by Jenna Kernan
Their frenzy made her pause. Was that normal barking? Or had something caused them to bark?
What was taking him so long? He had to have reached the kennel by now.
Nadine waited, phone in hand, for something to happen. But nothing did and the minutes stretched out.
She realized that, should Crean glance through her windows, she would see two vehicles parked across the street and Nadine pacing along the shoulder.
Nadine stopped and squared her shoulders. She was done waiting. Crossing the road, she moved behind the barn, out of sight of the house, hoping to catch a glimpse of Demko.
Her phone vibrated and she jumped. Startled, her fingers were clumsy as she checked the cell phone and saw an incoming text.
Demko’s name appeared on the glowing screen. The message read:
Second kennel. All clear.
Relief made her shoulders sag. She moved around the barn at a trot, hurrying to the older kennel and opening the door. Electric lights illuminated the interior and she was struck by the odor of urine and feces. There was also the smell of straw and dust.
“Demko?” Nadine’s voice was somewhere between a whisper and a call. She inched forward over the stained concrete, through the area that held dusty grooming tables, trophies and faded ribbons. There was a hole in the rusted tin roof and pigeons roosted on the rafters. She inched toward the inner door before her. Beyond, all was quiet.
The sense of danger sparked inside her and she backed away from the inner door. Then she grabbed the nearest weapon. It was a large flat shovel, the kind, she assumed, that was used for removing dog waste. Then she retraced her footsteps, inching forward.
She readjusted her grip on the wooden handle as she entered the kennel. Some rodent scuttled along the wall and out of sight.
The first kennel was empty and so was the next enclosure. This structure seemed abandoned.
“Demko?” She looked down at her phone clutched in her left hand and saw no further messages.
It was then that she remembered him telling her that he would call her. Call. He said, “I’ll call if it’s all clear.” Not “I’ll text you.”
A text message had summoned Juliette to her home. This could be the same trick. But if it was, the killer had Demko’s phone, and that meant their killer had Demko.
Nadine stared at the text. Definitely sent from Demko’s phone. She stowed her phone back under her bra strap and placed both hands on the shovel handle as she crept forward. The text only gave her more reason to continue.
Demko was in trouble. She sensed it.
The dogs barking in the adjoining building made it difficult to hear anything else. But it also made it impossible for whoever had Demko to hear her. The sound changed and she recognized the drum of heavy rain on the metal roof.
She spotted blood on the floor and lifted the shovel higher, readying her swing, and followed the blood smear.
Something had been dragged along the center aisle and into the cage to her right. The door was shut. Inside, slumped on the dirty straw, lay Detective Demko’s unconscious form.
Terror over his condition tore at her throat with needlepoint claws and she could manage only a strangled cry. He wasn’t moving.
“Clint!” She rushed forward, shifting the shovel to her left hand and opening the kennel, searching for the rise and fall of his breathing, but saw none. His complete stillness struck a bolt of dread up her spine.
How badly was he hurt? The alarm siren in her brain shrieked until she could hear nothing else.
She was about to step inside when she hesitated. Once in that pen, it would be easy to lock them both in. She stepped back and glanced the way she had come, then continued to the exit that led to the deserted exercise pens.
She reached for her phone when a door banged.
Someone had opened the inner door to the trophy room. Nadine stowed the phone back in her bra, gripping the shovel with both hands as she turned. There stood Margery Crean. She held the doorknob with one hand and a dripping golf umbrella in the other.
Poor choice of weapon, Nadine thought as she faced Crean.
All the questions she wanted to ask dissolved, sugar in hot water, as blinding red rage descended. She lifted the shovel like a bat and charged, screaming down the corridor, at her opponent.
Crean screamed, too, staggering backward, and threw the door shut. The lock engaged as Nadine hurled herself into the barrier. It held. So, she used the handle, repeatedly bashing at the rectangular section of glass above the knob. Through the window of the door, Crean gaped at her with wide-eyed terror.
“I’ll kill you. You hurt him, you die.”
She delivered her words with clinical detachment as she continued to attack the safety glass, which now showed signs of imminent failure. Crean lifted her phone and fled out the main door.
The glass shattered like a car windshield. Tiny cubes rained down, but Crean was out of sight. Nadine paused. Crean’s panic confused Nadine, because it did not fit the cool calculation and foresight of a serial killer trapping prey or the blind rage released on victims.
Where was the girl?
Nadine backtracked past Demko, stepping around the smear of his blood, as she headed for the exit leading to the caged exercise area. At the last indoor kennel, she saw her huddled in the shadows.
Sandra.
Red welts covered her back and open sores oozed clear fluid. She did not move or rouse as Nadine squatted beside her enclosure.
“Sandra!” she called.
The teen remained motionless.
“Sandra!” She laced the fingers of one hand through the wire of the cage and shook the door. And then she remembered something. This was not Sandra Shank. This was a new girl. What was her name?
“Joanna!”
The girl groaned, then gasped in pain.
Nadine raised her voice to be heard above the barking.
“I’m here to help you. Getting help. Help is coming.”
