by Virna DePaul
Together, they got into Jase’s car. On their way to the station, Carrie said, “You were right. You tried to warn us that taunting the killer on television was too dangerous. And now, because we didn’t listen, a killer has Lana.”
“Lana knew exactly what she was doing, Carrie. Don’t you take responsibility for this, do you hear me?”
But she couldn’t absolve herself that easily. “How can I not take responsibility? I knew there was risk involved. I’m the one who brought my idea to Lana.”
“And she’s the one who insisted she do the spot with you, right?”
“How did you know that?”
“Because you’d never ask someone to take that kind of risk, even if you did think it would help catch a killer.”
She didn’t know if she believed him. But she knew his belief in her eased her distress, if only a little.
When they got to the station, Commander Stevens told them, “It’s Darwin who has her. Fishburn was just a decoy.”
“How can you know that for sure? That Darwin took Lana?”
“He’s posted her photo on the internet. Thrown down the gauntlet. Mentioned Jase’s name specifically. Wants to do a trade of some sort.”
Commander Stevens handed them the blog. As one, they read it.
You’re trying so hard to find me, aren’t you? But how can you, when I’ve never really existed. Not really. Not to you. Not to so many of you. Until now. My angel showed me the way. Taught me that I need to be bolder. Braver. Fearless. I must face my weaknesses and that includes the police.
Special Agent Carrie Ward. You were there when the doctor called out to me. You’ll understand why I shed her blood.
Just like all the others. Just like Fishburn. And just like your partner.
Special Agent Jase Tyler.
I want him.
Only after I have him will you finally understand.
You’ll all finally see who I am.
As Carrie read the words, rage and despair warred within her, muddying her thoughts. When she was done reading, she glanced at Jase. He’d paled slightly, and his features were grim.
She struggled to remain calm. At that moment, however, Simon Granger walked into the commander’s office.
Just like Jase, his features were dark but even more intense.
Murderous.
She’d thought it before and she thought it again: this was personal now. Darwin had invaded their own turf, their police family, by taking Lana. And he actually thought he was going to get Jase, too?
Never.
“We’ll get her back,” Carrie said to Simon. But even as she said the words, she knew they were a statement of intent, not a promise. She couldn’t promise they’d get Lana back. How could she?
“Where’d he take her?” Simon asked.
“We don’t know,” Commander Stevens responded. “We checked her house first thing. Looks undisturbed. But her car’s missing.”
Having read the blog and seen the photo attached, Carrie turned to Simon. “Simon, you need to know…”
“What is it?”
“He attached a photo to his blog this time. He’s started to cut her.”
Simon closed his eyes and cursed. “What does he want?”
“He wants me,” Jase said.
“How?”
They turned as one to Commander Stevens, who said, “He obviously wants Jase to meet him for some kind of exchange.”
“I’m going to do it.”
Carrie whipped around to face Jase. “No, that’s crazy. You can’t.”
“I have to. He’s got us over a barrel, Carrie. It’s our only way of getting Lana back.”
She saw Jase and Simon lock gazes. Simon looked grim but said nothing. The same was true for the commander. No one was going to say anything to dissuade him? She damn well knew that if the tables were turned, if it was her the killer wanted in exchange, they wouldn’t be so quick to let her sacrifice herself. She’d be damned if she let them sacrifice Jase.
“No. I won’t let you,” Carrie said.
Jase walked up to her. “Baby, listen to me....”
She pushed his hands away when he tried to take her by the arms. He’d called her “baby.” For the first time. And in front of their colleagues. As if he didn’t care whether anyone, the commander included, knew they were sleeping together. That they were more than just colleagues.
She didn’t care, either. In fact, she wanted the others to know. If they knew, they’d also know how serious she was about keeping Jase safe.
As quickly as she’d pushed him away, she reached out and took his hands in hers. “The only reason you’re on this case is to assist me,” she said with measured precision. “I’m the lead. I’ll take the risks.”
“But he doesn’t want you,” Jase said gently. “He wants me for some reason.”
Her eyes filled with frustrated tears, but she furiously blinked them back. “He wants you for the same reason everyone wants you, damn it! Because you’re beautiful. You’re perfect.”
He pulled her into his arms, and she buried her face in his neck, clasping him close, never wanting to let him go.
Laughing shakily, he rocked her in his arms. “God, do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to say those words?” he joked. At least he tried to. But she knew he was being serious. That he cared about her more than she’d ever imagined. And that he was trying to protect her and reassure even now, even as he proposed something that could destroy her. Because it would. If anything happened to Jase, if she lost him, her world would never be the same.
She loved him, she finally admitted to herself. She’d been so scared to let him in, to give him any power over her, because she’d known all along how much it would kill her to lose him. And now she was being forced to admit her feelings for him at the same time her worst fears were coming true.
“You can’t,” she whispered, shaking her head and grinding her forehead into his chest to emphasize her words. “You can’t do this.” You can’t leave me now that I know. I know I love you. You made me love you, damn it.
Pulling back, he cupped her face in his hands. “You’re the one who’s always talking about the inherent dangers of being a cop. That when we come to work, we understand we’re putting ourselves at risk in order to help others. Save others. We need to save Lana. She’s a doctor. Not a cop. We knew the risks, she didn’t.”
