Killing Me Softly (2 page)

B
ryan Kendall awoke with a crushing headache that turned into blinding dizziness when he rolled over. It was only then, as his hand swung out and hit something cold and hard, that he realized he wasn't in his bed.

He was on the bathroom floor.

“Hell,” he muttered. “Must've been some party.”

He tried to think back but remembered nothing, and really didn't care all that much at the moment. He had a case of cottonmouth that made anything short of the house being on fire uninteresting in comparison. He needed liquid. Any liquid. Now.

He opened his eyes, then squeezed them shut against the morning light slanting in through the bathroom windowpane. The sun seemed unreasonably
bright
this morning. Gripping the sink with one hand, he pulled himself up onto his feet, then leaned over it and cranked on the taps. He bent closer, cupped his hands and drank. The lukewarm water wet his mouth but was nowhere near enough to quench his thirst. His head was spinning
and pounding, his stomach churning, and it occurred to him that this didn't feel like an ordinary hangover.

He'd never been drunk enough to pass out on his own bathroom floor.

Lifting his throbbing head, he peered into the mirror and then closed his eyes again. This was too much effort. He needed to drink a vat of water, take a handful of aspirin, crawl into bed and sleep for another eight hours or so. Then he could try again.

He turned in the direction of the door and shuffled through it, feet dragging, because the percussion of actual steps was too painful. It was only a few feet to the bedroom and a few more to the bed, and then he was sinking gratefully onto the queen-size pillow-top mattress, pulling the covers over himself as he rolled onto his side. His arm hit Bette before he remembered she was there.

“Sorry, babe,” he muttered, closing his eyes and letting his head sink into the pillow.

She didn't answer. Good. He hadn't woken her. Feeling cold, he tightened his arm around her waist and snuggled up a little closer. But she didn't move. Didn't roll up onto her side and press her back to him the way she normally would. Didn't stroke his forearm where it draped over her.

And she felt cool.

Colder than he did.

Frowning, he lifted his head and looked at her in the early-morning sunlight that was just beginning to stream in through the tiny gap where the curtains didn't
quite meet. She was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, eyes open wide. Something hit him as he stared at her, and it felt as if he'd stuck his finger into a live socket. It slammed into the middle of his chest, just like a shock, and woke him entirely. Bryan blinked to clear the haze from his vision and sat up straighter. A chill ran up his spine, as if some part of him knew what he was seeing before his mind caught up.

“Bette?” He reached out to touch her cheek and found it unnaturally cold. Not cold as if she'd been outside in a snowstorm, but cold like raw meat. There was a huge difference. And that was when his brain caught up to what his instincts had already known.

Bettina Wright was dead.

Dead!

Bryan scrambled backward out of the bed, suddenly more wide-awake than he'd ever been in his life. He stood there for a moment, staring at her, gasping for breath. “Bette?” he said. “What the hell? What the
hell?
” Finally the cop in him kicked in. He ran around the foot of the bed, to her side and bent to feel for a pulse, but stopped himself when, again, he felt how cold she was. His brain was ten steps ahead of him now, thinking, telling him to drag her off the bed, onto the floor, start CPR, call the EMTs. But he didn't do any of those things, because reality had outshouted training. She must have been dead for several hours. There was nothing he, or anyone else, could do for her now. She'd been lying here, getting stiff and cold, while he'd been passed out in the bathroom. Useless.

He struggled to remember anything that might have happened last night that would have given him a clue something like this could happen. He didn't think she'd seemed sick or particularly tired. She hadn't complained about anything. He knew she didn't do drugs, nor would he have had any at the party. Hell, most of the guests had been cops.

Had her heart given out without any warning at all? Had this been some kind of allergic reaction or alcohol poisoning or—

“Oh, no.” He spoke aloud, as his gaze settled on her neck. On the ligature marks there. They were obvious, even in this feeble light. “No no no…” Backing up two steps, he jerked the curtain wider and let the sun pour in on her body. The angry, bruised ring around her neck was unmistakable, as were the still-protruding tongue and dried spittle on her chin. Bettina Wright had been strangled to death in his bed while he slept, drunk, in next room. She'd been murdered while he'd been ten feet away, too plastered to help her.

He was a cop, for God's sake, and he'd—

Hell. Oh, hell.

