Private Justice

by Terri Blackstock

  To his frustration and dismay, he began to weep as his exhaustion and the horror of Barnes’s betrayal of them all washed over him. He closed the bedroom door and sank down on the plaid couch in the living room, covered his face with his hands to muffle the sound, and wept for several minutes. Finally, he leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, as if he could see God through it. “Don’t let me lose her, Lord. Please don’t let me lose her. I want my wife. Forgive me for treating my marriage lightly. Forgive me for ignoring my vows.”

  He wiped his wet face with both hands, then his body shook once again with the force of his remorse. He had forsaken Christ, he had forsaken Allie, and worse, he had blamed her for his indifference.

  He’d had choices—and he’d made bad ones. He’d had chance after chance to set things right—and he’d ignored them. Even in counseling, when Allie had pleaded with him to tell the truth about his feelings for Issie so that they could put this chapter behind them, he had continued to deny it. He’d even told her that his marriage vows said nothing about choosing each other’s friends.

  And then he’d told Issie that Allie didn’t want to work on their marriage, that she was materialistic and a workaholic, that their marital problems were Allie’s fault. Maybe Allie was right—maybe his friendship with Issie had been building toward a sexual affair. It was the natural progression for a relationship like theirs, after all. And she’d made no secret of her willingness.

  How far he had fallen, how despicable he had become. He hated himself—and for a moment, he wished that Craig Barnes had succeeded in killing him at the airport. Allie deserved so much better. Allie, who had not taken the easy way out and gone home with her parents. Allie, who had suffered so much grief and fear.

  And now, the threat to her life only reminded him that his marriage was still too precious to lose. It was a viable, sacred union under God.

  He fell to his knees, folded his hands in front of his face, and pleaded with God to forgive him. “I love her, Lord,” he whispered. “I love her. Please give me one more chance. Keep her alive so I can convince her to stay with me, so we can have kids—and help us to teach them not to make the same mistakes we’ve—”

  The door opened, and he looked up to see Allie, standing in the doorway.

  “Mark? Are you all right?”

  “No,” he said, wiping his face. “No, I’m not all right.”

  She stooped beside him, her face panicked. “Do you need to go to the hospital? Do you need me to call an ambulance?”

  “No,” he said, almost laughing. “No, it’s not my body. It’s my soul.”

  “Your what?”

  “Allie, can you ever forgive me?” he cried.

  “For what?” she asked. He moved her up onto the couch, and knelt in front of her. His eyes were still full of tears as he looked up at her. “You were right, Allie. My relationship with Issie, though it was never physical—it was too close. It was out of line.”

  She touched his face. “Mark, you don’t have to—”

  “Shhh,” he said. “I have to say this. It was wrong. And I should have distanced myself from her the minute you got uncomfortable with it. I should have gotten uncomfortable with it! I had no business having long intimate talks with another woman, and I had no business lying about it, and I had no business leaving you and our marriage and blaming you. That night at the station, when you walked in on us—we hadn’t done more than hug, Allie, I swear it. But in our hearts, well—it was heading that way, Allie. You were right. In your eyes and the eyes of God, I was being unfaithful. But I’m so sorry. I love you, Allie, and I don’t want our marriage to end.”

  He laid his head down on her knees, and she stroked the back of his head.

  He looked up at her again. “Maybe it took the danger of losing you permanently for me to realize how much I love you, but I need your forgiveness, Allie. And I need another chance. I want to go home with you when this is over, and be your husband, and grow old with you. And you don’t have to worry about the drinking, because it’s over.”

  He reached for her, and she went willingly into his arms. For the first time, he had a full understanding of the concept of grace. “You have another chance,” she whispered. “You’ve had it for some time. I promised God when you were in the hospital that I would make our marriage work, even if I had to do it by myself. I’m committed to this marriage, Mark. I’m committed to being your wife.”

