“It wasn’t an accident!” Her voice sharpened defensively and she didn’t quite know why. All she knew was that she was tired of feeling like a victim of circumstances, secrets and crimes. “I quite deliberately set the pepper spray off a few inches from my own face.”
Jay’s mouth opened but no words came out. She let the thought sink in for a moment and raised the cloth back to her eyes again.
“It was the smartest option I had to keep that monster from kidnapping me,” she said. “He basically showed me that he had pepper spray and a gun, and said that one way or the other I was going with him. He didn’t care if he subdued me or shot me, as long as I could still talk. I knew the rule of thumb for kidnappings was never let anyone take you to a secondary crime scene. And that pepper spray wasn’t fatal. I had a much higher probability of surviving a car crash than a gunshot at close quarters.”
Wow, she really did sound like her dad. She wondered if Jay could hear it, too.
“I tried to grab the wheel first,” she went on, “before I saw he had a gun. I couldn’t reach the gun, but that pepper spray was just inches from my face. So, I grabbed his hand with both of mine, closed my eyes, turned my head and deployed it.”
Jay let out a low whistle.
“If something bad was going to happen to me, it was going to happen on my own terms,” she added. Jay didn’t respond. “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”
“No,” he said. “I’m impressed. Incredibly so. It was risky but smart. You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.”
Unexpected heat rose to her face that had nothing to do with the pepper spray. The back of his hand brushed against her knee. Instinctively she stretched her free hand toward it and her fingers touched his hand.
“Oh,” she said, finding her mouth struggling to form words. “I learned it all from my dad.”
“He told you things,” Jay said. “You’re the one who remembered them and figured out how to put them into action.”
“Thank you,” she said, not knowing what else to say.
He turned his hand into hers and their fingertips linked. For a moment neither of them said anything. They just sat there, their hands lightly touching, and listened to the sound of the storm pound around them.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now we regroup and then figure out a new way to contact my colleagues in law enforcement, warn your sister Sally not to come home tomorrow morning and escape from here,” Jay said. “And I’d rather wait a few minutes for you to recover than try to run around doing this without you. I kept you in the dark for far too long.”
So had her father by the sound of it.
“I wish we’d talked about all this a lot sooner,” Jay added after a long moment. “I know I did the right thing in not breaking my cover. But your father had specifically made you and your sisters not knowing a condition of his cooperation. Still, I wish I’d told you.”
“I wish my father had told me,” she said. “So what if he and my mom broke up for a while and she moved to the city before they were married?”
“He thought he was protecting you,” Jay said.
“By not telling us that our mom had witnessed a murder and had evidence of a serial killer?” she asked. Then she sat up sharply, pulled her hand away from Jay and opened her eyes. “Wait, why do these criminals think my mother is still alive if she died of cancer when I was six? Why don’t they know her married name?”
Jay ran his hand over the back of his head. She leaned back and looked where the rain beat against the skylight, running down the glass in near invisible silver tracks. When Jay had blocked up the windows at either end of the barn’s loft last summer and instead put in skylights that pointed directly to the clouds above, she’d thought it was for insulation purposes. Now she realized it also meant someone in the loft could have a light on without anyone on the ground noticing.
What else hadn’t she noticed? For all the times she’d met Jay and they’d talked in the barn below them, how had she never realized the hideout he was constructing just above her head?
“My guess is that Franklin Vamana has not been tracking your family,” he said, “and that something suddenly made him remember your mother. Maybe it’s the fact he’s been reportedly having health problems recently, but I think it’s more likely that the discovery of the two John Does encased in cement made him realize his past crimes could be coming back to haunt him and he needed to tie up loose ends. It’s possible he somehow found out about the anonymous call she made to the police thirty-five years ago.”
“But how did his goons track her here?” she asked.
“Maybe he knew she loved your father and so tracked down his family home,” Jay suggested. “If Dunlop was trying to build a relationship with your dad last year, the timeline would fit.”
“Is it possible someone found out my dad was working with you?” she asked.
“I really hope not,” Jay said. “Maintaining cover is everything to me. It really meant a lot to me that you didn’t tell Dunlop. Thanks for that.”
“No problem,” she said. “I did call you Jay the farmhand, though, and said I wasn’t leaving without you.”
“That should be fine,” he said.
“Why is it so important to you that you stay undercover?” she asked.
“Because this isn’t just one assignment for me,” he said. “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. A few months ago, a legend in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police retired. His name was Liam Bearsmith and he worked with my mentor, Detective Jessica Stone. Bearsmith spent over two decades in undercover police work, taking down countless bad guys without his cover ever being blown. He’s a legend. And I want to do something like that with my life, too.”
“What happened to him?” Leia asked. “Was he killed?”
“No,” Jay said softly. “He fell in love.”
