by Blake Pierce
Well played, Kate thought, again finding herself impressed at the way DeMarco approached things.
“Fine, okay,” the man said. “Besides the two of us, there are only two other guys here anyway, Roger and Billy. We’ve got Diane who is out on vacation and then Wyatt, the manager, who already left.”
“Where would we find Roger and Billy?” DeMarco asked.
“Out in the side lot, putting a back glass in.”
“Thanks,” Kate said, the word leaving her lips as she turned toward the door.
She and DeMarco walked back out and headed for the repair lot on the side of the building. They approached slowly as Kate took a moment to study the two men who were currently replacing a window on a red Ford Explorer. One was an African-American man who looked to be no older than thirty. The other was a skinny-looking man who did indeed look rather young. He had just enough hair on his face to be called a five o’clock shadow.
Given that Caroline Manners had not expressly said that Julie Hicks’s late night visitor had been African-American, Kate assumed that the skinny man was the one they were looking for. But she also knew that even that was a stretch. The sweatshirt Caroline Manners had seen the man put on could have been a promotional item or had once belonged to someone else—a brother or father, perhaps. There was no guarantee that the man with the sweatshirt leaving Julie’s home had been an actual employee of Pritchard Auto Glass.
Kate gave DeMarco a little nod, giving her the go-ahead to kick things off. DeMarco stepped forward gladly. Kate noticed the way she slightly pushed the front of her open jacket to the side. This revealed her holstered sidearm, making it apparent that she was here with a law enforcement agency. It removed the need for her to pull out her ID, a tactic that was useful in not overly alarming people. Kate smiled, recognizing once again that DeMarco was damned good at what she did.
“Excuse me,” DeMarco said. “I’m Agent DeMarco with the FBI and I need to speak with you for a moment, please.”
Both men stared at her, looking equally confused.
“Which one?” the African-American asked.
“Whichever one of you knew Julie Hicks,” DeMarco said.
Genius, Kate thought. The mention of Julie’s name struck an immediate chord with the skinny man. And once it struck, he didn’t even try to hide it. He looked scared and a little sad.
“I knew her,” he said, raising his hand in an unsure manner. When he realized what he was doing, he lowered it. “What’s going on?”
“Can we talk in private?” DeMarco asked.
“The break room, I guess,” the man said. “Is…what is it? Did you guys find who killed her?”
“We can talk about all of that in a second,” Kate said. “For now, why not just lead us to the break room.”
The young man did exactly that. Kate could tell from the way he walked that he was trembling. It certainly wasn’t a show of guilt but was more than enough to tell Kate that he was nervous—whether about sleeping with a married woman or something deeper, though, was anyone’s guess.
***
The break room was a small little corner in the back of the shop. There was a Keurig coffee machine and two empty boxes that had once held donuts. Other than that and a mini-fridge, Pritchard Auto Glass offered very little in the way of a break room. The young man had introduced himself as Billy Cosgrove as he took a seat at the break room table. He asked for their names and then asked to see ID.
Kate and DeMarco entertained him, showing their badges and IDs. There was one other chair at the break room table but neither of them took it. Kate leaned against the small counter while DeMarco stood her ground on the other side of the table.
“Rumor has it,” DeMarco said, “that you were sleeping with Julie Hicks. Is that true?”
“Shit,” Billy said. “Did her husband find out?”
“No,” DeMarco said. “But her neighbor did. You’re apparently not the best at keeping a good cover when you’re out and about at night.”
“So he doesn’t know?”
“No,” Kate said. “And there’s no reason to tell him. But we were hoping you could maybe shed some light on Julie—that you could reveal some things about her that we might not have picked up from her husband or her friends.”
“For starters, how did you two get involved?” DeMarco asked.
“Well, she brought her car in a few weeks back—maybe five or six weeks ago. The front window on the driver’s side got busted by some kid throwing a baseball in their neighborhood. We fixed it and when she was here, she sort of seemed flirty with me. Nothing serious, and nothing I really even thought much of, you know? But she came back a few days later saying that the window wouldn’t go down. So we checked it and found some fragments of glass from the first window in it. We had to order a new window and she seemed sort of pissed about it, saying she had a busy schedule and all. So we volunteered to come out to her house to do it. So they sent me out because it’s a pretty easy job. Just me. She came out and talked to me a bit. When I knocked on her door to tell her the job was done, she invited me in. And I said yes. She was really flirty and dressed in this tight shirt and…”
He stopped here, realizing that he was speaking to two women. He blushed a bit, looked away from them, and then carried on.
“We started messing around. I saw pictures of her and her husband on the fridge in the kitchen. I asked her where he was and she said he was out of town—that he was always out of town because of his work. One thing led to another and we ended up having sex in her kitchen.”
“So she was the aggressor?” Kate asked.
“Absolutely.”
“And who initiated seeing one another again?”
“Her. But she made it clear to me that she wanted no relationship. She would not leave her husband. She just wanted something fun to do while he was away. She came out and told me she was just living out a wild side she’d never lived out in college.”
