Framed

by Karen Leabo

  Thinking about it gave her a headache.

  Would he come back? she wondered. Or was he even now heading to the station to offer his pièce de resistance to Clewis? How would he handle the congratulations? Would he accept them grudgingly, or bask in the praise?

  She’d made everything ten times worse by lighting into him the way she had. If he’d had even an ounce of compassion for her, she’d destroyed it with her accusations. Not that she really believed he would ever have protected her to the extent of withholding important evidence. But if there’d been even a slim chance, she’d blown it.

  Hadn’t she learned her lesson by now about men? They held all the cards. They were bigger, stronger, and every time she went head-to-head with one of them, she ended up getting trounced—stalked, framed, betrayed.

  She was done with the whole damn gender.

  With renewed determination, she pushed herself up and resumed her seat in the recliner. Everything was up to her now. No white knight was going to save her from her fate. If anyone was going to track Terry down, she would be that person. At least Kyle had left his good binoculars.

  She hadn’t been watching five minutes when she saw something. It was a small thing, so insignificant that she could almost believe she’d imagined it. Almost. But a window blind had wiggled, as if someone had separated the slats to peek outside.

  Terry was in that house. She could almost smell his presence. And she was tired of waiting for him to make a mistake.

  She came to a decision with surprising ease. Maybe Kyle’s abandonment had made her reckless—who knew? She decided to stop waiting around for other people to decide her fate. She was taking matters into her own hands. She was going to confront Terry and, through reason or intimidation or brute force, she was going to make him come forward and end this nightmare once and for all.

  Jess got up from the recliner and, with quiet deliberation, put on her shoes and a down jacket. She found her purse, her keys and headed out to her car. Her stomach was knotted with apprehension, but she ruthlessly ignored her body’s own defense mechanism. So maybe she was headed for disaster. How much worse could it get? In her misery she didn’t care.

  The garage door opened with an encouraging roar when she pushed the button by the door. Unfortunately, when she climbed into her car and turned the key, her car didn’t follow the garage door’s example. In fact, nothing happened.

  “Oh, great!” She’d been struggling with a weak battery in her sister’s car for a while now. What a rotten time for it to finally give out. Maybe it was a sign from heaven, she thought pessimistically. Maybe God didn’t want her to embark on this vengeful venture.

  Nah, that was stupid. She would find a way to that house across the lake if she had to walk. Or swim. Or...of course! There was a dinghy with a trolling motor tied up to the dock. Use of the boat went with the house rental, Kyle had mentioned, and Jess remembered seeing the key somewhere.

  Back inside the house, she found the key, neatly labeled, in the silverware drawer. “Hah,” she said as she grabbed it up. That would teach fate to try to thwart her. She pushed the recliner away from the patio door and exited the house, walking down a short flight of stairs to the dock.

  It was bitterly cold near the water, and Jess belatedly wished for a hat, scarf, gloves. She could get them, she reasoned, but she decided not to. She didn’t want anything to slow down her mission. She also didn’t want to give herself any opportunity to chicken out. The trip across the lake would take only a few minutes. She wouldn’t freeze to death in that time.

  Determinedly she shook the accumulated rain off the blue plastic tarp cover and pulled it off the dinghy, folding it haphazardly and stuffing it into a storage container on the dock. She climbed gingerly into the shaky boat.

  Boats weren’t really her thing, and when it came to actually inserting the key in the motor, she almost lost her nerve. But all she had to do was think of Terry and the hell he’d put her through, and she kept on her course toward a confrontation. The realization that it was going to end, one way or another, in a few minutes exhilarated her and quickened her movements.

  Then Kyle would have to swallow his lack of faith in her. His information from Boston, so carefully ferreted out, would be meaningless—just like their lovemaking had been.

  All right, so she was lying, she thought as she untied the bow and stern of the boat and pulled the bumpers in. Regardless of what it had meant to Kyle, making love with him had meant everything to Jess. Right now she might hate the man, even more intensely than the day he’d interrogated her. But she still loved him.

