Chapter Twenty-Two
When Maci woke up from her nap, she wandered downstairs. Weston was sitting at the kitchen table with his computer. His face was grim. Sheila and Clinton were back. Their faces were grim too.
“Chance, Brax and Luke went to meet with LeBlanc, see if we could get details about Rich. I have law enforcement waiting to move once we do,” Weston said once he saw her.
“Okay.” She was still having a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that she’d been so close to a possible killer. How many times he’d touched her.
“Do you want something to eat, honey?” Sheila asked.
“No.” The word came out as a croak. “Chance made me a really big breakfast.”
“Did you two talk?”
Maci nodded. It had only been a few hours ago, but seemed like forever. “Yes. It was good. You were right. Chance could handle my past.”
Sheila pulled her in for a hug. “My boy can handle anything. He’s going to handle this other thing too. Just you wait.”
Maci hoped so. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. “I think I might go take a shower, then lay back down.”
The older woman smiled gently. “Absolutely. Hopefully you’ll be more hungry at dinnertime.”
Maci looked back over at Weston. “Did you find anything else?”
His face was almost haggard. “At least one more. I’m still searching.”
Five murders.
She couldn’t think about it too much right now or she was going to panic. She showered, then got back into bed, pulling the blankets up to her head, trying to shut out the world.
When she awoke the second time, things were actually worse. Her phone was buzzing with a call from her mother.
“What do you want, Evelyn?” Maci kept her voice barely above a whisper so none of the Pattersons would hear her.
“Maci, baby, I’m in trouble.”
Maci really didn’t have the time or mental energy to deal with her right now. “You’re always in trouble.”
“Baby.” Her mother’s voice was small, shaky. “I’m really sorry for how I treated you a couple days ago. That was wrong.”
Maci rolled her eyes. “You can’t blackmail me for more money. I’ve already told Chance everything.”
“It was wrong for me to say what I did. So wrong. I thought about you being pregnant, and I knew you would need your money for the baby.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“My dealer has been trying to get me to sell for him for a while, so I told him I would. That way I wouldn’t need money from you.”
“Timothy?” He was low-level and not organized. Barely more than a thug.
“Yes.”
Maci rubbed her eyes. This wasn’t what she wanted. “Mom, that’s dangerous.”
“I know. I—I...” Evelyn let out a sob. “I was robbed last night. They took all the product.”
Maci sat up straight in the bed. “Are you hurt?”
“No, but Timothy has given me twenty-four hours to come up with the money or he will hurt me. You know, he has to set an example.” She listed the amount she needed.
“Mom, I don’t have that much! Especially not since you just cleaned me out.”
“I know. I know.” Evelyn began to cry in earnest. “I don’t know what to do. And it gets worse.”
Oh, no. “What did you do?”
“Timothy was threatening to break my wrist when I told him I didn’t think I could get the money. So I mentioned where you work.” Her voice got smaller. “I think he’s planning to jump your boyfriend or his brothers to get the money if I don’t pay him back.”
Maci thought through finances. If she pooled everything from every account and maxed out the cash withdrawal on her one credit card, then she might just have enough.
At least enough to keep Timothy and his buddies from attacking the Pattersons unawares while they were in the middle of a crisis. Maci could handle this for them. They would never even need to know.
And she could admit that, even though Chance already knew about her past, she’d prefer not to dump this on him in life-size Technicolor.
“Where are you, Mom?”
Her mom spit out an address on the south side of town near the warehouse district. Not the safest place, but not where Rich Carlisle would be hanging out, so at least she didn’t have to worry about a serial killer.
Just run-of-the-mill family drug drama. No problem.
She disconnected the call and got dressed. There was no way Weston was going to let her go handle this, so she wasn’t going to tell him. He had more important things to do. So did Chance.
She left a brief note on the pillow explaining she was going to see her mother in case someone wandered up to check on her. She didn’t want them to think she’d been kidnapped.
She could hear Weston talking to his parents in the kitchen as she crept downstairs and out the back door. Luke had brought her car over a couple nights ago and left it parked on the street, so she slipped around the house and inside it.
She winced as the car started, hoping Weston wouldn’t hear. Chance would kill her if he found out what she was doing. She pulled away from the curb.
So, she’d make sure he wouldn’t find out.
“W ESTON HAS FOUND one more murder tied to this guy and is checking further into another,” Luke said as they walked back into the San Antonio Security office. “He’s shown everything to his PD contacts, so it’s more than just us looking into it now.”
“Good. We need as many eyes on this as possible.” Chance didn’t care who figured out the identity of the killer. He just wanted Maci safe. “I’m going to take Maci out of town. Get us into a safe house nobody knows about. Mom and Dad’s place is too easily connected to us.”
Weston had been providing all clear updates since they’d left, but Chance didn’t want to leave Maci there any longer than necessary.
“Agreed,” Brax said. “Maybe we can get Stella to impersonate Maci to catch this guy.”
Chance managed a grim smile at his brother’s joke.
“You decide on a place to hide out with Maci. I’m going to start looking harder at the ob-gyn angle. How did he know you guys were going there?”
Brax froze. “We were talking about it here at the office before you went.”
Luke and Chance froze too. If the killer had heard their plans, that meant he was either using a parabolic mic or had planted a bug in the office.
His brothers had realized the same thing. They all started searching for hidden recording devices in the office.
They found three.
Chance tilted his head toward the back door, and they went out into the alley so they could talk without being heard.
“Planted bugs means the person was in our office,” Chance said. “He would know about Mom and Dad’s house. I’ve got to get Maci out of there right away.”
“Okay, we’ll look into moving the office to a secondary location until we can make sure it’s clean,” Luke said.
“Good news is, this narrows down our pool of suspects quite a bit,” Brax said. “There’s only been a half a dozen of Dorian’s team members here over the past few weeks. It’s got to be one of them. I’ll call him.”
Chance was about to nod when Dorian’s parting words when they left LeBlanc’s building came back to him.
He’s messed with the mother of your unborn child.
The curse that fell from Chance’s mouth was vile. Both brothers turned to stare at him.
“Did you guys tell anybody at LeBlanc’s office that Maci is pregnant?” he asked.
“Hell no,” Luke said. “We didn’t even tell Mom and Dad.”
“It’s Dorian,” Chance whispered. “He’s the killer. He knew Maci was pregnant today when he shouldn’t have.”
All three men sprinted back inside to cut to the front door and get to their vehicles. Chance had his phone in his hand and was dialing Nicholas LeBlanc.
“Patterson,” LeBlanc answered. “Unless you have some sort of—”
“Lock down your building,” Chance cut him off. “Do it right now.”
Locking down the building would keep Dorian trapped inside.
“What? Why would—”
“Do it!” Chance yelled.
He heard LeBlanc initiate the lockdown.
“Okay, it’s done. In fifteen seconds no one will be able to get in or out.”
“It’s Dorian Cane. He’s the stalker. He’s not only a stalker, he’s a killer—that’s what we found out with the other cases.”
“That’s impossible.” LeBlanc’s tone was heavy with shock.
“I’ll prove it later. Right now, keep your office door locked until the police get there. Don’t let Dorian in there with you for any reason.” The last thing they needed was a hostage situation.
He could hear LeBlanc clicking at his keyboard. “I don’t have to worry about that. Dorian left just a couple of minutes after you did.”