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“The theory is, he procured the victims. Followed them, scouted out their schedules, getting to know them so that he and the alpha killer could get the drop on them more easily—”
“Alpha killer?”
“That’s the theory. The alpha killer wields the knife. The beta does the legwork beforehand.”
“Whose theory?”
Here we go, J.D. thought. “A criminal psychology doctoral student figured it out.”
“A student?” Massey sounded skeptical.
J.D. pressed his lips together tightly, growing annoyed. “A doctoral student. An instructor, really. And she’s a hell of a lot smarter than—”
“She?”
“Yes, she.”
“Let me guess—new girlfriend? Got you a pretty little young thing who comes up with this fancy idea, so you thought you’d snoop around to impress her by handing her a new case to ponder?”
J.D. stared at Massey, repulsed. “The girl’s barely six years older than my daughter.”
“And you’re listening to her theories?” Massey snapped back.
This interview clearly wasn’t getting J.D. anywhere. Maybe he should play the apology card and see if he could get them to just let him go without any further trouble.
“Fine—you don’t buy the serial killer pair theory. But do you at least get that I wasn’t there to cause any trouble or do anything illegal?” he asked Deputy Massey.
“You were already doing something illegal—trespassing.”
“How did you know?” J.D. asked.
“Know what?”
“That I was trespassing.”
Massey’s eyes narrowed. “A 911 call.”
J.D. tried to hide his surprise. Who would have called 911? The place was in the middle of nowhere, on a road that had seen absolutely no traffic in the short time J.D. was there looking around, at least until the deputies rolled up, sirens blaring.
Unless—
“Don’t suppose you know who called it in?”
Massey looked suspicious. “What does it matter? Was she wrong—?” He stopped, flushing as he realized he had just spilled more than he’d intended.
So a woman had called it in. A woman who’d apparently been sneaking around the restaurant herself, if she’d been in position to see J.D. looking around the property.
Now, who did he know who had a reason to be at the restaurant—and who’d probably be more than happy to call in a prowler report just to get J.D. out of her way?
“Doesn’t matter,” he told Massey aloud. “You’re right, she saw what she saw.”
“Why do you carry a gun?” Massey asked.
J.D. was surprised the deputy hadn’t asked that question first. “I have a permit for concealed carry.”
“I know. We looked it up. But why the CCW permit?”
“Last November, some drug enforcers came gunning for my brother. They were sent by a drug lord named Eladio Cordero—”
Massey spat out a profanity. “Luke Cooper’s your brother?”
“Yeah,” J.D. said with a nod. “I carry the SIG for my own protection.”
“Way I heard it, your family took out most of the bad guys by yourselves before the law arrived.” Massey’s smile was grim but satisfied. “I’d have liked to have a piece of that.”
“Am I free to go now?” J.D. asked. “You won’t catch me trespassing again.”
“Leaving town?”
“Not right away,” J.D. answered honestly. “I have to wait until my kid’s finished visiting his grandparents.”
“They live in the area?” Massey asked.
“Yeah,” J.D. answered, realizing he should have dropped his in-laws’ names from the beginning. “George and Lois Teague. Do you know them?”
Massey’s eyes lit up. “Why sure, everybody around here knows Doc Teague. He’s been treating most of the town since we were kids. You’re Doc Teague’s—” The deputy’s voice faltered as he put the clues together. “You’re Brenda’s husband. The sailor.”
“Yes.”
The deputy’s expression grew grim. “I went to school a few years behind Brenda, but I knew her. Nicest person you’d ever want to know.”
J.D.’s heart contracted. “Yeah, she was.”
“I guess I can’t blame you for going to extremes to find the bastard who killed her,” Massey said, his demeanor completely changed. “But I can’t really have you out there interfering with an ongoing murder investigation, Mr. Cooper. You understand?”
J.D. nodded. “I understand.” He hadn’t really figured the local lawmen would buy into Alicia Solano’s two-killer theory without a lot more evidence. He’d just wanted to make the deputy understand he wasn’t a threat to law and order in Terrebonne.
