The gun was still trained on her, a central point around which Jewel revolved. “My agent’s in negotiations right now for a whole new show for that network. Oh, I’ve been on cable, but to take Shadow of Death to NBC, maybe even international…” He stopped, his eyes sparkling with the thought of it. “We’re talking millions of dollars. Ten million a year or more!”
Cameryn spoke so softly she wasn’t sure he could hear her. “So this is about money?”
“What else? Don’t look at me like that—like you don’t have a price,” he spat. “No one knows what they’d do until the money’s dangling in front of them. I want you to be honest: What would you do for ten million dollars? Come on, Cameryn, you can tell me. At this point, you’ve got nothing to loose. Would you sleep with a man?”
She sat, silent.
“Would you cheat on a test? Would you hurt an animal? Tell me, Cameryn, I’m asking you for the truth. What would you do for all that money?”
“I wouldn’t kill.”
Jewel snorted. “People kill people every day for a buck. What I’m building is an empire! I’m famous against all the odds. And I do have the gift,” he told her. “I’m really good. But, in this business, good isn’t ever enough. There’s a pressure you can never understand. A psychic has to be great to land the really big deals.”
“Rachel Geller had a family who loved her. They all had families.”
“I’m sorry about that. Really, I am. But it’s been a necessary evil. Look what it got me—Raymond Jankowski, kid from nowhere, ends up on top.”
Inside, her heart was beating like mad. “It’s wrong, Dr. Jewel. I think deep down you know that. I don’t think you want to hurt me.”
Muscles in his neck pulled beneath his skin like wires. He was standing over her now, and from that angle his features were sharp. “You don’t know anything about my ‘deep down,’” he raged. “I keep thirty-seven people employed. Thirty-seven people! Do you know what kind of responsibility that is? But I do it every day, without complaint. I talk to dead people and I sing for the camera. A long time ago I made a vow to do whatever it took to keep my show going and I’ve done that. I’ll keep doing that.”
“By murdering four innocent girls?”
“There are two hundred and sixty million people in this country. Four deaths are statistically irrelevant. I mean…five.” Jewel rubbed his eyes, then blinked hard. Suddenly, his face seemed to clear, like sun flashing through a stormy sky. His features realigned and he became strangely calm. “There’s only one thing I can do. It’s time for you to cross over to the other side, Cameryn. You will walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”
Panic welled inside her. The man was serious, deadly serious. “No!” she cried. “Dr. Jewel, come on, don’t do this. Please!”
“You took a gamble. You lost. I guess you can go back to saying that prayer now. It’s probably a good idea, actually.”
Thoughts of her father, of her mammaw and her friends and the mother she hadn’t seen blurred together in a kaleidoscope of images. I wish I remembered you, Hannah. I wish I’d read your letter. But it was too late. Regret welled in her heart as she thought about what she would never know, never understand. Cameryn had always read that when faced with death, a person’s past flashed before their eyes. But it was different for her—she saw the life she hadn’t yet lived. How could it all end in a hotel room with faded carpet and a wilting mattress?
“Death is just one small step in a journey. It won’t be so bad, Cameryn. Rachel’s already there.” With his left hand he unzipped his suitcase and felt inside a deep pocket while his right kept the gun trained on her. “Where is it?” he muttered. “Ah, here it is. If you searched my things, and my guess is you did, you never would have thought to look in here.” He held up a bottle of vitamins. When he shook them, the container rattled like a tambourine. Setting it on the nightstand, he searched his suitcase again. “Aaand, one more little item…” His left hand fished another pocket until he held up a pair of long-nosed tweezers. “I want you to consider this: The reason I’ve lasted this long is because I’m always thinking. If you want to succeed, you’ve got to plan. You’ve got to think it all through from every angle but be ready for anything. That’s what happened when Adam showed up at the end of Rachel’s shift. He took her home, which was definitely not in the plan. But I followed them. He left her off at the end of her driveway and I just gathered her up, as easy as picking a flower.” He poured the vitamins into an ashtray and then, awkward because of the gun, stuck the tweezers into the empty bottle. For an instant she wondered if she should run, but the gun was still pointed at her head and the door was too far. Slowly, delicately, Jewel pulled out a piece of cotton. Then he shook out a handful of small white pills.
