Taken

by Cynthia Eden

  A new image loaded and a gasp was torn from Bailey.

  The redheaded woman was on an old bed, bound, her hands stretched above her. Her head was turned to the side, her profile visible . . .

  As visible as the black image of wings that had been etched onto her shoulder.

  The killer had her.

  This was . . . “This was her camera.” Bailey words sounded hollow to her own ears. “How did her camera get on my doorstep?” And she clicked that mouse.

  I have to see.

  Blood. So much blood. Long gashes in the woman’s body.

  Bailey jumped to her feet, covering her mouth with her hand. “Call Wyatt. We have to call him now.” She was shaking, unable to stop.

  Asher hadn’t answered her question about the camera, and he didn’t have to. She knew the answer. The dead woman certainly hadn’t brought the camera there.

  The person who’d used the camera last—her killer—he’d brought it.

  He came to my house. He was here while I slept.

  Her gaze was on the dead woman. On her tattoo.

  It is happening again. The nightmare is happening again.

  They’d been separated.

  Asher glared at the closed door, wondering what the hell was going on. When he’d called Wyatt Bliss, a patrol car had quickly come to Bailey’s house.

  And they hauled our asses down to the sheriff’s office.

  Only Bailey had been taken one way, and Asher had been sent to another—with an armed guard. If that fresh-faced kid Ben counted as a guard.

  Ben’s hand kept nervously sliding toward his sidearm. The kid had better watch that shit. Asher’s eyes narrowed on him.

  The door flew open. Wyatt stood there, deep lines under his eyes and patches of stubble along his jaw. “Ben, give us a minute.”

  The younger man nearly ran out.

  Wyatt shut the door behind him, then he stood there a moment, body tense.

  Asher didn’t speak. He’d long ago learned how to handle interrogations. The strategy was simple, really. You just waited out your prey.

  Wyatt raked a hand over his face. “This shit can’t be happening again.”

  It sure looked as if it was.

  “Sheriff Johnson resigned. Effective as of six a.m. this morning. He just turned his back and left this county when I’ve got a victim in the morgue.” His hand fell and his eyes locked on Asher. “That means I’m in charge. No time for a special election or any shit like that. I’m the next in line. This killer is my responsibility.”

  Then you need to find his ass before he strikes again. The fact that the perp had come to Bailey’s house, that he’d left that camera for her to find—Asher’s guts were in knots. The killer was pulling Bailey into his web. Could be he was even targeting her as the next victim.

  “I told the team last night to keep this case under wraps. That I did not want media attention.” Disgust was thick in his voice. “Then I swear, the news was everywhere within an hour! Freaking social media . . . and dumb jerks here who can’t follow an order!”

  Asher just stared at him.

  “Tell me that you saw something last night.” Now Wyatt almost sounded beseeching. “When he was at Bailey’s house . . . tell me you saw something. That you heard something. A car’s engine. A voice. Give me something to go on here, man.”

  I was lost in Bailey. I couldn’t see anything but her. Asher’s back teeth ground together. “Bailey’s ex, Royce, is the one who found the camera. He said it was on her doorstep. I have no clue when it was put down, just sometime after midnight.” Because that was when they’d gotten back to Bailey’s place, and the camera had not been there then. “Run it for prints. Maybe the bastard left evidence on it. DNA—”

  “Already checking.” Wyatt started to pace. “And I got an ID on our victim, the poor woman in those images. Hannah Finch, a twenty-two-year-old college student. Her car was exactly where she left it—right in front of that damn trail entrance shown in the photos. We ran her tag number, got a hit in the database. Got her.” He paused in front of the small window—the only window in that little room. He gazed out at the parking lot. “Twenty-two. That’s too young to die.”

  “Has your ME looked at her body?”

  The new sheriff glanced over his shoulder, a frown pulling down his brows. “He’s in with her now. You have to understand, we’re a small operation out here. This county—”

  “He needs to focus on her tattoo.”

  “What?”

  “I saw the time stamp on those photos. She was taken and killed within hours.” Hannah Finch. “But her tattoo wasn’t red, wasn’t scabbing. That’s not the way that shit works.”

