Fatal Game

by Linda Ladd

  “Call me freakin’ Jonesy, okay? Everybody else does. Hey, I was rude this morning. I know it. I wasn’t sober yet. But I’m not the man in the tabloids anymore. They exaggerate everything about me. I’m okay now. Nick’ll tell you that.”

  Claire knew all about the media, that was for damn sure. She waited a few seconds and then asked the question that she had to ask but didn’t want to. “Can you tell me where your daughter is right now? Is she here? In your suite, maybe?” Claire realized how hopeful her voice sounded. She stood there and waited for the boom to drop, because she had a feeling it was coming down hard on top of them.

  Jonesy actually smiled. He looked totally different with that smile. It was real, too, not the maniacal one he manufactured to wow his crazed groupies. “Not yet. She was supposed to get out to the house yesterday but didn’t show. Guess bad weather must’ve messed up her flight.”

  “Have you tried to contact her today?”

  “Yeah, sure. So did Candi. But she’s not picking up. She does that to me sometimes. You know, just wants to do her own thing.” He shrugged. “Don’t want Daddy checking up on her, and all that. So I give her space. She’s a good girl.”

  “So she’s an adult?”

  “Yeah. Almost nineteen. Will be in January. On the fifth.”

  “You never told me you had a daughter,” Black said, looking very sober now.

  “I didn’t know it myself until about a year ago. I’ve kept it quiet, didn’t want her in the spotlight or her pictures to get out in the tabloids. She’s kinda quiet and shy. I didn’t want the paps to chase her around like they do me.”

  “Why didn’t you know about her?” Claire perked up at that. Maybe the bludgeoned girl was not his child. Maybe she was a random victim, chosen by the killer and brought into his house because of its isolation. Maybe his kid was snowbound in some dink airport somewhere. God, she didn’t like Jonesy Jax one bit, but she wouldn’t wish this kind of terrible grief on anyone. But maybe she was wrong. She hoped she was.

  “Her mother was a girl I dated for a while. She got pregnant and didn’t tell me. She didn’t like my lifestyle, so she took off. Can’t say I blame her. That’s how I didn’t know anything about it. She just showed up after her mother died. Said her name was Heather Cantrell, and she had a birth certificate with her that named me as the father. Of course, that happens all the time, so I took a paternity test and it turned out positive.” He smiled at them, eyes filled with happiness. “Once I got over the shock of having a teenaged kid, it seemed like a fuckin’ miracle. A fuckin’ Christmas miracle. I’ve already given her my legal name. Now she’s Heather Jax and just the greatest kid to have around. You’ll see that when you meet her.”

  “I see,” Claire said, and she did. Heather Cantrell was the name given to her by Oliver Wood.

  She sat on the chair across from him and looked down at her lap for a moment because she knew, she knew in her gut that the dead girl in that house had to be Heather Jax. Now she was going to have to tell him that his daughter was gone again, for good this time, and in a terrible, horrible, inhumane, murderous way. But she had to be sure first. Black was watching her now, his eyes telling her loud and clear: want me to tell him for you?”

  She did indeed, of course she did. She would’ve loved to pass that awful task onto Black’s shoulders, but she couldn’t and wouldn’t. It was her job and her place to break the news. But she had to know for sure. “Do you happen to know anything about a tattoo of a grim reaper holding a scythe?”

  Grinning, he pulled back his sleeve and showed her his forearm. “This what you’re talking about? It’s the logo of my band. Got it on the front of all my albums. Heather got one, too, once we got together.”

  “Would you happen to have a photograph of your daughter, Mr. Jax? A recent one, preferably.”

  Jonesy jerked up his head and held her steady gaze, not as dimwitted as she’d always figured. The calm look in his eyes slowly turned to panic as his mind fumbled to put together her words and what they meant. He was breathless with dread when he spoke again. “Why? Why do you want to see a picture of her?”

  “Please, sir, just allow me see a photo, if you’ve got one here at the hotel.”

