“Hi.” Heath released the camera with one hand but kept the now-empty hand up and clearly visible.
“I’m Detective Green with the Chicago police department.” The black man’s eyes were invisible behind black Ray-Bans. His hair was cut short, barely showing against his skull. A small, narrow mustache framed his mouth. “This is Detective Hernandez. We need to see some ID.”
Heath didn’t bother asking why. If he’d been Green, he’d have asked him for identification, too. In fact, in different instances on some of the cases he’d handled, he had asked to see identification from people who hadn’t seemed to fit at funerals and other events.
“Sure, Detective. Right-hand pants pocket. I’m going to move slow.”
The man nodded.
Heath forked his wallet out and passed it over.
Green opened the wallet, then looked at Heath again. “Says here you’re from Atlanta. You’re a long way from home.”
“I’ve got some more identification for you if you’ll let me get it.”
“Slow.”
This time Heath reached inside his jacket and brought out his badge case. He passed it over. Green flipped it open and found Heath’s shield.
“What are you doing here, Detective Green?”
“The deceased was the female victim of a violent crime. Those go down, usually it’s the husband, a boyfriend or an ex. Sometimes a family member. A funeral can bring out the worst in people. The captain thought we might drop by, make sure everybody stays safe.” Green looked up. “Are you on the job here, Detective Sawyer? Something the Chicago police department should know about?”
“I’ve been working the White Rabbit killings.”
Green nodded toward the funeral party. “This was one of those?”
“Yeah. Jamaica P.D. hasn’t made it official yet, but it is. They got the card two days ago.”
“I haven’t heard anything about it.”
“Jamaica has better control over their news services than we do here.”
“If they can keep that quiet, they do.” Green handed the wallet and badge case back.
“It won’t last forever.”
“No, it won’t.” Heath put away his things, managing it one-handed because he was still hanging on to the camera.
“Does the family know?”
“I told the sister when I met her down in Jamaica. I don’t know if she believes me.”
“You tell her about the card?”
“No. I haven’t talked to her since Jamaica.”
“Probably something you should do.”
Heath hesitated. “We didn’t really get on while we were down there together.”
Green lifted an eyebrow, but he didn’t ask about that. “Tell you what. I’ll call Jamaica, confirm the White Rabbit connection, then I’ll have a word with the sister. Professional courtesy.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“If you find out anything further, Detective Sawyer, let me know.” Green passed across a business card, pausing briefly to write a cell phone number on the back. “Looks like we’re all interested in this now. I’ve been following the White Rabbit case and know what happened in Atlanta.”
Heath took the card and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
“I’m sorry it went down like that with your detective.”
“Me, too.”
“But you must have been getting close to the guy, right?”
“We thought so.” Heath knew he couldn’t drop Gibson’s name. The department would rake him over the coals for exposing them to a lawsuit like that.
“We’ll get this guy.” Green gave Heath a brief flicker of a grin. “It’s what we do.” He nodded and kept moving, his partner a silent shadow behind him.
Keyed up all over again, face-to-face with how Janet had been lost so quickly, Heath tried to put his emotions aside and concentrate on doing his job. When he turned back, though, he saw that Lauren Cooper was headed straight for him, and she didn’t look happy to see him.
* * *
At first, Lauren hadn’t believed that Heath Sawyer was there. She’d noticed the police detectives as they’d been circulating the funeral. She didn’t know what they were doing there, or if someone from the police department always showed up in a situation like this, but she knew that Heath Sawyer shouldn’t have been there.
From the disappointed look he gave her, she knew he wasn’t happy that she had seen him. For some reason, that lack of appreciation made her angrier and more confused. She had felt livid, surprised and excited to see him all at the same time. That was something she didn’t want to do. Her emotions were too confusing now.
He cleaned up really well. The black suit was clean and pressed and fit him nicely. It made him look a lot different than he had in the casual business attire he’d worn while masquerading as a coroner. He was clean-shaven, his hair moussed and in place, and the pair of Oakley sunglasses would have gotten him on the cover of GQ. His tie was knotted perfectly.
Lauren stopped in front of him and folded her arms, looking up at him.
Heath gave her a small, crooked smile. “By the time I realized you had spotted me, it was too late to retreat.”
“Do you feel the need to retreat, Detective Sawyer?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His Southern accent was more pronounced now, or maybe she was so used to the native accents around her that something different really caught her attention.
“What are you doing here?”
“Miss Cooper.” He spoke calmly to her, and that infuriated her even more. She was burying her sister, and he was butting in, catching her off guard the same way he had down in Jamaica. “Maybe this isn’t the best time to talk about this.”
“Did you have another time planned?”
“No.”
“You came here because you thought Gibson would be here, didn’t you?”
He hesitated a moment before answering. “I did.”
Lauren sipped her breath and made herself speak rationally. She glanced over her shoulder to check on her mother. Madeline Taylor was doing fine at the moment, having some final words with her brothers and sisters. The closeness of those family members had made Lauren feel the slightest bit out of place, something she hadn’t experienced in years.
