by Nancy Bush
“Carter Wren?” she asked.
“Detective Rafferty?” he asked in return, adrenaline zipping through his veins. He generally loved the heightened feeling of danger, but he had to be careful here. Play the game for all it was worth. “What are you doing here?”
“Meeting you,” she said in a cool tone that instantly infuriated him. The bitch thought she was in control.
“We were supposed to meet at the office,” he reminded her just as coolly. “I was about to head there now. I wanted to check things out here because we’ve had some problems with vagrants.”
“Really.”
“Yes, really, Detective. And my sister’s in the hospital, so we need to make this short. I told you everything I know about Lance. If only Greg had lived. They were the ones who were friends.”
“What if I told you I don’t believe you?”
He laughed. “What is this, some kind of shakedown?” He spread his hands, thinking about the Taser in his pocket.
“I guess it is,” she said thoughtfully. “You killed Lance Patten, buried him, then moved him to the Singletons’ basement. You strangled Wendy Kirkendall with a willow branch and threw her into Schultz Lake. You coerced or forced Trinidad Finch into eating an energy bar made with cricket flour because you knew of her severe allergy to shellfish. You tased Christine Tern, dragged her to the Columbia River, and threw her in. And you tossed Belinda Meadowlark over the rail of a Washington State ferry. You’ve been playing a killing game for a long time and you’ve targeted Andrea Wren as your next victim.”
Carter was numb with shock. She didn’t know all his moves, but she sure as hell knew a lot of them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.”
Carter assessed his next move. Slowly, he moved his hand toward his pocket. He suspected she had a gun, but he could be on her in a flash. And from what he could tell, she looked tasty. Young, trim, smart. His cock stirred at the thought. He hadn’t gotten to have Andi, but this female detective was ripe for the picking.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” she said sharply.
“You’ve got me all wrong.” His fingers were inside the flap of his jacket pocket.
“Stop.”
No time to waste. He rushed her.
“Fucking stop right there!” another female voice rang out from the shadows. He turned and saw the muzzle of a gun staring him in the face. “Game over, asshole,” she snarled.
For a moment he almost ran, but then he calmed himself down and raised his hands. It’s never over. They don’t have anything on me. I’m too smart for them. Like brilliant, untouchable, reclusive Bobby Fischer, the youngest International Grandmaster of chess at age fifteen. The best chess player of all time. And Bobby disappeared for years and years. I’ll get off, and then I can, too. I’m just that smart.
Epilogue
Luke sat on a barstool at Tiny Tim’s nursing a beer. Andi was beside him, twirling the stem on the glass of Chardonnay she wasn’t really drinking. She’d recovered from the near drowning, but she was still feeling scared. She knew Carter had been taken into custody, but it didn’t erase the fear.
Luke’s pals from the Portland PD, Amberson, Yates, and DeSantos, had gathered at the bar to send off the Carrera brothers to the great hereafter. It certainly wasn’t a sad occasion, but it wasn’t really a joyous one either. After all, Peg Bellows had been a victim of the shootout at her cabin.
Ray Bolchoy was there, too, quietly sitting in a corner, sporting an ironic smile. Luke had said he was actually jumping for joy. That was just Ray’s style.
“It’s not the ending I wanted,” Luke was saying, referring to Peg Bellows’s death. “And I actually would have loved facing the Carreras across a courtroom for their misdeeds.”
“Rule number sixty-seven,” Bolchoy said loudly. “No crying over a dead Carrera.”
They all looked at him and his smile grew wider. “Not really a rule, but it should be,” he admitted.
“Come back to the force,” Opal said to Luke. She was tall, black, and commanding.
“I heard there’re cutbacks,” he responded, finishing his beer.
“They’ll find a way to fit you in.” She looked over at Andi and said, “Talk him into it.”
“I’m doing work for my brother,” he told Opal. “I kind of like being my own boss.”
“You’re gonna work for the defense? That’ll curl Iris’s hair.”
Luke shrugged and smiled. He’d told Andi about his ex, and then Iris had phoned him after their interview with Pauline Kirby aired earlier that week. Luke hadn’t wanted to do it, but Andi had been the one who wanted to tell her story about Carter to the world.
The newswoman had also done a segment with Detectives Rafferty and Sandler, and the overall piece had painted the Carreras as the nasty dogs in the manger they were.
An hour later they said good-bye to his pals and headed to her cabin. Luke was already half moved-in; they were going to make their living arrangement permanent. Neither of them had spoken of marriage; it was too soon. But there was a subject Andi needed to talk to him about.
As Luke pulled her car up next to his in the driveway, she said, making conversation, screwing up her courage, “I’m glad Emma’s going to be okay.”
“If the Carreras had lived, she could have testified against Brian because she saw him.”
