Vile (7 page)

Chet threaded his fingers through his hair and wished he could say the right words to make her understand she hadn’t done anything wrong. Didn’t matter what he said, she wasn’t buying it. He checked his cell again. Still nothing from Sherry. Not even a text. His ex-wife had let him talk to his son on Saturday afternoon. Chet had tried his best to figure out their location from the background sounds and every little word Chester said, but he had failed. The kid sounded happy and safe. That was what mattered. Even if Chet wanted to shake Sherry for taking off with their son like that, he had to admit she’d been the smart one.

He wandered over to the window and checked for the BPD cruiser outside. Didn’t matter that he and Lori were both cops, they still had a surveillance detail. So did Chief Harris and almost everyone close to her. This Spears thing was way out of control. The FBI had nothing. The bastard could be anywhere—right across the damned street, for that matter.

Nothing would surprise Chet at this point. He went to the kitchen and grabbed a couple of icy cold beers from the fridge. Maybe he could convince Lori to take a break. He set a beer down next to her and pulled out a chair. “You should take five.”

She shook her head. “I still have a couple lists to go through a second time.”

He unscrewed the top on his beer and set it aside. “You think if you stay focused on work that you won’t have to look at me or anyone else.” She glanced at him but quickly looked away. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Lori. How many ways do I have to say it? The chief has told you. Everyone has told you.”

She lifted her gaze to his, those green eyes glinting with anger. “You’re wrong and repeating the same bogus statement isn’t going to change the facts of what happened.”

He rubbed a hand over his face before resting his chin in his palm. “This won’t be the last time you make what you feel is the wrong decision. Maybe next time someone will get hurt or worse. You might as well get used to the idea now. It will happen again.” She cut him a warning glare. He ignored it. “The real question is, are you a strong enough cop to take the pressure?”

She slammed her pen down on the table. “That tactic won’t work either. I made a mistake, and Jess could have been killed. Those minutes play over and over in my head every time I look at her.”

“But she wasn’t.”

“That’s beside the point.” Lori ran her fingers through her long hair and then massaged her temples. “It was my job to watch out for her and I screwed up.” She glared at him again. “I should have let Clint go with her. He wanted to and I blew him off because I was jealous of how he joined the team—after I recommended him—and tried to take over. I,” she poked herself in the chest with her thumb, “made the wrong choice. Nothing anyone says is going to change that.”

Chet set his beer down with a plop. This was enough. “All right. You screwed up, Detective. You took your eyes off that bathroom door for a minute, and those two freaks got in. The chief could have been killed. You made a mistake. Two actually. You operated on emotion and you let yourself be distracted.” He shrugged casually no matter that his gut was clenched in a thousand knots. “Get over it.”

She stared at him, her jaw slack with shock. “I only looked away for a few seconds. Chief Black burst in shouting like some television drama cop and I… looked away. Five, ten seconds tops.”

Chet nodded. “You did what any other human would have done. I would have done it and Hayes would have done it.”

Tears spilled past her lashes. “But you didn’t do it. Hayes didn’t do it. I did.”

Chet fell to his knees next to her chair. “Baby, I wish I could make that awful feeling go away, but only time will do that.” She burrowed her face into his shoulder and sobbed. He put his arms around her and held on tight. “You are a damned good cop. Don’t let this one thing shake your confidence. If you do, you’ll second guess every decision you make from now on. Let it go, baby. Let it go.”

She fisted her fingers in his shirt. “I can’t.” She lifted her face to his. “I was too cocky. I see that now. I’d never made a mistake like that and I thought I was above it.” She swiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “I was wrong, Chet. I’m not as good as I thought.”

He took her face in his hands and made her look at him. “Don’t let him do this to you. Spears has already won too many rounds. Don’t let him win this one too. You’re stronger than that. The chief needs you backing her up. She’s counting on us now more than ever.”

“I thought I was strong.”

He smoothed the dampness away from her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “Show me what you’ve found on the little girl. I’m really worried about her.”

As Lori brushed away the last of her tears, Chet drew his chair next to hers. Maybe if they focused on the case together, she would put last Friday’s event out of her mind for a while.

