Threat of Danger

by Dana Marton

  A harsh sob escaped Zelda as she sank onto the couch. Jess’s legs held her, but only just.

  Derek stood with his feet firmly planted, shoulder-width apart, arms at his side, ready to fight, ready for anything. “The sheriff went off to notify the family just as I was leaving. It’ll probably be on the news tonight.”

  “Oh God, Emma.” Zelda sniffed. “This is goin’ to kill her. Henry too. Hannah was their baby. Their youngest.” She drew a shuddering, shocked breath. “What can we do?” She slumped back, but only for a second or two. Next they knew, she was pushing to her feet. “I’ll make a casserole.”

  Jess headed for the kitchen too. “You were at the hospital all morning. I can make something. Why don’t you take a break?”

  “Can’t. Need to keep movin’. I need to do somethin’.”

  Jess said, “I’ll help.” But her mind was in a frozen daze.

  Another girl dead.

  Wood chipper.

  She’d been right all these years. The man who’d kidnapped her and Derek hadn’t drowned in the river. He’d lived to kidnap and kill another day. And he’d just done it again.

  He wouldn’t stop, not unless somebody stopped him.

  What if he had already picked out his next victim?

  Jess’s cell phone rang in her pocket and made her jump. Kaylee’s smiling face filled the display.

  “Just wanted to say that Abuelito is doing well,” she reported when Jess picked up. “And he’s cheating at poker.”

  Kaylee, Jess mouthed to Zelda. Then, Everything’s OK. And, after a minute or two, she handed over the call. Zelda wanted a full accounting of everything that had happened since they’d left the hospital.

  Jess caught Derek’s gaze.

  He watched her, his expression somber, and Jess’s thoughts snapped right back to the news he’d brought. Hannah Wilson. Jess knew, better than anyone, what Hannah must have gone through before her death.

  Freezing cold.

  Agonizing pain.

  Endless days in a hopeless pit of hell.

  Disbelief.

  Panic.

  Wishing for death.

  “Hey.” Derek was at her side, holding her elbow, his voice warm with concern. “Why don’t you sit down?” He steered her to the kitchen table and pushed her on a chair.

  “I’m fine.”

  “All the blood rushed out of your face.”

  She drew a long, steadying breath, and nodded.

  “I want to come back and sleep on the couch again,” he said after a long moment.

  Her gaze flew to him. “Until when?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No.”

  “Jess—”

  But she held up a hand. “I don’t need a crutch. And I don’t need your protection. I needed your friendship.”

  Instead, he’d betrayed her.

  He watched her in silence for a couple of seconds, his jaw working as if he was getting ready for an argument, but then he turned on his heel and strode away. He called a goodbye to Zelda without even looking over his shoulder. The front door closed behind him with a decisive click.

  Good, Jess thought. She did not need Derek Daley.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Saturday

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Jess and Zelda headed to Burlington. Zelda dozed in the passenger seat. She must not have gotten enough sleep last night, worrying about Chuck.

  Jess stopped at the end of the long Taylor driveway as Derek’s truck passed on the road going east. He waved at her.

  Going for his walk in the woods. The quick thought snagged in Jess’s brain as she turned west, toward the city.

  Derek walks by a river every day. With a stick.

  He did have a limp, but he didn’t normally use a stick for walking. The times she’d seen him in the woods, he hadn’t been using the stick for support either. He was scratching through the mud on the riverbank with it.

  Almost as if . . .

  As if he was looking for something.

  Jess kept her eyes on the road and the sparse traffic, as she mulled over the idea of Derek’s walks having a purpose. What was he looking for?

  He’d found bones, she knew that. Hannah Wilson’s.

  Jess’s throat tightened at the thought. Every time she thought of the poor girl, she wanted to cry. Nobody knew what Hannah had gone through more than Jess did.

  Although, Derek knew some—

  Was he looking for bones on his daily walks? The thought knocked Jess sideways.

