by Rita Herron
“I don’t believe you. I know about your father and about Cord McClain. The Weekday Killer dresses the victims as if preparing them for their funerals, putting makeup on them and sewing their lips closed.” Derrick tightened his finger on the trigger. “That sounds exactly like something a mortician would do. I just want to know if you did it alone or if you and McClain are partners.”
“I told you, I didn’t kill anyone. I like to play with the bodies afterwards, but that’s it.” Finton scratched at his face, and Derrick noticed scars pockmarking his skin. The guy was probably a meth addict. “I haven’t seen that chickenshit McClain in years,” he spat. “But my father disappeared a few months after Cord left, and I think he killed him. So, if you’re looking for a murderer, talk to McClain.”
Derrick released a heavy breath. Finton was trying to change the tune of the questioning, but he wasn’t buying the diversion tactic. “If you thought he killed your father, why didn’t you go to the police?”
“Because I had no proof.” Finton’s jaw clamped so tight the veins in his neck bulged.
“Or maybe you figured your daddy just ran off.” Derrick let out a sound of disgust. “And you knew if you did go to the cops, they’d investigate and find out what you and your father were doing with the bodies you were meant to take care of.”
“Those people were already dead,” Finton hissed.
“Those people had loved ones and they deserved to be treated with dignity.” Derrick ran his hands over Finton’s clothing. Inside his right pocket, he found keys to his vehicle, but no other keys that might belong to wherever he was holding Shondra.
Maybe the ride to the police station would change his mind. But first he’d let him stew in the car while a crime scene team searched the hotel room.
He locked Finton in the car and made the call, then paced beside the vehicle, waiting while the storm picked up speed. Gray clouds swirled and drifted together forming mountain-like funnels above the trees, threatening to rip them from the ground.
Worry for Ellie mounted in his gut. Had McClain killed Felix Finton? If so, had that whetted his appetite for murder?
He called Ellie, but it went straight to answerphone.
“Ellie,” he said when the beep sounded. “Call me as soon as you get this and let me know where you are. I have Finton, but he may be working with McClain. Be careful. Finton claims McClain killed his father.”
One Hundred Twenty
Somewhere on the AT
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Everything had gotten messed up. The days of the week were off. It started when that stupid woman escaped and he’d had to kill another one in her place.
Not the seven he planned. Then there was the deputy and detective.
The cops were all over the mountain. Everyone was looking. Although he liked that reporter Angelica Gomez for making him famous.
He’d thought about taking her. She was another ball buster. Another one who needed to be tamed. But he’d decided she’d be more useful making sure the whole world knew his name.
That pretty little Honey was perfect though. She’d gotten what she deserved. And she had been so weak she’d folded like an accordion.
They’d already found her and now it was time to move on. He’d show the detective that she couldn’t stop him.
One Hundred Twenty-One
Prayer Point
As she watched the crime scene team search the area, Ellie checked her phone. Another text came through.
I told you that you’d pay for what you did to me.
Her breath caught in her chest. The comment sounded familiar, stirring some sort of memory from the recesses of her mind. She tried to wrack her brain to remember exactly where she’d heard it before.
“What’s wrong?” Cord asked.
Ellie hesitated before telling him about the message. “Sounds personal, Ellie. Who did you piss off bad enough to do this?”
“I don’t know. There are plenty of meth dealers I arrested. But this type of planning doesn’t fit with them.”
Looking back at her phone, she listened to the voicemail messages.
The first one was her captain. “Ellie, what the fuck has gotten into you? Bryce wants you fired for disobeying orders and letting McClain out. I don’t know if I can save your ass this time. Get McClain back here right now.”
Ellie quickly called him back. “I’ll be on my way soon, Captain, but we found another victim. She’s local, Honey Victoria.”
“Jesus,” Captain Hale muttered. “Maude is going to fall apart. She doted on that girl.”
“I know.”
“I’ll make the notification.”
Ellie thanked him, then clicked to listen to a message from Derrick.
His warning about Cord killing Finton made her uneasy. Not because she was afraid of the ranger, but because she’d seen the pain in his eyes when he’d talked about his past. The evidence was stacking against him, pointing to him and Finton being in cahoots.
And if Finton wasn’t the Weekday Killer or acting alone, they were back to square one, with no suspect. What were they missing?
“Agent Fox found Roy Finton and arrested him,” she told Cord. “He denies being the Weekday Killer.”
“Did you really think he’d confess?” Cord asked gruffly.
“No, but I was hoping. Shondra still needs us to find her.” She inhaled sharply. “Cord, the sheriff and Agent Fox think you’re working with Finton, covering for each other.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know what to think,” she admitted. “The evidence points to both of you. It also pointed to Hiram and a man Hiram met in the psych hospital. I feel like the killer is some kind of puppeteer, pulling strings and sending all of us running and pointing fingers at each other.” And making her doubt everyone.
“Roy Finton could have framed me, although I don’t see how he’d know about all the other things.”
“The Ghost case has been all over the news,” Ellie said, thinking. And there was the therapist he’d used to get information.
“Where’s Finton now?” Cord’s voice was gruff, his look puzzled.
