Justice Betrayed

by Patricia Bradley

  “I wonder where the mother was?” the Judge asked.

  “Here’s another article, a couple of years later. Still doesn’t name her, just calls her the victim, but says the mother had died when she was fourteen,” Boone said, reading from the article. “Again it indicates Donna remained in the mental hospital for three years—until she turned eighteen.”

  The skin on his neck prickled. Scenarios ran rampant through his mind. He took out his phone and dialed Rachel’s number, his stomach clenching when she didn’t answer. He realized he should have gotten Erin’s number, and found her sister’s number on his recent calls. Terri didn’t answer, either.

  Boone tapped his phone on the table, then stood and walked to the whiteboard in the room. “Let’s look at this rationally.”

  He wrote Donna’s name on the board, then listed the people in her circle who had died.

  Alfred Baker—father

  Robert Morrow—affair

  Gabby Winslow—friend?

  Harrison Foxx—affair?

  Vic Vegas—Boone wasn’t sure of Vic’s connection to Donna yet.

  The Judge picked up the file. “You forgot her husband—Chandler Dumont.”

  Boone added his name. “Did it say what the mother died from? We might need to look at that.”

  “Fell down the basement stairs,” he said. “While there’s no proof Donna was connected to any of those deaths other than her father’s, that’s a lot of deaths in one person’s life.” Lucien picked up the guitar pendant. “What does the necklace signify?”

  “Culver said Vic was arguing about it with a woman. But Vic never mentioned her name.”

  “You indicated it belonged to my wife, but I’ve never seen it before.”

  Boone walked back to the table and found the photo of Gabby Winslow wearing the necklace. “Here she is wearing it the night of the St. Jude charity event. You’re sure you’ve never seen it?”

  “I’m positive.” The Judge turned the necklace over. “She didn’t have it on when I saw her that night, either. I would have remembered something like this. Although I did leave before the gala was over, so Harrison could have given it to her after I left.”

  “Could she have bought it?”

  “If she did, Gabby would have charged it—she charged everything—and I don’t remember seeing a bill for a piece of jewelry after she died. This would’ve cost at least a couple of grand, even seventeen years ago.”

  “Lucien, thank goodness you’re here!”

  Boone turned. Terri stood in the doorway, pale and hollow-eyed.

  “What’s going on?” the Judge said.

  “Rachel and Erin. They’re not answering their phones.”

  “I know, I just tried to call Rachel.”

  “Donna has them. I know she does.”

  52

  DONNA HAD CALLED HER GABBY. Once again she’d slipped over the edge, and from the look in her eyes, she might not come back. Rachel was dealing with an insane person, and there was no way to predict how she would react to any situation. Whatever Rachel did, she had to be careful. One wrong move could cost Erin’s life, as well as her own.

  Donna turned and glared at Erin. “All right, get out and stand by my door until I get out. And if you so much as look at anyone, I’ll shoot Gabby. Do you understand?”

  Erin’s eyes widened as big as saucers. She nodded and then did as she was told.

  Rachel wasn’t worried about Erin doing or saying anything. She’d gone silent now and appeared to understand the danger.

  Donna turned to Rachel. “Sit there until I get out, and then we’ll go inside.”

  A minute later, Rachel walked inside the service center on legs that felt like noodles, conscious of Donna following close behind with her hand on Erin’s elbow. The other hand held the gun hidden in her pants pocket. At the cash register, Rachel said, “May I have the key to the restroom?”

  The clerk handed her a key attached to a small wooden paddle. If he thought it was odd that all three of them came inside for the key, he didn’t say anything. But then they probably looked like any other mother and daughters traveling together. Normal.

  Inside the restroom, there were two stalls.

  “One at a time,” Donna instructed.

