by Rita Herron
Idiot. He was so caught up in his evil fantasies and behavior that he’d been easy to trap.
She watched him park a few spaces from where she’d left her car. Rain clouds darkened the sky, casting shadows on the man’s face as he climbed from the driver’s seat. He jingled the change in his pockets, searching the parking lot. He seemed to have a little spring in his step.
He was excited. Looking forward to meeting Zoe and getting her alone.
Rage ate at her, and she stowed the duffel bag between two trees, then removed the pistol from the bag.
A smile tugged at her mouth as she inched to the edge of the live oak and called his name. He pivoted, scanning the area.
She remained hidden beneath the shade of the Spanish moss, but gave a little wave.
Just as she’d hoped, he sauntered toward her. Thinking with his dick, that was what drove him.
That would be his downfall, too.
She gripped the pistol behind her, her blood heating with adrenaline.
This man was finally going to get what was coming to him.
Then no other teenage girl would have to put up with his nasty hands again.
He noticed her then. Surprise and confusion mingled on his face. But he didn’t rush away. He was too curious.
Asswipe.
“I thought I was meeting Zoe here for a driving lesson,” he said with a smile.
“How about a mother-daughter?” She blinked flirtatiously.
A grin split his face. “You’re talking about driving, aren’t you?”
“Of course.” She raised the gun and waved it toward him, and fear widened his eyes.
“Get in.”
He shook his head, the brave face gone. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“No misunderstanding at all.” She pointed the gun at his forehead. “I said get in.”
He trembled like a kid caught stealing gum from a store but slid into the interior. “Please don’t hurt me,” he pleaded.
“You force yourself on young girls, you pervert. You don’t deserve to call yourself a man.”
“I won’t do it again,” he cried. “I swear. I’ll never touch another girl.”
“No, you won’t.”
When he reached for the keys to escape, she pressed the gun to his temple and he went still. She snatched the keys and tossed them into the bushes.
“Put your hands on the steering wheel.”
He slapped them up there with a whiny grunt. She laughed. Weasel.
Then she snagged the rope at her belt. He tried to shove the door closed, but she caught it with her boot and shot at his crotch.
He screamed like a baby as the bullet hit home, then went ashen-faced and pressed his hand over his bloody cock. Satisfied he wouldn’t fight back anymore, she jerked his hands up one by one and tied them to the steering wheel.
Once she had them secure, she retrieved the hatchet from behind the tree and brought it toward him. He was crying now, his face shriveled up as he sobbed, blood oozing from his lap.
“This is for Zoe and all the others.” With one quick swing of the hatchet, she chopped his right hand off. He bellowed in pain.
She raised the hatchet to cut off the other.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A wave of dizziness washed over Korine. The dolls . . . looked exactly like the ones in her collection at her mother’s.
Except someone had turned them into night-lights, making them look spooky. The brightly lit eyes pierced the darkness as if they were watching her every move.
Hatcher cleared his throat. “Korine?”
“My father gave me porcelain dolls for my birthdays and Christmas,” she said in a raw whisper. “I left all but one of them at my mother’s.” With the memories and her childhood.
Hatcher examined the doll heads, then returned to the front door and studied the lock. “I don’t see signs of a break-in. Is there another entrance?”
Korine pointed toward the hall. “There’s a patio with a garden in back.”
“I’ll check it and the windows.”
A memory tickled the back of Korine’s mind, launching her back in time.
Her father’s smile as he placed a beautifully wrapped box in her lap. Excitement made her giddy as she touched the shiny pink bow.
“Happy birthday, my pretty girl,” her father said. “Go ahead, open it.”
She giggled as she tore into the wrapping. The white, sparkly paper hit the floor, and she lifted the lid on the box.
A beautiful porcelain doll with hand-painted green eyes and freckles dotting her cheeks lay on a bed of ivory satin. Korine traced a finger over the delicate lace hem of the green velvet dress.
“She’s beautiful,” she whispered as she lifted her from the box. “I love her, Daddy.”
She threw her arms around him, and he picked her up and swung her around, dancing with her and the doll.
Later that night, though, as she started to place the doll on her bed with her others, she realized one of them was missing. The doll with the golden hair and Christmas dress, the one she’d received the year before.
She slipped from bed and tiptoed down the hall. A crashing sound came from Kenny’s room. She froze. Kenny was cursing and stomping around inside.
She cracked the door and peeked into the room.
The model planes he’d put together with their father were scattered on the floor, broken to smithereens.
Kenny kicked at a broken wing, his hands in fists.
Then he set her Christmas doll on his desk, raised the hammer, and smashed the doll’s face.
“No!” she screamed.
He turned toward the door, his face angry. Then he took a menacing step toward her.
Terrified, she ran to her room and slammed the door. She quickly locked it and leaned against the door, her chest heaving for a breath.
She wiped at tears, afraid he’d break in.
But finally he stomped away, and his bedroom door slammed with a bang.
