Revenge

by Debra Webb

  ‘His wife has no idea where he is,’ Harper added. ‘O’Reilly’s father and the mayor are keeping Burnett busy putting out public relations fires.’

  Jess would never understand how Dan tolerated his job. Corlew’s accusation nudged at her. She refused to entertain his conspiracy theories when she had far more pressing issues. ‘What happened to the department’s PR liaison? I thought he was supposed to be back from baby leave this week?’ Oh, God, having kids meant taking time off work. She could not have a child. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

  ‘Trent Ward.’ Harper glanced at her. ‘He’s back but the chief feels he should handle this situation himself.’

  Corlew’s accusation echoed in her ears again. Fine, just get it over with, Jess. ‘You were in the department back when Corlew was on the force, weren’t you, Harper?’

  ‘I never worked directly with him but I knew him, yes, ma’am.’

  ‘He said something to me today that just won’t stop nagging at me.’

  ‘What’s that, ma’am?’

  ‘He said Burnett was a part of the Lenny Porter case getting shut down without a proper investigation. Do you remember hearing any such thing?’ She felt like a dog even asking that question.

  ‘May I be candid, ma’am?’

  ‘Please.’

  Harper stared at the road ahead for a moment before speaking. ‘Corlew is a piece of shit alcoholic. I wouldn’t trust a word he says.’ He sent another look her way. ‘Whatever he’s up to, he has an agenda you won’t like and it will benefit no one but himself.’

  Jess chewed on that for a minute. ‘Thank you, Sergeant. I appreciate your candor.’

  This was a subject she would take up with Dan as well. He had a right to know what Corlew was saying about him.

  ‘Here we go.’ Harper made the turn onto Pansy Street.

  Still no Corolla at the Penney residence. Where was this guy? The APB for him and his car had gotten negligible results. The guy apparently knew how to hide.

  Ramona Penney sat in the swing on her front porch. She watched as Jess and Harper got out of the SUV and walked her way. She made no move to stand or to welcome them to her home.

  ‘Mrs Penney, I’m sorry to bother you again,’ Jess said as she stepped up onto the porch. ‘You may or may not know we’ve had another murder and I’m very concerned about your son.’

  ‘No need, my boy’s just fine. He called me a few minutes ago and told me he had nothing to do with these murders.’

  Jess gestured to the vacant chairs on the porch. ‘Do you mind if we visit for a bit?’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ She lifted her glass of tea. ‘I’d offer you refreshments but this was the last glass.’

  ‘That’s all right. We can’t stay long.’ Jess settled into one of the chairs. Harper opted to remain standing near the steps.

  There was very little likelihood that she was going to get any cooperation from this lady but there was one tactic that just might work. ‘Mrs Penney, there’s a chance your son is in danger. I mentioned the last time we spoke that I was worried about Todd. We now have reason to believe that someone is attempting to make him look guilty.’ If Todd hadn’t posted those journal pages all over that storage unit, someone had. ‘Whoever that someone is, Todd’s life may be in danger.’

  The dismissive expression on her face instantly shifted to one of suspicion laced with a hint of fear. ‘I don’t know what you mean. My son has done nothing wrong. He just wants to be left alone. The world will know the truth soon enough. He told me so.’

  Since Penney was no prophet, that sounded like a threat to Jess. ‘Three people have been murdered since your son returned to Birmingham. The one thing they all had in common was Lenny Porter’s death. A journal we’ve confirmed was handwritten by Todd named every one of those victims. The last entry we discovered included threats related to those same victims.’

  ‘That journal was written when he was in high school. Teenagers are emotional,’ she argued. ‘They say stuff they don’t mean.’

  So she did know about the journal. ‘Do you know what happened to his journal?’

  ‘He kept it all this time but then he decided it was time to let the past go.’ She dabbed at her eyes. ‘He was finally ready. So he got rid of it.’

  ‘Did he throw it away?’

  ‘He gave it to Scott Baker.’ She shook her head. ‘I told him it would only stir up trouble but he did it anyway.’

