‘It would have brought justice to his victims’ families. He would have been moved to high security, watched more closely.’
‘I see that now. But back then I was young and naïve and selfish. I wanted to move on and forget. The Night Terror was off the streets. I never imagined he’d train someone to start it all over again.’
Jayda squinted at Lydia. ‘What I don’t understand is why he killed a long line of surrogates when he could just as easily have killed you and had his revenge?’
Her father leapt to his feet. ‘Jayda!’
‘Take it easy, Dean. She’s only asking what you would if you were thinking straight.’ She touched his arm, coaxing him back onto the couch. ‘I’ve thought about little else the past twenty-five years. All I can do is guess. Perhaps in his own strange way, he still loved me. He was angry at the world, wanted to hit out and hurt someone. And that someone came in the form of forty-two women. They died because for some warped reason he wanted to let me live. Or perhaps he wanted me to suffer, to bear the guilt of every one of those forty-two deaths.’
‘This isn’t on you, Lyd. It was never on you.’ Dean rubbed the back of her hand, but she yanked it away and curled it into her lap. It didn’t prevent the trembling.
‘Our baby girl’s dead and I could have done something to stop the man responsible. How is this not on me?’
‘You had no way of knowing that would happen.’
‘I was stupid and scared, but that’s no excuse. I should have tried. There are women who’d still be alive if I hadn’t been such a coward. Bec.’ Her voice broke and she swallowed. ‘I’ll have to live with that knowledge for the rest of my life.’
Dean opened his mouth, but Lydia stalled him with a look. They may not have shared a blood-link, but Seth could see Jayda had inherited her mother’s capacity to shoot him down.
‘I thought you blamed me.’ Jayda’s voice shook as she stared at her mother. Lydia rushed to her daughter’s side. ‘Never. You are not to blame for this.’
‘Neither are you, Mum.’ They linked fingers and Seth felt that familiar wedge in his throat.
‘I need your help.’ Jayda’s grasp on her mother’s hands tightened. ‘Think. Tell me everything he ever said and did back then. Madden knew today’s Night Terror, primed him to kill before he died, and now that he can’t tell us who it is, something in the past will have to lead us to him.’
‘You’re exhausted.’
Jayda made a beeline for her computer before the front door had time to snap shut. ‘Perhaps, but I’m not ready to sleep.’
‘The same info will be there tomorrow and you collapsing over it won’t help.’ Seth slid the security chain into place, clearly letting her know he didn’t intend on leaving any time soon.
The knowledge gave wings to the flutters in her stomach as she peered at him over her screen. ‘I’m fine, but you look bushed. You don’t need to wait up.’
He looked anything but bushed. He looked . . . tempting. She typed in her password and waited for the system to connect. She couldn’t think about that now. Her list of to-dos was a mile long and Seth shouldn’t have ranked anywhere near the top ten.
‘If you’re fine, then so am I.’ He performed their ritual sweep of the apartment with the spectrum analyser while his laptop booted up. Her heart warmed as she watched him finish up in the living room before dropping into the chair in front of his computer. ‘So, what are we looking for?’
Somehow she’d known he’d help and the knowledge was like a steaming macchiato, extra strength.
‘Anna Jones, Madden’s mistress. She’d be aged somewhere between forty-five and fifty-five. I need anything and everything on her, and whether she had a child. Presumably he or she would be between twenty-five and thirty-five. See if either of them blogs, has a social media page or has been on any of the prison forums or chat-lines. If you can locate a picture, even better. If either of them have burped, I want to know what they were eating five minutes earlier. And if we can find the father, even better. Maybe his identity will lead us to the child.’ By the time she finished, his fingers were trailing their way across the keys. It was reassuring, knowing that she had someone other than herself to depend on.
Her gaze dropped to the screen. Why was he still here? Seth had what he needed to research and write the story without her, and no real reason to stick around. Her fingers wavered over the keyboard. Was it about more than the story for him?
She didn’t dare hope, but she could consider it. And when this was all over, perhaps she’d allow herself to more than consider it.
One final glance at the dark hair flopped over his forehead and she pulled up the first of nine mobile phone records she’d asked Georgie to email her earlier. A ten-tonne boulder wedged its way deep into her chest. Every one of her neighbours—some of her closest friends—were about to be scrutinised, no exceptions. And once she finished with those in her building, she’d move onto the lives of those elsewhere.
She bit her lip, scrolled through the first page and then clicked through to the second.
Silence eddied between them, a light and easy wave of camaraderie that came from working with someone you trusted.
Page after page flicked across her screen—bank and phone records, credit history, anything she could find. She discovered Garry had three outstanding parking tickets and a speeding fine, Juz had never owned a driver’s license and Brett from apartment twenty-six was three months behind on his mortgage. Then she clicked over to the next screen.
‘That’s strange.’
‘What?’ Seth’s fingers scrubbed through his hair, leaving a trail of spikes as he looked up. It took a moment to tamp the need to smooth her palms over the disarray. Instead she shook her head. ‘It’s probably nothing.’
He quirked a brow. ‘Tell me anyway.’
