The Off Season (31 page)

Stepping past him to get to the door, a dark-skinned man wearing a stocking cap hesitated before looking back his way.

“Sorry if I—were you heading inside?” the guy asked, his gaze uncertain as he held open the door.

As the blade slipped free of its leather sheath, Zach answered, “You’re fucking right I am.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“You have to understand. Renee’s in a real financial jam,” said Harris. “I offered to help her out, but she said she had it covered. I should’ve asked more questions, pressed her for details.”

Christina’s gaze bored into him. “I don’t want to hear excuses. All I want to know is who? Who’s paid her to do this to me?”

He grimaced, but the time for stalling had passed. “That young guy you saw her with? The description you gave me sounds a lot like someone I have reason to believe is tangled up with your husband’s daughter, Ashley.”

“Ashley?” Christina burst out. “You don’t think—you really think she’s mixed up in this?”

Harris shrugged and gestured toward the couch in the hope that they could sit again, rather than watching her continue to wind herself up by pacing.

With a grudging look, she switched on a lamp against the evening gloom before perching on the edge of a cushion.

Harris nodded his thanks and sat beside her, explaining, “I actually figured the girl’s mother for it. I’m not sure you’re aware, but Evelyn Paxton and her daughter have spent the last few months in Philadelphia . . . just a bridge away from New Jersey and the Parkway.”

Her forehead creased. “What’re they doing there?”

“Evelyn’s mother was in hospice there,” he said, “and from what I understand, there was the added benefit of getting Ashley away from this boyfriend the family thought was trouble.”

Christina nodded. “She’s always been so trusting. It worried her dad, too.”

Harris agreed, recalling how surprisingly open Ashley had been with him that morning he’d met her. “I didn’t think a whole lot of it, until I saw from the tollbooth screen grabs the authorities sent me that Ashley, not her mother, had made several suspiciously timed trips into Jersey driving her mom’s car.”

“Was she with him? This bad-news boyfriend?”

Harris shook his head. “Going to meet him would be my guess—once the afternoon before your car was vandalized, and then again the day before the house burned.”

Shaking her head, Christina said, “But Ashley—she’s the sweetest of them, the one who always had a big hug for me, at least before her mom decided that her visits to our house in Texas were too
confusing
and
unsettling
for a sensitive girl like her.”

“Stands to reason her mother’s done her best to turn the kids against you, maybe even convinced them it’s your fault their father’s dead.”

“
My
fault?” A flush bloomed in Christina’s cheeks. As if maybe she, too, believed it on some level.

“I know it’s nuts,” he said, wanting to assure her he didn’t buy it for a second. “But I saw Evelyn the morning after her mother passed away. She was too emotional to hold back anything.”

Christina sighed. “And now she’s poisoned her daughter’s mind against me, too.”

“Or maybe I was right before, and it all really does boil down to greed—because I’ve gotten some more info on this kid Ashley was seeing, and he’s even worse than her family suspected. Way worse. I found records of past charges: aggravated assault, robbery . . . and he likes to watch things burn.”

Her eyes widened, as her hand went to her injured arm.

“He and a buddy were prime suspects in a string of fires, including one that badly damaged a school outside of Pittsburgh. The arson-squad guy I spoke with said they were close to making an arrest when this kid—his name’s Zach Fulton—vanished a few weeks back.”

“Then it was
him
,” she said. “This lunatic was the one who tried to burn my daughter and me alive. But I don’t see how this tracks.” She laid a finger across her chin, her mouth tightening in a look of concentration. “Why bother with the car thing or using this paperwork to try to run me out of town if they were going to turn around and try to kill us?”

“I’m guessing Fulton’s off his meds—the arson cop told me the kid’s mom’s worried because he left without them.

“What sort of meds?”

“Cloza—cloza-something?” he guessed, digging out the small pad he’d used to take notes during the call.

Before he could flip to the right page, she supplied, “Clozapine. It’s an antipsychotic, used a lot with schizophrenics, among other things. Which means this kid—” The color drained from her face.

