Deadly Playmates

By Bonnie Edwards

But the perpetrator does not know about her lack of recall. When he finds her again, he must kill her to save himself.
A young business owner stuck with a wife whose only communications are lies, finally has had enough of her fabrications. He perceives only one solution to his problem. Tec and his crew find physical evidence of both crimes buried on Mount Lemmon.
Meanwhile one of Tec’s earlier cases has come back to haunt him. Julie, the killer Tec has been trying to find over a ten-year period, has managed to escape punishment for her misdeeds until she meets the perpetrator of one of the cold cases. A chance encounter may result in a deadly dance with only one survivor.
Deadly Playmates is the fourth in the series. Deadly Payback, Deadly Pairs and Deadly Patterns are the first three books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bonnie Edwards
• Release date: Jun 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370964307

Bonnie Edwards

Bonnie Edwards has been published by Kensington Books, Harlequin Books, Carina Press, and more.  With over 40 titles to her credit, her romances have been translated into several languages. Her books are sold worldwide.  Learn about more exciting releases and get a free romance by subscribing to her newsletter, Bonnie’s Newsy Bits through her website. https://www.bonnieedwards.com/ Cheers and happy reading! Bonnie Edwards

Book preview

The Crime

A cold November night 2009

Upstairs in the eastern most corner of the spacious house, the door to Jack’s bedroom stood open. The bar in one corner of the room, almost, but not quite, balanced the canopied bed which held sway on the other side of the huge room. A mahogany dresser and matching side table were dwarfed by the bed. The room appeared arranged for comfort, but comfort was the last thing it would provide to any of its occupants tonight.

The blood had spattered everywhere. The young woman bound with a drapery cord crouched precariously on a bar stool. In front of her, Jack lay splayed out on the floor. The plan forming in the mind of the masked intruder sought out the area rug between the bed and the doors to the walk-in closet. He might use it to wrap the girl in, if he chose to take her with him. But then, she might be more trouble than she was worth.

One more time, whore, are you gonna tell me where’s the safe? Or do you want to end up lookin’ like him?

Christopher gestured to the body on the floor. Jack’s features were unrecognizable. The contours of his head were no longer round, but looked more the shape of a deflated volley ball, completely flat on one side.

The girl slouched, her head turned away from the unholy sight, tape over her mouth. Christopher grabbed her face with both of his hands and tore off the shiny silver duct tape. Taking lipstick and skin with it, he left the tape hanging from her mouth glistening with blood, now hers as well as Jack’s. The viciousness of the attack on the Hopkins’ heir had resulted in a curtain of blood from which massive drops fell, defiling every object and person in the room within an eight-foot radius of the beating.

But I don’t know, she wailed. I don’t know if he has one. I just sleep here sometimes and shower. I don’t even have full run of the house… I... don’t… know.

Then you can lie here for all I care, worthless bitch, he shouted at her. Unless I come back up and get you, and you had better hope I don’t.

Christopher bent down and refastened the piece of tape over her mouth. Untying her hands, he lifted her up and threw her face-down on Jack’s body so she would have to look at her former lover, or rather what was left of him. Jack’s body had stopped twitching. Lacey kept her eyes on Jack for just a moment, but the sight was unbearable. Closing her eyes, unwilling or unable to take in the carnage that existed around her, her addled brain let her fade away.

The intruder’s black clothing and shoes all dripped blood on the carpet not a drop of which was his. Looking at the deplorable tableau he had created, he grimaced behind his mask and carelessly discarded the long-handled hammer on top of them.

I’m gonna go find that safe, but if I don’t, I’ll be back. Maybe I will anyway. I’ll wake you up and we’ll try again. We’re gonna locate that safe and all that nice money and maybe you get to help me spend it. His threats did not frighten her; she had passed out and did not hear him speak.

Chris headed down the hall of the spacious house, down the stairs and at the bottom, immediately to his right, he found a study full of dark furniture and ceiling-high bookcases.

