Had someone raped her and then left? She looked down at her body. She was fully clothed, could feel her bra against her breasts, could feel her panties still in place, and could even feel the shoes on her feet. No one had undressed her.
She heard a noise. What? Where?
The bathroom door opened. Her gaze focused on the shadowy figure moving toward her. Slowly. Precisely.
Whoever he was, he wasn’t in any hurry.
What was he holding in his hand?
As he approached LaShae, her heartbeat went wild, adrenaline pumping through her rapidly. He stopped several feet away and looked at her. She studied him closely, her eyesight slightly fuzzy and her brain foggy. She had no idea what had happened or what was going to happen. Managing one coherent thought at a time, she wondered if she would live long enough to give this man’s description to the police. If his intent was rape, she might survive. If not, if he killed her …
No, God, please. No! I don’t want to die.
Don’t punish me. I swear I’ll be good for the rest of my life. I’ll make my marriage to Rodney work. I’ll be a faithful wife, a loving mother …
Her gaze focused on the object the man held in his hand, the handle a light wood or a plastic that looked like wood. LaShae’s heart stopped when she recognized the tool he clutched.
A shiny new axe.
Merciful Lord!
Talking, trying to make him understand her words through the gag in her mouth, she struggled against the ropes that trapped her.
Please, don’t kill me.
He moved closer, stopping at the side of the bed. She gazed up at him, pleading with him, letting her eyes speak for her. He returned her stare. The man’s eyes were brown, as was his hair, and his cheeks flushed pink. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him. She had seen him somewhere before, hadn’t she?
“Hello, my pretty flower,” he said.
LaShae gasped. The man standing beside the bed, holding an axe in his hand was Sammy. And yet he was not Sammy. Where were his blue eyes? His blond hair?
A wig? Contacts?
She mumbled incoherently through the gag, trying to ask him why? Why was he going to kill her?
Was he really a victim of childhood rape or had he lied to her, lured her into a trap? God, she felt like a fool. She hadn’t been naive since she’d been a teenager, if then. Why had she been so trusting?
“Don’t fret, my lovely LaShae,” he told her as his free hand reached down and stroked her cheek. “You’ll never grow old and ugly. I’m picking you before you wither, while you’re still fresh and beautiful.”
She tried again to talk to him, but her words came out garbled.
He stroked her cheek, her neck, her shoulder. “I’ve been practicing, so I should be able to take off your head with one powerful chop.” He grasped her chin between his fingers and thumb, then squeezed. “I don’t want you to suffer.”
LaShae keened loudly, the sound muffled beneath the thick gag.
Don’t. Please, please don’t!
Griffin felt her presence before he glanced up and saw Yvette standing in the doorway of his den. He had known many stunningly attractive women over the years, but none as completely beautiful as this incredible woman whose heart and soul were as beautiful as her face and body. He admired Yvette, respected her, loved her.
He owed her his life.
“Good evening,” she said in that soft, mellow voice he had first heard eighteen years ago. An angel’s voice in the depths of hell.
“Come in.” He invited with a wave of his hand.
She entered the den like a puff of smoke, her walk so graceful that she seemed to float as she moved.
“I’ve spent the last hour with Barbara Jean,” Yvette told him.
Griffin nodded.
“I can tell you what she remembers. In detail.”
“Is it enough for me to send for a sketch artist?”
“Perhaps.”
“Tell me.”
Yvette thought for several seconds before she spoke again. “He was average height and probably average build, just as she has said. He was wearing a tan overcoat and a hat and sunglasses.”
“None of this information is new.” He eyed her knowingly. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“His hair was brown. His cheeks very pink. Either flushed or chapped. He was clean-shaven. She’s very certain of those facts. His clothing was inexpensive, but his gloves were furlined leather and she believes the scarf around his neck was silk.”
“He wore a combination of his own expensive clothes and cheaper apparel.”
“He was quite fair, his face round and full, his nose large, rather prominent. Not handsome, but not ugly.”
“Anything else?” Griffin asked, knowing that even with an artist’s sketch, it was unlikely anyone could ID the suspect from this description. But it was far more than they’d ever had. And there was always the off chance that even a sketch showing a guy in sunglasses and wearing a hat might be of some use. After all, they now had a partial description.
“Does Barbara Jean have any idea that you were—?”
“No. When we spoke, she simply repeated what she had already told you in the past,” Yvette said. “The rest, I gained by invading her private thoughts.”
Griff took Yvette’s small, slender hands into his, lifted them to his lips and kissed first one and then the other. “Don’t feel guilty for using your special talent. You did it for the right reason, for a good cause.”
“The end always justifies the means.” Her voice held a tone of self-condemnation.
“Not always,” he told her. “But sometimes.”
Curling her fingers around his hand. “Damar is very protective of Barbara Jean.”
Griff nodded.
“She reminds him of his wife.”
“Damn! I should have known it was something like that. He hasn’t shown any interest in a woman in all these years, now suddenly …” Griff eyed Yvette speculatively. “He didn’t tell you that, did he?”
“No.”
“He wouldn’t want either of us to know, would he?”
