The setup, p.19
The Setup, page 19
He laughed. “Yeah, she had one too many.”
He guided her along the sidewalk, which had turned into a tunnel.
She could barely focus on her feet tripping over the pavement, Jordy’s arm propping her up, Jordy propelling her to the same fate as her mother.
“No.”
“It’s okay. I pumped enough drugs into your system, you’ll hardly notice when the world stops turning for you.” He continued to march her along, and she was happy for him to do so, as she could barely feel her legs.
She could still feel the occasional brush of another human and hear voices far off at the end of the tunnel. He didn’t have her alone, yet.
Then she heard the jingle of keys, the beep of a horn. His car.
“No.” The word screamed in her head, but came out like a whimper.
Jordy mumbled something.
“What?” The word sounded like a wisp of air.
“Rule number four. The victim should never be someone you know. Rule number four. Rule number four.”
She put all her efforts into forming words with her mouth and tongue. “You know me, Jordy. I know you.”
“None of you know me. You pretend you do. Get muffins, Jordy. Get scones, Jordy. Get decaf, half-whip, low-fat, extra foam, shot on the side, Jordy.” He maneuvered her to the passenger side of his car, and she couldn’t move her limbs to fight him off, couldn’t reach her weapon, couldn’t get away.
“Rule number four. Rule number four.”
“You’re violating rule number four, Jordy.”
Had he heard her mumbled words?
He propped her against the car and opened the door. Once he got her in his car, he’d strangle her, dump her body and hook up with a prostitute.
“Rule number four. Rule number four,” Jordy sobbed as he grabbed her to shove her into the car.
“Stop, Jordy. It’s over. Let her go.”
Jordy dropped his hands from her body, and she slid halfway down the car.
Had she imagined Jake’s voice in her fog. “Jake?”
Jordy ducked and reached into the car. “Get back. I’ll kill her if you don’t get back.”
“Let her go, Jordy. It’s over. I called for backup. More cops than you can imagine are going to be rolling up any second.”
The scream of sirens punctuated Jake’s words, and Kyra hugged the side of the car to stay upright. It was over. She wasn’t going to die like her mother.
Jordy grabbed her around the neck and dragged her backward, a cold blade at her neck. “I said I’d kill her, and I will. It doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore. I broke rule number four.”
Kyra bucked against Jordy’s hold, creating a sliver of space between them. In that split second, a blast of gunfire cracked through the air.
Wet droplets sprayed her face as Jordy released his grip on her and crumpled to the ground at her feet. She staggered back, her hand sliding against the blood-splattered car window.
Jake rushed to her side, his weapon drawn, the smell of gunpowder permeating the air. He nudged Jordy’s body with his foot, and the unlikely killer rolled onto his back, the knife resting on his outstretched palm.
As several squad cars flooded the area, illuminating the sky with their revolving red-and-blue lights, Jake curled a hand around her waist, burying his face in her hair.
“Kyra! Are you all right? Tell me you’re all right.” He smoothed a rough hand down her throat.
She swallowed and mumbled, “He drugged me, but I’m fine. He didn’t cut me.”
Jake must’ve understood her because he gathered her in his arms and pressed his lips against her temple. “Thank God, you’re safe. I thought I’d lost you. I thought I’d reacted too slowly.”
Several cops rushed in, weapons drawn, but Kyra had eyes for only one cop. As she rested her head against his shoulder, she said, “You were just in time.”
Epilogue
“Kyra said one beer, Quinn.”
The gruff detective snorted. “Just because she solved her first murder case, she thinks she can boss us around.”
Kyra placed a bottle of beer in front of Quinn. “If I hadn’t gotten ahead of myself and had just left Uncommon Grounds without playing amateur sleuth and called Jake about my suspicions, which he already had, maybe the task force could’ve arrested Jordy Lee Cannon without fanfare and gotten some answers out of him.”
Jake grabbed the plates of fish and chips and brought them to the coffee table. “I don’t know what we could’ve gotten out of him. We know how he met his victims—at Uncommon Grounds in West Hollywood and Studio City. They weren’t alarmed when he approached them because they knew him from the coffee place or he looked vaguely familiar to them. He plunged a needle into their necks to disable them, got them in his car where he finished them off by strangulation and then dumped their bodies. He maybe tried to throw us off by mimicking The Player’s MO, and he took a piece of jewelry for a trophy—we found all the items in his room at his mother’s house.”
“But not the fingers.” Quinn picked up a fry, considered it and popped it into his mouth.
Jake chewed the inside of his mouth. “Maybe he never wanted the fingers as trophies. He just took them to copy The Player and got rid of them.”
“To catching the bad guy.” Kyra held up her beer, and Jake and Quinn toasted with her, clinking the necks of their bottles.
She said, “He sure seemed upset about breaking rule number four.”
Quinn raised his shaggy eyebrows and Jake said, “We think rule number four was not knowing your victim. Jordy figured he was following rule number four because he didn’t really know these women. We wouldn’t have been able to find out about Jordy by tracing the victims’ friends or family. But he knew he’d broken that rule because he didn’t choose random victims. He chose women he knew through Uncommon Grounds.”
