by Cynthia Eden
Chassity Pope had appeared to be a victim. Was she really a killer?
“We need to get out of town, Chassity. Lie low for a while.”
Her shoulders tensed. “I’ve asked you to stop calling me that. I’m done with her.” She tapped her chin. “I want to be someone new.”
He knew this game. They’d certainly played it often enough. And fine, if they were going to hide out for a time and plan their next move, they’d both need new identities. It was a good thing he knew who to hit up to get all that paperwork to go with a new identity. But forgeries cost a pretty penny, though. “Who do you want to be?”
She twirled her long blond hair. “I think I want to be . . . Ana.”
He stiffened. “Ana?”
She looked at him from beneath her lashes. “You like that name, don’t you? Because you seem to like her.” She came around the counter and touched his shoulder. “You like her so much you have a permanent reminder of her now.”
“I like you.”
“And you like her.” She pouted. “That wasn’t part of our plan.”
“She’s like us, Chas—” He cut himself off before he said her name. He’d just gotten into the habit of calling her that. “She’s not bad. She wants to stop the monsters.”
“I think she is a monster. I think she needs to be stopped.”
His hands flattened on the table. “I want you to stay away from her.”
“Why? So you can get close to her?” And she suddenly seemed very, very sane. “Isn’t that your plan? To find someone who understands you? Someone who gets you? You think you can connect with her?” Anger darkened her eyes. “I’ve been with you all this time and you’re going to throw me away for her.”
He rose, shoving back his chair. The legs screeched as they skidded across the floor. “I wouldn’t throw you away for anyone. You know that.” But he also knew . . .
Sweetheart, you didn’t come out sane. I tried to stop him. I tried to help you. But I was too late. He broke you. With his torture and his pain, he made sure you were shattered into a million different pieces.
He’d tried to put those pieces back together, but they hadn’t fit just right, her mind had been different.
And each day, he feared that she was slipping further and further away from him.
One day, would she become one of the monsters? And if she did . . .
Was he really going to be able to stop her?
“The names are fake,” Cash said as he paced in the local sheriff’s office. He’d made the place their base of command, needing a spot where all the law enforcement personnel could congregate. “Just got a hit back from the FBI . . .” He turned and met Ana’s gaze. “The real Chassity Pope died when she was four years old. Her brother Kurt died with her. Their whole family was killed in a car accident.”
He’d put up an evidence board behind him. And right in the middle of that board, he had a picture of Chassity Pope and her “brother” Kurt. The picture of Kurt was grainy, but they could see that he was a tall male, fit, with dark hair swept back from his forehead.
As soon as she’d seen the photo of Kurt at River View, Ana had tensed.
He’d known they were looking at the same “cop” she’d seen the night before. Ana had met with a sketch artist, and she’d talked to that guy, giving him all of the details she could on the cop she’d seen.
The sketch was beside the grainy image. We can see you now, asshole.
“A killing team,” Sarah Jacobs said. She’d arrived an hour before, and they’d quickly brought her up to speed. “You don’t see them often, not in cases like this. Most serials are territorial. Dominant. They don’t exactly play well with others.”
“I don’t think these two are playing,” Ana said. “And what they’re doing . . . do you think they even consider it killing?”
Sarah’s lips thinned. “I think they consider it justice.”
Yeah, that was what Cash had feared, too.
Sarah rose from her chair and walked toward the pictures. “My profile will change again—I didn’t have them working together, so everything I have . . . it’s flawed. And I don’t like making mistakes.” She squared her shoulders. “So let me just take a step back and tell you what I do know about killing teams.” She pointed to the photos. “One of them is dominant. One plans the acts. The other follows. Maybe the other is even bait.”
“Chassity could have been the bait,” Ana decided. “We were buying the idea that Forrest attacked her—maybe that wasn’t what happened at all. Maybe she was playing a role, and that role involved getting him punished, getting him sent to the quiet room so he’d be away from everyone else.”
Sarah inclined her head. “And I think Bernie Tate would have opened up much more quickly to a woman. After all, he never saw women as threats. Just prey.”
Ana stared at Chassity’s picture. “So she’s the perfect prey?”
“Perhaps.” Sarah was still hesitant. “It’s so hard to say yet. Two killers. That means twice as much danger.”
“All the agents and local authorities have pictures of these two,” Cash said, tapping his fingers on the conference table. “APBs are out for them. I know I hit the bastard when I fired last night, but no hospital has reported treating anyone who matches his description.”
Sarah shook her head. “I don’t think he’d go in for treatment. That would expose him too much and he knows it. That would—”
The door flew open. A young deputy stood there, cheeks flushed. “We just found the motorcycle,” he said, beaming. “Turned up behind an old service station on Highway 18.”
Excitement heated in Cash’s blood. “Get a crime scene team out there right away. I want every inch of that motorcycle and the area around it checked. The bastard might have left prints, DNA—something that can lead us to his true identity.”
“Yes, sir!” The guy snapped to attention then hurried away.
