The Stroke of Midnight Read online

  “Don’t sweat it, Jacob. Life’s full of Casey Coombes’s. Little minds twisted like pretzels. Brains no bigger than baby peas.”

  “He didn’t do it, Dugan.”

  The big cop let out a gusty sigh. As far as he was concerned, Jacob was Rudy’s nephew, period. He might not follow the book to the letter, but impersonating a fellow officer would be too big a stretch even for him. “Yeah, right. Coombes didn’t do it.” His tone was ripe with sarcasm. “He only confessed, was only cognizant of every damned detail in the case.”

  From the sofa, Rudy gave a quiet snort. “People have hacked into police files before, Dugan. And Coombes had a truckload of computer equipment in that trashy basement apartment of his.”

  His uncle’s remarks both surprised and oddly disturbed Jacob. In a strange sort of way, it had been a balm to think that Rudy believed in Dugan’s copycat theory, though it didn’t make Devon’s situation any less deadly. Controlling a shudder, he finished off the lukewarm beer and returned his attention to the TV screen.

  “Laura. Oh, yeah,” Coombes slathered his tongue over her name. “What a babe she was. Abigail, Dina, Jennifer, Bonnie, Susan, Marilyn—all babes.” His face contorted. “They said they loved me. But they didn’t.”

  For an almost convincing actor, the man was a pathetic specimen of humanity. Skinny, gangly, with wire-rimmed spectacles positioned in front of bulgy blue eyes, hardly a strand of hair on his head, and what remained of it on the sides was the color of dirty dishwater. Even Coombes’s teeth were crooked; they gave him the look of a shocked ferret.

  Dugan rapped the stack of photocopied case files for attention. “It’s all right here, boys. In these folders and on that video tape. The victims were broadcast personalities, whether they did the news, had talk shows or spun disks. You heard the guy. They talked to him. Talked but didn’t care, didn’t love. No love, no life. We’ve had kinkier M.O.’s.”

  Jacob cocked a dark brow and shifted his eyes to the screen. “What made him start killing?”

  “What makes any serial killer start? The guy snapped. Could be he knew Laura West...” Sucking on his upper lip, Dugan cast both men a rueful glance. “Okay, fine. He didn’t know Laura. At least we never connected him to her, but she was the first. We went through every strangulation case in the country prior to her death and came up empty.”

  Rudy made a sound like an irritable snort. “Facts are facts, Dugan. Devon was attacked.”

  “A crime you want me to investigate on the sly without her or the department knowing about it. Fine,” he held up a hand in surrender. “I agreed to do old Rudy a favor. But if you want official action, you’ll have to call it in. Officially. Hell, at least you could call Helmsford or Boyd or Riker. They worked on the damned case. Rude, you and I were just background players, barely got a sniff of it over our way.”

  Jacob considered cracking another of Rudy’s beers but decided against it. He was having enough trouble keeping his mind off Devon. A few more swigs and he’d wind up sleepless and hungry, fighting the kind of sexual urges he hadn’t experienced since college. Maybe not even then.

  Dugan planted a meaty fist in Jacob’s punching bag. “You know Riker, Jacob. Why not pick his brains? He’s on leave in New York, probably tearing out his hair by now.”

  Jacob refocused on Coombes. “Family problems?” he asked absently.

  “Don’t see how he could avoid it, coming from a family of ten.”

  “Twelve,” Jacob corrected automatically. One thing he knew was the real Riker’s background. Joel had been adopted into a brood of siblings at the age of thirteen, mere months before his mother had overdosed on barbiturates. All of them had been adopted by a well-meaning couple who, currently in their sixties, couldn’t always cope with the antics of the teenagers still in their care.

  Dugan slanted him a contemplative look through a veil of smoke rings. “What’s your take on this Devon Tremayne thing, Jacob? You can’t be in this deep because of Laura. Are you involved with her?”

  Jacob’s eyes came up, dark and unreadable. “And if I were?”

  The other man shrugged. “Then I’d say you’re treading in dangerous water. Whoever’s behind these attacks isn’t likely to look favorably on you.”

  Curious by nature, Jacob tipped his head. “You think I’d be a target?”