  Gratitude seeped through him like warm honey, filling him with joy and peace. He kissed her then, a kiss that was like a gift, a wonderful gift that he neither expected nor deserved. When the kiss broke, he led her back into the bedroom.

  There, they renewed their vows to one another and consummated the reunion that they both intended to last the rest of their lives.

  However long—or short—that might be.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Craig Barnes tried to sleep in the hay in the big barn that smelled of manure. But sleep would not come. Even though he had bled out most of his energy, he could not sleep. The pain from his wound was too great, and he was alternately feverish and chilled. He needed a hospital, but that was out of the question. He’d be okay if he could just find enough energy to finish off Susan Ford and Allie Branning. He couldn’t leave the job unfinished—he owed it to Mari. He had to let their husbands experience the horror of knowing their loved one died a painful, screaming death.

  He had listened all night to the scanner crackling and police and firemen talking about the APB on him, and he’d heard someone calling in from the “safe house” where Allie and Mark were being kept. If he listened long enough, he might get some clue as to where that was. Then he would go there, kill Allie, and set her on fire. He would love to tie Mark to a tree out front, to make him watch the fire blaze and the building fall around his wife. Yes, that would be justice. That would be retribution.

  The hospital would be trickier, but he would get to Susan somehow. He hadn’t figured out a way yet, but he would.

  Yes, they would catch him. That was inevitable. But it didn’t matter to him as long as he got the job done. Then he could join Mari.

  “I’m coming soon, Mari,” he said to the empty barn. “I’ll be there when I finish the job.”

  He looked forward to the end for himself. If they didn’t catch him first, he would somehow get back to his house, up to his attic and the shrine to his beloved, and he would take his own life right there on the altar. He couldn’t wait to see her again. The thought filled him with renewed vigor, and he got up, shivering from his fever.

  In the shadows cast by the moonlight playing through the window of the barn, he saw a form taking shape, and Craig stared at it, trying to focus. It looked like the filmy shape of a woman, smiling and reaching out for him.

  His eyebrows lifted, and he staggered toward her. “Mari? Is that you?”

  It was her, he thought as he drew closer. He took her in his arms and held her. He heard music—their song, “Unforgettable,” the old Nat King Cole version, sweet and mellow, and he began to dance with her. “I’ve missed you, Mari. But I’ve made them pay. Did you see how they paid?”

  But he sensed that she wasn’t happy, for he had not finished his job. Two of the wives were still alive.

  “I was just going out to get them, Mari. They’ll be dead tonight. And I’ll be coming home to you.”

  She faded. Like an image sucked away in a vacuum, she retreated, slowly, quietly, fading out of view until he could no longer see her.

  He wept at her disappearance, but he kept dancing to the song that played in his brain, swaying as if he held her, as if she’d never left.

  He shivered again, and suddenly saw flames coming up through the hay, but he smelled no smoke, nothing burning. The building still smelled of cows and chickens. But he could see the flames, could see Mari right through them, standing in the center of them, screaming. “Save me, Craig! You’re a fireman. You can save me! Please! Help, Craig! Please!”

  “I would h
ave, Mari!” he cried. “But I wasn’t there. I didn’t know until it was too late!”

  She kept screaming, shrinking from the flames, and he stood helpless, watching her burn. If only he had been on duty and heard the call. If only he’d been with her when it happened. If only he had gotten there moments sooner.

  But he hadn’t, and she had died, and all those firemen who had been on the scene had as good as murdered her. They had pretended to be remorseful, had attended her funeral with sober faces and dry eyes, had recounted the events as if nothing more could have been done. But he had known better.

  “I’ll show them, Mari,” he whispered. “I promise, I’ll show them.”

  Staggering to the barn door, he opened it cautiously. He couldn’t take his own car; they would be looking for it. He retrieved the scanner from his car and then made his way out the door, holding onto the building for support, and saw the dust-covered pickup truck old man Radcliff kept parked under the trees beside the house.

