“No, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
There was a flash of movement off to the side of the room. Reggie was at an angle where she could see it, but she was pretty sure Pam couldn’t.
It was Bella.
The canine crept forward with more care than Reggie had ever seen the dog use in her life. Reggie did what she could not to stare. There was a chance here, if Pam didn’t notice.
But Reggie would have to keep her distracted. “You said it was your boy?”
Pam nodded. “He was fourteen. Way too young.”
Bella crept closer.
“I’m sorry, Pam. I really am.”
“You are,” the woman said, her face twisting in fury. “But you’re not one of them, are you?”
Reggie put all the warmth and compassion into her voice that she could muster. “I’m not, Pam. But I know what it feels like to be discriminated against.”
“No! That’s not what’s happening here. This is about justice for my boy.”
Bella was so close.
“But your boy is gone, Pam,” Reggie murmured. “He’s not coming back.”
“No, but I can take out as many of these people as possible while I’m still here.” She moved in with the scalpel, ready to cut into Coop’s ear.
But just then Bella launched herself at the woman’s ankle, causing her to fall back and away from Agent Cooper. She was an exposed target for one brief moment.
Reggie took the shot.
Pam flew back, her chest an open gaping wound that spurted blood. She stumbled back and fell to the ground, clutching at the hole in her midsection.
She had always intended to wound the woman. Clip her in the shoulder to incapacitate her, and then maybe… down the line… rehabilitation. That was what Reggie had always believed in.
But with her friend’s life on the line, she hadn’t wanted to take any chances. And as the woman’s cries grew more and more faint, Reggie just stared at her, watching the life drain out.
The life that Reggie had just taken away from her.
She was pretty sure she would never be the same.
JACK AND JILL – The stunning conclusion to the Nursery Rhyme Murders
PROLOGUE
No amount of preparation ever made you ready for it. When it came, it came like a sack of bricks to the face.
Private First Class Mason Starling read the letter over and over and over. It had only been two weeks. Two weeks since he’d started into Basic.
She couldn’t wait even that long? Really? After three years together in high school, the love of his life was breaking up with him?
And for a guy named Shelly. Actually, now that he stopped to think about it, maybe it wasn’t a guy. Robin never specified in the letter. It was a real possibility that he was losing his high school sweetheart to a woman.
Did that make it better or worse? On some sick level, somewhere past the pain in his chest and the sick feeling in his stomach, there was a deeper, more physical part of him that was already creating the mental image of his lost love with another woman. And he had to admit, it was kinda hot. Maybe he hadn’t been quite as in love with her as he’d thought. Or maybe he was just a pervert.
He shoved the picture from his mind, getting up to get outside the barracks. All of a sudden, he felt like he was suffocating. The air in the barracks was a bit strong at the best of times. And right now was not the best of times.
Outside, it was night, and it was just starting to cool down. The temperature today had been blisteringly hot, and while he hadn’t puked while going through maneuvers today, a couple of his fellow privates had.
It was almost October, for the love of… Wasn’t it supposed to start getting cooler at this point in the year? Apparently no one had informed the Big Man Upstairs of that fact, as the heat continued to pour out of the sun like orange juice out of a pitcher.
But right now, it was better. A bit.
Still hot, still humid… this was Fort Jackson, after all. South Carolina. You might as well be swimming in the air, instead of trying to breathe it. Sometimes Mason wondered if they made recruits go through Boot Camp here just to torture them. He wouldn’t put it past some of the sadistic bastards here in the Army.
In fact, weren’t all of the Basic Training locations found in the South? Were they just looking for the most hellish regions in the US?
What had made him think he had what it took? He wasn’t the worst recruit here, but he wasn’t winning any awards. It was all just an extension of high school. Work your ass off just to get low B’s and C’s. Study for weeks getting ready for the SAT, just to score a freaking 1000. Not terrible. Not the worst. But nothing that would get him any scholarships.
There had only been one thing Mason could do well in high school. He was the top singer in the choir. It hadn’t made him too popular outside of the choir group, but he’d been king every time they’d gone to a competition. But you couldn’t make a living off your voice.
Which explained his choice to go into the Army. Give some to his country, and as long as he managed to stay out of Afghanistan, he could get out and have the money he needed from the government to go to college.
Well, and even if he did get sent over, at least he’d get combat pay. Before, the plan had been to save up for a house, but now…
The pain stabbed through him once more.
No, it wasn’t any better to think of Shelly as a woman. That just made Mason think he’d turned her off guys. But to imagine Robin’s new love as some douchebag named Shelly wasn’t much better. He probably wore pastel Lacoste shirts with golf shorts and topsiders. Preppy bastard.
Mason stumbled as he left the pool of light that surrounded the building. It was possible that he could get written up for this… it was past curfew… but right now he didn’t care. All he could feel was the searing pain in his chest, the hollow pit in his gut.
Without warning, a long metal something from out of the darkness struck him across the jaw. Lights burst behind his eyes as pain blossomed in his head, and his perception of the world around him was rocked. The horizon tilted in front of him.
