A Breath Away

by Rita Herron

  A tense moment stretched between them. “We’ll get the list of donor recipients,” Norton said, “then we’ll determine the killer’s identity and figure out where he takes the victims.”

  Grady could not think of the word victim and Violet in the same sentence. Not while knowing the killer might already have her. But images flooded him. Violet having her blood drawn. Violet being wrapped in that sheet. Placed on the altar.

  He had to stop this maniac. He couldn’t let her die.

  Not without telling her he loved her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  GRADY BARRELED UP to the Black Mountain Research Hospital, tires squealing as he stopped at the wrought-iron security gate surrounding the property. He flashed his badge and explained he was there to meet Special Agent Nick Norton.

  Huge old trees flanked the impressive two-story, stucco building, which had been built recently, partially funded by government grants, and subsidized by private investors. High tech genetic research was the main focus of the center, although other projects were carried out, as well.

  Grady just prayed they had information on the fertility experiments that had taken place twenty years ago.

  Five minutes later, after clearing inside security, he was escorted through another secured area to a set of offices. Behind double doors that required a key card, Grady finally came face-to-face with the director, a portly man in a three-piece suit with thick wire-rim glasses. The smell of strong coffee permeated the room, the desk was cluttered with papers and a state-of-the-art computer system occupied one corner.

  Norton stood. “I’ve explained the circumstances to Dr. Ramsey. He’s had a team searching files since we called a few days ago.”

  “It took some time,” Dr. Ramsey explained. “But I believe we’ve located the information you need.”

  “Were you here during those fertility experiments?” Grady asked.

  Ramsey nodded. “Yes, but I wasn’t working with the fertility clinic. I had my own projects.”

  “Who was in charge of the clinic?” Norton asked.

  “A doctor named Hadley. He retired years ago. Last I heard he’s been very ill.”

  Norton took the files. “You have a list of all the women who received in vitro fertilization from the sperm donor we requested information on?”

  “Yes. Their names are in there, as well as those of their offspring. Someone apparently thought they might need the information for follow-up purposes.”

  “Thanks.” Agent Norton opened the file and read the names of the latter. “Darlene Monroe, Violet Baker, Amber Collins, Connie Allen, Kerry Cantrell, Lynnette Burgess, Minnie White, Rhoda Florence, Sandy Evans, Terry Yoder.” He reached for his cell phone. “I’m calling this in. We’ll assign agents to locate and warn the remaining victims.”

  Grady’s eyebrows shot up. “And the name of the donor?”

  “Actually, it was Dr. Hadley,” Ramsey said.

  “Where’s Hadley now?” Grady asked.

  “I’m not sure. Like I said, he’s been ill these last few years.” He snapped his fingers. “As a matter of fact, he had a rare autoimmune disease a long time ago. He chose to become one of the subjects in a gene replacement therapy we were working on back then.”

  “And the therapy worked?” Agent Norton asked.

  “Yes. I don’t know for sure if his current illness has to do with the disease or not.”

  Grady saw the pieces clicking into place. It fit with the information they’d learned from the victims’ bloodwork. “Does Hadley have children? A son who’s a doctor or who works in health care, maybe?”

  Ramsey’s double chin sagged as he frowned. “Actually, he did have a son, but he’s not a doctor. When the boy reached puberty, he had problems. I believe he was diagnosed with some kind of mental disorder. Dr. Hadley blamed himself—he thought the genetic therapy he’d undergone had adversely affected his son.”

  “But he still donated this sperm to have other children?” Grady asked, unable to hide disgust.

  “He did that long before he knew his son had genetic problems. In fact, that may have been the reason Hadley asked for the names of the offspring. Maybe he wanted to follow up on them to verify that they were healthy.”

  “Or he needed their blood to help cure his illness,” Norton said.

  Grady nodded. “But his son used the names as his hit list.”

  A knot of apprehension tightened his belly. They had to find Hadley and his son. “Can you tell us if a man named Logan was here asking about this?” Grady inquired.

  The doctor shook his head. “I don’t recognize the name.”

