Brown and de Luca Collection, Volume 1

by Maggie Shayne

  He drove on past, then pulled in beside the other vehicle, which was parked in a pull-off alongside the dirt road where it made a slight bend just past her house. The spot was one fishermen used to put their boats into the reservoir. He could tell by the way the tall grass and reeds on the downward sloping bank were flattened all the way to the water, with telltale tire paths on either side. Parked where he was, he had a good view of the house.

  He rolled his window down.

  Mark Richards, a twenty-year vet marking time until retirement, did the same.

  “Anything going on?” Mason asked.

  “She’s having dinner at Aiello’s.”

  Mason blinked. “Then why are you here?”

  “Dennison’s there. He wanted to get a pizza to take home for the family tonight, so he’s keeping an eye on her, said he’d text you when she left and follow her to the end of her driveway, then take off. Seemed okay to me.”

  Mason nodded. “She alone?”

  “No, looks like a date. Denny’s gonna see if he can get a look at the guy’s plastic when he pays up so we can run him.”

  A date? Rachel was on a date? Why did that surprise him? Better question, why did it piss him off?

  Mason nodded. “Anyone else in and out today?”

  “Just her assistant, one Amy Montrose. She left a little after five.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, she walked her fucking dog before she left to meet her date. You want the full report before I go home, or do you think you can wait till it’s typed up?”

  “Sorry. Go on, get out of here.”

  Mason rolled up his window, cranked up his heat against the autumn chill and watched Richards’s taillights disappear. He was thinking that if she’d met this date at the restaurant, it couldn’t be very serious, and then thinking he was an idiot for thinking about it at all. She was tied up in a string of murders. She was, at the very least, the sister of a victim in an ongoing case. She had his brother’s eyes in her head, and she was perilously close to figuring out things that could cost him his career. Besides, he was a confirmed bachelor. There was no way this thing was going anywhere.

  He got the text within ten minutes. They’re leaving. Separate cars.

  U get his name? he texted back.

  David R. Gray. CC # too. Shd I run it?

  I will. He paused with his finger over the keypad. Kiss goodnight? he finally texted. He had to know, and Dennison could think what he wanted.

  There was a long pause before the reply came. Yep, w tongue. :)

  Not fucking funny, Mason thought. Not funny at all. Probably served him right for asking. He pocketed the phone, picked up his binoculars, turned off the engine and got out of his car, then walked along the dirt road so he could have a better view of her front door. He crouched in the bushes and waited.

  She came home, alone, ten minutes later, and went inside. Another hour and the lights went out, all but one on the second floor.

  Three hours crawled by with nothing more to show, and he was thinking about heading back to the car to sit with the heat on for a while when his thoughts were broken by the mechanical hum of the garage door rising, followed by the sound of her T-Bird’s engine starting up. Then the headlights flashed on and the car came rolling out.

  He ran back to his own car, started it up and left the headlights off. She pulled out through her gate, which she’d left open as she usually did, and he followed, keeping his headlights off until they hit the main road and staying a good distance behind her even then. She didn’t take the highway but drove north using side roads that ran parallel to it, all the way to the small city of Cortland, where she turned onto Main Street, which was one-way. A minute later she pulled the T-Bird into one of the diagonal parking spots that lined both sides of Main, got out and started walking down the sidewalk just as bold as you please. She wasn’t wearing anything but a T-shirt and a pair of satiny blue panties.

  What the hell? Was she drunk or something? She hadn’t been driving as if she was, and she was walking a fairly straight line.

  As she moved beneath a streetlight he noticed that the shirt had two hands on it, one with its middle finger straight up and the other pointing at whoever happened to be looking. The message was clear and not even close to in keeping with her public image. Probably not a shirt she would normally wear in public. Queen of Nice, my ass.

  He tried to notice the crude logo instead of the long, lean legs and the dark blue satin that showed at the tops of them. But he noticed them, anyway.

