The Fifth Victim

by Beverly Barton

  He could still hear the panicked scream that had awakened him. Genny had been terrified. But once she’d fully awakened and realized she was not only safe, but also not alone, she should have recovered quickly. She hadn’t. She’d fainted dead away, as if for some reason she was totally exhausted.

  While she lay there, her eyes closed, her breathing slow and steady, he studied her face. The face of an angel. His gaze traveled downward and came to a screeching halt where her breasts rose and fell with each breath she took. Her nipples were tight, peaking against the soft cotton material of her long-sleeved pajama top.

  Dallas swallowed hard. Now was not the time to get all hot and bothered over a fine piece of ass. Two seconds after the thought flashed through his mind, he grimaced. Why the hell had he done that—reduced his attraction to this woman as nothing more than lust? It had become a fatal flaw with him. Whenever he found himself more than mildly interested in a woman, he convinced himself that there was nothing emotional about it, simply normal male libido.

  Genny groaned softly. Her eyelids fluttered.

  Dallas caressed her cheek.

  She opened her eyes and looked up at him. The fear he’d noticed only moments ago was gone, replaced by weariness.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Tired. Very tired.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would a nightmare drain you this way?”

  “They always leave me very weak.”

  She tried to lift her hand, to reach out for him. When he realized how difficult the effort was for her, he grabbed her hand in his and held it against his chest.

  He still didn’t understand. It had to be highly unusual for a nightmare to devastate a person the way it had Genny.

  “What can I do to help you?”

  “Stay with me. Please. Until I recover.”

  “This has happened to you before?”

  She nodded. “Many times.”

  “How long will it—”

  “Several hours.”

  “Rest. I’ll stay right here.”

  “Dallas?”

  “Yes?”

  “From time to time, try the phones. Jacob needs to know.”

  “About your dream?”

  She nodded. “About the second sacrifice.”

  Again, the blood ran cold through Dallas’s veins. Damn! Half a dozen wild thoughts went through his head. The second sacrifice…the second sacrifice.

  “Genny?”

  When she didn’t respond, he glanced down at her and realized she had fallen asleep. He lowered her arm down beside her, then eased off the bed and paced around the bedroom. Drudwyn’s keen eyes followed his every move.

  “What’s going on with her, boy?” he asked the dog.

  Drudwyn rose, came forward, and halted at Dallas’s side. Two concerned gazes met, locked, and exchanged an odd sense of understanding. Both would protect Genevieve Madoc to the death.

  “Hell,” Dallas cursed under his breath. Protect this woman to the death? Where had that thought come from? What was wrong with him? He barely knew her, had met her only hours ago.

  Dallas shoved back the lace curtains at the long, narrow windows and gazed outside at the dawn light creeping up and across the horizon, spreading a pale pink glow over the dark gray sky. The snowstorm must have ended sometime during the night, but as best he could make out in the semi-darkness, a blanket of white covered everything in sight.

  Letting the curtain fall back into place, Dallas closed his eyes and tried to think straight. He had allowed this situation—being marooned for a night with a good-looking woman who somehow had very quickly put the hoodoo on him—to muddle his thought processes. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Genny was a witch who had cast a spell over him.

  Dallas chuckled. Yeah, sure. A witch? He didn’t believe in anything he couldn’t experience with his five senses. If he couldn’t see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, or feel it, then it didn’t exist. In the real world in which he lived, there were no witches, no faith healers, no ghosts, no psychics, no guardian angels. That sort of stuff was for saps, for the poor misguided souls who couldn’t cope with reality.

  He glanced around the room. Feminine, but not frilly. Antique furniture. Lace curtains. Pale pastel colors blended with white. When he spied a large, comfortable-looking chair in the corner, he went over and sat, then lifted his big feet onto the round ottoman. A chill rippled through him, reminding him he was bare from the waist up. He dragged the white crocheted afghan off the back of the chair and wrapped it around him.

