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

by Jan Coffey

  “Look at that,” she said softly. “I’ll bet you a paycheck that’s blood.”

  ~~~~

  The summer rain continued steadily, falling in huge droplets from the leaves of the trees overhead.

  Chris hated being wet, but he waited until the police car, followed by Heather and her old man, left the street. He climbed over the stone wall. He saw the old Honda was still parked in the Hardys’ driveway.

  He needed a car. He had to get away from Stonybrook. He had to run, even though he still didn’t know where.

  The Hardy house looked all shut up. The windows were closed and the lights were off. He peered around the decrepit carriage house and noticed the basement window he’d used to get in Monday night had a piece of plywood hammered over it. She wouldn’t keep her keys inside there anyway, he thought, running up the driveway toward the car.

  He tried the doors. Locked.

  Heather’s dog was barking somewhere inside their house next door. He heard the Hardy woman call something to the animal. A minute later, he watched through the railings of her porch as she came out the Conklin’s front door.

  Her voice carried across the lawn. She was talking to the dog. “Not much of a storm to watch.”

  Chris saw her sit down on one of the wicker chairs with the dog at her side. He took off around the back of the houses.

  Everybody kept their keys in their kitchen. Everybody.

  His shoes barely made any noise at all as he climbed the back steps. The Conklin’s back door was open. Chris quietly opened the door and went in.

  He knew the layout of the house. The last time Heather was staying with her father, he’d been in and out of this house a few times. He glanced toward the front door. Through the length of the house, he saw the closed screen door to the front porch. He shot a quick glance at the walls for a key rack. There was none.

  He looked on the counters for Léa’s pocketbook, for anywhere she might drop the keys. Nothing.

  “It’s raining, Max. Your father’s right, you are an idiot.” She was joking with the stupid dog. He froze as he saw her shadow pass in front of the screen door.

  “Okay, just a quick walk around the block.”

  The front door opened, and he drew back behind the door into the kitchen. He breathed again when she didn’t come into the house, at all. He heard the door again, and realized she was reaching for the dog’s leash in the basket by the door.

  As soon as her voice drifted off the porch, he moved out of the kitchen. Conklin’s truck keys would do, too, even though the business lettering on the side would make it easier to spot on the road. He quickly looked inside the study. There was nothing on the desk. He hurried through the house and up the stairs. He went past Heather’s door to the guest room where he assumed Léa was staying.

  “He spotted her purse on a bureau. Rushing now, he dumped the contents onto one of the beds. The keys dropped out with the rest, and he pocketed them. He quickly went through her wallet and took all the cash and a credit card.

  He strode back out of the room, but couldn’t help but stop at Heather’s doorway. The furniture was the same as he remembered from before, but the room was messier now. He saw a pair of her underwear near the door, and picked it up. He felt the silky texture, rubbed it against his cheek. It was as soft as Marilyn’s.

  He remembered the feel of Heather’s wet warmth when he touched her Monday night. He should have fucked her. She wouldn’t have complained much if he’d gone all the way. Marilyn always said she liked it rough. The rougher the better.

  Chris thought he heard a noise outside. Quickly, he stuffed the underwear in his back pocket and hurried downstairs.

  “Chris, what are you doing here?” Léa was standing with a leash in her hand inside the front door.

  ~~~~

  “I…I was looking for Heather.”

  Léa hoped her surprise at finding him here hid her fear. At the sound of Chris’s voice, Max started barking furiously from outside the screen door. She reached back to open the door and let the dog in.

  “Don’t!” the teen said sharply. “Leave him out there.”

  “Sure. Whatever.” She forced herself to stay calm. The dog jumped up on the screen, scratching to get in.

  “Close the door.”

  Léa closed the front door.

  “Drop the leash.”

  She dropped it in the basket. “Heather’s not home right now, but I’ll be glad to tell her when she gets in that you stopped by.”

  “Yeah, right! So she can tell me to get lost again.”

  His face was flushed and his breathing uneven. When she’d first spotted him, his hand went into his jeans pocket. It came out now holding a closed pocketknife. She had faced a number of angry and aggressive students who were ready to explode in her career, but none of them had ever pulled a knife on her.

  “She confuses the hell out of me.” He took a step down. “One minute she’s hot for me, and the next she is stomping on my foot and shoving me away.”

  Léa maintained an open stance and kept her voice calm. “I know what you mean.”

  “I don’t like girls my age. I never have. But Heather was always different. She doesn’t think like the rest of them. She doesn’t go around, trying to get a new boyfriend every other day. I don’t know how many guys she had when she was in California, but since she’s been back, I’m the only one that she’s gone out with.”

  “That’s true.” Léa realized that he was in no rush to get out. “Is there anything I can do for you, Chris?”

  The phone started ringing on the coffee table a few steps away. “I’m expecting a call from my lawyer. She knows I’m here.”

  She didn’t ask him if it was okay to pick it up. She calmly walked over and answered it.

  “Léa.” Mick’s voice was a welcome sound. “I’ve got more news.”

  “Hi.” She casually turned to face Chris. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, facing her. The knife was now open, the blade pressed against his leg.