  “It’s almost a sure bet you’ve got a crazed fan out there, man. You know the type. They sit in some stuffy little room, hear a voice that turns them on and start to fantasize. Only this particular guy’s not like you and me. He doesn’t stop at fantasy. He wants, he needs, but he knows he won’t get. So he sends gifts and notes.”

  “And angel food cakes,” Rudy muttered.

  Dugan curled his lip. “He’s unoriginal in this case. He goes for something that’s been done before. It’s Christmas, why not use one of Philly’s most notorious crimes to punish the object of his desire?”

  There was a certain logic in that idea, but Jacob’s gut instincts still resisted the pat answer.

  A soft knock on the door had him cutting the video and leaving a sitcom to blare through the VCR.

  “Have a beer, Dugan,” he suggested, nudging a drop cloth aside so the cop could sit. “And try not to scowl.”

  He opened the door to Hannah, who was wearing an antique lace robe and dainty nightgown. Too Victorian for Devon, perfect for her gentle-natured sister.

  She glanced past him, saw he had company and twisted her fingers. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Her stance indicated that she wanted him to join her in the hall. Jacob obliged, pulling the door shut behind him as a claw of fear scratched at his stomach. “Is it about Devon?” he asked carefully. “Has anything happened?”

  She fidgeted with her braid. “I hope not. It’s just—I can’t reach her. She isn’t downstairs, and she’s not answering her office telephone. It’s a direct line at night. The operator leaves at ten o’clock.” Hannah worried her bottom lip. “I’ve been talking with my mother for most of the night. Devon and I have two younger sisters. I gather Daria wants to dye her hair green.”

  A voice from the past ricocheted through Jacob’s head. Laura’s petulant voice challenging, “What’s wrong with blue streaks? They were free and they’re guaranteed to wash out.”

  But a missing twenty-dollar bill from Jacob’s dresser, added to the fact that five washings later the streaks were as blue as ever, had exposed those lies. Jacob shoved the unwelcome memory aside. “When was the last time you tried calling, Hannah?”

  “Right before I came up here.”

  “Could she be in another part of the building?”

  “Possibly.” Hannah rubbed chilled hands over her forearms. “But I don’t think so. I have...a feeling, I guess you’d call it.” Her large eyes launched a more than credible appeal. “I think something’s wrong. Devon knows I worry about her. She’d have called you if she couldn’t get through to me.”

  Jacob’s brows drew together. His cell phone was in his car and—“Damn!” He scrunched his eyes closed. “I unplugged it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My apartment phone. I was painting yesterday. I unplugged it.” With an urgency that felt suspiciously close to desperation, he turned Hannah around. “Go downstairs and call her again. Keep calling. I’ll drive to the station. If you reach her, contact me on my cell. You have the number, right?”

  He felt her tremble. “You’re worried, too, aren’t you?”

  What could he say? “I won’t take chances where Devon’s life is concerned.” He ushered her to the staircase, nudged her forward. “I’ll be on my way in less than sixty seconds.”

  “Riker...” Hannah’s fingers gripped his wrist with equal amounts of fright and love.

  To Jacob’s amazement, he understood the silent message. Threads of panic twined around the knowledge that he’d do anything to ensure Devon’s safety.

  “She’ll be fine,” he said, grim-faced. “That bastard won’t get her. Not if I have
to kill him to stop him.”

  “YOU’VE BEEN LISTENING to a double shot of Sting. Before that, it was Elton John, ‘Can You Feel the Love.’ You’re surfing the Wave with Tim Woodrow. It’s a chilly seventeen degrees outside our studio....”

  Devon heard the promo through a stilted layer of terror. She’d give anything she possessed to be outside the studio right now, seventeen chilly degrees notwithstanding.

  The man before her kept his knife poised. She didn’t know why or for how long. The seconds dragged on interminably. She couldn’t think, forgot to breathe. Then a beam of light sliced along the sharp edge of the blade, and miraculously, her paralysis shattered.

  Swallowing a scream, Devon plunged backward and sideways, a diagonal move her attacker had apparently not anticipated.

  The knife slashed downward with a whoosh that brought a spurt of blood to her mind’s eye. Her blood unless she could think of a way to escape.

