A Carol for Kent

by Hallee Bridgeman

  “Bobby. What are you two doing out on a night as bad as this?”

  He sat in the chair next to her and stretched his long legs out in front of him, trying not to let the nerves show. “We were on our way to Atlanta, but the weather’s too bad for flying. I was wondering if Lisa could stay here with you tonight.”

  Harriet looked at Lisa with a smile. “I’d love to have her. It’s been a little lonely out here lately.”

  “Thanks, mom.” He stood back up. “Lisa, be good for your grandma. Mom, I’ll be by early to get her.”

  “Tell Carol I said hello, Bobby,” Harriet said. Before Bobby stepped completely off the porch, she stood and said, “Wait. I need to talk to you.”

  He hid his impatience and waited for her to reach him. She left Lisa on the porch playing with a kitten that had materialized at her feet. She walked down to his truck with him. She put a hand on his arm and looked up at him as the first few raindrops began to fall. “I meant what I said after Robert’s funeral, Bobby. That wasn’t just a grieving woman speaking. We were wrong for what we did, and I was wrong about my opinion of her for all those years.”

  “Thanks, mom,” he said, and brushed his lips on her cheek. “Enjoy your granddaughter. See you in the morning.”

  The traffic had thinned out considerably for his drive back to town, but it still took him twenty minutes. As hard as it was raining, he couldn’t go too fast for fear of losing control of the truck, but the urgency he felt nearly overwhelmed him. Something was very wrong. He could feel it in his gut.

  Carol needed him. He knew it as if she’d picked up the phone and called him. The strokes of the windshield wipers beat a cadence to the ticking of the clock, telling him that he needed to hurry – hurry before he was too late.

  The rain had tapered off somewhat by the time he reached his neighborhood. He knew more was coming. They’d just seen the beginning of the storm.

  Panic skirted on the edges of his mind when he pulled into the driveway and saw the hood of Carol’s Jeep propped up and the front door to her house open. He practically tore the truck door off its hinges with the haste of his exit from the truck. As fast as he could without slipping on the wet ground, he ran up the driveway. Her keys dangled in the lock on the door. He ran past them, then through the house, looking for her.

  Every room was empty. Panic gripped his chest full force now. He went back and stood in the doorway of the house and looked out into the night, wondering what to do next. Praying for inspiration.

  He heard the car before he saw it, the gunning of the engine, the squealing of tires – then it pulled to a screeching stop in front of the house, directly under the street light. Bobby recognized it as the sedan Mitch was supposed to be sitting in down the street. He saw the car door open and started marching across the yard.

  As soon as his boot hit the grass, lightning lit up the sky. And he saw it. He froze. Though it couldn’t have lasted for more than two seconds, the world around him was plunged into slow motion, and while the silver light danced around him, and the wind whipped his hair, he stared at the body lying on the ground not ten feet in front of him.

  When the world fell back into sudden darkness, his mind cleared and he could move again. His boots slipped on the grass and he landed on his knees near the body. Another flash of lightning confirmed what his hands already knew.

  It wasn’t her.

  Relief surged through him, temporarily replacing the fear. He looked up and saw Mitch standing over him, a flashlight in his hands pointed at the face of Jack Gordon, revealing eyes that stared blankly into the sky, a look of shocked surprise on his face.

  Bobby’s brain finally clicked into place and he surged to his feet. Gone was the panic and fear. In its place was deep, burning fury. “Where is she?” he screamed at Mitch.

  With his face reflecting the shock of seeing his partner lying on the wet grass, Mitch took a step back from the man in front of him. “I don’t know. What happened here?” he demanded.

  Bobby stepped over Jack and grabbed Mitch by his shirtfront with both hands, giving him a hard shake. “How should I know? You were supposed to stay here and protect her!”

  Mitch’s feet actually came off the ground, but he did nothing to defend himself. “I had a call to a crime scene,” he said. “I left Jack here.”

