Some Regrets Are Forever (River's End Rescues Book 1)

by Jane Blythe

  “You want something to drink?” he asked.

  She was way too nervous for that. “I just want to get this over and done with.”

  Again she had expected that Abe would take a seat across from her, he was the cop in this situation, and she was the witness or victim or whatever it was he saw her as. But he didn’t do that, he sat beside her and took her hand in his, holding it tightly enough that she knew she wasn’t alone.

  “So while you were upstairs packing, Julian told me some things he found out about your husband,” Abe began, his voice a lot more gentle than she thought it probably was when he spoke with anyone else.

  “Oh,” she said because she wasn’t sure what else to say.

  “Your husband killed a teenager, left her in a car with a whole bunch of flowers. A meadow,” he added.

  “He stuck a knife inside her and slit her open from vagina to breasts,” she murmured more to herself than to Abe or Julian.

  “How did you know that?” Abe asked.

  She couldn’t help the shudder that ripped through her. “Because John told me it was what he would do to me if I ever left him.” Actually, he had been a lot more descriptive, going into great detail about how much he would enjoy shoving the blade of a knife inside her vagina and then slicing slowly through her body, cutting her open from the inside out. Shame burned inside her making her cheeks flame red and her eyes sting, she had been the weak, pathetic victim for too long. John had stolen her power, convinced her that she was nothing and she had believed him. But not anymore, she was going to find a way to get her power back.

  “It’s okay,” Abe soothed, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “I’m not ever going to let him do that to you, sweetheart.”

  Meadow froze.

  Sweetheart.

  She began to shake in earnest now as memories began to assault her at a faster pace than she could handle.

  The world began to spin around her like it had suddenly decided a trip to the amusement park was in order, only neither her head nor her stomach agreed.

  Lips touched her forehead.

  Their warmth seemed to seep into her ice-cold body.

  Abe had pulled her onto his lap and was cradling her, rocking her from side to side, his arms like steel bands around her making her feel protected, cocooned in a little bubble of strong muscles.

  “Sunshine, what’s wrong?”

  Sunshine.

  That was better.

  That was what she had become accustomed to him calling her.

  “Sunshine, what happened? What freaked you out?”

  “Sweetheart,” she murmured, her mouth feeling like it was burning just ripping the word from her lips. “John used to call me that. I used to think it was because of my name. He liked flowers, he would beat me if I let any of the bushes he planted in the garden die, or if he brought me flowers and they died.”

  “That’s what flowers do, he was setting you up to fail.” Abe sounded angry, and while it touched her to know that he was angry for her it didn’t change anything.

  “John didn’t care. He liked to hurt me. When he had me in the bedroom he used to like to go between my legs, tell me that I smelled beautiful, I thought in his warped head my name made him think of a meadow of flowers, but when you called me sweetheart just now I think maybe I was wrong.”

  “Why do you think you were wrong?” Julian asked.

  “Baking. It’s because I bake. The night that he proposed we were having dinner at my apartment, and I baked this apple crumble, the recipe was his mother’s. She had died when he was just a kid, and he talked about her all the time. Maybe that’s why he always stopped short of killing me. I could bake like his mother.”

  “Meadow,” Abe said slowly, and she knew she wasn’t going to like what he said next. “His mother isn’t dead, she’s in a psychiatric hospital. She had a breakdown after she was accused of sexually abusing him. But Julian and I were talking. John is a manipulator, and he’s violent, he takes pleasure in hurting others. The woman in the car that we found yesterday, she wasn’t the first killed that way, there have been over a dozen women killed that same exact way.”

  Over a dozen women killed the exact same way her husband had threatened to kill her, all left in a meadow of flowers?

  Her husband wasn’t just abusive, he was a serial killer.

  She was married to a serial killer.

  With a quiet sob she sunk down against Abe and buried her face against his chest. She felt like such a fool. How could she not have seen it?

  How could she not know she was living with a killer?

  Carrying a killer’s baby inside her.

  Meadow wasn’t sure her life could get any worse.

  * * * * *

  6:44 A.M.

  John was annoyed.

  He was annoyed that his wife had run.

  He was annoyed that he had to come and find her and drag her back.

  He was annoyed that he’d been interrupted when he’d run her car off the road.

  He was annoyed that the sheriff had interrupted him tonight when he had Meadow in his grasp.

  He was annoyed that now he had to waste more time finding out where she was and how he would get to her.

  He was annoyed that thanks to her no doubt opening her mouth and telling the cops his name, he could no longer go back to his old life.

  Thankfully, being who he was he had always been prepared for the possibility that one day everything would come crashing down around him, and he would have to make a quick getaway, and as soon as Meadow had run he had begun getting ready to disappear. He had plenty of cash, had a property in another name where he could stay, and had a new identity ready to use, but it was still annoying that he would have to give up his old life.

  Since he couldn’t change those facts he was going to accept it. Getting Meadow home—to their new home—where she belonged, punishing her for her ridiculous running away antics which made her look more like a bratty teenager than a woman in her twenties, definitely soothed some of his anger.

