Chapter Twenty-one
As she filled two tall glasses with ice, Morgan did a little dance. Out the kitchen window, beyond the patio, the Zen frog tossed water into the air. Now she could imagine her ladies smiling at it while they enjoyed their morning coffee or evening wine. Through the rest of the summer and into the fall before the air blew too cold.
Picturing it perfectly, she opened the refrigerator for the pitcher of lemonade, then paused when the doorbell rang. A delivery, she supposed as she went to answer. Still, the rules of her life had become the habit of her life.
She checked out the front window first.
And all the simple pleasure of the day drained away.
She opened the door to the two federal agents.
“You’d have called if you’d caught him because you’d want me to know right away. That’s not it.”
“No, Morgan, I’m sorry. That’s not it. Can we come in?” Beck asked her.
“Yes, of course.” She closed the door behind them. “Who was she?”
“Let’s sit down first.”
“Sorry, yes. I…” She looked back toward the kitchen. “I’m not alone. I have my…”
What? She couldn’t say “boyfriend”—he wasn’t a boy. Partner, no, she didn’t think of them as partners, not really. Lover was true, but not all.
“Out back. Miles—Miles Jameson. We’re involved.” That sounded reasonable and true. “He was helping me with a project. He knows about all of this.”
“Yes, we’ve spoken with him.” Morrison glanced back as she did. “Do you want to go out, include him in what we have to tell you?”
No, she thought. She wanted to sit in the sunshine with Miles and lemonade and watch the frog fountain.
But.
“He’ll need to know anyway. I work at the resort. His family owns the resort. And, as I said, we’re involved. I was just … getting lemonade. That sounds so normal.” She laughed, shoved a hand at her hair. “So summer Sunday afternoon. I’ll get two more glasses.”
She walked them back to the kitchen. She could see Miles had already wound the hose back on its reel. Now he stood there with his hands in his pockets, studying the frog fountain.
“Can I help you with that?”
“No,” she told Morrison. “I’ll get a tray. You should go out. I need a minute. I just need a minute.”
She worked on steadying herself as she got a tray. Now she saw Miles turn, saw his bemused, relaxed face tighten.
She filled two more glasses with ice, then carried everything outside.
They continued to stand, the three of them, while the sun struck light against the copper bowl, while the frog smiled his peaceful smile.
She couldn’t say why it meant so much when Miles crossed to her, took the tray. He said, “Sit down.”
Even though it sounded like an order, it steadied her a little more.
When she sat, he poured the lemonade into the glasses so the ice crackled. It sounded like machine-gun fire to her ear.
Howl laid his head on her knee.
“Who was she?” Morgan asked again.
Beck took the lead.
“Her name was Quinn Loper, age twenty-eight, single. She owned her own business in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She fits his profile, top to bottom, though she was substantially more financially well-off than most of his victims. And in this case, he was also able to access her grandparents’ accounts. He didn’t harm them physically but skimmed a hundred thousand. He could have taken a great deal more.”
“He took their grandchild,” Miles countered.
Beck nodded at him. “Yes, and maybe that was enough this time.”
“He rented a beach house, a two-month rental, under the name Trevor Caine,” Morrison continued. “While he may not use that identity again, you should keep it in your records. He posed as a writer.”
They laid out the facts and evidence they’d gathered. Then Beck took over again.
“It’s our conclusion he rented a house rather than booking a hotel because it’s an area where beach rentals are common, and he’d attract less notice.”
Beck leaned over, laid a hand over Morgan’s. “Morgan, I know it might seem we’ve made no progress finding him, stopping him, but we were able to track him from New Orleans, and eventually, we found the agency where he rented the car he used to drive to South Carolina. He’d changed his appearance, but two of the staff there ID’d him, so we knew the name he used, the look he used. Using those, we tracked him to Myrtle Beach. We found the hotel where he’d stayed a couple of days.”
Morgan said nothing, just nodded.
“We alerted local law enforcement. We’d begun canvassing the rental agencies when the alert on Quinn Loper came in. We missed him by hours.”
