Deadline (Love Inspired Suspense)

by Maggie K. Black

  Then he felt her pull back. He let her go and opened his eyes. “You okay?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Thank you.” Her body slid away from his slightly. “I’ve had panic attacks, little ones, since Benji’s accident. It’s a fear thing. But normally I can calm myself down. I don’t usually freeze like that.”

  He brushed the hair back from her face, cupping her cheek for just a moment. “It’s okay. It’s a completely normal reaction. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of people freaking out far more at the sight of far less.” She rolled her head around slowly on her shoulders. He pulled his hand away. “I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

  “No. It’s all good. You brought me back to earth, and I needed that.” Her head fell into the crook of his neck. “Most journalists just seem to ramp the tension up, but I’m guessing you’ve calmed a lot of people down.”

  Well, yes. The best time to interview someone was when the sirens were still flashing and the smoke was still billowing. People often remembered far more in those few precious moments immediately after a tragedy than their minds had any hope of retaining the next morning. But translating those thoughts into actual words was hard to do when their pulses were racing and their minds were in free fall.

  She looked down at her phone. “I still can’t get a signal. We’re going to have to head back up the main road.”

  His fingers ran gently over the back of her head. “Just rest for a moment, and when you feel up to it, we’ll get back in the car and I’ll drive until you find a signal.”

  Her hair brushed against his jaw, filling his head with the scent of sunshine and cinnamon. He closed his eyes. Yes, he’d hugged victims before, or at least squeezed them comfortingly on the shoulder, but he’d felt nothing like this, never anything like this before. He’d never swept someone up into his arms and felt something inside him reach out for her. And thought he’d felt her reaching back.

  “I still feel like my brain is foggy,” she murmured, “and I’m only half-awake.”

  “You’re coming out of shock.”

  “Did I really see my name?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  Her fingers squeezed his so hard it almost hurt. “Has the Raincoat Killer ever done anything like this before?”

  “No,” he said simply. She was still looking at him. A question hovered in her eyes. As a reporter he knew that was all he should say if there was even a chance of interviewing her. But as a man, how could he leave her to process this alone? He took a deep breath. “Okay, I have a theory. It’s just a hunch. But if I had to guess, I’d say the killer followed your brother here. Like you say, he’s probably not an islander so didn’t know where you lived. Maybe McCarthy surprised him. But if it is the Raincoat Killer, he’s never killed a man before, or a senior citizen—not that we know of, at least—and he’s never tried sending a message.” That was the kindest way he could think of putting it. The last scraps of hope he’d had that she wasn’t somehow involved in this were quickly disappearing. “You haven’t actually been alone since the ferry. You’ve always had me, or your brother, or the police nearby. So this may be the only way he knew how to get to you.”

  She pressed her palms into her knees. “Okay, I think I’m good to go again. But if you could drive, that would be great.”

  A flurry of white fur burst out of the forest. Harry charged toward them, his tail wagging furiously. He launched himself at Meg, his oversized paws landing on her knees, practically pushing her back into the steps. She smiled sadly and rubbed her hand over his head. “Well, Harry. I guess you’re coming back home with us now—” She gasped. Then she pressed something into Jack’s hand. “Harry had this in his mouth.”

  It was a strip of waterproof orange fabric.

  * * *

  The rain arrived just before ten, denting the muddy ground at the side of the highway and clattering on the roofs of the vehicles. Jack sat in the backseat of a police car, with his legs hanging out the open door and his boots planted firmly in the mud. Blue-and-red lights swirled through the night air and cut across the ground in front of him.

  They’d only needed to drive a few minutes down the road before Meg’s phone had found a signal, and then it was only fifteen after that before the authorities had arrived in an impressive phalanx of four police cars, two paramedics and a fire truck. Two cop cars and a paramedic had parked around Meg’s hatchback. The rest had carried on to McCarthy’s farm, the final vehicle stopping to loop crime-scene warnings around the front of the old man’s driveway.

