Killing Fear

by Allison Brennan

  “Thank you.” She swallowed, squeezed his hand. “I’ll be okay.” She nodded toward the envelope. “He left that for me.”

  “Why did you touch it?”

  “I—I almost forgot he’d left it. I had to see what was inside. I only touched the corners. But I want that picture, Will.”

  Will frowned, slipped on latex gloves, and flipped open the flap of the envelope. Judging by the glue, it had never been sealed.

  Inside was a single picture. Of Frank in the car he drove seven years ago, a large American sedan. Asleep at the wheel, his mouth open, his head back. Will could almost hear him snoring.

  From the angle of the shot, Will could see a flask on the passenger seat.

  He turned the picture over. In block letters:

  APRIL 2 1:05 AM ASLEEP ON DUTY

  Jessica Suarez had been murdered on April 2. Frank had sworn he’d watched the house all night. Will hadn’t believed him. When he confronted Frank, his partner had jumped all over him. Brought up his affair with Robin. That he, Frank Sturgeon, was a cop with over twenty-four years on the force, and who was Will Hooper? Ten years and change? Walking in his daddy’s footsteps?

  Frank had always known how to rub Will the wrong way. And Will had no proof Frank had fallen asleep on the job.

  Until now.

  “I’m running with the story, Will,” Trinity said softly.

  “What story? That a killer paid you a visit?”

  She shook her head, looked at the photo.

  “Don’t,” he said. “This is evidence.”

  “I don’t care. I already scanned a copy and sent it to my boss. Glenn contacted me for a reason, Will. And you know what? I believe him.”

  “He killed four women!”

  “He killed three women. The jury’s still out on whether he killed Anna Clark.”

  “Don’t—” He caught himself. Shit, he was only going to make it worse if he made ultimatums. He was going to have to trust Trinity that she would be smart. And he’d do what he could. Increase patrols in her neighborhood. He could probably even justify to Chief Causey that she needed a tail.

  “You’re going to destroy Frank Sturgeon.”

  “That should be the least of your concerns,” Trinity said. “Did you cover for him back then?”

  “I didn’t know—” Again he caught himself. He was not going to be trapped into an interview with a reporter. He wanted to rail against her, threaten her, but instead he said, “Be careful, okay?”

  “I promise.”

  “You have no problem with the crime techs coming in and collecting evidence?”

  She shook her head. “Anything they need. And—”

  She stopped.

  “What?”

  She glanced at Carina. The look wasn’t lost on either Carina or Will.

  “I’ll call you later if I remember anything else,” she said pointedly.

  Jim Gage stepped into the kitchen. “Carina, Will. Are we set?”

  “He appeared to have spent the most time in the bedroom,” Will told Gage. “He left this for Trinity. She’s touched it.”

  Trinity said, “You can print me, no problem. I pulled off the duct tape and left it upstairs. I changed, but didn’t touch anything except my dresser, and haven’t been back in there.”

  “I’m not holding out hope that he dropped a motel receipt, but you never know,” Will said, still disturbed by the photograph and trying to figure out what Glenn’s game was this time.

  Carina spoke up. “How did he know where Trinity lives?”

  No one spoke. Then Will said, “Trinity is a public figure. She works at a television studio, he could easily look up the address, follow her home, come back whenever he wanted.”

  “Which means he could be following anyone and they might not know.”

  Jim turned around and motioned for his team to come in as he asked Will, “Do we know how he entered?”

  Carina answered. “The responding officer said the door was jimmied.”

  “You don’t have security?” Will asked Trinity.

  “I didn’t think I needed it.”

  “Maybe you should rethink that,” Will admonished.

  Diana Cresson and Stu Hansen stepped into the modest kitchen, crowded now with six adults standing around the four-seat table.

  “You brought the A-team with you,” Will said with a nod to the two crime techs Jim had with him. Diana was the assistant lab director under Gage, and Stu was a trace evidence specialist who’d done his training in New York City. Both had been in the lab for more than ten years. Will often wondered why Stu hadn’t moved on—he was more than capable of running his own lab, as Gage once told him. But Stu simply said he never wanted to be in charge. Diana, however, was definitely on a career-focused path. Will wouldn’t be surprised if she soon announced she was leaving for a lead position in another jurisdiction—Jim Gage wasn’t yet forty and didn’t look like he’d be retiring anytime soon.

  “I have clearance for any overtime necessary,” Gage said, “which isn’t surprising. This won’t take long, Ms. Lange.”

  Trinity rolled her eyes. “God, Jim, we’ve known each other for a gazillion years and you call me Ms. Lange?”

  He shrugged. “You’ve never been a victim before.”

  “And I’m not a victim now,” she insisted. “I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me, and I’m going to be careful.”

  Everyone turned to stare at her.

  “I promise,” she said, forcing the confidence into her voice. “I’m going to be very careful.”

  ELEVEN

  Theodore Glenn started visiting RJ’s a year before he killed Bethany.

  He’d hit a low point in his life. The thrill of killing Dirk Lofton wore off after the investigators ruled that it was an accident caused by a poorly packed chute. No one even considered that someone might have messed with Lofton’s equipment. Why would they? There had been no threats on his life, there was no money at stake, and Lofton had always been arrogant about his jumps. He would have laughed at anyone who wanted to double-check his equipment.

