by Jessica Beck
“What’s going on at Nathan’s?” I asked.
“He had a break-in,” Terry said.
“That poses more questions than it answers,” Jake replied.
“You’ll see soon enough,” Terry said, and we drove the rest of the way in silence.
Thankfully, we got there a few minutes later. Everything looked perfectly normal to me from the outside. “Where’s the broken glass, in back?” I asked as we pulled into the parking lot.
“No, he was slicker than that. The alarm was bypassed and the lock was picked. This guy was a real pro,” Terry explained.
“How do you know it was a guy?” Jake asked.
“Go on in and see for yourself,” Terry answered.
I followed the three men inside, looking around as I walked through the place. There were still no signs of a robbery to my eyes, at least not the ones I would have expected. I tended to think of burglars as leaving behind smashed glass and broken items, but this theft was on a whole different level. The only thing amiss that I could see was a gun case standing open.
And then I saw the large white-board where sales were announced. I used one myself at the donut shop, but mine had never been used for something like this.
In a fine, almost delicate hand, it said,
“You can hire an army to protect you, but it won’t do you any good. I’m coming for you, Jake. I could have taken Suzanne today, but I wanted you to feel fear deep in your gut before I moved in on you. You’re going to have to watch me kill her, and then I’m going to take care of you. Rusk.”
The message was creepy enough, but the attached photograph was even worse. It showed me, in clear detail, walking on the road between the donut shop and my home. The worst part about it was that I was wearing the same clothes in the photograph that I had on at the moment.
“This was taken today,” I said, feeling my blood chill a little as I said it.
“We figured as much when we saw it,” the chief said gravely.
“What all did he take?” I asked as I looked at the open gun safe with new fear.
“A good hunting knife, a handgun, and just two bullets,” Terry said. “He wanted to be sure that we got his message. He’s a cocky little murderer, isn’t he?”
With quiet determination in his voice, Jake said, “He’s going to pay for this.”
“Don’t you worry about that. We’ll get him,” Terry said. “Announcing what he’s going to do just makes me that much more intent on catching him, and soon.” He tapped the photograph with the cap of a pen. “I knew that was a bad idea when you did it. It can’t happen again, Suzanne.”
“It won’t,” I said. The photo hit me harder than the threats. I’d been right after all. Someone had been watching me from the park. “What can we do about it?”
“There’s something else I need to tell you. I called the chief,” Terry said, and then pointed to Chief Martin. “I should say our boss.”
“I thought that we were going to handle this,” Jake said icily.
Terry looked uncomfortable with the statement. “I didn’t have any choice, and you know it.”
Jake just shrugged. “What did he say?”
“He feels as though what we’ve been doing up until now isn’t working too well, and he’s decided to send a team tomorrow to relieve your volunteer guards.” The state police inspector turned to the local police chief and added, “No offense intended to any of you, but this is one bad man.”
“None taken,” Chief Martin said. “I don’t have any problem knowing when I’m in over my head.”
“What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” I asked Terry. “Just sit around and wait for the troops to show up?”
“I brought up that exact same point, but since our boss is out of town, he can’t make this happen any sooner. We just have to redouble our vigilance until then. I strongly suggest that you vacate the cottage in the meantime. It’s clear that Rusk knows that you’re there.”
I was about to agree to relocating when Jake surprised me. “Terry, we’re not going anywhere. I stand by what I said before. If we run and hide now, we’ll lose all hope of catching this guy forever. If anything, we need to do something to flush him out before our reinforcements arrive.”
Terry grinned. “I was hoping that you felt that way. That’s my thought exactly.”
“Are you two seriously going to use us as bait to catch this lunatic?” I asked him. I couldn’t stand to look at my picture, or the taunting message Rusk had left us.
“Not you, Suzanne; me,” Jake said firmly.
I laughed, but there was no joy in it. “Jake, I’m not leaving you alone, and that’s final. No matter what happens, I’m staying in the cottage if you are.”
“It’s not going to happen, Suzanne,” he barked.
I decided not to snap back at him, since I knew that he was under a tremendous amount of stress. To my surprise, Terry spoke up. “I think she’s right, Jake.”
“Have you lost your mind?” my boyfriend asked his fellow inspector.
“Think about it. If Suzanne is gone, Rusk might just vanish and try again later when everyone isn’t watching out for him. We’ve discussed this before, but you need to make a hard and fast decision right now. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder?”
“You know that I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that I’m willing to sacrifice Suzanne, either.”
“Nobody’s being sacrificed,” I said. “I trust you all. I’ll be safe.”
“You’d better be,” Chief Martin said. “If something happens to you, your mother will take care of me herself, and nobody will ever find the body.”
The fact that nobody tried to contradict him didn’t do much to ease the frown on Chief Martin’s face.
“If we’re going to do this,” Jake finally said, “then we’d better have the perfect plan in place, and we have to do it tonight.”
“We both know there’s no such thing as a perfect plan,” Terry said. “All we can do is try to cover all of our bases and hope that we’re smarter than he is.”
