Exposing a Killer Read online

  She shook her head, sending her ponytail swishing across her shoulders. “It’s only two blocks away. You’ll be—” She gasped.

  Headlights flared in the rearview mirror to the accompanying roar of a powerful engine. Behind them, a truck the size of a moving van barreled down the street with no indication the driver intended to brake at the stop sign or the trunk of Megan’s car.

  “Go. Go. Go,” Jack shouted.

  No need. Hands back at ten and two on the wheel, she punched the gas and squealed around the corner on two wheels, speeding toward Lincoln Avenue. Good choice. The diagonal street would get them into bright lights and more traffic. More important, they were out of the path of the careless driver.

  Except they weren’t.

  With an agility nothing that big should exhibit on narrow streets, the hauling van swung onto the side street after them. Megan swooped around another corner, the van on her bumper.

  “They’re chasing us.” Her voice was tight.

  “Take that alley,” Jack said.

  Again, unnecessary to tell her. She was already spinning into the narrow gap between a town house complex and a parking lot. The van couldn’t follow. The lane was too tight. Lights from Lincoln Avenue glowed ahead. They could get away.

  The van roared across the parking lot, smashed down a border of landscaped brush, and blocked the exit from the alley.

  Megan slammed on her brakes and sent the little car sailing in reverse, straight as an arrow, twisting the wheel to send them careening back the way they had come, then around another corner in the opposite direction.

  “Where are you going?” Jack asked.

  “You wanted an L station.”

  He did. L stations had attendants and gates. A gunman was less likely to follow them into the train station.

  Not that shootings at train stations never occurred. They simply did not occur as often as they did in the open streets.

  Once was too often for Jack.

  “But Fullerton is in the opposite direction,” Jack protested.

  “And we’ll have to cross in front of the van if we go that way.”

  A few blocks up, but with the lightness of midnight traffic, too easily tracked. Smart lady. Quick thinking.

  Fast driving. Someone had taught her defensive driving or at least speed-racing. She swooped around another corner, shot across Lincoln and cruised west. Streets flipped past with lights changing in their favor as though her car were connected to the master switch, or she was good at driving fast and praying hard.

  Or maybe not. As they approached Halsted, the nearest train station only two blocks away, the van chugged across the intersection ahead.

  She slammed on the brakes. “They guessed we’d come this way.” Megan’s exclamation held frustration for the first time that night.

  And she said we, as though she’d accepted him as a partner in danger. Far better than her thinking he was the bad guy, though she might think that if she knew how he was horning in on her investigation.

  An investigation that had gone south in a hurry.

  “Turn left and park.” Jack pointed left to a narrow side street. “We have a better chance on foot.”

  “I don’t think even Olympic runners can outsprint a bullet.” She mumbled the words but swung around the corner and pulled up to the curb in a swift, neat job of parallel parking.

  His friends who disparaged women drivers should see Megan behind the wheel.

  They piled out of the car and began to move down the sidewalk, not running yet. Running drew too much attention. If he knew her better, he would take her hand as though they were merely a couple heading home from a date. That way, maybe they could prevent their pursuers from finding them, or at least fool them into thinking they were someone else.

  “It’s too quiet,” Megan whispered.

  “The bars haven’t closed yet, and it’s too cold to hang around outside.”

  “Some of us don’t have any choice in the matter.”

  He grinned at that, but it faded fast as she dropped behind him.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer; she simply took off running, across the street and down an alley.

  Olympic running for sure.

  Jack took off after her. “Megan, don’t.”

  She tripped on a bag of trash someone hadn’t bothered to lift into the dumpster. Jack reached her and caught her hand before she hit the ground. “Why did you run?”

  “How do you know who I am?” She gripped his hand hard enough to hurt.

  “I’m working on a case connected to yours. Your name came up.”

