is a good thing to have,” he replied.
They finished their meals and he pushed his empty plate aside. “How about some dessert with coffee? I never miss a chance to have something sweet to finish off a meal.”
She flashed him a cheeky grin. “Nothing I like better than chocolate and murder. Let’s get to it then.”
* * *
HE HAD TAKEN the last twenty-four hours to think about what he was going to tell Monica. Could he trust her? Even though he had absolutely no reason to, his gut instinct was that he could. After all, they both wanted the same thing.
Or maybe it was because he desperately wanted to trust her. He needed somebody like her to know what had taken place in the woods that night...in case something happened to him. If she ran directly to the cops with what he told her and he was arrested, well, maybe that was okay as well. Maybe it was exactly what he deserved.
He ordered tiramisu and she opted for chocolate lava cake. They both ordered coffee, and once they’d been served and were alone again, he studied her closely.
Was he deciding to trust her because she looked amazing in the sexy blue blouse that bared her slender shoulders and matched her eyes? Was he weakened by the fact that when she smiled at him a crazy warmth filled him? No, he wasn’t that stupid. This was far too important to make that kind of a mistake.
It was the directness of her gaze and the honesty, and yes, integrity he sensed in her that finally made up his mind to confide what he could to her. Besides, he needed an insurance policy so that if something did happen to him she could take the information he gave her to the police and hopefully get the killer behind bars.
“Let’s just assume there were six angry men,” he began. “They had all suffered the loss of a loved one by bad men. Not only that, but due to jury nullification and technical glitches and other problems in the judicial system, those bad men all got away with their crimes.”
He stared down into his coffee as he remembered the killing rage and grief that had made him half-crazed after Suzanna’s murder. His rage had been further fired by the fact that Max Clinton walked away a free man.
He gazed back at her. “Anyway, these six men all found themselves at the Northland Survivor Group. They were all looking for ways to deal with their emotions. They were hoping to learn some new coping skills or something to help them with their overwhelming pain.”
“And did they find what they needed?” she asked softly.
“No, they didn’t. They met several times for drinks after the meetings, talking about their grief and their rage at the system, but they found no relief until they decided to hatch a plan.”
Once again he paused, this time to take a drink of his coffee and eat a bite of his dessert. It was tasteless and he knew it was because his mouth was filled with the taste of grief and shame and the enormous bitterness of deep guilt.
He still couldn’t believe he’d actually been a part of the plot they had all come up with on that crazy night. It had definitely been a moment of temporary insanity.
“Anyway,” he continued, “the more these men all got together, the greater their anger grew.” A knot expanded and twisted tight in his chest. “And then one night they all met in the woods next to an old abandoned baseball field. It was on that night they came up with a stupid plan.”
This was the part where he had to get a little inventive in order to protect not only himself but the other men who had come up with what now was a horrendous plot. He definitely believed that one of them was the killer, but that meant he and four others were innocent.
“A stupid plan?” She put her fork down and stared at him intently.
He was afraid to tell, but there was also a part of him that wanted to spill his guts to her about everything...a part of him that needed to get this burden off his chest.
“You have to remember that we were all crazy with grief,” he said, as if that somehow mitigated what they’d planned to get the justice they all wanted.
“This is a judgement-free zone,” she replied.
He released a deep sigh. “To be honest, I don’t know for sure who came up with the idea, but it was planned that we would each kill another man’s killer. For instance, I’d kill the man who murdered Nick Simon’s wife. Nick would kill the man who beat Matt Harrison’s mother to death, and so on.”
He paused and watched her features carefully, seeking a sign of shock and revulsion. But none was there. All he saw was open curiosity.
“Looking back at that meeting in the woods, it seems like a bad dream, not something that really happened. But it did.” He paused and drew a deep breath. “And we all walked away from that meeting thinking we were going to act on that plan. But when it came right down to it, I would have never been able to kill a man, no matter what heinous crimes he’d committed, and I believe the others were just like me. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of the murder pact was appealing, but I didn’t believe any of it would really happen.”
The waitress’s entering the room with a coffeepot interrupted the conversation. She topped off their coffee, and he handed her his charge card and then once again she left the room.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I didn’t believe any of it was really going to happen until the first man was killed.” His chest tightened with tension as he remembered reading about the murder in the paper.
“Brian McDowell,” she said. “He’s the man who beat Matt Harrison’s mother to death.”
“Right. Nick Simon was supposed to kill him, but Nick didn’t kill him, and that’s when I believe the Vigilante Killer was born.”
“So, you believe the Vigilante Killer is one of four men?”
“I don’t believe that any of the men who got their so-called justice through the Vigilante Killer is guilty. I think the killer is one of the last two men. He’s either Clay Rogers or Adam Kincaid.”
“What are you going to do about it?” Her eyes were lit with an eagerness that made him second-guess his crazy decision to trust her.
Still, he figured in for a penny, in for a pound. “I’ve been thinking about it since Max Clinton was murdered.” An idea had been whirling around in his head since the morning he’d read about Max’s death in the paper. “I know all the murders have happened between midnight and two in the morning, so I figure the only way to identify the killer is to watch these two men during those hours until one of them makes a move.”
“And then what?”
“Once I know for sure who the killer is, then I’ll take him down. Hopefully I can subdue him and then contact the police. I need to get him behind bars.” He frowned. “I think this person likes to kill, Monica. And the carving in the foreheads of his victims speaks of a bloodlust that is absolutely disgusting.”
“I completely agree. There’s only one thing I ask. Once we identify the killer, I want time to break the story before anyone else gets it,” she replied. Her eyes gleamed brightly.
He didn’t miss her use of “we” in her sentence. “I can give you that,” he replied. “But this is something
