by Debra Webb
LeDoux had good reason for wanting to find the monster Zacharias had represented, just as Bobbie did. She thought about the blood on the floor in the study. Whether or not LeDoux had killed Zacharias in an attempt to extract information was the real question. His erratic behavior the past week or so provided sufficient reason for her to doubt his trustworthiness...but could she really see him as a murderer?
Either way, he was right about her not having time to be waylaid by the investigation to find out or to be cleared of suspicion.
Without looking back, Bobbie turned off the instincts screaming at her and followed LeDoux.
He was the closest thing to a lead she had.
Three
Coventry Court, Norcross, Georgia
3:00 a.m.
“We’ve been friends for a very long time, Randolph. I’ve carried out your every request—even the ones I should have categorically denied. I have kept your secrets just as you requested.”
Randolph Weller set his unfinished cup of tea aside. It had grown cold anyway. “I find your pathetic pleas to be quite tedious, Lawrence.”
Lawrence Zacharias’s face paled. “Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. Anything. Anything at all. There’s no need to resort to this barbaric behavior.”
Poor, poor Lawrence. The injury to his forearm had stopped bleeding hours ago, yet one would think he’d suffered a fatal stab wound. The bloody mess left in his study had been the man’s own doing. He’d hoped to send the authorities on a hunt for a killer rather than a fleeing attorney. Frankly, Randolph had expected far more from his old friend. There really was little the man could do now. He was tied to his chair. He could scarcely breathe much less move with the rope wound tightly around his arms, legs and chest. Randolph sighed. Such a waste of true brilliance.
“I fear it’s far too late for posturing and gestures now.” Randolph cocked his head and studied his old friend. “You see, after I spoke to Lucille, I decided to watch you, Lawrence. The courier you hired is in the other room. He told me about the package. Did you know it was intercepted by Special Agent LeDoux?”
When the other man only stared at him with utter defeat in his eyes, Randolph went on, “I’m certain you didn’t. When I learned the addressee, I understood exactly what you’d done. You see, Lawrence, when you decide to betray a man like me, there are certain steps you should not trust to anyone save yourself. If you had personally handled the package, you might very well have made your flight to Maracaibo.” He shook his head. “Too bad. I understand the governor himself had selected a luxury villa for you. I’m certain you would have been quite happy spending your twilight years there.”
“No one knows where you are—you still have time to disappear,” Lawrence said quickly as if he’d gained his second wind in the race against certain death. “No one knows anything.”
The former was true. Randolph should be well on his way to Morocco. Lawrence had purchased the small desert palace for him years ago. Randolph had always planned to slip away one day. He’d cultivated the perfect pawns to facilitate the move. His son’s obsession with Detective Bobbie Gentry had provided the classic opportunity. Randolph had dreamed of rich, mahogany-skinned men and delicious domestic maids catering to his every whim, including serving as inspiration for his beloved art.
But then a loose end he should have clipped long ago unraveled his well-laid plans and, unfortunately, Lawrence was wrong about the latter of his claims. Someone did know something and now Randolph had no choice but to tidy up that annoying thread before disappearing. If there was anything in this world he wanted as much as the freedom to create his art, it was revenge. It was a rather base instinct but, despite popular belief, Randolph was only human. Where Nicholas was concerned, the absolute best revenge was to ensure he remained steadfast on his current path. Nothing would make Randolph happier than knowing his son would forever remain alone and in the shadows, afraid of who and what he might become. The quintessential tragedy.
“There are two people who know my deepest, darkest secret, Lawrence.” Randolph stood. He unbuttoned the light wool suit jacket. He had to give his old friend credit—he’d had everything Randolph needed waiting for him in that Huntsville, Alabama, storage locker, including transportation. He removed the jacket and placed it carefully on the back of the chair he’d vacated.
“I made a mistake,” Lawrence urged. “I can take care of it. Now. This minute. Let me...let me help you, Randolph.” His words had begun to slur.