  “We’re still working on the list of all the doctors, nurses, lab techs, orderlies—anyone who worked here and at any neighboring hospitals,” Norton said. “One of them is our man.”

  * * *

  IT WAS TOO LATE. Lynnette knew it. He was getting ready to kill her.

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her chest wrenched in spasm. Regrets screamed in her head.

  The money no longer mattered. The baby she wanted did. The pregnancy test was on the counter. She hadn’t even seen the results.

  More tears trickled down her cheeks, cold and icy. They froze there, just like her limbs were frozen from whatever drug he’d given her.

  And now he’d brought this other woman to join her. He’d said something about her sister. But he was crazy.

  Lynnette didn’t have a sister. She didn’t have anyone except Ted. Why had she been so selfish? Demanding that everything be perfect before she conceived.

  Her captor’s footsteps clicked on the concrete floor. He was humming some stupid song under his breath. Some childhood song about angels. But he had it backward.

  And he was no angel. He was the devil in disguise. A sicko. Someone she had trusted, though. Someone she had turned to for help.

  But he was going to end her life, and if she was pregnant, her baby’s….

  * * *

  VIOLET’S HEART WAS beating so rapidly she could hear it roaring in her ears. No, it wasn’t hers. It was the other woman’s. She was crying. And she was thinking about the baby she might be carrying.

  No…

  Violet felt her fear. There was so much the woman wanted to do before she died. Kiss her husband again. Make up for the fight they’d had that morning. Forgive him for letting their finances get in such a mess.

  Violet slowly twisted her head sideways. Threads of reality interwove with the darkness. She wasn’t in the hospital. But she was strapped onto a gurney.

  The woman was in the same room with her. Her half sister. Lynnette.

  Someone she had never met. Had never known existed. But Violet wanted desperately to save her.

  She tried to move her hand. Her fingernails made a faint scratching sound against the stiff sheets.

  “I’m here,” she tried to say, but her vocal cords were immobilized from the drugs, just as her body was. Tears of rage and helplessness pressed against her eyelids. This woman might be pregnant; there was an innocent little baby’s life to consider. But how could Violet save her if she couldn’t free herself?

  “Hello, Violet.”

  She blinked, searching for his face. But it was so dark, bathed in shadows. The inky blackness swallowed him completely.

  “I know you can see me. You don’t need light. You can see me in your mind, can’t you?”

  She closed her eyes. Willed the image to come. If he wanted to connect with her, then let him. Maybe she could talk some sense into him. At least stall him.

  “I sent you the other half of Darlene’s necklace. Now I want you to watch what I’m doing to our sister.”

  “No,” she whispered, although no sound came out.

  A nasty chuckle reverberated in the silence, echoed around the room. He shifted, just enough for her to see his hands.

  And the needle. The syringe. Then she was in the other woman’s mind again, connecting. Lynnette’s arm jerked as the needle pricked her. Her blood began flowing
slowly into the tube.

  Violet’s would be next.

  “It has to be perfect,” he said in that grating voice that sounded like sandpaper against rough wood. “It won’t do for my father unless it is right.”

  Would he spare her if it was perfect?

  No… The blood taking was only the beginning of the end. She would die like the others.

  The other woman’s fear bled into hers, nearly choking her.

  Violet gritted her teeth, willed away the pain. Tried to shut out the terror and think of Grady.

  The pleasure he’d given her. The warm presence of his body on top of hers. His fingers coaching her into the exhilarated feeling of arousal. His lips pressing against hers as he slid inside her…

  A low sob tore from the other woman’s throat, jerking Violet back to reality. The machine he used to test the blood rumbled in the silence.

  Then the sharp crackle of bone breaking. He was carving again. Back and forth the knife went. Crafting the bone whistle he intended to play when he spread them on the altar.

  * * *

  “WE NABBED FARMER at the airport,” Agent Adams said over the phone. “I’m still looking for your deputy.”

