by Brenda Novak
His pulse raced as he considered his options. Although the back door was closest, the yard was fenced. If Jasper came after him, he’d be trapped before he could get through the gate. The garage would be no better. His car was there, which seemed to offer some safety, but Stan doubted he’d have the chance to get inside it. The garage entrance was the farthest away.
He’d go for the front door and run across the street, he decided. The people who lived there were retired and more likely to be home than the neighbors to the left or right, but before he could make a move his phone went off.
From the sound, it was close. Terrified that the noise would bring Jasper from upstairs or wherever he was, Stan longed to find it and silence it, but the moment he got to his feet he froze.
Jasper was sitting in the recliner. “Looking for this?”
He held up Stan’s cell, but it was the cast-off blood on his face and hands that caught Stan’s attention. He’d never seen anything so revolting, even in the movies. “She was your mother,” he said, gaping at him.
“And, for the most part, I liked her,” Jasper responded as if what he’d done didn’t mean anything at all. “She just saw something she shouldn’t have. I couldn’t trust her after that.”
“What’d she see?” Stan asked. “The truth?”
“A version of it, I guess,” he replied with a shrug. “Regardless, it’s a moot point now.”
Stan felt his jaw sag. “You feel no remorse, no sadness? Your own mother meant nothing to you?”
“I told you I liked her.”
“Liked her,” he echoed in disbelief. “She loved you so much she would’ve given her life for you!”
Jasper sighed audibly as he rose. “Then you have nothing to feel bad about, because that’s essentially what she did. It was her or me.”
Stan stepped back, hoping he’d be able to get to the front door, in spite of the furniture that blocked his path. “You killed those women, didn’t you?”
“What women?”
“Have there been that many?”
“At least thirty or forty. I haven’t counted in a while. But I’ve been killing a long time. The numbers start to add up.”
Stan took another step back. “They’re going to catch you someday.”
“I doubt it. They never catch the really good ones. I move around, know what kinds of victims to target, how to cover my tracks. There are too many people in the world. I actually perform a vital function. As far as I’m concerned, there needs to be more killers like me.”
Stan tried to gauge whether or not he could reach the door if he turned and ran. He doubted it. He wondered if he could talk Jasper down, get him to change his mind. But how? He couldn’t appeal to Jasper’s emotions. Jasper didn’t seem to have any. He was so casual about murder, so confident. That scared Stan worse than anything. Jasper didn’t think Stan had a chance, and that made Stan fear it was true. “What about the women that sergeant from Alaska asked about? Did you kill them?”
“I did. I’m still surprised he made the connection, though. I can’t wait to ask him how he figured it out.”
“You’re going to ask him?”
“Yes. And then I’m going to kill him. He deserves it. He’s been fucking Evelyn. Thinks he can protect her. If you ask me, he’s asking for it.”
“So you have kept track of her.”
“Of course. Don’t play stupid. You know that from when I called him by his nickname on the phone. You just chose to overlook that along with all the rest.”
“Because I wanted to believe you were normal! That you weren’t some kind of creature I can’t even begin to understand!”
“Now you’re being unkind,” he said. “I don’t think that will help the situation; do you?”
Stan felt for the vase on the table behind him. “What made you into such a cold bastard?”
“I’ve often wondered myself, but I don’t have the answer. Maybe you should ask Evelyn. She’s the one doing all the research.”
The smooth glaze of the vase against his palm gave Stan hope, but it wasn’t as if Jasper didn’t notice what he was doing.
“I wouldn’t touch that, if I were you,” he said, lifting the knife. “You don’t want to piss me off.”
“Piss you off? You’re going to murder me! How much worse can it get?”
“If any of my victims were still around to talk, they’d tell you it can get a lot worse,” Jasper said. “Well, Evelyn is still around, and she’s tried to tell you, to tell everyone. The questions are: Would you rather die a quick death that allows you to retain some dignity? Or a slow, painful death, where I force you to suck my dick?”
“How could you be my son?” Stan cried. “You’re a monster!”
Jasper rolled his eyes. “Are you really any better? The police could’ve put me behind bars when I was seventeen if you hadn’t intervened. Then all of the women I’ve killed would be alive. Mom would be alive, too. Your name was the last thing she muttered before she collapsed, by the way. You have to at least take responsibility for your own gullibility.”
“You lied! And you manipulated me!”
“I only told you what you wanted to hear. Anyway, everyone manipulates everyone else. That’s how the world works. I just happen to be better at it than most. You expect me to apologize for that?”
Stan had never felt like a greater fool. For so many years, he’d loved and protected an illusion. “I hope you rot in hell.” He threw the vase, but he was so rattled he didn’t have his usual strength.
Jasper laughed as it crashed and broke at his feet. “At least you decided to make this fun,” he said, and leapt over the couch separating them.
Stan ran for the door, but he was more than two decades older and fifty pounds heavier. Jasper was on him within seconds. Still, Stan wanted to fight, to unleash the rage that suddenly boiled up to replace the fear. But an excruciating pain seized his chest, radiating so strongly down his left arm that he couldn’t use it.
