by Karen Rose
“When she was in bed crying. She kept saying ‘a sheep and a ring.’ I thought I’d had a dream. A premonition, maybe. I told her about the doll and she got upset. I told her it was ‘just a doll, Mama.’ I didn’t know she’d seen the blanket, too.” Tears began to seep from Alex’s closed eyes. “I told her and she told Craig and he killed her.”
“Oh, God,” Daniel whispered.
“She’s felt guilty all this time,” Ed said softly. “Poor Alex.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Alex,” Mary said.
Alex was rocking, a barely discernible movement. “I told her and she told him and he killed her. She died because of me.”
Daniel was out of the van before she finished the sentence. He ran to the bedroom and pulled her into his arms. She came willingly, almost bonelessly. Like a doll.
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”
She was still rocking, a terrifying little keening sound coming from her throat. He looked up at Mary. “I need to get her out of here.”
Mary nodded sadly. “Be careful on the stairs.”
Daniel urged Alex to her feet and again she came willingly. He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her the smallest of shakes. “Alex. Stop it.” At the crack of his voice, her rocking stilled. “Now, let’s go.”
Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 10:00 p.m.
“Your aim was better tonight,” Daniel commented as he pulled into his driveway.
“Thank you.” She was still subdued, still numb. Only when he had taken her to Leo Papadopoulos’s target range had she regained some measure of control. The paper target had suffered as it became everyone she’d come to hate over the last few days. Craig most of all, but also Wade and Mayor Davis and Deputy Mansfield and whoever had stirred all this up to begin with by viciously murdering four innocent women.
And even her mother and Alicia. If Alicia hadn’t snuck out that night… And if her mother hadn’t lost control…
And, and, and…
She had aimed better. She’d held that gun steady and she’d fired until the magazine was empty. Then she’d reloaded and done it again and again until her arms were sore.
“I’ll get your shopping bag out of the trunk,” he said when the silence had become too great. “You can hang your new clothes in my closet if you want.”
She hadn’t bought that much today, just a few blouses and a few pairs of slacks. Still, hanging them in his closet felt too intimate… too much when she was so raw inside. But he looked expectant, so she nodded. “All right.”
He popped the trunk and she expected he’d shut it quickly, but he didn’t. The trunk stayed up as thirty seconds became a minute. She got out and sighed. Frank Loomis stood in the shadow of the trunk lid and he and Daniel were engaged in fierce whispers.
“Daniel,” she said, and he whipped around to look at her.
“Go up to the house,” he ordered. “Please.”
Too numb and weary to argue, she did as he asked and from his front porch watched the two men argue. Finally Daniel slammed the trunk closed loudly enough to wake the entire neighborhood and Frank Loomis stalked back to where he’d parked his car and drove away.
His shoulders heaving with the furious breaths he drew, Daniel turned and came up the sidewalk, a dark cast to his face. With jerky movements he opened the door and shut off the alarm. Alex watched him, remembering how they’d come together against that door the night before.
But Daniel only locked the door, reset the alarm, and started up the stairs, not even looking back to see if she followed. His command to do so was implicit in his body language, so she did. When she got to his bedroom her shopping bags were on his bed and he stood at his dresser, yanking at his tie.
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
He shrugged out of his coat and his shirt, flinging them to a chair in the corner, before turning, bare-chested, his fists on his hips. “Frank is being investigated by the state attorney’s office.”
“As well he should be,” she said, and he nodded.
“Thank you.” His chest expanded and fell. “He’s angry with me. He blamed me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care.” But it was obvious he did. “What made me mad is that he used our friendship to try to get me to influence the SA. Friendship. Biggest crock of bullshit I’ve heard in years.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Stop saying that,” he snapped. “Stop saying thank you and I’m sorry. You sound like Susannah.”
His sister, who had her own pain, he’d said. “You talked to her?”
“Yeah.” He looked away. “I talked to her. For all the damn good it did.”
