Samantha swiped a stray tear and sniffed. “Fine. What can I do?”
Connor pulled her back into his arms. “Pray.”
Kit slapped the next picture over and rubbed her eyes. She’d looked through them all and nothing. Despair tightened its grip around her heart. Please, God, please.
Would he listen?
Her phone rang, jarring her from her thoughts. She checked the caller ID and didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
“Detective Kenyon?”
“Yes?” The voice sounded familiar.
“This is Edward Richmond.”
“Hello, Edward, what can I do for you?”
“I’ve been studying this case, following it, you know, and I think I may have something for you. Something the DA didn’t tell you.”
“Really? What’s that?”
“I have a letter from Bonnie to Mr. Wells. I . . . um . . . well, I hate to spread tales, but I’m just . . . well, it wouldn’t be ethical for me to sit on this.” A sigh filtered over the phone. “I also have a box he asked me to keep for him in my cubicle they call an office.”
“A box?”
“Yes, it had a lock on it and he said it was a surprise birthday gift for his wife, and he asked me to hide it because she drops in on him on a regular basis. Only . . . I just looked in it.”
A definite feeling of unease flooded through her. “And what made you look in that box?”
Edward gave a small laugh. “Actually, I’d forgotten all about it until about ten minutes ago when I came in to do some catch-up work. When I saw it, I couldn’t decide what to do with it. I thought I’d just drop it by the Wells home, then I decided I’d take a look inside. So, I picked the lock. When I found the letter, I looked through the rest of the stuff and I . . . um . . . thought you might want to know about it.”
“I do. Tell me about the letter.”
A pause, then the rustle of some paper. “I really hesitate to do this, but . . .” More hesitation.
Kit encouraged. “It’s fine, Edward. If this is something I need to help catch a killer, please don’t hold back on me.” Had they been wrong about Stephen the whole time? After all, his wife as an alibi was pretty flimsy. And he had hidden the pictures. He’d also had newspaper clippings and police reports detailing all of the crime scenes.
A feeling of fury surged through her. Had he been playing them the whole time?
“Okay, I know. You’re right. The letter is basically Bonnie saying that if Stephen didn’t leave his wife, she was going to expose him and ruin his career.”
The breath blew out of Kit. “Whoa.” She made up her mind. “Never mind about reading the letter, Edward, I’ll just come get it, but what else was in the box?”
“Um . . . some little miniature gavels and . . .”
Kit shot out of her seat. “Where are you? I’m on my way.”
The Judge smiled at the baby in his arms as he approached the door to the house. “This is your new home, Andy.” He frowned. “We’ll have to change your name. How about Ed? Eddie? Yeah,” he breathed. “Eddie Junior. I like that. What do you think about that?”
Eddie yawned and scrubbed his eyes. A frown formed on his face and he stuck a fist into his mouth. The Judge was amused. How could his little boy fit that big fist into his mouth? Oh, this was going to be fun.
The Judge opened the door and stepped inside. He went up the stairs and into the room he’d share with Kit once they were married.
Alena had been working hard on the ropes that bound her wrists, he noticed. “Give it up, Alena. You can’t get away.”
“Why are you doing this?” she pleaded with him.
“Because you deserve a better life.”
“I liked my life just the way it was!” she screamed.
The Judge flinched and tightened his hold on the baby.
Eddie let out a squall and the Judge felt his blood pressure rising. “Shut up, Alena. I don’t like it when people yell at me.”
Alena let out a choked laugh, then whatever she saw in the Judge’s expression made her clamp her lips together and close her eyes. “Edward, will you please let me go?”
At her soft request, the Judge felt himself loosen a bit. “If I let you go, will you get Eddie something to eat? I think he’s hungry.”
Alena blinked at the request and the Judge realized she hadn’t noticed the baby in his arms until just now. She gasped and her eyes went wide. “Andy?”
He smiled. “So you already know him?”
“Yes, that’s Kit’s nephew.”
“Wrong!” The Judge felt the rage building. Had he chosen so stupidly? When she cringed, he told himself to calm down. He had to explain things to her. “Wrong,” he said softly. Eddie Junior started to cry and the Judge felt the shift inside him once again.
Be calm, Alena, be calm. Take control. Say what you need to say. She tried to remember everything Kit had ever told her about being a hostage negotiator. She could almost hear Kit encouraging her. “Say whatever it takes to get the situation under control.” He’d told her to call him the Judge or Big Brother. All right, that’s what she would do.
Alena pulled in a deep breath and looked into the eyes of the man she’d once considered a friend. “All right. I’m sorry. What do you want me to do . . . um . . . big brother?”
Almost like magic, her captor’s eyes lost that mad gleam that sent shivers of terror through her. He left the room for a short time, then returned with a knife in his hands. “I’m going to cut the ropes on your wrists and then you’re going to go into the kitchen and fix your nephew, my son, a bottle and then you’re going to feed it to him, understand?”
Her nephew? His son?
“Okay.”
“And if you try to run, I’ll kill him, then I’ll kill you. Am I clear?”
