Lisa Jackson - Wicked Game

“It’s been ruled an accident?”

“So far.” Her tone suggested it was just a matter of time until they learned otherwise.

“Jesus,” Mac said. He could hardly take it all in.

Gretchen pointed out, “Someone’s killing your suspects.”

“Someones, maybe.”

She cocked her head. “You know something.”

He shook his head, sorry he’d said anything so soon. “You’ve got friends with Beaverton PD, I have friends with Portland.”

“Give,” she demanded.

“When there’s corroboration.”

“You’re talking about the arson at Blue Note. Know who set it?”

“Not for sure.”

“C’mon, McNally. We were making so much progress.” She slipped a hip on his desk and looked at him through her lashes.

Mac yanked out the sheaf of pages trapped by her hip. “Go home, Sandler,” he growled.

“You’re starting to like me. I can tell. What are you doing?” she demanded as Mac started searching through the thick file labeled Brentwood.

He ignored Gretchen. He needed to sort through the information that seemed to be coming at him from all sides, none of which connected. He needed to be alone. He needed quiet.

“You’re a glutton for punishment,” she observed. “When you feel like talking, I’m only a phone call away.” She waved her cell phone at him as she strode toward the door.

Mac slid a look after her, then shook his head. She was actually becoming an active participant rather than departmental dead weight. It wouldn’t be long till she moved on.

“Just when I was starting to like her,” he said dryly, then turned to his notes. Mitch Bellotti: Ex-jock, football player, average student at St. Elizabeth’s, married and divorced, worked at Mike’s Garage for nearly ten years. Two traffic tickets in the past decade, no kids. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but certainly not anyone whom someone would want to kill.

What the hell was going on? He had some pieces but not enough. There was more at play than he knew.

The station was quiet; nearly everyone was gone. He leaned back in his chair and thought about the dead. Disregarding his computer, he drew columns, labeling them: Jezebel Brentwood, Glenn Stafford, Renee Walker Trudeau, and Mitchell Bellotti. He made note of their sex, date of death, place of death, marital status, closest friends, beneficiaries of their wills if he had that information, and anything else he could think of.

The most obvious fact that linked them was that they knew each other, had gone to high school together. And somehow, Jessie’s disappearance was the start of it all. He circled her name. She was killed twenty years earlier than the others, but what had set off these last three deaths? He had an idea about Glenn Stafford; the Portland PD were closing in on the arsonist. But he didn’t know how it related to Renee Trudeau and now Mitch Bellotti.

Mitch and Glenn had been good friends, but Renee…?

And then there was Jessie.

Renee had been working on Jessie’s story and she’d found a link to the Oregon coast. Glenn owned a restaurant with Scott in Lincoln City, south of Deception Bay. Jessie’s parents had owned a beach house in that small town, but Mitch had no connection with the coast that Mac could discern. Credit card records showed Tim Trudeau had been in Seaside and Deception Bay in the last five months, something he’d been less than forthcoming about. He and Renee had been having troubles, so maybe her death was completely separate from the others?

Mac groaned and rose from his chair, running his hands through his hair. Glancing at the picture of his son, he walked toward the windows on the south side. They overlooked the parking lot but he wasn’t seeing anything but the images within his own head.

Renee Trudeau’s Camry was still being searched, tested, and gone over for any kind of evidence, but so far there was nothing out of the ordinary and the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department hadn’t located any body shop who’d done repair work on a truck or car that might have pushed her car over the cliff.

Renee’s cell phone records hadn’t helped much either. A couple of calls to her brother and friends, but nothing significant. Mac wondered if another run to the coast might turn up something new.

Mac went back to his desk and sorted through his files till he pulled out his report on the man who’d picked up Jessie Brentwood off Highway 53. She’d been coming back from the beach or somewhere near it. Had she been visiting the Brentwoods’ cabin? Why was she hitchhiking? Had something happened there that precipitated her death?

Had Renee learned what that was?

And what about Mitch’s death tonight? Could it really be an accident? Could it? Could the poor bastard have just gotten unlucky? The Grand Am just slipping off the jack?

“Nah,” he told himself. Not with all the other friends of the Preppy Pricks dropping like flies.

He stared down at his jumble of notes. All the pieces were there, a massive jigsaw puzzle that just needed to be put together in the right order.

Becca felt as if a stone were stuck in her gut, weighing her down. All of her burgeoning joy at the thought of maybe being pregnant was superseded by a horrifying sense of despair. Someone was killing them, one by one. All of them.

She looked around the room. It was late, but she wasn’t alone. Most of their friends had collected at her condo after rushing to the hospital upon hearing the news about Mitch. Now they stood in a semicircle in front of her fireplace. Tamara, Scott, and Jarrett stood on one side, Zeke and Evangeline on the other. The Third had slumped into a chair, and Hudson stood next to Becca. They were drinking coffee or wine, but mostly they just stood and stared blankly at each other. Even Ringo was subdued, lying on his bed and observing the group while the gas fire hissed and outside a deep fog settled in.

“I just don’t understand,” Tamara said, perching on a bar stool near the kitchen counter. “You all think that Mitch was killed, that this wasn’t an accident.”

“Not just Mitch,” Hudson said.

A murmur of agreement swept through the room.

“Been a bunch of murders,” Jarrett said.

“Oh, no.” Evangeline was shaking her head, her blond hair moving against her shoulders. Her hand reached for Zeke’s but his were in his pockets. His head was bent and he was remote enough to be on a different planet. “I don’t believe it,” she went on shakily. “No one would want to kill Mitch or Glenn…or Renee.”

“Well, they did,” The Third said, all of his cockiness gone. His face was lined, his hair falling over his eyes instead of neatly combed. “Something’s up. And it started with those kids finding Jessie’s body. Someone’s picking us off. And it has to do with Jessie.”

“Mitch’s death wasn’t murder,” Scott said, shuddering.

“Someone dropped that jack handle,” Hudson said. “It didn’t fall on its own.”

Scott asked, “You tell the police that?”

“Yep. Wanted everything on the table. No secrets.”

Hudson gazed at Zeke hard and Zeke flushed. Unless Zeke had gone straight to the phone and started calling the group, they still didn’t know he was the baby’s father and therefore the bones belonged to Jessie. Zeke’s uncomfortable posture said the secret was still under wraps.

Zeke couldn’t hold his gaze.

“Who sent those notes?” Hudson asked him.

Vangie caught the tension between them and said quickly, “You can’t think it’s Zeke?”

“Was it?” Hudson asked Zeke point-blank.

“No.” He was positive.

Hudson said, “Jessie didn’t send them. Jessie’s dead. Those are her bones. DNA’s proved it.”

“How?” Scott asked, surprised. “I thought there was nothing to match Jessie’s DNA to.”