Page 23 of Scorched (Killer #2)
Alex dumped his backpack on the floor beside the roller cart with the television on it. “Ms. Johnson, where’s the DVD you wanted to play for the class?”
“I left it in the machine yesterday afternoon. I couldn’t figure out how to make the video display on the screen. Think you can work some magic on it?”
Elise had arrived on time, but everything conspired against her getting the audio-visual equipment going for her first class. Thank goodness her first class was actually the second hour of the day and not the first. Alex and Kendall served as her assistants during their study hall.
Elise knew teachers weren’t supposed to show favoritism to students, however, Alex and Kendall were always willing to help and loved learning.
How could she not favor them? And they helped keep her mind off the writing on her wall and what she’d done with Paul on the floor of her living room last night.
Her cheeks burned as her mind conjured the image of Paul lying beside her, naked and beautiful in all his macho maleness. What kind of thoughts were those to have at school?
“These cables are backward. The input is in the output slot.” Alex switched the cables and turned on the television.
Black and white static filled the screen and speaker.
Kendall busied herself, erasing the previous day’s assignment from the big white dry-erase board. “Alex, you’re such an audio-visual geek. I’m going to have to work on you to make you date-worthy.”
“Girls.” Alex snorted. “Who needs ’em?”
“Hey!” Kendall planted her fists on her narrow hips. “I resent that.”
“You know. You’re not like a girl.” Alex turned away, a smirk twisting his lips.
“It’s worse than I thought.” Kendall shook her head at Elise. “He doesn’t even know what a girl is.”
Elise smiled for what felt like the first time in a long time.
“What did the police have to say about the note on your wall, Ms. Johnson?” Kendall asked, her voice stiff and unnaturally cheerful as if she was trying too hard to make the question more casual than it was.
“Kendall.” Alex shot a warning glance at the girl. “You promised you wouldn’t be nosy. ”
“I can’t help asking questions. It’s my nature.” She smiled at Elise. “After all, someday I want to work for the FBI like Agent Fletcher.”
Elise cast a glance at the door. It was closed and hopefully, no one out in the hallway could hear what was being said. “The sheriff and the FBI took pictures and dusted for fingerprints. I guess it’s up to them to figure out who did it.”
Kendall heaved a sigh. “Wish I could have been there when they collected the evidence.”
“What, so you could ask dumb questions? Just kick her out when she gets to botherin’ you too much, Ms. Johnson.” Alex plugged a cable into the back of the television and the power cord into the wall. “That ought to do it.”
“I’ve been thinking, Ms. Johnson,” Kendall tipped her head to the side, a frown pressing her blond brows closer together. “Do you think the killer will come after you next? My mom won’t even let me ride my bicycle down the street right now.”
Elise squeezed her eyes shut to keep the ready tears from spilling. Was she doing the right thing by staying in Breuer? Was her very presence there placing all the other blond women in danger? “I don’t know, Kendall.”
“Why would he write that note on your wall?” the blond teen persisted.
“Kendall, shut up.” Alex straightened from the back of the television and glared at his friend .
Kendall held her hands up in surrender. “What? I’m just asking.”
“Maybe Ms. Johnson doesn’t want to answer all your crazy questions.”
“But I could be at risk, too, for all we know.” She lifted the end of her blond ponytail, her brows raised.
“Yeah, and your name isn’t Alice.”
“Neither is Ms. Johnson’s.” Kendall turned her gaze back to Elise. “Your first name is Elise, isn’t it? Why did the note call you Alice? I mean it sounds kinda like Alice but it’s different.”
“Enough, Kendall!” Alex stalked toward her.
Kendall ducked behind Elise’s desk. “Leave me alone, you geek. I mean it. One step closer and I’ll let you have it.”
Alex took that one step and a couple more.
“You’re impossible.” Kendall tossed the eraser at Alex’s head and missed. The eraser bounced off the front of the video player, triggering the unit to switch on.
Instead of the documentary on ancient Egypt and the pyramids, a news clip came on.
Kendall’s attention shifted to the television screen. “Is that the local news channel?”
Alex returned to the set and fiddled with the buttons, changing the channels. On any other channel, he either got a blue screen or static. He hit the eject button and reloaded the disc.
Once again the screen filled with a news clip. People were standing out in the rain, wearing heavy coats and the news reporter held a microphone up to a woman clutching the hands of two small boys.
Elise’s heart stumbled in her chest, her vision going blurry around the edges. She knew that woman. Knew those boys.