She turned to look at him again for a long moment. His dark-eyed gaze met hers. The lines of his handsome face and strong form were half-hidden in lights and shadows. She could feel his breath against her face. The familiar woodsy rugged smell of his T-shirt filled her senses, tugging on memories of embraces she’d tried so hard to forget.
She bit her lip. “What happens if you fall in love?”
“I guess I’m going to have to push those feelings away,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, “and keep them from interfering in my life.”
He said the words like it was possible to switch off one’s heart like a faucet. Did he really feel that way? Was he really so heartless?
And yet all she’d have to do was move a couple inches and she’d be nestled up against his strong chest the way she had countless times before. And if he’d tilted his head just a little, his lips would’ve brushed hers in a kiss.
Instead, he leaped to his feet, like a cat did when the clouds above suddenly stopped blocking the hot sun from its fur.
Suddenly she was thankful she hadn’t let herself kiss him. He’d broken her heart before, she reminded herself, and he’d disappear from her life again. He’d told her as much. She had to keep him out of her heart, just as it seemed he was determined to do with her.
* * *
“Can I show you something?” he asked. “If your eyes are up to it. I find it helps if I map everything out visually, so I can look at it all.”
“Sure,” she said, “my sister Sally is the same.”
He hesitated and then reached out his hand as if offering to help her up. She didn’t take it and pulled herself to her feet without it.
“Okay if I turn on another light?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “My eyes just feel like bad hay fever now. The milk definitely helped.”
He reached underneath the cot and pulled out a long thin light that almost reminded her of the kind crime scene investigators used. He walked to the fa
r end of the loft, clipped it on an unseen hook and switched it on.
Golden light washed down the wall like a waterfall. She gasped. It was covered in photographs, both large and small, along with newspaper clippings, sticky notes, words scribbled between them in chalk and long lines linking them. She stepped back, her brain swimming to take it all in. There were photographs clumped together under headings like Victims?, Accomplices? and Vamana Enterprises. In one corner were photos of her and her family.
“This is what I couldn’t risk anyone seeing last summer,” he said. “Of course, I took it down when I moved out and reassembled it on my apartment wall when I got home. I was actually rebuilding it here tonight when I heard your car pull up.”
He turned to face her.
“Do you get it now?” he asked. “This is why I had to create a hideaway in the barn. I needed a place to work on the case and put all the pieces together. And I couldn’t risk anyone seeing it.”
This is what he’d been secretly working on every time she snuck away to the barn to meet him? Every time he’d held her, kissed her or they’d sat on the hay bales discussing their hopes and dreams for the future, this had been hiding away in the barn, just feet above her head? How foolish she must have looked when she called the barn their special place or assumed he spent so much time there because of her.
“What are you thinking?” he asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She turned away. “I... I don’t know what to say.”
Lord, I feel so foolish right now. There are much more important things than my own broken heart, and I know that. But right now I can’t see past how I feel.
“Please,” he said. His voice wavered uncertainly. “Just talk to me. I’ve never shown my process to anyone like this. I want to know what you’re thinking.”
“No,” she said. “You really don’t.” And she didn’t want to say it.
“Please, Leia.” Jay stepped closer to her. “Just say it. Whatever it is, I can take it.”
She looked up into his face.
“Did you kiss me that first time to keep me from seeing all this?” she asked. “Considering how easy you seem to find it to switch off your emotions, was our relationship just a big fake lie to maintain your cover?”
* * *
He took a step back and sucked in a breath. His chest ached as if her words had hit him like a literal punch to the gut. Did she really think he’d held her in his arms, stroked her hair and told her things that he’d never told another person, just to keep her from blowing his cover?
Was that what she thought of him?
He turned and walked a few steps back toward the other end of the barn’s loft, hoping she wouldn’t see the visceral pain in his eyes. Leia really did have absolutely no idea what she’d meant to him or how much he’d cared about her.
And she’d never know how close he’d come to giving up his career for her.
He closed his eyes and prayed for God’s guidance.
In an instant, a memory swept over his mind. He remembered standing with her in the barn, cupping her face in his hands as the rain pounded down outside. He’d been just a breath away from kissing her lips, with their eyes locked on each other’s faces and the sound of their breaths mingling with the sound of the summer storm, when he’d realized he was about to ask her to marry him.
That was the moment he’d known that he’d crossed a line inside his own heart that he’d never imagined he could and never would again. With every foolish beat, it was crying out that he’d never feel this way about anyone else ever again, and that he’d never forgive himself if he let her go. Meanwhile his head had been yelling that he really needed to be sure what he was doing.
So, he’d tore himself away from her and driven the hour to Kilpatrick, where he’d sat down with his mentor, Jess, who specialized in investigating special crimes, and her new husband, Travis, who’d recently given up a career in law enforcement for civilian work that enabled him to raise their two adopted children. There in their living room surrounded by children’s toys and drawings reminding him of the kind of life he’d chosen not to have, they’d gently but firmly told him the truth he needed to hear.
