Paranoid

by Lisa Jackson

  “You said she was blindfolded?”

  “Tape,” Nowak clarified. “Over the eyes.”

  Like Violet.

  Fuck.

  Cade’s arms tightened around his daughter. He thought of the two murders and the weird text Rachel had received, the vandalism on the house. Connected? Possibly. Certainly more than coincidence.

  “Look, you said you got statements?” he said to Nowak. “Let’s get these two home.”

  He felt his daughter tense. “You’re not going to tell Mom, are you?” Harper asked, drawing away to stare at him with a newfound worry in her eyes. “Dad, please—”

  “I’m pretty sure that can’t be avoided.” He kept his gaze on Vale. “As a matter of fact, I think both of you should be there when I do. Give me ten minutes to check out the scene before we head out.” He turned to Nowak. “You’ll stay with them?”

  “You’ve got it.” Nowak gave a curt nod.

  “Okay.” To Harper, he said, “I’ll be right back, okay? I just have to check out a few things. Stay with Officer Nowak.”

  “I’ll be here,” Vale offered, as if that were any kind of comfort.

  “I won’t be long,” he told Harper.

  “Okay, Dad.” His daughter moved away from him, looking small and pale.

  “Ten minutes,” he repeated, then headed across the uneven ground of the old school yard. Voss was over by the school, her flashlight illuminating the patches of grass and dirt.

  “We think the attack started here,” she said. “You can see signs of a struggle.” She ran her flashlight’s beam onto a door and the broken cement of the porch where there was evidence of blood and scuff marks in the dust. “One shoe here.” She illuminated a red high heel. “Another here.” Not far away, the mate of the first shoe lay on its side.

  “Then he dragged her this way.” She ran the beam over the ground where shallow, parallel ruts were scraped into the bare earth—a trail leading across the yard. They disappeared in the spots of grass only to show up in other spots of wet earth. “Her heels are scraped, so it looks like he dragged her.” Voss was slowly walking toward the chapel. “He probably picked her up and carried her from here. The door was pried open and there are no drag marks inside the building.”

  Cade nodded, reviewing what she’d told him, trying to envision the crime as it had been committed.

  A fierce attack.

  Brutal.

  The killer had been determined.

  He glanced up at the spire of the church, and then let his gaze move downward in the night sky to the fence at the back of the chapel. Just beyond the fence, he could see the roof of the building next door, his old man’s law office. A muscle began to work in his jaw. He knew the place well, especially the apartment where Vale had taken up temporary residence.

  Hadn’t he used that very spot himself when he was younger?

  Hadn’t he and Rachel spent nights alone up in that studio?

  Doing the same things his seventeen-year-old daughter was doing with Xander Vale?

  What goes around, comes around.

  Son of a bitch!

  “In here,” Voss said, urging him on.

  They stepped through the door and into an anteroom. Lights were visible on one side of the altar, shafts falling through an open doorway. Following the beam of Voss’s flashlight, they walked carefully down the aisle and around a corner to the base of the bell tower, where the woman lay crumpled on the floor of the square space. A severed rope was still tied around one ankle. Her hair fanned out on the ground around her, and her eyes were glassy and fixed, bits of some gooey substance clinging to the skin near her eyes.

  “Tape,” Voss said, as if reading his thoughts. “It was over her eyes. As she was still alive, Vale tore it off her face before he tried to revive her.” She motioned to the side of the enclosure where a wad of blue tape was tacked to the wall. It appeared to be identical to the tape they’d found slapped across Violet Sperry’s face.

  Evidence.

  Destroyed.

  Two rescue workers, a man and a woman, were bending over the woman.

  “No one would have been able to save her,” the male hypothesized. “Once the killer strung her up, she was probably too far gone.” A lanky twentysomething, his face pockmarked from acne in his youth, his hair trimmed tight on the sides giving way to a thick tuft of red on top, he nodded as he stared at the lifeless woman. “Looks like a ruptured trachea, broken windpipe.”

  “Hyoid fractured?” Voss asked.

