by Karen Rock
“Listen, Chuckles,” Tammy said. “I’ve got the background check you requested for Jax Fuller.”
“Right—Jax Fuller. Go ahead.”
At the name, Nash’s smoky eyes sharpened. Katherine motioned for him to join her at the table and put her phone on speaker.
“Quite the charmer you have here,” Tammy drawled. “He lived in Raleigh, North Carolina, until about a year ago and he left a long rap sheet: robbery, car theft, incarceration for kidnapping, an outstanding warrant for assault, and a rape charge that was dropped when the victim changed her mind about testifying.”
Nash scribbled down the information on an index card, then pinned it on the bulletin board.
“What changed the rape vic’s mind?”
“Not sure. My best guess is her wealthy parents might not have wanted the publicity. Her father’s a local politician.”
“Do you have a picture of her?”
“I can get one. Hold on…okay, here she is. Five feet, two inches, a hundred and five pounds, blond hair, hazel eyes.”
Katherine’s gaze swerved to Nash who stared back at her, his expression somber. Tammy’s description fit their killer’s preferred victim. “What about the kidnapping?”
“Another woman in her twenties. Petite, blonde. He grabbed her from a shopping mall parking lot. Luckily, witnesses gave chase and called 911. The police grabbed him before he got very far.”
“What about the assault?”
“Domestic with his girlfriend.”
“Was she a small blonde, too?”
The faint sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard echoed through the phone. “Nope. Brunette. Tall.”
“Huh. Okay. Will you send me all the info?”
“Already did.”
“And can you see if any unsolved cases matching my killer’s M.O. pop up in and around Raleigh?”
“You bet.”
“Thanks, you’re the best.”
“I know.” Tammy clicked off, cheeky as ever.
“Look at this.” Nash pointed to a remote spot on the edge of the killer’s comfort zone. “Jax’s home.”
“No one around for miles to hear the screams,” she murmured, her body humming with anticipation. With an outstanding warrant, she could take Jax in to the station if he refused to talk. Either way, she’d alert the authorities to his whereabouts.
“Let’s go.” Nash held out her purse, his jaw firm, his expression determined.
Suddenly, she was glad she’d agreed to Nash’s insistence on accompanying her. She could handle herself, but having a partner as backup was extra insurance. It startled her—and scared her—to realize how comfortable she was depending on Nash.
After her marriage broke up, she had wanted to never rely on anyone again. If you counted only on yourself, you’d never be let down.
And you’d always be alone.
* * * *
A couple hours later, they finished questioning the owner and staff at Le Tabou, the last of Jax’s workplaces on Katherine’s list.
“Different club, same story.” Nash held open the door for Katherine, his hand next to a familiar decal—Robby’s iBiz logo.
She still hadn’t called him back about lunch.
“Fired from each bartending gig for acting aggressively with female customers,” Nash continued. “Refusal to accept authority, lying when confronted with inappropriate behavior, blaming his accusers and refusing to be held accountable.”
“Fits the profile,” Katherine agreed. “Anger and hostility toward women, wants to be autonomous, and works in the downtown area. He has a valid reason to be here, even tending bar at a couple of the clubs where victims were last seen. Not to mention he lives in the comfort zone and prefers petite, privileged blondes.”
“He’s looking better and better as our guy.” Nash pulled the damp collar of his shirt away from his neck. The air had thickened, grown close and humid, since they’d left this morning.
A piece of glitter on her shoe caught her eye, and she paused to brush it off. Glitter was worse than sand, once it got on you, it stuck, showing up in the oddest places, even days later. It was a constant reminder of Brittany, of the need to find the sparkling young woman who’d been adored.
“Nash!”
A staff member from Le Tabou scrambled after them. He was a skinny, rat-faced creature, with a mop of sandy hair.
“Hey, Billy.”
“I didn’t want to talk in there.” Billy jerked his head at the club. “Did you ask Ms. Landon about my application?”
