Roses from My Killer

by Linsey Lanier

  “Stay put,” Parker commanded. “I’ll get back to you.”

  He dialed Deweese.

  “I’m sorry, sir. We must have gotten cut off.”

  “Never mind that.” And he told Deweese everything he had just learned about the Free Spirit. “Alert the other officers. Call the Coast Guard. We need to stop that boat.”

  “Yessir,” Deweese said. “Where are you heading, sir?”

  He remembered something he’d noticed the other day. An idea was coming to him. He only hoped to God it would work.

  “To the airport.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Miranda opened her eyes to a throbbing headache.

  Everything around her was hazy. Her stomach ached and felt sick. For a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. But she could tell she was in a room somewhere. A fancy room. On a boat, she thought, feeling the waves beneath the polished floor. A blurry figure was moving around in the far corner.

  Who was it?

  Then he straightened and turned toward her—with a knife in his hand.

  Now she knew who he was—the insane killer she’d been hunting. The one who had knocked her in the head.

  At the same time her brain told her arms to cover her face, her legs to crouch, to ready herself for a fight. But her arms and legs wouldn’t move.

  She looked down and saw she was wedged in the corner of the elegant living room in one of the white brocade chairs. Her ankles were bound to its legs with duct tape, her arms were stretched behind the chair’s back. Her shoulder holster and gun were gone. As was the jacket of her dark suit.

  He’d taken Smith’s gun, too, she recalled. Not good.

  Smith. She remembered it all now.

  Where was Smith? Still in the closet? Or had he killed her?

  Panic shot through her. And then, her vision cleared completely and she gazed up at the man standing before her.

  Tall and muscular, dressed in designer jeans and a tight-fitting pale blue T-shirt, he looked like he’d just stepped off the cover of GQ. With wavy amber blond hair that appeared freshly styled and eyes as blue as the sea, he was a perfect specimen of male beauty. Just a notch or two under Parker.

  “Who are you?” she gasped in shock.

  He cocked his head, revealing a set of perfect white teeth. “Who do you think I am?”

  “You can’t be Jay Charles York,” she said half to herself.

  Had she gotten it wrong again? Had she been off about that yearbook? How could she have been? He’d signed it with a heart with his initials in it. He’d signed those sketches in the bedroom that way, too.

  He took a step closer, clearly amused by her confusion. “Why? Because Jay Charles York is so ugly?” He wagged the knife toward her face.

  Pressing her head back against the wall, Miranda tried to free her hands. She ran her fingers over what was holding her wrists. Metal. Handcuffs. Had he used these on Josie? This was definitely Jay Charles York. He’d just had some kind of makeover. A super one.

  She couldn’t think about that now. She had to get free. She could get out of handcuffs. She just needed a little time.

  Keep him talking, she thought.

  “You think Jay Charles York is ugly?” she asked, trying to sound innocent.

  As she watched his expression turn to surprise, behind her back she twisted her wrists, trying to get the handcuff chain to lock up. If she could, it would break with some pressure.

  His eyes turned hateful. “You know he is. You put his aged picture out on the news. Yes, I know who you are, too. Miranda Steele, the famous private investigator from Atlanta. I saw you on Angie’s broadcast about me.”

  Angie. He called her Angie. Old school chum. That he’d just killed. “So you are Jay Charles York.”

  She turned her wrists the other way. You had to get the angle just right. She remembered beating both Smith and Wesson in the handcuff escaping exercises they used do at the Agency. Now would be a good time to repeat that.

  Ignoring her statement, he studied her as if she were a piece of marble he was about to sculpt.

  She forced a smile for him. “You’re a pretty good artist. I saw some of your sketches.”

  With a smirk he took a small step back. “Drawings of my father. What I wished I could have done to him when he was alive.”

  Must have been a nice relationship. And he hadn’t mentioned Josie.

  “How come?” It was a risky question to ask a crazy person, but she hoped he’d take a long time answering it.

  York’s look turned icy. “He was a horrible person. Nearly every time I saw him he beat either me or my mother.”

  The root of his insanity. “You didn’t see him much?”

  “He used to leave us here and go off to Charlotte. He used to make me do menial jobs in his rental properties here while he was away. And when he returned, if I didn’t do things just so, I felt the sting of his belt until I bled. He used his fists on my mother. She killed herself because of him and left me alone.”

  That was truly awful. “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it.

  He looked away, growing wistful. “For years I was so miserable, I wanted to die. And then I found Josie.”

  Ah, there it was. The real reason behind his horrific acts.

  Miranda gave the cuffs another twist. Again the chain refused to lock. She heard the boat yawning in the waves.

  “She was so lovely. An artist’s dream. I fell in love with her the instant I saw her. But then she called me names. She laughed at me with her girlfriends. Awful girls. Bitches.”

  Miranda didn’t dare say a word. She waited, hoping he’d continue. After a moment, he did.

  “And then Homecoming came. Our senior year. She was Homecoming Queen that year. So beautiful in her white gown. She held a single purple rose. That was her favorite flower.”

  Miranda only nodded.

