Killer Heat (33 page)

“Sure,” he said, and started the car.

 

By four o'clock that afternoon, Dean had been released. Butch remained free. And Paris had been charged with involuntary manslaughter. Her parents were working hard to get her out on bail, and Hunsacker was, of course, doing his best to help them. But because she'd
hidden the “accident” for so long, and would've hidden it even longer had events not conspired against her, Francesca believed she'd get the maximum sentence once the case went to trial. Six years in a federal penitentiary wasn't a stiff penalty in this instance, but it was a big chunk of time when you were raising a child. Champ would be close to twelve when she got out. Butch's wife was distraught to think she'd be away from her family for
any
length of time.

After dinner, and before leaving Prescott, Francesca and Jonah had visited Camp Verde Detention Center to see if Paris had anything to say about the other women who'd been murdered. They thought she might be more forthcoming now that she didn't have her own secret to guard anymore. But their attempt hadn't succeeded. Paris had alternately railed at them for being the reason she'd been arrested and pleaded with them for their help, but she'd revealed nothing new or hopeful.

Francesca felt sorry for her but was frustrated at the same time. Paris insisted Butch wouldn't have killed a single person, that it had to be Dean if it was anyone at the salvage yard. But she could offer no firsthand account or other proof, and Francesca felt she had to know
something,
had to wonder about a particular night or a particular woman. Paris hadn't even given them a list of the women she believed her husband had slept with so Francesca could check on their whereabouts, although Paris had obviously known about several of them.

Bottom line, other than solving one murder out of a possible ten, Paris's incarceration did little to advance the overall investigation. What about April and the other victims who had some connection, if only a circumstantial one, to Butch? They hadn't died accidentally, like Julia.

“We'll figure it out,” Jonah said, covering her hand with his own as he drove them back to Chandler.

Francesca felt a measure of relief. She knew she should probably resist the comfort he offered, at least until she could sort out the questions that stood between them, but it was too easy to succumb. She enjoyed his company, enjoyed his touch. Somehow, she told herself, they'd make it work.

“I hope so,” she said, and wove her fingers through his.

Then she leaned against the door and drifted off to sleep, only to be awakened by Jonah saying, “We've got company.”

A
driana was sitting on the patio, waiting for Francesca to come home. Her eyes flicked over Jonah as he got out of the car. Francesca couldn't miss that, even in the dark, because she'd been watching for it, and it upset her. She didn't want to be suspicious, didn't want to constantly expect the worst, especially when it came to her best friend.

“You haven't been answering my calls,” Adriana said, getting up as they approached.

Grateful for any distraction, Francesca opened her purse and began to search for her house keys. She could feel Jonah's warmth directly behind her, felt him place his hand at the small of her back. It was a gesture of support. Or he was trying to tell Adriana he was taken. But as far as Francesca was concerned, he should've delivered that message loud and clear ten years ago. “I've been busy.”

“That's all?”

“And maybe I didn't want to talk to you,” she admitted, her head still bent over her purse.

Adriana's voice grew tight. “That's what you want? You're choosing him over me?”

Francesca's statement had clearly provoked Adriana,
but Francesca didn't care. She
wanted
to provoke her. She was just so…angry again. “You chose him over me first, remember? That night you took advantage of the opportunity you'd been waiting for all along? He was my boyfriend, Adriana. My. Boyfriend!”

“Francesca, take it easy.” His voice soft, Jonah caught her elbow. He was making an effort to calm her before she said or did something she'd regret, but she couldn't seem to quell the desire to lash out.

“Whatever you do,
don't
stick up for her,” she snapped.

He lifted his hand. “I'm not sticking up for her. I love you. I have always loved you. But I don't want to cost you your best friend. That would just hurt you again, and I've already done enough.”

She rounded on him. “So…what does that mean? If we stay together, I'll have to associate with her
and
the child you two created?”

He blanched as if she'd slapped him. It was only last night that he'd begged her forgiveness and she'd granted it. She'd been sincere in that moment, hadn't she? She'd told him so with her body, when they'd made love right afterward. So what was she doing now? Taking it all back?

God, it was too much. The stress of the investigation. The fear that loving Jonah would only result in more pain. The doubt that they'd be able to overcome the past. Especially now that she knew Adriana's betrayal had been far more purposeful than she'd ever indicated before…

Finally locating her keys, Francesca opened the door and stepped inside, blocking them both out. “I need to be alone.”

She could feel Jonah's confusion. It matched her own.
But she didn't want to be responsible for how he felt, didn't want to be the one in the wrong.