Cash started to pace. “The pieces are coming together.” They had suspects. They had the abandoned ride. They had—
His phone rang. Cash pulled it from his pocket and saw Faye’s image on the screen. He answered the call and put the phone to his ear. “How are the dogs working out?”
There was a beat of silence. “Sir . . .” Faye said, her voice very formal. “I think you’re going to want to come out here.”
“Some deputies just found the motorcycle. I need to—”
“We’ve got three bodies so far.”
He stiffened.
“Not bodies, sorry.” She sounded flustered. “Remains. Bones. That’s all that’s left. And they’re . . . they’re small bodies, sir. Like kids.” Her voice thickened. “They’re all lined up in a row. The dogs found them about twenty yards from the cabin. He planted them underneath a willow tree. Left them in shallow graves. We’d barely broken the surface when we saw them.”
A weeping willow.
Sonofabitch. “I’ll be right there.” He hung up the phone. Ana and Sarah were both watching him, their eyes wide. Cash cleared his throat. “Ana, you were right.”
She frowned.
“Jonathan Bright’s cabin was picked for a reason. The dogs just found three kids out there—the crew dug up their bones.”
Chapter Seventeen
The local ME’s exam lab was so cold. Ana shivered as she stared at the three black bags that had been brought in to the facility just moments before.
Bones were in those bags. Children.
“I’m betting they’ll match up with the missing kids that disappeared from the area,” Cash said, his arm brushing against her. “The ones Gabe told us about? Jonathan Bright . . . fuck, he must have taken them. Taken them and buried them out at his cabin so they could never leave him.”
“We’re missing two.” Two little bodies. Because Gabe had said that five children went missing. Three boys. Two girls. Nausea rose in her stomach as she stared at those bags. The kids were always the hardest for her to handle. So young, so innocent.
S
o helpless.
Ana’s finger slid across her upper lip. “Do you think one of them is Cathy?” Little Cathy Wise. “Her mom is still looking for her. She’s the one who hired LOST. But there was so little evidence to go on with Cathy’s case. No witnesses. No clues. She’d just vanished.”
Because she was in the ground? Under Jonathan Bright’s willow tree?
God, but she hated the darkness out there.
The ME, a tall, distinguished, African American man with silver at his temples, cleared his throat. “It’s going to take me a while for these exams. I have the list of missing children that Gabe Spencer sent over, but we’ll need to compare dental records. DNA. It’s not going to be a fast process.”
No, Ana knew it wouldn’t.
“There’s no point in you staying here tonight,” he continued. Dr. Thaddeus Cole. He was the only ME around for miles—the one that several counties had to use. He had a small lab just outside of Langmire. “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything, but the positive IDs . . . just be prepared that those could take days.”
Or weeks.
“We know,” Sarah said softly. She’d come with them to see the scene for herself. “It’s not the first time we’ve found remains this way. On TV shows, they identify them fast. Within hours, minutes.” Her smile was sad. “Real life doesn’t always work that way.”
No, it didn’t.
“Was any clothing found with them?” Ana asked. “Any personal possessions at all?”
The ME shook his head.
“Agent Comwell is still at the scene,” Cash said. “If she finds anything else, we’ll know right away.”
Ana rocked forward onto the balls of her feet. “Can you at least tell us . . . are the victims male? Female?”
Dr. Cole hesitated. “It’s harder to tell with children’s bones. You can see small differences, but most signs don’t become more defined until puberty.”
The kids had been twelve and thirteen when they vanished.
“I don’t want to rush,” he said quietly. “I want to take my time and do things right. I think they deserve that.”
Yes, yes, they did. She shoved back her hair. “I understand.”
“As soon as I know,” he said again. “I’ll contact you. Until then, why don’t you all get some sleep?” Dr. Cole nodded. “I’ll be the one burning the midnight oil.”
Ana turned and followed Sarah to the door, shuffling along slowly. It had been a bitch of a day. After they’d left the psychiatric hospital, they’d rushed out to Bright’s cabin.
And they’d seen the evidence tape and flag rows, organized so carefully by the crime scene techs. Seen the bones peeking up from the black dirt.
Small bones.
Lives cut too short.
She heard the rumble of Cash’s voice as he spoke to the ME, but Ana didn’t glance back. She followed Sarah outside, needing to get some fresh air.
As soon as they cleared the building, Sarah put her hands on her knees and leaned forward. “I hate it when kids are hurt.” Her hair fell over her face. “Kids are the most innocent. We’re supposed to protect them.”
Ana tried to get the scent of the ME’s lab out of her nose. Antiseptic. Bleach. Death.
“When we get the files on the kids at LOST,” Sarah continued grimly, “and we see the age progression photos that are created . . . the way they could look . . . I always hope that maybe they are still out there. Maybe they don’t even know who they are. A mind is such a fragile thing. So easily broken.”
“Especially when it has help,” Ana finished. The night air was cold and she needed that chill. Ana exhaled. She was bone tired but more than that . . .
Her heart hurt.
Three little bodies. Lives lost too soon. Parents who had looked and looked. Their kids would finally be coming home, and it broke Ana’s heart. “I didn’t think we’d come home.”