What was going on?
Another blow, this one to his shoulder. He felt the bone crack as he cried out in the agony of the combined blows.
“Shhh….” came a voice from right behind him, as a hand was placed over his mouth with an irresistible grip. “Don’t squeal, little Private. Can’t have that.”
The voice was masculine, but high… a tenor voice. Strange, the things you thought of when you were in mortal danger.
He reached back with his undamaged hand and raked his fingernails across the man’s arm. His hand came back wet with blood.
Struggling against the man’s grip, Mason felt his broken arm screaming in pain every time he shifted. Trying to use one of the defensive moves he’d learned during unarmed combat training, he slumped to try to catch his attacker off guard, then aimed a kick at the man’s instep while lashing back with his head.
But his attacker had been prepared for that. When Mason’s leg landed, there was no target there. The man’s legs had danced out of the way at the same moment his assailant had ducked his head to the side. It was like he had read Mason’s mind.
Another blow with the metal whatever-it-was to the back of Mason’s skull, and the world started to fade to black. As he lost consciousness, he could hear the man’s voice as he murmured in his ear.
“Don’t worry, Private. You won’t die just yet.” There was a pause, and Mason felt a finger being traced along his cheek.
“We’re going to have some fun, first.”
CHAPTER 1
A song played through former FBI agent Joshua Wright’s mind.
Jack and Jill went up the hill…
It had been Livvie’s favorite song. He would sing it to her when she would wake up in the middle of the night with bad dreams. Or when she was hurt and crying.
Joshua felt his heart bleed with every note that passed through hi
s mind. Looking around, he adjusted his course. Strange, that his feet didn’t know exactly where to go.
Indian Summer on the East Coast. Hot, humid, unpleasant.
But not as unpleasant as what Joshua was about to face.
Bella trotted along at his side, whining up at him. He wanted to reassure her, tell her that he was okay. That everything was going to be all right.
But he didn’t know that.
It had been almost four hours since his last drink, and he could feel the beginnings of the tremors starting in his hands. Dammit. That wasn’t a good sign.
He’d wanted this confrontation to happen while he was sober. At least for the most part. But the thought of going into this weak and shaking wasn’t much better.
Weak and senseless or weak and trembling. Piss poor options, both of them.
But that’s what you got when you were a drunk.
Drunk. Drunken drunk. Drink, drank, drunk.
There was something almost satisfying about that word. Drunk. There were no pretensions with it. Alcoholic was a wuss of a word. Stale. Academic. There was no fault, no blame in alcoholism. It was a disease. Beyond one’s control.
But drunk? Now that was a word that Joshua could get behind.
It was brutal, just like the condition was. There was nothing romantic about a drunk. Sloppy, out of control. It even had the added connotation of stench. No one thought drunk and then imagined a clean, sweet-smelling individual. No, indeed.
A drunk was the guy passed out in an alleyway, stinking of his own vomit and urine. Possibly feces. That was the kind of word drunk was.
And while Joshua no longer looked the part of the homeless wastrel he’d been before Coop had pulled him out of the alleyway behind the bar in NYC, he was still… and would always be… a drunk. That was just the reality of who he’d become.
Problem was, he really needed his wits about him right now. So while the trembling made him feel weak, at least he’d have most of his faculties about him.
Or he would until the headaches started.
As bad as the shakes were, they paled in comparison to the headaches. And Joshua was pretty sure he was feeling the beginnings of one right now.
Of course, that could just be the heat.
Under normal circumstances, this meeting would have been something that Joshua would have avoided like the plague. Once a year was more than enough.
Too much.
But after watching his friends come into harm’s way and being largely helpless to assist, Joshua knew he needed to do something. Plus, it was getting more and more painful to have the woman for whom he was developing serious feelings stare at him with pity in her eyes.
Disgust he could have handled. He was used to that. But pity? No thank you.
The drinking was the reason behind most of those looks, and while he couldn’t really do anything about that at the moment, he could maybe tackle part of the cancer underneath. The pain that drove him toward the bottle.
To fetch a pail of water…
The tune ripped his awareness back in time. Away from Reggie and toward a little girl with golden hair and bright blue eyes.
When Joshua had started working the Humpty Dumpty case and was gone all the time, Livvie had cried and cried when bedtime came around. So Joshua had taped himself singing the song. She would fall asleep to the recording on loop, night after night.
Shutting the rhyme out of his awareness, he grit his teeth. He couldn’t turn back.
Joshua had heard somewhere that exorcising demons might be a good idea, and while he had his doubts, the idea for doing what he was doing now had arisen from that train of thought. But even without any benefit with his drinking, Joshua knew this was something he needed to do. Something he’d needed to do for the past fifteen years.
He faced the house and wondered if he shouldn’t change his mind and run from here as fast as he could. There couldn’t be anything good for him here.
It hadn’t changed much in all these years. The paint was, perhaps, a bit more worn. Cracks and peels were there now that hadn’t been back before…
Joshua didn’t look down the street. Couldn’t.
