The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 1-3 (Alex Troutt Thrillers Box Set)

by John W. Mefford

  “What about this guy here?” I swapped out Christopher’s picture for Rick’s.

  “This guy here...oh yeah. Can’t forget him. Name’s Rick something. He really threw his money around. Heard him sweet-talking some young girl. Practically undressing her in the middle of the restaurant.”

  I bit my lip, knowing we’d finally found a common thread between the two victims. Now, the tough part.

  “This is going to sound odd, but do you recall if anyone was watching either of these two when they were here?”

  “You mean, in a creepy way?” Her neck tensed, bones appearing like they might break the skin.

  “In any way.”

  Tess flipped on her heels to look around, then turned her head back to Junior. “Have you seen Peacoat tonight?”

  “Uh, don’t think so. It’s been busy. I can’t say for sure.”

  “Who’s Peacoat?” I asked.

  “A peculiar fella, always wears one of those Navy peacoats.”

  An image of Mark’s coat of the same type came to mind. “Go on.”

  “He was really shy, a little awkward. But I could see he had an eye on that table the other night. I thought he was checking out the pretty girl. He seemed closer to her age than that Rick prick.”

  “Tess,” Junior said.

  “Did I say that?” she said, pretending innocence.

  “So,” I said, swinging her attention back to me. “Do you recall if this same man in the peacoat was here when Christopher was here?”

  “He’s here all the time. I’d bet money he’s seen both of those guys.”

  I asked, “Junior, do you have cameras in the restaurant?”

  “Only at the front and back door.”

  “I need to see the video from the last month. But start out by giving me just two nights. Wednesday night and Tuesday night.”

  “Sure thing. It’ll take a few hours. Might be in the morning.”

  “As soon as you can. Tess, do you know Peacoat’s real name?”

  “He always paid in cash. Not sure he had a credit card. He just seemed like a real simple guy.”

  I nodded, thinking more about what type of person we were dealing with. “Can you give me a good description?”

  “Dark, thick, wavy hair. His peacoat was old. His hands were large and had callouses on them. Good-looking guy. Wore some scruff on his face each time I saw him. I thought he’d be a real charmer, but he was strange. Maybe, uh, what do you call it? OCD?”

  “Obsessive-compulsive?”

  “Always had to repeat the same routine every time. Got pissed when it didn’t happen. One time, I took a peek over his shoulder, and he was staring at a bunch of numbers on his phone, mouthing the numbers, it seemed like. Not violent, just strange.”

  Junior touched my elbow to get my attention. “Can you tell us what you think this Peacoat fella did?”

  “Rick Lepino and Christopher Barden were killed on separate nights. We’re looking for anyone who has knowledge of their murders.”

  “Holy shit, Alex. Would have been nice to know that up front.”

  “Would have been nice to know your dad was an asshole, but I had to find that out the hard way, didn’t I?”

  ***

  I pulled Nick’s Impala up behind a row of cars parked along the side of Dartmouth Street, about half a block down and across the street from Monty’s. Walking the streets, asking questions had finally paid dividends. The Barden-Lepino overlap had been established. And, thanks to Tess, we had a real suspect. Outside of a vague description, we still didn’t know Peacoat’s name or any other information about him. And, frankly, we had no reason to think he had any involvement or knowledge of the murders, only an observation by a waitress that he appeared to be watching the two men who had later been killed. And, of course, he seemed “different.” OCD was the term Tess had used.

  With the off chance Peacoat would still show his face that night, I decided to give myself just one more hour outside Monty’s. I cracked the driver’s-side window so I wouldn’t fog up the windshield, then killed the engine. These older FBI-issued cars had a tendency to overheat. How I knew that was beyond me, but it was still a trivial revelation when compared to the many gaps that remained in my memory.

  It only took a couple of minutes for the nighttime chill to invade the inside of the car. I could feel my shoulders tense up so much that the pain seeped up my neck into the base of my skull. My eyes drifted down to the dust-covered dashboard. Damn, I felt like a wimp, and all of this crap came from a fender bender. Okay, it might have been slightly more than that. But still, part of me knew that Alex Giordano was no wimp, in any sense of the word.