“I’m going to let you go now, but you can’t just be going around trespassing on private property, you hear? Let us handle it. I promise you, if there’s any chance at all the perp we’re looking for was behind Brenda’s murder, I’ll personally bring the son of a bitch down. All right?”
The tight sensation in J.D.’s chest spread to his gut. Everybody really had loved Brenda. She was one of those people who just made life better. She should have died in her nineties, after a long, full and happy life, not at the painfully young age of twenty-eight in the parking lot of an Alabama trucking company.
“All right,” he said aloud.
Massey walked J.D. out to his truck, which another deputy had brought to the station. He returned J.D.’s weapon and holster to him. “Take care, Mr. Cooper. No offense, but I’d rather not see you in here again.”
Same here, J.D. thought as he climbed into the truck.
He’d just be a lot more careful next time.
His cell phone rang before he reached the motel. He thumbed it on and answered.
It was Gabe. “You’re set to talk to Dyson tomorrow morning at ten. You’ll have to set out early—it’s a three-hour drive.”
J.D.’s stomach dropped. He’d been pushing for a face-to-face with Dyson for a month, but now that the time was imminent, he wasn’t sure he knew what to ask. “I’ll be there,” he told Gabe and hung up, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel.
The Millbridge police had already checked Dyson’s background, on Alicia’s request. Dyson had been a teenager, living with his mother in North Carolina, at the time of Brenda’s murder. He didn’t have any long, unexplained absences in his history. The kid wasn’t in on Brenda’s murder.
But J.D. was pretty sure Dyson knew about all the murders. When he’d been stalking Alicia, he’d left her a note warning her she’d be victim number twenty-two. Fortunately, thanks to Alicia’s level head and killer swing with a crowbar, Dyson hadn’t been able to keep that promise.
Apparently it had been Carrie Gray’s tragic misfortune to become the twenty-second victim instead.
Back at the motel, he decided not to overthink what he would say to Dyson the next day. Instead, he took his mind off the trip to Millbridge with a phone call to his daughter, Cissy, who was staying at his parents’ place while he was down here in Terrebonne. She’d wanted to stay alone at the house; but with Eladio Cordero still gunning for Luke and anyone he loved, he didn’t like the idea of his nineteen-year-old daughter staying alone, even though she was as good a shot as he was these days.
She answered on the second ring, a little out of breath. “Hi, Daddy. Are you and Mike on your way home?”
“Miss us?”
“Well, you, maybe. Not the brat.” But her voice was affectionate, belying her words. “Actually, it’s kind of fun hanging with Grandma and Daddy Mike. I’ve really missed them while I was at college.” Cissy was a student at Mill Valley University in Millbridge, renting a place in the same apartment complex where Alicia Solano had lived when she was in Millbridge—which was rare these days, as Alicia was actively seeking a job closer to Gossamer Ridge in anticipation of earning her doctorate later this summer.
“You can always transfer to a college closer to home,” J.D. reminded her, hoping she’d agree.
Of course, his independent-minded girl-child didn’t. “No, I like it in Millbridge. I have friends there. Besides, it’s a three-hour drive—I’ll be home all the time.”
“Like you were the last two years?”
“You’re such a dad.”
J.D. grinned. Although there was a guilty little niggle in the center of his chest more than happy to remind him he hadn’t been much of a good dad after Brenda died: spending more time chasing elusive justice than comforting his children. “I’m going to be out of pocket awhile tomorrow, so I thought I’d check in tonight and let you know.”
“Alicia got you set up to visit Marlon Dyson?”
He sighed. “Does she tell you everything?”
“Better than telling me nothing.” She softened her sharp retort by adding, “You ready for it? You want me to drive down?”
He didn’t know whether to be touched by the concern in her voice or insulted. He was a grown man—her father—and his daughter shouldn’t feel he needed her to hold his hand. “I’m ready. You stay up there and keep an eye on old Rowdy.”
