Remi closed her eyes against the piercing pain at the back of her head and tried to focus on the rope binding her wrists. If she could loosen it enough, she’d be able to escape. She could run. Pressing her left side into the ground, she realized her abductor hadn’t only taken her weapon, he’d removed her holster completely. She opened one eye to face the blinding light spilling over her as she pried one thumb underneath the binding around her opposite wrist. “Right. Because I’m sure that’s why you’ve killed twenty-six people—to give the victims’ families closure. Not out of a sick sense of revenge for him hurting someone you loved. Who was it then? Whose name do you use to convince yourself you’re doing the right thing by executing the team who devoted their lives to bringing him justice?”
A fist slammed down directly in front of her face. Her abductor’s hand trembled with the tension running through it as blood spread across his knuckles. Thin raised lines crisscrossed the back of his hand, scars, but he pulled back as quickly as he’d struck. “Was taking the private investigator you hired to find Tony Rasmussen, Brett Smith and Tad Marrow to your bed part of that devotion, Sheriff? Is that what you call it? From what I can tell, you were far more invested in your own selfish pleasure than bringing Del Howe’s victims home.”
A short laugh burst past her lips.
“You think you know me, but I did my job. I did everything I could to find those victims and stop him, and I lost everything because of it. We all did. You’re not going to convince me I could’ve done more. None of the people you’ve murdered these past two years could’ve done more.” Remi pulled her head off the ground and faced off with her assailant. A man who’d killed innocent people for his own perverted cause.
“You might not call this little crusade of yours revenge, but you’ve blinded yourself to the truth. No one could’ve saved those victims. Not even you.” The rope around her right wrist slackened, and she set her head back against the ground to get a better angle from her shoulder. “You’re no savior. You’re nothing but a cold-blooded killer, just like Del Howe.”
One second. Two.
“I think I would’ve liked you in a different life, Sheriff. We’re alike, you and me. More than you’d imagine. Only, I’m the one who’s facing the truth now.” The light ascended closer to the ceiling of the cave as her abductor stood then disappeared altogether.
Darkness settled over her in a unforgiving, relentless cloak of uncertainty. No sign of him, except the faint echo of his breathing. “You were right about one thing, though. I am a killer, and tonight, you’re going to know exactly what it’s like to be a victim.”
Remi heard his quick approach and rolled as fast as she could toward the wall illuminated by his headlamp earlier. Loose rock and wide breaks in the ground cut into her arms as she wrenched away from his attack. She couldn’t see, could barely hear over the pounding of her heart, but her survival instincts would get her through the next minute, the next hour. She had to believe she’d make it out alive. Her shoulder hit the wall and she pressed her back into it to make herself as small of a target as possible. She tugged at her ankles, but the rope wouldn’t give. She’d have to free her hands if she had any chance of getting the hell out of here.
“This is my favorite part. The hunt. The fear, the rash decisions you’ll make in order to give yourself the slightest chance of survival. I made a lot of your colleagues’ deaths look like accidents, but we both know how this is going to end, Sheriff.” Her attacker’s headlamp came to life, and she ducked her head to avoid the assault on her senses. “You can’t hide from me. Even if you manage to run, you’ll be lost in these tubes for days. No food. No water. No calling for help. No chance of saving your deputy.”
Dylan.
“You shot Deputy Cove in the process of abducting me. If you’ve done as much homework on him as you have on me, how long do you think you’ll last before he catches up to you?” Because if there was one thing she could count on, it was Dylan’s need to make things right. For the victims of the New Castle Killer case. For the teammates he’d let down. For her.
She pressed the backs of her hands into the wall of rock behind her and gasped at the sharp slice of pain near her wrist. Blood trickled across the sensitive skin. Would the shard be sharp enough to cut through the rope? Even then, how fast could she counter an attack with her feet still bound?
Remi maneuvered the small section of rope between her wrists against the rock and jerked her hands down, but the rock fell away. Despair slithered through her as her abductor approached, and she pressed her heels into the ground to sit straight against the wall.
“I think the more relevant question, Chief Barton—” he reached out, fisted a handful of her hair and forced her to stare straight up into the light from his headlamp “—is how long do you think you’ll last down here with me?”
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU mean I’m too late?” Dylan didn’t dare approach the woman or her son. They were the only leads he had to finding Remi. He couldn’t risk spooking them and them taking off with the information he needed to get to his chief. “What did you see?”
“Your friend, the marshal you’re looking for, she tried to escape, and he stabbed her.” Tremors racked the woman’s hands and up her arms. “She wasn’t moving when he forced her back into the SUV.” She shook her head and hugged her son closer. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you. He can’t know I was here.”
“She...” Remi had been stabbed. No. He shook his head in an attempt to come up with another explanation, something that didn’t involve a murderer once again taking the only person he cared about. No, no, no, no. That wasn’t part of the plan. The killer wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble of abducting her from the Gresham PD parking lot if he’d planned to finish what he’d started in Delaware so quickly. He was supposed to take his time with her. He was supposed to give Dylan a chance.
His ears rang as he tried to make sense of the events the woman described. He lowered his hands to his sides. Remi had changed the plan by trying to escape. She’d fought back, forced her abductor to make a rash decision and paid the price.
