by Karen Rose
“Maybe he got greedy,” Dana replied. “We won’t know until we find her, but I’d sure be watching Randi Vaughn closely. Whatever Sue’s got planned for her, it won’t be pretty.”
“What about you, Dana?” Abe asked softly. “What does she have planned for you?”
Dana mentally pushed her thoughts in the box. The box lock was become more fragile each moment. “Not much better. I’m every social worker who ever took her from her parents or made her live where she didn’t want to live, do what she didn’t want to do.”
Mia leveled a stare at Ethan. “Are you armed?”
Ethan nodded, his jaw tight. “Within the parameters of Illinois gun laws, yes.”
Mia’s eyes flickered. “Right. Dana, do you still have your .38?”
Dana thought about her gun, still in the pocket of her robe on her bed where she’d left it in the hurry to get to Evie the day before. Never had she been so careless, leaving her gun loaded, out of its usual hiding place. “In my apartment. Can I go there and get it?”
“I’ll go instead,” Ethan said firmly.
Mia glanced at Abe as if Ethan hadn’t spoken. “Conway might be watching her place.”
“I’ll go instead,” Ethan said through his teeth.
Abe hesitated. “If she’s watching, seeing Dana might draw her out into the open.”
Ethan lurched to his feet. “No. You won’t use her as bait.”
Dana tugged on his arm. “Sit down, Ethan. Please.”
Ignoring her, he continued to stand, pointing at Mia. “Last night you were ready to put her in protective custody for offering herself as a trade. What are you thinking?”
“That I’ve got eight bodies in the morgue, Mr. Buchanan,” Mia said evenly. “Dana is one of my best friends. Do you think I’d put her in any more danger than she’s already in?”
Ethan’s frown was menacing. “You will not make her bait.”
“We’ll be there,” Abe said. “On the street watching.”
Ethan shook his head. “And if Conway’s waiting inside?”
Abe didn’t budge. “Dana can wear a wire.”
Twin bands of dark red had risen to Ethan’s cheekbones. “So you can hear the pop when Conway comes up behind her and plugs a nine mil in her skull? With all due respect, Detective, no fucking way.”
“Mr. Buchanan,” Abe said calmly. “The woman has killed eleven people in the last week. She is holding two hostages. I’ve got the Vaughns sitting in a fishbowl at the Excelsior and so far, no bites. We’ll send uniforms to all the addresses in this list to warn them, and maybe we’ll catch her that way, maybe not. I see this as an acceptable—”
“Acceptable?” Ethan thundered.
“An acceptable, controlled risk,” Abe continued, still calmly. “As long as Dana is willing.”
“I am,” Dana said quietly. She stood, framed Ethan’s face between her palms. His eyes flashed and burned. She could feel him tremble. “Ethan, this is the right thing to do. Besides, it’s not like she couldn’t have killed me at any time today. She could have been waiting outside the police station, even. I can’t go on like this much longer. Please understand that I have to do this, as much for me as anyone else.”
Ethan pulled from her grasp and looked at Mia. “You go with her.”
Mia shook her head. “Conway saw me, that first night at Hanover House. She knows I’m a cop. She sees a cop and she stays hidden. We’re nowhere, then.”
Ethan jerked his head toward Abe. “Him then.”
Again Mia shook her head. “If she was waiting for Dana outside the hospital last night, she’s seen us together. Same song, second verse.”
Ethan’s jaw twitched. His fists curled and uncurled. “Then I’m going with her.”
Dana looked at Mia and Abe. “All right?”
He glared at Mia. “And she gets body armor.”
Mia nodded once. “Agreed.”
The room was completely silent as Ethan’s labored breathing quieted. Then Clay cleared his throat. “There is the small matter of nineteen thousand dollars still in her bank account. What do you want to do with it?”
Grimly, Abe held out his hand. “Give me the accounts. I’ll have one of our guys take the money. If we can’t touch her, at least we can hinder her a little bit.”
Ethan’s eyes went hard and flat. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Chicago, Thursday, August 5, 7:30 P.M.
