by Ali Vali
“Listen to your daughter, Melinda,” Della said, and they all sat to wait.
The bolts were removed and thankfully had only punctured a lung in each woman. Healing would take time, but no other organ was damaged. The Blanchards and Camille Savoie were moved to a private, more comfortable waiting room, but Nathan and the Savoie cop family waited outside, surrounded by what seemed like half the NOPD.
“Thank God we don’t have to worry about Nicole Voles any longer,” Jacqueline said.
Sebastian had told them what had happened and how one of the snipers had taken Nicole out before she stabbed Sept through the heart. “Maybe we’ll have some more months of normalcy before Sept starts investigating major crimes again,” Keegan said in agreement. “If it’s a murder case, let’s all pray for one-and-done next time.”
“Amen to that,” Camille said as Keegan put her arm around her.
“Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before this investigation is wrapped up and it’ll really feel like it’s done,” Keegan said and stared at the clock. “I have a happily-ever-after to get to.”
* * *
Sept heard people around her, but it was like swimming through ink to find a way to wake up. The pain in her chest was still there, though not as bad as it had been, and that at least was an improvement. She really wanted nothing but to find Keegan. She’d just seen her, but none of the voices around her was the one she most wanted to hear.
“I’m going on my break, but it’s time to wake Detective Savoie,” a woman said, and Sept agreed. It was time to regain consciousness. “You want to handle that, and I’ll do Dr. St. John when I get back?”
“Sure. I’m new, but I can handle that.” The second woman sounded so familiar, and Sept did her best to clear her head, but her body wasn’t cooperating. “If you need anything, Diana is in the next room over. We got the easy load tonight with our two VIPs.”
“They’re in good hands.”
The talking stopped, and Sept took a few breaths and tried to will her eyes open. She squinted because of the fluorescents, but it was progress. The shadow over her made her heart rate feel like it sped up, but maybe it was Keegan.
“Are you in there?” the woman asked and pried her eyes open with no gentleness.
The sight had to be a hallucination. Sept had watched Nicole get slammed back by a fatal shot to the forehead. That the idiot had tried to kill her and not take cover was amazing, but Nicole was dead. She was sure of it, even if she wasn’t sure about anything else.
“Did you think you’d survive this?” Nicole asked as she reached into the lab coat she wore and took out a vial and syringe. “I wanted to rip your heart out, but this will do.”
Nicole tipped the vial over and started to draw out whatever was in it, and Sept’s panic started to kick her brain into gear. She needed to get out of here and away from this crazy bitch who’d obviously walked away from a bullet to the head. The way Nicole slowly pulled the plunger of the syringe out was torturous, and Sept pawed at the blankets covering her with one hand and the railing with the other.
“Forgot my wallet,” the woman who’d been there before said as she reentered. “What the hell?” she asked loudly, which got Nicole away from Sept. “Hey, what are you doing?”
Sept made it to a sitting position and figured there was no way to make it over the railing, so she was dead once Nicole took care of the nurse. Her only option was to lean over and press the alarm on the wall that triggered a code. Nicole could maybe overpower one person, but not a whole team. Once the alarm went off, she pulled her IV out and crawled to the end of the bed and fell onto the floor.
Hitting the ground sent such a jolt through her chest she could sense herself slipping back into the black ink she’d just surfaced from. Maybe she’d find Keegan later and all this would have been a bad dream.
* * *
“How the hell did this happen?” Sebastian yelled at no one in particular. The commotion from recovery had been so loud it caused more than one officer to run in and find five medical staff members practically sitting on Nicole Voles. “I thought this bitch was on ice at Gavin’s.”
“She is. I just called,” Nathan said. “This isn’t Nicole Voles, or the dead one isn’t Nicole Voles. They had to be identical twins.” They both stared at the woman sitting in the back of the cruiser cuffed and screaming obscenities. “At least one of them should match the fingerprints from the piece of note we found.”
