Jill was crawling backward on the bed. This man in front of her was not Gabriel. This was not the wonderful, seductive professor she had found so incredibly attractive. This man was a raving lunatic. She hadn’t written the poem for him; it was an assignment from another teacher in another class. She couldn’t even remember showing it to him, which meant he must have gone through all of her old things. But how...oh, that was it. She remembered asking him if she could store some old boxes of work in his attic months ago, after their affair began.
“Oh God, what have I done?” she groaned aloud. It had seemed so simple, so fun. An older professor, so smart and sexy. He had shown so much interest in her from the minute she met him, always wanted to hear her thoughts and opinions. Remarks she made to the boys her age in class were often met by blank stares or derisive giggles. They weren’t interested in talking about philosophy and religion. They just wanted to get in her pants.
But Gabriel, oh, he was so different. He encouraged her crazy questions, made her feel so intelligent. He’d treated her like an equal from the day she met him, pushed her to think about the world in ways she’d never dreamed possible. And when they’d finally consummated their intellectual courtship, she’d never felt anything had been so right in the world. She didn’t think for a minute that she was the only woman he was sleeping with, but it didn’t matter to her. He was sharing his life with her, and when she became pregnant he was overwhelmed with joy, promised to take care of her and the baby forever. No, this wild-eyed thing before her was not the man she’d known. The man she knew.
She swung her head around frantically, trying to find some way out of the room he’d been keeping her prisoner in. The door was open, and she lunged for it, but he was quicker and threw her back on the bed.
“No, no, no, not like that. You need to stay here with me, love. I need to take care of you and our son. I’ve put everything in motion and done all I know to secure his way.”
She continued to squirm, and he screamed, “You must listen to me. Listen!”
“No. Let me out of here, Gabriel. Let me out of here right now, or I swear to God I’ll kill you.” Her venomous threat made him laugh. He knelt on her chest, threw her hands over her head and secured them with handcuffs. He slid down her body till he was off the bed, then took each of her thrashing legs and tied them to the foot of the antique bed frame.
“Jilly. My beautiful, lovely girl, don’t you see? You can’t escape me. You can’t escape our destiny. You were given to me to bear me a son. You are carrying the Messiah.”
“Gabriel, let me go. Undo these handcuffs!”
Gabriel just smiled serenely and reached for her arm. She felt the prick of the needle and started becoming woozy. Gabriel patted her on the head and started out the door.
“God damn you, Gabriel!”
He was back to the bed in a shot and slapped her across the face, hard enough she felt blood filling her mouth.
He spoke quietly, gently. “Don’t ever say that again, Jilly. God will not damn me. He will welcome me to heaven with open arms, thankful that I have given His Son back to the world. I will be rewarded, Jill, not damned. I will be His righteous angel, and I will watch by His side as His Son, our son, saves the world. Do you not understand?”
He left the room and locked the door behind him, ignoring Jill’s shrieks of protest. She heard the phone ringing in the background, but before she could summon the energy to scream, her mind swirled into a blank, and she fell back into the pillows.
69
Price motioned Taylor and Baldwin into his office. “What do you have? Lincoln told me he’s looking for property records for a professor who didn’t make the initial list.”
Taylor threw herself in the chair. “His name is Gabriel Lucas. Professor of the classics at Vandy. He wasn’t on the list because he’s taken a sabbatical. The dean told us he has brain cancer.”
Marcus came into the office. “And pretty bad brain cancer. The doctor at Vandy? Hoyt? He didn’t want to give up any information, doctor-patient confidentiality. I showed him the warrant and threatened him with an accomplice-to-murder charge. He started talking.”
