Wicked

by Jana DeLeon

  Relieved, he scanned her up and down. “How are you? What did the doctor say?”

  “I only ingested a little of the drug and it won’t take long to process out of my system. I may have a headache or feel queasy for a bit, but there’s no damage. I get to leave tonight.”

  “And Tara?”

  “She’s in a lot worse shape than me, but she’s tough. I don’t think she knew just how tough and neither did I. When I realized she’d jumped out of that window to get away, I couldn’t believe it. Most people would have frozen.”

  Jackson nodded. “She was really brave.”

  “Her wrist is broken and they’ve put a brace on it. The doctor said tests showed some swelling from the head injury and her vision is still blurry, but he thinks that will go away as the swelling goes down.”

  “And her heart?”

  “Remarkably, it’s good. When I saw you kneeling next to her and how she was clutching her chest, I just knew she’d had a heart attack.”

  “I was afraid of that myself. What about her knee?”

  “It’s banged up pretty bad. She won’t be doing much walking for a while, at least not without crutches.” Shaye shook her head. “I still can’t believe it was Thomas. If Brittany hadn’t found that picture or I hadn’t taken the water…”

  “How did you know just seeing the picture? I still haven’t put that together.”

  “I don’t know. I’d felt all along that someone was pretending to be something they weren’t and when Brett proved to be a fraud, I thought we’d found our guy even though I couldn’t reconcile him taking Ethan to the hospital. But when I saw that picture of Thomas, with no glasses and wearing a football jersey, something clicked. It all fit. He had access. He had opportunity. And finally, we had someone with motive, at least for Amber.”

  “I told you that you had great instincts. Even if you’d been wrong about it being Thomas, you were dead-on about the water being drugged. I hate that you drank some, but if you hadn’t, Tara wouldn’t have made it.”

  Shaye frowned. “I get that Thomas was holding a grudge against Amber. I thought that murder was more personal than the others, but I still don’t have a reason for the rest. I guess it doesn’t matter since he’s dead and there won’t be a trial, but I can’t help but wonder.”

  “We’re not closing the investigation. Families will want answers and Grayson and I are going to try to give them some.”

  Shaye reached over and took his hand in hers. “Jackson?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you for being a good shot.”

  24

  One week later.

  * * *

  Shaye pushed open the door to Ethan’s hospital room and stood back so that Tara could maneuver herself inside using the crutches she’d formed a love/hate relationship with. Ethan was pale and thin but the smile he had for Tara told Shaye everything she needed to know. Ethan Campbell was going to be all right and was slowly regaining use of his arm. It might never be perfect again, but the prognosis was so much better now than it was even days before.

  Tara hurried to the side of the bed as quickly as the crutches allowed and leaned over to kiss Ethan firmly on the lips. He looked a bit startled at first but there was no mistaking his expression of pleasure immediately following.

  Shaye couldn’t help but smile. Going forward, things were going to be a lot different for Tara and Ethan.

  She slipped out of the room and headed back to the parking lot. She had a date with Jackson to discuss what they’d uncovered about Thomas. Chief Rhinehart was preparing to release a statement to the press but Jackson thought she deserved to know what they’d found before the rest of the population did.

  A couple of reporters were waiting in the hospital parking lot, but she gave them the usual silent treatment and headed to her car. She’d held a press conference two days before and told the media everything she ever intended on sharing. And she’d made that clear. She would never answer another question about her past. Some die-hards would hang on for a while, hoping to best the others out of some additional tidbit, but eventually, they’d be forced to move on.

  Jackson opened the door to his apartment holding a barbecue fork. He leaned over to kiss her, then backed up to let her in. “Sorry,” he said. “My hands are dirty. I just opened a bottle of wine and put some chicken on the grill.”

  Shaye followed him out to the patio and took a big whiff of the amazing aroma coming from the grill. “Have I told you yet today how awesome you are?”

  “You’re just hungry.”

  She laughed. “I am hungry, but you’re also awesome.”

  Jackson checked the chicken while Shaye poured them wine from the bottle on the patio table. They both sat down and Jackson looked over at her.

  “We figured it out,” he said. “All of it.”

  “Seriously? I mean, I hoped, but I was afraid you wouldn’t find enough to piece it all together.”

  “So was I, and we’re guessing on one thing, but I think the rest of it is solid.”

  “Tell me.”

  Jackson took a drink of wine and said, “I guess I’ll start at the beginning—when Thomas’s life began to fall apart. His dad worked for Malcolm St. Claire as an outside salesman. He made great money and the family had a nice life spending every dime of it. Then he got fired. The personnel reports that we got from St. Claire said that they caught him taking kickbacks from customers. He denied it, but they let him go anyway.”

