Catch a Killer

by Kris Rafferty

  Hannah’s mouth wasn’t working anymore. Poison. The wine. And seven more loves in my bed Crown with wine my mournful head, Pitying and forgiving all Thy transgressions great and small.

  Mrs. Pepperidge seemed disappointed Hannah was unable to respond. She glanced over her shoulder as if to make sure they were alone. Lowering her voice, she leaned in, and said, “There are things a person shouldn’t be forced to survive, but your pain should be seen. Immortalized. It’s as if Blake’s ‘Broken Love’ was written for my people. And the Freedom Trail tours will have to add the notorious Mercy Killing victims to their scripts, telling the story on every tour. I made sure of it.” She smiled, coquettish. “Meet your department’s leak.” She bowed her head, as if accepting accolades. “The Boston Globe loves me.”

  “Please.” Hannah’s could only manage a whisper, and it was getting more difficult to keep her eyes open and focused. Jack, on his side on the floor, weakly clenched his fist and then relaxed it. He was alive, but for how long?

  Mrs. Pepperidge nudged the empty wine cup with her manicured finger, looking between it and Hannah. “Don’t look at me like that. I couldn’t just do nothing. And Cooper helped me, the dear, though he didn’t know it. He was there if I had any questions. My little helper.”

  Hannah pulled her arm off the desk by agonizing degrees, until it dropped to her side, her hand inching toward her gun’s holster. Jack’s leg twitched on the periphery of her vision.

  “They wanted to die. Like you.” All of Mrs. Pepperidge’s smoothness, and cavalier tone faded. “Like me,” the woman whispered.

  Hannah was nothing like Mrs. Pepperidge. She wanted to live, but could feel the drug killing her as she struggled to move. “My baby—” Hannah managed to tug her gun from its holster, but it dropped from her weakened fingers onto her lap.

  “You’ll see your baby soon.” Mrs. Pepperidge smoothed Hannah’s bangs off her forehead. “You and Carey should be on the Freedom Trail with the rest of them, but things keep getting…complicated. I’ll be better next time. Smarter. Seven down, ten more stanzas to go. At least he won’t get in my way again.” She glared at Jack. “That bastard destroyed you.”

  Jack did destroy her, but he gave her so much, too. Ellen. And now he was back and she wanted it to stay that way. She loved him. Loved him enough not to give up on him now. With monumental effort, Hannah dragged her other hand to her lap. Now both her hands weakly gripped the gun.

  Mrs. Pepperidge nudged Jack with her black heeled pump. “You were pregnant. He deserted you, and made you lose the baby.”

  “My. Baby. Didn’t. Die.” With agonizing effort, Hannah curled her finger around the trigger just as Mrs. Pepperidge leaned over the desk and stripped the gun from her hand with little effort. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jack move, slowly removing his gun from its holster. He aimed it at Mrs. Pepperidge.

  “No,” Hannah said. To Mrs. Pepperidge? To Jack? All Hannah knew was the killing had to stop.

  “This is taking too long, and you’re suffering.” Mrs. Pepperidge aimed the gun at Hannah’s head.

  Boom! The gun’s discharge preceded a pink mist that spattered Hannah and her desk. Mrs. Pepperidge crumpled to the floor, shot in the head. Blinking, struggling to focus, Hannah sobbed. Jack lay still, hand slack around his gun, his eyes closed. Her vision pinpointed to a white dot, and then there was nothing.

  Chapter 23

  Beeping. Crisp cotton against her skin. Bright light on closed eyelids. The smell of disinfectant. Something tickling her nose, which twitched in response.

  “Oh my gosh,” a familiar voice said. “She’s finally waking up.” Vivian? But Vivian was dying in Mass General’s ICU.

  Hannah blinked, wincing as the overhead fluorescents irritated her eyes. Her vision cleared. Someone cradled her hand in theirs. It was Vivian, sitting next to Hannah. She was in a wheelchair, smiling ear to ear. And Hannah was in a hospital bed. Her heart sank. In a hospital bed again. The familiar weight of suffocation came roaring back as if it were only yesterday that she’d been here, desperate to save her baby. She wanted to go home.