  As soon as the phones were working, he’d put in a call to a wrecker service and get his rental car hauled out of the ditch, then he’d thank Genny for her hospitality and get the hell out of here as fast as he could. His business was with Sheriff Butler, not Butler’s bewitching cousin.

  He needed to make a definite connection between Susie Richards’s murder and Brooke’s murder. Over the past eight months, since his young niece had been brutally killed, he had spent every minute he wasn’t working to try to unearth any evidence that might point to her killer. Sacrificial killing was not unheard of; in fact there had been more in the United States than Dallas had suspected. Many had been connected to some sort of pagan devil worship, but certainly not all. Over the past eight years there had been twenty-four unsolved cases involving murders that were very similar to Brooke’s. And the oddest thing about twenty of these murders was that they appeared to have taken place in sets of five.

  With Teri’s and Linc’s assistance these past few months, Dallas had put together a startling hypothesis: someone sacrificed five women living in the same area over a period that averaged between three to six weeks, then disappeared only to show up in another region a year or two later and repeat the same scenario. All these facts had come together only a couple of weeks ago, and Dallas hadn’t had the chance to personally travel to each area and go over all the evidence.

  But if his supposition was correct, and if Susie Richards was the first victim, then that meant four women in Cherokee County were in danger. And it also meant that Brooke’s murderer was here.

  Deputy Bobby Joe Harte knocked on Jacob’s office door, then poked his head in and said, “Chief Watson just called. He said for you to meet him over at the Congregational Church ASAP. They got a dead body in the church and it looks like the same MO as the Susie Richards’ case.”

  “What?”

  “That’s all he said. Just told me to tell you to get your ass over there pronto.”

  “Damn! What’s going on around here? We haven’t had a murder in Cherokee Pointe in years and now we have two in the county in forty-eight hours.”

  Jacob strapped on his hip holster, put on his leather jacket, and yanked his Stetson off the hook by the door, then headed through the outer office. Once outside, he moved carefully over the icy sidewalk until he reached his truck. His booted feet made large, deep impressions in the snow piled up along the edge of the street. He unlocked his black Dodge Ram, climbed inside and started the engine. While sitting there, letting the engine idle and warm, he allowed his mind to wander, allowed himself to question his decision to run for sheriff this past year.

  He’d been born and raised in Cherokee County, a poor boy, a quarter-breed, a young hellion who’d joined the navy at eighteen. Ten months ago, when he’d left the service, put his years as a SEAL behind him and come home, he’d been hailed as a hero. When Farlan MacKinnon had approached him about running for sheriff, he hadn’t seriously considered the offer of his backing. But Farlan had been insistent. And what Farlan wanted, he usually got. One of the two richest men in the county, and the most influential man in his political party, Farlan had promised Jacob that if he ran for office, he’d win. The old man had been right. Now Jacob wondered why the hell he’d let Farlan and his cohorts talk him into this job.

  A horn honking behind him brought Jacob back to the present moment. He glanced through his partially defrosted back window and saw Royce Pierpont, in h
is silver Lexus sedan, throw up a hand and wave at him. Jacob returned the wave. Why was Royce bothering to open up his antique shop today? Jacob wondered. There wouldn’t be any tourists in town with weather like this, and probably not many locals either.

  Jacob shifted the gear into reverse, backed up, and headed down the street, going slow and easy over the thin sheet of ice still clinging to the asphalt.

  A large brick structure that had been built in the early twentieth century and modernized from time to time, the Congregational Church was on the corner of Monroe and Highland. Jacob parked his truck, got out, and headed up the sidewalk. Policemen swarmed like bees inside and out. Looked like the entire Cherokee Pointe police department was here.

  Chief Watson met Jacob in the vestibule the minute he entered the building. “Glad you’re here,” he said. “It’s a bloody mess in there.”

  “Bobby Joe said you mentioned that this murder was similar to Susie Richards’—”

  “Another sacrificial killing,” Watson said. “I saw the pictures of Susie Richards your department took, but I’m telling you that unless you see it for real, you can’t imagine how bad it is.”

