The Fifth Victim

by Beverly Barton

  “He doesn’t know anything except what Genny Madoc told him, and believe me, anything she said isn’t something that will hold up in court.”

  “Court? Do you think being arrested is my only concern? If the truth about your being a witch ever came to light, I’d lose my job. I’d never be allowed to preach ever again.”

  “I can’t say that would be so bad. I hate being a minister’s wife. I always have.”

  “Yes, I know.” The look Haden gave her told her that he loathed her every bit as much as she despised him. “We have a great deal to concern us. A great deal. What if Genevieve Madoc tries to contact you again?”

  “I hope she does. She’s very powerful and she could—”

  Haden slapped Esther. She reeled backward, rubbed her cheek, and glared at him.

  “I won’t allow it,” he told her. “Do you hear me? You must know how dangerous that woman is to us.”

  She laughed at her husband. “I did as you asked. I’ve made sure all the items that could connect us to the coven are well hidden. I intend to do my part to protect us. But understand this—I’m not afraid of you, Haden. You can’t control me.” She walked right up to him and smiled. “And no matter what you think, you can’t control Genny Madoc. But maybe I can. I can put a curse on her. I can—”

  “You’re a fool if you think you can cast spells or put curses on people. You don’t have any magical powers.” He looked at her, running his gaze from her head to her feet. “The only talent you have is using your body to pleasure men. You can’t handle Genny Madoc, but I can. I know a way.”

  Wallace MacKinnon had called late in the afternoon to ask if he should come to work the following day. Dallas had told him he should, unless he heard otherwise from Genny. There was no reason to assume Genny wouldn’t be able to continue her life in a fairly normal way, despite her knowing she was the final target for a madman. Dallas felt reluctant to leave her alone, even if Jacob could provide adequate protection. But as it was, Jacob’s deputies were limited in number, and each was needed, so it would cause a hardship to the Sheriff’s Department to post one officer to guard Genny. And Dallas wasn’t sure if he would trust her safety to anyone else.

  While Genny rested, Dallas inspected the greenhouses for her as she had requested when she’d awakened briefly. He’d left Drudwyn at her bedside and had double-checked all the doors and made sure they were locked before he’d gone outside.

  The sun had already set, and twilight shadows crept across the hills. Night was fast approaching. Standing near the back porch, Dallas gazed skyward. Overhead storm clouds swirled. Off in the distance, thunder rumbled. They’d probably get rain before morning. And if the temperatures dropped into the low thirties tonight, they might get some fleet.

  Dallas entered the screened porch, wiped his feet on the mat, and removed his coat. He should put on water for tea. When Genny woke, she’d want something warm to drink. And he’d fix sandwiches for supper. She probably wouldn’t want anything to eat, but he’d encourage her to put a little something in her stomach.

  After hanging his coat on the rack on the porch, he went into the kitchen and began preparations for their evening meal. Before the teakettle whistled, he heard Drudwyn yowling and knew Genny was awake and playing with the wolf-dog. Quickly, he prepared a cup of tea. As he carried the mug down the hall, he thought about how unlike him it was to be smothering a woman with tender, loving care. In his relationships, the TLC was usually directed at him. Women tended to chase him, and when they thought they had even the slightest chance of catching him, they’d smother him with attention. This was the first time in his life that he’d been the giver and not the taker.

  He grunted as he paused outside Genny’s bedroom. Funny thing was, he’d never cared enough about a woman before to concern himself with her needs beyond sexual satisfaction. Genny was different.

  God, what an understatement!

  When he entered the bedroom, he found her sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace. She had her arm draped around Drudwyn’s neck and was stroking him lovingly.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  She looked up at him and smiled. “I’m feeling fine.” She eyed the mug he held. “Is that for me?”

  “Hot tea.” He brought the mug to her.

  “Thank you.” She accepted his offering, then lifted the mug to her lips and took several tiny sips.

  He reached down and skimmed his hand over her hair, from earlobe to shoulder. “Drink your tea while I go back in the kitchen and put together a couple of sandwiches for us.”

  “I’m really not very hungry.”

