by Rita Herron
He gestured toward the young girl who lay on the floor, her eyes wide as she studied him. “She is a sinner, son. It is your time.”
“But Father, I am saving her in my own way.”
Impatience blended with the need to make this as quick and painless as possible. He did not enjoy the suffering. But sinners had to be punished.
“I understand your need to reinvent our methods,” he said. “That is the reason I study the blood. One day I’ll figure out a way to purge the bad blood and replace it with untainted blood. But for now, we follow tradition.”
He placed the knife in his son’s hands. The young girl fought and tugged at her bindings, her sob for help bouncing off the walls of his cavern.
Only no one knew where she was . . .
She could scream at the top of her lungs and no one would hear.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Milo Cain had designed Deathscape, and he was only a teenager—a scary indicator of his future.
He fit the profile. He was awkward in social situations, didn’t have many friends, was raised with strict beliefs under the umbrella of the Holy Waters Church. And he was detail-oriented.
Had he invented his own method of researching potential victims? Was his father grooming him to become a serial killer?
“If we’re right and the Cains are responsible,” Ian said, “we need to find them fast.” He called Peyton for information on what kind of vehicle the father drove, then had her issue a BOLO.
Beth seemed entranced by the game. “The punishments for sin in the game are horrific, each taken from the Bible. Stoning, brick and mortar, floods, snakes, plagues.”
“Is there a clue to where he’s taking the victims in the game?” Ian asked.
Beth tapped the keyboard. “I’m looking.”
“Okay, I’ll search the rest of the house.”
Ian rummaged through Milo’s closet and found another book of graphic sketches. The boy was a meticulous artist, his renditions of Biblical figures, demons, and the devil disturbing.
Ian searched for a key to another house or storage building—nothing.
Dammit. The clock was ticking.
In Abram’s room, he found work uniforms and casual clothing, but nothing with blood on it. A bookcase was filled with medical journals and research articles on blood disorders.
He discovered a shoebox and opened it, hoping to find a trophy. A stack of envelopes was tucked inside.
He quickly thumbed through them and noted the return addresses. They were from medical schools across the country.
All rejections, dating back ten years.
Ian clutched the box in one hand and went to tell Beth. “Abram Cain wanted to attend med school. He was hoping to find a cure for mental illness through blood, but he was repeatedly rejected.”
Beth frowned. “That may be the reason he started keeping the girls’ blood, so he could study it.”
“What about the artwork the unsub sends the victims?”
“Maybe his way of giving them back part of their daughters.” She gestured to the copy of the game in her hand. “I think he took some of the blood vials to a place he could use as a lab. In the video game, there’s a sterile underground building.”
Ian’s mind raced. “The cave we found was far from sterile.”
“I know, but this is the son’s version. Since we exposed the cave, maybe he took Vanessa to the lab.” Beth continued to view the game. “Ian, call Peyton and find out if there’s an old abandoned laboratory in the mountains near here or outside Knoxville.”
Ian tapped his boot up and down on the floor while he made the call. He quickly told her what they needed, then heard keys tapping as Peyton ran a search.
“Actually, a research company was housed not far from Knoxville, but the company went belly-up,” Peyton said. “I’m sending you the GPS coordinates for its location.”
“Thanks.” Seconds later, with the location in hand, he and Beth rushed to his SUV.
His phone buzzed.
Peyton again.
He quickly connected. “Yeah.”
“Ian, we have blood work results from the cave. We may have DNA from the killer.”
Her voice sounded odd. Something was wrong. “Who does it belong to?”
A tense pause. “The blood matched someone in our system.”
He veered around a curve. “Who it is, dammit?”
“Actually, there are two familial matches. One is to the Cain man. Abram. His father’s blood is not in the system. Abram’s father actually died a while back.”
“You said two. Who else?”
A deep sigh. “I probably should tell Beth this first, but I don’t know what to make of it. That’s why I called you.”
What the hell? “Just spill it, Peyton.”
Peyton sighed. “It was a familial match to Beth—I mean to JJ Jones.”
Beth struggled to tamp down her panic as Ian flew around the mountain and then onto the highway toward Knoxville. As he hung up the phone, he gave her an odd look.
“What is it?” she asked.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“No, tell me now,” Beth said. “Is it Vanessa? Did they find her?”
If Vanessa died, she’d never forgive herself.
“No.”
Beth grabbed his arm. “What’s wrong, Ian?”
He swung to the left and careened around another car.
“Ian, please talk to me,” Beth said softly.
He exhaled, his look dark. “Peyton has results on DNA and blood from the cave, blood they think belongs to the unsub.”
“That’s good news,” Beth said. “Is it Abram Cain’s?”
“There is a familial match to him,” Ian said through gritted teeth.
“Then we can use it against him,” Beth said. “This is evidence we needed.”
“There was also a familial match to someone else. Someone in our system.”
Beth twisted her hands together. “Who?”
Tense seconds passed. She thought he wasn’t going to answer. When he did, Ian’s voice grew low. “To you, Beth. The familial match is to you.”