  He parked and got out, too, still giving her a little space but keeping her in sight. Then she stopped and just stood there, looking down at something on the sidewalk.

  He walked a little closer, waiting for her to do something else. To go wherever it was she’d been heading or…hell, he didn’t know.

  But she just stood there.

  Frowning, he moved still closer and then decided to reveal himself, because a car or two had passed and somebody was gonna call a cop to report a suspicious beauty in her underwear on the streets in the wee hours. “Rachel?”

  Nothing.

  He got an odd inkling, a little shiver up his nape, and moved around to stand in front of her. He almost tripped over something on the sidewalk but ignored that and crouched a little to get a look at her face. “Rachel?”

  Her eyes were wide-open and completely unseeing. He waved a hand back and forth close to them, but she didn’t blink or flinch. She was asleep.

  Come on, really? Was that even possible?

  But he knew it was. There had been cases of people doing all sorts of things in their sleep, including driving vehicles, cooking meals, committing murders.

  Shit, could that be it? Was she dreaming of the crimes because she was committing them in her sleep? No, she’d been with him when one victim was abducted. But since then?

  Had his brother’s parts taken control of her, the way they had—maybe—taken over Terrence Cobb?

  Her arm came up and she pointed at his feet. He looked down, remembering the thing he’d nearly tripped over. And then everything in him turned icy cold, because a thin, black leather wallet was lying there, open. And the clear plastic slot where a man would keep his license was empty.

  She hadn’t put it there. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her.

  So how had she known?

  And how was a killer who’d already died twice still taking victims?

  He moved closer and put his hands on her shoulders, shook her just a little. She sucked in a sharp breath before her eyes came back online, blinking a few times, and then looking at him like he was the one losing it.

  “What the fuck, Mason?” It was an accusation. She looked around, then down at her T-shirt, and finally seemed to get it. “Shit, where are we? How did we— I’m not even dressed!”

  “We’re in Cortland, because you drove here in your sleep. And I’m here because I had you under surveillance tonight.”

  She opened her mouth, no doubt to bitch about that, but he held up a hand. “It’s a good thing I followed you, Rachel, because you apparently drove here to find that.” He pointed. She saw the wallet and staggered backward, then spun around and grabbed hold of a nearby lamppost to hold herself upright. “Tell me it’s not missing the driver’s license.”

  “Looks like it is.” He grabbed her shoulder. “Hold on, if you can. I’ve gotta call this in to the local P.D. as well as my own, since this isn’t my jurisdiction.” And then he had to figure out how to explain what the two of them were doing there.

  Hands braced on the post, she leaned there for a second, then finally straightened and turned. She was calm, no longer on the verge of panic as she’d been a second ago.

  “Did you have another dream?”

  “No.” She wasn’t looking at him. Her
huge blue eyes were glued to that wallet.

  “Then how did you know?”

  “I have no fucking idea. Aren’t you gonna pick it up or something?”

  He crouched over the wallet, which lay open on the sidewalk, facedown. Using his car key, he managed to flip it over without the risk of contaminating evidence. A credit card had fallen out and had been lying beneath it. The open wallet had an empty spot where a license would normally go. “No license. Just like the others.”

  “But who—”

  “Hang on, hang on.” He turned his head to view the credit card at the right angle. “Dermott Allan Killian.”

  “Mott,” she whispered. “Oh, my God, it’s Mott.”

  * * *

  It felt like a tornado inside my head when he said Mott’s name. I don’t remember falling, but I wound up ass-to-sidewalk, hands covering my face.

  Mason was right there, though, scooping me up. And I thought he must be strong, because I wasn’t one of those pixie-stick chicks. At that moment I felt like one, though, and gave in for just about a nanosecond to the whole damsel-in-distress, head-on-a-strong-shoulder, damn-he-smells-so-good bullshit I would hate myself for later. He was carrying me. His arms were solid and his chest warm against me. I could have relished the sensations a lot longer than I allowed myself to.

