by Jami Alden
“Shit,” Nolan said again, his jaw clenching as he remembered his phone call to Jack Brooks earlier that morning. He nodded at one of the uniforms. “Call homicide.”
He stepped out into the hall and took out his phone, questioning the wisdom of what he was about to do. He dialed, his spine tensing when Jack Brooks answered on the second ring.
“What’s going on, Nolan?”
Technically, what Nolan was doing could get him in deep shit. But Sutherland had been a piece of shit for hire, and if he was the one who raped those girls, this was a better death than he’d deserved. If Jack was the one who took him out, he deserved a chance to get his shit lined up before the heat really came down on him. “You tell me. I’m at Sutherland’s hotel and was just about to execute a search warrant on his room.”
“You find anything?”
Nolan tried, but it was impossible to read anything in Brooks’s tone. Did he know damn well what Nolan had found and was doing a good job of hiding it, or was he really clueless? “I found Sutherland, dead, and it was definitely a homicide.” He deliberately didn’t say how.
The silence stretched several seconds. “I didn’t do it,” Jack said finally. “You have my word.”
Nolan wanted to believe him. “Unfortunately, it won’t be me you have to convince if it turns up you were anywhere near here today. You’ll be dealing with Palo Alto Homicide.”
Jack’s laugh was sharp and mirthless as it crackled over the line. “If the hotel surveillance system is working, it’ll show that I was there about twenty minutes after you called me this morning.”
Nolan’s stomach sank. “Goddamn it, Jack, I told you to stay away from him.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Jack said. “If I did, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to let the surveillance cameras catch me paying him a visit.”
Nolan ran his hand through his hair, frustrated. “Whether you did or not, best not leave town any time soon. And get yourself hooked up with a good lawyer. A lot of witnesses saw you beat the shit out of him and threaten him the other night. I’m not going to point them in your direction, but if they see you on any recording, you can be damn sure they’ll be coming after you.”
Jack’s call came at around 7:30, shortly after she got home after dropping Rosario off. The sight of his number on the caller display so soon after Rosario had raked her over the coals was enough to make her eyes burn with tears.
No way could she handle talking to him now, she thought as she let the call go into voice mail. He followed immediately with a text. Please pick up. Really need to talk to you. Don’t want to say this over VM.
The phone rang seconds later and she selected the ANSWER button with a finger that shook as she wondered what he needed to say that was so important, especially after he’d already texted with the news Sutherland had been released on bail earlier in the day.
Please don’t tell me you love me again. Please don’t beg me for another chance. Because right now I’m so worn down, I don’t think I have the strength to push you away.
But to her relief—at least that’s what she kept trying to tell herself—he said none of those things.
“Sutherland is dead.” He barely gave her a chance to say hello before he dropped the bomb.
Horrible as it was, the first thing she felt was relief. “How?”
“He was murdered. Nolan found him in his hotel room earlier this evening.”
She took a few moments to digest the information.
At her continued silence, Jack asked, “Aren’t you going to ask me if I did it?”
She weighed his words carefully and thought about what she knew about Jack. Killing someone during an act of war in the army? Jack would have no hesitation to do whatever was necessary to complete his mission.
But she never would have pegged him as a deliberate, cold-blooded killer. Then again, she never would have pegged him as a liar who would sneak behind her back and spy on her either.
Yet her initial instinct on this was unwavering. “Do I think you have it in you to kill someone with your bare hands if they threaten someone you care about? Yes. But premeditated murder? That requires a level of coldhearted-ness I don’t think you’re capable of.”
He let out a chuckle that sent a shiver of warmth all the way to her toes. “Well, at least you don’t think I’m completely evil.”
Tears stung the backs of her eyes. Jack was the furthest thing from evil on the planet. Do you know how many women would kill to have a guy like Jack love them so much he’d pay fifty grand to get them a job? She felt herself weakening and knew she had to get off the phone quickly before she did something stupid. Like beg him to come over, take her to bed, and help her lose the turmoil of the last few days in mindless sexual pleasure. “If that’s it, then—”
“Wait,” Jack interrupted. “I don’t know many details—the cops are keeping it pretty quiet, and out of respect for Nolan, I’m resisting the urge to enlist Toni’s help in hacking into the police network. But the most obvious answer is that Margaret sent another flunky out to do him in before he could dig her in any deeper.”
Talia scoffed. The crazy old bitch had to know the police would look at her. “She’d have to be stupid to try anything with me. She’d be the first one the police would look at—”
“Or desperate,” Jack said quietly. “This could mean the difference between her going back to prison and for how long. And if she gets someone who can make it look like an accident, no one would ever know.”
A shiver ran through her, and she automatically went to the front door to double-check the alarm and the dead bolt.
“I’m doing whatever work on my end that I can, trying to run through Margaret’s contacts for any possible leads, but you need to be careful.”
She ran her fingers over the brushed nickel surface of the lock. “I’m always careful.”
“I want someone on you,” he said. “I know you don’t want to see my face anywhere near you.”
