01 Only Fear

by Anne Marie Becker

  “You know you can’t go in there.” A lock of sandy-blond hair fell onto Noah’s forehead, concealing the lines of concern there.

  “I understand. It is a crime scene. I just thought, maybe…” What? That she would have more luck than the police? Her lips trembled and she pressed them together. This was entirely her fault. All of it. And now Sharon was dead.

  She jumped to her feet, wanting to walk until she ran out of sidewalk. But she couldn’t. She owed Sharon justice. So she ended up standing there, feeling useless.

  “I provoked a serial murderer. What was I thinking?” She shouldn’t have prodded him. It hadn’t led to anything helpful. “I’m responsible,” she whispered, horrified.

  “You didn’t know.” Ethan’s voice came from behind her, his comforting hand suddenly there, a warm weight on her shoulder, anchoring her. She resisted the urge to lean into it. But she remembered how he’d grasped her hand earlier, in her kitchen. His support—however brief—had kept her from crumpling into a heap on the floor. “You didn’t know he was a serial killer. I didn’t tell you until afterward.”

  “Still, I sensed something strange.” Pressing her fingertips to her stomach in an effort to stifle the sudden nausea, she swayed. She felt a hand at her waist, steadying her, and looked up to find Ethan taking her weight against him. “I killed Sharon. Maybe not with my hands, but…”

  He nudged her gently back down onto the concrete steps and squatted down beside her. “Don’t be an idiot. Fearmonger killed her. You didn’t know.”

  Maria hiked up her slacks and crouched down beside them, her mahogany hair falling over one shoulder. “Ethan’s right. The killer is solely responsible, and he’s trying to manipulate you. You’re just as much a victim in this as Sharon Moss. We’ll find this guy.”

  No, she wasn’t quite the victim Sharon had become. Not yet, anyway. “But you can’t guarantee you’ll catch him before he does this again.”

  “No, we can’t.” Maria grinned, looking up at Noah. “But we’re the best in the department.”

  Maggie nodded, striving to return the detective’s smile. “I know. Tell me what I can do to help. I need to do something. Anything.”

  Noah’s hand clasped her shoulder. “We’ll certainly let you know. After all, you’re our only link to this guy right now. We may need to use that.”

  Ethan muttered a curse, rising to a standing position. Maria followed suit.

  “You’re not going to use her to get to him,” Ethan argued with Noah. “He’s a nutcase. It’s my responsibility to keep her safe. Why don’t you go interview the janitor some more, find out if he saw anybody driving away as he arrived or something? Do some police work rather than risk an innocent person.”

  The two men’s glares clashed. “I’m not suggesting we put her in harm’s way,” Noah said, clearly offended.

  “They’re right, Ethan,” Maggie said, wishing her legs felt steady enough to step between the men. “I might be the best chance of finding Sharon’s killer. He intends to contact me again.” She shuddered. “With more lessons.” Would she have to listen to another woman’s screams, unable to help?

  Maria stepped into the fray, putting a hand on each man’s shoulder. They seemed to calm at her touch. “We’ll obviously see where the evidence leads us first. We wouldn’t put Maggie in danger. Come on, Noah. Let’s see how they’re doing inside.”

  As the detectives moved away, Damian exited the building and came to stand on the steps next to Maggie. He removed his suit jacket and dropped it around her shoulders.

  “It’s chilly, sweetheart,” Damian explained when she looked up at him, confused. “The sun’s barely up.”

  Indeed, it was still a pink-and-orange ball on the horizon between two other campus buildings.

  A sight one woman would never see again.

  As she glanced away, Maggie caught the hard set of Ethan’s jaw. He glared at the lapel of Damian’s jacket as if the article of clothing had just personally insulted him and his mother. Maybe, despite his assurances, he was angry with her. He’d certainly made that clear at the radio station last night.

  “I’m a psychiatrist, I should have known.” Her chest ached with grief for Sharon and her family. And for David, who would be devastated. The young man had such an intense crush on Sharon.

