Killer Heat

by Brenda Novak

  Tears streaked Adriana’s face. “Francesca, I—”

  Francesca refused to look at her. “Please, don’t apologize. I’m tired of sorry. I just want to be able to forget.”

  A muscle twitched in Jonah’s cheek. “Will that ever be possible?”

  Fighting tears of her own, Francesca closed her eyes. “I guess not. Maybe it’s better if I don’t have any more to do with either one of you,” she said, and shut the door.

  Jonah dropped his head. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of, what he’d tried to avoid by going back to California. Instead of staying there, however, and letting the police take care of business here, he’d returned to Arizona and to Francesca. He’d allowed his hopes to rise, recommitted himself to the relationship and…and now this.

  “She’s still in love with you,” Adriana said.

  Jonah had all but forgotten she was standing next to him. He’d been too busy recalling Francesca’s unhappy expression as she closed the door in his face to notice or care about anything else. “Love isn’t the problem. It never was.” The problem was fear. Fear had caused the first breakup and would likely cause the second.

  Adriana wiped her eyes. “Maybe love’s not the problem, but it’s the solution, right?”

  He looked over at her. “Is it? She asked me last night if love was enough. I wanted to believe it was. Now I’m beginning to wonder.”

  “If you give up this easily, you don’t love her as much as you think you do,” she said, then started walking away.

  “What are you going to do about…you and her?” he asked.

  She turned to face him. “I’m going back to my family to do what I should’ve done a long time ago. I’m going to face the fact that you’ve never cared about me, forgive myself for loving you even though I shouldn’t have and be grateful for the people who do care about me. I don’t deserve Francesca’s friendship, but if she ever gets to the point where she can handle having both of us in her life…and if you do, too…you know where to find me.”

  Was she really walking away? If so, maybe he and Francesca had a chance. Suddenly, he had more respect and admiration for Adriana than ever before. “Adriana?”

  She stopped. “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  Wearing a sad smile, she nodded. “Make it worth it to me and…be happy together.”

  Jonah stood at Francesca’s door long after Adriana was gone. He wanted to knock, to tell her he did believe love was enough. They could make sure of it if they were equally committed. But he hesitated to push her too far, too fast. Now that Adriana had stepped aside, he felt they might have a shot, a true second chance, and he decided to give Francesca the time and space she needed to work through her own doubts.

  In other words, he was going to have the faith he should’ve had in her from the very beginning.

  Hunsacker was calling. Did he have to answer?

  Butch stared at the investigator’s number displayed on the base of his cordless phone, which also provided the time. It was still early, only eight in the morning and, while he was usually at work by seven, the past twenty-four hours had been hell on him and everyone else in the family. With Elaine turning Paris in to rescue Dean, there had been and would continue to be so much tension in the house Butch didn’t see how they could go on living together. But he’d figure out what to do about that later, once he’d had a chance to rebound from the shock and the upset. He was just glad he’d taken Champ to a friend’s house yesterday. It helped to know his son had no clue what was going on and was probably playing happily at Joey’s. It also helped that Paris was home and sleeping next to him. Because he had Hunsacker to thank for getting her out of jail so quickly, he forced himself to take the phone out of the room so he wouldn’t wake her and hit the answer button.

  “What’s up, Hugh?” He kept his voice low as he made his way down the hall to the kitchen.

  “Sorry to bother you so early, Butch. I know you can’t be happy to hear from me. But thanks to the forensic anthropologist we’ve had working around the clock, we’ve been able to identify some of the remains found in Dead Mule Canyon.”

  Butch breathed a sigh of relief as he put on some coffee. All his secrets had been laid bare. He had nothing more to hide, so he didn’t really care what they learned about those victims. He had his own problems to worry about, like who he was going to hire to represent Paris and how he’d pay a good attorney if they were still at odds with her folks. “What do you need from me?”

  “I’d like to run the names past you to see if you’ve ever heard of these women. Maybe Dean associated with one or more of them at some point.”

