Avenging Angel

by Justine Dare

  "I skipped the caffeine," he said as he pulled out tall, covered plastic cups. "I hope you still like lemonade."

  "That's fine."

  She dropped down onto the couch, leaning for­ward toward the food on the table. Somehow it wearied her even more that he remembered she liked lemonade. He'd always been good at that, re­membering her little likes and dislikes. He proved it in the next instant by pulling the pickles out of her cheeseburger before handing it over.

  She decided to eat and when the first mouthful hit her empty stomach she was glad of it. She took another quick bite, then a couple of fries, before the growling ebbed.

  She was afraid Drew was going to start a per­sonal conversation, so she spoke first.

  "Thank you again for checking on that little boy."

  The moment she said it, she realized she had in a way done just what she'd tried to avoid, brought up a topic that could easily become personal. But when he finally answered, after some quick con­sumption of his own, it was purely business. "It didn't take long."

  "What was the situation?" All he'd had time to tell her before, at the crime scene, was that he'd found Tyler and that he was all right.

  "Typical. So far the abuse has been limited to his mother. Alcohol-induced, from what I could tell. I talked to his mom, gave her the hot line number, but I doubt she'll call. She's still in the 'I know he'll change' stage."

  Lynne sighed.

  "I did have a little man-to-man chat with ol' dad, though."

  He hadn't told her that. "You did? You didn't tell him Tyler had called, did you?"

  "No, I didn't want the boy in his sights." He grinned. "I sort of hinted that our serial killer had a list, and he was on it."

  Lynne's eyes widened, and a smile curved her mouth. "Oh, really?"

  "I told him not only was he a coward and pond scum, he was in the worst possible place to be. He had a serial killer hunting him on one side, and me on his ass on the other. One step out of line and his wife and child wouldn't have a thing to worry about anymore. The only question would be who got to him first. And he'd better hope it was me."

  "Thank you," she said.

  He didn't try to milk it, for which she was grate­ful. "Like I said, it didn't take long. And I don't know how much good it will do."

  "Probably a lot. At least as long as our killer is active."

  "Which may be a while. This one doesn't want to get caught," he said.

  She felt relieved at the turn in conversation, then vaguely amused about thinking a serial killer as dinner conversation was a relief.

  "At least, not yet," Drew added.

  "You think it's more than him just being an orga­nized killer?" she asked, referring to the general di­vision profilers had come up with between organized and disorganized criminals. "He fits all the criteria, he's careful, leaves no evidence, and it's obviously premeditated."

  "I think so. He's not just careful because that's his nature, although it probably is. He's on a mis­sion."

  She'd already determined that. This was no hedonistic killer, nor one after power or control. This was the other kind of serial killer, the man follow­ing his own twisted vision. She munched on an­other fry, thinking they'd never tasted so good.

  "What do you think about Pilson?"

  "He's a likely," Drew said. "Fits the profile on all but a few minor points. And from what you say, he had access to the information he'd need to find out about the victims."

  "When I pushed Regan, she remembered that he was around on several occasions when the victims' latest attacks on the Rachel's House women were being discussed. She couldn't be sure he knew about them all, though."

  "What about alibis? I recall something about him working nights?"

  "Only sometimes. He works a split shift, some nights, some graveyard shifts." She grabbed an­other fry, ate it, then told him, "I checked the dis­tance from his work to where the last body was found, and then back. Assuming he doesn't drive like a maniac—"

  "Which he wouldn't, because he doesn't want to attract attention."

  "That's what I figured. Driving the speed limit, it leaves only fifteen minutes for picking up his vic­tim, the actual murder, and arranging the body."

  "Tight. But I can't say impossible."

  "My background check does show he's had an interest in Asian culture, and those swords looked Japanese. It may be innocent, but I still want to ask for a search warrant to pick them up."

  "Good idea."

  "Would our killer be the sword collector type?" "Maybe. They can pick anything as a symbol, or part of the ritual. I can easier tell you what he's not.

