The First Victim

by JB Lynn

  “Deputy! Deputy O’Neil, you’ve got to come quick.”

  “Whoa, Williams. Slow down. What’s going on?”

  “It’s your sister, sir. The nurse, she said you should come quick.”

  Bailey’s stomach dropped. He’d spent years dreading this moment. The doctors were always telling him that they didn’t know how much time she had left.

  “Stay right here,” he told Williams. “When Emily Wright comes out of that room, keep her here. Don’t let her leave. Not with anyone but me. Understand?”

  “Understood, sir!” The little twit had actually saluted him, and like a fool, Bailey had returned the gesture.

  “I’m counting on you, Williams.”

  He took off for Shauna’s room at a dead run. The hallways were devoid of activity, so in seconds, he was at her room. He burst through the doorway, past Mrs. Dall, and tore back the curtain that shrouded his sister’s bed.

  His heart stopped at the macabre scene that greeted him.

  What he saw didn’t make any sense. There was no medical staff attending to her. There was just a girl in bed with her.

  Bile rose in his throat and he had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming. Mandy Pinsky, he recognized her from the photograph her parents had given him, dressed in a pair of pink pajamas, had been placed beside Shauna. Bailey instinctively knew the teenager was dead. He wasn’t so sure about his sister.

  She’d been made up just like Mandy and Jackie Willet. The makeup made them look like a pair of grotesque dolls cuddled together beneath the sheets. He shook uncontrollably as he reached for Shauna.

  Her skin was cool. He jerked his hand away as though he’d been burned.

  “Oh God. Oh God, Shauna.” He’d loved her so much. Worshipped her when they were kids, refused to give up on her as an adult. He reached out again and smoothed her hair. Its silky texture, so familiar, was his undoing.

  For the first time in his adult life, he sobbed. He was still crying when he’d had the presence of mind to call Sebastian Black.

  He probably hadn’t made all that much sense, but Black had seemed to understand, and promised to be right over.

  A night-shift nurse, someone he didn’t know, had come in to check on her patients. Thankfully, Bailey had recovered enough composure to stop her in the doorway. She’d never seen the two bodies. He asked her to make sure no one else came in without his permission.

  Sinking down into the chair beside Shauna’s bed, a chair that he’d spent so many hours in, talking to his sister, waiting for her to wake up, he tried to wrap his mind around what had happened. Why had The Baby Doll Strangler painted his sister, why kill her? What pleasure could he have found making a comatose woman his latest victim?

  He liked to toy with his prey, torture the girls.

  Emily.

  The killer could still be in the hospital, and he’d left her alone.

  Jumping up, he’d sent the chair tumbling. He blew past the nurse he’d asked to stand guard, and raced through the deserted halls. Lungs burning from his exertion, he tried to outrun the gruesome images filling his mind. He had to protect Emily. He had to get to her in time.

  But she was already gone when he got to her father’s room.

  He spun around in a circle, unsure of where to go or what to do. He’d lost her. “Emily!” The scream was probably loud enough to disturb everyone in the building, but he didn’t care. He pounded on the wall with his fists, imagining it was The Baby Doll Strangler he was hurting.

  The maniac had invaded his town, murdered his sister, and now he had the woman Bailey loved.

  Chapter 27

  Bailey paced the halls of the hospital waiting for Chase and Sebastian. He’d barely been able to choke out that The Baby Doll Strangler had struck again when he’d called. Chase had said to stay where he was and that they should meet him at the hospital.

  He hadn’t told them about Laurie…or Emily.

  As soon as the two agents burst through the hospital doors he blurted out the terrible news. “He’s got them. He’s got Laurie and Emily.”

  The two partners exchanged a worried look.

  “Where are the bodies?” Sebastian asked.

  “This way.” Bailey led the way, jogging through the hall. “He sent a text message to Emily, along with a photo of Laurie.”

  As they entered Shauna’s room, Bailey’s stomach heaved treacherously when once again faced with the grotesque sight of two bodies intertwined on the bed. Their outfits and makeup were identical.