  Jess’s instincts moved to the next level. ‘You’re certain he gave it to Baker?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  Scott had the journal when Corlew saw him talking to Penney. Juliette had arrived right after that. Their killer was looking less and less like a he and more and more like a she.

  Jess put that revelation aside for the moment. ‘Here’s the problem we have,’ she explained to Todd’s mother. ‘If your son is not the person who committed these heinous crimes, then he is most assuredly on the killer’s list. We need to find him for his own safety.’

  That got her full attention. ‘Has this killer left some clue about my son or said something about him?’

  ‘He leaves a page from the journal at each scene. He’s killing the folks, one by one, who were with Lenny Porter the night he died. Your son was with Lenny that night. He left him on that rooftop. Maybe this killer sees him as guilty too. Would a real friend leave like that?’

  Her shoulders stiffened. ‘Todd was the only friend Lenny had. They were like brothers. Todd left him on the roof that night, yes. He hoped Lenny would follow him. After he stormed out of the building, he couldn’t get back in. He called up to Lenny and the others, over and over and no one would listen. The drug he took had him freaked out. My boy didn’t do drugs. He couldn’t handle it.’

  She fell silent, tears brimming in her eyes. Her chest shook with a shuddering breath. ‘He had to find someone who would let him use their cell phone to call the police after Lenny fell. We didn’t have the money for one and most businesses in that part of town were closed at that hour. It was awful for him. Just awful.’ She looked straight at Jess. ‘I can’t tell you where my son is because I don’t know, but I can tell you one thing for sure. He hasn’t killed anyone.’

  ‘I appreciate your honesty, ma’am. Just one more question. Did Todd see Lenny fall?’ Jess steered clear of saying Lenny jumped; she needed Ramona cooperative not defensive.

  ‘He was standing in the parking lot,’ Ramona confirmed. ‘He watched those other kids playing around the edge like fools. Then Lenny fell. But just before he fell, that girl, the selfish little bitch, whispered something in his ear.’

  ‘What girl do you mean?’

  ‘Juliette Coleman, who else? Lenny was in love with her. He would have done anything she asked. Even walk off that building, especially since he was all drugged up.’

  He loved me.

  Had he loved Juliette Coleman enough to jump?

  Jess had suspected Juliette wasn’t being totally open with her but if she really was the reason he jumped, then why wasn’t she the first victim?

  Maybe because she was the killer.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kevin froze.

  He was coming back.

  Oh sweet Jesus! He was coming back.

  He tried not to breathe so hard but he couldn’t help himself. His wrists and ankles were raw from trying to work free from his bindings. He’d shit himself because the bastard had left him here for fucking hours. Tied in this damned chair.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ Kevin shouted. ‘I didn’t hurt you or your friend! It was the others, not me!’

  The son of a bitch didn’t say a word, just walked into the room and turned on the light. Kevin didn’t know where the hell he was. Some cheap motel or something. Maybe an abandoned house. He couldn’t tell.

  ‘You may think you’ll get away with this but you won’t,’ he warned the fool. ‘The police will figure you out. They’ve got your face all over the news. They’re all
looking for you.’ Dumb bastard. Did this lowlife really think he could get away with this eleventh-hour bullshit?

  Todd Penney leaned down, his dark hair as unkempt as it had been back in high school. His eyeglasses looking like a midcentury castoff. Kevin instinctively drew away from him.

  ‘You’d better hope they don’t find me,’ he warned.

  Kevin refused to show him any fear. ‘I’m not afraid of you, you stupid shit!’ Kevin had Penney’s number and it was zero. Z-E-R-O. ‘I hope they find you and put you away for the rest of your worthless life.’

  ‘You,’ Penney advised, ‘should be dead by now.’

  Kevin stiffened. What the hell did that mean? Okay. Okay. Okay. Maybe he didn’t want to know. ‘If you let me go now, I won’t tell anyone about this. You can disappear and we can forget this ever happened.’

  Penney laughed. He put his face right in Kevin’s. ‘If I let you go, you’re as good as dead. Now who’s the stupid shit?’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Kevin urged. ‘Really, you have to listen to me.’

