Ruthless Game (A Captivating Suspense Novel) (47 page)

She nodded.

"Turns out she even offered to help Androus coordinate the kidnapping so long as he allowed her to watch."

"How... how do you know that?"

"She's got a series of journals kept in hollowed-out psychiatry textbooks. Everything's recorded there. We're just starting to go through them. Androus wasn't her only victim."

Alex cringed at the idea of Androus as a victim. "Alfred, too. And those patients who shot each other in her office—she helped one of them."

Greg nodded. "And she did the same thing in 1986 with another patient here in town. The whole thing got botched, though, and the kid and his supposed killer were found dead in the back of his van. The kid had been shot in the head and the killer in the mouth. His shooting was deemed suicide back then, but it turns out she killed both of them."

"She did this four times?"

"That we know of."

"I still don't remember that night at Loeffler's. She said I was there."

"I know. Brittany said you may never remember."

She tried to accept that she might never fully understand what had happened. At Loeffler's, or at the warehouse.

"From what we can piece together so far, we think you drove over to Loeffler's, drugged and half-asleep from the Restoril. Judith had already killed Loeffler by the time you arrived. Before you were even in the door, she injected you with something. We're checking out her medicine cabinet to find out exactly what. But whatever it was, combined with the Restoril you were already taking, it knocked you out. Maybe she figured she could pin the whole thing on you."

"No, she planned to kill me." Alex sat up in bed, stiff, like she'd been beat up by a gang. "But when she realized I couldn't remember anything, she decided to play with me. She was taunting me to remember."

Greg gave a light shrug. "She was one sick pup."

Alex swallowed. "I killed her?"

He nodded slowly. "She managed to get the gun and take a shot at Lombardi, though. Just missed him. You should hear Lombardi talk about his lucky coat now. You'd think it's Superman's cape."

Everything around Alex felt fuzzy and distant, and she couldn't shake it. "Lombardi?"

"We were all there—James, Lombardi, and me."

Alex exhaled, tears running down her face. She tried to stop them but couldn't. There were too many to hold back, and they'd been too long in coming.

"It's all over," Greg said. "Most of the charges against you have been dropped." He grinned. "James is still working on getting the rest dismissed."

"James?"

Greg laughed. "Deputy Chief Doty put him on it full-time."

"You're kidding."

He shook his head. "Told him he ought to better prioritize family and maybe this would get him on the right track."

"How many charges are left?"

"I think it's down to twelve."

"Twelve?"

"Breaking and entering, impersonating a police detective, resisting arrest, automobile fraud. There are a few more."

She put her head in her hands. "Oh, Jesus."

"Ah, it'll be good for him. But Doty insists you apologize to Gamble yourself."

"Oh, no. I'd forgotten all about him. Is he okay?"

"He's back on desk duty."

"I really hurt him, huh?"

"Nah. He just decided patrol was too dangerous." Greg winked.

Alex laughed.

Then, she heard the familiar sounds of Brittany and James arguing in the hall and it made her smile. She thought about James and his damn job. But he was still her brother. She'd have to work on forgiving him. He and Brittany were all she had left, and family was too important.

She thought about Nat Taylor losing his wife and then being tried for her murder. "What about Nat—"

"James is having that case reexamined, too."

She looked up and sniffled. "How did you know about Nat?"

"You mumbled about him all the way here in the ambulance. Brenda was by, too. Said you'd better rest up. Something about a baseball player."

Alex smiled. But even the knowledge that some of Judith's wrongs could be righted didn't stop the tears.

"Did you know two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey?"

She wiped her face. "Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance."

Greg frowned. "Ick." He paused and added, "A tiger has striped skin not just striped fur."

"Cats' urine glows in the dark under a black light."

"Hey,
I
told
you
that one."

"I know. And I still hate cats," Alex said.

"Me, too."

Alex tasted the tears as they fell down her face.

Greg put his head against hers. "It's okay to cry," he whispered. "Shit, any of us would after what you went through. It'll make you feel better."

She smiled and wiped her face. "They're not tears, Roback," she growled.

"Oh, yeah. What are they?"

She paused and said, "My contacts are acting up."

Greg laughed. "Okay." He stood and kissed her cheek, staring down at her as though he was amazed she was alive.

She blinked hard and stared back. "I mean it—they're not tears."

"Right—contacts." He smiled in a way she had never seen before and touched her cheek. "And I promise not to tell anyone that you have perfect vision."

"Better not," she warned and closed her eyes again, the touch of his fingers warm on her skin. Maybe she would have to rethink her no dating cops rule.

The End

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Cold Silence

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Danielle Girard

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The acrid taste of ash was gritty on her tongue. Heat trapped her like a burning timber on her chest. The one thing missing was the shriek of the smoke detector. It sat silent above, the unlit light a dull red through the smoke. There would be no alarms, no quick response of fire engines. They would have made sure. And yet, despite that, Megan Riggs felt an almost giddy sense of relief. It was over. They had come and now she would test the plan she had mapped out day after day and week after week. The only thing causing the dense thunking in her chest as she rolled off the bed and onto the floor was Ryan. She had to get to Ryan.

She waved at the smoke that clouded her vision. She focused on movement, letting her mind roll over the realities.

She refused to die. For Ryan's sake, for Mark's sake, she wouldn't give up. Sweat already beading on her lip, she swallowed another mouthful of thick, smoky air and pushed forward. She pulled the gun from the spot between the mattress and the old rotting box spring and checked that it was loaded. Then she towed herself along the floor with her moist hands, wiping them on her side as she went. In the distance, she heard the wail of the Devereaux's baby downstairs and the commanding shouts of Jack directing his family out of the lower level of the house. She couldn't go out the main door. That would make it too easy for them.

She quickly tied a discarded T-shirt from the floor over her face to ease her breathing and moved like a choking lizard. She and Ryan needed to be long gone before the fire department got here.

Flames had begun to eat her blue-and-yellow floral wallpaper on the far side of her bedroom, and she scrambled faster to escape the chunks of fiery plaster falling from the ceiling. Heat singed her leg as a flame caught the pant leg of her sweats. She spun around and pounded the fire out with a shoe from the ground, breathless and shaking.

Pressing forward, her fingers found the backpack she'd prepared for such an occasion under her dresser, and she yanked it toward her, continuing across the room on her stomach. Ryan. She had to get Ryan.