Diabolical (Shaye Archer Series Book 3)

by Jana DeLeon

  “So as far as he knows, he’s still safe,” Jackson said.

  Harold nodded. “So why risk making a move now, right? But there was that feeling—you know the one that good cops get? I knew something was coming and it wasn’t anything I wanted to be there for. So I planned my getaway. And I was just in time. He struck that night.”

  Harold told Shaye and Jackson about his plan with Old Joe and how he’d disappeared in plain sight. Shaye sat fixated on Harold’s face the entire time, floored by the man’s survival instincts and thankful that he hadn’t ignored the feeling that he needed to leave.

  “You said you had security cameras?” Shaye asked, her excitement growing.

  “Yeah, but it didn’t do any good,” Harold said. “Can’t see his face.”

  Shaye slumped in her chair, trying to stop the wave of disappointment that rolled over her, but it was hard. Every time she thought they were getting closer to an answer, they just found more questions.

  Jackson, who’d been silent the entire time Harold told his story, shook his head. “I would never question your intuition and clearly, you were right in your assessment that someone was watching you, but how can you be certain it’s about Shaye and Clancy? Like you said, he’s been in the clear for nine years. Why mess that up by attempting to kill a retired cop in his own home? He’s exposing himself when he doesn’t have to.”

  Harold raised one eyebrow. “Is he? He’s in the clear for the moment, but the police have broken part of the code, and they know not only that Shaye was one of Clancy’s victims but that he sold another girl to the same man just a month ago.”

  “But that information hasn’t been released,” Jackson said, “and isn’t going to be.”

  “And yet,” Harold said, “I know about it.”

  Jackson’s eyes widened. “You think he has someone inside the police department?”

  Harold nodded. “I can’t prove it, but yeah, that’s exactly what I think. And once I worked my way around to that line of reasoning, I started thinking about that incomplete file again. What if it wasn’t an accident or sloppy work?”

  “You think someone deliberately removed certain documents from the file?” Jackson asked.

  “Think about it,” Harold said. “Why remove a picture when Shaye is walking around with the image on her body? Why remove my notes when I still worked for the department?”

  Jackson frowned. “Because those things were more relevant than the other information in the files?”

  Harold nodded. “I just don’t know why. Then there’s the issue of him knowing where I lived. Now, I’m not claiming I changed my identity and disappeared or nothing like that, but I bought the house through an attorney using one of them estate things that’s supposed to keep people from paying tax on inheritance. My name’s not attached to the house in any way, I don’t have a home phone, and I get all my mail at a post office box in Pensacola.”

  “But the department would have your forwarding address because of retirement.” Jackson blew out a breath. “I didn’t see this coming.”

  Shaye’s mind whirled as she tried to absorb everything that Harold had said. If he was right, it changed everything. “If someone in the police department is protecting this man,” Shaye said, “then won’t they attempt to mislead or misdirect the investigation away from me?”

  “Probably,” Harold said. “I’m going to assume, although I hate the word and the action, that whoever altered the files is the only person who’d have a firsthand interest in doing it now. That takes out the newer people who weren’t around at that time.”

  “But it leaves a bunch of others,” Jackson said. “There’s a lot of people with a decade or more in with the department. And we can’t assume it’s only cops. It could be anyone with access to the physical records or the database, which includes some of the administration staff as well.”

  “But not the staff who weren’t there the night Harold found me, right?” Shaye asked.

  “Probably not,” Harold said, “but someone could manipulate or outright coerce another employee to help them, if they had the right leverage.”

  Jackson nodded. “Power or knowledge. Either he controls their job or has something on them.”

  Harold nodded and looked directly at Jackson. “The bottom line is that at this point, there’s only two people in the department I trust completely—my inside source and you. As much as it kills me to say, everyone else is a suspect.”

  Jackson blew out a breath. “Wow. Okay, well, the first thing is, I won’t be sharing anything about Shaye and her investigation with anyone in the department.”

  “Not even Grayson?” Shaye asked.

  “Not until we know for sure if there’s a leak and who it’s coming from,” Jackson said.

  “I agree,” Harold said, and reached for his cell phone. “Let me show you that video footage.”

  “I thought you said we couldn’t see his face?” Shaye said.

  “No,” Harold said, “but you can get an idea of his size, and make note of the way he walks and moves. It might be enough for you to zero in on him, if he gets too close. And there’s something else…I would try to explain but it’s better if you see it for yourself.”

  Harold handed the phone to Jackson, and he held the phone between him and Shaye. She leaned in and forward and focused on the small screen. The clip started and she saw a figure creeping down the hallway in Harold’s house. He was lean and tall, and his physique and movement looked like that of a man. She watched as he moved into the kitchen and the footage shifted from one camera to another as he entered the garage. Several seconds later, he walked back into the house and the camera caught him from the front for the first time. He lifted his head and the hoodie no longer covered his face.

  And that’s when she saw it.

  She gasped and pushed herself backward in the chair, trying to put some distance between herself and the horror displayed on the screen.