  She was a pathetic case. There was something wrong with her.

  The trolling motor buzzed reassuringly to life. It was quiet, like a cat purring, not like the outboard motors Jess remembered. After a couple of false starts, during which she almost ran the boat up onto the bank, she figured out how to reverse the dinghy. Some more maneuvering and she was in business, heading steadfastly toward the Gilpatricks’ house.

  She had no idea what she would say once she faced Terry, but she was counting on the momentum of anger to carry her through. The anger made her strong. She couldn’t fail.

  Jess pulled up to the Gilpatricks’ dock. With her eyes trained on the house, she cut the motor and quickly secured the boat. Nothing moved. Good.

  Now, how to approach the house? A brazen foray right up to the front door was tempting, but chances were Terry wouldn’t just open the door and let her in. She would be giving him time to plan an escape strategy. She wished now that she’d thought to bring some tools with her.

  A basement window? Her specialty. Then she could sneak upstairs and confront Terry, giving him the shock of his life. And if one of the neighbors saw her breaking in and called the police? Perfect. It was a good plan.

  She found a fist-size rock in a neglected garden behind the plain gray brick house. Then she selected a basement window at random. As she crouched down, ready to do the window violence, she tried not to think about what would happen if she was wrong—if the resident of the house wasn’t Terry but some reclusive Gilpatrick grandmother instead. She’d likely give the poor thing a heart attack and wind up in jail for breaking and entering to boot.

  But she wasn’t about to abandon her plan now. She closed her eyes, swung her hand back, gathered her strength...

  Then someone grabbed her by the wrist.

  She screamed and dropped the rock, which landed on her own foot with a painful thud. Her eyes flew open. She expected to see Kyle standing over her—Kyle, who’d had a change of heart and returned, discovered Jess missing, figured out her plan and followed her to prevent her from doing something irredeemably stupid.

  But it wasn’t Kyle standing there with her wrist in a vise grip. It was Terry. His hair was cropped short and dyed brown, and he’d grown the beginnings of a mustache, but she had no trouble identifying him. A surge of pure relief warred with more sinister emotions as she looked up at his smirking face.

  “Well, well, what have we here?” he said, yanking her to her feet. He released her arm, and that was a mistake, because without warning Jess hauled off and socked him in the jaw hard enough to snap his head back.

  “You son of a bitch,” she heard herself saying, “where’s your smirk now?”

  He rubbed at his face. “That’s gonna cost you, Jess.” His voice was low and menacing, as she’d never heard it before. “Come on, we’re going inside.” He grabbed her by the hair and yanked, forcing her to accompany him as she yowled in protest. Kyle’s warning flashed through her mind: “He might be dangerous. Don’t underestimate him. Don’t approach him on your own. Call the cops. You’ll do that.” Belatedly she realized she should have screamed bloody murder outside while she had the chance. Now that he had her inside the house... She shivered. Surely not.

  Terry didn’t release her until they were in the kitchen. There he pushed her into a chair with a snort of disgust. “I didn’t give you enough credit, Jess,” he said. “How did you f
igure out I was here?”

  “I’m not the only one who figured it out,” she said. “The police suspect you’re here, too. I’ve been working with an off-duty cop. We’ve been staking out this place for two days. We have a house rented across the lake, and we’ve been watching this house day and night.”

  “Sure, Jess,” he said, pouring himself a cup of coffee with total unconcern. “If that’s true, where’s your cop friend now?”

  “He had to go out. While he was gone, I saw you at the window, and I decided to make a move. He’ll be right behind me. When he gets back and sees I’m gone—”

  “Save it, Jess. You never were much of a liar. Want some coffee?”

  “No, I don’t want coffee!” she exploded. “I want your head on a platter!”

  Terry clicked his tongue. “So much violence under the calm, serene exterior. You’d better not lose your temper like that in the courtroom during your trial. It won’t look good at all.”

