Killing Spree (29 page)

Gillian clicked off her cell phone, and slipped it inside her purse. A loud flapping noise made her stop in her tracks. She glanced over at a newly built monster of a house, half of it on support beams, poised on the edge of the bluff. It was shrouded in black plastic tarp, with scaffolding along its front side. The tarp flapped in the breeze. It sounded like a ship’s sail during a storm at sea.

Gillian stared at the house. The place looked deserted. In her neighborhood, dozens of condominiums and apartment buildings built only a few years ago were getting the same repair treatment, due to faulty siding or something. She didn’t know much about it, except that a lot of new-home-buyers had gotten screwed.

From the looks of things, the displaced owners of this monstrosity probably weren’t moving back any time soon. In two blocks, there were only a few homes between Chase’s little ranch house and this deserted mansion. And so far, not a single car had passed her on the road. Gillian kept thinking that if she’d screamed for help earlier, no one would have heard her.

She moved on, picking up the pace a little. She wondered what had happened to Chase. She couldn’t help feeling as if she’d narrowly avoided some kind of trap back there at his house. Chase was still the most likely suspect in the copycat murders—with Todd Sorenson running a close second. Who else was there?

At the little lookout point with the park benches and the tourist telescope, Gillian stopped and caught her breath. She gazed out at the water, and noticed the outbound ferry—a little speck in the distance. Jason Hurrell was on that boat.

Gillian pulled out her cell phone and dialed home again. The answering machine clicked on. “Hi, Ethan,” she said, after the beep. “It’s Mom again. Listen, I don’t want you answering the door for anyone—except maybe Vicki or Ruth. If Jason stops by, don’t open the door for him. I know you think he’s a nice guy, but please, if he comes to the door, don’t let him in. Ruth’s number is there by the phone. And you have my cell. If Jason comes by, call one of us. Okay? Thanks, honey. See you soon.”

Biting her lip, she clicked off the line, and watched the ferry disappear on the horizon.

Jason Hurrell sat at a window table on the ferry’s main level. He’d taken his laptop computer out of the trunk of his car, and he now had it in front of him. He’d pulled up Amazon.com to check out Gillian’s first book. He’d told her that he’d started reading it this morning, but that was a lie. He’d read
Killing Legend
almost a month ago, along with most of her other books.

Gillian already seemed to be putting it together that he’d started up with Vicki merely to get to her. He had to be very, very careful. He couldn’t quite remember which one of Gillian’s books was
Killing Legend
. He hoped one of the Amazon.com reviews would refresh his memory.

A reader with the user name
dgotlieb
bestowed four stars on the book, and gave it the headline
A Fast, Fun, Page-turner
.

Someone called
imalegend2
gave the book three stars and the review blurb
Sporadic Thrills amid the Clichés.

Jason had read enough. The reviews had jarred his memory of what
Killing Legend
was about. As snotty as the last reader was, he or she had made a good point. Gillian’s books were like tasty junk food that went down well. Maybe that was why he’d had a hard time recalling which one was which. Still, she was a good writer. And much like her “down to earth” heroines, Gillian was pretty damn smart.

Jason had a feeling she saw right through him.

He got out of Amazon.com and brought up his e-mail account. He started composing an e-mail to
Nowagers@yahoo. com.

Vicki unlocked her door, and started up the stairs to her apartment. It was already getting dark, and the steps were hard to navigate. Fresh from her pedicure, manicure, facial, and massage, she felt revitalized and relaxed. She was also ready to jump on Jason the minute she saw him. She’d been thinking about him all day at the spa.

But he didn’t seem to be home. There weren’t any lights on. Then again, maybe he was napping. They’d been very busy last night—and this morning. Vicki smiled as she recalled all their hot, passionate lovemaking—the kisses, caresses, and love bites. He was a marvelous lover.

The smile faded from her face as she stepped into the living room. The only light came from the computer screen on her desk. She set down her purse, peeled off her coat, and read what was written on the monitor:

Vicki was baffled that someone had typed up this note. Why were they pretending to be her? She wasn’t going anywhere, not that she knew of. It didn’t make any sense.

The stove light flickered on in the kitchen. It was an old stove, and the light always blinked a few times whenever she first turned it on. Vicki swiveled around and noticed a plastic tarp covering her kitchen floor. “Jason?” she called. “Honey, is that you?”

“Yeah?” he replied from somewhere in the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” she asked with puzzled half smile. “Are you painting in there?” Warily, she moved toward the kitchen, where she saw his shadow sweep across the wall. “Did you write this note on my computer?”

“Uh-huh,” he replied.

