R. E. Bradshaw - Rainey Nights (31 page)

Mackie left through the front door, arming the alarm as he went. Freddie came in from his evening romp. His greeting trills and the tapping of his claws on the floor were the only sounds. Rainey fed him and made a sandwich for herself, a robot going through the motions. She had to force herself to eat. The ache in her gut was not hunger pangs. She ate at the table in deference to Katie’s rules, even though she wasn’t sure Katie was ever coming back. When she finished, Rainey cleaned up the kitchen and took the ads and the tablet computer out to the couch. She spent about two hours going over all her assets.

If Rainey sold her property, she could manage purchasing a house like Katie wanted, closer to Chapel Hill in a gated community, with security patrols already in place. That didn’t mean some psycho wasn’t already living within the gates, but Rainey would have a better chance of seeing him coming. The lots were big and wooded, close to Lake Jordan. Freddie could stalk small animals in a new territory. She would simply be on the other end of the lake. The interstate was close by, Chapel Hill minutes away, a mall located just up the road. It was a thriving community geared toward families and children. It would suit Rainey’s need for seclusion and Katie’s desire to be in the middle of life.

Of course, committing to this meant Rainey was giving up her last vestiges of independence. Even with Katie living there, it was still Rainey’s house. If she gave into this, Rainey would be binding herself to Katie forever. In theory, she had already done that, but to really depend on Katie to hold up her end of the bargain was taking a big step. They had not even shared a checking account, up to this point, and now Rainey was thinking about dumping the majority of her life savings into the pot. If this didn’t work out, where would she go? When the house was being built on her property, she figured Katie would let her buy her out if things went south.

Rainey realized suddenly that she never really thought it would last with Katie. Something would happen. It had been too good. Things like that never survived long in Rainey’s life. She was a happy-go-lucky kid until she turned ten, found out she’d been lied to from birth, and became bitter because of it. She recovered from most of her trust issues, with the help of her father, and succeeded at her life’s ambitions. Rainey lost her father too soon, her career followed shortly after. Her life, she thought, was like that Robert Frost poem. “Nothing gold can stay.”

Rainey’s cell phone rang. Danny’s name was on the caller ID. She narrowed her eyes at the phone. The anger from earlier flashed to the surface, but she had to answer. If she didn’t, he would drive out there to make sure she was all right.

“What?” She asked, curtly, when she answered.

“Still pissed, I see.”

“What do you want? I’m busy.” Rainey wasn’t up for anymore of Danny’s crap today.

Danny’s voice took on a formal tone. He evidently was tired of Rainey’s crap, too. “Your suspicions were correct. Dalton was hiding a prepaid cell phone, charger and all. It never ceases to amaze me what these guys will shove up their asses. Brooks pulled the records. Chambers made calls and texts to another prepaid number, up until we confiscated the phone. We called the other phone, got an answer, but no voice, just a hang up. We traced the call to an area south of Chapel Hill, but it’s turned off now, probably in the trash somewhere.”

Rainey forgot about being mad. “We assumed the UNSUB was on his own, making decisions and possibly mistakes. If Dalton has been in his ear this whole time, then this is a trap. Dalton orchestrated my involvement and guessed correctly that I would appear at this club. The UNSUB will be there Saturday night. Now, we just have to figure out what Dalton’s plan is.”

“We aren’t going to be able to ask him for a while. It seems there was a bit of a scuffle when they did the cavity search. Dalton has been moved to the hospital wing, with a severe concussion. The medical staff and his lawyers are preventing us from talking to him.”

“He’s not in isolation, anymore?” Rainey was concerned.

“He’s under twenty-four hour guard and separated from the other patients. Don’t worry; he’s not going anywhere. They worked him over pretty good.”

Rainey ignored Danny’s reassurances. “Check out every single one of the people in the hospital and the trustees. If he gets a chance, he’s gone and he’ll kill anyone in his path to freedom.”

Danny tried again to calm her fears. “He’s chained to a hospital bed, with four guards on him. Relax Rainey, Dalton is not your biggest problem right now.”

