by Penny Childs
“No, that was good, since someone ran off without me,” she said, giving Trevor a mock glare.
“Yeah. Well.” Trevor stood up. “You want to come in and take a look around before the team gets here?” he asked Craig. He saw how close Craig sat to Mel and felt a twinge of jealousy, wondering if there was a reason they were so comfortable around each other. Their knees were a fraction of an inch from touching.
“You’re all right?”Craig asked her again.
“For Christ’s sake, if one more of you ask me that I swear I’ll pull my gun on you.”
Craig threw his hands in the air. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He was smiling when he looked at Trevor. “I guess I’ll go in a minute.”
As the men went into the house, Renee sat down in the rocker that Trevor had vacated. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask,” she said when she saw the way Mel looked over at her.
“Thanks.”
“Trevor is freaked,” Renee said, staring out at the woods.
“Hmmm.”
“Not much rattles him, either. He’s usually pretty cool.” She leaned back in the rocker. “I’ve seen him stare down the wrong end of a gun without flinching.”
“I wouldn’t know anymore,” Mel said, sliding a glance over at Renee.
“Did you get anything today, from the woman’s family in Indiana?”
Thankful that Renee had changed what was an awkward subject, Mel said, “No, not really. Just more of the same. Her family is torn up, just like the others are, wondering why this happened after surviving the first time.”
“That had to be difficult to watch,” Renee said. “It’s the part I hate the most, talking to the friends and family of a victim. The job has to be done, but you feel like a real heel, dragging them into the pain of it.”
“The worst thing I usually have to deal with around here is breaking up parties in the woods with kids. Maybe a shoplifting. Sometimes a domestic violence.”
“Is that why you left the FBI? Because you needed to be away from the really bad stuff?”
She was saved from answering the question as Trevor stuck his head out the door. “There’s a bullet hole in one of your walls,” he informed her with only what appeared to be mild surprise.
“Oh, yeah, that was me,” Mel said “Sorry, I forgot about that. I took a shot at the bastard. I didn’t see any blood, so I guess I missed.”
Craig came back out. “Megan just called me. The team will be here in about five minutes. I should probably make this official and take your statement, don’t you think?”
She nodded. “That would probably be a good idea. We’ll do it here tonight and then fill out the paperwork at the station tomorrow.”
“All right.” He sat down next to her again and saw the way Trevor looked at him. Suppressing a smile, he said, “I took the liberty of getting you a room at the hotel, boss.”
“I’m staying here.”
“Boss, you can’t stay here. Not after what happened and what that nut job carved into your kitchen table.”
“I can and I will.”
“You got lucky tonight,” he pressed.
“He didn’t come here to kill her or take her,” Trevor said. “This was all about intimidation, the fear factor. He wanted to make damn sure we knew he could get her if he wanted to. He’s upping the stakes now, making sure we didn’t miss the message he left with the other girls he’s killed.”
“He’s right. The bastard could have killed me, had he wanted to.”
Trevor’s phone began ringing at his side and he pulled it out of its clip, answered it, and moved off the porch to pace the front lawn.
“Bill, I’m sure,” Mel told Renee.
“Not much gets by him,” she agreed.
“You can’t stay out here by yourself,” Craig said, not to be deterred.
“I won’t be.” She watched Trevor pace and talk. Like he used to. Old feelings came back to haunt her and she tried like hell to push them aside, only partially succeeding. “He volunteered to stay here with me.”
Craig’s brows went up and this time he couldn’t keep his smile hidden. “I’m sure he did.”
Giving him an amused smile of her own, she said, “I know how to choose my battles. If I would have refused to let him stay he would have bought a tent and camped on my deck. Although that would have been fun to watch for a day or two, I’d eventually feel bad for him and let him in anyway. I’ve never been good at turning away strays.”
“As long as you’re okay with it.”
She just shrugged. She didn’t know if she was or not. “He’s a pain in the ass, but he means well.”
The team took three hours to go through the house and outside. Mel was sitting out on the front porch with a blanket over her and reading a book when the team started packing up and Trevor pulled back in.
He got out of the car and looked up at her, sitting there reading and felt his breath catch. This could have been the way they would have been. Him coming home to her relaxing on the porch. The spell was broken as a tech came out the front door and leaned over to tell her something.
Mel nodded and finally looked down at him standing there. “They’re done. If you grab your shit I’ll show you your room.” She had seen the way he had been looking at her and wanted to remind him that they would not be playing house.
Getting his things out of the car he came up on the porch as the four techs were leaving.
Mel got up and went into the house, stopping in the kitchen to survey the damage. The table was what bothered her the most. The dishes and glasses could be replaced.
“I’m sure it can be repaired,” Trevor said, knowing what she was thinking.
“I hope so. It belonged to my great grandparents. They brought it over from Italy with them.” She sighed deeply. “I still don’t know that this is a good idea Trevor,” she said, turning to him.
“Why not?” he asked, still holding his suitcase and computer bag.
“You know damn well why not. It might be too easy to take up where we left off. That won’t be good for either one of us in the long run and you know it.”
