“I can’t do that, Jessie,” Rick said in a formal sounding voice.
Her brow wrinkled in confusion as she looked between the two men. Rick looked ... stoic. Truitt looked raw, angry, and confused. Yeah, well, join the club.
Realization hit her with the force of a cement block. They thought she’d done it too. They were staring at her like she’d somehow betrayed them. Like she’d used them.
Disappointment was so keen that it nearly buckled her knees. Then she steeled herself because she wouldn’t let them know how much it hurt for them to look through her the way they were doing.
“I didn’t do it,” she said quietly. “Please believe me.”
Something flickered in Rick ’s eyes. He hesitated and looked ... torn. Did he want to believe her? She couldn’t tell. He was so hard to read. She wanted to see doubt in his eyes, and maybe it was there, but how could she know it wasn’t just wishful thinking?
“Why were you gone so long, Jessie?” Truitt asked. “You said you were at the pub no longer than ten minutes. The timeline doesn’t add up. Give us something to work with here. Tell us what happened so we can help you.”
She stared at them, growing more numb by the minute. “I was at the store buying stuff to make you breakfast.”
No longer able to stand their scrutiny, or the idea that they entertained that she could do this, even for a moment, she turned sideways to brush between them and walked down the hall, slowly at first but with growing speed. She heard one of them call her name, but she refused to turn around. They’d see how utterly devastated she was.
She burst out of the doors and took off down the street, no clear direction in mind, only that she wasn’t spending another minute in such a hostile environment. God, they all thought she’d killed another person in cold blood. They were crazy but the frightening part was just how serious they were and it scared her to death.
Whatever happened to how sweet they thought she was? And how nice and cute and beautiful. Blah, blah, blah. It made her head hurt to know just how stupid she felt right now.
Three blocks from the police station, she dug out her cell phone and sank onto the sidewalk, drawing her knees to her chest as she clumsily punched in the phone number.
“Please, please be there,” she whispered.
“Hello?”
“Kirsten, thank God. It’s Jessie.”
“Jessie? Hon, are you okay? You sound like you’re crying. What’s going on?”
Jessie wiped angrily at the tear trickling down her cheek and tried to work the knot out of her throat.
“I need you to come get me,” she said in a shaky voice.
Chapter 7
Want me to go kick them all in the balls?” Kirsten asked with a scowl.
Jessie closed her eyes, cupped her hands around the warm mug of coffee, and inhaled the aroma. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop the shaking. Her arms shook, her hands shook, even her teeth kept clanking together to make the most annoying sound.
She opened her eyes when Kirsten gently took the coffee from her and set it on the table in front of the couch.
“You’re going to spill that all over you, hon. You’re still shaking like a leaf.”
“Thanks for coming,” Jessie said because she didn’t know what else to say. She was so grateful that Kirsten had come immediately and had brought her back to her apartment. The idea of going back to her place alone knotted her stomach.
“Stop thanking me. What are friends for?”
Jessie’s eyes went watery again. “You’re the best friend I could ask for. You’ve had my back since sixth grade.”
“Damn straight. And you’ve had mine.”
Kirsten was a beautiful woman and she had a warm smile that just drew people to her. She was only slightly taller than Jessie but thinner by far. She was lanky, had a jean size that made Jessie green with envy, and she moved with a grace that made people stop and watch her go by.
She had long, straight auburn hair that in the sunlight reflected about six different shades. And she had the bluest eyes, light and clear. Mesmerizing to look at.
“You didn’t answer my question. Should I go down there and kick their asses?”
Jessie smiled. Or tried to. “No. I’m the dumbass in this. I never should have gone home with Rick and Truitt. I was upset over Merriam firing me. I wasn’t thinking straight. I hurt my knee and they were offering ... comfort.”
Kirsten snorted. “That wasn’t all they were offering.”
