Fatal Distraction: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller

Book 6: The Jess Kimball Thrillers Series

by Diane Capri

Genres: Financial Thrillers; Legal Thrillers

Synopsis

Relentless reporter Jess Kimball delivers justice when the system fails. One case at a time, until she finds her son.

Beloved Florida Governor Helen Sullivan is stalked by a cunning and patient serial killer.

Helen believes her nightmare is over. Instead, she unwittingly escalated the duel.

Now, investigative journalist Jess Kimball is driven to find the horrifying truth before the serial killer strikes again.

Helen and Jess together face the determined killer in a pitched battle of wit and nerve.

Who will survive?

Release date: May 5, 2012

Publisher: AugustBooks

Print pages: 362

Sample

PROLOGUE

 

Thornberry, Florida

Monday 2:00 p.m.

 

Even as humid July heat strangled the small central Florida country church, its sanctuary overflowed with bodies drawn by scandal’s stench like vultures to carrion. Whether they were genuine mourners or nakedly curious, Governor Helen Sullivan had lured them with her only son’s open burial service, hoping to unmask her son’s killer, for only then could Eric rest in peace.

Since the death of her son and his best friend Ryan Jones three weeks ago, media of every stripe had branded sixteen-year-old Eric a drunk driver, spoiled by indulgent parents, ruined by wealth and privilege. “Governor’s Son Kills Best Friend in Early Morning Crash,” read the worst of the headlines, though none granted Eric any presumption of innocence as they fueled the scandal.

Publicly, Helen had not contested the lies; instead she implemented today’s desperate plan.

While lines of strangers filed past her husband and Helen, Special Agent Frank Temple of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement stood close by, hands within easy reach of his weapon, scanning the church, seeking anything unusual or out of place. Valencia County Sheriff MacKenzie Green’s deputies stayed in constant visual and electronic contact with Temple’s security detail.

After filing past Eric Sullivan’s reconstructed body, the spectators approached his parents. “I’m so sorry,” they said. Or, “He’s in a better place.” A few dared to pat Oliver’s shoulder or caress the governor’s arm.

“Thank you,” Helen responded each time, accepting full blame with every false condolence.

Be strong, she thought, standing rigid behind her black veil, braced against waves of grief renewed by those few offering sincere compassion. Helen had lived her entire life in Thornberry, the small town in Valencia County some forty minutes northeast of Tampa, not far from Lakeland. In this thin slice of old Florida, threatened by the ambitions of politicians and developers and largely populated by residents holding fast to their simpler way of life, people chose to think the best of their neighbors. To these friends and colleagues, Helen could not trust herself to speak with composure, so only nodded and endured.

But most spectators came from more remote locales and for ignoble reasons. She studied each stranger in turn, divining whether they paid only mock respect, committing features to ineradicable memory using all six senses. She noted and analyzed their features, the dark perspiration circles under arms and on shirtfronts, makeup melted and congealed in creviced faces. Body odors mixed with deodorants and perfumes thickened the heavy air and forced short, rapid breaths, leaving her asthmatic lungs starved for air and her balance unsteady. She paused her mission only to raise her inhaler to her mouth or wipe her palms on her husband’s soaked linen handkerchief.

During a brief pause between attendees, Oliver put his hand on her shoulder and directed her attention to Ryan’s grandparents, who sat in a pew with a tall, sandy-haired man Helen didn’t know.

“I don’t see Milton,” Oliver whispered.

Milton Jones, Ryan’s father, was consumed with misdirected grief that pierced Helen’s heart all the more because of their long-shared history. She’d spent the better part of four years helping Milton while his wife Ruby died of cancer. His sorrow had been endless then, and seemed bottomless now.

Helen looked around the church. “Over there.” She gestured by inclining her head, noticing that Milton’s wrinkled suit barely touched his scrawny limbs. He looked as fragile as an incompetent scarecrow amid the murder of crowing reporters.

Milton had already granted several interviews to the tabloid press and scandal shows. They’d flattered him, seeking to learn what Helen refused to reveal. He’d used each as an opportunity to blame Eric and Helen for Ryan’s death, vicious accusations that remained without rebuttal.

Neither Milton nor the public knew that the crash was not Eric’s fault—that he had not ignored or missed the stop sign. Within the first forty-eight hours investigators found an inexpensive but sophisticated tracking device on the bottom of Eric’s vehicle, purchased with cash and therefore untraceable. A partial fingerprint on it matched none in law enforcement databases.

Shortly after that, Helen’s friend, Sheriff Mac Green, found the killer’s video camera mounted at the crash site. Helen flinched each time she watched the monstrous semi mash the CRV’s passenger side and wrap the smaller vehicle around its bumper in a deadly embrace, knowing a few seconds more and the CRV would have crossed State Route 50 safely, and Eric and Ryan would be alive. The sick bastard had recorded Eric’s murder in sharp hues and high-fidelity sound, every second of the fatal crash meant to torture his parents with vivid images they could never escape.

Two things became crystal clear from the discovery of the video:

First, the perpetrator had deliberately removed the stop sign, pulling it out of the ground before the crash and putting it back again after. The tracking device must have been used to signal the precise timing required to make the governor’s son’s crash most likely to occur.

