Three (Count to Ten Book 3)

by Jane Blythe

  Not wanting to contaminate the crime scene, Xavier turned and was about to head back to the front door to go and see which house the remaining Mendleson had fled to, when he heard muffled breathing.

  Scanning the room, his eyes settled on a door on the far side of the room. He picked his way carefully across the floor, carefully avoiding the bloody footprints that dotted the carpet. Opening the door to the en suite bathroom, he surveyed the white tiled room. The shower curtain was fully drawn. Taking a step toward it, Xavier was just about to reach a hand to pull it back when something suddenly flew at him.

  More like a someone.

  Screeching and screaming and moaning, the person kicked and clawed and swung at him.

  It didn’t take Xavier long to subdue them, though.

  The person was older than him and nowhere near as fit and strong. Within seconds, he’d wrapped an arm around the squirming form.

  “Shh, Mrs. Mendleson,” he murmured in the woman’s ear. “It’s all right. I'm a police officer. Detective Montague. You're safe now.”

  The woman in his arms suddenly went limp. Tightening his grip on her, he eased Helena Mendleson down to the floor, propping her up against the side of the bath.

  “I…I…th…thought you…you…were him,” she gasped, her eyes squeezed closed. “I thought he came back. I heard…heard footsteps. Then…then the door…door started to open. I pa…panicked.”

  He scanned the woman from head to toe. She was naked and drenched in blood. The skin beneath was snow pale. Her teeth chattered and she was trembling. Clearly, she was in shock. Hopefully beyond that she wasn’t injured.

  “Mrs. Mendleson?” He hooked a finger under her chin and tilted her face up. Ever so slowly the woman’s eyes opened, glassy with shock, and struggled to focus on him. “Are you hurt?”

  “I…I…I don’t…I’m not…” she stammered helplessly.

  Giving her a reassuring smile, Xavier began to quickly run his hands up and down her body, coming to a stop on her right arm where he found a nasty looking gash. Standing quickly, he grabbed a towel from the rack on the back of the bathroom door, and a washcloth from the side of the sink. Wrapping the towel around the shaking woman’s shoulders, he took her injured arm and pressed the washcloth to the wound.

  She stared in disbelief at her arm. “I didn’t even feel that,” she murmured. Then her tear-filled brown eyes lifted to meet his. “Tyler’s dead.”

  “I know; I'm sorry.” He tried to keep his voice gentle when he was mentally beating himself up because he was responsible. If he hadn't let Ricky Preston go, then this woman wouldn’t be suffering right now.

  “He killed him,” Helena continued. “He hit him over and over again. I didn’t think he’d ever stop. Over and over again. Tyler wasn’t moving. He just laid there. There was so much blood,” she babbled.

  “Can you describe the man?” Xavier asked.

  Her head bobbed up and down so violently that Xavier put a hand on the back of her neck to stop it. “He was tall. Really tall. And he had dark hair. He was so excited by the blood. He kept staring at it. And after…after…after Tyler stopped moving, he rubbed blood all over himself. Then he kind of danced around the room.” Words were tumbling out of her mouth so quickly he could barely follow what she was saying.

  “How did you get free?”

  “He must have cut the tape binding me while he was cutting Tyler. At first I didn’t realize. I was lying so still. I thought he was going to kill me, too. He injected us with something. Knocked us out and tied us up. He cut our clothes off with scissors. He said he would have raped me, but he didn’t have time. Then he started swinging the axe. So many times. I just laid still. I thought maybe he’d think I was dead, too. But he never even looked at me. Once I thought he was gone I reached for Tyler and realized I could move one hand. It took me a while but I got the rest of the tape off. Then I called the police, and I was so scared he’d come back, so I hid. I can't believe this is happening. It must be a dream.” She looked at him desperately, pleading for him to confirm this.

  “Okay, shh, it’s all right; you're safe now,” Xavier soothed.

  Sobbing, she collapsed forward against his chest, clawing at his shirt with her good hand and clinging to him. “I have to call Tyler’s daughters and my children,” she continued to ramble.