“This is my little arsenal. Roofies. I love these things. By the way, I knew all the autopsy reports would list roofies in the girls’ blood, which would prove the killer couldn’t have been your friend Adam. That’s why my ‘vision’ let him off the hook. I knew they’d have to clear him eventually. Proving once again what a brilliant psychic I am.”
Cameryn swallowed hard. “You used the DMSO to get the drugs into Rachel’s bloodstream. That’s how you did it.”
His eyebrows shot up his forehead as he nodded. “So you figured that out. I guess I should have seen that coming,” he said with a wry smile. “But, seriously, I’m impressed. Really, I am. Most people don’t know a thing about DMSO. Then again, you are from the sticks. They use it on horses, don’t they? The great thing is that no pathologist ever runs a screen for DMSO.”
She watched him fill a glass and drop in two small white pills. “Or have things changed in that department?” he asked calmly. “I have to check out facts like that, you know, to stay ahead of the game. In a way you could say I’m in your business.” He swirled the water in the glass and held it high.
Her voice trembled as she asked, “What are you doing?”
Smiling his television smile, he replied, “Making you a little cocktail. I promise, after you drink it you won’t mind what I do to you. And I give you my word that I’ll make your transition into the other dimension a fast one.” He extended the glass to her. “Drink up.”
“Are you crazy?” Cameryn recoiled from the glass. “I’m not going to touch that stuff.”
He lowered the glass and raised the gun, resting it against her temple. “Perhaps you fail to see the dilemma you’re in. You’ve got no bargaining power. Drink it, or I’ll shoot you. Your choice.”
The barrel of the gun was cold and her skin twitched beneath it. Terror seized her, but she knew she couldn’t let it show. She had only one strategy left. One small, tenuous strategy, as fragile as a butterfly wing. Lifting her chin, she said, simply, “Then shoot me.”
Dr. Jewel took a small step back. “Wh—what are you saying?”
“I said shoot me. Go ahead.”
“Well,” he said, “this is interesting.” Eyeing her, Jewel set down the glass. He rubbed his free hand against his jeans, leaving a faint shadow of sweat on the fabric. “I would have pegged you as a girl who would fight to the bitter end.”
Adrenaline, mixed with fear, surged through her. “You want me to drink the roofies so I’ll be out of it, so you can sneak me out of the hotel like you did Rachel. I’m not drinking it.” Her voice shook, so she cleared her throat. “If I have to die, I—I won’t make it easy for you.”
“So you’re sassy,” Jewel said, grinning. “You forget, though, that shooting a bullet into your head isn’t exactly what I’d call ‘hard.’” He picked up a pillow from the bed and placed it between the gun and Cameryn’s head. “For the noise,” he added.
“You shoot that gun and there’ll be forensics splattered everywhere. I’ll be all through this room—they’ll find me! I’ll be on the walls and in the carpet. I’ll be on the bed. My blood will be evidence you can’t get rid off. They’ll know it was you.”
“Not to worry. I’ll think of something. I always t
hink of something.” She could hear him cock the gun. Wincing, she squeezed her eyes tight; sucking one last giant breath into her lungs, she began to pray her last prayer.
And then the sound of the door being kicked in. Her eyes flew open; in a blur she saw Justin, his hands in front of him like a diver, his own gun gleaming.
“Drop it!” Justin screamed. “Drop the gun, Jewel. Now!”