  Bobby pushed him away and watched Mitch struggle to keep from falling on the soggy ground. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  Bobby put his hands on his hips and turned in a full circle, not even knowing where to go. He had her. Richmond Red had her. He knew on a deep instinctive level that time was not his friend right now. They needed to find them before drugs seeped through her veins and stopped her heart. He needed to find her before a violin string cut into the skin of her throat and cut off her air supply. He needed to find her now.

  The wind continued to rage around them, bringing with it the occasional flash of blinding silver light as lightning warred above, sending rolling thunder to shake the earth. The very elements in the sky mimicked the emotions swirling through Bobby.

  He needed to think. He looked at the house behind him, but knew that if he went back in there he might destroy some piece of evidence that could be used to find her. Instead, he turned his back on Mitch and marched across the lawn to his own house.

  CHAPTER 32

  AGONIZING pain squeezed Carol’s head like a vise, strong enough to make her stomach roll. She tried to raise a hand to it, to rub her temples and ease some of the pain, but she couldn’t. Something restrained her hands so that she couldn’t move them.

  With a moan she opened her eyes and blinked in the darkness. She lay on a hard floor. Her clothes were wet and muddy. Her hands were tied behind her back.

  Then it came flooding back and she remembered. She remembered Jack’s face above hers, the figure swinging something behind him. Her pulse fluttered and she tried to get her bearings. Why couldn’t she move?

  It was too dark. She couldn’t see anything. Then lightning flashed outside a large picture window on the far wall and she spotted the outline of a piano in the dazzling glare. Bobby’s piano.

  With a sob she tried to sit up. She rolled until she could get to her knees, the movement causing the vise in her head to twist a little tighter and nausea to roll in her stomach. She bowed her head for a moment and tried to push the pain into the background. She’d done it before. She’d battled headaches most of her adult life and knew how to force them back.

  When she felt like she could lift her head without it threatening to fall off, she looked around but still couldn’t see anything. Then the flare of a match nearly blinded her.

  “I fought him,” Rhonda explained as she walked around the room and lit candles that had been placed on every surface. Carol recognized them as the candles she’d prepared at her house in case the power went out. Rhonda had carried them all to Bobby’s house. How long had she been unconscious? Why was she tied up?

  “For weeks, now, I fought him. He’s obsessed with you. Carol this and Carol that. Carol in the coffee shop and Carol here and Carol there and Carol on the news and Carol in the papers and Carol in the meeting with Maurice or the Governor or in open court. Carol, Carol, Carol! It was maddening.”

  Carol wasn’t even aware that Rhonda knew Jack Gordon. How close were they? Were they related or in some kind of relationship? Or were they a team, partners in crime, a murderous pairing of beauty and the beast?

  “Tonight was just the last straw. He just kept on and on until I actually wanted to kill him.” Rhonda nodded exactly once, then finished lighting the next to last candle before she walked to stand directly in front of Carol.

  Carol felt her eyebrows furrow. She remembered the tall figure swinging something heavy with great force. She wondered if, in fact, Jack Gordon was dead as a result of that blow.

  “And then you and me, well… we worked that Kennedy case together. Hour after hour, meal after meal, all that time with you and he was like a caged animal wh
o suddenly learned how to unlock the door.”

  “How…?” Carol swallowed. “How do you even know Jack?”

  The candlelight gave the room an odd glow. Shadows of the flames danced on the walls and the black framed glasses Rhonda wore reflected the flickering candlelight. Carol couldn’t see the woman’s eyes, and wished she’d move so she could.

  Rhonda lit the last candle, swished the matchstick out, and tossed it onto the saucer beside the now burning candle. Then she asked, “Jack who?”

  Carol nervously licked her dry lips and began to work at the ropes binding her wrists. She did not understand this situation. Her head throbbed making it difficult to concentrate. She had no idea why she was tied up, why her candles were at Bobby’s house, or what Rhonda was talking about. She needed more information. “Who, Rhonda? Who are you talking about?”

