“I warned you to break up with him. But you wouldn’t listen.”
“That’s why you left me alone for so long, isn’t it?” Emma challenged. “Because I wasn’t dating anyone.” He looked a little surprised and perhaps pleased she’d figured it out. “Why did you start taking those women? I wasn’t seeing anyone then.”
He studied her and slowly dragged his hand up her stomach to cover her breast. A wave of nausea rolled through her as he closed his eyes and tipped his head back, exhaling a slow breath. She fought to not gag.
“Why did you do it?” she demanded again, hoping he’d stop molesting her if she could keep him talking. He seemed to want her to understand, to even appreciate the effort he’d put into stalking her all these years.
His hand stilled on her breast, but he didn’t remove it as he stared down at her. Confusion mired in his lust-filled eyes. “You really don’t get it, do you? You rejected me!” he snarled.
“What are you talking about?” Other than meeting him at dinner with Molly, she’d only seen Mark a few times at the security office.
“Back in high school when I tried to talk to you. You ignored me like the trash I was collecting! Then the night of the New Year’s Eve party at Mallory’s.”
“I don’t even remember you in high school. Or seeing you at Mallory’s.” She’d also been hammered, thanks to Molly’s tequila shooters.
“Of course you wouldn’t. You never noticed me! I was near you during the countdown, and at midnight I was going to kiss you, but Blake Weston pulled you into his arms and kissed you instead!”
His grip tightened on her breast and his fingers dug into her flesh. Emma bit the inside of her lip and winced.
“That was the night I decided he would pay.”
“So you set him up for the murders? The Ketamine was clever. Something a doctor would use to incapacitate his victims.”
His lip twitched in the faintest hint of a smile and the punishing grip on her breast eased.
Keep him talking. “How did you get it? The Ketamine? It wasn’t missing from the pharmacy.” According to Sawyer, the counts had never been off.
He appeared impressed that she knew this. “I got it from the used sharps boxes in the Emergency Department of course. You know, your nurses really should be more careful about wasting their drugs before tossing those bottles away.”
That’s how he was doing it? It all made sense now. Security officers had access to the entire hospital. How easy would it be to sneak into a soiled utility room, break into a sharps container, and rifle through it?
“But none of that matters now, Eve.” Mark gripped her chin and turned her head, forcing her to meet his eyes. “I have you and I’m never letting you go.”
* * *
“I’ve got the story on Edwards,” Cade announced in way of greeting when Sawyer answered his cell. “I’m sending the report your way now.”
“I’m on the road. Give me the abridged version.”
“Carl Edwards, thirty-two, raised by his single mother, a devout Catholic. When he was fourteen, he and five other boys came forward with allegations of sexual abuse by their priest.”
“Shit.”
“Oh, it gets better. The case never went to trial because guess what? The guy dies in a house fire.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Nope. Then all’s quiet for about nine years. Edwards starts dating a woman from Duluth—Kimberly Halloway. This part you know about, but what you might not have heard is that he caught her cheating on him.”
“O’Malley didn’t say anything about that.” Probably because he hadn’t gotten the chance. As soon as Sawyer made the Mark Smith connection, he’d raced out of there and had been living a nightmare ever since.
“Well, she did. And he freaked. She broke up with him, and a week later she disappears. Found burned to a crisp in her car. The guy was on the clock where he worked at a paper mill when she went missing, so he had an alibi and people willing to vouch for him. He was still brought in and questioned, but they had no evidence to make a conviction stick.”
“That’s what O’Malley said. He thought Edwards did it, but if there had been any physical evidence, it burned up in the fire.”
“The first chance Edwards gets, he’s on the move, showing up a few months later in, you guessed it, Grand Marais. He’s the new custodian at the high school, and since he’s never been convicted of a crime, his background check is clear. Then that shit with Evangeline Larson goes down and he disappears again, popping up in Philadelphia where Carl Edwards is supposedly killed during a robbery. Guess what his roommate’s name was?” Before Sawyer could respond, Cade jumped in with the answer. “Mark Smith. I bet you my badge that dude offed his roommate and stole his identity.”
It would make sense. Not an easy thing to pull off, but given the right circumstances, it could be done. The name was sure common enough.
“Mark Smith moved to St. Paul shortly after ‘Carl Edward’s’ death and took a job as a security guard working at Ramsey Hospital. He’s been there for the last four years. Incidentally, that was the same year Dr. Rhodes started her residency.”
Cade had certainly made quick work of connecting the dots. Not that Sawyer was surprised. His partner was one hell of a detective.
“Thanks for the call, Cade.” If Sawyer had any doubts he was chasing the right guy, there were none now. Carl Edwards, a.k.a. Mark Smith, was a cold-blooded killer.
“How much farther?” Sawyer snapped impatiently, disconnecting the call.
Ian’s brow rose and he shot Sawyer a measured look. “A half mile less than the last time you asked.”
Sawyer muttered a curse and dragged his hand through his hair. Impatience was an invisible weight on his foot, pressing it into the accelerator. The Charger lurched forward, kicking up loose gravel and sending rocks pinging against the undercarriage.
