by Peggy Dulle
“You got it,” Kenny told him. He still held Emily’s knife in his hand so he wiped the blood off with his jeans, then slipped it under the tie and cut through the plastic.
I reached up and touched his hair, “Please tell me this color will come out. I don’t want my man of honor to have blue and green hair in my wedding photos.”
Kenny laughed and said, “It’s a spray color and will come out in the shower.”
“She’s dead,” Tom said when he came back over to us. Then he took my hand, pulled me into his arms and hugged me tightly. When I tried to pull away, he held me tighter. He had been really scared.
I kissed him gently on the cheek and said, “Can we get out of this room, please?”
Tom released his hold on me, glanced at Emily’s dead body and nodded.
Then we walked out of the bedroom and into the living area of the house. There was a small living room, dining area and kitchen. The living room contained a brown leather couch and rocker, television, and green and black granite coffee table and end tables. I took a seat on the couch, Tom sat next to me still holding my hand and Kenny pushed the coffee table out and sat on it so he could face me.
Kenny chuckled, “The big guy was freaking out, Stretch. I’ve never seen his face that color red when you four ladies took off without us. Then we got back to the house, he was pacing around the place like a caged animal. I was going nuts just watching him.”
I squeezed Tom’s hand and said, “How did you find me?”
“Your smart best friend built in a tracking device into the bracelet he gave you today,” Tom said with some reluctance.
I held up the beautiful blue antique bracelet. Kenny had always been good at building electronic equipment and he was as good as Justin was on a computer, maybe even better. I remember the first time I introduced Kenny to Justin. They spent the next thirty minutes talking about computers – I never understood a single word they said.
“I’m not losing my best friend ever again, Stretch,” Kenny shrugged.
“I want to know every detail, but can we do it on the way home, please?” I asked.
“All we’ve got is my Ducati, Stretch.”
“You two came alone on Kenny’s motorcycle?” I asked both of them, but directed my question to Tom remembering his feelings about motorcycles and how dangerous they were.
“Yes,” Tom said. “But the Feds should be here soon so we can ride home with them.”
“What? I don’t understand,” I told Tom.
“Let me finish, Stretch. When we got back home I told Tom about the tracking device. I hooked it up to my computer. It said you were at Red Robin. As I told you, the big guy was freaking out.”
“It’s a good thing I was,” Tom interrupted.
“Yeah, well, that’s true,” Kenny said, then continued, “I told them I would just drive to Turlock, which is the town that the Red Robin restaurant is in, and check on you. Tom said that you’d be mad because you liked having your freedom and wouldn’t want me hovering over you.”
“That’s very true,” I told them both.
“Well, I don’t care if you get mad at me, it won’t be the first time or the last,” Kenny said, “Remember Junior Prom?”
I frowned and growled at him. Who could forget? I finally had a date with someone who was actually interested in me and Kenny screwed the whole evening up.
“What about Junior Prom?” Tom asked.
“Never mind, continue about tonight, please,” I told Kenny, giving him a look that said he didn’t want to bring up our Junior Prom ever, again.
Kenny flinched, then said, “So I said I was going and Tom didn’t want me to go without him. He made me promise that we wouldn’t interfere with your ladies’ night out before he would let me go.”
“I wanted to take my truck, but Kenny said he could get us to Turlock quicker on the bike.”
“You finally got to ride a motorcycle,” I told Tom.
“Yeah and now I’m completely positive that they are death traps. Kenny almost got us killed ten times between San Ramon and Turlock.”
“I did not, but anyway, so we get the restaurant and we find Savanah’s car.”
“How are Jordan and Julie?” I asked.
“Fine. Jordan was dialing Sam’s number as we got to the car,” Tom said. “She was frantic because you were gone. She said that Savanah used some kind of gas on all of you that made her fall asleep.”
“Wait until she finds out that Savanah is actually dead and the woman in the car was Sasha, a professional hit woman. How’d you know to come here?” I asked.
“We called back to the house and had Justin hook up the tracking device again and he pinpointed your location. He might be as good as I am on a computer these days, Stretch.”
“I can vouch for that, Kenny, but I didn’t know how good you were until I watched you with the tracking device program on your computer.” Tom looked over at me and said, “He put in at least twenty lines of code to get it all working properly. I had no idea what he was doing on that computer.”
Kenny smiled and continued the story, “The Feds started for here and so did we, we were just closer,” Tom said.
“I’m glad you did. So how’d Kenny get blue and green hair?”
Kenny laughed. “Tom wanted to just storm the house but I thought a stealth approach would be better. We went to the Target that’s close to the restaurant and I bought some spray on hair color and a gallon of ice cream.”
“I thought that was the stupidest thing I’d ever seen when he comes out with ice cream,” Tom said, stroking his thumb over my hand. He hadn’t let go of me since he first took my hand a few minutes ago.
“I told him if I came with pizza and ice cream that you’d know it was me and that might help.”
“I did remember that pizza and ice cream was our favorite meal in high school but I didn’t know it was you until I saw you,” I told him.
Kenny shrugged. “It was just another part of the plan. A plan’s got to have many layers, so if one part goes wrong you can adjust.”
