Next Girl On The List - A serial killer thriller (McRyan Mystery Series Book)

by Roger Stelljes

  “I was rich and he was making me richer, so I funded his sojourns out of the country, and in turn, he provided me so much insight.

  “You see, Mac and Dara, I was every bit as much of a gunner as Maynard was. The difference is I had all of the skills. I had the book and street smarts and even more importantly, I had the vision. The rest of the world truly is wearing bifocals.

  “Think about it, just think about it,” April urged with a wide smile, enthusiastically gesturing to the camera, sitting forward in the chair. “Think about the vision of what I did. To be able to study a serial killer up close in the wild, in his native habitat, planning the killing with him, steering him toward the victims, studying him while he did it, the victims and their interactions together is something nobody has done. It was something nobody else had dreamed of doing.

  “So many people would spend their time interviewing captured serial killers to try to understand their mind.”

  April shook her head and snorted. “Boring. What was exciting was studying Maynard while in action? Out in the wild? You have no idea what that meant for me.

  “I learned so much more than anyone possibly could about how a mind like that works. And of course, it did allow me to help the FBI catch many killers, to burnish my reputation, to make sick gobs of money and provide me yet greater access to cases and killers around the country. But,” she added and a devilish grin swept across her face, “I also used what I learned when it suited my needs and my desires.”

  “Oh shit,” Mac muttered, understanding where April was going.

  “You don’t think?” Wire asked, looking to him.

  Mac just nodded.

  “Oh, I so wish I could see your expressions now,” Greene laughed and smiled, sitting back into her chair, right leg back over her left, her hands softly clasped together under her chin, elbows resting on the chair’s arms. “I bet you two just thought it was Maynard, didn’t you?” She shook her head and smiled. “No, no, no, there have been others I followed, watched, studied, encouraged and even assisted. Many others, and—” She added with a darker expression, “there will be more.”

  She paused for a moment to let that sink in.

  “Unfortunately, your immediate success has meant that I have to go away for some time and make some changes of my own. After all, I can’t make the game easy for you. I’m sure you understand. In fact, I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to make it easy. Mac, to quote something you like to say— what would be the fun of that?”

  “Me and my big mouth,” Mac muttered, glancing to Wire.

  “Mac, I truly hope your wedding is everything you hoped it would be. You are a very lucky man. Sally Kennedy is a beautiful and bright woman. Take good care of her.”

  “Dara,” Greene stated with a knowing smile, “enjoy Ridge while it lasts. I did once and have thought of those two nights often. He is a very vigorous lover. Please feel free to tell him that. I’m sure he’d want to know that truth. He’ll probably revel in it.”

  April exhaled and lightly clasped her hands together. “Well, that’s it. There is so much more I could say but I think it best for me to just save it until next time. You know, I can hardly wait. We’ll have so much to talk about.” She leaned forward in the chair. “So, until we meet again, I will simply bid you two adieu.”

  The screen slowly went dark.

  The room stood in stunned silence.

  “Did I just really watch that?” Wire asked in shock, breaking the silence.

  “I guess now we know who the dominant one was.”

  “She manipulated him, manipulated other killers, manipulated the FBI. Heck, she’s manipulated everyone.”

  “Yes, she did,” Mac mused as he picked up the carnation and twisted it with his fingers.

  “What do you make of the carnation?”

  “It’s a calling card,” Mac answered, turning to Wire. “Sometime, somewhere, we will find it lying next to a dead body, and when we do, we’ll know the game and the manipulation is on again.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “How can you of all people let it go?”

  The wedding day was everything he hoped for.

  Dick, Rock and Riles were present and fully tuxedoed, along with Chief Flanagan as well as Mac’s family, Uncle Shamus, Paddy and Shawn, and the others. The Kennedy clan was present en masse, always a fun group, livening up the party. Judge Dixon and even President Thomson made an appearance, staying for dinner, offering a hearty toast and taking a brief dance with the bride before duties compelled his departure back to the White House on Marine One.

  It was a great party and as they sat at the head table after the dinner, eating their pieces of wedding cake, Mac smiled and turned to his beautiful bride. “I have a surprise for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You remember Antonin Rahn?”

  “The eccentric oil man worth billions? He was the man who helped you on that case up in North Dakota.”

  “That’s him. It turns out he’s very appreciative of everything I did for him and it also turns out he owns two private islands in the Caribbean. He’s letting us have one for the week.” Mac reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “Let me show you a few pictures.” He pulled up the file and started swiping through the pictures and watched as Sally’s jaw slowly dropped open in amazement and excitement.

  “Oh my God. We have an island in the Caribbean, an actual island all to ourselves. You’re serious?”

  “Yes, oh, and I forgot. A boat, too.”

  “A … boat too. I see.”

  “It’s gonna be great.”

  “You have no idea,” Sally replied and it was her turn to tease. “You should see some of the things I bought to wear.” She leaned closer and whispered seductively in his ear, lightly biting his earlobe, “I look really good in all of it. At least what there is of it.”

  “I’m a lucky man.”

  “You’ve no idea.”

  He leaned in and kissed her. “Oh, yes, I do.”

  A half-hour later as the sun started setting Mac slipped outside to grab some fresh air and found Wire by herself on the patio, looking out trancelike to the water of Chesapeake Bay, a glass of champagne in her hand.

  “Hey.”

  Dara snapped out of her daze, turned to him and smiled. “A beautiful day, Mac. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  They both stood quietly, leaning against the wood railing and looking out over the ocean, feeling the cooling breeze on their faces.

  “What’s on your mind, Dara?”

  “What makes you think something is on my mind?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. There is a big party going on inside and you’re out here by yourself. In your absence, one of Sally’s very buzzed single and aggressive friends from the White House staff is making serious moves on your date.”

