by Rita Herron
Ellie shook her head. “He was wearing a hoody and ski mask, but I think I scratched his chin.” She spread her hands in front of her, palms up. “Hopefully I got his DNA.”
Bryce’s jaw clenched. “I’ll get my kit to take samples to send to the lab.”
“You know it could be Paulson,” she continued. “I saw him at the café earlier. He seemed furious over the possibility of the charges against Dad being dropped.”
Her father’s breathing was erratic, his eyes growing glassy. Just a few short weeks ago, he’d been shot by Hiram and nearly died. Now he was facing this.
“You should go to the hospital and be examined,” Ellie said. “I’ll make sure the ERT and arson investigator are thorough.”
“Ellie,” said Bryce gently. “Go to the hospital with your folks, and get yourself examined, too. I can handle it here.”
Ellie swallowed against the emotions crowding in on her. Bryce almost sounded as if he cared. “There are women’s lives at stake,” she said. “I need to work. For all we know, the Weekday Killer may be the same man who set this fire. And he may already be holding his next victim somewhere.”
“Why do you think it’s the same person?”
“Because of those personal messages. Maybe it’s his way of punishing me for the deaths of those little girls. He hates my parents and me.”
For a brief moment, Bryce’s gaze locked with hers and she thought she saw concern. “You should have told me.”
She shrugged. Confiding in the sheriff was the last thing she’d do.
When she didn’t respond, his look hardened. “I’ll get my kit.” Bryce squared his shoulders and walked back to his squad car.
“The Weekday Killer contacted you personally?” Ellie’s father asked, his brows furrowing.
“Yes,” Ellie said, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.
“Jesus, Ellie,” her father said. “You almost died on that last case. Are you trying to get yourself killed now?”
The sound of an engine rumbling up the drive made Ellie turn toward the approaching vehicle. WRIX Channel 5 news. As the van stopped, the cameraman and Angelica hopped out, making a beeline for Ellie.
She couldn’t deal with the press at the moment, so turned, following her father toward the ambulance, determined to escape. Bryce was in his element. He could handle Angelica.
She had police work to do. And angry as she was with her parents, she had to make sure they were all right.
The roof and walls of their home had collapsed and the furniture inside was turning to rubble and black ash. Heat still poured from the blaze, the air was hot and sticky.
Her father turned to her from the ambulance doors, his face as ashen as the charred remains of the belongings in their house. “Ellie, your mom just had a heart attack.”
Ellie’s pulse clamored, and she was unable to speak as her father jumped into the back of the ambulance. She stood staring as it sped off, its siren roaring.
Sixty-Four
Ellie had been so angry with her mother the last few weeks. Could not talk to her or even look at her. It had hurt to even think about Vera.
But despite everything, she didn’t want her to die. Of course she didn’t.
Memories swamped her again. She saw herself as a little girl, five years old, standing on the back porch looking out at the woods, too terrified to venture into them. As much as she was scared, she was intrigued by the twisting paths and gigantic trees that offered adventures.
But that day her mother encouraged her not to be afraid of anything.
Then everything changed the day Hiram lured her away.
“You okay?” Derrick asked.
She wasn’t. But she couldn’t cry on his shoulder, so she gave a quick nod, biting back the pain. He pushed his keys into her hand. “Go. We have the whole county working on the case. I’ll follow up here.”
The need to be alone suddenly seized her. She couldn’t break down, especially not in front of him.
His fingers brushed hers as he handed her the keys, and her hand shook as she gripped them, hurrying to his car.
Climbing in, she sent a text to her captain filling him in on her parents’ condition.
Stomach knotted, she started the engine then pulled down the drive. Smoke billowed in the sky behind her, obscuring the view of the mountains beyond, while her parents’ home continued to burn, the embers glowing orange and red across the lawn. Would the firefighters be able to save the commendations her father had received? And the hand-carved chess set her grandfather had made? What about her photos from the police academy?
