“If you hadn’t been born, then I wouldn’t be trapped in this awful place.”
It was difficult to see, but Jaci was certain that Payton’s lower lip was stuck out. Just like when she was a child.
Jaci returned to slamming her shoulder into the door. Even facing death, some things never changed.
“I have never understood why you resent me so much,” she said, grunting as pain jarred through her body. “I’ve never done anything to you.”
“Sweet Jaci who everyone loves,” Payton mocked in low tones.
“Everyone but my own family,” Jaci countered.
Payton’s harsh laugh echoed eerily through the cellar. “Trust me, you weren’t missing out on anything. The Hamiltons don’t do affection.”
Jaci paused, glancing over her shoulder at Payton’s pale face. “If that’s true, then I’m sorry for you,” she said with utter sincerity. Jaci’s grandparents had showered her with affection. And now she had Rylan. Maybe Payton had a right to be jealous of her. “Everyone should be loved.”
Payton grimaced. “The last thing I need is your pity.”
“Fine.” Jaci’s momentary sympathy was swiftly squashed. “Then I don’t give a crap if you were loved or not.”
The younger woman hunched her shoulders. “Are we going to try and get out of here or what?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jaci rolled her eyes. So much for a moment of sisterly camaraderie.
She turned back toward the door, determined to get out. Unless she’d already died and gone to hell, she silently acknowledged. There were few things worse than spending eternity locked in a dark cellar with Payton.
On the point of slamming her shoulder against the wooden panels, Jaci froze when she caught the unmistakable crunch of boots against gravel.
Someone was coming.
Turning around, Jaci scrambled down the stairs, pushing Payton backward as she stood in the way.
“What’s going on?” her sister demanded.
“I hear someone,” Jaci said, keeping her voice low.
“Oh God.” Payton released a low cry of fear. “It has to be the kidnapper. What’s he going to do to us?”
Jaci couldn’t allow herself to think about what was in the mind of her stalker. Instead she wrenched off her light coat and handed it to her sister.
“Here.”
“What are you doing?”
“Put the coat on and lie on the ground,” Jaci commanded.
Payton took a step backward, shaking her head. “Why?”
“I want him to think I’m still unconscious,” Jaci whispered. “I’ll hide next to the stairs and attack him from behind.”
Payton paused, considering the hasty plan. “You won’t leave me here, will you?” she at last rasped, her voice trembling.
Jaci grimaced. As tempting as it was to run off and leave her aggravating sister behind, she knew she could never live with the guilt.
“No, I won’t leave you,” she promised.
Moving as quickly as possible in the darkness, Jaci edged her way along the side of the stairs, trusting that Payton would remember to pull up the hood of the jacket to make sure her blond hair was covered.
Then, crouching down, she blinked against the splay of light that spilled over the stairs as the door was opened.
Terror thundered through her. This was the man who’d haunted her life for years. The man who’d brutally killed at least three women. Probably many, many more. A man who was obsessed with her to the point of madness.
She clenched and unclenched her hands, worried she might freeze at the critical moment.
Then she caught sight of heavy boots on the stairs. They were muddy. No doubt from standing at the back of her house as he prepared to shoot Rylan in the head.
Her fear crystallized to a pure, ruthless fury.
No more. She was done with the games.
It ended today.
Sucking in a deep breath, she waited as she heard the boots hit one step and then the next, coming ever deeper into the cellar. She caught sight of his jeans and the gray hoodie. And the dark mask that hid his identity.
Still, she knew it was the same man as on the video.
As she’d hoped, he was focused on the motionless form lying in the center of the dirt floor. He crept forward, his breath a loud rasp in the musty air.
He halted next to Payton, his hand reaching down as if he intended to push back the hood.
This was it.
Refusing to give herself time to consider the cost of failure, Jaci launched herself forward. Three long strides and she was leaping on the man’s back.
