by Kylie Brant
Turning away, she said flatly, “I’m no angel. I’ll call Gonzalez myself. I think I can convince her…”
“Okay.” He took a breath. Hoped he wasn’t going to regret this. “Boelin tracked down an image of the van that was used to abduct Van Wheton. It was caught on a security camera at a gas station heading for Iowa. Got a clear look at the driver and a glimpse of Van Wheton in the back window.”
Something inside her seemed to ease. He wished he could brace her for the rest. “So that’s good news,” she said. “One more piece of evidence against Vance.”
“The driver matched the sketch Jenna did. Of the man Carl Muller saw in the Edina park.”
For a moment it was like her body melted. As if all the strength streamed out of it. Releasing her hand he placed his arm around her waist, obscenities on his lips.
“No, it’s all right.” But her protest was far too faint for his liking.
“It’s not, but you will be. Do you understand me?” He placed a crooked knuckle under her chin to turn her face to his. “I will never let anyone hurt you again. No one will get near you again.”
Her smile was tremulous. “A team of offenders. It explains so much. The pre- and post-mortem assaults seemed so different. The care he took with the bodies prior to burial. Partially to cover up the evidence, yes. But I think there’s more to it.”
And this was exactly what he didn’t want her thinking about. “You’ll be in protective custody. You can go wherever you’re most comfortable, and one of us will be with you at all times. Whoever you choose. Wherever you choose. A hotel or one of our homes. There will be someone at your side until we catch Vance’s partner.”
“A hotel would be inconvenient for everyone. But so would having an unwanted houseguest indefinitely.” Her words would have sounded reasonable if he hadn’t felt her slight shudder. She wasn’t unaffected by this news. Hell, neither was he.
“You’ll come to my place.” Belatedly he realized he should have made the statement sound a little less like an order. “It’s familiar. There’s a second bedroom. Plus, I’ll let you take over my home office and organize it. You know you were wanting to.”
She actually smiled at that. The sight lifted something inside him. “Ah, the infamous Prescott win-win. How can I resist?”
“You can’t.” He brushed his lips over her hair in a gesture to light for her to feel, but one he suddenly needed. She’d found him all too resistible not so long ago, but that was different. That had been…well he didn’t know what the hell that had been. But this wasn’t personal. It was his job. And Cam didn’t trust anyone to do that job as well as he could.
Because the next person who tried to get at Sophie Channing was going to have to walk through him to do it.
Touching Evil
Turn the page for a preview of book 2 in Kylie’s exciting Circle of Evil trilogy, coming in October 2013.
Chapter 1
“C’mon, Jonah. Don’t be such a wimp.”
“You try carrying a pony keg on your shoulder. Through the woods. At night.” Jonah Davis puffed as he stumbled on the winding path. Branches of scrub bushes scratched at his arms and snagged on his jeans. How the hell had he gotten stuck doing all the work while Spencer Pals got to help Trina Adams over every fallen branch, and around each tangle of brambles?
’Cuz Jonah had been a dumbass. He’d figured to impress Trina by being all macho and shit. Yeah, she was going to be real impressed about the time he fell over of a heart attack and the keg knocked her on her fine little ass.
She turned, flashlight in her hand, to give him a melting look. “Are you sure you’re okay, Jonah? You should make Spencer take a turn. That’s so heavy.”
His chest swelled. “I’ve got it. You just watch out for Spence. He thinks these woods are haunted. He’s liable to piss himself if he hears a noise.”
“Fuck you,” Spence said.
She gave a tinkling laugh, and the sound of it went straight to Jonah’s groin. Before today Trina Adams had never so much as glanced his way in the hallways of East High, but there was nothing like the promise of a kegger to help people make friends. He’d looked at her, though. He’d looked plenty. She was Jennifer Lawrence cute with a smokin’ hot body that would look even hotter under his.
Sometime before the night was over he was going to know that from personal experience. Sometime after this keg was gone and she was feeling awfully friendly toward the guy who’d carried the damn thing the whole way.
