Killer on Call 6 Book Bundle (Books 1-6)

by Gwendolyn Druyor

  She’d refused to allow him to keep even one copy of his favorite, Chris Tammer. Chris had short white-blond hair and pale skin. She had a row of punk rings lining her left ear, eyebrow, and nostril. Her contacts were the same grey Tim’s eyes were naturally. Chris Tammer looked as much like Tim as Finn with her dark, ethnically ambiguous features could manage.

  “You,” Finn took a deep breath and started over when Tim looked back at her, repeating every word. “You don’t want to die.”

  He wanted to tell her that he didn’t want her to die. He’d gladly die in her place. Her eyes were awash in pain and there were no more drugs Tim could give her that would end only the pain. He wanted so much to take this from her. She hitched in a difficult breath and his facade broke. A tear fell silently down his face.

  She laughed at him. “You’re a killer. This is death. You should know what it looks like.”

  Finn held Tim’s gaze as he held her hand and repeated her own words. “You don’t want to die. Find the reason you don’t want to die. And live for that love. You need love to show you what good is.”

  A tear fell down the side of her face. The little black kitten whipped her little head up and licked it off. She continued bathing the side of Finn’s face. Tim giggled. Finn joined him.

  “I was wrong.” With a great effort, she turned her head to look at the kitten. “We shouldn’t strive only to eliminate the bad. We should encourage more joy.”

  Tim smoothed the sheet over her chest. “You are my joy.”

  “So was Julia.”

  He glanced over at a postcard sitting on the card table amidst all the identities that had just undergone a sex change. He always sent a note to his sister when they left a town. Finn knew all about Julia just as Tim knew all about Calvin. But Finn couldn’t send postcards to her son.

  “I love you, Tim.”

  Tim repeated the words and responded, “I love you, Finn.”

  She had turned back to him but her eyes were glazed over. She couldn’t see him and he cried freely as she whispered, “You’re the KC now. The Killer with a Conscience.” Her eyes closed and Tim barely heard her last words. “Be conscientious.”

  Then his mentor died as the kitten cleaned her ear.

  After he’d wiped the hotel room of his prints and planted it with all of the clues he and Finn had laughed over as she lay dying, Tim had packed up her seven false identities and his own five. He’d worked his way across the country wherever the KC was needed. He planted the identities in various towns, stashing the appropriate papers along with cash and chemicals and other sundries in safety deposit boxes at branches of the one bank they’d learned to trust. When he’d planted the twelfth identity, he busted out his real name, hopped on his bike, a Harley now rather than a Schwinn, and ridden home to Julia.

  Eleven

  Tim’s bags were still packed in his room at Julia’s apartment. He was ready to run anytime he needed to. He glanced from the gasping Edward Parker to his suitcase sitting under the window with personal linens folded atop. Strange that a terminally ill man would be packed up and ready to run.

  Tim stood up from the bed. He strolled over and knelt by the suitcase. He set aside the personal linens and opened the case there on the floor. Inside he found the pictures that had left pale squares on the walls. Beneath these there were about twenty thick envelopes, a personal journal and folders of financial papers. Tucked down on one side was a bulky leather package. Under it all Tim saw an American Wildlife Foundation calendar with a picture of two frolicking polar bears on the cover.

  He glanced at the pictures as he took them out of the suitcase. No young people. Half the pictures were from decades previous. Setting them aside he scattered the envelopes and slipped the calendar out, flipping through to October to verify the date. Yes, today was Thursday and the twenty-ninth. In the square for today’s date, Edward Parker had carefully written his own name. And crossed it out.

  Tim looked up at the old man who watched him while struggling to catch a breath as his lungs slowly paralyzed. He looked back at the page for October. Eight other squares had names written on them in the same red ink. Seven of them were also crossed out. Peering more closely, Tim saw that each of the names were written in a different hand.

