna be wondering where you are. And the boys. Gotta get back to the kids, right?” She’d told him that Rob had taken the boys on a camping trip, more family bonding, and Jackie was supposedly staying with her sister in Astoria and going to some concert with her. She was apparently due to be back early this morning to babysit for Joanie Bledsoe’s nubile preteens, but then she’d died . . . so that wasn’t going to happen. Except she wasn’t quite dead.
He handed her the bra but she looked like she didn’t know what to do with it. Feeling time ticking by, Stuart fumbled around until he got the damn thing on. He was a helluva lot better at taking them off than putting them on. After the bra, the panties and finally the dress. He eyed the high heels. She teetered in them at the best of times, even with only a couple of drinks. They would be no use to him now.
Dressed, she just sat on the edge of the bed. He placed the scarf back around her neck, covering the red line around her throat, the pièce de résistance.
Then he pulled out the bleach, and with breaks to shoot constant looks at her, making sure she was still sit
ting there, which she was, he cleaned the bathroom.
He moved from the bathroom to the bedroom, wiping off the surfaces as he went, while Jackie just sat passively by. His own throat was sore where she’d wrapped the scarf around her hand and yanked hard, teeth clenched. He rubbed it, and felt angry all over again.
Tossing the rag in the garbage bag, he growled, “Let’s get you out of here,” pulling her to her feet and walking her to the door.
“Wha—wha—” she said.
He almost felt bad for her, and kind of elated. He stood her by the door, then stripped the bed, wrapping up the bedding into a huge ball. How to get Jackie and the bedding out the door? He would have to take two trips.
So thinking, he walked her back to the bed and sat her down. He tightened the ball of bedding into as small a wad as he could make it, then carried it under his arm and ducked out to the Civic, which was parked at the back of the motel. He didn’t see any cameras on this side. Maybe they only had them in the front of the motel? There was nothing back here . . . at least he hoped so.
He returned for Jackie, who had fallen over on her side. He sat her up again, annoyed, and starting to get buzzy with fear. What was he going to do with her? He got her to her feet, then grabbed her cell phone where it was lying on the nightstand, made sure it was still powered off, and slipped it back into her purse. Then he snagged her high heels and the purse, which was damn heavy. Damn heavy . . . hmmm.
He looked inside and got another distinct shock. A gun.
She had a gun?
He pulled the small firearm from the bag, saw that it was loaded. “Jesus Christ, Jackie, what were you thinking!” he demanded furiously. He slipped the gun back inside the purse and hefted its strap over his shoulder. Deceitful bitch.
He gave a last look around the space, making sure there was nothing left. At the last minute, he remembered the bleach, and had to leave Jackie standing there, staring at the door, to go back into the bathroom for it. He put it back into its grocery bag, which he’d left by the tub, rolled the top closed, and held it under his arm.