More like she was dying for one last glimpse…
“But I can get Moreno and Novascelic to take shifts for the next few days, just until this gets cleared up—”
“No.” She cut him off before he could finish. “I don’t want to be followed. I don’t want to be watched anymore.”
“I know you’re mad at me about what happened, but don’t put yourself at risk just because you’re pissed.”
“Don’t try to make me sound stupid,” she snapped. “Look, this is all speculation. You have no idea if this is true. For all we know, it was someone he pissed off or owed money to. Or, hell, if he was the psycho rapist, maybe one of his victims tracked him down and had the revenge she deserved.”
“I seriously doubt it was any of those things,” Jack said, the irritation in his voice palpable.
“Please, Jack, you tracked me for the past two years without telling me. Who knows what kind of paranoid conspiracy theories you can come up with just to wheedle yourself back into my life?”
She was lashing out unfairly, she knew, but she couldn’t stop herself. That tight, panicky feeling was taking hold again, that feeling she’d been trying to escape. The one she thought had disappeared oh so briefly with Sutherland’s arrest and subsequent admission that he’d been harassing her at Margaret’s behest.
“Fuck me for trying to help you then,” he said, but the bitterness couldn’t totally conceal the hurt in his voice.
It sent an answering pinch to her own chest. “If it will make you feel better, I’ll think about going away for a couple of days. Rosie’s out of town, and it’s not like I have job to go to,” she said, unable to resist delivering one last jab.
Predictably, Jack tried to convince her to go to one of the safe houses Gemini Securities had scattered around Northern California.
“No way. Unless they have one overlooking a vineyard or somewhere on the coast, no dice. If I’m lying low, I’m doing it in style.” Which was utter horseshit given the current state of her bank account and its f
uture prospects, but she wasn’t about to confine herself to an ugly, nondescript house in an ugly, nondescript neighborhood.
“Fine,” Jack bit out. “But wherever you go—”
“I know. I’ll take public transportation and pay cash. I’ll even use one of the old fake IDs you gave me.”
“And let me know where you’re headed and when you get there.”
“Wouldn’t it be more of a challenge if I made you find out yourself?”
He didn’t take the bait, but she could practically hear his blood coming to a boil.
“Fine,” she relented. “I’ll let you know if I can figure something out.”
“What have you done?”
His mother’s screech jerked Gene from a sound sleep. He sat up, disoriented, his mother’s slap bringing him to full wakefulness.
“What have you done?” she repeated.
He looked around his room, dazed. What time was it? He had no idea how long he’d been sleeping. The clock by his bed said 7:15. But it was impossible to tell if it was morning or evening.
“What day is it?”
“It’s Friday, you idiot. What the hell is wrong with you?”
His heart thudded in panic. Friday morning! Shit! He’d slept for over twenty hours. He’d missed the window to drop off the bloody clothes for the hazardous-waste pickup. He leaped out of bed, scrambling for his clothes, ignoring his mother as he muttered to himself in English and Estonian. “Stupid, loll, how could you be such an idiot?”
Oh, Christ, he remembered, this was the morning that Rosario was leaving on that goddamn camping trip.
He staggered to the bathroom to splash water on his face, hoping to jump-start his brain. What time was she leaving? Had she mentioned it in the text she’d sent yesterday right before he collapsed into sleep? Oh, God, where was his phone?
He went back into his room and started flinging things around as he looked for his phone. Maybe it was in the car.
“Where do you think you are going?” His mother’s fingers dug like claws into his back and her voice in his ear nearly pierced his eardrum.
“I need to get to campus,” he shouted back. He shoved her away, and for a moment, his look of shock must have matched her own. Never in his twenty-three years had he laid a hand on her.
She recovered quickly, her face twisting in a mask of rage. Her hand lashed out, the blow to his cheek hitting him with enough force to send his head whipping around. “You will go nowhere until you explain where you have been and what you are doing! First you stay out all night, ignore calls, then come home and pass out like you are drugged.”
“I was working at the lab. And I’m not taking drugs, I swear,” he said, and he wanted to tear out his own throat at how pitiful he sounded trying to defend himself.
Ignoring his protests, she said, “And then I look through your bag, and this I find!” She was shaking something in his face that looked like a bundle of clothing. He felt the blood drain out of his face as he realized it was his sweatshirt and jeans, the ones that were covered with Sutherland’s blood. The clothes he’d left wrapped in a plastic bag, stuffed in his duffel bag and locked securely in his trunk until they could be disposed of.
His mother had gone snooping around and found them.
“What is this, covered with blood? Is yours?”
Cold sweat broke out on his skin, and he felt himself start to shake. “It’s… it’s not mine,” he stuttered, his mind totally blank in the face of her anger, unable to come up with a single plausible explanation for the bloody garments.
“What have you done, Eugene?” She stared at him hard, and he knew the instant she saw the guilt in his eyes. “You have done bad, I know it! I always know you are bad seed. I’m going to call police, have you locked up like you deserve.”
You fucking coward! the beast screamed at him. As his mother turned to leave the room, it was as though he were propelled forward by an unseen force. Moving without conscious thought. But suddenly, he was screaming, “No,” and his hands were around her neck and he was shoving her up against the wall outside his bedroom. Her eyes were bulging, her tongue sticking out like a pink slug between her lips. Her head made a hollow, melonlike sound when he slammed it up against the wall.