“What did she say?”
His head whipped up and his eyes bored into hers. “ ‘I’m sorry, Daniel. Good-bye, Daniel.’ ” Pain flashed in his eyes, so intense she felt it press against her own chest. “ ‘You were gone, Daniel,’ ” he added in a snarl, then dropped his head, and his shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be yelling at you of all people.”
She sat on the edge of the bed, too tired to stand. “Why not me of all people?”
“Everywhere I turn, I see lies and betrayal. The only one who’s done neither is you.”
She didn’t agree, but wouldn’t argue the point. “Who did you betray?”
“My sister. I left her in that house. Where we grew up. I left her with Simon.”
Understanding dawned, and with it a pity and tenderness that made her ache for both Daniel and his sister. “Not all Simon’s victims went to the public school, did they?” she asked, remembering how he’d tensed at Talia’s words in the afternoon meeting.
Again his head shot up. He opened his mouth. Closed it. “No,” he finally said.
“You didn’t do it, Daniel. Simon did. It wasn’t your fault any more than it was my fault my mother decided to take on Craig herself. But we think it’s our fault, and that’s not going to be easy for either of us to get through.” He narrowed his eyes and she shrugged. “Shooting lots of bullets at that paper man gives a person a certain clarity of thought. I was only sixteen, but my mother was an adult who’d stayed with Craig Crighton entirely too long to begin with. Still, I gave her information that pushed her to the edge. Logically, it’s not my fault, but for thirteen years I told myself it was.”
“I wasn’t sixteen.”
“Daniel, did you know Simon was involved in the rapes of all those girls?”
He hung his head again. “No. Not when he was alive. Not until he died.”
“See? You didn’t find the pictures until he died, less than two weeks ago.”
He shook his head. “No, when he died the first time.”
Alex frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Eleven years ago my mother found those pictures. We thought Simon had been dead a year.”
Alex’s eyes widened. Eleven years? “But Simon wasn’t dead. He’d left home.”
“True. But I saw the pictures back then. I wanted to tell the police, but my father burned them in the fireplace. He didn’t want the bad publicity. Bad for his judgeship.”
Alex was starting to see. “How did you find them in Philadelphia if he burned them?”
“He would have made copies. My father was a careful man. But the point is, I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t tell a soul. And Simon went on unchecked for years.”
“What would you have told, Daniel?” she asked gently. “ ‘My father burned some pictures, so I can’t prove anything’?”
“I suspected for years that he was dirty.”
“And he was a careful man. You really wouldn’t have been able to prove anything.”
“I still can’t prove anything,” he snapped. “Because men like Frank Loomis are still covering their own asses.”
“What did you say to him tonight?”
“I asked him where he’d been all week. Why he wouldn’t answer my calls.”
“And where was he?”
Alex blinked. “Really? Where?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. He said it didn’t matter, that she wasn’t in any of the places he checked. I told him if he wanted to make things right, he’d help us find her versus running around half-cocked himself. I told him that if he really wanted to prove himself, he’d make right what he did thirteen years ago. He’d set the record straight on Fulmore and come clean on who he was protecting back then. Of course he denied he was protecting anyone, but that’s the only way I can square what he did in my mind. Frank set a man up for murder. That whole trial was one colossal cover-up.”
“And you’ll show that, when you get all Simon’s friends in a room and they all start pointing their fingers at each other. It’ll fall like dominoes.”
He sighed, most of his rage spent. “I can’t get them to turn on each other until I know who’s doing this killing now. And I can’t move on that person without giving a warning to Simon’s group of degenerates. I’m in a catch-22 from hell.”
She went to him then and smoothed her hands across his chest and up his back. “Let’s sleep, Daniel. You haven’t had a full night’s sleep in almost a week.”
He rested his cheek on the top of her head. “I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in eleven years, Alex,” he said wearily.
“Then it’s time to stop blaming yourself. If I can, you can.”