“Being booked at the sheriff’s office.” Ellie hesitated, before clearing her throat. “Cord, do you have any idea what happened to Felix Finton?”
Cord’s eyes darkened and he exhaled through gritted teeth. Then he gave a small shake of his head. “When I was sent away, I never looked back. Why?”
“I’m just looking for the truth.” Ellie kept a cool face, studying him for a reaction. “Cord, Roy Finton accused you of killing his father.”
Cord went still, then angled his head, staring at the thickening gray clouds above them.
He said nothing, which left Ellie wondering why exactly he was lying to her.
One Hundred Twenty-Two
Crooked Creek
“I’m sorry, Cord, but Captain Hale ordered me to bring you here. Finton is being held at the sheriff’s office, and we want to keep you separate.”
“I understand.” The ranger looked resigned, his expression grave. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”
“You didn’t. I made my choice. I needed you. Thank you for leading me to Prayer Point.”
Ellie’s stomach clenched as Captain Hale pounced on her.
“The sheriff is livid, Ellie, and Maude is a wreck.”
“I’m sorry,” she replied. While she didn’t care for Maude, she would never wish this type of tragedy on anyone. “He still has Shondra, Captain.” She explained about the text she’d received. “I’m beginning to think this all centers around me, around someone who perceives I’ve done them wrong.”
The captain rubbed his balding head. “We’ve exhausted the list of protestors, and I’ve been looking through your arrests. No one fits the profile of this guy. Can you think of anyone?”
Bryce’s face flitted through her mind. They’d been adversarial for years. He liked the attention of being sheriff, enjoyed the notoriety. That part
of his personality fit. But he wasn’t a killer.
Just then Deputy Landrum appeared, his expression lit. “I found links from the other victims to Kennedy Sledge. They all joined an online group therapy chat too.”
Disgust ate at Ellie. The impostor had encouraged her to join that group. “That’s how he knew details about them,” Ellie said. “They spilled their thoughts and feelings to the fraud therapist and each other, and he was watching and listening.”
“Who knew you were seeing a therapist?” Captain Hale asked.
Ellie chewed her bottom lip, thinking. She didn’t want to break Shondra’s trust, but if it helped save her life, she had to be truthful. “Just Shondra. She suggested Kennedy Sledge.” Then something else struck her. As she’d left Haints that night with Shondra, she’d seen Bryce watching them closely. Had he overheard them talking about the therapist?
Meanwhile, the captain was scrutinizing Cord. He’d worked with the ranger enough times that surely he couldn’t believe the accusations against him, Ellie hoped.
“I’ll take care of McClain. Go home and get some rest,” said the captain.
But there was no way she could rest tonight. “I’m going to the sheriff’s office. If Finton wants to hurt me, maybe seeing me in person will trigger him to talk.”
Cord’s eyes darkened. “Be careful, Ellie. He’s sadistic.”
“I’ve seen what he can do. He doesn’t scare me.”
“Go home, Ellie,” Captain Hale said more forcefully. “Best if you avoid the sheriff right now.”
Anger rippled through her, but the captain’s look warned her not to argue.
Still, she couldn’t sit on her ass and do nothing while Shondra was still missing.
That latest message from the killer echoed in her head. I told you that you’d pay for what you did to me.
A memory tickled her conscious. Back in high school, all those years ago, Bryce had been high from scoring the winning goal at a football game. He’d cornered Ellie as she started to leave, asking for a celebratory kiss. Her refusal, coupled with the beers he’d just consumed with his buddies behind the bleachers, had spiked his temper and he’d gotten aggressive. He’d pushed her into the back seat and reached for her shirt. Said he knew she had a crush on him, that he wanted to be her first.
Furious at him, she’d kneed him in the groin, shoved him from the seat onto the ground, then jumped in the car and taken off.
She’d never told anyone. But he’d bragged that he’d screwed her after the game, the rumor spreading around school. Then his buddies had started coming onto her. She’d had to teach Bryce a lesson after that—she knew she couldn’t let him get away with it, do the same to other girls. She’d tricked him into meeting her behind the bleachers and told him he was right, that she’d had a crush on him for years.
Once she got him naked, she’d used the rope-tying skills her father taught her and tied him to the bleachers. At first, he’d laughed, thinking she was playing some kind of kinky game.
Then she’d walked away.
“You can’t leave me like this, Ellie!” he’d shouted. “Come back here!”
But she’d kept walking. She’d seen his friends nearby and told them Bryce was looking for them, pointing them to where he was tied up.
The next day, he had been the butt of everyone’s jokes. After school, he’d been waiting at her car. “You’ll pay for what you did to me,” he’d snarled. “You will pay, Ellie.”
Ellie shook her head as she contemplated the possibility that he was the Weekday Killer. He’d made no bones about the fact that he’d get revenge on her one day. Had butted heads with her after they both came back to Bluff County to work. He’d been upset at her lack of support over her father’s endorsement as sheriff.
He and Shondra had words, and Shondra had threatened to file charges against him. And then there was the smug look he’d given her when he’d made his victory address to the locals.
