“Regina has taken Jocelyn,” Trevor said. He didn’t have much time anyway. Might as well dive right in and give Josie time to acclimate to seeing her murderous father again.
“Jocelyn, you say?” The left side of his mouth hitched up with the news until phlegmy, weak coughing overtook him. He bent forward, hands trembling as he struggled to breathe.
Trevor felt no pity for the man, especially not when he seemed proud of his copycat killer. Or did he just relish seeing people suffer at the hands of a killer? He related to Regina, to her plight. Maybe he supported her in some way. But he had to have some kind of feelings for his own flesh and blood. If not actual feelings, then some sort of connection. He wouldn’t have insisted on visitation otherwise. And as a dying man, he faced oblivion. He must have last wishes he’d like to see done before he went.
But then, Trevor had been wrong about his father before. He was an unpredictable man.
“Your partner?” Matthew scrutinized him closer. “Or more?”
“She’s pregnant,” Trevor said. “We’re married.”
“You’re married?” Matthew’s brow shot down. “When did this happen? Why haven’t you come to tell me?”
Trevor didn’t understand why he felt he needed to be honest. “We rushed the wedding for the baby. I don’t want the child born without both parents.”
“That’s important to him,” Josie said. “Is that something you can understand?”
Matthew looked at her as though her rude interruption insulted his superior position in his warped world. “I had you kids with your mother.”
“You mean the woman you murdered?”
“Josie.” Trevor put his hand on her shoulder. She could ruin any chance he had of finding Jocelyn.
She seemed to see that and kept quiet after a low “Sorry.”
Trevor knew curbing one’s tongue could be a challenge with Matthew.
“I’m to be a grandfather, then.” Matthew took on an unusual, uncharacteristic softness with the thought.
Trevor had not mentioned that Ethan and Lizzie had already given him a grandchild. Nor would he mention he had more than one.
He cringed with the idea of having to explain to his children about Matthew. Would he say their grandfather died? Would he say their grandmother had been murdered? He couldn’t imagine poisoning his children’s mind’s with such horrors. Maybe when they were older...
“Matthew, I need you to tell me where Regina took Jocelyn.”
Matthew’s dreamy drift into thought ended. “What makes you think I know?”
“You know something about her. You’ve been keeping it from me on purpose. I need you to tell me now, before Regina kills her. She has long dark hair and her name starts with a J.”
“Regina has her next victim, huh?” Matthew smiled. “She’s a busy girl.” He laughed low and briefly. “I’m flattered she chose me to emulate.”
“You’ll let an innocent woman die?” Josie asked caustically. “Trevor’s wife? Your grandchild?”
His delight waned and he contemplated Josie. Then turned to Trevor.
“There is something I know. Something we exchanged in letters early on.”
Trevor gripped the edge of the table, hoping his desperation didn’t show.
“I’ll tell you.” He lowered his head and then passed his gaze around the small room. “I don’t have much time left. Days. Weeks. It’s difficult to know. Fact is, I’m going to die, and I need certain affairs taken care of.”
“What affairs?”
“First, you both have to promise me something.”
That would depend on the request. Trevor would not appease the dying wishes of a mass murderer. But he said, “Name it.”
Matthew looked at Josie. “You deserve it after all you witnessed. It’s the reason I wanted you to come and visit me more often, why I didn’t give you the clue when you came to see me that first time.”
What was he talking about? Trevor saw Josie’s confusion and wondered if Matthew would waste their time on another one of his lunatic exaggerations.
“You’re going to tell me the clue, too?” Josie asked.
Was that what Matthew had meant by she deserved it after all she’d witnessed?
Trevor wanted to ask what she’d witnessed, but Jocelyn’s life depended on him getting information as quickly as possible. He’d have to ask Josie later.
“Jocelyn,” Trevor said. “Please. She doesn’t have much time.”
