by Blake Pierce
The waitress brought their orders, and Jenn was grateful to have something else to focus on for a while. The fried chicken was surprisingly good, so the conversation came to a halt while they all enjoyed their food.
When she had finished as much of the meal as she could, Jenn excused herself to go to the restroom. The women’s room was down a short hallway and around a corner from the men’s room, where the hall formed a cul-de-sac that ended with a fire exit. While she was in there, she paused to look at herself in the mirror and felt a sudden surge of pride.
An experienced FBI agent!
No one else was in the restroom, so she took her badge out of her purse and looked at it.
She was proud of that. Sometimes it really amazed her that she had accomplished so much in such a short time. Not long ago, she’d never have imagined that she’d pursue a career in law enforcement. Instead, she’d seemed fated for a life of crime.
Jenn shuddered as she remembered. Her teenage years had been spent in a foster home in Aunt Cora’s care. The wily woman had been training her kids to become part of her own criminal network. She’d succeeded with all of her young charges … except for Jenn.
Seized by a spasm of unworthiness, Jenn folded up her badge and put it back in her purse.
After all, Aunt Cora remained a presence in her life—still willing to help Jenn in her new career in exchange for questionable favors.
Thinking about all this, Jenn felt a resurgence of gratitude toward Riley.
Riley was the only person who knew the truth, both about Jenn’s past and her continuing relationship with Aunt Cora.
More than that, Riley understood and sympathized. After all, she had had her own entanglement with a criminal mastermind, the brilliant escaped convict Shane Hatcher. Hatcher had been Riley’s frequent ally—but at a terrible moral cost.
That was all over with now, of course. Hatcher was back in prison where he belonged.
Jenn knew more than anybody else about Riley’s secret, just as Riley knew all about hers.
Jenn smiled at her reflection as she thought about the bond that had grown between them. Jenn and Riley were a lot alike in many ways, including a mutual willingness to bend and even break the rules.
Looking at herself in the mirror, Jenn muttered aloud …
“Riley’s my best friend.”
She reminded herself again that she owed Riley an apology.
As she walked out of the restroom into the dimly lit hallway, she noticed two large shadows cast from the dining room light.
As she took another step, she saw that two big men were standing just around the corner.
Jenn felt a rush of alarm. Were they waiting for her to come out of the restroom?
This looks like trouble, she thought.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jenn backed up a little and stood stone still outside the restroom door, watching the shadows that were cast from around the corner. Two men were standing in the narrow hallway and she could hear them speaking to one another in lowered voices.
Both her experience and instincts told her that they were waiting for her—and that they meant trouble.
She figured they must be pretty stupid, picking a fight in a public place like this …
Or maybe …
Maybe they were sure that others would happily join them.
Jenn would have preferred to settle this quietly, with no fighting at all. She thought maybe she could escape through the door right behind her at the end of the hallway. But when she looked, she saw that the door bore a familiar warning sign …
FIRE DOOR
ALARM WILL SOUND IF DOOR IS OPENED
Did she want to sound an alarm?
Was it a good idea to get the whole diner up in arms? Of course she could count on Riley and Bill to come to her aid. But what kind of chaos might follow?
Jenn spent a second too long trying to decide.
The nearest man had turned and looked around the corner. Before she could make another move, he was upon her.
He grabbed her and thrust her violently backward against the restroom door. The door swung open, and Jenn staggered back inside the restroom.
In an instant, both of the burly men pushed through the door and stood facing her.
As the light fell on their faces, she recognized them.
They were two of the men who had been working on the roof of Amos Crites’s house. But they looked a lot bigger and stronger than they had from the ground.
One of the men smiled an evil smile and said …
“Why looky here, Russ. Doesn’t this girl look familiar?”
The other man smiled and said, “I believe she does, Lee. I think she’s one of them Feds who bothered our buddy Amos awhile back.”
The one named Lee squinted and frowned at her and said …
“I do believe my brother here is right. And as I remember, you were especially rude to our buddy Amos, more than your two friends. I think you hurt Amos’s feelings. Don’t you think so, Russ?”
“She surely did hurt his feelings,” the one named Russ said. “Amos told me so himself.”
His brother said to Jenn, “Is that any way to behave, a stranger who’s just arrived in town, depending on our kind hospitality?”
Jenn’s mind clicked away as she assessed her physical situation, especially the size of the restroom and the space between herself and her adversaries.
As the one named Lee stepped toward her, she said …
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll yell for help?”
Lee chuckled and said, “What kind of help do you think you’ll get? We folks look out for each other. Besides, you seem like the quiet type. I don’t take you for much of a screamer.”
At that moment he reached out for her.
As she grabbed him by the wrist, Jenn muttered, “You’re right about that.”
While he was still in forward motion, she twisted his arm over his head, forcing him to bend sharply and stumble forward. His nose smashed violently against the restroom sink.
