Deceitful Moon (13 page)

“Say
you’
re
right. He wasn’t fooling around or anything,
correct
?”

“I don’t think so. I think the whole family was still struggling with what happened to Lexy. No inclination for extramarital affairs. Besides, he’s not exactly Don Juan.”

“Yeah, that’s true, but it takes all kinds. Trust me, I know.”

“Things I don’t need to know.” He shifted to look at Sophie. “But maybe the wife, the sister, or maybe a daughter of someone he put away thought it was time to even the score.” Manny
rubbed the stubble on his cheek
. “But I’m just spitting into the wind until we get there and look at everything.”

Sophie let go of his arm and reached into her pocket, where her phone was vibrating.

“I’m starting to hate this universal communication stuff. Maybe being a Luddite like you is a good thing.”

She opened up her phone, read the text message, and handed it to Manny. “When the dam breaks, it really breaks.”

The text was from one of the detectives
, Frank Wymer, who
had taken
over the Mitchell Morse case at the White Kitty:
GLAD YOU’RE ON YOUR WAY BACK. EVERYTHING THE SAME WITH THE CHIEF
,
BUT WE HAVE ANOTHER PROBLEM. WE HAVE TWO MORE VICS LIKE MORRIS. THE SAME MO. MORE WHEN YOU GET HERE.

Manny leaned his head back ag
ainst the seat. Three makes it official; they definitely had
a
serial killer
on their hands
. Just what they needed. “Shit. Does it ever stop raining?”

“And why
don’t we have
a damned umbrella
?
”
sighed
Sophie

Chapter
-22

“I’m going to go freshen up
.
A
girl has to look good, even when interviewing a deranged serial killer,”
said
Chloe.

The three FBI
a
gents had just entered the St. Thomas
p
olice facility, such as it was. The pastel
-
blue
building had been annexed with new construction, combining the old with the new, and making it at least interesting.
It was h
ardly what she was used to seeing. But this was the Caribbean and the place was buzzing
, e
specially for 4 a.m. Argyle was surely the most high
-
profile killer arrested in St. Thomas since the pirate Anne Bonny.

“You look fine,” said Max.

“Ah
,
thanks
,
but I gotta pee too.”

“Pee? You can’t go to the head while on duty
—
that’s FBI regulation 601, section b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t, I think,” answered Josh.

Max looked at Josh. “Man, you need some sleep or more coffee. That was lame, even for you.”

“Really? Lame? I take pride in my sense of humor
.
”

“You know what they say about pride before a fall?”
pointed out Max.

“So
,
what are you saying?” smiled Josh.

“Do I have to explain everything to you?”

Chloe shook her head. “I’ll see you two in a few.”

She walked through the heavy
,
steel door adorned with a sea
-
shell
lettered
sign telling her it was the
Big Girls
’
Room and put her leather purse on the black granite counter. She splashed water in her face,
dabbed
away the excess
,
and stared
into the mirror to make sure s
he
got it all. The stare lingered. It had been a strange
four
teen hours, and it hadn’t ended
the
way she’d anticipated
, with Argyle in chains
.
Courtesy,
mostly
,
of
Detective Manny Williams
,
or maybe she should say future FBI Special Agent Manny Williams.

She leaned closer to the mirror. He was
another
reason the day hadn’t
ended
as she had
expected
.
In fact, he was the biggest reason today was a total
enigma
.

No doubt about that.

Josh had talk
ed
about
Williams
, what had transpired on the cruise. It had sounded a little concocted, but she should have known better. Agent Corner didn’t work that way. What he didn’t bother to mention was how good
-
looking the Lansing detective was.
How wide his shoulders were, and how his eyes looked like they were torn from the bluest sky on record.

“I guess he wouldn’t have, would he?” she grinned to herself.

Chloe had known good
-
looking men before, dated several, a couple she had even liked. But it wasn’t just his looks, those eyes, those shoulders, but it was how he
carried
himself, who he was.
It was h
ow honesty seemed to exude from his pores
—
a certain
vulnerability and strength from the emotions he wore so well on his sleeve. She felt herself growing a little warmer
.

After they’d shaken hands, she felt the electricity shoot directly to her heart, causing her pulse rate to jump. That had never happened to her. She read about it, even fantasized about it, but those things didn’t happen to
women like her
.
The
thought
of
jumping
him right there, in front of everyone
, had
r
u
n
briefly though her mind
.

Not a g
reat way to broaden
my
career path
. But
. . .

