Killer Heat

by Brenda Novak

  Her breath rattled in her throat as she fought to make her shaky limbs follow her brain’s commands. If he caught her, she was dead. She could see a steely resolve set in as he shook off the pain and started to jog.

  Thank heaven she’d left her car unlocked. It was a bad habit but she could only be grateful in this particular moment. Wrenching open the passenger door, which was closest, she got in and slammed it just as he stretched out his hand to stop her. He had to yank it away to avoid having his fingers crushed. Then he went for the door handle.

  Lock! Lock! Lock! Frantically, Francesca swiped at the console and the upholstery, searching for the button that would secure the doors. In her panic, she couldn’t remember where the damn thing was—but she managed to hit it before he could open the door. She’d never heard a sound more comforting than the thunk of the locks snapping into place or the ineffective catch of the lever as he pulled it to no avail.

  Closing her eyes, she gulped for air and would’ve been relieved, except that he was more enraged than ever. Glaring down at her, he banged on the window. “Hey!”

  Frozen with terror, she stared up at him. If he got in, it would be over in minutes. She didn’t even have her iPhone.

  Had emergency services received any indication that she’d tried to call? Were they sending help? Or had they assumed her call had been a misdial or a crank?

  “What the hell’s wrong with you, lady?” he yelled. “I just want to talk. I want to know why you’re here.”

  He knew she’d found the body. She could see it in his eyes. He was trying to convince her that she hadn’t really seen what she’d seen, that it was safe to trust in the trappings that surrounded them—the swing set in the front yard, the kiddie pool off to the side, the hand-painted welcome sign on the door. But she wasn’t that easily fooled. As much as the domesticity of the scene might tempt her to think she’d leaped to the wrong conclusion, especially when she saw the wounds she’d inflicted on his cheek, she knew killers often looked like the most mundane husbands and dads. She’d studied them in her work; rarely was it obvious that they were monsters.

  Rocking forward, she covered her head. He was so close. All he had to do was break the glass. There was no one else around, no one to hear the window shatter or her cry for help.

  “Go away!” she sobbed.

  Suddenly, he stopped banging.

  She sat up to see him using the bottom of his shirt to clean the sweat and blood from his face. Then he checked behind him, apparently searching for something, and stalked off toward the only tree in the yard. A bat leaned against the trunk, next to a ball and glove. Hefting it, he came toward her as if he intended to break the window. Before he could take a swing, however, the sound of a car engine drew their attention to the road. An old Impala chugged up.

  Determined to get the driver to help her, Francesca crawled into the other seat and laid on the horn, but the effort proved to be unnecessary. The woman behind the wheel slowed, then turned in and parked as if she owned the place. She’d planned to stop here all along.

  Clearly torn, Butch glanced between Francesca and the driver of that car. A little boy also sat in the Impala. Window down, round face sweaty, he waved and yelled from his car seat, excited enough that even Francesca could hear him. “Daddy! Daddy! We’re home!”

  Butch’s expression changed instantly. Dropping the bat, he strode over to the Impala.

  Now! Francesca let herself out on the side facing the road. She couldn’t expect the Impala’s driver to come to her assistance, as she’d originally hoped. Not if this was Butch’s wife. Francesca had to assume she was still on her own, because chances were she really was.

  Locating her spare key beneath the back bumper, she tore it free. At the same time, the child got himself out of his car seat and demanded Butch pull him through the window.

  The woman rushed around to join father and son. As Francesca darted back to the driver’s seat, she heard, “What’s going on? What happened to your face?”

  Butch’s reply was too low for Francesca to make out, but the woman’s next question carried easily on air already saturated with heat and threat and panic. “What? But why? Who is she?”

  This had to be Butch’s wife, as she’d guessed. The timing of her return home had most likely saved Francesca’s life. But Francesca wasn’t planning to stick around long enough to thank her or tell her about the body stashed amid the junk in the salvage yard. She was get ting out of here while she could.

