The Perfect Scream

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.