Quinn pulled herself together and spoke to her children. “Stand with that lady for a minute. I need to talk to your uncle.” The children obeyed, too terrified to do anything but, and sidled close to Taylor’s legs. Taylor absently patted them on the head, watching Quinn.
Quinn came closer, standing over Reese for a moment, waiting for him to meet her eyes. He finally managed to focus on her. She looked to Taylor and Baldwin for guidance.
“Don’t touch him, Quinn. You hit him in the chest, his lung’s already collapsed. I don’t know if he’s going to make it.”
“I just need to talk to him for a moment.” There were tears coursing down her cheeks. She knelt beside Reese, her voice quiet but determined.
“Reese, I am your mother. I am so sorry. You’re right, we should have told you.”
Reese’s voice was wheezy, full of pain. “No, you’re wrong. It was Whitney. Whitney was my mother.” He coughed and a bubble of blood appeared on his lips. He was badly hurt.
Quinn shook her head. “No, that’s not right. It was me. They kept us both in seclusion after the kidnapping, but I was the one who was pregnant.”
Reese tried to speak again, groaning with the effort. “But… Nathan…told me…told me he raped Whitney…not…you.”
“Oh, Reese. We were identical twins. He didn’t know who was who. We never told him.”
The faint wail of sirens reached their ears, growing steadily louder. Taylor murmured to the children to stay put and went to Quinn.
“You have to step back now, Quinn. We need to make room for them to work on Reese.” Taylor could see the waxiness of his skin, the light fading from his eyes as he struggled for breath. Funny, neither she nor Baldwin had made an effort to help him. She supposed that was fitting.
Quinn was down on the ground, smoothing Reese’s hair back, murmuring to him. The blood was flowing steady and strong from the wound in his chest, and Taylor could see the sheen of sweat on his upper lip. He was whispering back to Quinn, over and over, repeating the same two words. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
The sirens cut through the night. The ambulance pulled to the road and the EMTs rushed through the clearing. Taylor pulled Quinn back.
“We need to give them room to work on him, Quinn. Hold it right here for a moment.”
Quinn looked at Taylor. “Will they be able to save him?”
Baldwin stepped into the light, laying a hand on Quinn’s arm. “Let’s let them work, Quinn. You’re going to need to step over here with me.”
Baldwin signaled to the patrol officer that had joined the ambulance. “Please take Mrs. Buckley to your car. She needs to sit down.” The man marched her smartly away.
Taylor raised an eyebrow. “Are we going to have to charge her?”
“She just shot a man. I think there will be enough to claim some kind of self-defense, but we need her clear of the scene.”
Quinn was put into a patrol car, eyes down. Baldwin signaled to another patrol, the children needed to be attended to, as well. Neither was badly hurt, just shaken. Jake Junior had a thin line of blood along his collar. One of the EMTs came to them, looking them over. They were going to be just fine. They were seated in the car with their mother, who gathered them in her arms and buried her face in their shoulders. Baldwin studied them for a moment. They would remember this night forever, he was sure of that. He turned back to the focus of the night.
The EMTs were lifting Reese onto the stretcher, ready to take him to the hospital. Taylor went to them.
“Is he going to be all right?”
The EMTs’ hands were slick with Reese’s blood. “Yeah, we should be able to get him to the hospital without too much trouble. Another inch and he wouldn’t make it. Lucky son of a bitch.”
“Then hold on just a moment.” She pulled her cuffs out of her back pocket, reaching for Reese’s arm. He was groaning and cursing, incoherent with pain and weak from blood loss. She snapped the cuff around his wrist, then affixed the other end to the stretcher rail.
“He’s under arrest. Don’t let that cuff off of him, do you understand?”
The EMT started to protest. “But we can’t—”
“Don’t even think about arguing with me. A patrol will ride with you for security. I’ll meet you at the hospital. Now go.”
She walked the few steps back to Baldwin, a smile on her face.
“We got him.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Taylor and Baldwin were seated on the back deck, drinking ice-cold beer from the bottle. Reese Connolly was being arraigned today.
The past week had gone by in a blur. Reese had made it to the hospital, and after several touch-and-go hours, the doctors had repaired the damage and declared that he would live. Taylor felt such immense satisfaction at the declaration. The bastard would pay for his crimes, would be brought to trial and judged. Reese’s instincts had been right, he was a national story, one his aunt would have been desperate to cover. As it was, in death Whitney Connolly had gained the fame and notoriety she’d always craved.
Quinn kept insisting Reese was so consumed with hatred and misguided loyalty that he wasn’t in his right mind when he committed the atrocious murders that paralyzed the Southeast for the summer. The D.A. had decided not to seek an indictment against her. She had hired the best criminal attorney in Nashville and was fervently seeking support for an insanity defense for her eldest son.
Baldwin had spent a long afternoon at Riverbend prison, visiting with Nathan Chase, trying to find if there were any missing pieces to fill in. Nathan happily admitted to his past crimes and showed genuine pride in his son’s accomplishments, as he’d referred to Reese’s murderous spree.