  Climbing behind the wheel, she tossed the magnetic container that had held her spare into the passenger seat, started her engine and punched the gas pedal.

  2

  “Holy shit.” Jonah Young came to a stop so abrupt Investigator Finch, with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office, slammed into the back of him.

  “What the hell?” he muttered, but Jonah didn’t move. The woman Finch was taking him to meet sat in a chair just inside the entrance to the investigator’s cubicle. Cradling a cup of coffee, she had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders as if it was the middle of winter instead of the height of summer. But he knew she was fighting off more than the chill of the building’s aggressive air conditioner. She’d just been through a harrowing ordeal. When he called, Finch had told him that a P.I. from Chandler had been attacked. Finch’s partner, Hugh Hunsacker, had taken some deputies and gone directly to the salvage yard, where the incident had occurred, but Finch had stayed behind and asked Jonah to come down and have a talk with the victim. He hadn’t mentioned any names.

  “I know her,” he said.

  With his bald head, goatee and various tattoos, Finch resembled a biker more than a cop. “You do?”

  “We attended the academy together.”

  Jonah had been careful to keep from being overheard but Finch hadn’t. Francesca Moretti glanced at them over the rim of her coffee cup. Then she lowered it and any question that he could be mistaken about her identity disappeared. Even with her long dark hair mussed, her mascara smeared and her top lip swollen to almost twice its normal size, there was no mistaking the amber-colored eyes that riveted on his—or the contempt that instantly settled over her classic Italian features when she recognized him.

  “Oh, boy. Doesn’t look as if she likes you,” Finch said, and skirted past him.

  Jonah reluctantly followed. Francesca didn’t like him. And he’d given her good reason. But that was ten years ago. Surely they could put the past behind them now. She seemed to have gotten over him fairly easily, had never returned his calls when he’d attempted to apologize. And from what Finch said, there could be some connection between the missing teacher she’d been searching for and the murders they were hoping to solve. Figuring out who’d killed the women dug up in Dead Mule Canyon mattered more than his personal discomfort. Jonah had never been involved in a case so disturbing.

  The investigator gestured toward him. “Ms. Moretti, you might remember—”

  “Jonah Young,” she finished, never taking her gaze off him.

  Finch hurried on. “Yes. I’m not aware of how familiar you two are with each other since the academy, but these days Jonah works for Department 6, a private security firm out of Los Angeles. They contract with individuals, companies, even different police entities, to consult on or assist with various hard-to-solve cases. I’ve asked him to—”

  Her focus still on Jonah, she interrupted again. “I knew you weren’t with Phoenix P.D. anymore, or we would’ve run into each other. I thought maybe you’d been kicked off the force.”

  Sure, he’d screwed up all his personal relationships during the short period during which they’d known each other, but he’d never even come close to losing his job. Ever since he was a little boy, he’d wanted to be a detective, and heading up investigations via the private sector was a better deal all around. With Department 6, he faced similar challenges, but he had more freedom and a much bigger paycheck—the best of both worlds.

  “Sorry to disappoint you. They promoted me to detect
ive within a year after you left. It was my choice to move on,” he said, but as he made his point, he wished he didn’t sound so damned defensive.

  “Yeah, well, I’d accuse you of sleeping your way to the top, but the people above you were all men, and I know very well how much you like the ladies.”

  Obviously uncomfortable with the way the meeting was deteriorating, Finch cleared his throat. “Look, I realize there’s some bad blood here. I don’t know what it’s all about, but I don’t need to know. I called Jonah in because I think the case he’s working on might be related to the man who just attacked you. Seeing as we have a big problem, more than one, and very few leads, it’s certainly worth investigating. Maybe this’ll be the break we need.”

  At last, she pulled her attention from Jonah. “What are you talking about? Tell me he’s not searching for April Bonner. She lives in Maricopa County. That’s out of your jurisdiction.”

