Killing Streak

  “Evan, what the hell are you talking about? Jessie dropped the computer? Where?”

  “Near our house. She wasn’t sure.”

  Jack’s head was spinning. Inside the house Murphy’s barking reached a frenzied peak. “Fuck. C’mon.”

  Jack opened the front door and pulled Evan inside with him. Murphy jumped excitedly on his master before Jack shooed him into the fenced backyard.

  Jack turned on Evan. “Backup’s on its way so if you’re going to talk, you’d better do it.”

  “Jessie killed my Daddy. She’s going to do the same thing to Corie.”

  Evan’s urgency was completely out of character. Jack wondered if it was an act. “Any idea who that is in Mommy’s crawl space?”

  Evan held Jack’s gaze, his eyes like chunks of polar blue ice. “Hennessy. But there’s no time for this, Jack. You have to get to Corie. You have to believe me.”

  “Believe you?” Jack took Evan by the shoulders and slammed him into the wall, his forearm hard against Evan’s throat. “I don’t believe any goddamn thing you say. You’re a fucking liar, a murderer, a sadist, a useless piece of shit.”

  “I’ve told you everything.”

  “Not everything.” Jack took a step back and raised .45. “Why Corie?”

  “What do you mean? I love Corie.”

  Jack trained the gun on Evan from barely three feet away. “Why Corie?”

  A sad smile crossed Evan’s face. “You remember when Hennessy died? Corie came to the funeral with her loathsome mother. Afterward, Vi showed up at the funeral home as we were leaving for the cemetery.”

  Jack watched Evan through the sight of his gun. He could wait forever. He had waited forever. He was a thousand years old, ten thousand. He thought he’d wanted answers. He realized he already had them.

  “My mother was already in the hearse. They’d loaded the flowers and everything but Hennessy. Vi came screeching up. I was relieved to see she wasn’t drunk. She marched up to me in that way she has and said there was something she needed.”

  “Is there a point to this fairy tale?” Still with Evan in his sight.

  Evan spoke as if he didn’t even notice the gun. “It was family going to the burial. I couldn’t imagine what Vi needed from me. Then she told me. While Hennessy was dying Corie had competed in a horseback riding event. And won. Corie brought the ribbons with her to the funeral home and slipped them into the casket so Hennessy could have them forever. And that vile woman wanted me to get them back.”

  Tears glittered in the monster’s eyes. Jack shoved away his own emotion. No fucking way he’d let Evan see him react. But oh, Corie. He felt his cell phone vibrate.

  Evan’s voice was harsh. “You want to know why? You want to know why Corie? Because even though I may be a complete piece of shit, I realized at that moment that Corie was everything her mother was not, everything that most people are not.”

  Jack saw Serena pull up at the curb and get out of the car. “How’d Hennessy’s body get into the crawl space?”

  Evan laughed. “My mother decided that she wanted her daughter with her. Isn’t that funny? Hadn’t wanted her close while Hennessy was alive. Dead she was more compliant. And Corie’s going to be dead too, unless you know where Jessie is. Do you want to know what she said? Right before she shot Corie? How nice it would be for the two friends to be together.”

  Jack held Evan’s steady gaze and thought of the women who’d looked into those icy blue eyes. That face was the last thing they saw. Aranda. Vangie. Yvonne. Monique. Who else? Hennessy? Looking into those eyes you’d know you didn’t stand a chance. Evan Markham only came alive when he spilled blood. Jack had stared evil in the face before. He never got used to it.

  And yet . . . Evan’s phone call nagged at him. It all fit together: Jessie’s ring under the bed, her lie about losing it when she spent the night, engineering Brice’s move to Colorado.

  “It was Hennessy, wasn’t it?” Jack lowered the gun but he kept it ready.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The women. Dark hair. Young. Only plump and healthy, idealized versions of your sister.”

  “Don’t be vile.” Evan choked on the word and his face shattered. Decades of practiced composure failed in an instant.

  Jack was so close. He was going to get the truth.

  “Jack.” Serena was at the door.

  He ignored her. “I know when it started, Evan. Monique Lawson was killed right after Hennessy’s funeral.”

