Springfield, Illinois

Durango Master’s Home

Durango’s thoughts were worrying about the rather long list of suspects he’d compiled in Kyle’s death from the client files at the office, people who were displeased with Mastiff’s services and made their dissatisfaction known to Kyle, or held Kyle personally responsible. He knew it was unlikely the Harrison Strangler would expose himself in such a public way, but he also knew that the strangler liked to interact with his victims in the days and weeks before murdering them. Kyle was a private person, a focused person, whose days involved very little outside of the firm. Therefore, it made sense to believe that her killer was connected to Mastiff in some way.

Clients, employees, persons involved in specific investigations, collateral damage from some of their operations. It had to be someone like that. Or maybe even the politicians and city officials she had to deal with in order to keep Mastiff’s doors open.

Durango had always suspected the strangler was some sort of playboy, someone who had a lot of free time on his hands, someone who was free to adjust his life to the schedule of the victims whenever he chose one. Or someone who worked a job that was a block on, block off sort of schedule, like a longshore man, an oil rig worker. Someone who was free to move around the city day and night for months at a time. Someone who could stalk his victims and worm his way into their lives without setting off alarm bells in their heads.

Someone who could follow Durango from Chicago to Springfield. Because, after all, he was what this was all about, right? The killer went after Sarah, because he arrested the wrong man, came after Kyle because Durango had left him behind and moved on with his life. That had to be what was happening here. Why else would the strangler show up here, in Springfield, five years after his killing spree in Chicago? Why would he go after Kyle? It couldn’t be a coincidence that the last two victims were women in Durango’s life.

Was it someone he knew?

He’d tortured himself all during his trial, trying to figure out who could have done this to Sarah. The list of suspects grew and shrank constantly as he added and subtracted people. Former cops, current cops, Sarah’s colleagues, his colleagues, the old woman who lived downstairs in their apartment building. Everyone was on the list at one time or another. But he could never find any definitive proof against any of them.

Maybe it was time to review that list again.

Durango pulled up in front of his condo and climbed out slowly, his back a little sore from his visit to Detective Hyde. He could still smell her on his skin. A shower was definitely in order.

“Durango.”

He was pulled out of his thoughts by the sight of his father pushing himself to his feet. He’d been sitting on the steps leading to Durango’s front door, leaning back against the wrought iron railing. He moved as slowly as Durango, stretching out his long legs before pulling himself to his feet.

Jackson Chamberlain.

He was a tall man, well over six foot, but thin as an adolescent boy. He’d gotten even thinner in the years since Durango last saw him, making him appear taller, but frailer in a weird sort of way, too. But his eyes were the same, dark eyes that seemed to burn a hole in Durango’s soul every time he focused on him.

“What are you doing here?”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone about your partner’s death?”

Durango crossed his arms over his chest, stepping back to put space between the two of them.

“What difference does it make to you?”

“I don’t like learning things about my only child from the news. And that article about our relationship . . . did you really think now was the time for something like that?”

“Do you think that was my idea?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. I have a new, big project coming out. The press eats stuff like that up when my movies come out.”

“Of course, it’s all about you! How could I have missed that?” Durango dismissed his father by walking around him, unlocking his door as quickly as he could with an anger induced tremor in his fingers. “You wasted your fucking time coming all the way out here!”

“Durango.”

Jackson grabbed his shoulder and tried to jerk Durango around, but he was done with this. He jerked away from his grip, turning into the house.

“Go home, Jackson. No one wants you here.”

“What are you going to do, Durango? Push everyone away until you’re all alone? And then what? Do you really think your life will be easier without people who care about you in it? Do you think you’ll be happy that way?”

“Don’t put yourself in that category, Jackson.”

“What category?”

“The one filled with people who care about you. You never gave a shit about me. Why would I believe you do now?”

“I’m your father.”

Durango turned to look at him, his eyes moving slowly over the length of his father. “We share genetic material. That’s all.” He started to turn but thought better of it. “You took from me the only person who ever gave a damn about what happened to me. You took away the only good person in my life, the only person who mattered. What kind of person does that?”

“I’m not the one who put the pills in her mouth that night.”

Durango shook his head, too outraged to simply catch his breath. “You told her to go ahead and do it. You told her to kill herself! What did you think would happen?”

“I said some unfortunate things that night. But I didn’t give her the pills; I didn’t know she even had them! I thought her threats were baseless.”

“But they weren’t and you should have known what your words would do to her! You killed her just like you held a gun to her head.”

“I loved her, Durango. She’s the only woman I ever truly loved.” Jackson stepped forward, reaching a hand toward Durango. He stepped back, just out of reach. “She was the love of my life. You’re not the only one who lost her that night.”

“But I’m not the one who told her to go ahead and kill herself!”

“Why should I? I was five years old, listening to those words outside your bedroom door. And the next morning . . . my mother was dead.”

Jackson sighed heavily. Silence fell between them for a long moment, nothing left to be said. At least, that’s what Durango thought. But Jackson surprised him.

“I thought after Sarah died that you would finally understand. You lost the love of your life, just like I did. I thought you would be able to see it from my point of view, that you would see how hard it was for me to live knowing what I’d done, that the last words she heard from me were words of anger. But I guess you’re still too angry to see how what you’ve gone through is exactly what I went through.”

“I didn’t tell Sarah to kill herself. I didn’t leave her there with the intention of allowing her to die.”

“But you brought death to her door just the same.”

Those words hung heavy in the air. Jackson was right. If Durango had done his job right, if he’d found the real Harrison Strangler instead of the man who’d died in his cell before Sarah was killed, she would still be alive and they’d be married, living the life they’d planned in Chicago. But he didn’t, and the strangler came after her. And now he’d come after Kyle, too.

Durango knew it was his fault. But was it really the same as standing over a sobbing woman and telling her to go ahead and kill herself? That no one gave a shit what she did anymore?

Even words said in anger had to stop before they reached that level of cruelty.

“It’s not the same,” he said softly.

“Go ahead and believe that, son, if it helps you sleep at night. But you and I are more alike than you will ever comprehend.” Jackson turned to leave, pausing in the doorway. “I’m not the monster you’ve made me out to be. I’m just a broken man desperate to hold onto the only thing I have left from the woman I loved. You are my son, and I love you. Nothing you do or say is ever going to change that.”

Jackson walked away. Durango watched him go, suddenly feeling very alone when he was gone.

But he couldn’t call bullshit, could he? Everything his father said was true.

Durango had killed Sarah and Kyle just as true as if he’d been the one to wrap his hands around their necks. And that made him no better than his father.

“Fuck me.”

Durango crossed the room and snatched the bottle of tequila out of the cupboard in the kitchen. If he ever needed a drink, it was right now.