Twisted

by Cynthia Eden

  “Dr. Jacobs is to be denied entry from this point forward,” Elroy barked at him. “She is not a part of the task force and has no business in this building.”

  “My friend is missing!” Sarah snapped at him. This was ridiculous. The guy couldn’t treat her like this. “I have a right to look for Victoria—”

  “Sh-she checked out a few hours ago, ma’am,” the guard said, sheepishly. “I went back through the sign-in log. She must have done it at the shift change, and I didn’t notice.”

  Elroy propelled her outside and down the steps. The street was dark and dead silent. No cars were out. No pedestrians. The few streetlights there gave out only a weak light that spilled down—and, for some reason, the faint light just made the surrounding darkness seem all the more intense.

  “See,” Elroy huffed. “Victoria just cut out and left. You were trying to nose around my case—”

  “Take your hands off her.” A low snarl that came from that thick darkness.

  A snarl Sarah recognized. One that Elroy apparently did, too, because the guy immediately dropped his hold on Sarah and backed up.

  Jax stalked from the shadows. “You just keep making me dislike you, Elroy. That’s such a fucking-bad thing to do.” He offered his hand to Sarah. “Okay?”

  Sarah didn’t take his offered hand. She didn’t move at all. “Fine.”

  Jax grunted. His hand dropped. And he turned on Elroy. “Kind of late for a trip to the morgue, isn’t it?”

  “Not when I’m working a case!” Elroy threw back.

  “Or maybe not when you’ve been keeping eyes on Dr. Jacobs here, and those eyes tipped you off to the fact that she was coming in.” Jax edged closer to the agent. “You had a tail on her. That tail told you she was coming over, and you rushed to intercept her.”

  Sarah shook her head. Jax was totally off base. The FBI wouldn’t follow her. Would they?

  “Maybe he figured LOST would crack the case first,” Jax murmured, “and he wanted to use your team.” Another step put him just inches away from Elroy. “Or maybe you wanted to keep track of her for another reason . . . Victoria is gone—”

  He knew that now? Because he sure seemed to be speaking with utter certainty. She eyed Jax with suspicion.

  “And it looked like you were trying to take Sarah away when I saw you hauling her from the building.”

  “No!” Elroy retreated up a frantic step. “I wasn’t! I was just escorting her out!”

  Elroy was obviously still afraid of Jax. Now that she knew more about the guy’s past, that fear was understandable.

  “How do you know he had a tail on me?” Sarah asked Jax as she tried to figure things out.

  He shrugged. “Because I had someone watching you, too. My guy saw the agent watching you. That bastard Cormack.”

  “I didn’t send Cormack after her!” Elroy blasted. “I just had a cop keeping tabs on her, that’s all.”

  Jax had been spying on me?

  “You!” Elroy shoved his finger at the guy. “You’re the one with ties to this case. Every time I turn around, I’m finding links to you.”

  This was news to Sarah.

  “You knew Wayne Johnson. You knew Julia Finney. So far, you’re the only connection we have to both victims.”

  Car lights cut through the night. A few moments later, doors were slamming, and her LOST agents, plus Emma, were rushing toward them.

  It got a bit easier for Sarah to breathe. Because for a bit there, in the darkness, panic had closed in on her.

  I didn’t feel safe with those two men. Not with either of them.

  “What’s happening here?” Wade demanded. He seemed to be turning most of his suspicion on Jax.

  Elroy was aiming at the guy, too. Pointing his finger right at Jax. “I think we’ve got us a stalker here . . . because this man just confessed to watching Dr. Jacobs.”

  And he broke into my hotel room tonight. But she didn’t say that, not at all. Because . . .

  He didn’t hurt me. If he wanted to hurt me, I would be dead right now, lying on the hotel-room floor.

  “He knew the two victims—Julia and Wayne,” Elroy continued, as if he had to bring the others up-to-date when he’d just been spouting about LOST not being involved in the investigation. “And he was romantically involved with you, Ms. Castille.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Emma said, her voice clear and—Sarah was sure—carefully emotionless.

