Left to Die

by Rita Herron

  The car suddenly veered around her. She pressed the brake, preparing to pull over. She was armed, but she didn’t intend to shoot a cop.

  Instead, though, the officer sped up and shot past her at lightning speed, disappearing around the curve ahead.

  Relief whooshed through her chest. She’d lucked out twice now. Her luck wouldn’t last forever.

  She couldn’t keep running, either. But before she saw Fletch again or turned herself in, she wanted to be able to tell him the truth. Everything.

  After he’d protected her and saved her life, he deserved it.

  Anxious to get this over with, she sped up slightly, maneuvering the curvy road. She passed the cactus rock formation with a shiver.

  Why had Halls had that photograph of her and her husband in his briefcase where he kept his files on divorce cases?

  The old truck bounced over ruts in the road as she veered down the dirt road to the cabin. The shadows in the trees looked ominous as she drove beneath the canopy of oaks with moss dripping down like dead snakes hanging from the branches. The truck’s tires churned through the soggy, snowy ground, sucking at the wet mud and rocks.

  Hopefully Halls was long gone, and she’d have time to explore the inside of the cabin alone. A tree branch snapped off under the weight of the melting snow and struck her windshield, and she startled and swerved off the road.

  The truck’s front rammed into the ditch, and the tires churned at the soggy ground. She flew forward, hands clenching the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip to brace herself. The steering wheel snapped tight, nearly choking her as the truck lurched to a dead stop.

  She pounded the steering wheel, then shifted the truck into Reverse to back up. But mud and gravel spewed as the truck ground itself deeper into the muddy mess.

  Realizing she was only making matters worse, Jane cut the engine and leaned her head against the steering wheel to calm herself. She wasn’t that far from the cabin.

  She’d walk the rest of the way. God knows, she’d hiked her share the past few days. What was another mile or two?

  Resigned, she snagged Fletch’s gun, tucked it into her jacket pocket, then slid from the pickup. Her boots sucked at the slush, but she climbed back onto the dirt road and began to walk. Sunshine tried to steal its way through the spiny branches of the trees and failed, adding a chill to the air.

  Limbs cracked and twigs snapped from the tree branches as she wove around the narrow, winding road. Somewhere in the distance, an animal howled, and a dog barked. Squirrels scampered up the trees and dug in the snow for food. A deer darted past in the woods, startling her, and she automatically put her hand in her pocket to access the gun.

  A mile through the forest, and she was almost there. She saw the house on the hill. She froze as she neared, scanning the property for a car in case Halls was there.

  The driveway was empty. So was the area to the side of the house.

  Breathing easier, she rounded the last curve into the clearing where the house sat. She studied it, hoping for something in her mind to click. The cabin seemed familiar.

  Except the house she remembered being at with the man with the tattoo was in a neighborhood. She’d seen other couples, the grill firing up, wine floating...

  She had not lived here. That realization was so strong that she forged ahead. If she hadn’t shared this house with her husband, why had Halls brought her here and told her she had?

  Because something bad had happened here.

  Bracing herself for whatever might happen, she took a deep breath and walked up the hill toward the cabin. The house had a chimney. In her mind, she saw a fire burning inside the fireplace.

  It seemed cozy. No, not cozy. All wrong.

  Heart racing, she passed a wooden wagon that must have been used to house a flower bed, because weeds had overtaken it.

  She’d done this before. Walked up to this cabin, knowing something was wrong.

  A face appeared in the shadows of her mind. A man’s. The man with the tattoo.

  Then a voice behind them. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Jane froze as something hard jabbed her lower back.

  The voice in her mind. It was the same one speaking now. “I knew you’d come back here. I’ve just been waiting until you showed.”

  Images of being shoved in the house at gunpoint blended with reality as the man pushed her up the steps to the porch door.

  Chapter Twenty

  “She ran, didn’t she?” Jacob asked.