“This is a goddamn stupid idea,” Ethan muttered, climbing the dirty steps behind her.
“Sshh.” Dana threw a frown over her shoulder. “Be quiet.”
Because he saw fear in her eyes, he closed his mouth. She unlocked the door, pushed it open. And exhaled. “Looks clear, Mia,” she murmured into the mike pinned to her shirt.
Ethan pushed past her. Her kitchen and bathroom were clear, as was the second bedroom that was empty of all furniture. He shot her a quick look, but she just shook her head. “This was Evie’s room. Before her attack.”
Her bedroom looked exactly the same as it had the day before when she’d dressed so hurriedly. When she’d been terrified for Evie. Clothes were strewn all over the bed.
“It looks clear,” he said, but she was frowning.
She bent down and picked up her robe between two fingers. Silk, it draped on itself. He remembered it on her. How her pocket had bulged. It didn’t bulge now.
“Mia,” she said into the mike, her voice shaky. “My gun is gone.”
In less than sixty seconds Mitchell and Reagan were there, breathing hard. “No tampering on the front door?”
“No. Evie had keys, so Sue has keys.” Dana shook her head weakly. “I should have thought of that before.”
Mia slid her arm around Dana’s shoulders. “Did she take anything else? Looks like she did some major damage in here.”
“No, Caroline did this.” It was barely audible and Mitchell frowned.
“Caroline was helping her get dressed for our date Monday night,” Ethan said. “It looked like this yesterday when I got here. She changed her clothes to get back to the shelter, because we thought Sue was still there. She left the gun in her robe pocket, on the bed. Is there a way to find out when Sue was here?”
“We’ll ask if anyone saw anything,” Reagan said, but he sounded doubtful.
“Ethan, go to the living room and make her sit down,” Mia ordered. “She looks faint.”
Dana dropped the robe back on the floor where she’d found it. “I’m not going to faint. Why would she steal my gun, Mia? She’s got one. We know that.”
“Is your gun registered to you, Dana?” Reagan asked.
She faltered. “No.”
Mitchell closed her eyes. “Shit.”
Reagan tilted his head forward. “Then who is it registered to?”
Dana swallowed hard. “My mother.”
Reagan lifted his brows. “She really gets around. Why do you have a gun registered to your deceased mother?”
Dana blew her bangs off her forehead. “Because I have a felony conviction for attempted auto theft. I couldn’t get a gun on my own and I was afraid of my ex. My mother put her name on the registration.”
Reagan rolled his eyes. “Mia, you’re going to owe me so much when this is done.”
“I’m good for it,” she snapped. “Buchanan, take her into the living room. Don’t touch anything. We’ll call CSU.”
He led her to the living room where Dana gingerly sat on the edge of the old sofa and bit her lip. “She’s going to use my gun, isn’t she? She’s going to kill somebody with my gun.” The rest of the color drained from her face. “She’s going to kill Evie with my gun.”
Ethan had thought that immediately, but didn’t want to worry her any more than she already was. “You can’t know that, honey. Maybe she just wanted to be sure you couldn’t shoot her with it.”
She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Don’t patronize me, Ethan.”
He sat on the sofa next to her, took her hand. “All rig
ht. I thought the same thing.”
She sat there, her eyes fixed on the middle of the floor. “This is worse than my dream.”
“You want to talk about it now?” he asked gently, but still she shook her head, not taking her eyes from that same spot on the floor.
He followed her gaze to the middle of the ugly old throw rug that sat off center and sideways. But it had been off center and sideways yesterday and Sunday night, too. He had only a moment to wonder when Reagan appeared from the back and, also following her gaze, stopped at the edge of the rug. He bent down and started to roll it aside.
“Don’t.” Dana surged to her feet, but it was too late. Beneath the throw rug, the carpet bore a large dark brown stain the width of the rug and easily half its length. Reagan studied it for a moment, then rolled his head sideways to study Dana who just stared like a deer caught in the headlights.