  It would be so much easier to cut his losses, let her go and find someone else, but he never let go of what was his.

  Never.

  Maybe if Meadow hadn’t been carrying his baby it would have been easier to let her go, but that child was his, he was the father, and she had no right to run and take his baby with her.

  As angry as he was with her, he was going to have to show some measure of restraint when he did get her back. Since she was pregnant and since he did want his child, he couldn’t very well beat her into oblivion or he’d risk losing the baby. Not that that meant she was getting off scot-free because she definitely was not. She would be punished, and he was already dreaming up all the ways he would do it. By the time he was done, she would think twice before ever deciding to disobey him.

  If it wasn’t for the baby he would probably have killed her for her insolence, but now he needed her, and not just to carry the fetus to term but also to care for it once it was born. He might view this child as his legacy, but that didn’t mean he would be changing diapers, giving bottles, and getting up to tend to a screaming infant in the middle of the night. That wasn’t his cup of tea. So he would need to keep Meadow alive at least until the child was weaned and able to care for its own needs.

  While he might be planning on keeping her alive he wouldn’t be allowing her to roam free. He would keep her locked away, her sole purpose in life to care for their child. He’d feed her just enough food and give her just enough water to keep her alive. And maybe he would bring her in on his … side activity.

  John couldn’t help but smile as he thought of his hobby. He had no idea how Meadow had never caught on, perhaps it was because she was too afraid of him to spend her time doing anything but trying to avoid making him angry.

  Which let’s face it, was impossible.

  Deep seeded anger had plagued him for as long as he could remember.

  As a child he had gotten into fights at school, he had r
uled his classroom with an iron fist, the teachers and the other children were afraid of him, and he grew to relish that fear.

  Fear was life.

  Without it he was nothing but an angry man.

  But so long as he could channel that anger into causing fear in others, it felt like his life served a purpose.

  Even as a man quickly approaching forty, he was able to instill fear in others. He supposed his job had something to do with it, his ruthless nature and enjoyment of others suffering made him perfectly suited for his career of choice, and while he didn’t really think anyone would ever suspect him of beating his wife let alone being a serial killer, he was sure if the truth eventually came out that no one would be particularly surprised.

  The sheriff of this little town obviously had his claws into Meadow, and he had no doubt that the man would persuade her to tell him everything, but that didn’t mean that the cops would be able to find him. The new house was secure, he had cashed in all his stocks and bonds, and that added to the cash he hoarded in the safe in his house was enough to keep him living comfortably for many years to come. And once he had Meadow and his baby back he could focus on them for a while, then when the timing was right, he could forge a new life.

  One that definitely included more victims.

  John knew he was lucky that Meadow was as gullible as she was. And not just Meadow, every single one of his victims had willingly come walking right into his trap, he’d never committed an abduction in his life.

  But never say never.

  Last night when that stupid sheriff had stopped him just moments before he had been ready to pull Meadow into his car and take her home, he had threatened to keep killing people in the man’s town if he got in the way of his business. The sheriff had gotten in the middle of his relationship, and since he was a man of his word, he was going to follow through on his threat.

  Since there was obviously no time to woo his potential victim the way he usually would, he was going to have to go the abduction route, which was surprisingly exciting. Usually, he was a guy who liked routine, he liked structure, it was the only way he could keep the angry beast inside him leashed and under control. But this morning he would be throwing caution to the wind and grabbing the first young woman he saw.

  The temptation to circle back around to the sheriff’s house had been strong, but he had fought against it because he knew without a doubt the man had moved Meadow already and left someone else in the house who would arrest him if he returned. So since that was out, he decided that staking out the town’s park was his best bet. He was sure that sooner or later some pretty young thing was going to come for a jog. All he had to do was wait and then grab her when she got close enough.

  John was a confident guy, and he wasn’t really worried that things wouldn’t work out the way he wanted them to. Things always worked out the way he wanted them to. It was just the way his life went, well, until Meadow decided to mess things up by running.

  He still couldn’t believe she had done it.

  She had always been so pliant, so desperate for love, and to no longer be alone that she had all but thrown herself at him. They had been together now for five years, and all that time, no matter what he did to her, she never talked back, and she never fought back because in the end she knew that he was the only one who was ever going to want her. And in some warped way he did actually love her. Not enough that he was ever going to stop hurting her, but he had become accustomed to her presence. She was the only one he had ever spent so much time with, all the other women he conned he kept alive only for a couple of days while he got his fill of torturing them before he killed them and moved on to the next.

  There.

  Up ahead.

  Someone was running toward him.

  He looked closer and saw a young woman, maybe late teens or early twenties, his favorite age.

  John started jogging.

  He usually went to the gym and lifted weights, so he hoped he looked enough like a jogger than she assumed he was one and didn’t perceive him as a threat.

  She was getting closer. Not even looking at him, she had earphones in and seemed lost in whatever she was listening to.

  They approached each other.

  They passed each other.

  Then just as he was a step or two past her, he pounced.

