by Brenda Novak
Tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t expect her to fall. I just wanted her to leave you alone. We shouldn’t have let her live here in the first place!”
“I know that, and you know that, but no one is going to understand. The police won’t care. The D.A. will paint what happened in the worst possible light. Are you willing to go to prison for a crime you didn’t mean to commit?”
She shrank even deeper into that fluffy robe. She’d lost weight in the past twelve months, was thin as a rail. The burden of their secret weighed too heavily on her. “Of course not. But living in panic and fear…all the time. I’m not sure that’s any better.”
“I won’t lose you,” he said hoarsely. “I won’t let Champ lose you, either.”
She wrung her thin fingers. “But if they find her body they’ll take me away no matter what.”
“They won’t find anything. I’m getting rid of it right now. That’s our only alternative.”
Her eyes flew wide. “No! You know what my mom said. It’s best to leave the body here, to keep it under our control. We can’t risk someone else stumbling across it.”
“The situation has changed, Paris. We have to get it off the premises. Thanks to those missing panties, and the evidence they probably contain, the cops could show up with a search warrant. If they do, how long do you think it would take them to find Julia?”
She covered her face as if she couldn’t bear what he was telling her.
“Paris?”
“Not long,” she admitted.
“Exactly. Now go inside. This is my fault, and I’ll handle it. Forget it, like I told you before.”
“I can’t forget it!” she whispered. “I haven’t been able to forget since the day it happened. She haunts me. She—she’s trying to make me as crazy as Dean!”
“Julia Cummings is dead and gone, Paris. There’s no such thing as ghosts. Go on in. You don’t want to see this.”
She broke into sobs, but he didn’t have time to comfort her. “Didn’t you hear me? Go!”
Her hands dropped to her mouth, but she talked through them. “Where will you dump her?”
“Somewhere no one’ll ever find her, okay? We’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine if you leave this to me.”
“Right. You’ll take care of me,” she muttered, but he couldn’t imagine she really believed it. If he hadn’t cheated on her, they wouldn’t be in this mess. But when it came to other women, he couldn’t stop himself. He’d tried. The best he could do was damage control. And Julia had been so accessible, so easy and eager to please….
“If I wanted anyone else I would’ve let you go to prison,” he said. “Instead, I’m here for you like you’ve been here for me, ever since the day we got married.”
When she looked up at him, her expression was so miserable, so pitiful, he almost couldn’t stand it.
“We may not be perfect, but we love each other, Paris,” he whispered. “Just remember that.”
This elicited only a feeble smile and a nod, but he didn’t have time to try for more. It was getting late, and he had a lot of driving to do.
“I’ll join you as soon as I can.” Waiting until she left, he singled out the key to the padlock from the ring in his office.
Even after she turned out the lights, Francesca couldn’t sleep. What she’d learned about Dean Wheeler had her spooked, made her fear she’d wasted the few short days she’d spent on April’s case by focusing on the wrong person. She’d never ruled out Butch’s brother-in-law, but neither had she expected to hear that his one and only girlfriend had gone missing just weeks after he’d threatened to kill her. She almost couldn’t believe it. As odd as Dean was, Butch seemed the more dangerous of the two. Sure, Dean might have known Bianca via the hospital, but no better than Butch had known April. If Francesca had been placing a bet, she definitely would’ve put her money on Butch….
But, armed with a bat or a shovel, anyone could batter a defenseless person to death. So maybe it was Dean who’d dumped all those bodies in Dead Mule Canyon. Maybe his ex-girlfriend was one of them.
Francesca wished she could discuss what her father had learned with Jonah. She’d tried to call him, but her calls kept transferring to voice mail.
Should she contact Finch? He seemed to be her only remaining option….
Chances were he was in bed right now. But if she waited, she’d lie there, going over and over her questions. Had anyone followed up on Sherrilyn Gators’s disappearance? If so, what had they found?
Maybe, as was true of so many investigations, the police had suspicions but no real proof. If Sherrilyn’s body hadn’t turned up, perhaps they couldn’t even establish, for sure, that a murder had taken place. Unless they had enough physical evidence to compensate for that, a lot of D.A.s refused to go to court without a body. What with double-jeopardy laws, Francesca couldn’t blame them. But why hadn’t Finch or Hunsacker mentioned that Dean had been a prime suspect in another case? That could’ve propelled the investigation in a much more promising direction….
Could it be that Sherrilyn’s disappearance had been assigned to a different investigator, or maybe the Prescott P.D., and Finch and Hunsacker hadn’t yet realized that this old case might have some relevance to the bodies in Dead Mule Canyon?
There was a great deal of work to be done on these murders and only so many hours in a day. Whether the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office formed a task force or not, she couldn’t sit back and hope they’d eventually come up with this information on their own. Lives could be at risk. She had to call and share what she knew as soon as possible.
Telling herself she didn’t care how she was received, she slid over to her nightstand, where she’d left her cell phone, and used her electronic address book to call Finch.
He sounded groggy when he answered, which made her nervous about interrupting him—and jealous that he could sleep.
