Home Deadly Home

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Well, you don’t have to worry until I’m dead,” Grant said wryly. “He assured Cassie he never skips ahead on his list.”

  “That’s such a comfort,” Scott growled. “Maybe you should take a vacation. Keep the rest of us safe. Go to the Bahamas.”

  The thought had crossed his mind, except he’d envisioned taking Cassie with him. But he shook his head now. “You don’t think he could find me? Or doesn’t have the patience to wait until I came back?”

  Face it, he thought a few minutes later, recognizing his reluctance to step foot out of the fire station even as he waited for Jed Dawson to pick him up. I’m prey.

  *****

  Even though it was Sunday, Cassie’s reduced staff had all been willing to come in today. They gathered in the cramped conference room. Cassie looked around, seeing shock on every face. Her father’s death on top of Paul’s murder must have landed like a grenade in their lives.

  She started by announcing her intention to write her father’s obituary herself. “I’d like input, though,” she said, looking from one to the next of them. “Some of you worked with him for years. Tell me what you admired most about him.” She managed a faint smile. “Or what he did that aggravated you most. In fact…” An idea popped into her head. “We could publish a sidebar of brief reminiscences, or whatever you want to say.”

  There were nods all around.

  Helen’s grief was the most obvious. Her eyelids were puffy, her eyes bloodshot. Makeup failed to completely hide blotches from a crying jag. She was the one to meet Cassie’s eyes and ask, “Can you tell us what will happen now?”

  She’d hoped no one would raise their worries so soon, but understood. She’d lost her father; they feared losing their jobs.

  “I assume you mean with the newspaper?”

  Helen nodded. Andy and the two other members of the staff waited, not even blinking.

  Cassie hesitated, but not for long. “I have to be honest with you. I don’t know. It’s…not something I’d given any thought to before. I really believed Dad would get well and take over again.”

  Tears welled in Helen’s eyes again as she nodded. She produced a handful of tissues from somewhere and began mopping up.

  “I don’t know how feasible it would be to sell the Courier,” Cassie continued. “A newspaper from a neighboring county might be willing to take it over—” they all nodded “—but I doubt they’d keep on a full staff here.”

  “There’s no chance you’ll stay and run it?” The question came from Charlie Swenson, who contributed in myriad ways, the most critical of which was supervising distribution.

  Cassie opened her mouth to say, I’m sorry. No. That’s not what came out. “That’s not a question I can answer yet. When I first stepped in for Dad, I would have said no. But I grew up here, in this very office, making it another home for me. There’s a lot about the job that’s given me satisfaction. I confess I’ve had ideas about changes we could make. Ways we could stretch a little. Challenge ourselves, without losing the strengths that holds onto our readership.” She shook her head when Andy and Helen both started with questions. “But I also love my job with the Oregonian. I have friends in Portland. It’s become home, too. So…all I can tell you is that nothing will change for the moment. We have a paper to get out, and another one after that. I won’t be closing the doors in the near future.”

  That was enough to ease the stress on their faces. They talked about the upcoming issue. Cassie asked Andy Sloan to talk to police sources and write about the attack on Sheriff Holcomb. She had too much to deal with, was too close to him.

  Did that mean she had to tell Andy the details she hadn’t previously disclosed? She’d ask Grant, she decided. She made other assignments, and finally went to her computer to make a first attempt at eulogizing a man about whom she had such painfully mixed feelings.

  *****

  “Your kitchen is probably better stocked,” Grant said ruefully that evening, watching Cassie rummage in cupboards.

  She’d wanted to come earlier and start dinner, but he hadn’t liked the idea of her on the road alone, or in the house alone, for that matter. Either house.

  “You mother must have some bouillon cubes somewhere,” she muttered.

  She’d announced her intention of making a pasta fagioli soup that he could eat without much chewing. She’d already added cans of tomatoes and beans and more to browned hamburger and the carrots, celery and onions she’d minced. Finding the spices and other ingredients she needed was proving to be more of a challenge. Neither of them would be taking a quick trip to the store to pick up any missing items.

  In fact, the two of them had driven here in a convoy led by Jed and with a deputy bringing up the rear. They’d both remained until Grant and Cassie were safely in the house, their vehicles closed in the garage. Grant didn’t love the idea of not going anywhere without a bodyguard, but had worried about ushering Cassie across the short distance between garage and house in the dark. He’d brought his Kevlar vest home with him, for what use it would be; except for Paul, the killer had gone for head shots every time.

  “Aha!” Cassie exclaimed in triumph, holding up a small jar.

  Grant started to smile and quickly thought better of it.

  Cassie pushed him to take a pain pill before dinner, insisting that she would stay alert. He didn’t tell her the instructions said he could take up to two pills every six hours. Two would knock him out, but he felt confident one wouldn’t, so he complied.

  Her back to him, she said, “I asked Andy to write the story about today’s shooting.”

  “I talked to him.” He’d been a little surprised, then relieved. If she backed off, the killer might lose his focus on her. Or so he could hope, whatever he actually believed.

  “I wondered if I should tell him about the balloons.”

  “No. There wasn’t one today.”

