by Cynthia Eden
“You never saw any signs of them?”
“No. Never found any clothes, any shoes, any tracks at all that told me they’d been here.”
“Maybe because the killer was just as good at tracking as you were.” Walker had known the area like the back of his hand. Anthony bet Walker’s partner had, too. “Who do you know who’s like that? Who can slip into this area, know every trail and every path, and leave no trace behind?”
A man who’d be the perfect killer.
“Did I ever tell you…” Wesley rocked back on his heels. “That Jon Walker and I went to high school together?”
Sonofabitch.
“Hated the bastard back then. He was a mean jerk who got off on bullying weaker kids.” Wesley’s gaze had returned to the trees. To Lauren. “If you’re looking for someone who knew Walker back then, for someone who could never get lost out here, but someone who could make a body vanish into the swamp…then you’re looking right at me.”
Yes, he was. Anthony’s question had been deliberate, to see what Wesley’s response would be.
His response had been chillingly cold.
Wesley’s eyes narrowed. “Do you suspect me?”
Anthony waited. When he didn’t speak, Wesley’s stare came back to him. “I knew you went to school with Walker.” Like he hadn’t gotten his hands on Walker’s old yearbooks first fucking thing. “I asked if you knew someone who’d fit the profile.” His smile sharpened even more. “And you just listed yourself.”
Wesley grimly shook his head. “Go look somewhere else, Marshal. I’m not the killer. If I were, I wouldn’t be trying to help you find the body, would I?”
“Anthony!”
Lauren’s cry. High. Excited. In the next instant, Anthony was racing toward the echoing sound. His feet thudded over the earth still wet from an afternoon shower.
He turned to the left. The right.
He saw her with Matt at her side, beneath the sloping branches of a weeping willow tree.
The willow had been hidden, crouched beneath tall pines and cypress trees, blocked by moss.
But it was there. Not too big and with branches bleached light by the sun.
He touched Lauren’s shoulder. She flinched and spun toward him. “Is she here?” Lauren asked, her voice filled with hope so desperate that it hurt him.
There was only one way to find out.
Anthony glanced at the men who’d circled them. “We need the shovels.”
Lauren stood back while the uniformed men worked. Louis might have tried to shut her down, but she was the freaking DA. She still had pull and plenty of cops and techs who owed her. If her sister was in that ground, then Lauren was doing this scene right. There’d be no blunders with evidence as shovels were driven into the dirt. No contamination.
Every care would be used. Every. Care.
The pile of dirt grew. The silence in the area was thick as the men worked.
Lauren’s stomach was twisted into knots. Her hands were shaking. Every whisper of movement from the deepening hole had her adrenaline spiking.
Anthony was at her side. Watching. Waiting. Every few moments, his assessing gaze would drift to her. She knew he was worried about her. About what she’d do if they found the body.
And if they didn’t.
If she’s not here, I won’t give up. I won’t ever give up.
Her parents had kept looking for Jenny. They’d offered rewards, sent out so many missing posters, even bought a few billboards.
Her father had flown to LA twelve times, following rumors that Jenny had run away with an LSU grad student.
She didn’t run away.
Her parents had been so determined to never give up on Jenny.
Then cancer had ravaged her mother. Taken her so quickly, in the blink of an eye.
Her father had been the only one left for Lauren then. He’d still been searching for Jenny, always searching, when a heart attack took him far too soon.
Lauren had been nineteen.
Alone.
She wanted to reach out for Anthony. With him at her side, she didn’t feel so alone. But so many eyes were there, watching them, noting her every movement and gesture.
I’ll pick you up after school, okay, Laurie? Jenny’s voice, the memory of her smiling face, darted through Lauren’s mind. They’d been at the kitchen table, fighting over pancakes, rushing for school. Since I’m all street legal—Jenny had flashed her new driver’s license—Mom said I can take you to piano today.
She’d rolled her eyes. You just want a reason to drive.
So?
Don’t be late, Jenny. I’ve got to practice for my recital—
I’ll be there. Jenny had given half her pancake to Lauren. Count on me.
More dirt rose from the ground.
Count on me.
The men working in the hole stilled. “We’ve got something!”
Her heart stopped.
I’ll pick you up after school…
Paul shouldn’t have been there, but when they’d called the station to get the crew, he’d come. Shaking and pale, he’d been determined to join them.
Now he made his way to the hole.
Lauren found that she couldn’t move at all.
Anthony took her hand in his. His fingers were warm. She felt ice-cold. “Lauren?”
She forced herself to speak. “What did you find?” Her voice was too high.
Paul stared down into the hole. His face looked even paler. The lines near his eyes and mouth appeared even more defined. After a tense moment, he looked back up at Lauren. “Bones.”
Count on me…
A tear slid down Lauren’s cheek.
The men continued working in the hole.
“There’s clothing down here, too…”
Clothes and bones would be all that remained. Lauren’s lips pressed tighter so she wouldn’t cry out.
“Looks like a red shirt…” The words seemed to drive right into Lauren’s heart.
Part of her had stubbornly clung to hope. Hope that Jenny was alive somewhere. Alive, happy.