  Whose bones?

  He walked by the river. Every day. All the way to the bend.

  Whatever fell into the water usually washed ashore at the bend—mostly dead animal carcasses. Nobody walked all the way down there. The place stank half the time, and garbage littered the riverbank.

  Derek. The river. Bones.

  Jess was parking her car at the hospital by the time she put it all together. Derek had been looking for the bones of the masked man who’d kidnapped them.

  Because Derek, like Jess, didn’t believe that the man had drowned. So Derek kept searching for proof. But he’d found Hannah’s bones instead.

  Jess’s heart pounded. She hadn’t been alone in her suspicions all along. Derek too had his doubts about the masked man’s death. She sucked in a sharp breath. They needed to talk about this.

  As soon as Jess parked the car, Zelda woke. She blinked and blinked again. “I fell asleep. Sorry.”

  Jess schooled her expression. She didn’t want Zelda to see that something was wrong. Zelda and Chuck needed to be her focus right now.

  She unsnapped her seat belt. “You needed the rest. Ready?”

  Zelda groaned as she unfolded her legs and slipped out of the car. “I’m too old to sleep sitting up.” She hung on to the door. “My knees get too stiff.” She bent them slowly, one after the other.

  Jess came around and offered her arm. “We can walk around a little. Want to check out the indoor garden on the ground level? Move a little before you sit again by Chuck?”

  “Maybe later.” Zelda closed her door at last, clutched her purse to her side, and shuffled toward the lobby.

  They popped in on Chuck first so they could report on him to Rose. Jess stayed with her mother, and Zelda went back down to Chuck and Kaylee.

  An hour later, when Jess and Kaylee left for home, Zelda stayed.

  At the house, Jess fed Kaylee lunch. Derek was at the sugar shack, supervising the work. She’d seen his truck parked up front. She didn’t call down to invite him to join them for the meal. Her mind and feelings were in turmoil. She didn’t know what she would say about his search. And whatever she decided to say to him, it wasn’t a conversation to have in front of Kaylee.

  Jess avoided him for the rest of the day. At six, she drove with Kaylee to the hospital and brought Zelda home. They heated up leftovers. Zelda set a plate for Derek, but he didn’t come up to the house for dinner. Jess was relieved.

  Relieved or not, she couldn’t sleep. A thousand thoughts zoomed around in her head, until, nearly at midnight, she bolted up in bed. Zelda was asleep in her new room downstairs. Jess dragged on her clothes, hopped into her car, and drove over to Derek’s place.

  She called his cell when she was outside his front door, but he was opening the door before she finished. He must have heard her car come up the driveway.

  “Everything OK with Chuck?” He wore black boxer shorts and nothing else, the house dark behind him, his eyes sleep-heavy.

  Her heart gave a hard thud. The parts of her that made her a woman were wide awake. Resist, she ordered those parts, and slammed the door on their needs.

  “Chuck is fine. Can we talk?”

  He stepped aside and let her in. His living room smelled like wood fire. Red embers glowed in the grate.

  When he flipped on the light, she blinked against the brightness, then against all that firm, muscled male flesh that faced her.

  He rubbed a hand over his face. “Let me throw on some clot
hes. Want to make coffee?”

  “Sure.” She walked into his kitchen as he padded up the stairs. She did not look at his ass because she had that kind of stuntwomany discipline. She looked around instead.

  The Daley farmhouse was about the same as her parents’, built around the same time from local fieldstone, less than two thousand square feet, still had all the original fireplaces and wide-plank wood floors. The kitchen was all blond oak cabinets, Formica countertops, brass light fixtures. Her LA friends would have thought it outdated. Jess liked the hominess.

  The coffeepot sat on the counter. She found a bag of coffee in the cabinet right over it. By the time Derek returned in jeans and a United States Navy T-shirt, the scent of fresh brew filled his kitchen.

