by Patti Larsen
Now, I’d dealt with cold-blooded killers, vengeful sweethearts and even accidental murderers, but I’d never had to face someone with this level of panic in their face, worn in their manner, and I knew in that instant Frederick was the most dangerous murderer I’d ever confronted. Not because he was brilliant or psychotic or even talented. But because he was an utter idiot and so very afraid of getting caught.
I inhaled, trying to fill my lungs for another shot at speaking, as he disappeared from view. I heard him grunt himself, felt him stumble over my foot and watched, flinching, as he fell next to me, the still unconscious Mila in his arms. Her head tumbled to one side, long hair hanging over the edge of the pool while he panted his desperate need to finish whatever nefarious plan he had etched into his aging but still handsome face.
“Stop.” I managed to whisper that one word, hand wriggling as I fought to control it, to grab for Mila. He slapped me away, suddenly pinched, desperate.
“You have to understand I can’t stop now.” So matter-of-fact despite his fear, so utterly devoid of reason. “She had the list.” He gestured at Mila, met my eyes again, his wild around the edges. “She saw what Faith knew. And so did you, Miss Fleming. That means you both have to die like that conniving little bitch did.”
I shook my head, or tried to, forcing myself to remember what I’d read. “Baby,” I said. Something about Kami’s babies.
“Exactly.” He ran one shaking hand over his perspiring face, staring down at it a moment before wiping it clean on his pants. Apparently he didn’t know DNA evidence was a problem for him at this point, but if he succeeded in what I now feared he had in mind, the water might wash away anything Crew could use to solve my murder.
Oh. My. God. He was going to drown me in the pool and there was nothing I could do about it. My own panic woke in a shrieking demon of absolute denial, giving me enough power to roll over onto my back as my mind begged my body to get up and run. The terror of almost drowning last August lingered like no other nightmare, if I was going to be honest about it, and oddly, in that moment, I had a brief and horrible instant of childlike panic, hearing a young boy’s voice screaming my name. But there was no time to ponder the memory or whatever it was that surfaced, not when Frederick’s stare turned from freaked out to determined and I recalled the closed for maintenance sign I’d almost tripped over in the back hallway. Any chance of rescue was dashed. No one would be coming. I was on my own.
No, not quite. I had Mila. But she was out cold still, pale and silent in the faintly green-tinted light of the pool lights, the only illumination in the room. For all I knew, she was already dead.
Frederick, meanwhile, had caught his breath, glaring down at Mila like this was her fault. “I tried to make it look like suicide, but I botched it.” Was that self-recrimination? A lifetime of it creeping up to make him doubt himself? “I botched everything.” He met my eyes again, and this time he looked needy, as if he wanted me to absolve him of his crimes even my own pending death peri-mortem. “It was Kami’s idea, the pregnancies. To trap Henry. Easy money, she said. How was I to know Henry was sterile?” He was shaking now, sweating all over again, droplets falling on Mila’s white blouse, leaving tiny pinpoints of slowly expanding dark spots. Fascinating where my mind went to hide when death loomed. I’d always planned to ponder this response I typically had to impending mortality, but never got around to it, hoping each time I almost died at the hands of a murderer would be my last.
“Don’t have to.” I meant to say he didn’t have to kill me. Us. Correction, Mila included. Frederick seemed to think I meant something else because he shook his head, scowling at the silent pool water, the lights on the bottom casting their sickeningly green glow over everything.
“I did have to,” he said. “I was out of options. Henry was going to fire me. The allegations of that girl, well.” He sniffed like she’d offended him. “She wanted it. How was that my fault? I had no idea she was sixteen.” Again the appeal to me to justify his acts. “She said she was twenty-one. Was I supposed to ask for ID?”
Just ew, dude.
