Chapter 14
The call came in at nine fifty-three on a cloudy, dreary morning in October. Nic had flown into Charlotte two days before for a conference with Betty Schonrock, the local police chief, county sheriff, and the mayor. Everyone had been holding their breaths, waiting, and hoping that, against all odds, Dru Tanner’s body wouldn’t show up somewhere in the area approximately three weeks after she had disappeared. Just outside Charlotte, off Interstate 85, near the Catawba River, two retirees on their way for a day of leisurely fishing discovered a body hanging upside down from a tree limb.
The dispatcher who had taken the call, after obtaining vital information from the elderly fisherman, realized the significance of the discovery. Two deputies had arrived on the scene less than ten minutes before the county sheriff and twenty minutes before Nic and Betty managed to make it through the downtown and interstate traffic.
The deputies had effectively secured the scene and although a small group of onlookers had congregated, thanks to the semiisolated location, crowd control wasn’t an immediate concern. Nic worked with Sheriff Painter, who acknowledged that Nic was in charge and actually seemed relieved that the FBI would be involved.
“She’s one of the Scalper’s victims, isn’t she? She’s that Tanner woman he kidnapped a few weeks ago,” The sheriff had shaken his head. “Y’all have to find this guy.”
The scene was photographed and videotaped, per Nic’s orders. The medical examiner requested a few more photos. He checked the body for stiffness, moving the jaw, neck, and eyelids, as well as the arms.
“She’s been dead for a while,” he said. “Probably close to twenty-four hours.”
They photographed the rope cords and all the lacerations and bruising on the body before taking it down from the tree limb. The rope binding her feet was photographed before being cut in a manner that preserved the knots.
Nic studied the corpse and, from the photographs her family had provided, she recognized the woman, despite the horrid condition her face and body were in now. A butterfly tattoo on the woman’s left ankle cinched the ID for Nic.
She tried not to think about Dru Tanner’s husband and child. She motioned for the examiner to continue with his work. He loosely covered the woman’s head, feet, and hands with bags and closed them off with tape, then bagged the body.
The woman. The corpse. The victim. Nic tried to think of her that way, but she couldn’t forget the fact that this was Dru Tanner, wife, mother, and daughter. She was only thirty years old. She should have had another fifty or so years ahead of her.
Doing her best to focus on the job at hand and not on this one victim’s personal history, Nic put her emotions aside and did what had to be done. Not that she’d ever been the overly emotional type. She wasn’t a cry-me-a-river kind of woman. The last time she’d gone on a crying jag had been about a month after Greg’s funeral. One night, as she’d been preparing her dinner, she had broken down and cried for hours.
On the way back to Charlotte, Nic thought about exactly what she would say when she held the next press conference. She needed time, but she couldn’t put off speaking to the press for more than a few hours.
“We should set up a press conference for this afternoon,” Nic had told Betty. “Three o’clock. But first, we have to speak to Dru’s husband.”
And I need to contact Griff.
The press probably already had hold of the news that a body had been found, and that in all likelihood, it was Dru Tanner. The sheriff had sent a couple of deputies to ask Brian Tanner to identify the body. Nic wanted to be there when Mr. Tanner arrived to make sure he was protected from reporters.
Griff was on his way to the airstrip that afternoon when Nic called him. He hadn’t seen her or spoken to her in three weeks.
“Hello, Nic.”
“I suppose you already know.”
“Yeah.”
“I called the first chance I got.”
“Sure.”
“I’m holding a press conference in an hour. I wanted to make sure you knew beforehand.”
“I’m coming to Charlotte. Today.”
“I figured you would.”
“I’ll try to keep a low profile,” he told her.
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
“Griff, I … uh … I’m not—”
“We have to talk sooner or later. We both have to eat tonight. And we know he’ll call both of us again. If not today, then tomorrow or the next day.”
“Okay. Dinner tonight. Seven thirty. Someplace out of the way.”
“Don’t want to be seen with me, Special Agent Baxter?”
“I don’t want to be harassed by reporters trying to get a scoop.”
“We can have dinner in my hotel suite,” he said. “That is, if you trust me not to seduce you.”
“You could try.”
“Only if you wanted me to.”
“I don’t.”
“Then I won’t.”
“Where are you staying?” Nic asked.
“The Westin, downtown on South College Street.”
“I’ll see you tonight.”
“Yeah.”
After Nic ended their conversation by simply hanging up, Griff contacted Sanders and gave him instructions concerning dinner tonight in his hotel suite. Knowing she liked steak, he decided to go with shrimp and steak and all the trimmings. He didn’t need to go into detail with Sanders. Everything the man did was done to perfection.
Griff suspected that Nic needed a night off more than she realized. She’d probably been skipping meals, eating junk, and existing on a few hours’ sleep each night. He had no doubt that she’d been pushing herself as hard as humanly possible and probably thinking that not being able to rescue Dru Tanner was somehow her fault.
The lady definitely needed someone to take care of her.
Griff smiled to himself. If he dared to say something like that to her, she’d take a couple of inches off his hide. Nic needed to think of herself as strong and tough, a woman who didn’t need to lean on anyone.
