by Desiree Holt
Cole sighed. “Now what? Howdy McMann picking a fight in the Raccoon Saloon again? Frank Nolan’s cattle breaking through the fence to the Silver Spur?”
Just what he wanted tonight. But Grace’s next words put every part of his brain on alert.
“I think this takes precedence over Howdy or the cattle. We’ve got a DB in High Ridge Park.”
Dead body.
A sour taste rose up from Cole’s stomach. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a body in High Ridge. There certainly hadn’t been one since he’d taken office.
“Identified?” he asked.
“It’s Leanne Pritchard.” Grace’s voice was tight, laced with a mixture of sadness and anger. “Cole, it looks as if she was beaten and raped before she was killed.”
“Shit.” Bile rose up in his mouth, sudden and unbidden.
Leanne Pritchard was just sixteen years old, with her entire life ahead of her. She was a sweet, friendly girl who loved life. Who the hell could do something like this to someone like her?
“Who’s on the spot?” he asked.
“Mickey Garcia and Andi Lowell.”
Cole relaxed a fraction. Mickey and Andi were pros. They wouldn’t panic like some of his rookies might. They could handle whatever came up until he got there.
“All right, Grace. Get the coroner and the crime scene folks down there. I’m on the way.”
“Already done,” she told him. “Call back when you’re on site.”
Cole thanked God Grace was an old, experienced hand who’d seen just about everything. Including the gruesome attacks on the children Dana Moretti was determined to write about. Grace would keep her head no matter what. But she and Leanne’s mother were good friends, so this was personal to her and he knew it.
Hell, what wasn’t personal in a town of five thousand souls?
Chapter Eleven
The scene, not more than a quarter mile from the park’s entrance gate, was easy to spot from the road, but only because of the portable spotlights. Everything seemed to be located within a thick copse of trees. When Cole pulled his truck into the park, he saw the coroner’s wagon parked to one side, the crime scene van next to it, and two cruisers pulled in at an angle to them. Yellow crime scene tape had been strung around the entire area.
Off to the left, beyond the taped off area, a group of teenagers crowded against a large supercab pickup. Partygoers. He was forever chasing kids out of the park. Now one of them had gone and gotten herself killed.
The girls were jumbled against each other, crying, and the boys were doing their teenage best to both comfort them and look invisible. Other cars had pulled up beside the truck and adults with worried faces strained to see what was happening.
He spotted the Pritchards huddled together against a tree, surrounded by some of their friends. In a minute, he’d have to talk to them, an unpleasant burden that always fell to the man in charge. He could feel their pain spreading through the air. The loss of a child was one of the most difficult to deal with. He ought to know.
Scanning the area again, Cole saw his two deputies quietly keeping the crowd under control. He climbed out of his truck and ducked under the tape, threaded his way through the trees, and came up next to Andi and Mickey. His eyes were drawn at once to the body of the young girl sprawled under the merciless glare of the portable spotlights.
She was lying in an open space in a small copse of trees, hidden from casual view. Cole was struck by the awkward angle of her body, legs bent, arms flung to either side of her head, as if someone had just dropped her carelessly in that spot. Her head was bent at an unnatural angle, and the muscles of her face were frozen in an expression of pain and fear. She still wore her blouse and her sandals, but Cole saw her shorts lying beside her, a pile of shredded material.
Nita Sanchez, the coroner, was working with the body. Having attended to the most necessary areas first, she’d tactfully covered the exposed area with a protective sheet. Bad enough for him to have to see this. He didn’t want the parents having this image stuck in their heads.
“Got anything for me yet, Nita?”
She looked up as he moved closer, rage flashing in her eyes. “You mean besides the fact that she was brutally raped?” She shook her head. “It’s a mess, Cole. You can tell she fought like a tiger. This didn’t go down easy. She’s got scratches and scrapes on her thighs and a fair amount of blood.” Her hands tightened involuntarily. “It’s obvious she was a virgin.”
The coroner lifted the small canvas sheet to let the sheriff see the blood smeared on Leanne’s thighs. When she gently rolled Leanne’s body to the side, she exposed more blood between the cheeks of her buttocks, a sign of more damage to the young body. The surrounding area and her lower back were also covered in little marks which, if he had to guess, looked like pinch marks.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, whether to erase the images from his mind or to give himself time to think, he couldn’t say. “Shit. Anything else?”
“I can tell you she was strangled, her neck was broken, and her mouth was taped shut.” She drew a line around the girl’s lips with a gloved finger. “See the lines where the tape was, the reddening of the skin where it was ripped off post mortem?”
“Damn. I hate knowing we’ve got some kind of monster out there.”
“Don’t we all?” Nita’s sigh was heavy with grief.
He scrubbed a hand against his cheek. “Yeah, well, the sooner you get the post done the better. You know that.”
“I’ll get her back to Drowdy’s as quick as I can and get to work.”
Elvin Drowdy owned the largest funeral home in the county. Because there was so little crime requiring a morgue, he had set aside a space in his prep room for the coroner to work when necessary, which until tonight she’d only used for accident victims.
