RAINEY DAYS (36 page)
Authors: R. E. Bradshaw
“Okay, Mackie, I won’t be long, I promise,” JW said. He now had his sleeves rolled up, with his jacket thrown over one arm, looking the part of a John Edwards “wanna be.”
“Shit, Mackie’s letting him come up here,” Rainey said.
She went to the couch and gathered up the pillows and blankets Katie had been lying on and threw them into her old room. Rainey wasn’t hiding the fact that Katie was there, she just did not want to rub JW’s face in it. She was not sure what JW was planning, but she did not want to give him any excuse to lose his temper. Rainey was not afraid of JW. He was the least of her worries, at this moment, and she could always have the agents throw him out, if he started getting out of control. Rainey would hate to have to shoot him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Rainey heard the knock on the door and knew the time had come to face JW. She went to the door, peeked through the curtain and saw JW standing outside the door alone. The agents must have decided to let him come up by himself. He smiled and waved at her through the window in the door. Rainey deactivated the alarm and opened the door.
“Rainey, I am here to apologize to you for my recent behavior and to talk to Katie,” JW said. He must have seen a look in Rainey’s face that made him add, “I am not here to bother her. I want her to know I will not stand in the way of the divorce. She wants out of our marriage and I owe her that much.”
Rainey thought he was just trying to cover his ass and keep Katie from going public with what she knew about him, but she did not say anything. Instead, she stepped aside and let him in.
“Come on in,” she said, “May I offer you tea or water?”
“I’m okay, thank you. I just had a large tea with Mackie. I had to talk him into letting me come up here.”
“Have a seat,” Rainey said, moving over to sit in Mackie’s big chair.
JW sat down on the couch. He looked around the room, saying, “Wow, your dad really collected a lot of memorabilia.”
“Yes, he did and now I have to find a museum to donate most of it to,” Rainey said.
“So, where is Katie?” JW asked.
“She’s asleep, in the back bedroom.”
JW sat his coat down on the couch beside him and leaned forward, clasping his hands and resting his elbows on his knees. Rainey could tell he was trying to find the right words.
Finally, he said, “You’ve been a really good friend to Katie. I appreciate how you’ve taken care of her and I need to say thank you, for saving her life.”
“So, you don’t blame me anymore, for what happened?” Rainey asked.
“No, I realize now how twisted John Taylor was and how he used us all. I’m sorry I didn’t see it before,” JW said, adding, “I even talked to him about the stalking. When I told him you were in town, he’s the one who suggested I see you, instead of the police.”
Rainey knew how he must feel, now that he knew the truth. “He fooled a lot of people, JW. From what I know about this guy, he spent a great deal of time planning this out, right down to his most recent escape.”
JW sat back against the couch. “Would you say he’s one of the smartest criminals you’ve ever dealt with?”
What an odd question, Rainey thought, but answered, “One of the luckiest, I’d have to admit.”
“So, still not ready to concede he outsmarted the FBI, not once, but three times?” JW asked.
Rainey felt a bit defensive and said, “He made mistakes. He just got away with them, until now. Not real smart to use property that could be traced back to him.”
“Yet, he got away,” JW countered.
Rainey really didn’t want to debate the efforts of the FBI with JW. She would prefer he say what he had to say and leave. His cologne was making her sick. JW must go through a gallon of that stuff a month.
JW continued his thoughts about the case, “Isn’t it amazing that you could know someone almost your whole life and not really know them?”
Rainey thought that was true of how she felt about JW, now that she knew what Katie had told her. She agreed, “Yes, that is remarkable.”
Rainey’s attention was drawn to Freddie, who leapt down from the window sill, hissed at JW and disappeared into the kitchen. Rainey had never seen him act like that. He must smell how nervous Rainey was around JW. She was nervous. Her palms were beginning to sweat. It felt weird, but she was sleeping with his wife and that could make anybody apprehensive.
She said, “I’m sorry, he isn’t used to strangers.”
JW smiled, “It’s okay, maybe he’s a democrat.”
Rainey laughed, “Most folks around here are.”
