They paused several yards away when they noticed him, Kimber whispering in Jeremy's ear before she headed to her own workstation a few cubicles away from Jeremy's.
"Hey Nick! What brings you down here?"
He sounded friendly, but then, Jeremy was a friendly guy, the always helpful, sunny personality everyone loved and to whom everyone flocked.
Nick didn't stand as Jeremy approached, just leaned back in the ergonomic swivel chair and steepled his fingers as he peered up at Jeremy, seeing the young clerk with different eyes.
That message to Slany could have been taken only one way: that of a would-be lover warning off a rival from the object of his or her affection.
Nick had to admit, being the object of a man's smoldering passion disconcerted him, but not as much as Slany being the target of a serial killer.
Were the serial killer and the person who left those flowers and that note one in the same? The items in Jeremy's desk said they were, but if this were the case, why come out of hiding now? Why leave evidence of the crime in easily accessible view? Did he want to get caught? Or was he being set up by another party?
All of the above bothered Nick, especially the setting-up part. That meant that there was someone else out there altogether who had a grudge to settle with Nick, someone who wanted Slany enough to go through such elaborate measures to get her.
Jeremy stood at the entrance to his cubicle, smile plastered on his face, waiting for Nick to respond to his greeting before his look slowly turned to a frown. "Is there a problem?"
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Nick stood and grabbed Jeremy by his shirtfront. The young man yelped as Nick flung him into the chair and leaned in, each hand gripping an arm of Jeremy's chair. "Kimber, I need you to call security for me!"
The young woman stood and peeked over her cubicle wall to see Nick crowding Jeremy in his chair. "I'm sorry, Nick?"
"Call security. Right now."
"Y-yes sir."
"What's going on?" Jeremy asked, and Nick couldn't help but think he looked genuinely confused, genuinely scared. Not exactly the look of a cold-blooded and calculating serial killer.
"Where's Kate Delaney?"
"Who?"
"The freelance photographer who's been missing for the last several weeks."
"I thought she was on a leave of absence."
"That seems to be the party line everyone believes, but you and I know better, don't we?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I'm talking about this!" Nick reached for the drawer and jerked it open.
Jeremy looked inside and instantly put a hand over his mouth. "Oh, God…"
"He's not getting you out of this, Keyes."
"I'm going to be sick."
Nick had a second to back up before Jeremy threw up on his expensive Italian leather shoes.
* * * *
She'd arrived an hour ago with Nick and gave her statement to two plainclothes policemen.
Nick was in one of the rooms in the back, tying up loose ends, as he'd put it, before leaving her in the care of the civilian worker up front.
She was a friendly, young woman, miles away from Yvette, and who'd gone out of her way to make Slany comfortable while she waited.
However, all the kindness and consideration did nothing to keep her mind off of why she was there and what happened to bring her there.
By the time Nick had made it back to his office, two hours after leaving Slany locked inside, she had done an hour of yoga and meditation and another hour of pacing. None of it helped the waiting go by any quicker, and none of it made her feel any better about Nick leaving her alone.
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Gracie C. McKeever
When he had returned to his office, trailing two plainclothes policemen who wanted to take a look at his computer, Slany knew that something was seriously wrong.
Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined things would come to this, that the flowers and card had been left by some psychotic killer. That said killer had such a fixation on her as to eliminate a man from her past.
Slany still didn't understand it all, confused by the flowers and card and their connection to the person who had killed Ron Wells, and most probably Lorraine and Kate.
Why threaten her and then murder someone in defense of her? If someone was stalking her—indeed, going to murder her, why warn her? Had Lorraine or Kate been warned, or had the stalker simply snatched them when the time was right?
None of this made any sense to her.
Either Jeremy had actually done what the police were accusing him of and had gotten sloppy and desperate in his haste to get next to Nick, or someone else was intentionally muddying up the waters, pointing several different crimes in Jeremy's direction. So far, the tactic was working, because the police were pointing a glaring spotlight on the young clerk.
Slany couldn't say she appreciated the little gift Jeremy had left her, the only offense to which he readily admitted, but she didn't believe he was a murderer, despite the evidence.
Nick wasn't too enthusiastic about Jeremy's supposed motives for Kate and Ron's murders, either, despite the irrefutable wealth of evidence he'd found, but said the police were now working with what he had provided them. Their job was to connect the dots, whether they liked Jeremy as the perpetrator or not.
The irrefutable facts said he was involved in some way to all three victims.
Lorraine and Kate still hadn't been located, but evidence of foul play linking their disappearances had been found in Jeremy's possession, in his cubicle, and at his apartment.
Ron's tortured and bruised body, sans one ring finger, had turned up in a Dumpster outside of Jeremy's apartment building. Head clad in a leather bondage mask, body nude except for leather and chain torso and crotch harnesses, evidently the victim of some gay S&M sex homicide. At least, this was the spin Nick said the police were giving the murder so far.
The police were assuming because Jeremy was gay, then so, too, was his victim.
Slany didn't like it one bit, the designation too pat for her.
Ron may have been a lot of things, a racist and misogynist among them, but she didn't believe he was gay, although she could believe someone might have a motive for killing him.
Whether or not that someone had been Jeremy Keyes remained to be seen.
She didn't think he could have had anything to do with Lorraine's disappearance, unless he had started his life of crime as a young teenager.
The jury was still out on what Jeremy had to do with Kate.
"Ready to hit the road?"