“I have no prospects.” Frederick’s voice dropped to a dull acceptance, his face creasing with anger then nothing at all as it went slack. “I know that. I’m fully aware I’m a washed-up almost was. Henry was my only connection to the industry, the only one willing to consider my designs. Faith offered to help, was stealing from Mateo to share with me. I hooked her up with my dealer, even.” He trembled violently a moment. “Only to turn around and tell me she wanted money from me, that Mateo found out and was going to expose her. That she’d ruin me.” Frederick was a mess, clearly so freaking lost inside his own narcissism he thought he could get away with such things in a closed and close-knit community. “Henry was going to cut me loose. Served him right. Except it didn’t work, did it?” He hit the floor suddenly with one fist before nursing the hurt against his chest with a shocked expression. “It didn’t work. Kami promised. Then she killed our baby.”
Oh, wow. Just holy Hannah in a handbasket. “Sorry.” I really was. He seemed genuinely damaged by it, not to mention all over the place. What worried him more, losing his potential child or Mateo bringing the thefts to Henry?
Must have been the stunning that made me think he was actually a real person. He jerked like I’d hit him and scowled. “We could have figured something else out,” he snapped. “But she decided to double cross me and cut me out entirely. Had the abortion on Henry’s dime and was going to leverage that information to get him to pay her off. She refused to talk to me at all. So when Faith came to me with the Mateo deal, I took it. Of course I took it.”
Okies, you heartless jerk.
“Then that little sneak, Faith, found out about Kami when the two fought over that piece of crap Mateo like they always did.” Frederick started to shake again, this time his anger so clear, so visible on his face, in his body, I feared for Mila who lay in his grasp. Just his touch alone must have felt like an assault with that much hate running through him. Never mind his intent to shove her in the pool. “Did she go to Kami, though? No, she came to me. Showed me the DNA test Kami had done proving it was mine. She was going to tell Henry.” Another swipe at his sweaty face, but not an ounce of fear remaining, only that chilling expression of vile vitriol. “She made a deal with me. Turned me against the other models. I can’t believe I went along with it.” He coughed a laugh. “She was clever, I’ll give her that. I was the one who set up Noel, for Faith. Grace was going to hire Noel as her headliner. Faith couldn’t handle that. I spiked Noel’s drink.” He choked a moment. “And I was the one who convinced Grace to abandon Henry. The least I could do.” That explained a lot. I felt my body shudder, tingling in my extremities making me gasp, though my mind had cleared further, my vision and I knew if I could just keep Frederick talking a few more minutes I might stand a chance.
Might.
“Kami.” I felt my mouth respond and did my best to fake continuing incapacitation. “Custody. Talking.” Maybe I could get him to run and leave us.
Yeah, apparently my head wasn’t as straight as I thought because my plan had the opposite effect. Frederick freaked, panic returning, squeaking out a mouse-like squeal of terror, huge eyes meeting mine. “I know,” he said. “What am I going to do?”
***
Chapter Thirty Two
Um, crazy dude was asking me? I rolled back over with a lurching shove. “Turn yourself in.”
He was almost too far gone, staring, shivering. “I can’t. When I saw Faith that night she came to me, wanted me to humiliate Kami, tell Henry the baby was mine. Both babies.” He looked down at Mila then back at me as if he couldn’t figure out where he was suddenly or what he was doing there. “I refused. I knew if I turned on Kami she’d be the one to out me to Henry. And I had Henry convince to keep me on. But if I didn’t, Faith was going to ruin me, already planned to tell the cops about the drugs, that she was dealing because of me. I knew she’d win.” He seemed so lost, so deplor
ably confused, I almost felt sorry for the man he might have been once upon a time. “I’d taken Kami’s stun gun a week ago, when we had a fight. She’d threatened me with it and I wanted it out of her hands.” Did Kami know he’d taken it? Why hadn’t she said anything? Didn’t matter now, but I’d be asking her if I didn’t die of drowning in the next few minutes. Just keep him talking, Fee. “Faith turned her back on me, the little minx.” There was the anger all over again. “So I stunned her.” One more flash of shock, like he had no idea how his life had come to this moment. “I wasn’t intending to kill her. I just wanted to stop her. But I think I might have lost my mind. She was in that dress, Mateo’s dress, complaining about it, like always. We were alone and the ladder was beside me and I just… I had to humiliate her as she’d been humiliating me all this time.”
