Jan Coffey Suspense Box Set: Three Complete Novel Box Set: Trust Me Once, Twice Burned, Fourth Victim

by Jan Coffey

  She agreed. The next twenty-four hours were all that she was giving herself to solve these killings.

  Playing it smart, more so than playing it safe, was the name of the game now.

  ~~~~

  For nearly an hour, Jake Gantley sat without moving on the top bunk. His legs hung over the edge. His back was ramrod straight. Eyes, intense and unblinking, burned the paint off the concrete wall four and a half feet away. Every muscle in his body appeared to be fixed in stone. His hands were fisted in his lap.

  His cell mate, Amir, leaned against the stainless steel sink, never looking directly at Jake, but keeping him in his peripheral vision. He’d heard in the yard about Frankie’s adios a good half hour before the warden had called Jake in to break the news. Word traveled fast inside the house, and Amir was feeling very lucky he’d heard before Jake did. There was no telling what a guy as dangerous as his cell mate might do. Now he could keep an eye on him.

  There were a lot of people on the inside who’d had dealings with Frankie for one thing or another. He was a decent bookie, fairly honest with money. Frankie even had enough connections that you could generally count on a job or two through him when you needed it. The fat boy had paid his dues with the family in Providence, too—before things started falling apart up there—so the current management now let him operate pretty much free of charge.

  And no one fucked with him for one reason…Jake Gantley.

  Now, killing Frankie made no sense. The word in the yard was that he was shot in his bed. One cat said he heard it was a family hit out of Providence. Another who was connected there said it must have been the Westies from New York. That made more sense—Amir had heard there was a job that went bad last year, and Frankie’d been fingered to take the blame.

  Well, whoever did it, they might as well just kiss their asses goodbye. Amir could see that much in Jake’s face.

  Amir ran a hand over his shaved head. He’d been ready for his cell mate to freak out when he got back from talking to the warden. He hazarded a quick look at Jake. Still deadly quiet. There was killing in the eyes. Amir didn’t care to be anywhere near the man, though there wasn’t much to be done about it. It wasn’t that he was scared. It was just that he knew when Jake finally exploded, it’d be blood he was after. And he’d come to like Jake’s wise-ass, mouthy attitude too much. He sure as hell didn’t want to kill him.

  One of the guards came by the barred door, and Amir watched as Jake jumped down from the bunk to go and talk to him. He knew the man and Jake were running a deal.

  Strange, Amir thought, that Jake did nothing to hide what he was telling the guard. No whispering. No nothing. Not cool. He looked past them. He could see the two brothers directly across watching. Definitely, not cool.

  “Call this number for me. Tell the guy who answers to come and see me this afternoon. Tell him I’ll have his scoop for him. Tell him, never mind the favor I asked for yesterday. Tell him, it has to be this afternoon. Get it?”

  “How about if nobody answers?”

  “Leave a message. Call back again if you have to. Don’t you know how to act like a fucking secretary?”

  “Hey, easy does it, Jake. What’s his name?”

  “Owen Dean,” Jake answered.

  Amir could see how impressed the guard looked. “You know him?”

  “Jump on this, and I’ll get him to autograph a picture for your wife. Now get moving, I need to get this show on the road.”

  Chapter 22

  A big neon sign. With a great big fat neon arrow pointing down at her and huge block letters reading “Look at me!”

  Might as well, Sarah thought. She’d already realized that standing beside Owen in public was certainly no way to avoid attention. With his six feet two inches of muscle and a face that most Americans knew better than their own next-door neighbor’s, Owen Dean turned heads wherever he went. And because he was such a celebrity, whoever walked with him or stood beside him drew people’s attention, as well. Well, this was the kind of scrutiny that Sarah couldn’t afford right now.

  On the other hand, if she were to stay away from him, the attention he attracted would certainly allow her to move more freely.

