by Karen Rose
“Run the DNA first,” Chase said grimly. “Daniel, get Alex to give us some hair. I want them tested side by side.”
“I’ll have to tell her why.”
“No, you don’t. Tell her anything you want, just don’t tell her why. Not yet at least.”
Daniel frowned. “She’s not a suspect, Chase.”
“No, but she’s involved. If it’s a match, then tell her. If not, why upset her?”
That at least made sense. “All right.”
Chase straightened the knot of his tie. “Now, it’s showtime. I’ll field the questions.”
“Wait a minute,” Daniel protested. “I’m lead. I can field my own damn questions.”
“I know, but remember what I said about hearing ‘Vartanian’ and ‘Dutton’ in the same sentence. The brass wants me to face the press. Nothing else changes.”
“Fine,” Daniel muttered, then stopped when he got to Leigh’s desk. Alex was gone. “Where is she?” He shoved his hand into his pocket. He still had her car keys. She could have taken a cab, but surely she wasn’t that stupid. If-
“Relax, Danny,” Leigh said. “She’s in the hall making a phone call.”
Daniel felt a spike of tension in his neck ebb. “Thanks.”
“Daniel.” Chase was holding open the door. “Let’s go.”
Daniel could see her at the end of the hall as he, Chase, and Ed walked the other way. She was on her cell phone, bowed over, hugging herself with one arm. Her shoulders were shaking and with a jolt he realized she was crying.
He stopped, the pressure on his chest making it hard to breathe. After all she’d been through in the last two days, he hadn’t seen her cry. Not once.
“Daniel.” Chase grasped his shoulder and yanked. “We’re late. Let’s go. I need you focused. You can talk to her later. She can’t go anywhere, you took her keys.”
Ed shot him a look of surprised sympathy and Daniel realized everything he felt must be showing on his face. He carefully drew a blank expression and left Alex crying in the hall.
He’d do his job. He’d track down this killer who taunted them with keys and clues. He had to make sure no other women were found in ditches. He had to keep Alex safe.
Atlanta , Tuesday, January 30, 2:30 p.m.
“I’m so sorry, Miss Fallon,” Nancy Barker said. The county social worker sounded almost as devastated as Alex felt. “I don’t know what else to tell you at this point.”
“Are you sure?” Alex insisted. She wiped her face with the back of her bandaged hand. She hated the weakness of tears. They never helped. But she’d gone for days expecting to hear Bailey was dead. She hadn’t expected… this. Not this. And on top of the events of the day… Alex supposed everyone had a limit and she’d reached hers.
“I know this is hard, but Bailey was an addict. Heroin addicts have a much higher recidivism rate. You’re a nurse. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.”
“I know. I also know everyone in Bailey’s recent life has sworn she’d gone clean.”
“Maybe she was under stress and just couldn’t take it anymore. Addicts go back to the life for all kinds of reasons. All I know is that she called the office and left a message for, quote, ‘whoever has my baby, Hope Crighton.’ The social worker who took the call knew Hope was one of my cases and forwarded the message to me.”
“So nobody physically talked to Bailey.” The initial shock was wearing off and Alex’s mind was working again. “When did she leave the message?”
“Today, about an hour ago.”
An hour ago. Alex looked at her bandaged hands. No coincidences, Daniel had said. “Can you forward that message to my phone?”
“I don’t know. We have an internal phone system. Why?”
Alex heard the mild disapproval in the social worker’s voice. “Miss Barker, I’m not trying to be difficult or in denial, but two women from Bailey’s hometown are dead. You can’t blame me for being suspicious of a phone call allegedly from Bailey that says she’s really run off and left Hope to the system.”
“Two women?” Barker said. “I read about the first woman, the congressman’s daughter being from Dutton, but now there’s another?”
Alex bit her lip. “That’s not public knowledge yet.” Although Daniel was off at his press conference by now, so it would be soon. “You can understand my apprehension.”
“I suppose so,” Barker said thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t know how to forward a message outside our phone system, but I can have it recorded it for you.”