He leaned back and met her eyes. “Can you?”
“I have to,” she whispered. “Don’t you see? I’ve lived my life just skimming the surface, never digging deep enough for roots. I want roots. I want a life. Don’t you?”
His eyes flashed, intensely bright. “Yes.”
“Then let it go, Daniel.”
“It’s not so easy.”
She pressed a kiss against his warm chest. “I know. We’ll deal with it tomorrow. For now, let’s go to sleep. In the morning you’ll be able to think clearly. You’ll catch this guy, then you can put all Simon’s friends in a room and let them tear each other apart.”
“Will you stitch them back together after they tear each other apart?”
She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes. “No way in hell.”
He smiled his half smile. “God, you’re sexy when you’re ruthless.”
And that quickly she wanted him. “Let’s go to bed now.”
His brows lifted, detecting the change in her voice. “To sleep?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “No way in hell.”
Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 11:15 p.m.
Mack lowered his camera with its telephoto lens when the shade on Vartanian’s bedroom window came down. Damn, just when it was starting to get interesting. He wished he could have heard the conversation between Vartanian and Alex Fallon, but his listening device had a range of only a hundred yards and didn’t let him listen through walls. Two things were clear-Vartanian was still furious with Frank Loomis and Vartanian and Fallon were about to be joined at more than the hip.
The evening had been most illuminating. Mack hadn’t expected to see Frank Loomis waiting in front of Vartanian’s house. Apaprently, Vartanian hadn’t expected to see Loomis there either. Loomis was under investigation and worried about it. So worried the high and mighty sheriff had swallowed his pride and asked Daniel to intercede on his behalf. Mack rolled his eyes. Daniel, of course, was too ethical to do such a heinous thing, but he was just loyal enough to have been tempted.
As intelligence went, it didn’t come much more valuable than this. Between the botched hit-and-run and the ransacking of her house, Fallon was on her guard and Vartanian wasn’t letting her out of his sight. So I’ll bring them to me. He now knew exactly how he’d bait his trap. Desperation plus a little loyalty, mixed with the hint of Bailey was a combination they’d find irresistible.
He looked over his shoulder to where Delia Anderson lay in the back of his van, wrapped in a blanket and ready for disposal. He’d dump Delia, then get some sleep before he had to hit his delivery route. Tomorrow was going to be a very busy day.
Chapter Twenty-two
Atlanta , Friday, February 2, 5:50 a.m.
The phone woke him. Beside him, Alex stirred, burrowing her cheek into his chest, her arm hugging his waist. It was an incredible way to wake up.
Daniel squinted at the clock, then at the caller ID, and his heart began to race as he reached across Alex’s warm body for the phone. “Yeah, Chase. What is it?” Alex slid off him onto her side, blinking quickly to full alertness.
“The tail we put on Marianne Woolf called. She pulled out of her driveway and flipped him the bird. She’s off somewhere, alone in her car. He’s right on her bumper.”
A spurt of fury burned inside his chest. “Dammit, Chase. What part of stay inside and lock your doors and windows did one of these women miss? And what’s Jim Woolf thinking, letting his wife do his dirty work for him? How the hell can they jump when this guy snaps his fingers? He murdered Jim’s sister, for God’s sake.”
“Woolf may not know his wife’s on the move. He’s still in lockup. He doesn’t get his bail hearing until this morning.”
“She could just be going out for a jug of milk,” Daniel said without much conviction. “Or having a clandestine affair.”
Chase grunted. “We should only be so lucky. Get moving. I’ll have the tail call you.”
Daniel leaned over Alex to hang up the phone, then leaned in to kiss her mouth. “We have to go.”
“Okay.”
But she was warm and fluid and responding to his simple morning kiss, so he took another, blocking out the world for another few minutes. “We really have to go.”
“Okay.”
But she was lifting to him, her hands in his hair, her mouth hot and hungry, and his heart was suddenly thudding to beat all hell. “How fast can you get ready?”
