Dying Embers

by B. E. Sanderson

  She leveraged her elbows on either side of her plate, and laced her fingers in front of her face. This oughta be good.

  “I needed to come because someone murdered a man on my watch.” His words stunned the crap out of her, but she kept her stony visage, waiting to see where he was going with this unexpected tack. “Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t really know Kyle from Adam. Sure, we sat next to each other at the bar on occasion. We traded war stories from our old days in football. But I didn’t know a damn thing about who he really was. It shocked the crap out of me to learn he’d been divorced, that he had three kids living with his ex up in Wyoming, that he delivered pizzas at night just to keep up with the child support.” Ben leveled his eyes at hers. “This isn’t revenge, Jace. From what I saw of him, and what I learned after he died, he was a good man. No matter what he might have done to bring this on himself, he deserves to have this bitch behind bars. This is me needing to see justice done, and to be there when you catch Kyle’s killer. Whatever happens after that, I’ll accept, but I need to see this thing through.”

  He fiddled with the collar of his shirt for a moment. “Does any of that make sense?”

  At a loss for words, she only nodded. His explanation made a lot more sense than any hyped up crap she could’ve expected. And her estimation of the man grew exponentially.

  “That’s about the way I feel about this case,” she finally admitted between bites of omelet. “Whatever else happens, I need to catch this one and see her pay for what she’s done. She’s done more than kill those men; she’s ruined all the lives connected to them. They deserve… not revenge—”

  He nodded. “Justice.”

  #

  “Just the two of us, making castles in the sky. Just the two of us, you and I.” Miles of scrubby wasteland passed the BMW as Emma and Studly drove toward the mountains.

  “You’re a great singer, Pretty Lady,” the man told her as he gunned the engine to pass a dawdling tourist. “And trust me. I’d know.”

  The wind racing through her hair carried her laugh and scattered it over them both. “A big record exec?” Over their short time together, they played the guessing game of who each of them really was, but even on his correct guesses, she lied. She wondered if he lied, too.

  “Not a chance. Too risky. Guess again.”

  “I’ve been guessing all morning. It’s your turn.”

  He yelped out a laugh and his guess. With the top down, his words were hard to hear, but even so, she cringed. When they reached her ears, it almost sounded like he said ‘serial killer’.

  Her blood ran cold. In the two days since she made the decision to live his life of lies, she had almost forgotten what she arrived in Vegas to do. In the two seconds since he spoke those words, she remembered. Everything.

  Including her wish to see him burn inside the Beemer they were using to enjoy the day.

  “Pardon me?” she said, her insides frozen to her ribs.

  “Aw, don’t look at me like that, Sweetheart. I just said you’re the female equivalent of a lady-killer. I know you’re not a real killer.” He smiled as he brushed his fingertips along her jawline. “Now give me that smile and light my fire. Hey! I know the perfect spot to…”

  As he yammered on about a secret hideaway where they could spend the day making love and feasting on not only each other but the sumptuous goodies stowed in the trunk, her only thought was whether his perfect spot lay near a ravine.

  The image of eating their picnic lunch in front of a raging fire was almost too good. Laughter burst from her lips, and the sound of it in the middle of his sentence brought a shocked look to his face.

  “Wanna share the joke?”

  “I’m just too happy,” she said. “This is going to be a perfect day.”

  “You said it, Pretty Lady. Didn’t I tell you that anonymity was the key to happiness?”

  “Baby, you don’t know the half of it,” she said softly, letting the rush of air carry her words away. It wouldn’t do to let him in on the joke so soon. They had the whole day left, and his fire would look so lovely in the moonlight.

  #

  “Trace came back from the hair in Kyle’s car,” Jace said, snapping her phone closed with more force than was necessary. “Guess what? Our suspect is female.”

  Ben looked up from the file in front of him. “Brilliant. Any other pearls of wisdom?”

  “She’s a bottle blonde. Maybe late thirties to mid forties, but the chemicals in her hair make it hard to nail down her age.”