“That would be wonderful. Can I pick up the tape today?”
“It might be tomorrow. Bureaucracy, you know.”
She sounded doubtful, so Alex pushed harder. “Miss Barker, right before that call came into your office, someone tried to run me down in the street. If someone hadn’t pushed me out of the way, I could be dead right now.”
“Oh my God.”
“Now you understand.”
“Oh my God,” Barker repeated, stunned. “Hope could be in danger.”
The thought of anyone touching Hope left Alex cold. Still she kept her voice confident. “I’m requesting police protection. If I have to, I’ll move Hope out of town.”
“Who’s with Hope right now?”
“My cousin.” Meredith had been exceedingly upset by the news of the near miss that afternoon. Alex had been on the phone with Meredith when the call from Barker had beeped through. “She’s a child psychologist from Cincinnati. Hope’s in good hands.”
“Fine, then. I’ll call you once I’ve recorded this message.”
Alex called Meredith back, bracing herself for a tirade. She was not disappointed.
“You’re coming home with me,” Meredith stated, bypassing any greeting.
“No, I’m not. Mer, that call was from the social worker. Somebody claiming to be Bailey called saying she’d just come off a high and wanted to be sure someone had Hope, that they should keep her, that she was never coming back.”
“Maybe it was Bailey, Alex.”
“The call was placed an hour ago, right about when that car tried to mow me down. Somebody wants me to stop looking for Bailey.”
Meredith was quiet for a few beats, then she sighed. “Did you tell Vartanian?”
“Not yet. He’s at a press conference. I’m going to request protection, but I don’t know if they’ll give it to me. Maybe you should take Hope to Ohio with you.”
“No, not yet. We may have something. I was afraid to turn the TV on today because they keep talking about the murders. So I plugged the organ in and played ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.’ One-fingered, nothing fancy. Just to keep myself sane.”
“And then?”
“And then Hope got this strange look on her face. It was creepy, Alex.”
“Where is Hope now?”
“Playing the damn organ like she has been for the last two hours. I’m on the front porch. I had to have a break or I was going to scream. She picked out this tune. Six notes. She keeps playing it again and again. I’m half expecting her to start building mountains out of mashed potatoes any minute.”
“What’s the tune?” Alex listened with a frown as Meredith hummed it. “I’ve never heard it before. Have you?”
“No, but if the organ is anything like the coloring, we’ll be hearing it for a long time.”
Alex thought for a minute. “Do me a favor. Call her preschool and ask if they’ve heard it. Maybe it’s a song they sing in school.”
“Good idea. Did the preschool mention Hope’s being autistic?”
“I haven’t talked to them yet. They were on my list for this afternoon.”
“I’ll ask when I call. If these repetitive behaviors are endemic to Hope versus being trauma-induced, then I’m going about things the wrong way. When will you be back?”
“Whenever Daniel comes back. He’s got my car keys.”
Meredith snorted a chuckle. “I suppose that’s one way to get you to listen.”
“I listen,” Alex protested.
“Then you do whatever the hell you want to do.” She sighed. “I can’t go back.”
“What do you mean? Are you staying?”
“For a few more days. If I leave and something happens, I’d never forgive myself.”
“I can take care of myself, Meredith,” Alex said, torn between gratitude and annoyance. “I’ve been taking care of myself for years.”
“No you haven’t,” Meredith said quietly. “You’ve been taking care of everyone else for years. You don’t take care of Alex. Come back soon. I need a break from this tune.”
Tuesday, January 30, 2:30 p.m.
The Jag rolled up beside him and the window slid down, revealing a very angry man. “What the fuck happened?”
He’d known he was in trouble when he’d gotten a call to meet in the middle of the day. It was a remote location and neither of them would leave their vehicles, but the sheer risk of being seen together…
“You said to make her stop asking about Bailey. My guy said she went straight to the county courthouse today. I’d told him if she got too close to make her stop.”
