A cruel smile curved his lips. “Does that trouble you?”
“Yes.”
His mocking expression faltered, as if he was caught off guard by her genuine sympathy.
“I haven’t gotten to the true torture,” he told her. “It’s the waiting. The cowering in the dark as you listen to the screams from the next room. The suffocating fear as you hear the footsteps coming closer and closer to the bed. The pleading for mercy that falls on deaf ears.”
There was a chilling intensity in his voice. “Did you—”
“Shh.” He snapped his fingers, his jaw tightening. “We’re talking about Carl.”
She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. It didn’t ease her panic, but it helped her to focus. Obviously, it was important she separate Carl from Parker. Deadly important.
“Did Carl escape his torture?” she asked.
His smooth composure returned as he resumed his pacing. “One night a brave lawman put a bullet through the heart of the monster.”
Her breath was slowly squeezed from her lungs. “Rudolf?”
“Yes. He was Carl’s hero.”
Lynne struggled to work through exactly what Parker was telling her. As far as she knew, Rudolf had only shot one man during his years as sheriff.
Delbert Frey.
So that meant Parker Bowen must be his son, Carl Frey. And he obviously grew up in Pike. Had they gone to school together? The name didn’t ring any bells, but then the combination of the lingering sedative and sheer terror wasn’t helping conjure up her childhood memories.
It also meant Kir had been right. His father was at the center of the killer’s obsession.
“What did Carl do after . . .” She hesitated, unsure if his father’s name might trigger Parker into violence. “The monster was dead?”
“He foolishly thought life would be better.” He reached the edge of the pool of light and smoothly turned to retrace his steps. “And it was. For a couple years.”
Lynne scooted another inch. Didn’t dare look over her shoulder, but she could feel a breeze on her nape. There had to be an opening somewhere back there. “Then what happened?”
“A new monster appeared. Along with the screams.” Parker’s expression remained coolly composed, but his hands clenched into tight fists. “Those endless screams. That’s when Carl realized the truth.”
“What truth?”
“There was only way to get rid of the monsters.”
“How?”
He sent her a startled glance, as if he couldn’t believe she was so stupid. “Stop the screams, obviously.”
“Carl’s mother?” Lynne croaked.
“Exactly.” He drew his thumb across the front of his throat. “A quick slice across the carotid arteries and there was nothing but blissful silence.”
Lynne’s blood ran cold. Merrill Frey hadn’t been murdered by her new husband, but by her own son. The betrayal must have been staggering for the poor woman.
“You . . .” Lynne forced back the words at the dangerous glimmer in the gray eyes. “I mean, Carl murdered his mother?”
“No, he put her out of her misery.” He pointed a finger at her. “Like you do when you have a sick dog. It’s called mercy.”
Lynne winced. It was the toughest part of her job, and a decision she never made without regret. To be compared to a ruthless killer was enough to make her stomach twist in horror.
“Carl’s mother was a victim,” she insisted.
“By choice,” Parker spat out. “It could have been her and her son. Together. No pain. No fear. No screams.” He made a sound of disgust. “But she was too stupid. She had to be silenced.”
Lynne’s mouth was dry, her mind stuck on the image of Merrill Frey lying in the snow with her throat slit open. No one deserved such a fate. No one.
She resisted the urge to ask what happened to Ernie Rucker. Right now Parker was enjoying the limelight. If he thought she was distracted by other actors in his melodrama, he might decide to end the performance. “Where did Carl go?”
“To his aunt in Madison,” Parker answered.
“Was he happy?”
He mulled over the question, as if he’d never considered whether he’d been happy. “She was a decent woman who tried to help,” he at last conceded. “But Carl was damaged. Like Humpty-Dumpty who couldn’t be put back together again.” He came to a sudden halt, studying her with a curious gaze. “Have you been to therapy?”
Lynne paused. Was this a trick question? “No.”
“Carl went to a place for troubled teens,” he told her, his gaze lifting to study the light overhead. “It’s odd. Kids who’ve been brutalized can be sorted into three categories.”
“Categories?” Lynne said, using his distraction to scoot farther away.
“Yes. There were the angry kids. The ones who used their pain as an excuse to spew hate and violence toward everyone around them. They thought they were so tough, but actually they were just boring. Like an endless cliché.” He curled his lips in disgust before continuing. “The second category were the suck-ups. The ones who thought that if they were good enough, they would eventually be loved. They were even more boring.” He made smooching noises. “Always looking for an ass to kiss.”
“And Carl?”
“He was the third category.” He smoothed a hand down his expensive coat, an odd, wistful expression softening his features. “On the outside he seemed fine. He was no longer the timid mouse. Now he was charming, good-looking, even popular. Other kids wanted to be like him. But inside. . .”
“He was broken,” she finished for him.
“Yes.”
She licked her dry lips. “It wasn’t his fault.”
The hardness returned to his face. “You’re damned right it wasn’t his fault. Which was why those responsible had to be punished.”
