Three (Count to Ten Book 3) Page 5

  Eve opened her mouth as if to protest, then snapped it shut again. Apparently, she was aware of this.

  “I caught him with my girlfriends several times when I was a teenager,” Peter glowered. “I swear he would have slept with anything in a skirt. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d done Cindy.”

  “Peter,” Eve reprimanded sharply. “Your father would never do that.”

  He huffed unapologetically. “If you say so.”

  In her mind, Paige dismissed Peter as a suspect. He was too angry. If he’d killed his father, he would have stabbed him or shot him or maybe beaten him. Something wild and anger-fueled. Not the calm, cool, and collected method that their killer had used. She could see why Cindy didn’t like her brother. Peter took his anger at his father too far, taking it out on everyone around him. Eve, on the other hand, was completely calm and in control. She hadn't seemed rattled throughout their entire interview.

  Paige wasn’t sure what she thought about Cindy now, though. She wasn’t sure if Peter was simply spouting off out of anger, or whether his accusation had some basis in fact. If Cindy had been sexually abused as a child by her father, perhaps her traumatized and shocked brain had tried to make sense out of what had happened to her by deluding itself into thinking that she and her father were in love and in a committed relationship. Maybe she had killed him out of jealousy. They needed to talk to Cindy again once she’d calmed down.

  “We need your alibis,” Ryan reminded them.

  “Cindy and James would have been at home with their partners. Peter, too,” Eve added.

  Peter nodded his assent. “My wife is in the other room, as well as James’ wife and Cindy’s husband.”

  “Mrs. Hitacheel?”

  “Home alone,” she replied.

  “Anyone who can verify that?”

  “No one,” she answered. “Even Roman wouldn’t have been able to; we sleep in different bedrooms. I'm going to go check on my daughter now, and then I'm going back to my family and friends,” Eve announced, standing and leaving the room.

  “I know you have a job to do, but I don’t think any of us—other than Cindy—really care if you find who killed my father or not,” Peter told them before following his mother from the room.

  Once they were alone, Paige glanced at her partner, who nodded that they were on the same page. “I don’t think James was involved, but Peter is so full of anger toward his father, I don’t think we can count him out just yet. And we need to find out whether Cindy was abused; if she was, it could speak for motive. But Eve knew about the affairs, including the ones with their children’s underage girlfriends. She had no alibi for last night. She’s too calm about the whole thing. I think for now she’s our number one suspect.”

  * * * * *

  6:11 P.M.

  Detective Xavier Montague arrived at the Landers house just as the ambulance pulled away. He would talk to Garton Landers as soon as the doctors said the man was strong enough to be interviewed. Per his Lieutenant, Robert Hollow, who had called him an hour ago to give him the case, Garton had sustained only minor injuries, but the man was in shock, able to cry only that the ‘blood man’ had killed his wife.

  Slipping on booties over his shoes and a pair of latex gloves before entering the Landers house, Xavier headed straight for the master bedroom but stopped short at the door.

  The room was literally covered in blood.

  It streaked the walls and the ceiling.

  It drenched the carpet.

  It soaked the bed.

  And it left Xavier with a horrible sense of déjà vu.

  He had seen this level of violence once before.

  His mind flashed back in time eight months.

  Another house. Another family. Blood everywhere. Mutilated bodies.

  It was the first time he’d met Annabelle. She had been unconscious and bleeding, then she had opened her eyes, such a pale blue they appeared white, and looked at him. A part of him had immediately known there was something between them that wouldn’t go away.

  A hand on his shoulder startled him.

  “Xavier? You okay?”

  Slowly his vision cleared and he was back in the present.

  “Xavier?”

  “Yeah, I'm okay.” He had to force the words out past the fear choking him.

  Ricky Preston had sent them a letter.

  He’d said he was back.

  And this crime scene had Ricky’s name scrawled all over it.

