by Rita Herron
He had a job to do, and by God, Vanessa’s life depended on him doing it.
“Stay by the car and keep an eye out for anything suspicious,” Ian told Beth. “I need to talk to my mother alone.”
Beth squeezed his arm.
Ian squared his shoulders and walked to the door. He knocked, surveying the property for Bernie. Thankfully he didn’t see him, and the man’s car wasn’t in the drive.
Everyone they’d talked to in the neighborhood had sung Reverend Benton’s praises. A pattern had emerged, though—the wives remained silent, obedient, in the shadow of their husbands.
It was surreal, as if he’d walked into another time.
When no one answered, he pounded on the door. He didn’t intend to let his mother ignore him. If Bernie was home and tried to stop him from talking to her, he’d find some reason to haul the bastard in.
Dark clouds rolled across the sky, obscuring the sun and making the wind feel colder than it should be. Footsteps clattered inside, and then someone pushed the front curtain aside and peeked out.
His patience was about gone. “It’s me, Mother—open the door. Please.”
The curtains slid back into place. More footsteps. Finally the door opened a crack.
His mother’s face appeared, although she looked gaunt. Her cheeks were sunken, eyes dark, skin sallow.
“Mother?”
“Go away, Ian. My husband doesn’t want you here.”
She sounded terrified. “What about you, Mother? Don’t you want to see your own son?”
She bit down on her lip, regret mingling with fear on her face. “We have nothing to talk about.”
“Yes we do. You’re my mother and I love you.” She started to shut the door, but he caught it with his hand. “Are you all right? Are you ill?”
“I’m fine,” she said in a meek voice.
What was she hiding? Bruises? Was the man beating her?
Ian wedged his foot into the doorway and pushed it open. “We need to talk. What has he done to you?”
His mother lifted a frail hand to her cheek and then brushed at her hair, which she’d let grow long. It was graying, and she’d secured it with a scarf. “He takes care of me, Ian. Now say what you came to say and leave before he returns.”
Ian inhaled sharply. “Dad is innocent, Mother.”
She shook her head, her expression tired. “We’ve been through this—”
“No, I mean he’s innocent. I have proof. But he’s in the hospital now, in a coma.”
She fidgeted with her scarf but said nothing.
“I believe Reverend Jim Benton may be involved in the boneyard murders and Jane Jones’s kidnapping,” Ian said gruffly. “Crime workers are searching Benton’s house now for evidence.”
His mother gaped at him in shock. “You’re wrong. He’s a good man.”
“He had a girl tied in his basement,” Ian said. “They’ve taken her to the hospital.”
“He . . . saves souls over there,” his mother said.
“You knew about the exorcisms? You condone his behavior?” he asked, incredulous.
She gave a small shrug. “It’s part of our church culture. God wants Reverend Benton to save teenage girls before they become lost as adolescents.”
Ian ground his molars. “The killer we’re looking for believes he’s saving the girls’ souls, Mother.”
Panic flickered in her eyes for a brief second before she masked it. “Leave, Ian. Please, just let me be in peace.”
Sadness flooded Ian. His mother was broken. He should have realized that sooner. His father’s arrest and trial had taken its toll and made her weak enough to succumb first to Bernie and now to this preacher who’d swept in like some savior.
They’d stolen what was left of the fight in her—not that she’d had much. She’d given up on his father too easily.
But she was his mother, and he loved her. He’d do whatever he could to save her from this cult and the man who’d dragged her into it.
The afternoon passed in a dreary blur. Rain set in, compounding the search efforts.
Vanessa wasn’t at the cave or any other place they’d checked.
A despondent feeling swept over Beth. They’d failed Prissy. What if they didn’t find Vanessa in time?
The crime team found more girls’ clothing and items in Benton’s basement. Ian called a meeting of the church community, and parents identified their daughters’ personal items.
They didn’t belong to any of the victims buried at Hemlock Holler.
She rolled her hands into fists. How archaic a group to punish the females for the sins of the world.
The child abuse and endangerment charges would stick, although they had no proof that Benton was a killer. He’d already consulted with a lawyer.
Michaels had gotten wind of the arrests, had gone to the sheriff’s office, and was running with a story about church corruption.
Ian had actually given Michaels that angle to distract him while they continued the search for Vanessa.
As evening fell again, desperation clawed at her.
Vanessa’s grandfather called, frantic. The poor man was distraught and wanted his granddaughter back. He wanted answers.
Answers they didn’t have.
Vanessa stirred, her shoulders and body aching. She blinked, trying to orient herself. Grandma Cocoa was in the hospital. Her grandpa had dropped her off at school.
She hadn’t stayed, though. She’d run to the bench at the park behind the school and cried her heart out. Then she’d heard a noise.
She tried to move, but her hands were tied behind her back and her feet were bound at the ankles.
Fear choked her.
Someone had put a bag over her head. Then she was smothering and then . . . then she’d passed out.
She glanced around the dark room—it was a room, wasn’t it?
It was so freaking cold. The sound of water dripping made her shiver.
Something smelled bad. A dead animal?
She remembered the story on the news. The story about Prissy being killed and those other bodies in the holler, and she gagged.
