Lethal (Small Town Secrets Book 1)

by Ann Voss Peterson

  Nikki looked at the floor. Tears filled her eyes. She blinked them back. When she looked up, Farrentina was snuggling up to Eddie, and his hands were on her, and she was unzipping his fly.

  Nikki’s husband.

  Nikki’s.

  “Wait,” Nikki said, surprising even herself.

  Eddie smiled. “You want to get caught, Nikki?”

  “Yes.”

  To Nikki’s relief, Eddie pushed Farrentina away, his attention all on Nikki now. He swung the fishing pole toward her, the robe still on the hook.

  Nikki caught the line, ripped the silk free, and let if fall to the floor. She could feel Eddie watching her, waiting for her to do something bigger, better than Farrentina. Something that proved how much she loved him, how much she wanted to win.

  Nikki’s fingers trembled, fumbled, and the fish hook dropped to the linoleum.

  Farrentina laughed. “Good job, dumb ass.”

  Eddie said nothing.

  He didn’t have to. Nikki could feel his disappointment. Tears broke free and trickled down her cheeks.

  “So can we just leave her here, Ed? Why are we wasting any more of our time?”

  “Is that what you want, Nikki? For me to leave you here?”

  His voice was so quiet, so sad, that Nikki almost went to him. But holding him wouldn’t be enough. She knew that now. Saying the words wouldn’t make him believe. She had to prove herself.

  Nikki bent down and picked up the lure. She brought the hook to her mouth. Then, taking a deep breath, she drove the sharp point through the inside of her lip until the barb pieced through and caught on the outside.

  Blood flooded her mouth and dribbled down her chin. Her lip felt cold at first, then the sting came, the throbbing pain. But she hardly noticed any of it, not when she looked into Eddie’s eyes, and he smiled at her.

  “We have a winner. And now I collect my prize.”

  Trent

  Trent hadn’t even realized he’d slipped into sleep when the bleat of the cell phone pierced the air like a rending scream. He lurched from the bed and groped the dark with splayed fingers until his hand closed over cold plastic.

  In the middle of the big bed, Rees sat straight up, the whites of her eyes visible in the dark room.

  Phone calls in the middle of the night were never good. And he had a horrible feeling this one would be worse than most. Taking a bracing breath, he flipped the phone open and lifted it to his ear. “Burnell.”

  “Trent? Subera. We have a body. A woman. I need you to meet me at the scene.”

  His gaze found Rees’s and latched on.

  “Who?” he said into the phone.

  “No ID on her yet. The body was just discovered. I got the call myself less than a minute ago.”

  “Where is she?”

  “That’s the interesting part. Here the local cops have been driving by every half hour all night, and he laid her out right there in plain sight. I don’t know how the hell he got in and out of there without being spotted.”

  Alarm blared in Trent’s ears. “Where the hell is she?”

  “On the front porch of Risa Madsen’s house.”

  Risa

  Night pressed in on the shadowed interior of Trent’s rental car like a suffocating pall. Risa gasped for breath. Her pulse throbbed in her ears.

  Nikki.

  Trent hadn’t wanted to bring her with him. It had just about killed him to allow her to climb into the passenger seat, she knew. But she had to go. She had to see for herself. She had to know. And in the end, Trent wasn’t willing to leave her alone. So here she was, speeding past the darkened windows of familiar houses on her way to a crime scene. A murder scene. Her own house.

  Nikki.

  Trent swung onto her street and slowed to a crawl. A haze of humidity hung in the air, pulsing with the red and blue light of a half-dozen police cars. A cruiser blocked off either end of the street. Trent brought the car to a halt and flashed his identification before the uniforms waved them through.

  Yellow tape draped from pickets ringing the perimeter of Risa’s property. The house’s empty windows reflected the throbbing red and blue light, and bright spotlights illuminated the driveway, the sidewalk, the porch.

  Nikki.

  Risa couldn’t see the body from the interior of the car, but she knew it was there. Detectives and crime-scene technicians hovered around the front steps and small porch. A camera flash exploded as a police photographer snapped crime-scene photos.

