Dangerous To Love

by Toni Anderson, Barbara Freethy, Dee Davis, Leslie A. Kelly, Cynthia Eden, J. Kenner, Meli Raine, Gwen Hernandez, Pamela Clare, Rachel Grant

  Dunston appeared dubious. “Heard them, from inside the van?”

  Lexie crossed the room and put a hand on Aidan’s shoulder. “Considering how that place affected you, you couldn’t possibly have realized they were passing by us at exactly that minute.” She glanced at the chief. “You know who Mr. McConnell is, so you must have some idea of what he does. The feelings he got off that house confirmed every one of our theories, and the girls’ stories. Some local men—the ones in that van you were following, I suspect—have been doing some pretty sick things to young women from this community.”

  Dunston’s jaw thrust out and he hunched forward. “Killing?”

  She shook her head, telling him the rest, everything they hadn’t shared thus far. Including Aidan’s own certainty that Vonnie Jackson had been to that club, but that she wasn’t there now.

  When she was finished, Dunston shook his head, appearing confused. “So if you already know she’s not there, why are we here, trying to find out who owns the place?”

  Aidan explained. “We know two of the missing girls were at that house, both wrapped up with that club. A lot of other girls—girls whose backgrounds and descriptions fit the type these men like—are also missing. Right now it’s the only solid link we can find between them, and it has to mean something. We need to find out who the members are and what else they know.”

  Dunston rolled his eyes and shook his head, “Well, I can tell ya who the members are. I watched most of them from across the street last night.”

  “We didn’t exactly know that that before we came down here,” Lexie replied, her eyes narrowing.

  Sensing the rising tension between them, Aidan interjected. “We’re here. We’re close to getting the property records. Let’s find out who owns it and see if we can use that information to get one of those men to start talking.”

  “Good point,” Dunston said with a nod. “If one of ’em thinks he might take the fall for all of it, he might start spilling his guts a little faster. Just depends on who it is.”

  “What about getting a warrant?” Lexie asked.

  “You mean the document your friends think they don’t need to have in order to trespass on private property?” Dunston asked, visibly irritated. “Yes, I do need one before I can set foot on that place. But I won’t get it now, not with what I have—the say-so of a psychic who practically got run out of his last town.” He looked at Aidan. “No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  Lexie wasn’t giving up. “What about the bone fragments?”

  “Think a judge is going to give me a warrant to search every house on that road? There are dozens of ’em, some occupied, some not. I still don’t know how you found the right one.”

  Neither of them answered that question. The chief probably wasn’t quite ready to hear about Morgan.

  As if knowing they weren’t going to explain, Dunston continued. “Nah, we need more before I even try it.” The man’s lip curled up on one side. “Especially because I saw a judge climbing onboard that van last night.”

  “Good Lord,” Lexie groaned, rubbing at her temples.

  Frank, the clerk, suddenly returned, pushing into the conference room, his arms loaded with photocopied documents. “Here we go, everything I’ve got. This has to be the place, Lexie. I looked up all the survey maps based on the mile markers you told me about.” He put the files and loose pages on the table—lien records, property transfers, wills. It looked like he’d gone all the way back to the construction of the house in the early eighteen hundreds.

  But the piece of paper they were looking for was much more recent than that. And Lexie, with her cold, researcher’s eye, found it first, within just a minute or two.

  “Here!” she exclaimed, holding up a sheet of paper he recognized as a recent tax bill. She read it, sucked in a surprised breath, and then mumbled, “Oh boy.”

  Dunston plucked it out of her fingers and read it. “Ahh.”

  “What?” Aidan asked, not caring so much about the name—since he knew barely anybody in this town—but why the others were so surprised by it.

  “The man who owns that place is pretty well known around these parts,” Dunston explained. He cast a look at Lexie that could have been apologetic, or at the very least sheepish. “I think I can see what happened last month a little more clearly now.”

  Lexie ignored him, flipping through the pages as she told Aidan, “It’s Bob Underwood. He owns the estate, looks like it’s been in his family for generations, since just after the Civil War.”

