Lexi lifted the curtain aside and stepped into the sectioned-off area, trying to ignore the ever-present scent of disinfectant. It was her second trip to the emergency room in less than a week, this time Heart of Florida. And she didn’t even like hospitals.
The occupant of the bed lay with her head turned, facing the opposite wall where a male figure waited in a chair. Matted brown curls flowed over the pillow, still holding a trapped dead leaf. The shape beneath the thin sheet looked tiny and frail.
Alan followed Lexi into the room, pulling back the curtain in its metal track. The patient slowly pivoted her head. Her lips were broken and misshapen, and one eye was swollen almost shut. A pinkish ring circled her neck, the beginnings of ligature marks. She was lucky. She was alive, and the obvious damage would heal in a short time. Unfortunately, the invisible scars would stay with her the rest of her life.
The moment her gaze fell on Alan, she let out a startled shriek and scooted away, sheet pulled up to her chin.
The visitor stood and circled the bed, his stance protective. “Get him out of here.”
Lexi glanced from the man to Alan, confusion rendering her speechless. But Alan didn’t have to be told twice. He was already ducking from the room before she could gather her thoughts.
“I’m sorry.” The man moved back to the other side of the bed so he could take the girl’s hand. “It was a cop who did this to her.”
Lexi’s confusion morphed to shock as her stomach did a sudden free fall. Their killer was a cop? “What?”
“At least, he was in an officer’s uniform.”
So he was a cop or someone impersonating a cop. One small piece of the puzzle fell into place. He didn’t know the victims. They opened their doors because they trusted the uniform.
She approached the bed, her mind still reeling. “You’re her father, I assume?” At his nod, she continued, “I need to ask her some questions.”
She bent to touch the girl lightly on the shoulder. According to the report Tomlinson had, she was twenty-one, but her small form and the fear in her gaze made her appear much younger. “I need you to tell me what happened. Can you do that?”
The girl’s eyes filled with tears and she shook her head. Lexi understood. But she had information that could help them solve the case. She was the only one to fall into the clutches of the killer and live to tell about it.
“Honey, I know it’s hard.” She squatted next to the bed, putting her at eye level with the terrified girl. Her tone was low and soothing. “Right now you just want to forget about everything you went through tonight. But the killer is still out there, and he’s going to strike again. We need you to help us stop him. Will you do that?”
After a prolonged silence, she nodded.
Lexi took a notepad and pen from her pocket. “Let’s start with your name and where you live.”
“Denise Andrews.” She gave a Haines City address, her voice paper-thin.
“And you were at home?”
“No.”
Lexi’s brows shot up. Their meticulous, methodical killer had deviated? “Where were you?”
“Coming home from a friend’s house in Kissimmee.”
“So what happened?”
“My car broke down and I was on that stretch of 17-92 where there’s no cell service. I locked my doors and waited, because I knew if I wasn’t home in an hour, my dad would come looking for me.”
Mr. Andrews nodded. “She always calls me when she’s heading home. She’s a good girl. She didn’t deserve this.”
“No, sir.” None of them did. “What happened next?”
“After I had waited about ten minutes, a car drove past really slow, coming toward me. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw him turn around, come back and park behind me.”
“Was it a police car?”
“No. I couldn’t tell at the time, because it was dark. But no, it wasn’t a police car.”
So it probably wasn’t a cop. Unless it was an undercover one. “Then what happened?”
“A guy got out of the car and came to my window. He was in uniform. When I saw it was a cop, I opened my door to talk to him. I asked if he could call my dad and let him know I had broken down. He told me not to bother my dad, that he would take me home. He even offered to call someone to have my car towed.”
“So what did you do?”
“I got out and went back to his car.”
“Can you describe it?”
“It was a light color, like silver or white. I couldn’t tell for sure, because it was really dark outside.”
“Any idea what kind?”
“I’m not good with cars. It was a four-door. It didn’t look new, but it wasn’t an old clunker, either.”