  Maybe Farmer had the answers. But where the hell was Logan? Norton’s admission rang in Grady’s ears. Logan was smart. He could have hidden Violet somewhere, then called in the accident. “Bring Farmer straight to the station.”

  “We’ll meet you there,” Agent Adams said.

  Grady agreed, then disconnected the phone. His head was spinning. Suspecting everyone. Wheeler? Farmer? A stranger in town? The reports hadn’t shown anything on that new doctor. Any one of them would be able to slip in and out of the community unnoticed. Trusted.

  Grady wanted to scream. What if the killer was his deputy? The man he’d sent to guard Violet. The man who’d helped him find Baker’s body and Kerry Cantrell’s.

  Grady was responsible….

  He flashed the blue light on and tore down the mountain, oblivious to the rain. Thank God he and Norton were in separate cars. He didn’t want anyone watching over his shoulder. If he got to the killer first, he’d forget his job. His badge.

  He’d do whatever he had to do to save Violet.

  Memories of the night they’d made love floated back. Violet offering herself so openly. The warm feel of her tender skin gliding against his. The beat of her heart as he’d suckled her nipples. The erotic feel of her naked heat closing around him.

  He had been her first lover. He wanted to be her only one. Her last.

  But not this way…

  He shut out the thoughts. Tried to think optimistically. Tried to hold on to the fraying hope. But déjà vu flooded him. The night they’d searched for Darlene. The night he’d searched for Kerry Cantrell. He’d been too late both times.

  This had to be different.

  He accelerated, taking the curves at a dangerous speed, tires squealing on the asphalt. Recriminations screamed in his head. He hadn’t even thanked Violet for the gift of her innocence. He would do it when he found her.

  The rain pounded harder. Lightning cut through the trees. He didn’t slow. He had to get to her.

  A few minutes later, he raced up to his office and stalked inside. Agent Adams had Farmer locked in an interrogation room. Grady allowed his father to be in the room, hoping he could persuade Farmer to talk. “All right, Doc, spill it all.”

  Farmer dropped his head forward with a groan. “I need a lawyer.”

  “You need to give me some goddamn answers before I beat them out of you. Violet Baker is missing. The serial killer most likely has her. Now where the hell has he taken her?”

  “Why do you think I know?” Farmer wailed.

  “We found out about the sperm donor recipients. The victims were all bred from one donor. This Dr. Hadley, who had genetic replacement therapy, spawned them, and now his real son is killing them.”

  “Jesus Christ.” He dropped his head forward. “My life, my reputation, everything will be ruined.”

  “Your lawyer is on his way.” Grady propped his big body on the edge of the table, leaned into Farmer’s face. “And I don’t give a rat’s ass about your reputation now, or the fact that you’ve been giving Mavis Dobbins drugs for her son, probably off the books. What I care about is saving lives. Unless you want to be charged for murder, you’d better tell me everything you know about Hadley and his son, including where to find them.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Grady yanked him off the chair. “Where would he take these women?”

  Walt Monroe cleared his throat. “For God’s sake, Farmer, this has gone too far. Tell him.”

  “I was sending patients to the research center. Some of the women had no idea they received sperm from Hadley. They were just happy to conceive.”

  “Then Baker’s wife had a reaction to the anesthesia, and went crazy. I think Hadley’s son killed her, then later, Walt’s wife.”

  “But you all kept this secret,” Grady said. “Why?”

  “To protect you and Violet,” Walt said.

  “Where the hell are Hadley and his son?” Grady bellowed.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Farmer wheezed. “There’s only two places I can think of—one of them his old estate home up in the Smoky Mountains. The other was the original research facility.”

  “I need exact locations.”

  Farmer sank back in the chair, sweating as he muttered some directions. Grady grimaced. Both places were isolated, remote. Would be difficult to locate. It would take time—time they didn’t have.

  “Who is Hadley’s son?” Grady demanded.

  Farmer swallowed, then looked at Grady’s father.

  “It’s over, I tell you,” Walt said. “We can’t let anyone else die.”