“True,” Jessie acknowledged. “But of all nights to have given in. They not only think I murdered a woman but they think I’m some tramp who lured two detectives into her bed so I could sneak out to do my evil deed.”
“Sounds like something out of a B movie.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Jessie muttered. She covered her face with her hands. “God, I don’t know what I’m going to do. They totally think I did it. They supposedly have witnesses. What am I going to do, Kirsten? I can’t afford a lawyer. I can’t afford to be without a job, but who’s going to hire me now with this hanging over my head?”
Kirsten reached over and squeezed her hand. “You didn’t do it. Of course you didn’t do it. You couldn’t hurt a fly, Jessie. Try not to freak out yet. They haven’t arrested you. They still have to build their case. They’ll find who really killed Merriam. If worse comes to worst, I can call my dad. You know he loves you like a daughter and he’d be more than glad to help.”
Jessie lost the battle to hold her tears back and she threw her arms around her friend. “I love you,” she said fiercely. “I’ll never forget that you were there with me when I was in the hospital, and when I was struggling so hard just to walk again.”
Kirsten hugged her back and kissed her cheek. “And you were there for me when I absolutely needed you most, when I thought my entire world was going to end. You made me want to keep living.”
Kirsten leaned back and stroked her hand over Jessie’s bedraggled hair. “You need some rest, hon. I know it’s hard to sleep when you’re so scared and upset. Let me give you one of my sleeping pills. It won’t hurt you to take something to help you sleep.”
Jessie nodded, her eyes closed wearily. She was exhausted. Right now she’d do just about anything for a few hours of oblivion.
When the phone at his desk rang, Rick picked it up and barked a greeting. For a moment there was silence before the eerie, familiar electronic synthesizer crackle sounded.
He went tense and turned violently, motioning frantically for Truitt and anyone else he could get to notice.
“Good afternoon, Detective Broughman. I have to tell you, I’m disappointed. This latest one just wasn’t a challenge. Hardly worthy of my skills. Clearly I’ll have to do better next time. I’d give you coordinates but she won’t be hard for you to find.”
Rick’s stomach revolted and before he could respond, the phone went dead. He sank into his chair, still gripping the receiver just as the chief and several other police officers ran up.
“It was him. Christ, there’s another. He said this one wasn’t a challenge.”
Curses rang out. The chief pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Damn it,” he said. “Nothing else?”
“Just that he would have to do better next time. Said she wasn’t worthy of his skills. He didn’t give a location this time. Said she wouldn’t be hard to find.”
“He’s escalating,” Truitt said. “It’s just been two weeks since the last. Half the time between the last two victims.”
“Sounds like he’ll be out hunting again soon,” Bull said with a scowl. “We have to nail this son of a bitch.”
“Call it out,” the chief said. “We need to start looking. Do it as quietly as possible. We don’t want to alert the media before we even have a body. People will run all over those woods and mess up our crime scene.”
The officers slowly dispersed. Rick ran a hand through his hair. His head ached like a son of a bitch. This sucked. The
timing sucked. As much as he wanted nothing to do with the investigation involving Jessie, a part of him refused to believe she could be responsible. Last he’d heard it was just a matter of formalities and that the case would be turned over to the DA soon. And even though he wasn’t supposed to go near this case—or Jessie—he had no intention of just leaving it alone. He needed to know himself just what Jessie’s role in this was. Only now, every minute of his time would have to be spent on the recovery of the newest victim.
With a weary sigh, he picked up the phone to call in his group of volunteers. The very last thing he wanted was the body of another young woman to haunt his dreams. But she at least deserved to be found and buried with dignity, not left to rot with no marker to celebrate her life.
Jessie and Kirsten sat cross-legged on Kirsten’s couch, a pint of Blue Bell ice cream in their hands. Jessie’s poison was Cookies ’n Cream. Really. There wasn’t a better ice cream. Anywhere. Kirsten liked the more froufrou stuff and so she’d gotten some weird mix of flavors and nuts. Jessie shuddered at the mere thought of all that stuff in her ice cream.
