Killing Me Softly (25 page)

“What's this from?” Olivia asked. She was holding up a piece of silver metal shaped like a
T,
and her intent, Dawn knew, was to distract her from worrying.

Dawn smiled. “If I'd been here, I could have told them what it was immediately. I wasn't, though. Took the cops three days and five classic-car experts—or maybe it was five days and three experts—to get a positive ID on that little thing. It's from a '65 Thunderbird. They found it on the road in front of one of the original crime scenes sixteen years ago.”

“You would have known it on sight?”

“I've always been a car buff, and I've spent the past five years restoring old classics for a living.”

“I didn't know that.” Olivia smiled, setting the piece on the coffee table. “Didn't turn out to be much of a clue, though, did it?”

“They don't even know if it's a clue at all. Just because a T-Bird drove past the victim's house and lost a piece of trim, that doesn't mean the killer was driving it. They couldn't even be sure it wasn't dropped there days before the murder.”

Olivia nodded. “I'm surprised the department let you
guys have all this stuff—I mean, being that Bryan's a suspect.”

“He wasn't a suspect when he got all this out of storage.”

“He wasn't?”

“No. He was actually doing some research on the case and trying to keep it very hush-hush.” She leaned closer. “It doesn't seem to matter much now, but Nick's getting the Vermont Law Enforcement Lifetime Achievement Award next month. The committee asked Bryan to present it.”

“And Nick doesn't know?”

“Nope. It's always a secret. Bry's supposed to give a big speech, and he figured he'd pepper it with highlights from Nick's career, particularly stuff having to do with his most famous case.” She lowered her eyes then. “Guess that's all out the window now, though. Unless we can clear Bryan's name and find the real killer by then.”

Olivia tipped her head to one side. “It's a real coincidence, isn't it? The timing of all this?”

“How so?” Dawn asked.

“Well, just that right at the time Bryan started digging out the old case files on the murders, the murders started up again.” She shook her head. “And that the first victim was his friend, killed in his house. And that he's the only real suspect, at least as far as the cops are concerned.” She lifted her gaze slowly and met Dawn's eyes. “Dawn, don't you think that's way too much to be coincidental?”

Dawn averted her eyes. “It's either coincidental or he's guilty. And I
know
he's not guilty, so don't even—”

“I don't think he's guilty.”

“He's not.” Rico's voice came from the kitchen, where he had apparently just finished cooking. He was coming toward them, plates holding steaming omelets in his hands. “Breakfast is served, but I'm not doing cleanup,” he said. “Bryan's not back yet?”

Dawn quickly said, “Not yet. We were just talking about—”

“Yeah, I heard you. It's either coincidence or he's guilty, you said. And we know he's not guilty.” Rico set their plates on the coffee table and went back for his own. When he returned, Olivia was digging in. But Dawn's stomach was tied in so many knots with worry that she didn't think she could eat a bite, though it looked and smelled delicious.

“You're right, Dawn,” Rico went on. “It's way too much to be coincidental. So that means there has to be a third option. A cause-and-effect thing going on. So what happened first?”

“First…Johnny Lee Jackson died in prison,” Dawn said.

“And then Bryan found out he was going to have to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Nick and he had to keep it secret,” Olivia said.

“And then Bryan took the files and evidence from the Nightcap Strangler case,” Rico said. “Without permission or even signing them out properly. Which makes it
look really suspicious.” He took a big bite of his omelet, chewed and swallowed. “And then his girlfriend was murdered in his bed.”

“She wasn't his girlfriend,” Dawn said, the words popping out before she could even try to bite them back. She cleared her throat. “None of this makes any sense. Why would any of it cause someone to start recreating Nightcap's crimes?”

“It wouldn't,” Rico said with a sigh.

Shrugging, Olivia got to her feet and turned toward Rico. “Cocoa?”

“Sure.”

She went to get it, and Rico raised his voice so she would be able to hear. “What if it's not a copycat?” Rico said.

Dawn swung her head toward him as if he were insane. Olivia stepped back through the doorway, brows raised.