It didn’t matter, she told herself. They were only things. Her mother’s life was at stake.
Ten minutes later, she forced deep breaths as she parked at the hospital and rushed inside. Her legs felt wooden, a numbness washing over her, dread curling in her belly.
She flashed her badge at the nurses’ station and was quickly sent back to an ER exam room. For a moment, she stood outside the door watching as her father hovered by her mother’s bed. He looked ragged, his clothes torn and dirty, his face thin and drawn. He must have lost at least fifteen pounds in the last few weeks, the stress and his surgery having taken its toll.
Machines beeped and whirred, providing her mother with oxygen and monitoring her vitals. The scent of disinfectant and sickness permeated the air. Muffled voices and the sound of a rolling cart rattled in the hallway. A woman’s heart-wrenching crying seeped into the milieu.
Ellie’s breathing grew erratic as she watched her father squeeze her mother’s hand. As if he sensed her presence, Randall turned to look at her. The fear in his eyes was so stark that her knees nearly buckled.
Blinking away tears, Ellie willed her feet to move. For her to dig deep and find some semblance of forgiveness for her mother. But she remained immobile, stuck in the doorway. The betrayal and lies that had destroyed her world, ripped apart her family––and cost so many innocent lives––were still so raw, paralyzing her.
Sixty-Five
Somewhere on the AT
Please don’t do this, she silently begged. I don’t want to die.
His next victim tried to struggle against the ropes tied around her wrists, but she was powerless––he had drugged her. Her arms and legs were dead weights and she couldn’t move her fingers. Her vocal cords seemed to be frozen so she couldn’t scream even though every nerve in her body desperately wanted to.
“Thursday’s child has far to go, and that’s you. So far to go to get to heaven that you’ll never get there.” He slapped her face so hard her ears rang and stars danced in her eyes. Then he stuffed her in the trunk and slammed it shut. Silent tears trickled down her face.
A horrifying realization dawned. He was that maniac she’d heard about on the news—the Weekday Killer. She’d heard he did awful things to his victims, slashing their throats and leaving them out in the woods. All the women at the Beauty Barn were talking about him––they were buying mace now and one girl had even bought a gun.
Now she wished she’d listened to them.
She tried to move her limbs again, but to no avail, sending a cold terror through her.
The burlap sack he’d stuffed her in before he’d carried her to the car was suffocating. Through the tiny holes in the fabric, she had seen a hint of the sun as he’d hauled her to his car. Ever since he’d taken her, she’d been in and out of consciousness, stirring when a camera flashed. The twisted creep was taking photographs of her.
His words echoed in her head. It was your fault, Cathy. I have to teach you a lesson.
Who was Cathy? He was deranged.
Then he’d forced her on all fours with that dog collar and chain, dragging her until she begged for him to stop.
God help her. She had too much living to do to die.
The engine burst to life, tires grinding, and the vehicle bumped along a graveled road, then began winding back and forth. With each turn, her body bounced against the interior of the trunk, her
stomach recoiling from the movement. The sounds of traffic whizzed past her and, along with the wind, she inhaled the scent of gasoline.
The car suddenly screeched to a stop, and fear choked her as he yanked opened the trunk of the car. He lifted her and threw her over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing, then began walking. She struggled to regain movement, frantic to fight back, but her hands and legs were useless.
The scent of his sweat and some kind of strong aftershave nauseated her. He grunted as he climbed a hill, occasionally halting as if to draw a breath. Twice, she’d heard him muttering like a mad man about someone, about why she’d done this to him.
Summoning every ounce of courage she possessed, she opened her mouth to scream, but her voice emerged as nothing more than a whisper. He threw her on the ground, dragging her across it. Her body bumped along, hitting rocks and tree stumps and tree limbs, slogging through damp ground and mud. Pain ricocheted through her.
The drug must finally be wearing off, as she felt sharp needles stabbing at her skin through the burlap. The mistakes she’d made returned to taunt her. But even with those, she didn’t deserve to die alone in the woods at the hands of a monster.