  “I’ll call them,” he assured her. He decided it was best to get her out of the house, hoping that might calm her down a little. Clearly Helena was in no shape to walk out on her own steam, so he fastened the washcloth around her arm and scooped her off the ground.

  An ambulance and several cop cars pulled up in front of the house as he walked out the front door, and he deposited Helena on a gurney, and with another assurance that he’d call her family, left her in the capable hands of the EMTs. Then he headed for Diane Jolly’s car as he noticed the CSU tech pull up to the curb.

  “You’re okay, right?” she said as soon as she climbed out of her car, her eyes focused on his blood-streaked shirt.

  “Yeah, it’s the victim’s blood,” he assured her, making a mental note to change ASAP. He didn’t want to get distracted and arrive home tonight covered in blood. That would completely freak Annabelle out, and she was strung out enough as it was right now. “This is Ricky. I know it is,” he told Diane. “I feel it.”

  “We need proof, though,” she reminded him. “And, so far, we have nothing on him.”

  “Helena Mendleson just told me that the killer said he didn’t have time to rape her. Ricky Preston plans everything out to the tiniest detail. He’s meticulous. He wore gloves last time. But he loves blood. I'm sure he couldn’t have resisted touching it. What if he took the gloves off at the Landers, but put them back on before he touched anything other than the blood on himself?”

  She narrowed her brown eyes at him. “Where are you going with this?”

  “He picked these victims for a reason. He met them somewhere. When we find the link, we’ll find him. Something messed him up for tonight’s kill. He was running late, worried about having enough time to finish up. What if he forgot to put his gloves back on after he touched the blood? He could have left prints somewhere.”

  Diane’s eyes sparked with hope. “On it.” She grabbed her kit and hurried toward the house. She paused briefly at the door to throw on gloves and booties before disappearing inside.

  Xavier stood, watching officers bustle about, the paramedics tend to Helena, and neighbors slowly start to trickle out of their houses to brave the cold now that they realized something exciting was happening in their sleepy little street. He was so sure that this was the work of Ricky; he just had to prove it. Then they just had to find Ricky so they could arrest him. Once he was in custody, things would finally be over for Annabelle, and they could finally have a life.

  “Xavier.”

  He looked over his shoulder to see Diane waving wildly at him from just inside the Mendlesons’ front door. He jogged over to her, hardly daring to hope. “Did you get something?”

  She grinned broadly up at him. “I got a bloody fingerprint on the door handle.”

  * * * * *

  2:45 P.M.

  “Why are you here?” Ryan looked up, surprised to see his partner walking toward him.

  She frowned at him like he was an idiot. “I work here.”

  “I know that,” he replied patiently. He was on edge; he hadn't slept after his talk with Sofia last night, just laid there and held her sleeping body in his arms and promised her that he would somehow make everything better for her. However, despite his edginess, he was worried enough about Paige to remain calm with her. If he wanted to drag out of her what was bothering her, then he had no choice.

  “So were you a co-conspirator?” she demanded, dropping down into the chair at the table that was furthest away from where he sat.

  Raising a querying brow, he asked, “What?”

  “I would have been here earlier this morning, only my husband drugged me,” Paige ground out.r />
  “What?” Ryan really and truly had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Elias decided that I wasn’t looking after myself up to his standards, so he had no choice but to crush up sleeping pills and put them in my tea.” She was clearly still stewing about that. She glared at him. “So, were you in on it?”

  Ryan winced at what had been a mistake on Elias’ part, but he completely understood the desire to protect someone you cared about. Ryan wondered how long Elias was going to pay for it. “I had nothing to do with that,” Ryan assured her. “But I do think you should have stayed home today. You nearly passed out in my arms not even twenty-four hours ago.”

  “I’m fine,” Paige said tightly. “Elias took me home yesterday just like you wanted. He made me eat and then he put me to bed—where I slept just fine,” she added.

  “No, you didn’t,” he contradicted. “I texted Elias several times last night to check on you, and he said you were up half the night.”

