by Unknown
“I feel like I got kicked in the chest by a band of mules,” she admitted. Kevlar had saved her life, but the impact of the bullet had left a brilliant bruise that radiated across one entire side of her torso. She still couldn’t draw a breath without wincing. And she’d die before admitting that to anyone.
“Yeah, well taking a round at close range is going to pack a wallop, vest or not.”
“Did Chandler make it?” Finn had been a tyrant about filtering the news that got through to her, but the last time she’d pressured Mary the woman had said he’d been airlifted to Marquette.
“He didn’t survive the surgery.” The man hooked his elbows over the side rail of her bed, not a flicker of regret on his face. “You hit him center mass. Damn good shot with the girl in the vicinity. Finn hit him twice more.”
She’d gotten that much out of Finn before he’d closed down any discussion of the op in the forest at all. “I hate that he died without giving us answers.” Regret filtered through her. Her father had deserved that much. So had Joseph Atwood.
“We’re piecing together what we need to know.”
The door swung open again. “Guess who gets to go home?”
The sight of her friend lightened something in Keira. “Probably the one of us wearing clothes.” She took stock of Tiffany’s injuries as she came in and took up position opposite Phil. Chandler had beaten her badly. Bruises covered her face and given the stiffness with which she moved, she figured the rest of her body looked about the same. “Nothing’s broken,” the other woman assured her, intercepting her look. “I’ll be all right in a week or so. The biggest problem is my hair. He cut it so short I’d have to get a pixie to even it out.”
“I still can’t believe you had a chance to send me a message about the killer, and you drew Cassie Winkelman’s boobs.” She could joke about it now but had she been able to decipher the flourishes on the note Chandler had forced Tiffany to write sooner; they might have gotten to her much more quickly. But maybe not. As Finn had pointed out in the office, the man had been untouchable. He’d framed Doug O’Shea with all the evidence. They would never have been able to get a search warrant.
“I couldn’t draw an Adam’s apple,” Tiff protested. “He would have known I was describing him. I’m sure he’s got a mirror.” Then she sobered. “You should see that shed he kept me in. He said he liked to keep trophies. He had human ones. There were things in jars and a pair of feet.”
That’s where the former DNR officer had once kept the liver he’d cut out of her father, Keira thought. A souvenir for every kill. At some point hunting animals hadn’t been enough for the man. That’s when he’d become the worst sort of predator.
“He said some things. About Yembley being muscle and almost ruining everything by trying to kill you.”
“She means muscle for Bielefeld’s drug operation,” Phil put in. “We found financial records kept in Chandler’s Au Train house. Looks like he’d been running things for the last several months.”
Tiffany’s head bobbed. “That’s what Chandler said. He told Yembley that Pete was small-time until he caught him with a meth lab in the forest and that it was his idea to expand.”
No wonder neither Bielefeld nor Yembley had shown up on the DNR violation list, Keira thought. Chandler had caught them breaking the law but had turned it to his advantage.
“Yembley said he’d patched Beau up from a bullet wound. But Chandler was furious that he shot at you.” Her friend’s blue eyes were troubled. “He had other plans for you. But he underestimated what he was getting into. Fierce women.” She reached for Keira’s hand.
Right now Keira felt about as fierce as a church mouse, but things could have worked out far differently. She gave her friend’s fingers a squeeze. The fact that they were still alive and Chandler wasn’t said it all. “Damn straight.”
Finn walked in, stopped short in the doorway. His narrowed gaze landed on Phil.
“Don’t give me that look,” the older man remarked, seemingly uncowed. “We can’t get anything done in the office because she’s ringing us off the hook. And if your positions were reversed, you wouldn’t like being kept in the dark anymore than she does.” He pushed away from the bed. “Quit coddling the girl,” he advised Finn. “She’s a Saxon, for chrissakes. She was a homicide cop. She can handle hearing the rest of the details of last night.” He winked at Keira and brushed by Finn as he walked out the door.
“Hey, you know who stopped by my room a couple of times?” Tiffany said. “That doctor. King. I know you don’t like him, but I think he’s kind of cute.”
Horrified, Keira tore her gaze away from Finn’s. “No. Not a chance. He’s a huge jerk. You don’t want to get anywhere near that.”
The woman settled the strap of her purse on her shoulder. “No offense but I’m done taking dating advice from you, based on your last suggestion. Because, hello, serial killer.”
“Well, King isn’t in Chandler’s category,” Keira allowed grudgingly. “But I still say you deserve better.”
“After the weekend I had, I deserve Bradley freaking Cooper. But who among us get what we deserve?” She reached over to brush a kiss across Keira’s forehead. “I hope you get out soon. It sucks being in here.” She turned, rather gingerly Keira thought and waggled her fingers at Finn on the way out. “Take care of her, fudgie.”
He watched her go out the door and then approached the bed, taking up Phil’s stance at the rail. “She keeps calling me that. What’s a fudgie?”
“Hmm, pretty much the same as flatlander. A tourist. The UP has tons of fudge shops, which are very popular with visitors. Hence the name.”
He picked up one of her hands in his, playing idly with her fingers. “So. I guess you’ve been going crazy here trying to figure out what’s going on.”
“I’ve intimidated each and every one of my deputies, browbeating them for details. Turns out,” she noted a little smugly, “they’re more afraid of me than they are of you.”
