Just One Look

by Peggy Webb

  just one look

  A Breakdown Series Short Read

  Peggy Webb

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 Peggy Webb

  Cover Design by Vicki Hinze

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Westmoreland House

  First Edition October 2018

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  What is Breakdown?

  Welcome to Shutter Lake

  The Breakdown Books

  About the Author

  Also by Peggy Webb

  Chapter 1

  Five Years Ago

  Halloween was only a week away, and the Jack o’ Lantern killer was still on the loose.

  That was Julia’s first thought on waking. As if that weren’t enough to make her want to pull the sheet back over her head, her second thought was even more horrifying. She was the reporter who had named one of the worst serial murderers in Chicago’s history the Jack o’ Lantern killer. She’d been the one to give him the notoriety and recognition, however chilling, that psychopaths with his talent for horror always seek.

  Sometimes she absolutely hated her job. She wished she’d called him Nobody or Loser. For Pete’s sake, she sometimes wished she were still writing the society column and an occasional free-lance op-ed piece instead of covering the crime beat for Chicago World.

  “Good morning, sleepy head.” Rick strolled into the room in his boxers with his black hair sticking up on one side as if he’d had a bad fright. His uncombed hair and the fading crease in his cheek where he’d pounded his pillow into wrinkled submission made him appear innocent and vulnerable, two of the last characteristics you’d ever assign to FBI Special Agent Patrick Richards, particularly not in his hearing.

  He set the morning edition of Chicago World on the bedside table then leaned in to kiss her. “You made the front page again.”

  The headline blared, “Jack o’ Lantern Killer Adds to His Gallery of Horrors.” Underneath was the macabre color photo of the life-sized poster he’d hung from the Michigan Avenue (DuSable) Bridge - his seventh victim, another blond young woman dressed in a sequined gown, her face carved into a grotesque Halloween mask.

  Below the grisly photo was her byline, Julia Ford. Her story paid homage to the victim - Linda Johnson, twenty-six, a dental hygienist who still wore her engagement ring in the gruesome photograph. Like the other six victims, she’d vanished without a trace and been reported missing for days before she showed up as the latest poster girl in the Jack o ‘Lantern’s sick gallery. So far not a single body had been found.

  The rest of the story centered on the Jack o’ Lantern killer who had prompted one of the biggest manhunts in the history of the city. And was it any wonder?

  He was hanging posters of his victims on Chicago landmarks, among them the Brooks Building on West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago Public Library on East Washington, Chicago Theatre on North State and the Old Town sign in Chicago’s historic District. He’d started with the arched entrance on the abandoned brick power plant beside the Illinois-Indiana State Line Boundary marker, a sandstone obelisk.

  The irony of hanging the poster of his first victim next to a park whose wrought iron entrance gates featured two crosses had not been lost on Julia. She’d been the only reporter to point out the macabre juxtaposition between horror and religion. Was it that small difference that had prompted the mysterious woman dubbed “the tipster” to keep calling Julia with her leads instead of the Chicago PD?

  “I wish I could take that haunted looked out of your eyes.” The mattress sagged as Rick he sat down. He pulled Julia close and planted a soft kiss on top of her head. “I wish I could be here for you all the time.”

  “Don’t even go there.”

  “We need to talk about us.”

  “Now is not the time.”

  “I promise you that as soon as this is over,” he gestured toward her story on the Jack o’ Lantern killer, “I’m going to ask Helen for a divorce.”

  Julia didn’t remind him how many times he’d said that. Four that she could remember without any effort. She vaguely recalled at least two before that.

  Nor would she let herself think about Helen, a pretty woman whose occasional photo in the society section didn’t tell the story of the hypochondria she used like a whip over her husband. Maybe she’d had once been happy - and normal, if there was such a thing. Maybe Helen had reasons for her fake illnesses.

  Today Julia was inclined to make up a sickness of her own. No hurrying in to work, no deadlines, no pounding out stories that lately made her feel as if she needed to rush home and shower.

  “I don’t want to be the cause.” She disentangled herself from Rick, climbed out of bed and nabbed her robe. “Divorce has to be something you want, not something you’re doing because you think I’m waiting for a ring.”

  Hers was an old argument, too. She hated standing there in bare feet repeating it and watching the shadows flit across his face. He was a good man, maybe even a wonderful man. He didn’t deserve to be caught between two women.

  And she’d never intended to be the other woman.

  She and Rick had just happened, two people unexpectedly caught in a net of mutual attraction and explosive passion. They’d met on a kidnapping story where he was leading the search for the missing child. A six-year-old boy. She’d never forget him. Strawberry blond hair, freckles, the smile of an angel. The pedophile who had led the FBI through three states was now in prison and the child was back with his parents. Julia wished every story she did could have a happy ending.

  As she headed toward the shower, Rick called after her. “You want company?”