  Wyatt turned toward him.

  “The Death Angel used black tattoo ink on his victims. I’ve seen the pictures he sent to law enforcement. The tats all looked fresh. You could tell they’d just been applied.” And he also knew that was the way law enforcement had tried to track the guy. They’d run down every male tattoo artist in the area.

  The FBI had been in on the hunt. One of their profilers had come in, told everyone who they were looking for as a perp.

  White male, probably in his late twenties, early thirties. Fit, strong. He knows the area, so we could be looking at an avid hiker. An outdoorsman. There were no hesitation marks with the tattoo—the lines were precise, curving. He knows what he is doing. Look for an artist, a tattoo expert.

  They’d tried to follow the ink back to the killer.

  Only the trail hadn’t worked for them.

  “Either that tat is old,” Asher said—and why the hell would she get that particular mark on her skin? A serial killer’s mark. “Or something else is happening. There is no way the image should look that good, not just a few hours after an inking.”

  Wyatt seemed to be weighing some kind of decision, but then he gave a nod. “You’re right. You’re fucking right, and we need to go look at her body.” He headed for the door. “Come on.”

  Just—what? Asher rose slowly. “Thought I was some kind of suspect. Isn’t that why you’ve kept me locked away in here?”

  Wyatt stopped near the door, his back to Asher. “Let’s be clear. I don’t like you.”

  Good to know. Asher didn’t exactly have the warm fuzzies for him, either.

  “I think you’re bad for Bailey, but right now”—he glanced Asher’s way—“I also think you’re her best shot at protection. You’re better than my men, I realize that. When it comes to hunting, to fighting . . . they can’t compare.”

  Asher tensed.

  “So I kept you in here because I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t cut and run, not until we catch this bastard. I need to know she’s safe, and my department is going to be too stretched as it is.”

  Too stretched to provide Bailey with protection.

  Wyatt’s hands clenched, then opened. Clenched. “He left the camera on her doorstep. He could have brought it to the station. Could have left it in the cabin or even in Hannah’s car. He brought it to Bailey. And I don’t have to be some fancy FBI profiler to know why he did that.”

  No, none of them did. But Asher did know one damn fancy profiler that he would like to confer with on this case. Dr. Sarah Jacobs worked for LOST, and when it came to killers, she was always dead-on. He wanted Sarah to look at the case, to look at the profile that had been generated on the Death Angel before and see if she agreed with the FBI guy’s assessment.

  Or if she thought it was just bullshit. From what he’d learned about her in his time at LOST, Sarah had always been great at seeing the bullshit and calling it.

  “She was the only one to live before. If this is some copycat or just some weird obsessed psycho who thinks he’s finishing up the Death Angel’s work, then we both know Bailey could be in danger.”

  Right. They should be clear about this. “I’m not planning to go anywhere.” If Bailey needed protection, he’d give it to her. He’d be her shadow twenty-four seven. But what he di
dn’t get was the guy’s turnaround. Yesterday, Wyatt had been saying that Asher needed to get the hell away from Bailey and now . . . Asher’s eyes narrowed on him. “You’ve been digging more into my past, haven’t you?”

  Wyatt’s chin notched up. “So maybe I do have a few contacts in the government that decided to talk with me a bit more.”

  Hell.

  “They backed you up,” Wyatt admitted grudgingly. “Said in a firefight you were the one they’d want covering their asses.”

  Was that supposed to be a ringing endorsement? Asher didn’t let his expression alter.

  Wyatt blew out a frustrated breath. “So I want you covering Bailey’s ass, got it? You’re the protection that this killer won’t see coming.” His smile was grim. “As I said before, I don’t like you. I think you’re dangerous, but it’s a danger I will use in order to protect Bailey. She matters. Her life matters.”

  It sure did.

  Asher nodded, accepting this uneasy alliance. “You said I could see the body?” He wished that Victoria Palmer was there with him—Viki was the forensic anthropologist that LOST had on staff, and the woman sure knew her dead bodies. If this case was over the local ME’s paygrade, maybe Wyatt would be open to bringing her in.

