What Justice Needs: Book #3 of The Rebecca Black Trilogy (Paperback)

PROLOGUE

A single droplet of hot wax emerged from beneath the cuff of the crisp white sleeve. Obeying gravity’s pull, it continued across the back of the hand and along the edge of the stiff ring finger. Upon reaching the nailbed, the wax united with a thin line of clotted blood. With a fresh pink hue, the merged droplet traveled off the end of the fingertip and fell to its demise on the warm concrete.

It would be the first of many. The sun was high in the sky and every minute that passed, the shade from the three-story building receded a little more. A man of wax didn’t stand a chance against the slowly rising temperature.

It was an unusually warm spring day and the streets were bustling outside of Madame Tussauds wax museum. Situated at the corner of 10th and F Street in Washington DC, it was a prime location for pedestrian traffic.

Although it was just an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, the passersby were in for a special treat that day. Set up on the sidewalk, just outside the museum doors, was a detailed three-dimensional scene starring three life-sized wax figures. A man, a woman, and a teenage boy sat around a rectangular dining table, complete with china plates adorned with fake food. There was room at the table for a fourth guest, but the extra dining chair stood unoccupied.

It looked like a typical scene you’d see if peeking in the window of any normal suburban home.

The figures were posed as if they were enjoying a nice evening meal. Although enjoying wasn’t the most accurate term. Their emotionless faces better suited an unhappy family giving each other the silent treatment. Their blank eyes stared straight ahead and their lips were pursed tightly together.

Apparently, not a single drop of conversation occurred at that dinner table. Very awkward and uncomfortable. Such a strange choice for a display.

A dark-haired man sat with one hand holding a fork over a plate. His other hand rested on his leg. The woman across from him wore a dark brown wig of jaw-length curls. She had one elbow leaning on the table while her hand rested under her chin. The blonde teenage boy sat with both elbows on the table with one hand wrapped around a glass of water. Their actual positioning was a little off and unnatural, but the idea was easily understood.

“Look, Mommy. That man is melting,” said a young boy, around eight years old, holding his mother’s hand as they walked along the sidewalk.

And he was right.

A pool of melted flesh-colored wax had collected on the pavement next to the man-figure’s foot. His hand, resting on his thigh, had several droplets running in lanes off his fingertips.

His forehead had begun to sweat as well. Another drop of wax traveled down from his hairline and hung off the sharp angle of his jaw.

“He certainly is,” the boy’s mother said. She stopped walking and leaned in for a closer look. “It’s a great advertisement for the museum, but I’m not so sure it was a good idea to set it up in direct sunlight on such a warm day.”

“Who are they?” the boy asked. “Doesn’t the wax museum always do statues of famous people? What are they famous for?”

“I have no idea. We can Google it later though.” The woman tugged on the boy’s hand and began to walk again. “Right now, we have a birthday party to get ready for.”

A smile spread across the boy’s face. He turned and waved goodbye to the display. “Bye, wax people.”

Just then, the woman-figure’s hand fell from its position under her chin and slammed onto the table. The plates jumped and clanged from the hand’s impact.

The boy’s eyes grew wide. “Mommy, did you see that? The lady tried to wave back at me.”

The woman stopped and turned to see what her son was going on about.

The woman-figure’s head suddenly dropped into a strange angle. Then her shoulders drooped and her entire upper body began leaning to one side—farther and farther to the side until the figure toppled from the chair and landed in a heap on the pavement.

The woman with the boy gasped. She knew it was just a prop, but the way the figure had dropped with such a heavy thud unsettled her greatly.

“I should go inside and tell the manager that their display is falling apart,” she said.

With the boy in tow, she made a wide circle around the prop, not wanting to get too close. She reached the front door of the museum and had her hand on the doorknob when the man-figure toppled over behind her. He landed hard with a loud thud as well.

The woman yanked the door open and stuck her head inside. “Excuse me. Your wax people out here are melting,” she called out to anyone who would listen.

A young woman with a short brown pixie cut walked over from behind a desk. “Hi, can I help you with something?” she said in a chirpy voice.

“No, but I can help you. Your wax people are melting. Someone needs to bring them inside. It’s too warm out there. They’re already falling over.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. What wax people are you talking about?”