“Which direction?” His voice sounded hollow, unfamiliar even in his own ears.
“What?” The fear was back in the woman’s expression, the uncertainty.
“Where did they go?” he asked.
She pointed to the freeway, and a rock settled in the pit of his stomach. The son of a bitch had only pulled off the interstate to get rid of Remi’s phone. He could’ve taken her anywhere by now. Dylan reached into his back pocket and extracted a handful of bills from his wallet. He had no idea how much, but he wasn’t going to take the chance the killer would come back to look for witnesses. He offered the money to the woman and her son. “Here’s enough to get yourselves a full meal and a room for the next couple of nights. Leave the phone. And whatever you do, don’t come back here.”
The woman snatched the cash from his hand and backed away slowly, as though he’d attack, then tossed the phone right at him. Without another word, she latched onto her son and ran for the trees, taking the last account of Remi being alive with her.
Dylan stared down at the phone, dread pooling at the base of his spine. The GPS would be useless, but the phone itself might have something of use. Gravel and dirt crunched under his boots as he rounded to the rear of his SUV and hefted the hatch above his head. Every marshal under Remi’s jurisdiction was required to carry emergency supplies and a forensic kit.
This was an emergency.
He tugged a tackle box from the back of the space and flipped it open. After snapping a pair of latex gloves into place, he extracted an evidence bag and collected the phone from the dirt. US marshals were in the business of protecting witnesses, transporting high-profile criminals and fugitive recovery, not forensics. But that wasn’t going to stop him from doing anything he could to save the sheriff who’d given him a new purpose in this damn
world. The woman who’d found the phone had most likely smeared or destroyed any fingerprints that might’ve been left from the killer, but Dylan couldn’t risk leaving the device behind.
His phone vibrated in his pocket as he secured the evidence in the lockbox at the back of his vehicle. Peeling the gloves from his hands, he answered the incoming call. “Tell me you have something.”
Because from the description the witness had given him, Remi was already out of time.
“CSU’s report from the scene at Del Howe’s cabin was issued a little less than an hour ago. They found a small section of tire impressions that matched the treads of a marshals service SUV. Looks like someone had tried to destroy evidence they were ever there.” Tension raced down Dylan’s spine at Reed’s next words. “And my gut is telling me you might know who.”
Not someone. Him. Damn it. He’d missed a section of mud when he’d been there three days ago. He’d entered the cabin legally with the help of the property’s owners, but any other evidence the forensics team uncovered of him being there, combined with his past experience on the New Castle Killer case, only strengthened Gresham PD’s theory Remi was involved. Dylan cleared his throat. “They were mine.”
“Well that makes my life easier. I take it you weren’t there on marshal business or you would’ve told us sooner.” The distinctive sound of rustling paper filtered through the line. “In addition to that section of treads, Forensics found a complete set of footprints coming from the tree line and stopping directly under the window at the south side of the cabin. Scratches indicate a crowbar had been used to unlock the window from the outside. Can I credit you with that, too?”
“I had a key from the cabin’s owners. I didn’t need to use a window.” The south window. That didn’t make sense. “That was where the hikers said they were when they discovered Del Howe’s body inside, but that doesn’t explain why they would try to break into the cabin.”
“Or why there was only one set of footprints instead of two,” Reed said. “The prints are from a pair of well-known size twelve hiking boots. According to the hikers’ statements, they were together when they discovered Del Howe’s body yesterday morning, but that doesn’t look like that’s the case.”
Dylan’s head pounded in rhythm to his racing heart. The hikers had lied when they’d given their statement to Gresham PD. “We need to talk to them again.”
“Captain Paulson has already dispatched two patrol units to bring them in. Gresham PD collected the hikers’ boots at the scene, but I asked him to put a rush on the lab work. So far, there hasn’t been any answer at Annabell Ross’s home, and they can’t seem to get a permanent address for her hiking partner, Henry Sallow.” A high-pitched squeak pierced through the phone. Reed’s chair. “The footprints leading up to the window had traces of volcanic rock in the treads, which stood out, considering the last volcano to erupt around that area was Mount Saint Helens in ’80. Hard to believe traces would have survived all that time unless they were fresh.”
“Did you say volcanic rock?” Dylan narrowed his gaze on the ramp leading back onto the interstate, which would keep taking him north.
There’d been a story in the news the past few months about a group of central Oregon hikers who’d discovered miles of new lava tubes and caves longer than geologists had originally thought running straight from Mount St. Helens. Some of which had never risen to the surface. If the hikers who’d called 9-1-1 about Del Howe’s body had been part of the small group of explorers, they could’ve had traces of the rock in their boots and would have an intimate knowledge of the caves. Was one of them Remi’s attacker?
That was where her abductor had taken her. That was where he’d find Remi. Adrenaline dumped into Dylan’s veins as he stumbled for the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind him. The wound in his side screamed as he started the SUV and sped toward the on-ramp. He set the phone in the passenger-side seat on speaker. The article he’d read about the caves only specified the general area where the cavers had discovered the entrance to the tunnels. He needed more than that. “Get the United States Geological Survey on the phone. Tell them we have a marshal who’s been abducted, and we need to know the exact coordinates near my location to the lava tube caves recently discovered.”
