Allison Brennan - Killing Fear

This pleased him.

“Ms. McKenna, do you like me?”

She startled, glared at him, showing a taste of her inner passion. Passion that should have been directed toward him, not William Hooper.

“No, I don’t like you. You killed my friends.”

“We’ll leave that to the jury to decide, but you just made my point. You never liked me, did you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Excuse me?”

“Objection!” The prosecutor jumped up.

“Overruled.”

Theodore repeated to Robin, “Why have you never liked me?”

She frowned. “I don’t know.”

“It’s like ice cream, right? Some people don’t like chocolate. They don’t know why, it just doesn’t taste good.”

“I didn’t like the way you looked at me,” Robin said quietly.

“You remove your clothes onstage in front of a hundred men every night and you don’t like the way they look at you?”

“I don’t like the way you look at me when you think I can’t see you watching,” she said, her voice gathering strength.

“Ms. McKenna, isn’t it true that you identified me off this vague sketch simply because you don’t like me? You wanted someone to blame for the murders of your friends, and I was convenient.”

The prosecutor exclaimed, “Objection!” while Robin leaned forward and said, “I know you killed them. I saw you in the picture because it is you. I told the police exactly what they asked, that the only person I recognized that looks like the sketch is Theodore Glenn-”

“Order!” The judge pounded his gavel.

“You killed them and you gloated!” Robin shouted.

“Order, Ms. McKenna,” the judge said.

Theodore smiled. He looked right at William Hooper, the detective’s face tight with suppressed anger. Rage directed at him for bringing up the truth.

The district attorney himself, pompous ass Bryce Descario, asked the judge for a ten-minute recess to confer with the witness. Right, Julia Chandler does all the work and Descario comes in for the glory.

But Theodore had gotten what he wanted: a reaction from Robin McKenna. The best reaction yet, but he wasn’t done with her.

Not by a long shot.

While Theodore waited for the verdict to be read, he looked to the media section. That hot little reporter Trinity Lange was writing furiously in her notebook. Now there was one smart cookie. He’d watched her on the news every night, reporting on his case. She had picked up on some of his accusations and run with them. He didn’t care if she did it for the sensationalism or ratings, she brought up the hard questions. Like the one last night:

“The key evidence in the Glenn trial is DNA found at the murder scene of Anna Louisa Clark, a twenty-three-year-old nursing student and exotic dancer who was discovered dead by her roommate early on the morning of April 10. Glenn admitted to having an affair with three of the four victims, but denied an affair with Ms. Clark.”

The evidence against him was all circumstantial. He wasn’t stupid, he wouldn’t leave traces of himself behind. Luckily, the evidence from the first crime scene had been thrown out, thanks to the police screwing up. And he’d known immediately after killing Bethany that he’d made a mistake.

Theodore Glenn never made the same mistake twice.

Ergo, someone had framed him.

The bailiff said, “Will the defendant please rise?”

He rose. Julia Chandler and the asshole D.A. also stood.

“Has the jury reached a verdict?” the judge asked.

“We have, Your Honor,” the foreman replied.

The judge handed the bailiff the findings, who in turn handed it over to the clerk. “The clerk will read the verdict.”

The clerk began. “In count one of the indictment, willful murder in the first degree of Bethany Coleman on February 20, 2001, we the jury find the defendant, Theodore Alan Glenn, guilty. In count two of the indictment…”

Theodore’s ears rang. The clerk’s voice came from a great distance, deeper, quieter, with each pronouncement of guilt booming in his head.

They said he was guilty. The jury convicted him of murder. Four murders.

Fools.

“In count four of the indictment, willful murder in the first degree of Anna Louisa Clark on April 10, 2001, we the jury find the defendant guilty.”

Theodore stood behind his table. Alone. His fury rose. He let the emotion fill him. Because he rarely had emotions, when anger rushed in, he seized it.

He would not go to prison forever. He had the appeals court. He had the system itself! He would use it and twist it around and in the end he would be free once more. And he would kill everyone-every pathetic human being-who had crossed him.

He whirled around, stared at William Hooper. Cocky cop. A real ladies’ man. Hooper saw the truth on Theodore’s face-that Theodore knew his dirty secret and would make him pay. Hooper’s face tightened and he stared back, chin out.

I know your secret, Theodore mouthed, the edges of his lips curving up.

The gavel fell. “Mr. Glenn, please face the bench.”

Theodore pivoted and faced Robin McKenna. During the entire trial, he had kept track of where she had been sitting. In the far corner. Trying to hide. Especially after his cross-examination. He gave her credit for returning to the courtroom after that grueling day.

She couldn’t hide from him. Not now, not later.

He raised his hand, pointed his index finger at her, and fired a mock gun.

The gavel pounded again. “Bailiff!”

William Hooper jumped to his feet and ran down the aisle. “You fucking bastard! Don’t you so much as look-”

The gavel pounded again and again. “Detective! Meet me in my chambers immediately. Thirty-minute recess. Bailiff, take Mr. Glenn to holding.”

Theodore put that thirty minutes to good use. He memorized the names of everyone who needed to die.

Present day

Dear Robin:

I think of you every day, dream of you every night. So clear are my visions of your perfect naked body dancing just for me that when I wake each morning I see you at the foot of my bed in this godforsaken prison you sent me to.

I will come for you, but you won’t know the day or the hour. I long for the wonderful moment when I watch your face next to mine, the truth in your eyes as you surrender to me.

Theodore folded the letter and stuffed it back down his pants as he leaned against the fence of San Quentin’s East Block exercise yard. Exercise? Most of the men stood in groups talking or arguing or hiding an illegal smoke, easier in the cold when smoke could be mistaken for breath.

Defeated. That was the expression on most faces. Fated to spend the rest of their miserable lives in a crumbling, foul-smelling prison. Urine, fungi, and the stench Theodore could only describe as “wet dog”-but worse-permeated the interior. But here, in the pathetically small exercise yard, he tasted salt in the air, heard seagulls call, and remembered freedom.

Freedom that had been stolen from him by a stripper whore and the cop she was screwing.

The fog hung like a wet blanket over the exercise yard. Depressing and unnatural-Theodore despised the entire area. He missed the sun of San Diego, its warm beaches and hot days.

His appeal was only two months away, and he wouldn’t be returning to prison no matter what happened in court.

He pulled out the letter to Robin and tore it into tiny pieces. Fucking lying bitch, you will pay for what you did to me!