“Not yet,” Nash replied. “I’ve been busy.”
Billy shoved his hands in his pockets. “What’s Jax got to do with the Last Call Killer?”
Intuition shoved Katherine a step closer to Billy, subtly applying pressure. “You didn’t say much about Jax earlier.”
“Don’t know anything.” Billy grabbed a baseball hat from the back pocket of his jeans and crammed it on his head, pulling the brim low. “Nothing important.”
“Any bit of information, even if you don’t think it’s significant, could help us.” Katherine studied Billy as he shaped the brim of his hat, lifting it, then resettling it farther back on his head.
“If you know something, say it now,” Nash demanded, staring down at Billy.
“Look. I don’t want any trouble.”
“You’ll be in a world of trouble if you’re withholding information.” Nash’s narrow eyes flashed danger signs.
“You seem like a decent guy, Billy,” Katherine chimed in, ready to play good cop to Nash’s bad. “You like to help people, don’t you?”
Billy nodded, his gaze darting nervously to a stone-faced Nash.
“If you knew someone was in trouble, you’d help, right?” She handed him a flyer with the pictures of her serial’s victims. “All these women came to clubs like yours for a fun night out—to escape. You know how that feels, to want to get away from work, from your life, for one night?”
“Yes,” Billy whispered.
“This woman,” Katherine pointed to the picture of Brittany, “is being held by a sadistic monster, and we have only days to find her. Help us, Billy. Brittany needs you.”
Billy peered down at Brittany’s face then pointed to another woman’s picture. “Jax was sleeping with her when he worked here.”
Beneath Katherine’s sleeves, her skin stippled with gooseflesh and her nose itched. “Vivienne Tourneau?” The first known Last Call victim.
Billy nodded. “They had to keep it on the DL because she was married, but yeah, they were going at it hot and heavy until…”
“Until what?” Nash urged. “The whole story, Billy, the one you should have told the authorities the first time.”
“Jax and I, we go way back.” Billy’s throat worked as he tried to swallow. “I mean, he’d never do anything like this.”
“He threw a drink at a woman who was annoying him,” Nash said tautly.
“He’s got a temper.”
“With women,” Nash insisted, stern, in full-on cop mode.
Billy hung his head. “Mainly when he drinks. Which is a lot lately. I’ve avoided him the past couple of months.”
“You didn’t want to be around someone acting erratically, Billy. That’s understandable,” Katherine soothed. “You’re not like that.”
Billy’s face sagged in relief as he turned to Katherine, his ally. “He’s been acting crazy. Getting fired from jobs. Paranoid. When Vivienne called things off, he took it hard. She’s got a lot of money, so he thought he’d be all set. Marry a rich divorcée, travel the world, never work another day of his life. You know. The dream.”
Katherine nodded like it was perfectly reasonable to prey on women for their money. Asshole. “Why’d she break up with him?”
Billy lifted one shoulder then dropped it. �
�She had a black eye. Don’t know if her old man did it or Jax. She stopped by one day when we opened and took him out back. I was smoking a cigarette by the dumpster so they didn’t see me.”
“What’d she say?”
“She told him to stop calling her. Said he had to get it through his thick head it was over. He didn’t take it so well—grabbed her arm and said she wasn’t getting rid of him so easily.”
“Did he hit her?”
“No. I must have made a sound because they noticed me, and Billy let her go. She ripped into him, calling him a piece of trash and stupid to think a woman like her would want a nobody like him. As she walked away, he lunged at her, but I held him back. He told her—”
“Told her what, Billy?” Katherine ground her teeth, but kept her voice cordial.
“Is Jax going to get in trouble?”
“Only if he did something wrong.”