“Shh.” Spence threw out an arm to stop Trina from going any further. Probably copped a feel while he was at it, too. Spencer was that type of guy. “I think I heard something.”
“Here we go.” But Jonah was none too sorry to put the pony keg down. Even if they hadn’t yet reached their usual party spot. “Is it a ghost, Spence? Or maybe a zombie.” In an aside to Trina, he said, “You should see Spence in the morning. He looks like an extra from the cast of The Walking Dead.”
She laughed again and his dick took a bow. Thank God she couldn’t see how damn happy she made his pants.
“Listen Hulk, there’s someone up ahead.”
Jonah shot Spence a glare. He hated that nickname. But then he heard the noise, too. Voices too distant to really make out.
“You think the others beat us here?” he asked doubtfully. The spot next to the Raccoon River had always been his favorite spot for keggers. But not everyone coming tonight knew where it was. He’d had to pass out maps.
“I don’t see how.”
Trina handed the flashlight to Spence. “Whoever it is, let’s sneak up and scare them.”
“Okay. Be vewwy, vewwy quiet.”
She muffled a laugh at Spence’s stupid cartoon character imitation, and the two of them went off. Neither waited for Jonah to wrestle the keg to his shoulder again, and nearly have cardiac arrest doing it.
Somehow this wasn’t going at all like he’d planned.
By the time he caught up with them the sweat was snaking down his back. Even the back of his shorts was wet beneath the jeans. He made a grimace of distaste. Butt sweat was really the worst.
Twin shushing sounds came from Spence and Trina. Since they were crouched down behind a rock he set the damn keg down. Again.
But his flare of annoyance vanished when Trina reached up to grab his hand and yank him down beside her behind the huge boulder. “You won’t believe this. There’s a couple down there making out. And the guy’s like…old.”
“Not old-old,” Spencer corrected in a whisper. “But like Halston’s age.”
Trina smothered a giggle with one hand clapped over her mouth. “What if it is Mr. Halston?” She and Spence snorted with laughter.
Jonah craned his neck to see. Halston was one of the gym teachers and an okay guy. And he wasn’t old. Not really. Maybe Jonah’s mom’s age. Forty, or so. But Halston was married. And Jonah just couldn’t see any married guy boning on the banks of the Raccoon River. What would be the point when a couple had a house and a bedroom where they could get their ugly on?
The place Trina and Spence had chosen wasn’t the greatest vantage point. They were well hidden behind the jutting rock from the people yards below them. But they also couldn’t see shit. Jonah moved further away from Trina so that he could peer around the edge of the rock.
They could hear just fine, though. Not so much from the woman, but the guy. He seemed to be doing most of the talking.
“This will have to be the last time we’re together like this. I know, I know. I feel it, too. Shush. Darling, are you crying? Don’t cry.” The guy touched the woman’s face, but Jonah couldn’t really see it at all in the darkness. It didn’t really matter, though. The stars were bright enough that he could occasionally get a glimpse of bare skin.
His stiffie stood at attention at the thought.
“Don’t cry. We still have tonight. One more time. Our favorite way.”
Jonah’s eyes about bugged out of his head. The guy was doing her up the ass! Oh ma
n, this was better than a porno flick. Far better than Cracked Rear Entry, the DVD Spence had filched from his dad’s collection.
“Get ready.”
Jonah pulled his head back to protest. “No, man. Let them finish. I hate to interrupt a guy in the middle of getting some.” That should be written in the man rules or something. It just seemed wrong. Unless it was that creepy Roland Ott, who’d been trying to get in Jonah’s mom’s pants for weeks. Jonah would interrupt that as much as possible.
But there was no talking to Spence and Trina. “On three, okay? One, two…” The two stood up, shining the flashlight down on the couple, screeching, “Get a room, already! Zip it back up, Daddy Long Leg!”
That last was from Spence, because, well, he was an idiot. But not to miss out, Jonah rose too, hoping for a better glimpse of the naked woman.