Shock waves rolled through Beth. “What are you talking about? There’s got to be a mistake.”
Ian’s sharp look cut her to the bone. “Forensics don’t lie, Beth. People do.”
Hurt engulfed Beth. “You think I’m lying?”
“I didn’t say that,” Ian snapped. “But it’s odd that the killer turns out to be related to you, yet you forgot his face.”
“Because I was traumatized,” Beth said. “I told you, I don’t have any family. My mother gave me away when I was an infant. I never even knew my father’s name.”
“Maybe you didn’t know,” Ian said, torn by the hurt in her voice. “But he could have found you. He could have moved next door to Otter to watch you.”
Beth wrapped her arms around herself as if she might fall apart. “You can’t think that I knew or that I’d cover for him,” she said in a strained tone.
He didn’t know what to think. “Maybe he told you when he abducted you and you repressed that memory.” He gripped the steering wheel as a truck barreled around them. He careened around the turn on two wheels. “We’ll discuss it later.”
He pointed to a white van ahead and the top of a steel building that looked as if it had been built underground. The plant had been some kind of solar-related project.
Had Cain been using it to conduct his own science experiments with blood?
Beth fought hurt and confusion as she and Ian crept up to the building. Ian couldn’t possibly think she’d lied or kept the truth from him.
But what if he was right? What if the man had confessed he was her father? The shock of learning her own parent was a killer could have been enough for her to block out his face and repress details of the abduction.
She searched her mind again, but all she remembered was the Bible verses and prayers and preaching. N
othing about being related to the man who’d killed Sunny.
She needed answers. Abram Cain might have them.
Were he and Milo here?
An eerie quiet hovered over the property. Did Cain have surveillance cameras? Would he see them approaching?
“Ready?” Ian mouthed.
She nodded.
Ian pointed toward the right to a cluster of bushes and the door to the underground lab.
Beth followed his lead and provided backup as he eased open the door, and they inched down the steps. It took a moment to adjust to the dark. It was cold. Clammy.
They heard a voice from somewhere deep in the place. Chills cascaded down Beth’s neck.
Vanessa.
Crying.
Begging for her life.
Ian paused, listening as well. His gaze met hers, and she gestured to go ahead. She followed, each second that passed torturous.
By the time they reached the end of the hallway, Beth could hardly breathe. Memories of being trapped in the cave threatened to immobilize her.
She didn’t realize Ian had gone so far ahead until someone grabbed her from behind and shoved a knife to her neck.
Ian froze. Footsteps behind him, then Beth’s low gasp boomeranged off the walls.
Shit. He’d moved too quickly. Left her behind.
Cain or his son had her.
It was Ian’s fault.
He spun around, aiming his gun at the place he thought they’d be, but they were gone.
Ian took off at a dead run.
He nearly passed the corridor to the right. But Beth was dragging her feet, making noise.
The direction of the sound launched him forward. He reached the end of the corridor and peered to the left, then the right.
Dear God.
He could hardly believe his eyes.
Vanessa was tied to a metal gurney with her arms extended over a plastic tarp meant to catch excess blood. Cain hadn’t bothered to gag her. He must have thought no one would hear her cries for help.
A low voice bellowed below Vanessa’s screams. Beth pleading for the man to listen to her as he shoved her down beside Vanessa.
Jesus, God. The sick fuck was going to make her watch—just as he’d forced Beth to witness him slay Sunny.
Ian remained immobile, assessing the situation. He needed to take the man off guard.
Milo was kneeling beside Vanessa, his hand holding hers, as if to comfort her.
Abram Cain pressed a hand on top of Beth’s head. “I shouldn’t have let you go. I should have ended it like Father said.”
“What are you talking about?” Beth said, her voice much calmer than Ian would have expected.
“You were to be my first,” Abram said. “I messed up with Kelly. I slit her wrist to drain the bad blood from her, but then I panicked and wrote that suicide note. I should have buried her with the ones Father saved.”
“You killed Kelly Cousins?” Beth asked.
He nodded, eyes wild. “She was a sinner. She threw herself at the coach like some two-bit whore.”
“Then you came after me and Sunny,” Beth said. “Why?”
“Father killed your mother because she enticed him into sin. She gave you away thinking she was protecting you, but he tracked you down. He watched you for years, hoping you wouldn’t become one of the whores. But he saw the way Otter looked at you and figured you were already lost.”
“He knew what was going on in the Otter house?” Beth said.
“Yes. He watched to see what you would do. Then you ran.” His voice cracked. “Father was proud that you resisted. And when you got in the truck with us, I thought we might bond. I finally had a sister.”
Beth’s face turned ashen.
Ian moved closer. Abram truly believed what he was saying. Which made him even more dangerous.
“You watched him kill other girls and did nothing,” Beth said in a steely voice.
“It is our calling,” Abram said. “We must save the sinners.” A hysterical laugh followed. “I wanted to add to our legacy by studying blood and finding a cure for the evil.”
“Prissy wasn’t evil, and neither is Vanessa.” Beth’s labored breathing rattled in the air. “Let her go like you let me go.”