“The ones out here on the sidewalk.” The woman held the door open wider and nodded her head toward the street corner. “Those wax people.”

The young pixie stepped closer and peered out of the open door. “Oh my gosh!” she said, covering her gaping mouth with her hand. “Where on earth did those come from?”

“They’re yours, aren’t they? I mean, they’re wax statues. In front of a wax museum.” The woman let out a nervous chuckle. She had known something was not right about that display. She had felt it deep within her gut and seen it in their odd posture and expressionless faces. She clutched the boy’s hand tight and drew him closer to her.

As both women stood there dumbfounded, a crowd had begun to form.

“Whoa, I thought those were dead bodies at first,” a young man on a bike said as he passed by the scene. “I couldn’t even tell that they were wax.” He laughed and pedaled down the sidewalk and off the curb.

“They do look like dead bodies, Mommy,” the little boy said, staring down at the sidewalk.

“That man was just kidding, sweetie.”

“But that one’s bleeding.” The boy pointed his finger at the man-figure that lay in a heap in front of him.

The mother leaned forward to examine a crimson smear on the figure’s temple. By that time, the wax had nearly completely melted away on that area of the face.

“That can’t be blood.”

On closer inspection, she could clearly see that not only was it undoubtedly blood, but it had also originated from a deep laceration on the side of the figure’s head.

The woman gasped and jumped back.

She stared down at the man lying on his side on the pavement. It was an extremely awkward position. A true wax statue would have broken into pieces if it fell onto that hard a surface. Or at the very least, flattened one side of its face and body.

This figure displayed limbs that had moved into different positions on impact, but still appeared every bit intact. His eyes were open and staring blankly ahead.

Her eyes shot over to the woman figure sprawled on the concrete on the other side of the table. Her limbs were bent in unnatural positions as well. Her lips were parted as if she were about to speak, and the woman knew for a fact they were not like that earlier.

Wax statues didn’t have movable jaws…but bodies coming out of rigor mortis did.

The woman straightened and pulled her son close. “Someone call 9-1-1.”

***

Fewer than ten minutes had passed before a squad car pulled up to the curb, lights flashing and sirens blaring. A moment later, another one. Four uniformed officers, two from each car, exited their vehicles and snaked their way through the crowd.

One had a roll of yellow crime scene tape and immediately went to work. He rolled out a perimeter that encompassed the entire street corner, wrapping the tape around every signpost that stood.

Another officer directed the crowd, nudging them backward and outside of the new yellow boundary. He then whipped out a small notebook and a pen.

“So, who discovered the bodies?” he said to no one in particular.

“Everyone,” someone replied.

“Okay, then who got here first?”

No answer. Just every single person looking around at each other and shrugging.

“Can someone please tell me what happened? Anyone. From the beginning.”

The woman and her young son stepped forward. The young pixie followed.

“Thank you,” the officer said as he flipped open his notebook. “Now let’s get started.”

In the meantime, the remaining two officers walked over to the two downed bodies and knelt next to them. They stuck out their necks and moved their heads around for different viewpoints, careful not to disturb anything. Look, but don’t touch. That was Crime Scene 101 when it came to murders.

One officer stood and walked over to the teenage boy figure still positioned at the table. He circled around it, peering into the figure’s face. “Homicide will be here any minute,” he said. “Along with the Medical Examiner.”

“Now that is an exam I’d be interested in seeing,” said the other.

“Man, they are completely covered with wax. They look just like statues.”

The other officer knelt down even lower and looked directly into the dead woman’s eyes.

“She’s wearing green contact lenses. That’s why her eyes look so weird.”

A loud clatter rang out as the torso of the remaining teenage figure collapsed and his face smashed onto the table.

“What the fuck!”

Every officer and every member of the crowd jumped at the startling noise.

“What the hell was that? Why did he move?” The officer’s eyes widened with horror.

The little boy stepped forward as far as his mother’s grip would allow.

“They’re melting.”

CHAPTER 1

The delightful aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies wafted out of the open oven door. The woman sucked it all in with a deep inhale before reaching in to retrieve the piping hot cookie sheet.