  The one name that wasn’t crossed out filled the square with a flowery handwriting and fanciful embellishments. Eleanor Burton. Her day had been just about a week ago. October twenty-first. The date rang a bell. Ella’s birthday had been on the twenty-first, when her nephews visited. Ella who had been so confused about seven or eight people dying. Ella, who said she had wanted to meet the angel but changed her mind. Hers was the only name not crossed out. Because she was alive.

  Tim stood from his crouch. He wobbled a moment as the blood rushed to his brain. This was a contract with Edward Parker. Each of the victims had written their own name in on the date they wanted to be killed.

  “You’re no angel of mercy.” Tim strode back over to the bedside. “This was a pact.’

  The old mercy killer was too paralyzed now to respond but Tim saw in those fierce eyes that he was right.

  “Dammit.” He pulled another syringe kit out of his bag and scanned the collection of vials nestled against the padded interior. “It’s Killer with a Conscience. What don’t people understand about that?”

  He pulled 3 ccs of a sickeningly yellow fluid into the syringe and plunged it immediately into Parker’s upper arm below the site of his first puncture. He watched the man’s eyes as he slipped the vial and syringe back into the case and tucked that into his bag. When Parker opened his lips to protest, Tim grabbed the white cord hanging beside the bed.

  “I only kill bad people. You killed those people because they asked you to. That makes you, wait for it,” he squeezed the nurse call button, “good.”

  And he disappeared out the door and into the elevator before the crash cart reached the old man’s room. When he reached the ground floor, Tim composed himself and stepped out only to find the halls in chaos. Two more people had died in the concert room. One of them was a doctor.

  Twelve

  Avi left Kissy with the witch and the wheelchair and took the stairs two at a time to the third floor. When he pulled open the door he had to step back into the stairwell to avoid the nurses and equipment rolling by. After a quick search of the room numbers he followed the crash team to room 323.

  He looked up and down the hallway in case Tim was still close by. Not seeing the killer, he slipped into the room. The bed was surrounded by white clothed nurses and doctors and orderlies. Avi crept around the room until he could see through the crush of bodies to the patient.

  It was an old man. Definitely not the twenties Caucasian male dressed as a nurse with a clown’s nose. But the old man on the bed was alive. His eyes were open and he was fighting with the nurses trying to help him.

  Avi touched the orderly holding the man’s feet. “Is he going to be okay?”

  The guy glanced over his shoulder. Avi held up his badge.

  “Mr. Parker is gonna be fine.”

  Mr. Parker disagreed. In between hard won breaths he coughed out, “I’m dying.”

  “Yes, Ed,” one of the nurses trying to get an oxygen mask on his face said. “But not today.”

  Avi left them to the ornery old man. He found his way down to the nurses station where one heavyset young woman sat giving herself a French manicure with white out. Avi leaned on the counter and smiled at her.

  “Hi.”

  “Hey.”

  Avi had been hoping to charm the girl but she didn’t even glance at him. “I think you’re the only person not running around today.”

  “Not supposed to run in a hospital. It’s dangerous,” the girl informed him of this without looking up from her work.

  “I will keep that in mind,” he murmured. “A patient collapsed in the lounge. Do you know where they would have taken him?”

  “ER.”

  “Thank you.” Avi took two steps awa
y from the desk and then leaned back in. “Even if he’s been on this floor?”

  “He’s terminal?” The little blond finally looked up and caught her breath at the sight of him.

  Avi nodded. “Yes. He was terminal.”

  “Oh, then they’d take him to the Hope Room in ICU.” She laughed. “Cuz it’s halfway to the morgue.”

  “Thanks.” Avi didn’t laugh with her. “First floor?”

  “Yep. East wing.”

  Avi nodded his thanks and headed for the closest stairwell. He was in full stride by the time he pushed out the first floor door and turned east. He passed through a lobby teeming with lab coats, scrubs, and suits. Everyone looked busy so instead of asking for directions, he searched for signs to the ICU. To be safe, he took his shield from his inner pocket and pinned it on the lapel of his shiny Daddy Warbucks suit.