Ethan’s stomach turned over and he had to swallow back the bile, not for the sight of the large bloodstain, but for the understanding of what it represented.
“You never moved, did you?” he asked raggedly.
She wouldn’t look at him. “No.” Her lips just formed the word. No sound emerged.
She’d died here, Dana’s mother. The old article he’d found said she was discovered by her daughter, horribly battered and bleeding. It never provided an address or a culprit. He’d remembered the look in her eyes the morning she’d told him about herself, the abuse at the hands of her father, then her stepfather. He’d read the article and assumed the stepfather was responsible. He’d confirmed it when he found the stepfather’s name on the list of lifers at the state prison.
He’d assumed she’d moved. Most people would have moved. Dana Dupinsky was not most people. Somehow she’d transformed the scene of a senseless, vile crime into her own private, never-ending hell. Every time she came home, she had to see it again, walk it again. This place with its junkies and pushers was one big fucking penance.
“Hell, Abe,” Mitchell said from behind them.
Reagan came to his feet. “Don’t tell me. Her mother?”
Mitchell shot the very pale, shaken Dana a look of such intense caring that Ethan almost forgave her for putting Dana in jeopardy. “Yeah. Cover it back up, will you? Ethan, take her back to the hotel. Call me when you get there, okay?”
Chicago, Thursday, August 5, 11:00 P.M.
Something was wrong. From a block away, Sue sat in her car staring through the houses at the little two-story that belonged to the officer that had arrested her eleven years ago. Taggart was his name. He lived alone, but she could see shadows of others moving around inside. Her instincts hummed. The cops were there, waiting. Waiting for me.
Well, they’d be disappointed, she thought. Sue tapped the steering wheel thoughtfully. The only way the police would be here was if Randi tipped them off. There was no other logical way they’d even be suspicious. She’d thought the kid would have made a difference. That Randi Vaughn would have learned the consequences of ratting to the police. Obviously old habits died hard. So would Randi Vaughn.
Now that Randi Vaughn had alerted the police, they would be sure to be watching her hotel. This called for a change in tomorrow evening’s logistics. Same party location, different pickup plan for the guest of honor. She’d give Donnie the heads-up tomorrow. She pulled into a gas station, thinking of the empty cans in the trunk that needed filling.
Tonight’s logistics, however, were right on track.
Chicago, Thursday, August 5, 11:45 P.M.
“Dana, you really need to eat,” Ethan said from the bedroom doorway.
She could see Ethan’s reflection in the window as she looked down on the bright lights of the city. He’d been trying to get her to eat ever since they’d returned from her apartment, but the very thought of food made her throat close up. “Ethan, I’m really not hungry,” she replied in a testy tone designed to drive him back to the sitting room.
Instead she watched his reflection approach, shivered when he put his warm hands on her cold shoulders and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple.
“Don’t give up, baby,” he murmured, but his reflection showed the worry in his eyes.
“I haven’t,” she murmured back, but she could hear the lie in her voice. Sue had Evie and Sue had her gun. Sue had killed eleven people and nobody knew where she was.
He tugged on her shoulders. “You’ve been standing here looking out the window for two hours, Dana. Come to bed. You need to sleep.”
She pulled away from his hands. “No. I don’t want to sleep.”
“Because you dream.”
She gritted her teeth, anger simmering so close to the surface. Normally she could hold it down, keep it boxed up. Not tonight. “Y’think?” she asked acidly.
The man did not budge and she wanted to curse him for it. “Yes, I think. Are you ready to tell me about it now?” When she gritted her teeth harder, he just covered her shoulders with his hands again and began to massage. “Remember that first night at Wrigleyville? You got me to talk about Richard and I felt better. You need to start listening to yourself.”
Her laugh was bitter. “Physician, heal thyself?”
“If the shoe fits, baby.” His hands slid from her shoulders down her arms and locked around her waist and despite her efforts to resist, her body seemed to know how they fit best. She leaned into him, resting the back of her head against his shoulder.
“Why do you keep insisting I tell you about my mother?”
