Her Darkest Nightmare

by Brenda Novak

  “That puts you in good stead,” she said, hurrying to capitalize on his words. “It means no one knows you’re involved. You could get away with it.”

  “You know.”

  She heard that fatalistic note in his voice and did what she could to combat it. She had to offer him hope. “No! I won’t say a thing to anyone.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You won’t have to. They’ll offer both Kush and Petrowski a deal trying to get Snowden and Dugall, who weren’t really involved except to fuck her now and then, and one of them will roll over on me. It’s only a matter of time.”

  So he knew he was going to lose his job. But … why this? Why was he hiding out at her house? “How’d you get in?”

  He shoved his free hand through his hair, causing it to stick up and make him look even more like a madman. “I broke a window,” he said, but the nervous way he spoke and the way he’d glanced around before arriving at that answer indicated otherwise. He was lying. Given the temperature outside, the house was far too warm for there to be a broken window.

  She remembered how cold Fitzpatrick’s had been last night.…

  Glenn must’ve picked the lock on the back door—like the person who’d delivered that severed arm to her bed.

  She blinked at him, stiffening. It was Glenn’s uncle who’d installed her alarm system. Before she’d hired Glenn at the prison, he’d worked for that uncle. Who would know how to disarm a system better than the person who’d installed it?

  Holy shit.… He’d put in an alarm system for Lorraine, too. And at her recommendation, he’d done one for Russ, could easily know about the unlocked woodshed.

  Glenn narrowed his eyes. “What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, but her mind was busy conjuring up the note Whitcomb had left her with that brownie the other night. She’d been so preoccupied when she’d read it—first when she’d been in such a hurry to copy the file she’d found in Fitzpatrick’s office and then when she’d been on the phone with Garza’s ex-wife—that the handwriting hadn’t registered. She’d thrown it away before ever really studying it. Whitcomb was her friend: she’d never dreamed there’d be any reason to take a closer look at anything he gave her. But now she recalled the way he’d written her name. The E was distinctive. It was overlarge and slanted to the left—like the one on that forged transfer order.

  “Don’t lie to me!” He could tell that something had become apparent to her. Maybe it was Kush who’d met with Garza and offered him the drugs and pornography to shank Hugo. But it was Glenn who’d taken care of the transfer order, which meant he was behind the stabbing every bit as much as Kush and Petrowski.

  “I’m not,” she said. “I’m just … wondering what you’re doing here.”

  Clearly not convinced, he aimed the gun. “I’m waiting.”

  “For…”

  “A friend at the prison to get off work and bring me some money. I have to have money. I can’t go anywhere without it.” His eyes shifted to the contents of her purse spilled across the floor, and he kept the GLOCK trained on her while squatting to dig through it for her wallet.

  Evelyn’s thigh was aching. So was the wrist he’d bent back when he forced her own weapon from her grip. Cradling her hand in her lap and using her good leg to propel her, she scooted to the wall so she’d have some back support—and a bit of distance between them, not that five feet would help against a bullet. “Pandering, which is the charge for what you, Kush and Petrowski have done, doesn’t carry a stiff sentence, Glenn. If you don’t do anything else, you won’t serve more than a few months, if that.”

  After riffling through her cash, he shoved it into his pocket. “Fifty bucks? That’s all you got?”

  She rested her head against the wall, hoping to look defeated, hoping to lull him into believing she’d been that easily subdued, so she could have some time to think. “My ATM card is there.”

  “I can’t use your card. They can trace that shit.”

  She ignored his complaint. “Glenn, why are you doing this?”

  “Believe me, this isn’t how I hoped things would turn out. I didn’t plan for any of what’s happened!”

  “Then don’t let it get ahead of you. Think!”

  “It’s too late. There are certain things I’ve put in motion that I can’t stop.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He nudged her compact and wallet aside. “It means I won’t let them take me in. I know what prison’s like. No way will I spend the rest of my life there.”

