Opening the driver’s side door, Nikki was about to seat herself inside the Mercedes when a funny feeling crept its way up her spine. It was an odd but unmistakable feeling, that eerie chill that alerts a person to the fact that they are being watched. She stilled, her gaze slowly and methodically scanning the parking garage as her heart rate accelerated.
Nothing. Not a damn thing.
She relaxed, deciding she was losing it. “The bastard is in jail,” Nikki murmured to herself.
It angered her that even behind bars he wielded this much power over the normalcy of her day-to-day life. At least he did now that she was alone again. When she’d been at Thomas’s side, no fear of him had existed.
Nikki shrugged off the bizarre feeling engulfing her. She couldn’t and wouldn’t live like this. Besides, she mentally grumbled as she fell into the car and slammed the door shut, the man who wanted to kill her was in jail where he belonged.
She sighed. She just hoped Thomas didn’t end up in there with him after he got his hands on his alleged best friend.
It was the better part of the day and half the night
before Thomas was permitted to see James. Nobody, from the chief of police to Ben O’Rourke to Nan in filing, felt that he should be alone in the same room with his ex-partner. He hated to admit it, but they were right. Rage had never consumed him—cold bitter hatred—in the way that it now did.
Being forcibly kept apart from James, when the desire to tear out the bastard’s heart with his bare hands overwhelmed him, felt like punishment. Like a wild animal kept from hunting and killing its prey. He wondered if this was the same uncontrollable rage Lucifer went into during each of his murders. Lord knows this was the closest he’d ever come to understanding it.
Finally, after what felt like forever, Thomas was permitted to speak to James from the other side of the bars in the holding cell. He had to be patted down first, all keys removed from his possession, so there was no way for him to get past those bars.
Usually the cold steel served the purpose of keeping criminals away from society so they couldn’t inflict more damage on anyone. That was still true. But tonight the bars held a dual purpose—they also kept one sicko in particular from getting murdered at the hands of the man he’d once called partner and best friend.
His muscles tense, his jaw tight, Thomas slowly made his way down the hall to the cell where James was held. He came to a stop before it, noting the surprised expression on his ex-partner’s face to see him standing there. Apparently he too had thought the chief would never leave them alone together. Not even with impenetrable steel bars between them.
Their gazes clashed and locked. James held his stare a moment longer, then looked away.
Silence consumed the holding-cell area, completely deserted for the moment. Thomas breathed deeply, realizing his questions would never be answered if he couldn’t get a handle on his rage.
“Why?” he finally snarled. “Just tell me goddamn why.”
James said nothing.
“Why?”
Thomas bellowed.
James closed his eyes. He sighed, then opened them. “And if I told you I was innocent?” he asked in a monotone, his face averted from Thomas’s.
“I’d say you’re a liar.” His jaw was so tight it felt like it might crack. “Don’t give me this bullshit, James. Tell me. Off the record.” His hands balled and unballed at his sides. The tentative control he’d held over his raw emotions was quickly evaporating. “O’Rourke found Amy’s bloody shirt in your house,” he gasped. “Why?” He was torn between wanting to cry, needing to vomit, and wanting to kill.
“Tell me.”
“I didn’t do it!” James bellowed as he shot to his feet. He began to pace from within the small confines of the holding cell, a tiny area that boasted a small bed and a toilet.
“Christ,”
he ground out. “I can’t fucking explain that shirt, Cavanah. I don’t know how it got there unless Lucifer put it there. All I know is I didn’t kill her,
could never kill her
.”
His ex-partner’s eyes were wild, naked with upset and revulsion. Revulsion of himself perhaps? Or just revulsion that he’d finally been beaten at his game?
“I know you don’t believe me,” James muttered, running a punishing hand through his short light brown hair. “Shit, I wouldn’t either. I fucked up when I lied to you about Lisa Pinoza. I know that! But this . . . my God, it’s making my stomach turn.”
Thomas closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. Every man ever arrested said the same damn thing. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. No way could he do something like that to another person. It was always the same line. In this case Thomas wanted to believe the line, but realized that he couldn’t. His daughter’s bloody shirt—there was no way to explain that away. No way in hell.
