by Rita Herron
“Because they should have punished their wives like I did mine!” He turned and aimed the gun at her chest, his lips twisting again. “Just like I’m going to take care of you.”
* * *
FLETCH FELT LIKE a crazy man as he headed farther up the mountain. The images of what could be happening to Jade taunted him.
Halls had proven he was not only violent, but that he was sadistic. Carving the letter C into the women’s palms was meant to inflict pain and to mark them like the letter S had in The Scarlet Letter. Slitting their throats had signified personal rage. And the fact that he’d killed multiple victims meant the murders were not only premeditated, but that he enjoyed the thrill of the kill.
Fletch’s phone buzzed as he rounded a curve. Liam. He quickly connected.
“Fletch, any word from Jade?”
“No. Do you have information?”
“One of our analysts dug deep into Woodruff Halls. Apparently his wife divorced him. We tried to reach her, but no one has seen or heard from her in weeks.”
Knots of tension coiled inside Fletch’s stomach. “Do you think he killed her?”
“That would be my guess. According to a friend of hers, she had an affair. When Halls found out, he went ballistic. She moved to get away from him, but he may have found her.”
“She was his trigger, his first kill,” Fletch said. “Then he got a taste of blood and decided other cheating wives should suffer.”
“That theory fits,” Liam said. “As a divorce attorney, he was privy to his clients’ personal information. The question is—what did he do with his wife’s body?”
An icy chill raced through Fletch’s veins. “He could have buried her or hidden her in the mountains.”
“Hang on, a text is coming through.” A pause, then Liam returned on the line. “Okay, we may have something. Halls’s wife’s family owned a cabin in a remote section of the mountain. It’s possible he killed his wife there.”
Fletch’s pulse thundered. “That’s where he took Jade.”
“I’m a half hour away,” Liam said.
“Text me the coordinates,” Fletch said. “I’m closer.”
Liam cursed. “Fletch, this guy is dangerous. He’s already killed several people.”
“Exactly the reason we can’t waste time,” Fletch said. “Send me the damn coordinates.”
A heartbeat of silence. “All right. But Jacob should be there around the time you arrive. If she’s at the cabin or if Halls is, hang back until Jacob arrives.”
Fletch mumbled that he would, although he had no intention of waiting.
If Jade was with this maniac, he’d do whatever necessary to save her.
* * *
JADE LIFTED HER chin in a show of courage. She was a trained detective. She wouldn’t go down without a fight. “Killing me won’t serve any purpose,” she said. “The police know who you are. They’ll find you and you’ll go to prison anyway.”
“Then I have nothing to lose by adding another body to the count.”
“Killing a cop will definitely earn you life without parole. Besides, I don’t fit the profile of your other victims. The reason you started killing in the first place.”
“Ah, but you’ve given me another reason,” he said with a sinister smile.
His hand trembled. He was rattled, off his game. He’d obviously caught the other couples off guard. Planned the murders and how best to execute them. Details of the crime reports registered in her head. There had been evidence of alcohol in the victims’ systems.
She was a loose end he needed to take care of. “Because I’m exposing you as the monster you are.” It was now or never. She lunged toward him and he swung the gun toward her and fired.
She dodged the bullet, moved her arm upward and knocked the gun from his hand. It skittered across the floor, and she threw him to the ground. He raised his fist and punched her in the jaw.
Pain knifed through her cheek, and her head spun. Determined not to let him win this fight, she shoved her fist into his belly. He grunted, caught her hair and yanked her head backward. She ground her teeth and tried to jab him in the eyes with her fingers but missed. They traded blows, and she connected with his nose. Blood spurted, and he pressed his hands to his face with a howl.
She took advantage of the moment and scrambled toward his gun.
He bellowed like a crazed animal, then grabbed her leg and yanked her so hard she collapsed onto her stomach. Before she could recover, he kicked her in the lower back sending sharp mind-numbing pain through her extremities. Then he climbed on her back and she suddenly felt the sharp point of a knife at her throat.
“Move, and it’s over,” he growled.
Jade went still, breath puffing out, anger searing her veins. He climbed off her, snagged the gun and dragged her to her feet. The barrel of the weapon dug into her back.
“Come on, since you’ve been so chatty, I’m going to satisfy your curiosity before I kill you.”
She channeled her anger into a lethal calm. But he pressed the gun to her head and pushed her down the steps. She grasped the stair rail to keep from tumbling into the darkness, and he clenched her arm and hauled her over the steps and across a concrete floor.
The odor grew stronger, sickening decay at its worst.
Then he shoved her up against an old freezer, opened it and forced her to look inside.
“See, that’s where you’re going now.”
She clawed at the edge of the freezer edge to escape. This man was much more disturbed than she’d imagined.
He’d enjoyed killing his wife so much he hadn’t disposed of her body. Instead he’d kept it as a trophy and watched it rot.
“I used to think she was beautiful,” he said in a sick voice, as if he was far away, lost in a memory. “But cheating made her ugly. And now look at her.”
A sinister laugh echoed off the walls in the cold dank basement, then he lifted the lid of the second freezer.