  Butch sank into a chair to wait for his caffeine fix. The way Dean traveled around at night, Butch thought he might’ve killed those women. It wasn’t as if anyone had been watching over him. Dean certainly gravitated toward female companions when he had the chance, craving their attention and their love. Unlike Butch, his preoccupation didn’t seem to be sexual in nature, but he was definitely looking for someone who’d be as good to him as his mother. And knowing Paris would likely go to prison because of Elaine made Butch more than willing to cooperate. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Great. Thanks.” Papers rustled on the other end of the line. “One woman, a twenty-eight-year-old white waitress from Prescott Valley, was named Venice O’Cleary. You ever heard of her?”

  Butch knew Venice. He’d slept with her. They’d had a brief fling after he’d met her while having breakfast at the Golden Griddle. He’d even given her a hundred bucks to help her pay the rent one month. After that she’d never answered his calls, but he hadn’t been all that interested in her, hadn’t tried to reach her more than three or four times.

  “Butch?”

  Feigning preoccupation, Butch cleared his throat. “Sorry about that. I got…distracted. What was the name again?”

  “Venice O’Cleary.” Hunsacker repeated the information about her age and where she’d worked, too.

  “Never heard of her.”

  “What about Wanda Erickson?”

  “No,” Butch said, but he’d had to stifle a gasp.

  “She was a bit older, almost thirty-five,” Hunsacker was saying. “She came from Nevada, where she worked in a brothel for a few years. She called herself a masseuse once she hit Arizona, but she might’ve been selling sexual favors along with her back rubs. Do you know if Dean ever frequented massage parlors, ever talked about one or mentioned a woman named Wanda?”

  Was this some sort of nightmare? Butch knew Wanda, too! Three or four years ago, he’d spotted her massage sign hanging outside the quaint little house she’d rented near old town and stopped in for whatever he could get—and always came away very happy. She was clean and she worked cheap. She also knew how to be professional. He’d made her place a regular stop whenever he had a few bucks in his pocket and the excuse of errands to run. The last time he’d tried to visit, however, he’d bumped into the owner of the house, who’d told him she’d cleared out. He’d assumed she headed back to Nevada to be with her sick mother. He’d never dreamed she’d gone missing or…been killed. What had happened to her things? Her family must have come for them. The landlord hadn’t mentioned anything being left behind.

  “No,” he hurried to say, before Hunsacker could prod him again. “I’ve never heard Dean mention a Wanda.”

  “Besides Bianca Andersen, there’s one more. We’re still working on the last three. Her name was Jane Pew, from Phoenix.”

  Hunsacker explained a bit about her, too, as he had the others, but Butch wasn’t listening. Like April, he’d met Jane via an online dating service. The fact that he’d known, even slept with, every woman who’d been killed was no longer a coincidence.

  He’d also known Sherrilyn, he realized. But he hadn’t slept with her. If she was dead, she didn’t fit the same pattern.

  Still…what was going on? Who was murdering these women? Was it that little faggot Dean? Had Dean been following him around, killing
any woman he touched? Why would he care that much? He and Paris had never been close….

  “Sorry.” It was difficult to talk when he could scarcely breathe, but he had to deny knowing these women, and he had to be convincing. Otherwise, the police would return, and this time they’d take him to jail. Anyone would think he was the killer. These women came from different places and different walks of life. Who else could’ve known them all?

  Dean? He couldn’t have followed Butch’s every move. Sometimes when Butch left the house, Dean was already gone.

  Then it occurred to him. Paris. Remembering her rage when she caught him grabbing Julia’s ass, he stood so fast he knocked over the chair. Maybe what she’d done that night hadn’t been an accident. Maybe she’d gotten violent because she was used to getting violent…

  Drained of strength, he let the phone dangle in his hand. When would she have had the time and opportunity to attack his lovers? How would she have arranged it?

