01 A Cold Dark Place

by Toni Anderson

  Excitement shifted along her skin. Maybe they’d brought someone in for questioning or identified a suspect?

  The pastor started winding things up and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Alex released her hand and she slipped it into her pocket, immediately missing his warmth.

  As mourners began to drift away she hung back, then made her way across to Sheriff Williams who waited for her.

  “Special Agent Rooney. Good of you to come all this way,” he said it with a smile but he knew it was standard procedure to take a close look at the mourners at the funeral of any unsolved murder victim. They’d be doing the same.

  “Sheriff. Deputy Kennedy. Deputy Chance.” She nodded to deputies she recognized from her visit last week and introduced Alex as an FBI consultant, but didn’t elaborate on his role. “Any developments?”

  “There’s been an incident but I don’t know yet if it has anything to do with Lindsey Keeble’s murder. You heard we found her car?”

  Mallory shook her head. “Did the crime lab find any prints?”

  “Still processing the sucker. It’ll be a few days before they get back to us.”

  How was the killer luring them out of their cars?

  “What was the incident you mentioned?” Alex asked from beside her.

  The sheriff looked him up and down, and then back at her. “Double homicide.”

  “You don’t think it’s connected?” Alex spoke with the same cool authority Frazer had mastered. Must be a gene for it.

  “Too early to tell for sure but totally different type of crime. Looks like a robbery gone bad. No sign of sexual assault. Two seniors knifed to death. Niece found them this morning.”

  “Can I view the scene?” asked Mallory.

  “Sure, I’ve got to head back there right now.” His radio went off and he turned the volume down. “Pretty horrific. You need to brace yourself. Hell of a lot of blood everywhere.”

  Mallory nodded even as her stomach roiled. This was the job.

  “We got prints on the murder weapon. Running them as we speak.”

  “Hopefully they’re in the system.” She added, “We’ll follow you over there.”

  The mourners were long gone and the grave diggers were starting to throw soil on top of Lindsey’s coffin. The sound of it hitting was a dull thump that echoed through Mallory’s chest. Death was so final. The audacity of the killer hit her with renewed force.

  She and Alex got in her car and followed the sheriff down country roads she’d never traveled before. Alex didn’t make small talk and she appreciated the silence. Leafless trees and hills surrounded her, the Alleghenies preparing for winter. There were houses set back in the trees, but scattered far apart. If a killer wanted to hide in this sparsely populated state it wouldn’t be difficult. Her sister’s laughter teased the edges of her mind.

  The pajamas and ring that the killer had sent had traces of Payton’s DNA—Mallory’s DNA—but nothing else. The labs were pulling out all the stops testing for touch DNA transferred to the plastic wrapping and envelopes. It wasn’t much to hold onto, but it was better than nothing.

  She drove down another quiet road and then the sheriff took a left and parked the car along the verge. She followed suit.

  She unclipped her seatbelt. “You better stay here.”

  Alex surveyed the quiet woods and multitude of squad cars lining the road. “You should be safe enough. Take your cell.” He pulled out his phone. “It’s a miracle, but we’ve got a signal.” He grabbed his laptop off the back seat. “Take your time. I’ve got plenty of work to do.”

  Her mouth went dry. How could she not fall for a guy who went out of his way to protect her while also giving her the space she needed to do her job? Just looking at him made her ache. “Tell me you aren’t as perfect as you seem, Alex.”

  “Not even close to perfect.” His blue-gray eyes darkened. “Not a complete asshole either.”

  She huffed out a quiet laugh and opened the door before she did something unprofessional like kiss the guy at a crime scene. Not the sort of law enforcement officer she wanted to be no matter how grateful she was. Or how smitten.

  She headed over to the two deputies she knew. “Did you know the victims?”

  “This is West Virginia, ma’am. Everyone knows everyone.” Deputy Chance gave her a look that clearly stated this was difficult for him.

  It was never easy to work scenes that involved people you knew.

  The sheriff waved her over. She excused herself, signed a log, and put on some booties over her shoes before she entered the quaint rustic looking cottage.

  “Watch your step. I’ve got a blood spatter analyst coming in today to help me try and figure what went down.”

  The bodies had been removed but the sheriff handed her two enlarged photographs as she walked through the entranceway. She looked at the walls and the floor. Heck of a lot of blood. “Did he hit an artery?”

  “Yup. Sliced the carotid right through. Bob McCafferty died almost instantly which is more than I can say for his poor wife, Angie.”

  She followed him down the narrow corridor to the kitchen. She held up the image and stood back, superimposing the body on the scene. “He stabbed her from the front? Think she knew him? Or he cornered her in the kitchen?”

  “There weren’t any defensive wounds. He must have took them both by surprise. Kitchen knife was found beside Bob’s body. We think the killer stabbed Angie first and then Bob came home and disturbed the sonofabitch as he tossed the place. Friends say he was down at the local tavern until about ten.”

  “You have a time of death?”

  “Medical Examiner reckons shortly after he arrived home, between ten and eleven, but that was off the record and his best guess using temperature, lividity and rigor mortis.”

  “Makes sense though.” And in her limited experience MEs only hazarded a guess when they were almost certain they were right.