“But she’s dead anyway. I’m sorry, I understand how much time and work you’re putting into this. But she’s dead anyway.”
“Yes, she is.”
The regret came through, enough that Morgan wished she hadn’t spoken the horrible truth.
“We weren’t in time. But he made mistakes. He stole her car, a high-end Mercedes convertible. And he didn’t disable the tracking system.”
“I’m not sure what that means. I’m not in the high-end car club.”
“It’s an embedded system. It means they tracked him—tracked the car.” Miles’s eyes narrowed. “But you don’t have him.”
“No, but we have the individual who bought the car, and who’s previously taken in trade or in sale other vehicles from Rozwell. We have this person in custody.”
“He knows where Rozwell is?”
Morrison took over. “He claims no, and we believe him. He claims he thought Rozwell was a car thief, that he knew nothing about the murders. We tend to believe him on that, especially since facing potential charges of accessory after the fact, multiple counts of murder, he’s cooperating.”
“We know the vehicle he took in trade,” Beck told them, “and the name he used for the registration. We have his description at that time, and which direction he took, when he took it. These are major mistakes, Morgan, a breakdown in his discipline. We have an APB out on the vehicle, on the name he’s using.”
“Is he coming here?”
“Our information is he brought up a map on his laptop while his new car was prepared for him. He mapped out a route west, likely as far as Kansas, so not here. Our conclusion is he’s not ready for you yet.”
Beck opened her briefcase, took out an evidence bag. “He put this on the victim.”
“My bracelet.” In the summer sunlight, her skin went cold. “The one he took when he killed Nina.”
“He wants you to know he’s thinking about you. To keep you on edge. But the fact is, Morgan, he’s on edge. He wouldn’t have made so many mistakes otherwise. He knows cars, he knows tech, but he forgot about the tracking system in the Mercedes.”
“We can put you in a safe house,” Morrison began.
“My mother and grandmother live here. What if he comes for me, and hurts them instead?”
The thought of it, the risk of it, turned the hard knot in her belly to ice.
“And how long do I stay shut away somewhere? A week, a month, a year? I can’t live like that. No one can live like that. Miles—”
“No,” he said. “You can’t live like that. We’re doing everything you advised us to do. If there’s more, tell us and we’ll do that. How many times is she supposed to let him take what she has, what she is? How many times does she have to start over?”
Saying nothing, Morgan watched him. His voice stayed absolutely calm, and turned cold enough to freeze the air.
The invisible suit, she thought. He put on the invisible suit. For me.
What he said, how he said it, meant, in that moment, everything.
“She shook his confidence, isn’t that it?” Miles demanded. “You have profilers—isn’t that the reason he’s fucking up? She dented his shield, so she has to pay. But he has to make sure he dents hers, too. Shakes her confidence. Otherwise, he’d have gone after her right away. It’s got to eat at him, but he’s waited more than a year.
“She scares him. And he damn well should be scared of her.”
“I don’t disagree,” Beck said. “But unless we stop him first, he will come sooner or later. Because yes, it eats at him. The three women he’s killed since Morgan survived? They’re substitutes, and a substitute never satisfies like the real thing.”
“Then you’d better find him first.”
Beck sat back, picked up her glass, set it down again. “If he’d waited one more day in South Carolina. We’d just walked into the agency he used for the rental. If we’d walked in a few hours earlier. But we didn’t, and he didn’t.”
“It’s hard for me.” Morgan stroked Howl’s head. “It’s hard for both of you.”
“It’s the job,” Beck began, then both her and Morrison’s phones beeped. “Excuse me.” She rose, stepped away.
“Is that your dog?” Morrison asked Morgan.
“No. He’s Miles’s dog.”
“More or less,” Miles muttered.
“It wouldn’t hurt to get a dog. A dog’s a good deterrent. You could—”
“We’ve got a break,” Beck interrupted. “He checked into a hotel in Kansas City, Missouri. Local LEOs responding now. We’ve got to go. We’ll be in touch.”