“She knew the risks when she put herself in front of that camera,” Simon said quietly. Reluctantly but honestly.
“And I let her do it,” Carrie added. “It’s my fault he has her.”
“It’s no one’s fault,” Jase said gently. “If he wanted you to make the trade, you’d do it, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t even hesitate.”
Knowing the trap he was leading her into, she remained stubbornly silent.
“Carrie,” he prompted. “Wouldn’t you?”
She wasn’t going to lie. “Yes.”
“And the last thing you’d want, the thing that you would hate most in the world is if we tried to stop you, especially if you thought it was because you were a woman and we were trying to protect you.”
“It’s not the same thing. I’m not trying to protect you because of your gender. I’m—I’m trying to protect you because—because I love you,” she said.
Jase smiled, but it had a hint of sadness to it, as if he knew it was too little, too late. “Wow. This really is true confession time, isn’t it?” In a flash, his expression grew serious. “I don’t have to make any confessions, do I, Carrie? Because you already know how I feel about you. You knew why I didn’t want you to put your face on television and talk to a killer. Because I love you, too, and I didn’t want anything to happen to you. But you did it anyway. Because that’s the only thing you could do. You thought that’s what you needed to do to stop a killer and I understand that now. You need to let me do this.”
She stared at him. Didn’t want to concede his point. But she saw the resolve in his eyes. The a
cceptance in everyone else’s. He was going to save Lana whether she agreed to his methods or not. “Okay,” she whispered. “But we have to be smart about this. We don’t even know if Lana’s still alive. You can’t risk yourself until he proves it. Comment on the blog. He either proves to us that Lana’s alive or we have to assume she’s not.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
WITH DISBELIEF, Brad read the comment the police had made to his blog post. Jase Tyler was willing to make a trade with him, but not unless Brad provided them with clear and convincing proof that Dr. Lana Hudson was still alive.
“No!” Brad screamed the word. Turning, he smashed his fist against the mirror on the wall, cracking the glass so that it distorted his facial features even more.
The scars were coming back, he thought frantically. He hadn’t meant to kill Dr. Lana Hudson, but he had. Was that the reason his scars had returned with a vengeance?
She’d been pretty. Smart. Even as terrified as she’d been, she’d kept her cool for quite a long time. He’d brought her to Dr. Bowers’s house, the place he’d set up shop after watching that televised interview. It was amazing how little effort they’d put into securing the area, even after he’d finished with Tammy Ryan. Some police tape, an occasional patrol car in the area, but that was all. They’d obviously thought a copycat killer would be foolish to infiltrate the home of The Embalmer. But it wasn’t foolishness that drove Brad. It was boldness. And brilliance. He was smarter than them all, and that was particularly true of the dead doctor. Why shouldn’t Brad enjoy the luxury of Bowers’s home given he’d been the one smart enough to track him down and kill him?
After killing Kelly Sorenson, after discovering the murders were the key to treating his scars, he’d visited Dr. Bowers. He’d explained what he’d been doing. Told Dr. Bowers they should partner up.
But Dr. Bowers hadn’t been willing to share his secrets. As soon as that had become clear, Brad had had no choice but to kill him. He hadn’t listened to any of Dr. Bowers’s psychobabble bullshit when he’d begged Brad for mercy.
And he hadn’t listened to any of Lana Hudson’s when she’d tried to tell Brad he was sick.
He was acting out of pain, she’d said.
Expressing anger because his parents had rejected him.
Because so many people had taunted him.
She’d told him he was a good person and only needed help. Eventually, what she’d been saying had started to make sense.
He’d started to wonder if maybe he was crazy. He’d started to doubt himself. What he was doing. He’d begun to wonder if his obsession with Nora was all based on a fantasy.
Despite the camera equipment he’d set up and the plans he’d made, he’d started to hurt the doctor just to shut her up. But even when he’d started cutting her the doc had shown an amazing tolerance for pain. So he’d started cutting her deeper, just for the joy of hearing her cry and scream, trying to regain that elusive feeling of power that he’d become dizzy with during all the other murders. But that feeling hadn’t come.
Somehow, killing the doctor had tainted him again, accelerating the setback he’d experienced at the café with Nora.
He felt scared. Weak. Powerless.
Scarred. Deformed.
He screamed again, grabbed one of Dr. Bowers’s vases and flung it on the ground. The movement and sound satisfied and calmed him, so he screamed again, grabbed another object and threw it.
It was only a matter of time before others saw it. Mistook his scars for weakness. And started treating him with disdain again.
Brad glanced wildly around him. The pretty blonde doctor was dead, but Jase Tyler wanted proof. Proof that she was alive. That was the only way to lure him in. To separate him from the redhead. How was he—
Wait. When he’d first seen Lana Hudson on the television, he’d thought she reminded him of someone. Who was it? Who—
His neighbor. The blonde woman with the dark-haired husband.
He’d thought she and Lana looked strikingly alike.
