He bathed Leah, but couldn’t stop thinking about Elizabeth. She’d asked for his help.
He itched to get back to his computer.
He could drown Leah. That would be fast. Just hold her underwater a couple of minutes and that would be it.
But that didn’t do it for him. He wouldn’t have the connection with her. He wouldn’t get the same high.
He began to understand now what he’d been doing wrong. The watching, the waiting, that was the anticipation. That’s what he needed more of. He was patient, he needed to be more patient. He’d been a little reckless, he could admit that now that it was all becoming clearer. He should have waited longer before taking Jodi. And Leah.
After this, he’d take some time off. Months. Plan the next one more carefully. Find someone innocent, unused. Like Becca.
It was the watching that turned him on. Then the killing that completed it. The games in between were fun, but they didn’t give him that intense rush.
That’s why Becca worked. He’d been watching her for a long time and he must have sensed her freshness. Though he hadn’t planned to kill her until Jodi screwed everything up, it had all worked out in the end. He had killed her quick, felt her die, his body one with hers.
He wasn’t going to drown Leah. He was going to regain that oneness he had had with Becca.
Leah whimpered.
“Shhh, Leah. It’ll all be over really soon.”
“What’s taking him so long?” Patrick asked, slamming his coffee mug on his desk. Cold coffee sloshed over the sides.
“He might be upset that it took her a while to respond to him,” Dillon said. “Give him time. He’ll definitely go into the chat room. He won’t be able to stop himself.”
“I hope you’re right. We’re pinning everything on this trap working.”
“I’m right. Just wait.”
Carina’s cell phone rang as soon as she stepped out of the shower. The after-sex glow disappeared as soon as she listened to the distraught voice on the phone.
“What happened?” Nick asked when she hung up.
“That was Maggie Peterson. She said her sister, Leah, never came home last night and when she called Leah’s boyfriend, he said she’d left at five this morning because she wanted to go home to change before work.”
“Maybe she went straight to work.”
“Her car is still at her boyfriend’s.”
“You think it’s our guy.”
“If it’s not, it’s a huge coincidence.”
“Where’s Kyle Burns?”
“With Maggie. She said he was there all night.”
He tied Leah back on the bed, on the sheets he’d bought just for her, and dried her off. Touching her made him feel good. Her breasts were small and soft. Her stomach flat, smooth, so fair. A navel ring protruded from her stomach. He frowned. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? He’d been too preoccupied thinking about Elizabeth.
He hooked the ring with his finger and ripped it out.
Leah’s back arched and a scream vibrated in her chest. Tears rolled down her face.
“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t mean it.
Becca and Jodi didn’t have navel rings, but he’d kept one of their earrings. He looked at his own navel. Three hoops, two gold and one silver with charms, protruded from his stomach.
He reached into his desk and took out the piercing gun. The first time he’d had it done professionally, then he’d swiped the handheld device.
He pierced himself and put Leah’s ring in the hole. He wiped the small drip of blood off his stomach.
This was no good. He couldn’t get his blood on Leah.
He went to the bathroom and bandaged the spot. Washed his hands. Much better.
Now he could get started. He took out the plastic wrap and started unrolling it on one of Leah’s legs. With every turn of the wrap he grew antsy with anticipation.
Maybe this was going to be better than he had thought.
He glanced at the computer screen. Elizabeth’s message was still up there. She’d been waiting for his response.
He bit his lip. He wanted to help her, but he had to take care of Leah first.
Just one quick message.
“He responded by e-mail,” Patrick said, disappointed.
Dillon looked over Patrick’s shoulder.
Hi Elizabeth. I’m in the middle of something important, but I’ll go to the chat room as soon as I’m done. It won’t be too long.
“What is he doing?”
“He could be doing anything,” Dillon said, “but he’s obsessed with Elizabeth. I don’t see him making her wait.”
“What should we do?”
“Try to get him to respond faster.” Dillon typed out a message.
Hi Scout, I’m so glad you can help me. You’re so smart in math. I’m really desperate. I need to leave in ten minutes, though, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’ll wait for you in the chat room as long as I can, but if you’re too busy I understand. Don’t worry about me. I’ll find someone else to help.
“I think that’ll do it,” Dillon said.
“I hope so. I’m getting a bad feeling about this.”
“So am I.”
He finished wrapping Leah’s body. Just like Becca. He unzipped his pants. He was semi-hard. Not good enough.
He went to launch the slide show on his computer that he’d made from pictures of Becca. He turned the screen at an angle so he could watch her die again as he strangled Leah.
Another message. He clicked on it. Elizabeth.
He read her note and frowned. She could only wait for him ten minutes! What did she have to do that was so important? Certainly nothing as important as what he was doing!
He angrily replied.
Okay, I’ll come by but I don’t have a lot of time. Why do you have to do this now? Do you have a date or something?
He hit send before he really thought about it. It sounded mean. He didn’t want to scare her off. He instantly logged into the chat room.
Hi, Elizabeth, I’m here. What do you need?
