The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3: Redemption Thriller Series 7-9 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set)

by John W. Mefford

  I paused for a second, thinking I heard something from the bedroom. I flipped my head around and saw the door still closed, nothing but darkness lining the bottom crack of the door. Jake must still be asleep.

  I picked up my mug of steaming coffee and took a sip. Last night had been…fun. When I learned that the twin bean poles from the bar turned out to be Evan’s sisters, I asked Jake back to my place. A nice guy, it turned out he actually was a model. And I verified that he didn’t have a single flaw on his entire body. He knew all the right things to say and all the right moves. I didn’t fight it. I went for it. And it paid off.

  But as charming and suave as he was, it wasn’t spectacular. Not much of a connection, if I had to analyze the hookup, which I knew Zahera would request later today. I expected him to get up, kiss me on the cheek, agree that it was “nice,” and then scoot out of here. We’d probably never talk again. And that was okay by me.

  My laptop engine revved for a second, then quieted to where I could hear Zorro purring.

  I went back to typing in the latest information I had on Leroy Swanson. Learning about his death, I felt a strange sense of relief. Or was it satisfaction? He’d died in prison, another inmate knifing him to death. It was over. That set of nightmares could forever be erased.

  Who was I kidding? I knew that wasn’t possible, not with the way my mind worked. Moreover, it didn’t get me any closer to finding the person responsible for kidnapping and torturing me, and most likely killing Eileen and Joanna.

  Crossing my arms, I stared at the blur of data on the white screen. I was torn between where I should devote my time—finding a likely serial killer who could be watching me right now versus locating Anika’s parents, who might be enjoying life while they figure out how to pay off their creditors.

  “Don’t distort the information to justify your actions, Ivy,” I whispered to myself. While Cristina and I had yet to find evidence of a crime, Anika was clearly concerned about the safety of her parents, and even a bit remorseful for losing touch with them. The streets may have toughened her, but that separation had also apparently helped her appreciate her parents. After losing her brother to a drowning and being blamed for the tragic accident, Anika had come a long way. Ultimately, her parents would hopefully forgive her, even welcome her back into their family unit.

  But first we had to find them.

  I heard raindrops pelting the window as I opened a new browser tab and began searching for Mona and Dexter Hamrick in South Padre Island. Located at the southernmost tip of Texas, it was a destination for people of all ages, some more than others, depending on the time of year. I found the phone number for the SPI police department and dialed it. Pretending to be a concerned family member, I asked if there had been sightings of Mona or Dexter Hamrick in the last week.

  After a brief pause, the woman on the other end of the line said, “No record of anyone with the last name of Hamrick being issued a citation or arrested.”

  Thinking they might have gone with a different last name, the woman confirmed that neither a Mona nor a Dexter was in their system. I then pulled up the picture Anika had shared with us, and I gave a description of Mona first: Caucasian woman, age thirty-eight, stands five-four at about a hundred forty pounds, with short, straight hair and maybe as many as three earrings in each ear. Then Dexter’s description: Caucasian, age forty-one, about five-eight and a hundred ninety pounds, with a tuft of dark hair on both sides of his head.

  “Hmm,” the woman said.

  I inched up in my seat. “Do you have a match?”

  “Oh, sorry, someone had just walked by and asked me if I wanted to go to breakfast at Denny’s after my shift. No matches on either person you described.”

  I thanked her and ended the call. I repeated the same exercise with the two closest medical facilities. I started with the South Padre Island Clinic. Once again, I had to provide a sizable white lie. Pulling a page from Zahera’s pregnant-mother stories last night, I acted like I was an expectant mother, who was en route to the hospital because my water had just broken, and that my mom, a.k.a. Mona, had been my Lamaze coach.

  I must have put on a grand performance.

  “Oh Lordy, Maria, we’ve got a baby on the way,” she shouted to someone in her office. “What? A baby, that’s what I said. This woman is having her baby right now, and we got to find her momma, her breathing coach.”

