Trial by Fire (35 page)

“You okay?”

“I’m good. Just a little cold. Forgot my jacket.” Quickly, Howard scanned the inside of the band, then handed the ring back to the detective. “No engraving. Nothing helpful. I’m sorry, but I still don’t recognize it. I have no idea why he’d leave this for me.”

“That’s what I figured.” Ford slid the ring into the envelope, then laid it aside and picked up the second one. “What about this?”

Reaching inside, the detective removed a silver necklace and held it aloft by the clasp. A thin silver cross about two inches in length dangled from the chain, the surface blackened, smudged, and dirty.

Howard’s gut clenched as his fingers closed around the cross. He felt suddenly, desperately sick. “Where did you find this?”

“Combing through the wreckage has taken a while. Some of my homicide guys discovered it yesterday in the rubble of what used to be the victim’s closet.”

“What’s so special about it?”

“The necklace was duct-taped to a shard of the detonator. He wanted to make sure we knew he’d left us a little gift.”

“Jesus.” Howard closed his eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

“What could he possibly think these items mean to you?”

Howard opened his eyes again, staring at Ford. “I don’t know. The cross might’ve belonged to Janine, but I never saw her wear it.”

But something niggled at his memory, a black worm tunneling through the rot of his past. Digging to the root of the evil.

A wedding ring. A silver cross.

A wisp of recollection. His mother’s rare smile, the sun catching on the chain around her neck.

Ford spread his hands, frustrated. “Give me something. Anything. This bastard’s screwing us all up the backside, and the city brass is about to go nuclear. He’s a frigging ghost.”

Ghost.

Blood rushed from his head, replaced by the piercing headache. Again. Throbbing at his temples, a drumbeat, threatening to detonate his brain like the bomb had done to Janine’s home.

To her corpse.

He shoved to his feet, the chair screeching backward across the linoleum, and tossed the necklace onto Ford’s desk. “I have to go.” Or he was going to vomit. “Kat’s home alone and I don’t like leaving her for long.”

The detective stood, palms braced on his desk top, eyes round. “Paxton, what—”

“I’ll call you.”

In a daze, he stumbled for his truck. His need to return to Kat fast bordered on panic. A wild, inexplicable urge jolting his system into action, setting his pulse to a gallop.

The aroma of the cooling burgers assaulted his nose as he climbed into the truck. No longer tantalizing, the smell made him swallow in reflex, trying not to get sick.

Intuition. As a firefighter, he’d learned to appreciate it, had survived more than one hairy situation by paying attention to the knot in his gut.

He was being ridiculous. Probably.

They could laugh at his overprotective instincts later. Much later, after he’d made love to her and held her in his arms.

After he told Kat how very much he loved her.

With a grateful sigh, Kat finished checking the last of her students’ writing exercises, tossed her pen onto the table, and stretched. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation of a fattening, juicy burger, despite her plans to dine on a mouthwatering man first.

How long had Howard been gone? Her eyes strayed toward the wall clock. Forty-five minutes. He ought to be home any minute, provided the detective’s business was brief.

Almost in direct answer to that thought, she heard a scrape from the direction of the kitchen. The telltale whoosh of a door opening, and the high-pitched steady tone of the home entry system, giving Howard thirty seconds to punch in the code before the thing began wailing.

Smiling, she vacated her chair and took a step toward the kitchen entry. “What took ya? I’m starving—”

Her greeting was interrupted by the phone, ringing from its place on the table. She’d laid it there after Howard called from Beer Bellies. Glancing toward the kitchen, she called, “Howard? I’ll get it.”

Turning around, she stepped back to the table and stared at the number on the caller ID.

Howard’s cell phone.

Confused, heart racing, she grabbed the handset and punched the Talk button. “Howard? Why are you calling from the kitchen? That’s
so
not funny—”

“What?” he barked. His voice rose. “What do you mean
from the kitchen
? I’m on my way home. Kat?”

Oh, God.

