“He didn't think you were worth the airfare.” Blondie shrugged his shoulders. “Can't say I blame him. I enjoyed your book by the way.”
“My book?”
“Yes, Inspired By Murder. Not bad for a work of fiction. Problem is, it's not really fiction is it? You killed Stella, Patricia, Martin, Robert, and Dwayne and made them fictional characters in your book. You carried out their murders in the exact same way on paper as you had in real life. You killed Daisy too, but I'm not sure why you chose to leave her out of your novel.”
“You haven't read my book.”
“Oh, but I have. Elizabeth Stone sent it to me.” He took off his sunglasses and folded them into his shirt pocket. “I'm afraid she didn't get a chance to read your full manuscript. After she saw your connection to the recent murders in the news that shared a striking resemblance to the killings in your book, she got concerned and forwarded your manuscript to my partner. But, if it makes you feel better, we quite enjoyed it.
“Anyway, in addition to the evidence we'd already compiled, we used the details from your book to find your DNA at Martin and Patricia's crime scenes and security footage of you buying the burner phone you used to text Dwayne. We'd already found your fingerprints at his crime scene and your neighbor's stolen car parked across the street from the cafe with your prints inside. We also have footage of you driving to Discovery Park where you dumped Daisy's body. When we examined the trunk of your car more closely, we found fibers that matched the sweater Daisy wore when she died. We also found small amounts of acetone and mineral spirits on your gloves matching the paint thinner you used to wipe off Robert’s drumsticks after you killed him. Altogether, it's practically a confession.”
His landlord’s wife came into the sitting room holding two steaming mugs. She looked startled at the sight of the officers. Her wide eyes gawked between them and Eric. Stephenson ignored her presence and continued.
“We were tracking your IP address and confirmed your Australian address from the contact info you sent to Elizabeth. I also got a call from your sister-in-law saying she ran into you at her local grocery store.
Sorry that you actually don't have a literary agent. But, congratulations, you are under arrest for the murders of Martin and Patricia Watts, Daisy Colbert, Robert Benson, and Dwayne Morrison and are being extradited to the United States.”
When the wife bent over the side table to Eric’s right to set down his tea, Eric took the opportunity for a way out. He stood and pulled her into a choke hold. She let out a weak cry. Stephenson drew his firearm and Eric made sure her body shielded his own from the officers. Her husband looked on in silent horror from the front doorway.
“Let her go!” Blondie ordered, his gun aimed at Eric’s head.
Eric tucked his head behind hers and squeezed his arm tighter around her neck. He backed into the kitchen, dragging her resistant weight with him. The U.S. Marshall also drew his weapon and aimed it at Eric. Stephenson moved with them into the kitchen, followed by the U.S. Marshall.
Eric swiped a butcher knife from the knife block on the counter. The woman began to sob as he held it to her throat.
“Drop the knife, Eric! I don't want to kill you, but I will if I have to.” Blondie kept his gun fixed at Eric’s head.
But he couldn't kill him. Not with the woman's head blocking Dr. Leroy’s. There was no way he could get a clean shot. With the knife pressed to her throat, Eric retreated to the door behind him that led to the backyard.
“It's over—there's nowhere to go. Don't make me shoot you.”
The woman's sobs grew louder, and Eric could hardly hear himself think.
“Shut up!” he yelled into her ear.
Eric quickly considered his options. He didn't have many. He decided it wouldn't do him any good to kill her. Instead, he shoved her toward Blondie's aimed gun and ran out the door. He jumped over the back-porch steps, his feet landing hard on the lawn.
He looked beyond the yard to the undeveloped bush. That's where he would have to make his run for it. He sprinted across the lawn. He’d only made it halfway when he spotted the Australian officer out the corner of his eye. The officer came at him at full speed. Eric pushed to widen the distance between them.
He heard Blondie jump off the deck and make a what sounded like a rough landing onto the grass. He knew he wouldn’t be far behind. Luckily, Eric was in good shape from all his recent exercise.