  He still had to pull out his wallet and show ID to the security guard at the entrance to the ICU to prove the badge wasn’t just a Halloween prop. The old guard accepted the proof solemnly and then gave Avi a fierce look when he asked how to find the Hope Room.

  “You don’t want to call it that around me.” The guard stood. He was menacing despite having to look up at Avi.

  Avi held up his hands in surrender. “I’m just looking for Danny. I was singing for him when he collapsed. I was told he was in the Hope Room.”

  “Well, you don’t know any better then, Officer Kee. It’s short for hopeless and it’s disrespectful. Room One is what we call it. That way.

  As Avi reached the door to Room One, Danny’s mother burst into the corridor and fell against the far wall, crying. He went to her.

  “Carol, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

  “No.” She gasped for breath. “He’s gone.”

  “Haven’t you been expecting this?”

  She leaned her forehead against the cool wall and muttered, “It wasn’t the disease.”

  Avi leaned in to hear better. “Excuse me?”

  “The doctor says it was poison. He says my son killed himself.” She looked up at him, her eyes swollen and red. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Wasn’t he in a lot of pain?”

  Carol shook her head. “Danny told me he wouldn’t do it. He said he considered it. Even found someone to help. But he changed his mind.” She screamed at Avi, “He changed his mind!” And then she broke down, sobbing against his chest.

  Avi stroked her back. He let her cry and murmured, “I believe you.”

  When her sobs calmed a little he asked, “Did the doctor know what poison it was?”

  “No.” She stared at his chest.

  “Was it belladonna maybe? Atropine? We’ve had other cases in town.”

  Carol looked sharply up at Avi, the rictus of pain falling from her face. Then she pushed off his chest and dashed back into Room One. Avi tried to follow, but the orderlies at the entrance wouldn’t let him in. He wasn’t family and they were not impressed by his badge.

  He stood in the busy hallway of the ICU, lost for a moment. He hadn’t found Tim. Tim’s target hadn’t been the clown nurse. So was the clown not the killer? The doctor knew Danny had been poisoned but he didn’t know with what. Either Avi could go back to room 323 and question Ed Parker or he could find Tim and get the details on this mercy killer.

  He had to step back against the wall as a gurney was rolled by holding an unconscious woman wearing a white lab coat. One of the attendants following the gurney stopped and peered at Avi.

  “Hey man, aren’t you one of the singers?”

  “I am,” he admitted.

  The guy stuck out his hand, “I’m Nick. Thanks for coming. Sorry about all the. . .” he trailed off, still shaking Avi’s hand.

  “It’s okay,” Avi assured him.

  Nick gave him a thumbs up and then followed after the gurney, releasing Avi’s hand as he walked away. Avi watched him catch up. Then he turned and decided to return to the lounge where all of the dying seemed to be taking place.

  He thanked the security guard as he passed and strode, not running, back down the hall past the lobby towards the lounge. He was walking so quickly, he nearly ran into a short man with white blond hair wearing green scrubs.

  He said, “Excuse me,” automatically. Then he saw the man’s mocking grin and recognized him. “Tim!”

  Thirteen

  Tim laughed at the shock on Avi’s face. “Hello Avi. Have you seen Kissy? I’ve got some good news for her.”

  “I’ve been looking for you.”

  Tim stepped aside as a team with a gurney bustled past. “She told you I’m on a job.”

  “You’re getting a little sloppy in your work, Tim.”

  “How do you mean?” Tim was genuinely interested.

  “Your target didn’t die.” Avi smiled a little. “The hospital staff saved him.”

  “Oh, that,” Tim scoffed. “No, he was a special case. Like you.” He paused while they both moved out of the way of a trio of arguing administrators. “Parker didn’t kill anyone who didn’t want to die. I’ll tell you what I’m getting sloppy at is picking clients. Lots of liars in this town.”

  Avi’s pocket buzzed. He ignored it. “Danny wasn’t a secondary target?”

  “What?” Tim raised his eyebrows, offended. “No.”

  “Danny was poisoned.”

  “Yeah. The kid asked Parker to kill him, just like the seven others.” Tim smiled charmingly at a shapely orderly juggling a pile of patient charts.