Emily would have agreed with Kenny, I thought, although I didn’t share it with him.
“We stopped at a pizza parlor that’s only a few blocks from here, bought whatever pizza they were holding for the next take-out customer and drove here,” Tom said.
“You should have seen him, Stretch. The clerk was like, you can’t have that pizza, and he slammed his badge and his gun on the counter and said, ‘Oh, yes, I can and I will.’ I think he scared ten years off the girl’s life. We came here, I went through the front door. My job was to get Sasha out of the front room, so Tom could come in with his gun. I pretended I needed to use the bathroom and she followed me.”
“Then she tried to knife you,” I reminded him.
Kenny smiled and said, “I used one of your famous moves, Stretch, and it worked.”
“I was coming in right behind you, Kenny, why didn’t you just get away from Sasha?” Tom asked.
“Wasn’t sure what she’d do, so I thought it was better to take her out,” Kenny said.
“So how long before the Feds get here?” I asked, trying to change the subject. Tom was switching from scared fiancé to cop-mode, and Kenny stabbing Emily in self-defense wasn’t going to go over well with him, especially with Kenny’s history.
“I’m going to give them a call and check, but I’d think another fifteen minutes or so.” Tom squeezed my hand, got up, dialed his phone and stepped into the kitchen area of the house.
Kenny leaned over and whispered, “You think he’s going to arrest me for killing Sasha in self-defense?”
“I think it’s best not to find out, don’t you? Why don’t you take the Ducati and head home? We’ll probably be here for hours dealing with this,” I suggested.
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow around one.”
I held up the bracelet and said, “Thanks.”
Kenny smiled, kissed me on the forehead and went out the door.
; When Tom came back into the living room he asked, “Where’s Kenny?”
“I sent him back home. There was no use us all sitting around and waiting for the Feds.”
Tom scowled. “He’ll need to give a statement about the stabbing. I guess they’ll call it self-defense, again.”
I didn’t say a single word. Whatever I said would be wrong and might get Kenny in further trouble. So instead, I told Tom all about what Emily said about her options and plans.
“I can’t believe she killed three women, just to get you interested in investigating their murders,” Tom said when I finished my story.
“It was just one of her plans. She had several. If one didn’t work, she had another to fall back on.”
“So that takes those three women off your board, but it still leaves twenty-seven dead people killed by the same serial killer.”
Then I told him how Emily came up with the ideas for the killings.
“So she thought it was another lawyer killing lawyers and their sleazy clients?”
“How would one lawyer know about another lawyer’s cases, especially ones that they didn’t want anyone to know about?”
“Kenny showed me this chat room, well, he called it a chat house, where lawyers complain about certain clients, maybe the killer is picking them up from there or a similar place.” I suggested.
“So it definitely is a lawyer?”
“Not necessarily. Justin can get into any place on the computer and I’m sure there are lots of people with his skills, too.”
“I’m not so sure, but I see your point. Now we’re back to a slew of suspects. Maybe Kenny can tell Justin how to get into the chat room and we can figure out who the killer is.”
“I’m sure he’d help in any way he could,” I said.
There was a knock on the door and Tom let in Maury, Art, and the rest of my FBI entourage.
I waved as they all came through the front door.
Before anyone could ask, I said, “I’m fine, Sasha’s dead, and I want to go home.”
They all laughed.
Maury and Ryder stayed with Sasha’s body until the FBI crime scene team could get there and the rest of us piled into the two black sedans for the trip home.
Tom and I sat in the back of one of the cars. He put his arm around me and I snuggled into him.
“Where’s Michael?” I asked a few minutes later.
“I arranged for him and Duane to be dropped off at the hotel after we left the Gardens. I didn’t think it was a good idea for Michael to watch me go crazy worrying about you. I had Duane tell him I had some cop stuff to do with the FBI and that I’d be at the hotel later.”
When we got back to the house, Jordan and Julie were still there so Tom and I went through the night’s events again. Jordan was upset about Savanah, even though she hadn’t seen the actual Savanah since high school. A few minutes later, Sam took her off to the spare room.
“Come on, guys,” Kenny told the rest of them. “Let’s go over to my house and let Tom and Liza have some alone time.”
I smiled, Kenny winked at me and Tom extended his hand.
Kenny shook it and led everyone back to his house.
When the door closed, Tom pulled me into his arms and held me tight, just as he did at the house where Emily took me.
I leaned my head back and said, “I know it’s supposed to be bad luck to see me in my dress before the wedding, but do you think it’s bad luck to see the bride naked the day before the wedding?”
Tom smiled and said, “Oh, hell no.”
I took his hand and led him to my bedroom. Several hours later, when we were lying there intertwined with each other, I asked, “Are you okay, Tom?”
“I’m fine,” he said, too quickly.
“No, really? What’s the matter?”
“I was so scared tonight, Liza. When we got to the restaurant and Jordan and Tanya were waking up and you were gone, I thought that was it. I thought I’d never see you again.”
I stroked the side of his face, brought his lips to mine and kissed him.
When I broke the kiss, he smiled and said, “That helps me feel better now, but then it was awful.”
