Find Me If You Dare (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 2)

by Rachel Lucas

  Her words struck me for a moment. I couldn’t help comparing every situation to the one I was in. I thought back over the trail Elizabeth had led us on these past few months. I thought over what could have possibly been her agenda. Was she just like the others?

  “You don’t think Elizabeth is like that, do you?” I asked, pausing in eating my enchilada. I didn’t want to think she could be that cold or have that little disregard for human life. As for the other members of the family, though, there was no telling. I had often wondered if there were creatures inside her that weren’t even human.

  “No, I don’t think it’s about the numbers for Elizabeth,” Madeline answered with confidence. “She has purpose. She seems to have reasons for what she does. Even if she harms or kills someone that wasn’t a direct target, I think it’s just situational for her. She’s not above killing someone who gets in her way, but it’s a means to an end.”

  I thought about Madeline’s words. It didn’t seem to make what Elizabeth was doing any better. Just because she was a killer with an agenda didn’t make her much different than one that chose their victims randomly.

  In some ways, she was no different than the other serial killers that had made headlines and news stories. I could easily see in the future that there might be crime stories, documentaries, even movies made about her. She was going to be notorious. Even more so because she was a woman, and female serial killers were so rare.

  That was a place I really wasn’t ready to go to yet. The thought of that kind of overwhelming, constant media scrutiny was so intimidating to me. I could barely keep up with what we were going through now.

  We were just finishing our meal and paying the check when I glanced out the window and happened to notice Logan coming out the hotel and fighting off reporters to try and cross the street in our direction. The look on his face seemed urgent. He was usually brisk and official when it came to dealing with reporters. Right now he looked downright annoyed.

  As soon as I pointed it out to Madeline, we were nudging our way through the crowded restaurant and heading for the entrance as fast as we could. We met him on the sidewalk right as he had crossed the street. He was usually in good shape but he seemed out of breath and anxious. My entire body tensed in worry.

  “What is it?” I almost demanded, grabbing onto his arm in concern.

  “Truth or Consequences.” That brought me up short. What in the world was he talking about?

  “Wasn’t that a game show in the seventies?” Madeline asked, equally confused.

  “I think so,” he nodded then started leading us back across the street towards the hotel, “it’s also the name of a small town just north of here. They’ve just discovered a white truck on fire up there.”

  He led us back into the hotel and past the reporters at such a rapid pace I was almost out of breath myself. He paused and put an arm around me as soon as we were in the lobby. He was bracing me, I knew. But for what?

  “There was a body inside, burnt beyond recognition. They think its Elizabeth.”

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  For a moment my entire body seemed to go numb. The breath felt as though it had been knocked out of my lungs by a sharp blow. I couldn’t move, couldn’t react at all. My head was spinning and there was a buzzing in my ears.

  I looked at Logan with what must have been a blank stare. Some distant part of me registered that he was shaking me gently.

  “Caitlyn?” His expression was worried, almost frantic. “Are you okay?”

  How should I react? What this the time to cry? To break down? Was there a right way to react at this moment? It was almost as though I stood there waiting, waiting to be told what to do, what to think, what to feel. The pain, the grief hadn’t hit me yet. All I could feel right then was shock. Shock and another feeling I didn’t dare acknowledge. Relief?

  I finally felt Logan’s strong hands on my arms, shaking me again. The concern in his eyes broke me out of my shocked state.

  “Take us there.” Those were the only words I could get out. I had to go there. I had to see for myself that she was really gone.

  Logan only nodded once then he and Madeline broke into a flurry of movement. I guess our flights to Albuquerque and Chicago were going to be postponed for now.

  I didn’t remember much about the drive there. One stretch of dry rock and sand seemed to blend into another. The liquid wave of heat coming off the road made the highway seem wet, eternal, as though it went on forever.

  Truth or Consequences was a small town about an hour north in Las Cruces along I-25. It was the type of dusty, desert place that you might miss if you blinked. We pulled off onto the main strip, the business loop of 1-25. Just a few blocks into town we took a turn off the strip onto a winding dirt road. Smoke could still be seen in the distance.

  Director Phillips was already there. He had gone ahead as soon as the report had come in from the local sheriff. A fire truck was there, still spraying down the smoldering wreckage. An ambulance and a few paramedics stood by patiently, the look on their faces telling me the truth. There was no one left in that truck to try to save.

  The once white truck was now yellowed and charred, the paint cracked and peeling from the heat of the flames.

  “Don’t go out there, Caitlyn,” Logan warned me as soon as our car came to a stop. He put a restraining hand on my arm. I hadn’t released my seatbelt yet. “You don’t need to see more than this.”

  I thought about it for a moment. A few yards away held …..what? The burnt remains of my one-time best friend? Did I really have the stomach for this?

  “Yes, I do.” Somehow I found the strength I didn’t really knew I had. My seatbelt was undone and the car door opened before I knew it.

  The smell hit me first. It was an involuntary reaction that made me cover my mouth and nose. It was the kind of smell that you never forgot, that never left you. The sharp odor of burnt flesh was enough to make me gag.

