Chilled (A Bone Secrets Novel) (17 page)

At Paul’s words, Kinton had stared at the letter opener in his hands, seeing it for the first time. His eyes had rolled in disgust.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake…” Kinton had started to say.

Over the past year, Paul had relived the next three seconds a hundred times. He still wasn’t certain what had happened. But Kinton had made a move as if to throw the opener back on the desk at the same time that Linus put out a hand to stop his arm. Paul had lunged to the right, believing Kinton was aiming for him and Linus’s arm had guided Kinton’s hand directly into Paul’s right side. He’d felt the blade skitter off his ribs and sink deep.

The three men had stared at the blood on Paul’s white shirt as the security guards pushed through the doorway and tackled Kinton from behind. The little office had turned into a melee of shouting men and blood. Paul had passed out.

Kinton hadn’t defended his actions at his behavior hearing and was fired a week later. He hadn’t apologized either.

Paul hadn’t pressed charges. He’d wanted the entire matter dropped as quickly as possible. No telling where an investigation might have led. Thank God, no one else had the balls to ask questions about Besand’s details except Kinton. If the other agents noticed, they’d kept it to themselves. What he didn’t need was an internal investigation into what had set Kinton off. Luckily, Kinton never showed his face around the office again. Paul managed to keep single men on Besand’s details, knowing the right opportunity would eventually present itself to take care of Besand’s private demand.

Glancing over his shoulder, Paul watched Sheriff Collins hold up both his hands, gesturing in a “quiet down” movement to the crowd of media. Paul was relieved he’d handed it off to the sheriff. Right now Paul was agitated enough to say something he shouldn’t. He was definitely going to have a private talk with Regan Simmons tonight. He spotted her blonde head
in the crowd, her lips moving as she shouted a question at the sheriff.
What if she pushed for a repeat performance of last night?
He pondered the dilemma for a split second. He could handle her for one more night, but this time he’d keep his secrets to himself.

Hopefully, the search and rescue team was finding a blackened, charred wreck full of crispy skeletons. That would take care of his biggest problem. That would be a perfect end to the huge thorn in his foot, and everything could return to normal. All secrets would be secure. No loose ends floating around. Surely Darrin’s attorney wouldn’t see a plane crash as a suspicious death. Planes went down in bad weather all the time. An attorney wouldn’t suspect anything unusual about that.

Would he?

The female moved up the hill and out of his sight. Darrin sighed and turned the binoculars back on the three men below, wondering what she was up to. She’d left her pack behind, so she wasn’t going far. The other men stared at each other for a few seconds, then the biggest one ducked into the cockpit while Kinton and the short guy talked.

It still bugged him. How had Kinton known where to find him? Maybe he’d been unconscious longer than he realized after the crash.

No. He hadn’t lost a complete day. He could tell by how hungry he felt and how much he’d pissed.

Stubborn. That was the only word to describe Alex Kinton. Alex’s brother, Samuel, had been stubborn too. Not nearly as bad as Alex, but enough to drive Darrin into action.

Darrin had been sloppy with Samuel. And it’d been Darrin’s undoing.

But he’d learned his lesson: don’t kill the brother of a federal agent.

Darrin smirked. He pictured himself wrapping his hands around the neck of a grandma in a nursing home. “Oh, by the way, any relation to government agents?”

He nearly dropped the binoculars as he slapped his hand over his mouth, stopping the laugh, knowing how easily sounds could carry over the snow.

He hadn’t asked any questions of Samuel.

Samuel had kept following him, harassing him, whining about Rosa and her dog. He’d seemed more upset about the dog than the woman. Darrin hadn’t realized Samuel had seen him kill Rosa until Samuel accused him of throwing Hero in the pool. He’d drowned Rosa first. The yippy little dog had been next. Sort of like the cherry on top of the sundae.

