by K. J. Dahlen
“You know even if you run, Michael will come here and try to take us out,” Demon said the words out loud. “He has to, you said it yourself, he has to protect his secret. To him this is his survival. He can’t get caught, he has to keep his secret or become hunted like the animal he’s become.”
Jessie just stared at him.
Demon smiled slightly at her and explained, “We know a little something about the human physic too, sweetheart.”
Lucifer glared at the endearment Demon threw out there. His arm tightened around her waist and he brought her closer to his body.
Demon stared at his friend and fought a smile. “Like Lucifer said, we’re trained by the best and part of that training involves anticipating what your opponent will do next. This bastard Michael thinks he’s smart and no doubt, he is very smart but we still got something he doesn’t.”
Jessie followed his gaze and was surprised to find more of Lucifer’s men had joined them. She looked back at Demon.
“We are coming together for a common goal. Our own survival. He may know how to kill but so do we and believe me when I tell you, we are so much better than he will ever be at killing someone. We’re soldiers. Each and every one of us has been trained in various ways to take out the man coming at us with death in his mind. We’ve also been trained to protect, not only ourselves but innocents. And sweetheart, Michael may have been killing longer than anyone realized but together we’ve been doing it longer.” He paused and looked her in the eyes. His own eyes were cold and harsh while in her eyes he could see the fear and slight edge of panic. “Don’t you ever doubt we can and will protect what’s ours. And Jessie, you belong to us now. Lucifer has claimed you and each and every one of us will protect you with our lives if need be. This will end here. Michael began his killing spree on this farm and it will end right here… on this farm.”
Jessie turned her head and buried it in Lucifer’s broad chest. Her tears soaked his shirt and she felt his arms surround her. Turning her head slightly, she found his heartbeat and her world was complete.
Lucifer cleared his throat and glanced over at his second in command. “She raised a point though.”
Demon nodded. “I know. If Michael is watching this place and he sees people coming and going, he’ll know his secret is out.”
Jessie turned her gaze to Demon. “He already knows his secret is out. His journals are gone and Michelle is gone. We know that much already. What we don’t know is who he is and what he’s going to do next.”
Stinger walked in the room following her statement and stopped next to Lucifer.
Lucifer glanced up at his man, noting his tired eyes and exhausted stance. “What did you find?”
“More than I ever wanted to know about this freak,” Stinger told him with a grimace as he handed over a batch of papers. He ran his hands across his face.
“Who are you talking about Captain?” Jinx sat up and glared at Lucifer. “Something we need to know?”
Lucifer moved Jessie around his lap, so she was sitting on his thigh while he read the papers Stinger brought him. “Do you all remember the man Charlie talked about last night, Jordan Tate? How Jessie knew the name but couldn’t remember the man? Well, she remembered where she saw the name. It was at her grandmother’s farm. Jordan Tate stayed with Emma at some point. When she remembered that I had Stinger look into Jordan’s background.”
Stinger grimaced. “It wasn’t easy to find anything beyond the normal background but I finally broke through his false background.”
“False background?” Demon asked.
Stinger glanced over at him. “Oh, yeah. Jordan Tate is not who he claims to be.”
“Who the fuck is he then?” a voice called out from the doorway. Everyone turned to find Charlie Boone standing there. They all watched in silence as he drew near the table and waited for Stinger to explain his findings.
Stinger growled. “He was born Frank Lowe, fourth son and youngest child of Mary and Sam Lowe in a small rural town in Kentucky called Summit Grove. It’s located at the base of the Appalachian Mountains. He had seven brothers and sisters altogether and from what I found, Sam Lowe was a real bastard. He’s doing life and has been since he beat a man and his wife to death twenty-five years ago. It’s unclear at the moment but something happened that set off his dad. Sam claims he caught his wife with the other man but the evidence showed Sam was wrong about his wife. The other man had been trying to rape her in front of two of her kids. Testimony was presented that the other man, Lyle Oban was a sleazy guy and that he often took advantage of women. He was wanted for rape in three other states. How he managed to get to the wife no one knows but when Sam found them together he beat both of them to death. Sam was known to beat on his family when he drank and it wasn’t a surprise to anyone when they found him passed out with blood all over him and two dead bodies nearby. Frank went into the system when he was ten years old, along with his brothers and sisters. He was always in trouble and he was teamed up with his older brother, Michael in a foster home.”
Jessie looked pale as she held onto Lucifer.
The other men in the room all looked tense.
Stinger sighed. “His juvenile file is sealed but there was a problem and Michael ended up dead. Frank went to kiddy jail when he was twelve and stayed there until he aged out at eighteen. According to the doctors in charge of his case, he was rehabilitated. That’s when he changed his name legally to Gordan Bates. Shortly after that, Gordan Bates fell off the grid and Jordan Tate took his place. It was as Jordan Tate that went into the police academy and graduated high honors.”
“But they do a complete background check before they allow you into the academy,” Charlie informed them in disbelief.
