“No. I’m an Emerson.” He abruptly stiffened his spine and squared his shoulders. Like a soldier snapping to attention. “And that means nothing less than excellence is acceptable. I failed to memorize the poem and I had to be punished.”
Annie nearly missed the significance in his explanation.
It was only because she’d been so freaked out by the notes Martin had left for her that the mention of a poem triggered the connection.
“‘One for Sorrow,’” she slowly said. “That was the poem.”
His eyes darkened. “Yes.”
“What did she do?”
“She tied me to a chair and made me recite the poem. Over and over.” He halted his pacing, absently rubbing his inner arm. “Every time I got a verse wrong, she would remind me of the price of failure.”
She silently warned herself that she didn’t want to know what price her demented mother had forced Martin to pay. It wasn’t like she could change the past, was it?
But even as the rational thought formed, her lips were already moving.
“Remind you? You mean . . .” She gave a small gasp as her gaze lowered to where he continued to rub his arm. She had a vivid memory of the small scars that dotted his inner forearm. “She burned you,” she rasped. “With a cigarette.”
Martin instantly dropped his hands to his side, as if he’d given away more than he intended. “It was part of the game,” he muttered.
She clenched her hands until her nails dug into her palm. God. Even if she was sick, how did a mother tie up her son and burn him with cigarettes?
It was . . . unimaginable.
“That’s not a game,” she breathed.
He hunched a shoulder. “It was to Mother.”
A soul-deep regret ripped through Annie.
Who knew who her brother might have been if Virginia Cole Emerson hadn’t been a psycho bitch? If his childhood hadn’t been one of brutal torture, and he hadn’t been forced to kill his own mother.
For the first time, Annie felt a flare of anger toward their father.
He might have been devoted to her, but there was no denying he’d failed his son.
Failed him completely and utterly.
Captain James Emerson had been a well-educated, extremely clever man. He should have known that his wife was unstable. And that his son was being injured.
And he should have been the one who was there to stop Annie from being drowned in the bathtub by her mother.
Instead he’d put his career ahead of his family and turned a blind eye.
“I’m so sorry,” she said with genuine regret. “For everything.”
He stiffened, blatantly offended by her sympathy. “I’m not,” he insisted, another trickle of sweat zigzagging down the side of his face. “It made me realize I had to be smarter than her. I couldn’t beat her unless I became better at her own game.”
How was he sweating? The basement was freezing.
“You did, Marty,” she reminded him. “You beat her.”
“No, I tried, but the game was interrupted.” He slammed his fist into the palm of his hand, returning to his pacing. “This time I’ll finish it and she’ll be gone.” He nodded as if hearing a voice in his head. “Yes. Truly gone.”
Suddenly any thought of escape was lost beneath a sharp-edged fear that seared through her.
Oh God. She shuddered. He was going to continue killing women.
She had to do something to try and stop him.
“Please, Marty.” She held out her hand, which still throbbed from his earlier grip. “Those women are innocent.”
“They’re not.” Martin’s breath sawed in and out of his lungs as he glared at her. “She’s inside them. I can sense her.”
“They—”
“No more,” he interrupted with a snarl. The very air seemed to heat with the force of his annoyance. “Once she’s gone we can leave here and be together. Just the two of us.” With an obvious effort he fought to leash his growing agitation, leaning forward to take her hand. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Annabelle?”
She swallowed her groan of pain as her fingers were once again squeezed together, and tried her best to force a smile to her lips.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I want,” she assured him, holding his wary gaze. “But let’s go now. Right now.”
“I . . .” He frowned, clearly tempted. “I can’t.”
“Of course we can,” she urged. How did she convince him that he could keep her safe without sacrificing innocent women? “We’ll leave Newton and go far away.”
He shook his head. “She’ll find us.”
“No.” She leaned forward, ignoring the handcuff that bit into her wrist. “We can go to my condo in Denver. She can’t follow us there.”
He faltered, a tragic expression of hope softening his features. “We’ll be together?”
Her heart squeezed, the pain of what might have been bringing tears to her eyes.
“Just you and me.”
Max had just finished shoving the journals in the oven when he heard the front door open.
“Yeah?” Teagan demanded with his usual lack of tact.
“Where’s Vargas?” the sheriff demanded.
“Searching for Annie.” There was a deliberate pause before Teagan delivered his jab. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be doing?”
Max didn’t need to see the sheriff to know his face was getting flushed and his hands were clenched.
Teagan could piss off a saint.
“That’s why I’m here,” the man said between gritted teeth. “The dogs are going to need something of Annie’s to get her scent.”
There was an insulting pause before Teagan blew out a resigned sigh. “Fine. I’ll get something.”
Max grimaced, moving to pull up the screen savers on the laptops. The approaching footsteps warned him that the sheriff was going to come in and try to snoop.
From all reports, the lawman was running scared.
Maybe because he was afraid his murder of an innocent man was going to be discovered.
Or more likely, he had a healthy fear that he wouldn’t keep his job once it was discovered he’d allowed the real Slayer to escape so he could return to kill again.
