The paperwork was tedious but didn’t take as long as it might have. The horned god ax-wielder in the cemetery hadn’t come to. Apparently the shot to his head was quite severe, and the man was in a coma. His prints, though, were taken at the hospital and run through the police system, so before they left, John Alden came and reported to Sam.
“His name is Gary Stillman. Does that mean anything to you?” he asked them both.
They shook their heads.
“He’s in the system for misdemeanors in Boston. Seems he has a crack habit, too. That’s expensive. But he wasn’t really out to rob you, was he?” John asked Jenna.
“Nope. Definitely there to kill,” she said flatly.
John scratched his head. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here. He didn’t kill the Smith family, that’s for sure. He was being held in Boston on drug charges the night that the Smiths were killed.”
“Gun for hire. We need to track a money trail on him,” Sam said.
“I told you, he wasn’t the Smith family killer. He was being held on drug charges,” John said.
“Yeah, and you’re hedging. Come on, John. Like you said, crack is an expensive habit. He was hired to kill Jenna. And you really know, somewhere inside, that no accident killed Milton Sedge. There’s a killer loose here, because you’ve got the wrong suspect behind bars.”
John stared at him. “Don’t you dare tell me I don’t know how to do my job, Sam!”
“I’m not!” Sam argued. “You were right to arrest Malachi—he was covered in blood. It’s my job to prove he didn’t do it.”
John waved a hand in the air. “Get out of here. Ever since you drove in, my life has been a nightmare!”
“I’ll see you at the school in the morning,” Sam said.
John gritted his teeth. “Yeah, yeah, first thing in the morning!”
An officer dropped them at Jamie’s house. Jamie hugged his niece fiercely, berating her for walking into danger.
Jenna hugged him fiercely in return.
“You’d have been in trouble if Sam hadn’t happened upon you!” Jamie told her.
Angela and Jackson kept discreetly silent.
Sam found that he had to step up to the plate. “Actually, Jenna does know what she’s doing, Jamie. She was holding her own.”
Jamie looked disgruntled. Jenna shot Sam a glance that held a speculative, wry smile.
“Uncle Jamie, I’m not quitting my job.”
“Well, you all need to stop—this is getting too dangerous!” he protested.
“Uncle Jamie,” Jenna said quietly, “living is dangerous. I love what I do. It’s important. And more people might die if we don’t get to the bottom of this. It’s always better to face danger head-on when you have to fight it.”
Jamie opened and closed his mouth several times. “I’ll get the stew,” he said at last, then gruffly added, “You set the table for me, eh, lass?”
“I’ll help, too!” Angela said, jumping to her feet.
They compiled the information they had all garnered during the day. Sam listened gravely to Jenna as she explained what she was certain the crime-scene photos told her. “It wasn’t as if I could say, ‘Oh, the person who did was left-handed or right-handed’ or anything like that. But it appeared that the Andres murder was just something to be accomplished, while the Covington murder showed a greater violence, and the Smith family was—well, pure rage. And, yes, I know, escalating violence is often part of the profile of a serial killer, but, in this instance, I can’t help but think there are distinct two killers.”
She looked at Sam expectantly.
“I thought that myself today,” he told her.
They both looked at Jackson, who nodded.
“So, we think that Andy Yates and Samantha Yeager are having an affair—and that they’re making sure that they each have an alibi for murder?” Angela clarified, a statement more than a question.
“It is a theory,” Sam said.
“A good one,” Jenna said. “I know that Michael Newbury, Jr., believes that David Yates has been disappointed in his father, that he believes his father hasn’t stood up for him enough. What better way to prove your love than kill the family of and incarcerate the boy who supposedly gave David the evil eye?”
“Why the others?” Angela mused.
“Peter Andres—because he chastised David Yates,” Sam said.
“What about Earnest Covington?” Jamie asked. “What did he do to anyone?”
“In that instance, I believe that he was just there, collateral damage. He was in the community. The trail for finding out who had killed Peter Andres was growing cold. Bring it close to the Smith home—and have a son who will swear that he saw Malachi come out of the house—and you have a good fall guy. I think that the Earnest Covington murder was a setup, and when that didn’t work, the family had to go. And Earnest Covington was such an easy mark. He lived alone. He never locked his door,” Sam said.