But…
Jenny had been wearing a red shirt when she vanished. A red shirt. Blue jeans. Her brand-new boots—Lauren’s birthday present to her.
“I want to see,” Lauren said. She took a step forward, locking her knees.
Anthony blocked her path. “Do you really want to see her that way?”
The image of Jenny as she’d been, dark hair gleaming, her wide, slow smile lighting up her face, was in Lauren’s mind.
I’ll pick you up—
“We don’t know that it’s her,” Paul was saying, voice thick. “It could be any of the missing girls.”
No. It was the weeping willow tree. The tree Walker had wanted them to find. They’d do a DNA test, but in her heart, Lauren already knew.
She stared up into Anthony’s eyes. His face had locked into a stark mask, but his green eyes shone with emotion. He bent his head toward her. “Don’t do this to yourself,” he whispered. “Remember the way she was, remember—”
“I have to see her.” Didn’t he understand? It wasn’t over. Couldn’t be over, until she saw her sister again.
Anthony shook his head. Pain flashed in his eyes.
The men were clearing the area to bring the body from the earth, the earth that didn’t want to let her go.
Lauren stepped closer and heard one of the men swear.
“Sonofabitch. Her hands are severed.”
Lauren’s body trembled. Anthony was there—always there—to steady her.
“Don’t, Lauren,” he said again.
It was her sister. She had to see.
She took another step.
Dirt. Roots, twisting through the dirt. And…bones. Bones darkened by the soil. An old red shirt, the edge of blue jeans…
A skull that stared up at her.
Something broke inside of Lauren.
She broke.
Anthony’s arms closed around her, and
he held her tight.
He wanted to fucking kill. Anthony barely held his rage in check as he watched Lauren make her way to the ME’s office. She’d gone to meet with the mayor in a closed-door meeting—just her, the mayor, and the chief of police—a few moments before, and he sure as hell hoped she’d ripped the dick a new one. They had their evidence now, and there was no way the mayor could shove the body under the rug.
The press would know what was happening. Anthony had already made sure of it with a fast phone tip to some of Lauren’s contacts. No one would forget Jenny Chandler or the other victims.
Lauren’s steps were slow, her shoulders sagging, as she headed toward him.
He caught her hand before she could open the door to the morgue.
“No, not yet.”
Dark circles lined her eyes, from pain, horror, and grief that were ravaging her. He wanted to take it all away. He wanted to find the bastard who’d made her hurt and destroy him. Death would be too easy.
The man needed to suffer, as he’d made Lauren suffer. And Jenny suffer. And all the others.
He glanced over his shoulder. He saw an empty room and pulled Lauren toward it.
“Anthony, what—”
His mouth took hers. He had to kiss her. He wanted her to feel something, anything, but sadness and grief. He wanted her to know she was alive, dammit, and there was still hope.
Hope for her. For them.
But he could taste the salt of her tears. He hated the taste of her grief. Lauren should know joy.
I will kill the bastard.
Her arms curled around him. Her lips parted, and she kissed him back with an almost desperate need.
Her body trembled, but she pressed tightly to him. Her nails sank into his arms as she rose onto her toes.
Her lips broke from his, just long enough for her to whisper, “Make it stop.”
He stared into her eyes. Saw the gleam of tears.
“I can’t breathe. It hurts so much. Just make it stop.”
He kissed her again. His fingers sank into her hair. He angled her head up so he could take her mouth. Her lips. Her tongue. There was desperation in the kiss, a maelstrom of lust and need. And fury. For what had been lost. For the dangers that waited ahead.
The nightmare hadn’t ended with the discovery of the body.
Would it ever end?
“I want to take you out of here,” he told her, growling the words when their mouths parted again. “I want you with me. I want to help you.”
“You have.” Her words were ragged.
His hold tightened on her. “Lauren…”
She pulled in another deep breath, and eased away from him. He could see her trying to school her expression, but she looked so damn fragile—breakable—that it tore into him. He wanted to stand between her and any pain.
Every pain.
But he couldn’t stop the agony she was feeling, and it drove him crazy. She wanted it to stop, she’d asked him to make it stop.
I will.
“I have to see the ME,” Lauren murmured. “I have to talk to him about Jenny.”
“I’m going with you.” He’d waited for her, because he’d be damned if he let her walk into that room of death alone.
She gave a small nod. “Thank you.”
Screw thanks. He caught her hand. “When we’re done, I’m taking you out of here with me. You’re not staying on your own.”
“I’ve still got U.S. marshal protection?”
“You’ve got me.” Always.
“Thank you.”
There it was again. He didn’t want her gratitude. Just her. As long as the killer was on the loose, Anthony didn’t plan on letting Lauren spend any nights alone. Walker had targeted her, so what was to say the second killer wouldn’t, too? With Walker’s death, the man might be jonesing for vengeance. Just like Walker.
He followed her out of the room. When he opened the door, he saw Paul heading down the hallway, making a determined march for the ME’s office. When Paul saw them coming from the darkened room, he paused. One brow lifted.
Anthony leveled a hard stare back at him.