  They sat at the table, across from each other, fingers curled around identical mugs. The overhead light—built into a fan—hung right above them. They were both lit up, could hide nothing.

  He took a couple of quick sips, his massive chest rising under the soft cotton of his shirt as he filled his lungs. “OK. I’m ready.”

  “Sorry for coming over this late.”

  “You can come over anytime. You’re always welcome here.”

  She wasn’t sure how to say what she came to say, so she jumped right into the middle. “You didn’t find the bones by accident.”

  Derek watched her over the rim as he drank more coffee. “No.”

  “You’ve been looking.”

  “Yes.”

  “For more victims?”

  “Mostly for the masked man. I don’t like the idea that he’s never been found. I wanted proof. Dead animals get washed ashore all the time. Why didn’t he?”

  “Have you found any sign of him at all?” She held her breath.

  “No.”

  “Do you think he’s still alive?”

  “Yes.”

  The kitchen spun with Jess.

  When she’d gathered herself, she said, “Me too.”

  Then she spotted a copy of Derek’s book behind him on the counter, and then the kitchen spun again, this time harder.

  “Oh my God.” She let go of her mug with a clunk and pushed to her feet, nearly knocking over her chair.

  She stepped away from the table, her gaze darting between Derek and the book. When she said, “You wrote Dark Woods to draw the man out,” her voice came out hoarse.

  Derek stood too, slower than she had, his movements more measured. “I did. Which is why I’m not crazy about the idea of you being back home right now.”

  Her brain had trouble catching up, so she just focused on that last sentence. “I’m not going to leave while both Mom and Chuck are in the hospital.”

  “If I knew you were coming, I never would have released the book this month. I don’t want you to become a target again.”

  She gaped at him, suddenly understanding yet another thing—and this one was a real doozy. “You’re making yourself the target.”

  She felt as if she’d missed a high jump and smacked into the side of a building instead of landing safely on the roof.

  He squared his impressive shoulders. An armored tank had nothing on him. “I can handle the bastard if he comes.”

  Her heart squeezed. “What about your leg?”

  “What about it?”

  Anger flashed through her. “This is crazy, Derek. I can’t believe you did this.” The anger kicked up a notch. “You had no right to open this up. To put yourself in danger. You have to let go. You’re injured!”

  Her fury seemed to reflect in his slate eyes, throwing sparks. “You mean, let go, like you let it all go?”

  She stepped around the table and stabbed her index finger against his hard chest. “You don’t get to criticize how I handle the past.”

  And then she thought of something else, and her breathing grew ragged. “What if he shows up at a book signing and stabs you or shoots you or something?”

  “I’ll be waiting. I’ll be ready. He won’t take me by surprise again, believe me. I’m not some hapless college kid anymore, Jess.”

  She could only stare. “You’re crazy.”

  He took her by the elbows and searched her face. “Would you leave for a couple of weeks? I’ll take care of the sugaring. Your mom will be in the hospital for at least a month. You can come back after she’s released if you want to help her.”

  She pulled away. “I’m not leaving.”

  Frustration sparked in his eyes. “Dammit, Jess.”

  “Dammit, Derek.” She wanted to shake him. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?”

  “I was hoping you’d leave before the book came out.”

  When she said nothing, just looked at him as if she wanted to murder him, he took her arm again, this time by the wrist, and pulled her after him, up the stairs, into his old bedroom, which was now apparently his office, because when he switched on the light, the first thing she saw was a giant desk with a laptop in the middle.

  Various notes, articles, and pictures of half a dozen young women covered an entire wall. She recognized most of them: her own high school yearbook photo next to Madison Hale, Crystal Gneiss, and Mariana Allen. Her gaze snagged on Hannah Wilson’s grainy picture, cut from the Taylorville Times. Oh God.

  A violent shiver ran through her.

  Derek was still holding her hand. She let him. When she stepped closer to the wall, he went with her.

  “Who is she?” she whispered as she pointed at a pixielike girl she didn’t recognize.