  “When he found out that you and Dean were together, maybe that pushed him over the edge. Maybe he decided to get back at you. If he couldn’t have you, then he’d lock you up and make sure that no one else could, either.”

  Jax laughed at that. “I don’t work that way.”

  “Oh?” Elroy demanded. Now that there was more of an audience there, the guy appeared far more confident than he’d been moments before. “Then you’re over Ms. Castille? Because according to the intel Agent Cormack acquired, you routinely engage in sexual behavior with a woman who looks just like her.”

  Dean started to lunge forward, but Emma caught his hand and held him back.

  Jax just stood there. Then he laughed again. “You think you’re pinning this on me.”

  Elroy lifted his hand, and, as if they’d been waiting for just that signal, four uniformed cops burst out from the darkness. Sarah jerked, startled by them, and the cops ran to circle Jax.

  “I needed to draw you out, Fontaine. I figured you’d show, sooner or later after that little encounter at the hospital. But this time, I was ready.” His words held smug satisfaction. “Cuff the bastard.”

  When the cops swarmed him, Jax didn’t resist. “What are the charges?”

  “We’ll start with threatening a federal officer and work our way up from there. Once I get you into interrogation, I’m sure you’ll spill plenty about those poor victims you’ve been taking.” He closed in on Jax. “But what I don’t get is how you managed to bring Ricker’s bones here. What the hell was that?”

  Jax shook his head. The streetlight was behind him, and the faint illumination only served to make him look more ominous. “You know it’s not me.”

  Sarah glanced between the two men.

  “It’s not him!” Emma shouted.

  “We’ll just see . . .” Elroy murmured.

  THEY’D JUST TAKEN Jax away. Cuffed him. Mirandized him. Taken him.

  “It’s not Jax!” Emma said for what had to be the fifth time. Why were the LOST agents just standing there? “You know he couldn’t have pulled Ricker’s bones down here, and the guy would not have hurt me.” Not physically, anyway. Locking a woman in a tomb wasn’t Jax’s style at all.

  “He broke into my hotel room,” Sarah said, voice soft, halting.

  Emma’s gaze flew to her. Sarah hadn’t tried to stop Elroy from arresting Jax. She’d seemed to turn straight to stone during that bit of drama.

  “He . . . he was waiting for me when I got back.”

  “And you didn’t call us?” Wade exploded as he threw up his hands. “That guy is a psycho!”

  Sarah flinched.

  “No,” Emma snapped back, “he’s not.”

  Dean caught her fingers in his. She pulled away. “Jax is far from perfect, true. He’s—”

  “Been screwing a woman who looks just like you.” Dean’s voice was thick with fury. “That obsession needs to end.”

  Judging by the way the guy had seemed to stare at Sarah, Emma thought it was safe to say that Jax had moved on. “You’re talking about Emma Grail, okay? They hooked up a few times before I ever came along.” That was why Jax and Carlos had called her “Em”—to distinguish her from the other woman. “She has my hair color, nothing else. He doesn’t think she’s me. The guy just likes sex.” Since when was that a crime?

  Dean’s tense posture said he wasn’t convinced.

  “Sounds to me like the guy needs to understand he has to back the fuck off,” Gabe tossed in, voice sharp.

  Emma wanted to scream. So she did. “Where’s
Victoria? Are you all overlooking the fact that she’s gone?”

  “Jax said he was trailing me.” Sarah’s voice was soft. “So maybe he’d been watching her, too.”

  Emma shook her head. “No.”

  “You don’t know him as well as you think,” Dean said.

  Gabe nodded. “We never know anyone as well as we’d like to believe.”

  “I know him plenty well.” This was insane! They were all just standing there, arguing amongst themselves. The cops had finally loaded up and left with Elroy, and—

  “We’re clear now,” Sarah said softly as the lights from the patrol cars vanished.

  Uh, clear?

  Dean headed toward the morgue. “Then let’s get inside and see what the fuck we can find.”

  Wait, what had just happened?

  Wade’s arm brushed Emma’s. “We had to buy some time until they cleared out. Us having a fight seemed to work well enough.”

