The Inquisitor

by Gayle Wilson

  She straightened until she was sitting upright in the bed. With her hand, she pushed the fall of dark hair away from her face. “I think so. I don’t really—”

  “It was just a dream. Go back to sleep.”

  The command was abrupt, its tone verging on anger. He was reacting to her vulnerability now as he had when he’d shaken her last night.

  She had looked up into his face then as if she’d never seen him before, her eyes full of pain. And the only thing he had wanted to do was to pull her to him. To hold her trembling body against his and whisper promises he had no right to make.

  Nothing’s going to happen to you as long as I’m here.

  He had once made that same vow to Makaela. And he had failed.

  He had no right to make that promise to another woman. Not even to one who brought out all the protective instincts he had believed he’d left behind with his childhood. In the rat-infested slum his family had called home.

  “Have you slept?” It sounded as if she really cared.

  Or maybe she just wants to know if you’re on the job.

  He forced that caustic thought into his head in an attempt to erase the other. “Enough.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible. They say once you lose sleep, you can’t catch up. What time is it?”

  He realized he had no idea. It could have been an hour since he’d sat down in the other room, intent on staying awake, or it could as easily have been six or seven.

  “Wait. I know. I moved it because the light bothered me.” Jenna reached across to the bedside table and turned a clock whose face had been to the wall. The digital display read four-thirteen.

  Closer to his last estimate, he realized. And while he’d slept, anything might have happened.

  He knew from experience that after a while sleep deprivation caught up with you, no matter how determined you were. He’d been managing on four or five hours for the past several days. If he was going to screw up, as he’d told Jenna, last night was probably the safest time he could have chosen.

  “Right now I’m hungrier than I am sleepy,” she said, turning back from the clock to look at him again. “As hard as it is to believe, I think I may have slept out.”

  She’d eaten very little the night before. Not that he could blame her, considering what she’d been through. If she was hungry now, he’d encourage her to eat. Doing without food was no more conducive to clear thinking than doing without sleep.

  “I make a decent omelet.”

  He regretted the offer as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He should have gotten the hell out of here while he had the chance. He should have let her get up and fix her own breakfast and eat it alone.

  Preparing a meal for the two of them was a little too much camaraderie for the situation they were in. Despite the fact that he hadn’t accepted her money, what they had was essentially a business arrangement. Something he damn well better remember before Ms. Moneybags reminded him again of his place.

  “There should be eggs and cheese in the fridge even with Mom out of town,” Jenna said. “We can check out the pantry for additions, but I won’t make any promises about those.”

  She reached over to the table beside the bed again, this time to switch on the light. In response to the sudden glare, she raised her hand to shield her eyes.

  Backlit and in profile, her breasts strained against the pale blue nightgown she wore. They were fuller than he’d expected them to be from her slim build.

  The size to fit into a man’s hand.

  Unable to pull his eyes away, he saw that her nipples, tautened by the chill of the room or the aftermath of the dream, were clearly visible through the fabric. Whatever it was, it was sheer enough to reveal the dark aureoles surrounding them.

  She turned, lowering her hand. For too many telltale seconds his gaze remained focused on the V-shaped neckline of her gown, unconsciously examining the shadowed cleavage revealed by its cut.

  Only when the growing tightness in his groin made him realize what he was doing, did he raise his eyes to her face. Hers held on his, as a sweep of color rushed under the smooth skin of her neck and into her cheeks.

  “I’ll check out the rest of the house while you dress.” He forced the words through a throat gone dry and tight.

  He turned on his heel and crossed the room, closing the bedroom door behind him. Once safe from what he’d seen in her eyes, he leaned back against the wood, expelling a pent-up breath. The heat that had flared between them was a complication he didn’t need. He had come here for one reason and one reason only.

  Jenna Kincaid wasn’t someone he could have a relationship with. Not a sexual one.

  All he wanted from Dr. Kincaid, he reminded himself bitterly, was the mutually satisfying arrangement they’d agreed on. Anything other than that—

  Thinking that there could be anything other than that was the height of stupidity. Or self-delusion.

  Their worlds were daylight and dark. As different as that perfumed bedroom behind him was from the projects where he’d grown up. Although their sexual attraction might bridge that gap for a while, it would never destroy it.

  That wasn’t what he’d come here to destroy. And nothing, not even his growing awareness of Jenna Kincaid as a highly desirable woman, was going to get in his way.

  “There’s no excuse for what you did last night. You need to understand that this department won’t tolerate your interference in our investigation in any way, shape or form.”

  Sean knew he had no choice but to listen to Ray Bingham’s lecture, just as he had last night. After his initial anger had passed, he had acknowledged that it was only by virtue of Bingham’s sympathy and good nature that he wasn’t in jail. Something he was infinitely grateful for.

  “Your guys find anything useful on or in those boxes?”

  He had to work to keep any trace of “I told you so” out of the question. If there had been any forensic evidence on the boxes or their contents—other than contact contamination easily identifiable as coming from his jacket pocket or from Jenna’s apartment—Bingham would have started this with that news.