They both climbed out of the car and walked through a misting rain to her cabin door. The willow wreath was still there, and Andi recalled Luke making it for her. She swallowed and said, as they crossed the threshold, “You know what I said about not needing condoms?” His head whipped around in surprise and she added quickly, “No, not that. I’m not pregnant. I just want you to know that my pregnancy with Greg was an anomaly. It’s unlikely it will ever happen again. I’ve been through IVF and testing and you name it, and then I lost his baby, too. What I’m saying is, no matter what happens in the future between us, that’s the reality of my life.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay.”
They walked inside the cabin together, but Andi couldn’t leave it there. “Okay? What does that mean?”
“It means I love you, Andi. I almost lost you, and that about killed me. I never want that to happen again. I’d like to have children, sure. Maybe we can, maybe we can’t. But I’m not running out on you just because it might not ever happen.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
He regarded her steadily. “But I see your point. Maybe we don’t need condoms. Maybe we just roll the dice and see what happens.”
“Are you ready for that? I mean, if by some miracle it did happen?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She felt tears star her lashes. “Okay, then.”
“Okay, then.”
She glanced toward the bedroom, then back at Luke. For the briefest moment he was still, then he started ripping off his shirt and racewalking to the bedroom.
She was right on his heels.
* * *
“Caught you and Gretchen on television,” Wes Pelligree said to September as she walked into the squad room.
“Luke Denton and Andrea Wren were interviewed, too,” September protested. They teased her mercilessly about being the media darling of the department.
George swiveled in his chair. “Yeah, but Pauline Kirby just loves you,” he said. This time there was no edge to his voice. D’Annibal had called George into his office, and although she and the rest of the detectives suspected George had been reprimanded for spending too much time inside, he’d fingered Trinidad Finch’s killer and solved the case with his research.
“How’s your mom?” September asked Wes. He’d come back to work the last few days, but the situation with his mother’s health was ever-changing.
“Believe it or not, great.”
“Great?”
Wes spread his hands and smiled in relief. “One moment they’re telling me she’s unlikely to make it through the night, the next she’s
awake and on the road to recovery. I’m still getting used to the idea.”
“I’m so glad,” she said, meaning it.
“Thanks.”
“It’s your turn in D’ Annibal’s office today, Nine, right?” George asked her.
“Sure is,” September answered.
All the detectives had been asked for a one-on-one in the lieutenant’s office in order of the date they were hired. September was the last. She hoped her interview with Pauline Kirby didn’t work against her, but it hadn’t for Gretchen, who’d been right beside her. With the dental records proving Lance Patten was indeed the other victim in the Singletons’ basement, and Andrea Wren’s recount of what Carter told her when she was captured, the Aurora Lane case was about wrapped up as well. September and Gretchen were currently working to unravel a number of unsolved homicides that may have been Carter’s doing as well. Gretchen was driving to eastern Oregon on a possible bird murder before Belinda Meadowlark’s. Carter had begun his last game even before Gregory Wren’s death, already planning a sick joyride of innocent victims, with Andrea Wren as the ultimate “little bird.”
“Detective Rafferty?”
Lieutenant D’Annibal stuck his head out of his glass office, the walls of which were curtained. Most times the detectives could see into it because the lieutenant liked transparency in his working relations with his squad. But this week had been different. Even though he’d praised them all for solving the slew of cold cases wrought by Wren, the department’s continuing financial crisis was taking a good amount of his time.
September glanced down at her engagement ring. As soon as Wren was captured, she’d gone home to Jake and said, “Let’s get married tomorrow.”
“Sure,” he’d answered.
“I’m kidding, you know.” She’d had a panicked moment that he’d taken her seriously. “But I’m ready.”
He’d kissed her. “How about next spring?”
“April?”
“You don’t want a June wedding?” he asked.
“Tomorrow’s too soon, but I don’t want to wait that long.”
“April it is.” And he’d kissed her and she’d felt complete. To hell with the Singletons’ hateful marriage. She’d been influenced by how terrible their union must have been, and the state of her own dysfunctional family always made her wonder how long-lasting any relationship could be, but there was no way of knowing unless she tried.
“Take a seat,” D’Annibal invited. As September did so, she noticed he remained standing. In fact, he walked to the exterior window and looked out. “You’re a good detective. A terrier. You don’t get sidetracked or categorize one case as better than another. You do fieldwork without complaint, and you rarely miss work.”
September went cold inside. “But . . . ?”
“But you’re the newest detective on staff and we have to cut one.”
“And it’s going to be me,” she realized.
“Hopefully, just temporarily. I’m sorry.” He looked at her, and she could tell he really meant what he said.
In a fog, September walked into the squad room. Wes and George looked at her expectantly and their faces fell at what they read in hers.
“I guess this is good-bye,” she said, swallowing hard against the hard knot in her throat.
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Copyright © 2016 by Nancy Bush
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