  Trent brought the car to a halt and reached for the door handle. “Stay in the car. I’ll be right back.”

  She heard the tone of his voice, but his words seemed to bounce off her, an unintelligible jumble of sounds.

  “Did you hear me, Rees? Stay here. I’ll come back and get you.”

  She managed a nod.

  He stared at her a long time, as if trying to look into her mind, to understand what she was thinking, feel what she was feeling. Finally he reached toward her and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek with tender fingertips. “Hang in there, Rees. It might not be her.”

  “And if it is?” her voice croaked, foreign to her own ears.

  “We’ll make it through. We’ll survive. You’ll survive.”

  “And Nikki won’t. Just like when we were kids.”

  “Risa…”

  “Go.”

  “You’ll stay here?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll come back. As soon as I know.” Trent swung the car door open and climbed out. Cool spring air rushed into the interior, the scents of spruce and lilac strong and sweet. The door slammed behind him.

  For a moment Risa merely sat still, breath coming in gasps. Her mind swirled with images of tangled hair and pale, dead eyes. Images of Dryden’s evil she’d seen while studying him. The thought that Nikki had been victimized by that evil sent waves of panic crashing through her.

  No matter what she told Trent, she couldn’t stay in the car. Horrific or not, she had to see. She had to know if the dead woman was Nikki. Risa couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe until she knew.

  She grasped the handle of her door, the metal cold and solid under her fingers. Gathering her strength, she shoved the door open. Her head pounded. A hum rose in her ears. Hefting herself from the car, she forced her legs to support her weight.

  One step. Two steps.

  Risa teetered across her lawn toward the police lights, toward the front porch of her house. She was already within the police barrier. Just a straight shot across the yard. The grass dragged at her shoes. The scents of spring swamped her, sticky as sweet syrup in the humid air.

  Three steps. Four.

  The hum grew louder in her head, drowning out the murmur of voices, drowning out the pounding of her heart. She walked on. Over the grass. Through the plantings. Up the cement walk. Closer and closer to the gathering of people. Closer and closer to the front porch.

  Closer and closer to death.

  Nikki.

  The cloying odor of raw flesh reached her, covered her, clogged her throat. Still she forged ahead. She had to see for herself. She had to know.

  The hum choked out all other sound, like mind-numbing static. Her heart felt as if it was about to burst, her lungs about to collapse. She took the final steps to the porch, nudging between the circle of cops and technicians. Shoving her way through.

  “Rees.” From out of nowhere, Trent lunged for her, grasping her arm, trying to pull her away.

  Too late.

  Red glistened from the open chest of the sprawled woman. The open belly. Her brown hair was tangled around her pale face. Her hollow eyes stared.

  Not Nikki.

  Not Nikki.

  Farrentina Hamilton.

  Horror and relief swept through Risa in a powerful wave. Her knees buckled. Her stomach retched. Strong arms grabbed her, pulled her close, and swept her away.

  Risa clung to Trent, burying her face in his shoulder. Her body trembled in fits and spurts, like shock
waves after an earthquake. Horror numbed her mind.

  Trent

  Trent held Rees tight against him even after her shaking had waned. He shouldn’t have left her in the car alone. He hadn’t been thinking. If he had, he would have realized Risa would have to see the body for herself. She would have to know if it was her sister. He never should have allowed her to reach the porch.

  To witness Dryden’s work.

  He pressed his cheek to her hair and breathed in her scent. Over the top of her head, he could see Subera directing evidence technicians. Now that they had a second body on their hands, Subera would use anything at his disposal to bring Dryden down. And Cassidy would make sure that Rees was at the top of the list.

  Unless Trent could provide an alternative.

  “You have to go,” he said.

  She peered up at him. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

  Her voice was firm, but her dilated pupils and the deathly white pallor of her skin told a different story. But as much as he hated to let her out of the circle of his arms, he had to. His embrace might have been comforting at the moment she saw Farrentina’s body. But in the long-term, he would only bring her more pain.