  “The examination is ongoing.”

  The cop’s clipped tone told Sean all he needed to know. “Meaning the only thing you’ve established is that the trophy contained in the second box didn’t come from the Cummings girl.”

  Bingham hadn’t called it a trophy when he’d told him that. And the detective’s voice had held what seemed to be sincere regret for having to tell him what Sean had accepted from the instant he’d seen the package on his hood.

  “All we’ve established so far,” Bingham reiterated stubbornly.

  “I’d appreciate being informed of whatever you turn up.”

  “Look, Sergeant Murphy, you’ve got connections. Some folks I respect speak highly of you. And you’ve got a record with the army few people can match. I checked. Hell, I even like you. None of that changes the fact that you aren’t the one investigating this case. Not in any way, shape or form.”

  A favorite phrase, apparently. Or maybe Bingham was determined to emphasize that Sean wasn’t going to be party to whatever the police discovered. Judging by what they’d managed to find out about the Inquisitor so far, that refusal wasn’t going to be much of a loss.

  “What about the phone call?”

  “What?”

  “The one he made to my room. You trace that yet?”

  “All we know is that it was made from a cell phone.”

  “And you can’t trace the number?”

  “We suspect it was one of those with prepaid minutes. The kind you can buy at the Wal-Mart.”

  “How about the location of the tower?”

  “No way to trace that without some starting point.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You got to have a service to backtrack on. Those phones don’t have that. They’re virtually untraceable.”

  The son of a bitch was always one step ahead of technology. Org
anized and intelligent. Like Jenna had said.

  “So you got nothing,” Sean said, his voice flat.

  “They’re still working on the body.”

  “Which will tell you what the rest of them told you. Time and cause of death. Oh, yeah. And the kind of tools he uses. That never varies. And none of it gets us anywhere.”

  “Every department in the area—”

  “Don’t bother blowing smoke up my ass. Save the news releases for the media.”

  There was a brief silence on the line. When the lieutenant spoke again, to Sean’s surprise he obeyed the injunction. “You do understand what those boxes mean, don’t you?”

  “I understand.”

  “I know you were convinced that Dr. Kincaid was going to be his next victim, but…Frankly, it looks to me like he’s targeting you.”

  “He’s playing me.”

  “Playing you?”

  “To get me stirred up enough to do something stupid.”

  To give Bingham credit he didn’t say, “Like concealing evidence?” His question was on the money, exactly what Sean had been thinking.

  “Like come after him?”

  “I think that’s what he wants.”

  “Leaving Dr. Kincaid vulnerable.”

  “She is vulnerable. Whether I’m here or not. I’ve been trying to make her realize that.”

  “Maybe you need some help.”

  “In convincing her? You volunteering?”

  “Help in protecting her.”

  Sean controlled his anger, making sure it wasn’t reflected in his voice. “You put a bunch of cops out here, and he’s going to target someone else. You’ll leave him no choice.”

  “I doubt Dr. Kincaid would be upset if that happened.”

  “The good citizens you’re supposed to be protecting might be. How many mutilated girls do you think they’re going to tolerate? Jenna’s the best chance we have of stopping him.”

  “Jenna?”

  Sean ignored the question.

  Eventually the lieutenant went on. “She agreeable to being bait for your scheme?”

  “He chose her. I didn’t.”

  “I’m not so sure about that anymore. You’re the one who convinced her she was destined to be his next victim. If it’s really you he’s been after all along, then maybe when you started following her—”

  “He was at her office.”

  “The writing on her car? That what you’re talking about? As far as we know right now, that could have been done by anybody. A kid. A patient. Maybe even somebody else’s patient. Somebody who was pissed with the therapy they were getting. It may have no relationship to the Inquisitor at all. And as I understand it, that happened after you showed up at her office. Maybe it’s you our boy’s following, Sergeant Murphy. Maybe he has been all along. Maybe he didn’t even know Jenna Kincaid was alive until you pointed him to her.”

  When Sean said the killer had been at her office, he hadn’t been talking about the message on the car, but he wasn’t about to admit that to Bingham. It was possible the detective had experienced one of those episodes of premonition or prescience or whatever the hell the psychic dingbats called it.

  If he’d been a street cop for any time at all, it was more than likely he had. A tightening in your chest when you were on a stakeout and knew something bad was about to go down. The prickle of hair on the back of your neck as you approached the driver’s side on a routine traffic stop. The kinds of things old cops and old soldiers never ignore. If they did, they never got to be old cops or old soldiers.

  What Sean had felt that night in the visitors’ parking lot outside Jenna’s practice had been like that. Definitely a warning. As real as any he’d felt in Somalia or Iraq or in half a dozen other places and situations during his twenty.

  This one had also been something else. A very real sense that evil was at hand. Cold and black and soulless.

  No matter how convinced he was of the reality of what he’d experienced that night, Sean wasn’t about to start spouting that kind of crap to Bingham. It would be the final nail in the coffin of whatever credibility he had left.