Darrin had tried to bribe Samuel. Usually with the retards it didn’t take much to distract or convince them they’d seen something incorrectly. A little chocolate or a soda usually did the trick. He should know. He’d been dealing with frail-minded seniors and retarded adults for two decades. But Samuel was persistent.

Nursing homes. Group care homes. He’d worked in several. They were rife with easy kills and vulnerable victims who’d finished their necessary roles in society.

He’d wanted to be a doctor. That had been his original plan. He’d done what he could at the community college and
transferred his credits to a state school where he could get a real degree. Then he’d planned to apply to medical school, driven by a fascination with life and death. He’d wanted to feel that power that doctors exercise when their patients are close to death. Like on the television show
ER.
To be an emergency room doctor was his long-term goal. But first he’d move to a big city like New York or Chicago. Someplace more violent. The doctors at his local emergency room dealt with a lot of sore throats and ear infections. He wanted the big stuff. Shootings and car accidents.

Death.

But Dad had lost his job and spent his time drinking instead of looking for a new one. Mom had held down two jobs, but it was never enough. Darrin had to work and pay for his own tuition. Not easy at minimum wage. So he’d left home. Why give money to Mom to pay her bills when he could simply pay his own bills? He’d become a certified nursing assistant and found work in a nursing home. Everyone else had hated working there. He’d loved it.

In a nursing home he’d been as powerful as a doctor. His hands had determined who lived and who died. As they died, he would study the fading light in his victims’ eyes and wonder what they saw. Some looked happy; some looked scared. And then he’d watch the families as he drank in the range of emotions at the news of the death of a loved one. Some relief, some sorrow.

It was delicious.

Darrin swallowed hard, new anger burning his throat. Would he ever get another chance to play God?

Switching to the group homes for the mentally challenged from the nursing homes had been a good move. The victims had more emotions, posed greater risks and bigger challenges. Silent
kills took more creativity. One time he’d set up an accidental overdose, slyly letting a patient get into another patient’s medications. Another time it’d been a fateful slip in the shower.

He used to spend hours plotting a kill; that was part of the fun. But with Rosa and the two women before her, he’d hardly planned at all. He’d seen and he’d reacted. The kills had stopped being about the control. He’d killed for the thrill and instant gratification. It became his undoing.

Darrin’s breaths sped up, creating a heavy minicloud around the binoculars.

Samuel had been an overreaction. If the guy hadn’t pissed him off so bad with his relentless questions and whining he would’ve let it go. It’d been simple to get Samuel to follow him to the pool on the pretext of talking about Rosa. Because the retard had been highly distraught over the woman’s and dog’s deaths, Darrin had figured he could play up the suicide card if anyone questioned him. And then Alex had shown up, never believing that his brother had committed suicide. Samuel’s and Rosa’s deaths had been perfectly clean with absolutely no connection to Darrin, but Alex’s pure tenacity had managed to put him in prison.

His hands gripped the binoculars, trembling as he focused on Alex.

The superhero A-man was trying to catch him again.

Both Jim and Thomas weren’t speaking to Alex. Jim had walked away and joined Thomas in the plane after Alex had admitted he wasn’t a marshal. Now he felt like he’d let Jim down. Alex picked up a handful of snow, packed it into a ball, and hurled it at the plane’s tail. It wasn’t like he’d deceived Jim personally. And what did it matter? After they left these woods, he’d never
see Jim again. Wasn’t like they were gonna meet up for beers afterward.

He needed to focus on his objective. Alex packed another snowball, then crushed it between his fingers, letting the pieces fall. Things around him were cluttering his concentration.

The team had come to a compromise. Everyone was staying until morning and then they’d reassess. No one was hiking out that day. They made plans to move Linus’s body to the cockpit of the plane with the pilots and then they’d sleep in the larger piece of plane. Thomas suggested building a snow wall to close the open end of the plane. Should be warmer than tents, and the plane’s seats were more comfortable to sleep on than the frozen ground. The plan had sounded good to Alex. Maybe Ryan and Thomas wouldn’t snore so much if they slept upright. After helping Thomas and Jim move Linus, Alex headed up the hill to help Brynn move Ryan and his gear down to the plane.