Stinger shrugged. “It isn’t that hard to fake a background, especially if your life depends on it. You just need to know what and how far they check it. This is all speculation mind you, but he wanted a new life and he got it. This is what we do know. The real Jordan Tate disappeared during a weekend hike with his friend Gordan Bates. Jordan claimed the other man fell off the edge of a cliff during their hike. It took police and rescue two days to recover his body two days as it had fallen into an unreachable crevice, but it was in bad shape. The sun and the fall made the body unrecognizable and as he’d already been identified as Gordan Bates, the accident was closed. You see, Gordan had done his homework really well, he found the perfect person to knock off and take over their lives and that’s exactly what he did here. He reinvented himself, so no would know his background, what he was or what his life started out as. He was a man with something to hide and he hid it well under the guise of respectability.”
“Not well enough if you found it,” Charlie grumbled.
Stinger glanced over at Lucifer then shrugged. “Well, I knew he was hiding something and some of my methods might not have been strictly legal, if you know what I mean.”
Charlie waved that information off as if he didn’t need to know it. “Why if this is all true has no one caught onto the fact this man is a fraud before now? I mean I met him and have spoken to him several times. A serial killer as a profiler? If that don’t beat all.”
“He’s that good at hiding his true self,” Jessie piped in. “He’s got the perfect psychopathic personality. He can hide his deception and lies and he thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. He has absolutely no remorse at all for the lives he’s ruined or the women he’s killed. As long as he plays his part, he figures no one will catch him.”
“We really need those journals young lady.” Charlie stared at her.
“I’ll have to get them and make you a copy.” She looked over at Lucifer. She began wringing her hands together.
Concerned, Lucifer came over to her. “What’s wrong?”
She looked over at Charlie. “There was something more than just the journals. It was a small box and in it were items from his victims. Mostly jewelry and small items.” Tears welled in her eyes as she whispered, “The journal tol
d of nine deaths altogether. One was only a child. I found a pair of child’s barrettes in the box.”
Charlie closed his eyes and stood very still for a moment. “Did the journal mention the name Francine Morgan and her daughter Ashley?”
Jessie looked quickly over at Lucifer and then turned her saddened gaze back to Charlie.
Charlie seemed to crumble a little. “I know he’s been looking for them for six and a half years. I kept hoping he would find them alive. Now, well… now I know he never will.”
“Who the fuck is he?” Lucifer asked.
“My friend Mitch Kimber. The FBI agent I talked to last night.”
Jessie asked, “How did he know Francine and Ashley?”
Charlie took a deep breath. “Mitch and I have been friends a very long time. We knew each other in high school. I knew Frannie as well. Me, Frannie and Mitch went to school together. In our senior year, she went to live with her grandmother in St. Louis. She never got the chance to tell him why she was leaving, one day she was there and the next day she was simply gone. He was devastated that she would just leave without telling him. Years later, I found out that she was pregnant with his child and her father wouldn’t let her tell him. So I told him about her and the baby. He went to find her then. It took him about a year to find them. He had just found her again and they were going to be married when she and Ashley disappeared. Mitch thought her father had sent her somewhere else, but when I confronted him about it, he told me that his actions cost him too much the first time.”
He took a moment to gather his thoughts, then continued with his story, “You see, Francine wouldn’t forgive her father for sending her away and shutting Mitch out of their lives. As soon as she turned eighteen, she left her grandma’s home with the baby and it was years before she called her father. She was just getting reconciled with her parents when she disappeared again.”
Jessie wanted to reach out to him but she didn’t. Instead, she simply told him, “I’m sorry.”
“Mitch has been going slowly crazy looking for them both. Six, almost seven years he’s been trying to track them down and they’ve been this close to home the whole time. This news is going to kill him. He kept hoping the girls were alive somewhere, hoping he would find them, so they could be a family finally.” Charlie shook his head. Then he raised his head to stare at Jessie. “Tell me something…”
“If I can.”
“Did this bastard hurt Ashley? Other than killing her I mean. He didn’t rape her did he?” Charlie’s whole body seemed rigid as he asked.
Jessie shook her head. “No he didn’t violate her.” She hung her head briefly then looked up at Charlie as her body trembled. “He did slit her throat making Frannie watch as her daughter bled out. Frannie went a little crazy and she fought to hold her daughter one last time. In the struggle, Michael stabbed her. Frannie died holding her daughter in her arms and that’s how he buried them, together.”
No one said anything as Jessie recited the words Michael wrote about Frannie and Ashley’s deaths.
Finally taking a deep breath and releasing it, Charlie spoke, “That is no conciliation but at least it’s something. He’s gonna want to know where they are buried and he’s going to want whatever jewelry Michael kept of theirs. Can you at least give him that much? Give him the barrettes and whatever jewelry belonged to Frannie?”
Jessie nodded. “That, I can do.”
“How long will it take you to go and get this stuff and bring it back here?” Charlie asked.
“At least a couple of hours. It isn’t that far away but I’ll need time to make the copies for you.”
Charlie looked troubled. “Mitch wants me to get the original journals. In fact, he demanded that when I told him you found them.”
“Uncle Charlie,” Demon called out. “She’s already told you she won’t do that and she told you why. She’s cooperating completely.”
