She named one they used to go to while dating. “I hope the hamburgers are still as good as I remember. Have you had one lately?”
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Not in fifteen years, but I hear it’s still the same.”
Rosa’s Dine In or Out was only a few blocks away. Hunter parked in the only empty bay to place their order of hamburgers, fries, and iced teas.
The silence in the SUV was thick as they waited for the waitress on roller skates to deliver their food. Hunter passed Sarah her meal then he dived into his hamburger, so juicy it ran down his chin. He swiped a napkin across it and slanted a look toward Sarah. Holding her burger between her hands partway to her mouth, she stared out the passenger window as though frozen in time.
“Sarah?”
She placed her food back onto its wrapper in her lap, her face still turned away from him.
He started to touch her but hesitated. He shouldn’t. Yet, as if it had a mind of its own, his hand connected with her upper arm and latched onto her. “What’s going on?”
When she swung her head toward him, her eyes were filled with tears. “I should be getting ready for my niece’s wedding right now. Instead, I’m trying to convince myself I can find her and bring her home safely before…” Her quivering voice faded into the quiet. She shook off his grasp and turned to face him. “We have no idea what’s really going on. Is the person who has Alicia the same one who murdered Terri? Or someone else? Will he wait ten days or kill her sooner? I’ve helped to find many killers, but can I do it this time before it’s too late for Alicia? She’s the chi—daughter I never had.”
He remembered their conversations about having a family the months leading up to their wedding. They had wanted several children, and yet they had both ended up with none.
“What if we can’t find her alive—or dead? I’ve dealt with families who have no resolution to their lost loved ones. That’s a living hell. I don’t want that for Rebecca and Mark. And me.”
Her husky voice cut through his defenses, and suddenly all he wanted to do was hold her. He twisted toward her, and although the console separated them, he reached over it and grasped her hands. “Mark is my boss, but even more importantly, he’s a mentor and friend. I’m not going to let anything happen to Alicia.”
“That’s how I feel, although you and I know saying that is only a good motivator for us. We aren’t in control of what happens to her. The kidnapper is. I used to think good would triumph in the end, but I don’t know if that’s true anymore. Evil is everywhere and seems to be winning the battle.”
In the past Sarah had always been the optimist in their relationship. She’d believed in the Lord and the power of prayer. She was the one who led him to God. “In the end, it won’t be that way. The Lord will overcome evil. If I didn’t believe that, I might as well give up, but I won’t.”
She looked at their clasped hands for a long moment then lifted her gaze to his. “I hadn’t realized how much I was losing sight of that. I just came from a difficult case.”
“The one in California where a mass grave was discovered at a campground?”
She nodded.
“You caught the guy who murdered those people.”
“I know, but not before he killed his last victim. We were only minutes away.”
“When was the last time you took time away from your job?”
“Last year when Alicia and I went to Florida to spend time with Nana.”
“Our jobs take an emotional toll on us even if we’re successful in closing a case. That’s true for you even more than me because not all my cases involve murder and death.”
Sarah scanned the area as though she finally realized they were in his car and people were all around them. “I have a doctorate in psychology, and you would think I’d practice what I know is the best advice. A person must take care of herself in order to do her best for others.” She gently tugged her hands from his and turned forward. “And I will, once Alicia is found.”
Hunter quickly finished his hamburger and fries. He’d let her in for a few minutes. He couldn’t afford to do that again. He’d thought he’d known her well fifteen years ago, and he’d never thought she would leave him at the altar with the barest explanation of why.
* * *
For a few minutes, Sarah had glimpsed the Hunter she’d known before she’d walked away from their wedding. Their brief connection at Rosa’s had pulled her away from a path of self-destruction she’d seen some of her co-workers walk down. Over the years, she’d grown farther away from the Lord the more she delved deeper into the minds of sick, evil people. Until their conversation, she hadn’t realized how far and deep she’d gone.
But that wasn’t the only reason she was at a crossroad in her life.
Her secret, kept close and tightly locked away, couldn’t be ignored any longer—not since she’d returned to Cimarron City where it happened. Not coming to Alicia’s wedding hadn’t been an option for her. Sarah had thought that time would have helped her deal with her feelings concerning what had happened to her that night, but the moment she’d driven into town, despair had cloaked her in a cocoon of pain and what ifs.
Her life could be so different if she’d not let her girlfriends talk her into drinking and celebrating her last night as a single woman at the lake. Others—both female and male, mostly from the local college—had joined them. Not until later had she realized her best friend, Emily, had set it up. As the evening wound down, she knew no one could drive home in the condition everyone was in, so she sat off from the group still there and leaned back against a tree. Her head throbbed, and the world had swirled around her. She rarely drank and only had one glass the whole night, but she’d felt so disorientated.
The last thing she remembered was a medium-build guy approaching her. She’d tried to recall what he looked like, but he had remained in the shadows. He’d offered her his hand and a ride home. After that everything went blank—until she woke up the next morning in the woods and realized she’d been raped. She’d been saving herself for Hunter, and in a short time that gift had been wrenched from her. At nineteen, her world had fallen apart, and she couldn’t face Hunter and tell him what had happened. Her shame drove her from Cimarron City.