“I see this conversation is going nowhere,” Thomas said, opening his eyes. “I asked for the answer to one question and you wouldn’t even give me that.”
“You want me to make something up?” James snapped. “Because that’s what any alleged confession would amount to—lies!”
“How the fuck did my daughter’s shirt get in your house?” Thomas bellowed, his hand slicing wildly through the air. His heartbeat was accelerating, perspiration breaking out on his forehead. “She trusted you, you sick fuck!” he raged, his teeth gritting as he grabbed the steel bars so tightly his knuckles turned white. Tears stung the backs of his eyes—whether from anger, sorrow, betrayal, or all three, he couldn’t say. “She trusted you,” he said hoarsely.
A pained expression crossed James’s features. “I lied about Lisa. I don’t deny it,” he said softly. His voice caught. “But God in heaven, I could never have hurt Amy.”
Thomas shook the bars once, his fury escalating. He wanted to believe him. Sweet lord how he wanted to. “Talk to me. Now.
Tell me
.”
James was quiet a long, tense moment. “I was sleeping with Lisa,” he finally muttered. “When she turned up dead . . . I don’t know. I freaked out. All I can say is I freaked out! You were in Savannah visiting your mom, I didn’t have you around to bounce my guilt and fear off of. I made the wrong decision, and it’s been eating me up ever since! Shit!”
He began to pace again. “I had no alibi for the time frame of her death.
None,
” he said, slashing his hand through the air. “I freaked out. I just lost it.”
“Lack of an alibi wouldn’t have automatically made you look guilty,” Thomas growled. “You can—”
“Bullshit!” James shot back. “I was fucking Lisa. I thought I was the only extramarital lover she had. She wound up dead—
dead!
—killed by a man everyone knew she was
willingly
going to meet. I had no alibi whatsoever.” His jaw clenched. “That would have been enough and you know it. We’ve both seen men go to death row with far less ‘evidence’ to go on!”
Thomas ran a hand over his unshaven jaw, not able to refute that. He didn’t know what to believe, and it was tearing him apart. He wanted to believe James more than he wanted to breathe, but the last time he’d put his trust into him he’d been calculatingly lied to.
“I’m not ready for this,” Thomas muttered, backing away from the holding cell. “I thought I was, but I’m not.”
James grabbed the bars as Thomas began to back away. “If I had used logic back then,” he rasped, “I would have realized I’d get to go free when Lucifer killed again. Because men like him can’t stop. They need it like my old man needs a bottle.”
Thomas’s eyes narrowed. He turned on his heel, giving James his back as he walked away.
“He’ll do it again!” James bellowed, rattling the bars. “Do you hear me? He’ll do it again! He might stop for a while, feeling lucky that the scent has been thrown off his trail, but in the end the need for a fix will take over and
he will kill
. Listen to me, goddamn you!”
Thomas stilled, his body tense.
“Just watch out for Dr. Adenike,” James said to his back, the fight going out of him. “When the house of cards started falling down around me I tried to hunt him like a man possessed. I don’t know much more than I started out with, but I know he still wants her.
“I don’t know why I thought I could find him alone when me and you together haven’t found him after all these years, but then I don’t know why I ran scared after Lisa was murdered rather than confide in you either. Call it desperation,” he muttered. “A desperate mind grasps at anything.”
Thomas said nothing. He hesitated for a long moment, and then left the holding cell.
Seeing Kim again felt so good Nikki about cried. She
spent the first five minutes doing nothing but hugging her.
Seated at the kitchen table within the Cox estate, she spent the next half hour or so bringing her best friend up to speed. “I’m so tired,” she finally finished, her expression faraway, “but the thought of going back into that apartment alone is about as appealing as chewing broken glass.”
Kim ran a gentle hand over her back. “Stay here tonight. You can go into work tomorrow directly from here.”
“I don’t have a work to go to.”
Kim’s eyes widened. “They fired you?” she asked incredulously.
“No—no!” Nikki shook her head, causing Kim to release a pent-up breath. “Sorry I wasn’t clearer. They changed our schedules while I was away is all. I’m off Saturday and Sunday nights now.”
“Whoa! That schedule almost fits that of a normal person,” Kim teased.