  More mumbling in the background. “Forgot to ask, what’s her name?”

  I gave her all of the vital information about Mona and also Dexter. Not thirty seconds later, she said into the receiver, “No one with those names or descriptions have been in this clinic. And we went back and looked at our records from a month ago.”

  “Well, thank you for checking.”

  “Hey, if this Mona person was your coach, then wouldn’t you know where she was staying? And, doesn’t she have a cell phone? I’m dirt poor and I got one of those.”

  “Thank you again,” I said before hanging up.

  Next up was a much larger facility, Valley Regional Medical Center in Brownsville, located about thirty miles west of Padre. I decided to go with the same story. This time, the urgency from the woman on the line was non-existent. I could have told her I was on fire, and she would have still provided a monotone response of, “Please hold.”

  I listened to harp music for a good five minutes before she came back on the line.

  “I’m sorry, but no one with that name has been admitted into the hospital. Beyond that, I’m not at liberty to provide further information because of HIPAA policy. Thank you.”

  She hung up before I did.

  “Zero for two, Zorro,” I said, taking a moment to scratch his ear.

  Undeterred, I searched on hotels and motels and counted twenty just on the island alone. Armed with my story about a baby on the way, I started with the one with the lowest price, the Knights Inn, at just twenty-eight dollars a night. The sleepy-sounding clerk didn’t ask questions or seem to care, but he searched in his system and said, “No one by that name has been at this motel this year.”

  I tried giving him a description of Mona and Dexter, but he cut me off. “I see a million people walk through those doors, and I don’t remember a single one of them.”

  “It’s hard to imagine you guys having that many customers.” I didn’t mean to be flippant, but he was done with me.

  “Whatever,” he said, then he clicked the line dead.

  I plowed through nine more on the list, each one playing out in about the same way. Some folks were nicer, but the end results were all the same. No record of the Hamricks. Taking a brief rest, I stretched to the ceiling.

  Fingers tickled my ribs, and I jerked my arms downward. “Hey now,” I said with a giggle.

  Jake didn’t respond verbally. I felt his lips brush against my neck, and goose bumps quickly emerged.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” he said, his Southern twang more noticeable than last night. He walked around the couch fully clothed. He had obviously been just teasing me with his tickles and kisses. “There’s some orange juice in the fridge. If you want, I can try to make you something for breakfast.”

  He chuckled while opening the fridge and pulling out the jug of OJ. “You’re not serious.” He just stood there, with his shirt hanging out of his jeans, but other than that looked like he was ready for a photo shoot. I became a little self-conscious about my lack of makeup, my frizzy hair…and my death breath.

  “Actually, I’m not really into eating breakfast, so I don’t have much here.” That was my cue for wanting to end this awkward morning-after visit as quickly as possible so I could go back to looking, feeling, and smelling like a bum.

  “No problem. I get it.” He unscrewed the cap and chugged the juice straight from the container. I cringed. Ever hear of a glass? “Ahhh,” he said, almost too predictably, when finished. “I’ll get out of your hair. Need to get to work.” He picked up his keys and phone from the kitchen table as thunder rattled the wind
ows.

  “No worries,” I said, trying not to let him think I was eager to reclaim my space and get back to my own work. “Do you have a modeling gig this early?”

  “Oh, no.” He smiled, showing off teeth so white they could have served as a beacon on a deserted island. “I work in finance. That’s my day job, unless a modeling gig comes up. Trying to make the transition, but I might need to move to the West Coast to really make that happen.”

  He paused, as if he were waiting for me to say, “Please don’t go.” Instead, I said, “Living on the West Coast might be pretty cool.”

  “Tell you what,” he said, swinging around on the heels of his boots, as if he were looking for something.

  “Can I help you find something?” I began to get off the couch when I realized the T-shirt I was wearing probably wouldn’t cover my ass. I sat back down. “Don’t want to upset Zorro here.” The lazy cat lifted his head and yawned.