For his part, Reese was seeking sympathy from all quarters, doing his damnedest to make sure all involved knew he wasn’t culpable for his crimes. At the hospital, after his surgery, he had explained in detail what he had done. How he had shadowed Jake Buckley, watched him cuckold Quinn again and again. Had decided that Jake would be the perfect fall guy for the crimes.
Reese had admitted that he had started running out of time, had started killing the girls on the road instead of taking the time to get them back to their homes. Blood evidence had been found in a roadside rest stop just forty miles south of Roanoke. The blood matched Marni Fischer. Baldwin had been correct about Noelle Pazia’s asthma attack. She’d died in the trunk of the car, and his fury at finding her dead drove him to new lengths of horror with Ivy Clark.
There is no such thing as killing for the right reason. But in his mind, Reese was doing just that. He was reaching out in the only way he knew how, trying to get the approval and nurturing he thought he’d been denied for so long. Ironically, it was Quinn who met all those needs, something he never recognized.
His lawyer, a shrewd and experienced man, was making it quite clear to anyone that would listen that Baldwin had coerced a confession out of his client while the man was still under the influence of narcotic drugs from the surgery. He was making a play to get the whole case dropped on the technicality. It was turning into one of the most impressive three-ring circuses that Nashville had ever seen.
* * *
Baldwin was quiet, basking in the late-summer sun. The days were cooling, the evenings bringing a chill to the air. Fall would be here soon.
“Taylor,” he said softly. She looked at him, eyes smiling.
“I talked to Garrett this morning. Told him that I was resigning.”
Taylor turned to him, putting a hand up to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun. “Are you kidding me?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not kidding. I want to strike out on my own, get away from the Bureau. Maybe start my own firm, consulting. You could come work with me.”
“I’m not ready to leave Metro, Baldwin, you know that.”
“Then
you could confer with me on some of the consultancies. Regardless, it’s done. I’m mailing the papers in the morning. I want to be here, Taylor. With you.”
He stood and went to her, hands on her arms, head bent to touch her forehead.
“I’m tired of this life. Tired of watching these crimes, waiting for the next killer to surface. I want more. I want to be with you. Today, tomorrow. Forever. I want you to be my wife.” He took her left hand in his and she felt something hard slide down her fourth finger. She looked at her hand, astounded by the sparkling diamond.
Taylor was stunned. Not so much by the proposal, but by the emotion she was feeling. Wife. The word was so foreign to her. It wasn’t something she had really thought about, not seriously. She knew Baldwin loved her, and she him. But the idea of spending the rest of her life with him wasn’t something she’d let herself think about.
They faced such danger every day. Evil spread like a cancer through their lives, binding them to the darkness. Marriage seemed like such a hopeful proposition. Happiness wasn’t a luxury she’d thought she could afford.
“Baldwin, I… I don’t know what to say.”
The look on his face broke her heart. “I don’t mean that I’m saying no. I just hadn’t thought about it. Not seriously. I… Baldwin, I hate the thought of losing you. I’m scared that if we do get married, I might lose you.”
“Taylor, that’s crazy thinking. I’m not going anywhere. No one is going to come between us. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll keep us both safe.”
She felt tears prick the corner of her eyes. Baldwin was standing back a few feet now, looking at her as if she might explode. The naked vulnerability on his face overwhelmed her. He took it as a sign that she was refusing, started to leave, to go into the house. Taylor caught his arms. She grasped his hand, brought it to her lips. The tears were coming now, trickling down her cheeks. She swiped a hand across her cheek, smiled through the haze that was clouding her eyes. She pulled him close, drawing him back down to her. She brushed his lips with hers.
“No, please don’t. Please, don’t go.”
She took a deep breath.
“Yes.”
* * * * *
Please enjoy this exclusive excerpt from Lie to Me by J.T. Ellison
PROLOGUE
In Which Introductions Are Made
You aren’t going to like me very much. Oh, maybe in your weaker moments, you’ll feel sorry for me, and use those feelings of warmth and compassion and insightful understanding to excuse my actions. You’ll say to yourself, “Poor little girl. She couldn’t help herself.” Or, “Can you blame her? After all she’s been through?” Perhaps you’ll even think, “She was born to this. It is not her fault.”
Of course it’s my fault. I chose this path. Yes, I feel as if I have no choice, that I’m driven to do it, that there are voices in my head that push me to the dark side.
But I also know right from wrong. I know good from evil. I may be compelled to ruin the lives in front of me, but I could walk away if I wanted.
Couldn’t I?
Never mind that. Back to you.
Truly, deep down, you are going to despise me. I am the rot that lives in the floorboards of your house. I am the spider that scuttles away when you shine light in my corner, ever watching, ever waiting. I am the shard of glass that slits the skin of your bare foot. I am all the bad things that happen to you.
I steal things.
I kill things.
I leave a trail of destruction in my wake that is a sight to behold, wave after wave of hate that will overwhelm you until you sink to the bottom of my miserable little ocean, and once you’ve drowned I will feed on your flesh and turn your bones to dust.