  I lifted my sights to the front door at Monty’s. A fireplug of a man wearing a Red Sox baseball cap exited and held open the door for a nicely dressed couple merged at the hip. They stepped onto the sidewalk—and my heart stopped.

  Grabbing the steering wheel, I pulled myself closer to the windshield as the couple turned and walked west, away from my location. I forced out a breath, but my chest felt like a two-ton weight had just been dropped on it.

  I said to no one, “What in the hell is Mark doing with that woman?”

  19

  Was it really Mark? I rubbed my eyes and refocused. The well-coiffed hair, his confident gait, even the ritzy Burberry cashmere trench coat.

  Fuck! It’s him, my husband. Practically molded to that woman.

  A mane of dark hair flowed over her coat and down her back. I could see her tight calves slope down to black heels, professional, but sexy at the same time. They had to be Jimmy Choo, or a cheap knockoff.

  Working late—that had been his excuse. Was there any way this was a late working dinner?

  With my hands crushing the steering wheel, I looked closer, my eyes unblinking. The woman nuzzled her head inside Mark’s comforting arm. Her arms enveloped his waist. Turning toward her, he appeared to tell her something. They kissed.

  They fucking kissed!

  “Fucking two-timing asshole!” With blood flooding my veins, I threw open the car door and jumped to the curb. Instantly, I lost my balance and fell against the open door. The dark sky was spinning, and I couldn’t get my bearings. My breathing was erratic. Leaning down, I put two hands on my knees and focused on slowing my gasps. I kept looking over my shoulder, trying to find Mark and that woman.

  “Get it together, Alex!” I demanded of myself.

  Using the car door for balance, I pushed myself upright and spotted them sauntering down the sidewalk. I slammed the door shut, then took off in their direction. I only got three steps. They’d stopped next to a car. They hugged. Not like coworkers or even family. More like a couple or...

  I couldn’t even think the L word.

  They kissed again, pausing for an extra second. Emotion engulfed my body, and I could feel each thud in my chest chip away at my heart. It didn’t just ache; it was a stabbing, writhing pain. Was I having a frickin’ heart attack on top of everything else?

  I closed my eyes and, for a brief moment, forced my thoughts back to when I was a kid. I could feel the warm sunrays against my skin as I swayed this way and that on a small float in the ocean. Freedom, not a worry in the world.

  I blinked and took in a couple of deep breaths to steady my pulse.

  Opening my eyes again, Mark opened the back door of the older model Lexus and the woman got in, and then he joined her in the back seat. Who was driving the car? As I turned to get in Nick’s car, my eyes spotted a man in the alley next to Monty’s. He held a camera against his eye in the direction of Mark and the slut.

  Squeezing my eyes, I strained to get a better view. I could only make out a silhouette. Dark features, dark coat.

  Wait...was he wearing a peacoat?

  I jerked my head back to the Lexus.

  Red taillights came on.

  Back to the man in the alley. He brought the camera down for a second. Then he turned his head my way. I wanted to call out, to ask him what the hell he was doin
g. But I thought I knew, so I withheld the urge. Had he seen me?

  Then he was gone, fading into the blackness of the alley.

  Which one should I go after? My cheating husband and his floozy, or the man who might be involved in the brutal slayings of...two cheating husbands?

  Bile tickled the back of my throat. My hands were flat on the hood, my feet set, ready to dart in one direction or the other.

  Suddenly, red lights flashed to life in the alley. There was a roar of an engine, a sports car of some kind. Then I heard rubber squealing off the pavement.

  I turned back to Mark, and the Lexus’s rear lights turned white—the car was going in reverse, pulling out of its parking position at the curb. I picked up two letters off the license plate. S and P—maybe.

  Fuck! Which one should I follow? No time to call for help. I smacked my hands on the hood and jumped into Nick’s car just as the Lexus surged forward. Throwing the gearshift into drive, I punched it, then slammed the brakes.

  “What the fuck you lookin’ at, woman?”