  He's not the 'What's one less person on the face of the earth anyway?' kind of killer."

  "What?"

  "That was Ted Bundy's rationalization." He shrugged. "This guy's more specific."

  "To rid the world of abusers?" she asked. "Sounds almost sane."

  "If that’s what, in his mind, he's really doing."

  She took what normally would have been her last two bites as one, then wiped her fingers. "What else?"

  "I don't know." He chewed a bite of his own burger and took a sip of the lemonade before con­tinuing. "He's obviously getting some psychologi­cal gain out of it. Maybe he was abused, and is killing his own abuser over and over."

  "Seems a little too simple for this guy."

  Drew smiled. "Good for you. Somebody taught you well."

  For a moment the conversation threatened to turn in the direction she didn't want it to go. Quickly she tried to divert it.

  "I've been refreshing my memory," she said. "So I know it's likely it started in childhood. Isolation, no bond with parents, all that. Never learning to re­late to other people, so that other people never seem quite real to them."

  He nodded. "And the triad."

  "I know, fire-setting, bed-wetting, and torturing animals, the red-flag triad of serial killers in the making. Add the brutal dad, controlling mom." The last three fries vanished, as did the empty feel­ing in her middle. "Pilson's parents died several years ago, back in Cincinnati. I put a call in to the local cops there, to see if there's any record of fam­ily abuse or domestic violence, or if there's a juvie record on him."

  "Good. I'd rather not wait until he makes a mis­take. And as a rule, serial killers get better with practice."

  "He just made a big mistake," Lynne pointed out, although she knew the Avenger's mistaken choice of victim wasn't what he had meant.

  Drew nodded. "It's going to be interesting to see how he reacts. Will he count it as just a detour, or will it disrupt his careful pattern so much that it rattles him into screwing up?"

  Deciding she'd finish the lemonade in a minute, she leaned back on the sofa, pulling her feet up be­neath her. "Enough to make the kind of mistake we need?"

  "We can but hope," he said.

  He leaned back as well, putting his feet up on the coffee table as he'd always done, although he nudged a magazine over to protect the wood; that was new, she thought.

  And then all thought fled as she stared at the set of keys next to his foot. He'd dropped them there when he set down the bag of food, but she hadn't noticed them until his movement had drawn her gaze. And she especially hadn't noticed the one item on the key ring that wasn't a key.

  His wedding ring.

  There was no mistaking it. It matched hers, a simple diamond cut gold band with grooves near the edges that were black. The sight of it took her breath away, and her mind raced, trying out meaning after meaning, unable to settle on one.

  He saw her looking at it, and sat up. He picked up the keys by the wedding band. And abruptly he swung open the door she tried so hard to keep shut.

  "Did you ever wonder why I didn't contest the divorce? Why I didn't fight you over anything?"

  "Back then I wasn't wondering about anything except how I was going to get through the next hour."

  "I didn't fight because I felt so damn guilty. I felt like you had every right to hate me. O
ur baby died before he had a chance to take his first breath, you nearly died with him, and I wasn't even there. For three days, I wasn't even there."

  She bit down hard on the inside of her lip, using the pain to fight down emotions she had to beat before she could trust herself to speak. "Believe me, I remember," she said finally.

  "I knew the only thing I could do for you was to make leaving me as easy as possible. Even though it was tearing me up inside."

  And he was tearing her up inside now.

  "Stop it, Drew. Just stop."

  He dropped the keys back on the table. His feet went back up. And for a long, strained few min­utes, neither of them spoke. At last Drew broke the silence.

  "I forgot to tell you. Kelso broke his case."

  She forcibly yanked her attention away from the telling sight of the ring, still wishing she knew exactly what it was telling her.

  "He was right? About the wife?" She hadn't fol­lowed the case after that day of observing Nick's technique, hadn't wanted to be anywhere near him while she had all this other stuff on her plate. She figured she'd hear when something broke, and be­yond that she was better off not being involved.

