Latent Danger (On The Line Romantic Thriller Series Book 2)

by Lori Ryan

  “Yes. hair.”

  Zach ran through the information in his mind. There was nothing about that in the file. If he’d cut a piece of the victims’ hair, wouldn’t the medical examiner have found evidence of that? “He did?”

  The look of triumph on her face told Zach he might have made an error. He held his face steady and waited for her response. “Your girlfriend didn’t know, did she?”

  “I guess not,” he said mildly.

  “He did. He might have been off, but he was smart enough to do it without leaving evidence. Just a few strands pulled from each girl. He had them wrapped in little cloth pockets.”

  “And your grandfather found all this?”

  She nodded. “At the time, you couldn’t live in the area and not know all about the girls being killed. Everyone knew about the rope and the lipstick.”

  She was right. They hadn’t held those details back from the press back then.

  Liz continued. “Rather than turn him in, they hospitalized him. My grandfather cried to my dad on his death bed. Said he shouldn’t have done it. Then my grandmother and the doctor talked him into allowing the lobotomy. I don’t know what happened after that. Herschel came home for a short time, but went back to the hospital and stroked out and died. My grandfather ultimately died from a stroke, too, you know? Twisted, huh?”

  “So you went and found the room yourself after that?” Zach asked.

  “Yes. My dad and mom traveled more than ever after my grandfather died and none of the staff ever cared what I did.”

  Zach did the math. She would have been thirteen. If ever there was a time a girl needed her parents. Then again, he wondered if anything would have changed what this girl was. She showed no remorse for what she’d done. In fact, she seemed to take pleasure and pride in what she was. Surely, she had to be born like that, Zach thought. Could evil like this be made?

  “So, you used the same materials?”

  “Not his knife. It was gross. All rusted. I cut the rope with one of the kitchen knives. But, yes, you have to admit, it was brilliant bringing out his things. Making the killings look like the Marsh Killer was back?”

  Zach didn’t tell her they’d realized right off the bat that it very likely wasn’t the same killer. That they were dealing with an apprentice or someone with a connection to the original Marsh Killer. He would save that for later. Right now, he wanted her to think he respected her a little, even if only grudgingly.

  Instead, he focused on getting some of the why answered. “But why did you need to bring him back at all? What did the girls do?”

  Her whole face pinched. “They thought they were so much better than everyone.”

  “Don’t you mean Sawyer thought they were so much better? So much better than you?”

  “Shut up!” She covered her ears and screamed. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

  When she stopped, there was only the sound of her breathing.

  Zach waited.

  She made a show of calming herself, hands pressed to the table before speaking again. “I gave him everything. Everything. But he drugged them, so he could fuck their high and mighty little brains out. He had to have those tight-assed little bitches.”

  “So, what? You went over to the clubhouse after he’d drugged them? Raped them?”

  She shrugged one shoulder in a way that said, of course she had. “He left them there. I took advantage.”

  Zach nodded his head, but then shook it, like he wasn’t getting the whole story. Because he wasn’t. “But that only could have been with Adrienne and Carrie.” It killed him talking about the girls so callously. “Hillary was there first. You didn’t want to kill her?”

  “I almost started with her,” she said. “He started with her, you know. He drugged her first.”

  “Why didn’t you start with her, then, if he started with her? Clearly you thought about it?”

  He was surprised to see her falter, her cheeks turning red. “I tried, but I…”

  “You?”

  “I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t ready. I needed more time.”

  “Time to plan?”

  “Don’t answer that,” the lawyer instructed. It was a ridiculous effort to protect against any argument of premeditation, but they were so far past that, it was silly. Still, Zach supposed the man felt he needed to earn his keep.

  Zach backed off. He didn’t need her to say it. She’d demonstrated already that she’d planned this out. “So, you didn’t have Sawyer to do the drugging for you with Candice. How did you do it then?”

  He was circling her back, getting her to say things more than once. Locking her in.