“Including a shower, fifteen.” She surged against him, impatient. “Hurry, Daniel.”
Pulse pounding in his ears, he drove himself into her wet warmth and she climaxed with a low, startled cry. Three hard thrusts later he followed, shuddering as he buried his face in her hair. Her hands stroked up his spine and he shuddered again. “Are you sure they have grits in Ohio?”
She laughed, a sated, happy sound, and he realized he’d never really heard her laugh like that. He wanted to hear it again. “And scrapple,” she said, then stretched around him and smacked his butt. “Up with you, Vartanian. I want the shower first.”
“I am up,” he muttered, unwilling to withdraw yet, needing another minute before facing what he feared he’d find in yet another ditch. But he lifted his head and saw her sober smile and knew she understood. “I have two showers. You take the master and I’ll take the one in the hall and we’ll see who’s ready first.”
Warsaw, Georgia, Friday, February 2, 7:15 a.m.
He’d been ready first, but not by much. He’d only been waiting at the front door for three minutes when she rushed down his stairs, perfectly coordinated, light makeup on her face and her wet hair in a neat French braid. She would have been faster, she’d insisted, if she hadn’t had to pull all the price tags off her new clothes.
Now Daniel threw a backward glance over his shoulder as he walked from his car to the ditch where Ed already waited. From the front seat of his car Alex gave him a little wave and an encouraging smile and he felt like a first-grader on his first day of school.
“Alex looks better this morning,” Ed said.
“I think so. I took her to Leo’s target range after we left Bailey’s and let her take it all out on a paper target. That and a good night’s sleep seem to have helped.”
Ed lifted a brow. “Amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for you,” he said mildly, and Daniel met his eyes with a half smile.
“That, too,” he acknowledged, and Ed nodded once.
“We moved Marianne Woolf back past the police tape,” Ed said, pointing to where the woman stood snapping pictures wi
th her husband’s camera. “We made sure we strung the tape really far back.”
“What did she say?”
“Unprintable. That woman’s a piece of work.”
Marianne lowered her camera, and from more than a hundred feet away, Daniel could feel her glare. “I don’t understand that woman.” He turned his attention to the ditch. “I don’t understand this perp.”
“It’s the same,” Ed said. “Blanket, face, key, hair around the toe, everything.”
It was a shallow ditch and Malcolm Zuckerman from the ME’s office was well within earshot. “Not everything,” Malcolm said, looking up at them. “She’s older. She’s had a face-lift and collagen injections to her lips, but her hands are wrinkled and tough.”
Daniel frowned and crouched at the ditch’s edge. “How old is she?”
“Fifties, maybe,” Malcolm said. He pulled the blanket away. “You know her?”
The woman had well-teased yellow-blond hair. “No. I don’t think so anyway.” Daniel looked up at Ed in consternation. “He broke pattern. Why?”
“Maybe he tried to get at all the younger ones and they were too careful to be caught alone. Or maybe she’s important to him.”
“Or both,” Daniel said. “Go ahead and bring her up, Malcolm.”
“Daniel?” Alex asked from behind him.
Daniel abruptly turned. “You don’t want to see this, honey. Go back to the car.”
“I’m sure I’ve seen worse. You look upset and… I got worried.”
“It’s not Bailey,” he said, and she relaxed a little. “It’s an older woman this time.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know. Stand back, they’re bringing her up.”
Malcolm and Trey lifted the stretcher out of the ditch and laid the body on the open body bag they’d stretched on the gurney. Behind him, Alex gasped.
Daniel and Ed turned in unison. Alex was standing rigidly still. “I know her. It’s Delia Anderson. She rented me the bungalow. I recognize her hair.”
“At least we know where to deliver the bad news.” He looked at Marianne Woolf. She’d once again lowered her camera, but this time in shock. “And we need to keep Marianne quiet.” He lifted Alex’s chin and studied her face. “Are you all right?”