HAVING HAD ALL the splinters picked from my leg and my lacerations cleansed and bandaged, I was finally alone in my house, overcome with exhaustion and relief. I made myself a cup of chamomile tea and took it with me into the bath, which I had filled with honeysuckle-scented bubbles. Having wrapped my knee in waterproof bandages, I soaked in the aromatic froth, musing over the day’s events. Issues had been resolved. Trey had decided to go to college. And Justyn’s violence had been stopped once and for all. He was off the streets and in custody.
I hoped for Makayla’s sake that she’d merely knocked him unconscious. Makayla didn’t have a mean bone in her body and would feel terrible if he died, despite the fact that he was a murderer. I wished we had stayed to see Sean and his men carting Justyn off, so that I’d know for certain that she hadn’t killed him.
An unwelcome thought penetrated my relief. What if he’d regained consciousness while Makayla and I were waiting in the car? What if he’d come to and run away through a rear exit? What if…?
I dunked my head underwater to drown out those thoughts. Justyn was apprehended. It was over.
A few minutes later, I was wearing my soft flannel Hello Kitty pajamas that Trey had given me last Christmas. Feeling cozy and warm and ready to tuck into bed with a book, I walked around the house to make sure I’d locked the doors and windows.
After inspecting the window above the kitchen sink, I poured myself a glass of water and drank thirstily, draining the glass. As I brought it down, my breath caught in my throat. Staring at me through the glass was a face; a dark, shadowy face with angry eyes.
Justyn had come for me!
Chapter 16
BUT IT WASN’T JUSTYN.
He’d been haunting my dreams since Melissa’s murder, so naturally I assumed that the twisted, hateful face on the other side of the glass belonged to him, but it didn’t.
It was hardly any comfort that I wasn’t staring at a killer, because the intruder looked furious and desperate enough to commit his own act of unspeakable violence.
“Jasper!” I shouted, refusing to let the co-op leader see how much he’d scared me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I have no idea whether he heard me or not, but his eyes flashed with a cold light and then he disappeared from view. My courage wavered and I limped into the living room and grabbed the fireplace poker. With my free hand, I dialed 911 and reported my emergency as quickly as possible.
The operator asked me to stay on the line, so I dropped the phone into the pocket of my robe and turned off the lamp. The darkness instantly became heavy, weighed down by my fear. Every noise seemed amplified. My shallow exhalations, the whisper of my slippers on the floorboards, and the rustle of the hem of my pajama bottoms as I moved were far too loud.
I nearly screamed when I saw a long shadow fall across my front porch. And when I heard the rattle of the doorknob, I had to bite down on my fist to keep the terror in check. My door was locked, but if Jasper was determined to get into the house, he only had to smash the pane, reach in through the hole in the glass, and unlock the dead bolt.
Dozens of scenarios crowded my head. I could stand here, the iron poker raised over my shoulder, and wait for Jasper to walk into the room. Swinging with all my might, it was possible that I’d knock him out. Then again, I might not. If I injured Jasper without rendering him unconscious, the pain could serve as a catalyst, fueling his rage to the point where he would lash out, attacking me until his fury was spent.
Hide! a part of me silently shrieked, but I instantly rebelled against that notion. I wasn’t about to crawl under the bed and cower. This was my house.
There was a scratching noise against the wood of my front door, and I pictured Jasper picking the lock. The image made me livid. How dare this drug-dealing pseudo-hippie try to break in? I refused to become another crime statistic. In fact, I planned to turn the tables on this creep.
As quietly as possible, I hurried through the living room and into the kitchen. After grabbing a coat from the hook on the back of the door, I pulled out the Eat, Sleep, Read key chain from a drawer and headed outside.
My injured leg throbbed in protest as I crossed the lawn, tiptoed through my dormant garden, and slid a key into the padlock affixed to the shed. I’m not sure why I kept the tiny building locked, but I’d bought a new set of tools after moving into my house, as well as a leaf blower and a self-propelling lawn mower, and had decided to err on the side of caution. Now I was glad that I did.
