Ruthless: The Faces of Evil Series: Book 6

by Debra Webb

  One thing Lori knew with complete certainty: the woman had never deserved this man. Not for a minute, much less for the years she’d made him miserable.

  “Thanks. I needed to hear that.”

  He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her there. “I’ll never tire of telling you how beautiful and special you are.”

  They needed a subject change, or she was going to climb over that console and show him a little of her gratitude. “This new development with Spears has Jess pretty rattled.”

  “It’s a bad situation. I don’t know how the hell the FBI will ever find and stop this guy. As much as I want to see that happen, our priority has to be keeping her safe—even when she doesn’t want us to. Chief Burnett is damned worried.”

  Lori would never forget the look on the chief’s face in that conference call with Special Agent Gant when he gave Jess the bottom line about Spears and his friends. “Spears’s followers could be anywhere.” The whole concept was totally insane. How could they hope to protect her or anyone else from that kind of threat? “Watching her and waiting to do that bastard’s bidding.”

  They couldn’t fully protect her. No one could. Not even the chief of police.

  “How was she holding up when you took her home?” Harper asked.

  “She’s in denial.” No matter how incredibly smart and experienced Jess was, this was personal, and personal had a way of rendering the smartest, most experienced person a little off balance. “She’ll never admit it in a million years, but this has shaken her big-time. I think deep inside she’s scared.”

  “You think everything’s okay between her and the chief? She seems a little flustered, more so than usual, when he’s around.”

  Lori had noticed that, too. “She hasn’t mentioned anything.” Not that she necessarily would. “Anyone who knows her can see she’s really edgy lately.”

  “She has a lot on her plate,” Chet agreed. He glanced at Lori, his eyes somber. “I have a bad feeling this is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.”

  9911 Conroy Road, 9:28 p.m.

  Jess had a list a mile long that she intended to get started on first thing tomorrow morning. Harper and Cook would continue moving forward with interviewing the cops involved in the Man in the Moon investigation over the past three decades. She and Lori would interview the surviving meter readers and start with the victims’ families.

  The Myers family would be her preferred starting place, but she’d have to see about that. As badly as she wanted to find some answers in this case, she understood that family in particular needed time to grieve one last time for the child stolen from them, no matter how long ago it happened. There were final steps—burial arrangements and maybe a memorial service—they needed to take for closure.

  Thirteen years was a long time, but when it came to losing a child it was nothing. She might not have any children of her own, but understanding the concept that losing a child went against nature wasn’t rocket science. Some parents never recovered from that kind of anguish. The Murphys, the case that had brought her back to Alabama, were textbook examples of how the anguish could deepen and become a whole other tragedy.

  Having a child changed a person. Reset priorities and perspectives. Facing the loss of that child didn’t reverse the process… it ate at the person from the inside out like a cancer.

  Jess rubbed at her bleary eyes. This was not a good time to be focused on a case about murdered children.

  What was she saying? Was there ever a good time?

  Certainly not.

  Above all else, this case deserved the very best the department had to offer. Jess worked hard at meeting that standard and even raising the bar. She wasn’t about to start falling down on the job now just because some psycho had his friends watching her.

  “Screw you, Spears.” She had far more important matters to see after. He and his friends could just go to hell.

  He wasn’t sending her into hiding. Burnett had suggested a vacation but she’d ignored him. She had cops watching her 24/7. A surveillance detail that followed her around, no matter that she was always with Lori or Harper. And now another cop remained here, keeping an eye on her place, whenever she was not home to ensure no one got past her new security system and left her any more presents.

  Mr. Louis probably stayed glued to his windows day and night to make sure he didn’t miss anything. Poor man.

  “What a disaster.” She readied her files for jamming into her bag. One less thing she’d have to do in the morning.

  Another good reason to stay home instead of with Dan or anyone else: her presence wouldn’t put the people she cared about in danger. It was bad enough that Spears was playing with the lives of three innocent women simply because they met his preferred criteria. Jess had no intention of leading any of his friends to her sister’s house or to Lori’s or Dan’s.

  No one was safe from him. Not even Dan. Her hands stilled in their work as she thought of the scars on his abdomen from his one up-close encounter with Spears. Spears had stabbed him. Dan and Lori both almost died that day just because Spears wanted to make Jess suffer.

  She couldn’t let that happen again. For all her complaining about propriety and what everyone at the department would think, deep down her biggest worry was that Dan would get between her and Spears and lose his life trying to protect her. Her heart twisted with the thought.

  Her hand went to her belly, as the reality that the ability to make a decision like that might no longer be solely hers. Depending on how this turned out, Dan would have a say in the matter…

  The muffled sound of her cell reached out to her. Jess snapped from the worrisome thoughts, reminded herself to breathe and padded over to her sofa. She checked the screen. Lil.

  A bubble of apprehension formed in her chest. It was late for her sister. She went to bed with the chickens. “Hey, sis, what’s up?”

  “Jess, I didn’t want to bother you with this until morning but Blake insisted I call. There’s a box on my front porch. He says it’s addressed to you. Should we be worried?”