  “Do you have a pen?”

  “Uh…I probably have one in my purse if you’ll hand it to me.” I stretched my arm toward the kitchen, where he found the brown bag on the counter. As he walked it over to me, stuff dropped out, including two small napkins.

  “Just what I was looking for.” He handed me the purse as he leaned down to pick up the napkins.

  “Looks like you also grabbed Zahera’s note,” he said, tossing it on the table.

  I dug through my purse, looking for a pen as he stood over me. He lifted the end of my hair, which hadn’t been cut by a real stylist in what…maybe a year? I couldn’t take any more self-awareness into all of my deficiencies, so I just dumped the entire contents of my purse on the couch. Zorro startled and scrambled off the couch. “Here you go.”

  He placed the napkin on the side table and wrote something, then handed it to me. “I like you, Ivy. I had fun, I don’t know about you.”

  “Sure, lots of fun,” I said in a higher-than-normal pitch. “It was...nice.”

  “Nice.” He chuckled, turning to the door. I glanced at the napkin. On the other side of the note he’d written to me at the bar, he’d jotted down his phone number.

  “Thanks.” As soon as I said the word, I realized it sounded like something I’d say to the person who bagged my groceries.

  He gave me a wink and then opened the door. “Whoa, sorry about that,” he said, moving his body to the right. Looking around him, I saw a wet Cristina standing at my doorstep.

  “Did I interrupt something?” she asked, staring at Jake.

  He poked his head back into my apartment. “No worries. We had our time together. It was…nice.” He winked again and then walked off.

  “Sorry.” She sniffled, wrinkling her nose.

  I jumped from the couch and met her before she took three steps into the kitchen. “Don’t tell me you spent the night in the park again.”

  She looked at me with her big, brown eyes, then used a wet sleeve to wipe her nose. “I should have…” She huffed twice and then sneezed so loudly, Zorro jumped in the air, his tail standing up like a baseball bat. “I should have listened to you. Do you mind if I hang out here a little bit?”

  “Get in here.” I shut the door and set her wet backpack on the other side of the fridge. “You need to take a shower, get out of those wet clothes.”

  “Can’t. Everything I have is wet.”

  I put a hand on my hip, but I decided not to preach. “I’ve got some sweats you can borrow. And I think I might have a can of chicken soup I can fix for you.”

  I ushered her to my bedroom and gave her a towel and a robe from a fancy hotel I’d stayed at a year earlier.

  “You don’t have to do this. I can take care of myself.” She sneezed again, and I jumped back.

  “Tissues are on the toilet. And I recommend you take some cold medicine. It’s in the cabinet, second shelf.”

  “Thank you.”

  I shut the bedroom door and headed toward the kitchen, stopping short when I saw the contents of my purse splayed all over the couch. “What a frickin’ mess.” Instead of taking the time to sift through everything and determine what I could throw away or just leave in the apartment, I stuffed it all back into my purse. I noticed the napkin note that belonged to Zahera, and I became curious.

  I picked up the napkin, and my heart skipped a beat. “Holy shit.”

  I heated up the soup and counted the minutes until Cristina finished her shower.

  22

  I paced back and forth, my brain on overdrive trying to decipher the meaning of two simple words—the same words I’d found on the note to Zahera.

  “You’re literally going to rub a hole through the rug.” Cristina sat on the couch holding her phone with a power cord attached to it. She’d been using it for three hours straight, after she’d downed a can of chicken soup and an entire box of saltine crackers.

  I stopped in my tracks. “I’m trying to think through every possible scenario while I’m waiting for Stan to get up here. What do you expect me to do?”

  She gazed across the floor. “I’m not kidding. Your rug looks like something you picked up off the trash heap.”