“And you left it up to ‘your guy’ to decide when and how to do that?”
“He definitely overplayed his hand. You’re right.”
“Goddamn straight, I’m right. Do you even know why she was in the courthouse?”
“No. My guy couldn’t follow her in. He… would have been recognized.”
Dark eyes rolled. “Oh, for God’s sake. You hired some ape with a fucking wanted poster hanging in the county courthouse? God, this town is filled with fuck-ups. I told you I would deal with Bailey.”
He jutted out his chin, unwilling to be lumped with the town fuck-ups. “You’ve had her for almost a week. You said you’d have the goddamn key in two days. If you’d delivered your end, the stepsister never would have started all this poking around, because I would have delivered my end and Bailey Crighton would have already been found in a dumpster somewhere outside Savannah by now.”
His dark eyes flashed dangerously. “What you’ve done could blow up in somebody’s face and it sure as hell won’t be mine. Hell. If you’d planned to hire a felon, why not hire one with a little more finesse? A hit-and-run in downtown in the middle of the goddamn day? Your guy is beyond stupid. He’s a liability now. Get rid of him.”
“How?”
“I don’t care. Just do it. And don’t fuck it up. Then find out why Alex Fallon was at the courthouse today. All we need is her digging up trial transcripts.”
“She won’t find anything in the trial transcripts.”
“Yeah, and she was supposed to believe her stepsister was some strung-out junkie who skipped town, but she didn’t buy that, did she? I don’t trust what she’ll find.”
Because he also wasn’t sure what Alex Fallon would find, he turned his attention to the bigger failure. “So how will you handle Bailey Crighton?”
The man’s cobra smile raised the hair on his neck. “Bailey’s gone back on the juice.”
That actually surprised him. Bailey had been sober for five years. “Voluntarily?”
His sinister smile widened. “Now what fun would there have been in that? By tomorrow she’ll be begging for her next fix, just like old times. She’ll tell me what I want to know. But Bailey and her stepsister aren’t why I called you. I want to know what the fuck’s going on with these dead women?”
He blinked. “I thought…”
“You thought it was me? Shit. You’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”
His cheeks flushed hot. “Well, it’s not me or any of the others.”
“And you’re sure of this because…?”
“Bluto doesn’t have the balls to kill anybody and Igor’s just a whiny little bastard. He’s frothing at the mouth, calling Bluto, meeting him in the park at all hours in plain view of half the town. That boy’s gonna blow the whole damn thing out of the water.”
“You should have told me before now.” It was said softly, maliciously.
His stomach wrenched when he realized exactly what he’d done. “Wait a minute.”
His dark eyes became amused. “You’re in too deep, Sweetpea. You can’t back out.”
It was true. He was in way too deep. He licked his lips. “Don’t call me that.”
“The nicknames were your idea. It’s not my fault you don’t like yours.” The mocking smile disappeared. “You fool. You’re worried about a nickname when you don’t know who’s doing these women? You think Igor can blow us out of the water? You think Alex Fallon’s questions are a threat? Those are nothing compared to what these killings can do to us. The press has picked up on the connection. The Tremaine girl’s picture was all over the news last night. What do you know?”
His mouth went dry. “I thought it was some copycat at first. Maybe some wacko who read about it after all the news about what happened to Simon up north.”
“I don’t care what you thought. I asked what you know.”
“Claudia Silva was the second victim. She was found with a key tied around her toe.”
He stiffened. A match flared and cigarette smoke billowed from the Jag. “Has Daniel found Simon’s key yet?”
Simon’s key. The carrot with which Simon Vartanian taunted them all, even from his grave. His real grave this time. At least Daniel had gotten that right. “If he has, he hasn’t said anything.”
“He’s not going to tell you. Has he been back to his house?”
“Not since before the funeral.”
“And you’ve searched the house?”
“I’ve been through the old Vartanian place ten times.”
“Make it eleven.”
“He can get into the box without the key, you know.”