  Her apprehension expanded into outright fear. “Don’t touch it, Lil. Stay in the house and keep the doors locked. I’ll be right there.”

  Jess ended the call before her sister could say good-bye. She tapped Harper’s name in her contact list and gathered up a pair of jeans and a tee while she waited through two rings. “I need you and Lori at my sister’s house as quickly as possible. We’ll need evidence techs and maybe a bomb tech to be safe.” Just because the last package hadn’t contained any explosives didn’t mean things hadn’t changed. “Someone left another package for me.”

  “Should we pick you up en route, ma’am?”

  “No, Sergeant, head that way now. You’re closer to Lily than me. I’ll call Burnett and hitch a ride with him.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Jess changed out of her PJs while she made the call to Burnett, then she got Lily back on the line to ensure she and Blake didn’t get nosy and decide to check out the package before she could get there.

  As she listened to Lily ramble about how worried she was, Jess closed her eyes and tried to calm her insides.

  This wasn’t the toughest or most complicated case she had faced. Spears wasn’t even the most heinous killer she had encountered.

  But… for thirty-plus years the Man in the Moon had evaded identification, much less capture. Spears so far proved equally evasive but at least they knew who he was.

  The Man in the Moon’s elusiveness made anticipating his next move a hell of a lot tougher.

  You couldn’t stop what you couldn’t see.

  Lakefront Trail, Bessemer, 11:49 p.m.

  The bomb squad commander cleared the package. No explosives or other destructive substances.

  Just like before.

  Jess felt grateful for that part. She suspected that the families on this block, including Lily and her husband, who had been ushered from their homes at or past bedtime were simpl
y ticked off. BPD uniforms had questioned the folks and were already shepherding most back to their respective addresses. Lily and Blake would have to wait a little while longer.

  In the middle of the front porch the evidence techs settled the box onto a trace sheet so all the contents could be inspected. Portable lights had been set up to ensure they could see what they were doing. Jess, decked out in shoe covers and gloves, crouched down to have a look first. Deputy Chief Black had arrived and was waiting outside the perimeter with Burnett.

  The news hounds who monitored the police band were already on the street, and camera crews were waiting for an opportunity to get a clip or a sound bite on the story. Jess hadn’t seen Gina Coleman in the growing mob, but she would show eventually.

  “Ma’am, would you like me to start?” Harper asked.

  Jess shook off the surrounding distractions and refocused on the package. “Go ahead, Sergeant.” That way he and the evidence techs wouldn’t have to see her hands shake. She hoped her stomach settled soon. That peanut butter and banana sandwich she’d scarfed down after she got home was reappearing in a most unpleasant manner.

  The box, a plain old brown cardboard one, about twenty by twenty inches square, found any day of the week at Walmart for a couple of bucks and sealed with shipping tape, had been opened by the bomb tech. As before, plastic, burlap and newspapers swathed the items inside.

  Human remains. Bones.

  Again.

  As the small bones were removed from their wrappings, an ache tugged at Jess. Another family who had waited so very long would finally be able to stop wondering. But dear God, what kind of answer was this?

  Unless this victim’s remains showed otherwise, there was no clue as to cause of death. No way to know what this child may have suffered before dying.

  Then again, maybe the parents didn’t really want to know.

  Was it better not to hear the horrific details?

  Was it enough to simply have some sort of closure?

  Jess had reviewed photos of all the victims over and over, knew them by heart. Was this the cute little blonde-haired girl with the curly locks and the big gap-toothed smile, or the dainty child with the long brown pigtails that hung all the way to her waist?

  If she were pregnant… the lump in her throat expanded… would she have a little girl? How could she possibly hope to protect her from evil like this? Before she could stop herself she glanced to where Dan waited. Would their little girl have dark hair and blue eyes like her father?

  “You all right, Chief?”

  “Of course.” She tried again to clear that damned lump from her throat. “It’s just hot under these lights.”

  “Here we go.” Harper gently removed the small plastic sleeve she’d been looking for from between layers of the burlap. “Looks like we have a pattern, Chief. He wants us to know who he is.”

  Harper placed the protected newspaper clipping in her open hands. The plastic sleeve was a common four-by-six photo protector—the multi-pocket kind that came in sheets. He’d cut the photo pockets apart to use them individually. The newspaper article was folded in such a way to display the missing child’s photo. The little blonde girl with her big gap-toothed smile.

  Emma James.

  A blast of outrage propelled Jess to her feet.

  Harper stood as well. He passed the preserved article with the photo to an evidence tech. Jess had to walk away.

  “Do what you have to do,” she heard Harper instruct, “but let’s get the remains ready to move as quickly as possible. We don’t want this to drag out and have the families of victims showing up here.”

  Those were directions she should have given. Instead, she’d had to take a minute to catch her breath. Her head was spinning; her stomach was twirling and teetering like a drunken ballerina. Somehow she had to find her footing here. Then she’d make sure her sister was okay and head to the morgue herself. Sylvia Baron had the necessary dental records; she was overseeing the identification personally rather than passing the job off to the lab. Jess needed to be there, too. She couldn’t do the job these families deserved if she let this killer or any aspect of this case continue to rattle her so.

