by Lisa Regan
“He’s my boyfriend,” she said.
He read off the texts: “Did you get home ok” “Where are you?” “Please answer me. Are you ok?” Then he thrust the phone at her. “Text him back. Tell him you’re okay.”
“But—”
“Shut up.”
He sat on the coffee table across from her and held the phone out. “Keep it where I can see it. I want to see what you’re typing. And don’t hit ‘Send’ until I see what you typed.”
Her hands trembled as she took it from him. There had to be a way to alert Connor without D.J. realizing what she was doing. She punched out the letters as slowly as she could so he wouldn’t realize she was up to something. When she was finished, he snatched the phone from her. “Who the fuck are Miranda and Simon?”
“They’re our friends. If he thinks I’m here alone, he’ll come over. He doesn’t want me alone after what happened with my sister. You said to get rid of him.”
He looked at her like he wasn’t sure whether or not to believe her. She braced herself for his attack, but instead he pressed “Send” and then looked up at her. “Now you’re going to stop wasting my time. You killed Leah, and you’re going to pay.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
“I shouldn’t have to remind you that lives are at stake here, Mrs. Irving. Did D.J. expose himself to your girls? That’s why you kicked him out?”
More sobs shook her body. Connor let her cry it out again for another minute or so. He used the break to surreptitiously text Claire for a third time. She should be back at the hospital by now.
Rachel said, “I had run over to Leah’s. I needed eggs for something. I was baking. The girls were watching TV in the TV room. Dylan came in to the kitchen to grab something to eat. They saw him and went in to tell him not to disturb my baking stuff. He—he told them to shut up. Then Maya said she would tell me that he was being rude to them. He said of course they would because they were … they were little … little twats just like me. Then he—then he took out his, you know, his …” Her voice seemed to fade, as though she’d suddenly developed laryngitis. She swallowed several times.
“His penis?” Connor supplied.
She nodded. Her voice came back sounding scratchy. “Yes,” she said. “He, uh, urinated all over the kitchen. Like a dog. I walked in on the tail end of it. The girls were screaming. He was … he was laughing. Enjoying himself. I told him to leave before I called the police. I told him he was no longer welcome.”
“He just left?”
“Yeah. I don’t know where he went. He was gone for a few days. Then he came back and he was back over top of the garage like nothing ever happened. So I called Sebastian, and I told him either he convinced D.J. to return to the East Coast or I was going to call the police. I don’t know how Sebastian did it, but D.J. was gone the next day. Sebastian called me the day after to let me know D.J. was back with him and to make sure I wasn’t going to turn him in for indecent exposure. That was it.”
“But that wasn’t it, was it?”
She leaned forward, her expression earnest. “But it was—for me. I thought he was gone. Then my friend called, about six or seven months ago. She said Sebastian was in the hospital. He’d had a heart attack. She didn’t know where D.J. was. I checked over our garage. He’d been squatting there. I don’t know for how long. I waited for him, told him he couldn’t stay.”
“And he left again?”
She shrugged. “He was upset about something. He didn’t even seem to care that I wanted him to leave. He said he wouldn’t bother me again.”
“That was it? Until today, when we showed up here. The overturned chair, the broken glass. He’d been here.”
She drew in a deep, ragged breath.
“He came after you.”
She dabbed at a new onslaught of tears. “He started to. He threw some things. Called me every name in the book. Then you guys knocked. He took off, that was it.”
“What did he want?”
“His things. He’d left some things in his room, but I’d given them to Goodwill. He had broken into the garage apartment on Sunday night, but he didn’t find whatever he was looking for so he came back today. When he realized I had given his things away, he went out of his head.”
Sunday night. The night Jade was killed. Connor’s cell phone buzzed. He pulled his phone out and stared at the text from Claire, feeling a cold sweat break out across his forehead: I made it home okay. You don’t need to come after work. My friend Miranda is here. Simon dropped her off. Love you.
Rachel continued, “But I don’t know where he is now, I swear.”
