14 - J. T. Ellison [90]
Price had turned and was guiding Baldwin back toward his vehicle. “Listen, let’s get back to headquarters. There’s nothing we can do here now. If she went in last night, Baldwin, chances are she’s gone. Let’s go see if we can confirm that she went in at all. Okay?”
Baldwin looked over his shoulder, stared out over the murky water. Price was right.
They buckled in for the short drive back to the CJC. It was time to start fresh.
Twenty-Nine
Nashville, Tennessee
Sunday, December 21
11:00 a.m.
This was turning into a very good day.
Charlotte had rejoiced last night, privately. Word spread like wildfire through the subterranean rooms that housed the Behavioral Science Unit, and her friends had seen fit to call and include her in the news. John Baldwin’s wedding had not taken place. His bride stood him up at the altar. To celebrate, Charlotte had opened a bottle of Piper Heidsieck, drawn a bath and masturbated furiously in the warm water.
It wasn’t that she wished him ill. Well, maybe she did. Maybe she was just so damn happy that he was still a free man that she’d drop by his place, console him properly.
The whisper campaign had started instantaneously. Taylor Jackson had quite literally disappeared. The limousine she’d been riding in was found in the parking lot of the driving service, right where it should be. The driver was nowhere to be found. There was a vague report about a search at the airport. Later, after sundown, a shoe had been found on the bank of the Cumberland River, one that matched the description of the shoes Jackson had been wearing. Divers were in the river until well after midnight. She had not heard the results when she decided to call it a night.
As Charlotte had drifted off to sleep, she had a deep, satisfying knowledge that she was wanted. They needed her, her men. Both of them. All of them. Call it instinct, premonition, whatever. Maybe she would be able to save them.
Now was the time. She left the hotel room with a bounce in her step, understanding innately that the old man and the young one, would need her more now than ever.
Thirty
Snow White was in the midst of a coughing fit when he saw the news on the television. The Jackson bitch was missing. He caught his breath, watched the story unfold. Rubbed his hands together painfully, massaging and massaging and massaging.
He knew what had happened, of course. He couldn’t blame the boy. Jackson needed to be silenced. Things were going to come to a head now. It was just a matter of time before his apprentice’s impudence and recklessness flashed back on them all. A systemic cleansing was the only way to assure their safety.
Damn that Charlotte. It was all her fault. If she hadn’t brought the young pup, hadn’t dangled the glory of his past in front of him. She was brilliant, he gave her that. And sentimental. Finagling his ring out of police evidence and back to its rightful place on his right hand was the single nicest thing she’d ever done for him.
His crooked finger traced the outline of the magnificent ring, the crest, the ornate, raised F. It used to mean something. It was a badge of honor, of courage. It was his legacy. It gave him immutable strength, an insatiable desire to feel the life bleed from a body. He wondered about his predecessors, whether when they placed the ring upon their hand, they felt the lifeblood flowing from the metal, felt the nubile bodies calling for release.
All he knew was that when the ring was lost, so went his desire for blood. Of course, the ring was lost because he’d begun losing weight, losing strength.