  That earned him a frown. “Look, I’m okay now. I don’t want to hear any more about it.” With that she picked up some papers and began to read, effectively shutting him out.

  He breathed deeply to squash all traces of irritation. The fact that Paige looked tired and drawn and had black smudges under her eyes made it easier. He’d wait until she had calmed down before bringing up whatever was upsetting her. For now, he’d focus on the case. After letting Paige read in silence for a few minutes, he began cautiously, “I was thinking about Isabella.”

  “What about her?” Paige didn’t look up from whatever she was reading.

  “Before, with her family, she was mission oriented,” Ryan explained. “She was killing them because she blamed them for not stepping in and stopping Logan from murdering those girls. She thought that she—and Sofia—would be better off if their family no longer existed. It was all about achieving that goal. She didn’t deviate from her plan. She didn’t stop until her self-appointed mission was completed.”

  Finally looking up at him, Paige nodded. “So, you think she has a new mission?”

  “She believed before that what she was doing was for the good of others. I'm sure she thinks the same thing now. Roman Hitacheel was a habitual adulterer. Logan senior paid women to get pregnant with his children since his wife struggled to get pregnant and carry to term. I don’t think that it’s too much of a stretch to say that she thinks her grandfather’s adultery was the start of her family’s problems, and therefore she has a thing against cheaters. I was wondering whether she knows Roman Hitacheel; he could have been a friend of the family.”

  Paige considered it. “We can ask Sofia if she knows the Hitacheels. If Isabella did know him, it wasn’t up close and personal.”

  “Agreed. She didn’t make him suffer. Everything she did was simply to serve her purpose; there was no unnecessary cruelty. Totally unlike what she did to her family. Logan senior, Logan junior, Brooke, Gloria, Lewis and Lincoln: she was angry with them and it came out in what she inflicted on them. She wanted them to know just how angry she was. But with Roman, she just killed him—albeit not in a very pleasant manner, but it wasn’t in the same league as her other murders.” Ryan shivered at the memory of some of the horror Isabella had inflicted. “We should talk to Sofia and find out if we’re right and her family knows the Hitacheels, and then if she knows of any other family friends where the husband was cheating, maybe we can get ahead of Isabella. Predict who she’s going after next and preempt it.”

  He paused when Paige lifted her phone. She turned pale and her expression was one of fear. She shoved the phone back into her bag and bounded for the door.

  Jumping up after her, he was closer to the door and managed to block her path. He stopped her with a hand on her arm, “Paige, wait. What’s going on?”

  “It’s nothing,” she murmured, refusing to meet his gaze.

  He gave her a gentle shake. “You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you? What is going on?”

  Her eyes rose slowly to meet his. “I don’t want to worry you.”

  “Too late,” he informed her. “I'm already plenty worried.” Guiding her back to the table, he eased her down into a seat, pleased when she didn’t make a move to resist. Taking the chair beside her, he implored, “Talk to me.”

  She let out a deep shuddering breath. “I've been getting these text messages.”

  Not liking the sound of that, he asked, “From whom?”

  “I'm not sure exactly.”

  Clearly Paige wasn’t going to make this easy for him. “Who do you think they’re from?”

  She began to fidget with her hands, which were coiled tightly in her lap. “While you were taking time off to help Sofia recover, I arrested this guy. He broke in to someone’s house to rob them, only they came home early and he panicked and beat them to death. His fingerprints were all over the house. We found him the next day, but he kind of…”

  “Kind of what?” he prodded when Paige didn’t continue.

  “He kind of latched on to me, and not in a good way. Not that there is a good way, I guess. I mean, he’s a criminal. A murderer. So there really wouldn’t be…”

  “Paige,” he interrupted her rambling and put a hand over hers to still them. “Did he threaten you?”

  Bleak eyes looked back at him and she nodded.

  “And now you think he’s harassing you?”

  Another dismal nod.

  “But he’s locked up, right?”

  “Yes, his lawyer convinced him to take a plea. But I’m sure he must have friends on the outside, and I keep getting these texts from someone saying that they’re watching me, and I should be careful, and…”

  “And it has you freaked out,” he finished for her. “Let’s trace the number and find out who’s harassing you and we’ll go pick them up.”