  They’d just been stalling? These people were about to drive her out of her mind.

  “Jax didn’t do it,” Sarah said as she hurried forward. “He wouldn’t have known about Ricker. He wouldn’t have imitated the crimes, and he sure wouldn’t have left Emma in the dark with those bones.” Her steps quickened ever more. “But Elroy is sure looking for a scapegoat, and he’s about to make Jax his sacrificial lamb.”

  No one sacrificed Jax. Elroy would learn that.

  “Getting in will be hard,” Sarah warned. “Elroy told the guard I was to be kept out.”

  Dean and Wade immediately shifted course. “So we go in the back way,” Dean threw over his shoulder. A few minutes later, they were at the back of the building. The door was locked, but Wade leaned forward and got to work. She had to admire his skills because, about ten seconds later, the door opened, and an alarm didn’t so much as beep because he quickly typed in a passcode.

  “I might have picked that up earlier,” he murmured. “Victoria, um, passed it along.”

  “One of the many things I love about Victoria,” Gabe said with a nod.

  Then they were hurrying inside. Going down to the lab, and the place was just as creepy as before.

  Emma flipped on the lights. The lab felt way too much like a tomb.

  And she realized everyone was looking at her.

  “Do your thing,” Sarah said with a wave at Emma.

  Uh, her thing?

  “I couldn’t find any clues here. No sign of a struggle. Nothing.” She nodded. “So do your thing. Find what I missed. Find her.”

  Oh, hell, talk about some serious pressure.

  And they were all giving her that expectant, almost desperate stare. She wasn’t a miracle worker. Emma backed up. “Look, I’m not—” Giving readings in the park. That was easy to do because there was no pressure. This was someone’s life.

  Dean’s fingers brushed over her cheek. “Tell us what you see when you look around, baby. This is your specialty. The bastard screwed up. I know he did. You’ll find his mistake.”

  Her heart was drumming too fast in her chest as she looked around that place. Everything seemed normal there. Nothing was tossed onto the floor. There was no sign of a struggle anywhere. The papers were stacked neatly on the desk. A pair of gloves were tossed onto the top of the garbage can. Nothing looked wrong.

  Once you start looking beneath the surface, you’ll be surprised at what you see. Her father’s words whispered through her mind. Most people never look that far, but we’re not like everyone else.

  Wade wasn’t waiting for her to do her mojo. He was riffling through papers on the desk. Sarah and Gabe went to help him.

  And Emma found herself heading toward the lockers on the far back wall. Victoria had been planning to talk with Elroy, and, when Emma and Dean had left her last, she’d been in front of those lockers. Did you keep working on the remains?

  She bent low and opened the locker that contained the remains of Wayne Johnson. Cold air rushed out to hit her, but the bag appeared undisturbed.

  She started to reach for it, but hesitated. Ricker was the one in the middle of this puzzle.

  So she closed that locker.

  “Uh, yeah . . .” Wade said. “Just what are you thinking to find over there?”

  Emma opened up the vault that had contained Ricker’s remains. “I thought I’d find bones.” She looked back at the others. “But they’re gone.”

  “What?” Gabe demanded, then he surged toward her. Gabe grabbed the slab and pulled it out. The empty slab.

  “He came back for Ricker,” Sarah whispered. “I didn’t even look in there—”

  “Maybe there was evidence on the bones.” Gabe was staring down at the slab. “Something he didn’t want anyone else to see.”

  “Or maybe,” Sarah said, clearing her throat, “he just wanted Ricker back.”

  Emma spun away from the locker. Her gaze darted toward Dean. He looked as grim as everyone else. “The guy would have left carrying a body bag. That’s not exactly easy to miss. Two bags,” she amended as she considered the situation, and a dark suspicion took root in her mind, “because if he took Victoria with him, the easiest way to get her out would be to zip her up and act like she was a transfer being sent out.”

  “He put Viki in a body bag?” Wade snarled.

  The lab’s doors opened then. A man wearing a white lab coat sauntered in—it seemed to take him a moment to actually process the fact that other people were in the room. And when he did, he stopped, gasping. “What—what are you people doing in my lab? Where’s Dr. Palmer?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Gabe muttered.

