he’d attempted to sell her highly recognizable vintage Mercedes convertible to the mother of one of Alice’s former students.
Out on bail, he’d first tried to charm his bride into refusing to testify. When that hadn’t worked, he’d threatened to kill her. Something in his eyes had made her believe him. Rafe had been the one to calm her fears. Now brave, heartbroken Alice MacGregor was downstairs on a slab in the hospital morgue, and the man who had tried to protect her was fighting for his life a few doors away in the OR.
“I don’t get it, sir,” Gresham said in a low, frustrated tone. “Ms. MacGregor was too trusting, yeah, but she wasn’t a stupid woman. Just the opposite, in fact.” He took a fast breath, his expression earnest. “In fact, none of the victims seem like the type to be conned. Near as we’ve been able to piece together, almost all are college graduates with responsible jobs. The one in Miami was a neurosurgeon and the one before Alice is an associate dean of women at San Diego State. As far as I can see, there’s not a bimbo or airhead in the bunch.”
Slocum was astounded by the man’s naiveté. “Bimbos and airheads don’t usually have fat bank accounts and platinum charge cards,” he said tightly.
“He targets professionals in their thirties or forties because most of them have been too busy getting to the top to have time for romance,” Stan amplified when Gresham’s face reddened. “Most have biological clocks that are clicking down, which makes them especially susceptible to a man who professes to want children very badly.”
Slocum felt a certain sympathy for the rookie, who still expected evil to make sense. “Folsom’s smart and he’s charming. He knows exactly what a woman wants—and he gives it to her.” His jaw hardened. “If she’s lucky, he’ll only destroy her life before he walks away.”
There was no need to say more. Every man and woman there knew that unless Folsom was stopped, there was every possibility that Alice MacGregor would not be the last woman to end up dead, simply because she fell in love with a monster.
Chapter 1
Portland, Oregon—Six months later.
As soon as Dr. Daniela Fabrizio picked up her office phone and heard the tobacco-ruined voice of the repair shop mechanic on the other end, she’d expected bad news. In fact, it was worse than bad.
“Did you say eleven hundred dollars?” she forced out when breath returned to her body. “To fix that…that lemon?”
On the other end of the line Bruno of Bruno’s Economy Automotive Repairs cleared his throat. “Uh, yes, ma’am. ’Leven hunnert it is. ’Course that could be a mite high on account of we might be able to get some of the parts used. I got my parts girl callin’ around, but it bein’ the start of the holiday weekend and all, it’ll prob’ly be Tuesday or Wednesday before I know for sure.”
“But you said it was just the transmission.”
“Lady, there ain’t no just to it when it comes to them foreign jobs. This here model of your’n is especially wonky.”
“Wonky. I…see.” Danni squeezed her eyes shut and tried to find that safe place in her mind. Unfortunately, it seemed to have disappeared, along with darn near everything else she and her late husband Mark had accumulated during twelve years of marriage. Like the silver Lexus Mark had given her four years ago on their tenth anniversary and the healthy nest egg from his insurance settlement that she’d put aside for Lyssa’s college education.
This morning on the way to the restored Victorian white elephant on the edge of Portland’s historic district that she shared with two other psychotherapists, the nine-year-old hatchback that was now her only mode of transportation had started bucking like a deranged bronc.
By the time she’d made it to the nearest off-ramp, narrowly averting death by collision several times, her entire thirty-six years on earth had passed before her eyes. She’d barely made it to the ramp’s shoulder when smoke had started pouring out from under the hood. The driver of the tow truck she’d called on her cell phone had recommended Bruno’s.
“Couldn’t you just fix some of the gears? I mean, I only need Drive and Reverse and Park. The others are just superfluous.”
This time Bruno snorted something approximating a belly laugh. “That’s a good one, Miz Fabrizio. Yes, ma’am, it surely is. But no can do.”
“In other words, it’s all or…nothing. Transmission-wise.”
“That’s about the size of it, yep.”
She drew in a lungful of air. The pink hybrid tea roses she’d brought from home yesterday morning gave off a cloyingly sweet smell, and her stomach did a slow, clammy roll. The Cajun chicken salad she’d forced down at her desk five hours earlier had clearly been a mistake.
“So worst-case scenario, if I want it fixed, I have to come up with eleven hunnert—hundred dollars?”
“Yep. Like the man says, cash on the barrelhead.”
No one said that these days. No one had said that for a hundred years at least. Nevertheless, the meaning was all too clear. No money, no car.
Like it or not, Lyssa would have to transfer to a middle school closer to the house they were currently renting on Mill Works Ridge. It would break her daughter’s heart to leave her friends in Lake Oswego, but even with a student pass, the bus fare was more than their already whisper-thin budget could handle.
She took another breath, fighting a sick feeling of helplessness. The phone rang twice in Paul Baxter’s office next door before the service picked up. Outside, a MAX train swooshed past. A horn tooted cheerfully. It was the start of Memorial Day weekend, and downtown was emptying fast. Happy people rushing out to have fun despite the gray skies and icy wind.
The weather was due to break late tomorrow night, however, with the promise of sunshine for the rest of the long weekend. As a special surprise, she’d planned to take Lyssa down to the family vineyard near Ashland on Sunday. Fortunately Danni hadn’t told her yet. Her little girl had already had too many broken promises in her twelve short years.
“Okay, say you can get those used parts,” she said with determined cheerfulness. “What’s the best I can hope for, cost-wise?”
“Hmm. Let me do some calculatin’ here.”
“With a sharp pencil, okay?”
“Ain’t no need for a pencil. I got me a knack for figures, do it all in my head.”
Which, as she recalled, was shaped exactly like a bullet. With a greasy “gimme” cap on top.
Torn between laughing hysterically or pleading piteously, Danni clamped her mouth shut and leaned back against the high back of her cushy executive chair. One by one she toed off her low-heeled pumps, then closed her eyes.
She’d been up since six, with scarcely a moment to herself since she’d dropped Lyssa off at school. Her calendar had been packed, with only a hurried twenty minutes for lunch. Her last session had been highly emotional, and she’d been drained by the time Cindy Habiz had left, calmer, finally, but still dangerously volatile.
Now it was nearly 5:00 p.m. and she still had patient notes to dictate so that their part-time medical assistant Ruthie could transcribe