“It’s me,” she said.
“I know.” The flatness of his tone indicated that he wasn’t thrilled to hear her voice, but she hadn’t expected him to be. “I’m wondering why you’re calling,” he went on. “Don’t tell me you’re inside Butch’s salvage yard.”
She ignored his sarcasm. “Did you know Dean threatened to kill a love interest five years ago?”
“You had to wake me up with that little tidbit, Francesca? Something Dean said five years ago couldn’t have waited till morning?”
“I—”
“Is there anything else you’d like to pass along at midnight?” he interrupted. “You know Butch is the killer because it’s been revealed to you by your secret decoder ring?”
Francesca felt her muscles tense. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“I have a right to be. You woke me up. And I distinctly remember telling you to butt out of this investigation.”
“Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.”
“I’ll throw your ass in jail if you don’t.”
She stared into the darkness that seemed to press in on all sides. “If I save just one life it’ll be worth it.”
“You might think so now, but—”
“If you’d like to go back to sleep, shut up and listen for a second,” she broke in. “I want to make sure you’re aware that Dean Wheeler threatened to kill a woman who went missing three weeks later. In case you plan on doing any police work at all, her name’s Sherrilyn Gators.”
Silence descended. When Finch spoke again, he sounded slightly humbled. “Not my case. That was Prescott P.D. But she’s on our list. She worked for the post office, didn’t she?”
“That’s right.”
“How do you know Dean knew her?”
“I used my secret decoder ring,” she said, and disconnected. She’d given him the tip. He could dig for the details himself.
It took Dean much longer to pick the lock on the back door than he’d thought it would. But Francesca still wasn’t asleep when he entered the house. She was in the bathroom. From where he stood in the hall, he could hear th
e toilet flush. Then the sink taps went on. She kept muttering to herself, too. She wasn’t happy with someone named Finch. She called him a jerk, said that she was sticking with the investigation whether he liked it or not.
Dean seemed to recall that Finch was one of the investigators. Fortunately, the various people working on the “good” side didn’t get along. He figured they’d be a lot more effective if they did. He was surprised no one had ever come to the salvage yard asking about Julia. She’d been estranged from her family in California—they probably didn’t even know she was dead—but she’d lived and worked at the yard for nearly six months. Any number of people had seen her and would most likely remember her. Why had no one raised the alarm when she’d simply disappeared from the face of the earth?
Because of that appalling lack of interest, Dean had created some missing persons flyers on his computer and had often considered printing them and posting them at the grocery store and post office. Julia deserved that much of a tribute, didn’t she? A small shred of proof that someone had cared about her? She hadn’t been a bad girl. She’d been kinder to him than his own family, acted like the sister Paris never had.
Besides, he enjoyed the thought that seeing Julia’s image in public would give Butch a good scare. At times, he’d even been tempted to locate Julia’s family and divulge the whereabouts of her body. He wasn’t sure they’d care. She’d told some pretty awful stories about them. But revealing what he knew would get rid of Butch. This past year, Dean had been able to tolerate his brother-in-law mostly because he felt he could get rid of him if he really needed to.
But now that he realized his mother was also at risk, he was glad he’d kept his mouth shut. He doubted she had any direct involvement in the murder. His mother had always liked Julia. She was the one who’d taken pity on her and given her a job and a place to live. It was far more likely that she was covering for Butch. She wouldn’t want Paris and Champ to lose their husband and father just because she’d taken in a poor runaway.
Expecting Francesca to come out of the bathroom any minute, he wrapped the ends of the rope he’d brought in his backpack tightly around his hands and pressed himself against the wall. He hated that it had come to this, wished there was some other way. But he had no choice.
Think of Mom. He’d do anything for Elaine, wouldn’t he? Of course. Despite his many shortcomings, he’d always been a loyal son.
But the door to Francesca’s bathroom didn’t open. The tub went on instead. She was taking a bath.
Grateful he’d have a little more time to acclimate and do what he liked best—look around and imagine being romantically involved with a woman of Francesca’s beauty—he moved into her bedroom and searched through her drawers. If he could find Julia’s panties, all would be well. Then he could slip out as quietly as he’d slipped in, and Francesca would never have to know he’d been in her house.
But life was never that easy. Especially his life. He turned her entire room upside down but found nothing. And by then he didn’t dare look anywhere else. Francesca had just pulled the plug on the tub.
He could hear the water drain.
She was getting out.
The sleeping pill Francesca had swallowed before climbing in the bathwater was beginning to take effect. She could feel her body relax, her thoughts slow. Afraid she might slide under the water—which had reportedly happened to Butch’s mother—she’d cut her bath short.
Secret decoder ring. Finch had upset her. But that was nothing new. And why did his opinion matter? There wasn’t any point in dwelling on him or Hunsacker. She’d do everything she felt was necessary on the Bonner case, do what her conscience dictated, regardless of what they had to say about it. If the sheriff’s department felt strongly enough to act on their threats and tried to prosecute her, she’d get a lawyer, a damn good one. She wasn’t without resources.
