Sin on the Strip (28 page)

The real killer was at her house. He had Shannon, but hadn't killed her. He was waiting for Maggie. The longer she kept him waiting the longer Shannon would live. Would his patience grow thin? Would he kill her anyway? She wasn't dealing with a sane person to begin with.

Shit, shit,
shit
.

She ran her hands through her hair, digging fingers into her scalp. She realized she only had one choice available to her.

Maggie ran to the spare room and prayed Beck owned a baggy T-shirt, sweatshirt, anything. Fumbling through his suitcase, she was out of luck. She opted for one of his shirts and headed for the door, then stopped.

Beck.

She snagged her phone off the entry table and typed,
my house, killer has shannon. NOT JASON.
She hit send then typed
on my way 2 my house.
She couldn't think about what his reaction would be. This had to be done. She hit send a second time but received two
not delivered
messages. Damn stupid phone. Why hadn't she upgraded? She tapped
try again
for both texts with no luck. Opting for the yellow notepad by the phone she scribbled a note to Beck. She wasn't going to go into this blind, not anymore. If she was lucky, Beck might show up in time. She pushed the nagging sense of déjà vu aside.

Thank God for Beck's shirt, otherwise she'd never be able to conceal a weapon. His shirt was perfect. Made of thick cotton and three sizes too big for her, it would hide a gun.

She didn't give herself time to think about her knees knocking as she ran for the elevator, her shaking hand as she pressed the Down button. She ignored the way her body hummed in the elevator and wouldn't let herself consider any other options as she stepped into the underground parking garage. Sliding into her grandmother's Duetto and turning the key in the ignition, she focused only on Shannon. She had to help her best friend.

It had begun to rain. She repeated to herself as she drove home,
I have to help Shannon, I have to help Shannon
. The swoosh of wipers against the windshield seemed to echo the words.
Help Shannon. Help Shannon.

Maggie allowed her fury to build, to boil until it spurred her courage. How dare he? How dare he do this?

No way, never again. She'd kill this bastard. She would. She would this time. He didn't deserve to live. Pigs like this should be gutted, slaughtered so they could do no more harm. She'd be doing the world a favor. The death penalty was legal in Vegas. That's what he'd get. He'd killed women. Who knew how many? Maybe Beck's sister. The death penalty was too good for him. He'd sit in jail for how long? Taxing the system, being a burden to society. No, she was doing the state a favor, hell the world a favor. He deserved to die.

“He deserves to die,” she repeated out loud. It wasn't that she didn't remember what Beck had said about killing a man. But in the here and now, it also wasn't what she needed to hear.

Pulling up to her house, she noticed the open front gates. When she got out of her car, cool rain pelted her heated face as she looked for an open window, half expecting to find the front door ajar. How did he get into the house? Had Shannon let him in? Her friends knew she kept the location of her home quiet, just in case. All deliveries and most of her mail were directed to the club, but she saw no delivery truck, no car other than her own. So why was the gate open?

Icy chills skipped over her spine. Only a crazy person would have climbed the rocky incline at the back of the house, and the pool had a ten-foot cedar fence. Had the killer simply taken a taxi, walked up to the gates and rang the buzzer? She could no longer ignore the suspicions clawing at her. Was this someone she knew? Someone Shannon would have let in? Praying her street instincts wouldn't fail her, Maggie headed for the garage door.

On her way over she'd considered her options. Everything depended on where the bastard had Shannon—if he still had her. Of course the prick had her. It was Maggie he wanted. He'd been killing women who'd worked for her and now, God forbid, Shannon. No, she was alive. Everything had been building to this moment, and the acid burning a hole in her stomach told Maggie she was his target. Whatever this was, it was her he wanted to punish. What better way than to kill her best friend in front of her.

She keyed the number into the security pad by the side door. This guy wasn't stupid. He'd have chosen a room where no one could sneak up on him, and given the large French doors, that would be her living room. Knowing Shannon, she'd have programmed the alarm sensors to beep every time someone opened a door. Maggie figured she had forty-five seconds, one minute tops, to retrieve her gun from the safety box hidden in her garage, conceal it under Beck's baggy shirt and get inside before the killer suspected anything. Maybe this would be the one time Horace wouldn't chew her out for lying to him—if she lived to tell him.

She'd done as Horace asked, taken the gun out of her home, rationalizing the garage didn't count. Following his demands hadn't been that hard to do. Just looking at the handgun brought a wave of nausea so strong it weakened her knees. She hadn't been afraid of the gun when she bought it, only after being to chicken shit to use it. Well, not this time.

Turning the knob, she began her countdown. Because her car was in the driveway, she had a clear path to the cabinet at the back of the garage. Having opted for wooden doors instead of metal, she made no sound opening the cupboard and prayed she'd been right in assuming he was in her living room as she unlocked and opened the steel box hiding the weapon. She tucked the cold steel into the back of her jeans and headed inside, forty seconds from garage door to mudroom door.

