Five in a Row

by Jan Coffey

  As he turned away, the tow truck operator came out of Debbie’s door with a bucket of water. Walking across the road, he dumped it onto the blood on the pavement. Lyden became annoyed as it pooled by the driver’s side of his car. He glared at the operator as the man pulled a broom off his truck to sweep the glass off the travel lane.

  The police officer turned back to him. “Where was Mr. Romero when you looked out?”

  “He was getting out of his car. Kind of stumbling out,” Lyden corrected. “He went down on his knees on the pavement and grabbed his chest as soon as he saw the body stuck under the front wheel. She wasn’t moving.”

  Lyden studied the tips of his dress shoes, knowing it was expected.

  “Did you know her at all?”

  “A little. She moved in next door this past month. I helped her set up her computer.”

  “That’s all?”

  He shrugged. “We were new neighbors. We said hi in passing. She came over yesterday, though. Brought a couple of movies. We hung out until the afternoon.” He decided not to mention that she’d gone through his condo this morning. He had a legitimate explanation if it ever came up. She’d picked up the videos when he wasn’t home. He hadn’t realized it until later.

  “Do you know her family?”

  Lyden shook his head and tugged on one ear. “I work nine to five. She works…worked weekends. Yesterday was the first time that we were off at the same time.” He looked solemnly toward her condo door. “I was just getting to know her, but she was a good person, as far as I could tell. It must be hard for you guys to take this kind of news to somebody’s family.”

  “It is,” the officer said quietly. A few more questions about where Lyden worked and his phone numbers and the policeman wrapped it up. “Going back to work this afternoon, Mr. Gray, in case we have any more questions?”

  Lyden shook his head. “I called in and told my boss what happened. He agreed that I wouldn’t be any good this afternoon after all this. To tell the truth, I’m still kind of in shock.”

  The young officer nodded, thanked him and walked off to join his partner. Lyden hung around a few minutes more, watching the cleanup. The tow truck operator finished sweeping and began to fiddle with the hookup of the Romero’s car, putting his greasy fingers all over the polished finish of the Cadillac.

  The action on that baby had been very nice. Lyden had really enjoyed the Caddy’s quick response, and the handling had been very smooth, too. No trouble at all. He’d take one of those out for a drive anytime.

  When the TV-6 news van pulled into the condo development, Lyden decided to go in. He’d given his statement to the police, been helpful and definitely done a good deed by calling 911. He didn’t need any reporter sticking a microphone into his face, though, and interviewing him for the evening news.

  He locked the front door and felt the surge of energy as he ran upstairs. Going into the kitchen, he foraged for some food. He was feeling excellent, in fact. Everything was going right. With Debbie gone, Lyden felt as if a ton of weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He was relieved, happy.

  Of course, there was jack-shit for food in the fridge and in the cabinets. He had to go grocery shopping one of these days. There were two slices of pizza left from a dinner delivery last night. He’d left them in the box on the counter overnight. The cheese was crusty, but the pieces looked edible. He grabbed them and started for his office downstairs.

  Mondays were usually a bitch. He hated them. They were the first day of separation from Emily. Having this afternoon off, though, was a great kick.

  “Thank you, Debbie,” he said out loud.

  As he reached the bottom of the stairs, Lyden could see people and cars through the glass panel next to the front door. He didn’t get too close. He was done with what was going on out there.

  Going into his office, he closed the door and sat down, turning on the stereo. As the music enveloped him, he took a bite of the pizza and studied Emily’s pictures. He could feel his mood improving all the time. He’d been pissed off at her when he drove home from work, but Debbie had helped him release all that tension. Lyden didn’t want to stay mad at Emily. Even if he tried, he couldn’t. He guessed this was what love was all about. You made sacrifices, you forgave and you forgot.

