Life Flight

by Lynette Eason

  “A note?” Penny asked. “That’s a lot of drama just to send a message.”

  Using gloved hands, Holt unwrapped the paper and dropped the rock into an evidence bag held by one of the officers. “Thanks.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “‘I am discontented with the women I’ve killed, I keep searching for that perfect one. Creating a place in this lovely oasis, where no one can hear you scream. Far from the crowds and city lights, where pretty flowers float in the stream . . .’”

  “What kind of nonsense is that?” the officer asked.

  “It’s not nonsense,” Penny said, her voice tight. “Put the words to the song ‘Tea for Two’ and it kind of takes on new meaning.”

  “What are the words?” Holt asked.

  She looked them up on her phone and handed the device to Holt. “Read them, then compare.”

  Holt did. And the more he read, the more his stomach dipped and churned. “Sicko.” But he already knew that.

  Rabor had been right there within twenty feet of him. Granted, he’d been shooting and flying past on a motorcycle, but still . . . “We’ll get it to the lab and see if they can pull any prints, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

  “Maybe they can find out the kind of paper or ink he used or something and trace it back to the store he bought it from,” Penny said.

  “It’s a long shot, but I’ve seen stranger things.”

  She stared at the evidence bag that now held the rock and the note. “So, was that for me or you?”

  Holt sighed. “Well, considering that the guy’s victims are all female . . .”

  “Right. Lovely.”

  “All right. We’re going to have to leave this with the local cops and get to the prison. I don’t want Carol showing up and us not being there.”

  It took ten more minutes to actually get on the road, but once they were away from the scene—with two officers following to ensure they got there with no more incidents—Penny looked over at him. “You’re worried she won’t show up?”

  “A little, yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  Penny fell silent, and soon he was pulling through the gate and back to the parking spot with no trouble. From there, he and Penny went through security once more and were led to the same private room they’d left not long ago.

  Jenkins wasn’t there yet, and Holt allowed himself to pace for the moment. The fact that Zoe was in this very prison haunted him. He should try to see her, but every time he did—on the rare occasions that she agreed to even meet him—his heart shattered all over again. And the anger . . . it was almost impossible to control the anger that blindsided him every single time. Not to mention the grief his anger caused her.

  The last time he’d been there—about a month ago—she’d risen from her chair. “Stop asking me to tell you something that I can’t tell you. Go away, Holt. There’s no reason for you to come back. You’re a fixer and you can’t fix this. So just go away and don’t come back. For both our sakes.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  “Holt?”

  Penny had called his name three times and he’d continued to pace, his gaze on the floor. She didn’t think he was ignoring her but was so deep in thought, she’d ceased to exist.

  The door opened and Carol stepped inside. Only then did Holt look up. The relief on his handsome features said he’d been deep-down worried—more than he’d even admitted to her—that the woman would back out.

  “Thanks for doing this, Carol,” he said, pulling out the third visitor chair that had been added.

  Carol nodded and slipped into the seat, then twisted her fingers together in her lap. “What do I say to him? How do I respond to get him to tell you what you need?”

  Holt sat and faced her while Penny leaned against the wall. She was too antsy to sit yet.

  “How do you want to react?” Holt asked.

  “I want to continue to simply ignore his existence. But that probably won’t get you the information you need.”

  “Right.” Holt cleared his throat. “Well, you don’t have to fall all over yourself or anything. Let him make the first move, then you can play it cool. He knows how you feel about him, and he knows that you wouldn’t be here without our . . . encouragement. But if I read him right, he’s also hoping for reconciliation before he dies.”

  The woman closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, then opened them and nodded. “I’m ready.”

  Holt walked to the door and knocked on it. The guard opened it. “Y’all ready for Mr. Jenkins?”

  “We are.”

  “Be right back.”

  Less than a minute later, the door opened once more and Jenkins was led in, cuffs rattling, feet shuffling.

  Carol didn’t look up.

  Jenkins settled at the table and the guard shackled him to the bolt on the table, then left.

  Silence descended.

  Penny’s gaze stayed on the prisoner and Carol. Holt kept quiet as well.

  Finally, Jenkins cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming, Carol.”

  She looked up and Penny caught her breath at the hate in the woman’s eyes. “They made it hard to refuse.”

  Jenkins’s eyes jumped to Holt’s, then Penny’s, then landed back on his daughter’s. “Well, that was the deal.”

  “Yes. I heard. I’m here. Tell them what they want to know.”

  “Only if you promise not to bolt out the door. I have some things I need to say, and I can’t do that if you’re slamming the door behind you as soon as I finish giving them what they want.”

  “I won’t bolt.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I’ll let you say whatever it is you want to say before I leave.”

  He gave a slow nod, watching her, drinking her in. “Rabor has a sister on the mountain. Her name is Natasha.”

  “We know of her,” Holt said.

  “I heard Rabor talk about a little place on Fairfield Lake. He said Natasha’s husband’s family had a house there.” He shrugged. “It’s possible he might head there.”