  Why was she always leading people into disaster? She only wanted to help, but death and destruction seemed to surround her.

  She suddenly leaped up, forcing Ethan to step back to give her room. “I have to walk. I can’t just sit here.”

  Ethan moved to follow Maggie, but Damian’s hand on his arm stopped him.

  “Let her go,” Damian said. “Just for a minute.”

  The strange sensation of jealousy that had taken hold of him when Damian had called Maggie “sweetheart” intensified. Did the man have feelings for her? Was there a history between them, or something current? And why the hell did Ethan care?

  He shoved a hand through his hair. He was exhausted. That was all. This was just a job, and then he’d be out of Maggie’s life. He should be focusing on the crime scene.

  Sandy Mitchell, one of SSAM’s best criminalists, emerged from the building. Apparently SSAM team members were already standing by, watching the cops carefully to note any disturbance of evidence before they’d be allowed to process the scene themselves.

  Ethan’s gaze swung back to Maggie’s slender form moving farther down the sidewalk. At least there were no bushes or buildings around her. Just wide open spaces in the quad. No places for a madman to hide. But if she went much farther by herself, he’d go charging after her. After all, she was his responsibility.

  “She just needs some time,” Damian said, following his gaze.

  Ethan’s temper snapped. “For what? To adjust? Hell, you don’t adjust to something like this. You and I, of all people, should know that.” Catching the flash of pain on Damian’s face, he backed off, immediately contrite. He shook his head, blowing out a breath that released some of the tension. “I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn.”

  “No. You’re right. We do understand that kind of pain. And I understand Maggie because I know her. I’ve known her longer than you.”

  Ethan’s jealousy flared again. Damn it. What was it with this woman? She seemed to attract admirers—both male and female—like honey attracted bears. His jaw slid to the side as he reined in his temper. “So that’s how it is, then? I thought from day one there might be something between you two. Guess I was right.”

  There was a long pause before Damian’s wry chuckle surprised Ethan. “Yes, there’s something, but not what you think. I’m almost twice her age. I’m flattered, but she deserves better.” The man’s eyes trailed to the sidewalk, where Maggie still walked toward the rising sun, and he kept his gaze there when he spoke next. “She knew Sam.”

  Ethan’s breath caught. That was how Damian and Maggie knew each other. Of course. She was the right age. Sam was the common denominator. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried, as that was a bond that would surely run deep with Damian Manchester. Straight to the man’s core, his whole reason for being.

  “She was my daughter’s best friend. They were inseparable. Maggie became ill suddenly on the day Samantha disappeared. They were supposed to meet at the mall, and Maggie didn’t show. She’d tried to call Sam before she left to meet her, to tell her she was sick and couldn’t make it, but she couldn’t reach her.” Damian swallowed. “This was twenty years ago, before everyone on God’s green earth—and their teenage daughters—had a cell phone. There was no way to get in touch. I went to the mall to find Sam but, of course, I didn’t.”

  A mirthless smile twisted his lips. “I didn’t know until a decade later that Maggie felt responsible for Sam’s disappearance that day. I should have, but I never thought about it. I was too lost in my own grief. I was feeling responsible. It never occurred to me that a thirteen-year-old girl would too.” He shook his head. “When she addressed the college at her graduat
ion, she invited me. We’d stayed in touch over the years through letters and an occasional phone call.”

  Damian looked away. His voice was rough with emotion when he spoke again. “Maggie mentioned Samantha in her speech, and it was then that I realized she’d done all of this for her. She’d pursued psychology because she wanted to help others. She’d attended medical school because she felt she could do even more. And she did. And then she lost her brother because of her career path, a path meant only to help people.” His eyes narrowed on Ethan’s. “She doesn’t know what it is to be happy, to live for herself. She deserves that. All of that and more.”