  He’d hesitated, she was sure of it. Maybe he didn’t like blood. He’d strangled his first seven victims, would have strangled her at the restaurant if she hadn’t gotten lucky and collided with the valet.

  Shoving off from the wall, she ran for the nearest stairwell. She heard his long stride on the carpet behind her, the angry breath that rushed in and out of his lungs.

  He sounded out of shape. Warren, she wondered muzzily? Or was agitation affecting his ability to breathe properly? Whatever the case, he charged with the ferocity of an enraged bull.

  “Angela...!”

  His tormented wail jangled across her nerve ends. Be calm, think, she ordered herself. She had to outwit him. It was her only chance.

  Unable to calculate distances properly, Devon caught the lobby desk with her fingertips and used it to take the ninety-degree corner without skidding. Her eyes scoured the gloomy corridor, but registered little except imaginary impressions of the person chasing her.

  Knife with a golden blade. Gold Christmas angel pendant. A single stab wound through her heart. And someone called Angela....

  Devon raced along the corridor, panting. A red Exit sign caught her eye to her right. She dove into the niche, kicked the door open, hesitated, then continued on her original straight path. The door clanged shut as she ducked into an ancillary corridor.

  Please use the exit, she prayed, too terrified to check. If he took the bait, he’d be barreling down the stairs in a moment. If not—she gave a shudder of pure dread.

  Another door loomed on the far end wall. She’d have to use this one. Heaven help her if it was stuck, or locked, or whatever other glitches happened to emergency exits.

  She shot forward, depressing the bar as silently as possible. It clicked at the last second, and with a single terrified glance behind her, she plunged into the dusky stairwell.

  Fourteen steps down, then fourteen more and another fourteen. Catching the rail at the bottom, she pivoted and plunged, again and again and again. How many floors remained? Fifteen? Ten? The station was located on twenty-seven. Her legs had turn to rubber, her lungs were on the verge of bursting. Surely she’d gone down more than a dozen flights by now.

  The metal treads echoed under her feet, clanging loud enough to wake the dead. Devon shut that thought out and continued running. Was it Andrew? Warren? Who else might have lingered tonight? Roscoe? Jimmy?

  Her calves ached. A cramp shot through her side. A frightened sob climbed into her throat. She needed to slow down, couldn’t slow down. How many flights left to ground?

  Fragments of light cast stark shadows on the walls. Her vision blurred.

  Out of nowhere, a pair of hands emerged to clamp around her waist. Devon yelped and began to buck as they hauled her back onto the landing and hard up against a lean male body.

  “Devon, it’s me. Ja—Riker.”

  Unbelieving, she spun, muscles rigid, eyes wide with residual panic. “Riker?” She croaked his name, stared, then touched his shadowed face to be sure.

  He gave her only that split second to reassure herself before his arms came around her in a crushing grip. He pressed his face into her scented hair, knew his heart was racing twice as fast as hers right then.

  “I saw you flying down the corridor upstairs.” His voice was low and rough, muffled by her hair and emotions too complex to analyze. “I shouted, but you didn’t answer.” His grip tightened. “I thought he had hurt you.”

  She made no attempt to free herself. “Did he—did you see him?”

  “No. I only saw you and only for a second.”

  A panicky tremor she didn’t bother to hide zinged through her. “He was going to stab me. One quick thrust through the heart, he said. He had—oh, Riker. He had a knife with a long golden blade and a design on the hilt.”

  “A what?” Jacob stopped his rhythmic stroking of her hair.

  “A knife with some kind of pearl handle with a gold figure stamped on it. I thought—” she paused, aware of a change in him. Her head came up. “What?”

  “Nothing.” Easing her cheek back onto his shoulder, Jacob kissed her temple. “You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

  But in his heart he knew that wasn’t all, and it most certainly wasn’t nothing.