Fear and belittling, two powerful murder motivations. Not to mention money, drugs, ego. Yup, from where I was lying, fighting for control of my body, Faith didn’t stand a chance.
“List,” I said, flexing my thighs, my calves, knowing I was almost okay. So close.
He glared suddenly at Mila. “I was backstage hunting for it when I heard that ridiculous deputy had produced a fake.” Not that I needed validation, but yeah. Validation. Robert was in so much trouble. “Your little friend here had the book, was already reading it, called me out when she saw me. I had to stun her.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. And she’d already texted you, so, I had to wait for you, too.” He swallowed hard. “I didn’t think she’d told you anything, but I had to know for sure. She threw the book!” Frederick sat up suddenly, furious. “She threw it and then I stunned her and stunned her and stunned her.” He twitched, hands clenching in front of him. “I think she’s already dead.”
I was pretty sure of it. After all, she hadn’t even twitched and he’d attacked her long before me. So hard to tell in the low light, the dark circles under her eyes looking cadaverous. I felt a wave of sympathy and horror for her, guilt beating me hard while I fought tears. My fault. I’d sent her chasing the list when I should have had Crew make sure she was somewhere she wouldn’t be able to harm herself or others.
Guilt was for later. Right now I had to deal with this man who stumbled from disaster to disaster without knowing what he was doing, without feeling the empathy for him I might have in another circumstance since he reminded me so much of myself at times.
“Killing us won’t help,” I said, finally relenting and getting a full sentence out even if it meant alerting him to the fact I was wide awake and physically recovered. Though that was a guess since I hadn’t had the chance to properly test my body against gravity. “Kami will tell Crew everything. You’ll be caught, Frederick. Turn yourself in and let us go and you might get leniency.”
Frederick stared at me a long moment before reaching for his right front pocket. The stun gun was small, innocuous but imminently threatening as he clicked it on, the spark jumping in a rattling warning while his blank expression told me I’d gone too far.
“I’ll take my chances,” he said.
I had to act and gathered myself to lunge for him just as Mila’s eyes snapped open and she sat up. Frederick stared at her in gaping shock, the stun gun falling from his hand. I made my move, scrambling forward for it, my body still slow, too slow it felt like, heart hammering in response to the terror I let out at last. Frederick was faster, his hand finding the gun again, shoving it against Mila’s neck. The pair struggled a moment while I threw myself into him to stop him but too late. The rattle of the spark woke and Mila jerked, tumbling backward out of his arms and into the water.
The world took on super focus as my heart stopped. Not me drowning, but someone I knew and felt responsible for, enough of a kick in the pants I literally snapped into hyper awareness. Again, I heard the boy’s voice calling my name, felt a jerking distortion as if time had suddenly shifted out of my control, memory and reality crossing paths in a heart-stopping layered image of a blonde child sinking underwater superimposed over Mila’s disappearing form.
I lunged at Frederick as I snapped back to the here and now, the boy’s scream gone, Jill’s voice in my head instead. Fee, block! Her commands moved my hands to stop the forward motion of the stun gun in his hand, knocking it away, driving the other into his exposed throat.
I have no idea where she came from or why she was there, but as the door swung open and Jill’s startled face appeared, I screamed Mila’s name in the same instant my blow struck Frederick’s Adam’s apple. He fell backward, clutching at his neck while I grasped for the stun gun and drove it into his chest, pressing the button and holding it down, feeling a hysterical giggle emerging, unable to stop it from rising like bubbles from the pool to the sound of Jill diving into the water.
I held him down, his body twitching and writhing beneath me, watching his face turn beet red, my peripheral mind hearing splashing, Jill calling my name, hands on my shoulders jerking me back and away from Frederick who, despite being free of the stun gun, continued to twitch and moan. I sobbed once, unable to stop the exhalation of emotion, hugging Jill tight while she crouched next to me, feeling someone else embrace me on the other side, the pair of wet arms squeezing while Mila’s voice whispered my name in my ear.
“My sheroes,” I whispered and broke down into tears.