The man jumped, yanking his pants up, grabbing at something on the ground. “Fucking little monsters! I’ll kill you!” He started for the rocky incline toward them, and Spence screeched like a girl.
“Gun!”
Trina caught the woman in the flashlight beam then and shrieked like she’d seen an ax murderer. Jonah grabbed the light to steady it, because the woman was just lying there. Maybe the guy had drugged her or something.
But then he screamed, too, every bit as high and girlish as Spence had.
Because the woman below them was more zombie than woman. Some of her skin was gone and there were places where her bones showed through.
The woman was dead.
“Run!” Dropping the flashlight, he grabbed Trina by the arm and yanked her along. Back into the woods. Crashing through the brush. Leaping over downed limbs. Brushing aside branches. They ran until they got to the road. Where Spence already had the car running and ready.
Jonah pulled open the back door and shoved Trina inside. There was the sound of a gunshot. Then another. The guy was screaming something, but Jonah wasn’t waiting around to hear what. He leaped into the car, sprawling on top of Trina. “Go!” Spence took off, leaving the zombie lover behind.
And leaving the zombie woman lying on the banks of the Raccoon River.
* * * *
Division of Criminal Investigation Agent Cam Prescott stood silently watching Lucy Benally work. He’d known better than to request her when he called. Cases were assigned at the ME’s office on a rotating basis.
But Lucy had autopsied the six female bodies they’d discovered buried in rural cemeteries around Des Moines three weeks ago. Cam knew she monitored every call that came into the ME’s office and would insist on being at the scene. She wasn’t the most senior pathologist on staff. Just the best at throwing her diminutive weight around. That suited him fine. He may often have quibbles with her personality, but she was the best.
This case called for the best.
Polk County Sheriff Dusten Jackson ambled over to him. “I might have broken protocol by calling you personally, but with the Vance arrest still fresh in my mind, I thought you’d want a look at this scene.”
Mason Vance was a sadistic sexual deviant who Cam had arrested just days earlier on eight counts of kidnapping, seven counts of rape and six counts of murder. Dr. Sophia Channing, the forensic psychologist consulting on the case had been Vance’s latest kidnap victim. And as Cam watched Benally zipping up the body bag he couldn’t shake the thought that Sophie had escaped a similar fate only through sheer guts and cunning.
Jackson slipped his hands in his uniform pants pockets. “This one wasn’t found in rural cemetery buried on top of a burial vault, but do you think…is it possible she was one of Vance’s victims?”
“I’ll let you know after I talk to the ME.” He looked around. “Where are the kids who reported this?”
“Back at the road. I didn’t see any need for them to watch what was going on. The parents are anxious to get them home, so once you’ve spoken to them go ahead and release them. The biggest one—Jonah—seemed to get the best look at the guy. Also seemed to have the best head on his shoulders, but hey, it was a pretty gruesome scene. And they’re kids.”
“I’ll talk to them in a few minutes,” Cam promised. First though, he needed to speak to Benally before she left the scene.
“Prescott,” she greeted him without preamble as he approached her. “Somehow it’s not surprising to find you where it’s damp and dark.”
“Ah, the famed Benally wit,” he shot back mildly. “Immature…and yet not funny.”
“I’m hilarious.” She stood then, nodded at her assistants who lifted the body bag onto a stretcher and began the careful transfer through the woods to the waiting ME vehicle. “I do stand up in my free time.” She watched the progress of the stretcher as it entered the woods and then switched her focus to Cam. “You want to know if there’s a chance this one is related to the first six bodies.”
“There are no more missing person’s reports matching Vance’s MO from the other crimes.” The offender had targeted wealthy single women primarily for their looks and bank accounts, and he’d cast a wide net, hunting both in and out of state. Each victim had last been seen withdrawing a large amount of cash from her bank.
The next time they’d been seen was when Benally had extracted them from shallow graves.
“Then this body can’t possibly be related to the others.” Lucy tossed her long dark braid over her shoulder and peeled off her gloves.
Cam gave a mental sigh. “Quit toying with me, Benally. I’m asking.”
