Dark and Twisted Reads: All the Pretty GirlsA Perfect EvilBone Cold (A Taylor Jackson Novel)

by J. T. Ellison

  Anna hung up the phone, grabbed her purse and ran for the door. She didn’t consider not complying with Kurt’s demands, even though she knew he intended to kill her. She was trading her own life for Jaye’s. It was a trade she was willing to make.

  This was her nightmare, not Jaye’s.

  She had come full circle.

  Anna glanced at her watch. She didn’t have much time. Kurt had given her a mere twenty minutes to arrive at her first stop—a pay phone at the Shell service station just off the I-10 West expressway in Metairie. If she was late, he’d warned, Jaye would pay the price.

  A finger. Her right pinkie first. He had arranged ten stops, all tightly timed. One for each of her friend’s fingers.

  She wouldn’t be late, Anna vowed. She would not.

  Anna exited her apartment. When she paused to lock the door, a hysterical laugh bubbled to her lips. What did it matter if she was robbed? She would most likely be dead in a matter of hours anyway.

  Leaving the door unlocked, she raced for the stairs, running down them, aware of every moment that passed. At the bottom of the stairs she ran headlong into Bill. Her friend caught her arms to steady her.

  “Hey, Anna, where’s the fire?”

  “Let me go!” She wrenched herself free. “I’ve got to go!”

  “Wait!” Bill grabbed her arms again, expression alarmed. “My God, Anna, what’s wrong? What’s happen—”

  “Please…Jaye needs me. I can’t be late… He’ll hurt her if I don’t…he’ll kill her!”

  The blood drained from her friend’s face. “I’m calling the police.”

  This time it was she who held him fast. “No! Please, you mustn’t. He’ll kill her. Promise me you won’t.”

  “I can’t. I—”

  “I’ll be all right. Please, for Jaye.”

  He looked terrified. “Okay, Anna. I promise I—”

  “Thank you.” She stood on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Tell Dalton I said goodbye.”

  CHAPTER 63

  Wednesday, February 7

  12:50 p.m.

  Quentin stared down at Louise Walker’s face, frozen in death. She appeared to have been smothered. Judging by her fixed lividity and the stage of rigor mortis, she had been dead six to eight hours. That meant she had been murdered sometime the night before. The nurses hadn’t discovered she’d passed until after breakfast, assuming at first that the woman had simply decided to sleep in. When they realized she was gone, they’d thought she’d died in her sleep, the victim of a quiet heart attack.

  The blood and other debris under her fingernails suggested otherwise.

  “He likely used one of her bed pillows,” Quentin murmured, straightening. “She tried to claw herself free. Judging by the amount of matter under her fingernails, he’s going to be pretty torn up.”

  He swung to face the first officer. “Make sure the evidence collection guys get scrapings from both hands. I want them taken here and back at the lab.”

  Quentin turned to the two nurses, huddling just inside the doorway. One had been on duty the night before, the other was the one who had discovered Louise dead this morning. “Have you notified her son?” he asked.

  The morning-shift nurse answered. “We tried. We…I called and left messages at his home and office.”

  Quentin nodded. He didn’t expect Ben Walker would be returning any of those calls, but he didn’t say that. Right now, a crime scene crew was at the doctor’s place, sifting through the destruction, looking for evidence.

  “Who could have done this?” the night nurse cried. “How did they get in and why…her? She was just a sweet old lady.”

  Why her? Somebody was cleaning up loose ends. Louise Walker had been one of those ends.

  “We’ll find that out, I promise you. Did Mrs. Walker have any unexpected visitors last night?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Was there anyone suspicious in the facility? Anyone you didn’t recognize from previous visits?”

  The night nurse shook her head again. “No, no one like that. It was a quiet night.”

  Quentin frowned. “No visitors at all?”

  The nurse hesitated. “Her son was in, of course. But no one else.”

  The hair on the back of Quentin’s neck prickled. “Ben Walker was in? What time?”

  “It was late. Well past visiting hours, but I let him in anyway. He was here for several hours and left after his mother had fallen asleep.”

