Cold Justice (Kali O'Brien series Book 5)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  “Yeah.” Kali was trying to show she understood, though she didn’t. “But that was a long time ago, Alex. Why kill more people now?”

  “It was just going to be one. Make people think the Bayside Strangler was still around, that my dad screwed up big time. Poof, there goes the election.”

  She didn’t even try explaining how fuzzy his logic was.

  “Turned out to be fun, though.” Alex’s expression was slightly crazed. “And I was the one pulling the strings for a change.” He snapped the rope. “So to speak.”

  Kali had been listening for sounds from outside, hoping that Bryce hadn’t left, but she’d heard nothing. Of course he was gone. He would have assumed she wasn’t home.

  She wondered if Lou had talked to him yet. She hoped not. But the damage was done. He would eventually learn she’d mistrusted him. Her heart ached at what she’d done. But she couldn’t think about that now.

  Kali inched to her left, away from the bed. The door to the hallway, her only means of escape, was behind Alex. She’d never get past him.

  The master bath opened onto the bedroom diagonally across from them. If she made a sudden dash, could she reach it before he reached her?

  She didn’t see that she had any other options.

  “Alex, listen to me. I’m your friend, aren’t I? You don’t have to do this.”

  He shook his head. “It’s part of the plan.”

  “What plan?”

  “My plan. I’ll try not to hurt you, though.” He moved forward.

  Kali lunged to the side, but he grabbed her by the arm, twisting it until she thought it would break. She screamed and he loosened his grip. She turned, flailing at him with her arms. He grabbed her again and she kicked his shin, then aimed her knee at his groin. She missed, but it landed somewhere close enough to cause him pain. He cursed and released his grip.

  Kali sprinted for the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

  Her heart pounded frantically and her head felt light. Alex hammered on the door with his fist. The door was thin and the lock simple. It wouldn’t protect her for long.

  And then what?

  With dismay, she looked around the windowless room. What had she gained? Nothing but a few minutes’ reprieve. Worse, she’d backed herself into a corner.

  In a frenzy Kali opened the cabinet drawers, tossing the contents. A disposable razor, with a blade that couldn’t be removed. Useless. Nail clippers and cuticle stick, not much better. Hair brush, bobby pins, makeup, hand cream. Drawers full of junk, and not a decent weapon anywhere. Not even a glass bottle she could break for its jagged edge. The damn things were all plastic.

  Alex was jiggling with the lock now, poking at the spring mechanism. Even without the universal key, all it would take was a little pressure in the right spot.

  Panic gripped Kali, sucking the air from her lungs. She didn’t want to die like a cornered animal.

  She didn’t want to die, period.

  She flung open the cabinet doors beneath the sink. More junk.

  And an aerosol can of ant spray.

  Kali grabbed it just as she heard the lock spring click. Alex charged through the door. Aiming straight for his eyes, Kali held her breath, turned her head, and sprayed the poison, never letting up on the button.

  Alex cursed, lashed about, and Kali ducked out the door. She ran out front, smack into Lou and Bryce.

  CHAPTER 42

  When she thought about it afterward, what Kali remembered most vividly was the surge of relief she felt at finding Bryce on her doorstep—a momentary joy that was instantly overshadowed by a realization of all she’d lost by ever doubting him.

  At the time, though, all Kali could do was point to the house and stammer disjointedly. “Alex . . . it’s Alex. . . .”

  “Who’s Alex?” This was Lou asking. Bryce had his cell phone to his ear, calling for backup. Even without knowing the details, he’d read her panic correctly.

  “Owen’s . . . Owen Nelson’s . . . son.” Kali was panting hard, gasping for words with what little breath she could manage. “He killed Anne and. . . the others. Wendy Gilchrist too. He was going . . . going to kill me next.”

  Lou put an arm out to steady her. “Are you hurt?”

  Kali shook her head. “No, I. . .” She gulped for air, thinking how close she’d come. “I’m okay. I doused him with ant spray.”