As Lee tumbled to the floor in a daze, Jenn turned toward Russ, who looked momentarily startled. She was pleased to see that she had exactly the space she needed to land one crucial blow.
She reared back, then kicked as high as she could, connecting perfectly with Russ’s chin. Russ flew backward so hard that the restroom door broke into splinters.
There he lay, stretched through the hole in the door, with his legs in the restroom and the rest of his body out in the hallway.
Before Jenn could pause to savor her handiwork, she heard loud voices and a clatter of many footsteps.
Oh my God, she thought.
All the men in the place are after me now.
As the voices and footsteps approached in the hallway, Jenn was surprised to hear general laughter.
A group of men stood looking down at Russ’s prostrate body, grinning and chuckling with delight.
“Well, whaddya know,” one man said, peering inside the restroom, where Jenn was standing beside her other semi-conscious would-be attacker. “It looks like the mighty King brothers got both their butts whipped by a girl!”
A couple of the men stooped down and dragged Russ to his feet. Two other men came into the restroom and did the same with the one who was crumpled on his knees, his nose bleeding profusely. Lee seemed to have no idea where he was or what was going on.
She heard a man in the hall say, “Somebody call the cops to come and pick these boys up.”
Another man gave Jenn a friendly pat on the arm.
“Congratulations, little lady. You gave the King brothers a lesson they’ve had coming for a long time.”
The man led Jenn into the hallway, where she was greeted by whistles and cheers and slaps on the back. The man escorted her back into the dining room, where the hostess in the checkered dress stood smiling.
The woman said to Jenn, “Nice going, honey. How’d you and your friends like some dessert on the house? Our apple pie’s good and fr
esh, and we’ve got vanilla ice cream.”
Feeling more than a little dazed herself now, Jenn said …
“Um … that would be nice.”
Riley and Agent Jeffreys were standing near their booth, with their mouths hanging open.
Riley said, “Jenn, what the hell just happened?”
Jenn laughed nervously and said …
“I guess I just took down a couple of town bullies. Let’s go sit down, I’ll tell you all about it over dessert.”
*
After they heard all the details of the attack on Jenn and finished their pie, Riley and her colleagues headed back to their motel. Riley was glad to get back to her own room. It had been a long day, and she was tired and more than ready to go to sleep.
The air conditioner was making sputtering sounds, and it started rumbling like a freight train when she turned it up higher.
Riley sighed.
Which was going to be worse—listening to this air conditioner all night, or suffering through the heat without it?
I’m probably not going to get a lot of sleep either way, she figured.
Riley decided to let the machine run at least for a while. She sat down on the edge of her bed and thought about what had just happened back at the diner.
She smiled as she thought about how Jenn had dealt with her two attackers. Her smile widened as she remembered the general enthusiasm that had ensued …
Pretty good dessert, too.
Even so, Riley had noticed that not everyone in the crowded diner had been pleased. A few customers had left the place in a silent huff. At least some of the others had glowered at Jenn until they all left the place.
A black woman in law enforcement, Riley thought.
It had pushed some angry buttons among at least some of those people—although those buttons could have been related to black, female, law, or any combination of the three.
It had been a scene that people would be talking about. Now there was a worrisome possibility that there would be further repercussions.
She was also troubled by the fact that Jenn’s attackers had been friends of Amos Crites, and they’d seemed to be acting on his behalf.
She wondered again whether Crites was guilty of murder. After all, he did have a motive for killing Ogden. He wanted Ogden’s property.
Riley made a mental note to find out if any property issue might have been involved in the murder of the Bonnett family ten years back.
If Crites was a killer, were Lee and Russ King his accomplices in some way?
Had they been trying to intimidate the agents into abandoning their investigation?
Fat chance of that, Riley thought. But they probably weren’t bright enough to realize that threats didn’t work on FBI agents.
The two thugs were in jail right now, and she wished she could go there and ask them some serious questions. But of course she knew that Chief Crane would never allow her to do anything like that. The status of Riley and her colleagues here in Rushville was nebulous at best.
Were they officially on the case, or weren’t they?
Chief Crane would almost certainly say they weren’t, and that didn’t bode well for their investigation. Riley knew that Bill was in his own room right now calling Brent Meredith to update him about their activities that day. While Meredith might well agree that that a potential serial killer was at large here, even he couldn’t legitimize their investigation all by himself.
Riley sighed aloud. She could only hope they could stay here long enough to do their work.
Maybe another day will be enough, she thought.
Meanwhile, she looked at her watch and saw how late it was getting. And of course, it was two hours later back in Fredericksburg. She needed to check in at home before the kids went to sleep.
She called on her cell phone, and April answered.
“Hey, Mom. How’s the case going?”
“It’s hard to say,” Riley said, not wanting to get into all that. “How are things at home? How’s school?”
