Dreaming Death (Krewe of Hunters #32) - Heather Graham Page 0,100
for the next twenty-four hours.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back. I don’t like the fact that Smith has disappeared.”
“We have Henry Lawrence. I thought you believed that we were looking for a woman.”
“We are, and it may well be Sandra Smith. But he’s a loose end. And Jean Channing and Stacey are back at the Kendrick house.”
“You want back up?”
“I don’t want bells and whistles. I’m going back quietly. Just in case. Maybe...”
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe she’s a liar. Maybe Anita Kendrick did want a heart, and the killer gave her a way to get one.”
“But we have Dr. Lawrence in custody.”
“And maybe he does the transplants, but not the killing,” Keenan said. “Whatever, I’m going back. Yes, can you get out here, but quietly. No announcement that you’ve arrived.”
“I’ll be there myself,” Jackson promised.
He ended the call and swerved his car around.
He didn’t have dreams that warned of evil things that might happen.
He had intuition.
And right now, he knew that something was wrong.
Dead-wrong.
He parked down the street from the house and slipped out, wondering if he should go and break the door down and just get in, or if he’d be risking someone’s life.
There was no reason to believe that Colin Smith was here, and he didn’t know if the man was involved. Maybe he just wanted to run out on his wife. Possibly understandable.
Instinct told him there was something happening, and he was furious with himself.
Stacey had been targeted. She’d been targeted when she’d received the piece of kidney, maybe long before. She might have been paying for her father’s prowess at investigation.
He crept toward the house and came around to the side, hoping to look into the small sitting room through a window.
The windows were open, and the first room he looked into was the dining room. No one.
He crept down the length of the house.
The next room he recognized as the sitting room.
He twisted and strained to see the whole of it.
And he knew then that he’d been wrong. Wrong about Anita Kendrick. She lay on the floor at the side of the table, closest to the window.
He could see no blood. But the woman wasn’t moving: she appeared to be broken and gone. The design of the windows obstructed a good view, but he thought that he saw a red spot smearing the top of her snow-white hair.
Had the woman been as innocent as she seemed? Or had she jumped in here to save those doing the transplants, not against the deaths of others—lesser, throwaway people—but desperate to save her own life?
He called Jackson back and reported.
“She needs medical help,” Jackson said. “Now. It’s our duty.”
“Give me five minutes. Stacey and Jean are in there.”
“You know that five minutes can be life or death.”
“I’m trying to save three lives.”
“Go.”
The killer was in there somewhere. But how could he have known that they would come? Or had he sent his accomplice out to set a meeting with Mrs. Kendrick, knowing that she was honest and a woman possessing ethics? She would report what had happened to the police, and through that call, he and Stacey would come?
But the woman had pointed out Sandra Smith—and Sandra Smith was still shopping.
He realized they’d have to unravel the truth bit by bit, later.
Right now, he had to get in that house.
Without the killer knowing.
And he had to pray that the man wasn’t going to kill swiftly, slashing another victim’s throat with power and ferocity, and bringing an almost-instant death.
* * *
“You really are an idiot!” Stacey said.
Colin Smith arched a brow; he drew the blade closer against Jean’s neck, drawing a line of blood.
“I’m an idiot?”
“I have a Glock trained on you.”
“Shoot him! Shoot the bastard!” Jean insisted.
There was terror in her eyes. But Jean was a good cop. She might be frightened as all hell, but she was dedicated to taking down men like Colin Smith.
And she meant it: Stacey should shoot him rather than give in to him.
“I’m an idiot?” he repeated. “I’m the one holding all the cards.”
“You’re holding me, jerk,” Jean said. “And nothing else. This place will be surrounded by cops any minute.”
“You could have gotten away with it all,” Stacey told him. “We have Dr. Lawrence in custody. He could have taken the fall for this. Now you will get caught because Henry Lawrence can hardy kill anyone while sitting in his jail cell.”
“You know, I was supposed to keep the organs. But I guess that won’t matter anymore. Anyway, drop the gun, or I kill her.”