  For a moment, she scanned the growing crowd beyond the yellow tape that marked her sister’s yard and home a crime scene. Was the bastard here? Observing? Salivating as he watched her deal with the nightmare he’d created? Fury swept through her. For a second she considered barging into that crowd and demanding IDs.

  Harper caught up with her. “I’ll put in a call to Dr. Baron.”

  Jess had to clear her mind yet again. Deep breath. “Tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When Harper had rejoined the techs, Jess stretched her neck and took a couple more good, deep breaths. “Okay.” She braced for the fuss her sister would no doubt launch. “Let’s get this part over with,” she grumbled.

  In the house Lily and Blake were questioning Lori. Jess wasn’t surprised. Knowing Lori, she had managed to get her questions in first in spite of these two.

  “You’re not giving my detective a hard time, are you?” Jess asked, hoping to lift the mood just a little. Her sister had enough to deal with trying to find some answers to the medical issues plaguing her. She didn’t need to worry about Jess and some crazed killer on top of the mountain already in front of her.

  “Is it another of those little girls?” Lil demanded. “Your detective won’t tell us.”

  “We won’t be able to confirm that until we officially identify the… remains.”

  Lily’s hands went over her mouth. She shook her head and a new wave of tears bloomed on her lashes. Blake draped his arm around her shoulders and tried to comfort her. Jess fought the need to cry herself. She wasn’t doing those little girls one bit of good getting all emotional like this.

  “I’ll be outside,” Lori offered.

  “Thanks.” Jess waited until Lori had gone out through the kitchen door. The front porch was a crime scene, there would be no using that door until sometime tomorrow.

  “Why is he sending these to you?” Lil’s lips trembled.

  Jess steeled herself against her own emotions and hugged her sister hard. “I don’t know. But I’m going to do all I can to find him and stop him.”

  “It’s not fair,” Lil murmured. “You already have one freak taunting you.”

  A pathetic excuse for a laugh rumbled out of Jess. “I guess I have a target painted on my forehead that only the freaks can see.”

  Lil drew back and searched Jess’s eyes, tears still slipping from her own. “I don’t like this, Jess. What if he gets lucky and somehow gets close enough to hurt you?”

  Jess hugged her sister again. “That won’t be lucky, sweetie.” She drew back to look Lil in the eyes once more. “That’ll be the last thing he ever does.”

  Lil required a few more minutes of persuasion before she relented and allowed Jess to leave so she could do her job.

  They agreed on one point—the situation provided a tangible reason to be thankful both Lil’s kids were away at college. Jess was most grateful her sister didn’t seem to hold that against her. So far, her homecoming had disrupted the lives of everyone close to her.

  “Way to go, Jess.”

  Outside, Burnett waited for her. He looked as weary and troubled as she felt. Who wouldn’t be? They only had about eighteen more to go. Her entire being ached at the thought. The need to collapse in Dan’s arms was so strong she had to look away from him to hold herself back.

  Having the killer continue to make deliveries to her wasn’t half as worrisome as the idea that he could start to eye replacements.

  “Where’s Black?” she asked. He’d been talking to Dan when Jess went inside to reassure her sister.

  “He’ll meet us at the coroner’s office.”

  “We should get over there. There’s nothing else I can do here.” Except fall apart for the viewing pleasure of all those watching, maybe including the e
vil being who did this.

  Dan nodded, but there was more on his mind. He looked so worried. She ached to just close out all those prying eyes and go to him.

  Do your job, Jess. “We can talk on the way,” she suggested. If he was going to blow up and lay down the law again about how she should be in hiding, she didn’t want that to happen here with all those reporters buzzing around on the street. Fact was, she was barely hanging onto her composure here.

  He nodded again.

  As they moved toward his SUV, the reporters clamored for statements and Dan gave them all they were going to get for now: “No comment.”

  Jefferson County Coroner’s Office, Thursday, August 19, 2:29 a.m.

  Dan stared at the tiny bones arranged on the coroner’s table and his chest ached. What kind of evil preyed upon little children like this? Humans made mistakes. But this was no error—no spontaneous event that was later regretted. No. This bastard repeated his heinous deed over and over. Year after year.

  “How long will it take you to make the official identification?” Jess asked. “I’m not trying to rush you, Dr. Baron, but as soon as this news hits the street those parents are going to want to know which one of them this child belongs to.”

  If the bastard who’d done this stuck to his previous MO, the remains would prove to be Emma James. Jesus Christ. Dan had to look away a moment.

  “I uploaded the dental records of the other victims to our database after the first set of remains found their way to you,” Sylvia Baron explained. “I wanted to be prepared… just in case.” She nodded to the computer screen on the credenza and then rested her attention on Jess—waiting, Dan suspected, for a thank-you.

  Jess didn’t disappoint her. “I appreciate your hard work. I’m certain the families will, as well, even if saying so isn’t on their minds just now.”

  When she didn’t get on with it, Dan prompted, “You want a drum roll, too?”