Trembling, she crawled in bed with her new doll and hugged it to her.
Hatcher’s footsteps pounded on the floor as he returned from the rear of the house. “The back door doesn’t look like it was jimmied. Does anyone else have a key to your place?”
Her mind raced. “My mother.” Which meant that Kenny could have access to it.
He was furious with her for forcing him into rehab. And he’d hated the dolls her father had given her.
Had he snuck away from rehab and left those doll heads to frighten her?
“Have you seen these doll heads before?” Hatcher asked.
“No.” She examined the doll heads but didn’t touch them. She had never seen these dolls before, although they reminded her of the ones her father had given her. “It looks like someone decapitated the dolls, then inserted the lights.”
Korine was right. The heads had been severed with a sharp knife or instrument of some kind, but the method was crude, the edges rough, not smooth or as if created by an artist.
“Have you had trouble with break-ins before?”
She shook her head with a frown.
He couldn’t help himself. He pulled her up against him. She surprised him by leaning her head against his chest. Her breath rushed out, a quiver rippling through her.
God, she acted so tough. She was tough.
But she was shaken, and she was his partner, and dammit, he knew what it felt like to be alone.
He also knew what it felt like to have her naked in his arms, passion exploding between them.
His fingers itched to stroke her bare skin again. To press his lips on her body and hear her moan his name.
She flattened one hand against his chest and lifted her head. Storm clouds outside obliterated the sun, and shadows streaked the room. Thunder clapped, almost in time with the furnace rumbling and his heart pounding.
He rubbed her back. “Korine?”
She sighed and pushed away, her breathing shaky. Probably from fear
, although something dark and needy flashed in her eyes before she glanced back at the mantel.
“It’s probably nothing. But yesterday when I came in, my music box was playing. It wasn’t where I’d left it, so I thought someone might have been inside.”
Skepticism ate at Hatcher, thankfully forcing his hunger for Korine to take a back seat. “Why would someone move your music box?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe I moved it and forgot about it.”
Her story reminded him of the lies Felicia had told. Little things that she’d notice were missing or moved.
He hadn’t believed her at the time. Had thought she’d just wanted attention because she had exaggerated before, called to say someone was looking in her window or following her, all to scare him into rushing to her.
Then one day someone really had been following her. Only he’d thought she was crying wolf again.
He couldn’t ignore Korine. “Is there anything significant about the dolls?”
She sighed wearily. “My brother hated them,” she said. “One night I saw him smashing one of the dolls’ faces with a hammer. Another time he buried one of them in our backyard.”
“Isn’t he at the rehab center now?” Hatcher asked.
“He’s supposed to be.” She gestured toward her phone. “Call ERT while I check with the center.”
He stepped into the foyer to make the call, but he couldn’t keep from staring at the doll heads and wondering what kind of twisted person had thought of inserting lights into them. They looked like something out of a horror movie.
Korine made a quick call to the rehab facility. Kenny was still there, so he couldn’t have been in her house.
She scrutinized the doll heads again looking for a clue as to who’d left them. No message or note. Nothing.
She walked through the living room, scanning the bookshelves and coffee table for anything out of place, then did the same in the kitchen. From there, she moved to her bedroom, but her bed was still made, throw pillows exactly as she’d left them, closet in order, her discarded boots in front of the chair in the corner.
She checked her bathroom—toiletries just as she stored them, hairbrush on the vanity, towel hanging on the hook.
She hurried into her office. She wondered what Hatcher thought of her wall of crime photos and notes on unsolved cases.
She quickly glanced at the files and board, but everything seemed in place. Except . . . the picture of her and her father.
Instead of being displayed prominently, it was lying facedown.
She started to pick it up but reminded herself not to touch it. If her intruder had touched it, he—or she—might have left a print.
Korine called her mother’s home number. Esme answered on the second ring. “Davenport residence.”
“It’s me, Esme. How’s my mother today?”
“She’s been calmer,” Esme said.
“That’s a relief.”
“What happened with your brother?” Esme asked.
“I took him to rehab and gave him an ultimatum,” Korine said. “If he doesn’t stay, I’m finished with him.”
“I’m sure that was painful for you.”
Emotions welled in Korine’s throat. Esme was like a second mother to her. “It was, but he needs to figure out the reason he drinks. A therapist can help him with that. I can’t.”
An awkward silence followed.
“There’s something else. Does Mom still have that key to my house?”
“Just a minute and I’ll check.” Esme hummed beneath her breath as she walked, a habit she’d had ever since she’d started to work at the Davenport house ten years ago. “It’s in the drawer.”
“How about the dolls in the curio? Are all of them still inside?”
“The dolls?”
Korine pictured the way Esme’s nose wrinkled when she frowned. “I know it’s a strange question, but it’s important. There were six in the case.”
“They’re still there, just as you left them.”
Still mystified but grateful her intruder hadn’t stolen the dolls from her mother’s, Korine thanked Esme and ended the call.
