The Eleventh Victim (18 page)

L
OOKING OUT PAST THE HORIZON, THEY SAW THE SUN BEGINNING
to show itself over the edge of the water.

“Come on, let’s go.” Virginia whispered it as loudly as she could, turning to the others and motioning.

They quickly made it back through the trees and past the security post. The guard, now snoozing gently, was still sitting straight up, with his back against the closed door of the guardhouse.

The guerrillas headed across the road and tried their best to blend into a stand of palmettos as they limped along.

Once past the thick stand of pointy plants, it was backwoods all the way until at last they circled back around to Larry’s 7-Eleven parking lot. Without a word exchanged among them, they climbed into three cars where they’d been left. They cranked up and drove into the half-dark, half-light of the Island dawn.

They’d made it, they were home free. Months of planning, weeks of labor, and incredible expense on the part of Palmetto Dunes Luxury Living had been bravely and beautifully destroyed in a single night at the guerrillas’ hands.

Vengeance was sweet.

Tonight, they had risen to greatness: shucked off their mall uniforms, their laminated company ID cards worn on chains around their necks, their plastic Radio Shack name tags.

The battle was on.

The guerrillas had struck back.

Vengeance all right, with a bullet.

L
YING THERE IN HER HOSPITAL BED, HAILEY DIDN’T BOTHER TO CHECK
the guy’s ID when he casually took it out of his jacket and flipped open his shield.

She didn’t have to. He was definitely a cop. No question about it. He had that look, immediately and easily identifiable by both fellow law enforcement and the people they spent their lives chasing.

She could spot one a mile away, even in plainclothes. They stood out in crowds of civilians like sore thumbs, if you knew what to look for.

The younger officers kept buff, muscled bodies for foot chases and arresting suspects who fought them tooth and nail. On the other end of the spectrum, cops who had been around for a while turned soft and pale. They were beaten-down, their exciting years of chasing the bad guys melted into desk jobs, brewing coffee at the precinct, and counting the days until retirement.

It wasn’t just the clothes or accessories. It was the way they wore them, the way they carried themselves, the intangible attitude that screamed out, “Look at me…I’m a cop.”

“Repeat, ladies. Which one of you is Hailey Dean?”

“I’m Hailey Dean. Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Kolker. I’d like to ask you a few questions about a young lady I think you know, Melissa Everett.”

The name slammed into her and stole her breath away. Melissa. For a few minutes, she had put it out of her mind.

Too upset to speak, she paused briefly. In that moment, he went on.

“You
are
Hailey Dean of Dean Counseling, correct?” he asked, though he knew full well the room was in her name, and that, of the
two women, the one in the bed wearing a cotton gown would be his best bet.

“Yes, I’m Hailey Dean,” she said slowly, retracing her way through dim memories. “I had just thought of Melissa exactly when you opened the door. I…I think the reason I’m here is, in a way, because of Melissa.”

“Really.”

“I must have passed out. It’s happened a few times before. Please tell me I dreamed it.” Her thoughts were disconnected and her speech was dull.

He leaned forward. “Tell you that you dreamed what?”

“Was Melissa reported in the
Post
as being…”
No. Don’t say it. Don’t make it true….

“Is she missing?” Hailey finally got the question out.

“Well, Miss Dean, you’re right
and
wrong. There was an article this morning in the
Post
. But Melissa’s not missing. She was found last night around midnight. She’s dead.”

Hailey was silent, hot tears filling her eyes.

It wasn’t a nightmare. It was real.

Melissa was dead.

“What happened?” she asked, and her voice broke on a sob.

“So you really don’t know?”

She shook her head, turning her face away from the two of them and wiping tears on the top edge of her sheet. She managed to ask, “Was it a suicide?”

Even as she said the words, they didn’t ring true.

But why else would he be here to see her?

“I was just with her last week,” she said in a rush. “She seemed to be doing so much better…. I mean, Melissa was disturbed, but Lieutenant, she wanted to
live
. I’m sure of it.”