  “No.” Avi sidestepped between Tim and the orderly to get his full attention. “His mother said he changed his mind. He wanted to live.”

  Tim looked deep into Avi’s serious eyes. “And you believe her?”

  “Yes,” Avi replied.

  “Shit.” He focused. “There’s another killer in this hospital?”

  Avi’s phone buzzed again.

  Tim asked, “You want to get that?

  “No.” Avi reached into his pocket to silence the alert. “Have you seen the nurse with the clown nose? He was with Danny right before he died.”

  Tim shook his head doubtfully. “Mercy killers are usually women, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Avi confirmed. “But he’s our only lead. And I don’t have a good memory of his face.”

  Tim thought for a moment, reviewing the lounge and everyone who had been in it before he left to snuff Parker. He could visualize the clown nose but that was about it. “Caucasian male, late twenties. I can’t even remember what color his hair is.”

  Avi’s pocket started buzzing again and he hit the mute button instantly. “A couple of professionals and neither of us can remember what he looked like.”

  “I was looking at the nose,” Tim admitted.

  “Exactly. Yay, Halloween.”

  Tim pulled the Where’s Waldo hat from his head and stuffed it back into his pocket. “Do we know what kind of poison he’s using?”

  “I told Carol to test for belladonna.” Avi glanced over as another gurney was rolled out of the lounge.

  Tim asked, “Why?”

  “Because the EMTs at Koehler’s death last month told us the Extabee contained Belladonna,” Avi said, still watching the gurney.

  Music started up in the lounge. The sound of a ukulele followed a second gurney out of the room. This gurney moved slowly. The figure on it was almost fully covered with a white sheet and the orderlies had grim faces.

  “Avi,” Tim insisted, “what made you think of Extabee?”

  Avi reached out and grabbed the sheet as the gurney came close. He clearly meant to twitch it up to cover the corpse’ face but he pulled it down instead. Before one of the orderlies grabbed the sheet and repositioned it, both Avi and Tim saw the clown nose resting on a partially eaten candy necklace on the dead chest of a twenty-something, Caucasian male.

  “All the candy necklaces,” Avi finally answered Tim, staring at the body rolling away. Then his flicked his eyes down at his pocket as his phone buzzed again.

&
nbsp; Tim looked around the lobby at the various people, some costumed, some not. But most were wearing necklaces made of candied jewels. “Some of the gems look exactly like the ring pops.”

  The men looked at each other. And came to the same conclusion.

  “Vanessa.” Avi finally pulled his phone from his pocket, probably to call for back up.

  “Kissy!” Tim started towards the lounge.

  Avi stuck fast to his side. “She’s fine. Listen, that’s her singing.”

  “Thank god she’s safe.” Tim stopped walking when he realized Avi wasn’t keeping up. He turned back to see the man staring at his phone. “What?”

  Avi’s face flushed with anger but he didn’t reply.

  “What?” Tim strode back to Avi and grabbed the phone from his hand.

  On the screen was a text.

  Your turn, lover boy.

  And below it, a picture of Kissy tied up, wearing only a purple bra and green panties. Tim would have enjoyed the image if it weren’t for the bomb strapped around her middle.

  Fourteen

  Kissy woke from a strange dream of tap dancing with a witch at a rave to find herself slumped in a wheelchair. First she heard the ticking. Then her mind registered the murmur of tense voices all around punctuated by the kind of calm yet stern orders nurses had the knack of giving. As her mind cleared of fog she smelled the peculiar floral antiseptic scent of the hospital lounge. She opened her eyes and looked around to see she was being rolled right into the middle of the scattered audience still facing the little stage. It was only when she turned to look for Julia that Kissy noticed the darkness at the edges of her vision wasn’t dissipating. She lifted a hand to her face and encountered rubber. Looking down at her lap, she saw her short red Orphan Annie dress had been replaced with a black robe. She ran her hands over her waist where some awkward bulky thing encircled her, poking at her spine where she leaned back in the wheelchair.