Second, the man who’d murdered Eric and Ryan was cunning and dangerous.

She only hoped he wasn’t clever enough.

Oliver had begged her to release the truth, but Helen thought otherwise: By keeping the nature of the crash secret, she sought to inflate the killer’s hubris, enticing him to come closer and gloat, to reveal himself here at the funeral today.

As a mourner murmured, “Eric looks so good,” Helen let herself glance at her son in his casket, his smooth, childish jaw and curly brown hair so like her own, as unruly in death as in life. Each glimpse of Eric’s innocent face fueled her rage, her determination, and held despair at bay.

It did not, however, keep her from worrying about Oliver. Eric’s death had crushed his spirit; maintaining his silence when every instinct Oliver possessed urged him to defend his son weighed especially heavy.

Only two years older than she, Oliver seemed to have aged a decade in the three weeks since their son had died. His suit, too, hung loosely on his frame. Weary lines furrowed his brow and fatigue seeped from every pore. His plain gold wedding band glinted in the light when he raked broad, flat fingers through his sun-bleached hair.

Still, Oliver touched each mourner in turn, kindly offering comfort and accepting rote sympathy from strangers. “Thank you for coming,” he said, meaning the words. Or, “Helen and I appreciate your support.”

Helen looked away from the coffin and extended her hand to the next mourner before realizing who it was. Startled, she tasted something warm and salty flood her tongue. She lifted the damp handkerchief to her lips, her gaze firmly focused on Ryan’s father.

Milton Jones swayed on his feet, the scent of poorly metabolized alcohol emitted from his skin. Patches of stubble had escaped his razor along the knob of his Adam’s apple. The well-dressed, sandy-haired stranger she’d seen earlier with Ryan’s grandparents now stood by Milton’s side.

“You could have prevented this,” Milton said more loudly than necessary. His voice carried beyond their immediate circle to the sanctuary’s far reaches.

“Milton,” the man accompanying him cut in, “this is not the time. Please.” He put one palm on Milton’s shoulder and reached out with the other to shake Oliver’s hand, then Helen’s. “I’m Ben Fleming, Milton’s grief counselor. He’s distraught. Please forgive him.”

Milton shook Fleming off, glaring drunken hatred at Helen. “My boy would be alive if Miss Helen here wasn’t up in Tallahassee making enemies every chance she gets.”

“Ben’s right. That’s hardly fair, Milton,” Oliver intervened in the same gentle way that he handled all living things. “Our Eric’s gone, too.” His voice cracked and he stopped a moment to gather his composure.

“I loved Ryan,” Helen managed to say after a long, uncomfortable silence, all too aware of eavesdroppers.

Milton stared at Helen as if he’d never seen her before. “My boy is dead.” His voice broke as his eyes filled and tears spilled onto his hollow cheeks. “You’ll pay for this, Helen. Don’t think you won’t.” His last word ended on a keening sob that shook his entire body before Ben Fleming steadied him and moved him away from Helen.

Frank Temple, who’d stepped forward protectively, seemed to relax a little as he retreated to his place close behind her, once again scanning the church.

Oliver squeezed Helen’s hand and released it, then left to follow Milton and Ben Fleming. Helen watched as her husband approached them, put a comforting hand on Milton’s arm, and murmured gentle words that she knew would not soften the hard lines of Milton’s judgment.

The way Oliver addressed Fleming so familiarly, by his first name, she wondered if Oliver already knew him and where they might have met.

Helen returned to the line of hungry spectators as the next unpermitted hand touched her arm. She raised her chin a bit higher, grateful for the black veil that provided the only privacy she’d experience today.

Photographs, she knew, were already being posted from cell phones to the Internet, to be beamed around the country and the world.

After a long career as a prosecuting attorney and five years as Governor of Florida, she’d learned the hard lessons of public life. The press had dubbed her “The Iron Cowgirl,” and she tried not to care. Better to be reviled as cold and unfeeling than to let them suck on her grief like an exotic aphrodisiac.

At last, the organ played the first strains of “Amazing Grace.” Ushers stopped the unending parade and encouraged people to take their seats for the service. One escorted Helen to her place next to Oliver in the first pew.

The grief counselor, Ben Fleming, approached the dais and closed Eric into the casket, then adjusted the blanket of white roses over the center. Had Oliver asked him to do so, Helen wondered? Fleming’s performance of these small courtesies for Eric, his careful attention to the final details, demolished her defensive shield. She closed her eyes, squeezed hard.

Oliver made no attempt to hide the tears that tracked down his wind-chapped cheeks. He managed to thank Dr. Fleming for his kindness as Fleming walked past then Oliver engulfed Helen’s hand in both of his. The gesture spiked grief in her breast, and once again she squeezed her eyelids to hold back tears, grateful for the black veil.

Pastor Rickard delivered a eulogy as eloquent as any Helen had ever heard. Tears flowed freely from Oliver and the true mourners while Helen remained stoic. She used her inhaler again, but it wasn’t asthma that stole her breath. She glanced down at the damp handkerchief, surprised to see its milky white softness tinged pink. She noticed the pain inside her cheek for the first time and realized what had caused it.