  Fletch wanted to defend Jane, but the answer to his brother’s question was obvious. “She went searching for the truth. I told you she saved my life.”

  “By shooting a man,” Jacob interjected.

  Fletch shrugged. “In self-defense.”

  “She can’t get very far on foot,” Jacob said. “Which means she may be looking for a car to steal.” He snatched his phone. “I’ll see if there have been any reports in the last hour.” Jacob stepped into the den, then outside on the back deck.

  Liam scowled at Fletch. “You mentioned those couples in Jane’s nightmare. I want to check something. Your laptop in the den?”

  Fletch nodded and motioned for Liam to follow him. He’d left his computer on the small desk in the corner. He retrieved it and carried it to the breakfast bar. While Liam connected to the FBI’s database, Fletch brewed another pot of coffee and handed his brother a mug.

  Jacob joined them a minute later with a grim look. “Nothing so far. But Deputy Rowan said he’d let me know if anything comes in.”

  Fletch watched as several pictures appeared on the computer screen. Three different couples, dead, blood pooling around their lifeless bodies.

  “This first couple, Deidre and Arnie Richter lived outside Asheville,” Liam said. “At first, police thought it was a murder suicide. Wife’s throat was slit. Husband died of a gunshot wound to the chest. From interviewing neighbors, we learned the couple was having marital problems. Wife cheated on husband. We suspected he killed her and then turned the weapon on himself.”

  “Is that what happened?” Fletch asked.

  “I’ll get to that. But one point that stuck out was that the letter C was carved in the palm of the woman’s hand. Police speculated C for cheater.” Liam sighed. “There’s more.” He scrolled to another set of crime photos. A redheaded woman sprawled on the bed with blood sprayed across the white comforter. A dark-haired man slumped in the chair beside the bed, his body limp, blood soaking his shirt from a gunshot wound to the chest.

  “This is Renee and William Purdue,” Liam said. “Similar story. Marriage in trouble. Woman was seeing the husband’s best friend on the side.” Liam zeroed in on a close-up shot of the woman’s hand. “The letter C on her hand exactly like the first female victim.” Liam looked up at them. “This is when we realized there might be a pattern, that the murder/suicide theory on couple number one might be off base.”

  “Or the second murders could have been a copycat of the first,” Jacob suggested.

  “We considered that.” Liam scrolled to a third couple. “But meet Bailey and Jim Hearst.”

  “The same MO,” Jacob said.

  Liam clicked his mouth. “Exactly. Which suggests that—”

  “There’s a serial killer murdering couples,” Fletch finished.

  “That’s our theory now,” Liam said. “So far the press hasn’t gotten hold of this, but we’ve dubbed him the CK, couples killer.”

  “Do you think Jane witnessed one of these murders?” Fletch asked. “Or that she knows who the CK is?”

  “Considering what you told me about the images of dead couples she remembered, that’s a possibility. Or—” he hesitated “—perhaps she and her husband were having marital problems and the CK tried to kill them, but Jane escaped.”

  Fletch couldn’t imagine Jane as the type of woman to ch
eat on her husband. “If that’s true, why didn’t he slit her throat the way he did the other women, when he carried her into the woods?”

  “Good point.” Liam’s phone buzzed. “The lab.” He connected the call and stepped to the deck again.

  Jacob was studying him with a pensive expression. “You really like this woman, don’t you?”

  Fletch shifted. “I just don’t want to see her get hurt.”

  “Be careful, bro. She may not be the person you think she is.”

  “So you’ve told me.” Fletch tightened his jaw. How could he argue when there were so many unknowns?

  Liam’s boots pounded on the floor as he strode back inside. “Talked to the Federal Marshals.”

  Jacob folded his arms. “And?”

  “Jane’s not in WITSEC. In fact, it looks like we were wrong about everything about her.”

  Fletch’s stomach knotted. So who was Jane?

