No Escape

by Meredith Fletcher

  Lauren wondered if the two of them had been involved. It wasn’t unheard of, especially with the kinds of hours police personnel worked. She wasn’t going to ask, but something must have shown on her face.

  “We were just friends.” Heath looked a little embarrassed, then hurt followed. “Actually, we were more than that. Janet was my FTO. Field training officer. She worked with me when I made detective. She got me started on my investigations, and she was there during some rough patches.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  Outside the window behind Heath, street noises filtered in. People walked by. Cars passed on the streets, rubber squeaking on hot pavement. Someone upstairs was playing the television or a music system too loud.

  “How old was she?”

  Heath scowled. “What?”

  “How old was your friend? If she trained you, she must have been older, right?”

  “Eight years.”

  “Making her forty or so.”

  “About that.” Heath’s eyes narrowed, and he looked at her with increased interest. “Janet doesn’t fit on that victimology board because she called Gibson’s lawyers and left a message saying she knew what he was doing, that she was going to stop him.” Pain turned his voice hoarse for a moment. “I didn’t know till afterwards. The lawyers’ number turned up on her cell phone records.” He drew in a breath. “Gibson killed Janet to prove that he could do it under our noses and get away with it.” His voice turned hard. “But that’s not going to happen. He’s going to pay.”

  Desperately, Lauren sought to turn the conversation away from Heath’s dead friend. She was afraid that he would shut down, and right now she wanted—needed—information about Megan’s death. “The other women on that—” she pointed at the rolled canvas “—are in their twenties.”

  “Yeah.” Heath sat up a little straighter and looked as if he was regrouping. “They are. Like your sister. Gibson has a thing for younger women. He’s older—”

  “Forty-three. I know.”

  He focused on her with new intensity. “How do you know so much about him?”

  “I know magic.”

  “Sure you do.”

  Still annoyed at Heath and wanting to wipe that smug look off his face, Lauren put her left hand to her temple and closed her eyes as she tilted her head back. “Think of your address.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No. I’m going to read your mind.”

  “You’re a mind reader? I didn’t know mind reading counted as magic.”

  Using her right hand, Lauren palmed Heath’s driver’s license from the wallet she’d taken from him earlier. She opened her eyes, took her hand away, and looked at him. Then she gave the address she’d noticed on the driver’s license earlier.

  He studied her with indolent eyes, not saying anything.

  “Well, is that your address?”

  For a moment, he didn’t say anything. The defenses went up. She saw that in the way he held his shoulders, the way he tilted his head to look at her. “How do you know so much about me?”

  “Like I said, magic.” Lauren raised her right hand, palm forward so he couldn’t see the driver’s license trapped by its edge between her first two fingers.

  “I’m not a big believer in magic.”

  With a flourish, Lauren shook her hand and his driver’s license appeared at the end of her fingers. For a moment, Heath didn’t know what to say. Before he could recover, she flicked her wrist and sent the plastic rectangle spinning at him.

  Surprisingly, like a cat snapping a moth out of the air, Heath caught the license in his left hand. After he perused the plastic rectangle, his eyes turned to slits. His free hand slid down to his pants pocket, then he looked shocked. “You picked my pocket and stole my wallet at the morgue.”

  “I borrowed your wallet.” Lauren reached into her pocket and removed the article. She tossed it to him. Before she’d arrived at his hotel room, she’d photocopied all of the documents at her hotel and left the copies tucked away in her room. Heath knew a lot about her. It only seemed fair that she have the same opportunity.

  With the same easy skill he’d shown in catching the license, Heath caught the wallet. He glanced through it quickly. Satisfied that everything was there, he shoved the wallet into his pocket. His eyes narrowed. “Picking pockets isn’t a skill most people have.”

  “It’s just a riff on sleight of hand stuff. I work at a magic store.”

  “Where?”

  “In Chicago.”

  “You sell magic tricks?”

  “Yes. I guess you don’t know as much as you think you do, Detective Sawyer.” Lauren hated that Heath’s lack of knowledge about the field made the shop sound pedestrian. “But they’re not the kind of tricks you’ll find for some kid’s birthday party. Professional magicians come there to buy equipment, to talk with each other, and to design new illusions.”

  Heath leaned his head back against the wall, relaxing a little, or maybe only providing a deception. “Has Gibson ever been there?”

  “No.”

  “Why? Is he that good?”

  “I don’t know. The guy just appeared on the scene one day and streaked to the top of the heap. A lot of people want to know where Gibson learned his craft. If anyone knows, if anyone is helping craft his illusions, they’re not talking.”

  A frown twisted Heath’s features. “People have been trying to figure that out?”

  “Sure. The guy’s a celebrity in a field where secrets are prized. Every magician wants to know what’s in every other magician’s bag of tricks. Especially if that magician is as successful as Gibson. The fascination for magic only gets deeper if you’re actively involved in the field.”