Kirsten flipped through the channels, a practice that made Jessie crazy, but she didn’t say anything and instead focused on her ice cream. Every delicious calorie. Hey, when your life sucked, eat ice cream.
“Holy shit, Jessie, that’s you!”
Jessie’s head jerked up, her eyes narrowed in confusion. “Wha?”
She quickly focused on the screen as Kirsten turned up the television. She froze when she saw a snapshot of herself plastered across the news. The anchor was babbling on about the murder of a local pub owner but the only thing Jessie heard was her name and that she was a person of interest in the case. The story then went on to give information about Jessie, including that she had been a waitress at the pub until she’d been let go under suspicion of theft.
“What the fuck?” Kirsten bit out. “I don’t believe this. Holy shit. They can’t do this! You haven’t been arrested. They can’t just smear your reputation like that.”
“Though no charges have been filed, the police are expected to make an arrest soon.”
Jessie’s stomach dropped and her mouth went dry. She sat staring at the TV long after Kirsten turned it off and hurled the remote across the room.
“That does it! I’m calling my dad. This is outrageous. They can’t do this to you. A ‘source inside the police department’? What the ever-loving hell? We need to find out who sold you out and sue their asses,” Kirsten snarled. “They can’t go around leaking crap to the media when you haven’t been charged with a crime. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? They’ve already started your trial, goddamn it.”
Jessie couldn’t speak. Her throat was too closed off. This was a nightmare. Yeah, she’d been freaked out by being brought into the police station for questioning, and yeah, it had pissed her off that they’d come right out and said they thought she killed Merriam. But not even then had she really thought that it would come to this. Maybe she was in denial, but innocent people didn’t really get convicted did they? Only in the movies or mystery novels. God, she felt like a naïve moron.
“What am I going to do?” she whispered to Kirsten.
Kirsten sat down next to Jessie and gripped her shoulders. “What we’re going to do is hire a lawyer. A damn good one. Daddy will know someone. I’m going to call him right now. And listen to me, Jessie. If they come for you, don’t you say a word. Not a single word. You just look through them and refuse to speak until your lawyer is there to advise you. Okay? Do you understand? Not even a peep. They’ll try to get you to confess. Hell, they’ll try to get you to say all sorts of things that they can twist around on you in court. So if you don’t say anything, they can’t do that.”
Jessie nodded dumbly. Then she hugged Kirsten to her and hung on for dear life. “I’m scared. These things aren’t supposed to happen in real life.”
Kirsten squeezed her and then pulled away. “Tomorrow, I want you to go to your apartment and get all your stuff. You’re moving in with me until this is all over with.”
“But I can’t do that. I don’t even have a job,” Jessie protested.
“Exactly. You can’t pay rent if you don’t have a job and if you don’t stay with me, you’ll be out on the streets. That is so not going to happen. You can take me to work then take my car to get your stuff and pick me up after my shift.”
“I love you,” Jessie said fiercely.
Kirsten smiled. “I love you too. We’re going to kick some cop ass. Now let me go call Daddy. He’s going to be pissed. We’ll get you through this, Jess. I promise.”
Chapter 8
Even after seeing countless dead bodies in his years on the force, Truitt still had to turn away from the sight of the young woman sprawled on the ground, half covered in leaves, dirt and mud caking her body, mixing with blood from numerous cuts. The killer had been right. The victim hadn’t been hard to find at all because the arrogant asshole had left her for the police to find in the area they always staged in when they searched the woods.
The utter callousness, the fact that the killing was sport for some son of a bitch who got a thrill from hunting down a defenseless woman, filled him with rage.
The girl’s final moments had been filled with pain, terror, and the helpless realization that she was going to die. This time the shot wasn’t from a distance. No, judging by the marks on her knees and the position of the entry wound, the bastard had caught up to his captive, made her kneel, and then shot her execution style.