  Which is where, Jack thought, I should be now. At the crime scene. Taking notes. Asking questions. Observing as the cops take down McCarthy’s body and searching the scene for clues. That’s where I belong.

  But instead Officer Burne had ushered Jack over to his cop car the moment he arrived, ordered him to sit tight and wait for someone to come over and question him. Frustration burned inside him. Wasn’t he the same guy some of these very same cops had been pestering with questions just a few hours earlier? Hadn’t anyone realized he might actually be able to help them? But barring him from the crime scene wasn’t even the worst part. The cops had also separated him from Meg.

  He glanced through the dark sheet of rain to where she now sat, curled up in the back of a paramedic’s van. A heavy blanket hung around her shoulders. Emergency lights washed over her face, highlighting the lines of her cheeks and deepening her almond-shaped eyes. A blonde, square-jawed officer in a neon-yellow slicker, handed her something in a foam cup and then asked her a question Jack couldn’t hear. She was the same officer who’d ushered Meg away from Jack the moment she and officer Burne had pulled up. He hadn’t gotten her name.

  Another man was standing on Meg’s other side. Young, with a trim red beard and civilian clothes, but the cocky stance of someone who was used to being listened to. He’d pulled up in a rental car a few moments after Officer Burne and the blonde cop had arrived. Seemed a bit young for a plainclothes detective.

  Jack’s reporter’s brain reminded him that separating witnesses before taking their statements was often standard in cases as serious as homicide. But his heart fought back hard against the thought with every thundering beat. Meg had just had the scare of her life. She needed the support of a friend by her side.

  The man with the red beard led Meg to her car and helped her in the passenger side. Then he climbed in the driver’s side.

  Jack stood, but had barely taken a step when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m afraid I have to ask you to wait in my car, Mr. Brooks.” It was Officer Burne. The man’s face was shrouded in the unbelievably bright yellow hood of official police rain gear. But somehow water still ran from his mustache. “Someone will be over to take your statement shortly.”

  Shortly? He clenched his fists together at his side and tried to force the irritation out of his voice. “But it looks like Ms. Duff’s car is leaving, and I’m staying with her and her brother, Benji.”

  “Someone will make sure you are escorted back to your lodgings, after an officer has taken your statement.” The officer faked a smile.

  Jack eyed the man’s artificial smile and matched it with a professional one of his own. What on earth had happened? How was this the same man whom he’d met feeding a dog in a diner that afternoon? “I understand, sir.” Was sir too formal? Oh well. If so, Burne had started it. “May I at least retrieve my belongings from the front seat?”

  “Just sit tight.” Burne patted the roof of the cop car. “I’ll make sure you get them before the car leaves.”

  “If I may ask, who’s the young man driving the car?”

  “Oh, just my son, Malcolm. Big-city Toronto boy like you. Cop on the Toronto force.” He chuckled and seemed to unbend a bit. “Drove by, saw the commotion and thought he might as well stop to help his old man.” He sauntered off. “Recognized Meg, offered to hel
p drive her home.”

  Jack watched as he walked over to the car, had a quick word with the occupants and then returned with Jack’s bag.

  “Here you go. Shouldn’t be much longer until we get to you now.”

  Meg’s car pulled away. She glanced back over her shoulder. He waved. She didn’t seem to notice. He sighed, leaned back and looked up at the ceiling.

  Well, Lord. This situation is a total dog’s dinner bowl of a mess. I’m glad You know what’s going on, because I’m so lost for words it ain’t funny. Am I missing something I should be seeing?

  A tinny song rumbled from inside his bag. He reached in and dug for his phone. The ringing stopped. He glanced at the screen. He’d missed a call from his friend Simon. No, scratch that, scrolling up the screen, it looked as though he’d missed eight calls from Simon. What?

  There was only one voicemail. “Hey, Jack, it’s Simon. Call me when you can.”

