by Cynthia Eden
Just like Mercer?
“He had others do the bloody work for him,” Aaron said. His hands were loose at his sides.
“Yes.” Noelle licked her lips. “If the earlier abductions all matched up with the senator’s ports, then Duncan probably knew the killer. He knew what he was doing.”
Of course, the senator wouldn’t have stopped the killer.
“I was looking at it all wrong.” Noelle kept pacing. “I thought the pictures we discovered at the senator’s place were trophies. Mementos to remind Duncan of the victims, but they weren’t.”
“So what the hell were they?” Aaron asked. His blue eyes were narrowed and his jaw was locked.
Noelle stopped pacing. “They were blackmail material. He knew the killer’s identity, and Duncan used those images to get the killer to do his dirty work.”
“Like an attack dog on a leash.” Thomas saw the situation perfectly now. “But if that’s true, then something in those photos should tell us our killer’s identity.”
Mercer nodded. “And that’s where Noelle comes in.” He advanced toward her. “You’re the one who can figure this one out. You’re the one who can put the pieces of this puzzle together and help us determine just who this sick bozo is before he has the chance to hurt anyone else.”
* * *
HE WAS STILL bleeding and he was getting weaker by the moment. The bullet was lodged in him. He had to get it out, but every time he tried to get a hold on the thing, he just made the wound bigger. Deeper.
The snowplows were out, clearing the little town of Camden. He was in the shadows because that was his custom. He’d spent most of his life hiding, one way or another.
When you had a monster inside, you had to be careful. If the world saw you for what you really were, they’d destroy you.
His father had told him that. His father had seen him for exactly what he was. His old man had hoped the military would change him. Focus him. And, in a way, it had.
Because in the navy, he’d met Lawrence Duncan.
He watched as a bundled woman made her way to the small pharmacy in town. Figured that place would open first.
He would’ve preferred to find a veterinarian or some kind of doc, but the pharmacy tech would have to do. There wasn’t anyone else who could help him, not now.
He made his way across the street. Saw the blood that dripped from him and splattered down in the snow. He should clean up his trail. But...
Too weak.
He pushed open the pharmacy door. The lights weren’t on. Power wasn’t back on in the town. He’d tried to use a phone before, but he hadn’t been able to connect. The storm had knocked all communication down.
“We’re not quite open yet!” A cheery voice called out. “Give me just a few minutes, and I’ll help you.”
He pulled his knife from its sheath. He walked down the narrow aisle. Saw the woman as she shrugged out of her coat. She was built like Noelle, long, slender, almost delicate lines. But her hair was a dark black, not a red.
“Be with you soon!” She said, not glancing back.
Her mistake.
He grabbed her and put the knife to her throat as he jerked her back against his chest. “You’ll be with me right now.” He had a ski mask over his face, so he twisted her around toward him, all the while keeping that knife right at her throat.
“Please...” she whispered.
He shook his head. “I’m not planning to kill you.” Not yet, anyway. “Because you’re going to help me, aren’t you?”
The knife cut into her neck.
And she nodded.
* * *
“JENNY...” NOELLE KEPT her voice low and gentle. She didn’t want to upset Jenny. The girl had already been through enough.
She was at Jenny’s house. Jenny’s mother was behind the girl, pacing nervously, and the sheriff watched from a position near the door.
“We need to take her over to Harrison County Medical,” the sheriff said, voice tight. “Get her thoroughly checked out and—”
“No!” Jenny’s desperate cry seemed to echo in Noelle’s ears. Jenny glanced over her shoulder. “Mom, you promised I wouldn’t have to go anywhere! I don’t want— I need to stay here!”
Jenny’s mother caught her daughter’s hand and held tight. “You’re not going anywhere.”
The sheriff growled.
Noelle squared her shoulders. “I know the officers collected your clothing last night.”
“Evidence,” Jenny whispered as her gaze dropped down to her lap. “They said it was evidence. They—they sent me back home in borrowed clothes this morning.”
Noelle glanced toward Jenny’s mother.
“The storm trapped us at the sheriff’s station. That’s as far as the ambulance could get in that weather.” Her gaze cut to Hodges. “But my girl is fine now. She doesn’t need a hospital.” Her breath heaved out as she pointed at the sheriff. “And he asked us questions all night, so I don’t see why we have to answer any more now!”
“I promise, this won’t take long.” Noelle saw Jenny flinch. She wanted to reach out and touch the girl, offer comfort, but Jenny seemed frozen before her. “I need you to describe the man who took you.”
“I did already!” Jenny’s voice broke a bit. “I told the sheriff...he was tall, wide shoulders. He had dark hair and stubble on his face.”
“Caucasian, African-American—”
“Caucasian,” Jenny whispered.
“Were there any marks on his face? Any scars or tattoos that you noticed?”
Jenny shook her head.
“What about his eyes? What color were they?”
“Brown. I think they were brown.”