  That was an understatement. Gary had discussed Megan more than Elizabeth Cahill. Bright and fearless. Too fearless for her own good. With Jack having been hired to investigate embezzlement, along with Megan working on Cahill’s potential fraud with workman’s comp insurance, Gary feared the case might not be as safe as Megan thought. Being the investigator he was, Gary had looked into Jack’s background and knew him qualified to keep Megan safe, if he was willing to help, by taking a look in on his subject at the same time Megan looked in on hers. Jack was willing to get a look at Cahill and provide Megan with protection in the unlikely event she needed it.

  Unlikely indeed. Jack was thanking God he was there.

  He gave her hand a gentle tug. “Let’s get out of this neighborhood. That van is only two blocks away.”

  “And you’re right here.” She poked a finger of her free hand into his chest. “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Right now—”

  Running footfalls, a pair of them, charged toward the alley. Night joggers, maybe. Doubtful. At best, men up to no good having nothing to do with Jack and Megan. Despite the quality of the neighborhood, crime had begun to spread through its streets. At worst, the shooter from earlier.

  Neither of them was inclined to wait around and find out. Still gripping Megan’s hand, Jack ran to the patio of a closed restaurant, helped Megan over the low fence, and began to weave through the tables and chairs stacked for the night.

  They leaped over the fence on the other side and returned to the street, fleeing down the middle of the asphalt for smoother passage. North Avenue glowed ahead like a beacon. They sprinted for the lights. A train rattled on the L tracks overhead. Something plucked at Jack’s coat sleeve a moment after he heard the crack that had nothing to do with the rumble of the elevated train.

  A bullet that had come as close as his coat sleeve. A bullet that had missed him by the mere fabric of his shirt. The traffic-heavy street lay a hundred feet away. It felt like a hundred miles. Megan was flagging. Her breathing rasped, and her hold of his hand was growing heavy, like he was a towing line pulling a smaller boat over the water.

  And they were being shot at again.

  “Let’s get off the street.” Jack urged her toward the sidewalk. No cars parked here, not beneath the tracks. They wouldn’t provide cover. But the darkness might.

  Megan’s hand dragged on his. She stumbled over the curb, though managing not to fall. Too far to the L despite it being only a block away.

  “I wish I could say no one...shoots...on North Avenue.” Megan’s words emerged in gasps.

  “It’s more likely they will.”

  “What?” She stopped, gripping the fencing beneath the tracks. “The noise, of course.” She released his hand. “Go on without me. I can’t run anymore.”

  “You didn’t throw me out of your car. I’m not leaving you here.”

  “But they’re gone. I can’t hear them anymore.”

  “What can you hear above the traffic?”

  She ducked her head. “Nothing.”

  “Let’s go.” Jack caught hold of her hand again, and she moved with him, walking toward the traffic roar, toward the flash of bright headlights and glowi
ng taillights. Too many cars to cross without a light. Waiting for another block and a traffic signal wasn’t safe. Waiting on a corner, they were sitting ducks. They could go the opposite way of the L station, but then what?

  “Bus.” Megan pointed down the street.

  High headlights barreled toward them. With a new surge of energy, Megan dashed across the street and began waving her arm at the vehicle. The corner wasn’t a bus stop, but maybe the driver would be kind.

  He was. With a hiss and squeal of air brakes, the bus jerked to a halt. The door opened, announcing the route number in a sonorous male voice. In a second, Megan leaped up the single step, then spun back, face stricken. “I don’t have a fare card.”

  “I do.” Jack pulled his from his pocket and ran it through twice. “Thanks, buddy,” he said to the driver.

  The man grunted and stepped on the gas. The vehicle lumbered across the intersection just as two people emerged from the darkness beneath the tracks.

  Megan grabbed Jack’s arm. “The one on the right’s a woman.”

  The man stood with his hands shielding his face. The woman spun away but not fast enough to stop Jack from seeing she looked a great deal like the subject of his embezzlement investigation, like the woman he was certain he had seen murdered not a half hour ago.