  “So the great money went away.”

  “Yep. Thomas’s father was the only support. So along with the salary went the big house, nice cars, two vacations a year—”

  “And the girlfriend whose father didn’t approve of his daughter dating the son of a man who’d been fired over ethics.”

  “Even worse. Thomas’s father committed suicide, and Thomas and his mother moved to public housing in Bywater.”

  Shaye shook her head. “So Ross St. Claire was payback for Malcolm firing his father. It probably killed Thomas to see Ross living the high life that he’d once had.”

  “I’m sure. And by killing Ross, Malcolm suffers more.”

  “Amber was the most personal, because he loved her. I knew there was something different about her. What about Ethan?”

  “Ethan and Brenda both took a lot of ingenuity and a crap-ton of digging but I think we figured it out. Ethan and Thomas were both in contention for the same scholarship—a full ride.”

  “And Ethan got it. That makes so much sense. I mean, as much as any of this does.”

  “Thomas got another scholarship, but it didn’t pay for everything. He told people he was in school full time, but in reality, he was only taking two courses.”

  “It would have taken him a long time to finish that way.”

  Jackson nodded. “Brenda was a bit tougher to figure out, but when we interviewed her mother again, we asked specific questions about Thomas and she remembered that he applied for a position with the university library. It would have covered part of his tuition and paid a decent hourly rate.”

  “But he didn’t get it.”

  “She gave the position to the daughter of a friend of hers.”

  “So Thomas had to get a job working nights at the convenience store, with no school aid and probably a lower wage. What about Tara?”

  “That’s where we’re totally guessing, but neither Grayson nor I think Tara was originally a target. We think Thomas ended up targeting her because she brought you in to investigate, which led to us tying all the cases together. Basically, she messed up his perfectly made plans.”

  Shaye took a drink of her wine, everything Jackson had told her rolling through her mind. It was all fantastic, but it all fit. They might not be able to prove any of it, and with Thomas dead, they didn’t need to, but Shaye would bet anything that Grayson and Jackson were right on every point.

  “The only thing that’s still a bit of a question,” Jackson said, “is why now. Thomas’s dad committed suicide
over a year ago and Amber broke up with him right after that. Maybe it just kept building until he snapped.”

  “I think Thomas broke from sanity a little bit at a time, starting with his father’s death, but my guess is the catalyst for all of this was his mother’s death.”

  One of the first thoughts that had crossed Shaye’s mind when she was in the hospital was how Thomas’s mother was going to react. The woman had been through enough with the cancer, but finding out her son was a serial killer was going to be a lot worse. They’d all been surprised to learn that his mother had died six weeks before.

  Thomas had told Shaye his mother was “fine now.” She supposed given Thomas’s damaged mind, that was true enough.

  Jackson nodded. “I bet you’re right. The timing makes sense. We found DNA evidence in her car. Thomas had been using it to transport the victims and his bicycle. I think he wanted to keep up the act of the poor, geeky college student.”

  “It was a good act. I fell for it.”

  “So did George Moss. I’ve never seen a man more perturbed. When he learned that he’d been employing a serial killer, he called his attorney right then and told him to list the store for sale.”

  “Good. He needed to retire. How did things go with Brett?”

  Jackson laughed. “The new and improved Brett didn’t have a single stupid thing to say. I think he finally grasped just how close he came to dying or being arrested for murder. I think that whole FBI idea might be off the table.”

  “Maybe he’ll stop pretending as well.”

  Shaye stared out over the patio and into the pretty courtyard. She was happy for George and for his wife, who needed him at home with her and not angry all the time, but that wasn’t the thing that was at the forefront of her thoughts. The thing that had been plaguing her for days was front and center, daring her to address it.

  “Is everything all right?” Jackson asked.

  It was now or never.

  “No,” she said. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else.”

  Jackson frowned. “Of course.”

  Shaye looked directly at him. “You read my medical reports, so you know everything that was done to me.”

  “I do.”

  “You know I was pregnant and the doctors assumed the baby was stillborn because of my condition.”

  Jackson nodded and she could see his jaw flex. He cared for her so much, she couldn’t imagine how hard it was for him to know what had been done to her. The man who’d tortured her was dead but she wasn’t sure that was enough for Jackson. Wasn’t sure it ever would be.

  “I’ve been having dreams about the past. Sometimes the dreams are the truth and sometimes they’re not. When they’re the truth, I start remembering more and the things from the dreams eventually take focus. I’ve been dreaming about the birth.”

  Jackson’s eyes widened as if he knew what was coming.

  She took a deep breath. “My baby was born alive.”

  * * *

  Will Shaye discover more about her missing past? Find out late 2017.

  * * *

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