Profile of Retribution: FBI Profiler Romantic Suspense (Profile Series #3)

by Alexa Grace

  “Shut up!” he roared. “How dare you ask that question when you’re the one that gave birth to serial killers! Have you no shame?”

  “I feel horrible about what happened. It haunts my days and nights. I can’t even put into words how sorry I am. My heart breaks for families like yours who have to deal with such a horrible thing happening to their daughters, their sisters, mothers, or wives. This didn’t need to happen. I wish I could wave a magic wand and return those poor girls to their families.”

  “I don’t believe you. You’re saying anything you can think of to avoid the retribution you and your husband so richly deserve.”

  A loud pounding sounded from the floor below, making the man jerk his head toward the noise. Seizing the Sig Sauer from the table, he jumped to his feet.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  The Intruder

  Pulling into the long Lucas driveway, Gail searched the house for signs of life as she inched her way closer. The power was still out in this area, therefore there were no lights on in the house. She’d tried to call the Lucas’ landline from her vehicle on the way, but got no answer. Chances were the phones were dead. Nice night to be out and about. Not.

  Once she stopped the cruiser and turned off the ignition, she radioed dispatch with her arrival. There’d been no word from Sgt. Chase, so she texted him with the same information.

  Grabbing her flashlight from the passenger seat, she got out of the vehicle and was assaulted by a downpour beating against her hat and uniform, as the rain soaked her skin and seeped into her shoes. With one hand holding her flashlight, the other resting on her weapon, she ran until she reached the shelter of the front porch. Once she got her bearings, she hammered the front door with her fist while calling out Mrs. Lucas’ name. No one came to the door.

  She stepped to the edge of the porch and looked up to the second floor windows. Still seeing no signs of life, Gail sloshed through the wet grass to the side of the house, where she aimed her flashlight and noticed the side door to the garage was ajar. Best-case scenario was that wind had blown it open. Worst-case scenario was that an intruder was in the house, and this was where and how he got in.

  Pulling a snap on her holster, she rested her hand on her gun as she eased toward the open door. She was only a few feet from the door when she hit a slick patch of mud and her feet flew out from under her, and she landed with a painful thud. A hand on her aching back, she got to her feet and proceeded toward the open door. Finally, Gail reached the open door and pointed her flashlight inside the garage, where a new BMW SUV was parked. Angling the beam of light, she discovered the door leading into the house was wide open.

  Gail was going to return to her car to call for backup when something or someone stepped on a branch nearby, making a snapping sound. Whipping her gun out of the holster, she positioned her body toward the noise and shouted, “Shawnee County Sheriff! Don’t move. Stay where you are!”

  She then heard a man’s voice. “Gail. It’s me. Bryan Pittman. Don’t shoot.”

  Aiming her flashlight at his face, she recognized the county coroner and holstered her weapon. “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing out here, Dr. Pittman, but you need to turn and run to my vehicle as fast as you can. There’s may be an intruder inside and I need to call for backup.”

  Once inside the vehicle, Gail tossed a small white towel to Bryan, and grabbed one for herself from the back seat. Blotting her face and neck, she put in a call to dispatch for backup, and sent a text to Sgt. Chase, who had still not arrived.

  Gail eyed the house, looking for movement. “So what are you doing out here in the middle of the night during the worst storm we’ve had this spring?”

  “After I finished up an autopsy using auxiliary power, I was heading home when I saw your vehicle. I’ve been worried about Mrs. Lucas staying here alone, so I check the house on my way home every night. When I saw you were here, I figured something else had happened. That our vandal had struck again.”

  Headlights in her rearview mirror appeared at the end of the driveway. Soon she recognized Sgt. Chase getting out of his vehicle.

  Cameron and Gail entered the house through the open side door, guns drawn, and their flashlights lighting the way. Bryan was close behind. They’d cleared the first floor and were heading toward the stairs when the lights flickered on and they heard muffled cries coming from the next level.