“You didn’t happen to notice any part of the tag number, did you?”
“No, I never went to the back of the car.”
“That’s all right. So tell me what happened next.”
“I got into the front passenger’s seat. There was one of those rounded gumball light things sitting on the dashboard.”
Lexi nodded. Yep, definitely an impersonator. They had done away with those gumball lights years ago. All the vehicles now had the lights built in. “Did he get in the car then?”
“No, he said he had to get something out of the trunk.”
“Then what happened?”
“I was just sitting there waiting. All of a sudden he opened the passenger door and held something over my face.”
“What?”
“A cloth. It smelled sweet, and it made me light-headed and sick to my stomach. I fought to get away, but he was too strong.”
While Lexi listened, misty images played across her imagination. But the face she kept seeing was Kayla’s.
“What’s the next thing you remember?”
“I woke up in the woods. My hands were tied behind my back and he had taped my mouth.” A shudder shook her body and she closed her eyes.
Lexi squeezed her arm. “You’re doing great, sweetie. What else can you tell me?”
“He hit me and took my picture.”
“Did he say anything while he was doing this?”
“He kept calling me Jeanie. He said after ten long years, justice was finally being done.”
Lexi scribbled some notes in her pad. The killings were retribution for some perceived wrong. Someone else’s wrong. “Did he say anything else?”
“Just that it wasn’t supposed to be my time yet, but how could he resist when I had fallen right in his path.”
“What happened then?”
“He hit me again and took two more pictures. Then he put like a rubber strap or something around my neck and started to squeeze.” She raised shaking fingers to her throat. “That’s when the dog came.”
“The dog?”
“I think it was a German shepherd. It came running through the woods, and when the cop guy heard it coming, he hid.”
“What happened then?”
“The dog came up to me and started barking. I could hear his owner yelling at him to get back home, but the dog wouldn’t listen. Finally the owner found us. He had a flashlight. He untied me and walked me back to his house and called 9-1-1.”
Saved by a German shepherd. Denise was one lucky girl.
“Can you describe him—the cop guy?”
“Not really. It was dark.”
“Anything at all?”
She closed her eyes, trying to call up a memory she would probably rather forget. “When he went to the trunk, he left the driver’s side door open, so the dome light was on. He opened my door, and when he leaned inside, I could see his face. His hair was real short, like a buzz cut, maybe brown, and he didn’t have a beard or mustache. His arms were muscular, but I don’t know how tall he was, because I never stood close to him.”
“Age?”
“Maybe thirties? I don’t know.”
“Anything else you can tell me that might help us catch this guy? What about the uniform?”
“It was dark, like dark blue or dark green. He had a badge on his pocket and some kind of patch on his sleeve. It looked so real.” Her brows pulled together in concentration. “But he wasn’t wearing it in the woods.”
“What?”
“He had changed. I think he had on jeans and a T-shirt.”
Lexi nodded. He probably hadn’t wanted to dirty his needed prop. “Anything else?”
Denise shook her head, and Lexi straightened and pulled a business card from her pocket.
“If you remember anything else, give me a call, even if it seems unimportant. A lot of times it’s the seemingly insignificant details that help us solve the crimes.”
When Lexi stepped around the curtain, she almost bumped into Alan. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Eavesdropping, are we?”
Alan grinned. “Nope, taking notes. And saving you from having to repeat all that in there.”
She walked with him toward the emergency-area entrance. “Now we know why Kayla and the other girls opened their doors.”
“And we know this is all about something that happened ten years ago.”
The automatic doors slid open and they stepped out into the balmy night air. At almost midnight, only a dozen cars dotted the emergency area parking lot, two of them hers and Alan’s. She stopped next to the driver’s door of her cruiser.
“The killer is evidently following a particular order in choosing his victims. He’s been so methodical and planned everything out so well that he hasn’t left behind a shred of evidence. Tonight he deviated. I’m hoping he’s going to live to regret it.”