  “Are you saying I led him to Jenna?”

  Without a convincing argument for why he knew that was wrong, Sean countered with the only thing he had. The anger that suggestion generated.

  “I’m saying it’s a possibility.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “And that since it is possible,” Bingham went on as if he hadn’t spoken, “you owe it to Dr. Kincaid to back off.”

  “To leave her in your hands.”

  “At least to give her the choice.”

  “She made her choice.”

  Despite the rage simmering beneath the surface, Sean knew that wasn’t entirely true. He’d done more than a little arm-twisting to convince Jenna that her best chance for survival lay with him rather than with the overworked cops.

  That had been at the time when the police were frantically searching for Carol Cummings. Now that she’d been found—

  “I’d like to ask her.” Bingham’s voice was deceptively soft. “Maybe explain a few things to her at the same time.”

  “You want to talk to her now? Or you want the number of her cell?”

  “So she’s still with you.”

  “She doesn’t feel safe anywhere else. Of course, you’re welcome to try and convince her otherwise.”

  “Thanks for permission.”

  Bingham sounded amused by his offer rather than pissed.

  That was okay. Sean was pissed enough for both of them.

  “Always glad to be of assistance to the law enforcement community.” He’d already started to take the phone away from his ear when the cop’s next question stopped him.

  “So how are the kids? Missing you, I’d bet. Must have been tough on them. Losing their mom. Getting displaced from everything they’d ever known. Finally they get settled into some kind of family security again, and then boom, you’re gone.”

  The rage Sean had worked to control boiled up, closing his throat. The interrogation had been framed in a tone of concern and sympathy, but he had no doubt where this was headed.

  “They’re in very good hands, but thanks for asking.” He didn’t bother this time to soften his sarcasm.

  “So what happens if you go permanently missing? What do you think that’s gonna do to them?”

  “Why don’t you let me worry about that? And about Jenna Kincaid. It seems to me like you’ve got enough on your plate without trying to take care of my niece and nephew.”

  “Look—”

  “Or about a woman you don’t believe is a target of the serial killer who’s already handed you four bodies. Seems to me he might be your primary concern right now. Or maybe these things work differently in this ‘backward city.’ I guess an ‘ignorant black cop’ like you knows more about that than me.”

  Sean heard the profanity before he got the phone away from his ear. As he pushed the off button with his thumb, he couldn’t deny the feeling of satisfaction at getting some of his own back with Bingham.

  It was stupid. Childish, even. But then so was the guilt trip the head of the local task force had tried to use on him to get him to back off.

  Still, he didn’t want to make an enemy out of the detective. He didn’t need that. Neither of them did.

  They had a far more implacable foe they needed to fight. And no matter what Bingham said, Sean still believed that the best way to defeat that foe was through Jenna.

  The problem was that every argument the lieutenant had used against that conviction was valid. And persuasive.

  Just not quite persuasive enough to make Sean forget everything that was at stake.

  Twenty

  Jenna had decided to take a shower before she came down. As she’d descended the stairs, she’d heard Sean talking. And since there was no one else in the house, she made the logical assumption that he was carrying on a conversation by phone.

  One that had ended whe
n he’d heard her footsteps?

  “Was that your cell?”

  “Bingham,” Sean said without looking up from the egg he was breaking over the side of one of her mother’s Royal Doulton bowls.

  The guilt she’d felt since she’d told the policeman about the boxes resurfaced. No matter what Sean thought, she knew that telling the truth had been the right thing to do. Especially if it brought them one step closer to the murderer.

  “They found something?”

  Sean hadn’t taken time to shave, and the omnipresent five o’clock shadow was quickly becoming a beard. Despite the hours of sleep he’d gotten last night, his eyes looked almost as exhausted as they had yesterday.

  “Yeah. That the trophy didn’t come from the Cummings girl.”

  He had told her that last night. Learning that his suspicion had been confirmed, especially since he had delivered the report in that flat, matter-of-fact manner, was almost as chilling as listening to it as his theory had been then.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He ignored her expression of sympathy, picking up another egg from the carton to crack against the edge of the bowl. He used one hand to break and open the shell, his movements quick and skillful, as if he’d been doing this for years.

  “He wants to talk to you, by the way.”

  “Bingham?” She was disconcerted by the information. A little defensive. “About what?”

  “Protection.”

  She examined the word, not quite sure what the under note she’d heard in Sean’s tone signified. “Does that mean you’re backing out?”

  “Of our deal? I thought maybe you wanted to.”

  “I told you I’m sorry. I thought that if there was the slightest chance those boxes held a clue—”

  “He thinks I may have led him to you.”

  That took a couple of seconds to interpret as well. The first pronoun was obviously a reference to Bingham, so the second must be—

  “The Inquisitor?”

  “Bingham thinks he may have been watching me. And that the only reason he expressed an interest in you is because of mine.”

  “You’re saying he’s doing these things because you came to my office? And because you followed me?”