As Darkness Fell

by Joanna Wayne

  “Why did you call me?”

  “To hear your voice.”

  “Why? What do you want from me?”

  “I must go now, Caroline.”

  “No. Please don’t break the connection. We need to talk. Let me help you.”

  But the connection went dead, even as the voice still filled her mind like some invisible, poisonous smoke. She turned up the heat in the car, but she doubted the higher temperature would reach the chill that had embedded her heart.

  Her phone rang again. Dread consumed her so that she could barely think. She didn’t want to talk to him again, yet she might be the only one who could reach him, the only one who could stop him from killing again. She forced herself to pick up the phone, but this time it was Sam’s cell number that came up on the viewer handset.

  “Thank goodness it’s you,” she said, skipping the perfunctory hello.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes—and no. I need to talk to you, Sam.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’d rather not do it over the phone.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Close to the junction of Finnegan Road and Highway 5.”

  “Near the Catfish Shack.”

  It was a statement, not a question, and she heard the vexation in his voice. “Don’t lecture me, Sam. I’m in no mood for it. Your job is to interrogate. Mine is to interview, and if that puts us on the same turf, so be it. Now, do you have time to see me? It’s important.”

  “Do you know how to get to the police firing range?”

  “I’ve seen the sign. I’ve never been there.”

  “It’s easy to find. Just stay on Highway 5 back toward town and turn on the road by the sign. It’s a rectangular metal building about a mile off the highway. You can’t miss it.”

  “Are you there now?”

  “Yeah. When you get here, just ask the guy on duty at the front desk to get me.”

  “I should be there in ten minutes.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m in a car going sixty miles an hour and not a killer in sight.” Not that it meant he wasn’t somewhere nearby. But she doubted seriously he’d follow her to a place where cops had their guns out and were practicing their shooting skills.

  So now she had only Sam to deal with—a formidable task indeed.

  SAM PULLED the target in close to check his accuracy. Most of his shots had hit the paper cutout in the dead center of the brain, as they should have at the distance he was practicing. He always did some distance firing, as well, but every time he’d ever faced an armed assailant, it had been at almost point-blank range.

  He wasn’t really here to practice. It was just that sometimes the routine of loading and shooting had a calming effect on him that let him think more clearly, especially when he was as tired as he was today.

  He hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours a night since the second murder. He’d go to bed only to have the few facts they knew about the killings march though his mind like a parade of the macabre. Two murders in two different parks. One of the Atlanta TV reporters had already dubbed the murderer the Prentice Park Killer, and the name appeared to have stuck.

  The victims seemingly had nothing in common except that they were young women who had been found dead in parks. One had apparently been abducted from the parking lot of her apartment building. One had been attacked while she was jogging on a marked trail that cut through an isolated area of Cedar Park.

  They’d both had their throats slit, then been stripped naked and had bloody X’s painted across their chests. No sign of sexual molestation. No witnesses. No obvious motives. No leads. And no matter how many people he talked to or how many times he went over all this in his mind, he never got any closer to identifying a killer.

  It had been the same today while he’d interviewed Ruby Givens’s family. There had to be something he was overlooking, some link that would make all this connect. It appeared the crimes had been committed by the same person, but it was impossible to be certain. Since everything about the first murder had been described in detail on TV and in the paper, the second could easily have been a copycat.

  Sam toyed with the facts, moving them around like marbles as he reloaded his gun, a semiautomatic Smith and Wesson. His wasn’t standard issue, but he’d requested and gotten permission to use it. It was the same type of gun he’d carried when he’d first signed on as a cop back in San Antonio. He liked the feel of it and knowing exactly how it handled.

  “Hey, Sam. Some woman’s here to see you. Cute little brunette.”

  “Get her a pair of earplugs and send her back here.”

  “Okay, but don’t shoot her. She’s too good-looking to lose. How about I bring her back and you introduce us?”

  “You’re looking for me to help you score with a cute chick who asked for me?”

  The cop nodded. Sam grinned. “You’re out of luck.” He tore down the old target, attached a new one and moved it back to the fifteen-foot mark. When he turned around again, Caroline was standing a couple of feet behind him.

  No wonder she’d gotten the young cop’s attention. She was wearing a yellow sweater that draped over her breasts, outlining her nipples. Not clingy, but seductive all the same. Her straight black skirt stopped just above her knees, and a pair of stylish black boots did great things for her legs.

  “You look nice,” he said, realizing he was staring.

  “Thanks.”

  “But you didn’t just drop by to let me gawk.”

  “Not really.” She looked around, watched the cop next to him fire a couple of rounds, then grimaced. “Can we go somewhere quieter?”

  “In a minute.” He motioned her closer. He was eager to hear what she had to say, but he also needed to know if she could handle a weapon, and there might not be a better time than now to find out. “Have you ever fired a gun before?”

  “No.”

  “Come here and give it a try.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t like guns.”

  “You don’t have to like them, but under the circumstances, it would be a good idea if you knew how to use one.”