  “What’s wrong?” Harold asked.

  “The mask,” she whispered. “It’s him. The man who tortured me.”

  Harold’s eyes widened. “You’re remembering? Holy shit, things just got more real.”

  Clara Mandeville slipped into the hospital room, stepped up to the bed, and gave a critical eye to the man lying there. She’d worked with Dr. Thompson in the ER for almost twenty years before he’d retired. Seeing him lying there as a patient felt wrong. The entire reason he was lying there felt wrong.

  The police said the doctor had called 911 and reported an intruder in his house. A window on the front had been forced open, so his story checked out. But when the police arrived, all they found was an empty house and Dr. Thompson lying on the floor next to his bed. One of the officers started CPR and not a minute too soon. Now it was touch and go as to whether he’d make it or not. And even if he regained consciousness, there was no telling what kind of damage the heart attack might have caused.

  She tucked the covers in around him and said a quick prayer before leaving the room. This was the fifth time she’d made her way around to his room the past hour, even though her regular schedule called for a quarter that amount. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The police had been cagey, as they always were, but she’d managed to get out of them that it didn’t look as if anything was stolen, at least not the things a thief was usually after. Dr. Thompson’s wallet and his Rolex had been sitting on the kitchen counter, and the wallet had money in it. The cops didn’t tell her how much, but a garden-variety thief would have helped himself to any amount and definitely would have taken the watch.

  At first, Clara thought maybe she was just on edge because of all the things that had happened. Her former coworker Emma Frederick and that horrible stalker and then that evil John Clancy and all that terror he inflicted on those street kids and God only knew who else. It was enough to make you think twice about most everything you did, especially when you were a woman living alone. Granted, Clara lived in a nice area and had a
first-rate security system, but Dr. Thompson hadn’t exactly lived in the ghetto and someone had managed to get inside his home.

  And for what?

  Which brought her right back around to the thing that had been bothering her from the very start. Unless Dr. Thompson had a Van Gogh or other valuable item in his home, why had someone broken in but yet not taken cash or an expensive watch that were both right in the open? She headed back for the front desk and logged on to the computer to clock out.

  “Missy,” she called out to the nurse who’d just come on shift. “Would you do me a favor and check in on Dr. Thompson more than normal?”

  “Of course, Ms. Clara,” Missy said. “It’s just terrible what happened. I’ll make sure he’s comfortable. Do you want me to give you a call if anything changes?”

  “I would appreciate that.” She gave Missy’s shoulder a squeeze and headed for the locker room. She hated leaving, but the hospital had strict rules about work hours and about being on the floor when you weren’t on the clock. Clara figured it was all about liability and such. Lawyers seemed to make everything more complicated and cumbersome than it needed to be, especially when death was involved.

  Still, Clara knew Missy would take good care of Dr. Thompson. She was a new nurse, only a year out of school, and young for the ER. But she was bright and had the kind of perception that made her an asset now and would make her irreplaceable years from now. Aside from Clara herself, Dr. Thompson was probably being looked after by the best hands on the ward.

  She grabbed her purse from her locker and pulled out her car keys, then headed back down the hall and out of the hospital. The parking garage was across a walkway from the hospital building and was one of those multistory jobs. Clara was halfway across the first level of the garage when she felt the back of her neck prickle. Chastising herself for not asking the night guard to walk her to her car, Clara kept moving, her eyes glancing as far as they could without turning her head, trying to determine what direction the threat came from.

  If someone was following her, looking for a random victim, they’d be behind her. If someone wanted her specifically, they’d be waiting at her car. She slowed and opened her purse, making it look like she’d forgotten something, but she tucked a small bottle of Mace in her hand before removing it from the bag. She shook her head and turned around, then headed back for the hospital. If she could get close enough to the entrance, they might be able to hear her scream.

  The cars that had filled the lot when she’d come on shift were mostly gone, leaving only a few random vehicles scattered up and down the two rows she had to cross to get back to the entrance to the garage. The first row of the garage held most of the third-shift staff—where Clara would have parked if she hadn’t gotten to work early to talk to the on-staff doctor about Dr. Thompson’s condition. Visiting hours were still going on then, and visitors’ cars had filled the lower level.

  She cleared one row and veered slightly to the left to avoid an SUV parked nearby. It was too easy for someone to launch from behind a parked vehicle and tackle her. When he made his move, Clara wanted to make sure she saw him coming. Then she was going to give him a face full of burning spray.

  Something moved behind the SUV, causing the shadow of the car to shift slightly in shape. She clenched the Mace and picked up speed, her gaze locked on the vehicle. Her pulse shot up, sending her heart fluttering so hard she could feel it in her chest and her temples. The shadow shifted again and her breath caught in her throat. This was it. He was going to attack.

  The footsteps pounding behind her gave her only a split second to realize she’d been wrong. He wasn’t lurking on the other side of the SUV. He had been behind her, probably slinking around one of the huge columns, making sure he kept out of her line of sight. She’d been fooled and it was going to cost her.

