Laying Down the Law

by Delores Fossen

  Cord and Karina, I’m still here.

  Considering the words had been cut into the dead woman’s body, it was obvious the killer wanted to send them a message.

  Message received.

  The Moonlight Strangler—or more likely someone pretending to be him—had wanted them to know he wasn’t in a coma in a prison hospital, that he was free and killing again. If it was a copycat, it was too bad that the woman had paid for that with her life.

  By now, Karina knew the drill about not being out in the open any longer than necessary, and she moved fast when Cord parked in front of the sheriff’s office. The moment she was inside, her gaze zoomed around the room until she spotted Jericho. He wasn’t hard to find because it was only him and one of the reserve deputies in the squad room. All the others were no doubt tied up with the various legs of this investigation.

  “Who’s the murdered woman?” she asked right away.

  Jericho answered right away, too. “Taryn Wellman.”

  “Oh, God.” She didn’t stagger, but it was close.

  “Yeah, DeWayne’s lover,” Jericho added. “I haven’t had a chance to follow up on the call Taryn made to me. And I obviously won’t be able to talk to her about it now. But DeWayne’s on his way here, and judging from the way he carried on when I spoke to him, he’s not in a good mood. He thinks this is somehow all our fault.”

  Cord was so not in the mood to deal with DeWayne. “How the heck is this our fault?”

  “Yours,” Jericho amended, pointing at Cord. “He’s blaming you specifically for this.”

  Karina shook her head and sank down into the nearest chair. “DeWayne and Taryn are lovers. And I guess he blames us for the Moonlight Strangler still being out there.”

  Twenty-four hours ago, Cord would have verbally blasted anyone who accused him of that. But now he was rethinking every single second of the attack a month earlier, where he’d been hit with a stun gun, drugged and then cut. All by the man he believed to be his father and the Moonlight Strangler.

  However, there was a problem.

  Cord hadn’t seen Willie Lee’s face, something he’d repeatedly told Jericho and the FBI.

  “Hell,” Cord said, sitting down beside Karina. “Maybe this is all my fault.”

  He expected her to give you an I-told-you-so look. But she didn’t. Karina simply put her arm around him.

  “If the Moonlight Strangler really did set all of this up,” she said, “then he set up Willie Lee, too. And he would have made sure that you believed Willie Lee was responsible.”

  Cord had considered all of that before, but for the first time, it really sank in. He blamed the kisses in part for that. However, that had only brought down a few barriers. The facts stayed the same.

  “The FBI had one of their so-called memory recovery experts talk to me,” Cord explained to her. “It didn’t work, but I think I should try it again.”

  “I can get that started for you,” Jericho offered.

  But Cord waved him off. “You’ve got enough to do.” Including yet another death and an escaped prisoner. “I’ll take care of it when we’re done there.” Which hopefully would be soon, but there were still plenty of things he needed to discuss with Jericho.

  “Anything on Rocky yet?” Cord asked.

  Jericho shook his head. “But the so-called kidnapping was captured on the police camera that was in the cruiser. The two thugs were wearing gas masks and gloves, so there’s no visual ID, and they didn’t leave any prints behind.” Jericho turned the computer screen so they could see it. “And then we have this. I’m not sure what to make of it.”

  That got Cord moving toward the computer. Karina, too, and the first thing Cord saw was Rocky on the screen. It was a clear shot, the image paused in mid-action and what appeared to be mid-cough. There was one gas-masked guy in front of him. Another behind him. The one behind had a gun aimed at Rocky’s head. There was a white cloud of tear gas misting all around them and the cruiser.

  “Keep watching and listening,” Jericho instructed, and he hit the play button.

  Since only Rocky’s face was visible, it was easy to focus just on him, but Cord tried to take in the whole picture as the two men moved and shoved Rocky away from the cruiser. They were rough with them, but it could be all for show to make it look convincing.

  Which it did.

  Because the deputies and Rocky were coughing almost violently, it was hard to hear what else was being said, but Cord hit Pause when Rocky looked directly in the camera and said something. Cord replayed it three times.

  “He said, ‘Help me,’” Karina said and Cord agreed.

  Jericho nodded. “And he really looked as if he means it. I’m thinking Rocky might have gotten in over his head in this murder club. Maybe because he didn’t manage to kill Karina like they wanted. If he really did go off searching for her attacker last night like he said, then he could have been going after one of his fellow club members.”

  Definitely, and that wouldn’t have set well with the group.

  “I haven’t made much progress finding out the names of the other members,” Cord explained. “What about the FBI? Can they go after the IP addresses and try to find these idiots?”

  “Already put in the request,” Jericho assured him, and he reached for the desk phone when it rang.

  Cord figured with all that was going on, the call could have been about plenty of things, but then Jericho pulled back his shoulders.

  “Really?” he said to the caller, and he pressed the button to put it on speaker. “You’re the Moonlight Strangler?”

  It was probably a crank call. The FBI had been getting hundreds of them, but Cord still found himself moving closer to the phone. Karina, too. Jericho also hit the record button just in case this turned out to be something more than just a poser out for publicity.

