Chasing Evil (Circle of Evil)

by Kylie Brant

  This particular rendition of the nightmare was new, but his reaction to it was familiar. His spine prickled with fear-induced adrenaline. His pulse still surged through his veins. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to do the deep breathing exercises that would calm his runaway physical reactions.

  Only then did he become aware of the steady breathing beside him.

  Sophie.

  Cam’s eyelids opened and he stared fixedly at the ceiling. It’d been a while since he’d been bothered by the recurring dream. He’d had his share of flashback-induced panic attacks in the weeks following his return from deep cover. They’d eventually receded, but the nightmares were the last remnants of the PTSD that had dogged him since that time. At least they were manageable now. The cure was several minutes of deep breathing, or barring that, a punishing sprint on the treadmill.

  But deep breathing wasn’t helping, and the treadmill was in the corner of the bedroom. Not an option.

  Carefully, he eased out of bed and padded to the adjoining bath, swinging the door shut behind him. Cam propped his hands on the counter and leaned against them, for the first time aware of the perspiration that drenched his body.

  He’d spent long months railing at the occurrences and at his own weakness. Because no amount of sheer determination was enough to push aside the episodes. As much as he’d despised the time he’d spent with the agency ordered therapist, he’d grudgingly come to accept that willpower alone meant shit when battling inner demons.

  The door opened then. A soft voice sounded. “Cam?”

  His eyes slid shut. “I’m fine. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  But a moment later he felt her arms slide around his waist. Her cheek pressed against his back. “You’re not fine,” she murmured. Her hair brushed lightly against his skin. “You’re clammy. Bad dream?”

  “I’m all right,” he repeated. And realized in that instant that the words weren’t a lie. His pulse had calmed. His heart rate was slowing. “As long as you’re awake, I think I’ll take a quick shower, though.”

  “Good idea.” When she released him he wasn’t so certain he agreed. But she was back a moment later, pressing a towel into his hand and then moving to the shower, turning it on. The light remained off, a fact he was grateful for, but weak slants of moonlight filtered through the window blind.

  He followed her, hanging the towel on a hook and stepped inside the walk-in shower. But she surprised him yet again by getting in after him.

  “Sophie…” As a protest, it was pretty half-hearted. He could think of one way to banish the lingering darkness from the dream, but he had no intention of using her that way. It was weak, and he was a man who avoided weakness at all costs.

  But the woman standing before him slicking back her wet hair presented a vulnerability of another sort entirely. One that might prove to be his undoing. “No one has ever called me that before.” Her hands slid around his waist. Lowered. Squeezed his ass.

  His thoughts jumbled. “Sophie? You’re kidding.”

  “I’ve always been Sophia, even as a child.” Her hands were busy. Clever. “Sophie sounds like somebody else. Someone less serious. More adventurous. Sometimes when you say it, it feels like you’re talking about another woman.” She took him in her hand then, and when her fingers closed tightly around him, his breath escaped in a sharp hiss.

  “I don’t want another woman.” The admission would have scared the hell of him if he were capable of rational thought. He picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his hips, reaching down to guide him. “Only you.”

  And as he slipped inside her, he had the dim fleeting thought that this might be what healing felt like.

  Cam’s office was silent but for the whisper of shuffling papers and the tapping on keyboards. Jenna had been the first to join him there, resisting all his efforts to send her home. Shortly after, Franks had shown up, taken one look inside the office and silently fetched chairs from the staff room. Cam hadn’t even attempted to convince the man to leave. Cam figured that the two agents, like him, weren’t going to get any sleep while Sophie was missing.

  So they’d all settled in for the evening. Cam had borrowed the coffee maker from the staff room, and empty cups littered the office. He was seated at his desk, but had stripped off the suit coat and tie, and loosened the neck of his shirt. Franks had done the same. He and Jenna had their feet propped up on another chair in front of them, laptops balanced on their thighs. Other than slipping out of her shoes, Jenna still looked as fresh as she had when she’d come to work that morning, a fact that would have baffled Cam had he taken the time to consider it.

  But his focus was on the data they’d split between them. Somewhere in the vast wealth of information the agents’ assignments had yielded might be buried the one lead they needed to locate Sophie’s whereabouts.

  Franks had hit a brick wall early in the evening. He’d been checking each individual on Dr. Pane’s past and present employee list for criminal histories. When he’d found nothing of note, he made a copy of the cemetery caretakers Jenna had put together and began looking for a name that might appear in both groups.

  Cam had finished running criminal checks on the cemetery caretakers. He’d found a few misdemeanor charges among the individuals on the list, but no one had struck him as dangerous. Now, with a second copy of the Pane employees, he was combing through the DMV database for vehicles owned by each, looking for titles to cargo vans.

  “Are my eyes bleeding? They should be bleeding.” An hour later Jenna scrubbed the heels of her palms over her eyes. “Just reading the interviews and profiles Sophia did on these deviants over the years…it’s not a question of whether any of them would be capable of reaching out to her. Sick bastards.” She’d been given the task of taking Loring’s earlier assignment one step further and looking at offenders Sophia had once consulted on. Cam knew the files wouldn’t make for easy reading.