  “Mind if I take a look?” Jacob steeled himself to view another horrific crime scene.

  Chief Watson led Jacob into the sanctuary. Morning sunlight flooded through the stained-glass windows, casting bright rainbows over the wooden pews with their red velvet seats.

  “She’s up here, on the altar,” Watson said.

  “Hmm.”

  Several members of the forensic crew busied themselves gathering evidence. Jacob moved closer, took a quick look, and glanced away.

  “Cindy Todd.”

  The mayor’s wife lay naked atop the altar, her calves and feet hanging off the end, a gaping wound from breasts to pubic area glistening with blood and exposed entrails.

  “It’s enough to turn a man’s stomach,” Watson said, his face pale and sweaty.

  “Has anyone contacted Jerry Lee?” Jacob asked.

  “I called him right before I called you. Told him to come down to the police department, but I didn’t give him any specifics. Just told him it was important.”

  “He came by my office early this morning looking for her.”

  “You don’t reckon Jerry Lee could have—”

  “Not his style,” Jacob said. “He’d have either shot her or beat the hell out of her. Besides, this has all the earmarks of being identical to Susie Richards’ murder.”

  “You think we got ourselves a serial killer here in Cherokee Pointe?”

  Jacob shook his head. “Too soon to make that kind of judgment. Could be some sort of cult thing.”

  “You mean one of them devil-worshiping cults?”

  “Just a possibility.” Jacob glanced around and quickly spotted the church’s new minister and his wife huddled together toward the back of the sanctuary, a police officer speaking to them. “Who found the body?”

  “Reverend Stowe,” Watson said. “The guy’s pretty shook up, but then who wouldn’t be?”

  “What’s his wife doing here?”

  “After he called us from his office down the hall there”—Watson indicated the location of the office with a nod of his head—“he went back home and waited for us. He and Mrs. Stowe came back over here together.”

  Jacob studied the Stowes for a moment before turning his attention to the chief. “I think we probably need some help. Neither your department nor mine is equipped to handle this sort of crime, especially not now that there have been two identical murders.”

  “Don’t go putting us down,” Watson said. “I’ve got no intention of calling in outside help. Not yet.”

  “Do you think your department can handle this case if it turns out we’re dealing with a serial killer?”

  “Hellfire, Jacob, I thought you said it was probably a devil-worshiping cult.”

  “I don’t know for sure. And that’s the problem. I’m new at this job, and my experience in matters like this is nil. The resources of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department is limited. And I’m not too proud to ask for help when I need it.”

  “Then, boy, you go ahead and call for help. I don’t need any. I’ve been police chief for fifteen years. I know my way around a murder investigation.”

  Jacob knew better than to argue with Roddy Watson, the stubborn, narrow-minded, ignorant son of a bitch. “Whatever you say.”

  Just as Jacob turned to leave, Jerry Lee Todd came storming into the church. When several policemen tried to stop him, he shoved them aside and when they moved to overpower him, Chief Watson motioned for them to leave the mayor alone. Jerry Lee ran toward the altar.

  “Hold up there,” Watson called. “You don’t want to do this.”

  “Is it her?” Jerry Lee asked. “Is it my Cindy?”

  “Yeah, it’s Cindy,” Watson replied. “Believe me, Jerry Lee, you do not want to—”

  “What happened? Is she really dead?” Jerry Lee barreled past the forensic team, taking no heed of their requests for him not to disturb the scene.

  Jerry Lee skidded to a halt when he saw his wife’s mutilated body. “Cindy! Oh, God, Cindy!”

  “Hell,” Watson murmured.

  Jacob rushed forward and grabbed Jerry Lee’s shoulder, stopping him from getting any closer to Cindy’s body. Jerry Lee spun around, grief and fury in his eyes. “Let me go, damn you. I’ve got to see her, talk to her, touch her.”

  “No,” Jacob said. “What you’ve got to do is let the police do their job so they can find the person responsible.”