  Gail cleared the second floor rooms while Cameron and Bryan moved toward the master bedroom. Inside they found Tisha Lucas bound to her bed. Cameron and Bryan worked quickly to remove the duct tape from her mouth and cut it from her wrists and ankles.

  “Where is he?” Cameron wanted to know.

  Rubbing her arms, Tisha said, “He’s gone. Shot down the stairs when he heard the pounding on the front door. He’s got Bradley’s Sig Sauer.”

  Cameron moved to the hallway to call dispatch to put out an APB, and Gail found a robe in the bathroom to cover Tisha.

  Bryan tried to take Tisha’s pulse, but she scowled at him and yanked her wrist away. “Mrs. Lucas, I’ll call an ambulance. You need to go to the hospital to get checked out.”

  Tisha’s voice was emphatic. “Don’t call an ambulance. I’m fine. I’m leaving this house, but I won’t be going to a hospital.” She turned to Cameron and asked, “Is it my decision to press charges or not?”

  “Yes. But why do you ask?”

  “I’m not filing a complaint.”

  “You can’t be serious. After all he’s done—”

  “You heard me. I’m not filing a complaint. I would have reacted the same way, maybe worse, if the situation were reversed and his daughter had murdered my sons.”

  “You don’t know anything about this guy, what he’s done in the past, and what he’s capable of.”

  “I know that my sons murdered his daughter for fun.”

  “She wasn’t his daughter. His name is Thomas Engle, Sr. and—”

  Tisha interrupted. “How do you know his name?”

  “I ran his criminal records tonight. Something I should have done at the beginning of the case. I apologize for that.”

  “The girl my sons killed was not his daughter?”

  “No, the young woman who was murdered was named Marie, and was his daughter-in-law. She was a sixteen-year-old runaway when she married his son, and was eighteen when she gave birth to twins. She was abducted outside the strip club where she worked after her husband lost his job.”

  Tisha’s jaw dropped open in surprise. “Oh, no. She had children?”

  “Yes, a boy and a girl. They’re a little over two-years-old.”

  “Who cares for them?”

  “Their father, Thomas Jr., works during the day driving grain trucks. He takes care of them at night.”

  Tisha filled in the blanks. “And their grandfather, Thomas Sr., cares for them during the day. Doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Don’t try to change my mind about filing charges. I don’t care if she was his daughter or not. He loved her as his daughter. The pain of his loss is as real as mine, as he grieves for her as his daughter.”

  “I’m begging you to reconsider. You don’t know his history. He will come back. I don’t think he’ll stop until you and Bradley are dead.”

  Tisha pulled the robe around her and went to her closet, where she pulled out a large suitcase on wheels. “Let him come back. I won’t be here. And if Bradley is as smart as he thinks he is, he won’t be either.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m going to do what I should have done when we learned what our boys had done. Bradley talked me out of it back then, but there’s no chance he’ll succeed again. I’m changing my name and my appearance. I’m moving as far away from Shawnee County as I can get to start a new life. It’s on Bradley to decide what he wants to do. But the days of my husband making decisions for me are over.”

  Just then Gail’s cell sounded, and she moved into the hallway to take the call. A
moment later she returned, urgency tightening her face. “Sgt. Chase, the Lucas Storage Units are on fire. A passerby just called it in.”

  Cameron rushed from the room and flew down the steps of the stairs. In his vehicle, he told dispatch to send every deputy in the area to the scene. In his rear-view mirror, he saw Gail’s cruiser tailing his SUV with lights flashing and siren blaring.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Exorcism by Fire

  In the distance, plumes of gray smoke and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles served as a beacon for Cameron as he made his way toward the storage units. Not that he needed help finding it.

  Cameron didn’t need to be a psychic to know exactly where the fire had started—Devan and Evan Lucas’ unit #13, their self-made torture chamber, where seven young women had lost their lives. But the arsonist had one specific victim in mind when he struck the match.

  Cameron had no doubt the man who started the fire was Thomas Engle, Sr. He wondered if Engle finally had sufficient payback, because Tisha’s refusal to press charges wouldn’t help him with this one. Arson carried some serious charges and penalties, including time in prison.

