by Jenna Ryan
“It’s me, Angel,” the silhouette said hoarsely. “I’ve come to kill you for the last time.”
Chapter Eighteen
Devon stared at him. She knew now what a startled deer must feel when it got caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle.
The Christmas Murderer made a jerky motion, and with it, Devon’s courage galvanized. To hell with deer and headlights. She wasn’t about to let a homicidal lunatic kill her, not before she put up the best fight she could.
Clambering to her feet, she yanked the foyer bench between them. With a single lithe kick, he booted it aside, lunged and sank his hand into her hair.
“Lying bitch,” he swore. To Devon’s ringing ears, it sounded like a sob. “It was all lies from the start. You slept with someone else.” Her head snapped back as he gave her hair a vicious tug. “I hate you. Do you hear me, Angela? As much as I loved you before, I hate you now. So you can just stop coming back. Stop it, and leave me alone.”
He clamped his other hand across her windpipe. His bitter words came directly into her ear. Her brain bobbled. The voice, the touch, even the scent of him was wrong. But it must be him, because it wasn’t Rudy. No, too young, too agile and much too strong to be Rudy.
She didn’t know what to call him. Her fingers came up to claw at a gloved hand. The pressure hurt. She couldn’t breathe.
“Riker, please,” she gasped, willing back the black spots of unconsciousness.
“Shut up,” he ordered and shook her. His grip tightened. She kicked and it tightened further.
“Riker...”
“I said shut up! There’s nothing you can say to stop me. It’s too late for begging.”
She was going to choke. That was one of two thoughts that floated hazily in Devon’s mind. The more tantalizing thought drifted away, too far away for her to grasp it.
She tried to ram his stomach as she’d done before, but he was quick and blocked her elbow with his. Pain arrowed up her arm and into her teeth.
The action skewed him slightly to the side. As he turned, Devon spied a tiny movement in the bedroom doorway. She also succeeded in catching a quick, distorted glimpse of the killer’s face in the glass face of her grandfather clock.
His long hair was caught back in a ponytail, but strands of it had escaped to tickle her cheek. His face was long and narrow, hollow-cheeked with misery. Terror battled relief. Her vision wavered. She knew that face. Did she know that face?
She coughed, squinted, blinked. “Riker...” Her lips moved soundlessly. The black spots became a black blur. “Oh my God... Riker!”
HE COULDN’T believe it; he’d lost his keys.
Jacob swore, glanced at the motionless form in the cop car across the street and the battered motorcycle behind it, bared his teeth and gave the door a mighty kick with his foot.
It took five well-aimed attempts before the wood frame splintered, another three before lock separated from frame, allowing him to shove the thing aside.
The Morning Angel’s name resounded in his head. Angel Barret, born, Angela Brightman. Brightman. As simple as that if they’d only discovered it earlier.
He took the stairs three at a time. It was Devon’s face he saw in his mind’s eye—but not her bony fingers he recalled. They’d once seized his in a cold, bruising grip.
“You killed her, boy. It was your fault, not mine.” Mean brown eyes had burned with denial. “You confused her. Laura was mine from the start. You should have been like us or you should have gone away and left us alone. You made her doubt her values, boy. You made her fight with me. She ran out, and the next morning, she was dead. She was dead, and you caused it. You killed your baby sister. And now you’ve killed me, too....”
No, Jacob thought grimly, he hadn’t done either of those things. But he knew who’d done one of them.
The bastard would not do it to Devon.
“RIKER!”
It was a desperate croak, an accusation, a truth Devon could see now despite the blackness that threatened to engulf her.
“Smart and beautiful,” he said with sarcastic pity. “But a poor illusionist.”
She fought him with every scrap of her strength. Joel Riker, the real Riker, cop and killer twisted up into one tormented ball. Her fingernails tore at the skin of his wrists. He made garbled sounds of pain and, lifting her from the carpet, whipped her around like a cloth doll.
The blurred fury sprang at him like a small dog. Devon glimpsed a blue ceramic vase, caught a flash of blond hair and snatched her head sideways.
“Leave her alone!” Hannah swung the vase with all her might.