  But Emma had moved past him. Maybe the others had been right when they went to the desk before. She pushed aside papers and found the clipboard there. There was a sign-out sheet on the clipboard, with transfer orders. A scan showed her that most of the orders were signed with the same signature.

  She spun back around. “Dr. Armont?”

  “Yes.” He gulped and took a step back. “I don’t think you people are supposed to be here.”

  “And you’re supposed to be here at this hour?” Emma threw back. “Or did you just come in to get the stash of pills that you keep in locker eight?”

  He blanched. “How did you—”

  “Your eyes are bloodshot, your fingers shake, and I’m betting the reason you work with the dead instead of the living is because your addiction got you into trouble in the past, and you got scared of hurting the living.” She expelled her breath in a rush because she was taking some wild jumps, but the guy’s body was stiffening with every word she spoke, and his eyes were flying nervously around the room—two sure signs that her words were hitting a target. So she plowed on, “Locker eight has a combination code on it. None of the others do. You didn’t want anyone else to ever see what you kept in there.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Keep your voice down!”

  “No.” Her voice rose even more.

  When the guy tried to retreat, Dean grabbed him.

  Emma slapped the clipboard against his chest. “That’s your name for the transfer at five p.m. today. You gave the okay.”

  “What?” His eyes bulged as he looked down. “No, no, I wasn’t even here then. I was waiting for Dr. Palmer to leave, so I could—” His gaze darted guiltily to locker eight. “I was waiting for her to leave.”

  He was wasting their time. “Is that your signature?” Because she didn’t think it was. It didn’t match the others there, even if the name was the same.

  He squinted, stared down at the scrawl, and shook his head. “I didn’t give that transfer order. As far as I know, there weren’t any remains scheduled to be removed today.”

  “But two were.”

  “One was Victoria? Is that what we’re really saying?” Wade ran his hand over his face. “God, Viki.”

  Dr. Armont paled. “What’s happening here? I-I don’t understand.”

  Dean’s grip tightened on the guy. “We think Dr. Palmer has been abduct
ed. If you were here at five, then you very well might have been the last person to see her—”

  “No, no, it wasn’t me!” His eyes bulged. “I wasn’t the last one! She was talking with that FBI agent—”

  “Elroy?” Dean demanded.

  “No, no, the younger one.”

  Emma’s gaze met Dean’s.

  “She . . . she said that she’d recovered some trace evidence from the skeleton. Some sort of fabric that was caught in one of the broken metacarpals. She thought she could use it—” He broke off. “She was excited, okay? I heard her talking to him, and she sounded like she might be onto something.”

  “Elroy didn’t mention this to us,” Sarah said quietly.

  “Maybe because Elroy doesn’t know,” Dean said.

  In his gaze, Emma saw the same suspicion that she felt. She’d wondered how the killer had found her so easily in that cemetery. How he’d just . . . been there. She’d thought he’d been following her from her apartment, that he’d tailed her in that patrol car.

  But now she realized that the killer had been at her side . . . in the patrol car, at the cemetery. He’d been the one hunting her, all along.

  And he was the one who had Victoria.

  Kevin Cormack.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I SWEAR, I WISH YOU’D JUST LEFT THINGS THE FUCK alone.”

  Victoria couldn’t see the man who spoke.

  “I mean, why the hell did you have to keep pushing? I didn’t intend to involve you. You weren’t on my list at all.”

  Her hands were tied together. Her ankles bound.

  “But there’s no going back now. Because you know what I won’t do? Go down for this shit. I’ve got too much to lose.”

  She felt the knife shove into her side, and Victoria cried out in pain.

  “I can be quick, if you want. If you tell me everything you learned and exactly what you shared with Dean and his little bitch when they came to see you at the morgue.”

  She shook her head as tears slid down her cheek. She was still partially in the body bag. He’d shoved a needle into her neck. When she’d woken up¸ she’d been in that bag. Gagged, feeling as if she were suffocating.