  “I’m heading around back,” Bryce said to Lou. “You take the front.” He ignored Kali except to bark instructions that she stay out of the way.

  Kali realized she was shaking and close to tears. She crossed to the other side of the street and collapsed onto her neighbor’s low brick wall. Lou cased the front of the house, then positioned himself by the door. In the evening dusk, Kali had trouble seeing anything but shadowy forms.

  Within minutes two patrol cars arrived and slammed to a stop. The officers sprang from inside, guns drawn. Lou beckoned to them and the three of them conferred briefly.

  One of the officers returned to the patrol car for a megaphone. He called out to Alex to surrender.

  The house remained quiet.

  Several neighbors came out onto the street to see what the commotion was. Margot, her head still bandaged, sat down next to Kali on the wall.

  “Someone’s in your house?”

  Kali nodded. She didn’t want to explain it all just yet.

  Still nothing from inside. Kali dug her fingernails into her palms. He hadn’t gotten away, had he?

  Then one of the uniformed officers shot what Kali later realized was tear gas into the interior. A few seconds later Loretta staggered out the front door. Kali was afraid the officer with the rifle might shoot the dog by mistake, but he merely pushed her aside with his leg, keeping the gun aimed inside.

  Loretta circled, looking confused. When Kali started to go for her, Margot put a restraining hand on her arm.

  “You don’t want to get in the middle of it, Kali. Loretta will be okay.”

  “I think Alex drugged her. She hardly lifted her head when I came home, and look at her now.”

  “She may not be frisky, but she’s alert and mobile. She’ll be okay, trust me.”

  Just then Bryce circled from behind the house with a uniformed cop. Between them was Alex, handcuffed and coughing.

  Kali felt the release of panic. They’d gotten him. She was safe.

  Lou and Bryce conversed for a moment, then Bryce shoved Alex into the back of a patrol car. Bryce slid in beside him. As the car rounded the corner, she saw him look at her briefly, then turn away without acknowledgment.

  How did you ask forgiveness for betrayal of trust? Was it even possible?

  She gave a statement to an officer, then went back to Margot’s to call her sister and ask if she could stay there for a few days. Even without the tear gas, it would take a while before Kali felt like sleeping in her own house again.

  <><><>

  Lou took a long swallow of beer. Ice cold from the bottle, the way he liked it. What a weekend it had been. He was glad Keating had suggested they stop off for a drink. It had been almost midnight last night when they’d finished processing the paperwork, and today had been just about as full.

  “Who’d have thought it was Owen Nelson’s kid,” he muttered. “We weren’t even close in our suspicions.”

  “We actually weren’t that far off, Lou. The murders were about Owen Nelson and the election, only not in the way we thought. And the killer was someone with ties to Gilchrist, like we figured. All that stuff Dunworthy gave us fits, too. The killer’s sense of powerlessness, his personal interest in the Strangler case . . .”

  “It’s still a shock.” Lou couldn’t begin to imagine what it would feel like to have a kid who was a killer. Nikki’s piercings and shacking up were only a blip on the screen in comparison. “A double whammy, too, cuz Owen Nelson inadvertently contributed to Alex’s knowledge of the crimes. That’s how he knew the details of the Strangler case and how he learned he’d overlooked the dog
collars.”

  “Nelson told him?”

  “I doubt it. But he probably talked to his wife and Alex eavesdropped. Nelson was also the link to how Alex chose his victims.”

  Keating reached for a fistful of salted nuts. “How so? Anne Bailey had the Davis connection.”

  “Right. And Alex knew her murder would get his dad’s attention. Jane Parkhurst died because he associated her with selling the house. Owen’s new wife remembers Parkhurst made some pretty derogatory comments about the former Mrs. Nelson’s taste.”

  “And he targeted Ruby just because her mother was on the Davis jury?”

