Page 32 of The Creekside Murder (Pacific Northwest Forensics #1)

Finn tore down the road toward Lofall. The house sat in the forest, down a small lane that wound off the main road. There weren’t that many of those. If he started seeing signs for the base, he’d gone too far.

Unless someone had bought the property and torn down the house and rebuilt, he’d remember it. Most of the houses out this way had seen better days, but Jessica’s childhood home was the most dilapidated of the lot. He remembered a creek running behind it and a crumbling picnic table.

He cut his lights first. He couldn’t go revving up to them, showing his hand.

Also, as soon as he and Webb saw each other, the jig would be up.

Maybe Webb didn’t intend to harm Jessica.

Finn had to make sure she got out alive.

Tiffany had made that happen the first time, and he was here to finish Tiffany’s work.

He rolled past one house, a glow of lights in the windows and shadows of people in the kitchen. Jessica’s house had sat farther back from the road.

Then he saw it up ahead—Dermott Webb’s white car. He’d seen it before on campus. Dermott had been leaving one day, getting into his car, when he spotted Finn and waved him over to ask him more questions about class. Finn had been annoyed at the time, but now that moment had served its purpose.

Finn turned off his engine and let his car roll downhill for several feet on silent as he steered it off the road.

He clicked his door closed and crept toward Dermott’s car.

He’d left the driver’s-side door open. What did that mean?

Had Jessica jumped from the car, and he’d exited in a hurry to go after her?

Did Jessica even know what she was dealing with here?

She must know. She’d met Dermott in the lecture hall. She must’ve been shocked to see him and worried when she realized he’d given her a different name.

Then he remembered—she hadn’t met Dermott.

She’d been on the stage. The lights in the hall had already been dimmed.

Finn knew from experience you couldn’t really make out faces from the stage when the lights were low.

That bit of knowledge made his breath come a little easier as he veered into the woods before he got to the decrepit house.

He couldn’t go charging into the middle of their meeting.

He drew his piece from his pocket. But he could end that meeting if need be.

* * *

J ESSICA CLUTCHED HER throat as David pointed her own gun at her.

“Oh, it’s the laugh, isn’t it?” He shrugged but the gun never wavered. “You were going to find out one way or the other, weren’t you?”

She fought off the fog in her brain. She had to stay alert, look for a way out. “Is the red scarf in your backpack in the car?”

“Oh, you saw that, too?” He clicked his tongue. “Now that was a mistake, but you should’ve run then, Jessica. While you had the chance.”

“I-I wasn’t sure what it was, and then you mentioned that damned picnic table. You have no idea what you escaped, David. No idea what the rat saved you from.”

“That rat was Tiffany.” His dark eyes narrowed, and they looked nothing like Tiffany’s beautiful, soft doe eyes. “I found out a lot from my stupid adoptive mother. She told me it was the older girl who had reported Tammy to child protective services. She was the one who wanted me gone.”

Jessica swallowed. How could he get it all wrong? “If Tiffany reported our living conditions, she was trying to save you, just like she saved me. Tiffany loved you. She tried to find you.”

“She found me.” His flat, cold voice chilled her to the bone.

“You met Tiffany?”

“Of course I met Tiffany. I killed Tiffany. She’d turned out just like Tammy. Sex worker.” He spit into the dirt. “She was a whore, just like dear old mommy dearest.”

Jessica had known the truth even before he told her, but hearing the words made her double over and sob into her hands. Lifting her head, she wiped her eyes. “I hate you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you do. You disappointed me, Jessica. You turned out normal. I was trying to get you brownie points at work, and then you betrayed me at the Gabby murder. You called the cops on me.”

She dashed the tears from her cheeks. “Why here? Why now? Why those young women? Why did you pick them?”

“That’s easy. My first kill was here. Tiffany was my first…

and Morgan was not my second. Why those girls?

Because I knew all of them from my work in the accounting office.

They worked on campus. Every one of them had brought the cash bags down to the accounting office at some point.