  “I’ll take your word on that.” Heath leaned forward in his chair, dropping his feet to the floor and resting his elbows on his knees. “You’ve never met Gibson?”

  “No.”

  “Your sister hadn’t, either? Until the other night?”

  Lauren thought for a moment. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  Heath nodded. “Somewhere, somehow, they crossed paths. I’d like to know if it was just here, or if it was somewhere else.”

  “If nothing connects the victims you say Gibson has killed, what makes you so certain he is the killer?” Lauren couldn’t believe she was asking that question so calmly, but at the moment she felt dead inside. All of the hurt and pain was pushed back, waiting in the distance like gathering storm clouds. The anger was still there, though. She wanted to know who was responsible for what had happened to Megan.

  “Janet and I talked about this case for weeks. I can’t even remember which of us came up with Gibson, or how we tripped to the fact that Gibson was playing in each of the cities where those victims were killed. We’d starting checking newspapers in those cities during the time periods of those murders. We found Gibson.”

  “If you were looking in the newspapers, you probably found a lot of overlapping things.”

  “We did. But Janet liked Gibson for it.”

  “Why?”

  Heath’s lips tightened for a moment. “She was good at what she did. She could make creative leaps that other detectives never got to. Sometimes you get a serial killer who kills over a wide range of areas. Usually he turns out to be a sales rep, or maybe a long-haul trucker. We even considered that, but nothing fell into place. Then we found Gibson. And everything fit. Especially the White Rabbit card.”

  “Like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.”

  “Yeah. The guy enjoys playing his sadistic little games. It’s his signature. He claims his victims.”

  “Then why didn’t you go after him?”

  “We couldn’t. We tried making our case to other law enforcement departments, but nobody wanted to go after Gibson. Everything was circumstantial and he wasn’t even in-state anymore. Chasing after him would have been expensive, and police departments have budgets that television cop shows
don’t have to worry about. We couldn’t prove that Gibson had any kind of contact with any of the victims. No sightings, no meetings. No forensic evidence. Nothing.” Heath looked at her. “Not until that picture of him with your sister. That’s the first concrete clue we’ve had. And it’s down here in this place where I have no jurisdiction.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Heath shook his head as if to clear it and stood. “No more questions, Miss Cooper. I shouldn’t have told you as much as I have, but I felt I owed that to you.” He folded his arms over that broad chest, and she could still see the lost hurt shining in his eyes.

  “You came down here before Megan died.” Lauren kept her voice level. “You had a plan then.”

  “I still do.” Heath walked to the door and opened it. “Time for you to go.”

  Lauren wanted to stay and argue, but she also wanted to stay and comfort him, and be comforted. Detective Heath Sawyer was the only person she knew in Jamaica. She didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want to have to go back to the hotel room and talk to her mother, but she knew she had to do that. She was already late in doing it.

  And she had to make arrangements for taking Megan home.

  She nodded and walked to the door, pausing only a moment to look at Heath. “Thank you for being honest with me. It...helps.”

  He winced at that but didn’t say anything about his earlier duplicity. “Have a safe trip home, Miss Cooper.”

  She turned and walked toward the elevator.

  * * *

  Downstairs and out of the building, Lauren slid behind the steering wheel and set her purse in the passenger seat. She felt the vibration of her phone inside while she was reaching for the keys to the car. She checked the caller ID.

  Mom.

  She hesitated only a moment, then put the phone back in her purse. She knew her mom would be worried, but Lauren didn’t want to try to talk to her until she was in her hotel room. There, at least, she would have some privacy.

  After sliding the phone back into her purse, she glanced back at the hotel room where Heath Sawyer was staying. The curtain was pulled slightly to one side, and his profile shadowed the light.

  Resolutely, Lauren put the car into gear and pulled away, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Gibson. Imagining him as a serial killer seemed like some kind of fantasy.

  So was the idea of never seeing Megan again, but that one was dark and terrifying.

  Chapter 4

  At the window, Heath watched Lauren Cooper drive away and vanish into the dark streets, only realizing then how late it had gotten. Only a few blocks over, a neon fog pooled above an area near a beach where the tourists gathered. Over there the music would be too loud, college kids and twentysomethings just out in the world would be dancing and celebrating summer, beer and liquor would flow, and no one would know that the White Rabbit Killer had taken another victim.

  Maybe knowing wouldn’t even slow them down. They were there to party.

  Pensive and irritated, Heath thought about grabbing his jacket and heading out into the cool night, just blowing through an evening by trying to sink into the magic of the island. That would have been wasted effort, though, and he knew it. If things went well, he’d only end up more restless than ever. If things went badly, he could end up in a fight. He knew himself, and he knew the dark mood he was in.

  It had been years since he’d exhibited that kind of behavior, but he knew he was next door to it now. He could feel the techno trance of the club music in his veins. That was where he would gravitate to. Trance, industrial heavy metal, something that would bang through him, something that would amp him up even more.

