Page 76 of Ace of Spades
Janie gave him a folder to put the sketches in, and after thanking her, Nate walked alongside Taylor as they headed for his car.
“I just can’t comprehend that he’s been under my nose all this time. I feel like he’s taunting me. What the hell is his game?”
Nate gave in to temptation and put his hand on her back. “I have a theory about that, but let’s hold off on speculating until Alex and Josh get back from their interview. After we hear what they learned, we’ll be able to get a better handle on this guy. In the meantime, let’s go to the gym and get an address for him.”
There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Wayne Tompkins, a.k.a. Wade Tillman, had fixated on Taylor. The question was, did he see her as a substitute for her mother, a woman he’d fallen in love with andwanted to marry? Did he want Taylor for himself, or was he planning on killing her, too? The thought of the man being anywhere near her made him crazy. If he’d known this morning that Wade Tillman was their unsub, the bastard would be dead right now for no other reason than he’d dared to talk to her.
“The address the gym had on file for him was an empty lot,” Nate said. “Can’t say I’m surprised.” They were in the field office’s conference room—him, Taylor, Rothmire, Court, Alex, and Josh. He glanced at Taylor, sitting in the chair next to him. She was too quiet, had gone into silent mode ever since they’d pulled up to the lot overgrown with weeds.
He’d tried to talk to her after leaving the police station, but she’d ignored him. He had wanted to comfort her, and it was killing him that she wouldn’t let him. Wasn’t that for the best, though? They’d tried friends with benefits—he hated those words—but that hadn’t gone so well. He accepted the blame for that, since he apparently sucked at saying the right words that pleased a woman. But for her, he would have tried harder. That right there was a mind fuck. He’d never wanted totrybefore Taylor.
“Is Tillman at the gym every day?” Rothmire asked.
Taylor shook her head. “I’ve only seen him there a few times. The manager said he joined four weeks ago, around when the first victim was found.”
At least she was finally talking. He knew she blamed herself for not recognizing a killer, or at least sensing something was off about the man when he was right in front of her, but why should she have?
“What about the flowers he sent Taylor?” Rothmire asked.
“Dead end,” Nate said. “Paid in cash by a kid.” Unfortunately, Tillman was smart enough to pay a teenage boy they’d never find togo into the florist shop. He glanced to his left where Alex and Josh sat. “You talked to the retired cop, Archer something?”
“Bert Archer.” Alex leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. “He retired five years ago. Said his last act before leaving the job was to enter Gretchen Tompkins’s murder into the cold-case data bank.”
“He thought we were looking for Doug Emmitt, and was disappointed to learn we aren’t,” Josh said. “Apparently, he never thought highly of his fellow cop.”
Alex nodded. “Yeah. Seems there’s some bad blood there. He said Emmitt was a man you didn’t want to turn your back on. The story goes that Emmitt was caught in the back of his patrol car with Gretchen, a known prostitute, while he was supposed to be on duty. He was given a week off without pay by the mayor. Turned out he kept seeing her, and when it came out, he said she’d given up the life and they were getting married.”
“They moved in together a few months before the wedding was scheduled,” Josh said, picking up the story. “One night her son called 9-1-1, reporting that Doug Emmitt was trying to kill Gretchen. Archer was on duty and took the call. When he got there, Emmitt was nowhere to be found.”
Alex sat back in his chair. “Gretchen denied that Emmitt had tried to hurt her, but there were bruises on her neck, arms, and face. She said she’d fallen. Archer asked the boy what happened, but he claimed he’d been asleep and hadn’t seen anything.”
“Sounds like either his mother or Emmitt convinced him not to talk,” Nate said.
Alex nodded. “That’s what Archer thinks. Things were quiet after that until the day of the wedding. Another call from the boy came in. Archer took that call, too. When he got there, Gretchen Tompkins was dead—strangled.” He glanced at Taylor. “She was wearing a white dress and had a gold band on her finger.”
“And this was before the wedding took place?” Taylor asked.
“It was.” Josh took a picture from a folder, handing it to Rothmire. “Archer made a copy of the report and crime scene photos. Said some day he was going to see Emmitt behind bars.”
As the photo made the rounds, Alex said, “According to her son, Emmitt accused Gretchen of flirting with one of his friends. Yelled at her that once a whore, always a whore.”
Nate caught Court’s recoil. As a boy, Court had been hiding behind the couch the day their father had yelled those same words at their mother. It was the day she had left them, and if Court was right, she’d been pregnant. Nate needed to stop putting off finding answers.
It looked like this case would wrap up in a day or two, and then he’d make that trip back to Dunnellon and find out once and for all if their mother was there. If they had a brother or sister out there somewhere, it was time to find out.
“Wayne told Archer that he tried to pull Emmitt away, but Emmitt threw him across the room,” Alex said. “Wayne hit the wall, stunning him. He watched Emmitt strangle her and then put the ring on her finger. ‘Only good whore is a dead whore,’ Emmitt said, then walked out the door, never to be seen again.”
Taylor let out a breath. “It’s really sad that her son had to watch her murder.”
She would know how sad that was better than anyone sitting around the table. “You okay?” Nate asked.
“I’m at peace.”
She smiled at him, and his stomach clenched, wanting that smile in his life forever. The thought was so startling that he didn’t know what to do with it. Run? Accept that she might be the one woman in the world he could love? What about his fear of being an abuser like his father? That hadn’t gone away.
He should probably put as much distance between him and Taylor as possible. A deep ache settled in his chest at the thought of not having her in his life. This was all stuff he needed to think about when hewasn’t in the middle of a murder investigation. He tuned back in to what Alex was saying.
“Archer said the boy was crying, begging his mother to wake up. He said it was the saddest thing he’d ever seen, but what he told Wayne ...” He glanced around the table. “This is important. In an effort to comfort Wayne, he told the boy that his mother was now an angel in heaven.”