  For instance, one of their suspects. Or even someone in the Bloody Murder club. At least now, they’d have the guy’s voice on tape so it could be analyzed.

  “Cord, you listening?” the caller asked. His voice was a raspy whisper. Barely audible, but Cord had no trouble hearing his own name. However, he couldn’t hear anything in the background to give him a clue as to where the guy was.

  “I’m here. Now, who the hell are you?” Cord snapped.

  “Don’t you know?” That voice was a taunt, laced with a mock sweetness that stirred something inside Cord.

  Cord shook his head. It didn’t matter what he felt. He needed to focus on the man doing this.

  “Well, I know you’re calling yourself the Moonlight Strangler.” Cord added some mock sweetness to his tone, too. “But you can’t be him because we already have him in custody.”

  “No, you don’t,” the man quickly answered. “You have a moron in that prison hospital. Willie Lee Samuels hasn’t got the guts to kill. Didn’t Karina tell you that?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Of course she did. But you didn’t believe her.”

  “I don’t believe you, either,” Cord assured him.

  “But you will.” The caller let that hang in the air for several long moments. “Let’s play a little memory game. When you were three years old, you were abandoned at a gas station, and your sister, Addie, was found near the Appaloosa Pass Ranch—”

  Cord huffed. “Everybody knows that.”

  “True. But not everybody knows that Addie was wearing a yellow dress with little flowers on it. And you had on blue overalls and a white shirt. There was a stain on the left sleeve.”

  Cord felt as if someone had punched him.

  Because it was true.

  “They didn’t put that in the newspapers, did they?” the caller went on, and he gave Cord another dose of that taunting tone. “I know what you were wearing because I was there that day. With you, Addie and your mama. You looked me straig
ht in the eyes, boy, and you saw what I did. Yet you still think Willie Lee is the Moonlight Strangler?”

  “Are you okay?” Karina whispered to him, and she took hold of his hand.

  No, he wasn’t okay. Not by a long shot. The flashback came, staying right at the fringes of his memory. And maybe not a real memory at all. Cord had gone over all the details so many times that maybe he was imagining that day.

  But the caller certainly wasn’t.

  Had Cord really looked into his eyes that day?

  “What did I see you do?” Cord heard himself ask.

  “Think. It’ll all come back to you.”

  Cord repeated his question, shouting this time, and he hated that this monster had caused him to lose control. The laugh didn’t help, either. It was as sickening as the rest of this conversation.

  “I’m sending you a gift,” the man continued without addressing Cord’s question. Or his outburst. “It should be there real soon. After you’ve had a chance to look at it, we’ll talk again.”

  And with that, he hung up.

  Cord sat there, trying to pull himself back together. Hard to do, though. Because if the caller was telling the truth about those clothes—and he was—then, was the other thing the truth, too?

  Had Cord really looked him in the eyes?

  Maybe, but that wasn’t even the worst of it.

  “I’m guessing you have no idea what he claims that you saw?” Jericho asked.

  “No.” And Cord had undergone all kinds of treatments to recover those memories, as well. Including some drug that a behavioral scientist had given him. A drug meant to pull out those memories of a three-year-old boy, and he’d remembered nothing except a white teddy bear and some Christmas lights.

  Hardly a revelation.

  But it had been an actual memory because Addie had recalled the same thing. Maybe that meant more memories would come. Even the ones that Cord wasn’t sure he wanted to remember.

  Had the Moonlight Strangler murdered someone while Cord watched?

  As a lawman, he cursed that. And the memories that were so close to the surface, but not clear enough for him to recall them. They could put an end to all his questions. But then, they could also give him plenty of doubts about Willie Lee’s guilt.

  Hell.

  Would this never end?

  Jericho gave a heavy sigh and took out his phone. “I’ll get someone from the bomb squad down here ASAP. If this clown is really sending you something, I want to make sure it doesn’t blow up in our faces.”

  Cord agreed, and he stood, easing Karina to her feet next to him. “While we’re waiting, I’ll take Karina to the break room and maybe find her something to eat.”

  Cord knew he couldn’t put anything in his stomach, but maybe he could convince her that she needed to keep up her strength. While he was at it, maybe he could also convince her that he was okay.

  He wasn’t.

  And she knew it.

  “There are some sandwiches in the fridge back there,” Jericho told them. “Help yourself,” he added before he went back to his call.

  “Just try taking deep breaths or something,” Karina whispered to him. “It won’t stop whatever’s going on in your head right now, but it’ll make you feel as if you’re doing something to get past it.”

  He nodded, and managed to mumble a “thanks.”

  “But you’re going to be all right,” she said. “Aren’t you?”

  Cord stopped, looked at her and was about to give her a reassurance that he darn sure didn’t feel. But it seemed stupid to lie to her. They weren’t lovers, but they’d been through hell and back together, and if there were any barriers still left between them, it wouldn’t be long before they were shot to hell, too.

  “What if I was wrong about Willie Lee?” he asked her. A simple question, but he was afraid there were no simple answers.

  But somehow Karina managed to find one. “Then, we’ll fix it. And then we’ll find the real killer.” She brushed a kiss on his mouth, slipped her arm around his waist and got them moving toward the break room.

