He only went faster. “Not now, Sally. Not when we’re having so much fun,” Gifford taunted, a nasty edge rising in his voice.
They were going at least eighty miles an hour. The vehicle careened through the streets, making twisting turns on what amounted to two wheels. Her fingers felt icy, even as perspiration began to slide down her back. She had to stop him.
Where was Frank?
As if reading her mind, Gifford laughed. “He’s not going to come save you, Detective. Right now, Detective McIntyre and the rest of his crew are dealing with four flat tires.”
Her eyes widened as she looked at the maniac next to her. He’d called her “detective.”
There was nothing but contempt in his eyes as he glanced her way. “Didn’t you think I’d see through your little disguise? I’ve got a 180 I.Q. MENSA comes to me with questions,” he crowed vainly. “Which means I’m way too smart for you and those other buffoons, Detective. But it’s been nice toying with you.”
The nasty laugh that rose to his lips echoed throughout the vehicle.
Gifford stomped down on the gas, whizzing by the sparse traffic as if the other cars were just painted scenery.
A sick feeling seized hold of her stomach. Julianne looked in the rearview mirror. There was no cable van following them.
She was on her own.
Chapter 15
“Pick a place,” Gifford told her, his voice mild as if they were just passing the time. As if he hadn’t just admitted to being the serial killer who had terminated so many young women’s lives.
This was surreal. Julianne felt as if she’d just fallen down the rabbit hole. “What?”
“Pick a place,” Gifford repeated, his voice growing slightly strained. “Out there.” He nodded toward the vast, engulfing darkness beyond the windshield. “Pick where you want to die.”
“Paris.”
He laughed harshly at her flippant answer. “Sorry, it’s going to have to be somewhere closer than that.” The smile on his lips when he glanced in her direction made her blood run cold. “You should be honored. I never told the others they only had minutes to live. They went on thinking they had forever.” The malicious smile widened. “Until they didn’t.”
She had to keep him talking until she thought of a way out. “Why did you do it?” she demanded. “Why did you kill all those women?”
“Why not?” he countered, so coldly she almost shivered. The near-maniacal laugh drove fear through her heart and she struggled not to let it overwhelm her. If it did, she knew she was lost. “You have no idea what a rush it is,” he told her, still traveling at breakneck speed. Signs of the city began to peel away as they went down a two-lane, tree-lined road. The foothills emerged in the distance. Gifford’s voice swelled in volume as he spoke, the vision the words fashioned clearly exciting him. “Feeling the life draining out of someone, passing through my hands. Watching them struggle, then give in to the inevitable. Give in to me.”
She could hear the self-importance in his voice as Gifford crowed about his accomplishments, about how the women had struggled and begged him for mercy with their eyes.
“In the last seconds of their lives I was everything. I was their God, their deliverer. Their entire world.” He took a deep breath, as if awed by himself. “Just talking about it gives me a high.”
Feeding his ego wasn’t going to work, she thought. In his present state it would just backfire on her. “You’re not going to get away with this, you know,” she told him, her voice calmer than she actually felt. “They know who you are.”
The laugh was contemptuous, belittling. “Won’t do them any good,” he promised.
Abruptly, he pulled over to the right, all but nosediving into a desolate spot. With a flip of his wrist, he cut the engine. He seemed infused with pride, unable to keep quiet. He talked, as if justifying that his audience would be dead soon.
“I’ve been preparing for this day ever since the beginning. After tonight, there won’t be a Gideon Gifford. I’ve got a whole new life waiting for me.” And with deliberate precision, agitating her all the more, he added, “New unsuspecting lives to cut short.”
His eyes seemed to glow as he looked at her. From that moment on, Julianne was certain that she would always remember what the face of Satan looked like.
She had to do something now, before it was too late. Because she knew she’d run out of time.
In one swift movement, she hit the release on her seat belt and lunged at Gifford, her fingernails going straight for his eyes. He screamed in pain and outrage. But instead of backing off the way she thought he would, Gifford grabbed her by the throat. His powerful hands closed around the slender column and began to squeeze. Hard.
Julianne clawed at him. But Gifford was a great deal stronger and her own strength, fueled with outrage and anger, began to ebb away, dragging in a darkness in its wake.
Just as she lost consciousness, Julianne felt a jolt from behind and thought, just vaguely, that they’d been hit by another car.
But that wasn’t possible. They were alone out here. She was alone out here.
The darkness won.
A heavy, dark curtain was still oppressively draped over her, but somewhere beyond that, she thought she felt someone holding her, tugging on her. Calling her name over and over again.
Air and consciousness returned simultaneously.
With a sudden gasp, Julianne bolted upright, her fists swinging. That same someone grabbed them and restrained her despite the frantic fury that propelled her. She was powerless again. He was going to kill her.
“Hold it, Champ. I’m one of the good guys, remember?”
Frank?
Frank!
Her eyes flew open—only then did she realize that they’d been closed.
“Frank!” His name came out in a grateful sob. Her emotions raw, every nerve in her body throbbing and adrenaline racing through her body, Julianne’s first reaction was to throw her arms around him and cling for dear life.
