The Eleventh Victim

by Nancy Grace

  No reply, but the door was ajar, so Hailey slipped in.

  Darkness and an eerie quiet blanketed the room, though Hailey could hear distant music from a radio somewhere in the building.

  “Dana?”

  Maybe she wasn’t here after all. Where was she? Hailey had just heard her come back up the steps. The door was unlocked, but Dana, like the dentists downstairs, wasn’t concerned about security. She often said that if anyone wanted to steal anything from her cluttered office, they were welcome to it.

  “Dana?”

  Hailey glanced out Dana’s windows across the street at the vacant building under reconstruction, looking shell-shocked in the night. She was so glad she had ended up with the back office—what a dismal view.

  She turned away and spotted Dana’s office trash can, tipped over by the door, Hailey’s kidnapped Post spilling out of it.

  Trash can spilling, no good-bye, and no returned Post as customary…Dana must have really been in a hurry tonight. She usually returned the paper every afternoon, with the same clocklike regularity as taking it.

  Well, hopefully she was on a date, although Vegas odds were next to nothing Dana could have a date and not talk about it for days ahead of time.

  She fished the Post out of the trash, the pages out of order. She went over to Dana’s coffee table to spread it out neatly, reassembling it in order to read it on the way home.

  Pages two and forty-three, joined at the spine, were missing.

  She made another trip to the trash can and found the missing pages, oddly singled out, balled up tightly and buried in a pile of discarded bills and psych journals.

  Hailey flattened the missing pages out on the table.

  She froze. The grainy black-and-white photo.

  It was Melissa.

  Melissa Everett was on page two.

  Melissa was the dead girl…the girl they’d found on the East Side last night.

  An anguished, painful moan came from somewhere far away.

  It took a moment for Hailey to recognize that it had come from the back of her own throat.

  She tried to hold up the paper to look again at the photo, but her hands were shaking erratically, as if they belonged to someone else. She saw them, but couldn’t make them stop. Ice water ran through her veins, instead of warm, red blood.

  She stumbled toward a cushioned chair to sit down in the darkened room.

  Yes…sit down and read the article…there had to be a mistake…Melissa couldn’t be dead…she was scheduled for an appointment…Hailey could help her…

  Before she could make it to the chair, quietly, out of nowhere, someone came up behind her.

  She sensed movement, started to turn, but it was too late.

  A crushing blow landed on the back of Hailey’s head and neck.

  Pain shot through her face as she tried to stand, but she tumbled forward from the momentum of the blow. Careening across the sidearm of the chair, she went down hard onto the sharp corner of Dana’s coffee table.

  Warm blood began to seep from just behind her temple. Through dark gray swirls that were closing in on her, she saw a pair of blue-jeaned legs approach her at floor level. One of them was limping.

  She tried, tried with all her strength, to turn and look up to see his face, to call out for help, but her body refused to follow her brain’s command.

  She couldn’t turn, couldn’t speak, her neck and face burned by the wool of the rug, her mouth open as she tried to breathe, blood across her lips and cheek.

  When the first, vicious kick landed, perfectly aimed at her kidneys, Hailey screamed out in pain, but the scream went muffled into the carpet and then, with the next excruciating kick, the dark gray swirls disappeared. Hailey Dean’s world went black.

  37

  St. Simons Island, Georgia

  IT WAS NEARLY 3 A.M., AND THE GUERRILLAS WERE ASSEMBLED IN THE stealthiest and most mysterious black outfits they could muster, hoping to blend into the night like the cat burglars they’d seen on TV. Clustered amid the pines outside Palmetto Dunes Luxury Living, they were locked and loaded, primed and ready for the moment they’d waited for their whole lives.

  There would be plenty of time ahead to plan an overall strategy for a meaningful deterrent strike at the mastermind of Palmetto Dunes Luxury Living. But for now, for tonight, the guerrillas were taking a notorious page from the Vietcong’s book.

  A sniper attack was the only obvious choice for a successful strike against a power much greater than the guerrillas: a construction company out of Atlanta with big money backing.

