Jackpot (Frank Renzi mystery series)

by Susan Fleet

  The darkness was complete. Silence, except for her ragged breathing. She was panting as though she’d just run a mile in record time. Hugging herself, she took a series of short breaths, inhaling the musty air.

  Ugly images flooded her mind. Nigel. Blood gushing from his mouth.

  Her eyes brimmed with tears. If she didn’t call for help, Nigel would die.

  And if Billy found her, she would die too.

  “You can’t escape. I’m going to kill you.” Billy’s faint voice filtered through the closet door into the hidden stairway.

  She opened her cell, about to dial 9-1-1, when the phone rang.

  Within the enclosed space, the sound was so loud it scared her.

  She punched on to silence it.

  “Help,” she whispered.

  “Gina? Is that you? Where are you?”

  Franco’s voice. The most beautiful sound she’d ever heard in her life.

  Franco wasn’t dead, he was alive!

  “Beach house,” she whispered. “Billy shot Nigel. Now he’s after me.”

  “Where are you? Are you safe?”

  “Hidden stairway,” she breathed, hoping Franco would remember. She’d showed it to him once, but that was years ago.

  “Gina, the Quincy cops are on their way, and I’ll be there soon. I’m on Route 3. I need to hang up so I can get a SWAT team over there.”

  “Send help for Nigel,” she whispered.

  “I will. Set your phone to vibrate. Call you back after I talk to the cops.”

  “Hurry,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER 38

  Sweating and out of breath, one hand clamped on the gun, the other gripping the wrench, he stood at the top of the stairs, listening.

  In the silence he felt his heart beating inside his chest. BEATING.

  “I know you’re up here,” he screamed. “You can’t escape. I’m going to get you.”

  This part of the hall was dark, but at the far end, sunlight spilled through a small round window onto the wood floor. He took a step forward. Stopped when the floorboard creaked under his foot. Quiet. He had to be quiet and sneak up on her. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw three doors along the hall ahead of him, two on the left, one at the far end on the right.

  But no reporter. Where was she?

  Two quick silent steps got him to the first room on the left. The door was open. He tiptoed inside, blinking at the sunlight streaming in the window. The window was shut and the room was hot and stuffy. Sweat dripped down his face. Sweat and blood. Nigel Heath’s blood. His lucky winner.

  This appeared to be a child’s room, decorated with cutesy nautical posters. To his left, a set of bunk beds stood against the wall, with navy-blue bedspreads tucked over them. He got down on his knees and looked under the lower bunk. She wasn’t there. He went to the closet and opened the door. No clothes, just wire hangers bunched together along a wooden dowel.

  At the foot of the bunk beds was a wooden toy box, its lid open. Inside, a red-and-white beach ball sat on top of a red plastic beach pail. When he was a kid living in Kentucky, he never got to go to the beach. His father made him play baseball and soccer. John excelled at both sports.

  Big brother John was always the star. On weekends his father would take them to the soccer field. To practice, his father said. A lie.

  His father did it to humiliate him.

  He stared at the red-and-white beach ball, hearing his father say, “Okay, you little runt. Let’s see you get the ball.” When his father threw the ball, he ran after it as fast as he could, ran so hard he thought his heart would burst. But John could run faster. He’d race past him, smirking, and yell, “The little runt loses again.” Laughing at him when he cried.

  He stared at the beach ball, the rage a living thing inside him.

  He set the gun on the lower bunk bed and gripped the wrench with both hands. Felt his heart beating. BEATING.

  He raised the wrench over his head and slammed it down on the beach ball with all his might. BLAM!

  The ball popped and crumpled into a red-and-white piece of plastic.

  When he found the reporter, he’d bash her head, too, and watch it explode. But then there would be blood.

  He could still see the blood on his mother’s face, and Nigel’s, gushing onto his face as they fought for the gun. But he had beaten him, and now his lucky winner was dead. He slid the wrench into the pocket of his overalls, picked up the gun and returned to the hall.

