Killing Fear (3 page)

Theodore Glenn was handsome. Everyone had thought so, or at least all the other dancers at RJ’s had. Why was it that only Robin had seen his dark side? Every time he looked at her all those years ago she’d felt icy cold. Brandi thought Robin’s fears of Theodore were groundless, that she’d simply been an overprotective friend. She laughed and teased Robin, “You’re the only stripper I’ve ever met who’s a prude.”

She wasn’t a prude, but she didn’t like when dancers dated patrons. It erased the line between customer and dancer, created an intimacy where there should only be business and mystery. Stripping was her job, not her life. She did it for the money, not the attention.

Glenn’s description seemed vague, and the photo flashed on television seemed to show an ordinary, yet handsome fortyish man. It didn’t show the ice blue of his eyes, nor the cold emptiness where his soul should be. Robin could hear people now, “He doesn’t look like he could hurt anyone. Maybe he was telling the truth during the trial. Innocent people go to prison. Remember that case…?”

He was not innocent. Robin
knew
it and she wouldn’t be at peace until he was back in prison. He had killed four of her friends. And he’d have kept killing until he got to her.

“They weren’t prostitutes!” Robin said through clenched teeth, focusing on her anger instead of her fear.
They were exotic dancers, strippers, whatever you wanted to call them. But they didn’t have sex for money.

Theodore Glenn had escaped. There was no doubt in Robin’s mind that he was capable of any vicious act, like killing an injured guard in cold blood.

Robin didn’t realize she’d dropped the two martini glasses she’d been holding until the pungent smell of gin rose in the air. She glanced down at the rubber mat. One glass had bounced, the other had a broken stem. She bent down, picked up the pieces, and tossed them in the trash.

Theodore would run to Mexico. Or Canada. Somewhere else. Anywhere but here, right?

Even as she thought it Robin recognized her wishful thinking. Theodore Glenn would be coming back to San Diego to make good on his courthouse threats.

She remembered the letters she used to get from him. She’d mistakenly opened and read the first one. Then she burned them, unopened and unread.

But she knew he wouldn’t forget his promise to kill her.

“Hey, sugar, my drink.”

Kip, one of her regulars, frowned at the spilled drinks and broken glass.

“Sorry, Kip.” She smiled widely, putting back on her show face. She was good at that.

“Never seen you with slippery fingers. Used to slide up and down a pole like nobody’s business, though.” He winked at her. Kip was one of the few who had stayed after she bought RJ’s and converted it from a strip club to an urban dance club. He had just celebrated his seventieth birthday.

She gave him a warm smile and poured another extra-dry martini.

“You’re not worried about that guy coming back, are you?”

She shook her head, but her smile faltered.

“Sugar, they’re going to catch him. Or he’ll disappear down in Mexico. Sun it up on the beach somewhere. If he comes here, I’ll take care of him, don’t you worry. I wouldn’t let him hurt you.”

Robin kissed Kip on his thin, leathery cheek as she placed his drink on a coaster in front of him. “My white knight.”

She turned, glanced back at the television. Someone from the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park was talking about the heretofore unknown fault that had apparently been triggered by some shift deep in the earth. “The temblor, which occurred at four thirty-one earlier this evening, had a magnitude of seven point nine and was centered within the boundaries of San Quentin State Prison.”

Because San Quentin prison was so old, it didn’t surprise the expert that some structures collapsed.

She turned ESPN back on, done with the news. But it was halftime for whatever game was being aired and they were cutting into a national feed about the earthquake.

She shut off the television and motioned to Ginger, her best cocktail waitress and backup bartender. Robin asked her to take over the bar. “I need to go home.”

“Is something wrong?”

Not everyone knew what had happened seven years ago. Not everyone had a killer walk into their lives. “I just need to do something. If I’m not back by closing, can you stay?”

“Sure, but—”

“Thanks, Ginger. I really appreciate it.” She ducked under the bar pass-through and scurried to her office before Ginger asked any more questions. She’d figure it out before too long. As soon as word got out about Glenn, the press would run another story, her name and picture would be plastered in the papers, she’d have to suck it up. She had a successful business to run, and she wasn’t going to let the murderous bastard ruin that for her.