Ah, the timing was flawless. The high-powered muscle relaxer would render Lawrence quite helpless. Randolph crossed the room and opened the liquor cabinet. He’d stored the items he would need there, including the half-empty bottle of Scotch he’d laced. The moment was, admittedly, gratifying. Randolph had been in prison for fourteen years, three months and six days, and he still hadn’t lost his touch.
“Dear God,” Lawrence muttered thickly.
Randolph chuckled. “God can’t help you now, Lawrence.” He removed the carefully folded white sheet from the shelf below the whiskey tumblers and spread it on the floor. “You see—” he walked toward his old friend “—God holds no dominion over me.”
Randolph released the knot and unwound the rope. Lawrence slumped forward, tried to move but his body failed him. Still, he grunted and gnashed his teeth.
“Now, now, Lawrence, you know there’s nothing you can do. Why put on this pathetic display?”
Randolph reached under the drugged man’s shoulders and lifted him, then dragged him to the middle of the room. He arranged him, arms stretched out to his sides, legs spread eagle.
“It’s such a shame I won’t have time to capture this momentous occasion on canvas.” He smiled down at his old friend. “You know I’ve always fancied myself quite the artist.” He sighed. “Before Nicholas turned against me I had my own studio. I miss those days.”
A wet spot appeared on the crotch of Lawrence’s trousers.
“Really,” Randolph chastised, “I would have thought you far braver than this.”
The man on the floor groaned pitifully.
Randolph returned to the liquor cabinet and retrieved the final tool he’d stashed behind it.
He approached his old friend once more. “I will miss you, Lawrence.”
Tears poured from the other man’s eyes. The pulse at the base of his throat fluttered wildly.
How very sad and yet intensely titillating.
“See you in hell, old friend.” Randolph hefted the ax. The first blow shattered the elbow as the blade cut through bone and tendon, leaving the forearm detached and hemorrhaging on the floor. The second swing sent blood splattering across Randolph’s face. Muscles and ligaments splayed open at the shoulder like the freshly severed parts of a hog. The humerus easily popped out of the glenoid socket and Lawrence’s body twitched and shuddered. A feeble scream croaked out of his sagging jowls.
Randolph sighed with pleasure as the hot blood slid down his skin. His own blood pulsing with sheer bliss, he raised the ax again.
Thumping and grunting echoed from the other room. Randolph hesitated and glanced toward the wall that separated the two men who would die this day.
He smiled. “Don’t worry, dear boy, you’re next.”
Four
Bobbie had barely reached the end of the block when she spotted the cruiser in her rearview mirror. The Atlanta PD official vehicle rocked to a stop in the spot she’d vacated mere seconds before. Unable to help herself she’d sat a moment at the intersection and watched the two uniformed officers rush up the steps toward the house. LeDoux hadn’t said a word but she’d felt the tension vibrating from him.
Eighteen minutes later she pulled into the parking lot of the Country Inn and Suites where LeDoux had a room. Definitely a step down from the luxurious four-and five-star hotels the agent typic
ally called home when on assignment. Just another indication of how much LeDoux had changed over the past year. He didn’t wear his scars on his skin the way she did, but they were there nonetheless.
“You’ll need a jacket or something,” he said. “Unless you’re planning to leave your weapon in the trunk.”
Maybe it was the sleep deprivation or the burden of so many murders so close together but her mind felt as if her head were under water. Every thought, every reaction was far slower than it should be. Agreeing to come to this hotel with LeDoux was likely another sleep-deprived decision she would regret.
He works for the FBI, Bobbie. He used you once...
Considering she didn’t have a better plan, she popped the trunk and climbed from the driver’s seat. She glanced at LeDoux as she grabbed her overnight duffel bag from the back seat. There were a lot of people she’d let down. Her son, her husband, her partner, her friend, the chief. Special Agent LeDoux was guilty of that egregious sin the same as she was—all the more reason she shouldn’t trust him, except he had certain connections she didn’t.
