The Surviving Girls

by Katee Robert

  Lei followed him into the house. She’d cleared it more times than she could count, first to practice and occasionally when either she or Emma got spooked. It was different this time. The threat wasn’t theoretical or imagined. There was really someone in their house who meant them harm.

  “We’ll clear the house and then get Emma from the room. She’s safe there, for the time being.” Dante waited for her to nod and then closed and locked the door. “Stay behind me and stay close.”

  There wasn’t time to argue. She shadowed his path through one room after the other. Sitting room. Bathroom. Kitchen and pantry. All empty. The back door didn’t appear tampered with, but they threw the dead bolt on it as well and climbed the stairs.

  Dante moved with a calm purpose that she respected even as she worked to mimic it. With him next to her, she had no doubt that if they found the killer, they would deal with him accordingly. He made a mistake in coming here.

  The upstairs went faster. Her room. Bathroom. Emma’s room and bathroom. The spare room that was mostly used for storage because none of their parents were interested in coming to visit their damaged daughters. He looked into the closet stacked high with clear plastic totes. “You said there was a secondary safe room?”

  “Yes. It’s connected to our closets.”

  “We’ll check there and then head back downstairs.” His mouth twisted. “I think he got out before we made it back.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but frantic barking stopped her short. If the killer isn’t in the house . . . She’d left Saul in the car. Defenseless. Lei burst into motion. She sprinted past Dante, ignoring him calling her name, and hauled ass down the stairs. It took her two tries to get the dead bolt slid back, and then she was on the porch. She flew to the car. “Saul!”

  He threw himself against the partially rolled-down window, making the door rattle. She managed to unlock it, and he nearly took her to the ground trying to get out of the car. Even though he was obviously alive, she took precious moments to run her hands over his body to ensure there were no hidden injuries. He’s okay. He’s fine.

  Dante slid to a stop next to her, his attention on the tree line. She turned to demand they go after the bastard—there had to be a way to track him—when the sound of a four-wheeler tore through the air. Lei shot to her feet, but it was already fading to silence as he sped away from them.

  They didn’t even catch sight of him.

  “Fuck.” Her knees went out, and she slid back to the ground, her strength disappearing like air out of a deflated balloon. She wrapped her arms around Saul, trying to comfort them both. All for nothing. He broke into our home just to prove he could—to prove that we’re not safe anywhere.

  Dante’s big hand settled on her shoulder, and she didn’t shrug it off. She needed the steadying from him as much as from Saul. So incredibly weak. Yes, she was. She’d get up in a moment and put her game face on, but right then she couldn’t think past the fear clogging her throat and making every breath a battle.

  “Emma? Yes, we’re here. We’ve cleared the house. We’ll be in shortly. Yes, everything will be fine.”

  Not fine. Never that. Right now, the false comfort was better than no comfort at all. She gave Saul one last squeeze and stood. The killer hadn’t come there just for shits and giggles. He’d had a purpose. Maybe it was to hurt Emma, but since that hadn’t worked out, she had no doubt that he’d left them a message of some kind. “Come on.”

  “Lei.” Dante stepped in front of her, his hands once again on her shoulders. “You need to pack. We’re putting you up in a hotel.”

  “No.”

  His brows slammed down, the first sign of temper he’d shown since she met him. Strangely, it made her like him more. He wasn’t perfect—he was capable of the negative emotions to counteract his seemingly unending steadiness. “He’s just proven that he can get to you where you feel most safe. Which means it’s not safe anymore. I’m not going to let you offer yourself up as bait. We’ll find another way.”

  It wasn’t about bait. Not really. It was that she’d been made to feel unsafe in the one place in the world where she’d been guaranteed safety. That bastard had taken that from her—from Emma—and she’d be damned before she let him win. It was their home. She had to fight to keep from snapping back. It wasn’t Dante’s fault that she had a point to prove, even if it was only to herself. She wanted him to understand, but one look at his tight jaw and tense shoulders and she knew he wouldn’t. For him, the only thing that mattered was ensuring her and Emma’s safety. He didn’t care that this place represented the life they’d built for themselves. The future they’d built for themselves.

  She didn’t say any of it. “We need to let Emma know she’s safe.” His jaw tightened, but she kept going. “Then we’ll call Britton and figure out a game plan.”

  Dante couldn’t argue with that, and he obviously knew it. She didn’t know if he was giving Britton regular updates, but Lei had no problems going over Dante’s head to get what she wanted. She might regret the distance it would create between them, but some things were more important than her fledging attraction to this man. Britton would understand why they couldn’t leave the house.

  And if he didn’t?

  Well, she trusted Britton. If hell froze over and he disagreed with her, then she’d put serious consideration into following orders and abandoning their home. She might trust Dante, too, but Dante was as emotionally compromised as she was at this point. He wasn’t thinking clearly. Neither was she, to be perfectly honest. Britton, however, never ceased to think clearly, and she didn’t expect this situation to be the exception to that rule.

  “Let’s get Emma,” she repeated.

  Dante finally nodded. “This conversation isn’t over.”

  “I know.” She strode back into the house, Saul at her heels and Dante behind. Lei pulled out her phone as she walked and called Emma. “We’re here. You’re safe. You can open the door now.”

