by Gerri Hill
“I knew it wasn’t into the canyon,” Cameron said. “He wouldn’t have ever ended things that way. Anticlimactic.”
“Oh, so you’re trusting that a crazed serial killer knew it wasn’t a fall into the canyon?”
“Well, when you put it that way,” Cameron said as she sat up, flexing her shoulders. “Maybe it wasn’t one of my better decisions.”
“Can you stand?”
“What’s my alternative? A helicopter rescue?”
Andrea got up, helping Cameron to her feet. She noticed the grimace that Cameron tried to hide.
“What hurts?”
“Everything.” She looked past Andrea and sighed. “We had the bastard. Why didn’t we just shoot him and be done with it?”
“Oh, yeah. That was going to be our plan, wasn’t it.”
“So, the algorithm was right on.” Cameron grinned. “Can you believe it?”
“Not really, no. I would never have guessed this trail.”
“But you were right. He does do reconnaissance. I’ll assume, since we surprised him, that he won’t use this as a drop now.”
“If he’s scouting locations—”
“Then he’s going to kill again,” Cameron finished for her. “Let’s get out of here. I need to call Reynolds, and we need to talk with Jim and have some sort of a plan. I don’t want to just sit around and wait for the next body to be found.”
“You hit your head. You may have a concussion or something,” Andrea said. “Are you sure you want—”
“I’m sure. And I don’t have a damn concussion.”
“Of course you don’t,” Andrea said. “With that hard head? What was I thinking?”
“Funny, Deputy Sullivan.”
Andrea gripped Cameron’s arm, helping her, noticing her limp as she walked. “It’s going to take us a good two hours to get out of here, Agent Ross,” she said, wondering if perhaps Cameron hadn’t sprained her ankle in the fall.
“I can make it.”
“I just meant it’s after noon already. Why don’t you head to the rig, and I’ll get with Jim,” she offered.
“Yeah. Okay. See how he feels about staking out some trails tonight.”
“He’ll defer to you,” Andrea said, guiding Cameron to the crevice in the rocks.
“That’s fine, but I want his input. I don’t want him to feel like I’ve just come in here and taken over.”
“We invited the FBI in, remember,” she said. “Can you make it up?”
“No choice.”
“Maybe there’s another route.”
“No time, Andi. But I’ll go first. In case I fall, you can catch me,” she said, her smile trying to hide her pain.
“Let’s just don’t fall, okay? Because we both know I can’t catch you.”
Cameron reached out, wincing as she gripped the rock’s edge.
“How bad is it?” Andrea asked.
“What?”
“Your shoulder.”
“Just jammed it a bit. It’ll be fine.” She paused. “Maybe you could give me a shove?”
Andrea knew not to argue. The quickest way out was back along the trail they’d come in on. Finding an alternate route that didn’t involve Cameron having to climb up through a crevice might take longer than the entire hike back. So she cupped Cameron’s hips, giving her a boost up. She pretended she didn’t hear the painful groan as Cameron pulled herself along the rocks.
True to her word, Cameron made it up, although it was excruciating for Andrea to watch—and listen—as she fought through her pain. Cameron lay down flat on the rocks, her right hand massaging her injured left shoulder.
“Is it separated?” Andrea asked.
“No.” She turned her head, an almost lazy smile on her face. “Know why I fell?”
Andrea shook her head.
“I was heading right for that damn cactus,” she said. “I did a quite graceful midair twist to avoid it.”
Andrea nearly laughed, picturing Cameron wrapped around the large prickly pear cactus. A separated shoulder would have been the least of her worries. They would have spent hours trying to pick the thorny spines out of her.
“I know. Funny, right?”
“Could have been a yucca,” Andrea said. “Those things will cut like a knife. But I think you may have made the right decision.” She stood, offering her hand to Cameron. “Of course, jumping off in the first place leads me to question your sanity.”
“I sometimes forget how old I am.”
