Herring was gone. And he’d taken Angie with him.
Oliver took the stairs two at a time until he burst open the door to the first floor. He tucked his weapon into his suit jacket and jogged through the halls until he reached the front of the hospital.
His cell phone buzzed from his pocket. He fished it out while running toward his car.
“Quick,” he answered, unlocking the door and practically jumping behind the wheel. He had the car started and was already backing out before Holland finished his sentence.
“I’m on my way to the hospital. Where are you?”
“En route to Herring’s address.”
“You should have waited for me, dammit.”
Oliver’s lips peeled back over his teeth. “I can’t wait around for him to kill Angie. Meet me there. Nancy has the address.”
Tossing the cell onto the console, Oliver slid out into the Destin traffic.
Sounds of tires locking up behind him could be heard over the thundering of his heart. He didn’t care. Nothing mattered in that moment but reaching Angie in time. If he wasn’t already too late.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Oliver arrived at Herring’s address less than ten minutes later. The black Audi was nowhere to be seen.
“Fuck!” he snarled, jumping out with weapon in hand. No lights were on, not even the porch light.
He circled around to the back, but nothing could be seen in the darkness.
Inching up to the back door, Oliver tried the knob, only to find it locked.
Backing up a step, he kicked out, his foot connecting with the door. It splintered inward to crash against the interior wall.
No sounds could be heard coming from the belly of the house.
Oliver knew he wouldn’t find them there as surely as he knew Herring had another location where he killed.
After doing a quick sweep through the house, Oliver turned on a light in the living room. There, covering the entire back wall, were framed pictures of Oliver.
“What the hell?”
Every image depicted a different expression, a unique pose.
If Oliver had doubted that Herring was the Silencer, he didn’t in that moment. Herring was definitely a serial killer, a monster…and he was obsessed with Oliver.
Oliver darted back to his vehicle, calling Nancy as he went. “He has another location.”
“Oliver, I’ve looked. That’s the only real estate Vince Herring owns.”
“Check his parents’ names. Hurry, Nancy. He’s taken another woman.”
Oliver could hear Nancy’s fingers flying over the keyboard.
“No. Sorry, Oliver, there’s nothing. Both parents are deceased.”
“Son of a bitch!” Oliver snarled, jumping into his car and squealing tires out of the drive.
Nancy continued typing. “Wait. He has a sister who lives in Oregon, but it looks like she owns a place in Niceville.”
“Send me the address, and hurry!”
“Already done.”
“Call Holland and tell him where I’m headed.” He pressed the end call button.
Oliver gripped the wheel and shot down Highway 98 at a high rate of speed. He had less than two miles left before reaching the Mid-Bay Bridge—the bridge that would land him in Niceville.
He programmed the address into his GPS, grateful for the talk-to-text feature on his phone.
Herring’s sister’s place was less than five minutes away.
Oliver shot through the SunPass lane of the toll, nearly running into a car in the process.
He darted off onto his designated exit, flooring the gas and running several red lights along the way.
The dirt drive to Herring’s sister’s place loomed just ahead. Oliver slowed to a stop at the end of the drive, switched off his lights, and eased as quietly as he could from his car.
Raising his 9mm, Oliver checked his surroundings before moving cautiously down the drive.
A one-story house eventually came into view. It appeared to be an older home with a carport. Dozens of trees littered the yard, and a rundown picket fence ran along the side.
Some kind of block building was perched in the distance, with an old yellow light hanging above the door.
Oliver crept closer, his senses heightened, his shoes crunching overly loud on the gravel beneath his feet.
He noticed Herring’s car parked under the carport.
Movement inside the house caught Oliver’s eye.
He hunkered down a bit more, straining to make out the silhouette behind the sheer curtains.
It was Herring. It had to be.
Oliver wiped the sweat from his eyes, never stopping the movement of his feet until he found himself at the edge of the yard.
That was definitely Herring he saw.
He gripped his weapon as firmly as he could and moved with the precision of a cat.
Herring stepped to the left and out of Oliver’s line of sight altogether.
Oliver wiped at his eyes once more. If not for Angie being inside, he would light the place on fire.
“Ah, Oliver. You came for me.”
Oliver spun around, his finger on the trigger. And there, standing beneath the carport, stood Vince Herring.
“Where is she?” Oliver growled, moving carefully in Herring’s direction.
Herring feigned innocence. “Where is whom?”
“Move into the light and get down on your knees with your hands behind your head, before I fill you full of holes!”
“Now, Oliver. If I step into that light, I have no doubt that you will fill me full of holes.”
“Move! Hands where I can see them.”
“Very well.” With aching slowness, Vince Herring locked his hands behind his head, stepped forward into the light, and lowered to his knees.
Oliver’s horrified gaze was drawn to the front of Herring’s shirt. The entire thing was soaked in blood, as were the thighs of his scrubs.
“Angieeee!” Oliver yelled, unable to take his gaze from all that blood.
“If you’re wondering if I enjoyed myself with her, I didn’t. Not with so little time.”
Oliver finally tore his gaze away from Herring’s blood-soaked shirt. “Where is she?”