  “Why else does a woman color her hair?” he joked.

  “Smart ass.” Jace’s hand twitched to smooth her own hair and its salty strands peeking through her own pepper. She laid her fingers in her lap and admonished herself for even caring. Ben’s head was littered with the signs of a life well-lived, and the grays looked good on him. Why should her own be any different?

  “Frank say anything else?”

  “Just that we’d better catch this chick soon or he’s going to need two months’ vacation on a tropical island to recover—at my expense, by the way.” She shook her head and laughed. “I can’t afford that. I’ve got a mortgage and a boatload of credit-card debt I’m trying to overcome. If this goes on too much longer, Frank’s R&R will break me.”

  “We can’t have that. I know I told you to be patient with Thatcher’s recovery, but I wish he would wake the fuck up.”

  As the waitress shot them both another look saying ‘there’d better be one huge ass tip in this’, Jace’s phone echoed through the nearly empty restaurant.

  “Douglas.”

  “Hello? This is Wendy… Umm… Devin Thatcher’s wife?”

  Her hand clenched the cell phone. “Is your husband awake?”

  The woman’s gulp provided enough of an answer. And Jace felt horrible for jumping to conclusions. Assumptions like that could only cause more pain to the grieving almost-widow. “I wish I could say yes. It’s just that you said to call if I remembered anything else. The girl… Emma… I remembered her last name. It’s Parkkonen.”

  Jace asked the woman to spell it, and then verified she’d written it down correctly. “Thank you, Mrs. Thatcher. You’ve been a great help. If you think of anything else, call me.” After the woman promised to do exactly that, she said, “And ma’am? Our thoughts are with your husband.”

  Ben sat expectantly, but she didn’t have time to fill him in. Her fingers pressed the speed dial that would connect her to her team. With every passing minute, another man was in danger, and they couldn’t afford to wait.

  “Hi boss,” Frank said before she could speak. “You must’ve read my mind. I was just calling you. Lynn found a match. Your girl is…”

  “Emma Parkkonen, with two Ks.”

  “How did you…?” She could almost imagine his jaw dropping.

  “Never mind that. Did you find anything on her?”

  “We’re still working on it. She’s originally from Phelps, Wisconsin, but after she graduated from college, she just disappeared. Lynn’s scanning for a change of socials, marriage licenses—anything that could tell us what name she uses now, but so far, nothing.”

  She knew better than to get her hopes up, but if Frank and Lynn already had the name, she had hoped for a break this time. “Call me as soon as either of you hit a lead. Anything will help right now.” Tapping her pen on her notebook, she said, “Maybe she did a quickie wedding in Vegas. With all the fast-food marriages out there, maybe she’s dropped through the cracks.”

  “You’re the closest one to Vegas right now, boss.”

  “Yeah, but you’re the one with the servers and the connections. I could do legwork for a year and not come up with half of what you two could find in a week. Sic Lynn on it. She’ll come through for me.”

  “Yeah. You’re right.” He sounded less than thrilled at the prospect.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “The office staff laid bets on whether you’d head for Vegas or leave this to Lynn. I ha
d twenty on you.” He let out a soft snort. “I think some guy down in accounting just won three hundred bucks.”

  #

  She clearly hadn’t thought this through. No gas. No epoxy. She had her gun tucked safely into the pockets of her voluminous purse, but without the other tools, she’d never be able to complete her task today.

  While her mystery man laid out a blanket and made a great show of setting ‘the table’ for her, the thought of how far they’d driven from the city dug into her brain. Even now, the total silence of his perfect spot in the mountains creeped her out. Not a single engine could be heard, and the main road had to be at least ten minutes away. How far a walk that would be, she couldn’t calculate.

  But she did know hitching a ride out here in the middle of nowhere would point the finger at her once someone saw the fire from his car.

  Which led her to another problem. How would Douglas find a car fire when no one came this way? Her first few kills had been in silence. Only the local cops knew anything about any of them. Then Douglas showed up, and ever since, each kill had been with the thought of the agent finding her work. She was the only woman in the world who really knew Emma, and if she couldn’t find the smoldering remains, she couldn’t fully appreciate Emma’s mission.

