The Fourth Victim (29 page)

“Yeah. But he's nice, Kelly. He'll understand when I tell him the truth. But he might want to talk to you, just in case you like him, after all.”

Camy barked a third time.

And the glass behind my head broke.

“Don't move.”

I recognized Marla's voice.

C
lay took his time at the store. Partially to give Kelly some privacy with Maggie. They'd both been through hell, had so many emotions to work through, and now they had a stranger in their midst. And he took his time for his own reasons, too. Being in Kelly Chapman's home was knocking him for more of a loop than it had before.

It was…as if she cast a spell and it permeated everything she touched.

If he believed in spells. And magic.

And love-ever-after.

Clay believed in picking up one quart-bottle of beer and getting back to the job. He needed the night to pass swiftly and hoped that by morning they'd have put enough pieces together to nail Abrams for the Chapman kidnapping and he could close this case. Agents were perusing Abrams's phone records, his bank and credit card statements. They'd seized his cars and computers and were thoroughly searching his home and office.

JoAnne was at the prison interviewing Lori Winston again—regardless of the growing lateness of the hour. They needed answers.

Once she'd heard about Abrams's arrest, Lori had been willing to cooperate. At least enough to agree to meet with the federal agent without her lawyer present.

His detour around the block on the way home was standard. Habit. Securing the perimeter.

And…

A little red sports car was parked in front of a house on the block behind Kelly's. It hadn't been there before.

Clay slowed. The house was dark. At 9:30. It also had a three-car garage. And an empty driveway. Presumably someone who owned such an expensive car and lived there, or was an overnight guest, wouldn't leave the little car in the street all night.

And if the owner of the car was a guest just for the evening, lights would be on somewhere in the house.

And the car would most likely be parked in the wide, empty driveway….

The yard was fenced, but the wrought iron was decorative, not high enough to keep anyone out. And in the light from the street, Clay noticed something shiny on the hard, dead grass. Something that glistened.

He left his car running at the curb and stepped out. Walked over to pick up the shiny object that was out of place.

A set of keys. Adrenaline shot through him. They could be keys to the red car. Or not. They might belong to the owner of the house.

But they didn't.

Attached to the ring that held the keys were two little license plate luggage tags. Clay didn't need light to know that they were inscribed with two names.
Maggie
and
Kelly
.

Chandler, Ohio
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

My kidnapper hadn't been a professional. Or a
he.
She was a smart, determined, very deranged woman.

She'd climbed through the front window and was in the house. Directly beside me.

She had a gun.

And if it went off, Maggie would be caught in the line of fire.

“It didn't have to come to this. I went to a lot of trouble to make things as easy and painless as possible. I padded the utility cart. And I waited until you'd slowed down before I tripped you. You could've just gone to sleep and died slow and easy,” Marla Anderson Todd said, her voice calm.

“Your plan was foolproof, Marla,” I said, calm, too. “But if you shoot me now, you won't get away.”

They didn't have much time, either. The woman had come in through the front window. Someone could have seen her. Or could drive by and see the broken glass. Could call the police. I listened for sirens and prayed not to hear them. Clay could return. I prayed that he wouldn't.

Because any disturbance now would set her off. I'd be a dead woman. Marla was at that point. A distraction would cause her to put that small bit of pressure on the trigger first, and look around second.

“I saw James today. I told him what I did. I saved those luggage tags just to show him, so he'd know I was telling the truth. I thought, after Lee Anne and all, he'd understand. That he'd be proud of me. That he'd know how much I love him. But no. He yelled at me. Because of
you,
because you have your hooks in him. He called me a stupid bitch. He said they'd blame him, and he'd never get out. He's probably going to turn me in. But you and he—you aren't going to get what you want. You won't be together. I'm planning to see to that once and for all.”

Camy was barking frantically, and I gestured for Maggie to pick her up.

