The Witness

by Nichole Severn

  “You’re sick. I don’t know how I wasn’t able to see that before, but I will spend the rest of my life making sure you pay for what you’ve done.” Camille wrenched out of his hold, fisted a handful of sand and threw it directly into his eyes. She shot to her feet, fighting every last bit of the sedative he’d given her, and sprinted across the beach. Wet hair whipped around her face as she ran, but she didn’t dare focus on anything more than making it to the trees. Just a little farther. She pumped her legs as hard as she could, her muscles protesting the extra effort. Her wet clothing chafed at her skin, but she couldn’t slow down. Couldn’t look back.

  Ten feet to the tree line. Five.

  A hardened wall of muscle tackled her from behind.

  The beach distorted in her vision as she slammed face-first into the ground. Sand and debris clung to her face and neck as the heaviness on her back disappeared and a strong grip flipped her over. She kicked out but missed. Camille shoved to her feet. She couldn’t see anything with the grit in her eyes. Defeat hooked into her and wouldn’t let go, but it didn’t stop her from swinging her fist out in one last desperate attempt to escape. “Why are you doing this?”

  “It’s quite a rush, you know, having all the power to lift someone beyond their wildest fantasies or to tear them down to nothing. I’m going to destroy you, Camille.” Pain seared across her skull as he yanked her into his chest by the hair at the back of her head. A jolt of movement tugged her down before a mechanical crunching filled her ears. Her camera. Her comfort zone, her lifeline... He’d destroyed it, and the loss speared straight through her heart. He spun her to face him, that familiar spice of cologne sticking in her nose and throat, and ground the sand stuck to her face into her skin with his fingers. “You did me a favor all those months ago. Your passion for photography showed me a singular focus was the only way to truly be happy. Now I’m going to do the same for you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Carver had become Dr. Henry Gruner.

  Finn wasn’t sure how, other than by the use of silicon prosthetics, some makeup and possible changes in his voice. The bastard had sat across from Camille in that office for hours during their appointments. And she’d never known. Camille had been right all along. Jeff Burnes could become whatever his victims—whatever law enforcement—needed him to be. What he wanted them to believe. The Carver had posed as her therapist to study his victims, torment them, direct them to do what he wanted, all in the name of helping her heal.

  Finn pressed the SUV’s accelerator into the floor. The growl of the engine vibrated through him as he pushed the vehicle around the next curve of the highway. Blood beat a terrible rhythm behind his ears every moment Camille was out there with that psychopath. Damn it. He should’ve been there. He should’ve known someone had been watching her.

  Not just someone. The Carver.

  The very nightmare she’d been running from for a year. He’d promised to protect her, but with one crack in his defenses against recognizing he’d felt more for her than he had anyone else, he’d run. He’d left her to face her fears alone in order to protect himself from his own but instead put himself in a position to lose everything.

  He’d gone out of his way over the past twenty-five years to avoid having to feel the pain and anguish that came with losing someone he loved, to avoid having to face the fact he wasn’t strong enough or capable enough to protect who he cared about. But right now, the force driving him to get to her as fast as possible wasn’t born of duty to protect his witness. It was something deeper, something he’d tried to deny since he’d taken down Miles Darien seconds before the bastard had another chance to hurt her, but Finn couldn’t ignore it any longer. The thought of anything happening to Camille overrode his own sense of self-preservation. Because despite all the barriers he’d built between them, he’d fallen in love with her, too.

  There wasn’t anything that would stop him from getting to her.

  She’d given him strength to pull himself up that hill after Miles Darien had stabbed him. She’d shown him the perfect example of survival and emotional honesty he’d needed all these years. She’d bulldozed everything he’d believed about vulnerability, weakness and the effects of trauma and somehow defied the very concept of victim. Camille Goodman was... She was everything, and he’d spend the rest of his life proving she was the most important part of his life if that was what she required.