  “We haven’t hired him to look for your missing person,” Finch said. “He’s on a much bigger case.”

  Lines appeared on her otherwise smooth forehead. “Than murder? I told you, I just found April’s body!”

  “And Investigator Hunsacker is out there checking into it.”

  “Why aren’t we with him?” she asked. “Her body’s not easy to find, but I can show you where it is.”

  “You were shaken up when you got here. I didn’t want to put you through it. Besides, Hunsacker will manage or he’ll call us, and I can drive you out there. This is important.” With his broad back to the opening of his cubicle, Finch began to whisper. “I’ve asked Jonah to speak with you regarding a burial site discovered by a hiker and his dog two weeks ago.”

  “A burial site,” she echoed.

  The investigator frowned. “It contains the remains of seven women. There may be even more. We’re still looking.”

  Francesca’s jaw dropped and, at least for the moment, Jonah got the impression she’d forgotten her resentment toward him. “I heard about that on the news, but it was reported as some ancient Indian burial ground. It’s in Dead Mule Canyon, near that small town—Skull Valley.”

  “That’s right. We haven’t corrected that report because…well, because we don’t want to throw the community into a panic until we know what we’re dealing with and can offer some information.”

  And they preferred to escape the overwhelming pressure that would go with a public outcry. Jonah guessed that was as close to the truth as anything. No police department announced that they had a serial killer on their hands if they could help it. Many did everything they could to hide the fact, hoping the perpetrator would eventually move out of their jurisdiction. But there was no need to explain this. Francesca had worked in law enforcement long enough to understand the dynamics.

  “And when the site was discovered, there was some question as to the age of those bones,” Finch added.

  “What’s changed?” she asked.

  “It’s since been determined that they’re—” he lowered his voice even further “—recent.”

  For the first time, her implacable facade cracked, revealing a hint of vulnerability. “How recent?”

  “A couple are as old as five years,” Jonah replied. “The other women have only been dead for a few months.”

  Leaning forward, she set her coffee cup on Investigator Finch’s desk. “Are you telling me you think the man who just attacked me might’ve already murdered seven women?”

  Jonah wasn’t absolutely convinced of that. What were the odds she’d be able to escape a violent psychopath when she’d encountered him on his own turf? What this guy had done to his victims proved he was utterly ruthless. But if there was one thing police work had taught him, it was to keep an open mind. “It’s a possibility,” he conceded. “Somebody murdered them.”

  “Oh, God.” She jumped to her feet, turned to Finch. “And you’re not letting the public know to be cautious? To avoid strangers? Not to take risks?”

  Jonah stood in the opening behind Finch while the shorter, stockier man tried to quiet her. “Keep your voice down! We don’t want to disseminate the information prematurely. We could tell pretty quickly that it wasn’t an old Indian burial ground, but we weren’t sure exactly what it was until we got a forensic anthropologist in here. We’ve set her up in the old community center and given Jonah an office there, too, but that kind of work doesn’t go fast, not with such an extensive site.”

  “But—”

  “We just got her initial report last night,” he went on, refusing to be interrupted. “We were planning to release a statement this afternoon, but then you arrived. Now I figure we might as well wait and see what Hunsacker finds at the salvage yard. Maybe this guy who attacked you, this Butch Vaughn, is our man.”

  Having a suspect would certainly go far toward mollifying the public. But Jonah didn’t point that out, either.

  Francesca smoothed her skirt. Dirty and wrinkled, it hit her just above the knees, showing calves as tanned and toned as they’d been when he knew her before. The only difference was the abrasions on her knees.

  “That would explain why April was still in the yard,” she said. “Maybe, since the discovery of those bodies, Vaughn’s been forced to find a new place to dispose of his victims and hasn’t come up with a location he’s comfortable with.”

  Jonah shoved away from the divider, nudging Finch aside. “Or he simply hasn’t had an opportunity to dispose of her in a more permanent fashion.”

