Ruthless Game (A Captivating Suspense Novel)

by Danielle Girard

  "Go on now, or you'll be late."

  Alex clasped the keys. "I'll fill up the tank."

  "That would be very sweet of you." She started to turn and looked back. "Still our secret, right?"

  "Absolutely."

  Mrs. Carter grinned and shuffled back into the house, looking like Alex had just told her she was winning the lottery.

  "Damn," Alex said, running toward the car. "Please let it start," she said to the sky as she ran around the older model light blue Lincoln Town Car. "And no accident," she added, in case anyone was listening.

  With only her right arm to work with, she struggled to get into the car with her duffel bag, smashing her left shoulder into the doorjamb as the door closed on her. Pain jolted across her muscles and she bit back a moan.

  She pulled the seat belt across her body, locked the doors, then turned the key in the ignition. The engine made a rattle-like cough then roared to life.

  She was in business. This was it. Come on, Nat.

  The traffic toward San Francisco started out light, and Alex kept her speed at sixty-five, the limit. Within thirty minutes, at just past nine-twenty, she was halfway there. Feeling good, she stepped up the speed to seventy.

  Rounding the corner near 3Com Park, though, the traffic quickly grew congested. It was early and many commuters were still trying to make their way into the city. "Come on," she whispered, moving to the left lane.

  Within two miles, traffic had practically stopped. Minutes ticked by like hours, and Alex stared at the dash clock, fretting over the wasted time. She wasn't going to make it to the prison before visiting hours ended. Closing her eyes, she drew deep breaths and tried to stay calm. At quarter to ten, she couldn't stand to waste another moment.

  As traffic crawled forward, Alex edged to the right and exited the freeway. She was still in South San Francisco and the prison was north of the city, a good twenty miles away. In good traffic conditions, by freeway, it was a thirty-minute drive.

  Surprisingly, Mrs. Carter had a car phone. Something her sister probably had insisted on. Alex reached for it, turned it on, and dialed Greg's cell phone. She got no answer, so she tried his extension at the station, hoping he might happen by his desk.

  "It's me. I've found something." She thought about who might be able to listen to Greg's voicemail. "I'm going to see N.T. from N.T. Security. And I'm checking out some Stanford doctor named Hennigan. I'll call with more ASAP."

  Off the freeway at Potrero, she sped through the city. The Mission district was quiet and easily passable. The dark heaps on the street looked like trash waiting to be taken out instead of humans trying to keep warm on the cold, damp cement. She hit a nearly red light and ran it, feeling her skin go cold as she shot through. She had to make it there. She couldn't wait a week. She couldn't get a subpoena to speak to the prisoner outside visiting hours. She needed to know who this Hennigan was now.

  Ticking off the seconds by beating her thumb against the steering wheel, Alex turned up Van Ness, cursing at the electric-generated Muni buses as they cut in front of her to make their appointed stops. The clock on the dashboard said 9:55. She had twenty minutes. Dread poured into her belly and she shut it out. Stay positive. She would make it. She had to.

  Across the Golden Gate Bridge, she headed for the off-ramp to San Quentin. Over the hill, she could see the prison resting along a winding road set up from the water. It was ten after ten. She was just going to make it!

  As she started to merge right to exit, the excitement drained from her limbs. An orange road sign read, "Off-ramp closed—detour ahead."

  "No!" she screamed, pumping the gas and heading for the next exit.

  By the time she reached the prison gates, it was ten twenty-two. She had missed the cutoff. Ready to try for a miracle, she drove through the gates and ran into the building.

  "Can I help you?"

  "I need to see an inmate."

  "Visiting hours are over."

  Alex nodded, trying to catch her breath. "I know. This is an emergency."

  The guard shook his head. "No exceptions."

  Alex swallowed hard, still panting. "I'm a Berkeley detective, working homicide. This inmate may be able to identify a killer." It was mostly true.