The baffled smile frozen on her face, Vicki looked at that shadow on the wall. He was holding something in his hand. “What’s going on, honey?”

The phone rang. She hesitated, and then glanced back at the telephone on her desk.

“Don’t pick it up,” he said, his voice muffled.

“What?”

The answering machine clicked on—along with her cheerful recording: “
Hi, you got my dumb machine. But leave me a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Bye!”

The beep sounded.

“Hi, Vicki, it’s Gill. Are you home yet? I need to ask for another favor. I’m in Bremerton, and won’t be home until after four-thirty. Ethan should be returning from a football game around three-fifteen. Would you mind checking in on him?”

Vicki glanced toward the kitchen again, and saw his shadow on the cabinet. He was still hovering there. He hadn’t moved. What did he have in his hand?

“I know this sounds strange,”
Gillian continued on the machine.
“But I’d rather you check in on Ethan than have your friend, Jason, do it. I have reason to believe Jason isn’t very—um, trustworthy. You probably think I’m nuts, but I’ll explain when I see you, Vicki. In the meantime, please, be careful around him….”

Vicki squinted at the answering machine and shook her head. Gillian didn’t make any sense. But then, neither did that bizarre note Jason had left on her computer.
Jason isn’t very trustworthy?

“Honey?” she called over Gillian’s voice on the machine. “What’s going on? Do you know what she’s talking about?”

“…I hope I’m wrong, Vicki, and we’ll have a good laugh about this later….”

There was no answer from him.

Heading into the kitchen, Vicki stepped onto the tarp. It was slippery, and she glanced down at the floor for a second.

“
Thanks a lot
,” Gillian was saying.

When Vicki looked up again, he was coming at her. She started to reel back, but the plastic sheet slid beneath her feet. She started to lose her balance.

“…
Bye, Vicki
.”

He grabbed her arm. But she still felt as if she were falling. He yanked her toward him. His face was just a blur as Vicki’s head snapped back. She was looking up toward the ceiling.

The last thing she saw was the garden sickle in his raised hand. It was coming down at her.

“Hey, Tanner.”

Ethan paid no attention. He sat alone and stared out the window of the bus. Across the aisle from him was that loudmouth idiot, Richard Marshall. In addition to ragging on him earlier today (before Jason had shut him up), Richard had called him a
fag
last week. The bus had just pulled out of the parking lot by Ballard High School’s football field.

From Golden Gardens Park, Ethan had taken a taxi and made it back in time to see Craig Merchant lead their freshman team to a humiliating defeat. The mood on the bus was somber. Ethan didn’t say a word to anyone.

“So—Tanner, where’s your bodyguard?”

Ethan kept gazing out the window.

“Hey, I’m talking to you,” Richard said, louder this time. “Where did you go during the game?”

Ethan closed his eyes.
Shut up, shut up, shut up
…

“Tanner?”

Finally, Ethan turned and glared at him. “Fuck off, asshole,” he growled.

Richard Marshall’s eyes widened for a moment.

Ethan was ready for him to leap across the aisle and start punching. He almost
wanted
it. He continued to stare at Richard, just waiting for him to lunge.
Go ahead, beat the crap out of me. I don’t care. I don’t care about anything anymore.

Richard Marshall let out an abrupt laugh. “Jesus, chill out, Tanner. I was just making conversation.” Shaking his head, he squirmed closer to his own window. “God, touchy!”

Ethan felt a bit disappointed Richard had backed down. He’d had no idea it could be so easy to stifle the jerk. Richard Marshall didn’t say another word to him for the rest of way.

Ethan stepped off the bus two stops before his own. Belmont Avenue and Lakeview intersected at the end of a tall viaduct over the Interstate. Ethan had walked the vertigo-inducing overpass several times with Craig. It had a low guardrail, and at one point, stood several stories above the freeway.

Hell, if he missed the highway and landed on the ground below, it was even further down. Certain death.

Ethan stared at the traffic on the Interstate—all those cars zooming below him, the long stream of headlights piercing through the murky dusk. Did he really want to screw up everyone’s Saturday afternoon commute? And what if his body hit a car? He could kill someone. That was no way to make his exit—with a bunch of people pissed off at him.

Ethan didn’t really want to kill himself anyway. Still, he’d fantasized about it a lot recently. Contemplating suicide gave him a strange sense of control over his situation. And for a while, it seemed like the only way to escape from all the treatment he was getting at school. He pictured his funeral, and thought about how sorry his former tormentors would be. He imagined Craig wishing he hadn’t pulled away, and telling everyone that they were best friends up until the very end. But he also thought of his mother, and how it would destroy her if he killed himself. She’d been through enough. Still, maybe she’d write a book about him, and it would be a best-seller. Too bad he wouldn’t be around to attend the funeral or read the book. No, suicide wasn’t the answer—as much as he flirted with the notion.