“I’d do what my deputy says,” Sheriff Jacobs added. He stepped into the doorway just as Jewel lowered his own gun. The sheriff held his pistol differently from his deputy—with one arm extended straight in front of him. “Justin here’s from New York and the boy’s got a temper. Drop the gun to the floor, Jewel. My deputy’d shoot you same as look at you. Fact is, the taxpayers of Colorado would be saved a lot of money if you took a bullet. Our budget’s pretty tight this year.”
“This girl broke into my room. I—I was just defending myself,” Jewel stammered.
“Sure you were. That’s why you had the pillow in your hand.” His voice became deadly serious as Jacobs took a step closer. “I knew Rachel Geller. Put your gun on the floor or I swear to God, I’ll kill you myself.”
Jewel let go of the gun as though the metal had suddenly caught fire.
“Kick it to me with your foot!” Justin ordered. “Kick it!”
With the side of his foot Jewel sent the gun spinning toward the door. In a smooth motion, Justin reached down and picked it up.
Dazed, Jewel asked, “How…?”
“Dr. Moore sent us,” Sheriff Jacobs answered, only he was talking to Cameryn now. “He ran the test for DMSO and got a hit. He tried to call you back, and when you didn’t pick up he contacted my office. He told us to hightail it to Jewel’s room. I didn’t believe you’d actually break in here, Cammie, but Moore insisted you’d be the type to do it. ‘Reckless,’ he called you. ‘And smart.’ When we found out the skeleton key was missing we really put two and two together. Looks like Dr. Moore was right….”
Cameryn began shaking violently. Her teeth chattered and her body shuddered all the way down her legs and then Justin was next to her, pulling her to her feet. “Shhh,” he said, stroking her hair. “It’s okay now, you’re safe. Shhh. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“Go ahead, Deputy, get her out of here,” Jacobs instructed. “I can handle this piece of garbage.”
While Sheriff Jacobs cuffed Jewel, reading him his rights in a staccato voice, Justin led Cameryn into the dim hallway. She wanted to stop, wanted to get a grip, but she could only weep—for herself and for Rachel and the other three girls who’d lost their lives at the hands of the monster. She’d come as close to death as was humanly possible, and lived. She couldn’t absorb that fact, couldn’t make sense of it. A moment before, she’d been preparing to die and yet here she was, alive again.
“Are you okay?” Justin asked. His brow creased as his eyes searched hers.
It was hard to speak, but Cameryn managed to choke out, “I’m all right.”
He brushed a lock of hair from her face. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yes,” she answered. Wiping her face with the palms of her hands, she took in a deep, wavering breath. “Take me home.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I THOUGHT JUSTIN WAS the killer. I really did. That’s why I went to Jewel in the first place. When I saw that M on Justin’s license plate…”
“It’s all right, Cammie,” her father replied. “There might be some psychics who are real, but many of them are frauds. The fakes throw out numbers or letters or whatever and let you find the connection for them, you see? Practically everyone has some random connection with the letter M, or any number of letters or sequences of the two. My first girlfriend’s name was Miranda. It’s an old trick.”
They were on the swing, with Cameryn resting her head on her father’s shoulder. She pulled back so she could look at him full in the face. “Miranda?”
“Let’s not get off subject,” he replied, so she settled back in to him. She pushed the swing with her foot and it began to move again, rocking her comfortingly.
“What bothers me,” she said, “is that I knew about that stuff and I still fell for it anyway.”
“You and millions of others.”
His arm was around her, strong, protective, and Cameryn marveled that the day’s end could be so different from its beginning. The evening air was cool, so she nestled in closer, and when she did he kissed her roughly on the side of her head.
“So, after all this, do you still want to be assistant to the coroner?” he asked.
Cameryn paused and let the motion of the glider, which creaked beneath her father’s weight, carry her three passes before she replied, “Ask me tomorrow.”
“Oh, believe me, I will. I want you to stay on. You’re smart, Cammie. We would never have caught Jewel without you. You stopped Jewel from killing again.”
“Smart?” She almost laughed at this. “First I thought Adam killed her, then Justin—I don’t call that smart.”