  * * *

  JANE TENSED, grinding her teeth as Halls shoved her up the steps. Her right hand slid to her pocket to retrieve Fletch’s gun, but Halls’s sardonic laugh sliced through the air.

  “Not going to happen.” Instead he jerked her arm out of the way, reached inside and withdrew the weapon.

  She silently cursed herself for walking into an ambush. He pushed her forward so hard she had to grab the doorjamb to keep from hitting the floor on her knees.

  “I thought your amnesia was a blessing and decided I might just let you live, but then you hooked up with that damn cop’s brother, and I knew it was only a matter of time before you figured out the truth.”

  Only she hadn’t.

  She scanned the property as she stumbled toward the front door. The area was surrounded by thick, tall trees. Shadows clung to the walls of the dark interior as she entered. She stumbled, the room swaying as the scent of blood and death assaulted her.

  Foul odors wafted from the hallway to the right. She rounded the corner and saw the fireplace.

  But her vision blurred and she saw blood spatter dotting the stone.

  Then blood spatter on the floor and walls, on her hands and clothes.

  She slowly pivoted to stare at him. “You killed him.”

  “Yes, Jade, I had to. The two of you were getting too close to the truth.”

  Jade, not Jane? Reality hacked at the frayed edges of her mind. Jade...that was her name.

  Jade Jenkins.

  Her husband’s face looked back at her, ghostlike and eerie.

  She saw him sliding the wedding ring on her finger, their heads bent in hushed whispers as they made plans.

  They were in an office with a whiteboard on the wall. A whiteboard full of pictures of dead people. Three different married couples, the women’s throats brutally slashed, pale skin bloody, eyes wide open in the shock of death.

  Then the men, their husbands. In close proximity to the women’s bodies, as if they’d been staged. A female hand reaching for help from her loved one. Or vice versa.

  But their hands couldn’t touch. The letter C was carved on the women’s palms. Symbolic.

  A gaping hole in the men’s chests, blood-soaked shirts shredded by the impact of the bullet.

  Three murders with the same MO. A serial killer was targeting couples. They’d dubbed him the CK, couples killer.

  He had to be stopped before he took more lives.

  She and Louie hadn’t been married. She was a detective and Louie was her partner. They’d gone undercover as husband and wife to sniff out the killer.

  The cookout in the neighborhood, the wine and her interior design business—all part of the undercover story. She’d chosen that career because her mother was a designer and she knew enough about the business and lingo to fake it.

  The neighborhood had been in the targeted area. She and Louie infiltrated the close-knit group because they suspected the CK was friends with at least one of the couples.

  That they’d met him when seeking a divorce attorney.

  She and Louie were onto him. And when he’d invited them to his house to discuss their proposed divorce, they’d come. Prepared. At least they thought they were.

  But Halls had made them for cops. They’d barely walked through the door when he slammed the butt of his gun against her temple. She’d swayed and stars danced behind her eyes as she grappled for control.

  Low, muffled voices echoed through the fog... Louie’s. Halls’s.

  Halls had slashed the women’s throats while the husbands watched as a form of punishment.

  Jade struggled to reach her weapon, but Louie opened fire on Halls. Halls ducked aside and fired, shooting Louie in the heart. Blood gushed from his chest, and his body bounced backward. His gun hit the floor. She scrambled on her hands and knees to reach it. She picked it up to shoot Halls, but he grabbed her hair and jerked her head backward. Then the knife...the sharp blade coming toward her.

  She threw her arm up to deflect the blade, but Halls bellowed, jammed the knife in his pocket and used the gun instead. This time the blow was so hard and swift and violent that the world tilted and went dark.

  Sometime later, she came to and found herself in a dark cave. She was tied and gagged. It was pitch-dark, and snow was falling. Then she heard footsteps. She struggled to untie herself. Had to hurry. Finally the knot slipped free. She lurched up to run, had to get away from him.