There was an awkward silence, between them. JW stood up and crossed to the bookshelf. He picked up a round from an AK47, examined it, replaced it and moved on to another piece of weaponry. His back was turned to Rainey, as he quietly studied the items on the bookshelves.
He stopped and asked, “What’s this?”
Rainey stood and joined him, looking to see what he had in his hand. It was the dagger that Billy Bell had taken from his would be killer. She took the dagger from JW’s hands. She studied the blood patterns on the cloth handle. Rainey felt the hair on her neck and arms stand up. The dagger never had that effect on her before, but then she hadn’t known the story of how it ended up here.
Rainey said, to JW, “It’s a dagger my father took off of a guy who almost killed him.”
They were standing very close together. JW’s cologne was really bothering her. She needed to move away from him, or she thought she would be sick. Rainey turned to JW, handing him the dagger back. He looked at it, twirling the tip of the blade against his forefinger. He turned his eyes from the blade and looked down at Rainey.
JW asked, a peculiar smile on his face, “Are these real blood stains?”
Rainey met his gaze. His blue eyes where almost twinkling with delight. A spark of recognition sent a jolt of adrenaline through her heart and in that instant she knew she was looking into the eyes of her attacker. She blinked once to make sure, but there was no doubt in her mind, JW was Johnny. His cologne was making her sick, because it was the smell she had associated with her rapist. Her body knew JW was the man she had so desperately wanted to find. It was screaming at her to run.
Rainey could not run. Katie was in the other room. Rainey’s pistol was in pieces on the kitchen table. If she could get to the bedroom, there were other weapons at her disposal, but first she had to get there. Her cell phone was on the coffee table, in front of the couch. Rainey could not let JW know, she had recognized him, for who he really was. Rainey needed a plan and fast. “Think Rainey, think,” her mind shrieked.
“Yeah, that’s real blood. You should ask Mackie about that, the next time you talk to him,” Rainey said, turning away, so JW couldn’t see her face. She stepped over by the window and saw that Mackie’s arm was still in the same place on the window sill of the car. Her heart sank. Mackie was probably dead. The agents had probably been dealt with also.
JW put the dagger down and moved back to the couch. If he had a weapon, it was probably in his coat, Rainey was thinking. He was now between Rainey and the shotgun by the front door, but he had left a clear path to the bedroom, where Katie slept. If she ran toward the back bedroom, he would be on top of her, before she could get out of the room.
Rainey tried a ruse. She smiled at him and said, “You didn’t come all the way out here to talk to me. Let me go wake Katie for you. Give me a minute will you?”
Rainey didn’t wait for his answer. She was moving on the first word. JW did not have time to react and did not make a move to cut her off. She took normal steps, fighting the urge to break into a run. Rainey thought she may have him fooled, until she heard the familiar sound of a revolver being cocked behind her.
Rainey dove, half-skidding and crab-crawling down the eight-foot hallway to the bedroom. The sound, of a shot and splintering wood above her, encouraged her body to move faster. Her hand grabbed the doorknob and, as her weight smashed up against the bedroom door, she fell through it. Another shot fired, this one going through the door, above her head, just as she slammed it shut.
Rainey ran to the other side of her father’s big, heavy chest of drawers and knocked it over, in front of the bedroom door. It did not fall all the way over, but wedged itself into the wall, on the other side of the door. Rainey grabbed her father’s shotgun, from the corner, before diving for the bed. Katie, who was now sitting up, with a wide-eyed look of shock on her face, grunted when Rainey slammed into her, pulling her off the bed and onto the floor, away from the door.
JW’s body crashed against the door. The maniacal voice of the madman, screamed out, in the little boy voice, “Open the door, Rainey. It’s time to play.”
Katie whispered, “Who is that?”
Rainey answered, while looking around the room for her next move, “It’s JW. He’s the killer.”
“What?” Katie said, astonished.
JW splintered the door with his shoulder. “I want to play with you girls. Let me in.” He slammed into the door again, more wood cracked.