Rainey sighed. “I have more big problems than I care to have, at the moment.”

By now, Danny’s tone had become more compassionate. “I know you have a lot going on. You need to get some rest and focus your attention on the one problem you can do something about. We catch this guy tomorrow night and then you can deal with the other things. Is the cop car outside?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Danny said, at a loss for what to say next.

Rainey asked, “Have you checked on Katie, tonight?”

“Yes, she’s fine. Her sisters are there.”

Rainey would have tolerated Maria to see Katie. She missed her that much.

“Okay, well…” Rainey said, looking for a way to end the conversation. “I guess there’s nothing to do, but stick with the plan. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Before he hung up, Danny made one last comment. “You do know I have your back, don’t you? You do trust me?”

Rainey might have been angry with Danny, but she trusted him with her life. She replied, “Always.”

#

Rainey spent the next several hours planning. She tackled one problem at a time. Finally she concluded there was no other way, but to take a leap of faith with Katie. She sent detailed emails to several people with instructions on what to do. Rainey had to convince Katie they could have a life together. This was a step in the right direction. She trusted Ernie to make it all happen. Rainey didn’t have time to take care of things personally; she had a killer to catch and another to see strapped to a gurney with a needle in his arm.

Once the email was sent, Rainey switched gears. She went into the closet, taking down one of the heavy boxes from the top shelf. She carried it to the living room and emptied its contents onto the coffee table. Reflexively, she checked the security camera feeds on the TV and then immersed herself in the world of Dalton Chambers. She reread the bulletins from the House of Holy Redemption and then set about looking for some clue to the code in which it was written. Somewhere in that pile on the coffee table was the key to catching the UNSUB. Rainey just had to find it.

At one a.m., the clue remained elusive, but her tired eyes blurred the words beyond recognition. Rainey had resisted getting reading glasses, but her age was beginning to catch up with her. She also didn’t think she could stand to listen to another word from the interviews she had playing in the background. Rainey had enough of Dalton Chambers’ perversions for one evening. She petted Freddie, who had curled up beside her on the couch.

“The eyes are the first things to go, little man. I guess I am getting old. Come on; let’s go to bed. We’ll try again in the morning.”

Rainey checked the security cameras, again, reconfirmed that all the doors and windows were secured, and took Freddie into the bedroom with her. She locked and bolted the bedroom door, took the still loaded shotgun out of the gun safe, along with her father’s .45 pistol, and placed them by her bed. She crawled between the sheets, hoping that she would be able to sleep there without Katie. She needed a good night’s rest. She lay there for a few minutes, before reaching for her cell phone on the nightstand. Rainey hit a few buttons and placed the receiver to her ear. She got Katie’s voicemail and knew Katie was looking at the phone, refusing to answer.

When prompted, Rainey simply said, “I wanted you to know, I really do love you. No matter what happens, I needed you to know that. Good night, Katie.”

#

Emotional and physical exhaustion finally caught up with Rainey. She fell asleep, and woke almost seven hours later, the most she’d slept in days. She may have dreamed, but she was too tired to remember. Rainey was thankful for that, sure that Dalton crept about in her mind while she lay slumbering. She put on shorts and a tee shirt and went to the kitchen. She consumed some juice and one of the breakfast cookies Katie forced on her when Rainey didn’t want eat. Rainey hadn’t run in a week and was in desperate need of a good sweat, but she wasn’t going unprotected. She stopped at the gun safe, putting on her shoulder holster and a windbreaker to cover the Glock. She zipped her cell phone into a jacket pocket and stepped into a gorgeous Carolina spring morning.

Once she had assured the deputy that his presence wasn’t needed anymore, he drove away. It took a while to get moving, but once she was warmed up, the running relaxed her. She took the well-worn two-mile trail through the woods that she and her father cleared for her, back in high school days. After she went away to college, he kept it cut back so she could run it when she was home. It was one of the things she was going to miss when she moved, but that decision had been made last night. Some of Rainey’s anxiety diminished when she finally decided to commit to a life with Katie. Still, parting with the only real home she’d ever known was going to be hard. Rainey took in her surroundings, and was reminded how lucky she was to have had a place like this in her life. She vowed she would come back and run this trail, if the new owners would let her.