  Holding the gun in both hands the way the cops did on TV, he extended his arms and advanced down the hall. The second door on the left was open, too. His heart beat faster. Was she in there?

  Gina Bevilaqua. Nigel’s friend. The reporter who’d come to his house. The one who told his mother that Nigel was the lucky winner, not Victoria.

  But today Nigel’s luck had run out.

  So had his mother’s. He’d beaten both of them.

  When he found the reporter, he’d beat her, too.

  His heart thrummed in anticipation as he tiptoed into the room and looked around. Where was she?

  This room was hot and stuffy, too. The only window was closed. Pale yellow bedspreads covered two single beds. A maple bureau stood between them. A duffle bag sat on the floor beside the bureau. Holding the gun in one hand, he got down on his knees and looked under both beds.

  Nothing but dust balls.

  He studied the door on the opposite wall, another closet, probably. Maybe she was in there. He tiptoed to the door and whipped it open.

  It was a closet, but the reporter wasn’t in there, just two polo shirts and a pair of trousers draped on wire hangers. Men’s shirts and trousers.

  He smiled. The reporter must be hiding in the room across the hall. She couldn’t escape him now. He was going to find her and make her pay.

  His heart beat faster, pounding his chest. Beating. BEATING.

  ____

  Three steps down from the plywood door inside her clothes closet, Gina sat hunched over on a stair. She felt sick to her stomach, breathing in shallow gasps, clutching her cell phone, her lifeline to Franco, agonizing over her decision to run upstairs, remembering Nigel’s words. “Run, Vicky. Run away!”

  Lost in his own private hell, Nigel had called her Vicky by mistake.

  Tears flooded her eyes. Maybe it wasn’t a mistake.

  Thank you Gina. Someday I’ll make it up to you. Nigel, thanking her yesterday for hiding him at her house.

  Nigel had attacked Billy so she could escape. Nigel was convinced that he had caused Vicky’s death, guilt-ridden because he’d asked her to claim the Megabucks prize. Maybe this was Nigel’s way of redeeming himself. He didn’t want another woman’s murder on his hands.

  Her stomach cramped. Was Nigel dead, or alive?

  After Billy shot him blood had gushed out of Nigel’s mouth.

  Franco had said he would send an ambulance. If the medics got here soon, maybe they could save him.

  A loud popping sound startled her. It didn’t sound like a gunshot.

  What was it? It had to be Billy.

  Shivering in the darkness, she held her breath and listened.

  Another sound, louder and closer. Was Billy in her bedroom?

  Please don’t look in the closet. If Billy looked in the closet, he might notice the plywood door to the hidden staircase.

  If he opened the plywood door, he would see her and kill her.

  She eased the cell phone—her lifeline to Franco—into her pocket. Bracing both hands on the staircase, she inched down one step, then another.

  Please, Franco. Call me back and tell me you’re here.

  ____

  Billy stood outside the door at the end of the hall. Unlike the other two, this door was closed. For some reason, it reminded him of that stupid game show his mother always watched. Let’s Make a Deal.

  What’s behind Door Number Three?

  He smiled. The reporter. She had to be in there.

  Now he would find her an
d make her wish she’d never been born.

  Holding the gun in his right hand, he opened the door with his left and tiptoed inside. The first thing he saw was a rose-colored brocade suitcase, the kind a woman would buy, standing upright beside a double bed.

  It had to be hers. His heart thrummed his chest. He had her now.

  The bed was neatly made, draped with a maroon comforter.

  Was she under the bed, quaking in terror, like a cornered mouse?

  Bright sunlight poured through two tall windows on either side of the bed and two smaller windows on the opposite wall. The glare hurt his eyes, sent pains rocketing into his head. No curtains or shades on the windows, and all of them were closed. No wonder the room was sweltering.

  In one swift motion, he whipped the maroon comforter up onto the bed, got down on his knees and looked. She wasn’t there.

  Where could she be? She couldn’t have slipped past him in the hallway. He would have heard her.

  “Gee-na,” he called. “Where are you?”