* * *
Kir shivered as he stood in his father’s favorite fishing spot next to the lake. He didn’t know why he was there. He’d driven the route that Rudolf always took to the farm, hoping to see something that would spark his imagination. So far he’d accomplished nothing more than wasting his time. If his father had seen something that had given him a clue to the killer, or had made him fear for his life, Kir wasn’t seeing it.
Just the same stretch of empty highway followed by remote roads and snowy fields he’d seen hundreds of times before.
“Talk to me, Dad,” he muttered in a harsh voice. “Tell me what you would have said if I hadn’t been too stupid to listen.”
The whistle of the wind and the cry of a nearby crow were his only answer.
Glancing toward the ridge where the house had once stood, he allowed his gaze to trace the hillside down to the frozen lake. Then he studied the line of pine trees in the distance. He was just turning away when he noticed the radar towers of the air base etched against the blue sky. And something else. The outline of a truck parked in the vast, empty lot. Why would someone be there? The place had been shut down for years. Plus the government had big signs posted that it was off-limits. Not that the warnings had stopped him when he was a teenager.
Kir narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the details of the vehicle. It was definitely a pickup. And even at a distance he was guessing it was a dark color. Black or navy or . . . red.
Just like Lynne’s.
Muttering a string of curses, Kir whirled around and battled his way through the snow to where he’d left his SUV.
He’d had the answer the minute the pastor had told him his father had been fishing at his little slice of heaven. What else was out here to see except the old air base?
Now he could only hope his inability to recognize a clue beneath his very nose hadn’t made him too late. If something happened to Lynne, he would never forgive himself.
Chapter 30
Lynne pressed her hands flat against the cement, preparing to shove herself upright as fury darkened Parker’s eyes. Obviously, she’d made a mistake to remind him of how hel
pless he’d been as a child. But then again, he was crazy. She was fairly certain that every subject had the potential to set him off.
Besides, her attempts to pacify him weren’t offering her an opportunity to escape. Maybe if she rattled him, it would . . .
Well, she didn’t know what. But the longer she sat on the frozen floor, the more likely her legs were going to go back to sleep.
“When did Carl become Parker Bowen?”
He stiffened, and for a heart-thumping second she was terrified she’d pushed too hard. Parker had clearly managed to separate the child he’d been from the man he’d become. Not a split personality. But an indestructible barrier that kept him from drowning in the pain of his past.
She wanted him rattled, not ballistic.
His nose flared, as if he was sucking in a deep breath, then he surprisingly forced himself to answer her question. “When I went to college. My middle name was Parker, and Mother’s maiden name was Bowen, so it was easy enough to get it legally changed.”
“You started a new life?”
“That was the plan.”
She studied his finely chiseled features and glossy dark hair. On the surface he looked so normal. Not that she expected the killer to creep around in a black cloak and hockey mask. But surely such evil should have left some mark on the surface?
“Something went wrong?”
He slowly nodded, his eyes distant as if he was recalling the moment he’d decided to become a serial killer. “It started with the dreams.”
“About the monster?”
He sliced his hand through the air in a gesture of denial. “No. He’s dead and gone. He never enters my thoughts.”
“What were your dreams?”
“The blood in the snow.”
A sharp shiver raced through Lynne. Not just from his whispered words, but the image that formed in her mind.
A terrified woman whose life had been shaped and ended by violence.
She struggled to speak. “Your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Did you regret what you did to her?”
He jerked his head toward her, seemingly astonished by her question. “Regret? No. I . . .”
“You what?”
A strange, taunting smile curved his lips. “I fantasized about doing it again.”
Revulsion rolled through her with a physical force. “Oh.”
He turned to fully reveal the sick pleasure that made his face glow beneath the fluorescent light. Suddenly the evil was all too easy to see.
“It was so beautiful. Her naked body lying beneath the moonlight, the dark pool of blood staining the snow.”
“Beautiful?” she choked out.
“I wanted to see it again, but at that point in my life I still hoped I could be normal.” The glow dimmed, his lips pursing. “So I had to purge my dark desires.”
Lynne scooted back another inch. She was almost at the edge of the pool of light. “What does purge mean?”
He waved his hand in a broad gesture, returning to his flourishing gestures of a man onstage. “Rather than performing the deliciously evil deeds that filled my dreams, I wrote them down in letters.”
Lynne didn’t have to guess where he’d sent those letters. “Rudolf.”
“Yes.”
Pity for Kir’s father tugged at Lynne’s heart. The older man had not only been forced to leave the job he loved after putting his life on the line to protect the citizens of Pike, but he’d gone into a deep depression that had only been aggravated by the taunting letters from a madman. It was a blunt reminder that life was rarely fair. “Why him?”
He arched a brow at the edge of anger in her voice. “He was my savior. The only person who’d battled my demons.”
“And you rewarded him with evil letters?”
Parker snapped his brows together, predictably offended by her barely hidden scorn. “He was the sort of man who took pride in helping those in need, wasn’t he?”
Lynne clenched her teeth. She had to be careful. After all, the letters Parker had sent to Rudolf had been the least of his crimes. “I suppose,” she murmured.
“Besides, he had his own demons.” Parker shrugged with blatant indifference. “Who better to understand mine?”