  The memorial service was to be held at Trinity Church, an old colonial building of white clapboard, distinguished by its Wren-inspired steeple, and the fact that George Washington had once or twice attended services there. The church, sitting at the top of a large green, looked out over the harbor and the trendy shops and restaurants of Bannister’s Wharf. Spring Street, which ran directly behind the church, was relatively empty. Only a few tourists and interested onlookers hovered on the cobbled sidewalks, watching the well-dressed coterie of Newport’s elite entering the church. A news van was parked in a nearby loading zone.

  Owen had been dead set against Sarah going inside the church, but she’d won that battle, as well. Now, however, she felt her stomach knotting up at the thought of entering. Several large groups converged on the entrance at once, just as she and Owen, walking on opposite sides of Spring Street, came up to the church. Mingling with the small crowd, Sarah kept her handkerchief to her face, looked no one in the eye, and entered the church.

  Owen hung back a little, pretending to look for a moment over the fence at the epitaph on one of the headstones in the historic churchyard, all the while watching Sarah enter ahead of him. Inside, she skirted a crowd in the vestibule. He followed a group into the church.

  Owen wasn’t about to engage anyone in conversation, but if anyone pressed him, he had a good line ready as to why he was attending. He would just say that he knew Hal Van Horn was a close family friend of the Warners—as he was himself. With Tracy still unconscious in the hospital, Owen felt it was incumbent upon him to represent the Warners and pay their respects. And no, he wasn’t planning on using the bizarre murders plaguing the seaside town for his TV series.

  Sarah was standing with dozens of people packed under the gallery. Every gated pew was filled, and the galleries above were jammed to capacity. Owen stood one pillar to her right. Far enough to draw attention away and yet close enough to get to her if there was a need.

  Leaving her large sunglasses on was not an issue, as many were doing the same thing to hide tears shed for Hal. Sarah fit right in with the hundreds of mourners filling the hall.

  In the front of the church, beside the white pulpit that rose a good six feet above the tops of the pews, a stand of flowers had been erected around a large portrait of a youthful Hal standing behind his mother.

  Waiting for the service to start, Sarah stared at the portrait for a moment, and then turned her attention to two women talking quietly behind her.

  “I’m surprised how quickly they arranged all this,” one woman commented.

  “I heard they don’t know when the medical examiner is going to release his body.”

  “It’s amazing what’s going around. I heard that the stabbing had to do with a drug sale that went bad.”

  “I heard that the attack was an arranged suicide put together by Hal himself. You know he’s been terribly depressed since Sarah’s death.”

  “Genevieve told me—you won’t believe this—Hal and Sarah Rand had a son before she came to Newport five years ago, and she’d put the kid up for adoption. She said Judge Arnold was not aware of this until recently. He became so upset with the news—that Sarah would deprive his wife of the joy of being a grandmother—that he had to kill her for Avery’s sake. Can you believe anyone would tell a story like that?”

  “You’ll never guess who’s watching us. Owen Dean.”

  “Where?”

  The service started. An organist played a beautiful eighteenth-century piece that Sarah thought Hal had probably never heard in his life. A clergyman she didn’t recognize then spoke at length about death and eternity. A soloist delivered a moving rendition of the requisite “Amazing Grace.” Finally, Senator Rutherford mounted the pulpit and began to tell stories from Hal’s childhood and adolescence. Suddenly, Sarah w
as stunned as he began to relate a conversation he’d had with Hal a week ago.

  “Many of you might know or might have heard how greatly Hal suffered after Sarah Rand’s murder not so long ago. Well, what you have heard is true. I remember his last words to me very clearly. ‘Gordon,’ he said, ‘Sarah and I had found a rare thing in this world. Friendship. Affection. Devotion. Love. I worshipped Sarah, and Sarah…for some reason…worshipped me. No two people out there have ever been better suited for each other than Sarah and I. Gordon,’ he said, ‘the future was ours to conquer. Happiness was ours for the taking. Out of respect for my mother’s memory, we had decided to keep it quiet for a while. But we both knew. Our time should have been now. We were going to tie the knot.’”