He reached the bush trail and forced himself to run faster. Eric knew he had the advantage now since the bush was familiar to him. He maneuvered easily through the dips and curves of the terrain. He could hear the heavy footsteps of the officers on his tail but managed to keep the distance between them until the trail came to an end.
Eric ran to the open field and couldn’t believe his good luck. The scenic flight helicopter that was usually parked in the field during his morning runs was in mid-takeoff, only a foot off the ground. He dashed toward it at lightning speed.
Eric ran against the wind force created by its rotor blades. Knife in hand, he grasped the door handle before it lifted out of his reach and leapt onto the landing skid. He slid the door open before he threw himself into the empty seat next to the pilot. The pilot looked so startled when he turned to him, Eric was afraid he might lose control of the chopper. In his desperation for a safe escape, Eric thrust the knife against his throat like he’d done to his landlord.
The rhythmic pulsation from the spinning blades overhead muted the screams from the couple in the backseat.
Eric brought his face closer to the pilot’s. “Go!” he yelled.
The pilot broke Eric’s stare to look out the windshield as he lifted the lever in his left hand. Keeping the knife against his throat, Eric let out a sigh and leaned back in his seat as the pilot did what he was told.
Eric felt two hands clamp around his left ankle that dangled out the side of the helicopter. He grabbed the inside of the open doorframe to stable himself and carefully leaned his head over the side. They were nearly ten feet off the ground. Blondie hung in the air, all his weight suspended from Eric’s lower leg. What a showoff.
Eric pressed his hand against the wall of the helicopter and fought to stay inside the aircraft while he shook his foot as violently as he could against Blondie’s weight. One of the detective’s hands fell away from Eric’s leg. Blondie grabbed onto the landing skid before reaching back for his leg. Eric looked frantically for his seatbelt but couldn’t risk taking the knife away from the pilot’s throat or his hand away from the doorframe to buckle it.
The Australian officer stood in the field looking up at them. Blondie hollered something to him that Eric couldn’t make out through the noise from the rotor blades.
His foot was numb from Blondie’s tight grip around his ankle. Eric watched Stephenson shake his legs above the officer’s head.
“We need more weight!” he heard Blondie yell.
Eric watched in horror as the hefty officer jumped and grabbed onto one of Stephenson’s legs with both arms. Eric pulled his head inside the helicopter as it dipped to the side.
Eric spotted the pilot’s elbow a second before it slammed into his temple. He lost his grip on the doorframe and fell toward the open door. He was searching for something to grab hold of when the pilot shoved his torso. Eric toppled out of the aircraft. His hand skimmed Blondie’s pant leg on the way to the ground.
He landed flat on his back against the grass, air leaving his lungs upon impact. He had a déjà vu of landing at the bottom of Patricia’s staircase next to Martin’s still-warm corpse. Only instead of a chandelier crashing down on him, he was almost crushed by Blondie and his Australian sidekick. Fortunately, both landed a few feet away.
Despite the pain from the fall, Eric got to his feet as fast as he could. He dashed toward the motorway across from the field. He’d only made it a few steps when he was tackled from the side. They went down hard before skidding to a stop on the lawn.
Eric felt a knee dig into his back as
he tried to get up. The officer wrenched Eric’s hands behind him and placed them in handcuffs. Eric recognized Blondie's legs come to a stop in front of him on the lawn. Eric could see his smug look of satisfaction had returned when the Australian officer pulled him to his feet.
They were eye to eye and, for a moment, neither of them spoke.
“Let's go,” Blondie finally said, grabbing him by the arm.
Eric felt like crying as he read him his Miranda rights. No literary agent? How could that be? It wasn't fair. He was destined to be a bestselling author. As Blondie led him through the bush trail, Eric decided he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life in an American prison. They might even give him the death penalty. Australia had done away with capital punishment a long time ago. Plus, this was his home. He’d wasted twenty years living in America, and there was no way he was going to let Blondie take him back now.
