My mind was foggy, comprehension hazy, only thickening when his body entered mine. The man possessing me in a dark church was not the one I’d spent seventeen years married to. Or maybe, possibly, I was finally getting a good look at the man he truly was beneath the façade of dull and distant.
“Who are you, Noah Wolff?” I whispered as he lowered himself over me, his weight holding me in place as his hips cradled against mine, drawing my surrender to the surface.
His mouth settled outside of my ear. “You know who I am.”
Sixteen
The path to reclaim one’s life was riddled with hurdles and landmines, stumbling blocks and barriers. Some days, I felt like I was blindfolded and walking a tight rope—one wrong step, and everything would come careening down. Other days were more challenging still.
As I fought to salvage some control of my life, I accepted the burden that accompanied it. Nursing myself off of the pills, the booze, and the haze of oblivion I’d created as a means of coping didn’t come easily or without sacrifice. Yet I knew that in order to get better, I had to be better.
Several weeks had passed, and the task force weekly update meeting was scheduled for tonight at seven. If anything, we felt further away from catching our serial killer than we had at the beginning. The more we learned, the more we accepted we were dealing with a level of intelligence, bordering on genius, rarely found in the criminally prone.
As was typical for a Friday, the office was basically empty when I left a little after six, two briefcases in my hands: one for work and one for my “advisory” status on my dad’s task force.
“Good to know I’m not the only one haunting this place late on a Friday.” The familiar voice came from behind me as I waited at the elevators.
“I don’t think I ever stop haunting this place.” I drew a smile before glancing back at Dean, approaching the elevator with his briefcase in hand, giving no indication I should feel as unsettled as I did right then.
Ever since the double date disaster, I’d succeeded in keeping my distance from him unless work or passing required it. He’d returned the favor, no longer popping into my office at odd hours or casually inviting me for drinks after a long day. I wasn’t as convinced as Noah that Dean had any interest in me that extended beyond that of an esteemed colleague, but I did acknowledge that I welcomed the attention more than a married woman should have.
“Something tells me that even after we die, our spirits will haunt this damn place.” Dean stopped beside me, eyeing the handful I was carrying. “Let me take one of those for you.” Before I could argue, he’d maneuvered one of my cases into his free hand. “This thing is twice as heavy as mine. What have you got in here?”
“A bunch of information that leads nowhere basically.” I punched the down button again, wondering how busy the elevators could be this late on the cusp of a weekend.
“Still no closer to figuring out who this bastard is?” When I shook my head, he continued, “Don’t feel bad. No one is, including our own boys in blue investigating the most recent homicide.” He nudged me before holding the door once it opened. “How does your dad feel about finally meeting his match?”
“He’s close to breathing fire, that’s how he feels.” I confined my smile when a picture of my dad’s face radiating red at last week’s progress meeting popped to mind.
“Is it bad that I’d rather shake this Huntsman’s hand than put him behind bars?” Dean asked, punching the lower level parking garage button.
“I think you’d be in the majority actually.”
Leaning into the wood-paneled wall of the elevator, Dean narrowed his eyes in concentration. “You know, this guy must have an understanding of the law and police procedure. He has to know what will and won’t be checked when a death is ruled a suicide. He’s gotten away with killing this many people over this many years and no one knew he even existed until last month. We still wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for an over-eager noob medical examiner.”
“The possibility of him being in law enforcement has been brought up,” I mentioned as the elevator doors chimed open.
Dean waved me out first. “But who else knows about standard police procedure?”
“Anyone who tunes into CSI reruns every Sunday?”
Our footsteps echoed through the concrete parking garage, our vehicles the last ones remaining on this level.
“Attorneys,” he said after a moment. “We know the ins and outs of the whole spectrum of a crime, from forensics to inter-department communication, or lack thereof.”
Pausing beside my SUV, I rubbed my forehead. “You think this guy could be an attorney?”
“I think there are worse conclusions.”
My shoulders dropped when I exhaled. “Shit. You’re right.” Making a mental note to bring up the possibility at tonight’s meeting, I reached to open my car door.
Dean beat me to it. But he didn’t open the door.
He held it closed, his body skimming closer to mine from behind.
“I need to leave.” I maintained a clear, level voice, despite the apprehension bubbling up from within.
“We never got a chance to discuss that night. The one where your husband made a spectacle of asserting his ownership of you.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. And I’m not an object Noah owns.”
Dean’s grip tightened around the door handle when I reached for it. “Does that imply your disapproval of the notion itself, or your displeasure of the man in current possession?” Dean’s body rippled against mine. “Because not all men are created equal.”
My mind emptied of all cognition right when I needed it functioning most. My body matched the aimless path my mind was on, feeling numb and useless.
“Don’t,” was the only word I could conjure.
“Don’t?” His breath was hot and balmy on the back of my neck. “We’ve been playing this back and forth game for months. How much longer are you going to keep me chasing the carrot before you let me sink my teeth into it?”
For some reason, the image of Noah flashed into my vision, as though he were a specter witnessing the encounter. He stood there, unmoving, the line of his brows hinting at something I couldn’t decipher.