“What is it?”

“He killed her, didn’t he? My mother. And Fiorelli, too.”

“I have two officers meeting with Ashley Paxton as we speak. We’ll get this Fulton, too. I swear it. And then we’ll get our answers.”

“But what if he—my God!” Christina blurted out. “My head’s been so messed up today. How could I let my sister go anywhere alone with Lilly? And I gave her my keys, too. She’s driving my loaner.”

“Settle down. It’s okay. I asked her to go to the mall security office, where I sent an officer to meet her for an escort home.”

“You—you’re sure?”

He looked into her eyes, his gaze never wavering. “I promise you, Christina. I’ll do whatever it takes to get you through this. I’m not going anywhere.”

He’d scarcely gotten the word out when his phone vibrated in his pocket. Pausing to pull it out, he glanced down at a lit screen reading
M. Del Vecchio
. Probably letting him know he and Zarzycki were on their way back from a little café in Millville, a small city about halfway between Philadelphia and Seaside Creek, where Ashley Paxton had suggested meeting when he’d spoken to her earlier by phone.

With an apologetic nod toward Christina, Harris rose and turned away to answer. “Bowers here. What d’you got for—”

“He—he stabbed her!” Del shouted. “I just ducked in the restroom for a minute and heard screaming and he—this Fulton guy knifed Ashley Paxton three or four times before I—I shot the bastard, but I—I hit—”

“Marco—Marco, calm down!” Harris barked, hoping to shock his officer out of his emotional reaction and get some sense out of him. Not that his own body wasn’t vibrating with the rocket fuel of the adrenaline ripping through him. “Just give me the facts. Is the scene secure now? Are you safe?”

He was vaguely aware of Christina coming to stand beside him, her eyes huge. Even Max was on his feet.

“Yeah. The—the suspect’s down and disarmed,” said Del Vecchio over the sound of some commotion close by. “The girl, too, and Alex, I mean Zarzycki—I shot her, Chief. One of my bullets passed right through the perp and—I didn’t mean to—”

“Is she breathing?” Harris demanded, the blood pumping through him ice-cold. “Can you tell me? Have you called an ambulance?”

“I—I think she is. Yeah. Rescue squad and Millville PD en route. And I’m—I’m applying direct pressure. It’s her—her shoulder, Chief, but there’s so much blood and she’s—what if I killed her?”

“You can’t think about that now. You just think about keeping her from bleeding out in the next few minutes. What about the girl? Is she—”

“There’s a Good Samaritan here with me, former army medic. He’s doing what he can. The waitress—she’s brought us cloth napkins and clean towels.”

“And the suspect?”

“Hasn’t moved, and—and there’s what looks like brain matter spattered—hell, Chief. It’s a freaking bloodbath.”

As the background noise of approaching sirens swelled, Harris wanted to tell Del to preserve the scene, but he knew it would be impossible to control with people working frantically to save the injured. Because the living always came first, including the traumatized officer on the line, Harris told him, “You know what to do here. Your priorities. Just focus on your training, and let the local cops take the lead.”

Feeling Christina clutching his arm, he glanced toward her white face.

“Rescue Squad just rolled up,” Del Vecchio said, relief in his voice. “More lights right behind ’em. Everybody’s here.”

“I’m on my way, too,” Harris told him. “And I’ll need you need to be there with the PD when I arrive.”

“I—I understand,” Del Vecchio choked out, aware as Harris was that his duties as an officer and witness must take precedence over his emotional need to ride with Zarzycki and the young woman who’d been stabbed. “I’m just—I’m so damn sorry. I was trying—just trying to stop him from slashing both of them. Alex—Zarzycki was going for her gun, but it all happened so fast—”

“I trust you did the best that you could manage,” Harris assured him, knowing a knife-wielder could do a lot of damage in close quarters before a cop could draw. “You and Aleksandra both. You be sure to tell her for me—tell her she’s gotta live, and that’s an order.”
I’ll be damned if we bury another of our own.