Frank did nothing to discourage her. Closing his arms around her, he just held her to him, grateful beyond words that he’d been able to save her.
All around them, the backup that he’d called for were assessing and processing the near crime scene. Sanchez and Riley had taken Gifford away in handcuffs.
Still holding her, Frank breathed in deeply, absorbing Julianne’s scent, silently whispering a prayer of thanks.
And then he felt her drawing back. She looked at him in confusion. “Not that I’m not incredibly grateful that you came riding to the rescue just as that sick bastard was trying to choke me to death, but how did you even know where I was?”
Frank laughed, shaking his head. He hadn’t thought that she’d underestimated him that much. “You think I’d let you climb into his car without having some sort of way to track you?”
She looked down at the front of her wet peasant blouse. With a single movement, she ripped away the now-defunct wire. “I thought that was what the wire was supposed to be for.”
“Some ‘backup’ way to track you?” he corrected. She raised her eyes to him in a silent question. “I planted a tracking device under Gifford’s car while you tottered into the homeless shelter on those stilettos.”
“I didn’t totter,” she sniffed. And then she blew out a breath. She’d been through a lot in her life, but this was the closest she’d ever come to death. When she looked at him again, there was no bravado in her eyes or her voice. “Thanks.”
He wanted to tell her that there was no reason to thank him. That when he’d realized that she was no longer transmitting and alone with that maniac, fear had almost rendered him immobile.
But all he said was, “Don’t mention it.”
She was coming around now. Things were falling into place. “But wait a minute, Gifford said you had four flat tires.”
Frank laughed shortly. “No, but not for his lack of trying. The bastard threw a handful of tacks in the road. The van went over some of them—cam
e close to having a blowout.” He shrugged. Sometimes the good guys won. “We were just lucky.”
It took all she had to bank down the shiver threatening to undo her. She knew if she gave in, she wouldn’t be able to stop shaking. Julianne ran her hand tentatively along her throat. It felt sore, tender. “I was luckier.”
The story, with all its gory details, hit the street in the morning edition of the paper. Julianne could have sworn she heard a collective sigh of relief coming from the city when Aurora’s citizens learned that the serial killer was under lock and key and apparently would remain that way for the rest of his life. Unrepentant and proud of his deeds, in return for having the death penalty taken off the table, Gideon Gifford cheerfully recounted the history of all his murders.
The first thing he told the D.A. and his assistant, Brian’s daughter Janelle Cavanaugh Boone, was that the police took a long time to catch on. With a sly, self-satisfied smile he said that there’d been more than ten victims. Ten more than ten to be precise. The first group, escaping any detection, had long since become one with the city’s landfill.
He remembered all their names and surrendered them under the terms of the same bargain.
Mary White Bear’s body was released to Julianne that morning. Julianne made arrangements for her cousin to be brought back to Mission Ridge. She wanted to bury her there rather than on the reservation where they’d grown up because she was fairly certain that Mary would have preferred it that way.
On her way back from the funeral parlor, Julianne stopped at a local drugstore and bought another bottle of hair dye. The woman on the box had lustrous blue-black hair. Hers, she knew, would be a flat, cartoonlike black, but at least it would be black until her own hair grew out. She didn’t like being a blonde.
She applied the hair dye the minute she got back to the hotel.
Less than an hour later, she was packing. There wasn’t much to take with her, she mused. At least, not in a suitcase.
She was almost finished when she heard a knock on the door. She ignored it. After all, she wasn’t expecting anyone. All she wanted to do was just get back to Mission Ridge, bury Mary and go on her life.
But whoever was on the other side of the door refused to take a hint and knocked again. And then again. They weren’t going away.
With a sigh, Julianne went to the door and yanked it open.
Her mouth dropped.
“It’s about time,” Frank said, walking in. “I was just about to use my male prowess and break it down.” And then he stopped, turning around and doing a double take. “You dyed your hair back. Good. Blonde wasn’t your color. I like you better this way.”
It took her a second to recover. She certainly hadn’t expected to see Frank here. When she’d left the precinct, Frank had been surrounded by a huge circle of police personnel—friends as well as family. She’d assumed that he’d be there for a good while to come.
It made leaving easier, not having to say goodbye formally. Not easy, but easier.
She could only think of one reason why he’d be here. “Did I forget something?” she asked.
“Yeah. Me.” His eyes held hers, saying things he knew he couldn’t put into words just yet. Not because he lacked them, but because they would scare her away. “Were you just going to leave?”
She shrugged, turning back to her packing. She struggled to distance herself from him, from her feelings. “The case is closed,” she replied simply. “You got the bad guy.”
He looked at her incredulously. “You weren’t even going to say goodbye?”
She avoided his eyes. “I’m not very good with goodbyes.”
Frank deliberately moved her suitcase to the floor and sat down on the bed. “Andrew’s throwing a party.”
Just a hint of a smile curved her lips. Some things it seemed, Julianne thought, were dependable. “And this is news how?”
