Be Mine (43 page)

“Help me! Please help me!”

Fuller drew his weapon. “Freeze!”

The couple halted. Pivoted. Lepp was pressing his gun to Molly’s
head. His other arm tightened around her neck in a choke hold.

“Put your gun down and she’ll live.”

Fuller tightened his grip and steadied his aim at Lepp’s head.

One spark would incinerate them.

“Simon, it’s over. Let her go,” Tom shouted as he, Sydowski, and
Fuller closed their circle on Lepp. Fumes filled their nostrils. Fuller inched
forward. “Sir, place your weapon on the ground now!” They were forcing Lepp to
move backward. “Sir, you can smell the gas. Place your weapon on the ground!”

The gun remained at Molly’s head.

“Nobody moves or her death will be on
your
hands!” Lepp
shouted.

Tom saw the terror in Molly’s eyes. “Everything’s going to be all
right,” he said.

“Nobody takes another step!” Lepp shouted.

“Simon, one spark and we all die.” Fuller moved closer.

Lepp inched back, not seeing the huge C-shaped tire fragment from
the rig. It came alive when he stepped on it, whipped hard around his calves,
knocking his feet from under him. As he fell backward, his hold on Molly
loosened.

“Run!” Sydowski shouted.

Molly bolted toward the emergency crews.

The impact of Lepp’s hand hitting the ground launched his
rubber-gripped Smith & Wesson down the gas-slick asphalt of Highway 1 where
it disappeared under the tanker. The others tried to tackle Lepp.

He was too fast and scrambled to his feet, running headlong to the
tanker.

“Let him go!” Sydowski shouted. “Let him go! He can’t escape!
Sydowski pointed to the police helicopters, then urged Tom and Fuller to race
to safety.

Lepp came upon the tanker, ignoring the sloshing of gasoline under
his shoes. Gagging from the fumes, he searched for his gun.

Tom and the others were running toward Peterson. Firefighters were
sending a protective water curtain in their direction as they fled. Adrenaline
pumped through the men as they gained distance, twenty yards, thirty yards,
forty...Lepp found his gun, seized it, and blind with fury, whirled toward the
three men and squeezed the trigger.

The concussion wave hefted Tom, Sydowski, and Fuller ten yards
toward the firefighters. Airborne helicopters vibrated dangerously. The flash
fireball shot skyward some thousand feet, singeing the air and momentarily
pushing the surrounding temperature to nearly twelve hundred degrees.

Simon Lepp was vaporized.

Firefighters and paramedics helped Tom, Sydowski, and Fuller to
their feet. At the command post specially suited hazmat crews began working on
securing the site. Traffic was gridlocked at the Fishhook interchange as scores
of emergency and news vehicles arrived.

At the edge of the cordon, paramedics were making a preliminary
examination of Molly. She raised her head to Tom and Sydowski. Tears streamed
down her face.

Local television news captured much of the dramatic standoff.
Details and rumors rippled through the press pack as the sky rumbled with more
helicopters from Bay Area TV stations. Some were going live. Tom and Sydowski
stayed with Molly at the scene.

Tom put his arms around her, comforting her. They watched the
aftermath until Molly suddenly jerked away. She clawed at her finger, removing
the ring Lepp had forced on her. Taking a few steps toward the inferno, she
raised her hand to hurl it at the flames but something held her back.

It was Cliff’s ring, not Lepp’s.

Molly tightened her fingers around it, stood there helplessly, and
wept. Tom and Sydowski consoled her, their faces painted by the glow of the
flames.

“It’s over, Molly. It’s finished,” Tom said.

She sobbed into his chest as they watched columns of black smoke
ascend to the darkening sky.

The doctors at Dominican Hospital
in
Santa Cruz kept Molly overnight for observation. The sisters fussed while a
female deputy watched over her.

Ted Hall and Sal Vermosa, Santa Cruz County detectives, soon arrived
to take her statement to share with San Francisco. Vermosa punctuated his
requests with “Now, ma’am, can you recall if ...” while Hall, a kind
whitehaired man with a big stomach, reminded Molly of the type of guy who was
Santa at children’s Christmas parties.

Molly refused all press requests for interviews, never switched on
her TV set. She called her father in Texas, assured him she was okay.

“No, Dad. I don’t want you to come to see me in California.”

“But why, Molly? I think I ought to be there.”

“Because I need to come home.”

At dawn, Molly rose from her hospital bed and sat near the window
where she reflected on her life and the tragedy until Tom came to see her. They
spent much of the morning trying to come to terms with what Simon Lepp did.

“I’ll never understand what happened,” she said.

“Don’t even try.”

“But was it me? Did I trigger something in him?”

“Don’t think like that. He was sick.”

“But he sat beside us. He worked with us. I dated him. How come we
didn’t see it? He might have been shy, but he seemed normal.”

“No one saw it. Sydowski tracked down Simon’s aunt last night. Seems
he withdrew from everything after his parents died some years ago. She said
he’d had a history of psychological trouble since he was a boy but his mother
kept it secret. No one picked up on how serious his problems were.”

“He told me he’d killed a girl, or a woman and her boyfriend.”

Tom nodded.

“They’re reopening the case of Amy Tucker and Kyle Chambers. Simon
had dated her in high school and she jilted him.”

“Oh no.”

