Don't Breathe: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller (Darkwater Cove Psychological Thriller Book 6)

by Dan Padavona

  “I do,” Darcy says. “There’s something about Ryan’s murder that doesn’t sit right with me. What were her friends doing while she died from the supposed spider bites?”

  “Do you suspect Kealan Hart knew the victim?”

  “According to her records, Ryan graduated from a private school outside Greenville, whereas Hart attended Smith Town High. But it’s a small region. They could have crossed paths.”

  Agreeing to break for lunch, Ketchum drives into the heart of the village, while Darcy veers toward the cove. Jennifer will be at school, but Julian should be home. It’s his day off from the office. Now that Darcy discovered the stolen necklace, Kealan Hart sits atop her suspect list. Who is she kidding? Hart is her only suspect. Though he displays a few traits typical of sociopaths—he believes Nadia belonged to him, he doesn’t take no for an answer, and he has a drinking problem—Hart doesn’t strike Darcy as a serial killer. Could revenge drive him to murder? She believes so.

  Regardless, it’s time she corrals Jennifer and keeps her home until they catch the killer. The village isn’t safe with a murderer at-large, and she won’t risk a repeat of the Darkwater Cove and Georgia abductions.

  Julian’s car sits in the driveway. It’s the red CRV at the curb that draws Darcy’s attention. That’s Cynthia’s vehicle. Why is she visiting Julian on his day off?

  Darcy parks beside Julian’s car. Upon opening the door, she searches the kitchen and finds it empty. Where are they? She trusts Julian’s loyalty, though Cynthia possesses a fitness model’s physique. When Darcy sets her bag in the entryway, she hears their voices outside. They’re on the deck.

  She moves quietly through the kitchen, feeling guilty for eavesdropping and unable to make out the conversation through the glass. Darcy expects lighthearted banter and laughs. Instead, Cynthia faces Julian, her elbows on her knees and her eyes focused on the deck boards. Whatever they’re talking about, it appears serious. Darcy shouldn’t interrupt. This can’t be about Jennifer and the windshield incident.

  Darcy turns toward the living room. Too late. Noticing her, Julian slides the deck door open.

  “Darcy, I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I’m just stopping home for a few minutes.” She moves around Julian and nods at Cynthia. “Thank you again for taking care of Jennifer.”

  “Anytime,” Cynthia says. Her eyes appear bloodshot and swollen, as if she’s been crying. “I remember what it was like at that age. Kids mean well, but they don’t think straight when something like that happens.”

  “How did the interview go?” Julian asks.

  Darcy opens her mouth. How much should she tell him with Cynthia listening?

  “Not bad. Can I talk to you for a second?”

  Cynthia glances at Darcy and Julian. Then she shifts her chair to look at the backyard. Darcy catches Cynthia flicking at the corner of her eye. She’s crying again.

  Julian slides the door closed. The kitchen looks gloomy as Darcy’s eyes readjust.

  “What’s going on?” he asks.

  “Is Cynthia all right?”

  Julian’s gaze flashes to the deck before returning to Darcy. He scratches behind his ear.

  “She’s fine. Just going over an issue at work.”

  He’s hiding something. Whatever it is, it’s not Darcy’s business.

  “Remember the message I sent you about Nadia Ames’s missing necklace?”

  “You think someone stole it out of her bedroom.”

  “What if I told you I found it in Kealan Hart’s bed?”

  He lets out a breath and cracks his knuckles.

  “That doesn’t look good for Kealan.” Pausing, he glances at Darcy through the tops of his eyes. “Why were you inside Hart’s bedroom?”

  “I did some snooping while Ketchum kept him busy.”

  “Oh, Darcy. You shouldn’t have done that. What if he caught you? You can’t use the evidence, regardless.”

  “No, but Kealan returned to Nadia’s house after she went missing. The creep might have slept in her bed after he killed her.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Here’s the issue. I can’t let Jennifer run wild until we catch the guy who killed Nadia Ames and Brit Ryan.”

  “So you’re certain it was homicide. What about the venomous spider theory?”

