“Yeah.” He wanted to slap himself on the forehead for missing the obvious. “Genius IQ. Fits seamlessly into the student population because he is one.” Darsh was talking both to Agent Chen and to Ully. “And someone with his intellect would probably be quite happy to not only make law enforcement look incompetent, but also to screw up his boss’s career and turn himself into the resident expert. Put a trace on his and Erin Donovan’s phones right now. Can you send me a picture of him, Chen?”
“Why Erin’s?” Ully asked urgently.
“Sending right now,” said Agent Chen. “There’s something else. His mother was murdered by his father right in front of Lachlan when he was nine years old. The father violated a restraining order. Shot her and then himself, leaving little Ricky an orphan. It might give him a reason to attack the criminal justice system.”
“Yup,” Darsh acknowledged. The photograph downloaded, and Darsh showed it to the bodyguard who was hovering in the doorway. “You seen this guy around here?”
His brows rose. “Sure, he’s been hanging around on and off since yesterday. He’s the guy?” the bodyguard asked, staring at the photograph as if memorizing every line.
Darsh nodded. “You being here probably saved her life.”
“That’s my job,” the guy said. “The mom said he was a friend of Rachel’s.”
“Which is how he convinced her to meet him yesterday morning. He must have overheard me and Erin talking at lunch the other day, saying Rachel was remembering things from her rape. Erin told me she’d done some lectures for Huxley.” And that was the exact moment Darsh knew he’d just figured out the real motive.
Erin. She was the center of this thing. She made all the pieces fit.
“I’m betting Lachlan met her and started to fixate on her. He probably found out about her history with her late husband and decided they shared a bond because of the way his father killed his mother. Then the football players humiliated him at some frat party, and he decided to use the campus rape issue and the prominence of varsity athletes in these events to not only take them down, but to stick it to the system and ingratiate himself with Erin. After the trial he no longer had her attention, so he figured out another way to get it.”
Some of the images he’d seen of her on the professor’s wall that morning were old, speaking of long-term obsession. Her hair had had time to grow from a sleek, chin-length bob to way down past her shoulders.
Darsh tried her cell again. Nothing. Ully did the same. When she didn’t pick up Ully’s call, Darsh felt the first twinge of real fear.
“Get road blocks up ASAP. Pretty sure he will at least try to grab her.” Erin had taken down Jason Brady with ease. She could handle a short-ass like Lachlan. That’s what he told himself so he didn’t start freaking out. Keep calm, keep cool, Erin was fine. Just avoiding him and her fellow cops. “Where’s security around here?”
Ully led the way, and they barged inside and demanded the guard replay all footage of the entrances for the last thirty minutes. It didn’t take long to spot Erin leaving the side entrance with Lachlan.
“You take the cruiser, I’ll take my car.” Ully tossed him the keys. “Erin said she left it here in the lot so I’m guessing Lachlan offered her a ride. I’ve got a radio on me. We can cover more ground this way.”
Erin was in danger, and it was his fault. He’d been the one to target the professor, and part of his dislike for the man had been personal. It should never be personal. He’d fucked up way more than Erin ever had with Drew Hawke. Darsh swallowed twice before he managed to force out, “Let’s get a chopper in the air and start searching the area.”
He ran to the cruiser and called Agent Chen. “Put out an ABP for whatever Rick Lachlan drives and then inform the cops that our UNSUB is one Rick Lachlan, and he may have Detective Donovan with him. Location unknown. They left the hospital twenty minutes ago. Get the message out to all the surrounding counties, too.”
Darsh got in the cruiser and sat with his heart thudding crazily. His hands shook. He couldn’t lose her. He should have told the chief to stuff the case that morning and just gone with Erin when the bastard fired her. If he had, she’d be safe now. But he’d needed to finish the job, to prove he was the best, even though it had cost Erin not only her job, but possibly her life.
He sat there, paralyzed. He had no idea in which direction to drive. Lachlan could head to a cabin in the woods, and it might be weeks before they tracked him down—weeks where he got to hurt Erin the way he’d hurt those other women.