He headed for home. Approaching the duplex, he didn’t see any lights on. It looked like no one was home—both upstairs and down. But then Ethan thought he saw a curtain move in Vicki’s living room window. He stared up at the window for a moment, and figured it had just been something reflecting off the glass.

Pulling his key out of his pocket, he let himself in, switched on the light, and took off his jacket. He kicked off his shoes. The right one was still a little damp. He thought about how Joe had taken his foot and tucked it under the folds of his jacket. Ethan felt so disgusted with himself for having gotten turned on by that—and for having had a little crush on Joe.

They’d set him up. He’d figured it out on the bus. One of their guys, casing the house, had found what was left of that half-burnt, sleazy
Stallion
magazine. They’d had his number right there. The following morning, the vintage Mustang had started following him around. They’d seen how Tate and his buddy had picked on him in front of the boys’ locker room. “
Hey, Tanner! You can’t go in there! No fags allowed!
” With Tate’s big mouth, everyone within a block’s radius had probably heard him. So the next day, Joe had shown up to save him—and he’d beaten the crap out of Tate. They’d given him a hero with Joe.

Ethan had trusted him. He kept thinking that if he actually knew where his dad had gone, he might have told Joe. That was how weak and stupid he was. He deserved to die. That was why he’d practically invited Richard Marshall to slug him on the bus—and why he’d thought about jumping off the viaduct. He wanted to punish himself.

While Ethan made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the kitchen, he heard footsteps above. He’d thought no one was home upstairs. Now he wondered what Vicki and Jason were doing up there with all the lights off.

“Duh,” he muttered to himself—after a moment. “What do you think they’re doing?”

He had a little crush on Jason. He was so sexy—and nice. Ethan still couldn’t understand why his mom had been so cold toward Jason. Maybe she was just mad because he was Vicki’s boyfriend. He probably reminded her of how lonely she was. Ethan suddenly felt awful for getting so snotty with his mom last night. What had he said?
“No wonder Dad has never bothered to come back to you.”

God, what a horrible thing to say.

While leaning against the counter and eating his sandwich, Ethan started to think about his mother, and her life these last two years without his dad. She’d gotten a pretty raw deal, but he’d never heard her complain. He’d never heard her bad-mouth his dad. Ethan remembered her after that
Leo
creep had beaten her, and how she’d tried to convince him—despite her swollen, battered face—she was okay. Her only concern seemed to have been about him.

Ethan couldn’t eat any more of his sandwich because he was crying. He heard the footsteps overhead again. They were moving toward the stairs. It didn’t sound like two people—just one. And that one person was coming down the steps.

Ethan listened to Vicki’s door open and shut, then the footsteps again—this time on the front porch.

He emerged from the kitchen in time to see a shadow pass across the thin drapes at the living room window. A moment later, someone knocked on the door.

Ethan wiped the tears from his eyes, and then he headed toward the door to answer it.

“It’s just up ahead, the gray house on your right,” Gillian said, staring out the taxicab window. “Right by—where those guys are playing Frisbee,” she added, not sure she liked what she saw.

Gillian had caught a taxi at the Seattle Ferry Terminal. She’d tried calling Ethan, but had gotten the machine. He certainly should have been home by four-thirty. During the taxi ride, she’d tried not to panic.

Now, she realized Ethan must not have listened to her messages—or he’d just blatantly disobeyed them. He was tossing the Frisbee to Jason on the grassy parkway in front of the duplex. She could hear them as the taxi approached the house.

“God, you think
you
stink at this?” Jason called, after his wild toss sent Ethan digging the Frisbee out of the bushes by the porch. “I totally suck! Sorry, Ethan!”

“That’s okay!” Ethan yelled back, waving the Frisbee at him to show he’d recovered it. He was laughing. Then he stopped to stare at the taxi.

A tiny smile flickered on Gillian’s face. Ethan looked like he was having fun; and it had been a long time since she’d seen him laughing and playing like this. She almost hated to interrupt them, but she didn’t trust the man who was making her son so happy.

Gillian paid the driver and climbed out of the cab. Ethan tossed the Frisbee to Jason one last time, and they both started toward her. The taxicab drove off.

“Your timing’s perfect,” Jason said, tapping the Frisbee against the side of his leg as if it were a tambourine. “We were just about to call it quits on account of darkness—and on account of the fact that I haven’t touched a Frisbee since college and I’m terrible. How was your ferry ride?”