It would have made contact if Riker hadn’t ducked swiftly and thrust Devon away from him. The base of the vase grazed the side of her head as she stumbled forward. With a shocked. “Oh!” Hannah dropped her makeshift weapon and ran to catch her sister.
Devon heard Riker breathing like an enraged bull. She fought for balance while Hannah held onto her and whispered white-lipped, “He cut the phone lines.”
“And bugged the vehicles of your would-be heroes,” a leashed but otherwise perfectly modulated male voice added scathingly.
Devon scuttled around on her backside while Hannah knelt behind her. Her mind spiraled. Her vision remained blotchy and unsure. “Bugged?” she repeated slowly.
His shoulders hitched. He snatched up the scarf, then reached with deliberate calculation into his coat, “As in monitored, Angela. Nothing sophisticated, just a few miniature devices planted in strategic places so that I could—” He stopped, glanced into his palm, swore. A second later, a small black box hit the wall. “Piece of crap.” His eyes darted back and forth, then landed on her and focused. His agitated breathing slowed. “Doesn’t matter.” He advanced on the pair of them. “I’ll handle him.”
Devon had difficulty making her lips move. “Who?”
His eyes blazed, actually lit up in a way that altered their color, deepened it, polished it to a marble-bright sheen.
“Back up,” she whispered through her teeth to Hannah.
Hannah responded instantly, her gaze riveted to Riker’s contorted face.
“My alter ego.” He continued to advance. “My Sydney Carton.” Bitterness spewed from his lips and eyes. “Jacob Price, Angela. Your latest lover.”
“I’m not...”
She got no further than that. What was left of the door crashed open behind Riker, hit the wall and bounced off.
“Drop it, Riker,” Jacob growled.
Did he have a gun? In the garish glare of light from the hall, Devon could only see his extended hands.
Riker moved like a cheetah, down and sideways. A bullet zinged off the stereo stand. He had a gun, all right. Devon pushed at Hannah. “Get into the bathroom,” she ordered, “before he—”
Riker seized her so unexpectedly and so savagely that it took Devon several seconds to understand what had happened.
“Ever the protector.” He squeezed her up tight to his body. His neck muscles formed rigid cords. A knife—Devon had no idea where it had come from—slid like a straight razor across the soft skin of her throat. “You drop it, Price,” he snarled, “or I swear by all the saints, I’ll carve her up in front of you.”
He’d do it in a minute. Devon let the fingers that had risen instinctively to his hand rest without pressure on his strong wrist.
Jacob faced him, appeared to calculate the odds. Jacob, not Riker. Not a cop at all. The cop was the killer. Devon’s mind trembled. The world had slipped into a freakish alternative dimension.
Jacob’s hands fell. The gun hit the carpet. “Let her go, Riker,” he said without inflection. “She isn’t Angela.”
Something rumbled in Riker’s chest. Anger? Anguish? “What the hell do you know?” he snapped. “Your own sister played host to Angela’s vengeful spirit. My Morning Angel. Mine. Not some other creep’s who didn’t even love her.” His breath hissed out, poured hotly over Devon’s cheek. “You don’t know what it is to love, Jacob. To love and to
hate at the same time. To be fed one lie after another. To be treated like a complete and utter fool.”
“You’re wrong.” Jacob took a cautious step forward. “I know exactly what it feels like.”
So did she, Devon thought, but her glimmer of spite gave way swiftly to renewed fear as Riker’s grip shifted on the knife.
“So your Morning Angel jilted you,” Jacob went on. He could have been talking about the fate of the Phillies for all the urgency in his tone. “You did better than Angela in the end anyway. You married her cousin. Did Delia remind you of Angela?”
“Delia!” Devon gasped the name softly, then sneaked a look at Riker’s strained profile. That’s why the name had sounded so familiar. Angela Brightman had been the Morning Angel. Delia Brightman had been married to Joel Riker.
Jacob eased closer as Riker began to sweat. “I read about her, Riker. Manhattan’s Morning Angel, with a voice like honeyed velvet.”
“And the soul of a viper,” Riker shot back. “You didn’t know her. She was insidious, crawled under a man’s skin and festered there. I loved her, and she lied to me.”