“Miss Dean, you’ve got it wrong. I’m not here for your professional opinion as a psychologist. Melissa Everett was murdered. She was definitely stabbed to death, possibly strangled as well. We’re waiting on the official cause of death from the morgue…
and she may have been molested. It’s early on…but the way she was found…”

“You mean without shoes? Bare-legged?”

“Oh…so you remember that, Hailey? I thought it was all confused and mixed-up for you.”

Why was he being so obnoxious? No wonder people don’t cooperate with police.

“Well, I recall hearing that on 1010 WINS. I had no idea the body was Melissa.”

“As I said, there’s absolutely no question as to cause of death. Suicide was never even an option. And, Miss Dean…the last thing in her date book was an appointment with you.”

“Yes, I was her psychologist.”

Kolker just looked at Hailey.

Lying there on the single hospital bed, staring at the plainclothes officer, it all became real to Hailey.

Melissa’s battle with her nightmares, her demons, her ruptured childhood was over.

She was dead. Murdered.

Hailey’s chest hurt imagining the horror Melissa must have suffered at the hands of a killer.

All her prosecutions had convinced Hailey that suffocation in any form, especially strangulation, was one of the most painful ways to die. The victim was normally fully cognizant until the very end, knowing death loomed as lungs collapsed, eyes hemorrhaged, face contorted in death. But here, two painful possible causes of death? One wasn’t enough?

Hailey could hardly bear it. The beautiful, tortured woman who still looked like a girl, trying so bravely to live life whole and well, not an ounce of hatred in her body, now gone as if she never existed.

Just like Will.

The news about Melissa forced her back to when she had discovered Will was murdered. Now, as then, it seemed like a big misunderstanding, mistaken information.

She remembered thinking, frantically, that Will wasn’t dead, that he was fine…or if he wasn’t fine, there had been an accident, but he
would
be fine, if she could only get to him in time.

And then, the reality.

Will
was
dead, he had been murdered, there was no accident, and there was nothing she could do to help him.

And this time, like last, there had been no accident, no mistake.

The
Post
was right. Melissa was the dead girl. Hailey’s Melissa…her patient, her friend.

They had been through so much together, hours and hours spent alone in Hailey’s suite, reliving Melissa’s childhood nightmares, each trying their hardest, in their own way, to build a new life.

“I was hoping you could shed some light on her recent whereabouts, her friends, and her lifestyle,” Lieutenant Kolker was telling Hailey from someplace far away. “We found your business card in her purse, with your personal cell number on it and what appears to be your home phone number and address.”

Hailey’s head was spinning; she could only nod, trying to make sense of what he was saying—trying to make sense of everything.

“Isn’t that unusual, Miss Dean? I’ve never had a doctor give me his home number or address before. What exactly was the nature of your relationship with Melissa Everett?”

The questions were too much for Hailey, her head still pounding from the blow. Her eyes were unfocused and her face was hot. Sitting up in the bed, grief came over her again in waves, and with a broken sob, the tears came. “Please leave,” she said abruptly.

“Excuse me?”

“Lieutenant, I need to see a doctor. Dana, thanks for coming to see about me and speaking to the hospital staff. I’ll call you later, promise.”

“But Hailey, how will you make it home? Let me come pick you up.”

She didn’t look up at either of them. “Thanks,” she said flatly.

“Remember, I’ve got the keys to your apartment and office. I’ll even stop by your place and pick up whatever you need, okay?”

“Okay. Right now I just need to get myself together. Really.” She tried not to sound impatient, but her head was spinning and she wanted desperately to be alone.

The two stood looking at each other in awkward silence, not knowing quite what to do.

“Okay. I’m on my cell. Call me.” Dana gathered her assorted belongings and backed out, leaving Lieutenant Kolker standing beside the bed.

After a moment’s silence, he turned and left, saying, “We’ll talk again, Hailey.”

H
UDDLED INTO A BACK BOOTH IN A COFFEE SHOP OFF BROADWAY
, Cruise decided he didn’t like New York.

No, hate was a better way to describe his feelings. The city was dirty, and noisy—but that was no big deal. He was used to that in Atlanta.

New York, however, was cold. A brutal cold that seeped into his bones and, worst of all, chapped his hands…hands that were burning again.

It was Hailey Dean.