  The rest of his life? Did he even realize what he’d just said? Those words confirmed what she’d already guessed, but she couldn’t let on. That would be the death of her. “It won’t be the rest of your life. Aren’t you listening? It’ll be a few months, at most.”

  “Oh, stop pretending.” He waved her words away in disgust. “I can tell you’ve figured it out. But it’s not what you think. It’s not like I meant to kill Danielle—either one of them. This whole thing … it got out of hand, is all.”

  A fresh wave of fear swept through Evelyn. That he would make such an admission so easily wasn’t a good omen. “She probably provoked you,” she said in an effort to reassure him. “You’re not the type that would hurt anybody.”

  “I’m not,” he agreed. “I’m not a killer, especially a serial killer. You have no idea how hard it was for me to cut up those bodies.” He shuddered as if he was reliving the dismemberment in his mind. “But I knew you’d connect that type of murder to Jasper. That’s all I ever hear you talk about when you analyze the men you study—how they compare to the monster who killed your friends and slit your throat. That’s why I put Danielle’s hand in your bed. I figured if I could make what I’d done look like it was Jasper, or one of those crazy-ass psychopaths at Hanover House, no one would ever suspect it was me. That gave me a way out, a way to put what I’d done behind me.”

  She scrambled to come up with a question, anything to keep him talking. “Was Kush in on it then?”

  “He knows I took care of the transfer order.”

  “Why was he the one to approach Garza?”

  If Glenn was surprised she knew, he didn’t show it. “He didn’t want to do that, but I had pictures of him with Danielle. His wife would never stay with him after learning he’d been sleeping with a whore on the side, especially once he was fired and brought up on criminal charges. He was desperate. And it wasn’t fair for me to have to do everything.”

  She sucked in a lungful of air, trying to get her pulse to settle. “So Kush isn’t aware that you killed Danielle or Lorraine?”

  “No.” He kept blinking and wetting his lips, looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.

  “You’ve got some money,” she said, focusing on the practical. “Why don’t you take off?”

  “Fifty bucks? You want me to leave with only fifty bucks? There’s no way. I have to wait, get more.”

  “Then wait for whoever’s coming, but … after that you’ll leave, won’t you? Without hurting me?”

  He rubbed his face, then pressed three fingers to his forehead. “Of course.”

  Evelyn had been praying he’d speak those words, but as soon as they came out of his mouth she knew it was a lie. He couldn’t let her go, couldn’t allow her the opportunity to tell what she knew. Because she would tell. There was no question about that, in either one of their minds. She was the ultimate victims’ rights advocate, had spent her life fighting those who victimized others.

  He had to kill her. If he did and made it look like Jasper’s handiwork, as he’d done with Danielle and Lorraine, anyone searching for the responsible party would be chasing a man no one had been able to catch in two decades—instead of a disgraced prison guard who had no experience at evading the police. By leaving her brutally murdered, even if he didn’t take the time to hack her to pieces like Lorraine and Danielle, he’d throw Amarok and everyone else off his trail. No one would go to much trouble to track down a man guilty of pandering. If she w
as out of the picture for good, he had a much greater chance of slipping away and establishing himself somewhere else without the past ever coming back to haunt him.

  And he’d already killed twice. She doubted one more time would matter to him.

  “So when’s your buddy going to get here?” she asked.

  He seemed disheartened when he checked his watch. “Probably not for another hour. Cooper’s always staying late to help out with something.”

  She knew Elias Cooper. She could only hope he’d come sooner rather than later—and that he’d help her. But even if she was still breathing when he arrived, she doubted Glenn would let him see her. “Does he know?” she asked. “About Danielle and … and everything else?”

  “Cooper? You think I’d bring Dudley Do-Right in on this? Hell no. He’s just a nice guy, willing to loan me a few bucks and drop it by while I fix your alarm system.”

  “He has no idea you’re about to disappear with his money.”

  “He’s still got a job, doesn’t he? He can live without a few hundred bucks.”

  She winced against the ache in her thigh, which wouldn’t subside. “You’ve thought of everything.”