“Gustave,” Sebastian yelled again. “Get warrants for every place she’s been in the city and tell anyone who’s interacted with her it’d be a bad idea to not answer questions. Start with her father, and work your way down from there.”
“Yes, sir,” Gustave said, but he and his partner Shawn didn’t move. “We’ll do it as soon as we lay eyes on Sept.”
“Della’s made enough noise that we can go into recovery four at a time, so Keegan and Melinda can stay in there. Who would’ve fucking guessed this?” He seldom used profanity, but this called for it.
“Matilda Rodriguez did,” Nathan said, and they all stared at him like he’d lost his grip on reality. “She did, but we never would’ve thought she was right.”
“She was, and since Brian Voles is one of ours, we’ll have him picked up and delivered to wherever you want him,” Anabel said. “I took the liberty of securing warrants in California for Nicole Voles’s house and office. Her assistant’s being questioned in the LA office.”
“Thanks, Anabel. We’d like a shot at her too, so if it takes flying some of our people out there, we’ll get it done.”
“Do you mind if I go in and see Sept?” Anabel asked.
“We’ll let you cut the line so you can start working this case,” Gustave said.
“Sir.” One of the uniformed officers jogged up and stopped by Sebastian. “The sheriff needs to speak to you.”
NOPD was the force on the streets every day, but the sheriff’s department ran the jail in New Orleans. Sebastian knew Sheriff Chip Hamlin but didn’t speak to him often. “What can I do for you, Chip?”
“The kid who answered my message told me what’s going on, so I won’t keep you, but I thought you’d want to know Alex Perlis hung himself in his cell today.”
“This day gets more bizarre by the second. How’d that happen?” The news wasn’t exactly unwelcome, but it was shocking, since Perlis had stayed defiant despite what he was facing.
“It was the damnedest thing. My people said he got a visit from an FBI agent that lasted twenty minutes. When they were done, Perlis went back to his cell, took a nap, then hung himself during shift change.”
“Thanks for letting me know, Chip, but who was the agent?”
“Special Agent Brian Voles, but he doesn’t work for Anabel. Told my guy he was a friend of the family.”
Sebastian filled everyone in, and at the mention of Brian Voles, Anabel made a few calls. They were still discussing it when a nurse said they could start going in to see Sept. The police allowed the family the first rounds, and then Sebastian walked Anabel and her agents Mora and Silva in.
“Once you’re stronger you can tell us how you figured out Nicole was the killer, but for now we came to thank you,” Anabel said, taking Sept’s free hand since Keegan held the other one. “You saw what no one had and took a dangerous animal out of circulation.”
“I totally missed the sister, though. That was a shocker,” Sept said, sounding sleepy. “Give that nurse at the station a kiss for me before you leave.”
“Will do, and heal fast. We still have lots of work to do on this case. Hell, I might write a book about you after this. You did a damn fine job, Detective.”
“Don’t worry. She’ll be ready as soon as her cape gets back from the cleaners,” Keegan said, and Sept smiled and yawned.
“It’s all about the team,” Sept said and closed her eyes.
* * *
When Sept woke up again she was in a different room, and Keegan was sitting on the bed holding her hand.
It was still dark outside, but Keegan’s smile when she noticed she was awake warmed her. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” she asked, and Keegan blushed.
“Yes, you have, but I never tire of hearing you say it since I’m glad you think so.” Keegan stood so she could lean over her. “You have a way of scaring the hell out of me, Seven, but I love that you always come through and back to me.”
“That’s because I belong to you.” She closed her eyes when Keegan kissed her. “I asked you to marry me, right?”
“You did, and I said yes.” Keegan kissed her again. “We celebrated by getting a toe in the mail.”
She laughed at Keegan’s bright outlook in every situation. “I made a plan to catch Nicole, and it taught me something important.”
“What’s that, my love?”
“I’m good at making plans—well, mostly. The only glitch was the double crossbow. Didn’t see that coming.”
“I’m just glad it wasn’t something more lethal.”
