by Jenna Ryan
“Sexual harassment’s a serious charge, Devon.”
“Thank you, I know that. I also happen to know Kira Folkstone. She worked for Warren in New York twelve years ago. Now she’s in Los Angeles. She’s brought charges against six men so far and dropped them all.”
“Didn’t think she could prove her case?”
“Knew she couldn’t. She likes wine, Riker, but she shouldn’t drink it. Doesn’t any more actually. One night a group of us went out to a club to celebrate a friend’s promotion. Kira said a few things about a few lies she’d told in the past. Warren had asked her out for dinner. Result, lawsuit. Scruples aren’t high on her list of personal priorities. I’m not saying Warren isn’t a pain, but he hasn’t touched anyone at the Wave. Yet.”
It was a telling “yet.” “You’re not sure about him, are you?”
She moved a shoulder. “Not entirely, no. But I don’t make false accusations.”
“Because he’s your boss, and you like his sister?”
Her eyes came up. “Because he’s a person, Riker, and without proof I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Not cop philosophy, but it suits me.”
“Mmm. Let’s backtrack to Alma’s daughter, then.”
“Let’s not.” Devon ran a hand through her silky hair, causing it to catch a multitude of light rays. “Margaret committed suicide. Maybe her method was unorthodox, but that’s what she did. It had nothing to do with the Christmas Murders. She was working in Seattle when she died and had been for five years.”
“You were working in Los Angeles, Devon, until Alma and Warren heard your show.”
“I moved here for Hannah’s sake,” she reminded him. “The Severens’ offer was good, but not spectacular enough on its own merit to lure me back to Philadelphia.”
Jacob wasn’t convinced—of anything. “They might have upped the ante if you hadn’t agreed.”
“Maybe. Look, what does any of this have to do with the Christmas Murders? All right, you suspect Warren. But the women killed by the Christmas Murderer were strangled. Margaret hung herself.”
“It’s a similar effect, Devon.” Because he couldn’t think of a reason not to just then, Jacob lifted his hand to the delicate column of her throat. His fingers wrapped lightly around the silver choker. The ends of his hair grazed the curve of her cheek. Her mouth, her tempting, beautiful mouth, remained tantalizing inches away.
“Is this a new police tactic?” The question emerged defiant but tremulous. “Designed to jade my idealistic mind?”
He brushed his thumb over her chin. “I’m beginning to like your idealistic mind,” he murmured. His head lowered. “But I have a feeling we’re both going to regret that in the end.”
THE KISS LASTED five seconds, long enough for anyone watching closely to notice. More than long enough for Devon to react in a way that threw her already jumbled thoughts into a state of total chaos.
Not that she was fanatical about structure, but she preferred to think clearly when the situation warranted.
A lightning-quick touch of his lips on hers, and suddenly all rational thought fled. She raised puzzled fingertips to her mouth. “Why did you do that?”
The question seemed to galvanize him. He dropped his hand from her throat and stepped back. His breathing was more rapid than it should have been considering the brevity of the kiss. But didn’t she feel much the same way herself? Baffled, stunned—affected?
“You okay, Dev?” Jimmy stuck his curly head around the oak bookshelf.
Devon’s fingers jerked away. Her eyes remained on Riker’s. Why did he seem all smoke and mirrors to her? “I’m fine, Jimmy. Riker and I were...discussing security.”
Jimmy looked from one to the other. “If you say so. By the way, the cake you ordered just arrived.”
“Cake?” She’d managed to drag her gaze from Riker’s. Now, she returned it with a frown. “I didn’t order a cake.”
Jimmy blinked. “No? Neither did Hannah. Must be a mix-up. I’ll—”
“Where’s the box?” Riker interrupted.
“Over there.” Jimmy indicated a polished cherry-wood table in the foyer. “Hannah buzzed the delivery guy up.” His smile had an uneasy edge to it. “What do you think it is, a bomb or something?”
“Or something.” Jacob pressed a palm to Devon’s stomach. “I’ll check it out. You stay here.”
The hell she would.
