The Prey Bites Back: A Jesse Watson Mystery Book #8 (33 page)

Denise laughed at
me in a wicked way. “After what I just told you, you think any jury would
convict me? I went crazy. My husband abused me… almost beat me to death. Drove
me over the edge. My psychiatrist will testify to that. He knows how bad off I
was.”

“Yeah… but he
didn’t know you killed your husband. What do you think he’ll have to say when
he hears that?”

“He’ll be shocked
at first, but then he’ll say he’s not surprised. I was terrorized and had to
defend myself. He’s not going to throw me under the bus.”

I laughed. “We’ll
see about that. Oh, by the way, my cat wants to thank you for the gift.”

“What gift?”

“Why… your
wedding band, of course. We’re going to sell it for the gold and buy Spice a
new collar. You know… one of those expensive ones.”

I was making up
some good lies, but she didn’t care.

Helene grunted. “What
about Gavin Preston? Don’t you feel the least bit of remorse for killing him?
He was your boyfriend… lover.”

“Gavin was
nobody. He let me down and deserved to die.”

“Jesse’s right,
lady, you are crazy. You’re never going to get away with killing Gavin and
those other men. The evidence just keeps piling up against you. The sheriff has
the wine bottle. He’s going to find your prints on it.”

“So what? My
prints have been on a lot of wine bottles. That doesn’t prove a thing. Catch me
with the bottle in my hand and then you might have something.”

“You need to pay
for what you’ve done.” Helene’s eyes narrowed, her anger building. She calmly
walked over, picked up her handgun from the table, and aimed it at Denise’s
chest. “You deserve to die. Your killing spree stops here.”

No one said a
word, and no one moved. We stared at Helene as Denise sucked in her breath,
fear seizing her body. She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable, but
the inevitable never came. Helene lowered the gun and placed it back on the
table.

“I’ve always
wanted to do that.”

“Geez, Helene,
you scared me half to death.” Billy dropped his knife on the table next to his
coat, reached over, picked up the gun and tucked it in the waist of his pants.
“Don’t ever do that again. I almost had a heart attack.”

“Why? You thought
I was going to shoot her, didn’t you?”

“No, I was afraid
you’d miss and hit one of us.”

Denise exhaled
and looked down. The crotch of her pants was wet. “See what you made me do?
It’s all your fault. Not only am I dressed in these hideous clothes, but now,
I’ve peed on myself. I hope you’re happy.”

I had no sympathy
for someone like her. “Hmm… ain’t that a pity. They’re going to haul your
pee-pee butt off to jail. Want me to call the crisis hotline?”

Billy pulled out
his cell phone. “Well… I guess this party’s over. Time to call out the dogs.”

Denise giggled
like a little girl. “And what are you going to tell them? That the three of you
beat me into confessing to crimes I didn’t commit? I’m not well, you know.”

Helene spat at
her. “I never touched you!”

“No, you’re not
well, Denise… Dakota… whatever your name is, but that won’t matter when I play
my phone recording of our conversation to the police. I think they’ll find it
very interesting. Hmm… and so incriminating.”

Denise was
furious. She started screaming at us, hurling accusations, saying ridiculous
things, ranting about anything and everything—most of which was gibberish—all
of which was lies. Either she was playing the crazy person card, or she was
going down a long, dark road to nowhere.  Maybe this time she was a goner.
She’d lost the only person she ever really cared about, and now she was alone.
There was nothing left for her. If she wasn’t a killer, I could almost feel
sorry for her… but she was a killer. When did the coin flip from being a victim
to being a killer? I wanted to ask her, but she wouldn’t know. She was in her
own little world now… or at least she seemed to be. She stopped hollering,
became quiet, and looked as if she was spacing-out. Her eyes wandered in a
freaky way and her head bobbed. Was she a nut case, or was she acting? I
couldn’t tell.

“Ah, Billy, let
me make that call to the sheriff. I just want to see if he’ll answer me.” I
grabbed my cell phone, touched the screen, and waited. After two rings, the call
went to voice mail. I held my phone away from my face. “See, he’s doing it
again. He’s screening my calls.”

Denise yelled out
something crazy again.

“Shut up!” Helene
screamed at her. “Somebody please call the sheriff before that lunatic drives
me insane! I can’t stand it anymore! I should’ve shot her when I had the
chance. Where’s my gun?”

