SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set (70 page)

“Liar!” She slammed the phone into the cradle so hard she hurt her fingers. She put her fingertips into her mouth and only then realized there were tears on her face. She tasted them, salty, on her tongue.

Mitch was looking for the killer. He was heading the case. He had mentioned the murders, but he had never said he was leading the investigation. She couldn't see him again.

That thought hurt so much she shook her head against it. But she couldn't see him. He'd figure it out and hate her forever. That was part of his job, hating the criminals, wasn't it? He would have to take her in, testify in court against her. She should leave town, take Charlene and flee.

To where?

And what was she going to do with the man who called himself Son? Her partner. Her alter ego. The one who was going to destroy them both before he was finished.

She slipped down under the sheet and drew it close to her chin. She felt depression sweep in like the tide, covering her mind with dark, disjointed thoughts.

I should kill myself, she thought.

I started this.

I've created a monster who calls me on the phone to report his murders. He's taken over and is carrying on my plan, but he's made all those mistakes.

Three people dead because of her, and Son wasn't doing it right. The first victim was a homeless man. The last was a family man with three children at home. He was young and the news reported that, unlike the other victims of the “Gulf Water Killer,” this man had never committed any crime or been involved with any illegal organization. Now Son had murdered a policeman.

Son was killing randomly, killing anyone, killing people who didn't deserve it. And if they caught her, she would be blamed for all the crimes. She could tell them till she was blue in the face that there was a copycat and that he was the one who was doing it now, and they would have no reason to believe her. The victims were poisoned. Dropped into the bay naked. That they veered from the slugs and slimeballs she killed would be noticed, but that didn't provide her any protection. They would just think she had begun to select her victims at random.

She had to stop him. Had to.

So how would she find him? When he called next she'd ask for a meeting. Would he do it? And if he didn't?

She lay staring at the ceiling, sinking deeper and deeper into self-pity and such profound sadness that she didn't even want to breathe anymore. If she could make herself crawl from bed and take the decanter from the vanity table, she could end it all.

It was such a shame she could not be like Scott and do away with herself. Sometimes wasn't the world better off when the cowardly act of suicide became the only alternative? But no! She wouldn't. Never.

She thought of her children and the tears returned. The maternal pain residing in her heart pushed the depression down into the pit of her brain, and there it took up permanent residence, coiling and twisting like gray smoke from a banked fire.

~*~

Son sat brooding, looking at the telephone on his desk for a few moments. The room was dark, his computer wasn't turned on, nothing moved in the house.

Earlier he had sat on the toilet in the bathroom with the light on, taking care of his natural functions while studying the victim photographs he had taken off the detective. What if he'd never seen the dancer with one of these victims just nights before he was found floating in the bay? He might never have connected her to the crimes. He might still be casting around blindly, the way Samson was, merely mimicking an unknown killer as he had all the other times. This was so much better!

He turned the photographs this way and that in the light. He counted up her kills and his. They weren't even yet, four for three. But if she stopped, his number would surpass hers. That had never happened before. Before he was more cautious than he had been this time. It wasn't that he was getting sloppy. More efficient, that's what was happening to him.

He glanced at the dead monitor screen. Already his work had suffered. He was behind his schedule, had missed his deadline to turn in the next book. His editor would be calling soon, wondering where the manuscript was.

Who cared? That wasn't his real work. His real work was the acting out of those crimes he copied from old out-of-date books. He had always known that there would come a day when his routine life—his fake life—would be interrupted forever by the mission. That time had come.

It was because of Shadow. She was his turning point, the pivotal experience that had lured him down deeper into the dark side of his nature. Before, he had been able to govern his urges. Now that they governed him, he felt so free, so alive! Hallelujah and Amen, brothers! Praise Jesus!

He smiled into the dark, the cherub smile that mothers loved.