“No, Dev.” Jimmy snagged her sleeve as she started out. “There could be something nasty in that box.”
“Or it could be a cake delivered to the wrong address.” Devon motioned to Warren sprawled in a chair, fuzzily contemplating the cross-room parlay unfolding between Rudy and Alma. “Get some coffee and quiche down his throat if you can. He has a meeting with the manager of the Holly Tree first thing tomorrow morning.”
“But...”
“Do it,” Devon urged. “I’ll be fine.”
With a last covert glance at her guests, she slipped into the front hall behind Riker.
He was on his haunches, studying the white, stringwrapped box. “The German Bakery,” he murmured, reading the stamp. “Have you heard of the place?”
“It’s a couple of blocks away. Trendy but good.”
“Do you order from them?”
“Hannah does once in a while.” She knelt beside him. “Do you think the delivery person made a mistake?”
With careful fingers, he untied the string. “No.”
“Ah, should I get Rudy?”
“Might be a good idea.”
It was also a tricky maneuver with Alma and Hannah both trying to catch her eye. In the end, she didn’t bother being clever. She simply hooked her arm through Rudy’s and drew him discreetly away. “Back in a minute, Alma. Riker needs his expertise.”
Rudy snorted. “Can’t be anything mechanical, then. He’s better at electrical doodads than I am.”
“Is he better at bombs?”
The grizzled head came up. “Bomb! Where?”
“The foyer. I received an unexpected delivery.”
In the tiny hallway, Rudy hunkered down next to his contemplative partner. “What’s the news? Have you weighed it yet?”
“It’s not heavy.”
“Could it be a cake?” Devon asked hopefully.
“Could be.”
“Nitro’s light enough,” Rudy added, his tone sour. “Stand back, Devon. As for us,” he said to Riker, “we’d do better to back off and call the experts.”
Riker’s stare was merciless. “We are the experts, Rudy. Do you want to do it, or should I?”
Swearing, Rudy flexed his broad fingers. “I’m not as steady as I used to be. I’ll hold the box; you lift the lid. Slowly, now. No jolts or jerks.”
Unable to move her feet, Devon hung over Riker’s shoulder. The breath stopped in her lungs as he raised the cardboard flap.
“I’ll be damned.” Rudy spotted the contents before any of them. He released his grip with a snicker. “It is a cake. A bundt, isn’t it?”
Devon’s breath came out in a stuttered rush. She reached for the box.
Riker’s hand shot out to prevent her. “Don’t,” he warned and drew her fingers back.
Exasperation shimmered through her. “I wasn’t going to eat it. I’m not stupid. I just wanted to see.”
Rudy did the honors. “Cherry frosting.” His grin was oddly wistful. “My first wife canned her own cherries. Made the best pies in creation.”
“It isn’t a bundt cake, Rudy,” Riker said quietly.
The grin vanished. “What are you talking about?”
Devon looked again. Hole in the center, cherry frosting. “It’s an angel food,” she said, then caught and held Riker’s somber gaze. “An angel food cake,” she repeated. “With cherry icing.”
A trail of horror snaked slowly through her brain. She stared wordlessly. So many new angels in her life—but none more unnerving than the angel of death that seemed to have set up camp on her front doorstep.
Restless fingers crawled spider-like across the polished desktop glass to the CD player. Pop the door, insert the disk, skip to number three, and listen. Excellent version of “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear”. Angels, all of them. Laura West, Abigail Fountain, Dina Gosford, and on down to—what? The restless fingers shifted upward to massage at fiery starbursts of pain. Marilyn Something. Casey Coombes would remember. He knew the story better than anyone.
“Better than I do,” he whispered in an agonized voice.
Marilyn and Dina had been pretty. Laura had been a haunting beauty. Devon possessed a different brand of loveliness. Luminescence was her gift. She glowed from the inside out—and spat fire when the need arose.
Voices raised in Christmas song overrode the persistent pain, the ache of need and guilt, uncomfortably mixed.
Appearance made no difference. No death had resulted from that. The voice, that’s where the problem resided. It kept returning to torment.