  She seemed to read Xavier’s mind. “I know. I thought the same thing the second I walked in here.”

  He considered the brown eyes that looked back at him anxiously. “So I'm not crazy?”

  She offered up a faint smile. “Maybe you're a little crazy, but on this we agree,” Diane Jolly assured him.

  Xavier had known Diane for years. In fact, he’d met the crime scene tech on his first day as a cop. He respected and trusted Diane, and the fact that she, too, sensed Ricky Preston’s presence here was reassuring.

  “We can't jump to conclusions, though,” Diane continued. “We don’t know for sure that it’s him. We don’t want to miss something important because we’re fixated on Ricky.”

  “He sent me and Annabelle a letter today,” he confessed.

  “Oh no.” Diane’s face creased with concern. “How’s Annabelle?”

  “Not good.” The familiar rush of fear washed over him as he thought of the trauma Annabelle had suffered at Ricky’s hand. She rarely slept through the night; she rarely left the house. Knowing that Ricky was still out there was slowly killing her. And her fear was killing him.

  Xavier wanted to see Annabelle relax; he wanted to see her enjoy life in a way he knew she never had—even before Ricky killed her family. She was beginning to trust him, though. Beginning to believe that he was truly over his first wife, Julia. Beginning to believe that he was serious about and committed to their relationship and future together. Beginning to believe that there was more to life than shutting yourself off from everyone because you were afraid of being hurt.

  There was still so much more he had to teach her. He wanted her to start seeing herself as others saw her. Annabelle was beautiful, with her unusual white eyes, delicate features, and silky brown hair, but she didn’t see it. He wanted her to learn to stand up for herself. Annabelle hated confrontation so much she would do or say anything to make sure everyone around her was happy with her. Xavier wanted to see her be truly happy.

  However, he knew the reality was that as long as Ricky Preston was out there, Annabelle would be forever paralyzed by fear. And he couldn’t let that happen.

  “Poor thing, she’s been through so much. What did Ricky say in the letter?”

  “That he was back,” Xavier took in the blood-splattered room. “And this certainly looks like he’s back.”

  Setting aside thoughts of Ricky Preston for the moment, he took in the scene before him. Diane was right. They couldn’t get sidetracked just because the blood-soaked room reminded them of Ricky’s previous murderous rampage. Garton Landers and his deceased wife Erica were the priority here, not Ricky Preston. But if it turned out that Ricky was responsible, then Xavier would stop at nothing to make sure he didn’t get away this time.

  A chair lay on its side by a bureau, shorn ropes scattered around it.

  A sheet, blanket, and quilt lay in a tangle on the floor on one side of the bed.

  Bloody footprints crisscrossed the room.

  Xavier walked slowly toward the bed, around which most of the blood activity was focused. Medical examiner, Billy Newton, looked up at him grimly, then back down at the body—if it could still be called that. Erica Landers had been struck so many times that her body was barely recognizable as a body. One arm had nearly been severed at the shoulder. A leg had been severed at the knee. Her torso had been cut open, exposing more internal organs than Xavier wanted to see.

  “Approximate time of death?” Xavier asked Billy.

  Billy stifled a yawn. He had se
ven kids including three sets of twins; the man was always tired. “Sometime early this morning.”

  “So it took Garton Landers a long time to work himself free from the ropes,” Xavier pondered aloud. “The killer came prepared with rope and duct tape.” He gestured to the ropes on the floor by the chair, and the rope and tape still binding Erica's wrists and ankles to the bedposts. “He probably waited for them to fall asleep before he made his move.” He spun in a circle to scan the room, searching for the perfect hiding place. The closet. Heading for it, he opened the doors, noting immediately that the shoes on the floor at one side were messed up while the shoes on the other side were perfectly aligned. “Diane, check out the closet; I think this is where he waited.”

  Diane came over and immediately began to search for fingerprints on the door handles and shoes. “I printed the bloody footprints, too,” she told him. “When you get your guy, the prints will tie him to this conclusively.”