  They didn’t get far.

  The front door opened, and Cord heard a voice he didn’t want to hear.

  “I told you this would happen,” Harley called out to them. “I warned you that somebody would try to kill you again.”

  Karina turned around to face him. The breath she took was a weary one. “So you did. Why are you here, Harley?”

  “Because I don’t want to die.” His attention shifted to Cord. “And I want you to do something to find this snake that keeps killing people. Why would you let your number one suspect escape like that?”

  “Rocky’s just one of our suspects,” Cord said to clarify. “But then so are you.”

  Harley practically snapped to attention. “Me? How do you figure that?”

  “Karina’s going to testify against you,” Cord quickly explained. “You could want her out of the way. Plus, there’s that history you say you have with Willie Lee. Any chance you two were involved in money laundering back in the day?”

  With all the scars on Harley’s face, it was hard to see much change in his expression. But Cord saw it in his eyes. He’d struck a nerve.

  “Money laundering?” Harley challenged.

  “Don’t play innocent,” Cord warned him. “It was all over the news recently. No way that you could have missed it.”

  Of course, it was possible that neither Harley nor Willie Lee truly had anything to do with that operation, but Harley had been looking for something in Willie Lee’s cabin. And in Cord’s experience, when a man was willing to commit a crime to find something, it was because he was covering up something.

  Jericho hit another nerve with Harley, too.

  “I just got your background check,” Jericho said to Harley. “You were a demolitions expert in the army. Considering that someone blew up an ambulance last night, I have to wonder if you had anything to do with it.”

  Yeah, definitely a nerve.

  “Anything else you have to say to me, you say through my lawyer. My wife and I keep several on retainer.” Harley didn’t spare any of them even a glance. He stormed out.

  Karina shook her head. “Did he get those scars in the army?”

  Jericho shrugged. “I don’t know, yet. The army hasn’t sent his full military service record, only his career field. In fact, I don’t have much more on him at all.”

  Cord recognized that tone. A suspicious lawman. And it occurred to him that while they knew quite a bit about Rocky and DeWayne, they knew very little about Harley.

  “He has a degree in psychology,” Jericho said. “He used his GI Bill to go to college at A and M. After that, he dropped off the radar for a while. That’s about the same time that big money-laundering scheme was going on.”

  Too bad the records for that were sketchy at best. “Does he actually have a job now?” Cord asked.

  “No. Doesn’t need it what with his wife’s money. But that money comes with strings attached. There’s a prenup, and if she divorces Harley over this B and E scandal, he won’t get a penny. Plus, it’d be an even bigger scandal if he’s linked to the money-laundering scheme.”

  Jericho was about to say more, but he reached for his gun. Cord and the deputy went for theirs, too, and Cord pivoted in the direction of the door. But it wasn’t the threat his body had prepared him for.

  It was a kid.

  A girl, no more than eleven or twelve years old.

  The guns nearly had her bolting, but Jericho, the deputy and Cord quickly reholstered. Jericho motioned for her to come in. She did, but she took her time with her gaze firing at all of them.

  “It’s okay,” Jericho assured them. “That’s Annabeth, and her dad’s the cook at the diner.”

  “So
meone left this on one of the tables,” she said, holding up an envelope. “It’s addressed to the Appaloosa Pass sheriff’s office, and my dad told me to bring it right over.”

  Cord doubted this was a coincidence. It had to be from the caller who’d shaken him to the core. He figured that was just the beginning, though.

  “We didn’t see who left it there,” the girl went on. “We’ve had a lot of customers in and out all morning, and someone had stuck it between the salt and pepper shakers. Not exactly hidden, you know, but not right out in the open, either.”

  Because whoever had left it had wanted it to be found. Just not while he was there. Cord made a note to check the security cameras in the area to see if they could spot the person. Again, though, the person had likely covered their tracks.

  Jericho put on some latex gloves that he grabbed from a desk drawer, went closer and took it from the girl, but he only touched the edges of the envelope. He was trying to preserve any evidence that might be on it.

  Cord figured there wouldn’t be any. Not if this guy was the real Moonlight Strangler. Other than that DNA—which was now under suspicion—he’d left no part of himself behind.

  Jericho thanked the girl, and she took off, clearly ready to get out of there, and the three of them looked at the envelope. It was indeed addressed to the sheriff’s office. No return address. No stamp. And it wasn’t sealed.

  Cord could see the edges of a photograph, and Jericho took out a note. It had been typed and was only one sentence.

  “‘Cord, everything you need to know about yourself, and me, is right here.’”

  Chapter Eleven

  Karina held her breath while Jericho eased the first of the three photos from the envelope. She could practically feel Cord trying to bolster himself for whatever he was about to see. Unfortunately, he might need some bolstering.

  “Remember,” Karina whispered to him, “anything the person says or gives you could be a lie. We’re not dealing with a sane, normal person here.”

  But she had no idea exactly who they were dealing with, and she doubted anything in that envelope would tell them, either. If the real Moonlight Strangler had indeed sent this, then she figured there would be nothing to incriminate him.