Because this was a bona fide potting shed, there was a pass-through window cut out of the rear wall. It was made of the same sturdy hardwood as the shed and slid open and closed like a barn door. Below the window, there was a small table and a ledge to hold seed trays and clay pots. I removed the padlock from the window’s wooden panel, grabbed a hoe, and, leaving the front door open a crack, snuck around to the back of the shed.
Hesitating for a moment, I considered the holes in my impromptu plan, but then I sucked in a deep, steadying breath and pushed the hoe through the opening in the window, knocking a stack of pots and a pair of gardening shears to the floor of the shed. The sound reverberated in the still night and I tensed. Would it be enough to lure Jasper away from the front of the house?
Pulling the hoe outside again, I slid the wooden panel closed, locked it from the outside, and waited.
There was no doubt that Jasper could move with stealth. He’d walked the woods of Red Fox Mountain for years and had told Trey that he knew exactly how to plant his feet to deaden the sound of his footfalls. He claimed to have been taught this technique by a member of the Cherokee Tribe, and if he’d been telling the truth, I might not be aware he’d entered the shed until it was too late.
“I know you and Trey are in here,” his voice suddenly hissed.
Jasper was close—so close that I had no problem imagining him as a lion on the hunt as he stalked over the grass and shriveled flower stalks. Luckily for me, I heard a crunch as his shoes came in contact with some of the pottery shards and knew he’d entered the shed.
I rushed around the building, slammed the door, and clicked the padlock into place a heartbeat before Jasper slammed into the door.
“Trey, let me out!” he roared. “You’re making a big mistake. You and your sweet mama are going to pay. You ruined me.”
Blood was rushing through my veins with such force that his words barely registered. Leaning on the hoe, I panted for a moment, stunned that I’d succeeded in trapping Jasper. On the other side of the door, he continued to shout threats and expletives until my anger flared red-hot.
“How dare you?” I hollered back at him. “How dare you abuse my son’s trust and then show up at my home in the middle of the night? How dare you sell harmful drugs to kids? They might not know better, but you should. So help me, Jasper, if you come out of that shed I will bash your brains in with this garden hoe.”
Jasper’s incensed pounding ceased.
“Do you realize what you’ve put your sister through?” I continued mercilessly. “How scared she is? If it weren’t for Trey, she would have fallen apart by now. You broke her heart, Jasper. What do you think will happen to her now?”
My words were met with silence. It lasted for a long time. A breeze rustled through the bare branches of the oak tree in the far corner of my yard, and I gazed up at the ink black sky, finding comfort in the presence of the high stars.
“Where is she?” Jasper finally asked in a soft, defeated voice.
“With Trey and my mother. She’d like to go to college but doesn’t have the money. Her big brother ran away with all of it. She’s got nothing but the clothes on her back.” I was being cruel, but I couldn’t help it. Jasper deserved to suffer for betraying and endangering so many others.
A thud came from inside the shed, and when Jasper spoke next, his voice was lower to the ground and I could only assume that he’d sunk to his knees, literally floored by guilt and regret. “I hid my ATM card in one of the birdhouses at the clea
ring,” he said. “You know the place. Iris brought you there after Marlette was killed. The password is Iris’s birth date. Please…tell her…” he trailed off.
A shrill siren cut through the night’s hush. The cops had entered the neighborhood and would be pulling into my driveway in a matter of seconds.
“I’ll tell her where to find the bank card,” I assured Jasper.
The sirens grew louder. Rotating white and blue lights suddenly illuminated the side of my house, throwing multicolored beams into the shrubbery and trees.
“Lila!” Sean called out.
“Back here,” I yelled in reply, my voice sounding hoarse and tired.
A car door slammed, the beam of a flashlight wobbled over the grass, and I could hear him running toward me.
“Wait,” Jasper pleaded. “Tell Iris that I’m sorry. I grew greedy and forgot my purpose. Tell her that I never wanted to hurt her. Or anyone else. That I was happiest when things were simple. I screwed it all up and I’d do anything to make it right. Will you help my sister?”
“I will,” I promised, and then Sean was there.