  “There isn’t going to be a trial, Terry. Don’t you realize that? The game’s over. I won. All I have to do is reach for that phone on the wall and dial 911.”

  He actually smiled at her suggestion. “Be my guest,” he said, gesturing toward the phone.

  “All right, I will.” She jumped to her feet and made a grab for the phone. Why was he letting her? she wondered even as she dialed. What does he have up his sleeve?

  “This is the 911 operator. What is your emergency?” a preternaturally calm voice asked.

  “This is Jess Robinson. I’m the one accused of murdering my ex-boyfriend. But I’ve found him alive and I need you to—”

  “Your name again?”

  “Jessica Robinson. I need the police to come—”

  “And what is your emergency?”

  She looked up at Terry. He was smiling, not in the least worried. And then she figured out what Terry’s game was. So simple.

  “Just send the police to this address—18 Meadowlark Road,” she cried as frustration built up and exploded. “There’s about to be violence done.” She slammed down the receiver, then addressed Terry. “You’re planning to leave before they get here.”

  He nodded. “It takes about five minutes for the cops to get here. I’ll be long gone, and you’ll look like a total idiot, desperate, psychotic, resorting to breaking into strangers’ houses to fuel your pathetic delusion that I’m alive.”

  “Why?” was all she could think to ask. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  That smile again. “Because I can. Because I didn’t like the way you threw me out of our house—”

  “My house.”

  “—without an ounce of regret for what you were throwing away—”

  “What? We had nothing! No, let me correct that. I had nothing. You had a free ride. Any sane person would have thrown you out on your ear long before I did.”

  “—so calmly, with no emotion. I bet you’re feeling emotion now, huh, Jess?”

  She realized then that he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. He was still wrapped up in his fantasy revenge. Reason wasn’t going to prevail. Still, she kept trying.

  “Your fingerprints are all over this house. They’ll know you were here, that I wasn’t lying.”

  He laughed. “Oh, Jess, haven’t you learned anything hanging out with the police? They could pick up my prints here from now till doomsday, but if they don’t have prints on file for comparison, they’re useless.”

  “And yours aren’t on file,” she concluded miserably:

  “Not under the name Terry Rodin, anyway. All right, that’s enough chitchat. Don’t think you can stall me until the police get here. I’m not that dumb.” He headed toward the garage door, carrying nothing. No doubt he’d left nothing behind that would identify him.

  “Wait, Terry, you can’t do this—”

  “Of course I can. And you can’t stop me. That’s the beauty, isn’t it?” With a casual salute he turned and resumed walking.

  That’s when desperation took Jess over. She saw the knife block on the kitchen counter, and a split second later a long, gleaming butcher knife was in her hand. She ran at Terry full throttle, slamming into him with the force of a freight train. The collision knocked him against the wall, and the air whooshed out of him in a surprised grunt.

  Jess had the knife at his throat. “Drop to the floor, you SOB, or I’ll plunge this knife into your throat faster than you can blink. If I’m going to be executed for killing you, I might as well enjoy the actual act.”

  His hand twitched, and she could see the thoughts whirring through his mind. He was calculating his chances, wondering if she really had the guts.

  “I almost killed Phil Cattrone, remember?” she said breathlessly. “I have no trouble stabbing someone when I’m desperate. Now drop!”

  “My God, Jess, you’ve lost it.” He blinked, and his eyes showed fear. Good. She didn’t think she could actually draw blood in this situation. Her life wasn’t in danger. This wasn’t exactly self-defense like stabbing Phil. But Terry didn’t know that. His gaze remained locked with hers as his knees bent and he slowly sank to the floor.

  “Sit on your hands.”

  He did.

  “Don’t move a muscle. Don’t even blink.” Where were the damn cops? What if the 911 operator had thought she was a crank and had ignored her call? She knew they were supposed to take every call seriously, even if it sounded bogus, but there was always the chance of a slipup.

  “You’re crazy, you know that?” Terry said. “They ought to lock you up and throw away the key.”