She sounded demented. Was she here to help? Was help on its way?
Only then did she recall the phone. She plucked out her cell.
That was when someone began clapping.
Turning, she saw Gary Osterlund standing only a few feet away, applauding. For a moment, she was filled with a mixture of relief and giddy joy.
Help had arrived.
But her elation wavered. His expression was wrong. It seemed like triumph.
And how had Osterlund known where to find her?
He was smiling, and for just an instant, he looked familiar, like someone else.
Then he stopped clapping and the smile was replaced by a cold, unreadable mask. She’d seen that look on her mother’s face and it made her shiver. Nadine was now sure of one thing. He was not here to help. What he was here for was exactly the opposite of help.
“Put down the phone, Nadine.”
He drew a pistol from his belt. The black plastic gun looked like a toy, but she was certain it was not.
“Now,” he said.
Nadine did as instructed, placing her phone on the concrete, but she kept possession of the shovel handle.
“Head of personnel,” she muttered. “You hired us. All of us.”
“My maudlin offspring of murderers.”
“Why?”
“Hobby. Honestly, I expected them to be made of sterner stuff. Thought to kindle them into something more. They failed, one and all. But not you, Nadine. You’ve got it. I see it in the grip on that shovel and the way you went after Crean. Honestly, I think she wet herself.”
Crean! She’d escaped. Surely, she was calling for help right now.
“Or she may have just wet herself after I shot her.”
There would be no help from Crean.
Beside Nadine, the girl moaned.
“That one is a lot like Sandra. It was why I picked her. An athlete. So fit. Strong too.”
“How do you know about Sandra?”
His answer was a sinister smile. Their gazes lo
cked and then his attention drifted back to Joanna. “She’s already taken so much. But without water, she won’t last.”
“Where’s Delconte?”
“Out past the piles of dog shit. It draws flies and so does he.”
“Dead?”
“Probably.”
Joanna began to cry.
“Do you want to see him?” Osterlund’s eyes glittered.
Go out alone in the woods with a serial killer? No, definitely not. But it would get him away from Demko and Joanna. And it would give her more time for help to reach them.
How long after he didn’t check in would they send someone?
Nadine remembered the governor and his protective detail and the joint operation to take down Anthony Dun. Her hope flagged. It would be too late.
“Sure,” she said, belatedly adding, “Let’s go.”
He smiled. “Yes, that would be one way, but selfless. You need to think more about you, Dee-Dee.”
The way that he said her name made every hair on her head stand up.
“Why did you call me that?”
“You don’t remember me. Do you? Because you were so young when I left. And after the conviction, well, you were distraught.” He swept his free hand to his receding hairline. “I had more hair then. But the family resemblance? You noticed, I think.”
Nadine shook her head, at a loss.
“You recognized the photo in my office, didn’t you? The one of your mother?”
She remembered the school photo of the girl she had seen weeks ago, when she had sat in Osterlund’s office filling in forms. The photo had looked familiar. Had that been her mother? Nadine blinked at him. Where did he get it?
“The last time I saw you was after the verdict, when I came by for her things.”
The only one who came by after the conviction was…
“Uncle Guy.” She gasped the words.
“Yes! You used to call me Uncle Tinsel.” He tapped a front tooth. “Got that one capped.”
Her mother’s brother, in and out of mental hospitals. Sexual assault. Schizophrenic. Escaped, according to the FBI.
“Guy Owen?”
He nodded vigorously, the grin splitting his face, making him even more terrifying. “Yes. Uncle Guy!”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Help you embrace our family legacy, accept what you are. Teach you to use your killer instinct.”
“You were in my place.”
“Yes.”
“And the second time, the attempt?”
He laughed. “That was Dun. I told him about your break-in. Told him that a half-full garbage bag of clothing was one of your buttons. Gave him a nudge, and he nearly walked right into the FBI’s arms.”
“You set him up?”
He chuckled. “Always good to have a fall guy, Nadine. I told your mother that many times.”
“You’ve been to see my mom.”
“Not for a long time. Not since before I killed the real Gary. Needed a fresh start, you know? After she went to prison, I sent his résumé to Lowell Correctional. I worked in personnel there for years, before coming here. Gave me free rein to visit her. I was with Arleen every day while we laid out this plan. She wanted me to find you. Help you finish what she started.” He was babbling now, his words tumbling together in his haste. “I even hired you. Great job, isn’t it? Perfect for you, hiding in plain sight.”
“That was her photo on your desk. You and her.”
“Yes. I moved it because you seemed to recognize us.”
“You’ll get caught,” she said.
“Not necessarily. You know the trouble with the FBI research on serial killers?”
“No women in the studies?”
“No.” He laughed. “That’s Arleen’s thing. She’s a broken record on that point.” He rolled his eyes. “The real problem is that they only have data on the ones they catch. What they need is data on the ones they never catch. The ones like me.”
“They’ll catch you.”
“They haven’t. I’ll leave the ones in my house for them to clean up when I go. You should come with me, Dee-Dee. You can follow after you finish up here.”
Nadine stopped herself from telling him that she wasn’t following him. “Why should I trust you?”