Tears streaked Adriana's face. “Francesca, I—”

Francesca refused to look at her. “Please, don't apologize. I'm tired of
sorry.
I just want to be able to forget.”

A muscle twitched in Jonah's cheek. “Will that ever be possible?”

Fighting tears of her own, Francesca closed her eyes. “I guess not. Maybe it's better if I don't have any more to do with either one of you,” she said, and shut the door.

 

Jonah dropped his head. This was exactly what he'd been afraid of, what he'd tried to avoid by going back to California. Instead of staying there, however, and letting the police take care of business here, he'd returned to Arizona and to Francesca. He'd allowed his hopes to rise, recommitted himself to the relationship and…and now
this.

“She's still in love with you,” Adriana said.

Jonah had all but forgotten she was standing next to him. He'd been too busy recalling Francesca's unhappy expression as she closed the door in his face to notice or care about anything else. “Love isn't the problem. It never was.” The problem was fear. Fear had caused the first breakup and would likely cause the second.

Adriana wiped her eyes. “Maybe love's not the problem, but it's the solution, right?”

He looked over at her. “Is it? She asked me last night if love was enough. I wanted to believe it was. Now I'm beginning to wonder.”

“If you give up this easily, you don't love her as much as you think you do,” she said, then started walking away.

“What are you going to do about…you and her?” he asked.

She turned to face him. “I'm going back to my family to do what I should've done a long time ago. I'm going to face the fact that you've never cared about me, forgive myself for loving you even though I shouldn't have and be grateful for the people who do care about me. I don't deserve Francesca's friendship, but if she ever gets to the point where she can handle having both of us in her life…and if you do, too…you know where to find me.”

Was she really walking away? If so, maybe he and Francesca had a chance. Suddenly, he had more respect and admiration for Adriana than ever before. “Adriana?”

She stopped. “Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

Wearing a sad smile, she nodded. “Make it worth it to me and…be happy together.”

Jonah stood at Francesca's door long after Adriana was gone. He wanted to knock, to tell her he
did
believe love was enough. They could make sure of it if they were equally committed. But he hesitated to push her too far, too fast. Now that Adriana had stepped aside, he felt they might have a shot, a true second chance, and he decided to give Francesca the time and space she needed to work through her own doubts.

In other words, he was going to have the faith he should've had in her from the very beginning.

 

Hunsacker was calling. Did he have to answer?

Butch stared at the investigator's number displayed on the base of his cordless phone, which also provided the time. It was still early, only eight in the morning and, while he was usually at work by seven, the past twenty-
four hours had been hell on him and everyone else in the family. With Elaine turning Paris in to rescue Dean, there had been and would continue to be so much tension in the house Butch didn't see how they could go on living together. But he'd figure out what to do about that later, once he'd had a chance to rebound from the shock and the upset. He was just glad he'd taken Champ to a friend's house yesterday. It helped to know his son had no clue what was going on and was probably playing happily at Joey's. It also helped that Paris was home and sleeping next to him. Because he had Hunsacker to thank for getting her out of jail so quickly, he forced himself to take the phone out of the room so he wouldn't wake her and hit the answer button.

“What's up, Hugh?” He kept his voice low as he made his way down the hall to the kitchen.

“Sorry to bother you so early, Butch. I know you can't be happy to hear from me. But thanks to the forensic anthropologist we've had working around the clock, we've been able to identify some of the remains found in Dead Mule Canyon.”

Butch breathed a sigh of relief as he put on some coffee. All his secrets had been laid bare. He had nothing more to hide, so he didn't really care what they learned about those victims. He had his own problems to worry about, like who he was going to hire to represent Paris and how he'd pay a good attorney if they were still at odds with her folks. “What do you need from me?”

“I'd like to run the names past you to see if you've ever heard of these women. Maybe Dean associated with one or more of them at some point.”

Butch sank into a chair to wait for his caffeine fix. The way Dean traveled around at night, Butch thought he might've killed those women. It wasn't as if anyone
had been watching over him. Dean certainly gravitated toward female companions when he had the chance, craving their attention and their love. Unlike Butch, his preoccupation didn't seem to be sexual in nature, but he was definitely looking for someone who'd be as good to him as his mother. And knowing Paris would likely go to prison because of Elaine made Butch more than willing to cooperate. “I'll do what I can.”

“Great. Thanks.” Papers rustled on the other end of the line. “One woman, a twenty-eight-year-old white waitress from Prescott Valley, was named Venice O'Cleary. You ever heard of her?”