  “I was sure of it, until you showed up.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, released a sigh and shook his head. “Damn it! I don’t want to do this.”

  He spoke as if he was talking to someone else, but she answered. “Do what? You said you’d let me live.”

  “I wish I could, Doc. I really do.”

  “Glenn, you don’t need to hurt me.…”

  He didn’t seem to be listening. He was too busy trying to summon the nerve. “If only I hadn’t killed Dani to begin with! Why’d I do that?” he cried, pounding on his head.

  Evelyn’s chest grew so tight she could feel her heart bumping against it with each bass-like thud. “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” he said. “When she didn’t show up for work on Monday, I dropped by to see why. She was just lying around, listening to music and doing her nails—had no good excuse. When I told her she’d lose her job that way, she told me it wasn’t gonna happen, not now that she was sleeping with Fitzpatrick.”

  “So you argued.”

  “Hell yeah, we argued. That pissed me off. I tried telling her how foolish it was to get involved with him, how it risked us all, but she didn’t care as long as she got to indulge her sick fantasies.”

  Evelyn guessed he’d been quite titillated by Danielle’s fantasies when he’d been making money off them, but she couldn’t afford to be critical. “Were you jealous?” she asked. “Is that it?”

  “No! Aren’t you listening? There was too much at stake. I couldn’t let her screw Fitzpatrick. What if she said something to him that gave us away? Or he started paying too much attention to her and figured it out on his own?”

  Evelyn could easily imagine the scene. “This argument must’ve come to blows eventually—”

  “I didn’t hit her. I’m not a violent man.”

  He seemed adamant. “Then … how’d she die?”

  “I just wanted to shut her up, you know? She kept yelling that she was going to call Amarok, that she’d love an excuse to get him over to her house, anyway. I was afraid her neighbor would hear and call him for her. So”—he winced—“I got my hands around her throat and squeezed to get her stop, and-and it worked. It brought instant relief, so much so that I … I couldn’t let go.”

  Evelyn wondered if she could somehow reach the kitchen, get a knife. But she didn’t see how. He had her cornered. A knife was no match for a gun, anyway. “That doesn’t explain what happened to Lorraine,” she said.

  “God, Lorraine. You know how much I loved her. I didn’t want to hurt her, but she walked in out of nowhere and saw Danielle dead on the floor while I was standing there, trying to decide what to do with the body. She started screaming, tried to run. I had to act fast.”

  So it was the fact that Evelyn had asked Lorraine to go by Danielle’s that’d gotten her killed. Evelyn felt terrible about that. But she couldn’t allow herself to focus on it. She had to keep Whitcomb procrastinating the moment he pulled the trigger. “Why was there no blood in Danielle’s house?”

  “I told you!” he cried, belligerent. “I strangled her. It’s not like I shot her! I didn’t go there intending to kill her or anyone else. I strangled them both.”

  “But only Danielle’s hand showed up in my bed.”

  He calmed down. “Oh, that. I cut both her and Lorraine into pieces in the barn behind my grandparents’ house. But I told you why I had to. I was only trying to make it look like it was a serial killer.”

  “Which was brilliant,” she said. “Effective. I did think it was Jasper.”

  He nodded, gratified by the praise. “I watch TV, know what overkill suggests. But how any man could enjoy murder—that I don’t understand.”

  “What you did isn’t the same,” she told him. “It was merely a means to an end.”

  “That’s it. That’s it entirely. I had no other choice.” He gave her an apologetic look but raised the gun. “And I’m afraid it’s the same here. I don’t want to do this, Evelyn. I’ve always liked you. Probably more than I should have. It’s just that I’m in too deep and there’s only one way out. You’re the last hurdle standing between me and the chance to start over. If only you hadn’t come home…”

  Evelyn tried to shrink into the wall. That was all she could do. She wished Amarok would come to her rescue, but she knew he wasn’t going to. He was in Anchorage, miles away, taking care of Kush and delivering Hugo’s corpse and what was left of Lorraine and Danielle to the medical examiner. Chances were he wouldn’t even think to check on her, wouldn’t realize she wasn’t at home or at work until much later in the day.