She moved around to the trunk and dug out the windbreaker she kept there for emergencies. Dragging on the jacket, she reluctantly admitted to herself that whatever LeDoux had or hadn’t done, she owed him. He had protected her that once when there was no one else—when it counted. He had allowed the monster to take him instead. His screams echoed deep in her soul. Bobbie shook off the haunting memories.
“We have to go through the lobby to get to the room,” LeDoux explained as if the silence or her lack of a response had gotten to him and he needed to speak just to make sure they were both still alive.
The two of them were like the walking dead—ghosts. Mere shadows of their former selves moving among the living. The breeze she’d noticed earlier felt colder now. She zipped the jacket and secured the car. “How long have you been in Atlanta?”
She hadn’t seen LeDoux since late Tuesday night, some fifty hours ago, when they’d met at a crime scene in Athens, Alabama. Weller’s latest victim had been chopped into pieces and then displayed like a broken doll that had been reassembled by a two-year-old. Had LeDoux come straight to Atlanta after that to question Zacharias?
“About twenty-four hours.”
So what had he been doing between Tuesday night and yesterday? At some point this past week she’d gotten the distinct impression he was on thin ice with his superiors. Something else they had in common.
When he reached for the entrance door, she asked, “Are you on the Weller task force?”
He hesitated, his gaze settling on hers. “Not officially.”
Before she could ask the next question poised on the tip of her tongue, LeDoux headed through the lobby. The clerk, young and female, smiled as they passed. LeDoux gave her a nod. The clerk grinned, checked out Bobbie and then looked away. Whatever else he was, LeDoux was an attractive man with plenty of charm when he chose to use it. When he and Bobbie worked together the first time, he’d had a wife. She’d had a husband and a child. Ten months and a couple of vicious serial killers had changed everything.
Without speaking, they took the stairs to the second floor. LeDoux stopped at room 216 and swiped his keycard, then held the door open for her. Bobbie stepped inside, tossed her bag on the floor and surveyed the room. Window on the far side. Drapes pulled tight. Desk, chair. Small sofa. King bed.
One king bed.
“You take the bed,” he said, noting her gaze there as he locked the door. He crossed the room and rummaged in the mini fridge, found a bottle of beer and collapsed on the sofa.
“If you’re not officially on the task force, then you’re tracking Weller on your own.”
He shrugged. “Aren’t you doing the same thing?”
Rather than answer him, she pitched another question at him. “You’ve watched Zacharias since you arrived?”
Her real question was pretty clear. How did he get away or get himself injured and maybe dead with you watching? God she needed a shower. And sleep. It was three-thirty in the morning. She couldn’t think clearly anymore. Maybe she hadn’t been thinking clearly in a long time.
Rather than answer her question, he opened the beer and chugged a long swallow. When the need for oxygen overrode his desire for alcohol, he lowered the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his other hand.
Finally he said, “The local cops interviewed Zacharias on Wednesday, as did the Bureau. I tried to question him this morning—” he glanced at the clock by the bed “—technically yesterday morning, round eight. He wouldn’t talk to me. Just before dark, five-thirty maybe, a local courier service picked up a small package at his front door. I followed the guy to see where the package was going. By the time I got back to Zacharias’s house he was long gone or he appeared to be.” He shrugged. “I took advantage of the unoccupied house for sale across the street. I’ve been watching his place since, waiting for him to come back or for the right opportunity to get inside. At some point I guess I fell asleep. When I woke up I saw your car and decided to find out what you were up to.”
“So you lied to me earlier,” she accused, “when you said you were already in the house when I arrived.”
He waved off her charge. “There wasn’t time to explain all the nuances involved so I ad-libbed.”
Bobbie let his lie go for the moment. The way he referred to the Bureau—as if his decisions and theirs were mutually exclusive—reiterated her feeling that Agent LeDoux’s career was like hers, teetering on the brink of disaster. Bobbie crouched down and dug through her bag for the clean underwear she’d packed.