  The way Francesca suddenly refused to look at him told Jonah she was still having trouble including him in the discussion. Although she’d lowered her defenses for a moment, she’d already raised them again.

  “Like I told you,” she said to Finch. “I think he’s married, which would limit his movements. I saw his wife or significant other and his kid. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here. He was just getting ready to bash in my window when they drove up.”

  “Other people live at the property?” Jonah asked.

  She didn’t like talking to him; he could tell by her unwillingness to elaborate too much on any one thing. “It looked that way. So why he’s trolling for women on matchmaking sites designed for singles, I don’t know.”

  “Plenty of married men do that,” Finch said. “They can troll from the comfort of their own homes while their wife and kids are asleep.”

  “Did he use his real name on that profile?” Jonah asked.

  She dug at her cuticles while she talked. “No, a pseudonym. Harry Statham.”

  “I guess a little insurance never hurt anybody—” Finch started to say but Jonah spoke at the same time.

  “How did you connect Harry Statham to Butch Vaughn?”

  “Before she left Saturday night, April told her sister, who’s my client, that she was going to meet her new love interest at a bar called the Pour House here in Prescott. Since that was the last time any of her friends or family heard from her, and she didn’t report to work on Monday, I went to the Pour House to see if she ever showed up. The bartender told me that while he was outside having a smoke he saw a woman fitting April’s description getting into a truck with Butch. He knew him as a regular and confirmed that he looked exactly like the guy in the picture I showed him from the dating profile. He said he couldn’t have gotten it wrong—the truck had a Prescott Salvage logo on the door.”

  Jonah tried to piece it all together. “Why would he use his own truck?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t planning on killing her when he picked her up. At the very least, he wasn’t planning on getting caught, right? A lot of murderers use their own vehicles.”

  “But if Butch is married, he wouldn’t kill April and leave her in the salvage yard, where his wife could stumble across her.”

  “Actually, if you saw the place, you wouldn’t find that idea so far-fetched,” she said. “The yard is ten acres. And it’s a maze. You could hide a dinosaur in there. I’m not even sure how I spotted the body with all the junk piled around it. He probably still
plans on transporting it somewhere else.”

  “With ten acres, he wouldn’t necessarily have to transport it off the property,” Finch said.

  “True,” Jonah agreed but turned back to her. “So what happened when you first got to the yard?”

  She scowled. “I’ve already been through it all with Investigator Finch. If you want to know, just have him debrief you.”

  Finch loosened his tie and sat on the edge of his desk, straining the seams of his chinos, which were a little tight on the thighs to begin with, due to the bodybuilding regime he so often talked about. “I realize we’ve been through some of this. But Jonah has a lot of experience with these types of cases. Two months ago he helped Texas authorities bring down a hospice worker responsible for the deaths of six elderly men and women. That’s why we brought him in. I’d like him to hear the details from your own lips, if you don’t mind.”

  Her displeasure didn’t ease, but she returned to her seat, crossed her legs and began to explain what he’d missed before he arrived.

  The phone rang; Finch answered it while they talked.

  “Did you see under the tarp?” Jonah asked when he understood that she’d gone onto the property and started looking around after no one answered her knock. “Were you able to make a positive ID?”

  She didn’t seem completely comfortable with her response. Shifting in her chair, she admitted that she’d chosen not to go that far.

  The urgency in the investigator’s voice interrupted them. “Son of a bitch. You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “What is it?” Jonah asked.

  Finch held up a hand; he wasn’t finished with the call. “No, I’m bringing her and Jonah out there now. Don’t let anyone go anywhere until then.”

  Feeling the same alarm he saw in Francesca’s face, Jonah waited for the investigator to slam down the phone. “Well?”

  “Vaughn wants us to file charges against Ms. Moretti.”

  “For what?”

  The gold chain Finch wore around his neck disappeared as he buttoned his collar and tightened his tie. “Assault.”