Slany looked up at Nick standing in front of her. She hadn't even noticed him come up to the bench, where she was sitting.
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"Are we done here?"
"For now."
He looked so grim, so different from the man she'd been with last night and this morning.
The strain of what he'd found was showing. The stress of trying to be protector and watchdog revealed in the somber look of his honey eyes.
Her heart filled as she stood, and he wrapped her in his embrace.
"So, they're going to keep Jeremy? They really think he did…everything?"
"For now, they're holding him. They've found enough to like him as a suspect."
"What about you, Nick? What do you think?"
"I think you're going to be staying at my house again tonight, is what I think."
* * * *
No, he had only planted the evidence to have a little fun and throw the police and Vega off-kilter for a while. He wanted to watch them jump through his hoops while he went about the business of his ultimate domination.
They'd figure it all out eventually—Vega was intelligent, and the police would stumble to the correct conclusions sooner or later—but not before he had some more fun, not before he had his day in the sun with Slany and made Vega watch.
He smiled as he remembered the look on poor Jeremy's face when the police had taken him out in handcuffs, chuckling at the clerk's remembered tears.
Served him right for trying to play with the big boys.
Jeremy had no idea who he was messing with, competing against. This wasn't a game.
High school pranksters and the lovelorn need not apply. Leaving threatening notes and dead flowers didn't get you into the battle. One had to make a sacrifice, a major sacrifice, and had to kill at least one person before entering this exclusive club. Kill someone with meaning and feeling, and don't forget to show artistry and inventiveness while one was at it.
Jeremy Keyes didn't have the makings of a Dominant or a god like him, could never contend in his world. He couldn't even contend in Vega's world. Because for all his lack as a Dominant, the ad exec did have other attributes that made him a desirable opponent and even a partner—intelligence, strength, determination, and hunger—attributes that made him perfectly attractive to an impressionable milquetoast like Jeremy, or even an abused and confused woman like Slany Breeze.
He shook his head against the feelings of forgiveness that were starting to invade his heart, feelings that had started to creep into his system since Jeremy's little prank and seeing how upset it had made her. Her vulnerability had reanimated his protective instincts, shown him why he had targeted Slany for his training program in the first place.
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He should be lenient. It was, after all, godlike to be merciful and forgive, and he was God to his trainees.
He smiled as he closed his computer and prepared for the upcoming weekend.
* * * *
"Hello?"
"Hi, Linda."
"Jeff?"
"Please, don't hang up. I just needed someone to talk to about…about—"
"Don't tell me you're calling about Lorrie. Not now."
"I'm almost done. I'm almost at the end of the road, Lin."
"What are you talking about? Jeff, are you drunk?"
"No, not at all. I've never been more clear-headed, more sober. I just wanted to let you know it will be over soon. The search, our pain—"
"You're not thinking of doing anything crazy are you?"
"No, nothing crazy, just necessary."
"When you say it will be over soon, what exactly do you mean? Did you get a new private investigator to take the case?"
"Matt Wilcox. He's a good young man, and he's made so much more progress than any of the others. He cares about this case. He cares about Lorrie. You would like him." When Jeff said all those things out loud, he realized they were true, could even imagine Matt and his Lorrie together. They would have made a nice couple.
"That's good. I'm glad to hear it."
"Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how things were going."
"I'm glad you did," Linda whispered. "You're sure you're okay?"
"Never better. I'll let you go and get back to what you were doing."
"Jeff?"
"Yes?"
"You take care of yourself."
"You too, honey." He hung up, feeling much better about what he planned to do.
Wilcox had told Jeff he believed the authorities had the wrong man, even after yesterday's arraignment.
But Jeff didn't need the private detective to tell him this, because he knew the police had the wrong man.
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He'd done some checking on his own and saw the news reports.
The agency where the mail clerk was employed was the same ad agency where none other than Nicholas Vega worked as an advertising executive.
Same as he had in New Jersey with his Lorrie.
He did not think the young man they had in custody—indeed, had indicted for this Kate Delaney's death—was the man responsible for his Lorrie's death, despite the police having evidence to link him to Jeff's daughter.
For one, he was too young and would have been a teenager when Lorraine had been taken.
The witnesses who had seen Lorrie last, though they had not gotten a good look, described the person Lorraine left with as an adult male. He'd been tall with broad shoulders, but the face had been obscured with a hood.
Matt said he narrowed down his suspects to two men, and though he hadn't specified who, he had told Jeff in their last telephone conversation that this mail clerk, Jeremy Keyes, was not one of them. Matt, too, had discounted him because of his age, and several other factors that he wouldn't go into with Jeff.
But Jeff didn't need him to go into anything, because he knew in his heart at least one of Matt's two suspects, even if Matt wouldn't tell him or confirm: Nicholas Vega.
Ten years was enough. He could not let this go on any longer, could not let that young man undermine the legal system with his freedom, laughing at the authorities behind their back while he planned and executed another crime. Killed another innocent young woman.
Jeff would not allow Lorrie's killer to run free any longer.
191
Gracie C. McKeever
Slany watched Nick working at his computer, his dark hair glistening invitingly beneath the fluorescent lights of his home office as his fingers diligently flew across the keyboard.
He'd been working more than overtime to put the finishing touches to the Everwell branding campaign, had insisted on finishing it on his own. He said her job as art director was done, even if she was in the house with him and could watch him work. The project was no longer her baby.
For the first time in a long time, this left Slany with idle time on her hands, and she knew well what this meant: the devil's playground.