Cole moved away to let her get on with her job, backing up to where his lead deputies stood. Andi looked up at Cole as soon as she sensed his presence.
“She wasn’t killed here,” the deputy told him. “The ground isn’t disturbed anywhere and she was arranged too carefully.”
Arranged? He’d thought she looked dumped. Could be either, he supposed. It wasn’t like he’d spent a lot of time looking at murder scenes. War was different, that was survival. This, this was just sick.
Unexpectedly, he felt bile rise in his throat and had to fight the urge to lose the contents of his stomach. “Do any of those kids have an idea what happened?”
Andi shook her head. “They were having a little after hours picnic here…”
“Which they know is against the rules,” Mickey pointed out.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you and I did it,” she reminded him. “Hell, every kid in High Ridge has done it. That gate at the entrance is a joke.”
“All right,” Cole broke in. “Details please.”
Andi blew out a breath. “They were running low on soft drinks. No beer, everyone’s under age and they know what happens if you catch them. Anyway, Leanne had driven here in her truck so she volunteered to go to the Supermart and get supplies.”
“No one saw her come back.” Mickey picked up the thread. “They were all over at the opposite side of the park, away from the road. But after a while, they got worried about her. When she didn’t answer her cell, they decided to fan out and start looking. See if maybe she was playing some weird game with them. You know, the way teenagers take it into their heads to do. When they got to this spot, two of the kids found her and yelled for the others. Someone called us on their cell.”
“Jesus.” Cole swiped his hand over his hair. “What a thing for them to see. Okay. We need to check and see if her truck’s still at the Supermart parking lot. If not, we need to know where it is. And why she left it. Then we need it swept for evidence. Maybe it will give us an idea of where she might have been taken. I don’t think we need both deputies on crowd control. Mickey, go tell one of them to get going.”
Mickey pulled one of the deputies a
side, gesturing and giving him orders before rejoining Andi and Cole. “I can’t remember the last time we had a violent crime in Salado,” he commented, anger scoring lines in his face. “Hell, there’re only twenty-five thousand damn people in the whole county.”
“The last time we had anything,” Andi pointed out, “was twenty-five years ago. Remember those two years we had that pedophile running amuck? You were visiting summers at your aunt and uncle’s ranch, remember?”
Cole felt his stomach cramp. He’d been so young then, but details had stuck with him. Impossible not to. Surely this wouldn’t turn out to be the first of a series, like the pedophile killer. That’s all he’d need, with Dana Moretti kicking up dust on the old cases and now, maybe, lured by this new one. How bad could his luck get?
“Cole?” Andi prodded him. “Doesn’t it seem odd to you that Dana Moretti shows up asking questions about the pedophile cases and then this happens? You don’t think there’s a connection, do you? Maybe she rattled someone’s cage?”
Colt shook his head, pushing back the dread clawing at his throat. No way did he want to think Andi’s off the wall question had any real credence to it. “I don’t see how one has anything to do with the other. For one thing, this girl’s too old for our last killer. For another, he’s long gone from this area. If we’re lucky, this will be a one-time thing. We’ll catch the guy and that will be the end of it.”
Mickey took off his hat, wiped his forehead on his arm, and clapped his hat back on his head. “Jesus, this will make waves all the way to San Antonio.”
Cole’s lips thinned. “Yeah, we can expect a full court press from the media once they get hold of this. Everything’s so much more immediate today than it used to be. Let’s keep a lid on it as long as we can. Pass the word.” He narrowed his eyes at the two people in front of him. “When that happens, no one—and I mean not one person—talks to the press except me. Okay, then. I’m calling a meeting first thing in the morning. Make sure everyone knows that. But I’ll meet you two back in my office when you’re done here.” He sighed. “I guess I’d better go speak to the parents.
****
Hidden in the trees at the top of a hill, he had a good view of the action. The spotlights the sheriff’s deputies had rigged lit up the place like it was high noon. The coroner was still kneeling by the body, but he could see they’d covered her with a sheet.
Pity. He did so enjoy looking at her, even in death. She’d been such a luscious armful. Even when she’d come awake and tried to fight him. He’d loved the look of fear he created, the terror, the knowledge that things were beyond her control. That had always been part of the excitement, seeing the knowledge of their impending death in their eyes. His little flowers had looked so beautiful. And this little plum, she’d been easy pickings.
Oh, how grateful she’d been at his offer to rescue her from her little dilemma. Coaxing her into his truck had taken little effort on his part. Why not? He was a trustworthy soul. Everyone knew that about him.
She’d been a feisty one, but he’d taken the wind out of her sails easily enough. The pain he inflicted was so satisfying, keeping him in a constant state of arousal.
He laughed silently to himself.
He’d thought long and hard about doing this. His other hobby was so much safer and nearly as fulfilling. But he needed to get rid of Carrie, and he couldn’t make it too obvious.
Oh, yes. He was just getting started. This was only the beginning. He needed to have his next victim picked out and be ready to act quickly. And the ones after that as well, all of them leading him to the biggest prize of all.