Dropping the hoe, I wrapped my arms around his neck and breathed in his familiar scent. His hands encircled my waist and he kissed my forehead and my cheek before finding my lips. He kissed me deeply, urgently, and I knew in that moment how worried he’d been.
“I can’t leave you alone for ten minutes,” he growled when he finally released me.
I handed Sean the shed key. “Jasper’s inside. I don’t know what his intentions were, but I think the fight’s gone out of him.”
Pointing at my garden hoe, Sean asked, “Did you assault him?”
“No. I was just holding on to this in case he got out.” I dropped the tool onto the ground and looked up as a second policeman jogged toward us. “I’m cold and my leg hurts, so I think I’ll head inside. Besides, I don’t want to watch you guys take Jasper away. This place is my only haven.” I made a gesture meant to encompass the house, the yard, and the shed. “I’d like to wake up in the morning still feeling that way.”
Sean nodded and then, leaning close to me, whispered, “Officer McKeon will be booking Jasper. I’m staying here tonight.”
When I looked surprised, he barked out a laugh. “Oh, Lila. You’re hurt and we’re both too damned exhausted for more than a hug and kiss good night followed by eight hours of spooning.” His eyes were shining with mirth. “Listen, lady, you’ve closed two open cases in one day. You’re making the Dunston Police Department look inept, so I’m sleeping over to make sure that you’ve gone off duty for the rest of the night. Got it?”
Smiling, I said, “Got it. And I’m hoping that the sudden decrease in the crime rate means that you and I will be spending more time together.”
He pointed at my leg. “Just don’t be in any rush for that to mend, because when all my paperwork has been filed, I’m going to spend my time sweeping you off your feet.”
I liked the sound of that.
I MET UP with Makayla at the police station the next morning. Sean had driven me there so I could give my statement, and Makayla appeared to do the same. I waited for her in the lobby while she finished, and then she offered to give me a ride home.
“I don’t know how I’ll manage to get through my day,” Makayla said as she started the engine. “I hardly slept a wink last night. Couldn’t get that nasty, evil man out of my mind. I was relieved that my bash on his noggin only gave him a slight concussion. The last thing I’d want to do is kill somebody, even if he’s a lowlife, scumbag murderer.” She looked at me. “How’d you sleep?”
“Surprisingly well. Knowing that both Justyn and Jasper were in police custody helped.” I couldn’t keep from smiling, “Besides, having Sean sleep over made me feel safe. I conked out as soon as my head hit the pillow.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Just like that? You and Romeo didn’t knock boots first? I’d think you’d be clinging to that man like a kudzu vine.”
I shook my head, amused by the image. “I crawled into bed and was gone.” My cheeks got hot. “Though it was really tempting to spend the whole morning in bed. Too bad neither Sean nor I could play hooky today. At least we got to snuggle for a bit.” Wanting to keep the memory of those brief moments to myself, I changed the subject. “Did Sean tell you what made Justyn track Melissa and Tilly down?”
She nodded. “Something about him being desperate to get ahold of his mother’s medical records. Why he couldn’t have gone through proper channels is beyond me. I know filling out paperwork is a drag, but Lordy, he didn’t have to go postal over a little bureaucracy.”
“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Apparently, he’d recently been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes and had to give himself daily injections, something he hated. He blamed his birth mother for his condition and wanted to confront her,” I began.
Makayla made a sympathetic noise. “That’s a tough illness to have.”
“It wasn’t just the diabetes that was tough.” I sighed. “This is going to sound like I’m defending him, which I’m not, but he had a hard and loveless childhood in Dunston and then grew up to enjoy a hard and loveless adulthood in the same town. He wanted someone to pay for that. In any case, Social Services wouldn’t give him his mother’s identity, but the clerk he spoke with inadvertently revealed the caseworker’s name. That was Melissa Plume. That started him on his quest for vengeance.”
“But why hurt Melissa?” Makayla shook her head, perplexed. “What did he have against her? She wasn’t the one who gave him up when he was a baby.”