  “Damned carpetbaggers,” the chief muttered.

  “Underwood . . . the co-owner of the paper?”

  “Yes,” she said, “No wonder he was so anxious to shut me up. You know if I had kept digging into those missing girls, I would have found out about this dirty club.”

  This time, Dunston didn’t convey his feelings with only a look. He cleared his throat, saying, “I apologize, Ms. Nolan. I regret not believing you.”

  “Thank you,” she replied absently, as if she’d moved past the painful episode. Maybe now, with so much at stake, she had been able to.

  Dunston looked at Frank and waved the tax record. “Mind if I hold on to this?”

  “If it’d help you find Taylor Kirby, you could have the original,” the clerk said.

  “That’s another thing,” Dunston muttered. “How do the Kirby girls tie in to everything? I sure can’t see the members of this club playing those kinds of games with girls who are close enough to their parents that they’d tell ’em what was going on.”

  Lexie turned away, wrapping her arms around herself. She hadn’t said anything, but Aidan imagined her guilt had only grown weightier with the discovery that Jenny was actually dead.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” he told them both.

  Turning her head to look over her shoulder, Lexie waited. Hoping she’d see the reason in his theory, he said, “Look, Taylor was one of the students who got up and spoke at the game Friday night.”

  Dunston crossed his arms over his chest, looking belligerent. That memory was obviously a raw one.

  “Maybe the killer was there. He was angry, challenged, and decided to grab one of those two girls, as payback or something. Taylor was who he found first, and poor Jenny was just in the way.” Expounding on the thoughts that had been nagging in his brain, he added, “Or hell, maybe he liked the attention and decided to get even more of it by taking someone he knew would cause an uproar.”

  Aidan honestly didn’t know. None of them could, not until they found the monster responsible.

  “All that makes sense, but there’s no point wonderin’ about it now,” Chief Dunston said. “Not when we got somebody to talk to.” He looked at his watch, then at Lexie. “Do you happen to know where Bob Underwood spends most of his Sunday afternoons?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, I do. He likes to sit in Walter’s office and go over every bit of the business, make sure each nickel is accounted for and everything is being done just the way he wants it. He’s the type who thinks everyone’s out to rob him blind.”

  “Do you think he’d do that today, with what’s going on with Walter?”

  “Ayuh. Even more reason for him to if he thinks Walter won’t be around for a while. Too worried about being cheated to think about his partner’s kids.”

  Lexie sneered. “Asshole.”

  “Maybe so. But at least he’s a predictable one.” Pulling his sunglasses off his head and wiping them with a corner of his shirt, he added, “You wouldn’t happen to have a key to your office, in case you need to get in there after hours, would you?”

  A slow smile creased her face as she nodded. “As it just so happens, I do, Chief Dunston. But if you want to use it, you’re going to have to let me—us—come with you.”

  The chief sighed. “Christ Almighty, what am I doing?” Then, almost resigned, he agreed to her demands. “Considering my own men don’t even know any of this is goin’ on,
I’ll consider you my backup.” When Lexie’s smile widened, the chief pointed a finger at her. “However, you’re a silent, invisible backup. You two stay out of sight, and let me do all the talking. I know this man. I know he’s not going to want to say a thing, and he won’t if he thinks there’s anybody else around to hear. And if I think he’s involved in a crime and he might incriminate himself, I’m going to have to read him his rights and take him in.”

  “I can’t see Bob Underwood being smart enough to be behind these killings,” Lexie said. “He doesn’t care about anything except money.”

  “And having sex with teenage girls,” Aidan pointed out.

  Lexie and the chief both fell silent, acknowledging that bitter truth.

  Nobody really knew what anyone else was capable of. They had been neighbors with all these “good” people. They’d been friends with them, worked with them. Before now, he didn’t suppose Lexie or Chief Dunston had ever imagined those men capable of the things they’d done. So how much of a stretch was it to think they might have done even worse?