“She’s about the same age as Chester, wouldn’t you say?” Chet offered.

Lori nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. The pediatrician who examined her estimated four years. But she’s so small.”

“She is.” He picked up the photo of the child. “Did you notice how much she looks like the chief?”

“The blond hair and the brown eyes.” Lori nodded. “Yeah, it’s a little creepy.” She studied Chet then. “Do you think Jess thought about that? I mean, they don’t share any facial features really but the coloring is so similar.”

“I’m sure she considered that Spears had picked the little girl because she has blond hair and brown eyes. That has to be really freaking her out.” He grabbed his beer and downed a satisfying gulp. “It’s bad enough when an adult is missing or murdered, but it’s hell when it’s a kid.”

Lori put her arms around his neck and pressed her forehead to his cheek. “I’m sorry. I’ve been feeling so sorry for myself I didn’t stop to think how this business with Chester must be hurting you.” She searched his eyes. “You know Sherry made a smart move, right?”

He nodded, albeit reluctantly. “Yeah. I should have been the one to suggest the move. I was too busy being a cop to notice my own child was in danger.”

“I see how it is.” Lori took his face in her hands and made him look her in the eye as he had done to her a moment ago. “Now who’s blaming himself for something he couldn’t possibly have foreseen?” She let him go, leaned back in her chair, and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s okay for you to feel bad because you aren’t perfect but not me? Ha!”

He held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. We both need to cut ourselves some slack.”

“Maybe,” she suggested, “we need a long soak in our nice garden tub before climbing into that comfy bed we haven’t made love in for the past two nights.”

He lifted her onto his lap and decided this was a good time to tell her his news. “I had a break today while you and Cook were reviewing video footage and Hayes was off with the chief interviewing that crazy homeless dude.”

Lori shuddered. “He tried to reenact what Matthew Reed did to that FBI agent.”

“Sounds like,” Chet agreed.

Lori had been abducted by Spears’s deceased protégé, Matthew Reed. He’d held her for days, tormented her relentlessly, including making her watch as he tortured two other women, one didn’t survive. Lori almost died as well. The bastard had used her greatest fear against her—the fear of drowning. Spears loved using his victims’ fears to torture them. Chet hoped he got just five minutes alone with the guy before he went to hell.

“What did you do during this break?” she asked, curious.

He’d been waiting for the right moment to share this news with her. Might as well be now. “I made the appointment for the surgery. Two weeks from today.”

Lori’s face lit up. “He thinks it can be done?”

Chet nodded. “He does. Since it’s only been three years, he says there’s a very high chance of success. I’ll be off work for a few days, but as soon as he gives the go ahead we can start trying to make a baby.”

Lori stilled. “You want to start right away?”

Chet held his breath. Hoped this wasn’t going to be a sticking point. “Sometimes scar tissues forms and closes things up again. The surgeon says it’s important that we try right away. The first year is crucial.”

“Wow.” Lori looked away. “I’m not sure how I feel about that schedule.”

He didn’t want to rush her, but she needed to understand the hurdles they were facing. Sherry had insisted on the vasectomy after Chester was born, and Chet had done what he hoped would save his marriage. But it hadn’t. He prayed that desperate decision wasn’t going to cost him the woman he loved now.

“We don’t have to if you’re not ready,” he assured her. “I can put the surgery off. The problem is, the longer I wait before I get it reversed the lower the odds of success.”

“I didn’t realize we’d be up against a timeline.”

“I’m sorry,” he offered. The words echoed impotently around them.

She got up, leaving the warm place she’d made in his lap. “I’m beat. Maybe I’ll just shower and hit the sack.”

Chet reached for his beer. So much for lightening the mood with what he thought was good news.

8

10:30 p.m.

Amanda Brownfield drew in a lungful of smoke and held it for as long as she could before exhaling into the night. “Mmm.” There was just about nothing on God’s green earth tasted as good as a cigarette after sex.