He heard the side door slam shut and froze. Who was here?
He listened carefully, swallowing faint panic. Thump, thump. “Dammit! Brandon Henry Burns! Where are you?”
Mother. She’s going to ruin everything.
She wasn’t supposed to be back until tomorrow. She worked ten days on, five days off for the cruise line. Like clockwork. But there was no mistaking her smoky cackle.
Hatred grew hot, and he clenched his fists. If it weren’t for her, his father would still be here. He wasn’t going to let the bitch ruin his chance to finally find his dad.
He zipped up his pants and pulled open his nightstand drawer. His fingers wrapped around his knife.
Dillon read Scout’s message. He waited a full minute, then responded.
Hi Scout, I’m so glad you’re here. You’re so smart in math. It’s my basic calculus class again. You probably think I’m really dumb, but I’m having a problem demonstrating a proof of the fundamental theorem of calculus. Can you help?
He waited a minute. “He’s not responding.”
“That’s okay, he’s still logged in. The trace is working And…yes! I have his IP address. I’m going to run it through the ISP lists we got with the warrant. Ten minutes and we’ll have a provider. And let’s hope they don’t make us jump through hoops before giving us his name and address.”
Carina and Nick arrived at Maggie Peterson’s apartment twenty minutes after she called, breaking all speed records to get to La Jolla from San Diego proper.
Maggie was a wreck, and Kyle was trying to console her.
“What happened to my sister?” Maggie cried. “Where is she?”
Carina had two cops talking to Leah’s boyfriend, and so far his story held. He had a roommate who saw him kiss Leah good-bye, but not follow her out.
“Has your sister complained about being followed? Any strange feelings?”
“She w
as worried after Angie was killed. Leah works part-time at the Shack, so she knew Angie. Why didn’t Tommy walk her to her car? This would never have happened!”
Carina had also asked the officers watching Kyle if he’d left at all during the night. They assured her that he hadn’t budged.
It was ten in the morning and Leah had been missing five hours. She was supposed to be at work at eight, but hadn’t shown up.
“Maggie, stay here by the phone. Wait for Leah to call. We’ll put an APB out on her. We’ll find her.”
“What if that guy has her? Angie’s killer?”
“Don’t borrow trouble,” Carina said. She looked at Kyle. “Where’s your brother?”
Kyle blinked. “Home, I guess. He’s just a kid.”
“He’s nearly eighteen.” If Brandon and Kyle were working together, this ploy was brilliant. Kyle had the best alibi—spending all night with the victim’s sister.
She hoped she was wrong.
Her cell phone rang. “Kincaid.”
“It’s Dillon. We have a location on Scout. It’s Regina Burns’s house in University City.”
“I’m on my way.” She slammed the phone.
“I heard that,” Kyle said, and Carina mentally hit herself for not taking the call in another room. Cell phones were notoriously easy to eavesdrop on. “What’s with my mother?”
“We’ve been tracking Angie Vance’s online stalker. And we just tracked him all the way to your brother.”
Kyle shook his head as he paled. “No. I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it.” She turned to leave.
“Let me come with you.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Please, he’s my brother. He’ll listen to me. I-I don’t want anything to happen to him.”
“You sit in the cage,” Carina said, referring to the back of her police sedan. “One false move and I’ll nail you. Do what I say and nothing else.”
“I will, please.”
“Let’s go.”
THIRTY-TWO
HIS MOTHER CALLED HIS NAME. She was in the kitchen.
“Brandon, dammit, where are you?”
He waited, playing with the knife. Leah whimpered behind him.
“You parked in my spot, you idiot. I’ve been working all week catering to rich bitches and I can’t even park in my own garage!”
Brandon waited.
“What have you been doing while I’ve been gone?”
She was getting closer.
“Brandon! Damn you, open this door! If you have a slut in your bed I’m going to cut off your dick and shove it down her throat!”
She pounded on his bedroom door. He opened it wide and stood there, his hands at his sides.
“Hello,” he said.
Her face was red with anger as she began to berate him. Then she saw.
He stepped aside and let her see Leah tied and wrapped on his bed. “She’s like a present, isn’t she?” he said.
“What?” Her voice didn’t sound right. “What have you done?”
“You’re early.” He grabbed her wrist. His whole hand fit around it. He squeezed.
Regina stared at him, stunned into silence. Fear clouded her eyes. Good. She should be scared. He hoped she shit herself she was so scared.
It wouldn’t come close to the terror he’d felt growing up. But he was in charge now. He was no longer scared.
“You let strangers into the house while Dad was in prison. Men who fucked you and gave you money. You’re the whore, Mama.”
She tried to slap him with her free hand, but he caught her other wrist easily.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Brandon.”
“You betrayed Daddy.”
“I loved your father. You know that! I was the only one who defended him. Let me go!”
He shook his head slowly, back and forth. “You lied about the whores. You lied about Daddy. You’re just like them. You’re a slut and you’re going to get what’s coming to you.”
The fear and knowledge grew in her eyes. She rushed at him and fought him, but he was stronger.
