She considered carefully her next words. “How? I don’t understand. Who is it?”
“I’ve been in communication with the Oakwood police, so I know you’ve had a recent string of very unfortunate incidents there. But they appear to be unrelated. We have taken a Jason Fullgate into custody. I have a complete confession. He also came clean about breaking and entering at your condo, and leaving the daffodils.”
The San Diego police knew about the first daffodil, but not the subsequent ones that continued over the months. The ones Kaine never reported because she’d been threatened with filing fraudulent reports. This Jason Fullgate had made a confession. Was it authentic? Kaine’s breaths grew shallow. Was it possible to have two stalkers? What bad luck was that?
Anxiety increased the tremor in her hands as her brain struggled to process the latest occurrences at Foster Hill House and reconcile them with Danny’s murder two years before.
“Who is Jason Fullgate?” Kaine asked. She reached for Olive as the dog sensed her angst and nosed Kaine’s hand.
“Do you recall a woman named Susan?”
Kaine had worked with several Susans at the shelter, although one in particular did stand out.
“Well, Susan is a young woman you helped get a fresh start. You helped her find a job, an apartment. She changed her last name to Gregson.”
Susan Gregson. Yes. Susan. The petite redhead had the fight and tenacity of a beat-up kitten. She’d arrived at the shelter one night with a broken wrist and so many bruises on her chest and legs, Kaine had contemplated enacting her own vigilante justice. Susan’s condition brought back memories of Kaine’s abusive experience, and she had taken Susan under her wing.
“Fullgate was her husband,” Detective Hanson explained. “When he couldn’t find Susan after you helped her relocate, he traced Susan as far as you. He confessed to spending time following you, learning who you were, your relationship with Danny, where you lived, even that your favorite flower was daffodils . . . all to see if he could find Susan.”
“But he never did.” Kaine knew where Detective Hanson was taking the story. She had replaced Susan in the abuser’s mind, because she became the obstacle to his twisted, abusive love.
“As fate would have it,” the detective went on, her voice dropping a bit, “your husband visited a particular coffee shop frequently, so Jason got a job there and eventually slipped the drug into Danny’s coffee. It resulted in his accident and subsequent death. Jason insists he didn’t mean to kill Danny, only to carry out some retribution for what you’d taken from him.”
Revenge.
Kaine slumped back against her pillows and drew her knees up to her chest. She squelched any tears for fear of upsetting Megan. How obsessive could one man be? To taint Danny’s coffee, to get a job at Danny’s favorite coffee shop and follow her, all out of love for a woman he’d beaten so many times? Were women merely belongings to him? Kaine rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. Yes. They were. It was a pattern that had traveled through history. If there was any link between Foster Hill House and Danny, it was that. Abuse. And it followed Kaine like a cancer.
One thing at a time, Prescott, she coached herself. Her body began to shiver. She pulled a blanket over her legs, and Olive hopped onto the bed and lay across her lap.
“And after Danny died?” Kaine asked. “What was his excuse then?”
“Fullgate is schizophrenic. He was diagnosed four years ago, and that’s probably what started the abuse against Susan. He was—is—still obsessed with her and how she disappeared. To his mixed-up way of thinking, you were to blame. He transferred that obsession to you. He was convinced you needed to feel as he did. Alone. Helpless. With your husband dead, he wanted you at his mercy, and in his mind the best way to do that was to instill fear.”
“Well, it worked. For two whole years.” Kaine dug her fingers into Olive’s fur. The dog twisted her head and licked Kaine’s wrist. “How did you find him?”
“I went through old evidence. There was a receipt for the coffee shop, and once we found evidence of Danny’s coffee being laced, we pulled the employee records to see if there was any connection to Danny or cases you had worked with. That’s when the dots began to line up. When we brought Fullgate in for questioning, he caved.”
The reminder of the photograph of Danny positioned in the middle of the floor in the third bedroom skittered through Kaine’s mind. Along with the weird phone call from the anonymous caller.
“When did you take Mr. Fullgate into custody?”
“I know where you’re going with this, and I hate to say it, but it was two days ago. The interesting thing is, he just recently started up on his meds. It wasn’t hard to get a confession out of him. The man’s completely broken.”
Kaine had little sympathy for the man who killed her husband, intentional or not.
The detective cleared her throat. “I have to close the case, Miss Prescott. Obviously, it’ll go to trial and we’ll need you back in San Diego at some point. I’ve contacted the Oakwood Police Department as well, and I know—you’re involved in your own new set of circumstances.”
Circumstances. That was a gentle way of stating it. Kaine looked up and met Megan’s eyes. The adorable slant of them and her rounded face created a stark contrast to the frightening realization that clenched her gut.
Detective Hanson voiced Kaine’s fears. “The incidents there in Wisconsin are unrelated to Jason Fullgate. There isn’t anything I can do to help with your investigation there.”
Kaine could hear the hesitation in the detective’s voice. “Yeah.” Kaine grimaced into the phone. “I know what you’re thinking, and I have no idea how this sort of luck followed me here.”
The detective chuckled, then coughed to cover it. “Well, I wish you the best of luck and safety. It sounds like the department there is well qualified and you’re in good hands.”
Good hands.
It didn’t leave Kaine with any sort of comfort. She had thought that, once Danny’s killer was found, there would be resolution, that life would settle down, a new normal. Even if there was a forthcoming trial and a revisiting of her grief, at least the terror would be behind her. But it wasn’t. Not at all.
Kaine hung up with the detective and dialed Leah. She’d avoided calling her sister, not wanting to bring her into the current events. Having Leah panic all the way across the country wasn’t going to help quell Kaine’s fear in any way. But Leah needed to know Danny’s killer had been caught. At least it was one book they could close.