Butch knew Venice. He'd slept with her. They'd had a brief fling after he'd met her while having breakfast at the Golden Griddle. He'd even given her a hundred bucks to help her pay the rent one month. After that she'd never answered his calls, but he hadn't been all that interested in her, hadn't tried to reach her more than three or four times.

“Butch?”

Feigning preoccupation, Butch cleared his throat. “Sorry about that. I got…distracted. What was the name again?”

“Venice O'Cleary.” Hunsacker repeated the information about her age and where she'd worked, too.

“Never heard of her.”

“What about Wanda Erickson?”

“No,” Butch said, but he'd had to stifle a gasp.

“She was a bit older, almost thirty-five,” Hunsacker was saying. “She came from Nevada, where she worked in a brothel for a few years. She called herself a masseuse once she hit Arizona, but she might've been selling sexual favors along with her back rubs. Do you know if
Dean ever frequented massage parlors, ever talked about one or mentioned a woman named Wanda?”

Was this some sort of nightmare? Butch knew Wanda, too! Three or four years ago, he'd spotted her massage sign hanging outside the quaint little house she'd rented near old town and stopped in for whatever he could get—and always came away very happy. She was clean and she worked cheap. She also knew how to be professional. He'd made her place a regular stop whenever he had a few bucks in his pocket and the excuse of errands to run. The last time he'd tried to visit, however, he'd bumped into the owner of the house, who'd told him she'd cleared out. He'd assumed she headed back to Nevada to be with her sick mother. He'd never dreamed she'd gone missing or…been
killed.
What had happened to her things? Her family must have come for them. The landlord hadn't mentioned anything being left behind.

“No,” he hurried to say, before Hunsacker could prod him again. “I've never heard Dean mention a Wanda.”

“Besides Bianca Andersen, there's one more. We're still working on the last three. Her name was Jane Pew, from Phoenix.”

Hunsacker explained a bit about her, too, as he had the others, but Butch wasn't listening. Like April, he'd met Jane via an online dating service. The fact that he'd known, even slept with, every woman who'd been killed was no longer a coincidence.

He'd also known Sherrilyn, he realized. But he hadn't slept with her. If she was dead, she didn't fit the same pattern.

Still…what was going on? Who was murdering these women? Was it that little faggot Dean? Had Dean been following him around, killing any woman he touched?
Why would he care that much? He and Paris had never been close….

“Sorry.” It was difficult to talk when he could scarcely breathe, but he had to deny knowing these women, and he had to be convincing. Otherwise, the police would return, and this time they'd take
him
to jail. Anyone would think he was the killer. These women came from different places and different walks of life. Who else could've known them all?

Dean? He couldn't have followed Butch's every move. Sometimes when Butch left the house, Dean was already gone.

Then it occurred to him.
Paris.
Remembering her rage when she caught him grabbing Julia's ass, he stood so fast he knocked over the chair. Maybe what she'd done that night
hadn't
been an accident. Maybe she'd gotten violent because she was used to getting violent…

Drained of strength, he let the phone dangle in his hand. When would she have had the time and opportunity to attack his lovers? How would she have arranged it?

Hoping and praying he was wrong, he tried to calm down, but he couldn't. She must've gone through his phone, his office, his pockets. Checked up on him at every opportunity. Eavesdropped on his conversations. And those P.I.s he thought Kelly's husband had hired? Maybe one or more of them had worked for his own wife. Paris must've met each woman while Champ was in preschool, he decided. Butch couldn't come up with another occasion when she'd be away from the house for any length of time without his knowledge. Except when he was out himself, of course. He was pretty sure she'd picked up April on the highway where he'd
left her or someone else would've seen her before she disappeared.

“Butch? You there?”

Hunsacker was still on the phone. What should he do? If he talked, Paris would be taken away from him and Champ for life.

He had to prevent that. It was
his
fault she'd done those terrible things. And he could make her stop. He just had to quit cheating and spend more time with her. Keep an eye on her for a change.

If only you'd quit like you promised….

Who knew how literally she'd meant that?

The image of April's body, described by Hunsacker and Finch, came into his mind. April had been propped out there for all to see. Only someone who hated her, on a very personal level, would do that. The police had said as much. And who would hate her more than Paris? “Butch?”

“I'm right here.” He managed to squeeze each word past the lump in his throat. “I—I wish I could help you, but I haven't heard of any of those women.”

“No problem. I knew it was a long shot. Just thought I'd ask. I might bring some pictures by later, if that's okay.”

“Of course. Good luck with it.” He hung up, then sat staring at nothing. Why hadn't Paris killed Kelly? She'd known about them for weeks.