The Killing Game

by Nancy Bush

  But what about Bobby? Robert Fisher? Who the hell was he?

  Ignoring the “No Cell Phones” signs, he tried phoning her, but the call went directly to voice mail. “Come on, come on,” he said before waiting for the recorded answer to finish and leaving a message. “Hey, I’m here at the hospital, too. Call me.”

  He decided to leave Emergency and find her. To hell with the phone.

  When he reached Emma’s room he found her alone, lying on the bed, an IV in one arm, monitors surrounding her, a few bruises visible on her face. No sign of Ben or Andi.

  Emma stirred. “Ben?”

  “It’s Luke Denton, Emma. Ben was here earlier, and Andi, but they’re not now . . .”

  She faded out again and he waited half a minute before he was in motion again. Andi had said she would be here, or at his apartment, but she sure as hell wasn’t answering her phone.

  Luke scoured the waiting areas and the cafeteria, including the separate coffee shop, and had decided she’d already left. Did she catch a ride with Ben or did she take Uber?

  He walked out to the main parking lot, searching for Ben’s vehicle, though he wasn’t exactly sure what it looked like. Every muscle in his body tense, he speed-dialed Andi’s number once more and was surprised when he heard it ringing. What?

  “Andi?” he called across the dark lot.

  The phone kept ringing and he headed in the direction it was coming from. Maybe it wasn’t her phone. Ringtones were often the same. But then her voice mail answered at the same time the phone stopped ringing. Heart pounding, he hit Redial. Sure enough, the phone began chirping again, and this time he jogged past the main area of the parking lot to a more secluded spot.

  Once more the rings stopped suddenly. “Son of a bitch.” He pounded the Redial button, and within seconds the ringtone, louder now, began trilling from a clump of vegetation, part of the hospital’s minimalist landscaping. Digging through the vines, he located the phone. Andi’s phone. His whole world stopped for a second as all of his worst fears were confirmed.

  Something was wrong.

  Very wrong.

  Grasping Andi’s phone, he jogged around the building to Emergency and his truck. Before he got there, his own phone jangled. He yanked it from his pocket and saw it was Detective Rafferty’s number.

  Oh. Jesus. Andi!

  “Denton,” he answered sharply. He reached his truck and braced himself as he fished into his pocket for his keys.

  “It’s Detective Rafferty. I heard you called nine-one-one to report a multiple shooting and that the victims are at Laurelton General.”

  “I’m here, too.”

  “I’m on my way, so stick around. You can fill me in.”

  “An officer showed up with the ambulances; I told him everything I know.”

  “But I have more questions. It won’t take long. I’m at the offices of Wren Development and was stood up by Carter.”

  “What did you want to see Carter about?”

  “Long story.”

  “I’m looking for Andi. Maybe she’s with him?”

  “He didn’t say so. My partner and I had arranged to meet him, but he wasn’t here when we arrived. The receptionist was here. She thought he might be at the hospital or the resort construction site.”

  “I haven’t seen him here.” Luke was starting to feel anxious. Where was Andi?

  “Why were you meeting Carter?” he asked again as he slid into the interior of his pickup and jabbed his keys into the ignition.

  “A separate case we’re working on. Carter was one of the lake kids who went to North Shore Junior Camp when he was a teenager. My partner and I have been trying to identify human bones that were discovered in a home not far from the lake. We believe the bones belong to a boy who lived on Aurora Lane, Lance Patten, and Carter said he and his brother and sister all knew Lance.”

  She was filling him in more than he expected, probably because he’d been a cop and was working the case independently. A lot of connecting dots, and he didn’t like where the link of those connected dots was leading. Warning bells began to peal through his head, sharp clangs that turned his heart to stone.

  “Carter said he and his brother and sister knew two of the victims back then, Patten and another girl who initially appeared to have drowned in the lake, though later it was found that she’d actually been strangled.”

  Luke drew in a slow breath. What were the chances? Bodies back then, when Carter was a teenager, and now bodies of women with names of birds, some in water.