Entering, she heard no chime from the alarm. She shouted Shannon's name, letting him know she was inside. No one answered. She tried again. “Shannon.”

Finally she heard, “Shannon can't answer you. Hate to use the cliché, but she's all tied up.” His threatening taunt had indeed come from the living room.

“Hurry,” he shouted, a disgusting playful note in his voice.

Turning the corner past the kitchen, she stood in the front hall. She had a clear view of Shannon, tied to the chair from Maggie's home office, her back facing Maggie, a gun pointed to her head.

Maggie swallowed. Who was he?

“Come in. Come here and sit.” His friendly tone belied his dark, scornful expression. He waved her over with the gun, momentarily withdrawing it from Shannon's temple.

Unsure how to play this, Maggie did as asked. He was on Shannon's left so Maggie went to her right. Approaching slowly, she saw rope binding Shannon's hands and feet to the chair. Fighting the urge to reach out, Maggie balled her fist at her side. Shannon's left eye was swollen, the skin around it red and turning blue. The other side of her face had a ghastly welt covering her cheek. She could see every muscle in Shannon's body tense, her fingers gripping the armrest. Tape covered her mouth and when she finally lifted her head, the haunted expression in her eyes brought tears to Maggie's.

She dug her fingernails into her palm, resisting the urge to go for the gun. This bastard had stripped away all the years it had taken Shannon to deal with her past. The strong independent lawyer had been reduced to the abused little girl from Tweedsmuir.

Maggie cringed at the thought of this guy doing to Shannon what he'd done to the other women. Except for the tear on the shoulder of her silk blouse, Shannon's clothes were intact. The question needed to be asked. “What have you done to her?”

“Nothing. Yet.”

As if finally seeing Maggie, Shannon's eyes widened. She shook her head, giving Maggie hope. Shannon was angry at Maggie for putting herself in danger. This was the woman she knew and if she could keep her here and the little girl away, there was a chance they'd get out of this alive.

“Who are you?” she asked, finally taking the time to get a good look at him. He was in his late fifties, and had a full head of hair, although it had gone completely gray. He was short: five-seven, five-eight. Maybe because he was thin, or maybe because she knew he was evil, his features were sharp, skeleton-like, making his eyes almost protrude from their sockets. And then it hit her. She remembered seeing him outside her house, the day of Heather's wake.

“I guess it would only be polite to introduce you to the man who's going to kill you. William Wright. My friends call me Willie. You know my son, Jason Teel.”

M
onty had come through for Christian in live fucking color. “The morgue picture you're seeing,” Monty said “you are seeing it, right?”

“Got it.” He'd stared hard at the picture on his phone.

“Good. That's Vicky Teel, Jason's mother. Take a close look at her neck.” He waited a few seconds. “You see it?”

“Damn, she has a cross tattooed at the base of her neck.” Could it be true then? Was Jason the killer and Christian's sister the victim of someone else? “Fuck.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. He should be happy they'd caught the killer, that Maggie would be safe. Still, something was missing. “Fuck.”

“Yeah, but don't despair, buddy. I also found Jason Teel's birth certificate. His father is William Wright. Ring a bell?”

It did, but he couldn't quite place it. “Sort of.”

“Eat more almonds, old man. Good for the memory. Remember that list you sent, the one with Desilva's visitors at the pen? Guess who paid him a visit? Twice.”

His heart began to pound. “Keep talking.”

“Like I need an invitation. I traced the funds going to pay for Teel's group home. Wright is either stupid as fuck or didn't think anyone would go looking. Care to take another guess at whose payroll he's on?”

Holy shit
. “Desilva is paying Wright to kill Maggie's dancers? Then why not just kill them? Why the bathtub, the markings?”

“Ah, well, I have the answer to that too. I unlocked Wright's juvenile record.”

“Of course you did.” Was there nothing Monty couldn't do?

“Easy hack. Wright's record reads like a bad novel, long winded and charged with too many black moments. I'd say his head got screwy when
he
accidentally drowned his drunk mother. He was eight. His father was on record as saying he'd been in the habit of tossing Mrs. Wright in the shower to try and sober her up. The kid had seen him do that and figured the bathtub would serve the same purpose. She must have passed out and slipped under.

“From there it was downhill. One year later, his old man suffered a heart attack and Wright went into foster care. Whatever the trigger, I'm going to say his killing began in 1990, with his girlfriend, Jason's mother, Vicky Teel.”

After that, Claire.

God, Claire. He knew who killed her. “He served time with Desilva. How many years did he do?” Christian asked, trusting Monty would confirm his theory.