  He hadn’t slit her throat and left her with Louie because he didn’t want their deaths to be labeled CK kills. But he was going to kill her. Out here in the middle of nowhere, where the animals could ravage her body and destroy any evidence he might have left.

  * * *

  SHE BLINKED BACK into focus. Woodruff Halls, attorney at law.

  “You are the CK,” she said. “My partner and I figured it out.”

  Halls was a chameleon. His handsome, polished smile could be charming at times. But he morphed into a demented monster in a flash. His skin looked sallow and his eyes bulged, creating deep, dark ugly pockets.

  “Yes,” he said in a menacing tone, “and this time you’re going to die, and no one will ever find you.”

  * * *

  FLETCH SHIFTED ONTO the balls of his feet. “Don’t drag it out, Liam. Who is she?”

  “Detective Jade Jenkins,” Liam said.

  “Jane is a police officer?” Fletch’s mind raced. Her ability to fight, shoot...it made sense.

  “That’s right,” Liam replied. “She and her partner Detective Louie Germaine were working the couples killer case. I spoke to her commander myself. According to him, Detective Jenkins and Detective Germaine went undercover as a married couple named Bianca and Victor Renard to trap the CK.”

  “That’s the reason they didn’t show up in WITSEC,” Jacob said.

  “And the reason for the fake identities and story about the real estate agency,” Fletch added.

  Liam nodded. “Acting as a real estate agency with interior design services allowed them access to people’s homes where they could meet the neighbors and couples in the community.”

  Liam’s news echoed in Fletch’s ears. Jane and her partner went undercover. She was never married. Never married...

  “Her partner was killed?” Fletch asked.

  “Yes, shot in the chest like the other male victims of the CK. My guess is Jade and Germaine determined the killer’s identity, and he realized they were onto him, so he had to shut them up.”

  “So he shoots the male partner and takes Jade into the woods to kill her,” Jacob filled in. “Leaving her with her partner and using the same MO would have pointed to the CK.”

  “Instead, he planned to frame Jane, I mean Jade, for her partner’s death,” Fletch said.

  Jacob crossed his arms. “Then he used Officer Clemmens to plant evidence and lead us astray.”

  “Dammit, and I let her leave with Halls that da
y,” Jacob muttered.

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” Liam said. “Halls looked legit. But one of our techs dug deeper into the lawyer. He and his wife divorced about six weeks ago.”

  Jacob’s brows shot up. “About the same time as the CK started?”

  “Exactly,” Liam said. “We’re obtaining search warrants for his home and office.”

  “You think Halls is the CK?” Fletch asked, piecing everything together.

  “Everything’s pointing that way.” Liam jangled his keys. “I’m going to his home to search.” He gave Jacob a pointed look. “It’ll be faster if we divide up. You take his office.”

  “Will do.”

  “Damn, Halls might already have Jade, and he’s hell bent on silencing her.” Fletch stepped forward to follow Liam.

  “Then stay here in case she calls you or comes back,” Jacob said.

  Fletch scrubbed his hand over his face, panic threatening. “I can’t lose her,” he muttered before he even realized what he’d said.

  “Then let us do our jobs,” Liam said quietly. “We’ll find her, Fletch.”

  He hoped to hell Liam was right. “At least leave the files open about the case. I’ll search through them and see if anything sticks out. Maybe another property Halls owns, some place he might take Jade.”

  He ushered his brothers out the door. They had to hurry.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Fletch pulled up everything he could find on Detective Jade Jenkins from the databases Liam had accessed on his computer.

  Jade was thirty-two years old, had studied criminology and behavioral science before attending the police academy. She worked as a beat cop in Asheville for four years before becoming a detective, first in the robbery unit, then homicide.

  The photograph of her receiving a commendation for saving a child from a cold-blooded killer, aka the child’s father, stirred his admiration.

  He had been right about her. Jade wasn’t a killer. She risked her life to save others on a daily basis.