That was where it had happened. The incident that had taken his life from an orderly, if challenging, existence and turned it into the hell he was now experiencing.
The park.
He turned his mind away from that place of sadness and pain and back to the door in front of him. The door that let into the house that was owned by his father-in-law.
The walkway was cracked, with weeds growing up through the tiny gaps in the cement. The property wasn’t run-down, exactly, but it wasn’t well kept. Not the way it had been fifteen years ago.
Maybe that event had changed them both. Maybe the old man was just as broken as Joshua in his own way.
Or maybe the bastard just couldn’t get around well enough on his own any longer. In their last encounter, it had certainly seemed like Joshua’s father-in-law was having a harder time walking.
Joshua’s wife Jacqueline had been the old man’s youngest daughter, fathered when he was almost fifty. It had been a second marriage for him, and that wife had died in a car accident when Jacquie was nine.
So he had to be… what? Eighty-five now? More? Less?
Didn’t matter. The man wasn’t going to die.
There had been a time in Joshua’s life that he’d wished for that event daily. Something, anything to save him from the searing guilt that washed over him every time he thought of the family he’d lost. The family that his father-in-law took pains to remind Joshua that he’d lost due to his negligence.
But no, the bastard wouldn’t let himself die. Not while Joshua still lived.
He groaned inwardly and fought against his inertia. There was no part of his body that wanted to make the trek across the lawn and up to the porch.
But it was time.
The walkway was far too short. Joshua found himself in front of the door without knowing how he’d crossed the intervening space. At his side, Bella let out a low growl, her hackles raised.
Joshua could feel his pulse in his throat as he stood there, indecisive. The doorbell was right there. He should push it. But he couldn’t make his arm work.
His breathing was rapid and shallow. Dark specks danced in front of his eyes. Okay, that wasn’t good. He couldn’t pass out on his father-in-law’s front porch.
Jerking his arm up by sheer force of will, Joshua pressed the bell. It gave under the pressure from his finger, but there was no sound.
It didn’t work.
That was it. It was a sign. He wasn’t supposed to do it.
Didn’t matter that he had traveled all this way by train up from Quantico. A day wasted was nothing when it came to this decision. He would just turn around and head back the way he had come.
Only one small problem.
He didn’t believe in signs.
Jack fell down and broke his crown…
Screwing himself up once more, he shook his head to get rid of the song and lifted his hand to rap his knuckles on the wood of the door. But just at that moment, the door swung open.
For a moment, Joshua thought that it had opened on its own, as there was no one there at eye level. Then he realized what was happening.
Joshua’s father-in-law was there, but he was sitting down. The man was in a wheelchair.
There was a long moment in which the two simply stared at one another. Then the wizened bastard started to close the door.
No. That was not happening.
And Jill came tumbling after...
Joshua shoved his foot in the crack, the pain from the door slamming against his ankle sharp and fast. But he could barely feel it over the red surge of anger that flowed up through his entire being.
“Hello, George,” he creaked out. “Happy to see me?”
* * *
Agent Sariah Cooper rushed into Special-Agent-in-Charge Nathan Tanner’s office. The message she’d gotten from him had
been urgent enough that she’d sprinted most of the way here.
The door was cracked, which was her boss’ way of telling her that she didn’t need to knock before entering. When she burst into the room, she was surprised to see that there was an Army officer in the room, standing with the precision that seemed to only come from military training.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” she asked, trying not to pant. Somehow, a female BAU agent who couldn’t catch her breath didn’t seem like the kind of professional impression she wanted to leave on this officer, whoever he was.
“Agent Cooper, thanks for getting here so quickly,” Agent Tanner said, lifting an eyebrow at her.
The eyebrow was one of two things. He was either commenting on her breathless state, or it was a question about Joshua. Considering that he’d basically told her in the message that he needed her in his office in five minutes and it took her ten just to get to Quantico from where she lived, she assumed it was the latter.
Tanner wanted to know if Joshua was here with her. And if he was, whether or not he was blitzed and would cause them embarrassment.
Sariah shook her head no.
Joshua was out there somewhere, off on some secretive mission that he wouldn’t tell anyone about. The last she’d seen of him had been last night, when she’d tried to convince him to at least try going to a 12-step group.
That hadn’t gone so well.
In the first place, Joshua had made it clear what he thought of AA. In the second place, he’d informed her that he had things to do. And when she’d pressed him on what those things might be, he’d clammed up faster than a criminal in the interrogation box.
Sariah shook her head, refocusing on the task at hand. Her response had seemed to cause Tanner to relax, so her assessment had been correct. He didn’t want this meeting interrupted by any of Joshua’s drunken shenanigans.
“Agent Sariah, this is Lieutenant Clevens. He’s here from Fort Jackson in South Carolina.”
“You’re a long way from home, Lieutenant,” Sariah said, extending her hand.
The man took the offered hand and grasped it with a strong grip. Just enough that Sariah could feel his strength, not enough that it felt like an attempt to dominate. It was a greeting between equals.
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