The Surviving Girls

by Katee Robert

  “Isaac.” She came to stand next to Lei, their shoulders brushing. Presenting a unified front. Lei was just relieved that the butcher’s knife had disappeared. Emma turned to her. “I have a lot of work to do. Meet me in the office when you’re done?”

  “Sure.”

  Isaac’s face fell as soon as she disappeared from view. “That woman makes me crazy.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand her. I think we’d suit, but she won’t give me the time of day to convince her of it.”

  I think we’d suit, Lei repeated silently. It really was another world up here, and Isaac was a throwback to a different time. It wasn’t necessarily a better time, but different. It wasn’t her business, and Emma wouldn’t thank her for interfering, but her self-control had been whittled down to a little nub from all the bullshit going on lately. She stepped onto the porch and shut the door behind her. “Isaac, have you ever thought that she just might not be interested?”

  “Why wouldn’t she be?” There was no arrogance in the question, just sheer curiosity.

  Far be it from Lei to give relationship advice, but she had taken the first step, and now she was committed. “You know what happened to Emma twelve years ago—to both of us. That is the kind of thing that leaves its mark. It’s not something the love of a good man can ‘will away.’ Emma is who she is. I don’t know what she does or doesn’t feel for you, but I’d say her signals have been pretty damn consistent.” Not to mention you look like you’d be right at home in the middle of those goddamn Christmas cards she gets from her bitch of a mother, and even if you were a perfect match in every other way, that would be enough to make Emma push you away. She braced herself, waiting for his anger, his hurt, maybe even ugly words.

  But Isaac just deflated a little. “That’s fair.” His response made her like him, just a little. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he also wasn’t the right one.

  Lei wasn’t sure if there was a right one.

  He gave himself a shake. “You ladies leaving the house today?”

  “Not planning on it, but if something comes up, I’ll let you know.” Emma, of course, wouldn’t be leaving, but Lei could already feel restlessness building inside her. She didn’t like being locked in, even if it was in her home. She needed the freedom of movement without those four walls closing in on her. That wasn’t something she was about to admit to Isaac, though. Lei hesitated. “Have you found out anything about Clarke?”

  He shook his head. “She up and vanished. We have a search going for her rental, but there’s been no news so far.”

  “Damn.” She liked Clarke. Worse, Lei couldn’t help feeling that if the agent hadn’t been assigned to this case, she wouldn’t have been taken. Maybe that was crazy talk, but the belief burrowed down deep and took root inside her. She hadn’t done anything but survive something that should have killed her twelve years ago. It wasn’t her fault that any of this was happening . . . but she couldn’t help the guilt that wrapped around her throat in a stranglehold. “Let me know if you find something?”

  “Will do.” He backed down the stairs and slung his hat back onto his head. “I’ll be just down the way. Holler if you need something.”

  “Sure.” She waited for him to climb back into his cruiser before she walked back into the house and shut and locked the door. Lei leaned against the steady wood and closed her eyes. Too close. Too confining. The sheer helplessness of the situation threatened to send her to her knees. She couldn’t let fear rule her. If she faltered now, she’d never get back up again.

  The only reason things felt so out of control now was because the killer could be anyone. She opened her eyes. No, not anyone. She knew it wasn’t her. She knew it wasn’t Emma. And it couldn’t be Dante, because he’d been with her when their house was broken into. Three people in a case involving . . . a lot. Lei pushed off the door and headed deeper into the house. “Saul,” she called softly.

  His dog tags clicked as he trotted to follow her into Emma’s office. He raced around the room, not touching anything, but sprinting circles. I’m not the only one getting stir-crazy. Her phone buzzed, and relief made her a little giddy when she saw Dante’s name pop up. “Hey.”

  “How are you holding up?” His warm tone steadied her. She hadn’t known him long enough to let herself lean on him. She shouldn’t let herself lean on anyone. But that didn’t stop her from feeling like she was a little safer just from talking to him.

  She walked to the wall of monitors and watched Isaac park his cruiser about a hundred yards away from the house—right at the first bend in their driveway. “We made it through the night. How are you? Did you manage any sleep?”

  “A little.” He cleared his throat. “Britton sent a secondary agent here, and we’ll be heading your way later this evening. We just have a couple interviews that can’t wait.”

  No reason to feel disappointment that there were several long hours stretching out between now and when she’d see him next. She nodded and forced a smile.

  “I don’t know if anything will come of it, but we can’t afford to cut any corners here. This unsub might have stalked the girls through tech alone, but there’s a chance he met at least one of them in person, so we have to cross all our t’s and dot all our i’s.”

  He might have met one of them the same way he met me. The thought left a sour feeling in her stomach. If it was a matter of repeating history, it should have ended there in the sorority house. It shouldn’t have involved a trek in the woods and games played with Lei and Emma.

  Except we don’t really know what would have happened if Travis had gotten away that night . . .

  Unless this is what would have happened.

  She pressed her hand to her chest, wishing she could calm her racing heart. “It’s okay, Dante. We have plenty to keep us busy.”

  “We didn’t get a chance to talk earlier. You said you had something to tell me?”

