Licensed to Thrill: Volume 2

by Diane Capri

  Two things became crystal clear from the discovery of the video:

  First, the perpetrator had deliberately removed the stop sign, pulling it out of the ground before the crash and putting it back again after. The tracking device must have been used to signal the precise timing required to make the governor’s son’s crash most likely to occur.

  Second, the man who’d murdered Eric and Ryan was cunning and dangerous.

  She only hoped he wasn’t clever enough.

  Oliver had begged her to release the truth, but Helen thought otherwise: By keeping the nature of the crash secret, she sought to inflate the killer’s hubris, enticing him to come closer and gloat, to reveal himself here at the funeral today.

  As a mourner murmured, “Eric looks so good,” Helen let herself glance at her son in his casket, his smooth, childish jaw and curly brown hair so like her own, as unruly in death as in life. Each glimpse of Eric’s innocent face fueled her rage, her determination, and held despair at bay.

  It did not, however, keep her from worrying about Oliver. Eric’s death had crushed his spirit; maintaining his silence when every instinct Oliver possessed urged him to defend his son weighed especially heavy.

  Only two years older than she, Oliver seemed to have aged a decade in the three weeks since their son died. His suit, too, hung loosely on his frame. Weary lines furrowed his brow and fatigue seeped from every pore. His plain gold wedding band glinted in the light when he raked broad, flat fingers through his sun-bleached hair.

  Still, Oliver touched each mourner in turn, kindly offering comfort and accepting rote sympathy from strangers. “Thank you for coming,” he said, meaning the words. Or, “Helen and I appreciate your support.”

  Helen looked away from the coffin and extended her hand to the next mourner before realizing who it was. Startled, she tasted something warm and salty flood her tongue. She lifted the damp handkerchief to her lips, her gaze firmly focused on Ryan’s father.

  Milton Jones swayed on his feet, the scent of poorly metabolized alcohol emitted from his skin. Patches of stubble had escaped his razor along the knob of his Adam’s apple. The well-dressed, sandy-haired stranger she’d seen earlier with Ryan’s grandparents now stood by Milton’s side.

  “You could have prevented this,” Milton said more loudly than necessary. His voice carried beyond their immediate circle to the sanctuary’s far reaches.

  “Milton,” the man accompanying him cut in, “this is not the time. Please.” He put one palm on Milton’s shoulder and reached out with the other to shake Oliver’s hand, then Helen’s. “I’m Ben Fleming, Milton’s grief counselor. He’s distraught. Please forgive him.”

  Milton shook Fleming off, glaring drunken hatred at Helen. “My boy would be alive if Miss Helen here wasn’t up in Tallahassee making enemies every chance she gets.”

  “Ben’s right. That’s hardly fair, Milton,” Oliver intervened in the same gentle way that he handled all living things. “Our Eric’s gone, too.” His voice cracked and he stopped a moment to gather his composure.

  “I loved Ryan,” Helen managed to say after a long, uncomfortable silence, all too aware of eavesdroppers.

  Milton stared at Helen as if he’d never seen her before. “My boy is dead.” His voice broke as his eyes filled and tears spilled onto his hollow cheeks. “You’ll pay for this, Helen. Don’t think you won’t.” His last word ended on a keening sob that shook his entire body before Ben Fleming steadied him and moved him away from Helen.

  Frank Temple, who’d stepped forward protectively, seemed to relax a little as he retreated to his place close behind her, once again scanning the church.

  Oliver squeezed Helen’s hand and released it, then left to follow Milton and Ben Fleming. Helen watched as her husband approached them, put a comforting hand on Milton’s arm, and murmured gentle words that she knew would not soften the hard lines of Milton’s judgment.

  The way Oliver addressed Fleming so familiarly, by his first name, she wondered if Oliver already knew him and where they might have met.

  Helen returned to the line of hungry spectators as the next unpermitted hand touched her arm. She raised her chin a bit higher, grateful for the black veil that provided the only privacy she’d experience today.

  Photographs, she knew, were already being posted from cell phones to the internet, to be beamed around the country and the world.

