Killing Her Softly (39 page)

Quinn's forgiven you, so how about forgiving yourself?

Just as Marcy was peeling off her pantyhose, she thought she heard someone walking down the hall. Probably
Jace
. Or maybe it was Aaron. He could have cooled off already and come back home. Wearing only her panties and bra, she rushed across the room and eased the door open enough to peep into the hall. She looked right and left, up and down, and saw no one. Odd. She must have been hearing things.

Looking in her closet, she decided on jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. After supper, she'd clean up the kitchen and then talk to Aaron. If Quinn thought Aaron loved her, then it was possible he actually did. And if he did love her, what would she do about it? She enjoyed making love with Aaron. She liked knowing he cared about her. But even if she could eradicate Quinn from her heart, could she love Aaron? Could she love any other man?

The guy who'd taken her order at the Chinese restaurant had told her it would be at least an hour before delivery, so she had an hour to kill. She figured Quinn was on the phone with Annabelle and
Jace
was hiding in his room, keeping well out of the line of fire. She'd been wanting to paint her toenails with the new polish she'd bought the other day. Shocking Pink to match the new sweater she'd bought in one of the Opryland Mall boutiques while they'd been in Nashville. She'd bought it because she remembered that Quinn always complimented her when she wore pink.

Forget impressing Quinn. You'll have to let that fantasy die a natural death. He's in love with another woman.

After getting all the paraphernalia she'd need for the pedicure lined up in the bathroom, she rolled up her jeans and grabbed the polish remover. Just as she wet a cotton ball and started rubbing the chipped coral polish off her big toe, she heard a noise out in the hall again. Someone was out there. She tossed the cotton ball in the wastebasket and walked out of the bathroom, through her bedroom and to the door.

"Who's out there?" she asked.

Silence.

"
Jace
, is that you?"

No response.

"Aaron?"

Nothing.

An odd little niggling feeling fluttered in Marcy's stomach. Not fear. Just uneasiness. She opened the door and scanned the hallway. It was empty.

Either I'm going nuts or somebody's wandering around in the hall and not answering me.

"Quinn?" she called loudly. "
Jace
!"

Could an intruder have entered the house without any of them knowing it?

Without warning, the lights went out, turning everything pitch-black in the hallway. Panic gripped Marcy. She walked backward into her room where the remnants of twilight came through the lone window in her bedroom, casting spooky shadows on the walls and across the floor.

"Hey, guys, what happened?" she called loudly to anyone who might hear her.

"The electricity is off," a voice said. Quinn's voice?

"Is that you, Quinn?" She noticed a man's dark shadow in the doorway.

"Yes. Don't worry. I'm here."

An overwhelming sense of relief washed over her. Quinn was here. Everything would be fine.

"I don't know if there are any candles in this place, but I know there's a flashlight in the kitchen," Marcy told Quinn as she headed toward him.

"We don't need any light, do we?" he asked.

What was wrong with his voice? He didn't sound quite like himself.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine," he replied and came toward her. Broad shouldered six one, muscular yet trim. She loved Quinn's body.

When he came nearer, she could make out his dark curly hair and the thrust of his high cheekbones. "Poor Marcy. You've suffered so, haven't you? You've loved a man who can never love you."

Why was he saying such things to her? Didn't he realize how much his words hurt her? "Quinn, please, don't—"

He reached out and circled the back of her neck with his hand. She gasped when he pulled her close, eye-to-eye. She gazed into his black eyes and saw no kindness, no gentleness. This was not the Quinn she knew and loved.

"You're a very foolish woman, Marcy. You know what I do to foolish women? I put them out of their misery." He tightened his hold on her neck. "I kill them softly."

Oh, God, no! It couldn't be. It wasn't possible.

"You killed all those other women, didn't you?" Marcy tried her best to escape from his tenacious hold.

"I put them out of their misery. I eased their pain. I ended their agony."

"And you're going to kill me, too? But why, I've never—" He pressed his thumb against her windpipe so hard that she could barely breathe. While she struggled against his superior strength, he shoved her backward and onto her bed. Flaying her arms and doing her best to knee him in the groin, Marcy fought like a wildcat. But he managed to subdue her by crawling on top of her, pinning her to the bed and yanking her arms over her head and down against the pillows.

Marcy let out an earsplitting scream.

"No one can hear you."

She kept screaming.

"Poor, sweet, stupid Marcy."

He jerked one of the pillows off the bed and brought it down over her face, all the while she squirmed and cried doing her best to stop him.

"It'll all be over soon, honey."

No, please, please, don't kill me.

He held the pillow securely over her face, cutting off her air completely.

Chapter 29

"Wake up, Quinn. Goddamn it, wake up!"

Quinn opened his bleary eyes. His head hurt like hell and he felt really groggy. "Huh? What?"