“Good, Jenny. You’re doing really, really well.” Noelle knew interrogations with victims had to be handled carefully. If you pushed too hard, victims could break. If you didn’t push hard enough, they might not be able to tell important details. “When he spoke to you, did the man have any accent?”
Another shake of Jenny’s head was her answer.
Okay. Time to try a different tactic because, unfortunately, the man Jenny had just described could be anyone. “When we found you in the cabin, you were screaming.”
A tear leaked down Jenny’s cheek. “He told me that I had to scream.”
“Because he wanted—”
“He wanted you to die.” Jenny glanced up at her. “You’re Noelle, and he said you had to die.”
Chill bumps rose on Noelle’s skin. “He mentioned me by name?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“I wasn’t...good enough. But you—you would be more fun. So I had to scream so he could see you. He said...he said he just wanted to see you.”
No, he’d wanted to kill her. He’d wanted to kill them all.
“He told me that he liked to see his girls.”
The photos. “Did he take any pictures of you while you were in that cabin?”
“Yes.” Shame burned in that word. “I was crying and begging him, and he was taking my picture. He was...filming me with his phone.”
Because the sicko didn’t use a Polaroid any longer, but he still needed the memories of his victims.
“This is very important.” Noelle leaned toward Jenny. “Did you ever hear him talking with anyone else? Did you see anyone else with him?”
Jenny bit her lower lip. “I don’t...I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure, Jenny?” Because the man had worked with a partner years before. Maybe he was up to his old tricks. Two hunters.
A game? A competition?
“I only heard him. No one else.”
Noelle smiled at her. “Thank you, Jenny. You’ve been very helpful.” She rose from the couch and t
urned for the door.
Jenny grabbed her hand. “When am I going to stop seeing him?”
Noelle stilled. Then, slowly, her gaze slid to find Jenny’s.
“Every time I close my eyes, he’s there.” Jenny swallowed and the little click of sound was almost painful to hear. “When will that stop? When will he get out of my mind?”
“When I catch him and lock him in a cell. Then you won’t ever have to worry about seeing him again.”
Jenny nodded and she let go of Noelle.
“Thank you for your time.” Noelle inclined her head to Jenny and Jenny’s mother. Then she left because looking at Jenny was far too much like looking at herself.
The sheriff followed her out. Noelle had been given a new coat from the sheriff’s department, one that fit better, and it helped to block the chill in the air.
The door shut behind them. “I need to head back to the station,” Noelle said. Thomas and Aaron were out running down leads and searching the area. They thought if the perp was looking for medical aid, he might be staying close to the town—and they were determined to find him.
When the sheriff didn’t speak, Noelle glanced his way. He was watching her with a hooded gaze. “Sheriff?”
“Locking him up won’t stop that girl’s nightmares.” His hand rasped over his stubble-covered jaw. “You and I both know that, don’t we?”
Her head tilted as she studied him.
“Camden was a quiet town before all this mess started.” His lips pressed together and formed a grim line. “But Los Angeles, well, it had more than its share of crime.”
So there was more to the sheriff than met the eye. Wasn’t that the story with everyone? “You came up here to get away.”
“I got tired of arriving too late.”
She knew exactly what that was like.
“You’re not FBI.”
Noelle didn’t so much as blink. “My ID says otherwise.”
He laughed, but the sound was grim. “This ain’t my first rodeo, and I know FBI agents when I see them. They’re stiff, by the book, and they sure as hell don’t race through fire without so much as twitching.” He pointed at her. “It was the other agent who gave things away. Military. Covert, I’m betting.”
“The past few days have been very stressful,” she said carefully. “I think—”
“That bigwig who flew in on his own chopper, he isn’t FBI. I don’t know what organization you all work for, but I do need to know this.” He exhaled on a rough breath. “Is my town safe? Or will more people be hurt soon?”
Watch what you say. “We are going to catch the man who’s behind Jenny’s abduction.”
“Yeah, but are you and that team of yours going to do it before or after I have to clean up more bodies?”
* * *
THE SNOW WAS RED.
Thomas stopped instantly when he caught sight of the red drops. He lifted his hand, an old habit, as he signaled to Aaron.
Aaron bent low and gazed at the blood and at the faint trail that led across the street. The trail ended right at the door of an old pharmacy.
The lights were out in that pharmacy. Odd, since power had come back to the city an hour ago.
“Cover me,” Thomas said flatly. He advanced toward the building, aware of Aaron following him. Thomas had his gun out, and he was more than ready to use it on the man who’d nearly killed Noelle the night before.
There were more droplets at the door, as if the guy had paused for a moment before he’d gone inside. Thomas reached for the knob. It twisted easily in his grasp. He shoved open that door and rushed inside.
Aaron was right on his heels.
Drops of crimson dotted the aisle. He followed them, then saw the heavy, blood-soaked cloths on the counter.
A quick search showed no one was in the pharmacy. The back door was unlocked. Just like the front.
“Looks like the guy got away again.” Aaron shook his head. “But we had to be close.”
Thomas studied the discarded bandages—and the bullet that had been left behind.