After first wiping his hands on his clothing, he ran them over the books looking to see if any group of volumes disguised a hidden compartment. But none of the books was hinged to any other. He found nothing suggestive of a hiding place. Walking around the room, swinging pictures away from walls, he found nothing. No wall safe. Nothing!

Locating a small closet in the corner of the room, he tried the door. Locked! Taking the letter opener from the leather-framed, bottle-green blotter on the ornate desk, he popped the door lock.

A large square of beige carpeting, cut out from the rest of the floor covering, sat loosely, even rather obviously, in the middle of the small room. Removing it, Jack found the safe. Kneeling on the floor, he tried a couple of combinations: Jack’s birthdate, Jack’s birthdate backwards and then the first three digits of Jack’s social security number. The reassuring clicks of the tumblers falling into place let him know he’d stumbled onto the combination. Pulling up the lid of the safe, built like a plug in a bottle, required the use of both hands. His efforts were well rewarded. Reaching into the hole in the floor he touched a velvet pouch and under that a stack of bills and then another. Just as he pulled all the contents out of the safe a clanging alarm pierced the tomb-like quiet of the house. Must have triggered something, damn-it-to-hell; I’d better get out of here.

Located in a development on the eastern outskirts and miles away from the edge of the city, the area had been annexed into city limits. The sizeable mansion was perched on top of a hill. He had no worry about Pima County Sheriff’s deputies showing up. It wasn’t their territory, but the Tucson cops could be here fast. Leaving the girl upstairs, he took the bundles of bills and the black velvet bag and ran to the kitchen.

Christopher fled through the kitchen door to the sound of a ringing phone. He ran toward the pasture, through the gate and further across the area where in daylight horses grazed serenely on patches of clover and other plush green grasses. A second gate, let him into the thickness of a mesquite bosque and the pathway that ran through it. Knowing his car was parked almost a mile away from the house, he ran carefully, trying to be sure not to stumble in the dark. Sirens grew louder and lights began appearing through the haze. He picked up his pace.

The darkness had begun to glow. Running away from approaching light and noise, he strained to see in the dark. Trying to make out the shape of a car parked on the narrow dirt road that ran beside the property, Chris finally glimpsed his car, sitting low on the horizon, lit only by a few stars and a crescent moon. He ran toward it.

Christopher tore off his gloves and thrust them into a deep pocket. He took the gun from his right-hand pocket, and placed it back in the glove compartment. Removing his gore soaked jacket, he gathered it up into a ball and put it into the cloth laundry bag he’d left on the backseat floor. Doing the same with the grinning clown mask he wore, he pulled the drawstring and closed the bag.

The sweat from his exertions dried slowly and left him feeling chilled. Chasing him from the area, the screaming sirens shrieked louder breaking the silence of the night. Red and blue lights pulsating in the distance drew closer. He stepped into his car. Sitting on the sheet-draped driver’s seat, and leaving his headlights off, Christopher drove silently, creeping slowly up the road toward Mount Lemmon. Getting to the top of the rise, he turned onto Catalina Highway, switched on his lights and drove up the mountain. To Summer Haven. To his rented cabin. On the top now at the turn-off, he once again dimmed his lights. Drifting down the hill toward the cabin, he killed the engine. Gliding stealthily as a panther, he turned the wheel and coasted down the slight decline onto the drive at the side of the cabin. The car came to rest at the bottom of the grade.

Once outside in the cold, Chris undressed completely. He removed his slip-on canvass shoes. Took off all his garments, even underwear and socks. He bundled his clothing in the sheet and padded bare-footed toward the cabin carrying the awkward bundle out in front of his naked body. His load, as cumbersome as a beanbag chair, threw him slightly off-balance as he staggered up the stairs. Reaching the porch, he took a few more steps, dropped the bundle and opened the unlocked door.