  She would have to find another way to complete her task, but tonight wouldn’t be the night she envisioned. Instead of bringing justice to the man who even now was snuggling up against her, plying her with expensive wine and gourmet goodies, she would be forced to wait.

  And she hated waiting.

  “So tired, tired of waiting, tired of waiting for you.” She let the lyrics out on a breathless moan as his tongue lingered over the pulse on her neck. Taking her meaning the wrong way, he increased his efforts. Soon she was wriggling beneath him as he sang his own song of lust.

  One last night of pleasure, she thought. I’ve earned it. Tomorrow, he’ll get what he’s earned, too.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Listening to Studly shower hurt her heart. He sang through every drop of water like a rock star on stage in front of thousands. He had such a zest for the life she had to end. Too bad, she couldn’t let him live. Especially considering he hadn’t earned his death by the things he did, but for the one thing she never expected him to say. For all his bullshit about a ‘liars weekend’, Studly had come too close to the truth.

  As he turned the water off, she rolled onto her back and let the jets of air conditioning wash over her. Just the thought of his lean body, all edges and angles, made her skin slick with sweat. He truly hadn’t been like any man she ever met. Most of the men on her list were soft and rounded in all the wrong spots. Where Will was a sequoia, Studly was a poplar.

  It really was too bad he had to die.

  One by one, she ticked down her mental checklist for the coming day. Last night, she laid the ground work. On the pretense of needing some ‘alone time’, she slipped away long enough to drive her car into the mountains and hitch a ride back to the city. She’d tucked her gas can in the trunk, full of her most necessary tool. Her bottle of epoxy was nestled inside her purse, beside her gun and a disposable cell phone.

  Now she only needed him to take her to the same perfect spot.

  “Hey there, Pretty Lady. Penny for your thoughts.” Studly stood before her in all his glory, dripping onto the beige carpet.

  “With inflation, don’t you mean ten bucks?” She joked, even as she could feel the moisture gathering between her legs. One more time wouldn’t hurt. The plan was in place, and an hour of energetic sex couldn’t stay her from the course she already set in motion.

  “Now that you mention it, you’re worth a few thousand. What say we dip into the bank account again?”

  A few thousand wouldn’t buy her little toe, but she let the thought slide. After all, he didn’t have too many more hours left to be the life of the party.

  #

  Jace pushed the files away and rubbed the space between her eyes. Too many more days of looking at the same words, and she would need glasses—thick ones. Outside her window, the Wasatch Mountains beckoned. Inside the hotel room, even the best cleaning crew in the world couldn’t erase the traces of two active bodies pent up inside—even if they weren’t having sex.

  With a frustrated huff, she ran one hand through her hair. It needed cutting, but until Emma was dead… Umm, until she’s caught… personal errands came last on her list.

  “Let’s go over this one more time,” she said and heard a groan from the bed. Ben lay spread eagle, where he had to have stared at the same patch of ceiling until he’d memorized it.

  “Which part?” He didn’t bother shifting his gaze to her. “The part where we don’t know who she is, the part where we don’t know where she is, or the part where we don’t know who’s next on her list?”

  “The part where we go over everything until we find what we’ve been missing or until we have new data.” He groaned again. “Listen, Yancy. You can always go back to La Junta,” she said pronouncing the word using English instead of Spanish phonetics, just to get his attention, “and live out your twilight years in anonymity…”

  “Or?”

  “Or you can get off your ass and work this case with me. This isn’t TV. It isn’t all The Fugitive, you know. We’re not searching any damn doghouses.” She walked over and nudged his leg with her knee. “You oughta know with all your years on the force. Now come on.”

  “I know, I know. And believe me, I bitched just as much when I worked in a real city as I’m bitching now. A guy’s got a right to piss and moan every now and then.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t use that expression around my office. The last guy who did spent six months going by the name of Pammy.”