  “You’re alive,” Hannah croaked, then cleared her throat. She and Vivian weren’t alone. Most of the team was here. But…not Jack. Mrs. Pepperidge’s wine killed him, but he held out long enough to save her. To save them all. Jack. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Right back at you.” Tears spilled down Vivian’s cheeks, too. She wiped them using her hospital gown.

  “Hannah,” Ferguson said. “This has been a long time coming. We were afraid you’d never wake up.” He stood at the foot of her bed, his concern pulling at his features. Deming looked a bit misty-eyed, too, and was trying to hide it behind a coffee cup.

  “We’ve been taking turns babysitting you,” Deming said, “so when the staff called and told us you’d been showing signs of waking, we hustled down here. Mrs. Branaghan is on her way. Natalie is on a plane and will arrive this afternoon. You scared the shit out of us.”

  Hannah swallowed a sob. Work. Check. Ellen? Jack? Jack was dead. Check, check. Her ten-second heartbreak. Now it would haunt her the rest of her days.

  Where was Ellen? And why was Natalie on a plane?

  “Hey, hey.” Vivian hovered, patting her hand. “You’re going to be all right, I promise.” She smiled through her tears. “Look at me. Died a few times, but I’m still here.”

  Everything was a muddle. “What happened?” Hannah said.

  Vivian winced, as if the memories were still too painful. “Mrs. Pepperidge set me up. On a blind date. That alone should have tipped me off. Can you see me? On a blind date? Well, she gave me a letter to read afterward, and I thought it was a pep talk or something. I put it in my purse.” She sniffed, smiling, though her pain was unmistakable. “I should have known it was too good to be true. When I saw Kent, the bastard who broke my heart, I knew something was up. Mrs. Pepperidge had a bottle of wine delivered to the table, but by then I was too embarrassed to stay. It exploded just as I reached the exit. Knocked me out cold. Charlie said the bottle was a chemical bomb.” She lowered her gaze, biting her lip. “Kent’s dead.” Her voice sounded wobbly. “The restaurant was destroyed. Five dead, twenty-three injured. I was cleared when forensics found a partial print on the letter, my so-called confession. It was Mrs. Pepperidge’s. But none of my prints were on it.”

  “But… But, how did she know you wrote that letter to the Boston Globe?” Hannah said.

  Vivian’s chin quivered. “I told her one night. Month’s ago. It was late. We’d had some of the scotch the lieutenant keeps in his office and… I told her and never thought twice about it. There was something about Mrs. Pepperidge that made a person trust her.”

  Yeah. Hannah had trusted her. She closed her eyes, desperate and feeling hopeless. They’d been played by an expert. No. By a psychopath with all the access and knowledge to commit the perfect crime. So many people died because Hannah hadn’t been up to the task. The love of her life…

  “Jack.” Tears spilled from her closed eyes.

  “Speak of the devil,” Ferguson said. Hannah blinked in confusion.

  Jack burst through the hospital door, out of breath, stricken. “Hannah!” He was holding Ellen.

  Deming wheeled Vivian out of the way as Jack barreled on through to Hannah’s side, but not before handing the wiggly baby to Ferguson, who tensed up, but got the job done.

  Jack sat on the bed’s edge and gathered Hannah into his embrace. “Never, never, never do that to me again! Do you hear me?”

  “What?” Deming said. “Almost die?”

  “Oh, the irony stings. Don’t it?” Ferguson kissed the baby and walked to the other side of Hannah’s bed. “I can’t believe you kept her a secret for so long, Hannah. Benton’s crash course in parenting would have been amusing if it wasn’t so sad to watch.”

  Hannah sobbed against Jack’s chest, eyes s
queezed shut. “Jack, I thought you’d died.”

  He loosened his grip only enough to kiss her soundly. “Back at you.” He kissed her again, but her oxygen tubing got in the way. She tugged it down, and lifted her chin for his kiss. He pressed his lips to hers, gently, lovingly.

  Ellen cooed. Hannah smiled, breaking the kiss, exchanging a happy glance with Jack. “My baby.” Jack arranged Hannah back onto the bed. She lifted her arms, seeking Ellen. Her daughter’s arms reached for her, but they weren’t the arms Hannah remembered. Ellen was older. “How long have I been unconscious?” Panic acted like a band of steel across her chest, making it hard to breathe.

