One (Count to Ten Book 1)

by Jane Blythe

  “There’s urine on the pajamas Kaitlin was wearing.” Diane pointed to an evidence bag containing a pair of Winnie the Pooh pajamas.

  “So he slits their throats,” Xavier resumed the narrative. “Catches as much blood as he can, then once they’re all dead he paints them in blood and rolls them around before propping them up in front of their rooms.”

  “Where he cuts off the hands and tongue and rips out the eyes, which instead of leaving with the bodies he places inside the bedrooms on each person’s bed.” Kate was staring at the bodies.

  “Then for some reason, he uses the rest of the blood to paint giant love hearts on every single wall downstairs.” Xavier was struggling to get a handle on this guy; he seemed all over the place. “He didn’t bother to paint their feet this time, and although he left the middle daughter alive, he didn’t really have a choice since she wasn’t home…”

  “Yeah, but did he know that in advance, or did he only find out when he got here?” Kate pondered.

  “He’s certainly escalating with each family,” Xavier mused. “He drugged the Englewoods; he didn’t bother with sedatives at the Jenners but he started to be fascinated by the blood. The Rankling house was covered in blood, but this time he took it a step further and didn’t just put it on himself and dance around, he also painted it on the walls.”

  “He still called it in himself. The nine-one-one operator said this time he could hear laughter in the background,” Kate added for Diane’s benefit.

  “It still feels like all of this has a purpose, that he’s choosing each of these families because they mean something to him. But it also feels like the fascination with blood caught him by surprise and he just went with it. I don’t like it, Kate. This guy is still out there, and we have no solid proof that it’s any of our suspects, and we have no idea how many other families he’s planning on doing this to. Plus, he’s already made one attempt on Annabelle’s life, and we don’t know if he’s going to come back and try again with her and the other victims he left behind.”

  “The real problem,” Kate shot him a dismal glance, “is that we really don’t know anything. Four families, thirteen people dead, four left behind, three suspects, and we still don’t really know anything.”

  * * * * *

  2:48 P.M.

  It had taken her twelve hours just to garner enough courage to get here. And now that she was here, she was super close to backing out.

  Annabelle knew that for once in her life she had to stand up for herself and confront Xavier about playing with her emotions. She was mad, but she wasn’t good at being mad. Annabelle hated it when she knew someone was angry with her and she was pretty sure that Xavier was going to be pretty angry when he found out she had investigated him behind his back. If he was really interested in her, he should have told her everything about Julia himself. Then again, she reminded herself, he wasn’t really interested in her.

  Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she set out determinedly for Xavier’s desk. His partner, Detective Hannah, caught sight of her first and gestured to Xavier that they had company.

  “Annabelle.” He didn’t look that surprised to see her. “Is everything okay?”

  “Is there someplace we can talk?” She didn’t want to have this conversation in a public place; as it was, she was embarrassed enough about her behavior the last few days.

  “Sure.” Looking concerned, Xavier took her arm and guided her to the room they’d spoken in last time she was here. “What’s wrong?” Xavier asked the second they were alone.

  She took a deep breath, steadying her resolve. “I know about Julia,” she informed him.

  “What?” Xavier’s face completely drained of color.

  “This morning, I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to wake you because you were exhausted.” If she could stick with the facts, then she could do this. “I needed something to do to keep my mind off everything, so I got on your computer and…”

  “And you decided to invade my privacy?” he demanded angrily, his pale face turning bright red.

  “You should have told me that after your wife was raped, she went off the deep end and killed a couple so she could steal their baby.” Annabelle still couldn’t believe what Julia had done.

  A mixture of frustration and guilt covered his face. “There was more to it than that.”

  Annabelle raised a suspicious brow. That was all the information she had been able to garner from the Internet.