  Lou shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it. He seemed surprised when I raised the point. Turns out he’d seen Jackson and Ruby together and figured killing her was a way to get Jackson’s attention. The more attention he gets, the more publicity. I suspect it was Alex who fed information to Gomez, as well.”

  Keating smiled darkly. “I still love it that you all but accused Gomez of murder to his face.”

  “I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.” Lou didn’t like the guy and having him turn out not to be a murderer wasn’t enough to raise him in Lou’s esteem. “The kid’s rationale for attacking Kali’s friend is a bit less clear, though it seemed to make sense to him.”

  “Margot was lucky.”

  Lou nodded. He rolled the beer bottle between his palms. “I’ll tell you the thing we really have to be thankful for. That you noticed the van parked in front of Kali’s house and remembered it matched the description of the one that witness saw in the pharmacy parking lot the night Anne Bailey was killed.”

  “It was one of those moments that makes you believe in the power of the subconscious.” The muscles around Keating’s mouth pulled tight. His gaze went flat.

  “You talked to her since this all went down?” Lou asked.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You don’t have to keep up a front with me, Bryce. I know there was something going between you two.”

  “Was.”

  “So you’ve dropped her already?”

  “She thought I was a murderer, Lou.”

  “I hadn’t ruled the possibility out myself.”

  “It’s different.”

  “How?”

  “You confronted me, for one thing. Instead of assuming the worst.”

  And theirs was a very different sort of relationship. “Okay, Bryce, it’s your life. And God knows I’m the wrong guy to be giving advice. But if I was in your place, I wouldn’t toss everything until I was sure that’s what I wanted.”

  <><><>

  Owen read through the handwritten draft once more. It certainly wasn’t his best speech, but it probably was his shortest. It said what he wanted to say, though, and that was the important thing. Owen was withdrawing from the primary, resigning as district attorney. He offered his most humble regrets and deepest sympathy to the families of the victims. There wasn’t much else to be said.

  He poured himself a glass of scotch and leaned back in the soft leather chair. He would miss this office. He would miss the job. The friends he’d made here and the satisfaction of thinking he could make a difference.

  But while he’d been busy mending other people’s wrongs, he’d neglected his own.

  A wave of sorrow crashed down on him. For a moment it took his breath away. Grief at all he’d lost overcame him. And at the core of that grief was the greatest loss of all. A son he’d loved like life itself. Whatever happened at the trial and after, the Alex who’d reached for his hand before crossing the street, who’d curled next to him at bedtime, who’d beamed at Owen when he caught his first fish—that Alex was gone forever. Had been gone for a long time, Owen realized.

  And he would forever wonder how much his own failings as a father had contributed to the change.

  <><><>

  Kali didn’t return from her sister’s until the end of the week. She’d stayed longer than she intended, in part because avoidance was easier. But also because she and her sister had gotten along better than ever before, and Loretta had loved the open yard and the attention of Sabrina’s kids.

  The first thing she did on returning home was open the windows and doors to air the house out. She checked her answering machine. The light was blinking furiously with messages from concerned friends. Nothing from Bryce.

  Not that she was surprised, really. But she didn’t realize how much she’d been hoping there might be until there wasn’t.

  She found a week’s worth of mail and papers in a sack on the back deck, where Margot had left them for her. Kali tossed the papers, unread, into the recycle bin. She’d heard all the details she wanted at her sister’s. She knew that the search of Alex’s apartment had yielded enough evidence to support the arrest, and that his fingerprints matched those taken from Ruby Wings’s bathroom and garage window. She knew that Owen had bowed out of the gubernatorial race and resigned as district attorney. Rumor had it that he and Selby were in seclusion at her family’s ranch near Santa Barbara.

  She’d have to write Owen at some point. When she figured out what to say. Bereavement notes she had down pat. But this was a first.

  She made herself a cup of coffee and tackled the mail next. A plain white envelope with Bryce Keating’s return address caught her attention, and she opened it with trembling fingers.

