No Ordinary Man

by Suzanne Brockman

  “No, Bug, you can’t,” he replied.

  Kelsey didn’t move or speak for several long moments.

  “I’m sorry,” Rob continued, and she looked up at him, her eyes expressionless.

  “No, you’re not,” Kelsey countered. “You’re just like Ian.”

  She stood up and walked out of the room.

  Rob closed his eyes briefly before looking up at Jess. “Ouch,” he said.

  “This isn’t the first time she’s been deserted,” Jess reminded him.

  “Man, both you guys really know how to hit below the belt.”

  Jess said nothing. She had promised herself that she wasn’t going to beg him to stay.

  They watched each other in silence. The small kitchen was filled with the heaviness of their unhappiness. It seemed to press down upon Jess, harder and harder with each passing second.

  The sound of running water came from the bathroom as Kelsey began filling the tub for her bath.

  “Why can’t you take us with you?” Jess asked softly.

  Rob ran his hands through his hair. “You don’t want to live this way.”

  Jess was holding the dishcloth so tightly, her knuckles were white. “How do I know,” she said, “when you won’t even tell me what ‘this way’ is? What gives you the right to make that kind of decision for me?”

  “Jess, you’re going to have to trust me—”

  “Why should I? You apparently don’t trust me enough to tell me about whatever it is you’re running away from!”

  From the bathroom, Kelsey started to wail.

  Jess ran toward the sound, pushing the bathroom door open with a crash. Rob was right at her heels.

  “What’s the matter?” Jess asked, with one quick look checking to be sure there were no broken bones, no blood, no bumped head.

  Kelsey was sitting in the tub, face contorted, tears streaming from her eyes. “I left my drawing pad and my colored pencils out by the swing set,” she cried, big sobs racking her small body. “And it’s supposed to rain tonight!”

  Jess sighed, looking at Rob. The toys left outside were just an excuse to cry. But if Kelsey chose to use this as a release for her emotions, that was fine with Jess. Kelsey was already taking the first steps toward getting over Rob. For Jess, it wouldn’t be that easy.

  She knelt down next to the tub, and pulled the plug. Kelsey’s loud crying had changed to quiet whimpering. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you dried off. Then I’ll go outside and get your things.”

  “I’ll get ’em,” Rob said.

  Jess looked up from wrapping a big towel around her daughter. Fear rose inside of her. He was going to leave. Was it going to be now?

  “I’ll come right back,” Rob stated as if he could read her thoughts. He leaned down and kissed her. “I promise.”

  She nodded then, moving out into the hall to watch him walk into the kitchen.

  He turned on the porch lamp. It lit the deck and the stairs going down to the backyard, but the pool of light didn’t extend onto the lawn where the swing set and Kelsey’s toys lay. With one more look back at Jess, Rob went out and closed the door behind him.

  The yard was dark, but there was light and movement out on the street in front of the house.

  Cars. Three or four vehicles were out there, and as Rob watched, another pulled up. It was a police cruiser.

  His blood ran cold. His time had run out.

  He looked up at the light spilling out of the windows of Jess’s house, realizing that he had told her a lie. He wasn’t going to come right back. He was going to break his promise.

  He could see her slender silhouette, moving about behind the shade in Kelsey’s room.

  He hadn’t even said goodbye.

  Rob turned, disappearing into the swampy woods at the edge of the yard.

  JESS HAD RUBBED KELSEY dry and pulled a huge T-shirt over her head when a loud knock on the kitchen door made them both jump.

  “Rob must’ve locked himself out,” Jess said. She went quickly into the kitchen, and opened the door. “What happened…” she started to say.

  It was Parker Elliot. He was surrounded by a crowd of other men in dark suits, along with several uniformed policemen.

  “Good evening, Ms. Baxter,” Elliot said. “Sorry to bother you this late.”

  “Is this the main entrance to Robert Carpenter’s apartment?” a policeman asked, pointing to Rob’s door.

  “Yes,” Jess said. “It’s the only entrance.” She turned back to Elliot. “What’s going on?”