“Twenty-five. He was apprehended while drowning his eighteen-year-old rape victim in a lake. They couldn't save her.”

“So he hadn't marked her.”

“He seems to enjoy doing that post-mortem, so he didn't have time.”

Therefore, the cops couldn't have made the connection to Claire's death. Had they been a few minutes later, they'd have caught Claire's killer and probably connected him to Vicky Teel's death. He'd be serving three life sentences instead of out on parole, doing Desilva's bidding.

“And Vicky Teel didn't need to be marked. She has the tattoo. The feds were right. It's the sign of the cross, Christian.”

“And for who knows what reason, Jason went after Rhonda. It explains the sloppy slashes on her neck, the work of a man either scared shitless or fumbling to repeat his father's handiwork.” Just how deeply did Jason's involvement go? Christian didn't give a shit about Jason, only how the news would affect Maggie.

“That was my guess too. The feds placed Jason in the cities of every victim at the time of deaths. I'd say Daddy and son were doing some kind of sick bonding.”

“Sick is Desilva hiring a psycho to go after Maggie and the women who worked for her.”

“She cost him millions and probably put him on the shitlist with Sorrentino. Wright was released two weeks after Sorrentino paid Desilva a visit.”

“Thanks, Monty, I owe you.”

“Again.”

“Again,” Christian agreed and hung up.

He'd reached Shannon's condo building. Maggie would be pissed at him. She wasn't one for being told what to do. And while it drove him insane, he realized she wasn't his sister. And if he didn't want to push her away, he'd better remember that. In the elevator ride up he couldn't believe he'd had that thought. Did he care that much, to not want to drive her out of his life?

Once inside the apartment he called her name. Silence.

“Maggie,” he repeated, having expected her to be ready and waiting to rail on him. Not give him the silent treatment.

He started for the stairs when he spotted the yellow pad on the ugly glass coffee table. The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach told him he wasn't going to like this. He picked up the note and wished to hell he'd been here sooner.

He ran back to his car and stopped only to ask the security officer at the parking kiosk when Maggie had left. Ten minutes, she had a ten-minute head start.

Christian's heart slammed harder than his foot on the accelerator. He forced himself to loosen his grip or risk losing control of the car. Dead, he'd be no good to Maggie.

Maggie. Her name brought on an ache so intense he had to draw a deep breath to lessen the vise grip fear had on his chest. He blew out the breath. What good had he been to her? Had he been able to protect her? He'd failed to take one thing into the equation of keeping Maggie out of the killer's reach—Maggie.

He'd left her alone for too long. “Fuck!” He slammed his fist on the steering wheel. Was he going to be too late? He prayed Horace and the feds would arrive with backup. Shit, did Maggie not realize she was butting heads with a psychopath, not some low-life pimp?

Christian blinked hard, trying to clear the red haze from his eyes.

He had to get to her before it was too late. If he thought about what might happen . . . it'd be his sister all over again. Damn, Maggie. Why couldn't she be the kind of debutante he grew up with in New Orleans? You might take your daddy's fancy truck for a drive with your boyfriend, stay up all night doing things your mamma would be ashamed of, but go after a cold-blooded killer? Hell no, guts and glory was for heroes. If they got out of this, he might very well handcuff himself to her. A pimp was one thing, a killer entirely something else, especially one gunning for her.

He pushed harder on the accelerator not caring about his speed.

Thankfully, she'd had good instincts and left him that note. His thought bounced from one thing to another. Maggie, Desilva, Wright, Maggie. And her friend. If he didn't hurry, two more lives would be lost.

He hoped some of the mettle Shannon had lambasted him with had been real. She'd be useless to Maggie otherwise. With the women from his search and recover missions, a little bit of balls worked to his advantage, hysteria to his detriment. The people he freed had somehow caused their unfortunate detainment, as some government officials professed. So it hadn't been uncommon to find women ready to help in their rescue, but on occasion he'd have given his right testicle for valium and a gag. He'd been called a chauvinist, and worse. But was it too much to ask to leave the hero shit to professionals, those trained to do the job, man or woman?

He was going to make it in time, he told himself, and when this was over, he'd borrow Ryan's plane and take her to the most exotic beach in the world and under a blanket of hot sun, he'd make love to her—after he reamed her out for doing something this stupid.

No one was going to take her away from him. Maggie wasn't his sister; she wasn't a confused teenager. Whether she believed it or not, she had courage and a God-given gift. She drew people to her. He had to believe that if anyone could distract this psycho, it would be her.

 

Considering this lunatic held a gun to Shannon's head, Maggie wasn't going to take the chance of setting him off. “The group home where Jason lives never mentioned a father.”

“I had . . .” William Wright sneered, “business to take care of, before I could keep him with me.”