As for Jonah… She didn’t know what to think about Jonah. Her resistance to acknowledging her feelings about him seemed to be ebbing away with her tension. Every time she closed her eyes he was there, taking her in his arms and making love to her like he used to. It was crazy, but she wanted him now more than ever.
Then there was Adriana, and all the issues of trust and distrust, love and loyalty, their last conversation had dredged up…
Refusing to go over that again, she toweled off. If she allowed herself to dwell on Adriana, the sleeping pill wouldn’t work.
After blow-drying her hair, she pulled on her nightgown and walked into her bedroom. She was so eager to fall into bed, it didn’t occur to her that the lights shouldn’t be off. She was halfway across the room before she realized. Then she stopped.
She’d spoken to Finch in the dark, but she’d turned on the lights after she disconnected so she could grab fresh underwear to put on following her bath. How was it that they were off?
Had she hit the switch as she passed into the hall? That was what she wanted to believe. But she was almost positive she hadn’t. And, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she spotted something that made her blood run cold. Someone had pulled out her dresser drawers. Clothes spilled onto the floor. Her room had been ransacked.
Adrenaline overcame the sedative as Francesca squinted to see if she could locate her iPhone on the nightstand. Should she tiptoe over and get it? Search the blankets for the pepper spray she’d taken to bed with her? Or run out of the house without wasting another second?
She decided to lock her door, reclaim her pepper spray and her phone and hide under the bed to place a distress call. But a quick movement caught her eye, and it dawned on her that whoever had broken in wasn’t just in her house.
He was in her bedroom.
27
Francesca didn’t bother trying to run. She had nowhere to go. Dean had already closed the door and locked it. Because it locked on the inside, she could undo it if she had the opportunity, but that would take a second or two more than dashing through an open doorway.
And she had a feeling every second was going to count.
“What are you doing here, Dean?” she breathed.
He looked frustrated. Unhappy. “I didn’t want to come. I had to.”
She wondered if she could get out through the slider, which was on the opposite side of the room, but thanks to the scare she’d been given by her last visitor, she’d secured it with a broom handle so it couldn’t be lifted off its track. By the time she removed the handle, unfastened the latch and slid the door open, it’d be too late. “No one made you come here.”
“You don’t understand. It was my fault.”
Envisioning poor, frightened, mother-of-three Sherrilyn, who might’ve been down this road before her, Francesca backed slowly toward the bed. She’d left her pepper spray under the blankets and needed to find it. But it was only a two-ounce can, not large enough to see easily. Would she be able to lay her hands on it—and spray Dean before he overtook her?
There was a small chance she could. If she moved fast and the can wasn’t tangled in the bedding…
“What was your fault?” she asked.
“The panties. I’m the one who hid them in Butch’s truck.”
Trying to put the bed between them, she veered to the left as she stepped away from him. “What panties?”
If he knew she was stalling, he didn’t let on. “You know the ones. You took them. I need them back. If you cooperate, this night will end a lot better than if you don’t.”
She managed to clear the bed while there was still ten feet or so between them. “What if I don’t have the panties?”
“You have to have them. They’re not at the salvage yard.”
“What if I do have them? Why would you care about some underwear I picked up in the yard, Dean?”
He had an object in his hands—not a bat, not that large. She couldn’t make out any details in the dark, but she was almost positive it was a piece of rope.
“Don’t play stupid,” he said. “It insults my intelligence.”
&n
bsp; She might be battling the effects of a sleeping pill, but he sounded chillingly lucid. Struggling with the dull-witted feeling the medication gave her, she changed tactics. “So you’re the one?”
“The one who what?”
“Who’s been beating women to death.”
He grimaced. “No. Of course not. It’s Butch. You know that.”
She was no longer so sure. Dean could’ve followed him the night he met April at the Pour House, could have murdered her in an attempt to set up his brother-in-law. If Dean was indeed a sociopath, the sociopath who’d murdered seven women over a span of five years, what was one more? And there was certainly no love lost between the two men. Seeing that Butch went to prison would be a decisive way to remove him from the salvage yard without a body and without being blamed by Paris or their parents. It might even have been Dean who placed that business card from the bar near the bodies in Dead Mule Canyon.
The only problem with this reasoning was the fact that Dean had admitted to putting the panties in Butch’s jockey box. If he wanted them to be found, why was he here, hoping to retrieve them? Had he changed his mind? Had he realized that his plan could backfire and bring him under police scrutiny? “How do you know it’s Butch?” she asked.
“Who else could it be? Besides, there are certain signs.”
“Like…”
He started coming around the bed, so she jumped on top of it, planning to hop off the other side if he ever abandoned that spot between her and the door.
But he stopped, choosing to guard against the possibility that she could dart past him and beat him out of the house. “His eyes,” he said. “His eyes are empty. And his heart is cold.”
Attempting to locate her pepper spray with her feet, Francesca inched to one side. How had she been positioned while holding it? Had she been on the right or the left? And where might it have gone during her conversation with Investigator Finch, when the desire for a sleeping pill and a hot bath had superseded her fear?