  That would mean Ben Walker had been the last person to see his mother alive. Son-of-a-bitch.

  The blood began to pound in his head. He thought suddenly of the photo of Anna and Ben at the Café du Monde. “Are you certain it was her son?”

  The nurse flushed. “Yes, of cour…well, I think so. He was acting strangely, not like himself, but I figured he’d had a bad day. Nobody’s perky all the time.”

  Quentin frowned, surprised by her answer. Confused by it. He had thrown out the question, expecting her to vehemently insist the man had been Ben Walker.

  But she hadn’t. So either Adam looked enough liked Ben to be mistaken for him or they were one and the same person.

  He struggled to put the pieces together, to make them fit. What had Louise Walker said the other night? She had called Adam “The bad one. The devil himself.”

  “I’d like to see the guest registry now please.”

  While the one nurse hurried to get it, Quentin continued to question the other nurse. “Do you know, did Louise Walker have another son?”

  The woman frowned. “Not that I know of. She never mentioned one and the only pictures of her family I ever saw were of her Ben.”

  The nurse returned. She handed him the registry, open to the previous evening. Quentin found Ben’s name, then flipped back in the book until he found the doctor’s name again.

  The signatures didn’t match.

  Mother of God, that was it.

  Quentin started toward the door, eyes on the other officer. “Get Captain O’Shay on the phone now, fill her in. And I need Detectives Johnson and Walden down here, ASAP. I’ll be available by cell and beeper.”

  The officer frowned. “But where should I tell them you’ve—”

  “Anna North’s apartment. This guy’s taking care of loose ends before starting the main event. And my guess is Louise Walker was his last one.”

  * * *

  Six minutes later, Quentin screeched to a stop in front of Anna’s apartment building. In those six minutes, he had tried to call her a dozen times. He had tried her apartment and The Perfect Rose; he had gotten a recording at both numbers.

  He refused to speculate as to what that might mean. If he did, he might lose it. And he couldn’t afford that, not now.

  He jumped out of the Bronco and headed for her apartment at a dead run, weapon out.

  “Detective!”

  Quentin swung in the direction of the call. Alphonse Badeaux was hurrying across the street, frantically waving his arms. Mr. Bingle loped along beside him.

  Quentin holstered his gun, then waved him back. “Alphonse, I don’t have time—”

  “It’s about Miss Anna! I’m afraid something bad’s happened to her.” He cleared the sidewalk. “That man was here this morning! I saw him and didn’t…I should have done something. I should have warned her.”

  “What man? Who was here?”

  He struggled to catch his breath. “The one who looks like Doc Walker.”

  Quentin focused his full attention on the other man. “What do you mean ‘looks like Doc Walker’?”

  “He’s been here before. At first I thought it was Anna’s friend, the doctor. But today I got a good look at him. He’d gone into the building so I moseyed over for a chat, you know. Was going to tell him that Miss Anna had gone to the Farmer’s Market.

  “Met him on the steps. Right there.” He pointed. “He just looked at me. Made me feel real cold. Chilled to the bone, you know what I mean?”

  Quentin swa
llowed hard. He did know. And he couldn’t contemplate that Anna might be with him.

  Quentin glanced at Anna’s apartment, then back at the old man, impatience pulling at him. “Go on.”

  “He had these…gouges on the back of his hands. Real nasty-looking. You know, like someone or something had—”

  “Clawed him?”

  The man nodded. “Something’s not right with that one. His eyes…they were flat.”

  “But it wasn’t Ben Walker?” he asked. “You’re sure?”

  The man’s expression clouded. “I wouldn’t be but…it couldn’t have been him. Bingle liked the doc, but this one…he wouldn’t come near him. Growled, real deep, and hung back. Like that man was a devil or somethin’ else. Somethin’ real bad.”

  After advising Alphonse to go home and stay inside, Quentin entered Anna’s building. He made his way up the stairs to her apartment, weapon out and ready. His heart stopped when he saw her door was cracked open.

  “Anna!” he called, nudging the door the rest of the way open with the barrel of his gun. “Anna, it’s Quentin.”