***
Chapter Thirty Three
Crew’s arms felt about the best they ever had as he held me against him, chin on the top of my head, the familiar scent of him filling me with more comfort than I think he’d ever understand. Jill stood close by, still dripping, reporting to the FBI agent my boyfriend brought in to take over the investigation. Not that he didn’t want to handle it, but with the cross state crimes tied to the murders, he deemed it smart and from the way his old partner, Liz Michaud, greeted him when she arrived with her new sidekick, she agreed.
Funny, she’d always been a bit cold to me, stand offish when we’d met. This time she smiled warmly and hugged me despite the wet the other two women had transferred to me, before letting me go.
“You’re okay, Fee?” So we were on a first name (and nickname) basis? Awesome.
“Thanks, Liz,” I said, settling into Crew’s arms. He hugged me enthusiastically and I remained there while the paramedics checked over Mila, Liz’s partner standing over the young woman, though to protect her or to protect others from her I wasn’t sure.
“I had an interaction with Miss Fleming.” Jill sounded stilted, like she didn’t know how to address Liz, but the FBI agent just accepted and wrote down what the deputy (was she still?) told her. “I regretted what was said and I phoned her to apologize. I was back stage at the time, doing a sweep, and heard her phone ring.” Jill glanced my way, cheeks pink. She was going to say she was sorry? I nodded to her and she nodded back as she went on. “I found it and knew something wasn’t right so I went looking for her. Knowing she has a nose for getting herself into trouble and finding killers and bodies at the same time.” Jill was grinning now, so all was forgiven. And frankly I was more than happy about that fact. We’d work out our fight, move on. Maybe I could talk her out of quitting and leaving Reading, shedding her doubts about herself in the process. We’d see. But from the way she was relaxing, filling in more details with her professional and solid manner in full swing, I was pretty sure she wasn’t on the brink like she had been earlier. Hope. I’d take it.
“Jill’s a hero,” I said, loud enough for Liz to hear, for everyone to hear, actually. Water carried sound better than I expected. I wasn’t planning on the stares or her glancing around, blushing again. Instead of backtracking I decided to use it to my full advantage—and hers. “I’d be dead without her and so would Mila.”
The young woman nodded enthusiastically, her wide-eyed stare riveted on my deputy friend and I winced as I realized she’d managed to transfer the damaged Mila’s attention from me to her own wide shoulders.
Jill finished with a nod to Liz and joined me and Crew,
her head down but without any remaining antagonism toward either of us. “I was an idiot.” She choked that out, not looking at me, not looking at her boss. “I’m sorry. I’m rethinking everything.” Her expression turned to a scowl as Robert entered the pool area, Rose beside him, the arrogance in both of them making me want to test the stun gun’s range. “I can’t believe I listened.” Jill finally looked up and met Crew’s calm blue eyes. “If I haven’t burned my bridges, Boss, I’d love to stay on.”
He nodded instantly, letting me go long enough to shake her hand. “There’s no one else I’d rather have at my back, Wagner.” He actually sounded choked up, the arm still around me tightening and I grinned at both of them while they exchanged a firm clasp of each other’s forearms.
“Seriously, just hug it out.” I winked at my boyfriend who coughed a laugh, Jill snorting before punching Crew in the shoulder.
“Getting into more than you can handle again, were you, Fanny?” Robert had terrible timing. I wasn’t in the mood—or any kind of shape—to retort, but I needn’t have bothered. Jill turned and put herself physically between him and me, hands on her hips, still dressed in her suit only now she looked freaking impressive.
“As usual,” she said, “Fee led us right to the killer.” She sniffed, looking him up and down, not even sparing the scowling Rose a look. “Unlike you, leading us on a false trail with fake evidence.”
Crew twitched and I glanced at him, caught the edge of his smile he smothered instantly, but I could tell from the twinkle in his eyes he was delighted to have Jill back and so was I.
Robert spluttered, floored, but Rose wasn’t anywhere near as incompetent as her boyfriend. If anything, she was the more dangerous, as far as I was concerned, his dark and nasty hidden self notwithstanding. The clever and despicable woman at his side spoke up before he could formulate whatever excuse his feeble brain was trying to assemble.