After the service ended, the congregation rose and turned to watch Pastor Rickard precede the pallbearers who carried her son down the aisle. Spectators stood on every inch of the carpeted floor around the entire church.

Oliver took her hand and placed it through the crook of his arm. They walked down the aisle they had traveled together full of hope on their wedding day.

As planned, Frank and Mac remained positioned near Helen, but not too close to discourage the killer from approaching her if he wanted to. The less protection she appeared to have, the more likely he would risk coming near and somehow revealing himself.

At least she’d hoped he would when they’d planned this trap an eon ago. Now it seemed that she’d failed Eric yet again.

Ushers controlled the flow of spectators, allowing each pew to file out behind the Sullivans in an orderly fashion.

When Helen and Oliver reached a point about seven pews from the exit, she saw Milton Jones step out in front of them, staring them down. He didn’t move, even as they drew face to face. Oliver stepped ahead to shield her, but Milton blocked their exit as if to inflict another difficult confrontation.

Helen began to sense something seriously wrong. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Frank Temple bulling his way toward them from the crowded nave. Teeth clenched, she swallowed the metallic-tasting blood in her mouth.

“Please move out of the way, Milton,” Oliver said.

“Eric was stinking drunk. He wouldn’t give up the keys.” The hatred pulsed from Milton’s body in waves Helen could feel. “‘I’m the governor’s kid. Nobody can stop me.’ That’s what he said.”

Milton’s red eyes streamed but his voice was loud and manner belligerent. Helen looked around, alarmed. Ben Fleming had seemed a calming influence on Milton. Where was he now?

She saw Frank Temple pulling closer gradually, as if wading through waist-high molasses. The other agents and deputies deployed around the church were separated from Milton by the mass of spectators stuffed into the crowded sanctuary.

Oliver tried to placate Milton again. “You know how sorry I am, but this is not the—”

“It’s your fault!” Milton raged as he snapped his arm from behind his back and extended it, training a handgun at Helen’s face.

From his closer position, Oliver acted on instinct, shoving Milton’s frail wrist aside milliseconds before he pulled the trigger.

Helen heard two quick gunshots so deafening her ears seemed to implode.

A sharp stinging burn seared her left shoulder.

She lost her balance and fell on top of the spectator-filled pew next to her.

Chaos erupted.

Those close to an exit ran to the door. Others scrambled over one another to follow. The rest hunkered down, hands over their heads, too frightened to move.

Helen’s muffled ears scarcely registered the crowd’s panic. She thought she heard several agents shouting, “Drop the gun!” “Get down!” “Drop the gun!”

Oliver fell upon Milton and knocked him to the floor.

But Milton was desperate too, and more determined. He pushed Oliver hard enough to free his arm. Two FDLE agents and one Valencia County deputy now stood on empty pews, weapons drawn and trained on Milton from shooters’ stances.

Helen sensed more than saw Frank Temple reach her side to shield her. She struggled to breathe, the suffocating precursor to an asthma attack constricting her throat.

Milton whipped the gun toward his own head as if to shoot himself.

“Drop the gun!” two deputies shouted at once.

“Don’t!” Oliver shouted over the noise of the panicked crowd. “Think about Ruby. She wouldn’t want you to do this. You know she wouldn’t.”

Oliver’s rushed words seemed to register with Milton, for even from behind Frank Temple’s bulk Helen saw Milton hesitate, maybe a bit unsure. Looking straight into Oliver’s eyes, Milton lowered the gun a few centimeters. A moment’s hesitation. It was going to be all right.

Swiftly he pointed the gun at Oliver’s chest and pulled the trigger.

At the same moment, gunshots rang out from three directions over the heads of the cowering spectators.

When the shooting stopped, despite the searing pain in her shoulder and the lack of oxygen to her lungs, Helen managed to rise to her knees and crawl into the aisle.

Milton Jones, becalmed by death on the carpeted sanctuary, lay next to Oliver’s bleeding body.

Without conscious volition, Helen screamed.

 

 

Chapter 1

 

Three Years Later

Tallahassee, Florida

Thursday 3:00 p.m.

 

Jessica Kimball fought the weight of time. Left unoccupied, her mind would dwell on Peter. Only purposeful activity distracted her. She reviewed her notes once more before her interview with Governor Helen Sullivan commenced.

“Come on. Let’s do this already,” she whispered. Her right leg seemed to bounce of its own volition, the only outward indication of her impatience.

The fine December day had inspired someone to leave the windows open in the Governor’s mansion. A cool draft prevented the crackling fire in the fireplace from heating the room and carried the cacophony of angry protestors inside. Jess pulled her lightweight grey sweater off her shoulders and slipped her arms into the sleeves.

She’d entered the mansion through the front door, with her photographer Mike Caldwell filming the mob’s shouts and threats and objects flung while she strode past. Something had connected with her left thigh, but she’d deflected the pain as she would ignore the bruise. Both were irrelevant.

Safely inside, Jess curbed the adrenaline and settled deeper into the soft red leather upholstery, couched in Governor Sullivan’s inner sanctum while David Manson’s Abolition Project crazies remained most definitely on the outside.