Billy pressed his lips in a flat line, the color leaching from them. At last, he nodded. “He said he’d kill her. But he was just angry…you know?” Billy’s voice picked up speed. “Jax is a hothead. It’s not like he would…I mean…he didn’t…”
Katherine’s spine pulled tight as a rope. The truth was hard to get when speaking to witnesses. Parts of it. Pieces of it, sure. But it was usually just a little out of focus until moments like this, when someone mentioned an angry ex making death threats. “Thank you, Billy. If you can come down to the station tomorrow morning, we’ll take your official statement then.”
The words barely left her mouth before Nash hustled her toward the parking area. Katherine peered up at Nash, whose expression was a mix of horror, determination, and lethal purpose. But mostly horror.
“You’ll put in a good word with Ms. Landon for me, right, Nash?”
Nash continued moving, as if he hadn’t heard. “Vivienne’s the first victim.”
Katherine’s lips shook, and her free hand balled into a fist. “She could have been Jax’s trigger. A rich woman, belittling him, rejecting him. He killed her and got a taste for it.”
“And now he can’t stop himself.”
The image of sweet, hapless Brittany in this asshole’s clutches flashed painfully in Katherine’s mind. She needed to find the earnest special education teacher who believed glitter made the world a better place and rescue her from the extreme torment no one should ever suffer.
“That’s where we come in,” Katherine said grimly, hitting the remote to unlock the car and breaking into a full-out sprint.
Chapter Nine
The speedometer hovered at ninety as they raced down back roads to Jax Fuller’s cabin. Nash eyed Katherine’s clenched jaw and white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. She was fired up like him.
Would Layla be there? His heart thrashed in his chest as he imagined returning her safely to her mother.
A ringtone sounded through the speakers, and he hit the answer button to save Katherine the trouble. At this speed, he wanted her eyes on the road.
“Hello? Katherine?” a male voice sounded through the speakers.
She blew out a long breath followed by, “Hey, Robby.”
“I heard about this new Italian place downtown. Want to try it out? They’ve got wood-fired pizza.”
Instantly, Nash regretted answering the call. Hearing another guy ask her for a date didn’t sit well with him.
Not one bit.
Off in the distance, heat lightning crackled against a darkening sky.
“Sounds great, except I had Italian last night.” Her eyes flicked to Nash.
“Then how about—”
“I saw your logos in some businesses downtown today,” she cut in, changing topics.
She didn’t want to go out with Robby. Absurd relief loosened Nash’s tense neck.
“Business is good. I’ve got five jobs lined up after I finish Dallas Heat.” Pride deepened Robby’s voice.
“That’s great, Robby.”
“It pays the bills. And dinners out. So…”
Katherine flicked on her blinker and moved into the left lane to pass a slow-moving sedan. “Can I call you when things are less crazy?”
“Sounds good. Talk to you soon.”
Nash clicked off the call just as another came in.
“Hey, girl.”
“Hey, Megan. Look, I really can’t talk. I’m in the middle of something.”
“Something related to Brittany? Have you found out anything?”
“Nothing I can share.”
Megan’s sigh blew through the speaker. “Everyone at school’s so worried about her. We weren’t super tight, since Brittany and I taught in different buildings, but her close friends are taking it really hard.”
“I can imagine.”
“I know you can, sweetie,” Megan said quietly, then her voice rose. “So, distract me. Have you seen our favorite sex god again? You said he was awesome—”
“I’ve really got to go,” Katherine cut in, her cheeks pink.
“When can you go out again? All work, no play—”
“I’m sorry, Megs, but it’s crazy right now. How about I call you when I’m free?”
“I’ll be eighty years old by then. Too old for strip clubs.”
“You?” Katherine scoffed with a slight smile. “Doubtful. Bye, babe.”
She clicked off the call and sagged back in her seat.
He couldn’t stop his smile any more than he could stop his next breath. “You said I was awesome?”
“Hello. Doesn’t everybody?”
“I don’t care about everybody.”
A silence descended, swelling with unspoken words and incomplete thoughts. What could he say when he hadn’t even figured out what he wanted yet or how he felt? Katherine threw him off his game and rewrote the rules.