The stalker grunted in shock, pitching forward to slam into the line of shelves. Mason jars tumbled to the ground, shattering beneath his feet.
His brief moment of confusion, however, didn’t last nearly long enough.
Even as she was trying to dig her fingers through the knit mask to scratch at his eyes, he was ruthlessly shaking her off his back. With a frustrated growl, she clung to the mask, yanking it off the man as she went flying backward.
She hit the shelves, briefly stunned. Damn. She gave a shake of her head.
She had only seconds to recover before . . .
Her fuzzy thought came to an abrupt end as the man moved to bend over her, his blond hair and lean face visible in the muted light.
“Nelson,” she breathed, too shocked to notice the fist that was zooming directly toward her chin. Not until it connected with enough force to make the world explode in a shimmer of dazzling agony.
Rylan grimly stepped aside as the sheriff crossed the front porch and entered the house.
“You’re wasting my time, Cooper,” the man growled.
Rylan pretended that his wound wasn’t burning like someone was pouring hot lava into it, and that his legs didn’t feel like wet noodles. He could deal with his injuries later.
Nothing was going to keep him from finding Jaci. And he’d just had his first stroke of luck.
It’d been a complete accident. Predictable. He’d struggled for days to figure out who could possibly be responsible for terrorizing Jaci, and it’d taken him losing his temper and pounding his fist into the wall to finally give him their first clue.
“Look at the photo,” he said, using his toe to push at the heavy frame.
The picture had tumbled to the ground when he’d hit the wall, and it’d been when Rylan had turned it over to make sure he hadn’t destroyed the stupid thing that he’d caught sight of the answer they’d been seeking.
Mike sent him an impatient glare. “What about it?” he snapped. “I’ve seen it a dozen times.”
“Have you truly studied it?”
“I’m not in the mood to be jerked around,” Mike snapped.
Rylan pointed his finger toward the photo. “Look.”
Muttering his opinion of pigheaded, arrogant jackasses who should be in bed, Mike bent over the black-and-white image of a ghost town. For a second he said nothing.
At last he released his breath on an impatient sigh. “So what . . .” His words trailed away as he abruptly dropped to his knees, his fingers reaching toward the abandoned grain store at the end of the desolate dirt road. The door was leaning at an odd angle, as if it was blowing in the wind, and from the handle was hanging a small necklace.
“Oh hell,” Mike breathed. “A locket.”
“Exactly like the one left on Jaci’s door,” Rylan said.
Mike slowly lifted himself upright, his expression troubled.
“It’s impossible to know if it’s the same,” he pointed out. “The image is too fuzzy.”
Rylan released a hiss of frustration. He knew exactly what he was seeing.
Nelson had always lurked around Jaci. Even in high school.
At the time, Rylan had dismissed the younger man as a weakling who’d latched on to Jaci’s kind heart. But clearly it’d been more. Much more.
And when he’d started his killing, Nelson had chosen Jaci to
receive his macabre gifts. And when Nelson had left town to do his photography, he’d continued to create the lockets, only they’d been put in his photos, not on Jaci’s door.
Rylan didn’t know why the creep had returned to his original obsession with Jaci. Maybe it was the fact his burial grounds had been uncovered by the floods. Or maybe something had happened in his life that had caused him to start spiraling out of control.
Whatever the reason, that bastard had Jaci.
Rylan would tear the community apart looking for her.
“It can’t be a coincidence,” he said.
Mike scowled. “How do you know? We don’t have the luxury of chasing false leads.”
Rylan resisted the urge to shake some sense into the sheriff. He might be confident that Nelson was guilty, but Mike had a point. The picture was so fuzzy that the necklace on the doorknob was little more than a shadowed blur.
He had to find a way to convince the lawman so he would call in the cavalry.
It took a long minute. His brain was sluggish from his wound. Or it could be the blood loss.
Eventually, he thankfully realized he had an entire stack of proof waiting for them.