“My heart!” he gasped, struggling for breath before Jasper could even stab him.
Jasper frowned in disappointment. “Damn. That’s going to ruin what I was hoping to be an enjoyable afternoon,” he said, and stood and watched as the pain grew worse and worse, studying Stan as if he was fascinated by the spectacle of watching someone die.
16
Evelyn stopped by the Moosehead on her way home. It’d been such an exhausting day she’d left a little early, but she wasn’t ready to spend the evening alone in Amarok’s bungalow.
“Hey, Doc!” Shorty called as she approached the bar.
The place wasn’t crowded yet, but she knew it’d fill up as the night wore on. Even Wednesdays could get busy.
“Hi, Shorty. Can I get a bowl of your sister’s homemade chili and a piece of corn bread?”
“You bet,” he replied. “Won’t take but a minute.”
She sat at the bar, picking at a bowl of nuts and watching a basketball game on TV while she waited.
“When’s Amarok due back?” Shorty placed her food, along with some silverware and a napkin, in front of her.
“Tomorrow. Why?”
He began wiping down the counter. “Just wonderin’,” he said as he moved away.
It didn’t take much food to fill Evelyn up. After a few minutes she pushed her bowl to one side and put some money out to take care of the bill. She was about to leave when Russell Jones came in and claimed the stool next to her. “Thought I might find you here.”
“Do I hang out here that often?” she asked.
“Since you’ve gotten with Amarok, you come in several nights a week.”
“I guess I do,” she admitted. “And you know that because you come in even more.”
He shrugged. “I like this place. Beats heading home to an empty house.”
“I’m discovering that for myself.”
After pulling the bowl of nuts closer to him, he tossed a few in his mouth. “I hear the polygraph didn’t go so well.”
/> “Actually, it went far better than I expected.”
“Really? Lido said Bishop broke her computer.”
“He did, but we’ll replace it. And since she kept it backed up, we’ll only lose Bishop’s data.”
“Isn’t that bad enough? You wanted him to take that lie detector test for a reason.”
She decided to linger awhile and have a glass of wine, so she asked Shorty to bring one when he returned to collect her leftovers and dishes. “I got what I needed out of it,” she said to Russ as Shorty walked away.
“Meaning…”
“He knows something about his mother’s death, something that the police never revealed to the public.”
“Is it significant enough to indicate he killed her?”
“I’d say so.”
“Nice. So what are you going to do about it?”
Shorty returned with her wine and put a beer in front of Russ at the same time. They both thanked him before continuing their conversation.
“I’ll share the information with whatever detective takes over the Zombie Maker cases, of course,” she said. “Maybe it’ll convince them to keep an eye on Bishop once he’s back in circulation.”
Russ sucked the foam off his beer. “Doesn’t what we’re doing ever seem like a losing battle to you?”
“I try not to think of it that way. Who knows what we might find and how that might change the world? We only lose if we give up.”
“Whoa!”
Evelyn could tell by the sudden excitement in his voice—and the fact that he’d turned to stare at a tall blonde—that he was no longer talking about work.
“Who’s that?” he whispered.
Although Evelyn didn’t recognize her, it seemed as if everyone else at the Moosehead did. Several people went over to hug her and welcome her back, but it wasn’t until she came closer that Evelyn realized who she was. She’d never met her, but she’d seen pictures.
Amarok’s ex-girlfriend was here already? “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Evelyn muttered.
Russ was still staring. “About what?”
“It’s Samantha Boyce,” she explained. “Amarok used to date her.” That was the reason Shorty had asked when Amarok would be back. It wasn’t the casual question he’d pretended. He’d learned Samantha was in town and was curious how Amarok would respond to her presence. All of Hilltop would be curious, which meant that she and Amarok would receive more than their fair share of attention over the next few weeks.
“And he let her go?” Russ said, with exaggerated shock.
Evelyn arched her eyebrows at him, but he failed to notice until she didn’t answer. “What?” he said, glancing back to see why. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” Evelyn finished her wine and got up. She didn’t care to sit through the welcome home party. The others might be excited to have Samantha back in town, but Evelyn was not.
* * *
Evelyn couldn’t wait to see Amarok, especially because he ended up spending a couple of days helping the detective in Peoria and didn’t get home until Saturday morning. Fortunately, it was the weekend, so she didn’t have to work and could meet his flight. But she wasn’t sure what she’d say to him if he brought up marriage again. She hadn’t been able to quit thinking about Samantha since seeing her at the Moosehead. Samantha had been ready to settle down when she was with Amarok before. He’d admitted as much. So she’d probably be even more ready to settle down now. She’d probably want to have kids right away, too, which was something he’d been talking about. And she came with none of the emotional baggage Evelyn did, had never been attacked. Their sex life—and the other aspects of their life together—could be easy and uncomplicated.
Even Samantha’s job would make Amarok happier. Running a guns and ammo store could be dangerous. Samantha could get robbed. But that held true for anyone who dealt with a retail store. Samantha wasn’t delving into the minds of psychopaths every day, wasn’t likely to become the object of their murderous fantasies. Neither did she have to constantly check over her shoulder in case the man who’d tried to kill her twice in the past would make a third attempt.