Maybe the cops would, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Jase was talking one-on-one with a cold-blooded killer. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so in his career, but it was the first time he was truly scared. For Lana. For Carrie. For himself. For all of them.
He remembered when he’d first learned that Carrie, and not he, had been assigned The Embalmer case. He’d been disappointed at not being able to work another serial case because it would mean fewer kudos to list on his professional record. As if the number of complicated cases he closed was somehow a reflection of how worthy a cop he was. How worthy a man. He supposed because he played so hard on his off time, he’d felt he had something extra to prove when it came to his work. Now it all seemed like utter bullshit.
He had nothing to prove. The same way Carrie had nothing to prove. Yes, good cops liked a challenge. Even better cops had the stamina and ambition to go the long haul. But Jase and Carrie had been using the job as a measure of their self-worth, and that was never a good thing. It had taken working a case with Carrie for Jase to realize that.
When Jase disconnected the call with Darwin, he immediately looked at Simon, who was on a different phone.
Simon shook his head. “We couldn’t trace him,” he said.
“I’m not surprised,” Jase said. “He’s smarter than we thought. Lana’s alive. He let her talk to me. It was brief but—”
“Thank God,” Simon said, and the sentiment was evident in all the sighs of relief that resounded throughout the room. But Carrie was still skeptical. He could see it written all over her face.
“What did she say?” Carrie asked.
“She just said, ‘This is Lana Hudson. I’m okay.’”
“How do you know for sure it was her?”
“It sounded like her,” Jase said. Her voice had been low. Shaky. But he’d recognized her.
“That’s not good enough,” Carrie said. “We need more proof. We need to see her.”
“That’s what he figured,” Jase said. “In thirty minutes, he’s going to post a video of Lana to prove to us that she’s still alive. In order to be sure it was taken after we talked, I told him to have her blow me a kiss, then curl the same hand she’d used into a fist. That way, if we see her do that in the video, we know she’s really still alive.”
“Which doesn’t mean he won’t kill her as soon as he takes the video,” Carrie argued.
“No,” Jase agreed. “It doesn’t. But we’ll take what we can get.” She was thinking on her feet. Covering all the bases to make sure Jase didn’t take any additional risks when he didn’t need to. She wasn’t going to like what he had to say next, but they had no choice. No choice, he reminded himself. “He wants me to get in my car and start driving right now.”
Carrie’s eyes widened. “Now? Before he posts the video?”
“He says the rest of you can verify that she’s alive and call me. At that point, I’ll already be at the meeting spot. The Ferry Building.”
“I’m coming with you,” Carrie said.
“He said for me to come alone. And before you can say it—” He held his hand up. “I know I’m not really going to go alone. Just like we discussed, you and the SWAT team will follow me from a safe distance, but only if you promise me—and I have to be able to trust you to keep your word, Ward—that you will pull back if I tell you to. Can you do that?”
He could tell she struggled with her answer. On whether she should lie. But she didn’t.
“It will be hard, but I’ll do it. We all will. We’ll pull back if you really need us to. But only as a last resort. Promise me that in return.”
“I promise,” he said. “Are you going to bring your sniper’s rifle?”
“You’re damn right I am,” she said.
“And are you really as good as I think you are?”
She nodded. “Yes. But for you? I’ll be better, Jase. The best I’ve ever been.”
He stepped up to her and cupped her face. “You’re already the best, Carrie. No matter what happens, I want you to remember that, you hear me?”
* * *
FIVE MINUTES LATER, they were on their way. Jase drove his Mustang toward the Ferry Building while Carrie followed him in her own car with her sniper rifle stowed in the trunk. Three SFPD SWAT team members, Bo, Luke and Andrews, followed in an unmarked van.
Throughout the drive, she and Jase maintained communication with a wireless transmitter. Simon called her on her cell.
“I watched the damn video,” he said, his voice husky and shaking. “She—she was wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing when she disappeared. She blew the kiss and curled her hand into a fist just like Jase wanted.”
“Was she—was she badly hurt?”
She heard him swallow hard over the line. “Her face was still bleeding from where he’d cut her, and he wrapped duct tape around her eyes, maybe to hide—”
As his voice choked off, Carrie imagined Darwin slicing Lana’s eyelids while she fought him and screamed in pain. “Simon—” she whispered.
“Your shadows from SFPD followed up on the warrant for Dr. Bowers’s medical records and did a search for the names you gave them. They found one.”
“Who?”
“Brad Turner. He came to Bowers for a facial disfigurement. A port-wine stain.”
“Brad—? Oh, God. The guy from the café. But he didn’t have a port-wine stain. He—” She shook her head. “I’ve got to tell Jase. Simon, will you be okay?”
“Just get her back, Carrie. Then I’ll be okay.”
“We will, Simon. We’ll do everything we can.”
But what if that wasn’t enough? What if Darwin—what if Brad Turner—really was smarter than them? Stronger?
They couldn’t lose Lana, but she couldn’t lose Jase, either.
She called Jase and told him exactly what Simon had said. But even as she did, she suddenly remembered her previous conversation with Lana, when Lana had asked if the job always came first. At the time, Carrie hadn’t been completely positive of her answer, but now she was.