She leaned back against the car and crossed her arms. “Tomlinson’s getting Crime Scene out there first thing in the morning. But he sent deputies tonight to secure everything so the killer can’t go back and cover up any evidence. Of course, there’s the span of time between when the neighbor found her and got her back to his house to call 9-1-1.”
“Well, I’m praying he overlooked something. Since this one was spur-of-the-moment and not well thought out, there’s always that chance.”
She nodded absently, her mind stuck on his choice of words. Praying? What was it with him and Tomlinson? But she would take whatever help she could get. Because as much as they had learned tonight, they still didn’t know what the killer looked like, what he drove or anything about him. Unless there was something really incriminating left behind in the woods, they may as well be looking for a needle in a haystack.
“Do you want me to follow you home?”
She looked up at him with a quirky grin. “Davenport to Harmony Grove, by way of Auburndale? That’s a little out of the way, don’t you think?”
He grinned back at her. “Maybe a little. But I don’t mind. I’m worried about you.”
His smile faded and warmth filled his eyes. In the dim glow of the parking lot lights, they had deepened to an almost midnight-blue. He moved closer to rest a hand against her car. If he lifted the other one, he would have her hemmed in. And suddenly that didn’t seem like such a bad place to be.
How different their lives would have been if he had waited for her. Would they still be together? What would their chances be if they gave it another shot? She dismissed the thought as soon as it entered her mind. Alan wasn’t the “settling down” type. And neither was she.
She stepped aside while she still could and opened the driver’s door. “We both need to go home and get some sleep. I’ll be fine. I’ve got my weapon.”
She slid into the seat and watched him walk away, a hollow emptiness filling her chest. She tamped it down and took in a cleansing breath. They had a killer to catch. She had no business thinking about captivating blue eyes.
Or second chances.
* * *
Alan cruised slowly down Park Avenue, window down and strains of Third Day streaming through the radio speakers. At eleven o’clock on a Thursday morning, there wasn’t a whole lot of police work to do. But after more than a week of making himself scarce, it was time to take up some slack. Chief Dalton had pretty well given him free rein to work on Kayla’s case but Tommy, the other Harmony Grove officer, needed some time off.
So here he was, driving through quiet streets, past the sleepy neighborhoods of Harmony Grove, his greatest accomplishment of the morning helping old Mrs. English bring in her groceries. But that was all right. He loved Harmony Grove, and he loved his job.
He put his arm out the window to wave at Delores Griffin, who was halfway through Molly the schnauzer’s late-morning walk. The dog had stopped to sniff the base of some shrub that was covered in little blue flowers. Alan took in a breath himself, savoring the scents of spring. It was his favorite time of year. A time of new beginnings and a welcome reprieve before the onslaught of summer’s brutal heat and humidity.
As he drove past Pleasant Drive, his gaze traveled down the street. Patty Simmons still lived there, fifth house on the right. The same ranch-style home where Lexi had grown up. Even though six years had passed since he’d made regular trips down Pleasant Drive, it still caught his gaze every time he passed. If he wasn’t careful, his thoughts followed. That was never a good thing. It only led to what-ifs. And mental kicks in the rear.
But keeping the memories at bay was difficult when he was spending almost every day with Lexi. Last night had been the hardest. Maybe it was fatigue. Maybe he was just mentally drained. It had been a long day and heading into the next by the time he’d walked her to her car in the emergency area parking lot.
But seeing her standing there in the glow of the parking lot lights, and thinking about her driving back to Auburndale to her empty house, made him want to wrap her in a protective hug and never let her go.
Fortunately, he hadn’t acted on his impulses. Because whatever he was feeling, it likely wasn’t returned. Actually, he had no idea if it was or wasn’t. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t measure up. And Lexi wasn’t one to repeat her mother’s mistakes. Patty Simmons had grown up privileged, her wealthy parents giving her anything she desired. She’d married beneath her, then never got over the fact that her blue-collar husband couldn’t keep her in the style she felt she deserved.