  “This is all my fault,” Bailey muttered, bending over as the guilt knifed through his gut. “Emily thought her father knew who had her, so I brought her here, and—”

  “You, what?” Sebastian bellowed.

  Bailey cringed. “Look, I know I screwed up.”

  “Damn right you screwed up. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Enough, Sebastian. Do you know who has them?”

  Bailey’s stomach lurched. That smug little son of a bitch had been laughing at him. Biding his time. Waiting to get Emily. “Williams. Has to be. I asked him to watch out for her, and I came and I found…” He glanced at his sister and his voice began to shake. “I found Shauna and when I went back they were gone. I already called in an APB on him, but it’s not like there are many officers out there to look for him.”

  Sebastian moved nearer the bed to get a closer look at the victims.

  “Where would he take her?” Chase asked gently.

  “I don’t know. Oh God, what have I done? What have I done?” He scanned the room as though the clue he needed was right there, waiting to be seen.

  “What if you were wrong, Chase?” Sebastian mused softly as he bent over the bed.

  They turned their attention to him.

  He looked up. “How long has your sister been like this?”

  Confused, Bailey shook his head. “Dead? I don’t know. A couple of hours, maybe?”

  “How long was she in a coma?”

  “Sixteen years.”

  The two FBI agents shared a look.

  “Before or after Emily was kidnapped?”

  “A year before. It had to have been almost to the day. I remember because they both happened on School Spirit day…”

  “You’re sure?”

  Bailey rubbed his forehead. “Yeah. It was the worst day of my life…besides this one.”

  “Timing might make sense,” Sebastian muttered.

  Chase shot his partner a warning look. “What happened to her?”

  Bailey struggled to figure out what they were thinking. It was so hard to focus. First his dad died and now Shauna. And on top of everything else he was going to lose Emily. Forever this time.

  “Bailey, you need to tell us what happened to your sister.”

  “She fell. My dad came home and found her collapsed at the bottom of the stairs. He tried to revive her but…” A cold chill raced down his spine as the horror of what the two agents were hypothesizing suddenly became clear. “Oh my God, you’re thinking that Shauna was The Baby Doll Strangler’s first victim? And that Emily was his second? The pattern. Two girls?”

  The implications of the words spilling out of his mouth hit him like a swinging heavy bag. He had to brace himself against the wall to stay standing. “He’s reliving it all again? Acting it all out.”

  “It’s just a theory,” Chase said. “But it does make sense…”

  “He can’t return to where he took Emily. Or at least I don’t think he will,” Sebastian said. “So the question is, where did he hurt your sister?”

  “Because that may be where he’ll take the Wright sisters.” Chase finished the thought. “Where exactly was she?”

  “The house I grew up in. My grandmother still lives there,” Bailey said. “I can take you.”

  The three ran out to the parking lot and piled into the agents’ car. Sitting in the backseat, Bailey tried to figure out exactly what was going on. “Williams was just a kid. He’s not old enough
to have hurt Shauna or taken Emily.”

  “Maybe he isn’t the one who took Emily. Maybe he saw who did and followed,” Chase suggested.

  They rolled up to his grandmother’s house with their headlights turned off. Sebastian killed the engine before they reached the driveway, not wanting to alert Williams they were near.

  A light was on in a first-floor room. “Somebody’s still up,” Sebastian said.

  “Let’s hope somebody’s still alive,” Chase muttered

  They all pulled out their service weapons.

  “I know the terrain. I’ll go in first, get his attention. You might be able to get the drop on him that way,” Bailey said.

  They crept up the driveway, taking care not to make any noise.

  There were no sounds coming from the house. The eerie silence kicked up the adrenaline that was already pulsing through Bailey’s system. He hadn’t been this on edge, this afraid, since the day Emily and Evan had stumbled into his path. His palms grew sweaty, the gun slipping in his grip. He exhaled slowly and deliberately. He couldn’t afford to let his nerves get the best of him. Too much was at stake.