“That was a mistake. You came back to hunt me and now my son. It has to end.”
Ian gripped his weapon as the shiny metal of Abram’s knife glinted in the dark.
It was going to end all right.
But Vanessa and Beth wouldn’t be the ones to die.
The idea that she might be related to this man sickened Beth and spiked her anger.
He’d stolen so much from her already. She wouldn’t let him take anything else.
She had to save Vanessa.
Maybe the boy could be redeemed after all, and she could save two lives.
“Did your son help you murder Prissy?” she asked.
Abram tightened his grip around her neck. The knife pricked her skin. Blood seeped down her throat.
“He has his own ways of saving souls, but he’s being indoctrinated tonight. Vanessa will be his first. Of course I must baptize her before the bloodletting.”
“Why did you bury the girls in the holler?” Beth asked.
“Because my grandfather—our grandfather—is buried at the top of the hill,” he murmured against her ear. “I wanted him to watch over them.”
He was crazy.
A shadow moved in the corner. Ian.
She didn’t hesitate. She jabbed her elbow in the man’s side, then stomped on his foot, spun around, and grabbed the knife. He grunted in pain, but he was strong and they fought for the knife.
“Dad!” Milo vaulted toward them.
His voice distracted Abram just long enough for her to knock the knife from the man’s hand. Rage flared in his eyes, and he lunged toward her, his hands bared as he closed them around her neck.
A gunshot blasted the air.
Beth tried to catch her breath, but he dragged her down with him. Blood soaked her chest as she collapsed onto the floor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Ian’s heart stopped.
Beth was down and bleeding. Cain was on top of her.
“Get him off me!” Beth shouted.
Her voice jerked Ian from his shock.
Vanessa was screaming, and Milo was running for his father, shouting, “Dad,” over and over again.
Afraid Milo was armed, Ian frisked him, then handcuffed him to a metal pipe.
By the time he reached Beth, she’d rolled Cain to the ground and pushed to her feet.
Blood soaked her blouse. “Beth?”
“I’m not hit. It’s Cain’s blood.”
Thank God.
“Help. Get me loose!” Vanessa cried.
Beth ran to her and untied her while Ian knelt to check Cain’s pulse. He was alive.
The sound of Vanessa’s sobs bounced off the walls as he called for an ambulance.
The next few hours were chaos as the paramedics arrived to examine Vanessa and transport Abram to the hospital. The bullet had pierced his abdomen, but the man should live.
Ian hoped he did. He wanted Abram to spend years suffering in prison for what he’d done.
The CSU arrived along with Director Vance to process the lab. They found a collection of the victims’ blood vials, neatly labeled and alphabetized.
Another room held paintings that he’d done using the girls’ blood. Although he had sent some of the paintings to a few victims’ families, he obviously hadn’t known where other victims’ parents lived because they were runaways living on the streets.
“Abram’s father is dead,” Director Vance told them. “Peyton found a reference to his death in the obituaries.”
“I know, he told me,” Beth said.
Director Vance gave Beth a sympathetic look. “The young girl they found who’d been dead thirty years was your mother, Beth.”
“Abram’s father—my father—killed her,” Beth said in
a raspy voice. “Apparently my mother gave me away to protect me from him. I guess she loved me after all.”
The medics loaded a nearly unconscious Abram Cain onto a stretcher and started toward the ambulance.
“Please let me talk to him,” Milo said.
Ian didn’t know what to make of the kid yet. He was scary weird. He escorted Milo over to his father but stayed close enough to listen.
“Dad,” Milo murmured. “I’m sorry.”
Abram Cain had the nerve to smile. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “I know you won’t let me down, son.”
The sinister look Milo and his father exchanged made Ian’s blood turn to ice.
Beth spent the next week overseeing the indictment of Abram Cain for multiple homicides. Reverend Benton also faced charges of abuse and child endangerment, and Beth was trying to make charges of accomplice to murder fit.
Apparently Abram and Benton were cousins.
Benton had known what Cain was doing all along.
The family believed they were destined to save young women from the streets, each in their own way. It had started generations ago. Some of the bones she’d felt in that cave belonged to her great-grandfather’s victims.
The Feds and Ian’s deputies continued to search for other victims and another burial spot. So far, Abram refused to tell them anything. Beth had initiated comparing Milo’s DNA to the remains from the boneyard to determine if his mother was among the victims.
Abram admitted that he and his father were the ones Vinny Barlow had seen at the rest stop when they dumped JJ in the bushes. When the trucker had found her so quickly and spotted them, they’d pretended to be passersby and had called 911.
Beth rubbed her forehead where another headache pulsed. She couldn’t believe she shared the same blood as these men.
Or that Ian had doubted her, had thought for a second that she would have protected them.
She packed the last of her clothes to drive back to Knoxville. She needed time to forgive herself for repressing memories that could have saved a dozen lives.
Agent Hamrick’s wife, Josie DuKane, who’d written stories of the other serial murders in Graveyard Falls, had reached out to her. Beth was giving Josie the exclusive story with the inside scoop.