“That’s all we’ve got, Maddox, a missing person case, and the cops won’t get serious about that for at least 48 hours, not without any evidence of wrong doing.” He held his phone up to me. “Thanks, got it.”
“That’s not all,” Joe said. “What about Peter Nell being at Hollow House, disguised as a subcontractor with that wood chomper? That’s suspicious, especially if he’s supposed to be a medical rep.”
Nate looked at him. “That’s what we’re selling, and I need you to turn your story in. If there’s any chance you’re right, that this is somehow linked to the Lacey Markson case, then the FBI may already have intel that could help Jenna.”
I gasped as I realized what he was asking of Joe. “What will happen to Joe?”
Nate’s eyes came to me. “They’ll hold him for questioning, but I’ll corroborate everything he says. I intend to tell them Joe’s part of the lead I was chasing. Once the FBI gets involved, however, it’s out of my hands. If they establish the link, they’ll hold Joe for as long as they deem necessary, but they’ll also leave no stone unturned. This is what we want, Maddox, as many minds and guns on this case as possible.”
“I’ll do it,” Joe said. “I don’t care how long they detain me, if it’ll help Jenna…”
“That’s settled then.” Nate’s gaze flicked to him, back to me. “You’re going back to the hotel to wait for me.”
“What?” I frowned at him. No way in hell. “No!”
“They’ll just detain you as well, and that doesn’t do anyone any good, especially Jenna.” He curled a hand over my shoulder, looked me in the eye. “I saw a pizza joint on the main road behind us earlier. I’ll call a taxi to pick you up from there, okay?”
“And what am I supposed to do?” I ground out. “Sit in a hotel room, twiddling my thumbs?”
“Of course not,” Nate said, and proceeded to instruct me in exactly what I was supposed to do.
I still didn’t like being so far removed from the action, but his plan made a lot more sense than throwing myself into a holding cell with Joe. My gaze landed on Joe, bleached face and sagging shoulders, and all the blame and bad feelings swept away. He wasn’t to blame here. We all were. We’d rushed into this adventure like blind fools, clueless as to how it might all go so wrong.
“I’m sorry about being so harsh earlier,” I said to Joe, and that’s all the apology I was allowed before Nate prodded me through the doorway and into the snowy blitz of the night.
There were no lights outside the saloon, and I had to grope my way along the side of the building before the reflections from the busy main road lit a path. The temperature had dropped with the gusting wind. Sleet mixed into the snow that stung my skin wherever it pelted. I put my head down and stomped through the back yard that opened onto the road, dire thoughts right up there with this miserable night.
The pizza place was a Papa John’s, one of my favorites, but I couldn’t conjure up a single hunger pang. I didn’t need stress to enjoy food, but I usually needed food to endure stress. Seemed like I’d finally hit rock bottom, found myself the kind of trouble I couldn’t eat my way out of. I wouldn’t think straight, wouldn’t breathe right, not until we’d brought Jenna safely home.
I stamped my boots on the sludgy pavement to stir some warmth into my toes as I waited for my ride and placed the call to Hollow House.
Burns answered on about the hundredth ring. “Hollow House,” he murmured, clearly half asleep.
I glanced at my watch. It was only eight-thirty. So, not sleep sleep, just one of his extended naps. “Burns, this is Maddie.”
Silence.
I held my phone out to check the signal. All fine. “Burns? Are you there?”
“Where else would I be, Ms Storm?”
Lord, spare me. “Burns, this is important, so just hear me out, okay?” No answer, but I wasn’t falling for that trick again. “Jenna is missing.”
“Missing?”
“That’s what I said.”
His sigh suffered down the line. “Are you sure you didn’t forget her in the last town you passed through?”
“Burns!” I snapped. “Jenna is gone! Kidnapped by a murderer!”
That seemed to wake him up. “Should I call Sheriff Matthews?”
“No,” I said quickly. That did remind me, however, that someone had to tell Jack that the love of his love was missing. And Jenna’s parents. Panic clawed my lungs. I pushed it down, promising to do the honors first thing in the morning. If Jenna was still missing. “Don’t call anyone, Burns, and don’t tell anyone. That’s actually why I’m phoning.”