“Yes.” Her eyes darted to the recliner in the corner. His harsh laugh jerked her attention back to him.
“I see you’ve met Father.”
“That’s your father?”
“Indeed. Did he say much while I was gone?”
Another glance to the recliner. Did he think the man in the chair could actually talk? “Um. No. He didn’t say a word.”
The Judge . . . er . . . Big Brother frowned. “Huh. He never shuts up when it’s just the two of us.”
Alena felt the panic grab at her throat and had to take several breaths to keep the screams at bay. Play along, she told herself, just play along. “Right.”
He approached her and she shuddered as he drew close. A whimper escaped and she clamped her teeth down hard on her tongue.
After a few tugs, the ropes fell free. He did the same with her feet. All one-handed, holding the now fussing baby Andy in his left arm.
“Here.” He shoved the baby into her arms, and she grasped him close, doing her best not to drop him as the blood started flowing through her throbbing limbs again.
Then hope surged as she realized that if Andy was here, Kit and Andy’s parents couldn’t be too far behind. She just had to stay alert and be prepared to escape when the opportunity presented itself.
She pulled in a deep breath. “All right, show me where the formula is.”
Kit looked at the clock. Fifty-seven minutes had passed since Andy had disappeared from the airport.
Her phone rang and she snatched it up. Dakota’s voice filled her ear. “We found Olivia Pappas. Actually, a maid found her on the floor in one of the rooms at the Crescent Inn. She’s alive but barely. She has a bullet in her head so there’s not much hope. Ballistics will have to tell us if the bullet matches the ones found in our other victims, but I’m guessing we already know the answer to that.”
Grief for Alena punched her. She knew how close she was to her mother. But she didn’t have time to dwell on that right now. At least she was still alive. “All right. I’m going to pick something up from Edward Richmond. He says he has some evidence that points back to Stephen Wells as the killer.”
“What? I thought he was
cleared. Well, except for the obstruction of justice thing.”
“He was. And probably won’t face any time for those obstruction charges. But I’m going to check it out and will be in touch.”
“Good deal. Talk to you soon.”
Kit hung up and dialed Noah’s number. No answer. Not bothering to leave a message, she climbed behind the wheel of her car and headed to the address Edward had given her.
Noah’s phone rang as he pulled into the parking lot of the office. Connor and Samantha sat in the backseat. She’d refused to go home and Noah could understand her rabid need to help.
“Hello?” He held up a finger to halt Connor and Samantha’s exit from the vehicle.
The voice on the other end said, “There’s been something found in one of the apartments on campus that seems to be linked to your serial killer case. The captain wants you over there ASAP.”
“Give me the location.” Noah wrote down the information. “I’m on my way.” He looked back at Connor and Samantha and relayed what he’d heard. “Are you two going with me or going inside?”
“We’re with you,” Connor growled. “If there’s evidence, I want to know what it is.”
“Me too,” Sam agreed.
Noah restarted the car and headed for the law school campus.
Kit arrived at the address given to her by Edward and parked in front of the small house. It had been easy to find, only a few miles from the law school campus.
A two-story small brick, it sat on the back of the lot on about an acre and a half of land. The houses in the neighborhood looked run-down and weary, as did this one. Not poverty stricken or ready for the wrecking ball, but definitely in need of some repair.
She wondered why Edward lived in a campus apartment when he had this place so close.
Shrugging off her curiosity, realizing there could be a million reasons why he wouldn’t want to live at home, she cut the engine and climbed out. Cramming the keys into her front pocket, she strode up the front walk.
The door opened and Edward smiled at her.
40
Noah climbed the stairs to the third floor of the apartment building. Connor and Samantha followed behind. He had a CSU team on standby in case this turned out to actually be related to the case.
“3B,” Connor said.
“Got it.” Noah stopped outside the door, raised his hand, and rapped on it.
The door opened so fast he realized the young man now facing him had been waiting just inside. “I’m Jeff. Come in. You gotta see this. I mean, this is just too weird, man.”
Noah placed a hand on his shoulder. “Just calm down. Show me what you found.”
Upon walking farther into the den area, Noah noticed another young man seated on the couch. “Gordon?”
“Hi, Detective Lambert.”
“How are you mixed up in this?”
Gordon held up his hands as though in surrender. “I’m not, I promise. All I was doing was tossing a baseball back and forth, and it rolled into the bedroom at the end of the hall.”
Jeff picked up the story. “And when it did, it went under the bed and knocked into this box.”
“Show me.”
Jeff led the way. Connor and Samantha brought up the rear. Entering the room, Noah noticed an opened box in the middle of the twin bed. “How’d the box get up here?”
A flush appeared on Jeff’s already ruddy features. “Um . . . well, I got a little nosey and looked inside. I thought maybe it was, uh . . . you know.”
“Dirty magazines?”
A shrug. Jeff looked at the floor, then back up. “But it wasn’t.” He swallowed hard. “It’s newspaper clippings. I started going through them and realized they were of all of the murders. Then I noticed the school schedules for several different students and even their home addresses, family member names. Weird stuff. Why would he have this unless he was somehow involved in the killings?”