You’re mine now. You are powerless against me. So don’t bother fighting it.
I hope you enjoy the show.
WE FIND A BODY
The body was in the woods off a meandering state road that led into a busy, charming historical downtown. It was completely obscured from view, deeply hidden, under several pine boughs and a thick layer of nature’s detritus. Synthetic clothing was melted to the flesh, making it difficult to tell the body’s race or gender at a glance. Closer investigation showed hair that was long and a curious shade: not blonde, not red, possibly chemically-treated. The left hand held evidence of rings, possibly a wedding set, and so the body was eventually determined as female.
The shroud of melt and bough had not stopped the forever daisy-chain progression of decay. Instar maggots and adult flies delighted in their found treat. A genus party started soon after. Diptera and Coleoptera were evident three days in, paving the way for the coming colonization of Calliphoridae. Though the body was burned beyond ready recognition, the insects didn’t seem to mind; it was simply a barbecue feast to them.
Outside of this natural progression, the body lay undisturbed for two days. Birds of prey flew in long, lazy circles overhead. Cars drove past less than fifty yards away, drivers unknowing, uncaring, that one of their own lay rotting nearby.
Three Days Gone, a stray but severe thunderstorm knocked free several of the funereal branches, allowing the body to be exposed, pelted by hail breaking through the leafy canopy. The heavy rains wet the ground and allowed the body to sink deeper into the muck, where it canted on its side.
Four Days Gone, the body was ravaged by a starving coyote, forty-two razor teeth shredding everything available.
Five Days Gone, the body disarticulated, the fire and the heat and the wet and the insects and the coyote and the natural progression of things breaking it down quickly and without thought to the effects this would have on the loved ones. The idea of a non-intact body was sometimes more than people could take.
Six Days Gone, they found her.
ETHAN
“Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.”
-George Santayana
SOMETHING’S MISSING
Franklin, Tennessee
Now
Ethan found the note ten minutes after he rolled out of bed that Tuesday, the Tuesday that would change everything. He came downstairs yawning, scratching his chest, to…nothing. Empty space, devoid of wife.
Sutton always began her morning at the table with a bowl of cereal, a piece of fruit, and a cup of tea and read the paper, scoffing at the innumerable typos—the paper was going under, paying for decent copyediting was the least of their worries. A bowl full of cereal, a glass of milk and a spoon would be laid out for him, the sports page folded neatly by his seat. Always. Always.
But this morning, there was no evidence Sutton had been in the kitchen. No newspaper, no bowl. No wife.
He called for her. There was no answer. He searched through the house. Her bag was in her office, her cellphone, her laptop. Her license was stashed in her small wallet, all her credit cards present and accounted for, a twenty folded in half shoved behind them.
She must have gone for a run.
He felt a spark of pleasure at the thought. Sutton, once, had been a health nut. She’d run or walked or done yoga every day, something physical, something to keep her body moving and in shape. And what a shape—the woman was a knockout, willowy and lithe, strong legs and delicate ankles, tendons tight and gleaming like a thoroughbred. A body she sculpted to match his own, to fit with him.
Ethan Montclair couldn’t have a dog for a wife, no. He needed someone he could trot out at cocktail parties who looked smashing in a little black dress. And not only looked good, but sounded good. He needed a partner on all levels—physical and intellectual. Maybe it was shallow of him, but he was a good looking man, drew a lot of attention, and not only did he want his wife to be stunning, he wanted her to be smart, too. And Sutton fit the bill.
He knew they made a powerful, attractive couple. Looks and brains and success, so much success. That was their thing.
After Dashiell, she’d bounced back into shape like the champion racehorse she was, thou
gh later, when their world collapsed, she’d become tired and bloated and swollen with medications and depression, and she no longer took any interest in being beautiful and fit.
That she’d decided to start running again gave him hope. So much hope.
Spirits lifted, he went back to the sunny, happy kitchen and got his own bowl, his own milk. Made a pot of tea, whistling. Went for the stevia—no sugar for the health-conscious Montclairs, no, never.
That was when he saw it. Small. White. Lined. Torn from a spiral bound notebook, a Clairefontaine, Sutton’s favorite for the smooth, lovely paper.
This…thing…was incongruous with the rest of their spotless kitchen. Sutton was above all things a pathological neatnik. She’d never just leave something lying about.
All the happiness fled. He knew. He just knew. He’d been all wrong. She hadn’t gone running.
He picked up the note.
Dear Ethan,
I’m sorry to do this to you, but I need some time away. I’ve been unhappy, you know that. This shouldn’t come as a big surprise. Forgive me for being a coward. Forgive me, for so many things.
Don’t look for me.
S
She was gone.
He felt something squeezing in his chest, a pain of sorts, and realized that his heart had just broken. He’d always thought that a stupid, silly term, but now he knew. It could happen, it was happening. He was being torn in two, torn to shreds. No wonder there were rites warning against this—What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Dark and Twisted Reads: All the Pretty GirlsA Perfect EvilBone Cold (A Taylor Jackson Novel) Page 32