Why hadn’t Jim told Thomas yet that he wasn’t a marshal?

Not a marshal.
The words still hurt.

Alex had loved his job and had known he did it well. He’d spent several years on the judicial security branch of the service, protecting federal judges and securing federal courthouses. When he’d needed a change he’d gone to prisoner services, moving prisoners between institutions, some clear across the country, and deporting others back to their country of residence. He’d spent a lot of time on little planes just like the one sitting in pieces on the snow. He’d missed the judicial security work, where his supervisor hadn’t been an incompetent ass like Paul Whittenhall.

If it hadn’t been for Whittenhall, he’d probably still have a job.

Alex breathed hard as he worked his way up the hill. One thing about being in the marshals was that he couldn’t afford to let his physical condition slide. Daily workouts were a part of the job to keep prepared for any situation that might arise. Now he was lucky if he made it to his gym once a week. He sucked in the icy air.

Promise number one to self. Restart daily workouts.

Actually it was promise number two. The first was no more chemical dependency.

Like he could forget. His shaking hands and upset stomach reminded him every hour. He’d had no idea that his body had been so used to the tranquilizers. It wasn’t like he walked around in a drugged-out daze every day. He just took a few milligrams each night to help him sleep and keep away the nightmares. Sometimes a shot or two of whiskey to relax in the evening. He would have never believed he was addicted until his body started telling him yesterday. Looked like part of this trip was becoming a blessing in disguise. Intervention and treatment at the same time.

Alex still had a couple of hundred feet before he reached Ryan and Brynn. Hopefully, the tension at the top of the slope would be lighter than at the bottom. He could relax around Ryan and Brynn. He pushed his legs a little harder. He wanted to see the sparkle in Brynn’s brown eyes and hear her laugh. Another promise started to enter his mind, but he pushed it away, shaking his head. He wasn’t ready for a woman in his life. Although Brynn was definitely the type he would look for second time around. Alex couldn’t keep his eyes off her whenever she was near. Something about her pulled him to her, drew him in. Several times he’d wanted to simply touch her, feel her hair.

Instead, he’d crammed his hands in his coat pockets and felt like a kid in high school.

Alex could faintly see the outline of her and Ryan up the hill. He blinked. It was like looking through a steamy bathroom. The snowfall was so fine and light it was like mist. Was it time to tell Brynn and Ryan the truth too? No doubt Jim would tell them pretty soon. Alex would rather they heard it from his own mouth. Was it so bad pretending to still be a marshal? To make sure a killer was dead?

Wasn’t like Alex was hurting anyone on the team. So far the only one who’d been hurt was him. Sliding down that mud had reinjured his knee. If not for the constant doses of ibuprofen it would be killing him, slowing down him and the team. His headache was being kept at bay, but he could feel it pressuring the gate. What he wouldn’t give for a quick shot of good whiskey.

No more. That’s past. That’s over.

The nights he couldn’t sleep he’d pored over the casebooks from Besand’s murders, making copious notes. The detectives on each case hated him for his constant pestering. He’d stopped phoning them once he’d realized they wouldn’t answer when they saw his number on the caller ID. He’d switched to e-mail and tried to keep the number of those to a minimum.

He’d told Brynn he created computer games and security software. Truthfully, Alex had been blocked for three months. His mind wouldn’t cooperate when he sat down to work, and he hadn’t sold a new game in a year. At least the money from his last three games was more than enough to see him through his retirement.

A far off
wump-wump
sound entered his consciousness, and Alex scanned the hazy sky. He’d bet his last dose of ibuprofen
that was a helicopter. But in this weather? With no visibility? It couldn’t be. The trees were keeping the team out of most of the wind, but above that it was whipping real good. How could anyone fly?