by LENA DIAZ,
She glanced up and cringed as she realized he’d caught her staring at him.
Again.
Twisting on the sofa, she turned to face Officer Riley. He was shorter than Richards by several inches, far less muscular, and not nearly as appealing. She clenched her fist and vowed not to let the police chief distract her any further. “So, Officer Riley, why are you here? I specifically asked the police not to come.”
“We’re here, Ms. Stockton,” Richards began, forcing her to turn back toward him or look impossibly rude. “ . . . Or should I call you Ms. Jones?”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Jones is a legal device to keep the press from finding me and to ensure my privacy. I’ve never gotten completely used to that name.”
He nodded. “Ms. Stockton, we believe the same man who attacked you also killed another young woman yesterday morning.”
She took a deep, bracing breath. “Yes, the officer told me that last night.”
“We also think he may target you again.”
She couldn’t suppress a shiver at the expression on his face. He clearly believed she was in danger. “It’s been years, Chief Richards. If he was coming after me, wouldn’t he have tried sooner?”
“I’m not saying he will. It would be unusual for a serial killer. . . .” He stopped when she flinched.
She took a steadying breath and tried to smile. “Sorry. I hadn’t thought of him as a serial killer until you said that. I guess it only takes two murders to qualify as a serial: my friend Dana and the woman yesterday morning, Carolyn?”
He exchanged a quick glance with the detective. “Technically, two qualifies, although some might argue with that.”
“Chief Richards, what aren’t you telling me?” She stared into his eyes, forcing herself not to look away, even though it seemed like he was trying to stare deep into her soul, as if he knew her terrible secret.
“I spoke to the FBI early this morning. They believe this killer has been operating up and down the East Coast for at least four years, killing several other women.”
Four years. She rubbed the goose bumps that had popped up on her arms. “You think Dana was his first kill.”
“I think you and Dana were both supposed to be his first kills. You were incredibly lucky to escape with your life.”
Lucky, right. Just a simple twist of fate that had nothing to do with her cowardice. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. Just a few more minutes. She could hold it together just a little while longer. All she had to do was answer their questions and send them on their way. Then she could go back to pretending her life was normal.
When she opened her eyes Richards was staring at her, his face etched with concern. He glanced at her hands and she realized how badly she was shaking. She clasped them together in her lap and cleared her suddenly constricted throat. “Since I . . . escaped, you think he came back to finish what he started. Is that what you’re saying?”
He exchanged another glance with Riley. “We don’t have any evidence that he’s looking for you. It’s practically unheard of for a serial killer to go after a victim who got away, but he came back for a reason. I’m speculating he might have decided to go after you as a matter of pride, a job left undone he’s compelled to finish. Or, it could be fear.”
“Fear?” Her fingers began to go numb from squeezing her hands so tightly. She tried to relax.
Richards shifted his position in the chair, leaning forward with his forearms resting on his knees. “Amanda,” he said, dropping formalities, “you spent three days with him. Even though you didn’t see his face, you may know things about him that you don’t realize. The smallest detail could be important: the way he carried himself when he walked, a phrase he repeated, whether he was right- or left-handed.”
“Left,” she whispered, mesmerized by his soothing voice.
“See? You know things about him. If the killer thinks so, too, he may fear you could remember something else that might lead the police to him.”
“No, no, that doesn’t make sense at all. If he wanted to kill me, he would have come after me long before now.” She looked away from those searching eyes and concentrated on breathing in and out. Her heart was beating so fast she felt slightly dizzy. How much longer could she endure these questions, pretending to be calm, when inside she was screaming?
“You moved out of state, changed your name.” He shrugged. “Maybe the killer hasn’t tried to find you before because he didn’t suspect you had evidence that could implicate him. Or maybe he hasn’t had the opportunity to come looking for you before now. Unless he’s independently wealthy, or making his way by stealing, he has a job, like anyone else. Something brought him back to Shadow Falls. Are you willing to bet your life that he didn’t come back to find you?”
She couldn’t breathe. She had to get out of here. She jumped up from the couch. “Where are my manners? I should have offered you something to drink. Sweet tea, anyone?”
She rushed out of the room into the foyer without waiting for a response, desperate to escape before she dissolved into a shaking mass of nerves. The kitchen beckoned to her with its bright, sunny picture window that overlooked the front yard. She hurried through the archway into the cozy room, and clutched the edge of the sink, gulping in deep breaths of air as she stared outside at a world she could never really be a part of anymore.
The little girl who lived two houses away was walking down the sidewalk, her brother following behind on a red tricycle. Their mom shadowed both of them, keeping a close watch, keeping them safe.
Amanda clutched the countertop harder. She’d always dreamed of having her own family someday, raising a couple of kids. Dana’s killer had destroyed Amanda’s dreams with a quick twist of his knife.
Now she just wanted to be alone.
To forget.
Horrific images from the cabin swam in front of her. Her chest heaved. Troubling memories clouded her mind, turning the world dark around her.