  He shrugged. "You can try. Alice runs the visiting hours like a Nazi. I don't think you're going to get past her, but go ahead. You need to remove any metal items and put them through the belt. Any weapons have to stay here. Then, go down a level and take a right."

  "Thanks." Looking down, Alex realized she hadn't brought anything but the keys with her. Tossing them in a dish, she moved through the metal detector and was waved on. Mrs. Carter's keys back in her pocket, she took the stairs by twos and sped into a large room.

  To her left, two guards watched over a long row of two-sided cubbies, separated down the center by a thick, bulletproof glass: criminals on one side, visitors on the other.

  Alex spun around in search of Alice. A tall, heavy-set black woman sat behind a low counter, staring at a stack of paper.

  "Excuse me," Alex began.

  The woman didn't move.

  "I'm Detective Kincaid," she lied. If the woman wouldn't even look up, Alex figured it didn't much matter if she lied or told the truth. "I need to see Nat Taylor."

  With a quick glance, the woman shook her head and looked back at her paperwork.

  "I'm a homicide detective. I need—"

  "Don't care who you are," the woman interrupted. "Visiting hours are over."

  "Mr. Taylor may be able to identify a murderer. His interview is crucial to this case."

  The woman still didn't look up. "You have paperwork from a judge stating you should be allowed to see Mr. Taylor outside of visiting hours?" She enunciated the word "judge" by saying it two octaves higher than the rest of the sentence.

  Alex exhaled, frustrated. "There hasn't been time."

  "You can get a judge's note or Mr. Taylor will always be here next Monday."

  Alex felt her pockets for her I.D. She didn't even have it on her. "Listen, I won't be longer than a few minutes. This is very urgent. There is a killer on the loose."

  "No exceptions."

  Her fist clenched, Alex jerked her left arm in anger and then choked on the pain the motion brought. "Please."

  The woman looked up and gave her a small smile, then quickly dismissed her. "No."

  Anger rose in her throat like vomit, and Alex had to hold herself in place. She had come too far. She'd lied to an old woman, practically stolen her automobile, hidden from her own family for two days, nearly been run over by a car, fired bullets, and raced forty miles. She was not going to be discouraged by a bureaucratic bully of a guard.

  Leaning over the counter, Alex had started to speak when the woman stood up. "Visiting hours are over in five," the woman yelled down the corridor and turned to walk away.

  Murmurs filled the room as people rushed to end conversations before time was up. Alex stared at the guards and then tried to locate the woman, but she had simply vanished.

  "You're going to have to leave now," one of the guards said.

  Alex looked at him.

  Frosty gray eyes met hers.

  "Please."

  He shook his head and turned his back.

  Alex stared around in disbelief. She couldn't possibly wait until next Monday—that was another week.

  She didn't have a week.

  A week from now, she would be dead.

  Chapter 31

  The muscles in Alex's arm and shoulder tightened, wrenched closer to snapping with each step. On the way in, she'd caught her ankle and it pounded with the dull ache of a sprain. Weak and weary, she hobbled toward the stairs.

  "Excuse me," Alex imagined she heard someone say as she inched along.

  "Excuse me," the voice repeated more loudly.

  Alex stopped and looked back, cupping her arm and cringing at the thought of yet another assault on her efforts. The woman before her couldn't possibly work for the p
rison. In a long pinafore dress with a white turtleneck beneath it, she was petite, almost fragile.

  It looked like a maternity dress, but this woman was too thin to be pregnant. Her hair was pulled back in a loose bun and she wore no makeup. Except for the missing small white hat, she appeared Amish.

  "My name is Edna."

  Alex frowned. "That's nice," she said, starting to turn away.

  "I think you want to talk to my brother?"

  Alex spun back. "Your brother?"

  She nodded meekly. "Nathan."

  "Nat Taylor?"

  "Yes."

  Alex scanned the rows, searching. "Where?"

  "He's at the very end. Come on." The woman turned and hurried away, Alex right on her tail. At the final cube, a man sat waiting behind the thick glass.

  "Sit down quickly," she said. "When Alice comes back, she'll kick us all out."