  He crossed the pasture to the truck. He got in, leaned over, and with his left hand he pulled out the crucial wires and hotwired the truck.

  As he hoped, it cranked, and he backed out of the spot it had occupied next to the house for so long, leaving a rectangle of tall grass where it had been.

  His right arm had grown virtually useless. He drove with his left hand. He knew all the back roads, and took them as he listened to the scanner, trying to figure out where Allie could be. Someone knew where she was—someone who could lead him to her.

  Jill Clark? Did she know where the safe house was? If he followed her, would she eventually lead him to Allie?

  Not likely. Surely they realized by now how important it was to keep the Brannings’ location secret. No, it was more likely that only a handful of police officers knew where they were.

  Which ones, though? He tried to think like the cops he had known for years, tried to imagine which ones Stan would entrust to guard Allie. It was difficult to guess. Stan, himself, was the only one Craig was certain about.

  He would have to follow Stan Shepherd.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  The moment the press learned who the suspect was, Craig Barnes’s picture flashed all over the nation. It was just a matter of time before they caught him, Stan thought as he headed out of the station to his car at 4:30. The problem was, they didn’t have time. Judging from the level of psychosis apparent in his shrine to Amanda Marigrove and the desperate urgency with which he had tried to commit the final two murders, time was running out.

  But he had a plan.

  In the car, he turned on his scanner as he switched on his engine. Routine calls came across the radio, and an occasional report from a cop who’d sought Craig Barnes at one location or another, to no avail.

  There was still time to carry out his plan if Mark would go along with it. He had Sid Ford guarding them, along with R.J. Albright, two of the finest, most trustworthy officers on the force. Allie would be safe with them.

  He checked his rearview mirror before he made the turnoff to the safe house, and wondered briefly if the pickup truck behind him had followed him all the way from the station. He turned onto the street where the safe house was and watched to see if the truck followed. It did not.

  He breathed a sigh of relief.

  He pulled into the driveway of the house where Mark and Allie were staying, looked out all of his windows to make sure no one had followed, then hurried in.

  Craig Barnes turned the pickup truck around, and turned onto the street where Stan Shepherd had gone. He cut off his lights as he drove past the houses there, looking for Stan’s car.

  There it was, parked at the fourth house on the left. Mayor Castor’s old house, before she’d decided that she needed something a little more opulent. He might have guessed.

  He drove down the street and pulled his truck into the driveway of a house for sale, the Krafts’ old house before Alex Kraft had been transferred to Houston. There he waited for the right time to make his move.

  So what’s this plan?” Mark asked Stan as they all sat around the kitchen table.

  Stan hated to ask for his cooperation in anything, with his head all bandaged up, and those burns on his calves and hands. He looked tired and sick, but there was a strange peace about him as he sat next to his wife, his arm protectively around her. At least something good had come of this—it might have saved the Brannings’ marriage.

  “My plan is to use your flower shop to draw Barnes out. He’s probably listening to the scanner. We can let something slip about you and Allie staying at the shop. Then you go there, Mark, and we send Lynette with you as a decoy for Allie. If he’s listening, he’ll go there, and we’ll have the place staked out from every angle. We’ll get him the minute he shows up.”

  Mark just stared at him for a moment, and Stan could see this might be a tough sale. “So what about Allie? Where will she be?”

  “Here,” Stan said. “With Sid and R.J. It’s the safest place for her.”

  “But it isn’t safe for Mark to be at the shop,” Allie argued. “I don’t want him there. Couldn’t you set up a decoy for him, too?”

  “No. If Craig’s watching, he needs to see one of you, so it’ll look authentic.”

  “But I don’t want him there. He’s still recovering, Stan, and I don’t want him to risk getting shot again.”

  “He won’t get shot. We’ll never let Barnes get near him.”

  “Then let me go with him,” Allie said. “Don’t make me stay here. If it’s so safe, let me be there instead of the decoy.”