  Evan’s voice was harsh. “We don’t have time for this. I thought you loved Corie.”

  “Jack!” Serena opened the storm door.

  “Serena, not yet.”

  Her voice was urgent. “You’ll want to hear this. Dani’s been trying to call you. She pulled Corie’s phone records like you asked. One of the last calls to her cell, at twelve thirty, was from Jessie.”

  Evan said, “I told you.”

  Jack cursed and, in two long strides, was halfway down the walk before he turned back. “Where the hell’s the backup?”

  “They should be here any minute.”

  “We don’t have a minute.” Jack grabbed Evan’s arm and shoved him toward the car. “We’re all going. You get in back.”

  Serena stood frozen in confusion on the front walk.

  “You coming?”

  Serena jumped in and Jack pulled away from the curb as fast as the Audi would let him on the ice. Which was plenty fast. “Keep an eye on him. If he so much as flinches, shoot him. I’ll worry about the mess later.”

  “So she is alive. Damn it, Jack, why were you wasting time?”

  “Shut the fuck up, Evan.” Lights and traffic were irrelevant. Jack drove as fast as the laws of physics and the Audi’s all-wheel drive would allow. All that mattered was getting to Corie. At one point he found himself on the wrong side of the road when people didn’t move out of his way.

  Serena fought to keep her gun steady on Evan. “They have a guard on her room.”

  “Come on, come on.” Jack leaned on his horn, wove around one car, and almost sideswiped a second. “Goddamn people, get out of my way!”

  “Jack, the way you’re driving I might shoot him accidentally.”

  “Aw.”

  Jack skidded to a stop outside the emergency room at Denver Health and ran for the entrance. Two marked cars were there, so he left Evan for Serena and the uniforms to deal with.

  But at that moment Jack didn’t give a shit about Evan. He ignored shouts from the doctors and orderlies, found the stairwell, and took the steps two at a time up to Corie’s floor.

  No one had considered Jessie seriously as a suspect. No one thought the murderer could possibly be a dizzy sixty-year-old woman. They’d all made an assumption and they’d all been wrong.

  A uniformed officer stood outside the door to Corie’s room.

  “Anyone try to get to her?” Jack asked.

  “No, sir. The nurse just left. The only other person who’s gone in is one of the volunteers delivering flowers.”

  Jack saw the cart parked outside the door to Corie’s room loaded with colorful arrangements.

  “One of the volunteers? I said no one.”

  “She was an old lady. She had flowers. I thought it was all right.”

  Fresh adrenaline coursed through Jack and he forced himself to steady his breathing. He put one hand flat on the door and slowly pushed it open. Behind him, the officer was still explaining and Jack motioned for him to shut up.

  Inside the room was Jessie in the pink smock of a hospital volunteer, her hair pinned up and covered with a knit hat. She smiled at Jack from where she stood next to Corie’s bed. With her left hand, she reached for the plastic tubing snaking its way into Corie’s arm. Jack saw what she had in her right hand and realized Evan was telling the truth.

  “Jessie, drop the syringe.” Jack assumed his stance, arms extended, gun aimed at her head. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, risk shooting Corie. Which meant he had to aim high. />
  Jessie looked at Jack calmly, still with that same scary smile on her face. “I don’t think so, dear.”

  Then she turned back to Corie, stuck the needle into the IV, and Jack took his shot.

  Jessie crumpled to the ground, dead instantly.

  Jack wasn’t taking any chances. He apologized to the unconscious Corie as he pulled the IV needle from her arm and stepped over Jessie to sit on the edge of the bed. There was no way to put his arms around Corie without hurting her, so he held her hand and gently wiped away bits of Jessie’s blood that speckled Corie’s pale face with a tissue. Blood sprayed the wall, the nightstand, the sheets. On the floor, the smile was frozen forever on Jessie’s face.

  For once, Jack was in time.

