Beverly Barton - Silent Killer

“Good point,” Derek Lawrence said as he entered the room without knocking or alerting the others beforehand.

All eyes focused on the former FBI profiler.

“Glad you decided to join us,” Jack said, the tone of his voice gruffer than he’d intended.

“I’ll let your surly attitude pass this time, considering you’ve been up all night,” Derek told Jack. “Our killer wouldn’t be careless enough to leave behind evidence, not at this stage of the game. If she left something, she did it on purpose.”

“Let me get this straight,” Special Agent Morgan said. “You believe the killer left the locket to cast suspicion on Melissa Hovater.”

Derek nodded.

“How did she get hold of Missy’s necklace?” Detective Vaughn asked.

“And why single out Missy?” Morgan asked and then shook his head before anyone could respond. “Yeah, sure. I get it. Missy was a suspect in her father’s murder, so why not point the finger at her and lead us in the wrong direction.”

“It’s going to be rough on the girl having to be questioned for a murder we’re all pretty sure she didn’t commit,” Karla said.

“That’s why Mike has gone to see the Harpers,” Jack reminded them. “He wanted to talk to them and explain the situation. The last thing any of us want is to traumatize Missy Hovater more than she’s already been traumatized.”

“I’ll be as gentle as possible when I question her,” Morgan assured them. “But I have to question her. If she can ID the necklace, she should be able to tell us where she kept it and who had access to it.”

“If she took the locket with her to the Harpers’, then I’d say that narrows down the possible suspects,” Derek said.

“To the people living in the Harper house.” Detective Vaughn lifted the coffee pot off the warmer and brought it over to the desk where Karla sat. “More?” he asked. When she nodded, he filled her mug to the brim.

“That’s right,” Jack said. “The people living in the Harper house or anyone who has visited them recently and had free access to the house.”

“At least we now know that our killer is definitely female,” Derek said. “That rules out about half the population. And just in the Harper household alone, we have four females-Mrs. Harper, her mother and her two daughters.”

“Any other new, brilliant insight into the case?” Jack asked.

Derek eyed him with curiosity and hitched his thumb toward the door. “Got a minute for a private chat?”

Jack huffed. When he glanced around the room, each person avoided making direct eye contact with him. Okay, so he needed an attitude adjustment this morning. Who wouldn’t, considering the news Cathy had laid on him last night?

“Sure thing.” Jack opened the door and held it for Derek.

They walked through the outer office, where Mike’s secretary nodded at them and a couple of the deputies acknowledged them with a smile or a wave. Once they entered the entrance hall, Jack turned to Derek.

“Let me have it with both barrels,” Jack said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Personal problems.”

“How bad?”

“Bad enough.”

“Take some time off to deal with them.”

Jack shook his head. “That won’t work. There’s no easy solution. For now, I’m better off working.”

“Then bring it down a notch,” Derek suggested. “For your own sake as well as for the people you’re working with.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.” He looked right at Derek. “Are we good?”

Derek grinned. “We’re good.”

When the two men returned to Mike’s office, they came in on a conversation about-what else?-the identity of the killer and what motivated her to kill clergymen and in such a gruesome way.

“She’s pissed,” Karla said. “Some preacher screwed with her in some way and messed up her mind. Right? We figure out the motive, we’re one step closer to figuring out her identity.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Detective Vaughn agreed.

“Our killer won’t stand out,” Derek told them. “Not the way you’d think. I still believe that she appears to be relatively normal. She’s got a hard-on for clergymen, all right. She’s handing out punishment as if she’s on a mission from God. Somewhere in her past is a clergyman who, like Karla said, screwed with her and messed up her mind.”

“This leads us back to Missy Hovater,” Morgan said.

“Her father sexually abused her for years. She hated him, wanted him dead.”

“And yet none of us believes she killed him,” Karla said.

“Our killer is screaming. We just can’t hear her. All the rage is inside her, but it’s not evident to anyone looking at her. Missy Hovater might have hidden her rage in the past, but now it’s out there for the world to see. Our killer’s rage isn’t. The Fire and Brimstone Killer has internalized her anger, kept it bottled up inside her. Oh, she’s screaming all right-screaming in silence. And we all know that silence is often the deadliest kind of scream there is.”

Cathy had been awake all night. Right after Jack stormed out of her house, she had called Lorie, who had come over and stayed until half an hour ago, when she’d gone home to shower and get ready for work. They had talked until Cathy was hoarse. They had cried until Cathy’s eyes were red and swollen. They had damned all men in general, but Jack and Mike in particular. And now, in the cold, hard light of day, Cathy had to face the truth-she might have lost Jack forever. And then there was Seth. She needed to talk to Jack again as soon as possible to find out if he intended to tell Seth that he was his biological father. But regardless of what Jack did or didn’t do, she realized that she owed it to her son to be totally honest with him.

After turning on the shower to let the water get steamy warm, Cathy stripped out of her gown and robe, kicked off her house shoes and laid out two clean towels and a washcloth. She took her time, lathering her hair, scrubbing her body, shaving her legs and underarms. In a way, she felt that she was preparing for battle. The normal routine that usually took her less than half an hour took nearly fifty minutes, but by eight-thirty she was dressed, her hair done and her makeup applied.

She was battle ready.

And she had made some decisions while the deliciously warm water had peppered her body. To hell with Jack. If he couldn’t forgive her, then losing out on their second chance would be his fault, not hers. She had to talk to Seth. It was her place to explain things to him, to help him understand why she had kept the truth from him and from Jack all these years.

With her stomach tied in knots, she decided to skip her regular breakfast and prepare coffee and whole-wheat toast. But just as she slid two slices of bread into the toaster, she heard a knock at the kitchen door. When she looked through the half-glass door, she saw Seth standing there, a frantic expression on his face.

Oh God, had Jack already spoken to him? Was he here to confront her?

Bracing herself for the worst, she wiped her hands off on the towel hanging over the sink and hurried to the back door. The moment she unlocked the door, Seth stormed in, a wild look in his eyes.

“We’ve got to go to the sheriff’s office right now.” Seth’s words ran together as they rushed out of his mouth so quickly that Cathy barely understood what he’d said.

He held up what Cathy assumed was her morning newspaper. “Slow down and tell me what’s going on.”

“Here, take a look for yourself.” Seth opened the newspaper and held it out for her to see. “It’s happened again. Just last night.”

Cathy read the headline: Fire amp; Brimstone Killer Strikes Again.

“Who?” she grabbed the newspaper out of his hands and scanned the article. “Deacon Perry Fuqua?”