  “I don’t think I could bring myself to shoot someone.”

  “Most people think that. They don’t find out differently until that split second when they have to choose between shooting or getting shot.” He took her hand and tugged her closer. “First you need to hold the pistol in your hand for a few minutes. Get used to the feel of it. And always remember that you never point a weapon at anything or anyone you don’t intend to shoot.”

  He placed the gun in her hand and moved her fingers into position. “You can steady the shooting hand with your free hand.” He was standing behind her, and when he leaned in to help her with her grip, his chin brushed her hair and he caught the scent of her perfume. Something light and flowery—and intoxicating.

  His body reacted swiftly, traitorously growing hard. He kept his hand on hers, but he pulled back, fighting the desire that just wouldn’t let up. Whatever it was that fired his libido, Caroline had it in spades.

  “Do I pull the trigger now?” she asked.

  Her voice trembled a little. Sam had no clue if the tremble was because of the gun or an awareness of what she was doing to him. He wasn’t about to ask.

  “Use the front and rear sights to help you line up the target. Aim at the head.”

  She followed his instructions, squinting as she did so. “Now?”

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  She closed her eyes, made a face and pulled the trigger. The bullet missed the target altogether.

  She opened her eyes and swung around, pointing the gun directly at him. He took her arm and pushed it away. “You want to watch that, unless you’re planning to shoot me.”

  “I knew I’d be no good at this.”

  “It takes time.”

  “I don’t even see my bullet hole.”

  “Hard to aim with your eyes c
losed.”

  “Okay, let me try it again. I’ll keep them open this time.”

  “Take it slow and make the shot count.”

  “Do you suppose the deranged killer who’s running around town will stand still for five minutes while I aim?”

  “I’m not even considering the possibility that you’ll have to find out.”

  She looked at him. “You don’t lie well, Sam.”

  “It’s my only weakness.”

  She aimed the gun and pulled the trigger, this time keeping her eyes open and her hands reasonably steady. The bullet hit the right forearm of the paper man.

  “You’re getting closer.”

  She shot twice more, each one getting a little nearer the prime target spot. She was improving, but she’d need a lot more than a day’s practice before he’d want to turn her loose with a weapon. As unsure as she was now, an attacker would take it away from her before she knew what was happening.

  “Let’s call it a day,” he said. “Go have that conversation you came for.”

  “Good.” She looked around. “How far do we have to go?”

  “Outside.”

  He holstered his gun, then removed the target and disposed of it in the open trash barrel. Once out the front door, he led her away from the building and down a path that meandered to a stocked pond, where some of the cops went fishing on their day off.

  “It’s nice here,” she said, “once you get away from the gunfire.”

  “The land and the building were donated by the McClellan family. All the department has to do is keep it up. We can sit,” he said, motioning to a concrete picnic table under a cluster of pine trees, “or we can walk.”

  “I’d rather walk.”

  “Then walk it is.” He waited for her to start talking. When she didn’t, he prodded her. “What was it you wanted to discuss?”

  “I think I may have a description of the killer, or at least a description of a possible suspect.”

  “Keep talking.”

  CAROLINE RELATED what Trudy had told her. Sam was impressed. He didn’t admit it, but she could tell all the same.

  “She’s scared, Sam, frightened that if this man is the killer, he’ll come after her if he thinks she fingered him. I think she could be right, and I don’t want to put her in danger.”

  “Then you can’t print this information.”

  “I never planned to. But you can’t go barging into the restaurant asking her questions, either. And you can’t leak this so that it gets picked up by some other reporter.”

  “You’re not telling me how to run my investigation, are you, Reporter Lady?” His tone had taken that edge again.

  She stopped walking and her hands flew to her hips before she realized she was assuming her fighting stance. “So is this how it is between us, Sam? I’m Caroline if I play the game your way, Reporter Lady if I have an opinion of my own? If I’m frightened and defenseless, you kiss me. If I show any spunk, you knock me down a peg or two, make sure I stay in my place.”

  He met her gaze. Cold and stony, but there was something else there, a mysterious, haunted quality that she couldn’t read.

  “I didn’t kiss you because you were defenseless. I kissed you because…because…” He turned around and started walking again. “Let’s get back to Trudy.”

  “Fine.” But it wasn’t fine. She was shaking now, hating that she’d love to throw herself into Sam’s arms and forget the killer, forget being a reporter. She was so tired of nothing but talk of murders and fear. But she’d never let herself fall apart that way.

  “What about Trudy?” she asked, working to keep her voice steady.

  “I’d like to have someone draw a composite from her description of the suspect. Do you think you can get her to cooperate in that?”

  “I think so, if we can do it quietly and not let it out to anyone that the description is from her.”

  “We need to move quickly,” he stressed. “The longer we wait, the more likely it is that the man will kill again before we catch him.”

  “Does that mean you think this could be the guy?”

  “It’s a lead, and that’s more than we had before.”

  “Is that a Sam Turner version of a thank-you?”