Manson had followed her to Florida seeking increased attention for his anti-death-penalty efforts by coasting along Jess’s unbroken victims’-rights winning streak. He’d never bested her, although he rebounded after every defeat with renewed vigor.

Jess believed her success came because she worked hard to stay on the side of the angels. Never had she undertaken an equivocal case, nor would she. Too many crime victims needed her support to waste her efforts on the undeserving. Above all, everything she did was for Peter.

Now Jess’s investigative spotlight shone on tomorrow’s execution of Tommy Taylor, dubbed the Central Florida Child Killer. Years ago, Taylor had unspeakably tortured four of his five murder victims before authorities apprehended him. Revulsion flooded her body. Child killers were the most despicable criminals Jess could imagine.

“Where are you, Helen?” she said. Her question did not manifest the governor. The continuing delay heightened her tension and caused her to reexamine her work.

As always, Jess had arrived at her opinions and chosen this case only after months spent completing the thorough due diligence her conscience and readers demanded. She trusted her process because it had never failed her. Mentally, she ticked off the steps, making check marks on her note pad.

She’d reviewed thousands of pages of text from case files and appeal records, and then discussed the evidence in depth with every investigator and attorney who had handled the case.

She’d learned everything possible about each victim and had spoken several times to every surviving member of the victims’ families.

Perhaps most heartbreaking was Taylor’s own mother, destroyed by the knowledge that her son was guilty of slaughtering children, even she agreed that he should pay for his crimes.

Finally Jess had interviewed Tommy Taylor himself, and now she had no doubts about his guilt. None whatsoever. No normal person does what Taylor did to those kids; or deserved to live afterward.

She glanced at her watch. Yes, the governor was about ten minutes late. Nervous perspiration chilled her. She laid her forearms across her chest and rubbed her arms a moment, then doodled a few quick strokes on her pad until the continuing noise jerked her attention back to Manson’s followers.

Jess tried to afford them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they didn’t know that Manson exploited abolition of the death penalty only as a convenient philosophy his audience idealized.

Like Manson, though, these protesters defended death row inmates based on the media value of their stories, rather than by the merits of their cases. To Jess this amounted to excusing depraved indifference to innocent human lives for the sake of publicity. Manson didn’t care about justice any more than he cared whether death row inmates were innocent, guilty or from Mars.

Thoughts of David Manson brought to mind her missing son again. Manson’s phony idealism had almost drawn Jess in once. Through hard experience, she’d learned how he worked.

Manson had used her search for Peter to further his own agenda, which Jess would never forgive nor forget.

To this day, David Manson hung around her like an albatross, but she recognized him for the vulture he was, feeding on the world’s evil and manipulating young idealists to grab attention, or even incite violence, when it served his purposes.

An inner door opened and Helen Sullivan walked toward Jess, hand extended, apologies offered and accepted. Jess noted Helen Sullivan’s girl-next-door freckles made her appear remarkably young for her age.

Three years after her son’s murder, Sullivan might have looked worn out, but instead she projected vigor, competence and strength. She was dressed in a somber blue suit and plain pumps; a somewhat old-fashioned double strand of pearls rested at her taut neck. Facelift? Jess wrote on her pad. Politics was a glamour business these days, too.

The two women settled down to business. Jess placed her digital recorder next to the Governor’s cell phone on the low coffee table between them. Jess held a stenographer’s pad on her lap, ready to jot her impressions with a blue felt-tip in the left column as they talked. She reserved the right column for quotable phrases she might grab while completing the final paragraphs of the magazine article she’d been writing for months.

The only thing missing from the room was Mike, his video camera rolling. After a few posed pictures of the governor at her desk, Mike had been asked to leave by Governor Sullivan’s chief of staff.

On a different day, Jess might have argued. She’d come to depend on video, which often helped her nail her final drafts with accurate details she might have missed. But the interview was too important to her story and this was her last chance to complete it before Taylor’s execution. Jess was packed for Colorado to follow a lead on Peter, her own missing son, immediately after Taylor was pronounced dead. She had no time to waste. Her notes and the voice recorder would have to suffice.

Jess admitted, too, that she admired Helen Sullivan and didn’t want to alienate the governor, whose coping skills fascinated Jess.

She could relate all too well to Helen’s lost child—Peter had been kidnapped ten years ago and never found, although finding him remained Jess’s personal obsession to this day.

For now, seeking justice for victims like herself and Helen Sullivan in a society more focused on protecting the killers kept her soul alive while she searched for Peter. Barely.

But what, Jess had long wondered, enabled Helen Sullivan to succeed—to excel and not merely cope—on a daily basis when parents of murdered children so often lost their faith in everything, including life itself?

Helen’s poise rivaled Queen Elizabeth, some said, speculating that Sullivan was cold and unfeeling, but Jess rejected that explanation; Helen Sullivan was more complicated than that.

Jess began the interview as pleasantly and lightly as possible. The governor’s answers were candid, almost charming. After the first few softball questions, though, Jess couldn’t help asking about the no-camera rule: “Why won’t you allow me to videotape this interview?”

If Jess had hoped to catch Sullivan off guard, she failed. The governor answered Jess’s question without blinking an eye, but her diction changed. She became precise, controlled, rehearsed.