“Just say, what if? What if Johnny Lee Jackson wasn't the real killer? What if the real killer set him up, way back when, and then, for whatever reason, he just stopped killing?”

“I didn't think serial killers
could
stop,” Dawn said.

Rico shook his head. “Nick thinks they can. He mentions it in the book—he says anyone can have a bad impulse, but the strong can control them, the weak can't, and that's what separates good people from bad ones. He didn't want anyone feeling sorry for Johnny Lee Jackson for being overruled by his impulses. He
believes a man always has the final say in what he chooses to do and not to do. He said a man of character can overcome anything. So that begs the question, what if he was right about that? Or at least partially right. What if Nightcap did manage to control his impulse to kill—for sixteen years?”

Dawn nodded. “Okay, so if Johnny Lee Jackson was innocent, then Nightcap was on the loose but no longer killing.”

“And thinking he was completely in the clear. And then, all of a sudden, here's a rookie cop, taking out all the old files. Going through all the old evidence. Apparently being kind of shady about it, too.”

Olivia and Dawn both gasped aloud as they finally understood what Rico was getting at. Dawn shook her head. “But no one knew Bryan had taken out those files.”

“What if someone did?” Rico took the cocoa from Olivia as she reentered the living room, then started to pace. “What if Nightcap knew, and what if he thought Bryan was on to him? How would he deal with that? He's been in the clear for sixteen years. He's got a lot to lose. So what would he do?”

“Kill Bryan and make it look like an accident?”

“Yeah. Or give in to the urge he's been suppressing all these years, now that he has the perfect excuse. Kill again, frame Bryan, let him take the fall and once again be in the clear.”

“But who?” Olivia asked softly.

“Someone would have to know he took those files,
and they'd also have to know the case inside and out.” Rico frowned as he spoke, and Dawn could tell he didn't like what he was thinking. He didn't have to say it. This had to have been an inside job. Someone either in the department or with intimate knowledge of both it and the old case.

“I don't know who it is, Rico.” Dawn set her cup down firmly on the coffee table. “But I'm done waiting. Bryan's not here, and I'm worried about him. I have to go find him. And I'm going to have to take your car, because he has ours.”

“We'll go with you,” Olivia said. “Just give me two minutes to get dressed.”

Headlights cut through the murky morning, and Dawn felt every muscle in her body go as soft as heated candle wax. “Oh, thank God,” she said, the words rushing out of her on a relieved sigh. “He's back.”

She closed her eyes momentarily in relief. “I wonder if he found anything.” Then, bending, she picked up her fork and took a big bite of the luscious omelet, no longer too nervous to eat. As she relished it, she grabbed the tiny metal
T
and reached across the coffee table to drop it into the evidence box. And then she froze, her muscles going taut and cold again.

“Oh, my God.”

“What?” Olivia rushed closer.

Dawn dropped the
T
and grabbed Nick's book, flip ping it open and staring at the photo on the jacket. Her eyes narrow, she ran her forefinger over the tiny bit of
fender she could see, the shape of the headlight, the chrome around the edge.

“It's a Thunderbird.”

“What is?” Olivia leaned over her, and Rico rushed closer.

Dawn pressed her forefinger to the car in the photo. “It's a Thunderbird,” she said. “And I'm pretty sure it's a '65.”

Olivia's soft gasp was interrupted by Rico saying, “Be cool. Be cool everyone. Just be cool.”

Dawn frowned up at him, then followed his gaze to the front door, which was even then swinging open to admit a gust of rain-soaked wind and Nick Di Marco, a small black case tucked under his left arm. He met their eyes, his hair wet, his big smile dying slowly. “Why does everyone look so worried? Huh? Aren't you glad to see me?”

He pulled a gun from behind his back and, without so much as a single word of warning, leveled it and fired.

Rico never even had a chance to react. His head snapped with the impact, a spray of blood and bone exploding from the back of his skull as the bullet exited. Dawn and Olivia screamed, jumping back, Dawn falling over the arm of the sofa and landing on the floor on the other side.

