“And what, Alexis?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” Her little face was
suddenly sad, the weight of the emotions battling inside
of her too heavy to bear alone.
Mike kneeled down until his eyes met his
daughter’s. When he spoke, his voice was soft and laden
with regret. “I found Granddaddy’s lighter, Alexis. It
was exactly where Lily said it was. I am so sorry I didn’t
believe you; I hope you can forgive me, and I hope Ms.
Kathy can forgive me too, for being so ugly to her. I was
just hurt and under stress, Alexis, and I know it is not a
very good excuse, but I am asking you to please accept
my apology.”
Alexis’s eyes widened as far as her lids could open
and as soon as she was able to process the words she
threw her tiny arms around her father’s neck, squeezing
as hard as she could. Rose burst into tears and hugged
both of them; crying felt good right now and for once, it
was for a happy occasion. She doubted she would ever
tell Mike about the dream she had at the hospital, but
never again would she fail to listen to her daughter.
They thanked the officers and hugged Mirna
Thompson who stood in the corner crying her eyes out,
then they walked out of the bus terminal holding hands.
Before she got in the car, Alexis hesitated for a
moment and Mike asked her if she was okay.
“I’m fine, Daddy, but I think I lost something that
belongs to Ms. Kathy. I was playing with a lighter I
found on a table in her studio while I was there, and I
accidentally put it in my backpack. I wanted to bring it
back to her but I lost it. Do you think it was important to
her, like the one that belonged to Granddaddy?”
“There is only one way to find out, Alexis. Let’s go
home and call her.”
“Daddy…” Alexis said in a small voice, sadness
once again darkening her delicate features, “I was going
to see Kathy to tell her something important that Lily
said.”
“Yes? What is it, Alexis?”
“The people who killed Tracey are going to kill Ms.
Kathy’s boyfriend if someone doesn’t stop them.”
#
Mary Townsend lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
She missed Shannon, and knew that if Shannon lived,
she would have some serious changes to make. Of
course, there was a possibility that Shannon would go to
jail, if it turned out that she was indeed involved in
Tracey’s murder. Could her Shannon be a killer?
Everything was possible of course, and in her own
troubled life Mary had learned not to trust anyone
completely. Starting from her mother, the relationships
she forged in her life always left her stranded. The worst
one to date was certainly the relationship she had with
the foster father who raped her repeatedly, and Mary
held her birth mother responsible for it – had she not
abandoned her at an early age, Mary wouldn’t have been
in that predicament. After years of abuse, she was
finally old enough to run away and make it on her own,
but her view of men was forever damaged, and her
anger was so intense she felt overpowered by it. She
dated a few girls after that, and enjoyed intercourse with
them; for once, she didn’t have to lay in the darkness
crying and hurting. None of the girls she dated ever
captured her heart, until she met Shannon. Knowing that
Shannon saw her as a hero allowed her to bask into the
sunshine of her heightened self-image. Shannon was
everything she ever wanted – she was beautiful, kind
and gentle, and most of all, she needed Mary. Shannon
wasn’t able to harm a fly – or was she?
The arrow of a painful doubt pierced through the
fibers of her consciousness and spread like wildfire. She
sat up in bed and ran a hand through her hair, unable to
shake the feeling of foreboding in her heart, so she got
up and went to the living room. She sat on the couch
and looked for the TV remote, cursing loudly when she
couldn’t locate it. She turned on the lamp beside the
couch and got on her hands and knees to see if it had
fallen on the floor, but something sharp went through
her knee and she involuntarily screamed. When she
lifted her knee she saw a drop of blood erupting from a
tiny puncture wound, so she ran her hand over the carpet
to see if she could find what pricked her. Her hand came
into contact with a small hard object and she picked it
up to look at it. It was a small diamond earring, one of
two that her mother had given her the last day she saw
her. Mary laughed when that gift was given to her, and
her anger came forth in waves. She clearly remembered
throwing the closed box on the floor in the kitchen, and
her mother’s boyfriend picking up and opening it to
ensure the earrings were still inside. Mary told them
both to leave and never come back, and when they did,
Yago was clutching the box safely in his hand, with both
earrings in it. How could one of those earrings be on the
carpet right now? Had he come back to the apartment
when she was gone?
Thinking about her mother’s boyfriend made her
even angrier, probably because she knew her mother had
chosen his company all for the wrong reasons. Her
mother never actually came out and said it, but his
resemblance to Mary’s brother was so uncanny that
Mary was sure her mother was dating him only because
she felt closer to her lost son that way.