  Reluctantly, Xavier flopped down into a chair. “Like I told you earlier, Julia never told anyone that she was raped, so I didn’t know there was anything wrong with her, plus I was busy with work and not home a lot. Then Julia was pregnant, and I was really excited. I couldn’t wait to be a dad, give my child the family I always wanted as a kid. I was so wrapped up in the baby that I didn’t notice that Julia wasn’t even slightly excited…”

  “The baby was her rapist’s?” Annabelle asked with shocked horror.

  “Julia wasn’t sure. Her whole pregnancy, she was terrified that the child she was carrying didn’t belong to her husband but the man who had raped her.”

  “That’s awful, why didn’t she say something to you?”

  “I don’t know,” Xavier shook his head dismally. “I didn’t find out until I got the call that Julia had a bloody baby in our house and that there were two dead people in our front yard. I dropped everything when I got the call, and rushed straight home. When I got to our house, there were police everywhere and blood all over the lawn. They wanted me to try and talk Julia down so we could get the baby out safely.”

  “Did you?” she asked with bated breath, forgetting that she’d already read that he had indeed saved the innocent infant.

  “When I went in, Julia was sitting in the nursery we’d prepared for our baby—our daughter who had died. The umbilical cord had wrapped around her neck during birth and strangled her. Anyway, Julia was covered in blood, the baby was covered in blood—her mother’s blood. She’d been in her mother’s arms when Julia shot the woman. The baby was screaming, but Julia didn’t seem to notice, she just kept saying that she was sorry. She told me that she’d been raped and that she hadn't known until the baby was born that it was mine and not her rapist’s. She told me that during her entire pregnancy she had prayed that the baby would die because she thought it wasn’t ours, but when our daughter was born she knew it was our child. She blamed herself for our daughter’s death because of what she’d wished, and she knew how devastated I was not to get to be a dad anymore, so she wanted to make it up to me. She thought that she had let me down, so she killed two people to steal their baby, to give it to me, so I would be a dad again.”

  “I’m really sorry, Xavier.” Annabelle wanted to rest a comforting hand on his arm, but she was too shy.

  “When I took the baby from her arms, she started screaming.” Xavier’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “She asked me how I could not notice that something was wrong with her. She asked what kind of husband I was.”

  “You didn’t know because she didn’t tell you,” she reminded him.

  “I didn’t know because I didn’t want to,” Xavier corrected. “I was too busy with my own life, work, friends, the baby—I was too preoccupied to notice that Julia was falling apart.”

  For a while they both lapsed into silence, Xavier stuck back in time three years ago, Annabelle debating whether to push to get answers to her questions or let it go. She bit the bullet before she could back out. “Xavier, when did you find out I had been raped?”

  “What?” his glazed eyes looked up to meet hers.

  “Did you know all along that I had been raped?” she demanded. “Is that why you developed an interest in me, because I represent a chance to do things right this time?”

  “No!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know that you were raped until just before I took you back to your house. I swear, I told you as soon as I knew. I didn’t want to, but I knew that you needed to know. Annabelle, I am not inter
ested in you because I think I can do things better with you than I did with Julia. I made a mistake with Julia, I should have been paying more attention, but what I feel for you has nothing to do with Julia.”

  “I disagree,” she shook her head adamantly. “I think that you still love Julia and that’s why you didn’t tell me about what happened with her.”

  “I didn’t tell you about Julia because it’s hard for me to talk about.” He thumped his fist on the table. “I feel guilty about her destroying her life, I feel responsible for the couple she killed and for the child that has to grow up without her parents. I'm a police officer and my wife was raped, murdered two people and abducted a baby, and I should have been able to do something to stop that from happening.”

  “You keep all of Julia’s things in boxes in your spare room,” she reminded him. “It was your wife’s clothes you gave me to wear at your house after I found out what had happened to my family.” While working up enough confidence to confront Xavier, Annabelle had gone rummaging through his house in search of something that might prove he really was interested in her; instead, all she had found was box after box of Julia mementos.