  It was the fireplug wearing the Red Sox cap, the guy who’d held the door open for my cheating husband and his gal. He stood there in front of the car with his arms wide, his eyes even wider. An older woman was using a walker to cross the street.

  I held up a hand and yelled through the crack in my window, “Sorry. Didn’t see you.”

  “You tryin’ to kill someone?”

  “Come on, dammit.” I pounded the steering wheel.

  “Everyone’s in a rush, I tell ya,” he said, still standing guard in front of my hunk of metal as the woman, possibly his mother, inched across the street.

  Craning my neck, I could see the Lexus coast under a streetlamp. The car was navy blue, a gold stripe down the side. It turned left onto Beacon and vanished out of my sight.

  “It’s a damn shame. No one cares about slowin’ down, enjoying life,” the fireplug continued.

  The old woman finally made it to the curb. He looked at her, then at me. Was he deciding whether to help her up the curb or to continue his rant against me?

  Finally, he held up a hand and shuffled over to the woman. I gunned it, although I didn’t intend on tires squeaking. A hundred feet, and I pushed through a yellow light onto Beacon. This road had more traffic. I wove around cars as fast as possible, hoping the Lexus hadn’t turned down another side street.

  Just ahead, I saw a Lexus turn left. I surged forward, then hit the brakes hard. As I started to execute the turn, I noticed the Lexus parked against the curb—it was black with no stripes and a new model.

  Wrong car. Crap!

  I hit the brakes again; car horns blared all around me. Twisting the steering wheel back to my right, the symphony of horns only increased. I saluted everyone who could see me with my middle finger and forced myself back into the traffic moving west on Beacon.

  “I lost them, dammit,” I said to myself.

  For a brief second, I thought about the choice I’d made: Mark over the man in the peacoat. I couldn’t let someone else die, not like that.

  “Just call Nick.” Apparently I liked talking to myself.

  Leaning left, I found my purse while my eyes remained focused on the street. I fumbled through the purse, but my fingers couldn’t find anything thin and metal.

  “Crap. Where is it?” I was so fucking pissed at the world I could have punched a hole in the window.

  But that wouldn’t help me find my phone or the Lexus that held my husband and his...whatever she was to him.

  A momentary lapse of focus. If someone else was driving the Lexus, what were Mark and the woman doing in the back seat? A quick snippet of another time came to mind. I was younger, in my twenties, and I recalled a passionate kiss with Mark in the back of a limousine. We lost ourselves in each other. Suddenly, I was on top of him, rocking his world, and mine too.

  Tears bubbled at the corners of my eyes. I slammed a fist off the steering wheel. “Stop it, Alex. Get your shit together, dammit.”

  With my eyes focused well ahead of me as I drove, it wasn’t until the last second that I saw the brake lights. And that second counted. I jammed the brakes and rocked to a stop about an inch behind a Hummer. I could hear a deafening bass as it rattled the Impala. I cursed the Hummer, if for no other reason than it was in my way, and then I reached over and grabbed my purse and set it on my lap.

  I tossed out anything and everything that wasn’t a cell phone. The light turned green, and I punched it just as I dumped my purse on the seat next to me. Trading glances between the road and my purse, I still couldn’t find my cell phone.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” That made me feel better, at least for a few seconds.

  My eyes scanned up ahead. There!

  I spotted a car zipping by on the upcoming cross street. I was almost certain it was a blue Lexus. Nudging the nose of the Impala into the opposite lane of traffic, I gave a quick glance around and then gunned it.

  Lights were headed right for me, about four-feet high off the pavement. It was a huge truck. Horns filled the air, and I yelled out, pressing my arms against the steering wheel. Sweat bubbled on my forehead as I jerked the car back into my lane just before impact. I emptied my lungs, feeling like I’d just played a three-set match.

  Seconds later, I bothered to obey the law a little bit and flipped my blinker. The fact the light was red didn’t go unnoticed, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to find Mark, to confront him for what he’d done, or was about to do.

  I turned right and realized I was on a bridge, driving north across the Charles River. The illuminated water rippled with whites and yellows and a smattering of red. I pressed the gas and reached fifty in no time. I could see ahead to the other side of the bridge, where a Lexus disappeared around a tree-lined curve.