  He nodded absently; his mind still working on how this had played out. It helped to talk things through with someone, and this was when Xavier missed his old partner the most. Kate had been gone on maternity leave for four months now; her baby boy was almost three months old. Xavier knew that Kate was toying with the idea of not returning to work when her maternity leave was over, and he was torn between desperately wanting her to return and hoping she stayed home with her little boy because he knew how much she loved it. Xavier knew he’d end up with a new partner any time now. He’d already gone through two since Kate had left, but both had fallen through for various reasons.

  “You think he went after the husband or wife first?” Diane asked.

  “Husband,” Xavier replied immediately. It made sense that the killer would neutralize the biggest threat first. “Once he had the husband tied up he had a way to keep the wife under control. Garton Landers had a cut on his neck, right?”

  Diane nodded.

  “He probably threatened to hurt her husband unless she did as he said. Then once he had her tied up he was free to kill her. He wanted the husband to watch. Probably had the chair set up behind the bed while he killed the wife. He wanted the husband to suffer, wanted him to be left all alone.” Again, Xavier couldn’t help but think of Ricky Preston’s killing spree. His MO was to always leave one family member alive.

  “Then it looks like he spent some time enjoying his handiwork.” Billy gestured at the bloody footprints circling the bed.

  “Not just enjoying his handiwork, enjoying the blood, too.” Xavier went back to the bed. “He was naked while he did this.”

  “Could have been a forensic countermeasure,” Diane suggested. “No bloody clothes to tie him to the crimes. Or maybe he just wore no shoes. We don’t have any evidence to suggest he was completely naked.”

  He shook his head. “Then why walk around and around the bed? It was the blood. He was obsessed with it. He would have been covered in it. He enjoyed that. He loved it. I'm sure he did.”

  Now all Xavier had to be sure about was whether Ricky had committed this crime.

  He couldn’t afford to get it wrong.

  If he focused all his attention on proving Ricky Preston was the killer and he was wrong, then the real killer would be free to keep on killing.

  And he couldn’t deal with more guilt.

  Some days his guilt over letting Ricky Preston go free nearly crushed him. What he’d told Annabelle earlier today was true. She had been his priority. She would have died if he hadn't chosen her, and he would do it again. But that didn’t mean he didn’t blame himself for Ricky Preston still being on the loose. At the time, he’d known Ricky would keep killing, but he hadn't expected the next kill to come so soon. Annabelle had merely been a distraction while Ricky killed the final family in his revenge plan. By the time he and Kate had arrived at the Adams’ residence, Ricky had already killed four more people—only Barney Adams and his seventeen-year-old daughter Vanessa had still been alive.

  Again, Ricky had fled, using the teenager as a human shield, outmaneuvering him once more by giving him another choice. Go after Ricky or try to save Vanessa’s life after Ricky cut her throat. He had stayed with the girl and Vanessa had survived, but Ricky had gone free.

  Every person that Ricky killed after that was on his head.

  Xavier wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

  He was going to keep his mind open to all possibilities on this case no matter how much his heart pushed him toward believing Ricky was the killer.

  * * * * *

  9:39 P.M.

  This was fun.

  Ricky loved watching the people he was soon going to kill. It added an extra layer of excitement—and power—to know that there were people walking around, going about their everyday lives, not knowing that they were about to die. That he was about to kill them. That he and he alone would determine the exact second at which their lives would end.

  It was completely exhilarating.

  It made him feel like God.

  With a chuckle, he thought of Annabelle.

  She would have gotten her letter by now.

  She would be freaking out. Probably having panic attacks and refusing to leave her house. That girl was so high maintenance Ricky didn’t know how Xavier Montague put up with her.

  Boy oh boy, was that girl messed up.

  Despite what Annabelle might claim, it was not Ricky’s fault that she was messed up.

  She had been messed up long before Ricky met her.