  A long line of marshal vehicles and police cruisers tried to keep up behind him, sirens and patrol lights flashing bright in the descending dusk. The entire Florence Police Department and the Oregon district office of the United States Marshals Service had responded to Watson’s call for backup and followed Finn in a race to recover his witness. “I’m coming for you, Red. I’m going to find you. Just hold on a little while longer.”

  Jeff Burnes reveled in his work and what he was: a killer. It was unlikely the bastard had limited himself to only killing Jodie Adler during his time here in Florence, but no other bodies had been discovered in or around the area over the last year. The Carver had either become expertly practiced in disposing of and hiding his bodies, or he’d wanted Jodie Adler to be found in those woods. To announce his presence to the authorities, to Camille.

  Heceta Beach stretched out on either side as he twisted his SUV toward the beach’s nearest access point. The point of the cliffs took the brunt of high winds and violent waves, but they wouldn’t be enough in the oncoming storm. Dark clouds blacked out the sun in a rolling flood, and the hairs on the back of Finn’s neck stood on end. After throwing the vehicle in Park, he got out and rounded the bumper. He lifted the tailgate over his head. Cold worked under his clothing as he tugged the duffel bag Chief Deputy Remington Barton asked every deputy under her supervision to carry. He pulled his Kevlar vest, extra ammunition and his backup weapon from his supplies. Screeching tires and sirens died as the rest of the team filled the parking lot.

  Remington Barton—Remi to the marshals under her command—shouted orders to the Florence officers as they climbed from their vehicles. With long black hair, authority coating her orders and a lean, muscular frame ready to take on any threat, the chief deputy had taken absolute control of the scene. “Listen up! I want roadblocks at every access point to this beach and a perimeter out to half a mile. Nobody comes into or leaves this area without my saying so, do you understand?” She pulled a photo from her vest and held it up with one hand, her weapon in the other. “Jeff Burnes—also known as the Carver—is highly dangerous, presumably armed and very adept at disguising himself. He will kill you if it gives him the opportunity to escape so keep your heads in the game. Florence PD will set the perimeter while marshals search every inch of this beach, the lighthouse and cliffside. We’re not leaving here until we find Jeff Burnes and his current hostage, Camille Goodman. No matter how long it takes.” She nodded. “Stay in teams. Stay safe.”

  The Florence PD officers scattered, echoing orders among themselves.

  Deputy US Marshal Dylan Cove, a recent transfer into their district due to Beckett Foster’s absence, unholstered his weapon from the shoulder holster beneath his windbreaker and checked his weapon. The former private investigator hid behind unmanaged beard growth and wild dark hair. Almost as though he’d just rolled out of bed. He didn’t look like much, but Finn had done his research on the newest addition to their office. From what he’d been able to piece together, Cove and the chief deputy had crossed paths more than once before Remi had left the small-town police force back in New Jersey. If his boss trusted Dylan Cove as a marshal, then so did Finn. The investigator had rough edges, secrets, but all that mattered was he was one more set of eyes in the search for Camille with miles of beach on either side of them. “What makes you think your fugitive chose this spot to finish his work?”

  “It means something to him and Camille. This was the location of one of their first assignments for Global Geographic and within driving distance
of the safe house. I’ve studied every homicide attributed to this guy. He doesn’t just choose his victims then kill them out of some inner drive he can’t control. He studies them, gets to know their habits, gains their trust in order to destroy their identities. He’s the most dangerous kind of killer. He’s a snake, one who can control himself and wait as long as he needs to before the moment is right.” And Camille’s moment had come. But Finn wouldn’t rush onto that beach as he had the woods around her house. He wasn’t going to let her abductor get the best of him this time. Jeff Burnes might’ve gathered as much intel on his victims as he had access to, but Finn had the entire USMS behind him and a year’s worth of research invested in this hunt. “He’s gone out of his way to study her for the past year, to pose as someone she trusted in order to get access to her most personal details and cause the most damage. She isn’t just the one who got away. She’s the only one who got away. He brought her here to prove this is as personal for her as it is for him, and he’ll do everything in his power to make her feel isolated, alone and scared. We’re going to prove him wrong.”