“Me too, but that’s not why I mentioned it. I want to make a new plan.”
Keegan nodded and smiled. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
“It’s a long one—I’m talking sixty or seventy years, and that one might have some glitches in it too, but we’re going to have fun making it work.”
“I give thanks for you every day, baby. I wish for the same things and all that comes with a long and happy life. We’re going to use your mom and mine for inspiration, aren’t we?”
“If we do that, we’ll end up with nine kids. We’ll have to move if you want that.”
“Nine might be too many, but we can compromise at maybe three,” Keegan said, and the door opening broke their kiss. “Hey, Sebastian.”
“Hey, sweetheart. I hate to bother you, but is this a good time?”
“Come in and sit,” Sept said when her brothers and Nathan followed him in.
“We wanted to catch you up on what we know so far,” Sebastian said, and Keegan sat back on the bed as if signaling she wasn’t leaving. “Perlis is dead. He hung himself after having a talk with Brain Voles, so we have one less thing to worry about. That’s a closed case.”
“I thought about doing the same thing after some of my talks with Agent Wonderful. What did he meet with Perlis about?” Sept asked, enjoying the warmth of Keegan’s body.
“That remains to be seen. Anabel dropped him in a dark hole, so we’ll have to wait until she’s done with him,” Gustave said. “The dead woman we first thought was Nicole didn’t match the prints we have, but Nicole two point one does.”
“We sweated the guy at the building where Nicole leased a condo, and it turns out the sisters lived over each other,” Nathan said. “We have the survivor in custody, but she and Perlis have something in common in that she’s keeping her mouth closed. They’re identical twins, so now we just have to figure out which of them is Nicole and which of them is Darla Voles.”
Joel stood at the foot of the bed and put his hands on her feet. “How did you guess it was her?”
“The night she kissed Keegan made her stand out. Well, at first I wanted to use her for target practice, but you add Perlis, and Larry Nobles, and it made me concentrate on her.”
“Something about her seemed off,” Nathan said.
“I took a chance my hunch was right when she tried to frame Carla by talking Carla into posing as bait with me to see if Nicole would go after the target she wanted most. I’ll never forgive myself for getting Carla hurt, though.”
“I stopped by and saw her,” Sebastian said, and smiled. “You have nothing to worry about. Melinda’s in there making over her, and I can’t be sure, but I think they’re engaged.”
“Get some sleep,” Alain said, and they all kissed her and Keegan before they left.
“Maybe we’ll have a double wedding,” Keegan said, which made her laugh. “Or we’ll let them go first so I get you all to myself at the altar.”
“And if you’re pregnant before that happens?” she asked, putting the arm of her uninjured side around Keegan when she lay back.
“Then it’ll be me, you, our baby, and Gran with a shotgun.”
She laughed until she had to stop because of the pain. “No matter who’s up there with us, I’m looking forward to it.”
Epilogue
Eight Months Later
“Do you have everything you need?” Keegan asked Sept as she stirred the grits she was making.
“I’m ready to go, babe. Stop worrying,” Sept said, standing behind Keegan with her hands on her hips.
“She’s fine, so finish telling me,” Jacqueline said from her stool at the counter.
“The woman killed at Carla’s was Nicole Voles, and the twin on death row is Darla Voles. They took turns writing the volumes of manuscripts found in their house in Malibu, and each book outlined every murder they committed,” Sept said, reviewing the death penalty case they’d just finished, which landed Darla a date with the needle. “It sounds like super-agent Brian Voles was nothing more than a child abuser and molester.”
“They took turns? Wasn’t Nicole the writer?” Jacqueline asked.
“Do you really want to talk about this today?” Keegan asked as she leaned back against her.
“Yes. I didn’t get to go to court much,” Jacqueline said, throwing a napkin at Keegan. “What good is living with Elliot Ness if not to give me the details of a good story before she has a date with 60 Minutes? She might get too famous and blow me off.”
