by Cat Connor
“Go figure,” Mac replied, chuckling. “Does Dad know?”
“Yep, he said he can stay in the police cells for as long as they’ll have him.”
Mac chuckled even more – his older brother, the deputy sheriff, in jail overnight.
“Oh, how the mighty are fallen.” Mac leaned back on the wall with a grin on his face.
I contemplated how Eddie would spin this story on his release. It’d be one hell of a tale, of that I was sure. No doubt he’d tell anyone who would listen how the Son of Shakespeare stalked him and how he ended up in protective custody.
Meanwhile back in the real world we were the playthings of a psycho. I turned my attention and Caine’s back to the situation at hand. “Have you found anything usable from this scene?”
“No.”
“He can’t be this good. Sooner or later this sonofabitch will screw up and leave us something traceable.” I bit my tongue to stop myself adding “like cat hair.”
“Forensics has been all over the yard, and found nothing,” Caine said.
“It was nighttime, something could have been missed,” I snapped a little more than I intended.
“I suppose that’s always a possibility.”
Mac walked around the room then stopped and faced me, chewing his bottom lip as he tended to do while thinking. The spark in his eyes made me very attentive.
“What?”
He turned toward me. “You said once that this guy could be an agent or a police officer.”
I wondered where the hell he was going with this, considering I knew he suspected Caine, and he still wasn’t off the hook as far as either of us was concerned.
“Yes, I did.”
“Hmmm. It’s not necessary for him to be a cop to know a lot about how they work, or to scan frequencies and listen to what’s going on. Lots of people have police scanners.” He paused as if to organize his thoughts. “He’s targeting specific people, or he began targeting specific people. I have a feeling he killed Carter because he knew about his drug business, and yes, enjoyed his new power ... but the other deaths were to cover up the first one. Carter’s death is the key to this puzzle.”
“You think he knew Carter?”
Mac nodded. “That’s what I think,” he said and looked into my eyes. “Either he knew him, or he knew of him and had met him at some stage.”
I tried hard not to roll my eyes in case Caine saw me. “Why does he seem so determined that you and I be together?” I joined Mac in his game.
Caine interrupted. “If we knew that, we’d know more about how this sick fuck operates. The best we can come up with so far is that you’ve both displayed resilience and strength.”
“How does he know that? How does he know who we are? You can’t get a clear picture of someone from a month in a chat room.” Mac sat on the bed next to me. “I think he knows us, and I think he knew Carter. This is someone we have met in person.”
Caine continued this thought process aloud, “He’s proven he can get close enough to you both to drug you individually.” He nodded at me and then said. “Yes, before you ask, there was a substantial amount of ketamine in the toothpaste you had at that Lexington motel. You’ll love this bit of information … he replaced your tube of toothpaste with a doctored one. The paste was mixed thoroughly with a high dose of ketamine then injected back into the tube.” Caine seemed almost pleased the Unsub showed such a high degree of planning. “With the advent of plastic tubes, it’s not difficult to refill them, especially with a large syringe. No doubt he enjoyed that. But you’re still alive, and he’s bitching about wanting you together …”
“So we’re going to be his pi裥 de r鳩stance? He has some amazing double murder planned that will knock the FBI’s socks clean off?” Seemed to be the way he was heading. “That fills me with joy, not!”
Caine stared at me. “I wouldn’t have put it quite like that.”
Caine wasn’t coming forward with any of the information I knew he had. He could have jumped in at any time and told us we’d all had key loggers on our computers, and it was possible the Unsub came to know us quite well, but he said nothing of the sort. He didn’t knock my theory on why the Unsub wants us together.
I mustered my best thinking face then threw him another bone. “This investigation must have covered common ground!”
“We thought so,” Caine replied. “There really wasn’t any common ground apart from the chat room.”
I turned to face Caine. “Really wasn’t? What does that mean?”