Terror swept through Jade.
She threw her elbow back and slammed it into his chest, then swung around to fight. But he was too fast.
He whacked the butt of the gun against her temple, and the world spun out of control. She struggled and clawed at him, at the freezer edge to keep from falling inside.
But he hit her again with such force that she tumbled into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jade roused from unconsciousness to a cloying odor. The air felt stale and she couldn’t breathe. She tried to move, but her hand made contact with a wall.
The freezer! Oh, God, he’d locked her in the freezer and left her to suffocate to death.
No air. And it was hot. She wouldn’t freeze to death, but unless she found a way out, she would die.
No...she couldn’t die. She’d just finally remembered who she was, how her partner had died. The reason she’d jumped at the assignment to go undercover and capture the CK. Her parents had been victims. Not related cases, but seeing a wife and husband lying dead together had triggered the trauma of her past. Because of that, she’d volunteered for the undercover assignment to catch the CK.
And the man in the woods who’d come after her...the one she’d shot...she suddenly remembered why he seemed familiar. He’d been serving time in prison for her parents’ murder. Woodruff Halls had taken advantage of that fact. Hired him to come after her. Probably told the man that she remembered him.
Knew that seeing him would add to her trauma.
No wonder she’d repressed her memories.
She inhaled shallow breaths to conserve air as she clawed at the top of the freezer. She pushed and shoved, then raked her fingers along the inside, searching for a release latch.
Finally she found one, but when she twisted at the latch, nothing happened. She struggled with it again, and the heavy lid slipped slightly,
but refused to budge. A clanging sound echoed from above.
Dear God, the maniac had locked the freezer shut with a chain lock.
Tears pooled in her eyes as terror gripped her. How had she let him get the drop on her?
She blinked back tears, her chest aching with regret. If she didn’t find a way out of here, she would die.
Fletch and his brothers might eventually figure out the truth about Halls and find her body.
But Fletch would never know how she felt about him.
For years, she’d been driven by the need to obtain justice for others who’d suffered the loss of a family member as she had. She’d been so focused on the job she’d avoided getting close to anyone.
It hurt too much to lose someone. It was better not to care. Not to dream about love or marriage or children.
But now in what might be the final moments of her life, that was all she could think about.
A life with love. Maybe a wedding and babies. A family that she hadn’t had in a really long time.
A family with Fletch that she might never have.
* * *
FLETCH RACED AROUND a curve, brakes squealing as he sped up the graveled road to the address Liam had sent.
Sludge left from the snowstorm spewed from his tires, mud and ice spraying. He accelerated and bounced over the ruts, then spotted the small cabin set off the road with the mountains rising behind it.
He searched for Halls’s Cadillac, but he didn’t see it. He didn’t see the truck Jane had stolen, either. Although Halls could have hidden a vehicle or the truck in the woods nearby.
Adrenaline pumped through him. Jacob was close, but he couldn’t sit and wait. If Halls was holding Jade here, there was no telling what he might be doing to her.
Jade was strong, experienced, could fight and shoot. But Halls could have ambushed her and she might be at his mercy right now.
It took only seconds to kill someone. The bastard had slit the other women’s throats.
Fear choked him as a dark image filled his mind. No...he couldn’t let Jade die like that. He hadn’t even told her he loved her.
And he did love her, dammit.
He swung his vehicle to the side of the road a few hundred feet from the clearing, wishing he had his gun. No time to waste, though. Jade’s life depended on his quick action.
He slid from his Jeep, eased the door closed, then slowly wove behind the trees flanking the drive toward the cabin.
He scanned the front yard and surrounding property for signs of Halls or Jade. The place seemed eerily quiet, though. Dark inside. No movement. No noise. No signs anyone was here.
Heart hammering, he crossed the distance, ducking and keeping low until he reached the house. He peeked inside the side window at the living room. Empty.
He kept low and moved around the back of the cabin, then peered through another door. Laundry room. Dark. No one inside.
He continued to scope out the property as he inched around to the rear of the cabin. A small deck backed up to what appeared to be a sunroom. All glass along the back. No one visible.
He walked around the far corner and came to another window. This time when he looked inside, he saw a shadow. His breath stalled in his chest as he eased a fraction of an inch closer for a better view of the room in its entirety.
He didn’t see Jade. But Halls sat at a desk flipping through a photo album. The hair on the back of his neck bristled at the sinister leer on the man’s face. Fletch gritted his teeth and stood on tiptoe to see what he was looking at.
He choked back revulsion when he saw the macabre snapshots. Photos of Halls’s victims.
The wind picked up suddenly, rattling the windowpane, and Halls jerked his gaze toward the window. Fletch ducked. But dammit, Halls had seen him.
Hoping the man wasn’t armed, Fletch circled to the back deck, then started to climb the stairs. Before he reached the door, it swung open and a gunshot blasted the air.
Fletch dodged the bullet and jumped behind the railing for cover just as Halls barreled down the steps and opened fire. Then Halls darted to the right and ran around the side of the cabin. Fletch chased him, but Halls shot at him again, and he had to seek cover behind a tree.