  Penny could tell by Holt’s sudden tension that this was news to him. He tapped the information into his phone while Penny studied the prisoner. She wasn’t sure if she believed him or not. “What did Rabor think about Joel’s desire to look exactly like him, do you know?” she asked.

  The man didn’t answer right away. Then he met her gaze. The lack of . . . anything . . . in his eyes sent a shudder through her. “He thought it was pathetic—and it made him feel like a very powerful god.”

  “He encouraged it.”

  “Of course. He said Allen worshiped him, and I had no reason to believe otherwise. It sure looked like it every time I saw them together at visitation.”

  “Did Rabor ever mention Joel’s wife, Sally?” Penny asked.

  “Only once to say he felt sorry for the woman, being stuck with a man like Joel.”

  Penny huffed. “I doubt he felt sorry for her. I doubt he feels much of anything except whatever drives his twisted behavior.”

  “Yeah, I’ll admit, I don’t understand that. I do understand the driving need for revenge and how it can overtake everything, but I can’t understand killing just to . . . kill.” At his daughter’s audible indrawn breath, he looked at her. “I made my choices,” he said. “Choices that I’d like to rethink if I had the chance.”

  “So, you regret everything that led up to my partner’s death?” Holt asked.

  For a moment, there was silence. “I regret the boy’s—Christopher’s—death. And the nanny’s. And I regret that I killed the wrong man.”

  “But you’d do it all over again,” Carol said, “if you thought you could kill the right one?” Again, she controlled her tone, her voice betraying nothing of what she might be feeling.

  Penny was impressed, but maybe the woman had been practicing for a while.

  Jenkins sighed and rubbed a shaking hand over his face. “I figure now isn’t the time to lie, so . . . while I want to say I’d ma
ke a different choice if I had it to do all over again, knowing I’d get the right guy . . . I don’t know what to tell you. With the frame of mind I was in at the time, I don’t know what I’d do.”

  “You’re unbelievable,” Carol said, her voice low. “Am I supposed to respect that or something? The fact that you’re not lying?”

  “No, Carol. I just . . . need to make peace. With you, with God, with myself. I can’t do that if I add to the lies.”

  His daughter sat back and crossed her arms. Her throat worked and her hands trembled. She curled them into fists and continued to stare at her father. “Why should you get to have peace just because you’re dying?”

  Penny flinched. Not that she didn’t want to agree in a “he deserves what he gets” kind of way, but the other part of her wanted him to find redemption. Forgiveness due to true repentance. She just couldn’t decide if this was a charade and he was working toward some other agenda.

  He looked away from Carol and down at his hands. “I want to be a different man. The kind of man you can love again. I want you to come see me because you want to, not because I have to manipulate it.”

  Carol gasped aloud and Penny placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder. The muscles were knotted tighter than any fisherman’s line. “Well, Dad,” Carol said, “I don’t know that that’s going to happen. Now, before these people leave, do you have anything helpful to add that will send them in the right direction?”

  He looked up. Met Penny’s eyes, then slid his gaze over to Holt. “Darius Rabor is very good at getting whatever he wants. If he has his sights set on his next victim, then it won’t be long before he acts. If you can figure out his next victim, you should be able to catch him when he goes for her.”

  “We know his next victim,” Penny said.

  Carol blinked and Jenkins raised a brow. “Who?”

  “From all appearances . . . me.”

  Holt winced. Neither of them had come out and said she was Rabor’s next victim, but after the attack in the hospital and then again on the road, it was obvious to him she was.

  Apparently, it was obvious to her as well.

  Jenkins coughed into the ever-present tissue and narrowed his eyes at Penny. “Well, now, little lady, I sure hope you’ve got some protection.”

  “She does,” Holt said. “Anything else?”

  The man rubbed a hand over his mouth and shook his head. “No. That’s all. I promise. You held up your end of the bargain and I promised not to hold back. I know it’s not what you were hoping for, but I would have said anything to get her here. She’s here. If I had anything else, I’d tell you.”

  Holt stood. “I figured as much.” He curled his fingers into fists and stared into the eyes he’d hated for so long. Eyes that had reflected nothing each time he saw them—or maybe that’s what he expected to see and so did. But now, the same eyes were those of an old, sick man looking for forgiveness—whether he’d put that word on it or not, it was there. “I hope you find that peace,” Holt said before he could stop the words from passing through his lips, but once he said them, he realized he meant them. He knew a pastor who visited those in prison on a weekly basis. He’d ask the man to stop in and see if Jenkins wanted to talk. He had to do it, because he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t help the man find eternal answers he might be looking for.

  Holt looked at Carol. “Do you need us to stay?”

  “No. I’m going to let him have his say, then I’ll head home. My friend drove, so I won’t be alone.”

  “Good. Thank you again.”

  She nodded and Holt could tell she was hanging on to her emotions by a thread. He could only pray that whatever Jenkins said to her, it would give them both some peace and closure.

  Penny said goodbye to Carol and followed Holt out of the room. In the hallway, she rubbed her eyes and blinked up at him. “Has Daria gotten back to you on the place at the lake?”