“You can’t save her, Oliver. Anymore than you could save April.”
Oliver stormed forward and pressed his 9mm against Herring’s forehead. “If she’s dead, I swear to God, I will cut you up, piece by piece with your own fucking butcher knife!”
“Like I did Jennifer Clayton?”
Oliver glanced toward the house. “Angieeee!”
Herring cocked his head to the side. “She wasn’t good enough for you, Oliver. Divorced, a kid at home. Far too much baggage for someone such as yourself.”
The sound of sirens could be heard in the distance, telling Oliver that Holland would be there soon with half the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department in tow.
He pressed the gun harder against Herring’s head. “Get up.”
Herring continued to sit there.
Dozens of patrol cars came barreling up the drive.
“Angie’s dead,” Herring taunted, gazing up into Oliver’s eyes. “I killed her. But not before I fucked her in every hole she had.”
Oliver slipped his finger onto the trigger, Herring’s face blurring in his tear-filled vision.
“Don’t do it, Oliver.” Somewhere in his horrified mind, Oliver knew Holland was pleading with him.
“Think about it, Quick. This is what he wants, what he’s wanted all along. He wants to die. And it has to be you, Oliver. It’s always been about you. Don’t give him what he wants.”
Oliver blinked through the tears swimming in his eyes, his finger wavering on that trigger.
“Aren’t you even curious about how hard she fought? Not as hard as April. Now, there was a fighter. You know, I kept her alive the longest. I just couldn’t bring myself to waste such a spirited one.”
“Shut up!” Holland yelled before inchi
ng closer to Oliver’s side. “Don’t listen to him, Quick. If you kill him, April’s death will be for nothing. He gets off easy, while she lies in the grave. Don’t you see? Prison would be a literal hell for someone like him. Don’t give him the easy way out.”
Herring pushed his forehead more firmly against the barrel of Oliver’s gun. “She screamed for you, Oliver. Screamed for you to save her. Until I removed her larynx. Then all she had left to scream with were her eyes. And boy did she have expressive eyes.”
A roar exploded from within Oliver that was wrenched from his very soul. The pain of its release went on forever, leaving with it the coveted revenge he’d clung to since April’s death.
He would never be able to avenge her; her suffering would remain in vain.
Another hoarse sound ripped from his depths to echo off the trees surrounding him.
He jerked his 9mm into the air and pulled the trigger, the rapid firing of the semiautomatic drowning out the sounds of his agony.
Herring’s words continued to swirl through his mind. “Aren’t you even curious about how hard she fought? Not as hard as April. Now, there was a fighter.”
“Fuuuuuck!” Oliver roared again, his finger still squeezing that trigger; though he’d long since run out of ammo…
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Over here!” someone shouted just minutes after the sheriff shoved Herring into the backseat of his patrol car.
Oliver lifted his weary head and turned in the direction of the commotion.
A deputy was hovering at the open passenger-side door of Herring’s Audi. “She’s alive!”
Oliver broke into a run, shoving the deputy back to stare down at Angie’s unconscious form. “Angie?”
“We need an ambulance over here,” Oliver choked out to the deputy, standing behind him.
“Angie?” He pressed shaky fingers against her neck, nearly sagging in relief when he felt a strong pulse.
Leaning deeper into the car, he ran his hands along her arms and legs before moving to her head. His fingers came into contact with a lump at the base of her skull.
Herring had rendered her unconscious.
A soft moan escaped her throat.
“Angie? Sweetheart, can you hear me?”
Her eyes fluttered open. “Oliver?”
“I’m here, love. You’re safe now.”
She suddenly reared up, her eyes growing huge in her face. “Herring. Where’s Herring? Oliver, he—”
“Shhhhh, I know. He’s been arrested. He can never hurt you or anyone else again.”
“But…I don’t understand?”
Oliver understood. Vince Herring had been obsessed with Oliver since he’d learned of April’s pregnancy at the time of her death.
Oliver had no idea what had happened in Herring’s life to turn him into a killer, he only knew that Herring would die long before he made it to Death Row.
Oliver cupped Angie’s cheek with his palm. “I’ll tell you everything I know after you’ve been seen by a medic. An ambulance is on the way.”
She took a shuddering breath and rested her face against Oliver’s palm.
“Sir?” someone murmured from behind him.
Oliver kissed Angie on the forehead and straightened.
The deputy nodded toward the building out back. “You might want to see this.”
“Stay with her,” Oliver ordered, striding over to the block building.
He came to a stop next to Holland, his gaze touching on at least six freezers resting along the walls. “What is it?”
“Bodies. Several dismembered bodies.”
“Jesus.” Oliver pinched the bridge of his nose. “This explains where he got the blood-covered shirt, he’s wearing. But he doesn’t cut up his victims. That was the Dockside Killer’s MO. Why go off script?”
Holland met Oliver’s gaze. “I think they were backup plans.”
Oliver narrowed his eyes. “Backup plans?”
“In case you didn’t figure out who really killed Jennifer Clayton.”