“Don’t,” I repeated, the word rattling in the back of my throat.
Still, the image of Noah remained strong, the message in his eyes becoming clearer.
“The skin at the back of your neck is raised.” Dean’s fingers crawled across my neck. “In anticipation? Excitement? Fear?” When I didn’t answer, he pressed on. “I could be the Huntsman, you know? I fit the media’s description. Twenties to thirties, white, powerful—”
“An unparalleled God complex,” I cut in, breaking through the clutch of paralysis. Whirling around, I spread my hand across his chest, shoving him away slowly. Once an arm’s length separated us, I held out my hand. “If you’re done asserting your fabricated dominance, may I have my briefcase back?”
Dean’s face registered a dozen emotions at the same time, settling on one I had no name for; an amalgam of incensed and dumbstruck. Dropping my briefcase, he backed away, making a motion of dusting his hands off as though this were the pinnacle of slights. “Just another cock tease that never delivers.”
I didn’t turn my back on him. I’d never make that mistake again.
“That’s Mrs. Cock Tease to you,” I called after him as he climbed into his silver sports car. My arms crossed as I feigned absolute poise.
He screeched out of his parking spot, leaving a streak of rubber as he gunned it out of the garage. It wasn’t until he was totally out of sight that I felt safe to lower my guard. A tremble wound down my spine, the ground seeming to shift beneath my feet.
Beside me, Noah’s image faded from the periphery of my vision.
Gathering up my briefcases, I crawled into the SUV, locked the doors, and gave myself a minute. My heart was racing and my breath was rushed, but nothing else felt out of sorts. Instead of feeling fragile from
the encounter, I felt strong. Powerful.
Dean Kincaid would have to be dealt with, but tonight, I wasn’t giving him another moment of my concern.
On the way to the office my dad had rented for the task force, located in the university district, a call came in.
“Did I catch you at a good time?” was Noah’s greeting.
“As good as any. What’s up?”
“I’ve been thinking. We should go on a date.”
My eyebrows pulled together. “A date?”
“That’s right. One of those occasions where I ask you out, we get somewhat dressed up and go do things.”
My mouth worked hearing his explanation. “What kind of things?”
Noah didn’t answer right away. “A movie, dinner, a walk.”
“A walk?” I repeated. “Where are we going to walk somewhat dressed up?”
On the other end, a muted sigh followed. “I don’t know. I have no idea what our kind of date should look like. I only know we should figure it out.” Neither of us spoke for a moment, as though we were contemplating the same heavy thoughts. “There weren’t many dates before we got married, and god knows there haven’t been many that followed.”
“No, there haven’t,” I agreed.
“We’ve been together for nearly seventeen years. I think it’s time we figured it out.”
A strange, effervescent feeling bubbled in my stomach. “Do you have any specific ideas?”
“Ladies’ choice,” he said.
“Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you. I need to search deeper into this definition of a date thing. Make sure I don’t get it wrong and propose something outrageous like fooling around in holy place or getting it on inside a public restroom.”
He let a few seconds pass. “A sense of humor. I forgot what a good one you had when we first met.”
“It was more of a coping mechanism when I discovered I’d gotten knocked up by the hot grad student who never looked my way before that night when he had the assistance of beer goggles.”
“It was vodka goggles,” Noah said. “And you’re wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“Wrong that I never looked your way before that night.”
The effervescent feeling morphed into something more incandescent. “You leer at all of the underclassmen back then?”
“Only the ones I was planning on impregnating after exchanging a whole handful of slurred words with.”
His punchy response took a moment to register. “I’ve missed your sense of humor too.”
The ring of his office phone in the background punctuated his light chuckle.
“I’ll let you go,” I said. “Talk to you later.”
After a brief goodbye, Noah hung up, and I collected the briefcase containing the task force information. Setting aside what had transpired earlier with Dean, I focused on the case. The investigation. The Huntsman.
So far, all of our efforts to glean any valuable knowledge about the suspect had been futile, and I despised wasting time. I would put in a week of sleepless nights if I knew that sacrifice was leading somewhere, but all of the hours we were putting into this had led nowhere.
This killer wasn’t only a hunter—he was also a ghost.
When I wove into the office a few minutes later, Dad didn’t say anything snarky as he had at the first few. He’d either accepted my tardiness as a result of my job, or he realized ignoring me was a more effective admonishment.
Cartons of Chinese takeout circled the big conference table settled in the center of the open space along with an assortment of drinks. Everything from coffee to Coke to bourbon was scattered beside paper plates and egg rolls. I went for a bottle of sparkling water before taking a seat.
Titus handed me the box of almond chicken after he’d helped himself. “You didn’t miss much,” he said in the softest voice he was capable of.
“The Skovil investigation is being played close to the vest.” Dad passed one of the takeout cartons without taking any, his plate empty though his glass was full. “I’ve been putting the squeeze on the department for any kind of information they’d be willing to share, but they’re staying hush-hush. This whole thing blowing up in the public eye didn’t help foster open communication lines between private and public entities, that’s for damn sure.” He pulled at his tie and undid his top collar button.