Morgan stood to walk them out, but they were already rushing away. “Good luck,” she called out. “Maybe this time,” she said to Miles.
“Maybe. You’re okay.”
“You think?”
“No panic attack.”
“There’s that. I want to tell you, it meant a lot, what you said.”
“I said a lot of things.”
“That I’m not going to let him take my life away again, that he should be afraid of me. You stood up for me. It matters that I know I’ll stand up for myself, that you believe I can and will, and you’d still stand up for me. It matters.”
He said nothing for a moment, just watched her as she sat, the dog stretched out under her chair.
“Morrison had a good point. You should keep the dog with you. I don’t know if he’s much of a guard dog, but he’d make noise.”
“And give up that fancy doghouse?”
“I’m pretty sure he’d sleep out in the rain if you’d give him a pat on the head.”
Smiling, she gave Howl a rub with her foot. “You’re his home, and his roots. I know what it’s like to be uprooted, so no. But thanks. Those agents? This isn’t just a job for them. They want to stop him, and it’s not for a government paycheck.”
She paused, drank some of her lemonade. “I think I did dent his shield, the way they said. If what happened to me, and what didn’t, shakes him enough to help them find him, stop him … I’ll be good with that. More than. And I hope he knows that despite everything he took from me, I have a good life here, with more than I knew I wanted. I hope that shakes him, too.”
“I’m just going to get this over with.”
He surprised her by reaching out to take her hand. He rarely made gestures of casual affection or intimacy.
“Am I going to like it?”
“That’s not the point. I’m attracted to you. That’s obvious or we wouldn’t be here. I like being with you, and not just for the sex. For some strange reason I like the way you make a fountain out of a frog.”
“You helped.”
“I was just the muscle, and don’t interrupt. I’d enjoy watching you work behind the stick even if it wasn’t for us. It’s like a freaking ballet. I like your body, and I appreciate it has a good brain to go along with it. But all that aside, as they’re really just different aspects of attraction, I admire the hell out of you.”
Her earlier surprise shot straight up to stunned. “Oh, well. Wow.”
“Don’t interrupt,” he said again. “I don’t know how I’d have handled what you’ve had to. If I’d lost what you lost, and the way you lost it. If I’d had to face losing someone close to me, family, the way you did. Because that’s what Nina was to you. She was family. I sure as hell hope I never have to find out if I have that kind of courage.
“You can talk now.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m speechless.”
“That’d be a first.”
Howl stirred, muttered, then pushed out from under the chair.
“I think your ladies are home.”
Before he could draw his hand away, she tightened her grip, then reached out to take his other. “You’ve just turned a really hard knock around. I’ll think of more to say later, but right now, you turned it around.”
“Miles, how nice to see you!” Seriously pretty in pink, Audrey stepped out. “No, don’t get up. Don’t. Oh, and this is the sweet dog Morgan’s told us about. Aren’t you handsome?” Audrey all but purred it while she bent down to pet the wagging Howl. “And listen to you. I agree.” She laughed as he talked. “It is a beautiful day. And a busy one,” she added as she straightened. “We nearly … Oh, oh, Morgan! Where did you get that? It’s wonderful. A birdbath, a fountain. A yoga frog! It’s adorable. Mom! You have to come out here and see!”
Amused, charmed, Miles just sat and watched.
Morgan’s mother, pretty as a cupcake in her pink sundress, bounced on her toes with her hands pressed together under her chin.
Morgan had that chin, he realized, and those long, narrow hands with long, slender fingers. Then Olivia Nash came out, teenager trim in white linen pants, a sleeveless lipstick-red shirt. And he saw Morgan there as well in that same chin, and the cheekbones.
“What in the world, Audrey. Hello, Miles, and hello, Howl. Don’t you have the sweetest face?”
“Thanks,” Miles said, and earned a laugh.
“Both of you.”
“Mom, would you look?” To make sure of it, Audrey took her mother’s arm with one hand, pointed with the other.