  “She thought my car was broken down and my phone was dead. I asked to borrow her phone, then I used Rohypnol. She sank right down into the seat and I did it right there. I killed her right in the front seat of my car, then drove away with her.”

  “Where did you get the Rohypnol?” Zach asked, knowing this was key to showing that at least Candice’s murder was premeditated.

  “There’s a guy at a school nearby. He gets people things like that. I don’t know where he gets it.”

  “Tell me about Detective O’Rourke,” he said. “Why did you kidnap her?”

  She sneered. “She was supposed to watch over me, the way she helped Kate when Kate went to tell you guys about Sawyer. It was perfect, making myself one of his potential victims. I thought maybe I could find out some of what was going on with the case. But instead of talking to me, Detective O’Rourke saw a picture of my uncle.”

  She leaned toward Zach now. “There’s one tiny little picture of him in the whole damned house. It’s the size of a piece of bread. But she spotted it.”

  “And?”

  “She asked me where he was. If he lived in the area.” Liz looked shocked that Shauna would have caught her in that way.

  “You could have simply lied to her,” Zach suggested.

  Liz pursed her lips now in frustration. “I wasn’t expecting the question.”

  “So you told her the truth?”

  “No, I said he died, but she looked like she would press it. There was just something in the way she looked, but she tried to play it off like she wasn’t suspicious. We went to eat dinner and she asked about it again, asking how he died. I knew then that she wouldn’t stop, so I put the Rohypnol in her soda.”

  “Rohypnol wouldn’t have had her out for long.” Zach didn’t say it, but he worried about how much she would have had to give Shauna to get her to be completely out for any period of time. But even so, that period would have been short. Too short to haul Shauna up the chimney as she did.

  “Ketamine,” Liz said, that strange grin back on her face. “I would have killed her right then, but I knew someone would be coming to take over for her or to check on her, and I couldn’t kill her right away. I needed to stash her.”

  “Why?”

  She looked surprised that he wouldn’t know. “To question her. I needed to know how close you guys had gotten.” She stopped for a minute, as if thinking, then went on. “No, not needed. I didn’t need to know. I wasn’t worried about you catching, me, really. But I wanted to know. I wanted to hear from her what you knew and when you knew it and how far ahead I had stayed.”

  By the time they wrapped up, Zach’s head was pounding and he was sick to his stomach at the sight of this twisted girl in front of him.

  Shauna never needed to come into the interrogation room, but she did come out of the observation room as Liz was being led from the room. When Liz caught sight of her in the hallway, she’d raged and spit.

  Zach wasn’t sure he’d gotten the full story out of Liz on Shauna. He suspected Liz honed in on Shauna when she came in with Kate and saw Shauna as a sympathetic protector of Kate. Maybe Liz was attempting to draw Shauna’s attention her way, and instead, she ended up tripping herself up. It seemed to Zach that was the kind of thing that would have drawn the sort of anger he saw in Liz as she was hauled past Shauna in the hallway.

&nb
sp; And still, the girl’s parents hadn’t arrived. Zach shook his head at that, unable to fathom the kind of life that family lived.

  Chapter Forty-three

  “I wish we knew more about what happened thirty years ago.” Shauna looked around at the group. She, Zach, Ronan, and Hutch had spent the last two hours working on writing up reports, and there was still more to do. They knew the killer had been Herschel Kenworth, but Shauna wanted to know the why of every case.

  They’d be prosecuting Jonathan Sawyer for the rapes of Hillary, Carrie, and Adrienne. Cal and Jarrod were dealing with the arrest of Kate Sorino. She’d been processed and surrendered to her parents, who had checked her into a psychiatric hospital to help her deal with what had happened. Personally, Shauna was hoping the case was settled with a plan for continuing psychiatric services and community service.

  Zach leaned back in his chair. “I have a theory on the Marsh Killer.”

  Shauna leaned forward. “Tell.”