Reaching into her bag, she took her cinnamon-shaded lip liner and went to work. She had done her best to hide it.
She’d been t
rying not to stare too long or move to
o
close, but it hadn’t worked entirely. Even Josh had seemed to detect
—
something. More importantly, Manny had noticed. She knew that much was true. One too many glances her way, his smile was a little too friendly, even the brief glance at her mouth. He wasn’t the only profiler in the group.

Part of her was embarrassed
;
the other part, however, didn’t give a
rat
’
s ass. There had never been, for her, a fascination, an attraction
—
or whatever the hell you wanted to call it
—
like this
in only six hours
’
time
. She
released
a small sigh. It was
disconcerting
to know her luck
with men
hadn’t changed over the course of her thirty-
one-
year life; he was happily married.

Married men weren’t off limits for some women. I
n
fact, a few of her friends preferred the no
-
attachment thing. They said it made the sex better and the gifts amazing. But her
mum
had raised her with good
,
old
-
fashioned,
Irish
values. She’d rather live alone than be the reason a family was destroyed. She brushed
her
long
hair back behind her ears.

Detective Manny Williams had momentarily shaken that value with just a touch of his hand. That excited, breathless feeling fluttered from somewhere deep in her core. But she’d do the right thing, be the right kind of woman, just as soon as she got him off her mind
—
and as long as he never touched her again.

She
straightened her jacket, picked up her purse, took one last glance in the mirror, and walked to the door.

The wild yelling coming from the smallish, dimly
lit hallway startled her as she instinctively reached for her gun,
clutching the door handle at the same
time
.

That’s when she heard the first gunshot, quickly followed by another.

Chapter
-23

Stella Crosby rose slowly from the sagging, red
-
vinyl chair positioned mere feet from her husband’s bed in the
ICU of Eagle Memorial Hospital
.
Her hazel eyes burned
a hole into her husband’s face. The rhythmic sound
of
the
breathing pump and three beeping
monitors
featured
quiet, soughing echoes. The newest technologies were designed for only one purpose
—
the desperate attempt to keep Gavin Crosby from meeting his
M
aker, to advance to the proverbial “better place
,
” whatever that
saying truly
meant. She was sure the syncopated noises would drive her crazy. That and the smell of
arbitrary
hospital
odors
she
’
d never been able to quite identify. She bent closer, staring harder, as if she could will him into the afterlife.

None of this would be an issue if he would have cooperated. Why couldn’t he just die like he was supposed to? The pansy
-
ass couldn’t even do that right. Who lives with a shot to the chest, at point blank range no less? But she was no expert, at least not yet, and shooting him twice would have been wise.

Learn something every day.

And why was she agitated? Because he wasn’t dead? Guilt? Because she had just shot her husband and people
who did
that
went away for life
? Stella shrugged. None of those scenarios seemed to fit exactly. Maybe it was a combination of everything.

Getting caught wasn’t a major concern, which would take some time, and if
the cops
did
put things together correctly,
dotted
those damnable “
i
’
s” and
crossed the
“
t
’
s
,
”
it would still be too late.
They
had planned too well to get boxed in
. She supposed that’s what everyone who intentional
ly
danced on the wild side
of the law thought
, b
ut they weren’t just anyone, were they? Their purpose was
. . .
noble, just,
and
right. Maybe that was it. The law wouldn’t recognize
that
what they were doing
possessed
any of those attributes
. They would be branded as people
who couldn’t play by the rules.

To hell with the rules. Rules didn’t help Lexy.

In all of her years as a cop’s wife, she had heard Gavin slam the vigilante mentality that was growing in America’s fractured, frightened society.

“The law, the cops, will find them, get it done. People have to be patient,” he would say.

She rolled her eyes. Law enforcement bellied up to the
challenge
so
much
that only
half
the murders in America remained unsolved. Yeah, that’s getting
it
done.

Why did more than
sixty percent
of rape victims fail to go the police? Not just from the embarrassment, but the knowledge that nothing would be done, or that the victims must have somehow brought it on themselves. What bullshit. She felt the rage rise again. She took deep breaths, like the Yoga instructor told her to do when her anger threatened to blow her out of the calm into the fire. It helped.

Stella moved to the third floor window and watched the sun’s earliest rays begin to usher away the predawn darkness. It reminded her that all things were new in the light of another day
,
and
t
hat a fresh radiance could put a new slant on her problems. And she had a big one
:
Gavin was still breathing.