  “I said we should see that tat. If it’s new, it’ll show scabs, just like you said.”

  Asher didn’t think it was new.

  He followed Wyatt from that little room. The sheriff’s station was buzzing with activity. Phones were ringing, deputies were rushing left and right and . . . “Where’s Bailey?”

  “My office. She’s drinking coffee and eating doughnuts, and I have a man right outside.” He pointed to the left.

  Asher immediately headed in that direction. And the man guarding the door? Young Deputy Ben. Ben gulped when he saw Asher and hurriedly straightened.

  “Kid, move,” Asher ordered.

  “Wait!” Wyatt called, grabbing his arm. “Bailey should stay in there until—”

  Asher tossed him a frown. “Are you serious? Bailey is the one we need. You said it yourself. She’s the only one to ever get away from the Death Angel.” Unless we count our mysterious missing victim. And Asher wasn’t counting her, not yet. “She’s the one who knows him. Knows these crimes. I want her to look at the victim. I want her to see the tat. Bailey can help us—she can look for things that we might miss.” Because Bailey’s perspective on the Death Angel was far more intimate than anyone else’s. She’d been with him for days. She knew how he tortured his prey. How he enjoyed their pain.

  She knows so much more than we do.

  “I don’t think she’s strong enough to handle this,” Wyatt said, voice tense.

  Asher’s brows shot up. “Hell, yes, she is.” No doubt in his mind. “And if you think otherwise . . .” His words trailed away. You don’t understand her at all.

  “I can’t have her breaking down on this case. You don’t know what she was like before. I was there.” Dark emotion shadowed Wyatt’s face. “I saw her in the hospital. She wouldn’t speak—”

  “She couldn’t! The guy had nearly crushed her larynx.” Fury boiled within him as he remembered Bailey’s soft confession of her ordeal. He choked her until she passed out. Then dumped her in a grave.

  “She was nearly catatonic.” Wyatt shook his head. “Her shrink—Dr. Leigh—he tried to help her, but she wasn’t forthcoming with him. I mean, hell, Bailey is the one who saw the killer! By her own account, she ripped off his mask, but she can’t remember him. Leigh said it was some kind of traumatic block. Some protective psychosis thing. Her mind shut down because she couldn’t handle more. Whenever she tried to remember, she’d get splitting headaches. Physical pain. She’d just . . . shut down after that. I don’t want Bailey shutting down again.”

  This shrink . . . the guy kept being mentioned and Asher was getting damn curious about the fellow. Someone I need to meet. Or rather, someone he needed to investigate. He’d be doing that, ASAP. With some help from LOST.

  “I don’t think we should risk her,” Wyatt continued doggedly. “She needs protecting. She needs—”

  “Why don’t we let Bailey decide what she needs?” And Asher strode around the eavesdropping young deputy and opened the office door.

  Bailey immediately jumped to her feet—she’d been sitting in front of Wyatt’s desk—and relief swept over her face. “Finally! I was afraid I’d be in here with the stale doughnuts all day.” She hurried to Asher’s side. “What’s happening?”

  “This isn’t a good idea,” Wyatt muttered from behind Asher.

  Asher ignored him. “Do you want to help on this case?” he asked Bailey.

  She bit her lower lip, then said, “Help? How?” Her gaze darted over to Wyatt. “How can I help?”

  “You don’t need to help,” Wyatt said quickly. “You need to go home. Or maybe . . . you know, you could even take a little trip out of town with Asher to—”

  “We’re going to look at the body. We want a closer look at the tattoo on the victim’s shoulder.”

  Bailey’s hand rose and she started to touch her right shoulder, but then she stopped, seeming to catch herself.

  “I think you can give Wyatt insight into this killer,” Asher said. “But if you don’t want to be involved, if you don’t want—”

  Her hand fell to her side. Her spine straightened. “I want to help. In any way that I can.”

  Yeah, he’d thought that Bailey would say that. Asher glanced back at Wyatt.

  Wyatt swore. “If she breaks, it’s on you,” he warned Asher.

  Jerk.

  “I won’t break,” Bailey said. “Don’t worry about that.”

  Asher almost smiled. He liked Bailey’s bite.