  “Then you’ll eat what you can,” he told her. “But you’re going to eat.”

  “Yes, yu ne ga, I will obey,” Genny said teasingly.

  “What did you call me?” he asked.

  Genny laughed. “I called you a white man.”

  “Well, I am a white man, so I guess that wasn’t an insult.” He grinned. “What is it that Jacob calls you? I gi go?”

  “I gi do,” Genny corrected. “It means sister in the Cherokee language.”

  Suddenly Dallas felt a twinge of jealousy that she shared so much with her cousin Jacob, that he even had a pet name for her. “Maybe I should learn the Cherokee language,” Dallas told her as he started to leave.

  “Do you want to know a name I would like for you to call me?” she asked.

  He paused when he reached the doorway, then glanced over his shoulder. “What would you like for me to call you?”

  “A qua da li i.”

  Dallas repeated the words. “What does it mean?”

  “I’ll tell you…someday.”

  Genny’s smile brightened the whole room. Hell, it brightened his whole world.

  “I could ask Jacob.”

  “You could. But you won’t.”

  “Drink your tea,” he told her. “I’ll be back in a little while with your supper.”

  “I can come to the kitchen.”

  “All right, if you feel up to it.”

  “I’ll come with you now. I need to put out feed for the birds and other animals. They’ll be expecting it.”

  “Tell me where you keep the feed sacks and—”

  “They won’t take food if anyone else has touched it.”

  Dallas grimaced. “I should have known.”

  When Genny rose to her feet and followed Dallas, Drudwyn galloped after her. Once in the kitchen, Dallas set about preparing their sandwiches while Genny went out onto the back porch. She removed a huge feed sack from a wooden storage box near the stack of firewood; then she filled four bowls and stacked them one on top of the other and set them on the floor. After removing her coat from the wall rack and putting it on, she picked up the bowls.

  When she swung open the screen door with her hip, Drudwyn dashed outside. Balancing the bowls with both hands, Genny walked out into the backyard. The screen door flopped shut with a loud bang. Dallas dropped the butter knife he was using to spread mustard on the bread slices and ran after her.

  “Genny, wait,” he called. “I don’t want you—”

  The shot rang out in the hushed stillness of twilight. Dallas yelled her name. Suddenly he felt as if heavy weights were attached to his ankles. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. He heard the shot. He heard his own voice echoing inside his head. He saw Genny balk, then grab her shoulder and lean to one side. He saw Drudwyn take off like a rocket, chasing something—or someone.

  Genny crumpled into a heap on the ground. When Dallas reached her, she lay still and unmoving. He knelt beside her, saw the blood staining the back of her coat, and was forced to accept the fact that she’d been shot. Someone had shot her. In her own backyard. With a big, brave FBI agent guarding her.

  He held her in his arms for several seconds before his training kicked in. He checked her vital signs. Weak. But she was still alive. He had two choices: get Genny to the hospital immediately or follow Drudwyn’s lead and chase after the person
who had shot her.

  Dallas scooped Genny up off the ground. As far as he was concerned there was really only one choice. The only thing that mattered right now was Genny.

  Chapter 24

  Jazzy placed her hand on Dallas Sloan’s back. He tensed immediately but didn’t turn to face her. Ever since she’d arrived at Cherokee County General last night, she hadn’t heard Dallas utter a single word. The small waiting room was filled to capacity with people who loved Genny. Jacob. Sally and Ludie. Royce. Wallace. Brian. And dozens of people had come and gone during the long night, offering prayers and assistance. Numerous Cherokee County folks had telephoned, as had ministers from the Baptist church and the Methodist church, even though Genny wasn’t a member of either denomination. The nurse’s aides had brought out coffee several times and offered to bring food up from the snack bar. Anyone who knew Genny thought she was special. The entire county cared what happened to her.

  And no one, absolutely no one, could understand why anybody would want to harm such a kind, gentle, and loving soul.