“So you never saw Zacharias when the courier went to the door?”
“I did not. I suppose anyone could have given the guy the package.” He downed another long swallow of beer. “But I never saw anyone else go in or come out of the house.”
She tucked the panties into her back pocket and got to her feet. “Who was the package addressed to?”
He lifted his shoulders in another listless shrug. “Who knows? The courier refused to tell me the name.”
“You stopped him?” Jesus Christ. LeDoux really was flirting with the edge.
“I followed him to the service center parking lot, showed him my credentials and told him I needed to see the package. He told me to get a warrant.”
“Did you inform the agent in charge of the task force?” The package could be headed to wherever Weller was hiding. Anticipation had her pulse pounding. “This might be a major lead in finding Weller.”
Rather than answer, LeDoux finished his beer and went for another. Images of Weller’s numerous victims filtered one after the other through her mind like flipping the pages of a macabre family album. Randolph Weller, aka the Picasso Killer, wasn’t just another serial killer. He’d spent most of his adult life as a celebrated, highly respected psychiatrist whose secret hobby was mutilating the corpses of his victims and then painting macabre scenes of the carnage. More shocking, the sick son of a bitch had served as a consultant to the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit—still did, or at least he had until he escaped. Weller was also a father. Images of Nick flashed through her mind. Unlike his father, Nick had spent his adult life stopping the most ruthless serial killers, the ones no one else appeared able to find. He’d found the one who’d stolen Bobbie’s life. The Storyteller. She flinched. Hoped LeDoux hadn’t noticed.
“The Bureau has no fucking idea where he is.” LeDoux grunted. “They’ve torn Atlanta apart. Can’t find him.” He shook his head and downed more of his beer. “Zacharias gave them zip. He’s sticking by his attorney-client-privilege bullshit.”
“What about the package, LeDoux?” she repeated, impatience swelling inside her.
He lifted a bleary gaze to hers and exhaled a big breath. “He wouldn’t tell me who the recipient was, but—” the hint of a smile tugged at his lips “�
��for a hundred bucks he gave me the address.”
“Where?”
The smile made a full appearance. “The same place I’m headed after a few hours’ sleep. Savannah. I would’ve left already but I guess I was actually waiting for you. I knew you’d show up eventually.”
“Savannah?” She ignored the remark about him waiting for her. Why would Weller risk staying in the state of Georgia? Savannah was only three or four hours away. “That makes no sense.”
“Who knows? But I’m damned sure going to find out.” LeDoux laughed, the sound as weary as she felt. “That’s why I brought my car back here and took a cab to Zacharias’s house. In case the courier grew a conscience and decided to report me.”
At least that cleared up her question about how he’d followed the courier and why he didn’t have a rental car.
“You’re here,” he went on, “we have a lead. You going with me?” He tipped up his second bottle of beer and finished it off.
Either LeDoux had gone rogue or his new assignment was to keep her off track. Considering his apparent need to inhale those beers, maybe if she nudged him enough he’d slip up and reveal his true objective.
She chose her words carefully. “The FBI is still suspicious of Nick?”
Just saying the words out loud had anger stirring inside her. Bobbie had no idea exactly how many killers Nick had stopped in the past decade but the FBI wanted to label him a vigilante. The man was anything but. He hadn’t taken a single life...until just over twenty-four hours ago. Montgomery PD had cleared him of any wrongdoing in Steven Devine’s death. If Nick hadn’t stopped the bastard who had used being a cop as a cover for what he really was—a cold-blooded murderer—he would have killed both of them. Devine had already taken five lives, including a fellow cop she’d loved like a brother.
Bobbie pushed the memories of Asher Bauer away. No looking back until this is done.
“There are those who want to take him down,” LeDoux acknowledged, “but they have no proof. All they can do is watch and wait for him to fuck up. They got nothing on Shade and nothing on Weller. You and I are the only ones with a lead.”