Jaxson's Song (20 page)

She raised one hand to
touch the side of his face; beneath her fingertips, his skin was
hot, bordering on feverish. “You don’t know that he’s after me. He
could have stopped the car earlier to stare at you,” she pointed
out, stroking her fingers down to the tense line of his jaw. “And,
anyway, we live next door.” She sighed. “Assuming he saw me and
I
…
fit his type,
or whatever, you wouldn’t have had anything to do with that. I
could have walked out of my house to go to the grocery store, or to
go to work, and he could have driven by and seen me then, all the
same.”

He brought his hands up to
frame her face. “Sweetheart, you don’t understand. He doesn’t just
want you because you’re young, and blonde. He thinks you’re mine.
It’s a competition for him. It’s about the chase. He wants to take
you away from me. The thought excites him.”

“
You can’t know that,” she gasped, allowing him to pull her
from the room. They both paused at the front door, staring silently
at her house. The crashing sounds had stopped, for the moment,
anyway, but the lights still flickered crazily from one room to the
next.

“
It’s true, Kate. He’s going to come after you
next.”

“
But how—” Abruptly, she stopped, her gaze shifting from her
house to Jaxson’s grim expression. “She told you all that, didn’t
she? Or you heard it in her thoughts.”

He nodded.
“I’m—”

She held up one hand.
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry again,” she said absently. “I
already told you it’s not your fault. Damn,” she swore. “Are you
sure about all of this?”

“
I’m sure. Now come on, I’ve got to get you out of here,” he
told her, shoving the screen door open and propelling them both
across the porch and down the steps to the damp lawn
below.

Kate shielded her eyes
with one arm, only vaguely aware of leaving her sunglasses on
Jaxson’s dining room counter. “Hold on. Where are we
going?”

He shrugged. “I don’t
know. It doesn’t really matter. Right now, we focus on getting as
far away from Florida as possible. We’ll figure it out on the way,
and worry about the rest later.”

“
But if we run, what then? You’ll go to jail, won’t you? And
when does it end? When is this Roger Klein person going to give
up?”

“
When he’s fucking caught,” Jaxson scowled.

“
And then you’ll go to prison,” she repeated, glaring back.
“You will, won’t you?”

“
Yeah, so what?”

“
So, no.”

“
Kate, you don’t understand. The police aren’t going to help
us. My uncle can’t get you out of here. You can’t rely on the cops
to get you to someplace safe. This is the only way.”

Kate exhaled, agitated and
scared at the same time. “Then I’ll go alone. Okay? I’ll get in my
car right now and take off. But I can’t let you go to
jail.”

His arms closed around her
in the next instant, and he buried his face in her hair. “I can’t
let you do that.”

“
I’ll be fine,” she argued.

“
Yeah, but I won’t be,” he said, brushing his lips over hers.
“I can’t let you go alone. I can’t just sit here. Please don’t ask
me to do that.”

“
Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t go alone,” she
demanded, feeling breathless and off kilter.

“
Because I can’t let you walk away from me,” he said, simply.
“If anyone gets near you, I’ll fuckin’ take him apart. I’ll keep
you safe, Kate.”

“
But, your plea deal—”

“
Shh. Let me worry about that, okay? Jake’s not going to let
me go to prison. Not for keeping a civilian safe.”

“
Okay,” she finally said, not believing him about that bit for
so much as an instant. If he left with her, he would be rearrested.
But it was also clear to her that he wasn’t going to agree to do
this any other way. So, she’d take his advice, and worry about the
rest of the mess they were in—the legal mess he was in—later.
“Okay,” she repeated, leaning up and pressing her lips to his
mouth. “We’ll go now. But,” she paused, turning in Jaxson’s arms to
stare up at her house, “we can’t leave without Gollum.”

“
Your cat?”

She nodded. “He’s still in
the house. Poor baby, he’s undoubtedly terrified.”

“
He’s probably hiding,” Jaxson said, releasing her and
planting his hands on his hips. “Are you sure about going in there?
I think he’ll be fine, really.”

Kate gulped, but squared
her shoulders. “You said she won’t hurt me, right?”

“
I’m ninety-nine percent certain she won’t hurt
you.”

She froze halfway up the
walkway. “Ninety-nine?”

“
Well, she
is
a ghost. They’re not known for being predictable.
Or rational,” he added. “You’re sure you won’t leave without the
cat?”

“
Positive,” she said, plunging ahead, up the porch steps and
through the front door, with Jaxson hot on her heels. He eased her
forward a few inches so that he could shut the door behind them.
Inside the house, all noise and activity came to an abrupt halt.
Around them, silence reigned supreme, broken only by the ticking of
a clock in the front parlor. Kate glanced behind her at Jaxson.
When he nodded, she took a few tentative steps forward.

“
Gollum,” she called, clearing her throat when her voice came
out sounding like a cross between a croak and whisper. She tried
again, steadier this time. “Gollum, come here, baby. You can come
out now. It’s okay.” To her surprise, the small gray cat darted out
from under the sofa in the front parlor, almost immediately. She
met him halfway, in the doorway of the sitting room, bending down
to scoop him up in her arms. She gasped and Jaxson swore and shoved
her behind him as the books began to spontaneously fall from their
places on the shelf at the other end of the room. The fireplace
ignited, and one by one the books were flung into the fire, as if
they were being thrown by an invisible hand. Behind them, the sound
of the latch on the front door clicking into place as it locked
made Kate’s heart practically leap into her throat.