  Parking behind the Fire Chief’s vehicle, Cameron leapt from his vehicle and approached a deputy who was lining the parking lot with crime scene tape. A group of onlookers stood near the highway, a media truck already parked near them.

  “Deputy, push the onlookers and media across the highway. They’re too close.”

  Cameron tapped Fire Chief Wayne Lansky on the shoulder to get his attention. “What do we have?”

  “The entire building is engulfed in flames, but I think the fire started in that unit there.”

  “Unit #13?”

  “Yeah.”

  Cameron shook his head. “Not surprised.”

  “Is that the unit where—”

  “Yes, it is. Any injuries?”

  “One. The arsonist. I think he got too close to the accelerant and his clothing caught fire. The first responder, one of your deputies, had to tackle him to make him stop running. Your deputy is okay, your arsonist, not so much. The EMTs are working on him right now around the corner.”

  Cameron, joined by Gail, moved around a couple of fire fighters blasting the flames with water. Soon he noticed an ambulance with two EMTs loading their patient into the back. He recognized one of them as Sandy Galloway, a young EMT with whom he had worked accidents scenes.

  Calling out Sandy’s name, he ran to catch up with her, with Gail close behind. As he drew closer to the ambulance, he could hear painful moaning from inside.

  “What’s his condition?”

  Sandy shook her head. “Not good. It looks like the accelerant splashed on him as he lit the match. Third-degree burns from the waist down.”

  A man’s scream sounded from inside the ambulance. Glancing in that direction, Sandy said, “My partner is cutting away any clothing not stuck to his skin. Next he’ll wash his skin with sterile saline solution to make sure that all of the accelerant is removed.”

  “Is he going to make it?” Cameron asked.

  “I can’t say.”

  “Did you find any identification?”

  “Yes, the accelerant probably burned off quickly. His wallet is no worse for wear.” Sandy pulled out a brown leather wallet inside an evidence bag out of her pocket and handed it to Cameron. “His name is Thomas Engle, Sr., and the address is in Indianapolis.”

  Cameron nodded as he handed the evidence bag to Gail. “I’ve met his son. They just moved to a small farm outside of town.”

  “Do you want me to contact his family?” asked Gail.

  Cameron pulled his small notepad from his jacket pocket and ripped out a page which he handed to her. “Here’s his son’s name, phone number, and address. Send a deputy out there to let him know what happened and to give him a ride to the hospital.”

  Cameron turned back to the EMT, who was now moving to the back of the emergency vehicle. “Sandy, can he talk?”

  “Yes, there were no signs that he’d inhaled flames or hot gas. A burnt airway would have caused respiratory arrest, and he’d have been dead in a matter of minutes. He told us his name before we found the wallet. He also told us to go to hell when we said we were taking him to the hospital.”

  Cameron followed Sandy and climbed into the back of the ambulance where Thomas Engle, Sr. was being covered with a dry sterile burn sheet. A non-rebreather oxygen mask covered both his nose and mouth. A section of his arm was reddened raw flesh, and looked so bad Cameron found it hard to look at him. Thomas Sr. groaned, as if the pain were unbearable, and mumbled something that Cameron couldn’t understand.

  Cameron glanced at Sandy. “Can’t you give him something for pain?’

  “No, we can’t. Neither of us are paramedics. That’s one reason why we need to get him to the hospital fast.” As if on cue, her partner revved the engine, flipped on the siren, and got the ambulance onto the highway where he sped toward town.

  Sitting on the bench next to him, Cameron pulled out his badge. “Hello, David109. Or do you prefer to be called Thomas? I’m Sgt. Chase with the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office. I need to ask you some questions.” He read Thomas Sr. his rights.

  His breathing labored, the man stared at Cameron’s badge, and then focused on his eyes. He jerked the oxygen mask from his face. “What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know why in the hell you obsessed about getting retribution from the parents of Marie’s killers instead of focusing on that beautiful little family you moved here from the city.”