She would give herself tonight to pull herself together. She had to. For her business, for her sanity.

It wasn’t just Glenn who would be walking back into her life.

She grabbed her purse from her office and exited via the alley. The former “gaslight district,” now known by the less scandalized “gaslamp district,” had been cleaned up and renovated with redevelopment funds—which she had used to change RJ’s from a low-class strip joint to a chic, urban dance club and gentleman’s bar. Whereas ten years ago she’d never have walked through this alley alone, now the police presence kept the drugs off the main streets and criminals had been pushed out.

She walked two blocks, turned onto Fifth Street and walked two more blocks to the loft she had bought three years ago. All the warehouses on this street had been bought by a developer who converted the bottom floors to businesses, and the upper floors to lofts. She was one of the first to buy, and the space was one huge room on the top floor. It had twenty-foot ceilings and lots of tall windows. She’d put up partial walls and designed the space to maximize the sunlight so she could paint in the mornings. She’d been making a name for herself in the art community and had her first big art show coming up next weekend. She’d started painting as a hobby and discovered she loved it. She created bold, colorful, vibrant pictures, taking familiar scenes and making them special.

Her lights blazed behind the tall narrow windows of her loft. A timer turned them on before sunset. She would never walk into a dark room.

Seven years ago she’d walked into a dark nightmare that had been revived tonight with Glenn’s escape.

She locked and bolted the door behind her, heart pounding.

“There’s no way he can get to San Diego that fast,” Robin said out loud. Her cat, Pickles, the fluffy gray and white tabby who used to belong to Anna, wound around her feet, purring. Robin picked him up and held him to her face. His purr grew louder.

“Yeah, I know, I’m not supposed to be home this early.”

She fed Pickles, saw the blinking light on her answering machine. She pressed
PLAY
.

The machine intoned, “Message one, seven p.m. Saturday.”

Then her mother’s voice. “Robin, it’s your mom. I’m sitting on the beach right now drinking a piña colada. Maui is so beautiful! I wish you were here with me. You work too hard, sweetheart. You need to have fun. I love you! ’Bye!”

Robin smiled, in spite of her mixed feelings. Didi McKenna had no idea of what anything cost. Her spontaneous trip to Hawaii drained her savings account and while there she would probably max out her credit cards. Robin wouldn’t have cared so much except that she had bailed her mother out of financial messes more than once.

“Ms. Robin McKenna, this is Officer Diaz from the San Diego Police Department.”

Robin froze as the answering machine continued with the message.

“I’m sorry to be calling so late, but this afternoon there was an earthquake near San Quentin State Prison and Theodore Glenn escaped when a wall collapsed in the prison exercise yard. We are taking precautions and notifying everyone who was involved in his prosecution that Glenn is missing and presumed at large. If you have any questions, please call me at 619-555-1100.”

Robin pounded the erase button, as if it could make tonight disappear. Like she didn’t know Theodore had escaped! What good would it do to notify her? What good would it do anyone? If Theodore wanted to get to someone, he’d find a way.

Petting her cat, she walked through the loft to her bedroom. Her sleeping area was separated from the rest of the loft by three antique black silk screens. She put Pickles on the bed and sat, staring at her nightstand. Her fear was palatable: she tasted it, her pores oozed it, her hair tingled.

Why me?

Robin rarely indulged in self-pity. Seven years ago she’d had to shore herself up against it as well. It would have been easy to hide forever, to move back home with her mother, to disappear. But she hadn’t. She’d faced the press, faced the court, helped put Theodore Glenn behind bars.

“Why don’t you like me, Ms. McKenna?”
he’d asked.

How to answer a question like that? She’d
felt
his evil. Deep down, she knew it. The way he looked at her. The way he made her feel: cold and petrified.

He’d never said anything cruel to her. He’d never done anything
to
her. He simply watched her, but she had grown terrified. Irrational. At least she’d thought so at the time.

