“Absolutely sure?” Hayden asked.
Watson narrowed his eyes, opened his mouth, and closed it before shaking his head.
“Lift his hair and check his ear,” Beth Watson said from behind her brother.
“What?” Kyl and Hayden asked at the same time.
Beth raised a hand to the side of her head. “Jason has a mole behind his right ear, about the size of a pea.” Kyl looked strangely at his sister, but she didn’t look back. One of the officers used a gloved hand and pushed back the hair, displaying a small, dark mole. “It’s him.”
Kyl raised his gaze to the night sky. “This is bad, oh God, this is bad. Jason is the Butcher, right? He’s the man who killed those six women, all this while he worked at Hope Academy.”
“We’re still investigating,” Hayden said.
“What am I going to tell my boys? My board?” Kyl’s throat caught on the words as he slipped an arm around his sister, whose entire body trembled with silent sobs.
Tell them Jason is a murderer, a sick son of a bitch who got the cruel death he deserved, Kate thought about offering. It was, after all, the truth.
Wasn’t it?
Her feet shifted, sinking deeper into the loamy earth. Then why didn’t she feel like celebrating?
* * *
Sunday, June 14, 12:55 a.m.
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Stalker Boy looked like shit. Not just shit, week-old shit that had been sitting in the hot sun, stinking and full of maggots. Lottie knew something was squirming in Stalker Boy’s gut. Time to poke it with a stick and see what crawled out.
Lottie nodded to Detective Traynor, who dropped the color photo of Shayna Thomas on the table, the one of her neck nearly severed in two.
“Not pretty anymore, is she?” Traynor said.
The stalker, Greg Wullner, turned a lurid shade of green, and she stepped back, worried he might blow chunks on her yellow snakeskin slingbacks.
“But she was beautiful at one time, wasn’t she?” The detective’s voice grew soft. “A face you could stare at for hours on end.”
The stalker swallowed.
“But you’ll never see the beautiful woman again, will you? Because this is all that’s left.” Traynor took out another photo, this one a close-up of her gouged-out eyes. “Brutal, wasn’t it? Stabbed sixty-two times with a double-edged, eight-inch knife.”
“Stop!” Stalker Boy brought a fisted hand to his mouth.
“It’s hard for you, seeing these things. I can tell.”
Stalker Boy nodded, gnawing his fist like a starving animal going at a bone.
“You feel bad, don’t you? Like your own heart has been ripped out. Like you’ve been bled to death.”
Stalker Boy nodded again. Saliva dripped down his arm.
Lottie nudged past Traynor. “You feel bad because you were there.”
The stalker raised his head, his eyes no longer glassy. “No, I didn’t kill her. I could never kill Shay.”
“But you were there, weren’t you?” Lottie edged closer to the table.
“No,” Stalker Boy said.
“What about the evidence? It doesn’t lie.” She dropped a folder on the table. “Fingerprints.” Another folder. “Footprints.” Another thud. “Semen.” The folders were filled with papers she had dug out of the recycling bin because lab results weren’t back yet, but there was no way Stalker Boy here would know that. He couldn’t take his gaze off Shayna Thomas’s mutilated body.
“No, no, I didn’t kill her!”
“But you were there.”
The lawyer, who’d been sitting at Wullner’s side, cleared his throat. “My client will not respond to that.”
“Let’s review the facts, Mr. Wullner,” Traynor said. “We found a room full of photos, taped news segments, trash from Shayna’s Lexus, and some of Shayna’s clothing at your apartment.” He pointed at the folders on the table. “We also have evidence linking you to the crime scene at the time of Shayna Thomas’s murder.”
“Frightening scenario, isn’t it?” Lottie asked. “Enough to scare the stink off shit, wouldn’t ya think?”
The attorney raised a hand, but Stalker Boy waved him off. “Yes.”
“Speak up,” Lottie said. “Can’t hear you with these old ears.”
“Yes, I was there.”
Lottie’s body tensed. “And you saw something through the window.”
He nodded. “I saw a person.”
