Allison Brennan - Sudden Death

“Daddy!”

There was a policeman in the room as well.

Karin wondered if she was going to jail.

She began to cry. “Mommy? Mommy? What happened?”

“There was an accident, sweetheart.” Her mother took her unbroken hand and said, “You’re going to be okay. Thank God, you’re going to be okay.”

“Accident? Why is there a policeman here, Mommy? Did I do something wrong? I don’t remember being bad, Mommy. Why is the policeman here?”

“He’s here to help.”

“I’m not bad, Mommy.”

“Of course you’re not bad. Witnesses say that-”

The policeman cleared his throat. “If it would be okay with you, Mrs. Standler, I’d like Karin to answer in her own words.” He smiled at her and Karin liked him. She could tell in his eyes that he felt sorry for her, which was good. If someone felt sorry for you, he didn’t think you were bad. If someone felt sorry for you, he believed what you told him.

“Karin, your father picked you up last night from your friend Tanya’s house.”

She nodded, winced.

“Mommy, my head hurts.” Her head really did hurt.

“I’ll have the nurse bring some Tylenol in a minute.”

The policeman said, “It was raining. Do you remember?”

“Yes. It was raining hard.”

“Was your father upset about something?”

“Daddy doesn’t cry.”

“Maybe he wasn’t crying. Maybe he was mad. Yelling. Or sad and not talking at all.”

Karin blinked back tears and looked at her mother. “Mommy?”

“Tell the policeman. It’s okay. I promise, it’ll be okay no matter what happened.”

“Daddy …” She sniffed and let the tears flow. She had loved her father, in her way. “He was sad. Mommy and Daddy were getting a divorce.” She looked at her mother. She nodded, smiled in that way only Karin could see.

Karin kept going. “He wanted me to tell the judge that I wanted to live with him. But I didn’t want to. I love my mom and my dad. I didn’t want to choose. I started crying. Daddy said crying was for babies, and that made me cry more.”

She stopped talking, glancing at her mom for clues. She knew she was talking too fast, so she took a break. Played with the sheet, rubbing the material between her fingers.

“Karin?” The policeman prompted.

“I don’t want to say anything. I don’t want you to arrest Daddy. He didn’t mean to do anything wrong. He’s not a bad man.”

“Honey,” her mother said, the tears coming from her eyes now. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so, so sorry. Your father died.”

Karin’s lower lip trembled. She hadn’t known for certain until her mother said it. “Why?” She cried, her mother hugged her. “Why, Mommy? Why did he do it?”

The policeman asked, “What did your father do?”

“H-he said that h-he would choose for me. Then we were driving in another lane and there were cars and horns and everything got really loud. Then nothing.”

Karin would not let Megan Elliott-that twit! — get away with destroying her perfect life. She had been doing exactly what her righteous father did: sentencing bad people to die. She had continued his proud tradition of sitting in judgment. It’s not like she killed people for the fun of it. She always had a good reason. Self-preservation or justice. She liked to think that she targeted the bad guys as a legacy to Daddy.

If there was some fun in murder it was the irony that she provided a better system of justice than the court system her father lived for and believed in.

She’d learned an important lesson the day her father died. She could get away with murder.

Karin was no quitter. The last twelve years of her life had been spent planning how best to make Megan Elliott suffer. And now that she was so close, she was most certainly going to see this through.

She’d sent Price’s dog tag to Megan to make her worry. In the back of her mind, she would wonder how long she’d been followed. How long she’d been watched. She’d start jumping at shadows, looking over her shoulder. She’d be following the investigations through the grapevine, never knowing what exactly was going on, not knowing who was next, and if it was going to be her.

Karin had planned on sending Bartleton’s tag to her as well, until the pathetic Ethan killed two innocent people. That had been the last straw. He’d gone from borderline crazy to full-out lunatic. After Hackett, she was originally going to talk him into killing himself. That would have been no problem, considering she’d stopped him from blowing his brains out a half dozen times. But Karin couldn’t be sure of him anymore, and when he used the wrong gun …

She broke out into a sweat. That had been her one mistake. She should have gotten rid of the gun she’d used to kill Kenny Russo, but she liked to have it with her for the memories. Her five-month affair with Kenny had been the most fun she’d had in a long time. She’d manipulated him beautifully, he fell in love with her, and she learned everything about his former Delta team. What she didn’t know, she obtained through his computer and e-mails to his friends and colleagues, ostensibly from him.

Unfortunately, she had to kill him. She kind of liked him, but he would have known she’d stolen George Price’s dog tag. Kenny looked at the tags all the time, teary-eyed and lamenting his past mistakes.

“I should have put my foot down and told General Hackett we couldn’t have a reporter with us on the mission. But we’re trained to obey orders, and Hackett wanted a P.R. piece like the Marines had.”

Price’s dog tag was Kenny’s way of punishing himself. And Ethan insisted, besides. “All of them or nothing.”

Now Ethan was gone, and Father Cardenas was safe. She didn’t want his death on her conscience. She was already to blame for one man of God dying.

She squeezed her temples as she followed the patrol car.

Crystal killed Father Michael, not you.

You might as well have pulled the trigger yourself. You told him too much!

I just wanted Crystal out of my life.

She was smarter than you. She was always smarter than you.

Maybe. Until I gassed her in her sleep. She never saw it coming.

Because you’re weak and pathetic and couldn’t confront her yourself. Because she would have won. She always won. You cheated.

Maybe I cheated, but who’s pushing up the daisies?

Karin didn’t care how she got what she wanted, as long as she came out on top. And finally, victory was within her reach. Megan had won twelve years ago, but today? Today Megan would be the big loser. Fate had handed Karin the opportunity of a lifetime. If she hadn’t been watching the police canvass the resort, if she hadn’t been curious about what they were doing and how much they knew, she wouldn’t have seen Megan Elliott get into the patrol car. She wouldn’t have been in a position to follow.

It was a sign, an omen. A very, very good omen.

She continued watching, glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Any minute …

The patrol car sputtered and died.

Barbara Dodge barely managed to pull over. “I don’t believe it! No gas. It was full when we left.” Dodge radioed in that an officer needed nonemergency assistance.

Megan stared at Karin Standler’s image on her Black-Berry.

“You’re the sister I never had, Meg.”