When Bethany was killed, she just
knew
he was responsible. After, he looked at Robin as if they shared a secret. The way he tried to hold her, to console her, when she found out. It was—odd. Different and strange. How could she explain something she didn’t understand?

Robin had put her gun away last year when Glenn’s first appeal had been denied. It had been time to put the past behind her, once and for all, and the weight of the gun had reminded her constantly of why she had a concealed carry permit in the first place.

When Glenn was convicted of murdering four of her friends, he vowed to the courtroom that he would kill Robin. When he stared at her that horrible day, she was certain he would do it the moment he had the opportunity.

She had to make sure he had no such opportunity. If he came back to San Diego, she had to protect herself. She would not be a victim. She would not allow him to win.

She opened her nightstand. There was nothing in the drawer except for her gun, her belt holster, and a box of bullets. She picked up the 9 mm and held it in her palms.

The fear she had repressed for the last hour overwhelmed her.

It was as if she were back in her old apartment. In the dark. She had walked in, wondered why the lamp wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Pickles wound around her feet. She picked him up. He was wet. The smell. God, the metallic, wet smell! It was like she knew, but still stepped forward. Tripped over something, fell in a slick, foul-smelling mess. It was Anna’s blood. Her blood was everywhere; Robin was covered in it.

Now she put her head in her hands, shaking. For seven years she had lived with fear, but she’d dealt with it. Minimized it. Robin forced herself to work, stand up to rowdy guests, defend her dancers, run her business. She would not be cowed into hiding. She’d taken self-defense classes while in college, had taken even more of them after Anna was killed. She had gotten the gun. Learned to use it.

One year ago she put the weapon away and stopped going to the range. It had been time to get on with her life. To finally conquer the cold fear that chilled her every night.

The fear was back.

She walked to her dresser and opened the top drawer, pulled out her favorite leather belt, and threaded her holster through it. She checked the ammunition, though she didn’t have to. The first of every month she cleaned the gun, reloaded it, chambered a round, and flicked the safety on. She’d never grown up with guns, but she was comfortable with this one.

If Theodore Glenn walked through that door, she would shoot him without hesitation or remorse.

The thought that she could kill repulsed her. What kind of person did that make her? What had fear created?

THREE

Detective Will Hooper came up from the basement where he’d retrieved the files on Theodore Glenn in preparation for the task-force meeting.

Chief Causey thought Will was crazy when he insisted on calling the meeting first thing Sunday morning, insisting that Glenn would head for the border. Will argued passionately,
knowing
Glenn would return to San Diego to make good on his threat.

Though unconvinced, Causey ordered everyone threatened by Glenn to be notified. He also agreed to put together the task force as a precautionary measure.

Chief Causey’s opinion aside, there was no doubt in Will’s mind that Theodore Glenn would try to kill those who had put him in prison. The only question:
Who would he target first?

Carina Kincaid, Will’s partner, entered the bull pen and made a beeline toward the coffeepot, her dark hair still damp. “Bastard,” she mumbled when she saw Will. “You called me at
four in the morning.
”

“Wimp.”

“I’d tell you to fuck off, but I’m too tired.”

“Late night?”

Carina blinked. “Why do I feel we’ve had some version of this conversation before?”

“Because you have someone to share your bed and I don’t.”

“Your dry spell will be the death of me,” Carina said. “What happened to Monica?”

“That was over months ago.”

“Nicole?”

“I’m surprised you even know about her. That was before we were partners. We split amicably.”

“What about that cute girl who works for Jim? Maybe you should ask her out.”

“Diana?
Cute girl?
Last I checked, she was older than you.”

Carina waved her hand in dismissal. “Whatever. I think she likes you.”

“Diana and I had a thing years ago.”

“Hmm. She still has it bad for you. Why, I can’t imagine.”

Will shook his head. “I doubt that. It didn’t work out with Diana. Not all of us get as lucky as you.”

“You’ll get no argument here, but I’m not sharing Nick with you no matter how much you beg.”

Will rolled his eyes and pulled open the cardboard box.

“What’s in there?” Carina asked, pulling her hair back with a metal clip.