“The party’s in our honor,” Frank went on. “For capturing the serial killer. It’s tonight.”
This was fast, she couldn’t help thinking, even for Andrew. “Then what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be on your way?”
“Our honor,” Frank repeated, emphasizing the first word. His eyes held hers. He understood her, he thought. Understood why she was running. Because, in his own way, he’d been running, too. But he wasn’t running anymore. And he wasn’t going to allow her to, either. “That means you, too.”
No, in her mind, she’d already made the break. To go back would mean to go through it all again. She wasn’t sure if she could a second time.
“That’s very nice, but—”
Frank shifted so that she had to look at him. “You have some pressing place you need to be?”
Why was he making this so hard for her? He knew this couldn’t go anywhere, she thought. They had no future together. All they had was the past. One wondrous night. “No, but—”
“You wouldn’t want to hurt Andrew’s feelings now, would you?” Frank asked, his voice coaxing her to reconsider.
As if that would happen. “I’ve got a feeling he’s a pretty tough guy.”
“On the outside,” Frank agreed, keeping a straight face. “But he’s soft and sensitive on the inside—just like me.”
She laughed then. She couldn’t help it. The man sitting on her bed wasn’t exactly a marshmallow. “Yeah, right.”
Not put off, Frank took her hands in his. “Well, I am. C’mon, Julianne. Come with me. Put in a little time at the party.” The look in his eyes went straight to her gut. “What have you got to lose?”
Oh, so much, she thought. I’m already losing it. Losing the ground beneath my feet.
Giving in but still trying to save face, she offered a careless shrug. “All right, I suppose. I’ll come. But just for a little while.”
He flashed a smile at her. She realized that he would have accepted no other answer. “Okay, let’s go.”
She looked down at the jeans and pullover she was wearing. It was fine for traveling, but not for a party that his family would be attending. “Like this?”
“Didn’t I tell you? It’s a come-as-you-are party.”
Julianne sighed, surrendering. He had her out the door before she realized it. “There is no winning with you, is there?”
“Nope,” was all he said.
Frank had the good grace not to let her hear him laugh.
The music came from the house before they ever walked in. Rhythmic music that shimmied under the skin and made people want to dance. This time around, as well as incredibly appetizing dishes, Andrew had also provided live entertainment. Riley played a mean guitar and Kyle, one of the triplets fathered by his late brother, Mike, did wicked things on the drum set. Together, they turned out to be greater than the sum of their parts.
People were shouting over the music and dancing, but everything stopped dead when Frank walked in with Julianne. The next moment, the abrupt silence was filled with the sound of applause.
Embarrassed, bemused, Julianne fought back the overwhelming desire to turn around and leave. “Are they always like this?”
“Pretty much, I’m told.” It didn’t bother Frank. After years of treading on eggshells because of his father, it was nice belonging to a family where approval and support was the norm, not the unusual. “Why, do they make you uncomfortable?”
Oddly enough, Julianne thought, they didn’t. Although she didn’t like attention drawn to her, there was something genuine about the spontaneous applause and the quick statements of congratulations that followed.
“No,” she told him, her voice barely audible because of the noise, “they don’t.”
Her answer made him smile. “That’s good,” he said, his smile widening. “That’s good.”
“Why?” Why should it matter how she felt about this? She’d be gone soon.
“Want to dance?” Even as he asked, he was already leading her to the small cleared-off space before his sister and Kyle.
He hadn’t answered her question, but she shr
ugged in response to his. She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to dance. The music was already moving her feet.
“Why not?”
“You know,” he said, lacing his hand through hers and placing the other intimately against the small of her back and, ever so lightly, pressing her to him, “you’ve got the makings of a really good cop.”
She raised her face to his. What was he getting at? “I am a really good cop.”
“Confidence, I like that.” He nodded his approval. “We could always use another good cop on the force. But you’d have to consider another department other than homicide.”
Had she missed a step here? What was he talking about? “Why would I want to do that?”
“Because the force doesn’t generally approve of a husband and wife working in the same department.” He knew because he’d looked it up earlier today. “I guess I could be the one who switches—or, better yet, we might just run off for a secret ceremony.” The tempo picked up and he went with it, twirling her around even faster. “That way we could go on working together. Vegas isn’t all that far away. Although if Andrew ever finds out—and he will, trust me. The man has incredible powers of deduction—he’ll insist on throwing us a wedding reception, which kills the whole secret thing—”
He was bouncing back and forth, and her head was spinning. Julianne held up her hand. “Hold it, hold it, hold it,” she cried, overwhelmed. “Back up, McIntyre. Repeat what you just said.”
His face was a study in innocence. “What part?”
“The husband-and-wife part.”
“The force doesn’t like husbands and wives working in the same department,” he recited. “That part?”
He’d glossed right over it again. “What husband and wife?” she demanded.
He looked at her for a long moment, the rest of the room fading into the background. “Us.”
Stunned, she stared at him. Somehow, she just kept on dancing without even being aware of it. “When did you even ask?”
The grin was almost sheepish. “I figured if I talked fast enough, you would have assumed I had and just go along with it.”
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