  “I’ll hold your purse,” Rachel said, pointing at the red bag Erin gripped to her side. Somehow she had to get the purse. If it held Erin’s usual lipstick, she could at least leave a message. Once Erin was out, Rachel ducked into the stall and opened the purse. Yes! Erin’s phone was in the bottom. But it was turned off, and she didn’t have enough time for it to power up and send a message.

  She made sure the ringer was silent and turned the phone on before slipping it in her back pocket. Now Terri would be able to track their location—if she checked. Surely she’d check when they didn’t show up at the group home after the candlelighting service. Rachel might even get an opportunity to use the phone herself.

  “Hurry up,” Donna snapped.

  “Coming.” She found the tube of lipstick and quickly scribbled “Help!” Suddenly the stall door flew open and Donna snatched the paper from her hand.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled and jerked Erin close, pressing the gun against her side. “Get out.”

  Gritting her teeth, Rachel did as she was told, her fingers itching to attack Donna. But not while she held the gun on Erin. Donna turned and pushed Erin toward the door, and she stumbled to the floor.

  Rachel dove for the pistol, but Donna was faster. She jerked back, and then slammed the pistol against Rachel’s cheek. Rachel reeled against the wall and pressed her hand to her throbbing face.

  The gun shook in Donna’s hand. “I ought to kill you now.”

  “No!” Erin cried.

  Rachel’s cheek throbbed. Donna was surprisingly strong. “You won’t get out of here alive if you fire that gun.”

  For a minute, she wasn’t sure if reason would win out, but gradually the gun stopped moving and Donna took a breath.

  “Get in the car, and if you try something like that again, I promise you, I don’t care where we are, I’ll kill you both.”

  Rachel opened the bathroom door, and Donna shoved her forward. Right away Rachel noticed that dark clouds had formed to the west. She didn’t know if that would be a good thing or not.

  Once they were in the car, Donna said, “Take a right out of the lot and stay on Poplar until I tell you to turn.”

  They were nearing I-240 when she noticed Donna had Rachel’s phone out and was typing.

  “What are you doing?” Rachel asked when her phone whooshed with a sent message.

  “You just told Boone we’ve been carjacked.”

  Why would she do that? Goose bumps raised on her arm. If Donna thought Boone would believe that, she had totally lost contact with reality. The Dragnet ringtone she’d assigned Boone rang from her phone. Donna lowered the window, letting the wind whip through the car as she tossed the phone.

  “No!”

  Donna laughed, and the eerie sound sent shivers down Rachel’s back. “You won’t need your phone where you’re going. Now go west on I-240 and drive toward downtown.”

  Rachel’s mind raced as she gripped the steering wheel and took the ramp onto the interstate. Short of crashing the car, she had no option other than to do as Donna said. For now.

  This was more than she could handle on her own, and she wished she was on better terms with God. She could really use his help now. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.” The verse she’d memorized in childhood popped into her mind. It was the verse she’d comforted herself with after her mother died.

  Hope crept into her heart. Focus on the positive. Boone would put out a BOLO—be-on-the-lookout alert. And he’d call Terri. She could track them on Erin’s phone. For the first time, she had hope they might get out of this.

  53

  “WHERE DO YOU THINK DONNA TOOK THEM?” Boone asked as Terri collapsed in a chair at the table.

 
; “Who knows? She’s crazy.” She buried her face in her hands. “If only I’d gone to the police back when I thought she killed her husband. But I didn’t have any proof.”

  “You have proof now?” Lucien asked.

  Terri lifted her head. “Nothing I could bring to you, Lucien. Just my gut feeling, and it’s rarely wrong.” She turned to Boone. “She was my husband’s lab assistant and had access to everything he did. If ricin went missing from his lab, she took it. My husband would never have stolen it or misplaced it—research was his life and he prided himself on his work. He wouldn’t have risked his reputation for anything.”

  Boone showed her the pendant. “Have you ever seen this before?”

  Terri shook her head.

  He handed her the photo of Gabby with Harrison. “Could he have given it to her?”