At a subtle sign from Jacob, Devon steadied her breathing. Divert his attention, right. How? “You married her cousin Delia, Riker,” she managed shakily. “You must have loved her very much.”
His laugh resembled the cry of a wounded seal. “I loved her, and she died. A heart attack at twenty-five. No one has a heart attack at twenty-five.” His mouth took an ugly turn. The hand holding the knife gave a jerk that drew blood.
Devon swallowed her terror, and refrained from moving.
“People die.” Jacob attempted to draw his attention. “Many of them for reasons no one can explain.”
“Bull.” Devon felt Riker’s heart pumping hard and fast against her spine. “I can explain it. Angela killed her. Delia and I had just moved to Philadelphia. I heard Angela on the radio. I knew it was her come back to torment me. But I waited. I told myself it didn’t matter. What harm could a ghost do to me?”
Jacob’s eyes impaled his. “You killed her, didn’t you?”
“Who?” A lost wail this time as his emotions played leapfrog. Devon ordered her watery knees to support her and prayed for a chance. Any chance.
Ice pellets skittered down the window. Did she hear Christmas music? Carollers?
Jacob held tight to his even tone. “Did you kill Angela because she lied to you?”
Riker’s broken bark of laughter froze the blood in Devon’s heart. “Kill her? Of course I did. They found her, finally in her own basement, under the stupid linoleum floor that I’d laid down for her. Stupid cops. I fell apart, and they read it as torn apart. They only questioned me once. Once, and then they never talked to me again. So I went to her funeral, decided then and there to ditch my career in broadcasting and become a cop. God knew, I could do it better than the ones assigned to Angela’s case. I met Delia at Angela’s gravesite. I married her. I buried her. I knew, I knew that her death was Angela’s doing. And I knew, finally, that I’d have to kill her again.”
Laura West. The name drifted eerily through Devon’s head. Riker had murdered Jacob’s sister. The tragic irony, the horror of it, was that he’d subsequently been assigned to investigate her death.
The knife sliced deeper. Jacob’s fingers curled into fists. Devon felt a trickle of blood slide down her throat and sucked in a quick, panicky breath. “W-why ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear?’” she blurted out.
The distraction worked. The knife froze. “A midnight clear,” Riker repeated, then more forcefully, “A midnight clear. Damn that song.” One hand rose to clap over his ear. “Damn that song to hell, and her with it!”
Devon seized her opportunity. Clamping her hands to his forearm, she shoved the knife from her throat. His strength was impressive, might have been insurmountable if she hadn’t managed to sink her teeth into his wrist.
They were still embedded when she saw the bullet that was Jacob’s body hit Riker with a full flying tackle.
Devon stumbled, then quickly righted herself and ran for the vase Hannah had used...and smashed in the process, she realized a frustrated moment later.
A thump sounded in the corridor. She snatched her head up. Jacob and Riker were gone. How on earth had they disappeared so quickly?
Spinning, she rushed to the bedroom, flung open the door—and had to dart to the window to prevent Hannah from crawling onto the frosty ledge.
“Riker—Jacob’s dealing with him.”
“He’s—” Hannah’s distraught eyes widened. “Devon, your neck! You’re bleeding!”
She’d forgotten about that. She fingered the cut, then shook herself, grabbed her brass reading lamp from the nightstand and headed doggedly back through the apartment.
“Riker’s cell phone is in my purse,” she shouted as she ran. “Beside the sofa. Phone Detective Du—oh, my God!”
The name splintered as her foot caught on something large and unmoving on the outer threshold. No, not something—someone. Lying face down on the carpet in a seeping pool of blood was the body of ex-Philadelphia Police Sergeant, Rudy Brown.
JACOB’S FIST SMASHED into Riker’s face. A lucky but effective blow. Riker stumbled on the lobby carpet, used the newel post to save himself and let out an animal snarl.
But Jacob was on fire, furious and past caring about the cop’s deteriorated state of mind.
“You tried to kill Devon,” he shouted and landed another uppercut. “You did kill Laura and six other women. Seven if you include Gina Bartholomew.”