Phone clutched in his hand, Connor stood, knocking his chair to the ground. “That’s okay,” he said, sprinting toward the door. “I do.”
Outside, he fumbled with his car keys. He dialed Stryker and pressed his phone to his ear. “Stryke, where are you? You need to send everyone to Claire’s house now. Send the nearest patrol car immediately. I’ll meet you there. He’s got her. The Strangler has Claire. They’re at her house.”
Stryker said, “Wait, what? What are you talking about? I found D.J. North’s apartment, if you can call it that. He’s not here.”
Connor’s car roared to life and he tore out of the parking space. “Because he’s with Claire.” Connor gave him the gist of the text message she had sent. “Miranda Simon,” he said. “Stryke, don’t you remember? She’s the girl Reynard Johnson strangled. Claire witnessed it. Claire and I just talked about this the other day when Jade was killed. She’s trying to tell me that something is wrong. That he’s there with her. I’m only a few minutes away. I’m on my way.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Claire pressed her back into the couch, trying to get as far away from D.J. as possible. The overpowering scent of his blood and sweat was nauseating. He leaned closer to her, and she drew her knees up. He slapped them down. “Don’t move.”
Frozen in place, her knees halfway to the floor and halfway to her chest, she stared at his mangled face. Her abs ached.
“Please,” Claire said. “I’m telling you, I didn’t kill her. She wouldn’t have survived the crash anyway, even if I had gotten her out first. I told you, her injuries were extensive.”
“You’re lying.”
She was a broken record, but she just had to keep spinning her wheels until Connor arrived. “No, I’m not. She had internal injuries from the crash. Bad internal injuries.”
He sprang up, a guttural shriek ripping from his torn throat, and lunged for her, hands outstretched. Instinctively, her own hands shot upward, but it was too late. His hands wrapped around her throat, crushing her windpipe. She’d been choked before by her abductor, but D.J.’s hands felt ten times more powerful. Lungs burning, she fought, kicking against him with her feet as he climbed atop her. He straddled her easily. His angry, mangled face swam in her vision. Her sight dimmed, but not before her brain registered once more the flap of skin dangling from his bloodied cheek. Her hands found his face, searching for the edge of the torn flesh. Seizing on it, she pulled as hard as she could until something wet and slick came off in her hand. Blood poured through her fingers. His howl cut right through her. It was the sound of an animal caught in a trap. For a few precious seconds, his grip around her neck loosened. She reached up and tried to pull his hands away altogether. Unfortunately for her, this only further inflamed him. His hands were slippery with blood as they tightened once more around her throat. They struggled until Claire had no strength left in her body, and every muscle felt permanently clenched. Even as blackness filled her field of vision, her fingers scrabbled for his face again, searching for anything soft, open, or raw she could dig into.
Then Connor’s voice cut through the room. “Police,” he shouted. “Hands behind your head. Down on your knees. Now!”
D.J. froze. Slowly, he removed his hands from her throat, pulled away, and stood up straight. Claire rolled away from him, coughing and massaging her throat. Connor stood in the doorway, his gun dr
awn, sighted on D.J.’s chest.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Sacramento PD. Hands behind your head. Get down on the ground.”
D.J. said, “Fuck you.”
Claire wasn’t sure what happened first, Connor’s gun firing or D.J. rushing him, but the thunderclap of a bullet exploded across the room. Instinctively, Claire covered her head and closed her eyes tightly. When she opened them only seconds later, the men were rolling around on the floor, a blur of angry, flailing limbs, punctuated by grunts. A slick of blood had formed beneath them, streaking as they thrashed in it. Claire assumed—and hoped—it was D.J.’s blood and not Connor’s. She couldn’t tell if Connor’s shot hit him, but as D.J. had been with Claire, his adrenaline made him stronger and more deadly than he might normally be.
