by Lisa Jackson
Unlike the good doctor to be so messy.
Tsk, tsk, he thought as he retrieved the cell phone from his pocket.
He made the first call. Listened as the man on the other end answered.
“Hello.”
The Reviver didn’t respond. Not yet. He had to do just as God had told him last night in his dreams.
“Hello?” A pause. “Damn it, who is it? Can you hear me? If you can, I can’t hear you.” Another pause. “Terry?” he said, a trace of frustration in his voice.
“I have evidence,” the Reviver whispered, his voice so low and raspy no one would ever recognize it.
“What did you say?”
There was no need to repeat himself. The message had been heard and understood.
He hung up.
Glancing up at the house, he then swiftly checked the menu on the phone for a list of contacts, scrolled down, and pressed the dial button again.
Within seconds, the phone was connected.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
“Hello?” The old man’s voice was brusque, loud over the background noise of the talk radio show he was tuned to. “Wait a minute. Who is this? How did you get my…shit!” A beat. “You’re calling from my cell number…but…how?”
The Reviver smiled as the man appeared in the kitchen, walking with an uneven gait.
“You have my phone!”
Outrage. And his words were slightly slurred.
The Reviver didn’t respond.
“Hello? Are you there? How the hell did you get my damned phone?”
Again, no response.
“Did you find it somewhere? Did I leave it in my car…? No, wait. It was here earlier. I remember plugging it into the charger….” His voice trailed off. “You were in my house? You stole it, you punk bastard!”
“I have information,” he finally said.
A pause. “Information about what?”
“Information you’ll want.”
“Hey…what is this?”
Another lengthy pause.
“So, what is the information you have for me?” The man’s voice was calmer now, but the Reviver spied him walking from room to room, peering out the windows. “Why did you take my phone?”
Checking his watch, the Reviver hung up then flipped the ringer to vibrate and slipped it into his pocket. Within seconds he felt the cell vibrate against his leg, and he smiled inwardly, sensing the man’s panic.
Just as he expected.
The vibration stopped as quickly as it had started.
Quietly he walked to the side of the house, careful to stay in the shadows. The cell vibrated again, and he could feel the man’s growing unease.
Good. You feel it. It’s your turn.
In the window, his victim nervously lifted a short glass filled with whiskey to his lips.
Drink up, moron. Drink it all.
The man visibly swayed, caught himself by pressing a hand to the glass pane.
The Reviver grinned in the darkness. He’d spent so little time in the kitchen, just long enough to steal the phone and slip the small tablets into the open bottle of whiskey.
It had been so easy.
And now those pills were working their magic, making his victim sluggish.
“Bottoms up,” he mouthed, feeling a rush steal through his blood as the man stumbled away from the window, heading, no doubt, for his recliner.
No reason to wait.
He hurried to the back of the house and stole up the steps to the back porch.
The door to the kitchen was still unlocked.
Dr. Terrence Renner drained his glass, set it on the table next to his recliner, and tried not to panic. Someone had called him…using his own cell phone. Someone had been in the house. Probably the teenagers who lived about a quarter of a mile away; three boys, and hellions every one. Troublemakers.
All that talk about “information” was probably just part of a prank. Right? And yet he’d heard real menace in the caller’s voice. Determination.
It took him three attempts to place the portable receiver into its cradle. Then he half collapsed into his recliner and stared at the phone, expecting it to ring again. All the while Midnight Confessions, that ridiculous radio show with “Doctor Sam,” a pseudo-psychologist, was playing on the radio. The show and woman irritated him, but he hadn’t been able to stop tuning in. Pop psychology. Ridiculous.
So who had his damned phone?
“Stupid punks,” he muttered and told himself to calm down, enjoy his fire—perhaps the last crackling fire of the season—and the remains of his drink.
He flipped off the radio, couldn’t stand to listen to that damned fake shrink another minute.
Had someone been in the house?
When?
Rubbing the back of his neck, he looked at the phone again and considered calling the police but was just too damned dizzy. He’d think more clearly in the morning. Tonight he’d finish his crossword puzzle then go to bed. He pulled the folded newspaper onto his lap and forced himself to concentrate.
From habit, he reached down to pat Rufus’s old head then realized his mistake. The dog had been dead over two weeks, and it was amazing how much Renner missed the old terrier, who in his youth had chased rabbits, squirrels, and cars with the same enthusiasm. Fortunately, the stupid dog had never caught anything.
A soft footstep sounded in the back of the house.
What the devil now?
He looked up quickly, knocking the newspaper from his lap as he stared over the top of his reading glasses. The room seemed to rotate slightly, and he blinked a couple of times. His nightcaps had hit him hard. Harder than usual, and as he pushed himself upright, he wobbled slightly, his legs unable to hold him.
“Son of a bitch,” he growled as his buttocks landed on the worn cushion of his favorite chair. “Son of a goddamned—”
There it was again. That familiar creak of floorboards in the hallway running from the kitchen, the sound made when someone walked along its length.
But he was alone.
Wasn’t he?
The hairs lifted on the back of his skull.
Had the punks who’d stolen his phone returned?