“Turn it off,” she said, barely able to force air past her vocal cords.
Alex and Kendall moved closer to the television.
Kendall pointed at the oldest boy. “Hey, isn’t that Brandon?” When she turned back to Elise, her face blanched. “Ms. Johnson, are you okay?”
Alex turned the sound up on the television, oblivious to Kendall and Elise.
“Mrs. Klaus, did you know your husband was a serial killer?”
“No.” Elise’s lips formed the words the woman on the screen said, the sound from the television echoing in her head as though it came from a cave.
Another reporter shoved a microphone in her face and demanded, “How could you live in the same house with a killer and not know it?”
“Please, leave us alone. I didn’t have anything to do with it. I knew nothing.”
The segment cut to a well-coiffed reporter.
“Here in Riverton, North Dakota, with the banks of the Red River overflowing in what’s been the worst flooding since 1997, authorities are searching for the body of the Dakota Strangler, thought to have perished in a farmhouse fire.
In the background, the FBI and state police are transporting the killer’s wife to the police station for questioning.
She claims to know nothing of her husband’s connection to the deaths of five Riverton women. ”
The video cut to another reporter outside a school gymnasium, rain dripping off the edges of his black umbrella.
“It’s rumored that the Dakota Strangler’s wife, Alice Klaus and her two sons are taking refuge in this evacuation shelter.
Meanwhile, the body of the Dakota Strangler has yet to be recovered.
“Experts say he may never be found, his body may even be carried as far as Hudson Bay. Remnants of the house in which he’d last been seen have been found rammed against a railroad bridge crossing the Red River.
No signs of the strangler himself. Authorities say the debris is too unstable to pick through at this time.
With the snow melting and the continued rain, the river isn’t expected to crest for another twenty-four hours. ”
Elise collapsed in the chair behind her desk and laid her face on the cool wooden surface. “Please, turn it off. Please.” Tears spilled out of the corners of her eyes, dripping onto the calendar desk pad, smearing the ink of a note she’d jotted in a hurry.
Kendall ran for the television and hit the power button.
“Ms. Johnson.” Her hand touched Elise’s shoulder, but Elise could barely feel it.
Her entire body had gone numb. Nightmares of reporters hounding her and the boys, the terror of outrunning the flooding in the streets, losing everything in her home and life, the accusations by the police and the press all jumbled in her mind.
“Ms. Johnson?” Alex called to her.
Elise couldn’t lift her head. She moved her lips but couldn’t force words to come out. I’m all right, she wanted to say but couldn’t.
She wasn’t all right. Nothing was all right. Her secret was out and soon all of Breuer would blame her for the deaths of women she didn’t even know. Wasn’t she to blame? She’d come to this town hoping to escape the death that found its way here.
“Alex, go get the principal,” Kendall ordered somewhere on the other side of the haze that crowded her.
No. Elise cried out, but no sound came out. She couldn’t tell the principal. With parents like Gerri Finch ready to file lawsuits, she wouldn’t want that kind of scandal at her school.
“It’s okay, Ms. Johnson,” Kendall’s voice came as if from a long way off, though she stood beside Elise. “I have the disc in my pocket. Alex and I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want us to.”
Tainted relief flooded in on a wave of blackness and the world went dark.
Paul strode into the office by eight-thirty that morning. That’s where Mel cornered him .
“Tell me you have something,” Paul said without the usual greeting.
“Wish I could. All I know is this guy has to be a copycat. From what we knew about Stan Klaus, he killed women who were smart because he didn’t want his wife, our Elise, to get ideas about going back to school or getting smarter than him.”
“We still can’t rule him out.” Paul pushed his hand through his hair and paced the room. “I don’t like being away from her any more than we have to. My gut tells me that he’ll eventually make a grab for her.”
Melissa crossed her arms over her chest. “Then why are you here?”
“I have a job to do. I can’t run a department from Breuer.”
“Don’t worry about the department right now. These guys have assignments. They’re big agents who can operate independently. You said so yourself.”
Paul snorted. “Everyone except maybe Agent Cain.”
Mel nodded. “True. By the way, what’s up with him?”
“He’s been playing a disappearing act with Alvarez. I plan to get to the bottom of it tomorrow morning first thing.”
“Just what you need when you have so much more on your mind.” Melissa’s brows rose. “Want me to check it out?”
Paul nodded. “If I’m not in first thing in the morning, tail him. See what he’s up to.”