by Justine Dare
They reached the curve she'd been waiting for. She slowed, letting him creep in closer. She guessed this was where he'd want to make his move. The drop here was steep. So she edged toward the outside shoulder, slowing even more, tempting him, urging him to try. And he took the bait, edging in.
"That's it, come on, I'm just a stupid woman, you can take me out," she muttered. This was the perfect place, and if he didn't try again now, she didn't know—
He hit the gas, and the coupe sped forward.
She counted in her head. Beat, beat, beat, now!
She slammed the accelerator to the floor. She cut hard left. The instant she was clear of the sedan she hit the brakes, just long enough for the sedan to shoot by her. She was behind him now. Whispering a thank-you to the inventor of antilock brakes, she hit the gas again, just as hard. She couldn't give him one extra second to think. She had to do it while he was still moving fast. The instant she was in position, her right front bumper between his left front and the left rear wheel, she cut right. Contact. Nudge.
It worked. Tactical vehicle intervention, textbook style.
She watched as the sedan spun. Once, twice, into the third revolution. A dust cloud rose as the wheels tried to dig into the dirt shoulder. And then he was gone, over the shoulder and into the ravine he'd tried to put her in. She'd beat him behind the wheel before, and she'd just done it again.
She drove to the shoulder. Stopped. Set the brake. Shaking, she sat there, unable to move. Like a videotape on endless rewind and play it ran over and over in her head. She had hoped it was all a mistake, that they'd been wrong.
But they hadn't been. She knew that now.
Because Nick Kelso had just tried to kill her.
Alex walked up the sidewalk toward Rachel's House, lost in thought. He should have realized a lot earlier what a lie would mean to Regan. She spent her energy endlessly on picking up the pieces left by the biggest liars in the world. It was only natural that finding out he'd been at Rachel's House under false pretenses would have hit a very hot button for her.
He saw Mitch's truck out front, with its rack of tools, though the gardener wasn't in sight. But Marita was, coming out the door, dressed in a snappy business suit that looked like something his mother would Wear.
"You looking for Regan?"
"Yes, I was. Wow, you look great."
She beamed. "Thanks. I have a job interview."
"Congratulations." Something gave him a mental nudge, but he focused on Marita, guessing that this was a huge step for her. "You'll stun them with your brilliance."
She laughed. "I'll settle for impressing them enough to hire me. Anyway, Regan went to the hospital to see Mindy. But she should be back here soon if you want to wait inside," she said, her hand still on the door. "Belinda's off at work, and Laura had to go to the doctor, so I was going to lock up."
"Leave it if you want. I've got some work to finish, so I'll be here until Regan gets here."
"All right. I'd better get to my bus."
He knew they were required to take a bus from a stop at least one stop away from Rachel's House. He again ignored whatever was tickling at his memory and offered, "You want a ride? I could take you."
She shook her head. "No. I've got it all mapped out. But thank you, Alex."
She pulled the door shut but didn't lock it. She went past him and down the steps, then stopped and looked back.
"She'll get over it," she said.
Alex didn't pretend not to understand. "I hope
"You're awful nice, for a rich guy." He winced. Marita laughed. "Isn't it nice you knew Regan liked you even when she didn't know you were rich?"
He went to work, dragging out the ladder to set it up against the front eave. He started up to retrieve the hammer he'd forgotten and left up near the chimney, thinking while everybody was gone would be a good time to tackle that window in the living room that stuck in the track every time you tried to open it. Then after that he could—
It hit him then, what had been nagging at him. He turned, but couldn't see far enough from this angle. He went back down the ladder and walked out toward the street. With every step he grew more certain he was right. Could the murder weapon have been right here in plain sight all along? It seemed impossible, but what better way to hide it than not hide it at all?
A sound behind him made him spin around. No one was there, and he chided himself for overreacting. It was then that he realized his ability to stay cool under fire seemed to have deserted him. He was never this jumpy. Admittedly he'd never dealt with a serial killer before, but he'd handled some pretty nasty characters. So why was he losing it now?
Never mind, he told himself. He had to do something. He'd call Detective Garrison. Maybe she could get here before Regan did. He didn't want Regan anywhere around this, if he was right.
He yanked out his cell phone. Then he remembered Regan had Detective Garrison's card on her desk. He'd have better luck calling her directly than wading through the layers from the main police number. He ran back to the house.
He found the card quickly enough, but the sight of his name—Alex Court
—scribbled on the blotter, with a series of question marks and exclamation points after it, stopped him for a second.
We're real particular about being lied to around here.
He shook his head to clear it of Marita's ominous words. He picked up the detective's card and dialed his cell.
"Garrison."
She sounded odd, a little breathless, but he didn't have time to dwell on it. "Detective Garrison, this is Alex Court
. I'm out at Rachel's House, and I just found something I think you should see."
"Oh?"
The bouquet behind Regan's desk caught his eye, and he turned to look at it, shaking his head as he went on. "Everything seems to fit, and if I'm right, your killer may be right here—"
He heard a faint sound behind him. He spun, but something heavy hit him hard between the shoulder blades and he went down. He tried to roll, but a foot came down paralyzingly hard on his left wrist. A hand yanked the cell phone from his numbed hand.