  The sheriff tipped his chin down and folds of skin gathered around his neck. He was a big guy who took up a lot of space. Mallory followed him through to the kitchen. “If I was speculating what might have gone down I’d say some passing scumbag saw the light on and decided to investigate. Saw an elderly woman home alone in an isolated cottage and figured he’d kill her and toss the place. Bob surprised him so he killed him as well and then fled.”

  It was always easier to think the killer was a drifter rather than someone you might know. Someone you might like.

  Lots of blood had pooled and dried on the floor and there were footprints too. “You’ve got some good impressions here.” She looked up. “Big feet. He left through the back door?”

  Sheriff nodded. “Looks like. I hope this sonofabitch’s fingerprints are in the system.”

  She raised her eyes to look out the back. “Did you search the woods?”

  “Had a couple of teams go out to look for evidence, but there’s three hundred acres of forest. Plus, he stole the McCaffertys’ car and took off in that. Got a BOLO alert on the vehicle.”

  She pressed her lips together. Could this be the PR-killer? MO was totally different but to have all these murders in this small sleepy community? A Titanic-sized coincidence. “Where are these woods on the map? Can you show me so I can get my bearings?”

  He hitched his belt. “I’ll do better than that. Follow me.”

  He took her out the front door, careful to leave the footprints uncontaminated. She followed him down steps and around a woodpile. The Alleghenies rose all around them, cold and barren. A crow cawed from a branch and a shiver of unease rippled over her flesh. She followed the sheriff along a path through the majestic trunks of oak and hickory and pine, out of sight of the other cops and Alex. The scarlet bark of dogwoods provided the only drop of color on this grim day, the deep red reminding her of the blood smeared all over that rustic log cabin.

  “Where are we going, Sheriff?”

  “You’ll see.”

  A chill ran down her back. The clouds had
that look of burgeoning snow. Chances were they were going to get another dump before the day was over. The sheriff finally stopped at the top of a hill. And pointed northwest, beyond a narrow creek. “See that chimney over there?”

  She could just make out some tall red bricks and felt her pulse kick. “Is that Eastborne?”

  He nodded. “County line runs through these woods which is why Greenville County Sheriff’s Office has jurisdiction for this double homicide.” She turned to look down at the cottage belonging to the murder victims and the chill deepened. She’d run wild in these woods every summer until Payton had been stolen. “They were almost our nearest neighbors but I don’t remember those people or that cottage.”

  A squirrel jeered them noisily from its perch high above, and a family of white-tail deer took off through the dead leaves in a noisy rush.

  “The McCaffertys only built that place about five years ago and there’s no direct road access between your place and theirs. Good folks but not the kind to mix in your parents’ social circle.”

  She slowly turned three-hundred and sixty degrees. She could see nothing but forest and ridge upon ridge of West Virginia mountainside. Her breath froze on an exhale. “How many people live around here?”

  “Lots of houses dotted around in the woods. Lot of them are empty. Whole county has about fifteen thousand folks and that number’s falling. Not enough coal nearby to attract new folks.”

  “Which is what keeps this county so pretty.”

  “Yeah, but the town is dying a slow death without new industry.” The sheriff’s eyes seem to be trying to pierce the surrounding gloom. “People keep moving out but no one’s coming back.” Including her family now that her father was selling the family home. “It won’t help when people start hearing about serial killers and double homicides.” He grimaced. The weight of the whole community on his shoulders. “I’m supposed to keep these people safe.”

  There was an anger in him that seemed at odds with the uniform he wore.

  “We need to catch these criminals,” Mallory agreed.

  “That we do.” His radio squawked and he listened close. “They got a hit on those prints. Let’s go see who our killer is.”

  ***

  Turned out their suspect was a nineteen-year-old missing person named Kari Regent from DC. The girl—a history major at Georgetown—was supposed to meet her boyfriend in Gainesville a couple weeks ago. The same night Mallory had hooked up with Alex that first time. But Kari Regent had never shown. The boyfriend had assumed she’d changed her mind because they’d had a fight, her parents had assumed she was with the boyfriend. After a week of failing to contact her, the boyfriend had finally called the parents, and they contacted the cops and filed Kari’s fingerprints in the National Missing Person database.

  The sheriff let Mallory use his office in the Greenville Sheriff’s Office which was crammed from roof tile to linoleum with papers. She waited for a photograph to come through her email. The place was quiet as a mausoleum. It was dark and gloomy because the sun set early this time of year. She switched on the lights. Alex had gone to grab them coffee and something to eat. When the image finally downloaded she forwarded it to Frazer and then called him.

  “SSA Frazer,” he said as he picked up.

  “I just sent you an image of a young woman who’s been listed as a missing person.”

  “You think she’s another victim?” he asked, obviously downloading his mail as they spoke. “Huh. She certainly fits the physical type.”

  “She went missing a little over two weeks ago—totally out of character but she was hitchhiking from DC to Gainesville.” Frazer listened intently. Hitchhiking meant she was a perfect candidate for the PR-killer even though she was slightly out of his typical geographical zone. “The twist is they just found her fingerprints on the murder weapon at the site of a double homicide between Greenville and Colby, West Virginia.”