“Because despite what Mr. Manson seems to think, Tommy Taylor’s execution is not a side show. Video images of the countdown to a man’s final breaths are inhumane. They imprint indelibly on a mother’s mind.”

Jess immediately understood Helen’s position—she, too, had seen the horrible video of Eric Sullivan’s last moments on earth and recalled every frame. But as a mother, Jess disagreed: For her, not seeing the images of Peter’s kidnapping was infinitely worse. Her imagination produced powerful, terrifying images whenever she closed her eyes. She’d have preferred knowing exactly what had happened to Peter instead of being tormented by questions that could never be answered.

Jess didn’t push but instead tested Sullivan’s poise with a more provocative question. “The execution of Tommy Taylor is set for Friday at six p.m., twenty-seven hours from now. Yet, you’re attending a ball this evening to celebrate the end of your final term as Governor. Doesn’t that seem in poor taste to you?”

Sullivan remained still, hands clasped in front of her, holding a linen handkerchief embroidered with her husband’s initials. She didn’t look away or avoid the question. Nor was she provoked to rash comments.

“Executions are difficult for all of us. It wasn’t right to avoid the problem by leaving it for my successor, and the date and time couldn’t be set until after the appeal process was exhausted. There was simply no alternative.”

Too controlled, Jess wrote on her pad. She gave the effort one last shot, not really knowing what she was trying to accomplish but operating purely on instinct. Something told her there was an issue to uncover here, and Jess needed to know she’d looked under every rock before she allowed a man’s life to be extinguished. Even if doing so got Jess thrown out into the cold with Manson.

“Some people say you’re too close to this case, Governor. You were on the team that prosecuted Taylor for the fifth murder, the one for which he will be executed.”

Sullivan waited for Jess to finish the question. Much too cool, Jess thought, watching closely as she tried again to get a rise out of the self-possessed woman.

“They say that you believe Taylor had your son killed as an act of vengeance,” Jess said, “payback for his death sentence.”

Was there a slight tension in the clasp of Helen’s hands that hadn’t been there before?

“Is that true?” Pen poised, recorder running, Jess waited. Eventually, Sullivan would talk, and what she didn’t say might be as powerful as the carefully crafted answer she might eventually offer.

The murder of Eric Sullivan and Ryan Jones remained an open case. Law enforcement agencies might well know more than they could prove about the unsolved crime, which meant that Helen could be motivated by knowledge about Eric’s killer that had never been made public.

After several empty seconds, Jess cleared her throat. Governor Sullivan blinked, seeming to realize where she was once again after being captured by her own thoughts. When she did respond, her stilted statement suggested another rehearsed answer.

“I was a junior member of the prosecutor’s team when Mr. Taylor was tried for the murder of Mattie Crawford. The question of my disqualification to act on his case as governor was fully explored during his appeal process and decided by the courts. The suggestion that I might be disqualified is incorrect on both the facts and the law.”

Another question transparently dodged with a prepared response.

By reputation, Jess was a bulldog interviewer who never, never gave up on a sensitive question in pursuit of truth. She opened her mouth to rephrase, but something about the set of Governor Sullivan’s face stopped her words before she voiced them. Instead, Jess asked a question she’d designed to support the final paragraphs of her article and wrap everything up.

“Why do you think justice is best served by Tommy Taylor’s execution, Governor? Why not issue a pardon?”

Before Sullivan could answer, the cell phone on the table rang. She glanced down at her watch, apparently surprised to notice it was already past four o’clock.

She said, “Excuse me, please,” picked up the phone, stood and walked into the adjoining private chambers. Jess reached over and pressed the off button on the recorder and settled in to wait by reviewing her notes.

During the research phase of the case, Jess had learned that the cell phone was never far from Governor Sullivan’s right hand. Its omnipresence was, by tacit agreement, ignored by the press because it seemed cruel to comment. But everyone knew that the phone connected Helen Sullivan directly to her husband who’d kept an identical one with him at all times since being released from the hospital three years ago.

Oliver Sullivan’s gunshot wound had healed without serious complications, but he’d suffered a severe stroke following the surgery to remove the bullet. Through months of physical therapy, Governor Sullivan had remained by his side as much as possible.

Now Oliver spent most of his time at their cattle ranch, some forty miles from Tampa in Thornberry, where he’d grown up next door to his high school sweetheart Helen Carter. The ranch was and always had been their only private residence.

Almost fifteen minutes later, Sullivan returned to her seat across from Jess.

“I’m sorry for the interruption,” the governor said, then frowned over the noise from Manson’s protestors that had increased in volume, suggesting more people had joined the group outside.

Regular chanting, difficult to discern at first, became clear with repetition: “DNA. DNA. DNA.”

Manson must have arrived, Jess thought, kicking the protest up a few notches by his very presence. The five o’clock news would be starting soon and Manson would find some way of ensuring the journalists deemed his spectacle worthy of airtime tonight. He’d started a countdown to Taylor’s execution and would stop at nothing to provoke constant attention until Taylor died.

Jess watched as Sullivan glanced over at Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent Frank Temple and inclined her head. Temple, who typically kept within ten feet of the governor, opened the room’s door and invited Jess’s photographer Mike join them.

Now what’s that about? Jess wondered as she turned the recorder back on.