  After a long career as a prosecuting attorney and five years as Governor of Florida, she’d learned the hard lessons of public life. The press had dubbed her “The Iron Cowgirl,” and she tried not to care. Better to be reviled as cold and unfeeling than to let them suck on her grief like an exotic aphrodisiac.

  At last, the organ played the first strains of “Amazing Grace.” Ushers stopped the unending parade and encouraged people to take their seats for the service. One escorted Helen to her place next to Oliver in the first pew.

  The grief counselor, Ben Fleming, approached the dais and closed Eric into the casket, then adjusted the blanket of white roses over the center. Had Oliver asked him to do so?, Helen wondered. Fleming’s performance of these small courtesies for Eric, his careful attention to the final details, demolished her defensive shield. Helen closed her eyes, squeezed hard.

  Oliver made no attempt to hide the tears that tracked down his wind-chapped cheeks. He managed to thank Dr. Fleming for his kindness as Fleming walked past then Oliver engulfed Helen’s hand in both of his. The gesture spiked grief in her breast, and once again she squeezed her eyelids to hold back tears, grateful for the black veil.

  Pastor Rickard delivered a eulogy as eloquent as any Helen had ever heard. Tears flowed freely from Oliver and the true mourners while Helen remained stoic. She used her inhaler again, but it wasn’t asthma that stole her breath. She glanced down at the damp handkerchief, surprised to see its milky white softness tinged pink. She noticed the pain inside her cheek for the first time and realized what had caused it.

  After the service ended, the congregation rose and turned to watch Pastor Rickard precede the pallbearers who carried her son down the aisle. Spectators stood on every inch of the carpeted floor around the entire church.

  Oliver took her hand and placed it through the crook of his arm. They walked down the aisle they had traveled together full of hope on their wedding day.

  As planned, Frank and Mac remained positioned near Helen, but not too close to discourage the killer from approaching her if he wanted to. The less protection she appeared to have, the more likely he would risk coming near and somehow revealing himself.

  At least she’d hoped he would when they planned this trap an eon ago. Now it seemed that she’d failed Eric yet again.

  Ushers controlled the flow of spectators, allowing each pew to file out behind the Sullivans in an orderly fashion.

  When Helen and Oliver reached a point about seven pews from the exit, she saw Milton Jones step out in front of them, staring them down. He didn’t move, even as they drew face to face. Oliver stepped ahead to shield her, but Milton blocked their exit as if to inflict another difficult confrontation.

  Helen began to sense something seriously wrong. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Frank Temple bulling his way toward them from the crowded nave. Teeth clenched, she swallowed the metallic-tasting blood in her mouth.

  “Please move out of the way, Milton,” Oliver said.

  “Eric was stinking drunk. He wouldn’t give up the keys.” The hatred pulsed from Milton’s body in waves Helen could feel. “‘I’m the governor’s kid. Nobody can stop me.’ That’s what he said.”

  Milton’s red eyes streamed but his voice was loud and manner belligerent. Helen looked around, alarmed. Ben Fleming had seemed a calming influence on Milton. Where was he now?

  She saw Frank Temple pulling closer gradually, as if wading through waist-high molasses. The other agents and deputies deployed around the church were separated from Milton by the mass of spectators stuffed into the crowded sanctuary.

&nbs
p; Oliver tried to placate Milton again. “You know how sorry I am, but this is not the—”

  “It’s your fault!” Milton raged as he snapped his arm from behind his back and extended it, training a handgun at Helen’s face.

  From his closer position, Oliver acted on instinct, shoving Milton’s frail wrist aside milliseconds before he pulled the trigger.

  Helen heard two quick gunshots so deafening her ears seemed to implode.

  A sharp stinging burn seared her left shoulder.

  She lost her balance and fell on top of the spectator-filled pew next to her.

  Chaos erupted.

  Those close to an exit ran to the door. Others scrambled over one another to follow. The rest hunkered down, hands over their heads, too frightened to move.

  Helen’s muffled ears scarcely registered the crowd’s panic. She thought she heard several agents shouting, “Drop the gun!” “Get down!” “Drop the gun!”