“Let Maggie go,” I said, now that I'd gotten Marla to engage in conversation. I was facing death. Some part of me knew that. But I just kept focusing. “She hasn't done
anything to you. She doesn't even know who James is. She's nothing to me. Not my daughter. I've only known her a few months.” Maggie could easily be hurt in a perverse attempt to get at me.

“Why is she staying here?”

“Maggie's a client of mine. Her mother's in jail.”

I didn't let myself feel the child at my side.

“That true?” Marla moved the gun a little closer to the side of my head, but she was looking at Maggie. “Yes.”

I recognized the voice. And yet I didn't.

“Then get,” Marla raised her voice to be heard over Camy's menacing growls and high-pitched barking. “Lock yourself in the bathroom and don't come out. And take the yapper with you. After you hear the gun go off, call the cops.”

She was methodical even now. And if Maggie called the police before Marla had killed me, it didn't really matter. It was only going to take a split second for her to shoot. She could do it just as easily with them coming in the door as with them out driving around on patrol. Or sitting at the station eating doughnuts.

The bathroom door closed. The lock clicked. I flinched. And heard a sob.

Focus.
If I kept her talking, I kept myself alive. “Where'd you get the utility cart?” I asked.

“Had it shipped from Minnesota,” Marla said. “That's what gave me the idea in the first place. That and the map published by the Historical Society of those pre-Civil War slave hideaways. I knew where you went skating and when I found one near the path—and on public land yet—I knew I'd been given a sign.” Her eyes were glassy and her hand tightened on the gun.

“Maggie wrote the letters to James,” I said. “She thought he was the family member of a client. She wanted me to
have a boyfriend so I'd understand about being in love. Because she was in love and I didn't like her boyfriend.”

I wasn't begging. Or demanding. Neither was going to faze this woman.

She was going to pull the trigger any second. I had to focus.

“James killed Lee Anne. I guess you know that. It's why you're killing me. You'll have something else that you share.”

“I'm killing you because you tried to take him from me. You tried to split us up during his trial. You wanted him even then.”

“If I wanted him, why did I help Jane Hamilton?”

Marla didn't say anything.

“I helped her because I understood her,” I said. Jane would be having her baby any day now. “She didn't want my help. Didn't think she needed it. But I knew.”

“You think you know everything. You think you know people better than they know themselves. That's what you did to James. You worked your spell on him, got control of his head and made him think he wanted you.”

“All I do is listen, Marla. I don't know any more than anyone else. I just listen. I didn't write those letters to James. A fourteen-year-old girl did that. I didn't even know he'd written to me. And in Jane's case—”
and Marla's
“—I understood some of what she was feeling because I recognized myself in her. It wasn't that I knew more than Jane did, it's that I was like her.”

“Don't pull your psychobabble crap on me.”

“I was like her because I was ashamed of who and what I was. Jane felt humiliated because she was a smart, successful woman who'd fallen for James's lies. She'd let him convince her that each time he'd physically hurt her, it had been an accident that was her fault. She couldn't stand to be the kind of woman who'd allow that to happen to her.”

My head was still intact.

And out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement beyond the barrel of the gun. Way beyond.

I focused on Marla.

“I couldn't face who and what I was, either,” I said. “I'm nothing fancy like you are, Marla. I'm not rich. I'm the daughter of a two-bit whore and the drug-dealer who was her pimp.”

The shadow moved closer.

“James wouldn't have anything to do with me,” I said, my voice calming me. “I'm nowhere near good enough for him. When I was three my father sold me to an adoption agency for two thousand dollars.”

No sound, but movement.

“That's all I was worth to him. And just yesterday, he was willing to sell me again, for two million. You think James would settle for someone from that kind of background?”

Shadows. Closer.
Focus.

“And if he'd settle for that, why would you want him, Marla? You're classy. You've got money and success. You come from a good family. You love fiercely and loyally and those are good qualities. It's not your fault James abused them.”

“James did not abuse me, bitch! He loved me. He still loves me.”