Mike quickly set up his camera and began shooting as the chanting from outside grew louder, angrier.

“Do you hear that, Governor?” Jess asked, knowing the video would pick up the chants as clearly as she could hear them. “The Manson Abolition Project is saying that Taylor didn’t kill Mattie Crawford. They say you should stay his execution pending new DNA evidence. Why have you chosen not to do that?”

Jess knew the facts surrounding Manson’s DNA argument, but Sullivan’s detailed knowledge of the case would impress the magazine’s reading audience with the level of care the Governor exercised when dealing with a stay of execution request.

Sullivan leaned forward in the chair, raising her voice a bit to be clearly heard. “Because there is no new evidence to test. They claim that newer DNA techniques used on the old evidence might reveal Mr. Taylor’s innocence, but they’re wrong. Everything was tested before the trial and twice more during his appeals.”

“Could newer techniques reveal a different result?”

“They might,” Sullivan acknowledged. “But only if there were any new evidence. I’ve granted a stay of execution twice before to allow the defense to find such evidence. They haven’t found it. Mattie Crawford’s family deserves our consideration too. They deserve closure for the long, painful process of moving on with their lives.”

Sullivan stopped a few moments, cleared her throat, and raised her voice to be heard over the chanting. “We can’t wait any longer for evidence that may never be found and, if it were found, would no doubt confirm what the prior tests already revealed and two juries already concluded: Mr. Taylor was Mattie Crawford’s killer.”

To be fair and objective, Jess raised the obvious counter-argument. “But many ask what the rush is. If Tommy Taylor is guilty, he can be executed later. You’re not concerned that the next governor will pardon him, are you?”

Sullivan looked at Jess for a long moment before settling back into her chair and refolding her hands on her lap. If her composure had slipped a bit earlier, she had herself well under control now. She glanced briefly toward Frank Temple, for what? Assent?

Jess leaned in closer to hear every word.

“You and I have worked together before, Jess. We don’t agree on these death penalty cases, do we?”

Jess held her stare. “No, Governor, we don’t.” And most of the country sides with me, she thought but did not voice.

Helen nodded. “Right now, you’d think I’m committing political suicide by admitting that I don’t support the death penalty, especially when I’ve managed to avoid that answer in the past. Wouldn’t you?”

The chanting outside grew louder and seemed to be moving in a sound wave closer to the room where they sat. “DNA. DNA. DNA.”

Jess noticed Frank Temple reach into his pocket and pull out a cell phone. He pushed a button and held the phone to his ear. She read the slight furrow in his brow as concern, but not alarm. He pushed a button, and dropped the phone back into his pocket, then moved closer to Sullivan, but remained out of the camera’s view.

What was going on?

Jess turned the question back on the governor. “I take it you don’t think so?” She was almost shouting to be heard over the protesters’ racket.

“I’ve worked within the legal system my entire career,” said Sullivan, looking directly into the camera, “and I believe in it, even though the system is not infallible. But the older I get, the more I understand that we don’t know everything. Crystal balls are rare. We don’t see all the nuances. We make mistakes, some impossible to correct, for which we can never atone. We can’t bring people back to life.” Sullivan glanced down a moment, but quickly returned her steady gaze toward Jess, who had all but gasped.

Emboldened by Sullivan’s candor, Jess pressed harder: “Tell us why you’re going out of your way, then, to ensure Tommy Taylor is executed before you leave office, Governor.”

Although her run for the U.S. Senate hadn’t been confirmed, speculation had been rampant for weeks that Sullivan would declare her candidacy tonight. Everybody knew she had the full weight of the party machine behind her. Helen Sullivan was the people’s politician. Voters in this state loved her, perhaps more so since her son was killed and she’d continued to serve selflessly, but it seemed foolhardy to test that devotion when she didn’t need to.

Again Jess wondered what made this woman tick. Why? She jotted on her pad.

Sullivan’s straight posture and squared shoulders projected strength, invulnerability. If Jess’s question angered her, she gave no outward indication but simply nodded again.

“Fair question. If Governors made the decisions of office based only on our personal opinions, the job would be too hard, Jess. No decent human being could survive the weight. We’re not God. The people didn’t elect me to substitute my own judgments for the laws on the books. I promised I would follow the law because it’s the right thing to do, and—” her breath caught momentarily “—it’s the only way I can carry the load.”

“DNA. DNA. DNA.”

The crowd seemed to be directly outside the window, on the lawn. But Jess knew that was impossible. Security would have stopped the protestors long before that point. Manson must have some sort of amplification system set loud enough to deafen them. The volume pulsed stronger than a rock concert. Jess could feel the vibrations as voices shouted, “DNA. DNA. DNA.”

Jess kept her tone raised to be heard over the din. “Are you saying governing isn’t a matter of individual conscience?” As Jess awaited the governor’s answer, she lowered her eyes to avoid the naked pain in Helen Sullivan’s gaze.

“To answer you simply, Jess,” said Helen, “those who govern must abide by the law. Despite our best efforts, humans sometimes make mistakes in its application. That is what I would change if I could.”

