Dirty Little Secrets (Romantic Mystery) Book 1 in the J.J. Graves Series (26 page)

I looked at my house as a stranger would. It seemed like I hadn’t been there in days, or felt the softness of my own bed. But it had only been a day, only a day since I’d woke with Brody, made love with Brody. And only a day since it had all come crashing down around my ears. Pretty crappy day all in all if I say so myself.

I barely remembered to pull the keys out of the ignition before I stumbled out of the car and through the front door. I left clothes in a trail behind me, left the red light flashing on the answering machine and fell face first onto the bed. The last thing I thought before I drifted off was that the pillow still smelled like Brody.

###

I sat up in bed with the air trapped in my lungs and my body covered in sweat from the nightmare. Sunlight streamed through the blinds in my bedroom and reflected off of dust mites in the air.

“No, no, no,” I sobbed, pulling on the first clean t-shirt and shorts I found in my drawer. The nightmare was still fresh in my mind, and I wanted it to be gone. I wanted to be wrong. I should have seen the similarities sooner. If I hadn’t been so tired, so overwhelmed with what had been happening in my small town and my life I would have.

My feet hit hard against the wood of the stairs and echoed through the empty house. My bag was still on the kitchen table, and I rummaged around until I had the open case files of the other murders in my hand.

“Oh, Brody.”

Brody had been here at the start of it all. He’d been at every scene. Stanley Lipinski had placed Brody in Nottingham the morning of Dr. Hides’ murder. I tried to think back to the morning of Fiona’s murder. He’d shown up around town early that morning looking for me and not trying to hide it. He’d said he’d found out about the murder from inside sources. And he’d admittedly been at the hotel the morning Amanda Wallace was killed. Breakfast was an easy way to cover what he’d really been up to. And he was certainly strong enough to come out the victor in any physical battle. He definitely didn’t have the physique of a man who sat behind a desk all day.

I was an idiot. Why hadn’t I seen it sooner? I hadn’t wanted to see, that’s why. I’d been blinded by my emotions. I dumped the papers on the floor as I scrambled to get to the phone on the desk. To call Jack.

“What are you doing, Jaye?” Brody asked from the doorway.

I froze with the receiver in my hand, panic etched on every line of my face. Goosebumps whispered over my chilled skin and my breath was labored. “Stay away from me,” I said. “I know you did it.”

“What are you talking about?” He asked, genuinely confused. His voice was calm and soothing, as if he were dealing with an irrational child. “You think I killed all those people? How could you think that? Why would you think that?”

My finger still hovered over the numbers on the phone, ready to dial if he stepped any closer. “I was finally able to put it together after getting more than a couple of hours of sleep. Amazing how the mind shuts down when a body is sleep deprived.”

“I believe the sleep deprivation was a mutual decision on both our parts,” Brody said. “It’s been pure luck that I’ve gotten any work at all done. Come on Jaye, put the phone down and let’s talk this out.”

“You can’t change what you’ve done,” I said. “You were here from the beginning. It almost seemed too easy that you’d show up on my doorstep just a couple of hours after the first murder. I probably made it easier for you each time. What better way to research your book than to create the crimes in real life. Is this what you do for all your books?”

“Jaye, you’ve got to listen to me. I’ve never killed anyone. I swear that to you. And I need to tell you something else. Something I should have said from the first moment I sat across from you in candlelight. I love you.”

“Don’t tell me that!” I screamed. “You never loved me. You used me and probably laughed at how easy I fell into your arms.”

“That’s not true. I do love you, and I’ve had a lot of time to think about things between last night and now. I thought about us mostly, but I thought about the murders too. I know who the killer is, Jaye.”

“Yeah, you already shared that information. And it’s not Jack by the way.”

“I know that,” he said. “I was jealous.”

“What?” Confused didn’t begin to describe what I was feeling at that moment. “Well, if Jack’s not the killer and you say you’re not the killer, then who did it?”