“Howard?” Her voice shook. Her hands began to tremble so hard, she almost dropped the phone. Slowly, she began to back away from the table, eyes glued to the doorway in front of her.

“Katherine, tell me what’s going on,” he yelled.

“Howard, if you’re not coming in through the kitchen . . . then who just set off the alarm?”

20

Fear blasted a trillion megawatts of electricity through his body.

Who just set off the alarm?

How he managed to keep his truck on the road or avoid running over anyone as he blew through every light downtown, Howard didn’t have a clue.

“Get out of the house!” he shouted, swerving to keep from sideswiping another vehicle. “Get out now!”

“Howard, there’s a man here,” Kat whimpered, voice breaking with terror. “The man from the party.”

The sound tore him apart, filled him with rage. “Run! Go out the front door!”

“He has a gun! Oh, God!” she cried, fumbling the receiver. “What do you want?”

A gun. Mother of God, he was too late.

His foot pressed down on the accelerator, his chest ready to explode with fear. “Kat? Sweetheart, talk to me!”

“I’m afraid she can’t do that right now,” a man said.
His
smug voice, the killer who’d called from Janine’s house.

“What do you want from me?” Howard demanded. “What the hell is this all about? Take me and leave her alone!”

He laughed as though this was a humorous request. “Don’t you wish. Listen closely. First, you’re going to call your illustrious chief and have him send in the troops. Your team, the police, snipers, whatever. I don’t give a shit who they send, as long as Bentley Mitchell’s holier-than-thou ass is present and accounted for. Got that?”

This man’s hatred for Bentley practically dripped blood through the phone. What in the name of God was going on?

In the background, Howard’s house alarm began to shriek.

“Yeah, I got it.” He got that the murdering lunatic was grandstanding.

And there was nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose.

“Good. Next, you tell all of them to stay clear, especially the fuckin’ cops, since they’re probably on their way. You come in alone, or your bitch dies. Got that, too?”

Howard’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, turning his knuckles white. If he could reach the son of a bitch, he’d rip his lungs out through his throat. “I understand. ”

“You know,” his tormentor said cheerfully, “I’m really looking forward to our reunion.”

His blood ran cold. His head pounded.

“Reunion? I don’t know you. Nobody I know would do this to me. To those innocent women.”

“Oh, you know me, all right. But I’m not surprised you need a little nudge. What’s it been, about thirty-one years?”

The monster from his nightmares chuckled.

“Drive careful, boy.”

Kat stared at the man taunting Howard on the phone—the man from Bentley’s party. The gun in his hand was pointed straight at the center of her chest. If she attempted a break for the door, he’d shoot her before she took two steps. So she tried to tamp down the mind-numbing terror and study her captor as she hadn’t before. His features, mannerisms, mood. Any detail she might capitalize on to help delay him from killing her.

He wasn’t overly tall, perhaps five-ten or five-eleven. He was built lean and tough, tanned, his brutally handsome face weathered. He’d lived hard, if the grooves carving lines on either side of his mouth, the dead hollowness in his icy blue eyes, were any indication.

Age hadn’t yet taken his looks. She guessed him to be in his mid- to-late fifties. His black hair was liberally threaded with gray, a bit scruffy over his ears, but attractive enough if a woman met him on the street and didn’t know he intended to mete out a gruesome end. Sort of like Al Pacino in
The Godfather,
before he started blowing people away.

Forcing her attention back to what he was saying, she caught the tail end of his verbal game. Reunion?

“What’s it been, about thirty-one years?” His low chuckle was one of malicious pleasure. “Drive careful, boy.”

Oh, please, no. For Howard’s sake, please don’t let it be true.

He hung up and returned her scrutiny, raking her up and down with his steely gaze. Those eyes were the key. Barren of the slightest scrap of humanity. Flat and fathomless, a writhing snake pit of evil.

“Turn off that fucking alarm,” he ordered, waving the muzzle toward the back door. “Don’t even think of running unless you want a hole in your spine the size of my goddamned fist.”