  “There’s a connection, but I’m not seeing it. Can you pick Jennifer up from school and make sure she gets home safely?”

  “I’ll text her to expect me this afternoon,” he says, resting his back against the refrigerator. “I’m off tomorrow, but what about days when we’re both working?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Please, Julian. Keep an eye on Jennifer and talk some sense into her. If I tell my daughter she can’t hang out with her friends for the next week, she’ll blame me for ruining her life.”

  “She won’t.”

  “Yeah, she will. If you haven’t noticed, Jennifer is partial to you. She respects your opinion.”

  Julian chews at the corner of his lip.

  “I’ll speak with her.”

  “You still think she’s hiding a boyfriend?”

  Julian shuffles his feet and glances toward Cynthia.

  “Maybe. I’ll watch her. Do you want lunch? I was just about to make sandwiches.”

  “Not now. I need to research Kealan Hart before Ketchum and I interview Brit Ryan’s friends.”

  “Let me take some work off your hands. No sense staring at the walls all day.”

  Darcy hears the loneliness and hurt behind his voice. He misses Darcy being around, and he doesn’t feel useful working a desk job. She wishes Julian would take her advice and speak to Ketchum about the injury.

  “We’d appreciate your help. Having a detective looking over the case will be invaluable.”

  His eyes brighten, and he stands a hair taller. Good. That’s the Julian she’s missed since the O’Grady stabbing.

  “I’ll get right on it. So we’re trying to prove Kealan Hart knew Brit Ryan.”

  “Anything that ties Hart back to the first victim would be great. Thank you for the help, Julian.”

  “You got it.”

  He pulls her toward him and kisses her forehead. While she stares up at him, she asks, “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with Cynthia?”

  Julian stuffs his hands in his pockets.

  “Between the two of us, she’s going through a rough period. Something from her past came up, and she’s trying to deal with it.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  Julian steals a glance through the deck door. Cynthia sits with her back to the window.

  “Not yet. Let me talk to her first.”

  After Julian returns to Cynthia, Darcy grabs a yogurt and banana for lunch. Checking the time, she realizes she needs to meet Ketchum in twenty-five minutes. As she climbs into her car, the phone rings. If it’s the unknown caller, she’ll check with the cell company and confirm the caller is using another prepaid phone. When Gail Shipley’s name appears on the screen, Darcy winces.

  “Hello, Gail,” Darcy says, turning out of the driveway.

  “Agent Haines, I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”

  “I’m certain you’re not worried if it’s a bad time. What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like a comment on the new serial killer hunting Smith Town and Greenville.”

  Darcy jolts and hits the brake instead of the gas. How did Shipley find out?

  “Serial killer, Gail? I’m not aware of a serial killer in Smith Town.”

  “Let’s dispense with the denials. I have it on good authority you’re investigating the Brit Ryan and Nadia Ames murders. The FBI wouldn’t get involved unless you suspected another murderer. Is it true the killer abducts the women without bruising them? How is that possible?”

  Now Darcy understands why Shipley called. The laugh behind the woman’s voice gives her away. She’s playing Darcy for the fool and lampooning her in the press.

&
nbsp; “First, the FBI hasn’t declared a serial killer murdered Brit Ryan or Nadia Ames. The medical examiner and police agree both women died from spider bites.”

  “But you don’t agree with their assessments, do you? Always seeing murderers in the shadows. It must be difficult to walk in your shoes, Agent Haines.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Ever since the botched Full Moon Killer investigation and the Darkwater Cove murders, you’ve pinned every crime on a mass murderer. The Smith Town and Genoa Cove residents are already in a frenzy over the latest news, and you’re to blame for the panic. What do you have to say to your neighbors? They’re terrified you attracted another killer to coastal North Carolina.”

  Darcy ends the call. A second later, the phone rings again. She sends the reporter to her voice mail. Harold Gibbons and Gail Shipley can go to hell.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Thursday, September 17th

  2:30 p.m.

  “Don’t let her get to you,” Ketchum says as he navigates the SUV off the highway.

