B00CCYP714 EBOK (35 page)

Rainey smiled. “You’re right about that, Mike. She deserves better than me, better than having to worry all the time about the sick freaks that come out of the dark to terrorize us. You know, that really upsets her. She doesn’t like living in fear.”

Mike did not like her inference. “Are you calling me a freak?” he shouted.

“No, Mike,” Rainey said, trying to calm him down.

As Mike began to wave the gun around haphazardly, Rainey shifted her stance to give him less of a target. The hallway was dark, making the pictures on the walls hard to see. When she moved, her new angle revealed the family photos on Mike’s wall were of Rainey’s family. Most of the candid shots were of Katie and the kids. None of them were of Rainey. If Mike viewed her as the obstacle to his relationship with Katie, he could become very unstable quickly. Rainey changed tactics. 

“I know you really care about Katie. That’s why I came to talk to you. I thought I could make you understand that what you are doing upsets her. I knew you would stop, if only you realized how distressing those pictures are to her.”

“I just want people to see how beautiful she really is,” Mike explained.

“Would you like to talk to her, Mike? I can call her on the phone. Maybe if you talk to her, you’ll see how upset you’re making her.”

Mike lowered the gun slightly. The opportunity to talk to his obsession was too great to ignore. He stuttered out, “Y-y-you would let me talk to her?”

“Sure. I’m positive that this is all just a misunderstanding. Let’s clear this up, so we don’t have to involve the police and upset your mother. I’m going to reach in my pocket. I don’t have a weapon, so don’t worry.”

He scowled and blinked rapidly as he watched her take out the phone. She could tell he was still not convinced she was being truthful. She wasn’t, but he wanted to talk to Katie badly enough to ignore his instincts. An erotomaniac, like Mike Hopkins, deluded himself into believing the object of his obsession simply needed to understand the depth of his devotion, then she would have no choice but to fall madly in love with him, her stalker. Mike was actually licking his lips at the prospects of speaking to Katie.

Rainey did not dial Katie’s number. She dialed Danny’s instead. Mike kept his eyes on her, still shaking the gun in her direction, but took a few steps closer. Rainey waited for Danny to answer and started speaking immediately.

“Katie, I have someone here who wants to talk to you. His name is Mike Hopkins.”

Danny questioned her. “Are you in trouble, Rainey?”

“Yes, Mike Hopkins. I know you don’t know him, but he’s a real fan of yours. He’s the one that took all those pictures of you. I’m at his house.”

“Okay, Rainey, keep talking. Mike Hopkins. Can you give me more on the address?”

“I know I have to be at the hospital soon. How did you know I’m out in Wake Forest?” She paused as though Katie were answering, and then added, “Oh, you’re following the GPS on my phone. Smart girl. I won’t be late. I’ll leave as soon as you talk to Mike. I told him you didn’t like the pictures he was posting, but he needs to hear you say it.”

Rainey could hear Danny giving information to Brooks. She needed to stall a bit longer.

“No, Katie, he won’t listen to me. He’s really upset, and I thought if he talked to you, we could work this out so the police don’t have to be involved. He’s worried about his sick mother. He doesn’t want them coming here to disturb her.”

Danny came back on the line. “Is the mother there?”

“I can understand not wanting to upset his mother. He says she’s bedridden.”

“Do you think she’s really there?” he asked.

“No, I think we’re long past that. I think you’re the only one that can make Mike understand how you feel.”

“Norman Bates, is it?”

“Oh yes, exactly,” Rainey answered.

“Okay, there is a patrol unit a block away. It’s rolling to you. Hang on,” Danny said.

Mike took a few more steps in Rainey’s direction. It was time for her to make her move.

“Okay, I’m going to hand the phone to him now,” Rainey said. She held the phone out to Mike, talking loudly enough for Danny to hear. “Give me the gun, Mike, and I’ll let you talk to her.”

Mike Hopkins loved Katie Meyers beyond reason. Had he thought it through, he would have known that Rainey would not let him near her wife. She certainly would not hand him a phone to talk to her. His delusion made it impossible to resist her offer. He stuck the gun out for her to take and snatched the phone from her hand. Rainey took the revolver, opened the cylinder, and dumped the bullets onto the floor.

Mike did not seem to care. “He-hel-hello, K-K-Katie.”