For all the good it did him, he'd been right.
CHAPTER 22
Lynne stared for a split second at her cell phone.
She wondered if she should try to call back. She didn't have Alex's cell number, but she could call Rachel's House. But the uncertainty about what exactly the situation was stopped her.
"Detective Garrison?" A harried-looking county sheriff's deputy approached her. Since the incident had occurred outside the city limits, they had landed the mess. "They're taking him to the hospital now. One of my guys will stay with him until your captain can get there."
"Thanks," she said quickly as she hit the speed dial for dispatch. When they answered, she identified herself and spoke quickly. "Get two units out to Rachel's House. Warn them to approach with caution. We may have a hostage situation, maybe an armed suspect. Find Durwin. I'm on my way."
She raced to her car, cell phone in hand, leaving the deputy staring after her and shaking his head. She keyed in the speed dial for Drew's number.
"Damn it," she swore under her breath as she got his voice mail again, as she had when she'd first called after her narrow escape. She left a short, sharp message to head toward Rachel's House and call her now. She slapped the emergency blue light on the dash and flipped it on, then dialed Drew's pager number as she pulled out of the driveway. She had left the numbers 911, their old emergency message, and hung up before she remembered the last time she'd left him that code. The night she'd lost their baby.
She shoved the memory aside and concentrated on driving. But her mind was still racing. What had Alex found? She knew he was sharp. If he thought he'd found something significant, he probably had.
If she had any remaining doubt, those last few noisy seconds of his phone call would have erased them. Alex Court
was in trouble, and he thought it was the killer. Which
confused more than it cleared up. But it made one question leap to the fore.
If Nick was here, and Pilson still in custody, who was at Rachel's House?
Regan was surprised to see Alex's truck pulled up behind Mitch's. The front door of the house was standing open. As she reached the porch, the words she heard surprised her even more.
"—thought you understood! You said you did, and I believed you."
Mitch, she thought.
"I meant what I said." That was Alex, and the calmness of his voice made her realize how upset Mitch had sounded. She stopped at the bottom of the steps, thinking she should wait before intruding on this, whatever it was.
"You don't understand anything! If you did, you would never have touched Regan, never have defiled her!"
Regan's eyes widened. Marita had once teased her about Mitch having a crush on her, but she hadn't taken it seriously.
"Take it easy, Mitch."
I thought you respected her. When you saved her from that crazy man, I thought you understood she was different, that she was pure and holy and good."
My God, Regan thought. That isn't a crush, it's obsession.
She started up the steps, afraid this was going to degenerate into a fight. She pulled the screen door open, then froze when she heard Alex say, from the direction of her office, "You don't want to do this, Mitch. You know I called the police."
"They're not here, though, are they? That's because I can't be stopped. No one can stop me. I'm smarter than all of them. I'll never go to prison. I'm saving the real victims from their prisons, the prisons those mutants put them in."
Shock smashed through her. Mitch? Dear God, Mitch was the killer? The ramifications blossomed in her mind like a firestorm. She tried to tamp it down, to think. The idea of Mitch Howe as the Avenger was as absurd as the idea that it was Marita, or another of the women.
They won't seem capable of it. They're generally charming and affable.
Detective Garrison's caution rang in her head, but it still seemed impossible.
Instinctively, she started to back up and out the door again. But Mitch must have heard her, for he called out her name.
"Regan Keller!" he cried, as if it were a title. And as if he knew it was her. "Come back in here, or I'll kill him, your dirty lover."
"Regan! Get out of—"
She heard a grunt of pain as Alex's words were choked off. She had to believe Mitch would kill him. She couldn't risk Alex's life. Slowly, she stepped back inside.
"Back here," Mitch said. "Now."
"I'm coming," she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
Think, she ordered herself.
Alex said he'd called the police. But had he meant it, or was he bluffing? Mitch hadn't argued with him, so maybe he'd heard him do it. Maybe that was what had set him off.
"Now, Regan! Or I'll take his head off!"
"I'm coming," she said again, feeling herself shaking.
"But I'm not one of them, Mitch," Alex's voice said quickly, as if he were trying to divert Mitch's attention from her. "Won't that ruin your nice neat pattern?"
"It’s already ruined," Mitch said, a childish whine in his voice. "That woman who killed her husband, and tried to say it was me. As if I would! And that bitch who lied, and made me... made me..."
"Kill an innocent man, Mitch? You don't want to do that again."
Regan didn't know what else to do, so as she passed the phone in the outer room she hit the single button that dialed 911, and set the receiver down on the table.
"I have no choice, it has to be done. I have to finish, they all have to die. They're mutants, can't you see? This is pest control. They have to be killed, for all our sakes."
She reached the doorway. Mitch had Alex facedown on the floor and was kneeling on top of him. But more terrifying was what he held.
A razor-sharp curved blade. A machete.
The killer uses something much bigger, probably with a curved blade....
Detective Garrison's voice floated through her dazed mind. She'd seen Mitch use that tool countless times. The handle was wood, a dark color, and it had looked almost new compared to the blade, as if it had been recently painted. To hide something? Blood? She'd never even thought about it being a potential weapon. Not like Mr. Pilson's swords.