  Jonesy jumped up and grabbed a small framed picture that was propped up on the mantel. He hurried over to her. The photograph depicted Jonesy Jax and a pretty young girl. She had a tight grip on his arm and was leaning into him. He had his arm around her. Both had on bathing suits and L.A. Dodgers baseball caps, and they were standing out on some deserted beach somewhere. They had big, happy smiles plastered across their faces. Crap and damn it to hell. The kid in the picture was her victim, all right. There was absolutely no doubt in Claire’s mind. She wished she had thought to Google Jonesy’s family before coming downstairs to do the interview. It just hadn’t occurred to her that Jonesy could have a grown daughter living here at the lake. She held the photo in her hands and kept staring down at it. She was trying to come up with the right words. Words that wouldn’t devastate him. There weren’t any.

  “Oh my God, my God, don’t, don’t, please, don’t.” Jonesy jumped up and then squatted down in front of her. “I can tell by the look on your face. She’s the dead woman you found in my house, isn’t she? Oh no! Oh God, fuckin’ no. Tell me, tell me, it’s Heather, isn’t it? She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  Claire met his eyes. They looked wild with grief, and his expression was so stricken, his face so white with dread. There was absolute horror inside those eyes. She could barely force herself to maintain eye contact. “I’m so very sorry, Mr. Jax. I had no idea who she was when I came here, or I would have handled this interview much differently. I promise you that.”

  Jonesy Jax stared disbelievingly at her. He was too devastated to speak. It was obvious to all three of them. Then, suddenly, he lost it completely, just freaked out, and laid his head in Claire’s lap and grabbed her legs and started in with the most heartrending low keening cries. Then he let her go, and slid down all the way onto the floor and curled up in a fetal position, his head buried in his palms. Utterly distraught. Groaning and moaning, prostrate with grief. Claire leaned forward and placed a comforting hand on his back. She felt sick to her stomach again. “I’m so sorry that I had to bring you this terrible news. I am so sorry for your loss, Mr. Jax.”

  Claire looked to Black for help. He came quickly, thank God. He knelt on one knee beside the weeping man. “Come on, Jonesy, let me help you up. You’ve had a terrible shock. It’s going to take some time to pull it together, I know. I’ll be here for you. I’ll stay right here and try to help you deal with this. Let’s go back to the bedroom where we can talk privately. Do you think you can stand up? I can give you a sedative that will help you calm down, if you want.” Then Black turned to Claire. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, but she knew exactly why Black was asking her that. He knew this show of grief would make her relive the moment of her son’s death. Her precious little baby boy named Zachary. He was right; she was reliving it. She was fighting down her own demons that clamored inside her head, just like Jonesy Jax’s. She knew exactly how the rock star felt right now, down there on the floor at her feet. The horrible realization that his child was gone from him forever, that he’d never see her alive again, never talk to her, hug her or kiss her, not ever again. Claire had balled up like that one night on a busy ER floor when her toddler had been killed. She had wept inconsolably, too. She still wept like that sometimes, when she was alone and reliving that nightmare. Claire stiffened her jaw and tried to force out the image of her baby, shove him back behind the shadowy blackout curtains of her mind.

  Jonesy was still sobbing when Black helped him up. He grabbed hold of Black’s lapels and buried his face in his chest and wept harder. Black kept patting his back and telling him softly that he needed to lie down, and finally got him headed back toward the bedrooms. The rock star was about as distraught a
s anyone Claire had ever seen. It was going to take him a long time to accept that his child was gone—if he ever did—and he would never, ever get over it. All Claire could see right now was Zachary’s little face peeking out from between those heavy black curtains inside her mind, his big, innocent blue eyes laughing, his blond hair curling down over his ears. He was so very real at these moments, and she could hear his chortling little laugh as he ran to her so fast on his chubby little legs. Suddenly, she knew she had to get out of that room and away from Jonesy’s loud wailing.

  Shaken and trying to pull it together, she headed for the door and slipped out into the corridor. She stood with her back against the wall for a few moments, chest heaving. Jonesy’s bodyguard looked curiously at her when she bent over and sucked in a lungful of air. Okay, she had to stop this. It had been years since her baby had died. She had to shake off this panic attack, or whatever it was. She hadn’t broken down in a long time, but this one was bad. What she needed to do was call Bud and find out when they could get back to work. She and Bud would have to come back to this suite and interview Jonesy Jax and tell him all the cruel particulars of his daughter’s violent death. The idea absolutely made her ill.