  Dumping the pizza crusts in the trash can, he leaned forward and logged on. The first place his fingers took him was to Emily’s e-mail account. As always, there were hundreds of e-mails in her inbox. Lyden noticed that there were some from as long ago as last Friday that she’d left unread. He switched over to her outgoing stuff, and the hackles immediately rose on the back of his neck. She’d sent one to Detective Simpson this afternoon.

  He cracked his knuckles in one swift movement before opening the e-mail. It was long, wordy. This was personal, not business. He started scanning the contents.

  She was thanking Simpson for lunch, sorry that he had to return to work this afternoon. A whole paragraph of drivel about how wonderful he was. How affected she was by the way he talked to her. How his…his touch drove her crazy.

  Lyden glared at the screen.

  How long it had been since she’d had this kind of relationship with a man. She couldn’t stop thinking about sex. About him. About the different things he did to her with his mouth and fingers and his…

  Lyden felt the heat rush into his face. His jaw clenched and unclenched as she went on to hint at what she’d like to do to him in return.

  Emily signed off telling him that Conor was staying after school, and she’d have the house to herself until she had to pick her son up at five. So if Simpson could get away around three, they’d have a whole two hours to themselves. And she knew just how to spend those two hours….

  Lyden glanced at the clock. It was 2:55.

  “You’d better still be on the road, asshole.”

  Thirty

  For this thing to work, Jeremy Simpson knew he had to be right on a few assumptions.

  First, the perpetrator wasn’t living in Wickfield. It was too small a town for a local to stay under the radar and continue to stalk Emily without being recognized. Second, the guy was probably flying solo. A one-man operation. The profile wouldn’t allow for helpers of any kind. Third, the extent of his control had to include the year and model of the pickup truck Jeremy drove. Fourth, the perp had to be obsessed enough with Emily that he’d check her e-mail frequently, and have read the latest message. This could be a sticking point. He also had to be crazy enough to want to hurt Jeremy for his relationship with her. He’d already gone after Ben Colter, though, so the detective felt safe on that point.

  Safe, Jeremy thought as he sat in the pickup. How ironic. The most important assumption he was making was that he could stop his pickup before the scumbag killed him.

  The clock on the dash read 2:57. He’d left the truck idling on the side of the country road. He was behind the wheel. His seat belt was fastened. There were no houses nearby, and recently mowed open fields stretched out on either side. Half a mile behind him and two miles straight ahead, the road was blocked by police cruisers. All of the instructions had been face-to-face. None of them trusted the pager system. They didn’t know the length of the man’s tentacles, and Jeremy wanted this thing to work.

  As a backup, Jeremy still was wearing a headset. He could communicate with his officers if he needed to.

  He looked at the clock again. 2:58. His fingers tightened around the wheel. He could feel the tension in his shoulders. Ben had told him he’d been driving for just a couple of minutes when he lost control of his car. No warning. In Peterson’s case, there’d been no warning, either. Scott Peterson had lost control just as he’d shifted the car into gear. Jeremy had read the police reports of the earlier accidents, too. The car hadn’t even been in gear in one of the incidents. It appeared that as long as the car was running, it was vulnerable. A New York radio station announced that headline news was coming up at the top of the hour.

  2:59. He was too tense. Jer
emy stretched his shoulders, letting himself think of Liz, of the e-mail she’d sent him using Emily’s address. The tension shifted to a different part of his body.

  He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her until last night. Liz was even more beautiful than he remembered. Sexier, if that were at all possible. It had taken great restraint not to take her in his arms. Today, in Emily’s office, he’d been tempted to close the door and make love to her on top of the desk.

  She was the only woman who did this to him. Drove him crazy. Made him want to touch her all over. Brand her as his, somehow.

  Jeremy knew this was a big part of why they hadn’t lasted together. He wanted more. He wanted all of her. For the long term. Maybe forever. But he couldn’t ask. He wasn’t sure they were after the same thing. When it came right down to it, he feared the rejection. Her decision to put an end to it had been his answer. It had saved him the embarrassment.