  The summer camp . . . He’d driven by it so many times. Knew it had been a place where the rich kids from Schultz Lake spent their summer vacations.

  “I’ll look for Carter,” Luke told her. “Andi’s probably with him.”

  “Look, Denton, I’ve probably said more than I should, but I haven’t gone into everything. Might be best if you leave meeting with Carter Wren to us.”

  Fat chance. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  “Seriously, Denton. This is a police matter.”

  And I used to be the police.

  “All right,” he said, not meaning a word of it. He clicked off and peeled out of the parking lot.

  Rafferty and her partner were working on a separate case that traced back to the Wrens. What were the chances?

  Finch. Meadowlark. Wren.

  His jaw tightened and he squinted into the oncoming headlights. Traffic wasn’t that heavy because rush hour was over, but he still passed a van decorated in yellow and green piping and proudly boasting University of Oregon stickers on its window and license plate. He drove another two miles and was trapped by an ancient VW that could barely chug up the hill at thirty.

  His mind was on the recent killings. The women, all with names of birds who had been murdered. He downshifted and passed the Volkswagen in seconds. His truck’s engine protested as his headlights cleaved the dark night. His gaze flicked to the spot where Gregory Wren had driven, or been forced, off the road.

  Had that just been an accident? Who would benefit from Gregory Wren’s death?

  The Carreras might have, if Carter had anything to say about it ...

  “Carter.”

  Luke thought about that hard. His heart squeezed. If Andi was with Carter, what did that mean?

  To hell with the two female detectives. If Carter knew anything, Luke was going to get it out of him first. Though he trusted the detectives to do their job, he didn’t have time to wait through all the bullshit protocol. Luke was going to head to the lodge construction site first and meet up with Carter.

  And if you’re wrong ... and Carter doesn’t know where Andi is ... and that bastard Robert Fisher, whoever he is, has her?

  Luke pressed his toe to the accelerator, his jaw locked in concentration.

  * * *

  Gagged and bound, Andi watched through the windshield as Carter drove to another cabin by the lake. His cabin, she realized, as the beams of the older Ford’s headlights reflected back from paned windows. Like her cabin, and a lot of others around Schultz Lake, the structure was set back from the road and hidden from the road by a wide swath of trees, but the rear end of the cabin opened to the cold waters of Shultz Lake.

  “This is where the fun begins.” He said it with such anticipation that she visibly shivered and her insides went numb.

  During the drive her body had recovered slightly from the tasing. Her brain was clearer, and when she told her head to turn in a certain direction, she was able to. But she kept still, not wanting him to know she was gaining control of her muscles. Faking her infirmity might be her only weapon in a very slim arsenal.

  Keep your wits about you. Be smart. Keep cool.

  He climbed out of the car, threw off the jacket and left it on the ground, then came around to the passenger side. He’d pulled off his ski mask on the drive and now he dragged her from the car, propping her up to stand, but she dropped to the earthy-smelling ground.

  “Get up!” he demanded, and she m
ade gurgling noises behind the gag.

  He pulled a knife from his pocket and put it close to her face. But then he smiled and bent down to slice the ties binding her ankles. Then he yanked her to her feet, keeping her hands bound, and half-dragged her up the two steps to the front door. It was open and he threw her inside as he flipped a switch near the door. Several lamps flickered on. The furnishings were modern and bare. A bookcase holding a flat-screen and video equipment dominated the space in front of an L-shaped leather couch.

  Carter pulled a small remote from his pocket and clicked it. The wall shifted, opening to a narrow hallway. “This way,” he said, grabbing her by her bound wrists and hauling her to her feet. He pushed her through the opening, along the short hallway and to another windowless room where a chair was placed squarely in its center.

  Andi’s heart filled with ice as she looked around the room. The perimeter was lined with several computers, two large televisions screens, a chessboard set up on a small table, and a bookshelf filled with books on puzzles, mysteries, and magic. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere and fresh air somehow was vented inside, though the room had a deadened quality to it. She knew without being told she could scream forever and never be heard.