  But then I twisted free and landed on my bare feet on the sidewalk again. The concrete was cold, and so was the night air. I rubbed my arms to get the goose bumps to go down. “We have to find Mott. We can’t let this maniac kill him.” Then I shook my head. “How can there even still be a maniac? It was Terry Skullbones, and he’s damn well dead.”

  He stood there blinking at me for an elongated second before his brain clicked on. I wondered if he’d been feeling all knight-in-shining-armorish, then corrected myself. Men didn’t feel mushy, men felt horny. Totally different thing.

  And then I wondered if he’d been feeling that.

  “So, you…know this one, too?” he asked once his system rebooted.

  I nodded. “He was my best friend until I got my sight back. He was being a real dick about that. Because he thinks he’s the fucking Malcolm X of the blind. Oh, God. Mott.”

  “Maybe this isn’t what it looks like, then,” he said, obviously thinking more clearly than I was. “Maybe he just lost his wallet. He’s blind, so he wouldn’t have a driver’s license, anyway.”

  “Yeah, and I came straight to his lost wallet in my sleep just because he dropped it,” I said sarcastically. “Besides, he had a state-issued photo ID. You need one when you’re blind.”

  “I didn’t think about that. So his ID is missing?”

  I nodded. “It would have been in the driver’s license pocket.”

  “You want to try calling him before I bring in the cavalry?”

  “Yeah. Can I borrow your cell? ’Cause I don’t think I have mine stuffed in my underwear.”

  He nodded. “Get in your car, you’ve got goose bumps from your toes to your—” He stopped there, eyes on my thighs, which were exposed all the way to the crotch of my panties.

  Yep, horny. Typical male. I rolled my eyes and didn’t bother to think about whether I was irritated by his attention or my girlie-girl reaction to it. I just headed for my car. I got in, started it up and cranked on the heat.

  Mason got into the passenger side and handed me the phone, then waited while I punched in Mott’s number. It rang four times, then his voice mail picked up. And when I heard his voice, my stupid eyes burned. “He’d better fucking be okay.”

  “What would he be doing here?” Mason asked, looking up and down the street.

  I looked, too. “He has an apartment a few blocks from here. He teaches American history at SUNY here in Cortland.”

  He didn’t say anything, just held out his hand for the phone. I handed it to him, and he scrolled through numbers until he found what he wanted, but he didn’t hit the call button. He said, “I really do need to call this in. I want you to go home. You were never here, okay?”

  “So I’m not a suspect?”

  “Depends on when he was taken. If he was taken. You’ve been under surveillance for most of the night, so—”

  “What if I’m working with a partner? Did you ever think of that?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  The answer surprised me, not to mention it felt like a smack upside the head. “Shit, Mason, you really do think I’ve got something to do with this, don’t you?”

  He pressed his lips together and looked at my dashboard instead of my face. “We both know you’re connected in some way. Beyond that? I don’t know what to think.”

  “Well, thanks for that vote of confidence. Hell, Mason, what about your gut feeling? Aren’t you detective types supposed to have gut feelings about shit like this?”

  He looked at me for a long moment, then just shook his head. “Go home, okay? If I really thought you were a killer you’d be heading to the station with me for a lengthy interrogation. Just get the hell out of here, all right?”

  “And what about you?”

  He scowled at me so hard I thought he was going to bite, but I didn’t let that stop me.

  “How the hell are you gonna explain how you just happened to find the wallet?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. Anonymous phone call or text or email or something.”

  “Won’t they check your phone?”

  “Not right away.”

  I looked straight into his eyes. “You keep this up, you’ll be a suspect.”

  “That’s a distinct possibility.” He got out of the car but stood there with the door open. “This stays between us, okay? If I’m keeping quiet about it, you’ve got to do the same.”

  “I know.” I got a lump in my throat. “I thought the killer was dead.”

  “So did I,” he said, and then he shut the car door and brought the cell phone to his ear.