Understanding dawned. “They were breadcrumbs. He would have continued dumping bodies until…”
“Until you found him,” Holland finished for him. “It’s a pretty solid theory. Hopefully we’ll get some information out of him during interrogation.”
“God knows how many more we don’t know about, Richard.”
And we still haven’t located Jennifer Clayton’s baby,” Holland quietly stated.
Oliver glanced back toward the freezers. “He’s not—”
“No, thank God. He’s not there.”
* * * *
“All this time, Doctor Herring was the Silencer?” Angie rasped from her position in a hospital bed.
Oliver handed her a cup of water. “He’s responsible for the deaths of more than twenty women. And those are the ones we know of.”
“He’s the one who murdered your wife.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“I’m so sorry, Oliver. That couldn’t have been easy for you to allow him to live.”
And it hadn’t been easy. Oliver had lost a piece of his soul by not pulling that trigger. But he’d go on living. He had to. There would always be another serial killer to hunt, another terrorist or monster to put behind bars.
“Herring is not living, Angie. He’s merely breathing. He’ll get what he deserves. If not before he fries in that chair, then when he wakes up in hell.”
Oliver’s phone buzzed in his pocket. “Excuse me.”
He got up and moved to the hall outside Angie’s door. “Quick.”
“The Clayton baby has been located. He’s been taken to the hospital to be checked out.”
Relief poured through Oliver. “Which hospital?”
“Santa Rosa General.”
The same hospital Angie now lay in, Oliver thought. “Where was he found?”
“A neighbor had him. She claimed Herring paid her quite a bit to take care of him while he worked. She’s a retired nurse. I’m guessing that’s why he chose her. Mr. Clayton has been notified. He should be arriving at the hospital at any moment.”
Oliver hung up the phone and strode down to the nurses’ station. “A premature baby was brought in by ambulance not long ago. Can you tell me what floor he would be on?”
“NICU is on the sixth floor, Mr. Quick,” one of the nurses responded.
With a nod, Oliver made his way to the elevators and caught a ride to the appropriate floor.
He nearly ran into Mark Clayton as he stepped off the elevator. “Mr. Clayton.”
Mark’s eyes were red rimmed and swimming with unshed tears. “I have a son. My son is alive.”
“I know. I was just coming up here to check on him. How’s he doing?”
Mark rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “The doctors feel confident that he’s going to be fine.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Oliver offered. “How are you holding up? I know this came as a shock.”
“I’ll be honest with you. This has been the hardest few weeks of my life. Jennifer is— Jennifer is gone, and I’ll never be able to see her again.”
His head turned as if seeing something that wasn’t there. “I have a son…”
Obviously on the verge of breaking down, Mark turned away and then rushed off toward the men’s restroom.
Oliver knew exactly what Mark Clayton was going through. And unfortunately, the feeling would never go away. It got easier but would never leave him.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Evelynn and Franklin Quick sat at Oliver’s bar, along with Jason Haney.
Joyce stood in the kitchen, sucking down a mixed drink and half-ass flirting with Richard Holland.
Oliver had never seen Joyce flirt before.
Holland broke away from his conversation with Oliver’s secretary to pour himself another scotch. “What are your plans now that the Silencer has been caught?”
Oliver shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about staying on
with the BAU for a while.”
Truth was, Oliver was in his element with the bureau. And though he loved his job as a private investigator, it lacked the fulfillment of being a profiler.
Holland took a drink. “The bureau will always be your home, Quick. I’ve said it before, you’re one of the best damn profilers I’ve ever seen,”
Oliver glanced away. He’d always been uncomfortable with praise of any kind. “I can’t walk away from Quick Investigations, though. I worked too hard to build it into what it is. And Joyce… She’s been with me for years.”
“Why can’t you do both?” Richard suggested, swirling the scotch around in his glass. “Hire someone to take your place while you’re involved with FBI cases.”
Oliver nearly balked at Richard’s suggestion. But then a thought struck him.
He turned to look at Jason Haney perched on the edge of a stool and laughing at something Evelynn had said.
“I might just do that, Richard. I just might.”
Holland stood there quietly, staring at Oliver. “Mark Clayton is going to have a long road ahead of him. Especially when Herring’s trial starts.”
Oliver refilled his glass of scotch. “I know. It hasn’t been easy for any of us.”
Richard nodded. “I saw the shrine Herring had in his home. He was obsessed with you.”
“I want to talk to his sister,” Oliver confessed in a voice low enough his parents wouldn’t hear. “I need to know what happened in Vince Herring’s life that turned him into a monster.”
Holland set his drink down. “Sometimes, a person is simply born to be a killer, Oliver. It’s in their DNA.”
“I don’t know if I believe that.”
“Take you, for instance,” Richard continued. “You could have filled Herring full of holes, right there in his front yard. And you would have been justified in doing it. But you didn’t. It’s not who you are.”
Oliver’s jaw tightened. “But I wanted to. More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. I wanted to blow that smirk of his all over his shiny black Audi.”
“You didn’t, though. And that says a lot about your character.”
Oliver shook his head. “If you hadn’t shown up when you did, Herring probably wouldn’t be here right now. My character be damned.”
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