These past days he’d thought of her incessantly. Watching her go in and out of her apartment building, up and down her office steps, standing at her office window looking out onto the courtyard…it was all torture.

That first blow to her face felt so good. He’d wanted to for so long.

Just as he dreamed night after night back in Reidsville, it felt so good…the pain he’d inflicted on her. It was beyond any words he knew to describe it. There would have been more if he hadn’t heard someone coming up the steps.

“What’ll it be?” a heavyset waitress asked brusquely, parking herself in front of the booth where he’d situated himself to escape the cold outside for a while.

“Coffee.”

“And?”

“Just coffee.”

Irritated with him for taking up her booth with just coffee, she all but stormed away.

If only he had her alone for five minutes…

That was the other thing Cruise hated about New York. The people.

They couldn’t be bothered to give you the time of day.

If it weren’t for Hailey, he wouldn’t be here. Again, her fault.

He waited for his coffee and thought about the first time he’d ever laid eyes on her in the Fulton County Superior Courthouse. The courtroom had been packed that morning, with lawyers and witnesses and inmates in prison orange, chained together by leg irons so they couldn’t make a run for it.

He’d been chained, too, directly to the chair which was bolted to the floor of the jury box.

When everyone was assembled and the clock had struck precisely nine o’clock, the back double doors of the courtroom swung open, like a gust had blown in, and with it came Hailey Dean.

She was wearing a black long-sleeved dress that hit just above the knees. He still remembered the blonde hair falling down below her shoulders.

No one had spoken, but it was clear the attorneys and inmates alike all knew
this
bitch on wheels was calling the shots.

When the judge took the bench and the calendar clerk called his name and case number, Hailey Dean had looked directly at him, shackled in his chair.

Holding his gaze, Hailey announced in open court that the first arraignment of the morning was his. He’d tried to stand up in spite of the chains.

She said it real cold-like…that she planned to try the case of Clint Burrell Cruise herself and that after consultation with the elected district attorney,
the State
intended to seek the death penalty.

He never made it out of his chair; the chains were biting too hard into his ankles to stand.

Between months of court appearances came the endless shots of her, sound bites at press conferences on the local news.

He watched them religiously.

She won, of course.

Which meant he lost.

Then, after the trial, she left him abruptly.

When she was gone, it all seemed empty. He was like a dry drunk…stuck with nothing but old newspaper clippings to keep him company.

It sucked.

He’d had no reason to live when she left him alone, warehoused away, locked up like an animal.

But thanks to the Internet in the law library, he’d found her. Yahoo was incredible. In all the interviews after the trial, she’d been tight-lipped about her plans, but then…he struck gold.

The Georgia Bar’s yearly directory mistakenly published a New York number under her old Atlanta address, and thanks to Yahoo’s reverse lookup, her address was cake. Further proof lawyers were total screwups.

So. After leaving him there, behind forty-five feet of concrete wall,
Hailey
wanted to start all over without him, to get on with her new life in New York.

But he wasn’t going to let her leave him behind.

It all came down to right now. Finally, they were back together again.

And after all these years, he wasn’t ready to say good-bye just yet.

V
IRGINIA WOKE UP GROGGY, HER SHOULDER AND ARM MUSCLES
hurting, hurting like crazy.

That was strange. Something was wrong….

The night before hit her and she sat upright like a bolt of lightning…they did it!

Strike one against the empire.

She eased out of bed, her legs sore from the use of muscles she hadn’t even thought of in twenty years. She made her way down the steps—easy-does-it, one at a time—until she made it to the ground floor.

Immediately, the wieners were awake, racing toward her en masse. The high-pitched yelps pierced her brain like a jackhammer.

“
Shut up! Sidney…shut up, damn it!
”

The pack cowered back in bewilderment, crouched with their tails between their stubby little legs.

She padded barefoot straight to the front door, opened it, and retrieved the morning paper.

The front page said it all.

“
ISLAND VANDALS ATTACK
!”

She closed the door and started reading. Analyzing each word, she propped herself up on the kitchen bar, lowering her reading glasses down to the tip of her nose.

She read it slowly; she didn’t want to miss a single word.