“Ow, ow, ow,” she whimpered as the hot pan burned right through the thick quilted fabric of her oven mitts. After dropping the pan onto the stovetop, she took off the useless mitts and threw them hard into the back corner of the kitchen counter.

Joanie Jackson, a short plump woman standing only a smidgeon above five feet, was a real estate agent, and a damn good one at that. But even she, with her vast experience and irresistible charisma, could not sell the Donovan house for its full value.

The multi-million-dollar mansion had been sitting on the market for two full years without any takers. At that price, the buyer pool was small. And of those few who had the millions to shell out, none were willing to take on the Donovan House of Horrors.

Everyone knew what had gone on in that basement. True Crime had even filmed a documentary starring Andrew Donovan’s torture chamber where he had mutilated and butchered five women. Those murders had happened seven years earlier, but the stories hadn’t slowed down. Actually, they had increased, mainly due to that same documentary that aired several times a year on as many anniversaries as the media could conjure up.

The anniversary of the first murdered girl, of the last murdered girl, of his arrest, his acquittal, and of course, his death.

Tyler Maddox’s killing spree hadn’t helped matters either. It was that whole father/son dynamic. Nature vs nurture. The media ate it up. The problem was that Tyler was not Andrew’s son. But God knows he had wanted to be.

He had idolized the man. Wanted to be just like him. He would have tried to be Andrew’s partner in crime had he known what he was up to. And after his death, Tyler had tried his best to carry on his legacy.

But Andrew didn’t make Tyler into a serial killer. It wasn’t a matter of nurture winning out. A person didn’t just start killing and mutilating women because his role model did. No, Tyler was already broken inside. He was born that way. Andrew was just the key that unlocked the door.

Whatever horrors had occurred in that house and affected the men living there, it was in the past and Joanie Jackson was doing her best to keep it that way. It was Open House Day and she was going to sell that house if it killed her.

With that thought, she kicked her Martha Stewart vibe up a notch and flipped the cookies onto a two-tiered decorative plate, placing it aesthetically amongst the fresh flower heads scattered across the island counter.

“Don’t mind if I do,” an approaching voice said.

She looked up and a big smile spread across her face. “Spencer. I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve got a good feeling about today.”

“Oh yeah?” he said as he snatched a warm cookie off the plate. “Think we’ll get any offers?”

“I’m betting we’ll have a slew of visitors today interested in this house.”

“I hope you’re right, because I sure am ready to get rid of this thing and get on with my life.”

Joanie widened her smile as she looked at him. She had known the Donovan family for over a decade. After all, she had sold them this house back when Spencer was just a small boy. He had suffered through enough psychological trauma in that house to last him ten lifetimes.

Where Tyler Maddox had longed to be Andrew Donovan’s son, Spencer actually was, and the horrifying acts his father had committed right under his nose was something he’d never be able to get over. Add to that the fact his father had then been dissected on top of the dining room table. It was a wonder Spencer had any sanity left at all.

But he was strong, and determined to spend the rest of his life making up for his father’s sins. And that determination brought him straight to the Montgomery County Police Department and the youngest officer to ever make detective. He had a big heart and a brain to match. His days were spent finding justice for the families of murder victims all over the county. His father’s demons still haunted him though. Joanie could see that just by looking into his eyes. But he had a healthy outlet for it and it usually resulted in murderers behind bars. She was proud of the man he had become, especially amidst such harrowing circumstances.

Both she and Spencer suddenly looked up at the ceiling as heavy footsteps thudded above them.

“Is someone here?” Spencer asked. “I thought the Open House doesn’t start for another half hour.”

“There were two couples waiting in the driveway when I pulled up this morning,” Joanie explained. “Like I said...there’s going to be a lot of interest today. I let them go ahead and start their own self-guided tour while I finished prepping. I surely wasn’t going to keep them waiting outside.” Her shoulders bounced as she laughed heartily. “One of them is likely going to be the new owner of this magnificent house. I can feel it.”

With Spencer’s help, she spent the next few minutes putting the final touches on her prep. Two glass pitchers of ice water, one with floating lemon slices, the other with cucumber. The flower arrangements were exquisite and the brochures picked up from the printer that morning were fanned out in a perfect semicircle at the end of the granite counter. She was ready, and with impeccable timing.