“You’re gonna want to slow it down there, Parnelli. It’s dark and this car isn’t going to fare well against a twelve-hundred-pound moose.”
“I’ll take my chances,” he grumbled, questioning for the millionth time if he was making a huge mistake. He could already be at that first location. If Emma was there, he would have her in his arms right now. Instead, he was racing in the opposite direction, praying Ian was right and that he found her in time.
“You wrap us around a pair of antlers and you’re not going to get to her at all.”
“Every extra minute it takes me to get to her is one minute she comes closer to dying. How can you be so sure she’s at this cabin?”
“Because if I was a whack-job abducting women, this is where I would take them. Turn left here.”
Ian gave Sawyer about a two second warning and he piled on the brakes, sending the cruiser into a skid.
“Told ya you were going too fast.”
“You know, I can’t decide if you’re an asshole or if you just have a really shitty sense of humor,” Sawyer growled, throwing the car into reverse and kicking up more gravel as he backed up to the turn he’d just slid past.
“I’m not that funny.”
They traveled a few more minutes in silence when Ian said, “Slow down. We’re getting close.”
Sawyer brought the Charger to a crawl, seeing nothing beyond what the headlights revealed, which was a lot of woods and a vacant gravel road. Untrusting of Ian’s internal GPS, because all this shit out here looked the same, Sawyer glanced at his cell for confirmation. According to the coordinates, they were almost there.
“Stop here.”
Sawyer pulled the car as far onto the shoulder as he could get without putting it in the ditch.
“The hemi’s got a growl and sound travels up here. We don’t want to alert him. This road doesn’t see much traffic. We’ll go in on foot.”
We? The passenger door swung open and Ian was already climbing out before Sawyer could call him back. “Listen,” Sawyer cut the engine and exited the car, heading to the rear passenger door to let
Sam out. “I appreciate the navigation assistance, but I can’t bring a civilian in on this. Sam and I are going in alone.”
The guy didn’t spare him a glance as he pulled a gun from his waistband and chambered a round before re-holstering it. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not a civilian.” Brandishing a badge, he flashed it at Sawyer from across the hood of the car. “DNR—you’re on my turf, Detective.”
Popping the trunk, Sawyer went to the back of the car. “I’ve got a spare vest in here. If you’re going in, you’re wearing Kevlar.” Lifting the lid, he illuminated a trunk full of SWAT gear. After pulling out Sam’s vest, he handed a spare to Ian.
“SWAT, huh? Impressive.”
He and Sam had been doing SWAT together for years. When he’d made detective, the team was something he hadn’t been willing to let go. Right now, he was damn thankful for the experience, because if Emma was out here, he was about to head into a hostage situation and there was no backup available. They were too far into the Boundary Waters for any kind of a rapid response with all the other officers spread so thin searching for her.
“So how do you want to play this?” Ian asked, checking his flashlight.
“Get me and Sam in there undetected. Then cover the back and make sure he doesn’t run. Sam and I will go in through the front. Sam will take out Edwards and I’ll get Emma.” Sawyer secured Sam’s vest and gave him the “all’s good” pat. His partner took his position beside him, standing at attention on his right. From here on out, they would become one. Sam watched Sawyer’s movements, waiting for his commands. The moment that vest clicked into place, Sam became a different dog. He was Sawyer’s partner—and there was no one else he’d rather his life depend on.
“Sounds good,” Ian nodded. “We’ll come in from the west and trek north a click. That should put us about seventy-five feet behind the cabin. Then you can flank around and enter from the front.”
On paper, it was a good strategy, but Sawyer had been around the block enough times to know that things rarely played out as planned. Expect the unexpected… Problem was, Sawyer couldn’t remember ever going into a situation this blind before, or with so much to lose.
Chapter 42
Mark’s grip on reality was slipping and Emma was running out of time. Seeing him like this, she wondered how he’d ever managed to seem so…normal. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep him talking because his descent into insanity was making his thoughts scattered and irrational. He’d begun calling her Kimberly.
Multiple times she tried to redirect him, but tied to a bed and at the mercy of a madman, there was only so much she could do. She’d done a psych rotation during her residency, though she’d never excelled in the specialty. Had she known her life would one day depend on it, she might have paid closer attention in class when they discussed de-escalation and psychosis.
She laid there listening to Mark rant, telling her one minute how much he loved her and how sorry he was, then the pendulum would swing and he’d start yelling at her, accusing her of being a lying, cheating whore. All these years Emma had believed this was about her, but in truth she’d been nothing more than a surrogate for the woman who’d broken his heart as well as his mind.
Scattered among his delusions were clips of reality, like when Mark told her he couldn’t wait to see the look on Sawyer’s face when he realized he was too late. Trying to calm her rising panic, Emma struggled to keep her voice steady, knowing fear would only hasten her demise.
“You’ve waited over eight years for this—for me. You’ve plotted and planned and schemed. For what? So that you can kill me as soon as you have me? Seems like a waste of time and effort, if you ask me.”
Emma would do or say just about anything to stay alive as long as possible, giving her the best chance to escape or be rescued. Which bid the pressing question, how far was she willing to go? Could she give up her body to save her life? She wasn’t sure she could. Her body, heart, and soul belonged to Sawyer. And some things were worse than death.
