The door opened. Patty looked in and had to take a moment to assess what she was seeing. Without meaning to, she said out loud, “What the hell is this?”
It wasn’t hard for Lynn to convince the little stockbroker pest to follow her in his Mustang. She had no real plan where she was going but knew if she wanted to do anything at all it could not be in the parking lot of The Knight’s Tower. A real thrill rushed through her and she visualized how she might best utilize the knife. It seemed like such a good idea but also a huge risk.
The streets of Winter Park were very quiet as she drove north on one of the main highways. The pest was still directly behind her. She saw a large parking lot with only a very few cars in it. It was an off-brand supermarket that had taken over the shell of a departed Kmart. She pulled to the far corner where burned-out lights caused huge shadows.
She was out of the car with the Buck knife in her hand before the red Mustang had pulled to a stop. Lynn liked the weight of the sturdy knife in her hand. She hadn’t opened it yet. Staring down at it made her heart rate increase and she felt an odd surge of power.
The pest hopped out of his Mustang and scurried back to her like a kid ready to open a Christmas present. He all but rubbed his hands in nervous anticipation.
As he came closer, Lynn felt like she was snapped back to reality. What was she thinking? This is exactly what she did not want to become. A random killer. Not only would it divert her from her real mission, it would eat away at her from the inside out. This was not who she was or how she’d been raised.
She still had the empty, unsatisfied feeling of allowing Kyle Lee to escape. And it was pretty much this idiot’s fault. As he stumbled to a stop right in front of her, Lynn looked at him and without thinking swung her hand with the closed knife in it. She struck him across the temple and watched him drop to the ground like a sack of rice. He lay there, stunned and disoriented, while she stood above him trying to gather some of the excitement she had lost when Kyle Lee walked out of the bar.
It clearly wasn’t as exciting as plunging a knife into someone’s throat. But she knew this was a better option. Lynn looked down at the stunned man and said, “Have you learned your lesson?”
The pest still couldn’t speak. He was able to cut his eyes up at her as blood dripped down from the gash on the side of his head.
“When a woman tells you to leave her alone, you leave her alone. Do you understand that?”
In addition to being hurt, the young man now started to tremble uncontrollably. He struggled to simply nod his head.
Now Lynn was experiencing some of the high she’d missed. The young man’s shaking body and blood satisfied her need to feel important. It was not as effective a practice run as using the blade of the knife, but she figured if she could knock a healthy, adult male off his feet by slapping him in the head with a closed knife, an open one would be even more effective.
She left him whimpering in the dirty parking lot. Maybe he wouldn’t bother women anymore.
EIGHTEEN
Patty stood at the door speechless. She had considered a number of possibilities as she took the elevator up, but this was not one of them. Though she had meant to surprise Ken, she now found she was the one who’d been surprised. This had been a test. She’d prepared herself for the fact that it could destroy their fledgling relationship. But she’d thought it was better to know things now rather than wait and invest months with someone she couldn’t trust.
However, this was different.
Ken stared at her and could only manage a “Hey.”
“Hey.” Her voice seemed small and shaky.
“I didn’t expect any company.”
“Obviously.”
“Would you like to come in?”
She couldn’t believe how cool he was being.
Ken said, “I thought you’d be in Ocala and I needed a night like this.” He lifted his hands above his head and swept them down his body. He wore a clear plastic shower cap with some type of cream conditioner in his hair. His face had avocado mask smeared over it. He had mitts over his hands. A dark silk robe ran the length of his body and his toes were separated by cotton balls. All he could say was “I needed a night of beauty.”
Then Patty started to laugh uncontrollably.
It took a while for Stallings to pinpoint what was bothering him. Or at least what was bothering him more than usual. It had been the sight of his father breaking down and sobbing. He’d never seen his father lose control like that before. When Stallings was a child, his father had seemed like the biggest, toughest man who ever lived. Now he realized his father’s distance and drinking had kept him from any broad emotional displays. But now the older, frailer version of James Stallings cried for more than twenty minutes about God knew what, taking Stallings by surprise.
His father wasn’t able to put his finger on it, but he felt it was a combination of his fading memory and his inability to help her son find Jeanie. Grace was wonderful as she sat there quietly and offered the occasional hug. She even volunteered to come with Stallings when he left in case he needed something, but he knew right now he needed to be alone. After dropping his father off at the rooming house where he lived, Stallings headed toward his own house in Lakewood.
Having a few minutes to think, he wondered if it would be a good time to take a leave of absence from the sheriff’s office. An extended leave from work, so he could do nothing but concentrate on finding Jeanie. But immediately he saw the error in his plan. He would limit his resources if he wasn’t at the sheriff’s office. The other issue was Zach Halston. The fraternity brother had gotten under his skin and no matter what, with or without Jeanie, he still needed to find out what had happened to Zach Halston. Some people called it the gift of curiosity and the building block of what made a good cop, but Stallings looked at it more as a curse. Once something got in his head, there was almost no way to move on until he resolved the issue entirely. It was that attitude in homicide that drove him to spend so much time on each case he lost track of his own family. He couldn’t live with the idea of a killer getting away with a murder. It kept him awake at night. To this day he still kept track of the few cold-case homicides he couldn’t solve. That’s what he did and who he was. You could never escape responsibility. Responsibility to your kids at home, or your parents as they got older, or your work if you took it seriously.
One bright spot in the evening was getting to know someone like Grace Jackson, who was just the kind of example he needed to keep moving forward and not lose hope.
It was a long drive back to Jacksonville, and it gave Lynn time to think. She could not deny the immense satisfaction she’d felt slapping the knife across the stockbroker’s face. The power that surged through her was not quite as exhilarating as killing someone, but it was a temporary remedy.
She didn’t want to be like the killers she’d read about. She didn’t want to be driven by only one thing. She had a life. A family. Lynn still wanted to have a family of her own. Now she was determined more than ever to finish this and move on with her life.
She’d get to Kyle Lee next week, then follow her schedule to be done with all of this by the New Year. Then she could pursue the life she had intended. No regrets and no more anger.
NINETEEN
John Stallings had driven the length of University Boulevard, which ran through the entire city from Lakewood. He rented this tiny house all the way north where it ended in Charter Point. The road got its name from Jacksonville University or, as virtually everyone in the city called it, JU. It was a smaller, private university known for its basketball and baseball teams. The argument could be made that the much larger public university, the University of North Florida, was also close to University Boulevard, but in reality it was farther east, off Kernan Boulevard near J. Turner Butler Boulevard. The large apartment complex that served as the hub for fraternity houses was closer to UNF on Bean Boulevard.