  Visions wafted up unbidden. Bony fingers lovingly caressing first a golden blade, then an elegant pearl handle. This came all the way from Ireland, boy. See the harp. That’s their symbol. Belonged to my Ewen’s Great-Great-Uncle Ewen. Old Ewen stole it from what’s-his-name, that underling of Lord Pirrie’s, after the little twirp fired him from Pirrie’s ship-building company. The twirp had called old Ewen a thief, threatened to tell Pirrie himself, but sent him packing instead two weeks after work started on the Titanic. Old Ewen hated that man, decided to get even. He broke into the guy’s home, stole his money, his wife’s jewels, this knife and a bottle of champagne for good measure.” Her cackle rang out, rich with malice. “I always said that’s what sank the poor Titanic. Old Ewen swiped the champagne that should have been used to christen her. Then, to add insult to injury, old Ewen posed as an Irish privy councillor and sailed to the States on the Lusitania. The knife’s all that’s left, boy, but what a trophy it is. It’ll be Laura’s in the end, of course....

  “Riker?”

  Jacob heard the puzzlement in Devon’s voice, laced with the remnants of fear that had yet to abate.

  “It’s okay.” He focused on her rather than on the anger, resentment and uncertainty that rolled greasily in his stomach. His dark eyes rose to the upper landing. His lips thinned. “I’m going to find that piece of slime and make him pay for what he’s done to you.”

  JACOB DID NOT find him. Nor did he harbor any illusions about how the next scene would play out. He’d inform Dugan of the attack. When the cops arrived, either Devon would call him Riker, and Dugan would expose him as a fraud, or Dugan would call him Jacob, and Devon would discover the deception. Any way he looked at it, she’d be furious and rightly so.

  On the other hand, she’d also be alive, which was the most important point. He’d try to remember that while she was scratching his eyes out.

  After giving security Dugan’s number, Jacob took Devon up to her office to wait. He wanted desperately to hold her. But if he allowed himself that luxury, she’d only wind up angrier in the end, and he would be that much more torn apart inside.

  “Okay, people, search the building.” Dugan made his entrance fifteen minutes later, notepad in hand, wool coat flapping. A harassed Rudy had slipped in five minutes earlier.

  One glimpse of the cop’s broad Irish face and Jacob knew he’d been made. No doubt he could thank Rudy for delivering the early bombshell.

  Devon sat on the sofa, clutching a steaming coffee mug in her icy hands. Jacob paced silently behind her. Damn, he wished he could touch. Instead, he jammed his fists into his pockets and waited with a fatalistic air for Dugan to make his move.

  “Ms. Tremayne?” The cop shot Jacob a cutting glare, then perched on the parquet table in front of her. “I’m Detective Dugan from homicide.
Riker and I—” another deadly glare “—work together on occasion.”

  Rudy’s bushy brows went up a mile. Jacob narrowed his gaze and wisely held his tongue.

  “You were attacked tonight, Ms. Tremayne. Can you tell me anything about the perpetrator?”

  She drew a deep breath. “He was wearing a long black coat, wool, I think, a ski mask and thin leather gloves. He threatened me with a knife. I ran.”

  Jacob saw her head drop forward and went to his haunches behind her. With the knuckles of his right hand he massaged the tight muscles at the nape of her neck.

  She summoned a ghost of a smile before she continued. “I went through the east-end fire door; I’m not sure how far down I got before Riker grabbed me.” Her breath blew tiredly out. Her head dropped back this time. “I thought it was the man who attacked me at first, but I gather he went down another staircase.”

  “We’re checking the building now,” Dugan told her. His gaze curled upward. So did his lip. “What about you, Riker? Did you see anything?”

  “Only Devon streaking past.”

  “We’ve got something, sir.” One of the uniformed officers entered, carrying a long black coat and a bag containing other articles of black clothing and a gold-bladed knife with a pearl handle. Rudy frowned. Jacob didn’t bother; he simply sighed at the inevitability of fate and shifted his knuckles higher on Devon’s neck. At least her tension was ebbing.

  Dugan examined the bag, then held the items for Devon’s inspection. “Is this the knife, Ms. Tremayne?”

  “It looks like it.”

  “And the coat?”

  “Yes.”

  Dugan glanced at the officer. “Take them downstairs and label them. Anything else?”

  “Colby saw a man near the garbage chute five minutes before we found these things in the basement dumpster. We have him outside.”

  “Bring him in.”

  Devon leaned back. “It’s probably Tim.” She sounded exhausted. “He’s on-air until 2:00 a.m.”