  The twenty-five-year-old social worker spent his nights walking the streets of Toronto, helping runaways, prostitutes and drug addicts find the life-changing care, respect and dignity needed to help them turn their lives around. A good friend and a fellow member of a Jack’s Bible study, Simon was a fellow warrior on the side of all that was right and good. Jack had grown to esteem him as a brother. They were close—but not “talk on the phone every day” close. Why would Simon be calling so persistently?

  Only one way to find out. And besides, talking to a solid friend of the faith is exactly what I need to calm myself down.

  There was only half a bar on his phone, but when he dialed the number, Simon answered on the first ring.

  “Hey, man!” Jack said. A chuckle rumbled through his voice. “Either you sat on your phone and it started dialing random numbers, or you’re in one big hurry to talk to me. Either way, I’m so glad to talk to you.”

  “Jack?” Simon’s voice was grim and worried. There was a catch in the back of his throat like a man calling to report news so bad he was struggling to digest it himself. “Where are you now? Is everything okay?” He paused. Then his voice dropped so low Jack could barely hear it. “Are you alone?”

  The social worker’s words hit Jack’s guts like a handful of stones.

  “Yeah. I mean, I’m sitting in the back of a cop car waiting to give a statement.” He forced a chuckle. Simon didn’t laugh back. “But I’m good, and pretty much alone. Why?”

  Simon took a deep breath. The phone line crackled.

  “Come on, man, I barely have a signal, and I’m exhausted. Whatever it is, just tell me. Believe it or not, I already confronted a serial killer today. Plus, I just got locked in a garage with a corpse. Nothing you say could possibly be worse than that.”

  Another pause. Then Simon spoke like a man being strangled. “I don’t want to upset you. But I heard something on the streets tonight, and just felt that I had to call and tell you....”

  “Yeah?” The rocks in Jack’s gut grew heavier.

  “I don’t know if you’re getting much news up where you are, but the local outlets here just started reporting the chief of police is going to call a press conference tomorrow, to update the public on information about the so-called Raincoat Killer....”

  Okay, well, that was a good thing. Not surprising, considering the attack on Meg and the death of McCarthy.

  “Rumor is he’s going to announce the police are naming a ‘person of interest’ in the case. Now, you know as well as I do that a person of interest is not an official suspect. No warrants are being issued. It’s just someone the police are hoping to talk to.”

  From his work with those who were hurting, Simon knew way more persons of interest than any sane man should.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Because official suspects tend to lawyer up and refuse to be questioned. But announcing someone is a person of interest is still one of the ways cops put pressure on people. Especially when they don’t have enough hard evidence to press charges, so hope to trap them into admitting they either committed the crime or know who did. Either that or they think this guy’s hiding some key information—”

  “Jack? I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be you.”

  The phone slipped in Jack’s fingers. The Toronto police were going to name him a person of interest in the Raincoat Killer case? Why? Because he’d been so insistent in convincing people the crimes were the work of a serial killer, they now thought it was him? He tightened his grasp on the phone and forced it back to his ear. His heartbeat grew so loud it nearly drowned out the world around him.

  “But that’s ridiculous!” he was shouting. Shouting in a cop car, at a crime scene. Burne’s head spun toward him. He swallowed hard, forcing his voice back down. “I’m the one who tried to convince the world there was a serial killer on the loose. If it was me, why would I do that?” But even as he said the words he knew the answer. Serial killers were sociopaths and narcissists. They craved attention.

  “Look, the announcement won’t be until sometime tomorrow. And again, I don’t know anything officially.” Simon’s words came out quickly. “I just heard some cops talking loudly and drunkenly in a back alley behind a bar. They were spouting off nonsense about how some hotshot reporter had angered the chief by trying to make him look like an idiot, and how ‘crime-writer boy’ was going to get his comeuppance at tomorrow’s press conference.”