  “We’re up at the lake. The police have found blood in the Webster’s cabin. Rich also just got a report from the fire investigators that it looks like someone may have used a crowbar or something to jam the door to Dusty’s trailer shut from the outside. Somebody set the thing on fire with him inside. I want you to be careful. I don’t know what the heck is going on, but I’m worried about you.”

  “Thanks, Sarah!” she said brightly. “Call me again if you find something else.”

  Léa turned off the phone and laid it back down on the coffee table.

  Chapter 31

  “We’ve searched the kid’s car at the garage.” One of the officers was saying to the chief. “They found a steel box containing photographs of Marilyn Hardy and others in the trunk.”

  Mick stared at his phone. Then her words clicked.

  “Somebody is at house,” he said, starting for his car with Rich and Heather following. “Léa is in trouble.”

  “It could be the kid.” The police chief whipped out his cell phone. “The closest cruiser we have is at the mill.”

  Heather barely had her seatbelt on when Mick threw the car in reverse and sped back up the drive.

  “Please God, let her be okay. Please God,” she whispered. She turned to Mick. “He tried to take a picture of me, Dad. He’s sick, like Marilyn was. She always had cameras in the house. I should have stopped him.”

  “This is not your fault,” Mick said grimly. “And Léa will be okay. We’ll be there in a few minutes. But she’ll know how to deal with him. I just know it. She can handle him.”

  ~~~~

  Léa could see the muscles tensing in the teenager’s arm. The blade of the knife still pointed to the floor.

  “That was Sarah Rand,” she offered, as if there were nothing wrong. “She’s Ted’s new lawyer, and she’s darn good. Hey, I could go for a glass of iced tea. Would you like some?”

  As casually as she could muster, she started toward the kitchen. The back
door was unlocked. Léa considered running for it.

  “I like iced tea.” He was right at her shoulder.

  No chance of running. When she reached inside a cabinet for glasses, Chris moved to the back door and closed it. Léa noticed the teenager’s gaze fall on the white envelope she’d left on the counter.

  “You should have listened to him. You should have gone.”

  “I couldn’t go before thanking him…before thanking you.”

  His eyes were cold when they fixed on her face. “You knew it was me?”

  She managed to laugh as naturally as possible.

  “It doesn’t matter, but you just told me. You knew what was in the letter without looking at it.” She handed him one of the glasses of iced tea. “So…thanks, Chris.”

  He didn’t say anything, and Léa sat back against the kitchen table. The kid looked lost. His eyes swept the floor. Clearly, he didn’t know what he wanted to do next.

  Bits of information started fitting together in her mind. Chris had all the markings of a Class-A sexual predator. So did Marilyn when she was alive. He’d wanted to manipulate and control Léa with those letters. Marilyn had the same behavioral characteristics.

  “So you believe Ted’s innocent,” she said, keeping her tone conversational.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “That’s what your letters said.”

  “I was only saying what you wanted to hear, jerking you around. I wanted you to come back to Stonybrook.” He smiled. “And you bought it.”

  “Why did you want me back here?” Léa asked, knowing full well that with each question she might be pushing him in the wrong direction. The dog was still barking furiously at the front door.

  “Like I said, to jerk you around. And to pit the wolves against one another. To stir things up. Everyone who Marilyn hated. You. Mr. Slater. Stephanie. Brian. Jason. There were others, too. It was just like the good old days, with Marilyn.”

  “I had nothing to do with her.”

  “She hated you when she was still married to him.” He shrugged. “Anyway, you had to be a stand-in for your brother. How was I going to have fun watching the shit hit the fan when there’s no one standing in for Ted?”

  “Clever.” Léa took a sip of her ice tea. “The stuffed toy in Stephanie’s car was also very clever.”

  “That was okay. I liked sending pictures better.”

  “I never saw them.”

  “That’s because she didn’t have any of herself with her husband.”

  “Where did you get them, Chris? She’s dead.”

  “She gave me some of the negatives to get copies.” He shrugged. “I got the rest from her cottage before the police got to it.”

  Léa put her glass down. Sitting in the middle of the kitchen table was the camera Heather had used to take pictures of the work party the night before.

  “So that was it? You just wanted a little group activity where you could tease everybody for a couple of days?”

  “Not tease. Make them suffer,” he corrected. “I had to finish what Marilyn started. She hated those people.”

  She took another sip of ice tea.

  “You are good. I have to hand it to you, Chris. So, did you kill Dusty? And Jason? Did you kill everybody?”

  “I didn’t want to kill those two creeps. But shit happens.” He leaned against the counter. With the blade of his knife, he started carving something into the countertop.

  “Brian will suffer because Jason is gone.”

  “I always liked Brian. He didn’t need that asshole.”

  “What about Bob Slater and Stephanie?” she asked. “You wanted to drive her over the edge? That’s it?”

  “That’s enough. He’s a useless cripple, anyway.”

  “And what about me?”

  “If you’d left town when I told you, then you would only have had to watch your brother fry. But now—” He straightened from the counter. “I don’t like loose ends. Everything in its place.”