When Hunter stopped along a dirt road that ended at the edge of the woods, Sarah finally focused on her surroundings. She knew where she was. She’d never forget hiking out of the woods as the sun rose the day of her wedding near where Hunter parked his SUV.
Hunter’s cell phone rang, and he quickly answered it. “Good. I want the report on my desk. What was the cause of death?”
Quietness reigned as Hunter listened to his caller. Then he asked, “Was she raped?” His frown deepened as he listened. “I’ll read it when I get back to the station. Thanks for rushing this.”
Raped? Had Hunter been talking about Terri’s autopsy?
“Was that the medical examiner?”
Hunter nodded. “What he told me only confirmed what I knew. She was raped, and the gunshot wound to her chest killed her. The only thing I didn’t know was that she’d been given a roofie. That’s probably how he took her without a big ruckus.”
Years ago, she’d wondered the same thing. Had she been slipped a date rape drug into her drink?
“Let’s go. The dumpsite isn’t too far from here.” He climbed from his vehicle while she clutched the handle, her entire body trembling.
In one direction, she glimpsed the nearby lake and the campground where the party had taken place. She couldn’t bring herself to turn and look out the back in the direction she’d come after waking up the morning of what should have been the happiest day of her life.
Suddenly the passenger door opened, and Hunter hovered nearby. “Is something wrong?”
Yes! Everything! After a moment of silence, she realized she had to reply. “No, just thinking about the times I came to the lake.”
“I remember teaching you to water ski one summer.”
> If only she could hold onto that memory rather than the last one, her heart wouldn’t be pounding so much. “Show me where Terri was found. We still need to go to her apartment.” And I’d like to get out of here as fast as possible.
“Follow me. I’m retracing my steps from earlier.”
Sarah walked behind him, noticing he went on a trail possibly used today by the police to minimize disturbing the area around the dumpsite. She came to stand next to him when he paused outside the yellow taped off part of the woods. More memories deluged her as she stared at the place where she’d awakened fifteen years ago. The sunlight, like now, was streaming through the breaks in the tree canopy above—the only difference was the different slant across the forest floor.
While Hunter ducked under the yellow tape, paralysis attacked her, and she couldn’t move an inch. Trapped. A heavy body on top of her. Pain lanced through her, and she cried out until a hand clamped over her mouth.
“Sarah?” Hunter suddenly stood in front of her, his intense blue gaze fixed on her with tiny lines of worry fanning out from his eyes.
She blinked, sweat coating her face, a trickle rolling down her forehead then another one.
“Are you all right?”
The urgency in his voice brought her back to the present. “Was Terri raped right before she died?”
“The medical examiner didn’t say when. Why?”
She couldn’t voice the reason she’d asked—at least not yet. She ignored his question, stepped to the side, and went under the yellow tape.
Hunter grabbed her arm and stopped her. “Why, Sarah?”
She had to tell him something until she figured out what was going on. Was this the work of the same person who raped her? What had he been doing for fifteen years? “Over the years, I’ve worked on a few cases of a serial rapist turned killer. A couple used to dump their victims in remote places like this. Show me where you found Terri then the photos you took before the body was removed.” She forced a professional tone into her voice while inside she felt as if she were falling apart.
When Hunter moved to the spot in the middle of the roped off area, he pointed to the ground about three feet from a scrub oak. “She was posed face up, her head near the trunk.”
Sarah shut her eyes, her stomach roiling, her throat jammed closed.
Chapter Four
Hunter retrieved his cell phone and flipped through his photos until he found the one that best showed how Terri had been posed, her arms crossed over her chest, her dead eyes staring up into the branches of the tree. He lifted his head and passed his phone to Sarah.
The color bled from her face as her attention riveted to the picture.
“What’s going on, Sarah?”
Her continued silence ate at his composure.
“Have you seen a murder staged similarly?”
She nodded, backing away from the spot under the tree. She stumbled over an exposed root and lost her balance.
Hunter lunged toward her and clasped her arms to steady her. She shook beneath his hands. He brought her up against him, wrapping his arms around her. He swallowed the words he wanted to say. This wasn’t the time to demand answers, but he needed them and would get them later.
Around them, life went on. A cardinal flew from one pine to another then perched next to its chirping mate. A light breeze blew, carrying a hint of a fire on it. One of the campgrounds wasn’t too far away. In the distance, he heard a motorboat crossing the lake, its sound growing fainter the further it went. But in his embrace, Sarah still trembled.
He’d never seen her so distressed. Was one of the serial killers she’d tracked and lost now in Cimarron City?
When Sarah finally stepped back, a little color had returned to her cheeks, but the desolate look in her eyes concerned Hunter more than anything.
She swung her head from side to side as though searching for anyone who might be nearby. “We need to talk but not here.”