He looked around the room again, spotted his cell phone and picked it up, then he walked back through the house without touching anything. He was wearing jeans, and nothing else, and he didn't grab anything on the way. His home was a crime scene now. Jesus, he couldn't believe it. Bette. Dead.

He opened the front door, using a sock he found on the floor and only two fingers to turn the knob, trying
not to smear any prints. Then he left the door open and sat on the front steps, where he flipped open the phone. There were two men who were more important to Bryan than anyone else in his life: his father and his mentor, retired cop Nick Di Marco, and he wanted to phone them both at the same time, but since he had to make a choice… Of the two, Di Marco was physically closer and could get to him faster. Decision made.

He called Nick, then held his head in his free hand while waiting for him to pick up.

“Di Marco, and this better be good, being 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday, pal.”

“Nick?”

“Kendall? You sound like hell.” The older man paused. “Are you okay?”

“No. I… It's Bette—”

“Who?”

“The girl I'm…sort of seeing. She's…she's dead, Nick. She's fuckin' dead.” Bryan's voice broke, but he kept forcing out words. “Strangled, I think. In my bed. Damn, Nick, she's—”

“Whoa, hold up, hold up. Where are you right now?”

“Sitting on the front step. She's inside. She's dead. How could I not have
heard
something? How could I—”

“You sure? You do CPR? You check for a pulse?”

“She's cold, Nick. She's ice fucking cold.”

Nick swore under his breath. Then, “Have you called anyone else?”

“No. I—”

“Okay, okay, we do this by the book. It's the only way to go here. You're a cop—you do this right. You gotta be beyond suspicion, you got that?”

“Sus-suspicion? Shit, Nick, why would I—”

“You're there, aren't you? You woke up with her. You're the last one to see her alive, the one to find the body. You know how this works, kid. You're a cop.”

Everything in Bryan tightened until he thought he was going to break. “Yeah. I mean…yeah.”

“Hang up and call your father. I'm gonna call the chief, and I'll get there by the time he does. You just wait for us. Don't call anyone else—don't, for the love of God, call her family. Just your dad. Tell him to get here
A-SAP
. I'm on my way. Don't go back inside. Don't touch anything. Don't take a shower or change clothes. Just sit there, you understand?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I just—”

“I know, kid. You hang in. I'm on this. I'm gonna be there in a matter of minutes, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Just breathe. It's gonna be all right.”

“Okay.”

“Where's your sidearm, Kendall?”

Bryan blinked as he thought for a second and remembered where he'd put the gun the last time he'd had it out. It had been a while. He'd been on paid leave since a recent hostage standoff, waiting for the department shrink to give him the all clear. “In the lockbox, hall closet.”

“You sure no one else is in the house?”

Bryan's head came up slowly, and he looked behind him through the still-open door. “I didn't really check.”

“Don't. Get yourself a little distance away, but maintain line of sight, just in case.”

“Okay.”

“Be careful, kid. I'll see you soon.”

Bryan closed his eyes, disconnected and felt as if his world had turned upside down. He got to his feet and looked back inside the house, feeling a little more certain there was no one lurking inside. Then again, a few minutes ago, if asked, he would have been fairly certain he wasn't going to find a dead woman in his bed.

So he walked several steps down the driveway, but only got as far as his brand-new, candy-apple-red Mustang Shelby GT, before he had to stop and throw up. And he didn't think it had anything to do with the alcohol he'd imbibed the night before. Dammit, how could Bette be dead? Much less strangled? Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he'd imagined the marks on her throat. Maybe the chief had been right to put him on leave, and he did have some kind of PTSD or something going on, and he'd just imagined all of this. Maybe if he walked back into the house right now, he would find Bette sitting up in bed and griping about being late for whatever early-morning class she had.

He could almost believe it. He nearly turned and walked back inside. But something stopped him. The
weight of the phone on his hand, he guessed. He needed to call his dad.

He wanted to call Dawn instead.

He wanted to hear her voice right now even more than he wanted to quell the waves of nausea battering his stomach. But that wasn't going to happen. He and Dawn hadn't spoken in five years. There was too much space between them now. Too much hurt. Too little effort to remedy or even address it. He couldn't call Dawn, even though hearing her voice on the phone would make things better in a way nothing else could.

No. Not even Dawn could fix this.