“Just like me.” Matthew smiled again. And then he nodded and put up his hand, seeing Trevor’s urgency. “I had a watch, a very valuable old watch that I buried on a distant cousin’s property some twenty years ago.”
This had taken an odd turn. Twenty years ago, Matthew had aligned with other criminals to carry out a series of heists. Trevor had forgotten about that in his search for the Alphabet Killer. Had the watch been part of the booty? Why hide it if not. And Matthew said the watch had value. What kind of value? Monetary? Or something more sinister?
Knowing his father, Trevor had to go with the latter.
“I want to be buried with the watch on,” Matthew said, one of his strange, perverted grins creasing his cancer-sickened face.
“The watch is that important to you?” Trevor had to ask.
“Oh. Very.” After overcoming another bout of coughing and wiping his mouth with a tissue, he went off into his thoughts again.
More likely the watch contained a chip with a map showing the location of the fortune he and his cohorts had stolen, or information that would lead to the location. Trevor could see Matthew taking that to his grave, could see him in his coffin, arms folded, wearing the watch, a sick smile formed on his face for all eternity. No one would find the fortune as long as he had the watch. His last hurrah. His last triumph over law enforcement and victims, which, in this case, would be his own children. Again.
Over his dead body would Trevor allow him that gluttony, but, for now, he had to think of Jocelyn.
“You have to promise someone will find the watch and bury me with it.”
“Where is the distant cousin’s property?” Josie asked.
“Texas.” Matthew told them the name of the town. “Promise me you’ll find it.”
“I promise,” Josie said. “I’ll find the watch.”
And Trevor would decode whatever the watch contained, even if he had to exhume Matthew’s body.
He didn’t question Josie’s motive for wanting to go look for the watch. He worried too much about Jocelyn. Quite possibly, she guessed the same as him.
“Jocelyn,” Trevor said, bringing Matthew back to him.
“You haven’t made your promise yet,” Matthew said. “And I know what a man of your word you are. FBI agent. Lawman. You stick to the straight and narrow. So promise me now. You’ll bury me with the watch after Josie finds it.”
“I promise.” Trevor said the words, but he didn’t mean them. Matthew didn’t deserve promises. “I speak for all of us when I say that.” His thoughts, that was.
A smile curved up Matthew’s pale mouth, his eyes taking on a crazed gleam. He must have looked like that when he killed all those people, picturing Big J Colton beaten, bloody and lifeless.
Matthew leaned forward as though he had something juicy to say, something that thrilled him. “In one of Regina’s earlier letters, I told her about a bunker I built in the first town I moved to when I left Oklahoma.” He told them the name of the town. “I told Regina about it. She seemed keen on the idea of a bunker, especially after I mentioned if she ever needed a place to hide, no one would find her there. You’re onto her. She’s feeling the pressure. She’ll be afraid of capture. If she intends to kill your woman, she’ll do it there, where she would feel safe from capture.”
“Where is the bunker?”
<
br /> Matthew touched the oxygen tube beneath his nostrils as though doing so would give him more air. “In the backyard of the house where I lived. Wouldn’t surprise me if Regina bought that old place under a false name.”
Trevor had all he needed. He turned to go, Josie turning with him.
“Wait.” Matthew struggled to catch his breath as Trevor and Josie paused.
“What about your clue, Josie?”
* * *
Throbbing pain in her head woke Jocelyn. She came to consciousness groggily, disoriented. Where was she? At the apartment with Trevor? Home? Wincing as she lifted her head, she blinked her eyes open.
A low ceiling roughly framed without drywall registered first. The bare lightbulb hurting her eyes with a chain hanging down for a switch next. Pushing up onto her elbow, she realized her wrists were tied and so were her ankles. Regina. The fire.
Trevor.
Was he all right?
She lay on a mattress with a dark green wool blanket. Her head had rested on a rusty-orange throw pillow. Regina had removed her bulletproof vest.
Hearing movement to her left, she turned.