Sarah straightened.
Behind Ana, the door creaked open.
“When Asher and I were taken . . . those bastards had already killed our mom. They were using their knives on me. I was sure we were going to die.” And she’d been so close in age to those who’d gone missing in Virginia.
I was fourteen. Still a child, until that day.
Her childhood had died with each slice of the knife.
“I was tied up and hurting and I was sure I’d never be free again. There were things I’d wanted to do.” Her lips curled. “Dance. Be on a stage. Graduate high school. Go to Mexico. Fall in love.” Ana shook her head. “And when I was under the knife, I said good-bye to all of that. Death was coming, and it hurt so much—not because of the knife—but because I knew what I would miss.” She had to blink away tears. “Knowing what you lose . . . it nearly rips you apart.”
“I’m sorry, Ana.”
“You shouldn’t be sorry for me. I made it out. I have my chance at life.” Even as she said those words, Ana stiffened. They were true. She did have her chance, but she kept living in fear. Fear of killers that were only ghosts now.
Ghosts in her mind.
“I have my chance,” she said again. Her thumb jerked toward the building behind her. “They don’t.” They just had black body bags. The tattered remains of families that were still waiting for them.
The families that would finally get to say good-bye.
She looked over her shoulder and saw Cash standing in the shadows, watching her.
Sarah coughed—a very delicate, very fake cough. “I think I’ll go do some work in my motel room. You two . . . I’ll see you in the morning.”
Yes. The morning. The bright day.
The victims.
Ana offered her hand to Cash. He came forward and his fingers curled around hers. “Let’s get out of here, Cash,” Ana said. Because her chest felt too tight. Her eyes burned. And she couldn’t stop seeing those three black bags.
He nodded.
The bodies had been found. Dug up. Brought into the light. When he’d swung by the cabin, he’d seen the buzz of activity. He’d made sure not to get too close, not this time.
He’d wanted those bodies to be found. He’d wanted the parents to know what had happened to their kids. So many times he’d thought about picking up a phone and calling them. Telling them what had happened.
He’d studied carefully, learning how to make a call like that without being traced. He hadn’t wanted anyone to come find him.
But . . . in the end . . . Chassity had convinced him not to make the calls. She’d said there was another way. A better way.
He stared at the ME’s office. The dead were in there. They’d been brought into that building in zipped black bags. Those bags didn’t seem like such a better way to him. But he’d given in to Chassity, the way he usually did.
Guilt could make a man do so many things.
Ana was there now, walking away from the squat building. She was holding hands with Agent Knox, like they were tra-la-la-ing off into the sunset or some shit. Kids were dead—bones were waiting in that building—and she was just walking away.
He’d expected better from her.
Knox was rubbing off on her. Obviously.
The media was blasting about the case. So many news vans were in town, lining up and filling the small main street. It was a feeding frenzy, and he had to be careful.
Knox had gotten a grainy picture of him from River View. The agent had posted that picture and one of Chassity. Said they were “persons of interest” in the investigation. Bull. Knox wanted to lock them both up, but that wasn’t happening.
He pulled his ball cap low and turned away. A few moments later, he was in Chassity’s Beetle and driving away. He had supplies on the seat next to him—hair dye that he’d swiped from the drug store for Chassity. They’d cut her long hair, dye it, and she’d be able to pass for a new person.
She’d specifically requested the dark dye.
Her dark hair will be same shade as Ana’s.
His hand tightened around the wheel.
People don’t pay attention to the shit around them. They barely give anyone a second glance. Don’t look too hard at them and they never look too hard at you.
Another lesson. One he’d never wanted. He hadn’t wanted any of the lessons, dammit. He hadn’t wanted this life. This pain. But his choices had all been taken away from him.
The things that sick bastard made me do. He ensured that I’d always be tainted. A killer, just like him. He made me . . .
The engine vibrated and he hit a hole in the road as he turned on the path that would take him to Chassity. The lights were off, the cabin was dark. Another holdover from long ago.
When night falls, shut off the lights. No one will ever see you.
He parked the car. Grabbed their supplies and headed inside.
This particular cabin had been their base, on and off, for quite a while. He knew with certainty that the owner wasn’t coming back. The dead never came back.
The cabin was pitch black inside and for a moment he tensed. Too quiet. “Chassity?” Had she left? How—on foot? She—
She turned on a flashlight, holding it just below her chin. “Boo.”
He slammed the door shut. “Trying to be funny? ’Cause that’s not—” He broke off. She’d already cut her hair. Cut it . . .
In the same style that Ana had.
“Didn’t I tell you not to call me Chassity?” She plucked the supplies from his hand. “That’s not who I am any longer. I’m Ana.”
“No, you’re not.”
She was walking ahead of him, the flashlight bobbing in one hand.
“You’re not Ana.” Anger roughened his voice.
She swung back toward him.
“You’re Cathy.” Maybe she needed that reminder to yank her back. “You are—”
She hit him, slamming that flashlight into his face. “Cathy is dead!”
He backed up a step. It had been a long time since she’d attacked him. So long that he’d thought she was better.