“I don’t know that. Neither do you,” he responded gruffly. What he did know was he did not want to sleep in her guest room. He wanted to find out what her room looked like.
“It’s that kind of thinking that will get us in trouble, Trevor,” she scolded, having picked up his thought as though he had said it aloud.
He did not comment on what she had just done for fear pointing it out to her would make her more aware of how often she slipped into his head without seeming to realize it.
“But I do know. When this is over you’ll go back to Virginia and I’ll stay here.” Turning from him, she started for the steps. “C’mon, let’s get you settled in.”
Following her up the steps, he heard her say, “Sorry, the only bathroom up here is off my room. You’ll have to use the one downstairs.” He had been hoping that they would have to pass her room so he could get a peek, but they did not. She took him into the first door on the left and turned on a light for him.
“I use this as an office too.” She had a file cabinet in one corner and a computer desk along one wall. The double bed sat in the center of the room dressed in blue plaid. She had chosen the colors with her brother in mind.
“I’ll be fine.” Lonely, but fine, he thought. He saw her frown at him and almost chuckled. She had obviously caught the thought, or the gist of it, at any rate. Throwing his suitcase on the end of the bed and his computer case on the desk, he asked, “Did you ever manage to eat?”
She shook her head. She had lost her appetite, but now that things had settled down the mention of food had her stomach grumbling again. “You?”
“I was going to finish up a couple things and run across the street for a burger.”
“I have a couple frozen pizzas we could heat up. That will be the quickest thing.” She thought about her kitchen. “I should probably clean up the damn mess on the floor though.”<
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“I’ll help. We can work on it while the pizza’s cooking.”
Together, they cleaned up the broken glass and stoneware in silence. As they were finishing up the timer on the oven beeped and she pulled the pizza out to cool.
“I guess its paper plates tonight. Thank God I’m prepared for power outages. I have paper cups stored down in the basement too. We’ll need them for coffee in the morning.” She also had a coffee maker that did not have a glass carafe, so the killer had not thrown it and broken it. As Trevor dumped the last dustpan of glass into the trash she told him, “There’s beer in the fridge if you want one.”
“Now you tell me,” he teased.
“I didn’t want to reward you until you got the job done.” Turning from him, she scowled as she was about to place the paper plates on the table. “God damnit,” she muttered, not wanting to look at the carving while she ate.
“You have a table cloth?” he asked.
“Ah, yeah. I do.” She opened a drawer and dug around in it, pulling out a neatly folded cloth which she spread over the table, hiding the reminder of what had happened earlier. “Much better.” She still knew it was there, but at least she didn’t have to look at it.
He watched as she ran the cutter through the pizza, thinking again of things that could have been if he had handled things differently. But he hadn’t. He had run.
“Serve yourself,” she told him amiably, picking up a plate and putting a couple pieces on for herself and going to the table.
He did the same and sat down across from her. “Mel, you know this guy is serious. He will make a move on you sooner or later.”
“I know,” she told him, taking a bite of her pizza, then blowing because it was hot.
“My guess is he’ll take a couple before you though.”
“That’s comforting,” she said dryly.
“He wants you to have time to wallow in the fear he’s trying to create. He might send notes. He may send pictures or videos of the killing, to heighten the fear.” He stared at her, wanting her to hear him. “You are his prize, Mel. His end game. He’s working toward you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what makes you think that.”
“I don’t think it, Mel. I know it. I know it because I know how these freaks operate. Most of the time, anyway.”
“Sounds like I got out just in time,” she remarked.
“Mel, I think you should try--”
She shook her head again. “No, Trevor, I’m not going to try and hook up to that nut job. You’re supposed to be the best at this. I guess I better hope all the hype is true.”
“Mel, I almost always catch my killer. But, it takes people getting killed so that I can. Sometimes a lot of people.”
“No, Trevor. I’m not doing it.”
He sighed and ate his pizza and drank his beer, knowing she would not give in. At least not yet.
That night, while she lounged in a hot bubble bath with a glass of wine and her book, his mind turned to the past, as it did sometimes, no matter how hard he tried to keep it away. He sat at her computer desk, staring blankly at the screen of his laptop, remembering that morning. The morning that had changed everything.
She had not shown up for breakfast as planned. He and Bill had waited, joking about how long it took women to get ready, about how they were always late. But both of them knew Mel well and she did not primp in front of a mirror. She showered, quickly dried her hair, pulled it back and was ready to go. No makeup for his girl. She didn’t need it.
After a half hour, Bill had given Trevor a look of worry. “Go see what the hell is keeping her. We have a lot of ground to cover today.” Bill was irritated, but concern laced his voice.
Nodding, Trevor got up from the table and walked through the hotel restaurant, through the lobby and outside. Crossing the parking lot, he came to her room and knocked loudly on the door. When after the third time he got no response, his heartbeat quickened and he headed back to the restaurant at a trot. “She’s not answering,” he told Bill.
“She might be in the shower,” he suggested.