‘The lease for Darren’s apartment isn’t in his name.’
The other brow joined the first. ‘Whose name is it?’
‘Deanna Ramos.’
‘Sister?’
‘He doesn’t have a sister. And his mother’s name is Anita.’
‘A Spanish form of Anna.’
‘It could be coincidence.’
‘Or not.’ He shook his head as if she were past hope.
Not so. She just wasn’t ready to jump to accusations without proof.
He sighed. ‘Is it his wife, then?’
‘No, he doesn’t have one. At least, he’s never mentioned one.’
‘And would he?’
She dropped her head and massaged the pressure point just shy of her right eye. ‘Before today, I’d have thought so. But after discovering my biological mother is now a man and a serial killer, anything seems possible.’
The statement sounded so ludicrous when spoken aloud, that it should have been followed by a laugh. Only nothing about Madden was funny.
‘Let’s see what I can find.’ Seth’s fingers tapped over the keys.
She wanted to tell him to stop, that it wasn’t necessary. That the anomaly was small and there was a good reason for it. Only, she couldn’t.
What did she know about Darren, aside from what he’d told her? Although the same could be said of all her friends and acquaintances.
Even Seth. A mental shake put paid to the thought. Everything he’d told her checked out and she had no reason to believe he was anything other than what he professed to be.
Damn, she hated this! Invading a person’s privacy had to be about the shittiest thing one friend could do to another. Then again, it was up there with stalking and murder.
This was work, pure and simple. A means to finding Bec’s killer. Nothing, no matter how shitty she felt, could be ignored.
She glanced at the notepad beside her computer. ‘There’s something else. Last week he made a payment for eight grand to Holloway Treatment Centre in Queensland.’
As the words left her lips the implications hit. ‘Oh, God! I didn’t think about it at the time, but he looked pale at the fun
eral and he flinched when we hugged. What if he’s sick?’ Or dying? ‘What if he’s just had an operation or treatment for some life-threatening condition and I’m delving into his private life like he’s some kind of criminal?’
‘He never has to know, Jayda. But you need to do this, if for no other reason than to be able to look him in the eye and know he’s a true friend.’
Seth was right. Of course he was. But it didn’t stop her from hating that she’d been forced into suspecting the people closest to her.
‘I know we have to do this, but Darren helped Bec buy and build the Beetle. For months they spent every weekend with their heads bent over that grimy engine, working on it together. She loved that stupid car! And, Juz. She called him her closest girlfriend. They partied, went clubbing, filled her entire wardrobe together! The thought that either one of them could have killed her is . . . doing my head in.’
‘Oh.’ His fingers hovered over the keyboard. He stared at his laptop with a look that said whatever was up with Darren, it wasn’t ‘nothing’.
‘“Oh”, what?’
‘You might want to take a look.’
She pushed out of her seat and took a deep breath before peering over his shoulder. ‘That can’t be right.’
‘There’s only one Holloway Treatment Centre in Queensland and this is it.’
‘Cosmetic surgery? Why would Darren want cosmetic surgery?’
‘You said when you hugged he seemed to be in pain?’
‘He flinched.’
‘What about this?’
The screen flipped over. ‘No way.’
‘It would make sense. A female name on the lease. His being away on the pretence of “work”. The cosmetic surgery.’
‘Don’t you think I’d know if Darren was a woman?’
‘Have you slept with him?’
‘No.’
‘Seen him naked?’
‘Of course not!’
‘There’s no “of course not” about it.’ Seth looked so damn smug she wanted to slam his laptop closed over his knuckles. Only she couldn’t drag her gaze from the screen.
Transgender plastic surgery. Breast removal.
Much as the woman who considered Darren a good friend baulked at the idea, her gut told her otherwise.
She dragged the back of her hand across her eyes, brushing away one or more escaped tears in the process. ‘Damn! Is nobody who they say they are anymore?’
‘Some of us are.’
Seth was right on both accounts. But she couldn’t think about that now. Madden had changed from female to male. Darren was doing the same. Did it mean something or was it some perverse coincidence?
She shook her head. Her friend wasn’t who she’d thought he was, but that didn’t mean he was a killer. ‘He would have been in surgery, or at least recovering, when the last murder was committed.’
‘Dates can be fudged. Some practitioners can be bribed. These are things that need to be considered. It wouldn’t hurt to get a warrant for his medical records.’
‘Under what grounds?’
‘That he might be the killer.’
‘I’ll need more than conjecture to convince Chase.’
Not only would it mean outing a friend whose only crime might be wanting to be male, but it meant revealing more about the case than she was willing to just yet. And without knowing how her old partner would react. Whether he’d back her or betray her.
Either way, before she acted, she had to be sure.
‘We need to look at this from our other angle. What did your search for Anna or a child turn up?’
‘Anna Jones. Only child of Max and Verna Jones, both deceased. Aged forty-nine, born August sixth, star sign Leo. Attended Garfield Junior High. She left in eleventh grade and bummed around for a while before completing a TAFE course in beauty therapy. Her last known place of employment was Beautification in Bunyip, although she’s no longer listed as a current employee. No sign of a significant other, so far.’