  Alex sat in the chair, facing Nat Taylor. He wasn't much larger than his sister and didn't look like he could hurt a fly. Alex wondered if that was why he had chosen his car as weapon of choice to kill his wife. He sat upright, his small hands crossed on the table. He was clean-cut, with a neatly kept reddish-brown beard and small oval glasses with wire frames. His face was unexceptional except for a patrician nose. The overall look was academic. It was difficult to picture Mr. Taylor as a private investigator, let alone a killer. But Walter Androus had been the same way—the small glasses, intellectual-looking. In fact, Walter and Nat were more alike than she cared to think about.

  Nat leaned forward and picked up a phone receiver.

  "Here you go," Edna said, handing Alex the phone on their side. Then, kneeling beside Alex like she was preparing to pray, Edna waited.

  Alex brought the receiver to her ear, glancing down at Edna before looking through the thick glass at Nat.

  "She's okay," Nat said, referring to his sister. "Only member of my family who didn't desert me after Lucy was killed." He shook his head with the expression of someone whose life had been turned upside down so fast he hadn't had a chance to even soak it all in.

  Alex only nodded.

  "I didn't hear what happened, but Edna said you were looking to talk to me."

  "I was." She watched the open anticipation in his expression and glanced down, knowing her news was not what Mr. Taylor was hoping to hear. "I'm actually here about Marcus Nader."

  Nat nodded, showing a few small, square teeth in a weak smile.

  Alex met his gaze again and shook her head. "He's dead."

  Nat's mouth dropped open and from the corner of her eye, Alex saw Edna make the sign of the cross. The woman choked back a sob as her brother asked, "How?"

  "Someone broke into his house and shot him."

  "Why?"

  Alex shrugged, knowing she had a lot of explaining to do and no time to do it.

  "Two minutes," a guard bellowed from the far end of the room.

  Nat flinched.

  "I promise to tell Edna everything you'll want to know so she can tell you. But I only have two minutes. I need you to try to answer some questions for me."

  Nat nodded.

  "Nader's neighbor intercepted a letter from you to Marcus where you told him you had information on his case. You were working for him?"

  Alex knew Nat must have wondered why a neighbor had intercepted his letter, but he just nodded without interrupting.

  "About what happened back in 1971—"

  He nodded again.

  "As quickly as possible, can you tell me what you learned?"

  Without blinking, Nat started in. "I had done some work for Marcus Nader a while back. Then, all this happened and I hadn't heard from him until a guy named William Loeffler contacted me about a month ago. He was working with Nader. I never actually spoke to him, but we exchanged a couple of letters. Have you talked to him?"

  Alex squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head. "He's dead, too."

  Nat looked over his shoulder quickly and turned back. "Jesus Christ."

  "I need to know what you found out. Whatever it is, I think that's why they're dead. I need you to tell me what you told them."

  Nat nodded slowly, the fear shining in his eyes. At that moment, Alex knew for certain that he had not killed anyone. She pushed the thought aside and focused on his words.

  "I told them about Walter Androus's family. His brother—"

  "Ben," Alex supplied.

  "Right. I thought Ben might be alive."

  "And?"

  "Dead. Died just like they said."

  Alex nodded, searching for the piece that fit. "You also mentioned a Hennigan."

  "Blake Hennigan—he was the head of the research at Stanford."

  "Did you find him?"

  Nat nodded. "He keeps an office at Stanford and is only there one day a week. I left a message on his line there but never heard back." He motioned around. "But I told Loeffler to try to talk to him."

  "What did you think Loeffler would find?"

  "Androus was part of a psychiatric research project at Stanford. I think Hennigan headed it up."

  It didn't seem like much to go on. "You think Hennigan had to do with the murders?"

  Nat shrugged and straightened his glasses. "I doubt it. I hoped he could tell me more about Androus—his friends, his habits."

  A guard touched Nat on the shoulder and waved him off the phone.

  Alex exhaled, sinking back against the seat. The police would have covered all that three decades ago. It felt like a dead end.