  Now, though, he wasn’t sure he’d taken the right path. So many months later, he could see the vulnerability in her. She was hurt, hesitant. He wondered if they’d both screwed up when they’d gone their separate ways.

  He was feeling very tempted to stir that pot again. Rap music was playing on the radio. His hand must have brushed against the dials. He reached to change it.

  “Shit.”

  Without warning, the pickup truck shifted into gear and leaped forward, pressing Jeremy back in his seat.

  “Houston, we’ve made contact,” he said into the mouthpiece.

  The truck accelerated rapidly, and Jeremy put his foot on the brake. Nothing. He tried to steer, but the wheel just spun around. It could have belonged to some kid’s toy car. Two miles was shorter a distance than he’d planned on. He could see the cruisers up ahead, and if the car didn’t stop as planned, he’d be barreling into them in no time.

  It didn’t matter. He knew now for sure.

  “This is our guy,” he said into the mouthpiece, pulling on the wire connected to the automatic cutoff that had been installed that very morning.

  The momentum carried the vehicle for another couple hundred feet, and for a few anxious seconds, Jeremy thought the truck would not stop in time. The police officers by the cruiser ahead must have been thinking the same thing, for he saw them run off to the side to get out of the line of impact.

  The pickup bucked and finally died, coming to a jerking stop a couple of yards from the fenders of the police cruisers.

  Suddenly, Jeremy felt like he was trapped in a loaded missile. The adrenaline surged though his body. Grabbing his cell phone, he stepped out of the truck and whipped off the headset.

  The police officers approached, looking at him and at the pickup, awestruck.

  “Was that for real?You had no control?” one of them asked.

  “That was too goddamn real,” he said. “I think this guy can play any of us, maybe any car out there on the road.”

  Jeremy dialed the number of his FBI contact. In so many words he brought Agent Hinckey up to date on what had just happened and what the incident had confirmed. The information wasn’t a total surprise to the SAC, though; Jeremy had told Hinckey this morning about his suspicions and what he intended to do. Considering the circumstances and the urgency of narrowing down the field of suspects, anything was a go as far as Hinckey was concerned.

  “This is the trump card we were looking for,” the agent said grimly from the other end. “What time is Ms. Doyle’s class?”

  “Nine o’clock. I’ll let her know she’ll have extra people dropping in.”

  As Jeremy ended the call with Hinckey, the sirens from other police cruisers could be heard getting closer. Simpson hoped only the information they’d agreed upon was being released over the police radio. Anyone monitoring the communications would hear only of the detective’s pickup truck rolling over because of too much speed.

  Jeremy stared at his truck for a moment and then dialed Emily’s cell number.

  Thirty-One

  With the exception of a handful of students still rummaging through their lockers, the hallway of the math and science wing was quiet when Conor came out of the biology lab. He and Ashley were repeating an experiment from last week. They were the only two students who’d stayed after to redo the lab and had had the place to themselves, except for the botany teacher, who was grading tests in the glassed-in office at the back of the lab.

  As he started down the hall, Conor realized he was feeling more comfortable with Ashley. He’d actually been able to crack a couple of jokes while they’d been doing the work. He liked hearing her laugh. She was actually pretty smart when there weren’t other distractions and she focused, and Conor had told her that. She’d reacted like he’d given her the biggest compliment in the world.

  The call from the office over the PA system was definitely a case of poor timing. They were at the stage in the experiment where they had to take notes on their finding. Definitely Ashley’s weakness. Conor hadn’t hesitated for a second, though, when he was told that his mom was here and she needed to talk to him for couple of minutes. Ashley and the lab project could wait.

  Conor didn’t have to walk as far as the office. Emily must have been heading his way, and they met at the end of the hall. He threw his arms around her and gave her a bear hug.

  “I had to see you. I’ve missed you,” she whispered into his ear.

  “Me, too,” he said, pulling back and noticing for the first time how tired she looked. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “Pulled an all-nighter.”