In the thousands of times I’d seen my dad in a dress shirt and tie, I could only recall a handful of times he’d had it unkempt.
“A couple of senior cronies I still play golf with have assured me what evidence they’ve managed to pull from Skovil’s apartment is inconsequential. There is literally nothing that this Huntsman left behind for anyone to devise any leads from. Nothing.” Dad yanked at his tie again, reaching for his glass. “So basically, the only new information I have is that there is no new information. This guy is immaculate.”
The others of us in the room looked between one another, none of us used to seeing the legendary Silas Payne in such a state of incompetence.
“One of the victims I’ve been looking into, Beau Fleming,” Titus spoke up, flipping to a page in his folder beside him. “He was six three, two-fifty. That’s close to my size.” He gave us a second to process that. “And from his rap sheet and talking to what family and friends this guy had left in his life, he was one violent son of a bitch. Everyone I talked to said there was no way Beau went down without a fight.”
“We’ve already profiled the killer is someone in his physical prime,” Samantha said, cracking open her can of diet soda.
“It would take a lot more than your average fit guy to take me down.” Titus rose from his chair to give us the full picture. “You want to tell me how one guy managed to subdue a violent criminal the size of a behemoth, maneuver him into a noose, and make it all look like a suicide?”
“Well it didn’t work, because we figured out it wasn’t a suicide.” Will spun his chair back and forth, appearing as beat as I was. Closer to death than life, were what the shadows beneath our eyes suggested.
“It worked for nearly fifteen years.” Titus took his seat again. “And let’s be honest, it was dumb luck we figured out these were homicides instead of suicides.”
“There was nothing ‘dumb’ about it.” Dad cleared his throat, aiming a look at Titus that made most men cower. “Aside from that, what are you trying to say?”
“What if there’s more than one killer?” Titus’s dark eyes circled the table. “What if we’re dealing with a team?”
The room went quiet, remaining so for longer than was typical given the opinionated team my dad had assembled. You could see the wheels spinning behind everyone’s eyes. It seemed unlikely, given the solitary nature of serial killers in history . . . but the possibility couldn’t be ruled out.
Dad’s chair screeched as he leaned forward. “What evidence do you have—other than Beau Fleming was a big, violent boy—to suggest there might be more than one killer?”
Titus gestured at the large board at the front of the room where we’d put together the highlights of our investigation, including a map of the country with red pins in each of the locations a murder had taken place. Everywhere from Florida to Arizona, Maine to Washington. There was no pattern to be had, no clumping of murders to give us some approximate of where the killer might be located.
“The fact that the murders are taking place all over the nation, for one. The fact that clearly a lot of time and research goes into each of these men leading up to the kills. This guy, or guys, knows these victims’ habits and patterns . . . their vices. For one person to have committed all of these murders would have been a full-time job, not to mention an expensive full-time job.”
Everyone had stopped eating, minds too focused on the possibility to do much else.
“We can’t rule it out, Silas,” Teddy said.
“Given the level of skill behind these kills, if there’s a team, that would imply all members are tipping the genius spect
rum, which we all know is highly improbable,” Dad argued.
“There could be a leader, a mastermind who orchestrates the whole thing.” Teddy pointed his pencil at my father. “We can’t rule it out.”
Dad reached for his bourbon, but he didn’t move to take a sip, almost as though he derived comfort from having it near. “We can’t manage to dig up one perp, and now you’re saying we need to look for a team?” His chest moved from the burst of air he released. “I’m paying you all to tighten the field, not broaden it this far into the game. What are you going to come at me with next? This Huntsman is actually a Huntswoman? A whole Amazonian tribe of them?” His chuckle was detached, dark. “Why don’t we just lump the whole eight billion planet dwellers on the suspect list while we’re at it?”
Don cleared his throat. “You know as well as I do that sometimes the suspect list has to widen before it can be whittled down.”
Dad rubbed his forehead. “I know that. I just hoped we’d be closing the gap on this bastard instead of widening it a month deep into this thing.” His eyes cut to Samantha. “What do you think? Is there some possibility we’re dealing with a team instead of an individual?”
She stayed quiet for a minute, twisting her wedding ring around her finger. “I suppose it could be possible.” When a heavy sigh rumbled from Dad’s chest, she sat up straighter. “But I stand by my initial profile. If we dabble in coulds and maybes, our search will never end. At least not with this task force uncovering the killer. Or killers,” she added when Titus cleared his throat.
Will was the only one who returned to his Chinese takeout during the silence that followed. Dad continued to rub his forehead, searching the grain of the table for some revelation.
“Grace, you have anything new for us?” Dad asked.
Opening my briefcase, I pulled out my folders that had fattened with information the past month. The actual amount of material that was helpful remained scant. “I was able to connect with a couple of contacts on the Gerald Volkner homicide. A former cellmate and a neighbor. The cellmate didn’t have much to offer that we didn’t already know about Volkner, but offered an unfounded theory about his death pertaining to some Freemason conspiracy to wipe all known criminals from the nation.”
These Violent Roots Page 16