“OK, I guess,” April said. “But …”
April’s voice faded, and Riley felt a tingle of apprehension.
Then April said, “Mom, I’m worried about Jilly. She’s been all sad since you left. I even caught her crying in her bedroom this afternoon.”
Her worry rising, Riley asked, “Did she say what was wrong?”
“No, and she got kind of huffy about it when I asked. She said she wasn’t crying at all, it was just the sniffles. But I know what I heard and saw. And she won’t spend any time with me.”
April paused again, then said, “Mom, how soon do you think you could get home? I don’t want to alarm you or anything but … I think maybe we need you here. Or Jilly does, anyway.”
Riley didn’t like what she was hearing.
“Could you get Jilly on the phone?” Riley said.
“I’ll try,” April said.
She heard April’s footsteps as she made her way from her own bedroom to Jilly’s. Then she heard a knock at the door and April calling out …
“Mom wants to talk to you.”
Then came the sound of a door opening and Jilly’s voice on the phone.
“Hi, Mom. Catch any bad guys yet?”
Riley was surprised that Jilly sounded quite cheerful.
“Not yet,” Riley said.
“Well, keep at it. I know you will. And kick some butt when you get a chance.”
Riley chuckled nervously.
“I’ll try to do that,” she said. “Actually, my partner kind of beat me to it.”
“Really?” Jilly said. “Tell me about it!”
“I will when I get home,” Riley said.
She wished she could see Jilly’s face. It was hard to tell just from her voice exactly what was going on with her.
Cautiously, Riley said, “Jilly—do you want me to come home?”
“Huh?” Jilly said.
Riley sputtered, “I—I mean, are you doing OK? Would it help if I was there?”
A chilly silence fell.
Then Jilly said, “What did April tell you?”
Riley gulped hard and said, “Well, April said … she’s kind of worried that maybe …”
There was a sharpness in Jilly’s voice now.
“Well, April’s being all weird about things. I don’t know what she’s thinking. And whatever she told you about me, it’s not true, OK? I’m fine.”
“OK,” Riley said. “I’m glad to hear it.”
What else can I say? Riley thought.
Sounding markedly less cheerful now, Jilly said …
“Look, I’ve got to get back to my homework. And you’ve got your own work to do. So catch some bad guys, OK? Do it for me. I’m counting on it.”
“I’ll do that,” Riley said.
“I mean it,” Jilly said. “The last thing in the world I want is for you to worry about me.”
“OK,” Riley said.
They said “I love you” to each other and ended the call.
Riley sat on the bed staring at the cell phone.
Something’s not right, she thought.
Jilly’s tone of voice just now reminded Riley of their vacation, when she’d asked Jilly how she’d gotten that small cut on her thigh …
And she got another cut on her forearm before that.
Riley felt tempted to order tickets and fly right back home.
After all, if she and her partners weren’t officially on the case, how badly was she really needed here?
Surely Bill and Jenn could handle things in her absence.
But then she remembered what Jilly had said …
“The last thing in the world I want is for you to worry about me.”
And also …
“Catch some bad guys, OK? Do it for me. I’m counting on it.”
Jilly sounded like she really meant it—for what reason, Riley didn’t know.
I’d better take her at her word, Riley decided.
Riley got up
and walked to the room’s front window. She opened the curtain and looked out into the sleepy street. Rushville looked so peaceful right now.
But again, Riley sensed the presence of someone lurking outside.
He’s out there, she thought. Ogden’s killer is out there. The Bonnett family’s killer hasn’t left town.
She got a strong but momentary sense of a lurking man with a hammer in his hand—not physically here outside her window, but somewhere in this quiet little town.
He wasn’t very far away, and he was definitely going to strike again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The man stood staring at the little house on the opposite side of the street.
It was night, and the drapes in the front window were wide open. Although he himself was safely concealed by shadow, he could see the whole family in the well-lighted living room.
The man was sitting in his overstuffed chair staring blankly at the TV.
The two kids—a boy and a younger girl—were arguing and chasing each other around.
But it was the woman—the wife and mother—who held the man’s interest.
She was standing in an archway looking at her family. He couldn’t make out her facial expression from this distance, but her body language was plenty eloquent. Her arms were crossed and she was slouched over in an attitude of abject despair.
Life had disappointed her, he could clearly see that, and now here she was living with shattered hopes and dreams. It must be a hard life for a housewife cooped up in such a small home with a family that made her miserable.
And of course, he knew who she was …
Vanessa Pinker.
He didn’t know her well, but he knew her name. And she knew his name too. They’d even spoken to each other earlier today. In a town like this, people mostly knew each other’s names, even if they didn’t know much about each other.
He smiled a little at the thought …
Nobody here knows me.
Not even the people who think they know me.
He murmured aloud …
“Come on out, Vanessa. Don’t make me wait. I’m tired of waiting. And you’re tired, too. You’re tired of life.”