Either way, Max didn’t intend to allow him to screw up their search for Annie.
The sheriff entered the kitchen dressed in a starched uniform and a matching hat on his round head. All very official if you didn’t notice the bloodshot eyes and the smell of whiskey that clung to his breath.
It seemed a little early in the day to be hitting the bottle, but Max was far more concerned with the sheriff’s suspicious glance, which took in every inch of the room.
Was he just nosy? Or was he searching for something in particular?
At last turning his attention toward the silent Max, he gave a small grunt. “This is quite an operation you’ve got going on.”
Max shrugged, his own face devoid of expression. “We’re just trying to help.”
The suspicion remained as the man folded his arms over his chest, as if trying to emphasize the shiny badge pinned to his shirt. “Vargas said he went to see the boy . . . Annie’s brother.” He managed a fake frown of confusion. “What’s his name?”
“Martin Emerson,” Max said, even though they both knew that Brock had rushed back to his office to run a check on Annie’s brother the minute he’d left the hospital. “I’m sure Rafe told you that he wasn’t there.”
“Yeah, but he must have learned something?”
“Enough to suspect that he’s the Newton Slayer.” Max shrugged. “And that he’s kidnapped Annie.”
The sheriff twitched. Just enough to reveal that beneath his good-old-boy bluster, he was edging toward a meltdown.
Clearly he wasn’t one of those lawmen who rose to the occasion.
“If he didn’t get to talk with the guy, then how did he leap to the conclusion that he was the killer?”
Max leaned against the wall, choosin
g his words with care. Sheriff Brock might be an asshat, but he had a badge. Max preferred to avoid outright lies that might lead to a messy tangle with the law. “I believe there were journals and even pictures hidden in his rooms,” he hedged.
“Journals?” Brock’s gaze darted toward the table, his face flushed. “Where are they?”
“Rafe said he wanted them sent to the FBI.” Which was perfectly true. Max just left out the part where they were currently hidden in the oven.
Brock muttered a foul curse. “They should have been given to me.” He thumped his fist against his chest. “I’m in charge of this case.”
Max cocked a brow, careful to hide his amusement. The sheriff was a common bully. He didn’t cope well with people who weren’t easily intimidated.
“You have no jurisdiction in Wisconsin,” he smoothly pointed out. “I assume the authorities will contact you if they decide to share any info.”
The man glared at Max. “What did they say?”
“I think most of it was gibberish.”
“Bullshit.” The sheriff growled, his face so red it was almost purple. “He found out something.”
“You’ll have to ask Rafe.”
Brock narrowed his eyes. “If I find out that you’re deliberately withholding evidence, I’ll have you thrown in jail.”
His threat was still hanging in the air when Teagan stepped into the kitchen. The younger man was instantly bristling with aggression as he shoved a sweatshirt into the sheriff’s hand.
“Here,” he growled, his golden eyes smoldering with blatant dislike. “I thought you were anxious to start your search.”
Brock clutched the sweatshirt in one hand, continuing to glare at Max.
“It would be considerably easier if I hadn’t been kept out of the loop,” he snapped. “It makes me wonder if you’re trying to hide something.”
“What would we want to hide?” Max demanded, his expression giving nothing away.
He might not have Lucas’s talent as a smooth talker, but he was no rookie when it came to lying.
His mother had taught him how to grift when he was barely out of diapers.
“Maybe the fact that Annie is working with her brother,” the lawman blustered.
Wrong answer.
Instantly Teagan was in his face, vibrating with the urge to smash in the sheriff’s smug expression. “Not even you are stupid enough to believe that,” he snarled.
“Watch it, nacho,” Brock warned even as he hastily backed away.
He was a blowhard, not a complete idiot.
He had to know that Teagan could rip him into a dozen bloody pieces.
“If you intend to be a racist, then at least get it right, bubba,” Teagan drawled. “I’m Polynesian, not Hispanic.”
Knowing how easily things could go south, Max grabbed his friend’s arm and gently tugged him away from the lawman.
“Teagan,” he warned in soft tones, ensuring his friend didn’t intend to go apeshit, before he returned his attention to the sheriff. “How did you find the Newton Slayer the first time?”
Brock warily turned his head to meet Max’s gaze, his brow furrowed with confusion. “What?”
“You were the one to discover the women were hidden in the bomb shelter fifteen years ago,” Max said. It was a question that had nagged at him since he’d read through the police report, but more importantly it provided a much-needed distraction. Teagan could be a pain in the ass, but Max didn’t want to see him shot by the aggravating prick. “How?”
The man hesitated. Did he intend to ignore the question?
“Someone called in, the dispatcher didn’t catch the name,” he at last admitted.
“You never identified the caller?”
“No.”
Max had the feeling no one tried very hard to trace the snitch.
But why not?
“Did they actually go into the bomb shelter?”
“What the fuck does it matter?”
Max wasn’t sure. He only knew that there was something about the murders that continued to nag at him.
“If Martin has a pattern that was spotted by a local citizen, it might help us track him down,” he said.