  Telling Dante now ran the risk of him dropping everything and coming to her, but holding back important information right now was the height of stupidity. “The killer managed to circumvent our safe room. He had codes. There was a blanket there, and judging from the amount of dust on it, it had been there awhile.” She took a careful breath, thankful that he didn’t interrupt her. “He’s been watching us a long time—years, maybe.”

  “Sheriff Bamford is there.”

  It wasn’t a question, but she confirmed it anyway. “Yeah, I’m watching him sitting in his car in our driveway right now.”

  “Are you in immediate danger?” His tone almost invited her to say yes, to give him a reason to turn the car in her direction.

  “Dante, if we’re right about this guy, I’ve been in immediate danger for twelve years. But we’re ready for him—as ready as we can be. We didn’t know to look for him when he managed to get into the safe room, but he won’t get in a second time.” She spoke confidently, either to convince herself or him. In the end, the case had to be the priority. They couldn’t just sit and wait for the killer to come around again. The investigation could lead them to him on their terms, and that had to come first.

  He cursed. “If Bamford is there, you’re as covered as you can be. Keep the doors and windows locked, and don’t answer the door. I mean it, Lei.”

  Lei laughed softly. His precautions were nothing more than what she and Emma did on a daily basis. It hadn’t been enough to protect their fortress from being breached before, and she was no longer confident it would again. But hugging Dante to her like her favorite security blanket, using his presence to chase away the dark . . . She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t ask him to drop everything and run to her just because she didn’t feel safe. “We’ll keep everything locked down until you’re back.”

  “If anything changes, call me and I’ll come. I promise.”

  She found herself smiling despite the situation. “I will. Call when you’re done with your stuff and on your way?”

  “I will.”

  “Bye.” She didn’t know why she d
idn’t just hang up, but Lei clung to the illusion of safety Dante’s presence offered for a few seconds longer.

  “Good-bye, Lei.”

  She hung up and slipped the phone back into her pocket. When she turned, Emma was looking at her strangely. “What?”

  Her friend shook her head. “Nothing. You just . . . You really like him.”

  She started to protest, but they didn’t lie to each other. “I don’t know what I think. No, that’s not true. I do like him. That’s about as far as it goes.” Given time, could it turn into something?

  Lei didn’t know how to be in a relationship. She didn’t even know what a healthy relationship looked like. Her parents were still married, but their arguments that devolved into cold wars had been part of what drove her into Travis’s fire. She’d misjudged what caused his fire, but that didn’t change the truth—Lei didn’t know how to do any of this.

  But what she did know was that she liked Dante’s strength and the way nothing seemed to dispel the calm that came off him in waves. There was a hint of intensity beneath that, though, and it intrigued her despite herself. “I like him.”

  Emma’s brows drew together. “You already said that.”

  She gave herself a shake. “Sorry. It’s not important right now.” She grabbed a hair tie off Emma’s desk and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. “Where are we starting?”

  “Travis’s known associates at the time of the murders.” Emma made a face at the list scrolling in front of her. “It’s too long—too many possibilities. Even if we take out the women—which I’m not sure we can at this point—there are over a hundred people on this list. And that’s just the known associates. He could have been secret murder friends with someone he never interacted with publicly. That means we’d have no reason to look at them.”

  If she thought too hard about it, she’d get so overwhelmed that they’d never start. Lei grabbed Emma’s cup and took a sip of her coffee. She made a face. Even if everything had changed about her friend after that night, her sweet tooth managed to prevail. “Jeez, Em, did you put an entire carton of sugar in here?”

  Emma rolled her eyes, letting Lei dispel the hopelessness permeating the room. “We’re going to start with a simple Google search. Even you should be able to manage that. We can cross off anyone dead or out of the country, and if they’re not in this general area of the country, we’ll flag them to be put on a secondary list to check if they traveled here for some reason.”

  It sounded like a whole lot of tedious work, but if the cops were focusing on the connections to the current victims, they weren’t looking hard enough at the past. The theory that there was a second person set Lei’s teeth on edge, but that didn’t mean it was wrong. It would make sense. Travis had killed his way through twenty-one women over the course of eight hours. It was more than possible he’d done it alone—the prosecutor and the jury obviously thought so—but it was equally likely that he’d had an unseen partner.

  She trusted Britton with her life. His instincts had been spot-on from the first moment he’d shown up in California to assist on that case. Combined with the fact that Dante obviously believed him, and she couldn’t discount the theory just because she found it reprehensible. “I can manage that.”

  “I know.” Emma gave her a tight smile. “Go pour yourself a cup of that black shit, and we’ll get started.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Dante picked Tucker Kendrick up at the airport. A big man with a shock of red hair, his keen blue eyes missed nothing despite the easy smile he usually wore. No smile covered his face as he tossed his bag into the backseat and took the passenger spot. “This case is one of the ugly ones.”

  “It is.” Dante checked his blind spot and merged into traffic departing the airport. “You read the file.”

  “Yeah.” Tucker stretched out in the passenger seat, his long legs hitting the dashboard. “Fuck, Young, did they have to give you a clown car, or did you request it special?”

  “I requested it special. Obviously. I knew how much you’d enjoy it.”