  Oliver fell upon Milton and knocked him to the floor.

  But Milton was desperate too, and more determined. He pushed Oliver hard enough to free his arm. Two FDLE agents and one Valencia County deputy now stood on empty pews, weapons drawn and trained on Milton from shooters’ stances.

  Helen sensed more than saw Frank Temple reach her side to shield her. She struggled to breathe, the suffocating precursor to an asthma attack constricting her throat.

  Milton whipped the gun toward his own head as if to shoot himself.

  “Drop the gun!” two deputies shouted at once.

  “Don’t!” Oliver shouted over the noise of the panicked crowd. “Think about Ruby. She wouldn’t want you to do this. You know she wouldn’t.”

  Oliver’s rushed words seemed to register with Milton, for even from behind Frank Temple’s bulk Helen saw Milton hesitate, maybe a bit unsure. Looking straight into Oliver’s eyes, Milton lowered the gun a few centimeters. A moment’s hesitation. It was going to be all right.

  Swiftly he pointed the gun at Oliver’s chest and pulled the trigger.

  At the same moment, gunshots rang out from three directions over the heads of the cowering spectators.

  When the shooting stopped, despite the searing pain in her shoulder and the lack of oxygen to her lungs, Helen managed to rise to her knees and crawl into the aisle.

  Milton Jones, becalmed by death on the carpeted sanctuary, lay next to Oliver’s bleeding body.

  Without conscious volition, Helen screamed.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Three Years Later

  Tallahassee, Florida

  Thursday 3:00 p.m.

  JESSICA KIMBALL FOUGHT THE weight of time. Left unoccupied, her mind would dwell on Peter. Only purposeful activity distracted her. She reviewed her notes once more before her interview with Governor Helen Sullivan commenced.

  “Come on. Let’s do this already,” she whispered. Her right leg seemed to bounce of its own volition, the only outward indication of her impatience.

  The fine December day had inspired someone to leave the windows open in the Governor’s mansion. A cool draft prevented the crackling fire in the fireplace from heating the room and carried the cacophony of angry protestors inside. Jess pulled her lightweight grey sweater off her shoulders and slipped her arms into the sleeves.

  She’d entered the mansion through the front door, with her photographer Mike Caldwell filming the mob’s shouts and threats and objects flung while she strode past. Something had connected with her left thigh, but she’d deflected the pain as she would ignore the bruise. Both were irrelevant.

  Safely inside, Jess curbed the adrenaline and settled deeper into the soft red leather upholstery, couched in Governor Sullivan’s inner sanctum while David Manson’s Abolition Project crazies remained most definitely on the outside.

  Manson had followed her to Florida seeking increased attention for his anti-death-penalty efforts by coasting along Jess’s unbroken victims’-rights winning streak. He’d never bested her, although he rebounded after every defeat with renewed vigor.

  Jess believed her success came because she worked hard to stay on the side of the angels. Never had she undertaken an equivocal case, nor would she. Too many crime victims needed her support to waste her efforts on the undeserving. Above all, everything she did was for Peter.

  Now Jess’s investigative spotlight shone on tomorrow’s execution of Tommy Taylor, dubbed the Central Florida Child Killer. Years ago, Taylor had unspeakably tortured four of his five murder victims before authorities apprehended him. Revulsion flooded her body. Child killers were the most despicable criminals Jess could imagine.

  “Where are you, Helen?” She said. Her question did not manifest the governor. The continuing delay heightened her tension and caused her to reexamine her work.

  As always, Jess arrived at her opinions and chose this case only after months spent completing the thorough due diligence her conscience and readers demanded. She trusted her process because it had never failed her. Mentally, she ticked off the steps, making check marks on her note pad.

  She’d reviewed thousands of pages of text from case files and appeal records, and then discussed the evidence in depth with every investigator and attorney who had handled the case.

  She’d learned everything possible about each victim and had spoken several times to every surviving member of the victims’ families.

  Perhaps most heartbreaking was Taylor’s own mother, destroyed by the knowledge that her son was guilty of slaughtering children, even she agreed that he should pay for his crimes.