Accepting that the man had no ability to feel remorse for the pain he caused, Lynne asked the question that had been niggling since he’d told her he’d gone to live with his aunt in Madison. “Why did you come back to Pike?”
“This is my home.”
She didn’t remind him that this was where his father had been shot and killed. Not exactly the childhood trauma most people would want to relive. “That’s the only reason?”
He sent her a sly glance, wagging his finger in her direction. “It’s what I told myself. Although deep in my heart I already knew what was going to happen.”
“You came back for revenge.”
The white teeth flashed in response to her accusation. “Sweet, sweet revenge.”
Lynne stopped trying to inch away. Instead she clenched her muscles, preparing to shove herself to her feet. There was a strange tingling in the air that warned her Parker was spiraling toward a meltdown.
“You killed Sherry because she evicted your family out of your trailer?” she asked, desperately trying to keep him focused on anything but her.
“How did . . .” He bit off his startled words, his eyes boring into her with dangerous intensity. “Have you been snooping on me, darling Lynne?”
Feeling like a deer in the headlights, Lynne tried to remain perfectly still. “A lucky guess,” she lied.
“Doubtful. You’re such a clever girl.” He shoved his hand in the deep pockets of his coat, continuing to watch her with that unwavering gaze. “But, however you discovered we’d been kicked out of our home, that’s not the reason I killed Sherry.”
“It wasn’t?” The words came out in a hoarse rasp.
His sharp crack of laughter echoed through the empty space. “No, we’d been kicked out of a dozen places. Either because we couldn’t pay the rent, or more often because my father was fighting with the neighbors.”
Lynne frowned in genuine confusion. “Then why?”
“Because she laughed,” Parker said, his expression flinty. “As if it was some great joke that a child was being tossed out like trash.” His jaw tightened. “She wasn’t laughing when I stood over her and sliced her throat open.”
Nausea rolled through Lynne’s stomach, but she grimly hid her reaction. She wouldn’t give the man the pleasure of seeing her revulsion.
“And Randi?”
Parker shrugged. “She used to babysit me. Or actually, she pretended to babysit. As soon as my mom walked out of the house, she would lock me in my bedroom so she could have sex with her boyfriend.” Parker visibly shuddered in disgust at the memory. “I’d hear them in the living room, grunting and groaning while I was caged like an animal. I spent my time fantasizing about picking the lock of my bedroom door so I could get out and use my baseball bat to bash their heads in. That would have stopped the grunting.”
“And Ms. Randall?”
“She knew.”
“Knew what?”
He took a step toward her and Lynne swallowed her scream of frustration. He’d just erased the small amount of space she’d managed to put between them.
“The dried-up bitch knew I was being abused and she did everything in her power to make it worse,” he hissed. “At least once a week she would send home bad reports or keep me after school for some minor mistake to make sure I would be beaten.”
Lynne parted her lips in disbelief. “Surely she didn’t realize—”
“She saw the bruises, but she just kept doing it.” He cut through her protest with an icy fury. “As if she took pleasure in knowing she was causing me pain.”
Lynne quickly nodded. Not just to pacify Parker. The truth was that she couldn’t be sure the older woman hadn’t taken some perverse pleasure in knowing she was condemning a little bo
y to violent beatings. Ms. Randall had a mean streak that had made her classroom a misery for all the kids unfortunate enough to have her as a teacher.
“What about Nash?” She asked the question that had been nagging at her since she’d realized the killer was Parker Bowen.
“Ah, Nash.” There was an ugly edge in his voice. “The great Nash Cordon. Star football player. Local golden boy. I hated him.”
“Why?”
“Do you remember me?”
“What?”
“It’s a simple question.” The words were snapped out, hitting Lynne like the crack of a whip. “Do you remember me?”
Her mouth went dry. Did she lie? It obviously was important to Parker. But then again, he might be laying a trap. What if she said yes and he started quizzing her on the past?
At last she went with the easiest answer. “No, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you.”
“Of course not.” A darkness flared in the depths of the gray eyes. “I was the mouse. The shadow in the corner.”
“It wasn’t you,” she hurriedly protested. “I didn’t pay attention to anyone. I had a few friends who I would hang out with, but my mother wasn’t around so I never had birthday parties or sleepovers. I didn’t really fit in.”
He slowly nodded. “Yes, you were different from the others.”
“Were you in my class?” she demanded, scrambling through her memories for any hint of a Carl Frey.
There was nothing. He truly had been a shadow.
“Two years back.” He shrugged. “At least when I was allowed to go to school. My mom would yank me out and pretend I was being homeschooled whenever my father was at his most violent. I think she was afraid someone might call the authorities and have me taken away. She didn’t have to worry. No one made the call.” A flush was crawling beneath his skin, as if he was beginning to lose control of his emotions. “And after we were kicked out of the trailer park, we moved to a cabin outside town. It made it even easier for my mom to find excuses not to take me to school.”
Lynne didn’t allow herself to think of the horrors he must have endured as a child. He’d grown up to become a monster. Once she assumed had brought her to this remote location to slit her throat and dump her body in the snow. Her only emotion should be determination to escape.
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