Molly thought of them, then the others Lepp had murdered. And how
close he’d come to killing her. She cupped her hands to her face. Tom rubbed
her shoulders and stayed with her a long time.

Sydowski and Turgeon picked her up the following morning. They
respected her request not to take the same route that had brought her to Santa
Cruz. Still, the faces of Cliff Hooper, Ray Beamon, and Frank Yarrow haunted
her.

She closed her eyes.

In the days that followed, Molly still refused all requests for
interviews. With Irene Pepper gone, the
Star
no longer pressured her to
write about her ordeal. But Molly wanted to talk to Tom. It led to a dramatic
four-part series he produced on the murders, THE KILLER AMONG US. All four
editions sold out. The
Star
syndicated it and four hundred dailies
across the U.S. reprinted it. The stories were among the most powerful features
Tom had ever written and there was talk that it would be a contender for a
Pulitzer. After it ran, Molly told Tom and Ann over dinner at their house that
she was considering writing a book about her ordeal.

“I think it could be a good thing for you,” he said. “It might be an
exercise in self-healing. Help you sort out everything so you can move on.”

A few days later, Molly packed her little Ford Focus. She was headed
for Texas to visit her father and start her book.

Sydowski and Turgeon took a few days off after closing the case.
Turgeon visited her sister in New York, where she grappled with self-doubts
about continuing to be a cop. Sydowski spent time with his old man, his birds,
and at cemeteries in Colma and Lodi where he’d stand alone over the graves of
his friends, asking why they had to die this way.

He’d search the horizon for an answer.

It was a mystery he would never solve.

If you enjoyed BE MINE, be sure to look for Rick Mofina’s next
thriller, introducing rookie crime reporter Jason Wade of the Seattle Mirror,
who hits the ground running with a missing persons story that quickly becomes
an all-out hunt for a serial killer who holds the entire Pacific Northwest in
the grip of fear ...

Keep reading for
a preview of

THE DYING HOUR by
Rick Mofina

Karen Harding had to get away.

She was alone, driving from Seattle north on Interstate 5, wipers
slapping at the rain as she tried to understand why her fiancé was suddenly
forcing her to make a life-changing decision.

Karen brushed her tears away.

Why was he doing this? Luke’s change of heart had staggered her. She
needed to leave for a few days. To think. After they spoke she threw some
things into a bag, tossed it into her Toyota, and set off to see her big
sister, Marlene, who lived with her husband and their two kids in Vancouver. Karen didn’t bother calling ahead. This was an emergency. Besides, Marlene
would be home. She and her husband rarely left town because of the kids and
their jobs.

The air horn of a Freightliner yanked Karen’s attention back to the
highway. The storm had intensified. Her windshield was a watery curtain. Lights
from oncoming traffic stabbed at her from the darkness. Big rigs trailed
blinding spray as they passed, their wakes nearly swamping her.

Time for a break.

She exited at a truck stop outside of Bellingham. A massive map of Washington and British Columbia covered the lobby wall. Below it, a corkboard papered with
ads for trucks, bonding agents, and driving jobs. Faces of missing children,
women, and fugitive men stared at her from fading posters. Video games beeped
and ponged next to the soda and snack machines.

She was hungry.

In the restaurant, country music mingled with the aromas of
deep-fried food and coffee and the clink of cutlery. Amid the murmur of weary
men in ball caps, plaid shirts, and jeans, Karen searched for a seat.

She walked by a woman and a young girl laughing over sundaes, a
white-haired couple sharing soft conversation over soup, then a man who wore
the collar of a reverend, sitting alone reading a book and sipping coffee. She
found a booth by the window and ate a chicken sandwich.

Wind-driven rain bled against the glass. The truck stop’s electrical
power surged and the lights flickered. Karen glanced around the diner. The
reverend was watching her. He offered a warm smile. Karen tried smiling but
looked away.

She ached to talk to her sister, to someone who might offer
guidance, when she was struck by an idea. Maybe the fact a reverend was nearby
was a sign. Perhaps she could talk to him. He had a kind face. Could she
confide her dilemma to a stranger? she wondered. She looked to his booth but he
was gone.

She noticed the tip left by his coffee cup as the truckers’
conversations grew louder. Those who were talking on cell phones began alerting
the others to trouble arising from the storm, a wreck at the border crossing
near Blaine.

“A reefer and a loaded tanker,” one of them said. “Going to push
your wait time way, way back. A couple of hours.”

Not good.

Karen needed to reach her sister tonight. She looked at her folded
map for an alternative entry into Canada. She’d always crossed at Blaine. She examined the web of roads in Washington’s Northwest corner. Lynden looked easy
enough. Exit northbound on Route 539 at the north end of Bellingham, straight
shot to the border. If Lynden was choked, she’d try Sumas.

The storm was unrelenting.

Karen couldn’t see much. Gusts rattled her Toyota. She tightened her
grip, questioned her sanity, and considered returning to Seattle. Or at least
finding a motel for the night.

No.

She estimated that she could be at Marlene’s home in less than two
hours if she was cautious.

But this route made her uneasy. She saw fewer towns, houses, lights.
She pressed on, unable to see the streams, the forested foothills, or the
slopes of the Cascade Mountains. But they were out there. Veiled by darkness.
As she drove deeper into it, Karen felt alone. Vulnerable. As if she were being
swallowed. She switched on her radio to find a jazz station to help her relax.