  TWO

  Her heart racing, Megan kept her gaze fixed on the bus windows as though they maintained a freeze-frame of the man hiding his face and the woman who hadn’t hidden hers fast enough—a guilty subject, obviously.

  But Megan was sure she’d witnessed Cahill’s murder. If the woman was alive and guilty, why would she shoot at them? She would want to lie low, pretend she was doing nothing wrong, not draw a ton of attention to herself.

  With a hiss and squeal of brakes, the bus paused across the street from the subway station. The door opened. An automatic announcement spoke the stop and bus number. North and Clybourn. Logic told Megan to get off and run into the underground, catch the next train to her neighborhood and the beautiful apartment she shared with one of her coworkers. She could be home in half an hour or less, make a hot cup of tea, wrap in a fleece blanket, and sit on the third-floor balcony to think about the night’s events, process them into something that made sense.

  But she should go to the police station and file a report. She couldn’t remember the exact address but knew it was close, within walking distance of a bus or maybe the next subway stop.

  She looked it up on her phone. Or she tried to. Her fingers wouldn’t hit the right keys. Somehow her legs wouldn’t settle themselves enough to hold her weight. They bobbed up and down as though performing a sitting jig, and the rest of her body trembled. She grasped a pole for support and started to rise.

  The bus door closed. The vehicle hauled into the flow of traffic, and her wobbling legs dragged at her tentative grip, so she tumbled onto the hard, plastic seat.

  “Careful.” The man who called himself Jack Luskie thrust one arm in front of her as though he feared she would slide onto the floor.

  Megan pressed herself against the seat back to avoid contact with that arm, its brawn obvious even in his hoodie sleeve. “I thought you were going to catch a train.”

  “Not with those goons only a block away.” He glanced at her from the corner of eyes as blue as Lake Michigan on a sunny day.

  Those eyes were too pretty for his rugged features. Handsome, rugged features. Tall, dark and handsome. Just what she did not want at the best of times, and especially not right now squashed next to her on the bus seat designed for adolescents at best. Certainly not for well-built grown men.

  Not that he needed to sit right next to her. The bus was empty besides them. He had a few dozen other choices he could have made. Yet he squeezed onto the seat between two support poles so she had to lean sideways if she didn’t want to bump his shoulder with every pothole the bus hopped across.

  He looked perfectly relaxed, his long legs crossed at the ankles and stretched into the aisle. Like her, he wore black jeans and black running shoes. Their similarities ended there. His hair was a rich, golden brown like caramel sauce. Thick waves of caramel sauce.

  Her stomach growled, and her face felt as red as her hair.

  “It’s been a while since supper,” she mumbled.

  “And all that adrenaline works up an appetite once it wears off.” He reached into a pocket of his sweatshirt and extracted a handful of miniature candy bars. “Not exactly nutritious, but they’re good for a quick sugar fix.”

  “Thanks.” Megan started to reach for a couple of the chocolates, then tucked her hand beneath her. “I shouldn’t.”

  “Take candy from a stranger?” He grinned.

  Her stomach felt even more hollow at the sight of curving lips and white teeth just slightly imperfect enough to make them charming and counter the long-lashed prettiness of his eyes.

  She stiffened her spine. “I don’t know who you are.”

  From his other pocket, he withdrew another business card. “You left the other one in your car.”

  This she took and examined beneath the harsh bus lights. The card was plain white card stock with simple black ink printing, the sort one prepared on a printer at home. The name Jackson S. Luskie scrolled across the top center in fourteen-point font followed by Forensic Accountant. Centered beneath were an address and two phone numbers. No logo or motto, no photo or frills. Blunt and straightforward, like the man himself.

  Hmm, this was awful quick to come to a judgment like that. And yet she was certain she was right. Somehow the knowledge comforted her, settled her into thinking clearly.

  She drew one of her own cards from her pocket and passed it to him. “Megan Margaret O’Clare.”