Darsh knew Erin could take care of herself, but she didn’t know Lachlan was the enemy. She didn’t know he was a monster.
Darsh forced himself to remember his training, not only FBI, but Scout Sniper School too. To calm his racing pulse and use his brain. The hunt was always as much mental as physical. He brought up a map of the area. Lachlan knew he didn’t have much time before Rachel Knight told the world he’d tried to kill her. His options—assuming he had Erin—were murder, murder-suicide, hiding, or making a run for it. The young man felt intellectually superior to law enforcement and was a total narcissist, probably borderline personality disorder. Darsh doubted he’d lower himself to suicide. His obsession with Erin meant he’d want to keep her alive, at least in the short-term. To live out the fantasy he’d created for himself with her at his side.
So where would he go?
Darsh zoomed out on the map and had his answer.
The sun was setting in the west, and it would be dark soon. Rick Lachlan was going to make a break for Canada. And he was planning to take Erin with him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Erin swiveled to look at the turnoff they’d just driven past. “Hey Rick, you mis—ouch!”
She swung around as he stabbed a hypodermic needle deep into her thigh and pushed down the plunger.
“What the hell!” She knocked it out of his hand before he could inject it all. “What did you give me?” she demanded, digging for her gun, only to realize she no longer carried a service weapon, and her backup was home in the safe because she hadn’t wanted to deal with it while flying. She dug out her phone instead, and he smiled, buzzed down his window, tore it from her grasp, and tossed it. There were no cars around to notice.
The guy had gone crazy.
Her heart started to race, and it wasn’t fear. She grabbed the wheel and hauled it toward her, trying to force them off the road. She might not want to get in another crash, but she had a horrible feeling it would be preferable to whatever Rick Lachlan had in mind.
He knocked her away, the car swerving violently onto the hard shoulder. He punched her in the face when she wouldn’t let go. Dammit. She jerked back against the seat, blood bursting on her tongue from where he’d split her lip. Her vision blurred. Her hands felt like giant boulders on the ends of stick-like arms, and she couldn’t lift them. She swallowed the saliva that was pooling in her mouth.
The car was still on the highway. She hadn’t even slowed him down.
The thought of losing control of her body made her panic. She groped for the door handle and grabbed it on the second try. But it didn’t open. He’d locked it, and her brain wasn’t telling her how to unlock it.
“What did you give me?” She needed to know. Needed to hang onto facts rather than fear.
“I had one shot of ketamine left. I was going to give it to Rachel, but I couldn’t get into her room alone. Then she woke up.” He reached out and touched her face, his arm seeming impossibly long in her drug-warped brain. “I was pretty mad earlier, but I guess it was meant to be.”
“Why?” Her tongue felt dense.
“Because I needed her to keep quiet about what she learned yesterday. Who’d have thought she’d survive, huh? Little whiny bitch like that, beating the odds and ruining my fucking life.”
“It was you? The whole time?” Her lips weren’t working properly.
The smile on his face twisted, and she didn’t know if that was the drugs or not. She wanted to punc
h him right in the teeth, but she couldn’t move.
“Yeah. All me. The things I did to get you to notice me.”
What the hell was he talking about?
“Yes, you,” he said as if she’d spoken aloud. “Who did you think I was trying to impress?”
He’d committed rape and murder to impress her? What sort of insanity was that?
“Then as soon as the rape trial was over, you started ignoring me again. Refusing to meet me for coffee, not taking my calls.”
“You killed someone because I didn’t take your call? I’m a busy woman with a career—”
“Not anymore.”
God, she didn’t need that reminder. “Why frame Drew?” she managed to get out.
“He and his pals humiliated me at a party once, and talk about the perfect revenge.”
Her brain whirled. His words made no sense, and yet he had no reason to lie. Kidnapping was a federal crime. Fear crawled around inside her brain alongside the ketamine, and she was helpless to do anything as her body and mind no longer seemed to belong to her. She closed her eyes.