Gasping for a breath that didn't seem willing to come, Dawn stared in wide-eyed horror at Rico, who'd fallen almost straight down, legs buckling, body following, like a skyscraper brought down by expertly placed
charges. Now he lay there on the floor, a pool of blood spreading beneath his head.

Dawn's heart was pounding so hard she thought it would burst, but she managed to tear her gaze from poor Rico and look beyond him to Olivia. She was pressed back against the wall, one hand on her face, one on her stomach, and her gaze met Dawn's. And then, slowly, they both looked toward Nick again.

He waved the gun at them. “Let's go, ladies. Upstairs. Shame about Chavez. Unavoidable, though.”

Dawn shook her head. “Nick? God, Nick, it
can't
be you. It
can't
be.”

“Been me the whole time, sweetie.” He glanced at Olivia. “You don't fit the profile. You're gonna be a fly in the ointment, but I think my theory will be that he had to eliminate every witness. He probably came out here to kill her, not expecting to find you and Rico, as well. Last-minute decision. He was forced to break his pattern. To improvise.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Olivia shook her head. “You're talking about killing us? Killing
me,
Nick? As close as we've been to each other all these years?”

“Look, I helped you change your identity to elude your lunatic ex. You've been friendly to me out of gratitude. And that was that.”

“I cared about you, Nick. I've…God, I've considered you one of my best friends. I
trusted
you.”

“Whatever. Quit interrupting. I need to get this straight in my head. He shot Chavez, 'cause really, what
else was he gonna do? And then he figured he was going to have to kill you, anyway, Olivia, so he might as well do it his way. Sure, you don't fit the profile, but he'll get his kicks on that score with Dawnie here.” He smiled at Dawn. “You have to be last.”

“Why's that, Nick?” She kept her voice as calm as she could manage, while her mind scrambled for a solution, a way out.

“You're the best, baby. You're the one we've been looking for all this time.”

“We?” She didn't know what that meant, didn't even pretend to, and found herself looking beyond him, toward the darkness and pouring rain, beyond the still-gaping front door.

“Where's Bryan?” she asked, trying to sound calm, trying not to set him off. He was clearly insane, and she knew insanity. She knew it all too well. As she stood there facing Nick, she felt as if her father had found a way to return to her, after all. But she shook that notion away. This wasn't Mordecai. This was nothing to do with Mordecai.

Mordecai would never have hurt her. Not on purpose, anyway.

“I need to know if Bryan's alive, Nick. Will you do that for me, give me that one thing, before you go any further with this? Please?”

Nick stared at her, and his features seemed to soften just slightly. She thought he liked her. She could use that.

“I didn't kill him.”

She nodded. “But…you will. Won't you, Nick?”

“I have to, Dawnie. I don't have a choice.” He lowered his head, his guilt not allowing him to look her in the eye. Another weapon she could use, she thought. He actually felt remorse about what he was planning to do.

“I was on my way to his place—had some evidence to plant there from this latest one—and I saw him sneaking in. He found my key ring under the damn mattress.” He met her eyes again, then shook his head. “You still have something, there, Dawnie-girl. It wasn't just a dream, after all.”

“But…Bryan loves you, Nick. He'd never turn you in. You don't have to kill him.”

“Yeah, I do. I have to pose him, set it up, make sure it's obvious he was the Strangler. Or a weak copy of the Strangler, anyway. I'll say I burst in here to save the day, after finally figuring out it was him. He'd already killed Rico and Olivia. I caught him in the act of strangling you, Dawn, and I had to shoot him to try to save you, but my valiant effort was just too damn late.” He finally looked at her again when he'd finished.

“So where is he now?”

“What difference does it make?”

“You…brought him with you. You must have, if you intend to…to do what you just said.”

He tilted his head to one side, studying her. “I forgot how smart you are. You're stalling. Buying time in hopes some kind of help will arrive. But it won't, Dawn. No one's going to attempt this road in this kind of weather.
This is over.” He waved the gun at the stairway. “Go on now. Both of you. Upstairs. There's no point in making this harder than it has to be.”