“Listen, I know you’re getting sick of sitting in there.” They were all getting sick of sitting around waiting, which didn’t help. “At least you have a television and snacks. I’d trade you in a heartbeat—”
“But you don’t look like Mitchell.”
If she could switch places with Ben, she would. Then she’d be the one to take down Emma Parkkonen-Sweet—after all these months. “Exactly. So do the world a favor and watch some baseball, or something.”
“I don’t watch baseball.”
She glanced at her watch again—for what felt like the millionth time over the past forty-eight hours. “Then just flip through the channels and tell me what the Yankees score is.”
“Does it matter?”
“When they’re playing the BoSox it does.” Jace didn’t really care at this point in the season, but if knowing the score meant distracting Ben, it mattered. “Look, it’s either watch baseball or…” She let the threat hang in the air.
“Or what?” he asked, calling her bluff.
“Or I’m… I’m coming in there to duct tape you to a chair.”
“Promises, promises.” She could almost imagine him leering as he said the words, and she hoped the other ears on this channel took it for the joke it was and didn’t assume something that wasn’t there. She sure as hell didn’t need rumors getting back to Graham.
“Just find the damn score already.”
His silhouette moved away from the drapes, and she breathed a sigh of relief. With the way their luck had gone so far, Emma saw the whole show of his impatience and went running for Canada. She’d be gone at least until the furor died down. Emma wasn’t the type who could just let a kill go. That’s why they still had Devin Thatcher under twenty-four hour surveillance. The killer Jace had followed all this time would still plan on finishing that job.
“What’s the score, Ben?” she said when she realized he hadn’t spoken. Silence drifted back. “Ben?”
#
Peter stood in his dimly-lit living room flipping through the channels when she snuck in the back. He always had been a remote-control cowboy, standing within arm’s length of the TV with the remote in his hand. The chootcher, she reminded herself. He always called it a chootcher.
She stole a glance toward the front window. Douglas sat in a car out there. She’d spotted the setup as soon as she stepped onto Peter’s block. No matter. No one watched the alley, and with her new jet black hair cropped into a neat bob, they couldn’t identify her as the woman she’d been. Just another neighbor looking for her lost kitty.
Not even when she slipped through the gate and into Peter’s backyard.
The neatly-trimmed arborvitae and the perfectly manicured lawn told her the man hadn’t changed one bit since high school. Everything had to be just-so, and since he’d never been into gardening, he must have a service take care of his perfect yard. Each plant, every blade of grass, stood in perfect order. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
Of course, Peter in his perfection would never leave the back door unlocked, but true to form, he’d hidden the key neatly in a manufactured rock nestled under a lush viburnum. Too bad he wouldn’t be around to see it bloom next spring.
Well-oiled locks and hinges made her entry even easier. Nothing like giving her the perfect means to slip in and watch him. The television blared so loud, though, she wondered if she made a noise, would he even hear it?
Poised with one shoulder propped against the doorway and the other on her revolver, she said, “Don’t make a noise, and this doesn’t have to be painful.” She was lying, of course. The whole point of this encounter was to ensure he felt enough pain to make up for the years she spent in agony. He didn’t even flinch. “Can’t hear anymore?” she said, raising her voice a notch. “Are you getting that old, Peter?”
“Emma?” he said without moving—as if he thought he heard a ghost and didn’t want to have his fears become a reality.
“Don’t move a muscle. I like the view from back here.” His pants were molded to his tight ass and muscular thighs. Far from the wiry youth she’d known so many years ago, it looked like Peter had spent some time at the gym.
He remained with his back to her; at least he learned how to listen after twenty years. “Good boy,” she said. She took a step closer, and the scent of him washed over her. He smelled like Old Spice and leather and… Gun oil?
“You aren’t Peter Mitchell.” The words fell like so many deflated balloons, but inside she was screaming. They weren’t just watching the house, they had taken her prize away and substituted this person in its place. She jabbed the revolver into his back as hard as she could, and his pain-filled grunt pleased her. “Who are you?”
“I’m Peter Mitchell,” he said, but in those three words, she knew the bastard’s identity.
“You! Turn around!”
The man complied, but his hand gripped his own service pistol. “Nice to finally meet you, Mrs. Sweet,” he said with a tone that implied he thought anything but.
“You’re that man who’s been distracting my federal agent.” Emma laughed, but the sound came out like a croak. “You never should’ve wiggled into her case, but I’ll take care of that for her. She’s the one who deserves the glory, not you. You think you can come in here pretending to be Peter and your bosses will think you did all this work? You think you can take her case away from her?”
To her surprise, he laughed in her face. “This was her idea.”
Emma closed her mouth so hard, her teeth clipped the edge of her tongue. In Utah, she found out about Jace’s betrayal, but she hadn’t realized how deep it went. The poor woman couldn’t actually be stupid enough to believe anyone would give her the credit. The asshole was using her, and Emma knew it. Why the agent couldn’t see it for herself hit her like the ultimate betrayal.