  Farmer covered his eyes with his hands. “That’s just it, I have no idea. Last I heard he’d been locked away as a teenager because of his psychosis. If he came to Crow’s Landing, I don’t know what name he’s using.”

  Agent Norton glanced up from his computer. “I have locations for his house and the old research center. Let’s divide up.”

  Grady followed him into the outer office. Joseph Longhorse was standing in the doorway.

  Norton glanced at Agent Adams. “I want you to stake out Wheeler’s house, see if he returns.”

  “And keep trying to contact my deputy,” Grady declared.

  “I’ll get a chopper,” Agent Norton said, “and check the old estate.”

  Grady nodded. “I’ll take the old research center.”

  Longhorse caught his arm. “This serial killer has Violet?”

  “We think so,” Grady said. “And I don’t have time—”

  “I heard the location,” Longhorse said. “To reach it, you must hike in on foot.”

  “I know that. I’m prepared.”

  “Let me go with you,” Joseph exclaimed. “I can lead you there. I know the woods well.”

  Grady’s eyes connected with Longhorse. His half brother. They had always fought. Joseph hated him. Would he lead him astray to get revenge?

  “Please,” Longhorse insisted as if he’d read Grady’s mind. “I am a good hunter. There are shortcuts that will save time, and some of the roads are washed out. We must work together.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  He frowned. “Violet is my friend. She should not suffer because of our differences.”

  Grady swallowed his pride. Violet had defended Longhorse. She had trusted him. Maybe he had to now, too. “All right. Then let’s go.”

  Grady led the way to his car, his half brother following.

  * * *

  HE TWIRLED A STRAND of Violet’s hair between his fingers, feeling its silky smoothness, damp with tears.

  She had been such a scrawny kid when her little friend Darlene had taken her under her wing. He had almost felt sorry for her. Some kind of connection.

  But now that connection could be his end.

  If
she somehow escaped, or connected with the others he hadn’t yet caught, and revealed his location, the police would come after him. Then all his work for his father would be for nothing.

  A frisson crawled up his spine He’d better hurry. The tests for Lynnette’s blood were finished. It was worthless. Hers had the same abnormality as the first three.

  His father’s low moan echoed from the adjoining room. He was getting weaker. He needed the blood now.

  Violet opened those iridescent eyes and gazed up at him. She had a way of looking into a man’s soul. Could she see that he was special?

  That he hated having to come to them to help his father? Because his own blood had not worked, either.

  Anger flared, quickening his pulse and pounding in his temples, worsening the headache he lived with constantly. A side effect of neglecting his medicine.

  But the rewards were worth it.

  “The order is all wrong.” Panic twisted inside him at the thought. “But Father cannot wait.”

  His fingers traced along Violet’s arm. She lay motionless, staring up at him, trying to be brave. But the connection ran both ways now. Fear radiated between them.

  “Relax, Violet, this part won’t hurt.”

  Her pale cheeks were frozen, her dark lashes fluttering. He wound the tourniquet around her arm, raised the needle, tightened the rubber tubing. Then he pierced Violet’s skin with the needle.

  He needed more blood from her than the others. Then he would prepare for the bone marrow transplant. Poor Violet. That part would be painful, especially if he didn’t anesthetize her.

  But soon after, the pain would fade as she drifted up to heaven.

  * * *

  GRADY’S BODY ACHED as they climbed the foothills, the silent cries of the victims ringing in his mind. They had to hurry. Had to reach Violet in time.

  “This way.” Longhorse pointed to the east. The forest was thick, the vegetation appearing impassable. “It is the shortest way,” he said.

  Grady nodded.

  Longhorse swung his machete, thrashing through the foliage, cutting his own path. His footsteps were determined and his pace steady. The stench of a dead animal filled the air—a deer carcass, rotting in the field. Moss, animal bones, the half-eaten remains of a predator’s dinner were scattered along a decaying tree stump. They bypassed them, slogging through the muddy leftovers of a recent rain—the swampy part of the forest, Longhorse called it. Night was falling, thunderclouds rearing their heads again, the humidity creating a film of dampness on their skin.