“Fine, thanks,” Gillian said cordially. She glanced at Ethan. “Did you get my phone messages?”

He shook his head. “No. I didn’t check. Why? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. I was just over in Bremerton, following up a story idea. I phoned to say I might be late. It’s nothing.” She turned toward Jason. “Isn’t Vicki back yet?”

“Actually, Vicki had to work. She left me a note. They needed a replacement on a flight going out this afternoon. She’ll be gone for the next two or three days. She told me to be sure and let you know. And she also wished Ethan a happy birthday.” He smiled at Ethan. “I already passed that message along.”

Gillian stared at him. She was thinking about the phone message she’d left for Vicki ninety minutes ago. “Um, did you check her answering machine for a follow-up message?” Gillian asked. “Sometimes, at the last minute, it turns out they don’t need her after all.”

Jason nodded. “Yeah, I checked her machine. No messages.”

“How long ago did you get back?”

“Oh, about an hour ago.”

Gillian mulled it over. It was possible that Vicki had gotten her message and erased it before leaving for the airport. But there was something wrong with what Jason was telling her about Vicki’s note. Vicki never bothered to let her know about her work schedule unless she’d planned to be gone over a week. Another thing. How did Vicki know about Ethan’s birthday on Tuesday?

“I asked Jason if he’ll have dinner with us,” Ethan announced.

Jason was shaking his head. “I told you, Ethan, I can’t. I need to go hunt down a hotel tonight. But thanks anyway.” He handed the Frisbee to Ethan. “Hey, didn’t you say you’d get on the Net and look up some places for me?”

“You bet!” Ethan replied, a bit starry-eyed. “Hold on, be right back.”

Gillian watched him hurry up the porch steps and duck inside the apartment.

“Listen, I’m sorry about earlier—on the ferry,” Jason whispered. “From the look on your face when you got out of the cab, I’m guessing you weren’t pleased to see me with Ethan. But I heard him come home while I was upstairs earlier, and I wanted to pass along Vicki’s message before I took off.”

Gillian just nodded. Part of her wanted to apologize for being so awful to him. Another part of her still didn’t trust him at all.

Jason gave an awkward shrug. “It’s none of my business, but I thought you should know. When Ethan answered the door, it looked as if he’d been crying. I figured he didn’t want to be alone. I hope it’s okay that I asked him to step out and toss around the Frisbee with me.”

Dazed, Gillian stared at him. It broke her heart to think of her son sitting alone at home, crying. She wondered what had happened at that game in Ballard. She managed to smile at him. “That was very nice of you,” she murmured. “Thank you, Jason.” Then she retreated inside the apartment.

Ethan was at her computer, eyes glued to the screen and fingers working the keyboard.

“How was the game?” Gillian asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“They creamed us,” Ethan replied, wrapped up in his task for Jason.

“Did you have an okay time?”

Ethan didn’t answer. He hit a key and the printer started up.

“Honey, you didn’t have anyone—
harassing
you at the game, did you? Did anything happen?”

“No, Mom, nothing happened,” he said. He briefly glanced up at her, then went back to work.

Gillian studied his face for another moment, then she took off her coat. She opened the curtains to the front window. Jason was waiting in front of the duplex, his back to her. The polite thing to do would have been to ask him in for a cup of coffee. But she wasn’t going to cave in and do it. Gillian turned from the window. “Did you have fun with Mr. Hurrell?”

“Yeah, he’s a nice guy. Why don’t you ask him in?”

“Um, I think he’d rather wait outside. Honey, did you mention anything to Vicki about your birthday coming up?”

“Nope, I thought you did.”

“No, I haven’t,” she murmured. Gillian glanced out at Jason again. “What did you and Jason talk about?”

“I dunno, stuff,” he answered distractedly. “Mom, I’m trying to get this done. Okay? He’s waiting.”

Gillian just nodded, even though Ethan wasn’t looking at her. She walked past him, and checked the answering machine. Skipping through her messages for Ethan, she listened to one from Ruth: “
Sorry I missed you, hon. Call me as soon as you get this. I want to know how it went in Bremerton. Bye.
”

There weren’t any other messages, nothing from Chase Scott.

Ethan printed up about a dozen pages’ worth of local hotel information for Jason; then he ran outside with the papers in tow. He looked like a kid, eager to show his dad a composition he’d written. Gillian watched from the living room window as Ethan went over the selections with him. She watched Jason take the papers. He shook Ethan’s hand, and then pulled him in for a hug. He patted Ethan’s back a few times.