  He grunted. “Your hometown?”

  “Yes. There’s more. The crime scene was like a slaughterhouse. They found men’s size twelve boot prints. Kari wears a size five. They didn’t find her footprints anywhere.”

  “What are the locals saying?”

  “They are putting a nationwide APB out on the girl with the warning she’s a suspected murderer.”

  Frazer swore. “She might have hooked up with someone who coerced her into taking part.”

  “Pretty big behavioral swing for a straight-A student who’s a vegan and never skipped a class.”

  There was a weighty pause. “No sightings of the girl?”

  “No. The victims’ car is missing. The assumption is Kari and the guy with big feet, took off in that car.”

  “I’ll put out a nationwide alert for the car.”

  “The sheriff did that... It just feels off.”

  “A lot of things seem ‘off’.” He meant her being at the BAU.

  She held her silence. Nothing she could say about that. She was following orders and getting nowhere with her and Hanrahan’s search for the insider.

  “Considering the proximity to both your sister’s and Lindsey Keeble’s abduction sites, plus the general low crime rate of that area, a double homicide is a little out of the ordinary.”

  She watched Alex come in the main door and charm his way past the front desk with donuts as he made his way through all the workstations to where she stood inside Sheriff Williams’ glass office. She smiled as he winked at her. He was so gorgeous she got tingles just watching him.

  “I want you to stay up there overnight. Check in with the locals again in the morning and I’ll see if I can come up with anything in the meantime.”

  “You’re kidding.” She didn’t want to stay up here overnight.

  “This could be a good lead, Agent Rooney.”

  She heard an unexpected hint of admiration in his tone, but it didn’t ease her apprehension. Ugh. “Fine. I’ll call you if I find out anything.”

  “Mallory?”

  “Sir?”

  “If you’re staying at your old home tonight you should see if you can remember anything else about the night your sister was abducted.” Something she usually tried hard to forget. “I take it Alex Parker is with you?”

  Alex opened the door and stood there looking like God’s gift. How the hell had Frazer known?

  “He’s here.”

  “I found out how he won his Distinguished Service Cross.” She unconsciously braced herself. “His Humvee was attacked going to a supposedly peaceful tribal meeting. It was a set-up, an ambush. They were attacked in a valley and cut off from ground support for more than an hour. No air support available. Parker defended their position, killed many insurgents, kept two of his seriously injured friends alive, and stopped the Taliban from mutilating the bodies of his comrades. He’s a brave guy and his alibi checked out, but...” Her eyes watched the rim of Alex’s irises grow darker and more wary as if he knew they were talking about him. “This killer is serious about getting your attention. Keep up your guard.”

  “My Glock will help level the playing field.”

  “Fine. Just don’t take any undue risks,” said Frazer. “God knows I don’t need the paperwork if anything happens to you.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Let’s get this guy, Agent Rooney. Let’s put him in a cage where he belongs.”

  She took the donut from Alex’s hands. “Amen to that.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Alex did not like the situation. At. All.

  It was nighttime. They were driving to Mallory’s family home in the Appalachians, just a few miles from where the recent murders had occurred and the site of her sister’s abduction.

  Thoughts exploded in his mind. What were her colleagues up to?

  If he hadn’t insisted on accompanying her to Lindsey Keeble’s funeral Mallory would be up here in West Virginia, alone. So what if she was an FBI agent? This guy had killed over and over and had proved he had no compunction about hurting people to feed hi
s sick appetite.

  Some might argue Alex was the same but they’d be missing the point. He worked for the government. Their government. He might be deniable if caught, but it didn’t change the fact he only killed people as ordered. The same way a sniper took out the enemy or soldiers killed in combat. Everyone knew the CIA did it abroad. Was it so big a stretch to think the government would also do it on home soil?

  Deniability was king.

  If an assassin had taken out the warlord ruling a small town in Herat Province the men in his unit, his brothers, would not have been mowed down like bloody skittles. That’s why he’d said yes to the CIA all those years ago. To save fellow Americans. He didn’t choose targets for revenge. He did not rape, torture or strangle people for jollies. His work was dark and he did it as efficiently and painlessly as possible.

  This serial killer had his own agenda and right now he was orbiting Payton Rooney’s twin like a satellite about to crash to Earth. Alex wouldn’t allow any harm to come to Mallory even though he got in deeper and deeper every time he looked in her eyes.

  But he’d rather break her heart than see her murdered. His heart didn’t matter. The fact he still had one was an unpleasant surprise.

  He’d spent most of the day wanting to kiss her and taste her, but couldn’t afford the distraction. Now wasn’t the time. His instincts were screaming that something was off about this whole situation. Something didn’t fit. “We should go to a hotel.”

  “Local ones are full up thanks to the press.” Who’d got wind of the double murder and possible serial killer. “And it’s stupid when my dad’s house is just up the road.”

  Up the road was a relative term in West Virginia.

  “Plus...”

  “What?”

  He heard her swallow. “SSA Frazer suggested I might remember more about the night of Payton’s abduction if I was at the place where it happened.”