  He knew from personal experience. He had spent hours sitting and listening to her drone on and on about everything that she was afraid of. And there were a lot of things that Annabelle Englewood was afraid of. She was weak and pathetic and useless. Well, he debated with himself, maybe she wasn’t entirely useless. He had managed to use her pretty darn perfectly.

  Annabelle had been the perfect distraction to help him eliminate all the people who needed to pay for his mother’s death. Barney Adams had been last on his list because he had been the person most responsible. In the end, the man had survived, but he had lost his parents, his wife, and his young son. The girl, Vanessa, had survived, as well. But she was no longer on speaking terms with her father. She had blamed him for the events that led to her family’s slaughter and very nearly her own death.

  It was a fitting punishment for Barney, so Ricky was satisfied.

  He liked to cause suffering.

  It soothed him somehow. Made him feel better.

  And knowing that he still held the power to bring Annabelle to her knees was a high that never let him down. He would come back for her soon. He wasn’t quite sure when that would be. But he knew he would.

  Maybe once he got tired of killing newlyweds.

  The fun of that couldn’t last forever. Sometimes Ricky wondered whether he had ADD. Attention deficit disorder sufferers struggled to focus on any one thing for a length of time, and that definition certainly fit Ricky.

  However, there was something about Annabelle that intrigued him. Something that he couldn’t get out of his head, that he couldn’t let go of.

  Maybe it was because they had spent so much time together.

  Ricky was sure he knew more about her than any other person on the planet. He was sure he knew things that she hadn't even told that new boyfriend of hers. Xavier Montague thought that he knew Annabelle. Thought that he could help her change. But he was mistaken. Annabelle would always be weak and pathetic.

  The more he thought about her, the more Ricky wanted to run straight to her house and grab Annabelle immediately.

  But he wouldn’t.

  When he took her, he wanted to be able to spend a little time alone with her before he killed her. And right now, he had other things to take care of.

  He signaled for the check as the Mendlesons exited the restaurant. He didn’t need to follow them home. He already knew where they lived and more about their routines than he needed to, to kill them. But he liked to follow his prey. It made him feel like an invincible
hunter.

  The Mendlesons would be easy kills.

  They were older—both in their late fifties—and neither seemed to take great care about their appearance, so they were not physically fit. Both had been widowed young, while they still had small children to raise. But now, with their kids grown and moved on with their lives, they had found love again. The fact that their later-in-life love story sounded like something one may read in a sappy romantic novel frustrated Ricky.

  He didn’t like love. Or rather, more accurately, he didn’t believe in love.

  Maybe that was why he had found the idea of killing newlyweds so appealing.

  Whatever, he shrugged, as he followed the laughing, canoodling couple as they strolled down the street, blissfully unaware of their fate.

  Soon the Mendlesons would be dead.

  And then, if he chose, he would move on to Annabelle.

  JANUARY 9th

  8:00 A.M.

  “Good morning, everyone,” Lieutenant Belinda Jersey announced. Everyone’s conversations faded away as they focused on their morning meeting. “Okay, the Hitacheel case, where are we?” Her black eyes glowed enthusiastically; Belinda was always enthusiastic in the first days of a case.

  Ryan looked to Paige, who nodded that he could detail what they knew so far. His partner looked tired. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her long curly chestnut brown hair, which she always wore in a neat and tidy bun, was hanging loose around her shoulders. He was sure something was bothering her, but when he’d asked her about it earlier, she had brushed him off.

  He inwardly uttered a weary sigh. The women in his life were going to age him prematurely with all this worrying. Ryan hadn't had a chance to talk to Sofia about what was bothering her yet. Last night he had barely made it home in time to pick her up for dinner with his family. Sofia must have been exhausted because she fell asleep in the car on the ride home. She hadn't even woken up when he’d carried her inside and up to bed.

  He would have to make a point of making time to talk to both Sofia and Paige, but both would have to wait.