She looked up at him. Way up. What the woman lacked in stature she made up for in attitude. Way overcompensated in that area, to Cam’s way of thinking, but she was usually worth the aggravation she caused him.
“I’m going to have to get her in the lab and take a better look,” she began.
Cam was used to the hedging. To the ME, perfectionism was an art.
“The skin wasn’t totally intact on her back. But there are wounds that look an awfully lot like cigar burns.”
He reached up to rub the back of his neck. “Shit.”
“Yeah, shit.” Lucy’s face was grim. “No way could I make out a number, but maybe when I get her back to the autopsy suite.”
Vance had numbered his victims, branding them with lit cigars. Cam had recently discovered the first victim, a woman named Rhonda Klaussen, who was still alive and had been kept chained in the offender’s basement. Sophie thought Vance had practiced his atrocities on Klaussen as he evolved. The bodies in the cemeteries had been numbered up to fifteen.
But that left a lot of numbers unaccounted for.
“Sophia was the one who figured out Vance’s system. Maybe she’d like to come to the lab when I’m ready with this one.”
“No.” He ignored the warning signs in Lucy’s darkening expression. The woman didn’t take kindly to the word. Cam didn’t particularly care at the moment. “Dr. Channing is no longer a consultant on this case.”
“Well, shit, Cam, she wrote the damn victimology report. I think if this victim turns out to be related to the others, she’s the best equipped to bring in on this.”
“We’ll see.” His answer was noncommittal. But his objection wasn’t. Sophie was still healing from the trauma she’d been through. He wasn’t going to compound that trauma by yanking back into the center of this case again. “Keep me posted.”
With the aid of his Maglite he walked across the clearing and made his way up a steep embankment. When he exited the woods, he played the light over the people and cars still gathered there. Picked out the big kid Jackson had mentioned right away.
Jonah Davis was sitting facing the road in the open back passenger door of a car. After a few words to the kid’s father, Cam approached the kid and led him through the story he’d already told a half dozen times tonight.
Listening without interruption, Cam waited until Jonah had run down. “See that red-haired agent over there?” Cam pointed to where Jenna Turner was questioning another teenage boy who looked considerably more shaken up.
“Yeah, I’ve seen her.” Jonah gave Cam a wink, man-to-man. “Walking hard on material, am I right?”
Cam just looked at him. Waited for the kid to visibly quail before continuing. “She’s a forensic artist. If you got a good look at the guy, she’ll be able to use your descriptions to draw a sketch.” He took a folded up piece of paper from the inside breast pocket of his suit coat.
Shaking it open, he passed it to Jonah. “Agent Turner did this sketch a couple weeks ago with a witness we interviewed up in Edina.”
The kid stared at the composite drawing, mouth hanging open. “But…but…that’s him! The zombie lover guy!” Mr. Davis swiveled in the front seat, a concerned look on his face.
“Settle down, Jonah. It’s okay.”
“No, Dad, this is the guy we saw.” Jonah stabbed at the sketch with his index finger. “I got a really good look at him. Not so much the woman, at least not until the end. But this is the guy, I swear it.”
With a sense of bleak resolve Cam tucked away the sketch. Gave the kid’s father the okay to take Jonah home.
Then he walked a few feet away and called Loring, the agent he had stationed with Sophie in his absence. “We’ve got reason to believe that the man identified by the Edina Chief of Police as Vance’s accessory was seen revisiting one of the victims tonight,” he told her tersely. “How is Dr. Channing?” A little of the tension seeped from his body at Loring’s response. “Good. She doesn’t have to know about this.” Maybe Loring would stand up better to Sophie’s gentle probing than he did. He could hope.
Not for the first time he wondered if he should have arranged Sophie’s protective custody to be overseen by another agent.
But Cam knew he’d never entrust her safety to anyone else. Not when they’d discovered Vance hadn’t been working alone.
Not while Vance’s partner was still free. When the man had every reason to go after the only surviving victim who could provide the testimony that would send Vance away forever.