Real Murder (Lovers in Crime Mystery Book 2) (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Isn’t that Cameron’s cruiser?” Hunter Gardner rolled his car to a stop in the middle of the street when he noticed the white Pennsylvania State Police cruiser parked in front of  the little house in the middle of the block.

They were on their way to his grandparents’ home, two doors down from Lorraine Winter’s house, where his mother was staying while recovering from the trauma of the night  before. So far, Belle Fontaine was insisting she didn’t ever  want to return to the home she had made with Royce  Fontaine.

Her feelings were compounded after a long night of  comparing notes with her former in-laws. For years, the Gardners had believed their former daughter-in-law was  pulling away from her late husband’s family—possibly  painful memories of her loss or shutting the door on her past to enjoy the life of being a rich man’s wife.

Hours of heart-to-heart conversation revealed that it was Royce Fontaine who had cut Belle off from Mike’s family. Numerous messages and attempts to reach out had been  intercepted and concealed in his continuing effort to have the object of his obsession all to himself.

By morning, Belle had made the decision to legally  change her name back to Gardner.

There were many decisions to make.

“The doctor told her not to drive, but Cameron insisted on picking it up yesterday,” Tracy said in response to Hunter’s question. “That’s Cameron for you.”

“What’s it doing in front of Lorraine Winter’s house  instead of at your place?” Hunter asked.

“She’s working on Ms. Houseman’s murder,” Tracy said. “Maybe she’s questioning Mrs. Winter to see if she saw something. She lives right behind her. If the killer went out the back door, she may have seen him.”

Staring at the cruiser in front of the broken-down house, Hunter eased the car forward a few feet before stopping once again. The driver in the car behind him honked his horn.

“What’s wrong?” Embarrassed to be a part of the traffic hold up, Tracy said, “Cameron is a trained detective. She can take care of herself.”

“Have you met Lorraine Winter?” Hunter pressed his foot on the gas pedal. “I swear the Brothers Grimm based the wicked witch in
Hansel and Gretel
on her.”

“Every neighborhood has one nasty old woman.” She picked up her cell phone, which was vibrating on her hip. The caller ID indicated that it was Sheriff Sawyer. “Curt, are you calling to put in your dinner order?”

“Tracy, it’s me,” Joshua said. “Are you with Hunter?”

“Sure—”

“Are you two at his grandparents’ house or ours?”

Shooting a look of concern across at Hunter, Tracy pressed the speaker button. “We’re on our way to the Gardners. Why?”

“Lorraine Winter killed Dolly,” Joshua said. “She also killed Ava Tucker and Virgil Null. Cameron is with her now, and when I called her I heard a crash and scuffle. The phone is still on and she’s making noises like she’s hurt. Police are on their way, but Hunter, you were with military police. Can you—”

“I’m on my way.” Hunter was already making a U-turn in the middle of the narrow street. The driver behind him blasted his horn while swerving to avoid a collision “Tracy, get my gun out of the glove compartment.”

“I just want you to see if Cameron is okay,” Joshua said. “Backup units are on the way.”

The room was spinning. No matter how hard Cameron pressed her eyes shut, every time she opened them, the room continued to swirl around her.

The floor felt gritty on her face and hands. Pushing herself up onto her knees, Cameron dropped face first back down onto the floor when nausea overcame her. Something warm and moist dripped into her eyes. Thinking it was sweat, she wiped it away to realize that she was losing the feeling in her fingers. In spite of the numbness, she could recognize the feel of it.

Too sticky. Nope, it’s not sweat.

Squinting, she peered at her fingertips. Even through the blur, she could recognize it as blood.

The sound of running water roared in her ears. Footsteps resembling that of an oncoming gorilla across a tile floor echoed inside her head.

A pair of dirty blue slippers stopped in front of her.

Shoot her!
Cameron heard inside her head.
Get your gun and shoot the old witch dead. Now! Before it’s too late.

“What are you doing here?” she heard Lorraine ask in a puzzled voice.

With numb hands, Cameron groped for her gun in its holster strapped to her hip. With effort, she unsnapped the holster and fumbled around to grab the grip and remove the gun. Rolling over onto her back, she aimed it up at the  figure standing over her. The gun shook in her hand.

Shoot!

She pressed her finger on the trigger, which didn’t move.

Pull on the trigger. Harder. Why aren’t you firing, you dumb—the safety! Turn off the safety!

Clumsily, she lowered the gun and felt for the safety to unlock it.