  “I don’t know.” She brought the photo closer to her face. “But that’s Donna in the background.”

  “What?” He examined the picture. The scowling person she pointed out was heavier than the office manager he knew. But if he looked close, he could see a resemblance.

  “Is that a list of people you think she killed?”

  He turned, and she was staring at the whiteboard.

  “Not exactly. Except for the father. The rest of them had contact with her.”

  “What happened to her father?”

  Boone handed her the two articles. Her eyes widened as she read. When she finished, she dropped the papers on the table.

  “Earlier when I called her crazy, I was using a figure of speech. But she really is.” She swallowed hard. “There . . . is something I’ve never told anyone. When Bobby broke it off with her, she threatened to kill him.”

  “You didn’t tell the police about her threat when he died?” Boone asked.

  She shook her head. “I believed it was an accident, and I never dreamed she’d actually do it . . . except I never understood why he was that close to the edge of the cliff. He was always so careful. It wasn’t like him . . .” She pressed her hands together and touched them to her lips and looked at the board again. “What if Donna followed us to Big Sur? Bobby told me when he was confessing their affair that he and Donna had hiked it. That’s why we went there. To overlay his memories of being there with her with memories of the two of us. And he died instead.”

  A text dinged on Boone’s phone. They all stared at his phone as though it’d grown wings.

  “It’s from Rachel.” He couldn’t believe the message. “They’ve been carjacked.”

  Immediately he tried to call her, but it went to voicemail.

  “Maybe Donna has her phone,” Terri said.

  The Judge leaned forward. “What purpose would it serve for Donna to send a text saying they’d been carjacked?”

  “Good question.” He exchanged glances with the Judge. “I think we’ve been looking at this all wrong. We’ve been going on the assumption we’re dealing with a normal person.” He looked at Terri. “Did you say you had a tracking app on Erin’s phone?”

  Terri yanked her phone from her pocket and clicked on an orange and white app. “Come on,” she muttered. Then she gasped. “It’s working now. They’re on Lamar! Right at Airways, it looks like.”

  “Do you suppose they’re still headed to Graceland?” the Judge asked.

  “I doubt it. Figure she’s headed out of the state. Maybe on the way to Mexico.” Boone rubbed his jaw.

  “You really think she’d try something like that?” the Judge asked.

  “If Donna has kidnapped them, she’s crazy and there’s no way to predict anything she’ll do. But eventually, they’ll have to stop for fuel. Maybe then Rachel will get an opportunity to get away.”

  “Rachel won’t leave Erin,” Terri said.

  He picked up his office phone and dialed the dispatcher. “I need a BOLO for Donna Dumont’s vehicle—you’ll have to get DMV to look up her tag number. And add a 2005 or 2006 dark gray Honda Civic to the BOLO. It’s registered to Rachel Sloan. You can get her tag number from DMV as well.”

  He disconnected and then dialed the Financial Crimes Unit. If anyone could quickly track either of their credit cards, the FCU officers could. He explained what he wanted and that they could get Donna and Rachel’s personal information from their personnel records.

  “They’ll let us know as soon as they know something,” he said after he hung up. Then he turned to Terri. “Check their whereabouts again.”

  She refreshed the app and then groaned. “It says location not available. Why did it quit working?”

  Boone brought Google Maps up on his computer. “Where did you say they were?”

  “Airways and Lamar. Could they be going to the airport?”

  “I don’t think so. No tickets, too many people.” But he typed in the Memphis, Tennessee, airport. The area around it was a good place to start. Nothing spoke to him and he zoomed out, following Lamar toward downtown. Boone caught his breath. “What was that cemetery her father is buried in?”

  “Elmwood,” the Judge said. “Same one Gabby is buried in.”