  “Probably,” the female EMT agreed. “Have to wait until the autopsy for the actual cause of death. ME’s on his way.”

  “Crime scene team, too. They should be here any minute,” Voss said, then added, “It looks like Vale’s story holds up. He had a knife, gave it up.” She cast a glance up at Cade, her face in weird shadow cast by the eerie lights. “The kids were lucky they didn’t surprise the killer.”

  “Not for her,” Cade said, glancing down at the corpse.

  The male EMT stood up and scrabbled in a front pocket for a nonexistent cigarette. “As I said, nothing they could do.”

  Cade looked upward to the dark recess of the tower overhead and imagined the brute force required to carry the victim here, presumably as she fought back. He wondered about the adrenaline rush firing the killer’s blood. Why had the killer brought her here? Why string her up? Why not leave her at the site of the attack, across the way at the school?

  Premeditated.

  This wasn’t a random killing.

  “She have any valuables on her?”

  Voss nodded. “Wedding ring set, lots of diamonds in the setting, credit card and forty dollars in her back pocket along with her driver’s license. Robbery wasn’t the motive.”

  That much he knew just by considering the brutality of the crime, the way the body was staged to be found.

  “Her husband been notified?”

  “Yes, she’s married. Is that a lucky guess?” Voss asked.

  “I knew of her. Small town.”

  “We reached the husband, but he’s in Seattle. On his way back here now.”

  “You found her cell phone, right?”

  “Yeah. Checking the recent calls and contact list already.”

  “Good.” He glanced down at the body one last time. “I gotta go.”

  On the way back to the parking area he said, “I’ll be back once I get Harper home and settled, make sure she’s all right.”

  “Got it.”

  They reached Nowak, who was leaning against his car. Harper was huddled against Vale and she looked young and scared out of her mind. He didn’t blame her. He said to his daughter, “Okay, you ride with me. And you?” He met the younger man’s disturbed gaze. “You come to the house. In your own vehicle.” Then, thinking twice, “If you’re okay to drive.”

  “I am.” The kid seemed calm, so Cade took him at his word.

  For now.

  Just before he climbed into his truck, he texted Kayleigh: Check out homicide at St. Augustine’s chapel. Could be connected to Sperry murder. Busy now. Will call.

  He pocketed his phone and got behind the wheel. Before he switched on the ignition, he turned to look at his daughter, huddled against the passenger door in the dark. God, she looked vulnerable, even though she was trying to hold herself together. “You okay?” he asked.

  “No.” She blinked, sniffed, then rolled her eyes. “Are you?”

  “No, not so much.”

  “I’ll never be okay again,” she whispered and stared out the window.

  His heart cracked a little. Never had he wanted her to experience anything so traumatic. Reaching across the cab, he held her as close as her seat belt would allow. “You will be,” he said. “It’ll be different; never the same. But we’ll both be okay.”

  She shuddered. “I don’t think so.”

  “Give it time,” he suggested and released her. “You’re tougher than you think.”

  “If you say so. Come on. Let’s go
. Get this over with.”

  He started the engine and the headlights came on automatically, cutting gold swaths into the dark night.

  Harper let out a long sigh as he put the car into drive. She whispered just loud enough so that he could hear, “Mom is gonna so freak.”

  “She’ll be all right.”

  His daughter threw him a disbelieving glare. “Oh, yeah? When was the last time she was ‘all right’?” She made air quotes, then slouched deeper into the seat. “Trust me, Dad, you’ll see. She won’t be anywhere close to all right.”

  CHAPTER 23

  “Annessa is dead?” Rachel whispered, trying to get her head around what she was being told, here in the middle of her living room, by her ex-husband.

  He’d texted, then shown up at the door with Harper in tow, Xander Vale making an appearance a few minutes later, just as she’d woken Dylan per Cade’s demands. With a barking Reno at her side, Rachel had met them at the door, and her daughter had almost fallen into her arms.