  “We’ll leave you two to talk.” Ferguson hustled Deming and Vivian out the door, but not before giving Hannah an encouraging wink. “Welcome back from the dead.”

  Jack lowered Ellen into Hannah’s arms, and as soon as she held her daughter, everything calmed and seemed right with the world. No matter what happened, she, Jack, and Ellen, they’d get through it.

  “Everyone knows about Ellen. Don’t get mad,” Jack said. “With you in the hospital so long, unconscious—”

  “How long?”

  “Three weeks.” His grimace hinted at the worry he’d been put through. “I thought Ellen’s presence might wake you up, so I brought her every day. Word got out quickly.”

  “I’m not mad.” She kissed her daughter’s cheek. “We nearly died because I kept her existence a secret. I’m chalking that up to one of my worst ideas. Mrs. Pepperidge admitted she targeted me because she thought Ellen had been a stillbirth.”

  “You were protecting our baby. That’s all that matters.”

  Ellen lifted her head, gifting her mother with a toothless grin. “She can lift her head now.” Ellen’s pudgy hand grabbed Hannah’s hair and stuck a blond lock into her drooling mouth.

  “She rolls over, too,” he said.

  Hannah didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I missed it.”

  “I missed you.” Jack kissed her, lingeringly, and when he lifted his head, he searched her eyes for something. Hannah wasn’t sure what. “I love you,” he said. “I’ve been telling you every day since I woke and wheeled myself into this hospital room. They said you couldn’t hear me, but I didn’t believe them. Did you hear me?”

  Hannah hadn’t, or if she had, she didn’t remember. But she knew she loved him. That was clear. She loved him with all her heart.

  “Don’t ignore me, Hannah.”

  “I’m not—”

  “I’ve just spent three weeks being ignored by you and I can’t take it anymore. When I tell you I love you, you don’t have to say it back, but at least tell me you believe me!” He looked frazzled.

  She sniffled, nodding. “I believe you. I think I always knew, but you kept confusing me, and then you died. You have to stop doing that.”

  He frowned, clutching her free hand. “I was a fool.”

  * * * *

  Jack pressed his lips to her temple, needing to be as close to her as possible. “I woke the day after Mrs. Pepperidge poisoned us, suffering a hangover from hell. But you,” he said, “well, you just didn’t want to wake up.” He kissed her neck, happiness and relief sapping his strength. “Everyone feared the worst. I thought I’d lost you again.”

  She cupped his cheek. “You’ve lost weight. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Parenting isn’t for the weak.” Jack thought of the late nights at the hospital, the lost sleep with Ellen inconsolably crying for her mom, and figured it was a miracle he hadn’t lost more weight. “I’m okay. Now that you’re okay.” He turned his head to press a kiss to her palm, and stayed there for a moment, eyes closed, allowing the moment to sink in. She was going to be fine. He turned his head, pinning her with a fierce look. “And don’t think I’m above taking advantage of this situation. I finally have you where I want you. You’ll have to listen to me now.”

  “Honestly,” she said, “I’m going nowhere. I feel weighed down with stones. Comas aren’t for the weak either.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, caressing Ellen’s back. “But I’m good. You’re alive and Ellen is here.”

  “About that,” he said. “I want to make a deal with you.”

  That got Hannah’s eyes open. “A deal, huh? What kind of deal?”

  Jack knew he had issues, knew exactly how those issues screwed up his relationship with Hannah, but that didn’t make it easier to show vulnerability. “Here’s the deal. You love me. Spend the rest of your life with me, marry me—”

  Hannah laughed, rolling her eyes. “And what do I get out of it?”

  Jack was hoping he’d be enough. “A man who will love you and Ellen more than life itself.” She was about to interrupt, but he feared she’d make light of his declaration when he was deadly serious. “I’m not expecting you to put your seal of approval on me. I’m messed up. I get it. My leaving last year was unforgivable. But love me anyway. I know I’ve been wrongheaded, I’ve made every mistake in the book—”

  “And invented a few.”