The sheriff thinned his lips. “Someone called nine-one-one and said there was a foul smell coming from the Whites’ garage. I went to investigate. Satisfied?”
Not hardly. Max eyed the lawman.
Was he reluctant to discuss the discovery of the bodies because he’d screwed up by arresting the wrong man or because he’d done something illegal to track down the kill site?
Hard to say.
“You didn’t notice anyone lurking around?”
“I don’t have time for this shit,” Brock snapped. “I want to know what the hell Vargas found in those journals—”
His angry words were cut short as Max’s phone vibrated in his hand.
A glance revealed that it was Rafe calling.
“I have to take this,” he muttered, pressing the phone to his ear. No way in hell he was putting his friend on speaker. “Yeah?”
“Is that Vargas?” Brock demanded, moving until he was nearly pressed against Max.
“The sheriff is here,” he warned Vargas, even as he lifted his hand to press the intrusive bastard away from him. Christ, he didn’t even like his women standing that close. Unless they happened to be naked. “Personal space, my man,” he growled.
Brock refused to budge. “Where is he?”
Max scowled at the sheriff as he concentrated on Rafe’s voice.
“Got it.” He grudgingly passed along the information to the sheriff. For this, the idiot might actually come in handy. “He says that they found the cars belonging to the missing women.”
The lawman stiffened. “Where?”
“Here.”
Turning toward the wall, Max pointed toward a spot on the map that looked like an empty field. The sheriff leaned forward, studying the area surrounding the area.
There was a tense silence before the lawman at last breathed out a low hiss. “Fuck.”
Max studied the chubby face that had abruptly paled. “Do you know where he is?” he demanded.
The sheriff hesitated, clearing his throat before he finally pointed toward a small dot on the other side of the field. “That’s the Gilbert place.”
“Do they have any buildings that could be used by Emerson to hide the women?”
Brock nodded. “They have a dairy barn they don’t use any more and several empty silos. Tell Vargas I’m on my way.”
Max passed along the information to Rafe while Teagan texted them to Lucas before he returned his attention to the sheriff, who was already headed out of the kitchen.
Happy to be rid of the aggravating jerk, Max grimaced when Brock halted in the doorway to flash a humorless smile.
“One more thing,” he said, back in full bully mode. “Warn Vargas to keep his eyes open, but to stay in his vehicle. If I catch him anywhere near the crime scene I’ll shoot his ass.”
Max rolled his eyes, turning the phone on speaker as Sheriff Doofus left the house.
“Did you get that, Rafe?” he asked.
There was a string of curses before the connection was abruptly cut.
Max grimaced as he met Teagan’s wry smile.
“He isn’t going to wait, is he?” the younger man demanded.
“Nope.” Max raised a hand to massage the tense muscles of his nape. “This has all the potential to become a clusterfuck.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Annie’s fingers ached from her brother’s punishing grip and her entire body was shivering from the chill in the air, but she held his gaze.
If she couldn’t escape, then she at least had to do something to get him out of Newton.
If she didn’t, then he was certain to kill again.
“Please, Marty, we should go,” she urged.
His expression briefly softened. Annie held her breath. Was it possible he was going to give in?
Then the glimpse of vulnerability was blanked out and the fanatical glitter returned to his eyes.
“Not yet.” He dropped her hand and rose to his feet, his gaze shifting toward the stairs. “I still have things that have to be done.”
A stab of panic pierced her heart.
She couldn’t let him leave.
Not only because she feared he was going to kidnap another woman. But what would happen to her if he was captured or in an accident or simply decided to take off?
She could be trapped in the basement for days, maybe weeks.
The mere thought was enough to make her stomach twist with dread.
“There’s no time,” she said in an urgent tone.
He frowned, studying her with a mounting suspicion. “Why are you in such a hurry?”
She arranged the pillow behind her, stalling in the hope that inspiration would strike.
It didn’t.
Instead she was forced to latch onto the only excuse that came to mind.
“They’ll be searching for us.”
Martin glanced around the basement, as if expecting a hidden intruder. “No one will find us here.”
“You don’t know Rafe very well,” she muttered. “He has an entire team of ex-military friends who could probably locate Bigfoot if they wanted to.”
A petulant scowl settled on Martin’s face. “I’m not afraid of them.”
“You should be,” Annie insisted.
His expression hardened. He clearly disliked her faith in Rafe’s skill. “You like him,” he accused in dark tones.
“He’s been a good friend,” she hedged.
He flattened his lips, a dangerous glint of anger shimmering in the depths of his blue eyes. “Do you want to be with him?”
Annie knew better than to admit the truth.
Her brother clearly had an obsessive need to be her one and only protector.
“No, I’ve told you, I want us to be together,” she hastily assured him, “but that won’t happen if we get caught.”
Martin’s anger faded, but his frown remained as he considered the danger that Rafe posed to his twisted plans.
“You can send him a note,” he at last decided, speaking with the confidence of a man who’d been isolated in a private clinic for years. He wasn’t used to dealing with trained soldiers who didn’t understand the word “quit.” “You’ll tell him you’re with your family and that you want him to leave you alone.”
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