  “I have a warrant here to search this entire domicile, ma’am,” Elliot informed her. He handed her the warrant.

  Jess looked down at the paper in her hands, but she couldn’t seem to focus on it.

  “I also have a warrant for the arrest of Robert Carpenter,” Parker Elliot continued. “Is he here?”

  Rob? A warrant for his arrest? No, they had it all wrong. Rob wasn’t the killer. It was Ian.

  Jess felt Kelsey press against her leg. “Go to your room, Kel,” she instructed her daughter. “And stay there, okay?”

  Eyes wide, Kelsey scurried back down the hall.

  “Is there a key to this door, ma’am?” The policeman pointed again to Rob’s apartment door. “Or should we break the lock?”

  “Rob’s not in there,” Jess told him. “I’ll give you the key, and you can look, but I can tell you right now, he’s not inside.”

  She went into the kitchen to pull the key off the rack, and two of the FBI agents came in behind her, their guns drawn.

  “Hold it right there,” Jess bellowed, and they froze. “Elliot, are you in charge here?” she called through the screen.

  Parker Elliot stepped into the kitchen. “Yes, I am,” he said quietly.

  “My six-year-old daughter is in her bedroom,” she stressed. “I just told you that Rob’s not inside. I will not have any guns drawn in my house while my daughter and I are here. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Elliot nodded.

  “Good,” Jess snapped. “Here’s the key to the apartment.”

  “Thank you,” Elliot said. “Ms. Baxter, please get your daughter and come with me.”

  Jess stared at him.

  “I can’t allow my men to search the premises without their weapons drawn,” he informed her, his gray eyes serious. “Just as you’re concerned about your daughter’s safety, I’m concerned about their safety.”

  “I don’t understand what you want with Rob,” Jess said, a note of desperation in her voice. “He’s not the man you’re looking for.”

  “Come outside,” Elliot replied, “and I’ll tell you what I can.”

  Jess quickly gathered Kelsey and brought her outside. Thankfully, the night was warm, and Jess got her daughter several sticks of brightly colored chalk from the garage. Kelsey was soon drawing on the driveway underneath the floodlight.

  Jess stepped toward Elliot, drawing him farther away from the little girl. She looked toward the swing set. Kelsey’s drawing pad and pencils were still there. And Rob was gone. He’d left. He said he wouldn’t, but he’d left.

  “Okay,” she began, forcing back her disappointment and pain. “What’s going on?”

  “I have a warrant for the arrest of Robert Carpenter,” Elliot said quietly, “for the rape and murder of Amelia Driscoll.”

  Jess couldn’t speak. It was all she could do to stand, the world was spinning so quickly around her. “What?” The word came out a mere whisper.

  “And we’re hoping to find further evidence in his apartment to tie him to the murders of thirteen other young women in this city,” Elliot continued.

  “It’s not Rob,” Jess insisted. “It’s Ian. I told you…I called you earlier. It’s Ian, not Rob!”

  He touched her arm. “Ms. Baxter, maybe you should sit down—”

  She shook off his hand. “I don’t need to sit down!”

  Parker Elliot turned to one of his men. “Any luck contacting Selma Haverstein?”


  “No, sir.”

  Elliot swore softly, turning back to Jess. “I’m sorry, Ms. Baxter,” he told her. “I realize how difficult this must be for you. I wanted Dr. Haverstein to be here, but she’s unavailable right now and we couldn’t wait. You aren’t going to want to hear this, but we have evidence that ties Robert Carpenter to the slaying of one of the victims.”

  “What evidence?” Jess demanded.

  Elliot looked at her levelly. “Bloodstains in the trunk of the car Carpenter’s been driving for the past seven months. Apparently, he turned the car in when he resigned this afternoon. The cleanup crew found the stains, notified the police—the police called our unit. We matched some fibers that we found in the car to the clothes Amelia Driscoll was wearing the night she was killed.”

  Elliot turned away as another agent approached him.