  “You had no right to go through my house,” he snapped fiercely. “And for your information, Annabelle, I have gotten rid of most of Julia’s things.”

  “That’s another thing,” she clung to the last tiny spark of her anger at being used, she felt sorry for everything that Xavier had gone through but that wasn’t an excuse for him to use her. “You have to decide if it’s Belle or Annabelle.”

  He shot her a tiredly puzzled frown.

  “At first you called me Annabelle, then when you realized I wasn’t a killer you started using Belle, especially after I told you what the name meant to me. Then I told you I don’t date and you went back to Annabelle. In the fire you called me Belle, and now that you’re mad at me again, it’s Annabelle. You have to decide what you want.”

  “You had no right to go behind my back and look up all about my past,” he ignored her comment completely.

  “You know everything about me,” she countered. “You spoke to everyone I know; you went through my life with a fine-tooth comb.”

  “That was different,” he protested. “We were trying to find someone who hated you or your family enough to commit murder.”

  “I’m sorry I was nosy, but I wanted to understand what would possess you to take an interest in me, and now I do.” Annabelle couldn’t deny it made her sad to think she wasn’t anything special to Detective Xavier Montague, that she was nothing more than a means to an end. “You were just using me, right from the beginning, you used me to assuage your guilt over Julia. You played with my emotions, and that’s not fair, considering everything that’s happened the last few days.”

  “If you really think that I would use you, then you don’t know me at all,” he scowled crossly then stalked to the door.

  “I really don’t,” Annabelle agreed to his departing back.

  Once Xavier had gone, she sunk down into the chair he’d just vacated and tucked her knees up to her chest, retreating inside herself as she had done on many a night as a lonely little girl. She didn’t want to let herself cry, but tears were pricking relentlessly at the back of her eyes, and a sob was building quickly in her chest. Making sure to keep quiet, she allowed herself to let the tears fall.

  * * * * *

  3:26 P.M.

  Every day on this case made her feel worse and worse.

  Kate couldn’t get the picture of Koral Littleton’s shocked and horrified face out of her head. It felt like the image had been burned into her brain. Joining it were Annabelle, Nicole Jenner, and Lorraine Rankling’s faces, all painted with the same look of surreal disbelief at the nightmare they had been thrown into.

  Upon leaving the Littleton house this morning, she and Xavier had gone to inform the fifteen-year-old that she no longer had a family. For a young girl, Koral had handled the news very maturely. She’d cried, she’d attempted denial, she’d been scared about what would happen to her, but all in all, she had managed to hold it together pretty well.

  They’d asked her the usual questions about whether she remembered any strangers hanging around her house, or her or anyone in her family, to which she’d answered no. She had also answered no when they’d asked her if there had been any suspicious phone calls, emails, or letters. They’d asked her if there were any neighbors, colleagues, friends or relatives who may want to hurt her or her family; Koral had said she couldn’t think of anyone. Then they had asked if she knew anyone from the Englewood, Jenner or Rankling family, to which she had once again said no. Neither had she recognized Dr. Daniels, Lachlan Thompson, or Ricky Preston.

  When they had deposited the teenager—her face still a mask of wide-eyed shock—in the care of her maternal grandparents, she and Xavier had returned here to begin another fruitless search for something substantial to point them in the right direction.

  Kate had thought she was making some progress when she’d found that Kitty Littleton’s mother had been a patient of Bruce Daniels when she’d been admitted to the emergency room following a stroke a few months back. With connections now found between Dr. Bruce Daniels and each of the four families, she was pretty sure that would get them a sample of the doctor’s fingerprints to use to compare to the unidentified ones from each of the crime scenes.

  Before she had been able to tell her partner what she’d found, she had noticed their silent guest. Indicating to Xavier that Annabelle was there, she’d been intrigued about what was going on between them when they’d hurried off to talk in private. Still, it didn’t look like she was going to have to wonder much longer. Xavier came stomping over to his desk, his face dark, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

  “What’s up?” she asked as he plopped heavily down into his chair.