Alan pressed the brake as he neared Main Street and turned on his left signal. Booming bass reached him first, reverberating in his chest. The scream of peeling rubber followed. An ancient Impala skidded off Main onto Park, its two inner wheels almost leaving the pavement. A familiar face looked back at him over the wheel, wearing a can’t-touch-this smirk.
Great. The Harmony Grove Hellion. Why wasn’t he in school? Alan was getting ready to find out.
He brought the siren to life, turned the vehicle around and made his own peel-out turn. Thirty seconds later the Impala eased to a stop on the side of the road.
Alan stepped from the car and approached. The window cranked down in front of the grinning face of Duncan Alcott.
“Why aren’t you in school?”
“Because I was bored. I can get Cs and Ds without being there every day.”
“Think what you could get if you applied yourself. Do your parents know you’re not in school?”
“They don’t care.”
Unfortunately, the kid was right. With an alcoholic father and a mother who struggled to keep food on the table, sixteen-year-old Duncan’s whereabouts were usually an afterthought.
Alan pulled a long rectangular pad from his back pocket and started to write. Duncan’s cocky attitude fell away like peeling paint under a sandblaster.
“Hey, man. I wasn’t speeding, and there’s not a stop sign there, so you can’t give me a ticket.”
“I’d say taking a ninety-degree turn on two wheels at thirty miles an hour is reckless driving. What do you think?”
He leaned down to look into the car, where Johnny Davidson sat with wide eyes. At fourteen years old, he had no business hanging with the likes of Duncan.
Alan rested an elbow in the window opening and continued, “And then there’s the whole contributing-to-the-delinquency-of-a-minor thing. That one comes with jail time.” Of course, Duncan was a minor himself, so the threat was baseless. But Duncan didn’t know that.
The kid’s eyes widened. “No way. Look, I’ll get him back to school right away.”
“No, I’d better take him up to Davidson Hardware. Then it’ll be up to Mr. Davidson to decide whether he’ll want to press charges.”
Alan stifled a grin. If there was a contest for who looked more scared, he would have been hard-pressed to choose a winner. Johnny began to shake his head vigorously. “Officer Alan, please don’t. My dad will kill me.”
“If I let you go, how do I know you won’t be right back out here tomorrow?”
“I promise I won’t. I’ll never skip school again.”
“That would be good. Otherwise I’d have to arrest Duncan here. And we don’t want that to happen, do we?”
The no came in chorus.
“All right, then. Get back to school.” He turned his attention back to his pad.
“You’re not still gonna give me a ticket, are you?”
Alan answered without looking up. “Yep.”
“Aw, man.”
The kid needed to learn a lesson. Granted, he had it bad at home. But he had choices. Hopefully, with consequences, he would start making the right ones.
He watched the Impala turn around and drive away. It would be headed back to Harmony Grove Middle School, no doubt, to return Johnny to his studies. After the car rounded the corner and disappeared, Alan got back into his own car, dropping the ticket pad into the seat next to him.
The ticket pad.
His eyes widened as an almost forgotten memory flashed through his mind. Kayla. A traffic stop. An unmarked car.
Three or four weeks before Kayla had been killed, she’d told him about getting stopped. The car was unmarked, but the officer was in uniform. He’d claimed he stopped her because she hadn’t signaled. She’d insisted that she had. He’d run her license, given it back to her and let her go.
Or had he just pretended to run her license?
Had she instead been stopped by a killer in a policeman’s uniform driving a car with a gumball on the dash? Maybe he’d taken her license for the sole purpose of finding out where she lived. Is that what he did with all the victims?
He closed his eyes, struggling to call up the conversation. Finally he sighed. If Kayla had given him any details about the car or a description of the person who had stopped her, those facts were buried somewhere deep in his subconscious.
He started up the car and headed toward the station. He had some phone calls to make. If Kayla’s license had really been run, there would be a record of it. If not, maybe he had just recalled some valuable information about the killer.
Information they could use to set a trap.