  When Jacob called her last night, Jazzy had rushed to the ER, but too late to see Genny before they carried her to surgery. She’d found Jacob sitting quietly, his head bowed and his eyes closed, in the surgery waiting area on the second floor. Dallas had been pacing outside in the hall. When she’d spoken to him, he hadn’t even noticed her.

  Jacob had explained what had happened, at least what little he’d been able to get out of Dallas. “I’ve got a team up there at the house now searching for evidence all around,” he’d said. “This wasn’t what we were expecting. There’s no way we could have known. Dallas is blaming himself and nothing I’ve said to him has convinced him otherwise.”

  After endless hours of waiting and praying, they’d heard good news. Genny had come through surgery with flying colors, and the doctor assured them she would recover fully. The bullet had entered her back and exited her shoulder, but hadn’t struck anything vital. Jazzy had expected Dallas to react the way she and Jacob had—with happy relief. Instead, he’d fled. She didn’t know where he’d gone, but she suspected he had sought a place of solitude where he could be alone. The bathroom? The chapel? He’d probably puked. Or cried. Or offered a prayer of thanks. Maybe all three.

  Now, at four-fifty in the morning, Jazzy stood behind Dallas at the end of the hallway where he stared out the window into the darkness. She patted his back. “They’re going to let us go in to see her in a few minutes.”

  He nodded, but still didn’t turn around.

  “Genny is going to be all right.”

  Silence.

  “You’ve got to snap out of it before you go in to see her,” Jazzy told him. “She’ll sense something’s wrong the minute she sees you. You look like a man who’s been to hell and back.”

  He glanced over his shoulder; his bloodshot eyes glared at Jazzy.

  “All this guilt you’re wallowing in won’t help Genny,” Jazzy said. “So take off your hair shirt and accept the fact that you’re not Superman, that you’re just human like the rest of us.”

  When he looked away from her, she grabbed his arm. “Damn it, you had no way of knowing some nut was outside waiting for a chance to shoot Genny. She’s the one who is psychic, not you, and she probably didn’t realize she was in danger until it was too late.”

  “I should have stopped her from going outside!” The words rumbled from his chest like a cannon blast.

  Jazzy tightened her hold on his arm and shook him, then moved around to stand in front of him. “If this person planned to shoot Genny, he could have shot her through a window. You couldn’t have prevented it. If Jacob had been there, he couldn’t have, either.”

  Dallas didn’t respond.

  Jazzy released her tight grip on his arm, turned, and walked away. She had sense enough to know when to back off. Dallas wasn’t ready to listen to reason. He was still too consumed by guilt and remorse. She’d been to that particular hell a few times herself.

  She met Jacob coming out of the waiting room. “How’s he doing?” Jacob nodded toward the end of the hall.

  “Is there something going on that I don’t know about?” Jazzy asked. “He’s acting like he was the one who shot her. His guilt isn’t reasonable.”

  Jacob hesitated, then motioned for her to follow him, which she did. He pulled her around the corner where two halls crisscrossed.

  “Nobody else is to know about this. Understand?”

  Jazzy nodded.

  “Only Genny, Dallas, and I know.” Jacob looked as if what he was about to say caused him great pain. “Dallas has been tracking a serial killer, a guy he thinks killed his niece in Mobile last year.”

  “Yeah, I know. So?”

  “This guy kills in fives. Dallas has discovered four sets of practically identical murders occurring over the past few years. None of the victims had anything in common—except that the fifth victim in each case was gifted. The way Genny is gifted.”

  Jazzy’s mind spun around and around, trying to absorb the implication of Jacob’s statement. “The sacrificial murders here in Cherokee County—” Jazzy gasped. “My God, he came here because of Genny. She’s his fifth victim.”

  “Dallas volunteered to act as Genny’s bodyguard, and I’d planned to keep a deputy there at the house with her whenever Dallas couldn’t be.”

  “Do you think the serial killer changed his MO and shot Genny instead of—”

  “It wasn’t him,” Jacob said. “But I have a good idea who it might have been. All I need is one tiny scrap of evidence and I’ll haul his ass into jail.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  Before Jacob could reply, a nurse walked down the hall toward them, calling Jacob’s name.