  “Yeah, I guess it is.” He stopped and leaned against a tree, then caught her hand and pulled her closer. “You did good, Reporter Lady.”

  His voice had changed, lost its edge and become almost seductive. Of the many faces of Sam Turner, this was the one that blew her away. It was the Sam who’d kissed her last night, the one who made her feel protected and turned her insides to the consistency of rich cream.

  Or maybe she was only reading into him the qualities she needed, especially now when she was being drawn into the sticky web of a killer. “There’s more, Sam,” she whispered. “I heard from him again.”

  The mood changed in an instant, as if some temporarily benign fury that lived inside Sam had sprung to life. The lines in his face drew tight and his muscles strained against his shirt. “When?”

  “Just before I talked to you on the phone. This time he called me on my cell.”

  He murmured a low string of words he sure hadn’t learned from a sainted grandmother. “One day after a murder and he’s at it again. The guy just doesn’t give up.”

  “Giving up doesn’t seem to be in his plans.”

  “Did you get a phone number?”

  “The handset said unavailable.”

  “So tell me what was said. Word for word, or at least as best you can remember. Don’t leave anything out.”

  She repeated the conversation. It was if the man’s words had been burned into her brain with laser waves.

  “He’ll call again, Sam.”

  “But next time we’ll be prepared.”

  “How?”

  “We can install a recorder on your cell, office and home phones, for one thing. And a tracking device. All you’ll have to do is remember to flick them on the second he starts talking.”

  “That’s not good enough. He’ll just say a few words and hang up the way he did today. I have to see him in person.”

  “Don’t start the same trash talk you did the other night, Caroline. We’re not dangling you in front of this guy for bait.”

  “I’m already dangling. He knows everything there is to know about me. He can just pop into my life whenever he wants.”

  “He’s obsessed with you.”

  “So why not use that to get him?”

  “The answer is no. You’re not a cop. You’re not trained in undercover work. You’re not setting yourself up to tempt a vicious killer. End of argument.”

  “But—”

  “There are no buts, Caroline. You try anything that puts you in danger, and I’ll lock you behind bars.”

  “You can’t arrest me without grounds.”

  “Try me.”

  “So you’re just going to wait around doing nothing? Even if Trudy’s lead works into an eventual arrest, that will take time. And time can mean another life.”

  “We’re not just waiting around.”

  “No, you’re out here shooting at paper dolls in the middle of the afternoon. What do you call that?”

  “Letting off steam so I don’t shoot women reporters.”

  Her pulse skyrocketed in anger. How could she have possibly been even the slightest bit attracted to him? She turned and stormed away, hoping she didn’t get lost finding her way back to the car. The last thing she needed was to have to yell for his help.

  She didn’t have to yell for help, but she obviously didn’t go the shortest route. By the time she reached her car, Sam was standing by his with the passenger door open.

  “Get in,” he ordered.

  “You can’t tell me what to do, Sam Turner.”

  “Get in, please. And hurry.”

  “Why should I?”

  “I just got a call. There’s an emergency on Finnegan Road.”

  The dread took over again, suffocating t
o the point it hurt to breathe. “Not Trudy. Please tell me this is not about Trudy.”

  “She’s been in a car wreck.”

  “She’s not…” Dead. The word was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t say it out loud.

  “No, she’s not dead. But she rolled the car several times and landed at the bottom of a hill. There’s a cop with her now. He’s not sure of the extent of her injuries.”

  “Thanks for waiting for me.”

  “I had to wait. She’s asking for you.”

  TONY SISTRUNK sat in his office in San Antonio, Texas, mulling over the news that had just landed on his desk and wondering if he should try to get in touch with Sam Turner. He sure didn’t want to.

  Sam had moved back to Georgia to escape his life here. The news would not only bring it all back, it would piss him off big time. Sam had risked his life to get R. J. Blocker off the streets. Now R.J. was free again, because some appeals judge who didn’t know the name of the game much less the score had declared him free on a technicality.

  That was the way things worked. Cops risked their lives apprehending the bad guys. Judges came along and ruled it all null and void due to some tiny legal mistake that didn’t amount to squat.

  R.J. wouldn’t come back to a town where he’d killed a cop. Even he wasn’t that crazy. But he might be nuts enough to go looking for Sam.

  So, as much as he hated to hit Sam with this when he had his hands full with a serial killer, Tony had best warn him that more trouble could be heading his way.

  Sometimes life just plain sucked.

  Chapter Seven

  Caroline climbed into Sam’s car, sure that Trudy’s crash had not been an accident. Somehow the killer must have found out that Trudy had talked to her and he’d taken action. He couldn’t have been in the restaurant. If he had been, Trudy would have known, and as frightened as she was, she’d never have talked to Caroline.

  But he could have spies. She thought back to the people who’d been in the Catfish Shack. No one had looked suspicious. But somehow the man had found out Trudy had talked, which meant that the guy Trudy had described must be the killer. She’d point that out to Sam if she ever got the chance.