  Theodore went home after that week, the elation waning, completely gone by the time his plane hit the tarmac—his plane, because he’d obtained his pilot’s license a few years back. He still enjoyed flying, but not as much as he used to. There was no challenge in it, unless he was battling the elements, and no one cleared him for takeoff if a storm was expected.

  One of the managers at the megacorporation where he served as the staff attorney had a bachelor’s party at RJ’s, a strip club in the gaslight district. Back then, it was still an area where hookers walked the streets and drugs could easily be bought, usually in the open. The police presence was nominal, or focused on encroaching gang activity, not streetwalkers and low-level drug dealers.

  That first night, he’d watched the strippers with both fascination and disdain. What decent woman would remove her clothes, gyrate in front of horny men, all for a few bucks in tips?

  But Theodore appreciated their beautiful, firm bodies and slick moves. He wondered what the women thought while onstage sending come-hither looks at the patrons. Did they get a thrill in turning men on and not giving them relief? Perhaps they were all a bunch of lesbians who got off bringing men to the brink and leaving them hot and bothered.

  Theodore soon learned that some of the strippers were easier than others. Like Bethany. She latched onto bachelor boy Paul for the night, accepting his money in her teeth, with her toes, between her legs. Paul didn’t drink enough to cheat on his fiancée, and suggested Bethany move on to Theodore. They both tipped her very well.

  That night Theodore went home with Bethany. He almost killed her then. He pictured himself wrapping his hands around her neck, squeezing, watching her face as she died. Watching her eyes lose focus. Would she be scared? Would she know what he was doing? What was the fun in killing her if she didn’t know she was going to die?

  Instead, he just fucked her. Too many people had seen him leave with Be
thany. It would be stupid to kill her now as he would most certainly be caught.

  But the idea of killing her appealed to him. More, the idea of her knowing she was going to die appealed to him. Unlike Dirk Lofton at the Royal Gorge, who didn’t suspect he was going to die when he jumped, Theodore figured it would be much more thrilling to kill someone who knew he was going to steal their last breath. And better, know that he would enjoy every minute of their anguish.

  The following week he drove to Los Angeles, picked a woman at random. Followed her home. Watched the house. Her husband came home at six. An hour later he left.

  Theodore put on gloves, entered the house, and shot the stranger in the back while she stood over the stove.

  Then he walked out and didn’t look back.

  He’d listened to the news reports of the murder with growing fascination. Bought copies of the L.A. Times to make sure he didn’t miss anything. He even called the public information officer for LAPD and pretended he was a college criminology student doing a project on crimes of passion. The husband had been the primary suspect, but he had an alibi and there was no evidence that he’d killed his wife. No gun, no biological evidence on the husband, nothing.

  While Theodore received a thrill from the initial kill—aiming the gun, pulling the trigger, watching the body fall and the blood spread—it was short-lived. He had more fun watching the investigation and knowing that the cops would never in a million years connect him with the crime. That was a heady experience.

  But what if he had told the woman she would die? What would she have done? Would she have stared at him, disbelieving? Screamed? Tried to run?

  He would never know.

  Tonight, he did the same thing as he had with that housewife in Los Angeles. Only this victim was no stranger, he wasn’t cooking in the kitchen, and Theodore wasn’t killing for the thrill. Frank Sturgeon was passed out at the kitchen table, and killing him was too easy to be fun.

  Will and Carina parked in the lot at the same time and walked toward the police station. Dawn barely crept over the eastern skyline.

  Carina’s mouth was in a tight line and she stopped walking. Will turned. “What?”

  “Did you have an affair with Trinity Lange?”

  Will shifted. “We went out for a few weeks.”

  “Dammit, Will, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “When? When we became partners? Was I supposed to give you a list of all the women I’ve slept with?” Will didn’t like his ethics being questioned.

  Even though perhaps they should have been seven years ago.

  “You know that’s not—”

  “Carina, I don’t announce to the world who I’m involved with. It’s nobody’s business. For what it’s worth, Trinity and I dated after the Kessler trial three years ago. We split amicably. I like her. She’s smart and fun. But it didn’t work out, okay? And that’s that.”

  “You know I don’t care about your love life, but—”

  “You don’t? You constantly make snide comments about my dating. I’ve let it go because we’re partners and friends.”

  Carina frowned. “I didn’t realize it bothered you.”

  Will shrugged. “Water under the bridge.” He paused. He considered telling Carina about his relationship with Robin, but right now it wouldn’t matter. She already knew what was important. The records reflected that he’d been across the street in the bar with Robin after hours when Anna was killed. He just never told anyone that they were in there having sex.

  “Let’s focus on Glenn,” Will said, pushing back the encroaching emotion. “He had a purpose in seeking out Trinity.”

  “She said he wants her to prove he didn’t kill Anna Clark.”

  “And the evidence—the biological evidence—points to him. It was a righteous conviction. Theodore Glenn is a cold, ruthless killer. I don’t know what his game is, but I’m sure he has one.”