"Wake up and get your act together,"
Jace
Morgan told him. "The police are on their way here. You've got to be alert when they get here because they're going to ask you a lot of questions."

Quinn sat up in bed, scooted himself around and eased his legs off the side. The last thing he remembered was talking to Annabelle, then finishing off a glass of iced tea. He glanced at the nightstand. The glass wasn't there. Where was it? Had he taken it back down to the kitchen?

Shit! Did I have another blackout spell?

"Look, I know you didn't do it, okay,"
Jace
said. "But the police are going to want to know how it happened. Did you hear anything? See anything?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Quinn rubbed his aching head.

"You mean you don't know or do you just not remember?"

"Know what? Remember what?"

"Marcy's dead."
Jace's
voice trembled.

Quinn shot up off the bed, grabbed
Jace's
shoulders and speared him with a shocked glare. "Marcy's dead?"

"Yeah. Aaron found her. He's sitting down there now, holding her in his arms and crying. I—I called the police. They'll be here soon."

He must be having a nightmare. That was it. He was dreaming. This wasn't real.
Wake up,
he told himself.
Wake up now!

He didn't wake up, couldn't wake up because he wasn't asleep. He hadn't been dreaming. This was really happening.
Jace
had told him Marcy was dead. But how was that possible? He'd been with her, talking to her, reassuring her, just a few minutes ago.

"What time is it?" Quinn asked.

"I'm not sure. About seven-thirty, I guess."

"Seven-thirty?" He had come up to his room to call Annabelle a little after five. If it was now seven-thirty, that meant he'd lost a good two hours. Again. And once again someone had died.

"What happened to Marcy?" But Quinn knew before
Jace
answered, knew that the killer had struck again, this time in Quinn's own household.

"I—I don't know for sure, but Aaron said she had a pillow over her face so I figure she was smothered."
Jace
looked at Quinn, his hazel eyes wide and round beneath his glasses. "God, Quinn, he—he cut off her finger. Just like he did with those other women."

Sour bile rose up into Quinn's throat, the bitter taste threatening his tongue. "You were here, too,
Jace
. Did you hear or see anything?"

Please, God, let him know something—anything—that will place suspicion on someone else. I couldn't have killed Marcy. I couldn't have. No more than I killed Kendall or Lulu. Or the others.

"I wasn't here,"
Jace
said. "I took the SUV and went to the drugstore to get some Imodium. You know how my stomach gets when I'm upset. And today was pretty upsetting . . . even before Marcy was killed."

"Are you saying that as far as you know I was alone in the house with Marcy when she was killed?"

"You were out cold sleeping like a baby,"
Jace
said. "But you weren't the only one here. The killer was here, the guy who killed Marcy and all those other women."

Quinn walked out into the upstairs hall,
Jace
following right behind him. "Aaron found Marcy's body?"

"Yeah."

"He's got to be out of his mind hurting really bad. He loved her. We all loved her." Quinn couldn't quite come to grips with the fact that Marcy was dead. Sweet little Marcy, with her blond curls and infectious smile. God no, not Marcy.

"He is in a bad way. He was saying some crazy stuff about you. He—he thinks you killed her."

Before they reached the foot of the stairs, Quinn heard the shrill of sirens and then car doors slamming. Confused and still groggy, he barely knew what was happening and didn't know what to do first—mourn Marcy or think of a way to prove he didn't kill her.

"Police. Open up."

"Go let them in," Quinn said.

While Quinn entered the foyer,
Jace
rushed to the front door, then unlocked and opened it. Two uniformed officers entered.

"Are you the person who called?" one officer asked.

Jace
nodded.

"Where's the body?" the other officer asked.

"Back there—in her bedroom."
Jace
said.

"Did you touch anything?"

"I—I haven't been in her room.
I
didn't find her body. Aaron did."

"Is that Aaron?" The first officer pointed to Quinn.

"I'm Quinn Cortez. This is my house."

"Holy shit," the other officer said. He touched his holster nervously as if he thought he might have to draw his weapon at any moment. "You're the guy who—" He turned to his fellow officer and issued an order. "Get in touch with downtown and tell '
em
if they've sent anybody besides Lieutenant Norton out, they'd better get in touch with Norton and tell him we've got Quinn Cortez at the scene of another murder. At Cortez's house."

"Quinn didn't kill Marcy,"
Jace
cried out abruptly.

"How do you know he didn't?" Officer Number Two asked.

"I know. Quinn's no killer."

"You two go in there—" He motioned to the living room. "I'm staying right with both of you until the detectives get here. When Officer Griggs gets back from contacting downtown, he'll keep watch over y'all while I check out the scene."

"Aaron's in there with her,"
Jace
said. "He may not let you get near her."

"Who's this Aaron you keep talking about?"

"He's her. . .
er
. . . her boyfriend."

"Did he kill her?"