“I’m family. And I’m gifted. Do you know how many bodies I have buried in my house? Twenty-two. No, twenty-three. Yes. I think that’s right.” His smile seemed triumphant. “So, don’t tell me what I can and can’t get away with.”
“Let me go.”
“Of course. I plan on it. They’ll pin these deaths on me.” He waved his gun casually in the direction of Joanna. “But I’ll be gone, and you won’t tell. You didn’t tell on your mother. Just bad luck the garbageman noticed the blood on that bag. Careless. She was drinking too much. Murder and mojitos. Bad mix.”
Nadine inched toward the rear exit. Why hadn’t her mother told him that she had been the one to turn her in? He hadn’t been at the trial. Had he been in the hospital then? But the news reported it all.
“I testified against her.”
“Yes. But you had to. No one blames you. We all understand protecting yourself. It’s the first rule.”
Nadine glanced toward the back exit.
“If you leave, I’ll kill them.”
She tried a threat. “I’ll tell them who you are.”
“I considered that. A disappointment. But I’m leaving. Already have a new identity prepared. One of my victims. We have similar features. Well, not now, of course.” He grinned.
“Your face will be on posters.”
“This face?” He pointed the barrel of the gun at his cheek. “No one remembers it. But I’ve scheduled plastic surgery. Prepaid. So, run along. Break your mother’s heart and mine. When you come back, I’ll be gone, and Crean, the girl, her lover and that one”—he waved the gun in Demko’s direction—“will all be dead.”
She had to prevent that.
“What do you expect me to do, exactly?”
He smiled and she saw her mother in the shape of his eyes. “Embrace who you are, accept your legacy. And… I want to witness your first kill.” He sucked in a breath and shivered with delight.
Nadine thought she might be sick.
“I can’t kill that girl.”
He snorted. “Not the girl. She’s mine. The detective.”
For a moment, she just stared.
“Why should I? You already said that you’d let me go.”
“But you are here to save the girl. Right? Kill the detective and I’ll let you have her. Do what you like. Save her. Kill her. Up to you to play God.”
Uncle Guy held out a familiar carpet knife. The one her mother had used. The one the police could never find. She recognized it instantly by the flecks of pale blue paint splattered on the handle.
“Go on,” he urged. “Take it.”
And there it was, the devil’s choice. She could walk away and let them all die or kill Demko and save Joanna.
Nadine prepared to do something that she had resisted her entire life. To save the girl, she needed to release her darker inner self.
Thirty-Four
The lady or the tiger?
It wasn’t hard, liberating the monster inside her, not as hard as holding it in for all these years.
Good old Uncle Guy stood, smiling, holding out Nadine’s mother’s knife to the tiger, raised in captivity, ready and eager to maul its owner.
Her family legacy. He was polite, passing her the weapon, handle first. But he was no fool. Such a successful killer had not survived so long by taking chances. He kept his pistol pointed at his niece as she set the shovel aside and took the blade. She wrapped her fingers around the grip. The object seemed to radiate evil. How many had died by this weapon?
Nadine tightened her hold.
“I’ve been waiting for this. Oh, Arleen will be so pleased. We talked and talked about you. Your potential. And to be here for your first kill! After your
debacle with Hartfield, I harbored doubts.”
“You’re the one who set up Juliette. Right? The fingerprint on the seltzer can?”
“Lifted it from the trash at her office after a visit.”
“The text message she received. You sent that, too!”
He grinned and inclined his head, pleased now, as he took a bow. “Guilty.”
“And the grave at Tina Ruz’s place and the clown mask for Demko?”
“Yes. All me!”
“And you set up Demko. How did you arrange for me to find that article?”
He seemed confused. “Article?” A look of delight lit up his face. “Wait. Did you almost kill him already? And I might have missed it. That was not me. But I did send Crean down here. Thought you might kill her with that shovel.” He waved the barrel of his gun back toward the trophy room and grooming station. “You know I think she might be going deaf. All the dogs barking, and she didn’t even hear… but, anyway, I had to call her house from a burner and tell her I saw one of her dogs on the road. That got her down here.”
The knife handle was a perfect fit in her hand. Nadine glanced at the wicked curved blade and pictured all the people killed with this very weapon.
“You should have killed her. She’s a coward. Not one of us. Just a voyeur like the men who write your mother, getting a thrill from thinking about it, but never getting the guts to act. And your detective. I thought his mother’s blood would be stronger in that one. But he’s just the sanitation crew, there to clean up the mess.”
He was too far away for her to strike with the blade. For the briefest second, she considered using the knife on herself. It was a coward’s solution. All she would accomplish was not having to watch him kill the girl and Demko and, likely, Crean.
“Make your first cut,” he said.
How many did he expect her to make? She stepped toward Demko, still locked in the dog kennel, and laced the fingers of one hand through the wire mesh.
She lifted a brow and gave her uncle an impatient look. “Open it.”
He smiled, tasting victory, as Nadine bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling. This was not the time to show weakness or fear. She remained where she was, but he motioned her back with the barrel of his pistol, and she retreated.