She looked back at Heath. “I read over the newspaper stories about the White Rabbit killings. All of them. They’re all different. Different women. Different ways they were killed. Different times of days, weather conditions, a lot of things are different. I’ve also done a lot of reading on serial killers the last few days.”
Heath didn’t say anything to that.
“Most serial killers kill the same kind of victim in the same way with the same kind of weapon. The killing is an orderly series of events.” Lauren couldn’t believe she was talking so nonchalantly about such a horrible subject. The reading had been hard, but she’d always been good at research.
“There are different kinds of serial killers.” Heath’s voice was flat, no-nonsense. “What you’re describing? Those are ritualistic killers. Guys who have hang-ups about something or a particular kind of person. There are also compulsion killers. Guys who don’t know why they kill other than whatever satisfaction they derive out of it. Gibson is an organized killer, always in control of the victim, in control of the encounter area. He plans out his killings, but he doesn’t do the same thing over and over again.” He paused. “Magicians don’t always pull the same tricks over and over again, do they?”
Lauren thought about that, surprised by the question.
“I’ve seen some of those guys work when Janet and I first started looking into Gibson as our doer. Some magicians work the same patter and stunts. Some try to come up with new acts every time you see them. But it’s all about the magic, about the performance.”
“Do you think that’s what Gibson is about? The performance?”
“You know his magic better than I do. Which kind of magician is he?”
It only took Lauren a moment to realize
that Heath had a point. Gibson did a round of shows, then he dropped out of the public view. When he reappeared months later, he had a whole new elaborate production ready to go. Sometimes the show was intimate magic for a group or a pay-channel broadcast. Other times it was escapology, a feat that taunted human endurance or even death itself, such as when he’d sat in an immersion tank for over seven minutes before breaking free of his shackles. He was well short of other magicians’ time, but anytime a feat like that was done, it was impressive. The pay channels had eaten it up. Another time, he’d levitated himself in an effort to get out of a notoriously haunted house that burned down around him while malign spirits tried to keep him within the fire. Lauren didn’t believe in malign spirits, but the performance had been nerve-racking all the same.
No one knew what Gibson would do next.
“He doesn’t like to repeat himself.”
Heath didn’t say anything to that.
“You could be wrong, you know.” Lauren spoke pointedly, getting her words across like hammer blows. “You’re focusing on Gibson because he was in a photograph with Megan. The whole time you’re doing that, telling Inspector Myton that Gibson is Megan’s killer, the real killer could be getting away.”
Heath’s clean-shaven jaw bunched, and the muscles stood out in sharp relief. His words were soft. “Gibson is the killer, Miss Cooper. Maybe if more people believed me, we could put him where he belongs more quickly. Either way, I’m going to get him. You can bet the farm on that.”
“There’s nothing to tie Megan to the White Rabbit Killer.”
He hesitated. “Yeah, there is. Two days ago, Inspector Myton received a black card with a white rabbit embossed on it. The Kingston police just aren’t telling anyone yet.” He looked past her. “You should go back to your mom. She probably needs you.”
Looking over her shoulder, Lauren checked on her mother and saw that most of the family members had gone. She couldn’t just leave her mother sitting there at the gravesite. Hurting and feeling guilty about being gone so long, she turned back to address Heath.
Only he wasn’t there. He was already several long strides away from her, moving with deceptive speed through the graveyard.
Lauren considered going after him, but she didn’t know what else to say. He was set on his course, and there was nothing she could do to break him of that.
He’s not your problem. She concentrated on that, then turned and walked back to rejoin her mother.
Chapter 6
“You need to eat, Lauren. I can fix you something if you’d like.”
“I’m all right, Mom. You should rest. Or, if you’re hungry, I can make you something.” Lauren perched uneasily on the edge of the couch in the living room where she’d spent the best years of her life. She didn’t know what to do with herself. She was exhausted from the funeral, but she knew she couldn’t rest. Thoughts of Megan’s murder and Gibson kept whirling around inside her head. And Atlanta, Georgia, detective Heath Sawyer was in those thoughts way too much for any degree of comfort.
“No, honey. I’m fine.” Her mother didn’t look fine. The days since Megan’s murder had sapped energy from her that she didn’t have to spare. Her skin was pale and blotchy. Now that they were back home, at the house where Lauren had finished growing up in, her mother had taken off her wig, pulled on a crocheted cap to cover her bald head and sat in her favorite chair.
The television was blank, but the street noise drifted in through the closed windows. Outside, children played in yards, celebrating the arrival of summer and the end of school. Lauren didn’t have many of those memories of playing in the neighborhood at that age. She’d been older when she’d arrived, but she could remember the other, younger kids in the neighborhood doing that. Whitman Park was only a couple of blocks away.
Lauren sat on the couch and felt alone. As heavily medicated and as tired as her mother was, she was barely there. The pain between them was so raw that it couldn’t be touched.
After a little while, her mother slept in the chair. Unable to sit there any longer, Lauren got up quietly and retreated to the kitchen to fix a cup of tea. It felt good going in the kitchen, finding everything in its place where it had always been.