  Chapter 77

  Hours blurred into days. The FBI arrived. The media went crazy. Everyone had questions. Jack lived in a chair in Corie’s room, afraid if he took his eyes off of her she’d disappear for good. His back ached and even the nurses felt sorry for him. He got his mother to take care of the dog and let his cell phone die. If anyone wanted to talk to him they had to come to the hospital, so they set up a mobile command post right outside.

  Serena came. So did Dani and Mike and Roger and special agents and even a repentant Vi. Serena had handled herself admirably, securing Markham and getting him processed. She took a serial killer into custody on her first homicide, watched out for Jack, and other than when he was driving, kept her cool. Jack thought when this was all over, he’d put her in for a commendation.

  As he sat in the chair watching Corie, he remembered the night he brought her takeout from Del Friscos. Her delight when she bit into the burger. He vowed to take her there for dinner when she was better. If she let him. It seemed like an impossible daydream.

  He remembered her eyes, that marvelous sparkling blue, bright with intelligence and laughter. Their smartass banter. The way she felt in his arms. The way she’d tasted like coffee that morning at his house. The way she’d moved in his bed, her passion, and the way she said his name.

  Corie’s responsiveness must have been addicting to a narcissist like Markham. She’d been so badly used by people who claimed to love her. The one thing Jack wanted most was impossible. He couldn’t wipe away the painful memories and he couldn’t restore her innocence. That was shattered forever, to be replaced by—what? Corie was artless, open, spontaneous, trusting. What would replace that trust? What would this do to her?

  Machines made their accustomed sounds. He knew the difference now between the beeping that was meaningless and the alarms that brought people running. A thin blanket covered her chest, stopping just under her arms.

  Wasn’t she cold? He wanted to get a thick down comforter, tuck it around her like a cocoon, and keep her warm. More times than he could count, Jack reached for her hand and raised it gently to his lips. Did it matter that he loved her? Would he get the chance to tell her? Would he say it if he were given the opportunity? Would it change anything?

  Jack found the waiting safe, like an old friend. Once Corie woke up, it would all start again.

  Jack remembered Evan’s face when he heard Corie was alive—first hope, then panic and the way he said, ‘You have to get to her.’ So the bastard was capable of emotion after all. Evan’s lawyer sought permission for him to see his wife one last time and Jack told him to go to hell. Evan was done, in large part because of Corie. Because she found the locket, which belonged to Yvonne; because she delivered the tax records proving Evan had been in Charlotte and taken Monique to dinner; because those records and receipts also put Evan in New York at the time of another unsolved homicide and in the wrong place at the right time for a dozen others.

  A search of Evan’s car turned up a scrap of fabric that matched the cut-up cashmere sweater found at the scene near Aranda’s mutilated body. Roger had identified it. Jack badly wanted justice for Aranda. So smart. So beautiful. So unnecessary. In his mind Jack still saw her smile. He had a dream where he was in Starbucks with her, and Aranda laughed and told him it was going to be all right. In the dream she said, “Thank you.” Jack woke from the dream with renewed self-loathing.

  He didn’t go back for his last radiation treatment, even though everyone persisted in pointing out all of the ways answering his phone that night wouldn’t have made a difference. But it made a difference to Jack.

  And then there was Jessie. There was insulin in the syringe, the same thing she’d used to kill her husband. Corie would have been dead almost instantly. The woman Corie viewed as a second mother tried to kill her. Twice. Neither one of Corie’s mothers had done her any damned good.

  With a mother like Jessie it was no wonder Evan had turned out warped. Not that there was any excuse for murdering lovely young women. Defense lawyers would try and use it, though, and considering Jessie’s murderous actions, they’d gain some leverage.

  Of all the things Evan said at Jack’s house, none of them was a confession.

  Law enforcement didn’t have enough yet and a long, legal road lay ahead of them. But it was only a matter of time. Jack would do whatever it took to get justice for Aranda and the others. They would find all of the bodies, solve all of the murders; Evan’s killing streak had finally come to an end.

  Special Agent Rogers from the FBI cornered him near a vending machine the second day. “You been here the whole time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Any change?”

  “Not yet.”

  “She’ll make it.”