“Hello?” he called, slightly nervous and feeling like a fool. No one was in the house. No one.
He strained to listen, to rise from the chair, to push up, but his arms were as weak as his legs, flaccid, useless appendages. Had he had a stroke? Was that possible?
Another footstep. Heavier this time.
His heart froze for an instant.
“Ith thum-one there?” he demanded and heard the slurred panic in his voice. “Inez?” he asked, calling out the housekeeper’s name though she wasn’t scheduled for another couple of days. “Franco?” But the farmhand who worked for him had left hours earlier, before the sun had gone down. For the first time in his life, he felt isolated out here.
Again he tried to push himself upright, his arms trembling with the effort, his legs wobbly.
Again he fell back.
Don’t panic. You’re imagining all this. The drinks were stronger than you thought…that’s all. Get up, damn it. Get up!
“Dr. Renner.” A deep male voice called to him from the darkened hallway beyond the French doors.
His eyes widened, felt stretched across his face.
He lunged for the phone, throwing himself from the recliner, knocking over the remains of his drink.
Ice cubes skittered over the gleaming hardwood floor.
Pain shuddered through him.
Pushing himself, he was determined to get to the phone, even if he had to crawl. But…but his arms wouldn’t drag him. His legs were useless. He was facedown on the floor when the light shifted. The glass doors opened, a shadow stretched in front of him, and he found himself looking at a pair of thick army boots.
He nearly lost control of his bladder as he slowly raised his eyes, up, up, up long, powerful-looking legs covered i
n camouflage, then farther upward past a matching jacket that covered a massive chest. Above the collar was a thick neck and a face concealed by a ski mask.
Startling blue eyes stared down at him.
“Who are you?…What do you want? I have money…in the safe….” Renner squeaked as panic closed his throat and constricted his lungs.
“Money.” The intruder spat the word. Moved his gloved hands.
Renner saw the knife—a long, wicked hunting knife, the blade catching and gleaming, reflecting the fire.
Terror grabbed him. “No,” he whispered. “Please…I beg you…”
“Retribution,” the big man whispered in a voice that cut through the air like a whipsaw.
“No…please…I don’t know who you are…what you want…but you’re making a mistake.”
“No mistake, Doctor.”
Fear blasted through him. He tried to scuttle away, to move anywhere, but his damned body…Oh hell, he’d been drugged. He realized that now. It wasn’t the booze…
His attacker lunged. Was on him in an instant.
A big hand pulled back on his forehead until his neck bowed back so far he was certain his spine would snap. Pain screamed down his backbone. “No!” he rasped.
In one last terrifying instant, he saw the wicked blade in a strong black-gloved hand.
It moved across his line of vision.
Oh sweet Jesus, this maniac was going to slit his throat!
The tip of the blade pressed against the side of his neck.
“I’m the Reviver,” his attacker whispered intimately into his ear. “I decide. Who lives. Who dies. Who will be revived.”
Delusional psychopathy with a God complex.
Renner closed his eyes. He knew what was coming.
God have mercy on my soul.
The knife point pricked his skin.
He swallowed hard.
“It’s God’s will, Doctor, that you go straight to hell,” the killer whispered just before he drew his arm backward and the blade slashed in a sharp, clean arc.
CHAPTER 7
Why the hell had Terrence Renner called him?
Cole’s eyes narrowed on his cell phone’s screen as he drove toward the heart of the city.
And how would Renner know that after three months in jail, Cole’s cell phone service was restored, courtesy of Sam Deeds?
A bad feeling crawled through him, and he resisted the urge to return Renner’s call. In fact, he thought he should probably ditch the phone. The police had confiscated it when he’d been arrested; Deeds had just gotten it back and restored service, but what if someone in the department had put a GPS chip inside the phone? What if the police could tail him without physically tailing him? How would he know?
Shit! He didn’t dare use the thing, and the only numbers he needed that were stored in the phone, he had already memorized. He had to be smart…couldn’t take chances…had to ditch the cell and his computer and start over. Brand new. Just to make sure that Montoya and Bentz, or someone higher up, or the damned Feds, weren’t listening in.
You’re getting paranoid!
But someone had set him up for Royal Kajak’s murder. Someone who knew his movements. His reactions. Someone with a hard-on to see him sent away for good.
Who? he wondered for the millionth time over the past three months. Who had set him up? Was Eve involved? And who the hell had she slept with besides him on the day Roy died? His jaw slid to the side, and he squinted against the glare of oncoming headlights.
He would be a fool to think whoever had framed him before would stop now, or that the police would quit thinking he was involved in Roy’s death. No, he had to be careful.
So think, Cole, think!
First things first: he had to ditch the cell phone. With that in mind, he stopped the Jeep, placed the phone under its tire then ran over it, hoping to destroy the GPS chip if it had one.
Secondly, he had to hide the money again. Over time he planned to deposit it to his account in small amounts, as if he were being paid for odd jobs. But for now the Jeep was an unsafe bet, as was his new home.
But he knew another place…. It would just take some time, once he was back in New Orleans.
For now, he’d take care of this Renner business.