  Andi swallowed hard. A digital clock glowed a warning red. It had been nearly an hour since she’d been abducted.

  “Now, sit,” he ordered, using his pistol to point to the austere ladder-back chair in the middle of the floor. She took a step that way and fell, as if her legs had given way. She didn’t have to fake the trembling. She was frightened enough that her shaking was visible.

  “Get up!”

  She struggled into the chair and he strapped her into it, tying her with a thin, wiry cord that cut into her arms.

  “You know, Andi, I’ve always found you attractive,” he said. He glanced up from tying her ankles to each chair leg and found her eyes. “You were always too good for Greg. You should have known it wouldn’t work. The bastard couldn’t even get you pregnant, but he sure could Mimi. Yep, she was pregnant. I checked, and I was going to have to do something about it, but then she took care of things herself.”

  Finished securing her, Carter straightened and ran cool fingers along the line of her jaw. Her revulsion almost made her shrink away, but she didn’t.

  He walked to the front of the chair so that his crotch was only inches from her face and the bulge straining his pants was visible. He was getting off on this.

  “Gregory. What made you choose him? He never had any vision. He was a drone, working just like our father wanted him to. A drudge. I was always the one with the intelligence.”

  The gun. Watch where he puts the gun . . .

  “And yet you fell for Greg, and now that ex-cop? You like ’em big and dumb? Is that it?” He shook his head, the small smile on his lips full of self-importance. “I guess it’s only fair to tell you that Greg didn’t really sleep around. Yes, there was Mimi. I worked to get that affair started. But there really weren’t any others. Greg wasn’t a player. I just told you that to keep the game going, fan the fires to keep you confused and misdirected. All part of the game.

  “Want to know what it’s called?”

  Of course she couldn’t answer.

  “I named it: Cover up your misdeeds and get all the inheritance for yourself. Y’see, dead old Dad didn’t trust me with the company. Thought Greg was a better shepherd of the Wren inheritance. I knew I had to get rid of Greg eventually,” he admitted, slipping his gun into his belt. “He was a liability. That’s why the Carreras took care of it for me.”

  Andi started, unable to hide her surprise.

  “Oh, you didn’t know that, did you? You thought it was an accident. Greg, driving away from Mimi’s, in a confused state over his love for two women. . . .” Carter chuckled. “He didn’t have that much emotion. He was a robot. But he did discover I’d helped myself to some company money without asking . . .”

  Andi’s brain burned with rage. The horror of what he was saying added fuel to the fire of her fury. Greg may not have been the perfect husband, but he hadn’t deserved to be murdered. Her hands clenched and she forced them to straighten so she wouldn’t give herself away.

  “Of course Greg was only half of the problem; there was Emma, too.”

  Andi flashed to Emma’s unlikely fall down the stairs, when she’d been stone-cold sober. And she thought of her lying in the hospital bed, broken and pumped up on pain pills.

  “I was willing to wait, but the Carrera boys, they’re impatient. Brian just gave her a little push this morning. He let me know ahead of time that he’d planned to take care of her today. Of course he thought she’d be shit-faced drunk as usual. Who knew she’d choose today to sober up? But that’s all part of the game, isn’t it? Surprise.”

  When he looked down at the chessboard, she tested her bonds. They were tight, digging into her ankles and shoulders, her hands still tied together behind her, her arms aching. But they had feeling now, and she could command them to do her bidding.

  Patience. Outwait him.

  “So now we come down to you, my beautiful little bird. What am I going to do with you?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Carter wasn’t at the lodge. Luke had tried phoning both him and Ben. Ben had returned to the hospital and Emma; he’d spoken to both of them, and they’d been alarmed when he’d said Andi was missing. And then Emma had asked in a frightened voice if Andi was with Carter. His blood chilling, he’d asked her what she meant, but all she’d said was that she wanted him to find Andi soon.

  Carter’s phone kept going to voice mail, so after a while Luke stopped calling. He knew Carter’s address, as he knew Emma and Ben’s. He’d made a point of acquainting himself with Andi’s family, more in case he needed to reach them for any reason, but now . . .