  Rhonda tipped her head back and laughed. When she looked back down, the laughter vanished. She tapped the side of her head with a finger. “Rob, silly.”

  “Rob?” Carol’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t understand, Rhonda. Who’s Rob?”

  Rhonda crouched down and lifted Carol’s chin to look her in the eye. “My mother used to have this Christmas candle set with red candles that she set up in holly and pine branches. When I was seven, I was playing with the candles and knocked one over. The dried twigs caught fire quickly and in minutes, our whole house was engulfed. My dad died trying to save my brother, Rob. All I had left was my mom.”

  She pinched Carol’s chin and moved her face slowly to the left, then back to the right. “That guy really got you good. Nothing a little makeup can’t fix though.”

  Carol felt a sudden emptiness in the pit of her stomach. “Thank you for saving me, Rhonda. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come along.”

  Rhonda laughed. “I didn’t save you. That was Rob. He was so angry that another man was touching you.”

  Carefully, slowly, she said, “I thought Rob died when you were little. You just said he died in the fire with your father.”

  Rhonda whispered, “I thought he died, too. But then he started talking to me the night after his funeral.”

  The full implications of what this woman had just said hit Carol. They had it all wrong. Everyone had it wrong. There wasn’t a male serial killer with multiple personalities, one of which was a female personality. Rhonda was a female serial killer with multiple personalities, one of which was a male personality. Carol understood that she was mere hours or maybe bare minutes away from meeting her Maker. Carol never let Lisa down before, but she didn’t know a way out of this one.

  Lisa’s life raced through Carol’s mind. How tiny she was at birth, her first steps, the first time she sat on a horse, running into her father’s arms for the first time in her life, singing in front of the church while Carol played in the orchestra, holding her grandfather’s hand. It was as if she flipped through a stack of pictures, and the last one in the pile was Lisa lying in her bed, eyes filled with grief and worry when she asked Carol if she was going to die, too.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked in a near whisper.

  Rhonda rose to her feet and walked in a circle around Carol while she spoke. “Every time I fall in love with someone, he kills her. The first few times I didn’t know it was coming, but I started looking for signs and learned how to appease him with substitutes. It worked before, but the exposure to you was so constant, I could find no peace.” She stepped back in front of her. “I tried to hide how I felt for you, but he knew. I can’t hide anything from him.”

  She gripped her head with both of her hands and squeezed. “Shut up! Shut up! Just shut up!” she growled, spittle flying out of her mouth.

  When she looked at Carol again, the angle was just right so that she could see deep blue eyes shining in the candlelight. Rhonda had brown eyes. Was she wearing contacts? Carol could have sworn that just a moment ago her eyes were brown. But, in the dim flickering candlelight, she must have been mistaken.

  Rhonda walked over to the piano and picked up a black wig and put it on. She expertly applied a fake mustache and goatee, then removed the glasses to complete the look. Carol started sobbing, knowing it was hopeless. She bowed her head. “Please don’t do this to me, Rhonda. Oh, God, please don’t let her do this to me.” One of the knots tying her hands came loose, and Carol had to stop herself from giving it away. She began to work the next knot.

  Rhonda knelt next to her and ran a hand down Carol’s hair. She cupped her cheek with her hand. Her voice sounded deeper, like a male tenor voice. “Rhonda had to shut up for a while. I’m Rob. We’ve met before a few times, but I was wearing my sister, the puppet, so you probably don’t recognize me.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Rob. You can stop this right now.” Carol tried to keep her voice calm and soothing.

  Rob, speaking through Rhonda’s body, said, “I don’t have to do anything. I do whatever I want to do. You know what I want to do right now?”

  Carol knew, but she had to stall him. It was lame, but she couldn’t think of anything else. “I’m really thirsty. Do you want to share a cup of tea or some water with me?”

  “I’m not thirsty. What I really, really want to do is watch you die, Carol Mabry. That’s what I really want to do.” The bloodthirsty look in Rhonda’s eyes terrified Carol and she momentarily froze.