“Either there is or there isn’t,” Mac said. “What do we all have in common apart from the chat room, or who do we have in common.”
To his credit, Caine looked uncomfortable as he formatted his reply. “Aidan is a suspect.”
Mac and I looked at each other hoping we both appeared sufficiently surprised by Caine’s announcement.
“That’s it? Of all the people it could be, do you think Aidan is a possibility?” I waited to see if anything else would come to light.
Caine glanced at his watch, “I’ll be back in an hour, we’ll talk more then.” He seemed uncomfortable. “I’m late for a briefing.” He left the room.
“You get the impression he doesn’t want to talk about this?”
“Yep,” Mac replied. “If I were him, I wouldn’t either.”
I lay back down.
“I’m going to go see Dad for a few minutes. Rest for a bit, Ellie.”
Rest? With my mind in turmoil, he suggests resting. Yeah, sure, no problem. I’ll just close my eyes and pretend nothing is going on, everything’s fine.
Twenty-One
Lie To Me
What was that annoying damn noise? My hand felt around the immediate area hoping to locate the source of the aggravating high-pitched tune. As I extracted the offending noisemaker from under Mac’s pillow, the tune became frantic.
The display flashed with Holly’s name. “Hey, Holly. You checking in?”
“Yep. You’re all over the news, no names though. The sonofabitch has written to the paper again.”
“Poems?”
“If you can call them that, nasty rhymes. Nothing like the poems you and Mac write.”
Hang on a cotton-picking minute! We don’t show people our poetry, not anybody, not even best friends. We share our poetry in the Cobwebs chat room and with each other. End of story.
Ack! I had to ask, or it would drive me crazy, “When did you see our poetry?” I hoped my voice sounded casual, chit-chatty. There was a pregnant silence at Holly’s end.
“Holly?”
“I can’t tell you, it’s a secret.”
“Tell!”
“I can’t, you’ll find out when the time is right.” She changed the subject leaving me confused. “Hey, you’ll never believe this – Aidan invited me to the dance.”
It sounded like she didn’t believe it herself. Something cold clawed its way up from my stomach and then this secret caused problems too. I forced a smile onto my face as I replied, “Dance?”
“Uh huh, the one at Taylor’s barn.”
The penny dropped. “Ohhh, that dance.”
“So what do you think?”
“About Aidan asking you?”
“Duh, yeah!”
“I think it’s about time he asked you out.” The cold kept clawing up until it reached my brain. I closed my eyes for a second to let the thought emerge and wished I hadn’t. Thinking isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. “How’d he know?” I assumed there’d be flyers and posters all over town.
“Mr. Parker invited him.”
“Good ole Mr. P.”
“So how are things with Mac?”
The interrogation was about to begin, and I felt the familiar prickle as my hackles rose as I slipped into defense mode. Normally only my mother caused such a response, and I wasn’t sure why I felt defensive at Holly’s simple question. “Good.”
“You guys still, you know?”
I smiled. “Yeah, we�
�re still you know!”
“Cool.”
“When did Mr. P invite Aidan?” I attempted to sound curious, with nothing more than a sisterly interest in her reply.
“I think it was that day you and Mac were here.”
I probed further, “The day Carter gave Kevin’s boys the slip?”
“Yes, that day. Aidan said he’d visited Mr. P to get some honey for your Mom.”
The cold became ice.
Before or after Carter’s death? Nobody mentioned Aidan being at Parker’s that day. Why was that? It must’ve been on his way out of town.
The icy feeling wouldn’t leave.
“Ellie?”
I blinked several times. “Yeah.”
“Something wrong?”
“Not at all,” I replied. “I think it’s great you’re going to the dance with Aidan. Mac and I will try and be there.”
“We all miss you down here, any idea when you can come home?”
“I don’t know.” Now that was an honest answer and much better than me spitting “I don’t have a fuc’n home anymore, remember?” What the hell was wrong with me? Why was I so defensive and irritated? I needed a good slap. Get over it! I hate secrets especially when I don’t have the energy to pursue an answer.