Rainey pumped the shotgun, stood up and blew a hole in the door. She squatted back down immediately.
Katie huddled beside her. She said, in disbelief, “JW is the Y-Man?”
Rainey peeked over the top of the bed, answering Katie, at the same time, “Yes and I don’t have time to talk about it right now. I’m trying to keep him from killing us.”
Rainey could see through the hole, she had blown in the door that JW was either, hunched down behind the dresser or not in the small hallway anymore. She got her answer, when she heard the back door open and close. If he made it onto the back deck, there would be nothing between JW and his prey, but the sliding glass doors on the opposite wall from where they were crouched.
Rainey almost threw Katie back across the bed, yelling, “Move, move. Get to the door.”
Katie ran up to the chest and tried to lift it. Rainey did not want to put the shotgun down. She yelled, “Open the top drawer!”
Katie pulled the drawer open, scraping it down the wall.
Rainey yelled again, “Grab the forty-five in the corner and give it to me. Put it in my holster.”
Rainey aimed the shotgun alternately down the hall and at the glass doors. Unable to tell where JW was. She felt Katie slide the forty-five into the holster. Rainey handed the shotgun to Katie.
“If anything comes by that glass, aim and pull the trigger.”
Katie said, “I’ve shot skeet, I can do this.”
Katie took the gun and held it up in front of her now trembling body. Rainey wedged herself under the dresser and pushed up with her legs, lifting the corner out of the wall and up righting it. The chest wobbled with the force she put behind the lift and then fell over the other way. Rainey carefully looked through the hole, in the door, and then opened it.
She pulled the forty-five out and took hold of Katie’s arm, leading her down the hallway, with Katie walking backwards aiming the shotgun into the bedroom. Rainey could only see a small portion of the main room. She had no way of knowing exactly where JW was standing. If he stood in the archway to the kitchen, he could see the top of both sets of stairs, the only avenues of escape for Rainey and Katie. If Rainey peeked around the corner, JW could blow her head off.
Freddie startled Rainey and almost got shot, when he jumped on the corner of the bookshelf unit, closest to the hallway. He did not look at Rainey, but cowered, ears back, growling in the direction of the kitchen and Rainey’s blind spot. Katie and Rainey pressed their backs against the wall on the other side of the kitchen, inching closer to the corner. Rainey’s heart was thumping so loudly in her chest, she was sure Katie could hear it, but Rainey could not slow her breathing.
Rainey’s hands began to shake, caused by the epinephrine rushing through her bloodstream. Her body knew she was in trouble and the fight of flight response had taken over her brain. Rainey stopped going forward, two feet from the end of the wall. With hand signals, she indicated to Katie that she should stay put, careful not to make noise. Rainey knelt down, staying low and crossed the hall. Pressing her back against the wall opposite Katie, she peeked around the corner.
From her vantage point, Rainey could see most of the main room, the front window and the front door. If she made a break for the cover of the couch, she might be able to reach her cell phone. But if he saw her, he would be all over her. If she were alone, Rainey might take the chance, and just start blazing away at whatever was around the corner. She was a trained agent. The probability was good that she would kill him before he got her, but if he killed Rainey that would leave Katie to defend herself alone against JW.
JW had brought a revolver with him, but now that he was in the cottage, he was surrounded by loaded weapons. He might already have the shotgun, Rainey left by the front door. At the end of the hallway, one way opened into the main room, the other led to Rainey’s old bedroom. The door was open and they could be in that room in one step. With the door shut and barricaded, Rainey would have a better defensive front, than the one she found herself in this moment. Rainey slid back across the floor and stood up beside Katie. She motioned with her free hand, what was to happen next.
Rainey turned the corner quickly, firing twice in what had been her blind spot. Katie bolted behind her into the open doorway of Rainey’s old room. Rainey fired once more, this time hitting the alarm panel by the front door. She hoped the redundant systems she had in place would realize the alarm had been rendered inoperable, alerting the alarm company. Rainey stepped in the bedroom, just as a bullet shattered the doorframe beside her. Katie slammed the door.
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