Killing Spree Read Online Free PDF Page A

brief article—dated three days ago—mentioning Jennifer Gilderhoff was still comatose in Roosevelt Hospital in New York. The man who had stabbed her was still at large.
    Getting up from her chair, Gillian moved into the living room and started pacing. If her agent hadn’t sent her the news clipping, she might never have known about this. But now Gillian felt involved, maybe even responsible in some way for what had happened. She knew the victim. She’d invented the killer, and drawn the blueprint for the murder.
    If she called the police in New York, would they think she was crazy? She couldn’t offer them much—except that she knew Jennifer, and there was a possibility that “Zorro” might have read one of her books. Did she know “Zorro” too?
    This was one of those times when she really missed her husband. If Barry were here, she could talk with him and figure out what to do.
    Her fictional heroine, Detective Maggie Dare, would know the best course of action. Fortunately, Maggie hadn’t sprouted solely from Gillian’s imagination. The tough old broad sleuth had been patterned after her friend, Ruth Langford, a sixty-eight-year-old widow and retired detective. Gillian used Ruth as a technical consultant on all her thrillers. Ruth was also one of her writing students, and she’d been in that same class with Jennifer Gilderhoff.
    Ruth, no doubt, was asleep right now. Gillian returned to her desk and fired off an e-mail to her. She sent an attachment of the Daily News article. “This is the same Jennifer Gilderhoff from our night class two years ago,” she wrote to her friend. “Do you have any contacts with the NYPD? I want to know more about this case.”
    Gillian clicked on the Send icon, and she suddenly felt better. She’d discuss the case with Ruth in the morning. She wasn’t so alone in this.
    Getting to her feet, she crept toward the back hallway and checked Ethan’s bedroom door. The slice of light at his threshold had gone out. He was sleeping.
    It still smelled a bit like smoke in the apartment. “Phew,” Gillian muttered, waving a hand in front of her face as she wandered back toward the living room. Small wonder the smoke detector hadn’t gone off. But she couldn’t be mad at Ethan for his attempt at building a fire in the hearth. He was probably just trying to make the half-of-a-duplex—minus a father, mother, and home cooking—seem more like a home.
    Gillian glanced at the fireplace to see the mess he’d made.
    It was clean—with two fresh, pristine logs supported by the andirons, not a trace of soot or smoke beneath the mantel. “I tried to start a fire in the fireplace,” he’d told her. “But I screwed it up.” Gillian frowned. It didn’t make sense.
    She heard a tonal ping from her computer: an e-mail coming in. She thought perhaps it was Ruth getting back to her already. Maybe her friend wasn’t sleeping right now after all.
    Gillian sat down at the desk again and retrieved the e-mail. It wasn’t from Ruth. She didn’t recognize the sender’s address. And there was no subject. Gillian opened the e-mail.
    “Oh, my God,” she whispered, staring at the unsigned message:
    Gillian, I found your husband.
     
    He thought Gillian McBride looked cute in her sweatshirt and flannel pajama bottoms, her red hair haphazardly clipped back with a barrette. She could have passed for a teenager, and he liked teenage girls—very much, maybe too much.
    From the edge of the ravine, he watched her most of the night, pacing around the kitchen and living room. The garbage cans were just outside the kitchen window, so he still hadn’t gotten a chance to hunt for whatever the kid had thrown away earlier.
    He took a break, and drove to a late-night Taco Bell on Broadway. He bought two burritos to go. He didn’t dawdle. Last night, he’d seen her peel down to her black panties and a tank top before slipping into bed. He didn’t want to miss the show tonight.
    He returned to his same spot,