Yes, sir. Before he sent Carrie to permanent hell, he’d show her what hell was like here on earth. And he’d enjoy every minute of it.
He sighed, put his truck in gear, and let it roll silently down the incline and out of sight of the park. He really wanted to hang around until they took the body out. Maybe get another look. But that was flirting with danger and he hadn’t quite reached that stage again yet.
Except, of course, with his other little hobby.
Chapter Twelve
“I wanted you the minute I saw you, jogging in the rain, that T-shirt plastered to your breasts.” Cole traced her jawline with the tip of his tongue.
“You should have been looking where you were driving instead of at my breasts,” she teased, running her fingers through the curls of hair on his hard chest.
They were lying side by side, one of his hands idly rubbing through the curls on her mound, his fingers unerringly finding the wet flesh of her pussy. It seemed to her she was always wet when he was around.
“At least now I get to look at them all I want.” His voiced was husky with need.
Bending his head, he captured one nipple in his mouth and pulled on it, swirling his tongue around it. Heat speared through her body send fresh cream into her pussy. Her pulse beat fiercely, driving up the hunger in her body.
“Beautiful breasts,” he murmured as he turned his attention to the other one.
Tugging the nipple with his teeth, he slipped two fingers into her waiting channel, chuckling against her breast when her inner muscles clamped down on him.
The hard thickness of his cock pressed against her thigh, and she wriggled a hand between them to close her fingers around it.
“Ah, God,” he groaned when she squeezed gently. “Careful, or I’ll come in your hand.”
“Maybe I want you to.” She heard the desire in her own voice. “Maybe I—”
The ringing of her cell phone cut through the fog and jerked Dana from the dream. She was gasping for breath, and her body was covered with a fine sheen of perspiration.
Holy crap!
Another dream about Cole Landry.
The phone continued to make noise, the annoying ringer she’d chosen stabbing at her. She fumbled for it on the nightstand and flipped it open.
“H’lo?” She ran her fingers through her sleep-mussed hair.
“Hey.” Grant’s voice was the last one she expected to hear.
“I’m surprised you called,” she told him. “We didn’t exactly part on the best terms.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m talking to you now,” he told her. “I feel badly about the way things ended between us.” He paused. “I don’t hate you, Dana. I guess I was just hurt that, well…”
“That you weren’t the one to break through the wall?” she snapped. Then she softened her tone. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”
“I guess I’m sorry about everything, kiddo. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right. I went by the house, but it was locked up tight.”
“I…decided to take your advice.” She twisted a strand of hair as she talked, a long-time habit, the only thing that ever betrayed the state of her nerves.
“About confronting the past?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Good. That’s good.” Silence. “Maybe when you get back—”
“I don’t think so, Grant,” she interrupted, shaking her head, even though he couldn’t see her. “I am more grateful than you know for pushing me to do this, but I think what we had was all we were meant to have. Anyway, this may take a lot longer than I expected.”
“Oh? Problems?”
“This seems to be the proverbial let’s-sweep-it-under-the-rug situation. Everyone wants it to go away and me with it.” She twisted the curl tighter, then pulled it out, letting it spring back like a coil of wire.
“I heard what you said before, but if things are tense would you like me to come down there?”
Dana could visualize Grant stretched out on his leather couch, phone propped to his ear, frowning at the thought he might get sucked into something beyond his comfort zone.
She burst out laughing. “I don’t think this place is exactly your cup of tea. And you’d hate getting caught up in something so convoluted. But thanks, anyway.”
“You will call me if things get too hairy, right?”
“Of c
ourse. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
Would she? In any event, one of the last people she needed tagging behind her was Grant, who, despite what she was thinking was a conscience call, had all but told her to go to hell.
Not that she probably hadn’t needed to hear it. It gave her the shove she needed to dig back into her past. It also pointed out very clearly to her how shallow all her relationships had been, Grant being just a carbon copy of the others.
She said good-bye, snapped the phone shut, and leaned back in her chair, rubbing her forehead. No way could she tell him she had such conflicting emotions about the whole thing. She wanted answers. She didn’t want them. She wanted to reconnect with the place she was born. She wanted to get as far from it as possible.
And, of course, there was Sheriff Cole Landry, damn him. The ultimate alpha male. All her life she’d retreated from men, the horrific memories she’d pushed away freezing everyone out. Killing any desire she might ever have for a real sexual relationship. Yet now, when she was least prepared to deal with it, this arrogant, wildly sexy man had pierced the veil and stirred up feelings she had no idea she was even capable of, never mind how to deal with them.
Damn it all, anyway. Just for once could things please go her way?
She studied the screen on her laptop. The notes she’d transferred from her study of the case files stared back at her. There was nothing dressed up about the facts. They were brutal. Gruesome, even, and very explicit. The deputies who’d found the bodies had left nothing to the imagination. The pictures they conjured were like something out of a torture chamber.
A shiver skittered over her spine as she felt the ghost touch of those calloused fingers probing her body, heard Kylie’s high-pitched little screams. Remembered the terrible pain. Felt the tape ripped from her mouth and strange hands trying to be gentle with her.