  “Pammy?”

  “Sure. P…A…M… Piss And Moan. I learned quick not to whine once I heard about that guy.”

  He leaned his head up and winked at her. “Maybe it’s just a story they told to keep you in line.”

  Jace shrugged. “Then it worked didn’t it? Now, do you want to be Pammy or do you want to get back to…” The phone’s shrill whine broke through their frustrated banter. Ben grabbed it before she could order him to drop her cell.

  “Agent Douglas’ phone.” His quip came out of a smiling mouth, but the edges turned grim as he listened. Without speaking again, he handed the phone to her.

  “Douglas here.”

  “You bitch,” said a soft voice. “How could you? How could you let a man into your room?”

  Her brain spun through its Rolodex of every voice she ever knew and came up empty. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the bond we have.” The woman’s tone ratcheted up an octave. “We need to stick together or this will never work. And now you let a man into it.”

  “Who is this?” Jace had no clue to the identity of the caller. The voice came across soft and yet filled with anger, even the gender seemed uncertain—except no man would use those terms. The few women she knew would never make such a strange call.

  “Who I am is for me to know and you to find out. All you need to know right now is I called you for a reason. So far, I’ve managed to do all this by myself, but now I need your help. I’m almost sorry now that you have to be the one to help me, but I have no choice.”

  Jace’s heart beat a rapid staccato against her ribcage as the light bulb went off over her head. The caller had to be Emma. She didn’t know where the suspect got her number, or why the woman would call, but she had to keep her talking—make her slip up.

  “Miss Parkkonen?” she said. Out of the corner of her eyes, she watched Ben scramble off the bed. He thrust a pen and notepad at her.

  Laughter rang loud enough for it to echo in the room. “Ah, so you are smart.” The soft voice had disappeared. “I thought I was mistaken when that guy answered the phone, but I guess you’re in better control of your hormones than I gave you credit for. Then again, I haven’t used that name in years, so yo
u can’t be too smart. As far as I’m concerned, Emma Parkkonen died.” A lilting giggle came at Jace like a slap. “I guess you could say I killed her, and then I ate her.”

  “What do you want, Emma? What can I do for you?”

  “Just one thing, and then I’ll be gone. I need you to trace this call. I need you to come and find me. So I…” The line went silent for a split second. In the background, Jace thought she could hear a muffled grunting. “So I can get help. Come and find me, Agent Douglas. Will you help me?”

  “Of course I will.” She scribbled a note for Ben to start tracing the call, but he already had Dallas on the job. “We know what Fleming did to you. Let me bring you in and you can explain everything—”

  More laughter drifted over the receiver, now tinged with hysteria. “What Fleming did to me? You have no idea what he did, but if you think you do, maybe I picked the wrong person to rely on. If you really believe what I think you believe, you’re as stereotypically stupid as good old Barney Fife.” Emma’s voice grew cold and hard. “Now do the world a favor and stop thinking. I’m leaving my cell phone on so you can find me. I won’t be talking to you any more, though. I have something I need to do before you get here.”

  As promised, the line remained open, but no more words issued from the connection. In the distance, Jace heard the sound of tires over gravel—a man shouting for help—and then silence.

  Until she heard the one sound she would never forget, no matter how hard she tried. The sound of flames licking hungrily, and the sound of screaming as the flames ate their prey alive.

  She dropped the phone onto the bed. She didn’t even hear Ben move, but his arm was around her shoulders. He raised one gentle hand to brush away the tears rolling down her cheeks. “She’s… She’s… She’s killing another one, right now. Call Frank… We need that trace right now. She said… She said she wants us to come find her, but I think… I think she just wants us to come find… him.”

  #

  Settling herself on a nice bed of freshly picked mountain daisies, she turned to smile at her work. The sun setting over the treetops lent a magical air she didn’t imagine when she laid out the plan. What she hoped for was the fire silhouetted against the starry sky, but this was so much better. The oranges of the flames blended into the oranges of the sky until she wasn’t sure where one began and the other ended.