“
Come on,” Jaxson ground out. “We’ve got the cat. Let’s
go.”

“
M-my keys,” she stammered, her eyes fixed on the crackling
fire in the hearth.

“
Where?”

“
Bedroom. Upstairs. Wait—” she called out as he started for
the stairs. “They’re in the kitchen,” she remembered. “Hanging over
the chair.” Then Jaxson was gone, and she was alone in the front
parlor.

As quickly as the fire was
kindled, it extinguished itself, or, rather,
Mira
extinguished it. Kate
glanced wildly around the empty room and struggled to hold on to
her composure. Her gaze dropped to the single book that remained on
the hardwood floor in front of the fireplace. It was small, much
smaller than the other books had been, and she hadn’t recalled
seeing it on the shelf. Had it been tucked behind one of the
others? The front cover on the leather-bound book flipped open to
reveal a page crammed with handwritten notes; even the narrow
margins were crammed full of the same surprisingly neat, tiny,
block-like handwriting. Still keeping a firm hold on the cat, she
crossed the room and knelt down to pick up the journal. She took it
with her to the sofa, glancing around the room one more time before
she Gollum carefully beside her and placed the book on her lap. Her
hands trembled as she traced one finger along the writing on the
first page:

December
8
^th

Subject: Tanya, Age:
19

Lagoon, Sarasota, Orange
ribbon

The rest of the page was
filled to capacity with seemingly insignificant, minute details of
Tanya’s life, from the first time he’d seen her in a grocery store,
to what time she’d eaten breakfast the morning of November
fifteenth, to what time she got home on the evening of December
seventh, and everything in between. What she ate, what she wore,
her schedule, her daily routine. Pages and pages. Oh, God. She
flipped through the book, faster now, until she was staring at the
back cover. Frantically, her eyes scanned the inside back cover for
a name, but there was none. It didn’t matter. This was Stan’s
journal. Bile rose in her throat as she thumbed back through the
pages, shivering, feeling as if the invisible layer of filth that
covered the book was being transferred to her now that she was
touching it.

Someone touched her
shoulder, and she dropped the book and screamed. It was
Jaxson.

“
Your purse,” he murmured, setting it beside her and shooing
Gollum to the other end of the sofa so he could sit beside Kate.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the journal.

Numb, Kate leaned over and
retrieved the book from the floor. “It’s my uncle’s journal. It’s
his kill book,” she whispered. “He stalked all these women, and he
wrote it down. He fucking recorded it all—” She broke off as the
faded, tattered ribbon fluttered out from between the pages of the
journal and fell to the floor. With shaking fingers, she passed the
journal to Jaxson and knelt down on the floor to pick the item
up.

“
Kate?” Jaxson frowned.

Orange
ribbon
.

“
I think I’m going to be sick,” she gasped, dropping the
ribbon again and shooting to her feet, one hand clapped to her
mouth. “It was hers.”

“
Mira?”

“
No, one of the others. Tanya,” she said after struggling for
a moment to recall the name that had been written on the first page
of the journal. “He took souvenirs
…
to mark his kills.”

Jaxson stood and gripped
her arms, forcing her to look at him. “Kate. Are you sure, one
hundred percent, that your uncle died that day? Are you
sure
it was him
hanging there?”

She nodded. “Yes. I mean,
I think so.”

“
Was there an autopsy?”

“
I don’t know. I—what are you saying? What are you
thinking?”

“
Your uncle targeted young blonde women.
Roger Klein
targets young blonde women,” he said, falling silent and
letting her connect the dots.

“
No. No way.” She felt her stomach lurch again and took a step
back. “No. Stan is dead. I saw him.” He
couldn’t
have staged his own
death. It wasn’t possible; it didn’t make sense. Then again, the
more reasonable part of her brain insisted, the whole Stan-Roger
coincidence didn’t sound all that plausible, either. What were the
odds.

“
Well, anyway, come on, let’s get out of here,” he said,
giving her arm a quick squeeze.

“
Wait, I need to go upstairs and get some clothes.”

“
We can—”

“
It’ll only take a minute. I’m just going to toss a few things
in a bag.”

“
Okay,” Jaxson said. “But we need to hurry.”

Kate nodded, Jaxson
grabbed Gollum, and they sprinted up the stairs and pounded down
the hall to her bedroom. She half expected Mira to pop out, or
materialize, at any moment, around every corner, but the house was
silent. Jaxson thumbed through the journal as Kate yanked a large
green duffel from the top shelf of the closet and began to
haphazardly stuff clothing and toiletries into the bag.

“
Kate,” he said after several minutes had passed.

“
Hmm?” she asked, zipping the bag and
straightening.

“
Your uncle Stan is dead.”

She frowned, slinging the
duffel bag over one shoulder. “I know. I already told you
that.”

“
Yeah. But he didn’t work alone.”

Her mouth formed a small
“o” as Jaxson crossed the room and took the duffel bag from her. He
handed her the journal, open to a page about midway through the
book. “Read this.”

She dropped down to sit on
the edge of the bed, her heart pounding as she read the entries
he’d pointed to. Jaxson was already talking, confirming what she
was reading, before she’d even finished that page, and then
another, and another still.

“
Your uncle met Roger at the club. They hooked up, and
discovered they had some
…
common interests,” Jaxson said,
shaking his head, clearly disgusted.

“
Like young blonde women,” Kate said without taking her
attention from the page. “And stalking.”

“
And murder.”