Red Tide (Siren Publishing Classic) (29 page)

They finally got into the car and drove off, the hunter unaware of Jenna following them.

* * * *

“God, this car is incredible!”

Pam, he found out her name only after she’d had her tongue down his throat, was certainly eager to party. Drunk enough to not care, but still sober enough to be fun, he planned to keep her skating the edge for several hours until he filled his needs. She still wanted to drink, so he promised her they’d go by a liquor store. A bottle of rum later, she was ready to party on through the night.

He coaxed her into unzipping her jeans. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes while his fingers teased her mercilessly.

“I want you to fuck me, dammit!” she begged, fully beyond the realm of sobriety by now.

He smiled. “I will. Believe me, I will.” He had to stop for a light and brought his hand up to the back of her head, crushing her lips against his. Boring deep into her eyes, he whispered, “I will give you a fucking you will never forget, honey.”

He almost felt her shudder with passion before he faced forward to drive when the light turned green.

They ended up in a wooded area away from the neon jungle of the tourist district. The dirt road was still there, and still as deserted as he remembered it from a scouting trip several weeks earlier. One time he thought he saw headlights behind him, but figured they were an illusion when they didn’t reappear.

She looked around, the bottle of rum in her hand. “Where are we?” she asked when they stopped in the clearing.

He shut the car off and turned to her. “I like making love in the dead of night, under the stars.”

A brief flash of indecision clouded her face until he added, “Besides, my wife would be pissed if I brought anyone home, and she watches the credit card bills like a hawk.” He took the bottle from her and pretended to take a swig.

Hey, everyone’s got to party a little every once in a while.

Pam grinned. “Hey, fuck her if she can’t take a joke.”

“No, I’d rather fuck you.” He reached for her again.

* * * *

Jenna stopped her car. Digging a map out of her glove box, she identified the dirt road. It led into a section of forest, apparently little more than a fire road for the Forestry Department. He couldn’t have driven much farther in the Porsche, and she didn’t want to come up on him just yet.

She backed her car down the road several hundred yards to a turnoff that would hide her if he passed. Setting off toward the direction he went, she jumped at every sound in the woods around her.

What is he doing out here? Probably going to fuck her on the hood of the car.
The venom in her own thoughts startled her.

Five minutes later, she was still working her way up the dark dirt road. Crickets chirruped in the bushes around her, and a whip-poor-will sang a solo somewhere nearby. Jenna thought she was getting close when she heard a car start somewhere ahead of her in the dark. Her heart froze and she scrambled around, frantically working to conceal herself. Headlights appeared and the Porsche drove by. Jenna risked sticking her head out of the bushes, but he was already gone.

“Dammit!” She jumped out of the bushes and ran back toward her car.

She managed to make it without killing herself, and ten minutes later she slowed a block away from a red light. John sat at the intersection, waiting for the light to change. Jenna hung back until it changed and slipped into the lane behind him. She followed him until it was apparent he was heading for his condo. A block before the complex, she turned and circled around, coming back in time to see him getting out of his car.

Alone.

What the hell? I know I saw him leave with her, and he didn’t drop her off anywhere.

Confusion smothered her anger. Where was the redhead?

Maybe there was something up that road and he dropped her off there. He really wasn’t gone long enough to do anything.

Jenna was her own worst critic. By the time she returned home, she almost had herself talked into a rational explanation for what happened.

Maybe he stopped there for a drink and she was an old friend he took home. Maybe she was a friend and needed a ride up there for some reason. Maybe I just need to quit being so suspicious.

There were still no messages on her cell phone. She turned on the TV and started a hot shower, listening while she undressed. A few minutes after she stepped into the shower, on the TV, inaudible over the sound of running water, the eleven o’clock news lead with their top story.

“
Near the small community of Mascotte this afternoon, at the Casper Motel on State Road 50, the body of twenty-one year old Melody Matthews was found. An employee of the popular Radigan’s Pub on Church Street in Orlando, Matthews was apparently strangled. Police have her boyfriend, Tim Donovan, of Orlando, in custody for questioning. An unnamed source in the police department remarked on the similarity of the killing to ones in Tampa being attributed to a serial killer…”

When Jenna stepped back into the bedroom, the sportscaster was discussing the Tampa Bay Lightning’s chances at a Stanley Cup playoff run following the latest round of draft acquisitions.

Jenna toweled her hair and dropped onto the bed, frustrated at the feelings welling in her. She knew she should end it with John, not give him the benefit of the doubt. How would she ever trust him again? Even if the evening was totally innocent, she knew she would always wonder where he was and what he was doing.

She finally turned the TV off and drifted into a troubled, restless sleep.

* * * *

John felt like running laps around the complex. The energy flowing through his body charged him like never before. He knew how risky it was to not only kill two women so close together timewise, but so close in distance as well. There was no way around it. The stress of first the loss of the
Emmerand
, then Mitch filing for divorce, and finally the botched attempt on her life and the resulting police investigation had his nerves on edge. But all that was past him now. He felt invincible, power coursing through his veins.

He stepped into the shower for a minute, closing his eyes and reliving the look on Pam’s face as he choked the life out of her.

Such a beautiful thing.
His laugh hollowly echoed through the sparse condo.

Monday morning, Ed tried coaxing Mitch back into his arms for another hour, but she resisted, and they stepped into the shower together.