He opened the car door, sat down inside and stared for a long moment at the dark, hulking shape in the distance, where the waterfall that gave this town its name shot off the end of a rocky ledge and tumbled down. The craggy flat-topped beast of a cliff was positioned in such a way that the waterfall itself was nearly always in shadow, making it dark and ominous looking, rather than cheerful or sparkly, the way most waterfalls seemed. Shadow Falls, the landmark, was not beautiful. It was downright spooky. But Shadow Falls, the town, had been the place with an opening on the police force after he'd finished college. And it was only an hour from what he considered home. And so it was perfect.

Or he'd thought it was.

But the town seemed far from perfect right now. Because it concealed something in its shadowy depths.
Something evil. A cold-blooded killer was lurking here. And he'd never even known.

Sighing, Bryan called his father, fifty miles away in his hometown of Blackberry, Vermont.

N
ick Di Marco was a big man. And it wasn't entirely a physical thing. He was tall enough at five foot eleven, and his shoulders were wide and solid, even though he was lugging around some extra belly fat these days. His once raven-black hair was streaked with silver, his intense brown eyes lined with crow's-feet that made his smiles more infectious, and his frowns downright scary. Beneath all of that, he was the best cop Bryan had ever had the honor to know. Retired or not.

And he wasn't the only one who felt that way. Di Marco was a hero cop, and everyone in Shadow Falls knew it.

So Bryan felt a little lighter when he saw Nick get out of his black, big-as-a-boat, old Crown Victoria and come striding toward him. Bryan got out of his own car, whose payments were as much as his rent, and tried to hide the fact that his knees were shaking. It was warm outside, the summer sun already beating down on them.

Nick threw his arms around Bryan, and it was no pat-on-the-back “guy” hug; this was a full-blown, real thing that squeezed the air right out of his lungs. “You okay, kid? You okay?”

“I don't know.”

“You're okay. You're gonna be okay.” Nick clapped a big palm to the back of Bryan's head and crushed it to his shoulder for a second, then released him and backed off enough to search his face. “You call your dad?”

“Yeah. He's on his way.”

“Good. That's real good, Kendall.” Nick turned his head as another vehicle came skidding to a halt along the roadside. Chief MacNamara had driven the Bronco with the Shadow Falls Police Department logo—a black waterfall inside a circle made up of the words themselves—on the front doors, and the bubblegum lights on the roof. At least those lights weren't flashing.

Chief Mac got out, thick shocks of unruly white hair sticking up all over. His face showed all the ruddy puffiness of a lifelong drinker, and his belly backed up the story. He was fat enough that he sort of swayed heavily from side to side when he tried to walk fast, which was what he was doing now.

“Somebody want to tell me just what the
hell
is going on here?” he demanded a little breathlessly.

Nick nodded. “Tell him, Kendall. Tell us both.”

Bryan took a deep breath and nodded once. “I had a party last night. To celebrate getting the okay to go back on the job Monday.” He nodded at Nick. “You were there—you can vouch for that part.”

Nick nodded and glanced at the chief. “It was no big deal. A few twelve-packs and some chips. Mostly cops, a few faces I didn't know. A dozen, maybe eighteen, people at most.”

“You left early,” Bryan said, eyes lowered, gaze turned inward. “A few more people showed up later on. I think I remember most of them—I don't know. I must have drunk way more than I thought. I woke up on the bathroom floor. Everyone had gone. I headed to the bedroom, wanted to get a few more hours of sleep—and Bette was there. And…” He lifted his head, looking the men in the eyes, first Nick and then Chief Mac. “She was dead,” Bryan said. He had to force out that final word, and his voice broke when he said it. “She was already cold. And there are ligature marks around her neck.”

The chief gaped, his jaw dropping as if its spring had broken. He took a step back, turned to stare at the house and pushed a hand through his crazy white hair. Then, swearing a blue streak, he started forward, hurrying toward the house with that swinging gait of his.

Nick clapped Bryan on the shoulder to get him moving, and in spite of his resistance to the notion, Bryan fell into step, the two of them following close behind the chief.

“You didn't hear anything?” Chief Mac asked without looking back.

“No.”

“Careful, don't touch a damn thing,” the chief went on as he stomped through the house and into the
bedroom. Just inside the bedroom door he stopped, and his voice, when he spoke again, was lowered. Maybe out of respect for the dead. “In fact,” he added, “stay out of this room, Kendall. Di Marco, get in here. But be careful.”