“I’d better get moving. Take care.”
“You too.”
I hung up and dropped the phone back onto the bed. Within seconds, I paced up and down the room. I hoped the pacing would bestow brilliant ideas on me, as it always seemed to for Mac. I didn’t like my thoughts at all. The last place anyone saw Carter alive was Parker’s farm. Aidan bought honey that day.
Who knew?
Carter visited Doc Tompson the night before. Any chance he could’ve got his hands on a supply of ketamine during the visit? If he’d had the ketamine with him, the Unsub could have taken it.
Questions buzzed at a frenetic pace through my mind. How did Carter get from Parker’s farm to my place? What if Aidan gave him a ride? How else could he get there and become a murder victim? A vehicle of some description had to be involved. Someone nobody would think twice about seeing or even find his presence at all noteworthy.
Wait!
Wouldn’t Aidan being there have been noteworthy that day? By nine that morning, the whole town would have heard about the ruckus at my place. The whole town would have known but not Aidan. Unless Mr. P told him. He would have assumed Aidan had come to make sure I was all right. Parker could not have known I didn’t want my family informed. Is that how Aidan knew who Mac was also?
The bedroom door opened. I ceased my pacing.
“What’s up?” Mac’s voice suggested someone else was nearby. As he walked toward me, I spotted Caine in the hallway talking to Bob and Beatrice.
“Nothing.”
Mac wrapped his arms around me drawing me into a warm hug. His voice rasped as he whispered into my ear, “Everything okay?”
I whispered back, “Aidan bought honey from Mr. Parker the day Carter was killed.”
“Ohhh, I take it we’re not sharing this info with Caine,” Mac replied.
“Not until I know what’s going on and if this is relevant.”
“Fair enough.”
I wondered if either of us would get time to read the copy of the electronic surveillance report I had hidden under the mattress.
Twenty-Two
Hey God
We were almost out of the door when a cell phone rang. I recognized the ringtone. It was Mac’s phone again; hardly anybody had my new number yet. Mac retrieved the device from where I had left it on the bed.
He answered the call then handed me the phone and said, “Richmond hospital.”
I gave him a “this can’t be good” look and answered the call, “Special Agent Ellie Conway.”
“This is Richmond hospital coronary care unit, Are you Simon Conway’s next of kin?”
My heart sank all the way to my boots as I swallowed terror and answered, “Yes.”
“Your father has had a heart attack. He is in a serious but stable condition in Cardiac Care Unit, and is asking for you.” This cannot be happening!
“Tell my father I’m on my way. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I hung up and passed the phone back to Mac. I could feel the tears prickling behind my eyes. It was a losing battle. I bit into my lip. A surreal calmness surrounded me. “We have to go.”
“And we shall,” Mac said. “I’ll go see Dad about borrowing a car.”
He vanished from the room. I stared at the open door for a few minutes and assessed my befuddled mental state. I concluded I was as well as I could be under the circumstances and packed at speed. Thoughts of the killer evaporated. I concentrated on getting home to my family.
Mac returned as I struggled with the zipper on my bag. It was stuck fast, and no amount of cussing helped. Raised by a military father, I knew how to curse insubordinate inanimate objects and was astonished that it didn’t immediately work. I finally got the fabric together with my good hand and pulled the zipper with the fingers of my broken arm. Apparently cursing like a sailor does work, given time.
“I’ll do it.”
“I’ve done it!” I replied.
Mac smiled. “It’s okay to let me help you.”
“I know, but I didn’t need help.”
“We’re taking Dad’s car. He won’t say anything to Caine.”
I blinked trying to clear the tears so I could see. Mac pulled me into his arms, words I didn’t want to say came from nowhere, “I’m scared.”
“Understandable, let’s get going.”
“I’m not ready to lose him.”