  Maybe a lot worse.

  Sunday, 4:50 p.m.

  Jenny. Her sister, her other half.

  “Gone,” she whispered.

  He killed my sister. He killed her. She’s dead.

  Taylor knew the words repeating over and over in her brain would eventually sink in. They’d stab her through the heart and she’d believe them and then she’d lose her mind. So she did everything she could not to go down that path. In her brain, she accepted it, but she refused to allow the awful truth of it to overwhelm her emotions and crush her heart completely.

  She couldn’t, not yet. Couldn’t cry for the twin who she would grieve for as long as she lived—whether that was another hour, or another century.

  Taylor had known Jenny was gone from the moment she’d woken up in this hole. Everything had felt different right away and she’d noticed that difference as soon as she’d fully regained consciousness. Not because she was in so much pain—her head throbbing, her back feeling seared—and scared and lost in the darkness. It had been more subtle, infinitely more awful.

  Her world had been solid and secure every day of her life. Until now. Now there was some intrinsic, vitally important piece missing. Just like she always knew when Jenny was sad or hurt, the very emptiness, that lack of connection, had made it clear her sister was no longer alive.

  She hadn’t needed the filthy, murdering bastard—whose voice she would swear she knew from somewhere—to say it. She’d already known.

  Tears tried to rise, but she blinked hard, knowing her sister would be angry with her if she gave in to them. You’re the strong one, Taylor, so be strong! Jenny would say.

  She’d already had to exhibit more strength than she’d ever have believed she possessed. Just by doing absolutely nothing. If that psycho had shared that awful truth when she hadn’t been prepared for it, Taylor would likely have done exactly what he’d expected her to do: break down. Scream. Sob.

  But she hadn’t. She’d lain on that cold, hard floor, listening to him describe the awful things he’d done to the person she’d loved most in the world, and she had controlled herself. She’d stayed still. Let him think she was unconscious, in a coma, or almost dead.

  At first, she’d wished she were. She didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to survive at all.

  Her sister wouldn’t let her give up. Don’t you dare, Taylor Kirby. Don’t you let him win. He can’t have us both! You have to fight. Mom and Dad need you to. They can’t survive losing both of us, you know that.

  Jenny had been right. And Taylor had listened, and obeyed.

  Even while he walked around the room, mere feet away, the image of her sister had kept Taylor’s entire focus. Her eyes had been closed, and yet she’d seen Jenny there, exactly as she’d been on that parking lot, lying on her stomach, a few feet away, her arm outstretched. Their fingers had touched again, their bodies mirroring each other. Only this time, Jenny’s eyes were open, her lips pursed as she silently whispered, “Shh!”

  Her sister’s voice had ordered her to be still. Jenny’s hand had held her down, kept her from swinging out in fury, despite the pain of hearing the truth put into words. And once the murderer was gone, Jenny had told her what to tell poor, beaten Vonnie to do before she got sick all over the floor.

  Unfortunately, though, Jenny now seemed to have fallen silent.

  So had Vonnie.

  Believing Taylor’s claim that they were being watched, Vonnie hadn’t spoken much once they were alone. She’d tried a few words, which sounded as though they’d come from a mostly closed mouth. After confirming Taylor’s identity, she’d repeated the same phrase that had awakened Taylor this morning. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

  As if any of this were her fault.

  Then the other girl had grown quiet again. Waiting for the dark, as Taylor was.

  Holding out for the dark.

  She only hoped that when the dark came—as the late-afternoon shadows seemed to say it soon would—Vonnie would be able to speak. She had fallen asleep, or else she hadn’t gotten the drugs out of her system soon enough. She was still over there on that cot, her deep, even breaths telling Taylor she was completely dead to the world.

  Taylor wondered if the other girl was dreaming. If she was even capable of dreaming anymore, after being locked down here for almost a week, enduring whatever she’d endured that had left her so bruised and bloody.

  The shadows grew longer, the cell dimmer. But Taylor remained patient. Partially because she knew she had to, due to the cameras he must have hidden down here. And partially because she was so overcome with terror, she didn’t know if she was capable of movement.