His old mixed-hound was getting on up in years now. He’d still been a puppy when Brenda died, but these days, he was starting to slow down. He was really more Mike’s dog than J.D.’s these days, although there’d been nights right after Brenda’s murder when J.D. hadn’t been sure he could get through the long, bleak hours without that pup by his side.
“Call me if you need me. I can be in Millbridge in three hours. Terrebonne in six.”
“I’ll call you if I need you,” he promised. “Ciss?”
“Yeah?”
“You know I love you, don’t you?”
Her voice cracked a little. “Of course I do.”
“Good. ’Cause I do.”
“I love you, too. Call me when you get done, okay?”
“Will do.” He hung up the phone and laid his head back against the pillows of the motel bed, staring at the ceiling above, where waning daylight painted a crisscross of lengthening shadows over the sheetrock.
He’d spent half the afternoon, it seemed, assuring everyone he knew that he was fine, ready to visit Marlon Dyson and see if he could get information the police had, so far, been unable to obtain.
But he wasn’t fine. He wasn’t sure he was ready.
And he was lonely as hell.
MORNING CAME ENTIRELY too early for Natalie, in no small part because her sleep had consisted of one long nightmare, a relentless replay of the same harrowing image: she was Carrie, and she was trapped in the cluttered kitchen of Annabelle’s, the back door blocked by a junk pile of old appliances stored there for eventual removal, and the front door blocked by a darkened silhouette wielding a sharp, deadly knife.
She ran and ran and never got anywhere, and still the dark figure came toward her, in calm, unhurried paces. He knew she was trapped. He knew he could do what he wanted to her, and nobody would be close enough to hear her screams.
Waking for good at 5:30 a.m., she dragged herself from bed and showered, then contemplated what to do with the rest of her day, now that she didn’t have a job to go to. Her mother had told her she should come by the house more often, but by now, the town grapevine would surely have made its way to her parents, and the last thing she wanted to do with her day was spend it listening to her father’s litany of I-told-you-sos.
Roy Tatum had also told her to stay away from Hamilton Gray, which she didn’t intend to do, but it would be smart to keep her distance for the next couple of days, at least.
That left J. D. Cooper.
She’d hung around Annabelle’s long enough to see him taken into custody. She’d been surprised the deputies had gone that far on a simple trespass, but she supposed in a place as small as Terrebonne, a brutal murder could put law enforcement on edge.
She’d followed the squad car to the police station, parking far enough away to avoid detection but close enough to see Massey walk J. D. Cooper to his truck about an hour after he arrived at the sheriff’s station, sparing her the need to intervene.
After all, Annabelle’s was her property now. Carrie had left it to her in the will. All that was left was the paperwork. She had a say in who was trespassing and who wasn’t.
She ended up at Margo’s Diner for breakfast. Margo herself was behind the counter, entirely too energetic for such an early hour. She poured Natalie strong, black coffee without waiting for the order and set the cup on the counter in front of her. “There was a man here yesterday who seemed mighty interested in you.”
Natalie glanced up from the steaming coffee. “Dark hair, blue eyes, about the size of a grizzly?”
Margo grinned. “So you’ve met him?”
She answered with a low growling noise. So, now J. D. Cooper was asking around town about her. “What did he want to know?”
“Not that much, really.” Margo blushed under a layer of makeup, and Natalie got the feeling she’d done most of the talking. She did love to gossip. “He asked if you were married.”
Natalie arched an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“I wouldn’t think much of it. He’s married.”
“Actually, he’s a widower,” Natalie corrected, though she wasn’t sure why she bothered. Margo would probably latch on to that piece of information and turn it into a big deal. She didn’t give Margo time to ask any more questions. “Did he ask anything about Carrie’s murder?”
“You know, he did. He wanted to know if I thought Hamilton Gray could have killed her.”
Interesting. So he was open to her theory of what happened to Carrie. “What did you tell him?”
Margo blushed again. “I know you think it’s Hamilton, honey, but I just can’t see why he’d do it. It’s not like your sister would get any of his money if they just divorced. And he’s not going to inherit anything from her because of that prenup.”