  Drew nodded at her question. "Apparently the husband had been beating her for years, and she fi­nally saw a way out. So she hired a guy."

  "That was it," Lynne whispered, almost to her­self.

  "What was it?"

  "I kept thinking there was something familiar about her, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Not like I knew her, but that she reminded me of some­one. And I just realized what it was. She held her­self like the women at Rachel's House. Carefully, as if she thought she might have to dodge a blow at any moment."

  "Sometimes your gut knows before your head," Drew said.

  "So she figured as long as abusers were being killed, she could kill hers and pass it off as one of the Avenger killings?"

  Drew nodded. "She didn't want to just leave, she'd signed a pre-nup and wouldn't get anything in a divorce. Lot of money there, I guess."

  Lynne nodded. "She looked it."

  "Kelso said she'd never worked a day in her life."

  "So she thought she couldn't survive on her own. That's one of the intimidation tools they use." "I just hope Kelso played by the rules. He was riding her pretty hard, and talked her out of a lawyer more than once. If she'd had counsel, she might never have given it up."

  Lynne frowned. It would be like Nick to use the woman's already battered psyche against her, to break her. "She gave up the actual killer?"

  "Yeah, and the guy rolled right over on her when Kelso finally tracked him down today. Cleared the case in two weeks."

  "Good for Nick," she said. And meant it, although the spectre of what she'd learned about him still hung over her.

  "Yes," he said, his tone neutral. "Not for the guy, though. She gave him some jewelry, because she was never allowed to have much cash. That's how Kelso found him, when he tried to fence the jew­elry. Diamonds, emeralds, platinum, high-class stuff, and he takes it to some two-bit fence who about has a heart attack."

  "The rich," she said tiredly, leaning her head back on the soft sofa cushion, "live lives I can't even begin to comprehend."

  "It'd be nice to try, though, wouldn't it?"

  She smiled, her eyes drifting closed. "Give me the chance to prove money won't change me?"

  She fell asleep. Just like that. She must have, because she dreamed she heard Drew say softly, "Or harder still, give me the chance to prove ..."

  She woke up hours later, wrapped carefully in a blanket that had been in the trunk at the foot of her bed, and wondering what she'd dreamed Drew wanted a chance to prove.

  * * *

  "It's got to be somebody connected to somebody at Rachel's House somehow."

  Alex leaned against the porch railing. Regan had come outside to sit on the bench, looking very much as if she'd hit the wall. She had on worn jeans and a faded blue T-shirt, had her hair gath­ered up in some kind of clip at the back of her head, and her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, making the dark circles under her eyes stand out. He'd grabbed the chance and a soda and plopped down on the porch opposite her.

  "I know," Regan said wearily. "Who else would have known about Donna at all? She wasn't here that long, and she wasn't going to be a permanent resident, even if she had been telling the truth."

  Bitterness laced her voice. Regan clearly hadn't forgiven the woman for her fatal self-centeredness, and Alex doubted if she soon would.

  His stomach knotted, and the soda he'd drunk seemed to be churning rather than bubbling. Regan had been rightfully enraged at Donna, and it hadn't escaped Alex that one of the main reasons for that fury was that Donna had lied. To her, and to all of the women of Rachel's House.

  Just as he had been doing ever since he got here.

  True, unlike Donna his reasons were benign, and his—and his mother's—intentions had been the best, but he wasn't sure how much weight that would carry with Regan.

  "I still can't believe she did that," Regan said, staring out over the colorful garden as if she didn't see it at all anymore. "How could she lie like that?"

  Oh, yes, there would be a price to pay, Alex thought. And he didn't relish the thought.

  "Tunnel vision," he said. "All she saw was her tiny little corner. All she cared about was herself. They're out there."

  "Yeah," Regan said, "and every time one of them pulls something like this, they damage all battered women."

  "I'd say she damaged her husband more than anyone. Except maybe her son. I wouldn't want to have to explain to that boy when he's a little older."