“I wouldn’t have known anything to tell, Ms Storm, until this phone call.”
I decided this was a good point to jump right in. “You may get a visit from the FBI tomorrow, Burns. They may come asking questions about Joe—”
“The FBI is looking for Mr McMurphy?”
“Um, no, they’ll already have him, but they may come around to ask further questions as part of their investigation.”
“Did Mr McMurphy kidnap Ms Adams?” Burns asked, sounding mildly confused (which would translate to all out panic in a normal person.)
“No, Joe didn’t kidnap Jenna,” I said firmly. “Look, it’s a long story, but I need a favor, Burns, please? If the FBI does come around, don’t tell them that I left with Joe on this road trip.”
“You want me to lie to the FBI?” Burns murmured. “Wouldn’t that be considered a federal offense?”
Well, if you want to be pedantic. “I’d never ask you to lie, Burns,” I hedged. “Consider this more of an omission.”
A long pause, then, “And what should I say if they ask for you, Ms Storm?”
“I don’t know, Burns, make something up. Tell them I’m restarting my acting career and I’m in New York City for auditions. Yes, that should do,” I said, impressed with my imagination. “I never mentioned what hotel I’m staying at, or for how long.”
“So, you want me to lie to the FBI,” he said in that word-skimming manner of his.
“It’s more like a tiny fib,” I corrected. “You’ll barely even notice it.”
“Very well, Ms Storm.”
I blinked, totally taken aback. “Seriously?”
“Would you prefer I reconsider?”
“No! I mean, thank you.”
“Will that be all?” he asked, thoroughly overcome with boredom if his tone was anything to go by.
“Actually, there is one more—hold on,” I said as the taxi pulled up. I hopped in and gave the driver instructions, then put the phone to my ear again. “Burns, you still there?”
“You’re the one who went away, Ms Storm.”
I rolled my eyes. “Do you remember those guys from the Build Yard that came to fix the boathouse? Specifically, the one who brought the wood chomper.”
Burns did remember. He hadn’t hired the wood chomper guy separately, so he must work for the Build Yard. How did that fit with Peter Nell’s medical rep job? Maybe the Build Yard had subcontracted, and Peter Nell had lied to get the job, pretended he owned a wood chomping type business.
More importantly, Burns did recall that the man was dark haired and rather ordinary to look at. Young, he said, but to Burns that could mean anything under the age of fifty.
By the time the taxi stopped outside the hotel, I was almost as convinced as Joe that we had the right Killer Max.
I paid the fare and jumped out, dashing up the grand stairs to the foyer. Then I slowed, head down, eyes forward, slinking across reception so as not to draw attention. Thank goodness Jenna and I couldn’t afford this hotel. Joe had paid for both rooms and my name wasn’t on the register. My pulse skittered as I rode the elevator to the fourth floor without incident. Don’t ask me what I was expecting, I had no idea.
I hadn’t bothered unpacking, so all I had to do was scoop my toiletries into my suitcase and wheel it out the room. Down the elevator to the third floor and Joe’s suite. I propped my suitcase against the wall and used th
e keycard Joe had given me to swipe myself into his room. Joe would hand his laptop in to the cops, but he wouldn’t tell them about the hard copy of The Twilight Kill. That’s what I’d come for. I found his canvas tote bag on the bed and delved inside for the stack of the bound pages.
Sweat beaded my upper lip as I glanced around the room, looking for the best place for him to have forgotten his keycard. I placed it on the nightstand. Looked at it, then innocently brushed it off onto the floor.
Perfect.
I wiped my lip, tucked the manuscript under my arm and fled the scene, feeling very much like the clean-up crew of a sting operation that had gone wrong.
I grabbed my suitcase and rolled it down the plush carpet to Nate’s door, my new temporary accommodations. It wasn’t perfect, but unless they really looked for it, I’d neatly unlinked myself from Joe’s trip and presence in Brackenport.
Not that I could relax.