  Léa didn’t get up. She didn’t cringe when she saw the light change in Chris’s face. She had no doubt that this was the face of a killer, but Mick was coming, she told herself. He’d be here any minute now.

  “Was Marilyn good to you?”

  “Yeah, she was unbelievable.”

  The fact that she wasn’t standing up and backing away or putting up a fight, or even behaving fearfully, was obviously throwing him for a loop. He halted a couple of steps from her.

  “You loved her, didn’t you, Chris?”

  “Of course, I did. And she loved me, too.”

  “Then why did she screw around with all those other guys when she had you?” She reached for the camera and held it up. “Why the big deal about the pictures.”

  “She only did that to get even. She really only loved me.”

  “You’re too smart a kid to believe that baloney. But I can tell you I treat my boys a lot better than that. And I don’t lie to them.”

  “Your boys?”

  “Of course. You think Marilyn is the only woman in the world who likes younger men? We know a stud when we see one. That’s what she used you for, Chris. Nice, strong young body. Quick learner. Somebody she could use to follow her around like a puppy and do her bidding. I’ll bet she even had you take some of those pictures for her.”

  “So what?”

  She noticed the goose bumps rising on his bare arms. She held the camera against her cheek. “Didn’t you hate her for it, Chris? Weren’t you jealous at all?”

  “Sometimes.” He took a step closer. “I couldn’t help it. But she loved me.”

  He was in striking range. “Didn’t you want to kill her for using you?”

  “No! I loved her.”

  “Didn’t you want to be in those pictures yourself?”

  A victorious look showed on his face. “I was in some of them. A lot of them. She took her time when she was with me. Let me do whatever I wanted to her. Anything at all.”

  “And who did she send those pictures of you to?” Léa asked, casually bringing the camera to her eye and looking through the view finder at him. “Was she using you to hurt someone else? Your parents? Or was she really trying to hurt you?”

  He was trembling all over. She saw him raise the knife.

  Léa lowered the camera and looked straight into his eyes. “You can admit it. You’re among friends. You see, I’m just like Marilyn. I’d have used you, Chris, the same way she did. You’re a toy. Nothing else. Just the means of hurting more people. But you’re a smart boy. You should have figured that out by yourself.”

  “I did.”

  “I thought so. And you hated her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Enough to want to kill her?”

  “Yes!”

  The camera flash exploded in his eyes just as he drew back the knife. Léa threw herself back across the table and went tumbling to the floor just as Mick hurtled across the kitchen and slammed Chris’s body against the wall.

  In an instant, the kitchen was filled with police.

  Léa lay there stunned. All her gung-ho courage of a moment ago was gone. She realized she was shaking like a leaf.

  Chris wasn’t putting up any fight. She watched with a strange sense of disconnectedness as someone read him his rights while another officer put handcuffs on him.

  Léa found Mick’s arms around her. “Are you okay? Tell me you are okay.”

  “I’m okay.”

  She clung tightly to him. She’d seen Mick at the kitchen door just as she lowered the camera. That had given her the courage to ask the last question.

  “How did you get in?”

  He was touching her arms, her face, as if he had to check for himself to make sure she was okay.

  “The front door. With all Max’s barking, I was hoping I could sneak up on him. I can’t believe how close he came to really hurting you.”

  “Where is Heather?”

  “She’s in the car. She almost went crazy, worrying about you.�
��

  Léa sat up, still holding on to Mick. She tried to get her bearings.

  “I don’t know what you said to him before,” Rich Weir said, crouching in front of her as a couple of the officers took Chris out. “But I loved hearing that last answer. Anytime you’re looking for a job as an interrogator—”

  “Get in line, pal.” Mick helped her to her feet and wrapped an arm around her. “She owes me some answers before we discuss any jobs with you.”

  She turned to Mick and nestled against his chest. She could feel his strength flowing into her.

  “Léa!” Heather ran into the room. “Is it really over?”

  “Yes.” She brought the teenager into their embrace. “This nightmare is really over.”

  Chapter 32

  “Just give me fifteen minutes.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me come in with you?”

  Joanna shook her head and kissed Andrew on the lips. “I have to do this alone.”

  She turned the collar of her coat up against the rain. She hurried up the pathway and passed beneath the trellis blooming with fragrant climbing roses.

  A glance over her shoulder told her that the flower shop was already closed.

  She rang the front doorbell once and waited for Gwen to answer. This had been as much her house as her sister’s. Both of them—no, the three of them, she corrected—had been raised under this roof. But she had no ties to it. She made no claim on it.

  The door opened wide, and Gwen stepped aside. “You’re back?”

  “No,” Joanna said. “I’m here to get my clothes. One suitcase should handle everything I care to take.”

  She didn’t wait for a response, but strode quickly past her sister and up the stairs.

  From her closet she took out the only large suitcase she had and laid it on the bed. Without any concern for tidiness, she moved her clothes from the drawers and closet to the suitcase.

  It was amazing how little she owned. But really, it made perfect sense, considering she’d never gone too far. She stacked three pairs of shoes and a pair of sneakers on top of everything.