Kyra shook some vinegar over her fish and chips. “I didn’t realize serial killers had sets of rules.”
“Of course they do.” Quinn glanced at Jake. “Did you find his rules or anything like that when you searched his mother’s house?”
“Nope. He must’ve had them in his head. I wonder what the other rules encompassed.”
“Obviously, not leaving prints or DNA. He wore gloves and he didn’t sexually assault his victims.” Quinn shook his head. “A careful killer...just like The Player.”
Kyra hunched her shoulders. “I’m just glad you found Jordy’s car so fast when you got to Melrose.”
“His manager told me where he parked. When Rachel mentioned that the two of you had met for coffee that night and then you left that message about finding something, I got a sinking feeling in my gut. I’m just glad I got there on time. I’d shoot that guy all over again and damn his interview or any lies he could tell us.”
Kyra gave him a look from beneath her lashes that made him glad all over again.
She brushed her fingers together. “At least Billy ID’d the first victim, so we didn’t need Jordy’s help with that.”
“Why did that take so long?” Quinn crunched into a piece of battered fish.
“Shelby Shipton was from out of town. She’d pulled up stakes in Idaho and came out to LA to make a new life and pursue her dreams.”
“Sounds like someone else I know.” Quinn reached over and grabbed Kyra’s hand. “I heard about Matt Dugan’s death. Are you okay?”
Kyra shifted her gaze from Quinn to Jake and back to Quinn’s face again. “I—I was sorry to hear about Matt. He took a bad road a long time ago, so it’s not surprising.”
Quinn squeezed Kyra’s fingers in his gnarled ones. “He won’t bother you anymore.”
She sniffed and took a gulp of beer.
Was the sadness feigned? Jake knew all too well you could mourn the loss of someone you didn’t like.
They finished their food, and he helped Kyra clean up the kitchen while Quinn watched TV. The old detective had gotten a supreme sense of satisfaction when they caught The Copycat Player—must’ve been almost as good as solving the original. Almost.
Kyra wiped her hands on a dish towel and snapped him with it. “Do you want to go outside and watch the sunset from the bridge?”
“Sounds good.” He called into the living room. “Quinn, you wanna go out with us?”
Quinn waved his hand. “You two go. I’m watching my show. I like to laugh at all the stupid things these detectives do—and the public really believes things work that way.”
Kyra poked Jake in the side. “You should watch a great movie called Shots Fired, Quinn. True to life.”
Jake rolled his eyes. She’d never let him forget that...and he hoped she’d keep on reminding him.
With a last glance at Quinn, Kyra opened the front door and stepped onto the porch.
Jake inhaled the scent of the ocean. “It’s pretty out here.”
“Not quite like Venice, Italy, but not like LA, either.”
When they got to the bridge, they sat down, dangling their legs over the water. Jake slipped an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him. They hadn’t had a real date yet, but what they’d been through together had brought them closer than a hundred real dates could.
He pinched her chin with his fingers and kissed her sweet lips, just a little tart from the lemon. But that was Kyra—sweet and tart.
When he pulled away, she stroked his jaw with her fingertips. “Does this mean you don’t hate therapists anymore?”
“Never did.” He rubbed her back, which arched like a cat’s beneath his touch. “I’m liking this therapist a lot right now.”
The phone next to him on the wooden bridge buzzed, and he groaned. “The pitfalls of dating a cop. My ex-wife never got used to it.”
“I’m not your ex.” Kyra swept up the phone and handed it to him. “It’s Billy.”
“Hey, Billy. You’re interrupting my private time.”
“I didn’t know you had any of that, brother.” Billy coughed. “You’re gonna want to hear this—or maybe not.”
“What is it?” A slow dread thrummed through Jake’s veins.
“Body just discovered—card in the mouth and severed little finger.”
Jake’s gut knotted as he grabbed Kyra’s hand.
“What’s wrong, Jake?”
“Looks like we have another copycat killer.”
* * *
Look for The Decoy, the next book in
A Kyra and Jake Investigation series
from Carol Ericson, available next month wherever Harlequin Intrigue books are sold!
Keep reading for an excerpt from Presumed Deadly by Cindi Myers.
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Presumed Deadly
by Cindi Myers
Chapter One
From the back of the crowd, Dane Trask watched the woman who was speaking to the gathered reporters and members of the public. They stood in front of Ranger Brigade headquarters near the entrance to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. A short, slender woman wearing the khaki uniform of the Rangers, she had drawn her dark hair back into a bun at the nape of her neck, a style that might have been severe on anyone with less delicate, feminine features. On Deputy Faith Martin, the effect was of a ballerina in disguise. The few stray curls the wind had tugged loose further softened her appearance.
She attempted to mask the softness with a straight back and shoulders, and a firm voice that carried authority. When she spoke, the reporters—and Dane—leaned forward to listen. “We are still searching for Dane Trask, and welcome any information from the public that could lead to his safe return,” she said.