“He dug it out, huh?” Aaron whistled. “I had to do that once. Thought I’d pass out before the bullet came out of my stomach.”
Thomas’s gaze swept the scene once more. “He didn’t dig it out himself.” That just made things so much worse.
“What? How do you know?”
Thomas grabbed the purse that had fallen on the ground near the red-stained counter.
“Hell,” Aaron muttered.
Thomas pulled out the ID inside. Sarah Finway. A Sarah Finway who was most definitely not there any longer.
“He’s got another victim,” Thomas said.
* * *
NOELLE STARED AT the photos on the wall. All of those girls. Scared. Blindfolded. So alone.
But you weren’t really alone, were you? Because their abductor had been the one to take the photos.
“I’ve got more men coming in,” Mercer said.
She nearly jumped at his voice. She’d been so intent on those girls Noelle hadn’t even heard him enter the little office.
“They’ll be here in two hours.”
Right. When Mercer said jump, people flew.
“They’ll search every inch of the senator’s house, and if there’s more evidence to find,” he nodded and said, “we’ll have it.”
Her phone rang. Noelle glanced down, saw it was Thomas, and she answered immediately. “Did you find him?”
“He’s got another victim.”
Her fingers tightened around the instrument.
“A woman who worked at the pharmacy, Sarah Finway. The guy’s blood is here, but he’s not and neither is she.”
Her heart thundered in her chest. “We can use his blood for DNA. If he’s in the system, we’ll have an ID.”
“But we won’t have her.” Frustration boiled in Thomas’s voice. “The guy knows this area. He’ll stash her, and then he’ll kill her, all while we’re running down DNA.”
Thomas wasn’t used to this part of the business. EOD agents were men and women of action. They didn’t run DNA checks. They didn’t stalk after criminals. They went in. They attacked. They completed their missions.
And Thomas was right. By the time they got a DNA hit on the perp, Sarah Finway could be dead.
“I’m going to keep searching with Aaron. If we find anything, I’ll call you.”
“He knows this area. Be careful because you don’t want to walk into another of his traps.”
“I want to find the guy,” Thomas fired back. “If he wants to hunt someone, if that’s the way he likes to play, then he needs to come hunt me, not some innocent civilian.”
When the call ended, Noelle kept holding the phone and staring at those pictures. “I need to talk with the sheriff,” she said, not looking over her shoulder at Mercer. “And then I want to head back to the senator’s place and talk with Paula Quill.” Because Paula had been the senator’s confidant. If there had been someone in and out of the senator’s life for the past fifteen years, then Paula should know.
Mercer’s footsteps padded out of the office. She knew he’d pull the sheriff in, one way or another. No one said no to Mercer. At least, not for long.
She put the phone down on the desk and let her gaze trek from image to image. They’d gotten names for the girls. Dates of their disappearances. She’d put the images in order based on those dates, and her focus shifted to the first girl who’d vanished.
Emma Jane Rogers. Age sixteen. She’d lived in Charleston.
“The first kill is the one that matters most,” Noelle whispered as she leaned toward the image. There had to be something in the picture that could help her. Why had the killer begun with Emma Jane? Why her?
Had all of the others girl
s been taken because they looked like Emma?
Her finger pressed against the photograph. Emma Jane was wearing a necklace. They’d blown up the photo, and Noelle could see it appeared to be half of a heart. The kind of necklace young couples often wore. The girl would have one part, and the boy would have the other.
There were two images of Emma Jane. In one of the images, that necklace around her neck was clear.
In the other image, it was gone. Blood dripped over her neck, as if she’d been sliced with a knife.
As if someone had sliced the necklace off her?
Noelle quickly checked the other snapshots. None of the others were wearing any sort of jewelry. Their necks also didn’t show any signs of having been cut. There were no injuries on those girls in the other photos at all.
These are the before shots.
Were there after shots someplace? Images that showed what had happened to the girls after the hunt was complete?
Noelle knew that there must be.
“Here’s the sheriff.”
Noelle turned at Mercer’s flat words. He had a tight grip on the sheriff’s arm. Hodges was glaring at him.
“I was in the middle of a briefing with my men!” Hodges sputtered. “You don’t just drag a sheriff away—”
Mercer laughed. “I drag anyone away.” He pointed toward Noelle. “Now, answer her questions because if anyone can figure out this guy, it’s her.”
She already had puzzle pieces flying through her mind. “He’s a local, Sheriff. Someone who knows this area extremely well. He’d keep to himself. He’s a male...probably in his late thirties, close to Senator Duncan’s age. He’s ex-navy, so he might be sporting some tattoos that he got during the service.”
Hodges shook his head. “This is a town of barely a thousand people. I know everyone.”
“And that’s why you know him. He might come in and out, drifting in when Senator Duncan is in the area. He won’t stay all year, but he knows this place. He’d be the best hunter in the area. He’d have to be. So think of someone who’s gone after big game. Someone who—”
The sheriff stiffened.