  She turned to face him, bruises beneath her eyes. “He would have added it after.”

  After I was dead.

  “That’s my take,” Grant agreed.

  “But you still think the balloon was what drew Curt to where he was shot.”

  “I do. But after that, it wasn’t necessary.”

  “No, I see.” She sprinkled an unknown spice into the soup, which was starting to smell damn good. “Who is this Don Finch?”

  Grant explained about their friendship. “I spent a lot of time at his house. I’ve seen his parents off and on, so I know they’re still around. I should have questioned whether it was really Don who called. I did get antsy when I tried the number given to Jed and there was no answer.”

  He’d tracked down both Don and his parents this afternoon. The senior Finchs were indeed wintering in Arizona. Don hadn’t come for a visit since Christmas. If Grant hadn’t already been sure the killer had known him well growing up, he’d be now.

  In a stifled voice, Cassie said, “Is that how you knew you’d been set up?”

  Grant admitted that he’d expected something like this to happen. “My radar has been working non-stop. I screwed up anyway. I should have left a message for Don telling him to come into the police station, especially since Jed wouldn’t have known his voice. As it was, if there’d been lights on in the house instead of the blinds all being drawn, I’d probably have been dumb enough to climb right out of the truck.”

  “And you’d be dead.”

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Can you leave that simmering for a few minutes?”

  Cassie nodded, set down the spoon and came to him, letting him pull her to sit across his thighs. Her arms closed around his torso, his enfolded her. Uninjured cheek resting against her head, Grant said, “He screwed up today, too.”

  “What?” She started to move, but he lifted a hand to her nape to hold her in place.

  “You said he sounded angry.”

  Her head bobbed. “More than that. Enraged.”

  “He’s not used to missing a shot,” Grant said thoughtfully.
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br />   “And this would have especially stung since I bet you’ve always been his main target.”

  Letting that go for now, he said, “We were able to dig the bullets out of the siding. One is undamaged enough to use for matching when we have the gun. He left a shell at his blind, too. First time he’s done anything like that.”

  “He’s losing it.”

  “Yep.” But Grant’s fear was that the mental or emotional disintegration wouldn’t happen quickly enough. This guy might know the investigation was closing in on him. If he’d originally intended to rack up another few bodies before setting his sights on Grant, he’d jettisoned that plan. If he’d succeeded in killing Grant today, leaving no useable evidence, then gone cold, they’d never have caught him.

  The big question now was whether he could quit while he was ahead, his best chance of staying free to kill another day. Grant bet the guy couldn’t stop, couldn’t accept failure. His escalation – from a week between murders to two days – supported Grant’s belief.

  Which was why he needed this time, blocked out all thoughts of tomorrow, and instead focused entirely on Cassie. Just for tonight, he could revel in her generous curves, let himself believe she wanted a life that included him.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  By prearrangement, Jed was waiting when Grant backed out of the garage Wednesday morning, just as he had been Monday and Tuesday. Cassie’s car had taken up semi-permanent residence in his garage; she was buckled in beside him. After agreeing not to go anywhere alone for the time being, she’d been obedient. Cassie being Cassie, Grant knew she’d rebel if this dragged on very long. If nothing else, at some point she’d need to start work on her father’s house – unless she intended to stay in it.

  He pulled up at the curb steps from the newspaper building, scanning the sidewalks and street, even the rooftops, before giving her a quick, hard kiss and permitting her to open her door. “Call me if you need to go anywhere.”

  She rolled her eyes, looking very teenage. “You don’t need to reinforce your message. Really.” But she laid a gentle hand over the dressing that covered his cheek and jaw, disarming him. “You be careful.” Only then did she hop out and dash inside.

  He drove the ten blocks to sheriff’s department headquarters and parked, Dawson pulling in right beside him. Dawson’s cold gaze swept the surroundings in a way Grant recognized. Hand on the butt of his gun, he stayed at Grant’s back until they were inside.

  There, the first thing he said was “Justin Addington is dead.”

  Grant turned in the doorway to his own office. “Recently?”

  “No, he died in a motorcycle accident when he was twenty-three.” Dawson followed him in. “After he got out of the service, he lived in California, which is why it took me some digging to find out what happened to him.”

  “Nothing more from Taylor?” What use was the FBI agent, if he couldn’t extract the information they needed from the army? And, yeah, Grant knew Taylor had been working an ugly situation in Umatilla County that had begun as what appeared to be the kidnapping of a four-year-old child. Grant had followed news reports enough to know that investigators had turned their attention to the parents, which increased the likelihood that in the end they’d find a body instead of a living boy.

  “Not so far—” Jed began.

  Grant’s phone rang and he glanced at it. “Speak of the devil.” Answering, he said, “Agent Taylor?”

  “I keep thinking about your close call.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” he said drily, understanding that every law enforcement officer in the area would be feeling similarly unsettled. All first responders. Being ambushed was their worst nightmare.