"I don't know. I wasn't here. When I came back, I heard Aaron screaming and I ran down the hall and found him holding Marcy in his arms. He was crying like crazy. I stood there, outside the door for a couple of minutes, then Aaron told me to call the police."

The officer nodded toward Quinn. "And where was Mr. Cortez?"

"I was upstairs," Quinn said. "Asleep."

"Went to bed kind of early, didn't you?"

"Considering the situation, I think it best for me to not answer any more questions without my lawyer present."

Before the policeman could respond, the other officer came into the living room. "The ME just pulled up outside. And Lieutenant Norton is on his way."

En route to the crime scene, Jim Norton made two phone calls. First he called Griffin Powell. Then he got in touch with his partner, telling him where to meet him, but not giving him any names. All he knew was that Marcy Sims had been killed and her body was in her bedroom at Quinn Cortez's rental house. Once the press got wind of this, they'd have a field day.

If Marcy had been smothered and her finger severed this would make murder number six. And she'd be the fifth woman out of six who had been personally involved with Cortez. In her case, Marcy had been a friend and employee instead of a lover, but she had only today, confessed her love for Cortez.

When he parked his car behind
Udell
White's black Chevy Trailblazer, Jim noticed several neighbors standing on their porches and a few more in their driveways. But no one had ventured into the street. Not yet.

He knocked on the front door and was met by Officer Griggs. Jim flashed his badge. "Where's the ME?"

"Still back there with the body."

"Who called this in?"

"A guy named
Jace
Morgan. Just a kid really. He and Cortez and another guy named Aaron Tully are in the living room. Tully's pretty torn up. We had a problem getting him to let go of Ms. Sims's body." Griggs lowered his voice. "The guy was sitting on the bed holding her in his arms, crying his heart out. It took me and Bobby both to prize him away from her."

Jim groaned. The crime scene had been compromised even before the patrolmen arrived.

When Jim passed the living room, he saw the other officer standing guard. Glancing toward the sofa, he noticed that Quinn and
Jace
sat side by side, and Aaron Tully sat across from them, a dazed look in his eyes. Jim and Quinn made eye contact, but Jim glanced away hurriedly.

"Which way?" he asked.

"Down that hall. The door's open," Griggs replied. By the time he got to Marcy Sims's bedroom,
Udell
was walking out into the hall. He paused and spoke to Jim.

"Another one. Smothered to death. Right index finger cut off."

"Damn!"

"The guy who was holding her in his arms when I got here—Aaron?—he was making some pointed accusations. He said Quinn Cortez killed her, that he was alone in the house with her, so it had to be him."

"I guess he didn't stop to think that he might be a suspect, too."

"Guess not."

"Can you give me an estimated time of death?" Jim asked.

"Recent. No more than an hour or two."

Jim nodded. His gut instincts told him that one of the three men sitting in the living room had killed Marcy Sims. One of them was possibly a serial killer. But which one? Chad was going to say it was Cortez. And he might be right. Unless Cortez had an alibi, this sixth murder might be the last nail in his coffin.

By the time Judd Walker and Griffin Powell arrived Quinn's rental house was crawling with law enforcement. Quinn had cautioned
Jace
and Aaron not to answer any questions until Judd came.
Jace
complied. Aaron didn't. He talked and talked and talked. About Marcy and how much he'd loved her. About
Jace
and what a worthless piece of shit he was because he hadn't protected Marcy from Quinn.

"You crazy son-of-a-bitch, you killed her, didn't you?" Aaron had lurched at Quinn and it had taken both officers to pull him away.

Aaron was manic, wild with grief. Quinn was numb.
Jace
had been nervous at first, fidgeting, making trips to the bathroom every five minutes, but now he'd settled down and seemed relatively calm.

Judd informed Lieutenant Norton that he wanted to speak privately with his client and Norton told them to go into the kitchen. When they entered the kitchen, they found police officers searching the room.

"I'm Mr. Cortez's lawyer and I'm taking him out back," Judd told the officers. "We won't be going any farther. Feel free to check with Lieutenant Norton."

Once they were just beyond the back door, standing on the stoop, Judd turned to Quinn and said, "Tell me what happened."

"I don't know what happened. I had another one of those damn blackout spells. I was asleep when
Jace
came upstairs and woke me."

Judd frowned. "Where were you when Marcy was killed?"

"Upstairs, in my bedroom. Asleep."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Calling Annabelle and then drinking a glass of iced tea."

"Where's the glass? Still in your bedroom?"

"That's the funny thing," Quinn said. "When
Jace
woke me up, I looked for the glass on the nightstand where I was sure I'd left it, and it was gone."

"I want to have you tested for drugs," Judd said. "Tonight."

"You think someone drugged me?"

"It's highly possible."

"But who—?"

"
Jace
or Aaron."

"No, they wouldn't. You can't think either of them killed Marcy. Aaron loved her. Besides, he's no killer. And
Jace
. The boy's shy. And scared of his own shadow."