“Then why am I a threat to you?”

I heard the click as the gun went off.

 

The local police, headed by Samantha Jones, wanted to handle the crime scene and Clay turned over the Chapman file. It was no longer a missing persons case.

Marla Anderson Todd was already spilling her guts when they cuffed her and took her out to the waiting squad car. James Todd had confessed to her that he'd killed
Lee Anne. He'd done it for her, he said. Which was why, in her twisted way, she'd been willing to kill Kelly for him, because Kelly was trying to split them up.

The man might never be tried for the murder of his second wife. Double jeopardy prevented new charges. But if the prosecutor had a lot of energy, and he'd been told Sheila Grant did, she could move for a mistrial on the grounds that a key witness, Marla, had been coerced. Because Marla hadn't been legally married to James at the time the original charges were filed, so she might win that argument.

In any case, Clay didn't envy James Todd his final day of reckoning. He had a lot to answer for, ruining the lives of innocent women. Kelly Chapman was the fourth victim. After Jane and Lee Anne and Marla.

Clay had never worked a more grueling case.

“Thank you.”

The voice. It had become a part of him.

He stood in a corner of the kitchen, watching while law enforcement personnel went about their business. Waiting.

“You could have died.” He spoke without turning his head.

“But I didn't.”

“I walked out of here and left you alone. For a beer, for chrissake. A fucking beer.”

“And you came back.”

“You're only alive because you had the wherewithal to keep the woman talking.”

“I'm alive because you got to her just as she was pulling the trigger and managed to deflect her aim.”

“It doesn't really matter who did what. I'm so glad you're both okay.”

Maggie Winston seemed to be taking the incident in stride, better than either of the adults she stood with. But she was clutching Kelly's hand. She hadn't let go since the
gun went off and she came tearing out of the bathroom to find Kelly still sitting upright on the couch.

Not even when they tried to get her loose so the emergency squad could check Kelly's vitals.

Or when she'd gone back to her room to pack up a few things. She'd insisted Kelly go with her.

Sam approached them. “That's it for now. The forensics team will do their thing. I've got to get down to the station. See you out at the farm?” The look she gave Kelly and Maggie spoke of the love she felt for the two of them. Kelly nodded.

Kyle and Samantha had insisted that Maggie and Kelly stay at the farm for a few days—at least until the end of the week. Kelly's house was taped off at the moment. And when she was allowed to go back in, she'd get the front window repaired.

She hadn't decided whether Maggie would start school again the next week. Kelly might keep her out until the first of the year.

“You ready?” Clay asked Kelly as Samantha and Maggie discussed Kelly's sleeping arrangements. He was driving them out to the Evans farm.

She nodded again and said, “You and I, we make a pretty good team.”

Instinctively, he resisted the idea. And yet…he couldn't argue the point. He picked up her bags and Maggie's and led the twosome, their hands joined, out to his car. Kelly sat in the back with Maggie.

Chandler, Ohio
Wednesday, December 8, 2010

I was back at my house for the day. The police were finished there. Samantha had told me, and then Clay had called. He'd offered to drive me over to help clean up.

And to sit with me while I waited for the window company to show up. Someone had taped cardboard over the shattered glass the night before.

I'd already called that morning and had a drywall guy coming out, too. And Maggie and I had decided to replace the living room furniture. Neither of us ever wanted to sit on that couch again.

Samantha had searched Marla's home. None of my belongings were there—but there'd been a recent fire in the fireplace. Marla Anderson Todd had almost committed the perfect crime. I believe that until James dumped her, she'd been unable to kill me outright, which was why she'd left me to starve. But once she'd lost James, she'd lost herself. At that point, she was capable of anything. Including murder.

I rubbed my finger over the hole left in the drywall from the bullet Marla had released. The hole was bigger now, because someone had dug the bullet out of the wall.

Thank God there was no blood. The only casualty from the night before was my right hand. The scrapes that had scabbed over were raw again this morning.