by Mallory Kane
Then the next year had rolled around. Albert had tried to ignore the calendar, but the urge to do something had been too strong. So he’d killed the second young woman.
Now he was in too deep. At some point, maybe last year when he’d failed to kill Nicole Beckham, his focus had changed. It was no longer a desperate attempt to send the police back to the first October murder. Albert put his palms on either side of his head and squeezed.
It had become vengeance. He had lost his beautiful Autumn, so he’d taken other beautiful young lives.
He bent over and picked up Detective Ryker Delancey’s card off the floor. Delancey had said that Nicole Beckham was helping with the investigation, but he’d refused to tell Albert just how she was helping.
He thought about her in her dark bedroom, sitting up in bed so that the light from her window caught the gold highlights in her hair and the fear in her eyes. He’d stood there in her doorway, clutching the knife he’d found in a case on her kitchen counter, ready to dive at her and sink its blade deep into her belly.
But the sound of a key rattling in the front door had startled him. With one last glance at her wide eyes staring directly into his, he’d kicked open the kitchen door and escaped.
He rubbed a hand over his thinning hair. At the time, the newspapers had indicated that neither Nicole nor her roommate had seen anything. But Albert knew from the articles about his daughter’s death and from television that the police never released all the information they had. They always held something back.
He opened the scrapbook that sat beside his chair. He had all the newspaper clippings from all the killings. He turned to the articles about Nicole Beckham. He knew them all by heart.
What could they have held back about her attack? Albert was dreadfully afraid the answer was that she had seen his face.
He’d watched her during the past year, wondering if she would recognize him. He’d even eaten at her restaurant a few times. Once she’d emerged from the kitchen to greet a couple who’d asked to meet the chef. She’d smiled and glanced around the room, but she hadn’t reacted. Had she not recognized him? Or had she not noticed him?
He turned to the newspaper clipping from two days ago, that told about Nicole Beckham’s knife being used in the killing of Jean Terry. He read the article again, looking for any clue that Nicole could identify her attacker.
Then he looked at the detective’s card once more. Delancey was the man he’d seen with Nicole. He’d thought the man was a cop, and now he was sure. That certainty led to another. There was only one reason a police detective would be sticking that close to a victim. Nicole Beckham wasn’t just Detective Delancey’s only living victim.
She was his only witness.
Albert couldn’t afford to have her identify him. Not now. Not when the police were finally looking into his daughter’s death.
“ABSOLUTELY NOT, JOB!” Nicole said as she sat up in bed and pushed her hair out of her face with the hand not holding the phone. “We’ve never served frozen fish and we’re not going to start now.”
Job sighed. “I’ve called my mother to stay with the kids while I take Merina to the doctor. As soon as we’re done, I’ll head over to Henri’s.”
“By then all the decent fish will be gone. Plus, you need to be with your wife. Thursday is my day to buy fish anyway. You know Henri watches out for me like his own daughter. I’ll be fine.”
“You should call your boyfriend, let him know you’re going.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said automatically, wishing Job would figure out that his joke wasn’t funny. “He’s going up to Angola to testify at a parole hearing today.”
“What about his partner?”
“Bill’s going to the Quarter to talk to the police and get the Moser girl’s case file. I could be halfway to the river by now if we weren’t still on the phone. Don’t worry. I’ll see if I can find some black drum fish.”
“I’ve got to go. Merina is really hurting.”
“You tell her I’m thinking about her. I’ve never had a kidney stone, but I hear they’re awful.”
Nicole hung up and got out of bed. Six o’clock. She was already late if she wanted the best-looking fish. She tossed on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and ran a brush through her hair. She’d get the fish, take it to the restaurant and come back and shower and dress. Even with Job out, she didn’t have to be cooking until ten. She’d have plenty of time.
NICOLE CHECKED THE REARVIEW mirror. The car behind her was way too close. She took her foot off the gas. “Okay. I’m slowing down. Pass me already.”
But he didn’t. He stayed on her tail. She turned off the distracting radio and tightened her hands on the steering wheel. The slap-slap of the windshield wipers was annoying enough. She didn’t like this road in sunny weather. She hated it in the rain.
Henri LaRue owned three fishing boats on the Tchefuncte River near Madisonville. He and his four sons fished every day and supplied fresh fish to several restaurants on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. She or Job made a point of driving to Henri’s several times a week to pick out the best fish for L’Orage’s famous Poisson du Jour. The regulars looked forward to the variety of fish L’Orage featured at different times of the year.
The road that led from the highway down to Henri’s was narrow and old. It wound along the serpentine banks of the river. Nobody but folks going to and from the market used it, and Nicole usually recognized most of the cars. But not this one.
She glanced in the mirror again. The car had fallen back a few feet. Thank goodness, because the rain was coming down faster now, soaking the blacktop and running off onto the marshy shoulder. That shoulder bothered Nicole. With the once-white lines faded into near invisibility and the crumbling shoulder, it was hard enough to drive the narrow road on a clear morning. Each time Nicole met a car passing in the opposite direction, her heart jumped into her throat and stayed there until she was safely past.
The car following her had crept up close again. She couldn’t see the driver’s face. He had the visor flipped down for some reason.