The man raced down the hill, and Fletch spotted a compact sedan parked beneath a cluster of trees, hidden by the gnarled branches.
Halls jumped inside the vehicle and started the engine. Fletch dashed toward the car, but Halls fired at him again through the open window. Then Halls accelerated and spun around in the driveway, slinging gravel.
Mud and snowy slush spewed from the back of the car as Halls tore down the drive.
Fletch knotted his hands into fists as he started toward his Jeep. He could go after him. But he wasn’t armed.
And if Jade was inside, she needed him. Every second counted.
He punched Jacob’s number, his chest heaving for breath as he ran back to the cabin.
“I’m almost there,” Jacob said.
“Halls was here. Fired at me and just escaped in a compact dark green sedan.” He recited the man’s license plate.
“On it.”
“I’m going inside to search for Jade.”
“Copy that.”
Jacob’s siren wailed. He was near. Maybe he could catch the bastard.
Fear drove him into the house, and he combed the living room. “Jade? Are you here?”
No sound except for his boots pounding the rustic wooden floor. “Jade, where are you?”
He continued to shout her name as he strode through each room, searching closets and cabinets and beneath the beds. No Jade. Dammit, where was she? Was she even here?
He finished searching the kitchen, then the pantry, then walked through the house again, flipping on lights this time. A terrible stench hit him. Blood? Death?
He followed the source and found a doorway in the hall. He’d missed it in his haste to search the rooms.
He turned the knob, but it was locked. Palms sweating, he jiggled it over and over, but the door refused to budge. He shined his pin light on the lock and realized it was the old-fashioned kind that required a key.
Halls probably had the damn thing with him. He checked the kitchen drawers and cabinets and the desk in the bedroom. The photo album of Halls’s victims mocked him. Dear God, he didn’t want to see Jade’s picture among those faces.
He searched the top of the desk, the shelf above it, then the drawer. No key.
Cursing, he raced outside to his car and retrieved the lock-picking tool set he kept in the trunk. He hurried back into the house with it and darted straight to the door. Dropping to his knees, he jammed the small tool into the keyhole opening and wiggled it until the lock clicked free.
Nerves crawled along his spine as he jerked the door open. Darkness bathed the basement. That horrible, acrid odor assaulted him. Worse down there.
Please, God, no... “Jade!” Nothing.
He raced down the wooden steps. The stench grew stronger, vile in its intensity. Someone had died here.
Jade?
Nausea threatened, but he swallowed it down and scanned the dank interior. A couple of garbage bags in the corner. Two compact freezers.
He darted over to the garbage bags first. Holding his breath, he untied the bags and looked inside. Relief came momentarily. Just trash.
But the freezers... The odor was coming from there.
“Jade!” He shouted her name over and over as he crossed the room to the first one. Both were locked with padlock chains.
Dread curled through every cell in his body. No time to waste. He scanned the basement until he located a storage closet. He ran to it, ripped open the door and found bolt cutters inside.
Shaking with fear, he hurried back and opened the first freezer. The raunchy smell of decay assaulted him the moment he lifted t
he lid. Then horror. A dead woman inside. Her body in serious stages of decomposition. Eyes blank, inside deep hollow sockets where skin and bone had rotted.
He shoved the door shut, leaned back and exhaled, forcing himself to focus. He couldn’t vomit now. Had to find Jade.
Cold terror gripped him as he cut the chain on the other freezer. “Jade!”
Praying she was still alive, he lifted the lid.
God help him... Jade lay curled inside, unconscious.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Fletch called Jade’s name again, but she didn’t move. Fear pulsed through him, and he leaned over the freezer and lifted her from the inside. She was limp, her face bruised.
But thank God, Halls hadn’t slit her throat.
Still, what had he done to her?
He carried her up the steps into the den and laid her on the couch, then checked for a pulse. Barely discernible.
But she was alive.
“Jade, I’m here. Help is on the way.” He quickly checked her body for visible injuries. Cut marks from a knife—no. Bruises—yes. Another blow to the head—yes.
He punched 911 on his phone, gave the operator the address and described Jade’s condition. “Hurry,” he finished. “Please hurry!”
Footsteps sounded outside, and he jumped up and checked the window. Relief hit him.
Liam.
He yanked open the front door. “I found Jade,” Fletch stammered. “And called an ambulance.”
Liam grimaced. “The smell?”
“A body downstairs.”
“Probably Halls’s wife,” Liam said. “No one has seen her in weeks. I’ll get the ME and a CSI team out here ASAP. Jacob issued a full-scale hunt for Halls.”
Fletch wanted to hear that the man was caught. Or dead. Not that he was still on the loose. Still a threat to Jade.
“We’ll catch him,” Liam assured him.
Fletch darted back to Jade while Liam made the call for the evidence recovery team and ME. She still lay unconscious, breath shallow, complexion pasty white. He dropped onto the sofa beside her and cradled her hand in his. “Jade, an ambulance is on the way.” She didn’t respond, intensifying his anxiety. He gestured toward the hallway as Liam ended the call.