Was she going to end up like that?
Nausea cramped her stomach. Her mouth was so dry she could barely swallow. Something tickled her leg. A spider! She shook it off with a squeal.
“Help! Someone please help me!”
Her voice boomeranged back as if she was in a tunnel.
Tears slid down her cheeks. They’d said Grandma Cocoa was going to be okay. But what would happen if Grandma came to and found out Vanessa was missing?
She struggled with the ropes behind her back, determined to pull them free, but they wouldn’t budge. Desperate, she raked her hand over the floor to search for a knife or a piece of broken glass or a sharp rock. Something to cut the ropes.
She didn’t want to end up like Prissy.
Footsteps sounded in the dark. The whisper of a voice. A door screeched open, letting in a tiny sliver of light.
“Shh, don’t cry, Vanessa.”
She froze in shock at the voice. She knew him.
She’d trusted him.
But he was going to kill her just like he had Prissy.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
There was no way Beth could sit in the cabin and do nothing. She paced the task force meeting room while Ian talked to Vanessa’s grandfather.
She checked the boards noting the details, dates, times of deaths, locations of victims’ homes.
The identity of the girl who’d died thirty years ago was still unknown. Could she be the key to the unsub’s identity—rather, the unsubs’ identities?
She studied Reverend Benton’s photo along with his father’s picture. Reverend Wally Benton was familiar and set her nerves on edge, but it wasn’t his face in that truck, was it?
Next she examined the photos of Ralph Lewis and his father, Hugh.
She’d healed a lot in fifteen years, and she wasn’t that terrified child anymore. She had be
en trained as an agent.
So why couldn’t she see her abductor’s face? If he was one of these men on the wall, why didn’t she recognize him?
She’d looked into Reverend Jim Benton’s eyes earlier, but nothing had clicked into place.
Because none of these men were guilty?
She spread Coach Gleason’s files on the conference table and sorted through them, quickly skimming the names.
Ralph Lewis had attended school with her, Sunny, and Ian. But if he wasn’t the killer, and the reverend wasn’t, then they were missing something.
She flipped through Sheriff Headler’s notes. He’d asked the students about her and Sunny.
He’d also questioned students about Kelly Cousins.
Something that looked like coffee had spilled on the page, blurring the writing, and she couldn’t read the interview. She phoned Headler. “Who suggested that Kelly Cousins and Coach Gleason were having an illicit relationship?”
“Several of the students,” Sheriff Headler said.
“Does anyone specifically stick out in your mind?”
“It was a long time ago, Agent Fields.”
“I’m aware of that, but this is important. Think, dammit.”
A tense pause. Then a low breath. “Well, one kid was insistent. He seemed disgusted by the whole thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“He said the coach shouldn’t be looking at young girls, talked about how sinful it was, that someone needed to save them from men like him.”
Chill bumps skated up her arms. “What was his name?”
“Some religious name, something like . . . Abel—no, Cain. Last name was Cain. Abram was his first name.”
The name Cain struck a bell. She’d seen it somewhere.
Beth checked the notes on the students they’d interviewed at Graveyard Falls. The boy who’d dissed Prissy, Blaine Emerson. The other students who’d been a party to that nasty prank and others who’d witnessed it. No Abel or Abram.
But the counselor had mentioned a boy named Milo Cain.
Milo was the boy in the white coat she’d seen talking to Vanessa. What if he was related to Abram Cain?
Did Milo know where Vanessa was?
She thanked the sheriff, retrieved the yearbook from her high school, and searched for a photo of Abram.
The moment she saw his face, the room spun into a dizzying blur.
Ian tried to calm Vanessa’s grandfather, but the man was pacing the hospital waiting room.
Unfortunately, Deon had reason to worry.
“Cocoa is awake, asking for me and Vanessa.” His age-spotted hand shook as he pulled at his chin. “If I tell her Vanessa’s missing, she might have another heart attack.”
Ian swallowed hard. The man was right. He wished to hell he had good news. “Tell her she’s with a friend. That she didn’t sleep last night and you insisted she rest.”
The man sucked in a breath. “Cocoa and I been married nearly forty years. I’ve never lied to her before.”
“We’ll find Vanessa,” Ian said, although he hated to make promises he might not deliver on. But maybe Beth would find something they’d missed. She’d insisted on returning to the task force room and reviewing all their notes.
“I pray you’re right.” Vanessa’s grandfather’s shoulders were slumped, though, the worry radiating from him a palpable force.
Ian gave the man’s shoulder a pat. “I’ll keep you posted. Let me talk to Beth and see if there are any new developments.”
Deon headed back to Cocoa, and Ian hurried to the morgue to meet Beth.
When he entered the task force meeting room, Beth was leaning over the table, one hand rubbing her forehead. The concussion must be worse than he thought.
He rushed to her. “Beth, are you okay?”
A glazed expression muddied her face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Beth blinked several times, then seemed to regain her focus. “I’ve been studying Headler’s files as well as your father’s.” She picked up the yearbook from the floor. “The last name of one of the students Headler interviewed rang a bell. A guy named Cain.”
