Allison Brennan - Killing Fear

“No, he didn’t.”

She blinked. “He was looking into the Anna Clark case. He told me to my face that no one was reviewing the evidence, but then he walks out of the building with all the case files? He never leaves early. I didn’t want to kill him, but I had to get those files back.”

“The FBI had copies of all those files. And nothing in the files incriminated you for Anna’s murder. What they did tell us was that someone other than Theodore Glenn killed Anna. Jim discovered that the cuts on Anna’s body were made postmortem.”

She frowned. “I didn’t want to kill Jim. I had to.”

“You didn’t have to kill Anna Clark.”

She waved her hand as if swatting a fly, her shackles rattling. “Who cares about her?”

“She had a mother who cared about her. Friends.”

“Friends like Robin McKenna?”

The viciousness that suddenly crossed Diana’s face surprised Will. “I wanted to kill that slut, not her lesbo roommate. Anna came in unexpectedly. I had no choice.”

“Why did you call me after you killed Anna?”

“I didn’t.”

“Someone paged me from the apartment.”

“When Anna came in, I was already there. I was getting ready for Robin, and I didn’t expect her for another thirty minutes. I told Anna that I was processing evidence in Robin’s closet. She didn’t believe me, walked over to the phone and paged you before I could stop her. I didn’t want it to go that far, I didn’t intend to kill her, but I had no choice. She paged you so I hit her with my gun. She was stunned, and I dragged her to the entry and slit her throat. Just like Glenn did to his victims. I had it all planned, except I didn’t expect Anna. Robin should have died, dammit!”

“Why did you want to kill Robin?”

“She took you away from your job. She was a whore, Will. She didn’t deserve a good man like you. If she were dead, you could focus again on your career. Your future. You could have been chief of police someday, Will.”

“I never wanted to be in charge, Diana. That was something you got in your head.”

“Why’d you do it, Will? Because she was easy? Because she would do anything you wanted? Men are so shallow, they’ll give up anything and everyone for a good fuck.”

Will refused to discuss his relationship. “The Sheriff’s Department found the journals you attempted to delete. You admitted to killing your father and his lover.”

“I did not kill anyone. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The police in Massachusetts are going to reopen the case.”

She shrugged.

“You killed your own father. You never told me he was dead, Diana. You talked about him as if he were alive.”

She didn’t respond, playing instead with her fingernails. They’d been bitten to the quick. Still, she picked.

“You were furious that your father betrayed your mother. That he slept with another woman-”

Diana slapped her handcuffed hands on the table. “My mother? That stupid twit? She trapped my father into marriage. She got herself pregnant.”

The conversation from earlier came back to Will. You’re lucky she didn’t get herself pregnant.

“So he married her and they had you.”

“My father loved me. He wanted me. We had a wonderful life, even with her around. Then came Tiffany. ” She spat out the name. “That little whore seduced my father. He was going to leave me!”

“Fathers don’t leave daughters,” Will said.

“He spent more time with her than me! I watched them in bed. He was nearly fifty years old and fucking a twenty-three-year-old grad student! He spent all his free time with her. And then he cancelled our winter ski trip. We went every year for two weeks during winter break, and he cancelled it. He lied to me. Told me he had to write a paper for a big journal. And you know what? He didn’t! He spent every day, every night, with that bitch.”

Will could all too easily picture the young Diana feeling betrayed by her father, walking in, shooting him. Framing the girlfriend. Killing her. Even then, smart.

“Are you going to sign the plea agreement, Diana?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.”

“Will you visit me in prison?”

The thought made him physically ill. “No.”

“Are you sleeping with Robin again?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“She’s going to suck the ambition right out of you.”

“Maybe I don’t have the same ambitions you have.”

“Then I should have killed you, too.” She said it with such calm assuredness that Will didn’t know how he could even respond.

He slid the papers over to Diana. “Sign it.”

She faltered, for just a moment, and Will saw the scared, vulnerable woman inside. Then her stone expression returned, she grabbed the pen, and signed. “Don’t think I’m done with you, Will.”

“Yes, you are.”

Will stood and walked out with the papers without another word to Diana Cresson. He tossed the agreement at Stanton and said, “Done.”

“Thanks for coming down, Detective,” D.A. Stanton said. “We are expediting the agreement to try to keep this mess under wraps, make sure her past cases aren’t put under any unwarranted scrutiny.”

“The reporter Trinity Lange knows all about the Anna Clark homicide,” Will reminded him. “She’s expecting an exclusive.”

“I can handle Ms. Lange,” Stanton said. “She’ll get an exclusive and more provided she doesn’t mention Anna Clark in the same report as Diana Cresson.”

Will didn’t like that Diana wasn’t going to be prosecuted for Anna’s murder, but he understood why.

The chief frowned. “Is everything kosher, Hooper?”

Will glanced at the closed door. “At least she’ll never get out of prison.”

Whoever was tracking him was smart. Too smart.

Theodore patiently hid in the alley. He detested the foul stench of rotting food and feces, but it was the only place he could hide that provided him with a view of the restaurant where he’d spotted the man for the second time.

His tail was six feet one, broad and lean, with longish black hair pulled back. He looked half Mexican or Cuban, a little like that bodyguard Robin had hired, except thinner and wiry. He didn’t act like a cop, but more dangerous.

Theodore did not like being the prey.

He still had the gun Sara procured for him, since carrying the rifle was too conspicuous when he’d crossed the border with the old folks. He’d also picked up a second gun from the waitress he’d fucked the night before. Had her boss not called and warned her that someone was on his way over he would have been caught.

Theodore wouldn’t go down without a fight, but had no intention of losing any fight.

He hadn’t wanted to go back to San Diego for at least two weeks. He’d planned on crossing into New Mexico, then slowly working his way back to San Diego. Give Robin enough time to go half crazy, wondering when he would come for her.

But that damn asshole had been following him all day. Twice he’d almost got him. Twice Theodore had slipped away. But the cop, or whoever he was, was sly. Cunning. Theodore didn’t think he’d leave Mexico alive if he were caught.

Instincts propelled him forward. Every scent, every sight, every sound was crystal clear. But it wasn’t the sound or sight that saved Theodore’s life. Instead it was a touch, a prickly sensation on his skin. He felt the door behind him opening. So slowly that it made no noise.

He rolled across the alley just as the whiz of a bullet brushed past his head.

The bastard definitely wasn’t a cop. He was an assassin.

Theodore jumped onto a Dumpster and without hesitation grabbed onto the balcony above him and smoothly pulled himself up. Decades of mountain climbing benefited him now as he scaled the old, crumbling brick building. Up, up, up. Grab the next balcony. The lack of safety equipment coupled with the assassin pursuing him gave Theodore a burst of adrenaline that topped everything, even murder. He survived by his own wits and skill, his brains, his strength, his superiority.