  He fired once. The bullet went into the wall beside her, shocking her, making her panic. This was real. She had to do something. So she quit cowering and launched herself at Whitcomb.

  The reversal in her behavior took him by surprise. The gun went off again, deafening her, but the bullet must’ve landed in another wall, or the ceiling—she wasn’t sure since he’d pulled the trigger while falling back.

  He hit his head on the travertine, which stunned him long enough that she managed to get her hands on the gun. The shock wore off before she could gain control of it, however. Then they were wrestling. This time, if he gained the advantage Evelyn knew it would all be over. He’d fire as soon as he could turn the muzzle on her.

  He surprised her by firing before that. This bullet definitely went into the ceiling, because a sprinkle of Sheetrock dropped onto her face.

  The next bullet was going into her head. Grabbing her by the hair, he pinned her down with the weight of his body. She could feel the cool metal of the barrel when it touched her cheek and didn’t have the strength to turn it away.

  “Glenn, no!” she whispered—and then, out of nowhere, the door hit them both as someone forced it open.

  Assuming Kit had finally brought his father to her rescue, Evelyn felt a brief flash of hope—which was instantly quashed by the report of a gun. Help had arrived too late. Glenn had pulled the trigger.

  Because Evelyn was expecting to feel pain, it came as a shock that she didn’t, especially when the pressure on her cheek fell away and Glenn went limp on top of her.

  Her mind struggled to process what’d really occurred as she tried to shove him off. But one thing seemed clear. She wasn’t shot; someone had shot Glenn. She could feel his blood soaking her shirt, feel the heaviness of his body in a completely different way.

  He was dead. She knew it instantly. But how? Kit couldn’t have shot anyone.…

  Was it Kit’s father? Or Amarok? Could he have come—somehow, miraculously—after all?

  Filled with an instant and overwhelming gratitude, she managed to summon the strength to lean up on her elbows despite Glenn’s weight so that she could see—only to realize that she hadn’t been saved at all. It wasn’t Kit or Amarok w
ho’d shot Glenn. Anthony Garza stood in the entryway wearing a grin that indicated he had plans for her Glenn would never even have dreamed of.

  31

  I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.

  —H.H. HOLMES, SERIAL KILLER, CON ARTIST, BIGAMIST

  Garza was terrifying enough when a thick plate of plexiglass separated her from him. Without that protection—with nothing between them—Evelyn could scarcely breathe. “What are you doing here?” she gasped.

  He curled his lip, revealing his sharp teeth as he advanced on her. “There’ve been a few changes in the power paradigm.”

  She tried to scramble away, but Glenn was still lying on the lower half of her body, and he was so damn hard to move.

  “Now that we’re on a more even playing field, I’m hoping our relationship can prove to be far more … satisfying,” Anthony said.

  She shuddered at the way he looked at her. “How’d you get out?” Surely the alarm had been sounded at Hanover House and there were people looking for him. Maybe Amarok had even been called. Since Kit hadn’t responded to her cries, that seemed the best chance of help she could hope for.

  “How do you think I got out?” He lifted Glenn and tossed him aside—as if he were no more than a sack of wheat. “This bastard let me out last night. Said he’d gotten himself into some trouble and needed to create a diversion.” He studied Glenn’s inert frame. “Too bad things didn’t work out for him. I guess he wasn’t as smart as he thought.”

  What was she going to do? What could she do? “He-he wanted you to run?”

  “Soon as I killed you. Said he could only buy me enough time to make it to Anchorage. Guess he thought that would get me out of Hilltop sometime today and send everyone who was anyone after me. But how could he expect me to go anywhere without a car?”

  Evelyn tried to keep her eyes from flicking to the gun Glenn had taken from her. It lay on the floor not far away, but Anthony would be on her the second she reached for it. “If you don’t have a car, how-how’d you get here?”