He didn’t like the feel of it and would take some precautions, but he wanted—needed—to know what was going on. Why had Renner called him?
Don’t step into a trap.
Cole wheeled the Jeep into a one-eighty and headed for the old farmhouse where he’d first met Eve. His jaw clenched, and he felt that same old rush in his bloodstream as whenever he conjured up her image.
The first day they met, she’d had the nerve to question his ability. She stared at him through intelligent eyes half a beat longer than necessary then opened that sexy mouth of hers and started putting him to the test, asking questions, studying him suspiciously, silently suggesting that she didn’t think he was up to the job.
“You’re really the best money can buy?” Her freckle-dusted nose had wrinkled, and Cole had found her amusing and irritating at the same time.
“I can hold my own.”
“Against what?” She’d swatted at a fly that buzzed too close to her loose red-blond curls. Thrusting out her chin, she’d tilted her head and waited, as if she enjoyed putting him in the hot seat.
“I think you mean ‘against whom,’” Cole had countered.
“I just want to know that you’re up for the job.” He had noticed a hint of fear in her eyes, and he realized that beneath her brash exterior was a daughter frightened her father could be sent to jail.
Cole had understood. In his estimation, Terrence Renner was a little off, a doctor with an incredible God complex.
In retrospect, it had been Eve, more than Renner, the psychiatrist, who had persuaded Cole to take the case. Not because she’d asked him to. No. Just the opposite. Because she’d doubted him, eyed his battered jeans and faded T-shirt and made a judgment call: he wasn’t good enough.
And he’d been determined to prove to her that he was everything her father had claimed, the “best money could buy.”
What a joke.
The whole situation had spiraled out of control, and look where he was now.
Now, as Cole headed to that same farmhouse where he’d been so hell-bent to prove himself, he found it almost laughable how things had gotten twisted around. Now he was the suspicious one. For instance, why had Eve shown up at Renner’s that particular day? Coincidence? Or part of something much bigger than Cole suspected? His jaw slid to the side. And what about Renner’s patient, Tracy Aliota? Had Renner been as innocent as he’d proclaimed? Or had he had a tiny bit of hesitation about releasing her? Had he suspected that she might try to injure herself again? It wasn’t Renner’s fault that the girl committed suicide, but had he borne some responsibility for what had happened?
Ethics, he reminded himself. He was thinking about ethics, not legalities. Cole had proven that legally Renner had fulfilled his obligation to his patient, but ethically…that was another question.
In any event, Renner had been vindicated in the trial, found “not guilty.” It had left the prosecuting attorney pissed as hell and Cole Dennis a hero in Eve Renner’s eyes. Which had been just what he’d wanted. He’d been so attracted to her, so focused on her, that he’d ignored the warning bells clanging loudly in his mind. He’d all too eagerly broken his own hard-and-fast rule of avoiding any personal contact with a client or any member of a client’s family. He had flatly ignored the fact that blending the boundaries between business and pleasure always ended up clouding his clear, razor-sharp viewpoint.
And so it had been.
For over two years.
Now, as he saw the flashing red light in the middle of the small town near Renner’s house, he eased on the brakes, and his Jeep rolled to a stop. His was the only vehicle at the junction. The reflection from the stoplight pulsed red against the pavement as he turned, driving down the
lonesome street.
The empty town was lifeless, stark, only a few parked cars on the streets where neon lights sizzled and burned in the one tavern and every other shop had been locked for hours. A skinny stray dog wandered across the street a hundred yards in front of him, then, head down, disappeared down a narrow alley. A bad feeling crawled through him. It almost felt as if this part of the world were on a distant planet.
Shaking off the eerie sensation, Cole turned down the main street and headed out of town, past the shop fronts with their security lights, then through a residential area of single-story homes built in the forties and fifties, mostly dark, only a few lamps glowing behind drawn shades.
On the outskirts of town, he stepped on the throttle, pushing the speed limit, suddenly feeling an urgency to talk to Renner. He told himself that it had nothing to do with Eve, this visit to her father. He’d deal with the old man first then decide what to do about the woman who had turned his world inside out, sworn to have loved him only to end up cheating on him and accusing him of murder.
Rage fired through his guts, and he forced his mind away from Eve: beautiful, lying, two-timing, sexy-as-hell Eve. He couldn’t think of her now.
He passed familiar landmarks: a narrow bridge, a stone fence, a tilted mailbox only a quarter of a mile from Renner’s property. He slowed for the turnoff then cranked hard on the steering wheel, nosing the Jeep into the long, furrowed lane.
The good doctor was apparently still up, as warm light glowed from the windows on the first floor. He had mixed feelings about this place. It was the first place he’d set eyes on Eve. The start of so much that had ended so badly.
Cole parked near the garage. Then, as he had in the months before the trial, he walked up the back steps to the kitchen and rapped on the door. Crickets chirped loudly, and a moth was beating against a kitchen window. “Terrence?” he called, spying an open bottle of booze on the counter along with a tray of melted ice cubes.
No one answered.
He tried again. “Hello? Terry? It’s Cole!” He banged so hard on the back door, the glass panes rattled.