“It’s okay.” Chief Richards’ deep voice spoke softly next to her ear, pulling her back from the abyss. “You’re in your house, in the kitchen. No one’s going to hurt you.” He clasped her shoulders gently and led her to the table where he guided her into a chair. “Take slow, deep breaths.” His warm hand kneaded the muscles in her neck, soothing and calming her.
Her breathing evened out. The world stopped spinning crazily around her. The blackness receded. Her heart still raced but she could finally inhale without struggling. His touch hadn’t startled her, as she would have expected. Instead, it had grounded her, pulled her back from a nightmare. She didn’t know what to make of that.
She shook off his hands and he moved to stand in front of her. He picked up one of the cloth napkins from the table and handed it to her. She gratefully accepted it and blotted her cheeks. Until he’d handed her the napkin, she hadn’t realized she was crying. Embarrassed at the weakness she was displaying, she laid the napkin back on the table.
“It’s okay. You’re safe,” he reassured her.
You’re safe. He didn’t ask if she was all right, like most people would after she’d hyperventilated and made a complete fool of herself. No, instead, he said the one thing she needed to hear.
You’re safe.
How had he known what she needed? Why did his presence comfort her and his voice reassure her? This man was turning her carefully ordered world upside down.
Anxious to put some distance between them, she scooted back in her chair. “Thank you,” was all she could manage. With him this close, he could see every detail of the disfiguring scar that ran down the side of her face. She waited for the familiar look of revulsion.
It never came.
Instead, his warm gaze traveled over her face and her hair like a soft caress. He sat in the chair across from her and absently stroked his thumb across the napkin that was wet from her tears.
“Come to the station.” His deep voice touched something inside her, making her ache for the life sh
e’d lost, the life she could never have. “Talk to me about what happened. Help me figure out how to keep this man from hurting you or anyone else ever again.”
Her gaze hypnotically followed the motion of his thumb across the napkin, imagining the same gentle caress across her cheek. Then his words jerked her back to awareness. Talk to him about what had happened? Didn’t he realize what he was asking? She’d spent years trying to rebuild her life, to forget the past. She would not relive that horrible ordeal again. She couldn’t.
She jumped up from her chair and crossed to the sink. Opening a cabinet, she grabbed a glass and filled it with water. After a deep sip, she lowered the glass and stared out the window at the bright sunny morning, trying to draw on its warmth and light to chase away the darkness that was never far away.
“Everything okay in here?” Riley stood in the archway that separated the kitchen from the foyer. He glanced quizzically back and forth between her and Richards.
Amanda wiped the backs of her hands across her eyes. She hadn’t cried once since moving back to Shadow Falls, and here she was crying for the second day in a row. She whirled around to face Richards. “I would appreciate it if you would both leave. Now.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but he gave her a curt nod. “Come on, Riley.”
Amanda followed the two men into the foyer.
Riley stepped outside but Richards paused in the doorway, so close they were almost touching. Impossibly, everything inside her ached for his touch, as if he could wrap his strong arms around her and erase her past.
As if he could save her.
“Amanda.” His masculine voice whispered across her raw nerves, reminding her of everything she could never have. “If you don’t fight now, you’ll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. You need police protection and we need your help. Come to the station. Talk to me about what happened. Help me find out who this man is. Help me stop him before he hurts someone else.”
Resentment came to her rescue, drying her tears, giving her the strength she needed. This man had un-bottled her long pent-up emotions . . . emotions she wasn’t prepared to deal with. And here he stood, in her sanctuary, demanding she go to the police station as if she were the criminal.
“I already spoke to the police about my abduction. They interviewed me so many times I lost count. Do you honestly think I would leave out one single detail that might help someone catch the man who butchered Dana?”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you mean the man who hurt you, too? You were as much a victim as she was.”
She shook her head vigorously, her throat tightening. “Get out.”
A look of pity crossed Richards’ face as he stepped outside. Anger flashed inside Amanda and she slammed the door shut behind him. She leaned her forehead against the cool wood, dragging deep breaths into her tortured lungs. She didn’t want Logan Richard’s pity and she sure as hell didn’t deserve his concern. Because, in spite of his belief that she was as much a victim as Dana was, he was wrong.
He didn’t know what she’d done.
Chapter Three
The taller and brawnier of the five FBI agents scanned the faces of the Shadow Falls detectives sitting around the conference room table. Logan had the impression the man was cataloging each person’s features and comparing them to a mental list of the FBI’s most wanted. His hawklike gaze zeroed in on Logan. “Chief Richards?”
Logan nodded and stood. He’d worked with Feds before, but he was also used to working on their timetable. Since calling them this morning, he’d expected they would arrive several days, maybe even a week later, depending on their workload and whether they agreed with his opinion that he might be dealing with a serial killer. Having his secretary usher the Feds into Monday afternoon’s detective meeting was a pleasant surprise. They certainly hadn’t wasted much time driving in from the Jacksonville field office four hours away.
He shook the other man’s hand. “Call me Logan. Thanks for getting here so quickly.” He introduced Riley and the other detectives sitting around the room.