  “You can’t stop me. That’s my wife.” Jerry Lee jerked away from Jacob. “I have every right to—”

  Jacob drew back his fist and clipped Jerry Lee on the temple. The mayor dropped like dead weight tossed into the river. Turning to Chief Watson, Jacob said, “Get a couple of your boys to take him home and stay with him until he calms down.”

  “He’s going to be mad as hell when he comes to,” Watson said. “But you did what you had to do.”

  Jacob nodded. “You know where to reach me if you need me.”

  He left the murder scene, left behind the cocky, stupid police chief, and took a lot of unanswered questions with him.

  Esther Stowe held her husband’s hands tightly in hers as they stood at the back of the sanctuary. They had answered questions repeatedly for the past hour and still they weren’t allowed to leave. They’d been told the chief would want to verify a few things. Esther wasn’t sure how much longer Haden could hold himself together. Her husband wasn’t emotionally strong. If not for her strength, he wouldn’t be the man he was today.

  Sometimes she regretted having married such a weakling and longed for a man who was her equal. No one would ever guess, seeing Haden and her together, that she was the dominant partner. To the world they presented a rather amusing facade, the old-fashioned married couple, with the husband as head of the household. Haden Stowe didn’t have the balls to be the man of the house, but it served her purpose to allow him to playact the part.

  Haden whispered, “What if they find—”

  “They won’t!”

  “But what if—”

  “Shut up. There’s no way they’ll find it. It’s not here in the church. It’s in our house, and there’s no reason for them to search our house.”

  “How could this have happened? Why here? Why in my church?” He looked at her accusingly. “You didn’t—”

  “Don’t be absurd. Of course I didn’t.”

  “But she was sacrificed, just like the other one.”

  “We were not involved with either. You know that.” Haden nodded.

  Esther kept her gaze fixed on the sheriff as he left the building. Chief Watson she could handle. The man was an idiot. But Jacob Butler was another matter. The sheriff could prove dangerous to her. He needed to be watched. Watched closely.

  Chapter 6

  Genny woke slowly, languidly, feeling safe and secure. Several moments passed before she reme
mbered what had happened. When she did remember, a deep, profound sadness overwhelmed her. She’d had another vision. One yesterday around dawn and then a second one this morning at daybreak. Both times she had sensed what the killer was going to do. Yesterday she’d actually witnessed his crime. Today she had seen only the woman’s body lying on the altar and felt the man’s anticipation. Oh, God, the poor woman was probably already dead by now. Genny had received a forewarning this time, but it had come to her far too late to help save this second victim.

  Morning sunshine brightened the bedroom, telling Genny she had slept for hours. Glancing around the room, she caught sight of Dallas Sloan asleep in the corner chair, Drudwyn curled on the rug beside him. Odd how her wildly protective dog had accepted this man, as if he, too, sensed a trustworthiness in Dallas. When she rose from the bed and dropped her bare feet to the floor, Drudwyn lifted his head and stared at her. She placed a finger to her lips. Drudwyn rumbled an aborted yowl. Dallas’s eyelids flew open and his gaze connected with Genny’s.

  “Good morning,” she said as she reached down for her robe at the foot of the bed.

  As Dallas sat up straight, the white cotton afghan slipped off his shoulders and down to his waist, revealing his muscular chest.

  “Are you all right now?” he asked.

  She nodded, belting the long pink chenille robe and tightening the sash around her waist.

  After tossing the afghan aside, Dallas stood and stretched. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I must have been beat.”

  “Then you haven’t checked the phones, have you?”

  He shook his head. “Afraid not.”

  Genny lifted the receiver from the telephone base on her nightstand and placed it to her ear. “Still no dial tone.” She walked over to the window, pulled back the curtain and secured it on a clip behind the window frame. After glancing out, she said, “It’s a beautiful day. The sun might melt away some of the snow. We should be able to get into town this afternoon, if the snowplows make it up this far.”