  Darcy’s body tremors with fury. She can’t force the Shipley conversation out of her head. After Darcy met Ketchum in Genoa Cove, she parked her Prius in a municipal lot. Mottled sunlight plays over the windshield as Ketchum drives past a residential neighborhood and examines the GPS map.

  “I’m not worried about Shipley,” Darcy says. “I’m more concerned over how she found out.”

  “My guess is Pinder spoke to the press. The media and police make strange bedfellows, but they have a common goal—aligning against the FBI and turning the villages against us.”

  They’re in Semperville, an arts community between Smith Town and Greenville. A red brick apartment complex stands beside a cafe on the edge of downtown. Ketchum spies an open parking space in front of the complex and hits his turning signal. A narrow staircase climbs three floors to the top of the building. A year ago, Darcy would have been winded when she reached the top. Now she brims with energy as Ketchum raps his knuckles on room 3A.

  The almond-skinned woman who answers the door looks younger than her twenty-six years. She has a teenager’s face. Dark curls fall to her shoulders, and she wears an orange sun dress and sandals.

  “Sasha Graughan?”

  Ketchum displays his ID and makes introductions.

  “Yes, come in.”

  Sasha Graughan’s apartment has more function than space. The kitchen doubles as a dining room with a counter beside the stove. The living room offers space for two chairs and a television stand, and a short hallway leads toward a bedroom and bathroom. To the right, the sliding glass door opens to a patio barely wide enough to stand on. The door lies open to the screen, and humid North Carolina air rolls into the apartment.

  One man with brown skin and short, curly hair stands beside the counter with his arms folded. The other man has sandy brown hair parted at the side. He sits on a stool with his gaze bouncing between the two agents and the floor. This must be Brit’s boyfriend.

  When Sasha introduces her friends, they nod without making eye contact. Straightening her dress, Sasha fidgets with her hands and suggests they move to the living room. Chris Doyle, Brit’s boyfriend, buries his hands in his pockets and stands beside the screen. Sasha takes one chair with her boyfriend, Jorge Rodriguez, resting beside her on the chair arm. Darcy offers the remaining chair to Ketchum, but he prefers to stand. Seated across from Sasha, Darcy removes her pen and notepad, drawing a nervous glance from Chris.

  “Let’s begin with the night Sasha found Brit in the forest,” Darcy says. “What were you doing at the county park campgrounds?”

  “It’s our annual camping trip,” Sasha says, crossing one leg over the other. “We’ve been camping together since college. This year, we had to wait until the end of summer because Brit couldn’t get the time off in July and August.”

  “Tell us about that night. Did anything unusual happen before Brit disappeared?”

  “Not at all. We partied after dinner, and we had the fire going. Brit wanted to roast marshmallows.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I drank too much and had to go to the bathroom,” Sasha says, looking down at her sandals. “The county park restrooms are a half-mile down the path, and it’s not safe to walk there after dark. A truck struck a guy last year while he walked to the bathroom late at night. So we sneak into the woods. We’re not supposed to, but nobody patrols the forest after dark.”

  “So you walked into the woods. Did Brit accompany you?”

  Sasha shakes her head.

  “Brit stayed with us until Sasha disappeared,” Jorge says, glancing at Sasha for confirmation. “She planned to follow Sasha and scare her.”

  A combination of amusement and pain crosses Sasha’s face. She dabs her eyes with a tissue.

  “What do you mean by scare her?”

  “Brit loved horror movies,” Sasha says, causing Jorge to bob his head. “Nothing made her laugh more than scaring the shit out of us. She was the queen of the scary campfire story. This year she made up a story about a ghost girl stalking the forest. The year before, after she made us sit through a George Romero movie, she hid in the forest and dressed up like a zombie.”

  Watching Chris and Jorge, Ketchum says, “So Sasha left the campsite. How long did Brit wait until she went after Sasha?”

  Jorge shrugs.

  “Two, maybe three minutes,” Jorge says.

  “What happened next?”