The taste of blood in her mouth woke Emma out of her anger. Why am I talking to this stupid man, she thought as she pulled the trigger. If he’d struck her instead of talking at her, she would’ve dropped like a stone. Now instead of having control of the situation like a real man would’ve, he lay in a pool of his own blood.
#
The gunshot went off as Jace stood pressed against the white stucco front of the house. A curse died on her tongue as the local SWAT gave the order to take the building. Before she knew it, a half-dozen burly figures ran into the house with her trailing after.
“Clear!” one of the men shouted as she ran past.
She called out for Ben, but only silence returned. With the sun nearing the horizon, the house had grown murky-dark. “Yancy!” The shout that broke from her lips sounded like the cry of a wounded animal, but she didn’t care what the officers thought anymore. She needed to find him. He had to be here, and he had to be alive. She couldn’t have gotten him killed.
Not another death on her conscience. Not again.
As she stood shaking in the doorway, the memory of that horrible day flooded into her head. A chemistry experiment forgotten in the rush to get the mail—left behind when her book order arrived. Racing to the hayloft to pour over a story, while the breeze from her open window blew the curtains into the flame of her Bunsen burner.
No one ever blamed Jace for the fire, but she knew the truth. No one had to tell her to her face. She started the fire through her own lack of focus. Wanting something so bad it made her lose track of everything around her had cost her everything she loved.
And after all these years, she still hadn’t learned.
“Ben?” Her whisper seemed too loud for the stillness that surrounded her heart. Behind her, she could hear the officers sweeping the house. One of them called the all clear while others raced out the back door after their killer.
“Son of a bitch!”
The voice came from behind the sofa, and although traces of pain were present, anger presided. “Damn it! Will somebody please get me out from behind this damn couch before I fucking bleed to death?”
Jace didn’t wait for any
of the others to react. She raced across the room and dropped beside her partner. “You’re alive.”
“And that bitch is getting away!”
She could see red, but not its origin. “Where are you hit?”
“Never mind that. She’s getting away.”
“Not if the local boys have anything to say about it. Now shut up and tell me where you’re hit.” Shadows hid his face, making her wonder if he was blushing. “Oh no. Not the butt again?”
“No one’s that unlucky twice. I just feel stupid for letting her sneak up on me.” He shifted slightly, and the spread of blood along his side became apparent. “I think I’ll live, but it hurts like a motherfucker.”
From where she sat, the wound looked like a through and through, but the darkness of the blood scared her. Something in her memory sparked. Some organs bleed darker—she couldn’t remember which ones. If the dark color wasn’t from the shadows, and if her memory served right, though, they didn’t have time to waste. “Someone get an ambulance!”
“Screw that. I’m fine.” His words said one thing but the fact he didn’t try to get up told her another.
“You are not fine. But you will be.” She hoped she wasn’t lying. “We’ll get you to a hospital, and you’ll be up pestering somebody to the point of insanity in no time.”
He tried to rise to a sitting position, but the pain drove him prone again. “Shit, that hurts.”
“Then lie still, damn it.”
“If that…” A wince racked his features. “Don’t let her get away because of this—”
“She won’t get away. I won’t let her.” Even as she said the words, though, she knew she didn’t have a good track record of keep that promise to herself, so she couldn’t make guarantees to him. If SWAT didn’t catch her now, Emma might go one of two places, and neither presented an optimum opportunity to catch her.
Grabbing one of the couch cushions, she pushed it under Ben’s head. “Stay that way or I’ll shoot you myself.”
For once, he didn’t argue. Already the blood loss affected him, but she feared his diminishing strength spoke of something much worse. She barked at the first man who crossed her path. “Where the hell is that ambulance?”
“On its way, ma’am.”
“Any word from the guys who went after her?”
“They’re looking, but…” His face told her what any self-respecting officer didn’t want to admit.
Their suspect had slipped away.
In the distance, Jace heard sirens approaching. She wanted to ride to the hospital with Ben, but she couldn’t walk away from the case. Right that minute, Emma was out there, stalking Peter Mitchell, or turning back to finish off Devin Thatcher, or getting ready to kill someone else. No one knew how many men she had on her list, and even though Mitchell was the only other name Frank had gotten from Mrs. Parkkonen, she might not know about every failed relationship her daughter ever had. Mitchell could be the last, but Jace couldn’t take that chance.
“Excuse us,” a man in an EMT’s uniform said as he shouldered her out of the way.
Several of the officers moved furniture to give the men access to their fallen comrade. When the gurney pushed past her, she couldn’t look at it. So many years and too many gurneys had passed. She couldn’t let Emma take another life. Not Ben’s, not Peter’s. Not one more man would die for whatever sick vengeance was in the bitch’s heart.
A gentle touch on her shoulder jolted her like a cattle prod. “We’re ready to go.”
“Where are you taking him?” She heard herself ask the question; she felt herself write the information down. She couldn’t connect with the actions, though. Leaning down, she pressed a quick kiss on Ben’s cheek. His eyes stay closed. She mumbled words of encouragement she knew she wouldn’t be able to recall later.