  He reached for the screen door, swinging it open carefully. It didn’t so much as creak. The front door was unlocked too. Guns at the ready, they entered the home. Bailey taking point. Chase in the rear. It felt surreal to be executing a tactical maneuver in the house he’d grown up in.

  The faint, pulsing light of a muted television cast spooky shadows over the room.

  Suddenly Bailey tripped over something lying on the floor. He fell to the ground with a resounding thunk. So much for a sneak attack.

  “FBI!” Sebastian and Chase shouted as Bailey scrambled to his feet.

  There was no noise or activity anywhere in the house. Everything was still, quiet. Too still, too quiet. Bailey felt along the wall for a light switch. “Got it,” he warned the other men before flipping it on.

  Keeping their guns pointed, they blinked against the glare. The only thing out of the ordinary was the old woman on the floor.

  Bailey’s grandmother didn’t live here anymore. Her lifeless eyes stared up at them, a dozen lollipops crammed into her mouth.

  “Shit!” Sebastian muttered. “This just gets better and better.”

  Bailey’s heart sank, not because he was mourning the passing of the bitter old woman, but because he was pretty sure they weren’t going to find the Wright sisters here.

  Still, they systematically searched the house. There was no trace of them.

  Bailey returned to study his grandmother’s body with professional detachment. Unlike the others, she hadn’t been arranged to look as though she was peacefully sleeping. Her violent death was plain to see. Had the killer returned to the site where he’d attacked Shauna, not expecting to find the old lady? Or had she been his intended victim?

  Sebastian studied the family photographs that lined the walls. “There are two sets of fathers and sons in these pictures. Bailey and his dad with the sister, and another guy and a younger boy.”

  “My uncle and cousin…” Bailey supplied. Trailing off, trying to weave the strings connecting the past and present together into a tapestry that revealed a clear picture of what was happening. “My uncle left town a long time ago…right after Emily escaped…” Just saying her name made Bailey reflexively look out the window in the direction of the Wright house, just as he had done so many times as a kid. It was so late at night, that he found it odd that there was another house on the lake, all lit up. He stared at it. “I know where they are!”

  Sebastian jerked his gaze over to him. “Where?”

  Bailey jutted out his chin. “The house that’s all lit up? That’s the Wright house!”

  Hope and dread coursed through Bailey as they tumbled back into the car and raced toward the Wright house. Please, God, let Emily still be alive, Bailey prayed silently. He’d never forgive himself if anything had happened to her. Never.

  Sebastian drove halfway around the lake at a breakneck speed.

  “Everything is connected to Emily,” Bailey admitted grimly as they tore up the road. “If my father knew and didn’t do anything about it…”

  “We don’t know that, Bailey,” Chase said.

  “But you’re thinking it. How could—”

  “Focus, O’Neil!” Black ordered sharply. “We’ve got lives to save. That’s what you should be thinking about.”

  “You’re right.” He had to concentrate on the task at hand.

  “Except now. The father’s got an accomplice now, the son, an apprentice,” Chase theorized.

  “That’s why they changed the pattern, and started taking two girls at the same time. They weren’t escalating, as much as they were competing.”

  Chapter 28

  The girls were starting to wake up, but they were too drowsy to make a run for it.

  “Inside,” Billy ordered, ushering Emily out of the van, and pointing toward the house. “And don’t try to get sneaky, by ‘forgetting’ to disable the house alarm. I know the code is family.” He pulled one of the girls out of the back of the van, slinging her over his shoulder like she was a sack of potatoes. He followed Emily inside.

  As she disarmed the alarm, wondering how the hell he knew what the code was, she looked over. He was carrying Anna. She was dirty, but didn’t appear hurt. She was rolling her head back and forth, trying to wake up.

  His partner-in-crime, her original kidnapper, an older man who looked vaguely familiar, came in a moment later, carrying Laurie. Her sister looked like she was sleeping, but then she opened her eyes and looked right at Emily before snapping them closed again.

