Full Circle (24 page)

Josie didn't know why she made the chart. She didn't look at the photographs since she knew she couldn't focus on the murdered women themselves. Instead, she focused on the statistics because something about the stats kept tickling at the back of her mind. She could not specifically identify what was bothering her, but she knew it would eventually surface. She'd learned a long time ago to rely on her instincts.

As Jack pulled into the driveway, he noticed lights on throughout the downstairs of the house and Buck's SUV parked out front. Resolving a lifetime of abandonment issues with her father was not easy. True to her word, Josie was giving Buck a fair shot. He was not around a lot and sometimes she tossed him out on his ear, but the man was as persistent as Josie was stubborn. Jack went with the flow as it was his safest avenue. He listened to Josie's complaints, let her vent and blast at him occasionally. He also let Buck bend his ear sometimes over a beer at Riley's.

He found them in the library boxing up the last of the books. Josie had decided to keep the oldest volumes of the classics, which were in good condition. She was donating the rest to a used bookstore. She was an avid reader, but saw no value in keeping dated encyclopedias, textbooks and the like. The bookstore would sort through them and pullout what they could resell, and send the rest to a paper recycling plant. Josie claimed she could not stand the idea of tossing out the books, but what happened to them after she had given them away did not concern her. In this case, ignorance was bliss.

"Hi," Josie called, greeting Jack with a kiss. "How was class?"

"Grueling," Jack admitted.

Josie gave an excited twirl around the room. "We'll be bringing in the bookshelves this weekend! Maybe we can even get the room painted."

Jack shook his head. "No, Buck and I will bring in the bookshelves. The doctor said no major exertion for four weeks. He does not want you to put any extra strain on that eye. We'll also see to the painting."

Buck was grinning and nodding his head.

Josie squinted at them. "Don't gang up on me!"

Jack pulled her in and kissed her long and hard. "I will if I want to; it's for your own good."

"I'm going," Buck said, with a mock salute and a grin. "What time tomorrow?"

"Eight," Josie said at the same instant Jack said, "Noon."

"Noon it is," Buck agreed and with a wave was gone.

"Two against one won't work," Josie warned.

"Sure, it will, because I don't intend to let you out of bed until noon tomorrow."

"Provided I'm willing," Josie teased, only to gasp as Jack pushed his hands under her shirt, flipped her bra up out of the way, and rubbed his rough thumbs over her nipples.

"Complaints?" Jack asked.

"Only one. What took you so long to get here tonight?"

Jack outlined what remained of Josie's black eye with the tip of his finger. "It still kills me to see you bruised. Please tell me she's going to pay for this."

Josie stirred in his arms, feeling limp with sexual satisfaction. It was well after midnight. They had spent the last several hours making love in the Jacuzzi tub and the shower while slowly working their way to the bed.

"If I have anything to say about it, she will. Did you know Clay solved the case of the elementary school locker jamming," Josie mumbled.

"Yeah?" Jack asked, stretching out and stroking her sleek body.

"Kenny Prescott and Jayden Davis, both are hardened ten-year-old felons. They broke down and confessed after about two minutes of intense grilling. It cost those boys $10.00 in nickels to jam the lockers. Their parents are splitting a $345.00 repair bill to unjam them and replace the locks. The boys' punishment is two hours a day of community service for the rest of the summer at the elementary school under the principal's watchful eye. Mr. Benjamin will have them cleaning, weeding flower gardens, and anything else he wants them to do. Those two little squirts screwed up all their summer plans."

Jack laughed. "I hope you didn't keep a diary of the stunts you pulled when you were a kid."

"Naw, the kids go to the Internet for ideas now. They have no imagination," Josie said and she suddenly jumped out of bed. "Dang his hide!"

"What?" Jack demanded.

Josie walked over to a wooden shelf that was wrapped in grapevine and unwound a thin silver bracelet with tiny colored beads. "It was hidden in
plain sight
. I've been hunting for this bracelet since the hobbit left for camp. He knows it's my favorite."

Jack shook his head and smiled, but when she returned to the bed, he said, "I was glad it wasn't the TV remote."

Josie rolled her eyes. "Men and their big TVs. Is it compensation for something?" She cocked her head. "Do you hear that?"

"What? My heart racing, because I'm horny again? I don't need to compensate," Jack teased, tackling her and pulling her back into bed with a grin.

"No, that," Josie whispered urgently as they both heard a noise and bolted upright in bed.

"I heard that," Jack said in a low voice. "Stay put, I'll check it out."

Josie looked at him in disbelief. "Hello, I'm the law here."

"No, you're not, not anymore," Jack corrected.

"Maybe not, but I have a gun, and a permit to use it," Josie said, sliding across the bed and pulling out her lockbox. "Go over to Alex's room, he has a baseball bat leaning up against his dresser."

"He took all his equipment with him."

"No, he didn't," Josie whispered. "That bat is aluminum and it's not allowed at camp!"

Jack yanked on a pair of sweatpants.

"Here," Josie handed him a pen-sized flashlight and laid her gun on the mattress long enough to yank on her robe. "Hey," she protested when he picked up the gun.

"You take the bat," Jack whispered, grasping her hand and pulling her across the room. They quietly crossed the hall and found the bat. Jack headed for the front stairs, but she yanked him back and led him to the rear of the house to a narrow closed-in stairwell he had never noticed.

"I found this hidden stairway when I was ripping the kitchen apart," Josie whispered, stealthily going down the steps.

When they opened the door at the bottom of the stairs into the kitchen, they ducked down beneath the windows. The outside motion detector lights were on and whoever was outside was not being particularly quiet. Someone was stumbling about and making noises.