Anguish moved in, its heels nipped by the initial signs of rage. A tic in the jaw, a twitch of the fingers, an imperceptible jerk between the shoulder blades.
Dear God in heaven, to be rid of this consuming fury. To confess it and set it aside. Better yet, to banish it forever.
Sadly, that wasn’t to be. Rigid fingers tapped the spotless glass desktop. Recollections of a conversation spewed upward like venom. Darkness pressed in, and solitude. The song played tauntingly in the background.
Hello, darling... whispered the beautiful silken voice.
The din of memories became a cacophony. Why couldn’t this nightmare have ended last year? Such a perfect opportunity to make the break.
Above the song, the radio surged. Another lovely voice melded with the one in his head. Her voice in duplicate. “Hi, I’m Devon Tremayne. Please join me for City Life tomorrow at twelve noon when my guests will be...”
Enough! His fists smashed down, bouncing the disk. However she did it, she always came back. And being back, she had to die. Again. The gift had been sent, the warnings dispatched.
Satisfaction oozed through the cracks of pain. Coombes had been last year’s stroke of luck. This year promised to be more rewarding still. If one could catch a fly with sugar, one could certainly catch a spider in his own web of lies.
Yes, indeed, it was a splendid setup, and possibly, just possibly, one more death would bring an end to this monstrous nightmare of betrayal and lost control. As Coombes had been the goat last year, let an impostor do the honors this Christmas. Let Detective Joel Riker kill the pretender who called herself Devon Tremayne.
Chapter Five
“I’m telling you, Brando hasn’t been here since the night before last. Hasn’t been at the billiard hall either. I checked.”
The woman, whose name was Tanya, had red hair which currently resembled a rat’s nest of tufts and tangles. Half of her make-up had rubbed off, the other half was smeared beyond repair. She’d pulled down the sleeves of her pink cardigan the moment Jacob produced his bogus police badge.
“Is he on a bender?”
She withdrew into the dregs of pride. “I couldn’t say, but he’s done this before so I’m not worried. Sometimes he beats it out to a friend’s place in the country.”
Jacob closed his eyes briefly before pressing, “Do you know where his friend lives?”
“Near Reading, I think. I’m not sure where.”
He believed that. What didn’t wash was her professed lack of concern.
His eyes flicked over her disheveled appearance. The smell of gingerbread reached him from inside the room. She might have a problem, but she was striving for normalcy and with that he could certainly empathize.
From his jeans’ pocket he dug out a blank card. Using the door frame for support, he wrote his assumed name and Rudy’s cell phone number. Blandly, he pushed the card and two twenties into her hand.
“Let me know if he shows up or calls. I’m not vice. I just want to ask him a few questions about the billiard hall.”
“Questions?” Mistrust oozed from every pore, but he noticed her fingers tightened around the money.
“Just tell him, okay?”
The door clicked shut as he started down the rickety staircase. For forty dollars and the implied promise of more, she would think about his request. God knew what she would do with the money, but sometimes people surprised him. Like Laura, the night she’d stumbled, frightened and unsure, into his condo and told him she wanted to get away from their domineering great-aunt.
Jacob shuddered away from the memory, as dry as dust now in his brain. No escape for Laura; no answers yet for him.
The sky had a verge-of-snow pallor that did nothing to lift his depleted spirits. An angel food cake, cherry frosting, symbolic of the Christmas pendant that had arrived sans note at Devon’s apartment last night. Add to that the attack in her office and a written threat. Gold ink on black construction paper. Symbolic of something, no doubt.
Another headache battered at the base of Jacob’s skull. He was an impostor and a danger to Devon. A decent man with nothing to hide and no fear for what the truth might ultimately reveal would go to the police and tell the whole story.
Notwithstanding, his booted feet carried him through the snow to a tavern-style restaurant called Marlowe’s. Fat strings of holly hung over the opaque partitions that were the British owner’s trademark. There were framed pages of Dickens on the walls, Scottish carols playing in the background and waiters with white tea towels for aprons.