  “Not today.” She didn’t even have to add, “It’s not personal.” Rick was on the FBI task force hunting the Jack o’ Lantern killer. He needed no reminders that time was running out. Both of them were in a pressure cooker that was liable to blow any minute.

  She made quick work of her shower then left the water running for Rick, who stepped in right behind her. By the time he was out, she’d tossed her long blond hair into a loose chignon, dressed in her favorite periwinkle-blue suit and black pumps and was pouring her coffee into a travel mug.

  “You look gorgeous.”

  “Thanks. You’re not so bad, yourself.” He was naked as a jaybird, as her Southern-born mother would say. Julia gave him an exaggerated leer and he laughed, which had been her intention, all along.

  “Cocktails at Sam’s after work?” he said.

  The bar was just around the corner from her work and a favorite hangout for reporters.

  “Yes. Then back here?”

  “Not tonight.” That sad, clouded face again. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” For now. She cupped his left cheek, thought briefly of saying I love you then discarded the idea. It would be unfair to both of them. Love was too complicated to throw into the mix with divorce and murder.

  Julia settled for a quick kiss then nabbed a bagel to eat on the “L” train. “I’ll see you around six.”

  Chapter 2

  The building that housed Chicago World was nothing like the imposing Tribune Tower two blocks down Michig
an Avenue. The World’s offices were in an aging and modest red brick building with Corinthian columns presiding over the entrance. If the building were in Tennessee, her mother’s birthplace, it would have ivy growing up the sides.

  Julia hurried through the glass doors into a reception area that was deceptive in its quiet elegance. Comfortable chairs upholstered in russets and browns were interspersed with end tables in gleaming mahogany and arranged in a loose semi-circle around the massive reception desk.

  Mildred Lawson, who had been with the paper before Julia was born, pushed her glasses onto a mop of silver curls and peered at her with blue eyes turning watery with age.

  “You always look like you stepped off the pages of Vogue.”

  “Thanks, Millie. What’s the boss’s mood today?”

  “Pit bull.”

  “I can deal with that.”

  Yesterday Millie’s answer had been bear. She always rated the editor-in-chief in animal terms that ranged from pussy cat to wild hog to preening peacock to foaming-at-the-mouth grizzly bear, which was ten times worse than a simple bear. Everybody on staff knew Millie’s grading system, including the editor, who indulged the newspaper’s oldest employee by pretending not to know. It was little inside jokes like this that lightened Julia’s step as she gave Millie a thumbs-up and headed to the vintage elevator for her ride to the fourth floor.

  Chaos greeted her, and she was instantly immersed in the rarified atmosphere of print journalism. Stan at the sports desk barked orders into his phone; Jo Beth at the education desk nursed a cold that required muttered expletives interrupted by nose blowing. Phones rang and voices rose as staff worked behind their cubicles to gather the news or looked up to call a greeting. The smell of newsprint overlaid everything.

  This was Julia’s world and she needed this reminder that, after all, she loved it.

  She returned the greetings as she strode through the newsroom and down the hall to the conference room. The boss, Bill Crockett, lean and tanned from hours on the golf course, sat at the head of the table with his tie loose, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and his salt and pepper hair disheveled from his habit of running his hands through it. If you didn’t know he had a nose for news that rivaled that of a bomb-sniffing canine and a dedication to Chicago World that bordered on obsession, you’d think he was relaxing.

  In fact he was on a mission to save Chicago’s blond females, ranging in age from seventeen to twenty-eight.

  “This is the target of the Jack o’ Lantern killer so far.” He peered down his long nose at Julia. “Do you have anything to contradict that?”

  “No. His pattern shows that to be accurate.”

  “Nothing new from the tipster?”

  “Not yet.” The tipster’s calls had stopped since the Jack o’ Lantern killer took the victim whose gory portrait had been hung from the historic Dearborn Street Station two weeks ago. And that made everybody nervous, including Julia’s editor-in-chief.

  He wondered aloud if the tipster was one of the blond females in the killer’s target group. Had the monster been playing cat and mouse with her in order to feed the media frenzy that surrounded him? Had she been taken? Was the tipster actually the blond on the most recent poster found hanging from the DuSable Bridge?

  “If she calls again, try to find out if she fits the profile.” A sense of urgency spilled from the editor-in-chief. “Her life could be in danger.”

  Goose bumps rose on Julia’s arm, a sign of someone walking on her grave, according to Rachel Maddox Ford Chin, her transplanted Southern belle mother.

  As if Julia had conjured her up, Rachel rang her cell phone less than two minutes after the meeting was over.

  She slid out of her jacket and settled into the swivel chair behind her desk.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing…and everything. I know I shouldn’t call you at work, but this serial killer has everybody scared to death. Especially me. You look exactly like those girls he’s been murdering.”