Her legs the consistency of noodles, she walked as slowly as she dared to the box beside the door leading to the garage. Hand shaking violently, she punched in one of the codes Howard made her memorize—the one programmed to silence the alarm, but send a 911 call to the police.

“Stupid slut, I know what you did,” he laughed, as though reading her mind. “Your boyfriend’s already calling the cops—like I give a shit. Won’t make any difference to either of you soon enough. Move toward the bedroom. Now!”

Dropping her gaze, she spied the edge of a pair of handcuffs sticking out of his front pocket. Her stomach lurched. If she let this maniac shackle her without a fight, not only would she be vulnerable, but Howard would be at his mercy, handicapped by fear of not being able to help her in time.
Like hell.

“I know who you are,” she said, stalling.

“Do you?” He cocked his head, lips curving upward. “Think you’re so smart? The real question is, who is Bentley Mitchell?”

Her insides froze. God, Bentley couldn’t have anything to do with the murders. That would destroy Howard. “Suppose you tell me.”

“And spoil the surprise?” He waved the gun. “Move it!”

As she turned to walk back into the kitchen, she saw the sliding glass door to the deck open about a foot. She guessed he’d entered there, jimmied the lock somehow. On the counter to her right sat a water glass. A poor weapon, but better than nothing. On the way past she snatched the glass and spun, catching him off guard.

With all her strength, she smashed it into the side of his head. He bellowed as the object shattered, slicing her hand and, hopefully, taking off half his face. Bending double, he grabbed his cheek, howling as she sprinted for freedom.

And she almost made it.

His body crashed into her from behind, sending them both into the breakfast nook table with a noisy clatter. The impact knocked the wind out of her, sent a bolt of pain shooting through the wrist that smacked the table’s edge. She cried out as they bounced, overturning chairs and landing in a heap of tangled limbs.

She scrambled from under him on her hands and knees, then pushed to her feet and leapt over the fallen chair. He caught her waist in midleap, tackling her to the floor. Her ankle gave a sickening twist and her chin bashed the hardwood flooring, clapping her teeth together. Blood gushed into her mouth and she thought she must’ve cut her tongue. The least of her worries.

Heaving a great gulp of air into her lungs, she screamed fit to raise the dead, and immediately found herself flipped onto her back, staring into her attacker’s furious, bloodied face.

Score one for me.

The satisfaction of cutting the asshole barely had time to register. Drawing back the hand with the gun, he leveled a blow to her temple in a lightning strike that shattered her vision and spun her brain into orbit.

“Whore,” he snarled, delivering another blow, this one catching her ear. “You’re gonna burn, and your lover’s gonna watch. Then I get to kill him, too. At long fucking last.”

Dimly, she was aware of being dragged. By her hair.

Howard.

Despite her best efforts, the vortex sucked her into darkness.

Howard slammed on his brakes and hit the garage door opener, truck screeching to a halt in his driveway just ahead of a police cruiser.

He was out and running for the garage even as an authoritative voice shouted for him to halt. Spinning around, charged with adrenaline and terror, he yelled, jabbing a finger at the officer. “I live here! I’m Lieutenant Howard Paxton, and you all need to stay the hell out or he’s going to kill her! His orders!”

The wide-eyed cop hesitated, pistol in hand. “The hostage—”

“Is dead if you interfere. He wants me inside, and that’s where I’m going, unless it’s your policy to shoot an unarmed man in the back.”

End of conversation. He’d wasted enough time.

Leaving the hapless cop to deal with what would surely escalate into a circus, Howard sprinted for the door leading into the kitchen from the garage.

The sight greeting him filled him with dread. Shards of glass littered the floor, and a trail of crimson droplets led to the small breakfast table, which had been knocked aside, the chairs overturned. The droplets became smears of blood. Signs of a struggle, and he knew without a doubt Kat hadn’t gone down without a fight.