Andrea paused, eyebrows raised. Cameron’s age was something she never speculated on. She assumed she was near her own.
“Thirty-five,” she said. “For a few more months,” she added.
Andrea nodded. “You have me beat by a year.”
Cameron flexed her shoulder several times then motioned for Andrea to lead the way. “I can keep up. Don’t go slow on my account.”
“What about the ankle?”
“Damn, you saw that too?”
“Is it sprained?”
“Let’s call it strained,” Cameron said.
Andrea laughed. “Let’s call it stubborn.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Give me a break, Reynolds. You’re dreaming if you think your team could have done better.” Cameron opened the cabinet in the bathroom, surveying her options. “They’d have landed on the damn cactus,” she murmured, wishing she could take something stronger than the ibuprofen she found.
“What cactus?”
“Never mind. I’m just saying, there was nothing else we could have done.”
“I’m coming up there.”
“No. The hell you are.”
“No?”
“No. We don’t need your suits and ties up here,” she said. “We’re close. As I told Murdock, I don’t want to send him under by having FBI crawling all over the place.”
“Well, you obviously can’t catch him, Ross.”
She laughed. “And you’re doing a hell of job at it too, Reynolds. Have you found out where Collie was taken from yet? Surveillance cameras? Anything?”
“We have the tapes from the parking garage. Collie wasn’t with the car when it was dumped. And we can’t get a facial. He knew where every camera was and avoided them.”
“So you have nothing?”
“I got about what you have.”
“I, at least, had a visual on the bastard,” she countered.
“Yeah. Did you a lot of good, didn’t it?”
“Jesus Christ, Reynolds, you learn your bedside manner from Collie or what? Last I checked, we were on the same goddamn team,” she said, having the satisfaction of ending the call first. For some reason, it lacked the gratification that she used to get when she hung up on Collie.
She poured a handful of pills from the bottle, counting out four before putting the rest back. She popped them in her mouth, chasing them down with a swig of water. Her ankle was killing her, but the pain in her shoulder had subsided. The icepack she’d put on it earlier had helped. She was surprised it wasn’t separated. After she’d landed awkwardly, twisting her ankle, her shoulder had taken the brunt of her weight. She wouldn’t tell Andrea, but she’d actually blacked out for a moment when her head hit the rocks.
All in all, if she had to do it over again, she’d have just shot the bastard. Not exactly following the rules, but then in her line of work, rules were ambiguous, to say the least.
She migrated back to the main room, sitting down gingerly in her recliner, easing the pressure on her ankle by propping it up. Lola found her lap and she leaned back, eyes closed as she stroked the kitten. The loud, constant purring lulled her into a relaxed state. If she allowed it, she knew she would fall asleep, but she couldn’t. There was work to do, new data to store and feed into the program. And they needed a game plan. She could only hold Murdock off for so long. He was already pushing her to move in Reynolds and the team.
But her gut told her if they dropped a load of agents in Sedona, Patrick would disappear. A
nd they were close, she could feel it. If they missed this opportunity and he dropped off the radar again for a year or more, then he’d have won another round and they’d just have to wait for the next killing spree to start. Unless, of course, Reynolds could dig up something in Phoenix, and that was looking to be unlikely.
“She jumped off the ledge? What is she, crazy?”
Andrea cocked an eyebrow at Randy. “You think?”
“So you had him? I mean, you had him, and he just jumped and she followed him?” He grinned. “Now that’s hot.”
“That’s so hot,” Joey added. “God, I’d have loved to see that. She’s amazing.”
Andrea glared at them. “You’re missing the point. She blindly jumped off a cliff, not knowing whether it was a hundred-foot drop or a ten foot. She could have killed herself.”
Jim, who had been listening silently, took the toothpick out of his mouth, his brows drawn together thoughtfully. “You sure it was him?”
“Yes,” she said.
“So how’d he know it wasn’t a hundred-foot drop?”