  “That’s when it happened.” He stared down at the floor, lost in his own reverie. Then he lifted the knife again and studied it.

  “What happened?” Miranda said as softly as she dared.

  “It was a sign. When her float passed by, she blew me a kiss and called out, ‘Love ya!’ Josie said she loved me.”

  She must have been blowing kisses to everyone in the crowd. Probably didn’t even notice him standing there.

  His lips took on an odd twist. “I fell in love with her all over again. I’d never really fallen out of love with her, but now I knew we were meant for each other. I tried to talk to her. I followed her everywhere at school, but she kept telling me to go away. She was playing hard to get, you see. I knew she really loved me.”

  He lifted the knife and turned its blade one way, then the other.

  “At the end of the year, it was my last chance. I asked her to the prom. She said no, but I sent her a corsage anyway. Later she told me she threw it in the trash. I asked her why. She said it was because—” His lips began to tremble. Tears came to his eyes.

  For a moment, Miranda almost felt sorry for him. Until he shouted out the next words.

  “Because I was a creep. She called me a creep! That bitch! That fucking bitch!” He spun around and jammed the knife into the wall.

  “Look what you made me do,” he screamed.

  Relief flooded Miranda until he stomped over to a side table and took another knife from a drawer. He must have a collection of them.

  Waving it in the air, he continued. “And then she went away and married someone else. I thought it was over for us. But then she came back. She divorced that guy and came back for me. She came back for me.” He slapped himself on the chest.

  Miranda listened to his strained breathing as he stared off into space, reliving the past.

  “But I was wrong. She didn’t want me. I went to her shop once, but she didn’t even know me. She went on dates with other men. I followed her. I heard her talking about the dating sites where she’d met those men. She didn’t understand. None of them could love her the way I did. That’s when I knew
what I had to do.”

  Again Miranda waited. Her wrists were slippery with sweat, but she kept working the cuffs.

  “My father had just died. I used the money that bastard left me to make myself good-looking enough to make her go out with me.”

  Plastic surgery, Miranda thought. A lot of it.

  “I got a lackey from my father’s software company to create a fake dating site for me. I got her to sign up for it. I chatted with her online a bit, then finally, finally I got her to say yes to a date. At last, I had my dream. I was on a date with the beautiful Josie Yearwood. The love of my life. I even think she liked me a bit. Until she realized who I was. But that was near the end.”

  Time for a change of tactics. “You dug your initials into her,” she said flatly.

  His eyes flashed. “My mark. My stamp. She was mine. I had to show her that.”

  Certifiable, Miranda thought.

  “Her body was my canvas, the only way I could express my love to her. To show her what I really felt. It was a work of art. One of my best.”

  “And then you strangled her.”

  He shook himself as if he were coming out of a trance. “Enough talk. It’s your turn to feel my knife. You’ve made things difficult for me. You have to pay.”

  He took his knife and slit her blouse open with the tip of it. The cold air rushed over her skin, making her shiver.

  Madly she worked at the cuffs. C’mon, c’mon. She tried again. Didn’t work. Needed more torque. The metal bit into her wrist. She felt her own blood ooze out of the cut.

  That would be nothing compared to what this madman was about to do to her. Bracing herself for the pain, she thought she saw a figure slinking up behind York.

  Was it Smith?

  Don’t look, she told herself. He’ll notice.

  But, no. He was staring down at her chest as if he were mesmerized. What in the world was he looking at?

  And then she realized what it was. The marks Leon had left there. And the few she’d gotten in Brazil.

  “Somebody’s been here before,” he said. And then he smiled. “You should be used to this then.”

  The floor rose beneath them as the boat swayed again. York had to catch himself on the arm of the chair.

  She could hear the wind whistling outside. And the rain beating against the windows.

  “That storm’s getting bad. Maybe you should—”

  “Shut up.” He leaned in close.

  She felt her own perspiration on her brow. Then the coolness of the blade. His breath against her face. The faint smell of aftershave on him.

  “There’s no artistry to this. But I can fix this line.”

  He cut into her skin just below the clavicle. Blood trickled over her breast, her bra. She let out a cry, forcing her body not to shake with pain and fear.

  Flickers of light appeared around the edges of her vision. Darkness seemed to envelope her, as it had on her last case. She breathed in the aftershave, remembering another scent.

  She heard a deep-throated laugh. And then she saw Tannenburg standing behind her attacker, snickering at her. His lips were moving, though she couldn’t hear him. She read the words.

  “You’re going to die. You’re going to die.”

  No. Hell, no.

  One more desperate time, she worked her hands. At last the chain locked. She gave her hands a quick, painful twist and the cuffs snapped apart.

  She rose up and butted York and his knife away with her head. The blow wasn’t hard. She couldn’t get leverage with the knife near her throat and her ankles still bound to the legs of the chair, but at least she’d pushed him away from her.

  The bloody blade in his hand, he stared at her aghast.

  As Miranda pulled her fists around and got ready to strike, the figure creeping up behind him drew close.

  Smith?

  She must have escaped from her bonds after Miranda sliced into the tape. She was holding the mag lite from her belt that York had forgotten to take from her. She swiped it at his head just as he turned toward her.