I shrugged. “I don’t think he intended to kill her. He just wanted information from her. He wanted to scare her into telling him about his mother, Tilly. And he confused me for her at first and that’s why he left me the raven’s feather and came after me in the hallway of the town hall. Unfortunately, when he finally did manage to get Melissa alone, something in him snapped. Perhaps her answers frustrated him and he attacked in a rage. Perhaps he blamed her for placing him in all those unhappy foster homes, since she was his caseworker. I guess he was already pretty unstable.”
“What was with the feathers?”
“He wanted to let Melissa know that he was following her—that he knew about her life, both public and private. She has a blog and, like her business card, the graphic design includes a quill. Because her last name is Plume. Get it?”
Makayla nodded.
“That’s also how Justyn knew she’d be in Inspiration Valley,” I explained. “She posted on her blog that she planned to attend our conference.”
“I’ll never look at a crow the same way again,” Makayla mumbled. “And we all know he went after Tilly next.”
I nodded sadly. “With no formal education and no family support, Justyn could only land thankless, low-paying jobs. He worked as a housepainter, as a roofer, and for a landscape company mowing lawns. And what he saw during those years as he changed from a boy to a man was what a real family looked like. A loving family.” I thought of Trey and felt a lump in my throat. “He saw mothers singing lullabies and dads throwing baseballs in the front yard. He saw parents and children gathering around the supper table to enjoy a home-cooked meal. He saw pictures taped to refrigerators and Christmas trees surrounded by presents. He saw all that he’d never had, and it turned him into a monster.”
Makayla had tears in her eyes. “He wanted someone to pay.”
A loud sigh escaped my lips. “When he finally found Tilly, only to discover that she’d had other children after leaving him on the proverbial doorstep, he must have seen red. Especially since you only had to watch her with those kids to know that she clearly doted on them.”
“It sure would have put salt in the wound to see what a loving mom she was to them. The same woman who gave him up so he could be passed from one foster home to another—who never tried to reconnect with him. Meanwhile, she’s baking cookies and knitting scarves for her other kids.” Makayla frowned. “I’ve got to admit th
at that boy had a bad time of it. Still, lots of people face rejection from their own mothers and don’t go around murdering them.”
“Tilly was no longer the drug-addicted teenager who gave birth to Justyn. She’d cleaned up, made a new life for herself, and wanted to forget all about her dark past. That’s why she lied to me about knowing Melissa, so the old Tilly could remain buried.” I shifted in my seat. “You know, even though she was messed up then, I think she thought she was doing the right thing by leaving him at a church so he could be taken care of. The teddy bear Justyn placed beside Tilly’s body was the same one she’d left in the laundry basket with him before walking away forever. Her only gift to her son.”
Makayla pursed her lips in disapproval. “Drugs will twist people’s lives into all kinds of knots. Everything would have been completely different if Tilly hadn’t gotten hooked on drugs when she was young.” She glanced my way. “It’s a good thing Jasper’s little ’shroom operation at the co-op was closed down. Who knows how many more kids’ futures would have been derailed by it.”
I heartily agreed, pushing aside images of what might have happened if Trey had gotten pulled into those “meditation sessions.” We were quiet for a while, each with our own thoughts, watching the road flit past.
“I wonder how my assistant managed the Sunday morning at the coffee shop,” Makayla mused, breaking the silence. “Lila, we make a mighty sharp sleuthing team, if you ask me.” She reached over and touched my hand. “But let’s hang up our superhero capes and focus on being Bella Barista and Awesome Agent. Books, coffee, and a good-looking man are all the excitement we should be seeking from here on out.”
ON MONDAY MORNING, I showed up at Novel Idea scandalously late, hobbling up the stairs at ten. My knee was still giving me a lot of pain and I was moving slowly, despite getting some rest on Sunday. Vicky followed me into my office carrying a hot caramel latte and a stack of phone messages for me to sort through. “Officer Griffiths is quite the gentleman,” she said, handing me the Espresso Yourself takeout cup. “He called and explained everything that happened this weekend and why you’d be tardy today. There was no need to worry, seeing as Ms. Burlington-Duke informed me that she wouldn’t be in until eleven, but I would have covered for you in any case.”
Every Trick in the Book Page 23