  Sarah glanced at Owen. A hardness had crept into his face as he looked up at the senator. Suddenly, she wished she could speak out, tell the truth within the walls of this church, tell everyone that this was far more than a ridiculous exaggeration of what she and Hal had been to each other. It was a lie. But how could she? She wanted to move to Owen’s side and touch his hand. She wanted to be sure that he wasn’t believing any of this.

  “‘We were soul mates, Gordon,’ Hal told me not a mile from this spot. ‘What we shared was close to divine. What I lost can never be replaced in this lifetime.’”

  Rutherford paused to control his quavering voice and quite a few handkerchiefs made their way to onlooker’s faces.

  Sorrow, however, was not what was infusing Sarah’s spirit at this moment. The senator’s misrepresentation of the truth appalled her, disgusted her. It was a lie, and she couldn’t believe that Hal would ever have said such things. Nonetheless, rather than demonstrating what had been good about Hal, this maudlin mush only served to highlight for her all his flaws.

  She had reconciled her past with him. She had no desire to dredge up the futility of their relationship. It was behind her now. But these fallacious words—no matter how well meaning the senator was in speaking them—were hurting her more than she’d ever thought possible.

  And then it struck her. Slowly, at first, the thought emerged, gradually blocking out the eulogy and filling her with repugnance. She’d never really been Hal’s type, but she fit a need for Hal. It just came down to image. She fit just the right image for his family, but mostly for the benefit of the judge, who exerted great influence over Hal’s mother.

  Unlike the legion of other women that Judge Arnold had always found lacking, one way or another, Sarah had immediately been welcomed by the family. She was a self-made woman on the way up. An underdog who was about to succeed. Hardworking. Smart. A good lawyer. Fairly attractive, but never flashy. She could see it now quite clearly. At some point Hal had gone out in search of the perfect vehicle for his move into responsible living, and Sarah had been it.

  She thought back to their first meeting. It had been arranged by one of Hal’s friends. It was no accident that he’d been in a certain restaurant on a certain night. Sarah had been an unconscious pawn in his schemes from day one.

  “Love outlasts death and the ravages of time.” Rutherford’s words echoed in the church. “These were my words to Hal that day. Having suffered for so many years ago as Hal was suffering that day, I shared with him the comfort that has kept me going. ‘Someday you and Sarah will meet again,’ I told Hal that night, ‘as, someday, Julia and I will rejoice in joining together again…for eternity.’”

  Once more, the senator paused to gather strength and collect his voice.

  “Those two lovers are now together again.”

  Many heads bowed. Sarah dabbed at her eyes as a photographer snapped a shot of a woman openly weeping near her.

  “But I never considered for an instant how soon Hal would be taken. Well…” Gordon Rutherford gazed up into the choir loft at the rear of the church. “‘Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’”

  From the green outside, the low melodic wail of a solitary bagpipe could be heard. Very effective, Sarah thought, focusing her attention on the people sitting in the first pews.

  The senator was joining Scott Rosen in the pew where Judge Arnold would have been placed if he had attended. In the next closed pew, Sarah looked over a number of Hal’s friends and employees. Looking the most upset by the ordeal was Gwen Turner, his secretary. Gwen would have walked to the ends of the earth for her employer. She would have swallowed fire or walked across hot coals if Hal had asked her to.

  Across from them, Evan Steele sat beside Linda, the judge’s office manager. Sarah considered that for a moment. When it came to the ongoing war between Judge Arnold and Hal, people generally had to take sides. Though Sarah had been reasonably successful, it was almost impossible for anyone involved with the family to remain neutral. Evan Steele had always been in Judge Arnold’s corner. There was no doubt where the man’s loyalties lay.

  With them, she noted the familiar face of Fran Bingham, a girlfriend of Hal’s as recently as a month ago. The woman’s face was a mask, and Sarah couldn’t help but wonder how Fran felt about all this talk of Hal’s eternal love for someone else.

  She was not surprised to see Captain Archer standing in the crowd under the far gallery. The detective’s pale, tired face showed no emotion regarding the proceedings whatsoever. He might have been watching grass grow, for all he was showing.