“Let’s go back to the car. You’ve seen all there is. Whoever killed Terri was careful. He used the same path to bring her here and to leave.
“From which direction?”
“That way.” He pointed into the woods away from the campground and the road. “One of our canine officers brought his tracking dog. Max followed the scent. It stopped at the shoreline where the killer’s scent vanished.” Hunter walked beside Sarah in the direction of his SUV. Question after question tumbled through his thoughts.
“Are you going to have Max see if he can follow the scent from the footprint by the deck?”
“Yes. Officer Parker, his handler, will give me a call with the results. If Max can pick up the killer’s scent, it will probably end where the perpetrator got into a car. It’ll depend on where it was parked, but we might be able to pick it up leaving the area on a traffic cam.”
“At night, you won’t have as many vehicles to eliminate.”
“That’s what I’m hoping, but where Mark lives, there are ways to leave the area undetected.” At his car, Hunter opened the passenger door for Sarah then rounded his hood and climbed inside. He put his key into the ignition, but he didn’t start the SUV. Again, he asked, “What’s going on, Sarah?”
* * *
Sarah had never wanted to tell her secret to Hunter. It was something that changed her whole life. But if Terri’s murder and possibly Alicia’s disappearance were somehow connected to what happened to her fifteen years ago, then she had no choice. He needed to know. She should have told him when it happened, but she’d been nineteen and naïve. She’d never realized how much evil there was in the world.
“There’s a chance I encountered the man who killed Terri the night before our wedding.”
His brow furrowed. Confusion clouded his blue eyes. “When you were with your girlfriends?”
Sarah stared out the windshield. “I know this might sound farfetched, but yes. We came to the lake that night. Emily knew some of the college kids who were partying at the campground near here. I drove one of the two cars because I was always one of the designated drivers for the group. I only drank one alcoholic beverage when everyone toasted my last day as a single woman. The rest of the night I stuck with sodas, so when I became disorientated, I didn’t understand why. Everything was spinning, and I stumbled. That’s when I sat down by a tree and closed my eyes to stop the swirling. I vaguely remember a guy approaching me to check on how I was feeling. He helped me to my feet.” She sliced a look at Hunter. “The next thing I remembered was the next morning when I woke up at the very spot where Terri was laid down and posed. I was posed like that, too. I think the guy who approached me might be the killer.”
“That was fifteen years ago. We haven’t had a case like Terri’s in Cimarron City. That’s a—”
“When I woke up the morning of our wedding, I knew I had been raped, although I don’t remember anything about it.” She clenched her hands, her fingernails digging into her palms. “There was blood. He took my…virginity. I couldn’t…” She shoved the door open and scrambled from his car. Memories of that horrific day flooded her. She couldn’t face Hunter then or now. Crossing her arms to stop the shaking, she leaned against his car.
The sound of a car door opening made her wish she was anywhere but here. When Hunter appeared out of the corner of her eye, she wanted to disappear, never have to see him again. He reclined against his car next to Sarah and didn’t say a word.
“I’m sorry about…” Her voice faded into silence. She couldn’t express all her regrets.
“Why didn’t you tell me back then?” he finally asked in a soft voice.
“Since we became serious, we had a pact. Our first time would be on our wedding night.” She dropped her arms to her side, intending to push off the SUV and put space between them.
Instead, Hunter captured her hand and held her next to him. “I would have understood and helped you through it.”
She yanked away from him. “Would you? That’s easy to say but not necessarily easy to do. I wa
s hurt, ashamed, and just wanted to hide from anyone I knew. All I could think about was getting in my car and driving as far away from here as I could. I wrote you a letter. I couldn’t even call you. To hear your voice…” A lump lodged in her throat, and she swallowed hard several times. “I called my house, and Nana answered.” And the dam on her emotions broke. “Nana listened and told me she would take care of everything. I made her promise not to tell anyone about the rape, and she never did. I went to live with her, and slowly I came to terms with what happened. I felt you needed to know now because of the similarities with Terri’s situation. It’s possible the guy has evolved since he raped me.”
“You should have told me fifteen years ago.” Tension gripped each word and dripped off.
And she couldn’t blame him. She swung around, wrenched the car door open, and slipped inside.
Finally, Hunter skirted the rear of his SUV, sat behind the steering wheel, and started the engine. Not a word was said as he drove into town and parked in front of an apartment building. The only clues to what he was feeling was the firm set of his jaw and the nerve that jerked in his cheek.
And the heavy silence.
As they exited the car, Hunter’s cell phone rang. He answered it. “When will you be at the chief’s house?” A pause, then he added. “We’ll be there by then. Wait for me.”
When he disconnected, he continued toward the apartment building’s main entrance. “That was Officer Parker. He’s running ahead of schedule and can be at the house at three to discuss the results of the tracking. Then after that, we can go to the church to talk with Ben.”
“Good.” At least being out of the car eased her stress their earlier conversation had produced. But she still had one more piece of information she needed to tell Hunter, and that would be as unnerving as telling him she’d been raped.
* * *
Deadly Secrets Page 3