Rudy sat at a table for two in front of a frosted partition. He tossed a crumpled napkin inside the empty earthenware soup bowl to his left.
“’Bout time,” his uncle groused as Jacob pulled off his gloves and blew on his fingers. “I’ve been here for over an hour. Where’ve you been?”
“Looking for someone.” Jacob waited until the waiter had poured him a mug of coffee and moved away. “Anything on the bakery?”
Out of habit, Rudy fished out a ratty black notepad and flipped through several pages. “It’s open till 10:00 p.m. weeknights. The owner was off last night. A part-time worker took the order. White angel cake, cherry frosting. She logged it at 3:00 p.m., doesn’t remember if it was a man or a woman who made the call.”
“What about the construction paper and ink?”
“The paper was standard issue; every place from Wal-Mart to J.C. Penney stocks the damned stuff. The gold ink is craft store material. Too much of it available at this time of year for me to narrow the field more than that. The script was nice. Calligraphy. Doesn’t tell us much, except the writer’s got a good hand, probably prefers a tidy environment.”
Jacob recognized the brick-red color that had tinged Rudy’s lined cheeks. He drank a mouthful of coffee. “What else?” When Rudy’s gaze rose to the holly strands, Jacob let out a frustrated breath, propped up an elbow and pinched his temples between his thumb and middle finger. “You talked to Dugan, didn’t you?”
Rudy watched as an elderly woman entered with a gray poodle tucked inside her coat. “We had a chat.” His eyes moved to spear his nephew’s. “Dammit, I like Devon. She’s in danger. She deserves better protection than I—than we can give her. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. Could be a cold-fish sociopath or screwed-up schizo.”
“It could also be a split personality. Or just some kook who gets his kicks out of killing female radio personalities.”
“Make your point”
“Tell me what Dugan said first.”
His uncle, fearing a clash of tempers, exercised caution. “What I expected. That Coombes was tried and convicted and that we’re probably dealing with a copycat.”
“Son of a... That’s it?”
Rudy’s bottom lip
jutted. “He promised to look into it.” At Jacob’s glare, he thumped the table. “Off the record, boy. Dugan owes me favors, besides which he’s never been a stickler for procedure. Thinks his captain’s a jackass. Coombes is behind bars. Case closed as far as Captain Paloma is concerned. He has his eye on state politics. He won’t appreciate Dugan, or anyone else, reopening this neatly sealed can of worms.”
“Nice guy.” Jacob hated the feeling of relief that jittered through him. He hated the accompanying guilt pangs even more. They had no validity, couldn’t have, since the police insisted on dragging their collective feet. He, on the other hand, was resolved to protect Devon from the lunatic pursuing her. Regardless, he thought, darting a look at Rudy’s set face, of what the outcome might be.
Rudy caught the glance and returned it with a pointed one of his own. “I saw you talking to her last night, Jacob.” He waved the waiter back with a flap of his wrist. “You’re deluding yourself if you think you can keep your emotions out of this one. She’s like a thoroughbred race horse. All spirit and fire.” His muddy eyes gleamed. “Got a great pair of legs too.”
Defensiveness swelled in Jacob, easing off only when he became aware of the tension that thrummed through his muscles. What the hell was wrong with him that he was tempted to grab his own uncle by the lapels and snarl at him to keep his mind on his work and his eyes off Devon’s legs? Her fantastic legs, he amended, then rolled his eyes and heaved out a defeated breath. Might as well accept that he was halfway to hooked. Accepting and admitting, however, were two different things.
“Her legs are fine, Rudy.” He didn’t quite meet his uncle’s astute stare. “What’s not fine is the person who sent her that pendant. There’s more than madness at work here. There’s anger and resentment, maybe even some twisted form of jealousy dumped into the mix.”
Rudy clasped and unclasped his cup. “You see all that, huh?”
“You’ve read the reports on the seven murder victims. Don’t you see those things?”
Rudy hesitated a beat, then sat back to think. “I don’t know. Maybe. Dugan’s printing out copies of the computer files. We can go over them and see what crops up. Tonight, if he delivers.”