  Maggie had been through so much more than Ethan had even imagined. Stunned, he stood there, his mouth refusing to form the questions that weighed on his mind. But it didn’t matter. Damian was already gone, his long strides carrying him toward Maggie, toward where Ethan itched to be.

  Noah Crandall had seen some gruesome sights in his five years as a Chicago homicide detective, but this was one he knew would always stand out in his memory. And, on those rare occasions he reached the lucid-dreaming REM stage of sleep, it would haunt his nightmares.

  “Looks like someone enjoys scaring the shit out of young women,” Maria muttered.

  Maria Santos, his partner of the past eight months, carefully picked her way around the crime scene. The multitude of markers denoting blood spatter patterns and other evidence made walking through what had recently been an average lecture hall, with a capacity of a hundred or so desks arranged in gently sloping stadium style, tricky at best.

  But Maria was a pro.

  Noah and Maria had clicked on a professional level from the start. Despite the nasty rumors they were sleeping with each other, they respected each other enough not to complicate things that way. Besides, if the pranks she’d pulled on him were any indication, Maria saw him more as a big brother than a potential lover.

  Noah watched the crime-scene photographer setting up his next shot, framing the words that were scrawled across the white dry-erase board that spanned one wall. Fear me. If there was any doubt that Fearmonger and Maggie’s caller Owen were one and the same person, this greatly diminished it. Only, this time, he’d added the words Lesson Two.

  “It’s his MO,” Noah finally replied to Maria. When she tipped her head in question, he explained. “I was only a patrol officer when Fearmonger first struck, but I was aiming to make detective someday, and murders had always intrigued me, so I paid attention to the homicides that came through. Absorbed what I could through whoever would talk to me.”

  “He killed three women back then?”

  Noah nodded. “And maybe more.”

  His gaze rested on the large table from which the professor lectured. And where the young woman’s body had been found by the janitor, her limbs duct-taped to the table, and her face and torso sliced open in so many places it was hard to say which one had been the death of her. And yet, there had been little blood left in her body. There were spray patterns on the table and surrounding floor, and some was probably the “ink” with which Fear me and Lesson Two had been written, but most of it was simply…missing. Sandy Mitchell, SSAM’s head criminologist, had pointed out a deep gash in the woman’s neck that appeared to be postmortem. She hypothesized that Fearmonger had drained Sharon’s blood through that wound. He’d obviously collected it, as it wasn’t anywhere to be found. Where had it all gone?

  Noah gingerly stepped up to the white board after the photographer switched to another piece of evidence. The words the killer had scrawled there had not required much of the blood.

  “God, the press will have a field day with this,” Maria muttered, pushing her hair behind her ears as she rose from where she’d been squatting by the trash can, peering inside for clues. Somebody from the lab would soon be gathering that up as well.

  “I’m going to talk with the president of the university,” Noah said. They’d have to request cooperation on a greater level if this investigation were to proceed smoothly.

  She planted her hands on her slim hips. “Which means I’m having a pleasant chat with the chief, I suppose.”

  He stifled a smile. “And the commissioner, probably. This’ll be a high-profile case. You’ll get lots of attention and get to test out those people skills you’ve been working on.”

  “Fuck you,” she said good-naturedly. “You just don’t want to deal with the circus.”

  He took a sweeping look at their surroundings. “There’s enough of the circus to go around.”

  Chapter Six

  “Maggie?” Damian’s face was etched with lines of worry. Maggie patted the seat next to her and the old wood creaked as he accepted her invitation.

  “This bench used to be one of my favorite places on campus.” She looked to her right. The medical school building where she’d worked doing therapy and teaching classes after graduating Columbia stood proudly, its red bricks glowing orange in the rays of the rising sun. Its quiet steadfastness gave no clue as to what had happened to her there at the hands of her previous stalker, Deborah Frame. To her left, a football-field distance away, police and SSAM agents still scurried about, processing the scene created by her current stalker. Campus was quickly filling with bad memories.