Noah called the CSU team, then looked at Jeff. “So who is your roommate?”
“Edward Richmond.”
For some reason, a strange, uneasy twist to her stomach alerted Kit to be on her guard. Against what, she wasn’t sure, but she never ignored that feeling.
All of a sudden, the gun on her hip felt reassuring. Edward beckoned her inside, and she stepped through the door into a small foyer.
The minute the door shut behind her, the odor hit her. Stale, musty, closed up—and lingering in the air, the unmistakable smell of death.
“Edward, what’s going on?”
“Come inside, Kit, don’t keep us waiting.”
“Us?”
“Your family. We’ve been waiting on you.”
Her family? Waiting on her?
“What are you talking about?”
He gave an odd little giggle and pressed his hand to his mouth. And with a blast of clarity it hit her. The video clip from the airport played in her mind. The switching of the cups, the hand pressed against his lips.
Edward Richmond.
The serial killer she’d been chasing.
And she’d just walked into his house without backup.
Drawing in a deep breath, she ordered herself to keep calm. “Oh, hey, I left something in my car. I’ll be right back.”
She turned to find herself staring down the business end of a gun.
“I don’t think so.”
Immediately, she went into negotiator mode. Using a soothing, quiet voice, she asked, “Why did you kill Alena’s mother?” No sense in letting the man know she was still alive. She might very well be dead anyway.
“She’d lost her usefulness.” He waved a hand as though to dismiss the topic. Unfortunately, the gun didn’t waver.
Kit pushed her hands into her front pockets and leaned against the nearest wall. An attempt to show that she was comfortable and willing to listen to whatever Edward had to say. He seemed to be waiting on her, so she said, “That was very clever of you to disguise yourself as a woman in the airport.”
Surprise flickered. “I thought so, but how did you figure it out?”
She wanted to blast him and yell at him that he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was, but she clamped down the impulse. He had Andy and Alena somewhere. Probably in this house. She said softly, “Your hands gave you away.”
A pause. “My hands?”
“When you switched the coffee cups. You just don’t have very feminine hands.”
He seemed to be thinking about that. “I should have shaved the hair on them, I suppose.” Another moment of silence. “But you wouldn’t have recognized my hands. It was something else, wasn’t it? What did I do to give myself away?”
“You have the habit of pressing your lips with your fingers when you’re amused. I saw you do it the day Brian shot the guy in the trailer. And again at Bonnie Gray’s house. Then a couple more times. You did it at the airport in view of the security video—and just now.”
“You’re very observant, aren’t you?”
“I try.” No sense in reminding him that’s what made her good at her job. Noticing the little things, registering the details. “Where are Andy and Alena?”
“They’re where I want them for now. And it’s not Andy, it’s Eddie.”
So he did have them. Kit studied the man before her. He had the gun pointed away from her at the moment. Could she get to hers before he could raise and fire his?
“Give me your gun.”
She startled. Had something in her face given away her thoughts?
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because if you don’t, Alena and Eddie will die before you can blink.” He let that sink in for about two seconds, then demanded again. “Now, I’m just going to ask you one more time. If you hesitate, they die. Actually, we all die. Very simple. Now . . . give me the gun.”
Without hesitation, Kit reached down to her holster and grasped the butt of the gun.
“Slowly,” he ordered. “If you shoot me and I die, so do they.”
What
did he have rigged?
A bomb?
How would they die if he died? Did he have something rigged to himself that would transfer to Andy and Alena?
She couldn’t take a chance. “I don’t want them to die. You can have the gun.”
A triumphant smile lit his face. But it never reached his eyes. Why hadn’t she ever noticed his cold, flat eyes before?
“I thought you’d feel that way.” He grabbed the gun from her outstretched hand and shoved it into the waistband of his pants. “In fact, I knew you would.”
Kit shuddered. What made him so confident? He knew something she didn’t and was reveling in that fact. “Why is that, Edward? How would you know what I would or wouldn’t do?” She kept her voice calm, in spite of the anxiety and fear shooting through her. Please don’t let him hurt Andy. Help me get Andy out of here.
“That day of the shooting, I knew.”
“The shooting?”
“When the sniper killed that man you tried so hard to save. It was that day that I knew.”
“Knew what?” Her heart beat double time. She drew in a deep breath. In through her nose, out through her mouth. Control. Focus. Use your skills. She pushed away her desperate need to know about Andy and Alena and drilled Edward with her attention.
He continued, “That you were the one. You were so passionate, so furious with that SWAT guy. You were willing to do anything to save that man in the trailer. And I knew you were the one I wanted for the mother of my child. If you would do that for someone you knew for just a few hours, I could only imagine what you would do for someone you love. Tell me, Kit, would you do anything, sacrifice everything to protect your child?”
“Yes.” One simple word. A world full of meaning.
“And you’d never leave that child, would you?” Edward’s voice sent waves of fury pulsing through her. “Abandon your little boy who needed you? Needed a mother’s love?”
A Killer Among Us Page 26