“So this was an ongoing thing for how long?”
“About four or five weeks. The last time I saw her was two days before she died.”
“Did you sleep with her then?”
“We had sex every time we saw one another. She was trying out all these things with me that she’d never done before. She was using me and, quite frankly, that was perfectly okay with me.”
“So in this time with her, did she ever reveal anything about her personal life to you?” Kate asked. “Any people you heard of that might be upset with her?”
“No. Again…not trying to brag or be a smart ass, but there was never really any talking. I did ask her one time why she chose me and she said it was because I was different. She never explained it, but I knew what she meant.”
“And what did she mean, exactly?” DeMarco asked.
“I was like hired help almost. Not someone from her neighborhood with its picket fences and expensive houses. She wanted a guy from the other side of town, you know? She wanted to feel like she was doing something really wrong.”
“And you were okay with that?” Kate asked.
Billy looked at her with an incredulous expression on his face. “At the risk of sounding crude, yes. I was having regular sex—regular rough sex—with a hot older woman at least twice a week and there were no strings attached. Yes. I was okay with it.”
“You never stopped to think about her husband and what it could do to their marriage?”
“No. I figure if he cared that much for her, he wouldn’t stay on the road so much.”
“Did she ever talk about any of her friends?”
He grinned nervously and nodded. “Yeah. Said she had a group of friends that all lived in the neighborhood. Most of them were stay-at-home moms or women that worked from home. Boring husbands with boring jobs. She told me she was going to arrange for a threesome with us and one of her friends but it never happened.”
“What sort of people did she say her friends were?” Kate asked.
“She never went into detail abou
t it but I got the gist that they were just like her. They slept around from time to time. Sort of adventurous, trying to live wild exciting lives before they got too old.”
Kate knew she’d reached the end of the conversation. Billy was starting to sound like he was bragging and she was getting frustrated. She was all but certain he had no hand in the murders; there was no way he’d so openly admit to a sexual relationship with Julie Hicks if he was guilty.
“The night she was killed…where were you?” Kate asked.
“At home. Sleeping. Had a few too many beers with some friends and ended up passing out early.”
“Any proof of this?” DeMarco asked.
“I think I have the receipt from the bar. I took a cab home, too. Paid with my debit card, so I can get that receipt if you need it.”
Kate sighed and got to her feet. “Don’t bother. Also, have you told anyone about your little excursions?”
“I told Roger, the guy I was working with when you got here. But I never told him a name.”
“For the respect of the deceased and her family, please keep it quiet,” Kate said.
“I absolutely will.”
Kate and DeMarco left the break room, leaving a very shaken Billy Cosgrove behind them with a reflective yet sad look on his face.
“Now what?” DeMarco asked.
Kate wasn’t accustomed to feeling defeated but she could feel it sinking into her bones, into her heart. She wasn’t quite discouraged just yet but it was hard to stay upbeat.
“Now I want to go see my granddaughter again,” Kate said. “And while I’m doing that, you think about what we’ll have for dinner. It’s going to be a long night of poring over case files, I’m afraid.”
DeMarco nodded, although there was a disappointed look on her face. Apparently, this was not the high-octane experience she had been hoping to experience while partnered with the quasi-famous Agent Kate Wise.
And Kate understood it perfectly. So far, it wasn’t panning out the way she had expected, either.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
He’d been planning this one for a very long time. In a way, the first two had been practice. This was the one he had always had in mind when he’d started. And those first two women had proven to him that he had no real problem with killing. It seemed natural and almost therapeutic. It made him envy the jobs that men back in the Middle Ages had enjoyed—jobs like executioner or the general in charge of whatever group oversaw the torture and dismemberment of their enemies.
This woman was different. He knew her much better than he had known the others. He’d seen her naked, had watched her strip in front of a mirror in appreciation of herself—or, perhaps, in fear that her thirty-something body would maybe not be perfect much longer.
This time, he felt a sense of urgency. He’d allowed himself to enjoy the planning and anticipation of the other two. But now he knew the cops were on to him. They were crawling around Amber Hills like ants, looking for whatever honey had been spilled. Of course, when he had started it all, he knew the authorities would eventually become a problem. And while he certainly didn’t want to go to prison, it was an outcome that he was ready for.
He’d been very quick and efficient with the first two. He’d planned it all out but had not overthought it. Each act had taken no more than five seconds. But this next one…he thought he might stretch it out.
One thing was different this time, though. Something that made it perhaps a bit riskier, but he knew her schedule, knew it had to be different. He had to strike during the day. And with all of the fucking cop cars around the neighborhood, it might be tricky.
So he chose to blend in. He drove into the neighborhood like he belonged there. He even gave a little cursory wave to the cop who was stationed at the entrance. The cop nodded to him, bored and featureless.
He drove down the main stretch of Amber Hills, a wider road called Amber Drive. He took a left and within seconds was passing the Thurmond residence. There were no police cars there anymore but he still made every attempt not to look in the direction of the house. He passed by it like a motorist trying to avoid looking at a particularly bad car accident.