  She’d missed, but recovered fast. She took the palm of her hand and jammed it hard into his nose. Basic self-defense move.

  York dropped the knife as he stumbled back and his hands flew to his face. “My nose! What have you done to my beautiful nose!”

  This time Smith aimed her club better. She whacked him hard on the temple, and he fell to the ground unconscious. At least she thought he was.

  “Good job,” Miranda said, staring at Smith in bewildered relief.

  Without acknowledging the praise, Smith picked up the knife and began cutting the tape around Miranda’s ankles. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Good point. After a moment Miranda’s legs were free.

  She bent and pulled the rest of the tape off the hem of her slacks. “We need to find some more of this stuff and tie him up.”

  “Right,” Smith said. “And we need to find my gun.”

  But where?

  Chapter Fifty-One

  They began to hunt around the classy living room, looking on shelves, pulling out drawers.

  Nothing.

  “It’s got to be in here,” Smith said exiting through the door to the bedroom.

  Miranda followed her. Ignoring the alarming sketches on the walls, in the dim light they pulled out drawer after drawer in every piece of furniture.

  Behind her, Miranda heard Smith squeal. She turned and saw she’d discovered the drawer of mutilated dolls.

  “His practice sessions,” she said grimly, as she shut the last drawer. “There’s nothing here. The tape has got to be back in the living room. It’s where he last used it.” On her.

  She moved back toward the door and spotted the spool of duct tape on its side under a table in the far corner, near York’s easel. The boat groaned, tilted, and the tape rolled across the floor to where York lay and smacked against his cheek.

  His eyes flew open.

  Miranda spun around. “He’s awake. Let’s get out of here.”

  Smith had gone around the bed and was peering into the closet. Alarm on her face, she found another door next to it and hurried through it.

  Miranda followed her into a dark room with huge twisted pipes crowding the space. Humming steadily, they were making the air hot and stuffy. Engine room, she thought, bracing her hand against the wall as the boat pitched once more.

  Something slid out from one of the lower pipes and nearly tripped her. Her shoulder holster. And her weapon. Leaning down, she scooped it up. Drawing the pieces of her sliced blouse together as best she could, she pulled on the holster, ignoring the pain as she followed Smith up a set of stairs and outside onto the main deck.

  “I texted Parker. He and the rest of the team should be here any min—”

  Miranda gazed out beyond the deck. The houses along the ocean front were gone. The beach was gone. There was nothing but the vast angry water and the dark sky overhead.

  They were somewhere in the middle of the ocean. And the boat was rocking over the angry waves.

  The wind blew her hair around her face.

  “He’s got it on autopilot,” she shouted to Smith. “I need to get to the helm and get a message out to the Coast Guard or anybody in the area.”

  She started toward the transom, hoping to find a way up to the flybridge and the pilothouse. Suddenly Smith’s face turned pale.

  “Look out.”

  Miranda spun around in time to see York raise his arm and fire a gun at them. The boat tilted, making him miss widely.

  She grabbed Smith and ducked behind a fiberglass niche that led to a dining room.

  “Take cover under here,” she whispered, ducking below a marble table top. The chairs around it had fallen over from the boat’s pitching on the waves. Broken glass lay on the floor near a sink. Something had slid to the floor while the boat tossed.

  Miranda drew out her Beretta and checked the clip. Full.

  She aimed it toward the door just as York came
through it.

  Where did he get that weapon? It must have been Smith’s. She hoped he wasn’t used to firing a police issue. But then, she had one herself.

  Before he could see them, she aimed and fired.

  He let out a yowl, but she’d only nicked his forearm. Hard to be accurate on a moving boat squatting under a table.

  Holding his arm, York crouched down behind a bench and waved the gun under the table in their direction.

  As fast as she could with Smith still behind her, Miranda crawled backward and took cover behind a wall near the kitchen area. She got to her feet and dared to peek around the barricade.

  York was slithering under the table, coming toward them. She fired again, but her shot went wide and into the upholstered bench behind him, blowing out the stuffing and creating a gaping hole in the leather.

  York fired back, the crack of it making her ears ring. His bullet wedged in the fiberglass, only inches from her head.

  He let out an insane laugh. “You can’t escape me. If you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of the ocean.”

  “In a sea storm,” Miranda said. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t all drown.”

  “You think I care about that? I’ve wanted to die since I was eight.”

  And yet he hadn’t killed himself. He’d killed others, but not himself. He was a coward like all murderers.

  She looked around. There was an opening leading to the transom, the rear part of the boat. There might be a safety dinghy or some small auxiliary boat there. If they could get to it and launch, they might escape.

  If she could figure out how to get back to shore.

  “C’mon,” she said to Smith and made a run for it.

  They hurried out the back and onto the slippery wet floor of the stern.

  She had to grab the railing to keep herself from sliding to her knees. But as she did, her heart sank down to the ocean floor. There was no boat here. Only a few lifesavers bound with rope to the rail.

  She turned back to the area they’d just left.

  Gun raised, York was coming through the door. They were out in the open now. No shelter of any kind. Her heart pounded in her ears.