“What are you trying to do?” Lorraine took the gun out of her hand and peered at it. “Stupid girl. You could hurt someone with this thing.” She tucked the gun into the  pocket of her robe. “There. That’s better.” Rising back up to her feet, Lorraine went over to the knife block and removed the butcher knife. She studied the blade in her hand. “Now I  remember what I was going to do.” She opened the cabinet under her sink and took out a garbage bag.

Joshua stared at the clock on the dashboard of the sheriff’s cruiser. “What’s our ETA now?”

“Thirty seconds less than the last time you asked,” Sheriff Sawyer said. “I wish you hadn’t called Hunter.”

“He’s right there,” Joshua said.

“He’s not even a rookie! Every deputy in the county is on his way. Chester’s police are right down the road. She’s going to be all right.”

“Lorraine Winter has killed three people.” Joshua held up his cell phone. “Cameron is hurt.”

“And what are you going to do if your daughter’s fiancé gets hurt—or worse—because you ignored police procedure and sent him in to save your new wife?”

Joshua bowed his head and closed his eyes to say a prayer.

“Stay in the car,” Hunter told Tracy.

Even as he gave the order, she trotted down the steps to Lorraine Winter’s small porch. “Cameron is my stepmother and I love you. No way am I staying out here and letting you go in there alone to save her.”

“I thought you didn’t like Cameron.” Holding his gun up and ready to fire, he moved up to the front door.

Keeping close behind him, Tracy followed. “She’s growing on me.”

“You want to help?” Hunter said. “Stay out here. Tell the officers when they arrive that I have gone in. That way I won’t get shot. If you see Lorraine coming around from the back, scream bloody murder. Don’t try to stop her. Tell me that you understand and will do what I said.”

“I understand.”

“Stop kicking me, you stupid girl.”

In spite of the old woman’s command, Cameron delivered another kick that planted the heel of her foot to Lorraine’s nose. She heard the crack when her nose broke. The old  woman dropped Cameron’s other foot to grab her face, which was covered with blood from the blow.

Cameron was too heavy for the old woman to drag  easily into the bathroom where she intended to cut her up in the bathtub, which she was filling with water. Her struggling made it even more of a chore.

Upon her release, Cameron attempted to fight the nausea and crawl up to her feet to scurry to safety on the other side of the screened back door. She made it only halfway to the door before vertigo plunged her face first down onto the floor.

“Bitch!” Lorraine screamed when she saw the blood. Grabbing up the knife that she had placed on the floor with the garbage bag, she lunged for the young woman’s back.

“The door’s locked,” Tracy said.

“No kidding,” Hunter replied.

“Bitch!” they heard Lorraine Winter curse from inside the house.

“Stand back.” Hunter delivered a kick to the old door, which broke free from its lock. It swung open as if to invite him inside. “Cameron! It’s Hunter Gardner!” he announced while rushing inside with his gun drawn. “Are you okay? Police are on the way.”

The sound of the door being kicked in roared in Cameron’s head.

“Cameron! It’s Hunter Gardner! Are you okay? Police are on the way.”

In the distance, Cameron picked up the sound of sirens growing closer.

Lorraine Winter heard them too. Her wild eyes grew wider. With a sadistic grin that stretched across the width of her face, she scurried out of the kitchen and through a door leading down to the basement. Placing a finger to her lip, she gestured to Cameron to be quiet before closing the door behind her.

“Cameron, are you okay?” Hunter Gardner rolled her over and quickly examined her. “Oh, dear God, look at you! What did she hit you with?” She felt his hand on her neck. “Where’s Mrs. Winter?”

Cameron opened her mouth to speak, but only unintelligible noises came from her lips. Her jaw shook. Her teeth chattered.

“You’re in shock. EMTs are on their way.” He glanced up at the screen door leading outside. “Did she go out the back door?”

With a gleeful light in her eyes, Lorraine eased open the basement door and crept forward. Like a child sneaking downstairs to shake presents on Christmas morning, she tiptoed into the kitchen.

Seeing her, Cameron tried to force a warning from her throat. All that came out was a high-pitched shriek.

“It’s okay, Cameron.” Hunter tucked his gun into his waistband. “We’ll find her.”

But you’ll be dead before they come in. There she is. Turn around.
Hoping he could understand her fear, Cameron grabbed Hunter’s arm and squeezed.

Seeing her cell phone on the floor, Hunter picked it up. “Mr. Thornton, are you there? … Yeah, I’m in. She’s got a wicked head wound, but she’s alive...Mrs. Winter appears to have escaped out the back …”

Lorraine covered her mouth with her hand to stifle the giggle bubbling to her lips in anticipation of her next brutal murder. Taking Cameron’s gun out of her bathrobe pocket, she tiptoed across the kitchen toward her next victim.