She sucked in a breath to scream.
His hands came around her neck and he slammed her body into the wall. She couldn’t move. She clawed at him with her hands. He squeezed. Tighter. Harder. She kicked, trying to catch her breath. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t talk. Her head grew light, her eyes saw nothing but darkness. Her lungs shrank, failing to draw in air.
Brandon tightened the hold on his mother, watching her face turn bluish, as her arms and legs stopped moving. A bone cracked beneath his hands.
“One. Two. Three. Four.” He counted. How long would it take for the old bitch to die?
It took just over three minutes. It didn’t seem very long, so Brandon held on another minute, just in case.
When he let go, his mother’s body fell onto the floor with a heavy thud. He would take care of it later.
Elizabeth. She was waiting for his help. She needed him.
Leah. She lay there, frozen. He poked at her, to make sure she didn’t betray him by dying like Jodi. She jerked at his touch. Good, she was still alive.
He just had to put Elizabeth off for another few minutes.
Scout? Are you there? If you can’t help, I understand. I know you’re busy and everything.
He quickly typed.
I’m here. I just had to take care of something. I can help you demonstrate the theorem.
He typed out a simple explanation, then waited.
Thank you so much! This is great. Hold on, I need to check the test guidelines and make sure I didn’t forget something. Can you wait a second?
He could wait.
Sure.
He had plenty of things to do to occupy his time.
Brandon turned to Leah. He was still high from killing his mother. Free, liberated. He’d finally avenged his father.
Maybe now his dad would come home.
Leah squirmed on the bed.
Brandon packed up his laptop and grabbed an emergency overnight bag he’d had prepared for months. He needed money, but he knew exactly where to go for that. He had the combination to the Sand Shack safe, and he knew for a fact that Kyle never made a deposit on Saturday nights because he went out with Maggie after work.
“Good-bye, Leah.”
He pulled a garbage bag from his nightstand drawer and pulled it over her head. She bucked as he tied it around her neck.
“I wish I could stay and watch, but I have to go.”
Carina turned onto Burns’s street and saw a white Taurus round the corner up ahead.
“That looks like Brandon’s car,” Carina said and started to go after it.
A black Camaro was in the driveway of the house.
“The Camaro is my mother’s,” Kyle said flatly from the backseat.
“Drop me here,” Nick demanded. “Leah could still be in the house.”
Carina didn’t want to leave Nick alone—backup was still three minutes out, but she had to follow the Taurus in case it was Brandon Burns. She stopped the car and Nick opened the door to get out.
“Be careful, Sheriff.”
“You too, Detective.” He was already moving toward the house as Carina did a one-eighty and regained Burns’s tail.
Gun drawn, Nick ran up to the Burns property. He looked left, right. Up, down. The side door was ajar. Quiet. The last time he’d investigated a house that was supposedly vacant, he’d been attacked.
He hadn’t been expecting it then. This time, he was on full alert. He wouldn’t be caught unaware again.
Cautiously, he entered.
The house was dim. He was in the kitchen. A suitcase was next to the rear door. “Police! Stay where you are!” He announced his presence. No answer. No sound at all.
He moved quickly through the house, eyes moving to every potential hiding place.
Lying on the floor in the rear hallway was a blue-faced woman in her late forties. Her neck was bruised, her
eyes had hemorrhaged, her tongue was out. Regina Burns was dead.
Nick looked in the room across from the body and saw a naked woman tied spread-eagle on the bed, a garbage bag tied around her head.
“No.” Nick holstered his gun and ripped the bag with both hands. He stared at Leah Peterson. Her eyes were closed, her mouth glued shut. He felt for her pulse. Nothing. How long? She was warm, soft. She couldn’t be dead.
“Dammit, no!” He couldn’t be too late.
A faint heartbeat.
He had to do it. If there was a chance she was alive, he had to try.
Nick ripped the gag off the girl’s mouth and pried open her bloody lips. He breathed air hard into her lungs, waited, filled her lungs again. Again.
Under his watch as sheriff, the Butcher had killed three women. He hadn’t found them in time to save them. And since he’d arrived in San Diego, three more women had died horribly. Leah couldn’t die on him. He would not allow it.
Breathe. He willed her to come back.
He heard movement and voices from the front of the house.
“Police!” he shouted. “I need medics, stat!”
Nick focused on watching the girl’s chest. Breathe, Leah, breathe. Please.
He continued forcing air into her lungs. His mind became blank, every molecule in his being focused on bringing Leah back.
Suddenly, she sucked in a deep breath of air and her eyes opened wide, full of terror. She started thrashing on the bed.
Nick pulled out his pocketknife and cut the ropes. His heart pounded as rapidly as hers. “It’s okay, Leah. It’s okay.”
He found a blanket in the corner of the room and held her close while waiting for the medics. Nick wasn’t a religious man, but he closed his eyes and thanked whatever supreme being was out there. Thanked the universe for not letting evil win this battle.
“It’s all right. It’s all right,” he whispered as he rocked her in his arms. “You’re safe.”
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