  “Annabelle investigated me,” he raged tightly, attempting to keep his voice down so as not to attract the attention of their colleagues. “She knows about Julia.”

  Surprised and impressed, she hadn't thought sweet little Annabelle had it in her to go and research Xavier’s past. “How much does she know?” Most of the articles at the time hadn't filled in all the details of Julia’s crimes.

  “Everything,” he hissed.

  “Everything?” Kate repeated, arching a brow and assuming that meant Xavier had filled in the gaps.

  “Yes, I told her the rest,” he snapped, catching on. “I wanted her to know why Julia shot a woman who was cradling her baby in her arms.”

  “I knew you should have told her about Julia; I was worried if you didn’t, it would all end in disaster.”

  “Annabelle thinks I’m still in love with Julia.”

  “Are you?” Kate honestly wasn’t sure whether her partner was still in love with his wife or not, neither was she sure if Xavier himself even knew the answer to that question.

  “Of course I'm not,” Xavier huffed.

  She caught a slight glint of uncertainty that sparked in his hazel eyes. “I think you need to be sure of that before you pursue anything with Annabelle,” she cautioned.

  “Pursue things with Annabelle?” he repeated incredulously. “How can I ever trust her after this?”

  “You researched her, what’s the difference?”

  “Annabelle said that,” he huffed.

  “Well, she’s a smart girl and you're an idiot. You should have told her yourself; no wonder Annabelle thinks you’re still in love with Julia.”

  “I need some air,” Xavier glared at her.

  “You should talk to Annabelle.”

  “I will,” his glared deepened. “I just need some air.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Where’s Annabelle?”

  “Still in there,” he gestured to the room he’d just left before stalking off.

  Annoyed at Xavier’s stupidity, she wanted to see him happy, not ruin things before they even got off the ground. Deciding her partner was a lost cause for the moment, Kate thought An
nabelle would be the easier one to talk some sense into.

  She halted at the door when she heard Annabelle crying. Kate didn’t want to intrude, but after a minute or so it became clear that Annabelle had a lot of tears still left to spill. Entering quietly, she pulled up a chair and placed a tentative hand on Annabelle’s shoulder.

  Immediately Annabelle’s head popped up, surprise and embarrassment flying across her face. Quickly, she brushed away her tears. “I didn’t know you were there,” she mumbled.

  “Xavier told me you investigated him.” Kate couldn’t help but smile, she was still amused and impressed by Annabelle’s spunk.

  She shrugged. “He’s pretty mad about it.”

  “He doesn’t like to talk about Julia.”

  “Because he’s still in love with her.” Annabelle tucked herself up even tighter. “He has all her things still packed in boxes at his house.”

  Kate hadn't known that. “Xavier blames himself for Julia’s actions,” she explained.

  “He said that.”

  “Part of him knows that Julia made her own choices and she has to live with them. But the other part keeps telling him that if he had spent more time at home, then Julia would never have been raped in the first place; and even if she had, things wouldn’t have gotten out of control.”

  “What was Julia like?”

  “Well,” Kate had to admit that she had never made the effort to get to know Julia that well. She had been a little jealous of the woman for getting Xavier to fall so hard and fast. “Julia was quiet, kind of old-fashioned, very different from what Xavier was like back then. She didn’t like to hang out with him in the middle of the night or have huge parties. She liked to sit at home and watch movies or read or just talk. At first, Xavier tried to do that with her, but it didn’t last. He loved being surrounded by people, not stuck at home. But he really loved Julia and he was determined to make his marriage work. And then when she got pregnant he was so excited about the prospect of being a daddy, and he kept raving on and on about what a great mom Julia would be. He was so devastated when their daughter was stillborn, and then when Julia killed those people so she could have their baby. Xavier lost everyone he cared about all at once. Kind of like you did,” she added gently. “He never had a chance to get closure and properly deal with his feelings.”