I called the
sheriff’s number again, but as usual, he didn’t answer. “Okay, that’s it. He’s
ignoring me. I’m going to send him a 911 text. See how he reacts to that.” I
sent the text, and a few seconds later, Billy’s cell phone rang.

“Ah, it’s Sheriff
Hudson.”

“Guess he doesn’t
like talking to me.”

Denise’s ranting
made it impossible for Billy to hear. He walked out of the room and down the
hall. I heard him say something about Denise, but that was about all I got from
the conversation.

Helene walked
over and showed me the screen of her cell phone. “I Googled Denise Sutton, and
look what I found. It says here that she disappeared in 2008 after being
attacked by a hitchhiker. Her husband was killed and she’s never been found…
and neither has the hitchhiker.”

“That’s because I
made him up, you idiot!” Denise started humming. The tune sounded like one I’d
heard in my childhood, but I couldn’t place it.

“The sheriff
ought to be here soon, Helene. Why don’t you go stay with the kids until he
arrives and takes away Miss Crazy over there?”

“It’d be my
pleasure.” She looked over at Denise. “I’ve had enough of her noise. She ain’t
right, you know. Why is she acting like that?”

“She’s finished
and she knows it. She thinks that if she acts crazy enough, she’ll avoid death
row.” I glared back at Denise. “You might as well shut up. It’s not going to
work. Being crazy won’t keep that needle out of your arm.”

“You think she’ll
really get the death penalty?” Helene whispered.

“I don’t know,” I
whispered back. “I just like tormenting her. At least she won’t escape again.
Once the sheriff locks her up, we won’t have to worry anymore. She’ll be out of
our lives for good. You go sit with the kids and I’ll keep an eye on Crazy Lady
over there, okay?”

When Helene
walked out of the room, Denise called me over. “Jesse, come here. I’ve got
something to tell you.”

The last thing I
wanted was to listen to more of her bull, but my curiosity made my feet move.
“What do you want? You got more lies to tell me?”

She grinned.
“Jesse, you’re getting old. Maybe it’s time you got yourself a new occupation
before you get yourself or someone in your family killed. You’re not cut out
for this kind of work.”

“Oh, I don’t do
so bad. I got you, didn’t I?”

“I’ll never see
the inside of a prison.” She smirked, and then laughed out loud. “You see, I
know how this game is played. I can do crazy, and once the judge hears from my
doctor, there’s no way I’ll stand trial. He’ll send me to a psych hospital for
evaluation, and I’ll escape. You’ll see. It’s going to play out just like I
said, and down the road, I’ll come back for you.”

I stared her in
the face. “Well, maybe I should save the system the cost of a trial.” I went to
my purse and took out my gun. I aimed it at her. “Yep, I could shoot you right
now, and all of this would be over.”

“Oh, yeah? I’m
tied to a chair, and now you’re going to shoot me. I don’t think so. How would
that look? You’d be the one going to jail.”

“Actually, I’m
just making sure you don’t try anything stupid. I wasn’t going to shoot you.
I’d miss the trial, and I sure don’t want to do that. I’m going to be around to
see you fry.”

“You were right
about the shampoo.”

“What?”

“A little skin
irritant goes a long way. A dab of ammonia wreaks havoc on the scalp and you
don’t need much… itchy… scaly… yuck… nasty stuff. Burns the skin right off in
patches. Oh, and those vitamins… it doesn’t take much Panatral to drive a
person insane. Did you know that? I picked up that little tidbit off the
internet. Yep, that’s right. That’s why Billy’s mother almost died. Too bad she
didn’t kick the bucket.”

Billy came back
to the room, walked over to Denise, and then slapped her across the face so
hard, she and the chair went crashing to the floor. “I heard what you said.
That was for my mother.”

Blood ran down
the corner of her mouth as Billy snatched her back upright. He grabbed the hand
towel off the table, wiped the blood from her mouth, and then handed it to me.
“DNA… just in case.”

I took the towel,
put it in a zip-lock bag, and then tossed it in the refrigerator. Of course, we
no longer needed her DNA, but she didn’t know that.

Billy’s hands
were trembling. Denise’s confession about what she tried to do to his mother
had gotten him riled, more so than I’d ever seen. It was all he could do to
refrain from putting her down. If he ever wanted to kill someone, now was the
time, and she was the one.