“On it. I’ll send you the map as soon as I have it.” Reed ended the call.
Time stretched into a distorted fluid, seconds into minutes, minutes into what seemed like hours. Congested lanes and landscaped terrain bled into open road and miles of trees and towering mountains. So different from Delaware, the life he’d left behind to follow Remi into the marshals service, but Dylan didn’t have attention for any of it. He couldn’t lose her. Not after everything they’d already survived together.
While he’d initially crossed the country to find Del Howe and make up for the mistake of not listening to the killer’s last victim, Remi had been the one who’d gotten him to want to stay. The DOJ had believed a former private investigator diversified the array of men and women who’d taken up the federal shield, but many chief deputies around the country didn’t trust the way he’d built his reputation by being suspected of circumventing the law. Didn’t trust him. After his application had been accepted and he’d finished his four-month training in Glynco, Georgia, Remi had offered him a position in her district. She’d given him everything at the risk of losing her job. Given him a purpose. He wasn’t going to turn his back on that.
The ping from his phone ripped him back into the moment. He couldn’t right the mistake he’d made with the New Castle Killer case, couldn’t help any of the bastard’s victims or catch the killer himself, but he wouldn’t fail Remi. His knuckles fought to break through the skin on the back of his hands as he strengthened his grip around the steering wheel.
Dylan swiped his shaking fingers across the phone’s screen, and a map replaced his call history as he sped north. The US Geological Survey had forwarded an updated map of the lava tube entrances. The nearest opening was at least ten minutes from his current location, and he’d already pushed the SUV as hard as he dared. Ten minutes. Remi had been abducted, knocked unconscious with the help of her driver’s-side window and stabbed, according to the woman who’d picked up the chief’s phone.
She was running out of time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Do you know how much blood the human body can lose before it goes into shock?” her attacker asked. “I do.”
A glint of metal blinded Remi right before stinging pain sped across her upper arm. A single strike. Nothing compared to the stab wound in her side, but her heart couldn’t tell the difference. Her pulse hiked, and her fight-or-flight instincts revved up a notch. Only, she couldn’t run. The headlamp swept across her arm as blood trickled from the newest wound. She pulled against the ropes at her wrists and ankles with everything she had.
A low, menacing laugh filled the cave and echoed back to her. His outline above her grew larger as he closed the distance between them. “I cut Del Howe over one hundred times before he started to lose consciousness. Nausea, sweating, shallow breathing. He lost a lot of color as his toes and fingers went numb. You see, the body tries to compensate when blood pressure drops. Considering how much you’ve already lost, Sheriff, soon your heart will try to keep up with less volume.”
Another quick slice of the knife across her midsection lit up her nerve endings, and she shuttered a groan at the back of her throat. “He begged me to stop, you know. Just as his victims had done over and over, but I have a feeling you’re not like my other victims. You won’t beg for your life, will you?”
“How...would you know Del Howe’s...victims begged?” The scars across his hands. The faint raised lines she’d noted when he’d slammed his fist into the ground near her face. Remi set her head back against the smooth rock supporting her from behind, trying to fill her lungs. Her stomach churned as sweat beaded in her hairline. Her body had already started slid
ing into shock. She was losing too much blood. From her head, from the stab wound in her side, from the new lacerations across her skin. “You were one of them, weren’t you? One of the New... Castle Killer’s victims.”
Pieces of the puzzle started falling into place. The timing of those first murders—a year after the last victim had been taken—the targeting of her colleagues and officers, the methodical patience and hatred it must’ve taken to torture and slowly kill Del Howe. Cut by cut, scream by scream. Remi closed her eyes against the hurling dizziness in her head. A victim would blame the investigators who’d failed to bring them home. “We never recovered...the last two bodies.”
“No, you didn’t.” Footsteps, farther away now, reverberated off the walls around her, and she forced herself to stay conscious enough to track them with her eyes closed. Memorize them in case he switched off the light again. “Do you know how Del Howe got into my apartment building? He used his job as an elevator inspector. I’d noticed him on more than one occasion, which, now that I think about it, was unusual. How many inspections did a single elevator need, after all?”
The beam from the headlamp had been firmly turned away from her. Remi pulled her wrists apart and set her teeth as the coarse strands ripped sensitive skin in the process. Her lack of vision suddenly felt as though it were crushing the oxygen from her veins. She had to keep him talking. Distracted. “He was casing the...building. Looking for...a target.”
“And he found one.” Her attacker hadn’t moved. “I came home, unlocked my door and went inside. Same as I did night after night. He was already waiting for me. He’d picked the lock on the dead bolt and hid in my coat closet. I hadn’t realized I wasn’t alone before he’d knocked me unconscious.” A hollowness had entered her abductor’s voice, still unmoving across the cavern. “When I woke up, I was tied to a chair with rope, duct tape over my mouth. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even scream as he cut me over and over. I thought each slice of his blade would be my last, but the nightmare never ended. Not until I’d blacked out.”
Harlequin Intrigue April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Page 27