Then he saw the house. He saw the perfectly manicured landscaping and the lush green yard. He saw the porch swing, the large plants bordering the front door. And, keeping with his appearance of normalcy, he went so far as to even pull into the driveway, right behind the car that was already parked there.
Her car.
He took a moment to collect his thoughts, to collect his nerve. The dashboard clock read 6:15. He knew her schedule well. She would have just come back home from the gym about twenty minutes ago. She was either in the shower or lying on the back deck to catch some sun. But seeing how the day was overcast, he was thinking she’d be in the shower.
Upstairs. In the bedroom. By herself.
He smiled. As he walked to the porch, he wasn’t sure what he was the most excited about: catching her naked in the shower or plunging the knife between her breasts.
***
Taylor Woodward knew she was attractive. She was thirty-one and could still catch the eyes of the younger men in the gym. But the thing of it was that she had worked her ass off to stay so hot. She dieted, she ate right, and she exercised regularly. Her mother had let herself go around the age of forty and when she’d died two years ago, she’d been almost three hundred pounds. Seeing her mother’s chubby face in that open casket had driven Taylor to continue her healthy lifestyle. And although she knew she often carried it too far, she didn’t care. She liked having her abs, her perfectly toned ass, her still-perky breasts.
And more than that, she liked the looks she got at the gym and the pool. And she loved the way her husband sometimes looked at her—in the same way boys had looked at her when she was a teenager, a way that made her think she was all he was thinking about.
As she came to the end of her shower, she wished her husband was there with her. Unlike most of her friends, she had never had an affair. She knew she had all the options in the world if she decided to have one—from the eighteen-year-olds at the gym to the wealthy forty- and fifty-year-olds in the neighborhood.
But she loved her husband. And as the water cascaded off of her body, she wished he was there, under the water with her. Sex had gotten a little formulaic as of late. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken her by surprise, out of nowhere, a little rough and—
She smiled when she heard the bathroom door open behind her. She knew it was a little after six and that his work often brought him home as early as seven or as late as nine. But sometimes, every now and then, he’d manage to come home early. And if he was coming into the bathroom knowing she was in there, maybe he had the same thing on his mind—a little afternoon delight in the shower.
“I’m almost done,” she said flirtatiously. “But I can take another one if I happen to get dirty again.”
He said nothing but she could see him moving through the fog and haze of the steam and the misted over glass of the shower door. She smiled; it was good to see just how eager he still made her.
She turned to face the back of the shower, as that’s where he’d come in. The door opened but he did not come inside. Instead, it was just an arm. It grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her forward. She lost her footing on the wet shower floor. As she fell, he caught her by the hair and pulled her out of the open door.
Electric pain raced around her skull as she was pulled by the hair. She screamed, not fully sure what the hell was happening. But then she was thrown to the floor and he was on her.
She saw the face then and realized who it was.
You…
She opened her mouth to scream again and this time a clubbing right hand came sailing at her mouth. She felt a tooth come out as her mouth filled with blood. She was afraid she’d choke on it but then that fear was replaced by an intense pain, a pain so blinding it was unreal.
It was then that she realized she could not breathe, that some
thing had happened to her chest.
And then she saw the knife as he pulled it out of her.
She saw it one more time as it came sailing down toward her and although she felt it enter her again, she barely registered it.
She looked upward, to the ceiling, to the gathering steam of the shower, and prayed for it to end quickly as the shape of the man above her blurred into blackness until there was nothing left.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Kate could not get over how the simple act of holding her newborn granddaughter was able to recharge her, but it did. It was both a mental and physical jolt to the system. And while it didn’t have quite the same powerful effect as holding Melissa for the first time when she had been born, it was very similar. She assumed it had something to do with the instinctual human need to carry on a bloodline, to revel in the fact that she was holding a third generation in her hands.
She was marveling over this as she sat with DeMarco in her dining room over dinner. DeMarco had chosen Chinese for their dinner, which was absolutely fine with Kate. She usually tried to eat healthy but given the way the last two days had gone, she figured she could allow herself a cheat meal.
“You know something I’d like to find out from the police?” DeMarco said as she studied a file and swirled a lo mein noodle onto her fork. “I’d like to know what the police at the Amber Hills gates are looking for. There are no neighborhood decals or stickers of any kind on the cars for that neighborhood.”
“That’s a good point,” Kate said. “And from what I can see, they aren’t stopping people that come in or go out.”
“And really, none of that would make a difference if the killer is actually an Amber Hills resident,” DeMarco pointed out.
Kate nodded. These were all good points, ones that she had considered before. But until they found something relevant and tangible to go on, they could only guess. In her own head, she had started to compile a list of pros and cons. It was a list that might be made by a killer that would use Amber Hills as a killing field of sorts. For a killer to choose such a place to strike two times in a small window of time seemed both risky and, quite frankly, genius.