Helen glanced toward Agent Temple, perhaps concerned about the rising volume of the protesters, before she continued. “But the law is all we have to separate us from the criminals. I intend to enforce the law of the State of Florida as long as I have the job. That’s exactly what I have done and will do until my term ends next week. I have to. It’s who I am: a woman who does the job she’s elected to do, whether she likes it or not. In the end, that’s all I have to offer.”

Governor Sullivan’s last words were almost lost in the deafening explosion that seemed to shake the entire room. As the floor vibrated, the walls moved, and a heavy picture fell onto the floor, breaking its frame and glass into pieces.

Agent Temple rushed toward Sullivan, simultaneously pulling out his service weapon. He grabbed the Governor’s arm and almost lifted her from the chair, pushing her in front of him toward her inner chamber. He opened the door, pushed her into the room, and swept inside behind her.

Jess squeezed the arms of her chair until it stopped rocking, then she knelt on the floor next to Mike, her photographer. He’d fallen and the skin over his eye was bleeding where the camera’s viewfinder had struck him during the explosion. A rivulet of blood trickled down the right side of his face.

In the deafening quiet, she asked, “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” he said. He wiped the blood off with his hand, glanced at it, then looked around the room at the chaos. “But what the hell was that?”

 

 

Chapter 2

 

Tallahassee, Florida

Thursday 4:45 p.m.

 

Jess hunkered down a few moments longer in case more explosions followed the first. An unnatural quiet still enveloped the room; Governor Sullivan and Frank Temple were nowhere to be seen. When no security or other personnel arrived Jess wondered why not but she didn’t know what had happened or what the protocol was for handling the situation.

She looked over at Mike. Despite the bloody cut, her young photographer didn’t seem to be in shock. No vomiting, trembling or obvious sweating.

“Nothing broken, right?” she asked.

Mike patted himself down, checking for shattered bones. If he had any fractures, he wouldn’t have to look so hard to find them, she knew, but she waited patiently while he ensured that he remained in one piece. Under different circumstances, she might have laughed. Just now it wasn’t funny.

“Nope. I’m good to go.” His words were full of bravado, but his tone was shaky. Mike was a newbie, maybe a year or two out of school. She guessed he was some staffer’s kid brother or something. She’d known he was just a beginner when she brought him out for this interview, but she hadn’t expected to need a more experienced photographer for a glossy-magazine assignment like this.

She reached down to help Mike stand. “Come on. This is the fastest way out.”

She opened the door to the secretary’s office and trotted quickly into the hallway, then the foyer, and finally to the front entrance of the building and out the door of the Governor’s Mansion. Mike’s heavy footfalls pounded behind her until she stopped abruptly and he bumped into her back.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

Mike raised his camera to his injured right eye and began to video the chaos around them. The Capitol Police had begun to take control of the scene and more law enforcement personnel poured from the building.

The Greek Revival style mansion was intact, its six tall Corinthian columns remained upright, majestically guarding the front entrance to the Governor’s residence. But the red brick pillars at the gate leading from the park across the street and the black wrought iron fencing separating the park from the building’s lawn had been demolished. Twisted ironwork and broken bricks had fallen everywhere.

The bronze sculpture of five children and a dog playing follow-the-leader had blown apart. Pieces of the sculpture rested entwined with sections of a white truck which lay in the midst of fire licking the live oak trees clean of their Spanish moss, leaves, and bark. The noxious smoke burned Jess’s nose; she raised her arm and breathed through her sweater.

Sirens grew louder as the fire trucks and other emergency vehicles arrived. In vain, Jess scanned the scene for David Manson. Several injured protesters lay around the wreckage at the center of the park. She ran to the first victim and did her best to render first aid until the paramedics took over.

Within thirty minutes, reporters were everywhere, holding microphones, running cameras and Florida television news programs had video of the explosion on the air. Jess stood near the young NBC television reporter, listening to the story as he’d gathered it thus far.

The pick-up truck was a white Ford 150. Based on almost nothing Jess could discern, the reporter said its bed had been filled with an explosive mixture of fertilizer and nitro methane using a recipe easily available on the Internet. The driver was photographed attempting to bail out of the front seat at the last minute. Maybe he’d miscalculated the instability of his two-minute fuse. When the bomb exploded prematurely, he was ripped in half; the left half of his body landed on the lawn of the Governor’s Mansion and was buried in rubble from the destroyed entrance pillars while the right half roasted in the fire.

The NBC reporter identified for viewers the owner of the truck: a father of four, name was withheld pending notification of the family.

“Why on earth would a father of four children do something like this?” Jess muttered aloud. She was startled to hear her words repeated verbatim by the young reporter, who signed off with the question, handing the story back to the anchors in the studio.

Jess approached the reporter with her hand extended, presenting a business card. He took the card, glanced down to read it, then back at Jess. He pushed the card into his shirt pocket and extended his hand. “Hayden Smith. Good to meet you. I’m a fan of your work.”

Fan or not, Jess appreciated his attempt to establish a friendly rapport. She still felt jarred by the explosion. The surreal scene before her was almost like watching a movie with uniformed personnel pouring on from an unseen troop transport.

“Thanks. Could you let me know the driver’s name?”

He glanced down at his notes. “Unconfirmed. But the truck belonged to the driver, we think. My news desk says it was a guy named Arnold Ward.”