The front door opened and a half dozen more potential buyers entered the foyer. Joanie beamed as she watched their eyes widen and their mouths fall open as they scanned the massive foyer with its glistening white ceramic floor, elegantly arched doorways, and towering curved staircase.

Of course, she would have to disclose the unfortunate events that occurred there, but she had a new angle she was working on, and was confident that she would have these buyers eating out of her hand in no time.

“Come in, come in, please,” she sang out as she waved the group into the kitchen.

Another couple entered the foyer from the staircase and joined the crowd making their way toward Joanie. She recognized them from earlier and motioned them aside. “Well, what did you think of the upstairs? Grand, isn’t it? And how about that view from the master bedroom?”

“Very nice indeed,” the man answered. “I’m not sure about the statues though. I hope they don’t come with the house.” He laughed heartily. “Very lifelike, but an unusual staging choice if I’m being honest.”

Joanie’s forehead wrinkled as she pondered over what the man had said. “Statues?” She looked at Spencer for an explanation.

He shrugged. “I didn’t set up any statues. I did a walk-through last night after the cleaning crew left and everything was in good shape.”

Spencer and Joanie immediately set off through the incoming crowd toward the foyer and up the staircase. Spencer took the steps two at a time with Joanie’s short legs trying to keep up.

Their dramatic exit caused a few visitors to follow which then led to the entire crowd following each other up the staircase, without even a clue as to why.

Spencer froze when he reached the top, staring down the long hallway which led to his former bedroom. Two figures stood directly outside his bedroom door.

Joanie caught up to him and let out a loud gasp. She remained behind him, peering around his shoulder. “What in the world?”

Spencer began walking slowly down the hall toward the two figures. It was a man and a woman. The man had his back to him and was leaning against the wall with an outstretched arm. As he got closer, the woman came into full view. She had short black wavy hair and wore a white terrycloth bathrobe. The right side of her body leaned against the wall while her hands crossed her chest, clutching the collar of the robe.

A painful knot began to twist inside Spencer’s stomach. He stepped closer until he stood right next to them both.

Joanie hadn’t followed. She remained at the end of the hall with both hands over her mouth. The crowd of visitors had gathered behind her, but thankfully did not approach.

Spencer leaned in close, studying the male figure top to bottom. He was dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a long-sleeved shirt. He had blonde spiky hair, but it was fake. A wig. He glanced at the woman and recognized her immediately. Their faces wore no expression.

On closer inspection, he spotted three nearly invisible lines running from the tops of their heads, upward and disappearing into the ceiling. He circled around slightly, allowing the sun to shine fully and unobstructed through the two-story foyer, illuminating the hallway.

Now they gleamed in the sunlight, dozens of transparent lines rising off the figures and disappearing into the ceiling like spider webs. Actually, puppet strings was a more accurate description. Life-sized puppets.

Next, his eyes turned to the walls. Colorful jigsaw puzzles set in large poster frames, similar to the ones that used to hang there years ago. Similar, but not the same. Whoever created this scene had intimate knowledge of his house and the people who used to be in it.

His attention went back to the figures in front of him. There was something about them that made his skin crawl. He looked deep into the woman-figure’s eyes. They were odd. The irises were green, but the pupils a light shade of gray instead of black. Not what you’d expect from a mannequin or a puppet or whatever she was.

He raised his hand and poked her cheek with his fingertips. Soft yet firm. Wax.

The pressure must have been too much because as soon as he drew back his fingers, the woman crumpled to the floor. The numerous strands of fishing line stretched and then ripped through her scalp, shoulders, and wrists.

Spencer stared in disbelief at the figure at his feet. The wax had cracked and pieces had broken off where the lines had ripped through. And underneath...lifeless flesh. As a homicide detective, Spencer had seen his share and he was certain. They weren’t statues. They were corpses.

CHAPTER 2

Rebecca Black lay sprawled out on her sofa enjoying the first half of a lazy Sunday. It had been five years since her friendship with Tyler Maddox ended with her injecting an empty syringe into his carotid artery. It was one of several traumatic events in her life and she had only just recently been able to sleep through the night without seeing his murderous face.