“Arriving at destination in one mile,” announced the disembodied GPS voice.
“Go time,” Katherine murmured beneath her breath. They swung onto a dirt road cutting through dense forest. Flies whirled around a deer carcass hanging from an oak beside a dilapidated one-story cabin. It was a hovel that probably should have been condemned.
The killer could be here. Right here.
Cold sweat broke out on the back of Nash’s neck. As the car rolled to a stop, a Rottweiler lunged on the end of a chain, barking madly.
“So much for arriving unannounced,” Katherine muttered as they exited the car. She unsnapped her gun holster. “Are you armed?”
“Yes.” Protectiveness surged as he patted his Smith & Wesson. He wouldn’t let a damn thing happen to Katherine—a strange thought considering she had training and years of job experience. But he had guts and determination, qualities he’d use to ensure her safety. Somewhere along the line, she’d become important to him.
She returned his nod. “Good.”
They climbed decrepit wooden stairs to a sagging porch littered with debris. A one-eared cat, perched on a cracked sink, hissed. Nash banged on the screen door, cupped his hands around his eyes, and peered inside the dim interior. The air streaming from the mesh was mildewed, tinged with the sickly smell of rancid grease and rotting produce.
“Hello? Anyone here?” Nash’s hand rested on his concealed gun. “Hello?” Jax was a hothead. If he tried messing with Katherine, he’d regret being born.
“All right. All right. Jesus.” A grizzled old man, his wrinkled skin the color and texture of beef jerky, limped into view, a cane in one hand. “You people. Never leave an old man in peace. What’s it now? Jehovah’s Witnesses?”
Deep-set, beady eyes peered balefully at them through the screen. When they lit on Katherine, yellow teeth appeared in a beaver’s smile. He opened the door and ushered them inside. “Well, now. You’re so pretty, missy, I might just give religion a try after all.” A cackle of laughter escaped the old man, dry and brittle as the
dead leaves heaped on the porch. “What can I do you for?”
Katherine flashed her credentials. “I’m Special Agent Katherine Bowden with the FBI, and this is my associate, private investigator Nash Hawkins. Is your son Jax at home?”
The older man’s face fell. “Now what in the hell did that boy do now? Lousy son of a…can’t hold down a job. Sleeps all day. Out all night.” Before Nash or Katherine could respond, Jax’s father peered down a hall off the narrow living room and shouted, “Jax! Police want you!”
Jax emerged barefoot and shirtless, his hands shoved in the rear pockets of droopy jeans. The way his dilated pupils darted every which way lifted the hairs on the back of Nash’s neck.
With a wave of his cane, his father limped forward. “Worthless deviant. Waste of space. Shoulda never let you move back home when you got in trouble last year…”
“I’m not going back to jail!” Jax yelled and pulled a gun from the back of his waistband.
Nash drew his pistol and stepped protectively in front of Katherine. “Drop your weapon!” he barked.
Katherine ducked around Nash, her Glock pointed dead at Jax’s chest. “And get on the ground!”
Jax grabbed his father in a headlock and pressed the gun to his temple, using him as a shield. “Make one move, and he’s dead.” Jax dragged his struggling father to the kitchen’s rear door.
“We just came to talk, Jax.” To Katherine’s credit, she remained calm, poised and assertive, her voice steady. “Now put down the gun, and let your father go.”
A bitter laugh escaped Jax, a dark, ugly sound. “Lying bitch. I don’t take orders from sluts.” When he reached the kitchen door, he shoved his father away and raced outside.
“Shit!” Katherine called for backup on her walkie-talkie as they charged after Jax, tearing through thick underbrush. Nash clenched clammy fingers around his slipping gun. Thunder boomed in the distance, and the sky let loose its first salvo of rain. Just ahead, Katherine hurtled over the rough terrain. Out in front of her, Jax darted this way and that, his knowledge of the area making him sure-footed and quick.