Jess gasped involuntarily.

“You know who he was?”

“No,” she lied, thinking, Vivian will be devastated. Major details ran quickly through her mind. Arnold Ward was the father of two of Tommy Taylor’s victims. Murders three and four. The boys had been eight and ten when Taylor abducted, tortured, and killed them. He was never tried for those murders because the small-town police from Dentonville, a crossroads hamlet near Ocala where the Wards lived, had made a number of errors collecting the evidence against Taylor. The prosecutor had decided not to take the cases to trial because all of the evidence that would have convicted Taylor was excluded. A much younger Helen Sullivan had been a junior member of the prosecutor’s team then, too, Jess remembered, a connection not mentioned during their aborted interview.

Arnold Ward had made it his life’s mission to secure Tommy Taylor’s execution. Jess had met and interviewed him and his wife Vivian several times in the past four months as she worked on the Tommy Taylor story. Of course, a father of two murdered sons could be driven to a desperate act like this, aimed perhaps at David Manson and those who sought to save Taylor from his appointment with lethal injection.

But Jess had found Arnold to be a reasonable man, driven to ensure justice for his sons, but not crazy. At least, he hadn’t appeared so when she’d seen him last. But his actions here seemed those of a man driven insane by rage.

“How many people died today?” Jess asked Hayden.

“It looks like the driver, Ward if it was him, is the only fatality. They’re telling us they’ve got about ten folks injured, but no report on their condition from the hospital yet.”

“Thank god. What about David Manson?”

Hayden lowered his eyes and consulted his notes, as if he didn’t know who Manson was or why she’d bring up his name. Jess recognized the stalling tactic. She’d used it herself many times.

“He’s not on the injured list,” Hayden finally offered.

Jess took that to mean that Hayden knew where Manson was and most likely he was somewhere being interviewed right now, either by the authorities or, more likely, for a news story.

“Are you willing to give us a few moments of interview time yourself?” Hayden asked, signaling for his cameraman. “Analysis, maybe? You covered this story from the start.”

“Maybe in a couple of days, when we know a bit more about what’s going on here. None of this makes any sense to me.”

“Amen, sister,” Hayden said, dismissing his photographer with a shake of his head.

“Thanks for understanding. I’ll call you if I have a comment I can make.”

“Works for me. I’ll hold you to it.”

“Do that.” She turned to find Mike, then stepped back with one more question of her own. “How long will it take to notify the family?”

Jess wondered how the authorities would investigate the explosion. Law enforcement had already mobilized, but Jess needed to make sense of the situation for herself and Vivian Ward was the place to start.

She glanced at her watch. It was almost full dark now. If she drove like a maniac, she could make it before the time Vivian’s shift at the local diner normally began. Vivian had already suffered enough heartache in her life. Families of violent crime victims, and particularly those whose children have been murdered, often suffered serious, long-term psychological problems. The moment they first learned of the death typically became their own traumatic experience, often relived over and over.

Jess wanted to spare Vivian that extra harm if she could. She could break the news more gently than a stranger would, and while doing so maybe find out what had driven Arnold to this inexplicable madness. She and Vivian had developed a strong rapport previously. Then again, that was before her husband blew himself up.

Hayden shrugged. “Hard to say. They’ll want to be sure it was him first. Get a positive identification somehow. Maybe figure the motive? Then they’ll have to find the next of kin. Could be a few minutes to a few days, I guess. I’ve seen it go either way.”

Jess nodded. In addition, law enforcement would want to know whether Vivian was involved. And so did Jess. Plus, she had an advantage over everyone else. She knew exactly where to find Vivian Ward.

Walking in Mike’s direction, she mouthed “Let’s go,” gesturing toward the SUV she’d been driving around Florida for the past four months.

She trotted toward the vehicle and started up while Mike stashed his camera in the back seat. As soon as he’d clicked his seatbelt, she punched the gas and flipped on the radar detector, determined to shave their travel time as close as possible.

As the miles sped by and Jess’s heart rate returned to normal, a gnawing sense of regret grew inside her. On a normal night, Jess would have spent the early evening performing the tasks she’d developed to search for Peter, efforts more symbolic than practical, she knew, but designed to keep hope alive in the face of dismal statistics.

Twice a day Jess checked her tip lines and reviewed the various Internet sites that posted new information on abducted children. Once a month she followed up with the law enforcement agencies that had given up on Peter long ago. Today, Thursday, was normally the day when she called the four private investigators she’d hired in different regions of the country, but she didn’t want to do any of that in front of Mike.

These rituals, despite the lack of any real success, kept Jess sane, enabling her to believe that she was doing her best to find Peter. She never skipped “Peter time,” but tonight would have to be an exception. It couldn’t be helped, but she felt guilty anyway.

Tomorrow morning she could make up for it, complete tonight’s tasks. A few hours’ delay wouldn’t make any difference after all these years. The plan eased her anxiety for the moment.

She hummed an old show tune that reminded her most of Peter, another of the tools she used to remember, to keep Peter alive. If she had been alone in the car, she’d have talked to Peter, too.

Finally, as she sped down the road, she composed a list of questions for Vivian Ward—and prayed that she’d arrive in time.