His thoughts tumbled over, returning to Shadow. He loved talking to her. He realized this was the first time in his life he had ever contacted the other killer. He also knew it had something to do with his mother dying. What it had to do with her passing, he didn't know. Was he lonely, so lonely he had to create a relationship with Shadow? That was part of it, but not everything. He had never come along behind a woman killer before to copy her murders. Houston had never had a female serial killer, so how could he have?

She was so beautiful. Not a man to be swayed by feminine beauty before, he didn't understand this new response, but it was undeniable. That she killed and got away with it (so far!) added to her attractiveness. He did not fantasize about relations with her, but was nevertheless drawn closer and closer into her sphere.

He had to make her understand she must give up Samson. Samson threatened them both. If Shadow fell, so would he. Not that they would believe her about a copycat doing the killings. That made him laugh. But if she were caught, he would have to stop killing, and if he stopped killing now, he could very well explode into a million splintery pieces, an event that would wreck his mind.

He was that close to walking the edge and knew it.

He stood up and went down the hall in the darkness to his mother's room.

She was beginning to smell terrible. He felt along the bedside table in the moonlit room, groping for the paper mask he had bought for use when painting. He donned it. He didn't want to breathe any germs.

He took up the bottle of rubbing alcohol and the clean, neatly folded washcloth from her bedside table.

Mother was naked, lying with her arms at her side.

He must wash her with the astringent and keep her clean. It did not help the smell or halt the decaying process, but it insured she would not become infested with the larva of flies.

If maggots ever began to wriggle . . .

He squelched the thought and set to his task.

~*~

Samson hurried to dress and gulped his coffee. He had slept most of the day and was due on his shift at the station in less than an hour.

Pavlov whined pitifully until Samson stopped what he was doing—trying to get down a bite of buttered toast—and petted him behind the ears.

“I'm going out,” Big Mac said from the hallway. He nodded.

“You hear me? I'll be back inside before too late.”

“All right, Mac.” He was preoccupied and didn't have time for conversation. He didn't see her shake her head as she tottered across the living room to the front door. She was weighed down with a garbage sack containing her things. He had asked why she didn't leave them in her room, forget about the grocery cart? She was emphatic in her stand that where she went, so did her things. They were important to her, he would never understand how important. And by moving in with him she had not relinquished her lifestyle, he should get that through his head.

He finished off the slice of toast and wiped crumbs from his shirt front. Pavlov was crazy, hopping and whining. “You want out?”

Samson cracked the door just an inch. “Sit!” Pavlov sat, ears pricked stiffly, big eyes fastened on the master. “Go!” Samson opened the door wide and grinned when the dog leaped straight into the air, clearing half the patio before landing and taking off for his normally hyperactive run that circled the back yard.

Mitchell watched, sipping coffee. He thought of Shadow and how he had not had time to see her in days, how he missed her. He hadn't even been in the Blue Boa in a while. She might think he'd forgotten her. As if he could, even if he wanted to. He hoped she'd move in with him and Mac. Then he'd see her more often. He'd sleep with her. He'd win over her confidence and her love. He'd get her out of the strip club and back into the normal world.

Or he might not. She was nothing if not unpredictable. She might never change.

He could deal with that too. Given no alternative, he would gratefully accept her just as she was, strip club and all. That's how crazy he had become. He was willing to share her time with the scum-bellies who crawled through the doors of the Boa.

Maybe the manager at her club would give him her home phone number. He hadn't thought to ask her for it.

He reached for the phone to make the inquiry just as it rang, startling him. He lifted the receiver. “Samson here.”

“Mitch? Get down to the Kemah channel. Now.” Epstein's voice was shaky and hollow. He didn't sound like himself.

Samson sighed audibly. “Not another one so soon. The killer must be experiencing delirium.” When a serial killer stepped up his killing pattern, it was often because he was losing control.

“Mitch? Do it now!”

“Hey, I'm on my way, Jesus. What's the matter, is the victim the mayor or something?”

There was a pause and Mitch felt a coldness start in his belly and move up.