"Stay behind me," Jack ordered, refusing to relinquish his grip on the gun. He put his hand on the doorknob only to have Josie slap it away.

"The intruder alarm is on," she whispered scurrying over to deactivate the system.

Jack was out the door before she could get back across the kitchen. She followed on his heels and quickly caught up, gripping the aluminum baseball bat.

Peering around the corner of the carriage house, Jack lowered the gun. "It's a woman," he whispered.

Josie stepped out to peer around, although Jack kept a firm grip on her, ready to yank her back or down if necessary. Josie pushed his hands off and stepped out in the open.

"That's enough, Marcy!"

The woman spun around, dropped one of two spray-paint cans, stepped backwards tripping over the can she had dropped, and clumsily fell down. She cried out as she fell, and there was the sound of breaking glass. She thrashed around and collapsed on the concrete area beside the trashcans.

Jack went to her, stashing the gun in the back of his waistband. He knelt down beside her and checked for a head wound. "She's drunk and out cold! Did you grab your phone?"

"No, I'll call from the kitchen phone. I think Tyler has dispatch tonight. Don't move her in case she hit her head. I'll get something for her knee. It looks like she fell on that bottle and cut it open," Josie instructed.

Josie quickly made her call and returned to the back yard to see that Jack had moved the woman. She had started throwing up, and he had lifted her and turned her head so she would not choke on her vomit.

"Marcy Carter?" Jack asked, looking down at the thin, hollowed-eyed woman.

Josie nodded as she wrapped a tea towel around the woman's knee to contain the bleeding. "God, I'm glad Alex is in camp. It would be awful for him to see her like this. Give me my gun. I'll put it away and be right back. At least we know now who's responsible for the spray painting. I thought it was Jolene, but I was wrong. The rescue squad will be here in three or four minutes. I'm going to grab some sweats from the laundry room."

Josie came back and handed Jack one of his sweatshirts. She went out front to guide the EMTs around to the back. They came in silently as she had requested and assessed the woman. They hooked her up to an IV of saline solution and strapped her onto a gurney and into the back of the vehicle.

"Do we take her to the clinic or to jail, Josie?" one of the EMTs asked, recognizing Marcy Carter as an alcoholic they had transported on several previous occasions.

"Neither. Take her to Elkview General in Holbart. I'll contact Kiowa County that she's heading there and that there's an open warrant out on her. Ray Leonard will go with you. He should be here any minute. If she wakes up in transit, he'll have the authority to restrain her. Let's see if she drove her car here. The last time I saw her, she was driving an old red van. She might have a purse in it. Identification would help in getting her squared away."

They didn't find a vehicle, but they did find a tote bag leaning against the carriage house, which contained a wallet and two bottles of liquor.

Josie and Jack watched the rescue squad drive off and walked back around to the back of the carriage house to survey the most recent damage.

"This time it will have to be sanded off," Josie moaned. "Too many coats of paint will make it peel come winter."

"I'll take care of it," Jack promised. "At least it won't happen again."

"Yeah, but it's probably going to mean a delay in the termination process," Josie complained.

"We'll get there," Jack promised. "Look at the bright side. It's one more black mark against her."

Josie nodded. "That is a bright side for us. I don't mean her any harm, Jack. I feel sorry for her because she screwed up her life. At the same time, simply because she has problems shouldn't give her free rein to mess up Alex's life. He deserves a chance for something better."

"I know. Come on, we need to get some sleep." Jack steered her toward the house.

"It's a shame it wasn't Jolene though," Josie complained cheerfully. "I really did want to nail her with one more charge."

"What happened to truth, justice and all that other stuff?" Jack teased.

"I'm human, and the bitch cold-cocked me," Josie complained. "Maybe she didn't spray paint my house, but she did physical damage to me. Are you available Monday morning? Jolene's extended twenty day evaluation is up, and I want to be in the courtroom during her hearing. We have the initial photographs of my injuries, but I want the Judge to see what she did to me."

Jack grimaced. "I have a meeting Monday morning in Lawson. I'm talking with Guy Rivers about investing in his business."

Josie looked up. "Guy Rivers of Turn of the Century Renovations? I know him. He helped locate some replacement parts I needed for the house. He's a great guy."

"How well do you know him?" Jack demanded.

Josie batted her eyes at him. "Well, enough to have dinner with him a couple of times... with his wife and son."

Jack let out a breath and gave a playful whack to her bottom. "Brat! I was going to have to annihilate him."

Josie laughed. "Jealous?"

"Absolutely," Jack grumbled and swung her up so her legs could go around his waist. "I'll call and see if I can reschedule, so I can go to court with you."

"Are you really thinking about going into business with him?"

"Yeah, but I want to work independently or at least in equal partnership. Architecture is an art, but also a business. I don't think I could stand going to work at a firm and starting at the bottom rung of the corporate ladder. Architecture is a mid-life career change, and I'm trying to combine my interest in unique buildings with my ability to redesign and renovate existing structures. I went on-line to ask some questions, and Guy and I got to talking in a forum. We hit it off, so we began talking on the phone. Now I'm going down to meet him in person and talk business, and we'll see how we mesh."

Josie hugged him to her. "Don't cancel. Clay will be at the courthouse since he was the arresting officer."

"I want to be there to support you."

"I know, but it's important for me to support you, too," Josie insisted. On the inside, she was doing a little happy dance. Jack was making permanent plans. She had not believed it when he said he was staying. Everyone left her. Why would he be different?