  “Funny.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and went back to searching for any sign of Mona and Dexter Hamrick in our nation’s crowded capital city. Every few minutes, she’d make a phone call and tell the person on the other end a variation of her story: she was the illegitimate daughter of Dexter and had heard he was looking for a relative to determine if they were match for a kidney transplant. When it came to lying, Cristina was a pro’s pro.

  “You’re doing it again,” she said.

  “Where is Stan? I buzzed him up ten minutes ago, dammit.”

  I dialed his number again as I walked over to the front door.

  “I’m standing outside your door.”

  I looked through the peephole and saw Stan with his phone to his ear.

  I unlocked the three locks and pulled him inside. “What the hell took you so long?”

  “Two murder investigations,” he said dryly. He put both hands on his waist, then noticed Cristina. “Didn’t know you were crashing here.”

  Moving the phone away from her ear briefly, she said, “Mom here let me use her shower and borrow some clothes while I get in from the rain.” She raised an eyebrow my way and smiled.

  I’d never been called Mom before, even as a joke. I shook my head and stuck the napkin in Stan’s face. He immediately jerked his head back, as if he were farsighted.

  He scowled as he read it. “I am in love with you…Evan?”

  Cristina lifted from the couch while talking on the phone, using phrases like “illegitimate daughter” and “kidney transplant” and “urgent that I reach Dexter Hamrick.” She pranced into my bedroom and shut the door.

  “Your other case?” Stan asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder.

  “Yes, but focus on the note.”

  “Who’s Jake?”

  I briefed Stan on my evening adventures with Zahera…and then with Jake. I could see he was surprised by my overnight guest, but he didn’t dwell on it.

  He took another step back, his eyes reading the note again. “What am I missing?”

  I turned the napkin at an angle. “Think about the carving on Eileen’s back.”

  He scratched his whiskers, then pulled out his phone and swiped and tapped until the image of her dead body came up on his screen. “I think I need the visual, as sick as it is.”

  I didn’t need to look at the images of the carvings on the backs of Eileen and Joanna. I could still picture them vividly, including the grotesque mutilation that surrounded the etchings. “All along, we looked at the so-called symbol on Eileen at the same angle the picture was taken, where the body is vertical. Therefore, that’s how I came up with my theory of the railroad track.”

  I flipped the napkin ninety degrees.

  “If you turn the image, it’s the letter I,” he said.

  I smirked, but kept going. “Bring up the image from Joanna.”
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  He did and studied it for a moment. .

  “This one was difficult,” I said. “The torn flesh around the carving I think might have skewed our ability to read it.”

  “Do you think he did that on purpose?” Stan said.

  “If it’s indeed a man. Maybe on purpose, I’m not sure. But all of that mangled skin, along with the assumption that the first image was a piece of railroad made me and Cristina think this was a mountain range. And so up until I called you, I’d been noodling with ideas around a railroad and mountain range.”

  He raised the phone to eye level. “A-M. AM.” He turned his head to me, and then said, “I am.”

  I nodded. “That’s got to be it. The killer is not being cryptic; he’s being succinct.”

  “I am,” he said again, nodding this time. “It was right there in front of our eyes the entire time.”

  I began pacing as I considered what it all might mean. “We think we’ve solved the messages from these two murders, but there’s a bigger question we need to answer.”

  “Hold on, let me call this in to the team, get them working on it,” he said, punching up a number on his phone. He conveyed our breakthrough to Moreno and finished the conversation in just a few seconds.

  “Before you go any further,” he said as he headed for the kitchen, “do you have anything I can munch on? I didn’t eat lunch, and I feel like I’m about to pass out.”

  I looked in my mostly-bare pantry and pulled out an old box of Cap’n Crunch. “Might be stale.”

  He took the box and shoved a handful into his mouth.

  “I was going to say I don’t have any milk, but I guess you don’t need any.”

  “Nope,” he said, cramming more cereal into his mouth.

  I shrugged then restarted my pacing in the adjoining living room. “Stan, unless there’s some miraculous new evidence that you guys have found that will lead us to this crazy person—”