Brody didn’t get a chance to answer. The gunshot sounded like a cannon inside the house. My ears rung and the stench of cordite burned my nostrils. It seemed like everything happened in slow motion. I watched the front of Brody’s chest expand and open as the bullet exited and embedded itself in the wall behind me. I screamed as the red bloom of blood covered the front of his shirt and splattered on the carpet in front of him and the desk that I was still standing behind.

Brody dropped to his knees, the look of surprise still on his face, and fell forward. I rushed around the desk to get to him, only thinking that I had to save him. He loved me. I’d almost forgotten about the gunman in the doorway.

“I hate to say it, but your boyfriend was right,” the man said. “He wasn’t the killer.”

Jeremy Mooney smiled a smile so familiar it hurt to look at it. His eyes held the look of someone who wasn’t all-together there and his skin was sallow and slicked with sweat. He was still in uniform and his police issue revolver was in his hand.

“Cat got your tongue, Dr. Graves. I’ve never known you to be speechless. Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked.

“I think you’re finally starting to grow a little facial hair,” I said. “Congratulations.” My voice was steady and calm. I ignored the gun pointed at me and kept going to Brody’s still form. I was in the place inside my head that I’d had to create when I was doing ER rounds at Augusta General. I had one goal and one purpose—to save a life—even though in my mind I already knew it was too late.

“Leave him be,” Jeremy said. “He’s already dead. There’s nothing you can do.”

I choked on a sob and kept going, kneeling beside Brody’s still form just so I’d have the proof I needed. Jeremy was right. Brody’s pulse had already stopped. Was it my curse to lose everyone I loved, or worse yet to lose the people that loved me in return?
I was frozen in shock, but the cold steel of the gun against my head brought me back to reality.

“I’m so sorry about your loss,” he said, laughing. He nudged me to stand up, and I did so slowly. Brody’s blood was thick and sticky on my fingers.

“I’m going to put away the gun for now,” he said. “I don’t want to use it on you. But don’t get any ideas. I’m stronger than I look. I have to use my hands on you for this to be perfect. I’ve wanted to use my hands on you for a long time.”

I frantically tried to think of a way I could get out of the house and find help, but there was no way I could move fast enough. I might have a chance if I could get to the basement and lock myself inside, but I didn’t particularly want to get a bullet in the back.

“You know, Jaye,” he said. “You were the start of all of this, going back before I had to start punishing Bloody Mary’s fine, upstanding citizens. Practice makes perfect. But you’re reason so many people have died. How does it feel to know you’re responsible for so many deaths?”

I felt sick. Could I really be at fault?

“I’ve always been fascinated by your ability to face death with such cold indifference. You love death—the blood, the last breath. The power.” He looked at me like we shared a common bond that no one else could understand. “You know, when I was younger, I loved watching your reactions as the people closest to you were buried in the ground. But you never shed a tear.”

“I don’t like to cry in front of people,” I said softly, trying to imagine how my pride looked to others. Did they think I was cold and uncaring? I wasn’t sure I had any feelings left at all. The grief in my life had been so overwhelming all I felt was numb.

“You and I, Jaye,” he said, motioning at me with his hand. “You don’t mind if I call you by your first name, do you?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “We’re alike in so many ways. I don’t feel anything but a cold void when I take someone’s life. You and I were meant to be together. But it didn’t matter what I did to get your attention. You never noticed me.”

“That’s not true, Jeremy. I’ve known you my whole life. How could I not notice you?” I tasted the coppery tang of blood in my mouth and realized I’d been biting my lip to keep from screaming.

”But you didn’t want ME,” he said.

“How was I to know you felt that way? You were so young. Hell, you’re still young.”

“I’m a man, dammit. A flesh and blood man,” he screamed.

“You’re right, Jeremy. I’m sorry,” I said, my self-preservation instincts kicking in. It was never a good idea to antagonize a sociopath.