“The abuse and their mother’s denial twisted them in a way that made them hate her, but—” The buzzer went off, and she put her finger up and moved to the oven.
“That’s understandable,” Keegan said, taking her hand after she put the tray of biscuits on the counter. “What kind of mother ignores that?”
“The kind who was Brian Voles’s victim first. He beat her until their twins were old enough to replace her, and by then she didn’t have enough fight for anyone else.” She stopped to kiss Keegan until Jacqueline threw another napkin. “Darla and Nicole, though, reacted differently, in that they did everything possible to please him, but like their mother, one was more mentally strong than the other.”
“This is sad in a way,” Keegan said, and Sept kissed her again.
“It is.” The trial had peeled back the complicated layers of the Voles family, and it was a perfect case study of how trauma, violence, and manipulation can change someone and make a person a killer. “Darla couldn’t take it and had a breakdown in her senior year of college that led to a suicide attempt.”
“And they wrote all this down?” Keegan asked.
“Pretty much. It took a long time to find them, but it was a slam dunk in the evidence department once we did and helped convict Darla Voles.”
“Finish,” Jacqueline said, making her smile.
“Nicole needed Darla to survive, and Darla didn’t want to, so they erased her, and Hunter was born. As they worked on the books Nicole was known for, one met with the killers who were the subjects, and the other committed the crimes.” Their writing style was slightly different, but not enough for their publisher or anyone else to notice. “In cities like New Orleans, where they killed in a spree, they took turns with the role of Nicole and Hunter.”
“That’s messed up,” Jacqueline said.
“It truly was, but that’s how their rebellion against their father manifested itself. Their mother withdrew, but they chose a half-life that would challenge how Brian Voles saw himself. They constructed puzzles for him to figure out and challenge his mind.” She’d had to smile at the satisfied expression on Anabel’s face when she recounted the experience of cuffing Voles and taking him in. “He figured out by their second copycat set of murders and coached them on the mistakes they made to keep the game going. The murders they committed turned him on, so he did nothing to stop them.”
“Jesus Christ. That’s disgusting.” Jacqueline shivered for effect. “How’d you finally figure it out?”
“Actually, I was shocked when the mask came off after she shot me. After checking her travel records to verify she’d been in most of the cities where the copycat murders took place, I had my suspicions. That she led such a productive life made me doubt myself, and when Darla ended up at the hospital to kill me, that really shocked me. At first I thought the drugs were making me hallucinate, and then I thought I was in a Lifetime movie.”
“I wonder why no one else ever figured this out,” Keegan said, taking the pot off the fire and turning in her arms.
“I’m not brilliant. In every city, the killer twins stuck to their meticulously crafted plan of one type of murder. Here there were too many variables, and they blamed each other for the mistakes they’d made that required the bombs to clean up.”
“You are brilliant, so stop acting so humble. That’s annoying as hell too,” Jacqueline said as they heard Della and Melinda coming down the stairs. They’d spent the week preparing for the big day. “And what do you mean by too many variables?”
“It was Darla’s turn to start as Hunter, which means the first time you two met Nicole, it really was Nicole. Their first target was Bonnie Matherne, and Darla copied the crime to a T, but she added the murders of the two rookies.” She stopped to pour Della and Melinda some coffee and prepared it to their liking.
“Suck-up,” Jacqueline teased her.
“You could learn from this one,” Della said, kissing Sept’s cheek. “Please continue. I was there for your whole testimony, but it’s an interesting story.”
“The gun Darla used was the one from another string of murders, and killing two police officers here made Fritz throw more people at the case. The more intense focus made the twins think they had to take drastic measures to wipe their tracks.” They all moved to the table, and Keegan sat on her lap. “One working serial killer is something out of the ordinary, but three is kind of like a statistical improbability.”
“I think the jury made the right choice when they put her on death row,” Melinda said, and Della nodded. “Think of how many lives they took, and all the pain they caused. You and Carla were hurt, but it would’ve devastated us to have lost you two.”