But there are times in life when we all need someone. No matter how strong, how competent and in control a person was, no one was invincible.
Why he had chosen himself to be Nic’s temporary shoulder to lean on, he wasn’t sure. He might not be the only man who understood how badly she needed someone, but he’d lay odds that he was the only man brave enough for the job.
Pudge had taken Interstate 77 to Columbia, South Carolina, and checked into a no-name motel southwest of the city, where he planned to spend the night before heading out in the morning for Atlanta. Once there, he would turn in one rented vehicle, take a taxi across town, and then rent another, using different fake ID. There was no way anyone could find him. He was always careful and always covered his tracks.
Late yesterday he and his oversize travel trunk had arrived in Spartanburg, South Carolina, on a chartered jet. Upon his arrival, a rented SUV had been waiting. He had driven straight toward Charlotte and took the route he had mapped out before leaving home. After finding the back road leading into a wooded area near the Catawba River, everything else had been simple. He had chosen the nearest large tree with low branches, then shoved the trunk out the back of the SUV, removed Dru Tanner’s bloody body from the trunk, and dragged it across the ground. Leaving her body by the tree, he had gone back to the trunk and taken out the small expandable ladder he’d brought with him and proceeded to hang Dru by her bound feet to a sturdy branch. By the time he had accomplished his task, he’d been sweating profusely and huffing like a freight train. But he’d been smiling.
Mission accomplished.
He had spent the night at a motel outside town, gotten up at six, showered and put on clean underwear, but had dressed in the same clothes and used the same disguise. He’d eaten breakfast at a fast-food restaurant, but only because he was extremely hungry. Nothing short of being ravenous could have induced him to eat such mediocre f
ood.
If all went as planned, he would drive from Atlanta to Chattanooga and from there to Memphis, where he would take a commercial flight to Baton Rouge.
He would go home.
He needed time before he made his next move, before he upped the ante, so to speak. The next woman he had chosen to play his game would be easy prey because, like all the others, she would not be expecting him.
After stacking the pillows from both double beds against the headboard of one bed, Pudge snuggled into the downy nest, stretched out, and tapped the number he knew by heart into the prepaid cell phone.
She answered on the third ring.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Nicole. Did you find the little present I left for you?”
Silence.
“I saw your press conference on TV,” he told her. “And, no, I’m not still in Charlotte.”
She wasn’t responding to anything he said. Apparently, she was upset with him. Ah, poor darling. She was no doubt frustrated because she and Griff hadn’t been able to save Dru Tanner.
“I don’t like it that the press is referring to me as ‘the Scalper.’ I told you that in this game, I am ‘the Hunter.’ I expect you to correct the mistake.”
“Tough shit.”
“Ah, now, now, Nicole. Such language from a lady.”
Silence.
“I’m not going to give you another clue until you do that one little thing for me. If you do something for me, then I’ll do something for you. Isn’t that fair?”
“You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘fair,’ you son of a bitch.”
“There you go, cursing again. Shame on you.”
She groaned.
“Once I know that you’re playing by the rules—my rules—I’ll give you another clue. But not until then.”
He hung up, tossed the phone to the foot of the bed, and closed his eyes. He pictured Nicole as she had looked at today’s press conference. Neatly dressed in khaki slacks, white shirt, and navy blazer. The afternoon sunlight had hit her sable hair at just the right angle, setting it afire with shimmering highlights. Although she looked tired, as if she’d lost sleep, she had been beautiful. Like an Amazonian goddess. The man who conquered her would have to be a fearless warrior.
A hunter who would make her his prey.
After settling into his suite at the downtown Westin, Griffin removed his suit, shaved for the second time today, and changed into slacks and a casual knit shirt. Just as he set up his laptop computer, his cell phone rang.
Was Nic canceling their dinner plans? Had she gotten cold feet?
Griffin checked the caller ID. It wasn’t Nic.
“Hello, Griffin,” the now-familiar voice said.
“Well, if it isn’t the Scalper.”
“You delight in going against my wishes, don’t you, Griffin?”
“I delight in anything that pisses you off.”
“For all your wealth and sophistication, you really have no breeding. You came from trash, didn’t you? Weren’t both of your grandfathers Tennessee sharecroppers?” When Griff didn’t react, the caller continued. “What’s that old saying about you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy?”
“I prefer the old saying about what goes around, comes around.”
“Do you indeed?”
“Why are you calling? Not simply to chat.”
“Are you hoping for a new clue?”
“I’m hoping a grizzly bear tears you from limb to limb. Slowly and painfully, and eats you for dinner.”
“My goodness, you do have a morbid sense of humor.”
“Just say what you have to say and be done with it,” Griff told him.
“I’ve chosen my next victim.”
Griff tensed. God help us.
“She’s very special.”
“Aren’t they all special?” Griff asked.
“Of course they are, but not the way she is. She will be my prize trophy. I expect the hunt will be exhilarating every day. She won’t go down without a hell of a fight.”