  “Emma Ramsey. Half a dozen girls altogether. One roughly every other year.”

  “I was right.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s careful.”

  “Very. Half a dozen teenagers disappearing in the course of a decade in a region as large as this one is not a statistic that would stick out, considering national averages. There are plenty of teen runaways in every area of the country.”

  “What about the girl in the river? They ever find out who she was?”

  “Unrelated. Runaway from up north. The river had carried her body down. It got caught at the foot of the bridge. By coincidence, Hannah Wilson’s car had been pushed into the water at the same spot.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Went down to the gas station after dinner. Needed antifreeze for the truck. Ran into the sheriff. We talked for a couple of minutes. I was going to tell you in the morning.”

  The thought of the poor runaway girl being swallowed up by the river sent a cold shiver down Jess’s spine.

  Derek still held her hand. “What is it?”

  “I almost drowned once on a shoot. It’s not a good way to die. Hate water stunts.”

  His expression instantly flashed with anger. “Where the hell was Eliot?”

  “It happened before Eliot. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The director changed the shoot at the last second. No time to prepare.” She shrugged. “They do that.”

  “Can’t you protest?”

  “Sure. I just won’t be called for the next job.”

  Hollywood seemed a million miles away. Jess couldn’t take her eyes off the girls. Her heart bled. “What do they have in common?”

  “Ages between sixteen and nineteen. Female. I can’t find anything else.”

  “All from around Taylorville?”

  He shook his head. “But within easy driving distance. Since Taylorville is at the meeting point of three counties, the cases fall under different police jurisdictions. That’s one of the reasons the police hadn’t made the connection.”

  Jess rubbed the back of her neck with her free hand as she took in the newspaper cutouts and the jumble of Derek’s handwritten notes attached to them. He’d given this a lot of thought. He’d been investigating. He’d written a book to draw out the masked man.

  The headache was barely there one second, then pounding hard at the base of her skull the next.

  “I need to go home.” She pulled away from Derek and turned out of the room, yet the images remain
ed seared on her brain: her own photo, and the faces of the dead girls.

  Derek followed her down the stairs. “Why don’t you stay?”

  She stilled and looked at him, trying to figure out exactly what he meant by that, trying to figure out how she felt if he meant more than a friendly offer. Because . . . they’d kissed. And he was looking at her as if he wanted to draw her into his arms and kiss her again, right now. She, however, was definitely not in the right frame of mind for—

  “Sleep in the guest bedroom,” he said.

  OK, not more than a friendly offer, then. But she still couldn’t stay. Jess headed for the front door, but stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “Zelda would worry if she couldn’t find me when she woke up.”

  “Then text me when you get in.”

  She nodded. “Do you think he’s hunting?”

  She didn’t have to tell Derek who she meant.

  “Probably not. He’s just taken Hannah. He’s never taken girls back-to-back.”

  “But you provoked him.”

  “That should make him lash out at me.”

  Jess hated that idea with a passion. “Now that the police have some of Hannah’s bones, they’ll be looking for her killer. Maybe they’ll find him.”

  “Maybe. The cops were all over the woods when I went for my walk this morning.”

  “And?”

  “The cadaver dogs found a few more bone fragments, all spread out. Hell, any remains might be spread out over a thousand acres. What evidence they have will be sent off for further analysis, but the results will take a couple of days.”

  Jess’s head threatened to split in two. She’d spent the last decade running from all this, from having to think about what had happened to her, having to think about the masked man.

  She turned the knob, but instead of opening the door, she hesitated once again.

  He was immediately at her back, then pushing her aside and putting himself between her and the door. “What is it? You hear anything outside?”

  “Just hoping Jackass Maxwell isn’t out there. He caught me in the driveway the other day, lurking around my mom’s place. I don’t want pictures in the papers about me coming out of your house this time of the night. I hate all the stupid innuendo and speculation.”