“Oh, for … Well.”
“Morgan got us a yoga frog fountain.”
“She built it,” Miles corrected.
“I didn’t build it. I just found the pieces for it and put them together.”
“Morgan, that’s the definition of ‘build.’”
“It’s that old concrete base your dad could never figure out what he wanted to do with, Audrey. And that’s Doug Gund’s copper bowl. I saw we’d sold it, but nobody mentioned we’d sold it to you, Morgan.”
“I asked them not to. Is it okay there? Do you like it?”
Studying the fountain, Olivia patted a hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “He would’ve gotten such a kick out of that.” Then she bent down, kissed the top of Morgan’s head. “He’d be so proud of you. I love it. I love it almost as much as I love that some of his cleverness rubbed off on you.”
With a hand on Morgan’s shoulder, her other holding Audrey’s, Olivia turned to Miles. “I’m betting she drafted you into hauling that ton of concrete over there.”
He just flexed his biceps.
“I hope you and Howl will stay for dinner. We picked up some nice tilapia on the way home, and I’ve a mind to blacken it. You like spicy, Miles?”
“What man would say no?”
“That’s settled then. It looks like you’ve already had some company.”
Morgan rose, picked up the agents’ glasses. “Sit down, and I’ll get some fresh glasses and tell you about it.”
Audrey stopped her with a touch on the arm. “This is about him. About Gavin Rozwell.”
“Yes, but it’s not all bad. Let me get the glasses first.”
Audrey watched her go. “I’m glad you were here, Miles. I’m glad she wasn’t alone.”
“So am I, but she’s right. It’s not all bad.”
Olivia sat. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.”
They listened, with the summer sun streaming, with the faintest breeze just whispering in the air. And he watched as Audrey took her daughter’s hand, as Olivia never took her eyes off Morgan’s face.
“He made her care about him,” Audrey murmured. “He took all that time to gain her trust, and more, make her care about him.”
“Because the cruelty is the point. He didn’t kill her grandparents,” Olivia continued, “because that’s not what he does. But more? I think more, because he knew how much they’d suffer. The cruelty is the point. What a sick, twisted life he lives.”
“It’s time he lived it behind bars. It’s way past time.”
Morgan gave her mother’s hand a squeeze. “That may be coming, Mom. He made that mistake, not disabling the tracking system, and they got all that information from his—I’m not sure what I’d call him—the car guy.”
“He could switch cars again anytime,” Olivia pointed out.
“He could, but they know where he is. I didn’t get to the last thing. While they were here, they got an alert. He’d checked into a hotel in Kansas City. The local police were responding. They could have him already. It could be over.”
He wanted to do some shopping, and walk around to stretch his legs and get a feel for the area surrounding his hotel. He always made a point of checking out the traffic patterns, the local hot spots. Plus, he’d grown tired of the beach look. His current identity called for a more arty wardrobe.
Italian sandals, a pair of animal-striped Vans, black jeans, some new shirts, and a straw boater.
He enjoyed himself enough to stop and take an outdoor table at a bistro, order a glass of Malbec and a French dip. With his shopping bags tucked under the table, he set up his laptop, checked out the news reports for Myrtle Beach.
There she was! A very nice photo, all smiles and beach-blond hair. The artist drawing of Trevor Caine—suspect—wasn’t bad, he concluded. Then again, Trevor Caine was as dead as Quinn Loper.
He read the report while he ate, and found himself mildly disappointed they’d yet to connect him, the real him, to Caine or the murder.
They would. He counted on it. A man needed recognition for accomplishments, after all.
He wondered if those bumbling Special Agents Beck and Morrison were on the case yet. He hoped so. It gave him such satisfaction to frustrate them, time after time.
Had they told Morgan? Oh, he really hoped so. He made a mental toast as he imagined her shivering with fear in a dark room, door locked, while her mother and grandmother wept in concern.
His mother had spent plenty of time locked in dark rooms nursing black eyes, cracked ribs.