  “Brit left the camp about five minutes before. I figured Brit was following Sasha and about to scare her, so I didn’t worry. But then it was like fifteen or twenty minutes, and I knew something was wrong.”

  “Didn’t you look for them?” Darcy asks.

  Chris opens his mouth and stops. He gives Jorge a side-eyed glance.

  “We partied too much that night,” Jorge says, setting his hands in his lap. “I wasn’t in good enough shape to hunt for Brit and Sasha in the dark.”

  “But you could have gone after the women,” Darcy says, holding Chris’s eyes.

  “I went,” says Chris. “Eventually. When Brit didn’t return, we figured it was all part of her prank. Then I started to worry, so I grabbed a flashlight and left the camp.”

  Darcy shifts her focus to Sasha.

  “Why didn’t you return to camp?”

  She rubs her eyes.

  “I turned myself around in the forest.”

  “You got lost.”

  Nodding, Sasha says, “It’s easy to lose your way after nightfall. I shouldn’t have wandered so far from camp, but it’s embarrassing when everyone hears you relieving yourself in the woods.”

  “How long were you in the forest?” Ketchum asks.

  Sasha breaks down, and Jorge puts an arm around her shoulder.

  “I couldn’t find my way back,” Sasha says between hitches. “I kept running in circles, searching for the camp. Then I recognized the ridge. That’s when I found Brit.”

  “What happened next?”

  Sasha shakes her head as the blood drains from her face.

  “She looked so pale in the moonlight. I thought it was part of the joke, the way she sat against that tree without saying a word. Her eyes were open. She had these…punctures in her flesh, and the skin bubbled around them. Then this spider climbed across her face and disappeared in the brush.”

  “Can you describe the spider?” Darcy asks, setting down the pen.

  “Like a tarantula, but different.”

  “How so?”

  “Not as much hair. I could tell it was dangerous just by looking at the thing.”

  That sounds like the spider Darcy killed on her deck.

  “Did you see any spiders like that around the campsite?”

  “God, no. If I had, I would have packed up my gear and gotten the hell out of there.”

  “Where were you all this time?” Ketchum asks, turning his attention to Chris.

  Chris shifts his feet.

  “Like I s
aid, I walked through the forest, looking for Sasha and Brit.”

  “And nobody was with you because Jorge stayed at the camp.”

  “That’s right.” He shifts his eyes between Darcy and Ketchum. “I swear, I couldn’t find the girls. Not until I heard Sasha screaming. Then I followed her voice and found them.”

  Chris had enough time to attack Brit. Darcy watches Brit’s boyfriend, wondering if he might be the killer.

  “How long did you and Brit date?” Darcy asks.

  “Since our junior years in college. Over five years.”

  Five years.

  “That’s a long time to be in a relationship. Losing Brit must be devastating.”

  “I haven’t slept since it happened.”

  Chris appears ragged, as if he hasn’t slept well. But Darcy can’t locate the expected remorse. Chris seems to have moved on with his life.

  “What was the status of your relationship prior to her death? Were you close, or did you fight?”

  Something unspoken passes between Chris and Sasha. A plea not to speak up and give him away?

  “All couples argue. It’s part of being together.”

  “But you’d been together since college. That’s a serious relationship. Had the two of you discussed marriage?”

  Sasha stares at Chris as Jorge holds her hand. What are they hiding?

  “Brit wanted to get married, but I’d applied for a sales position in Jacksonville. I interviewed the week before the camping trip.”

  “What does that have to do with your relationship?”

  “She didn’t want to leave,” Chris says, folding his hands. “I told her I wouldn’t stay in North Carolina forever. At some point, you need to move on and do something different with your life.”

  “Didn’t Brit have plans and dreams too?”

  He sips from a bottled water.

  “She loved it here and never wanted to leave. Nothing wrong with that, except you end up working the same dead-end job forever and never see the world. If I get the Jacksonville position, the next step is Los Angeles, then international sales. I won’t stay in North Carolina another year.”

  Suspicious of Chris, Darcy makes a note to speak to Sasha afterward.