  "Time's up," the guard on her side bellowed.

  "Do you know the name Alfred Ferguson?" Alex asked, casting a glance at the guard coming toward her.

  Nat shook his head. "Never."

  There had to be something she was missing. This couldn't be it. What did Nat know that had gotten Loeffler and Nader killed? "Was there anything else you told Loeffler or Nader that you can think of?"

  Nat frowned and shook his head. "I gave Loeffler a contact in New York records and Hennigan's name. That was it."

  "Time's up," the guard on her side repeated, now closer.

  Alex felt defeated. She had come hoping for some incredible revelation. But she had nothing.

  Nat's voice dropped as he continued, "If you find anything, I'd appreciate you letting me know. The more I think about it, the more the timing of the whole thing bothers me. I talk to New York records and call this guy Hennigan and two days later, I'm behind bars for killing my wife."

  "You think someone killed her to frame you?"

  He shrugged, knowing he didn't have enough to convince a cop.

  "Where were you when she was killed?"

  "In the shower. They found the keys in the ignition, my wallet and cigarettes on the car seat, and me upstairs, just coming out of the bathroom. My eighty-year-old, half-blind neighbor testified that she saw me run Lucy over, get out of the car, and go inside. The theory is that I ran my wife over with the car, in our own driveway, wiped the steering wheel clean, and went inside, but left my wallet and keys behind. Does that make any sense?"

  Alex didn't comment on his innocence. She knew better. "I'll let you know what I can find out."

  Alex could see the guard approaching again. The cubicles beside her were emptying and people were milling about, the noise level increasing.

  The guard tapped Nat's shoulder again, this time with more force.

  Nat stood and turned back. "There is one more thing."

  "What?"

  "There was a J. D. Daniels at Stanford back then, too. I gave his name to Loeffler as well. In case he couldn't reach Hennigan."

  She remembered the name. "He did an interview with Androus's sister, Maggie, a year or two after the murders."

  Nat shrugged. "I never saw it."

  "Let's go," came a voice behind Alex.

  The guard pulled the phone from Nat's hand and hung it up.

  Nat's expression met Alex's, apologetic and helpless.

  The guard took him by the shoulder of his orange
suit and began pulling him toward the door.

  "You pushing your luck, girl," a female voice echoed from behind.

  Alex turned to see Alice staring down at her. "Right."

  Edna stood and smoothed her skirt, ignoring Alice's glare. "I hope what he said will help."

  Frowning, Alex turned toward the door. It didn't seem like she'd gotten anything at all. She could follow up on the New York records and call Hennigan and Daniels, but there had to be something else she was missing.

  "Can you tell me what happened to Marcus Nader?" Edna asked.

  Without stopping, Alex spoke over her shoulder. "Give me your number and I'll call you as soon as I can."

  "I know Nathan will want to know what happened. He really enjoyed working for Marcus. Terrible thing Marcus went through as a child, really."

  Alex cringed at her own memories, or lack of them. "You knew him?"

  "I referred him to my brother."

  "But why? Why did he need a private investigator?"

  "He said he'd seen the police file, that he had questions about it."

  "What sort of questions?"

  She shrugged. "He didn't talk about it much. I learned a little more from Nat."

  "You have to tell me," Alex urged.

  She glanced back at the jail and Alex knew she was debating if Nat would want her to tell.

  "It could help Nat," Alex said.

  Edna's eyes flashed large and she bit her lower lip. "He said he was having a dream about a voice, another person. He'd talked to someone on the phone and then he'd started to have dreams. He just wanted Nat to look into it, find out if there was any information that was missing."

  "Who had he spoken to?"

  She shook her head. "I honestly don't know."

  Alex nodded, defeated. She wished she'd gotten to Nader before the killer had. She was missing something. It was there somewhere. "How did you know him?"

  "We were in school together."

  "What was he like?"

  "Despite what had happened, he always seemed so strong and independent," Edna continued. "I thought it was incredible how well he was doing."