  “Well, I have some information that might help us narrow the field of suspects,” the agent said. “I didn’t find anything conclusive on ViCAP. No smiley face balloons in any related context. However, there have been three killing sprees that have enough similarities to this situation to catch my attention. All done by a sniper. The first was in the vicinity of Fort Benning in Georgia. Two in Columbus, one in Auburn, Alabama, not far over the state border. All three victims were men. One was a trainer at the sniper school, the other two snipers back from deployments. Ironic way to go.”

  “Jesus.” Jed was on alert, watching him, so Grant said, “I’m putting you on speaker. Detective Dawson is with me.”

  Noah Taylor continued, sounding grim. “Needless to say, the army joined local police departments to investigate. They came up with zip. Next four deaths were in the Houston area. All were Americans of Iraqi descent. Then West Virginia. Huntington and Charleston. Five deaths. Investigators found no ties between the victims. Three men, all shot from a significant distance away, two women, both raped and then shot in the head. Investigators believed there were two separate killers, but considered the possibility that it was one.”

  “When did these happen?” Dawson asked.

  Taylor gave them a timeline. Georgia first. A year later, Houston. Three years intervened before the deaths in West Virginia. Out of the corner of his eye, Grant saw Jed jotting down the dates.

  “There have been other murders that could conceivably have been committed by the same perpetrator,” Taylor added, “but similarities are more tenuous.”

  “Once we identify our killer, we can trace his whereabouts for the last decade and maybe close some other cases.”

  “I’m sure that would be appreciated.”

  “You have info yet on which, if any, of these men completed the army sniper school training?”

  “No, damn it.”

  Grant updated him on their investigation, including the bullet and shell found yesterday. “If our killer is using the same rifle…”

  “He was careful before. Twelve murders, one shot each. No apparent misses. No useable bullets. No shells at all. This guy was invisible.”

  “He called himself a ghost.”

  “Did he?” Taylor said thoughtfully. “Well, he screwed up this time. The bullet could link to other murders. Seems as if there were some big gaps between his sprees.”

  “Ms. Ward with the newspaper said the guy was enraged. Her word. If his other murders were so clean, I can see why he’d be shaken to have missed. The shell he left behind is evidence that he was. He didn’t have a chance to dig the bullets out of the wall, either, which must be riding him.”

  “You any closer to having a suspect?”

  “I am. It would help a lot if I knew whether he served as a mechanic, in communications…”

  “Or as a sniper.”

  “You got it.”

  “Would this be Richard Oberg?”

  “It would.” Taylor already knew about the general discharge, of course. Grant reminded him that the clear boot print found near Chad Norman’s body was no more than a men’s size eight or nine. “Couldn’t have been Norman’s. If the killer left it, he’s not a big man. The boys who saw a man in the alley didn’t think he was very tall, either. Plus, the length of Oberg’s enlistment caught my eye.”

  “I agree. Maybe I can get somewhere requesting information on only one former serviceman instead of a list. They tend not to like blanket requests.”

  “You might mention that we think this killer is the one who murdered some men around Fort Benning, too.”

  “I’ll do that,” Taylor agreed.

  “Being as I have a target pinned to my head,” Grant said dryly, “I’d appreciate that.”

  Call over, Jed raised his brows. “What do you say we sit this Oberg down for a talk?”

  Grant pushed back his desk chair. “I’m all in favor.”

  *****

  Andy had emailed his story to her, and Cassie read it on her laptop with intense interest. Overall, she was pleased with the job he’d done, but immediately began to edit. Somehow he’d found out about the shell casing and bullet found at the scene. Disturbed to realize she’d have asked Grant for an okay to include it in the front page story if she’d been the one writing it, Cassie knew she’d made
the right call to hand reporting on these murders off to someone else. She’d spent years digging for details to strengthen what she wrote. Grant’s request for her not to mention the balloon was reasonable. She’d never have known about the balloons at all if she hadn’t found the first victim herself. Withholding much more than that, however, would turn what they were doing from journalism to being a police mouthpiece, as the killer had accused her of being.

  Not happening on her watch.

  This was one of many reasons why starting a relationship with Grant wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done. And yet… Cassie leaned back in the padded leather chair that had been her father’s, in front of the desk that had been his, too, as managing editor, and remembered waking up that morning with Grant’s big body spooning hers.

  Their lovemaking had been slow, tender and sweet, and she had reached a climax of stunning power. At the memory, her body tingled, but it wasn’t the sex that pulled her attention from work. It was those first waking minutes, not only this morning but every morning, when she lay completely still, savoring the heat and strength of his body, the sense that even in sleep he was guarding her.

  She’d jumped to conclusions about him when they first met, and been very wrong. Yes, he was by nature dominant; she suspected that he wasn’t happy unless he was in charge – as the sheriff, as an army sergeant, even as high school quarterback. He’d admitted to being more conservative politically than she was. Even with all that, he wasn’t the traditionalist she’d expected. He listened to her, took what she said seriously. She’d never had the slightest impression Grant wouldn’t support her as a journalist. When she made a promise, he trusted she’d keep it. Cassie had never intended to share every hurtful experience in her life with him, and yet it had all spilled out. The amazing part was, even after sheltering her in his arms, he never treated her as if she had become diminished in his eyes. There’d been moments, in fact, when she’d swear he needed her, too, as if she comforted or anchored him.