  Hoping and praying he was wrong, he tried to calm down, but he couldn’t. She must’ve gone through his phone, his office, his pockets. Checked up on him at every opportunity. Eavesdropped on his conversations. And those P.I.s he thought Kelly’s husband had hired? Maybe one or more of them had worked for his own wife. Paris must’ve met each woman while Champ was in preschool, he decided. Butch couldn’t come up with another occasion when she’d be away from the house for any length of time without his knowledge. Except when he was out himself, of course. He was pretty sure she’d picked up April on the highway where he’d left her or someone else would’ve seen her before she disappeared.

  “Butch? You there?”

  Hunsacker was still on the phone. What should he do? If he talked, Paris would be taken away from him and Champ for life.

  He had to prevent that. It was his fault she’d done those terrible things. And he could make her stop. He just had to quit cheating and spend more time with her. Keep an eye on her for a change.

  If only you’d quit like you promised….

  Who knew how literally she’d meant that?

  The image of April’s body, described by Hunsacker and Finch, came into his mind. April had been propped out there for all to see. Only someone who hated her, on a very personal level, would do that. The police had said as much. And who would hate her more than Paris? “Butch?”

  “I’m right here.” He managed to squeeze each word past the lump in his throat. “I—I wish I could help you, but I haven’t heard of any of those women.”

  “No problem. I knew it was a long shot. Just thought I’d ask. I might bring some pictures by later, if that’s okay.”

  “Of course. Good luck with it.” He hung up, then sat staring at nothing. Why hadn’t Paris killed Kelly? She’d known about them for weeks.

  Maybe she’d tried….

  With a surge of purpose, he dialed his ex-girlfriend’s cell phone.

  “This had better not be who I think it is,” she whispered.

  “Kelly, listen to me—”

  “No, you listen to me,” she interrupted. “How dare you call me again! You said it was over. You said I couldn’t contact you, that Paris was on to us, that she meant more to you than I could ever dream of meaning. And now you’re crawling back?”

  He hadn’t been especially kind when he’d broken things off. He’d needed her to realize he was serious about stopping all contact. “I was—” he still couldn’t wrap his mind around what he suddenly believed “—just wondering if you’ve heard from Paris, if she’s ever tried to call you.”

  “Of course she’s tried. But I won’t pick up. Do you think I’m stupid? What would I say to her? ‘Sorry I’ve been sleeping with your husband’?”

  He pressed the phone tighter to his ear. “Has she ever come by your place?”

  “She’s sat out there, watching the house a time or two. Once she even came to the door. She wanted me to go for a ride with her. Said we needed to talk. But Matt came home right then, and she left.”

  “Don’t go anywhere with her,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  He didn’t answer. He’d just thought of something else. There were other women he’d slept with that Paris hadn’t killed. Was it because she didn’t know about them? Or because, like Kelly, they’d been too careful to let her get that close?

  And what about Sherrilyn Gators? She’d gone missing even though he’d never slept with her.

  But the day Sherrilyn had come to the house he’d been the one to help her when her car wouldn’t start. He’d thought she was attractive enough for a quick fling, but she’d barely spoken to him. She cared about Dean and only Dean. Had Paris taken the fact that he’d replaced her car battery as more than simply the favor it’d turned out to be?

  The smell of coffee was making him sick. He had to shut it off. No way could he eat or drink right now.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Kelly complained. “You’re acting like you’re…on drugs, spacing out.”

  She’d been talking to him and he hadn’t responded. “Just don’t go anywhere with her,” he said, and disconnected. He expected Hunsacker to call him back any moment to say they’d identified Sherrilyn’s remains. Butch had no doubt she was out there. Somewhere, if not in Dead Mule Canyon. Rotting like the others. All because Paris believed they’d had a sexual encounter.

  Why couldn’t Paris understand that those women meant nothing to him? They were good for a cheap thrill, nothing more than that.