Suddenly, he stopped.
His loud breathing rattled in the air, mingling with the fluttery sound of the breeze and tree branches creaking somewhere in the forest. She felt him kneeling beside her, untying the sack and sliding it down over her body.
Determination and panic drove her, and she finally moved a finger. Just one. Then another.
Tears blurred her vision as she struggled against the numbing drug to make her hands work so she could fight him. “Please,” she managed to whisper. “Let me… g-go.”
His sinister laugh bounced through the pine trees, his evil black eyes boring holes into her.
Dragging her over to a cluster of weeping willow trees, he propped her against a trunk. Her fingers and toes were starting to tingle as the feeling returned, but they were still bound. Cold air brushed her face. Something was crawling on her, too.
Fear seized her as he stripped her clothes, then took a gray dress from his duffel bag and pulled it over her head. His fingers felt ice cold as he buttoned the buttons and tugged the skirt down over her bare legs.
Next, he pulled out a lipstick, rolled it from the tube and smiled as he held it up to the light. “Red lipstick––the color of blood,” he muttered.
He gripped her face tightly, and pain shot all the way from her jaw to her ear as he slowly began to trace her lips with the lipstick. He filled them in, running the makeup above her lips and below them, smearing it with his fingers.
Tears blurred her eyes and trickled down her cheeks, and he wiped them away with a white handkerchief.
“No, no, you mustn’t cry. I’m going to make you pretty, you’ll mess up your face.” A dark chuckle rumbled from him as he used a makeup brush and smudged red rouge all over her cheeks.
A cry lodged in her throat as he strewed daffodils on the ground beside her. Darting her eyes around the area, she prayed for a hiker to come by and find her, to save her. But except for the rustle of leaves and the sound of animals scurrying for food, the forest was eerily quiet.
His dark hair gleamed in the sliver of sunlight fighting through the clouds and the spindly willow branches, his chiseled jaw clenched in concentration as if his mind had taken him to a dark world far away.
Terror stole through her as he picked her up and settled her on the ground on top of the petals. Smiling, he spread more of the dying flowers across her body.
He pulled a bramble vine from another bag and laid it on the ground. The sharp blade of a knife glinted.
Then there was a bright light. The flash of a camera. He walked around her, taking photos of her posed on the bed of daffodils.
“Scream for the video, Cathy,” he murmured as he drew closer.
Opening her mouth to scream, the sound died in her throat as he raised the knife and held it above her head.
She managed a tiny shake of her head and a guttural sound of protest, but he showed no mercy, only judgment in his menacing eyes as the blade plunged into her.
Sixty-Six
Marvin’s Mobile Home Park
Derrick studied a text from his partner as Bryce pulled into the mobile home park where Philip Paulson lived. Shondra had been abducted from this very place.
According to Bennett, a print he’d found at the fire belonged to Paulson, whose six-year-old daughter had been one of Hiram’s victims.
“Do you know this man?” Derrick asked Bryce, showing the sheriff footage of the protests where Paulson had been present.
Bryce pinned him with an angry look. “I know of Paulson, but if you’re asking if I saw this coming, I didn’t.”
“According to the man’s neighbors,” Derrick said, reading the message, “when they were questioned during the Ghost case, he and his wife divorced two years after their daughter disappeared.” He skimmed further. “The wife filed for divorce, claiming her husband was an alcoholic. According to Paulson’s boss at the time, he went off the deep end and he had to fire him last year. The wife moved away with their son and refused to let him see the boy.”
“So his life spiraled because his daughter went missing,” Bryce said. “When her body was found, it triggered his rage toward Randall.”
“He needed someone to blame.” Derrick gave a brief nod.
“I know you think we’re small-town here, Agent Fox, but this is my county and I run it,” said the sheriff, his eyes hardening. “You can’t just come in and take over.”