  Emily barely stifled her gasp of surprise. Laurie was awake, but playing possum. Smart girl. This might give them an advantage.

  “Upstairs,” Billy said. “I want to do it upstairs.”

  Emily went first, leading the way. She climbed slowly, taking a mental inventory of what weapons were available to her upstairs. Her paring knife was under her pillow. The pepper spray was in her purse. Where was the mace? What was the point in having a personal arsenal of Armstrong Security products if she didn’t know where they were? She couldn’t remember where the mace was. She remembered unpacking it, but that was it.

  In Laurie’s room she could probably find a nail file and some hairspray. Maybe she’d just throw untoasted breakfast pastries at them. A hysterical giggle slipped out.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” she murmured. This wasn’t the time to antagonize them. She had to figure out how to get the girls to safety.

  The third stair from the top groaned in protest every time someone stepped on it. The man carrying Anna huffed and puffed as he neared the top of the stairs. She could use that to her advantage too. He wasn’t nearly as big as she remembered him being. She could take him.

  Billy was the problem. He was stronger, younger, fit. He was more of a threat, and Emily knew that he was just as dangerous as the other guy.

  “Your room,” the older man gasped breathlessly.

  The five of them trooped into the bedroom. The bed was unmade, the sheets still rumpled by Emily and Bailey’s lovemaking session. That seemed so long ago now. Her heart twisted.

  Laurie and Anna were unceremoniously dumped on the bed, interrupting Emily’s thoughts. Laurie continued to pretend to be unconscious. Anna struggled into a sitting position, and glared at her captors. Emily had to admire the young woman’s spunk.

  While Anna glowered at the men, Emily rushed to her sister’s side. She bent and pressed a kiss to Laurie’s forehead, in a display of sibling affection. She simultaneously slid her hand under her pillow, and palmed her paring knife.

  “Touching family reunion,” Billy drawled. “The fun we are going to have with you. I’ve waited forever for this.”

  Emily put her hands on her hips and asked, “Why are you doing this?”

  The movement allowed her to tuck the knife, blade pointing up, into the back of the waistband of her pants.
She tugged her T-shirt down to cover it as she waited for the men to respond.

  “I’ve waited my whole life for this moment, Emily.” Billy stepped close.

  It was all she could do to hold her ground. Every cell in her body urged her to recoil. She wanted to spit in his smug face like they did in the movies, but knowing her sister was right there, at the mercy of these two sickos, Emily forced herself to stay perfectly still. She couldn’t have done it for herself. She could do anything for Laurie. Her stomach lurched as he caressed her cheek. Gritting her teeth, she balled her hands into tight fists by her sides. Calm, cool and collected. Calm, cool and collected. Think, Em. Think! She couldn’t afford to panic. Not now with Laurie’s life hanging in the balance.

  “I’ve thought about it,” Billy continued dreamily. “Fantasized about you. How you’d look. What you’d smell like. I always thought cherry.” He leaned in and sniffed her hair. “I was right.”

  She couldn’t hide the tremor of fear and revulsion that racked her entire body.

  He smiled, pleased by her reaction. “How it’ll feel when I ram into you. What you’ll sound like when you’re screaming for me to stop.” He slipped his hand around her throat and squeezed.

  Tears sprang to her eyes from the pain. She offered no physical resistance of any kind. She didn’t lash out. She didn’t even try to pull away. She just kept replaying the chant she’d learned in her first ever self-defense class. Eyes. Nose. Throat. Groin. Eyes. Nose. Throat. Groin.

  “I’ve been waiting all these years for my chance to play with you.” He released his grip on her throat.

  Sucking in a greedy breath, she shifted her gaze to the girls on the bed. Laurie was still pretending to be knocked out, but Anna looked poised to fight. Emily shook her head, and the girl sank back down into the mattress.

  “I watched, you know. I had a front-row seat and all the lollipops I could eat. That’s why I added them to the dolls, because they remind me of you.”

  Emily had no idea what he was babbling about. Jackie hadn’t been holding any lollipops.