  From behind the cover of dense pine saplings, twelve pairs of eyes were trained on the solitary guard inside his shack. Biding their time, they waited, poised, for just the right moment to attack.

  “Anybody seen him before?” Virginia asked in a whisper.

  None of the twelve were sure who he was, although they speculated in minced whispers, until it dawned on Renee.

  “I know who he is! He’s the guy that works security for the Brunswick Wal-Mart.”

  “He must’ve gotten a serious pay increase,” Ken chimed in. Ken was an authority on many, many subjects, and apparently the compensation at Wal-Mart was one of them. “I happen to know for a fact the security guards at Wal-Mart eat free at the Wal-Mart grill.”

  Free lunch or no free lunch, in exchange for the speculated pay raise, he was now sitting alone in a glorified outhouse at three in the morning, watching TBS.

  But there he sat, apparently mesmerized by a late-, late-, late-night TBS showing of Conan the Barbarian.

  After fifteen minutes or so of keen surveillance, Virginia was convinced the guard was actually going to watch Conan the Barbarian in its entirety, so there was no use waiting for him to fall asleep. The good news was he was so engrossed in the movie he wouldn’t possibly notice any movement outside.

  Virginia gave the command.

  The guerrillas obediently slipped through the pines.

  Without speaking, they moved on, past the guardhouse—then stopped short, all of them, all at once.

  There it loomed, about twenty yards ahead: a horrible, manmade clearing where once there had been a series of graceful, sweeping dunes.

  They simply stood, gazing at the scarred landscape.

  Then Virginia gave a firm nod.

  They stepped out of the pines to begin the endless task of dragging Palmetto Dunes Luxury Living—the whole kit and caboodle, load by load—to the water’s edge

  Thin pine slats lay precisely over the ground to mark the outlines where cement would be poured. Now they were yanked away and placed on bedsheets they’d brought from home. Along with the slats went the strings that had been measured, cut, and staked with an engineer’s unquestioned accuracy. Every vestige of orange marker was untied from surrounding trees. Bag upon heavy bag of dry concrete mixture was lugged across the sand.

  Against all their deepest, heartfelt convictions against littering in any form, they heaped it all there on the shore. Mother Nature would have the morning tide take most of it, wave by rhythmic wave, out to sea and, ultimately, to the ocean’s floor. In a matter of hours, the fishies would be gnawing delicately at the stripped-down boards, still smelling of sweet pinesap.

  38

  New York City

  “HAILEY. CAN YOU HEAR ME AT ALL? HAILEY, WAKE UP.”

  Hailey heard it all, but from far away. She thought Fincher had been standing over her, calling her name, but then he disappeared. Hailey’s eyes opened to a pale-green hospital room, the faint smell of medicine hanging in the air.

  Dana was standing beside her.

  “What…happened?” she whispered. Even her throat hurt.

  “You fell and knocked yourself out, Hailey. You took a really bad blow to the head.”

  “What? Where? What are you doing here? Where are we?”

  “You were in my office.”

  Right. Dana’s office…

  It was all so fuzzy, though.

  “Where are
we now?”

  “The hospital. You’ve been out for hours, and I’ve been worried sick. How do you feel?”

  Hailey opened her mouth to answer, but Dana shook her head. “No, don’t try to talk. Now that you’re awake, I’ll call a doctor to come check on you.”

  “Dana, don’t, I’m fine.” She tried to sit up to prove her point, and a sharp pain shot through her torso.

  Tears sprung to her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

  “See? You are not fine!”

  She sank back against the pillows. “You said I hit my head, but it’s my side that’s killing me. What happened to me, exactly?”

  “How would I know? I wasn’t there! I can’t believe you don’t remember it all. Meanwhile, I’m a wreck, Hailey, nothing but a wreck! I swear I’m going to have a breakdown over this whole thing and—”

  “If you don’t tell me what—”

  “Okay, okay, o-kay…here’s what happened. I’m minding my own business, as always, on my way home after one of those horrible singles mixers at MOMA, I don’t know why I even bothered to go, they’re always disasters, and besides, I do have Greg, but he was busy last night, and like I always say, you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket, am I right about that?”