  At first Rachel had held Harper as if she’d never let go. As the news had sunk in and she’d realized the depth of the trauma Harper was dealing with, Rachel had squeezed her, then finally released her. “Thank God you’re okay,” she’d said as they’d both battled tears and Harper had bravely dashed hers away.

  Now Xander, Harper, and Dylan sat on the couch, ashen faced and looking as if they wanted to drop through the floor. Dylan’s hair was mussed, but his eyes were wide as quarters, on alert, despite the fact that he’d been yanked from his bed. Harper wiped away tears, scared as hell and lost in her personal nightmare, while Xander stared at the floor, hands clasped between his knees.

  Shocked beyond belief, Rachel tried to control the trembling that rippled through her body as she lowered herself into her favorite chair. She was still struggling to digest the horrific news.

  First Violet and now . . . Annessa? Rachel couldn’t believe it. Another classmate. Another young, vibrant woman.

  Dead.

  Murdered.

  And her girl had witnessed the horror, watched a woman die from wounds inflicted by some monster. Rachel was torn between wanting to scream at Harper for being so foolhardy and, relieved that she was safe, holding Harper tight to protect her. Harper looked so young, so innocent . . . so vulnerable. Oh, God.

  “Just start at the beginning,” Rachel said once her initial shock lifted and her heart rate returned to nearly normal. She listened as Harper explained how she’d slipped out of the house, met Xander Vale, gone to the apartment owned by Chuck Ryder’s firm, and then heard the moans coming from outside the window. The kids had followed the sounds to St. Augustine’s, where they’d found Annessa barely clinging to life and hanging upside down from the bell tower in the long-closed chapel. Desperately, they had tried to save the near-dead woman, calling 911 as they’d cut her down. But Annessa had died before the paramedics had arrived.

  Rachel fought desperately to hold herself together as she struggled to make some sense of the story.

  To be calm when she was frightened out of her mind.

  What if Xander and Harper had heard those cries for help while the killer was still there? Would they have become his next targets? Would they, too, have ended up swinging from bell tower ropes? Would they have survived? Her throat tightened and she gripped the arms of the chair at the thought of what might have been. Instead of one victim, there could have been more, including Harper.

  Her soul turned to ice and she had to battle the panic that threatened when she let her thoughts venture down that dark, crooked path.

  She couldn’t go there . . . wouldn’t. Instead, she considered how the night had unfolded. “What were you thinking?” she asked her daughter, then caught Cade’s slight shake of his head, warning her this wasn’t the time or place to chastise their already terrified child. “Never mind, we’ll go into that later,” she said, taking his cue and seeing Harper swallow and fight tears. Shaking inside, Rachel said, “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

  Tears began to drizzle down Harper’s cheeks all over again. She sniffed and brushed them quickly away, tried vainly to look tough.

  “Look, honey, why . . . why don’t you just go to bed?” Rachel suggested. “We can all talk again tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Ever.”

  “Shh. Your mom is right.” Vale placed an arm around Harper’s slim shoulders, then whispered something in her ear and kissed her hair. So tender it almost broke Rachel’s heart. Almost. He looked up and held Rachel’s gaze.

  “I am sorry for all of this,” he said, his voice rough. “It’s my fault that Harper snuck out. My idea. It . . . it won’t happen again.”

  Harper looked up through her tears and pressed a palm to his chest. “No. It’s not your fault. I came because I wanted to be with you.”

  “We can discuss all this later after we’ve all had some sleep,” Cade said. “The important thing is that you tried to help and you’re safe. We’ll have a better perspective in the morning.”

  Rachel couldn’t have agreed more. Now that her daughter was home and unhurt, she just wanted Vale out of her house, needed time to get her own head on straight.

  “You can go,” Cade said to Vale, “but you’re probably going to be contacted by the department again. There’re bound to be more questions.”

  Beside him, Harper groaned. “We already told them everything we know.”

  “Right, but there’ll be a follow-up interview,” Cade said. “You might remember something else.”

  “I don’t want to remember any of it,” Harper said as Vale rose to his feet and she joined him. With Harper at his side, he made his way to the front door.