The warning failing to come, Cameron’s eyes pleaded with Hunter to grasp their message.

In the sheriff’s cruiser, Joshua let out a deep sigh and gave Curt Sawyer a thumbs up. “We’re coming up Fifth now,” he told Hunter into the phone. “Dispatch says units have just arrived on the scene. Where’s Tracy?”

“She’s—” Hunter’s response was broken off by a loud scream that almost pierced Joshua’s eardrum. He felt his heart skip a beat as a series of gunshots erupted through the phone’s speaker.

“Hunter!” Joshua shouted into the phone. “What’s happening? Who’s shooting?”

Curt cringed when he heard an officer reporting across  the police channel. “Shots are being fired from inside the house.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” Joshua clutched his stomach with his hand with the realization that his worst nightmare was  coming true. He made one last attempt to contact him on  the phone. “Hunter? Are you all right?”

The cruiser fishtailed when the sheriff turned off Rock Springs Boulevard onto the little street and came to an abrupt halt. Joshua threw his cell phone onto the seat and ran down the steps to where the officers were still making sense of the situation. The front door was wide open.

Recognized as the prosecuting attorney, Joshua ran inside without anyone attempting to stop him. “Where are they? What’s happened? Gunshots were fired?” he asked a deputy he recognized as a senior officer.

“MacMillian is on the way,” the deputy said.

Joshua felt sick to his stomach.
Tad? They called the medical examiner? Oh, dear God …

“She’s back there.” The deputy jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. “Your daughter is with her.”

Joshua’s whole body felt numb. Afraid of what he would find, he slowed his pace but at the same time hurried to get to Cameron and Hunter.

He only took a few steps before clearing the threshold into the kitchen where he found Tracy kneeling over Cameron. With Tracy blocking his view, he could only see the lower half of Cameron’s body covered in a blanket.

“Well, at least this time you didn’t jump off a roof,” Tracy was saying.

Cameron’s voice trembled when she said, “It was a fire escape.”

“Whatever.”

In the middle of the floor, there was another body that Joshua recognized as Lorraine Winter’s, lying in a quickly growing pool of blood. Her body was riddled with bullet holes.

“Mr. Thornton,” Hunter called to him from the corner of the room where he was being questioned by another senior deputy, “I’m sorry we got cut off, but suddenly things got  really busy here.”

The senior deputy shot Joshua a grin. “Looks like your son-in-law-to-be is a real hot shot. Hasn’t even been to the police academy one day and he’s already broken his cherry.” He gestured at Lorraine Winter. “His first kill.”

Hunter didn’t look as thrilled as the deputy did. “Not  really such a hot shot,” he said. “I screwed up. I saw the open door and assumed she had gone out the back while I was  coming in the front. I let my guard down and almost got killed. If I hadn’t seen the look in Cameron’s eyes warning me, we’d both be dead.”

Joshua clasped Hunter on the shoulder. “You did good, son. I’m proud of you, and your father would be, too.”

Sheriff Sawyer came around the corner to shake Hunter’s hand. “You’re going to be a fine addition to the department. Let’s get you outside to get your statement.”

Behind Hunter’s back, the sheriff fired off a glare in Joshua’s direction.

Joshua didn’t need to hear the words to understand what was going through Sawyer’s mind. The sick feeling he had  in his own stomach said it all. Joshua had sent a civilian in to save his wife and Hunter wasn’t just any untrained civilian,  he was Tracy’s fiancé. It could very easily have been Hunter bleeding out in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Tracy moved aside to allow Joshua room to kneel next to Cameron. “She must have a hard head,” she whispered with a   grin. “Most people would be dead with a blow like that from a cast iron skillet.”

“Just like every other woman in my life.” Joshua lifted Cameron into his arms. The blood that covered the side of her head smeared onto his clothes, but he didn’t care. She was safe, and he was holding her. The feel of her  breathing against him confirmed that she was alive, and that made everything okay.

She opened her eyes and gazed up to him. “Josh,” she murmured as best she could with a numb tongue.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered to her. “You’re going to  be okay, baby. You scared me half to death. You know that, don’t you?”

Caressing his face, she squinted into his blue eyes. “No need to worry. You’re not burying this wife. I promised. Remember.”

“Yeah, I remember.” He stroked her blood soaked hair off her forehead. “I love you, Cam.”

“I know.” Closing her eyes, she rubbed her face against his chest and drifted off.