He looked at his notes. “Lucas, Gabriel, forty-eight. 3802 West End Avenue. Presented eight months ago with headaches he thought were migraines. A neurologist did an MRI, which showed a large tumor in his brain stem, something called brain stem glioma. Pretty heavy-duty cancer. The neurologist sent him to Dr. Hoyt, but it was too late. The tumor was inoperable, and a biopsy showed it was stage four, as bad as it gets. The cancer was already moving into other parts of his brain. Because of the size of the tumor and the location, there was nothing that they could do. They offered to try radiation and chemo, but Lucas decided he didn’t want to go through all of the motions with such a small chance of it actually working. They gave him prescriptions for pain medication, which he has been filling; they had to renew the prescription last month. Publix Pharmacy in Bellevue.
“Dr. Hoyt was surprised that he’s made it this long. He gave Lucas an optimistic estimate of six months, and didn’t think he’d make it over four. He’s living on borrowed time.”
Baldwin was fascinated. “A tumor like that, in that position, could easily alter his personality, his speech. Hell, it could make him a completely different person. He could go off the deep end. Whether he already had a propensity toward violence, and the tumor brought it to the surface, or he was a genuinely good guy and it’s altered him into madness, we may never know. But I’m willing to put money down this is our guy. I need to go look some stuff up. Before I go, did Hoyt give you any DNA samples?”
Marcus beamed. “Yep. He had pathology pull the slides from the biopsy. I called Sam, and she met me at Private Match. She and Simon are going to try and match it to the semen we found on Shelby.”
“Brilliant job, Marcus. Okay, I’ll be back in a minute.” He raced off.
Taylor watched Baldwin’s back disappear out the door. “We need to get a team over to the address from the prescription refills right now. If we—”
“Taylor, I’ve got the address.” Lincoln came into the room, waving a piece of paper over his head. “Lucas has a house on Granny White Pike, right near the Lipscomb Drive crossroads. Got it off the voter registration rolls. A good old-fashioned registered Democrat. Bought the house in 1996.”
Taylor reached for the sheet of paper. “Wait a minute. The doctor’s office had him living on West End. What the hell?” Her cell phone rang, and she looked at it. Vandy, she mouthed to Price as she picked it up. “This is Lieutenant Jackson. Yes, Janet, thank you for getting back to me so quickly. Okay, let me write that down. 6002 Hillsboro Road? That’s his new address? Do you have a record of the old address? Ah, 3802 West End. Okay, I’ve got it. Thanks.” She hung up and looked at Price.
“Looks like he moved from West End to Hillsboro recently.”
“How recently?”
“Six months ago.”
“So what’s with the Granny White address?”
“Hell if I know,” Taylor said. “He had multiple addresses—one listed for the school, one for the doc, and one for the state.”
“How does a professor, on a professor’s salary, end up owning three houses?”
“An excellent question. Family money, maybe. Who needs three houses in one town?”
Price twisted the ends of his mustache, thinking. “One to live in, one to kill in, and one to hold his victims?”
Taylor was on her feet. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter what he’s doing with his finances. We need to get teams to all three of these houses. Can you call in Officer Bob Miller and Officer Keith Wills? They’re SWAT trained, so they can take Granny White. Fitz and Marcus can take West End, and Baldwin and I will hit Hillsboro.”
“Good plan. Let me make the calls. A little privacy, if you please?” The team went b
ack to the bullpen.
“Damn, this just couldn’t be easy, could it?” Taylor said. “Oh, wait a second. Marcus, call the pharmacy in Bellevue. Confirm what address he has on his prescription, and see if they’ll tell you what it’s for.”
Marcus grabbed the phone and called information for the number. They sat and watched while he dialed. Taylor was tapping her foot nervously against the corner of her desk drawer. Lincoln noticed and reached over, touched her knee and stilled the shakes. “We’re cool, T. We’ve got him. We just need to find out where he is, and we’ve got three places to look. Relax.”
She gave him a grateful smile and winked. He was right—they had him. Now all they needed was Sam’s DNA match and the right address, and maybe, God willing, they would find Jill Gates alive. She looked over her shoulder. Where the hell was Baldwin?