  “The perpetrator’s gone,” the agent reported. “We’ve started dusting the apartment.”

  Parker Elliot swore again, stepping away from Jess to speak privately to the other agent.

  One of the dead women had been inside Rob’s car. Stains of her blood were found in the trunk. My God. My God! How could this be? It didn’t seem possible. It was like a nightmare, only Jess couldn’t wake up.

  Rob wasn’t the killer. He wasn’t. But if he wasn’t, where had he gone? If he wasn’t, why had he run?

  Her knees felt weak, and she sat down right on the driveway.

  Every light was on inside and outside her house. Plainclothes agents and uniformed policemen swarmed around the place. Out on the road were more than a half a dozen marked and unmarked police cars—some of them with their lights spinning.

  Up and down the street, neighbors stood on their lawns, watching. Next door, old Mr. Greene had been joined on his porch by both Stanford and Mrs. Greene. All three gawked unabashedly at the activity. This was better for them than TV. It was like “America’s Most Wanted,” or “Top Cops,” only it was happening right next door.

  “Where did Carpenter go?” Elliot demanded of Jess, his gray eyes glittering in the garage spotlight. He crouched down on the asphalt, right next to her.

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly.

  He didn’t buy it. “The surveillance team reported Carpenter returned home with you and Kelsey at around 7:00 p.m.,” he said, his voice clipped, impatient. “He was here. No one saw him leave. Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Elliot nearly pierced her with his gaze. “Did you tell him about this investigation?”

  She couldn’t lie. “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Just today,” she replied. “This evening.”

  “And now he’s gone,” Elliot said tightly. He stood up in one quick, fluid motion. “When did he leave the house?”

  Jess stared up at him. “What time did you arrive?” she countered.

  “Eight-thirty,” he answered.

  “Rob left at 8:25,” Jess said. “He went outside to get something Kelsey left on the swing set.”

  “Five minutes.” Elliot shook his head, his lips tightening. “If you’d told us that right away, we might have caught up with him. I should charge you with aiding and abetting.”

  He started to walk away, then turned to look back at her. “I hope for the sake of your conscience, Ms. Baxter, that another woman doesn’t die tonight.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jess pushed the shopping cart out into the parking lot and loaded her bags of groceries into the trunk of the car.

  Look at her. She was functioning. Whoever would guess that she’d found out last night that the man of her dreams—who intended to leave her forever in some twisted act of selfless love—was wanted by the FBI for brutally murdering more than a dozen innocent young women.

  He didn’t do it.

  That’s what was holding her together. It was her total conviction that Rob was not capable of murder. He was not the killer. He couldn’t be.

  The obvious answer had come to her in the middle of the night.

  Ian had borrowed Rob’s car.

  Of course. That had to be it. It all came back to Ian.

  Jess had called Parker Elliot at three o’clock in the morning with that information. His voice had sounded alert and awake when he’d answered the phone, and she could hear voices in the background, as if his office were busy despite the late hour.

  He’d taken her news about Ian calmly—a little too calmly. In fact, it was clear that he didn’t believe Ian Davis had anything at all to do with the murders. Rob was still his number one suspect.

  He’d made an appointment for ten-thirty in the morning to pick Jess up and bring her to the FBI headquarters where she could talk to Dr. Haverstein.

  Jess knew that Elliot hoped the psychologist would be able to talk some sense into her. Jess hoped she’d be able to convince Selma Haverstein that Rob wasn’t the man they were looking for—Ian was.

  But until ten-thirty, Jess had the option of sitting in her house and wringing her hands, or getting on with the day-to-day chores of her life. It was Thursday. She had groceries to pick up.

  And right now she had to get those groceries home before the ice cream melted.

  The street in front of her house was still packed with large, dark cars, so unobtrusive that it was obvious they were unmarked police cars. A silver-gray Acura Legend sat in the driveway. Elliot’s car, she guessed. Had to be.

  She pressed the automatic door opener, and drove the car into the garage without stopping. She cut the engine and gave the remote control another push, and the door began to slide noisily down.