Lottie took a folder from her briefcase. There was nothing trumped up about what was inside of it. She slipped out a photo and placed it in front of Shayna Thomas’s stalker. Stalker. Not killer. For at this point it was possible, maybe even probable, that stalker Greg Wullner was not the murderer, but a witness.
“Is this who you saw through Shayna Thomas’s bedroom window?” Lottie asked as he stared at the photo of Jason Erickson. She wanted to scream, Okay, you lowlife, stinking, maggot-infested son of a bitch, is this the madman you saw taking chunks out of Shayna Thomas with a butcher knife?
Stalker Boy tilted his head as if he were a great thinker. At last he said, “Absolutely not. I saw a woman.”
“A woman?” Lottie rubbed at her forehead.
“Pink dress. Drab hair. She didn’t look dangerous,” Stalker Boy said. “I had no idea she was a killer.”
“So why didn’t you come forward when you heard Shayna Thomas had been stabbed?”
“I thought you’d blame me.”
Okay, he was smarter than he first appeared, and the pisser was, Lottie believed the maggot. She believed he left before the Butcher whacked Shayna, because Stalker Boy was clearly obsessed with Shayna Thomas, a beautiful, living Shayna Thomas.
So what the hell was going on? Both Stalker Boy and the kid across the street saw a woman in a pink dress. Did she kill Shayna? Was she just the front that got the real killer in the door?
They were back to square one. No, that wasn’t true. Stalker Boy may be a maggot, but he got a look at Shayna’s killer’s face. She scooped up the photo of Erickson and crammed it back in the folder. “Do you think you could identify this woman in Shayna Thomas’s bedroom if you saw her again?”
Pain lashed Stalker Boy’s face, and again Lottie realized this loser had just lost the love of his sicko life. “I’ll try. I’ll do anything to find whoever killed my Shay.”
* * *
Sunday, June 14, 5:10 a.m.
Dorado Bay, Nevada
Kate’s life on the run was over.
Six hours ago, she’d seen her attacker’s stiff, bloated body, and she’d identified the scar on his wrist. Jason was dead, and his death meant she should be at peace.
She scrubbed her hand across eyes that refused to close. So why didn’t she feel relief? Why couldn’t she sleep? And why was she standing in the doorway of Hayden’s bedroom?
Hayden sat on the bed, his laptop balanced on his thighs, his shoes and socks on the floor near the dresser. He looked normal, almost relaxed. He still wore his suit pants, but he was tie-less, a golden wedge of skin and dark hair showing above his creamy white undershirt. She tapped the doorframe.
When he looked up, she cleared her throat. “I…uh…saw the light, figured you were still awake.” Her fingers dug into the hem of her nightshirt. Hard to believe she used to make her living talking in front of a camera.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. If he was surprised to see her, he didn’t show it. Stubble shadowed the lower half of his face, and the smudges beneath his eyes were inky thumbprints, but he looked intensely clear-eyed, more animated than she’d ever seen him. And very, very sexy.
“What are you doing?” Kate asked. Really, she should go back to her room, but her room was too dark.
“Looking for links.” He motioned to his laptop. “We have to be sure that Jason is indeed the Butcher. Right now I’m trying to find anything that connects him to one of the dead broadcasters, hopefully Shayna Thomas. I’m waiting for the autopsy report.” He looked at his watch. “They
put a rush on it. Should be done within the hour.”
“Best-case scenario with the autopsy?” Kate asked as she walked into his room, aglow with light from his computer.
“In my wildest fantasies we find Shayna Thomas’s hair, skin, or blood somewhere on Jason’s body. I’ll take anything we can DNA match. More realistically, we’ll find something that will lead us to whoever killed him, and perhaps that person will help us link Jason to the Broadcaster slayings.”
“Are you hopeful?” She licked her lips, the word tasting odd on her tongue.
“I’m always hopeful, Kate.” Hayden didn’t smile often, but when he did, it carried more power than the gun tucked into the holster still strapped to his chest.