By the time she returned to the living room, Hatcher was escorting the evidence team inside. Tammy Drummond and Trace Bellamy again.
Tammy raised a brow in question at the eerie doll heads on the mantel. “What the hell?”
“That is downright creepy,” Bellamy muttered.
“Check the doors and windows for prints along with the mantel and doll heads,” Hatcher said.
Korine sighed. “I also need you to dust in my office.”
“What happened in there?” Hatcher asked.
It seemed silly to mention, but working a case meant every detail mattered, so she told him about the photograph.
Had her father’s killer come after her? If so, why now?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Tinsley startled at the sound of the rain pounding the roof and windows. The wind tossed leaves and twigs across the sand, the high tides bringing in shells and seaweed.
Her nerves were raw from the visit with Hatcher and that other agent. Korine Davenport. She was tough.
It would be nice to have her on your side if you were in trouble.
But she could also be a formidable enemy.
Though Mr. Jingles’s cage door remained open, he hadn’t ventured any farther than his post, where he remained perched with his head cocked, tiny eyes following her as if expecting her to run screaming like a banshee any minute.
She pressed her hand against the glass, the cool, slick pane thick with fog. Thunder clapped, the wind roaring. She searched the gloomy outdoors, praying the Skull hadn’t found her.
Although it was just a matter of time.
The image of the judge’s body on her dock surfaced in the mist. Agent Davenport’s questions echoed in her head.
Shivering with the cold and fear, she brewed a cup of tea and carried it to her desk. She logged on and skimmed some of the comments to her blog post, each one tearing her heart out.
The two Agent Davenport had pointed out did sound damning.
There were followers she worried about. She’d done some digging and learned they had a private chat room. One of them had even reached out to her.
They called themselves the Keepers.
Her lungs tightened as she clicked to skim new entries.
If one of them had murdered the judge, or that monster child molester, they might have shared it here.
Did she really want to know? Or was it better that she remain in the dark?
Then she wouldn’t have to lie if the police questioned her again.
She paced the room, torn. The Keepers wanted justice, to right wrongs done to innocents, to make up for the law when it failed . . .
She padded back to the desk, then drummed her fingers on her laptop. She could simply avoid looking.
She paced to the window again. But the image of that dead body wouldn’t leave her alone. She’d come to this cove for peace and solitude, to escape the violence that had tainted her life.
But violence had found her again.
She couldn’t sleep at night unless she knew the truth. Then she would decide what to do.
Bracing herself for whatever she found, she clicked and entered the Keepers’ message board.
The first three posts seemed like personal stories, heartbreaking, but not violent accounts.
The fourth entry sent a sliver of unease through her.
KeepersHand
Out for Blood
Strike three off the list.
One less predator on the streets tonight.
But there are others out there.
We have to stop them.
The police are asking questions. Instead, they should be thanking us.
We are the Keepers, and we won’t let anything—or anybody—stop us now.
Whoever tries will have to die.
Next we go after him.
&nb
sp; I can’t wait to feel his blood on my hands and watch it drain from his body.
But death can’t come too easily. He has to suffer first.
Just as he made his victims suffer . . .
CHAPTER THIRTY
As the evidence team processed Korine’s house, Hatcher had a bad feeling they wouldn’t find anything. With the popularity of crime shows, most perpetrators were smart enough to wear gloves. But, hey, the team could get lucky, especially if this person was an amateur.
Korine’s brows were knitted into a deep frown as she stepped onto her back patio. He snapped a few pictures of the doll heads for his own reference, then joined her.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I checked. Kenny’s still at the center.”
Her back was to him, her face lifted toward the dark clouds. The rain was slacking off, the wind shaking droplets from the branches and adding a cold chill to the gloomy atmosphere.
She pivoted, her expression tormented. “How bad is that, that I suspected my own brother of this?”
He shrugged. “It’s understandable. From what you’ve told me, he’s had problems for a while. It sounds like he’s jealous of you and the fact that you have your life together.”
“I have my life together?” A sarcastic laugh rumbled from her. “You saw the wall in my office. I’m obsessed with murder and old cases to the point of excluding people. I live alone, never had a pet or a serious boyfriend. My mother is mentally ill. I have very little decor because I don’t want to get attached to anyplace. I can’t even put up a Christmas tree because it reminds me of the night my father was murdered.”
Hatcher inched closer to her. “You suffered a terrible shock and loss at a young age. That would affect anyone.” Just as losing his wife affected him. “At least you turned your loss into motivation to help others by solving crimes. That’s far more healthy than indulging in alcohol or drugs.”
She rubbed her hands up and down her arms to warm herself.
Even as he told himself to resist, he couldn’t help but reach out and place his hands over hers. “You had every right to question your brother,” he said. “You’re trained to analyze all angles of a crime, which means starting with the most obvious suspects. Unfortunately, that’s usually family.” He paused. “But if your brother didn’t do this, who did? Who else knew about the dolls?”