  “When we needed to know if there were any hiding spaces in Liz’s house, we talked our way in to interview Jonathan Sawyer. Which reminds me, we need to let the district attorney on his case know he helped us on that.” Zach paused while Ronan made a note on a pad on his desk, then continued. “Mrs. Sawyer said she used to know Herschel. She didn’t say a whole lot, but we could go interview her down the road sometime. She said he was disturbed, but a sweet boy. They used to talk when she was out in her garden.”

  Shauna shook her head. “So?”

  “So, Mrs. Sawyer is a very petite blonde. I bet if we looked at old photos of her, you’d find a striking resemblance between her and your victims.”

  “You think Herschel had a crush on her, so he ran out and killed girls who looked like her?” Hutch asked.

  It was Zach’s turn to shake his head. “Not so simple as that, but we know he had some kind of mental issues. We can check to see what kind of diagnosis he might have had before he went into that last hospital. I suspect at that place, he was diagnosed with whatever the family told the doctors to diagnose him with. Maybe he had a crush on Mrs. Sawyer but didn’t think he could approach her. Could be he saw his first victim and thought she looked like Mrs. Sawyer, so he tries talking to her, maybe even went further than talking. Maybe he hits on her, she rejects him, and he lashes out.”

  “Mrs. Sawyer’s father is still alive. We could always try to interview him and Mrs. Sawyer again down the road. See if they can tell us more,” Shauna said, then frowned. “After we prosecute her son for rape.”

  They were all quiet, then, knowing they likely wouldn’t find out much more. They could look into old newspapers and things, see what they could learn about Herschel Kenworth, but in all likelihood, they would only ever be guessing.

  “I say we wrap this up and head up to the pub. Dad can make us burgers.” Shauna had no more got the sentences out of her mouth, than the men were tearing for the elevator.

  She grinned and took the time to stack their work and shut down her laptop, slipping it into its bag so she could bring it out to the car. Much to the men’s annoyance, she took her time about it while they made a production of looking at their watches and calling the elevator up again after it had already come and gone once.

  Then they were on the road, Zach and Ronan in one car, she and Hutch in another.

  “You going to see him again after this?” Hutch asked.

  Shauna shot him a look. “What are you, my mother?” It was a line they often gave each other. It never worked to put off whatever the other had wanted to talk about.

  She gave him a shrug, and he let her off with that, but her own mind didn’t want to let the question go. She stared out the window, thinking about the Zach she used to know and the Zach she’d seen over the last week. She also thought about her ex-husband. It was impossible not to when she was thinking about anything having to do with dating or men. Trusting a man not to do a one-eighty on her again would never be easy.

  But as Hutch left her to her own thoughts, she realized something. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about what signs she should have seen in Patrick that she didn’t. She’d obsessed at first, and over the years, it had turned into an ever-present nagging question. What did she miss?

  She didn’t have to ask that anymore. She knew she’d missed signs. Small little hints at control. Jealousy he’d tried to keep under tabs when they were dating, but then let loose once they were married. There were signs there. She’d just not given them enough credence. She’d made excuses for him, to herself and to others. Not that she blamed herself. She let the blame fall squarely on his shoulders, where it should be.

  But there was one thing she’d never realized had played a big part in all the time she’d spent second guessing and looking back. Respect. Zach clearly respected her. She’d felt it all week.

  Yes, sometimes he acted like a big jerk, pressuring her to go to dinner with him when she’d said she hadn’t wanted to. But there was a difference in it. He’d laughed as he did it, and she’d known the entire time that if she’d really stopped and looked him in the eye and said she didn’t want to go with him, he would have been hands off in a heartbeat, respecting her wishes.

  She’d felt the respect he gave her throughout the case, listening to her, thinking about her opinions, even suggesting she take the lead at times. That had never been there with Patrick. She didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before.