  If he wanted to comfort Risa, the one thing he could do was his job.

  “I’ll get a deputy to take you back to the hotel and stand guard outside your door. It’s hard to say when I’ll get back. I want to study the evidence here and attend the autopsy. And then there’s the warden and Cassidy and the guards Farrentina bribed.”

  “So it will be a while.”

  “Yes.”

  “Chief Schneider wanted to ask me some questions about Nikki. Will you tell him to come to the hotel?”

  “You need to rest, Rees.”

  “While Dryden does to Nikki what he did to Farrentina?” She shook her head. “I have to do whatever I can to stop him. And so do you.”

  “All right,” he said. There was no use arguing. Rees would drive herself into the ground if it meant even a sliver of a chance Nikki would return home alive. And he couldn’t blame her. He’d done the same for people he’d never met. “I’ll give Schneider the message.”

  “I’ll be fine, Trent.” She managed a shaky smile, a smile that didn’t fool him for a minute. “Just find Nikki. Before...”

  “I will.” He looked into her dark eyes then forced himself to let her go.

  Nikki

  Nikki shook another cigarette free from its pack and pinched it between her aching lips. Her hands were still shaking so badly, it took her three tries before she could get the lighter to work. She held flame to tobacco and drew.

  The smoke burned a little, no cool menthol like the kind she and her friends had smoked in the gully behind their high school. She waited for the chill feeling she’d always gotten back then, but it was out of reach.

  She suspected she’d never feel chill again.

  The screams had stopped hours ago, but Eddie hadn’t come back. Not yet. At first Nikki hadn’t known what to do. She’d paced. She’d cut the barbs off the end of the fish hooks with a wire cutter and pulled them out of her lip. She’d cleaned the cabin floor, sweeping, then washing it with a rag and pine cleaner she’d found under the sink. Another cabinet yielded a carton of smokes, so she’d been focused on them since.

  Trying to calm down.

  Trying to make sense.

  An engine hummed from outside the cabin. Tires popped over gravel. The slam of a single car door.

  Nikki took another drag, her trembling not lessening one bit. She could only hope the car outside belonged to the cops. That they’d arrest her, take her away, lock her up where she could never see Eddie again. But when the door opened, Eddie walked in.

  “You’re still here. Good girl.”

  “I… I have nowhere else to go.”

  “That’s right.”

  Eddie rummaged through a cupboard, finally pulling out a bottle of whiskey covered in dust. He opened the bottle and took a swig, not bothering to offer it to Nikki. He sat next to her, the old hide-a-bed couch creaking under his weight.

  Nikki finished smoking then lit up another. She was starting her second pack by the time she got up the nerve to ask. “Who was she to you?”

  “Who?”

  “Farrentina. The woman you killed.”

  “What does that matter?”

  “She visited you. At Banesbridge. Before we got married.”

  “And after.”

  Nikki couldn’t even manage to feel hurt. All she could think about was Farrentina. Nikki had seen her waiting at the prison after Nikki emerged from the visiting room. The woman was beautiful, glamorous, someone who stuck in your head. Nikki’d never guessed they were there to see the same man.

  Not until tonight.

  “Did you love her?”

  “What was not to love?”

  “But… but you…”

  “Hunted her? Killed her?” Excitement animated his face and laced his voice. “Gutted her?”

  Nikki looked away.

  “Does that scare you, Nikki?”

  Of course, it scared her. Her throat was so dry she could barely speak. But for some reason, she didn’t want to admit it. She’d do just about anything to avoid admitting it. “I… I just want to understand.”

  “Didn’t you read your sister’s theories?”

  Nikki shook her head.

  “Look at me.”

  Nikki forced herself to focus on his eyes.

  “You didn’t read Risa’s article? The one you told me about?”

  “No. I swear.”

  “Good. Your sister is full of shit.”