  Play Time

  The more Junior and Lucky discussed their killing game, the more enthusiastic they became. They discussed it endlessly, and planned it out in specific details. Sometimes they didn’t agree and debated the rules. That’s what they were doing at the moment, sitting at the game table, drinking beer, and figuring out the best way to commit their second murder together.

  “I still say we ought to just pick out whatever Detection weapon we like best. I like knives and ropes and running people down with cars. Yeah, those’re my favorites. Clean and easy, and the car’s always a quick getaway,” Lucky was telling Junior.

  “Huh uh, choosing the murder weapon yourself won’t be any challenge. C’mon, Lucky, what’s the fun in that? We need to draw the murder weapon out of a little pouch and let it be a big surprise. That’ll make it super exciting. And a hell of a lot more difficult. Like, what if we got something that we don’t know how to use? Like a chainsaw, maybe. Then we’d be new at killing with it, and it would make murdering the victim a whole lot harder. It would make us better at it if we had to learn to do it in different ways.”

  Lucky stared at him. “So you’re sayin’ that we go with whatever weapon we draw, whether it’s a good option under the circumstances or not.” He considered it briefly. “Well, you know, I think you might be right. That’ll surely keep us on our toes and make us use our heads. Stands to reason we’ll plan it better if we hold our feet to the fire like that.”

  “Now you’re talking. A gun’s always gonna be easier than killing somebody with a rope. Especially when we get those silencers we ordered. Okay, so we’re both good with the how and the why of the weapons, right? So how do we choose the victims?” Junior smiled, getting really excited. “Maybe we could just drive around and point out somebody walking down the street. You know, real random like. That would make it really hard for the cops to connect us to the murder.”

  “Or it could be someone we just want to see dead. No reason necessary. Maybe we see ’em and just don’t like ’em.”

  Junior found that amusing. “You mean, pick out somebody that rubs us the wrong way. Like that cashier at Staples who gave us shit the other night. Remember her? What a bitch. She kept looking at us like we were dirtbags or something.”

  Lucky jumped up and strode across the room. He sorted through the games on the shelves for a moment and then pulled out a box and brought it back to the table. “Or, my friend, we could use this. I used to play this all the time when I was in grade school. We could use its game board to choose what kind of victim. And that way, everything we do decide on is totally random. Cops would go crazy trying to trace victims back to us, or to each other. Maybe we could even leave them some stinkin’ clues. That’d drive them nuts. And they’re gonna need them if nothing we do connects in any way. Hell, this’s gonna be fun.”

  “Well, now that is just brilliant, I’ve got to say.”

  Lucky grinned, pleased by Junior’s rare compliment, no doubt. Junior watched him set up the board between them. “First off, you gotta choose your path in life. Remember how this game’s played? You figure out how you want to start off in your adult years, okay? What you want to do for a living, where you want to work, all that kind of crap. See here? It says: Career or College or Travel.” He glanced up. “So what’s your choice?”

  “College, I guess, since neither of us plan on attending. Besides, those college kids look down their noses at anybody who doesn’t have a degree. It irks me, since I’m smarter than all of them put together. College chicks don’t even look at guys like us unless we throw around our money.”

  “Okay. Done. We’ll choose a college kid to kill. Hey, maybe we can make it a competition of sorts. You against me.”

  “As in, we both choose a victim and see who can perform the best murder without getting caught? That what you’re talking about?”

  Junior was getting pumped now. “OMG, this is just gonna be so freakin’ cool, dude. But there’s gotta be a time limit. So how long do we have to get it done?”

  “Well, let’s say we just spin the wheel or throw the dice to get that stuff. Whatever number comes up, that’s how many days we’ve got to murder our victim and get away scot free.”

  “Great idea!” Lucky said. “Just pick some poor guy and whack him good. Awesome, man!”