  He raised a brow. She was always either right in step with him or one step ahead. Again, he found her incredibly intriguing. And attractive. “Yeah. They’ve sent some local officers out to take a look. Two agents from the nearest field office are meeting them. For me, it’s just wait and see.”

  “I understand.” She retrieved the belongings she’d been required to leave in a special area and checked her phone with a groan. “I have fourteen missed calls.”

  “From who?”

  “Several from my mother, one from my dad, one from Raina, Holly, two from Grace, a bunch from someone with no name, but I have no doubt it belongs to the ace reporter Frankie Olander, and then a couple from Dr. Kirkpatrick, my boss.”

  “You can block the reporter.”

  “I blocked the first three numbers he used.” She tapped the screen. “Let me just check the voice mails.”

  “Of course.”

  She listened while they walked. Holt checked his phone once he was in the driver’s seat. Still nothing from Daria. He buckled up and headed toward Asheville. It was going to be close to midnight when they got back.

  Penny hung up and sighed. “Well, nothing pressing there. That’s a relief. I’m off tomorrow, too, so it looks like I have no excuse to put off painting my dining room.”

  “Want some company?”

  “You? I thought you had a serial killer to find.”

  “I do. I’m thinking Julianna and Grace might be able to pitch in.”

  She laughed. “I love that you volunteer my friends for that. Sure, if they’re free, that would be lovely, but don’t they have to work?”

  He shot her a glance. “They would be working.”

  “Oh. Right. I’ll text them and see what they think.” She sent the text and, within seconds, chuckled. “They both said they’d be waiting at my house when we got there.”

  “They’re good friends.”

  Her expression warmed, then went pensive. “The three of us had a crazy childhood. I never would have pictured Grace working for the FBI and pulling Julianna in after her.”

  “How’d you escape?”

  She shrugged. “I wanted to fly. Grace knew that.”

  “You could fly for the Bureau.”

  “True, but that’s not where my heart is. I like the rescues. I like the daily possibility of being the reason someone is alive the next day.”

  He cleared his throat. “Um . . . well, yeah, I kinda get to do that, too, you know.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “I guess you do. You just get to go about it a bit differently. I’m not really interested in all of the investigative stuff.”

  “You’d be good at it. You have the mind for it.”

  “Well, thanks, I appreciate that, but I’ll leave it to you and the others.”

  He reached over and squeezed her fingers, then let go. She yawned and leaned her head back against the seat. When her eyes fluttered shut, Holt turned his attention to the road and let his mind work through the case. From Joel Allen to Darius Rabor and Kip Jenkins.

  And finally, to Zoe. And the fact that he hadn’t told Penny about her. So much for being open and going deeper. He grimaced. He still hadn’t looked at the video. He needed to find a moment to do so, but while Rachel was working diligently with Zoe and the new evidence, Holt would focus on the case and keeping Penny safe.

  Three hours later, Holt pulled to a stop in her driveway and shook Penny awake. When she’d fallen asleep, he’d let her snooze. Now, she opened her eyes and stretched. “We’re here already?”

  “It helps to sleep away the miles.”

  “And no one shot at us or tried to run us off the road or anything?”

  He huffed a short laugh. “No. We did have a state trooper in front of us and one in back, so if anyone was tempted to try anything, they resisted.”

  She smothered a yawn. “Great. Thanks. I think I can manage from here.”

  Holt watched her until the front door swung shut behind her. As he backed out of her drive, Grace pulled in. Followed by Julianna. They waved, and the tight
knot of worry that had formed in his gut loosened a fraction. They’d promised to spend the night and help her paint tomorrow. She’d be all right with those two at her side.

  Just as he headed for the intersection that would lead him toward his hotel, he caught sight of Frankie Olander sitting in his vehicle, with a very expensive camera aimed at Penny’s home. Holt slammed the SUV in park, shoved out of the seat, and strode over to the reporter. “What kind of pictures do you think you’re going to get in the dark?”

  “You never know.”

  “What are you doing here, man?”

  “Waiting.”

  “On what?”

  “Her answer. When she tells me she’s willing to give me the exclusive, I want to be right there before she has a chance to change her mind.”

  “What makes you think she’s going to give you the exclusive?”

  “Because she knows that this story is going to get told. And deep down she knows I’m not a bad guy. I’ve even managed to keep her home a secret from everyone else.”

  “How?”

  “Mostly luck.” He sighed. “Look, I’m the only one asking for her input, and she really needs to hurry. As soon as someone turns in a story, if the editor doesn’t have anything else, he’ll run it.”

  “Even if it’s a bunch of lies?”

  “Well, it won’t be a bunch of lies, but it might not be the truth she’d prefer.”

  Holt sighed and shook his head. “Stay out of her way.”

  “I’m just sitting here.”

  Yes, he was just sitting there. Holt hoped he would get tired of “just sitting there” and move on, but he wasn’t holding his breath. Then again, with the reporter watching the outside . . . Holt pulled a card from his wallet. “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but if you see anything weird, will you give me a call?”