Regina stood before a wall mirror, wearing a wedding dress and a veil, swaying before her image, admiring herself. Humming.
The dress must be old and had grown brittle. Some of the hem had torn, along with pieces here and there on the bodice. The gown had a gray hue, no longer the pristine white it must have once been.
Regina smiled at some thought—some demented thought. And then her eyes shifted and she saw Jocelyn. The smile slipped away and she turned.
“For a while I thought I hit you on the head too hard.” She sashayed over to her, obviously thinking she made quite a fetching picture in the dress. The material swished and the hem swayed.
Jocelyn sat up, twisting her wrists to find the rope secure.
Regina stopped before her. “You won’t get away.”
“I’m not the woman who took your fiancé from you.” Jocelyn had to talk her way out of this. Maybe the more they talked, the more time she’d give Trevor and the team to find her.
If Trevor hadn’t been killed in the explosion...
Jocelyn thought to the last time they’d been together at the condo—how she’d doubted him. The prospect of losing him changed the way she thought. She’d rather be with him not knowing if he’d ever fall in love with her than never see him again. She’d take him as the father of their baby than not having him at all.
Regina backhanded her so hard she fell onto the mattress. Her head spun and for a moment she thought she’d go unconscious again.
“You’re all the same,” Regina hissed. “You deny any responsibility—as if you’re these innocent waifs blithely going through life, without a single moment spared in thought for the other woman. You don’t care what your actions do to others. You only care about your own selfish gratification!”
“I’m married to my partner. You saw him. Trevor Colton. Not your man. I’ve never even met your man. Who is he? Where is he? Where can we find him?”
“Find him?” Regina laughed coarsely. “I don’t have to find him. As soon as I get rid of all of you, he’ll come to me.” She smoothed the torn, old skirt of the wedding gown. “And I’ll be ready.” Her face took on that weird dreamy look again. “I’ve waited so long. I’ll finally have my day.”
Yeah...her day in hell. But not before a few in prison.
Jocelyn had to find a way out of here.
“Normally I kill you women by now,” Regina said. “But you...” She propped her elbow on her folded arm and curled her fingers under her chin. “You were especially rude to me at the restaurant. I wondered why. I thought it bizarre, and a bit out of place, almost as though you’d done it on purpose. And then you surprised me when you tried to arrest me.” She dropped her arms and raised her eyes incredulously. “FBI agents. I had no idea you were that close to catching me.” She leaned down and pointed her finger. “That made things a lot more interesting for me.”
“Killing a federal agent will make it worse for you. You’ll go to prison for the rest of your life. You might even get the death penalty. You’re in Texas, after all.”
“How do you know we are still in Texas?” Regina laughed, low and cynical. “And you talk as if I’m going to get caught.”
Would she take Jocelyn outside Texas? Jocelyn subdued her rising apprehension. “You will. Trevor is going to find you. He won’t stop until he does.”
“No one is going to find us here. I have all the time in the world to spend with you before I put a bullet in you.”
And mark her with a red permanent marker...
Jocelyn looked around. “Where are we?”
Regina straightened. “In an underground bunker, far away from Granite Gulch and your FBI friends. They will never find you.” She turned and went back to the mirror. “Not until after you’re dead.” She swished the skirt of the wedding dress back and forth, admiring herself again. “And then my love will come for me...at last.”
Jocelyn looked for something to cut her binds. The room didn’t appear to have been prepared to hold a prisoner. Regina hadn’t been here before taking her here. That suggested she’d changed her plans. She hadn’t anticipated the FBI on her so soon.
A mini refrigerator and small counter with a sink took up the space at the far end, a dresser next to the mirror where Regina remained mesmerized by her reflection. There must be knives in the kitchenette.
Checking Regina, who’d begun to hum, Jocelyn moved her legs over the edge of the mattress. Regina looked at her through the mirror.