  “Ridge?” Wire answered. “She can have him.”

  “I see,” Mac replied, looking straight ahead out to the stray boats in the distance cruising in the cool blue waters. “So, that video is still eating at you, isn’t it?”

  “I can’t get it out of my mind,” Dara answered quietly, looking down. “It comes to me in my sleep, when I’m working, when I’m exercising. Heck, it popped into my head during the ceremony. I see you and I think of her. Why do you think I’ve spent more time than I’ve really wanted to with Ridge?”

  “Because he’s a machine?”

  Wire smiled and nodded. “That and he keeps my mind occupied.”

  Mac figured that was the case.

  “What about you? Haven’t you thought about it?” she asked.

  “Only all the time,” Mac replied. “Like you, I’ve had a distraction. The wedding and all of the stuff leading up to it has served to occupy my mind so it hasn’t perhaps been eating at me like it has you, but the thought of April is ever-present and I’m sure will continue to be for some time.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We let the FBI
continue to hunt for her, but you and I? You and I? We have to let it go.”

  “We have to let it go?”

  “Yes, we let it go. For now.”

  Dara was surprised. “How can you of all people let it go? Doesn’t it eat at you that she got away? Doesn’t it eat at you that she played you, played all of us? She played everyone for years.”

  “All the time,” Mac replied, slowly shaking his head. “It eats at me all of the time.”

  “So how do you just let it go?”

  “Because she’s gone and we can’t find her, at least not right now. We’ve hunted for three weeks and there is not a trace of her. Not one trace. She knew the day would come when she was exposed and she was ready for it. Dara, she inherited twenty million from her parents when they died. She’s made like another ten million through her books, yet all the FBI can find is $500,000 worth of miscellaneous assets consisting of a townhouse, a boat and a little over twenty-one thousand in a bank account. Why? Because she hid it, knowing she might have to run one day.” Mac sipped from his glass of champagne. “The FBI is continuing to search high and low for her. Galloway and Delmonico are on it and you and I both know how good they are, but I think in the end it will be a waste of extremely valuable manpower better used elsewhere. She’s gone and we’re not going to find April until she decides it’s time to come out and play this wicked little game again.”

  “So we just wait, then?”

  “Unless the FBI miraculously finds her, yes,” Mac replied. “We have to live with that because that’s just the way it is. You have to be able to rationalize that.”

  Wire turned to the water and sighed. “I wonder if I can.”

  “Trust me, you can. Listen, Dara, someday, somewhere, April will be back. That could be six months from now or six years. Who knows when it’ll be? I know this much, though: I’m not going to let that dominate my life or my every thought. You know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’ll be back. She won’t be able to help herself. But until then, don’t let her manipulate you like she manipulated Maynard Munger. Don’t let her inside your mind, don’t let her control your life. Because if you do that, then she—”

  “Wins.”

  “Don’t let her win. Let her take the loss. You know what? We won this round—maybe it wasn’t a knockout, but we won. Three women died, not four. Munger, her muse and a psychopath, is dead and will harm nobody else. She’s on the run, and is no longer April Greene, the great serial killer profiler. No more best-selling books or interviews on national television. No more fawning press and cops just begging for her help. She’s no longer April Greene, the great serial killer profiler. She’s April Greene, the fugitive from justice, currently number one on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. So in that sense, we took half of the game she loved to play away from her. So in my mind, that’s a win for us, a big win, and while she didn’t show it on that video, she knows we were the winners and it’s burning up that gunner ego of hers.” Mac smiled. “And here is one other thing she should know: when she comes back we’ll be ready. We’ll understand our opponent, and here’s one other thing: I don’t like to lose.”

  “Me neither.”

  “I know you don’t. When she comes back, I promise you, we’ll take her down for good. You and me, we will catch her. But in the meantime,” Mac grinned, looked back inside and hooked his left arm for Wire to slide her hand through, “I’m throwing a hell of a party inside and you haven’t danced with me yet.”

  “Mac, I got news for you,” Wire answered, smiling as they walked back inside.

  “What’s that?”

  “You really can’t dance.”

  “Oh, come on. I thought I gave the lawnmower and sprinkler a lot of flair.”

  • • •

  She sat in the chair on the back deck, the boat floating gently in the soft late-day waves of the bay. Through the narrow opening in the bandages covering her face, she was able to use the powerful binoculars and focus in on Wire and McRyan chatting on the patio, looking out over the waters of the bay.

  “Talking about me, I’m sure.”

  April watched the two of them until they turned and went back inside to the reception. She pushed herself up out of the chair, went inside the boat cabin and started the engines, bringing them to life. She pushed the throttle down, felt the roar of the motor and the lift of the boat as she set off for the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, thinking about how she needed to go away and disappear, to make the trail to her colder still, yet fantasizing of when she could return to start the game. And next time, when she came back to play, when she came back for McRyan and Wire, it would be for keeps.

  BOOKS BY ROGER STELLJES

  McRyan Mystery Series:

  First Case – Murder Alley

  The St. Paul Conspiracy

  Deadly Stillwater

  Electing To Murder

  Fatally Bound

  Blood Silence

  Next Girl On The List

  McRyan Mystery Series – Spinoff Episodes:

  Stakeout – A Case From The Dick Files

  (To receive a message when a new release becomes available please visit www.RogerStelljes.com)

  Roger Stelljes is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the McRyan Mystery Series. His books have been downloaded and enjoyed by millions worldwide. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including: The Midwest Book Awards – Genre Fiction, a Merit Award Winner for Commercial Fiction (MIPA), as well as a Minnesota Book Awards Nominee.

  Author website and new release alerts: www.RogerStelljes.com