  “Stay back!” I didn’t realize that I had begun walking towards the wreck until I heard the warning. I looked over to see Phillips hurrying towards me. “The gas tank blew not that long ago. There could still be some fuel left.”

  He was right, I could still feel the heat radiating off the vehicle. I couldn’t help it, I had to try to look inside. Whatever it was, whatever it looked like, I had to see it, I had to know for myself. I moved around the perimeter the fire department had set, trying to see.

  The windows of the cab were now wet and smoke-stained. Water still leaked down from being sprayed with the fire hose. Gray plumes of smoke spiraled up from the scarred leather seats. Inside, in the driver’s seat, I could just barely make out a dark figure. It was little more than a shadow, just the blackened remains of a recently live human being.

  I felt wetness on my face. It didn’t even register it was coming from my eyes. From the smell, the still acrid smoke, or the torment that was welling up within me, I didn’t know.

  “Don’t Caitlyn.” It was Madeline that put her arms around me this time. She was surprisingly strong for such a tiny woman. She forcibly turned me away from the wreckage, back towards our car. “Don’t torture yourself. You don’t need to see any more. Leave the rest for the forensics.”

  I allowed myself to be led back away from the burning mass. She kept a firm arm around me. I looked out across the barren, dry landscape. We were well away from the small town, out in an almost deserted area. I didn’t see the nearly cloudless blue sky. I didn’t see the red rock and sand or the loose tumbleweeds blown across the land by the parched wind.

  The only thing I could see was the withered, charred remains in the darkened cab of the smoldering truck. She was gone.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  I had heard it all before. They planned on gathering DNA from several of the crime scenes and comparing it against the remains left in the burning truck. We were warned that DNA that had been burnt to this degree was hard to get a good sample of, but we did have the best in country, the FBI,
doing the tests.

  “Director Phillips!” Special Agent Ludlow came jogging up from a nearby field. I hadn’t seen him since the coffee shop. “We found this. About fifty yards away in the brush.”

  He held up a light tan cowboy hat, a woman’s cowboy hat. He’d used the tip of an ink pen to pick it up and carry it, not wanting to contaminate the felt. I took a step forward for a closer look. It was singed on the edges of the brim with dark smudges across the crown. It smelled of smoke and gasoline.

  “The forensics team is just getting here. I’d like the fire marshal take a look at it before they take it into evidence. Do you smell what I smell?” The question from Phillips was open to either one of us.

  “Gasoline.” Agent Ludlow answered and I nodded.

  The fire marshal, Chief O’Brien, walked over to join us as well as Logan. O’Brien looked to be in his fifties, with a broad girth and once red hair fading into white-gray.

  “What do you think, Chief?” Phillips asked, letting Agent Ludlow hold the hat out gingerly for him to inspect.

  “It does smell of gasoline,” O’Brien answered immediately.

  “Do you think an accelerant was used?” Logan asked. “Have you found any traces of it on the truck?”

  “From what we can see so far, the fire was fast and very hot. We won’t know for certain until we run chemical tests, but I would say it has all the signs of an accelerant present.”

  I looked back at the burnt out shell of a truck. I couldn’t imagine pouring gas over yourself, taking a match or and lighter, then…..

  “Have you found any witnesses?” It was Logan’s question that distracted me from my dark thoughts.

  “Right now, there were just a few teenage kids that called it in after they saw the fire. They said they didn’t see anything before they noticed the smoke. They were back on the main street when they noticed it. We haven’t found anyone yet that saw anything before the fire.” O’Brien answered.

  One of the firefighters called him and he gave us a short nod before he walked back towards the wreckage. The CSI team as well as the paramedics wanted to speak with him. They were discussing the best way to remove the remains without destroying any forensic evidence.

  The remains. I sucked in a breath. It was Elizabeth they were talking about. That was her, really her, just a few yards away from me. Or what was left of her.

  “Caitlyn, let’s take a walk.” It was Madeline again, tugging on my arm and pulling me away from the scene. It wasn’t a request as much as it was an order. I didn’t have the energy to fight it. She probably didn’t want me there to watch as they removed the body from the charred vehicle.

  There wasn’t much of a path along the dusty field. I didn’t know if she had a destination in mind as much as just wanting me away from there. We were about fifty yards away from the scene, kicking sage brush and weeds out of our way as we walked when she finally spoke. The powdery dirt puffed up onto her freshly pressed pants, blending into the light brown color. She didn’t seem to mind or notice.

  “Think, Caitlyn.” Her words were insistent, almost bossy.

  I looked up from the rocks and light tan desert grass that seemed to hold my attention for a short moment. She looked directly into my eyes from her small height, head tilted back, hands on hips. What was she talking about? Think? How could I think right now? I was just existing at the moment. What did she expect?

  She must have seen the blank look in my eyes.

  “Think about it, Caitlyn, did you ever know any of the personalities to be suicidal?”

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Madeline was quick to bring it up when Director Phillips and Logan joined us a short time later.