  “Right,” Hailey said weakly, knowing Dana expected a response. It hurt to speak. It hurt to breathe.

  “So I stopped back at work, thinking he might have come by and left a note on the door, because he’s done that before, and I found you lying in my office, out cold. You lost a lot of blood, too, on the rug. Don’t worry though, I think the dry cleaner can fix it. You split your head wide open on the coffee table. I know you have really low blood pressure. You must have passed out. Or maybe you tripped and fell—my office was kind of a mess—but how did you get those horrible bruises down your ribs and hips? What are you, a professional stunt girl, too? You must have done one crazy flip.”

  My office was kind of a mess…

  Suddenly Hailey sat up in bed again. A sharp pain sliced through her head and an incredible ache pierced her ribs, but she barely noticed.

  The Post article.

  “Oh my God, Melissa.” She felt sick to her stomach, and the warm taste of vomit came up her throat and to the back of her mouth.

  “No…I’m not Melissa. Hailey, it’s me, Dana.”

  “No, Dana, it’s Melissa…”

  “No, you’re Hailey. Haaay-leee. Oh, my God. I’ll go get a doctor.”

  “Dana, no…”

  The door opened abruptly, stopping Dana in her tracks.

  A tall, angular man in his late thirties, looking too weather-beaten and deeply tanned for a New Yorker, came in uninvited. His face was hard, with a cool glint in a pair of icy-blue eyes and a square, seemingly immovable jaw. Dana turned on him. “Excuse us, this is a private room.”

  “And this is an NYPD badge, miss.” He casually took it out of his jacket pocket and flipped open his shield.

  “Which one of you is Hailey Dean?”

  39

  St. Simons Island, Georgia

  LOOKING OUT PAST THE HORIZON, THEY SAW THE SUN BEGINNING to show itself over the edge of the water.

  “Come on, let’s go.” Virginia whispered it as loudly as she could, turning to the others and motioning.

  They quickly made it back through the trees and past the security post. The guard, now snoozing gently, was still sitting straight up, with his back against the closed door of the guardhouse.

  The guerrillas headed across the road and tried their best to blend into a stand of palmettos as they limped along.

  Once past the thick stand of pointy plants, it was backwoods all the way until at last they circled back around to Larry’s 7-Eleven parking lot. Without a word exchanged among them, they climbed into three cars where they’d been left. They cranked up and drove into the half-dark, half-light of the Island dawn.

  They’d made it, they were home free. Months of planning, weeks of labor, and incredible expense on the part of Palmetto Dunes Luxury Living had been bravely and beautifully destroyed in a single night at the guerrillas’ hands.

  Vengeance was sweet.

  Tonight, they had risen to greatness: shucked off their mall uniforms, their laminated company ID cards worn on chains around their necks, their plastic Radio Shack name tags.

  The battle was on.

  The guerrillas had struck back.

  Vengeance all right, with a bullet.

  40

  New York City

  LYING THERE IN HER HOSPITAL BED, HAILEY DIDN’T BOTHER TO CHECK the guy’s ID when he casually took it out of his jacket and flipped open his shield.

  She didn’t have to. He was definitely a cop. No question about it. He had that look, immediately and easily identifiable by both fellow law enforcement and the people they spent their lives chasing.

  She could spot one a mile away, even in plainclothes. They stood out in crowds of civilians like sore thumbs, if you knew what to look for.

  The younger officers kept buff, muscled bodies for foot chases and arresting suspects who fought them tooth and nail. On the other end of the spectrum, cops who had been around for a while turned soft and pale. They were beaten-down, their exciting years of chasing the bad guys melted into desk jobs, brewing coffee at the precinct, and counting the days until retirement.

  It wasn’t just the clothes or accessories. It was the way they wore them, the way they carried themselves, the intangible attitude that screamed out, “Look at me…I’m a cop.”