“Go to sleep now, baby. I’ll figure it out. I always had a backup plan, but I never expected to actually need it. Fucking Rachel Knight.” His fingers gripped Erin’s thigh, and she wanted to vomit. Her head flopped uselessly, and she was gone.
* * *
Darsh opened the trunk of his SUV at the police station and pulled on his vest. Then he remembered Rosie squirreled away in the office they’d initially assigned him. There were roadblocks on all the major highways twenty miles out surrounding the area, but he had a bad feeling about this. Unless they spotted Rick ASAP, he would get away, and there was a chance Darsh would never see Erin alive again. His heart pounded.
It didn’t matter if she didn’t want Darsh when this was over. He wouldn’t blame her. He just needed to find her and make sure she was safe—just as Erin had needed to do the same for Rachel yesterday.
He ran inside and grabbed the gun, shouting instructions and orders as he went, ignoring the chief’s bluster.
Ully was coordinating roadblocks. Darsh ran back outside and called him on his cell. “Where’s the chopper?” he asked.
“Pilot’s refueling at the airfield just north of here. Highway 12. Why?”
Darsh slid his rifle into the back seat of the SUV. “Tell him to wait for me. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
He was there in seven, and the pilot eyed his weapon with the look of a man who’d seen and done it all. Together with another officer they removed the rear doors of the bird and got Darsh attached to a safety harness. Every second ticked like an explosive in his mind.
When they took off, the cold almost stole his breath. He pulled on his headphones over his watch cap.
“Which way we heading?” the pilot asked.
“Any news from command?” asked Darsh.
“No one’s spotted his vehicle yet.” Both officers were watching him now. Awaiting instruction.
Lachlan thought he was so much smarter than the rest of them. Instinct told Darsh he’d run for the border, but if he was wrong, Erin might disappear forever.
“Never ignore your gut” was what his old gunnery sergeant always told him.
“North. Go north. He’s heading to Canada.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rick watched Erin sleep. Things had not gone to plan, but as the great Charles Darwin had once said, the key to survival was the ability to adapt, and Rick intended to do just that. After his childhood he’d always liked the idea of being able to disappear. He had a bank account under a false identity and had developed emergency escape scenarios when he’d begun his game last year.
Having Erin with him complicated matters, but she was all he’d ever wanted in a girlfriend. Smart, beautiful, someone who appreciated brains as much as brawn. Sure, she’d made a mistake with that FBI agent, who he didn’t want to think about. She was under a lot of stress. He’d eventually forgive her the same way she’d eventually forgive him. Once she realized he was trying to teach them something, then she’d get it. Then she’d understand.
The justice system was broken.
He’d argued this with his boss over and over again. And people were so stuck in tradition they thought that what they had was the best America could do, which was bullshit.
Planting DNA was easy. Manipulating memory took some effort, but he’d done it, and researchers in Boston had recently managed to introduce a false memory into a mouse. It was only a matter of time until someone did it with humans.
He wasn’t sure how to fix the flaws in the system. Hundreds of years of lawmakers, both federal and state, had created a mire of legal doctrine that cared little for justice. Truth didn’t even matter to lawyers. What mattered was getting a conviction. Everything could be manipulated, and few things were sacrosanct.
Mandatory psychological tests applied at a young age could be used to pinpoint those most likely to commit rape or murder. Those individuals identified could be educated, or monitored.
Rick had proven his point to anyone smart enough to figure it out. Maybe they’d change something, but he doubted it. His genius would be labeled madness and banished to the annals of history.
A car passed him on the left. He jolted back to the moment, keeping his attention on the highway. He needed to make it to the woods where he’d tie Erin up and put her in the trunk of the car. She was gonna fight him when the drug wore off, and he didn’t want to hurt her. Eventually she’d come to accept him, but he knew it might take a while. She was stubborn, but so was he. He’d source some sedatives to keep her docile in the meantime.
In the short-term he’d buy an RV—he liked that idea—and they could go tripping around the country until he found the perfect spot for them to build a life together. Maybe he’d buy a boat, and they’d sail down to Brazil.