“He hasn’t admitted it to himself.”
“Then how did you …” Griff groaned. “You probed his subconscious?”
“Not intentionally. But it happens sometimes. Especially with you and Damar. I’ve told you that our connection is quite strong. The three of us.”
“Three tortured souls spit out of the bowels of hell together. That would tend to bind people together, wouldn’t it?”
With only a slight hesitation, a glimmer of remembrance behind those luminous black eyes, Yvette said, “Send for your sketch artist and I’ll work with him alone, without Barbara Jean knowing.”
“Very well. I’ll have someone here by morning.”
When Yvette left him alone in his den, Griff tried not to think about the past. Eighteen years ago, fifteen years ago. Ten years ago.
Damar Sanders and Yvette Meng would be a part of his life from now until they died. He was as bound to them as if they were blood kin, his brother and his sister. Spirit siblings, their relationship forged in fire and brimstone.
Ruddy fed off her fear, devouring it the way a starving man consumes food. He wished he could remove the gag from her mouth so that he could hear her scream, but he couldn’t risk it. Someone might hear. He had brought along a CD player with a favorite Mozart CD to muffle any noise he or LaShae might make.
She thrashed about on the bed, fighting to free herself. Poor darling. Like an animal caught in a snare. If she could, she would no doubt chew off her hands at the wrists to escape.
“If you lie still, it will be easier for me to take off your head with one chop,” he told her, and loved the terror he saw in her eyes. “If you keep squirming, it might take several tries. We don’t want that, do we? You don’t want to suffer and I don’t want you to suffer.”
Tears flooded her eyes.
Such pretty pale brown eyes.
&
nbsp; “I’ve never chopped off a head before, but I decided that since time was running out and the game would soon end, that I should try it. On a human, that is. I’ve practiced numerous times on various animals. Cats and dogs mostly.”
She went still suddenly, her gaze fixed on his as tears streamed down her face. She was begging him for her life. Silent begging. Not as satisfying as hearing her plead and beg and bargain, but it would do. This time.
He knelt down, reached under the bed and pulled out a large wooden chopping block that he had picked up at the local Dollar Store. Resting the axe against the nightstand, he reached over, lifted LaShae’s head, and slid the block beneath her neck. She continued staring up at him, silent and still.
“I’ll make it quick,” he said. “I promise.”
He lifted the axe over his shoulder, then brought it down with all his strength. The first blow severed her head, which rolled sideways on the block. Two arteries in her neck sprayed blood at least eight or nine feet, all the way across the bedspread and onto Ruddy’s slacks. He would simply remove this pair and leave them. He had bought them at the same time he’d bought the axe, the chopping block, and the other necessities this morning.
He noted that her head itself didn’t bleed much, but her eyes moved around some while her body trembled for only a few seconds. Then it was over.
He went into the bathroom, stripped out of his bloody clothes, tossed them into the shower, then washed his hands, and put on clean slacks and a shirt. When he went back into the bedroom, he flipped open the black vinyl duffel bag and removed his digital camera. He took several pictures. Hurriedly.
He would stay only long enough to savor the kill. The photos would allow him to enjoy this moment over and over again. For days, weeks, months.
After placing the camera back in the duffel bag, he removed the single, long-stemmed red rose he’d gotten at a local grocery store this afternoon.
Ruddy laid the rose between LaShae’s lovely breasts.
Chapter 23
Lindsay and Callie sat on the sofa in Callie’s den, their feet on the coffee table, a small glass of chilled fig vodka in each of their right hands. The grandfather clock in the foyer struck eleven. Callie’s husband and kids were in bed, snug and safe for the night. For the past twenty-four hours, since she had arrived here in Soddy-Daisy, a small town outside Chattanooga, Lindsay and Callie hadn’t had a moment alone. Now, Lindsay and her cousin, who was like a sister to her, could share some one-on-one time. They could talk, laugh, cry. They could share. Men didn’t understand the concept of sharing the way women did. They had little comprehension of the necessity of sharing feelings, that innate need a woman has to confide in another woman. Sometimes that type of sharing was the only thing that kept a woman sane.
And God knew that for the past six months, Lindsay’s sanity had been in question. Thanks to Judd. And to her own stupidity.
“So, are you going to tell me or not?” Callie asked.
Lindsay took a sip of the smooth vodka, a deceptive liquor that could knock you on your ass before you knew you were drunk. “I’m a fool.”
Callie lifted her brows in an inquisitive manner.
Heaving a deep sigh, Lindsay confessed, “I’m still in love with Judd Walker.”
“That’s a given, honey. When you kept telling me in your e-mails and phone calls that you were finally over him, I knew you were lying to yourself.” Callie shook her head. “No, that’s not it. There’s something else. What is it?”
How could she tell her cousin about something she didn’t want to remember, something she wished she could forget?
“Late last summer, something happened between Judd and me.” Lindsay set her glass on the coffee table.
“I figured it had.”
“It made me hate him,” Lindsay said. “I walked away severely wounded, but I survived.” She scooted around on the sofa until she faced her cousin. “I spent several months in therapy with Dr. Meng, a psychiatrist friend of Griff’s.”