The hot water felt good on her still-tender muscles. She reached up and wrapped her arms around Ed’s neck. “I keep waiting for disaster to strike. This seems too good to be true.”

“Oh? And what would you call the little surprise in your Bronco? Manna from Heaven?”

She shook her head. “I know. I just get the feeling the worst is yet to come.”

He hugged her again. “You’re just stressed out. Understandable under the circumstances. Things’ll get better.” While it was almost a strange sensation, finally being able to freely express himself to her, being able to scoop her up in his arms when he wanted, it felt so…
right.
Like something long overdue finally acknowledged.

She nodded. “I know you’re right. I guess I’m just psyched because things are going too well right now.”

He laughed. “Well, I’m sure you’ll find plenty to do to keep your mind off idle worries.”

They moved the computer first. She set it up in Ed’s living room, swearing only a little during the installation. Ed’s lack of practical computer knowledge was exceeded only by his lack of interest in quantum physics, so he relegated himself to helper, waiting for Mitch’s instructions and generally staying out of her way.

“Can you go get my bag out of the bedroom?”

“With the disks in it?”

“Yes.”

When he returned, the computer was running. He watched her fingers fly across the keyboard, pulling up what looked like menus and directories. After finding what she wanted, a page of something that looked like a journal appeared on the screen.

“This might be it,” she said.

Ed pulled a chair up next to her. “What is it?”

“The file name is ‘journ,’ which would mean a journal to me.” She scrolled through the pages, noting John suddenly developed an interest in golf a few years ago, according to entries. Paging through them, she found little that raised her interest.

* * * *

Jenna couldn’t focus on her work. Arriving at the office thirty minutes early didn’t help her get into the groove. Her mind constantly drifted to Mitch’s number jotted down on the piece of paper in her pocket. She even called her own cell from her office phone to make sure it was working.

It was.

“Jenna, you look like horrible. You feeling okay?” her secretary finally asked her.

She nodded. “I’ll be okay. I think I might go home early, though. I’m not getting anything done here.”

“No problem.”

She was in the middle of packing her briefcase when her cell phone went off, startling her. Her heart froze. When Mitch’s number appeared on the screen she let out her breath, not even aware she’d been holding it.

Her hand trembled as she answered. “Hello?”

“Is this Jenna Stephens?” a woman asked.

“Yes.”

“This is Mitch Jackson. You left a message for me on my machine.” The woman sounded friendly.

How’d you expect her to sound, like a frigid bitch?

Jenna awkwardly struggled with what she wanted to say. “Umm…I’m sorry. This must be very strange for you. I know it is for me.”

There was a pause from the other end. “Well, I
was
wondering what you wanted.”

Jenna took a deep breath and started, detailing her suspicions about John, the strange breakdown of the Porsche, the ID under the car seat. Mitch stopped her.

“What did you say the name was on that ID?”

“Um, I’m pretty sure it was Melody Matthews.” She worried about the sudden silence at the other end of the line.

“You didn’t see the news last night, did you?” Mitch asked.

“Well, no, not all of it. I caught from the sports on, why?”

“Because it was on the eleven o’clock news over here, so I know it had to be on the Orlando stations. There was a girl found murdered at a motel on State Road 50 yesterday afternoon.”

Jenna’s knees unhinged. She dropped into her chair. “What?” she whispered.

“Yes. And that was her name. They said they thought it was the boyfriend who did it, but he’s apparently got an alibi.”

“But John couldn’t …” She faltered. “He wouldn’t…”

Mitch’s voice grew urgent. “Listen, you have to get to the police, do you understand me? Now! Immediately!”

“I don’t have the ID with me. I left it at home.”

“Go to the police first and have them go with you to get it. You have to go to them before John finds out you’ve got that ID. You may have the only evidence tying him to that girl.”

Jenna’s head spun. The world was quickly turning into a blur. “I’ll get the ID and go to the police.”

“Listen, let me give you my other numbers.” Mitch rattled off her cell phone and other numbers for her.

“I need to go,” Jenna said. “Can I call you later tonight?”

“Of course. Just make sure you go to the police immediately.”

“I will. Thank you.” Jenna hung up and stared at her phone, dazed. It had to be a coincidence.
He probably just picked the girl up hitchhiking and dropped her somewhere.
There had to be a rational explanation.

She remembered little of the drive home. It was almost noon when she walked in the door. She turned the TV on from force of habit. Dropping her briefcase and computer on the couch, she went into the den and found the ID.

Melody Matthews.

Jenna wanted to cry, to shout, to scream. It apparently was the biggest mistake of her life to trust John Tyne, despite the wonderful impression he made on her when they met. She remembered her promise to Mitch to go to the police and started for the door, getting as far as opening it when she realized she left the TV on. Walking back into the living room, she picked up the remote when a familiar face appeared on the screen.

“…Early this morning, a Forestry worker found the body of twenty-three-year-old Pamela Winston. Winston, a junior at the University of Central Florida, appeared to be strangled according to sources in the Sheriff’s department. With the discovery of this body, speculation is flying that a serial killer is on the loose in central Florida…”

Jenna felt her entire body tremble. She grabbed the back of the couch to steady herself. The picture was probably several months old, but there was no doubt the redhead on the screen was the girl she saw getting into the car with John.

Forgetting about the open door, she raced into the den to call Mitch back. By the time the Mitch answered, Jenna was practically in tears.