Claire stood and staggered toward them on weak, wobbly legs. The room seemed to tip to the side every couple of steps. Her eyes searched the floor for Connor’s Glock. Before her, the men rolled from one side of the room to the other, knocking against the furniture. Framed photos and lamps shattered on the floor, leaving glassy debris in the blood, a macabre mosaic. Claire fell to her knees and looked under the coffee table. That was always the first place she looked when she couldn’t find Wilson’s ball or his rope or his beloved stuffed squirrel.
Connor’s Glock was there. Her left hand closed over the handle. She got to her feet again, took a shaky shooter’s stance, and aimed the weapon in the direction of the men, her finger resting along the side of the barrel. She was an excellent shot, but she was anything but steady and couldn’t risk hitting Connor. With the two of them fighting, there were too many moving parts. She needed to get D.J. away from Connor.
She waited until Connor was on the bottom. Her chest heaving, she raised the gun high above her head, angled away from them, and fired off a shot. The men froze. D.J. straightened his back so he could look at her. Without hesitation, she sighted back in on him and fired two shots into his right upper chest.
His eyes widened with shock. He looked down at the holes in his body. In the seconds it took him to dip his chin, she strode across the room, gun at her side, and kicked him square in the chest. He toppled off Connor with a heavy thud, landing awkwardly. He groaned and flopped around like a half-paralyzed, landed fish.
Connor scrambled to all fours and flipped D.J. onto his stomach. “D.J. North, you have the right to remain silent.” He wrenched the man’s arms back and squeezed his wrists together. Tearing a zip tie from his rear pocket, he secured his wrists, then continued Mirandizing the man. When he’d finished, he turned away and left him there.
Connor and Claire met in the middle of the room on their knees in a pool of the man’s blood. Their embrace was as strong as stone. Claire buried her face in Connor’s neck, wanting to smell him, not D.J.’s foul sweat or the coppery scent of blood. Connor loosened his hold on her and pulled back so he could examine her face and her throat. “Are you hurt?” they asked each other at the same time. They answered one another by feel. Claire wept with relief when she was satisfied that Connor had no bullet holes in him. Connor studied the bruises already beginning to appear on her throat. She could see the guilt and regret in his face. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”
He pulled her back in, squeezing her hard against his body. She pressed her face into his throat. Relief made her weak, like she hadn’t eaten in days. “Just don’t let go,” she breathed. “Don’t let go.”
“Never,” he said. “I’m never letting go.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
ONE WEEK LATER
Whereas Jade’s funeral was a citywide affair with all the pomp and circumstance befitting an officer killed in the line of duty, Leah Holloway’s funeral was a simple graveside service with a pastor presiding. The press was still hungry for any news about her, but they were more concerned with the Soccer Mom Strangler having been taken into custody, so only a few members of the media waited near the exit of the cemetery, hoping for a good shot or perhaps an interview with one of the mourners.
A few short readings from the Bible and Leah Holloway was lowered into the ground. Jim stood beside his mother, looking shell-shocked. He wore a brown suit that looked like it had been in his closet unused for the last ten years. His hair was damp and combed to the side. Connor couldn’t help but wonder if his mother had dressed him and brushed his hair. Peyton stood beside her father, her hand held loosely in his. A few feet away, Hunter sat beside a tombstone, knees drawn to his chest, pouting. Baby Tyler slept soundly in his stroller next to Mrs. Holloway. On the other side of the coffin stood Ashley Copestick and two other of Leah’s coworkers Connor and Stryker had spoken with. Hanging back on the periphery was Rachel Irving, dressed in a smart black pantsuit, hair tied tightly back from her face, arms crossed over her chest.
Claire and Connor stood hand in hand behind the Holloways. Only Ashley wept, the sound unsettling in the sunny valley. It seemed a strange, almost griefless affair, but Connor felt a wave of sadness wash over him. By all accounts, Leah Holloway had tried hard to maintain what she felt was a perfect life. A two-parent family. Parents who were sober, hardworking, and child centered. She had doted on her children, that much was clear. Hapless though Jim Holloway was, Leah had clearly been the center of his universe. He was rudderless without her. In spite of Leah’s efforts, her life had ended in scandal and tragedy. It was everything she never wanted.