Jake just shrugged, but I wasn’t quite so nonchalant about it all. “But we’re still going to try to come up with something that keeps us safe and traps him, right?”
Jake must have sensed the worry in my voice. “Suzanne, we won’t do a thing unless all of us are confident that it’s going to work. Otherwise, we’ll go underground until the good guys show up tomorrow. How does that sound to you?”
“Better,” I admitted. “So, who’s got the first idea?”
Terry looked around the shop at the local cops milling about. Had they been listening in to everything that we’d been discussing? And worst of all, could Rusk find a way to torture one of them to get that information out of them? “Is there anyplace we can go where we won’t be disturbed?”
“I can clear everyone out here,” Chief Martin said as he looked around the room.
“I’ve got an even better idea,” I replied. “Let’s go over to Donut Hearts. I can make us all some fresh coffee, and if we stay in the kitchen, no one’s going to bother us. At least it’s away from the cottage, and any other prying eyes that might be eavesdropping on us.”
“Speaking of reinforcements,” the police chief said, “I’m calling Officer Grant in to team up with the mayor right now. No one pulls a shift alone until this thing is resolved, and I’m not about to leave one of my people hanging in the wind.”
“That’s a good idea,” Terry said. “You should absolutely do that. It will show Rusk that we’re taking him seriously, and it might even help us spring our trap.”
“Then let’s all go to the donut shop,” I added.
The chief made arrangements with Officer Grant to join George immediately on the way to the donut shop. I let everyone in before locking up behind us, and as soon as I got into the kitchen, I flipped on a few lights and hit the coffee pot switch as well. It was too bad there were no donuts there. And then I saw three boxes sitti
ng on the counter. It was my policy to get rid of extra donuts at the end of every working day, but evidently Emma and her mother had other ideas for these. I flipped the lids and found a nice assortment, so I laid them out and grabbed four cups as well. For once, I was glad that Emma had gone against my regular protocol. Those donuts would come in handy as we planned how we were going to lure Rusk into a trap without risking our own lives in the process.
An hour later, we finally managed to come up with a working plan, something that we all thought just might succeed in trapping the killer. There was some risk involved, no one denied that, but it was the best that we could do given the circumstances, so we decided to move forward.
Now all we needed was some cooperation from a killer, and a small crack in his armor that we could exploit. Otherwise, Jake and I would be on edge for the rest of our lives, and I for one wasn’t willing to live that way, especially if we could end it all within the next few hours.
Chapter 19
The hardware store had been ridiculously easy to break into. I could have taken a ton of weapons with me as I left, but in the end, I decided that simple was best. One handgun and one knife would be plenty to finish them. I didn’t even take a handful of bullets with me, either. I chose two randomly and loaded them into the gun. After all, two was all I planned to use.
Let them make of that what they would.
This should scare them.
And if they were jumpy, they’d soon make a mistake, and that’s when I would hit them with everything that I had.
Now I just had to wait for the right time to strike.
One thing I knew for sure was that it would be soon.
Very soon.
Chapter 20
“Are we all set on your end?” Jake asked the local policeman a little later when Chief Martin finally returned to the donut shop. It felt as though Jake and I had been there forever, though Terry and the chief had been in and out a few times once we’d finalized our plans.
“I’ll have everyone in place in under an hour,” Chief Martin said a little unhappily. “I’ve got to say again for the record, the one thing I don’t like about the plan is that I’m not going to be involved in it.”
“That’s not true at all,” Terry said. “You and a few of your best men are going to be standing by waiting for our call. We could need you as reinforcements after we’ve sprung the trap, but you’ve got to remember that if there are too many people at the house, Rusk is never going to believe our setup. We have to sell this the first time, because we’re only getting one shot at it.”
“I can see your point, but that doesn’t mean that I have to be particularly happy about it,” the chief said reluctantly. After a moment, he sighed softly, and then he added, “Well, if that’s the way that it’s going to be, then I’d better get started on my end.”
As he got up to leave, I stopped him. “Thanks for doing this, Chief.”
“I know that it’s important,” he said. “Don’t mind me. I’m just getting grumpy in my old age. Suzanne, be careful, okay?”
“I promise.”
“I know that your mother will appreciate that, and so do I.”
“She’s nervous about this, isn’t she?” I asked. I’d briefed her about our plans over the phone earlier, and after some discussion back and forth, she’d finally seen that Jake and I really didn’t have any choice. That didn’t mean that she had to like the idea of setting a trap any more than Chief Martin did, though.
“She understands why it’s important to do this right now, but of course she’s going to worry until this is all over.” The chief paused, patted my shoulder gently, and then he added, “I’ll go fetch your Jeep and park it right out in front of the shop. The keys will be on the left front tire.”
“Aren’t you worried that someone might steal it?” I asked him with a smile.
“I’ve seen your Jeep. I’m not that worried,” he answered with a small grin of his own.
After the police chief was gone, Terry shook Jake’s hand. “Give me half an hour before you go back to the cottage, okay? I need a little time to get things set up on my end.”