Through the rainy haze she spotted familiar bright orange shrimp boat nets sticking up over the trees to her right. It was the Cara Mia, a fishing boat owned by Thierry Martin. That meant she was only about four miles from the highway. Better, there was a relatively straight stretch of road ahead.
“Okay, you’re in a hurry. I get it. Come on.” She wished the driver would turn on his headlights. The heavy clouds and pummeling rain made it hard to see.
Frustrated, she lowered her window and gestured for the car to go around her. Thank goodness he sped up. Nicole held her breath and kept her speed steady, waiting for him to go around. But he didn’t.
“It’s okay,” she shouted. “I know this road. You can pass!” She waved again, soaking her arm and the sleeve of her T-shirt. She raised the window and threw both hands in the air in a quick gesture of extreme frustration.
“What is the matter with you?” She gripped the wheel again, tighter. “Okay, if you won’t pass me, I’ll just stay out of your way.”
She sped up, going as fast as she dared. She blew out a breath, trying to calm her racing heart. She hated driving in the rain. “There. Have all the road you want.”
But when she looked in the rearview mirror, he was back on her tail. “What—?” Her breath caught. Her irritation faded and a growing sense of uneasiness took its place.
What if passing her wasn’t what he was trying to do?
She sped up a little more and felt her pulse thrumming in her throat. The rain seemed to have let up a little, but she still had to concentrate to avoid dropping a tire off the edge of the marshy shoulder.
Something bumped. The cooler in the backseat that held the fish shifted. What was that? Had she hit a turtle? An alligator? She glanced in the rearview mirror just in time to see the car behind her slow down. Before she could react, it sped up again. A lot.
She braced herself. He was speeding
toward her.
The bump shoved the car forward and flung her head back, bouncing it hard against the headrest. Whoever was in that car was doing this on purpose. She squeezed the steering wheel so hard her fingers cramped. A check in the mirror told her he was about to ram her again. She hit the gas.
The car fell behind. Nicole took a shaky breath, the first in quite a few seconds. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding it. She checked her speedometer and winced. She was driving way too fast for the road and conditions.
But she knew the highway had to be just ahead. A mile at the most.
Movement in her mirror caught her eye. He was coming at her again. She floored it, her heart pounding, her hands screaming with cramping pain.
She took a winding turn and her right rear wheel slid off the road into the mud. She had to fight to keep the car from fishtailing. She couldn’t keep up this speed. She’d crash.
Sweat prickled along her forehead and the nape of her neck. She glanced at her purse on the seat beside her. Her cell phone was right there, in the front pocket. She wanted to let go of the wheel and grab the phone and dial 911, but she couldn’t. She was deathly afraid of driving off the road again.
The dark car filled her mirror, he was that close. Objects in the rearview mirror are closer than they appear. She chuckled hysterically. That was impossible. That car couldn’t get any closer.
Then simultaneously she felt the impact, heard the crunch of metal on metal and felt her head slam backward into the headrest.
Her hands slipped off the wheel and it spun toward the right.
No! God! Please!
She struggled to straighten the vehicle. The back wheel spun. The car wobbled and wove, and another crashing blow hit her from behind.
Then as the metallic shriek faded, the world began spinning. The rain made swirly patterns on the glass and the windshield wipers counted the seconds in slap-slaps as things inside the car bumped and slid.
Her head felt as if it was spinning around on her neck in the opposite direction from the world.
Then it all stopped. With a thud and a loud wet plop. Okay, not everything stopped. The world continued to spin, but somehow, Nicole knew that it wasn’t really the world now—it was her head. She closed her eyes to try to set herself, or the world, or whatever was wrong upright again. When she opened them she saw her hands glued to the wheel. The knuckles were white. The tendons strained like fishing line pulling a really big catfish, and the veins stood out like faint blue rivers.
She blinked and dared to look beyond the wheel, beyond her hands to the outside of the car. She was looking up. At the edge of the road she’d recently been on. Black mud spattered the windshield and the side windows. Amazingly, the rain had stopped.
How was she going to get all that mud off her windshield if the rain had stopped? That thought made her realize that the wipers had stopped, too. In fact, the car was no longer running. She couldn’t hear anything except an occasional low groan. At first she thought it was a person. Had she hit someone? Had the driver of the other car run off the road too?
But after a couple of seconds she realized the groan coincided with small backward movements of the car.
She was sliding downhill. That wasn’t good.
Nicole listened to her oddly calm thoughts and wondered why she wasn’t panicking. Was she dreaming? Or had the slamming of her head against the headrest knocked her out? Given her a concussion? She was pretty sure that calm was not the appropriate emotion for her predicament.
From somewhere she heard the roar of a car’s engine and the slamming of a door. Then a muffled yell rang out. Her first reaction was relief. Someone was here to rescue her. But with excruciating slowness, she realized that wasn’t the most likely conclusion.
The figure that had risen up and was now looming above her was far more likely to be the driver of the car that had forced her off the road. He was coming to finish her off.
She needed her purse. Her cell phone. To her surprise, it was right there, next to her hand. It had slid over onto the console. She fumbled in the front pocket and pulled out her phone.