  “Maybe.” Junior contemplated Lucky. “Or, it might make the game more difficult if we just decide on the type of person we want and look for somebody who meets that description. Maybe we should pick a picture out of some magazine or newspaper or find somebody interesting on TV. Choosing a type out of a magazine would probably be better. My mom’s still getting a ton of subscriptions.”

  “Where are they? Let’s look through them.”

  “Over there, on the end table.”

  Lucky gathered them up, brought them back, and spread them out on the table. “Okay, watch and learn, buddy boy.” He picked up a magazine with a slick photo cover. It was a woman’s magazine called Cosmopolitan, which had been Junior’s mom’s favorite reading material. Lucky shut his eyes, opened the magazine to a page near the middle, and then stabbed his finger down on the page without looking.

  Eager to see what kind of person would be the first to die by their hands, they both leaned in close. “There you go. Victim number one, right here on the page in front of us.”

  Junior could not hide his excitement. “What we’ve got here is a young girl with lots of long red hair and one very short skirt. Yum yum. Is she hot, or what? Maybe we ought to have some fun with our victim before we put her down.”

  They both nodded, liking the sound of that. Especially Junior. He wasn’t as good with women as Lucky was. Lucky always bragged about having sex with at least a hundred women. He probably had, too. Women took one look at him and dropped to his feet. They liked his eyes and his self-confidence. All he had to do was stare at them for a while and they melted. Junior had never seen anything quite like it. “Sounds like a plan, Lucky, my man.”

  “Sounds like a lot of fun, too.”

  “Maybe we should do this first one together, hone our skills a bit, you know, before we start competing for cash. Have a trial run, just to get the hang of things. Might take two of us at first to take somebody down and make sure they don’t get away and call the cops.”

  “So now we’ve got to go find us a girl with red hair and a short skirt. One of those stuck-up college coeds would be perfect. Then we kill her off with a candlestick, right? Spin and see how long we’ve got to get it done.”

  They spun the game wheel and both boys watched it slow down and finally stop on the number three.

  “Awesome. Three days to get it planned and carried out.” Lucky raised shining eyes to Junio
r. He looked…well, he looked really turned on.

  Junior’s heart was racing. “Then let’s do this thing. The UCLA campus is a perfect hunting ground and just full of girls in short skirts. Good-lookin’ ones, too. I want to get a pretty one. The one in the picture is hot.”

  “Three days to find a woman we like the looks of and is similar to this picture.” Lucky ripped the page out of Cosmopolitan.

  “No problem there. You see redheads everywhere nowadays. It’s the new fad. Too many blondes, so they go red to get noticed.”

  “Okay, cool, but after this initial kill, we go into competition to see who gets the cleanest murder the fastest. Hey, maybe we should come up with a specific dollar amount for the prize. How about a hundred thousand dollars? Or a new Porsche? My dad’s on tour again. He’s making tons of dough that’ll trickle down into my bank account.”

  “You got it, bro. I would just love me a Porsche. A shiny black one. But now let’s go find us a pretty little redheaded gal.” He laughed. “Just like Charlie Brown’s girlfriend. But first, let’s pick up a pepperoni pizza. I’m hungry.”

  Satisfied and excited, they headed up the steps and made a beeline for the garage. Game on. Oh yeah. Game is on, all right. Time to rack up some serious bloodletting fun.

  Chapter 11

  Bud didn’t arrive at Cedar Bend Lodge until just after one o’clock. That was a good thing. It gave Claire plenty of time to grab hold of some shaky emotions. She didn’t understand why she had spiraled so quickly about Zachary—it was rare now to hit her so hard and so brutally. But she would be all right. What she needed was to get back to work. Work was always a panacea for dark days. Black was gone, already down at the exclusive bungalows seeing his patients. By the time Bud finally showed up in his truck, Claire was already downstairs in the back corridor, watching for him. Unfortunately, the paparazzi had caught wind of the private elevator. Fortunately for Claire, Black had ordered barriers set up to bracket the back drive and manned them with security guards. That helped them some, but not enough, as they soon found out.