  She edged behind a pillar and looked again at those sitting nearest the front. There was a story behind most of them. Any of these people might have had a grudge or two against Hal. But none of them, Sarah believed, had ever had a reason for wanting her dead. Neither could she imagine any of them wanting to set up Judge Arnold for the murder. She frowned and glanced over in time to see Owen backing out the open church door. His nod was almost imperceptible, but Sarah knew he’d have the car where they’d agreed to meet.

  As another of the Van Horn’s family friends climbed the podium to recite a poem, Sarah started working her way along the side wall toward the door.

  She couldn’t take this anymore. And it was stupid to stand there and allow all her negative thoughts about Hal to take her down. The air in the place had become suffocating. It felt as if a great weight had somehow rolled onto her back. A sea of people stood in the way, but Sarah pushed through.

  Of course, what confused everything in her mind was Hal Van Horn stepping in front of her on Thursday night, sacrificing his own life to save hers.

  Was he a hero or a coward? Was she a realist or an ungrateful monster?

  She was almost to the door.

  Someone was watching her. Sarah felt it as surely as if a hand had been laid on her shoulder. Quickly, she glanced around. The poem-reading friend was just finishing and the organ overhead came to life. Mostly, all she saw were people’s backs.

  Everyone’s attention seemed to be focused on the front of the church. But she still felt the weight of someone’s watchful gaze. Accidentally, she bumped into an elderly couple standing away from the wall.

  Mumbling her apologies, she pressed on. When someone touched her elbow, she veered immediately to the left, around a heavyset man in a suit. Panic seized her at the feeling of someone still on her heels. She tried to push past the people blocking her path, but wherever she turned there were more of them.

  She felt someone grab for her arm again, and she tugged hard to get herself loose, shoving past a young man who had just stepped into the open doorway.

  Her low heels slipped on the first stone step, and she practically went headlong onto the sidewalk outside the church. She regained her footing, and turned around to look back at the church. Only the backs of people inside the door were visible. No one was watching her. No one was following her.

  More people were strolling in the bright sunshine along the street. Sarah looked at the church again. Nothing. Only the sound of the organ. She started down Spring Street.

  She was losing it. The entire thing had been a product of her imagination.

  Owen was to meet her two streets away.
She tucked the handkerchief she’d been carrying in her purse and fell in behind two gay men sauntering along hand in hand.

  “Miss Rand.”

  The sound of her name whispered in her ear was as terrifying as the metallic object she felt pressed into her back. Her heart hammering in her chest, Sarah winced at the viselike grip he had on her upper arm.

  “Nice and easy, Miss Rand.”

  There was something about the voice that struck a familiar cord.

  “Eyes straight ahead,” he growled, jabbing the pistol into her kidneys for emphasis. “Keep walking.”

  She could feel the jacket or something that he had draped over his gun hand bumping against her. She felt her legs becoming rubbery. No one was looking at them as if anything were wrong.

  “You…you have the wrong person.” She finally managed to get out the words.

  “I don’t think so, Miss Rand.”

  She guessed he was fairly tall. From the grip he had on her, she knew he was very strong. Everything she’d ever heard and learned about attacks on women flashed into her head. They were in a public place. Even though he was holding a gun, she knew she had to fight him here to have any chance of surviving.

  “Now, we are going to walk nice and easy across the street and get into my car.”

  She planted her feet.

  “Act stupid and I’ll kill you here, Miss Rand. We don’t mind public scenes. Remember your boyfriend?”

  Sarah’s gaze flickered toward a blue sedan just pulling out of a parking space up the street. Her abductor gave her a harder shove, and she started across the street.

  They were half way across when she saw the blue sedan unexpectedly speed up, heading right at them. She planted her feet again, refusing to be pushed.

  Sarah sensed her attacker’s surprise at the onrushing car and her reaction. As the pressure of the gun against her back disappeared and his grip relaxed, she tore her arm away, kicking him as hard as she could in the shin before diving toward the sidewalk.