Marcus hung up the phone and nodded. “The pharmacy has the Hillsboro address, and he’s taking injectable morphine. They filled the prescription for the drugs and syringes a few weeks ago.”
Fitz strolled in. “Got us a real live suspect?”
Taylor smiled and raised her eyebrows. “Think so. He has three addresses, but one of them, a house on Hillsboro, has come up twice. Marcus here earned his pay and threatened to arrest a doctor at Vandy if he wouldn’t give up the info.”
Marcus sat with a Cheshire cat grin. Fitz looked at him and couldn’t help but laugh. “Good job, son. There’s more good news, if you want to call it that.”
“What?” Taylor asked, shoving her chair over to make room for Fitz.
“Three things. Arrested the father of your seventeen-year-old suicide. Though as you suspected, he wasn’t a suicide.”
Taylor’s mouth fell open. “You’re kidding? What happened?”
“Guy waltzed in here this afternoon and announced he did it. It was just like you thought, LT. They were fighting, he was drunk, and when the kid got up to leave, he grabbed the gun and shot him. The guilt finally got to him. Got him down in night court being booked right now, and he’s got company.”
“Who?”
“Little Man Graft. Big bad Little Man. Your kid gave a statement. His mama found a job out of state, so they packed up all their stuff and stopped by the station on their way out of town. Kid gave me the whole story. He saw Little Man shoot Lashon Hall, no question about it. I videotaped a statement and let his mom take him to their new home. She gave me a cell phone number where I can reach her if we need him again. Then the planets aligned. Central sector called to say they’d picked up Terrence Norton after they’d gotten reports he was involved in a shooting on Charlotte Pike. Seems he took a shot at one of the homeless guys who’ve been breaking into cars down by the Exxon station.
“He was singing my name the moment they cuffed him, asking to talk to me before they booked him. They brought him in, and I sat down with him. Lo and behold, Terrence suddenly remembered that Little Man shot Lashon Hall, just like we thought. We have Little Man sitting in a cell, and we’ll get him for this one, what with two witness statements and all. I promised to drop the accessory charge on Terrence in exchange for his testimony.”
“Well done, Fitz. Thank you.”
“It gets better. The homeless guy, God rest his soul, died on the way to the hospital. Central has the gun Terrence was carrying when they picked him up. If the ballistics match we finally have Terrence dead to rights for murder.”
Taylor pumped her arm in the air. “Yes! Get both those thugs off the street in one fell swoop.” She got up and gave him a huge hug.
He hugged her back. “Ah, it was nothing. Anything for you, love. There’s one more thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Your dad’s in the lobby.”
70
Taylor rolled her eyes and sank back in her chair. “What the hell does he want?”
“I don’t know, honey, but you’d better get out there and find out so we can go arrest Gabriel Lucas.”
Taylor sat for a moment, trying to gather herself. Of all the times to come barging into her life. How dare he?
“Fine. Fine, I’ll go talk to him. But you’re coming with me.”
Fitz hesitated for a moment. “I think you’d—”
“I’m pulling rank. Come on.” She grabbed his hand and dragged him into the hallway. They walked the hallway down to the lobby door. Taking a deep breath, Taylor flung the door open and strode purposefully into the lobby.
She saw Win immediately, his back turned to her as he laughed it up with the desk clerk. Typical.
“Win,” she said quietly. He wheeled around and broke into a huge grin.
“Ah, my little girl! How are you, sweetheart?” He rushed to her and enveloped her in a hug. She stood stiffly with her arms at her sides until he got the hint.
“Still pissed at your old man, I see.”
“Win, what do you want? This isn’t the best time.”
“Well, I’ve been trying to reach you for days. Come on, sugar, cut an old man a break.” He noticed Fitz standing behind Taylor.
“Why, I’ll be damned. Pete Fitzgerald. You’re a sight for sore eyes.” He reached out to shake Fitz’s hand, but Taylor cut him off.
“Win, we’re really tied up at the moment. Just say what you came to say, and let us get back to work.”