I touched Billy’s
arm. “It’s over. She can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

We heard the
sirens before we saw the flashing lights. The sheriff was here to take Denise
Sutton away. She would be locked up and never be able to cause trouble again.
I’m sure the relief showed on our faces when Sheriff Hudson and his deputies walked
through the front door with their guns drawn. His men surrounded Denise while
Deputy Cole James guarded the door. She was not going to escape again.

Deputy Cole James
was my ex-boyfriend, my sister’s ex-boyfriend, and now Savannah Kelly’s
boyfriend. I harbored no hard feelings toward him. He had come into my life at
just the right time, and faded into the background the same way. We had
remained friends.   

“Put your gun down,
Jesse, before you shoot someone.” The sheriff lowered his weapon, walked over,
and relieved me of mine. “The last thing we need is you with a gun.”

“I was guarding
our prisoner. I guess Billy filled you in on what happened here, huh? I told
you she was coming to our house, didn’t I? You were so sure she hadn’t escaped
the hospital, but you were wrong. She came here to kill me, and if anyone had gotten
in her way, she would’ve killed them, too. She’s a stone-cold killer, Sheriff.
I can’t wait for you to hear her story.”

The sheriff
looked around the room as one of his deputies removed the duct tape and pulled
Denise up from the chair. Sheriff Hudson hesitated for a second. “Whose knife
is that on the table?”

“That’s Billy’s,
why?”

“Where’s her
weapon?”

“What weapon? She
didn’t have one.”

“How was she
going to kill anyone without a weapon… talk you to death?”

“She tried to.”

“What? Talk you
to death?”

The deputy
removed the handcuffs and handed them back to Billy, giving him a dirty look.
“Where’d you get these cuffs? Steal `em?”

“Bought `em off
the home shopping network,” Billy joked.

In the split
second it took the deputy to pull out his cuffs, Denise lunged forward, grabbed
the knife from the table and plunged it into Sheriff Hudson’s back. One quick
jab and he fell to the floor. She stood there with the knife raised, blood
dripping from the blade.

Deputy James
fired one round, hitting her right between the eyes. Her head snapped back and she
went down. The party was truly over for Denise Sutton—a.k.a— Dakota Stone. She
lay dead on the dining room floor.

I was shaking and
overcome with panic. I squatted down on my knees and pressed my hand to the
sheriff’s back to stop the flow of blood as it soaked through the tear in his
jacket. I had no idea how far the blade had gone in, but prayed it hadn’t been
deep enough to kill him.

“She didn’t come
here to kill anyone,” the sheriff gasped. “She came here to be killed. No
weapon.”

“Shh… save your
energy. The ambulance’s on its way. You’re going to be fine.”

Sheriff Wake Hudson
closed his eyes for the last time.

Epilogue

I sat on the floor, holding the
sheriff’s body, and crying. I thought about all the times we’d been at each
other’s throats, and regretted the part I had played. He was gone and I’d never
be able to tell him how much I liked him… how much I admired him. He was a good
man, and a good sheriff. He’d given me a run for my money, but I’d also given
it right back. Now… that was in the past. It was too late to tell him how I
felt about him… how much I appreciated his saving my mother’s life on that
dark, stormy night, or that I knew he’d kept us out of jail when we should’ve
been locked up. We’d done a few things… broken a few laws… done the stuff he
wanted to do, but couldn’t. What I wouldn’t give to have one more chance to
tell him how sorry I was for being such a pain in his butt, or for the times I
had lied to him. At least he died knowing Billy and I were the good guys. Of
that, I was sure.

And then, he
stirred.

I was so
startled, I let go of him and fell back on my rear end, shock sucking the
breath from my lungs. When I realized he wasn’t dead, I grabbed him again and
hugged him as tight as I could. I didn’t want to let go. I was afraid if I did,
he really would die on me.

“Hey, pressure
to my wound, remember? You want me to die here on your floor?”

I released my
grip and put my hand to his back. Blood was still flowing, still running from
the tear in his jacket, but at least he was alive.

“You had me
scared there for a minute, Sheriff. Thought you were dead.”

“Never thought I’d
see the day you’d have your arms wrapped around me. You got a thing for me, or
something, Jesse? I always figured you did,” he teased.