  Which wasn’t shocking. One of the main alleys Simon walked on his nightly prayer and rescue walks was often used as a smoking hole for a tiny minority of officers who let off steam after work by indulging in their own vices. Simon once admitted he walked that alley purposefully, praying for them.

  “Now, if they do, just go in for questioning right away.” Simon was in full-on social-worker mode now. “Just be polite, answer their questions and remember you’re under no obligation to tell them anything.”

  Unless they were so furious at his meddling in their investigation they’d actually figured out some way to arrest him. “Okay, brother.”

  “Keep the faith. I’ll be praying.”

  “Thanks. Me too.”

  He hung up.

  “Mr. Brooks!” Burne called. “We’re ready for you.”

  Jack felt a wave of trepidation wash over him. Was he ready for them?

  TEN

  Morning sun streamed through Meg’s kitchen window and over the intricately laid fruit and pastry tray. Everything was ready for her meeting with Rachel and the wedding party. She’d sent Benji jogging down to the bakery to pick up an assortment. He really was an amazing brother, even if he did need constant reminding not to leave his dishes under the couch or toss muddy clothes in on top of the clean laundry. Benji and Harry had driven down to the waterfront to open the sports-equipment shop. A thin layer of makeup had been enough to cover the few bruises left from her ordeal yesterday, but she’d tied a delicate silk scarf over the top just in case they showed through.

  Jack had yet to make an appearance.

  A pair of muddy boots were parked on a mat at the top of the stairs. They’d been there when she woke up this morning, serving as the only evidence Jack had slipped back in to Benji’s sometime during the night. She’d waited up almost two hours to talk to him before her aching body forced her into bed. What could have possibly kept him out so late? Had he been interviewing cops at the crime scene?

  Or was he was avoiding her? Embarrassed at how he’d held her? Uncomfortable knowing how close they’d been?

  And just like that she could feel the icy fingers of anxious insecurity begin to tiptoe up her arms. Her fingers gripped the rim of the double sink. She forced a long, deep breath into her lungs and tried to push away the nagging voices of doubt and fear that had whispered in her mind ever since she was a child.

  She’d probably made him feel uncomfortable. She’d been so scared she lost her head. Now here she was, glancing at the bas
ement door, waiting for it to open like a crush-struck teenager. Who was she kidding? He was a gorgeous, big-city reporter with the build of an athlete and a daring smile. He probably had a lineup of beautiful, composed, successful women eager to be his wife. What would he ever want with a broken, timid little thing like her?

  All he wanted from her was her story. He wanted to interview her. Nothing more.

  She gripped the counter so tightly her knuckles ached. Usually a good long walk, a cup of tea and a time of prayer helped center her mind and keep the wolves of doubt and fear at bay. But now those nagging fears had surged back with a vengeance. For a second, she felt almost as shaken and sick as she had the previous night, when they’d found McCarthy’s body.

  Yet for a moment she’d felt her heartbeat still when Jack held her. When her legs were about to give way, he’d wrapped his arms around her. When she felt fear filling her mind, he’d lifted her into his arms and run his fingers down her curve of her back. He’d made her feel safe. Surely there’d been more to it than his simply hoping she’d give in to that interview?

  She blinked hard and stepped back from the counter. No, she was not going to let herself think this way. They’d been in a terrifying, unreal situation and he’d stepped up to help her. Twice now he’d been her hero in a crisis. But he’d made it clear from the beginning, he was only here because had a job to do.

  And she still wasn’t about to give him that interview.

  There was a hard, rhythmic knock on the front door. She opened the door and froze, as suddenly long-past memories from the girl she’d been at seventeen threatened to flood over the threshold.

  A mop of chestnut curls. A roguish grin curving an oversized mouth as Chris Quay leaned into the doorway. “Hey, cutie. Is your brother ready to hit the snow?”

  Oh, how young she’d been that day. How infatuated she’d been with a boy that her brother had no business going snowmobiling with. How unprepared she’d been to face the cold, hard truth that sometimes life was brutally cut short.