It made horrible sense. Mitch had access. He was in her office every day with fresh flowers. How difficult would it have been for him to get into the locked files? He was accepted, they weren't on guard around him. Perhaps he'd used her own key or even managed to get a copy of the key for the file cabinet.
They talked in front of him, or talked with him just outside, all the time. He would know what was happening to the women of Rachel's House almost as soon as it happened.
But he was always so concerned about them and what had been done to them, so protective ... So protective.
"Mitch, what are you doing?" Regan said. "Alex hasn't done anything."
"He's ruined everything! Don't you see?"
Mitch seemed to be almost pleading with her to understand. His hand seemed to jerk, and Regan's breath caught as blood began to run down Alex's neck from a long, thin slice.
"It was for you, all for you, because you were so good, so pure, and now he's tainted you and it's all gone wrong."
"You're going to let a little thing like that distract you?"
Alex said it to Mitch, but he was looking at Regan. She didn't miss his intent, but she couldn't think of what to do to distract Mitch enough.
"Shut up," Mitch said to Alex.
In the office, the arrival of the police had served as a diversion, but they couldn't wait for that, not now, not with Mitch waving that lethal blade around. She had to do something, and fast.
"Mitch, please," she said. "I don't want you in any more trouble. The others, no one's sorry to see them go, but Alex didn't hurt anyone."
Except me, she thought.
And in that moment, as a serial killer held Alex with a blade that looked capable of taking his head off, Regan realized how little his deception mattered.
"Just be quiet, I have to think!" Mitch shouted, sounding once more like a wailing child.
A child....
"Would it help if we called your mother? Maybe if you talk to her—"
"Don't you get it?" Mitch was crying, tears spilling down his cheeks. "She's the one who told me to do it! She's the one who told me I had to be a real man. I had to protect you all, because I failed before!"
She'd hit a nerve, she thought. "Failed?"
"My father. She had to kill my father, because I was too scared. I have to make up for that, don't you see? I have to make it up to her."
Regan shivered. Mitch's eyes were wild, and she knew she was seeing the insanity that had made him capable of six brutal murders.
"That's very brave of you," Regan began, her tone intentionally patronizing.
"Stop it!" Mitch hissed. "Don't talk to me like a child." He twisted to look at her more directly.
That was all Alex needed. He bucked hard, slamming Mitch back against the front of her desk. Mitch shouted. Alex rolled free. Coming to his feet, he tackled Mitch as he tried to rise. They went down hard.
Regan had to dodge the swipe of the machete as it nearly caught her right leg. She leapt over the sprawling men, looking for anything she could use as a weapon. They were evenly matched in size and fitness, but as tough as Alex was, he was dealing with a madman.
The only thing at hand was the heavy crystal vase that held the bouquet. With a split second of acknowledgment for the irony of it, she threw the flowers to the floor, picked up the vase, and spun around.
Alex didn't need her help. He had Mitch down and pinned, in much the same position as he himself had been in.
Slowly, she set the vase down on her desk.
When the police arrived, guns drawn and megaphones blaring, it was an anticlimax.
CHAPTER 23
"I'm sorry we didn't get he
re in time to help," Detective Garrison said. "But it looks like you didn't need us."
Regan smiled, as steadily as she could given how the bandage on Alex's neck and the bloodstains on his shirt unnerved her.
"I feel so stupid," Regan said. "That. . . thing was right under my nose all the time."
"It happens. You see something so often in an everyday capacity, you only think of it in that context." Lynne grimaced. "Besides, talk about feeling stupid. I thought I had our boy all wrapped up at the moment Alex called."
"Really?" Regan asked.
"Yep. He tried to run me off the road up in the hills, so I was sure we were right." "Not Mr. Pilson?"
"No. Although we're still going to have to confirm some of his story, I'd say he's clean."
"Thank goodness. I would have hated to think he was the one. He's always so nice to us."
"Apparently he's simply lonely. He's always been a solitary type, but it was starting to bother him, when you moved in next door. So he decided to sort of adopt you all."
"Then he's sweeter than we thought," Regan said. "I'll have to be sure Rachel's House welcomes him back in a big way."
"You do that. He was pretty crushed to be suspected, even though we proved him innocent in the end."
"That must be why he stayed away from us, after he knew you suspected him. He was probably embarrassed," Regan said. "Poor man."
Alex asked a question then. "But if this man who ran you off the road isn't the killer, why would he try to kill you?"
"He may well be a killer. Just not a serial killer."
"Your life's been complicated lately, hasn't it?" Alex said.
Lynne smiled. "Indeed. But so has yours. Have you two—"
"Lynnie? Lynnie! Where the hell are you?"
To Regan's surprise, the detective blushed. And then a tall, dark-haired man burst in at a run, slowing only when he saw them gathered in the living room. He nodded hastily at them.
"Are you all right? I went to the station, but you weren't there."
"If you'd check your voice mail like a normal person, you'd have known where I was," Lynne said, and Regan didn't think she was imagining the tension in the detective's voice. "Not to mention your pager."