Nick went into the bedroom with the chief, while Bryan stood in the doorway, his eyes riveted to the blue-tinted skin of Bette's face, those sightless red eyes, the grotesquely twisted mouth.

The chief looked closely, not touching anything. “Strangled. Sure as shit. And she— Holy fuck.”

“What?” Bryan asked from the doorway, even while the chief gripped Nick Di Marco's wrist and nodded at the nightstand.

Bryan followed their gazes and saw what was sitting there. A shot glass with a black scythe painted on it, a red rosebud above, severed from its stem by the blade and trailing tiny red droplets.

It was a design the three men had seen before.

“That can't be,” Di Marco whispered. “There's no way.” And despite the whisper, his voice trembled. “Sniff the glass, Chief. Check—”

“Whiskey,” the chief said after leaning over and in haling. He turned to Nick. “Check her mouth.”

Nick nodded and leaned close to the dead woman, his face so near hers it might have seemed to an outsider that he was about to kiss her. Without touching the body at all, Nick sniffed, and then he jerked upright again. “Whiskey,” he said. “God, this can't be happening.”

“What?” Bryan asked. “What…what the hell is going on, Nick?” But he had a sinking feeling that he knew.

“Is that your shot glass, Bryan?” Nick asked.

“No.”

“It's a trademark, Kendall,” the chief said. He came out of the room, flipping open his phone as he did and hitting buttons. “Calling card of the Nightcap Strangler.”

Bryan blinked in shock, processing that, along with all that he knew about the old case—which was probably a lot more than either of these two men realized, considering that all the files and all the evidence was currently taking up space in a storage bin in his garage. The three of them walked out of the house and stood in the driveway again, and the chief ordered up a crime-scene investigation unit and an ambulance.

When he hung up, Bryan faced him. “Chief, how can this be? The Nightcap Strangler was caught, what? Sixteen years ago? Nick, you caught him. You put him away. You solved it. It was the biggest case of your entire career. He's in prison.”

“Not anymore, kid,” Nick said softly.

Bryan blinked, puzzled for one terrifying moment before he remembered that the convicted serial killer had died in prison three weeks ago.

“He bought it in a fight,” the chief said. “Didn't you see it in the papers? So there's no way this was him. Unless…” He looked at Nick, not finishing the thought.

“No way did I bust the wrong guy, Chief. No way in hell.”

“You're confident about that?”

Nick was offended by the question. He looked mad enough to punch something, Bryan thought. “He was guilty as hell. And you know that, Mac. You know it as well as I do!”

The chief nodded, keeping his trademark calm. “I also know that we never released certain details to the public. No one knew what the design on the glasses was, Di Marco. Or the specifics about the kind of whiskey he used. No one but you and me. Unless you told your protégé here,” he added with a look at Bryan.

“I never discussed the details of the Nightcap case with the rookie, Chief.”

“Right. You're his mentor, and you never talked to him about the case that made your career? He never asked? You wrote a book, Di Marco. They made a freaking movie. You telling me you never talked about it with Kendall here?”

“That's what I'm telling you.” Nick braced himself, getting in the chief's space, his chest thrust out, chin up, challenging. “Now why don't we get to what
you're
telling
me?
Are you saying a rookie cop turned into a copycat killer just 'cause he took a couple of classes from the retired cop who solved the case? 'Cause I think that's a stretch, even for you, Mac.”

“He shot a guy last month, Nick.”

“In the line of fucking
duty!
” Di Marco shouted.
“He was cleared of any wrongdoing. It was a clean kill.

You know that.”

“It was a clean kill and it left him a basket case,”

Chief Mac argued.

“According to
you
.” Nick jabbed a finger in the chief's direction, and for a moment Bryan thought he was going to actually poke him in the chest with it. He only barely missed doing so. “The department shrink says he's fine.”

“Now,”
the chief said.

Because he hadn't
seemed
fine right after the shooting, Bryan thought. Then again, who would have? Bryan had never shot a man before. He'd had no choice, though. The guy had his girlfriend in a headlock, a knife at her throat, and he was getting ready to use it. There had been no question. Hell, she'd been bleeding already when Bryan had taken the shot. He was the only one with a clear line. He'd had no choice. But he damn well didn't like it.