Yes, he’d face disciplinary action if his relationship with Leia came to light and be taken off the Phantom Killer case. And yes, being married and having a family might limit the kind of undercover work he could take. But that he needed to follow his heart and his God.
They’d also told him, kindly, that there was no guarantee that if he gave up his career for her that she’d love and want him back once she knew the truth. And that had been the moment he’d realized he couldn’t risk his future on a woman who might never love him back after he’d kept the truth from her. He told them he was going to call things off with Leia immediately, before it went too far, because no matter how he might feel about her she had no idea who he really was.
Then he’d focused on not letting himself feel what was going on in his own heart, just like he had after his father had died. And that had been that.
“No,” he said stiffly. “It wasn’t some kind of ploy or game. I genuinely liked you.” So much more than liked you. “It was an unfortunate and foolish breach of protocol, and once a mentor reminded me what was at risk, I knew it had to end. I’m sorry. More than you know. But it wasn’t a lie or part of my cover. It was a mistake.”
Thunder crashed outside, drowning out his words before he could say anything more. There were so many things he wanted to tell her and so much he wanted her to know.
“Okay,” Leia said. “That’s all I was wondering. Now, how about you explain this board to me and tell me what I’m looking at. I have no clue what time it is, but I’m guessing we’re down to four hours before Sally gets here. And I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get out of here.”
Right. He blew out a long breath and placed a hand over the back of his neck. Then he turned to look at the board, being just as careful not to meet her eyes as she seemed to be not wanting to meet his.
“The Phantom Killer, if real, is one of Canada’s more prolific serial killers,” he said. “But until recently, no bodies were ever found. So, police have been very reluctant to classify anyone as dead, let alone murdered. Also, all the disappearances took place over a three-year period, some thirty-five years ago. Now, it’s not unheard of for serial killers to stop murdering people for a while and go underground. Sometimes they have a change of life circumstances, find another way to impose control on people that they find more fulfilling, or get spooked. But it makes it harder to find them.”
“What kind of evidence could you even find after all this time?” she asked. “Even when you find the bodies, I imagine anything they were buried with will be completely decomposed.”
“A lot of serial killers keep mementos or souvenirs of their victims,” he said. “In fact, the two corpses we’ve found so far each had a bone missing. It’s possible the killer saved them.” The thought was so distasteful he winced like there was something bitter on his tongue. “If police can get enough evidence to search Franklin Vamana’s home, we might be able to find evidence he killed these people.”
Was that what Leia’s mother had stolen? Were a serial killers mementos hidden somewhere in the farmhouse?
Leia frowned as if the same unpleasant thought had crossed her mind, too.
“But this group here are known criminals,” she said, pointing to the cluster of photos labeled Associates. “Because that’s Dunlop right there, that’s Stan, there’s Ross and I’m pretty sure I saw that big guy there around here, too.” She pointed to a bearded man who looked almost sixty. “Willie Hirsch. I think he’s the one I called Stompy Boots.”
“Yeah, I think I saw him, too.” Jay wasn’t sure what to make of how quickly she’d changed gears. “That’s four out of five. The only one I don’t see is Ben, the guy I jumped outside my garage. But
if I’m right, he’s very new to crime and was roped in to be the patsy if things go wrong or someone needs to take the fall. You want to know the scary thing? I’ve had these faces on my board for months before tonight. I literally made it my life’s goal to take some of these guys down. And I had no idea they were actually working for Franklin or that they’d come after you. This bunch here are all known criminals who’ve had some association with Vamana Enterprises in the past. Maybe they accepted a bribe or worked for either Franklin or his sister in some capacity.”
Her eyes rose to twin glossy photos of Franklin and his older sister, Esther. Both were in their late sixties, but looked younger with tanned skin, blue eyes, toothy smiles and silver hair.
“Esther runs Indigo Iris, the cosmetics company based in Niagara,” Leia said. “I never really wore makeup until I started working to pay for law school. But I remember being really excited when I heard of the company, thinking she might have purple eyes like me. I was really disappointed when I found out she didn’t.”
“Apparently her mother did,” Jay said. “Rumor is that Franklin cut Esther out of their inheritance when their parents died. Now that Franklin is sick, Esther is trying to use that as leverage to get a piece of his company.”
“Nice family,” Leia said, and rolled her eyes.
“I don’t know the details of Franklin’s illness,” he said. “But it might explain why he stopped killing, or at the very least why he’d be sending proxies like these men instead of doing the dirty work himself.”
“Got it,” she said. She nodded slowly as if taking in the Vamana siblings and their criminal associates, then she turned her back on them and toward the victims. “Tell me about them.”
He took a deep breath and felt a fresh confidence come over them.
“This is Alicia,” he said, pointing to a smiling woman with frizzy hair. “She was nineteen, a waitress and single mom of a little boy named Daniel. This is Tobias, aged sixty-two. He was living on the streets but had served his country for two tours in the military before falling on hard times.”
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