Suddenly she thought of something…the cops had
mentioned that the man who tried to kill Shannon at the
hospital was Jack, but Mary knew Jack was not in town
when the attack occurred. She hadn’t told anyone, but
Jack had found some photos of Tracey he felt were
particularly beautiful when he cleaned his bedroom
closet, and had taken them to a photo shop to have them
copied – he didn’t want to separate from them, but he
also wanted her family to have them, especially the one
of Tracey and her little sister together. He didn’t want to
send them in the mail, so he bought a bus ticket to bring
the photos in person; according to what he told Mary, it
was his chance to also apologize for his past behavior.
He never meant to scare Tracey, and he wished to
express to her family how much he truly loved her.
Actually, Mary thought that he loved Tracey too much,
and if she had any doubts before, they were quickly
wiped off when she saw the creepy shrine to Tracy in his
apartment. Mary never went to Jack’s place, even if she
had a key, and she was just as surprised as the two
detectives who went in with her.
Jack was gone when Shannon was attacked, and yet
the man who attacked her fit his description. Yago! How
could she have not thought of him?
She sprang from the floor and ran to grab the phone
to call the number hand-written on the back o
f
Lieutenant Lackey’s business card. She was greeted by
an answering machine and slammed the phone down.
She had to warn the Lieutenant before someone else got
hurt, but first of all she had to get some answers, and the
only place she could find them, she was sure, was at her
mother’s house.
Chapter 20
Parker had been a police officer long enough to
know that under no circumstance he should put the life
of a hostage in danger, and Tom’s agonized scream
meant that he wasn’t alone; the worst thing he could do
was to alert the other person of his presence. He got in
his car and moved it to the next block, and thought
about calling for reinforcement but decided against it –
he never before went against procedures but in this case
the hostage was his friend. He practically ran back to the
house and looked for a way in, and cursed under his
breath when he found that all the doors were locked.
One look at the kitchen window made him want to
scream for joy: The glass panes weren’t properly aligned
which probably meant that the lock wasn’t fully
engaged. With a moderate amount of pressure, the lock
gave in and the pane slid up creating a passage way for
Parker to enter the house.
The kitchen was deserted and he couldn’t hear any
sounds from anywhere in the house, aside from a
grandfather clock loudly ticking away in the living
room. Using the wall for cover he inched toward the
doorway and scoped the room adjacent to the kitchen –
it was furnished exclusively with antique pieces and a
baby grand piano set at an angle in the far right corner.
The blinds were closed to shield away the heat of the
day, leaving the room in a semi-darkness which
conferred an even more austere feel to the ambience.
With his gun drawn, Parker made his way through
the room and came to a small door situated directly
across from the staircase. He put his ear to the door to
listen for sounds coming from the inside, but everything
was quiet. He tried the handle and was happy to find
that it wasn’t locked, so he turned it as softly as he could
and cracked the door, but before he could open it fully,
the mouth of a gun appeared from the doorway across
the foyer and Parker froze.
A figure suddenly appeared behind the gun, only a
few feet away from Parker. “Drop the gun, brother.”
Parker didn’t argue, and let his gun fall by his feet.
“Put your hands behind your head and open the
door, then start going down the stairs slowly.”
Parker did as instructed and was grateful that the
stairs weren’t completely dark. The man moved behind
him, keeping the gun so close behind his head that
Parker thought he could smell the scent of metal. When
they reached the bottom of the stairs, the man pushed
Parker into a darkened corner toward a figure whose
face was bathed in crusted, darkened blood. It didn’t
take him long to recognize the man.
“Oh my God…Tom…”
The man watching the scene stood smiling, one of
his hands clapping against his wrist. “Well, aren’t you
the smart one, Detective? You found us after all. That’s
really too bad that you won’t be able to tell anybody.”
He made Parker lay on the floor and removed the
handcuffs from his back pocket, then slid them across
his wrists and snapped them shut.
With his face pushed against the floor, Parker didn’t
immediately see the other figure descending the stairs,
but Tom did, and his breath caught in his lungs.
Illuminated by the single light bulb on the stairs, her
face appeared even uglier than Tom remembered when
he saw Yvonne Fowler the first time at the warehouse of
Caldwell & Sons . He was sure she was the same person
who called him and accused Brad Johnson of the
murder.
“Oh my, look who came to visit! Two fine officers
from our wonderful police department.” She said with
an affected smile that accentuated the deep lines in her
face and made Tom shiver.