Eyeing the gun, she knew exactly what kind of business he meant. The police had the wrong man, or at the very least only one of the men responsible.

Had this bastard been using Jason to help him kill women? She wanted to throw up. Jason's hands might not be clean, but he was as much a victim as some of the women who danced for her.

“Jason.” She fought back the tears threatening to spill. She wasn't going to cry in front of this snake, wouldn't give him the satisfaction. “Jason wouldn't purposely hurt those women. He's a good man.”

“Not like me, right? Say it. I don't mind. I did what I had to do, for Jason. Ex-cons don't make a lot of money. My son deserves the best. I worked my ass off when he was born. Three jobs, three,” he held up three fingers, “just like my old man did for me. Did she care that I was killing myself or think about the stress I was under? No,” he shouted.

Maggie tensed, dreading what he'd do next and kicking herself for setting him off.

“That stupid bitch,” he spat. “It was her fault Jason turned out the way he did. If she hadn't been so whacked . . . Didn't matter,” he said, regaining some composure. “I forgave her,” he added, as if he were the bigger person. “We were just kids. So, I forgave her, like my dad had done my mom.” His fist clenched, the knuckles wrapped around the gun whitening. “She could have done the same for me. One slap. One slap, and what did she do? She ran. She ran with my kid. Jason was mine. Mine,” he said, pounding his chest with his free hand.

Jason had told Maggie his mother was dead. He'd said she drowned when he was small. It didn't take a genius to figure out who had drowned the poor woman. Just like the other victims.

“It took me a year to find them. But I did.” He smiled. “I found her and I took Jason back.”

Wanting to keep him talking, Maggie risked a question. “But Jason lived with his aunt before the group home.”

Wright chewed on his lower lip, sharp teeth leaving red marks behind. “I was on my way to get him when . . . when I fucked up, okay? The moment I got out,” he quickly added, “I went to him. I put him in that fancy house. He likes it there. They treat him well. I made sure. I made sure he was treated good. No crappy foster homes for him.”

She didn't like the way his eyes glassed over, like he was on drugs. She wanted to know what all of this had to do with her, and as much as she willed her mouth to open and ask she couldn't. He was already on edge, close to falling off.

Maggie and Shannon shared a worried look.

Panic bubbled inside her. Maybe Beck hadn't seen her note.

Wright wiped the sweat off his brow. Gun pointed at Maggie, he was eyeing Shannon. “I wonder what Desilva will pay me for killing your friend?”

If he hadn't stunned her stupid, Maggie would have gasped. She tried to speak but all that came out was a choked whimper. Desilva, the slimy son of bitch whose cold fingers she still felt around her neck.

Wright tilted his head, squinting beady brown eyes at her. “You really fucked him over. I think his kid dying sealed your fate.”

She'd read somewhere that he'd lost a son, but what did that have to do with her?

“It took three guards to sit on him after he got the news.” He shook his head woefully. “I felt his pain. He said you were to blame.”

She clenched her knees and willed them to stop shaking. “Me? I didn't even know his son.”

He shrugged. “I didn't care. All I care about was the money he was paying me to punish you.”

“Did you think about your son? You did this for him?” It took everything she had not to shout at him. Right now he had all the power and until she could swing this to her favor, she had to stay in control. “How do you think Jason will survive in jail?”

“What are talking about?” He pointed the gun at Maggie, his face reddening. “Jail? Why would Jason go to jail? What are you talking about?” he repeated, shouting the second time.

Maggie eyed his gun. It had been all over the news and certainly on the radio. But he didn't know. What if she'd just made him more determined to kill her? To prove Jason innocent? She told herself to stay focused, to keep him talking. “How do you not know?” she asked, purposely keeping it short, forcing him to ask more questions, to waste more time. This was their chance.

“Know what?” he ground out through clenched teeth.

“Jason has been arrested.” Only give him a little, she reminded herself.

“Arrested? For what?”

“I . . .” She stared at his gun, making him think it was tongue-tying her, which wasn't far from the truth.

He waved the gun, his frustration rolling off him, a warning for her to tread lightly.

“What? What was he arrested for?”

All or nothing
. With all the calm she didn't feel, she said the word. “Murder.”

She'd expected him to blow, to realize his son had been charged with his crimes. Instead, he surprised her by laughing. “You're lying. What game are you playing?”

“No game,” she assured him. “He was arrested today. It's all over the news. Turn on the TV if you don't believe me.”

He snorted, but looked around the room, searching for her television. She waited for him to ask, waited for the seconds to tick by.

“Where the fuck do you keep it?”

“My television?”

He flung his arm toward Shannon, the gun pointed at her temple. Shannon's eyes clenched. “Do you want me to kill her now?” he warned.

Okay, she'd pushed too far. “Console to your right.”