Ian narrowed his eyes. “Cain—that’s the blood bank guy’s last name.”
She nodded and flipped the yearbook to show him a photo. “That’s him, Abram Cain. He went to school with us, too.”
“I didn’t realize he attended our school.”
“Abram first pointed the finger at Coach Gleason. Headler said the teen was upset about Kelly Cousins and implied that Coach was being inappropriate with her. He’s the reason the sheriff focused on your dad as a suspect.” She hesitated. “When I saw him that day at the school, I felt panicky. I thought the blood was the trigger. But when I saw his photo in the yearbook, the same thing happened.”
“You think Abram Cain framed Dad because he had something to do with Kelly Cousins’s death?” Ian asked.
“Maybe.” Beth rubbed her temple again. “There’s more, Ian. He used to live next door to the Otters. His father was a trucker and a follower of the Holy Waters Church.”
Her words made him stiffen. A trucker, another Benton follower.
And he knew the Otters.
Too many coincidences. “So he could have known what was going on at the Otters’ house?”
Beth nodded. “If we’re dealing with a father-son team, Abram’s father could have killed the girl who died thirty years ago. Then he kept on killing. Maybe Abram watched or . . . helped him with Kelly. Now he’s the one supposedly saving the girls.”
“My God, you think this has gone back generations?”
“It’s possible.” Beth released a pent-up breath. “There’s another connection. Abram Cain has a son named Milo. He’s the boy Vanessa was talking to when we were at the school.”
The timing was right. Vanessa would have trusted Milo. He could have lured her to go with him.
And if his father was the Boneyard Killer, she’d walked into a trap.
Director Vance had been pinging Beth all day. He was furious she hadn’t followed orders.
She decided to hold off responding until she had something concrete to tell him.
“Do you remember Abram’s face from the cave?” Ian asked.
“Yes. He was in the truck with May.” Now that she remembered his face, more and more details were sifting through her consciousness. He’d read Bible stories to her and Sunny the first night—had read passages about evil and redemption.
Ian gripped his phone. “I’ll call and get a warrant.”
Beth threw her purse over her shoulder. “Let’s go. I have Abram Cain’s address. He lives in the same neighborhood as Benton.”
As they left they picked up the warrant. Ten minutes later, Ian sped into Cain’s neighborhood. He parked at a gray wood house a few houses from his mother’s. The driveway was empty, suggesting no one was home.
They pulled their weapons, jumped out, and approached the house. Beth scanned the surrounding area and spotted an outbuilding with a padded lock.
Were the Cains holding Vanessa inside?
If so, how had they managed to do so without a neighbor either seeing or hearing what was going on?
Ian retrieved a crowbar from the back of his SUV and jogged toward the building. Beth stood watch in case the Cains returned while he pried the door open.
Ian shined a flashlight across the dark interior. Shelves lined the walls, but they were empty. So was the room.
If something had been here, Cain had moved it.
Beth crossed the room, searching for anything that might indicate what Cain had stored inside, but the room had been cleaned out and smelled of bleach.
“Let’s check the house.” Ian strode out the door, and Beth followed.
The Cains had probably seen the police canvassing the neighborhood, gotten spooked, and run.
They hurried toward the house anyway.
Ian scanned the kitchen as he entered, listening for any signs indicatin
g someone was inside.
The kitchen appeared spotless and smelled like Pine-Sol and bleach, just as the outbuilding had.
Either Abram Cain was their unsub and had cleaned to get rid of evidence, or he was OCD about cleanliness.
The fact that he’d lived next door to Beth as a teen and that he’d created suspicion about Ian’s father was too coincidental to ignore.
Abram’s infatuation with collecting blood from the victims fit with his job at the blood bank. Working at the blood bank also fit with the profile of the unsub believing he was saving people.
Beth had seen images of blood vials in her memories.
Ian opened the cabinet doors and refrigerator in search of the vials but found only dishes and a neatly organized refrigerator holding basic food items.
Beth searched the pantry. Canned goods. No blood. “Clear.”
Shoulders knotted, Ian moved to the den. A staircase led to the second floor. Beth gestured that she was going up. He spotted a door in the hallway and pointed to it. A basement would be a good place to hide a girl—or a body.
He turned the doorknob, then stuck his head inside and paused to listen.
Nothing but the windows rattling from the wind.
He shined the flashlight along the stairs and inched down them, gun at the ready in case Abram or his son was hiding out, but the basement was empty as well.
He climbed the steps and heard Beth calling his name. Hope surfaced as he jogged to the second floor. He found Beth in a room he assumed was Milo’s—sci-fi posters adorned the walls along with disturbing drawings of supernatural creatures and monsters.
Beth was sitting at the boy’s desk, her expression haunted. He scanned the room for blood. “Did you find something?”
“Maybe. Look at these.” She pivoted to show him the computer screen. “It’s that Deathscape game that all the teens are playing,” Beth said. “It was all over Prissy’s computer.”
Beth clicked a few keys, and an avatar of a young girl encountered several doors, each labeled with a temptation. The theme appeared to be sin and punishment for those sins.
“Milo didn’t just play this game,” Beth said. “Remember the counselor said he was a genius. He invented it.”