“Because you think it’s the biggest part of you,” he murmured.
Dana blinked and turned around to look up at him. “What?”
“Dana, everything you’ve made of yourself you attribute to one very bad event.” He skimmed his thumb over her eyebrows and her eyelids drooped. “The night your mother was killed. Not by you,” he added, “even though that’s what you’d have yourself believe.”
“You checked,” she said wearily, leaning her forehead against his bare chest, his hair tickling her nose. “You must have thought there was some validity to it to have checked.”
“No, I never thought there was validity to it. You could not kill another human being.”
“I could kill Sue,” she said viciously and his arms came around her back like a vise.
He hugged her hard. “Like I said, no other human being.”
She drew a breath, inhaling his scent. “Point made.”
“Dana, talk to me. Tell me what happened that night. I need to know, to help you.”
She looked up then, searched his eyes. Those steady green eyes that always made her think of spring. Of new life. “Why?”
His eyes grew sad. “Is it so hard to believe that I could simply care about you?”
Her eyes stung. “Yes.”
His fingers feathered the hair from her face. “Dana, do you have any friends that you haven’t helped more than they’ve helped you? Any where you’re the taker, not the giver?”
The question threw her off guard. “I don’t know.”
“Think about it.” He kissed her mouth, so tenderly she wanted to weep. “Then think about being the taker for once. Letting people do for you. Without needing to pay them back in some way.” He put his arm around her shoulders and led her to the bed. “Like right now. Let me help you sleep. No strings.” His voice was deep and smooth and husky and his hands gentle as they pulled off her shoes, her shirt. He undressed her like a baby, then slipped one of his T-shirts over her head. “Go to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”
He tucked her in and turned out the lights and she could hear him taking off his own clothes. He slipped in behind her and gathered her close. She could feel his arousal pulsing against her, but it was more a comfort than a temptation. He was there. He’d be there when she woke in the night. Because she would wake in the night. She always did.
“Tomorrow, honey,” he murmured in her ear. “We’ll find them tomorrow.”
“You said that last night.”
“And
I’ll say it again tomorrow. Until it’s true. Until this is over.”
She was drifting now, secure in the circle of his arms. “And you go home.”
His arms tensed, then relaxed. “And I go home. What will you do? When it’s over?”
She blinked, seeing only the darkness, feeling only him. “I don’t know. I know whatever it is, I can’t do it here.”
He raised his head and she could feel more than see his frown. “Here?”
“In Chicago. It’s too dangerous.” She yawned, melted into him. “Caro and Evie . . . need to find a safer way.”
“But not you,” he said, too softly and too late she realized her mistake.
“No. Not me,” she answered honestly.
“Where will you go?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” her voice wobbled. “New York, Atlanta . . . Philadelphia maybe.”
A long pause. “But not D.C.?”
She said nothing, could say nothing.
His body stiffened, but his voice remained gentle. “I’ve gotten too close, haven’t I?”
“Ethan—”
“Go to sleep, Dana.”
Chicago, Friday, August 6, 3:00 A.M.
“Wake up.”
Evie’s eyes flew open at the sudden pain of Jane’s hand cracking against her jaw. She blinked, focusing on the tall figure looming over her. Bit back a whimper when she was hauled to her feet. Closed her eyes again at the thrust of cold hard metal under her chin. It would be now. She’d kill her now. With Dana’s gun.
Jane just chuckled. “Not yet, pet. You’ve got a bit more to do before I take you out. I’m going to cut the ropes at your feet and you’re going to walk out of here. Hands stay tied, mouth stays taped. Try anything and I’ll shoot you where you stand. Got it?”
Evie remained still and Jane jabbed the blunt barrel of the gun harder, cutting off her air. “Indicate you have heard,” Jane said coldly. Evie jerked a nod and apparently that was enough because the pressure against her windpipe lessened. She drew a quick breath through her nose and Jane chuckled again. “Let’s get this show on the road. I need to get back and catch some sleep before the second performance begins tonight.”
Chicago, Friday, August 6, 3:30 A.M.