He congratulated himself on not disposing of the junk jewelry he’d taken from Morgan’s drawer. Leaving those pieces on the women he’d finished? Inspired, if he said so himself.
And he did.
What would she think when she found out a corpse wore her cheap, tacky bracelet? He drew a picture in his mind of her curling into a ball, crying, hysterical, begging for someone to protect her.
He’d see that, he promised himself, in reality, in the fucking flesh. And that would balance the damn scales before he finished her.
He finished his wine, paid the check, and because his musings put him in a fine mood, added a generous tip.
Carter John Winslow III could afford generosity thanks to a hefty trust fund. It allowed him to pursue his art without worrying about a paycheck.
Not that he needed that background story at the moment. He wouldn’t stay in Kansas City more than a couple of days. He planned to head south of the border, book a suite at a resort on the Pacific Coast. A nice R and R.
God knew he’d earned it.
If he hadn’t taken that walk around, done some shopping, stopped for a bite to eat and a glass of wine, he wouldn’t have seen the police cars and the black SUV pull up in front of his hotel.
He wouldn’t have been half a block away when cops poured out and rushed into the hotel lobby.
He wouldn’t have been able to keep walking, just keep walking with his heart pounding in his throat and sheer shock ringing in his ears.
How had they found him? How? He’d ditched the Caine ID before he killed the bitch. He hadn’t left a trail.
He kept walking.
Somehow he had left a trail, and now his Winslow ID was useless. And his things—cash, other IDs, other electronics, clothes—they’d have those now.
The sweat that slicked his skin turned icy as he went into a drugstore. He needed hair dye, some haircutting tools, some basic supplies.
No Mexico now. No, he couldn’t risk a border crossing now. North, he’d go north. Montana, maybe Wyoming, where cows outnumbered people and people minded their own fucking business.
He couldn’t get to his car, so he’d have to steal one. Some old junker he could hot-wire. He had to find a place to deal with his hair. Cheap motel. He had cash on him, and ways to access his accounts.
A cheap motel, change his look, steal a car, get the hell out of goddamn Kansas City.
No, no, steal the car first and get out. Roadblocks, manhunt. His mind whirled with fear, with what-ifs.
He walked out without buying anything, and kept walking until he found a bus stop. He got on the first one to come by, kept his head down and turned. Buses had cameras like every other damn thing now.
He reminded himself he had the laptop, at least he had the laptop.
But his hands shook and more sweat pooled at the base of his spine.
It took him nearly an hour of walking, riding, walking until he found a likely car in the vast parking lot of a Walmart.
They hadn’t bothered to lock it, and it stank of pork rinds and loaded diapers, but he thought the car seat in the back would provide some cover.
He got it fired up, wound his way until he hit Interstate 29, and headed north. He cursed when he had to stop for gas, but he needed it, needed to keep going until he got clear.
He paid at the pump with the Luke Hudson Visa card he’d kept to remind him of Morgan. A lesser risk, he thought, than going inside—camera—or using the Winslow card.
He’d get to somewhere in Nebraska, he decided, find that cheap motel. Deal with his hair. In the morning he could buy what he needed to generate a new identity.
As he drove, he beat a hand on the wheel. All of his things! All of them, gone.
He had to slow his breathing, concentrate on his driving. If he got stopped …
He wouldn’t get stopped. Couldn’t get stopped, so he wouldn’t.
Get to Nebraska. He rocked back and forth to calm himself. Find some crap motel where they didn’t look twice. He’d have to ditch the stolen car—airport, long-term parking—to buy some time. Some bumfuck airport in bumfuck Nebraska.
Or maybe a junkyard. They probably had plenty of those piled up in the goddamn cornfields.
Switch the plates, ditch the car. Maybe buy a new one for cash from some yahoo. Or rent one, wait and rent one once he had the new ID.
He couldn’t decide. He couldn’t think.
He had to find somewhere to hole up first, to hole up and figure out what he needed to do next.
Because for the first time in his life, Gavin Rozwell was on the run.