There was no doubt that Bryce was narcissistic, and thought men were superior to women. With his job and experience, he’d know how to commit a crime without leaving evidence. He knew she was close to Cord, and if he’d hacked into Sledge’s files or convinced an impostor to pose as a therapist, he could have listened to her sessions. He also knew the Appalachian Trail and could have easily planted evidence.
Hand trembling, she started to turn back and tell her boss, but Captain Hale’s warning taunted her. Best if you avoid the sheriff right now.
How could she tell him that she suspected their very own sheriff might be the monster they were looking for?
One Hundred Twenty-Three
Ellie cornered Deputy Landrum before she left. Bryce had questioned Carrie Winters’ clients and coworkers at the gentlemen’s club, but she hadn’t seen a list of their names.
“Deputy Landrum, did you ever see the list of Carrie Winters’ clients at the Men’s Den?”
“I saw the sheriff’s, but then Fox’s partner sent a list over, too. I haven’t looked at it yet.” He frowned, then clicked a few keys on his computer. “Here it is.”
“Let me see.”
Ellie claimed the chair beside him and skimmed it, searching the names. “Some of these look fake,” she said.
Heath nodded. “These men value their privacy.”
“See if you can connect any of them with the Ole Glory Church.” She combed the list again, and she zeroed in on the seventh name—Rocky Henry. Her heart stuttered.
Rocky was the nickname Bryce had in high school, because he was obsessed with the films, and Henry was his middle name.
Her fingers curled around the edge of the desk. Bryce was one of Carrie Winters’ clients. No wonder he’d volunteered to question the people at the Men’s Den. And he’d intentionally failed to mention that he knew the victim.
Nerves tightened her neck, and she knew that she needed proof first before telling the deputy or her captain. If the sheriff was the perp they were looking for, it would be difficult to take him down. She needed to share her theory with someone, though, so she called Derrick on the drive home. She got his voicemail and left a message.
The scent of death and her own sweat from the hike lingered on Ellie’s skin, so she decided to grab a quick shower before she confronted Bryce. It was better to question him at his office rather than at Haints, where he was probably deep in a beer and burger. By the time she made it there, Derrick could meet her and provide back up.
Running on adrenaline, she hurried up to her front door. Thunder crackled and popped overhead, the sky darkening by the second. The wind caught her hair, tearing it from her ponytail, smothering in her face.
Ellie glanced around but nothing seemed amiss, yet she couldn’t shake off the sense that someone was out there in the woods watching her.
Hunching inside her jacket against the wind, she shined her flashlight on the porch to see if the killer had left her another present.
She was getting royally pissed at his game. But there was nothing this time.
Flipping on every light in the house, she swept the rooms, breathing a sigh of relief that there was no one inside.
Stripping her clothes, she stepped into the shower, mentally sorting what she would say to Bryce. Before all their trouble at high school, when it had all gone so wrong, she’d known him as a kid, had ridden bikes with him on the trail and built forts in the woods. She tried to recall a time when she’d seen him be violent. One time they’d found a deer that had been shot at Rattlesnake Ridge and he’d run and gotten his father’s shotgun, telling her they had to keep the animal from suffering. She’d sworn tears had blurred his eyes when he’d shot the deer to put it out of its misery. That didn’t align with the killer on the loose, did it?
Scrubbing her skin raw with soap, she was desperate to erase the images of the Weekday Killer from her mind. But they punished her, screaming that Shondra would be next.
She had to think. Criminals who fit the profile typically had a history of abuse––by a pare
nt, family member or even a coach. Bryce’s father was the mayor, and as kids, she’d never seen anything to suggest Mayor Waters was abusing him. No bruises or cuts. No whispers in their small-town community about it. And his mother had doted on him, thought he hung the moon.
Somewhat calmed by the thought, she stepped from the shower and grabbed a towel.
After drying off, she padded to her closet to snag some clean clothes. The light was off inside, and she flipped the switch, but it didn’t come on.
Suddenly all the lights in the house flickered off, goose bumps erupting on her skin.
Ellie froze, pulse pounding as darkness engulfed her. Panic clawed at her. Her heart rushed to her throat.
You’re safe, she told herself.
Although her senses warned her she was not.
Outside, the wind snapped branches off. Something scraped the window, and the floor groaned.
Her gun. She’d left it on the nightstand.
Easing backward, she turned to grab it, but in the darkness, someone pounced on her from behind. She clawed for the pistol but knocked the lamp over instead. He dragged her backward, and she flailed and yanked at the bedding, anything to slow him down. But he wrapped his arm around her neck in a chokehold, cutting off her oxygen. Struggling to wrench his hands from her neck, she swung her elbow back to jab him in the torso. He grunted slightly, tightening his hold. His breath brushed her ear. It was warm and sticky, making her shiver in disgust.
“Too late, Ellie. I told you that you’d pay.”
A second later, the sharp sting of a needle pierced her skin and the world faded into oblivion.
One Hundred Twenty-Four
Stony Gap
Finton banged on the glass window of Derrick’s car as Derrick parked at the sheriff’s office. Before he headed inside, he checked his messages. His heart thundered as he listened to Ellie’s. She suspected the sheriff of the crimes? Seriously?