  Two pages, typed. Nothing personal, not even a greeting. Just the information about Nathan Sloane she’d asked for.

  The disappointment stung. She’d been hoping for something that spoke to their relationship, even if he was angry with her. Not that she could really blame him for ignoring her after what she’d done.

  She turned to the report.

  Over a period of the last seven years, Nathan had had five restraining orders issued against him and two arrests for stalking, both of which involved jail time. He’d also spent close to a year in a psychiatric hospital. No record of violence, but he’d found plenty of other ways to harass his victims, all in the name of love. Kali was apparently not his only current target. A divorcee with a young child had filed charges last week when she learned he had access to her bank accounts. The woman was Helen Branson, and Nathan was back in jail.

  Kali tossed the report aside. She sure knew how to pick them, didn’t she? And when she finally found someone who was honorable and cared about her, what did she do but suspect him of murder.

  Well, it was done and couldn’t be undone. But she did owe Bryce an apology. She thought about writing a note, which would be far easier, but decided as part of her penitence to deliver the apology in person. She got into her car and headed downtown.

  When she arrived in the homicide room, Bryce was at his desk going over some papers with Lou.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” she said.

  “Go ahead.”

  He wasn’t making it easy. “I mean privately. Can we go outside?”

  Bryce hesitated, then rose from his chair. “I won’t be long,” he told Lou.

  They rode the elevator in silence. Outside the day was warm and sunny.

  “I owe you a big apology,” Kali said.

  Bryce scuffed the sole of his shoe against the pavement. His face showed the strain of bound emotion. “How could you think I was a killer?”

  “The woman at the florist said . . .”

  “But you believed her!”

  “I was scared, Bryce. We knew the killer was someone with inside information.”

  He looked at her straight on. “You knew me. You’d let me make love to you, for God’s sake. And you were ready to believe a woman you never met?”

  Kali thought about trying to explain. The yellow rose, the panic, the way the evidence seemed to fall into place. But she wasn’t here to defend herself. In truth, she wasn’t sure there was much to defend.

  “You said to me that you wanted to do it right. You have, Bryce. I blew it. I regret that more than I can express. If it could be undone—”

  “But it ca
n’t.”

  “I know. And I am sorry.” There didn’t seem to be anything more to say.

  Bryce was silent.

  “Thanks for the report on Nathan Sloane.”

  “I hope you weren’t pinning your hopes on him.”

  “Far from it.” If she’d had hopes set on anyone, it was Bryce.

  “You know that Rollerblader who ran you down? Sloane paid him to do it. I think he expected to rush to your rescue himself.”

  “How’d you find that out?”

  “The kid on wheels came clean.”

  The tumble she’d taken had led to the night she’d spent with Bryce. A memory she could hold on to.

  “Well, I’m glad I got scraped. The cure was worth it.” She smiled at him. “Take care, Bryce.”

  She started to leave and got no more than twenty feet before he called after her.

  “Kali?”

  “What?”

  “Give me some time, okay? I’d still like to do this right.”

  About the Author

  Jonnie Jacobs is the bestselling author of thirteen mystery and suspense novels. A former practicing attorney and the mother of two grown sons, she lives in northern California with her husband. You can visit her on the web at http://www.jonniejacobs.com.

  Books by Jonnie Jacobs

  Kali O’Brien Novels of Legal Suspense

  SHADOW OF DOUBT

  EVIDENCE OF GUILT

  MOTION TO DISMISS

  WITNESS FOR THE DEFENSE

  COLD JUSTICE

  INTENT TO HARM

  THE NEXT VICTIM

  The Kate Austen Mysteries

  MURDER AMONG NEIGHBORS

  MURDER AMONG FRIENDS

  MURDER AMONG US

  MURDER AMONG STRANGERS

  Stand Alone Novels

  THE ONLY SUSPECT

  PARADISE FALLS