  But even as he said it, Will couldn’t figure out Glenn’s angle. Why admit to a reporter that he killed three of four women?

  “You don’t think that there’s something just a little—weird in this?”

  He sighed. “Yes, something is off. When Gage has a few minutes, maybe the three of us can look at the evidence again. But I still think Glenn is trying to divert our attention to this instead of focusing on his recapture.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “We can work through the facts after we get him back into custody. He’s dangerous, Carina. And he will continue to kill until we lock him up.”

  “What do you think if we give my brother Dillon a call?”

  “Dillon knows about Glenn,” Will said. Carina’s brother was a forensic psychiatrist who had consulted with the police department and served as an expert witness for the district attorney until he moved to Washington, D.C., last year. “He didn’t work the case, but he knows enough and we can bring him up to speed quickly.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s eight thirty on the East Coast. Why don’t you call him?”

  Carina asked what Will had been thinking since leaving Trinity’s. “What if Glenn is telling the truth about Anna Clark? What if he didn’t kill her?”

  “Then we have two killers at large.” He still believed Glenn was the only one who could have killed Anna, but at the same time he couldn’t figure out his game.

  Carina was dialing Dillon’s number when Will’s cell phone rang. “Hooper,” he said as they entered the building.

  “Shots fired at 1010 North Highland. Neighbor phoned it in, officers en route. But the address is flagged.”

  “Frank.” Will slammed his phone shut and turned to Carina. “Tell your brother we’ll call him back. Shots fired at Frank’s house.”

  TWELVE

  Once Jim Gage and his two assistants left, Trinity felt alone and restless, even with a police car parked out front. She didn’t want to stay around the house, and finally showered—with the bathroom door locked and a chair propped against the knob—dressed, and went down to the television station. She’d put on an act around Will and the others. Truth was, she was scared. And she would be very, very careful. She didn’t want to end up dead.

  But there was a story here, a potentially big story, and she didn’t want to get scooped. Theodore Glenn had given her something—she just had to figure out exactly what it was and how to use it.

  As soon as she walked into the main offices of the television station where she’d worked for eight years, her direct supervisor, Charlie Boyd, rushed to her side. “Where’s the photo?”

  “The police took it.”

  “Damn, I told you not to give it to them.”

  “I couldn’t withhold evidence, Charlie. You know that.”

  He sighed, ran a hand through his thick hair. “I know, I know, but damn, I wish we had it as backup.”

  “They’re not going to lie about it,” she said. “They may claim ‘no comment,’ but Will Hooper isn’t going to deny the picture exists. I scanned it high res, it should withstand scrutiny.”

  “What else did he say?”

  Trinity motioned for Charlie to follow her into her office. She had a small closet with a tiny window, just enough for a chair, desk, and computer, but it was all hers—she had earned the door.

  Charlie put his hands up on either side of his head. “‘Award-winning reporter held captive by escaped convict,’” he said, dropping his hands. “How does that sound?”

  “It would be bigger news if I were dead,” she said, trying to laugh it off, but her heart wasn’t in it. She kept replaying the conversation between her and Theodore over and over in her head.

  “We have to get this on the air. ASAP.”

  “The police don’t want to give him airtime. Detective Hooper thinks that will only encourage him. Charlie, he killed his own sister.”

  Though Trinity pushed envelopes whenever and wherever she could, she also prided herself on maintaining a good working relationship with the police department since she specialized in reporting on crime
and punishment. She’d covered every major trial, interviewed both killers and cops, and had an exclusive program with the district attorney himself, Andrew Stanton, which aired pre–prime time the first Wednesday of every month. That show alone had brought the attention of bigwigs in L.A., who’d offered her a show and more money if she’d sign a five-year contract. But she didn’t want to go to L.A. for five years, and they wouldn’t agree to a year-by-year, so she stayed put in a position where she could leave whenever an opportunity arose. And she was looking for one.

  She wouldn’t go against Hooper’s orders to lay low on this, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to do something. She had reams of paperwork on this case, access to the files, and interviews she’d conducted with detectives Hooper and Sturgeon, the victims’ families, and the strippers who had worked with the dead women. Then there was the trial transcript itself.

  The only thing she didn’t have were the sealed records of what had happened in the judge’s chambers. She couldn’t simply trust Theodore Glenn’s word that evidence was tossed out because of police or lab error. But there might be someone else she could go to.

  “You sent me that photo—a cop sleeping on the job when he was supposed to be watching a suspect? That’s news. I’m not sitting on it.”

  “Charlie, I need a few days to pursue this story.”

  “Then why did you send me the picture?”

  “Because I knew I had to turn it over and I’d never see it again. This way, we have it for when we go big.”

  “This is television, baby. We go big now, and make it bigger.”

  “Yes, there’s a story, but the cops aren’t going to talk about one of their own. You know that. We have to dig deeper and then hit them all hard.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I should never have sent it to you.”

  “Don’t clam up on me now, Trinity.”

  “I’m not. I need to do some research, some more interviews. No one else has this, Charlie. No one is going to scoop me.” She hoped.

  “You’re not going to try and contact Glenn, are you? The man is insane.”