“I have to confess something,” Eric said.
Stephenson stopped in the middle of the trail. “What?”
“I killed someone.”
“You killed several someones. We can stop at the Nelson Bay Police Department if you want to tell me what happened.”
“No. I killed a cop. Last night.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Stephenson moved in front of Eric and looked him in the eyes.
“What did you say?”
On their way to arrest Eric, the Nelson Bay detective had told Stephenson that one of his colleagues hadn’t shown up for work that morning and they hadn’t been able to get ahold of her.
“Her name was Talia,” Eric said without emotion.
The detective who’d come to help them arrest Eric grabbed Eric’s shoulder from behind and swung him around.
“You’re lying!”
Stephenson watched the detective’s face turn red with anger.
“I buried her in the bush right over there.” He pointed to a clearing about ten feet from the trail.
The detective ran toward the clearing and used his hands to dig through the recently disturbed native grass. Stephenson left Eric with the U.S. Marshall and ran after the Australian detective. The U.S. Marshall grabbed Eric by the arm and pulled him toward the clearing.
“Stop! We need to wait for the forensic team. You might disturb the evidence if she’s actually buried here,” Stephenson said.
“She might still be alive!” he yelled and continued to dig through the sandy ground with his hands.
Stephenson put his hand on the front of the large detective’s shoulder. “She won’t be alive if what Eric said is true. Don’t risk contaminating her crime scene if he’s telling the truth.”
“A little to the left,” Eric said when he and U.S. Marshall approached the site.
The detective shook Stephenson’s hand away and, per Eric’s instructions, clawed into the soil to the left of where he’d been digging. Stephenson felt a knot form in his stomach as he watched him dig an even deeper hole with his bare hands. An image of his late partner’s dead body ran through his head. No matter how much he tried, it was something he could never erase. Even though Rodriguez had been gone over a year, the memory of finding her the morning after she’d been killed was fresh in his mind.
“Talia!”
The detective’s shout brought Stephenson out of his thoughts. A pale, cyanotic hand lay exposed in the dirt at the bottom of the two-foot hole.
“I’ll call it in,” the U.S. Marshall said, pulling out his phone as the detective worked frantically to unearth her body.
“I know this is hard, but I think we should wait for forensics,” Stephenson said, knowing she was beyond saving.
Ignoring Stephenson, the detective removed enough dirt to expose her face. Recognizing her dead face, he sank back on his heels and brought the back of his hand to his mouth.
“It’s her,” he choked.
Stephenson looked down solemnly at the woman’s face, enraged by her death and the memory of Rodriguez.
“You son of a bitch!” he heard the detective yell.
Stephenson turned to Eric, who wore a slight smirk as he overlooked the scene. The detective jumped to his feet and charged him. The U.S. Marshall quickly stepped in between them. Stephenson rushed toward the detective and gave him a shove in the opposite direction of Eric and the U.S. Marshall who blocked him. Although Dr. Leroy would’ve deserved it, Stephenson and the U.S. Marshall struggled to block the infuriated detective from delivering any blows.
“I’m afraid this is going to halt his extradition to America,” the U.S. Marshall said to Stephenson once the Australian detective had calmed down. “The Australian government won’t release him until after he goes to trial. If he’s convicted, we won’t be able to extradite until he’s completed his sentence here in Australia.”
“New South Wales has a mandatory life sentence without parole for killing a cop,” the Australian detective added.
“But no death penalty.” Eric flashed a disgusting smile at Stephenson.
Stephenson knew he wouldn’t have faced it anyway. The Australian government had requested the death penalty not be used in Eric’s sentencing upon extradition, and Washington State had agreed to those terms. But he was too repulsed to offer any rebuttal to the sadistic doctor.