Jocelyn pushed up onto her bound feet and hopped for the kitchenette. She reached the counter and yanked open the first drawer. Forks and other utensils. No knives.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Regina grabbed her arm.
Jocelyn had the next drawer open and found the knives. She had her fingers on the handle of one when Regina jerked her away and sent her sprawling to the floor. She scraped her hand and forearm on the hard dirt. Rolling over, she blocked Regina swinging a frying pan.
“You want to play in the kitchen?” Regina hollered.
The pan struck her arm with sharp pain. Jocelyn yelled as it shot up her arm.
Regina swung again, this time hitting Jocelyn’s head. She blacked out for a few seconds. When she came to, Regina dragged her by her bound hands back to the mattress.
“I suppose I’ll have no time to savor this one,” Regina said. She pulled Jocelyn onto the mattress and went to the dresser.
To Jocelyn’s horror, she picked up a red permanent marker and snapped the lid off. Then she turned and opened a dresser drawer, bringing out a pistol.
Jocelyn crawled off the mattress. She had to do something. Had to get to the knives. Or wrestle the gun away from this crazy woman.
She got halfway when Regina approached her. Jocelyn got up onto her feet and plowed unsteadily into the woman, sending them both falling. She grabbed Regina’s hand that held the pistol with both of her bound ones. Regina punched her head.
Dizzy, Jocelyn bashed Regina with her own gun.
“Ah!” Regina cried like a witch.
Jocelyn hit her again and banged the gun onto the hard ground. Dust billowed up and made them both cough. The gun loosened from Regina’s hand, falling to the dirt. Jocelyn tried to reach for it, but Regina batted the gun away, having the advantage of two unbound hands. The gun hit the bottom post of the stairs leading to the door above.
Jocelyn beat Regina on her head with the base of her hands. Regina’s head jerked backward. Joclyn pushed to her feet and hopped back to the kitchen. Opening the knife drawer, she took one out. As she turned, Regina had the frying pan again. Jocelyn had no time to block the blow. Her head couldn’t take many more hits.
She f
ell, going unconscious for the third time. When she came to, all she could think of was her baby. What would happen to the baby?
Unaware of how much time had passed, she discovered she’d been tied to the stairs, sitting upright. Lifting her head, her neck aching from her head being bent over, she frantically looked for Regina.
She found her drawing with the red marker. Faded red lines marked white printer paper. She’d changed back into street clothes, jeans and a gray T-shirt that matched the grayish tint to her dishwater-brown hair.
“Damn it!” Regina exclaimed.
Then she saw Jocelyn had awakened. She held up the marker.
“This is out of ink.”
Jocelyn said nothing. Her head pounded and her vision blurred. She felt nauseous. She needed to get to a hospital. What if her brain started hemorrhaging or something? She wished she’d listened to Trevor and quit as soon as she found out she was pregnant.
Regina came over to her. “Looks like you get a few extra minutes before I send you off with all the other lucky ladies, Jocelyn.” She smirked. “What luck that your name starts with a J. It almost doesn’t bother me that Janice got away.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.” Jocelyn’s stomach churned. She very likely had a concussion.
“You’re going to be a lot more than that when I get back.”
She was leaving?
“I have to go get a new red marker. My sign has to be fresh and clear.”
Regina went to pick up her purse next to the mirror. She’d hung her wedding dress on a hanger, inside a garment bag, from a hook next to the mirror.
Going to the stairs, she bent and gripped Jocelyn’s face, pinching her until she winced. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Laughing, she climbed the stairs, unhurried, confident she’d have her fun with Jocelyn when she returned.
As soon as the door slammed closed, Jocelyn began struggling to be free of her bindings. But Regina had tied her firmly to the staircase. And the post wouldn’t budge.
She would not be able to free herself. She’d sit here, helpless prey, until Regina came back with her brand-new marker, ready to shoot her and give her the mark. Jocelyn would become another victim.
A Baby for Agent Colton Page 21