The Chosen. BEVERLY BARTON
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pink nails.
She was a violinist, wasn’t she? She’d even had aspirations of being a concert violinist. Unfortunately, her talent was limited, and she had never reached the heights of success about which she had once dreamed.
As he studied those beautiful, animated hands, he thought about tonight and how he would hack off those slender hands she used to play the violin in such a mediocre way. Actually, he would probably chop off both of her arms entirely.
Judd adjusted the passenger seat to recline slightly, closed his eyes, and dozed off not long after they crossed the Kentucky state line and entered Tennessee. When he awoke, he glanced out the side window and realized they were going through Knoxville. Roadwork seemed to be the norm in this city. Expansion always creates the need for bigger and better. He hazarded a quick glimpse at Lindsay. Focused on the heavy traffic, she didn’t glance his way.
Judd closed his eyes again.
It was better for both of them if Lindsay thought he was still sleeping. That way neither of them had to make an effort at conversation. From the very beginning of their relationship, things had been strained between them. Now more so than ever.
Judd grunted silently.
Relationship? Could you actually call whatever existed between them a relationship? They weren’t friends or lovers. Nor were they enemies. But if he was completely honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he often hated Lindsay. She didn’t deserve his hatred; she had done nothing to warrant such an extreme reaction from him. For a man whose emotions were pretty much dead, the very fact that Lindsay could elicit any emotion from him bothered him on a gut-deep level.
Each new murder—now totaling twenty-nine that they knew of—evoked thoughts of those first few weeks after his wife had been killed. Last night in the Williamstown motel, he’d been unable to rest. Memories of Jenny had plagued him.
And thoughts of Lindsay.
Yeah, thoughts of Lindsay McAllister.
He’d spent nearly four years telling himself that the reason his recollections about those first few horrific days, weeks, and months after Jennifer was murdered centered as much on Lindsay as they did on Jenny was because Lindsay had been involved with the murder case on a day-to-day basis. She’d been partnered with the lead detective.
He knew she’d been there that night at the scene of Jennifer’s murder when he barged in like a madman. But to him that evening was little more than a blurred nightmare. Even now, he could still feel the deadweight of Jenny’s slender body as he sat on the floor and held her in his arms. Not all the time in the world would ever erase that bloody scene from his mind. Jenny’s hands lying beside her, her perfectly manicured nails a bright coral. He had loved her hands, those long fingers that stroked the piano keys with such expert ease.
Odd how he could now think about her, even about her brutal murder, and not get a knot in his belly or a lump in his throat. Odd that despite having once loved her madly, he now felt practically nothing. Just a vague numbness. And an occasional twinge of bittersweet memory. Odder still was the fact that the only person, living or dead, who made him feel much of anything was Lindsay.
In those early days, she’d been around almost all the time. At Jennifer’s funeral, in his home, at the police station where he’d been questioned repeatedly. Always in the background, always with Lt. Dan Blake. He’d been aware of her presence, but little more than that—until about a month after his wife’s murder when he’d been called to police headquarters one more time. His lawyer had explained that the husband is always a suspect. Being a lawyer himself, intellectually he understood the reasoning behind such an assumption. But being a mourning widower, half out of his mind with grief, he couldn’t understand how anyone could think he would have harmed a hair on Jennifer’s beautiful head. He had adored her, worshipped her, loved her insanely. And yet even weeks after her murder, the police were still questioning him. Looking back, he realized the reason had been desperation on their part because they had no other suspects, just the unknown, unseen “client” whom Jennifer had supposedly met that night.
During that final interrogation, he truly saw Lindsay for the first time. Not as Lieutenant Blake’s shadow, not as just some woman whose face he could barely recall, but as a person.
He hadn’t slept all night through in weeks, not since Jenny’s death less than a month ago. And every waking moment was sheer torture. If he wasn’t remembering her smile, her laughter, the feel of her lying next to him, he was recalling the way she had looked in death, her arms bound above her head, her hands missing. Some nights he woke up in a cold sweat after dreaming of her. Her masklike face lying against the pale pink satin lining her casket. Her arms reaching out to him, hands missing, pleading for him to save her.
Sleep deprived and grief-stricken, he showed up at the police station that day accompanied by his longtime friend and fellow lawyer, Camden Hendrix. He and Cam had met in law school—the two of them exact opposites in nearly every way. Cam had grown up poor, fatherless, and determined to one day be rich. Very rich. They had become fast friends immediately. Cam had been the best man at his wedding.
“You’ve got to be the luckiest damn son of a bitch I’ve ever known.” Cam had slapped him on the back and shook his hand when he told him that Jennifer had accepted his proposal.
Cam had loved her just as Griff had. Everyone who knew his Jenny had loved her.
As usual, when Lieutenant Blake questioned Judd, Sergeant Lindsay McAllister was present. Cam had mentioned, just in passing, that he thought the young officer was mighty cute, and he just might ask her out. Judd had been oblivious to Lindsay’s attractiveness, and that day was no different. He barely glanced at her.
Lieutenant Blake threw question after question at Judd, going over the same tired old material. Judd managed to reply in a reasonably calm manner for the first half hour, but suddenly the detective’s tone changed and he began hammering away at Judd.
“You don’t have an alibi for the time your wife was killed,” Blake said. “And we have two witnesses who saw you and your wife in an argument the day before she was murdered. What were you arguing about?”
“Damn it, I’ve told you over and over again. The argument was about nothing,” Judd said. “I wanted to reopen the family’s hunting lodge for the weekend and she didn’t want to. She didn’t like the country. She wanted to go to a party some friends were having. We ended up deciding to do neither, to just stay home and spend some time alone together.”
The same honest explanation he’d given repeatedly didn’t satisfy Lieutenant Blake. “Your wife was very beautiful and men adored her, didn’t they? That must have bothered you, knowing your wife was such a flirt—”
“Jennifer was not a flirt!” Judd came up out of the chair and lunged at the detective, whose combative reaction spurred Judd on.
Cam reached for Judd, who was by that time halfway across the table separating him from his tormentor. Cam grabbed hold of Judd’s shoulders just as Lindsay McAllister plopped herself down on the table right in front of her partner, creating a barrier between Judd and the lieutenant.
“My God, Dan, stop this! Enough’s enough. Mr. Walker shouldn’t have to go through this insanity.” Lindsay defended Judd in a loud, authoritarian voice, as if there was not one doubt in her mind that he was an innocent man. “Any fool can see that this man loved his wife, and he’s suffering unbearably.”
Judd allowed Cam to yank him back into his chair. All the while his gaze focused on Lindsay, seeing her for the first time as more than a nonentity.
“That’s quite enough, Sergeant McAllister,” Lieutenant Blake said, his tone calm and even.
Lindsay slid off the table and stood at attention, her cheeks flushed bright pink, and her jaw tightly clenched.
She wasn’t beautiful. She didn’t have a knockout figure. But Cam had been right—she was cute. Short, slender, with an all-American girl wholesomeness. The strangest notion went through Judd’s mind. He bet she liked