Dead Run

CHAPTER 39

Monday, November 19

5:00 p.m.

Carla paused outside Rick’s Island Hideaway. She hoped Rick was here. She needed to talk to him. She needed him to tell her everything was going to be all right. That she had done the right thing.

She felt for all the world that she hadn’t.

She glanced quickly behind her, looking, no doubt, as guilty as she felt, then stepped out of the blazing heat and into the bar’s cool, dim interior. A half-dozen patrons were scattered throughout the room: lovers at a table in the corner, a couple of singles at either end of the bar, a group of tourists who were obviously feeling no pain.

Rick straightened when he saw her. He’d already heard. She wasn’t surprised. News spread fast on this tiny island, and in his line of work Rick missed little of it.

Of course, the official news had been limited to the basics. The caretaker of Paradise Christian Church had freaked out, threatened a group of tourists with a knife and Key West officer Carla Chapman had been forced to shoot. The caretaker was in critical condition.

Val and the chief had managed to keep everything else under wraps. For now.

“Are you okay?” Rick asked as she sank onto the stool across from him.

“If you call feeling like total shit okay, then I’m it.”

He set a draft in front of her. “No matter the circumstances, shooting another human being never feels right.”

She smiled weakly and took a sip of the beer, though technically she was still on duty. “All afternoon people from the chief down have been patting me on the back and congratulating me. It feels like such a lie.”

He arched an eyebrow, and Carla felt herself flush. She looked away. She’d been unable to get the image of Stephen’s face as he lunged at her out of her head. Something about his expression nagged at her. Had his intent been murderous? Had he been attacking her? Or had his actions been those of a terrified, cornered animal attempting to flee?

“You want to talk about it?”

She should say no. She should sit, sip her beer and simply let his presence soothe her. If Val knew she was here, he would be furious.

She squeezed her eyes shut as Stephen’s image filled her head once more. Murderous rage, she told herself. That’s what she’d seen in his eyes. He’d come at her like a rabid dog, frothing at the mouth, eyes lit with blood fever. Not with helpless fear. Not with desperation.

She met Rick’s concerned gaze. “Yeah,” she murmured. “I think I would.”

She spoke softly, starting with her call from Pastor Tim, finishing with the moment she pulled the trigger, eliminating any details that linked Stephen to Tara’s and Naomi’s murders.

“Sounds like a good shooting. Everything by the book.”

“I’m not so-” She shook her head, biting back what she had been about to say, that she wasn’t so sure. That she wondered if she could have wrestled him down. That she had second thoughts about whether he had meant her harm.

“You grew up here,” she said. “What do you know about him?”

“Not a lot. That he was the victim of child abuse. That the church takes care of him. As kids we used to tell stories about him because he was different. Because he looked frightening.”

“What kind of stories?”

“Ones about how he murdered his entire family but the police couldn’t prove it cause they never found the bodies. Rumor was, one night he chopped them all up into little pieces then tossed them into the ocean. Stupid kid stuff.”

“Was it just kid stuff?” She leaned forward. “As far as you know, did he ever threaten anyone?”

“As far as I know, no, he didn’t. Why?”

She didn’t answer right away. Revealing the details of this investigation would be cause for suspension.

The way she felt right now, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

“He might be the one, Rick.” She glanced toward the end of the bar, then lowered her voice. “He carved himself up. The way Tara and Naomi were. Weird shit, like writing on his torso and thighs.”

Rick straightened. “Go on.”

“We think they might be Bible passages.”

The guy at the end of the bar to her right stood, called good-night to Rick and headed out.

She waited a moment, then continued. “He’d pulled all these pages out of a Bible. When we found him, he had the knife. There was blood…everywhere. And the pages were scattered all around him. Like he was in the act of cutting himself.”

Rick glanced toward his customers, then back at her. “And the knife’s consistent with the one used on both victims, right?”

“Right. How’d you know?”

“Because without that, you have little more than a crazy son-of-a-bitch into self-mutilation.” Rick narrowed his eyes. “What does Val think?”

“That we’re on to something.”

“What do you think?”

She never went against Val’s opinion. Maybe that’s why she was here. She had questions, ones she didn’t trust herself to answer. Ones she had hoped Rick could help her make sense of.

“I don’t know.”

He leaned toward her. “Sure you do, Carla. What do you think?”

“I need your help.”

“I’m not part of the investigation.”

“I wish you were. There’s something…” She swore and stood. “I’ve got to go.”

He caught her hand. “Give yourself some credit, Carla. What do you think? Something propelled you in here tonight, something you wanted to run by me.”

She lowered her gaze to his hand on hers. In that moment she wanted him to hold her, wanted it so badly she couldn’t breathe. The feeling passed and she slid back onto the stool. “Okay, yeah. I think something about this doesn’t fit. I always heard this Stephen had the mind of a child. Like he was brain damaged or something. What kind of kid could do what was done to Tara and Naomi?”

“But he’s not a child,” he said, playing the devil’s advocate. “He’s an adult.”

“I know. But-” She rubbed her temple.

“But what?”

She swore, recalling the way he had looked at her, the expression in his eyes. “It doesn’t feel right to me. I looked into his eyes and-”

Someone at the table of tourists signaled Rick. He nodded at them, then looked at Carla. “Hold that thought. I’m being paged.”

Carla watched as Rick closed out the table’s tab, brought the lovers another round and shooed old Pete off his bar stool and out the door.

“I’m taking you away from your customers,” she murmured when he returned. “I’m sorry.”

He flashed her a quick, breath-stealing smile. “What customers? Monday’s the slowest night of the week. Last week’s tourists have gone home, the majority of this week’s haven’t arrived and the partied-out locals are doing their best to get back to the grind.” He smiled again. “I’m glad you came tonight, Carla.”

Her heart skipped a beat. God help her, she was, too.

“I guess I just have so many questions. Like, how does a guy who never hurt anybody suddenly commit a string of grisly murders. Usually there’s a history of some sort of violence. Cruelty to animals. A morbid fascination with death. Something. But everybody we talked to claimed he’d never hurt a fly.”

“They might be wrong. He’s a weird guy, Carla. Lives alone. Keeps to himself.”

“I know.” She picked up her beer, then set it back down without sipping. She lifted her gaze to his, anguished. “I hate my job today. I don’t want it, you take it, Rick.”

He reached across the bar and covered her hand with his. “He went at you with a knife. You defended yourself. He could have killed you, Carla.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, the image of Stephen filling her head again. His anguished cry. The terror in his eyes.

She forced the image out. He had meant her harm. She had been one hundred percent justified in shooting him.

He was the one.

Rick released her hand.

“He had opportunity,” she murmured. “That’s for sure. Killers like this rarely stray far from their geographical comfort zone. Tara was found murdered at Paradise Christian, Rachel Howard was last seen at-”

“Rachel Howard? What does she have to do with this?”

“St. John had her Bible. Val’s revised his opinion of her disappearance. He thinks she might have been the first victim.”