  Squinting against the glare of the sun, he went to the window to the left of the bed. Outside the window was a narrow porch with a low white railing. Beyond the railing he could see the ocean, calm and green. Inviting. But he wasn’t planning on going for a swim.

  He was going to find Gina Bevilaqua, the reporter who’d come to his house, uninvited, and planted ideas in his mother’s head. When he found her, he’d beat her, too. BEAT her to death.

  A fierce ache pounded his temples. The key to revenge was patience. It might take a lifetime, but if you had enough patience—and he did—you could even the score. All his life people had mocked him, the kids in school, his teachers, his bosses. After a while he got used to their insults, but he stored them away in his memory, fueling his fury.

  Every day he took the crap they dished out and smiled at them. Every night, he lay awake in bed, thinking about ways to punish them.

  Some had already paid for their cruelty. Look what happened to John. Ever since he could remember, he’d hated his brother. John had dark hair and dark eyes like his father. John excelled at everything, schoolwork, sports, you name it. That’s why Father loved him. He hated his father, too, always mocking him, saying he was weak and little. A sissy.

  But Father had mocked him once too often.

  His heart fluttered in his chest. That was Father’s downfall, and John’s. Both of them had died in the accident. He was glad.

  He hated John and he hated his father.

  Most of all, he hated his mother. Always gloating at his failures.

  Mouth always moving, making pain in his head.

  A certain wily intelligence lurked behind her narrow pinched face, an ever-present danger that warranted extreme caution. Like a downed electrical wire, sparking as it lay on the ground, vicious words spewed from her mouth incessantly, killing him with a thousand cuts. But when she grew quiet, it was worse. That’s when he feared her the most. Her stillness was a deadly force.

  When that happened he wouldn’t look at her. If she saw fear in his eyes, it might trigger the fury within her, bubbling under the surface. Then she would set upon him with her taunts, humiliating him.

  But not anymore. He’d seen to that.

  A loud sound captured his attention. It sounded like a car door. No, several car doors, slamming shut one after another.

  He went to a window on the opposite wall and looked out.

  His heart spasmed in fear, skyrocketing into his throat.

  An army of cops clustered around a half-dozen police cars, some in uniform, others not. Most wore pale-green fluorescent vests and sturdy shoes and wide belts with extra ammo and other police gear. Some brandished handguns. Others carried rifles.

  But so what?

  If they thought they were going to stop him from killing the reporter, they were wrong. Dead wrong.

  He moved away from the window, felt the mouth-mother pain in his head. Already he could imagine the spiteful things they were saying about him, relishing his humiliation now that they had him cornered.

  But he’d show them.

  The reporter was inside the house and he was going to find her.

  When he did, he would kill her. The cops had no way to stop him.

  ____

  Frank whipped around the corner onto Gina’s street and breathed a sigh of relief. The Quincy police had blocked off the street with sawhorses. An ambulance stood inside the barrier, its motor idling. Beyond it, police officers stood outside a half-dozen police vehicles parked in front of Gina’s house. Residents of nearby homes stood outside on their porches. No television crews yet, for which he was profoundly grateful.

  But Nigel was wounded, and Billy was hunting for Gina.

  And if Billy found her, he’d kill her.

  Frank pulled around the sawhorses and parked behind the ambulance, trying to visualize Gina’s bedroom closet. Inside the closet was a hinged plywood door with a small knob. A thin piece of plywood keeping her safe.

  For the moment, anyway.

  Years ago when Gina showed it to him, she’d said, “When I was a little kid, five or six years old, I thought it was the coolest thing. Go in the pantry, climb a dark narrow staircase and come out in the bedroom closet.”

  Now she was sitting on those stairs, terrified, hiding from a demented killer with a gun.

  He dialed her cell. The instant she clicked on he said, “Gina, I’m outside the house now. Stay calm. We’re going to get you out. Can you tell where Billy is? Have you heard any sounds in the last few minutes?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “A loud bang.”

  He gripped the phone. “Nearby? In the your bedroom?”