“We can figure out if it’s a fluke,” he said, quickly turning to head out the door.
“Where are you going?” Mike’s heavy footsteps stomped behind him. “Dammit, Cooper.”
Rylan continued across the porch and down the stairs. The rain was taking a momentary break as he splashed through the puddles, crossing the driveway while Mike growled low curses behind him.
His head throbbed with every step he took, but Rylan didn’t slow as he yanked open the door to the garage and pointed toward the pile of photos.
“I’m betting that each of these photos has a locket,” he said, leaning toward the wall to switch on the lights.
Mike squatted down, grabbing the top photo while Rylan picked up the next in line. It didn’t take long for Mike to suck in a startled breath.
“There,” Rylan rasped, pointing toward the locket that was placed on top of a rusting barrel of toxic waste.
Rylan’s lips flattened as he tilted his photo of a crumbling building that looked like an old insane asylum from a horror show. Now that he knew what he was looking for, it was easy to see the locket draped over the front gate.
“And here,” he said.
“Son of a bitch,” Mike breathed, dropping the photo and wiping his hands on his uniform.
Rylan didn’t blame him. He’d sensed there was something wrong with the pictures. But he didn’t know just how wrong.
He tossed the photo against the wall, taking pleasure as the frame busted, ripping through the canvas.
“The answer was beneath our noses the whole time.”
Mike released a short, humorless laugh. “No wonder he assumes he’s so much smarter than the rest of us.” He nodded toward the pile of photos. “How did we miss this?”
“He’s clever,” Rylan grudgingly admitted.
“Not anymore.” Mike allowed his hand to stroke the butt of his handgun. “We’ve got him.”
Rylan gave a slow shake of his head. His initial burst of joy had been replaced by the stark realization that knowing who had kidnapped Jaci didn’t solve their most pressing problem.
“Not yet, we don’t,” he said.
Mike glared at him, his expression hard with annoyance. As if he suspected that Rylan was being deliberately contrary.
“What are you talking about?” he growled. “It’s Nelson. We have proof. . . .” Abruptly realizing what was bothering Rylan, the lawman grimaced. “We don’t know where the hell he is.”
“Where does he live?”
Mike furrowed his brows. “He renovated a space above his shop in town.”
That was what Rylan feared. There was no way he used his public gallery. A serial killer needed privacy to work.
“Does he still own his mother’s old place?” he demanded.
Mike gave a nod. “Yeah, but he had the house demolished just a few weeks after she died. I assumed he intended to build a new home, but right now it’s just an empty lot.”
Damn. Rylan tried to think of any other relatives that might have left Nelson property. He came up blank. As far as he knew, Nelson’s mother had never shared the truth of who had gotten her pregnant, and his grandparents had moved to Phoenix when Nelson was still in high school.
“Does he own any land?” he asked.
“Not that I know of.” Mike pulled out his phone. “Right now our only hope is that he has Payton and Jaci at his gallery.”
Rylan gave a sharp shake of his head. “It’s too risky. Heron isn’t big, but there’s usually someone around. His back door is visible from Birdie’s place. If they saw him carrying women in and out of the building they would have said something.”
Mike frowned. “Heron is fairly deserted at night.”
“But none of the women we know were taken at night,” Rylan reminded him.
“I’m getting a search warrant,” the sheriff stubbornly insisted. “I agree it’s a long shot that he would use such a public place, but we have to start somewhere.”
Rylan pulled out his own phone, thankful to discover that it’d survived the time he spent facedown in the mud.
“Go for it,” he told his companion.
Mike sent him a suspicious glance. “What are you doing?”
“Calling Griff,” he said. “My partner will be able to discover if Nelson has property in the area that he’s kept secret.” His lips twisted in a humorless smile. “And he doesn’t need a warrant.”
Jaci slowly regained consciousness.
Once again her head throbbed. But this time the pesky ache was completely overwhelmed by the agonizing pain that shot up her jaw. Crap. It felt like he’d fractured a bone.
