Telling Tales

He’d made sure of that.

“This is Grant.”

“You need to get down here,” Grady said shortly. “Peggy Ralley just walked in and she’s got blood all over her.”

“She’s been attacked?”

“Ahhh…boss, I don’t think it’s her blood.”

Understanding dawned in his mind and he threw the car into drive. Peeling out of the parking lot, he said, “I’m coming, but County is about twenty minutes from me. She got a weapon?”

“Can’t tell. The nurses are talking to her…she looks kind of weird in the eyes.”

Shit. “Keep her out of that room, Grady. Do not let her in there,” he snapped.

“Well, gee, I kind of figured that out,” Grady drawled and Kellan could almost see the sarcastic roll of his deputy’s eyes.

“Son of a bitch.” Not Tricia. Peggy. The quiet, colorless woman who faded into the background, except for her art. He punched the gas and shot through the red light, hitting the lights and sirens, swerving to go around the pickup in front of him. The two-lane highway opened up ahead of him as he sped for the hospital.

“Boss. I think I should get off the phone. She’s heading my way.”

The cell phone went silent and Kellan threw it down, swearing viciously. Blood… A snarl escaped his lips and he grabbed the phone again, punching in Darci’s number. Three rings…four rings…five… A sick fear bloomed in his gut, duty warring with the need to make sure Darci was safe.

The relief that flooded him when Darci answered the phone on the seventh ring was unlike anything he had ever felt.

“Damn it, what in the hell took you so long to answer the phone?” he demanded. “Are you okay? Where is Hank?”

Her voice, low and amused, came over the line. “Nice to talk to you, too. I was in the studio, developing some negatives. I’m fine and Hank is sitting in his car, singing along with some cry in your beer music.”

“Thank God.” Damn it, he wanted to see her, touch her. Kellan hadn’t ever been that afraid before and he suspected his heart wouldn’t start beating normally until he had touched her, held her close against him and felt her heart beating against his, the way it did when he had her naked and wrapped around him.

“Listen to me. Do not let anybody in your house other than me or Hank. Nobody, you understand me?” he said intensely. “Stay away from the door, stay inside. Got it?”

She was silent for a long moment and then she said, “What’s going on, Kellan?”

“No time. I’ve got to go.” His hand clenched around the phone and he bit back the words that were dancing on his tongue. “Do what I said, okay?”

“Sure. Are you-”

He took the turn into the hospital at fifty miles an hour, tires squealing. “I’ve got to go… Darci, I think I’m in love with you.”

Then he hit the end button and tossed the phone down, slamming on the brakes in front of the emergency room. He ran through the automatic doors, down the hall that led to ICU, fear and anger a metallic taste in his throat. Whose blood?

Grady’s voice rang out down the hall. “I will not tell you again, Miz Ralley. Step back or I will shoot.”

The laughter that came from her was unlike any he had heard before. High, maniacal, and wild. He slowed to a stop as he veered around the corner, staring at Peggy’s back. No blood… But then she turned around and he saw the chilling smile on her face. Bright red blossoms stained the front of her paint-splattered shirt.

“Peggy.”

She smiled at him, a brittle smile. “Things are all messed up. I should have killed Darci that night, and then maybe Bryce would have stopped thinking about her all the time. I wasn’t going to kill him. Not until he called me Darci again. The bastard.”

He flicked Grady a glance, but then looked back at Peggy when he saw that the deputy was slowly moving closer to the woman’s back.

“Bryce?”

Peggy laughed. “I thought you were smarter than this,” she said, shaking her head. “Took you long enough to figure it out. I thought you might put it together after Beth, but you were too busy fucking Darci. Della was going to be next. But then Tricia started to freak out…” her voice trailed off and she wiped a hand down the front of her shirt, lovingly caressing the blood splotches. “Well, she made me mad.”

“Mind if I ask why you did all this?”

Grady was just a few feet away now, gun raised. “Well, not for money. I know that’s why Tricia did it. All the great artists died tragically,” she said with a wide smile. She started to reach inside her shirt.

“Keep your hands where I can see them!” Kellan barked out.

But she didn’t stop and when he found himself staring down the business end of a Beretta, he finally figured it out. All of it. She wanted them to kill her. She wasn’t here to kill them, but to force them to kill her.

Suicide by cop, the coolest way to kill yourself… He drew his gun because he sure as hell wasn’t going to let some crazy-ass self-important artist kill him.

“Put the gun down, Peggy.”

She laughed, but whatever she was going to say died as her eyes went wide and then fluttered shut. There was a thud as Grady’s gun came down on her skull, a soft thump as her body crumpled to the floor, and then all fell silent.

Kellan sucked in air, blood roaring in his ears as he lowered the gun, watching as Grady kicked her Beretta away and knelt down, tugging out his cuffs and securing her hands before touching his fingers to her throat. He rose and blew out a breath, his mahogany skin gleaming under a thin coat of sweat, his eyes wide.

“Son of a bitch. This woman is nuts,” Grady whispered, shaking his head.

***

Tricia’s body was already cool by the time Kellan and two of the deputies broke down the door to the gallery. Peggy Ralley had had some fun before she left. None of the art in the gallery that wasn’t done by her hand had survived her rampage intact. Sculptures lay smashed on the floor. Canvases sliced by a knife, and a few, the two closest to Tricia’s body, had bloody splotches.

“She used the knife she killed Tricia with,” Kellan murmured quietly.

Grady knelt by the door, studying the shattered pieces of a rich purple vase. “Why didn’t we see it before now?”

“No rhyme or reason. We were looking for something that made sense.” Kellan shook his head, straightening over Tricia’s still body. He met the coroner’s gaze as Drake Stillman stepped inside, looking around the gallery with vague surprise in his eyes.

Things like this didn’t happen in their county.

Kellan suspected that this past month had been the busiest of the county coroner’s life. He gestured to the bagged knife lying on the table.

“I’m fairly certain that’s the murder weapon,” he said. “I think she used it to slice up the paintings. We found it on the floor by Tricia’s body, like she’d tossed it away before she walked out. Then she showed up at the hospital with blood on her clothes.”

Drake’s question was cut off by the ringing of Kellan’s phone. He checked out the number and said, “It’s the hospital,” as he thumbed the talk button. “This is Grant,” he said, turning away from the curious gazes.

He listened to the low murmur of the nurse on the other end of the line and then hung up the phone, turning back to meet Grady’s eyes. “She’s awake. I’ve got to get back there.”

***