“I’m Special Agent Pierce Buchanan. We spoke on the phone.” He introduced each of the men who’d accompanied him.
“Welcome to the Panhandle,” Logan said, motioning to some empty chairs as he sat down. “I wish it were under better circumstances.”
“Trust me, I’d rather be here than anywhere else right now. This could be the break I’ve been looking for.”
One of the FBI agents whispered something to Pierce. He nodded and looked at Logan. “Mind if we set up some photos and diagrams around the room?”
“Not at all.”
Two of the special agents set briefcases on the table, and started piling the contents onto the conference room table and sorting it into stacks. Two other men began taping photographs onto the white board that ran along the back wall.
Pierce folded his arms across his chest as he stood beside Logan’s chair. “I’m convinced your killer is the same killer I’ve been chasing for the past couple of years.”
“And the Branson case we discussed on the phone?”
“From the photographs and case notes you emailed me, the signature fits. If so, this guy has operated longer than we thought. I’m surprised we didn’t hear about the Branson case before now. Is your station set up on VICAP?”
Logan hesitated. The previous chief of police hadn’t bothered to link the Shadow Falls PD with the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program database. As a result, the Branson case was never reported to the FBI. If it had been, the FBI would have sent an automatic notification back to the SFPD when a similar murder occurred. The SFPD could have teamed up with the FBI years ago. Maybe they could have solved the case and prevented Carolyn O’Donnell’s death.
“We’re set up with VICAP now,” he said, not willing to air his grievances with the former police chief in front of his men.
Pierce gave him an assessing glance. “You weren’t the chief when the Branson case happened?”
It sounded more like a statement than a question, but Logan answered anyway. “I worked in New York City for most of the past decade.”
“New York? I thought your name sounded familiar. You cracked the Metzger case, didn’t you? Hell of a job.”
Silence filled the room, and every eye turned to Logan. Metzger was a serial killer who’d plagued New York for fifteen months, killing a dozen women before Logan was put on the case. He’d solved it in less than three weeks. But he was never comfortable with the accolades he’d received. He’d simply come at the case with fresh eyes, saw a pattern others would have seen if they weren’t so close to it.
“What can you tell us about the killer?” Logan asked, steering the conversation back to what was important.
Pierce nodded, not looking the least bit offended by the gruff response. He was all business as he turned to his men and directed them at tacking up pieces of paper and pictures on the dry erase board. By now, it was covered with photographs of women who looked remarkably similar. They were all young, slim, white females with long brown hair.
A stab of guilt shot through Logan when a picture of Carolyn O’Donnell was added to the board. He didn’t know what else he could have done to find her in time, but it still bothered him that he hadn’t saved her.
He now realized that even if his men had told him about the Branson/Stockton case right when O’Donnell went missing, it wouldn’t have mattered. After reading through the old case file yesterday afternoon and learning that Dana Branson was killed in one of the cabins on Black Lake, he’d sent his men to search that area. The cabins were rotting and run-down, unused for years since a drought had dried up most of the lake. There was no sign that the killer had taken O’Donnell to one of those cabins. And the case files had yielded no other leads that could have helped them find her in time.
Logan looked past O’Donnell’s pictures to the pictures of Amanda. The first one was her college graduation photo from before the attack. Logan didn�
��t think she looked all that different now. She was still beautiful, even with her scar. She had the same mass of thick, cinnamon colored hair and deep blue eyes that tilted up at the corners.
The main difference between the woman in that photo and the woman he’d met this morning was her smile, or lack of one. He hated that a stranger had taken away the joy and hope that had filled her college picture.
The second photo was from the crime scene at Black Lake. Amanda was balled up inside a hollowed out oak tree where the police had found her after she’d escaped and hid from Dana’s killer. It wasn’t the first time Logan had seen that photo. But now that he’d met Amanda, seeing her skin so deathly pale and smeared with blood was far more disturbing. When an agent handed him a sheet of paper, Logan was grateful for the excuse to look away from that haunting picture.
“Special Agent Nelson is passing out the profile he put together on the killer,” Pierce said. “We’ll update it with information from the O’Donnell and Branson/Stockton cases, but we believe it’s still a viable profile.”
When everyone had a copy, he stepped to the white board. “We’ll review the profile in a few minutes. First, look at the pictures of the women he killed, or left for dead.”
“What do you mean, left for dead?” Riley asked from his seat on Logan’s left.
Pierce drew red circles around the faces of Dana, Amanda, and another woman.
“The killer’s pattern is to stab and strangle his victims, except for these three cases. He stabbed these women, but he didn’t kill them. He left them to bleed to death. We don’t think he cared if they lived or died. He plays a twisted game of chance with each victim, deciding whether to finish them off based on the outcome of that game.”
He glanced at Logan and nodded, as if to reassure him that he’d withhold the information about the thorns. That was something Logan had insisted on when he’d called the bureau. Having information to hold back was vital for culling out false confessions, or for proving they had the real killer in custody.