After the service, Claire lingered, talking quietly to Peyton as the other grown-ups exchanged awkward goodbyes. Seeing Rachel walking slowly toward her car, Connor hurried after her. He caught up with her just as she reached the vehicle, and he leaned against her door so she couldn’t get away.
“Excuse me,” she said.
“It took me a while to figure it out,” he told her.
She stood stock-still, eyes fixed on Connor’s shoes as though if she kept perfectly motionless, she might cease to exist or he would forget that she was there.
“It was you,” he went on. “You were the last person to speak to Leah.”
“You can check my phone records,” she replied in a low voice. “There are no calls to her that day.”
“Not from your phone, no,” Connor conceded. “But you said you’d been going through D.J.’s things, getting rid of them. D.J. had a burner phone, one he hadn’t used in months. One he left at your house. You were going through his things and found it and turned it on. You saw Leah’s number in there, and you called it. Or maybe you didn’t recognize it as her number at first. Maybe you just dialed it and she picked up. She must have been surprised to hear your voice.”
Rachel said nothing.
“So it was you, something you said, that drove her into the river—with your kids in the car.”
Rachel shook her head.
Connor said, “It bothered me from day one that she tried to kill your kids too. She had a chance to leave them at the gas station, but she didn’t. She spoke with you for over ten minutes, during which this woman, who never drank, downed three-quarters of a bottle of vodka, and then she got behind the wheel and tried to kill both your kids.”
Rachel’s voice was low and hard. “She was going into that river no matter what. She had a psychotic break.”
“I forgot, you’re an expert on psychotic people.”
Rachel’s mouth hung open.
“So it didn’t bother you that your best friend tried to kill your kids?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course it did. I never thought she would do something like that. I never thought—I mean, I—”
“What did you say to her?”
Rachel raised her head. Her eyes shone with tears, but her face was lined with revulsion. She looked as though she were holding back a shudder. “It wasn’t anything I said.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Leah was herding Peyton into the smelly gas station restroom when her phone rang. She pulled it out of her purse and looked at the screen. It said: “Lilly, Accounting.” It was the p
repaid cell phone D.J. had bought when Rachel took him off her plan. She had programmed it into her own phone under a fake work contact. That way if he ever called or texted, and Jim, Rachel, or anyone else saw it, they’d think it was a woman from work contacting her.
He hadn’t called her from it in over a year. Not since their unceremonious breakup. Not since she risked everything to be rid of him, only to be shocked when he disappeared entirely. When she was due to give birth to Tyler, and D.J. returned violently and unexpectedly, he’d had a new phone with an East Coast area code. Leah hadn’t programmed it as a contact, deciding that if anyone saw missed calls or texts from a Pennsylvania number, they might believe it was a wrong number, a case of mistaken identity. He’d been calling and texting from the Pennsylvania number for months, ever since his harassment campaign began. But she instantly recognized the old number.
She hit “Answer” and pressed the phone to her ear as they passed through the door. Peyton dutifully made for the first stall. The smell of piss and industrial cleanser burned Leah’s nostrils.
“Why are you calling me?” she said into the phone.
But the voice on the other end was not D.J.’s. It was a female voice, one so unexpected that it took Leah’s breath away. “Why is your number in D.J.’s phone?”
Leah’s heart stopped. Then it seemed to explode into action, its beats coming so hard and fast she feared it might burst through her chest and fly away, a heart-shaped hummingbird. “It’s his old phone,” Leah said stupidly.
“It’s you,” Rachel hissed. “Leah.”
She said Leah’s name like a curse, like she was casting a spell. A dark, damning spell.
“It’s not what you think.”
Before her, Peyton carefully tore off foot-long strips of toilet paper and placed them on the toilet seat. They kept falling off, one side, then the other. Furtively, she glanced at Leah, and Leah realized that the girl was expecting to be scolded. She was like a dog waiting to be struck. Was Leah that mom?