“We assumed he did recon on the trails. Apparently he’s very thorough in his research.”
“Either that or damn lucky.” He plopped the toothpick back in. “Now what?”
“How do you feel about staking out the trails?”
“At night?” Randy asked, his eyes wide.
“Yes, at night,” she said, glancing at Jim for approval.
“Is that what Cameron thinks we should do?”
Andrea nodded. “Yes. But she wanted to run it by you first.”
Jim smiled. “Andi, we can stop pretending I have a say in any of this. We lost that opportunity when we invited the FBI in.”
Again, Andrea felt the need to defend Cameron. “She’s always asked our opinion on things. I wouldn’t say we’ve lost our voice. At least, she’s not made it appear that way.”
“No. She’s been quite good at keeping us informed and including you in this search. That’s not what I meant.” He moved toward his office. “Tell her we’ll do whatever she thinks is best.”
Andrea glanced at Randy. “You and Joey be ready.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.” Of course, she was only speculating, but she assumed Cameron would want to stake out the trails tonight. That is, if she could walk.
“But...mountain lions,” he said, his voice shaky. “And...and rattlesnakes.”
“Yeah. And?”
“I just think maybe that’s not such a good idea.”
“You’ve been here ten years. When’s the last time you’ve heard of someone getting attacked by a mountain lion?”
“You hear about it all the time,” he said.
“But here. I’m talking here in Sedona. You hear about it where cities encroach on wilderness, yes. But here?”
“Look, I’m a city boy, born and raised. And being out on the trails at night is not my idea of fun.”
“Not mine either,” she said. “But it’s our job, so suck it up. I’ll call you later with a time and place.”
She turned to go, but Joey stopped her.
“Wait. Casey O’Connor called,” he said, looking at a piece of paper in his hand. “From Dallas. She got your e-mail and wanted to discuss it with you, but she said she’d just write you back instead.”
“Okay.” Andrea eyed her computer on her desk, but decided to wait on the e-mail. She was anxious to get back to Cameron. She was limping noticeably by the time they’d made it back, even though she’d tried to hide her discomfort. “I’ll get in touch with her later. I need to go check on Cameron.”
Randy winked at her. “Check on her, huh?”
“Yes, check on her. She really should have seen a doctor,” she said, ignoring his blatant insinuation. “And we need to decide about tonight.” She pointed her finger at him. “Be ready.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Andrea paused at the door, waiting for Cameron’s familiar voice telling her the security was off, but the speakers remained silent. She debated whether to trust that it was off or to be safe and call. She decided on the latter. A sleepy voice answered her call.
“Sorry. I’m outside,” she said. “I didn’t know if it was safe to come in.”
“I fell asleep,” Cameron said unnecessarily. “But yeah, come on in.”
Andrea opened the door, finding Cameron sprawled out in her recliner, Lola sitting on her chest as if protecting her. Without thinking, Andrea held her phone out, capturing the sight. Not that she would need memories of them when they left, but Lola’s pose and Cameron’s sleepy eyes were too much to resist.
“A picture?”
“Yes.” Andrea put her phone away. “How do you feel?”
“If it were anyone other than you asking me that, I’d lie and say I felt fine.”
“Okay. And the truth?”
“I feel like hell.”
Andrea noticed the ice pack strapped to her ankle. “Swollen?”
“A little.”
Andrea put her hands on her hips. “You need to see a doctor.”
“No.”
“We could go—”
“No,” Cameron said. “I’ve had my share of doctors. It’s just twisted a little. It’ll be fine. I can tape it up.”
“Did you take anything? Do you have pain meds?”
“I took ibuprofen. I have pain meds, but they knock me out. I need to be focused.”
“Okay. You know best,” she said, not wanting to push it. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
Andrea glanced at the kitchen. “Do you have anything I could cook?”
“Not really, no.” Cameron raised her eyebrows. “Pizza?”
“Again?”