  A scraping sound came from inside Emma’s office, followed by a thump as she dropped the bar from across the doorway. Two locks turned, and then the door was thrown open and Emma was in Lei’s arms. “Lei, I swear to God, I thought he would find a way in.”

  “It’s okay. I’m here now.” She held her friend close, turning so she could meet Dante’s gaze over the top of Emma’s head. “Would you mind putting the teakettle on? I think we all could use a cup.”

  He nodded and headed down the hallway to the kitchen. Lei squeezed Emma. “Is there anything I need to know?”

  “He got through my security. He hacked our system, which should have been impossible. The security system is on a closed circuit, and my computer isn’t connected to it, so even if he managed to hack me—which he shouldn’t have been able to, but it’s possible—he couldn’t gain access to the cameras without actually being in the house.” As she spoke, her shakes slowed and stopped. Tech talk had always helped center Emma before, and it would this time, too.

  “We’ll find out how he got in.” Lei did some quick math in her head. He must have come directly from the bodies, here. There went the theory that he’d stuck around to watch them discover the dead girls. “We have to talk, Emma. I have bad news.”

  “Emma. Lei.” Dante’s voice came from the kitchen. “Get in here.”

  She exchanged a look with Emma, wondering if he’d heard. But she hadn’t said anything damning. She kept her arm around Emma, and they walked down the hallway, Prince and Saul trailing behind. Dante stood in the kitchen staring down the dogs’ food bowls. “Look at this.”

  Two giant steaks lay there. The dogs instantly went on alert, but Lei snapped her fingers at them, and they sank onto their haunches. “Don’t even think about it.” She strode over and crouched next to the meat. Neither she nor Emma would ever give the dogs a freaking steak, so it had to be from the killer. She looked up as Dante handed her a pair of gloves. Once she had them shielding her skin, she dragged a finger over the surface of the meat. It felt grai
ny, which confirmed what she’d suspected. “It’s been poisoned.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Dante sealed the poisoned meat and stored it in the fridge they had set up in the garage. The women obviously needed some time alone, so he gave them as much space as he dared and made his calls from the front porch. Far enough away that he wasn’t invading their home, but close enough to hear if they needed him.

  This case was fucked.

  He’d hunted unsubs who made a game of it, who taunted the cops, who skirted the edge of being caught because it made them feel alive to pit themselves against the FBI and come out on top. Those cases were mind trips, and when paranoia set in for the investigators, it could get ugly.

  This was different. This unsub didn’t give two fucks about the cops. They were a means to an end in order to get to Lei and Emma. He sank onto the top stair and frowned at his phone. Lei and Emma. Emma and Lei. They treated each other like a package deal, so he’d been treating them as the same—at least as far as this case was concerned. There was no telling if the unsub felt the same way.

  There was no telling a lot of things when it came to this case.

  He called Detective Smith first. Smith answered the phone, breathing hard. “Now’s not a good time.”

  Not a good time for anyone these days. “The unsub broke into Emma Nilsson and Lei Zhang’s house and tried to poison their dogs.”

  Smith cursed long and hard. “That fucking guy. Those dogs didn’t do a damn thing and he’s poisoning them? That’s crossing the line, even for a serial killer.”

  Dante raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t taken Smith for being a dog lover. “We’ll need someone out here to collect the evidence.”

  “Get in line.” He paused and seemed to gather himself. “My only available lab rats are out in the woods collecting those two girls you found. It will be hours yet before they’re back and have that evidence processed. We had a triple murder-suicide this morning, and all my available people are on that. Stay there and keep the scene secure.”

  There was nothing in the scene to secure. Other than the meat left for the dogs, the women hadn’t found anything out of place. They were currently holed up in Emma’s office trying to figure out how the unsub had gotten around their security, but they’d combed the house first. Everything was accounted for. Nothing was even moved.

  As much as he wanted to hover and be sure Lei was okay, the investigation wouldn’t pause while Detective Smith got his shit figured out. “With all due respect, Detective, it would be better if you sent a uniform out here to stay with the women so I can be available for the autopsy.”

  “I’m more than capable of sitting in on an autopsy and writing up a report. You’re already there, and Zhang shows all evidence of trusting you. The other one will follow her lead. Besides, even if I wanted to send a uniform, Stillwater is well out of our jurisdiction. You’ll have to take it up with Sheriff Bamford.” Noises sounded in the background. “I have to go. They’re bringing the bodies in.” He hung up.

  Dante cursed under his breath. That bastard didn’t give a fuck about the women being protected. He’d seen a chance to get Dante out of his hair, and he’d jumped at it. There was no fighting the order, either. The FBI was there solely on the invitation of the Seattle Police Department. If Detective Smith decided to play hardball and cut them out, there wasn’t much they could do about it. While they could theoretically push Sheriff Bamford to issue his own request for help, that sort of maneuvering was generally frowned upon.

  With a sigh, he dialed Britton. As usual, the head of the BAU didn’t make him wait long before answering. “Dante. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard from you before now.”

  A gentle rebuke as such things went, but Dante felt the sting regardless. “Apologies.”

