by Cynthia Eden
She slammed the interrogation room door and jerked her hand to get a uniform to stand guard.
Then she pushed Kyle into the nearest empty room. “Don’t let him push you.”
“He was lying.”
“We don’t know that.”
“His body language was all over the place! The man was shaking, sweating. He couldn’t make eye contact for shit. He was lying.”
Her gut said he was, too. “He gave us an alibi. We need to get Susannah in here and find out what the hell is going on.”
He gave a curt nod. His whole body was locked tight. She could almost feel the heat rolling off him.
“We’ll talk to Marsh, and while we’re doing that, we can send some cops to pick up Susannah.” Right then, Aaron was at the top of her suspect list, but she wanted to see what Marsh had to say, too.
“Let’s go.” Kyle tried to pull away.
She just made sure to block his path. “When we’re in those interrogations, I could be standing across the table from an SOB who threw me in a dark hole with a dying woman hours ago.”
His pupils grew, swallowing the brightness of his eyes.
“You think I don’t want to go across that table? That I don’t want to shove my elbow into that man’s throat and watch him struggle to breathe, just like Fiona struggled?” Her words flew out.
Her control was cracking.
“I can’t,” she snapped. “We have the badge. We have to do this the right way. You have to help me, and I have to help you.”
His hand lifted. Brushed against her cheek.
Wiped away a tear.
Then his head bent. He pressed a kiss to her cheek.
The drumming of her heartbeat was far, far too loud. She wanted to grab him and hold tight, but she locked her arms at her sides.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Her eyes squeezed closed. “Hold it together, because it’s all I can do to…” No, she wouldn’t say any more.
He would know, anyway. Didn’t he always know?
His lips feathered over hers.
Then his head lifted. “For you,” he told her.
She nodded, understanding.
They left the room and went to find Ben. It was time the cops tracked down Susannah Jane.
When they finally entered the next interrogation room, Jason Marsh was sweating. But when he saw them, he didn’t jump to his feet. Didn’t shout a denial of his innocence as soon as he saw them.
He just shook his head. “Look, I’ve got an alibi, okay? I was at Striker’s. I hooked up with Susannah, and I was with her until I got the call to join the search.”
Cadence didn’t let her expression alter.
“You were with Susannah Jane?” Kyle asked carefully.
Jason jerked his head in agreement. “Yeah, go talk to her, and we can clear things up real damn fast.”
Kyle glanced toward Cadence. “That’s interesting, because according to Aaron Peters, he was with Susannah last night.”
Jason straightened in his chair. “No fucking way.”
“Looks like one of you is lying,” Kyle murmured.
Jason’s fisted hands slammed into the table. “Not me! Dammit, do you think I would have done that to you? I mean, hell, that’s not me! I would never have hurt you!”
“You were the one who first took us down into the caverns,” Cadence said, not answering his question. It was getting harder and harder to keep her voice calm. Was he the man who’d taunted her last night? The one who’d ordered Fiona to kill her?
“I checked with dispatch,” Cadence told him. She had, right before starting the interviews. “They tried to contact you twice last night. You didn’t respond.”
“I wasn’t on duty! I didn’t know.”
“Then you called back thirty minutes later, asking where the search team was headed.” She stared at him. He was the right size. His background fit. He was the only one of the three suspects who had actually faced blindness. Temporary, according to his records, a result of the accident that killed his sister. “If you hadn’t talked to dispatch by that point, how did you even know a search team had formed?”
“Heather,” he bit out. “She called. Left a message on my voice mail. I got her calls before I heard from dispatch.”
Ah, yes, Heather. “You and Heather have been involved—”
“The same way you and McKenzie are.” His lips twisted. “Sometimes, partners get close.” Anger hummed in his voice.
Cadence didn’t look at Kyle. Her focus stayed on Jason. “You and Heather are involved, but you were still close with Susannah last night?”
“Heather and I aren’t serious. Susannah Jane was just there to pass the time.”