  Break down, my ass. Bailey made sure to keep her head held high and her spine ramrod straight as she entered the morgue. So the place creeped her out. So she didn’t like dead bodies. Who did?

  The fact that she’d almost been buried alive once, yeah, that had soured her even more on the whole death thing, but she wasn’t going to break. She wouldn’t break.

  The ME was an older guy, balding, with a slight paunch. He had classical music playing from a small radio on his desk, and he looked less than thrilled to see their trio in his workspace. Workspace. Crypt. Seems like the same thing to me.

  “I haven’t finished my work,” the ME said, definitely sounding put out. “I’ll be sure to send you my report just as soon as—”

  “Don’t worry, Dr. Moore,” Wyatt cut in, voice curt, “we won’t be here that long. We just need to see the body for a moment.”

  But Moore put his body between them and the victim. “You cannot touch her. That would compromise evidence!”

  “I said see,” Wyatt muttered. “Not touch. And this is important. We need to look at Hannah’s tattoo, now.”

  “She doesn’t have a tattoo,” Moore said with a huff. He turned away from them and his gloved hands locked around the woman’s body.

  Hannah. On the way over, Asher had told her that the victim was named Hannah. A beautiful name.

  Moore lifted Hannah up and his gloves swiped over her shoulder.

  A shoulder that was . . . smudged?

  “Just ink,” he said. “Regular ink like you get out of a ballpoint pen. It had already smudged when she was brought in and put on my table.”

  “You were right,” Wyatt said, nodding toward Asher. “Not the same. The Death Angel always permanently inked his girls.”

  Bailey’s tattoo seemed to burn. Her eyes were on Hannah. Her gaze drifted over the woman’s body. Stark white. Pale beyond belief.

  The wounds from the knife were jagged tears in her flesh and—

  “That’s not right,” Bailey whispered.

  “Yeah, I know,” Moore said as he carefully lowered the victim’s body back to the table. “I know the Death Angel always used real tattoo ink. But this woman didn’t get a tat. Someone drew on her, and those wings don’t even look exactly like yours.”

  Bai
ley flinched.

  His face flamed, as if he realized he’d just overstepped. “I mean . . . I saw the pictures of yours. Of the other victims. The wings are close, but they aren’t the same,” he hurried to say. “Not as detailed. Not as curving. This guy had seen the pictures, too, obviously, but he wasn’t as good of an artist as the Death Angel.”

  Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. “The Death Angel wasn’t an artist. He was a twisted, sadistic killer. And this is—it’s wrong.”

  She stepped closer to Hannah. “Her wounds are too jagged. The knife he used on me made a clean, deep cut. Her skin is sawed—” Nausea rose in her but she just sucked in a deep breath. I won’t break. “The killer used a different kind of knife on her.” The killer . . . a black ski mask . . .

  Why can’t I see the man beneath the mask? Why?

  “Different knife,” Wyatt said as he moved closer. “No tat. Different artist. Hell, yeah, I think it’s clear we’re looking at a copycat.” He turned on his heel, heading for the door.

  “I haven’t finished my exam!” Moore called after him.

  Wyatt glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve got the governor calling me. The freaking governor. He wants to make sure we didn’t screw up down here before and let the Death Angel slip away. I need to let him know that we’ve just got a copycat up here. A guy that we will catch. And that the real Death Angel is dead and buried.”

  Just a copycat. Bailey didn’t like those words. “What you have is a killer. A man who tortured Hannah just like—” I was tortured.

  But Wyatt shook his head. “You saw the pics, too, Bailey. The time stamps. The killer only had her for a few hours. His whole MO is off. Hell, for all we know, this guy was just some bastard who had a personal grudge against Hannah. Maybe he wanted to eliminate her so he just set the whole thing up, hoping to make it look as if the Death Angel had struck again.”

  “But—”

  “You can bet I’ll be interviewing everyone in Hannah’s life. And right now, I need to get on the phone with the governor and let the guy know that our state’s most notorious killer is long gone, not still stalking the mountains.” His gaze slid to Asher. “And you . . . Remember what you promised. Do that job, above all others.”