  Tucker grinned. “It’s good to see you, man. It’s been too long.”

  They’d come up in the academy together, and both had been brought into the BAU at the same time. They saw each other semiregularly in Quantico, but since they both ended up working with other partners, it wasn’t as often as either of them would like. Dante shrugged. “Wish it were under better circumstances.”

  “You can say that again. I’ve studied the file, but Britton said you met with the ME again this morning.”

  Dante filled him in as they wove through traffic in the direction of the university. Even with the information Detective Smith’s team had gathered, there wasn’t much to tell. They didn’t know enough, didn’t have so much as a single string to tug on to see where it led. It felt a whole lot like they were chasing their tails while the unsub laughed his ass off, and Dante despised always being several steps behind.

  Tucker crossed his arms over his chest and stared out the windshield, his gaze a million miles away. “And now Clarke is missing.”

  “They’ve put a separate team on that. We might suspect it’s connected, but we don’t know for sure, and so they’re operating as if it’s not.” Dante felt pulled in a thousand different directions. He couldn’t run around searching for Clarke door-to-door. He didn’t even know where to start. He didn’t know Seattle and the surrounding area the same way these cops did. If Dante got in the middle of their investigation, he’d be more hindrance than help.

  He knew serial killers, and so he’d keep pushing forward on that case. He had to trust that Smith’s secondary team knew what they were doing.

  But where Clarke was concerned, it was a leap of faith he wasn’t quite prepared to make.

  Tucker cursed softly. “Britton is giving them all of twenty-four hours before he pulls every single agent who’s not actively on a case and brings them here to help—and that’s twenty-four hours from when she went missing.” He checked his watch. “Which means they should be booking tickets right about now.”

  Hope unfurled in Dante’s chest. Rationally, he knew Britton didn’t have godlike powers to make everything okay just by his mere presence on a case, but his success rate was higher than any agent Dante had ever come across. He was the best out there, even if he wasn’t in the field nearly as often as he used to be. If he was coming to Seattle to search for Clarke, the chances of her being found increased significantly.

  If she’s not already dead.

  He tried to dislodge the thought, but it struck deep at the heart of his fear. If she hadn’t been taken by the unsub, she might have been dead this entire time, and the search would only turn up her body—if it turned up anything at all.

  “They’ll find her,” Tucker said. He squeezed Dante’s shoulder. “She’s tougher than all of us combined, and she’s a fighter. Don’t give up on her.” His voice wavered ever so slightly, but Dante didn’t call him on it.

  Clarke was a friend to both—of course Tucker was just as torn up about this as Dante was. He sighed. “Before Britton flies in here like an avenging angel, we need to get these interviews taken care of. Detective Smith’s people already talked to all the family and friends, but I want a crack at the two sorority girls who didn’t live in the apartment.”

  “College girls might not tell their parents everything they’ve been up to, but sorority sisters? They’d know.”

  “Exactly.”

  Tucker watched the street signs. “Remind me, Young—did you pledge when you were at that fancy college? You know, before you broke your parents’ hearts and rebelled by joining up with the FBI.”

  Dante snorted. “No. Fraternities weren’t something that I ever found tempting.” Much to his mother’s disappointment. She’d pledged when she was in college and was still an active alumna of her sorority. It would break her heart to know what happened to these girls; it would strike a little too close to home. “Even the good ones were more of a time commit
ment than I wanted to deal with. I didn’t need a brotherhood. I needed a degree.”

  “And yet a brotherhood is what you ended up with.” Tucker frowned. “That’s probably sexist. Sisterhood doesn’t work, either. Siblinghood? Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.”

  It felt good to chuckle, as if it broke some of the tension that had been building in him for days. Tucker had always managed to find the humor in any given situation, and he used it to deflect as much as he used it for good. Dante didn’t mind, because it gave him something to do besides obsess over ways he could have saved Clarke, or found those girls before the unsub managed to kill them, or been faster and caught the goddamn unsub himself when he’d broken into Lei’s house. He let out a long exhale. “I misjudged this whole thing.”

  “You were playing the cards you had at the time.” Tucker shrugged. “Contrary to how Britton operates, we’re not all-knowing. You didn’t make mistakes any more than you can say Clarke fucked up by going to that rest stop. This guy sounds like he had this whole thing planned down to the smallest detail.” He pressed his lips together. “Actually, the only thing that doesn’t fit is Clarke’s disappearance. No way that guy knew you would be on the team assigned to this case. She went to college online, and she’s got no link to the survivors or the sorority. She’s the anomaly.”

  Dante was inclined to agree—and so was Smith. It was why he’d assigned a second team unconnected to the first. “We can’t assume she’s connected.”

  “I know. Fuck, I know,” Tucker growled. “I hate this shit. I know she didn’t take an unnecessary risk, but I still want to throttle her ginger ass for getting jumped and scaring the shit out of both of us.”

  Dante decided then wasn’t the moment to point out “ginger ass” would apply to Tucker as well. He double-checked the address and took a right down a curving road. The girls they were meeting were both freshmen, so they lived in the dorms. “These girls will probably be skittish.”