The man’s opinion of women sure seemed low enough to fit with their killer’s.
“Was Lily a girl to help pass the time, too?” Cadence asked, pushing in the dark, but wondering. Jason was a good-looking guy. The town was small.
His eyes widened, just a bit. “Lily and I were over a long time ago.”
Her breath eased out slowly as another suspicion was confirmed. Linked to the victims. Linked with the caves. Linked with a past that perfectly matched their profile. The guy might as well have a bow tied around him. The blood seemed to pump faster and harder in her veins.
“You have a nice southern accent,” Cadence noted, and she let her own drawl slide through. “The more you’re in the South, the easier it is to pick up.”
Kyle glanced toward her, a furrow between his brows.
“Once you leave…” She let the faint drawl vanish. “You can lose that drawl easy enough.”
“Didn’t know you were a southern girl.” Jason studied her with a hard gaze.
“Until I was ten.” Cadence nodded. “Then I moved up north to live with my aunt. That was when I realized I could make the accent come and go anytime I wanted.” Her head cocked as she studied him. “You grew up in Chicago until you were fifteen. That accent of yours—I’m betting you use it when you want and drop it when it suits you.”
No expression was on his face now.
“Maybe Lily didn’t recognize your voice at first because the accent was gone,” Kyle threw at the guy. “Once she saw your face, she knew, didn’t she?”
Jason shook his head. “You got this all wrong!”
“You moved to Paradox right around the time Maria McKenzie vanished,” Cadence said. “Just a few months before.”
Jason licked his lips and slanted a fast glance toward Kyle. “I didn’t know her.”
The glance at Kyle had been far too nervous. Cadence’s instincts went into overdrive. “You shouldn’t have known her since she was just driving through town. A pretty girl, in a fancy car. I bet it would have been hard for a girl like that to pass a teen boy, unnoticed.”
His shoulders had tensed. “Go talk to Susannah. She’ll back me up. Aaron is the lying asshole, not me. He’s the one you need to be questioning. He’s got family up here, too, in case you didn’t know. He’s been spending his summers in Paradox most of his life.”
“Don’t worry,” Kyle told him. “We’re questioning him, too.”
Jason’s breath heaved out as he glanced at Kyle. “Look, man, I’m sorry for what happened to your sister. To all of ’em, but I didn’t do it. I’ve been trying to help them, not hurt them.”
Trying to help them…
The words seemed hollow.
Goose bumps had risen on Cadence’s arms.
A knock sounded on the door behind them.
Cadence backed away from the table. She opened the door. Ben was there, face tense. “I need to talk with you and Kyle.”
She motioned to Kyle.
“Find Susannah!” Jason called after them. “She can clear all of this crap up!”
The door shut.
Ben’s jaw had locked. “Two suspects…both telling us that the same woman can back up their alibis.”
“So one’s lying,” Cadence said. “Obviously, but—”
/> “That woman is missing.”
“What?”
“I got an APB out for her right now, but she’s not at home, not at Striker’s, and none of her friends have any clue where she could be.” He yanked a hand through his hair. “Her car is still at the bar. No one knows where the hell she is.”
“Are there any signs of foul play at the bar?” Cadence asked but there hadn’t been, not with the other abductions. Only with me.
“I know we’ve been over this, but”—Ben’s breath hissed out slowly as his brows lowered over his eyes—“could we be looking at another team of killers? I know you worked the case with them before.”
Cadence shook her head. Ben was talking about the alpha team she and Kyle had helped take down in Louisiana. “The perp used Fiona to help him last night. He wanted to show his total power over her, to prove he could get her to do anything he wanted. If our guy has help, it would be—”
“One of the other victims,” Kyle finished for her.
A victim whom he’d brainwashed—broken—into believing her only method of survival was to do exactly as he ordered.
“Both of those men just offered up Susannah as their alibis. That can’t be coincidence,” Kyle said.
“I think we have to consider there could be two people working these abductions.” Ben was adamant. “It could be happening.