  Country music would be worse. Those songs were loaded with pain, and he’d do his best to drown it. He’d done it before. The only reason he’d become a cop was because he hadn’t known what else to do after four years with the Marines right out of high school. He hadn’t wanted the military life his father still enjoyed, but he’d wanted something physical, something where he’d make a difference. He’d taken the police exams, thinking that if the cops didn’t want him, he’d re-up with the military.

  Atlanta P.D. had taken him, though, and he’d found work that he could do that wasn’t the same thing day in and day out. He didn’t see himself as a hero. He was a guy who helped paint that thin blue line between the civilians and the savages. He’d liked busting heads, maybe a little too much.

  Detective Janet Hutchins had taken an interest in him. She’d seen that he had an eye for investigation, didn’t just take the first answer he was given, and that he checked the facts. She’d gotten Heath groomed for his detective’s shield, then partnered with him for three years till he made Detective 2nd and got a junior partner of his own.

  That was two years ago. The junior partner had been Jackson Portman.

  Heath turned away from the window and pulled out his cell phone. He pulled Jackson up on speed dial, then punched the call through. It rang only once before the connection was made.

  “There you are.” Jackson sounded relieved.

  “Here I am.”

  “Thought you were gonna leave me hanging just when things were getting interesting.”

  “No.”

  “You still got company?”

  “No. I need you to do something for me.”

  “Sure. First, tell me about Lauren Cooper. That’s how this favor thing works. You do something for me, I do something for you. How did that woman know so much about you?”

  “She read my mind.”

  Jackson snorted derisively. “Bro, the stuff she knew, even you don’t know without checking. What’s your gym membership number?”

  Heath didn’t say anything because he didn’t know it. Case numbers he knew, phone numbers of snitches he knew, but not so much numbers involving his personal life.

  “Well? Time’s ticking.” Jackson whistled, an off-key version of Final Jeopardy!

  Heath grimaced, knowing that once Jackson was armed with the facts of what had happened, his partner would never let it go. “Back at the hospital when I was checking out the murder down here, I bumped into Lauren Cooper. She’s the dead woman’s sister. While we were in a heated discussion, she lifted my wallet.”

  “Lifted your wallet.” Jackson sounded hollow, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Yeah, it means she picked my pocket.”

  “I know what it means. Just surprised you’d slip up like that. It ain’t like you, bro.” Some of the colloquial accent was gone from Jackson’s words. He was deadly earnest now. “You really don’t have your game, Heath. You should come back home. Let’s sit down and sort this out. We still own one of the White Rabbit murders.”

  “Two. We own two.” Neither of them mentioned Janet’s name.

  “Come home. We have enough to buy into the investigation and leverage some muscle from the captain. Let’s dig into it together. If I have to, I’ll get some leave and we’ll work the investigation together.”

  “The investigation is down here. This is where Gibson goes to hole up. He’s got a place down here. I found it. I just can’t get close to it.”

  “All right. That’s something we didn’t know. How did you find his place?”

  “Gibson made a mistake. The dead woman took pictures of his house and uploaded it to her Cloud. I got a chance to look at the data dump from her iPad, accessed the pictures, and found the house.”

  “So he took the woman to his house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can’t the locals get a search warrant?”

  “Gibson says he put the woman in a cab, waved goodbye, and he never saw her again.”

  “Uh-huh. And they decided not to press him on that?”

  “They don’t have any proof that that wasn’t what happened.”

  “They find the cab driver?”

  “No.”

  “They look?”

  “Myton says they did, but this is a tourist area. A lot of people take cabs e
very night.”

  “You think the locals are protecting him?”

  “They’re being careful. Gibson is rich. They don’t want to ruffle any feathers until they have a lock.”

  “You did mention this guy is a probable serial killer? Probably gonna kill again?”

  “Yeah. The cops here I’ve been talking too aren’t big fans of the American justice system, and they’re even less happy about Georgia detectives wandering in off their beats to poke around in their business.”

  “That would be a problem. So tell me about Lauren Cooper. Did she look hot to you? ’Cause from what I’m looking at here, she looks seriously hot.”

  “Can I quote you on that to your future second missus?”

  “Lord, no. That woman’s jealous enough.”

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Her file. Since she called in, knew so much about you, I thought it was only fair we know stuff about her. Only expected to get a hit on her from the Chicago DMV. That’s where she told me she’s from. Turns out she’s had a little bit of a record.”

  That surprised Heath, but then he thought about how easily she had picked his pocket. Even on his worst day, he wasn’t the easiest guy to pull something like that on. “What record?”

  “Breaking and entering and assault. From what I see, she broke into a guy’s apartment and punched him out in Chicago three years ago.”

  “For what?”

  “Says here she claims the guy stole an illusion she was working on. She’s some kind of magic designer or something. The guy claimed that they came up with this thing together, that there wasn’t a clear title to anything. The judge dropped the hammer on her because it was a home invasion. She ended up doing some community service—magic shows at old folks’ homes and orphanages—and had her record expunged. Are they serious about the magic thing?”