I shucked my coat and kicked off my sodden boots, fingers shaking and mind reeling. Jenna, where the hell are you? Joe would have spilled the beans by now. Maybe the local cops had already called the FBI in. I wanted to be out there, scouring the streets, but Nate had assured me the police would do that and with more efficiency than me. There was also the APB out on the Mercedes. It was only a matter of time before they got the guy.
Meanwhile, contingency plans.
Because if the cops or FBI didn’t find Peter Nell, we only had until Wednesday, midnight, to do so ourselves.
I sat down on the sofa, legs crossed with my back to the padded arm, plonked Joe’s manuscript on the cushion in front of me and prepared myself for the last thing in the world I wanted to do.
Okay, compared to fishing Jenna’s boiled bones out of a pressurized vat, this came a distant second last thing, but my stomach still churned as I flipped the pages.
I skip-read rather than skimming, skipping chapters in the beginning and then scenes, until Lazy Luke jumped out at me. I went back and re-read. Sure enough, Lazy Luke was a rodeo bar in Brackenport. I stabbed my elbows either side the pages and leant over to do some serious reading.
It wasn’t long before I reached one of the dreaded parts that made my skin crawl…
… Max lurked in the shadows, hesitant to show his face to anyone who’d be around to remember him in the morning.
“Oh, come on,” the girl wheedled, tugging at his arm. “Let’s dance.”
His resolve firmed.
She was perfect. Blonde. Angelic. Intoxicated.
“I have a confession to make.” He looped his arms around her waist, drawing her in.
She wiggled up against his body, giggled. “I love secrets.”
He nudged his eyes at the group of guys huddled at the bar. Middle-aged, disillusioned businessmen, he could tell by the crinkled suits and cheap ties. “You see my friends there?”
The girl looked.
He rested his chin on her head, allowed one hand to drift over her hip, lower. “They’re good guys, but not exactly discreet.”
She cuddled closer, tilted her pale blue eyes up to him, giggled again. “Do they need to be?”
He stared into her trusting eyes. So naïve. So innocent. “Yes.”
“Oh, Max,” she sighed, misplacing the heat building in his gaze for lust. “I should care, but I don’t. You’re married, aren’t you?”
He hesitated, just long enough for her to know how difficult this was for him. How much he desired her. What a decent man he really was. “I’ve never cheated on my wife before.”
My stomach lurched. I clamped a hand to my mouth, afraid I’d empty my disgust all over Nate’s sofa.
Right, so small disclosure. The 476 pages wasn’t the only the reason I’d balked at reading The Twilight Kill. I knew I shouldn’t judge Joe, he wasn’t a killer just because he wrote a killer, he wasn’t a cheater just because he wrote a cheater…except, in that last instance, he actually was. He’d pulled the wall down between him and Max when he’d seduced Chintilly in real life. And this scene…how was I supposed to read something like this without imagining Joe in that bar, preparing to cheat on me.
I jumped up in a jangle of sickly nerves.
We weren’t married anymore.
I honestly didn’t care what Joe did.
But we had been married when he’d hurt me and now I had to read about it.
I didn’t usually drink alone, but tonight seemed like the night to start. I strode to the mini-bar and grabbed a sample bottle of Jack Daniels, left the glass and ice and brought the bottle back to the sofa with me.
After a healthy slug, I sucked in a much needed breath and dropped my eyes to the page again. But only after deciding this part wasn’t all that relevant. Peter Nell had already deviated from the script. He hadn’t lured Jenna out to his car. He’d nabbed her from the ladies restroom and tossed her out the window.
I skimmed the paragraphs until Max Wilder had finally enticed the wriggly blonde outside and into his car. He kissed her hard and deep, pushed her head back to press kisses down her throat…oh! This was interesting. With his other hand, he searched for the syringe he’d stashed earlier and plunged the needle into her exposed neck.
A fast working sedative.
My heart galloped and I leapt to my feet, unable to sit anymore. Peter Nell was a medical rep. He’d have ample access to syringes and sedatives. Is that how he knocked Jenna out before he bundled her out the window?
Possibly.
Tonight was unplanned, hasty actions taken in a panicked state. But he was a serial killer, a sophisticated criminal. He probably carried a loaded syringe for protection where your run-of-the-mill criminal carried a loaded gun.