  A shuffling sound came from the kitchen and Quentin pivoted in the direction. “Come out where I can see you with your hands up! I have a weapon and I will use it.”

  Dalton and Bill appeared in the kitchen doorway, hands above their heads. “Don’t shoot!” they cried in unison. “It’s only us.”

  “Where is she? Where’s Anna?”

  “We tried to call—”

  “They said you were out. We didn’t know what to do!”

  “I saw her earlier today, I was distracted…” Dalton wrung his hands. “Bill and I had argued, but still, she seemed fine…and now she’s…gone. Bill tried to stop her, but he couldn’t.”

  “Gone?” Quentin repeated, going cold with dread. He holstered his gun. “Gone where?”

  “I don’t know!” Bill cried. “She was talking crazy…she said Jaye was in danger. That he would hurt Jaye if she didn’t go. That he would kill her. She had to do exactly what he said, she made me promise not to call you.”

  “He did anyway,” Dalton inserted. “I convinced him he had to.”

  He was too late. Dear God, he was too late.

  “She left her apartment unlocked.” Bill’s voice shook. “We shouldn’t have come in but…”

  Dalton took over. “There’s something you’ve…he left her another finger, Detective Malone. But this one, it looks real.”

  It was.

  Quentin studied the severed appendage, mouth dry, heart fast. It was a woman’s pinkie, most probably it had belonged to Jessica Jackson. It was in a partial state of decomposition, decomposition that had been slowed by immersion in formaldehyde.

  He brought the heels of his hands to his eyes. Bill had described Anna as nearly hysterical. She had to go, she’d said. She had to do exactly as “he” said or Jaye would be killed.

  The bastard was using Jaye as a way to lure Anna into his trap. He had known that to save Jaye, Anna would do anything he asked.

  It had all been one big game.

  Quentin dropped his hands. What did he do now? How did he find her? He had talked to his captain; evidence teams had been sent to the nursing home, Ben Walker’s home and office and were on the way here. He had called in the last number registered on Anna’s caller ID and was awaiting word on that.

  He fisted his fingers. It wasn’t enough. Every minute that passed brought her closer to a madman.

  His cell phone rang. He snapped it open. It was Johnson. “What do you have?”

  “Phone number’s registered to one Adam Furst.”

  “Got an address?”

  They did. It was the Madisonville apartment that he and Anna had visited. “No good. Been there. He vacated weeks ago.”

  “I’ve got more, Malone. Talked to the Atlanta PD. Seems early last year in separate incidents, two women turned up dead after nights out on the town. Both were raped, then smothered. No arrests, no suspects.”

  “And both were redheads.”

  “You got it. And guess who lived in Atlanta during that time?”

  “Dr. Benjamin Walker.”

  “Bingo.”

  Quentin frowned. Who were they dealing with? One person or look-alikes? “Johnson, check something out for me. That photo of Ben Walker and Anna North at the Café du Monde, see if you can get somebody in the know to verify its authenticity for me.”

  “Sure. What’re you thinking?”

  “That it would have been difficult for Ben to have photographed himself with Anna. We might be dealing with a look-alike.”

  “A good-twin, bad-twin scenario?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “I’ll get right on it. Here’s Captain O’Shay.”

  His aunt came on the line. She sounded excited. “Call just came in for you. A kid, she was sobbing. Said it was an emergency. Said you had to help. That ‘he’ was going to hurt Anna and Jaye. Made me promise to get this message to you.”

  Quentin tightened his grip on the phone, fighting the panic that had him by the throat. “She give you a name?”

  “Name was Minnie. Sound familiar?”

  She knew it did. “Where was she?”

  “A service station and marina. She didn’t know where, but she gave us the pay phone number. She’s in Manchac, Malone.”

  “Manchac, Louisiana? The fishing village up toward Hammond?”

  “The very one.”

  He looked at his watch, mentally calculating Anna’s arrival time and what his own would be. He swore and started for the door. “Any idea what the land-speed record is to Manchac from the French Quarter?”

  “No clue. But break it anyway, Malone.”

  CHAPTER 64

  Wednesday, February 7

  3:15 p.m.