Ben would be taken to the hospital—to the safest place he could be right now. They would fix whatever that bitch damaged, and he would be fine. She couldn’t let Emma claim him on her list of kills.
The local officers slipped out the door behind her as she stood in the middle of her latest crime scene. Such an efficient house—the house of a lawyer who lived alone and breathed his work. Tidy and clean and—stark. In a way it reminded her of her own little house. Too few memories nestled in amongst too much useless stuff.
Novels that looked unread filled Peter Mitchell’s shelves, alongside trendy artifacts that appeared unused. Only a picture here or there showed that any particular individual called the dwelling home. Her own house had only a couple pictures tucked neatly away on some bookshelf somewhere. A tiny family portrait nestled amongst her few meaningless vacation photos were the only signs J.C. Douglas even existed within those four walls.
She saw similar photos on Mitchell’s shelves. A trip to Big Sur with a pert little blonde. Himself standing in front of the ocean, the wind ruffling his hair. One of him on a porch in the mountains—she presumed at the cabin where he now sat—a prisoner of his own protection detail.
A picture of him… at his cabin…
She walked to where Emma must’ve been standing while she held a gun to Ben’s ribs. The picture jumped out at her like a glaring neon sign.
And the sign said, “Victim here.”
#
“Hello. I’m from out of town and I was wondering… Do you have a computer I might be able to use?”
“You’ll have to leave your I.D. with us until you get done,” the librarian said.
“Of course.” Emma whipped out her wallet and tossed her driver’s license on the desk. The girl didn’t even look at it; she just tucked it into a slot near her computer and went back to typing.
“You’ll be using number 34.” An older woman jerked a thumb behind her. “Rear of the building. Follow the signs.”
Picking her way between tall shelves laden with books, Emma did as the librarian suggested. The computers were laid out in rows like in the lab at college, but unlike those long ago years, most of the machines were empty. As she walked past all the empty seats, she wondered briefly why they’d given her the thirty-fourth rather than the first.
The woman didn’t like you, Will said, needling her.
“She doesn’t know me.”
Some people don’t have to know you to dislike you, Emma. You’re just lucky that way.
“Shut up,” she told him as she slid into her assigned chair. To her surprise, he listened for once. Being dead definitely suited him.
Within seconds, she found the site she used so many times in the past. Thousands upon thousands of public records, just waiting for her to pick out her needs. If it hadn’t been for this discovery, she never would’ve known where to find Owen. Or Devin for that matter. If she hadn’t overhead a couple of geeky young men in the coffee shop talking about this particular website, she never would’ve had the means to locate each of the men on her list.
And now it would help her again.
A few deft strokes later, and she had found the exact address she needed.
“You thought you could hide. You moved across the country and I found you. You squirreled yourself away from me and I found you.” The ludicrousness of his attempts set off something inside her. “But I’m coming for you, Peter. And when I find you, you’ll wish you buried yourself alive to get away.” Her laughter pealed through the stacks and rebounded off the pristine furnishings.
By the time the librarian came to shush her, though, the humor of the situation had died, replaced by anger.
“You thought I was too stupid to find you,” she said on a whisper of breath. “Well, we’ll just see who’s stupid now.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The cool, crisp air of Northern California ruffled through Jace’s too-light jacket as she gazed out over the pine forest. She could see why Peter Mitchell chose to forget about his legal practice here. At the entrance to the property a menagerie of figures stared back at her—a rough-hewn grizzly raised one paw in eternal salute, two polished does lifted their noses t
o forever sniff the air. Off to one side stood Mitchell’s latest work, and she could just make out the cougar inside the wood.
“You’re very talented,” she told him as he stepped outside to join her.
“Thank you. It’s just something I do to get my mind off work.”
In the dappled light sneaking between the spreading limbs, he resembled Ben more than she realized. Her crazy scheme to have her partner stand in for him should’ve played out perfectly.
But she hadn’t counted on one thing. Emma knew her prey, even after years away from him. That one mistake left her partner… No, he’s more than that now… One mistake left him fighting for his life, and left her wondering if she would ever discover all the things he could be to her.
“Are you sure she’ll come here?” Peter asked.
“I’m afraid so.”
“I wish I’d stayed home this week.”
“If you had, you might be the one who…” Her words trailed off as she pictured Ben lying unconscious on the floor. Shaking away her concern for the man who’d become more to her than she realized, she said, “Trust me. You’re better off here.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. She’s already invaded my home.”
Thinking about the blood staining his expensive rug, seeping into his carefully maintained life, she suppressed a shudder. “I know it won’t be easy…”
“But it’s more than that,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “This has always been the one place where I can be myself. I built this house with my own hands. I made these sculptures. I planted those shrubs. Nothing bad ever happens here. I hoped nothing ever would. Now you’re telling me some psychotic woman I haven’t seen since high school is trying to kill me. Someday, if I found the right person to share it with, I wanted to have this be the one place my family could come to and feel safe. After this, I don’t even know if I can feel safe here.”
Jace put a hand on his arm. She understood. Her own home was her safe haven away from the job, too. She couldn’t imagine having some deranged killer violating that.
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