“Jeez, Taylor, just trying to say hello to an old friend.”
Fitz rolled his eyes. “An old friend who put your sorry ass in jail. What do you want, Win?”
“Ah, Fitz, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. What’s it like, working for my little girl?” The remark was meant to sting, but Fitz laughed instead.
Taylor was getting more frustrated by the minute. “Spit it out, Win. Now!”
He quickly became serious. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m engaged.”
Taylor felt like a rock had hit her in the chest. “What? To who? Does Mom know?”
Win was grinning like a jackal. “You remember Lori Westerson?”
Taylor felt her head spinning. “Lori Westerson that I graduated from Father Ryan with? Are you kidding me?”
“No, honey, I’m not. We’ve been together for a while, now. She’s the most wonderful woman. I just wanted you to hear it from me, sweetheart. I know this is hard to hear, but I’m so happy, and I want you to be happy for me.” He reached out as if he was going to hug her again, but Taylor took a step back.
“I’m thrilled for you, Win. Now I have to go back to work. Congratulations.” She turned on her heel and walked back to the lobby door.
“Taylor, wait. Please, honey, can we just get together for dinner and talk about this? Talk about anything? Please. I’m still your father.”
His pleading only made her heart tighten and her throat constrict. “Win, I can’t deal with this right now. Maybe later. I’ll call you.” She swiped her card and disappeared through the door.
Fitz watched her slam through the door. He turned back to Win, whose smile was gone. He looked a bit ashen, almost as if he were going to be sick. Fitz felt a moment of pity for the man. He quickly shoved it away. Taylor was like a daughter to him, and he knew the pain Win’s antics had caused her over the years. Taylor was a woman who dealt with the world in black and white, and Win Jackson got off exploiting all the shades of gray he could find. Fitz knew it tore her to pieces, having a father who was dishonest, a criminal.
“Listen, Win, I think you’d best leave now. We’re real busy, you know?”
Win hung his head. “Yeah, I know. Just tell her...tell her I love her. Will you do that for me?”
“Yeah. When the time’s right. See ya, Win.”
* * *
Taylor didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The absurdity of the whole situation, her father marrying one of her old classmates, was so sick it was almost f
unny. Lincoln and Marcus were eyeing her, but she assiduously avoided their looks. She saw Fitz come back into the squad room. She knew he wasn’t going to let her fall apart, or dwell, or worry. That’s what she loved about him.
He came over to her, put an arm around her, and bellowed, “So, are we gonna arrest this guy or what?”
She gave him a grateful smile. “Damn straight.”
“So, let’s do this.” He yelled into Price’s office. “Captain, where we at?”
Price slammed the phone down and came out of his office. “Okay, I just called us in some backup. Here’s how this is going to go. Taylor, I want you and Fitz to take the Hillsboro address. Take Officer Wills and Officer Miller with you. The pharmacy and the school both list it as his address, so it may be the best shot for finding him, and they’ll have your backs.
“I want Baldwin at the Granny White address with Marcus. Lincoln and I will take West End. I’ll get four officers to back the rest of us up at the Granny White and West End addresses. Keep your radios on channel twenty. I don’t want the media picking up on this before we get there and putting ghetto birds in the air. Full suit and everything, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt. You hear me?”
He was talking to all of them, but he was looking directly at Taylor. She squirmed in her chair but nodded dutifully. She was glad Baldwin hadn’t heard the remark. It seemed as though Price was saying, “Hey, guys, be really careful. You’re heading out into a dangerous situation with two cops who have gotten four people shot between them, so be sure to watch your asses.”
She felt her chest tighten but shook it off. Not now. Please not now. She knew in her heart that Price didn’t mean a thing by his comment; it was a standard warning. But the self-recriminations were building up on her. She hadn’t gone into a situation knowing she would have to draw her weapon since that awful night she had shot and killed David, and she had to admit to herself, she was a little scared.
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