  “How many are actually out of prison?”

  She glanced at her notes. “Of the ones she conducted interviews on when they were already imprisoned, three are dead. Good riddance. And another is in hospice, dying of emphysema. Albert Lancer was released last year, but he’s eighty-seven. I sent his parole officer an email, but hard to see an octogenarian as the offender we’re seeking.” She peeled down a wrapper of something and brought it to her lips.

  Cam looked at her fixedly. The dry cheese and crackers he’d scored a couple hours earlier from the vending machine was a distant memory. “What’s that?”

  Franks looked over.

  Taking a big bite, Jenna chewed with obvious enjoyment. “A granola bar from my purse. Useful things, purses. You can carry all sorts of necessities in them.”

  “You have any more?”

  His wheedling tone didn’t seem to faze her. “Maybe you should check your wallet. That’s where guys carry everything they need, right?”

  “You owe me, Jenna,” Tommy pointed out. “Remember that time I changed your flat?”

  “That was five years ago.” She took another large bite. “Statute of limitations on payback is three years. Everyone knows that.”

  “Don’t be mean.” Cam’s stomach rumbled. “I made coffee for you tonight. Poured it for you, too.”

  “And I carried in the chairs you’re using from the staff room,” Tommy pointed out. His lean face looked feral. “I can carry them back. Now. I’m sure you’ll be plenty comfortable sitting on the floor.”

  “Whining and threats. Hunger really doesn’t bring out the best qualities in you two.” Reaching down, she withdrew two more bars from her purse and threw one to each of them. “Remember my generosity the next time you’re tempted to tell a joke about gingers.”

  She settled back as Cam and Tommy made short work of the snacks. “As I was saying before I got interrupted for feeding time, so far there are few conceivable leads looking at the already incarcerated perps Sophia interviewed. Given the nature of their crimes, none of them are getting out of prison fo
r a couple more decades.” She paused to polish off the rest of her bar, rolled up the wrapper and shot it neatly into Cam’s wastebasket. “And not one of the dirt bags on cases she’s consulted on in the last dozen years are released yet. Of course I’m not done going through all of them yet. And that’s not to say that one of their embittered family members wasn’t behind Sophia’s kidnapping. Or that some twisted serial killer groupie isn’t doing the bidding of one of the sickos. But…”

  Her voice trailed off, but Cam could easily fill in the rest of her statement. That line would be futile to follow, the possibilities infinite. They could only work the most promising leads. He couldn’t allow himself to consider the less plausible ones, no matter that they remained distant possibilities.

  It was more probable that this case had led to Sophie’s abduction. And that meant she was at the mercy of the sadistic sexual offender they were seeking. He elbowed aside the bleakness that settled inside him at the thought.

  “If she’d been threatened in some way…if one of the guys she helped put away had reached out, she would have told someone about that, right?”

  “Absolutely.” Cam didn’t even have to think overmuch about Franks’s question. I don’t have a brave bone in my body. The words she’d once spoken sounded in his memory. Although he didn’t agree with them, he also knew Sophia was too by-the- book to not notify the authorities in that eventuality.

  “Haven’t run across any reference to a threat from one of them.” Jenna made herself more comfortable on the chairs she was using to stretch out. “I’ll go back to looking. But reading this stuff about these sickos is like diving into a cesspool. It’s hard to imagine Sophia immersed in this all the time.”

  Cam remained silent. He’d often had similar thoughts, but Sophia was remarkably well balanced for someone who dealt with the darkness she encountered on a daily basis. There was more to the woman than met the eye. He’d learned that for himself.

  And if he wanted to trail her to wherever she was being kept, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—consider what sort of darkness she was encountering right now.

  Sophia huddled on the blowup mattress, desolation sweeping over her. She’d found the comforter from her bed wadded up and tossed carelessly to the side in one corner of the cell. Although the temperature was mild, she’d wrapped up in it as if donning armor. Even that small bit of familiarity had provided comfort. There was little else to calm her. She’d lost her voice hours earlier yelling for help, in vain.

  Which told her the place had to be remote. The stranger hadn’t bothered to gag her, so he must be certain there would be no one in the vicinity to offer assistance.

  She was alone here. The place was large. Dark. Cavernous. Tiny tentacles of light pierced the walls in random pinpoints of sunlight. The sparse light hadn’t helped her decide what this place was. The gate on her cell was about six foot tall, with wide round bars three inches apart. It was held in place with a small rectangular box lock of some sort secured to the exterior. By placing her feet on the bars of the gate, she could climb it like a ladder, but for only a few feet before her progress was halted by woven wire fencing that penned her in at the top. The edges of the wire were pulled over the wooden walls and secured in place.

  The confines of her cell made it impossible to see to the right or left. All she could see head of her was emptiness. Was hers the only cell in the building? She couldn’t be sure.

  The place smelled old, with faint indistinguishable odors mingling. There was a ceiling far above her. But if there was a floor above that, no sound emanated from it. Her prison could be a basement of some sort. Or a barn. Her cell could easily have once been a stall. Or it may even have been a modified parcel holding pen in an ancient warehouse.

  Which didn’t narrow down the location at all.