The weapon secured, Rainey set it down on the hall table and grabbed for Mike’s wrist. She twisted his arm behind his back and swept his legs out from under him, while he continued to talk to his imaginary Katie. His obsession prevented him from recognizing that he had been duped.

“K-Katie, I’ve wanted to talk to you forever,” he said, just before Rainey landed a knee in his back and forced his face into the floor.

“Rainey, what are you doing?” Molly said from the doorway.

“Get my cuffs out of the console, Molly.”

“I am not participating in a kidnapping, Rainey,” Molly argued.

“The cops are on the way. I just want to secure him. He had a gun on me,” she said, chuckling at the look of horror on Molly’s face.

The phone had fallen on the floor by Mike’s head. He was not struggling to get free, but fighting to pick up the phone, as he yelled repeatedly. “I love you, Katie Meyers. I love you.”

Rainey leaned over him. “Mike—Mike, hey, hey, relax.”

His face was red and he was slobbering like an animal, as he professed his love for Katie through spit-laden words of devotion.

Rainey popped his face against the floor, not too hard, but enough to get his attention. He craned his neck, peering up at her out of the corner of one eye.

“There you are,” Rainey said, smiling at him. “Just relax, Mike. The sad truth about Katie Meyers is she would be telling me not to hurt you—that I should understand you are in need of mental health care. Katie’s sweet like that.”

Rainey heard Molly explaining to the patrol officer that her client was in the process of making a citizen’s arrest that had somehow spilled into the man’s home.

Rainey put her lips close to Mike’s ear. “But I’m not sweet, Mike. In fact, I’d like to end this all here, snap your neck and be done with you. Here’s your warning, M-M-Mike. Don’t come near my family again. Find a new obsession or the next time I see you will be the last breath you take. Don’t fuck with me, Mike. I’ll kill you.”

She slammed his face into the floor again, this time a little more forcefully, just as the officer entered the hallway. Rainey looked up at the breathless female officer, who did not look a day over eighteen. She smiled, knowing this young woman would not soon forget this day.

“You should call your supervisor,” Rainey said, her knee still in Mike Hopkins’s back. “I think you’ll find a body upstairs. It’s his mother. I think she’s been dead for quite some time.”

The officer went pale.

“Hey,” Rainey said, softly. “Take a breath and cuff this guy.”

Rainey helped handcuff Mike’s hands behind his back and then stood to face the young officer. She looked at her nametag.

“Officer Hammond, study this case. Interview this man. Careers are made on understanding how these guys think.”

Hammond studied Rainey’s face for a moment. “You’re Rainey Bell, aren’t you?”

“Yes, and I’m giving out free career advice today. If you can close off your emotions, walk up those stairs and evaluate the crime scene, then welcome to the launch of your career. What you have here is a real life ‘Psycho,’ not a movie. If you’re going to go pale when faced with the evil that men do, find another career before the nightmares find you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hammond said, warier now after the reprimand.

Rainey felt a little remorse for stating the facts so plainly. She buoyed the young woman with her next comment.

“Call it in, officer, and read this asshole his rights. Don’t let the big dogs come in and take your arrest away. Get your paperwork started and stand your ground.”

Hammond smiled broadly. “Yes, ma’am!”

Rainey left Hammond to her tasks. She felt no need to verify her suspicions. There was definitely a body in that house. No amount of air freshener and mothballs could mask the scent of human decay.

Molly, who had remained on the porch, peeked in the doorway as Rainey was coming out. “He didn’t have a bloody nose a minute ago,” she observed.

Rainey smirked. “He slipped.”

She sat down on the porch steps, waiting to give her statement so they could go.

Molly joined her. “Before or after he was in cuffs? I’m only asking while it’s fresh in your memory, in case he sues you for breaking his nose. And what exactly are you having him arrested for? The blog is a civil matter. I have to serve papers on him, before he is in violation of the judge’s order.”

“Don’t worry, Molly. Where he’s going, they don’t allow access to the Internet.”

“Why? Any good defense attorney could argue he had a right to pull a gun on you. You did kick the door in,” Molly argued.

“Yeah, are you volunteering for the job?” Rainey teased her. “Before you do, you might want to find out if his mother’s rotting corpse was a result of natural causes.”