  Spinning around, he grabbed hold of the girl and yanked her up against his chest, simultaneously clamping a hand over her mouth so she couldn’t scream and alert anyone who might be nearby.

  The girl thrashed in his grip, but she was a tiny little thing, much smaller than him, and he easily dragged her into the trees where they would be less likely to be seen as he headed for his car. Once he got there he would gag her, blindfold her, and bind her wrists and ankles before stuffing her in the trunk and driving her to the motel he was staying in.

  For a first abduction he had to say, he would give himself a perfect score.

  * * * * *

  10:53 A.M.

  She looked so peaceful in her sleep.

  Meadow was curled up on the couch in his office. It had taken him a while to convince her to lie down for a bit and try to get some rest, she’d been exhausted from reliving the hell her husband had put her through but also wired, edgy, and terrified, and sleep was the last thing on her mind. Because he knew she needed it he had insisted, suggesting that she lie down here in his office where he could keep an eye on her, and she would know she wasn’t alone. After a lot of persuasion, she had relented and agreed, and he was pretty sure she had passed out within a minute of her head hitting the pillow.

  She was doing her best to hold it together, and she was doing a better job at it than Abe thought she realized, but still he had to wonder how long that could last.

  Especially if her husband followed through on his threats to start killing the residents of River’s End if they prevented him from getting his wife back.

  Not that that changed anything.

  He was the sheriff, it was his job to protect the people, but he couldn’t exchange one life for another, particularly if that one life was Meadow’s.

  There was no point in denying that he liked her. Kissing her and touching her, he knew that she wasn’t just some woman he wanted to help because she didn’t have anyone else.

  She was special.

  She was special to him.

  He wasn’t ready to jump headfirst into a relationship. He wanted to take things slowly, and given that she was pregnant with another man’s baby and dealing with her serial killer abusive husband, he doubted Meadow was in any hurry to rush things either. But he did want to get to know her, spend time with her, let her get to know him, definitely do a lot more making out, and then maybe they would find that they wanted to make a permanent commitment to spend the rest of their lives together.

  Meadow was his now, even if they were going to take this burgeoning relationship slowly, and nobody messed with what was his, so he would just have to hope that they were able to find John Smith before he got a chance to go after anyone else.

  “Hey,” Julian said softly, opening the door to his office and quietly walking in. “She still out?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, finally tearing his eyes from Meadow’s sleeping face. With her blonde hair fanned out around her porcelain pale skin she looked like an angel. His angel. So he better stop staring at her like some hormone ravaged teenager and start working on finding her husband. “Let’s talk out here so we don’t disturb her.”

  As much as he wanted to not let Meadow out of his sight, he had a job to do, and he intended to do it. Abe followed Julian out into the hall and into the other office. The River’s End police station was small, with two offices, the smaller of which was his and the larger one shared by his deputies, a foyer, two interview rooms, and a row of four cells they usually used as a drunk tank but also for the occasional burglar, or hit and run driver, drug dealer, or petty thief. In all his years in River’s End, he didn’t think a murderer had ever b
een kept in one of those cells, but now he was imagining Meadow’s husband sitting in one, and he couldn’t help but smile at the image. Behind bars was too good a place for a man who had done the things John Smith had, but it would have to suffice. Unless of course the man wouldn’t go quietly, then he might find himself in a body bag, and Abe liked that idea so much better.

  “John Smith is a prominent defense attorney, responsible for getting dozens of murderers and rapists acquitted, leaving them free to roam the streets,” Julian told him when they walked into the other office and took seats at the desk. “I told the local cops what we know, and asked them to go and pick him up, but he had packed up the house, and it’s clear he’s in the wind.”

  Abe muttered a curse under his breath. They knew the guy was in River’s End, but he had been hoping that at some point he intended to return home, where he would be immediately arrested, but that didn’t look like it was going to happen. While they had their killer’s identity, they didn’t know where he was which meant they would have to work off their profile of John Smith based on his crimes and what Meadow knew about him. Abe prayed would be enough to find him.

  “What did you get on the other murders?” he asked. When Julian had arrived at his house in the early hours of the morning to pick him and Meadow up and bring them here, he’d sent her upstairs to pack so he could check in with his cousin and see what he had found out so far. When he had learned that Meadow’s husband was not just abusive but also likely a serial killer, he had known that things were a lot more dangerous than he had realized.

  “Fifteen murders all where the woman was found cut from the vagina to breasts, left surrounded by hundreds of flowers. The murders are spread over the last five years—looks like they started not long after he married Meadow—and he dumps the bodies in different locations. Kills them where he leaves them, that was the determination based on the amount of blood at the scenes. Obvious evidence of torture on all the victims, both physical and sexual, all had been missing for between two and five days with the exception of our victims, and all were college students. Families and friends all reported the same things; the victims had been enamored with an older man and believed they were in love, they all went to this guy willingly. He’s obviously charismatic enough to lure them in without having to abduct them outright. He’s smart enough not to leave behind any forensics that point to him, and so far the cops have no suspects. Until now anyway,” Julian added.