Entering the warm structure, he walked through the small cabin and into the bathroom which had a combination tub and shower. Making the water as hot as he could stand it, he stepped into the tub, soaped down, and, paying special attention to his hair, washed and rinsed and shampooed twice. Then he got out of the pink-tinged water, let the liquid swirl down the drain and toweled off on a large white bath sheet. After replacing the rubber stopper in the drain, he poured two bottles of bleach, one right after the other, into the tub. He left the bathroom closing the door behind him.

Wrapped in the bath sheet, he moved into the cabin’s living room. Chris added some paper, kindling, and a few very dry logs to the grate. Reaching for the box of matches, he struck one and lit the fire.

He replaced the fireplace screen and went into the bedroom, emerging moments later dressed in warm flannel pajamas and sneakers. Letting himself out of the cabin, he inhaled the pungent odor of Ponderosa pine trees, their strong perfume wiping the reek of bleach out of his nostrils.

Looking for his car in the pitch-darkness of the barely starlit sky further darkened by pine trees looming menacingly around him, he squinted and finally saw its nearly imperceptible shape. Earlier in the day he’d carefully disconnected the dome-light. Reaching the faded brown station wagon, Chris opened the door to the backseat, grabbed the cloth bag containing his jacket, the mask, and the small black jewelry sack as well as the two bundles of bills, and carried that load toward the dimly lit cabin. He entered the cabin slamming the door shut behind him.

After pouring the brightly colored contents out on the coffee table, he tossed the jewel sack into the blazing fire. Diamond rings, bracelets and earrings, a ruby necklace and an emerald pin with matching earrings, ring, and necklace sparkled in the firelight. He stopped for a moment, watching them glow, appraising their worth, not caring about the aesthetics, but only the dollars they could produce for him when he fenced them. In their settings or out… which will net me more?

He moved back toward the door and once outside, grabbed the bundled clothing from the porch, brought it into the cabin and fed it to the inferno. Christopher replaced the screen quickly as the fire roared to new heights.

Now he turned on the inside lights. He used a pair of white washcloths to wipe clean the stacks of currency and, that task completed, added the cloths to the fire.

Taking two thousand dollars, which barely reduced the size of the stack of bills, he put everything else of value into a metal box, locked it, placed the key on the coffee table, wrapped the small box in bubble wrap and, after turning off the lights to avoid being back-lit, slipped quietly out the door moving toward the back of the cabin toward the tall pine that sat like a sentinel guarding the structure from the rear.

The pine, the largest and strongest of the growth on the property, had a look of majesty. Christopher thought no one would ever dare cut it down. Earlier in the day, before he left to go pay a fateful visit to his old college roommate, frat buddy, and heir to the Hopkins fortune, he had prepared a shallow hole, only about two feet deep lying in a direct line north from the center of the bark covered trunk of the enormous tree. He had inspected the tree for rot, for disease of any kind. Searching the area of forest near the rental cabin for invasive species, like mistletoe, he found nothing to indicate that his tree was endangered in any way. He, for damn sure, wanted to be able to find the box again. At some distance from the tree he placed the metal box at the bottom of the hole, replaced the soil into the gaping darkness, gathered pine needles, and sprinkled them over the raw earth. Tamping everything down, he began to walk toward the tree.

Chris counted ten steps, toe to heel, back toward the tree. In the dark of night, he walked into a branch, accidentally scratching his forehead. He came away with a small cut that bled only a little. Stepping back, he retraced his steps to the cabin and let himself in again. This time he locked the door behind him.

Standing, he watched the flames with a degree of enjoyment usually only felt by pyromaniacs. All that potential evidence against him going up in flames gave him a moment of release from the tension of his day. Chris grinned, removed the screen, and using a poker, stirred the conflagration into a ravenous blaze. He added two more logs, fed the fire with the damp towel from his bath, replaced the screen and sat on the couch as the adrenalin slowly drained from his body.

Sitting on the table, a bottle of scotch and a tumbler awaited his moment of celebration. Chris poured a drink and then proposed a toast. One more box of riches tucked away for my old age. He drained his glass, chuckled to himself, and re-entered the bathroom where he pulled the bathtub plug and let the bleach flow down the drain. Then checking the fire one more time, he went to bed.