Molly blinked, and then shook her head. “It’s never normal around you, is it?”

Rainey grinned. “Nope. Not by a long shot.”

#

“It never ceases to amaze me what you stumble into,” Gunny said, taking another bite of her sandwich.

Katie was feeding Rainey and Gunny lunch, while the grandmothers played with the triplets in the den. “Stick around. Norman Bates types are the least entertaining of the freaks that find her fascinating,” she said as she refilled Rainey’s glass of tea.

Rainey swallowed a bite of sandwich. “Need I remind you, this particular freak was obsessed with you? Speaking of that, why didn’t you tell me about the protection order on Vance Wayne?”

“His ex-wife brought her son to the shelter last summer until she could move again. Even divorced, he terrorized her. He tried to enter the property and was removed. Molly filed the order on behalf of the shelter, among many others. If I told you about every protection order we file, you’d spend all your time investigating them. The security team is doing its job. You put the measures in place. They did what you told them to do when a threat was made.”

Gunny chuckled into her plate.

“What’s so funny, Marine?” Rainey asked playfully.

“You might as well give up, boss. She has an answer for everything.”

Katie was just about to reply, when the alarm erupted in the backyard. Rainey darted to the security monitor, where her eyes narrowed on a figure rattling the back gate and yelling into the camera. She shut off the alarm and started for the backdoor.

Katie called after her. “Wait, you don’t have a gun.”

“I do,” Gunny said, springing from her chair, heading for the garage door.

“You have another gun in your car?” Katie demanded.

Rainey kept moving. The last thing she heard before leaving the house was Gunny saying,  “I don’t think right now is a good time to argue about it.”

Rainey did not need a firearm. She sprinted across the long lawn to the back gate and yanked it open, launching into the man. “Martin Douglas Cross, I’m about to make you piss your pants again, and I don’t even have a weapon this time.”

Martin backed up with both hands up in front of him in surrender. “Hey, hey, look, I just need to talk to you. It’s really important.”

“Come here,” she said, grabbing him by the shoulder and throwing him into her backyard. “I want to make sure this is legal when I kick your ass.”

He stumbled through the gate, pleading his case. “Wait! Wait! You need to hear this. Really, I don’t want to cause any trouble. You need to know someone close to you is feeding me information.”

“Rex King is feeding you information. He’s hardly close to me. And that bullshit you took out of context in Danny’s testimony? Just go ahead and print that.” She took a step closer to him, which made him flinch. “I also have reason to believe you had something to do with trying to frame me for murder,” she growled through clenched teeth. “I saw you with my weapon.”

She had not worked out in a week. Punching a bag kept her inner rage at bay. The frustration of the past few days was rushing to the surface and Rainey really wanted to hit something. Martin’s face looked like an excellent target.

“No, no, that’s wrong,” he cried, swaying back and forth like a drunk in a fight.

Gunny thundered up behind Rainey. “I got him, boss. I can drop him where he stands.”

“Wait, wait, listen to me.” Marty was growing more and more afraid for his life. Desperate, he started spouting information. “I don’t know who is framing you, but it has something to do with Michael Paul Perry. That’s where I got my information, an anonymous source that knows all about his adoption into that powerful DC family, and accuses you of causing his suicide. This person contacted me about your gun being used in a crime, before the police even knew about the murder. I told the police that.”

“You had access to my weapon, Marty. I have the video of Rex giving it to you. How do I know you aren’t the one setting me up with your partner, the dick detective?”

“Rex just doesn’t like you. He let me look at your weapon, he got me the testimony transcripts, but honestly, I don’t think he’s the one framing you. How would he know about the Perry kid? It’s someone much closer to you than Rex King.”

Rainey goaded him. She wanted a good reason to kick his ass. “Why so generous, Marty? I thought you wanted to see me get what’s coming to me. How’s that going to help sell your book?”

“You don’t deserve to go to prison for something you did not do. Besides, the truth about you is more interesting than myths and innuendo.”

Rainey dropped her aggressive tone. “Okay, I’m listening. How do you know it’s someone close to me?”

Martin relaxed just a little, but kept his eyes on Gunny and the weapon she had aimed at his chest. “My informant knows too much about you, your comings and goings, the cases you’re working, the pictures that hang on the walls in your office.”