“Will do,” Del managed before ending the call.

“I caught some of that, but what is it?” Christina asked, her eyes pleading. “What’s going on, Harris?”

“A freaking nightmare,” he said, quickly explaining as he headed for the door.

“Millville?” she asked. “I don’t have my medical bag, but let me come with you. I can help with triage and—”

“You have to stay here. I can’t take you.”

“Sore arm or not, I’m an emergency doctor and a damn good one.”

He shook his head. “The paramedics’ll have ’em at the local hospital by the time we get there.”

“Then I’ll meet them there. I have to—your officer—and Ashley’s my husband’s daughter. She’s—”

The girl whose greed or rotten taste in boyfriends most likely got your mother killed—and nearly you and Lilly, too.
But this was no time for a debate, so he defaulted to command mode. “Absolutely not. You need to stay here. I’ll have the officer escorting Annie and your daughter wait with you until I give the word.”

“Because you think I’m too unstable?” she accused him.

“Less than twenty-four hours after finding your mother’s body? Yeah, I do, as a matter of fact—and who could blame you? And I won’t have you jeopardizing this case—or whatever justice your family can hope for by coming within a mile of Ashley Paxton or Zach Fulton.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but he shut her down.

“Give me your word right now, Christina, that you’ll wait here until you have my say-so. Otherwise, your family’s going to come home to find you handcuffed to the arm of this sofa. Got it?”

She nodded stiffly. But the hurt and anger in her eyes told him that, fragile as she was, he’d just hurt her deeply. But with one of his officers fighting for her life, another devastated, and both of his prime suspects dead or badly injured, he put damage control aside for later.

After all, at that moment he was still certain he would get another chance to make things right with her.

Furious as she was, Christina knew Harris was right. She didn’t have privileges at the hospital nearest Millville, so there was no way she would be allowed to treat any of the patients. And she was well versed enough on medico-legal issues to know that having anything to do with Ashley’s treatment could go very wrong—whether or not Doug’s daughter survived her injuries.

How in the hell could you get yourself mixed up in something like this, Ashley? Did you know what this boyfriend of yours did to my poor mother? What he tried to do to me and your own half sister, too? Did you want that?

A spasm of grief hitting her, Christina popped the heel of her hand against the door Harris had closed behind him. Startled by the banging sound, Max tucked his tail and sprinted to safety up the staircase.

Guilt for scaring the poor greyhound only made her feel worse. She felt like a stranger to herself, a shadow of the model daughter her adoptive parents had lavished with so much love. Parents she hadn’t been here for when each of them had needed her most.

But then, since she’d fallen ill, everything she touched was tainted. Christina knew that Evelyn was right in part, that the disappointment Doug felt in his young wife had driven him to pull away from her, to immerse himself in the training that would eventually lead to his death. Oh, they might have remained married, out of Doug’s inherent decency and whatever sense of duty he’d felt toward his toddler daughter, but things would never have been the same between them . . . just as they would never be between her and Harris now that he knew all about her background.

You have to stop this,
Christina warned herself. It was over now for her, at least. With Ashley heading for the hospital and Zach Fulton either critical or dead, she, Lilly, and Annie would all be safe here. Safe to grieve and process what had happened before Christina and her daughter packed up what little they had left and—

Sitting on the sofa, she pulled out her phone to call her sister to see how far she and Lilly were from home. The phone rang several times and went to voice mail. Christina sighed, wishing that for once Annie would answer.

She hesitated to text, deciding it wasn’t worth the risk of having her sister take her eyes off the road—because she had to face it, Annie didn’t have the patience to pull over to read or talk. But surely, she and Lilly couldn’t be much longer, could they? Or was she still back at the mall, begging her officer escort to explain what was going on?

In an attempt to distract herself, Christina coaxed Max back downstairs before scooping out some food for him and refilling the pan she was using for his water. After he ate, she took him out into the front yard, glad the snow had melted. But the growing darkness made her nervous; the first few stars were multiplying with each passing minute.