  Jack watched Rogers put a bill into the slot on the machine and pound on the glass when his bag of chips didn’t drop. You had to give him credit. The guy knew how not to have a conversation.

  “Avoid it for as long as you need to, but when you’re ready, we need to spend some time,” Rogers said.

  “What if I’m never ready?”

  The agent gave a tight, closed-mouth smile. “Let me know if you need anything. Markham’s in Canon City.”

  He referred to the Supermax federal prison known as “the Alcatraz of the Rockies.”

  “Good,” Jack said.

  Rogers looked like he wanted to say something else but didn’t. Jack went back to the room and found Corie awake. Sort of. Her blue eyes looked dark, like the sky right before a storm, and he wasn’t sure she even recognized him.

  “She’s in a lot of pain,” the nurse said, the nice one with the Jamaican accent and the warm, tilted eyes the color of wheat. “It’s better if she sleeps. Why don’t you go home? Take a shower, tidy up.”

  “I look that bad?”

  The nice Jamaican nurse smiled, turned on her silent shoes, and left.

  But Jack couldn’t leave the sanctuary of the chair. When he let Corie out of his sight, bad things happened. He dozed off. When he woke up, an orderly was wheeling in a second bed. Corie was getting a roommate. Jack was going to protest, but before he could do anything, the nice nurse came back.

  “If you’re going to stay, you might as well get some real sleep. We don’t do this for everyone.” She shrugged. “Up to you.”

  Jack wasn’t going to accept any comfort, but she left and the bed stayed. Jack eyed it and finally lay down tentatively, fully dressed. The next thing he knew, he felt a hand on his arm shaking him. He must have passed out.

  There had been a shift change because a different nurse stood by his bed—the short, dark-haired one, the one Jack thought was mean, but now she was smiling.

  “She’s awake.”

  “Jack?” Corie’s voice. A miracle.

  The dark-haired nurse let herself out.

  “Hey.”

  “You look like shit.” Corie looked at him through slitted eyes. Apparently she recognized him.

  “Right back at you.” He pushed himself off with his hands and lurched to her bed. “How are you . . .” Dumb question.

  “I feel like I got run over by a train.” Her eyes looked normal again. Alert. Intelligent. Beautiful.

  Now that she was awake, all of the things he w
anted to say had fled.

  “How long have I been here?” she asked.

  It was two thirty a.m. Jack scrubbed his scalp with his hands and tried to do the math. “Wow. Going on thirty-six hours.”

  “Have you been here the whole time?”

  Jack smiled. “Off and on.”

  “Did you get her?”

  “Who?”

  “Jessie.”

  Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he was still asleep. How could she know? Exhaustion made him stupid. “Who?” he repeated.

  “Jessie.”

  He got her, all right. “It’s over. You’re safe. Evan’s in jail, for real this time.”

  Jack thought of Evan’s weeping when he heard about Jessie. Jack had so wanted to shoot Evan. He should have. No one would have blamed him and it would have saved the taxpayers a lot of money.

  He smiled and gently touched Corie’s hot, pale forehead, her cheek, and what was left of her hair. She looked so small. “It’s over,” he repeated.

  “Where’s Jessie?” Corie asked.

  Had she heard whispering from the nurses? There was no other way she could know. She’d been unconscious. He wasn’t going to burden her with any of it until she was stronger, if then. “Just rest.”

  “No.” She struggled to sit up and couldn’t. With a frustrated whimper she gave up and closed her eyes.

  “Corie, honey, you’re safe. I’m here. Don’t think about any of it right now.”

  With her eyes closed, she frowned like she was concentrating. She tried with great effort to take some deep breaths. Then she opened her eyes again and her face cleared. Her gaze was focused and she looked right at him, into his eyes. “She shot me. Didn’t I tell you?”

  Jack held her hand. “I know.”

  “Jessie. Shot me. In the crawl space. She almost shot Evan and she shot Brice, too.” Corie was not confused at all. Although her breathing was that of someone in tremendous pain, her voice was surprisingly strong. “Where is she?”

  “She’s dead. I shot her.”

  “Really? You’re not lying?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Good.” Corie’s gaze held his. “Who found me?”