  He hit her square in the middle of the back and sent her flying. She screamed and put her hands out to break her fall, dropping the can of Mace as she went down. Her knees hit the concrete first and pain shot through her right leg. Her hands hit a millisecond later, the rough surface tearing the skin on her palms as she tried to break her fall. She scrambled to get up, but the man was on top of her before she could get her legs underneath her. She swung her right arm back as hard as she could and struck him with her elbow. It was enough to cause him to loosen his grip and instead of trying to get up, she switched tactics and flipped over, using one of the moves she’d learned in self-defense class.

  When she saw the mask, she screamed again, this time involuntarily. Her right leg throbbed in pain but it was also her strongest, so she drew it up as quickly as possible between his legs, hoping for a strike that would free her, but he shifted and she hit his thigh instead. He punched her once in the jaw, and her vision blurred as a wave of nausea passed over her. She held her arms up to block the next blow and he struck her wrist, sending shock waves of pain up her arm and into her shoulder. He clutched her throat with his left hand and slammed her head into the ground, squeezing her neck until she started choking.

  She grabbed his hand, trying to pry his fingers from her neck, but he was too strong and she was losing oxygen too quickly. Her strength was failing and she struggled to keep focus as her body tried to slip into unconsciousness. Something flashed in front of her and her vision cleared enough to see the knife raised above her.

  In a last bid of desperation, she used every ounce of strength left in her body to grab the man’s left arm and fling her head upward, biting into the soft flesh of his forearm. He howled and let go of her neck. She rallied a second time and popped upright, shoving the palm of her hand at what she hoped was his nose. She felt the slash of the blade on her left arm and screamed again as the burning pain flashed through her again.

  She managed to pull her left leg out from under him and kicked him directly in the chest, knocking him backward. He didn’t fall over completely, but it was enough for her to leap to her feet and run for the front entrance, yelling for help as she ran. She was almost to the crosswalk when Jeremy, the security guard, ran outside, his gun drawn.

  She ran another two steps and collapsed at his feet. “Behind me. Shoot him,” she managed.

  Jeremy stood above her, gun in firing position, his head moving back and forth. “There’s no one there.”

  Two nurses ran outside and one yelled back for a stretcher. The other dropped to the ground next to Clara. “Can you hear me?” the nurse asked. “What happened?”

  “Attacked,” Clara said.

  She heard footsteps pounding behind her and Clara looked over to see Jeremy running up. “There’s no sign of him,” Jeremy said. “The police are on their way. Did you get a look at him?”

  Clara started to shake her head, but it hurt too bad to move. “No. Mask.”

  She lifted her hand up and opened her clenched fist. “But I got a piece of him,” she said and dropped the bit of forearm skin in Jeremy’s hand. The last thing she remembered was whispering Shaye’s name, and then everything went dark.

  17

  It was long after midnight by the time Shaye and Jackson finished up with Harold. For every question that was answered, Jackson came up with ten more that weren’t. It was the most frustrated he’d ever been since he started his career.

  It’s personal.

  He held in a sigh. Like he didn’t know that without his mind constantly pushing it on him. His involvement in this went far beyond a professional capacity, but that couldn’t possibly be a bad thing. A horrible man was out there doing God knows what to another girl and he was stalking the detective who’d found Shaye that night nine years ago. Jackson could think of only one reason to break into Harold’s house and it wasn’t to have a beer and watch the game.

  When it was clear they were all out of answers or ideas, Harold suggested they call it a night. They all pushed themselves up from their chairs, and Jackson watched Shaye closely. The conversation had taken a toll on her, especially the video footage, then explaining to Harold the thi
ngs she’d started to remember. Harold had been properly empathetic to the strain it had put on Shaye, but Jackson could tell he was also excited about the prospects that Shaye’s returning memory might bring. If they could catch this guy, so many people would be able to close a horrifying chapter in their lives that had remained open for a very long time.

  Harold walked them to the door. “The number I called you on is a disposable phone. Use it to reach me.”

  “How long will you be in New Orleans?” Shaye asked.

  “Until this is over,” Harold said. “But I’m going to try to keep things on the down low. I don’t want him to know I’m here. Not unless we need to use me as bait.”

  Shaye shook her head. “That’s not an option.”

  “It’s an option if I say it is,” Harold said. “I know this is far more important to you, but that man was in my house. My life stands still until he’s caught or dead. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m hoping for the latter.”

  “I think we all are,” Jackson said.

  Harold nodded. “Anything I find, I’ll let you know, and please do the same. I’m making notes about everything I can remember from the investigation—my own file that no one can conveniently destroy. Anything you want added, you get it to me. I’m registered here under Bart Phillips, an old alias I used for undercover work. Somehow, I forgot to turn in my ID when I retired.”

  Jackson smiled. “Imagine that.”

  “You got a room here like I told you, right?” Harold asked.

  “Yes,” Jackson said. “Shaye and I were both at the desk for check-in and I gave her a room card in the restaurant. If he was watching, he would have seen it.”

  “Good. Then I suggest you head to your room and try to get some sleep. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”