Callie studied Lindsay. “What happened? What did Judd do?”
“Other than breaking my heart?”
I will not cry. I can tell Callie about what happened without falling apart. Judd has apologized. He’s genuinely sorry.
“Judd knew I was in love with him. He wanted to scare me off and he did. At least for awhile. Half a year.”
“This doesn’t sound good.” After Callie set her glass on the table, she reached over and grasped Lindsay’s hand. “Tell me what he did.”
“He’s told me he’s sorry. He’s explained that he wanted to scare me off for my own good, that he wanted me to see him for the bastard he is.”
“If it’s too difficult to talk about, then—”
“Judd almost raped me.”
“My God!” Callie squeezed Lindsay’s hand tightly.
Tears gathered in Lindsay’s eyes. “We were alone together at his family’s old hunting lodge, the way we’d been together a dozen times before. I was trying to help him… trying to get him to go to bed so he could get some rest. You know there are nights when he can’t sleep at all.”
“I know. You’ve told me.”
Lindsay pulled her hand free and looked Callie right in the eyes. “Judd came on to me. He touched me. Kissed me. And I responded.” She could still feel his hands cupping her breasts, his lips pressed against hers, his tongue probing inside her mouth.
“He pulled me into bed with him and when we were both naked and … He said terrible things to me. Told me that I wasn’t the first woman he’d had since Jennifer died. That when he screwed me, he’d be thinking of her, pretending I was her, the way he had those other women.”
“Oh, Lindsay, honey … I’m so sorry.”
“I tried to get out of bed, tried to pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let me.”
“The man’s a real bastard.”
“He said things … did things …” Lindsay sucked in air, trying her best not to cry. “He frightened me. I thought he was going to force me to have sex with him. I fought him, crying like a baby the whole time. And just when I thought—” Lindsay swallowed her tears. “He rolled off me and shoved me out of bed. Then he laughed at me.”
Callie pulled Lindsay into her arms and held her.
It was what she needed.
Why had it taken her all this time to realize that she should have come to Callie sooner? Because you weren’t ready, an inner voice told her. Now was the right time. Now that the wounds were not so fresh, now that she had forgiven Judd. Now that she knew she had to let him go. Somehow. Someway.
Crying softly, Lindsay didn’t respond when Callie asked, “Want me to take one of Jimmy’s rifles and hunt Judd Walker down?” Her humorous question instantly lightened the mood. Callie had always been able to make Lindsay smile.
Gulping down her tears, Lindsay lifted her head from her cousin’s shoulder and offered her a weak smile. It was the best she could do. “I don’t want you to shoot him. I just want him out of my life.”
“So, get away from him and stay away from him. You did it for six months. Do whatever you have to do to keep him out of your life.”
“I’m thinking about quitting my job.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No, I’m serious. As long as I continue working for Griff, continue trying to help him find the Beauty Queen Killer, I’ll never be free of Judd.”
“Then quit. Do it tomorrow. Call Griffin Powell and resign.” Heaving another deep sigh, Lindsay faced Callie. “I can’t.”
“Oh, honey, why not?”
“I want Judd out of my life, but I can’t bear the thought of never seeing him again. I love him more than I hate him. I’m such a fool.”
“You can’t waste your life wanting a man you can never have. You’re too good for him. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know, but …”
“What about Nathan? I had hoped things would work out for you two.”
“Oh, Lord. Nathan’s another
story entirely.”
“You blew it with him, didn’t you?”
Lindsay picked up her glass and took a sip of the sweet vodka. “Oh, yeah. I blew it big time. It’s over between Nathan and me. Permanently over.”
“Well, we’re just going to have to find you another man. Someone who can make you forget Judd Walker.”
“The man doesn’t exist who can do that,” Lindsay said.
Callie picked up her glass, tucked her legs beneath her on the sofa and said, “What you need is an extended vacation. You’ve always wanted to go to Italy, to Tuscany. You should go. Take a leave of absence from Powell’s and fly to Europe. Who knows, you might meet some delicious Italian guy who’ll sweep you off your feet.”
“That happens only in the movies.”
“Sometimes movies are based on real life.”
“Real life sucks, at least for me.”
Callie sipped the vodka. “Okay, enough—let’s pretend we can fix this problem and get down to the honest-to-God truth. You don’t want to go to Italy right now. You don’t want to take a leave of absence from Powell’s or quit your job. You don’t want to wash your hands of the BQK case and you certainly don’t want to leave Judd Walker.”
“I do want to leave him. I want him out of my life.”
Waving her index finger back and forth, Callie said, “You’re lying to yourself if you really believe that.”
“Damn it, Callie, what am I going to do? I love him so much it hurts. And the worst part of it is that I know he cares about me. He admitted that he did.”
“Merciful Lord, gal, what are you doing here with me? You should go to Judd and—”
“He cares about me, wants me sexually, but he still loves Jennifer.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“Yeah, I know. The man I love will always love his dead wife. So what do I do?”
“That depends,” Callie said.
“Depends on what?”
“On whether you’re capable of sharing him with her memory, of letting him love both of you.”
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