Cautiously opening her eyes, she realized that they were no longer in the cellar. She was lying on a couch, and while the room was shadowed with heavy curtains, she could see that it was ruthlessly clean.
For a crazed moment she thought that she must have been found. This place wasn’t exactly homey, but it didn’t seem like the lair of an evil killer. Confused, her gaze skimmed over the few pieces of furniture.
Had she got it wrong?
Had Nelson been there to help her?
And where was Payton?
There was the sound of a door opening, and she turned her head to watch as Nelson stepped through a door and closed it tightly behind him.
Instantly any hope that the nightmare had ended was crushed.
Nelson had changed. He was wearing a clean pair of jeans that were artfully split at the knees, and a linen jacket over his blue tee. His hair was combed and he had on a pair of round, wire-rimmed glasses.
It should have been reassuring. He looked exactly like the Nelson she’d always known and loved.
But there was a strange expression on his familiar face that clenched her heart with an icy fear.
Moving across the floor, Nelson knelt beside the couch, reaching out his hand to lightly touch her jaw.
“Forgive me, Jaci,” he said, genuine regret in his voice as she jerked beneath his light caress. “I’d hoped we could enjoy each other before you discovered my identity. When you ruined my fantasy I’m afraid I lost my temper. I hope you aren’t hurt.”
She barely heard his words. She was too consumed with the memories of growing up with Nelson Bradley.
Playing together during recess. Working together on the school newspaper. Going to the movies because they hadn’t been invited to one of Payton’s pool parties. Struggling to do the math homework they both hated.
He could have killed her a thousand different times. A thousand different ways.
“This whole time.” She blinked, as if she could somehow see beneath the charming smile and boyish good looks to the monster below. “It’s been you?”
His eyes glowed with a sudden light. As if they were sharing some wonderful secret.
“Are you surpris
ed?”
She shuddered. “I can’t believe it.”
His fingers drifted over her cheek. They were soft, but she wasn’t stupid enough to underestimate his strength.
Those same fingers had wrapped around Anne’s neck and squeezed the life from her body.
They could do the same to her.
“I’ve been very clever, haven’t I?” he crooned, bragging as if he was a child. “Of course, people have always discounted me. Even my dear, happily departed mother. She told me I’d never amount to anything. That I was a loser just like my father. As if I could ever be a worthless nobody drifting from town to town.” His lip curled into a sneer. “But I showed her that I was born to greatness.”
Her mouth felt dry as her heart lodged in her throat. His touch was making her flesh crawl, but she didn’t know what would happen if she slapped his hand away.
Besides, she understood the importance of keeping her captor talking.
The longer he was boasting about his cleverness, the longer she had to figure out a way to escape.
“I don’t understand.” With an effort she met his feverish gaze. “I thought we were friends.”
He looked momentarily confused. “We are. Of course, we are. You’ve been my only true friend.” His fingers grabbed her aching jaw. “Do you remember when your brother stole my camera and threatened to smash it if I didn’t pay him a ransom? You whacked him on the back of his head with your book.”
Jaci winced. She’d forgotten that she’d used her favorite copy of Pride and Prejudice to punish her brother for being such a jerk. The same book that Christopher had destroyed, and that Rylan had secretly replaced.
It was all strangely tangled together.
“If we’re friends then why would you torment me with the lockets?” she demanded.
“They were a gift to prove I was worthy of your respect.”
Jaci searched the face she knew so well. Did he truly believe that giving her pieces of the women he’d murdered would earn her respect?
She shivered, feeling a sharp pang of guilt. As if she was somehow responsible. After all, if Nelson hadn’t been obsessed with her, maybe he wouldn’t have started killing.
A part of her mind wanted to close down. To simply stop functioning so she didn’t have to deal with the horror. Then she sternly squashed the ridiculous swell of remorse.
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