Trevor shook his head. The walls of the joint were paper thin. “You can hear a knock even from in the bathroom. She would have hollered. She’s not in there.”
Bill stood, his eyes thoughtful. Finally he looked Trevor straight in the eye, his mouth a thin, straight line. “What time did she leave your room?”
“What?” Trevor asked, surprised.
“You heard me. What time?”
“Um, about four, I guess.”
“You guess or you know?”
“Four. I remember her saying you would be up in an hour.”
“You have her extra key card.” This was not a question.
Trevor nodded dully.
Bill pulled money from his pocket, threw it on the table and left the restaurant, Trevor close behind. “Let’s check her room. See if she’s been there other than the half hour she was last night before she snuck over to your room.”
Trevor gave him an odd look as he slid the key card through the slot and pushed the door open.
“I’m not fucking retarded, you know. And I sure in the hell didn’t get my badge out of a cereal box. You two are about as subtle as a hurricane.”
Trevor looked around the empty room. He saw no evidence she had come back. No coffee was made. The shower was dry and her change of clothes still lay on the end of the bed, neatly folded. “Awe, God,” he whispered miserably, with sudden knowledge. He knew. He just knew.
Bill was already on his phone to the local police. When he hung up, he gave Trevor a stern look. “I should have sent her home after that damn stunt she pulled with the media.” She had all but taunted the killer to come after her, showing him that she fit his profile to a tee. He shook his head. “I also should have sent her home the second I knew you two were screwing around.” He stalked the hotel room while Trevor sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her folded clothing. “She tried baiting him, Trevor. Do you think she would have continued, even after I told her not to?”
Trevor looked up at him, his expression bleak. “I don’t know, Bill. I talked to her about it this morning before she left. I reminded her of what you said.”
“Why? Was she acting like she was going to continue even after I scolded her?”
“I don’t know, I guess I could tell she was still a little miffed you wouldn’t let her set herself up as a target.”
“So… she what? Went roaming this morning?” He looked around the tidy room. “He sure in the hell didn’t grab her in here. She would have fought him.”
Trevor closed his eyes, not wanting to think about her having to fight anyone, much less the serial killer they had been tracking for the last month. He was a brutal beast who had no mercy. He enjoyed killing and did it with enthusiasm and flourish.
Bill had his phone out again. “Yeah, Darrel, see if you can find the phone of Agent Melanie Rhodes please.” He waited. “No, this takes precedence over anything else. I don’t care whose kid is at the mall instead of in science class.”
Trevor looked at him, hopeful. Bill was very adamant they kept their phones with them at all times and they never, ever, disable the GPS. Though he knew Mel could be reckless sometimes, he didn’t think she would go against that order. To be found out was to bring down the wrath of Bill, something none of the new agents wanted.
“Where?” Bill asked, surprise and doubt evident in his voice. “You’re sure?” He disconnected the call and looked at Trevor. “Her phone is at the hotel. Around the corner, about the middle of the row.”
Trevor didn’t move for a moment, he couldn’t. When he did get up, he drew his weapon and headed for the door.
“Trevor, it could be he dumped her phone to throw us off.”
“And it could be he’s in there killing her right now. You know as well as I do he only hangs onto them for a few hours.” And it had been almost three, if he had grabbed her right after she had left his room. Trevor fo
ught the urge to scream and run blindly toward her. If the killer had followed his usual pattern she would have already been raped. He would be torturing her now, cutting her slowly with his knife until he decided he’d had enough. Then he would cut her throat just deeply enough so she would bleed to death slowly, taking between fifteen minutes to a half an hour. He would sit next to her and watch her die, then pose her however it suited him at the time. They still didn’t understand what he was trying to say with some of the poses he selected.
“A room toward the middle,” Trevor growled. “He couldn’t be more specific than that?”
“If you’d hold on I could call the front desk and see which rooms are being rented.” But as they rounded the corner, they both stopped.
Only one car was parked outside of the rooms.
Moving slowly, they both worked their way to within three doors of it.
Trevor heard it then, the soft sound of her voice, crying out and without waiting to see if Bill had heard it as well, or even to confer with him, he went to the door nearest him, reared back, and kicked it in.
He had worked the scenes of the other murders, but they did not prepare him for what lie inside the room that day. The woman he loved lay upon the bed, shirt ripped open, drenched in blood. He could not tell where the blood came from. He only knew there was so much of it. So much.
When his mind registered the monster crouching over her, knife gleaming, grin on his face, he lost what little bit of control he might have had. Gun raised, he did not hesitate to fire, even when Bill’s command to stand down blared in his ear.
Ten
The call came at five in the morning. Brody, who was covering part of the night shift made the call to Mel. He told her a man had been abducted in Ohio. The man’s sister had called because both her and her brother had seen the story on the news and joked about him being next. She had not seen him at all the next day.
“I’ll be in shortly, Brody. Hold the fort down. Remember, no comment if anyone calls asking questions.” As she disconnected, she heard Trevor’s phone ringing in the spare room, knowing without a shadow of a doubt it was Bill calling Trevor with the same news.