Forgetting about the bleeding forehead, he fell asleep. Once in the night he woke up, folded the pillow more comfortably and went back to sleep. The next morning, he thought about the girl, Lacey Darnell. She might have recognized him. He’d put the mask on before she arrived at Jack’s. Could she have recognized his voice? After Chris met the girl at the door and forced her to come up the stairs, at some point while she was sitting on the stool, Jack had used his name. In a strangled voice, as the beating continued, Jack had muttered Chris, stop! The girl had been looking away, eyes squeezed shut, trying to avoid seeing the brutal beating taking place and probably already in a state of shock. Possibly, she was unable to recognized the croak of Jack’s voice as he uttered Chris’ name and maybe even thinking he’d said Christ not Chris. And Chris knew the mask had remained in place. Still… well, nothing he could do about any of that now anyway.

Yet, he liked thinking about her. She was a piece of work. A tall thin blonde whose long legs kept drawing his eyes to the ample curves above them. If Jack had enjoyed her, he should have too… he was tired of his old frat brothers getting all the good stuff. He wanted some for himself. Well, he thought, Jack ole buddy, you won’t be getting any of anything anymore. I need to find her again, take care of her memory and have a few charming moments with her that she won’t forget.

Chris took his bag out to the car, checked the cabin one more time to be sure he hadn’t missed anything Finding a discarded t-shirt and pajama bottoms, he took them to the car. He didn’t bother to make the bed. The gun he hadn’t used was, as he’d left it, waiting in the glove box for another time. He drove slowly down the mountain and out of town.

Chapter 2

At the Scene of the crime

A rent-a-cop employed by the private security company, arrived at the front door mere minutes after Christopher had escaped from the side of the house. The house alarm registered in the office only a few miles from the scene. No one answered the company’s phone call made to seek reassurance that the alarm had been tripped accidently. Dispatching their most reliable guard, who lived only minutes away from the estate, the response time was all that their brochure had promised. Finding a door unlocked on the bottom floor of the house, the security guard climbed the stairs and found the two bloodied bodies on the floor. He frantically called for an ambulance and then the police.

The ambulance crew arrived simultaneously with a TPD cop who, on his way home from his shift, had gotten the call and moved toward the house at as close to warp speed as he could make his cruiser go. It was an amazing response and yet not nearly fast enough to find the killer at the scene.

Lieutenant ‘Tec’ Hoffman got the call to drive northeast to Speedway Boulevard which eventually ended at the foot of the Rincon Mountains. Like Rita Ranch on the far southeast side of Tucson, the area had been incorporated into the city boundaries, even though it was nearly surrounded by Pima County.

When Tec arrived, he kept the others on the scene out of the way. He made an exception for the ambulance crew who were fitting the young woman onto a gurney, strapping her down, administering fluids, doing what they could to safely remove her from the scene. In as close to a catatonic state as anyone Tec had ever seen, still she kept trying to curl into a ball. The EMTs having failed to find any actual wounds on her body assumed, and rightly so, that the blood she was covered in was not her own.

Tec sent one of his own officers with her to UMC and ordered him to secure the area in the hospital where the potential witness would be seen and aided.

By no means leave her presence unless ordered by the physicians to do so. Take up a watchful state until you can get relieved even if you end up on the other side of a door from her. Don’t let her out of your sight, or the door to the room she’s in, even if you’re locked out of it, even to go to the bathroom or make a phone call until you have another officer with you. I’ll send a man over to meet you at the trauma center at UMC. And check the credentials of anyone who goes into that room. Doctors and nurses may not like it, but do it anyway. I don’t mean to say you need to get in the way of the emergency response to her, but later, when she is in a room. That’s when I want you to take every precaution. She is our only witness and the perpetrator knows that. It’s not just on TV that killers return to get rid of the major evidence against them, a witness.

When