The brutal mutilation and murder of her sister by Andrew Donovan was the grenade that had blown her life to pieces. She had taken her pound of flesh, literally, from her sister’s killer, but not before unknowingly inviting a second homicidal psychopath into her circle to take his place. Tyler Maddox had picked up where Andrew left off and had done far more damage to her sanity.

Rebecca was a fighter though. She had never realized how much so until faced with her own death. She’d had two brushes with obsessed serial killers and managed to survive them both. And now, Andrew was dead and Tyler was currently serving out multiple life sentences at the Savage River Correctional Institution in Western Maryland.

Admittedly, she had at least some pleasure knowing she had left her mark. The massive stroke she had forced upon him had landed him in a wheelchair, requiring daily physical therapy just so he could learn to wipe his own ass.

She was glad he’d survived though. She wanted him to suffer and live out the rest of his life in a prison cell. Death would have been too easy…too nice. Although, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried. She honestly hadn’t known exactly what would happen when she injected that air embolus into the bulging artery in his neck. But she knew that whatever followed wouldn’t be pretty. Suffice to say, it wasn’t.

And through it all, her record remained clean…at least by her definition. She hadn’t killed anyone. Yes, she had tortured and mutilated Andrew on his dining room table, but it was his ex-wife who had ripped the heart from his chest.

As for Tyler, he was actually more alive than she would have liked. Her blood boiled when she heard of the cushy private cell he received in exchange for that exclusive tell-all True Crime interview. But at least he was behind bars and locked away from the rest of the world. She was finally able to let her guard down and move on.

And that was exactly what she did.

She moved out of the townhouse where Tyler had beaten her unconscious. Where her blood had stained the walls, upstairs and down. And where Michael had been slaughtered in the parking lot just outside her door.

She moved from a townhouse full of blood and terror to a small Cape Cod full of love and happy childhood memories, tucked away on a quaint peaceful street in Silver Spring.

Her grandmother had passed away many years earlier and Rebecca couldn’t bear to lose the house she had practically grown up in. As a single career-driven woman, she wasn’t ready to live in it herself at the time, but she knew someday, she would. Her mother had allowed her to rent it out as long as she took care of all the headaches that came along with being a landlord. She did so with joy since it gave her ample excuses to drop by in between renters and breathe in the nostalgia.

And now, with her life taking new turns, she couldn’t think of anyplace else she’d rather be.

Even La Croix was having a hard time drawing her away.

La Croix D’ior, the upscale French restaurant that she owned in downtown Bethesda, was her pride and joy…but even her time spent there needed to change. Over the years, she had been slowly turning the Head Chef duties over to Peter, her young and eager French apprentice and dear friend. She had taught him everything she knew about cooking French cuisine and he had seamlessly stepped up and taken over the kitchen when she needed him to.

Rebecca had focused her attention on the business side of the restaurant, allowing her much better hours and a lot less stress. Although, she could never fully abandon the kitchen. Cooking was her first love and she still popped in several times a week to work with Peter during a hectic dinner rush.

However, her current love was sitting on the sofa next to her. Rebecca lifted her cramped legs and stretched them out across the lap of the man at her side. Taking a backseat at the restaurant had opened up her schedule and given her the time for all sorts of things, such as a social life.

She had met Adam Callahan three years ago at a Taste of DC festival in downtown Washington. An entire block had closed down to cars so that fifty of the region’s best restaurants could set up their tents and tempt customers with their appetizing dishes. Rebecca was proud that La Croix D’ior had a spot on the roster every year since she had opened almost a decade ago.

The streets were packed with thousands of hungry pedestrians and Adam had emerged from the crowd toward La Croix’s tent to check out what she was offering. He was a ruggedly handsome mountain of a man, standing 6’2” with a thick, powerful build. His blue flannel shirt stretched across his broad chest and shoulders and his jeans did a lousy job of hiding strong muscular thighs. His short, light brown curls bounced ever so slightly as he strode up to her table. Cowboy was the first thought that entered her mind. It was confirmed the moment he opened his mouth.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” he said with a soft subtle drawl. “Whatever you’re cooking over here sure smells good.”

He flashed her an enticing smile and that was all it took. Rebecca was lost.