  “—but love me anyway, Hannah. Love me anyway. I came back because I couldn’t bear to be without you a moment longer, and now there’s Ellen.” He didn’t know what else to say. She had to take him back.

  Hannah rested her hand on his. “I’ve always loved you. Yeah, you’re complicated, and sometimes I don’t understand you, but you’re the one I want.”

  He brought her hand to his lips. “You love me. You said it, so marry me.”

  Her smile beamed at him. “I love you. I’ll marry you.” She kissed the top of Ellen’s head. Their daughter was wiggling, looking for attention. “Was it wrong of me to want you to say it first last year?”

  Jack lay next to her on the hospital bed, encircling Hannah and Ellen in his embrace, keeping them safe. “Wrong? No. Problematic. You were dealing with me and my insecurities, after all.” He found himself chuckling, ecstatically happy.

  “We don’t do easy, you and I.”

  “No. We don’t.” He dropped a kiss on her lips, noting her frown, and the sadness in her eyes. “What?”

  “You’ve waited long enough, Jack. Tell me the bad news. What happened to Mrs. Pepperidge? I think I remember what happened, but…” Jack looked away, not wanting to talk about something so horrible when he was feeling so happy. When she sighed and said, “I was afraid of that,” he knew he had no choice.

  “It was her or you. I chose you, Hannah, and I’d do it again.” He pressed his forehead to hers, trying to coax her out of her misery. “The lieutenant is on leave, trying to come to terms with what happened. IA is investigating.”

  “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am that it happened this way.”

  “They found her stash. It contained a journal detailing her kills and next targets. The owners of the Teapot were her cousins.”

  “Were?”

  “They weren’t supposed to be in town during the Stone murder, so caught her on board, saw the kill chart. It forced her to dispose of Stone’s unconscious body quickly, rather than stage it on the Freedom Trail. She detailed the whole thing in her journal. Her cousins’ bodies were weighted down with items she found on board and we found the couple where she’d written they’d be; under water, directly under the yacht. She used the Teapot as a weapon against you to kill two birds with one stone. Kill you and destroy the crime scene evidence. But she miscalculated the water’s depth. It was too deep for her plan. The very thing that prevented our people from finding the bodies when they processed the crime scene, is what protected the bodies from being destroyed by the blast.”

  Jack watched as Hannah took each piece of information to heart, using it like a cudgel to punish herself. “Stop internalizing this, Hannah. She was a serial killer.”

  She nodded, snuggling closer to him and Ellen. “Give me time.” He nodded. “
You’ve had three weeks,” she said. “I still need to process.”

  “Well, there’s other news.” He smiled brightly, though there was a part of him worried she wouldn’t take this news well either. “Even unconscious you’ve found a way to multitask.” He saw her confusion and shrugged. It’s not as if he could keep it from her forever. “You’re pregnant. We’re going to have another baby.” Her shocked expression quickly made way for laughing, which lifted a weight of worry off Jack’s shoulders.

  She loved him. He loved her. Whatever the future held, they were willing and able to meet that challenge.

  Hannah kissed Ellen’s cheek and reached for Jack. “Wow. We really don’t do things the easy way, do we?” Cupping the back of his head, she urged him forward, looking for a kiss. He obliged, happily.

  “Tell me you love me again,” Jack said against her lips. “Tell me you forgive me.”

  “I love you. I forgive you. Just never leave me again.” More tears. He knew it had a lot to do with exhaustion. She could barely keep her eyes open. Afraid she’d drop the baby, Jack took Ellen, and held her next to her mother so she could still be with her, but not have to bear the baby’s weight.

  “So we’ll marry,” he said. “We’ll marry as soon as you get out of this hospital.” Jack waited, hoping she wouldn’t fight him on this. “If you love me, you’ll marry me as soon as possible.”

  Hannah smiled past her exhaustion. “I love you,” she said, “and one of these days you’ll believe me.”

  “Then marry me.”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  In a heartbeat. Jack laughed, because joy and exultation swelled his chest. Lifting Ellen into the air, he said, “Mommy and I are getting married. What do you think about that?”

  “She’s happy,” Hannah said. “I’m happy.” Hannah was the image of contentment, other than tears covering her cheeks. Tears of happiness.