  “No. But that was awhile ago.”

  “Okay. Stay on the line while I talk to the cops. Don’t hang up.”

  “Thanks, Franco.”

  His throat thickened. Gina, thanking him, in the midst of her terror.

  “Hang in there. I’m going to get you out, I promise.”

  He left the car and ran toward the police vehicles in front of Gina’s house. A lanky older man in plain clothes holding a bullhorn met him halfway. “Renzi? Detective Captain John Abbott.”

  “Thanks for getting here so fast,” Frank said.

  “Right,” Abbot said, “but fifteen minutes ago, when I was on my way here, a woman called 9-1-1 and said she heard shots fired at this location.”

  “I just talked to the woman who owns the house. She said the suspect shot a man. Now he’s after her.”

  “Where’s the woman?”

  “Hiding. I just talked to her on her cell and told her the police are here.”

  “Try and keep her on the line. She might help us pinpoint his location.”

  And Billy might kill her if he hears her talking. “We need to get her out fast. This guy’s a killer.”

  “Are you still in contact with her?”

  “Yes.” Frank held up his cell phone. “She’s okay for now, but I don’t know how long.”

  “Where is she?”

  “There’s a hidden staircase in the kitchen pantry that goes up to a second floor bedroom with a widow’s walk. That’s how we’re going to get her out. I know the layout of the house. You got any spare body armor?”

  “I’ve got a Kevlar vest in my trunk. Why?”

  “I want to climb up to the widow’s walk and bring her out the back window. But we need a ladder.”

  Abbott frowned. “What if the subject sees you?”

  “I need you to distract him. Talk to him on the bullhorn. Keep him focused on the front of the house.”

  “I’ll try, but I don’t know if it’ll work.”

  “Make it work,” Frank snapped.

  Abbott looked at him, taken aback. “You know this woman personally?”

  “Yes. Gina Bevilaqua. She writes for the Herald. She’s gutsy, but she’s not safe in that staircase. If he goes in her bedroom closet and sees the hidden door, she’s dead. He already shot the man that was staying here, an
d he beat his mother to a pulp last night at his house in Sandwich.”

  “Any idea what kind of weapon he’s got? Or how much ammo?”

  “We found a box in his room for a Mark IV semi-automatic, no telling how much ammo he’s got.”

  “What about the injured man?”

  “I don’t know where he is or anything about his condition.” Frank didn’t want to tell Abbott it was Nigel Heath. That would only cause a delay, and he had no time to waste. He had to get Gina out now.

  “Gina said Billy shot him. Billy Karapitulik, the suspect. She can only whisper a few words at a time. If she talks any louder, he’ll hear her. I figure shots were fired downstairs and she ran upstairs to get away. We need to move fast. Get me the vest. While I’m suiting up, have your officers put a stepladder up to the widow’s walk at the rear of the house. Hurry!”

  CHAPTER 39

  He stood beside the front door and peeked out the window at the cops.

  Ten minutes ago one of them had yelled at him with a bullhorn.

  “Billy, you’re surrounded. Put down your weapon and come out of the house with your hands behind your head.”

  Giving him orders. Like his mother. Making pain in his head

  When that happened, he had been upstairs in the reporter’s bedroom. Fury jolted him into action. Squinting down the barrel of the Mark IV, he lined the man up in the sights, a tall man with silvery-gray hair.

  But he didn’t dare shoot. He’d already wasted two bullets, and he didn’t want to waste any more, not until he found the reporter. After he killed her, he would use the remaining bullets to kill some cops. Then he had decided to come downstairs to get a better look at the cop that was ordering him around.

  Now there were more police officers, milling around like hornets swarming a hive. An ambulance was parked beyond the line of police cars.

  He smiled. Who did they think they were going to save?

  The conductor? Fat chance. The reporter? Not if he could help it.

  He left the window and walked past Nigel Heath. His lucky winner lay on the floor, eyes staring at nothing. The stench was horrible. He didn’t want to look at the blood, but he couldn’t avoid it.