Allison Brennan - Killing Fear

Will glanced at his watch. “If we leave now, we can make it to Anaheim by midnight.”

“I talked to Chief Causey and he agreed to allow an agent from the FBI’s Orange County field office interview her. Personally, I think he used her and left with her car-one that we wouldn’t be alerted to. And he dumped it when he picked up a safer ride.”

“He wouldn’t have told her anything important,” Will said. “He doesn’t trust women, and he’s too smart to trust a woman who struck up a letter-writing campaign with him in prison.” He frowned. “Unless there was something the woman could do for him, something he couldn’t do himself…Any word on Sara Lorenz? Where she works?”

Hans shook his head. “Between our two offices something is bound to break sooner rather than later. But she’s definitely a red flag. She’s the only one of the nineteen women in San Diego County we haven’t made contact with.”

“Did you get the phone number I left on your voice mail earlier?”

“Cash phone, pay-as-you-go. We did learn it was bought at Wal-Mart, and the merchandising manager is looking at which specific store it was purchased at, though I don’t think that’s going to do us any good.”

“Why?”

“It was bought eighteen months ago.”

“Where does she refill it?”

“She doesn’t.”

“If she uses it she’d have to put minutes on it.”

“She bought one thousand minutes. Only four hundred and seventeen have been used.”

“And the phone numbers?”

“Impossible to trace. There are no records kept.”

“All clear,” the bomb squad reported, coming out to the porch. “We opened the box, but didn’t touch anything inside.”

“Thanks, guys,” Will said, striding into the house.

He stared at the box, his heart rising in his throat.

It was a small, generic pink donut box. Inside was a bird. A robin.

Dead.

“Interesting,” Hans said.

Will spun around. “ Interesting? This is a threat against Robin McKenna.”

“What I find interesting is that he came up here to deliver it. And he didn’t seem to be overly irritated that Ms. Chandler wasn’t around. But even more interesting is that I doubt it was easy to find a robin in February. A simple examination should determine if the bird has been frozen.”

That sunk in. “Which means someone kept a dead robin for him since last spring?”

Carina frowned. “What I don’t get is how could he have planned all this? Like Will and I talked about before, he couldn’t have planned for the earthquake. And even if he planned an escape during his next appeal, there was no guarantee he’d be successful.”

Vigo nodded. “I think it’s Glenn’s way of making his time in prison bearable. San Quentin is filled with men of low to average intelligence. Someone with Glenn’s IQ and background would have a difficult time of it, at least mentally. And even though loss of freedom is a huge problem in the psyche of the average prisoner, for someone like Glenn it would be devastating. He fixated on Robin to keep his mind focused. While he may have had an obsession with her before, it intensified while he was away.”

Will’s gut twisted. “Then why hasn’t he just gone after her?”

“Because he’s shrewd. He knows you have cops on her house and business. He may even suspect that she would hire a bodyguard. He’s going to wait until he’s confident he can get to her. He doesn’t want to go back to prison, but I think that his ego would demand that he take her out even if that means he dies, too.”

“He has nothing to lose.” Will realized for the first time. “He’s having fun with this.”

“That he is,” Hans agreed.

“There’s a letter here,” Carina reminded him. “Addressed to you, Will.”

Will put on gloves and picked up the #10 white envelope.

WILLIAM

Will carefully opened the envelope and unfolded the single sheet of paper.

It began: William:

The first two sentences had been crossed out. They were: I’m truly sorry I had to kill Julia Chandler. She really was just a puppet of the prosecution, hardly more to blame than an enlisted soldier during war.

After scratching them out, Theodore had scrawled on the side: You win this one. Julia is a smart woman, I hope she’s enjoying her vacation. I’m sure her door can be fixed.

The letter continued. He’d obviously written it before he arrived at Julia’s house.

Julia Chandler was never the problem. It was the asshole she worked for. I will admit I enjoyed seeing Bryce Descario skewered in the media during his failed reelection. But public embarrassment isn’t quite the same thing as death, is it?

I am tiring of the game, William. I may leave for a while. Or not. Does that scare you? I doubt it. You don’t scare easily. The only time you were really scared was when you thought Robin was dead. Those were the days.

Do you really think that the bodyguard, the police, you, or Robin’s pathetic attempt to protect herself with a gun will keep me from her? Lock her up tight. You can’t keep her from me forever.

Sooner or later I will kill her. And I promise you, William, it will hurt.

Maybe I’ll even let you watch.

Carina carefully extracted the paper from his hands as Will’s fists clenched, wrinkling the evidence. “He’s doing this to get to you.”

“He got to me, dammit.” He breathed deeply. It would do Robin no good if he lost his focus. The anger was still there, but contained.

“Descario,” he said.

“What about him?” Carina asked.

“Chief Causey called him after Glenn’s escape, then again after he made that big spectacle in front of the press. He’s retired, but still has a confidential address.”

“Glenn couldn’t get it.”

“He shouldn’t have been able to get Julia’s, either, but he did. And how did he find Frank Sturgeon? What about Trinity Lange?”

“Followed her,” Carina guessed.

“That’s the only thing that makes sense.” Will glanced at Hans. “Theodore Glenn is making all of us look like fools.”

“I think he has an accomplice,” Hans said. “Someone who is helping him. Someone nondescript or nonthreatening.”

Will had a patrol watching Ms. Plummer. Some of her answers had bothered him. “He must be using a woman like Jane Plummer or the elusive Sara Lorenz.”

“Exactly.”

Will called the crime scene techs and ordered the uniforms to stand guard until someone from Gage’s staff arrived to process the scene.

“We need to talk to Descario, make sure he’s covered,” Will said as he, Carina, and Hans left. “Want to ride with us?” he asked the Fed.

“Thanks.”

Hans got in the back and Will made a call to Mario.

“Medina Security.”

“Mario, it’s Will Hooper.”

“Whatcha need?”

“Is she okay?”

“Locked up tight. I’m right outside her door. No other way in or out, except the fire escape, and I checked it top and bottom. No way for it to be lowered except from her loft, and it’s secured. What happened?”

Will told him about the dead robin at Julia’s house. “Don’t tell Robin. I’ll come by later. We have a stop to make first.”

The hot shower burned the tension from Robin’s muscles. It distracted her from the gnawing fear that was eating her alive. She might as well have been a prisoner, bolted in her loft, a guard at her door. Her home had never felt so small. But finally, she stretched and relaxed and after days of jumping at the slightest sound, Robin almost felt normal.

She heated some leftover minestrone soup and sat down at the kitchen counter for a late supper. When her grandmother had been alive, the two of them would cook together. Robin missed that time with her grandma. It had been the only real stability in her life. Robin didn’t cook much anymore-why when she lived alone and had few friends? — but cooking brought her back to her roots, to her grandmother, the one person in the world who had unconditionally loved her.