When Rainey rounded the final bend, she saw what appeared to be a piece of paper stuck on the side of the last tree, before the path broke out of the woods. As she grew closer her strides slowed, until she stopped abruptly, a few feet from the tree. Someone had printed a picture on computer paper and stapled it to the tree. The paper was damp from the morning dew and curled up on the edges, but it had not been there long. Rainey took a step closer, unable for a second to see the image in the photo or read the sentence typed below it. A cloud moved above, allowing the sun to penetrate the shadows. Light spilled across the trunk of the tree. The image came into focus. Rainey sprinted toward the house as fast as she could, punching numbers into her cell phone as she ran. Danny picked up on the first ring.

“Hope you got some rest last night and are in a much better mood,” he said, jovially.

Rainey bounded up the steps to the cottage, saying breathlessly, “Danny, move Katie and her family, now! He knows where she is and he’s watching her.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“He left me a message. He took a picture of Katie and her family in their backyard. It had to have been yesterday. Her sisters were in the picture.”

Danny grasped the seriousness of the situation immediately. He turned from his phone and spoke, “Roger, get over to Katie Meyers parents’ home. Tell them to pack an overnight bag and then bring them here… Move! Curtis, go with him!” He spoke again to Rainey, “Where did you find the picture?”

Rainey answered, while she fumbled with the key, trying to get into the house. “He stapled it to a tree on my running trail. There was a message typed under the picture.”

“I’ll send a tech team out there to collect it. What did it say?”

Rainey closed the door and rearmed the alarm. With her back against the door, she slid down to the floor, the panicked breathing beginning to subside.

Danny waited for her to catch her breath and asked again, “What was the message, Rainey?”

Rainey repeated what she read. “It said, ‘I thought she was in a safe place.’ He watched the newscast.”

“Rainey, Katie is safe or I would have known about it. I’ll go on and call her now and explain what’s happening. You wait for the tech team. I’ll take care of Katie and her family and then I’ll call you.” He paused, and then asked, “Are you okay? Do you still want to go through with this thing tonight?”

“I want this over with,” Rainey spat, the anger and fear for Katie’s safety welling up, before she said, “I’m ending this tonight, one way or another.”

“Calm down, you need to get your head on straight, or I’m not letting you go in there.”

Rainey did not hesitate when she said, “Try and stop me!”

The crime tech unit arrived and took the picture back to the lab. Rainey busied herself cleaning her gun and cooking lunch. She hadn’t had a hot meal in days, so she warmed up some frozen ravioli from the last batch Katie made. Danny called back after a while, exasperated. It seemed he had a taste of the Meyers women, and what Rainey was up against in dealing with them, especially Katie.

“Damn, Rainey. How do you get a word in edgewise?”

Rainey laughed. “I take it your conversation with Katie did not go well.”

“I’ve never been so tongue tied in my life. She should have gone into politics. Katie could teach them a thing or two about debating.”

“I guess you lost,” Rainey said, concerned, but still amused.

“I guess you knew today was the big party for Mr. Meyers. Those women are not budging. I did get them to agree to more security and to leave at the conclusion of the party.”

“Well, at least you got them to move out for the night. I’ve never won a single concession from one of them, most especially Katie.”

“Rainey, that woman is a little ball of fire, way too hot to handle. Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“You know, Danny, when we were kids we did things we knew we weren’t supposed to do, because the joy of doing it was worth the punishment we took later. Some things are just worth the pains you suffer. Katie is worth the trouble.”

Danny softened his tone. “I hope it all works out for you, Rainey. I really do. I wasn’t sure this relationship would last, but you two are like moths to a flame. You belong together.”

Rainey smiled into the phone. “Yeah, well, if I get burned, I’ll remind you that you said that, while you’re telling me, I told you so.”

Danny’s voice was hushed when he asked, “Are you ready, Rainey?”

She knew what he meant. Was she ready to go get this guy? Was she prepared to spot him? Had she thought of everything?