  “Can’t. It’s never the same number, just the same message.”

  He was perplexed; it was plain to see that Paige was shaken up by this, so why hadn't she come to him? “I don’t understand why you didn’t just tell me.”

  “I'm sorry. I'm sorry for freaking out, and I'm sorry I didn’t tell you. I've been threatened by criminals I've arrested before; I don’t know why this one upset me so much.”

  “Nice try,” he said wryly. He could read his partner like a book, and she most definitely knew why this had upset her so much. “You can tell me; you know that, right? Whatever it is, I'm here for you.”

  Indecision was battling in her eyes, she looked like she just needed a tiny bit more of a push.

  “Come on, Paige, talk to me. Please.” The ‘please’ always worked with Sofia when she was debating opening up to him or not.

  “I'm a little sensitive about stalkers.” She was looking at him anxiously. “I know what Sofia is going through with hers. I know because my mom had a stalker when I was a kid. She didn’t even know him. He dropped some groceries in the rain one afternoon and she stopped to help him pick them up. That was all it took. He became obsessed with her. He wrote letters, he called her, he would turn up at our house. She kept telling him that she was happily married but that only made him angry. And then one night…”

  “One night what, Paige?” he pressed gently.

  Tears were glittering in her eyes. “One night he turned violent. Broke in while my dad was at work. He tied up my mom and my brothers and little sister, and then he, uh, he…” She drew in a ragged breath as tears began to spill down her cheeks. “Then he was going to rape me. He already had my clothes off when my dad arrived home and shot him. He died instantly. Collapsed on top of me. I… I had his blood all over me. I just screamed and screamed.”

  Wrapping his arms around her, he held Paige while she cried. She remained stiff in his arms but didn’t resist his comfort. “Shh,” he soothed, “it’s all right now. Shh.”

  “I was fourteen, I was so scared, I kind of shut down after it happened. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t stay in that house. I couldn’t go to school. I
couldn’t do anything. My parents put me in a hospital for a while. Eventually I got better, went on with my life, but being harassed by this guy has kind of brought it all back up.”

  “I'm sorry, honey.” He wished Paige had told him this earlier. “Elias knows about all of this, right? Is that why he drugged you?”

  She nodded against his shoulder. “He didn’t like that I had nightmares last night; he’s worried I'm going to fall apart again.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Right now, Ryan was hating stalkers. The hell that Paige and her family had been put through and the hell that Sofia was now suffering, all because of people who thought there was more to a relationship than what there really was.

  “It’s embarrassing.” She tugged herself out of his arms and brushed at her red-rimmed eyes. “I'm a cop, I don’t like people knowing that I had a nervous breakdown.”

  “You were fourteen,” he reminded her. “You were traumatized, there’s absolutely nothing for you to feel embarrassed about.”

  She shrugged uncomfortably. “So, now you know it all. That’s why I was a little preoccupied yesterday and forgot to eat.”

  “We’ll look into who’s stalking you. We’ll go talk to this guy you arrested and get him to tell his friends to back off. We’ll sort this out, Paige, but until we do, I don’t think it’s safe for you to go anywhere alone.”

  “Ryan,” she protested immediately. “I'm a cop. I can take care of myself. Right now, let’s just focus on finding Isabella. And speaking of which, when I couldn’t go back to sleep last night I was thinking about her, about how she may have gotten her hands on the drugs.”

  Obviously, both the topic of what she’d been through as a kid, and her current situation, were now closed. “You got a theory?”

  “Actually, yes.” She shot him a shaky smile as she brushed away the last of her tears. “As far as we know, Isabella doesn’t have access to money anymore. And I'm not sure she had the connections to know where to go to buy the drugs she used. What if she’s working at a hospital? She planned her entire killing spree down to the last detail, so she could easily have made sure she got false papers and a new identity while she still had access to money. If she has been working in a hospital, she would have access to drugs and the medical supplies she used.”