“That’s right. Show a little respect,” he said with a smile that sent chills down my spine. “You know, it was because of you I became a cop. Everybody knows how much you love Jack. How could I not want to get close to him to get closer to you? But it didn’t work out that way, so I had to find other ways of getting your attention. A murder here, a murder there. Different places. Different people.”

He shrugged over the lives he’d destroyed as if they were meaningless. “It was all just practice for this one moment,” he said. “You’ll be my finest work.”

He inched closer to me, his sweaty palm reaching toward my face but not touching me. I couldn’t help but shrink back with the fear that seized me.

“Don’t be afraid, Jaye. Not yet,” he said. His damp finger slid down my cheek and bile rose in the back of my throat.

“Don’t touch me,” I said. The calm I’d managed earlier had deserted me and my voice shook.

“I apologize,” he said, his smile almost gentle—his eyes crazy. “It seems I owe you more than one apology. The saying is true. The past does always comes back to haunt you. Your parents’ death was very tragic. Devastating for the whole town. Most of all you. It was important for you to be alone, so you could realize that you needed someone to take care of you. But even then, you never saw me.”

My breath caught in my lungs as I thought about what he’d said.
My parents.
“You killed my parents?”

“Of course not,” he said, his Cheshire Cat grin a contradiction to his words. “The Pennsylvania Medical Examiner claimed their deaths were simply an accident. That’s not to say I didn’t help things along by tampering with the car a little bit. And it was just luck that that fool Floyd Parker printed the story about the double suicide and the jealous lover.”

Jeremy’s crazed eyes turned thoughtful and he giggled. “You know what? It might have been me that gave Floyd the idea in the first place. I don’t remember exactly. All I know is that you packed up from the city and moved back to Bloody Mary. Just like I wanted.”

I remembered the pain and loneliness after my parent’s death. I remembered the questioning glances of people I’d known my whole life wondering if my parents had really taken their own lives.

“You know, Brody showing up in Bloody Mary couldn’t have been more perfect,” Jeremy said. “His curiosity made my job easier. Actually, everybody in this town made my job easier. Being a cop who people underestimate has its advantages. I was able to travel all over the county, choosing my prey carefully—watching—waiting. I watched you, Dr. Graves.”

Sweat glistened at his temples and ran in rivulets down the side of his face. He ran his fingers through his damp hair, causing it to stick up it little spikes. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I picked the victims I did? Why I picked you?

“Wh. . .Why did you pick them?” I asked, afraid I already knew the answer.

“I met Fiona Murphy at a private club in D.C. one weekend. You could say it was a special club for people who enjoyed certain things when it came to sex. I’m not afraid to say that it scared the hell out of me when she recognized me.”

I remembered what kind of things Fiona had enjoyed, and couldn’t imagine the Jeremy Mooney I’d thought I’d known doing those things.

“It was our little secret,” he continued. “And you could say that Fiona and I had each other by the short hairs. Everyone in town thought George was an abusive husband, but I knew that it was Fiona who liked the abuse. She told me how she was planning to leave him because he wasn’t as harsh as he used to be. He was getting soft. And this idea started to form in my head.” He looked at me and smiled again.

I was trying to listen to what he was saying and think at the same time, but I wasn’t having much luck.

“Anyway, I began seeing Fiona pretty regularly.”

“You were the one she was going to run off with?”

“Yeah, she played right into my hands. I already knew about George, and what kind of person he was, so the scene wasn’t difficult to stage. It just took patience and timing. Fiona had a secret that no one in town knew about except for me and her husband—to an extent—but even he didn’t know what she really liked. She was an interesting woman. It was pretty slick police work by Jack to find the house in Nottingham. I tried to delay the results as long as possible, but Colburn was looking over my shoulder the whole damned time, afraid I was too stupid to understand the information I had.”

I knew the only chance for survival I had was to keep him talking. Since he’d put the gun away I was slowly putting distance between us inching my way towards the door. Surely Jack or someone would check on me at some point. Amanda Wallace still needed to be transferred to the other funeral home. Maybe Harvey Wallace, beating down my door in anger, would be the one to save me.