“Yeah, but he may not know about the box. The minute he finds a key, he’ll start looking for the box. If he hasn’t already. This asshole who’s killing the women knows about the key. He wants the cops to know about the key. So make sure Daniel doesn’t find Simon’s key.”
“He hasn’t been to the bank. I know that. But he is seeing the Fallon woman. Half the town saw him shoving his tongue down her throat on her front porch last night.”
Again the cobra smile. “You can work with that. After you take care of Igor.”
His blood went cold. “I’m not killing Rhett Porter.” He used Igor’s real name, hoping it would shock some reason back into the conversation. But he’d wasted his breath because the cobra smile just widened.
“Sure you will, Sweetpea.” The window rolled up and the Jag drove away.
And he sat there staring straight ahead, knowing he would, just like he had the last time he’d been told to kill. Because he was in way too deep. He had to kill Rhett Porter. He commanded his churning stomach to settle. After all, what was one more?
Atlanta , Tuesday, January 30, 3:25 p.m.
“And so the social worker is recording it for me,” Alex finished. Sitting in the chair in front of Daniel’s desk she glanced from Daniel to Chase Wharton, whose body language was tense, but whose face was carefully blank. From the corner of her eye she looked at Ed Randall, who regarded her with a scrutiny that made her feel as if she was on display.
Chase turned to Daniel. “Call Papadopoulos. Make sure that recording is made correctly so we can separate out any background noise.”
“Who is Papadopoulos?” Alex asked, twisting her fingers together. That they hadn’t even suggested that Bailey had really made the call made her nervous.
“Luke,” Daniel said. “You met him earlier. He’s the one who drove your car back.”
“Speaking of which,” Alex said, nearly flinching at the warning look Daniel blasted her way, “I need my keys back, Daniel. I can’t stay here all day. I need to talk to Hope’s preschool. She’s doing other weird things we don’t understand. And at some point I need to go through Bailey’s house. If Loomis’s office won’t do it, then I have to.”
Chase turned to Ed. “Get a team out
to Bailey Crighton’s house. Go through everything. Alex, you’re welcome to join him if you like.”
Alex’s hands stilled in her lap as the breath backed up in her lungs and the screeching began. It was louder now. It was just the stress of the afternoon. Quiet. Quiet. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Grow up, Alex. It’s just a damn house. She looked up at Chase Wharton, resolute. “Thank you. I will.”
“I’ll get that team together,” Ed said. “Do you want to ride with me, Miss Fallon?”
She met Daniel’s stern glare. He was scared again, she thought. “I’d actually like to drive my own car, but I’d feel safer if I drove in front of you on the way out to Dutton. I think that would address Agent Vartanian’s concerns as well, wouldn’t it?”
She saw Ed’s lips twitch and decided she liked the man, even if he did stare at her strangely. “I’ll call you when I’m ready to go,” he said and closed the door behind him.
“Daniel’s told me about the child. What weird new thing is she doing?” Chase asked.
“She’s playing a tune on the old organ in the bungalow I’m renting. Same six notes over and over. Neither of us knows the tune.”
“Maybe Sister Anne knows it,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “We can ask her tonight when we take Hope back up to the shelter.”
Alex’s eyes widened. “I assumed you’d be too busy.”
He gave her a look of tolerant annoyance. “I may not be able to get down to your place for dinner, but we need to take Hope to see Sister Anne. If Hope saw something, we need to know. Bailey is connected to all this. She might even be an eyewitness.”
“I agree,” Chase said. “Miss Fallon, we’re arranging for police protection for you and your niece. It won’t be twenty-four-hour because we simply don’t have the resources, but we’ll have drive-bys. You’ll also have a list of all our cell phone numbers in case of an emergency. Do not hesitate to call us if you think you’re in danger.”
“I won’t. Thank you.” She stood up and held out her hand. “My keys?”
Jaw cocked, Daniel pulled her keys from his pocket. “Call me. And stay with Ed.”
“I’m not stupid, Daniel. I’ll be careful.” She turned at his office door. “My satchel?”