To her utter surprise, her hand wasn’t even trembling. She dialed Ryker’s number.
“Ryker, I need help,” she said when he answered.
In front of her, the figure moved. He came closer to the edge of the road. Then he pulled something out of the pocket of his rain poncho and pointed it toward her.
“Nic? What’s wrong? What’s happened? Nic!”
“Oh, it’s a gun,” she muttered. At that instant a metallic thud and a zing split the air. She tried to duck down below the dashboard but her safety belt hindered her.
“A gun? Nic! Where are you?”
Her shoulder and chest hurt where the belt pressed into her. Fumbling blindly, she finally got the belt unhooked. “I’m on Henri LaRue Road, off Highway 22.”
It amazed her how calm she felt and sounded, even though two more shots pinged into the front of her car. “I’m in the mud and he’s shooting at me.”
“Good God, Nic! Who’s shooting at you? Hang on, I’m calling 911.”
He was gone for a second. Then she heard his beloved voice again. “You did say Henri LaRue Road, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” She wanted to look and see if the man was coming down into the mud after her, but she figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to stick her head up. A fourth shot and the odd thud of something hitting the safety glass of the windshield convinced her she was right.
“Nic, are you hurt?” Ryker was back. “They’re coming. Right now. What’s going on? Did I hear gunshots?”
“Of course. I told you. Can you please hurry? I’m scared.”
“You should hear the sirens in a second. Stay down, Nic. I’m on my way.”
Nicole heard a note in Ryker’s voice she hadn’t heard before. He sounded scared. Not possible. Ryker Delancey wasn’t scared of anything.
Vaguely, distantly, she heard a familiar wail. Sirens. He’d been right. They were coming. Thank goodness.
“Ryker? I hear them,” she said, but he’d hung up.
A string of curses filled the air, out of tune and out of sync with increasingly loud sirens. Then more gunshots peppered the car. Nicole cringed and shifted so she could cover her head with her arms. She felt a peck on her cheek. When she touched the place, her fingers came away smeared with blood. She didn’t touch it again. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know how bad it was.
One last gunshot ricocheted off metal, then a car engine fired up, revved and roared away, almost drowned out by the sirens, which were getting really loud. Then she saw the reflection of blue and red flashing lights. The police.
They were here. Nicole lifted her head to look out the windshield but when she did, the seat fell out from under her. She thumped back down on her butt.
The car was moving—downhill. Then she felt it tilt sideways. Her breath caught on a sob.
“Ryker!” she screamed, but she knew that the sound coming out of her mouth was no more than a whisper.
“Ma’am? Hello? Ma’am, are you all right?”
“I think so,” she called. “Are you going to shoot me?”
“What? Ma’am? I’m a fireman. I’m here to rescue you. Can you hear me? Don’t move, just speak.”
She took a deep breath and tried to call more loudly. “I think I’m okay.”
“Ma’am, can you tell me who you are?” The voice was a little closer. Nicole carefully raised her head, doing her best not to move enough to disturb the car. She saw a man in a fireman’s uniform with a harness around his torso. He was trying to walk down into the mud hole, but he kept slipping. Two men up on the road were holding on to the harness.
“Be careful,” she called.
The fireman grinned. “Don’t worry about me, ma’am. What’s your name?”
“Nicole Beckham.”
“Good, Nicole. You just sit right there and we’ll have you back up on the road in no time. What happened to your
cheek there?”
“I think a bullet hit me.”
“It’s not bleeding much. Probably a ricochet. Did you feel anything else hit you? Are you bleeding anywhere else?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Not hurting anywhere? Legs? Feet? Can you wiggle your toes?”
She tried. “Yes. I can.” For some reason, she wanted to cry. His questions were painting a lurid picture for her of all the things that could have happened, and she was suddenly terrified. “Can I get out now?”
“Let’s wait a minute, okay, Nicole? Can I call you Nicole?”
“You already did.”
“That’s right, I did.” He chuckled. “Okay, Nicole, when I get to the front of your car, my buddies up there are going to throw me a chain. I’ll hook it to the frame. When I do, the car might slide a little bit. But that hook’s going to keep it from going any farther. How does that sound?”
His words were reassuring, but she noticed that his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Okay. I guess the ditch is deeper than I thought it was.”
“Maybe a little. Now, I need you to sit tight.” The fireman turned his head. “Ready for the chain!” he shouted.
A huge chain was lowered to him. He grabbed it and bent down, under the front of the car.
She heard the scrape of metal against metal and felt a bump, then the sickening feeling of the car seat dropping out from under her again. She cried out.
The fireman’s head rose above the front bumper. Then the rest of him, most of which was covered in black mud. “Nicole?” he called out. “You still with me?”
“I’m here.” She barely heard her own voice over her pounding heart.
“Good. I’m coming to get you out.”
He nodded to the men above him and they lowered him some more, until he was beside the driver’s door.
“Can you undo your seat belt?”
She nodded and did so.
“Okay. I’m going to try to open the door. There’s a lot of mud over here, but if we can get the door open, you’ll be out of here in no time. If we have to go through the passenger door, it might take a little longer.”