  Something was off with Carter. Emma knew something, or thought she knew something, and that was good enough for him.

  There was a reason Andi’s phone was in the bushes and he was starting to fear that reason was Carter Wren.

  * * *

  Carter was watching Andi like a snake with a mouse.

  “How am I going to come up with your demise?” he asked her conversationally. “There are just too many deaths right now, too many accidents, too much suspicion. As stupid and ineffective as the police are, they do have their means, don’t they? With computers and sharing records, DNA testing, and all that forensic crap of trace evidence and the like, I have to be more careful than before.

  “I miss the pre-DNA days, before iPhone cameras and microphones on every damned civilian. That’s why I bought the car for cash from an illegal.”

  Andi watched him warily, and, when he wasn’t looking, searching for a weapon or a means of escape. There had to be some way to trip him up, some way to get the upper hand.

  “So, now what I need is misdirection,” he said, warming to his subject. “A little sleight of hand. That’s what the bird thing was all about. You were a Wren and your bestest friend was a Finch. I started this campaign long ago. Way before Greg’s death. I had to plan many steps ahead. That’s how you play chess, you know; plan moves way in advance of the one you’re making.”

  She tried surreptitiously working her wrists, moving them just the slightest, trying to stretch the ties. She set her jaw, put all her concentration into forcing her hands apart.

  For now, he didn’t notice and kept right on talking. “Then it was simply a matter of finding other people with last names that were birds. Women I could manipulate. Not that it was easy. It had to be women, an added benefit to the game for my own personal enjoyment.” He looked at Andi slyly, then walked toward the stack of board games.

  Andi pulled harder at her restraints. They didn’t budge. As for a weapon, the only thing she saw was a tiny screwdriver small enough to be used on a computer, left out by a stack of video games. But there was the bookcase itself, if she could find a way to topple it. Unless it was bolted to the wall, she could possibly ma
im or even kill him, should the heavy electronic equipment hit him just right. The gamesman killed by his own games. Or she could grab the gun and fire it in this tiny space, damning where the bullets ricocheted.

  “—Belinda Meadowlark was easy,” he was saying. “She was so damned hot for me, wanted it so bad she was practically panting for me when I tossed her off the ferry into the water.” He licked his lips, his tongue flicking against his skin, and again his erection was hardening under his pants.

  “Trini didn’t know me, so she was easy. I couldn’t take the chance she’d see some resemblance between me and Greg, so I always wore a disguise. She thought it was funny. Actually worked in my favor.”

  Carter grabbed another chair and dragged it over in front of her. He sat down and leaned forward, close enough to her that his breath ruffled her hair. “I was always worried she might go scrolling through your wedding pictures, though, and make the connection, but she really didn’t like Greg much, so she had no interest in your wedding.”

  Oh Trini. I’m so sorry.... Andi’s throat was hot with unshed tears.

  Carter went on. “I pretended to fall for her, and because she was such a promiscuous slut it was easy to start a relationship. Too easy.” He grinned, a leering, smug, king-of-the-world grin. “Poor little bird. She had a shellfish allergy. I pretended I had one, too. I really planned to sneak some shrimp into her diet somehow, but then I found out about cricket flour, that it’s in the same family as shellfish. It was perfect. You should have seen the way her eyes bulged as her throat was closing. She choked to death knowing I wanted to kill her far more than I ever wanted to fuck her.”

  Andi couldn’t stop the gasp of horror from behind her gag. Again she worked the plastic ties at her wrists. Had they given a little? Stretched? Oh please!

  “And then your brother left his wallet at the scene of the crime!’” He chortled and shook his head. “I’m telling you, it was perfect. Perfect! The best kind of surprise.”

  He threw his head back and roared with laughter. “I took away Trini’s cell phone and dropped it into the lake miles from here. There were just too many calls to my cell phone on it. Of course I gave her the number for one of those disposable phones, not my real cell, and supposedly untraceable, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. A good player knows all the risks.”