  “I think that’s where she’s headed.” The cemetery was huge, and in another hour it would be dark. What if Donna made a break for it when they confronted her? They’d never find her in the dark. Boone grabbed his phone and called for a chopper. They would need the lights the helicopter would provide. Thunder rumbled, and he glanced toward the window and frowned. It was too early to be this dark. When someone in the Air Support Division answered, he explained what he wanted. “But don’t deploy unless I ask for assistance.”

  “Sorry, Lieutenant, but we’re about to get hit with a powerful thunderstorm in the next thirty minutes. We’re grounded.”

  His muscles tensing, Boone quickly hung up and called the dispatcher again. “I have a possible hostage situation, and I need every available car to invisibly deploy toward Elmwood Cemetery and remain on standby. Do not attempt to apprehend the occupants in the vehicle. I repeat—do not apprehend.”

  He grabbed his keys and rushed toward the door.

  “Hold up,” the Judge said. “I’m coming with you.”

  Boone turned to refuse, but the determination in the Judge’s face stopped him. It was plain he was coming with him or in his own vehicle. It was the same with Terri. “Okay, but once we get there, you’ll have to remain in the car.”

  He half trotted across the street, keeping a wary eye on the low-hanging clouds in the sky. A thunderstorm was the last thing they needed. “What’s the quickest way to Elmwood?” he asked as he peeled down the garage ramp and out on to Washington.

  Terri waved her phone. “I’ll check.” A minute later, she said, “I-40 to I-240 South, come off on exit 29. ETA is eight minutes.”

  “Check and see the time from Airways and Lamar.” Boone flipped on his flashing lights and siren as he turned right on Poplar. At least downtown traffic had cleared out. “And while you’re at it, see if you can find anyone who can tell us where Alfred Baker’s grave is.”

  “Seven minutes, but they’ve been traveling since I checked. They’re probably already there.” Then she said, “It says here the cemetery closed at four thirty.”

  “Let me alert the Uniform Patrol. We might have a situation if she can’t get in.”

  Terri took out her phone. “I’m going to try Erin one more time. Maybe someone will pick up.”

  54

  THEY WERE NOW TRAVELING down Lamar toward downtown Memphis. Rachel took her eyes off the road for a second to check on Donna’s stability. She was no longer calling her Gabby, and in spite of the laugh, she acted calmer. Not so close to the edge of madness.

  Donna caught her looking, and for half a second, her eyes softened. “I didn’t mean to kill your mother.”

  “What happened that night?” She kept her words soft, non-accusing, in spite of the fact she wanted to rip into her.

  Donna pressed her lips together so tightly they almost disappeared.

  “I won’t be angry,” Rachel sa
id. “Was it an accident?”

  “Yes!” She said the word eagerly. “That’s exactly what it was. It wasn’t my fault. You’ve got to understand that. All I asked Gabby to do was just break it off with Harrison.”

  Rachel frowned. “My mother wasn’t in love with Harrison.”

  “I know.” Donna slapped her hand on the console.

  Rachel flinched and glanced in the mirror to check on Erin. Thank goodness, she’d dozed off. Shut down, most likely.

  Donna continued, her voice rising. “Gabby didn’t care about Harrison, but she wouldn’t leave him alone. And as long as she was hanging around, he wasn’t going to marry anyone else.”

  Anger radiated off her like a blazing fire. Maybe they should talk about something else. Heavier clouds loomed on the horizon. The weather. That was always a normal topic. “Looks like we might get that rain they promised.” Silence. “I hope it waits until after the candlelighting.”

  Again, no response. Maybe if she could make an emotional connection to Donna, she could reason with her. Once when they were working out, she’d mentioned how hard her life had been, and how her father had died when she was fifteen. “We have a lot in common, you know.”

  “What makes you think that? You’re just a kid, compared to me.”

  “I may be younger, but I lost my mother at the same age that you lost your dad. I know how hard that is.”

  “It wasn’t the same situation.” Donna shifted in the front seat, and tapped her foot against the floorboard. “We argued all the time.”

  “Yeah, most families do that. I don’t think Mom and I ever did, though.”