Killing Mandy would take cunning. And intricate planning. She would be cautious. Waiting. Expecting. Anticipating the worst.
That’s all right. Let her be on guard. I simply have to devise a plan that will enable me to take her by surprise, to sneak up on her blind side.
She has a toddler whom she adores. Perhaps I can use little Emily Stulz in some way to lure Mandy into a trap.
A deep rumble of laughter fluttered up from her diaphragm and erupted into deliriously happy giggles. She had them all running scared. Each of them would be looking over her shoulder all the time, waiting for the unknown killer to strike.
Even wiseass policewoman Rachel Alsace had no idea who was marked for death, who the next victim would be.
But you have to know that you’re on my list. You, Kristen, and Lindsay. The ones who loved Jake the most.
Rachel had to admit that the following day when she arrived at 1111 SW Second Avenue and went to her desk in the corner of the squad room, she had hoped to see Dean. When she hadn’t caught even a glimpse of him by two that afternoon, she had begun to think he was avoiding her. Then when she was absorbed in looking over the photos from the Cupid Killer crime scene, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She jumped and yelped at the same time.
“Sorry,” Dean said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Exhaling a calming, relieved breath, Rachel swivelled around to face him. “Next time, blow a whistle or something.” She laid the photos aside.
Dean sat on the edge of her desk and glanced at the glossy prints. He fingered them, separating the top two, one a full shot of Jake from head to toe, his body pinned against the oak tree by a crossbow arrow, the other a photo of the bow, found at the scene.
“Nasty stuff,” Dean said.
Rachel nodded. “You know, back then all of us suspected one another. Crazy, huh? We were all a bunch of kids who knew nothing about crossbows. And it’s not as if St. Lizzy’s or Western or Washington High offered archery classes.”
“Yeah, it never entered our minds back then that it would take an expert with a bow to hit a guy dead center in the heart and pin him to a tree.”
“Even if the person had been fairly close, they still would have had to know what they were doing. I can’t think of anyone in our circle of friends that would qualify.” Rachel spread the photos apart, placing them side by side atop her desk. “When I first read over the file, I started wondering if a woman would be strong enough to handle the rigid tension on a crossbow, but then I read where there’s some kind of lever on a crossbow that would enable just about anybody to cock it.”
“Yeah, but just anybody couldn’t hit the target, especially not dead center.”
“I’ve looked at the report on the man who owned the crossbow, but apparently he was a dead end.” Rachel searched through the file folder until she found that specific report. “His name was-”
“Patrick Dewey,” Dean said.
Rachel stared at him. “You’ve taken a look at these files, haven’t you?”
“Sure. More than once,” Dean told her. “There was a time when Jake and I were good friends.”
“What actually happened between you two? When did you stop being best buddies?”
“You want to know the truth?”
“Yes.”
“When I found out that Jake had been driving the car the night Ian Powers was killed and that Jake laid all the blame on Ian because he was dead and couldn’t defend himself. Jake wasn’t about to take the rap for vehicular manslaughter.”
A tight fist constricted around Rachel’s heart and for a brief half second, she couldn’t breathe. So, it was true. All the accusations that Haylie had made against Jake had been true!
“How do you know that Jake was driving that night?”
Dean grunted. “Jake told me. A few weeks after Ian’s funeral. One night when we’d both had a few too many beers.”
“And you never told anyone?”
Dean didn’t respond. Instinctively Rachel knew there was more. The question was, did she really want to know exactly what the “more” was?
“Tell me the rest of it,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
“Jake threatened me,” Dean said.
“What? Are you saying Jake threatened to kill you?” If Jake had threatened Dean, wouldn’t that have given Dean a motive to murder his onetime best friend?
“He didn’t threaten to kill me,” Dean told her.
“I don’t understand, if he didn’t-”
“He threatened to harm someone who meant a great deal to me.”
Puzzled, Rachel stared at Dean.
“He told me that if I ever breathed a word about what he’d said about driving the car the night Ian died, he would seduce you and then drop you like a hot potato. I knew that if he did that, it would not only break your heart, but it would break your spirit.”
Rachel sat there staring at Dean, absorbing what he had just told her, coming to terms with distorted memories and shattered dreams. She’d had a major crush on Jake, had thought he hung the moon, despite the fact that she knew he could be a self-centered jerk. But she had never seen his truly dark side. And Dean, who had been the bane of her existence from kindergarten through high school, had been her hero, her champion. Why had she been so blind?
“Are you okay?” Dean reached out, clasped her hand resting on the desk, and gave it a squeeze.
“Yes, I’m okay. Just stunned. I thought I knew Jake. I was wrong about him.” Her gaze met Dean’s. “I was wrong about you, too.”
“Old news, honey. Jake’s history. He’s the past. He can’t hurt anybody now.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“Look, I can’t officially reopen the Cupid Killer case, but in my free time, there’s no reason I can’t help you sort through the old records, snoop around, and ask some new questions.”
“Are you saying you believe us-believe me-about the possibility that Jake’s killer murdered Haylie and Aurora and is stalking-”
He tapped his index finger on her lips. “Nah, I’m offering to do this just to make brownie points with you.”
It took Rachel a couple of seconds to realize Dean was joking. Or was he? He was looking at her like a hungry man staring at the last bite of food anywhere in sight.
“I’ll take you up on your offer,” she said. “And earning brownie points with me is dependent upon just how much help you are.”
“Fair enough.”
“Where do we start and when?”
“No time like the present.”
“But you’re still on duty.”
“I’m on an extended coffee break.”
“I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble,” she said. “Uncle Charlie and Aunt Laraine are having dinner out with friends tonight, so why don’t we borrow Uncle Charlie’s home office this evening, order in, and plan a strategy?”
“What time? Six?”
“Make it six-thirty.”
“It’s a date.”
She shook her head.
He chuckled. “Think of it as a study date.”
Every afternoon, about an hour before she started dinner, Mandy took Emily for a stroll up the street and through a nearby park. Today, she had considered not going. After all, if someone was stalking her…
But her neighborhood was one of the safest in the Portland area. And it was broad daylight. Besides that, she had a whistle and Mace, didn’t she? And even Jeff had agreed that she couldn’t live in terror every second of every day.
Five minutes later and only two blocks away from her house, Mandy was on the verge of a panic attack. She kept seeing shadows, kept sensing dark figures behind every tree, kept hearing odd sounds.
Ridiculous!
It was one of those spectacular days in Portland-bright sunshine flooded over the earth in warm, shimmering glory. The breeze was mild, birds were singing, and butterflies were fluttering all about. She should be enjoying this afternoon stroll with her daughter, not anticipating some sinister character to come out of nowhere and grab her.