Derrick’s anger spiked. “The feds are brought in to assist with cases that are wide-scoped and when police departments need help. It seems to me like you need all the manpower you can get to find this serial killer.”
“We’d find him without you.”
“Maybe so. But how many more women would die first?”
“Fuck you,” Bryce said, getting out and slamming the door.
The feeling was mutual. “Let’s just work the case,” Derrick replied, climbing from the vehicle. “If he’s not connected to the Weekday Killer, I need to get back to it and to Ellie.”
The sheriff’s look was scathing. “You should leave Ellie alone.”
“What’s it to you? At least I respect her work ethic.”
“What goes on between me and Ellie is none of your goddamn business,” Waters muttered.
Derrick ended the discussion by moving towards their target. While the sheriff went to the front door, Derrick moved to the right side of the trailer.
After knocking, Bryce signaled that he heard something, and Derrick hurried around back. Movement through the side window caught his eye, and he saw Paulson throwing clothes into a duffel bag as fast as he could. Another knock from the sheriff made Paulson jerk his head up, eyes wide and wild-looking, and he snatched the bag and darted into the hallway.
Hiding beside the rail to the back stoop, Derrick pressed his back against the wall, waiting. There was a crashing sound as Bryce kicked in the front door. His shout echoed from indoors, and he heard running, before the back door burst open, and Paulson staggered outside.
Derrick stepped from the shadows, aiming his weapon. “FBI, we need to talk, Paulson.”
The man froze for a brief second, confusion on his soot-streaked face.
Sensing he was on the verge of running, Derrick called out, “Don’t do it.”
Panicking, Paulson gripped the rail and stumbled down the steps. Derrick snatched him with one hand and threw him up against the wall. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Paulson shoved at him like an animal, but Derrick slammed his fist into his gut, making him double over with a groan. Jogging down the steps toward them, Bryce snagged his handcuffs from his belt and tossed them to Derrick.
Catching them, Derrick turned Paulson around and slapped the cuffs on him. He had no doubt this man set the fire at the Reeves’ house. He reeked of smoke and sweat, his clothes and skin staine
d with soot.
Bryce gave the man a venomous look then read him his Miranda rights as he hauled him toward the squad car.
“I hope that bastard died today!” Paulson shouted as Bryce shoved him in the back seat and slammed the door shut.
Derrick understood his hatred. Hell, he detested the fact that Randall was still walking around while his sister and nearly a dozen other little girls were dead at the hands of a monster.
But he’d joined law enforcement because he believed in it. If people took it into their own hands, there would be no safe place for anyone to go.
Sixty-Seven
Marvin’s Mobile Home Park
Derrick wanted to shake some sense into Paulson, to get some answers. But the look that Bryce gave him warned him not to.
He’d give him five minutes, then he’d take over. He’d already watched Randall, one small-town sheriff, screw up a case and let a killer roam free for decades––tearing his family apart in the process. This one was too important to mess around.
“Okay, Paulson, we know this,” Bryce said.
The man didn’t look so intimidating now he was cuffed. He was older than both Waters and Fox, and skinnier. He reeked of smoke and sweat, and his eyes looked glassy, as if he was too wasted to realize just how much trouble he was in.
“I lost my daughter because of that man.” Paulson’s voice shook with rage. “He was supposed to protect little girls like Ansley, but he let that psycho get away.”
Derrick understood his fury. He felt it too––it had haunted him for decades. Sometimes at night he woke in a cold sweat, wishing he could kill Hiram and Randall, wishing he could make them pay for his sister’s fate.
“I know you’re angry,” the sheriff said. “But the law says a man is innocent until proven guilty. And I’ve known Randall Reeves a long time. He didn’t turn a blind eye to justice. He was searching for your daughter’s killer all those years.”
“That’s bullshit,” Paulson spat. “They covered it all up, then protected their own daughter at the expense of everyone else’s. And now they’re going to get off scot free.”