“Well now, don’t be so hard on yourself. Jewel fooled a lot of people. Sheriff Jacobs called me and explained how he was able to cover his tracks with his rental-car scheme. He’d go into that—what did he call it?”
“Cleansing period.”
“Right. Cleansing period. Anyway, he used that time for his alibi. And guess how he got out of the hotels unnoticed?”
“How?”
“Wearing plain workman’s clothes. Wearing the cap and his old glasses that distorted his eyes, no one even registered him.”
“I saw the clothes but I didn’t make the connection.” Cameryn found the hangnail that was bothering her and bit it.
“Don’t bite your nails, Cammie.”
“I wasn’t—okay, I’ll stop.” She dropped her hand into her lap, while Patrick went on.
“Just think, a big celebrity like that and nobody saw him. He rented the car for a week but left it in the airport lot, then checked it in by phone. That was the genius of his plan.”
Looking up, she said, “I’m not sure I really understood that part of it.”
“The police checked him out every time there was a murder. But they knew Jewel had to get from point A to point B, right? So they’d look into all the flights out of town and every rental-car place, seeing if just maybe he’d rented one and left town. The police knew he was making speeches the day after each murder. So they were checking for cars that would have been returned by then. They could never find one that fit the bill. Until now.”
Cameryn thought about this. “I’m glad Jewel’s talking. At least now the families will have closure. Did he ever say why he used a Christopher medal?”
“Because he was raised Catholic and I think a bit of it still clung to him in a warped way. He killed while he traveled. He told the detectives he thought he was death’s patron saint. What a sick, screwed-up man.”
“Who said he talked to dead people. You know, from now on I’m going to stick with science. When I’m a forensic pathologist I’ll use only the facts.”
He squeezed her tight and said, “Except you were using a bit of intuition there yourself. Which makes you a natural for the job.” He reached out and playfully caught Cameryn’s nose between his knuckles. “Although I don’t know why we’re talking about your future when you’re grounded for life—”
“I thought you just said I was fantastically intuitive!”
“You are. But, bottom line, you could have gotten yourself killed.” His voice thickened as he craned back his neck to look at the stars. “You’re all I’ve got, Cammie. In this whole wide world, you’re all I’ve got. Promise me you’ll never take such a stupid risk again.”
As she nodded, her cheek rubbed against his shirt. “I promise,” she whispered.
For a while they sat silent, content to glide. Overhead, the aspen shivered in the wind, creating a sound like the rushing of water. The currents began to blow, first in ripples, then in waves, and she marveled how the w
ind passing through leaves could conjure the rumble of a distant ocean. She, too, dropped her head back; like her father, she gaped at the sky overhead. Silverton was small enough that the town itself cast almost no light, so the space above her was black as ink, studded with tiny, brilliant lights. Looking into the endless deep of space, as thick with starlight as the ocean was with plankton, she thought how it was like looking at life upside down. Her own life, too, looked different, a reverse of what it had been. Only days before, her mammaw had accused her of being too dark. Strangely, she didn’t feel dark any longer. She’d almost become a body on the autopsy table, an object to be opened up and read, sewn up and buried in the ground. To be alive, to have another chance at tomorrow, was a wonderful thing.
The wind surged again, harder now. Shivering, she pressed deeper beneath her father’s arm.
“Dad?”
“Hmmmm.”
“Hannah’s trying to find me.”
His grip tightened so hard she winced. “I know it.”
“I want to talk to her. When I thought I was going to die, that was the one thing I was sorry about. I was sorry I never gave her a chance. I was sorry I wouldn’t read her letter.”
It took a long time for him to speak. “You don’t know what you’re asking. You don’t understand.”
“That was okay before—not understanding—but not now. Dad, I want to get the letter.”
“Your mammaw already has it.”
As if on cue the porch light flicked on, flooding the backyard with light. Above, the stars faded, but she could see her father now, though his eyes were still shadowed.
The Christopher Killer Page 19