  Jonah Watson took position at Finn’s right and handed out radios. “We split up into teams. Remi and Cove head south. Finn and I will head north. Stay in contact. No one’s a hero on their own.”

  Heroes aren’t given their status because they prevent the bad things from happening. It’s because they will do anything to stand up to the people responsible, and that’s what you’ve done for me.

  A hero. The word stuck in Finn’s brain as he attached the radio to his vest and headed for the beach. The crush of angry waves drowned the ringing in his ears as Watson followed up behind him. Camille had called him her hero. He’d hated the label, and yet nothing would stop him from doing the right thing by her, to bring her home and take down the killer who’d targeted her. He wasn’t a hero. Not in the general sense of his job as a US marshal like Karen Reed had been, but he’d take the title for Camille now. He’d stand up to the Carver for her. He’d make sure her attacker never hurt her or anyone else again.

  He and Watson jogged along the outer edge of the beach. The storm picked up pace as though mirroring the panicked and rage-fueled war waging inside his chest. The sand threatened to suck him down and hold him back, but he pushed through the pain in his side and the cold seeping past skin and muscle. Thousands of divots marked the beach as the wind picked up and the waves reached farther up the shore. In seconds, half of them had been wiped away, but one divot in particular drew him closer as the tide climbed higher. A dark patch of sand pulled his attention from the outskirts of the beach, and Finn jogged to investigate.

  Not sand. A camera.

  Where was she? He shouted back to Watson, “She was here!”

  “Then they couldn’t have gotten far.” Watson’s voice was whipped away on another gust of wind.

  Finn turned to face off with the cliffs reaching high overhead that protected the Heceta Head Lighthouse from the onslaught of the storm. In every case file he’d studied of the Carver’s work, the killer had brought his victim somewhere private. The flat plateaus were too exposed here. Jeff Burnes wouldn’t take the risk of being spotted by tourists, the lighthouse keeper or guests of the inn on the same slope. He’d want to have Camille all to himself but still have the chance of getting away with her murder when her body was discovered. Rain spit against the side of his face in painful pricks, and Finn turned to the marshal behind him. “The assignment Camille and Jeff Burnes were on here. None of the photos were of the lighthouse.”

  Understanding contorted Watson’s expression as he lowered his gaze from the cliffs to a collection of small islands at the point of the mountain. “They were of the caves under the lighthouse.”

  And the tide was coming in.

  * * *

  THICK MOISTURE COATED the lining in her lungs.

  Jeff’s punishing grip dragged her over uneven, rocky terrain, her breathing echoing back to her in the darkness. She didn’t have to get the sand out of her eyes to know where he’d taken her. Her shoes squished with the ocean water captured in her socks, and another rush of ice water climbed up her legs. Her dropping body temperature was going to throw her into shock before the Carver ever got his chance to finish what he’d started last Valentine’s Day. Her shoe caught on smooth rock, and Camille tripped forward.

  Only there was no one to catch her when she hit the ground this time. Water flooded through the collar of her shirt and drenched her face and chest. The cave she and Jeff had been assigned to explore for Global Geographic absorbed her groan as she struggled to get to her feet. It’d taken several attempts battling with the ocean tide to get the shots she’d wanted for the article from inside the cave and one near-death experience to get out, and he’d brought her here to kill her. The receding wave tugged at her ankles as it escaped the mouth of the cave, taking the feeling in her toes and the bottoms of her feet with it.

  “Whether you want to admit it or not, Camille, we’re not so different after all. It’s our chosen paths that separate us. Your passion for photography. My passion for hurting people. You were my muse, the example I looked up to when I found myself getting bored with the routine of every kill. I knew all I had to do was to get a little more creative, just as you kept pushing for the most difficult assignments with the magazine, and suddenly, the spark would reignite.” Jeff’s voice bounced off the walls all around her, vibrated through her. Became part of her. “We’re two sides of the same coin, you and I, and when you left, when you ran from me, I found myself all over again. Only stronger. You were the first victim of mine to fight back, and the thrill of that truth, the thrill of the chase, was unlike anything I’d felt before.”