She showed him over to the open grill, topped with cuts of duck breast and assorted sausages. The meat sizzled and a swirl of smoke drew up the mouthwatering aroma, spreading it throughout the street. Rebecca leaned in, closed her eyes, and waved her cupped hand to direct more of the delicious smell up toward their faces. Adam leaned in as well.

When she opened her eyes, he was right there, just inches from her. They both stared at each other silently, neither pulling away. It should have been awkward, but it wasn’t. It was clear that he wasn’t there for the sausages, and that she wasn’t actually trying to sell him those sausages either.

Yes, it happened just that quickly. Without logic or reasoning or even knowing his name, Rebecca had already mentally planned out their future together.

Their eyes remained locked as they both continued to inhale the delightful aroma. His lips curved into a smile and hers followed. And then it happened. His face suddenly contorted and he jerked away and began spinning and slapping himself on the front of his jeans. The hem of his untucked shirt had dipped into the flames of the grill and he was now officially on fire. His attempt to pat the fire out was proving ineffective, so Rebecca turned and grabbed the first liquid she saw, her 32-ounce tumbler of iced sweet tea. She popped off the top, ran around the grill, and poured the cup’s entire contents onto the fireball hovering on the zipper of his jeans.

The fire was doused immediately and Adam was left with a large wet spot on his crotch. Rebecca held her breath as she waited, empty tumbler in her hand, for his reaction. He looked down at himself and laughed. She let out a sigh of relief and grabbed a fistful of napkins from the table. For a moment, she considered taking advantage of the perfect flirtatious interval that lay right in front of her, but she let it pass. She handed him the napkins and let him dry himself off without success.

After the fire fiasco, Adam spent the rest of the day hovering around La Croix’s tent and Rebecca kept feeding him skewers of andouillette and chorizo to keep him there. Although Rebecca knew it wasn’t the grilled meat that was keeping him hanging around. And even after he’d been stung twice on the stomach by bees—attracted to the sugared sweet tea that had dried onto his crotch—he still remained.

She learned that he taught biology at the community college and coached wrestling at the high school, and that he was, in fact, a cowboy, having grown up on a farm in Oklahoma. He was sweet and funny and had an adorable smile that knocked her off her feet.

Peter had taken over serving the customers and would occasionally send an approving glance her way. At the end of the day, Adam had helped her and Peter pack up and had become a regular fixture in her life ever since.

A year ago, they were married, and today Rebecca browsed baby furniture on her laptop. They had just found out a few days earlier that the baby growing inside of her was a girl.

After trying for almost a year, it wasn’t until she had slashed her hours at the restaurant even more that it finally happened. Her body knew what it was doing.

She was barely showing. A loose shirt could easily hide the small bump of her abdomen. But she had no desire to hide it. She wanted the world to know that Rebecca Black finally had a bright innocent future in front of her. Life was good…mostly.

Adam still had no idea about her past trauma. The fact that she was, in a way, lying to him, weighed heavily on her conscious. Even though both the Andrew Donovan case and the Tyler Maddox case made national headlines, Adam only moved to Maryland a few years ago and had been spared the daily conversations surrounding the murders.

He had heard about them in passing from students or through flipping channels and landing on one of the many documentaries covering the story, but he didn’t know the details and didn’t care to.

It was just one more thing that Rebecca loved about him.

She had wrestled with telling him the truth on countless occasions, but the truth always lost that match. She never wanted Adam to know what had happened in her past. She wasn’t the same person now as she’d been back then anyway. And she would never give up the way he looked at her. Never. He gazed at her with wonderment and desire. As if she was the perfect blend of intelligence, strength, and beauty.

With Adam, she was able to start over with someone who didn’t look at her with pity for what she had gone through…or with fear of what she was capable of.

Rebecca peered over her laptop screen at him. Her legs were still draped across his lap and his hands mindlessly rubbed her feet as his eyes remained glued to the Orioles’ game on the television. Yes, he was indeed a keeper.

She still had a few more hours before she planned on dropping into La Croix to help Peter with the Sunday dinner crowd. And now she was trying to decide whether to spend those hours picking out a crib online or taking her husband to the bedroom. It was a good dilemma to have.

Through all of the darkness that had fallen upon her life, Adam was the ray of sunshine fighting through the clouds.

Decision made.