Or maybe he’d never turned her out for the hunt. Maybe he was changing his game up. But then he’d complained in his phone call to Rick that the woman hadn’t been a challenge. Maybe she’d refused to run. Maybe she’d realized the futility. Or maybe she’d simply given up.
The crime lab had marked off a wide perimeter, and beyond it, other police officers searched meticulously for something, anything, the killer could have left behind. Sooner or later he had to fuck up.
But the bastard even picked up his shell casings, and the bitch of it was, he either had the lightest feet known to man or he covered his tracks extremely well, because they could find absolutely no disturbance in the soil or the forest floor. Only blood and footprints and disturbance from the victim.
She was a pretty girl. Looked like a college student. A good twenty years younger than the last victim. Her blue eyes were glassy and fixed in death, her hair smeared with blood. Truitt shook his head and heaved out a frustrated sigh. Sometimes his job sucked.
Soon she was packed in a body bag and carried to where the coroner’s van waited. The scene was wrapped up, and as dusk settled over the woods, Rick and Truitt dragged themselves along with the other volunteers toward their vehicles.
They were dirty, tired, and disheartened.
Truitt’s mood only got blacker when he saw the news vans parked around their vehicles. The chief was already fielding questions and it looked well on its way to becoming a circus.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Rick muttered. “Pick up a six pack or five and get wasted.”
Truitt didn’t argue.
As they climbed into Rick’s truck, Truitt’s cell phone rang. When he glanced down he recognized the number and his gut tightened.
“It’s Bull,” he muttered to Rick. Hell, he had probably arrested Jessie. Just what they needed to cap an already stellar day.
“Cavanaugh,” Truitt barked into the phone.
“Truitt, it’s Bull. Look man, I think you should come by the station. I know you’ve had a long day but I think you’ll be interested in knowing this.”
Truitt sighed. “All right. We’ll be there ASAP.”
He shoved the phone back into his pocket.
“He wants us to come to the station.”
Rick ’s lips thinned. “Great. Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any worse.”
They rode back into town in silence, passing through the smaller communities, many of w
hich had been homes to the women victimized by the Big Thicket Killer.
When they finally pulled up outside the station, it was well past dark. Truitt was starving and he had a date with a case of beer.
They got out of Rick ’s truck and Truitt stared up the steps to the entrance.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“Come on. Let’s get it over with,” Rick said sharply. “It’s been a hell of a day.”
They walked through the door and Rick waved when the dispatcher cheerfully greeted them.
“Hey guys, Bull’s in his office. He’s been waiting for you.”
“Bull seems a bit eager to shove Jessie down our throats,” Truitt said in a terse voice.
Rick’s lips tightened but he didn’t say anything as they walked down the long hallway to Bull’s office on the end. Bull was behind his desk up to his nose in paperwork. When he heard Rick and Truitt he looked up and then put down his pen.
“Have you made an arrest?” Rick bit out.
“Yeah, I have.”
Truitt’s lips curled up into a snarl. “Okay, so why did we need to be here? You couldn’t have said this over the phone?”
Bull leveled a stare at him. “Jessie didn’t do it. She was telling the truth.”
Rick went still. Truitt’s heart started to pound harder.
“Okay, wait,” Rick began. “You made an arrest. Just yesterday she was all but convicted in your eyes. What changed?”
“Have a seat. You’ll need to see this.”
Bull swung around and aimed a remote at the television monitor a few feet away as Rick and Truitt lowered themselves into chairs.
As they watched the news story that all but painted Jessie as a convicted killer, Truitt’s fingers curled into tight fists.
“What the hell was that?” Rick demanded. “Where the fuck did they get their information? Who’s the goddamn leak?”
“I don’t know,” Bull said. “Chief ’s pissed. Hell, we’re all pissed. Nobody here likes to see the goddamn news blabbing shit before we’re ready.”