“Yes,” Yago picked up her line and carried it
forward, “we should offer them some tea, Sweetheart.
After all, we are in the south and we can’t forget about
hospitality.”
Tom tried to move but his hands were tied so tightly
behind his back that his arms wouldn’t even budge. He
licked his lips to moisten them and when he spoke his
voice came out as a cracked whisper. “Why? Why did
you kill Tracey?”
The woman burst into bitter laughter. “Why? I
thought you were smarter than that, Lieutenant. Tracey
Newman was a whore who used my son and then
dropped him like a hot potato when she was done with
him. She accused him of stalking her and blocked him
from even talking to her. Do you know what her
rejection did to him?”
Tom was confused. “Your son? Who’s your son?”
“Oh, so you haven’t connected the dots yet, I see.
My son is Jack Little, the man everyone suspects of
killing that little slut. He even tried to change his name
and start anew, but you couldn’t leave him alone.”
“Your son has a shrine in his apartment with photos
of Tracey. What do you call that if not insanity?”
Yvonne’s face contorted into an angry, twisted
mask, as she raised her foot and kicked Tom in the
mouth. “Be careful about what you say, Lieutenant. My
son wasn’t a stalker. His only sin was to love that
woman; God only knows why. I was the one who
encouraged him to create that little corner of happiness.
Being near that woman made him happy and that’s all I
cared about.”
Parker couldn’t move, but he turned his face to the
side to take a better look of the woman. Tom shook his
head. “But why? If you didn’t like Tracey, and you felt
she deserved to die, why did you support his love for
her?”
“You couldn’t understand, Lieutenant. My son loved
her and she rejected him.”
“Why do you feel so responsible for your son’s
relationships, Yvonne?”
The look on Yvonne’s face changed from angry to
sad. “Because I was never able to protect him and make
him happy when he was a little boy. Now is all I have.”
The woman was mad, of that Tom had no doubt, but
he couldn’t understand how her boyfriend could support
her ideas. He shifted his gaze to look at Yago standing
beside Yvonne; nothing registered in his eyes but sheer
adoration for the woman. Why? Maybe if he could
understand his motive he could find a way to play on his
emotions and find his way back to freedom.
“Do you agree with all this, Yago?”
Yago nodded, his eyes still focused on his beloved.
“Yvonne is like the mother I always wished to have. I
wish my mother could have loved me enough to look
/>
out for me. I support everything Yvonne does.”
So there was a catch – like Yvonne’s children, Yago
grew up without the safety net provided by a caring
mother, and when he met Yvonne he fell in love with her
mission to be there for the children she was hoping to
reunite with. Maybe, if he found a way to show Yago a
different side of Yvonne – maybe the side of her
abandoning her children at a young age – he would be
free from her spell.
“So your mother left you too, Yago?”
Yago’s face hardened. “Yes. Drugs were more
important than I was.”
“Was that what happened to you, Yvonne? Did you
get involved with drugs and gave up your children?”
“No! That’s not the way it played out. My children
were ripped away from me.”
“But why, Yvonne? Did social services come in?”
“I…I went to jail for something stupid. I was caught
stealing from the store I worked at. It was a long time
ago.”
“So you chose material things over your children?
You knew you were going to lose them if you got
caught.”
Anger spread across Yvonne’s face and her hand
reached into her jacket pocket from which she pulled
out a small .45 and pointed its mouth directly toward
Tom’s face. That unexpected turn of events convinced
him that it was best to change his tactics. Yvonne’s face
was streaked with pain so intense Tom feared she would
shoot at any moment.
“That’s enough, Lieutenant! I loved my children,
and I was only stealing to give them what they needed
after their fathers left us penniless. But someone like
you would never understand what it is like to struggle
and to wonder how you will feed your children the next
time they cry because they are hungry. My boyfriend at
the time was a drug addict, and he split after I was
arrested. When the police found drugs in my house, they
assumed they were mine.”
“I understand, Yvonne. You were only doing what
any loving mother would have done.”
“You’re right, Lieutenant. And that’s why that
woman had to die, and her little boyfriends had to
suffer.”
A sudden realization hit Tom square in the chest.
“Did you put the bloody T-shirt in Brad Johnson’s car?”
Yvonne sneered. “That’s a dumb one right there, so
that was an easy job – Brad Johnson is too cocky to
even lock his vehicle. It wasn’t hard. Just as it wasn’t
Killer in Sight (A Tom Lackey Mystery) Page 28