Nikki smiled. “Almost.”
Kim absently drummed her fingertips on the kitchen table as she gave that new development some thought. “Why don’t we go away for the weekend?” she asked. “Maybe Amish country. Someplace relatively close and extremely noneventful.”
“Sounds good,” Nikki said with a small chuckle.
She wavered for only a second, long enough to wonder if Thomas would call while she was away, then discarded the possibility altogether. She doubted he’d call. And even if he did, she was not the type of woman who only spared time for her best friend when no available men were around. No matter who that man was. “Why don’t we drive down tonight? I recall there being a quaint little Victorian inn close to Sugarcreek.”
“Hmm . . . the one in Millersburg?”
“Yep. That’s the one.”
“Sounds good,” Kim said, grinning. She rose up to her feet. “We’ll do a little shopping, show off our scantily clad ankles to the yokels . . . it’ll be a hoot.”
“Scantily clad ankles,” Nikki muttered. “Hell, let’s just be really brazen and wear shorts. Show them Amish boys a little knee while we’re at it.”
Kim laughed as she hobbled away. “Let me leave Megan a note, and then we’re outta here.”
Chapter 25
Saturday, July 26 1:15 P.M.
Thomas paced inside his small office, agitated that
Nikki still hadn’t answered the phone. He’d called at least a dozen times to check up on her, paged her beeper just as many times, drove over to her apartment twice, and still hadn’t located her. The hospital said she was off until Monday afternoon so not to expect her in unless an emergency surgery ensued.
He sighed as he hung up the cell phone, deciding to stop over at the Cox estate after he left headquarters to see if Nikki’d shown up there. He didn’t know if he should be worried or jealous.
Unable to sort out how he felt about James, Thomas had decided to play it safe and make sure two cops stuck to Nikki like white on rice. Unfortunately, he’d given the order after she’d left work for the night. Both cops had reported that Nikki never showed up at home after leaving the hospital, so sticking to her like anything wasn’t possible.
“He’ll do it again! Do you hear me? He’ll do it again! . . . Listen to me, goddamn you!”
Thomas had listened. Loud and clear. The rational part of his brain, however, told him Lucifer was behind bars where he belonged. “Face it, buddy,” he muttered to himself. “Wanting James to be innocent damn sure don’t make him that way.”
He picked up some files to rifle through later at home and then left. He needed to talk to Nikki.
Scowling, Thomas read and reread the note Dr. Kim
berly Cox had left behind for her stepmother:
Megan,
As you know, Lucifer has been caught. Nikki and I both need to unwind a bit, so I’m taking her away for the three Fs—food, fun, and *ahem* flirting with handsome men. Call my cell if you need me. I’ll see you on Sunday.
Kim
*ahem* flirting with handsome men.
His teeth gritted. Thomas realized that Kimberly Cox was probably only joking—he hoped—but that didn’t lessen the intense jealousy coiling in his gut.
“Thanks for letting me know,” Thomas muttered as he handed back the note to Megan Cox. “Have you spoken to your daughter recently?”
She nodded. “Both of them. Not even an hour ago. They sounded just fine.”
He absently inclined his head.
“Is everything all right?” Mrs. Cox asked, her expression worried. “Should I call Kim on her cell phone?”
No, it sure as hell wasn’t all right. The note didn’t say where Nikki was, and the curiosity was killing him. There had better be no
*ahem*
anything, he thought grimly. Still, he didn’t want to drag Dr. Cox and her mother into the middle of things. That wasn’t Thomas’s style, never had been. He’d wait to speak to Nikki until she returned from her weekend getaway—or until she saw fit to answer one of his numerous pages.
And just why wasn’t Nikki answering his pages? Had she lied to him that night, saying she wanted to belong to him? Was it all just a bunch of words she used so he’d want to play out her sexual fantasies? She must have known how upset he’d be, that he’d need her after he saw James, yet she’d left him high and dry the moment she got off work.
The thought that he’d been used and tossed aside made his blood boil. But more to the point, it also hurt more than he cared to admit. Anger was easier to own up to, but he’d be a liar if he said his stomach wasn’t twisted with hurt. Still, there was no need to worry Kim’s mother.