  Or had my eyes deceived me? I couldn’t turn back at this juncture, so I forged ahead. I rolled off the bridge, but moved at a pedestrian thirty-five miles per hour. Within the time it took to cross the bridge, snow flurries now poured from the sky as if the lid to a salt shaker had fallen off. Visibility was cut in half, and despite living north of the Mason-Dixon Line, the folks driving the four or five cars in front of me had this notion of playing it safe.

  I didn’t have time for this crap.

  Just as I was considering another dangerous passing maneuver, I felt something heavy jostle against my leg. I patted my coat. It was my cell phone.

  Of course. I’d left it in there after my visit with the Monty’s crowd. Had the FBI not thought about getting Bluetooth for all its vehicles? Safer, more efficient...ah crap, who was I kidding? It would never happen. I refocused my energy on the here and now. One of the cars in the procession slowed down and took a turtle-like turn. One down, about four to go. I was almost certain I could see the Lexus up ahead, moving at a sane speed, probably not thinking they were being tailed. I realized these cars between us were actually good cover, allowing me to follow without being noticed.

  I tried to separate my personal self from my professional self for just a moment. I pulled out my phone and punched up Nick’s line. It rang four times then went to voicemail.

  “Nick, Alex here. I’m in pursuit of...well, forget that part for now. I need you to call me back. We might have a lead on Peacoat.”

  I tapped the phone dead. Then it hit me. Nick had no idea who or what Peacoat was. “Dammit!” I was acting like a frickin’ rookie. Actually, more like a college freshman chasing after my man.

  Fuck him!

  But here I was, tailing him and a woman, and some mysterious driver, to...where the hell were we going? We’d just passed Cambridge, where I’d met Nick and Brad at the Starbucks earlier in the day. Now I was seeing signs for Arlington. Thanks to the thick, wet snow, the cars ahead of me had slowed to thirty miles per hour. Still, every time we hit a bend in the road, I could see the Lexus, although it was almost a quarter mile in front.

  Toying with the phone in my right hand, an idea hit me. What if I called the player himself? I cou
ld ask him what was up, all casual-like, tell him I was heading home after a long day of work. What if I had the gall, or guts, to ask him if he wanted to stop at a hotel and have crazy sex?

  The thought sent a shot of acid into my throat. I couldn’t fool myself. I’d been searching for that seed of a connection with Mark, and I thought I’d found it. Felt it. But why did I have to try so hard? He’d seemed distant, and that only made me wonder what our life was really like pre-crash. Maybe this was it—secrets, lies, and fucking other women.

  A quick thought zapped my brain. Was there any way I’d learned about Mark’s indiscretions before I lost my memory?

  My eyes saw red a split second before my brain recognized it. And it almost cost me. Jerking the car left, it fishtailed on the slick surface, but I released the brake at the precise moment needed to miss the truck stopped in the middle of the road. I ended up with two front tires off the road, but not far enough where I needed a tow. I caught my breath for a moment, then put the car in reverse. I could hear the tires spinning against the pavement. The conditions were growing worse by the minute.

  But I couldn’t stop until I figured out where Mark was going. What I would do when we met up? I couldn’t predict.

  Once back on the road, through the thick snow, I saw a set of car lights moving over the upcoming hill at an accelerated rate of speed.

  Had they somehow figured out they were being followed?

  My fingers gripping the wheel, I picked up the pace—as much as I could. I squinted and realized the numbnut behind me had his brights on. Flipping the switch on the rearview mirror to block the lights, I refocused my sights on the Lexus, now almost a half mile in front of me.

  For a quick second, I wondered where Peacoat had gone. Why had he been taking pictures of Mark and the woman? I almost didn’t want to go there. If he was the ring killer, was he gathering intel on his next victim—Mark, my husband?

  I could feel my pulse begin to labor. The thought of Mark being tortured like that brought back another dose of emotions. Maybe he was a lying, cheating asshole. But he was my asshole, at least for now. And no one deserved that type of punishment.