  Her mother and father were all too happy to welcome the four of them into the pub and her dad started on sandwiches and burgers right away. Her mom didn’t waste any time giving Shauna a look that said she knew exactly which one of the men was the man they’d talked about the other day. It wasn’t hard. Shauna had to admit, she’d gravitated to Zach’s side as soon as they entered the pub.

  The group took a seat at the back in a booth, Zach and Shauna sliding in on one side and Hutch and Ronan on the other.

  There was no toasting the closing of a thirty-year-old case. Not when the current case had left three young women dead. But there was the kind of chatter that let them unwind as they always needed to after a case. When one of the waitresses brought out their burgers and sandwiches, the table went silent as everyone dug in.

  But through it all, Shauna felt Zach’s thigh on hers under the table, warm and strong and tempting. He didn’t, she noticed, reach for her under the table or try to do anything other than simply hang out with the group. She liked that. She saw it as further evidence that he respected her as an officer, as a woman.

  And she found herself relaxing into the evening.

  Until the yawning began. Once she started, she couldn’t stop.

  “Clearly, I need to get my partner home, guys,” Hutch said.

  Shauna grinned. “This night’s on the house, guys,” she said, but the guys put money on the table for a tip.

  Zach leaned in and spoke quietly. “Can I walk you out? Have just a minute to talk to you?”

  Shauna nodded and stood. “Give me a minute, Hutch?”

  Her partner gave Zach a long look, but that was to be expected.

  She led the way outside and around to the side of the pub where a small concrete ledge made for an okay spot to sit.

  Zach sat next to her, hands stuffed into his pockets. “I don’t want this to be the end of this. I don’t want us to walk away again.”

  “No?” She should put him out his misery. Let him know she’d been thinking the same thing on the way to the bar. That she’d been thinking the same thing the whole night. But she had to admit, she wanted to hear his argument.

  “I think we could be really good together, Shaun. We know the heat is there,” he offered a mischievous grin, but kept his hands to himself, “but I really think there could be more to it than that. I like your mind, how sharp you are, how passionate you are about your work and your family.”

  She waited and had to bite down on her lip to keep from laughing when he looked a little flustered. “I think I can prove to you there’s more
to me now than there was before. I’ve changed a lot Shaun. I’ve done a lot of growing.”

  Shauna looked at him and couldn’t stop the smile that formed. “This is killing you, isn’t it? Not using your body to convince me? Not talking me into it with your mouth instead of words.”

  “It is,” he said somberly. “It really is.”

  Her laughter was light when she turned, standing and moving between his legs. She felt his hands move to her hips, to hold her in place and she looped her arms around his neck. “Fair warning. I want us to date this time. Really date, not hop into bed at the drop of a hat. I want time to learn who this new Zach Reynolds is.”

  “New and improved. I promise.”

  She leaned in, her lips hovering above his. “Prove it.”

  Epilogue

  He did. In so many ways and with the patience of a man who was nothing like the Zach she’d known years before.

  Shauna wasn’t prepared to let Zach leave tonight. They’d both arranged to have someone cover for them at work, a luxury that didn’t always pan out. They knew if there was an emergency, they might be called in, but for now, they had the night and the next two days off.

  He held her hand as he walked her up to the door of her condo. Of course, they’d sometimes sit and watch a movie after dinner and make out on her couch. But tonight, she planned for more.

  They’d been dating for three months and he’d shown her there was so much more to him. She’d seen him with his niece, saw how sweet he was with her, how much he loved her. She’d seen him hold his own with her brothers when they gave him shit for dating their sister.

  And she’d seen in every gesture that he cared for her, respected her. In fact, she never thought she would say it, but she felt cherished when she was with him. He’d never pressured her to take their late-night petting sessions further than they had, despite the fact it was clear they both wanted to. There had been nights she’d watch him all but limp out the door in discomfort, but he’d just grinned and said, “someday.”

  “Movie?” He asked, taking the leftovers she’d brought from the restaurant out of her hands so she could get the key in the lock.