  Lord, she thought to herself, please help me get through this day. And please help them believe me. Rob is not the killer. He can’t be.

  The garage was dim and moist, and she rolled up the windows of the car so the musty smell wouldn’t penetrate. She turned to gather her purse from the passenger seat when she heard a sound.

  Startled, she glanced into the rearview mirror, and in the dimness of the back seat was a shape…with two eyes.

  Jess opened her mouth to scream, and a hand clamped down over her mouth.

  “Jess, it’s me!”

  Rob.

  With a sob of relief, she flung her arms around him, pulling him as close to her as she could in the little car.

  “Oh, Rob,” she gasped. “Are you all right? Where have you been? Where did you come from?”

  She pulled back slightly to examine his face. He looked dirty and exhausted, his eyes red-rimmed with dark circles underneath. He was pale beneath his tan, and in the dim light, his skin looked almost gray. He’d torn the sleeves off his white shirt and the fabric itself was stained with perspiration and dirt.

  “I hoped you’d be at the supermarket this morning,” he said tiredly. “Even though it’s Thursday, I still wasn’t sure you’d be there. But I found your car in the lot and hid in the back. Jess, do they really think I killed all those women?” His forehead was creased in disbelief.

  Jess nodded.

  “Why?” Rob asked, frowning harder. “What evidence do they have?”

  “They found bloodstains in the Taurus…in the trunk,” she said. “And some fibers or something in the car. Fabric, I think, from one of the victim’s clothes.”

  Rob sat back, his face hard as he thought.

  “Rob, you should turn yourself in. You’re innocent, it’s obviously a mistake. You know, Ian borrowed your car—”

  He looked up at her then, meeting her eyes. “I can’t turn myself in.”

  “Why not?”

  He looked away, not answering her question. “I’m sorry.” He swore softly but explosively. “I know I shouldn’t have come here, Jess, but I…I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’ve been shot—”

  “What? Oh, Lord—” Jess scrambled out of the car, pulling the back door open. “Where?”

  He pointed down to his left leg. “It’s not bad, just a nick, but the bitch of it is, when the bullet hit me, it knock
ed me off-balance and I tore the hell out of the ligaments in my ankle,” he said. “I can barely walk. I need a place to hide for a few days….”

  She could see the bloodstains on the thigh of his jeans. He’d used the sleeves from his shirt as a makeshift bandage, and blood had long since turned them brown.

  Shot. He’d been shot.

  His gentle hand on her hair made her look up at him.

  “It’s not that bad,” he repeated.

  She swallowed. “Is the bullet…?” She couldn’t finish the question, but he answered it anyway.

  “No, it’s out.”

  What was she going to do? Harboring a fugitive, that was bad news. If they found him, she could go to jail….

  Start with the little problems, she told herself. We’ll work our way up to the big ones. Right now, he needed to get cleaned up, get some food and some rest.

  “Come on,” she said. “I’ll help you inside.”

  He carefully pulled himself out of the car then leaned on her heavily as she helped him into the basement and then up the stairs, into the house. His face was tight, his teeth clenched, and she knew that he was in worse pain than he was letting on.

  She brought him directly into her private bathroom, and helped him sit on the commode. His forehead was wet with sweat, and the muscles in his jaw were tight. But his brown eyes were filled with thanks as he looked up at her.

  “Where are your glasses?” she asked, taking a clean towel and a washcloth from the linen closet.

  “I don’t know.” Rob shook his head. “Gone.”

  “Can you see well enough without them?” Jess found a package of gauze bandages under the sink.

  “Yeah, it’s not a problem.”

  Pulling her Swiss army knife from her purse, Jess extracted the tiny pair of razor sharp scissors from the handle and began cutting the bandage from Rob’s leg.

  “Who shot you?” Her voice shook.

  “I don’t know. Some guy in a dark suit. I’m assuming he was FBI. His backup was late, or I’d probably— Oh, God!”

  Rob’s knuckles went white as Jess pulled the final layer of bandage off his leg.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.