  “I know.”

  Comfort fled. The two business cards—his and hers—fluttered to the bus floor. “How do you know?”

  “My employer told me I might run into you.” His gaze was steady, his relaxed pose continuing.

  “Then why didn’t my employer warn me about you?” she demanded with a little too much ferocity.

  He shrugged.

  “I can handle a little case of insurance fraud.”

  “This isn’t a little case of insurance fraud, though, is it?”

  Megan clenched her fists. “It wasn’t supposed to be murder.”

  “Murder is rarely supposed to happen. But with cases of embezzlement—”

  “About which I knew nothing.”

  “—our work is confidential.”

  “And mine isn’t?” In anger, she found the steadiness to stand, all her warning sensors on high alert.

  She didn’t want to leave the relative safety of the bus, but she could take a seat in the back near the rear door as an easy escape, should that become necessary.

  The bus rocked and squealed to a halt at another stop. A crowd of young men talking loudly pushed their way onto the vehicle and charged to the rear of the bus, leaving the smell of smoke and alcohol in their wake.

  She sank onto the seat beside Jackson S. Luskie again.

  “Better the stranger you know?” he asked in an undertone.

  “Something like that.” She rubbed her arms and shuddered. “I think I liked bullets better.”

  “You wouldn’t if one hit you.” He touched his right arm.

  Megan gasped. “You were hit.”

  Being so close to him, she hadn’t noticed the tear until he pointed it out. Nor could she tell if it was bleeding through the black material.

  “You should have said something.” She lifted her hand to touch the path of the bullet, thought better of it, and tucked loose strands of hair behind her ear instead. “Is it bleeding?”

  “I don’t think it even went through my shirt.” He drew apart the ragged edges of his hoodie sleeve, and his face paled to a greenish hue beneath the glaring lights. “Or maybe I’m wrong.”r />
  “We need to get you to a hospital.” She racked her brain to think where the nearest one was. The River North neighborhood? Minutes by car, forever by public transit.

  “It’s just a scratch. Barely bleeding at all.” His grin remained in place, but his voice roughened. “I’ll find an all-night pharmacy.”

  “Where?” She didn’t know of any.

  “On my way home.” He shrugged and winced.

  Megan glanced at the card she still held. His home, if near his business, was a long way off, at the far south side of the city. They were sixteen blocks north. He was one hundred and three blocks south. A quick calculation told her he was at least fifteen miles south and probably another two miles west. And he said he didn’t have a car.

  “I don’t think you should wait that long.” Megan took a deep breath. “We have to report this to the cops before you go home.”

  “I’d rather not.” He pulled a handkerchief from his jeans pocket and pressed it inside the torn sleeve of his jacket.

  Megan fixed her gaze on it, waiting to see if he was bleeding badly enough to seep through the cloth. She would call an ambulance if it did. And then she would call the police about the shooting.

  “What upstanding citizen refuses to report a shooting to the police?” Megan asked. “Isn’t that obstruction of justice?”

  Having the bus driver and even the handful of rowdy youth in the back nearby lent her a bit of boldness.

  Jack laughed. “Who said I was an upstanding citizen?”

  “You’re a forensic accountant. That’s a sort of investigator, and everyone in our office is responsible.”

  “Yes, lily-white northsiders.” His tone held a note of bitterness. “You probably don’t even have concealed carry licenses.”

  “I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

  She did, but the feel of a gun made her queasy, and she never carried one. She had a knife and knew how to throw it with a showman’s accuracy, but not a gun. She was proficient enough to pass her PI license and work for Gary, and that was it. So far, she hadn’t needed to use any kind of force in her work. Most of the time, she sat behind a computer with online databases spread across the screens of two monitors. But this client required visual proof. Video proof. After days of checking up on the subject, Megan had discovered the time the woman emerged from her house was in the middle of the night. So she’d taken her phone and herself to the nearest vantage point and begun recording.