Read Shades of Murder (The Mac Faraday Mysteries) for Free Online Page B

fourth victim. I hear about it. The news says I killed seven women, but I didn’t do Jane Doe. Since they all think I did her, no one is trying to find out who did. No one even knows who she is. She has people out there, Mr. Thornton. Maybe they know what happened to her. Maybe they don’t. But there’s one thing I do know. Someone killed her and it wasn’t me; and she deserves justice just like those women I did kill.”
    He reached out to touch Joshua’s hand. During the long drive from Chester, West Virginia, to the prison, Joshua couldn’t fathom how he could sit in the same room with this man. Now, he was touching his hand. Joshua could feel the sincerity in the warmth of his dry scaly fingers.
    “I want one good thing to come out of my being on this Earth. Make it this. Don’t do it for me. I don’t deserve it. But Jane Doe does. Do it for her.”
    Looking down at the killer’s hand on his, Joshua tried to recall what he had heard about Jane Doe.
    Victim Number Four.
    The police working the case didn’t release much about her murder. A county prosecuting attorney in Hancock County, West Virginia, Joshua wasn’t involved in the investigation. All he knew was what the media reported.
    Like the other victims, her body was found naked in a field.
    Oliver Cartwright had forced his victims into their cars and then drove them to a vacant field where he’d raped and strangled them. Leaving his victims naked where he killed them, Cartwright would return the victim’s car to the shopping center from which he had snatched them, and leave their clothes neatly folded on the driver’s seat.
    Jane Doe was never identified. No one knew where she had come from or how she had ended up murdered in a field.
    Oliver squeezed Joshua’s hand while gazing at him with tears in his eyes. “Help Jane, Mr. Thornton. Please.”
    The door opened to the cell. “Sorry, gentlemen. Time’s up.”
    Joshua turned to Cartwright. “I will. I promise. I’ll do everything I can to make things right for Jane Doe. I’ll do it for both of you.”
    What a way to start a vacation.
    For the first time in Joshua’s forty-five years, he was home alone. All of his five children were gone and he had the whole house on the corner of Rock Spring Boulevard in Chester, West Virginia, to himself.
    Home alone was a big thing. Joshua had gone from his grandmother’s home to the Naval Academy, where he had lived in a dorm. From the Naval Academy, he had gotten married and lived with his wife, Valerie. They immediately began a family with their first born being twins. Valerie’s sudden death had left him with five children, most of them teenagers.
    Now, they were leaving the nest one by one. This summer seemed like one long graduation with one son, Murphy, graduating from the Naval Academy and moving to Washington to begin his first assignment at the Pentagon. Daughter Sarah graduated from Oak Glen High School and was taking her brother’s place at the Naval Academy. Her summer consisted of plebe training in Annapolis.
    The week after Sarah’s graduation, Joshua Junior, Murphy’s twin, graduated with a bachelor in pre-law from Pennsylvania State University. After a summer of teaching as an associate professor, he would be starting law school in August.
    Daughter Tracy was thrilled to receive a highly coveted summer internship position at the Ritz Carlton in New York City. She was now learning top culinary secrets from some of the world’s most respected chefs.
    They grow up fast. The last Thornton left in the nest was sixteen-year-old Donny, who was spending the month at the Outer Banks with his aunt and uncle and their children.
    While waiting for those pangs of empty nest to hit, Joshua planned for a two-week vacation from his job as Hancock County’s prosecuting attorney to fly solo and enjoy every minute.
    After waving goodbye to Donny when he rode off with Sarah to head east; Joshua went inside, stripped off his clothes, and went room to room