Several other Ranger officers and the commander, who stood behind Deputy Martin on the metal platform erected outside the building, shifted restlessly. Every one of those men and women had been hunting Dane for the past seven weeks. What would they say if they knew he was here in this sun-lit parking lot, less than fifty yards from them?
Martin moved on to the main reason behind this press conference, the recent death of Terrell, Davis, and Compton vice president Mitch Ruffino in a shoot-out with Rangers and the Montrose County Sheriff’s Office. “The evidence we have uncovered shows that Mitchell Ruffino, in his capacity as vice president of TDC Enterprises, falsified records to obscure the removal of radioactive material from land donated at his direction for a new elementary school,” she said. “Dane Trask allegedly discovered this and confronted Ruffino, who threatened Trask and his family. Trask fled, and it was actually his daughter, Audra Trask, who uncovered the plot and worked with the Rangers to expose the crime.”
Dane’s chest tightened at the mention of Audra. She was here today, too, standing at the end of the line of Rangers, one hand clutching the arm of a blond officer who looked more like a surfer than a cop. She looked good, smiling and happy, probably relieved that this ordeal was over and she was safe.
If only Dane could believe that. His gaze shifted to the other end of the line of people on the dais, to the silver-haired man at the very end. Dressed in a gray business suit, Charles Terrell radiated power and success. Now that Ruffino was out of the way, Terrell had everything under control. He had said so in an article that had made not just the local and Denver papers, but national news. “We are shocked and horrified that a man we trusted would carry out such a criminal scheme and we are determined to do everything in our power to set things right,” Terrell had said in the copy of the Denver Post Dane had found at a campsite in the park. “We are working hard to regain the trust and confidence of communities we are a part of, and we’re paying reparations to those victimized by Ruffino—and that includes Dane Trask. We hope Dane will step forward soon so that we can reward him for his efforts to expose Ruffino’s crimes.”
Yeah, Terrell wanted Dane to step forward, all right. So he could finish the job Ruffino had started.
“Is Dane Trask still a criminal suspect?” a reporter near the front of the crowd asked.
“Mr. Trask is still missing and we would like to find him,” Martin said. She looked out across the crowd and Dane moved behind a taller man, instinctively avoiding her gaze, though he was sure no one would recognize him. Since disappearing into the wilderness of the park over seven weeks before, he’d let his beard and hair grow. Today he wore the braid, bandana and leather jacket of a biker, mirrored sunglasses to hide his eyes, stooped his shoulders to disguise his height. He was just another tourist drawn by the crowd near the park entrance.
“But is Trask still a criminal suspect?” the reporter asked again. “Is he wanted in the death of Roy Holliday, or for thefts from campers in the park, or for other unsolved crimes in the area?”
“Mr. Trask is not a suspect in the death of Roy Holliday,” Deputy Martin said.
Dane had read about the reporter whose body had been found just outside the park—miles from anywhere Dane had been. But TDC had tried to make him the scapegoat for that and other of their crimes.
“Did Mitch Ruffino kill Holliday?” another reporter asked.
“Mr. Ruffino is a suspect in that case, yes,” Martin said.
“Pretty convenient, now that he’s dead,” someone—Dane couldn’t tell who—said.
“If Mitch Ruffino threatened Dane Trask, then now that Ruffino is dead, doesn’t that mean it’s safe for Trask to come out of hiding?” The speaker, a blond woman Dane thought worked for one of the local television stations, stood on her toes to see over the man in front of her.
“Yes,” Martin said, “and we would very much like him to do that.”
“Why do you think he hasn’t come forward?” the first man asked. “Do you think he’s still alive?”
“We believe he is still alive,” Martin said. “As for why he hasn’t come forward, I think Dane Trask is the only one who can answer that question.”
“Is TDC still offering a reward for Trask’s apprehension?” someone asked.
Martin looked to Terrell, who took a step forward and said, in a loud voice that carried, “We believe that since Dane hasn’t yet come forward, he may not be aware that it’s safe to do so. Or he may be hurt or injured. Therefore, we are increasing the reward to whoever finds him from twenty-five thousand dollars to fifty thousand.”
A gasp rose from the crowd and the people around Dane murmured. But he was watching Martin. Her expression clearly conveyed that she hadn’t been informed of this new development and she wasn’t pleased. Not a smart move on Terrell’s part, Dane thought. Why offer so much cash for a man who wasn’t a threat anymore?
Because Dane was still very much a threat to Terrell and his operation. Was Martin asking herself that question, and would she come up with the right answer?
Her eyes shifted, and she looked right at him. He felt that gaze, even across this parking lot, like the hot sting of a thrown dart. He forced himself to remain still, to meet the look from behind the mirrored lenses of his sunglasses. She didn’t know who he was. He wasn’t Dane Trask, outlaw—he was just a biker who had caught her eye. He smiled, a slow, frankly lascivious look. She jerked her gaze away, but there was no mistaking the hot flush that swept across her cheeks.
Or the warm thrill of desire that gripped him at her response. No surprise there. He’d been alone a long time now, and Deputy Martin was an attractive woman. But he knew himself well enough to admit that it was more than her feminine beauty that got to him. When their eyes had met, something else had registered with him. Faith Martin was smart.