‘Did you find a photo?’
‘Yep.’ The screen changed.
‘Blonde hair.’
‘Aha.’
She didn’t know what to make of Anna Jones. The woman was nothing like her mother, yet everything like her. Platinum blonde hair, blue eyes, but where her mother’s held warmth, Anna’s were hard and world-weary, her face lined as though every one of life’s trials had trekked with steel-capped boots across it.
‘She looks nothing like Darren.’
‘Perhaps he takes after his father.’ Seth didn’t wait for her to comment and flipped screens again. ‘I found only bare bones on social media, no blogging. There was some activity on the Pakenham Prison forum until three months ago, but none of it I’ve found so far mentions a child, boy or girl.’
‘Any evidence of a marriage certificate or child’s birth certificate?’
‘Never been married. Guess she was waiting around for Mr Right. Or was that Madden?’
‘Don’t even joke about it.’
‘I wasn’t. Most of her forum posts rant about the injustice of the justice system. I don’t know what cockamamie story Madden gave her about killing Juliana, but she seems to think it was some kind of mistake. Self-defence and all that.’
‘A woman obsessed.’ She turned and stared out at the almost full moon through her window. ‘We need to find her child. Or the father. Any men other than Madden show up in her past?’
‘Nothing yet, but I’ll keep digging.’
‘There has to be a birth certificate. Has Anna used any other aliases?’
‘Not that I can see. None of the info that could lead us to her kid seems to exist. It’s as if that black hole is back again.’
‘He’s offering scraps, but doesn’t want us to see the full picture yet.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Then we keep at it. If he’s missed something, we’ll find it, and then we’ll find the sonovabitch.’
‘But not right now.’ Seth glanced at his watch. ‘It’s past midnight. I’ve been staring at my screen so long everything’s in triplicate. Let’s attack this first thing tomorrow with fresh eyes and a night’s sleep behind us.’ He yawned. ‘Don’t know about you, but the thought of a bed right now is my idea of heaven.’
The word ‘bed’ saw thoughts she’d managed to keep at bay flounce their way back to the forefront of her mind.
His blue-grey eyes sparkled, despite his claims of tiredness. The only indication that the day had been long was the crushed, over-worn look of his shirt. Problem was, the wrinkles didn’t affect the way it hugged his torso. Worse still, she knew what lay beneath the fabric and couldn’t oust the images from her head.
Heady warmth shuddered through her body.
‘Point me in the direction of your spare blankets.’
She busied herself, switching off her computer, shuffling papers that didn’t need shuffling, knowing that Seth was waiting for her cue. It seemed he wasn’t going to push, and previously she’d have been thankful. Now she was just frustrated.
How did you say ‘you don’t need to sleep on the couch’ without sounding eager?
After the day he’d had, all he should want was a place to lie down and a pillow to sink his head into.
Not so.
Jayda’s bottom lip plumped between her teeth as she stared anywhere but his direction. It wasn’t difficult to guess her dilemma, but this time the decision had to be all hers.
‘I assume they’re in the cupboard down the hall?’ He headed for the doorway.
‘You don’t need a blanket.’
‘I’ll be cold without it.’
The computer cord twisted round her finger. ‘You won’t be cold.’
‘I’ll get one just in case.’
He moved again, biting back a grin as she jumped out of her chair.
‘Seth?’
‘Yes?’
‘You don’t need a blanket.’
He turned, moved in, close enough to reach out and tou
ch her. Yet he didn’t.
‘Why, Jayda?’
Her gaze narrowed, then a smile skimmed her lips. ‘I have a perfectly good futon you can use in the study.’
It took a moment to realise he’d been duped. Somehow she had him figured, had turned his turkey into a chicken.
He returned her smile. ‘Perfect.’
The curve of her lips lost its verve. Instead of calling him on his bluff, she brushed past him for the door. ‘I’ll help set it up.’
‘Before you do . . .’ He snagged her hand and tugged her round to face him. ‘I need something else.’
‘Mmm.’ Her eyelids fluttered closed as her lips parted.
He leaned in and heard her sharp intake of breath. ‘A towel.’
Her eyes widened. She stepped back, slapping his arm.
‘Ouch! What was that for?’
‘Being a smartass.’
She had him. In every which way, she had him. And he couldn’t stop grinning. ‘I thought you were warming to that part of me.’
‘Other parts warm me more.’
‘Care to elaborate?’
She shook her head, then arched a beautiful brow. ‘You wanted a towel, I believe.’
‘I’ve changed my mind.’ He stepped in. ‘I’ll need two.’
‘Two towels?’
The heat of her body called. His palms found the supple band of skin between her waistband and top, sliding upwards, dragging the light fabric with them.
‘One for you, one for me.’
‘I’m having a shower?’
Her top slipped easily over her head. It helped that she raised her arms up for him.
His heart stampeded like a bull at a rodeo. ‘We’re having a shower.’
49
Her breath hitched, but he wasn’t sure whether it was the idea of showering together or his mouth drawing on her bra-clad nipple that caused it.
Lethal in Love Page 34