  “How is it going?”

  “Really well,” she replied, sounding upbeat. “Things are lining up and making sense. We’re moving ahead. I think the end of it might be real close.”

  Too many questions were burning on his tongue. He wanted to know what exactly his mom was doing, and if the IM thing last night was part of it.

  “Can you tell me anything?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, honey, but not yet. I will, though, as soon as I can. I promise.”

  “Can I come back home?”

  She touched his cheek. “I’d like you to stay with Aunt Liz again tonight. It’ll be a little crowded at our place.”

  He made himself look dejected, knowing she wouldn’t refuse him an explanation. “Who’s coming over?”

  Emily looked up and down the hall first. With the exception of two girls talking at the far end, everyone else had cleared out. “Not a whisper of this to anyone.”

  “I promise.”

  “FBI agents. I don’t know how many. Detective Simpson. Adam Stern, who gave you and Liz a ride from the hospital yesterday. And possibly Mr. Colter.”

  “Ben is out of the hospital?” he asked excitedly.

  She smiled. “You don’t blink an eye at having federal agents hanging around your mother?”

  He shook his head. “How’s Ben?”

  “He thinks he’s well enough to get released. He’s working on convincing his doctor of it right now. If he succeeds, then Adam is going to bring him over later.”

  “That’s excellent. Can I see him?”

  “Probably tomorrow,” she said quietly. “I expect the house will be a zoo this afternoon. Everyone has a lot to do to get ready for my online class tonight.”

  “This is all about your stalker, isn’t it?”

  She looked at him admiringly and then draped an arm around his shoulder. “Part of it. You’ve grown up since I saw you last.”

  “That was since yesterday, Mom, and you’re trying to change the subject.”

  Emily steered him in the direction of the lab and walked with him. “I stopped at the café for a couple of minutes before coming here. Aunt Liz couldn’t say enough nice things about how responsible you are and how easy you made everything for her this morning. By the way, she’s going to pick you up at five at the front circle.”

  “No problem.”

  “Have I told you recently how proud of you I am?”

  “Yeah, you have…and your ta
ctic works. Can I have Halo 3 for my Xbox?”

  She pulled him into a headlock and gave him a knuckle sandwich on top of his head. “You are definitely a fourteen-year-old.”

  Some ten feet ahead, the door to the biology lab opened and Ashley stepped out. Emily’s hand dropped from around Conor’s neck. He ran a hand through his hair and couldn’t stop himself from blushing. It was obvious she had witnessed the horseplay.

  “You must be Ashley,” Emily said brightly, extending a hand and introducing herself.

  Conor hung back as the two shook hands. Emily told the teenager how she’d met her parents during the open house last week.

  “I’m so glad that we met, though, Ashley.

  You’re an amazing artist.”

  Conor looked in confusion at his mother, before seeing the deep blush color Ashley’s face. Did she know something that he didn’t?

  “The animal photographs in the art studio, they’re your work, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah, they are,” she said, sounding only slightly embarrassed. “I took them during this nature photography course I took this past summer. I didn’t even know anyone saw them down there.”

  “How could you miss them? They’re so good.”

  “Thanks,” Ashley said, obviously happy about the praise.

  “I especially loved the black-and-white shots of the golden retriever puppies.”

  “They’re my favorites, too,” the teenager said, smiling.

  “That reminds me, I also hear you’re an absolute expert when it comes to getting a dog.”

  “I love dogs.”

  “We’re getting one,” Conor put in.

  “Maybe you could give us some advice,” Emily suggested.

  “That would be too awesome!”

  Ashley was beaming, and Conor looked at his mother with amazement. She had better lines for cruising chicks than any of the kids he knew. He just watched as the two continued to talk about dogs and trainers and the benefits of rescuing an older dog versus starting with a puppy. Before they were done, Ashley was definitely signed on to go with them when they were ready to look.