  Finally Jess had interviewed Tommy Taylor himself, and now she had no doubts about his guilt. None whatsoever. No normal person does what Taylor did to those kids; or deserved to live afterward.

  She glanced at her watch. Yes, the governor was about ten minutes late. Nervous perspiration chilled her. She laid her forearms across her chest and rubbed her arms a moment, then doodled a few quick strokes on her pad until the continuing noise jerked her attention back to Manson’s followers.

  Jess tried to afford them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they didn’t know that Manson exploited abolition of the death penalty only as a convenient philosophy his audience idealized.

  Like Manson, though, these protesters defended death-row inmates based on the media value of their stories, rather than by the merits of their cases. To Jess this amounted to excusing depraved indifference to innocent human lives for the sake of publicity. Manson didn’t care about justice any more than he cared whether death row inmates were innocent, guilty or from Mars.

  Thoughts of David Manson brought to mind her missing son again. Manson’s phony idealism had almost drawn Jess in once. Through hard experience, she’d learned how he worked.

  Manson had used her search for Peter to further his own agenda, which Jess would never forgive nor forget.

  To this day, David Manson hung around her like an albatross, but she recognized him for the vulture he was, feeding on the world’s evil and manipulating young idealists to grab attention, or even incite violence, when it served his purposes.

  An inner door opened and Helen Sullivan walked toward Jess, hand extended, apologies offered and accepted. Jess noted Helen Sullivan’s girl-next-door freckles made her appear remarkably young for her age.

  Three years after her son’s murder, Sullivan might have looked worn out, but instead she projected vigor, competence and strength. She was dressed in a somber blue suit and plain pumps; a somewhat old-fashioned double strand of pearls rested at her taught neck. Facelift? Jess wrote on her pad. Politics was a glamour business these days, too.

  The two women settled down to business. Jess placed her digital recorder next to the Governor’s cell phone on the low coffee table between them. Jess held a stenographer’s pad on her lap, ready to jot her impressions with a blue felt-tip in the left column as they talked. She reserved the right column for quotable phrases she might grab while completing the final paragraphs of the magazine article she’d been writing for months.

>   The only thing missing from the room was Mike, his video camera rolling. After a few posed pictures of the governor at her desk, Mike had been asked to leave by Governor Sullivan’s chief of staff.

  On a different day, Jess might have argued. She’d come to depend on video, which often helped her nail her final drafts with accurate details she might have missed. But the interview was too important to her story and this was her last chance to complete it before Taylor’s execution. Jess was packed for Colorado to follow a lead on Peter, her own missing son, immediately after Taylor was pronounced dead. She had no time to waste. Her notes and the voice recorder would have to suffice.

  Jess admitted, too, that she admired Helen Sullivan and didn’t want to alienate the governor, whose coping skills fascinated Jess.

  She could relate all too well to Helen’s lost child—Peter had been kidnapped ten years ago and never found, although finding him remained Jess’s personal obsession to this day.

  For now, seeking justice for victims like herself and Helen Sullivan in a society more focused on protecting the killers kept her soul alive while she searched for Peter. Barely.

  But what, Jess had long wondered, enabled Helen Sullivan to succeed—to excel and not merely cope—on a daily basis when parents of murdered children so often lost their faith in everything, including life itself?

  Helen’s poise rivaled Queen Elizabeth, some said, speculating that Sullivan was cold and unfeeling, but Jess rejected that explanation; Helen Sullivan was more complicated than that.

  Jess began the interview as pleasantly and lightly as possible. The governor’s answers were candid, almost charming. After the first few softball questions, though, Jess couldn’t help asking about the no-camera rule: “Why won’t you allow me to videotape this interview?”

  If Jess had hoped to catch Sullivan off guard, she failed. The governor answered Jess’s question without blinking an eye, but her diction changed. She became precise, controlled, rehearsed.

  “Because despite what Mr. Manson seems to think, Tommy Taylor’s execution is not a side show. Video images of the countdown to a man’s final breaths are inhumane. They imprint indelibly on a mother’s mind.”