“If it hadn’t been for me you’d have tried to continue running the op from your hospital bed.” He looked her over critically. If he commented on her looks like Phil had, Keira thought she’d punch him. “Your color’s better.”
She asked the one thing that was uppermost in her mind. “Did Chandler talk before he died?”
Finn shook his head. “But Tiffany told you about the souvenirs, right? I’m pretty sure the DNA matches on some of that stuff will go a long way toward identifying his other victims.”
She’d worked a few serial cases in Chicago. It wasn’t unusual for such a killer to take trophies. Nor was it uncommon for a hunter to do so. Chandler had been both.
“I think you called it, a couple of days ago. You had him dead to rights. He wasn’t just at home in the outdoors; he saw it as his personal hunting ground. Some men want to pit themselves against dangerous animals.” Finn shrugged. “Man is the ultimate prey.”
“Any idea what he did with the bodies?”
He shook his head. “There’s talk of bringing in a cadaver dog. They’ll start with the Au Train property. Plenty of places to dump them on the UP, though. Maybe your father happened upon him doing just that and was killed for his efforts. We do know that Chandler had a poorly healed bullet wound in his side, another fresher injury to his arm and he was out sick for a two-week period when the search for your father was going on. I think both the Saxons wounded him. At any rate, the house in Au Train was a trove of information. His father hasn’t been alive for years. Chandler had been collecting the Social Security since he died.”
Shocked, her gaze flew to his. “How do you know that?”
“Because we found the man’s body in the freezer in the shed, beneath packages of game. Given the massive trauma to the corpse’s head, I’d guess he was one of his son’s first victims.”
“God,” she muttered. “A regular chamber of horrors.”
“It was. He was also a great record keeper. We wondered how Bielefeld had expande
d his operation. The notebooks we discovered in Chandler’s home have those answers and more.”
“Tiffany said he’d run across Bielefeld in the course of doing his job.” And had found a use for the man. She attempted to pull her pillow higher. Finn reached over and adjusted it for her. “How long has his father been dead?”
Finn shook his head. “The body would need to be thawed to make that determination. But no one has seen him around town for at least eight years, and that’s when people remember Beau being there more.”
“Once he took over the property, he had a base for his games.” She wondered how long it had been before he’d taken advantage of that. There’d be no opportunity to understand why Beau Chandler became what he did. But Keira knew his treatment at his father’s hands could have laid the foundation for it. It didn’t excuse it, though. In the end, they were all responsible for their choices.
That thought summoned another. She blew out a breath. “I’m not sure how I’m going to make it up to Doug O’Shea.” He’d likely been traumatized by his arrest and night in jail. She saw the small smile playing around Finn’s mouth. “What?”
“He’s been to your office since you’ve been here. Quite concerned about you, too. I suspect you might find him more forgiving than you think. He remembered being at a meeting for the Friends of the Forest and helping Beau take pictures of the kids there. Chandler probably got his print when Doug was assisting with running off a copy for each child.”
Death and deceit. Chandler had been a master at both. “This case will take weeks to clear up. There has to be a mountain of evidence at the Au Train house alone.” She wouldn’t be sorry to give Finn a reason to stick around to see it to the end.
His next words shattered that possibility. “Since the state has a vested interest in untangling that evidence, they can run the tests on it. I have someone coming later today to pick up the mobile lab. No use you shouldering the expenses from here out.”
She considered for an instant. “What about the money I already spent on that special consultant I hired?” Her smile was slow and wicked. “I’m not sure I got my money’s worth from him.”
His lips curved. And for the first time since he’d come in the door, his expression looked lighter. “As it happens he might be sticking around a bit longer. I have some vacation coming. And I did promise you a trip to Ohio. The place is lovely in February.” And then the humor vanished from his face, and it went deadly serious. “When Chandler didn’t come out of those trees after I gassed the area, I knew he was dead or gone. I went back to check on you and saw…” He swallowed hard. “You cost me a couple of lives in that moment. I got off two shots.” He lifted his free hand to brush her hair back from her face. It lingered to stroke her jaw. “But you were already falling.” His mouth flattened. “I realized before then that I loved you. But in that instant I wasn’t sure I was going to get a chance to tell you.”
Her hand came up to cover his. And the pressure in her chest at that moment had nothing to do with her injury. “I know. Sort of put things in perspective when I was lying there wondering what the heck had happened. I’ve learned by now that we have to reach out and hold on to things we love with both hands. And I love you, Finn. I’m not sure how we’re going to see this thing through living where we do, but…”
“We’ll figure it out.” A smile played around his mouth. “In addition to my leadership skills, I’m also a helluva good organizer. And I plan to organize as much time together as I can until your term here is finished.”
He brushed his lips over hers, and something inside her calmed. Only days ago Keira hadn’t had an idea what her future would entail. Now it was taking shape around Finn Carstens, and that seemed absolutely perfect to her.
OTHER TITLES FROM KYLIE BRANT
THE MINDHUNTERS
Waking Nightmare (Ryne and Abbie’s story)
Waking Evil (Devlin and Ramsey’s story)
Waking the Dead (Zach and Caitlin’s story)
Deadly Intent (Kellan and Macy’s story)
Deadly Dreams (Nate and Risa’s story)
Deadly Sins (Adam and Jaid’s story)
Secrets of the Dead (Declan and Eve’s story)
CIRCLE OF EVIL
Chasing Evil
Touching Evil
Facing Evil
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