  Damian seemed to know the direction of her thoughts. “Want to talk about it?”

  “I’ll be fine.” She summoned a small smile.

  Something flickered in the depths of his gaze, then hardened to flint. “I’ll make sure of it.” He softened his voice again. “How about your family? Do they know?”

  “About this?” She waved a hand toward the police activity. She would never want her family near this mess. “Absolutely not. All they know is that someone broke into my house Monday night. I don’t want them involved.”

  “And yet, they’d want to know if you’re in danger. They love you.” Something much like regret passed over his face, and he looked away. He had to be thinking about Sam.

  She put her hand on his forearm. The crisp long-sleeved shirt under her fingertips reminded her that she still had his suit coat. But his arm felt warm. Solid. Sometimes she forgot Damian Manchester was human. He’d been through so much, and become so adept at hiding his emotions over the years, that she forgot the hell he’d been through. The hell he was still in.

  “Will it really matter, having them know?” she wondered aloud.

  “They’d want to help.”

  “But they can’t. It’s better if they’re not around. I’d only worry about them, too.”

  Concern creased his forehead. “You won’t reconsider? The more people who are watching over you, the better. If anything happens to you…”

  It hit her then, and she felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. The successful businessman before her thought he was a failure. He’d been unable to protect Sam and had to live with a parent’s guilt—ridiculous as it was—for the rest of his life.

  He’d told Maggie before that she was like a daughter, and as such, she was precious to him. And if anything happened to her, he’d blame himself. It’d be like failing Sam all over again.

  She slid her hand underneath his on the bench. “I’ll be fine. I have you on my team, don’t I?” She sighed. “I’ll call my parents again if it’ll make you feel better.”

  He gave a brief nod and squeezed her hand. “It would.”

  “But I don’t want to worry them unless it’s absolutely necessary, so I may leave some of the details out.” Sensing his disapproval, she hurried on. “Besides, according to the detectives, it won’t be long before they catch this guy.” She paused and drew a breath. “And someday you’ll find Sam’s killer too. I’m sure of it.” A thought struck her as she released his hand. “You don’t think this is the guy who killed Sam, do you?”

  His lips tightened. “No. I almost wish…but, no. The characteristics of the crime scenes are too different. This guy has a definite fingerprint to his behavior. The scene at your house was just too similar to those three other cri
me scenes years ago.”

  “And the scene today.”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  Sharon had suffered so much. Maggie hadn’t seen her classroom, but she’d seen Sharon’s glassy, lifeless eyes when she’d identified her face from that photograph. And Maggie had noticed the slices on Sharon’s cheeks and across her face. The bastard had even sliced off the tip of her nose.

  Biting her lip to stop its trembling, Maggie straightened her spine instead. She would not turn to jelly.

  I’m in control.

  But she wasn’t. She didn’t believe her mantra anymore.

  A throat cleared behind them and both Damian and Maggie turned. Ethan stood under the enormous oak tree that shaded the bench when the sun was high. His gaze skimmed over Maggie, and her chest filled with warmth at the concern she read there. It wasn’t the painful pressure that signaled the onset of one of her episodes, but a pleasant feeling of…anticipation. And relief. She wasn’t totally alone. Someone was watching over her and keeping her safe.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but Noah’s asking for you,” Ethan told Damian. “You okay?” he asked Maggie.

  She nodded. “Just needed some space.”

  “At least school’s still on break until tomorrow. No classes, so no extra students and professors on campus.”

  She hadn’t even thought of that. The psychology building was near the center of campus, away from most of the dorms. That, combined with it being a holiday break and during the summer, when fewer students lived on campus, was a little bit of good news. “That’s something to be thankful for.”

  Ethan’s frown told her there was a drawback. “It also means we have an even slimmer possibility of finding a witness who may have seen a strange car parked here in the early morning hours.”

  “Or Sharon or her killer,” Maggie said. “Unless security was patrolling at the time?”