  “Repeat, ladies. Which one of you is Hailey Dean?”

  “I’m Hailey Dean. Who are you?”

  “Lieutenant Kolker. I’d like to ask you a few questions about a young lady I think you know, Melissa Everett.”

  The name slammed into her and stole her breath away. Melissa. For a few minutes, she had put it out of her mind.

  Too upset to speak, she paused briefly. In that moment, he went on.

  “You are Hailey Dean of Dean Counseling, correct?” he asked, though he knew full well the room was in her name, and that, of the two women, the one in the bed wearing a cotton gown would be his best bet.

  “Yes, I’m Hailey Dean,” she said slowly, retracing her way through dim memories. “I had just thought of Melissa exactly when you opened the door. I…I think the reason I’m here is, in a way, because of Melissa.”

  “Really.”

  “I must have passed out. It’s happened a few times before. Please tell me I dreamed it.” Her thoughts were disconnected and her speech was dull.

  He leaned forward. “Tell you that you dreamed what?”

  “Was Melissa reported in the Post as being…” No. Don’t say it. Don’t make it true….

  “Is she missing?” Hailey finally got the question out.

  “Well, Miss Dean, you’re right and wrong. There was an article this morning in the Post. But Melissa’s not missing. She was found last night around midnight. She’s dead.”

  Hailey was silent, hot tears filling her eyes.

  It wasn’t a nightmare. It was real.

  Melissa was dead.

  “What happened?” she asked, and her voice broke on a sob.

  “So you really don’t know?”

  She shook her head, turning her face away from the two of them and wiping tears on the top edge of her sheet. She managed to ask, “Was it a suicide?”

  Even as she said the words, they didn’t ring true.

  But why else would he be here to see her?

  “I was just with her last week,” she said in a rush. “She seemed to be doing so much better…. I mean, Melissa was disturbed, but Lieutenant, she wanted to live. I’m sure of it.”

  “Miss Dean, you’ve got it wrong. I’m not here for your professional opinion as a psychologist. Melissa Everett was murdered. She was definitely stabbed to death, possibly strangled as well. We’re waiting on the official cause of death from the morgue…and she may have been molested. It’s early on…but the way she was found…�
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  “You mean without shoes? Bare-legged?”

  “Oh…so you remember that, Hailey? I thought it was all confused and mixed-up for you.”

  Why was he being so obnoxious? No wonder people don’t cooperate with police.

  “Well, I recall hearing that on 1010 WINS. I had no idea the body was Melissa.”

  “As I said, there’s absolutely no question as to cause of death. Suicide was never even an option. And, Miss Dean…the last thing in her date book was an appointment with you.”

  “Yes, I was her psychologist.”

  Kolker just looked at Hailey.

  Lying there on the single hospital bed, staring at the plainclothes officer, it all became real to Hailey.

  Melissa’s battle with her nightmares, her demons, her ruptured childhood was over.

  She was dead. Murdered.

  Hailey’s chest hurt imagining the horror Melissa must have suffered at the hands of a killer.

  All her prosecutions had convinced Hailey that suffocation in any form, especially strangulation, was one of the most painful ways to die. The victim was normally fully cognizant until the very end, knowing death loomed as lungs collapsed, eyes hemorrhaged, face contorted in death. But here, two painful possible causes of death? One wasn’t enough?

  Hailey could hardly bear it. The beautiful, tortured woman who still looked like a girl, trying so bravely to live life whole and well, not an ounce of hatred in her body, now gone as if she never existed.

  Just like Will.

  The news about Melissa forced her back to when she had discovered Will was murdered. Now, as then, it seemed like a big misunderstanding, mistaken information.

  She remembered thinking, frantically, that Will wasn’t dead, that he was fine…or if he wasn’t fine, there had been an accident, but he would be fine, if she could only get to him in time.

  And then, the reality.

  Will was dead, he had been murdered, there was no accident, and there was nothing she could do to help him.

  And this time, like last, there had been no accident, no mistake.