Cadence wasn’t buying that theory. “It’s personal for him. The way he talked to me last night. The way he’s kept the skeletons. Everything he does is personal.” Intimate. “He’s not the type to share, don’t you see that? This guy is about controlling, collecting. Not sharing with a partner.” That was why his only partner would have been a woman. One of his girls.
Susannah Jane…
Cadence’s breath exhaled slowly. “Where’s Dani?” Dani could pull up Susannah Jane’s life in about two minutes for them.
Ben pointed to the room on the right.
Cadence threw open the door.
“Kill me!” A woman’s voice shouted. “I don’t want to stay in the dark anymore. Just kill me!”
Dani spun toward her. There were tears in her eyes. A trembling hand rose and froze the infrared image on her screen.
Cadence looked over her shoulder. Kyle had tensed. Damn, she hated his pain.
Through clenched teeth, he managed, “It’s not Maria.”
“No, no, it’s not.” But she didn’t want him hearing any more. Not then. Not when she’d had to fight to stop the guy from attacking their suspects. If he saw too much, heard too much, she might not be able to control him.
Cadence softly shut the door. “Dani, I need you to run a check for me.”
Dani swiped away her tears. “Sure. Anything.”
Cadence started to speak, but then she frowned as she stared at the screen. The woman. Her long hair. The strong point of her chin. The line of her jaw.
Cadence’s heart began to beat faster.
“Susannah Jane,” Cadence whispered.
Dani shook her head. “I don’t remember a Susannah being on our list of missing persons.”
“No, I want you to pull up everything you can find on a Susannah Jane Evers. She’s a waitress over at Striker’s. She’s also the alibi for two of our suspects. And she’s missing.”
Cadence leaned toward the screen. Her eyes squinted as she tried so hard to see through the darkness.
Dani’s chair rolled away with a squeak of her wheels. She started typing quickly on her computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard.
“No Social Security card,” Dani muttered. “Nothing turning up on her. Are you sure that’s her legal name?”
Cadence stared back at the grainy image. “That’s the name she gave us.” Cadence reached for her phone. A few moments later, she had the owner of Striker’s on the line. He dug through his personnel files for her, and she rattled off the Social Security number he had for Susannah Jane.
“That’s not your girl.” Dani glanced over her shoulder as Cadence ended the call. “That number is for a Donald Evers, a guy who died in a boating accident about five years ago.” She shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s tried to ditch their past with a stolen ID.”
It wasn’t just about having a stolen Social Security number. Susannah worked at Striker’s, where Lily had been abducted. Where the police had gone to question suspects. Now she was the alibi for two men.
Both men appeared completely confident she would back up their stories.
“Keep digging,” Cadence ordered. She knew if anyone could uncover Susannah’s past, it would be Dani. “I need to know exactly who that woman was before she became Susannah Jane Evers.” She glanced back at the screen. “We’re going to need those images refined. The guys at Quantico can do some amazing things with their digital equipment.” The only problem was that refinement took time. Time that they didn’t have. “Make sure they know this is a priority for them.”
Cadence hurried out of the room. Rushed right past Kyle and Ben.
“What did you—” Ben began.
She didn’t stop.
Cadence twisted the doorknob for that conference room and marched inside. “Susannah Jane.”
Captain Anniston blinked at her. “What about her?” Then his eyes widened in worry. “No, don’t tell me…not another—”
“She’s missing.”
He swallowed. His hands trembled.
“When did she first arrive in town?”
“About five years ago. She moved in, started working at Striker’s.”
“Did she have any family?”
“No.” He frowned. “What’s this—”
Frustrated, she waved away his question. “Was she ever in any trouble with the law?”
“No. She was like Lily.” His lips twisted. “Never even so much as a traffic ticket.”
“Where did she come from?”
Anniston shook his head. Kyle and Ben had filed into the room. They were standing back. Watching. Waiting. “I think she might have said she was from Orlando. Seems like she mentioned going to Disney World when she was a kid.”