  His shadowed outline and the cave as a whole both darkened as the sun disappeared behind a veil of gray cloud cover, but the slim shape of a blade stood stark against the white backdrop of the entrance. “That’s why I pushed you to take that photo after you came to Florence, Camille. You were lost for a while, but I knew if I pushed you, I could help you find yourself again. Just as you helped me.”

  He took a step toward her, but she couldn’t counter. Not without going deeper into the cave, not without cutting off her path to escape. “All those other women, the ones who didn’t escape, women like Jodie Adler and so many others I’ve come to enjoy since coming to Oregon. They were some of my best work. You thought you experienced hell that night at dinner? I can confidently tell you they suffered so much more. Because of you. You see, I don’t need you anymore, Camille. You’re just going to be another name on the Carver’s belt when I’m finished with you.”

  “You talk too much.” Numbness that had nothing to do with the lower temperatures spread through her. Fear took hold as the last of the waves retreated from the entrance to the cave. It was only a matter of time before the next one raced into the small space where the Carver had her trapped, and unless she found some way around him before the cave flooded, she’d die here.

  The constant ticking of rain meeting the surface of the ocean kept in time with her heart rate. She clenched her fists at her sides. Flashes of that Valentine’s Day dinner in their shared apartment played in slow motion across her mind. Jeff coming across the table, his hands so strong around her neck as he pinned her against the floor. The image changed to a masked Miles Darien closing in on her in the houseboat as she clutched nothing more than a piece of glass from a broken frame. In both instances, her attacker had been stronger, faster, more violent and desperate to claim her as their own, but she couldn’t let him win. Not again.

  Camille lunged, cocking back her uninjured arm and throwing a punch as hard as she could. He wasn’t going to kill her. She wasn’t a fighter, but she wasn’t going to let him hurt anyone else. The man of her nightmares dodged to the right and turned back to wrap his hand around her wrist. Wrenching her into him, he pinned her in place before twisting her arm behind her back. Pressure built in her shoulder socket with sick
ening fury as Jeff forced her head down. She squeezed her eyes closed, tried to breathe through the pain, but he wouldn’t let up. Blackness swept across her vision.

  “I used to think you were special, Camille.” The Carver pressed his mouth against her ear and hauled her back hard enough that her shoulder almost popped free of the socket. A chill swept across her collarbone as he placed his knife at her throat. “But you’re just like the rest of them. Scared, weak, alone. And mine.”

  “She’s not alone,” a familiar voice said from behind. “And she sure as hell isn’t yours, Burnes. Now let her go.”

  The cave and individual rocks under her feet blurred as Jeff spun her around to face off with two muscular outlines at the mouth of the cave. The blade bit into her skin, and she clutched at her attacker’s wrists to keep the edge from sinking deeper. Sun pierced through the heavy cover of clouds, highlighting the marshal who’d requested to be reassigned from her case. Exhilaration and terror swept through her. No. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He had to get out. Now. “Finn.”

  What was he doing here? How had he found her? Jeff increased the pressure around her throat, cutting off precious oxygen, and her warning for the marshals to get out of the cave before the next wave hit died in her chest.

  “Jeff Burnes, it’s over. You’re not getting out of here without us. It’s up to you whether you leave in cuffs or with a bullet in your head.” Both Finn and the marshal he’d handed off her protection detail to shortened the distance between themselves and the Carver, with her positioned between them.

  One pull of the trigger, one slice of the knife, and it’d all be over.

  Gold dollars of sunlight bounced off the waves, sharpening the angles of Finn’s bearded jawline, emphasizing the compelling blue eyes she’d stupidly come to trust. No matter what happened now, nothing would change between them. He’d made his feelings about her—about her need for emotional connection—clear. He’d tracked her and the Carver here for one reason: to do his job. “If you hurt her, there won’t be anywhere for you to run. Nowhere you can hide from me. So why don’t you make this easier on yourself and drop the knife before I put a bullet through you?”