What was unaccustomed was the silence. Even after her dad had passed away, there had always been joy in the house. Megan had been the center of it, of course, because she had been the chatterbox. Lauren hadn’t realized how silent the house could be without her sister.
The tears came while she waited for the water to heat. For a time, she let them fall, grateful that she’d been composed throughout the service. She didn’t like showing emotions in front of others. She’d never felt comfortable doing that.
A few minutes later, the kettle whistled. She took it from the stove and dried her tears, then filled a cup and added a tea bag. As she waited for the tea to steep, she walked through the house, finally going upstairs to the rooms she and Megan had lived in when they’d been there.
Megan had been the first to leave, the first to get a “grown-up” job because Lauren hadn’t been able to let go of the job at the magic store. She hadn’t been ready for freefall among strangers then, and magic was—and still remained—her passion. There was something about magic, something about the illusion of being something else, or maybe someone else, that appealed to her in ways nothing else did.
Megan’s room had been a mess after she’d departed in a whirl of excitement, littered with cast-off clothing, keepsakes from junior high, high school and college, books and rock star posters. It had taken Lauren and her mom three days to clean everything up, and they’d threatened to box it all up and send it to Megan to deal with, but neither of them wanted to think about finding the boxes sitting in Megan’s apartment unopened when they went to see her.
The bed was neatly made. Trophies lined one wall. Pictures of Megan as a cheerleader, a business leader and in speech competitions, as well as on family trips and vacations, covered the wall. A person could stand in the middle of Megan’s room and watch her grow up in the spotlight. Lauren had always thought that was weird, the growing up part. As for the spotlight part, there just hadn’t been any other place for Megan.
Lauren’s room, on the other hand, had been freshly cleaned and neat the day she’d left it. She’d stayed in the house till she’d gotten through college, to help her dad with her mom’s first bout with cancer. Then, when the job at the magic store had become full-time, once Mom’s cancer was in remission, Lauren had moved out and claimed her own space.
Even four years later, that apartment still felt like a temporary way station, a brief shelter from the turbulence that had claimed the rest of her life. Nothing before had been permanent.
This, this had been home. And now it was withering away.
She sat on the edge of her bed and glanced at the walls. Compared to Megan’s, they were empty. The Taylors had adopted her when she was eleven, young enough that she could share a lot with Megan, but old enough that she could never really escape the experience of getting shuffled between foster homes.
Pictures of her at that age and older were on the walls. She’d played softball and ran track and swam competitively. All were sports more or less recognized for individual effort. Only in the family photos did she look like a team player, and that was primarily because Megan had always been right there to pull her in.
On the chest of drawers, Lauren’s early magic kits sat in boxes and pouches, as if a magician would be along any moment to put them to use. Lauren was surprised that her mother hadn’t thrown them away, but Mom had always maintained that magic was the one thing that seemed to make Lauren come alive. A magician had to have an audience, she’d always said, and that was when Lauren had shone.
Lauren had let her believe that was true, but the actual truth was that she had sat in her room and performed magic all the time. Megan had watched in fascination at times. On other occasions, Lauren had used her tricks to bother Megan when she was on the phone. Especially aft
er she developed an interest in boys. It was hard to focus on a conversation when coins and scarves and other small items kept appearing and disappearing.
Walking over to the chest of drawers, Lauren picked up the white-tipped black magic wand. It had been her first. When it was popped the right way, it became a bouquet of flowers. When she’d been eleven, she’d thought it was the coolest trick ever.
Now she just wished it had real magic in it so she could bring Megan back.
* * *
“What do you know about Gibson?”
Warren Morganstern lifted his head from the deck of cards he’d been shuffling and regarded Lauren. He was in his seventies, comfortably possessing a potbelly and a wrinkled face that still showed all the handsomeness of the posters Lauren had seen of his magic days. His hair was iron-gray and neatly parted on the left. Laugh wrinkles surrounded his blue eyes. He wore a pressed white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to midforearm. His jacket dangled from the back of his chair. A steaming cup of coffee sat to his right on the small table.
He eyed Lauren. “How are you doing, kiddo?”
“I’m okay.” Lauren leaned on the load-bearing pillar behind the table. She knew she didn’t look good. She hadn’t slept well last night. Her mind was too full of Megan and Gibson and Heath Sawyer. Everything was getting twisted up in there.
“You don’t look okay.” Morganstern’s voice was gruff and hoarse, an old man’s voice now and not really strong enough for stage shows. He still had the hands and reflexes of a master, though. He just needed an assistant who could carry on the verbal part of the act. Lauren had been that assistant a number of times.
“Thanks.”
“I call ’em like I see ’em, kiddo.” Morganstern waved at the chair on the opposite side of the small card table.
The magic store had four little rooms where magicians could rehearse tricks and illusions. In those rooms they could practice with the tricks to see if they would work for them, or they trained with other magicians to make the trick their own.
After a brief hesitation, knowing that Morganstern was wanting to talk to her and knowing that she didn’t feel like talking to anyone, Lauren went around the table and sat.
No Escape Page 6