If she behaved like the other women, fighting him, playing the part of the victim, then she would undoubtedly meet their same fate. To stay alive, Emma would have to play her own game. Keep him on his toes, intrigue him. If she could get Mark to uncuff her from this bed, then maybe, just maybe, she could escape.
As much as she tried to cling to the fraying thread of hope that Sawyer would find her in time, she needed to prepare herself for the possibility that he wasn’t coming. She had no idea where she was, but the woods she’d seen through the window before night set in were a good indicator they were in a secluded area. How could Sawyer possibly find her?
“I had hopes for you—for us.” He skimmed the back of his knuckles down her cheek and Emma fought the impulse to flinch away. “But now…” He shook his head as if that would help sort his jumbled thoughts. “You’ve ruined what we could have had by giving yourself to him. Your purity was your salvation.”
Mark’s obsession with her virginity was the icing on his crazy cake. She’d be willing to bet that somewhere in his past something had happened to him to cement this purity fixation. Had he been raised Catholic? Did his mother have loose morals? Or perhaps just the opposite? Maybe she’d been strict, ingraining chastity so deeply into his fucked-up moral fiber that he believed any woman that wasn’t a virgin was ruined.
His hand dropped from her cheek and circled her throat. Slowly, his grip tightened, squeezing just enough that her pulse reverberated against his fingertips. “You know what I did to those whores, Eve? I fucked them and then I cleansed them with fire. Just like I’m going to do to you. When I’m finished, you’ll be pure again.”
His hand squeezed until she couldn’t breathe. Emma began to struggle, thrashing against her bonds. A scream built in her throat, the pressure mounting as she fought for air. When his hand slipped, her terror broke free. “Help me!” she screamed.
* * *
Sawyer was fighting a losing battle with his emotions. This was how mistakes were made, how people got killed. As much as he tried to disconnect his head from his heart and play the role of SWAT field agent, or the detached police detective, he couldn’t step back and take an objective assessment of the situation.
He watched from the woods as a light flickered in the back room of the cabin. His pulse accelerated, the only thought running through his mind was to save Emma. Sawyer wasn’t even aware his feet were moving—until a hand gripped his arm, tugging him back into the shelter of the woods.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ian hissed.
“I’m going in. And I suggest you take your hand off me before you lose it.”
Ian reluctantly released his grip, but he wasn’t backing down. “Let’s try to avoid a hostage situation, huh? Be smart about this.”
Sawyer knew every word coming out of Ian’s mouth was true. If Sawyer wasn’t toeing the line and a hair’s breadth from losing his shit, he’d be saying the same thing. He reminded himself that Ian didn’t know what Sawyer had at stake here. He didn’t know how personal this was to him. He needed to get a handle on his shit before he moved in on the cabin. The place was small and tucked back in the woods. It would have been nearly impossible to find on his own. He was thankful for Ian’s assistance, and for sparing Sawyer the wasted hours of chasing down the wrong rabbit trail.
“I’ll go check it out,” Ian whispered. “Assess the situation, and we’ll make a plan, all right? Recon is what I do. He’ll never know I was there.”
Sawyer wasn’t sure he could sit back and let someone else be the eyes of this operation. Then again, the moment he laid his on Emma, he’d probably snap and kick the fucking door in. If she got hurt because of his impulsiveness, he’d never forgive himself. After another moment of hesitation, Sawyer nodded. “Ten minutes,” he said, checking his watch. “Then I’m going in.”
* * *
“Shh…” Mark hushed her, slowly dragging the flat side of the blade down her cheek. “There will be plenty of time for
that.”
Emma ground her teeth against the pain when the knife nicked her jaw. Warm moisture trickled down the side of her neck. Her stomach lurched at his smug grin.
“So beautiful,” he mused.
The sharp tip slipped beneath the neckline of her shirt. With deliberate slowness, he cut through the cotton, the edge of the blade cutting her breast on its descent. She bit the inside of her cheek to stifle a terrified whimper. Her vision blurred as she fought back tears, vowing she wouldn’t give this sick bastard the satisfaction of seeing them fall. A final tug ripped her top in half, and he used the tip of the blade to part the fabric, exposing her breasts.
His eyes were alight with madness as they consumed her bare flesh. Every place his hungry gaze fell, her skin crawled. His attention briefly flickered to her wrists and he paused before bringing the blade to her bonds. The knife cut into her tender flesh as it slipped beneath the plastic zip-ties. With a twist of the blade they broke free. She resisted the urge to rub her wrists, not wanting to draw his attention to what he’d just done. Freedom. Now she had a chance to fight, to survive—to run.
Her heart took flight on the wings of hope only to crash and burn by Mark’s rough demand. “Take your clothes off.”
So that was why he’d freed her hands. He was going to make her strip for him. Emma’s mind raced with options. Beyond the room was freedom, but Mark stood between her and the doorway, and he wasn’t a small man. She’d never be able to overpower him, but perhaps she could get past him. How far could she get in the cold dressed like this? She had no idea where she was, but she’d rather take her chances with the frozen wilderness than die at his hands.
The Good Samaritan Page 24