He and Huxley had driven this back route two summers ago. He grinned when he thought about his boss. Professor Huxley would admire his talent and his methods for manipulating the police, and would probably eventually use him as a case study. Rick grinned. The man had also once said he’d love to experience being locked up for a day, for real, not knowing if he was ever getting out, just so he could see the effect it had on the psyche of an innocent man.
Yep, he’d done the guy a favor.
He’d thought about killing the student the professor had been screwing, but once Rachel turned up alive, there’d been no point. He didn’t get off on causing unnecessary suffering. Well, not always. He wasn’t a monster.
Erin groaned, and he knew it was time to pull over before she regained her senses. A logging road appeared ahead, and he turned onto it, off the highway, even though few cars traveled these roads in winter. He pocketed the car keys and popped the trunk and got out. In the distance the buzz of a helicopter made him glance at the sky. It was probably nothing.
He dug into a bag for a different license plate and a screwdriver. He began unscrewing the one on the car and tossed it into the snow.
It was possible Rachel had woken up a vegetable, but even if she named him to the cops, it would take them time to realize he’d skipped town, and even longer to figure out he’d taken Erin with him. Their standard operating procedures were so slow and predictable he’d probably already outfoxed most of them by traveling fast along the back roads.
The chopper was getting louder now. He looked up into the sky and saw a faint black speck in the distance. He frowned. Time to find cover until it passed on by, even though it was probably nothing.
He closed the trunk and froze. The front seat was empty. Erin was gone.
* * *
Erin used the noise of Rick opening the trunk to cover that of her opening the car door. She didn’t allow her shaking limbs to falter. She had one chance at this and one chance only.
She felt woozy and her head hurt, but she’d forced herself to move slowly and silently. The martial arts training she’d done for years helped. Knowing she had to be quiet unt
il she’d put a little distance between her and her psycho abductor meant she walked purposely down the road for about thirty yards. Her body was sore and stiff, resisting her efforts, but getting away from Rick Lachlan was the only thing that mattered. An animal track led into the woods so she took it.
Did anyone know she was missing yet? Hell, they might never know. She’d told them she was going home to visit her parents and wasn’t sure when she’d be back.
Why did she do that?
Run away when things got hard?
Darsh was right. She needed to get past what Graham had done to her and take a chance on happiness.
Loving Darsh wasn’t that difficult. Sure, it was a risk. But the risk seemed minimal compared to being abducted by a madman.
The going got tougher in the deeper snow, but she didn’t stop moving. She wanted to run but knew if she did, she’d end up flat on her face.
The sound of the trunk being shut echoed through the forest, and her heart spasmed.
Shit.
He’d realize she was gone.
“Erin,” came a horrible, high-pitched voice.
She stumbled.
“You don’t want to make me angry, Erin.” The sound of a gunshot had her gasping out loud. Dammit. She hadn’t known he had a gun. “I’ve been very patient. Don’t make me hurt you.”
She started to run then, lifting her feet awkwardly through the heavy snow. Her sneakers felt as if they had bricks tied to the bottom of them. She heard a throbbing noise, but it didn’t register what it might be, because suddenly she was out in a clearing on a sheet of ice. A pond.
Oh God. She froze, terrified. She hated this, hated the idea of falling through the icy crust into the water beneath almost as much as she hated Rick Lachlan. She slid to a halt, but a silhouette rippled through the trees, and she saw him moving toward her. She ran, the sound of the ice creaking beneath her boots driving terror through skin and bone right to her core.
The buzzing noise got louder.
At first she thought it was the sound of her own blood rushing through her ears, but as she glanced back at Rick, he was looking at the sky, and she realized he heard it, too. Then it became deafening as a helicopter swept over the top of them. It whooshed overhead and was gone. Erin was terrified it hadn’t spotted them because it was traveling so fast, and she cried out in frustration. Then it banked hard, slowing down and then turning to one side. A figure dressed in black held a rifle steadily trained on Rick’s chest.
Cold Hearted (Cold Justice Book 6) Page 31