  “No need to apologize. Clarke’s kept me abreast of the broad strokes.” Britton laughed softly. “She’s certainly fond of texting.”

  Dante closed his eyes and counted to ten. It was that or he might march into the forest, find Clarke, and strangle her himself. She’d promised she wouldn’t text Britton anymore. As the usual recipient, Dante knew for a fact that what few filters she had in person disappeared when she was texting. “I’ll talk to her.”

  “No need. I knew who Clarke was when I brought her into the BAU.” Another pause, and this time Dante could actually feel Britton focusing all his considerable personality on him. “I’d like an update.”

  Dante took him through it step by step. It felt good to lay it out. He hadn’t had a chance to do more than react since they were brought in on the case. Britton listened without comment until he finished detailing his conversation with Detective Smith. “What are your thoughts?”

  That was the question, wasn’t it? Dante had a whole lot of thoughts and suspicions but nothing concrete. He didn’t like putting gut feelings out there, but Britton valued that element as much as physical evidence when it came to his agents. “It feels wrong. We’ve dealt with copycats before, and while they usually deviate at some point, it usually takes more than one scene to escalate to that point. Even the ones that work with the original killer . . .” Dante went still. “You worked the original Berkley case.”

  “Yes.”

  Was he imagining it, or was there something guarded in Britton’s voice now? Dante shook his head. “You remember that old theory of yours? The one about a possible partner? You might have been closer to the truth than anyone could have dreamed.” Maybe someone named Trevor.

  The Seattle detectives were still combing through Berkley’s mail, but so far there was nothing that even looked like it was written in code, let alone something more obvious. The photo had gotten through because it seemed innocent enough—if strange. But that appeared to be the only interaction between the unsub and Berkley. What was more, the unsub had ensured that Lei got the information with the coordinates separate from the police—a way to make sure she stayed involved in the investigation. It was a dare, a challenge, and it reeked of unfinished business.

  Britton was silent for a long time. Too long. “We’ve never been able to prove anything. Berkley took full credit, and Lei and Emma only ever saw and interacted with him. There was no evidence that another person was involved.”

  That would be important to Britton—the evidence—but Dante heard what he wasn’t saying. “But you were sure.”

  He exhaled. From Britton, that might as well have been a string of cursing to make even a sailor blush. The head of the BAU didn’t let a little thing like emotion get in the way of his doing his job—and part of his job was interacting with his agents and helping as necessary. “Berkley fit the profile, but there was something missing. The differing style of the murders isn’t unheard of, but every single one of the victims who was strangled was raped, and the stabbing victims weren’t.”

  “I didn’t know that. It’s not in the file.”

  “It is, but I didn’t categorize them. Several of the victims were both stabbed and strangled, which blurred the lines and seemed to support that Berkley was the sole perpetrator.”

  Dante thought back over the timeline listed for that night. It was possible that Berkley had beaten Lei, left her in her room, and let someone else into the house. The only person Emma saw in the room where he gathered the girls was Berkley, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a partner waiting in the wings. “If they were partners, and Berkley isn’t the one orchestrating this, then that would suggest he wasn’t the dominant partner.”

  “Careful of making assumptions. Twelve years is a long time. If there was a partner—and at this point, that’s a rather large if—there are any number of factors that could go into them finding their independence and functioning separately of Berkley.”

  They couldn’t take anything for granted . . . but that didn’t feel right to Dante. The unsub hadn’t seen any actual consequences from the Sorority Row Murders. Berkley had gone to jail, so it made sense that he would hyperfocus on the women who got away. His partner had no reason
to go back to re-create the crimes and hunt down the two escaped victims. Berkley was the one who’d picked Lei specifically to target . . . unless someone else had guided him in that direction.

  The thought of Berkley and a partner considering the sorority members to find a woman for their purposes made Dante sick to his stomach. The fact that it was Lei was so much worse.

  He sighed. “What it comes down to is that we have jack shit—sorry about the language. I haven’t had a chance to draw up a profile, but this guy is a lot different than Berkley. He’s making bolder moves, and he’s on some kind of compressed timeline. It makes sense that he’ll either strike at the women or do something to try to draw them out, and he’s got enough tech knowledge that he can get around the security they set up.”

  “Some of the security.” In the background, a door opened, and Britton cleared his throat. “I have to go. I think it’s best you stay where you are. Have Clarke come to you once she’s finished with the autopsy. You have two women who have more knowledge about this case than anyone else, excepting perhaps myself. There are differences between the original murders and the new ones—mark my word. Find what those are and you’ll have the first string to tug on in order to find your unsub. Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” Dante hung up, frustration threatening to boil over. He clenched the phone in his hand and glared at it. For the first time since he’d joined the BAU, Britton hadn’t had some helpful tidbit of information to share that would put him on the right path. The man had a reputation for being damn near psychic when it came to crime—he knew things he shouldn’t be able to. Dante hadn’t realized how much he’d taken that knowledge for granted until he no longer had access to it.

  “He makes me crazy sometimes, too.” Lei stepped out of the screen door and sat next to him on the top stair, a careful six inches between them. “I take it he didn’t have any magical advice to dole out?”