  “You have nothing to worry about. I’m way past the age he’s targeting.” More than ten years past the oldest, in fact. A sobering thought that led Julia to question her life’s choices, including why she was continuing a relationship with a man who might never be free.

  “That’s a relief. You ought to write about it, warn those women.”

  “That’s exactly the focus of my next article. Tell Joe I might call him for some safety tips.”

  Joe Chin, her mother’s second husband and the only father Julia had ever known, was a Grand Master in Shotokan Karate.

  “He’ll like that. We never get to talk to you in person anymore. Come to Sunday dinner.”

  It was an exaggeration typical of her mother, but Julia let it slide.

  “I’ll try.”

  “Oh, Julia!”

  “All right. I promise.”

  After her mother’s call Julia powered up her computer. Sustained by coffee and the protein bars she kept in the right hand drawer of her desk, she lost all track of time.

  “Chicken salad!” Julia’s friend Annie was standing in the doorway, bearing food. A copy editor dubbed “Little Orphan” because of her riotous red curls, she’d been at the paper only two years but she and Julia had instantly bonded. Both were frank, independent women who said what they thought and meant what they said.

  Annie tossed a sandwich onto her desk, and she ripped into it. “You must be psychic.”

  “I know you.” Annie nodded toward the protein bar wrappers littering Julia’s desk then sank into the chair across from her. “You live, breathe and eat your work.”

  “You don’t have to keep bringing me food, you know.”

  It was a habit Annie had begun six months ago when she started working the late shift. She’d said if she didn’t have some time at home with her kids in the daylight, they were going to think she was a vampire.

  “If I didn’t, you’d starve.”

  Annie polished off her sandwich then tossed her wrapper into the waste basket. “Before I get out there and make all you hot shots look good with my red pen, tell me what you’re going to do about Rick.”

  It was a serious question posed by a friend who cared about her, and Julia found herself wanting to confide, wanting to hear Annie’s advice. She was the divorced mother of two and would have an insight that Julia lacked.

  “That’s a conversation will take more than two minutes.”

  “Okay. Drinks then, tomorrow at Sam’s? Before my shift?”

  “You’ve got it.”

  As she tossed her own wrapper, the phone on her desk rang. It was a private number she didn’t know. She held up a finger to Annie and picked up the receiver.

  “Chicago World. Julia Ford.”

  “I have information.” It was her, the tipster. “I think I know who is next.”

  Suddenly Julia felt cold all over. The tipster had never given information prior to the crime.

  “Who?”

  “I can’t say over the phone. He’s close.”

  Oh, my God.

  “Be careful. Don’t let him hear you.” Did the tipster live in the same apartment building as the Jack o’ Lantern killer? Was she a relative? His girlfriend?

  “We have to stop him. Can you meet me? Alone?”

  “Yes. And I can assure your anonymity. My sources are…”

  “Brew and Burgers. Six o’clock. Don’t tell. He’ll know.”

  “How…” The dial tone cut off the rest of Julia’s sentence. How will I know you?

  The answer was simple. The tipster would have to be living in an underground bunker not to know Julia. She’d been all over the news with the awards she’d won, the high-profile stories she’d covered. For Pete’s sake, her photo was on billboards advertising the newspaper.

  She grabbed her jacket and shoulder bag. Brew and Burgers was a dive on Chicago’s south side. If she hurried she could make it.

  Annie jumped out of her chair. “What’s going on?�
�

  “Work. I have to go.”

  Julia hurried out of her office and through the newsroom. On the elevator going down she sent a text to Rick.

  Something came up. Will text when I’m free. See you soon!

  Then she spilled out of the office building and ran to catch the “L” train to the city’s crime-ridden underbelly.

  Chapter 3

  Brew and Burgers was in the middle of a block where vagrants lounged in doorways, pick-pockets roamed the streets and if you were foolish enough to leave your car parked by the curb you’d get your hubcaps stolen. Julia was conspicuous in her designer suit and high heels. She wished she’d had time to change into jeans and a sweatshirt, her running shoes and a sturdy pair of wool socks.

  It was just past sunset, the wind had picked up, the temperature was dropping and there was the threat of rain in the air. She ducked into the doorway of Brew and Burgers, grateful for the heat. The place was packed, not a single table empty and nowhere to sit at the bar.

  This was not her kind of crowd. These were people who had come for cheap food and cheap beer, people who didn’t care who you were and, if pressed, would deny they’d ever seen you.

  Julia scanned the crowd for a woman who might be looking for her. There was a tall woman in the corner, dark hair, pinched face, worried eyes. But the woman quickly turned her attention to a burly man with a red beard who had just stepped through the door.

  Two young women sat at a corner table, both blond, maybe underage, but nobody seemed to care. From the looks of their provocative clothes and flirtatious manner they were there to hustle free beer.