  “I’m crazy?” she asked incredulously. “You perpetrate a hoax on me and the entire Kansas City Police Department that must have taken months to plan, and you think I’m crazy? Don’t talk,” she added when he opened his mouth to protest. “Don’t say another word. What the police will do to you isn’t nearly bad enough, and I’m still sorely tempted...” She pressed the knife against his throat for emphasis and prayed for the sound of sirens.

  Kyle had no idea where he was driving to or how long it would take. But he felt in a hell of a hurry to get there. The speedometer pushed seventy, then seventy-five, then eighty. His police scanner chattered in the background.

  Jess, his sweet Jess, had stabbed a guy. An ex-boyfriend. She’d been arrested and tried for the crime, and had gotten off only by pleading self-defense. He’d heard that one before. The plea of a guilty person who had nothing else to fall back on.

  People didn’t change. The chances were good that if she’d done it before, she could do it again. And maybe take it one step further.

  He was fuming. She should have come clean with him. If only she’d been honest up front, he would have... what? Would he have gone straight to Clewis, as she believed? Or would he have kept the information to himself, crossing over that ever-shifting ethical line?

  As the car ate up a few more miles, reason prevailed. Jess had made a good point: why should she have trusted him? Sure, they’d made love. That didn’t change the fact that he’d deceived her, pretending to be a free agent when he was really working for Clewis. If she’d held back, it was probably because her instincts were on target.

  It still hurt.

  When he noticed the speedometer pushing eighty-five, he lifted his foot off the gas. No sense in getting himself or someone else killed just because he was having a temper tantrum. He took the next exit, turned under the highway and got back on going the opposite direction, still unsure of his destination.

  Even now, he felt an urge to forget he’d ever learned about the trial in Barnstable County. But that was out of the question. The new evidence would damage Jess’s defense and damage it badly. After all, if it had him, her staunchest supporter, wavering, imagine what an impartial jury would think.

  And did he really think, now, that Jess was guilty?

  He considered the matter for some time, and finally concluded that, no, he still didn’t believe she’d murdered Terry Rodin. He was angry enough with her that he almost wante
d to believe it, but he couldn’t. Was it naive to think he couldn’t fall in love with a murderer? If he was wrong about her, then his police instincts were nonexistent, and he should retire from police work forever.

  It took him a moment to absorb what he’d just realized. Somehow, despite his best intentions, he’d fallen in love with Jess Robinson. Love was blind, and maybe he was as blind as Buck had been, continuing to believe in Melissa’s innocence despite overwhelming evidence. Now Kyle understood why Buck hadn’t listened to him when, toward the end, he’d pleaded with his partner to turn his wife over to the authorities. When you loved someone, you had to believe they were ultimately good. Otherwise, what did that say about you?

  So here he was, stuck with his belief in Jess. Stuck in love with Jess, whether he wanted to be or not. Committed to protecting her, whether she deserved it or not. He would have to tell Clewis about the trial in Massachusetts, he decided. He couldn’t live with himself if he held that back. But he would double his efforts to find other evidence that would be just as compelling—evidence that would prove Jess innocent. If he was a fool for believing he would find it, that was tough.

  He would have to go back to the rental house and talk things over with Jess. He would give her a chance to explain, to clarify. And though he was still angry with her, he would work with her on coming up with some new ideas for catching Terry...or Terry’s real murderer. Maybe they could lay a different kind of trap, plant something with the media that would flush him out. Something.

  The police scanner squawked, and he reached for it, intending to turn the obnoxious thing down, when the dispatcher said something that brought him to full attention.

  “Any available unit to a disturbance at 18 Meadowlark Road.”

  He knew that address by heart—the Gilpatricks’ house. His blood turned to ice water. What in God’s name had Jess done? What had he driven her to?

  He heard a highway patrol officer respond to the request. Kyle noted the officer’s location. Not nearly close enough. It would take several precious minutes for him to arrive at Lake Weatherby. Kyle could be there in two minutes flat if he pushed it.