She edged to the side of the bed but didn’t sit. Maybe she was here because she needed to see him smile and hear him say that good will conquer evil, justice will prevail, and all will live happily ever after. Growing up, she lived with a mother who had told her that she was ugly and worthless, who had screamed that she regretted bringing Kate into this world, who—
“Stop.” Hayden set aside his laptop and reached for her hand, the nails of which were digging into her thigh.
She had no desire to pull away—just the opposite. Something, maybe the smile, drew her closer. She pictured herself sinking into his arms. “Stop what?”
“Thinking about dragons.”
His thumb stroked the top of her hand, and she tried to laugh, but it came out as a choky gurgle. “You’re getting into my head again.”
“Honestly, you’re an easy read, particularly tonight.”
“Am I? Then tell me why I’m here.” She finally raised her gaze to his. Wanting to throw myself into your arms. Smokey Joe said she wasn’t a liar, and she was doing a piss-poor job of lying to herself tonight. Her world had been rocked by Jason’s death, but the tremors had begun the night she invited Hayden to handcuff her to the bed in Smokey’s upstairs bedroom. She’d tossed out the taunt to jolt a seemingly unshakable man, but she’d been affected, too. And until today, she’d been too deep in her self-imposed darkness to see. With Jason finally gone and the darkness giving way to something she wasn’t quite ready to call hope, she was free to feel the electricity sparking between them.
Jason’s death changed everything.
The pulse at Hayden’s wrist slammed hers, but he quickly patted the top of her hand as if giving comfort to a frightened child. “In less than twenty-four hours you discovered both your mother and brother dead. Regardless of your feelings for them, it’s a loss of your primary family unit, and you’re feeling very much alone right now. You need company. I’m here.”
She held up their clasped hands. “Do you think that’s all you are, Hayden, a hand to hold while I travel a bumpy road?”
He paused just long enough for her to see doubt flit across the granite plane of his face. “Yes.”
No, she wasn’t going to let him brush off her feelings with head-talk. Still holding his hand, she sat on the edge of the bed. Her thigh brushed against his, and a tidal wave of heat flooded her body. “You feel nothing?” she asked.
A whisper of a tremor shook his hand. “I feel a need to protect you with every resource available to me and my team and with every cell of my being.”
She pictured Hayden’s being. No gun or briefcase. No fancy suit and shiny shoes. Just golden skin and curved muscle and rumpled, wavy hair. Her tongue darted out to moisten her suddenly dry lips. “Every cell?”
He dropped her hand as if he, too, felt the fire, and shucked his fingers through the sides of his hair, keeping them glued to his scalp. “You’re a witness, a victim, and this is a job.”
“A job?” A few days ago, she had made the mistake of calling Smokey Joe a job, and Hayden had called her on it. A laugh, light and airy, expanded her chest and tripped over her lips. God, it felt good to laugh. “You’re saying I’m just a job? That this…this thing between us is purely professional?”
Hayden turned his gaze to the blackness outside his window. She settled her fingertips on his shirtfront, the fabric buttery soft and vibrating with the thrum rushing through her veins. He remained a slab of marble. How could he not feel that? Was the heat purely one-sided? Maybe the upending of her world addled her brain. Maybe she was just a job.
She flattened her hand on his chest, ready to push away, but the rapid-fire beat of his heart slammed her palm, heated her skin. “Just a job?” she asked on a rush of breath.
He looked almost pained as he tore his gaze from the window and back to her. Hayden may pretend to be made of stone, but there was nothing cold about him as he lowered his head, his warm breath sweeping along her jaw, nothing hard as his lips brushed against hers. Her fingers dug into his shirt as she steadied herself against the barest of kisses. Three years. It had been three years since she’d been this close to someone, three years since she’d wanted to be this close to someone.
As if sensing her want or admitting one of his own, Hayden dug his hands into her hair and pulled her closer. The feathery touch of lips gave way to the firm pressure of his mouth. She tasted cinnamon, sweet and spicy, and heard the low moan at the back of his throat.
“Not a job,” he said, his mouth not moving from hers. “Definitely not a job.”
Her mouth curved against his, and a rumble rocked his chest.