“He’s tough, Ellie. Remember that, he’s tough.”
Yeah, old seamen don’t die they just end up sitting in a corner smelling gross and reminiscing about great battles.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway nearing our door. The door swung open, and Bob stepped in. “Come on.”
The transcript popped into my mind. I slipped my good hand under the mattress and shoved the papers I had retrieved into the inside pocket of my jacket.
Bob and Mac stowed the bags in the trunk of the car in the garage.
“You give your dad my best, Ellie girl.”
“I will,” I replied as Bob passed the seat belt over me.
Bob clicked the seat belt into place then asked, “What do you want to do with this bug?”
“Give it to me. We’ll take it. May as well take the Unsub with us.” The more the merrier.
Bob pressed the mascara into my palm. “Be careful.”
“We will.”
He shut the door and stood looking over the car at Mac. “Drive safe, boyo. Let me know when you arrive.”
“Yep. We’ll be okay.”
“I know you will.” Bob walked around the car to Mac. They hugged and I heard Bob say, “I’m proud of you.”
“Talk to you soon.” Mac climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition key.
Bob waved. That was the moment when I wondered if any of us would survive this mess.
I determined it would be the longest drive home ever undertaken. The first time I checked my watch we’d been on the road a full half hour. As Captain Compass was driving, there were no guarantees we’d make it at all despite my insisting he put our destination into the car navigation system. At least his father had the foresight to have GPS navigation installed in his car. TomTom would be working overtime to get us to Richmond Hospital.
An uneventful hour passed.
“You hungry?” Mac flicked the wiper blades as rain splattered the windscreen. It wasn’t enough to warrant their being on all the time but just enough to be annoying.
We left before lunch and hadn’t eaten since having a very early breakfast.
“McDonald’s?” There had to be a drive-thru somewhere.
“Okay.”
We’d hardly spoken since we left Merrifield. I guessed Mac wondered what we’d find in Richmond, as I did. So many things rampaged in my
head it was difficult to get a single clear thought, Dad, the bug, Mom, Aidan, Caine, where was the second agent’s body? What happened to the evidence? How did anyone get authorization for a wiretap on Aidan? Everything clamored for my attention. I didn’t notice that we’d pulled off the road until Mac spoke. We were in the parking lot next to a McDonald’s with about ten cars lined up in the drive-thru.
“Looks like we’ve got time to decide what we want,” Mac said.
We debated the merits of McDonald’s cheese dogs and how good their coffee was for almost twenty minutes. By the time we were ready to order, the line had thinned to just us.
Mac wound down his window at the drive-thru speaker and turned to me. “What’ll you have, babe?”
“Cheese dog and coffee.”
Mac placed our order. He settled on a cheese burger, fries and coffee. The female voice from the drive-thru speaker began to repeat our order back to us.
A clear, male voice broke in, “Let’s see what we have in the trunk today, what will you have? A slice of Agent McNab on a sesame seed bun?”
Mac and I stared at each other for a split second. I was sure I couldn’t have heard what I thought I had heard.
The voice continued, “Cheese dog and coffee, made with fresh index finger and onion rings. I do hope you can identify the food. Perhaps Agent Kilby is more palatable.”
“We’ll pass, thanks,” Mac replied.
“Oh, come on, live a little, Galileo.”
My insides froze, whoever it was knew who we were.
Mac wound up his window and put his foot down. “I’m not hungry,” he said and tore out of the drive-thru. “We helped him set us up by hanging around too long before ordering. He’s using that damn bug to follow us.”
“I’m not into eating anyone I may have known,” I replied and checked the side mirror as we left. “Do you think that really was him?”
“Not willing to wait around and find out.”
I grabbed my phone and placed an anonymous call to the state police. I didn’t want to talk to Caine. He didn’t need to know where we were. I gave them the address of the drive-thru and told them it was possible there was a Son of Shakespeare body involved. After all, we still had two unaccounted for.