“I don’t have time to listen to this crap,” Griff told him. “Either give me the next clue or—”
“Patience, patience. Once Nicole does as she’s been told, I’ll call both of you again and give you each your clues.”
Dead silence. The bastard had hung up.
Griff laid the phone beside his laptop, walked across the room, and retrieved a beer from the minibar.
Out there somewhere was another potential victim, going about her life as usual, without the slightest idea that she had been chosen to play a murderous game with a crazed killer. And time was running out for her.
As Nic knocked on the door of Griff’s suite, she wondered what she was doing here. She had agreed to have dinner, in his hotel room, with one of the most notorious playboys in the country. In the past, she wouldn’t have been caught dead alone with Griffin Powell. And yet, here she was on his doorstep and actually looking forward to seeing him. Dear God, she had lost her mind, or what little mind she had left. That had to be it. Lack of sleep, stress, and brain-numbing frustration had created this lapse in her normally good judgment.
On the verge of talking herself into turning around and running back to the elevator, Nic gasped when Griff opened the door. She stared up at him. Her mouth dropped open. Damn him for looking so good. It wasn’t right for a man to be that ruggedly handsome and filthy rich, too.
“Come on in.” He stepped aside so that she could enter.
She hesitated for half a minute, then blew out a deep breath and stepped over the threshold, feeling very much like a martyr being tossed into a lion’s den. When she noted that the lights were all on, that there was no soft music playing, and that there wasn’t a bottle of champagne in sight, she relaxed just a little.
“I’ve ordered dinner,” he told her as he closed the door and joined her in the lounge. “It should arrive within the next five or ten minutes.”
She nodded, then surveyed the room. “This is nice.”
“Have a seat.”
She chose a single chair, just on the off chance that if she’d sat on the couch, he would have sat beside her.
“Care for a beer?” he asked.
“No, thank you.”
He sat on the sofa, leisurely crossed his legs, and studied her closely. “Relax, honey. You’re safe with me. This is business tonight. Besides, you’re not my type.”
“Oh, I know this is a business dinner.” Why should she care that she wasn’t his type? She should be relieved that he didn’t find her attractive. So why had his comment bothered her so much? “You’re not my type, either.” That’s it, Nic, you tell him.
“Well, now that we have that settled—”
“He called me this afternoon, after the press conference,” she blurted out. “He doesn’t like it that the press is referring to him as ‘the Scalper’ instead of ‘the Hunter.’”
“Yeah, I know. He phoned me, too.”
“I figured he might have.” She nervously rubbed her hands together. “He doesn’t intend to give us any more clues until I issue a statement to the press in which I refer to him as ‘the Hunter.’”
“He’s really hung up on terminology. Considering what he does to these women, we could just as easily refer to him as ‘the Shooter,’ ‘the Hangman,’ ‘the Tormentor,’ ‘the Abductor,’ or half a dozen other terms, but he doesn’t see himself as any of those. In his mind, in this game of his, he is ‘the Hunter.’ That’s what it’s all about—the hunt. He’s playing a psychological game as well as a physical game. God only knows what each day of the hunt involves, what kind of rules he demands that his prey follows.”
“Each day of the hunt?” Nic asked. “Did he say something about—”
“He told me that he’s chosen his next victim, that she’s special, and that he expects the hunt will be exhilarating every day.”
“Do you think that means he hunts them every day during t
he three weeks that they’re missing?”
“Probably. But we’d already come to the conclusion, from the autopsy reports, that these women were exposed to some pretty harsh conditions.” Griff paused briefly, then cleared his throat. “I think it’s a pretty good bet that he’s releasing these women in a place he thinks of as some sort of hunting ground, and then he stalks them, hunts them, and … All we know for sure is that in the end, he shoots them, again and again. In the legs, the arms, the shoulders and, finally, the head.”
Nic pressed her open palms across her cheeks, then slid her fingertips up to her temples and rubbed in a circular motion.
“Headache?” Griff asked.
With her eyes half-closed to barely open slits, she sighed. “It hit me right after the press conference. I took a couple of aspirin and that helped some, but it won’t go away.”
“If you’d let me, I could—”
The knock on the door interrupted Griff midsentence. Nic breathed a sigh of relief. If he had offered to give her another neck and head massage, she wasn’t sure she would have turned him down.
Griff opened the door to allow the waiter to serve their dinner. He wheeled in a large cart filled with a variety of items, then transported everything from the cart to the table.
“Would you like for me to open the wine, sir?” the waiter asked.
Griff nodded.
The waiter opened the bottle, poured a small amount into one of the glasses, and handed the flute to Griff. He sniffed the wine, took a sip, savored it on his tongue, then swallowed. He nodded to the waiter, placed his glass back on the serving cart, and signed the room service bill while the waiter filled both glasses.
As soon as the waiter left, Griff pulled out a chair at the dining table. “Dinner is served.”
Nic walked across the lounge to the table and allowed Griff to assist her. He whipped off the silver covers on their plates to reveal steaks, shrimp, baked potatoes, and asparagus smothered in a rich, creamy cheese sauce.
“I hope this is all right,” Griff said.
“Oh, God, it’s wonderful. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until just now.”
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