Charlie snapped his head around to glare at Demon. “You think I don’t know that? That I don’t respect her decision? I do but this is going to hit Mitch hard, not only him but the whole Morgan family.” Shaking his head, he added, “They’re going to want answers and then they’re going to want Jordan Tate behind bars for the rest of his life. And you know what? I don’t blame them at all.”
“There’s only one problem with all of this…” Jessie spoke up.
“And what would that be?” Charlie stared at her.
“All we have is speculation here and the man posing as Jordan Tate is smart, plus he knows the law.” Jessie pointed out. “The recording we got last night doesn’t show his face and Stinger admitted that part of the info he got wasn’t legal. Let’s not forget he uses the name Michael in the journal when he talks about himself. We may know the killer is Jordan Tate but we have to prove it in a court of law and Jordan is smart enough to know how to point the finger at someone else. He’s had at least ten years to place evidence here that would pin one of these guys as the killer in question.”
“Well, hell’s bells, woman.” Charlie swore out loud, as he looked blown away by her realistic supposition. “You said you were a physical therapist? You shoulda been a cop.”
Chapter Eleven
A little while later seven bikes roared down the highway. Lucifer rode lead cycle but Demon, Jinx, Hades, Aries, Butcher, and Zeus came up right behind and all around him.
Jessie’s arms were wrapped around Lucifer’s waist and they were on their way to where she’d hidden Michael’s journals and the small box of mementoes he’d kept hidden all these years.
Half way between Colten’s Edge and Whiskey Bend a few days ago, Jessie had stopped for coffee in another small town called Brehmerton when she got the idea she might need the books as evidence. Brehmerton had post office with rental boxes and she had rented one of the boxes for a week.
When they got to the post office, Lucifer and Jessie got off his bike and went inside. The others waited for them and kept watch in case someone had followed them.
Squatting down to open the box Lucifer asked, “Where are you going to copy the pages?”
Jessie looked up at him. “I thought we could do that back at your place.”
Lucifer took a deep breath. He saw trust in her eyes and that humbled him. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
“I do. I know you won’t put your men in danger by giving the FBI these journals until they have concrete evidence that would clear your men. No matter what I know, you won’t give up on your men, or your farm. You once told me you protect what’s yours.”
“You forgot one very important thing I claimed. You forgot you belong to me now and I’ll protect you with my life, as will my men.” He growled.
She smiled and got to her feet, the journals clutched tightly to her chest. Her hand cupped his jaw as she asked, “Does that mean you belong to me too?”
“Never doubt that for even a moment,” he replied without hesitation. He handed her a small backpack and she put the journals and the box inside, then handed the pack over to him.
Lucifer hesitated for a moment then took the pack. With a hand on her lower back, he ushered her back out to his bike. He stored the pack in his saddlebags and threw his leg over the belly of his bike.
When they got back to the farm, Lucifer handed the books over to Demon to make the copies they promised to give to Charlie and Mitch. Jessie carried the small box over to the table and set it down. Taking a chair, she stared at the box for a moment.
Lucifer and several of his men came to sit down near her.
“So what’s in the box?” Hades asked a few minutes later.
Jessie reached for the box and after she opened it, she tipped the contents out on the wooden surface. Rings and necklaces spilled out on the table. No one moved to the pile of jewelry until Jessie reached out to pick up one of the items. “This necklace belonged to my friend Sydney. She disappeared four years ago. She took off one weekend on a trip. She’d been working on a project for work and she needed time to unw
ind. She never came back. We never knew what happened to her. She just disappeared.” She paused then added, “Until I saw that necklace, I still didn’t know what happened to her. I kept hoping she would come home one day, now I know she never will.”
Lucifer glanced over at her and saw tears rolling down her cheeks. He leaned toward her grasping the back of her neck and hauled her closer to him. He touched their foreheads together and just held her for the longest time.
She finally broke the connection between them and leaned back in her own chair and after a moment, she wiped the tears away. “We need to get this bastard. We can’t let him do this to anyone else.”
“Babe, the cops are on this. They’ll get him.” Lucifer nodded.
Jessie turned her head slowly and caught his eyes.
Something in her eyes held his gaze. Something he never thought he’d see there. Pure unadulterated hate. “Jessie, what’s going on?” he asked softly.
Jessie searched her mind for the right way to express herself. Finally, she just shrugged and said, “I’ve been terrified since I found the journals. All Jordan Tate could take was my life and no one would care. There’s no one who would miss me. My family is gone and the only friend I had, disappeared years ago.” She paused and looked around the room. “When I came here to find if Michelle was indeed buried here, I didn’t know what I was going to do if I did find her. But I had to try, you know? I had to try. Then I found you guys. When I told you my story, you didn’t look at me as if I was crazy. You might not have believed me at first, but you didn’t dismiss it either. Instead, you stood beside me. You checked out my story and I expected that, but you stood beside me too. I-I don’t feel so alone anymore. But I feel so empty too. He got away with murdering my friend and all these others.”
Lucifer sighed and stroked her arm. “You won’t ever be alone again.”