  Regan looked at him then, looking abashed. "You're right. And he didn't deserve that, nor did Ricky. Sometimes I have my own case of tunnel vi­sion."

  He saw Regan focus on something in the dis­tance. Coming their way was the one person who could take down his house of cards with a word.

  "I wonder if she has any news," Regan said, get­ting to her feet as Detective Garrison turned up the walkway to Rachel's House.

  Alex thought it more likely she'd come to ask more questions they couldn't answer.

  Or to blow him out of the water, he told himself grimly. He could only hope she would give him more time.

  "Hello, Regan," the blonde said as she came up the steps. She glanced at Alex and he held his breath, waiting for her to call him "Mr. Court

  " in that pointed way she had before. After a moment, she only nodded at him and said, "Alex."

  "Can I get you something?" Regan asked. "You look like I feel."

  The smile she got for that was genuine, but weary. "Thanks, but I only stopped by to ask you for your sign-out sheets for the period of the last murder."

  "I've got them inside," Regan said.

  "I'll just sit here a moment, if you don't mind getting them now."

  "Of course not."

  As Regan turned to go inside, Alex braced him­self. And sure enough, as soon as the door closed behind her, he was pinned by a pair of weary but still sharp eyes.

  "You haven't told her."

  It wasn't a question. "I just couldn't dump it on her right now. She's got enough to carry."

  "I can't argue that." She studied him for a mo­ment. "And is it going to matter to you if she finds out on her own, before you tell her? If she catches you in the lie herself?"

  His jaw clenched, and he let out a compressed breath.

  "I thought it might," she said before he could an­swer. Then she shrugged. "It's your risk. I won't burn you unless I feel I have to, for her sake."

  "Thank you," he said, just as Regan came back out, papers in hand.

  "I've been going over the copies I made of these," she said as she handed them to the detec­tive, "comparing them to the times of the murders. No one person from Rachel's House has been unac­counted for for all of them."

  "Except you," the detective said to Regan, "and if you did it, I'll turn in my badge."

  Regan smiled at her. "Thanks
. Not that I haven't muttered to myself that I'd like to wipe them all off the face of the planet."

  "There's a real thick line between thinking and doing when it comes to murder. Most people don't cross it." She glanced at the pages before saying wryly, "We did consider the possibility of a con­spiracy between all of you, but the theory didn't last long."

  "Too hard for different people to duplicate a ser­ial killer's signature so perfectly?" Alex asked.

  Detective Garrison raised an eyebrow at him. "Have you been doing research, too?"

  "Just something I read somewhere. Probably in one of the news stories about the Avenger."

  She wrinkled her nose. "There are enough of those."

  "I saw you went public asking for help," Alex said.

  Something changed in the detective's face then, some darkness flickered in her eyes. But she only nodded. "When he's gotten away with it this many times, we have to take help where we can get it."

  "Even from other investigators?"

  At Regan's quiet question Garrison's head snapped around. And suddenly Alex remembered Officer McDonald, who'd responded to the office, joking about Detective Garrison and her ex-husband.

  "Sorry if it's a sore spot," Regan said. "The offi­cer who came to the office mentioned it in passing."

  "Did he."

  From her tone, Alex didn't care much for McDonald's chances of escaping a blistering on when to keep his mouth shut.

  "It's got to make an already hard job tougher," Regan said sympathetically.

  "It has its moments," the woman answered, and Alex wondered what moment specifically she was thinking about when her expression momentarily softened.

  "I've tried and tried to think of who it could be, who could have all the information," Regan said. "If you go just by that, then it should be me."

  "Or Mrs. Tanaka."

  Regan rolled her eyes. "If female serial killers are rare, then I'd guess females who start in their sev­enties must be the rarest."

  She got a chuckle for that one. "There was one in Sacramento a while back, but you're right, that's a rare bird. But could be anybody who had the infor­mation go through their hands at any point. Or saw it accidentally. Somebody with a connection to the courts, other shelters, even us."