The ground shifted beneath her with his twisting and squirming around. “Be still,” she screamed! She worked harder at staying put, digging in her heels and pressing her butt harder into the dirt. She thought about using the Taser again but she was pretty sure it wasn’t gonna be necessary.

He was just about done.

Weatherman was calling for rain tomorrow. The dirt would pack down all nice and neat then. She stared at the bright glow of cherry at the end of her cigarette. She could toss this thing into all the dry underbrush and burn this whole place down once and for all.

What did she need with this hellhole now anyway? She had bigger plans.

The ground beneath her stopped moving.

She smiled. “Good boy,” she murmured. “You just go right on to hell where you belong.” She dragged in another deep draw from her smoke. Oh yeah, there was just about nothing else that tasted as good as a cigarette after sex.

Except maybe having one after killing a no good son of a bitch like the one she’d killed tonight.

Amanda laughed as she wiggled her bottom against the loose dirt. She’d forgotten how much fun this could be.

9

UAB Women & Infant Center

Tuesday, August 31, 10:32 a.m.

Jess waited in the examining room for Dr. Fortune to return. The labs were out of the way and the exam was over. The requisite paper gown was properly disposed of and she felt comfortable again in her red suit. Her life was so out of control that it felt good to wear a power color. Especially today. There was no more pretending this wasn’t real.

Her life was never going to be the same. She’d survived starting over in her career and moving back home after more than two decades. No reason she couldn’t handle parenthood.

Moments from now the doctor would waltz in for the doctor-patient pep talk. Jess’s bag was full of pamphlets and a prescription for, as well as a sample pack of, prenatal vitamins. She was good to go.

Except her head was spinning. She had flipped through the pamphlets for the first few minutes of her wait, one of which showed the stages of development in pregnancy. She shouldn’t have looked. If she’d been worried before about taking care of herself for the baby’s benefit, she was outright terrified now.

Okay, moment of truth—how did anyone in her right mind do this? There was so much evil out there. So much uncertainty. Giving herself credit, it wasn’t as if she’d planned to get pregnant. One or two missed pills had set the stage.

Forty-two and she’d made a sophomoric mistake. She was far too old to accidentally get pregnant. Jess closed her eyes and heaved a sigh. Her sister was going to be over the moon as soon as she had a nice long laugh over how Jess came to be with child. Children had not been on her ten-year-plan much less next year’s calendar. She wasn’t even married or engaged—well, not technically. Dan had made it clear he wanted to get married, but there hadn’t been a proposal or ring.

Jess sighed. How had her life grown so complicated in a mere six weeks? Before returning to Birmingham, work had been her life. She hadn’t needed anything else to fulfill her. Who needed the white picket fence and kids? She’d had a stellar career with the Bureau—okay so maybe she’d blown her
stellar
record a week or two before coming home. She’d had the respect of every agent with whom she’d ever worked until that last week or two. Prior to that, she’d had nothing to worry about but catching the bad guy—the solitary goal had defined her.

On some level, she couldn’t deny that coming home had made her see what she had given up… what she was missing. Whether by subconscious design or dumb mistake, here she was with diapers and childcare and doctor visits in her future. Her eyes went wide. They needed a new house. The apartment was fine for the two of them, but it wasn’t going to work after this child was born.

Would Dan want to build in his old neighborhood? Jess would never in a million years fit in with the Brookies of Mountain Brook. She would always be the girl from the other side of the tracks. Well, she had made friends with Sylvia and Gina. It wasn’t that anyone else had the ability to make Jess feel inferior. Her accomplishments spoke for themselves. The problem was some people would always see her as an outsider as Katherine Burnett did. Would that change when she became a Burnett too?

Jess sagged with the weight of it all. Friends and neighborhoods were the least of her concerns. Two women were missing, Rory Stinnett and Monica Atmore. Victims of the sociopath obsessed with Jess. Dan had become one of his primary targets. And she was his ultimate target no matter that, for now, Spears appeared to be content playing with her.

How did she protect the child she carried? Or the people she loved?

Thankfully, the doctor showed up at that moment. Good thing, otherwise Jess might have worried herself into a panic attack.