  I drove home, my mind racing about a zillion miles an hour. Terry Skullbones had kept Blue T-shirt alive for a day or two before bashing his brains in with that hammer. A day or two. That was how long we had to find Mott.

  Why couldn’t my fucking dreams tell me something useful, like where to begin looking?

  CHAPTER 13

  By daybreak Friday he and Rosie were together at the station. Rosie was at his desk, and Mason was sitting on the edge of it, so he wouldn’t have to talk too loudly.

  “This is bending my brain,” Rosie said. “The Wraith’s dead. We found him hanging, with his latest victim still warm in his cellar. How can he still be hunting like this?”

  “I don’t know, pal. What if Terrence Cobb didn’t kill the guy in his basement? What if he was set up?”

  “What do you mean? His prints were on the hammer. The victim’s blood was all over his clothes.”

  “Okay, I’ll rephrase. What if he was brilliantly set up?”

  Rosie frowned, leaning closer. “It would have to be beyond brilliant. Forensics didn’t find any hint of anyone in that house besides Cobb, his mother—who’d just come back from Atlantic City—and the victim. Not a fingerprint, not a blood drop. And no sign he had any help hanging himself, either.”

  “I know all that. But the fact remains, we’ve got another victim. If Cobb was the killer, we wouldn’t have, would we?”

  Why not? he thought in answer to his own question. The killings had continued after Eric’s death. Why not after his successor’s?

  “Yeah, another victim,” Rosie mused. “Dermott Killian. Who the hell lets a blind guy leave a bar all alone after midnight, anyway?”

  “Anyone who drank with him, that’s who.” Killian had last been seen by several of his colleagues around midnight, leaving Hairy Tony’s, one of his favorite bars, to walk to his apartment several blocks away, just as he did a co
uple of times a week. The witnesses all said much the same thing. Killian was zealous about being treated the same way a sighted person would be. If they’d offered him a ride, he would have been furious for at least a month.

  Mott Killian fit the profile, with the exception of his hair. It was the right color, but curly, not long and straight like all the others.

  “So…Rachel,” Rosie said, dropping his voice. “She knew this guy, too?”

  “Yeah. And that stays between us for now.”

  “Shoot, no reason to spread it around, anyway. It’s not like she’s the killer.”

  “Exactly.” Even though his cop sense had been out of whack since his brother’s suicide, Mason was leaning toward trusting it where Rachel de Luca was concerned. She’d been blind during most of the crimes and with him during another. She wasn’t big enough or strong enough to move the dead bodies of grown men, lanky or otherwise, and the only vehicle she owned was beyond memorable.

  Of course he already knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she hadn’t killed the first thirteen. Those victims had all been Eric’s. But someone was damn well continuing Eric’s crimes without him, and though he’d thought it was Terrence Cobb, the biker was dead now, too, and someone was still at it.

  Someone who’d received another one of Eric’s organs? Could that crazy fucking shrink be right about that?

  “Maybe you were right about Cobb being a copycat,” Rosie said. “Maybe the guy in the basement was his only victim and he couldn’t take it, and now we’re back to the original killer.”

  “Maybe.” But no, Eric had been the original killer, and Eric was dead. So what, then? Two copycats? A team of copycats? Or his current pet theory, a setup, which made a lot more sense. One copycat, setting up others to throw the cops off his scent. But the organs… And Rachel’s visions… How the hell did those fit in?

  His desk phone rang, and he went over to pick it up.

  A vaguely familiar female voice said, “Hey, Mason. It’s Patty. Patty Emerson. You left a message asking me to call you back.”

  It took him a minute, because it had been a couple of days ago he’d placed the call. Then his brain put everything together. Patty was a nurse from the Transplant Unit. He’d gotten to know her while handling all the details of Eric’s organ donation. She’d made it clear that she was interested in him, but he’d been in no shape emotionally to take her up on what she was so clearly offering. But since Terrence Cobb was a local and his bone grafts had, Mason had learned, been done in the same hospital, he’d figured Patty would be the person who could tell him what he needed to know.