Why would Amarok ever choose to be with someone like her over someone like Samantha Boyce?
He claimed it was because of love. Love seemed important right now. But would it be enough to carry them through years, possibly decades?
Evelyn feared it wouldn’t, that he’d only regret marrying her someday. On a purely practical level, she was damaged goods.
“Why couldn’t Samantha have come back next year?” Evelyn grumbled as she circled around the airport for the fourth time, waiting for Amarok to appear on the curb outside of Baggage Claim. Maybe by then Evelyn would have decided whether or not she could make the kind of commitment marrying Amarok would require and wouldn’t feel threatened by having someone who seemed far more perfect for him waiting in the wings.
As she returned to Arrivals, she slowed once again. His plane was supposed to have landed twenty minutes ago. Was it even in yet?
This was where a cell phone would come in handy, she thought. But then she saw him, standing on the sidewalk in his jeans, boots and big coat, his bag in one hand. She loved the way he looked, all rough-hewn Alaskan male. She loved the confidence with which he moved, too. And she loved the way he talked. He didn’t use a lot of superfluous words. He kept life simple, but he always meant what he said and did what he promised.
His lips curved and his expression softened the moment he saw her, suggesting he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him.
In that instant Evelyn feared she didn’t have a good choice when it came to their relationship. Either she broke up with him now, which would be almost impossible while she was still living in Hilltop, or she allowed all that other stuff she was worried about to destroy their relationship in bits and pieces over the years.
“How was your flight?” she asked as he tossed his bag in the back.
“Long.” He climbed into the passenger seat and leaned over to kiss her, but as far as she was concerned that kiss was far too brief. He was focused on the traffic around them and getting away from the airport, but she was thinking of the other night, when she’d wanted to have phone sex with him and couldn’t tell him. She craved the feel of his hands on her right now, wanted to drown in the desire he evoked rather than continue to entertain all of the things that’d been going through her mind.
“Everything go okay while I was gone?” he asked.
She merged into traffic. “We muddled through, but Hilltop definitely isn’t the same without you.”
His mouth quirked up on one side. “Good thing I’m back.”
When she shot him a smile of her own, he ran a finger over her cheek. “How are things at work?”
“Let’s not talk about work,” she replied.
“Because…”
“We’ll deal with that later.”
He hesitated. “Well, I’d tell you about my trip, but I’ve already done that over the phone. What’s going on with you?”
She didn’t answer. She just turned into the first motel she could find and cut the engine.
“What are we doing here?” he asked.
“Getting a room.”
He seemed as surprised as she’d expected him to be. “I could hear me saying that, but you?”
“I’m serious.”
“We’ll be home in a few hours.”
“We have to stop by and see your dad while we’re here, don’t we?”
“That’d be nice, but it shouldn’t take long.”
Grabbing him by the lapels of his coat, she pulled him over to kiss him, long and hard. “I can’t wait.”
His eyes darkened with desire. “Whoa! No problem. I’ll go register.”
He went inside and came back a few minutes later.
“What’s gotten into you?” he asked, teasing her as he led her to their room and unlocked the door. “I’ve only been gone four nights. With the hours we’ve bot
h been working, we’ve gone longer than that before. You’re acting as though it’s been months.”
He obviously liked that she’d initiated this; he was just taken aback. “I missed you,” she admitted. “I missed you a lot.”
She barely let him get inside the room before she started stripping off his clothes. He kicked the door shut, but then he pulled her to him, kissing her again—deeper and wetter and with more promise.
“I’m going to leave more often if this is what I get when I return,” he murmured against her lips.
“All I’ve been able to think about is your mouth on my neck, my breasts—”
“This calls for putting my mouth in a few other places, too,” he said, and swept her into his arms to carry her to the bed.
Evelyn stared up at him as he removed her clothes. Although she’d managed to get his coat and shirt off, he was still in his jeans. He had his shoes on, too. But neither one of them seemed to care about shoes. They were in too big of a hurry, and he didn’t need to use his feet. She was much more interested in the rest of him.
“You taste like honey,” he told her as he kissed her. “No one has ever tasted so good, not to me.”
Fisting her hands in his hair, she kissed him back, using the thrust of her tongue to mimic what she craved.
He groaned as his mouth left hers. “Holy shit, Evelyn. You make me crazy. All I have to do is think of you to want you.”
He licked her collarbone, her breasts, her stomach. “Is this okay?” he asked, sounding breathless when he held her knees apart so that she couldn’t shield herself from his view.
Normally, she couldn’t allow him to pin her down in any way. She didn’t like feeling exposed, didn’t like being so vulnerable, which was why she only let him make love to her in the dark and, even then, in a gentle, somewhat repressed manner.
It was time to push beyond that, however, to escape the shadow of her past and make love freely, expressing what she felt without letting what Jasper did hold her back.
This is Amarok. He’ll never hurt me. “I like it,” she said even though she was slightly worried she might not be able to follow through with what she’d started.