“We can do that,” Jake said.
“Good luck.”
“Right back at you.”
After Terry left, it was down to just my boyfriend and me. “Jake, is this really going to work?” I asked him softly.
“I hope so. After all, it’s our best shot at catching him anytime soon.”
“He’s a pretty crafty guy though, isn’t he? What happens if Rusk sees this for what it is, just a ploy to expose him?”
“Suzanne, I won’t lie to you; he’s clever. I didn’t even realize the man existed until after I was shot. I’m not exactly sure what all he’s capable of doing.”
“But we’ve planned for every contingency as far as you can see,” I said.
“Are you getting cold feet about all of this?” he asked me, the concern clear on his face. “You know, it’s not too late to back out of this.”
“No, the logic of it is all sound. We need to catch him while we can, no matter what the risk is.”
Jake touched my shoulder lightly. “Don’t worry. I’ll be with you the entire time. Everything is going to work out just fine.”
“Of course it will,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure that I believed it.
The next thirty minutes felt like a lifetime as we waited for the allotted half hour to pass, but it was finally time to head back to the cottage. “Are you ready?” Jake asked me.
“As I’ll ever be. How about you?”
“Are you kidding? I can’t wait to get started,” he said with a grin.
“You really mean that, don’t you?”
“Suzanne, I hate just sitting around waiting for something to happen. The only way that we have any chance of controlling the situation is by being proactive, and not reactive.”
“Is that cop talk for doing something instead of waiting around for something to be done to you?” I asked him with a slight smile as we exited the donut shop and walked to my Jeep.
“It’s just common sense,” he said. In a lower voice, he added, “Help me in. Remember, we need to sell this. If Rusk is watching, he needs to believe that I’m completely helpless.”
“I’ve got it. I’ll play my part convincingly,” I said as I took his good arm and practically shoved him onto the passenger seat.
Once we were both buckled in, I drove us back to the cottage. It took less than a minute to get there, but I fought the urge to look around the entire time we were on the road. I had an eerie feeling that we were being watched, and not just by the good guys.
As I parked in front of my place, Jake took my hand and squeezed it gently. “Remember, make it a good show.”
“I’m going to be so good that I’ll probably win an Oscar,” I said, trying to summon a smile I didn’t feel.
“Wait right there for me,” I said loudly as I walked around to Jake’s side of the Jeep. “You need to be careful getting out.”
“Suzanne, I’m so exhausted I don’t think I can make it up those steps,” he said loudly. I thought he was overdoing it, and I softly said so when I reached him. “Tone it down a little, Jake.”
“Sorry,” he whispered as I helped him out. Jake stumbled a little, but I caught him before he fell. As I steadied him, I wasn’t sure if he’d been acting, or if he really had lost his balance for a moment.
George had to have been listening to our exchange from his position on the porch. He hadn’t been clued in about this part of our plan, since we wanted his behavior to seem normal to Rusk if he was watching our little play. “Do you two need any help?”
We hadn’t thought about enlisting anyone else at this stage, but it was brilliant as I considered it. “That would be great. I’m afraid that Jake’s not doing too well tonight.”
George hurried down the steps, with Officer Grant close on his heels. “Take it easy,” the mayor said as he helped steady Jake. Once he was ready to wa
lk again, Officer Grant flanked him, and the two men helped Jake up the steps and inside the cottage.
“Take it easy, my friend. We’re almost there,” George said with encouragement as Jake stumbled a little again going inside.
Once the four of us had the door shut behind us, Jake straightened back up and smiled at the mayor and Officer Grant. “Thanks, guys. You were both great.”
“Wow, you got better in a hurry,” Officer Grant said with a smile. “What was that all about?”
“We need to talk about that,” Jake said. “We’ve come up with a plan to smoke Rusk out of the woods tonight. Would you two care to help?”
“You betcha,” George said enthusiastically. I knew that he loved being mayor, but his time as a cop had been one of the highlights of his life, and he clearly missed it. “What can we do?”
He wasn’t all that pleased when Jake explained his role, though. After he finished telling them the plan, Jake asked, “Do you understand what it is we want you to do?”
“Sure,” George said reluctantly, “but we can do more than that.”
“After Phase One is over, you need to be ready to step in if you’re needed, just in case. That goes for both of you.”
“Understood,” Officer Grant said, and then he touched George’s arm lightly. “Come on, Mr. Mayor. Let’s see how well we can sell this.”
“Just watch me,” George said with a smile. “If this is my part, I’m going to make the most of it.”
“Just don’t overdo it,” I said.
“No worries there,” George answered. “Come on, Stephen, let’s go back outside before anyone gets suspicious about how long we’re staying in here.”
The two men left, and Jake looked at his watch. “It shouldn’t be long, now.”
“Would you like a pill for the pain before we get started?” I asked him.
“No, I’d rather be a little uncomfortable and still have a clear head if it’s all the same to you,” Jake said, and I didn’t blame him a bit. I had never been all that fond of taking medication myself.