  “It doesn’t fit the profile.” She argued. “As many different personalities, family members, or whatever you want to call them that were running around inside of Elizabeth Marshall’s head, none of them were suicidal.”

  “The truck, the description, fit. Right down to the cowboy hat.” Phillips was ready to stand his own ground on this one. “She knew we were close. She knew we had patrols watching at every major highway. She probably made it here shortly after she killed her father. She had to realize that we were closing in. Rather than get caught and arrested, then have to endure a lengthy trial, she decided to end things on her own terms.”

  His words were confident, compelling. He would have made a good lawyer.

  “Besides,” it was Logan this time, he seemed to be on Phillip’s side, “we don’t know the full scope of all the personalities inside of her. There were definitely many with serious mental health issues. Some were very unstable. Suicide isn’t beyond the realm of possibilities.”

  He looked to me to back up his statement. They were all silent for a moment, waiting for me to speak. I had to think this through. I tried to take a step back from the many pieces of the different crime scenes, the clues and messages she had left behind, and see things from a more objective perspective.

  “Madeline and I had talked several times about the possibility that there was a conflict inside of Elizabeth.” I looked at Madeline as she acknowledged the conservations we had shared in the past. “We discussed that there might be some family members that were good. Innocent might be the wrong word for it, but at least not willing participants in the murders. There might have been an internal struggle. There might have been those that were trying all along to stop the bloodshed. Maybe the struggle reached a crisis point. There could have been just one of the family members that thought death was preferable to killing more people.”

  Madeline didn’t seem too happy that I had sided with Phillips and Logan but I saw in her eyes that she respected my opinion.

  “So you think this is the end?” She asked quietly. We had started walking back to the car we had arrived in. By the time we neared the scene of the fire we could see a black body bag on a stretcher being lifted into the waiting ambulance. I stopped for a moment and watched in silence as the wheels of metal stretcher were folded up so it would slide into the back of the ambulance. The hard slam of the doors as they closed shook me.

  “We’ll know for certain as soon as we get the DNA results back.” Logan answered for me. He must have sensed I was drained. I didn’t have much to add to the conversation at this point. “Do we have a timeline on that?” He asked the director.

  “We brought our own forensics team in for the scene in Las Cruces.” He answered briskly. “They took a few samples here. They’re taking the body to the county morgue for further testing. I’ve asked that it be a top priority so we can get the results back as soon as possible. It will depend on how viable the samples are. It could take a day or two or a few weeks.”

  A few weeks. That was the only part I heard. I didn’t know if I could take staying here in this dry desert landscape for a few weeks while we waited for the results. In a strange sense, I didn’t want to leave Elizabeth. It felt like I was deserting her, leaving her all alone in a strange county morgue, her body left to be picked apart and tested by a medical examiner, a bunch of strangers. On the other hand, I felt like I might lose my own mind if I stayed here any longer.

  I had reached the car and was just opening the door when there was a shout from Agent Ludlow.

  “Director!” He was calling from the back end of the scarred truck. “Over here. You need to see this.”

  The others headed over to where he was standing. He was near the large ladder fire engine. I followed at a more reluctant pace. There wasn’t much of interest for me here at this point.

  “We couldn’t see it at first.” Ludlow was explaining excitedly, “One of the fire fighters noticed it when he climbed up onto the back of the fire truck to check a pressure gauge. Step up here. You can only see it from a higher vantage point.”

  I watched as one by one the director then Logan stepped up onto the back of the fire engine and looked down into the inside bed of the burnt truck. Philips eyes widened at the sight.

  “Do you still have any doubt it was
her?” Phillips asked Madeline as he took her hand and helped her up onto the high step of the fire engine.

  Logan stepped down then helped me up to where he had been standing. He pointed into the flat bed of the truck.

  There, burned into the once white paint of the truck bed was a large blackened circle with a very familiar symbol inside of it. I had seen that symbol written in blood before. This time it was burned into the paint and steel of the surface.

  She had obviously wanted us to find this.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  The test results still weren’t back yet. We’d spent five more days back at the hotel in Las Cruces and we were all feeling a bit stir crazy.

  The media hadn’t died down. In fact there were now national news networks staking out the hotel, waiting for any word or news conferences. The dirt road in the small town of Truth or Consequences had to have twenty-four hour security. Everyone wanted to see where the mysterious serial killer, Elizabeth Marshall, had ended it all.

  It was eight in the morning, another hot desert day without a cloud in the sky, the sun making an awe-inspiring appearance as it rose over the Organ Mountains in the east.

  It was too early for the frantic phone call from my sister. She had caught a glimpse of me on TV during a news story. A stubborn reporter had followed Logan and me as we had tried leaving the hotel that morning to go get some breakfast.

  The first five minutes she spent chewing me out because I hadn’t told her I was in New Mexico. The next five were spent with her upset that I had been caught up in such a notorious national news story. The last fifteen minutes were her worrying that I wasn’t going to be back in time for her baby shower next week.

  Next week? Really? I wasn’t even certain what day of the week it was anymore. The minutes, hours, days seemed to all blend into each other. I didn’t seem to have many conscious thoughts. I was just going through the motions.