  After stopping at a half-dozen locations to receive further instructions from Kurt, Anna arrived at her final destination—a fishing camp located in Manchac, a small community an hour north of New Orleans. Situated on Lake Maurepas and surrounded by swamps, the area was home to shrimpers, fishermen and a number of rustic hunting and fishing camps.

  As directed, Anna had parked her car at the end of the unmarked dirt road about a mile past the only sign of civilization for miles, Smiley’s service station and full-service marina. Also as instructed, she had left the keys in it and started up the road on foot.

  Up ahead, through the dense cover of cypress and oak trees, she could just glimpse a building.

  A quiver of uncertainty moved through her. This was it. The end of the line.

  After twenty-three years, she was about to come face-to-face with her past.

  Anna glanced behind her and saw that her car was no longer visible. She let out a long breath, allowing herself her first moment of pure terror since telling Bill goodbye. And her last, she promised herself. Anna rubbed her damp palms against her thighs. Kurt wanted her to be afraid. He wanted her terrified and begging for mercy. She was here to save Jaye, but she would not give him the pleasure of watching her fall apart.

  She scanned her surroundings. The road had been carved out of the swamp. Other than by water, it provided the only way in or out. She suspected that up ahead lay more of the same. Step off the road and within moments she would be knee deep in snakes, alligators and God only knew what else.

  She shuddered and rubbed her arms. Was she doing the right thing? He had wanted her alone and helpless, with no avenue for escape. He had promised to free Jaye, but what guarantee did she have that he would keep his word?

  She understood suddenly some of the agony of indecision her parents must have suffered. Their response to Kurt’s demands hadn’t been about the money, she realized. It had been about not knowing which way offered their daughter the greater chance of survival.

  The truth of that took her breath. She felt a small, wounded part of herself begin to heal. The truth was, she had always wondered if the money had been more important to them than she.

  Anna swallowed her hesitatio
n. She had lived the consequences of noncompliance. Timmy had died. She believed Kurt when he said he would take each of Jaye’s fingers, then her life.

  This avenue offered Jaye her best chance of survival.

  She had to take it.

  Heart pounding, Anna made her way up the driveway. Shells crunched beneath her feet, insects buzzed in her ears and a bird screamed overhead. Too soon the structure appeared before her. Like most of the camps built in and along the south Louisiana swamps and bayous, this one had been built on pilings to accommodate the ebb and flow of water. It was crude, little more than a shanty, with a makeshift front porch and screens for windows.

  Taking a deep breath, Anna climbed the rickety front steps and crossed to the door. Unlatched, she pushed it cautiously open. The room was empty save for a large cardboard box at its center.

  A coffin-shaped box. Dear God, no. Anna brought a hand to her mouth to hold back her whimper of fear. She took one halting step forward, then another.

  She reached the box. Whispering a prayer, Anna worked open one of the top flaps, then another. She peered inside.

  A cry spilled off her lips. Jaye was folded up inside the box, gagged, hands and feet bound. “Jaye,” she whispered. Her friend didn’t move. Anna bent and touched her. She was warm, her skin soft, pliant. Her chest moved in and out with her shallow breathing.

  She was alive. Thank God.

  The girl shifted suddenly, the movement slight. It was accompanied by a muffled sound, like a moan.

  “Jaye,” Anna said again, shaking her. “Wake up. Please. We’ve got to go.”

  Her friend opened her eyes. For one moment, she stared at Anna, her gaze dark with terror. A moment later the fear disappeared and her eyes filled with tears.

  Anna’s lips lifted, her own eyes brimming. “I’ve got to get you out of here,” she said softly, voice thick. “Come on, we can do it together.”

  Anna managed to get Jaye to her feet. She freed her hands, then feet. Jaye ripped off her gag, then fell sobbing into Anna’s arms.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again!” she cried. “It was so awful. I was so scared.”

  “I know, sweetheart.” Anna held her friend close. She stroked her hair and back, hungry to reassure herself that she was unharmed. “I was so frightened for you. I knew you didn’t run away. I knew it.”