  Risa had warned Nikki. Over and over. But Nikki hadn’t wanted to believe her. She still didn’t feel totally sure, even though she knew she should be. All Nikki had ever wanted was to be loved, to be special. Eddie had given her that. He’d given her so much. “None of this makes sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense.”

  “You said it was your wife…”

  “It was. That was about survival. Self-defense. After all she did to me, I had to fight back, didn’t I?”

  Nikki tried to swallow. Her tongue felt swollen and dry. Her lip throbbed.

  “Didn’t I?”

  “Yes… of course… but…”

  “But what?”

  “I… You said you changed. That I changed you.”

  “Women like that, don’t they? They say they’re in love, that they want to marry a man for who he is, and then all they ever want is for him to change. That is what doesn’t make sense.”

  “I don’t want you to change.”

  “You just said you did.”

  “No, I didn’t mean that, I…”

  “You don’t even lie well.”

  “No, Eddie, please. I love you. I just want to understand.”

  “You want to know why I killed her.”

  Nikki did… and she didn’t. Unable to look into his eyes one second longer, she lowered her gaze, focused on his shirt. Fine drops of blood sprayed the navy cotton, like a universe of dark stars.

  It took her three tries to get the words out. “Why did you?”

  He took a gulp from the bottle then broke into a smile. “So I didn’t have to kill you.”

  Trent

  Most people wouldn’t think of human mortality as having an odor, but Trent knew better. It hung in the autopsy room, raw as peeled flesh and thick as blood. It colored the air like a red cloud and soaked so deeply into clothing fibers, hair, and skin that even scrubbing with harsh detergents wouldn’t remove all the residue.

  The coroner looked up from his ice cream sandwich, a trickle of melted cream snaking into his scruffy, salt-and-pepper beard. “Hiya.”

  “Trent Burnell. I’m with the FBI.”

  “Coulda guessed that from the suit.” The man held out the open box of ice cream novelties. “Sandwich?”

  “Uh, no thanks.”

  He popped the last bite into his mouth and licked his fingers. “Suit yoursel
f. So you from Milwaukee?”

  “Quantico.”

  “Ahh, you must be the Silence of the Lambs man.”

  “Silence of the Lambs?”

  “The movie. Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector.”

  “I know the one. It was also a book.”

  “I only saw the movie. But you wouldn’t be Hopkins, would you? You’d be who, Scott Glenn?”

  Trent had the feeling this county coroner would be more than happy chatting about movies all day, and Trent didn’t have the time. “And you must be Harlan Runk.”

  “I must be. Welcome to my morgue, Scott.”

  “Scott?” Subera bulled his way through the door. “Who’s Scott?”

  “Another one, huh?” Harlan wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Guess that makes him Jodie Foster.”

  Subera shot Harlan a pained look. “This isn’t another Silence of the Lambs thing, is it?”

  Trent gave him a sympathetic tilt of the lips. Since the movie had come out in 1991, five years ago now, FBI agents had been subjected to endless streams of comments related to the film and jokes about fava beans.

  It was getting a little old. “Why don’t we get to the autopsy?”

  “Right-o. Time’s a wastin’.” The coroner bounced off his stool and directed them to the boxes of protective clothing to pull over their suits, hair, and shoes. “You want to start with Mr. Bevin or Ms. Hamilton?”

  “Hamilton,” Trent said. As tragic as the death of Bevin was, the body found in Nikki’s car by a jogger, Trent was fairly certain Dryden’s core motive for killing him was simple. He and Nikki needed a car that law enforcement everywhere wasn’t searching for. Farrentina Hamilton, on the other hand, might provide them with some answers. And the sooner they got answers, the better.

  When the coroner left, Subera turned to Trent. “We have to talk.”

  Trent braced himself for what was coming.

  “I want to set that trap for Dryden,” Subera said slipping off his suit jacket. “Do you think Professor Madden is still game?”

  Thunder rose in Trent’s ears. He wanted to say she’d changed her mind, but one word with Risa and Subera would know it was a lie. “You’ll have to talk to her.”