  Penney started walking away. ‘Don’t worry, O’Reilly. You’re not going to miss the showdown. You’ll be center stage.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Birmingham Police Department, 6.48 P.M.

  ‘Still nothing on Penney or O’Reilly,’ Lori reported.

  Jess paced back and forth before the case board. She’d added the photos Corlew had e-mailed her and updated the timeline with Penney’s visit to Baker’s office. It had been a hell of a long day and it was only going to get longer.

  There had to be something here they were missing.

  ‘We have three choices.’ Jess turned to the photos on the board. ‘If it’s not Penney out for revenge, then it’s Juliette or O’Reilly. What are we looking at in terms of motive?’

  Harper approached the board and grabbed a marker. ‘Fear.’ He wrote the word under both Juliette’s and O’Reilly’s photos. ‘Depending on exactly what one or both did, they’re looking at prison if found guilty.’

  ‘Humiliation, financial ruin,’ Lori added. ‘Either one would have a lot to lose, besides their freedom.’

  ‘We could say the same about Penney,’ Jess noted. ‘He has a lot to lose as well. But it doesn’t add up that he would kill the others and not kill Baker.’

  ‘We only have Corlew’s word on that,’ Harper argued.

  Jess put up her hands, relinquishing the point. ‘True.’ God knew she shouldn’t trust anything he told her. Somehow, this part she did.

  Moving on. She surveyed the board. ‘Let’s look at the reactions of these two over the past few days.’

  ‘Juliette came forward with information first,’ Lori reminded her.

  ‘She was more than ready to accept a surveillance detail when O’Reilly refused,’ Jess recalled.

  Harper pointed to Baker’s photo. ‘At the first indication of trouble, Scott Baker sent his wife and son away. Elliott Carson sent his family to his mother-in-law’s. Neither man wanted to risk his family’s safety.’

  ‘Even though Aaron Taylor and his wife didn’t go away as he’d planned,’ Lori picked up where Harper left off, ‘the wife stated that he had suggested they go but she had other plans. She left and he stayed home.’

  ‘Yet’ – Jess turned to O’Reilly’s photo – ‘Kevin O’Reilly never sent his family anywhere.’ Adrenaline fired through Jess. ‘His wife didn’t even seem to be aware there was a reason to be afraid.’

  ‘O’Reilly could have easily gotten all those newspaper clippings to use in the storage unit,’ Harper pointed out.

  ‘His family owns and operates Birmingham News. He absolutely could,’ Jess agreed. There was another loose end they hadn’t been able to tie up since the former manager remained MIA.

  Chad Cook stood, sending his chair banking off the wall behind his desk. ‘Holy crap!’

  Everyone in the room turned to the youngest member of their team. His job was to carefully go through the DMV records, fingerprint databases, whatever electronic files were at their disposal, of all persons of interest in this case. Those still breathing had priority.

  ‘I’ve got Channel Six on my iPad.’ He hunkered his shoulders. ‘I hope that’s okay.’

  Jess motioned for him to get to the point.

  ‘That ex-cop, Buddy Corlew, just called Chief Burnett out in a one-on-one interview with Gerard Stevens.’

  Stevens was the male counterpart of Gina Coleman at Channel Six. Both were attractive, beloved, top investigative reporters. The only difference was that Stevens had his own half-hour show that aired every afternoon.

  Harper grabbed the remote for the big flat panel on the wall. He selected Channel Six. Sure enough there was Corlew running off at the mouth about the Porter case.

  ‘That son of a . . .’ Jess should have known he would get back at her for forcing his hand.

  She grabbed her cell and called Dan. ‘Are you watching this?’

  ‘I am.’

  She sighed. Dammit. ‘He’s doing this because I pushed him into a corner.’

  ‘Don’t sweat it.’

  He was sure taking it a lot better than her.

  ‘I was just about to head your way,’ he said.

  ‘What’s up?’ She chewed her lip, giving herself a sec to brace for trouble. Like she didn’t have enough already. ‘We’re working on the case.’

  ‘I just got off the phone with Gant.’

  The rhythm of Jess’s heart shifted and the noise in the room faded. ‘You told him about the plant?’