“It's Dod.”

Samson was left speechless. Dod?

“Dod?”

“Yeah. Get down there, will ya?”

Samson held the phone, the dial tone sounding in his ear. He turned in a daze and opened the back door to Pavlov's scratching to be let in. He set the coffee cup on the counter and put a hand through his hair, leaving it spiked and messy.

Dod? Why had the killer targeted Dodge? Dodge didn't have the sense he was born with, but how did he fall into the hands of the murderer?

This was . . . it was . . . it made no . . .

He grabbed the car keys and slammed out the front door and down the walk to his car. He drove all the way to Kemah during rush-hour traffic with his siren blowing full blast.

~*~

Dod had floated right into the stilts beneath the outdoor restaurant on the Kemah side of the channel. A waitress had seen him first, bobbing down there, white as a billowed parachute.

One section of the restaurant parking lot was cordoned off. By the time Samson arrived, they were putting Dod into the ambulance. He was heading for the morgue.

Samson was more confused by the time he got to the scene than he had been when Epstein called.

“He was in his cuffs,” Detective Holly said, closing her notebook.

“His cuffs?” Samson felt as if his head was full of muddy water.

“Behind his back. He must have put up a helluva fight. There are contusions and abrasions all over him. The ME thinks one of his arms is broken.”

“Fuck.”

“I hope you'll let me be one of the team going after this psycho,” Holly said. “I'll work with you twenty-four hours a day if you want me.”

Samson acknowledged the offer with a nod of his head. He had never liked Detective Dodge, but by no means had he wanted him dead. He had to form the task force now. Maybe he shouldn't have waited. But he thought he could work better alone. It had taken Dod's death to prove to him how wrong he'd been, how fatally wrong. “Show me where he was found.”

Holly took the lead. Overhead gulls swooped and cried, mistaking the gathered crowd of onlookers for diners who would throw them bread. The sun hung insistent and low over the western horizon, cooking Southeast Texas. White gravel crunched beneath their shoes, the trees seemed to exhale dry breaths as a breeze moved through their slack limbs. Heat waves rose shimmering from hoods, roofs, and trunks of parked cars.

In the relative coolness of the shade beneath the pilings supporting the dining porch, Holly pointed out where the body had been discovered.

“I guess there aren't any witnesses,” Samson said.

“No break yet. He must dump them during the middle of the night when everyone sleeps.”

“What about the surveillance team we had across the channel where we found the blood on the ground?”

Holly shook her head. “Nothing. They never saw a thing out of order. He must have driven into the lot with his headlights off, if he dumped him here.”

“He might have dumped him somewhere along the coast besides here. I don't think he'd have taken that much of a chance, just across the shipping lane from a cop car.”

“Yeah, but where else could he have done it? There must be a million secluded places all along the shore he could use.”

“Fuck.” Samson turned from the gently lapping, fishy-smelling water, and moved out again into the sunshine. “I want the shoreline searched from Texas City all the way up to LaPorte. You want on my team, that's my orders. Get some men and get on it.”

Holly said, “You got it, sir. We'll start right away.”

“Scour the whole goddamn place. Check the yards of private homes and public businesses fronting on the water. Don't miss anything.”

“Right.” Holly veered away from him, making for her car, and the radio there to call in help.

Sometimes he hated this job with a passion that really surprised him. No cop, even one as blatantly ambitious and hard-assed in-your-face as Dod, should have bought it with his hands cuffed behind him, someone pouring poison down his throat. When Samson caught the murdering son of a bitch, he'd show him what a drastic mistake he'd made to fuck around with the HPD.

Thirty-Four

Shadow forced Charlene to take two Valium and go to bed. The woman had been hysterical ever since she'd seen the news of the dead detective on the television.

They needed money. The refrigerator was nearly empty and the electric bill long overdue. Shadow reached down deep inside and drew on the resources of a strong survival instinct. She packed the gym bag with a dance outfit and headed out the door.