  Yes, you are.

  “Yes,” she mumbled, glad to be hearing Jenny’s voice again, even if she couldn’t see her right now. She’d swear she’d felt the warmth of her sister’s breath on her cheek as she’d whispered in her ear. Taylor remained calm, knowing that, no matter what happened, her sister would be here with her.

  The last bit of daylight coming in from the window over Vonnie’s cot went out, like a candle being extinguished. Darkness descended, full and thick. And while she certainly didn’t think it would be safe to get up and move around, she at least felt confident he wasn’t going to be able to see her lips move, especially not with her bloody hair still lying across her face.

  “Vonnie?”

  She’d thought the other girl was asleep. But the response was immediate. “I’m here, Taylor.”

  “I was afraid you had passed out.”

  “No. Just wanted him to think I had.”

  Smart girl.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she added.

  Taylor couldn’t help letting out a small, ugly laugh, thinking of all the other reasons she had to be scared.

  Vonnie sighed. “Okay, forget I said that. Are you okay?”

  The pain in her back was bad. So bad. And lying the way she was for so many hours had made it worse. Though she didn’t like the idea of him knowing she was mobile, she had to shift. “I think he stabbed me.”

  “Considering there’s a knife sticking out of your back, I’d say that’s a good bet.”

  A sob rose in her throat. She swallowed it. Now it wasn’t Jenny’s voice she heard telling her to hold it together, it was Vonnie’s matter-of-fact one. “It’s tiny, like a penknife. It’s closer to your side, and if he’d hit any vital organs or major vessels you’d already be dead. So we’ll deal with it when we can. Until then, try not to move.”

  They’d deal with it. Okay. But not moving seemed even more impossible than the idea that they could actually escape from here.

  Vonnie’s chains clinked, as if she were rolling around. Taylor suspected the girl was trying to turn enough to see her, probably desperate for a familiar face.

  “Everybody’s been so worried about you. There was a big protest at the game Friday night. Kids from both schools.”

  “I can�
�t believe it,” Vonnie whispered.

  “Believe it. People care. Everyone was devastated, afraid you were dead.”

  “I thought I was, at first. Wish I’d taken that ride home from your sister.” The girl sniffled. “I’m so sorry, Taylor.” Then, her voice sounding a little stronger, she added, “But, you know, maybe it’s not true. You can’t believe everything he says. He lies. I know he lies.”

  Jenny. She squeezed her eyes tight, forcing the tears away. Not now. Can’t think about that now.

  “He’s not lying,” she said, not wanting to explain how she knew. Most people wouldn’t understand. “And you should know, my sister isn’t the one who offered you a ride.”

  She told Vonnie what had happened, how she and Jenny had switched places—never again, oh God, never again.

  Stop it, Taylor.

  “Okay, Jenny,” she whispered.

  Hearing that story, Vonnie, in turn, told Taylor why the monster had targeted her—them.

  Hearing the true reason, that all of this might have happened because she’d driven her car across the parking lot without the headlights so they wouldn’t get busted for trading places, she thought she’d be sick. “Jenny died because of that?”

  “Jenny died because a fucking psycho decided to kill her,” Vonnie declared. “That’s all. You were awake—you heard him talking. It could just as easily have been you. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care, and it’s definitely not your fault.”

  It could have been her? It should have been her. She wished it had been her. Because of the two of them, Jenny was the good one, the nice one, the smart one. The one who would have done something amazing for this world, if only by being a part of it for the next eighty years.

  “Stop it.”

  She thought for a second she’d heard Jenny’s voice again. But it was Vonnie’s.

  “I knew your sister. I know everything going through your mind right now would be going through hers if the situations were reversed.”

  Maybe. Probably. But that didn’t make the pain of it go away.

  She still found it hard to believe all of this had come about because of this monster’s crazy paranoia. “He thought I might have seen him driving after you so he killed my sister and intends to kill me.”