  Think! Sophia ordered herself as she paced the confines of her cell. The area was approximately ten by twelve. It was empty, save for the blow up mattress. The floor was more gravel and dust than concrete. Which told her only that the structure was old, which she’d already guessed.

  And none of that information helped her plan her escape.

  She’d done one thorough search of the space and, going to her knees, she started another. Running her fingers over the limestone wall at the back, Sophia jiggled each stone, testing it for looseness. All held fast. No matter how hard she tried to twist and push, she could find no leverage to move any of them.

  Limestone quarries were plentiful in Iowa, and many foundations a century ago were built of the material. The first apartment she and Douglas had rented in Iowa City had been housed in a wonderful old Queen Anne, which had a dirt floor cellar with walls just like the one behind her. Given the number of creepie crawlies she’d encountered whenever venturing to that basement, she’d always suspected the stone walls of harboring numerous fissures and cracks.

  But that certainly didn’t seem true of the one in her cell.

  After an hour of fruitless effort, she gave up and moved to the walls. Her right shoulder still throbbed from where she’d earlier tried throwing her herself against the wooden panels, in the hope of breaking a board. This time she exercised more caution, investigating the length and width of the wooden strips that comprised the sides. Sophia could stick her fingers under the bottom slats with an extra inch of clearance and run them about four feet before encountering a wooden board placed vertically. Her heart sank at the realization that the sides were likely two by fours nailed together, with braces placed halfway. And unless she found a board rotted with age, she didn’t stand a chance of prying one off.

  She set about exploring them, pulling on the bottom ones with all her might. There was give in a couple, but try as she might, she lacked the strength to free any of them. The higher boards were placed one on top of the other. Much too close to get her fingers in the gap between, or even to look between the boards at what might be next to her.

  The wood was undoubtedly old. She studied one wall for a moment. The weakest area on each should be midway between the vertical posts bracing them from the other side. Sophie let the comforter drop to the mattress, drew back her leg and, using the ball of her heel, aimed a solid kick in the center of one of the slats.

  Pain sang up her leg, but the board remained intact. Eyeing it balefully, she grabbed the comforter and used it to cushion her foot before trying again on another. Her foot was protected this time, but her efforts were met with a similar lack of success.

  Ruthlessly tamping down the despair that threatened, she tried over and over, kicking repeatedly at every board she could reach. Although some shook under her attack, they all held firm.

  Frustrated, she studied the cell with new eyes. Only then did she realize the occasional threads of light showing through cracks in the structure were getting dimmer.

  It had been after midnight when she’d been abducted from her shower. It had been full dark when she’d come to last night. Or maybe it had been early this morning. How long since the UNSUB had left her?

  An even more terrifying question was how much time did she have until he came back?

  Her knees went to water then and she stumbled back to the mattress, sinking upon it in an ignominious heap. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that her kidnapper was the man responsible for the six sets of human remains dug up in the cemeteries. The same stranger responsible for the abduction of Courtney Van Wheton. But she’d called out to Courtney by name earlier. There had been no answer.

  Sophia had spent over a decade analyzing crimes every bit as horrific as those this offender was responsible for. She’d worked nearly as long developing victim profiles for the unfortunates who had been targeted by men like him. In order to accomplish her job, an emotional distance was necessary.

  But that distance was impossible now. She was immersed in the nightmare. Tiny tendrils of fear curled throughout her system. It was getting harder and harder to keep them at bay. Objectivity was difficult to summon when an inner clock ticked away the passi
ng minutes and hours. But she realized she’d be capable of the clearest thinking before she was victimized herself.

  The thought had Sophia surging from the mattress. She turned her attention to the woven wire effectively penning in the top of her cell. It couldn’t be reached by standing in place, or by stepping atop the mattress.

  Striding to the gate again, she tried not to focus on the fading splinters of light. But a renewed sense of urgency fueled her actions. Grasping one bar in her hands, she climbed up as far as she was able. It moved a little on its hinges when she climbed it, each small shift of position separating it a fraction from the ceiling of wire above. The top rung of the metal gate met the wire when it was closed, and would have to swing outward in order to clear it.

  She reached out to press against the wire fencing at the right front corner. It was secured tightly for as far as she could stretch. But the pressure she put on it bent the wire slightly. Tilting her head up, she considered it.

  The openings between the wires were two inches by three, she estimated. The wires were crimped hard every two inches to hold them together. Not as thick as a chain link fence people would put around their yards. Not as flimsy and malleable as chicken wire. She’d never been allowed to have pets as a child, but a friend of hers had had two rabbits kept in a cage fashioned with similar wire, but slightly thicker.

  Shifting position, she started at the opposite end. She reached out to pry at one of the coiled wires securing one section to the next. Quickly sliced her finger.

  She popped it in her mouth, reconsidered. Next she reached up above the gate and pressed as hard as she could on the wire. It held firm. Climbing as high as she was able, she ducked her head and pushed on the wire with all her might. A small gap appeared between it and the top of the gate.

  Hope slivered through her. It was only two inches or so, but Sophia was filled with new purpose. She just needed something to wedge up there, to separate the wire from the top of the gate enough for her to climb through the resulting space.