This felt important.
Huge.
The more pieces that fell into place, the closer we were to Jenna.
I grabbed the next bunch of loose pages to read as I paced the floor, no skimming or skipping.
The girl was gagged, her hands zip tied behind her back, but she was still unconscious and Max Wilder had at least buckled her in. Nate had said Killer Max wouldn’t necessarily follow the script word for word, but I held out hope that Peter Nell was treating Jenna with the same consideration, that he hadn’t stuffed her into the trunk or something.
They headed north out of town, making their way to an abandoned barn that Max Wilder had already mapped out. He’d driven past the farm with overgrown fields of dry corn stalks the day before, on his way down to Brackenport. He’d stopped to investigate, and that’s where he’d discovered the abandoned barn.
Which meant the farm was between here and Sallymon Peke (or one of the surrounding towns we’d visited yesterday.)
What had Joe said?
Max Wilder does research while he’s in Sallymon Peke and finds a nearby canning factory.
It made sense.
Peter Nell would head back in the direction of the canning factory, lay low at the barn until Wednesday.
I read further, somewhat reassured by Max Wilder’s psychopathic journey into his own horrific fantasies. He kept the girl bound and gagged in the barn, and spent an awful lot of time staring at her, mind-playing the scene of her impending death over and over again in gross detail, but he didn’t lay a hand on the girl, didn’t hurt or abuse her. So long as Peter Nell played the game and kept to the script, Jenna was okay. So long as we found her before Wednesday night, Jenna would be okay.
She would be okay.
She had to be.
My phone whinnied, the wild stallion ring tone I’d assigned to Nate’s number. I was on it like a flash. “Nate.”
“Hey, just a quick update,” he said. “We’re at the station. They’re holding Joe until they hear back from the FBI, but for now it’s voluntary detainment.”
“What do they think about the connection to Lacey Markson?”
“I’ve managed to convince them, but it’s the FBI involvement I’m more interested in. The bureau won’t share intel with us, so the next best thing is to get them down here.” He paus
ed, then, “Maddox?”
The way he said my name, that edge of uncertainty, buckled my knees. “What is it?”
Another stretched moment. “This is good news, okay?”
In my experience, you didn’t have to prefix good news with ‘this is good news.’ “Just tell me, Nate.”
“They picked Peter Nell up at a B&B on Rosehorne Street,” he said. “The Merc was parked outside.”
A throb started at my temple. I didn’t need to ask. If Nate had Jenna, that would have been his opening line. “And?”
“They searched the B&B and didn’t find Jenna. She wasn’t in the car either. But that just means he’s got her stashed somewhere else. It is good news, Maddox. So long as Peter Nell is in police custody, he can’t hurt her.”
No. No. No. “He’s supposed to be on his way to the barn by now,” I said thickly, fogged with fear. “What was he doing at the B&B? This is all wrong. He panicked when he saw Joe at the saloon, that’s why he deviated from the plan. What if he’s still panicked, what if he—”
“Maddox, don’t do this,” Nate cut in smoothly, sounding so damn calm. “Peter Nell didn’t panic, his actions are too controlled for that. Yes, he probably recognized Joe, and he adapted the rules, but he’s still playing the game.”
“The game,” I repeated dully. Is that what this was to Peter Nell? Just a game?
“A copycat isn’t your average killer, they thrive on the challenge,” Nate said. “Think about it, Jenna wasn’t the only blonde at Duke’s this evening, but he took her. That wasn’t a coincidence. He’s upped the stakes, called Joe out with that move, and he can’t win if he plays a completely different game.”
My head swam. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Nate.”
“Jenna’s not out of time yet, Maddox. Hold onto that.”
I did.
It wasn’t like I had any other option.
Nate ended the call and I tossed the manuscript on the sofa. The Twilight Kill wasn’t going to do us much good now that Peter Nell was in police custody.
But where was Jenna?
Given the time frame, she had to be close. Right? Maybe even somewhere near a certain B&B on Rosehorne Street.
Words That Kill (A Maddox Storm Mystery Book 3) Page 9