Somewhere a phone rang, but Hayden, clearly no longer in work mode, didn’t seem to notice. The phone let out another shriek. She snapped her head upright. It rang again. Hayden blinked. And in that blink, his face became a cold, hard slate. He grabbed the phone.
Kate drew in a long breath, attempting to cool the heat swirling in her chest. She watched him take notes as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the phone. How could he do it? Turn off his emotions in the blink of an eye? She picked at a loose thread on the quilted coverlet. Because his life was his job. He lived and breathed his work. She’d seen it the first day he tracked her down at Smokey Joe’s cabin. And when this case was over, he’d move on to the next case, the next killer.
She wrapped the thread around her finger. And she’d hop on her bike and…Honestly, she had no idea where she’d go, but for the first time in three years she had freedom to move about without fear. That thought sent a different type of warmth through her body. Instead of heading out on the road right away, maybe she’d go back to Smokey Joe’s cabin and make sure he got set up with a new aide. She’d help him finish all the orders for their jewelry business. She was earning a nice little nest egg that would pay for quite a few tanks of gas. Maybe she’d even see if Smokey wanted to take a trip to Las Vegas to get a new LOST MY ASS candy dish since she’d broken his old one.
Behind her, in the cottage kitchen, the landline phone rang. Maybe it was Smokey Joe calling to complain about the heat in Tucson or Maeve or both. More likely it was someone from Hayden’s team, or the Dorado Bay Police, or the coroner with word on Jason’s autopsy. She hurried to the phone.
“Agent Hayden Reed, please,” a deep male voice said.
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“Lieutenant Rhodes of the Oakland Police.”
“He’s on another call right—”
“Tell him to get off.”
The tone irked her. Like Smokey, she did not like people telling her what to do. “He can’t—”
“Tell him to get off the damned phone. He’s got another one.”
“Excuse me?”
“Another slaying. The Broadcaster Butcher struck here in Oakland last night.”
That couldn’t be right. Jason’s dead, bloated body had been found at the bottom of the lake. A tremor rocked her spine, and she steadied her hand on the back of a chair. How had he managed to get in one last kill? Did he have a partner? Was a killer’s accomplice still at large? Or was this some kind of copycat?
Holding a pencil so tightly it snapped, she took the lieutenant’s name and number and walked into Hayden’s room. He’d moved to the window overlooking the black nig
ht, his phone no longer at his ear. He stood in profile, but she could see something red and hot racing across his face. Had he learned about the Oakland murder?
She joined him at the window and held out the paper. “The Oakland police called. Jason struck again.”
Hayden didn’t look at the paper. Why the hell wasn’t he looking at the paper? Why wasn’t he taking charge and fixing things?
“Hayden, what’s wrong?”
He stretched his neck as if trying to make the words flow. “Autopsy protocols show Jason’s body was in that lake ten to fourteen days.”
The paper slipped from her hand. “But Shayna Thomas was killed on Monday, six days ago, and there’s the Oakland broadcaster who was killed last night.”
Hayden rested both palms on the windowsill. “Jason didn’t kill Shayna Thomas or the broadcaster in Oakland. Jason Erickson is not the Butcher.” His words shot out fiery hot in the already warm room. “Jason was stabbed with an eight-inch, double-edged knife at the back of his head. Two subsequent stab wounds to main arteries bled him to death. Not only is he not the Butcher, he was killed by the Butcher.”
A glacial cold, like the waters of the lake outside her window, washed over her. “The Butcher’s still on the loose.”
“And he won’t stop until he—”
As Hayden’s voice broke off, something hovered at the far edges of her mind. For nearly a week she’d lived and breathed this case with Hayden, who now stood before her, his face twisted in anger and something more unsettling: fear.
“Kills me,” she said with a gasp. “He has to break all the mirrors. He has to finish the job.” Her finger slid along the scar on her neck to the scar on her breast. “I’m the job he never finished. He has to kill me.”
Hayden didn’t argue. He couldn’t. He intimately knew the Butcher.
Adrenaline shot through her legs. After a few hours of precious peace, it was time to head back to the shadowy back roads where the Butcher couldn’t find her.
Before she could make a run for the door, Hayden reached for her.
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