  Wheezing, Thomas Sr. coughed a couple of times to clear his throat. “I promised Marie that I wouldn’t stop seeking justice for her. That I’d make the Lucas couple pay for what their sons did to her. I keep my promises.”

  “What about your son? Didn’t you make any promises to him? Did you give any thought about how all this would impact him and your grandchildren? Did you think at all about how much he needs you now?”

  “To tell you the truth, I didn’t think I’d get stupid and get caught. I thought I’d done a good job covering my tracks until now.”

  “You didn’t do that bang-up of a job covering your tracks, because I know you’re the one who threw the bloody rock, set the Lucas’ mailbox on fire, tried to destroy their business, and duct-taped Tisha to her bed while you terrorized her.”

  “So what? They had it coming. Did they really think they would escape retribution for raising animals who took my Marie and the other girls?”

  “So you admit it was you who harassed them?”

  “It wasn’t like the other people in that support group didn’t want to do what I did. I was the only one who had the guts.” He gasped for air and Sandy placed the oxygen mask back on his face, took his pulse, and then shot a worried glance at Cameron.

  “No more questions.”

  “Okay, no more questions. But there is something I need to tell him. All he has to do is listen.”

  When the man’s eyes met his, Cameron continued, “I disagree with her decision, but Tisha Lucas is refusing to press charges against you for what you did to her and her husband. She is a mother who may never forgive herself for the crimes of her sons, but she forgave you. Tisha was able to put herself in your place and ask herself how she would feel if the situation were reversed, and your daughter-in-law had murdered her sons. Unlike you, Mr. Engle, Tisha gave thought to how much your son and children need you. She wants you to be able to return to them.”

  Thomas Sr. slowly shook his head and pulled off the oxygen mask to speak. “I won’t be returning to my family. If these burns don’t get me, my cancer will. I’m dying. I’m no use to them now. I didn’t keep my promise to Marie to get retribution, but I’ve burned down the torture chamber where she lost her life. Hope that counts for something.”

  Swiftly his condition changed and he struggled to breathe. His hands clenched, he expelled a pained hiss at the exertion. His voice was a raspy whisper. “There’s something I wa
nt you to tell Mrs. Lucas…” Taking one more ragged breath, he stopped breathing altogether and Sandy grasped his wrist to take his pulse. After a while, she shook her head. He was gone.

  Epilogue

  Three Months Later

  A moving van was parked outside the Lucas home when Cameron Chase and Bryan Pittman arrived. Inside was a bustle of activity as the moving company employees wrapped and packed Tisha’s and Bradley’s belongings. Following a long hallway, they caught a glimpse of the couple sitting outside on the patio.

  “Good afternoon,” Cameron called out.

  Bradley looked at him with surprise. “Sgt. Chase? Dr. Pittman? What are you doing out here?”

  Bryan handed Bradley a package wrapped in white tissue paper. “Just dropped by to visit with you before you embark on your new adventure.”

  “What’s this?”

  “You’ll find out when you open it.”

  Bradley pulled at the packaging until the wrapping revealed a small box. Then he opened the box. “A compass?”

  “I wanted to make sure you had one to keep you moving in the right direction,” said Bryan.

  Cameron added, “If you ever decide to come back, it will lead you here to us.”

  Noticeably touched by the gesture, Bradley hugged each man. “There are few people we will miss in Morel, but you two are at the top of our list. Thanks for all you’ve done to help us.”

  Tisha smiled. “You’re right about new adventure. We have a long road ahead of us, and we’re eager to get started. Next week, we’re both scheduled for plastic surgery. Bradley has requested a Scott Eastman look and I think I’ll go for Sofia Vergara.”

  “No kidding?”

  At that, she laughed. “Yes, I’m kidding. We don’t know how we want to look, but we want to look different enough that it will be hard for people to recognize us as we start our new life.”

  Cameron accepted the tall glass of iced tea that Bradley handed him. “Do you know where you’re going?”