  “No way,” Mark said. “She’s not coming. I don’t want her anywhere near Craig Barnes.”

  “And I don’t want you anywhere near him!”

  “Allie, you’re the one Craig wants,” Stan said. “He’ll stop at nothing to get to you. It’s my job to protect you, and I want you here. Mark will be protected. The person who’ll be in the most danger is Lynette, but she’s willing. She’s a good cop.”

  Mark sat stone still for a moment, thinking. He looked up at his wife, his eyes gentle as he touched her cheek. “If this might end this terror tonight, baby, I say we do it.”

  “But Mark, you need to be in bed—”

  “I’m fine. I can rest a whole lot better after Barnes is caught.”

  Allie followed Mark to the door, and as Stan went out to his car, the two stood in the doorway and embraced for a short eternity. “I love you, Allie,” he whispered.

  Tears came to her eyes. “I know you do. I love you, too.” She breathed in a sob. “Please be careful. Please don’t do anything stupid or heroic. Don’t stand in front of any windows. Just promise—”

  “Shhh,” he whispered, touching her lips. “Calm down. I’m gonna be fine. It’s time to trust the Lord. He’s taken care of us so far.”

  “But I don’t know what his plan is,” she whispered. “I don’t know how he wants this to end. I don’t know what he wants to teach us.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s right. We have to trust in that.”

  He kissed her then, a long, gentle, familiar kiss. “I don’t want you to go,” she whispered.

  “But I have to so that we can go back to our own home and start that family we both wanted when we got married, and get on with our lives. I have to, Allie, so you’ll be safe again.”

  He hugged her tightly again, then with tears in his eyes, said, “I’ll keep in touch on the phone, okay?”

  She swallowed hard and breathed in another sob. “Okay.” Then she hurried back inside to keep from seeing them drive away.

  From his driveway down the street, Craig Barnes watched the scene. At first, he thought that Allie was going out to the car with Mark and Stan, but at the last moment, she had stayed.

  On his scanner, he heard Stan ask a car to patrol the Branning florist shop, and he laughed lightly, realizing that they were trying to draw him out by making him think that was where Mark and Allie were. It was a trap. But it wouldn’t catch him.

&n
bsp; It couldn’t be more perfect. Even though Allie was guarded by at least two cops, he could get to her—even if he had to take both of them out. Then while all the commotion continued in Newpointe, he would drive to Slidell and finish off Susan Ford. He didn’t care if he had to take half of the hospital along with her. Then he would go back to his own house, to his altar in front of his picture of Mari, and he would sacrifice himself to her, once and for all. Then he would be redeemed.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  An hour had passed and it was 5:30 A.M. Allie had spoken to Mark by phone twice, only to learn that nothing had happened. Craig Barnes hadn’t shown up. Maybe he had the trap figured out. Maybe he wasn’t going to bite.

  Or maybe she just needed to be patient.

  Sid and R.J. stuck so close to her that she felt claustrophobic, and she wished there were a television set to distract her. But Pat Castor hadn’t left much in the house when she’d moved out. All they had was the police scanner, which Sid had brought in from his car to keep in touch with the outside world as they hid.

  The smell of fumes drifted on the air, and she looked up at R.J. “Do you smell something?”

  R.J. sniffed the air, and his face changed. “Diesel.” He shot Sid a look. Sid looked around as he drew his own weapon.

  Allie grabbed the telephone. “I’m calling Mark and Stan.”

  She brought it to her ear, but it was dead. She felt her skin grow cold, felt her heart race, felt herself growing dizzy. “He’s out there,” she whispered. “He found me.”

  Sid took the phone and listened, then slowly set it in its cradle. “She may be right,” he told R.J. “Why didn’t we have this house staked out, too? We knew he was smart.”

  “Calm down,” R.J. said again. “We still don’t know—”

  The lights flickered, and all the power went out.