The Professor (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #1)(79)

Please be all right.





67


JimBone Wheeler couldn’t believe his luck. After dropping Wilma off at the hotel, he had picked up Dawn’s tail just before dark while she was leaving her apartment. He had followed her here, but had been forced to wait, because there were video surveillance cameras inside both the front and back doors of the law office. Now, nearly five hours later, the parking lot was empty, Dawn Murphy was alone, and there was no sign of the Drake kid or anyone else.

Better to be lucky than good, JimBone thought, wrapping his hand around Dawn’s mouth with a chloroform-drenched paper towel as she tried to twist away from him.

The knife was in his jeans pocket. He could stab her, take her purse and leave, and it would be a job well done. But where was the fun in that? Besides, why would someone just kill a pretty thing like Dawn Murphy? She was beautiful. Young. Sexy. Dawn stopped writhing, as the chloroform did its magic. JimBone looked down at her face, unable to contain his smile as he thought of the fun he was about to have.

Beautiful, young, sexy women didn’t just get killed for money. They got raped. Sodomized. Brutalized. Then, only after having been properly defiled, were they killed, rumpled up in a garbage bag and thrown in the river.

She’d be just another hot-to-trot co-ed killed by a crazed pervert. JimBone followed the news. A killing like this happened in college towns all the time. Or at least enough not to raise too many eyebrows.

JimBone had parked on the curb on the street adjacent to the parking lot. There were no streetlights. No way anyone could see him unless they were looking for him. Just too easy, he thought, as he carried Dawn’s body up to the El Camino. He opened the door and was about to push her into the car when pain engulfed every part of his body.

Someone or something was squeezing his testicles. Sonofa...

JimBone grabbed for his crotch, but then his face was pressed into the windshield. Howling in pain as his balls were squeezed together, JimBone felt hot breath on the back of his neck.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” a deep male voice said, as the pressure intensified. JimBone tried to elbow the man, but it was no use. The man was too strong. JimBone reached into his pocket for the knife, and the pressure on his balls suddenly eased. Turning on a dime, JimBone lunged with the knife, missing badly and sprawling on the pavement. When he got up, a pistol was pressed into his forehead.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to bring a knife to a gunfight?”

“Jesus Christ,” JimBone said, looking at the man, who was as tall as him and black as the ace of spades.

“No, dog. Bocephus Haynes. You’re as far from Jesus as you’re ever gon’ be.”

JimBone gulped, then turned his head as tires screeched behind Bocephus. Bocephus also turned, taking a couple of steps back. When he did, JimBone’s survival instincts kicked in.

And he ran.

“I don’t think so, motherf*cker,” Bocephus screamed after him, and JimBone heard the sound of the gun firing up in the air.

JimBone Wheeler never looked back.



“She’s OK!” Bo yelled, calling over his shoulder and pointing back at Dawn, who was crumpled against the side of an old El Camino.

Tom and Rick reached Dawn at the same time, and Rick knelt down and placed the side of his head on her chest.

“She’s breathing,” he said, looking up at Tom.

Tom stepped back and looked in the direction where Bo had been running.

“Wait here, Rick.”

Tom ran back to the Explorer and put it in gear. After a couple of minutes of driving, he caught up with Bo, who was running at a dead sprint and approaching the bridge that connected downtown Tuscaloosa to downtown Northport.

Underneath was the Black Warrior River.

“Jesus,” Tom muttered. He saw another man stepping over the railing of the bridge. Bo was fifteen yards away. Ten. Five.

Bo lunged for the railing

“Bo!” Tom yelled out the window of the car. But Bo was too late.

The man on the bridge jumped.





68


“I can’t believe you kept following him,” Tom said, looking across the booth at Bo, who looked as pissed as Tom had ever seen him.

“I can’t believe I let him get away,” Bo said, tapping his knuckles on the table in disgust. They were at the Waffle House on McFarland. Both of them had a cup of coffee in front of them. Rick was out in the Explorer with Dawn, who had just come to a few minutes ago, while Powell Conrad paced back and forth across the tile floor, talking furiously into his cell phone.

“I don’t care if they’re off tonight, Sheriff, we need more people searching the banks of the river,” Powell yelled into the phone, causing Tom to chuckle with pride. His former students were showing off tonight. Tom squinted across the booth at Bo.

“So when did you find her?”

“’Bout five minutes before y’all got there. I checked every law office downtown for a white Mustang hatchback, and finally saw it just after midnight.” Bo paused, taking a sip of coffee. “You still need the bartender, Burns?”

Tom shook his head. “No, we don’t need Burns to testify anymore, because Wilma Newton admitted to everything he was going to say. Send him home.”

“So the cross went well?” Bo asked, his face breaking into a grin.