They knew me. They didn’t fear me. Would you fear a guy named Dermott? ”

“How did you get away with the other murders between Tiffany and Morgan? Unless—you didn’t commit them in the Pacific Northwest?”

“Europe and Asia. I was stationed at various bases over the years in the army. I’m an accountant. I’m meticulous. Never got caught. Nobody ever suspected.”

Jessica pressed her hands to her stomach, her gaze flickering over David’s shoulder.

She caught her breath when she saw a light in the woods that bordered the creek.

She looked away quickly, not wanting David to notice her attention.

Was someone out there? Was some stranger listening to this madman, ready to jump in and help her?

“ You didn’t suspect me. All the time wondering who killed Tiffany while seeking that killer, inviting him into your life.” His grip on the gun had grown slack as he recounted his feats, but now he held it more firmly and trained it on her once again.

She wanted to give him the opportunity to brag—prolonging her life. “What about Ashley? Why did you kill her?”

He sighed, as if Ashley’s murder was a huge inconvenience.

“She recognized me from before. Of course, I always knew I was taking that chance by returning to the scene of my first kill, but nobody had met me here. She saw me and Tiffany together once or twice, peeked out the window when I came to get Tiffany. Nosy cow. Then we locked eyes in a coffee house yesterday, and I knew. She knew, too.”

Kicking at the rotting wood on the picnic table, he said, “She ruined my aesthetic. I didn’t want to kill her as the Kitsap Killer, so I beat her with the butt of your gun. Kind of poetic, don’t you think?”

“Kind of sick,” Jessica growled, more angry than sad now. “Why did you start? Why did you kill our sister? She would’ve done anything for you.”

“I told you that already.” He rolled his eyes, clearly tired of explaining himself. “She’s the one who ripped me away from my mother.”

“You said it yourself. Tammy was no mother of the year.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he shouted. “You and Tiffany had a family. I had adoptive strangers who never treated me like they treated their own.”

A branch at the edge of the clearing shook, and Jessica marshaled all her strength not to react when she saw Finn in the bushes, his finger to his lips. How had he known she was here? In danger?

“What now, Wavy Davy?”

David’s mouth dropped open, and the whites of his eyes gleamed in the dark. “What is that? Why’d you call me that?”

She spread her hands in front of her. “It’s what I used to call you when you were a baby, both Tiffany and I, but I think I came up with it. I called you Davy, and when you learned how to wave, I called you Wavy Davy. You loved it. It sent you into a fit of giggles.”

He choked. “You’re lying.”

“You know I’m not, Davy.” She took a step forward, holding out her hand.

“We loved you, Tiffany and I. She was the best big sister anyone could wish for. She protected me by taking on the abuse herself, and she protected you by sending you away. Mom couldn’t care for a toddler.

You’d barely survived your infancy and only because of Tiffany. ”

“She was bad. She turned out bad.” The gun wavered in his hand.

“You met her. She wasn’t bad. She made bad choices, but she’d changed. She loved you, and she loved me. She would’ve done anything to help you…and so will I. I’ll do what I can to help you, Davy. Drop that gun. We can walk away from this together.”

His head sank and a sob escaped his lips. That’s when Finn made a move, waving his arm over his head. She didn’t need him to spell it out for her.

As Finn shouted Dermott’s name, Jessica lunged behind the picnic table, rolling beneath it, just as she used to do when she was a child.

A shot rang out, and her nostrils twitched at the smell of gunpowder. On her knees beneath the table, she peered through the legs. Both men were grappling on the ground, so she scrambled from her hiding place. She didn’t want anyone to die.

By the time she was on her feet, Finn had taken her weapon from David and tossed it toward the water’s edge. He had one knee on David’s chest and the other on his wrist.

“Grab my phone from my pocket, Jessica, and call 911. I alerted the sheriff’s department on my way out here, so someone should be close.”

She leaned over the bodies and slipped Finn’s phone from his pocket, meeting David’s red-rimmed eyes.

As she called in the emergency, Finn leveled his gun at David’s head. “Stay on the ground where you are. It’s over, Dermott.”

“It was over a long time ago, Professor Karlsson. It was over the day my mother gave me away.”