Riker assumed a wary crouch, wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth. “She was a whore, too good for me now, she said. Angela probably had a chat with her in transit.”
He moved swiftly and caught his opponent with an elbow to the ribs. Jacob’s breath whooshed out but pain didn’t deter him. He brought his own elbow up into Riker’s ear.
Stunned, Riker staggered into the mailboxes.
A cold blast of wind proceeded an indignant, “What on earth is this?” from the outer door.
Bad timing, Jacob reflected as Riker launched the pair of them into Andrew McGruder’s flabby chest.
The dentist flailed helplessly beneath them. Jacob twisted Riker around, sandwiching him. “Hold him,” he ordered, and too stunned to argue, Andrew did. Briefly. No sooner had Jacob fisted his black coat than Riker thrashed free of his captor’s ineffectual grasp.
Jacob cursed and rolled in the opposite direction. On his knees, he saw Riker looking upward, judging the distance. Was he going to try for the stairs?
“You murdered Jimmy, didn’t you?” Jacob’s rough demand was designed to sidetrack, and it made Riker blink.
“What? Jimmy? Oh, the kid.” He pressed a hand to his forehead, refocused. “Yeah, I did him.” His hand snapped down, his eyes burned. “I had to do him. He’d have told her about us.”
“There’s no us, Riker.”
A sly smile crept across Riker’s mouth. Not moving, Andrew watched them square off. “Oh, there’s an us, all right, Jacob. Working toward separate goals, it’s true, yet united by deception. Brando made you right off. Bad move on your part. He was a junkie. All I had to do was get him some stuff. It goes missing all the time from the cop shop. It was strong. I thought he’d OD for sure. He almost did, but he sold too much of it—some promise he’d made to that dancer girlfriend of his. I had to—” his voice quavered, then ruthlessly firmed. “I had to drop him into the river. Drugs and nature did the rest.”
His features hazed. His gaze strayed upward again. He was losing him, Jacob realized.
“You don’t know,” Riker went on, his tone eerily soft. “I didn’t know myself how big a monster Angela could be. She played that song while she talked to her lover on the phone. And there I was, hiding in her front-hall closet with her Christmas present in my hand. A beautiful gold pendant. A Claddagh—a heart cupped in a pair of hands. Irish. A symbol of my love.”
Jacob had worked himself to his feet but remained i
n a crouch. “You broke into her house?”
“To give her her present. We’d agreed at the station not to do presents that year. But I loved her. We went out for drinks. I told her she was everything to me. And you know what she did?”
Though he had a pretty good idea, Jacob shook his head, made a subtle warning sign to Andrew not to budge.
“She laughed. She patted my cheek. She told me crushes were cute.” His muscles bunched at the memory. “That did it. I’d show her that I meant it.” His lips thinned. “My Morning Angel. She kept playing that song, kept talking to him. A midnight clear—which is exactly when it came to me. I waited and sneaked out of the house. That night, at midnight, I finally realized what I had to do.” His head came up. His eyes glinted. “And I’m going to do it again. Now!”
He sprang up with such speed and intensity of purpose that Jacob almost missed the move. But he was young and quick, and he’d connected more times with Riker’s body than Riker had with his.
He took off as Riker did and managed to snag the other man’s ankle. His fingers closed and yanked. Riker howled, kicked free and began to scramble upward.
“I think...” Andrew started.
“Stay down,” Jacob shouted.
It took him till the top of the stairs to catch the bottom of Riker’s coat. One foot came out in a lethal jab, but Jacob was prepared and dodged it.
“Not Devon,” he grunted through gnashed teeth. “You won’t kill the woman I love.”
Giving Riker’s trapped foot a mighty wrench, he flipped him over. Riker surged up, hands extended. No protection to the solar plexus. Jacob balled his fist and plunged it hard into the cop’s stomach. Riker doubled, struggled for balance, then lost his footing and toppled awkwardly down the staircase.
Breathing hard, Jacob simply sidestepped and watched. Riker knew how to fall. He was out cold at Andrew McGruder’s upturned feet, but nowhere close to dead.
And as he turned to face Devon’s wrath, Jacob wondered idly how he felt about that.