“And the man in the graveyard tonight?” Jamie demanded.
Sam sighed. “Even John Alden will be looking for a trail on that. But,” he told Jackson, “you should get your computer whiz on it. I have a feeling that we’re not going to find out that any huge checks have been written. We need to look for alternate indications of money transfer.”
“Murder for hire is expensive,” Angela said.
Sam’s lips formed into a white line. “Expensive? That’s relative. Apparently, the guy from the cemetery was on crack. The kind that will make you do just about anything for money.”
“But what was it going to achieve?” Angela asked.
“Jenna’s death?” Sam stared at Jenna and let out a soft sigh. “I don’t know if our killers know what you all do, with ghosts and spirits and all that…but I do think that the killer is afraid of her. He or she—or they— believe that she can see more than most people, somehow.”
Of course, when they eventually went to bed, they didn’t sleep, not right away. Jenna wondered if her own brush with the edge of an ax had made her more appreciative of living that night.
She and Sam made love until exhausted, and as they lay together she wondered what he was thinking.
“Thanks, by the way,” she murmured.
“For?”
“Helping me out with Jamie.”
He was silent, and she wondered if her time with him was ending soon. Sad, for in such a short time she had realized that he was what she wanted desperately. Sam was the reason she’d never been serious before—she’d been looking for someone just like him, with his eccentricities, and his sense of honor and ethics. She cared far too deeply. He had what she needed in a man, and she was falling in love, even with his arrogance.
Sam rolled over to look at her. His eyes were deep and serious.
“Do you still think I’m a jerk?” he asked.
“Sometimes,” she said, threading her fingers through his hair, smiling.
“Good. Because sometimes I still find you scary as hell.”
“Because I see ghosts and have postcognition?”
“Because…because I thought I was going to die tonight when I believed you might have been struck by an ax.”
“You’re always out there on the front line,” she said.
“I’m an attorney.”
“Oh, now…that’s the truth, and not the truth. Last I heard, you defended a man who was entangled with the mob.”
“The son of a mobster, and he was innocent. That’s different…. I don’t know if I can bear being with you,” he said.
“It’s all right,” she told him.
“No, it’s not. Because I don’t know if I can bear not being with you.”
She rolled into his arms. He held her against him. “On this one, though, will you give in to me? Will you promise not to try to slip into the school? Call it silly, I have this weird premonition about tomorrow. I want you safe.”
“I won’t slip into the school tomorrow,” she told him.
She felt guilty, because she had no intention of telling him what she really was going to do. But they were going in circles. And she thought that she knew the way to end it.
“This is even crazier,” he murmured, rising above her.
“What?”
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” he said.
She pulled him down to her. “I like crazy,” she assured him.
John Alden was true to his word; he was at the school, which had been in lockdown over the weekend. When Sam and Jackson arrived in the morning, the wardrobe mistress—the drama coach—swore up and down that Martin Keller had been telling the truth about the inventory, but other than that, she couldn’t vouch for what might have happened with the costume earlier.
Some of the parents were at the school; although the boys that Sam really wanted questioned were the seventeen-year-olds, he had nothing against the parents being present.
Joshua Abbott was brought in to speak with John, Sam and Jackson alone—without David Yates there to tell him what to say or give him leading gestures. Just when they were about to begin, Joshua’s father, Ben, arrived.
Sam thought that he’d be belligerent, angry that his son was being questioned. But Ben Abbott was just the opposite.
“Damn it, Joshua! This is serious. Perjury. You follow that Yates kid around like a puppy, but you straighten out right now. You want to go to college? You want a football scholarship—you want a life? You’re not in any pact with David Yates. You’re just a kid, and he’s just a kid, and the two of you might wind up with jail time. Tell the truth!”
Joshua looked at his father miserably and lowered his head.
“Did you see Malachi Smith leave Earnest Covington’s house the day he was murdered?” Sam asked quietly.
“The truth!” Ben Abbott repeated.