  Actually, now they did mean more. They were dead because of him. And unless he could get Paris to stop, Kelly, or any woman he looked at, smiled at or passed on the street, could be next.

  Blotting the sweat on his forehead with a paper towel, he returned to the bedroom. He had to confront his wife, had to hear the details so he could help her. Concealing what she’d done was the only way to save her, the only way to keep his family together. Maybe he’d have to take her and Champ to Mexico. Killing as many people as she had, she’d probably get the death sentence….

  He chuckled bitterly. Elaine had no idea what she was doing when she revealed Paris’s complicity in Julia’s death. Would she have done it if she’d realized? Probably. She wouldn’t protect Paris from the consequences of murder. Even Elaine had her limits. But Butch didn’t. Someone finally loved him; he would never let anyone take that away.

  The door squeaked as it swung open. He stepped inside, then locked it behind him. With the blinds down, it was difficult to see, so he concentrated on the lump in the bedding. “Paris?” No response.

  He sat on the edge of the bed. “Hey, you need to wake up. We have to talk.” He didn’t want to hear her answers to the questions he had to ask, didn’t want her to confirm the worst. But if she denied what she’d done, he knew he wouldn’t believe it. He finally understood how deeply angry he’d made her and the lengths to which she’d go to appease that anger. He also knew what she’d done with her time while Champ was in preschool. It wasn’t the shopping she’d claimed.

  “Paris?” He reached out to nudge her shoulder but the bedding gave way beneath his hand. He’d touched a pillow. She wasn’t in bed.

  Standing, he whirled around and noticed that her purse, which she’d left on the dresser when he brought her home last night, was gone. Her cell phone was missing, too.

  Heart pounding, he rushed to the window and raised the blind. So was the Impala.

  34

  Francesca didn’t usually drink, at least not more than a glass of wine at dinner. Inhibiting her ability to think clearly or move without stumbling seemed counterproductive. She didn’t enjoy the blinding headache and cottonmouth of the morning after, either. But she’d gotten drunk last night. That old bottle of tequila Roland had left behind had provided a way to dull the pain of sending both Jonah and Adriana away. A few drinks beat calling her parents, didn’t it? She was getting a little old to turn to them whenever she got hurt.

  “Maybe calling my parents would’ve been better,” she grumbled as she squinted ag
ainst the light filtering around the edges of her blinds. It was morning, time to get up and face the day. But the prospect was hardly tantalizing.

  Considering how much she hated the taste of tequila, she should’ve gone to the store for something else. But she hadn’t wanted to leave the house at midnight any more than she wanted to leave now.

  She was thinking about staying in bed all day when her cell phone rang. Afraid it might be Jonah—she definitely wasn’t ready to talk to him, not in this condition—she supported her pounding head with one hand while reaching for her phone.

  She didn’t recognize the number.

  Curious, she answered, and tried not to sound as under the weather as she felt. “Hello?”

  “Francesca? This is Paris.”

  Stifling a groan, Francesca managed to prop herself up. She couldn’t imagine why Paris would be calling her, but she wanted to find out. “What can I do for you?”

  “Dean isn’t as innocent as he’d like you to believe,” she announced.

  Had Elaine’s choice upset Paris enough that she was now willing to share details about her brother? Something that might break the case?

  Regretting her alcohol binge even more, Francesca pressed two fingers to her temple. “Why do you say that?”

  “He killed all those women in Dead Mule Canyon. I know he did.”

  Fortunately, Francesca’s high level of interest helped override her physical distress. “How do you know?”

  “I have proof.”

  At this, Francesca scrambled off the bed. But she’d moved too quickly and her vision dimmed to black; she had to double over to avoid passing out. “What kind of proof?”

  “I’ll show you. Can you meet me?”

  “Where?”

  “Halfway?

  “You mean somewhere along Interstate 10?”

  “No. Dean might be coming to look for me.”

  Taking a deep breath, she slowly stood. “In what car?”

  “He takes my parents’ sometimes.”