“Yeah,
now,
” Nick repeated. “And
now
is when this killing went down. The kid didn't do it, Chief. Come on. You know the kid didn't do it.”

“Quit talking about me like I'm not in the room, you two,” Bryan said. He kept his tone level, his voice low. “I'm standing right here. And I didn't do it. I'll tell you both, I didn't fucking do this. I had no reason. I
liked
Bette.”

“
Liked
her?” The chief bit back whatever else he'd been about to say, sighed, compressed his lips. “All
right, Kendall. You liked her. You were, uh,
seeing
this Bette—”

“Bettina Wright,” Bryan filled in.

The chief pulled out a pad and jotted the name down. “You were seeing her pretty regularly?”

“We were friends.”

Chief MacNamara looked at Nick. “If he's gonna start lying already, about something so obvious…”

“I'm not lying,” Bryan said.

“She was in your bed, son.”

Di Marco drew a breath, released it. “Come on, Kendall, be straight with the chief. It's pretty clear there was more between you than just…friendship.”

“There really wasn't. We were friends. We got along great, but neither of us wanted anything serious.”

The chief blinked, looking blank. Di Marco rolled his eyes. “I think this is some of that shit the kids over at the university call ‘friends with benefits,' Mac.

“I'm old, not dead, Di Marco. I've heard the term. I just never thought anyone really lived that way.”

Di Marco shrugged and turned his attention back to Bryan. “So you two never fought? Didn't argue? There was no jealousy?”

“I knew from the beginning she was still gun-shy after her ex-boyfriend—and that's where we oughtta start, right there. That bastard
was
jealous. Didn't want her for himself, but it sure as hell drove him crazy to see her with anyone else. Even me, even though we were just—”

“Just friends,” the chief muttered.

Bryan nodded, knowing how lame it sounded.

“Okay,” the chief said with an exasperated sigh. “Look, we have a lot more to go over, Kendall. We need to take you in, get your statement, get a list of every other person who was at the party, get the name of this ex-boyfriend of hers, and anyone else you can think of who might have had a motive, notify her family—”

“Hell,” Nick muttered. “Worst part of this freakin' job.”

“What freakin' job?” MacNamara blurted. “You've gotta be real clear about something, Di Marco. You're retired. You teach criminal justice now—you don't practice it.”

“I teach criminal profiling,” Nick corrected. “And I just decided to
un
retire.”

“That's not—”

“Don't say it, Mac. Don't say it's not possible when we both know it is.”

“You're the kid's mentor, practically a father figure. You don't call that a conflict of interest?”

“It's my case.”

Chief MacNamara met Nick's steady gaze.

“If it's anything to do with the Nightcap Strangler, Chief, even a copycat who somehow had inside information, then it's my case. Always has been. Nobody knows more about it than me. Nobody else is gonna have the foundation of information and knowledge that I have. And if it turns out I fucked up and sent an innocent man—”

“You didn't,” MacNamara said.

“If I did, then I'm
damn
well gonna be the one to make it right.”

The chief nodded. “I might be able to pull some strings.”

“Then pull them. Cut through the red tape. Call me a consultant or some bullshit like that if you have to, but get me in on this—
officially
in on this.” Then he turned to Bryan. “You said your dad's on his way?”

“Yeah.”

“Call him and tell him to meet us at the station, okay? While you do that, I'll call you a lawyer and your union rep, have them meet us there, as well.”

“Come on, Nick. I don't need a lawyer.”

Bryan saw the grim look that flew between Nick Di Marco and Chief Mac, and for just a second his heart seemed to freeze in between beats. “Damn, is it really that bad?”

Nick met his gaze, but his wasn't steady, and his smile was clearly forced. “Probably not, kid. But we might as well prepare for the worst, just in case. Don't you think?”

“Nick…” Bryan could hardly ask the question, but he had to know. He had to. “Nick, tell me you don't think I did this.”

“No, kid. I don't think you did this.”

Bryan looked at the chief, hoping and maybe even half expecting him to say, “Neither do I.” But Chief MacNamara only lowered his eyes, shook his head and led the way to his waiting SUV.

Bryan thought he was going to throw up again before he got in.

 

Dawn pulled the pillow over her head and hugged it around her ears, but the damned phone kept right on ringing. It was set to go to voice mail after four rings, because four rings was more than she ever wanted to hear. But this caller had just hung up and dialed back when that had happened. And then had done it again.