Paul cleared his throat, then held open the door that would take them all in to see Dr. Death.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“We’re in the process of obtaining your sister’s dental records,” Greg said as he stood beside the carefully covered remains. “Once we have those, we’ll be able to see—”
“They’ll show it’s Jenny.” Lauren was certain Jenny was wrapped up in that bag. Lauren had never needed the icy wall she used to separate herself from others more than in that moment. On the inside, she was falling apart. No, splintering. On the outside, her hands were flat at her sides. Her body still.
Greg glanced at Anthony, then back at her. “No jewelry was found at the scene.”
“She had on a necklace when she disappeared.” Her words were quiet and calm, a direct contrast to the scream inside of her. “A cross my mom had given her.” Given them both, the last Christmas they’d had together. Lauren still had her cross, nestled in the bottom of her jewelry box at home.
The home she couldn’t enter any longer.
“We’ve still got crews searching the area,” Paul said as he slid into a nearby chair. Pain and exhaustion were etched onto his face. “They might find it.”
“Not if the killer took it,” Lauren said. Her lips twisted. “Walker took jewelry from his victims. If Cadence is right and Walker learned from his partner, then maybe he saw this man taking jewelry, too, and figured he’d keep little mementos as well.”
“Trophies,” Paul growled.
Yes, that was the perfect word.
“Are the cadaver dogs hunting?” Anthony asked.
Paul gave a grim nod.
The killer might have buried other victims close by.
“Her shirt was covered in blood,” Greg said as he backed away from the table. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. He could have left his own DNA behind.”
“He cut off her hands.” Paul’s words were as quiet as Lauren’s had been. They hit her with a brutal punch. “The guy knew how to make sure he didn’t leave DNA evidence behind. She probably scratched him, and he took the hands to make sure we wouldn’t track him.”
The kill had been so long ago. Before DNA testing had really advanced.
Lauren’s lashes swept down as the sound of her heartbeat filled her ears. “Was she still alive when he—”
“No.” Greg said quickly.
Good. Her lashes lifted. She met his stare. Anthony had stepped closer to her, and the heat from his body seemed to reach out and surround her.
“That’s actually the odd thing,” Greg added. “From what I can tell, the perp didn’t originally cut off her hands. He went back and did that…later.”
She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat.
“He got smarter,” Anthony said from beside her.
Sicker.
Anthony’s eyes were on the body. “He realized he’d left his DNA behind.”
“You think she scratched him,” Paul said, sitting at attention now.
“My sister was a fighter.” Lauren knew that when most people had looked at Jenny, they’d seen a piece of fluff. An always-smiling cheerleader. But Jenny had spent ten years in gymnastics. Five in Tae Kwon Do. She wouldn’t have gone out easily. Not easily at all.
“He figured out what he’d left behind.” Anthony’s voice was a dark rumble. “He went back to fix his mistake.”
Paul yanked a hand over his face, his frustration plain to see. “Then we aren’t finding his DNA on her clothes. The bastard wouldn’t take the hands and leave his blood behind.”
“You’d be surprised at what we can uncover today.” Greg’s jaw hardened. “All I need is one tiny hair, one microscopic drop of blood from our perp. Hell, maybe the guy was even sweating when he dug her grave—either time—I just need a little sample. If he’s in our database, we’ll have the man’s identity.”
The nightmare could be over.
Greg nodded as he focused on her. “As soon as I learn more, I’ll tell you.”
“Thank you.” She glanced down at the evidence sheet. There wasn’t much left of her sister now. There should be more to show for a life. Lauren licked her lips. She had to ask, “Have you been able to tell…what happened to her? What did he do?”
Again, Greg glanced at Anthony.
Anger pulsed through her. “Tell me.”
“There are nicks on her bones that are consistent with stab wounds. I have to study her more—”
“How many wounds?” She cut through the BS. Greg was very good at his job. He would already have a strong idea, she was certain, of exactly what the killer had done to her sister.
“Seventeen.”
The ice cracked. “So many?”
She realized Anthony had taken her hand. When had he done that? Both Greg and Paul noticed the move, but so what? She wanted Anthony holding her. She wanted him. Her fingers curled around his. Tightened.
Anthony squeezed her hand. “If she was his first kill, he wouldn’t have been as controlled with her. That many slices of the blade—hell, Cadence will tell you that indicates rage. Loss of control.”
The killer was angry at Jenny. Enraged.
“There’s a reason she was first,” Lauren said. She tried to breathe slowly but the stench in the room was making her light-headed. “Jenny was personal to him.” It was the way of crimes like this.
“The crazy SOB probably thought they were all personal,” Paul muttered. “Freaks like that always do.”
“First kills usually are personal.” Anthony’s voice was thick. “The first victim is often a trigger for many serials. Once they get the rush that comes from the kill, they get addicted. They want the power. The control. They want the release that they can only get from taking lives.”
All eyes were on him.
There was a grim certainty in his voice. Anthony had dealt with far too many monsters over the years.
“All signs are that Jenny was his first victim.” Anthony’s hold was strong and what she desperately needed then. “According to Cadence’s search, her disappearance dated back the longest. When we discover why Jenny was the trigger, then we understand our killer.”