His lips pulled into a savage smile and he did it again. She was trying to scream, but nothing but ugly choking sounds emerged. Her fingers clawed at his wrists, leaving raw, red grooves behind, and she kicked at his legs, her blows growing more feeble.
As he felt the fragile column of her neck give to his grip, felt the crunch as her windpipe gave beneath the pressure of his thumbs, he felt the power roar through him once again, sending him high up into the stratosphere where he was ruler of the universe. Where no one could touch him, especially not her.
It was as though he’d flown outside of his body to look down on himself. He was delighted at the sight of his muscles cording in his arms as he squeezed. All that power. She thought he was nothing, was capable of nothing.
He was strong. She was weak. She might have given him life but he was going to end hers.
Her struggles ceased, and as he came back to himself, he saw she was unresponsive, her eyes open and sightless, the whites dotted by bursts of red. He let her go and watched her crumple to the ground.
He stood over his dead mother, breathing hard and shaking as he waited for a wave of grief to settle over him. She was his mother, after all, the woman whose approval he’d spent his entire life trying to gain. The only woman who could make him shake in dread of a single angry word.
But when the pain would have set in, the beast inside him countered, replaying a mental montage of all the hurt and humiliation she’d showered on him his entire life. Insulting him, telling him he was worthless, that he was nothing, would never be anything. Would never get a girl to look twice at him much less love him because he was capable of nothing.
He was capable of more than she’d ever known, but it had taken her own death to make the old witch realize it.
Good riddance.
Gene wanted to bask in his triumph a little longer, but he knew he didn’t have time to spare. His mouth pulled in disgust as he looked at the body—no longer his mother, now a foul heap of rotting flesh and bone. He had no time to deal with it properly right now.
Grabbing her by the feet, he hauled her down to the garage and wrapped her in a couple dark green heavy-duty garbage bags, his eyes darting around for a likely place to stash her. His eyes lit on the white freezer chest in the corner.
Perfect.
An hour later, he was pulling into the parking lot behind Rosie’s dorm. According to her text, she was leaving at nine, which gave him forty-five minutes before she left. It would be easy enough to catch her coming from the dining room or on the many trips she’d no doubt make to pack the car.
He’d chosen to park in a spot near the back entrance, close to the Dumpsters that would help obstruct the view of his car. Thankfully, at this hour of the morning during exam week, there weren’t too many people up and around. His plan wasn’t without risk, but since he’d missed the window of darkness thanks to his twenty-plus-hour nap, this was the best he could do.
Besides, he thought with a smile, after the events of the last twenty-four hours, he was quite sure he was capable of anything.
It didn’t take long for him to spot her, chatting with a girl he recognized as her roommate Dana as they walked through the courtyard that separated the dining room from the dorm. He called her name, almost laughing to himself as Rosario waved to him, said something to her roommate, and started toward him with a trusting smile.
Her roommate gave him a look that said he barely registered. If anyone ever thought to ask who Rosie was last seen with, even if Dana remembered his name or that he’d been Rosie’s physics TA, he’d bet on his life she’d never be able to give a good description of his bland, unremarkable features.
For once, that was just fine.
After he was finished with Rosario and h
er sister, it would make it that much easier for him to disappear and make sure no one would ever find him.
“Hey, Gene, what’s up?” Rosario smiled at him. Her hair was in a ponytail, her face scrubbed clean, and she wore a sweatshirt over her T-shirt and shorts in deference to the chill of the late spring morning. “I didn’t see you at the midterm yesterday.”
“Sorry about that—I had some last-minute things I needed to take care of at the lab. But I have some news about your exam that I wanted to share.”
Her eyes lit up, and he had a moment of doubt. Maybe he should let her go on her trip after all. Let her go away and leave her out of what he had planned.
But before he could complete the thought, her phone rang. “Oh, can you hold on? It’s Kevin. I’ve been trying to reach him for two days and I really need to take this.”
Gene nodded and tried to hide his disgust. She may have a sweetness to her, but she was just as stupid and deserving of punishment as the rest. And when he imagined the look of horror on Talia’s face when she realized that her sister would suffer her fate alongside her…
Nate Brewster may have killed more women, but he’d never instilled the kind of terror Gene was going to rain down on Nate’s final victim.
He listened to Rosario plead with her asshole boyfriend to accompany her on a camping trip, ignoring the little pang in his chest at the thought that no one, ever, had wanted his company so much.
He shoved it away. This was no time for self-pity. He alone would have the pleasure of Rosario’s company for the weekend whether she liked it or not.
Finally Rosario hung up and she met his stare with a wobbly smile. He had no sympathy for her hurt but he pasted on a look of concern. “You two have another fight?”
She shrugged. “I hope you have good news about my test,” she said with a little sniff. “I could use some after that.”
He looked around as though concerned about being overheard, even though there was no one around. “Let’s go somewhere a little more out of the way. I’m not supposed to let any students know before the results are official, but I knew you’d be anxious.”
