Maggie Shayne: Killing Me Softly

Dead silence fell on them like a shroud. Around the table, every eye was glued to Bryan, every expression mortified, especially Dawn’s. Then Bryan shook his head, sighed and said, “I was kidding, Dad.”

“Damn, Bry, this is no time for humor.” But Josh sighed his relief all the same.

“Guess not. But you’re all so damn glum.” Bryan looked around the table, including Dawn in the observation. “Look, I haven’t been convicted yet. Hell, I haven’t even been charged. And I’m not going to be. I have faith in the system.”

Josh stabbed a chunk of meat with his fork. “Yeah, well, I’ve spent most of my life in the system, and I’m not so confident in it that I’m willing to trust my son to it.” He set the fork down, meat still attached, and tossed his cloth napkin onto the table in front of him. “Look, Bry, the only way to ensure you don’t end up being arrested and charged is for us to find out who did this ourselves. And to do that, we need a place to start. The more you can remember, the better off we’ll be.”

Bryan nodded slowly. His father knew his shit. He’d spent years as an agent with the DEA. “I know, I know. But that’s just it. I don’t remember a damn thing. There was the party the night before. Things were getting…a little rowdy, I guess. But everyone seemed to be having a good time. I drank. A lot. More than I normally would have, though I didn’t think I was going overboard all that much.”

Josh’s head came up. “Did they ask you for a blood sample when they questioned you?”

“Yeah. Freaking lawyer didn’t want me to agree to it. But I overruled him. Hell, I’d already admitted to being drunk, so it wasn’t going to hurt to have them know the blood alcohol level. And as for DNA, it was my house. My DNA’s all over it. So I gave it.”

“Good,” Josh said with a firm nod. “So there was the party. And you were drinking. And…?”

“And that’s it. I woke up on the bathroom floor. The house was empty, but I didn’t remember when everyone left. I felt like hell, decided to go back to bed to sleep it off, dragged my ass into the bedroom and found Bette lying there, already cold.”

“I’m so sorry, Bryan,” Dawn whispered.

It wasn’t her words that hit home in his brain. It was the way she reached across the table and gripped his forearm. He looked up fast, met her eyes as his skin sizzled beneath her palm.

“I’ve been so focused on the fact that you’re a suspect in this, I haven’t told you how sorry I am that you lost someone you cared about.”

Her eyes backed up every word. She really meant it. He could only nod and grunt his thanks. She took her hand away, and he wanted it back. Touching her—being touched by her—was something he’d missed more than he’d realized until now.

“I mean it,” she said.

“I know you do,” he replied.

“Nick tell you what he told me on the phone?” Josh asked.

“There was whiskey in Bette’s throat, and in her lungs,” Bryan said softly. “Glasgow Gold, he said.”

“Yeah. Maybe you don’t know what that means, but—”

“I know what it means,” Bryan said, and he met his father’s eyes.

Josh’s face fell.

“What does it mean?” Dawn asked.

“How do you know?” Josh whispered, as if she hadn’t even spoken.

Bryan knew she was confused, but he had to get this out to his father now. There was no point in doing less than laying his cards on the table where his family was concerned. He didn’t want tidbits of information surfacing later on and shaking their belief in him. With a deep sigh, he said, “Two weeks ago, I signed out all the files on the Nightcap Strangler case.”

Dawn dropped her fork. “Nightcap Strangler? Bryan, that sounds like the name of some kind of…of a serial killer or something.”

“It is,” he said. “Or was.”

She blinked. “What the hell is going on?”

Bryan set down his silverware. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Like that Bette was killed by a serial killer, you mean? And that now they think it might be you? A serial killer? God, Bryan!”

“It’s even more complicated than that. The Nightcap Strangler was a man named Johnny Lee Jackson. He was arrested sixteen years ago, and there hasn’t been a killing fitting his M.O. since. He died in prison just last month. I think this has to be a copycat crime.”

“But why?” Dawn asked. “Why would this…this copycat want to kill your girlfriend, in your bed, while you were sleeping in the next room?”

“I don’t know why.”

“Yes, you do,” she accused. “Bryan, what were you doing with those files? The timing of this, of you going through those old files, that can’t be a coincidence. The police certainly aren’t going to see it as one. What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing.”

Dawn noted, though, that Beth and Josh were looking at him with the very same questions in their eyes. Oh, none of them believed Bryan was capable of murder, but there was clearly some kind of link between him and those crimes—or this criminal.

And Dawn had the feeling he knew what it was.

“I think this is all about Nick,” he said, confirming her belief.

Josh nodded as if he understood, while Beth kept staring at him, waiting for further clarification.

“Nick?” Dawn asked. “The Nick?”

“Nick Di Marco,” Bryan said. “He was one of my professors back in college, my mentor. We’re tight. Hell, I trust him more than anyone in the world, except maybe my dad. Anyway, he’s the cop who solved the Nightcap Strangler case sixteen years ago, before he retired from the force and took up teaching.”

“I know,” Dawn said. “I’d forgotten what they called the killer, is all.” She’d heard all about Nick the supercop, and his book and his movie deal, from Beth. If she’d ever actually lived in Blackberry, she would probably have heard about him far sooner. He was the nearby town of Shadow Falls’s version of a living legend.

“I think Bette was chosen because of her connection to me and my connection to Nick,” Bryan said. “Someone is trying to set me up, but I think they’re also trying to get to him, somehow, through me. But whoever it is, it’s not the Nightcap Strangler. Probably just some lunatic with an obsession or a bad case of hero worship. A wannabe.”

“A wannabe who somehow got information only known by the police?” Josh asked.

“And by Nightcap himself,” Bryan said.

“He could have told someone, a friend, a relative—even a cell mate.”

“Do you think this copycat will kill again?” Beth asked softly.

“Oh, he’ll kill again,” said a new voice from just beyond the screen door off the foyer. They all turned, and the man standing there went on. “I just hope Bryan here is safely behind bars or surrounded by cops when he does.” He grinned, and every part of his face joined in on the smile. “Can’t get a better alibi than that now, can you?”

Dawn was startled, probably because of the dark feeling that had crept over her entire soul as the dinner conversation had unfolded. Nightcap Strangler. Serial killer. Copycat crime. A dead girlfriend. And all of it tied up with Bryan. What the hell?

“Hey, Nick,” Bryan said, his expression lightening. “Dawn, come meet Nick.” Bryan got up, and she followed him out of the dining room, across the living room and into the foyer. Beth and Josh remained at the table, and Dawn could hear them speaking softly, probably trying to reassure each other that everything would be all right.

Nick, who looked as if he’d been buff once but now had the proverbial muffin top spilling over his belt, pushed the screen door open and entered, still smiling. He had blue eyes that won you over with a single glance. His hair looked like onyx in a snowstorm. And when his warm smile landed on Dawn, it somehow managed to broaden.