  ‘And the driver with the gun. He’s not happy.’

  Like she was. ‘He’s never happy.’

  ‘There’s a new development, Jess.’

  She steeled herself. What now?

  ‘They’ve found a discrepancy in the passport verification log for Chicago. He can’t say for sure, but he believes Spears reentered the country last Saturday.’

  That reality hit her in the face like a bucket of ice water. Why the hell was she surprised? She had known it would happen eventually. She’d done everything she could to hasten it along with all those antagonizing responses she’d sent him. But somehow she wasn’t prepared.

  He could be anywhere . . . he could be here.

  She needed to warn Lori and Harper. Dear God. She hadn’t considered the full impact of her decision to taunt Spears. And Lily and her family. Fear pumped hard through her veins.

  ‘We need to talk about what this means.’

  Not right now. She couldn’t go there yet. ‘I should get back to work.’ She glanced around at her team, who were still mesmerized by the attention-drawing antics of a grudge-carrying ex-cop. ‘Thanks for the update.’

  Since his secretary passed him a note that he was wanted in the mayor’s office, Dan let her off the hook with the promise they would talk more about this later. All Jess could think about was how to keep Spears focused on her and away from the people she cared about.

  Her cell clanged. She jumped like she’d been shot. Damn. Damn. Damn. She scrubbed at her forehead; damned creases were turning into more wrinkles every day. Most of them had Spears’s name written on them. Bastard. ‘Harris.’

  ‘My sister is missing,’ Gina Coleman said, her voice hollow.

  Oh shit. ‘Are you at home?’

  ‘Yes.’ A shaky breath rasped across the connection. ‘She said she wanted a nap before dinner. I went to check on her just now and she’s gone. The patio door is standing wide open . . .’

  Jess grabbed her bag. ‘Was there any other indication someone may have taken her?’

  ‘There’s no sign of a struggle.’ Gina made a frantic sound. ‘My car is still in the garage. Unless she left on foot, someone had to have taken her.’

  Or she left on her own . . . to finish what she’d started.

  ‘We’re on our way,’ Jess promised. She ended the call. The members of her team waited expectantly for whatever bad news she had to deliver. ‘Juliette Coleman is missing. Sergeant, get whoever
is on surveillance detail at the Coleman house inside now. I don’t want Gina talking to anyone else or going anywhere until we get there.’ She turned to Cook. ‘Get a couple of evidence techs over there.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Then she turned to Lori. ‘Make sure the unit watching Ramona Penney’s home is on full alert.’

  Everyone went into scramble mode. Jess was out the door and in the corridor when Harper stopped her.

  ‘Hold on, ma’am,’ he said to his caller. He turned the cell away from his face. ‘Chief, this is dispatch. A janitor from the Birmingham News has called in trouble on the roof of the building. He says there’s at least three people up there and one of them has a gun.’

  Jess went cold. Maybe Scott Baker was right . . . maybe Fate was about to catch up with the last of the Five.

  4th Avenue, the Birmingham News, 8.25 P.M.

  ‘You know this one’s a new building. The one Lenny Porter fell off or jumped from was torn down a few years ago,’ Lori mentioned as they moved into position.

  Jess had heard about that. The new Birmingham News was right across the street from where the old one had been. ‘I remember Lil mentioning something about it.’

  ‘We definitely have warm bodies on the roof,’ Harper confirmed. He passed the binoculars to Jess. ‘We have one on the ground but moving. I think that’s Juliette. O’Reilly and Penney are huddled together a few feet away. I believe Penney’s the one with the gun.’

  Jess was immensely grateful for the sergeant’s state of preparedness. The man carried most everything necessary to collect evidence, fight a small war, or to break out of prison in the back of his SUV.

  She was also very thankful for the big-ass lights on top of the building. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to see a damned thing.

  ‘Yep, that’s Penney with the weapon all right.’ Dammit. She had hoped he wasn’t the one. ‘What’s the status on SWAT?’

  ‘Still ten minutes out.’

  That was way too long. Even when they got here, time would be needed for getting into position. ‘Be sure the commander knows we need a hostage negotiator.’