Orlando. That would be a starting point for them. “One of our missing women was from Orlando.” Dani had pulled her up earlier. Nina. Nina Jones. She’d been missing for eight years.
Could Susannah be another victim?
“I want to see her car.” It had just been abandoned at Striker’s. Abandoned, as if Susannah were a victim.
“Dammit, let me help!” Anniston said, but he didn’t lunge out of his chair. Didn’t slam his fist into the table. Just sat there, with frustration stamped on his face. “Susannah is good. Just like Lily. I can help!”
“We need to start searching for her,” Cadence said as she looked at Kyle and Ben. Searching. “We’re going to need cadaver dogs.” If her hunch was right, if Susannah truly had once been a victim, she might now be someone the killer wanted to eliminate.
Susannah could identify him. She could bring his entire game crashing down in flames.
The Jeep sat, rain and mud splattered near its tires, in the back of the Striker’s parking lot. Cadence searched in the vehicle. Found nothing out of the ordinary.
Except for the fact the keys were on the floorboard.
Kyle lifted the keys. Put them in the ignition. The car sputtered to instant life.
“Plenty of gas,” he said. “Battery seems fine.” He turned on the Jeep’s wipers. They flew over the grimy windshield.
Cadence stared at the car. She was missing something. She knew she was. When they’d first talked to Susannah, the woman had seemed so worried, so heartbroken about what had happened to Lily.
Lily.
“Who is she?” Kyle shook his head as he turned off the Jeep. “Is it even fucking possible she was a victim? One he let go? Why wouldn’t she go to the authorities?”
“She knew he was watching her.” A man that controlling would never let her go, not completely. “She knew he was watching.” She thought of the police station.
Their suspects. “Or she knew he was the authorities.”
Jason Marsh.
James Anniston?
Anniston’s voice whispered through her mind. Susannah is good. Just like Lily.
“I want to talk with Lily Adams again.”
Kyle rubbed a hand over his face. “You think I haven’t been checking in with the marshal you sent to protect her? Every day. Lily still doesn’t remember anything.”
She shoved out a frustrated breath. “Not about the abduction, but she might remember plenty about Susannah.” The women had been friends for years. Lily should be able to tell them about Susannah. About Susannah’s past?
Despite the heat, Cadence felt cold as she stood in the parking lot. The heat surrounded her, but the ice came from within.
Susannah Jane had vanished of her own volition, running away? Or had someone made sure that Susannah vanished, because she knew too much?
And…after what she’d seen Fiona do, Cadence realized that there was another option in play. A dark possibility that twisted Cadence’s guts into knots. Could Susannah Jane be helping the killer?
The little girl with the big, blue eyes watched Cadence with worry as she hurried to her mother’s side.
Lily Adams shook her head. “I already told you both.” Her gaze dipped from Cadence to Kyle. “I don’t remember what happened to me.” She bent and pressed a quick kiss to her daughter’s forehead. “Sweetie, why don’t you go play in your room? I’ll be there in a few moments.”
Boxes were stacked in the house. Moving boxes. Cadence glanced over at US Marshal Malcolm Williams. He stood near the door, the bulge of his weapon barely noticeable beneath his jacket.
“When are you moving?” Cadence asked.
Lily exhaled softly. “As soon as I can. I just don’t want to stay here anymore. I can’t.” Her knuckles were white. “I don’t feel safe. Malcolm can’t stay here forever.” A broken laugh escaped her. “I’m afraid to go out by myself. I don’t remember anything about what happened. Nothing at all. But I’m terrified.”
“A fresh start could be very good for you.” Cadence didn’t blame the woman for running. Getting out of a nightmare was hard.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you,” Lily said, voice shaking. “I wish I could. I watched the news. I heard about…” Her voice dropped as she cast a worried glance toward her daughter’s bedroom door. “About the others. I want to help them, their families, but I just can’t.”