  Finding her voice at last, she asked, “Why do you hate me?”

  Rhonda laughed a little bark of laughter. “I don’t hate you. You’re less than nothing to me. But my sister thinks she’s in love with you. She’s sick, see. I keep trying to fix her and she keeps messing up and I have to come back and fix it. The bottom line is, you have to die. She doesn’t deserve you.”

  The serial killer everyone knew as Richmond Red reached into the pocket of her black pants and pulled out a capped syringe. “This will make it all feel like a dream. You won’t be scared anymore. In fact, some women die with smiles on their faces. It’s really quite beautiful.”

  As she uncapped the syringe, the last knot on Carol’s wrist came loose.

  CHAPTER 33

  BOBBY stood in the kitchen with his hands braced on the counter and his head bowed. Police cars, both marked and unmarked, slowly filled the street, but no one even knew where to start to try to find Carol.

  He’d just found his life, and it was about to be ripped away from him.

  He pushed himself away from the counter and walked to his living room. He sat in the dark and rubbed his face with his hands. Every cell in his body wanted to be doing something, but there was nothing he could do except wait. Wait until he got the phone call that they’d found her body.

  He put his hands back down and leaned back in the chair, staring into the dark. It took several minutes for his exhausted mind to register what he was seeing, and he slowly sat up, feeling his heart rate increase as the adrenaline started to flow.

  He’d left his house with the intention of not coming back for three days. He’d walked through the house, as he did whenever he was going out of town, and went through every room, making sure lights were out. His father had been a stickler for that, and the first time he’d come back from tour and found out that he’d left the light on in his bathroom, he’d kept looking over his shoulder, waiting for his father to tell him to cut himself a switch.

  Now he was staring at the doorway to his music room, and coming through the crack in the bottom of the door was flickering light. Not the bright halogens he’d had installed in there, but a softer, yellow light. Light like a candle would make.

  He very quietly got up from where he was sitting. Carol might still be alive. It’s possible that he could still save her life. He didn’t want to waste even one second of time to go outside and find Mitch so he headed straight for the doorway of the music room.

  He put his ear to the door and heard voices. He understood a few words here and there, and then he heard the sound of Carol sobbing. He closed his eyes to the wave of relief
that washed over him. She was still alive.

  Trying to decide the best course of action to take, he finally settled on surprise. He had no weapon, and didn’t want to take precious seconds to go upstairs and retrieve a weapon from his gun safe, so instead, he threw open the door hard enough that it bounced against the wall, and stepped into the room.

  There were candles everywhere, giving the room a bright, eerie glow, the smell of the burning wax nearly overwhelming. In the center of the room, Carol knelt on her knees, her hands behind her back, while a dark haired woman who looked sort of like Rhonda Regalman but with a fake beard and mustache uncapped a syringe.

  The sound of the door hitting the wall echoed through the room, causing both women to jump. Bobby watched Carol shake her hands and the rope that bound her wrists fell at her feet. As Bobby ran forward, Carol surged to her feet, hitting Rhonda square in the chest with her shoulder, knocking her backward.

  She didn’t fall to the floor, however, just stumbled until she regained her balance, then with a feral roar, turned and ran toward Bobby, her hands curled into claws. He stepped further into the room and braced himself for the onslaught. As soon as her body hit his, the force of her weight knocked him into the wall behind him.

  “Get out of here, Carol! Go get Mitch. He’s at your house,” Bobby yelled, satisfied when she ran past him.

  Rhonda was out of control. She bared her teeth and spittle flew out of her mouth while she screamed obscenities. She lashed out at him with fists and fingernails. Years of ingrained southern upbringing kept him from retaliating against a woman for about two seconds, then a baser instinct kicked in, and he began to fight back.

  The first closed fisted blow knocked her backward. Before she could regain her balance, he landed another one on the side of her cheek, sending her to her knees. She supported herself with her hands and looked up at him like a rabid dog, growling deep in her throat. He was angry now, angry because she’d tried to hurt Carol.