  “Me neither, but we’re gonna have to.” He looked into the living room and muttered a quick, “Thanks,” though he didn’t explain whom he was thanking or why. He didn’t kiss Harper again, just slipped outside, pulling the door shut behind him. Cade walked to the door and twisted the dead bolt into place.

  Harper glared at her parents. “You can’t blame him,” she said. “He tried to help that woman.”

  “We don’t,” Cade said, but Rachel wasn’t so quick to acquiesce. If it hadn’t been for Vale wanting to sneak Harper away, they never would have been in this situation. Yes, Annessa would still have been killed, but her daughter would have been safe and spared the trauma of watching someone die.

  Just as you did.

  She remembered looking down at Luke on the grimy floor of the darkened cannery and watching the light go out of his eyes as he’d slipped into unconsciousness only to die soon after.

  Now her own daughter knew the same gut-shredding terror of watching someone die.

  Her insides shriveled as she heard a beeping noise and realized it was the security system. She shot to her feet, ran to the back door, and punched in the code to shut off the alarm.

  Returning to the living room, she found Harper leaning over the back of the couch to peer through the front window and stare at the disappearing taillights of Vale’s Jeep. With a heartfelt sigh, Harper slid onto the cushions and turned, meeting her mother’s eyes.

  Rachel’s heart twisted. “I’m sorry you had to go through this.”

  “We all are,” Cade agreed. “Now, before you all go to bed, one last thing.”

  “Uh-oh,” Dylan said under his breath.

  He focused on his daughter. “How did you get out? The security system was in place and your mom said it was still turned on when she got up and checked. Did you turn it off, then reset it?”

  “No.” Harper bit her lip. “I, uh, I asked Dylan to disengage the circuit to my window.”

  “What? And you did it?” Rachel said, staring at her son in disbelief. “But that’s the whole point of the alarm, to keep you guys safe.”

  “And to keep us in.” Harper folded her arms over her chest, back to being rebellious again.

  “Yeah.” Rachel was nodding. “At night. Because it’s dangerous, Harper. You should understand th
at after what you went through tonight. Don’t you see, I’m . . . we, your father and me . . . we just want to keep you safe.”

  “But—”

  “No ‘buts’ about it,” Cade said, staring his daughter down. “We don’t know what’s happening, but this is the second murder in Edgewater in under a week.”

  “It has nothing to do with us.”

  “You don’t know that,” Cade cut in and pointed at the door. “This house was vandalized—”

  “What do you mean?” Harper asked.

  Rachel explained about the door and when it had been marred.

  “Seriously?” Harper was stunned. “I didn’t even notice.”

  “I know,” Cade said. “It happened the other night. Your mom painted over it and didn’t want to upset you.”

  “Geez.” Dylan slid a glance at Rachel.

  Cade went on. “That’s not all. Your mom got at least one kind of freaky text. The text might be nothing, but we don’t know that. Not yet. That’s the point. We, all of us”—he motioned to indicate the entire family—“need to be extra vigilant. So you don’t sneak out again. And you”—he turned his gaze on his son—“you don’t need to be sabotaging the security system. What were you thinking?”

  Dylan didn’t answer.

  Rachel couldn’t believe it. “Let me get this straight. You made a separate circuit for Harper’s room, one you could disengage at will?”

  No response.

  She went on, “Did you do the same to your room, too?”

  Dylan studied the floor and Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “It didn’t take you long to do it. I was right there.” Another worrisome thought crawled through her brain. “Please don’t tell me this is what you do for other kids,” she said, horrified at the thought. She paused to fill Cade in, explaining about searching both kids’ living areas and being accused of invading their spaces. “And I found an unexplained stash of money in Dylan’s room. Harper said it was for fixing his friends’ computers and the like, but I think there’s more to it.”

  Dylan glanced up, then down again and swallowed as if there was something stuck in his throat.

  “We’ll need a list of any security systems you altered,” Cade said, obviously trying to keep a lid on his own anger.