“Well, I can’t help then. I’m sorry I left with the girls. I should have stayed with you. I knew that someone was out there gunning for me, but I just wanted some normalcy. After the attempted kidnappings and the explosion, I wanted to go to dinner, enjoy a burger and spend some time doing normal girl stuff. Was that too much to ask?”
“Of course not. I’m not saying I wasn’t upset when you didn’t come home.”
“I think Kenny used the words ‘freaking out.’”
Tom started to argue, then chuckled and said, “Yeah, I guess I was.”
I laid my head on his chest and said, “I’d be doing the same thing if I thought you were in any danger.”
“I guess that’s called love,” Tom said.
“Yes.”
“I think it’s time for me to head over to the hotel.”
I wrapped my arms around him and said, “Do you have to go?”
“In a few hours it will be our wedding day. I’m not testing fate by seeing you the day of our wedding.”
But I didn’t let go. After all the problems I encountered in the last month, I couldn’t see the wedding going off without another incident. “We could go to nearest courthouse,” I suggested.
He kissed me lightly on the cheek. “No, you are going to get the wedding you want and I’m going to watch you come down that aisle and into my arms.”
Tom got dressed and I threw on a bathrobe and walked him to the door.
“Goodnight, Liza,” Tom said as he opened the door.
“Goodnight, Tom. In less than seventeen hours I will be Mrs. Tom Owens.”
He turned and kissed me. “I sure like the sound of that.”
“Me, too,” I said.
I closed the door, leaned my back against it and remembered – I needed to make a call.
He picked up on the first ring.
“It’s about time, Teach. I’ve been waiting for hours to hear about what happened!”
“Sorry Justin, my mind just cleared a bit from this evening’s events.”
“That’s okay, you know I don’t go to bed until early in the morning.”
As I walked toward my bedroom, I relayed all the events from the evening. I started with all of the conversation at dinner at Red Robin and ended with my rescue.
“You should have figured it was Sasha after she knew about the language those other customers were speaking, Teach.”
“Yeah, well, that’s easy to see now, but at the time – I didn’t put it all together.”
“It’s weird to imagine she figured out there was a serial killer who was leaving little trinkets from just a few conversations with some of the inmates –it took me over ten hours of computer searches.”
“It takes one to know one,” I shrugged and slipped into bed.
“That’s true and I think your idea that the victims all had a secret, a bad secret, is probably pretty accurate, given what Sasha told you.”
“I agree,” I yawned and put my head down on my pillow.
“Go to sleep, Teach.”
“You too, Justin.” I closed my eyes.
“I will soon. I’m going to do a little more digging on that lawyer site. I bet if I spend some more time in there I just might be able to match some of the conversations with our victims. Why do you think the lawyers even need a site like that?”
“If you want to complain, it’s nice to have someone that understands what you are going through,” I suggested.
“You think other occupations have sites like that, too?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe I can find a teacher site where you can complain about the kids and their parents.” Justin chuckled.
“Tell me about it tomorrow, Justin. I’ve got to get some sleep.”
“Yeah, you don’t want big bags under your eyes f
or your wedding later today.”
“Thanks, Justin. Good night.”
“Night, Teach.”
I set the phone on the table next to my bed and sighed into my pillow. Talking about the night’s events again with Justin brought it all back into the front of my mind. Kenny stopped Emily, no, Sasha, and she was clearly out of the picture. But according to her, she wasn’t the only one out gunning for me. My stomach knotted with anxiety, alternating between churning and out-and-out nausea. I couldn’t shake the foreboding feeling that tomorrow I wouldn’t become Mrs. Tom Owens. In fact, in the pit of my stomach, I wasn’t sure I would survive the day.
Chapter 36
I was awoken by the sound of rain pelting the windows in my bedroom. I dragged the covers over my head and groaned. It’s July 21st. Why was it raining? Was this an omen? Was my life or my marriage being washed away? My stomach knotted up as a wave of anxiety swept over me. I had never been this nervous in my life, not even when I was presenting at the math conference in front of hundreds of teachers. It wasn’t a good omen for the day. On the bright side, both Tom and Kenny knew how to walk me through my panic attacks, so I was doubly covered.
The bed dipped and the covers were pulled off my face.
“Happy Wedding Day!” my sister said.
“It’s raining,” I told her.
“It’s only supposed to shower a little this morning and I don’t think it’s raining at all in Ceres.”
I groaned again and pulled the covers over my head.
“Come on, Sis. We’ve got stuff to do.” Jordan pulled the covers off my head and threw them on the floor next to my bed.
“The wedding isn’t until five this evening, I’ve got time. Can I please have my covers back?”
“It’s almost ten, Sis. You need to get up. We’re supposed to be at the Gardens by two. I’ve got a makeup artist, manicurist and hair stylist coming and getting us all ready for the wedding. And you do want to eat first, right?”
She finally hit a nerve and my stomach growled.
“Great. Take a shower and come out to the kitchen. Maury sent over a ham, cheese, tomato, mushroom and spinach frittata and some little diced potatoes for breakfast. I ate them a couple of hours ago, but I’ll heat some up while you’re taking a shower.”