  “Sheriff Butler, you can go in to see Genny now.”

  Jacob whispered to Jazzy, “I’ll explain later.”

  When Genny regained consciousness, Jazzy was at her side. She tried to lift her head, but the dizziness quickly aborted the effort.

  “Hello, sleepy girl,” Jazzy said. “How do you feel? Pretty rough, huh?”

  “I feel like I’ve been shot.” Genny tried to smile, but even that simple action seemed impossible.

  “Ah, sweetie. You’re going to be all right. Good as new in a few weeks.”

  Genny glanced from side to side, then forward, and caught a glimpse of Jacob standing in the doorway. He came toward her, his movements unnaturally hurried. When he reached the bedside, he smoothed his hand over her cheek.

  “You gave us a real scare, i gi do.”

  “Where’s Dallas?”

  Tense silence.

  “Is he all right? He wasn’t shot, too, was he?” The thought that Dallas might be dead flashed through her mind.

  “He’s fine. He wasn’t shot,” Jacob replied. “He’s been here all night and he’s still here somewhere. He’s been in awfully bad shape. He blames himself for what happened.”

  “What did happen?” Genny asked.

  “You went outside to feed the animals before Dallas could stop you and somebody hiding in the woods shot you,” Jacob said.

  “Who—? Oh, Lord, Jacob, do you think it was—?”

  “Either Esther or Reverend Stowe. You got too close to their wicked little secret.”

  “Find Dallas,” Genny said. “I want to see him.”

  “Hey, girl, there are a few other people out there dying to see you. Aunt Sally and Ludie. Wallace. Royce and Brian. And—”

  “I want Dallas!”

  “Calm down,” Jazzy told her. “I’ll go find Dallas and bring him to you if I have to hog-tie him and drag him in here.”

  “No, you stay with Genny.” Jacob leaned over and kissed Genny’s forehead. “You rest and stop worrying. I’ll find Dallas.”

  It took Jacob over thirty minutes to find Dallas, and in the meantime he’d gotten a call from Tim Willingham telling him they had found shell casings, footprints, and a piece of material snagged on a bush in the woods near Genny’s hou
se. Evidence. Proof that the shooter was a rank amateur, someone who’d been very sloppy. The sacrificial killer was an overconfident pro, who covered his tracks and left behind nothing. Nothing but his DNA. But the really good news about the shooter was that Tommy Patrick, Genny’s neighbor who lived on a farm half a mile up the road, had been hunting down a stray cow that had wandered off into the woods at sunset, right about the time Genny was shot. Tommy had heard the rifle fire and had seen a man running through the woods to a car parked on a dirt path leading to the main road. The tall, thin, dark-haired man had been driving a older model BMW that fit the description of the one belonging to Esther Stowe.

  Bingo! Got ’em!

  Jacob paused before approaching Dallas and tried to put himself in the guy’s shoes. What would be the best way to handle him? Hell, man, what would be the best way for somebody to handle you if you were in this situation?

  Dallas sat alone in the empty snack bar. Hunched over, his arms crossed and resting on the tabletop, he stared off into space. Not much traffic in the snack bar at five-thirty in the morning. When Dallas heard Jacob approach, he lifted his head and looked straight across the room.

  “Has something happened to Genny?” Dallas asked.

  “Yeah, something’s happened. She’s awake and asking for you.”

  Dallas’s shoulders slumped.

  “I want you to go upstairs and see her before we drive over to the Stowes and bring them in for questioning,” Jacob said.

  “Then your team found some sort of evidence against them?” Dallas’s eyes brightened, and his shoulders lifted.

  “Yeah, the best kind—an eyewitness who places a man fitting the reverend’s description in the woods near Genny’s house. And he saw this man get into a car identical to the one Esther Stowe drives.”

  Strain marred Dallas’s features as he shut his eyes for a moment. Jacob knew he was thanking God, thanking the Good Lord that Genny was all right and that they probably had enough evidence to arrest Haden Stowe for attempted murder.

  Jacob moved closer to the table where Dallas sat. “I’m sure you want to be there when I question them.”