The four of them remained in the clearing by Talia’s dead body and waited in silence for the forensic team to arrive.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
An hour later, Stephenson and the U.S. Marshall led Eric to the front of the house where their borrowed squad car waited to take Eric to the Nelson Bay Police Station. The Australian detective had stayed behind to continue processing the scene with the forensic team. A handful of journalists stood by their vehicle when they approached. Their cameras flashed as they captured Eric being led to the car in handcuffs. When they got closer, the reporters all shouted questions at once.
“Is it true you killed your wife in Nelson Bay twenty years ago?”
“How many people have you murdered?”
“What do you want to say to Stella Flemming's family?”
“Does your family know you're here?”
“That's enough,” Blondie said. “Give us some space.”
He pushed him into the car and buckled his seatbelt. The press continued to spout questions and take pictures from outside. Eric sank back into his seat. He couldn't believe he'd been duped by some idiot cop into thinking that he had gotten an agent. It was an even bigger blow than getting arrested.
Eric took one last look at his hometown through the backseat window as they drove through Nelson Bay's town center. They passed a bookstore that displayed a bestselling hardcover in its front window and his heart ached. That should've been his book.
Then it dawned on him. He was an international fugitive. A media sensation. He felt a smile surface when the car pulled out onto the gumtree-lined motor way, knowing the headlines of his arrest would ensure his book a number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list.
Eric remained lost in thought for the rest of the short drive. Later that afternoon, he sat alone in an interview room at the Nelson Bay Police Department. He couldn't believe they were arresting him for Daisy's murder on top of all the others. He knew Blondie and Marky Mark weren't exactly Seattle homicide's best and brightest. At least not Marky Mark. But even a child could've figured out that Dwayne killed Daisy. Eric shuddered at the thought of beautiful Daisy ever being with such a lowlife.
Maybe he should've handed her phone over to them instead of destroying it. He didn't think he was in jeopardy of being arrested for a murder he had nothing to do with. He'd do the time for the murders he was guilty of, but he refused to go down for something he didn't do.
If only he had gone to her address that night after she left his practice for the last time. Maybe he could've rescued her from that pathetic loser. He suddenly had a strange recollection that he'd tried. On his way home from killing Patricia. She was alone, Dwayne wasn't even there. But she refused to come with him. She actua
lly chose Dwayne over him.
She told him she'd only stayed the night at his apartment because she didn't want to go home to Dwayne. It had nothing to do with Eric. She told him she was leaving Dwayne, but that didn't mean she'd be desperate enough to jump into another relationship with someone his age. His age. That's when he lost it.
An image of his secretary’s final moments came to his mind. She’d looked so peaceful when he finally pulled his hands away from her delicate neck. So peaceful, it had almost made him feel as though she were still alive.
EPILOGUE
Stephenson pulled a beer out of the fridge, wishing he had someone to celebrate with. It was Friday night, and he'd only been back from Australia for twenty-four hours. Adams was out of town for the weekend. He had tried explaining to Tess again before he left for Australia that there was nothing going on between him and Serena, but she was adamant she wanted to be nothing more than coworkers.
Dr. Leroy had given his full confession to the Nelson Bay Police for the murder of Talia Palamo. The doctor was being held at Cessnock Correctional Centre, a large maximum-security prison an hour inland of Nelson Bay, while he waited to go to trial for her murder. He would probably never be tried for the murders of Stella, Martin, Patricia, Robert, Daisy, and Dwayne, but at least their families would have the reassurance he was no longer living as a free man. Although, Stephenson felt he’d let them down by not bringing the doctor back to be convicted for the killings of their loved ones.
The only good thing about the trip was that the pursuit had served as a distraction from the emptiness he felt from losing Richards so soon after falling for her. Even though he'd only known her a short while, he felt they had an instant connection, as if he'd known her a lot longer. Now that it was over, she kept finding a way back into his thoughts.
He took a swig of his beer as he walked into his living room. He was about to turn on the TV, for lack of anything better to do, when he heard a soft knock at his door. He opened it to find Tess standing on his front porch in the pouring rain.
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