“Well, they deliver. And I’ve got them on speed dial.”
Andrea nodded. “Pizza is fine.” She went to help as Cameron tried to stand.
“Thanks. I need to update the data in the algorithm. It’ll take a little while to run.”
“Okay. And Detective O’Connor called me back while we were out. She sent me an e-mail, but I haven’t checked it yet.”
Cameron’s limp was noticeable as she shuffled in bare feet toward her office. She pointed to her laptop on the loveseat. “You can use that, if you want. I’ll call in the pizza and update the program. It’ll take me a few minutes.”
Andrea plopped down on the loveseat, bringing the laptop to life. Lola jumped from the recliner to her lap in one giant leap, purring loudly as she looked at Andrea.
“Yes, you know you’re cute, don’t you,” she cooed, scratching under her chin affectionately.
She was about to open up a browser when she spotted two folders in the upper right corner of the monitor. Her name was attached to both. One was titled LAPD. The other, Personal. She stared at them, knowing they were from the background check Cameron had done on her. She knew what the LAPD one would contain, that was no secret. But her personal file? What could the FBI possibly dig up on her that it warranted them sending it to Cameron?
She wanted to ignore the files. She really did. In fact, she opened up a browser to check her e-mail. But curiosity simply got the best of her. She quickly closed the browser and again stared at the two files. She bit her lower lip, chancing a glance down the hall, but Cameron was nowhere in sight. A quick double click opened the file and she scanned it, her eyes moving swiftly across the words.
Erin Rogers...lover killed...dating five women...Sullivan in the dark.
“What the hell?” she murmured. Her eyes widened as she read on. Jena Sommers? She was sleeping with Jena?
Her chest felt tight as her heart raced, her breath difficult to catch as the words sunk in. Erin had been seeing four other women. Not just seeing them. Sleeping with them. Having sex. She closed her eyes tightly. Having sex with four other women—including Jena Sommers, Andrea’s closest friend on the force besides Mark—yet Erin vowed she loved Andrea. Erin’s last words came rushing back to her—Erin crying, begging her not
to end their relationship, saying Andrea was killing her, breaking her heart. Erin vowed love and devotion, saying they could work things out. And Andrea gave in, saying they’d talk about it. And then the guilt, because they never got that chance to talk about it. The guilt, because Andrea knew she wasn’t in love with Erin. And more guilt, thinking she should have been in love with her. After all, Erin had said that Andrea was her life. A life cut so short.
Andrea looked up as Cameron came out of her office. Cameron raised an eyebrow questioningly.
“What’s wrong?”
“You knew? All along you knew?”
“Knew what?”
Andrea tossed the laptop and Lola aside, standing quickly, pacing in the small space of the motor home. “Erin. You knew about Erin,” she said.
Cameron’s gaze left her face, locking in on the laptop. “The files,” she said quietly. “You read them?”
“I read one of them, yes. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Andrea—”
“You knew what I was going through, yet you didn’t tell me.” Andrea turned quickly, rushing out the door. She had to get away. She needed some time, some space, to absorb this. She didn’t know what hurt more—Erin cheating on her or Cameron keeping it from her.
“Andrea, wait,” Cameron called from the steps of the motor home.
“No. Leave me alone,” she said as she hurried to her Jeep.
“I didn’t read the files, Andi. I told you I wouldn’t.”
Andrea jerked the door open then turned, seeing Cameron—her feet still bare—limping after her. The sight of Cameron struggling to reach her caused her heart to tighten, making her feel light-headed.
“Please don’t go, Andi.”
Andrea stood there, one hand still clutching the Jeep door, Cameron’s words causing all sorts of emotions inside of her. Their eyes met and Andrea lost her anger almost immediately. “But you knew? You knew about Erin?”
Cameron nodded. “Murdock gave me the short version, yes. But I didn’t read the file.”
“I had been struggling with my guilt for so long,” Andrea said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”